Inside Newry’s one-room school house on the National Registry of Historic Places. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

NEWRY —  Two National Registry of Historic Places properties in Newry are featured this week: The Lower Sunday River Schoolhouse and The Foster Family Farm. A third will be highlighted in next week’s continuing series about the area’s historic places.

Inside Newry’s Lower Sunday River Schoolhouse is an antique map of Maine. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

The Lower Sunday River Schoolhouse

The Lower Sunday River Schoolhouse is an unassuming gem.

In 1978 Architectural Historian Robert Bradley, wrote that the schoolhouse “remains essentially unaltered from its appearance as constructed in 1895 by the Town of Newry.”

The one-and-a-half story frame structure with a clapboarded exterior, stands on a foundation of native granite at its original location, a few yards east of the Sunday River Road in Newry.

“Like other schoolhouses of its period, the Sunday River School has a window arrangement designed to make best use of daylight during school hours; for this reason there are no windows on the east or south walls to receive direct light. Instead, the north wall of the classroom has four large windows with six-over-six panes … ”

“The [class] room has nearly a thirteen-foot ceiling. This ceiling is also plastered and like the walls, is in good condition. A large slate blackboard framed in a simple wooden moulding, runs nearly the entire length of the south, wall…

“This modest schoolhouse within the sound of Dug Hill Brook at Sunday River is significant as a remarkable survival of a late 19th century rural school. Though closed over thirty years ago when Newry became part of a larger school administrative district, it has been kept in excellent repair …” said Bradley.

Encyclopedias line a bookcase inside Newry’s one-room school house on the National Registry of Historic Places. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

“In the classroom are wood and cast iron desks of graduated sizes on wooden runners. All have glass ink wells and most carry the patent date of 1872. At the front of the room is a teacher’s desk and chair. Also near the front is a tall “Mason & Hamlin” organ, dated “Boston, 1895″, in excellent condition. In other corners of the room are a wooden table, a large bench said to be from the Newry Corner Church (now razed) …

” Though the building was converted to electricity by 1930, kerosene lamps with reflectors are still very much in evidence around the walls. A Regulator Clock and several copies of famous portraits of Washington, Lincoln, Longfellow and Coolidge also adorn the walls. In addition, two maps of Maine dated in the 1860′ s hang in the room.

“Both the desks and the corner storage room contain many of the books used while the school was active. A large collection of student workpapers, notebooks, etc., as well as daily teacher lesson plans, do much in documenting the history of the building. The presence of a wooden globe, a hand bell, map box, abacus, and several wooden “games” of local origin, add to the authentic atmosphere.”

Bradley goes on to say that the Lower School at Sunday River is one of the last one-room school buildings in northern Oxford County to remain intact, and  goes beyond the simple but important qualification in representing a now-faded era in rural education.”

Foster Family Farm is on the National Register of Historic Places in Newry. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

Foster Family Farm

Foster Family Farm abuts the Sunday River Covered Bridge and is on the National Register of Historic Places in Newry. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

The Foster Family Farm, was added to the NRHP in 1994. The farm abuts the Sunday River Covered Bridge and wedding couples often use both places as backdrops for photographs.

“Although the Greek Revival style was popular throughout Maine from the 1830s into the 1860s, the use of a full portico – particularly with a porch on the second story – in a rural setting is uncommon,”  wrote Architectural Historian Kirk F. Mohney.

Mohney’s NRHP report includes this description of the home and detached barn and stable, “set amidst open meadows which make up a portion of the 255-acre property, there is also a small local cemetery to the west of the house which contains the graves of family members who occupied the farm.

“This property is eligible for nomination to the Register under criterion A for the manner in which it represents a typical nineteenth century Newry farm, and criterion C for the architectural significance of its buildings. Criteria consideration D also applies by virtue of the cemetery’s presence,” wrote Mohney.

“Local historians have concluded that the property occupied by the Foster farm was first settled by Joel Foster (1790-1877) whose father Abner Foster and grandfather Asa Foster were among the first settlers of Newry in the 1780s. All three of these men were active in local town government having served in various positions including selectman, treasurer, highway surveyor, and clerk. Joel Foster’s father and grandfather took up property on the north side of the nearby bridge crossing over the Sunday River, whereas Joel’s farm (which he may have begun to develop around the time of his marriage to Marcia F. Jackson in 1815) was on the south side …

“Compared to his neighbors, Foster’s was an average size farm which produced a variety of products including corn, oats, potatoes, butter, cheese, hay, and wool from his herd of 15 sheep. Local tradition maintains that the Foster’s operated a soap factory on this property in a small, two-story building which stood until recently to the north of the house. No documentary evidence has yet been discovered to indicate the scope or duration of this small-scale
Industry.

“The mid-nineteenth century witnessed the peak of Newry’s developed agricultural landscape and the population it supported. The 474 persons recorded in the 1860 census was only 16 more than a decade before but nearly 60 more than a decade later. Newry’s population continued to decline thereafter until by 1900 there were only 286 year-round residents, wrote Mohney.  In the 2020 census Newry’s year-round population was 411.

Mohney notes that  Caleb Foster produced 200 pounds of hops in 1870. Hops had been raised in Oxford County as early as the late 1830s, but the peak of production occurred in the 1860s when nearly 300,000 pounds were raised statewide with more than half of the total in Oxford County.

Caleb Foster was apparently the last member of the family to actively farm this property and make it his year-round residence. His widow remained here until her death in 1909, after which the farm seems to have taken on the role of a summer residence, having descended to Foster’s eldest son Celden B. Foster. Celden Foster was responsible for the construction in 1895 of the existing bam, a building erected by the local carpenter Hiram York. {York built the nearby Sunday River Covered Bridge, too).

As stated in his obituary which appeared in the May 3, 1934 edition of the Bethel Citizen. Celden B. Foster had been engaged in the produce business in Boston for more than 40 years.

The seasonal use of the property has been sustained by three subsequent generations of the family, wrote Mohney.