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 Tenants
Harbor is one of six villages which comprise the town of St.
George. It's located 9.5 miles south of Route 1 along Route
131 South, a two lane road which winds its way another five
miles south on our peninsula to Port Clyde. European cod fisherman
and explorers like George Weymouth came to our area before
colonial times. Native Americans on both sides of the river,
from present day Portland to Bangor, considered our peninsula
neutral territory. Prior to our town's incorporation in 1803,
the peninsulas on both sides of the St. George River were
called St. Georges - part of the Waldo Patent and land holdings
of Henry Knox, a key Revolutionary War general.
The history of the Gilchrests, the town
of St. George and the village of Tenants Harbor have long-standing
links. George Gilchrest, the sea captain who built this house
in the 1840s, was a local son whose journeys took him along
the Atlantic coast and to South America. Captains and crews
from St. George, as sailors or fishermen, have earned a living
on or from the sea - near home or in distant ports. The products
of our forests, sawmills, and granite quarries have also expanded
our horizons. Into the early years of the twentieth century,
locally built schooners carried these cargoes to distant ports,
returning with needed goods like coal, Chinese porcelain and
other exotic wares.
 George
Gilchrest (1812-1883), one of eleven children of a prominent
local family, was a ship captain who brought his wife and
daughter along on some of his voyages. While at anchor in
South America, the family met William R. Grace, a young Irish-born
entrepreneur, who established a business to re-supply ships
at anchor with provisions and other necessities, eliminating
their need to go into port. Within a few years, William Grace
and Lillius Gilchrest were married and, several years later,
Capt. George Gilchrest and his wife relocated to New York
and established the office Gilchrest, White & Company,
dealers in ships stores and chandlery.
From the late 1880s, ownership of the Gilchrest
House has remained in the extended family - including the
Longs and the Wheelers. The family's ties to our community
live on, thanks to Lillius Gilchrest Grace's legacy. She established
a trust fund which provides practical training for middle
graders in Family and Consumer Science and Manual Arts for
St. George youth - a legacy which preserves the family's link
to our community and its future.
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