Browse Items (56 total)

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…