Kennebunkport Commercial Fishermen make good use of what we call Government Wharf these days. Granny Harding’s Wharf is the name it was known by before the United States Government acquired it from Stephen Harding descendant, John Ward and improved it in 1831.

Government Wharf has since been further improved. A year before the Kennebunk River Club boathouse was built, a proposal to repair Government Wharf included a proposal to build a stone jetty a bit upriver to mitigate a sandbar that was developing there. The Kennebunk River Club Boathouse was constructed in 1890. The new Government jetty in the river in front of it was completed in 1891. Its pros and cons were pointed out in local summer newspapers.

On Illumination Night in 1903, the schooner Etta B. Rich, carrying the 20-piece orchestra, was being towed upriver by Mr. Ted Walker’s launch. The current was running strong, and the schooner banged hard into the boathouse jetty. The flustered musicians tried hard to keep playing as another launch was called for to help haul them off the jetty. They finally managed to get the schooner back in the channel, but the orchestra had to disembark the Etta B. Rich at the Leatheroid Wharf (Arundel Wharf) when the current slammed her up against it.

At the 1946 Town Meeting, Kennebunkport selectmen asked to be authorized to bid on Government Wharf, should the United States be willing to sell it, to use as a Public Town Landing. The voters approved an appropriation of $1,000. At the Annual Meeting the following year, it was announced that the United States Surplus Property Administration had agreed to sell Government Wharf to the Town of Kennebunkport for $350. A new bait shed was built. See Sonny Hutchins’ photo of the construction process with Harry “Bud” Brown and Ernest Julian on the roof and Sonny, Fred Cook, Albert Hatchm and Lorin Griffin on the wharf.

The bait shed was most recently rebuilt in 2018 on the Public Town Landing that we still call Government Wharf.