Town hall to be assessed Hartland manager wants to save Academy building

HARTLAND – Peggy Morgan is a no-nonsense, “git-r-done” kind of gal. She has been town manager of Hartland for 31 years and is known for getting results quickly, cinching contracts with a handshake and keeping her beloved community growing.

Her office in the former Hartland Academy building is simple. There are but a few items on the walls, a 13-year-old cat, Ellie, sleeping on her desk, and Morgan, in her trademark Maine sweat shirt.

There are no dresses, swanky pant suits or high heels for Morgan. This is a sweat shirt, work boot, direct woman who never even thinks to laud her accomplishments and can just as easily be found hefting a shovel or delivering a food basket as advising selectmen.

As the leader of Hartland for three decades, Morgan said Tuesday that she is pleased with the changes and progress over the years.

But one thing Morgan would like to see happen before she retires is the historical preservation of the Academy building.

“We have lost so many of our historic buildings already,” she said.

Morgan said the town’s Board of Selectmen is planning an assessment of the Academy building in 2008.

The Hartland Academy was founded in 1868, damaged by fire and then rebuilt with two large additions, which are nearly 90 years old now. Once it was the St. Albans Academy, then Hartland High School, then Hartland Academy, then Hartland Junior High School, and now the town offices.

“We still had children come during their holiday break and ask if they could play basketball in the gym,” she said. “Absolutely we let them. If they are here, they are not down on the corner.”

Morgan said she has been able to adapt over the past three decades to the changes in town government and in the community itself. “There is so much paperwork now,” she said, adding that the state and federal governments really call the shots in most cases.

She said Great Moose Lake and Morrill Pond have brought hundreds of new people to town. “A lot of beautiful people have moved into our community,” she said.

But she truly mourns the loss of the town’s historical structures. “We have a beautiful new bank,” she said, “but it cost us our old hotel. There were some real stories in that hotel. The old Wright building burned. Others were torn down.

“We really have to keep something of our past,” she said.

“I believe in progress, but I don’t believe that everything new is necessarily better.”

Morgan said she will lobby for keeping the Academy building, though denying that it will be her legacy in Hartland.

“I just think it’s the right thing to do,” she said.

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