Memories

Leslie King, a Southwest Harbor native and innkeeper, proudly says his father was “the second baby ever born in Southwest Harbor.”

Technically, he is correct, for the town of Southwest Harbor became a municipality in January 1905. Stanwood King was born soon after.

“I have heard my father talk about this place, and now I get asked often, too,” said Les King, himself 72.

“Splitting from Tremont was taken up in the Maine Legislature. There were seven or eight meetings to decide what pieces went to Tremont, and what went to Southwest Harbor.

“Of course, many people didn’t want to split, but many did. They did succeed, and left the town of Tremont with all kinds of roads to take care of.”

The Moorings Inn, which King and his wife, Betty, run, wasn’t yet an inn at Manset, one of the villages of then-Tremont. But it was a fine home, containing portions of the oldest standing structure in Southwest Harbor, a 1748 farmhouse.

The inn started in business in 1916. The Kings bought it 40 years ago. It is now next door to the internationally known Hinckley Boatyard.

“I’m right down on the shore, where much of the town history happened,” King said. “This is the head of the harbor, near where Gov. Bernard had his first little settlement.

“We always get people standing on our lawn, asking what’s this, what’s that,” he said. “So I have to know the history.”

The entire town will call on King in a few years when town fathers start planning Southwest Harbor’s centennial celebration—for  2005.