About Tate House
Tate House was built in 1755 for George and Mary Tate and their family of four boys who had arrived in Maine a few years earlier from Rotherhithe, a district of South London, England. Tate's experience as a ship captain in the Baltic Sea mast trade positioned him to serve as Senior Mast Agent for the British Royal Navy in the colonies. In this vital role, he oversaw the harvesting and shipment of massive white pine trees from Maine's forests to England's shipyards. Tate's position and wealth assured his success in Maine, and his status in the community is reflected in his home’s style of architecture. With unpainted clapboards and classical Georgian features, Tate House is one of only two extant residences in Maine with an unusual, indented gambrel roof. Tate House offers a rare glimpse into 18th-century life with its impressive period furnishings and beautiful riverfront grounds and herb gardens.
Sited on a knoll in Portland's Stroudwater district, Tate House overlooks the Fore River and former mast yard. From here, Tate managed the surveying, marking, harvesting, and shipment of "big sticks" in specially-designed mast ships to England. Great Britain’s naval supremacy depended on this steady supply of shipbuilding timber. By Acts of Parliament, all white pine trees measuring over twenty-four inches in diameter were the King's property and marked with the sign of the broad arrow (three axe slashes). Like the tax on tea, the broad arrow came to symbolize the Crown's tyranny and reactions to the Broad Arrow Policies helped to foment rebellion in the Province of Maine. Tate House stands as a physical reminder of the mast trade's economic importance in British North America, and the controversial British laws that contributed to American political unrest in the 1770s.
The Tate family continued to live in their Stroudwater home throughout the Revolutionary War, but lost it to bankruptcy in 1803. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, non-resident owners rented the house as a tenement, dividing it into two apartments.
Today Tate House is the only pre-Revolutionary building in Cumberland County open to the public. It offers an intimate experience of 18th-century life in Maine for students, members of the community, and visitors from around the world. In addition to interpreting the merchant class Tate family, the lives of enslaved and Indigenous people are also represented in the narratives and collections of the house.
Our mission
To invite everyone to experience 18th century life in Maine.
Tate House was opened as an historic house museum in 1935 by The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Maine (NSCDA-ME). The NSCDA-ME is the Maine chapter of The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America (NSCDA), a lineage organization founded in 1891 by women dedicated to furthering an appreciation of our national heritage through historic preservation, patriotic service, and educational projects. The NSCDA-ME, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit corporation, owns Tate House and its collections; the museum has been managed and operated independently by Tate House Museum, Inc., in close cooperation with the NSCDA-ME since 2005. Tate House Museum is a separate 501 (c)(3) non-profit member-corporation that is governed (according to the Code of Ethics of the American Association of Museums) by a community Board of Directors.
Over the past several decades, the museum’s primary goals of preservation and education have developed and expanded. The raised bed herb garden, unique architecture, special tours and events have attracted a broad range of visitors. Tate House welcomes guests from across the country and around the globe. Students throughout the state benefit from Tate House’s resources and educational programs as they learn about the mast trade and life in the eighteenth century.
History of Mast Trade
Before the American Revolution, England's supremacy on the seas was due in part to her unlimited supply of ship masts—tall, straight white pines from the forests of New Hampshire and the province of Maine. These masts were so important to England that special "mast ships" were designed and built for the sole purpose of transporting cargoes of masts. When England was at war, an armed escort accompanied the mast ships on their crossings. The Royal Navy's need for masts was so urgent that once a mast ship had discharged its cargo in Britain, it would often re-cross the Atlantic with an empty hold in order to return to New England to pick up more masts as quickly as possible.
The King's Broad Arrow
Three cuts coming together as an arrow was the ancient mark applied to British naval property. In colonial New England, the trees bearing this mark were the white pines suitable for a rnast on an English man-of-war ship. Cutting such a tree down for any purpose other than delivering it to the King's mast agent would result in a fine of 100 pounds.
Bedding the Fall
Felling a mast tree required great skill and planning in order to collect the King's bounty. Making a mistake could result in splitting the trunk of the tree, or in having the tree fall in the wrong direction, rendering it impossible to move. The tree also needed to drop into a prepared clearing in order to cushion the impact of the fall and avoid shattering the tree. Preparing the ground was called "bedding.” Uneven ground was smoothed, and rocks and stumps were covered by criss-cross felling of smaller trees.
Felling
Cutting down the tree, or "felling", was done by two men cutting from opposite sides of the trunk with axes. Saws would have made this job much easier, but they were not used in the New England woods until the 1890s, over a century after the last mast pine was foiled. If they used good skill and judgment, and luck was on their side, the axe-men were rewarded by the huge pine crashing into the bedded clearing. Otherwise, a mast could be shattered, or a man killed.