UNITY – This month, the Unity Historical Society is celebrating the 200th anniversary of its building through a display of prints from around Waldo County. This collection of prints derives from glass-plate negatives and is a small portion of the archives of the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company, which operated in Belfast and is now housed permanently at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport.  The museum’s collection number more than 100,000 prints, slides, daguerreotypes and slides. 

The more than two dozen prints are on display at CrossTrax Neighborhood Deli on Depot Street through the end of July.  Scenes of Unity, Belfast, Lincolnville, Searsport, Morrill, Monroe and others depict life at the turn of the last century and feature youth at play, accommodations for the summer people and Waldo County at work.

Also through July, “Knox County Through the Eastern Eye” is at the North Haven Historical Society, Pulpit Harbor, North Haven. 

Unity Historical Society – A Building’s Bicentennial

This history of the Unity Historical Society building at 8 Depot Street was submitted by Jackie Bradeen, Vice President of the Unity Historical Society:

Unity has a number of historic homes, one of which celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2013.

In the late 1780s, Lemuel Bartlett and his younger brother, Benjamin, came to Unity with an axe and an ox chain. [Murch History] They were soon leading citizens, holding town offices. Benjamin Bartlett was Unity's treasurer when he died in 1814, and Lemuel took his place in office. Lemuel was married to Hannah Chase, the daughter of Stephen Chase, who is considered Unity's first permanent settler.

The first Unity Town Meeting in 1802 was held in an early house of Lemuel, who later built a more substantial house in 1813. This was the large brick house built in the "Y'' between  Main and Depot streets.  During much, of its existence, the house had additions and more than one barn and out-buildings and was located in the area where Clifford Commons is in 2013. The house was built of bricks made onsite and the carpenter was John Berry of Rockland. [Taber History}

The house was passed down through Lemuel's daughter, Harriet/Hannah Bartlett, who married Benjamin Fogg, another prominent Unity citizen. Benjamin took over the management of Lemuel's homestead farm. From there the homestead went to Benjamin Fogg's son, Benjamin Allen Fogg, who sold the home inthe 1890s.

Next, the house belonged to Andrew Pendleton; then to Florence Ellen (Bartlett) Grant, whose first husband was Samuel Stillman Berry Il; then to George B. Pillsbury; and then to Mrs. J.W. Hannon, who owned it in 1916. [Taber] Mrs. Harmon was the wife of Josiah Wesley Harmon, and her maiden name was Susan Brown. By 1930, the house was owned by her son-in-law, Carl D. Connor, who had married Susan's daughter, Susie Gertrude Harmon. At that time Susan was still in the home with them. Carl had an auto dealership in the barn or out-buildings.

The garage on the corner was built about the time the property was owned by Charles Graffam's son, Hugh. [Probably a name used by either Sidney or George Graffam]. This would be in the late 1930s or early 1940s. After Graffam, the property was probably owned by Dennis Clifford, who also ran the garage for a short time.

About 1945, Alton "Mac" McCormick bought the house and garage and ran a Shell Station. When the McCormick's owned the house, his daughter Isabelle, and later, his daughter-in-law, Marie, [about 1957/1958) had a small beauty parlor in a downstairs room of the house. Marie was married to Mac's son, Dale McCormick, who worked at the garage alone with big brother Albert, who was married to Barbara Hamlin. Mac's wife sold the two buildings after Mac died in an attempted rescue on Sandy Stream during the 1954 hurricane. Dale continued to work at the garage for the new owners.

In 1958,, Mac's wife, Sylvina, sold the house and garage to Russell Cunningham and Clifford Jones of Unity, the founders of Jones and Cunningham Oil Company, better known as J&C Oil Company. Their offices were in the house, and they operated the garage. In the l970s, George Murdock ran his egg business from offices on the second floor of the house.

In 1982, J&C Oil Company sold the house to Samuel Stillman Berry, who was born in Unity and named for his uncle, Samuel Stillman Berry II. Mr. Berry was a retired scientist in California, and he bought the house in order to make a gift to the town of his birth. Still in 1982, the building was almost immediately donated to the fledgling Unity Historical Society. The garage was sold to Webber Oil Company in 1984 and later torn down. Bert Clifford had the corner where the garage was located made into the present grassy area with the Hart bronze statues.

The Unity Historical Society has owned the house from 1982 to the present. It is operated as a museum, library, and meeting house for the society; and houses many artifacts and documents related to Unity and its history.

 I wish to give thanks to several "senior'' citizens of Unity, who have remarkable memories-for complete accuracy of dates, the deeds would have to be researched, but it was more fun talking to people — Jacqueline Pattee Bradeen