At Curran Homestead Village at Fields Pond, the Peter Field
House was raised off of its deteriorated foundation as this past winter was
upon us. Last week the structure well known to travelers along Fields Pond Rd.
in Orrington was lifted by crane and placed on a new foundation. The structure
is now situated so that the front of the building faces the Curran farmhouse.
This project was partially funded by a 2016 Davis Family Foundation grant, and
the museum seeks further contributions to do significant renovations to the
structure; it will serve as a visitor’s center for the evolving museum village.
In addition to an admission counter and a modest gift shop the structure will
house three modern restrooms on a museum site that has made due with two
outhouses for its twenty six year history.
“Having modern bathroom facilities is a necessity for the
anticipated school groups the museum plans to attract as it creates an
infrastructure to house its experiential, hands-on learning activities about
history but with science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics learning
objectives. Recently partnering with the
Carleton Project , an alternative , experiential high school, located at the
Shaw House in Bangor, the Curran, in the
midst of a number of construction projects onsite, will host its first summer
history camp for teenagers from the program. The model for this comes from a
similar offering in play at Curran’s second campus in Newfield, Maine, as the
Orrington-based museum was gifted 19th
Century Willowbrook Village, a museum village, in southwestern Maine that
includes twenty building, five structures on the National Register of Historic
Places, and a collection of more than 10,000 restored objects embodying
America’s late 19th century Industrial Age. Located in Newfield, ME,
Curran Homestead Village at Newfield will have its third annual summer history
camp for ages 8-13 from July 24-28.
The newly moved Field House in Orrington will be integral to
the museum’s goal of creating something on par with the former Willowbrook
museum. Greater programming and an
extended visitation season will answer the question most often asked: when is
the Curran open? We have a number of events scheduled this year but not general
visitation until we can offer facilities like that planned for the Field House.
Peter Field was the original homesteader on the property
bought by Michael Curran in 1914 from Arthur Conquest. Field’s placement on the
historical timeline of the museum property begins in the first decades of the 19th
century but the Field family apparently had a continued seasonal presence in
the house well into the 20th century due to a codicil in the deed
that ended sometime during the Curran’s ownership. The 80 plus acre pond and
road at the site still bears his name. The Curran farm was long known as the
Fields Pond farm as the sign on the large, gambrel roofed barn attests.
The house evidences many alternations through the years so
its exact age may never be determined. The first floor has no open hearth as one
might expect in a first settlement structure. There is a pressed tin ceiling,
bead board, and tongue and groove floors, which are obviously from later
re-models. There is a mounted cast iron
dry sink; there was never running water inside. The second floor is far more
interesting with a number of details from its early construction as well as
early construction as well as early 20th century décor.
In a recent walkthrough with Curran board member and Bangor
engineer Brian Ames, who is overseeing this project, some of the architectural
details on the second floor were pointed out including hand hewn beams with
mortise and tenon joinery. Joists that were very skillfully fitted into carrier
beams and impressive top plate beams that roof rafters rest on are seemingly in
good condition.
The walls are covered with a Spirit of St. Louis motif wallpaper produced and likely hung
contemporaneously to Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight in 1927. There is also a
homemade toy string and tin can telephone mounted on the wall that includes a
real dial from an early rotary dial phone. This is time capsule of play and
dreams from past summer when families stayed in this little house overlooking
Fields Pond. We plan on exhibiting these items as the house is poised to take
on life in the 21st century
and serve for both play and learning for a new generation.
