Walls of Farrar mansion have stories to tell

IF THE WALLS COULD TALK, by Margo Cobb, YWCA Bangor-Brewer, Bangor, 1999, 66 pages, $15.77.

Telling the story of a landmark requires a love of history, a strong sense of community and an ability to really “connect” with the property’s occupants over the years.

For the Isaac Farrar Mansion on Union Street, Margo Cobb was just the person, and “If the Walls Could Talk,” the perfect title.

“The mansion is more than a building,” Cobb wrote in the slim volume’s preface. “When I walk into this magnificent home, I want to know more about the people and families who lived here. Who were they? What were their lives like? There must have been times of great joy, as well as sorrow; celebrations as well as mourning. Oh, if these walls could talk!”

Thanks to Cobb’s deft touch, they do talk.

They tell of lumber baron Isaac Farrar and his wife, Caroline, who built the handsome brick mansion — Richard Upjohn’s first commission in the United States — between 1838 and 1845.

When the couple moved in, they brought with them 5-year-old Henry and 2-year-old Lina, with another son, Samuel, to be born in 1854. A baby, John Henry, had died years before the family moved into the house.

With detail Cobb describes the magnificent staircase, the library and music room and double parlor where so many clubs and organizations have met over the years. Bangor Daily News staffers Richard Shaw and Jack Gifford provided pictures.

Caroline Farrar comes to life as we learn of her friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson during his visits to Bangor.

Isaac died in 1860, and Caroline in 1872 — while studying art in Italy. Both are buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery.

The mansion was sold in 1865 to Charles B. Sanford, described by Cobb as “one of Bangor’s most colorful characters.”

The head of Sanford Steamboat Co., he would on occasion mount his stallion Dirigo and race down the road to Hampden, hoping to beat the Katahdin before it reached the wharf there.

Sanford was also known for a genial nature and an open purse, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. One year he arranged to buy 1 ton of turkeys to help the less fortunate have a filling holiday. Civil War veterans could always ride the Katahdin free of charge.

After the Sanfords, the mansion was empty for three years. It would see new life — and then some — when Owen Davis and wife, Abbie, moved in with eight children in 1879. Their offspring included a future vice president of General Electric, an engineer, a financial executive, an army colonel and a playwright.

But the best-known of the mansion’s families would likely be the Merrills. Banker Isaac Merrill and his wife, Ada Godfrey — a cousin to author John Edwards Godfrey — lived there 1893-1911.

Merrill became treasurer of the Opera House Association, and the mansion was the perfect place for the prominent couple to entertain.

They also did significant remodeling — removing the granite border wall, enlarging windows and sashes, raising the roof and adding a ballroom, dormers and other facets. Architect Wilfred E. Mansur was in charge of the work.

It is an era which is special to Cobb, who some years ago researched the life of Ada Merrill in order to portray her during tours of the building.

The ballroom became the site of mock trials once the University of Maine Law School purchased the mansion — known as “Stewart Hall” from 1911 until 1929.

After that, the law school moved to Orono for a time, and the Bangor Symphony Orchestra purchased the mansion. “Symphony House” also had room for the Bangor Band, for studios for music teachers and an artist, and for the original Northern Conservatory of Music. The conservatory graduated its final class in 1972, and since then the grand edifice has been owned and operated by the Bangor-Brewer YWCA.

For anyone who knows of the mansion, there’s one big question: What about the ghosts?

There are several “ghost stories” which don’t work out logistically. The Farrar child and two Merrill children died well before their families moved into the mansion, for example, so it doesn’t seem likely that a ghost would have been the young nurse for one of them.

But Gordon Bowie is certain he sensed “a presence, decidedly female,” when he taught music on the top floor of the mansion in the 1970s. Bowie, who wrote a popular march for the Bangor Band, “The Ghost of the Band Room,” also told Cobb of several sightings of the ghost of a young boy on the first floor.

Fourteen years ago, an elderly woman told me she had also seen the child on numerous occasions.

Cobb’s book introduces readers not only to the mansion’s inhabitants over the years, but to the times of Bangor and the country. Mention of the Great Bangor Fire, the Gold Rush, the Civil War, the business climate and the origins of these families take us through a century and a half in the life of the Isaac Farrar Mansion — still a grand lady of Union Street.

“If the Walls Could Talk” is available for purchase at the Bangor-Brewer YWCA; telephone 941-2808.