The New Gloucester Historical Society’s “history barn,” a building on the town hall campus containing multiple historical documents and artifacts, is currently hosting an exhibition on Opportunity Farm, a boys’ home that served the area for a century.

Historical Society Curator Tom Blake said the barn was constructed in 2009, honoring the 75th anniversary of the historical society. The barn provides a home for the artifacts and documents in the society’s possession. Prior to the opening of the barn, the artifacts, although owned by the historical society, were spread across various private collections.

The barn opens to the public only on the morning of the first Saturday of each month, and receives a modest amount of visitors. In previous years, the open houses were part of the “First Saturday” event each month, along with the New Gloucester Village Store and Norumbega Cidery, but the event has not been held since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Exhibitions include the former town hearse, which was built in 1909 and operated by the New Gloucester Cemetery Association, and an 1857 map of Cumberland County, which was owned by Oscar Stinchfield, an ancestor of Blake. The map depicts a disputed no-man’s-land between Raymond and Gray, the majority of which has since been claimed by Raymond.

Since last June, the barn has hosted an exhibit on Opportunity Farm. The opening ceremony saw 100 attendees, of whom nearly half were alumni of Opportunity Farm and their families.

According to a document explaining the exhibit, the Opportunity Farm for Boys was established in 1910 by F. Forrest Pease and Ida F. Newell. Pease, who was working at a settlement house in Lewiston at the time, envisioned a place for homeless boys to learn the skills needed for the life of a farmer.

In its early years, the farm had its own school, sports teams, and school bus, with Blake’s father, Phil Blake, recalling how the farm had its own bus before the local public school did. In the 1950s, Memorial Elementary School opened, replacing a network of one-room schoolhouses, and the boys from the farm began attending public school. When not learning, the boys would perform tasks around the farm such as caring for animals, establishing an “ethos of community and mutual responsibility.”

In the early 2000s, the farm opened a girls’ campus. Opportunity Farm for Girls consisted of two dorms, one of which was opened by and named for former Sen. Olympia Snowe, and was separate from the boys’ campus. However, the farm closed in 2011, one year after its centennial, following a merger with The Community School in Camden.

In addition to exhibitions, the highlight of the history barn’s year is a field trip by the second graders of Memorial Elementary. Blake said the field trip begins at a small-scale replica of New Gloucester’s historic blockhouse on Gloucester Hill Road, and includes the history barn, as well as the library and meetinghouse on the same campus. The large vehicles in the barn, including the hearse and historic pung, a type of sleigh, draw the attention of the children, and Blake always asks the students what they think the vehicles were used for.