[SOUTH-west HAR-bor] is a town in Hancock County, settled in 1761 and incorporated on February 21, 1905 from a portion of Tremont.

It lies on the southwest entrance to Somes Sound, thus the name, diagonally across from Northeast Harbor, a village in the town of Mount Desert.

Southwest Harbor has been both a fishing and summer resort community from its earliest days as a town. The Moorings Inn claims a heritage that extends “Sometime before 1784 [when] Andrew Tucker established himself on this lot. Of the fifteen families located near Southwest Harbor, ten lived very near the little cove beside The Moorings. This natural protection from the sea was then. as now, a fine place for ships as well as people to ‘moor.'”

According to Southwest Harbor’s Draft Comprehensive Plan of 2010,

Early settlement of the land was by fishermen and lumbermen and originally this Town of Mt. Desert included several off shore islands. In 1796 Eden (now Bar Harbor) was formed. The Town of Mansel (later called Tremont) was incorporated in 1848. The Town of Southwest Harbor further divided itself from Tremont in 1905 over a dispute about whether to build a new school.

Because Southwest Harbor was an exporter of lumber and fish, boatbuilding grew to be an important part of the economy, though today most of the boats built are for recreation and pleasure. In its time, Southwest Harbor has had a lobster cannery and more recently a sardine cannery, though both have long since closed.

Southwest Harbor was “the first destination on the Island for summer visitors in the years after the Civil War, and since then has had a double personality. Before the war it was a long established fishing, trading, ship building, lumbering and agricultural village. It then became the seasonal home for a considerable population of upper middle class and affluent summer residents.”*

Maine Route 102 begins at entrance to Mount Desert Island and leads directly south to the main village of Southwest Harbor. Here the Wendell Gilley Museum celebrates the life and work of Gilley, a pioneer of decorative bird carving. The downtown is bustling with summer visitors in season.

2021

Downtown

 

South of the harbor, the small villages of Manset and Seawall face the entrance to Somes Sound and the Cranberry Isles.

*Southwest Harbor Historic Resources Inventory, Deborah Thompson, Ph.D. Architectural Historian, 1999.

Form of Government: Town Meeting-Select Board-Manager.

Additional resources

Cole, John N. Claremont Hotel, Southwest Harbor, Maine: A Landmark’s Narrative History. Southwest Harbor, ME. Claremont Hotel. c1994. [University of Maine, Raymond H. Fogler Library, Special Collections; Maine State Library]

Historical Records Survey (Maine). Inventory of the Town and City Archives of Maine: no. 5 Hancock County: the towns of . . . Southwest Harbor. Portland, Me. Historical Records Survey. 1938. [University of Maine, Raymond H. Fogler Library, Special Collections; Bangor Public Library; Maine State Library]

“History of The Moorings Inn.” at http://www.mooringsinn.com/pages/history.html. Accessed May 4, 2006.

*Maine. Historic Preservation Commission. Augusta, Me.   Text and photos from National Register of Historic Places: http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/nrhp/ and http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/nrhp/

Parker, Jesse L. Recollections of Southwest Harbor, Maine: 1885-1894. Southwest Harbor, Me. Southwest Harbor Historical Society. c2010. [University of Maine, Raymond H. Fogler Library, Special Collections; Maine State Library]

Shettleworth, Earle. Mount Desert Island: Somesville, Southwest Harbor, and Northeast Harbor. Charleston, SC. Arcadia. c2001.

Thornton, Nellie C. Traditions and Records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert Island, Maine. Auburn, Me. Merrill & Webber company. 1938. [University of Maine, Raymond H. Fogler Library, Special Collections; Bangor Public Library; Maine State Library]

Town of Southwest Harbor. Draft Comprehensive Plan 2010. http://www.southwestharbor.org/compplan.html (accessed March 29, 2012)

National Register of Historic Places – Listings

Click B&W Photos Below to Enlarge

Claremont Hotel

[Claremont Road] The Claremont Hotel is one of the last reminders of Maine’s early summer resort period of the 1870s and 80s. In an era still unaffected by the rush and bustle of modern transportation and tourism, areas such as Mount Desert became summer meccas for those with sufficient means to leave the sweltering cities. Arriving by train with many trunks and other baggage, families would spend the entire summer ensconced in the comforts of luxurious hotels like the Claremont. Each establishment became, for a season, a kind of community unto itself, with quiet pastimes like picnicking, fishing, hiking and occasional excursions.

Captain Jesse Pease retired from the sea in 1883. For many-years he had sailed his ship the Caroline Grey to distant ports. In that year he hired a contractor to build a hotel on Mount Desert Island. The Claremont opened for business in the summer of 1884. Captain Pease ran the hotel until his death, in 1910. Mrs. Pease continued as the manager until 1917, although she had sold the hotel to Dr. Joseph D. Phillips in 1908. Dr. Phillips continued his medical practice, founded the Southwest Harbor Water Company which brought pure water to the town, served as Representative and Senator in the State Legislature, and was chosen a presidential elector in 1928.

In 1911, the Pemetic (also nicknamed the Castle) was moved over the hill and became a wing of the Claremont. Built by Deacon Henry Clark, Mrs. Pease’s uncle, in 1878, the Pemetic had originally been an addition to Clark’s Island House Hotel, the first hotel on Mount Desert Island. After the death of Mrs. Pease in 1917, Dr. Phillips, and then his son Lawrence, ran the Claremont Hotel until it was sold to Mrs. Alien McCue in 1971. Overlooking Somes Sound and what is now Acadia National Park, the Claremont is significant on its own merits, and as a reminder of a prosperous, relaxed and seasonal way of life that no longer exists.* [Frank A. Beard photos]

Edgecliff

[34 Norwood Lane] Edgecliff, a cottage in Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island is a good example of a Shingle Style/Queen Anne coastal cottage. It is significant because it evolved from a Shingle Style cottage with Queen Anne elements when it was built in 1887 to a Shingle Style/Queen Anne hybrid after it was added onto in 1911. The new addition was more Queen Anne in style, but it used many design features to unify it with the original design.

Its period of significance spans from its construction in 1887 to 1911. The original portion of the cottage has many features of the Shingle Style, including wood shingles on its exterior; a steep, irregular roofline, a roof that [compasses a wide, sheltering porch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It also has an asymmetrical facade, bay windows, and corner boards on its first story that are more characteristic of the Queen Anne style.

The 1911 addition also exhibits more Queen Anne than Shingle Style elements. William Augustus Bates was the architect for the original cottage. It is not known who designed the addition.* [Sara K. Martin B&W photos, 2012]

 

 

Raventhorp, Greening Island

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[Southwest Harbor] “Raventhorp” was the summer cottage of J. G. Thorp. Designed by the Bar Harbor architectural firm of Savage and Stratton and built in 1895. Prominently sited near the northwestern point of Greening Island, the Thorp house an important reminder of the cultural forces that shaped the built environment of Maine’s great summer colonies. During the fourth quarter of the 19th century, the rugged, natural beauty of Maine’s mid-coast region drew an increasing number of summer tourists to the small communities that dotted this area. Many of these “rusticators” were members of wealthy families whose prosperity, in many instances, derived from the broad based economic expansion of the post Civil War period. This new wealth, combined with a perceived sense of the healthful benefits of the outdoors and a growing abundance of leisure time transformed distinct areas of the Maine coast.

The natural beauty of Mt. Desert Island and its surrounding islands was especially sought after for cottage sites. Bar Harbor, Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor, as well as the nearby Cranberry Isles, supported particularly striking summer colonies. The Thorp family cottage on Greening Island clearly reflects this pattern of development.

Joseph Gilbert Thorp (1852-1931) was born in Oxford, New York.  A graduate of Harvard Law School (1882), Thorp established his practice in Boston and became a member of many clubs and associations. In 1885 he married Anne A. Longfellow, the daughter of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. When they purchased property on Greening Island the Thorps were, no doubt, joining social acquaintances who had built or were planning to build equally ambitious cottages. The Thorp cottage remained in the family until 1981 when it was sold.

Fernald Point Prehistoric Site, Address Restricted, Southwest Harbor