About Northport Village Corporation
Bayside: What’s in a name?
Historic Bayside has roots back to 1849 when the Northport Wesleyan Grove Camp Meeting was first held on the Northport shores of Penobscot Bay. At that time, the church created a campground-like summer recreational area where members could gather annually for worship and to socialize. Early establishments consisted of boarding houses and temporary tents, as well as the adored Auditorium Park used for worship.
How did Bayside get its name?
It turns out the wisest among us haven’t been able to answer that question. What we do know is that beginning around 1905/06 mail posted from the post office at the top of Ruggles Park began to bear the cancellation “Bayside.”
Perhaps the most obvious clue about the name is found in our location: Bayside lies on Penobscot Bay in the heart of Maine’s Mid-Coast Region. But our Bayside is not the only one: There is a small summer community in Maine’s Hancock County with the same name. And we know of at least one other current neighborhood in Portland named “Bayside.” More than that, to date, no revelatory moment or declaration about our name is found in any records.
About Northport Village Corporation
We can be more precise about the Northport Village Corporation and how it came to be. In 1915, by Private and Special Laws of the Maine State Legislature, at the behest of the community, the Northport Village Corporation was established and its right to tax and govern over the limits of the territory, as an additional governing body in the town of Northport. The first President of the Northport Village Corporation was Ira M. Cobe. He served as President from 1915 until 1927.
Bayside extends from the Bay, crossing over the Shore Road on the south, to Route One, travels north on Route One, turns toward the Bay at the center line of Cross Street, then along the shore (including to the low water mark) to the point of beginning.
Like the name Bayside, the notion of a Village Corporation, was not unique. At the turn of the last century, villages proliferated. The impetus driving their establishment was the desire for resources, comfort, and infrastructure to support distinguishing communities which the towns in which they were situated could not afford to provide. Today, approximately 12 villages in Maine continue to provide the localized governance which is at the heart of a village.
But before we discuss what the Village is, it is important to remind all what it is not. Most importantly, it is not a corporation in the most common definition of that term. There are no shareholders; an owner does not receive dividends; and no-one evaluates its p/e.
As with towns and cities, which are municipal corporations, a village has no relationship to a business entity. The village is also not a Homeowners Association, a condominium, or a cooperative. The Village owns real estate (some beautiful real estate) but it does so as a public entity, not a private landholder.
The Northport Village Corporation is a village. Like a town is a town, a village serves under its charter (the Private and Special Laws referred to above), exercising municipal powers to protect the public assets within the geographic limits of Bayside and to provide resources to the households and families lucky enough to own and live there.
Our evolving village
Think about everything that makes the Bayside experience healthy, happy, and beautiful. The Village exists to keep those experiences and resources in place. They include water systems, wastewater treatment, our dock, the parks, the playground, the lifeguards, a modest police presence, and street side trash pick-up. Each of those and more exist because the Village is empowered to tax.
The history of villages is rooted in the expression of property owners’ desires to improve the life of their community and balancing that with the political reality that the larger town in which a village sits may not have the resources or desire to raise tax dollars for those services. Our village, in short, is a local entity with municipal powers which allows its property owners to define their community and manage the resources that make it.
Bayside, in many ways, is as it’s always been – and yet, the village changes to keep up with the times. Colorful gingerbread homes sit with the beautiful backdrop of sailboats, Blue Hill and Acadia mountains. The Northport Yacht Club provides boating and social opportunities, including popular sailing lessons to the youngest. Many beautiful parks are filled with giant old trees and views of the sea. Ruggles Park is a central gathering spot and encompasses the wharf, a rocky swimming beach and floating dock, a popular playground, a busy basketball court and a large open grassy area.
Community members remain actively involved in ensuring charming Bayside remains a place “preserved in time.” And though Bayside is still mostly a summer community, it also has a growing population of residents who call the village home in all seasons.