Page Farm & Home Museum

Last updated
Page Farm & Home Museum
Main Building Page Farm and Home Museum Orono Maine.jpg
Location Orono, Maine, United States
Coordinates 44°53′51″N68°39′58″W / 44.8976°N 68.6660°W / 44.8976; -68.6660
TypeFarm museum
Website www.umaine.edu/pagefarm
Maine Experiment Station Barn
Arealess than one acre
Built1885 (1885)
NRHP reference # 90001468 [1]
Added to NRHPSeptember 18, 1990

The Page Farm & Home Museum is a museum on the campus of the University of Maine in Orono, Maine. Its mission is "to collect, document, preserve, interpret and disseminate knowledge of Maine history relating to farms and farming communities between 1865 and 1940, providing an educational and cultural experience for the public and a resource for researchers of this period." [2] The University of Maine was founded in 1865 as the "Maine College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts". [2] The centerpiece of the museum is the Maine Experiment Station Barn, a 19th-century barn, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, [1] that is the last standing agricultural building on the campus. [3]

University of Maine Public university in Orono, Maine, USA

The University of Maine is a public research university based in Orono, Maine, United States. The university was established in 1865 as a land grant college and is the flagship university of the University of Maine System. The University of Maine is one of only a few land, sea and space grant institutions in the nation.

Orono, Maine Town in Maine, United States

Orono is a town in Penobscot County, Maine, United States. Located on the Penobscot and Stillwater rivers, it was first settled by Europeans in 1774 and named in honor of Chief Joseph Orono, a sachem of the Penobscot nation. It is home to the University of Maine. The town's population was 10,362 at the 2010 census.

National Register of Historic Places Federal list of historic sites in the United States

The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred in preserving the property.

Contents

Setting

The museum is located on the eastern side of the Orono campus south of Sebago Street and east of Grove Street. It includes a cluster of four buildings across the parking lot east of Hitcher Hall. The main building is a three-story post-and-beam barn, set on a graded lot with ground level access to the lower to levels. [3] South of the barn stand three smaller buildings: a one-room school house originally from Holden that was built in 1855, and the Winston E. Pullen Carriage House and Blacksmith Shop, built in 2003. The museum houses displays and artifacts on the rural history of Maine in the 19th and 20th centuries. [2] Longtime Maine food educator and recipe columnist Mildred Brown Schrumpf contributed many artifacts to furnish the "Brownie's Kitchen" exhibit depicting an early 20th-century farmhouse kitchen. [4]

Holden, Maine Town in Maine, United States

Holden is a town in Penobscot County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,076 at the 2010 census.

Mildred Brown Schrumpf

Mildred Brown "Brownie" Schrumpf was an American home economist, food educator, and author. Named the "Unofficial Ambassador of Good Eating" by the Maine Department of Agriculture, she wrote a weekly food column for the Bangor Daily News from 1951 to 1994 promoting traditional Maine recipes. She was the main proponent of the claim that the chocolate brownie was invented in Bangor. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 1997.

History

The University of Maine was established in 1865, with a focus on agricultural education and practices. In 1885 the state established the Maine Fertilizer Control and Agricultural Experiment Station, which was colocated with the university's agricultural facilities, and was made a department of the university in 1887. [3] The university states that the barn's construction dates to 1833, while the National Register nomination, prepared by the state's Historic Preservation Commission in 1990, dates the barn to 1885. [2] [3] The barn was originally located at the site of Merrill Hall, and was moved in 1930 to a point several hundred feet south of that site. It was moved to the present location in the 1990s, in anticipation for its new role as a museum. [3]

See also

National Register of Historic Places listings in Penobscot County, Maine Wikimedia list article

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Penobscot County, Maine.

Related Research Articles

Penobscot Marine Museum United States national historic site

The Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine, United States, is Maine's oldest maritime museum and is designed to preserve and educate people regarding Maine's and Searsport's rich and unique maritime and shipbuilding history. It was founded in 1936, and is located at 5 Church Street in the center of Searsport.

Willowbrook Museum Village United States national historic site

19th Century Willowbrook Village was an open-air museum encompassing a former 19th-century village in Newfield, Maine. It is located north of the town center on Elm Street, on approximately 10 acres (4.0 ha), with 34 buildings. It was open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., 5 days each week from the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend through October, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Much of the museum property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Newfield (Willowbrook) Historic District.

Round barn circular storage building

A round barn is a historic barn design that could be octagonal, polygonal, or circular in plan. Though round barns were not as popular as some other barn designs, their unique shape makes them noticeable. The years from 1880–1920 represent the height of round barn construction. Round barn construction in the United States can be divided into two overlapping eras. The first, the octagonal era, spanned from 1850–1900. The second, the true circular era, spanned from 1889–1936. The overlap meant that round barns of both types, polygonal and circular, were built during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Numerous round barns in the United States are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

University of Illinois Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District United States national historic site

The University of Illinois Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District, also known as South Farm, is a designated historic district in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is located on the campus of the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois. The district consists of eight contributing structures and several non-contributing structures. The district was designated in 1994 when it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Multiple Property Submission concerning Round Barns in Illinois. Three of the district's buildings are early 20th century round barns constructed between 1908 and 1912. The district covers a total area of 6 acres (2 ha).

University of Illinois round barns United States national historic site

The three University of Illinois round barns played a special role in the promotion and popularity of the American round barn. They are located in Urbana Township, on the border of the U.S. city of Urbana, Illinois and on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. The University of Illinois was home to one of the Agricultural Experiment Stations, located at U.S. universities, which were at the heart of the promotion of the round barn. At least one round barn in Illinois was built specifically after its owner viewed the barns at the university. Though originally an experiment the three barns helped to lead the way for round barn construction throughout the Midwest, particularly in Illinois. The barns were listed as contributing properties to the U of I Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District, which was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

New Hampshire Farm Museum United States national historic site

The New Hampshire Farm Museum is a farm museum on White Mountain Highway in Milton, New Hampshire, United States. Three centuries of New Hampshire rural life are presented in the historic farmhouse. The museum includes a 104-foot-long (32 m) three-story great barn with collection of agricultural machinery, farm tools, sleighs and wagons. There are also live farm animals, a nature trail and a museum shop. The museum is located on the former Plumer-Jones Farm, a traditional series of connected buildings with farmhouse dating to the late 18th century and barns dating to the mid 19th century, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

University of Wisconsin Dairy Barn United States national historic site

The University of Wisconsin Dairy Barn is a building located on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Built in 1897, the building played an important role in the field of dairy science during the 20th century. It has been used both as a teaching facility and as a site for agricultural research. It is significant for its association with the single-grain experiment, performed from 1907 to 1911 by Stephen Babcock. The UW Dairy Barn was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2005.

Carroll County Almshouse and Farm United States national historic site

Carroll County Almshouse and Farm, also known as the Carroll County Farm Museum, is a historic farm complex located at Westminster, Carroll County, Maryland. It consists of a complex of 15 buildings including the main house and dependencies. The 30-room brick main house was originally designed and constructed for use as the county almshouse. It is a long, three-story, rectangular structure, nine bays wide at the first- and second-floor levels of both front and rear façades. It features a simple frame cupola sheltering a farm bell. A separate two-story brick building with 14 rooms houses the original summer kitchen, wash room, and baking room, and may have once housed farm and domestic help. Also on the property is a brick, one-story dairy with a pyramidal roof dominated by a pointed finial of exaggerated height with Victorian Gothic "icing" decorating the eaves; a large frame and dressed stone bank barn; and a blacksmith's shop, spring house, smokehouse, ice house, and numerous other sheds and dependencies all used as a part of the working farm museum activities. The original Carroll County Almshouse was founded in 1852 and the Farm Museum was established in 1965.

Benjamin C. Wilder House United States national historic site

The Benjamin C. Wilder House is an historic house at 1267 Main Street in Washburn, Maine. Built about 1852, it is a well-preserved example of mid-19th century vernacular architecture in northern Aroostook County, built in the first decade after widespread settlement began of the area. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. It is now owned by the local Salmon Brook Historical Society and operated as a historic house museum.

Stearns Hill Farm United States national historic site

Stearns Hill Farm is a historic farm at 90 Stearns Hill Road in West Paris, Maine. The farm is a well-preserved property which has been in continuous agricultural use since the late 18th century, most of that time in ownership by a single family. The property includes 131 acres (53 ha), which only deviate modestly from the farm's original boundaries, and it includes a traditional New England connected farmstead, and a "high-drive bank" barn, a type not normally seen in Maine. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

Abbe Museum United States national historic site

The Abbe Museum is a museum with two locations in Bar Harbor, Maine, on Mount Desert Island. The museum is dedicated to exploring the history and culture of Maine's Native people, the Wabanaki. It has one location at 26 Mount Desert Street in the center of Bar Harbor, and a second location at Sieur de Monts in Acadia National Park. The Sieur de Monts building is an architecturally distinctive structure, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as one of the state's first purpose-built museum buildings, and as a rare example in the state of Mediterranean architecture.

Walter and Eva Burgess Farm United States national historic site

The Walter and Eva Burgess Farm was a historic farm at 257 Shaw Road in the rural southwestern part of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine known as Macomber Corner. The main farmstead, including a house and barn, were built in 1914 after the 19th-century farmstead was destroyed by fire. The property represented a virtually intact and well-preserved early 20th-century farmstead of rural Maine, and was stylistically distinctive because not very much new farm construction took place at that time in the state. The farm was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. This farmstead, including the historic house and barn, was destroyed by fire in 2013. It was removed from the National Register in 2015.

Donovan–Hussey Farms Historic District United States national historic site

The Donovan–Hussey Farms Historic District encompasses a pair of 19th-century farm properties in rural Houlton, Maine. Both farms, whose complexes stand roughy opposite each other on Ludlow Road northwest of the town center, were established in the mid-19th century, and substantially modernized in the early 20th century. As examples of the changing agricultural trends of Aroostook County, they were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

Beecher H. Duncan Farm United States national historic site

The Beecher H. Duncan Farm, also known as Brookvale Farm, is a historic farm property at 26 Shorey Road in Westfield, Maine. Built in 1910-12, the farm complex, it is a well-preserved family farm dating to the period of Aroostook County's heyday as a potato growing area. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

Anders and Johanna Olsson Farm United States national historic site

The Anders and Johanna Olsson Farm is a historic farmstead at 354 West Road in New Sweden, Maine, United States. It includes surviving elements of both a log house and log barn built in the late 19th century by Anders Olsson, a Swedish immigrant. The barn is the only known surviving barn in Maine to have been built during the wave of Swedish immigration in the later decades of the 19th century. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

The John J. and Martha Sodergren Homestead is a historic late 19th-century farmstead in Maine State Route 161 in Stockholm, Maine. The central feature of the nearly 80-acre (32 ha) property is a modest house, built out of logs by Swedish immigrants. The property, one of the few remaining log structures built by Swedish immigrants in the state, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007

Merriconegan Farm United States national historic site

Merriconegan Farm, or Merrucoonegan Farm, is a historic farm property on Maine State Route 123 in North Harpswell, Maine. The farmstead, most of which dates to the 1830s, is a remarkably well preserved and extensive example of a connected farm complex. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Purinton Family Farm United States national historic site

The Purinton Family Farm is a historic farmstead at 65 Elm Street in Topsham, Maine. Including three buildings dating to the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it is a rare surviving example in the state of an early 19th-century unconnected farm complex. The property also includes the archaeological remains of an earlier settler's house, as well as prehistoric artifacts. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Whitney Farm United States national historic site

The Whitney Farm is a historic farm property at 215 Whitneyville Road in Appleton, Maine. Encompassing more than 200 acres (81 ha) of land in Appleton and Searsmont, the farm exemplifies the evolutionary history of farm properties in the Mid Coast region, with a variety of outbuildings reflective of changing trends in agriculture, and a c. 1825 farmstead that was not fitted for electricity or indoor plumbing until 2008. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. 2010-07-09.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Page Farm & Home Museum" . Retrieved 14 April 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "NRHP nomination for Maine Experiment Station Barn". National Park Service. Retrieved 2015-09-07.
  4. Edgecomb, Misty (1997). "Museum Recreates Maine Between 1865 and 1940". Echoes: The Voice of Aroostook. Association of Aroostook Chambers of Commerce: 40.