Port Clyde is the southernmost settlement on the St. George peninsula in central/coastal

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 ...

and part of 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 ...

St. George Saint George (;Geʽez: ጊዮርጊስ, , ka, გიორგი, , , died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to holy tradition, he was a soldier in the ...

Knox County, Maine Knox County is a county located in the state of Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,607. Its county seat is Rockland. The county is named for Revolutionary War general and Secretary of War Henry Knox, who li ...

, United States. The ZIP Code for Port Clyde is 04855.

History

In the 19th century, Port Clyde became a busy port featuring granite quarries, tide mills for sawing timber, and shipbuilding and fish canning businesses. By the 20th century, the area attracted artists and writers. ''

The Country of the Pointed Firs ''The Country of the Pointed Firs'' is an 1896 book by American writer Sarah Orne Jewett. It is considered by some literary critics to be her finest work. Plot The narrator, a Bostonian, returns after a brief visit a few summers prior, to the ...

'' was written by

Sarah Orne Jewett Theodora Sarah Orne Jewett (September 3, 1849 – June 24, 1909) was an American novelist, short story writer and poet, best known for her local color works set along or near the southern coast of Maine. Jewett is recognized as an important ...

in St. George. Port Clyde's harbor was originally known as Herring Gut. Marshall Point—site of the Marshall Point Lighthouse—is Port Clyde's southernmost extremity. This lighthouse is the one to which

Tom Hanks Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...

ran in the 1994 film ''

Forrest Gump ''Forrest Gump'' is a 1994 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis. An adaptation of the Forrest Gump (novel), 1986 novel by Winston Groom, the screenplay of the film is written by Eric Roth. It stars Tom Hanks in the title rol ...

''. Port Clyde was home to The Port Clyde Packing Co., manufacturer of Port Clyde Sardines. Employing around 200 people, it was the largest employer in the area for most of its existence. The factory was destroyed in a fire on September 26, 1970. An overnight fire on September 27–28, 2023, destroyed the settlement's general store, the Maine Wyeth Art Gallery, a restaurant, and offices of the local boat line.

Residences

*The Wyeth family, with three generations of accomplished artists, has owned a summer home in Port Clyde ever since

N.C. Wyeth Newell Convers Wyeth (October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945), known as N. C. Wyeth, was an American painter and illustrator. He was a student of Howard Pyle and became one of America's most well-known illustrators. Wyeth created more than 3,000 ...

purchased "Eight Bells" in the early 1920s. His son

Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist and one of the best-known American artists of the middle 20th century. Though he considered himself to be an "abstractionist," Wyeth was primarily a realis ...

long owned property and spent time in the area, as does N.C.'s grandson,

Jamie Wyeth James Browning Wyeth (born July 6, 1946) is an American Realism (arts), realist painter, son of Andrew Wyeth, and grandson of N.C. Wyeth. He was raised in Chadds Ford Township, Pennsylvania, and is artistic heir to the Brandywine School traditio ...

. Andrew's widow Betsy owned two islands off Port Clyde. *Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and his wife purchased a home on Hupper Island just off the coast of Port Clyde in 2006. The house is a one-story structure built in the 1960s and reportedly purchased for $475,000. *

Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s as a minimal ...

, one of the best known American color field painters, spent the last several years of his life in Port Clyde. There he worked regularly at his studio and owned a home with his wife,

Paige Rense Paige Rense, also known as Paige Rense Noland (May 4, 1929 – January 1, 2021) was an American writer and editor who served as editor-in-chief of ''Architectural Digest'' magazine from 1975 until 2010. She founded the Arthur Rense Prize poetry ...

, Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Digest.Kenneth Noland, Abstract Painter of Brilliantly Colored Shapes, Dies at 85
. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' (January 6, 2010). *Port Clyde is the site of Fieldstone Castle, built by

Russell W. Porter Russell Williams Porter (December 13, 1871 – February 22, 1949) was an American artist, engineer, architect, cartographer, amateur astronomer, and Arctic explorer. He was a pioneer in the field of cutaway drawing and is sometimes referred to as t ...

, currently inhabited by artist Greg Mort as his summer studio. *Port Clyde is the site of Land's End Historic District, a former artists' colony built by Russell W. Porter that is now a group of summer cottages. *Port Clyde is the site of a home designed by Russell W. Porter as the town library.

References

External links

Town of St. George
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Maine Unincorporated communities in Knox County, Maine Populated coastal places in Maine

History

Residences

References

Further reading

External links