“First Person” shares the stories of people who make a life here, in their words. Conversations are edited for clarity and length.
Helen Norton, of Harpswell Neck, and her late husband, Walter, are credited with building the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust, preserving historic buildings and conserving large tracts of open land for the enjoyment of generations to come.
I was a summer person in the late 1940s when I met my future husband. His father was a mason and my family needed a chimney repair at our house. The father and another son, Andrew, came over to do the work. One day, Andrew asked me to go to dinner and said, “Do you mind if I bring my brother along?”
That turned out to be Walter. I liked his demeanor, his smile, the way he listened. I was 19 and he was 25. The Grange had Friday night square dances and most everybody in Harpswell Neck would go. Those of us who are still here miss them. Walter had three left feet; he never liked dancing. But he did like square dancing, and I learned.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, in Amish country. My father was not a farmer, but he owned a farm, a combination of five different dairy farms. There were Holsteins and Guernseys. I spent all my youth on the farm. The farmers were my friends. They were hard workers and I think they really enjoyed having me around.
I helped with haying, mending the fences, mucking the stalls. And I had a couple of horses. I’ve loved farms ever since — the smell of the hay, the animals. I didn’t realize it back then, but it showed me how important farms are. You see those little bumper stickers on cars: “No farms, no food.” It’s true.
Walter and I got married in 1952. I was in college at Mount Holyoke and he was working in Boston. He’d drive over every Wednesday night to visit and then he said, “Enough of this. Let’s get married!”
Walter was a civil engineer and he didn’t really like Boston and I didn’t like it either. So we moved back up here. He got a job as an engineer on the Navy fuel storage facility where Mitchell Field is now. Then we had two wonderful years in Spain, where he worked for the U.S. Navy refurbishing fuel depots at old bases the Nazis had built.
Before we left to go overseas, we would live on my family’s island in the summer and find places to rent in the winter; we had 14 moves in three years. But after Spain, we built this house on his family’s land and raised three daughters: Helen, Nena, and Sandra. There is so much to love in this place: the land, the water, the peace and quiet.
In my late teens, just before I got married, the federal government decided they needed a four-lane highway from northern Pennsylvania down toward Washington and Baltimore. Industry and houses grew up around the highway, and it transformed everything. The noise that emanated from that interstate was unbelievable. The road cut right through our farm, and that had enormous consequences for me.
In 1986 in Harpswell, the historic Tarr-Hackett house and surrounding property came up for sale. My daughters and I used to ride our horses on it when we took the fuel-line trail reaching to the Navy base. Walter and I said, “We can’t just have it developed into a lot of houses.” That’s an iconic house; it was a tavern in its early history for people when they came home from Brunswick. So we bought it.
The Harpswell Heritage Land Trust was just in its beginning phases and they had no money. So we thought, “Let’s donate the house and 2 acres and they can sell it for seed money.” They sold it to a wonderful couple from Massachusetts with a lot of stipulations that it be restored to the period, which they did. They did a wonderful job with it.
In 2006, what is now Two Coves Farm was put up for auction. That was a day I’ll never forget. Walter and I were the only ones bidding against a housing developer from Lewiston, which kept pushing the price higher and higher. I stayed home; I couldn’t participate. But Walter kept calling to ask, “What do you think?” I said yes. I kept saying yes until we got it. Joe and Laura Grady were young farmers who came to us through the Maine Farmland Trust, and they’ve been there ever since.
Around that time, the old schoolhouse at the corner of Route 123 and Mountain Road went on the market. It was a one-room school built in 1913 with a woodstove and an outhouse; my oldest daughter went there for a time. It had been turned into a gift shop, but I thought the town needed a year-round restaurant. My husband was not very happy about this; he said, “You’re crazy.” But it’s a part of the history of Harpswell, so I thought, there’s a good opportunity.
In 2023, we had two fires and operations changed mightily. But here we are today and I think it’s rather successful. The people of Harpswell love it and we’re getting people from out of town who also enjoy it.
I’m grateful that Walter and I were able to preserve a number of parcels over the years, and we also helped in Brunswick and Topsham. Harpswell could have done better with how it managed development, with the influx of tourists and new residents. Farmers, fishermen and their waterfront land all disappeared because everybody wanted to be on the water. Much of the core of this town disappeared.
I just hope that what’s left of open land remains open. The Land Trust has done a great job, preserving a lot of land and giving citizens an opportunity to put easements on their property to conserve it. You know, real estate people see a piece of land and say, “Oh, let’s put housing there.” But it doesn’t have to be developed. We need open space where people can enjoy being out in nature.
