Browse Items (56 total)
- Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
William Berry Lapham: Local Historian and Genealogist
Text / Available Online
William Berry Lapham Local Historian and Genealogist by Stanley Russell Howe William Berry Lapham 1828-1894 William Berry Lapham (1828-1894) was one of the most prolific compilers of local history and genealogy that Maine produced during the…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
General Oliver Otis Howard Speaks at Bethel
Text / Available Online
General Oliver Otis Howard Speaks at Bethel by Stanley R. Howe Oliver Otis Howard (1830-1909), ca. 1865 Courtesy of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission Civil War General Oliver Otis Howard spoke at Bethel on the afternoon of 15 July…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Dr. True As Historian
Text / Available Online
Dr. True As Historian by Randall H. Bennett The productive years in the life of Dr. Nathaniel Tuckerman True (1812-1887) were a propitious time for antiquarian efforts. Indeed, the ground work of what we know today of Bethel's beginnings is in…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Lafayette Grover: Would-Be President Maker
Text / Available Online
Lafayette Grover: Would-Be President Maker by Stanley Russell Howe Lafayette Grover1823-1911 Born in Bethel, Maine, on 29 November 1823, the third son of Dr. John and Fanny Lary Grover, Lafayette Grover was educated at Gould Academy and…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Atherton Bernard Furlong: Artist, Singer, Poet
Text / Available Online
Atherton Bernard Furlong: Artist, Singer, Poet Atherton Furlong (1849-1919) Photo courtesy of the Greenwood Historical Society Editor’s Note: The following obituary of Atherton Furlong appeared in the 24 October 1919 issue of the Norway…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Enoch Foster, Jr.: Third Owner of the O'Neil Robinson House
Text / Available Online
Enoch Foster, Jr.: Third Owner of the O'Neil Robinson House by Stanley R. Howe Sarah W. Foster and Enoch Foster, Jr. Photos from Maine: A History (1919) Enoch Foster, the third owner of the Society’s O’Neil Robinson House, was born in…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Dr. John George Gehring and His Bethel Clinic: Pragmatic Therapy and Therapeutic Tourism
Text / Available Online
Dr. John George Gehring and His Bethel Clinic Pragmatic Therapy and Therapeutic Tourism by William D. Andrews Dr. John George Gehring, 1912. As this photograph suggests, Gehring was slight, trim, and dapper. He wasknown to smoke cigars and…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Guy Coffin and His Family
Text / Available Online
Guy Coffin and His Family by Blaine Mills Guy Coffin (1880-1942)Courtesy of the Greenwood Historical Society The photographer Guy Coffin was born 5 June 1880 at Locke's Mills village in the town of Greenwood, Maine, the son of Jacob Gilbert…
Tags: Greenwood (Me.)
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Bethel’s Robert A. Chapman and Frances C. Chapman
Text / Available Online
Bethel’s Robert A. Chapman and Frances C. Chapman by Stanley R. Howe Hon. Robert Andrews Chapman and Frances Carter Chapman Photo from Maine: A History (1919) Hon. Robert Andrews Chapman, the second owner of the Bethel Historical Society's…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Harriet Beecher Stowe Finds "Intellectual Activity" in Western Maine
Text / Available Online
Harriet Beecher Stowe Finds "Intellectual Activity" in Western Maine Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), circa 1865Photo courtesy of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission Editor’s Note: The letter quoted below was apparently written by…
Tags: Bethel (Me.)
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Lost in the Woods of Shadagee
Text / Available Online
Lost in the Woods of Shadagee by Larry Glatz The “Shadagee” section of Norway was later known as Noble’s Corner, shown above (center). From Caldwell & Halfpenny, Atlas of Oxford County, Maine (Philadelphia, 1880). Practically every county…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Grafton, Maine: A Historical Sketch
Text / Available Online
Grafton, Maine: A Historical Sketch by Margaret Joy Tibbetts Grafton, from the 1880 Atlas of Oxford County, Maine The Town of Grafton surrendered its charter in 1919, the year in which I was born. The only buildings in Grafton which I can…
Tags: Grafton (Me.)
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Mountain Days
Text / Available Online
Mountain Days by Daisy Peabody Members of the Peabody family assemble at the Peabody Tavern (1799) at Gilead, Maine Photo taken 1895; courtesy of Joanne Peabody Stewart Editor's Note: This circa 1884 account by Daisy Peabody of Gilead, Maine,…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Gilead Memories
Text / Available Online
Gilead Memories by Emeline V. Heath Old and New Androscoggin River Bridges at Gilead, 1920s Editor's Note: The following sketch was written by a Gilead native and Society member whose roots were deep within the town. Miss Heath, a former…
Tags: Gilead (Me.)
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
The Irish Neighborhood
Text / Available Online
The Irish Neighborhood by Margaret Joy Tibbetts Irish Neighborhood School, 1903, Guy Coffin Photographer, First Row (Left to Right): Carl Lufkin (?), Grace Deardon. Second Row: Mary Harrington, Mary Deegan, Margaret Pool, Nellie Harrington,…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
The Last of the Pequakets: Mollockett
Text / Available Online
The Last of the Pequakets: Mollockett Written for the Maine Historical Society by N. T. True, M.D.,and published in theOxford Democrat, Jan. 2, 1863 The Pequakets were a powerful tribe on the Saco River. The Lovewell Fight at Fryeburg, in 1725,…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Metallak
Text / Available Online
Metallak by Peter Smith Bean State of New Hampshire marker near Metallak's grave site Editor’s Note: This brief memoir about the Indian Metallak is found in the Oxford County Advertiser of 17 January 1890. The author is Peter Smith Bean, who…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Indians of the Androscoggin Valley
Text / Available Online
Indians of the Androscoggin Valley The Indians of the Androscoggin River Valley were members of the Anasigunticook tribe, a sub-group of the Abenakis, the major tribal grouping which encompassed the Indians from the Pennacooks in New Hampshire to…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Twenty-five Years of the Courier: A Personal Memoir
Text / Available Online
Twenty-five Years of the Courier: A Personal Memoir by Stanley Russell Howe Masthead from an issue of Bethel's first newspaper, The Bethel Courier (1858-1861) When I became Director of the Bethel Historical Society in 1974, there was almost…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Well-known Indians of the Bethel Area
Text / Available Online
Well-Known Indians of the Bethel Area by Catherine Newell Note on Indian Names: The names which have come down to us identifying certain Indians are usually corruptions of the French Christian names received at baptism in Canada. There are, for…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Society Marks First Decade
Text / Available Online
Society Marks First Decade Society founder Eva M. Bean at Woodland Cemetery No one seems to know who first conceived of a Bethel Historical Society, but in 1855 thirty citizens gathered for what was recorded as an antiquarian supper with a…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
The Robertsons of “Robinson Hill”
Text / Available Online
The Robertsons of “Robinson Hill” By Randall H. Bennett The origins of Bethel's early placenames, and the meaning(s) they convey, have long been a popular subject of discussion among scholars and family historians, and many of these researchers…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Bethel in the War of the Rebellion
Text / Available Online
Bethel in the War of the Rebellion by William B. Lapham The following lightly edited text is taken from the History of Bethel, Formerly Sudbury Canada, Oxford County, Maine 1768-1890, compiled by William B. Lapham and published in 1891 by the…
Tags: Bethel (Me.)
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Bethel's Civil War Soldier's Monument Dedicated 100 Years Ago
Text / Available Online
Bethel's Civil War Soldier's Monument Dedicated 100 Years Ago by Stanley Russell Howe The year 2008 year marked the centennial of the dedication of Bethel’s Civil War Soldier’s monument on Memorial Day 1908. The account of this event in the 4…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Bethel's First Meetinghouse Re-Discovered
Text / Available Online
Bethel's First Meetinghouse Re-Discovered by Randall H. Bennett Portland's Cumberland County Courthouse of 1785, which served as the model for Bethel's first meetinghouse, built in 1807 From Portland in the Past (1886) Thanks to the research…
Tags: West Parish Congregational Church (Bethel, Me.) | West Parish Congregational Meeting House (Bethel, Me.)
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier