ROCKLAND – An abandoned house that subsequently became acquired property of the City of Rockland is now an empty lot.

As city workers supervised from an adjacent property once known as a junkyard, the house at 9 Rockland Street was felled Tuesday, March 27. Its debris, which included rooms full of items abandoned by the previous owners, was hauled away.

Rockland Street was closed from North Main Street to Midcoast Marine Electronics on Main Street during the morning as a machinery from Peter Overlock’s Earthwork Artist took down the house. A truck owned by Haskell and Sons hauled the rubble away. And two off-duty Rockland firefighters hired by the city used hose water to subdue any airborne dust.

As many as three generations of the Shafter family owned 9 Rockland Street and the adjacent lot. The family sold its ownership of 15 Rockland Street years ago, according to Gil Merriam, of the Rockland Historical Society.

Most recently, Ronald and his wife, Mona, owned the house. In 2015, Damariscotta Bank and Trust Company transferred a deed to the couple. That particular deed was not identified in the public list of transfers.

Ronald passed away March 30, 2016.

In May 2016, the Rockland Public Works director met with Ransom Consulting and the Department of Environmental Protection to review phase one analysis of the property, according to a City Manager’s Report at that time.

Ronald’s father, Sam, maintained Shafter’s Junkyard, buying and selling metal at the adjacent property as well as from a booth at a flea market.

Another man named David, from a previous generation, presumably Sam’s father, is also listed in one of Rockland’s history indexes. 

The Shafters were one of the many Jewish families that immigrated from Russia to Rockland in the 1800s, according to Merriam. Around that time, Rockland Street was near the vibrant lime rock and shipyard industries.

An 1873 map of Rockland showed 9 Rockland Street, but listed the surname Fuller as the occupant. In the position now known as the former junkyard, a house is identified as occupied by another family.

Sarah Thompson can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com