Andrew Sherburne was already a seasoned privateersman at the age of sixteen when he encountered young Capt. Jacob Wildes of Arundel on the streets of Portsmouth, N.H. in the spring of 1781. Capt. Wildes promised Sherburne a full share of prize money to become one of the 35 crew members he needed aboard the Revolutionary War privateer schooner Greyhound.

The captain organized a frolic at a York public house to entice more crew members for the Greyhound with rum, music, local lasses to dance with, and more rum. Andrew Sherburne provided music. Only two York men agreed to join the crew. The next stop was Cape Porpoise, the 22-year-old Capt. Wilde’s hometown, where he organized another frolic. The captain’s cousin, 16-year-old Samuel Wildes was persuaded to join them.

During the American Revolution Andrew Serburne was impressed into the British Navy, became a prisoner of war aboard the prison ship Jersey, spent time at Mill Prison in England, survived harrowing shipwrecks, and learned some pretty bad personal habits at sea. He would come to wish he had never met Capt. Wildes or joined the crew of the former fishing schooner fitted out as a privateer at Salem.

After the war, Andrew made every effort to reform his seafaring habits. When the people of today’s Arundel built their own church on Mountain Road, they invited Andrew Sherburne to became their first settled Baptist Minister and teacher at the nearby Durrell School in 1802. He accepted the call and served Arundel faithfully, but in a state of poverty, for more than 15 years. Rev. Sherburne was living in Ohio when his valuable memoirs were published in 1828.

By 1838, the Arundel Baptist congregation had joined the new Kennebunkport Village Baptist Church. The little Mountain Road Baptist Church was sold, floated down the Kennebunk River, and served for years as Aaron Houdlette’s photography studio near Government Wharf. Historian Joyce Butler wrote that Sherburne’s church was again moved a little further downriver and still stands today as part of the first floor of the shop across from Port Lobster.