15 years at Curran farm celebrated

ORRINGTON – Volunteers have been tearing off deteriorated clapboards, installing new wooden supports and rebuilding the circa-1890s Curran Homestead for the past 15 years in order to change the once run-down farm into a place where people can learn about the state’s history.

During the summer months, volunteers donned old-fashioned attire, made without zippers or Velcro, to entertain visitors with the hopes of someday having a year-round operational farm with live animals that demonstrates the area’s agricultural heritage.

After the huge amount of volunteer work on the turn-of-the-century farm located on Fields Pond, the group’s emphasis finally has changed from preservation to education.

“We’d very much like to have kids come there and experience what it was like to live 100 years ago,” Dick Stockford, president of the living history farm and museum’s board of directors, said on Wednesday.

“It’s taken up 13 to 14 years to build [and repair] the property, and now we’re learning to create the [educational] program,” he said. “It’s come back from when it was obviously a derelict, abandoned property to what looks like a workable barn.”

The Curran Homestead was a subsistence farm that utilized crops, animals and local resources, such as ice from the pond, to provide food, shelter and cash for the Curran family. Mary Katherine Curran, who died in 1991, asked that the property be preserved in her will.

At that time, the group of local volunteers decided to take the 30-acre dilapidated farm and change it into the Curran Homestead Living History Farm & Museum, which provides a glimpse into the area’s past. The volunteer group, along with trusties from the Penobscot County Jail, have spent years replacing run-down parts and cleaning the site of debris and brush.

The farm’s board now is working directly with staff at Center Drive School in town to create educational programs that align with federal No Child Left Behind regulations, Irv Marsters, Curran Homestead treasurer, said on Wednesday.

“We’re looking to strengthen that partnership” with the school, he said. “They have provided us with the Maine Learning Results requirements so we can review and incorporate them into our educational component.

“Last year, for the first time, the events overtook the amount of time we spent on restoration,” he added.

The long-term goal is to have someone operate the farm year-round with live animals and cultivated crops.

So far, there are no special events planned to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the farm, but as always, the Curran Homestead will be featured in the annual Old Home Week celebration in July. The farm always hosts an “Olde-Fashioned Country Fair” during the weeklong festivities to coincide with the state’s annual Open Farm Day.

Horse-drawn carriage rides, live music, traditional games and demonstrations along with fresh food and drinks, including hand-squeezed lemonade, are planned. And the celebration wouldn’t be complete without a horseshoe-pitching tournament, bean-hole bean supper and a barn dance, Marsters said.

On a sad note, a spring gathering is scheduled to say goodbye to Copper, a horse that lived at the farm for years and recently died.

“I wish I had a penny for every child that touched Copper,” Marsters said. “He’s now buried on the property, and we’ll hold a memorial service at some point this spring.”

Pictures of Copper circulated during the Jan. 11 annual board meeting, where volunteer and donor Helen Tupper Southard, a former state representative and honorary Curran Homestead board member, also was recognized.