Events at Member Institutions

CANTON—The Canton Historical Society is hosting a talk on “Preserving Our History: Caring for Our Cemeteries” on Wednesday, September 25, at 6:30 p.m., in its building at 25 Turner Street.  The speaker will be Cheryl Willis Patten of the Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) and the Maine Old Cemetery Association (MOGA).

Cemeteries are delicate outdoor museums that contain history on individuals and towns.  They provide a wealth of information that may not be available elsewhere.  In her talk on “Preserving Our History: Caring for Our Cemeteries,” Ms. Patten will explain how to decipher information found on gravestones and discuss the steps one can take to conserve this valuable historical record.  She will also address some basic information used to evaluate and conserve cemeteries and describe best practices for caring for gravestones.

Cheryl Willis Patten has been an advocate for cemeteries for many years.  She chaired the 2011 AGS Annual National Conference and has held various offices with MOCA—including serving as chair of the MOCA Workshop Committee for eight years.  Retired from teaching and state employment, Ms. Patten now has more time for exploring cemeteries in Maine and various other states and countries.

Information on AGS can be found at www.gravestonestudies.org and information on MOCA can be found at www.moca-me.org.

This event is free of admission and open to the public.  The venue is handicap accessible.  Refreshments will be served.  Doors open at 6 p.m.

The Canton Historical Society is an all-volunteer, not-for-profit organization devoted to the preservation and celebration of Canton’s heritage and history.

If you would like more information about this event, please email cantonmehistorical@gmail.com.

Born in Bethel in 1835, Thomas Holt was active as an architect in Central and Western Maine from 1859 to 1870. In 1865 he designed the Portland and Kennebec Railroad Station in Augusta, which burned while under construction in the city's Great Fire that year. Between 1871 and 1876, Holt served as Chief Engineer of the Maine Central Railroad, designing railroad buildings and bridges as well as conducting surveys for new rail lines. In 1876, he moved to California, where he pursued careers in architecture, railroading, mining, and lumbering. He died in 1889 from pneumonia contracted in a blizzard in Nevada. 

Our KHS September speaker, a native of Portland, Maine, Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., attended Deering High School, Colby College, and Boston University and was the recipient of honorary doctorates from Bowdoin College and the Maine College of Art.  At the age of thirteen, Shettleworth became interested in historic preservation through the destruction of Portland’s Union Station in 1961.  In 1971 he was appointed by Governor Curtis to serve on the first board of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, for which he became architectural historian in 1973 and director in 1976.  He retired from that position in 2015.  Mr. Shettleworth has lectured and written extensively on Maine history and architecture and served as State Historian since 2004.

The Kennebec Historical Society September Presentation is free to the public (donations gladly accepted).  The presentation will take place on Wednesday, September 18, 2019, at 6:30 p.m. at the Hope Baptist Church located at 726 Western Avenue in Manchester.  The program will be preceded at 4:30pm by a potluck supper and at 6pm by the society’s annual meeting and election of officers and directors. For details about the potluck supper, please contact Anne Cough, either by email at acough60@aol.com or by phone at 582-2823.

On Thursday, September 19^th the Tate House Museum welcomes Dr Richard Kahn as he presents “Stroudwater’s own Dr. Jeremiah Barker (1752-1835)”, the last of the Tate House Summer Lecture Series. Dr Barker was a Revolutionary War veteran and lived at 1168 Westbrook Street just down the road from the Tate House where he practiced medicine.

Dr. Kahn’s book is titled History of Diseases in the District of Maine 1772-1820: The Unpublished work of a Rural Physician in New England and is due to be published later this year. The lecture will be an overview and will focus on the contents of his book.

The lecture takes place in the Means House parlor, across the street from the Tate House Museum 1267 Westbrook St. Portland, ME. Admission is $15 and $12 for members and volunteers. Seating for the lecture is limited, so please call the museum at 207-774-6177 for reservations.

A reliable drinking source, liquid sustenance and promoter of sociability, beer and ale played an important role in colonial New England society. Archaeologists know this through the thousand of artifacts related to ale and tavern culture that litter our sites. What was the difference between a beer and an ale? Why did the Mayflower end its voyage when it ran out of beer? Why would anyone brew ale with molasses, sassafras and wormwood? Join us as we answer these questions and explore history on tap.

On Saturday, September 14, the Tate House Museum and Mast Landing Brewing Co in Westbrook present an afternoon of education and entertainment surrounding beer in the 18th and 19th century. The event starts with a beer centered tour of the Tate House Museum. Follow that up with a tasting of 4 beers at Mast Landing Brewing Company and a talk by Dr. Emerson "Tad" Baker, Professor of History, Salem State University.

The event begins at 3 PM with a tour of the Tate House Museum, followed by the brewery portion of the program beginning at 4:30. There are 2 types of tickets you can purchase, at 2 different price points.

$35 (or $30 for THM members) Full Event - Museum & Brewery– includes a beer-focused tour of the Tate House, a complimentary THM pint glass & an 18th century beer recipe for you to try at home. Immediately afterward, at Mast Landing Brewing Co., enjoy a tasting of 4 of their delicious brews, an interesting presentation by Dr. Baker.

$25 Partial Event - Brewery Only - you may purchase a ticket for just the portion of the event which takes place at the brewery (no house tour, no pint glass and no recipe).

This event is a fundraiser for the Tate House Museum in the Historic Stroudwater District of Portland. FMI go to www.tatehouse.org and click on events or call the museum at 774-6177.

Portland__ On Thursday, July 18 the Tate House Museum will host noted author, Patricia Q Wall, in the 3^rd of it’s Summer Guest Lectures at the Means House in Portland. The title of Mrs Wall’s lecture is “Still Hidden Everywhere: Enslaved Blacks in the Massachusetts Province of Maine”. She is the author of Lives of Consequence: Blacks in Early Kittery and Berwick in the Massachusetts Province of Maine and several children’s books which focused on slavery and the lives of blacks in Maine. For over 48 years she has been involved with colonial history through professional museum work, research, teaching and writing.

Based on nearly six years of research, Mrs. Wall’s findings refute the old myth of slavery’s scarcity in this region in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, and point to the significant impact of the labor and skills of enslaved Africans, Native Americans and people of mixed heritage on the economic development of some of Maine’s earliest coastal towns.

Lectures take place starting at 6:30 PM in the Means House, across the street from the Tate House. Admission is $15 and $12 for members and volunteers. Seating is limited, so please call the Museum at 207-774-6177 for reservations.

FMI:

Contact

Tate House Museum

1267 Westbrook Street

Portland ME 04102

207-774-6177

info@tatehouse.org

Portland __ On Thursday, July 11^th at 6:30 PM the Tate House Museum will be holding the 2^nd in its series of guest lectures with a presentation by Herb Adams. Adams, a SMCC Professor, former Maine State legislator, author and noted Portland historian, will help us relive the fanfare of the 1825 visit to Portland of the Marquis de Lafayette.

Guests attending the lecture in the Means House parlor will be entertained by Professor Adams talk entitled “Hail the Hero of Two Worlds: Lafayette Returns to America – and Maine”. Of interest is the fact that Lafayette knew the owner of the Means House and is believed to have visited the home of his friend, James Means, in 1825.

Lectures take place in the Means House, across the street from the Tate House. Admission is $15 and $12 for members and volunteers. Seating is limited, so please call the Museum at 207-774-6177 for reservations.

FMI:

Contact

Tate House Museum

1267 Westbrook Street

Portland ME 04102

207-774-6177

info@tatehouse.org

The Trustees and staff of Yarmouth Historical Society are pleased to present The Wellcome Prize, a history competition open to high school students in Maine. Students are invited to undertake original historical research about a local history topic related to Cumberland County and write a research paper about their findings. Papers will be judged on the quality of writing and research. The writers of the three winning papers will be asked to present a talk about their project on November 19, 2019. The first prize winner will receive $1000, second prize $500, and third prize $250. Visit our website for more information: www.yarmouthmehistory.org/the-wellcome-prize/ 

80^th Anniversary Year for the World’s Oldest, Largest Historical Trolley Museum

The Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport has officially opened for the 2019 season. The Museum will be open from 10AM-5PM every weekend in May, and daily starting on Memorial Day.  A year-long celebration is planned for the Seashore Trolley Museum this season as it turns 80. Founded in 1939, the trolley museum is the oldest historic transportation organization of its kind in the world and curates the largest streetcar collection.

The museum features a three-mile round trip on its heritage railway, a 330-unit collection of trolleys, buses and more transit history than you can absorb in one day. Seashore Trolley Museum offers attractions for every member of your family. The museum’s docents are only too glad to unravel the mysteries of the last century’s transit modes.

All of this activity began eighty years ago, when a group of Boston area college students visited Maine, to ride the dwindling number of streetcar lines.  While enjoying an outing, they learned that The Biddeford and Saco Railroad had ordered replacement buses for its weary trolleys.  One open-sided car, No. 31, was a favorite with the group.  On the spot, they agreed to save the little car.  In doing so, the college students made history.

This was the first time a non-company group saved a street railway or railroad car for historic purposes.  Armed with this idea, other groups sprang up in New England and around the U.S. Today, this local rolling endeavor covers the country from coast to coast.

Over the years, Seashore Trolley Museum has added to its collection streetcars from Los Angeles, New Orleans, Chicago, and to Maine’s northernmost county – Aroostook.  Besides rail cars, the collection includes diesel and gas buses. There are 19 electrically powered trackless trolleys, like those running around Cambridge’s Harvard Square.  Its Canadian collection is the largest outside of that country.  If you are not satisfied with a North American assortment, transit equipment from:  Australia, France, Japan, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and New Zealand may be viewed or ridden.

Bostonians will enjoy refreshing their memories of familiar rapid transit cars.  All four subway lines:  Red, Green, Blue and Orange are represented.  In fact, Seashore prides itself on displaying the comprehensive “Boston Collection” of trolleys, trains and buses.  The oldest piece of equipment in the museum is a Suffolk County Sheriff’s prisoner wagon, circa 1830.  Although it is not a passenger vehicle, it represents the omnibuses, which clattered over the Hub’s cobblestone streets, until horse cars arrived.

The birthday celebration weekend of July 5-8 will see hidden trolleys out in the sunshine for the first time in years. There will be other special activities taking place as well. For more information about the streetcar preservation movement, the Seashore Trolley Museum and its collection, as well as a calendar of events for the 2019 season, please visit www.trolleymuseum.org or contact 207-967-2800 x101.

Museum exhibit asks: Can shoes be artful objects?

Inspired by the success of its most recent Bates bedspread exhibit, Museum L-A began the process of curating their newest gallery exhibit featuring shoes over one year ago. The plan for the exhibit was three-fold: highlight Auburn’s historic shoe industry, explore the techniques and terms that accompany shoes, and acknowledge the aesthetic beauty of shoe designs.

In response to a call for donations of shoes that the museum sent to local news outlets, Marilynn G. Barr, an artist from North Carolina, contacted the museum’s Collections and Exhibits coordinator to see if the museum would be interested in showcasing her astounding collection of ceramic shoes. One year later, Museum L-A is thrilled to announce that her shoes will be on display in the gallery for three months this summer.

Barr’s collection, “The First Shoe Collection,” is made up of 60 ceramic shoes fashioned using vintage shoe lasts from the 1940s and ‘50s. All of the shoes are singles (reminiscent of Cinderella’s abandoned shoe), are vastly different in design and color, and were recently part of an exhibition in New York City. The collection begs the question: Can shoes be artful objects?

“At the beginning of this curation process, we had always flirted with ideas of how to infuse this exhibit about an everyday object with art and design, so when Marilynn reached out to us we jumped at the chance to include her collection at some point during this exhibition,” explained Emma Sieh, Collections and Exhibits coordinator.

The public is invited to attend a free event from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, June 14, to view these beautiful shoes and meet their ingenious creator. Travelling from Greensboro, North Carolina, Barr will lead the evening in an artist’s talk and answer questions about the process of crafting these works of art. Light refreshments will be served and the public will have a chance to tour the rest of the “Footwear: From Function to Fashion” exhibition.

“The First Shoe Collection” will be on display in the Museum L-A gallery until mid-September.

Museum L-A is located in the Bates Mill Complex at 35 Canal Street in Lewiston, Maine.  Its hours of operation are Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.  Special tour requests and large group tours outside of these hours are available by appointment. Call 207-333-3881 or email info@museumla.org for more information.

Our Stories Have to Be Told: HHRC Artifacts from the Holocaust The latest exhibit at the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine will feature a collection of the artifacts that have been given to the HHRC over the years and compiled in a way that tells the story of the years leading up to the Holocaust through liberation. Our Stories Have to Be Told: HHRC Artifacts from the Holocaust brings together a powerful collection of items that have been donated or loaned to the HHRC over the years. The exhibit will open on Wednesday, June 5th from 5 to 7 p.m. with a program beginning at 5:30 p.m. featuring educator Suzi Ring, whose late husband Dennis donated a collection of items from concentration camps. In addition, speakers will include Noel March, who will share the story of his father Leonard, who was a liberator. Lee D. Mitgang will speak about his father Herbert who wrote for the Stars and Stripes and went on to have a successful career as a journalist. The exhibit was put together by HHRC Associate Director David Greenham and recent University of Southern Maine graduate Justin Dyer of Bath.  Both will speak about the process of creating the exhibit. The title comes from a quote by Holocaust survivor Jerry Slivka (July 11, 1915 – January 10, 2013). He is one of several survivors whose quotes and reflections are included in the exhibit. Jerry Slivka was born in the Ukraine, but his village was destroyed during WWI. The family moved to the Jewish section of another town nearby named Povursk. When Hitler came to power, Jerry was out of school and decided to move to Lodz, Poland. He worked making sweaters and then returned to Povursk in 1937.  Four years later, Jerry was drafted into the Soviet army. During his time of service, he lost contact with his family. In 1943, Jerry was sent to a work camp in Siberia where he remained until the end of the war.  At that time, the Soviet Union had an agreement that those who were Polish citizens prior to 1939 could go back to Poland. Jerry qualified, submitted his application, and a year later returned to Poland.  He learned that his parents, sister and one brother were killed. Jerry was able to find his surviving brother and the two traveled to Italy before arriving to the US in 1948.  Soon after, he met and married his wife Rochelle. The couple moved to Maine and helped found the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine. At the time of his death, he was survived by two daughters, six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and numerous nieces and nephews. Our Stories Have to Be Told: HHRC Artifacts from the Holocaust will be open from June 5th through September 13th. The HHRC, located at the Michael Klahr Center on the campus of the University of Maine at Augusta is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. or on weekends and evenings by appointment.  If you have any questions about the exhibit please contact David Greenham at David.greenham@maine.edu or 207-621-3531.