Mansion House, Robbinston, ca. 1910
Item 88023 info
Penobscot Marine Museum
John Brewer, a prominent Robbinston shipbuilder and brigadier general of the Washington County Militia during the War of 1812, built the elegant Federal style Mansion House in 1785.
From the glass-enclosed cupola were sweeping views of the St. Croix River and bay.
It is one of three grand Brewer homes in Robbinston: the striking Greek Revival house built by John’s son, Capt. John Nehemiah Marks Brewer; and the Gothic Revival house, called the Cottage House, built by John N. M. Brewer’s widow, Henrietta.
James Shepherd Pike, a Calais native who was Abraham Lincoln’s ambassador to the Netherlands, owned the Mansion House after Brewer. Pike is said to have set the granite milestones, still visible in 2013, along the road between his home and Calais to clock his horses as he traveled to his law office in Calais.
He entertained such noted guests as Horace Greeley, Charles A. Dana, and Justice Salmon P. Chase, who shared his abolitionist views, at the Mansion House.
Robbinston was allegedly the last stop on the Underground Railroad, from which fugitive slaves crossed into Canada.
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