We were delighted to have Bryce Waldrop of the Historical Society of Wells and Ogunquit lead our history walk through Hilton-Winn Preserve earlier this month. Through an engaging stroll along the banks of the Ogunquit River, Bryce painted a vivid narrative of what life may have looked like for the families that farmed this land in the 18th and 19th centuries. We viewed remnants of structures they left behind, including two mill dam sites, an old road, stone walls demarcating property lines, and other remains still visible more than 200 years after they were constructed.
Bryce shared details he gathered from old deeds, census reports, and other historical documents that helped us piece together who lived here when and how they may have related to each other and the land. We put ourselves in the shoes of those early homesteaders and tried to imagine what may have drawn them to this particular location in York, noting the rocky outcrops that would have provided ample building materials and the rapids of the Ogunquit River that would have helped power their mills.
We’re grateful to Bryce for the research he conducted to develop this program, and to the late Ethel Hilton — a descendent of some of those original homesteaders — for donating this property to York Land Trust in 1999, ensuring it would remain undeveloped and open to the public in perpetuity.
We’ll be developing Bryce’s research into a self-guided History Scavenger Hunt that we will make available on our website over the summer, so stay tuned for more on that!