November 2010

Kingsland Homestead was built circa 1785 for Charles Doughty, the son of Benjamin Doughty, a wealthy Quaker who purchased land on the old turnpike in Flushing. The two-and-a-half-story Homestead was built in a style once common in the area – the Long Island half-house. The name “Kingsland” derives from Doughty’s son-in-law, British sea captain Joseph King, who bought the house in 1801.

In 1968, the Kingsland Preservation Committee saved the house from demolition and moved it to its present location in Weeping Beech Park. The park had been the nursery of famed 19th-century horticulturalist Samuel Bowne Parsons, who, in 1847, planted the first weeping beech tree in America in the park. This landmark tree survived for 151 years, and today seven direct descendants continue to shade Kingsland Homestead and their namesake park.

Start at the Visitor Center to get your map and plan your day. See a 12-minute film and exhibits on Herbert Hoover's childhood. Take a self-guided walk or join a ranger for a guided tour of four historic buildings: the Birthplace Cottage, the Blacksmith Shop, the Schoolhouse, and the Friends Meetinghouse.

Make sure to spend at least an hour and a half at the Presidential Library and Museum in order to learn more about Herbert Hoover's distinguished life and career. The Presidential Library and Museum also offers changing exhibits on other historical topics.Visit the Gravesite of Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover, then take a walk through the restored 81-acre Tallgrass Prairie.

The museum's galleries are set up to allow changing exhibitions showcasing the extraordinary collections, special interpretive exhibits, and important works by contemporary Maine artists. Permanent exhibits include paintings, furnishings, and household objects with documented histories of ownership in the Saco valley in the 18th and 19th centuries. A re- created Colonial Revival kitchen presents a 1926 interpretation of early American food production and preparation. Federal and Victorian period bed chambers offer insights into the life-styles of prominent local families. The museum also has a 19th century display of natural history specimens, including birds of New England.

The museum offers on-going programs for students, adults, and families as public out- reach. The schedule includes walking tours, art classes and workshops, visiting lecture series, musical events, and a biennial historic house tour emphasizing art, history, and culture.

The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community was founded in 1783, in what was then called Thompson's Pond Plantation, by a group of Shaker missionaries. Residents still strive to live a life of work and worship, fulfilling the motto of their founder, Mother Ann, to "put our hands to work and hearts to God." The Community presently consists of eighteen buildings located on 1,800 acres of land. They maintain a tree farm, apple orchard, vegetable gardens, commercial herb garden, hay fields, pastures, a flock of sheep, and a variety of livestock. Other occupations include manufacturing of fancy goods, basket making, weaving, printing, and the manufacturing of some small woodenware.

The town's museum was first organized in 1931 by Sisters Iona Sedgley and Ethel Peacock in hopes of educating the public about the "truths" of Shakerism. Thousands of visitors have come to explore this unique and sacred place of work and worship.

Six of the 18 existing structures at Sabbathday Lake are open to the public. Throughout these buildings there are twenty-seven exhibit rooms which explore a continuum of over 200 years of Shaker heritage in the Maine Communities.

Visitors to this 270-acre site can see the furnace, originally built in 1852, which went out of blast for the last time in 1894. Attached to the furnace is the reconstructed casting shed. Above the furnace is the charging loft where iron ore, limestone, and charcoal were loaded into the furnace, and the engine house which contained a steam-powered compressor. The reconstructed company store serves as a visitor orientation area. There are two nature trails.

The building holds surgical equipment of a by-gone day in the Surgeons' Room as well as the fort Surgeon's operating table, furnishings of the Fort Winnebago period in the bedroom, sitting room, and kitchen. Several pieces of furniture in the building were made by soldiers of the fort. Among them, besides the operating table, are two desks and the wooden eagle from the fort gate. A prized possession is a sideboard that belonged to the family of Captain Gideon Low, the only officer of the fort who remained in Portage the rest of his life. A Sheraton style piece of about 1800, it was probably brought with them from Pennsylvania.

A narrow stairway leads from the kitchen to the "Children's Room" on the second floor. There toys and furnishings of the period of the farm families are displayed.

Located next to the Surgeons' Quarters is the Garrison School, used continuously from 1850-1960. The school was brought to the grounds in 1960. It was restored and furnished as an eighth-grade country school with one teacher, desks of the past and textbooks representing its 110 years of use.

The monument, set in ten acres of landscaped grounds, is similar in appearance to a round Greek temple. The simple Doric features and spacious surroundings combine to create one of the most beautiful presidential memorials outside Washington, D. C.

Begun in 1926 and finished in the early winter of 1927, the structure is built of white marble. Designed by Henry Hornbostel, Eric Wood and Edward Mellon, the structure is 103' in diameter and 53' in height. The open design honors the Hardings’ wishes that they be buried outside.

At their deaths, the bodies of the Hardings were entombed in the “receiving vault” of the Marion Cemetery. Once the Harding Memorial was completed in 1927, the bodies were reinterred in the Memorial’s sarcophagus and it was sealed. The Harding Memorial was dedicated in 1931 by President Herbert Hoover.

The memorial is also important in American History because it is the last of the elaborate presidential tombs.

The museum's permanent exhibition, From Victory To Freedom: Afro-American Life in the Fifties, explores African American experiences in America's history from 1945 with the ending of World War II, to 1965 with passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1964. This exhibition chronicles the trends, struggles and social changes that occurred within this crucial period in American history through a variety of photographs and artifacts, but also through life-sized scenes and settings depicting "typical" lifestyles and activities in the fifties. Examples of this typical fifties lifestyle include a barber shop, a beauty salon, and a church interior complete with pews, pulpit and choir stand. These exhibits are made real to the visitor through the accompaniment of recorded speaking voices and gospel music.

Maine Maritime Museum celebrates Maine’s maritime heritage and culture in order to educate the community and a worldwide audience about the important role of Maine in regional and global maritime activities. The Museum accomplishes its stewardship through: discriminate collection, preservation and dissemination of historic materials and information, engaging educational programs, relevant and compelling exhibitions, and a unique historic shipyard, all connecting the past to contemporary and future issues.

The landmark Hunterfly Road Houses are the last surviving residence of 19th century Weeksville, one of the nation's earliest free African American communities. The area was named after free African American James, who acquired property in the area in 1838, only eleven years after slavery ended in New York State. By the 1860s, Weeksville had become an intellectual, cultural, and economic center for free African Americans. A model of the African American contribution to the development of Brooklyn, the region and the nation, historic Weeksville is the premier example of the 19th century African American experience in the North.