Built 1760 Designated CP June 28, 1974 Architectural style Saltbox | NRHP Reference # 70000042 Opened 1760 Added to NRHP 6 October 1970 | |
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Part of Harraseeket Historic District (#74000160) | ||
The Captain Greenfield Pote House is an historic house located on Wolf Neck Road in Freeport, Maine, United States. Built c. 1750 and supposedly moved to this location in 1765, it is Freeport's oldest surviving building. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and is part of the Harraseeket Historic District. As of 1996, the house was owned by the University of Southern Maine.
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Description and history
The Greenfield Pote House is located on Wolf Neck, a peninsula across the tidal Harraseeket River from the central parts of Freeport. It is set on the east side of Wolf Neck Road, just south of its junction with Burnett Road, and north of Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park. It is a two story wood frame structure, with a gable roof that slopes down to the first floor in the rear, giving it a saltbox profile. Its foundation is unmortared fieldstone. It is finished in split cedar shingles, many of which are likely still original.
The house was built about 1750 on Falmouth Neck, the peninsula that is now the city of Portland, but was then known as Falmouth. From 1760 it was owned by Captain Greenfield Pote, a ship's captain. After complaints were filed by Falmouth residents that he set sail on the Sabbath, Pote decided to move. In 1765 the house was loaded onto a flatboat, and sailed about 13 miles (21 km) down Casco Bay to this area, where it was then moved on rollers to its present location.
The interior of the house has had little alteration beyond the introduction of electricity. About 1970 it came into the hands of the Smith family, who were dedicated to its preservation, and who donated the land that became Wolfe's Neck Woods State Park.
Pote Cemetery
The Pote Cemetery is named after Captain Greenfield Pote and is located across the street from the house. Graves mostly range from 1797 to 1921. Greenfield Pote is also buried in the cemetery, though his wife was buried in Falmouth.