BRUNSWICK

Brunswick’s Growstown community will be celebrating its historic presence on Saturday, Oct. 8, from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.

The celebration centers around three Growstown landmarks, including the school at the corner of Church and Woodside roads, the First Baptist Church and adjacent Growstown Cemetery on Church Road.

“About two years ago, I began to realize that our church was the oldest church building in Brunswick,” said Carol Visser, who heads up the committee. “There are some that come very close to that, and we are not the oldest church corporation — that would be First Parish — but we are the oldest building in Brunswick that is still used as a church. Around here, nobody really knows where it is. They know where the school is, but the church and cemetery both sit back a ways ( in the woods). So I thought, ‘that’s no good,’ and that’s how the idea for the Growstown Celebration came up.”

Visser, along with committee members Linda Clement and Kathy Leonard, have teamed together to host an open house of the three landmarks that made up the neighborhood.

“The idea is to celebrate Growstown as a neighborhood, and to emphasize that it was like several other neighborhoods in town in that it is was based off a school, a church and a cemetery,” said Visser. “ The names associated with all three are shared.”

The church was built in 1827, but the original Growstown Baptist community began meeting at early as 1800. The cemetery was plotted out not long after, and the schoolhouse was built just down the street in 1849.

“The record is that several of the men on the church committee were also active in building the church,” said Visser, who pointed out that a lot of them were shipbuilders as well. “In those days you just went out and did it.”

Anthony Coombs Raymond, a Growstown resident who would become a prominent architect and builder in his later years, designed a simple church with no steeple or church bell, “probably because it was built first as a meeting house,” Visser said.

Coombs was born in Harpswell, raised in Brunswick and passed away in Bath. He was put to rest in the cemetery in back of the church.

“The first burials started early in the 1800s,” said Kathy Leonard, an expert on the cemetery’s history. “The first pastors of the church group are buried there. It’s also full of Coombs, Raymonds and Woodsides, and many people who came up from Harpswell to settle in Brunswick.”

Very few folks whose roots go back to the prominent Growstown days are still buried there, but the farther back in time you go, the more numerous the gravestones are, Leonard said.

Leonard plans to give cemetery tours during the Growstown Celebration and offer history lessons.

“ I plan to have a little exhibit regarding the cemetery, with a map of the area that highlights the names of the people who went to the school, went to the church and are buried in the cemetery,” said Leonard. “This will help show what (Growstown) was like as a neighborhood back then.”

Millie Stewart of the American Association of University Women, who manage the Growstown School, said she’s been involved in the restoration and upkeep of the building since 1981.

She said, at the time, a few AAUW women took an interest in the dilapidated structure and envisioned a living history center.

The AAUW has worked in conjunction with the town since. Most recently, last year the public works department fixed some rotted flooring in the schoolhouse and improved drainage on the site to mitigate future damage.

Growstown school was built in 1849 and served students in that part of town until 1950, with Growstown now being the only one of 26 one-room schoolhouses in town still being used for education.

The AAUW has been operating the living history program there for 33 years, where local schoolchildren assume the actual identity of of an 1853 student at the school.

Kids use slate boards, quill pens and ink, dress and eat as their namesakes did and yes, even get to use the privy. Classes are taught by retired teachers who take on the persona of an 1850s school teacher.

Linda Clement, who along with the AAUW helped to rescue the Growstown school from being torn down, heads up the Living History Center at the school, and will be giving tours of that facility during the Growstown Celebration.

“We wanted to use this school as a living history project,” said Clement.

Clement said the school’s annual harvest sale and open house will coincide with the Growstown Celebration, and Clement will be on hand at the school to answer any questions about the neighborhood.

“We really want people to be aware of the Growstown area and its history,” Clement said. “Having all three (sections) open to the public will result in a more comprehensive Growstown experience. We hope people will spend some time in each location.”

At 11 a. m., the Brunswick Rotary Club will unveil a stone plaque commemorating Growstown at the Growstown school. Additionally, the United Methodist Church will host an open house from 1-3 p.m., and a bean supper from 5-6 p.m. The First Baptist Church, Cemetery and Growstown School will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

To learn more about the Growstown Celebration, visit their website at firstbaptistchurch.com.

bgoodridge@timesrecord.com dmcintire@timesrecord.com