Category: History

When the last of the abandoned Penobscot camps near Government Wharf were torn down in 1936 the local newspaperman reminisced about how fondly some of its peaceful inhabitants were still remembered nine years after they had all left. The very athletic Sockalexis cousins came to mind. The famous Louis Francis Sockalexis, the first Native American...

Sagamore Thomas Chabinock, of Nampscoscoke bequeathed unto John Wadleigh of Wells, all the land from the Ogunquit River to Kennebunk River, up to the Mousam River Falls, in 1649, with the consent of Tom’s mother, Ramanascho. In 1654, John Wadleigh’s son Robert conveyed the portion on the northeast bank of the Mousam River, then called...

Paul Pinkham, Jr. and his uncle, Silas Gardner came to Cape Porpoise from Nantucket in 1801. They had the two-story square house built on Pier Road that still stands today. Paul’s son, Silas Gardner Pinkham, married Daniel Grant’s daughter Emily. In 1843, Silas was captain of a cod fishing schooner named The James and Henry....

Famous early aviator, Charles A. Lindbergh completed the first solo transatlantic flight on May 21, 1927. The handsome pilot of The Spirit of St. Louis, became world-famous, overnight. Along with fame came public adoration and the omnipresent paparazzi. Lindbergh asked Ann Morrow to marry him in 1929. The world braced for a celebrity wedding. By...

Sharks were sighted last week off Goose Rocks Beach and off Gooch’s Beach. It made me wonder if we had any history of fatal shark attacks in the Kennebunks. I didn’t find any instances of sharks killing people here but lots of accounts of people killing sharks. An 8-foot “maneater” was captured off shore at...

Jane Morgan’s beautiful old farmhouse on North Street has been sold. I attended the yard sale there last weekend to pick up something to remind me of Jane. I have written about her role at the Kennebunkport Playhouse several times. I thought this might be a good time to share some Blueberry Hill Farm history....

Eighty-eight shipmasters and mates from Cape Porpoise, Gloucester, and Boston petitioned the United States Government for a mechanical fog bell to be installed at the Goat Island Light Station. They also wanted a spindle at the sometimes-submerged rocky extremity of Goat Island and a tripod marking the other side of the entrance on Folly Island....

Kings Highway in the Kennebunks has changed a lot since it was first established in 1653. Massachusetts Commissioners could only get their horse carts as far north as Wells to get submission from the people of the Provence of Maine. After inhabitants of Wells, Cape Porpoise, and Saco submitted, the commissioners ordered that they “make...

This Walrus Tusk in our collection was donated to the Kennebunkport Historical Society by the Louis T. Graves Library in 1979 with no known provenance. The markings on it indicate that Commander Robert Peary, who was widely credited in 1909 as being the first to discover the North Pole on a voyage of the S.S....

Unlike George Castanza, I love it when my seemingly unrelated worlds collide. Mr. Roy Langenberg, who is currently living in Arizona, but whose family can be traced back to Dr. George F. Merrill in Kennebunkport, recently donated some marvelous paintings to the Kennebunkport Historical Society. One Louis D. Norton woodland scene and a small Abbott...