By Charlie Pike
Photos courtesy of S.L. Wadsworth & Son
From our April 2025 issue
In 1632, having set sail from England, William Wadsworth stepped off the Lyon and onto the docks in Boston. He would go on to become a prominent figure in the founding of Hartford, Connecticut, although in the moment, his chief concern was probably staying upright on his sea legs, which had braced against the pitch of the Atlantic for 12 weeks. Around him, 122 other passengers spilled from the ship, including his brother, Christopher, whose name would pass through 11 generations to Christopher Wadsworth Brown, who today represents the sixth generation of the family to own the S.L. Wadsworth & Son store, in downtown Eastport.
The Wadsworth family tree could easily fill a chapter in a history book. General Peleg Wadsworth, born in 1748, served in the Revolutionary War and in Congress. In 1785, he built a Portland home that’s now the Wadsworth-Longfellow House, a museum run by the Maine Historical Society. Among Peleg’s many children who grew up there: Zilpah, eventual mother of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Samuel, eventual founder of S.L. Wadsworth & Son.
The Eastport store, opened in 1818, stakes a claim as the nation’s oldest chandlery (or, in more modern parlance, marine supply) and is quite possibly Maine’s longest-running retail operation, two years older than the state itself. In the 19th century, ships would dock at Eastport, then one of the busiest ports in the country, and their crews would come ashore for paint, whale oil, and countless other nautical provisions. Despite a series of local disasters — including Eastport’s fire of 1886, which damaged the shop, and the 1976 Groundhog Day gale, which destroyed the wharf and forced the shop to relocate — S.L. Wadsworth & Son is still purveying necessities to the small down east city’s homeowners and boat owners.
This 207th year in business is also the 30th that Brown will be steering the ship. “I went away from Eastport the minute I graduated high school,” he says. Tragedy, though, brought him back. In 1995, while he was living in Virginia, his mother and father died in a house fire. His grandmother, 100 years old at the time and also living in the house, survived. Brown returned to Eastport and took over the store.
Over the decades, he has stocked the shelves to meet the needs of Eastport residents, and those needs have changed. It wasn’t so long ago, he says, that customers came in for oakum, to plug gaps in rough-hewn homes. Now, they want things like modern crimp-on plumbing fixtures (and there’s a gift section too). But some things stay the same: always plenty of nails and screws. “You can’t give up on the real basics, the old-school stuff,” Brown says.
While running the store, Brown has developed a passion for his hometown, working with the city’s port authority to promote cruise-ship visits and serving on the board for the Eastport Memorial Nursing Home, where his grandmother moved after the house fire. He’s also one of the founders of Eastport’s Pirate Festival, which takes place the weekend after Labor Day and features live music, boat rides, exhibits on pirate history, and more.
Is there a rising 7th generation of Wadsworth proprietor in line to take over the store? “Not from me,” Brown says. “My brother has three kids, but they’re all graduated from college, going in different directions. The answer to that question is highly questionable. But you know, we just move forward.”
