Events at Member Institutions

Skowhegan Falls History Walk in Celebration of Skowhegan’s Bicentennial

Date: Thursday, August 24, 2023

Time: 10:00 am

Location: Benedict Arnold Park behind the Federated Church, Island Avenue, Skowhegan, Me.

In celebration of Skowhegan’s Bicentennial Melvin Burnham, local historian, will lead a history walk at Skowhegan Falls Thursday, August 24^th 10:00 am, beginning at the Benedict Arnold Park behind the Federated Church, Island Avenue, Skowhegan.

This history walk offers participants in-depth information with vintage images that illustrate what role Skowhegan Island and Skowhegan Falls played in the development of industry and culture on the Kennebec River during the 19^th century.  Participants will learn what it was like to live and work in this era; how the power of moving water can shape the destiny of a community.  This island once could only be accessed by rowboat, canoe, or bateaux. Native Americans used it for fishing, resting, growing crops, and gathering mineral resources for their weapons. Now thousands of vehicles cross this 12-acre island every day.

The old Spinning Mill, built in 1922, is currently being repurposed as housing units, a hotel, and a brewery. If the conditions are right tour participants will be offered a chance to look inside this project to see how an historic structure can be reconstructed and continue to serve the community.

Many of the photos shared in this walk originated from the H. A. Wyman Collection assembled by Roland Taylor Patten (1864 - 1913), an early editor/owner of the Independent- Reporter and avid cyclist.  Prior to his involvement in the Independent-Reporter photos used in the paper were discarded after use.  Mr. Patten, realizing their value, decided to save them and over the years collected numerous photos depicting early Skowhegan history.  Upon selling his interest in the newspaper and moving away, Mr. Patten secured funds from H. A. Wyman to assemble his image collection in binders and labeled each with valuable information.  The Wyman Collection is now housed at the Skowhegan History House Museum & Research Center.

The ninety-minute walk will be tailored to participants’ needs and interests.  Participants are welcome to bring and use lightweight folding chairs for their comfort and use their cameras along the way.

Join the tour and take a step back in time to see why Skowhegan Falls was and continues to be an important historic district in this community.

Portland--- Tate House Museum is offering a Folk-Pop concert in our beautiful backyard featuring the Wortzelini Brothers on Saturday August 5 from 5:00 -7:00 PM. Come hear classic tunes by CSNY, the Band, Eagles, and Grateful Dead, as well as some original songs by this talented family band that includes two generations of brothers. Their instruments are guitars,mandolin, ukulele, harmonica, and percussion. The concert will have two sets with a short break in between.

The Wortzelini Brothers consist of brothers Rick and Rob Wortzel, and special guests Jeremy and Josh Wortzel from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Boston, and Providence. They have been playing, singing, and writing music together for decades and their wonderful music includes harmonies and instrumental jams.

The 1755 Tate House will be open from 4:15-5:00 pm for a sneak peek inside and all attendees will receive a coupon for 50% off a Tate House guided tour that can be used during our regular open season. Come meet and hear these wonderful musicians and enjoy a relaxing evening of music and sing-alongs.

Tickets are $5 in advance for Tate House Museum members, $8 for the general public, and can be purchased on our website tatehouse.org or in the Gift Shop during open hours. At-the-Door tickets are $8 for members and $10 for the general public. Please bring your own chair or blanket to 1270 Westbrook Street in Portland. Refreshments will be available for sale.

Please check our website and SM for updates if it rains.

FMI: Holly Hurd

hkhurd@tatehouse.org

Tate House Museum

1267 Westbrook Street

Portland ME 04102

207-774-6177

On Saturday, September 16, 2023 from 1-4:30 pm the Bucksport Historical Society will be hosting tours of six historical homes built in the 1800’s and 1900’s, including for the first time a house located in the “townsite” a housing development built by the owners of the paper mill for its workers in the 1930’s and 40’s. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at the Bucksport Historical Museum, 92 Main Street, which is open to the public from 1-4 pm Wednesdays through Saturdays in July and August.  Starting on September 1 tickets can be purchased from Bookstacks at 71 Main Street.

Summer Margarita Party in Canton on August 5

On Saturday, August 5, from 4:30-7:30 pm, the Canton Historical Society is presenting a Summer Margarita Party on the lawn of the Society’s building at 25 Turner Street, Canton, Maine.  

The menu includes delicious BBQ Chicken or Pulled Pork, hosted by Alabama’s Barbeque. Cash bar hosted by Canton’s Boondocks Farm, featuring the signature drink:  The Canton Margarita.  Music, games, raffles. Maine gifts for sale.

The event is open to the public – free admission. (Attendees must present ID at the gate to access the cash bar.)  Cash only for food; cash or CC for the bar. Park curbside or at Canton’s Public Boat Launch off Staples Hill Rd. Rain or shine!

The Canton Historical Society presents a year-round calendar of events and activities. For more information, visit:  www.cantonmehistory.org, email: cantonmehistorical@gmail.com, or call:  207-500-9893.

Former archaeologist Laurie LaBar, a curator at the Maine State Museum and author of Maine Quilts: 250 years of Comfort and Community, will be presenting about Quilting. Lunch will be provided. Registration required at the following link.  https://www.rufusportermuseum.org/events

Calling all 4th and 5th graders! This free program, hosted by our summer intern, will be programing for elementary students interested in Genealogy and history. 

The Rufus Porter Museum of Art and Ingenuity is excited to invite 4th and 5th graders to come learn about Genealogy! Participants will be introduced to the subject of genealogy, and invited to explore familial and local history.

Family members are asked to please send children with family photographs, names, and dates, or anything that might help the museum assist them in putting together a family tree, which they will take home with them at the end of the event.

Admission is free, we just ask that you register online ahead of time so we have enough craft supplies for everyone.

For questions, please call 207-647-2828 or email intern@rufusportermuseum.org

https://www.rufusportermuseum.org/events

This popular fundraiser for the Rufus Porter Museum will take place on Saturday July 22nd, 2022 from 10 AM to 3 PM. Each venue will host a special theme. Locations are kept a “mystery” until check in at the Museum on the day of the tour when maps are distributed to ticket holders.Registration required at the following link.  https://www.rufusportermuseum.org/event-details/2023-mystery-house-tour-bridgton-area-homes-then-and-now

Tate House Museum Presents “Poetry in the Garden” with Michael Bove and Suzanne Simmons

Portland--- Tate House Museum is offering a Poetry Reading in our beautiful backyard and colonial garden with two published New England-based poets, Michael Bove and Suzanne Simmons. Join us on Thursday July 13 for a reception and reading from 6:15-8:00 pm. Cheese and refreshments will be served and guests offered a sneak peek at the 1755 Tate House from 6:15- 7:00 PM; poetry reading will commence 7:00- 8:00 pm. All attendees will receive a coupon for 50% off a Tate House guided tour that can be used during our regular open season. Come meet and hear these fantastic poets and enjoy refreshments on the Tate House Museum.Entry is free and open to the public of all ages! Please bring your own chair or blanket to 1270 Westbrook Street in Portland on July 13.

Mike Bove is the author of four books of poems: Soundtrack to Your Next Panic Attack (forthcoming 2024), EYE (forthcoming 2023), House Museum (2021) and Big Little City (2018). His work has appeared in journals in the US, UK, and Canada. He was winner of the 2021 Maine Postmark Poetry Contest and a 2023 finalist for a Maine Literary Award in poetry. He is Professor of English at Southern Maine Community College and lives with his family inPortland, Maine where he was born and raised. Many of his poems explore nature, memory, and New England life, particularly in Maine and the city of Portland.

Suzanne Simmons’ poems, essays, and photographs have appeared in the New York Times, The Baltimore Review, Rattle, Miramar, Fifth Wednesday and numerous other journals. In 2020 her poetry chapbook In September They Draw Down the Lake, was published by Alexandra Quarterly Press. She holds an MFA in poetry and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In May of 2023 she appeared in an episode of the World Channel’s Stories From the Stage, and she is currently finishing a manuscript that she began in Grub Street’s Memoir Incubator in 2022.  She’s been a chef, a teacher, and a business owner, and raised two children on a family farm. Visit her at www.suzannesimmons.net

Please check our website and SM in the advent of rain.

FMI: Holly Hurd

hkhurd@tatehouse.org

Tate House Museum

1267 Westbrook Street

Portland ME 04102

207-774-6177

Visit With Some Useful Citizens at the North Cemetery in Skowhegan

Take a guided walk with Historian Melvin Burnham

Thursday, June 29, 2023: 10am - 11:30am

New England’s graveyards have changed over time. Those most familiar to us today were based on styles carried to the continent by our early European ancestors. Skowhegan’s North Cemetery, like most burial grounds, serves as an outdoor museum full of history, art, religious representations all telling stories of lives well-lived, times of disease, war, and trying conditions within a community. The stones become permanent records of those interred and act as a form of textbook of community history.

Louise Helen Coburn describes the cemetery in her two-volume history of Skowhegan, Skowhegan on the Kennebec, “The cemetery is retired from the street, and is half circled at the rear by woods and the gorge of a little stream. It has been the resting-place of Hills, Philbricks, Dyers, Neils, and other village families, and holds in its keeping Revolutionary and Civil War graves.”

This history walk explores the lives of some of those “Useful Citizens” who are buried at the North Cemetery, lives that helped shape our community. As participants travel back in time, discussions will also focus on our veterans and their experiences in our history, gravestone and monument design, and the various symbols used on the stones, as well as the history of this 1820’s cemetery. Former generations have much to say to us, although with great economy of words because each letter and ornament had to be chiseled in stone with hand tools.

This ninety-minute walk begins and ends at the North Cemetery gate located behind Walton Court Apartments on Walton Court just off Madison Avenue in Skowhegan, Maine.

Participants should be prepared to walk on uneven ground and to stand during periods of discussion. Light folding chairs and cameras are welcome.

This walk is not appropriate for young children. 

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Tate House Museum Presents “Portland Women History Makers” by Dugan Murphy

Portland---It’s time again for lectures in the backyard of the Tate House Museum! Join us on June 28^th at 7:00 PM for “Portland Women History Makers” with Dugan Murphy. Locally-raised historian Dugan Murphy shares unforgettable stories about Portlanders of all backgrounds—told with heart, humor, and humanity---through his company Portland by the Foot, which offers walking tours of Portland’s downtown. He is a graduate of the Portland History Docent Program, former executive director of Maine Archives & Museums, and a curious and enthusiastic tour guide. After several years as the most requested tour guide at another local tour company, Dugan decided to create his own version of walking tours, with even more intimate, surprising, and delightful experiences.

His lecture at Tate House, “Portland Women History Makers,” will focus on women who have contributed to the area’s history. Whether running the factories or running for office, Portland women boldly shaped our city’s culture while continually moving the country toward equal rights. Drawing from over 300 years of history, Dugan will share stories of women who achieved remarkable things, like the Indigenous Penobscot performer who re-framed immigration policy, the Chinese immigrant and laundress who won American Mother of the Year, the white tavern keeper who went up against the British Navy, and the enslaved Black maid who abolished slavery statewide. You'll leave with a greater appreciation for the charm and depth of a city that was almost lost were it not for the impact of women’s collective energy and passion. Wednesday, June 28, at 7:00 PM in Tate House Museum’s backyard, 1270 Westbrook Street Portland, ME. Join us for this exciting lecture, heard from the comfort of a lawn chair, while enjoying summer in Maine!

Tickets purchased in advance are $12 General Admission and $10 for Tate House Museum members. At the door prices are $15 General Admission and $12 for THM members. Advance tickets can be found at www.tatehouse.org Attendees are asked to bring their own lawn chairs or blanket. If it rains, the lecture will be held at the Stroudwater Village Church, 1729 Congress Street, Portland.

FMI: Holly Hurd

hkhurd@tatehouse.org

Tate House Museum

1267 Westbrook Street

Portland ME 04102

207-774-6177