The First Summer I Came to Maine

by Mike Swanton

This is all I can remember about the first summer that I came to Maine.

It was around 1955. My dad built a platform over the rear seat of his 1949 Dodge sedan. The luggage went on the floor and the three boys slept on the platform. I was sound asleep when I was loaded into the car in the wee hours and driven from New York to Maine. It was an 11 hour car ride up Route 1 in those days. When we arrived it was foggy, cold and damp. I wanted to go home.

I was the youngest child, so I don’t have any idea how many summers my parents had been doing this before my arrival. My mother, Peg Swanton, told me that the first time she and my father, Bill, went up to Maine, they split the rental of the cottage with my dad’s sister Sally and her husband and two kids. The rent for Mrs. Young’s cottage was $25 per week, split two ways. The cottage was the first house on the right on 1st Street.

The front cottage on 1st Street, as it looked in 1986. It was demolished a few years later. (JH photo)

We stayed in the rear cottage and my aunt and uncle stayed in the front. There was a cast iron Glenwood wood-burning stove in the kitchen and an icebox. A real icebox. I believe it was Lester Orcutt who delivered the ice. The exterior walls had exposed framing and the interior walls were a fibrous material called beaver board. The walls were about eight feet high and stopped well short of the ceiling. You could throw your dirty socks over the wall and hope that you would hit your brother in the next room right in the face!

I remember the long path through the brush and poison ivy to the beach. We would spend all day there and when we got home they stood me up naked on the porch and hosed the sand off of me with a garden hose. Biddeford Pool has always had exceptional water pressure!

I don’t know what attracted my father to Biddeford Pool. He was brought up in the Bronx, in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge. Why was an urbanite like him attracted to such a rustic vacation? After he finished high school, and before he marched off to World War II, he had spent some time in logging camps up north in Connecticut. Maybe he was revisiting his youth.

We came up for a few summers and stayed in that cabin. Then we skipped a few years because our town had built a public swimming pool and we couldn’t afford both. We started coming back to Maine when I was about 12. Mrs. Young had died (I think she was 102) and her son Bernie had remodeled the cottage. The horse-hair mattresses were gone and were replaced with real beds. There was sheetrock on the walls. My dad started talking about retiring and moving to Maine. A year or two later we did so, on June 24, 1966.

The Triplets

The Story of South Point , Part Five

By Mary Morgan

A view of the triplets taken in the early 1900s. At that time there was a boardwalk over the rocks at South Point. 

South Point, Biddeford Pool is a breathtakingly beautiful place: a small point of land with a view of waves breaking on the rocks in one direction and a two-mile curve of sandy beach in the other. No wonder it is home to three of the most iconic houses at the Pool.

The houses at 30, 34 and 38 Ocean Avenue are called the three sisters, or the triplets, because they are so similar: all are three stories high and feature gambrel roofs, white trim and diamond-shaped window panes. They were all built in the early 1900s and belonged to three families from Holyoke, Massachusetts. Descendants of the original owners, including the Celce and Oldershaw families, still summer at the Pool.

South Point belonged to farmer Isaac Bickford until 1874, when he sold it to Dominicus Jordan. Jordan sold interest in the property to two business partners, William Hill and Thomas H. Cole. In 1882, this group launched a plan to develop the area called the South Point Cottage Lots Plan. The lots on which the triplets were built were sold by these developers’ heirs and successors more than 25 years later.

The most noticeable of the triplets, located at 38 Ocean Avenue, is now the summer home of the McGuire family. Right at the tip of the peninsula, on lot 61 of the South Point Cottage Lots Plan, it was sold as a vacant lot by Sarah Emma (Berry) Littlefield to Dr. Frank F. Celce in 1906.

Frank F. Celce (whose full name was Franz Friedrich Celce) was born in Germany in 1867. His parents immigrated to America when he was one year old. He married Jean Hose from New York, studied medicine in Europe and set up in general practice in Holyoke. Frank’s and Jean’s second child, Freidrich William Celce, born in the U.S. in 1896, also became a doctor.

This original owner of 38 Ocean Ave., Frank F. Celce, died in Holyoke in 1942. A year later, son Fred W. Celce sold the house and lot. 

34 Ocean Ave.

The second of the triplets, at 34 Ocean Avenue, now the summer residence of the McClure family, sits on Ocean Avenue lots 51 and 53. These lots were also vacant when Clara (Berry) Hyde sold them to Louis A. LaFrance in 1909.

LaFrance was born in Chambly, Quebec in 1866. His family immigrated to the U.S. when he was age three and settled in Holyoke. He grew up to become a successful building contractor and real estate developer.

He and his wife, Eugenie, had four children: three daughters and a son. Paul Louis Napoleon LaFrance eventually joined his father in the building and real estate business. Louis died in 1938, and his widow sold the house at South Point six years later.

Son Paul LaFrance married Virginia Jones from Tuscola, Illinois. After Paul and Virginia divorced, she married her South Point neighbor Dr. Fred W. Celce. Their son, Fred Celce, has a house at Biddeford Pool, overlooking Saco Bay, to this day.

  

Grandma Wakelin’s House

The third triplet has a street address of 30 Ocean Avenue, but it actually sits on 7th Street, lot 1, of the South Point Cottage Lots Plan. It is the summer home of the Reinharts.

There are many fine details, such as diamond-shaped window panes, in all three houses. (JH photo)

It was originally sold to E.H. Friedrich in 1909 as a vacant lot by Dwight Hill and the other heirs of South Point investor William Hill. The buyer, Ernst Hugo Friedrich, was born in Saxony, Germany, in 1857. His family came to the U.S. when he was 11 years old and settled in Holyoke. When he grew up, Ernst built a large plumbing business in Holyoke. He married Catherine Bertha Leining, from Rockville, Connecticut, and they had four children born between 1884 and 1914.

Daughter Bertha Friedrich, born in 1886, married William Wakelin Jr. from Grand Rapids, Michigan in Holyoke in 1912, and they had three children: Fred, Edmund and Virginia. Bertha lived a long life and continued to spend her summers at the Pool. In fact, she became known as Grandma Wakelin, and many people still remember the three-story house at 30 Ocean Ave. as Grandma Wakelin’s house.

Grandma Wakelin’s house was sold in 1988, however, the Wakelin family continued to own a one-story cottage nestled between the triplets for many years. Recently, the Hogans purchased it and built a new, larger house in its place.

                                               

There remains one other connection to these original South Point families: Virginia (Ginny) Wakelin married Louis Oldershaw, and their three children, Peter, Rob and David, continue to summer at Pool in their hillside house on Mile Stretch Road.

The triplets were probably built between 1906 and 1909. One suggestion is that Louis LaFrance built the houses for his three daughters. Two of the three original owners were in the building trades. They were all successful men from Holyoke who knew each other. According to Fred Celce, building materials could be purchased at a discount if purchased in quantity, and perhaps that was the motivation behind a joint construction project.  

At the time these houses were built, most summer residents of Biddeford Pool lived closer to the village or along Main Street (now Lester B. Orcutt Blvd.) The construction of these distinctive houses at South Point was a bold step that may have encouraged other people to investigate the beauty of this part of the Pool.   

References:

“South Point Cottage Lots” Plan Book 3 Page 2, Published in 1882

            York County Registry of Deed, Alfred, ME

Deed Book  554 Page      7 Frank F. Celce purchase of 38 Ocean Avenue (18 Aug. 1906)

Deed Book  579 Page      5 Louis LaFrance purchase of 34 Ocean Avenue (4 May 1909

Deed Book  586 Page    60 E.H. Friedrich purchase of 30 Ocean Avenue (17 May 1909)

Deed Book  579 Page      6 George Cross to E.H. Friedrich lot 47 on Ocean Ave.

Deed Book 4845 Page 259 Bertha Wakelin to John and Susan Posser

Deed Book 1016 Page 118 Eugenie LaFrance to George Berube

Deed Book1007 Page 169 Fredrick William Celce to Thomas Paraday

1909 Map of Biddeford Pool owned by Anne Kenney: Picture: BP 1909 1

Obituary of Louis A. LaFrance, 21 March 1938

Saving the Promenade

Stories from South Point, Part Four

By Mary Morgan

According to the original South Point Cottage Lots Plan, there would have been roads and cottages between the beach and Great Pond. Later, the city wanted to put in a parking lot between 7th Street and the beach. JH photo.

For many years, the city of Biddeford tried to provide access to the Atlantic beaches for its citizens. They looked to Old Orchard Beach for an example of what was possible. The summer residents of Biddeford Pool resisted these efforts, fearing excessive development and a challenge to the Pool’s exclusiveness.

In 1930, the City of Biddeford wanted to build a parking lot on a common area on the water side of Ocean Avenue between 2nd and 4th streets. The owners of this property were the original developers’ beneficiaries and descendants. In order to prevent the city from moving forward, they leased the land to the nearby cottage owners, who successfully took the city to court. The details of this of this first attempt to increase parking access to the shore are described in the article in this series called Blue Point.

In 1966, the city decided to build a parking lot on the Promenade, a street described on paper in the South Point Cottage Lots Plan as being between the beach and 7th Street. The city’s attempt was blocked by the diligent efforts of Rev. Stanley Hyde. As the descendant of Clara (Berry) Hyde, he retained ownership of most of the undeveloped building lots in South Point, and of the paper streets like the Promenade.

Stan and Arelene Hyde, 1978. Hyde family collection 

Rev. Hyde (1904-1981) was educated at Thornton Academy in Saco and the University of Maine in Orono and received a bachelor of divinity degree in 1930. Two years later, he earned a master of arts in religious education from Columbia University. Throughout his career he was a pastor and educator in Vermont, Massachusetts and Illinois, and he wrote numerous articles for religious educational magazines.

His efforts to protect land at South Point began in late summer, 1966, after the city sent bulldozers to the Promenade to begin work on a public parking lot. According to a Hyde family story, “One morning, nearby residents heard the bulldozers moving toward the Promenade to begin work. These ladies ran out of their houses in their house dresses, threw themselves down in front of the bulldozers and refused to move.” The Biddeford-Saco Journal described that day in August 1966 in a front page article. Common sense prevailed, no one was injured, and the city continued working. It took a law suit and the Rev. Hyde’s actions to stop the parking lot.

Hyde used a two-pronged approach to block the city. First, he sold to the owners along 7th Street the sections of the Promenade abutting their properties. Second, he traced the living descendants of Captain William Hill, who still retained one-half ownership in South Point land, and purchased from them all the paths, paper streets, beaches, rocky areas, unbuildable slopes and land not designated as building lots.

Thanks to the Hyde and Billett families, there is a network of pedestrian paths around South Point. This one leads from the beach, through the pine grove to 7th Street. JH photo. 

After acquiring ownership of all this un-taxable land, he began the process of deeding it, and much of the land between Great Pond and the ocean, to the Biddeford Pool Improvement Association. When he died in 1981, this process was unfinished. His widow, Arelene Hyde, completed the process the following year.

Finally, in 1996, the Hydes’ daughter, Pat Billett, and her husband, Herb, conveyed the two and a half acre tract known as the South Point Sanctuary, which includes the pine grove and a new boardwalk to the beach, to the BPIA in order to preserve the land in perpetuity. The BPIA subsequently conveyed this land to the Biddeford Pool Land Trust.

The third attempt by the city to increase public access to the Pool beach was in 1973, when the city acquired the Biddeford Pool Beach Association’s beach club property by eminent domain. The details of that event, and the court case that followed, will appear on Stories from the Pool in the coming months.

References

“South Point Cottage Lots Plan”, 1882

Deed Book 1776 P223, 16 July 1967, heirs of William Hill sell to Stanley Hyde all parts of South Point that are not building lots; that is, all paper roads, rocky areas, beaches, avenues.

Biddeford-Saco Journal, 31 August, 1966, Page 1, Column 5 - 8,

            McArthur library microfiche roll 191.

            Follow-up articles on September 20 and 23, 1966 on microfiche roll 192.

Stanley Hyde’s consolidation of parts of South Point that are not housing lots is illustrated by the following deeds:

Book 1738 Page 169 15 Aug 1966 with Inez Staples (daughter of Rowland Hill)

Book 1743 Page 102  21 Oct 1966 with Alice (Berry) Sawyer of St Petersburg, Florida

            (daughter of Clara (Berry) Hyde)

Book 1776 Page 223 16 July 1967 with William P. Libby (great grandson of E. Dwight Hill

Book 1782 Page 305   6 Sep 1967 with Ann Mabbett Clark (daughter of E. Dwight Hill), et al

Book 1785 Page 224 27 Sep 1967 with Elizabeth (Foss) Clary (daughter of Mary M. Hill)

Deed Book 2966 Page 245, 08 Sep 1982, Arelene Hyde sells to BPIA 3.03 acres.

Book 3014 Page 85 30 Nov 1982 Arelene Ware Hyde’s deed to the BPIA.

The deed states that in the event that the BPIA dissolves, is sold, merges or no longer wants the property, every effort is to be made to inform the people of Biddeford Pool and find another organization to assume ownership.

Probate Record #81-635 resolution of Stanley Berry Hyde’s estate

“The Rev. Stanley Hyde”, (obituary) Journal Tribune, Biddeford, Sept. 15, 1981

“In Memory of Herb and Pat Billett,” Biddeford Pool Land Trust, South Point Sanctuary Bulletin Board

Blue Point

Stories from South Point, Part Three

by Mary Morgan

A small point of land on the water side of Ocean Avenue, between 2nd and 4th Streets, looks like a quiet spot, but it has been the subject of controversy at least twice in the past.

According to the 1882 private development plan for the area, this point was designated as common land, so it should have remained green. In the 1930s, the City of Biddeford wanted to make it a parking lot, but the local land owners were not happy and came up with a way to stop the city.

A path leads through the vegetation from Ocean Ave. to the shore. (JH photo)

The owners of the common area were the beneficiaries and descendants of the original South Point Cottage Lots developers. On July 25, 1930, they leased the point to the families owning Ocean Avenue lots numbered 11 through 25, as well as lot number 1 on 3rd Street: i.e. 12, 14 and 16 Ocean Avenue. The terms of the leases were not specified, but it is generally agreed they were to last 99 years.

The lease depended on several conditions.  The lessees were to:

1. Maintain the area in “a better condition than currently maintained” for the benefit of the lessees

2. prevent any strip or waste by trespassers

3. quit and deliver, in good order & condition, peaceably and quietly after receiving a six-month termination notice from the lessors

4. pay the taxes duly assessed

5. not sublet without consent of the lessors

6. pay rent of one cent

Each lease was subject to easements already granted to the public and to owners of land shown on the South Point Cottage Lots Plan.

These Ocean Avenue cottagers now had the right to take the city to court over the parking lot issue. The court ruled in their favor, and the city withdrew its parking plans.

In subsequent years, this point and other non-housing lots on South Point were deeded to the Biddeford Pool Improvement Association (BPIA). In 1988, in an attempt to improve the view, the BPIA proposed removing trees and brush from the little point. Some of the lessees objected to this plan and wrote a letter to the BPIA outlining their objections. They argued that the area was a bird habitat that should not be disturbed. They also pointed out that this area protected their houses during severe winter storms. On the map that accompanied the letter, the area in question was colored blue. In this case, the BPIA prevailed.

Today, Blue Point features a broad path leading from Ocean Avenue to the rocky shore, a few scraggly trees and lots of rosa rugosa. The Biddeford Pool Land Trust maintains it. Now it is the location of a new fight, this time against bittersweet and other invasive plants. This battle will likely continue for many years to come.

References:

Deed Book 823 Page 395, the lease.

Lessors were William Hill descendants: E. Dwight Hill of Plymouth Massachusetts, Virginia (Hill) Willis of Lynn, Massachusetts, Inez M. (Hill) Staples of Biddeford, Maine and Elizabeth (Foss) A. Clary of Los Angeles, California.

The Gilbert Berry descendants: Edward T. Hyde, Grace E. Hyde and Alice H. Sawyer of Saco, Maine.

The Lessees were Edna Heard Baker of Saco, Maine, Ethel Heard Hill of Old Orchard Beach, Maine,  Arthur Wood of Granby Massachusetts and Janet J. Edwards of West Boylston, Massachusetts.

The Pease Cottage on Ocean Avenue

Stories from South Point, Part Two  

By Mary Morgan

   

28 Ocean Ave. in 2019 (MM photo)

When Beth Baskin purchased 28 Ocean Avenue several years ago, the seller threw in a bonus: a small brown book about the history of the house. That book reveals hints of what Biddeford Pool’s South Point area would have looked like if it had been built the way the original developers imagined it.

The division of South Point into lots got its start in 1874 when Saco surveyor Dominicus Jordan purchased 45 acres of farmland there. He took on several business partners, hired a surveyor and designed a plan to attract people who wanted to own small, rustic summer cottages on the coast. When the South Point Cottage Lots Plan was published in 1882, it included 340 lots in the area between today’s 1st Street, Ocean Avenue, Great Pond, the big beach and 7th Street.  

Jordan died the same year the plan was launched. Thomas H. Cole, one of his business partners, predeceased him. William Hill, the other original partner, held a half interest in the property until his death in 1897. Meanwhile, sisters Clara (Berry) Hyde and Sarah Emma (Berry) Littlefield acquired a half interest in the property from their aunt, who was Cole’s widow. Hill and the sisters -- and eventually their descendants -- oversaw the sales of the South Point lots.

In 1897, 28 Ocean Avenue was sold to Laura Foss as empty lot number 45, Ocean Avenue. The sellers were William Hill, Sarah E. (Berry) Littlefield and Clara (Berry) Hyde. When Laura Foss sold the lot to Mary Wilder Pease and her husband Edward E. Pease in 1910, the deed mentioned buildings.  

According to the 1910 U.S. Census, Edward Pease was a 41-year-old accountant. He and Mary and their two-year-old daughter were from Worcester, Massachusetts.  

The book about the house, titled “Pease Cottage Ocean Avenue, Biddeford Pool, Maine, Pictures & Diagrams by Edw. E. Pease,” includes a 1910 floor plan of the cottage, showing the locations of the fireplace, stairs, doors and windows, closets and the piazza, or front porch. There are photos of the house and neighboring cottages dated September 1910, August 1911 and September 1912. One of the 1912 pictures shows striped awnings pulled down around the piazza. Several photos show the cottage as seen from the beach. There is also a list of the furnishings in each room.

The floor plan shows the front of the house facing east, toward the ocean. The ground floor consists of two parts: a front room with a window, and a back area that includes two rooms. On the left is the dining room, with a staircase to the second floor. The other room is the kitchen, which has a back door, a fireplace, range, pump, sink draining to a cesspool, corn popper, and wash boiler. The house is hooked up to city water.

The plan of the second floor shows a front room with a window facing the ocean and two rooms in the back area. The bedroom contains a commode and outfit, bed and linen, rugs and two rockers, one of which is for a child.

There is a 20’ x 16’ barn in the back yard, with the toilet in a closet in the barn.  

Several small houses like this one can still be found on South Point, and some of them no doubt date back to the early 1900s, but many people purchased more than one lot and built bigger houses. Edward Pease’s diagrams and photos record a time when Biddeford Pool was a simpler place.

  

References

“South Point Cottage Lots” Plan 1882

1910 Picture of the original house on Lot 45 Ocean Avenue

Pease Cottage Book with drawings by Edward. E. Pease in 1910

Deed Book 521 Page 254 27 Apr 1897 Laura Foss purchased Lot 45 from Wm Hill, Sarah E. (& Gilman) Littlefield and Clara Berry Hyde. Buildings were not mentioned.

Deed Book 592 P515 22 Sept 1910 Mary Wilder from Worcester, MA purchased lot 45, buildings (house & barn) and furnishings from Laura Foss

The Origins of the South Point Cottage Lots

Stories from South Point, Part One

By Mary Morgan

In the late 1800s, Saco surveyor Dominicus Jordan made a plan to develop 45 acres of farmland at Biddeford Pool into cottage lots. The property was poor quality farmland, but it had a beautiful location near the beach and rocky ocean shore. Jordan envisioned 340 lots of various sizes, a dozen roads and some common areas along the coast.

On paper, it looked like a great idea, but things did not turn out exactly as planned. By the time it was unveiled to the public, two of the original developers were dead. Still, the idea lived on and its influence can still be seen at South Point today.

The South Point Cottage Lots Plan, 1882 (click on image to enlarge)

Jordan purchased the property in 1874 from Biddeford Pool farmer Isaac Bickford (1795-1884). It was bounded by what we now know as 1st Street, Ocean Avenue and 7th Street, and included the area between the Great Pond and the beach.

At that time, most Biddeford Pool residents were fishermen living in the village. The rest of the peninsula was mainly pasture land. The community had been attracting summer residents since the 1830s, but with the opening of the Boston and Maine Railroad, an increasing number of visitors were expected. The summer residents stayed in hotels and boarding houses near the village, but Jordan probably realized that some families would like to own small, rustic cottages near the ocean.

Jordan quickly found two business partners. William Hill acquired a quarter share in 1874, and Thomas H. Cole purchased one-half interest in January 1875.

Jordan hired W. S. Dennett to survey the property. When the South Point Cottage Lots Plan was finally published in January 1882, it showed a layout that is similar, but not identical to, the area today, with roads laid out in a fan.  

The two main differences between the original plan and today’s South Point are that the original lots were very small, and that several blocks of houses were to be built in the area between Great Pond and the beach.

2018-2019 Biddeford tax map of South Point area
biddefordmaine.org/DocumentCenter/view/3882/Tax_Map_60_PDF

The Developers

Dominicus Jordan (1807-1882) was a farmer and surveyor who purchased, mortgaged and sold land in and around Biddeford for many years. Jordan was descended from one of the early families in the region. His grandfather Samuel Jordan was granted land in 1719, when Biddeford separated from Saco and the common land was distributed.  

Thomas H. Cole (1818-1879) was also descended from one of the region’s early families. His ancestor Thomas Cole came from England around 1636 and, according to local historian George Folsom, farmed “near the sea along the northern margins of the Pool where Mr. Vines wintered in 1616-7.”

Thomas H. Cole left farming and started a grocery business in Biddeford with Lyman Ayers. He became a successful businessman who owned shares in several local companies, as well as land in Biddeford, Saco and Old Orchard Beach. He also served as president of the First National Bank, and as town treasurer.

Cole married Elizabeth Hooper, the daughter of a prominent Saco family. Her father, William P. Hooper, his father and grandfather had been the Biddeford/Saco postmasters. Thomas and Elizabeth had one daughter who died in 1872.

The third party in this venture was Elizabeth’s brother-in-law, William Hill. A sea captain, he lived near the Pool and was also descended from early local settlers. His ancestor Ebenezer Hill was granted land in 1719.  

Hill purchased a one-quarter share in the South Point land from Jordan in 1874. In 1883, he redeemed a mortgage that Jordan had made to Josiah Maxwell three years earlier, thereby  increasing his ownership share to one half. By the time sales really got underway, Hill was in the coal business, and he seems to have been active in promoting the South Point properties.

The Successors

Cole was the first of the partners to die, in 1879. He did not leave a will, but the widowed Elizabeth became his estate administrator and heir to his land in South Point. It took five years to settle the estate. During that time, she sold her share in the lots to Clara (Berry) Hyde and Sarah (Berry) Littlefield, the daughters of Saco grocer Gilbert Berry and his wife, Sarah Elizabeth Cole (Thomas’s sister).

When Jordan died in 1882, he left his estate to his wife, Jane. After her death, the estate was left to a missionary society in New York City, however, Jordan’s estate was insolvent by then. Jordan had named Cole his executor and instructed him to do whatever he wanted with the South Point land, but since Cole was dead, new executors managed the estate distribution and sales.

William Hill seems to have purchased what was left of Jordan’s share of the property, so he and the Berry sisters had equal shares. When Hill died in 1897, his share of the land passed to his surviving children. Over the years, both the Berry sisters and the Hill family were very interested in sales of the South Point land.

The plan was published in 1882, but Horace Hill may have been the first purchaser of a South Point cottage lot when, in 1877, he bought a lot on Ocean Avenue for $100 from William Hill and Thomas H. Cole.

A 1909 map of the Pool shows many buildings along 1st Street and Ocean Avenue, but no buildings in the interior of South Point. As it turned out, most of the people who eventually did purchase in the area bought multiple lots. Today the area is not as densely populated as its developers had planned. Also, the summer residents made a determined effort to maintain the exclusivity of the Pool. I will expand on this last point in future articles.

References:

“South Point Cottage Lots” Plan Book 3, Page 2 York County Register of Deeds,     Alfred, ME

History of Saco and Biddeford by George Folsom. A facsimile of the 1830 edition with a new forward by Robert E. Moody. Published by the New Hampshire Publishing Company, Somersworth. Maine Historical Society, Portland, Maine, 1975

Estate of Thomas H. Cole died 15 May 1879 Probate Number 3455

Will and Estate of Dominicus Jordan died 14 Jan 1882 Probate Number 10530

Will and Estate of Elizabeth (Hooper) Cole died 2 Feb 1894 Probate Number 3393

Deed Book 344 Page 245 19 Aug 1874, Grantor: Isaac Bickford

                        Grantee: Dominicus Jordan

Deed Book 372 Page 406 21 Jan 1875, Grantor: Dominicus Jordan

                        Grantee: Thomas H. Cole

Deed Book 396 Page 96 21 Nov 1882, Grantor: Elizabeth H. Cole

                        Grantee: Clara (Berry) Hyde and Sarah Emma (Berry) Littlefield

1909 Map of Biddeford Pool owned by Anne Kenney: Picture: BP 1909 1.

The South Point Cottage Lots Plan: an Introduction

By Mary Morgan

old postcard, courtesy bpoolphotos.com, Wakelin collection 

For years, I rode my bike around South Point, enjoying the view and wondering about the neighborhood. Why are the roads laid out the way they are? What is the story behind all those convenient footpaths, and who built the three big houses that are aptly nicknamed the triplets?

I discovered the first clue when I found a plan, dated 1882, to develop dozens of tiny, cookie-cutter cottage lots on South Point. Had the development plan been carried out, South Point would be a very different place today. Who was behind that plan, and what happened as the lots were sold over the years? Many of these questions remain unanswered and continue to push me further in my research.

Starting today and over the next few weeks, a series of five articles about South Point will be posted to Stories from the Pool. They are:

The Origins of the South Point Cottage Lots

The Pease Cottage on Ocean Avenue  

Blue Point   

Saving the Promenade

The Triplets

I had lots of help with this project. My sincere thanks to:

Beth Baskin for house pics & the Pease Cottage Book

Kimberly Billett for pics, family papers & for family history in South Point

Christy Bergland for patience & prodding

Fred Celce for family history and laughs

FamilySearch.org for genealogical information

Dick & Margaret Frost for “Blue Point” correspondence & 5th Street history

Janice Hamilton for editorial expertise, Bickford & Holman history

Anne Kenny for allowing us to photograph the 1909 Biddeford Pool map

Carol & David Noon for 7th Ave & Promenade history

Isabel Oleson for house pics & house history 

Anne Small for family history on 4th Street in South Point, BPIA & city access correspondence

Shirley (Calderwood) Stallings for family history on 7th Street & “The Triplets” 

The patient staff at the York County Registry of Deeds office in Alfred, and at the McArthur Library in Biddeford

Milk

by Jesse Deupree

I am continually surprised at the choices my memory makes; what it retains and what it lets go, hopefully only when making room for something new. One of my earliest memories is of a car that my parents sold when I was four. I can visualize the holes in the floor behind the rear seats of this 1949 Ford wagon. I can still press my eye to one of these holes and watch the road rushing by and smell the blend of carpet and exhaust that filled my nostrils then. My mother, who drove the car for five years, had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned these precise details to her.

When I got to Maine each summer, my first goal was to transform my bed into a boat. I did this by swiping clothespins. (I preferred the spring operated type over the simple two-pronged ones then, and still do today.) I would use them to fasten my bedspread to the iron bedstead after pulling it tight over the head and foot rails, thus enclosing the space where I slept and allowing me to transform my bed into a cabin cruiser and my headboard into a dashboard that I could sit behind and drive towards my future.

Mornings were cold, and my summer shorts and shirt were not adequate until about 9 a.m., yet I rose first in my house and ate breakfast alone with my plans for the day. We had switched from an icebox to a refrigerator before my time, although the icebox still stood in the pantry, complete with a door so ice could be loaded from outside. In the refrigerator were glass bottles of milk, which came from a local farm.

The bottles were crowned with two caps. The outer one was a folded bowl of waxed paper that could be used to float small items in the sink, bath or ocean. The inner cap, the one you replaced after pouring, was a stiff paperboard disk with a flap that lifted up and became a pull tab. This disk could be folded in half to form a small motorcycle with a half wheel on each side and the flap for a windshield. Of course, when I was done pushing this vehicle around the table, it was less than practical for capping the bottle, and I liked capping the bottle for a reason I will get to, so I learned to play with the cap only when the bottle was empty.

The milk we drank in Maine was neither pasteurized nor homogenized, in contrast to the more modern milk that came in paper cartons in Ohio; and this was one of the joys of summer. Nothing but cream would do for my cereal, and despite regular pleas from my mother, most mornings I opened a new bottle and carefully poured off some of the cream that rose and filled the narrow neck, leaving the rest of the family to drink milk that might be close to skim. Even the smallest member of a family can assert his presence; and the only way to stop me was to join me for breakfast, which might have been my unconscious intention. I do know I loved the cream.

This milk was delivered by Mr. Emmons, who owned the farm. He came around in an old dark green pickup with his bottles in the truck bed covered by a burlap blanket that he wetted down so that evaporation helped keep the milk cool. Of course he came early, and frequently I was the only one to greet him. Mr. Emmons was missing parts of several fingers. I knew I was not supposed to stare, yet I always did, as he carried in the bottles in a wire basket and delivered them to the refrigerator. Subtle I wasn’t, but timid I was. I never asked how he lost his fingers and he never told me how it happened.

Once or twice a summer, something special happened to the milk. Breakfast in our house was eaten in shifts, with one child after another and my mother taking a place at the kitchen table. Early arrivals like myself might linger, sitting on a stool, removed, but still part of the scene. The milk bottle remained on the table as each person filled their bowl or glass. I had been taught to shake the bottle before pouring, and had learned to shake it afterwards, thus hiding the evidence of my cream theft.

If conditions were just right, the warming milk would build up pressure and, without warning, the paperboard disk would pop off with a wonderful, gentle bubble-bursting sound and fly, possibly as much as a foot, landing on the table, or even someone’s dish. The pop would startle us all, interrupting whatever sibling rivalries and unspoken tension hung in the shadows of our paradise, uniting us for a moment in laughter. That humor could work this magic was not lost on me, and I still try to reproduce the effect.

Rowing Lessons

by Jesse Deupree

Bicycles in Ohio and boats in Maine had a similar place in my childhood: both meant the possibility of freedom, the chance to move and do whatever I wanted without being watched all the time. The first boat that delivered on this possibility was my family’s Dyer Dhow, bought as a tender for our first cruising boat. My father named it Me Go Too. It was the first boat I was allowed to use alone, and use it I did.

Each morning I would go down to the Yacht Club where someone helped me launch it off the dock; my undersized nine-year-old body was unable to manage the weight of a less than nine-foot boat. Once it was in the water, I would set out to sea alone for a day’s adventure, which meant rowing endlessly around the Pool’s inner harbor. I was not allowed to go out the Gut to the outer harbor -- even freedom had limits.

Rowing was the beginning of my nautical education. Even within the confines of a small Maine fishing harbor, a knowledge of depth and current was required to plan and reach a destination, even if that destination was just a salt marsh. One day by chance I discovered and landed on a sand spit that, at this particular stage of the tide, made a wonderful tiny island with the necessary curves and lumps to form the harbors my imagination was always voyaging to. Like the Little Prince on his planet, I strode about my domain for a blissful half hour until the rising tide forced me back into Me Go Too, and left me gazing down from the floating dinghy at my footprints below the water’s surface.

The Pool at high tide. (JH photo)

For days afterward I searched for that island, trying to rediscover that transitory spit and rekindle my imagination. In my struggle to find it, I began to understand the changing tidal patterns, even though I never learned to predict when conditions would be just right for the return of my miniature kingdom. Two weeks is a long time when you are nine years old.

My lessons and adventures were solitary. I learned to row from watching lobstermen and visiting cruisers. Sometimes I liked to sit in the stern and push the oars facing forward as the fishermen did. My slight weight aft did not disturb the trim of my little boat at all. Occasionally I would sit in the bow and paddle stern first, charting my gondola through the canals between the docks and the granite walls of the Yacht Club. 

If there was any distance to cover, I would face aft, put my back in it and try to feather the oars for speed. My memories are diffuse and precise at the same time. I remember the wakes generated by the tips of the oars when I feathered them and then rested them lightly on the water, trying to go as far as possible between strokes, yet can’t recall just how old I was or just what boat I was rowing when a given adventure took place.

One day, though, I have never forgotten. Returning to the Yacht Club at the end of the afternoon, I approached in my standard manner, prepared to grab the dock after a head-on bang with the bow of my boat. Just as I dropped my oars and turned around to reach for the dock, I felt my boat being pushed away, saw the shoe doing the pushing, and heard the gruff voice of Andy Lindsay, the club manager, saying, “That’s no way to land a boat; now circle around and do it right!” I promptly burst into tears, having no idea what the right way was, but now wanting desperately to do it.

I circled out and headed back, trying my best to hear and follow his commands. “Now ship your port oar – no, the other one. Now get your oarlock in. Now drag your starboard oar” (There was only one oar left, so I got that right the first time). “Now push it back.” Despite my tears, my pounding heart and my overwhelming wish ”WHY WON’T HE JUST LEAVE ME ALONE”, I followed his instructions and the boat responded to me. On the third try, Me Go Too swung sharply side-to and stopped smoothly alongside the dock, the oarlock swinging softly and safely against the inside of the dinghy.

 

I’ve never had a problem landing a rowboat since then, and I’ve always been grateful for the knowledge Andy taught me. There was a time I might have told you I even appreciated how the lesson was taught, but I don’t feel that way now. Some spots are still tender.

MEMORIES OF THE POOL Part 2

by Carrington Williams, Jr (1917-2014)

       

Originally written in 1997 & revised in 2006

submitted by Dabney McCoy

When I was a child, ice, milk, and groceries were delivered daily. Ice was cut in the winter from the Great Pond to the east of the Marie Joseph Spiritual Center and was stored in sawdust in the ice house on the west side of the pond. Groceries were brought by Mr. Milbanks and Mr. Epstein, and the lobster pound was operated by Mr. Crowley. “The Store” was owned and operated by the Goldthwaite family and has actually changed very little over the years.

I remember that around 1930, there was a total eclipse of the sun, and I was at Andy Lindsay’s on Staples Street. It got so dark that dogs, cats, and chickens went to bed, and when the sun emerged later, cocks crowed just as if it were dawn!

 At about the same time, Howdy Turner organized a puppet theater in the basement of the Dupee cottage, and we had regular shows there in the summer.

 In our early teen years, when we could not legally drive, Harry Buzby was given an electric car by his father. It was called a “Redbug,” and he drove all over the Pool but would never let any of us ride with him. Chan and Joe Robbins, who were older, drove around in a roadster with the top down and two mongrel terriers named Petey and Bussie sitting haughtily in the back seat. Those early teenage years were lots of fun!

Drinking seemed to be heavier in those days, and it is a wonder that there were so few bad accidents on the old and very winding road from Biddeford Pool to Kennebunkport. On one notable occasion, when my father, acting as a good Samaritan, was taking one very inebriated young man home in his new Huppmobile sedan. He dropped Mother off on his way from the dance at Auldstocke. The passenger took the wheel, roared up the hill by the Fire Barn, took the left fork at the top of the hill and continued to the left, ending up in the rocks in the bottom of the property now owned by David and Christy Millett.

The Yacht Club was founded by teenage boys who wanted to learn sailing, the first members being the Blacks, Lindsays, Wakelins and Shafers. The Yacht Club is very active today, providing moorings for pleasure craft and sailing lessons for the young people.

The Abenakee Club, then as now, was the center of much activity and, as boys, my brothers Mason and Armistead and I learned to play tennis and golf. In 1931, both Mason and I won cups in our age division in tennis. In the 1980s, my grandsons Tim and Chris McCoy also won cups in their age divisions.

I started hitting golf balls when I was about 8 years old and developed an affinity for the game. When I was a teenager, I found a beautiful diamond and sapphire brooch lying in the rough of the third or fourth hole. The owner was a Mrs. Strong from Cleveland, and when I returned it to her, she rewarded me with a set of golf clubs and bag from Abercrombie and Fitch! I only wish I knew what had happened to them.

Mr. James Emmons and Mr. Gray Emmons awed me with their drives on the first hole, which in the old days went around the swamp to a green below the cemetery. The second hole was then a par three, up over the corner of the graveyard to the present first green. As boys, we used to caddy, and once I was conked on the head by the tee shot of a lady hitting on the second hole. Her male companion was so scared by this that he gave me five dollars and carried the bag, so I simply walked along! Because of the parallel fairways on holes six, seven and eight, getting hit by errant shots was not rare.

Instead of today’s scramble format, there was a Monkey Golf tournament in which the four players on a team were given a wood, a five iron, a wedge and a putter. The player whose turn it was to hit the ball had to use the club assigned. Using a wood from a trap or a putter to drive made for great fun! There were some refreshment stands at several spots on the course, and some participants had to be carted (literally) back to the clubhouse. Today’s Captain’s Choice events are mild in comparison. The golfing tradition continues in our family, as my son, Mason, and grandson Tim have won the club championship several times.