Grange Meeting [c.1915]
Descriptive Object
Identifier:
OBJ.O.1979.21
Description
Photo of a big group meeting in Old Town. Based on the staffs held by the right-most seated young man and woman, this was probably an early Old Town Grange Meeting or possibly a Pomona Meeting. Picture also features the McKinley grade school, so it must have been taken before New Year's Eve 1917 when the school burned down. Since the Old Town Grange (#522) was only established on February 2, 1913, the picture must postdate that date. Most likely, the picture was taken during the Grange's first Field Day on October 29, 1913. The grey head of Horace Mann Burnham, one of the City's apothecaries and the Grange's first Master, can be seen in the second row on the right behind the young woman in the heavy overcoat (identified as Hattie Austin of Milford on the accompanying very partial identification chart). Albert Brown, the editor of the Old Town Enterprise is also depicted (front row, fifth from left). The older woman in white on the right of the craggy looking man in the middle (wearing a white head with a black band) looks like Mrs. Lunt and the man on the very left might be Herbert Gray, but neither are identified. On the back of the photo, it has directions for the frame, the date Jan 15, and the address "Green, Middle St., Old Town, ME." The latter may be a reference to Cyrus A. Green(e) (1867-1925), a well-known horse trader and auctioneer who lived on Middle Street in the 1910s, or to his wife Alice M. Greene. According to the Old Town Enterprise, the latter attended a Pomona meeting in Olamon in May 1913.