| Only a few miles further north from Freeport is BRUNSWICK, home since 1794 to the private Bowdoin College, which lists President Franklin Pierce and author Nathaniel Hawthorne among its alumni. Free tours of the college (Mon–Fri at 9am, 11am, 2pm & 4pm, Sat at 11am & noon; tel 207/725-3000) take in the intriguing Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum (Tues–Sat 10am–5pm, Sun 2–5pm). After decades of controversy, experts now generally agree that former student Admiral Robert Peary really was the first man to reach the North Pole in 1909; whatever the truth, his assembled equipment and notebooks are a powerful testament to arctic exploration. It was while her husband Calvin was teaching here in the early 1850s that Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, a book whose portrait of slavery had such an impact that Lincoln is said to have greeted her with the words "so this is the little lady that made this big war." The rambling old Harriet Beecher Stowe House at 63 Federal St (tel 207/729-7869 or 1-800/698-5548; $75–100) is now a motel; guests stay in modern rooms around the back, but can use the lounge of the original house. There's also the friendly Traveler's Inn, 130 Pleasant St/US-1 (tel 207/729-3364 or 1-800/457-3364; $50–75). The Great Impasta at 42 Maine St (tel 207/729-5858) serves excellent, well-priced Italian food; the Broadway Deli, 142 Maine St (tel 207/729-7781), does all-day breakfasts (closed Tues in winter); and Bohemian, 111 Maine St (tel 207/725-9095), is a pleasant sidewalk café with good coffee. The ideal time to visit Brunswick would be Labor Day Weekend (first weekend in Sept), when the town hosts its Bluegrass Festival (tel 207/725-6009) a little further on at Thomas Point Beach, reached by following Hwy-24 from Cook's Corner. The festival, among the best of its kind, attracts some of the biggest bluegrass names from the US and abroad. On the same road, Orrs Island has a well-equipped oceanfront campground (tel 207/833-5595; $21 per day for two adults).
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