Browse Items (56 total)
- Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Women in the Grange
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Women in the Grange By Jean F. Hankins The following article is based on a paper delivered in September 2008 at the Bethel Historical Society’s conference on the Grange. Jean F. Hankins, of Otisfield, Maine, is an independent scholar, active in…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
William Berry Lapham: Local Historian and Genealogist
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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
Western Maine Saints [Part 4]: The York and Carter Families
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Western Maine Saints [Part 4]: The York and Carter Families by Carole York Conversion to Mormonism and Western Migration “I first embraced Mormonism in 1834 in the town of Newry, Oxford County, State of Maine. The first elders I ever heard…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Western Maine Saints [Part 3]: A Bethel Family (Frost)
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Western Maine Saints [Part 3]: A Bethel Family (Frost) by Jayne W. Fife, with Roselyn Kirk Mary Ann Frost Stearns Pratt. Photo courtesy of Jayne Fife Mary Ann Frost Stearns was a small determined woman, a widow with one child, when she…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Western Maine Saints [Part 2]: A Newry Family Who Joined the Latter-Day Saints in Seeking a Home in the West
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Western Maine Saints: A Newry Family Who Joined the Latter-Day Saints in Seeking a Home in the West by Mary E. Valentine Martha Fifield Wilkins, author of Sunday River Sketches, at the Sessions-Chapman-Bennett House near North Newry in…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Western Maine Saints [Part 1]: Mormon Missionaries in the 1830s
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Western Maine Saints: Mormon Missionaries in the 1830s by Mary E. Valentine Umbagog Lake from the highlands of Letter B Township, now Upton, Maine Editor’s Note: The area discussed in this article, and subsequent installments, includes the…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Well-known Indians of the Bethel Area
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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
Twenty-five Years of the Courier: A Personal Memoir
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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
To Improve the Farmer's Lot: The Grange in Maine
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To Improve the Farmer's Lot: The Grange in Maine by Stanley R. Howe For over half a century, beginning in the 1870s, the Grange in Maine numbered some 50,000 members in more than 400 locations throughout the State. Active on behalf of Maine's…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
The Robertsons of “Robinson Hill”
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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
The Railroad Comes to Bethel
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The Railroad Comes to Bethel by Randall H. Bennett Grand Trunk Railway station at Bethel, circa 1880 Editor’s Note: The following is an edited version of remarks made by Society Curator of Collections Randall Bennett on 10 March 2001 at…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
The Last of the Pequakets: Mollockett
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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
The Irish Neighborhood
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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 Diary of Edgar Harvey Powers
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From The Courier, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2007): The Diary of Edgar Harvey Powers Edgar Harvey Powers (1843-1894) Photo courtesy of Bethel Masonic Lodge # 97 AF & AM Editor’s Note: This transcription has been made from a small diary that was…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
The Bethel Antiquarian Suppers of the 1850s
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The Bethel Antiquarian Suppers of the 1850s Dr. Nathaniel Tuckerman True (1812-1887) Founder of Maine's first Farmer's Club (1853) at Bethel Originator of the Bethel Antiquarian Suppers (1855-1857) American life in the mid-nineteenth century…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
The Bethel Agricultural Fair and Riverside Park
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The Bethel Agricultural Fair and Riverside Park by Yvonne B. Nowlin Grandstand at Riverside Park fairgrounds, ca. 1895 Editor's Note: The following history of the Bethel Agricultural Fair and Riverside Park was originally written as an…
Tags: Bethel Agricultural Fair (Bethel, Me.) | Mayville (Bethel, Me.) | Riverside Park (Bethel, Me.)
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Society Marks First Decade
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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
O'Neil Watson Robinson: First Owner of the Robinson House
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O'Neil Watson Robinson First Owner of the Robinson House by Stanley R. Howe O'Neil W. Robinson (1797-1867) As certain as can be currently determined, the Broad Street building acquired by the Society in 1998 was built about 1821 by O’Neil…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Mountain Days
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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
Metallak
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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
Memories of Broad Street
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Memories of Broad Street by Margaret Herrick Oakes Broad Street, Bethel Hill village, circa 1910 Editor's note: Margaret Herrick Oakes (1896-1992) was the daughter of Judge Addison E. and Mary Chase Herrick and spent her childhood on Broad…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Maine Music Festival Note
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Maine Music Festival Note William Rogers Chapman (1855-1935), founder of the Maine Music Festivals Editor's Note: This first short essay, entitled "The Influence of the Festival," appeared in the 1925 Maine Music Festival Program. Although…
Tags: Maine Music Festival
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Lucy Larcom's Bethel
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Lucy Larcom's Bethel by Stanley R. Howe Lucy Larcom (1824-1893) Observing nature was a major focus of the life of Lucy Larcom (1824-1893), who spent much time in the White Mountain region and especially in the western Maine town of Bethel.…
Tags: Bethel (Me.)
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier
Lost in the Woods of Shadagee
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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
Life on the Home Front: Bethel During the Civil War
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Life on the Home Front: Bethel During the Civil War by Stanley Russell Howe Major Gideon A. Hastings (1821-1905), 12th Maine Battalion Editor's note: Few events in American history have received more attention than the Civil War. A neglected…
Collection: Featured Articles from The Courier