Beyond the South End

Saving Rockland’s Past

 

Birthplace of Edna St. Vincent Millay at

198-200 Broadway in Rockland, Maine

 

 

The Free Press of November 5, 2015 carried a disturbing story as its lead story on Page 1. The house pictured here is the birthplace of Rockland’s most famous person, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Although she grew up mostly in Camden, Rockland has its own claim to this most famous poet because she was born in this house on Broadway in Rockland.

As you can see from the photo, the house is in a terrible state of disrepair. It has recently gone on the market for a mere $88,000 in a short sale which means you pay for it in cash and make whatever repairs are necessary yourself. Such sales are usually grabbed up by those professional “flippers” out there who will restore such houses and then put them on the market.

However, it may be too late for the Broadway house as it has several major things wrong with it including the heating system and structural problems. It very well could end up as cheap rental housing, which ironically was the rental home of the Millay family when it was first built in 1892. Sadly there is also the possibility to consider that the structure will be torn down.

My own family claims its own connection with Millay as relatives on her Emery side. One of the Emery clan, my. grandmother Ida Emery,  was married to my grandfather, Frederick Sylvester, her first husband. She later married Roy Tolman, who was related to Isaiah Tolman, the first settler of Rockland. Henry Tolman Millay, Edna’s father, was descended from Isaiah.

I say all this because my family would be very upset to say the least if this famous house were to end up in the lost files of Rockland history and Rockland’s connection to Millay would be forever lost and denied to us.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in this house on February 22, 1892. Bells rang out exactly as she was born and they realized that she was born on George Washington’s birthday, thus the celebration with the bells.

The house on Broadway was a gathering place for friends and family before Edna was born. There were weekend card games and sing-a-longs. They described their home as D.E., or damn elegant. Look at it now with its peeling paint and you would never know such a famous person once lived there. The plaque placed on the outside of the house in 1935 by the Women’s Educational Club to honor the house for its historical value is now long gone. The folks who lived there during that time got tired of people knocking on the door hoping for a tour of the house or for picture opportunities. I expect that today’s “selfie” brigade would have driven them nuts also.

Edna’s hair was “Emery” red like the hair of many Emerys I have known in my own life. I have an autographed picture given to my Great-Aunt Mary Sue Emery, also a red head. I always hang it in my office wherever I live and use it as my own personal muse.

I write of all these family connections to emphasize how much she means to my family and how much it would personally offend me if any horrible thing were to happen to the house on Broadway.

It would be a shame and a disgrace if the city of Rockland and its residents who love its history were to ignore the Broadway house and just let the chips fall where they may.

So what can we all do about it? I urge you to contact my friend, Ann Morris, of the Rockland Historical Society, who is trying to come up with ways to save the house. They are looking to establish a foundation that could solicit donations which would eventually reestablish Millay’s birthplace as a literary landmark and might I also add myself, possibly a national historical landmark. Other activities would involve using the house as a cultural center possibly tying it in with Farnsworth Museum programs.

If you care about preserving our past and honoring probably the most famous person who ever lived in Rockland, please consider my words here. In the current era of Rockland’s artistic atmosphere there should certainly be room for the cultural programs that could be developed by using this most famous site on Broadway as a stepping stone to draw more literary people to the area for workshops and the like.

Let’s see what we can accomplish here. You with me?