Throwback Thursday

The barque Laurens was launched from the Kennebunk River shipyard of Robert Smith Jr. on January 31, 1838, almost exactly one year before the famous revolt of 53 Africans onboard La Amistad. At first, Kennebunks men sailed the Laurens across the Atlantic carrying mostly cotton and tobacco, but she started whaling in the early 1840s. Boston Customs records say her ownership had been “partially transferred” by 1844. Captain Franklin N. Thompson still commanded her in 1845. The Laurens was seized by the U. S. Navy off the coast of Brazil on January 23, 1848. Capt. Littlefield was sailing her to...

The first railroad company to run tracks through Kennebunk was the Portsmouth, Saco and Portland Line. The company opened a depot in West Kennebunk in August of 1842. It was the only depot in the Kennebunks for 30 years. Competitor, Boston & Maine Railroad Company, leased rights to run their trains on this line until PS&P insisted on renegotiating the 6% B&M lease at a higher rate. Rather than pay the increase, B&M Railroad laid their own tracks through Kennebunk in 1872. Andrew Walker wrote about it in his diary starting on August 1, 1872. “B&M Railroad Directors have been...

Do you remember the Langsford House in Cape Porpoise? Were you there when the two upper stories of the yellow hotel building were demolished in March of 1964? Ferdinando Huff first ran an inn on that lot in 1682. The town was twice abandoned during King William’s War and Queen Ann’s War. Thomas Huff returned to Cape Porpoise for the second time in 1715 and garrisoned his property against attack. Cape Porpoise settlers sought refuge there during the French and Indian Wars. Some made it. In October 1723 two men named FitzHenry and Bartow left Thomas Huff’s garrison to go...

One is never too old or too young to be a History Hero. Without the documentation done by young William Harrison Larkin, Jr., at Goose Rocks Beach in the late 1800s we might never have known the location of the buried shipwrecks at Goose Rocks Beach. Two wrecks lie between The Point and Shore Goose Rocks, according to a map Will drew c.1892. He called the one further east, the “Old Wreck.” I have found reports of only two vessels that went aground at Goose Rocks Beach. The oldest of the two was mentioned in the 1853 issue of American...

I received a research request for information about anti-slavery sentiment in the Kennebunks. While the subject is broad enough to fill a thousand 330-word Throwback Thursdays, one example that I first learned from the diaries of Kennebunk Town Clerk, Andrew Walker, speaks volumes. Walker’s diaries are available through DigitalMaine. Eunice Dorman (1803-1852) and her little sister Hannah (1812-1880) were abolitionists in the Kennebunks at a time when shipping fortunes were being made here on the backs of enslaved people in the West Indies and the southern United States. The sisters, founding members of Second Parish Congregational Church on Dane Street,...

Kenneth L. Roberts is best known for his set of historical novels, The Chronicles of Arundel, but he was still a young newspaperman when he bought an old stable at Kennebunk Beach from his wife’s aunt in 1919. Roberts jokingly dubbed it ‘Stablehurst’ but His friends, Booth Tarkington and Hugh Kahley thought the name lacked elegance. They christened it ‘Stall Hall.’ “Though our resources hadn’t allowed us to make extensive alterations,” Roberts wrote in his book ‘I Wanted to Write’ “It already boasted a bathroom, a cookstove, a bed, and a commodious set of living-room furniture I’d made myself out...

The Kennebunk River is and always has been our source of commerce and entertainment. It wasn’t a coincidence that Captain Nathaniel Lord built his mansion during the War of 1812 overlooking that river with shipbuilding ways and merchant wharves in his line of sight. Fishermen still keep their boats in the Kennebunk River as do pleasure boaters of all kinds. Kennebunkport marine artist, Frank Handlen was living on the Kennebunk River in June of 1975 when he launched his homemade ferrocement schooner Salt Wind. When he started to model a heroic size statue honoring Kennebunkport fishermen and their families, he...

Capt. Joseph A. Titcomb, Capt. Fordyce B. Perkins, and Silas H. Perkins, who all ran the Perkins Coal Wharf in Dock Square had much in common. First and foremost, they were all related, either by blood or marriage to each other and to the family who built and occupied the Nott House now owned by the Kennebunkport Historical Society. They also all sailed aboard the Saco-built ship Mount Washington to places like India, China, and the Philippines. Capt. Titcomb was her master from 1868, a year after she was launched, until 1874, when he handed her command over to Capt....

Even the tiniest buildings in Dock square have fascinating history. Taking a walk in the neighborhood the other day I noticed that Dock Square Coffee Shop on Perkins Wharf is for sale. It got me thinking about the history of that small building and the tiny one beside it that now houses part of the candy store. Capt. Eliphalet Perkins was in the West Indies trade. His original 1775 store is now Copper Candle. Perkins Wharf was often piled high with casks of molasses and rum from the West Indies in Eliphalet’s day. When the spiritous liquors trade became illegal...

THROWBACK THURSDAY is appearing early this week in light of today’s relatively rare occurrence. The earthquake experienced here in 1727 was noted as the fourth great earthquake that had happened in New England since the Pilgrams landed at Plymouth Rock. The first one had been in 1638, the second in 1658, and the third in 1663. The one on Oct. 29, 1727, was more violent than any of the preceding ones. There were also several reports of an unusual phenomenon called “Earthquake Lights” before and after the 1727 earthquake. Kennebunkport Historian, Charles Bradbury wrote that many chimneys and stone walls...

I love walking around my neighborhood thinking about the lives of the people who have occupied these old houses in historic Kennebunkport Village. Believe it or not, it’s what I do for fun. Twin houses built during the War of 1812 used to stand on Ocean Avenue between Elm and Chestnut Streets. Cooper Nahum Haley, who had a barrel makers shop across the street, lived in the twin at Chestnut Street. Oliver Davis, a pump and block maker who also had a shop across the street (where my house is now) lived in the twin at the corner of Elm...

Before you read today’s THROWBACK, look at the 4 pictures and take a guess where these columned Greek Revival houses stand in the Kennebunks today and in what order they were built. Master builder Beniah Littlefield built Nathaniel L Thompson’s house at Summer Street in 1842. Shipbuilder N.L. Thompson was a trendsetter. Not only did he set a new standard in opulent home design in the Kennebunks, but he was the first to publicly celebrate Christmas here with a Christmas tree laden with gifts for his children in 1852. Kennebunk diarist, Andrew Walker was at first quite taken aback by...