STRATTON – The Dead River Historical Society has announced it has received a grant of $5,000 from the Davis Family Foundation of Falmouth to install handicapped access at the museum. It will be a two-part project.

There are three steps entering the museum and one is high, which is difficult for the elderly and nearly impossible for the handicapped to maneuver. There isn’t enough room to make it into smaller steps, but there is room for a ramp.

The society expanded the museum with a balcony a few years ago and there are exhibits there. It is either difficult or impossible for some people to access. A handicap ramp coming in from outside and a stair climber to the balcony would solve the problems.

The museum houses artifacts from the drowned villages of Flagstaff and Dead River Plantation as well as Coplin Plantation and Eustis/Stratton. Flagstaff and Dead River Plantation are included in the main display.

At this time the items are in a small room in the museum and hard to see because they are cramped. And that room has two high steps in order to enter. There is no room for a ramp inside the building without hindering access or blocking off the other exhibits.

A stair climber to the upstairs balcony would enable members to expand the Dead River Plantation and Flagstaff Village exhibits.

The Dead River Area Historical Society is a nonprofit organization, incorporated in 1979 to preserve and promote interest in the history of the Dead River area. Artifacts, manuscripts and photographs have been donated or loaned by interested townspeople and descendants of the Dead River areas.

Collections are from 1850, with all of the artifacts given from the original families of the Dead River region. Displays include a collection of old carpentry and logging tools, china, glass, church organ, furniture from native families, a complete schoolroom, a memorial room to the “lost” towns of Flagstaff and Dead River Plantation, the lineage of several native families and a host of memorabilia from native homesteads.

The society is open every weekend during July and August from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.