The land trust and other organizations in Harpswell are the fortunate beneficiaries of generous townspeople with a special awareness of the importance of history. Here is an example. In 1786, a man named Waitsill Merryman built a small wooden house located across the road from the Union Church, just south of what we now know as the Route 123-Mountain Road intersection. The house consisted of a kitchen and a parlor, each with a fireplace, and an upstairs bedroom. At some point, a subsequent owner, Henry Orr, added a kitchen ell. The building changed hands a few times, eventually owned by the Robert Dunning family. At that point it became known as the Dunning House.

In the 19th or early 20th century, a member of the Vanderbilt family of New York (yes, that Vanderbilt) purchased a property on Middle Bay, a mansion that they visited every summer. The property included the Dunning House which came to be used by Roy and Eve Bibber and their son, Peter. Roy was a caretaker of the Vanderbilt house and Eve served as housekeeper and cook for the family. We know this thanks to Sam Alexander, a Harpswell resident who remembers a high school job painting the Bibber house in the summer of 1959.

The Kellogg family purchased the property from the Vanderbilts, and it was then the building acquired its current name, that of the original owner and the eventual donor, which is why we know it as the Kellogg-Dunning House.

In the 1980s, the Kellogg family donated the house to the relatively new Harpswell Historical Society. That organization was not in a position to restore or care for the building, which by this time was in poor shape. The building was transferred to what was then called the Harpswell Heritage Trust. That organization offered the building to anyone willing to move it to a new location on the condition that it be restored to its original appearance.

Fortunately for all of us, Howard and Edna Carr of Cornish had the foresight to take on the challenge. Experts were brought in to evaluate the house and it was determined that the building was a good candidate for restoration and a valuable example of residential buildings of the early Federal period. The Carr’s daughter, Linda Griffin, specialized in building restoration and their son, Jonathan Carr, had already dismantled three buildings giving him the experience needed. Mrs. Carr’s family owned land in the Cundy’s Harbor area but the lot was small and required an exception from the town’s board of appeals. Sam Alexander, who was chair of the board at the time, remembers that an exception was granted.

In the autumn of 1989, every beam and brick was numbered and the building was carefully deconstructed. The material was trailered across town, stored through the winter, and then the bricks, beams and planks were reassembled in the summer of 1990. In the reconstruction process, Jonathan discovered a barely legible “1782” carved into a beam over the fireplace, fixing the construction date.

The house is now under the care of Jack and Beth Carr Wadsworth and is co-owned by Skip and Kathy Carr, Beth’s brother and sister-in-law. The Harpswell Heritage Land Trust holds a historic preservation easement on the building, which certifies our diligent stewardship of it through annual inspection visits. The building is not open to the public, but the current owners are considering tours in the future. For now, the photos below will tell the story.