In this episode of Someone Lived Here, Kendra Gaylord brings you to Sarah Orne Jewett’s home in South Berwick, Maine. The home was built in 1774 and was lived in by the Jewett family for about 100 years.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Uh2At1w3oCk
The home, this town, and it’s residents were the inspiration for many of Sarah Orne Jewett’s novels and short stories. Her writing is often described as regionalism, but behind her trailing descriptions of the Maine countryside, she was detailing the lives of independent women. Although these books were fiction we can see that independence mirrored in her own life which she lived here and in Boston with her partner Annie Fields.
We learn more about Sarah, Annie, and the whole Jewett Family by talking with the Southern Maine Site Manager for Historic New England, Alyssa Sweet. She brings us through the dining room, library, and the bedrooms. We get to look at Sarah Orne Jewett’s writing desk and her cozy room on the second floor.
I want to thank Historic New England for letting us do this. Their amazing work has preserved houses for over 100 years. Thank you Alyssa Sweet for giving us this wonderful tour. Thank you Laura Sullivan and Keith Foster for saying yes and helping organize this recording. Thank you to my brother for filming all the footage of the home that you can see on YouTube. Thank you Tim Cahill for the wonderful music. Thank you Professor Terry Heller who has collected the letters and diaries of Sarah Orne Jewett online through The Sarah Orne Jewett Text Project. Thank you to Nancy Wetzel for your correspondence on Sarah Orne Jewett quotations. The book Sarah Orne Jewett: Her World and her Work by Paula Blanchard is a great biography and was very helpful in producing this episode.
I visited this house in June 2025 and filmed the home so you can see this podcast with visuals on my YouTube channel, Kendra Gaylord.
https://someonelivedhere.com/the-sarah-orne-jewett-house/
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Uh2At1w3oCk
Support my Patreon: https://patreon.com/kendragaylord