Lately, the town has been working to both widen and raise (even higher) a section of sidewalk in Boothbay Harbor. Maybe you've wondered over the years why a stretch of Oak Street sidewalk south of Smith Street is elevated.

It's most noticeable right across from the back of the Opera House and Oak Street Provisions, formerly Francis Greene's garage. Asa Tupper, born 1898, told me the reason in the early 1990s. In the 1740s, a small stone fort, built there by the Fullertons, sheltered Boothbay settlers during the Indian wars. By the early 1900s, the little building was in ruins, just a mass of large stones and rubble scattered in the vicinity of Francis Greene's garage, now Oak Street Provisions. Bob DeWolfe was the Harbor's road commissioner then, and in that capacity, Bob used the rocks to raise the sidewalk, as it is today. I suppose his thinking had to do with the hill's steep grade there. However the townspeople thought the sidewalk's height was ridiculous and called the edifice, "Bob DeWolfe's Fortification."