The Acadia Friends Meeting in Northeast Harbor, Maine, began as an independent worship group in 1975 under the care of Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting. It was accorded status as a monthly meeting in 1978.
This collection consists of meeting minutes, newsletters, directories, committee reports, and news clippings for the Acadia Monthly Meeting.
The Belfast (Maine) Area Friends Meeting began as an independent worship group under the care of Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting in 1982. Two years after being set off as a monthly meeting in 1988, it changed its name slightly to the current Belfast Area Friends Meeting.
The Belfast Area Friends Meetings includes state of the society reports, meeting minutes, an address listing of members, and other miscellaneous records.
The fortunes of the Berwick (Maine) Monthly Meeting reflect the rise and decline of Quakerism in southern Maine more generally. Worship began in North Berwick in about 1750 and the Berwick Monthly Meeting was formally set off from its parent, Dover, in 1802. Following the Wilburite split, however, the meeting gradually declined. Regular meetings were suspended in 1919 and the meeting was formally laid down in 1952.
The surviving records of the Friends Monthly Meeting in North Berwick, Maine, contain the minutes of men’s, women’s, and joint meetings from throughout 1802, when it was set off from Dover Monthly Meeting, until it was laid down in 1952. The collection also contains records of births, deaths, and marriages under auspices of the meeting from the first worship in North Berwick in 1750 into the mid-nineteenth century.
The Friends’ Monthly Meeting at Berwick, Maine, divided during the Wilburite split of 1845, with the smaller Wilburite Meeting organized under the Wilburite Dover Quarterly Meeting (1845-1851) and then under the combined Salem and Dover Quarterly. Berwick was laid down on April 28, 1881, with its last recorded meeting on May 26, 1881. Its members joined Dartmouth Monthly Meeting (Wilburite).
Surviving records of this short-lived Wilburite Friends meeting include one volume each of minutes from the Men’s and Women’s meetings.
A native of Rockland, Maine, Alton H. “Blackie” Blackington (1893-1963) was a writer, photojournalist, and radio personality associated with New England “lore and legend.” After returning from naval service in the First World War, Blackington joined the staff of the Boston Herald, covering a range of current events, but becoming well known for his human interest features on New England people and customs. He was successful enough by the mid-1920s to establish his own photo service, and although his work remained centered on New England and was based in Boston, he photographed and handled images from across the country. Capitalizing on the trove of New England stories he accumulated as a photojournalist, Blackington became a popular lecturer and from 1933-1953, a radio and later television host on the NBC network, Yankee Yarns, which yielded the books Yankee Yarns (1954) and More Yankee Yarns (1956).
This collection of glass plate negatives was purchased by Robb Sagendorf of Yankee Publishing around the time of Blackington’s death. Reflecting Blackington’s photojournalistic interests, the collection covers a terrain stretching from news of public officials and civic events to local personalities, but the heart of the collection is the dozens of images of typically eccentric New England characters and human interest stories. Most of the images were taken by Blackington on 4×5″ dry plate negatives, however many of the later images are made on flexible acetate stock and the collection includes several images by other (unidentified) photographers distributed by the Blackington News Service.
The Brunswick Friend Meeting was established in 1983 after a year of unaffiliated worship under Falmouth Quarterly Meeting.
The records for the Brunswick Friends Meeting consist solely of State of the Society reports for the years 1990-1994.
A mariner and whaleman originally from Provincetown, Massachusetts, John S. Chandler (1836-1916) relocated to Bucksport, Maine, in the 1870s to provide care for his aging in-laws.
Chandler’s account book and diary includes records of crewmembers on various voyages, accounts for labor, supplies, and merchandise, pasted-in bills for taxes, clothes, coal, boots, and other commodities, and a journal of Chandler’s farming activities, consisting of notes on labor performed, items and livestock sold, weather accounts, new purchases, and notation of personal visits and trips.
Cobscook Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends began in 1978, growing from the independent Whiting Meeting for Worship. Located in the town of Whiting in the easternmost stretch of the state of Maine, it is a member of the Vassalboro Quarterly Meeting.
The records of Cobscook Monthly Meeting include a nearly comprehensive set of meeting minutes, with only a few brief gaps in the early years.
The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife is an ongoing series of conferences, exhibitions, and publications exploring the everyday life, work, and culture of New England’s past. The seminar was founded on the premise that traditional lore and material folk culture are rapidly disappearing in New England. Starting with a conference in Dublin, New Hampshire, in 1976, the group’s gatherings focus scholarly attention on emerging areas of folk studies, regional and local history, cultural geography, historical archaeology, and vernacular and antiquarian studies. The purpose of the Dublin Seminar is to create a place where scholars from a range of settings, students, and committed avocational researchers can pool their knowledge and exchange ideas, sources, and methods. Each Dublin Seminar conference has a specific theme and produces a printed collection of papers, preserving the scholarship for others to share.
The records of the Dublin Seminar of New England Folklife document the nearly fifty-year history the group including incorporation and long-range planning materials, conference and exhibition files, correspondence, and publicity.
Durham Friends Meeting was set off as a monthly meeting under Salem Quarter in 1790, and was transferred to Falmouth Quarter in 1794. Leeds Monthly was set off from Durham in 1813, and Durham over saw a preparative meeting in the adjoining town of Lewiston until it, too, was set off in 1980.
The records of Durham Monthly Meeting consist of minutes of the meeting for business since 1987 and newsletters from 1967 to the present. Older records for the meeting are held at the Maine Historical Society
