HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
+ 1 further entry on record
An inn in a former private residence built in 1799 on Main Street where the resident ghost goes by Silas
45 Main Street, Kennebunk, ME 04043
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Overnight room rates vary by season; the inn also operates a restaurant and tavern open to the public.
Access
Limited Access
Historic building originally constructed as a private residence in 1799. Room access involves stairs; there is no elevator.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1799 · 1799 Phineas Cole House · Historic Kennebunk Inn and Tavern · New England Hospitality History
The core of The Kennebunk Inn was built in 1799 as a private residence by Phineas Cole, according to the inn's own history. Over the following two centuries the Main Street building was expanded and converted to hospitality use, becoming the inn and tavern that still operate there today.
The property sits in downtown Kennebunk and combines overnight rooms with a restaurant and a basement-level tavern open to the public. Its long run as a working inn is part of why it accumulated the staff stories that give it its haunted reputation, since generations of clerks, bartenders, and owners have passed through the same rooms.
The figure most associated with the building is Silas Perkins, a poet who worked as a clerk at the inn and died in the mid-twentieth century. The inn presents him as its resident presence, and his connection to the building is acknowledged on the inn's own website as well as in regional press coverage of the property.
Sources
The inn's resident ghost is identified by staff as Silas Perkins, a poet who clerked at the Kennebunk Inn and died in the mid-twentieth century. A waitress originally sensed a strong presence in the basement and called it Cyrus, but the owners later came to attribute the activity to Perkins; a psychic medium who visited reported three presences in all, naming Perkins, a man called Cyrus who once worked the front desk, and a girl named Emily.
The accounts cluster around the tavern. The owners have described glassware falling or flying off shelves, lights and music switching on by themselves, and other small disturbances. The most-repeated story involves three mugs coming off a shelf and striking a bartender on the back of the head while one of the inn's owners was sitting at the bar; she has said the episode made a believer of her.
The activity is generally described as harmless and prankish rather than threatening, and the inn leans into the story rather than hiding it. The reports come from staff and owner accounts collected in regional press and on the inn's own materials rather than from formal investigation.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The Kennebunk Inn offers 17 rooms and 6 suites in the 1799 Main Street building where staff and guests have reported the activity attributed to Silas. Booking is through the inn's own reservation page.
The inn's restaurant and basement-level tavern are open to the public. Several of the reported incidents, including objects coming off shelves at the bar, are set in this part of the building.
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