Other than their names, Wiscasset’s Shin Bone and Big Foot alleys don’t have much to distinguish themselves. They’re on opposite sides of Main Street linking Water and Middle streets. Both are one-way and barely wide enough for a car to get through.

Big Foot Alley near the old Custom House got its name from a man named Wyman Bradford Sevey, an early Wiscasset settler. Always one to give credit where credit is due, I first read about this in Fanny Chase’s “History of Wiscasset in Pownalborough.”  

Squire Sevey was well-known in the 1790s and early 1800s. He owned a good deal of property in the village including a tavern close to the waterfront. Sevey wasn’t entirely a self-made man. He inherited nearly all of his wealth from his father, the honorable Capt. John Sevey, who gained fame commanding a militia company in the Revolutionary War.

Here’s how the little thoroughfare got its name. It seems folks got to using a foot path alongside Sevey’s tavern connecting two of the village’s busier streets, what’s now Water and Middle streets.

In 1791, more than likely at Sevey’s urgings, the select board agreed a connecting street was needed here. Naturally, the squire insisted he be duly compensated and wouldn’t settle for less than 200 pounds. That was­ a large sum in Colonial times, the equivalent of close to $3,500 today. The board agreed to pay but as you might expect the deal didn’t set well with all the townspeople. 

A village map from 1828 on file in the Wiscasset Public Library archives identifies this small road as Sevey Lane, named of course after Wyman Sevey. The locals, however, soon got to calling the road Big Foot Alley, a not so flattering reference to the size of Wyman Sevey’s feet!

Years later, after Wyman Sevey went to meet his maker, Sevey Lane became Big Foot Alley and has been called that ever since. The building where Sevey’s tavern was is long gone, swept away in one of the fires that destroyed most of the south end of the village in the 1800s.

Nobody seems to know how Shin Bone Alley got its name. It doesn’t appear on any of Wiscasset’s 19th century maps showing the north side of the village. It does, however, appear on a 1916 map of the proposed Wiscasset Water Works, although no name is listed. With that said, people must have been calling it Shin Bone Alley a long time. The name appears on a 1960s pamphlet promoting Wiscasset village. No one now knows how or why it got this name.

Not long ago, an old photograph showing Shin Bone Ally turned up in the attic of the Wiscasset town office in a box crammed with other memorabilia. The picture is undated but looks like it was taken in 1960s or 1970s just before the alley was paved and became a one-way street.

There was a bit of a controversy in the 1970s when it was decided to make this a one-way street. At the public hearing to discuss it, there was quite a heated argument over which direction the one-way should be.

Steve Christiansen of Willow Lane knows a great deal of Wiscasset history. He said he’s done a bit of research into the name. Other than an old photograph, he said he’s never found a clue how Shin Bone Alley got its name.