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Offshore fishermen and skillful shipbuilders transformed the quiet shores of the Pemaquid Peninsula beginning in 1815. The maritime economy drove local commerce until enterprising locals turned to ice harvesting, granite quarrying, brick making, lobster canning and pogy oil processing before summer tourism grew and thrived. The descendants of revolutionaries became the faces of a more prosperous generation--men like Albert Thorpe, who ran a popular summer hotel on the grounds where his grandfather had salted and dried his catch decades earlier. Today, summer rusticators discover the enduring natural beauty at the heart of the Pemaquid Peninsula. Journey to the past with Pemaquid native and historian Josh Hanna as he discovers these timeless shores.

Captain Richard Vines founded Winter Harbor in 1616. The small coastal village, now known as Biddeford, is the largest city in York County, with more than twenty-one thousand" residents. During the nineteenth century, the city experienced a boom from the textile industry when textile magnate Samuel Batchelder established Pepperell Manufacturing Company, which rapidly became an international brand. The city suffered when textile manufacturing moved south in the mid-twentieth century, abandoning its expansive infrastructure along the Saco River. In 2004, Mayor Wallace Nutting organized local residents in a revitalization effort for the downtown area, and developers renovated historic mill buildings into residential and commercial space. Join author and lifelong Biddeford resident Emma Bouthillette as she revisits the city's early history and explores its recent rebirth.