Lincoln County Historical Association

The "Help" from Hampton: In Service at the Pownalborough Court House 1872-1892
2025-02-27 17:30 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Online
LCHA is proud to present:
The “Help” from Hampton: In service at the Pownalborough Court House 1872-1892
Thursday, February 27, 5:30 pm, free online with speaker James Tanzer,
Free Online Lecture, preregistration required, CLICK HERE to register
A $5 suggested donation helps LCHA cover costs with our free lecture series. All donations are gratefully appreciated, but no donations are required! Click here to donate online.
For 20 years, from 1872-1892, an aging Sallie and Captain Sam Goodwin, owners of the Pownalborough Court House in Dresden, Maine, relied heavily on the housekeeping and farm labor of four young Black workers from Hampton, Virginia: Katy Brown, Randall O. Johnson, Martha Jones, and her brother Joseph Henry Jones.

For the first time, through an examination of letters between the extended Goodwin, Canby, Johnson, and Marshall family members, and letters written by Katy, Randall, Martha, and Joseph Henry themselves, we are able to piece together the fascinating stories of these young Black people, and illuminate their lives both in Maine and in Virginia during the Reconstruction era and beyond.

James Tanzer is the Special Collections Research Services Librarian at Bowdoin College, and the Vice President of Lincoln County Historical Association. He holds a BA in history and an MA in medieval history.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Carol Gardner, author, The Divided North Black and White Families in the Age of Slavery
2025-02-06 17:30 - 18:30 | Online
Old Bristol Historical Society (OBHS) and Lincoln County Historical Association (LCHA) present speaker Carol Gardner online on February 6, 2025 at 5:30 pm. This online lecture is free and open to the public, with pre-registration required.
Click here to register
Dr. Carol Gardner will discuss her book, The Divided North: Black and White Families in the Age of Slavery, a narrative history that follows two northern families throughout the turbulent 19th century. Born eleven months apart in 1798 and 1799, Reuben Ruby and Nathaniel Gordon were neighbors and schoolmates in Portland, Maine. Yet they were worlds apart, separated by temperament, family culture and race: Reuben was Black and Nathaniel was white.
The Rubys became prominent antislavery activists and operatives on the Underground Railroad. The Gordons became well-to-do ship masters: among them, the most notorious American slave captain of the century: Nathaniel Gordon III. Absent from history books for over a century, these two families offer a detailed portrait of life in the so-called “Free North” when slavery enthralled the nation. Their lives—as activists, traders, agents on the Underground Railroad, soldiers, slave captains, blockade runners, prospectors and politicians—took them far from home: to New York, California, Texas, Louisiana, Africa, Cuba, Colombia and Brazil. But they returned to Maine again and again.
As families and individuals, the Rubys and Gordons help us to explore slavery and freedom, racism and equality in America. They help reveal what it meant to live in a free state, with all the promise, disappointment, irony and hope that the notion entailed.

Carol Gardner has more than 30 years’ experience as a writer and journalist. She earned a Ph.D. in English from The Johns Hopkins University, taught literature and writing at Johns Hopkins, Wake Forest, and Florida State Universities, and has published pieces in a wide variety of books and periodicals, including the Portland Press Herald and The Washington Post. She is a past winner of a Maryland Individual Artist’s Award. Dr. Gardner is the author of a narrative history, The Involuntary American: A Scottish Prisoner’s Journey to the New World, and the forthcoming The Divided North: Black and White Families in the Age of Slavery. She lives in Alna, Maine.

Click here to register

One Stone at a Time: Restoration & Conservation of Ancient Burial Grounds with speaker Dave Probert
2025-01-30 17:30 - 18:30 | Online
Dave Probert
One Stone at a Time: Restoration and Conservation of Ancient Burial Grounds
Thursday, January 30, 5:30 pm
Free Online Lecture, preregistration required, CLICK HERE to register
A $5 suggested donation helps LCHA cover costs with our free lecture series. All donations are gratefully appreciated, but no donations are required! Click here to donate online.
Join us on Thursday, January 30th to learn from Dave Probert about his restoration and conservation work in historic cemeteries. After he retired from a long career at Bath Iron Works, Lincoln County Historical Association was fortunate to have Dave sign up as a volunteer. Initially, Dave helped with the Pownalborough Court House trail system before beginning to work in our historic cemetery, then becoming a museum docent, co-chair of the Pownalborough Court House Stewardship Committee, and a valued Trustee helping to steer the organization.
Dave’s hours spent in historic cemeteries, conserving one stone at a time, have yielded fascinating stories about how he approaches the work and what he learns along the way. Join us for this glimpse into the past through the restoration and conservation of ancient burial grounds with Dave on January 30, 2025 at 5:30 pm. This lecture is free and open to all. Preregistration is required to receive the link.

Annual Meeting & Member Gathering
2024-11-07 17:30 - 19:00 | ME
Wanderwood
79 Sidelinger Rd
Nobleboro ME

RSVP requested: lchamaine1954@gmail.com

Coopering at the Chapman-Hall House
2024-10-12 08:00 - 2024-10-13 17:00 | ME
Visit the Chapman-Hall House during Damariscotta’s annual Pumpkinfest weekend to learn about the historic craft of coopering! Jeffery Miller will be on site both days to demonstrate how a cooper would shape and secure wood to create vessels of all sizes that would carry and store a variety of items – including liquids.

Saturday and Sunday, 12-4 pm.

Cider Pressing at Pownalborough Court House
2024-09-29 10:00 | Pownalborough Court House, 23 Court House Rd, Dresden, ME, United States
Join us as we welcome autumn at the Pownalborough Court House with a FREE cider pressing and sampling! People of all ages will love watching apples go into the press and being made into fresh delicious cider from 10-2.
If you have them, bring your own apples It takes 42 apples to make a gallon of cider. (Keep in mind that perfect apples are not necessary to make excellent cider.)
The historic courthouse will be open for tours from 10:00am until 4:00pm–tour admission is $15 for adults and free for kids under 16.
And as always, our system of hiking trails is free and open to the public. Why not try a fall nature hike?

Historical Theater at Pownalborough Court House
2024-09-21 10:00 - 16:00 | Pownalborough Court House, 23 Court House Rd, Dresden, ME, United States
Guests at the Pownalborough Court House on September 21st will find the house and grounds occupied by historical theater reenactors who are interactive and friendly, performing and sharing the experiences of 18th century Pownalborough.
Guests are invited to observe and talk with performers as they demonstrate and act out the real day-to-day activities that took place on this property. It will be a true step back in time!

Below Ground at the Chapman-Hall House: An Archaeological Interpretation
2024-09-20 19:00 - 20:00 | ME
Archaeologist Tim Dinsmore will discuss his findings during a study conducted on the grounds of Damariscotta’s Chapman-Hall House.

In the fall of 2022, Tim Dinsmore directed an archeological investigation into the earliest occupation of Damariscotta’s C

hapman-Hall homestead and the integrity of artifacts currently on display within the circa 1754 house museum. He will present the results of the field work and subsequent artifact analysis at the Damariscotta Town Office, located at 21 School Street at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 20. The public is invited to this free event.

Dinsmore’s presentation, “Below Ground at the Chapman-Hall House – An Archaeological Interpretation” will discuss the many objectives in conducting the project, including the determination of the earliest occupation of the homestead, and the integrity of its archaeological deposits. Another objective was to determine whether objects currently housed and on exhibit within the house museum actually reflect the types of material goods that the Chapman and Hall families once possessed.
When the house was acquired by the Chapman-Hall House Preservation Society in 1960, the house was unfurnished. Under the guidance of historic preservationist Abbott Lowell Cummings, items representative of the time periods 1754, 1790 and 1820 were
acquired. Dinsmore’s archaeological survey subsequently uncovered numerous artifacts of actual objects that the Chapman, Hall and Dodge families possessed.
A professional historical archaeologist and proprietor of Midcoast Archaeology, Dinsmore has 35 years of experience including management of educational outreach, field schools, cultural research, and other research projects throughout Maine. Dinsmore attended both the University of Maine at Orono and the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia.
Open to the public!

Preservation Party
2024-09-08 16:00 - 19:00 | ME

Learn about the art of rug hooking at the Chapman-Hall House
2024-08-11 12:00 | Chapman-Hall House, 270 Main Street, Damariscotta, ME, United States
Textile artist Kathie Hills will demonstrate and discuss the art and craft of hooking rugs at the historic Chapman-Hall House on August 11th. Her demonstration is free and open to the public.
Hills will demonstrate the craft and exhibit pieces she has created. She learned the craft from LaVerne Dickson and Margorie Freeman, local women known for their mastery of this functional art form. A member of the Waldoboro Historical Society, she is well versed in the history of hooked rugs and their significance to Waldoboro.

On permanent display at the Chapman-Hall House are 12 antique hooked rugs, two of which show designs in the early stages of development.
Also included in the exhibit is a copy of the 1884 E.S. Frost Rug Patterns catalog. Edward Sands Frost of Biddeford was famous for selling canvases printed with pattern designs for various size rugs, as well as foot stool covers and slippers. Only a few pattern illustrations are printed in the catalog, which offers for sale nearly 200 canvases at prices ranging from 15 cents to $1.25

Castlebay Performance: Historic Music at Chapman-Hall House
2024-08-04 13:00 - 15:00 | Chapman-Hall House, 270 Main Street, Damariscotta, ME, United States
Castle Bay will be performing songs and music of the that the Chapmans and Halls would have enjoyed on Sunday, August 4th, 2024, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm. Free and open to the public! Tours of the historic Chapman-Hall House, noon – 4 pm, $10 per adult, free for kids.

Since 1984 Castlebay has presented of musical work which celebrates Maine’s
maritime heritage and environment blending history, legend and experience into
their personable performance style.
Julia Lane’s ancestors have lived in Maine since the 1600’s, engaged in the
traditional fishing, shipping, and lumbering industries for generations. Fred
Gosbee’s family were lumbermen, coming to Maine from the Maritime Provinces
in 1922. For over thirty years, Lane & Gosbee have been researching their own
heritage through music by exploring the traditional music connections between the
Celtic lands, the Canadian Maritimes and Maine. These regions share in the
richness of this heritage as revealed by the many variations of ancient songs, tunes
and stories carried by families moving through the area by land and sea as well as
new vernacular creations made in the old style.
In Maine there is a wealth of traditional music, ranging from ancient ballads to
working songs. Lane and Gosbee research archives and collections and interpret
this music through the lens of their own Anglo-Celtic cultural legacy. Having
explored various international archives, museums and libraries, they have distilled
and repaired their findings and present them in an entertaining lecture with musical
examples sung unaccompanied in the traditional style. Exploring social history
through music, they will tell the stories not only of the songs, but also the intrepid
collectors who preserved them and the singers who carried on the tradition.
In concert, the duo presents these musical stories of romance, ramblers and rogues,
woven with history and humor. Castlebay’s wide knowledge and deep cultural
roots, their vocal and instrumental skills, and their personable performance style
have been appreciated in museums, libraries, schools, arts centers and festivals
internationally. Castlebay has released over two dozen recordings and their music
has been used for video soundtracks and theatrical productions. Their new
book,”Bygone Ballads of Maine- Songs of Ships and Sailors”, contains many of
their findings and includes lyrics, tunes and relevant lore. For more information
please visit www.castlebay.net.

Summerfest at Pownalborough Court House
2024-07-14 10:00 - 14:00 | Pownalborough Court House, 23 Court House Rd, Dresden, ME, United States
The grounds of the historic Pownalborough Court House, in Dresden, will be filled with the sounds of a perfect summer day on Sunday, July 14, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. OPEN TO ALL!
This annual free event, open to everyone, features horse and wagon rides, goat petting, live music by Halfmoon Jug Band, Dresden’s Olsen Twin Violinists, face painting, fanciful balloons, food by Dresden Fire Department, and vendors with local items for sale.
Dresden Summerfest is hosted by Lincoln County Historical Association, the Dresden Recreation Fund and the Kenyon Fund.

Spinning on the Great Wheel
2024-07-06 12:00 - 16:00 | Chapman-Hall House, 270 Main Street, Damariscotta, ME, United States
How did colonists in early New England transform the wool from a fluffy sheep in their pasture to a shirt on their own back? Rebecca Manthey will discuss the many steps in this process of making cloth and demonstrate spinning on the Great Wheel at the historic Chapman-Hall House on July 6th from 12-4 pm. Come learn how the wheel works, why it was sometimes called a “walking wheel,” and the importance of this tool in our history. Free and open to the public!

Historical Theater at Pownalborough Court House
2024-06-22 10:00 - 16:00 | Pownalborough Court House, 23 Court House Rd, Dresden, ME, United States
Guests at the Pownalborough Court House on June 22nd will find the house and grounds occupied by historical theater reenactors who are interactive and friendly, performing and sharing the experiences of 18th century Pownalborough.
Guests are invited to observe and talk with performers as they demonstrate and act out the real day-to-day activities that took place on this property. It will be a true step back in time!

The Gardens of Lincoln County 2024
2024-06-22 10:00 - 15:00 | ME
Building on the success of last year’s inaugural Gardens of Lincoln County Tour, this year’s event will take participants to beautiful and unique spots in and around Wiscasset and Nobleboro. In addition to visiting these very special gardens, sites will include special demonstrations on topics including flower arranging and biochar, on-site plein air painters, and all ticketholders will also have free admission to our Old Jail museum in Wiscasset and the Chapman-Hall House in Damariscotta.
*Please note: The Old Jail museum will not be open on the day of the tour, but participants may use the Gardens of Lincoln County ticket to gain admission to the Old Jail on a later date.
You’re sure to go home with great ideas for your own gardens!

*Please note: The Old Jail museum will not be open on the day of the tour, but participants may use the Gardens of Lincoln County ticket to gain admission to the Old Jail on a later date.
Tickets:
General Public $35
LCHA Members $30
Online ticket sales closed at noon on Friday, June 21. Tickets available for sale at Chapman-Hall House, 270 Main Street, Damariscotta on June 22nd from 9:30-11 am. Cash strongly preferred.

LCHA extends special thanks to sponsor Sherri Dunbar of Tim Dunham Realty!
Fill out my LGL Form!

Docent College 2024
2024-06-11 16:30 - 19:30 | ME
June 11, 4:30 pm – 7: 30 pm. This year we are partnering with Maine Maritime Museum and Pejepscot History Center to offer a high-quality docent training program and we can’t wait! Participants will have an opportunity to discuss historic house museums and share best practices for giving great tours. This evening promises to be a enjoyable and engaging experience that will help reinforce what we love about giving tours at our historic house museums. All are welcome! Register here:
Docent College 2024

Community Day at the museums!
2024-06-01 12:00 - 16:00 | ME
Help us usher in the summer and celebrate opening day at our three historic house museums: Damariscotta’s 1754 Chapman-Hall House, Dresden’s 1761 Pownalborough Court House, and Wiscasset’s 1811 Old Jail with attached 1839 Jailer’s House.
Admission is free! Click here for hours and museum information.

Memorial Day and Reenactors at Pownalborough Court House
2024-05-27 10:00 - 12:00 | Pownalborough Court House, 23 Court House Rd, Dresden, ME, United States
LCHA’s annual commemoration of Memorial Day. After being called to order at 11a.m., the gathered will proceed up the woods road to the Court House cemetery. Veteran soldiers of three wars will be remembered through spoken words and the placing of bouquets upon the graves.
Reenactors from the Colonial Maine Living History Association will be on-site with their encampment open to the public.
Everyone is invited to stay on after the conclusion of the Memorial Day ceremonies and enjoy the grounds of the Pownalborough Court House. Take a walk on the nature trail following along the high bank of the Kennebec River through a beautiful old stand of white pine. Explore the well-marked trail system across Route 128. Bring a picnic lunch. Perhaps catch a glimpse of one of the historic site’s resident bald eagles.

Shredding on Site at the Chapman-Hall House
2024-05-17 08:00 - 12:00 | Chapman-Hall House, 270 Main Street, Damariscotta, ME, United States
This annual opportunity to clean out your files is an important fundraiser for Chapman-Hall House and all are welcome!
Come to the Bath Savings Bank parking lot next to Damariscotta’s Chapman-Hall House to clean out old documents like financial papers and bank statements for shredding by professionals. Volunteers will provide assistance. Bags, boxes, or even truck-loads of papers will be shredded quickly.
There is no set charge for this service, but donations to support educational programs and for the maintenance of the Chapman-Hall House are appreciated.

Joshua Chamberlain: The man behind the hero, a free online lecture with author Ronald C. White
2024-05-09 17:30 - 18:30 | Online
Click here to register now.
How did a stuttering young boy come to be fluent in nine languages and even teach speech and rhetoric at Bowdoin College? How did a trained minister who had rarely left his native Maine find his way to the Gettysburg battlefield where he played a key role in preserving the Union? How did this wounded veteran go on to become a four-term governor of Maine?
Find out how by registering for “Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the Man behind the Hero” featuring award-winning historian and New York Times best-selling author Ronald C. White.
White will delve into Chamberlain’s fascinating life in a Zoom presentation on May 9 th at 5:30 pm sponsored by Old Bristol Historical Society in collaboration with the Lincoln County Historical Association. White will draw from his most recent book On Great Fields, The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain to talk about the complex and inspiring man behind the hero.
To register for this free event, click here.

Community Day at the Museums!
2024-04-13 08:00 - 17:00 | ME
All three of our historic museums will open for the season to tours on June 1st!

Good Grit: Black Sailors of Lincoln County
2024-03-14 17:30 - 18:30 | Online
This online program is free and open to the public. Preregistration is required. Click here to sign up.
Learn about the lives of a few of the incredible Black men— free and enslaved— who worked the waters of the Kennebec and helped shape Lincoln County. This talk will span the decades from the 1700s to the late 1800s. Korinne Tanzer will discuss early enslaved men who were forced to sea by their enslavers and men like Zina Lewis, who, full of “good grit” as reported by one local newspaper, made a name for himself as a very successful Black captain on the Kennebec River. Tanzer tells of the determination and grit of men whose stories have been hidden but who left an important mark on Maine’s rich maritime tradition.

About our speaker: Korinne Tanzer is currently obtaining a bachelor’s degree in History through Arizona State University online. She has been involved as a volunteer with Lincoln County Historical Association for two years. Currently a member of LCHA’s Board of Trustees and a member of the Wiscasset Old Jail stewardship committee, she has been researching the lives of many of the 19th century inmates. Korinne has a passion for maritime history and LGBT+ history. She currently runs a blog devoted to maritime, Maine, and queer history and her favorite Jane Austen novel is Emma. She can be reached at korinne.tanzer@gmail.com.

Thank you to Series Supporter J. Edward Knight Insurance for helping LCHA make this program available for free!

A look at Illustration and Graphic Printmaking in Colonial America
2024-03-07 17:30 | ME
Registration is required for this free online lecture! Click here to register.
Artist, printmaker, and living history presenter Andy Volpe will discuss the illustration and graphic works used in print in the American Colonial period, such as Paul Revere, William Burgis, Amos Doolittle, Nathaniel Hurd, and others were producing for newspapers, magazines, almanacks, books, etc., with aspects relating to the American Revolution and Independence.
Andy Volpe is a printer and living historian in Worcester Massachusetts, where he studies & replicates the printing and drawing techniques of the Old Masters, covering ca. 1450 to 1800. He works with Gary Gregory at the Printing Office of Edes & Gill Boston where he replicates the engravings of Paul Revere, and creating commemorative work for the American 250th celebration. He also works with the Museum of Printing in Haverhill and Worcester Art Museum (including the Higgins Armory collection), and active with several living history groups spanning Ancient Rome to American Civil War.

LCHA warming thanks Series Supporter J. Edward Knight Insurance for making this Online Lecture Series possible.

Samoset of Pemaquid: Online Lecture with author Jody Bachelder
2024-02-29 17:30 | Online
This talk is free and open to the public, registration is required. Click here to register.
Suggested donation to support LCHA programs: $5

On March 16, 1621, Samoset cemented his place in history when he boldly walked into Plymouth Plantation and greeted the settlers in English. And that’s where most history books leave him. They never hint at the extraordinary events of his life that led him to that moment, including his initial clash with the English and a possible kidnapping attempt, inter-tribal warfare that engulfed the entire coast of Maine, encounters with the forgotten Popham Colony in Phippsburg, and an apocalyptic epidemic that nearly wiped out his people. They never ask why a sagamore (or leader) from Maine would be there in the first place, or consider how dangerous that walk into Plymouth truly was.

Why does any of this matter? Because Samoset lived at an extraordinary time and place in history. He and his people, the Wawenock, were at the epicenter of initial contact with English colonizers. If we want to better understand this story, looking at Samoset’s life is a good place to start.

Jody Bachelder started her career as a teacher and quickly made the switch to library work. In 2013 she was extremely honored to be named the Walter J. Taranko Maine School Librarian of the Year. When her husband got a job opportunity out of state, she took a chance and started writing. What she thought would be a picture book grew into a history book for adults.

Growing up on the Pemaquid Peninsula in Maine where Samoset and the Wawenock lived, she knew little about the Indigenous people who called the area home for thousands of years. It was time to learn more. She began her research with the question, “What was Samoset doing in Plymouth?” The journey to find the answer was both enlightening and surprising. Here First: Samoset and the Wawenock of Pemaquid, Maine is her first book. She still plans to write for children sometime in the future.

Thank you to Series Supporter J. Edward Knight Insurance for helping LCHA provide this free lecture!

****RESCHEDULED for March 14th**** Good Grit: Black Sailors of Lincoln County
2024-02-22 17:30 | Online

Getting to know Rachel Carson: best-selling author, scientist, conservationist, advocate
2024-01-25 17:30 | Online
Biologist/author Rachel Carson standing seaside, examining specimen in jar. (Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)
Rachel Carson was famously one of the essential sparks in the environmental movement and, although lacking the usual scientific credentials, a major force in national scientific debates. Yet she was a shy, retiring and humble person. How did she come to have such an important influence? What roles did her writing and her ties to Lincoln County play? And what can we learn from her that would inform our current debates on climate and conservation? In an online lecture co-hosted by Lincoln County Historical Association and Old Bristol Historical Society, Barbara Vickery will begin to answer these questions and introduce us to one of our region’s most well known and influential figures.

Barbara Vickery

About our speaker, Barbara St. John Vickery
After serving as rare plant botanist with the Maine Critical Areas Program. Barbara joined the staff of The Nature Conservancy Maine in 1983 as Director of Science and Stewardship and later served as Director of Conservation Programs until retirement in 2017. After her husband’s death she worked with a team to edit her husband Peter Vickery’s life work, Birds of Maine, published in 2020. She serves on the Maine Board of Environmental Protection and Forest Society of Maine board, is an active member of the Citizen’s Climate Lobby Midcoast Maine chapter, and is a member of six local organizations whose trails she uses regularly, including the wonderful trails of LCHA’s Pownalborough Court House across the Kennebec from her home in Richmond.

Preregistration is required for this online program: click here to register
Thank you to Series Supporter J. Edward Knight Insurance for helping LCHA make this program available for free!

Annual Meeting & Members Gathering
2023-11-02 17:30 - 19:00 | Huntoon Hill Grange Hall, Wiscasset
The Annual Meeting & Members Gathering is a favorite annual event open to all current LCHA Members where we will gather to celebrate 2023 and look ahead to 2024. Guests are asked to please bring an appetizer to share, if possible! Please email Shannon so we know how many people to expect.
(if you are not a current member, but you want to come to this wonderful gathering, you can still come if you join now!)

Special for this event
The Collections Committee is putting together a unique “pop-up” exhibit exclusively for this event. We are looking forward to highlighting some unexpected and fascinating objects that are coming out of storage just for this event!
You’ll see some gems from our collection – including a mystery object (can you guess it’s use?), Civil War era finds, fun and whimsical 19th century gems, and more!

Pumpkinfest Demonstrations and Tours at Chapman Hall House
2023-10-08, 2023-10-07 | ME

Cider Pressing at Pownalborough Court House
2023-10-07 10:00 - 14:00 | Pownalborough Court House, 23 Court House Rd, Dresden, ME, United States
Join us as we welcome autumn at the Pownalborough Court House with a FREE cider pressing and sampling! There’s something for the whole family to enjoy!
-The historic courthouse will be open for tours from 10:00am until 4:00pm–tour admission is $10 for adults and free for kids under 16.
-And as always, our system of hiking trails is free and open to the public. Why not try a fall nature hike?
