HIRAM – The Maine history that students in Teresa Mosson’s fourth-grade class have been studying will come alive Wednesday morning as copies of historic Oxford County documents are delivered to the South Hiram Elementary School by horseback.
Students and community members have been invited to witness the moment the horse arrives as part of an Oxford County bicentennial trail ride, Mosson said Monday. The rider will hand a fourth-grader from her class a package containing copies of the original petition to form Oxford County, the documents produced when the Massachusetts Legislature formed the county in 1805, and a proclamation in support of the bicentennial celebration from Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
The trail ride is meant to loosely imitate a ride some of the documents would have taken when the county was formed. Because fourth-grade students in Maine study the state’s history, the papers will be traveling to every school that has a fourth grade in the county, said Oxford County Bicentennial Committee Coordinator Larry Glatz on Monday. The committee has produced stickers with the Oxford County bear logo, fact sheets and other materials as part of the bicentennial celebration and trail ride.
During a planning break in her classroom Monday, Mosson said she is very happy and fortunate to be involved in the bicentennial celebration because it is a unique way to bring history to life for her students.
“You can’t put these kids in a time machine and take them back,” she said.
Oxford County students in her classroom will be drawing names from a hat to see who gets to receive the county documents from the horseback rider, she said. The documents will stay at South Hiram Elementary School overnight, Mosson told her class, then “we’re going to meet to give (them) to another group of riders to carry over the mountain.”
The documents are scheduled to appear in Hiram and Denmark this week before making their way to Fryeburg and Lovell.
After being paraded through the county, they will be carried by a procession of horse riders to the Paris Hill courthouse for a grand celebration June 11.
Comments are no longer available on this story