Throwback Thursday

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 Kennebunk Beach in 1893 by Wash Jacobs and Charlie Stevens, who hung it up on display at The Cove. Melville and Frank Darling chased a school of 3 Hammerhead sharks, prodding them with their oars while they were fishing off Cape Porpoise in 1913. The...

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. Thomas Perkins, Jr. built the oldest house still standing in Kennebunkport village in 1724 on Oak Street. His son, Abner Perkins, had the c.1747 house on Locke Street. Abner’s son Stephen Perkins built the house that we know as Blueberry Hill c. 1790. He also...

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. The plan was approved in 1910. An 1100 pound bell was manufactured by McNeely and Company of Troy, NY and installed on June 6, 1910 and a 35-foot wrought iron spindle was placed at the southwestern extremity of Goat Island. A few weeks later, the...

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 sufficient highways within their towns from house to house, and clear and fit for foot and cart, before the next county court, under the penalty of ten pounds for every town’s defect in this particular.” The first section of this early road that ran north...

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. Roosevelt, presented it to Frederick A. Duneka, General Manager of Harper’s Weekly Magazine on September 20, 1909. We always wondered how it found its way to Kennebunkport. After their separate Arctic expeditions, both Commander Robert Peary and Dr. Frederick Cook returned to the public eye...

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 Graves tropical scene were acquired in Kennebunkport by his ancestors. Mr. Langenberg purchased the two larger Abbott Graves oil paintings that he donated to us at Vose Gallery in Boston many years ago. He clearly loves the art of Abbott Graves. I wonder if he...

Real estate speculators from Massachusetts and Kennebunkport purchased more than 700 acres of coastal land from Cape Porpoise to Lord’s Point in 1872. They opened the Ocean Bluff Hotel in 1873 with the intention of subdividing the land around it into closely packed cottage lots. The hotel soon enjoyed healthy patronage, but Kennebunkport’s infrastructure was not conducive to the ambitious cottage development that the Boston & Kennebunkport Seashore Company had anticipated. Trains went only as far as the Kennebunk Depot then and the roads were not of a quality suitable for city folk. Boating was advertised as a recreational enticement,...

Benjamin Brewster became Episcopal Biship of Maine in 1916. That was the same year that Fanny Darrach deeded Trinity Chapel at Kennebunk Beach to the Diocese. I had not found a record of the chapel being consecrated but while working on tonight’s lecture on the history of Saint Ann’s and Kennebunk Point, I came across these photographs in Saint Ann’s archive. A report in the Kennebec Journal on August 17, 1916 reads, “Trinity Episcopal church at Kennebunk Beach was dedicated Tuesday morning by Biship Benjamin Brewster of the Maine Diocese, assisted by Rev. A.H. Ottman of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church,...

I would like to thank these ladies, whoever they are. While staying at New Bass Rock Hotel at Kennebunk Beach in July 1926, they took day trips to Kennebunkport and Cape Porpoise. Capturing it all on film, they pasted the resulting pictures in a little album, labeling each picture beautifully and then left that little album in a Florida attic that would many years later be owned by people who understood the value of something like this to the people of the Kennebunks. Such a thoughtful, manual process. Have a great summer. Leave tangible evidence.

I use old newspapers to learn what people were thinking about at a certain time and place. The first issue of each season of the Kennebunks summer newspapers is especially enlightening because it was devoted to describing everything that had changed since the last issue of the previous season. July 2,1938 High Tide covered some notable changes. The Bath Houses at Gooch’s Beach were torn down and rebuilt. “Newest asset to Kennebunk Beach and Kennebunkport are the super Seaside Bath Houses at Gooch’s Beach which open next Monday, surpassing anything of their kind in Maine. Built by Rufus Twambly of...

The families who built Cape Arundel cottages were often connected to each other through the women in the family. Such was the case with the Nesmith sisters, for whom St. Ann’s Rectory was originally constructed and their sister, Mrs. Greenhalge, whose cottage stood atop Grandview Avenue. Isabel, Mary, and Julia were three of the daughters of wealthy industrialist and textile manufacturer John Nesmith of Lowell, MA who served as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts during the Civil War. Isabel married Frederic T Greenhalge in 1872, when Cape Arundel was mostly rocky farmland. Frederic was born in England but had moved to...

Driving down Summer Street in Kennebunk, these days, one can hardly help but notice the naked Wedding Cake House. At first glance I was horrified by the sight, but as the landmark is restored by Tim Spang and company, and the fretwork and spires are being replicated I appreciate the opportunity to see the house as the stately brick Federal it was built to be in 1825/6. It wasn’t until 1852, after George W. Bourne’s barn burned down, that he started decorating it like the medieval European cathedrals he loved so much. Once you commit to such a bold style...