Abandoned for over 50 years, this home was built in 1900 not far from the Royal River in Yarmouth, Maine. The current property owner told me he remembered being a kid in the 1960’s and seeing an old man carrying a lantern at night. The man lived alone, with no power or water, and was seen roaming both inside and outside his home carrying a lantern. When the lantern went out, he went to bed. He had no wife or children.
The description of his short story made me think of an old shoemaker or cobbler, working long days at his shop, his hands worn from cutting and stretching leather. Or maybe he was a lobsterman or shipwright, his face weathered from hot days in the sun trapping and fishing, or building and repairing boats in the harbor. Who knows, the current owner knew nothing about him, so it was fun to imagine! Pic #9 is the back of the house, where we found a huge flower garden! Yarmouth is a historic town where shipbuilding was the dominate industry from 1740 to 1890, building vessels for 3 kinds of trade: sloops & schooners for coasting, brigantines & barkentines for trade with the West Indies, and barkentines & ships for world trade.
At the turn of the 20th century, a grammar school was built in 1890 and a high school was built in 1900, replacing most of the 9 separate one-room school houses. Changes in transportation such as the trolley lines and steamer boats helped define it as a tourist destination. At its peak, this was a thriving mill town, employing hundreds of workers in a variety of industries such as milling grain, lumber, carding, cotton mills, iron foundries, a shoe factory, and a poultry processing company. However, beginning in 1923, Yarmouth suffered economic hardship that lingered until the 1950’s.
