Author: Sharon Cummins (Sharon Cummins)

B&M Railroad Depot Kennebunk, Built in 1872/1873

The first railroad company to run tracks through Kennebunk was the Portsmouth, Saco and Portland Line. The company opened a depot in West Kennebunk in August of 1842. It was the only depot in the Kennebunks for 30 years. Competitor, Boston & Maine Railroad Company, leased rights to run their trains on this line until...

March 27, 2025March 27, 2025

Langsford House

Do you remember the Langsford House in Cape Porpoise? Were you there when the two upper stories of the yellow hotel building were demolished in March of 1964? Ferdinando Huff first ran an inn on that lot in 1682. The town was twice abandoned during King William’s War and Queen Ann’s War. Thomas Huff returned...

March 20, 2025March 20, 2025

Shipwrecks at Goose Rocks

One is never too old or too young to be a History Hero. Without the documentation done by young William Harrison Larkin, Jr., at Goose Rocks Beach in the late 1800s we might never have known the location of the buried shipwrecks at Goose Rocks Beach. Two wrecks lie between The Point and Shore Goose...

March 13, 2025March 13, 2025

Kennebunks “Come Outers” Wait for Justice

I received a research request for information about anti-slavery sentiment in the Kennebunks. While the subject is broad enough to fill a thousand 330-word Throwback Thursdays, one example that I first learned from the diaries of Kennebunk Town Clerk, Andrew Walker, speaks volumes. Walker’s diaries are available through DigitalMaine. Eunice Dorman (1803-1852) and her little...

March 6, 2025March 6, 2025

Retreats for Livestock and Literati at Kennebunk Beach

Kenneth L. Roberts is best known for his set of historical novels, The Chronicles of Arundel, but he was still a young newspaperman when he bought an old stable at Kennebunk Beach from his wife’s aunt in 1919. Roberts jokingly dubbed it ‘Stablehurst’ but His friends, Booth Tarkington and Hugh Kahley thought the name lacked...

February 27, 2025February 27, 2025

It Took a Village and a Frank Handlen Mural

The Kennebunk River is and always has been our source of commerce and entertainment. It wasn’t a coincidence that Captain Nathaniel Lord built his mansion during the War of 1812 overlooking that river with shipbuilding ways and merchant wharves in his line of sight. Fishermen still keep their boats in the Kennebunk River as do...

February 20, 2025February 20, 2025

Romantics at Sea

Capt. Joseph A. Titcomb, Capt. Fordyce B. Perkins, and Silas H. Perkins, who all ran the Perkins Coal Wharf in Dock Square had much in common. First and foremost, they were all related, either by blood or marriage to each other and to the family who built and occupied the Nott House now owned by...

February 13, 2025February 13, 2025

Coal, Couplets, and Candy

Even the tiniest buildings in Dock square have fascinating history. Taking a walk in the neighborhood the other day I noticed that Dock Square Coffee Shop on Perkins Wharf is for sale. It got me thinking about the history of that small building and the tiny one beside it that now houses part of the...

February 6, 2025February 6, 2025

Did you feel the Earth Move like it was 1727?

THROWBACK THURSDAY is appearing early this week in light of today’s relatively rare occurrence. The earthquake experienced here in 1727 was noted as the fourth great earthquake that had happened in New England since the Pilgrams landed at Plymouth Rock. The first one had been in 1638, the second in 1658, and the third in...

January 28, 2025January 28, 2025

Two sets of Twins between Chestnut and Elm

I love walking around my neighborhood thinking about the lives of the people who have occupied these old houses in historic Kennebunkport Village. Believe it or not, it’s what I do for fun. Twin houses built during the War of 1812 used to stand on Ocean Avenue between Elm and Chestnut Streets. Cooper Nahum Haley,...

January 23, 2025January 23, 2025