Stories of Sullivan & Sorrento 

The Cooper Shop of Sullivan Harbor

The Cooper Shop of Sullivan Harbor

The Cooperage, or Cooper Shop formerly stood on the rocks on the shore in Sullivan Harbor along what is now Harbor View Drive. This was the main road through town before Route 1 was built and filled in. The shop was built in the early 1850s for Daniel Wilson, who moved his family first from Bradford to Franklin, where the 1850 industry census for the town recorded Wilson as having made 4,680 barrels by hand that year, using over 93,000 staves and 46,000 hoops to do so.
Within a couple of years, Wilson had moved his family to Sullivan and the cooperage was built. They lived next door in the former Capt. William Salter house which had been built in the 1830s and originally was located…

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The Wayward Spindrift

The Wayward Spindrift

When a new boat is built and christened, it is generally a happy time for all involved. But in the case of the Spindrift, no one could have expected it to truly live up to its name! The boat was built in the Machias River in the winter of 1918 with Sullivan to be her home port under Captain Mitchell of Milbridge. Her inaugural trip in...

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Down By the Old Mill Stream

Down By the Old Mill Stream

Did you know that one of the most popular songs of the early 20th century was inspired and written right here in Sullivan? “Down by the Old Mill Stream” was originally penned by local barber Frank L. Carleton, who was persuaded to sell the work for $60 to a summer visitor by the name of Tell Taylor, who heard the song while having a...

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Sullivan Ghosts and Other Stories

Sullivan Ghosts and Other Stories

In the winter of 1799, residents of Sullivan, Maine witnessed a very strange thing. A disembodied voice emerged from the cellar of Abner Blaisdell’s house on the rocky shores of Taunton Bay and announced itself to be the spirit of Nelly Butler, a young woman who had died a few years prior. Over the following months, the ghost of Nelly...

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Children Raised Funds to Honor Horse

Children Raised Funds to Honor Horse

There was a time when watering troughs alongside the roadside were common and necessary services, providing water to thirsty animals. One such trough, situated on what is now Route 1 in Sullivan, was built by quarrymen from local granite.   In the early 1900s, a group of children in Sullivan who were learning about kindness to animals...

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Reverend William E. Foy

Reverend William E. Foy

Reverend William Ellis Foy(e) was one of the least known yet most significant figures in American religious history to live in Hancock County. William E. Foy was born a free Black in Belgrade, Maine to Joseph and Elizabeth Foy around 1819. Although Maine was a “free” state and there were few Blacks and enslaved people, Maine still had...

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