Visitors to the Baxter House Museum can step back in time just by stepping over the threshold.
“We call the top step ‘the confessional’” says tour guide Suzanne Ennis, “because many visitors arrive confessing that they’ve lived here for decades but have never been inside.”
Ennis says she loves showing native Gorhamites and newcomers alike around the 1800s home, walking them through the town’s founding in 1736 and up to the turn of the last century. Third -graders from all over town may be the museum’s most important visitors. They study the history of Gorham in their curriculum at Village, Narragansett and Great Falls schools.
“They arrive in May with answers as well as questions” says the tour guide, noting that some teachers even assign to students the roles of Gorham notables. “I’ll mention Captain John Phinney, our town’s founder, and students will point to a classmate and say, ‘That’s him!’”
In the War Room, named for a large painting of the Civil War Battle of Chancellorsville, a student is asked to hold up a canteen that was owned by William Strout, so the whole class can see it. One student asked whether the soldier from the 17th Maine Regiment survived the war. Ennis says she told him, “I’ll find out, and every tour after this one will know because of you.” Roughly two hundred students visit the Baxter House every year in a tradition that goes back for decades.
Visitors can see what the first records and record player looked like in the Music Room. Students in class tours who have taken piano lessons can even give an impromptu demonstration for their friends. The tour guide encourages the children to return over the summer and help her give the tour to their families. “We’ve already had a few students come back this summer” she said last week.
James Phinney Baxter donated his birthplace to the town in 1907, and it opened as a town history museum the following year. Because the Baxter family is so well known in Maine, there is also a bedroom dedicated to their history.
Volunteers at the museum have helped set up a new child’s bedroom on the third floor, where classroom tours do not go. “It’s a little too small for large groups,” the tour guide says. She encourages students to satisfy their curiosity with a return visit.
Ennis says she may have hosted the museum’s oldest visitor last month when a nonagenerian made his confession on the top step. “This gentleman is a delight and he was able to confirm some of our stories from his own childhood experience.”
The Baxter House Museum is open Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. through August. Tours by appointment may be arranged through the Baxter Memorial Library.