Throwback Thursday

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...

“The observance of “Easter Sunday” in New England except by Roman Catholics and Episcopalians is quite recent. In this village, I do not think there was any particular observance previous to 1870,” wrote Diarist Andrew Walker in the Spring of 1883. By then, homegrown lily displays adorned every pulpit in every church in the Kennebunks on Easter Sunday. Sermons focused on resurrection, rebirth and seizing yet another new chance to set things right. Thinly veiled Pagen references to fertility, like bunnies who deliver colored eggs they lay to waiting baskets all over town were still few and far between in...

I’m working on a series of lectures about the history of Kennebunkport. Even though each is about a different part of town I find the research overlapping in interesting ways. The names of some people who lived here before the Europeans temporarily abandoned Cape Porpus in 1689 are still in frequent use today. Turbat’s Creek and Batson River were named after Peter Turbat and Stephen Batson. They were both among the 12 Cape Porpus men who submitted to Massachusetts on July 5, 1653. The first town records were lost at abandonment, but we still have access to early deeds and...

The future of the former Unitarian Church Parsonage at 15 Portland Road in Kennebunk is again in question. I have collected historical information about the house that may be useful to those contemplating its historic value. The Unitarian Society bought a nearly 3-acre lot for a parsonage from Horace Porter in 1833. The house was likely built soon after that. Town Clerk Andrew Walker wrote in his diary that the cost of the land and buildings to the parish was about $1,350. It was used as a parsonage for 17 years. In May of 1850, the Unitarian Parish sold the...

One of the treasures protected by the Kennebunkport Historical Society is a record book kept by Rev. Silas Moody of the covenants, baptisms, marriages, etc. of the Church of Christ in Arundel from 1771-1815. The book went missing for 100 years but was returned in 1915 by a woman who came upon it in Fryeburg, Maine and realized its historical significance to Kennebunkport. The first church in town was built at Cape Porpoise Square in 1727. Thirty-five years later, inhabitants of the more recently populated upper part of town wanted a church nearer to them. Taxpayers would not vote to...

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 inspired thousands of fevered fortune hunters to rush there by land and by sea. Fifteen of them were from Kennebunk. The sudden population influx caused a great housing shortage. A handful of Kennebunk entrepreneurs, future West Kennebunk Twine Mill proprietor Robert Waterston Lord, Capt. Wm Lord jr., the richest man in town, and carpenter, Oliver Littlefield took more of a picks and shovels approach to making money on the California gold rush. Timothy Frost of this town had materials prepared for one small prototype prefabricated house. Capt. Wm Lord Jr. and Oliver...