We’re on the Pemaquid peninsula in Maine and I finally feel that I have the terrain down. We’ve been alternating between the adjacent Boothbay peninsula and Pemaquid over the last few summers, and I drive around without navigation but just yesterday I came upon a peninsula off the peninsula which was still unknown territory and I have still not figured out all the islands. Pemaquid, extending south from Newcastle and Damariscotta, used to be just one big town, Bristol or “Old Bristol,” but is now divided between Bristol, South Bristol, and Bremen. Bristol has five villages: Bristol Mills, Pemaquid, New Harbor, Round Pond, and Chamberlain. South Bristol (separated and incorporated in 1915) has three villages: South Bristol, Christmas Cove, and Walpole. We’re staying in the latter, and even though it is located north of much of Bristol, it’s in South Bristol. Bremen, also located in the northern part of the peninsula but on the northeastern side, seems more distinct than the Bristols, and it was separated from Old Bristol in 1828.
The Pemaquid Peninsula is nameless on Frank and Ruth Taylor White’s 1935 pictorial map of Maine, created for Little, Brown’s national atlas (David Rumsey Historical Map Collection); an 1857 map of Old Bristol; our view from Walpole on the eastern shore of the Damariscotta River.
I was at first perplexed by the co-existence of two Colonial meeting houses on the peninsula, built just years apart in the 1770s and located just a few miles apart: the Walpole and Harrington meeting houses. Was there a huge schism? I just love Maine meeting houses–so unadorned and preserved in their spireless states (my favorite one is in Alna, just north of Pemaquid). Walpole is particularly famous, and it deserves to be, because it is beautiful. My confusion over the two proximate meeting houses is just a reflection of my Massachusetts bias regarding relative population density: because the distance was so great, there were actually three meeting houses built on Pemaquid in the 1770s: Walpole in the east, another one in Round Pond on the western side of the peninsula (no longer standing), and Harrington in the center. The Harrington meeting house is not really in the center now, as it was moved in 1840, and substantially altered at the same time. Apparently it’s been restored back to its Georgian form, but I didn’t get to go inside.
Another relic of the eighteenth century on the Pemaquid peninsula is the “Arch Bridge” in Bristol Mills, but I would say that Pemaquid has more of a late 19th century/early 20th century feel. Colonial Pemaquid includes the remains of the 17th-century Fort William Henry and an 18th-century fort house, but also a reproduction tower built in 1908. There are quite a few un-expanded and unadorned simple summer shingle cottages in every village, testifying to its continuing role as a summer place, but also wonderful capes and the full range of 19th-century vernacular styles evident of year-round occupation, past and present. With the smaller scale of its working ports (unlike Boothbay across the way) Pemaquid seems to have found the perfect mix of tourism and residential occupation, although maybe locals would beg to differ one way or the other! I’m in my refugee-from-Salem season (which starts earlier and earlier every year, and grows longer and longer as well), so nearly everywhere looks perfect.
The Arch Bridge in Bristol Mills, Colonial Pemaquid, a house and its view from Pemaquid Harbor Road, a South Bristol cottage compound, a BEAUTIFUL house (+ barn) in New Harbor, Back Cove in New Harbor and Round Pond.
