North Castine Post Office Comes To Our Fields Pond Campus

"...Frank and Loweena's [Devereux]"  North Castine Post Office in background at left about 1929 or 1930. Russell Devereux in foreground with bib overalls sitting on wooden wagon with an "ALA" badge on the back ( "Automobile League of America" ?). Russell Devereux was born 1919, so he may be about ten or eleven in this photo.The "unknown" girl eating from her lap is sitting on a pedal car that someone has built a wooden truck bed onto....maybe young Russell Devereux. Notice marshmallows on a stick displayed atop the wooden bottle crate. In background see "Devereux Auto Rest---Free Camping Ground." From left:  L.R. Leola, Arlene Perkins, "Ma Leach", Girl (unknown), Laura Devereux (in hat), Margaret Grindle, and Russell Devereux.

The Post Office has changed radically through the years. This roof configuration is particularly different. The exterior may have had shingles rather than clapboard at this point---difficult to determine from photo. The front is different from the photo below which was likely taken in the 1950s. at this point there was a shingle exterior and an entrance on that looks like the side of the building rather than one of the gable ends as seen in the earlier photo. The door in this later photo looks like the door found at the back of the current structure. These are the children of Russell Devereux: Audrey Devereux Peasley, Charles Devereux and Andrea Devereux Doyle. (Thank you to Berwyn Peasley for supplying these photos).

In reconstructing the structure we will likely shingle over the clapboard sheathing recreating an earlier look, and replicate the fenestration seen in the gable end entrance of circa 1930. We have the sign seen in the 1950s photo but once again given the quality of the 1930 photo it is difficult to determine whether this was the original sign.

Rural Maine Medicine, 1850s

This is Dr. George A. Wheeler, MD of Castine. Yesterday, I came across a real find at an area antique shop----a cardboard box of documents connected to the life of Dr. George A. Wheeler which included his diplomas and credentials as well as some photos. Wheeler served as a military doctor during the Civil War. This is from a group photo taken at Wheeler's Alma mater Bowdoin College in the 1880s; in fact, I know this familiar doorway. Wheeler was a graduate of Bowdoin in 1859, and I have his real sheepskin in Latin before me as well as many other original documents ---some in period frames that they desperately need to be rescued from. As some might recall Dr. Isaac Trafton of Newfield was also a graduate of Bowdoin, or what was part of Bowdoin, and also known as the Maine School of Medicine, back in the 1850s; Trafton graduated circa 1853 before building the house in 1856 that is part of the museum. Willowbrook gifted his Bowdoin medical diploma to the Historical Society of Newfield, ME last year but the Curran Homestead Village still has the fine collection that comprises the Doctor's Office Exhibit in the Trafton House ( FYI Trafton was a country doctor and had no formal "doctor's office" ; his office was likely confined to a satchel that he carried in his horse carriage in 1850s Newfield and Limerick). Dr. Wheeler's more complete collection of credentials will be a fine substitute to the Trafton documentation for the purposes of our ongoing exhibit of 19th century medicine in rural Maine and New England, which is one of many hands-on learning experiences for school field trips and general visitors alike at Curran Homestead Village at Newfield. As I do research on Dr. Wheeler I will share it with you.

Silent Movies at Willowbrook and Now at Curran Homestead Village

In 2014, 19th Century Willowbrook Village received a Maine Humanities Council Infrastructure Grant that partially funded the development of a mobile silent movie palace. This "palace" consisted of an enclosure in the shape of the museum's early motion picture projector which once belonged to Saco, Maine resident Ivory Fenderson ( who also was the original owner of the museum's 1894 Herschell-Armitage Steam Riding Gallery, or what is better known more as the "Willowbrook horse carousel". Fenderson, in partnership with "Haley",also travelled with an early movie projector, which included hand colored slides as well as cellulose film, setting it up at halls and auditoriums for public viewings at between "10 and 15 cents" a show at the turn of the twentieth century.  Accompanying his presentation of "Moving Pictures" was a "Home Grand Graphophone", which is also in the Curran Homestead Village collection gifted by Willowbrook, and it was this early phonograph that plays wax cylinder records that "perfectly" reproduced the human voice and duplicated instrumental music "with perfect fidelity, tone, and brilliancy", according to Fenderson's own promotional material. Curran has quite a large collection of these wax cylinders that were largely produced by Edison; we have a collection of early shellac disc records dating from the first decade of the twentieth century as well also produced by Edison.

 In addition, the "palace" created with assistance of the Maine Humanities Council includes a larger enclosure consisting of 4' x 24" x 36" plywood box constructions that have been painted with an ancient Byzantine tile motif. When stacked in a large rectangle, seating is arranged within for movie viewing. This is a cozy theater experience with a wood and canvas viewing screen. The palace has been set up at various locations around the Newfield campus including the Amos Straw ballroom above the Country Store. The desired effect of the construction is to re-create movie viewing from another time especially for our younger visitor; we also have a pop corn machine reminiscent if the time that some may have enjoyed the product of at this year's Bluegrass Festival at Fields Pond. Visitors at Newfield's movie festivals have also experienced live piano accompaniment through the contributions of Dr. Peter Stickney who lives adjacent to the museum and serendipitously took a graduate music course that explored composing musical scores for silent movies. The music is largely impromptu and amazingly fitting for each of the movies; kudos to Peter for tackling with mastery even some of the very long features like Douglas Fairbanks in one my favorites---The Thief of Baghdad.

The idea for the silent movie theater at the museum was originally inspired by a visit to the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, New York and the exhibition of Red Groom's 1920s Egyptian Revival Silent Movie Palace on temporary constructed within that museum briefly in the early 2000s. In 2012, as Executive Director of the Town of Warwick, NY Historical Society, and in partnership with the Neversink History Museum, that is located in upstate New York on the site of some early D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and other silent movie pioneers' early productions before Hollywood was born , Orange County, NY's first silent movie festival was born with a selection of silent movies, commentary and piano accompaniment. This inspired the realization of the more elaborate experience of a festival at Newfield, Maine in 2014.

Much appreciation goes to women from the Alfred Corrections Department who assisted in the painting of the tile mosaic motif on the "palace" walls over many weeks. Curran plans to set up the silent movie palace in Orrington during the summer of 2018 and include some period theater seating recently donated by board member Irv Marsters, which came from the holdings of Burr Printing which he recently acquired and donated many of its furnishing and equipment from to the Curran. Much of the early letterpress printing equipment will be the core of a letterpress printing shop at Orrington eventually. Letterpress printer Dennis Watson and Burr Printing continues on at the Bangor Letter Shop at the Penobscot Plaza on Washington Street in Bangor but the business was for many years located on Central Street in Bangor. No one is sure where the seating came from but we would like to think that it's no coincidence that it came from the same site razed during the Fire of 1911 where once stood Bangor's own "White Way" of movie theaters and vaudeville houses including the once well known Norombega Hall, which contained the Gaiety vaudeville house, and the Nickel, the city's first movie theater; maybe the seats from these establishments survived, and we can continue to experience silent movies in them as early Bangor residents once had!

Peter Stickney plays musical accompaniment to Stan Laurel's Blood and Sand:

https://youtu.be/-xhaPd6oiCk

Creation of the silent movie palace with Byzantine tile motif in progress.

Detail of Byzantine tile motif; early movie palaces often used ancient motifs from Roman, Moorish, or other civilizations to transport the audience to another place. These palaces were often constructed of plaster and wood rather than stone and mortar of actual history; these were among our first virtual realities in America.

This is the enclosure representing the original Fenderson projector and serving as place where a modern LED projector is hidden from view. The movies are all digitized versions but we may attempt to show a few shorts on regular film. We are always looking for Super 8MM and 16 MM copies of early films to be donated.

The first Orange County Silent Movie Festival at the Warwick Historical Society in 2012.

A silent movie festival at Warwick Historical Society with piano accompaniment in 2012.

This is the silent movie projector once owned and operated by Ivory Fenderson.

 

Cider Making at Newfield

Our reliable apple cider mill at Curran Homestead Village at Newfield. We
made 12 gallons of cider on October 14th for our open museum day.

Click:

https://youtu.be/cAjlWl7Wl7s

A Goat Treadmill Powers a Centrifugal Butter Churn

 

This goat treadmill is permanently on exhibit at Curran Homestead Village at Newfield

where it is attached to a centrifugal butter churn. Another can be found in our granary

scenario. Recently, we received the donation of another goat treadmill ( it also works
with dogs and sheep) at our Fields Pond campus from William Wilkins, a board member,
and we are looking forward to sharing this with our your visitors in the future.

Click:

https://youtu.be/5828vdPoIv8

Donation of Model Ts and Early Gas Engines

The Curran Homestead Village is elated over the news that they will receive a large donation of restored Model T cars as well as a stake truck. The donation also includes early gas engines, extra Model T engines for restoration, and equipment for maintaining and doing other restorations of Ford Model Ts and other early autos in the future. The museum currently has a number of Model T related vehicles including a restored Model T cord saw, "Runaway Jane", a circa 1917 Model T doodlebug/jitterbug with dual transmissions including a double T example, a Worthington T ( a Model T tractor conversion produced for retail from re-purposed Model Ts, Model As, and other vintage cars in the 1940s) and four Fordson tractors of the same era.

The Model T gift comes from a long-time supporter of the former Willowbrook Museum which was gifted to the Curran Homestead on January 1^st and has run under the aegis of Curran Homestead Village at Newfield this 2017 season. Curran finished its last school field trip for the fall on October 3 with apple cider making in addition to its extensive program of hands-on learning activities with costumed interpreters and a ride on its 1894 Herschell Armitage horse carousel originating from Saco. The museum was also open on October 14th and had beautiful weather for its October 21st Free Members Day which was generously sponsored by Jeremiah Mason House in Limerick. The museum had a full complement of costumed interpreters with BBQ served out on the lawn free of charge to members; the museum anticipates a similar free day in the spring for new 2018 members.  

The initial plan is to exhibit the donated Model Ts and the collection of early gas engines and belt driven equipment at the Newfield campus in its very large Carriage House. The donation also includes the equipment for a car restoration workshop. “The Newfield Carriage Barn,” said museum director, Robert Schmick “will eventually offer a hands-on, Model T assembly line for our ongoing school field trip programs and special events visitation along with other early American car culture learning opportunities connected with internal combustion engines and auto technology which is in synch with our focus on science and technology learning objectives at both our campuses.”

 

“Eventually, this donation will be divided between our two campuses, Orrington and Newfield, as an accommodation is built at our Fields Pond campus; these gas engines are equally important to the development of our collection which embodies Maine rural heritage and will complement the more than a dozen engines that came with the Willowbrook gift to Curran. We will be scheduling workshops in metal work, woodworking, electricity and more this winter,” Schmick added. Visit us at: www.curranhomestead.org , or call for information: (207) 205-4849.

 

 

 

Amateur radio station W1UP was started in 1913 by Phillip Sprague of Brewer. A collection that includes his radio equipment, a comprehensive collection of vacuum tubes, a collection of telegraph keys and early radio equipment was recently donated by the Brewer Historical Society. This collection will greatly complement our presentation of these themes at the Newfield campus but will eventually make their way to Orrington where a communications exhibit is planned for the near future; we have been gifted the former North Castine Post Office which we will move and develop a hands-on telegraph, radio, and telephone exhibit.

Celebrating the Box: Lindbergh Crate in Canaan, ME

Recently, there was mention of some Spirit of St. Louis wallpaper on the second floor of the Curran Homestead Village's Field's House. The 1927 phenomena of the first transatlantic flight by Charles Lindbergh even touched the Curran farm as the wallpaper was produced and sold around 1927 celebrating the event. Either the Currans or Fields put the paper up on the wall, as the Fields continued to spend time at the house during the summer due to a codicil in the deed remaining since the Curran's purchase of the farm in 1914. If you haven't already read Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927 you might, as it identifies how widespread the hero worship of Lindbergh became in contrast to the small potatoes of more recent and ongoing celebrity of this one and that one ( the names slip from memory quite quickly). In addition to Lindbergh, and the cult personality he became, there are some remarkable parallels to be made with the politics and popular culture of 2017.

Spirit of St. Louis wallpaper

In addition there was yet another one of these "solved mysteries" shows on the History channel of recent, and this one presumed to solve the one regarding Amelia Earhart's disappearance during her 1935 circumnavigation of the globe. I have to admit there was some pretty convincing forensics but disappointingly the whole thing was debunked within days. The photo that apparently all was based on was not taken when they thought.

Recently,Wanda Leighton of Orrington, a longtime contributor to the Curran Homestead as well as wife to past and now honorary board member Jim Leighton, in conversation while painting picket fence at the Curran farm a few weeks back both Lindbergh and Earhart came up. Wanda is one of our local pilots coming and going from Fields Pond as a matter of fact; she has a plane with pontoons. She shared with me her involvement and attendance at the second celebration of a monument that was constructed identifying the site of a wooden crate used to transport the Spirit of St. Louis after its landing at LeBourget in France in 1927. The crate is now in Canaan, Maine. I knew nothing about this prior to the conversation but wasn't surprised.

A Turkish friend of mine once commented that Americans have this uncanny ability to make interesting and engaging museums out of what is seemingly the most insignificant fragments of history; he shared that he had been to some museum that included nothing more than bones and pottery shards but the explanations and presentations were as engaging as any museum that had something of great value. Needless to say I am anticipating a summer trip to Canaan.

The crate had been constructed into a cottage to preserve it and to create a museum; just outside the structure a stylized wooden model of the famous plane was set up on a 170 foot cable for children to ride. This was designed by retired Bernard Taylor of Lynnfield, MA who gifted the Spirit of Canaan to Larry Ross for his museum. A drawing for the first ride went to four year old Alex Jones of Detroit, ME. A granite monument at the site identifies the fact that the crate existed in New Hampshire until 1990 when it came to reside in Maine. The site is privately owned by Larry Ross who organized the celebration on May 21, 1994 drawing a number of living witnesses of Lindbergh's famous flight. Wanda accompanied another pilot, Bill Terra, in his plane Aeronca, on that day in May for several passes overhead.

Wanda lent me her archive of that day including several newspaper articles and photographs of the event. I have digitized some of these and include them below:

The top photo is Larry Ross and  John Miller who witnessed Lindbergh take off from Roosevelt Field in New York. Miller is a helicopter pilot and still flies (1994). He belongs to the United Flying Octogenarians.
The second photo includes Austin Wilkins. Wilkens was an engineering student in Paris when Lindbergh landed at LeBourget; he retired from the Maine Forest Service. The wooden construction of Lindbergh's plane is built for a child to ride in; it is tethered to a 170 foot cable.

Wanda snapped this shot from Bill Terra's plane as it flew over Larry Ross' enclave; see the additional building with the Spirit of St. Louis identification numbers "NX211".

Capt. Jack Race from Carbondale, PA in WACO.

This is the structure created from the Lindbergh crate. That's a 1920s Franklin automobile.

DATABASE OF 1920s & 1930s GAS SERVICE STATIONS & GARAGES

Some of the earliest gas and auto stations were re-modeled blacksmith shops. Many blacksmiths transitioned into auto mechanics.

This is one of my favorite designs, as it includes the trapings of a gas service station but also a two bay garage with the long windowed doors.

This is another architectural favorite as it includes many windows as well as the slate roof and scalloped cedar shingle exterior.

This example has the interesting front overhang that could house some vintage gravity gas pumps from the Model T era as well as petroliana as all the photos taken of service stations in the past are filled with advertising. This structure with its industrial steel frame windows and the footprint of the structure here would both exhibition and work space for engine projects.