CHATHAM, N.H. – Norway’s Peter Lenz has been researching and writing histories about New England and other subjects for more than 20 years. An author, historian, folklorist, educator, lecturer and publisher, Lenz has produced hundreds of audio and video productions documenting folk life.

In the first of a two-part lecture, Lenz spoke to the Chatham Historical Society about 30 years spent collecting historical memorabilia. Before the February fire that destroyed his house and much of his library, Lenz said he had “floor to ceiling” stacks of published materials that documented our past.

An expert on Native American tribes, slavery and witchcraft, Lenz is equally adept at local history. He played a moving selection by Doris Thurston from, “The Heart Remembers,” an oral history project he conducted in the Oxford Hills that preserved the voices and memories of dozens of past residents such as Bernard McLaughlin and Bess Klain.

“Every town and every family should do this with their elder treasures,” Lenz advised.

Lenz has spent numerous hours tracing historical connections. He held up a famous painting by the world renowned, 19th century painter, Eastman Johnson, who was born in Lovell and lived in Fryeburg.

Johnson produced many paintings in the Stow and Chatham area. Lenz explained the little girl in the painting “Corn Husking” was Florence Day whose granddaughter, Flo Haley, is, today, an artist in Fryeburg.

A collector and champion of children’s writing, Lenz’s series, “Pearls from Youth,” contains both past and contemporary writing by children.

Lenz read from a 7-year-old’s letter to Santa written in 1890. Viola Finney, a Norway resident, asked for her distant relatives to “come back” and then added, “write me a note back, Santa, and I will try to get you what you want.”

One of his favorite and most popular projects was producing a book of baby names that he collected with his daughter, Aurora, when they visited graveyards together. Father and daughter found many favorites like Noble, Bethany, Destiny, Solstice and Dianthus. They also found “weird” names like Ivory Snow and Stoplion, which Lenz thought was a way of saying “stop lying.” They also noted “ugly” names like Fear, Submit and Nausea. The collection was called “From Grave to Cradle, the Circle of Life.”

Lenz has researched and published the original manuscripts of famed Norway author, C.A. Stephens, whose work appeared regularly in a weekly literary magazine, “The Youth’s Companion,” printed in Boston between the 1870s and 1920s.

Lenz is currently assembling an anthology of literature produced in western Maine’s foothills from the 18th century to the present. His oldest selection is composed of diary excerpts by Henry Tufts who lived with and was treated by the native healer Molly Ockett between 1767 and 1769. This was in Bethel when it was still called Sudbury. The collection is called “Literary Pearls.”

Lenz read “The Village” written by Enoch Lincoln in 1816. He read selections from 19th century Waterford humorist Artemus Ward, who was a favorite of President Abraham Lincoln. Contemporary selections included Lovell poet Timothy Richardson and native American Warm Tears, who lives in a wooded area of South Paris.

“Joy keeps you alive longer,” Lenz said as he read from his collections of “Lost and Forgotten Maine-New England Folk and Literary expressions.”

Lenz will be exhibiting books at the Western Oxford Foothills Cultural Council booth 101 at the Oxford Hills Business Showcase Friday and Saturday, Oct. 24 and 25, at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris.

Lenz’s second lecture will be held Nov. 11 at the Charlotte Hobbs Memorial Library in Lovell Village and will focus on Native American life.

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