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PHOTO DATED 1904 COURTESY JOHN R. TAYLOR First Peoples Native American tribes inhabited the coasts of northern New England beginning several thousand years ago. These native peoples moved with the seasons and with the migrations of shad, eel, alewife, and salmon. From October through March they hunted beaver, otter, moose, bear, and caribou. From spring to fall they caught fish and shellfish off the coast. They used cattails, salt hay, and other wild plants for weaving, medicine, and food. Colonial Maine European settlers were first attracted to this area by its extensive salt marshes, which readily served as pastures and hayfields. Salt hay harvested from the marshes kept cattle alive through harsh Maine winters. The land now acting as Wells Reserve headquarters was claimed in 1643 by Henry Boade, a prominent figure in the Province of Maine. He and his wife, Ann, kept the farm for over a decade before selling 300 acres in 1655 for “foure scoore pounds, to bee payd in wheate, ry, barley, Cattle, in butter & porke, & Indean Corne.” The Boades remained on the farm until Henry’s death in 1657. Two Symonds brothers purchased the property from Boade, but it was William who kept the farm. He, like Boade, was a prominent citizen of Wells but his tenure on the farm was cut short by King Philip’s War (1675– 1678). Symonds’s farm was apparently left unoccupied during a decades-long period of hostility. By 1717, Nathaniel Clark had purchased the farm, beginning a long occupancy by Clark families. Agricultural records from 1850 reveal the Clarks raised cattle and cultivated potatoes, corn, hay, barley, and orchard products. Twenty years later, the farm’s operation had shifted to sheep, yielding 500 pounds of wool in 1870 alone. In 1881, the Clark Farm was put on the market. The Lord Era George Clement Lord, a Massachusetts businessman with Kennebunk roots, purchased the Clark Farm with the assistance of two other investors. He obtained sole ownership in 1882. Ten years later, George’s son Robert, who was raising cattle at his own estate in Massachusetts, voyaged to Guernsey and returned with purebred cows to initiate a herd in Wells. After his father died in 1893, Robert controlled the farm until his own death in 1908. Charles E. Lord, another of George’s sons, became proprietor after Robert’s death. It was Charles who applied the name “Laudholm Farms” to what had been known as “The Elms.” The farm offered milk, cream, butter, eggs, roasters, and broilers sent by parcel post to Boston and beyond. laud to give praise holm meadow on the shore During the Great Depression, the Lords took in summer boarders at “Laudholm Manor Farms & Cottages.” Guests were treated to fresh Guernsey milk and cream, produce from the garden, and a room with a private bath — all for $4 to $6 per person per day including meals. PHOTO DATED 1909 COURTESY MARION W. LORD The end of the Lords’ commercial farming operation came in 1952, when Charles’s son, George C. Lord II, dispersed the Guernsey herd at an auction held on the property. As stated in the Laudholm Farms dispersal catalog: Cattle from this herd have always given satisfaction and have been the foundation for many herds in Maine. The Lord family used the estate as a retreat for many years and local farmers tended the fields. In 1969, George C. Lord II sold 199 acres, including Laudholm Beach, to the State of Maine. He died in 1977. With the future of the farm uncertain, area residents began a grassroots effort to protect it from development. They formed the nonprofit Laudholm Trust in 1982 and, with broad support, helped to establish the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. Laudholm Farm was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
