The discovery of gold in California in 1848 inspired thousands of fevered fortune hunters to rush there by land and by sea. Fifteen of them were from Kennebunk. The sudden population influx caused a great housing shortage.

A handful of Kennebunk entrepreneurs, future West Kennebunk Twine Mill proprietor Robert Waterston Lord, Capt. Wm Lord jr., the richest man in town, and carpenter, Oliver Littlefield took more of a picks and shovels approach to making money on the California gold rush. Timothy Frost of this town had materials prepared for one small prototype prefabricated house. Capt. Wm Lord Jr. and Oliver Littlefield had twelve similar buildings, prepared for erection. They were one story high, 14 feet wide and 25 feet long. These thirteen house kits were shipped on the 540-ton Kennebunk built ship Henry Ware. Captain Noah Nason and his Kennebunk crew sailed her by way of Cape Horn with machinist, Robert W. Lord aboard. They departed Boston for San Francisco at 4pm on October 30, 1849. They rounded the Horn at midnight December 16. The Henry Ware sailed into San Francisco Bay at daybreak on March 16, 1850.

Robert Lord wrote about his experiences in an article Five Years in California in its Early Days. “I purchased and took with me a portable steam engine and various pieces of machinery suited for the manufacture of building material,” he wrote. He set up his portable steam engine on the deck of The Henry Ware to help unload her cargo of house kits in San Francisco.

These entrepreneurial Kennebunk folks were not the only east coasters to have this modular housing idea. By the time Oliver Littlefield got to California in 1850 by way of the Isthmus of Panama to set up the houses, the demand for them had been mostly satisfied. He was nevertheless able to sell the lot above costs in exchange for bonds, the maturity of which Capt. Wm Lord, Jr. could well afford to wait.

Robert W. Lord and fellow Henry Ware passenger, Henry Howe, a watchmaker from Massachusetts, stayed on in San Francisco manufacturing scales for weighing gold.