Historical buildings and structures of Yarmouth, Maine

Lafayette Street is what State Route 88 becomes upon its entry to Yarmouth from Cumberland Foreside. It was originally known as Atlantic Highway.

28 Lafayette Street, which stands beside the stone marker honoring Walter Gendall, was built in 1750 according to one source or, according to another, in the 1920s.[4]

Across the street at number 33, Reed's Machine Shop was built in 1927. It has been owned and run as the current business since 1973 by Stephen Welch.[9]

Marina Road is the right-hand turn at the Staples Hill split with Main at East Main. It was one of the two access roads to the harbor from Main Street.

Original owner Peter Allen tore down the Hannah Russell House at 3 Marina Road and built the current structure in 1881.[4] Until 2018 it was home to the business Women to Women.

Herman Seabury, a shipyard foreman, was the original owner of 9 Marina Road in 1890. It remained in his family for sixty years.[4]

Number 22 is believed to date from around 1800.[4]

The last building on Marina Road before the Lafayette Street intersection is number 59. Built in 1900 by Harry Dean as a tea room, it later became a shoe-repair shop, an antique store and an office.[4] It is now a nutritionist business.

The northern (village) end of the street is the historic part. The southern section, across Route 1, eventually leads to Portland.

The former District Number 3 schoolhouse still stands at number 12 Portland Street. It was the superintendent's office for several years. Its original architect was Francis H. Fassett.[4]

Ammi Storer, the original owner of a business in the brick building at the corner of Main and Portland, lived at number 17. He built the house around 1867.[4] Shoemaker Tristram Cleaves lived next to the schoolhouse at number 18, which was built in 1840.[4]

In an 1875 photograph of the northern end of Portland Street, with the Universalist church in the background, Englishman Captain Henry Newton's house (number 34, built in 1856) is visible on the right.[10] Dr. William Parsons[11] and painter Gad Hitchcock Jr. (not to be confused with his father, Gad Hitchcock Sr., the town's doctor) previously lived there. Leon Gorman, the grandson of Leon Leonwood Bean, also lived here until his death at the age of 80. He was, at the time of his passing, the wealthiest person living in the state of Maine, having had a reported net worth of $860 million.[12][13]

The original owner of number 23, which was constructed in 1850, was a blacksmith.[4]

Number 29, including its barn, is eligible for listing as an example of well-preserved Greek Revival design.[6]

Reuben Cutter, a shoemaker and postmaster, was the original owner of number 37 around 1839.[4]

Another blacksmith, Dexter Hale, was the original owner of number 47 in 1838.[4]

At number 61 (near the intersection with High Street), is the 1833 Federal-style cape that was owned by Davis Moxcey, a local shipwright in the early years of shipbuilding.[4]

Halfway along this northern section of Portland Street, at number 115, is a three-story Federal-style building that was once a tavern, built around 1810 by Colonel Seth Mitchell. It was later occupied by Deacon John Webster, in 1820, and Captain Eben Lane and his son-in-law Irving True. Lane ran it as a tavern from around 1857 until after 1871.[4] After 1915, Ralph Redfern used the property for a dairy that became known as Old Tavern Farm.[10]

Number 159, the last house on the right before the gas station, is a cape with high-style Greek Revival details, including oval windows framed with garlands set in the cornice. It is eligible for listing "due to its architectural merit."[6]

Off the northern end of Portland Street, Storer Street runs behind the First Parish Church. It is named for Ammi Storer, who was the first to run a business in the brick building at the corner, next to the church.

Number 23 was originally the home of papermaker William Hawes in 1850. The house was moved from Main Street around 1867, when the church was built.[4]

High Street, a cul-de-sac, is off the northern section of Portland Street. Rocky Hill Road runs from the end of High down to Marina Road.

Shipbuilder Elbridge Hutchins lived at 5 High Street, which was built in 1900.[4]

73 High Street, built in 1868, was the home of John R. Gooding.[4]

85 High Street was built by Solomon Sawyer in 1877 and remained in his family until 1984.[4]

This house, at number 132 Bridge Street, was built in 1870 and has its "integrity intact", according to a surveyor[4]

Bridge Street crosses the Second Falls at the Sparhawk Mill. It connects to Main Street to the south and Willow Street to the north.

17 Bridge Street was built in 1852 and used as the parsonage for the First Parish Church between 1862 and 1997.[4] Meanwhile, 21 Bridge Street was built in 1851 as a duplex for mill owners Mitchell and Loring.[4]

The original wooden 1811 NYA school building was removed to the adjacent Bridge Street "just below the residence of the late Charles O. Rowe," the father of William Hutchinson Rowe,[1] roughly where number 28 Bridge Street, built in 1860, is today.[14]

80 and, on the hill, 100 Bridge Street, the former home of George G. Loring

43 Bridge Street was built in 1844 and became part of Royal River Manufacturing Company in 1871.[4]

Sparhawk Mill is at number 81. This brick mill was built in the 1840s, replacing a wooden mill dating to 1817, but its top half was rebuilt in 1855 after a fire.[2]

Crossing the river, directly across from the Sparhawk Mill tower is 80 Bridge Street, which was built as the office for the above business in the early 1880s. Its architect was Francis H. Fassett.[4]

The Royal River rushing by the Sparhawk Mill on Bridge Street, en route to the First Falls

The 1840-constructed former home of George G. Loring, built by mill-owner Phillip H. Kimball,[6] stands on the hill overlooking the falls at 100 Bridge Street.[4]

Boarding houses, which still exist today at 107 and 109 Bridge Street, were built in 1890 on the crest of the northern Bridge Street hill, providing accommodation for weavers, seamstresses and bobbin boys of the mills.[2]

In 1848, Philip Kimball built the house at 125 Bridge, which is today's Charron residence.[4]

Number 132 was built in 1840.[15]

The run-down building at 148 Bridge (at its intersection with Willow Street) has been vacant since the early 2000s. It was built in 1826.[4]

School Street, which runs beside and behind the library, takes the motorist on and off Route 1 South.

In 1889, Dr. Herbert A. Merrill had a dental practice in the rear of his house, built four years earlier, in Brickyard Hollow on Main Street. It has since been moved to 26 School Street.[16] It is the building now occupied by InSight Eyecare on the InterMed campus.

York Street takes the motorist on and off Route 1 North.

Number 17 dates to around 1852, while number 22 was built around 1850.[4]

In contrast to today, people who lived near "the Corner" of Elm and Main Streets in the 19th century would not think of shopping at the Lower Falls end of the latter thoroughfare. For over 150 years, much of the retail activity in the Upper Village occurred in the area of the old brick stores at 355–359 Main Street. Some of the oldest buildings on Main Street are those on its southern side, clustered between the Catholic and Baptist churches.[17] The Daniel Wallis house at 330 Main Street, for example, was built around 1810.[17] Around the middle of the 19th century, Captain Cushing Prince Jr. (1786–1869)[18] moved here from his historic house on Greely Road which he inherited from his father, Cushing Prince.[17]

Baker Street, near the Baptist Meeting House, connects Church and Cumberland Streets.

Number 22, a cape with a central chimney, is believed to have been moved from near 233 West Main Street. It was on its current site by 1859.[4]

Number 40 dates to 1850. It is the former home of John L. Lovell.[4]

Number 45 was moved from the corner of Main and East Elm around 1890. It was built at its original home in 1825.[4]

This circa-1785 home stands at 33 Center Street. It was originally the home of Dr. Ammi Mitchell

Captain Samuel Baker's house, at 32 Center Street

Center Street is off the southern side of Main Street and connects to Cumberland Street. It was formerly known as Woodbury's Lane.

Another barber shop, Larry's, stood on Center Street.

20 Center Street is the home of Winslow Station, which served as the town's only fire station from 1953 until the mid-1990s. It was used by the fire department until 2004.[4] The building, which was constructed in 1930, is dedicated to Carl Henry Winslow, who was the fire chief for seventeen of the forty-four years he was in its ranks.[19]

32 Center Street, a brick side-hall Greek Revival, was the home of Captain Samuel Baker circa 1850.[4]

The circa-1785 home of Dr. Ammi Mitchell stands at 33 Center Street.[4]

The Old John Corliss House, at 35 Church Street, dates from 1800

Formerly known as Baptist Street, Church Street runs between West Elm Street and Hillside Street, ending at the Baptist Meeting House.

John and Julie Dunn ran a store at 3 Church Street.[4]

Reuben Byram built the building at 6 Church Street in 1804.[4]

It is believed that Otis Briggs Pratt built the house at 14 Church Street, on land owned by Silas Merrill, between 1807 and 1812. Silas Merill also lived here. It later served as the homestead for the potter Nathaniel Foster and remained in the family until 1910.[4]

An 1804 Federal-style house stands at 21 Church.[4]

The Old John Corliss House, at number 35, dates from 1800.

Reverend Thomas Green (1761–1814),[20] the first pastor at the nearby Baptist church, lived at 40 Church,[4] built in 1798.[21]

Cumberland Street runs between South Street and Hillside Street, crossing West Elm Street en route.

Captain Joseph Bucknam lived at 3 Cumberland Street, a home built by Jeremiah Loring in 1848.[4]

A Catholic church was built on Cumberland Street in 1879. The location was chosen out of fear that it would be vandalized if it was built on Main Street, for Yarmouth was a predominantly Protestant town at the time. The structure still stands as a private home, having moved to 73-75 Cumberland Street, but it is turned sideways to the street.[22]

East Elm Street, from its junction with Main Street. The horse trough in view here now stands at the intersection of Main and Center Streets

Today's 40 East Elm Street was the home of potter Joel Brooks from 1850, but it was built in 1810. Brooks' pottery buildings stood behind the house[23]

East Elm Street (formerly known as Gooches' Lane) — that is, the eastern half of Elm Street — leads to North Road. It crosses the Royal River at the park just beyond the Fourth Falls and passes Royal Junction at Depot Road.

James Smith lived in the 1801-built number 15.

Andrew Haven and James J. Humphrey lived at number 27, built in 1835. It is a "well-preserved historic duplex with matching attached barn. Retains extensive original historic fabric and all aspects of integrity. Attached, gable-front barn with original windows, clapboards retains all aspects of integrity."[4]

Joel Brooks' pottery, which was located at today's 40 East Elm Street, was in business between 1851 and 1888.

43, 60 and 75 were found to be well-preserved examples of Queen Anne-style residences.[6]

Number 53, "an early-19th century vernacular house, retains windows, door surround, clapboard siding, and overall form."[4]

Across the street, Abner True lived in the cape at number 54 around 1797.

92 East Elm Street was formerly a mill workers’ boarding house, then a maternity hospital.[4]

Formerly known as Brimstone Hill or Byram's Hill, the Baptist Meeting House stands at the crest of Hillside Street. One of the longest roads in Yarmouth, it connects West Main Street to Greely Road in Cumberland.

48 Hillside was built in 1858, according to one source, while another places it in the 1810s.[4]

Not to be confused with an early name for East Elm Street, today's incarnation used to be the main access road to the mill at the Third Falls.

Henry Caswell, a blacksmith, lived at the brick number 31 Mill Street, across the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad (then the Grand Trunk Railway). His business was directly across the street on what is now greenspace. The house was later owned by the Forest Paper Company for fifty years.[4]

1 South Street, built in 1840, from Main Street, with Sacred Heart Catholic Church behind it

South Street is off the southern side of Main Street and connects to West Elm Street, either directly or via Cumberland Street. It was laid out in 1848 as part of Yarmouth's first modern housing development.[24] Farm land was given over to house lots and sold to merchants and sea captains, such as Ansel Loring and Perez Blanchard.[18][24]

1 South Street, the former home of Dr. Nat Barker, was built in 1840. He lived there was his wife, Catherine, in the 1930s and 1940s.[25][26]

10 South Street was formerly Alec Mansfield's garage.[4]

Dr. Lewis Whitney built the Greek Revival number 25 in 1849. It was purchased the following year by sea captain Joseph R. Curtis, in whose family it remained until 1983.[4]

Numbers 33 and 37 were originally built jointly; the lot was split in 1858.[4] George W. Springer lived at number 33 after this split.

Ship captain Perez Blanchard lived at number 49.[4]

Frederick Gore (1860–1930), the manager of Forest Paper Company, lived at number 62, at the corner of South and Cumberland Streets, with his wife, Angie.[24][4]

George Coombs, a partner in Coombs Brothers Confectionary Company, lived next door at number 74.[4] In 1909, his brother, Bert, established a Ford dealership on South Street.[27]

West Elm Street was an early route into Portland, prior to the Presumpscot River being bridged at Martin's Point in Falmouth Foreside, hence one of its former names was "Portland road". It was also known as Chapel Street for a period.

Since West Elm Street was a key stagecoach stop, a large barn was built beside Mitchell's tavern (where Latchstring Park now stands) to house horses.[28]

The house of Richmond Cutter still stands at the southern corner of Church and West Elm Streets.[28]

Two doors further south from Cutter's house, a Methodist church was built in 1898 to mark a revival of the religion. The church was disbanded thirty years later[28] and the building became a meeting place for a fraternal group. The building, now painted yellow, has been converted into a residence.[4]

22 West Elm Street dates to around 1870.[4]

Potters David and Robert Cleaves lived at the Greek Revival number 30.[4]

Mason Reuben Byram lived in the three-story number 36.[4]

Number 43 dates to around 1875.[4]

Jeremiah Loring was the original owner of number 52.[4]

Number 53 dates to the mid-19th century[4]

Reuben Byram built number 58 for his daughter Louisa.[4]

The Greek Revival number 62, whose 1874 barn is accessed from Center Street, dates from the 1840s.[4]

65 West Elm is circa 1850.[4]

At the northwestern corner of the Cumberland Street intersection stands number 73. It was built by Leonard Williams around 1863 and remained in his family for the next ninety years or so.[4]

Captain Alfred Small lived in the 1870s-built number 95.[4]

At the northwestern corner of the intersection with Deering Street stands number 111, designed by John Calvin Stevens and Albert Winslow Cobb for Captain Claudius Lawrence.[4]

First Universalist Church

The First Universalist (formerly known as the Central Parish Church) is located at 97 Main Street. It was built in 1860 for an Orthodox Congregational parish, and is one of the state's few surviving churches designed by architect Thomas Holt. It became its current denomination (Unitarian Universalist Association) in 1886. It became listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.[40] The site was formerly occupied by Jenks's Tavern.

First Parish Congregational Church

The First Parish Congregational, at 116 Main Street, was built in 1867. It was designed by Portland architect George M. Harding, and it is the third incarnation of churches built for the town's Congregationalists. Charles Augustus Aiken was ordained a pastor here in 1854.

The First Parish Congregational was originally known as the Meetinghouse under the Ledge and was located facing Casco Bay at the intersection of Route 88 and Gilman Road. It was built from material floated down the Royal River from the First Falls and hauled up by oxen from Larrabee's Landing (named for Benjamin and Thomas Larrabee, two brothers who settled there in the 1720s), further down Gilman Road towards Cousins Island. The path down to the water still exists. The landing was one of the most important in Yarmouth up until the late 1870s, when erosion caused the whole thing to slide into the channel. The Ledge church, which was founded on November 18, 1730, was torn down in 1836, sixteen years after it was abandoned by the Parish.

Yarmouth's early Calvinists fired one minister because he suggested that many people are worthy of salvation. Reverend Tristram Gilman, on the other hand, declared in a sermon that Thomas Jefferson was the Antichrist.[2] Of a settlement that originally contained a school, a tavern and a cemetery, only the cemetery and the ledge doorstep of the church remain. A second, larger cemetery, known as Ledge Cemetery, was established in 1770.

Tristram Gilman died in 1809. Francis Brown, an 1805 graduate of Dartmouth College and later its president, was invited to preach before the Congregational church. Brown accepted the position of pastor, with the proviso that the church, which had been in use for nearly eighty years, be discontinued.[36] The second church (known as Old Sloop) was built in 1818, at the eastern corner of Main and Bridge Streets (at present-day 121 Main Street), but it was abandoned in 1868 and torn down in 1879. (Lorenzo L. Shaw later lived here in a carriage house, but it burned down in a fire in 1967.) Brown married Elizabeth Gilman, the eldest daughter of his predecessor. Their son was Samuel Gilman Brown. Samuel's son, another Francis Brown, was a theologian.

Those who were against the building of the new church incorporated themselves as the Chapel Religious Society in 1820.[36]

The present church was built on the other side of Main Street in 1867 and dedicated the following year. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.[41] A plaque commemorating the 275th anniversary of the church was laid on November 18, 2005. The church's steeple is illuminated every night, sometimes in honor of a member or a relative.

First Baptist Church

The First Baptist Church, at 346 Main Street, was built in 1889. It was designed by John Calvin Stevens.[42]

The other two are:

Cousins Island Chapel

Cousins Island Chapel, at 414 Cousins Street, was built in 1895. It has been holding non-denominational services since 1954 in a former Baptist church.[43] It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[8]

North Yarmouth and Freeport Baptist Meetinghouse

The North Yarmouth and Freeport Baptist Meeting House (known locally as the Old Meeting House or the Meetinghouse on the Hill) at 25 Hillside Street was built in 1796. It has been twice altered: by Samuel Melcher in 1825 and by Anthony Raymond twelve years later. It ceased being used as a church in 1889, when its congregation moved to the structure now on Main Street. The 1805 bell was transferred to the new home. The meeting house was unused for less than a year. It was purchased for $1,000 and converted into the town's first library and antiquarian society and known as Yarmouth Memorial Hall. It was donated to the town in 1910 and used for town meetings until 1946, at which point they were moved to the Log Cabin on Main Street. During World War II, the belfry was used an airplane-spotting outlook post in the Civil Defense System. Twelve townsfolk per day manned the tower in two-hour shifts. In 1946, the Village Improvement Society (founded in 1911) agreed to maintain the interior of the meeting house. In 2001, the town and the society restored the building, from its granite foundation to the barrel-vaulted ceiling. A non-denominational church service is held here during the town's Clam Festival.[44] The building is owned by the Yarmouth Village Improvement Society and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[8]