BRUNSWICK

It doesn’t have a foundation yet, but it does have a name.

Brunswick’s newest school will be named Kate Furbish Elementary School, in honor of a Victorian-era resident known for her paintings and drawings of Maine flora.

While a number of people suggested naming the school after Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain, it was another influential female — much like Harriet Beecher Stowe — who earned the honors.

Brunswick school board member Sarah Singer said Furbish was radical for her time, traveling the back roads looking for species of plants to capture. Eventually, she made watercolors of her findings, which were considered masterpieces.

At the time, Singer said, “her peers commented that despite her gender, she does very good renderings of flora.”

“So I think she’s just kind of a marvel, jointly interested in art and science and in capturing it, and her renderings were considered very scientifically accurate,” she said. “I see her as a scientist and an artist.”

Going into the naming brainstorming process, Singer said she and others had Furbish in mind. The school department has a tradition of naming schools after poets, artists, writers and people it wants its students to think of as intellectual bright lights of their time.

The Portland Press Herald reported in 2016 that Furbish worked in the 1890s as the staff botanist at the Poland Spring House, but for more than four decades — in an otherwise volunteer capacity — she completed 1,326 paintings and sketches of the flora of Maine. She gave the leather-bound volumes of her work to Bowdoin College in 1908.

Born in 1834, Furbish wasn’t formally educated, but visited Paris to perfect her painting. During the course of four decades, starting in 1870, she traveled thousands of miles around the state collecting and classifying plant life. She died in 1931 at the age of 97.

There were many ideas submitted to the committee, including many who wanted to call it Jordan Acres.

The new school will be built at the site of the Jordan

Acres school, closed due to structural issues and slated for demolition. Brunswick voters approved a $28 million bond in June 2017 to fund construction of the new school, which will replace the 62-year-old Coffin Elementary School that also has structural and safety issues.

The new school will house students in kindergarten through second grade, but can also handle an additional 200 students and two prekindergarten programs.

The new school is slated to open in September 2020. Lyndon Keck of PDT Architects told the Brunswick School Board on Wednesday the firm plans to go out to bid between July 2-16. Prequalified to bid are Ledgewood Construction, The Sheridan Corporation, Ouellet Construction and PC Construction.

dmoore@timesrecord.com

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