On this image from the 1857 map of Cumberland County, Main Street runs from lower left to Cash’s Corner at upper right. Mrs. Bertha Hunnewell, now a widow, is shown as living in the home on the south side of Main Street, near the intersection of Westbrook Street. Joseph and Bertha Hunnewell’s daughter, Sarah, married William F. Moody; the Moody house is shown next door to the Hunnewell home. Neither home exists today. As automobile usage increased in America, and before construction of the Maine Turnpike, Route 1 was the major highway coming into Maine. Homes along Main Street were torn down to make room for gas stations, restaurants and hotels to service the traveling public. Contributed / South Portland Historical Society

We’ve recently looked at a few 19th and 20th century farmers in Thornton Heights – Fred Lund, Albert McLean, and John H. Johnson. Let’s go back a generation or two and take a look at the larger Hunnewell farm in the early to mid-1800s that once covered the side of Main Street where today you’d find Memory Lane, Cornell Street, Thornton Avenue, Carignan Avenue, McLean Street, Gerry Avenue, Wilson Street, Tremont Street and Union Street.

Many residents of Scarborough are familiar with the Hunnewell name. One of the early European settlers of Scarborough was Richard Hunnewell, who lived with his wife and daughter there in the late 1600s. The oldest house in Scarborough, which appears on the town logo, is the Hunnewell House at 81 Black Point Road, believed to have been built by Richard Hunnewell around 1702. The National Landmark home has been moved a few times, but where it sits, in the triangle bordered by Black Point Road, Old County Road, and Winnocks Neck Road, is fairly close to the home’s original location in a field.

The Joseph Hunnewell farm in South Portland (although we were known as Cape Elizabeth in those days) was established around 1814. Joseph was born in 1789, the great-great-grandson of Richard. Joseph’s parents were Richard and Anna Hunnewell of Scarborough. His mother Anna grew up in Cape Elizabeth, and is believed to be the daughter of Josiah Wescott, the Revolutionary War patriot who is buried at Wescott Cemetery on Marcelle Avenue in South Portland.

Joseph grew up in Scarborough and married Bethiah “Bertha” Jones there in 1810; they soon settled in Cape Elizabeth. In 1814, already living in Cape Elizabeth, Joseph bought his first piece of property here – a 3.75-acre lot near Main Street that abutted the Wescott property. It was a start, but three years later, he bought a 100-acre lot from William T. Vaughan (Vaughan’s father was a proprietor of and driving force behind the construction of Vaughan’s Bridge in 1800 – the bridge was later replaced by the Veteran’s Bridge). The 100-acre lot was noted as starting about a mile from the bridge – in the rough area of where you’d find Rumery Street today – and then running south along Main Street to roughly the area of Memory Lane. The property contained tillable land and swamp land.

Joseph and Bertha made their home and farmed their property along Main Street. They had many daughters, including Mary Ann, Dorothy, Martha, Abbie, Jane, Lydia, Sarah, Julia, Angie, and Bethiah. We have only found one son, Sidney, but he died at 8 months old.

In 1829, Joseph took a loan from Reuben Curtis of Gloucester, Massachusetts, putting up the 100-acre property as collateral; exactly 17 months later, he sold both his 100-acre property and the original 3.75-acre parcel to Curtis, but he and Bertha remained in their home with their family, farming the surrounding land.

The 100-acre property was sold two more times, but then purchased by Joseph’s cousin, William H. Hunnewell, who ended up breaking up the acreage, selling 50 acres of it back to Joseph in 1839, including the land on which Joseph’s farmhouse stood. The 50 acres covered what is now the developed area from Union Street to Memory Lane.

We get a glimpse of Joseph’s 50-acre farm on the 1850 census. He was farming about half of the land, with one horse, four oxen, three milk cows, one pig, and five sheep. During that year, he had grown 20 bushels of corn, one bushel of peas/beans, 12 bushels of potatoes, harvested 5 tons of hay, and he produced 100 pounds of butter and 20 pounds of wool.

After Joseph’s death in 1853, his real estate went in equal parts to his wife and surviving daughters. Some investors appeared to have taken advantage of some of the heirs. James B. Thornton bought three of the daughters’ shares for $40 apiece, selling the three shares less than two weeks later for $100 each to another investor, Seth B. Hilborn. Through a series of transactions, Hilborn eventually owned most of the 50-acre farm for a time, before subdividing and selling off a few pieces. After Hilborn’s death, the remaining 35 acres of the former Hunnewell farm that he owned was sold to a farmer, Charles McCourt. That 35 acres was later purchased by the Johnsons (15 acres) and Fred Lund (20 acres).

If you’d like to see more information and photographs related to South Portland’s past, check out South Portland Historical Society’s free Online Museum with over 17,000 images available for viewing with a keyword search. You can find it at sphistory.pastperfectonline.com. If you have photographs or other information to share about our community’s past, we hope you will reach out to us. South Portland Historical Society can be reached at 207-767-7299, by email at sphistory04106@gmail.com, or by mail at 55 Bug Light Park, South Portland, ME 04106.

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