Camden Public Library

In a state brimming with quaint seaside towns, Camden has perfected the genre: cheerful storefronts, schooners in the harbor, Mount Battie presiding above it all. And at the edge of Main Street, overlooking the mouth of the Megunticook River and Camden Harbor, sits a brick building with a curved portico: the Camden Public Library. 

Now a National Historic Landmark, the building and grounds began as the pet project of Mary Louise Curtis Bok, the daughter of publishing magnate Cyrus H. K. Curtis and Louisa Knapp Curtis, the founding editor of Ladies’ Home Journal. In 1916, Bok donated a plot of land and recruited architects Parker Morse Hooper and Charles Loring to drum up a plan, with noted landscape architect Fletcher Steele mapping out the library grounds and amphitheater and the Olmsted Brothers—sons of Frederick Law himself, the designer of Central Park—tackling Harbor View Park across the way. A 1990s expansion built the library out from underground, ensuring the older building remains just as designed: soaring ceilings and brass chandeliers inside, a cupola perched on top, and a wrought-iron CL monogram (whether for Camden Library or Charles Loring is unknown) affixed on each side. 

The original building houses 11 notable clipper ship paintings, donated to the library by Parker Morse Hooper. In perhaps New England’s second most notable art heist, ten were stolen in 1970—the eleventh and largest was abandoned behind a shrubbery—and all but one recovered six years later at a New York City auction house. Downstairs in the Walsh History Center, awaits a treasure trove. Visitors can page through first editions of the works of Camden’s native daughter, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay; read her witty, sharply observed letters to her best friend; and peruse editions of the high school newspaper where she was editor—some containing unsigned poems. You’ll also find Revolution-era maps of the region, an intricately detailed scale model of Camden Harbor as it looked in 1920, and even the original blueprints of the library and grounds. 

The waterfront grounds alone warrant a visit. The amphitheatre, with its massive boulders, Camperdown elms, and stands of birches, feels naturalistic, but every element was part of Steele’s plans. Near the Faun’s Garden, look for the massive compass on the ground, whose brass ring went missing for over 50 years and was found in a nearby shed.

The Camden library is one of the many charming small-town libraries in the state.