APPLES IN HEAD TIDE · PANEL VI
Status note: The Apples in Head Tide exhibit's physical installation at the Head Tide Store, 45 Head Tide Road, Alna, is in preparation. Opening date to be announced — these pages are live in advance of the physical exhibit and will remain as its permanent online companion.
The Head Tide Store: Then and Now
The J.A. Jewett General Store at 45 Head Tide Road was built in 1884, three years after the adjacent J.A. Jewett Stable (1881). Both structures were significant buildings among those cited in the 1975 nomination of the Head Tide Historic District to the National Register of Historic Places. For more than half a century, the store served the village as the Jewett Store — a general store, an apple-packing and shipping operation, and the post office under three successive generations of Jewetts.
[IMAGE: The Jewett Store at Head Tide, c. 1920s] Caption: The Jewett Store at Head Tide, c. 1920s. A horse and carriage stand at the storefront porch; the building in its working days as a general store, apple-packing operation, and post office. From the Town of Alna archives.
The Lincoln County postmaster appointments record shows J. Allen Jewett serving as Head Tide's postmaster, followed by his son Glen A. Jewett (appointed October 6, 1910), and then Glen's son Lon Jewett (appointed around 1927). Glen's daughter Alice B. Jewett took an active role in the family's later commercial life; her name appears on the November 1929 WW&F bill of lading and on the "A. Jewett" crate end in the collection — evidence that she was managing the apple business through the closing years of that trade.
[Alice does not appear in the Lincoln County postmaster appointment record; her role, as documented in the collection, was as operator of the store and shipper of its goods. The postmaster appointment dates are read from a Lincoln County, Maine, appointments ledger (page 83); some handwritten entries are difficult to decipher with certainty. A fuller treatment of the Head Tide post office is planned for a separate display panel.]
The store's role as the Head Tide post office ended in 1941. Lon Jewett's death in 1944 closed the Jewett family chapter at the store. In the decades that followed, the building took on a varied second life. The National Register nomination, written in 1975, describes the "original exterior store front and second floor dance hall intact" — a second-floor parquet floor (milled, by family account, in the Jewett sawmill above the bridge) so perfectly fitted that decades of community use never opened a seam.
[IMAGE: Lon Jewett with the Davis boys, c. 1943] Caption: Lon Jewett with the Davis boys, c. 1943. Lon — third in the Jewett postmaster line — sits with young Gordon Davis Jr. and his brother Bud outside the store. The Davis family would later own the building: Gordon Davis Sr. acquired the property in the 1960s and used it as a venue for selling the pewter pieces he made as a hobby. Gordon lives today in the Sheepscot Village Historic District, which — like the Head Tide Historic District — is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Kodachrome slide, courtesy of Elizabeth Davis.
By the mid-1960s the property had been acquired by Gordon Davis Sr. — a noted designer of American pewter, and the father of the two boys in the 1943 Kodachrome above — who used the store as a showroom for his work. He and Alice Adams ran their businesses there side by side, Davis's pewter and Adams's antique glass, china, copper, brass, and figurines on the walls of the old store, the building's character carefully preserved. In the decades after the Davis–Adams partnership, the property changed hands several times and supported a variety of uses, including classes ranging from floor-cloth making to yoga, and the original offices of the Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association — one of the founding progenitors of today's Midcoast Conservancy.
In 2008, the property was purchased by Richard Plunkett, Alna's much-beloved "Wizard of Odds and Ends," fulfilling a long-held dream of his to use the historic buildings to house his antiques business. Wizard of Odds and Ends Antiques operated from 45 Head Tide Road until Richard's death in November 2024 — the closing chapter in a sixty-five-year career in the business. He loved this place, and he hoped it would be preserved for future generations as both a retail and community space, consistent with its historic use.
[IMAGE: Richard Plunkett in the Head Tide Store, by James A. Taliana] Caption: Richard Plunkett at work in the Head Tide Store during the years he operated Wizard of Odds and Ends Antiques — at the back of the shop, among the lampshades, demijohns, and urns that filled the building's rooms. Photograph by James A. (Jim) Taliana (1941–2012), Boothbay Harbor. Used with the gracious permission of Gloria Taliana.
In September 2025, Historic Alna accepted title to the property through Richard's bequest. Apples in Head Tide is the first historical exhibit the building hosts under its new stewardship. In keeping with Richard's wishes, Historic Alna intends that the property continue to be used in a manner consistent with its historic commercial uses and its historic role as the center of community life in Head Tide.
[IMAGE: The Head Tide Store, September 2025] Caption: The Head Tide Store, September 2025 — the day Historic Alna accepted title to the property. The same building a century after the 1920s photograph above, with red-trimmed windows and a hanging "The Old Head Tide Store · Antiques & Such" sign from Richard Plunkett's tenure. Photograph by Ed Pentaleri.
Sources: Lincoln County postmaster appointments ledger, page 83 (Head Tide entries); WW&F Railway bill of lading, November 1, 1929 (Estate of Glen A. Jewett, signed by Alice B. Jewett); A. Jewett crate end, Jewett Store collection; Jewett Store photograph, c. 1920s, Town of Alna archives; Head Tide Store photograph with Lon Jewett and the Davis boys, c. 1943, Kodachrome slide courtesy of Elizabeth Davis; Head Tide Historic District nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, 1975; photograph of Richard Plunkett by James A. (Jim) Taliana (1941–2012), Boothbay Harbor, used by permission of Gloria Taliana, with our gratitude; Head Tide Store photograph, September 2025, by Ed Pentaleri.