Hanging in Shelburne waiting for a weather window to cross to Maine as we have to round Cape Sable and cross the Bay of Fundy. It’ll be a 26+ hour crossing. We’ll depart Tuesday mid-day.
Shelburne is a treat as an historic town. Sort of Lunenburg without the bustle. We toured the 3 museums: the dory factory, the town museum, and the Ross-Thompson House.
I have wonderful memories of visiting the dory factory from our family trip here in 1993. They used to turn out 2 dories a day – over 50,000 were built since 1880. Now they build 1 or 2 a year. The Ross-Thompson House had a wonderful tour guide in period costume who took us all through the house. It was a rich merchants’ house built in 1783. Later it was left vacant for 40 years before being bought by a Harvard 
professor. Almost all the original furnishings and other household pieces were still there making it a real find as a museum.
The town was very tarted up for the filming of the movie, “The Scarlet Letter”, in the mid-90s which has stood it in good stead as an historic town. Many seasonal residents, mostly American, have furthered restored houses they’ve bought up in town. The town’s streets are a charm to wander. Before declining in the 1790s the town had a population of 10,000 far from its current 1,800.
This afternoon we attended the music session held each Monday at 1pm in the garden of the Ross-Thompson House. The main chap (a retired school music teacher) in period costume is meant to play baroque but locals turn up with their instruments so he’ll go wherever the group goes. Many are professional musicians from the US who in their travels discovered Shelburne, bought a house and spend 6 months a year here. One woman was playing her hurdie gurdie.
All-in-all Sheridan has a very unique feel to it.
