By Toby Brissett
Need a few nuts and bolts from the hardware store? Have to pick up stamps at the post office? How about getting groceries? Looking for a bank, or two, or three? Maybe you’re seeking out quality dry cleaning? Short on pet food? Hankering for a quick bite or tasty brew? If you’re in Scarborough and need the basics, or just about anything else, it’s quickly found in the Oak Hill neighborhood.
A dense woodland rising above one of the finest beach areas of the Maine coast is an apt description of the Oak Hill area before the late 1700s. While spots like Black Point and Dunstan had already started to emerge as hamlets and active trade areas, Oak Hill had yet to shine.
By 1883, however, things had changed, and the Scarborough Town Hall was built right along Route One in Oak Hill. The neighborhood had also become an early home to a stop for the Portland, Saco & Portsmouth railroad, and things would only get busier as years passed and the population grew.
So, why name the area “Oak Hill”? Like so many New England towns, the place names of Scarborough include the traditional blend of founding surnames (think Higgins), subjectively descriptive identifiers (Pleasant Hill is an immediate stand out), and Native American terms or names (Hackmatack Dr., for one). Economic activities translated to place names, too (Ferry Beach is a great example.)
Then, there are natural features that made a Scarborough locale easy to name. Oak Hill is right at the top of that list – literally and proverbially speaking. Though not the highest prominence of Scarborough, it is nonetheless a hill. And it is a hill once covered with an abundance of native oak trees that defined the landscape.
Naturally, those oaks which gave the neighborhood its name were of interest to the earliest European settlers. Mostly agricultural, Scarborough also had a lesser-known shipbuilding industry. And both benefited from such a large cache of hard wood at hand.
Relied upon from Scarborough’s earliest days, the oaks of Oak Hill have travelled far and wide. In fact, they have even set sail to parts unknown. The final ship to be built in Scarborough was named “Oak Hill.” Carrying timber, it was a “barque” made of its namesake trees. The opening page from its log (that can be found in the many amazing documents at the Scarborough Historical Society’s website [Taylor, 2022]) explains: “The Oak Hill, was built at Scarborough Me in the year 1856. Her frame is of oak, mostly cut on the spot from which she was named…Her cargo consists of hard pine lumber. Her crew 14 persons, all told. no passengers.”
Are the oaks still around? It is difficult to quickly scan any groups of trees in the Oak Hill area without spotting at least one variety. If you’re looking for the largest oak in the area, however, you’ll have to head to Portland to find the largest Pin Oak (Deering Oaks Park) in Maine. If it’s variety you seek, Oak Hill is home to all the state’s native oaks, including Black (Yellow), Bur, Chestnut, Northern Red, Scarlet, Swamp White, and White. There are also stands of Scrub or “bear” oaks, too.
With the booming growth in Scarborough, it is hard to envision it as a wilderness with a stretching canopy of towering oaks, elms, birches, maples, beeches, ashes, and evergreens. This is even more so when you consider the area’s first inhabitants named the area Owascoag or “place of much grass.” (Pickard, 2024)
However, the grasses and the oaks remain, and though Oak Hill’s boundaries have shifted with centuries of commercial and residential growth, it was and always remains the heart of Scarborough.
Toby Brissett is a freelance writer with over 25 years of experience. Learn more at http://www.wordsandideas.com
References: Mary B. Pickard, “Scarborough: They Called it Owascoag,” Part 1, 29 September 2016, Scarborough Historical Society. Don Taylor, “An Update to ‘Shipbuilding in Scarborough’”, 3 December 2022, Scarborough Historical Society.
