Category: History

Shipbuilder Nathaniel Lord Thompson rebuilt the grist mill at the Mousam River Bridge in 1869 when maritime prospects were dim. Around the same time, he built a 2 ½ -story dwelling diagonally across the bridge, perhaps for workforce housing. Gilpatric wrote that the building was a gatehouse over the dam flume, and it did have...

You may think about Cherry Garcia Ice Cream when you look at this house. During my childhood, Port Candy was the center of the universe. This house predates us all by almost 200 years. Thomas Wiswall arrived in Cape Porpoise from Newton, Massachusetts with his family c.1750. They purchased a blockhouse built by Rowlandson Bond...

The oldest Commercial building still standing in Dock Square was the Perkins West Indies Goods Store that currently houses a candle shop and a Tarot Card Reader. It was built around 1775 when Dock Square was the Perkins family’s front yard. That building was originally used to receive molasses and rum from Perkins ships docked...

To most historians, the natural world supersedes the “supernatural” in plausibility and interest. That doesn’t mean that historians can’t enjoy Halloween. There is no shortage of ghosts rumored to occupy Kennebunkport’s 18th and 19th Century houses. At least two of those “haunted” houses were also occupied by Samuel Lewis, Jr., the cabinetmaker with one side...

Two members of the Nowell family are of particular interest in the history of Kennebunkport. I have written several articles about Brigadier General Simon Nowell who lived at the corner of Union and Maine Streets across from Graves Library. Simon’s son Captain George W. Nowell is the subject of my story today. He lived in...

Most of you are familiar with HB Provisions or Meserve’s Market as it used to be called, but only those with memories of Kennebunk Lower Village going back more than 50 years will recall the controversy over making the little adjacent parking lot. In September 1968, for some unexplained reason, the Kennebunk Board of Selectmen...

The Cape Arundel crowd raised money to have the Kennebunk River Club built to support their growing enthusiasm for boating. Joseph Ranco could hardly keep up with canoe orders after the Boathouse Opening Ceremonies on August 2, 1890. Dr. Molten H. Forrest of Philadelphia, the Vice Commadore of the River Club, finished building his impressive...

Captain Daniel Webster Dudley was a globe-circumnavigating sea captain that lived on Elm Street in Kennebunkport from 1849 until 1929. In his time, the house was like a museum of treasures he acquired on his sea voyages to China, Japan, Java, New Guinea, New Ireland, the Soloman Islands, etc.. Captain Dudley commanded many vessels but...

You may have heard of the shipwrecked barque Horace, the remains of which still occasionally make an appearance at very low tide near Lord’s Point. This week, while searching the archives for documents relating to the Eliphalet Perkins family of Kennebunkport who built the Nott House, I came across a contemporaneous handwritten letter that brought...

You may remember my earlier story about the Kennebunk Beach Branch of the B&M Railroad. It ran from the Kennebunk Depot Road Station off Summer Street, down what we now think of as the bridle path along the eastern bank of the Mousam River to the Parsons Beach Station, across the Sea Road to the...