Author: Sharon Cummins (Sharon Cummins)

Visitors to Goose Rocks Beach have periodically been protected by Lifeguards and the Coast Guard throughout its history as a summer resort. Mr. Coleman Joel, a 22-year-old Harvard Law student, perished trying to rescue a little girl named Betty Fairburn from the raging surf opposite the Downing cottage (Seen at top center) on August 15,...

26 Summer St Kennebunk was built in 1884/5 by Hartley Lord for his retirement from a long career at Boston making deep-sea fishing nets with twine from his brother Robert’s Twine Mill in West Kennebunk. After he died in 1912 the mansion passed to his grandson, Hartley Little Lord, who had four children that were...

Captain Frank Nunan, former master of the fishing schooner Sadie Nunan seen here, was the first in Cape Porpoise to open a restaurant. He started with a gas station and supply depot at the Pier, then leased a building built for him by Mr. William H. Marland, who owned the land and a pier, and...

Benajah Leonard Bugbee, seen here at Cape Porpoise Pier, was employed by the American Optical Company in 1905. He tried out their newly developed lens by taking pictures at Kennebunk Beach. The Webhannet Golf Club and The Atlantis Hotel were just a few years old. The train must have been quite a distraction for the...

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you of all nationalities. I was surprised to learn about Thomas Casey, the eventually revered “Patriarch” of Kennebunkport. The Irish Catholic lobsterman was not originally welcomed here with open arms, but he won the love and respect of his neighbors in Kennebunkport by speaking his mind with wit and passion....

The Schooner Sagamore, seen here, was launched from the Charles Ward Shipyard in Kennebunk Lower Village on May 11, 1891. Four days later a reporter for the Eastern Star wrote about it. “The Sagamore launched from Ward’s yard took the water well but the carriage shop of Hall and Littlefield got a wetting, water pouring...

Henry Heckman of Lower Village built The Nonantum in 1884 with 26 guest rooms and a staff of 10. His business was so successful that he had doubled its size by 1894. Architect Henry Paston Clark designed a Georgian Revival façade for the main building during the expansion and a wide front Piazza was added...

What became The Shawmut Inn at Turbats Creek was originally developed in the 1890s as a summer home for William H. Rankin, a Waltham, MA Textile Mill Man. William’s daughters later added new buildings and started operating it as an inn in 1913. The daughters, Mary Rankin Mathews and Sarah Rankin Summersby were Proprietors when...

Ephraim Wildes built the farmhouse we now call the The Clock Farm in 1773 near Goose Rocks Beach on land his father Jacob conveyed to him in 1768. Ephraim Wildes soon saw active service in the Revolutionary War. He and his wife Temperance Downing raised a large family there. A descendant, John Wildes, sold the...