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HIRAM — Hiram Historical Society broke two barriers on Aug. 1. A trolley, never before seen on Hiram streets, was fully booked for a tour of “Hidden Historic Houses of 1820,” a Maine State Bicentennial Celebration of the 20-20-20: 20 houses in town in 1820 that are still here in 2020.
Great Ossipee Museum of Hiram Historical Society was open one hour before and one hour after the tour and showed off recent unusual donations. Perfectly preserved Gay ’90s clothing graces new mannequins in the first floor auditorium. A loafer rake was recently hung high on the wall over one of stairwells with 18-foot ceilings in the former Mount Cutler School. Perhaps people had time during lock-downs to clean out attics, basements and closets and think of donating historical items to the society, which thanks its thoughtful donors.
A loafer rake, by the way, is a wide wooden hay rake designed to capture hay left on the ground after others had pitched hay onto the wagon. Hay was raked into piles for someone else to pitch it high. It was an easy assignment in the otherwise hard work of bringing in the hay. But it is also impressively beautiful but large – five feet across, and it raised the question for curators of where to put it. The answer was to look it up.
The museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. the third Saturday of the month in July, August and September. For more information, visit hiramhistoricalsociety.org.
