Category: History

Kennebunkport view of Dock Square c.1892

This glass plate of Dock Square was taken between May 8, 1891, when the White School (1) was moved from the corner of Maine Street and Union Street to its present location tucked behind the Brown Block (2), and October 3, 1893, when the first Norton House burned (3). The building at far right was...

December 22, 2022January 5, 2023

The Launching of the Nimrod

Hundreds of spectators came to see the launching of the three masted schooner Nimrod from the Christenson Shipyard in Kennebunk Lower Village on August 22, 1891. The Nimrod was the last vessel Norwegian shipbuilder George Christenson framed out. He did not get to see her off the ways at what would later become Herbie Baum’s...

December 15, 2022January 5, 2023

Frank G. Littlefield’s Smithville Sawmill

The Ellen Littlefield Doubleday Collection contains the diaries of Frank G. Littlefield of Mills Road from 1895-1918. Frank writes about his day-to-day life in Cape Porpoise. Like so many of his neighbors, he worked a lot of jobs to make ends meet. He painted and papered local houses and hotels, he cut ice in the...

December 8, 2022December 8, 2022

Captain William Lord, Jr.

Capt. Nathaniel Lord and Phebe Walker of the Kennebunkport Lord Mansion fame were married in 1797. The young couple settled in a house on a sizable lot of land at the corner of Pearl and Pleasant streets gifted to them by Phebe’s father, Captain Daniel Walker. You might know the house as Captain Gould’s house....

June 9, 2022May 18, 2023

Hurricane Fire Extinguished: Dock Square Fires Recalled

Shortly after I posted my Throwback Thursday column last week, I read in a local Facebook Post that Hurricane Restaurant in Dock Square was on fire. My mind was immediately flooded with images of the two previous fires on that side of Dock Square that had caused so much damage. All but one of the...

June 2, 2022June 8, 2022