Browse Items (193 total)

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…

Ernest M. Skinner by Stanley Russell Howe Ernest Martin Skinner 1866-1960 In Bethel’s Woodland Cemetery, not far from the Gothic Revival tomb, is the grave of Ernest M. Skinner, one of America’s leading organ makers whose fame spread across…

Addison Emery Verrill Eminent Zoologist by Stanley Russell Howe Addison E. Verrill (1839-1926) One of the most eminent zoologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Addison Emery Verrill was born on Patch Mountain, Greenwood, Maine,…

Eva M. Bean and East Bethel Road A Fifty Year Perspective By Stanley R. Howe Eva Marion Bean (1895-1969) Editor’s Note: A version of this essay was delivered during a Society program held on 14 May 2009. It has been edited and expanded for…

Commemorating the 200th Anniversaryof Hannibal Hamlin’s Birth Editor’s Note: On August 7, 2009, the Bethel Historical Society’s annual Hall Lecture was presented by H. Draper Hunt, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor, University of Southern Maine. His…

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…

Capt. Charles A. J. Farrar Wilderness Writer and Adventure Provider by William B. Krohn On October 13, 2012, Dr. William B. Krohn, retired wildlife scientist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Maine in Orono, presented the annual Hall…

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…

Dr. Nathaniel T. True by William B. Lapham Dr. Nathaniel Tuckerman True1812-1887 Editor’s Note: This sketch of Dr. True was read by Dr. Lapham before the Maine Historical Society, 17 March 1892. Dr. Nathaniel Tuckerman True was born in that…

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…

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…

Bethel's Hall House: The "Artistic Bungalow" by Danna Brown Nickerson The Hall House, circa 1942 Owned by Society members George and Danna Nickerson, the Hall House is Bethel’s most recent addition to the National Register of Historic Places.…

Subject Issue(s) 100th Anniversary of Bethel News/Citizen Vol. 19, No. 3 150 Years of Hotel Keeping in Bethel Vol. 7, No. 2 1796: A Special Year in Bethel's Past Vol. 20, No. 2 19th Century Medicine in Bethel,…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

Bethel Doctors, 1900-1950 by Margaret Joy Tibbetts Dr. Raymond R. Tibbetts (1875-1958) Editor’s Note: A version of this essay was presented as a lecture sponsored by the Bethel Historical Society on 7 November 1991 held in the Dr. Moses Mason…

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,…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…