Davenport Memorial Building, Bath City Hall, Bath, Maine
The land and partial funding for the Bath City Hall were bequeathed by George P. Davenport as a memorial to his father, Charles Davenport. Designed by Boston architect Charles G. Loring, the building was completed in 1929. The belfry contains a Revere bell, cast in 1802, which has hung in two Bath churches and the previous Town Hall. City employees gathered to emphasize that this building matters!
Winter Street Center, Bath, Maine
Winter Street Church was built in 1843 by local master builder, Anthony Coombs Raymond, in a primarily Gothic Revival style. The sanctuary was altered in 1890 from plans by Portland architect, John Calvin Stevens. Used as a Congregational Church until the 1960s, it was to be sold and demolished, until Sagadahoc Preservation, Inc. was formed by local citizens in 1971 to preserve the building. SPI continues to restore the building, and our steeplejacks took a break from installing new finials on the corner spires to tell the world that the Winter Street Center is definitely a place that matters!
Carriage House for the Shaw Mansion Bath, Maine
In 1904 Albert H. Shaw had this carriage house built behind the mansion he had built in 1900. The house, designed by New York City architect, George E. Harding, who was born in Bath, was expanded and converted into the Sedgwick Hotel in 1936. The hotel was demolished after a fire in 1973. The carriage house, designed by Lewiston architect William R. Miller, is being renovated for a private residence. This place matters also because the hotel lot was the site of the North Church, erected in 1802, where the Revere bell originally hung, and also the site of the Erudition Schoolhouse, built in 1794, the first schoolhouse built by the town.
The Customs House, Bath, Maine
The United States Custom House and Post Office was designed in 1852 by Ammi Burnham Young, the first Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury Department. Completed in 1858, the building was three bays deep; in 1912, the rear wall was preserved and re-erected after the building was enlarged by two-fifths. In 1975, a new post office was built on Washington Street, and this building on Front Street was transferred to the City of Bath. Today, it houses the offices of several companies. This place matters also because it was previously the site of the home and shipyard of William King, Maine's first governor.
Maine Maritime Museum of Bath, Maine
Volunteer crew and staff of in front of the historic
Percy and Small Shipyard Mill and Joiner Shop.
On its 20-acre waterfront property, the Museum houses the only remaining
intact shipyard that built wooden ships.
Patten Free Library, Bath, Maine
The Patten Free Library was formed in 1847, but this building was constructed for it in 1889 through the generosity of Bath businessman Galen C. Moses. It was designed in a Romanesque Revival style by George E. Harding, who was born and raised in a house nearly opposite, 866 Washington Street. Harding went on to become a successful New York City architect, who donated the plans for this building in his old home town. The Library has been twice enlarged by additions to the north.
Preserved Dahlov Ipcar Mural in Patten Free Library, Bath, Maine
Noted Georgetown artist Dahlov Ipcar painted this colorful and imaginative mural of African and Indian animals on the walls of the Patten Free Library's Children's Room in 1978. When the Library expanded, the mural wall was carefully cut off, transported and reinstalled in the new wing. Dahlov Ipcar is also a renowned author and illustrator of children's books and many of them still fill the bookcases of the Children's Room.
Church Block, Front Street, Bath Maine
The Church Block, so called because it stands on the site of the former Universalist Church, was built in 1863 by Oliver Moses. Italianate in style, it was probably designed by Bath native and prominent Maine architect Francis Fassett. The first-story cast iron front was made at the Bath Iron Foundry, predecessor to Bath Iron Works, which was located where the municipal parking lot now is. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is included in the Historic American Buildings Survey.
Ledyard Block, Bath, Maine
The Ledyard Block on Centre Street was built in the mid-1850s, combining the popular Greek Revival style with the newer and more elaborate brick ornamentation of the Italianate style. Around the corner on Water Street, an 1882 wooden addition to the brick building is more in the Classical Revival style. The “ghost sign” on the Water Street wall advertises Glenwood stoves that were the latest technology of a previous era. The “pub scouts” of Byrnes' Irish Pub declare that, in its current incarnation, This Place Still Matters!
Bank Block, Front Street, Bath, Maine
The Bank Block is so named because in Bath's shipbuilding heyday it was the home of four different banks. Built in 1859 for Oliver and William Moses, it displays the elaborate cornice, brackets and hooded windows of the Italianate style, and was probably designed by Francis Fassett. It has housed banks, the street railway waiting room, restaurants, shops, F.W. Woolworth's store, and now a cooking store occupies all three storefronts and offices fill the second floor. The belfry of the City Hall appears to the left.
Galen Moses House B&B, Washington Street, Bath, Maine
The Galen Moses House was built by the son of Oliver Moses, who continued to manage his father's downtown Bath properties. Francis Fassett was the architect for the original Italianate style house, built in 1874, which was expanded by Fassett's pupil, the renowned Maine architect, John Calvin Stevens, in 1901. A creative adaptive re-use of the large house is as a colorful “painted lady” Bed and Breakfast.
The Inn at Bath, Washington Street, Bath, Maine
The Inn at Bath was built in the 1840s in the Greek Revival fashion of the time. Greek Revival was popular from the 1820s to the 1860s, a period of growth and prosperity in Bath and in much of Maine, so it is the predominant architectural style in this area and the state. Greek temples with columns and pediments of white marble were translated into the ubiquitous white wooden clapboards of Maine. A private residence until the 1990s, the house is now a popular inn and retreat, as shown by the members of the National Peace Academy, recently convened there.
1774 Inn, Phippsburg, Maine
The McCobb-Hill-Minott House in Phippsburg Center was built in 1773-1774 by
housewright Isaac Packard for James McCobb, a Scotch-Irish immigrant in 1731 who made his fortune in the lower Kennebec region. A linden tree planted in 1774 near the house still survives. This impressive mansion passed to McCobb's stepson,
Mark Langdon Hill, who became the first member of the United State House of Representatives from Maine when Maine was admitted to the Union in 1820. Subsequently, the house was owned by Charles V. Minott, Sr., whose nearby shipyard built 35 vessels between 1854 and 1904. An ell and barn were added to the house in 1870, and today the historic house is the 1774 Inn, a Bed and Breakfast.
Phippsburg Historical Society, Phippsburg, Maine
In 1859, the Town of Phippsburg built this simple one-room Greek Revival wooden school in Phippsburg Center. It served in that capacity until the construction of a consolidated school in 1958, and then became the home of the Phippsburg Historical Society, which has twice added to the schoolhouse to accommodate its museum collections and historical and genealogical records.
Totman Library, Phippsburg, Maine
The Albert F. Totman Library in Phippsburg Center was formerly located on Phippsburg's Main Road. Built in 1856 as a community hall, it was called Percy Hall. Subsequently, it was owned by the Phippsburg Center Church from 1886 until 1923, when it was purchased by the Town for use as a library. To accommodate a widening of the road,
it was moved in 1984 to its current location on the Parker Head Road,
next to the Phippsburg Historical Society, where it has been expanded to meet the community's needs
Bath Garden Club, Library Park, Bath, Maine
In 1858, Bath acquired the homestead of the late Peleg Tallman, bounded by Washington, Linden, and Front Streets, for use as a park. In 1868, William Torrey, Jr. sold the City the land at the corner of Washington and Summer Streets to be added to the Park, or “the Common” as it was generally called. In 1877, with the constitution of the new Cemetery and Park board, improvements were undertaken to make a pond with a fountain, new plantings of trees and grass, and new benches and flower beds. In 1889, Galen Moses purchased the property at the corner of Front and Summer Streets for the new Patten Free Library building, and in 1912, the City purchased property on Summer Street to complete the City Park, sometimes called the Library Park. The Bath Garden Club uses the Park for its annual plant sale.
Cosmopolitan Club, Bath, Maine
The Cosmopolitan Club, the women's club affiliated with the now-defunct men's Colonial Club, organized in 1902, is housed in the Greek Revival home of Dr. Israel Putnam, on Washington Street opposite the City Park. Dr. Putnam, a graduate of the Bowdoin Medical School, served as mayor eight times between 1859 and 1867, while still conducting a very extensive medical practice.
Newly Renovated Bath Train Station, New Home of
Main Street Bath, Bath, Maine!!
The Bath Train Station was built in 1941, replacing the previous structure built in 1889, when the BIW shipyard facilities were expanded during World War II. The first train started from Bath on July 4, 18 49. The Maine Central Railroad ceased passenger service to Bath in April, 1959. Bath Iron Works purchased the building in October, 1959, and it was used for various purposes, including a dental clinic, until it was transferred to the City of Bath and restored as a train station, which is now served by an excursion train from Brunswick to Rockland run by Maine Eastern Railroad. It also now serves as an Information Center, staffed by the Southern MidCoast Maine Chamber of Commerce, and as the office of Main Street Bath.
Fiddler's Reach Fog Signal in Arrowsic, Maine
The Fiddler's Reach Fog Signal is a significant historic navigational aid on the north bank of the Kennebec River on Arrowsic Island. The United States Lighthouse Establishment built the Fog Signal in 1912 following the grounding of a Gardiner-bound side-wheel packet in heavy fog. The tower is an architectural variation of fog bell towers of the period. Based upon model plans, they were erected throughout Maine with modifications to accommodate site requirements. Located at a critical double bend in the channel, it is one in a series of river navigational aids including lighthouses and range lights. Collectively, they portray the importance of the Kennebec to waterborne transport and commerce during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Following its abandonment by the Coast Guard in the 1970's, the tower deteriorated. By the mid-1990's, a critically weakened stone pier was at risk from spring ice, which seasonally threatened to topple the tower into the Kennebec. The Range Light Keepers www.rlk.org received the property under the Maine Lights Program and has maintained the bell tower since 1998. At that time the building was stabilized to reduce further deterioration. Structural rehabilitation began in 2007 including stone pier work, replacement of sills, joists, roof frame and 10X10 bell beam. Donations of time, materials and funds by the Town of Arrowsic and the community have moved this project forward.
In 2008, work focused on the exterior and finishes including a new copper roof, cedar siding, restored windows and fresh paint in the historic colors. This work was made possible in part by a matching grant from the Maine Historic Preservation Commission through the New Century Community Program.
The primary public benefit of the project has been the preservation, for public appreciation, of an historic maritime scene on the Kennebec River. Another goal of the project is to recreate the complete mechanical fog signal with bell and striking apparatus as an example of human powered, pre-electric mechanical technology.
Kismet Inn, Bath, Maine
This house, overlooking City Park, was built in 1888 for a member of a local family prominent in the lumber and shipbuilding businesses. It exemplifies the Queen Anne architectural style, popular in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, which strove for the picturesque with irregular roof lines, gables, towers and turrets, elaborate chimneys, bay windows, large porches, and different wall surfaces of brick, shingle and clapboard, painted in a variety of complementary colors. Restored and converted to an inn and spa in 2004, the building's interior is picturesque in a different style, emphasizing the Persian background of its owner. This place matters also because it was the site of the Nichols Tavern, dating from 1805. Subsequently, it was the site of the Unitarian Church, built in the late 1840s in the style of a Greek temple.
Bath Farmers' Market, Bath, Maine
This very temporary grouping of tents is emblematic of a permanent aspect of this place that matters—the farms that supply food to the region. The weekly Farmers' Market at Bath's Waterfront Park brings together farmers young and old from the lower Kennebec River valley region with fresh produce, eggs and meat, fruit and preserves, baked goods and cheese, and herbs and flowers. Wide-spread support for the market helps to preserve the land in family farms, provide fresh, local food, and maintain the community's connection with those who grow our food. The Linwood E. Temple Waterfront Park occupies an area where once stood a sail loft and other riverfront enterprises; nearby was the slip for the ferry, the means to cross the Kennebec River before opening of the Carlton Bridge in November, 1927. Mr. Temple's efforts resulted in preservation of this site for a public park and dock, completed in 1976.