If you ask to see the Yeoman Cottage at Cape Arundel, you might be shown three different houses. They are also known as Inglesea, The Rocks, and the Yoeman-Powers Cottage. Inglesea Cottage, which still stands at the corner of Ocean Ave and Haverhill has erroneously been attributed to Joseph Yeoman but neither he nor his...
Author: Sharon Cummins (Sharon Cummins)
Freak Week Vacation Album July 1926
These photos were all taken during the third and fourth week in July 1926. They were pasted into a little vacation album that was found years ago in a Florida attic. The dates caught my eye. Something was amiss with the cosmos during the third week of July 1926. The temperature hovered near 100 degrees...
Welcome Back to Goose Rocks Beach 2024 Season
The Fourth of July weekend has always opened the summer season for the kid-friendly community of Goose Rocks Beach. But when their casino was lost to the Fire of 1947, The Goose Rocks Beach Association with Dorothy Mignault at the helm, moved heaven and earth, and a 50-ton building to rectify the situation. The Kennebunkport...
John E. Seavey, Cape Porpoise builder, School Agent, Inventor, and Father of Triplets
I was doing some research on the Seavey Family of Cape Porpoise this week and encountered a lot of history, but I promise won’t go all the way back to William Seavey who came to Cape Porpoise from Kittery in 1720. John E. Seavey was born in Cape Porpoise in 1830. He was listed in...
Kennebunk Opposed Indian Removal Act
The history of the Kennebunks has its own shameful episodes of treaty breaking in the build up to King William’s and The French & Indian Wars when Indigenous families still camped along the Cape Porpoise (Mousam) and Kennebunk Rivers. But no Indigenous families had lived in the Kennebunks for 48 years in 1803 when Thomas...
1886 Bickford House at Cape Arundel
I keep an eye on the antique real estate for sale in Kennebunkport because that sometimes gets me a modern sneak peek inside one of these old gems. It might not surprise you to learn that I love old buildings. There are currently two condo units for sale in the 1886 Bickford House and it...
Kennebunk Beach in 1905
Volume up! When did your family first visit Kennebunk Beaches?
The J.W. Deering Cottage at Cape Arundel
Architect John Calvin Stevens designed at least 5 Cape Arundel Cottages that are still standing. Though he wasn’t a Maine native, his family moved from Boston to Portland when he was just two years old. After finishing high school, Stevens entered the Portland architectural office of Francis Fassett. He worked his way up from office...
Frank W. Handlen 1916-2023
On this the fourth Thursday of May, I am acutely aware that my dear friend, Frank W. Handlen has been gone a whole year. Frank was a gifted marine artist, a shipbuilder, and a sculptor in heroic scale. His Kennebunkport legacy is all around us. You might remember when he launched his handmade ferro cement...
Fisherman Fredonia Replica: The Spirit of Massachusetts
The Spirit of Massachusetts has been hauled out of the Kennebunk River to a berth on the lot near the new Pilot House Restaurant in Lower Village Kennebunk and reportedly will be accessible from the eatery. The Spirit was modeled after an 1889 Gloucester fishing schooner designed by Edward Burgess and built by Moses Adams...