Perkins Cove is a small harbor bay and fishing village in the

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

Ogunquit Ogunquit ( ) is a resort town in York County, Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,577. Ogunquit is part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area. History Ogunquit was first a village within ...

in York County,

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

, United States.

History

English fishermen first began settling here in the 1620s. Prior to this, the land had been home to the Native

Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pred ...

peoples.

In the early years of the European settlement, the area was most commonly referred to as Fish Cove or simply "the cove". It wouldn't be until the late 1800s that the name Perkins Cove would be adopted. The Perkins family, one of the earliest seafaring families in the cove, ran a boardinghouse called the "Perkins Cove House" and from that the name was derived. At the very end of the nineteenth century, Perkins Cove would begin its transformation into a thriving artist colony. It was at this time that painter Charles Woodbury founded his highly regarded art school, drawing in an influx of artists. By 1911, Hamilton Easter Field would also establish a summer art school here, converting old fish shacks into art studios and rentals. The contributions of both men were instrumental in the development of Ogunquit, not only as a flourishing artist hub, but also as a beloved vacation destination.

Geography

The village of Perkins Cove is located on a peninsula, situated between the anchorage basin at the mouth of the

Josias River The Josias River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 30, 2011 river in southern Maine in the United States. The Josias River rises from a collection of small p ...

and Oarweed Cove. The Basin, as it is known today, did not exist prior to 1880. It is a man-made inlet, created by digging out a channel between what was formerly Flat Pond and the

Gulf of Maine The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America. It is bounded by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and by Cape Sable Island at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northea ...

. This provided a shelter for the fishermen to anchor their dories. The Marginal Way, a mile-long public footpath along the rocky coastal shoreline, stretches from Perkins Cove to central Ogunquit.

References

{{York County, Maine Villages in York County, Maine Populated coastal places in Maine Landforms of York County, Maine Bays of Maine