Scarborough 350th Celebration Weekend links past and present (July 18, 2008)
By Amanda Estes
Editor
Last weekend, events commemorating Scarborough’s 350th anniversary of incorporation featured fun, food and a dose of local history. Events began Thursday evening with a special 350th Chamber of Commerce Concert Series performance by the Don Campbell Band and continued throughout the town all weekend, ending Monday evening with a presentation on the life and work of Winslow Homer.
The sun shone brightly as spectators, young and old, gathered along Route One to watch the 350th Celebration Parade make its way to Memorial Park on Saturday morning. Through costumes, music, antique vehicles, go-carts and more, glimpses of the town’s past intermingled with the present and the future. Oldest resident Blanch Cook and oldest native Eldred Harmon served as grand marshals and waved to the crowd from their seats inside antique vehicles. Neighborhoods, community organizations, churches, businesses, sports groups, Boy and Girl Scout Troops and others participated in the parade, playing to the crowd from atop colorful and creative floats or dancing along Route One.
Visitors to Memorial Park could experience bits of history with all five senses through the displays and demonstrations offered Saturday and Sunday. Crafts of all kinds were on display, from butter churning to snowshoemaking. The Sports Complex offered modern forms of entertainment including an inflatable Rat Race Obstacle Course, rock climbing walls and facepainting.
In Memorial Park, white tents sprung up from a Civil War encampment, populated by members of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry, Company B, a living history group working to preserve the history of Maine Civil War volunteers. Paul Dudley of Easton entertained visitors with songs and wooden clog dancer toys – popular forms of entertainment in the 17th Century, he said.
“Lads would use everything and anything for entertainment and music was a big form of entertainment,” he said, adding he uses the high stepping toys to interpret the music of the period.
A tall canvas tepee rose up from the Indian Village in Memorial Park, attracting visitors who were curious about its furnishings. Standing outside the structure, Sandra Tourtillotte said tipis or lodges were typically made of buffalo hide and used by plains Indians, while tribes in Maine lived in long houses. Tourtillotte is a member of the Blackfoot Indian tribe “with a little Mohawk thrown in for good measure” and a clan mother gave her the name Bending Willow Tree.
Tourtillotte said furnishings inside the tipi would likely have included willow chairs, mats made from hides or a mattress stuffed with leaves for sleeping, a fire pit and an altar for burning sage, sweet grass or cedar to drive away evil spirits.
Editor
Last weekend, events commemorating Scarborough’s 350th anniversary of incorporation featured fun, food and a dose of local history. Events began Thursday evening with a special 350th Chamber of Commerce Concert Series performance by the Don Campbell Band and continued throughout the town all weekend, ending Monday evening with a presentation on the life and work of Winslow Homer.
The sun shone brightly as spectators, young and old, gathered along Route One to watch the 350th Celebration Parade make its way to Memorial Park on Saturday morning. Through costumes, music, antique vehicles, go-carts and more, glimpses of the town’s past intermingled with the present and the future. Oldest resident Blanch Cook and oldest native Eldred Harmon served as grand marshals and waved to the crowd from their seats inside antique vehicles. Neighborhoods, community organizations, churches, businesses, sports groups, Boy and Girl Scout Troops and others participated in the parade, playing to the crowd from atop colorful and creative floats or dancing along Route One.
Visitors to Memorial Park could experience bits of history with all five senses through the displays and demonstrations offered Saturday and Sunday. Crafts of all kinds were on display, from butter churning to snowshoemaking. The Sports Complex offered modern forms of entertainment including an inflatable Rat Race Obstacle Course, rock climbing walls and facepainting.
In Memorial Park, white tents sprung up from a Civil War encampment, populated by members of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry, Company B, a living history group working to preserve the history of Maine Civil War volunteers. Paul Dudley of Easton entertained visitors with songs and wooden clog dancer toys – popular forms of entertainment in the 17th Century, he said.
“Lads would use everything and anything for entertainment and music was a big form of entertainment,” he said, adding he uses the high stepping toys to interpret the music of the period.
A tall canvas tepee rose up from the Indian Village in Memorial Park, attracting visitors who were curious about its furnishings. Standing outside the structure, Sandra Tourtillotte said tipis or lodges were typically made of buffalo hide and used by plains Indians, while tribes in Maine lived in long houses. Tourtillotte is a member of the Blackfoot Indian tribe “with a little Mohawk thrown in for good measure” and a clan mother gave her the name Bending Willow Tree.
Tourtillotte said furnishings inside the tipi would likely have included willow chairs, mats made from hides or a mattress stuffed with leaves for sleeping, a fire pit and an altar for burning sage, sweet grass or cedar to drive away evil spirits.
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