WE ARE HIRING a Museum Assistant at the Fifth Maine Museum!

Please send your resume and two references to fifthmainemuseum@gmail.com before April 24, 2025. Please include an example of both internal and external communications that you have written, such as a substantive business email and a type of organizational announcement.

Guest blog post, by Rich Bicknell, 5th Maine Museum volunteer

I have always been curious about stuff. As a docent at the 5^th Maine Museum, I am now more so (especially regarding 5th Maine history). I have spent many hours in the Memorial Hall talking with people, which often led me to tell them about the windows and all the names in them.

It’s a cliche to describe Maine island childhoods as “magical,” but for many who grew up on Peaks Island, it’s also the truth.

Harriet Trefethen Skillings (1821-1903) was a remarkable and energetic woman.  She managed a large family, kept boarders year-round, and developed a summer colony on her shorefront island property — all while taking an active interest in her neighbors and community affairs on Peaks Island.

The relationship between Casco Bay Lines (CBL) and islanders from the late 1950s through the 1970s was often turbulent. Stories about these disputes made newspaper headlines regularly.

You’ve probably heard of Helen Keller (1880-1968), famous American author, educator, and disability rights activist, but did you know she spent time on Peaks Island?

The Fifth Maine Museum recently embarked on the exciting new project of creating a Historic Structure Report (HSR) for the 1888 Memorial Hall. A HSR gathers documentary, graphic, and physical information about a property’s history and condition, and is widely recognized as an effective part of preservation planning for notable historic buildings.

By 1700, Portland and the islands in the harbor were largely deserted. The Ango-Abenaki Wars raged on and off and any English settlers who straggled back to the area were driven off again. Fort Loyal, at the foot of what is now India Street, built to defend the area, was destroyed by the French and Native forces in 1690.

Peaks Island was inhabited when Italian explorer Verrazzano sailed up what is now the Maine coast in 1524.  The islands were the home of the Wabanaki people and their ancestors, who have inhabited the land for at least 13,000 years, or longer according to oral tradition.

Interesting things pop up in the Fifth Maine Museum collections weekly. The most recent was a handwritten “yarn” about a fisherman’s close call with a big fish in Casco Bay.

For a relatively small place (one square mile, approximately), Peaks Island has a lot of cemeteries, a testament to our long history of settlement. There are extensive records, including plats and transcription, for these cemeteries at the Fifth Maine Museum. Contact us if you’d like to make a research appointment to see them.

In the Memorial Hall of the Fifth Maine Museum hangs an oversized lithograph titled Andersonville Prison. Camp Sumter, GA. As It Appeared August 1st, 1864 When It Contained 35,000 Prisoners of War, the poster was created by Thomas O’Dea (c.1848-1926), an immigrant from Ireland who enlisted in the 16^th Maine Regiment in 1863.

Maps are rich historical sources that can help people visualize the past, and how geographic places have changed over time. The Fifth Maine Museum collection contains many maps, plans, and surveys, and they document how Peaks Island’s land was used over the past 150 years.

The tradition of naming personal residences arrived on Peaks Island just in time for the cottage-building boom that began in the 1880s and continued through the 1920s. Peaks Island directories from that era listed the cottage name as the first part of the entry for each island resident.

There’s a fascinating collection in the Fifth Maine Museum archive that documents the history of Peaks Island secession movements. Long-time islanders likely remember the most recent attempt, in 2011, to leave the City of Portland and establish an independent town. But did you know that islanders have toyed with the idea of self-governance at least seven other times, going back to the early 1880s?

Education on Peaks dates to the 1820s, when lessons were held in a number of unlikely places, including, reportedly, a tavern! The first formal school building was built in 1832, and another in 1850. Peaks Island Elementary School (PIES), or the “Brick School” as it’s affectionately known, was built in 1869, making it one of the oldest school buildings in Portland.  It’s been renovated and expanded multiple times over the decades, and marked it’s 150^th anniversary in 2019 with a big community-wide celebration.

On March 15, 1820, Maine became the 23rd state as part of Maine-Missouri Compromise. The state-wide celebration of Maine’s 200^th birthday – years in the planning – was upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many events are delayed until 2021. While we wait to mark the anniversary, we can look back to the centennial celebration of 1920, the last time Maine threw itself a BIG PARTY.

The Fifth Maine veterans remained in close contact with one another after the Civil War, and, in 1888, built the Fifth Maine Regiment Memorial Hall as a place to spend time with one another and celebrate the simple fact that they made it through the War alive. These reunions were important to the men, and gave them a chance to reminisce with others who understood what they had experienced as soldiers.

The post office fire on Peaks Island on June 8, 2020 got us thinking about the long and terrible history of fires on the island, and how they raised questions regarding islander’s access to utilities and public safety services.

The National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War collection at the Fifth Maine Museum is a fascinating look at women’s struggle for recognition for their service in the Civil War. The group was founded by Dorothea Dix (a Maine native) in 1881. Dix served as the Superintendent of Army Nurses during the Civil War.