A celebration of the life of Dr. Stanley R. Howe will be held this Saturday, June 6, at the Lower Meeting House (East Bethel Church) located at 1797 Intervale Road, Bethel, Maine. Beginning at 2:00 pm, there will be special remarks by family and friends, followed by music, and memories/comments from those attending.

Dear friends,

By now, most of our readers have heard the sad news already, but for those who have not yet received word, it is with heavy hearts that we share news of the passing of Dr. Stanley Russell Howe, Executive Director of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society from 1974-2010 and Director of Education and Research from 2010-2012.

Every member of the Society probably has a Stan Howe story. My own begins in the summer of 2014. I had recently graduated from the University of Maine at Augusta with a degree in information and library studies. Throughout my studies, I had worked as a reference assistant at the Auburn Public Library and I had recently accepted a second part time job as a project archivist in the Shaker Library at Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village. Working at Shaker Village had proved an absolutely wonderful experience, but it was one that was destined to eventually end when I finished scanning and cataloging the community’s extensive photographic collection, and so I had my eyes peeled for future opportunities.

A former teacher spotted me at Molly Ockett Day, pulled me aside to ask me what I had been doing, and then promptly marched me over to talk with Randy Bennett, Stan’s good friend and successor as executive director of the Bethel Historical Society. It turned out that the Society was just months away from breaking ground on a new facility. The Huntoon Center, an addition to the Robinson House, would eventually house the Society’s extensive library, archives, and museum collections, and would also include an office for library personnel and reading room for public access. The facility was a gift from supporter Charles R. Huntoon and it was expected that there would be enough funds to provide for a new part-time staff person to manage the transition.

In the meantime, I began regularly attending BHS programs and got to know both Randy and Stan. Stan was particularly enthused because he found out that I had an interest in political history. While Stan and Randy shared many interests, Randy is given to quote Artemus Ward creator Charles Farrar Browne (“I’m not a politician and my other habits are good”). Stan, on the other hand, never shied from controversy, and, indeed, seemed to revel in whatever the political scandal of the day was.

But while he followed the news closely, his true passion was always for the history of the nineteenth-century Republican Party and, in particular, Abraham Lincoln. In the fall of 2014, the historical society showed a documentary about Lincoln and Stan brought over a selection of his books about the sixteenth President, which easily covered an entire table.

A week later, Stan invited me over to pick up some duplicate books that he had found in his collection and thought I might be interested in. I drove up to Stan’s house on a Sunday around noon, expecting that I would pick up the books, chat for a bit, and be back in a couple hours. Instead, I didn’t arrive back home until evening. In the meantime, Stan had given me an entire box of books, showing me them one at a time and explaining the merits of each one, toured me through every room in his house, told me the entire story of his life and career, and taken Randy and me out to eat at Kowloon Village.

By now, many readers, I’m sure, are nodding, having lived through the full Stan Howe Experience themselves. For the uninitiated, the basic facts of Stan’s life are these:

Stan was born on August 25, 1943 to Rodney Kimball Howe and Geraldine Alma Stanley Howe. At the time of his birth, millions of American soldiers were serving overseas in the fight against fascism.

(Stan’s first cousin, twice removed, Clarence Decatur Howe, known as C. D. Howe, was then serving as Minister of Munitions and Supply in the Canadian government. C. D. Howe was a controversial figure, but Stan was always proud of the fact that, for his work on wartime munitions, Winston Churchill had given Howe much of the credit for winning World War II. Stan heard much about Howe growing up, and his admiration for him sparked an interest in Canadian history, and eventually inspired him to write his dissertation on Howe’s political career.)

Stan and his four younger siblings, Greg, Sue, Allan, and Cathy, grew up on the Stanley family farm in East Bethel. Their family roots in this area extend back to the 1770s.

Stan began his education in a one-room school in East Bethel and later attended Bethel Primary (later known as the Ethel Bisbee School) and Crescent Park School. He graduated from Gould Academy in 1962 and from Gorham State College (now University of Southern Maine) in 1966. At first Stan wasn’t sure what he was going to do after receiving his undergraduate degree, but a classmate alerted him to the fact that the University of Connecticut was effectively free to attend for graduate students in the Department of History—even those from out of state. Stan was awarded his master’s degree in American history from “UConn” in 1967. He went on to earn a doctorate in Canadian history from the University of Maine in 1977.

Stan received numerous awards and honors in the field of history, including induction into the history honor society Phi Alpha Theta in 1974 and selection for the Seminar in Historical Administration at Colonial Williamsburg in 1980. He served on the board of organizations including the Maine Archives & Museums, the Maine Historical Society, the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, and Maine Preservation, was book review editor for the journal Maine History, and taught history classes at the University of Maine, Westbrook College, and the University of New Hampshire’s College for Lifelong Learning.

In addition to his important role in preserving local and regional history, Stan was also a civic leader, serving on the Bethel Select Board from 1975-1983 and again from 2004-2015, including many terms as Chair. He served on boards and committees including the Bethel Planning Board, Bethel Bicentennial Committee, SAD44 Board of Directors, Gould Academy Board of Trustees, Project Opportunity, Bethel Library Association, Oxford County Republican Committee, Republican State Committee, Woodland Cemetery Company, East Bethel Cemetery Association, Alder River Grange, Oxford Pomona Grange, Maine State Grange, Middle Intervale Meeting House Society, and Oxford County League of Historical Societies.

For his many contributions, Stan was honored as the Alumnus of the Year at Gould Academy in 1982, received a special Chamber of Commerce Community Service Award, also in 1982, and was selected by the Bethel Rotary Club as a Paul Harris Fellow in 2003. In 2005, he was presented the Henry H. Hastings Award for Citizenship by the Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce “for decades of service to the citizens of Bethel, Oxford County and Maine.”

But it wasn’t any of Stan’s achievements that made the biggest impression on me that first long afternoon I spent with him. It was the immense gratitude, even amazement, with which Stan spoke about his life. Stan told me about how fortunate he had been in his education and career. He couldn’t believe that “a boy from East Bethel” had the opportunity to have the experiences and meet the people that he had. He had become friends with the most incredible and most wonderful people.

Stan would become especially nostalgic whenever mentioning his PhD adviser Alice Stewart, a powerhouse in the University of Maine’s history department, who had helped to found the Canadian-American Studies program. But this sentimentality would turn to excitement when recounting the story of how Alice and her circle of advisees had found themselves stuck when the door to one of the university library’s private study rooms jammed. “Move aside, boys!” Alice had commanded after several of the young men had tried unsuccessfully to force the door open. And with one large heave of her body, the door sprang open, releasing them.

The Making of a Public Historian

Many of Stan’s graduate school buddies had pursued more traditional career paths in the academic history field. But Stan was pulled in a different direction. Stan’s grandmother, Edith Kimball Howe, had nurtured his early interest in history, was good friends with Eva Bean, who had published the book East Bethel Road in 1959, and was the primary mover in the founding of the Bethel Historical Society in 1966. Stan had been a member of the society since the early days—several times he showed me his original membership card, personally signed by Eva.

Eva passed away in 1969, just three years after the Bethel Historical Society’s founding, so she never got to see the society fully flourish or even acquire a permanent headquarters. (In those early days, meetings were mainly held at the Bethel Library). A few years later, the Society’s fortunes changed dramatically when Sidney W. Davidson, a New York attorney who served as chairman William Bingham Trust for Charity, had the idea to restore the 1813 Broad Street home of Dr. Moses Mason and his wife Agnes Straw Mason, and to donate it the Bethel Historical Society for its headquarters.

The plans for the restoration of the house called for the creation of a modest apartment on the second floor where the curator would reside, and the Trust would provide the initial endowment funds to support this new position. For Stan, the timing could hardly have been better, and the trustees of the historical society were equally fortunate to have a well-qualified prospect with the local credibility to match. And so, when the Society opened the Mason House to the public in 1974, Stan was hired as the Society’s first employee.

Then as now, few local historical societies could afford to support any paid staff whatsoever. Stan was getting in at the ground floor of a growing organization, with the opportunity to help shape its future and to take on the role he seems to have been destined for: as the quintessential public historian.

He retained friendships with former professors and classmates who had entered academia, and he occasionally taught college courses himself. In his role as book review editor for the journal Maine History and as a committee member for several statewide organizations, Stan remained connected to the larger world of state and local history, and these connections would redound greatly to the benefit of the Bethel Historical Society.

At the same time, Stan never lost sight of what an organization rooted in community history should be. The minutiae of local history still interested him greatly, and he was as happy debating which house was the oldest in a particular neighborhood as he was discussing the historical theories and methodology of Richard Hofstadter (one of his favorite historians).

For many of our longtime members and supporters, Stan became nearly synonymous with the Bethel Historical Society. Along with Randy Bennett—the Society’s longtime curator and Stan’s eventual successor as director—a succession of dedicated trustees, and an active base of volunteers and supporters, Stan led a transformation of the Society. The organization’s mission, which was originally focused mainly on the history of the town of Bethel, expanded, and the Society began collecting a wider range of materials and sponsoring more regionally-focused programs, exhibits, and publications.

The Society became a leader in publishing books on regional history, such as Randy Bennett’s encyclopedic Oxford County, Maine: A Guide to Its Historic Architecture. In addition to popular community events such as Sudbury Canada Days, Heritage Days, and New Years’ Bethel, the Society organized ambitious gatherings—such as a 1985 conference on rural reform and a conference on the history of the Grange in Maine in 2008—and hosted a number of noted speakers such as Pulitzer-prize winning historian Alan Taylor.

Today, the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society is a regional history museum, with an extensive research center, that collects, preserves and interprets the history of western Maine and the White Mountain region of Maine and New Hampshire.

By the time I joined the staff of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society in the spring of 2015, Stan had been retired from the regular staff for a few years, but was still a constant presence. Every morning, Stan would bring the local newspaper up to Randy’s office on the third floor, sit down in a chair and read it through. He would pick up and post the Society’s mail, clean up any sticks that fallen in the the yard, and give tours to anyone who stopped by (sometimes flagging down and pulling people in off the street). Stan made everyone feel welcome here and was always extremely generous with his time and eager to share his knowledge and stories.

Most recently, Stan oversaw the transfer of his Broad Street home, the Hastings Homestead, to a new nonprofit, the Hastings Homestead Museum, which plans to develop the property into a historic house museum chronicling five generations of ownership by the Hastings-Howe family.

Stan was thrilled to welcome me aboard the Bethel Historical Society, and took an enthusiastic interest in my professional development and in introducing me to people he wanted me to know and wanted to know me. When old friends such as Tommy and Charles, or Rich and Vic would come to visit, he would invite me over to his house to take part in the lively discussions that would be had over coffee and tea and muffins baked on his wood stove. Beginning in 2015, I would accompany him annually to the “Maine Town Meeting” event at the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan, of which Stan had one of the longest unbroken streaks for attendance. I had the pleasure of working with Stan on several projects, including doing the formatting and design for his final book, William Bingham 2nd: A Life, a biography of Bethel’s greatest benefactor, published by the Bethel Historical Society in 2017.

Like Stan, I have always considered myself immensely fortunate for the circumstances and timing that brought me to the Society. Almost immediately, I felt a keen sense of awareness that I was becoming a part of something that was much larger. Stan and Randy both had a profound vision for what the organization could eventually become and their enthusiasm was infectious. The state-of-the-art new collections storage facility and research library that was being built—and which I would have the pleasure of working in—was just the latest development in the fulfilment of our longstanding goals.

When I took over as Executive Director of the organization, I understood my mission, in part, as carrying forward what my predecessors had already worked so hard to set in motion. And for as long as I continue to work here, one of my motivations will always be to do Stan proud.

Stan passed peacefully in the early hours of the morning on Sunday, February 22.

He was a giant of Maine history and will be greatly missed.

Upcoming event:

Goose Eye No. 6 Launch Party
Saturday, June 20, 2026, 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Intervale Gateway
Bethel, ME 04217
(Optional walk at 5:30 p.m., party begins in barn at 6:00 p.m.)

Hello, friends!

We are excited to unveil the latest issue of Goose Eye, which has just been sent off to the printer! We invite you to join the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society, our partners, the Mahoosuc Land Trust, and our gracious hosts, the Shepley family, for a party at the Intervale Gateway (the triangular piece of land between Intervale Road and Route 26 as you enter Bethel Village) on Saturday, June 20, to celebrate the launch!

We’ll be kicking off the evening at 5:30 p.m. with a guided walk around the historic Intervale Gateway. (Meet at the corner nearest Davis Park.) The Intervale Gateway was the Mahoosuc Land Trust’s first conserved property and offers a lovely short walk with views of Bethel village. MBHS Executive Director will provide a few general historical notes on the area and MLT leaders will discuss the organization’s history with the property.

Following the walk we will congregate under the tents beginning at 6:00 p.m. (Feel free to join us at this time if you want to skip the walk.) Light refreshments will be served and you’ll have a chance to pick up or purchase a copy of the new issue. At 6:30 p.m. we’ll hear remarks from Goose Eye editor William Chapman, and contributors, Kirk Siegel and William B. Krohn.

Goose Eye No. 6

Goose Eye No. 6 is entitled “Lines on a Map, Part One,” and is the first in a two-part series exploring some of the stories behind the many different kinds of lines that we take for granted when looking at a modern map. There those that represent natural features such as rivers, mountains, and coast line; those that identify physically real features created by human intervention, such as trails, roads, and railroad track; and still others that mark purely legal or political boundaries. The issues will seek to show how none of these are timeless or inevitable; they all reflect particular historical circumstances and contingencies. The lines on today’s maps encode a legacy of conflict and struggle by humans both against nature and against fellow humans.

Given the overlap between this topic and the work of our local land conservation organizations, MBHS asked the Mahoosuc Land Trust to partner on the production and release of this issue. Goose Eye No. 6 includes an essay by MLT Executive Director and co-founder Kirk Siegel, who reflects on how growing up roaming freely in the White Mountains formed a conservationist—and how our future depends on rebuilding relationships with land through deeper connection with Wabanaki communities and Indigenous ways of knowing.

Here’s a look at what else you’ll find inside!

• Brett Ciccotelli, Stephen Engle, and Bryan Wentzell reflect on a unique map they created which shows Waponahkik—Wabanaki Territory—stripped of imposed political boundaries.

• William B. Krohn writes about Kennedy Smith, the pioneering founder of three sporting camps in northern Franklin County, Maine, and constructor of many miles of buckboard trail.

• Larry Glatz recounts the many adventures of eccentric entrepreneur, relentless self-promoter, and transcontinental railroad advocate Josiah Perham, of Wilton, Maine, in the first of a two-part series to be concluded in Goose Eye No. 7.

• David Crouse discusses the long-running dispute between Massachusetts (and later Maine) and New Hampshire on the precise location of the Maine–New Hampshire border, focusing on the implications for a few Maine and New Hampshire communities in the White Mountain region.

• Larry Glatz explores the fragmented and confusing processes behind the naming (official and unofficial) and “unnaming” of Maine’s many areas of “unorganized territory.”

We would like to thank all of readers for their ongoing support which makes putting out a high-quality journal possible for our small organization. We are very proud of the latest effort and look forward to sharing it with all of you!

Upcoming event:

Along the Andro: History and Habitat in Our Community
A free walking conversation led by the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society and Mahoosuc Land Trust
Saturday, May 2, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Davis Park, Bethel, ME 04217

Our community walk, “Along the Andro” is tomorrow at 12:00 (following Green Up Day!) We hope to see you there! A reminder: this walk is part of the global Jane’s Walk event and will be held rain or shine.

Upcoming event:

Along the Andro: History and Habitat in Our Community
A free walking conversation led by the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society and Mahoosuc Land Trust
Saturday, May 2, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Davis Park, Bethel, ME 04217

Happy Saturday! We hope all of our readers in the Bethel area had a chance to get out and enjoy the beautiful summer weather yesterday! While next week looks cooler, May is just around the corner and that means its almost time for one our favorite annual events. Jane’s Walk is a global festival of free, volunteer-led walking conversations inspired by community activist Jane Jacobs. Nearly 70 walks are happening just in the state of Maine!

This is our third year of participating in this great event, and this year we are excited to be partnering with our friends at the Mahoosuc Land Trust to lead “Along the Andro: History and Habitat in Our Community,” a walk along the Androscoggin River on the Bethel Pathway!

We will begin at noon at Davis Park and conclude at the Valentine Farm Conservation Center. Along the route we will be exploring the history and ecology of the Androscoggin River, including indigenous people, the importance of the river to agriculture and early industries, the pollution of the river and subsequent efforts to clean it up, river ferries, bridges, floods, and the flora and fauna of the riverside. Participation and discussion is encouraged and we especially welcome the sharing of memories from when the river was more contaminated than it is today.

Green Up Day

Our walk is timed to immediately follow Green Up Day, a volunteer roadside cleanup event. If you are interested in participating in Green Up, meet at Davis Park at 9:00 am and wear glove and a safety vest if you have one. Lunch will be provided for all Green Up volunteers at 11:30, and the walk will follow.

If you just want to come for the walk, that’s fine too! Just plan to arrive at Davis Park a few minutes before noon.

Tell someone how much you love them with an I Love You Box from Haven’s!

This gift contains a colorful assortment of chocolates including a mix of caramels and creams, specialty pieces like rich chocolate-covered fudge and chocolate-covered chewy vanilla nougat, all surrounding a milk chocolate “I Love You” card.

Click here to order online or call 207-824-2908.

This Sunday (September 7), from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm, the Middle Intervale Meeting House Society will offer a free event for the community, featuring an open house and live music preformed by a local favorite, musician Seth Gallant.

Will Chapman, Historian of the Middle Intervale Meeting House Society and Executive Director of the Museums of the Bethel Bethel Historic Society, will present a brief overview of the meeting houses’s history. The Middle Intervale Meeting House was built in 1816 as a place for both religious and civic purposes. The building and its common were placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

The Meeting House is located at 745 Intervale Road, Bethel, across the street from the Carter family’s Middle Intervale Farm. Light refreshments will be served. Donations will be gratefully accepted.

August is here! The sun is still high in the sky, the days are long, and summer vacation is in its final stretch. It also means it’s time for one of our favorite traditions at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society: the Mill Brook Craft Series.

Held every Thursday afternoon at 1:00 PM in the Twitchell Education Center (the small building on the Mason House lawn), this series brings local artists, artisans, crafters, and experts of all kinds, to share their work, stories, and traditions with the western Maine community. From fabric to feathers, and from fishing line to our little fluttering friends, the pollinators, each week offers something different — and all are invited to attend!

We kick off this year’s series on Thursday, August 7, with a special program by our very own Donna Gillis, “resident quilter” at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society. Donna will share her work creating memory quilts — one-of-a-kind pieces made from the clothing of loved ones. These quilts transform worn shirts, favorite fabrics, and everyday materials into deeply personal scenes honoring the lives of those remembered. Join us as Donna walks us through her creative process and the meaning woven into every stitch. She will bring her current project, “Once Upon a Time I Was Little,” made from clothing once worn by a little girl who is now a young woman entering college.

Full Schedule

August 7 – Memory Quilts with Donna Gillis

August 14 – “Meet the Pollinators” with Julie Reiff

August 21 – Fly Fishing with Kevin Windsor

August 28 – Quilling with Sarah Hemeon

All programs are free and open to the public. Come for one or come for all — and bring a friend!

Our 2025 summer exhibit features over 70 paintings and other artworks of local scenes or by local artists from the MBHS collection, many displayed for the first time. The exhibit, in the Howe Exhibit Hall in the Dr. Moses and Agnes Straw Mason House at 14 Broad Street, is open Thursdays and Fridays from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon, and other times by appointment.

Please join us this coming Friday, July 11, at 6:00 PM, at the Pleasant Valley Commons (721 West Bethel Road, West Bethel)—formerly the Pleasant Valley Grange Hall—for a presentation and performance by Katherine Rhoda on “Vintage Grange Songs.”

An egalitarian, nonpartisan fraternal organization founded in the wake of the Civil War to advance the interests of farming communities, the Grange (AKA the Order of Patrons of Husbandry) has had a profound influence on rural American life. It has a rich heritage of song, with a number of songbooks published starting in 1872.

Katherine Rhoda collects and studies this material and will share songs celebrating agriculture, rural life, and the pursuit of the common good.

Hello, friends! It’s shaping up to be a BEAUTIFUL weekend to celebrate the Fourth of July and community this weekend. We’re expecting sunshine and temperatures in the low 70s on Friday—perfect weather for our annual Community Picnic and Concert. Pack a lunch and join us at 11:30 am on the side lawn of the Dr. Moses and Agnes Straw Mason House (14 Broad Street) for music and fun.

Then, on Saturday, July 5th, the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society and several other organizations around town have put together a full day of events and activities.

Art 🎨

• 9:00 am - 3:00 pm: Bethel Area Arts & Music Summer Art Market - Philbrook Place, 162 Main Street, Bethel, ME

• 9:00 am - 4:00 pm: Shy, Novice & Closeted Art Show - 18 High Street, Bethel, ME

• 10:00 am - 3:00 pm: Neighborly Views: Selected Art from the MBHS Collection exhibit grand opening - Museums of the Bethel Historical Society, Mason House, 14 Broad Street, Bethel, ME

• 10:00 am - 4:00 pm: Plein Air Art Show - Isham Farm, 1006 Vernon Street, Albany, ME

History 🎩

• 10:00 am - 3:00 pm: WESTERN MAINE HISTORY FAIR - Museums of the Bethel Historical Society, 10 and 14 Broad Street, Bethel, ME - A collaboration between the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society and more than 15 other organizations including:

  • Dress up activities and games for children (Twitchell Education Center, Mason House lawn)

  • Hand-cranked ice cream

  • Weaving demonstration by Adele Harvey

  • Peavy and old fashioned logging tool demonstration with Tony Chapman and Scott Hynek

  • Tours of the 1813 Dr. Moses and Agnes Straw Mason House (14 Broad Street)

  • History exhibits at the O’Neil and Betsey Straw Robinson House (10 Broad Street), including The Golden Age of the Gehring Clinic, Bethel and Beyond, Oxford County Skiing History, and the official opening of our newest exhibit: West Bethel Village: Memory and Perspective

  • Book and gift shopping at the MBHS Museum Shop

  • Activities, games, and information tables sponsored by the: Canton Historical Society, Fryeburg Historical Society, Gilead Historical Society, Gorham (NH) Historical Society, Greenwood Historical Society, Hastings Homestead Museum, Maine Mineral and Gem Museum, Mexico Historical Society, Middle Intervale Meeting House, Museums of the Bethel Historical Society, Norlands Living History Center, Paris Cape Historical Society, Rumford Historical Society, Ski Museum of Maine, Upton Historical Society, Woodstock Historical Society

Music 🎶

• 9:00 am - 3:00 pm: Live music at BAAM Summer Art Market, Philbrook Place, 162 Main Street, Bethel, ME

  • 9:00: Fiskars Cutting

  • 10:00: Maya Best

  • 11:00: MJ Johanson

  • 12:00: TBD

  • 1:00: Lindsy & Bella

  • 2:00: Maya Salafia

• 10:00 am - 12:00 noon: Polyphon music box demonstration by the Hastings Homestead Museum - Robinson House porch, 10 Broad Street, Bethel, ME

• 12:00 noon - 3:00 pm: OPEN MUSIC JAM - Mason House lawn, 14 Broad Street, Bethel ME (Bring your instrument to join in, or just come to listen and watch!)

• 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm: Sandy River Ramblers - Bethel Resort and Suites patio, 21 Broad Street, Bethel, ME

Food 🌭 🍿 🍨 🦞

• 10:00 am - 3:00 pm: Hot dog and popcorn sale by Mexico and Rumford Historical Societies - “Mt. Zircon bottle,” Robinson House side lawn, 10 Broad Street, Bethel, ME

• 10:00 am - 3:00 pm: Hand-cranked ice cream - Mason House side lawn, 10 Broad Street, Bethel, ME

• 12:00 noon on: “Up-country Boil” lobster bake (lobster, mussels, corn, potatoes, and sausage) - Bethel Resort and Suites, 21 Broad Street, Bethel, ME

Fireworks 🎆

• 9:00 pm: Fireworks show - Bethel Resort and Suites, 21 Broad Street, Bethel, ME

We hope to see you there!!!

On Thursday, June 19 (Juneteenth), Mary T. Freeman, Assistant Professor of New England History at the University of Maine, will speak on the theme of “Abolition and the Underground Railroad in Maine.” The talk will begin at 6:00 p.m., and will take place in the Howe Exhibit Hall (red barn) at the Dr. Moses and Agnes Straw Mason House (14 Broad Street).

Mary T. Freeman is assistant professor of history at the University of Maine. Her field is the nineteenth-century United States, with a focus on the history of slavery and abolition. Her work also explores abolitionism, African American history, and women’s history in Maine and New England. She received her PhD from Columbia University in 2018. Her forthcoming book, Abolitionists and the Politics of Correspondence, will be published by University of Pennsylvania Press in February 2026.

This presentation will briefly explore the long history of slavery and emancipation in Maine before focusing on antislavery activism in the decades leading up to the Civil War. Professor Freeman will pay particular attention to the role of African Americans in advancing the cause of abolition in Maine and the complicated relationship between myth and historical fact in understanding Mainers’ involvement in the Underground Railroad.

Dr. Freeman has deep roots in the town of Bethel, where her paternal grandmother, and namesake, Mary Tibbetts Freeman was born in 1916. She is the great-granddaughter of Dr. Raymond R. and Pearl Ashby Tibbetts and the great-niece of Margaret Joy Tibbetts, who was a former president of the Bethel Historical Society. Her talk is co-sponsored by the Hastings Homestead Museum and the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society and is supported by the Howe Lecture Fund which honors the legacy of Dr. Stanley Russell Howe, Executive Director Emeritus of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society.

Dear friends:

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution, the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society would like to initiate a planning process to celebrate these events in the Bethel area. We invite individuals and organizations to join us to discuss the various ways we can commemorate this important event throughout the year 2026. We will meet:

Friday, June 20, 2025, at 3 pm
Reading Room, Robinson House
Museums of the Bethel Historical Society
10 Broad Street, Bethel

The purpose of this initial meeting is to determine interest in the project and to develop a process (including working groups) to pursue a variety of events and activities under the general theme of celebrating our nation’s 250th birthday.

All those interested are invited to attend as individuals or representatives of other local organizations. Please feel free to share this announcement with other persons or organizations who might be interested. In the meantime, if you have questions or comments please feel free to contact the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society.

Best regards,

William Andrews
President, Board of Trustees
Museums of the Bethel Historical Society

The new issue of Goose Eye, the annual history journal of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society, has been sent to the printer, and copies should be delivered to our doorstep soon.

We invite you to attend a special party to celebrate the launch of Goose Eye No. 5 at the Pleasant Valley Commons, located at 721 West Bethel Road, West Bethel, Maine on Thursday, June 5, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. This is a free event, but registration is encouraged.

Register Now!

The Commons, formerly the Pleasant Valley Grange Hall, has been beautifully restored by its new owners, Celina Adams and Cameron Wake. It’s the perfect venue to unveil the new issue of Goose Eye, which focuses on the history of West Bethel village.

Doors open at 5:00 p.m., and we will be serving a traditional Grange-style public supper —think baked beans, ham, mac and cheese, homemade rolls, and more. You’ll also have a chance to pick up your copy of the new issue, chat with Goose Eye contributors, and see what the new owners have done with the place.

At 6:00 p.m. we’ll connect live with America’s Puzzlemaster, Will Shortz, who will share a few brief remarks. Then, Goose Eye contributor Larry Glatz will present a program on Edwin R. Briggs (1841-1923), a nineteenth century puzzle editor from West Bethel, Maine.

What’s in the New Issue?

Goose Eye No. 5, titled “West Bethel’s Enigmatic History” takes a slightly different approach from previous editions. For the first time, our focus is not a broad theme, but a single place: the village of West Bethel.

At the heart of the issue is Larry Glatz’s study of Edwin Briggs, also known as “Ruthven,” a prolific puzzle-maker whose work appeared in newspapers across the country. Will Shortz has praised Larry’s article, “a masterful history of Briggs and puzzledom as it existed in his day . . . wonderfully colorful, richly detailed and researched!”

But that’s not all! The issue also features:

• A transcription of a 2001 interview with Pauline Applin, longtime member of the Pleasant Valley Grange, conducted by sound artist Dianne Ballon

• A history of the Whitten & Dennison Post Card Company’s rise and sudden relocation by William F. Chapman

• The “Gander Corner Bugle,” a delightful handwritten newspaper produced in the village

• A selection of photographic postcard views from the Libbie Kneeland collection

• An essay on the importance of context in local history by David R. Jones.

Copies of Goose Eye No. 5 not picked up at the event will be mailed out beginning the following day. If you’re not already a member, purchase a membership through our museum shop—or become a paid subscriber to our Substack by clicking the button below—to make sure you receive yours!

Subscribe now

This coming Saturday (May 3), the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society will host a walking tour of West Bethel’s Main Street. We will meet at the West Bethel Post Office at 2:00, rain or shine. We’d love to have you join us!

This is the second year in which MBHS has participated in Jane's Walk, a global festival of free, volunteer-led walking conversations inspired by community activist Jane Jacobs, which takes place annually in over 200 communities around the world. Our walk this year is entitled, “A Walk Through West Bethel History, With a Bit of Poetic License,” and will feature the history of local buildings and former building sites, interspersed with reading of poems penned by West Bethel citizens of the past.

Here’s a little something you may not know: West Bethel’s village was once known as “Gander Corner,” because, the story goes, a pair of village blacksmith’s once stole a gander from a local farmer, roasted it over the forge fire, and feasted upon it in a blacksmith shop nearby. The following poem, originally published in the Gorham Mountaineer in 1884 was inspired by the story.

We have some exciting news to share with you today!

The Museums of the Bethel Historical Society has now finished uploading digital copies of the Oxford County Advertiser and Norway Advertiser spanning from 1882 to 1933, to the Internet Archive website.

The easiest way to search this newspaper, and all of our other digitized newspapers, is by using the Newspaper Search tool on our website. Just type your keywords into the text box on the left, choose a newspaper or region from the drop-down menu, and click search to be shown results on the Internet Archive website. When you click on a specific issue, it will bring up the full text of that issue with your search terms highlighted.

New discoveries await!

These newspapers are sure to be a boon to researchers and genealogists working on western Maine communities, and have already led to new discoveries. Christopher Dunham, creator of the Maine Genealogy website and Greenwood as It Was Facebook group, shared the following:

The Bethel Historical Society, under the leadership of Will Chapman, has begun uploading digitized issues of the Oxford County Advertiser and Norway Advertiser. They may be searched here:

https://bethelhistorical.org/catalog/newspaper-search

I could not be more pleased with this development, as it will allow me to find and share more stories about the lower part of Greenwood. Let's start with this vivid description of a baseball game from the Advertiser of October 11, 1907:

Great game of ball on Patch Mountain. When a few of the Greenwood City ball team had gathered a sufficient number of recruits, ages nine to thirty to make a quorum, they sallied forth to play ball with the Patch Mt. boys. Defeat was a foregone conclusion with the Greenwood team, but being anxious to play one more game and determined to do their level best they went into battle with courage unquenched and ardor undiminished by the odds shown by the enemy.

When they arrived on the mountain the team from that place was already in the field, umpire and all. They had been there all the forenoon and ate their dinners standing up after the umpire had called "time." They had practised on the help to that extent that not a spear of grass was to be seen. Well, the game commenced with the city team at bat and the mountain boys in the field. Nothing doing. When the mountain boys came to bat the crowd began to make a noise, and every time a score was made you could hear harness bells, cow bells, sleigh bells and blue bells, all ringing at once.

Then there were conch shells, tin pans and wash boilers, to say nothing of other music furnished gratis too numerous to mention. Anything in the shape of wind instruments was at a premium as the wind up there blows something terrible and most of the time. It blew most of the city boys' scores off the card and they lost track of them, but the mountain boys mittened onto all of theirs and held on for dear life. No wonder the score got one-sided for half of the men are one-sided anyway, the wind having blown them so hard and often that they "lean toward Sawyer's."

John Gould offered an explanation of that last Maineism here:

https://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0426/p22s03-hfjg.html

Thanks again to David Powers for sharing the wonderful photograph below of an early 1900s Greenwood baseball team.

Ready to dive in for yourself? Follow the link below!

Search Archives!

Note: The following history of the Naimey Block on Main Street was originally written for the 2022 Bethel Town Report.

One Hundredth Birthday of the Naimey Block

In 2022, one of Main Street’s landmarks, the “Naimey Block,” turned 100 years old. The year also marked the 80^th year that the building has been home to the Bethel office of the United States Postal Service. The name of the building, which is inscribed in the brickwork, comes from its original owner, Michael Abraham Naimey, who had it constructed in 1922.

Naimey’s name appears on most official documents as Michael, but is also sometimes given as Mitchell, and was probably originally Michail. To friends in Bethel, however, he was always Mike. He was born to Abraham and Susie Naimey in Beirut on May 3, 1892. The Middle Eastern city is the current capital of Lebanon, but at the time the region was part of Syria and under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The Naimeys were part of the first major wave of Syrian and Lebanese immigration to the United States, which spanned from the 1880s to the 1910s. Approximately 90,000 Syrians arrived in the US during this time. Like many immigrants, they were motivated by economic opportunities and the chance to pursue the American Dream, but also sought religious freedom. Christian Syrians, like the Naimeys, had been the targets of numerous conflicts and massacres in the region during the preceding decades.

The Naimeys apparently first went to Greece, where they lived for a time. Mike travelled from Patras, Greece, to New York on the S. S. Laura in 1910, and then went to Portland, Maine, following his older brother, William, who had immigrated six years earlier. Mike filed his intention to become a United States Citizen in 1913. At the time, he still lived in Portland and was working as a carpenter. Just a few years later, however, he and his brother purchased property in Oxford, Maine, where they opened a dry goods store under the name of “Naimey Brothers.”

In June of 1918, Naimey was drafted into the service of the United States. Although it does not appear he was ever deployed overseas, he served for the remainder of World War I as a company mechanic at Camp Devens. He was honorably discharged in late November following the Armistice, and returned to Oxford where he and his brother continued their business. On October 14, 1919, Naimey took the Oath of Allegiance at the Paris Courthouse and officially became a citizen of the United States.

He came to Bethel in 1921 and the following March purchased from Stanley Wentzell what an Oxford County Citizen article called “an unsightly old house and store” on Main Street and tore them down. He “rendered a real service” to the town by constructing in its place the “attractive brick building” seen today.

The Naimey Block originally had three separate store fronts on the first floor and two apartments on the second. The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co. (“A&P”) was the first to open in December, 1922, followed by the U T K Tailor Shop, which began advertising in March of 1923. Naimey held the grand opening for his own M. A. Naimey dry goods store on April 14, an event which included a live orchestra. Early tenants in the apartments included Mr. and Mrs. Charles Perry and the Frank Hunt family.

In the late 1920s, Miss Marie Baker came to work at Naimey’s store. She was born in Gorham, New Hampshire, on November 16, 1903, but her parents later moved to Newry. Marie and Mike soon fell in love, and were married at St. Paul’s Rectory in Portland, Maine, on June 13, 1929. Their son John was born the following May 10, and another son, William, on May 26, 1931.

Mike and Marie were valued members of the Bethel community. Proud of his service to his chosen country during the first World War, Mike was a longtime member of the American Legion, and Marie was particularly active in the Legion Auxiliary.

In 1930, Naimey purchased the “Horatio Upton place” on the Northwest Bethel Road, and made a number of improvements, including building himself a workshop on the property. Unfortunately, the main home, the historic Eliphaz Chapman homestead, burned on September 28, 1937.

This was a setback for the family, but fortunately business was still going well. The next year, Mike thoroughly renovated the store, drawing on his experience as a carpenter to do much of the work himself. As the A&P had moved out to a new location, he took out one of the interior dividing walls, doubling the size of his own store.

At the end of 1940, Mike began advertising a “going out of business sale,” and in January of 1941 he experienced some health issues and was admitted to Togus for several months. The final closeout sale was in May. The Labnon Dry Goods Co. bought out the store and in the fall the Naimeys moved to Wells, Maine. They continued to reside in Wells for many years but later apparently began wintering in Florida, where Mike died at the Pratt General Hospital in Coral Gables on February 2, 1953.

Harold Chamberlin purchased the Naimey Block in October 1941, and the next year, the Bethel Post Office moved into it. The Post Office had previously been in the Wiley or Swift Block near the top of Main Street for over thirty years, but just one year prior had moved across the street to a former hardware store where Northeast Bank now stands.

Later owners of the Naimey Block have included Norman and June Greig, John Grover, Esther Crockett, Brian Strickland, and current owner Carl Glidden. It has been home to a number of businesses, from John Trinward’s dentist office to the Bethel Spa restaurant. The Post Office has remained at this location for over eighty years, and now occupies the entire first floor.

Although the name of Mike Naimey is seldom remembered in Bethel today, the Naimey Block stands today as the village’s most enduring monument to the many cultural and economic contributions that have been made by hardworking and patriotic first-generation immigrants.

William F. Chapman, Executive Director
Museums of the Bethel Historical Society

You won’t want to miss our second annual maple sugaring celebration—it’s a sweet way to welcome spring in Maine.

Hello, friends! You read that right: all of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society’s e-mail communications have moved to the Substack platform.

Below are the answers to some questions you might have about that change. (The upshot of everything that follows is that if you just want to keep receiving our e-News in your inbox as normal, you don’t have to do anything.)

What does this mean?

All MBHS Publications in One Place

First of all, it means you’ll now be able to find digital editions of all three of MBHS’s publications—e-News (now The Saddlebag), The Courier, and Goose Eye—in one convenient location. It’s at bethelhistorical.substack.com, and collectively we’re calling it all Bulletins from Broad Street.

Goose Eye Available Online

Secondly, it means the last (but not least!) of those, our annual history journal, Goose Eye, will be available digitally for the first time. MBHS members and paid Substack subscribers will have access to the full archives, while free subscribers will be able to see previews and selected articles. (The Saddlebag and the digital edition of The Courier are free to all.)

Manage Your MBHS Membership Through Substack

It also means there’s an easy and convenient new way to manage your membership in the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society. A paid subscription to Bulletins from Broad Street includes membership in MBHS (and vice versa), so as long as you keep your billing info up to date, you’ll receive full benefits (including print publications)!

(We are unable to offer a senior member discount or life membership through Substack; if you want to do either of those, please join or renew your membership through our online store or in the good old-fashioned way by writing or calling.)

What do I need to do?

Not much! Unless you want to change your subscription level. If you’re receiving this post as an e-mail it means we’ve already successfully migrated you over and you’re on the list. If we recognized you as an MBHS member from your e-mail address, we’ve also already “comp”ed you to the paid subscriber level.

How do you know what level you’re at now? See that subscription button below this paragraph? It should display your current status. It might say “Subscribe now,” it might say, “Subscribed,” or it might say, “Upgrade to paid.”

Subscribe now

If it says, “Upgrade to paid,” but you’re already an MBHS member or annual fund donor (i.e., if you’ve been getting the print edition of Goose Eye), it means we didn’t recognize your e-mail address. But fear not!—just let us know and after confirming your membership we’ll bump you up to the paid level. (You do not have to pay twice.)

Explain about all these publications again. Why are there three?

The three publications included within Bulletins from Broad Street reflect MBHS’ history, and each offers something a bit different. By default, when you sign up to the Substack you will receive e-mail updates for all three, but if only some of them interest you, you can also manage your subscription to turn off emails for specific publications.

The Courier

The Courier is the oldest MBHS publication—it started under Director Emeritus Stanley Russell Howe back in 1976, and was named for Bethel’s first newspaper the Bethel Courier, which was published from 1858-1861. (The Society’s Courier was also originally known as The Bethel Courier, but the “Bethel” was eventually dropped to reflect an expanded, regional focus.)

For many years this was the Society’s sole periodical and it served all functions: Society news, historical articles, member profiles, transcribed diaries, and more, all in one publication. Back in those days, The Courier was published quarterly, but now that it is supplemented by other publications it comes out twice a year. The spring edition tends to offer a preview of the busy summer season with a full calendar of events. It’s also when we thank all our donors from the previous calendar year. The fall edition features a summer wrap-up and a preview of upcoming holiday season events.

The Saddlebag

The Society got its first email address back in 1997. Since then we’ve tried (with varying degrees of success) to keep up with all the latest trends. We’ve been sending out “e-News” updates for many years, but not under a formal title. The “Saddlebag” name is new with the move to Substack, but it harkens back to a long history. MBHS owns the saddlebags which brought the first mail to Bethel, and they are on display in our Dr. Moses and Agnes Straw Mason House. When equine-based mail (the original e-mail) first got going, one of the main things carried was not letters but newspapers and periodicals. It was one of the few ways people had to learn about what was going on in the rest of the world.

Goose Eye

Goose Eye: A Journal of Western Maine and White Mountain History is our annual history journal. Goose Eye was created in 2021 to provide a space for more detailed, scholarly articles. The print issue of Goose Eye is also quite attractive, and if you leave it lying on your coffee table, people will know what a sophisticated and smart history enthusiast you are, and they will applaud your excellent taste.

To celebrate bringing Goose Eye online, we have made the entire first issue completely free to all, and will be opening up select articles from later issues. Goose Eye No. 1 is available now, while Goose Eye No. 2, 3, and 4 will be added over the next couple weeks.

Do I get anything else with a paid subscription?

Yes! Digital and print subscriptions to Goose Eye are definitely one of the main benefits of membership in the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society, but there are other reasons to join as well.

Members get a 10% discount in our Museum Shop, free use of the MBHS’s research library (plus discounts on photocopying and research request fees), a preferred rate for Mason House exhibit hall rental, voting rights in the Society, and reduced rates on workshops and classes.

We might also take advantage of the Substack paywall to offer some bonus/early access content to members only. For example, you might get a member-only preview of an upcoming exhibit or a special look behind the scenes. Our members are what make MBHS run and we love rewarding them!

Why Substack?

For us as publishers, Substack has a lot of nifty and helpful features, like the ability to create “sections” within your main publication, allowing us to differentiate our various publications; or the ability to set paywalls for specific content, which is what is enabling us now to be able to put Goose Eye articles online.

As a reader, you can actually ignore all the Substack features altogether. All you need is an e-mail to sign up and you’ll still get the publications in your inbox, the way you would any e-mail newsletter.

That said, while joining yet another social network might be a hard sell, creating a Substack account does give you some additional ways to interact. You can comment on posts, manage your subscription, “restack” things you find of interest, and follow our account and others to see short “Notes” (similar to posts on Facebook or Twitter/X).

I (Will) have been using Substack for a little while now, and recently launched my own publication Ammoscongon Chronicles (utterly shameless self-promotion). Because it’s oriented toward longer-form writing, Substack has proven to be a great platform with loads more thoughtful and interesting content than you typically get on social media. Moving MBHS’ publications over seemed like a natural next step.

Thank you again for your interest in the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society! We are glad to have you on board!