Chebacco article-based program with Raney Bench, Susanne Paul, and Noel Musson

Affordable and available housing has reached a crisis on MDI and difficult conversations are taking place in every community about possible solutions. How did we get here? Follow the link for more information and to register.

The 2024 issue of Chebacco explores how summer and year-round residents have changed Mount Desert Island through initiatives that broaden and enhance living and visiting here. The Wild Gardens of Acadia, located at Sieur de Monts Springs, is one such initiative. In her Chebacco article, Anne Kozak, a volunteer since 1972, recounts the history of the Gardens. Follow the link to learn more and register.

Join Carl Little on Wednesday, June 12 at 5:30 pm for a slide talk based on his 2024 Chebacco essay, Mary Cabot Wheelwright’s ‘Journey Towards Understanding.’ The program will be offered in person and via Zoom. Follow the link for more information and to register.

Chebacco Author Program with Mollie Cashwell. In 1915 Albert Eugene Gallatin, trailblazing critic, collector, and curator of modern art, launched an influential, four-year stretch of art display at the Jesup Memorial Library. The “Print Room at Bar Harbor,” was the only art collection open to the public on Mount Desert Island.

Join Mollie Cashwell, co-director of the Cultural Alliance of Maine and board member of the MDI Historical Society and Jesup Memorial Library for a talk about the Jesup Memorial Library's Print Room and her research while writing her article for the history journal Chebacco. Follow the link for more information and to register.

Online-only Zoom event. Part of the on-going "Landscape of Change" collaboration, join speakers Raney Bench, Catherine Schmitt, and others to share your observations of sea level rise and its impacts, and learn how to get involved.

A collaborative effort to document and understand sea level rise on MDI continues with new partners and new initiatives, as the island contends with the significant damage to coastal ecosystems and properties seen this winter. Click to register and learn more.

In observance of Earth Day and Earth Day month, Green Ellsworth, the Ellsworth Historical Society and the Ellsworth Public Library will present a program entitled Landscape of Change. On April 29 (7:00PM) in the Riverview Room of the Ellsworth Public Library (20 State Street), Raney Bench, Executive Director of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society, will provide an illustrated talk on this ongoing project which is operating at the intersection of history, science, and the imagination. Click for more information.

The local history of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 is shrouded in mystery for many audiences. On the island, we may be familiar with the Margaretta incident in Machias, or the Penobscot Expedition of 1779 during the revolution, or perhaps the War of 1812 through the story of the Tenedos raid of 1814. However, these seemingly isolated moments conceal a longer and more detailed plan for downeast Maine that envisioned the creation of a new royal colony under British rule. Examining how British authorities saw the region and interacted with Mainers in peace and war reveals a different picture of the past when we view local history through British eyes. Register for this event.

Join us at 6:30 on Wednesday, April 10 at the Northeast Harbor Library for a discussion asking new leaders on MDI to share their vision for the future and thoughts on how we can come together as an island in the face of growing challenges.

EVENT SOLD OUT

Join the MDI Historical Society and Brent Richardson for “Tales of Lightning” an evening of storytelling from 20th century Mount Desert Island, a time when horse and buggy travel was still commonplace and dairy farms dotted the island.

Are you reliant on the sea for your livelihood or recreation? Our goal is to foster casual conversation among the island's west-side fishing community and those businesses that rely on it, supporting your connection to each other, the waterfront, and our shared history.

Are you a master of historical trivia, a fan of fantastic island stories, or a novice know-it-all? Join us at 5:30pm on Thursday, February 29 at Jack Russell’s Steakhouse & Brewery for the MDI Historical Society’s History Happy Hour with special guests from the Bar Harbor Historical Society.

Join us on February 26 at 6pm to discuss Murder with an Ocean View: A Robin's Nest Mystery by Rob Lawton.

Robert and Robin Lawton are a husband and wife team who publish under the pseudonym, Rob Lawton. They live on Mount Desert Island, where they plot murders daily. The product of their combined imagination has manifested itself in the form of plays, mystery weekends, novels, novellas, and short stories.

To join or receive updates about Book Club, please email Raney at raney@mdihistory.org

Maine is known for bad weather. Explore the impacts of some of our worst weather and learn more about how climate change is accelerating storm severity and sea level rise. Bring your curiousity!

Offered via Zoom and in-person at MDI High School Fee: $10 REGISTER HERE

Join historian Raney Bench to discuss the rise and fall of the Ku Klux Klan in Maine during the 1920s.

Offered via Zoom and in-person at MDI High School

Fee: $10

REGISTER HERE

Join us at MDI High School for the first in-person Bean Supper since 2020! The 13th Annual Baked Bean Supper is a beloved community gathering featuring dozens of volunteer cooks and their varieties of beans, pies, and all the fixings. The supper is followed by a concert and dance hosted by the Bagaduce Northern New England Ensemble. $10/adults. $5/children

The Society’s book club will meet via Zoom on Monday, December 4, at 6:00pm to discuss Women of the Dawn by Bunny McBride.

Starting with the very first pioneer families in 1762, water power, free and renewable, provided the energy that launched the mills of Mount Desert Island. Mills produced the resources for the essentials of survival, namely food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, and allowed emerging settlements to thrive. We'll examine the mill locations, products, and families involved in this industry across Mount Desert Island from 1762 until the early 1900s.

Historian and MDI Historical Society’s Collections Manager, Patrick Callaway will feature a unique item from the collection as a means of exploring how the past connects to the present through the items we leave behind. Keeping with next year’s Chebacco theme of ties between the island and the rest of the world, he will share a series of movie posters and advertisements for various island theatres. Stepping back in time to see the early/mid-1900s popular entertainment options allows us to see the connections to a broader pop culture that movies and movie-going provided for islanders.

Master Gardener Joy Lyons will talk about her process of creating and maintaining the Somesville Museum’s stunning heirloom gardens, how they have evolved, and how she and her team select and maintain the plants each season.

Harrison Bird Brown of Portland was one of 19th-century Maine's most successful marine and landscape painters. Maine State Historian Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr. will discuss Brown's career as it intersected with Mount Desert Island.

The death of Ralph Stanley in December 2021 marked the passing of one of the last wooden boatbuilders in the region. While his boatbuilding expertise was widely recognized, Ralph was also a scholar, author, storyteller, musician, and expert on area boatbuilders, designs, and history. Thankfully, Ralph recognized the unique and specialized knowledge he had acquired over a lifetime and he generously and widely shared his stories, memories, and experiences. Her article “Ralph Stanley, A Scholar and Master of His Trade” appears in the 2023 edition of Chebacco.

Are you a master of historical trivia, a fan of fantastic island stories, or a novice know-it-all? Join us at the Rusticator Lounge at the Bayview Hotel in Bar Harbor for our Halloween edition of our members-only History Happy Hour! The evening’s game promises to be deviously delightful as we play pictionary-style trivia about the more sinister side of Mount Desert Island's history, past events, and inhabitants.

Maine has a reputation for bad storms, specifically the notorious nor'easters that blow through in the winter. But we also get hurricanes, blizzards, and ice storms that wreak havoc on buildings, roads, ships, and utilities. Death-defying stories of survival are told and retold around hearths and over coffee for generations. Islanders love a good storm, it seems to run in the blood. Bad weather and how we survive it is a link that connects us to our ancestors.