We continue our story about the Nutter family this week. Let’s take a look at Eben and Martha Nutter’s sons, Walter and Frank. Both men, while trying their hand at some other occupations for a time, spent most of their years working in agriculture, farming the Nutter land in the area around where South Portland High School is today.

Walter B. Nutter was the oldest child of Eben and Martha, born in 1837 when they still lived in Porter, Maine. Frank C. Nutter was the youngest, born in 1852, after the family had moved to Stow, Maine. When Eben and Martha moved to Cape Elizabeth (now known as South Portland) in the mid-1850s, they brought the whole family with them.

Walter met Sarah Witherell when the Nutter family first lived here in Cape Elizabeth; they married here in 1858. Soon after, Eben and Martha moved to Pennsylvania and the entire family, including Walter and his new wife, moved with them. While they were living in Pennsylvania, Walter and Sarah had two children – Martha and Charles.

As we talked about in last week’s column, the Nutter family hit it big in Pennsylvania when the market for shooks took off (shooks are like barrel “kits” – they are barrels that have been built and then knocked down for efficient transport, so would need to be reassembled). The family returned to Cape Elizabeth around 1866 and Eben built his large “mansion” on Nutter Road.

Walter, Sarah and their two children first lived in a farmhouse on Evans Street, near Highland Avenue (in the area where Allen and Williston roads are today). The house had a clear sight line, across the Nutter fields, to Eben and Martha’s house on Nutter Road. In the 1870s, he was living in that home and farming the land around it. He also purchased other farmland and woodlots in Cape Elizabeth and Scarborough. While living in Cape Elizabeth, he was also operating a stock farm on Pleasant Hill in Scarborough where he was breeding and raising horses. In 1875, he had 25 horses on the Scarborough farm.

In the late-1870s, Walter appears to have moved to a different home, but we are unclear where. He is listed in the Portland Directories as farming in Ligonia from 1875-1881, but on the 1880 census, he is shown as living at Turner’s Island (Pleasantdale) and, by the names of his neighbors, he appeared to be in lower Pleasantdale in the vicinity of South Kelsey Street, which would be across the land on the northern side of Nutter Road (north of where the tank farm is today).

By 1881, Walter and Sarah had moved to their farm in Scarborough. In 1884, Walter and his brother-in-law Clinton R. Jones (Clinton was married to Walter’s sister, Olive) formed a canning company together. Union Packing Company organized in August 1884 and started with a canning factory in Scarborough and soon added two additional factories, in Winterport and Hallowell. The company became known for its “Mikado” brand of canned corn.

The Winterport factory was sold off in 1888. Walter ran into hard times and declared personal bankruptcy in 1890.

His brother Frank married Hattie Watson in Cape Elizabeth in 1871. When they were first married, Frank and Hattie lived with his parents in the home on Nutter Road. They later lived in the farmhouse on Evans Street after Walter had moved out. They had four daughters, all of whom were born in Cape Elizabeth and went to school here.

Frank farmed on roughly 11 acres of the Nutter farm, used primarily for livestock – he kept dairy cows and was most known in these earlier years as a milk supplier. He also bred horses and kept chickens, grew produce for the family’s use, and he also grew larger quantities of market produce, like peas and Blue Hubbard squash. In 1874, Frank also became a partner in his father’s cooperage firm, Nutter, Kimball & Company. He worked there for several years, but by 1879, he was farming once again.

Frank and his brother Walter both enjoyed taking part in state and county fairs over the years, showing livestock or racing horses for prizes. In February 1873, Frank was one of the original organizers of the Maine Poultry Association.

Over the years, Frank’s passion turned to raising “fancy poultry,” most notably Brahma chickens. In a story in the Portland Sunday Telegram in 1916, they made special note of Frank’s passion: “He has a hobby well known to his friends, he has several pens of handsome Brahma hens, a number of them blue ribboners in the hen kingdom and all of Mr. Nutter’s spare minutes he puts in petting his feathered beauties.”

In 1892, Frank Nutter bought the land in the vicinity of 472 Ocean St. (adjacent to the Town House at the corner of Sawyer Street). The land consisted of a large amount of ledge which could be used as a quarry for crushed rock.

In 1894, Walter and Sarah moved back to Cape Elizabeth when his mother Martha deeded the Nutter Road mansion to them (his father Eben had died in 1892). Walter then partnered up with this brother Frank in a new business, Nutter Bros., a stone and road contracting business.

Operating as Nutter Bros., they bid on and took on contracts for various road and bridge construction jobs. They would blast and haul crushed rock from Frank’s quarry on Ocean Street. In 1896, when the electric railroad wanted to put in a double track on Broadway, it was Nutter Bros. that completed the street widening. In 1897, Nutter Bros. was awarded the contract for road work on Broadway between Knightville and Pleasantdale, which included driving piles, building a new bridge over Anthoine Creek, and widening the road. In 1898, Nutter Bros. provided the crushed stone to complete the paving of Main Street near the Vaughan’s Bridge.

With Frank Nutter’s experience both maintaining and building roads, he served for many years as South Portland’s street commissioner and, after the public works department was created, he also served as the commissioner of public works from 1915 to 1919.

Like his parents, Walter and Sarah also enjoyed having company and parties in the beautiful Nutter Mansion. Walter died in the home in 1911 and, after his death, the home was sold. Elinor S. Moody bought it as an investment and sold it for profit (we’ll talk about Elinor Moody in another column).

In October, 1916, the home was destroyed by fire. The fire was believed to have started in the barn that was connected via a shed to the main house. By the time the Pleasantdale Hose Company responded, there was little they could do except to keep the fire from spreading.

A new two-story framed home was built on the site and that home also changed hands a few times. Roy and Blanche Percival owned the home from 1925 to 1944 and, during that time, their son Bob was known to have played with his band/orchestra in the home.

In 1950, the city of South Portland began construction of the South Portland Junior High building on Highland Avenue, built on land which had previously been owned and farmed by the Nutter family. The junior high and high school later switched buildings. South Portland High School has been on Highland Avenue since 1960.

In 1959, the Nutter Road home was acquired by the city of South Portland. The city advertised its plans to demolish the house, but a fire in June of 1960 destroyed it instead.

The Nutter farmhouse, which had a 226 Evans St. address, still exists today. When Walter Cooper and his Commercial Realty Company began developing the land that would become Williston Road and Allen Road, he moved the farmhouse from its former site (roughly at 15 Allen Road) to its current site at 7 Allen Road.

Membership Drive 2023

The South Portland Historical Society researches and documents local history. If you enjoy reading about South Portland history, please lend your support. A one-year family membership is only $25 and supports our mission of preserving local history. Donations can be made through our Online Museum website at https://sphistory.pastperfectonline.com, or if you’d prefer to donate by check, please make it payable to South Portland Historical Society and mail to us at 55 Bug Light Park, South Portland, ME 04106. Thank you. If you need to contact the society, we can be reached by email at sphistory04106@gmail.com or by phone at 207-767-7299.

Kathryn Onos DiPhilippo is executive director of the South Portland Historical Society. She can be reached at sphistory04106@gmail.com.

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