The Other Freeport
Three miles south of L.L. Bean is a soulful little village that has retained much of its historic character. But the preservation of South Freeport has come at a cost.
By Edgar Allen Beem, Photography by Michele Stapleton
Nancy Clark grew up in South Freeport. Her great-grandfather Rufus Soule Randall was part-owner of the largest vessel ever built on Harraseeket Harbor. She remembers when the village sidewalks were made of crushed clam shells, when Middle Street was a dirt path called Cross Street, and when neighborhood kids could toboggan the length of the village from Flagpole Hill right down across Dixon Beach and out onto the harbor ice.That South Freeport is gone, but Nancy Clark is still here. And if this little village of hers -- located at the mouth of the Harraseeket River, just three miles south of downtown Freeport -- retains something of its soulfulness, it's because of people like her.
