Throwback Thursday

The American Legion Dance went late and loud at Kennebunk Town Hall on March 18, 1920. After the revelers finally retreated, Miss Edna Hubbard, a house guest at the neighboring home of George and Sylvia Cousens, finally drifted off to sleep, but she was startled awake again at about 4:30 A.M. by the sound of shattering glass. Springing from her bed, she was astounded to see the lower level of Town Hall engulfed in flames. Her host, George Cousens dashed across to box 38 at the corner of Main and Fletcher Streets to sound the fire alarm to rouse Fire...

Bertha Smith was born in Kennebunkport before the Civil War, to Horace and Mary A. Murphy Smith. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1881 and taught in local schools during the 1890s. Miss Bertha Smith, Mrs. Gertrude Hanson, Mrs. Hope Littlefield and Miss Annie Merrill went for a ride together on their bicycles. On their way home they stopped near the Iron Bridge school house and had lunch. Bertha finished first and was up gathering flowers in the field for her botany pupil, Louise Wheeler. The ladies started talking as they watched and decided that they too wanted to...

I have been thinking a lot this month about the admirable women I have encountered studying the history of Kennebunkport. I first learned about Annie Peabody Brooks when I read her vivid description of the old Rope Walk that used to run along where Ocean Ave now passes the Old River House. The story appeared in Ropes Ends TRADITIONS, LEGENDS AND SKETCHES OF OLD KENNEBUNKPORT AND VICINITY, published by Annie in 1901. This little book is liberally illustrated with old photographs of Kennebunkport. I have shared some of those photos here today and linked to a digital copy of Annie’s...

Daniel Dow (1828-1878) of Newton, MA built the first summer cottage at Goose Rocks in 1865 on land owned by Kennebunkport farmer, Elbridge Proctor. Daniel’s son Francis (1859-1936) spent his childhood summers soaking in the raw natural beauty of the remote place. He was already 11 years old when the first hotel, The Goose Rocks House, was built in 1870 at the east end of the beach. That was about when Daniel’s younger brother Orlando (1841-1932) joined them at Goose Rocks as a young adult. Francis (Frank) Asbury Dow grew up to be a well-known photographer in Concord, New Hampshire....

Work on the Pier Road Causeway Project has begun. The Town of Kennebunkport will elevate and rebuild the portion of Pier Road between Stone Haven Hill and Bickford Island where tidal flooding issues are increasingly impacting public access to the pier. But it won’t be the first time. Bickford Island at Cape Porpoise was called Neck Island on early records. Andrew Brown bought the island from Thomas Perkins in 1766. The island was then called Brown’s Island. The Browns sold it to Adam McCulloch in 1793 and 12 years later, the McCullochs sold the island to John Bickford. It has...

Today’s Throwback is an update to a post I shared for Veterans Day 2023. I had learned that a boulder at Stone Haven Hill in Cape Porpoise used to have a bronze tablet honoring Civil War Veterans embedded in it. I lamented that the original plaque had been lost for many years. The Civil War marker had first been unveiled in 1913 by Stone Haven Hotel owner, Justin M. Leavitt, a Civil War Veteran. The hotel burned in 1931 and Justin Leavitt passed away a few days later. The significance of the plaque and the boulder were lost in time....

We in Kennebunkport were proud to call the 41st President of United States, George H.W. Bush, our summer neighbor most of his life. His son, our 43rd U.S. President, George W. Bush, now spends his summer vacations in the house at Walker’s Point. You might have even seen our 42nd President, William Jefferson Clinton, playing golf at Cape Arundel Golf Club, once or twice. Do you remember any other presidential visits? One that you probably won’t remember was when our 5th U.S. President James Monroe came to Kennebunk on July 15, 1817. The British had stormed Washington during the War...

Emmanuel Joseph, born in the 1790s in St Ubes, Portugal, came to Kennebunkport in 1817 as a cook aboard a ship commanded by Captain Samuel Pope. The locals felt more comfortable calling the foreigner Joseph Manuel, so that became his name. Shortly after his arrival, Joseph encountered the charming teenage local girl, Sarah (Sally) Wildes. He was smitten but Sally was still quite young. After sailing on two more merchant voyages out of Kennebunkport, one with Capt. Pope and another with Capt. Crediford, Joseph asked Sally to be his wife. The couple filed intentions to marry in July 1820. Joseph...

January 27, 1914, at midnight, the City of Boston steamer George A. Hibbard struck Schooner Olive F. Hutchins broadside and punched a sizable hole just aft of the foremast on her port side. The Cape Porpoise vessel had been returning to Boston Harbor from a four-day fishing trip off Jefferies Ledge with 25,000 lbs. of fish in her hold. They were just off Castle Island when Capt. Merton Hutchins saw that the Hibbard was coming right for them. He screamed an alarm down the cabin companionway to rouse the sleeping crew. By the time his men stumbled on deck barefoot,...

The photographs I’m sharing today were all taken by Stephen Moore Johnson who lived in the Josiah Linscott House on Pearl Street next door to Tory Chimneys. I have shared his 1970s pictures before. He donated tons of prints and negatives to the Kennebunkport Historical Society in 1993. Johnson worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for 31 years and earned the Career Intelligence Medal for exceptional achievement in 1973. He had already retired to Kennebunkport before our own George H. W. Bush became Director of the CIA. Take a snowy walk around Kennebunkport with Steve in January 1974. Temperatures fell...

I recently received a query about the bank branch on Elm St. When was it built and for whom? Coincidentally, I also received some material this week about the old Dudley mansion on Elm St. next door to where the bank branch stands. It always amazes me when questions and answers present themselves in the nick of time. When the elegant federal house on Elm St was built around 1806 it had a large front lawn running clear to the Kennebunk River. A rum distillery was built on that lawn in the 1820s and was run by the sons of...

The Kennebunks have been blessed with reputable historians since European fishermen found this place sparsely populated by native families early in the 17th Century, but their versions of our stories don’t always agree 100%. The area between the Kennebunk River and the Mousam River, which was originally called The Cape Porpoise River, was at first a kind of no man’s land. It was included on so many original grants that disagreed as to the location of the boundary between Wells and Cape Porpoise that half of its smattering of occupants had acquired their lots from one town and the other...