Hello Ruggles House supporters:

It is glorious spring in eastern Maine and we all deserve it after a long, cold snowy winter. Our almost 200 year old house stood up just fine and we are look forward to opening for the season on June 1 as usual.

The outside of the house will look a little different as our old wild apple trees on the eastern side finally started showing their age. They have been there for decades and one of the two had died in the top and both trees had large holes in the trunks indicating decay in the center cores. After studying the situation, it was decided to have them removed. A professional crew cut them and chipped the smaller branches last fall. Neil Tenan volunteered to haul off the large trunks which have been done. We have many trees on that side of the house including a large maple and many small saplings, plus others. It was looked on with sadness by several Directors but the time had come. They were too close to the new wing to take the chance of damage from winter storms. President Larry Smith and his crew transplanted a maple sapling from this area to the western side of the lot to furnish some shade to the rooms on that side of the house in future years. It is budding out this spring so all is well with that new tree.

We have new additions to the Ruggles archives. The first gift was donated by Robin Lothrop Pinto of Tucson, Arizona. She now owns her grandparents home in Roque Bluffs, near Machias. She has summered in Maine since childhood. The Pinto family is restoring the family home which had been in the Longfellow family. Found in the attic was a large brown manila envelope containing three photos of the Ruggles House. The photos must have been delivered to the family as there was no postmark but a handwritten date of 1936 was in pencil on the front and a mailing label addressed to Mrs. Frederick Longfellow from Marvin Breckinridge of New York City. Ms. Breckinridge was a professional photographer of some renown (her first name was Mary which she did not use professionally) and she followed many other pursuits in the 1920s and many years after. She may have been a friend of the Longfellow family and visited their summer home. Apparently she visited Mary Chandler at the Ruggles House and took the three photos. One shot is the outside of the house and the other two are the staircase and the parlor mantel. These photos are new to us and have never been seen but are very interesting. The restorative work on the house had advanced perhaps more than we had expected of the family efforts at that date. The outside shot is most informative as the house had been improved much in the sixteen years since the last Ruggles, Lizzie, had died. But the ell is already gone from the house. Our archives lead us to believe it was taken off before 1938, but now we know it was before 1936. The photos are sepia brown and white tone and 8 X 10 sizing, mounted on heavy weight paperboard. We are grateful to Ms. Pinto and to Joel Pratt of Roque Bluffs who volunteered to contact the Ruggles House and arrange to donate them for Ms. Pinto. Mr. Pratt also included a wonderful write up on the Longfellow family and Ms. Breckinridge's personal and professional history. We are very glad to have this gift.

The second gift will be a copy of the John Bucknam Ledger, dated from 1769 - 1792, spanning the American Revolution, providing a wealth of information on commerce, shipping, agriculture and daily life for this period on the down east Maine coast. John Bucknam (1746-1792) was one of two first settlers in the district which is now Columbia Falls. The ledger remained in the Bucknam family until 2001 when the late John Bucknam Drisko, a great-great-grandson, gave it to the Maine State Museum. The ledger is in good condition and very readable, according to Marilee Lovit of Addison. She has worked diligently for eight years to make this ledger available for research to the people of Washington County. It was the wish of John Drisko to not only preserve the ledger but to make it available for such research. With the help of Tom Desjardin of the Maine Bureau of Parks and Public Lands, who secured grants from the Davis Family Foundation and the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, the digitized ledger has been completed. A copy of the ledger, which has in excess of three hundred pages, is available now at the Mayhew Library in Addison and the disk has been promised to the Ruggles House Society Archives and the Merrill Library at the University of Maine in Machias. We have not received it as of this writing but have requested it from the Maine State Museum as of March 10, 2009. We will have it printed and make it available in the Archives Room. Our deep gratitude is expressed to Marilee Lovit for her perseverance in this project and including us in the attempt to forward the study of our local history.

When the Society ran our capitol campaign for the new ell, we had designed an eight page, four-fold brochure to help publicize that project. It was very popular and we used it for many purposes. We have very few left. We felt if we could get a grant to fund an update, it might serve a good purpose for marketing, educational programs and school tours, solicitation of funds, grant writing, bus tours, advertising, an abbreviated history of the house to sell in our gift shop and a general promotional item. Secretary Ellen Tenan offered to write a grant in January to Maine Community Foundation, using the Washington County Fund, to fund this new brochure. The grant was awarded in March. Watch for this new brochure. Many thanks go to Maine Community Foundation for the funds.

House phone: 207-483-4637     winter: 207-546-7903    email: etenan@ruggleshouse.org