On Sunday, August 20, 2023, a new flagpole was raised at the RSU 24 District Services Facility on US Route 1 in Sullivan. Friends and family donated the pole and flag in honor of Mrs. Barbara Potter, longtime Sullivan resident and her late husband, Robert “Bob” Potter. Life members of S-SHS, Barbara and Bob contributed much to the growth of the Society for many years.
Barabara was curator for a number of years and still keeps in touch on a regular basis. Bob researched the early history of the area, and his works are an important part of the Society’s collection and some are in the archive of the Maine Historical Society as well.
We are glad to see the flag put in place and even more so that Barbara could be there to see it happen.
Last Friday on May 26th, 2023, students from the Charles M. Sumner Learning Campus volunteered to place flags on the graves of the veterans at York Hill Cemetery here in Sullivan. Alex Figueroa, Nate Bucci, Arick, Hector Orozco-Delgado, Victor Orozco-Delgado, Drew Dyer, and Chase Atwater stepped up to help out. Jeanne Edwards was there, representing SSHS and the Town Cemetery Committee. Community service is a wonderful way to honor the service of others. We thank you all!
We welcome you to join us via Zoom for the first in our Winter 2023 History Hour series on January 18th at 7pm. Our featured guest will be Tim Whitten, one of the world’s few remaining experts on marlinespike, which is the maritime art of rope work and knots. Tim is the owner of Marlinespike Chandlery in Stonington and will share his story of how he came to learn his craft as well as the history of it. He will also demonstrate examples of his work and the tools used.
Knot work is familiar to anyone who sails, but with the advent of new fasteners in the modern age, the intricate art of knots and ropes as used in marlinespike is a relic of the past – especially at the level of Tim’s fancy marlinespike seamanship. Tim was a 2021 recipient of the Maine Arts Commission Belvedere Craft Fellowship Award and his work has been featured around the globe.
Here is the link for the Zoom presentation:
Topic: Marlinespike Seamanship with Tim Whitten Time: Jan 18, 2023 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Meeting ID: 812 5666 4040 Passcode: 728700 One tap mobile +13017158592,,81256664040#,,,,728700# US (Washington DC) +13052241968,,81256664040#,,,,728700# US
Meeting ID: 812 5666 4040 Passcode: 728700 Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kyDbU7Pv9
Welcome to Tobey Crawford Connor, the new part-time Communications Coordinator for the Sullivan-Sorrento Historical Society!
Tobey joined us in June as a summer intern where she set her considerable skills to digitizing more of our valuable documents.
Starting in September she will manage our internet presence, primarily our website and Facebook page, and continue our popular History Hour presentations in the winter. She will also coordinate getting our annual newsletter sent out and periodic articles for the Sullivan and Sorrento monthly newsletters.
She brings extensive experience in media management and online development and communications, as well as genealogy, research, and museum experience. The history of Downeast Maine is one of her great passions and the focus of her studies as a full-time student at the University of Maine.
In addition to her work with us, she volunteers regularly with other nonprofits. We’re lucky she could fit us in! Tobey and her family live in Sullivan where her two children will attend the new middle school/high school.
This is a baby step for the Sullivan-Sorrento Historical Society, which has been a 100% volunteer effort up to this point. From generous donations and bequests we have a small investment fund with the Maine Community Foundation that allows us to fund this new position for six hours a week.
To Raina Sciocchetti, our Island Institute Fellow who has been with us two years! Raina leaves us this month with a historical society improved beyond what we ever expected when she arrived.
She bumped up our presence on Facebook with frequent fun and interesting bits of Sullivan and Sorrento’s history. People have loved it and responded with fun and interesting bits of history of their own.
She looked under the hood of our very out-of-date website and attacked it with mysterious technological thingies like “search engine optimization” and “parallax scrolling.” Its new, fresh design is attractive, useful, and best of all – easy to use! She created a monthly online “History Hour” for winter evenings when a virtual gathering and information-sharing perked us all up. The speakers gave us new insights into Sullivan and Sorrento’s past and the comments during and after told us this new program was a hit!
Over months of hard work, she transformed our jumbled collection of Sullivan and Sorrento’s history from stacks of mystery boxes and piles of unrelated papers to a well organized, well labeled system. She found treasures we didn’t know we had! Now we can locate things much easier and care for them properly.
She rejuvenated our museum! She muscled big display cases into tight corners, sometimes with help, and filled them with treasures that had been out of sight for twenty or more years. New labels, more lighting. She made us shine!
And so much more.
Raina’s skills and hard work over two years – during a pandemic – gives Sullivan and Sorrento a great jumping-off place to plan for the future of the historical society.
Good luck to Raina as she moves to Boston where she will attend graduate school at Simmons University for Library and Information Science with special studies in Archives Management. We like to think we had a hand in her choice of specialty!
Along with the Fellowship program that brought Raina to us, the Island Institute team was always in the background to offer support, materials, organization, and trouble shooting. The skill and experience of the Fellowship team helped us find focus and make best use of the Fellowship and the resources we have. And now, even with Raina’s leaving, the Island Institute’s Community Leadership Team has stepped up to help us through a “visioning” process to sustain the hard work Raina did for us and to plan for the future. Our thanks to the Island Institute and its outstanding teams!
Raina is our guest speaker at the August 10 program, 7:00pm at the Sorrento Community Building about “Maggie’s Journal.” Also on that evening we will celebrate Raina and her work with a few words of thanks. There will be cake!!!
We hope you can join us for both the program and the celebration.
New season… new exhibits! This summer we are open 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. on Saturday mornings and 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. on Tuesdays. Admission is free, donations always appreciated. We also have postcards, cards, maps, and books for sale.
Our opening this year is extra exciting because this is the culmination of several months of working to haul out the entire room of “stuff” to sort through it all and identify, catalog, and store items. We are especially grateful to the volunteers who assisted with the project and to the folks at Home Depot in Ellsworth, who gifted four shelving units that allowed us to set up a new storage area in the back of the museum for our textiles and large collections.
