Category: Uncategorized

Support 19th Century Curran Villages, an invaluable community resource for you and your family, for Maine and beyond.

A $5500 Matching Fund Challenge has been pledged once again by another anonymous donor. If met by February, 2020 with your generous donation, we will receive a much needed $11,000 to assist us in our ongoing mission.

Since this past summer, the museum has met two other challenges with $20,000 in total donations received. This is in addition to a generous donation from the William C. Bullock, Jr. Family Foundation of $50,000 to help kick start our 2019 Rural Maine Heritage Endowment Fund.

With a generous gift, you will:

• Preserve our Maine and New England rural history
• Allow us to develop new, maintain existing, and share at both our museum villages hands-on learning exhibits that inspire thought, nurture curiosity, and prepare a new generation for the challenges of the future with the know-how of the past.
• Become a supporter of a resource that adds to the quality of life among communities like northeastern and southwestern Maine, New Hampshire, and the many, annual visitors from away who appreciate the connections with the past they experience
• Not only affirm the importance of our rural heritage but deem the innovations and products of the Industrial Age rooted in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics worthy of your family’s attentions.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

In order for organizations like 19th Century Curran Villages to survive and serve their mission there is a need for the helping hands and spirit of neighbors and friends like yourself; continued financial support is affirmation of the ongoing hard work our volunteer board, our staff, and our volunteers have put into increasing field trip visitation like the 2100 school visitors who had so many memorable learning experiences this season, to improving and creating new infrastructure at the Orrington village so that it may serve greater visitation and offer more programming next year and in the future, as well as to preserving and to continuing to offer the special experience of Newfield…

Your charitable donation is tax exempt to the full extent of the law and will benefit countless people for years to come.

Call us at (207) 745-4426 or (207) 205-4849 to discuss your donation. Or Email us at: thecurranhomestead@gmail.com, or mail us at: 19th Century Curran Villages, PO Box 107, Orrington, ME 04474. Checks should be made payable to The Curran Homestead. You can include a donation to the Matching Fund Challenge with your mail-in 2020 Membership Renewal found in our in-print newsletter and mailed to you regularly or upon request.

Or Donate with PAYPAL Here

This past weekend much progress was made in the re-creation of the 1920s North Castine Post Office. This is a new addition to the museum village currently developing at 19th Century Curran Village at Orrington. We are looking for assistance with this and other projects. The post office construction has been done entirely by volunteers so far. The structure will serve as part of our evolving hands on learning tour with interactive exhibits of telegraphs, telephones, and postal communications. Check us out on Facebook: 19th Century Curran Villages at Orrington & Newfield. There is also a “19th Century Curran Village at Newfield” Facebook page.

Harvest Festivals!!!

At Orrington from 10 AM to 3PM, we will have our annual harvest festival with the following for your enjoyment:

Barbecue ( hamburgers & hot dogs, potato salad ($), Jitterbug/Doodlebug Competition Pull ( re-purposed Model A Fords and other 1920s, 30s and 40s homemade tractors go at it pulling a stone sled with increasing weight. This is brought to you by Maine Antique Tractor Association. See the museums collection of homemade tractors that embody Yankee ingenuity. In the farmhouse, we will be making, with your help, butter for bread, serving up “johnny cakes” ( corn-meal pancakes ) and switchel ( a traditional Maine drink of yore). The johnny cakes are the last step in the crop cycle we present with public participation in shelling corn and grinding it with an 1870s portable grist mill powered by gas engine via a leather belt. On the farmhouse porch there will be homemade pickles workshop for tasting and making, if you like. $10 will get you a recipe and a hands-on opportunity to make a Mason jar of pickles; you can walk away with the jar as your reward! There will be apple cider making at the front of the barn. There will be two man saw sawing of firewood with your help; it’s fun to cut a piece but any more become work. Check out our 1923 Ford Model TT truck repair project in progress; looking for some students for this; let us know if you want to participate in the completion of our engine restoration. There will be an old fashioned hay ride, scarecrow drawing for the kids, a hands-on activity in the new Carpenter’s Shop, a sewing demonstration, blacksmithing underway, and pumpkin painting with pumpkin for the kids to pai nt and go home with. Admission: Adults: $12, Kids: $5 or $30 maximum for a family ( includes a pumpkin/gourd, johnny cake and switchel sampler. Proceeds go towards our 501(c)(3) non-profit. For additional information: (207) 205-4849 or (207) 745-4426. See you there!

The ORRINGTON village is OPEN on Wednesday, August 28, 10-3. Come out and see what we’re up to. There is no programming, but you can take a look. Admission is free.

We have our HARVEST FESTIVAL in ORRINGTON on September 21, 10 AM -3 PM. This will include cooking, music, a woodworking project in the TIMBER FRAME WORKSHOP, BLACKSMITHING ( INTRODUCTION TO BLACKSMITHING -A one-day class this day offered from 9AM-4PM; you would need to make a reservation—call 207-205-4849 about details), apple cider making, a JITTERBUG/DOODLEBUG competition pull, pickling, hay rides, MODEL T rides, MODEL T and HIT & MISS ENGINE demonstration ( Ask about our upcoming class in MODEL T repair and future ANTIQUE ENGINE REPAIR classes ), and more…

IN NEWFIELD, Saturday, August 31st, we are open. There is a BEAN SUPPER from 5-7PM. This is our last of the season. The SEPTEMBER 27 BEAN SUPPER is CANCELLED.

In Orrington, we have Old Home Week. Our Giant Yard Sale under the tent is from 8:30-3 PM on Thursday, Friday, & Saturday, July 18, 19, & 20. We have antiques, household items, furniture, equipment, books, toys, and just about everything else.

On Saturday, July 20, at Orrington, we will have Bluegrass music, with Freshly Cut Grass, from 12 Noon on. There will be baked beans, hot dogs and hamburgers as a fundraiser for the museum. Stop by and walk the grounds; see some of our new construction.

In Newfield, we have our Annual Membership Recognition Dinner and the Yankee Brass Band Concert, an 18 piece Civil War era brass band.. The concert is sponsored in part by the Sanford-Springvale Historical Society. This is free to members, but the public can attend the dinner and concert for $20 per person and $35 a couple. The deluxe bean supper, located in the Old Sandwich Shop, is from 4:30-6 PM. Everyone needs to make a reservation, including members, if they are coming.

The museum is open on Friday, July 19th, On July 20 & 21, we will have the Maine 5th Battery, a Civil War artillery group of reenactors with live cannons. There will be other activities going on as well.

We are pleased to report that our $5,000 Matching Donations Challenge by an Anonymous Donor for 19th Century Curran Villages was met on June 1st. Another $5,000 Matching Donations Challenge is underway if we can reach this goal by October 31st. We depend on donations in order to continue to serve more than 1800 school visitors each season and work towards the end of doubling that number by developing our Orrington site for receiving school groups in the future. Please assist us in meeting these goals, make a pledge by contacting us at (207) 745-4426 or writing us at 19th Century Curran Villages, P.O. Box 107, Orrington, Maine 04474.

Saturday, July 27, 2019 Chartered Cyr Bus Round Trip Tour from Bangor (Ramada Inn Park & Ride)-Portland Pick Up -to 19th Century Curran Village at Newfield for a step back in time!

June 21st is the end of our early bird special —$39;

$49 until July 15 (dependent on availability).

Payment gets you a seat on the bus. Call: 207-745-4426

Round Trip from Bangor ( Ramada Inn Park & Ride) to Portland for pick-up and on to 19th Century Curran Village at Newfield for a trip back in time through this museum village set in the late 19th century with two velvet ensconced Victorian homes and more than twenty four other structures filled with artifacts characterizing rural New England life from the 1850s to 1920s and inhabited by costume interpreters. There are blacksmith shops, telegraph rooms, Victorian kitchens, parlors, bedrooms, a cooperage, sugar shack, cider mill, granary, letterpress office, equipment sheds, a carriage house, Model Ts and an assembly line, a schoolhouse with lessons to be learned, ride a fully restored 1894 horse carousel originally from Saco, Maine, catch a flick at our silent movie theater, visit our 1859 candy and gift shop, and much more…

Be transported to a past and special place at 19th Century Curran Village at Newfield, 70 Elm Street, Newfield via comfortable round trip travel experiencing a director’s or self-guided tour through one of Maine largest museums in its 50th season. Ride on the museum’s 1894 Herschell-Armitage horse carousel. A box lunch is available at extra cost or bring your own lunch/picnic. Cooler drinks available on board bus and also at museum’s Country Store.

Trip Date: July 27, 2019 7 am departure from Bangor Ramada Inn Park & Ride with 7 pm return.

Payment gets a seat on this bus. Early Bird Special (payment by June 21), $39. No refunds after June 21. Payment by July 15: $49 (subject to availability) To make payment & secure a seat:

Call 207-745-4426 while seats are still available!

At Jeff’s Catering, East-West industrial Park, 15 Littlefield Rd., Brewer, Maine

Curran Homestead Village’s Annual Gathering & Recognition Lunch North

No Charge for 2019 Members, Donors & Honored Guests. All Others (Public Welcome): $20 Adult & $10 Children

CALL US, IRV @ (207) 205-4849 or BOB @ (207) 205-4849, AND LET US KNOW YOU ARE COMING BY FRIDAY, JANUARY 18 SO WE CAN ORDER YOUR MEAL.

Sponsored in part by Bangor Letter Shop, so there is no charge for members (just pay your 2019 dues in advance with your reservation or at the door), donors and honored guests.

Check in and music begin at 12Noon. Lunch at 12:15. Our Guest Speaker begins at 12:45. Our year in review with highlights from our museum director at 1:15. Wors from Board president at 1:35. Silent auction at 2:00 and a 50/50 Drawing at 2:15.

Our Annual; Gathering & Recognition Lunch South will be held on Saturday, June 22, 2019, 12Noon-3PM at the Old Sandwich Shop, Elm Street, Newfield, Maine.