A big thank you to everyone who participated in our Seacoast Village Christmas! Around 80 people came to the museum on Friday, December 6th for a craft, a visit with Santa, caroling with the Carver Memorial Library, and the lighting of the Searsport town Christmas tree. During that time and after, we saw many people walking and driving around our campus enjoying the beautiful Community Wreath Display. The variety of the wreaths and how they represented individuals and organizations was especially impressive. 

The snow helped to create a scenic winter neighborhood and it was easy to imagine what the village looked like in the days of shipbuilding and sailing around the world. Wreaths are timeless and decorating with them allowed us to almost step back in time. We're planning to repeat the Community Wreath display next year, hopefully growing it with additional participants, adding more light displays, and extending its duration. Look for more information next fall.

Pat Brennan	Friends of Sears Island
Searsport Historical Society	Splendiferous Sweet Shoppe
Maine Ocean School	The Garrold Family
Penobscot Expedition Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution	Bangor Savings Bank

PMM is once again filling the H. Allen and Sally Fernald Art Gallery hallway at the University of Maine's Hutchinson Center in Belfast.  The  From the Cradle to the Grace: Mining the Ed Coffin Collection and  Lincoln County Through Eastern's Eye will be on display from now until April. The exhibits are free and open to the public Monday-Friday from 8:00am-7:00pm.

Bark ANNIE C. MAGUIRE wrecked at Portland Head Light

Hermit on Monhegan Island

Maine at  its Mid-Point will bring images from the Penobscot Marine Museum's Eastern Illustrating collection to the Maine State House in celebration of Maine's Bicentennial year. This Art in the Capitol exhibition will run from January 2020 through June 2020, launching the Bicentennial celebrations in Augusta and providing historical and artistic context for our state's significant anniversary. The exhibit will draw upon the research and writing conducted for the book Maine on Glass: The Early Twentieth Century in Glass Plate Photography, published in 2016 by Tilbury House Publishers with the Penobscot Marine Museum. The book was researched and written by Maine historian W.H. Bunting, alongside PMM Photo Archivist Kevin Johnson, and Maine State Historian Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr.  The exhibit is funded in part by the Maine Arts Commission and sponsored by Tilbury House Publishers. The photos will be printed on fine art paper provided by Innova Art Ltd.

What do interns do at the Penobscot Marine Museum? Last summer, Kevin McGrath, Genevieve Schortz, and high schooler Bryan Spaulding joined us as interns. In addition to daily programming activities, including leading sail demonstrations in our Yard in the Yard, the interns worked on special projects. Kevin contributed to the new interpretation plan of the Folwer-True-Ross House, to be implemented in 2020. Genevieve's major project was an accessibility report of the museum campus, the first step in creating a plan to improve the visitor experience for everyone. Bryan created videos introducing social media users to many of the cool things you can see and do at the Penobscot Marine Museum. 

Genevieve leads the Yard in the Yard activity for students on a field trip

We are now accepting applications for three paid summer internships in 2020. We have two spots for our Emerging Museum Professional Internship, a full-time, 8 week opportunity for college upperclassmen, graduate students, or recent graduates. We also have one opening for the Geiger Museum Exploration Internship for local high school or early college students. 

Please share these opportunities with people who might be interested in a unique educational experience next summer.

In 2020, Searsport celebrates its 175th anniversary and we reinterpret our Sea Captain's house to tell the stories of Searsport citizens at sea and at home. The four generations of the Pendleton family is the focus of this month's dive into the seven exhibit themes:

 

Sea Captains and Searsport: 

Phineas Pendleton settled in present-day Searsport at the close of the Revolutionary War. He spent 30 years as a master mariner, was captured during the War of 1812 and kept as a prisoner near Halifax, Nova Scotia. He eventually retired to Searsport to farm. Although some descendants remain in the Searsport area to this day, others migrated to New York and California for economic advancement when the age of cargo shipping by sail ended.

Captain Phineas Pendleton (1780-1873), patriarch of Pendletons of Searsport. 2005.1.36, gift of Estate of Hugh Russell.

 

Shoreside Industry:

Phineas' grandson, Benjamin Franklin Colcord (1854-1935), captained barks, ships, and schooners from 1882-1901. At the age of 49, he retired from the sea and held various Searsport town offices. He served the community in the Maine House of Representatives in 1906 and 1920, and the Maine State Senate in 1908. From 1913-1914, he served on the Governor's Executive Council. Colcord served as a trustee of the Searsport National and Savings Bank, and as its president from 1916 to 1919. Around 1918 he started the B.F. Colcord Insurance Company, which remained in business after his death.          

B.F. Colcord Insurance Box. 1993.19, gift of John Roulstone.

 

Women at Sea:

Phineas' granddaughter, Clara Pendleton Blanchard, sailed with her husband from their marriage in 1863 throughout his career, which ended in 1904. As fate would have it, she took ill at Pernambuco, Brazil and returned to the US by another ship, while her husband continued on to Spain and lost his ship BOSPHORUS in a gale. Blanchard delivered three of her six children at sea, one in port at Valencia, Spain, and one in port San Pedro, California. Only one child, the third of six, was born at home in Searsport. Her husband William H. Blanchard delivered five of the six children, a fact known in the fleet when his services were called upon to deliver a daughter to Captain and Mrs. Dickey in Kobe, Japan. That daughter grew up to take the stage name Clara Blandic (Clara for our heroine, Blan for Blanchard and Dic for Dickey) and play Auntie Em in the Wizard of Oz.

Clara Pendleton Blanchard (1843-1931). 1975.37.1, gift of Mr. and Mrs. William Howe.

 

Childhood at Sea:

Phineas' great-granddaughters, Lucie and Lettie Pendleton, kept a journal aboard the ship HENRY B. HYDE, which their father Phineas III commanded in 1896. Lucie was born onboard ship in the port of Cochin, India and her sister Lettie was born in Searsport. Three of their siblings had died in South America while sailing with their father aboard the ship PHINEAS PENDLETON.  

 

Journal of Lucie (1872-1908) and Lettie (1874-1958) Pendleton. LB1996.404, gift of Elizabeth and Charles Huntoon.

 

Global Connections to Searsport:

Phineas' grandson, Captain Frank Irving Pendleton, commanded barks and ships in the trade to Eastern Asia. While he waited for the ship NANCY PENDLETON's cargo to load in Yokohama, Japan, Frank worked out in the local dojo and had his portrait painted by a local artist.

 

Captain Frank Irving Pendleton(1848-1915), portrait by Ryu Ho Yanaisya of Yokohama. 1953.19.1, gift of Frank Irving Pendleton.

 

For Those in Peril:

The ship ELIZABETH was named for Phineas' granddaughter-in-law, Julia Elizabeth Blanchard Pendleton, but for four of Phineas' descendants, it proved to be a fatal vessel. His grandson John Herbert Colcord captained the vessel from 1887-1891. During that trip, John's cousin James Locke Pendleton died falling from the rigging off Cape Horn. Later, John, his cousin Nathan Philip Pendleton serving as second mate, and his nephew James Edwin Herriman died when the ELIZABETH wrecked off the Golden Gate in San Francisco. Mrs. Colcord and two children successfully escaped into the lifeboats, along with the first mate and seven seamen.

 

Ship ELIZABETH, painting byMarie Edouard Adam. 460, gift of Amos Carver.

 

Crew's View:

On a ship there is no going home after the end of the shift. As a way to relax, crewmembers took up handicrafts made from readily available materials aboard ship. This ropework goblet is an example of sailor's knots making a thing of whimsy.

 

Ropework goblet by A.H. Sawyer. 1959.101, gift of A.H. Sawyer.

STAY CONNECTED