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.