The story
The Kennebunk Inn stands three storeys on Main Street in Kennebunk, Maine, built in 1799 as the home of Dr. Phineas Cole and serving as an inn since the 1920s — a 20-plus-room Federal survivor of the town's shipbuilding prosperity, its tavern and dining rooms a local institution through a century of innkeepers. Its famous resident is documented as a man before a ghost: Silas Perkins, a poet and the inn's night clerk, died at the inn in mid-century after decades of gentle service, his poem 'The Common Road' his memorial — and staff telling ever since has kept him on duty: mugs and glasses lifting or shattering from secure shelves in the cellar bar, wine glasses found moved, name-calls and footsteps at night, and a courteous watchfulness attributed to Silas, with a second presence, 'Sara Emily' of psychic-visit telling, greeting from the main stairs. Successive owners have shared the stories warmly and national features have retold them. Present the inn as Main Street heritage first, Silas its gentlest employee emeritus. Room and dining details from the inn's pages.