We’ve been looking at some of the early families who lived along Highland Avenue in the 1800s. Deacon Daniel Anthoine lived near the top of Anthoine Street and his neighbor, John D. Buzzell, lived near the top of Scamman Street, across from where Hinckley Park is today. Let’s take a look this week at Buzzell’s neighbor to the east, Deacon Joshua Marean, as well as William Marean who lived farther east, in the area that is now home to Brown School and the South Portland Public Library.

Joshua Hammond Marean was born in 1793 in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Joshua and Elizabeth Marean. He appears to have spent his early childhood years in Newton, but the family seems to have moved to Westbrook, Maine, sometime around 1800. Joshua married Mary B. Higgins in 1817 in Westbrook. They had four children born between 1817 and 1824 – Charles, Elizabeth, Freeman and Joshua Jr.

Like their neighbors, the Anthoines and the Buzzells, the Marean family was deeply religious and very active in the Free Will Baptist church. According to his 1861 obituary, Joshua “experienced a hopeful change of heart during a revival of religion at Westbrook, 35 years ago; was called to the position of deacon the same year … Removing to Cape Elizabeth some years after, he became connected with the church there … From the time of his conversion he was ever ready in the Sabbath school, and most of the time its active superintendent. He was always punctual at the meetings for prayer, and loved to be where God was worshipped and honored; and thus by a faithful and consistent life he commanded universal respect from all, with the most cordial affection from those who learned intimately to know him.”

In Joshua’s early adult years, when he lived in and owned land in Westbrook, he was often listed as a comb manufacturer. By 1840, he had arrived in Cape Elizabeth (now known as South Portland) and supported his family by farming. An agricultural census in 1850 shows that he was farming 20 acres with a pair of oxen, a horse, six dairy cows and two pigs. Joshua owned much of the land that is bordered by the streets now known as Highland Avenue, Scamman Street, Broadway and Ocean Street. In 1857, he sold an acre of his land that was on the south side of Highland Avenue, on the corner of Ocean Street, to Hiram Gibbs and John W. Robinson. Gibbs and Robinson built a brewery on that site, which they then sold to John Bradley and the McGlinchey brothers. Their brewery was known as the Forest City Brewery and that section of Highland Avenue (between Ocean Street and Cottage Road) was known for a time as Brewery Road.

Deacon Joshua Marean died in 1861 and is buried with his wife Mary at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. After his death, his son Charles sold off some of the Marean property as individual house lots. The neighborhood today that is sometimes referred to as “Cooperville” (consisting of the streets east of Scamman Street, including Anchor Road, Cooper Street, Plymouth Road, Derby Road and Churchill Road) was later developed in the early 1950s by Walter E. Cooper and his company, Commercial Realty.

Back in the 1800s when Deacon Joshua Marean lived along Highland Avenue, another Marean lived close by – William Marean. While we believe Joshua and William may have been brothers, we have been unable so far to find any documentation about William’s parents to prove that. (We hope that if there are any Marean family descendants reading this, they will reach out to us at the South Portland Historical Society.) William Marean was born in Westbrook in 1800 and married the widow Lucy Harris Cobleigh in 1823. From her prior marriage, Lucy had two children, William and Ann. William and Lucy Marean first lived in Massachusetts where they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Ellen.

In 1848, William and Joshua together purchased several parcels of land in Cape Elizabeth. This included, according to one deed, an estimated 80 acres of land along with “one half of the grist mill and privilege belonging to said mill.” This is referencing the mill that was once located at Mill Cove (the remains of a dam are still visible from the Hannaford parking lot today). The land had an existing house and barn on it.

In 1850, William and Lucy were living with their two daughters, as well as Lucy’s daughter Ann, in a home on the land bordered by Highland Avenue, Cottage Road and Broadway. They reportedly had the even larger home built there circa 1855 (see photo). The main driveway into their home came from the Cottage Road side (across from where Holy Cross Church is today) and they also had another access driveway from the Highland Avenue side. Their home and surrounding lands, known as Oak Knoll, covered the area where you’d find Brown School and the South Portland Public Library today.

In 1870, William Marean took his own life. His family said he had not been feeling well and was in low spirits. He got up and went out to the barn at 4 a.m. to feed his cattle. An hour later, a farmhand entered the carriage house and found him.

William, Lucy and their two daughters are buried with the Capt. Rishworth Jordan family at Mount Pleasant Cemetery (William and Lucy’s daughter Elizabeth had married Jordan’s son Frederick R. Jordan).

Long after William and Lucy Marean died, their grandchildren (Elizabeth’s children), Lucy H. Jordan and Frederick H. Jordan, continued to live in the home at Oak Knoll. In March, 1931, Frederick and Lucy sold the home and property to the city of South Portland. Construction of the Frank I. Brown School began there in November 1936, and the school was completed and ready for occupancy in September 1937.

In 1949 just east of Brown School, also on the former William Marean property, the city created a 6,000-square-foot park on the corner of Broadway and Cottage Road. Known as the Admiral Robert E. Peary Park, it was dedicated on Memorial Day in 1949. The park was later replaced by the South Portland Public Library. Groundbreaking for the library took place in October 1965; the library was completed and opened its doors to the public in December 1966. The marker for Peary is still located on the grounds of the library – the only indication that the park had once existed there.

Kathryn Onos DiPhilippo is the executive director of the South Portland Historical Society. 

Note to readers: South Portland Historical Society has just reopened its museum at Bug Light Park for the 2024 season. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday. If you have photographs, artifacts or information to share related to South Portland’s past, please contact the historical society at 207-767-7299, by email at sphistory04106@gmail.com, or by mail at 55 Bug Light Park, South Portland, ME 04106.

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