David Spear House & Route 88
Posted on: August 19, 2021 - 11:30am
(Photo Courtesy of Prince Memorial Library)
This image from the 1920s shows Foreside Road at the junction of King's Highway and Town Landing Road. The house, once the home of both David Spear Sr., and David Spear Jr., has the Portland & Yarmouth Electric Railway tracks in front of it. At the base of the utility pole on the right is the B136 mile marker for the King's Highway, designating that Boston is 136 miles away.
Spear's shipyard, at the end of Town Landing Road, was one of many shipyards on Casco Bay. A family business owned and operated by David Spear Sr., then David Spear Jr. The shipyard built over 50 vessels in the 1800s, including six schooners, four ships, two barks, and seventeen brigs.
Steam power, steel ships, and the rising cost of wood brought an end to the shipbuilding era, and David Spear Jr.'s last three ships lost him over $20,000. He was forced to give up the shipyard and other properties to settle his debts and started over as a laborer, earning less than a dollar a day.