Peter Field House Resurrected

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 19^th 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 19^th 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 19^th century but the Field family apparently had a continued seasonal presence in the house well into the 20^th 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 20^th 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 21^st century  and serve for both play and learning for a new generation.