First, we drove up from our inn at Kennebunkport to Eastport, which bills itself as the “easternmost city in the US”. It was an almost six hour drive through some pretty empty woodland. For large stretches along the way there were no utility poles along the “main highway (Route 9, Airline Road), and we only saw about three or four places to stop and eat in the middle three hours of the drive. There was very little traffic except for logging trucks (going in BOTH directions full, for some reason….you’d think they’d all be going one way) for periods of time, and when we did stop to get a snack, the main retail elements were bear attracting sprays and bear repelling sprays….depending on what you wanted that particular day.
The city of Eastport was interesting, but quiet, as we arrived on Thursday afternoon. The ferry to Campobello arrives on a pebbly beach, and just drops its ramp onto the gravel and cars drive off to a small DOH checkpoint. There is no dock, because the entire area is subject to twenty foot (yes, I said 20 foot) tides.
We checked into the inn, which was being scrapped and primed for a repainting and I asked one of the guys if the started much before 5 AM, and he smiled as he replied, “No, six is early enough for us”.
It was a beautiful place, the Chadbourne House, named after the original owner, a lawyer Ichabod Rollins Chadbourne, who built it in 1821.Ichabod lost both parents before the age of twelve. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1808, he served as a colonel in the War of 1812, married in 1818, and again in 1821, after his first wife apparently passed away. (Ironically, Chadbourne first read law in his uncle’s home, which still exists in Kennebunk, which we pass all the time on Route 1, Wallingford Hall). He had been one of the members of a committee formed in 1819 to facilitate the admission of Maine as a state. He served in the State legislature and owned several large tracts north of Eastport, in Perry, which he managed until his death. According to contemporaries, “He was a man of commanding presence, a marked figure in the streets of Eastport, an effective public speaker and was often heard in town meetings and on other occasions.” He died at Eastport December, 1855.
His oldest son, Theodore Lincoln Chadbourne, (Ichabod’s second wife’s maiden name was Hannah Lincoln) graduated at West Point in the class with General Grant. He was killed in the Mexican-American War a hero, and was buried in the local graveyard. Another son, Benjamin Lincoln Chadbourne, practiced law and sold insurance in the city until his death in 1899. Ichabod had several other children that lived past their teens, who wound up in Iowa, Wisconsin and Florida. The estate must have stayed in the family, though, because the restaurant we ate in that night had an 1887 map on the wall that showed the “Chadbourne Estate” at that spot.
The interior inn has been restored by the current owners, Jill and David Westphal,into a four bedroom inn, with a large living room area and a dining room large enough to accommodate all the guests. They have a “no shoes” policy, which preserves the original floors, and were very friendly and helpful, in addition to serving a great breakfast.
Below is a shot of Water Street in Eastport.
