USA > Maine > Hancock County > Traditions and records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert island, Maine > Part 17
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Isaac F. Stanley built the house in which he lives, in 1901, and
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the next residence is that of Charles Rich, built about 1916. The next house was built by John Hopkins in 1906 and is owned by his heirs. Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Marion had their house built in 1930.
Next to the Ward house, now owned by William King, is one built in 1890 by Dr. George Anderson as a residence and dental office. It is now the property of Mr. and Mrs. Howard Reed. William Stanley built the next house about 1863. It is now owned by George Ward. The barn belonging to this place was once the first school house in what is now Manset.
The adjoining large, two-story house was built in 1882 by Mr. and Mrs. Clark Hopkins on the site of a small old one that had been built by Augustus Rafenal, grandfather of Mrs. Hopkins. Mr. Rafenal owned a large tract of land here and kept a store. He and his wife came from France, bringing with them some valuable articles, such as silver, glass, china, etc., which are owned by their descendants. The Rafenals bought the land from Twisden Bowden. It remained in their family for several gene- rations and is now owned by Leslie Morrill, who has made ex- tensive changes and improvements on it. The ell was taken off in 1936 and sold to George Ward, who moved it to his lot be- tween his house and the one owned by Howard Reed, and with some alterations it is now a comfortable little house and is occu- pied by tenants.
The bungalow back in the field on the western side of the road was built by Andrew Bennett who has been for some years keeper of a lighthouse. The bungalow has recently been pur- chased by Irving Willey as a home.
The low, old-fashioned house which comes next was built in 1845 by Andrew Haynes for Capt. and Mrs. Nicholas Tucker. The contract price was $150 which included handmade doors and window frames. When the Tuckers moved to Bluehill in 1863, they sold the place to Capt. William B. Stanley whose home it was for his lifetime and that of his wife. His heirs sold it to Frank Smith in 1932.
Andrew Tucker, first of the name in Southwest Harbor, built a house in the field on the eastern side of the road below the Marion house. His son Nicholas built a house on the site
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of the one where Mrs. Pederson now lives. This was burned. It was the son of the first Nicholas Tucker who built the house later owned by Capt. Stanley.
The house to the south was built in 1935 by Ray Smith, son of Frank Smith.
Mrs. Lucinda Stanley Johnson built her house in 1901 and the next house was built by Lionel Clark in 1884 and now occu- pied by his heirs. Fred Lawton, whose wife is a daughter of Mr. Clark, built the house south of it.
In 1876 the Mutual Improvement and Benefit Society built a large two-story hall just north of the church, and named it Cen- tennial Hall. The records of the society give the date on which members met to decide upon the dimensions and settled upon 30 by 60 feet. Andrew H. Haynes, Henry Newman and Peter Moore were chosen as a building committee and they attended to their duties and erected the hall that year at a cost of $1106.95, including painting. Later a chimney was built at a cost of $3.50 for labor, the society furnishing the materials. The stage was built some time after and it was not plastered for several years. Chandeliers were purchased in 1881 at a cost of $32.00 and William Danby was paid $3.00 "for digging a well and doing work around the hall." In 1883 the taxes on the hall were $5.05.
For several years the society worked hard to make their in- vestment pay ; they had fairs, dances, masked balls and suppers. In the eighties H. Price Webber brought his company of actors to town every winter and for two weeks there was a play every night and the hall was packed with people from all over Mount Desert Island to witness East Lynn, Ten Nights in a Bar Room, The Octoroon, Fanchon the Cricket, etc. But after a while the interest waned and when the building began to fall into disre- pair, it was sold to J. L. Stanley and Sons, who a few years later, sold it to William H. Ward who moved it down to the shore road, put it on a foundation, added to it and had a general store on the first floor with a hall above where moving pictures were shown. The Wards sold to Leslie S. King who carried on the same business for some time. It was in this store that the fire started on December 2, 1918, which destroyed the buildings
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on the waterfront, swept away the fish wharves, the cold storage plant, a restaurant and several small buildings. J. L. Stanley and Sons were heavy losers in this fire.
The wharves and buildings belonging to the J. L. Stanley and Sons firm covered a large area of the waterfront and gave employment to many men. They conducted a wholesale and retail fish business, had a large cold storage plant and ice house and sold ice and water to the fishing vessels. Their wharf was also used as a steamboat landing by the Eastern Steamship Co. This large business was gradually built up by Capt. Stanley, who retired from the sea, had a pond excavated near his home in a low-lying piece of land, for an ice pond, built an ice house and dug a well at the shore and began to cater to the needs of the fishing craft that came to his small wharf, selling them ice and water and articles from his store. As his sons grew up and were able to help, Capt. Stanley enlarged his business from time to time until it was one of the largest along the coast. He had taken steps to sell out because of his advancing years when the whole plant was swept away by fire. His courage and enter- prise in beginning all over again were remarkable, but he lived to see the wharf and buildings replaced though on a smaller scale and the business prospering once more.
Returning to about opposite the road leading to Bass Harbor and taking the summer cottages built along the Manset shore; the first one is owned by Mr. and Mrs. Howell A. Potter of Ban- gor and occupied by them as a summer home. In 1932 a cottage of unique design was built on the shore for Mr. and Mrs. Gor- ham Wood of Bangor and Boston. Prof. E. S. Sheldon of Cambridge, Mass., built and occupied the next cottage for some summers and after his death it was sold to Mr. and Mrs. Philip Sterling of Philadelphia. Dr. and Mrs. John Johnston of Short Hills, New Jersey, built The Shielin, which they occupy every summer.
The traces of old cellars where once the first homes of Peter Stanley and Timothy Smallidge stood may be seen along this shore.
The house now owned by Mr. and Mrs. Edward W. Evans of Germantown, Pa., was built in the 1890's for John L. Stoddard,
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the travel lecturer. His family spent several seasons in the house. It was later owned by Mr. and Mrs. Walter Piper of Sudbury, Mass., who sold it to Mr. Evans.
The Rufus King house that stood across the Alder road from the Evans place was taken down in 1935. It was the home of the King family for more than ninety years. Capt. King kept the lighthouse on Mount Desert Rock for several years. The house was remodeled many years ago and a second story added. It was purchased by L. A. Dantziger and taken down. This land was once owned by the Ward family.
Mr. Dantziger owns the next cottage to the south and comes from his home at Highland Park, Michigan, each summer to occupy it.
Next to his cottage formerly stood a house which was owned for many years by Mrs. David Turpie and used by her as a sum- mer home. It was left by will to her niece, Mrs. Peter T. Ben- son, who sold it to Capt. Henry E. Stanley of Bangor, who had the cottage taken down and in 1936-7 had the present large house built just back of the site of the first one. The builder was Fred S. Mayo.
The next house is the beautiful summer home of President Ernest Martin Hopkins of Dartmouth College and was com- pletely remodeled in 1932. It began life as a public hall in which dances were held. The building was sawed in two parts, one part being taken to another site and is now the building in which is Herman Smith's store. The other half was made into a dwelling for George Teague, and his family made it their home until the death of Mrs. Teague. In 1922 it was sold to President Hopkins. The house has been entirely remodelled and additions built until it is one of the finest summer homes in town.
At the foot of the hill, directly opposite the road leading up to the Ocean House, is a site where much business has been con- ducted in the past. A lobster factory was here for many years and later a store with living rooms on the second floor. It was owned for some time by Samuel Osgood and then by Horace Durgain, who was a stirring and successful business man and
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had many lines of activity. His store was well stocked with a wide variety of goods and customers came from afar to trade there. He also built several ships; one, a brig named The Romp. About 1869 Mr. Durgain moved to Bangor and sold the Southwest Harbor property to Hugh J. Anderson, Jr., son of the ex-Governor of Maine by the same name. Mr. Anderson conducted the store and his family lived in the apartment above. He was in business there for fifteen years until his death in July, 1884. Byron Mayo and Rufus Wells bought the business and buildings of the Anderson heirs and had a canning factory and fish business there. Byron Carter kept the store. Finally J. L. Stanley and Sons bought the property and then sold it to Asher Allen, owner of the Ocean House, and after some years Mr. and Mrs. Allen sold all their holdings to George Bond of Philadel- phia, who owns and manages the hotel.
The old store building has been taken down and a new one built which is rented from time to time. The stone piers of the original wharf built by Mr. Durgain and possibly by the pre- vious owner, Samuel Osgood, are still in place, though the wharf was destroyed by ice some years ago.
On the west side of the road below the road leading up the hill by the Ocean House is a small house belonging to Mrs. William Ward. Mrs. Ward also owns the large house in the field, which was built by Merrill King about 1878 as a home and later purchased by Mr. Ward.
William Ward, Sr., had a store, a wharf and a bowling alley adjoining the Stanley wharf where he was in business for many years. Most of this wharf has been carried away by the ice and only a few decaying piers show where once a thriving business was carried on. There was a large house in the field above the Stanley property which was built by the first Benjamin Ward and was the home of his family until they moved to the small house south of the schoolhouse and rented their place to William Ray. The cellar may yet be seen.
Then comes the J. L. Stanley and Sons property which has been described and which is now conducted under the name of the Stanley Fish and Lobster Corporation with C. W. Marion at the head.
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A large building was constructed a few years ago on the west side of the road for a newly organized fish company, but it operated only a short time and the building has been but little used.
Next to the Stanley property is a wharf built and owned by John Hopkins, now a part of the Stanley plant. Next to that was once a wharf some three hundred feet long, built for a syn- dicate of men in the town who formed themselves into the Man- set Coal Co. When the first load of coal was landed on the wharf it collapsed and was never rebuilt.
The bungalow owned by John A. Noyes was built about 1907 by the Stanley firm as a home for the engineer of their cold storage plant. It was given as a wedding gift to Mr. Noyes, who is a grandson of Capt. John L. Stanley.
The house occupied by John Reynolds was built by Amos Dolliver who lived in it for some time and then sold to the present owner. It has been remodeled somewhat.
The building now owned and occupied by Everett Parker was built about 1886 by Capt. Thomas Stanley, who rented it to Lewis Newman to be used as a meat market. It was built across the road from its present site, close to the beach and a heavy storm washed away part of the foundation so it was no longer safe. It was sold to John Hancock who moved it and carried on a market and grocery store in the lower part for some years, using the upper floors as a residence. After Mr. Han- cock's death the building was sold to Mr. Parker.
The ice house and cold storage plant on the shore side of the road, also the fish flakes and small buildings nearby, are the property of the Stanley Fish and Lobster Company. There have been other wharves along this shore.
L. D. Newman built his bungalow in 1915.
Clarence Austin owns the buildings built in 1878 by William Newman as his home and sold by his heirs.
The store now owned by Herman Smith was a part of a building used as a public hall for some years on the site of the summer home of President Hopkins as has been stated. S. W. Newman was in business here for many years, selling to Mr. Smith when he retired in 1914 from business life.
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The adjoining building was owned for years by Melville Moore who lived on the second floor and had his store below. Malcolm Ward's family now live in the apartment and the lower floor is occupied as a barber shop by Paul Dam who bought the business in 1936 from Fred Lawton, Jr. This building was built by Llewellyn Cleveland.
To the south is the post-office in a building owned by Mrs. Samuel King who is postmistress. William Ray had a black- smith shop on this site for many years.
The small boat house on the shore belongs to Dean Stanley. There was a large wharf on this shore on which William New- man and Asher Allen conducted a fish business for some time. The building on the wharf was sold to A. F. Ramsdell who moved it to his land on which once stood a blacksmith shop be- longing to Alvah Foss. Mr. Ramsdell made this into a garage and recently built a new garage on the site which he conducts and also has a small store adjoining.
The property now owned by the Hinckley family was for several years owned by James Parker who carried on an exten- sive fish business on the wharf. After his death his sons con- ducted it for a while and then it became the property of the Union Trust Company of Ellsworth who sold to the J. L. Stanley & Sons Co. and they to Erasmus Hansen, a Swedish sail- maker. After his death by drowning, the wharf and buildings were sold to Mr. Hinckley.
The ell of the large Colonial house now owned by B. B. Hinckley, was built by Andrew Tucker and his wife, Jemima Smallidge, who lived in it for some time and sold it to William Stanley. When William Stanley's wife died in 1851 he sold the house to Andrew H. Haynes who built the main part in 1853-4. The ell is one of the oldest buildings in the town. In the winter of 1936-7 R. M. Norwood built for the Hinckley family a small cottage near the large house suitable for winter use.
South of the Hinckley house is a lot owned for many years by Albert Bartlett who had a sail loft there. This loft was used frequently as a public hall and fairs, dances, plays, etc., were held there before the building of Centennial Hall. Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett were interesting people.
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Mrs. Bartlett was born in England and her English customs brought the Old World nearer to this little seacoast village. She was very hospitable and always served afternoon tea to her callers, which was then a novel observance. She was a favorite with young people, who came often to hear her stories of life in an English village and to have their fortunes read from the grounds in the teacups after partaking of the tea and plumcake, which she had always on hand.
At first the Bartletts lived in rooms over the sail loft and later they built and lived in the house now owned and occupied by Derby Stanley. Mr. Bartlett followed the sea as sailmaker for many years and it was when on a trip to England that he met the girl who became his wife.
The house on the south corner of the Shore Road and the one leading up toward the church, has been built on the site of one built by Aaron Wescott and bought by Capt. Benjamin Spurling Moore between 1826 and 1828. Capt. Moore and his family made it their home and after he was lost at sea in 1847 his family continued to live there and it finally became the prop- erty of his granddaughter, who married Frank Smith and he built the present house.
The next house to the south was built by Robert Spurling in 1875, sold by his heirs to Clifford Stanley and is now owned by heirs of Leslie S. King.
The cottage called Silver Spray, on the shore near Derby Stanley's house and owned by him, was a building belonging to the Hinckley property. It was moved to its present site by Mr. Stanley and remodeled and is now rented to summer tenants.
The Dudley Dolliver house is a very old one. It was built by Twisden Bowden more than a century ago. Mr. Dolliver added the second story and made many additions and improve- ments. It is now owned by Miss Edith Lanman of Bryn Mawr who uses it as her summer home.
Another house once stood near the Derby Stanley property, owned by the Stanley family, but long since demolished.
The Spahr house, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Boyd Lee Spahr of Haverford, Pa., and built for them by R. M. Norwood in 1932, is on a site where formerly two summer hotels have stood, both
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being destroyed by fire. The first one was built by Sans Stanley about 1875 and was very popular as a summer hotel and patron- ized by many Harvard professors. It was burned July 10, 1884. Mr. Stanley built another and larger hotel on the same site and this was burned March 18, 1927. A few years later the land was sold to Mr. Spahr, who also owns one of the small cottages nearby which is used as a guest house.
Fir Darring is owned by Mrs. E. Benson Stanley, who formerly owned and managed the Stanley House; her husband being the son of the builder of both the hotels of this name.
The next house belongs to Miss Margarita Safford, who occu- pies it summers. Mrs. Villa Stanley Pumphrey owns the house to the south. Along the shore are the summer homes of Mrs. Edwin L. Watson of California, Mrs. Jonathan Evans of Phila- delphia and Mr. and Mrs. Raynor G. Wellington of Belmont, Mass. Mr. Wellington is also the present owner of the old King house which has an interesting history.
The ell was built by the first Benjamin Ward, ancestor of all of that name in the town. Mr. Ward, in his old age, gave the house to his son-in-law, Capt. Nichols, he agreeing to care for him during his life. Capt. Nichols built the main part of the house, but, finding the care of his father-in-law and family irksome, he surrendered what right he had in the property, took his wife and children on board his vessel and sailed away to make his future home in Boston. The house was sold to David King and before 1836 the first post-office in Southwest Harbor was established in it.
In 1836 the deputy collector, Henry Jones of Ellsworth, was living in part of this house. David King's son Joseph inherited the property and then it passed to his son, Leslie S. King, who sold it to Mr. Wellington.
The road leading from the Main Road down to this house has always been called King's Lane and there is a family bury- ing ground on the south side of it, now overgrown with under- brush where some of the first settlers and members of the King family are buried.
The Capt. Nichols mentioned above came to Southwest Har- bor with Benjamin Ward, Jr., after the war of 1812. Both
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young men were captured by the British and confined in Dart- moor prison in England where they suffered great hardship. When liberated Capt. Nichols accompanied his friend to his home in Southwest Harbor and married one of the daughters of the Ward family.
Farther south along the shore is the summer home of Miss Lily Greer, called Riven Rocks, and also a place begun in 1927 for other members of the Greer family, but never completed. Robert G. Crocker owns a tract of land at Seawall where he built a camp and the summer home of Miss Doris Fielding Reid of Baltimore is on Flynn's Point.
William Flexner of Ithaca, N. Y., owns a small cottage at Seawall.
Returning to the Shore Road at Manset and going up the road leading to the main highway near the church ; on the right is Mrs. Samuel King's house. The building where the post-office is kept was Mr. King's undertaking shop and when his widow was appointed postmistress she had the office installed in that building.
Mrs. King's residence, on the same lot as the post-office, was built about 1891 by Edward Spurling. It was purchased by Andrew Haynes and in 1895 it was given to his son's wife and is now owned by his granddaughter, Mrs. Susie Haynes King, who lives there. A small cottage to the west of Mrs. King's house is owned by Mrs. F. S. Dolliver and rented to tenants.
Arthur Ginn occupies a house that was built by Freeman Torrey in 1875. It became the property of his son Frank, whose widow sold to Lyman Stanley and he to Mr. Ginn. Then comes Fred Torrey's house and the next one was built by Fred Torrey, sold to Albert Staples and then to James West.
The large set of buildings on this road was built by William Moore, who went to the far West to live with his sons and the place is now owned by E. J. Turner. The barn on the place was burned in 1934. Back of these buildings is a small house built in the early eighties by Alvah Dolliver for his stepmother, whose home on the same site had been destroyed by fire. This had been built by one of the Tucker family. The house is now owned by Mrs. Pederson, a native of Norway, who lives there alone since the death of her husband.
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The small buildings in the corner of this road and the Main Road are owned by the Turner family and occupied by tenants and there are also some small store buildings.
On the south side of this road Everett Torrey owns the house next to the Smith place. This was built by Frank Smith as a residence for one of his sons and it was later sold to Mr. Torrey who moved it to its present location.
Thomas Knox occupies the house to the rear of the Torrey house and Maurice Beal owns the adjoining one. Clifton Foss lives in the next one and then comes the Benjamin Moore house now owned by E. G. Stanley.
The Tucker family owned much of the land where Manset village center now is and several old cellars show where they had houses.
The public library on the church grounds was presented to the trustees by Mrs. E. Benson Stanley, and J. L. Stanley and Sons had it moved to its present site. A few years ago the building was cut in halves and a section built in the center. Be- fore this was done it had the distinction of being the smallest public library in the country, if not in the world.
A small building once stood near the church, built to house the hearse. This building was moved and made into a house and is the property of Mrs. Allie Trask Manchester.
In the summer of 1937 a society of young women of the village of Manset built a parish house back of the library on the church grounds. It was burned on November tenth of that year just as preparations were being made for an Armistice Day entertainment to be held there. The society was undaunted and immediately started work on another parish house farther to the north. The church was badly damaged on the north side by the fire.
Across the road are several small buildings owned by differ- ent persons, used sometimes as stores and sometimes rented as homes. The building owned by Mrs. Jessie Farrar was built about 1920 by Alvah Foss near his dwelling and was moved soon after to its present site where Mrs. Farrar lives in part of it and carries on a store in the front part.
The church was begun on the old Bass Harbor road which
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was south of the present church lot, as is stated in the records of the Congregational church. This was soon after 1800. When the location of the road was changed to the present one, the church, which was not completed, was taken down and the mate- rial used to build the present one. The funds were mostly raised by vote of the town and there was no question of denominations at the time of building ; the settlers wanted a church and every- body united in building one. The vote was recorded in the town books as to the location, which was to be "Near the lot of Mr. Emerson" but no account of anyone of that name can be found elsewhere in the records. The church was several years in building and was used in summer time long before it was com- pleted. It is known that the pews were in place and the building considered completed in 1828.
There seems to have been no provision for heating as there was never a fireplace and the first stoves were not brought to Mount Desert until the early 1850's. So, for at least more than twenty years, winter services must have been something of an ordeal. A fireless church was by no means uncommon in New England in the early days and many a minister has worn great- coat and mittens in the pulpit, while his hearers shivered in the pews in like array, with some of the women keeping their feet warm with the little foot stoves, owned for the purpose. Small wonder that the men sought the warmth and comfort of the nearby grog shop at intermission.
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