Old Family Farm Thrives as 'Living History Museum,' by Steve Cartwright

This article originally appeared in the magazine Memories of Maine (Fall 2008)

Imagine motoring down a country road and spotting an old farm where the farmer is wearing 1900-era clothes and working the land with turn-of-the-century technology.

This can actually happen at the Curran Homestead Living History Farm and Museum, east of Bangor in the sleepy town of Orrington.Drive through the inland towns of central and northern Maine and you'll see plenty of abandoned farms. They are sad signs of an economy that has gone south. Some old farms turn into paved malls, industrial sites, and housing developments. Others revert to woodland. But a handful of these 19th century farms have been revived through nonprofit efforts to save them, and one sterling example is the Curran Homestead.

Here on well-fertilized ground, inmates of the Penobscot County Jail have planted gardens that supply them with fresh and healthy food. Young people have volunteered on projects such as rebuilding an authentic outhouse, gates, and fences. Families have joined in a spring maple sugaring fest, a fall harvest festival, a St.Patrick's Day festival (The Currans emigrated from Ireland), and Tom Sawyer days.

A small, determined band of volunteers has worked since the early 1990s to restore the house, barns, pasture, and vitality of what was for generations Fields Pond Farm, a dairy farm operated by the frugal and tenacious Currans, an Irish immigrant family that worked the land and prospered, even renting canoes to summer visitors. The last of the Curran dynasty, "Miss" Mar Katherine, died in 1991, and the will specified the old farm should be preserved---if an organization could be found to take on that daunting task.

The once-thriving Curran farm on Fields Pond Road was in decay and disrepair. Barns sagged, paint peeled, and the 300 acres of land were weedy, overgrown, and neglected so Irv Marsters, a Bangor printer, joined others in forming a living history museum on 35 acres, a portion of the old farm. An adjacent tract of land is in the custody of Maine Audubon Society. It's a place, he said, where people of all ages could connect with the world of horse-drawn wagons and sleighs, homemade and handmade food, drink and music.

Besides educating people about living off the land, the organizers hoped a visit to the museum would be fun. The volunteers dress in period costumes and assume Curran-era identities while on duty. The idea is to create an environment where you literally step back two or three generations and feel right at home in that setting. The Curran concept includes the belief that we can learn from the past. It is said that "those who forget the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them," the homestead's oreganizers remind us.

Don Colson, a fundraiser for the homestead, and veteran Bangor broadcaster, says: "The American family farm is vanishing, and with each lost farm goes another symbol of Maine's unique culture." Colson says the museum will "enrich the lives of our children, offer our community many opportunities for wholesome family fun, and serve as an excellent resource, through museum displays and hands-on activities and programs." He said the Curran Homestead captures the values and customs of another era, when thrift and self reliance were watchwords.

Immigrant farmers such as the Currans, who bought and expanded an existing farmstead, demonstrated you could live off the land, be relatively self sufficient, and live mostly in harmony with the seasons---if you worked hard at it and knew what you were doing. Theirs was a horse-and-buggy era, a far cry from our SUV-and-cell phone era.

Preserving the Curran Homestead took a leap forward when Marsters and his collaborators submitted a comprehensive proposal to the administrator of the Curran estate and that plan was accepted, even though the group had just been formed and at first had virtually no funds. The group got professional advice from RSVP, the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program in Bangor. Now, 17 years later, the homestead is an established feature in Orrington, and the town itself votes a modest contribution toward its upkeep. The town has also featured photos of the farm on its town reports.

Donations and grants help pay costs, along with membership dues of any amount. Marsters, who is the treasurer, said he and the board must ramp up fundraising efforts to pay for a permanent staff person, maintain farm animals on site, and continue upkeep of the house, barn and outbuildings. The homestead's board of directors invites you to take a leisurely visit to the farm and savor the sights, sounds, smells and feels of an era when a family could live on a small farm, provide for themselves, and trade with surrounding communities.

It was a hard life and a good life, and there are lessons in it, perhaps for all of us.

The Curran Homestead is located at 327 Fields Pond Road in Orrington. The mailing address is Curran Homestead, Box 107, Orrington, ME 04474-0107. The phone is 207-945-9311