Month: April 2023

Kennebunkport landmark building collapsed on September 11th

Old pictures of the lots in Union Square, near where The Boathouse Restaurant now stands at 21 Ocean Avenue with the 1950s River Cottage next door, are hardly recognizable. Larrabee & Furbish built a store there that sold stoves and tin in 1833. Otis Buzzell bought the building in 1879 along with all the stock...

April 27, 2023April 27, 2023

Rivermead, at the River End of Locke Street

Rivermead, at 19 Locke St Kennebunkport, was built by James Blunt between 1801 and 1814 on land that Capt. Thomas Perkins deeded to his son Abner in the first half of the 18th Century. Abner’s grandson, Clement T. Perkins, who was born at Blueberry Hill, acquired Rivermead in 1838 and lived there until his death...

April 20, 2023April 20, 2023

Guarding Goose Rocks

Visitors to Goose Rocks Beach have periodically been protected by Lifeguards and the Coast Guard throughout its history as a summer resort. Mr. Coleman Joel, a 22-year-old Harvard Law student, perished trying to rescue a little girl named Betty Fairburn from the raging surf opposite the Downing cottage (Seen at top center) on August 15,...

April 13, 2023April 13, 2023

Easter Eggs at the Hartley Lord House

26 Summer St Kennebunk was built in 1884/5 by Hartley Lord for his retirement from a long career at Boston making deep-sea fishing nets with twine from his brother Robert’s Twine Mill in West Kennebunk. After he died in 1912 the mansion passed to his grandson, Hartley Little Lord, who had four children that were...

April 6, 2023April 6, 2023