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With the labor of volunteers, The Curran Homestead built the Fields Pond Smithy in November, 2009; it has become a center for blackmithing classes and workshops. It contains five portable forges and two wood stoves. In addition, some generous donors have provided us with a 30lb. Kerrihard power hammer and a Jefferson power hacksaw, which will be used. There are presently two leg vises, two power bench grinders, a free standing caulking vice, a swage block and stand, and seven or eight anvils in service in the smithy. Our collection of hand tools continues to grow through donations. There is still much work to be done, and we are planning to build a masonry chimney with two side draft openings for two forging stations. We will transition out our portable forges making them available in another structure. Blacksmithing activity in the Fields Pond Smithy will center around two free standing metal firepans that will extend out from the brick chimney. We hope to accomplish this with donated materials as well as volunteers to lay the footing and bricks necessitated. |
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Our collection includes both domestic and agricultural material culture from turn-of-the-twentieth century farms. It is highlighted by examples of logging jitterbugs, a Model A tractor conversion, mid-century gasoline powered tractors, horse drawn equipment, horse carriages, wagons, logging bobsleds, sleighs, belt-driven farm equipment, blacksmithing forges, hand woodworking and metal working tools, a shingle mill, apple cider presses, a mid-19th century wood planer, and much more. In addition to the tangible, we have recently created an oral history archives that captures the first hand accounts and stories of ice harvesting, blacksmithing, logging, farming, domesticity on the family farm, Yankee ingenuity and more. |
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Located on the Ford Farm on Fields Pond Road, Orrington this circa 1905 manure spreader was parked in a pasture some 40 years ago. The pasture has turned to woods and the manure spreader has sustained considerable deterioration. Although most of the wood to this horse drawn implement ( that still had a eight foot tongue as well as eveners to its one-time whiffle tree) is long gone it seemingly has all its metal hardware. The plan is to disassemble the metal parts and sandblast them. New oak or ash will then be cut and fitted to size. The vintage and rarity of this farm implement makes it a worthy candidate for such an undertaking. Volunteers are needed for this restoration. |
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The farm located at 372 Fields Pond Road in Orrington has had more than one owner. M.J. Curran purchased the property in 1914 from Arthur Conquest, who had run it as a horse farm for several years. The road, the adjacent 85-acre pond, and the farm itself bears the name of the first to claim title to the farm property in 1804, Peter Field. The farm included the present 31 acre site of the non-profit living history farm and museum entity, The Curran Homestead, 192 acres donated to the Maine Audubon Society and the site of the Fields Pond Audubon Center which also includes much of the perimeter of the pond and an island in its midst. A small portion of the original property was sold to satisfy the demands of the estate of Catherine Curran, which also included the bequest of the remainder of the property to one or more non-profits.
The property had likely been the site of squatters since colonial times until as late as the last quarter of the 18th century when Peter Field purchased the property which originally only included an approximation of the current pond having been damed or the purpose of paper manufacturing at its opposite end much later.
Miss Catherine Curran passed away five weeks after her brother Alfred in 1991, who had co-owned the farm with his brother Edward since the death of their father M.J. Curran in 1941. Alfred willed the farm to Catherine, his last living sibling of the five Curran children ( that also included: Frank, who served as the head administrator of the Eastern Maine Medical Center, Edward, and Michael) and had planned with her the perpetuation of the farm as they had known it during their lives through its eventual ownership by one or more non-profit entities.
The present 501 c3 non-profit entity The Curran Homestead, Inc. came to the site in 1993, and through volunteers spent much of the next fifteen years raising money and working at saving the deteriorated main barn and ell, farmhouse, Field House, and other farm outbuildings from certain loss. Some of the work, the replacing of sills and footings to the barn and ell, was contracted out as specialized tools and skills were needed. Although the buildings have had extensive repaits, their maintenance is continuous and in order to insure this the organization always welcomes donations and volunteers for both its facilities and the realization of its educational mission. |
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Starting in 2008, The Curran Homestead offered a Halloween experience specifically for young kids (toddlers-elementary schoolers). Although the program changes a bit every year, we have included a maze out on the large lawn which has a very creepy grave yard as its "desired" destination. We have had pumpkin decorating, costume contests, singalongs, and Model T rides,. In 2009, we offered kids the opportunity to help make apple cider with a 19th century cider press we have in our collection and that was specifically cleaned and put into perfect working condition for the purpose. The apples came from the Curran farm. We plan on developing programming that includes apples from the property in the future, and this will take some work bringing our old trees back to fruition. We hope to make the event a staple of the community's holiday celebration. |
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Board members and the museum director of the Curran Homestead took a field trip to the Farmington Fairgrounds to see an Antique Tractor Show and Jitterbug Pull on June 27, 2010. Bill Wilkins, who took one of our beginning blacksmithing classes, belongs to a group of jitterbug owners and pull competitors and invited us to come down and see the "pull" and see fellow jitterbug afficiandos. Bill entered his Ford Model AA and 1951 Chevy in the competition reaching the final rounds. The object of the pull is for entrees to pull concrete block weights on a stone sled. Each concrete block weighs 500 pounds. As each round is completed another 1000 pounds is added to the stone boat eventually making for some hard tuggin' for these vintage re-purposed autos and trucks. Amazingly these vehicles can pull greater weights than modern tractors. The 1922 Buick was a testament to this when it reached a pulling weight of 6 tons before reaching its limit in addition to the front end lifting off the ground. One vehicle was more obviously out of the competition and unable to go to the next round of weight when a loud noise followed by oil draining out underneath stopped it dead in its tracks. The Curran Homestead has its own collection of jitterbugs and anticipates restoring them to good working order in the near future; we are always looking for anyone interested in helping us achieve that goal with mechanical know-how, brawn, and much appreciated charitable donations of materials and funds. |
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The Curran Homestead Collection includes many examples of tools and machinery originated from eastern Maine farmsteads including the Curran farm itself. What our collection particularly focuses on are those aids to the farm, orchard, and woods that were hand made. The creation of the hand-made tool or the individual renovation, adaptation, or creation of machinery and hardware was often motivated by the economic realities of the small Maine farm that in many cases was remotely located and scarce on disposable income for things that might better be made in one's shop. The creation of these objects were often the product of national economic downturns, but once habits were formed whereby one made what one needed they also came during times of prosperity as well. In many cases these often small scale innovations took the form of adaptations to commercially manufactured tools and equipment, and on the rare occasion the farmer simply made tools and adaptations to his equipment to accomplish a particularly unique task to him. All of these circumstances have realized examples of Yankee ingenuity. It is our mission to collect and document these instances of creation, which are part of Maine rural heritage. This theme is highlighted by our recent acquisition of largew objects like jitterbugs and tractor conversions, but small objects like a barn door evener or a gear puller embody this phenomenon on a similar scale when fully assessed. |
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