The Counting House Museum is located on the banks of the Salmon Falls River, beside a mill dam that powered the looms of a nineteenth-century cotton textile factory. Exhibits in the former mill office explore rural life in coastal New England, from tidewater farms to maritime trade.

View spoons unearthed from a local sawmiller’s home burned in 1690. See a hide-bound trunk made in London a century later and brought upriver by a young teacher. Meet the boys whose portrait captured brotherhood before the Civil War divided their family and the nation. Watch the tidal river from the landing that has been a gateway to inland Maine for 400 years.

Browse rare photos · Research ancestors
Explore archives - Visit the museum shop



Saturdays and Sundays 1-4 pm, June through October
Year round by appointment

Families, groups, researchers, new members, volunteers,history lovers welcome!

“A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing, since adventurers come into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows strong, because it takes something
from the world, and has something to give in return.”
—South Berwick native Sarah Orne Jewett, from River Driftwood, 1881