Maine, often hailed as the "Jewel of the Coast." Camden, Maine is renowned for its picturesque harbor filled with sailboats, its vibrant waterfront parks, and its historic architecture.
A statue of Edna St. Vincent Millay is located in Harbor Park that overlooks Camden and the islands in Penobscot Bay.
It is believed that this was the location that inspired her poem: Renascence.
Built between 1928 and 1931, the Camden Amphitheater and Public Library, today a National Historic Landmark, is a legacy of the creative genius of landscape architect Fletcher Steele.
Camden, Maine
Camden is a town in Knox County, Maine, United States. The population was 5,232 at the 2020 census. The population of the town more than triples during the summer months, due to tourists and summer residents. Camden is a summer colony in the Mid-Coast region of Maine. Similar to Bar Harbor, Nantucket and North Haven, Camden is well known for its summer community of wealthy Northeasterners, mostly from Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia.
History
The Penobscot Nation have lived in the area for thousands of years. They called it Megunticook, meaning "great swells of the sea", a reference to the silhouette of the Camden Hills (more visibly seen on a bright night).
Although part of the Waldo Patent, Europeans did not attempt to colonize it until after the French and Indian War, around 1771–1772. They were led by James Richards, who built a home at the mouth of the Megunticook River. Others soon followed, squatting on Penobscot land and attempting to farm the broken and often mountainous terrain. An early home in the area was the Conway House, a Cape Cod style home built in 1770. In 1962, it was purchased and renovated into a history museum.
On February 17, 1791, the Massachusetts General Court incorporated Megunticook Plantation as Camden, named after Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, a member of the British Parliament and proponent of civil liberties
When peace returned, Camden grew rapidly. The Megunticook River provided excellent water power sites for mills. In addition to sawmills and gristmills, by 1858 the town had carriage factories, sash and blind factories and blacksmith shops. There were six shipyards, launching ten to twelve vessels annually. By 1886, the town also made foundry products, railroad cars, woolens and paper mill feltings, anchors, wedges, plugs and treenails, planking, powder kegs, excelsior, mattresses, powder, tinware, oakum, wool rolls, boots and shoes, leather, flour and meal, corn brooms and barrels. Camden was second only to nearby Rockland in the lucrative manufacture of lime, excavated at quarries and processed in kilns before being shipped to various ports around the United States until 1891, when Rockport was set off as a separate town.
In the 1880s, sportsmen and "rusticators," began to discover the natural beauty of Camden during the summer and autumn, becoming seasonal residents. Sarah Orne Jewett's stories of nostalgia for the sea, Camden's scenery, fine old homes of sea captains, and the paintings of Fitz Hugh Lane, Frederick Church, and Childe Hassam evoked a romantic vision of Maine and induced many to come to stay at the Bayview House Hotel, Ocean House, and Mrs. Hosmer's Boarding House.
Music and culture
Music and cultural interests have long flourished in Camden. In 1912, Edna St. Vincent Millay read "Renascence," a poem she wrote from the top of Mt. Battie, to the guests at the Whitehall Inn, one of whom offered to pay her tuition to Vassar. After graduating from Vassar, she went on to write poetry and plays that made her one of the most famous women in America and an inspiration for the Roaring Twenties, winning the Pulitzer Prize.
In the 1950s, artists and writers of significant reputation began moving to Camden and neighboring Rockport, where local artists organized Maine Coast Artists. Wayne Doolittle began publishing Down East Magazine in 1954, and in 1956 Carousel was filmed in Camden, followed by Peyton Place in 1957, because the quaint, old town with its picturesque harbor and scenery, looked like the picture-perfect American town. Since then Camden's setting has not gone unnoticed by Hollywood with Steven King's Thinner and Casper in 1995, Todd Field's In the Bedroom in 2001, and with the soap opera Passions using Camden for shots depicting the fictional town Harmony.
In popular culture
The 2001 Best Picture Academy Award nominated film In the Bedroom had scenes that were shot in Camden. Specifically, the historic welcome arch, the bar where Tom Wilkinson's character goes looking for his son's friend, the Camden Harbor Park and Amphitheatre where Sissy Spacek's character directs the Balkan Girl's Chorus in an outdoor concert, the exterior of the bar where her son's killer is working, and the shots of the town at dawn from the summit of Mount Battie for the film's finale
The majority of the 1995 film Casper was filmed in Camden, though the story takes place in Friendship. The production crew chose Camden, citing it to be "more authentic". In the film, Friendship is home to a fictional Art Nouveau mansion called Whipstaff Manor, which is haunted by four ghosts. However Whipstaff Manor is not a real mansion located on the sea front of Camden. The lower exterior and interior of the mansion was built on a set.
Other movies shot in Camden include Captains Courageous (1937), Carousel (1957) and Peyton Place (1957) and Head Above Water (1996).
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 26.65 square miles (69.02 km2), of which 18.24 square miles (47.24 km2) is land and 8.41 square miles (21.78 km2) is water. Drained by the Megunticook River, Camden is located beside Penobscot Bay and the Gulf of Maine, part of the Atlantic Ocean. Principal bodies of water include: Megunticook Lake, Hosmer Pond (54 acres), Impoundment (Seabright Pond) (74 acres) and Lily Pond (32 acres). Mount Megunticook has an elevation of 1385 feet (419 m).
The town is crossed by U. S. Route 1 and state routes 52 and 105. It borders the towns of Rockport to the south, Hope to the southwest, and Lincolnville to the north.
Sites of interest
Camden harbor
Bald Mountain
Bay Chamber Concerts
Camden Public Library
The Walsh History Center
Peyton Place Archives
Edna St.Vincent Millay Archives
Camden Hills State Park
Camden Opera House
Conway House Museum
Mary Meeker Cramer Museum
Camden Snow Bowl
Curtis Island Lighthouse
Camden Town office
Maiden's Cliff
Notable people
Kay Aldridge, model, actress
Gordon Bok, singer and songwriter
Eva Maria Brown (1856-1917), social reformer
Carleton F. Bryant, U.S. Navy Vice admiral and veteran of both World Wars
David G. Conover, documentary film and television director
Paul Doiron, novelist
Victoria Doudera, politician; resides in Camden
Jeremiah W. Farnham, sea captain
Tess Gerritsen, novelist
Glenn Jenks, composer and pianist
David McCullough, historian and author
Don McLean, singer and song writer
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Pulitzer prize-winning poet
Richard Russo, novelist
Matthew Wilkas, actor and playwright
Free land
Camden made national headlines in 2010 after it was announced that the town would be giving some land away (2.8 acres and a run-down leather tannery) for "free", on the condition that a prospective business owner would have to pay $175,000 to the city of Camden and create 24 "full time" jobs. As of 2012, Camden had yet to find any takers. In fact, the land was still available for "free" as of 2018.
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