John and Phebe Perkins House

John And Phebe Perkins House

  • <p>Modern photograph of the Perkins House reconstructed on Perkins Street- Collection of the Wilson Museum</p>
  • <p>Postcard of the Perkins House, c. late 19th century- Collection of the Castine Historical Society</p>
  • <p>Photograph of the Perkins House on Court Street near the top of Dyer Lane, c. 1950- Collection of the Castine Historical Sociey</p>
  • <p>Modern photograph of the interior of the Perkins House during fireside cooking demonstration- Collection of the Wilson Museum</p>
  • <p>Modern photograph of the interior of the Perkins House- Collection of the Wilson Museum</p>

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John Perkins and his young bride Phebe, both from York, Maine, began their life here in the 1760s. John had built them a one-story house on what is now Court Street. The peninsula was a wilderness, then under British control, on a harbor where Native Americans and Europeans had traded for over 200 years.

The couple had a few near neighbors; by 1774 only six other houses stood on the Castine peninsula, and three of those were log cabins. As his family grew and prospered, John added a four-room, two-story house facing the harbor, befitting a prominent family in the community. The earlier modest home became the ell. Generations of the Perkins family continued to live in the house throughout the 1800s.

By the late 1960s, the building was in poor repair. The Wilson Museum purchased it, dismantled the house to preserve it, and reassembled it on a new foundation on Perkins Street. The John Perkins House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. The house is open for visitors and school groups as part of the Wilson Museum’s living history program.

For more information please visit the Wilson Museum website: http://www.wilsonmuseum.org/johnperkins.html