Mid-Coast Region
Visiting Wiscasset's Bicentennial Homes and Places
Tour Highlights
This tour shares pre-statehood homes and a few other structures of Wiscasset, mostly focusing on the Wiscasset Historic District.
Getting Started
This tour starts at 133 Federal St in Wiscasset. The tour route is approximately 2 miles and will take roughly 30 minutes to an hour, depending on if you choose to walk for a portion.
- Each tour stop on the map's address is linked to Google Maps so you can swiftly navigate from location-to-location if you choose Google for mapping. You can also use the address in your car's navigation system.
Be safe and aware of your surroundings whilst driving.
- Many properties on the tour are private places; be respectful of private property and remain on the public way at all times.
Except as otherwise noted in the tour, the source for information about the properties has been gathered from each one’s National Register of Historic Places nomination.
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1
Wiscasset Jail and Museum
Built ca. 1809, Federal
The Wiscasset Jail and Museum is Maine's oldest surviving jail building; it also functioned as the state penitentiary from 1820 to 1824.
Built in 1811, the building is comprised of two sections: the granite jail and the attached brick jailer's house. The portion housing the cells is built out of granite and is three stories in height. The interior consists of a central hall on each floor providing access to cells lining the long walls; the interior walls and floors are also granite. Eleven of the twelve cells have heavily barred window openings; the twelfth, which was used for solitary confinement, has no window. The third floor and the attic's rooms were used as debtors' cells, the women's room, the "sick and insane room," and a work room.
The keeper's quarters, attached to one of the gabled short walls, are a two-story brick structure, with a five bay facade and central entrance typical of Federal period architecture. The granite walls of the jail are 41 inches thick at the foundation and 30 inches thick at the eaves - making for a difficult escape!
Lincoln County was established in 1760 and had two different jails for the short-term retention of prisoners. The Wiscasset Jail was authorized in 1807 and constructed 1809 - 1811. The original keeper's house was destroyed by fire, and the present brick house was built in 1837. Meals were prepared in this building for the prisoners and other inmates who at times numbered as many as fifty. The building remained in use until 1953.
The National Register nomination for the jail states: "Conditions in the jail were poor at best. For many years there was no heat available at all; the prisoners had only a bundle of straw and two blankets to keep them from freezing. In later years, stoves were installed at the entrances to the two main cell blocks, but these were extremely inadequate. Sanitary facilities in the jail were also very crude. Overall the jail was a virtual 'living Hell' by today's standards." Tt is now a museum property and the headquarters of the Lincoln County Historical Association.
It is a contributing structure to the Wiscasset Historic District. View the district's National Register listing .
2
“Pink House” (Joshua Damon House)
Built ca. 1805, Federal
The “Pink House” or Joshua Damon House is a Federal style house was built by William Stacey in 1805. This is one of five Federal Houses built by Stacey in Wiscasset.
Joshua Damon was a craftsman of note at the time and some of his furniture is now in museums. His descendants left the house to Harvard University to be used as a house for artists, though this will was later broken.
It is a contributing structure to the Wiscasset Historic District. View the district's National Register listing .
3
Red Brick School
Built ca. 1807, Vernacular
The Red Brick School, also known as the Old Academy Building, is a two-story brick masonry structure with a low hip roof and a wooden bell tower. The area that is now Wiscasset was settled in the 17th century, and was part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which mandated education for its inhabitants. The earliest known classes were held in the meeting house of Pownalborough, which Wiscasset was part of, and then in a district school house built in 1792.
Since the district school only provided primary education, the present school building was constructed in 1807 by private subscription to provide secondary education. This private school operated until 1848, and another opened in the building in 1854, running until 1923.
The building thereafter housed a local American Legion chapter, and served as a local polling place, before being converted into a studio and gallery space in 1958.
It is a contributing structure to the Wiscasset Historic District. View the district's National Register listing .
4
Nickels-Sortwell House
Built ca. 1807-12, Federal
The Nickels-Sortwell House, a grand three-story, wood-frame structure with a low-pitched hip roof was named a National Historic Landmark in 1970 as an exceptionally high-quality example of the Federal style of architecture. The house is evocative of the brief period after the American Revolution when shipbuilding and the maritime trade brought wealth and sophisticated tastes to Wiscasset.
The house was built by ship owner and trader, Captain William Nickels. Nickels lost his great wealth in the collapse of international trade brought on Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo of 1807 which devastated the East Coast economy, and he was bankrupt at the time of his death in 1815. The house was sold and from 1820 to 1900 operated as a hotel serving the growing number of summer visitors to coastal Maine.
Alvin Sortwell, industrialist and the former mayor of Cambridge, Mass., bought the house in 1899 as a summer home for his family. The Sortwell family’s Wiscasset roots reached back to the early 1700s. They restored the house over a period of years, making a number of alterations and adding additions. They decorated it in the Colonial Revival style with fine antique furnishings. Interestingly, some of the landscaping was done by the Olmsted Brothers landscape design firm.
Today, the property is owned by Historic New England and is available for vacation rentals.
It is a contributing structure to the Wiscasset Historic District. View the district's National Register listing .
5
Frances Cook House
Built ca. 17965 with later alterations, Greek Revival
The Frances Cook House was built in 1795 for Francis Cook, first collector of customs and a personal friend of George Washington.
Originally the structure was three-storied with a mansard roof and 17 fireplaces. At some point the roof was lowered and only 14 fireplaces remain.
It is a contributing structure to the Wiscasset Historic District. View the district's National Register listing .
6
Wiscasset Public Library
Built ca. 1805, Federal
The Wiscasset Public Library, built in 1805, was the second brick structure in Wiscasset. It was built for the Lincoln and Kennebec Bank under a Massachusetts Charter of 1802.
In the Northwest corner of the basement was a ”Jug Vault”, a brick structure said to have resembled a large bean pot, the top of which was entered through a trap door in the floor of the room above. In it was kept the required reserves of $100,000.
Over time, the bank had several owners, including Wiscasset Bank, and Mariner's Bank. The second floor was leased to the County for office for a number of years and county records were kept there until 1862 at which time the building was converted by Isaac T. Hobson into a private residence. Hobson added a Mansard roof in 1870 (the present roof, designed by W. Stanley Parker, was put on in 1936) and a wooden ell.
A succession of several families subsequently lived in the building until 1929, when the building was purchased by for use as the town library. The library's new wing, which houses the Children’s Room and the non-fiction collection, was added in 1981.
It is a contributing structure to the Wiscasset Historic District. View the district's National Register listing .
7
Castle Tucker
Built ca. 1807 with alterations in 1859, Regency with Italianate details, among others
Castle Tucker is a grand Regency style mansion built by Judge Silas Lee in 1807 at the height of Wiscasset's prosperity as the busiest seaport east of Boston. Like Captain Nickels of the Nickels-Sortwell House, the economic impact of Thomas Jefferson's Embargo of 1807 led to the sale of the house by his widow after Lee's death in 1814.
The house passed through a succession of hands until 1858, when Captain Richard H. Tucker, Jr., scion of a Wiscasset shipping family, bought the property. The Tucker family updated the interiors, adding unusual elliptical stairs; and added a new Italianate entrance to the Lee Street side of the house. In 1859, he added a dramatic double-piazza ( two-story porch) to what had been the front of the house facing the Sheepscot River. The couple raised five children here. Captain Tucker oversaw various business ventures including wharves and an iron foundry just below the house.
However, by the 1880s, expenses had far exceeded income. Captain Tucker's wife, Mollie, began accepting boarders in the summers to help cover the expenses. She and their youngest daughter, Jane, also turned to the sale of home-baked goods, hand-painted china and raising squab for local restaurants to raise much needed cash.
After Captain Tucker's death, Jane returned to live in the house full-time with Mollie. The women helped preserve the house until Mollie's death in 1922 and Jane's death in 1964. Her niece, Jane Standen Tucker, moved to Wiscasset from California to preserve the house and all its contents, making very few changes to the decorating schemes. Their dedication preserved Castle Tucker as it was in the late 19th and early 20th century.
A visit to Castle Tucker offers a glimpse into the everyday life of Mollie and Richard Tucker and their five children at the turn of the twentieth century. With three generations of Tucker family possessions on view, Castle Tucker is a time capsule that lets you experience the lives of Mainers buffeted by a changing world.
Castle Tucker is currently operated as a house museum by Historic New England. Visit their website .
It is a contributing structure to the Wiscasset Historic District. View the district's National Register listing .
8
The Elmes
Built ca. 1793, Federal
The Elmes was built by General Abiel Wood in 1793. Wood's last wife was Sally Sayward Wood, Maine's first known female novelist. The National Register nomination indicates that this house was moved to this location by Wm. Elmes from the foot of the Common in 1847.
It is a contributing structure to the Wiscasset Historic District. View the district's National Register listing .
9
Pumpkin House
Built ca. 1807, Federal
The Pumpkin House was built by Hartley Wood in 1807. The house's name refers to the paint color the house traditionally sported. The squash color historically likely came from yellow ochre, a common local mineral in Maine, which produces a brownish-yellowish pigment. In 2018 the house made the local news when it was painted blue.
In the early 1900s, Frances Sortwell took an interest in this house along with the Nickels-Sortwell House and worked to save them.
This house's most important association is as the summer home of author and playwright, Sidney Howard, from 1925 - 1930. Howard is best known today for his “Gone with the Wind” screenplay that won an Academy Award, and the Broadway hits "The Silver Cord” and “The Late Christopher Bean."
It is a contributing structure to the Wiscasset Historic District. View the district's National Register listing .