Seth Emery Bryant was a historical record keeper by vocation and clearly, by nature. Though he was technically from away, the contributions he made to the record of the history of the Kennebunks are immeasurable.

Seth Bryant, the eldest son of William M. Bryant and Kennebunkport Perkins family descendant Mary E. Emery, was born in Rochester, MA in 1826 but he came with his family to live in the Kennebunk Lower Village House that is now occupied by Mornings in Paris, at the age of five. As a young adult, he ran a country store, then a stage-line and livery stable next to his family home. He married neighbor, Mary E. Wormwood and they moved to the cape that eventually became Artist Ron Goyette’s Lower Village studio before being torn down in 2012.

Bryant was first appointed Deputy Collector of Customs in the District of Kennebunk in 1861 but the Civil War interrupted his career plans. He enlisted as a private in the 27th Maine Regiment for nine months in 1862. He was soon promoted to captain of Company I stationed in Washington DC for the defense of the National Capital. At the end of that 3-year term he rejoined the Army as Captain of Co A 32nd Maine Regiment. He contracted “Typho-malaria,” on the march to the Battle of Spotsylvania.

When Captain Bryant finally returned to Kennebunk with a diary of his Civil War experiences, he was reappointed Deputy Collector of Customs. He served in that capacity for decades. Some of his original customs records are now in the collection of the Kennebunkport Historical Society. We also have his Civil War Diary entries which were later published in the Star. As a Freemason, Seth co-authored the history of Kennebunkport lodge up to 1869. In the 1870s, he made a comprehensive list of all the vessels built in the District of Kennebunk since 1800. He later transcribed the nearly illegible early Arundel Town Books in his beautiful hand.

Members of The Kennebunkport Historical Society are welcome to request copies of scanned searchable PDF versions of some of the research resources created by Seth Bryant.

This entry is interesting. Upon his return to Cape Porpoise after the town was deserted for the second time, during Queen Ann’s War, Philip Durrell Sr was reissued the same lot where he had been living when his family was taken into captivity the first time. A few years after this grant was made, the Durrell Family was again taken into captivity in 1726. Shocking until you realize his lot was exactly where the Indigenous people had been camping for thousands of years. The settlers even called it “Indian Planting Ground.”