Stop three on my two-day tour of Maine back in July 2022 was Castle Tucker, a property of Historic New England in Wiscasset, Maine. This charming tourist town has a history as a busy port along the Sheepscot River stretching back to the early colonial era. Many residents in the 18th and early 19th century made their fortunes through the shipping industry’s Transatlantic trade routes.
The house itself, then called Elm Lawn, was constructed in 1807 by the Lee family. Patriarch Silas Lee built a solid brick structure with the money he had made with shipping, along with investments in real estate. Lee was a career politician with widespread influence, but this did not protect him from the economic downturn caused by President Thomas Jefferson’s disastrous Embargo Act of 1807 and the subsequent War of 1812. Lee died in 1814, burdening his family with his debts. The house was first rented out and later sold. In 1845, local politician and swindler Franklin Clark added (in my opinion) an ugly addition to the house and was arrested for attempting to leave without paying for it.
In 1858, recently married shipping agent and former ship captain Richard Tucker, Jr., entered the picture. At forty-one years old, his life had changed abruptly when he met widow Mary Armstrong and her sixteen-year-old daughter, also named Mary Armstrong. Of course, Richard married Mary — the sixteen-year-old, that is. Within a year, she was pregnant with their own daughter, also to be named Mary. Anticipating a growing family, Richard bought Elm Lawn from the people to whom Franklin Clark owed money. Richard renamed the estate Castle Tucker after himself, but he should have called it Mary.
The Tuckers were the Kardashians of 19th century coastal Maine. Richard and Mary had five children, one of which died in infancy, and nearly got divorced after dealing with financial difficulties, Mary’s stay at a mental hospital, and a twenty-five year age gap. The entire family wrote long, nasty letters to each other, which are preserved by Historic New England. Mary the Third joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, while the other children had equally interesting but odd careers. The family spent less time at Castle Tucker, turning the home into an invite-only rental property. Unwilling or unable to spend money on repairs, they fixed water damage to the sunroom using cardboard, which actually does not look too bad.
The youngest child, called Jane or Jennie, ran the business until the 1930s, when wealthy visitors stopped coming to Wiscasset. When she died in 1964, she left the house to another Jane Tucker, her niece, who worked with Historic New England to maintain and restore the building. Historic New England has controlled Castle Tucker since 1997, with the second Jane Tucker remaining as a resident until 2003. She is memorialized with a picture and sign in the gift shop.
The tour guide at Castle Tucker was fun and accommodating, like visiting the home of an old friend. The house is filled with unusual and eclectic items from the Tucker family’s collection. Like many Historic New England properties, tours run on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from Historic New England’s open house in June through mid October with tours on the hour at 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Tickets are standard Historic New England pricing: $15 for adults, $13 for seniors, $7 for students, and $0 for Historic New England members and public library pass holders. The house is not accessible to those using a wheelchair, and the stairs might be too steep for people with low mobility. Castle Tucker does not have an online virtual tour at this time.
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Abigail Epplett leads a dual life as a freelance digital marketing consultant for small humanities-focused organizations and as a customer experience design creative specialist at lab equipment manufacturer Waters Corporation. She holds an MA in Museum Education from Tufts University, where she researched the history of New England from Plymouth to the Civil War. To learn more about her adventures with museums, visit her current blog at abbyeppletthistorian.blogspot.com.
Abigail is Historian-In-Residence at the National Museum of Mental Health Project: https://www.nmmhproject.org/