Gilsland Farm | |
---|---|
Location in Maine | |
Town/City | Falmouth |
State | Maine |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 43°42′22″N70°14′27″W / 43.70604°N 70.24093°W |
Established | c. 1820 |
Owner | Maine Audubon (since 1974) |
Area | 65 acres (260,000 m2) |
Status | Open to the public |
Gilsland Farm is a historic property in Falmouth, Maine, United States. In the early 19th century, Silas Noyes built a home on the land, formerly the home of the Wabanakis, a few yards from the eastern banks of the Presumpscot River. The home still stands today, now owned by Maine Audubon. It is known as the Gilsland Farm Audubon Center.
Silas Noyes (1796–1874) [1] constructed a home at the start of today's Gilsland Farm Road, [2] near a section of Old U.S. Route 1, in the early 1800s. Around a century later, in 1911, attorney and conservationist David Edward Moulton (1871–1951) and his brother, Willis (1862–1938), [3] [4] bought the land. [5] Moulton lost his first wife, Etta Knight, [6] the same year, and remarried in 1918 to Helen Leavitt. [4]
Moulton named the land Gilsland, after his relative, Sir Thomas de Moulton, who was named "Thom of the Gils" by his friend Richard I. (A gils is a narrow, wooden glen in old English.) [4] It was during this ownership that the property was the home of over 400 species of peonies. Moulton died in 1951, and around two decades later his daughter, Ruth, [5] began donating parts of the farm to Maine Audubon, which now owns 65 acres (26 ha). [7] Maine Audubon purchased the farmhouse in 1981. [8]
Maine is a state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Lower 48. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and northwest, respectively. Maine is the largest state in New England by total area, nearly larger than the combined area of the remaining five states. Of the 50 U.S. states, it is the 12th-smallest by area, the 9th-least populous, the 13th-least densely populated, and the most rural. Maine's capital is Augusta, and its most populous city is Portland, with a total population of 68,408, as of the 2020 census.
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