Castine Common

Castine Common is situated in the center of one of the oldest extant communities in North America. The Congregational Church built in 1790 and rebuilt in the 1830s overlooked the rough rectangle of turf that became theofficial town common in 1815. Few improvements were made until 1852, when the Common was partially enclosed by a picket fence; closely spaced, double rows of elms were planted in the late 1800s. In 1886 a Civil War monument depicting a Union soldier was installed on a small mound in the center of the space. In the 1960s the town protected many of the mature elms in the Common and along the streets from Dutch elm disease, an effort that continues today.

Now fenceless, the Common’s character is influenced by the Italianate, Federal Revival, and Greek Revival buildings that surround it, including the early church, the Abbot School built in 1859 and now home to the Castine Historical Society, the Witherle Memorial Library gifted by the decendants of local shipping merchants in 1911, the Adams School, and several nineteenth-century private homes. The surrounding architecture and mature elms make Castine Common one of the most historically intact town centers in Maine. The Castine Historic District, which encompasses the entire village, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.