By Alessa Wylie and Kate Burch

Some of the grand homes of Portland's golden age were commissioned or designed by women—a notable feat in the 19th century, as women in Maine were not allowed to own property separate from their husbands until 1847!

Elizabeth McDonald House, 1882
161 Pine Street
Architects: Francis Fassett & John Calvin Stevens

Elizabeth Murray McDonald (1828-1906) of New York bought the lot at 161 Pine Street in 1881 and the following year commissioned this Queen Anne mansion. Elizabeth was a woman of considerable wealth. Her husband, John Grant McDonald (1802-1874), founded the first Fifth Avenue coach line and was very active in New York City real estate development. When John died, he left Elizabeth as the sole executor and heir to his fortune. It is not clear why the widowed Elizabeth chose to leave the family’s home on 42nd Street in Manhattan to move to Portland, but she remained at her 161 Pine Street home for the remaining 25 years of her life. Elizabeth’s son Grant and his wife Mary lived with Elizabeth at the Pine Street house until his Elizabeth’s death in 1906. He then sold the property and moved back to New York City.

Mary J. Eastburn House, 1891
208 Pine Street
Architect: Unknown

The house at the corner of Pine Street and the Western Promenade has an interesting story. It was built by Mary Eastburn, who bought the empty lot in 1890. Mary was the widow of Manton Eastburn, the much older husband she had married when she was 29 and he a widower of 54. Manton was the 4th Protestant Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts, a diocese that, at the time, included Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.

After 16 years of marriage, Bishop Eastburn died in 1872. His will declared that ‘whereas…my dearly beloved wife Mary J Eastburn is now afflicted with disease which unfits her both mentally and physically for the management and control, as well as for the enjoyment of property’, Mary would be placed in the care of guardians until such time as, in their judgment, she could assume responsibility for her own affairs. In the years after Manton’s death, Mary is listed as living at the Berkeley or the Vendome Hotels in Boston.

What happened to Mary for the 18 years following Bishop Eastburn’s death is a mystery, but in 1890 Mary buys the lot and builds her home at 208 Pine, so she must have regained control of her finances. She lived in the house with the same boarders for the next 15 years: Pamela Wyman, a single woman about her own age, and George F. Shaw, his wife, and son. Pamela and Mary must have been close - when Mary died in 1906 she left the house to Pamela Wyman.

Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat’s Victorian decor in the McClellan Mansion’s dining room

McLellan-Sweat Mansion, 1801
107 Spring Street
Architect: John Kimball

The McLellan-Sweat Mansion, built in 1801 for shipping magnate Hugh McLellan, was purchased in 1880 by Lorenzo DiMedici Sweat, who lived here with his wife Margaret Jane. Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat completely renovated the interior of the Federal mansion, and her interior design work can be seen in her photograph collection (available from the University of New England’s Maine Women Writers Collection).

Margaret was a patron of the arts, as well as a poet, author, and journalist. She was New England’s first female book reviewer, and the founder of one of the first women’s literary clubs. An avid traveler and theatergoer, Margaret always opened her home to female artists, actors, and performers. She is also the author of the first sapphic novel in America, Ethel’s Love Life.

Margaret remodeled the interior of the McLellan Mansion in the Victorian style, including wallpaper, ornate carved wood mantles, and a Gothic ceiling in the dining room. Following the death of her husband in 1898, Margaret re-wrote her will to bequeath the mansion to the Portland Society of Art to become a museum, stipulating that no significant changes could be made to the exterior of the house or to her decor. In the 20th century, the Portland Society of Art (now the Portland Museum of Art) petitioned the court and received permission to remove Margaret’s additions and restore the 1801 home's interior to its original state. Many of the founding members of Greater Portland Landmarks worked on this project to recreate historically accurate Federal-style rooms.