Time in a Bottle

Vestiges of the shipyards along Long Reach

When your middle child turns thirty, you suddenly want to shout: “Stop the clock! Time out!” At least that is how I felt last Monday when Matthew celebrated his 30th birthday at our home in Bath. As he blew out all those candles in one strong breath, we sang Happy Birthday, but I was thinking Time in a Bottle. And yes, I am a huge Jim Croce fan.

If I could "save time in a bottle," I would fill 1,000 bottles with stories from the Kennebec, especially Bath’s Long Reach, and I would share them with my children in hopes they would share them with their children because they are imbued with authentic courage, vulnerability, and intelligence. In his book Live Yankees, W.H. Bunting refers to the residents of Bath as Bathites, and he credits their success and longevity to their ability to adapt. Bathites know how to flow with the river and change as time goes by. This city of shipbuilders has managed to update and modernize without loosing its essence, its history. In a recent Boston Globe article, Bath was described as “lumber sexual chic.” The hard-nosed reporter, who was initially skeptical of Bath’s nickname, ultimately concluded that Bath was “on the edge of cool.”

Drawing with pastels at 411 Front Street, the old shipyard office

This cool, chic little city in Maine is clearly the right place to fill a bottle with time. On Monday morning, April 6th, at 9:30 a.m., the precise day and hour to celebrate my middle child's 30th birthday, Matthew walked around the corner to 411 Front Street to have an art lesson with Claudette Gamache, a renown artist who draws stunning landscapes with pastels. As fate and Bath would have it, 411 Front Street once served as the office for first the Patten and later the Sewall Shipyards. Today Claudette lives and draws in this charming house, which has a breathtaking view of the Kennebec. If I could save time in a bottle, I would travel back to 1854, the best of times for shipbuilding in Bath, and I would capture some of that Yankee energy and cork it for a rainy day!

Claudette Gamache gives Matthew an art lesson 

I believe the key to living well is remembering the lessons of yesterday, and if you are looking for yesterday, an antique store is a good place to start! A true sign of changing times, however, is the rarity of genuine antique stores. More and more dealers are consolidating and showing their treasures in a cooperative mall setting. Perhaps it’s a more efficient way to do business, but for those of us who appreciate “old” there is reason to celebrate the endurance of New England Antiques on Front Street and to welcome the new kid in town, The Old Bean Antiques, at 735 Middle Street.

After a weekend of frolicking with our three adult children and their sweethearts, Joe and I were feeling the hole their departure leaves, so we set out to look for artifacts from yesteryear, and we found a few at the Bean. First, Joe spotted the old telephone pole insulators in blue, yellow and clear glass lined up neatly on shelves by the front window. Of course, I had no idea what they were or how we could use them, but Joe explained that these glass caps were used to insulate the wires on the top of poles, and it’s rare to find them intact. He thought we could use one as a paperweight on our old library table. My new task was to look through the rows of glass to find the best one. Joe knew this quest would keep me busy for a while, especially since I spied the inimitable Ms. Joanne M. browsing nearby. I could certainly chat and look at the same time! Meanwhile, Joe moved toward the old books in the far corner. This is a fairly typical maneuver for Joe, and he usually finds a book that intrigues him. Par for the course, he found an 1891 book on the Chicago World’s Fair with some amazing illustrations and a binding that was slightly broken, revealing a strip of an old newspaper that offered subscriptions for 39 cents. Since Joe had worked in the world of Chicago publishing for many years, this was a definite hook. We purchased the “Made in America” glass collectible, but Joe would think about the book.

A book published in 1891 found at The Old Bean

A few days later, we returned to The Old Bean for a second look. It was a good visit because we had a chance to speak with the owner, Melissa, who was able to share the back-story on the World’s Fair book. Truth be told, the book was part of the Percy's library, and when the old Percy house on Middle Street was being emptied, Melissa purchased as many books as she could. Although I am not familiar with the Percy house, I do remember seeing the name Percy engraved in the sidewalk in front of Reny’s on Front Street, and I also remember seeing a picture of David T. Percy & Sons Department Store on my 2014 Historical Society calendar. (Why do I remember random details like this?)  In Bath's boom year of 1854, D. T. Percy, Sr. married Adriana Bosworth and went on to have seven children, three of whom became physicians. Percy’s Department Store was known as “The Busy Bee Hive.” The facts indicate that Mr. Percy was a man ahead of his time because he clearly achieved a healthy, happy work-life balance! 

Before Reny's, there was a Percy's

When I am walking along the streets of Bath, I feel like a time traveler, and that feeling is as thrilling as a ride Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox in a shiny DeLorean sports car equipped with a flux capacitor. The desire to travel through the time space continuum is universal. For Joe and I, our house on Washington Street is like a time machine. The research of Sagadahoc Preservation, Inc. indicates that our house was moved to its present location in 1856; however, Thomas Agry built it circa 1823. Thomas, the son of a shipbuilder and a Revolutionary War veteran, was born in Pittston, Maine in 1788. He served in the War of 1812 as a lieutenant, and in 1814 he married Elizabeth Webb and worked in Bath as a bank cashier until his death on December 24, 1851. Thomas and Elizabeth had six children, but sadly only three reached adulthood. The Agry family lost their home between Pearl and York Streets due to financial misfortune. Elizabeth died at the age of 47, and Thomas remarried. If one dwells on the sadness of the past, its harshness can stop the human heart. The fact that the Agry family was blessed with a son named Thomas who lived to father seven children and enjoy a life in Bath as a wheel maker allows our collective heart to keep beating and hoping. Perhaps I am a cock-eyed optimist, but I would rather dwell on happy days and let the sad ones fade away.

If I could travel back in time, I would like to arrive in Bath on January 5, 1814 and attend the wedding of Elizabeth and Thomas. Elizabeth was the daughter of William Webb and Elizabeth Crooker Webb. In 1788, her parents built a home on the northwest corner of Summer and Front Streets. This house was torn down in 1889, and the Patten Free Library was built on the same lot. How do I know this? The Bath Historical Society’s 2013 calendar has a photograph of the house on its September page! As fate and Bath would have it, our federal style home on Washington Street, built by Thomas Agry, a son-in-law of William Webb, resembles the Webb house.

A page from the Bath Historical Society's  2013 calendar

I know that saving time in a bottle is impossible, but traveling back through history is entirely possible if you visit the history and genealogy room on the second floor of the Patten Free Library. Recently, I visited the library and had a chance to speak with Judy Barrington, one of the founders of S.P.I., about Bath's changing landscape. History leads us to believe that Bathinites are both builders and movers! It was Judy who told me about the house that used to stand between Summer and Front Streets. If she had not mentioned it, I would not have remembered the photo I had seen, and I would not have connected Elizabeth Webb Agry and Elizabeth Crooker Webb and the fact that the original owner of my house grew up in a house where the library is now located. Why is this important? As time goes by, it helps me understand why I was so drawn to our house, and why I feel so happy when I am in it. The history wraps around me like a warm blanket on a snowy April day in Maine! Libraries, classic movies, old photos and maps, antique glass and old books all help us connect with the past, and they help us to imagine the future, too. What will it all look like thirty years from now when my middle child turns sixty?