In the span of about 90 minutes during the storm on Jan. 10, the McLain family of Bristol lost a 100-year-old cottage and dock outside of Pemaquid Harbor near Fort William Henry.
According Kimberly McLain, the family has been in Bristol since the 1850s when her great great-grandfather moved from Broad Cove in Bremen to the area of the property on Fish Point Road where the cottage and accompanying dock used to sit.
“We’re still reeling,” McLain said. “It’s irreplaceable, it’s family heritage.”
According to her brother, Bobby McLain, who lives at the house on the property year-round, the cottage was furnished, had a bedroom with twin bed in it, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a common space.
“We would get everyone in the family together there all the time during the summer,” Bobby McLain said. “There were a lot of memories shared there.”
Many of those memories predate both Kimberly and Bobby McLain, and include a span in the 1940s when the cottage was McLain’s Store, a general store on the dock and a bait shed.
Bobby McLain said the storm surge and waves of the Jan. 10 storm not only took the cottage, but the 88 pilings it and the dock sat on. Now, only two pilings remain.
“There was nothing you could do once it started happening,” Bobby McLain said. “I was convinced it was built like a tank and couldn’t go anywhere.”
When the second storm on Jan. 13 approached, Kimberly McLain said people in the community asked her if she was worried about further damage.
“I told them there was nothing left to damage,” Kimberly McLain said.
Along the shore, near the last pilings, are a few things the tide didn’t take: a lawnmower, a sink, cabinetry, and a microwave.
The rest of the structure left with the tide, carrying with it fixings in the house, but not all was lost, according to Kimberly McLain.
Within a few days of the first storm, local Jason Anthony posted on the social media website Next Door, a picture of a chair he found washed up on his shore in Pemaquid Harbor. On the back of the chair was a plate that read “Captain Frank McLain: Beloved Harbor Master of Indian Cove,” identifying it as a chair that had been in the McLain family, and in the cottage, for generations.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Kimberly McLain said.
In addition to the chair, the McLains also found their dining room table in Pemaquid Harbor, along with a few other signs and meaningful memorabilia walking along the shores of the nearby harbor, including an old plaque with a poem that reads “Whether the weather be fine / Or whether the weather be not / Whether the weather be cold / Or whether the weather be hot / We’ll weather the weather. /Whatever the weather / Whether we like it or not.”
“My sons are fighting over who gets the plaque,” McLain said, laughing. “It’s really ‘weathered’ now.”
While the loss of the cottage is devastating, Kimberly McLain said she’s grateful her husband, Billy McLain, didn’t lose the lobster dock he works from in New Harbor in the storm.
Kimberly and Bobby McLain said it’s unlikely they will be able to rebuild the dock and that insurance won’t cover the damages, so the next step is to clean up parts of the roof from the cottage and other debris on the shore
“We don’t know what we’re going to do,” Kimberly McLain said. “But our next step is to clean this up.”
Those looking to donate to the town of Bristol’s Disaster Relief Efforts fund to support can make contributions online at bristolmaine.org or visit the Bristol town office in person, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Donations made will benefit commercial fisheries, residential properties, roadways, among others, that were significantly impacted by damage from the storms.
