Throwback Thursday

The Municipal Building on Elm St is cramped and outdated. The town employees are giving tours of the building this week to show taxpayers the condition of our 1960 Town Offices. I thought this might be a good time to talk about the various Town Halls in Kennebunkport’s history. Cape Porpoise was originally the center of town. Town Government was conducted in the Meetinghouse there along with religious services. By 1763, the town had spread out. The meetinghouse at Cape Porpoise was considered inconveniently remote for much of Arundel’s population. The Cape Porpoise Meetinghouse was deliberately burned to end the...

I love this view of Dock Square shared with us by Cecil Benson, Jr. It must have been taken between 1933 and 1942. Benson’s can be seen here at the far right where Alisson’s stands now. Cecil wrote, “This is the restaurant that Dad [Cecil Benson, Sr.] and the family ran during the summer from 6 AM till 1-2 the following morning. We ate all our meals here and spent a lot of time walking back and forth from our home on North Street. Dad served full meals, had a soda fountain, potato chips fried by hand in the back...

The first picture I’m sharing today shows The Kennebunk Green as it was in 1927. Henry Parsons donated the land at the corner of Main and Fletcher Streets to Kennebunk for a Civil War Memorial. The Civil War Memorial Statue was unveiled there on October 24, 1908. The small Revolutionary War era ships cannon on the little wooden cart was once owned by Captain Wm Lord, Jr. It was half-buried on Main St for many years and used as a hitching post. It was occasionally pulled out and fired for public occasions with disastrous results. Lord’s descendant, William Barry built...

We have probably all heard the warnings about the hurricane that may threaten our coast this weekend. I worry about potential flooding and beach erosion. I can’t help but think about the hundreds of shipwrecks at rest under our beaches and along our rocky shores that might make an appearance in the wake of a destructive storm. In October 1891, the builders of St Ann’s-by-the-Sea had finally raised enough funds to finish the tower on their beautiful Cape Arundel Episcopal Church. The workmen had gone home on the night of October 29, 1891, when the four-year-old, 121-ton schooner Empress of...

When someone calls to ask me to help them learn more about their old Kennebunkport house, the first thing I do is to look at the 1856 York County Atlas Wall Map, Sanford Everts & Co 1872 York County Atlas Map, and our handmade WWII Kennebunkport Warden’s Map of their neighborhood to learn who lived in their house during those time periods. The various years of Sanborn Insurance maps provide information about the structure itself, including the number of stories, materials, orientation, etc. during that particular year. If it is a Cape Arundel or Kennebunk Beach property, I might consult...

A lovely new shop, La La Luna has opened in the very old building on Ocean Ave at the edge of Arundel Wharf. It got me thinking about how much this town has changed since Daniel Walker built it before 1785. Daniel inherited the whole area from his father Gideon Walker in 1778. He built a mansion on Pearl St., a wharf on the Kennebunk River, and a yellow store on the wharf . In 1799, Daniel Walker sold his “old mansion” on Pearl St to his brother in law, Benjamin Stone and moved into the Cup and Saucer House...

Something was amiss with the cosmos during the third week of July 1926. The temperature hovered near 100 all up and down the eastern seaboard and as far west as Ohio. All but convicted murderers were released from the stifling prisons in North Carolina where temperatures reached 107. Hundreds slept out in the open on the Boston Common. Just before sunrise on July 18th a blinding bluish light filled the cloudless Maine sky from Dexter to Saco. The flash was immediately followed by an explosive sound that awakened the whole City of Portland. Vivid lightning, hail, and torrential downpours followed....

Aaron B. Houdlette, He was born in Dresden Me and took lots of early photographs of Richmond Me, across the Kennebec River. He came to Kennebunkport in the early 1880s, after being a professional photographer in Boston for 20 years. Houdlette was still working summers in Kennebunkport until two years before he died in 1909 at the age of 78. We have lots of his photographs at the Historical Society. This first Houdlette picture was taken from Lord’s Point looking toward Boothby’s Beach in Kennebunk. That’s the Ridgewood Hotel standing proud in the background. It burned to the ground in...

Last week’s THROWBACK THURSDAY about the name changes at Kennebunk Beaches invited lots of comments and questions. Thanks for that! I love hearing about your experiences and your knowledge of our history. I also heard from people who were curious about how Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport got its name and if it was ever known by any other name. But of course, it was! Goose Rocks Beach takes its name from two clusters of rocks between high and low water at the beach which were called the Goose Rocks for at least the last 170 years. Before the beach...

Dare I broach the contentious subject of the names of Kennebunk Beaches? When your use of the name, “Mother’s Beach” evokes an alarming reaction from some of the local “old timers,” you may assume they are having a hard time parting with the name their mother called it by, “Kennebunk Beach.” But this argument did not begin during our lifetimes. Long before the Parsons family built their homes on Crescent Surf, their beach was called, Hart’s Beach. We all call it Parsons Beach now. When Richard Boothby and his swashbuckling bride Mabel Littlefield moved to the Kennebunk Beaches in 1730,...

The cornerstone of the new Masonic Lodge was laid at the site of the new building next to Robert and Earnest Benson’s Blacksmith Shop on Temple St on Saturday, October 26, 1929. Everyone gathered at the Olympian Club House, the temporary home of Arundel Lodge 76. A line was formed. The grand officers and members marched to the site of the future building. Judge Harold E. Cook of Gardiner, Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge of Maine laid the 12x12x3 inch corner stone over a copper box which contained past records of Arundel Lodge from the date of its charter...

Inventor Arthur Atwater Kent introduced his first major invention, the Unispark Ignition System in 1906. Before that, automobiles had to be started by cranking an ignition mounted on the front of the hood. The driver would then jump into the car and hope it continued to run long enough to get the motor into gear. Kent’s invention enabled the ignition to be engaged comfortably from the driver’s seat and was an immediate success as automobile companies clamored to improve the mass appeal of driving. In 1910 the Kent family bought The Nesmith Cottage beside St. Ann’s Episcopal Church at Cape...