MINOT – Douglas Hodgkins talked on his book, “Fractured Family, Fighting in the Maine Courts,” at a recent meeting of the Minot Historical Society.

He told of the Charles and Sarah Hodgkins family, his great-grandparents, who owned a farm on the Ferry Road/Pleasant Street area of Lewiston. Charles and Sarah had six sons and one daughter. Hodgkins’ grandfather was the youngest of the six sons. Charles Hodgkins died in 1911 and soon after, the many and varied “feuds” between mother and siblings and/or sibling versus sibling began.

Some of the “feuds” seem trivial today, Hodgkins said, but everything anyone owned in those times was of great value and necessary for survival. Just about all the “feuds” ended up in the courts of Lewiston/Auburn and the cases are still being studied in some law schools today.

The book is on sale at the Androscoggin Historical Society and other book stores in the area. It is a story of the times from 1880 to the 1920s and tells of life as it was in Lewiston.

In other business, Lucille Hodgdon donated three census books she has researched and compiled on Minot people from 1790 through the 1950s. Mildred Whittemore donated six old town reports and the Bob Palmer Family donated a heavy metal sign dated 1887 with names: Selectman, V.P. Waterhouse, Poland; Selectmen, C.E. Stevens, O.N. Bailey, R.P. Rounds, Minot. The society is interested in documenting where this sign was located when it was used.

The society is looking for all information anyone might have on Minot’s one-room schools, also the original signs that were on the schools. The next meeting will be at 7 p.m., Oct. 11, at the Minot Town Office. The program will be “The History of Local Artists.”