An Historical Society Success Story
An historical society success story
While on vacation I visited one of those quaint white buildings housing an historical society I mentioned in a previous blog. I had passed the Gilead Historical Society each summer for a number of years but I either had perishable food in the car, or the buildings, one a railroad depot and the other a one room schoolhouse, were closed. This time, a cloudy day with a cooler in the car and a Labor Day yard sale in progress, I stopped.
Much to my amazement, this was an historical society with a lot going for it. Founded in 2004 immediately after the Town’s bicentennial and seeded with the leftover money from that celebration, the Gilead Historical Society got some land in a split minute, donated by owners who had felt obliged to demolish the family homestead due to its condition. The depot and schoolhouse were moved to the property. The adjacent property belongs to the Town of Gilead where two historic buildings are set --the 1883 Town Hall and the Town Office, once a general store. The four buildings lined up on the street have been said to make an iconic New England setting.
The former 1851 railroad depot, later storage building, for the Grand Trunk Railway, had been moved twice already, once out of town by a business man with deep family ties to Gilead who used it for his business. When he sold his business and learned that the new owner planned to demolish the depot, he moved the building back to Gilead and gave it to the Historical Society. The building during its time in Auburn, Maine was added to the National Register of Historic Places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_Gilead_Railroad_Station
A railroad depot, of course, is a jackpot for an historical society. There seems to be an unending supply of train buffs in this country and elsewhere who will seek out such buildings and maybe buy something or contribute money or knowledge to the historical society now housed within it.
The schoolhouse actually was more intact than the depot, and includes the original wooden desks with chairs attached. Fortunately, the desks are moveable so the space can be used for presentations, pot luck meals, meetings, and work space. Obviously, a lot of sweat equity was put into the effort of turning the buildings into useable spaces.
A craftsperson to make items for raffles, a genealogist to research families, and a writer and a photographer to produce publications (book, spiral bound booklets, newsletters) as well as to prepare grants were among the talents found in this small town. In addition to the largesse of a few members, it has an L.L. Bean (the person) connection. While not eligible for the company’s larger grants, it apparently has been able to count on that company as well as the charitable fund set up by the Sunday River Community Fund and other local businesses and people for specific purposes. In case you’re wondering, L.L. Bean had a camp near Hastings, Maine, and took the train to this very depot, originally located across the tracks and a bit farther east.
The Town’s bicentennial was crucial to the Historical Society’s initial success. The same people for the most part served on the bicentennial committee; and, more to the point, lots of people from away came back to town for the festivities. They may now live in Paris, Maine, or Paris, Texas, or even Paris, France, but they still have a connection to this town and this part of Maine.
The Historical Society has four times as many out of town members as current residents. A really old song says it all – you’ll miss me when I’m gone. No matter where you grow up, and even if high school was awful, you never lose that connection to the house, the church, the shops, the classmates, the teachers, the first job as a kid, the mountain or beach or woods that make someplace somewhere “My Home Town”.
That Historical Society’s semi-annual newsletters work to keep the connection alive just as we hope this website will encourage those from here but now away to reach out to us with comments and reminiscences. We want to provide a touch of home.
For image of depot --
Wikipedia creative commons credit
By NewTestLeper79 - Visit, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77952582