Hope Historical Society
Meeting of August 17th 2010
Minutes

Hope Historical Society

Meeting of August 17th 2010

Minutes

President Donovan Bowley called the monthly meeting to order
at 9:30 AM at the Hope Historical Home. Also present were: Bob
Appleby, Gwen Brodis, Hope Chase, Cynthia Dellapena, Faith Hart, Bill
Jones, Ann Leadbetter & Barbara Ludwig.

Secretary Bill Jones read the minutes of the July 20th
meeting. Faith Hart noted mistakes in the treasurer's report.
Attendees list was corrected. The minutes were approved as corrected.

Treasurer Faith Hart reported that our starting balance had
been $8,566.06 and that the closing balance was $8,640.57. Income
noted was $27 from sale of Florance Merrifield's crafts and $99.58
from bottles & cans returned to Coastal Workshop. Expenditure noted
was $30 to Penobscot Marine Museum to have it acquire the 3
identified Eastern I & P negatives of Hope known to be in a private
collection as voted in the July meeting. The report was unanimously
accepted.

Reports

For the Website Committee, Vice President and Webmaster Bob Appleby
reported that use of www.hopehist.com continued to be very heavy in
July with an average of 157 visits per day He speculated that heavy
use related to genealogy and our April 2006 monthly meeting series
publication, "Facing Hatchet Mountain" and its reference to burying
the hatchet.

For the Program Committee, Ann Leadbetter reported that she was
arranging for Juanita Johnson Hunt to talk at the September meeting
on her late mother, Ruth Hunt Johnson's friendship quilt. We are
trying to get Ken Bailey to speak at our annual meeting.

Re: the South Hope School project, the approach to the Town for a
cell phone tower on the Town-owned 3+ acre lot on Quiggle Brook was
introduced by Cynthia Dellapena. This lot is a potential site for
the South Hope School building, as well as for the war memorial at
South Hope Corner and a possible playground and picnic site. The
members present favored this site for the old school building (or the
adjacent Union Chemical site if that proved feasible). President
Bowley is familiar with people at Witham & Howard, which firm was
responsible for the Union Chemical site clean-up. Maynard Pushaw and
John Monroe have volunteered to help with site preparation if other
arrangements can be made.

For the Chronicle Committee, Gwen Brodis reported that the proofs,
which had been with the typist since May, had been received. Gwen,
Florance Merrifield, Faith Hart & Peggy Ludwig will read the proofs
on Thursday August 19th.

President Bowley announced impending historical events of local
interest: 2nd week of September, Appleton Historical Society's
Harvest of the Arts in the old meeting house; October 16th, gathering
of local historical societies at Warren Historical Society, and the
NE Genealogical Society & ancestry.com meeting in Boston; September
25th, Genealogical Society of Maine meeting in Northport.

Old Business: Donovan will arrange for Kevin Johnson's Penobscot
Marine Museum photos of Hope to be on sale at the November election
and, if possible, at both the South Hope and the Hope Corner stores.
All three sizes are to be available at prices and according to terms
discussed and approved previously. (Kevin has discovered 10 more
photos of Hope that were labeled as Union.)

New Business

Ann Leadbetter reported receiving an inquiry regarding the Barretts
from David Fletcher of Gardiner who is working on the 1740-1840
period. It was agreed that Ann would reply.

Cynthia Dellapena described her major project, already well advanced,
to cull all Hope references from the Rockland Courier Gazette from
1888 to 1907. She is also compiling an index of all the names
mentioned. The original s of the newspapers at the Rockland
Historical Society are fragile; microfilm copies at Rockland Public
Library are of poor quality and hard to use. Picton Press is
publishing the papers on a disc, but this is expected to be of low
quality. The material tells the social history of Hope. It will not
be appropriate to put the Dellapena work on www.hopehist.com when it
is completed. Cynthia intends to self-publish the product.
Among the themes noted were the waves of emigration from Hope from an
early date, the continuing contacts by those who remained with the
emigrants and occasional visits home. President Bowley noted the
periods of heightened emigration, at the time of the
year-of-no-summer and the Ohio land rush (1816), during the 1848-9
gold rush, during & after the 1860-5 Great Rebellion, and also with
the establishment of the Mormons in Utah and at the time of the end
of century St. Louis Exposition.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:50.

Respectfully Submitted,

               Bill Jones, Secretary