ROCKLAND — “Gil will point out his grandparents,” said Ann Morris, curator of the Rockland Historical Society.

A diorama of a historic Rockland scene is now on display at the Historical Society, giving a home audience an opportunity to engage in new discoveries and old memories thanks to a year-long loan from the Penobscot Marine Museum and a certain artist whose modeling career flourished following a stroke in the 1970s.

“What I’ve heard is that people are really excited to see it, and it is linked to Rockland,” said Cipperly Good, of PMM. “So, it’s great to see that they have access to it, to connect their history and their town. It’s a way to look back at their historic waterfront and make connections, and that’s great.”

Marine models were once a popular way to use art and history to show off working waterfronts and the worlds around them, according to Good.

William Hitchcock crafted “Launch of Mertie B. Crowley” in 2000, and sold it to MBNA, where it sat in the corporate offices until the company was bought by Bank of America. A private owner held possession for a time prior to its adoption by PMM in 2017.

“I saw it [in storage],” said Morris. “And said, could the Rockland Historical Society display that?”

Hitchcock, who was from Biddeford, had majored in engineering and joined his father in the business of crafting artificial limbs. He later taught engineering. But after the stroke, he refined his modeling skills, creating ship models of every type. His marine models are on display in several states, as well as Camden Public Library. His Frenchman’s Bay diorama has recently returned to PMM after a year at the Hancock Historical Society.

My conversation at R.H.S. had drifted in a different direction for a few moments. Eventually, I was able to turn it back.

“So, which ones are your grandparents?” I asked.

A few chuckles followed. Gil Merriam’s family goes back four generations with houses on Suffolk and Mechanic streets, in Rockland, and though early generations utilized the Maine Central Railroad Wharf off of Mechanic Street, the diorama does not specifically depict Merriam’s grandparents or great aunt. Yet, considering the finite detail of the diorama, my question still seems reasonable (at least to me).

Peer closely into the Rockland display case and a micro world looms large. Hitchcock’s attention to detail pulls together the Mertie B. Crowley event at Cobb, Butler and Company Shipyard on Aug. 27, 1907, depicting a day when between 6,000 and 10,000 people – some from as far away as Searsport and Stonington – came to witness Capt. John Crowley’s new berth. The Mertie B. Crowley was the only six-masted schooner built in Rockland, according to the Historical Society. She was designed to carry 5,000 tons of coal and was exactly the length of a football field.

The diorama doesn’t depict the crowds, but the way of life for that era, and the shipyard, which closed in 1913.

Even in the diorama, the roof of the station has railroad tracks on it, dump cars, chutes, and a turn table to turn the tracks. Men fish from the railing. Merriam used to fish, too. A little boy in the diorama is selling newspapers. Many, many boys of the Rockland 40s and 50s held paper routes.

“It’s just so cute,” said Morris. “It’s so wonderful.”

The Maine Central Railroad leased the Knox and Lincoln Railroad in 1891 and purchased it, including the wharf, in 1901. MCR had three tracks. Steam freight trains used the north track, passenger trains used the north and central tracks. The south track was electrified for the Rockland, Thomaston and Camden Street Railway, which carried steamboat passengers from the MCR to Tillson’s Wharf, where they boarded other steamboats. At the MCR the tracks only came up to the start of the wharf, according to Morris. Therefore, passengers had to get off and walk the rest of the way. Only the other two tracks went out onto the wharf.

Nowadays, most traces of the three marine railways along Atlantic Street, and the wharf itself, are gone, save for some tracks poking up through the grass near the grain silos. Yet, the memories remain captured in the hearts of residents and in the hands of artists.

The Rockland Historical Society is open Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12 - 5 p.m.

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com