A few more than a dozen Islesboro high school students filled the third floor workroom of the Islesboro Historical Society supervised by their teacher David Thibodeau, I. H. S. Archivist Rowland Logan, and island coordinator for the Maine Community Heritage Project Melissa Olson. They turned on computers and donned white cotton gloves to begin photographing artifacts and images from the island’s past for inclusion in the Maine Memory Network’s online resource.
Islesboro was one of eight communities to win a grant this year for the project from the Maine Historical Society. Projects like this across the state add digital information to the Maine Memory Network’s extensive archive available to anyone around the globe with internet access and curiosity. Each community conducts an inventory of community resources including artifacts, organizations, people, collections and landmarks. Then they determine the key stories to capture and display with historic documents and object uploaded to the network.
The United States history students, with their advisors, determined that among the many possible stories in the island’s history the ferry, schools, summer resorts, settlements, and businesses and cottage industries were the ones students would address this year. Emily Thomas, Heather Cilley, and Samantha Durkee were working on summer resorts and pulled an array of photographs from archive boxes. Emily explained that one criteria for selection was a good clear image. “We have a picture of the Dark Harbor Inn when it was new and this one shows it burning down. Then these pictures show Teddy Roosevelt’s visit at the inn.” The students will scan those images and add them to the online illustrated narrative of the town’s history.
David Sherman and Joe Pendleton were examining netted products as part of the cottage industries section of the narrative. Joe selected one item out of the acid free box, held it up and said, “It’s a bait bag. Cool.” David observed that some of the netting shuttles seemed to be handmade.
Olivia Boucher who worked on the schools section, photographed an Old Master brand tin crayons box and an old text book with the owner’s name inscribed inside.
Drew Coombs and Roxanne Pendleton, who were covering settlements, selected a uniform to drape on a clothes form for photographing. Drew said that the uniform belonged to Robert S. Pendleton, a member of one of the island’s main families. “It is interesting to see how many islanders fought in the war and had an impact on history,” he said.
Once the young people have objects selected and the images uploaded, the next task will be to create an online exhibit incorporating historic documents and artifacts with audio and video oral histories. Islesboro Historical Society members Ruth Hartley, Paul Pendleton, and Katie Heckel brainstormed with Melissa to create a list of older townspeople for the young people to interview. These will be combined with other information to create a website within the Maine Memory Network to showcase and make available the resources online.
Designed to foster collaboration among organizations, the school, historical society and library are working together on this project, which will culminate in a community wide celebration next June.