Throwback Thursday

Shipbuilding in Kennebunkport and Lower Village was a family affair. Brothers, in-laws, sons, nephews, and grandnephews passed the shipyards above and below the bridge on both sides of the Kennebunk River back and forth from 1840-1958. I can’t always remember the dates of all the famial comings and goings without a visual aid so I’ve made this map to help me keep track. Eternal thanks to maritime historian, Charles S. Morgan for the shipyard deeds and document he donated to the Kennebunkport Historical Society. Brothers, Daniel and Stephen Ward launched their first vessel, Schooner Nile, right out of Dock Square...

The original Kennebunkport Parker House was a restaurant built in Dock Square before 1872 by Wm C. Parker, who had emigrated from Sweden aboard a local merchant vessel. In 1874, Parker expanded into the store next door and opened it as a hotel. Both buildings were destroyed in the Dock Square Fire of 1877. A new and improved Parker House opened July 4, 1878, on Temple Street. Sixty years later, the Temple Street lot that the Parker House sat on was purchased by the Federal Government as a site for a new Kennebunkport Post Office. When the Government first requested...

The Town House School Campus, soon to be reopened at the Kennebunkport Historical Society, consists of three fascinating structures at 135 North Street, Town House Corners. If you are standing on North Street looking at the property left to right are the Old Jail Cells, the 1899 Town House School and the Shipyard Office that previously stood adjacent to the South Congregational Church from the Civil War era until Charles S. Morgan rescued it in 1952. The specially designed Old Jail Cells building contains the actual twin jail cells that served for years as the town lock-up on Ocean Avenue....

The dam at Goff’s Brook near the golf club was still standing in 1899

Shipping embargos associated with the War of 1812 stopped the primary industry in Kennebunkport in its tracks. Local businessmen needed loans to endure the financial challenge and to protect their shipping investments through the war. To that end, the Kennebunk Bank in Arundel was incorporated by Eliphalet Perkins, Tobias Lord, Hugh McCullough, John Bourne, Joseph Moody, John U Parsons, John Low in 1813. A request for bids to build a two-story brick building with a hewn stone foundation 38×26 feet long and 26 feet broad, appeared in The Weekly Visitor August 14, 1913. The Kennebunk Bank of Arundel opened for...

In 1824, a new Meetinghouse was built overlooking the Kennebunk River to accommodate the growing population in Kennebunkport village. It was open with tall box pews, a two-story pulpit, wide galleries or balconies on three sides, with the organ and choir in the rear. The tower clock, which came to be known as the town clock, was made in Boston by Aaron Willard Jr. and was a gift from Eliphalet Perkins, Joseph Perkins, and Simon Nowell. A new congregation was formed in 1838 and the Meetinghouse was renamed South Congregational Church. By 1843, due to a severe drop in membership,...

The new owners are doing a beautiful job with the Nowell/Clark House. It was built in 1854 for George W. Nowell. His estate sold the house to Shipbuilder David Clark in 1873. The Kennebunkport Historical Society has the spyglass that Queen Victoria awarded to Captain Nowell for his humanity to her subjects.

More from the Cecil Benson Collection. At the present location of Alisson’s bar room, there used to be a single story building known at various times as Union Store, Palmer Twambly’s Store, Benson’s, Miracle Market, Smith’s Market Dock Square Market, etc. The little building originally housed an academy that stood on Elm St. It was moved to Dock Square around 1850 and was the only building on that side of Dock Square to survive the 1877 Fire. Cecil Benson writes, “This is the restaurant that Dad [Cecil Benson, Sr.] and the family ran during the summer from 6 AM till...

Beginnings A toll drawbridge bridge was first built here by subscription in 1810 to accommodate growing Kennebunk River shipping and shipbuilding industries. The drawbridge was made free in 1831 when the dirt path that extended from either side of it was designated a County Road. Since then, damaging storms have occasionally necessitated repairs, but most of the major bridge rebuilding projects there have enjoyed the benefit of advance warning. During one freshet on March 1, 1896, the old wooden drawbridge unexpectedly collapsed with a reverberating crash when huge chunks of ice rushing downriver on a violent ebb tide cut through...