Kittery shipwright John Walker, no relation to the Walkers of Walker’s Point, purchased a 20-acre lot of land in Arundel in 1740. His 21-year-old son Gideon was at that time apprenticed with a tanner in Rowley, Massachusetts. John Walker left his son the Arundel lot when he died in 1743. Gideon Walker built a home and a tannery on the lot two years later. There were only three other houses in the river village at that time.

The Walker Tannery prospered, affording the family the dubious distinction of slave ownership in “poor Arundel,” as Kennebunkport was often called in the 18th Century. By the time he died in 1805 Gideon had quadrupled the size of his father’s original lot.

Gideon’s son Captain Daniel Walker, a veteran of The American Revolution, inherited half of his father’s Arundel land. Daniel’s lot approximated a square encompassing both sides of Pearl Street to South Street, both sides of Maine Street to the Kennebunk River front. He was a merchant, a ship owner, and a devoted family man. He married first wife Lois Stone in 1779. They soon built a house on Pearl Street that they later sold to Lois’ brother Benjamin. Daniel and Lois built a beautiful “new” home on Maine Street in 1784; the house we now call The Cup & Saucer House because of its window adornments.

Lois and Daniel had five children that survived the perils of 18th Century childhood. Their first born, Phebe married Captain Nathaniel Lord, Sally married Captain William Jefferds, Jr., Lois married Captain James Fairfield and Hannah married Captain Moses Burbank. The Walker’s son Oliver also became a successful sea captain. Each of Daniel and Lois’s surviving children received a parcel of Walker land as a wedding gift.

The beautiful houses the Sea Captains built on that land still stand surrounding the Village Green. Most of them are now elegant inns. The included then and now photographs of The Captain Daniel Walker Cup & Saucer House at the head of Green Street, were taken in 1883 and 2023. See a map of some of the Walker family houses below.