THE BAY CHRONICLE

P.O. BOX 498 SEARSPORT, ME 04974-0498

Th e mission of the Penobscot Marine Museum is to preserve, interpret, and celebrate the maritime culture of the Penobscot Bay region and beyond through collections, education, and community engagement.

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Annual AppealSupport Education Programs,

Exhibits, Collections, and Research207-548-2529

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Literacy and Maritime History: What’s the Connection?continued from page 4

8 Th e Bay Chronicle

Where Do You Live?In our unit called Our Towns, we draw on museum collections to help children learn about local history. We tell students the story of the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company of Belfast, the source of a major part of our photography archive. Th is early 20th century postcard company would send photographers into small towns with instructions to ask local people about what was important to photograph. In our unit, we role-play this scenario, having students ask and answer questions about their town today, thus practicing using appropriate question and answer format. We then read a book that relates to the theme of small Maine towns and the notion that one’s own town surely has at least one place or object worthy of particular note. Th e Finest Horse in Town, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, is just one of nearly one hundred books that we use to support the curriculum.

Role playing is followed by students creating their own postcards and addressing them to their families. Th is gives us the opportunity to work on writing addresses and messages, as well as designing artwork for the

front of the card. We then work with simple data about towns – for example, population and year founded – to reinforce comparative concepts such as before and aft er, older and newer, bigger and smaller.

Th ese are just a few examples of how we use the museum’s collections to help students learn not only maritime content, but language and literacy skills as well. Th is gives our program a unique twist that schools appreciate. We’ve had good success and widespread interest in the program, which continues to grow.

A Gift to Your CommunityIf you would like to give a valuable gift to your favorite school, consider a donation to support the teaching of a PMM Maritime History and Literacy Curriculum unit. Contact Betty Schopmeyer, Education Director, for more information: bschopmeyer@pmm-maine.org.

A project about fi n fi sh also teaches vocabulary

Celebrating 75 Years

THE BAY CHRONICLEWINTER 2010-2011

The Newsletter of

Photographic Legacy continued on page 7

Historic Buildings continued on page 6

Two Hundred Years of Historic BuildingsCipperly Good, Collections Manager & Assistant Curator

A Steamboat Captain’s Photographic LegacyKevin Johnson, Photo Archivist

Old Town Hall was the whole of Penobscot Marine Museum when the institution was founded in 1936. (Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection)

Among Penobscot Marine Museum’s greatest assets

are its nine historic buildings. As we celebrate our 75th anniversary year, let’s look at the buildings that house our collections and provide the visitor with the fl avor of a nineteenth century Penobscot Bay village streetscape.

SS City of Rockland aground on a ledge in the Kennebec River, circa 1923. (Photo by Captain James E. Perkins)

The steamboats that worked Maine’s coastal waterways at the turn of the 20th century were grand and beautiful vessels

that helped defi ne the period before the automobile took over. Photographs of steamboats tap into the mystique of that gilded age, and photographs from them – especially views from the upper decks – give a new perspective. In 2009, Penobscot Marine Museum received a collection of photographs taken by James E. Perkins, a steamboat captain on the Kennebec River. Th is incredible collection of more than 500 glass plate negatives is a valuable record of the steamboats of the Kennebec and the village of Popham Beach.

Th e building with the earliest roots is the Fowler-True-Ross House. In 1815, Miles Fowler, a farmer and sea captain, acquired a 32 acre property that encompasses all the present museum property along Church Street. At the time, the property included a farmhouse built by Ephraim Colson sometime

between 1801 and 1815. Fowler added the larger Federal-style section to this original structure (now the kitchen ell), and attached a pre-existing barn to the ell in 1837. Th e home then passed to Fowler relatives named True and Ross. Rebecca Ross sold it to the museum in 1967. Th e Fowler-True-Ross House provides visitors with a look at a fully-furnished sea captain’s home. Th e sale also included a garage, built in 1910. Now known as the Ross Carriage House, it contains the “Rowboats for Rusticators” exhibit.

In 1826, Captain Jeremiah Merithew bought a 3½ acre lot from Miles Fowler and built an impressive red brick and granite home on the highest point of land in the center of Searsport, overlooking his shipyard. Designed in a transitional style between Federal and Greek Revival, the house was built of brick hauled 10 miles from Swanville. Merithew descendents sold the house to the Museum in 1950. Th e Merithew House showcases the museum’s marine art, scrimshaw, and ship model

PO Box 498Searsport, ME 04974

Tel: 207-548-2529 • Fax: 207-548-2520museumoffi ces@pmm-maine.org

www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org

Executive CommitteeMarie E. Underwood, President

Albert Putnam, Vice President, Operations Mary R. Saltonstall, Vice President, Development

Jeff ry Fitch, TreasurerDeirdre H. Henderson, Secretary

TrusteesDavid G. ConoverWayne Hamilton

John K. Hanson, Jr.Ralph G. HarveyJeff ery A. Marger

Matthew P. MurphyPeter Neill

Daniel C. NicholsBronson Platner

John G. RoulstoneRalph StanleyMichael Stein

Staff Mathew Timney, Interim Executive Director; Finance

DirectorBenjamin A.G. Fuller, Th e Richard J. Saltonstall, Jr. CuratorCipperly Good, Collections Manager/Assistant CuratorDennis Hansen, Superintendent, Buildings & Grounds

Susan Henkel, Educator, Interpreter CoordinatorBob Holtzman, Communications Director

Kevin Johnson, Photo ArchivistAnita Jolliff e, Administrative Assistant

Geraldine Miller, Administrative AssistantMarcia Pelillo, Visitor Services Coordinator

Betty Schopmeyer, Education Director

The Bay ChronicleEstablished in 1978 by William Pendleton as the

member newsletter of Penobscot Marine Museum.Bob Holtzman, Editor

Copyright 2011 Penobscot Marine Museum

Letter from the Director

As we enter our 75th year, I wonder how many people

Penobscot Marine Museum has infl uenced. We have long pursued a policy of reaching out to everyone, young and old, in many ways, connecting with the public through childhood education programs, hands-on adult classes, lectures, off -campus exhibits, special events and, of course, admission to museum exhibits. Given variations in record-keeping practices over the years, it’s impossible to put a precise number on it, but based on the data we have, I estimate that we have easily reached more than one million individuals. If we additionally consider those we’ve reached indirectly, such as through newspaper features or dinnertime conversation, the number grows exponentially. Th at is just cool! We have infl uenced so many with important cultural, historical and educational content.

I am reminded of a couple recent examples of our impact:

A friend of mine was in town and we met for lunch. He had the aft ernoon free, and I suggested that he tour the museum. He immediately dismissed the notion, asserting that he was “not the museum type,” and started paging through the Belfast area guidebook for other ideas. Aft er some hassling, I fi nally persuaded him to at least breeze through the museum to see what we have. Hours later I found him still inside Merithew House, deeply engrossed in the scrimshaw exhibit. Th e interpreter

and I had to gently nudge him towards the door so we could lock up for the day. For the rest of the evening, he went on and on about how wonderful the museum is. He called his wife and told her all about the exhibits with an excitement that was obviously genuine and gratifying to hear. I guess we converted him to the “museum type!”

Governor Baldacci happened to be visiting Stockton Springs Elementary School recently when our educators were there teaching our Maritime History and Literacy program. He asked the class what they were working on, and a child immediately raised his hand and exclaimed, “Th is is the Penobscot Marine Museum’s program and it’s our favorite part of the week!” One would almost have thought the student had been coached, but the response was authentic and heartfelt, born of the child’s excitement about learning.

Incidents like these make me proud to be part of Penobscot Marine Museum. As we celebrate the museum’s 75th anniversary, please know that we are also celebrating you, a museum supporter, as we have accomplished this together!

Th is winter we are busy putting fi nishing touches to plans for our 75th year. Among the exciting exhibits and events will be “Th e Art of the Boat,” a juried show that will explore the boat as a work of art and the boat builder as an artist. Artists in all visual media are invited to submit works for consideration. A panel will select approximately forty items for the show, which will run throughout the entire exhibit season (May 27 to October 23). Another major exhibit, “75 for 75” will display seventy-fi ve favorites from our collection – the rarest, oddest, most valuable, most beautiful, and most historically signifi cant artifacts from 75 years of careful accessioning. Both

continued on following page

2 Th e Bay Chronicle

A Steamboat Captain’s Photographic Legacy continued from page 1

Popham Village in winter, taken from Sabino Hill, circa 1895. (Photo by Captain James E. Perkins)

SS Kennebec at the Boston Boat wharf, Popham Beach, circa 1890. (Photo by Cap-tain James E. Perkins)

SS Sabino rounding Fort Popham, circa 1905. (Photo by Captain James E. Perkins)

Winter 2010-2011 7

James Perkins entered the steamboat business at the age of 15, when he was hired as fi rst mate on the tug Adelia. Th e next summer he became fi rst mate of the Percy V, and a couple years later, in 1889, he became its captain, making the 22 year old the youngest captain on the Kennebec. He would captain several vessels during his career, ending with Sabino. (Sabino is still in operation at Mystic Seaport Museum.)

At some point, “Captain Jim” took up photography, beginning with a 4"x5" view camera and later graduating to larger formats. Many of his photos were taken from the steamboats under his command, and legend has it that he had a darkroom on one of those vessels. Th e advantages to a photographer of being high up on the water are obvious, and Captain Jim’s photographs give us many views that a shore-bound photographer could never have taken.

Captain Jim lived in Popham Beach, and he took many photographs of that village’s buildings and houses (including rare interior shots), community events and individuals, and family outings and excursions. Aft er he died in 1935, his widow, Sybil, stored the negatives in her attic. Here, the story might have reached its conclusion, but actually it had barely begun.

Jane Stevens was the daughter of Jacob Arthur Stevens, the brother of Sybil Perkins. On a visit in the late 1940s, Jane showed her “Aunt Sib” some photos she had taken while on a schooner cruise. Noting Jane’s interest in photography and passion for local history, Sybil retrieved a box of Captain Jim’s glass plate negatives from the attic and gave it to her. Subsequent visits resulted in more gift s until Jane had the entire collection.

Although Jane had never worked with glass plate negatives, she was determined that the photos must be shared and preserved. She received a crash course in black-and-white printing from Dr. Allen Milbury, Director of Educational Media at the University of Maine, Portland-Gorham. He also loaned her an antique enlarger and other equipment, and she turned a spare bedroom into a darkroom. Jane became an accomplished black-and-white printer.

With prints in hand, Jane began researching the images to identify what or whom was depicted in each, where and when they were taken, and their historical signifi cance. She sought help from the local community, especially its elderly, and in doing so preserved much the area’s history. Her eff orts culminated in the 1974 publication of One Man’s World: Popham Beach, Maine, in an edition of 250 copies.

Turning her attention to other projects, Jane put the Perkins photo collection in storage. Upon her death in March, 2008, Jane’s heirs looked for a proper caretaker for the collection. Th ey donated it to Penobscot Marine Museum, on the strength of its existing photographic archives, programs and preservation eff orts.

Th e museum has picked up where Jane left off in cataloging and archiving the collection. In 2010 we helped produce an exhibit of the photographs at the Popham Beach Public Library. In the coming year, all of Captain Perkins’ photographs will be posted on the museum’s website, and reproduction prints will be available for purchase.

Two Hundred Years of Historic Buildings continued from page 1

Attached buildings at right: Searsport Hardware and I.G.A. Stores, now the Main Street Gallery and Admission Center, respectively. (Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection)

Th e Jeremiah Merithew House, once the grandest home in the neighborhood. (Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection)

An early 20th century view up Church Street. From left (with the buildings’ current names): Old Vestry; a structure no longer standing on the location of the museum’s parking lot; Jeremiah Merithew House; Searsport Congregational Church; Fowler-True-Ross House. (Eastern Il-lustrating & Publishing Co. Collection)

6 Th e Bay Chronicle

collections, as well the interpretive exhibit “Working the Bay.”

Th e Searsport Congregational Church purchased the lot north of the Merithew House from the Captain in 1833 and promptly built the present structure, which remains in use by an active congregation. Although the church is not part of the museum, our interpreters give church tours to our visitors. In 1841, the congregation built a Federal-style brick vestry to the south of the Merithew home. Two years later, a school opened on the second fl oor of the building. Acquired by the museum in 1994, the Old Vestry houses the “Marine Science Lab” education center.

In 1841, Miles Fowler entered an agreement to transfer the lot north of the Fowler-True-Ross House to Howland Otis, a tailor. By the time the transfer was completed, in 1845, the property included a house. Captain Merithew bought the house in 1862 for his daughter Lucy, newly married to sea captain David Nickels. Th ey added a Victorian façade in the Greek Revival and Italianate styles. Th e house passed from the Nickels family to the families of Captain Eaton, Captain Colcord, and the Duncans, before the museum acquired it in 1960. Known as the Nickels-Colcord-Duncan House (“Duncan House” for short), it is the museum’s administration building, and its attached barn houses part of the watercraft collection.

Jane Fowler sold off another piece of the Fowler property in 1845 to the town of Searsport to build a town hall. David Sears, a Boston merchant, donated the money to construct the plain brick Greek Revival building, but he was so displeased with the result that he never gave another cent to the town. Th e building served as the town hall until 1905, when its use was turned to equipment storage, and later a jail.

Th e founders of Penobscot Marine Museum purchased it to become the fi rst exhibit building in 1936. Today, Old Town Hall houses the “Gone Fishing” exhibit.

In 1848, Captain Merithew sold a Greek Revival cottage he had built north of the Congregational Church to his sons. Th e house was later owned by various sea captains and shipwrights. Named for a shipwright, the Josiah Dutch House now serves as the Savage Education Center, home of the “Peapod” educational play area.

In 1845, the Pendleton family constructed a commercial building on Main Street in the Maine Greek Revival style. Th e Pendletons ran it as a store until 1912, when C.O. Sawyer & Co. bought it to sell stoves and hardware. It was subsequently Staples Hardware. Th e museum purchased the property in 1998, and it now houses the Main Street Gallery for seasonal exhibits.

Th e adjacent Greek Revival building was built in 1879 by the Whitcomb family, who ran it as a general store for three generations. Harry Epstein bought it for a clothing store in 1973, tore down an attached barn, and built a concrete block addition in the back. Th e museum bought it in 1998 to house its museum store. It is now the Admission Center, which includes the store, and the concrete block addition provides climate-controlled collections storage.

Over 75 years, Penobscot Marine Museum has gathered these buildings into a coherent historic architectural district. Th e next time you visit, take a moment to imagine the people who walked these streets over the past 200 years, and help us preserve the landscape for generations to come.

“The Art of the Boat” seeks submissions

Winter is a Time of RenewalDennis Hansen, Superintendent, Buildings & Grounds

exhibits will be digitized and added to our website, which I encourage you to visit oft en to stay current on what’s happening at the museum. (Another great way to stay up to date is to “Like” us on Facebook.)

Finally, please contribute to the annual appeal, which is still under way. A generous anonymous donor has off ered to match the gift s of donors who have not given previously to the appeal, and to match the diff erence for donors who give more to the current campaign than they gave in prior years. Th e matching grant eff ectively doubles all or part of your contribution and helps support the museum’s important eff orts.

Th ank you for your support and thank you for 75 years of world-class off erings. Here’s to the next 75!

Matthew TimneyInterim Executive Director

Artists in all visual media are invited to submit works

for “Th e Art of the Boat,” a juried show that will run May 27 – October 23 at Penobscot Marine Museum.

“Th e exhibit will explore the boat as art and the boatbuilder as artist,” said Cu-rator Ben Fuller. “We will look for the artist’s interpretation of the boatbuild-er’s art through studies of shape, form, structure and details.”

Works will be judged by a panel which may include art critics and collectors, boat designers and builders. Th e panel will select approximately 40 pieces for display.

Artists may submit up to four pieces for consideration in any visual medi-um, including painting, drawing, pho-tography, sculpture and other three-dimensional media, and multimedia. Submissions should be sent as .jpeg fi les (maximum size 2 Mb) to artoft he-boat@pmm-maine.org by March 15. Th is is also the address for questions.

Frigid weather hasn’t halted an ambitious program of

improvements and repairs all around campus. Among the projects now in process or recently completed are:

• New roofs on the Stephen Phillips Me-morial Library/Douglas and Margaret Carver Memorial Gallery, the Jeremiah Merithew House, and the Old Vestry

• Th e installation of a new high-effi -ciency boiler in the Old Vestry

• Reglazing the original 19th century win-dow sashes on the Fowler-True-Ross House

Installed in the early 1990s in Merithew House, the exhibit “Working the Bay” has been looking a little tired. It’s now undergoing renovation to display dif-ferent artifacts, to align its content with our education department’s Maritime History and Literacy curriculum, and to make it more appealing and informative to visitors. Volunteer Jim Mushlit is as-sisting with the carpentry work, building new display platforms and enclosures. Anyone else interested in volunteering construction or house-painting skills is encouraged to contact the museum.

Exhibits and Events

now through 3/21 Maine Agriculture: Views from the Past Early farming photos from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing collection. Maine Farmland Trust Gallery, 97 Main St., Belfast

now through 3/31 Images from The Atlantic Fisherman Photos of commercial fi shing in the fi rst half of the 20th century. The Maine Grind, 192 Main Street, Ellsworth

now through 4/30Waldo County Through Eastern’s Eye Early photography from the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company collection. Hutchinson Center, 80 Belmont Ave., Belfast

May 27 | Opening Day PMM opens for its 75th year with new year-long exhibits:75 for 75 | Curator’s pick of the most interesting, important, beautiful and valuable items in the collectionThe Art of the Boat | Juried show exploring the boat as art and the boat-builder as artist

OPENING RECEPTION 5/27, 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. Celebrate opening day and view the 75 for 75 exhibit. Free refreshments

Winter 2010-2011 3

Literacy continued on page 8

4 Th e Bay Chronicle

Literacy and Maritime History: What’s the Connection?

Betty Schopmeyer, Education Director

Every week of the school year, Penobscot Marine Museum

sends its educators into public school classrooms around midcoast Maine. Here, we teach both daytime and aft er-school programs, reaching hundreds of children with educational enrichment programs. It is one of the museum’s most important endeavors, one whose value is recognized by educators at the local, state, and even national levels.

Central to our eff orts is a unique curriculum developed by the museum called Maritime History and Literacy. Designed for elementary level students, it contains 16 six-week units. Each weekly lesson plan includes activities and goals that address maritime history, and language and literacy skills.

What makes our curriculum diff erent from other museum programs, and why do we advertise it as “unique?” Why have we made the extra eff ort to “embed” literacy into each weekly lesson, and what does that mean anyway? Because education, like all professions, is a specialized fi eld, we fi nd that many museum supporters don’t fully understand what we do, or why we do it. To clarify, here is some background.

Language and ReadingTh e word literacy generally refers to reading profi ciency. What makes a child a good reader? Th e most important factor is good language acquisition in the preschool years. Language development is universally acknowledged as the best predictor of reading (and general academic) success. Th e process of learning language begins at birth and encompasses a number of skills that most children master with almost miraculous ease. By the time children start school,

their foundation in comprehension, verbal expression, memory, and other factors (such as distinguishing one sound from another) provides the platform for learning to read. Reading, then, becomes a process of “mapping” printed symbols on a page (individual and groups of letters) to sounds, words, and sentences that the child already knows on a spoken level. Amazingly, by the time a child is about 7 or 8, she has acquired nearly adult-level language skills, with the exception of vocabulary, which continues to grow throughout life.

People oft en talk about “science literacy” or “computer literacy,” but without strong “linguistic literacy,” these other skills are much harder to acquire. Nothing replaces the need for good language and reading, and that is why PMM has chosen to add specifi c linguistic elements to its maritime history curriculum. We target vocabulary, concepts, listening and speaking, reading and writing, and practice with sounds and syllables, all within topics such as Shipbuilding, Maine’s Native Americans, Life at Sea, Fisheries, and more.

Each unit begins with an overview page where specifi c vocabulary and concepts are listed and other language/literacy activities are identifi ed for that unit. Within each weekly lesson, we build on these targets. For example, Fisheries begins with a classifi cation game using pictures of crustaceans, mollusks, and fi n fi sh. Th e students answer a written list of questions about various attributes of these animals: Does it have fi ns? Does it have a tail? Does it have claws? Does it have eyes? Using these clues, they read descriptions aloud and ask their classmates to guess the animal.

Th e World is Your OysterOn a more advanced level, Fisheries targets a kind of fi gurative language called idioms. Non-literal language use can be very problematic for young readers and for other groups such as second language learners. Have you ever thought about the number of idioms in English that refer to fi shing and sea life? (Not the only fi sh in the sea; fi shy business; fi sh or cut bait; a fi sh story; etc.) We have created some entertaining activities that involve using and understanding these “fi shy” expressions.

Museum educator Faith Garrold teaches a lesson about salmon

Winter 2010-2011 5

Valentine’s Day Stories from the Maine Coast

Cipperly Good, Collections Manager & Assistant Curator

Editor’s note: Th is article was written for presentation by the author at a February 12 class in the making of “sailors’ valentines” at Penobscot Marine Museum. While it is too late to register for this class, inquiries are invited for future sessions.

The sea captains and ship owners of the Maine coast

knew the way to a woman’s heart: buy her exotic clothing, name a ship aft er her and add some candy for good measure. Th e three stories we share today touch upon these themes.

Captain Benjamin Morse Melcher of Brunswick, commanding the ship Brunswick from Liverpool to Calcutta to New York, begins our Valentine’s Day stories. Captain Melcher was engaged to his fi rst cousin, Emeline Morse. While the Brunswick was exchanging cargo in the port of Calcutta from November 6, 1844, to February 10, 1845, he employed four men to embroider some Dacca muslin for his fi ancée’s wedding gown. Aft er returning to New York, Captain Melcher took command of the ship Winnegance, which was built and owned by Richard Morse, his mother’s fi ft h cousin, and Richard’s three sons, Jacob Parker, Alden, and John G. Morse in Winnegance, Maine (present-day Bath). When Captain Melcher fi nally returned home to Maine in 1848, there was not enough time to make a dress from the embroidered muslin, so Emeline wore her best dress instead. Family legend has it that the reason for the haste was that the Melchers had to ship out almost immediately on a voyage to Havana, Cuba, leaving no time for the anticipated fancier wedding. When their daughter Emma married Charles A. Whittemore in 1885, her wedding dress was made from the embroidered Dacca muslin her father had commissioned 37 years

before. Th e Whittemores’ daughters Arlene and Lillian donated the dress to Penobscot Marine Museum.

Our next story is of Clara Th urston Porter and Eugene P. Carver, who were married August 11, 1886, at the First Congregational Church in Searsport. Th e village dressmaker made Clara’s dress based on the design worn by the nation’s “bride of the year,” Mrs. Grover Cleveland. Frances Folsom Cleveland’s wedding gown was trailed with orange blossoms, and her marriage to Grover Cleveland is still the only instance of a president marrying while in offi ce. Frances Cleveland was a media darling who maintained high visibility, partly through the daily strolls she took with baby Ruth – aft er whom the candy bar was named. Th e Carver wedding dress was also worn by her granddaughters Lois Stevens in 1943, Nelda Carver in 1949, and Clara Carver circa 1950. Th e great-granddaughters – three generations removed and apparently without the aid of corsets – could not fi t into the dress for their nuptials.

Our third and fi nal story is of Inez Scott Morgan and Amos Dow Carver, who married on November 12, 1889. Like Frances Folsom Cleveland, Inez Scott Morgan’s dress was also trailed with orange blossoms. Th e marriage of Amos, from a long line of Carver, Dow and Nickels ship captains, to Inez, the adopted daughter of Jonathan Cliff ord Nickels, brought together two prominent Searsport families. Th e schooner Inez N. Carver, built in Bath in 1901, was partly owned by Amos and was named in homage to his wife.

Th is cameo, once owned by Emeline Morse Melcher, was cut in Antwerp sometime before 1876. It reads: “And when the eye that looked in love, Doth coldly on me beam, Th ough sad, I see a world above, Where love is not a dream.”

Clara Carver (Gift of Mrs. Donald R. Stevens)