Browse Items (34 total)

  • Collection: Bethel: A Historic Town images

Late 1760s Bethel lot and range plan

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Arranged in a grid-like pattern, this "lot and range" plan of the late 1760s clearly shows the narrow forty-acre parcels of fertile "intervale" land near the Androscoggin River, which were much sought-after by Bethel's early settlers. Of this plan,…

Honest Corner

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The commercial heart of nineteenth century Bethel was "Honest Corner," at the junction of Broad, Church, and Main streets in Bethel Hill village. Several structures shown in this circa 1885 photograph are still standing today.

Engraving of Bethel mountain scenery

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The town of Bethel is surrounded by some of northern New England's most dramatic mountain scenery, as evidenced by this engraving from the Guide Book of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad, published in 1853. Such artistic renderings greatly…

Reverend Daniel Gould Portrait

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A graduate of Harvard, and perhaps the most learned man of Bethel in his day, the Reverend Daniel Gould was "of a rather worldly disposition, bringing the first chaise to Bethel, and wearing cocked hat, silk gown, and knee breeches around the town.…

Flat Road schoolhouse

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Modest, one-room district schoolhouses were at one time valuable centers of learning throughout small New England towns like Bethel. These forerunners of today's modern educational facilities provided a solid education under often less-than-ideal…

Second Gould Academy building

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Students and teachers gather in front of the second Gould Academy building about 1890. Three such structures have occupied this same Church Street lot, including today's Hanscom Hall, a striking Colonial Revival edifice that opened in 1934.

Second Gould Academy building classroom

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This late nineteenth century image provides a glimpse of the interior of Gould Academy's 1881 building. Spacious and well lighted, the school's classrooms (and attic gymnasium) nevertheless contained wooden support columns that students and faculty…

Middle Intervale Meetinghouse

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Bethel's oldest surviving religious structure, the Middle Intervale Meetinghouse was begun in 1816 and extensively remodeled in 1857. Once the site of early Bethel town meetings, as well as Methodist and Baptist church services, the building has…

Constitution and Records of the Female Cent Society of Bethel, West Parish

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One of the most important elements of town life in early Bethel was the church, and before 1820 Congregationalism remained the dominant religion, despite inroads made by the local Baptists and Methodists. The "Female Cent Society" of the West Parish…

Telstar Regional High School

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Gould Academy's transformation from the town's high school into a private boarding school in 1968 marked the end of a significant era in Bethel's history. That same fall, the newly completed "Telstar Regional High School" opened on a Route 26 site a…

Bethel 1880 map

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Bethel's system of roads extended into every district of the town by the time this 1880 map was published in the Atlas of Oxford County, Maine. In 1843 a two-thousand acre area of Bethel (upper right hand corner of map) lying north of the…

Bartlett/Bean Ferry

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A half-dozen primitive but picturesque river ferries positioned along a fifteen-mile stretch of the Androscoggin once provided safe transport for Bethel's citizens. Shown here is the Bartlett/Bean ferry, which operated (utilizing the waterway's…

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Bethel Hill-Mayville covered bridge

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To prepare the way for a permanent and dependable crossing over the broad and often unpredictable waters of the Androscoggin River, a toll bridge company was organized by town vote in 1861. It was not until 1869, however, that this huge three-span,…

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Bethel railroad station

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The arrival of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad in Bethel took place on March 10, 1851. First proposed in 1844 by Andover native John Alfred Poor as a way of boosting Portland's dwindling mercantile trade and providing a winter link to the sea…

Swift-Wiley Block and Charles Davis stage

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The Swift-Wiley Block on Main Street, with the Charles Davis stage in the foreground, circa 1896. Transporting "baggage, express, and mail matter," as well as passengers, this open coach (with canvas curtains that could be dropped during stormy…

Allen's depot at West Bethel

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The end of passenger and mail service on the Grand Trunk Railway in this region in 1960 caused the abandonment of many small stations along the line. The conversion to more efficient diesel locomotives also drastically reduced railroad employment…

Bennett's Garage

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The twentieth century brought major developments to Bethel, beginning with the arrival of the first automobile in 1901. The popularity of the "horseless carriage" eventually transformed Bethel from a place of numerous shops where a wide range of…

Eber Clough birch and stave mill

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The Colonial period settlement of Bethel began with the construction in 1774 by Joseph Twitchell of both a sawmill and gristmill at the foot of Mill Hill (Route 5). Necessities in the founding of most New England towns, these mills were the first…

Bean's Corner village (East Bethel), circa 1900

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Bean's Corner village (East Bethel), circa 1900. Local photographer Irving Kimball captured this classic farm scene only a couple of decades after Bethel reached the peak of its agricultural production. In front of the "English barn" at right, two…

Kimball Block

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The largest commercial structure in Bethel for many years, the Kimball Block stood from 1865 to 1965 at Bethel Hill near the site of the town's new fire station. In the pre-automobile age, this community, and others like it throughout the Nation,…

Log drive

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Logging was an extremely difficult and dangerous task before the advent of mechanized transportation, but furnished a winter's occupation and supplementary income for many Bethel farmers. Stimulated by the development of papermaking facilities in…

Nineteenth century women working

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Women's work in eighteenth and nineteenth century Bethel was often tedious and backbreaking. Few today can imagine the difficulties faced in the never-ending routine of home life during this earlier time.

Bethel Chair Company

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One of this community's largest nineteenth century industries was the Bethel Chair Company, established in 1886. The firm originally restricted itself to the production of Shaker-type rockers, but a variety of styles were eventually introduced. In…

Pleasant Valley Grange No. 136

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Following on the heels of the Farmer's Club movement, the Patrons of Husbandry (Grange) became highly popular throughout northern New England in the 1870s. Such organizations not only provided important social activities for isolated farm…

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The Bethel House advertisement

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The Bethel House was constructed in 1833 as the first of several large wooden hotels facing onto the Bethel Hill Common. Even before the railroad's arrival in 1851, Bethel had established itself as a popular stopping-off place for travelers.