EAST BALDWIN – The owner of the Dr. James Norton House is

donating 170-year-old murals to a Bridgton museum.

EAST BALDWIN – Upon entering the front door of the Dr. James Norton House, which dates to 1837, visitors are immediately transported into a painted scene of natural beauty, complete with spindly trees, songbirds and coastal Maine observatories, orchards and farmhouses.

The scenic murals at the East Baldwin home, on each side of a central staircase and on walls covering the entire second floor, were painted in 1840 by Baldwin resident Jonathan D. Poor, an itinerant wall painter who used vibrant colors to create detailed scenes atop horsehair plastered walls in the tradition of his more famous uncle, muralist Rufus Porter of Bridgton.

Poor’s work in the Norton House, located near the intersection of routes 113 and 107, has been enjoyed for decades by previous owners. Since 1982, the house has been owned by Glenn Haines, who recently moved about four miles away and is selling the home. It is listed for $172,000. A former antiques dealer who prizes Poor’s artwork and wants to preserve their history, Haines has donated the murals to the Rufus Porter Museum in Bridgton.

“It’s preserving them and keeping them open to the public,” Haines said of his motivation to donate the murals to the museum despite their value.

Antique home restorer David Ottinger, of Arlington, Mass.-based David Ottinger Antique Buildings and Materials, and his crew are spending the next month painstakingly removing the murals from the home.

Haines was worried that a new owner may paint over the murals, not knowing their value, or worse still, remove the walls and sell them for profit.

“They were valued at $80,000 when I bought the house in 1982. They’re valued in the six figures now,” Haines said. “This way they’ll stay in the public domain. They will always be available to be seen and studied, and that to me is the most important thing.”

Poor’s rich work

To Haines, the murals were constantly revealing themselves.

“Every time you looked at (the murals), even when we had open houses very recently, I found something that I’d never seen before, or I’d be explaining something and all of a sudden, something would leap out that I had never thought of or seen,” Haines said of Poor’s work, which experts say is probably his best.

Hallowell resident Jane Radcliffe, co-author with Linda Lefko of the soon-to-be released “Folk Art Murals of the Rufus Porter School: New England Landscapes 1825-1845,” literally wrote the book on itinerant muralists from the Poor and Porter era. Though little is known of Poor, she says Poor’s Norton House work is his most detailed.

“I’m convinced Dr. Norton somehow took care of Poor’s wife right before her death there in the home. Poor therefore would have had time to devote to the paintings there,” Radcliffe said. “It is the most elaborate and detailed of any work that we’ve seen. There are dung piles, laundry on the line. There are many more details than a typical mural.”

According to Radcliffe, Poor, who was born in 1807 and died in 1845, lived in what is now Sebago (once part of Baldwin) after migrating here from Boxford, Mass. It is unclear why Poor’s family moved to Maine, but, Radcliffe said, they had family already living in the Bridgton area. He painted walls from 1830-1842 and signed many of his works, unlike Rufus Porter.

Compared with his uncle’s work, Poor’s murals were more detailed, with cultivated hillsides, meandering fences and orchards, Radcliffe noted. There’s even a man shooting a rifle in front of a shore scene presumably of Portland with islands in the background.

“I think Jonathan Poor put a lot more of his personality into his murals,” Radcliffe said.

Delicate removal

After removal, the murals will be crated and transported via truck to an undisclosed location in Bridgton for temporary storage. The murals will go on display later this year after the Rufus Porter Museum opens its new space on Main Street, adjacent to the Magic Lantern movie theater.

Since the murals, which are painted on horsehair plaster, could easily crack or disintegrate, the 54-year-old Ottinger — who has successfully removed more than 100 Poor and Porter murals from 25 homes over his 30-year career – is spending five weeks at the Norton House in April and May removing 18 sections of wall murals.

The removal of the murals pose some significant challenges, Ottinger said.

“This is an unusual survival because of the amount of painting and the quality of the paint. It’s in very good condition,” he said. “At one time, this was very common. Houses would have four or five rooms with murals, but they don’t survive very often due to change of taste. People are still papering over, covering over. They just don’t like them. Not only are there less and less of them, but for various reasons they are still getting covered up.”

Ottinger said he removes the entire wall – studs, lathing and plaster – to ensure the murals stay in one piece. He will then replace the framing and another contractor will install modern drywall.

“We basically take the entire wall – with the framing behind it, the lathe, the plaster – but we have to get to the back of the wall first. That’s why we have to take off the outside of the house in some places,” Ottinger said. “We then clean them off and put a glue on it to help it stay together a little bit better. And then we stabilize them by creating bracing that hold the studs together. We’re preserving the entire system rather than, say, pulling the plaster off.”

Since Ottinger is considered an expert in removing murals, even once being featured on PBS’s “This Old House,” the removal doesn’t come cheap, which is why the Rufus Porter Museum is holding a fundraising drive to pay for the work.

Nelle Ely, president of the museum’s board of directors, said she is “thrilled” that Glenn Haines donated what she describes as “the premier work of Jonathan Poor,” but that the museum would appreciate donations. The 18 panels will almost triple the museum’s current stock of eight Rufus Porter panels from 1838, which, she said, are Porter’s best efforts as well.

“So we will own the best examples of those two painters, which we couldn’t be more excited about,” Ely said.

Ely said the museum is aiming to boost its education and arts classes offering once it moves into its new 121 Main St. location in the fall and that the board has promised to display the murals as a condition of the transfer.

“It’s pretty admirable that Mr. Haines donated these, and it’s because he wants the public to see them,” Ely said. “And we have signed a contract to this effect, that they will be on display since they’re so wonderful.”

Surrounded by Jonathan Poor’s 1840 murals, restorer David Ottinger stands atop a “Good Morning” staircase at the Dr. James Norton house in Baldwin. Ottinger is overseeing the removal of the murals for display at the Rufus Porter Museum in Bridgton. (Staff photos by John Balentine)Jim Derby, crew member with Arlington, Mass.-based David Ottinger Antique Buildings and Materials, creates a platform so workers can access the upstairs walls at the Norton House.