Maine Day 6 (Friday)

Friday was the last of “my” days in Rockland, so I wanted to hit some more coastal sights. I started the day off going south, to Wiscasset. I had found a description of an intriguing-sounding museum that I wanted to take Mer to see. It is on a back street of Wiscasset, and is housed in an old, huge house that used to belong to a sea captain. The museum is called the Musical Wonder House, and it is the largest collection of music boxes in one place in the United States. I like music boxes, and Mer has been fascinated by them for years. So, it seemed like a good destination.

I had no idea how elaborate music boxes were in the late 1800s. There were huge, well-finished wooden boxes that could play multiple tunes and even had interchangeable cartridges. Some cartridges had over ten thousand dots on them to pluck the musical tines. Some had such full sound that you could feel the bass notes through your feet. Some music boxes had bells and percussion in addition to the tines, and one Russian box even had a small pipe organ in it, the sound of which you could add or take away as you saw fit.

There were round record-like cylinders that were made of metal and played as records would later play. There were music boxes used to elaborately serve up after-dinner drinks or cigarettes. There were artificial birds that sang and moved, and seascapes where the boats bobbed up and down. They even had two player pianos with “recordings” of Gershwin and Rachmaninoff that the composers had played themselves. It was fascinating. The entire tour, led by a quiet ex-teacher, took over an hour.

I could have spent a fortune in the gift shop – the music boxes were beautiful. I did manage to get away with a CD of some of the music boxes playing various hymns.

On a whim, we wandered up the street to Castle Tucker, a slightly misleading name for an older mansion that was open for tours. We took the tour, and it was very enjoyable. It was just Mer and I and the tour guide. The house is very pretty, but what was fascinating to me is that most of the furniture was from the 1800s – the house had passed down through the family, and the last woman to own the house changed very little. She donated the house to a trust, but she is still alive in a nursing home. It is astonishing that no one threw out the “old fashioned” furniture over the years. It was a very worthwhile tour, especially for five dollars each.

We drove out of Wiscasset, and on another whim, I took the road to Fort Edgecomb. The fort overlooks the river, and is a wooden blockhouse which is a (restored) original. There are not many left. As Mer liked to point out, lighthouses and forts tend to be in very scenic areas, so not only was the blockhouse interesting, but the grounds were pretty was well.

On yet another whim, I followed signs to Pemaquid Point. It took a fair amount of time to get there, but I figured anywhere with the word “Point” in the name that was close to the ocean was likely to be pretty. I was not wrong. The road really does end in the point of land, at the Pemaquid Point lighthouse, which turns out to be the lighthouse seen on the back of the “Maine” quarter. The keeper’s house now holds an eclectic small museum that focuses on fishing. We toured that, but it only takes a few minutes. The real sights are the lighthouse and the grounds. The lighthouse was open, so after a short wait we were able to climb up into it. We could see all around the point, and it is breathtaking.

The grounds are all granite rocks, and they fall jaggedly to the sea. The waves hit the rocks in multiple directions, which create cool waves (and, according to the warning signs, very dangerous undertows). We walked around the grounds and looked at the outbuildings (an old bell tower for foggy days, and the old lamp oil storage shed), but mostly we just sat on the rock and watched the ocean. What an amazing place.

On the way out from the Point, we swung by Fort William Henry, which is the ruins of an old fort with one reconstructed tower. The fort at one time had been the northern extreme of British holdings against the French, and so the fort had been built up and destroyed two or three times. We read about the history of the fort, and climbed the tower, which overlooks Pemaquid Beach. It is hard to think that the beach is only a mile or two from the rocks of the point. At the beach, the water was calm, and the beach was sandy.

We took a very scenic drive back home, with my intention to eat in Waldoboro (for no great reason other than whim). It turns out that Waldoboro is a dinky little town, and we did not see anywhere to eat. We moved on to Thomaston, to the Thomaston Cafe, which was open. It turns out their supper menu is on the fancy side, with entrees from about twenty dollars and up. We moved on again, landing back in Rockland and eating at the Park Street Grille, which specializes in southwestern-influenced food. We did also pick up another set of whoopie pies and a cookie from the Rockland Cafe for dessert at home.

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