BIDDEFORD — It was a quiet Tuesday morning when Scott Joslin opened the doors of a former mill building on Main Street ”“ now home to the Biddeford Winter Farmer’s market ”“ to lead a two-person tour of the 100,000 square foot space.
Joslin hopes that someday the space, Building 13 of the former Pepperell Mill, now Pepperell Mill campus, will house a mill museum.
Right now there are a few items that hint at the building’s historic past: A clock once used to synchronize all the clocks and bells of the mill complex; a woven cloth with the Pepperell Mill griffin insignia; and a piece of Vellux material with the notation 8-18-09 and 12:20 p.m., indicating the date and time this last piece was produced prior to the mill closing for good.
There are also some old photographs and a menagerie of mill artifacts haphazardly strewn about.
But Joslin has a grander vision of what could be.
He and several others are part of a steering to create a mill museum in that space, Building 13, which would be donated for museum use by mill owner Doug Sanford.
Joslin imagines the space filled with mill memorabilia salvaged from the buildings themselves or donated by the community, recordings of the oral histories of former mill workers and multi-media exhibits. Tours could extend beyond the single building and weave through the inner complexes of the former mill buildings.
“I think we will distinguish ourselves by having really good exhibits,” he said, “we really want to do it right.”
The museum, said Joslin, will preserve Biddeford’s proud mill history for future generations.
The first textile mills were built in the mid-1800S. Production spanned more than 100 years and Biddeford woven goods and linens were shipped worldwide before the jobs were later lost to the south and the far east.
Along with the history of the city’s mills is the history of its population. Many of the current residents in Biddeford, Saco and the surrounding area are here because their ancestors left their homes to work in the local mills.
Creating a mill museum is necessary because “it’s important for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren (of the mill workers) to understand what these people did and reflect on how we got here,” said Dana Peck, a member of the mill museum steering committee and a board member of the Arundel Historical Society.
Biddeford High School English teacher Carolyn Gosselin, another member of the steering committee, said she has involved her students in the revitalization of the mill district for the past couple of years.
She said she’s amazed at how little her students know about the mills, even those whose grandparents or great-grandparents worked there.
Student Brooke Boucher wrote on a blog posting: “I once thought the mills were old buildings that had no past, no present, no future.”
Gosselin said recently, Sanford lead some of her students on tours of the mills.
After the tour, wrote Boucher, “I realized what beauty and stories were held within those brick structures.”
Gosselin said through the mill museum, she and another teacher would like to develop curriculum about the mills that can be used in grades kindergarten through 12.
Peck said he hopes to develop a greater sense of community through the museum. Though he lives in Arundel, he said he’s involved because the mills were important to the entire greater Biddeford-Saco community. It was an Arundel resident after all, Francis Spencer, who developed the Vellux blanket and was responsible for the last mill staying in production as long as it did.
Peck said he hopes a bean supper, “the melting pot of the community,” will be a starting point for community development and gathering volunteers and ideas for the museum.
The group hopes to open the museum next year and are eager to get more people involved.
A mill museum bean supper to gather community members, especially former mill employees, to discuss ideas for a museum will be held May 7, 4:30-6:30 p.m., at the North Dam Mill Event Center, at 2 Main St., Biddeford. The cost is $6 for former mill workers, $8 for all other adults and $4 for children.
For more information about the museum visit the website www.BiddefordMillsMuseum.org or call Eastland Management at 282-5577.
— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.
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