Eight years ago today (though don’t hold me to the exact day) nearly 200 of us pulled an old schoolhouse across the road and onto a new foundation. The day started out cold and foggy as people began gathering on the empty, gravelly lot on Main Street. The town had long since torn down the garage that had stood there since the 1920s, though the place would always be Dean and Eugley’s to oldtimers. And it was oldtimers who came that day, along with dozens and dozens of folks who had never set foot in either iconic landmark – D and E’s or the Center School.

Some came to pull, some – several of the school’s former students (the school closed in 1947) – brought chairs and lined up to watch, and undoubtedly some came to see if the thing would collapse in the middle of the road.

Yes, we really came together that day, the committed and the skeptical (“why would you want to save that old thing?”). The fun of it was that everyone could play a role. And of course, it didn’t collapse.

The fog was burning off as the crew of workers, volunteers all, began quickly assembling the track the building would ride across the road. There was no hesitation as they’d been rehearsing the steps for weeks; the road, a state highway, could only be closed for a few hours. The schoolhouse had already been moved off its foundation and up to the edge of the road, poised for its journey.

Finally everything was ready. The pullers, from eight-year-olds to a couple of eighty-year-olds and everyone in between, picked up the rope, and at a signal from Paul Cartwright, head of the crew, to P-U-L-L !! we all did. And in fact, pulled so energetically the building gave a little jump forward, and Paul yelled STOP! “S-l-o-w-er” he commanded, and then we all got the rhythm. It only took a tiny bit of effort from each of us, gently pulling the rope through our hands, and the building slowly started its trip across the road.

The crew ran back and forth along the building, knocking out the pieces of pipe between the sills and the track in the back and running up to put them in the front. In fifteen minutes the 150-year-old building had cleared the road and landed next to the slab the crew had prepared earlier

See the video of that morning here on the Library’s homepage.

The drama was over that fast.

Not a whole lot happened right away. It was October after all, so the crew buttoned up the building, tacking up tarps across the front and back, which were both essentially open to the elements.

In truth, it was a mere hulk we pulled across, two side walls, the roof, and floor joists with a whole lot of braces crisscrossing them. But come spring, the men jumped into action. Throughout the summer and fall an addition appeared on the back, a new roof, new front, new windows on one wall, a floor, ceiling, clapboards.

The gravelly, desolate lot was planted with native shrubs and trees, a fenced perennial garden and walkways.

A solar array provided electricity for both heat and lights for the library, and enough to spare for another old schoolhouse at the Beach, the LIA building. A hybrid post and beam structure was built, open sheds to display agricultural and marine artifacts from the Historical Society, and named for Jackie Young Watts.

Although we who were involved in this ambitious project thought we’d been innovative, turning a near ruin of a former one-room-school and a piece of land deemed a brownfield, into a handsome community library complete with gardens and an Open Air museum, it wasn’t the first community project Lincolnville had pulled off. Not by a long shot.

Rosey Gerry, keeper of Lincolnville’s oral history, remembers another building and the people who built it. Sometime in the 1960s, another group of volunteers came together to make a space for young people. With only four classrooms, two grades to a room and a basement cafeteria, LCS, Lincolnville Central School had no gym. The Lincolnville Community Building was born out of this need.

The timbers and lumber for the building came from trees cut on Ken and Bernice Calderwood’s farm on Beach Road, and sawn in Ken’s sawmill. Swiss Hardy, Bob Kennedy, Ken and his son, Joe, Sol Gerry and his son, Rosey were some of the men and boys who got out the wood for the building that was built on land donated by United Christian Church.

Going back nearly 120 years Tranquility Grange was built in 1908 by optimistic Grangers after two previous grange buildings on that same site had burned before completion. Read about it in Staying Put, “An Untranquil Beginning”.

Like every community project, there’s food involved: public suppers, pie sales, bake sales, pancake and/or hunters’ breakfasts, chicken barbecues. Tucked away still in barns and pantries all over town are the oversize pans and griddles and cookers that held gallons of beans, piles of pancakes and biscuits. Dozens of pie plates, plastered with worn tape identifying their owners, traveled to and from these events. I’ve got a few myself.

There’s also donations of materials: Ken Calderwoods trees back in the 60s for the Community Building to the beautiful floor from A. E. Sampson and Son, and so many other components of the Library. Donation of labor is a big one in any community project. The hours that went into the Library are incalculable, from Paul’s guys engineering the move, to Donnie Heald’s work on the foundation, to Jim Dunham’s carpentry crew, Sandy Shute’s work overseeing the Open Air Museum and Cindy Dunham’s landscapers.

The Historical Society is looking forward to a new challenge for townspeople. They’ve sent a proposal to the town to purchase their current home in another schoolhouse, the old Beach School. Their proposal is on the agenda at tomorrow night’s Selectmen Zoom meeting. It’s easy to join by clicking on the link at 6 p.m. Tuesday, so check in if you’d like.

Once we have the town’s commitment to transfer ownership to the LHS we’ll be ready to go. And as has been mentioned, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, facing a very long winter, many of us stuck inside. What else do we have to do but figure out ways to renovate one of our old buildings and entertain each other with stories and photos of our town, both past and present.

After all, if you live here, you’re from here.

Last week I lamented our divisions, the way politics has pulled us apart. It’s about time we found something to join us together again. 

Library

Although the Library is still closed to in-person browsing, you can pick out books and other materials from their website and pick them up curbside either Wednesday, 3-6 p.m. or Saturday, 9-noon or even have them delivered to your home. Either call, 706-3896, or email to order. Also, ancestry.com is available free through our library from home here.

Condolences

Sympathy to the family and friends of Barbara Keenan, and also, to Bob Kennedy’s family, two 95-year-olds who passed away last week. I didn’t know Barbara who lived near Atlantic Highway, but did know Bob who lived with Margaret, his wife of 72 years, on Martins Corner Road.