Thought I'd come back from the dead, if you don't mind.
Been off being ill for a while. Feels like I'm recovered.
I come bearing a gift, of course. Not, for those of you who I inadvertently
caused to suffer through Happy99, another worm. Notice that it is not an
exe. file.
Its three photos of the same house in beautiful downtown Alna. The first,
Marr1, was taken in the late 1860s. The Marrs were one of the few local
families who had enough interests separate from farming that when the
bottom fell out of the local postwar agricultural economy they were still
able to keep up appearances. Among other things they ran scows that took
local hay, Alna's main crop, down the Sheepscot to Wiscasset to be shipped
down to Boston. They also were owners or part owners of several of the
local mills. Which is to say that then, as is the case now with Cargill and
Midland, etc., the farmer never quite made out so well as those who stood
between him and the market.
The second photo, Marr2 not surprisingly, was taken about five years later.
The chief differences between the two are the door cut into the lower left
section of the shed, the barrels placed under the downspouts, the greater
maturity of the woman who stands on the left, and of the shrubbery behind
her. Mr. Marr, you can see, did not let his relative prosperity lead him
into the sin of dandyism.
The third photo was taken about twenty years later. Obviously much had
happened in the intervening years. The form of the verandah is in several
ways unusual for around here. The things that look like seahorses at the
tops of the columns do so because the brackets are finished with turned
drops. If any other local examples existed the drops have long ago dropped
off. The big surprise is the pediment over the central stairs (So, come to
think of it, is having three sets of stairs on one verandah.). Its the only
example in rural vernacular architecture hereabouts that anybody knows of.
The el on the left had been added about ten years before. The first el had
been turned into living space sometime after.
The house is quite unusual itself as a rare example, again, around here, of
a Greek Revival cape with its primary entrance on a gable-end where the
gable-end is not facing the road.
The photos are part of a trove of documentation of local buildings recently
discovered by a local amateur historian. These, and many others, come from
the Marr family descendants. Many, though, were among stashes of stuff
belonging to the town, which he is in the process of cataloging and
preserving. Most we didn't even know we had until he relocated the boxes
and crates to the archival vault built as an addition to our new town hall.
(Some of you may remember that that also is a Greek Revival cape, c. 1830.
No EFS for Alna.)
What's really interesting about this is that the Selectmen, of which I am
one, are proposing at the town meeting this Sat. that a position of
Official Town Archivist be established, to which we intend to appoint this
fellow. The Committee for Alna History, a committee of the town, also
appointed by the Selectmen, charged officially with no responsibility other
than the maintenance of three town-owned historical buildings, plans to
thwart our effort by speaking against the article. Not a single one of them
has ever lifted a finger to deal with the archives, or even so much as set
foot in the vault, except to accompany a local reporter. Nor are they
proposing any alternative to our scheme, or shown any interest in dealing
with the archive themselves in future. It is enough for them that a
potential expansion of their perceived power base is threatened by removal
of it from their grasp. The Selectmen have tried to include them in the
process, even going so far as to make the Archivist operationally
answerable to both the Committee and ourselves. No dice. Amazing! If they
prevail there is every likelihood that the door will close on the vault and
no one will see this treasure for another hundred years, when some other
Board of Selectmen will battle some other committee for a chance to have
the archives put in order and made available to the public.
So, if any of you have nothing else to do Saturday, come on up to Alna,
Maine and run a picket line in favor of the article. Alna citizens, unlike
those elsewhere, just love having outsiders with a special interest try to
tell them what to do. What no one has noticed yet is that there are only
three people living in the town who aren't outsiders with a special
interest.
But that's another story.
Bruce,
who still likes to make it a long story whenever possible.
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