Many people who drive up and down Beach Road every day don’t know it’s there. The Beach Schoolhouse aka/LIA (Lincolnville Improvement Association) or LHS (Lincolnville Historical Society) is a somewhat non-descript, shabby-looking building at the end of a long driveway. Sure, there’s a sign out front, partly obscured by an over-grown cedar tree, but signs can become part of the landscape, especially if you’re hell bent for the ferry – we actually have rush hour here on Beach Road as pick-ups tear down in the morning and head home late afternoon.

You may not know that a sizable crew of carpenters, landscapers, electricians, etc., who live in Lincolnville and Searsmont actually work on Islesboro renovating, repairing, restoring and generally keeping things running for the folks who make our neighboring island their summer home.

Plenty of people who’ve lived in Lincolnville their entire lives have never stepped foot inside the two-story former Beach school. As many as 40 children found their way there each day, coming from houses at the Beach, Ducktrap and as far as Stevens Corner (today’s Bald Rock trailhead at Youngtown Road). They sat in rows, little ones in front, oldest in the back, all eight grades with one very harried teacher.

At least that’s how I imagine her/him. These teachers were usually women, often just out of high school themselves, but in earlier days men might take a school during winter’s slack time on the farm.

At any rate, the old building went silent the fall of 1947 when the brand-new Central School opened in the Center, complete with flush toilets, fluorescent lights, and four classrooms. From that day on, the Beach Schoolhouse became the meeting place for the Village Improvement Society which was eventually renamed the LIA. Summer pot-lucks, an annual rummage sale, monthly speakers and the December community Christmas party were occasional events. In the early 1990s the Historical Society moved in upstairs.

It’s a story that’s replayed in nearly every Maine town. Think of the shuttered and quietly decaying buildings, often unlikely two-story edifices in the middle of a tiny village center that now boasts only a small convenience store and a couple of gas pumps.

These buildings were once lively gathering places where farm families came on Saturday night for dances or bingo or bean suppers. Town meetings were held in them every March. Some were one or two room schools or churches, Granges or Masonic halls. Larger towns had Lions, Elks, American Legion, Rotary Clubs.

And today?

Today people stay home. We seem to have lost the impulse to gather together. What better symbol of that trend than a two-story building built for social events that’s now empty of people?

Yet, look at what’s going on in Lincolnville. I count seven public buildings where people can, and do, gather in our town of 2,300.

Meeting House/United Christian Church, 1820

Bayshore Baptist Church, 1835

Centre School/Library, 1849

Beach School/Historical Society, 1851

King David’s Lodge, 1865

Tranquility Grange, 1908

Community Building, 1960        

As you can see, all but one are well over 100 years old. And all are in reasonably good shape; the hulk of the Centre School, of course, was completely rebuilt in 2012 to become the Lincolnville Community Library. They’ve been kept up by volunteers, often the aging members of the organizations that own them. They support their building with their own labor and by raising funds – bake sales, yard sales, public suppers, etc. – to hire the work done.

So, what happens when a small group of these aging members – of which I’m one – find themselves with an 1851 building in need of, well nearly everything? Such was the plight of the Lincolnville Historical Society when they bought, for a dollar, the formerly town-owned two-story schoolhouse, rife with problems:

roof that leaked

shaky second floor

deteriorating siding

rusty fire-escape

tiny, inadequate bathroom

antiquated electrical system

ancient chair-lift

too-narrow doors

rickety outdoor ramps

peeling exterior paint

There’s more, but you get the drift. And this is a building that’s had work done every year by members now too old to take care of it.

Long story short, we raised the money in two years – $319,000 so far, just $6,000 shy of our stated $325,000 goal. And today we’ve got a new roof, solid second floor, rehabilitated fire escape, updated electrical system and lights; new windows, doors, an ADA bathroom, and more are in the works.

Suddenly, the old building is humming with energy. Andy Young’s crew – Adam Putansu and Ed Baird – transforming the worn, old meeting room has somehow inspired a dedicated group of volunteers to tackle the LHS’ collection.

We’ve met weekly this past year, each with our own task, organizing and inventorying the photos and documents, the ephemera and artifacts to tell a coherent story of Lincolnville’s past. And surprisingly (what took us so long??) we’ve realized that the starting point was all wrong. In typical Euro-centric fashion we had dated our story from 1770, the year Nathan and Lydia Knight drove their cattle to a place where the marsh hay could provide fodder, near the intersection of today’s Joy and Belfast roads.

Turns out, they were a few thousand years late to the party. Now this wasn’t news to the Historical Society. We’ve had the extensive collection of prehistoric artifacts on display that archeaologist Harbour Mitchell uncovered near Ducktrap in the 1980s, but that wasn’t enough.

The way we were telling the story, everything interesting seemed to start with that trek Nathan and Lydia took. All the old Lincolnville families followed: the Heal/Healds, Thomases, Youngs, Knights, Millers, Hardys, Frenches, and so forth. We have photos and letters and diaries to prove it. And besides, they’re a lot more like us than those ethereal beings who made tools out of stone, lived in skin-covered huts, fished from dug-out canoes.

Acknowledging the first people, People of the Dawn, the Wabanaki takes a different kind of evidence, and perhaps more of a leap of understanding to see them as anything like us. Contact, that day the first white visitors to this shore met the people already living here, is probably lost forever, at least as far as our four miles of coastline goes.

Our job as amateur historians with a very narrow area of inquiry – these 39 square miles – is to learn all we can from bits and pieces the first people left behind, from studying the work of more informed historians, and applying our own knowledge of the town we live in.

Lincolnville’s Kerry Hardy has done just that, exploring these woods and fields since boyhood. In Notes on a Lost Flute, his Field Guide to the Wabanaki, Kerry identifies the plants and animals we encounter here, gives us their native names, and explains the ways they were used by the first people. It’s a good place to start.

All of this is just to lead up to an invitation to join us, the Lincolnville Historical Society, at our Oct. 15 Open House. We’ll be showing off the progress to date in our years-long renovation of the 1851 building, as well as introducing the new (to us!) start of the human history of this place. Details to follow in the weeks to come.

Public Pre-Kindergarten

This from the weekly Lynx newsletter:

With expanded funding available to set up a public pre-k program “LCS is exploring this option by looking at ways a pre-K program could benefit the children of Lincolnville and how we might fit it into our current programming.

“Hope Elementary School has had a pre-K program for several years and the Appleton Village School utilized a grant this year to start up a new program. A number of Lincolnville children are currently, of have in the past, benefitted from those programs.

“Members of the LCS staff are currently working with Principal Paul Russo in drafting a grant application that will be presented to the school committee at the October meeting for their consideration. If the school committee agrees to pursue this grant, the application will be submitted in mid-October. If you have thoughts you would like to share on this topic, feel free to email paul.russo@fivetowns.net and they will be shared with the planning team, administration, and school committee.”

Sympathy

Condolences to the family and friends of Jeanette Deane who passed away last week.