Old Bristol Historical Society invites the community to join them from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 23 as they open their campus for the season and present two exciting new exhibits at the history center.
As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, the historical society will present “Bristol During the American Revolution.”
This first exhibit will explore what life was like in Bristol at the country’s founding and how Bristol revolutionaries defended themselves during the War for Independence.
Visitors will also see samples of elegantly handwritten town warrants and meeting minutes dating from 1775-1783. There will even be petitions that Bristol sent seeking help from the Legislature in Boston as Maine was still part of Massachusetts during the conflict.
Biographical sketches will also profile Bristol citizens who served on the committee of correspondence and fought in the war. Present day descendants can take pride in their revolutionary ancestors’ service.
The second exhibit is called “This & That from Bristol’s Attic: Objects from the Vault.” These treasures come from the history center’s state-of-the-art climate-controlled vault. Ice-cutting tools, a ship model, a stereoscope with stereographs, advertisements for hotels, letters from the 1850s, tickets to the Playland Dance Hall and Theatre, a town of Bristol proclamation to celebrate the end of the War of 1812, and much more will be among the items displayed with informative text.
There will even be a station where visitors can try their hand duplicating the flowing flourishes of the cursive correspondence on display.
The historically restored Mill at Pemaquid Falls will also be reopening to the public as a museum of the area’s varied industrial history. Among its many functions, the mill was used to grind grain, card wool, and saw lumber.
Located at 2089 Bristol Road in Pemaquid, the Old Bristol Historical Society campus – including the history center and the Pemaquid Mill – will be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, May 23 through Oct. 10.
Old Bristol Historical Society’s mission is to collect, preserve, and share the Bristol region’s rich history and prehistory for present and future generations.
For more information or to volunteer, go to oldbristolhistoricalsociety.org.
