A trip to Augusta, Maine may be a little short on glamor, but there are some nice cultural sites to see. For the historically minded there are the Maine State Museum and Old Fort Western. For the arts and letters minded there is the Maine State Library, which houses a Writers of Maine Collection, and the Kennebec Historical Society. For fun-loving children there is the Maine Discovery Museum.
The Maine State Museum, in Augusta, chronicles the history of labor and technology in early Maine, but, first, the story of 12,000 years of Maine history is described, bolstered by fossils like a walrus skull. Along the way, wildlife of Maine is given due attention with discussion of animals like beaver and moose. Special tribute is then paid to the Franco-American citizens who came down from Canada to provide the labor force for the then large Maine textile industry. A prominent display of a full-sized and authentic textile loom gives a three-dimensional look at the intricacies and the complexities of working in the newly industrialized textile industry. A steam-engine locomotive, the crux of commerce transportation, is also on display. Other Maine industries are featured, like Maine logging and farming, and Maine ship building. But the central eye-catcher is the re-assembled 1840’s water-powered woodworking mill.
Additionally, the Maine State Museum shows off impressive and extensive exhibits of glassware and gemstones. In the glassware exhibit, visitors can see examples of such things as spatter glass, Portland Glass Company vases, English colonial glass, opalescent glass eprene, and Tiffany or Steuben iridescent glass. Coarse-grained granite, called pegmatites produces a lovely array of Maine gemstones including tourmaline, rose quartz and amethyst. These provide a soothing final survey before taking leave of the exhibits and collections of the Maine State Museum.
Next door to the Maine State Museum is the Maine State Library. This library has potential interest for the visitor for two reasons. The first is that Maine State Library has an extensive genealogical resources collection. Emphasizing Maine, the collection also includes Massachusetts information, particularly since Maine was originally a part of the Massachusetts’s colony. The resources include, among many other items, wills and deeds, various kinds of court records, immigration records for many Atlantic ports, Acadian and Huguenot records, and British, French and American heraldry. The second is that Maine State Library has a 10,000 volume collection of Authors of Maine, a collection begun in the 1920’s. Some authors of special interest are novelist Madame Sarah Wood (1759-1853), children’s author Jacob Abbott (1803-1879), boy’s novelist Elijah Kellog (1813-1901) and contemporary horror writer Stephen King. Although I must caution visitors that both the Maine State Museum and the Maine State Library were built before any wisdom, research, or legislation was at hand regarding safe building materials and nontoxic, green building practices. Therefore, both of these establishments will offend the morally, spiritually and physically sensitive to poor indoor air quality and indoor environmental toxicity.
Maine Discovery Museum for Children is a good follow-up for the children in the family, although all the super-hype and ultra-enthusiasm may aggravate the thoughtful and the grown-up. Maine Discovery Museum offers seven permanent exhibit discovery-interaction centers. These are for nature, geography, children’s literature, music, art, science and anatomy. Also, group programs can gain special two hour add-ons, either Creature Feature about animals or Science Adventure about…science. Maine Discovery Museum, though based on currently outdated theory of children’s learning patterns (i.e., newest theories are shown in Blue’s Clues), provides fun participation in learning and physical exploration.
Across the Kennebec River from the Maine Discovery Museum stands Fort Western the heart of the Historic Site, Old Fort Western. Fort Western was built in 1754 by a proprietary company (read, real estate syndicate) interested in procuring protection for settlers and defense against incursions from Canada of soldiers and Indians loyal to the French. The Kennebec Proprietors, as these real estate barons were called, held the royal colonial grant to land all along the Kennebec River and wished to insure safety for settlers so that the Proprietorship could prosper financially. Of course. Hence, these Proprietors funded the building of Fort Western to facilitate the supplying of the English military fort – a King’s fort – upriver near Waterville, in Winslow, Maine. This English fort was called Fort Halifax. Old Fort Western, unique as it is, being privately owned and not property of the English Crown, displays three periods of history.
The first period, the Military Period, is displayed in reconstructed guard houses standing in the authentic architectural footprints of the original guardhouses. The second, the Store Period (and the most confusing) is in the midsection of the fort, designating post-military years when Fort Western – privately built and owned – was purchased and used as the base of the operation of a family store, selling everything from raw coffee beans to toile to red pottery. The fascinating point about the Store Period is that this store, owned and run by the Howard family, is displayed to match authentic records of store inventory and sales transactions. Three Howard store account/transaction books remain extant showing who bought what when and how they paid for it. The third, the House Period, displays the North End of Fort Western as it is described in wills and probate inventories and census records during the period of time, before and after the Revolutionary War, that members of the Howard family actually made their abode in Fort Western. Most of the items displayed are authentic period pieces originating in the 18th and 19th centuries, some are replicas of period pieces, and some are the original and authentic, genuine pieces that the Howard family used in those very rooms.
Back on the west side of the river, the Kennebec Historical Society, based in Augusta and just a few blocks uphill from Maine Discovery Museum (but you may want to drive, unless you’re from San Francisco…), is housed in a restored Victorian home situated in the heart of the original colonial community that grew up on the opposite shore from Fort Western. Kennebec Historical Society preserves varied documents pertaining to the building up of the colony of and then the independent city of August, Maine. Some of these records are the very wills, probates and inventories from which the House Period of Fort Western is authenticated.
Now that you have toured the museums and historic sites of Augusta, Maine, you can pause a moment to sit by the Kennebec River, maybe see a few fish jumping up out of the water (if you sit very still), and contemplate whether to dine casually at Panera Bread or with more class at the Senator Inn Cloud 9 Restaurant.
