Throwback Thursday

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...

The four-masted schooner Savannah, built for Captain William H. Gould in 1901, was the last vessel Shipbuilder David Clark worked on before his death that year. His nephew, George H. Clark, son of David’s talented black sheep brother Abner, was foreman at Clark’s Kennebunkport shipyard. The Kennebunkport shipbuilding industry went on hiatus with the death of David Clark but George H. Clark was not without employment. He was already a well-respected house carpenter and contractor. Among his important large contracts were the construction of the Sagamore Hotel at Kennebunk Beach, (1896) Old Fort Inn, (1902) Breakwater Court, (1914) and Booth...

When you hear “Bartlett’s” do you think of the bridge that had a lumber mill on one side of route one where it crosses the Kennebunk River and a store building across the street? Some of you probably think of Bartlett Avenue at Goose Rocks Beach. A few of you might even think about the family who sent 4 offspring west to capitalize on the Gold Rush. You are all thinking of the same enterprising Bartlett family! John Bartlet was the father of all the Kennebunk Bartletts who went west in the 1850s. Honest John, as he was known, was...

The Kennebunkport Historical Society was only a year old and didn’t have a headquarters yet in 1953. Educator, Melville Freeman was the Society’s first Historian. He had not yet written the History of Cape Porpoise, but his 1953 illustrated history-talk schedule makes me feel like a slouch. Freeman was also one of the organizers of the July 31, 1953, Cape Porpoise Day events which included a tour of his house and garden on Fishers Lane. A County Fair at Atlantic Hall kicked off the festivities at 10am followed by eight open house tours under the auspices of the Kennebunkport Historical...

Cape Porpoise had been informally settled for decades by 1653, under the King of England’s proprietorship of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. After Gorges died, the neighboring colony of Massachusetts Bay began imposing their jurisdiction ever northward. The towns of Kittery and York submitted to Massachusetts in 1651 but the commissioners, wary of continuing upon such a primitive road, temporarily returned from whence they came. They braved King’s Highway into Maine again two years later but were only able to get as far as Wells. Twelve Cape Porpoise men were persuaded to make the trip to Wells, take the Freeman’s Oath and...

Fifty years ago, when the town was applying for the National Register Historic District Designation that we are currently celebrating with 50th Anniversary flags and discs, retired CIA man turned Kennebunkport Historical Society photographer, Stephen Johnson, took a roll of 35-millimeter interior shots of The Olde Grist Mill Restaurant in Kennebunkport. I finally scanned some of those colored slides to share with you today. More of them will be included in my upcoming illustrated Trust Talk at Clemmie Clark’s Boat House, now owned by the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust. Earlier that year, on February 27, 1976, thieves pried open the Olde...

Youth sailing and racing has a long history in the Kennebunks. Even before the Kennebunk River Club was built in 1890, kids were learning to sail and race their sailboats out of the Lobster Boat and Canoe Club near Government Wharf. George H. Walker offered a prize for a series of races in 1904 that finally required all the contestants have boats of the same design. National Newspaperman, Francis Noble was Vice Commodore at the Kennebunk River Club in 1913. He and Ralph Durrell designed a fleet of six shallow, clunky, slab like, 12-foot sailboats called Skipjacks, and organized a...

Hazel Wildes will forever be the Queen of the Kennebunkport Dump Association. Where Ed Mayo conceived the idea to make littering uncool in Kennebunkport Hazel gave the movement everlasting heart. She was awarded the first Miss Dumpy crown in 1966 at the Nonantum and was mentor to every Miss Dumpy that succeeded her. The Annual Miss Dumpy Competition, often held at the Shawmut Inn, was one of the highlights of National Dump Week. Hazel was quoted in a 1976 interview for Salt Magazine. “Yeah, I love to perform and if I can look the worst of anybody in town, I’d...

Andrew Sherburne was already a seasoned privateersman at the age of sixteen when he encountered young Capt. Jacob Wildes of Arundel on the streets of Portsmouth, N.H. in the spring of 1781. Capt. Wildes promised Sherburne a full share of prize money to become one of the 35 crew members he needed aboard the Revolutionary War privateer schooner Greyhound. The captain organized a frolic at a York public house to entice more crew members for the Greyhound with rum, music, local lasses to dance with, and more rum. Andrew Sherburne provided music. Only two York men agreed to join the...

The Seaveys of Kennebunkport descend from William Seavey who moved to Arundel from Kittery in 1720. Like his father Captain Eli Seavey, our subject today was a ships carpenter in the shipyards for many years but Matthew eventually started building yachts on his own behalf, to operate as tourist excursion vessels. Capt. Matthew B. Seavey’s Kennebunkport house was built at the corner of Ocean Ave. and Chestnut Street shortly before the devastating 1887 Skating Rink Fire that destroyed 13 buildings in the neighborhood. The fire scorched it in places, but fortunately Matthew’s new house was saved. Artist Abbott Graves later...