Every summer, tourists flocked to Rock Rest, a tidy house tucked away in the woods on the outskirts of Kittery. After sightseeing and days on the beach, they gathered on the lawn to socialize and play badminton. They ate three-course dinners of seafood, freshly grown produce and desserts baked by their host.

In York, guests at the Jewell Inn slept in small cabins and were served meals in the lodge, where there was a jukebox and small dance floor. Visitors staying at Ethel Goode Franklin’s bed-and-breakfast in Ogunquit dined on fried clams and blueberry pancakes and listened to Red Sox games on the radio. Farther north in Portland, guests at the Thomas House played cards and gossiped at the Green Lantern Grille.

Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial segregation, businesses could refuse service to Black travelers. So when Maine wasn’t welcoming, Black residents made a Vacationland of their own.

They carved out safe havens where people of color could also enjoy the scenery that has long attracted people to the state. Those places — including Rock Rest, the Jewell Inn, Ethel Goode Franklin’s bed-and-breakfast and the Thomas House — helped open Maine to all tourists, not just the white ones.

Some of the Maine businesses advertised in the Green Book — a guide for Black travelers published from 1936 to 1967, when discrimination was widespread — while others were known only through word of mouth. The guide, officially called the Negro Motorist Green Book, was founded by postal worker Victor Hugo Green and provided lists of hotels, boarding houses, taverns, restaurants and gas stations that were friendly to Black Americans during the era of Jim Crow laws.

Bob Sheppard, of Kittery, who is working on a documentary about Rock Rest and its owners, said the guest houses filled a need in Maine as travel became more popular after World War II “when people realized there was a big world out there.” Cars were more available to use for travel, interstate highways were expanding and there was a growing Black middle class of doctors, lawyers, architects and entrepreneurs, he said.

“They wanted to travel and take vacations in interesting places just like their white counterparts,” he said. “People were drawn to southern Maine. It was relatively safe and people didn’t have to deal with Jim Crow laws and possible harassment and violence like in the South.”

Author Candacy Taylor spent three years scouting nearly 5,000 sites across America while she was writing “Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America.”

“I learned that less than 5% are still in operation and more than 75% are gone,” Taylor wrote in her book, published in 2020. “That is why it is so important for me to document the ones that are left.”

Those lost sites include many in Maine. Lisa Jones, founder and owner of Black Travel Maine, posted on Instagram in 2023 when the Hideaway Inn on Main Street in Ogunquit was for sale. Franklin ran her bed-and-breakfast in that building until the 1970s, and notable guests included poet and playwright Langston Hughes.

“This Bed & Breakfast needs to become a place to stay, a tourist site and place of historical significance,” Jones wrote, and called for the property to be preserved.

The building eventually sold for $1.6 million and no longer operates as an inn, but Jones hasn’t given up her dream. Her tourism business aims to welcome people of color to a state they might not have considered visiting. Her packed weekend itineraries often include walking tours that celebrate Maine’s Black history, which she said are a major draw. In the future, she envisions the former inn as a home for Black Travel Maine and an anchor for visitors and residents alike.

“We need a cultural center,” she said. “I’d love to restore it and bring it back.”

AN OASIS IN KITTERY

Clayton Sinclair was working as a chauffeur for a family from New York when he came to Maine and met Hazel Colbert, a maid for a family from Baltimore. They fell in love and decided to stay in Kittery, a risky move for a Black couple in the 1930s — even for one whose ambition led to them to become well-known entrepreneurs, community members and activists.

They bought a small rundown cape with no indoor plumbing or electricity on 2 acres on Brave Boat Harbor Road. When he wasn’t working as a driver at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Clayton Sinclair fixed up the house they called Rock Rest. Hazel Sinclair, well-known for her cooking by the families that summered in the area, did some catering and sewing, said Sheppard, who interviewed her in the 1980s when he was a broadcast journalist.

The Sinclairs turned their home into a summer guesthouse for Black travelers in 1946, creating an oasis with colorful gardens and fine dining.

“They realized people wanted to come here just like everyone else to enjoy the rugged beauty of southern Maine,” Sheppard said.

They didn’t advertise in the Green Book, relying instead on referrals and word of mouth. People came from more than two dozen states, often writing to Hazel Sinclair in the winter to make reservations for the summer, mailing her their $5 deposit checks.

Hazel Sinclair kept meticulous records of everyone who stayed at Rock Rest. In the offseason, guests who became like family mailed her postcards from their travels.

Rock Rest accommodated up to 16 guests at a time and had nearly 100% occupancy every summer. The Sinclairs hired local high school girls to help with cooking and serving. After dinner — always served on the finest china with linen tablecloths and napkins — guests went to the game room in the garage to play cards and table tennis. They pulled chairs into circles on the lawn so they could sit and talk.

The Sinclairs ran their guest house until 1975, when Black travelers had more lodging options and civil rights laws to support them. Clayton Sinclair died in 1978 and Hazel in 1995. After her death, the house gradually fell into disrepair, but was later restored and is now privately owned. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

Many of Hazel Sinclair’s records and letters are now held by the University of New Hampshire library. The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., is home to items from the guesthouse, including one of the rocks painted with “Rock Rest” that sat outside the home.

Despite the popularity of Rock Rest, many in town had no idea what took place there, Sheppard said. But interest was renewed in recent years as historical markers highlighting the significance of Rock Rest were installed in town and Hazel Sinclair’s recipes were included in a cookbook celebrating Kittery’s history. Last year, the town harbormaster’s boat was named after Hazel Sinclair, her name printed on the side using her own cursive handwriting.

“With the naming of the harbormaster vessel, Hazel’s legacy of providing steadfast protection and comfort on land will now continue into Kittery’s waterways,” town leaders said when the boat was dedicated.

SEASIDE SAFE HAVENS

When Hughes came to Maine while one of his plays was being performed at the Ogunquit Playhouse, he was denied lodging at local hotels. But he was welcomed by Ethel Goode Franklin, the owner of a bed-and-breakfast a short walk from the playhouse.

Franklin, a dynamic playwright, actress, chef and writer, was the first Black woman to own property in town. She bought an old farmhouse on Route 1 in the mid-1930s and transformed it into a casual bed-and-breakfast popular with people performing and working at the playhouse, as well as working-class people vacationing along the coast.

She planted geraniums across the yard, offered croquet on the front lawn and built a 14-foot table from knotty pine for her dining room. She cooked everything on a wood-burning stove: fried clams, blueberry pancakes and apple pies with fruit picked from the trees in her yard. She only allowed Red Sox games on the radio and television, and was known for using her apron to wave to departing guests.

Christina Steed, Franklin’s great-great niece and a professor at DePaul University in Chicago, said Franklin created a warm and inviting place for Black people to feel comfortable when they visited a state with very few people who looked like them.

“She was committed to creating a safe haven for Black artists and Black everyday folks to have a place to stay when they came to Maine,” she said.

Franklin never advertised in the Green Book, but her bed-and-breakfast was well known among Black travelers. She charged $25 to $35 a week and served both breakfast and dinner for up to 35 guests at a time. She ran her business until she retired in the early 1970s.

“It was never about running a bed-and-breakfast,” Steed said. “It was about creating a place for people to come to feel celebrated, to feel warmth, to be in community with each other.”

Twenty-five miles north of Franklin’s bed-and-breakfast, Rose Cummings’ guest house in Old Orchard Beach developed a loyal following. It was the only establishment in the seaside town that offered accommodations for Black visitors.

Cummings, who ran the guest house with her husband and seven children, kept a ledger that included more than 3,000 signatures of guests who stayed there between 1923 and 1993. Some were well-known — Count Basie, Lionel Hampton and Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen — and others were doctors, judges, religious leaders and ordinary folks. Jazz band leader Duke Ellington and his band used the piano room for practice when they were in town to perform.

Cummings was known as a very good cook, feeding her guests southern fried chicken, lobster salad and mashed potatoes with gravy. After meals, guests would move to the spacious front porch to catch the ocean breeze, visit and play cards. When all 11 rooms were filled with guests, Cummings and her children slept on the back porch.

“My mother wanted a guest house for chauffeurs and maids that perhaps had never had a chance to have a vacation. So she did start that home to give them a chance to have a beautiful vacation in Old Orchard Beach, Maine,” Ann Searcy, one of Rose Cummings’ daughters, said in the application to include the guest house on the National Register of Historic Places.

Cummings died in 1959, but her children continued to operate the guest house for another 33 years, often welcoming several generations of returning visitors. In the summer of 1993, the last guests signed the register and the doors of the guesthouse were closed for good.

A BEACON IN PORTLAND

The green lantern underneath the bay window was always lit, even in snow and storms. It was a signal to Black sailors, shipyard workers and soldiers who needed a place to stay. It also gave the Thomas House in Portland its nickname.

“There was no USO, no place for Black sailors to go to play the jukebox or get together,” Norma McIlvaine Readdy said in “Maine’s Visible Black History: The First Chronicle of Its People” by H.H. Price and Gerald Talbot. “They could go down to the corner store and buy beer and bring it back to the Green Lantern Grill.”

Benjamin and Edie Thomas owned and operated the rooming house and restaurant on A Street before and during World War II. Nearby Union Station was a hub of employment for Black Portlanders, many of whom lived in the surrounding neighborhood. Ben Thomas himself was a porter there — called a Red Cap for the hats they wore to be visible to passengers.

Readdy, who died in 2021 at age 89, was the Thomases’ niece. She lived in the house at 28 A St. while she was growing up and shared her memories of the place in “Maine’s Visible Black History.” She recalled how Black sailors would come in wet from the ocean and the storms, and her aunt would tell them to dry off by the big furnace in the back.

The Thomas House was listed in the Green Book, and the 16 rooms would be especially packed in the summer. Railroad workers played poker between trains. Visiting prizefighters would soak their hands in a bucket of water and vinegar.

“So many people would visit from so many places for so many reasons,” Readdy said.

Edie Thomas, the sister-in-law of Rose Cummings in Old Orchard Beach, also had a contract with the U.S. government to serve lunch to Black soldiers who were guarding the waterfront and bridges during the war.

“Aunt Edie put lots of people to work,” Readdy wrote. “If it wasn’t at the Green Lantern it was someplace else. People would come to town and she’d find them jobs cooking or ironing for whatever was available. She was like an employment agency.”

Bob Greene, a retired journalist and eighth-generation Mainer, grew up on Munjoy Hill. He was too young to patronize the Green Lantern, but he and everyone else knew the name. He said Black travelers would have looked for places in the city that would be less likely to turn them away, and the little house on A Street was one.

“They were a lot more comfortable staying where they knew they would get no problems,” he said.

 

This story was updated at 3:23 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 15 to correct the spelling of Christina Steed’s name in photo credits.

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