Sightseeing small towns of eastern Maine

We visited the small town of Eastport planning to tour Raye’s Mustard factory. In 1900 J Wesley Raye, the 20 year old son of a sea captain, founded the business in the family smokehouse to produce mustard for Maine’s sardine industry. In 1903 Wes moved the mill to it’s current location enabling Raye’s mustard to be shipped out by both rail and steamship. Today, the trains and steamships as well as the sardine canneries are just a memory. The original mill still produces mustard but the museum has closed to the public because of disrepair.

In an interesting twist, we stopped at a small local restaurant recommended to us by some locals. We sat in a back room next to one other couple. We asked them what they recommended which started an interesting conversation. Turns out that he is, John Raye, the grandson of the founder of Raye’s mustard factory. He’s also an author who writes for local historical magazines. We’ve since found a couple issues and read some of his articles – they’re pretty good! One ironic tidbit he shared is that his grandfather started the factory to sell mustard to the sardine packing plants. A colleague named French wanted to get in on the business and so they struck up a deal: Raye would get the lucrative sardine business and French would get the tiny consumer business. Of course, we know how that turned out. The sardine business collapsed when it was overfished and French’s Mustard… well, you know the rest of the story.