Dennys River History

08/22/2024

Two versions (out of three) of the A.L.R. Gardner house that was the subject of our recent summer tour about The House That Moved. The black and white image is the house around 1935, when it was located off Water/Main Street in Dennysville. The color photo shows the house today, now located in Perry, with DRHS President Ron Windhorst and Melinda Jacques admiring the flowers in the raised beds built with some of the original beams from the house (it no longer has an ell and attached woodshed).

08/15/2024

This Dennysville house once operated as a summer teahouse. For more details about the history of the building, visit our website at https://bit.ly/4dH0vIp.

08/07/2024

The Dennys River Historical Society invites the public to join an expedition to explore the story of a house that moved twice after it was first built by Ebenezer Gardner in Dennysville in the 1830’s. The tour will begin at the Lincoln Library in Dennysville at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, August 20th. Participants should bring their own chair and bag lunch to enjoy afterwards, while savoring the house’s new view overlooking Lincoln Cove in Perry, Maine.

Aaron Leeman Raymond Gardner purchased the house from his brother Ebenezer for his wife Abigail, where they raised a family while he operated a blacksmith’s shop in the village. After his death in 1891, his two sons, Edwin R. and Fred L., had their mother’s house, barn, carriage house and woodshed moved by oxen to a new location overlooking the A.L.R. Gardner Company Store on Water Street.

The house moved again when a Gardner family descendant acquired it with her husband and moved it to Perry. What happened next, and the story of its reconstruction, will be told during the tour as participants follow the house from its original to its current location, and evaluate the challenges of moving an old house.

For more information, please call 726-3905.

08/04/2024

Stay tuned for information about our August 20 summer outing. We will be touring sites related to one of the many houses in Dennysvile that moved--in this case, the structure, or parts of it, moved twice!

07/30/2024

Fred Gardner (1862-1944) lived in Dennysville all his life. During most of those years, he kept a journal recording the events and activities of life in a small town in Washington, County, Maine.

The journal is excerpted in the Dennys River Historical Society newsletter, which is not currently published. However, members of the DRHS can read all the back issues of the newsletter--one of the benefits of membership! Join by clicking on the membership button on the DRHS website, https://dennysriverhistory.org.

To whet your appetite, here are some entries from Fred's journal in
August of 1882. Fred was 21.

August 4, 1882. Ned [his brother] went down to Hurley Point with family in a.m. & left them. Went down after dinner in boat. The Army Worms are very numerous afraid they will spoil grain crop.

August 13, 1882. S.S.C. [Sunday School Conference] They put me in Secty. & Treas. of S.S. Must have been hard up.

August 17, 1882. Very pleasant most of day. Had shower last of p.m. Round town in a.m. Saw procession [possibly of Civil War veterans?], fine view. At tent most of p.m. listening to speeches, etc. At George's [his brother, a lawyer] office most of eve. Left S.Y. [Calais] for Q.T. at 11 p.m. Heard Chandler Band give splendid concert in mng. in avenue.

07/24/2024

This photo of the Benjamin Foster house in Dennysville, Maine is from a postcard in the collections of the DRHS. To learn about the history of the house, visit our website at https://bit.ly/3WCjwq2

07/22/2024

You are invited to celebrate the opening of the new pavilion erected over the site of the Dennys River Sportsman's Club on Thursday, August 8, details below. To learn about the history of this site and the building, go to https://bit.ly/46kQTki to visit the DRHS website.

07/19/2024

Do you recognize where this photo was taken on our Dennysville Tide Mill tour this week? DRHS President Ron Windhorst, Melinda Jaques, Stephen and Susan Sanfilippo, and Melody Greene are posing at the site of Robert Wilson's tide mill on the estuary of the Wilson's Stream.

Stay tuned for details on our next summer expedition as we follow "The House that Moved," on Tuesday, August 20, at 9 am.

07/17/2024

Did you collect autographs as a young person? Millie Buck did. Here's the front of her autograph book for 1873-1874, when she collected signatures in Dennysville, Eastport and other places. To see other items in the collection, visit the DRHS web page at https://bit.ly/3XA1PYZ.

07/10/2024

The Captain John Smith tavern in Dennysville is just one of many structures in the region that was moved at least once. Visit the DRHS website at https://bit.ly/3VVLhbr to learn more about the history of one of the older houses in town.

07/07/2024

Dennysville was pretty quiet on the Fourth of July, with residents celebrating the nation's birthday around the area. Have you ever seen the lobster crate races in Cutler?
https://youtu.be/ifFxAdyD270 .

07/03/2024

Wondering why to become a member of the Denny River Historical Society? Do you enjoy the photos displayed on the page of the Dennys River Historical Society (DRHS)? Have you explored the website? Have you attended any of the monthly programs conducted by local experts on the history and life of the region? Do you want to get involved?

Become a member of the DRHS. Although the DRHS is a volunteer organization, the Society has expenses. Part of your membership dues supports the annual costs of our website and the software used to bring you pictures and stories.

Please consider becoming a member or supporting the Society’s work through a donation.

Your Support of the Dennys River Historical Society Makes A Difference! Members receive: Online access to the all the back issues of the DRHS Newsletters Discounts at our Museum Store […]

06/26/2024

The 2024 presidential election season is heating up. In the past, it was different. One difference is that voter lists, like this one for Dennysville in 1900, were usually handwritten. Moreover, women couldn't vote. Finally, until the 1960 election, Maine voted for president in September, giving rise to the old phrase, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation."

From the Papers of Rebecca Hobart. Visit the DRHS collections page at https://bit.ly/3XA1PYZ to see more collection information.

06/23/2024

Read the story about the grant received by the Dennys River Historical Society in 2022-2023. The funds provided by this grant, awarded by the American Historical Association (AHA), allowed the DRHS to develop a website that illustrates the history of the Dennys River area over 9, 000 years.

Published in the May 2024 issue of AHA Perspectives, and written by Dr. Colin Windhorst, Program Director of the DRHS, the article discusses the challenges and success of the project, which ended in the summer of 2023.

To see the article, visit https://bit.ly/3REJBBO.

06/19/2024

This Cape Cod house, with two chimneys rather than a single central chimney, was built in the 1820s on what is now Foster Lane in Dennysville, Maine. To learn more about Bela Reynolds, visit our website at https://bit.ly/3VAkYqX.

06/18/2024

Join us on Monday, June 24, at 6:30 p.m. at Dennysville's Lincoln Memorial Library to learn how to identify wildflowers found around the region. Eastern Washington County is rich in natural history, and is known for its many excellent hiking trails along the coast. When exploring these grand landscapes of coniferous forests, sand beaches and rocky ledges, what may go unnoticed are the many wildflowers under foot. On Monday, June 24, Kris and Allison Paprocki will give a presentation for the Dennys River Historical Society about the trailside flowers of eastern Washington County. Participants will learn some basic skills in identifying flowers as well as where to look for some of our more common and less well-known treasures. Exploring nature is wonderful pastime for young and old, and families are encouraged to attend.
Kris and Allison are graduates of the Maine Master Naturalist program. They have led nature walks for local organizations such as Downeast Coastal Conservancy and the Lubec Garden Club. They also lead a summer nature club for kids through Porter Memorial Library.

06/17/2024

There was a shingle mill in Dennysville as late as 1988. Here's a photo from the Quoddy Tides showing a man operating the shingle-making equipment. Does anyone know who the man was and where the shingle mill was located?

The newspaper clipping is from the Papers of Rebecca Hobart at the Dennys River Historical Society. Visit the DRHS website at https://bit.ly/4b56zZF to see a much earlier wood products mill in Dennysville.

06/09/2024

Yesterday in Dennysville history (June 8, 1939):

Beatrice Wilder of Dennysville made fishing history when she became the first woman to catch a sea salmon in the Dennys River. Read the story in the Bangor Daily News below. Or visit the DRHS website at https://bit.ly/3VdW8gB to see more fishing-related items in the collection.

06/06/2024

Today is the anniversary of D-Day, when American, British and Canadian soldiers landed on five beaches in Normandy in France to drive the Germans back. An Edmunds man, Alton Bell, was there and was featured in news reports that included a story in the Waterville Morning Sentinel on August 31, 1944:

“It was the night of June 5 that Bell, who weighs 200 pounds, added 130 more pounds of equipment and on the morning of D-Day early hours he jumped out of a plane on the neck of the Cherbourg peninsula and landed right in the middle of the Germans He [was] there four and a half days in all, living on a K ration, a D ration and a canteen of water…Bell’s home is Dennysville, Maine where his folks Mr and Mrs Ralph M Bell farm ‘and vote Republican…Bell was a University of Maine star athlete and got Hitler's autograph while participating in in the 1936 Games at the Berlin Olympic Stadium. Bell was national intercollegiate javelin throwing champion that year and went to Berlin with the United States Olympic Team, “Man if I had only known I’d have thrown that javelin right at him.”

06/03/2024

Old phone books are a useful source of information about a community at a particular date and time. Here are a couple of Calais phone books from the early 1960s. Do you have any old phone books from communities along the Dennys River?

To see other items in the DRHS archival collection, visit the society's website at https://bit.ly/3yINQ8O.

05/22/2024

Road construction crew working on the Hobart Stream bridge in 1926. Visit our website at https://bit.ly/47JKMGe for information about the bridge and its construction.

05/20/2024

The May program at the Dennys River Historical Society will focus on the process that resulted in historic designation for properties in the village of Dennysville, Maine. Titled "This Old House," the program will be presented by DRHS president Ronald Windhorst at 6:30 PM on May 28th at the Lincoln Library in Dennysville.

All are welcome to attend this free program, which will detail some of the behind-the-scenes work needed to preserve historic properties. Refreshments will be served.

To learn more about the society, click on the ink below to visit our website

05/07/2024

Many businesses once occupied the river bank in Dennysville, Maine, as shown on this map and business directory from 1861. Dennysville was not unusual; most small towns included local entrepreneurs who kept residents supplied with almost everything they needed.

Visit our website at https://bit.ly/3Uwa7hh to learn more about the directory and and to find more information about past businesses in the Dennys River area.

05/01/2024

Do you record all your expenses? Peter E. Vose of Dennysville, Maine did in 1859. He entered his expenses for most days, in some instances describing why he paid for something, the condition of the item he bought, and the merchant he paid. One interesting feature of this record book is Vose's explanation of why he tithed at the local Congregational Church. Archival items such as these provide a window into the lives of our ancestors.

To learn more about Peter Vose and the collections of the Dennys River Historical Society, visit the website at https://bit.ly/3Witm0o.

04/24/2024

Do you know who this is? Join us for Part II of the Story of Benedict Arnold Down East, with attention to the role of his wife, Peggy Shippen, who joined him in St. John, N.B., at Dennysville's Lincoln Library on Tuesday, April 30 at 6:30 p.m. We will read from her letters, and continue the second part of the video detailing her part in the disloyalty and treachery of her husband during the American Revolution. All are welcome, refreshments will be served.