Editor:
      Regarding your article “Joyce Butler,” Nov. 16, 2007, thank you for it, but I do need to advise you that I am working on a history of KENNEBUNKPORT.  Because I would welcome feedback from the community – and it seems everyone reads the Post – I hope for a correction to your article, which stated that I am compiling a history of Kennebunk.
     To clarify, the board of the Louis T. Graves Library of Kennebunkport has commissioned me to write a history of Kennebunkport from 1840 to 2005, which the library will publish.  Charles Bradbury’s History of Kennebunkport, the only comprehensive history of the town, covers the period from ca. 1603 to 1837. I will abstract that period and then write a detailed, chronological account of the town from where he left off to the present.  Although much information is available, I and the committee working with me would be pleased to hear from anyone who has diaries, letters, and memories to share. We want the book to be filled with the stories of people who have lived in the town. It is the personal experiences of individuals that bring history to life!
     We are compiling a list of veterans of all the wars from 1840 to 2005 or career servicemen and women during the period. We will include those who chose to live in Kennebunkport as well as those who are natives of the town. The list will include veterans from today’s Arundel up to and including World War I as that town was part of Kennebunkport until 1915 when it split off as North Kennebunkport (later renamed Arundel).  Anyone with a name to share may contact Lois “Bussy” Badger of Kennebunkport or the library.
     I would also be pleased to hear from anyone with information about the section of Kennebunkport now called Arundel.  Except for the diaries of farmers William Walker and William Huff and the 1872 atlas, it is turning out to be difficult to find nineteenth-century details about that significant section of the town.  I can be contacted through the library.
     I believe your reporter’s confusion is understandable as I am a resident of Kennebunk and currently serve as Kennebunk’s Town Historian.  I spent a pleasant hour with him during which we talked about the legend of Kennebunk’s Wedding Cake House.  (I will indeed be discussing  legends, but Kennebunkport’s, such as the seventeenth century story of Lady Arundel and the mistaken notion that Captain John Smith gave Kennebunkport its first name, Cape Porpus, in 1614. )
     I do need to note also that although I did write an architectural history of Kennebunkport’s  South Congregational Church, I did not write the church’s “primary historical resource.”  That useful book, Whence We Came, was written by recently deceased Jacques Downs. 
     Again, thank you for your interest and help in getting the word out about this very important and interesting project.
 
Joyce Butler
Kennebunk