White Columns / First Families Museum · Kennebunkport Maritime History
The Kennebunkport Ghost Walk was originally created by Maine tour operator Sally Lobkowicz through her company Red Cloak Tours, dedicated to preserving New England history and folklore. In 2022, Red Cloak Tours joined American Ghost Walks, and tour developer Allison Jornlin refreshed the Kennebunkport script with new material. The operator describes the tour's foundation as original research, including interviews with people who report firsthand experiences, historical records, and conversations with local business owners.
The tour begins at White Columns, an 1853 Greek Revival mansion at 8 Maine Street now home to the First Families Museum, and continues to the Lorin Deland Memorial Bench, the Louis T. Graves Library, and the Nonantum Resort. American Ghost Walks also operates tours in Boothbay Harbor, Bar Harbor, and Camden, Maine, part of a broader multi-city brand with programs across the Midwest and beyond.
The tour lists a minimum age of 13 and runs rain or shine.
Sources
- https://www.americanghostwalks.com/kennebunkport
- https://www.americanghostwalks.com/tour/kennebunkport-ghost-walk
ApparitionsPoltergeist ActivityUnexplained Sounds
The Kennebunkport Ghost Walk opens with a 19th-century account, attributed by the operator to local poet Silas Perkins, of a horse-drawn cart passenger encounter with a pale apparition near a grassy knoll. The tour continues to White Columns, described as a 'residential time capsule' with rooms sealed off for 70 years, and the Lorin Deland Memorial Bench, tied by the operator to early-20th-century writer Margaret Deland and her husband Lorin, whom the copy describes as having a documented interest in psychical research. The Louis T. Graves Library is framed around a headstone embedded in its exterior wall and a reported poltergeist the operator says was investigated by artist Abbott Graves and other local figures. The Nonantum Resort, the operator's site states, is Kennebunkport's oldest existing hotel, where 27 ghosts are said to roam, most often reported on the second and third floors.
The operator's own highlights also reference celebrities who summered in the Kennebunks, including writer Booth Tarkington and Margaret Deland, and note the area's connections to the Salem Witch Trials.
All of this is the tour operator's own marketing and narrative material, not documented history verified independently for this listing; it is included here as a description of what the tour covers, not as an endorsement of any specific claim.
Media Appearances
- Boothbay Register
- WGME CBS 13
- Wiscasset Newspaper
