Wiscasset’s Castle Tucker

Once home to a congressman and a sea captain, 200-year-old Castle Tucker offers a close-up look at the not-always-grand life of the Tucker family in the 1800s.

WISCASSET — Mollie Tucker moved into what would become Castle Tucker overlooking the Sheepscot River in 1858, a 16-year-old wife and young mother with a 43-year-old retired sea captain husband and high hopes.

“He was this handsome, sophisticated guy,” said Peggy Konitzky. “She thought she was going to have this wonderful, exciting life and they were going to travel the world. Richard Tucker thought he married the perfect little Victorian mommy and said, ‘OK, you can stay here, I’ll go do what I need to do.'”

Her life became the kids and the house: 10 bedrooms, three stately stories, perpetually trying to raise enough money to keep it all afloat. She gave music lessons, sold pigeons to the Poland Spring Inn (guests dined on it as squab) and opened rooms to rent, advertising an old country mansion with “salt water bathing on premises.”

“Well, that’s the river,” quipped Konitzky.

Mollie’s letters became an outlet. She hustled and wrote, candidly for the times, and 160 years later, visitors can walk Castle Tucker’s grand halls learning all about the plucky teen bride.

Castle Tucker draws between 4,000-5,000 visitors each summer. There are no velvet ropes inside, no glass cases. Visitors walk on the same rugs the Tuckers and their kids walked on, tour Mollie’s kitchen, peak at her bustles still hanging in the closet.

In 1964, the house passed to Richard and Mollie’s granddaughter, Jane, a successful accountant living in California, who moved back to the family mansion and for the next 30 years took pains not to disturb a thing outside of protecting it for history’s sake, according to Konitzky, the site manager for Historic New England, the preservation group Jane donated the house to in 1997.

“She confined herself to a small section,” said Konitzky. “Everything in the house is as it was in, say, 1890. The Tuckers never left, in part because they didn’t have the money to.”

Castle Tucker is open for tours Wednesday to Sunday from June 1 to Oct. 15 with a special behind-the-scenes tour offered once a month. Konitzky gave the Sun Journal that behind-the-scenes peak on a recent Friday.

An inauspicious start

The mansion that became Castle Tucker was built in 1807 in what would be a stroke of bad timing by Congressman and Judge Silas Lee.

“The period between the end of the Revolution and 1807 is when Wiscasset had its greatest period of prosperity,” said Konitzky. “Believe it or not, this was a happening place — a lot of money, a lot of parties and everybody was looking forward to more of that.”

But, to stay out of the Napoleonic Wars, President Thomas Jefferson clamped down on trade, which “absolutely killed the East Coast economy,” she said.

Suddenly people who had money didn’t, and businesses that catered to shippers — hotels, dry good stores — lost customers.

After Lee died of tick-borne spotted fever in 1814, his widow built a house next door and sold the big house.

Three generations in 160 years?

Sea captain Richard Tucker Jr. and wife, Mollie, had five children. A sixth child died at birth. Their youngest, Jenny, stayed in the house after both parents died. (Her name was Jane, but for purposes of keeping all the names straight, she’s referred to as Jenny on the tour.) Jenny’s brother, Dick, didn’t marry until he was 50 and went on to have a daughter, who he named Jane. When Jenny died in 1964, she left the house to Jane.

Jane’s the one who pulled together and made sense of all of the letters that family members had written to each other and held onto over the years, Konitzky said.

A few fun facts about Richard and Mollie’s other children: Dick, Jane’s father, was an astronomer who discovered a moon, according to Konitzky. One daughter became an actress and another a writer.

Jenny, who was at different times a saleswoman, seamstress, legal secretary and a very good China painter, was the first to overhear groundskeepers refer to the mansion as “Tucker Castle.”

“She used it as a marketing thing and it stuck,” Konitzky said.

Mom, you give bad press . . .

After Mollie gave an interview about the house being open for rent, Jenny didn’t like what she’d read and dashed off a note on April 1, 1894:

“Next time anyone writes about the place, don’t do such a fool thing as to tell them you have no plumbing. You lead them to think that there’s no decent water closet and that they probably must go outdoors for a miserable place such as you generally find in the country. Just tell them you have no bathroom when they have to know about it, but the least said on that subject, the better.”

For mother and daughter, it wasn’t a one-time dustup.

“Mollie fought really badly with her daughters and really gave them a hard time — fortunately, we all have that in letters now,” said Konitzky. “I think that she was probably a little jealous that they were able to leave and have careers of some sort and have the freedom that she didn’t have getting married at 16.”

Stickers, kids and more than a century of mischief . . .

By being able to fully explore the rooms of the mansion, visitors can admire the 1850s wallpaper that’s retained a subtle sheen through all the decades, admire the ornate pool table, check out the souvenirs the family brought back from vacation and find the stickers left in odd places by Dick, who got them as a gift one year when he was a little boy, around the late 1860s.

“It helps you really experience the rooms, you couldn’t experience them if you just looked inside,” Konitzky said. “We leave things as people left them.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com

A second-floor bedroom at Castle Tucker. Visitors, wearing protective booties, are able to walk around the rooms of the mansion on the same rugs that the Tuckers walked on, to explore the artifacts of their lives. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Site manager Peggy Konitzky pulls back the cover of a closet that still holds two of Mollie Tucker’s bustles and one hoop for skirts. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A look out at the Sheepscot River from the second-floor piazza at Castle Tucker. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A small third-floor bedroom with very low ceilings was most likely used by children and guests. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

First floor parlor has ornate hardwood flooring that accentuates Mollie Tucker’s piano. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

The dining room at Castle Tucker. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A look out the third-floor window has a fantastic view of the Sheepscot River. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A room filled with hundreds of Scientific American magazines that the Tucker family saved. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

The billiard room at Castle Tucker. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A photo of Jane Tucker, who is called Jenny on the tour, sits on a table in one of the bedrooms. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Some vintage tin containers on a shelf in the kitchen. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Looking down the staircase from the second to the first floor at Castle Tucker. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

One of many wood stoves that kept residents warm in one of the second-floor bedrooms. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

One of several pantries at Castle Tucker that is still fully stocked. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

An ornate mirror and beautifully restored wallpaper in one of the rooms on the second floor. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Decorative lamp in one of the hallways. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

One of several pantries at Castle Tucker that is still fully stocked. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

The room most historians believe Captain Tucker used as his bedroom. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A look out at the Sheepscot River from the second-floor piazza. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A Hoosier freestanding kitchen cabinet that also serves as a workstation was very popular and progressive at one time. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Photos of Captain Richard Tucker Jr., bottom, and other family members in the first-floor parlor. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

The first-floor parlor at Castle Tucker. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Captain Tucker’s desk where he worked at Castle Tucker. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

An ornate clock in the parlor. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Items on the mantle in the parlor. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

An ornate lamp that historians believe came from a visit to the Orient is on the wall in the first-floor parlor. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A look out the window to the Sheepscot River from the first-floor parlor. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Items on the mantle in the parlor. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

In the first-floor parlor at Castle Tucker in Wiscasset. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

The kitchen sink at Castle Tucker in Wiscasset. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

One of the second-floor bedrooms. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A section of the first-floor piazza. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A chair in the piazza. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A section of the first-floor piazza. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Site manager Peggy Konitzky holds a picture of what’s believed to be Mollie Tucker playing pool in the late 1890s in the billiard room. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Historic New England

In addition to Castle Tucker at 2 Lee St. in Wiscasset, Historic New England has five other properties in Maine that are also open in the summer, including one more in Wiscasset on Main Street.

For more on its properties and its work around the Northeast, go to HistoricNewEngland.org

Castle Tucker in Wiscasset. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

The floating staircase leading from the second to the first floor at Castle Tucker in Wiscasset. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

One of several pantries at Castle Tucker that is still fully stocked. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Site manager Peggy Konitzky in one of the third-floor bedrooms at Castle Tucker. The ceiling is a little lower on the third floor, which has views of the Sheepscot River. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

The first-floor parlor at Castle Tucker. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A look out at the Sheepscot River from the second-floor piazza at Castle Tucker in Wiscasset. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A portrait of Captain Tucker in the first-floor parlor. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

One of many collections in the castle, this one of various eggs. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

An old coffee grinder in the kitchen area. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

A Hoosier freestanding kitchen cabinet that also serves as a workstation was very popular and progressive at one time. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Castle Tucker in Wiscasset. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Sign in front of Castle Tucker in Wiscasset, one of Historic New England’s six properties in Maine. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)