Buckland Public Library

The Buckland Public Library has several family genealogies in its holdings, including books documenting the surnames Ellis, Fellows, Fiske-Fisk, Hallock, Hosmer, Johnson, Jones, Pratt, Purrington, Rugg-Holt, Scott, Shedd, and Spear, among others.

Our collection includes several town, state and regional historical volumes, many of which include genealogies. We have several copies of The History of Buckland 1779-1935 by Fannie Shaw Kendrick with Genealogies by Lucy Cutler Kellogg. Published in 1937, the Buckland history includes over 400 pages of family genealogies with a decent surname index of the entire work.

We are fortunate to have in our holdings a record complied by William Othniel Taylor (1855-1923). In Kendrick’s Buckland History she writes, “Mr. W. O. Taylor most painstakingly gathered and recorded a vast amount of material on local history which has been of inestimable value in the preparation of this work in both the historical and genealogical sections.” Gifted to the Library by H. E. Ward, this work is hand written with very legible penmanship and includes an every name index. Here’s Mr. Taylor’s own description of this work, and his listing of the contents (with page numbers omitted):

Buckland Mass
Historical and Genealogical Data, Relating to the Town of Buckland, collected and arranged from Town and Church Records, Cemeteries, Town Histories, Genealogies, Account Books and other sources, by a great grandson of Capt Samuel Taylor, Esq. who was the first Town Clerk and served in that Office for over forty years and was succeeded by his son Samuel, who held the same Office for many years. This volume is a valuable one to all who may be interested in Buckland’s history, and should not be taken from the Town Clerk’s Office, as it can not be replaced.
A slight tribute to the home of my parents.
[signed] W O Taylor Dec 26 1896

Contents
Inscriptions from Tombstones
Deaths, copied from newspapers
Deaths of former Residents
Some Births in Buckland, mostly from Gazette a Courier
Cong Church Records copied from the original
Cong Church Records Deaths
Cong Church Records Marriages
Marriages from newspapers, and other sources
Publishments of Marriage intentions
A List of Voters in Buckland 1806 1822
Valuation 1785
Extracts from Major Griswold’s Account Book
Baptist Societies and members
Deed of Samuel and Lemuel Taylor 1780
Soldiers furnished by Buckland 1861-1865, from State records
Odd Notes of People, etc.
Fragments of genealogies
Index of Persons

For those who live a distance from Buckland, we have a volunteer who is willing to help you with your research. Send your email request to: heylady@mapinternet.com . Be sure to put “Buckland” in the subject line. You may also mail your request to the Library.

-Tina Peters, 2009

In the year 1889 the late LeBaron D. Ruddock of Buckland died, leaving a legacy for the nucleus of a church library fund. Reverend Alpheus C. Hodges, a man of vision, saw here an opportunity to stress the need for a public library building. He therefore offered to give one thousand dollars if the people in town would raise a like amount. A committee consisting of Messrs. E. C. Maynard and A. C. Hawks soon secured the required sum and the lot whereon the Methodist church stood [this is the library’s current location on Upper Street, Buckland Center] was decided upon as the most central location for the building. As the Methodist society was greatly depleted in numbers, and the church no longer used for services, the Methodist conference sold the property to the citizens for use as a public hall, and it was moved to the rear of the Congregational church [where it stands today known at the Buckland Public Hall available to rent for private and public functions]. The ground thus cleared, was purchased of Josiah Griswold’s estate for the site of the new library. The building committee was Sumner J. Ward, James D. Avery and Charles E. Ward. The committee on plans and specifications, Reverend Alpheus C. Hodges, secured the services of Gardner, Payne and Gardner, who prepared and submitted the same for approval.

For twenty years the church bore the expenses of the Free Public Library.

[The summary above is excerpted from The History of Buckland 1779-1935 by Fannie Shaw Kendrick with Genealogies by Lucy Cutler Kellogg – Buckland Mass 1937 (pages 291 & 292.)]

The members of the Congregational church voted on December 26, 1911 to give the library committee the authority “to place the library in charge of the town of Buckland.” An agreement was finalized on August 31, 1912 between the town and the church with conditions that included that the books remained the property of the church but the town had free use of the books and the building, and that the town pay for ordinary repairs and all maintenance expenses. The Library remained under the ownership of the church, with trustees appointed by the church and the town, until September 2002 when the church membership voted to convey the library building, land and all its assets and funds to a new nonprofit secular organization, The Buckland Public Library, Inc.

-Tina Peters 2009

When Liz, and then Diana, commented on how they enjoyed my use of the library ( their polite way of saying that I keep them extremely busy), I began to muse a bit. What is unusual about how I use the library and how did that all begin?

The habit started young. I grew up in New York City on the borderline between Queens and Brooklyn. Once a month trips would yield about 7 books in the bookbag. One of the highlights of my life was when I was old enough to walk on my very own to our library about a mile away. I could go after school, I could go on Saturday. Why, I could go just any old time. I could go and pick out a book and then another one and then another. And when I brought them home, I could have them in my room, all to myself.

When going on vacation, I would get special dispensation from the librarian to take out more than the allowed amount of books. I could take out 12! And then I’d spend three weeks on lovely Sebago Lake, reading in the shade, hiding from my mother who would spend a good part of her day trying to get me to go out and play or swim or boat or ski. I didn’t need to do those things. I had my library books. I could be stranded on that far off wooded mountain after a plane crash, with only my wits and a few supplies to keep me alive. I could find that magic coin that would fulfill a wish only half way and cause me all kinds of trouble. I could be that child who lived in a big family who laughed all the time and grew up on the plains of the Midwest in 1875. Or I could be the English governess taking care of little Adele and falling in with Mr. Rochester. The world I grew up in extended far beyond our little neighborhood in Brooklyn or our yearly vacation on the lake. My world was huge because I had my library.

But we grow up and the adult life we so avidly await ends up being at times more than just a little frustrating. There are so many times in our lives that we just can’t do what we want to do. We want to learn something, go somewhere, do something, be something, have something, and we can’t. There’s not enough money, not enough time, not enough resources. We don’t have a sitter, don’t have the gas money, don’t have a car. We don’t have the strength, don’t have the energy or the physical stamina, don’t have the courage. Or, maybe, we just don’t know how to begin. Thank all the stars in heaven that we have our library.

Before my hair turned grey and these wrinkles on my face started staring back at me in the bathroom mirror, I lived way out in the country and raised a very big family. We were isolated in geography but I was never at a loss for things to do that interested me or that detoured me in interesting ways from the daily routines. I had my library. On hiatus from work, I was able to continue studying in my profession because of the library. A handicapped child with so many problems? A call to my librarian (I know, I’m sooo old—pre computer days) and resources flooded in. I learned physical therapy and speech therapy and stimulation techniques. No money for that lovely sewing book or an interesting novel? It was usually only a call away.

Those days, those platinum days with 11 kids at home, did not reflect the poverty in which we lived. We had no TV (by choice because free ones were offered to us) but we were rich. We had books and we read together and learned together. We could even get games from the library.

Now, it’s 2008. The gas prices are phenomenal and my nest egg for that long coveted trip to Tuscany, Italy just went for oil. I’m at the library again and again and again because now, I’ve decided to spend three months in Italy, made possible by my library. Perhaps my most favorite movie of all time is “Out of Africa”. There’s a scene in which someone asks Meryl Streep if she has traveled, and she replies that she an “armchair traveler”. It’s a lovely line. That line opened up the world to me because I began to explore just how far I could get being an “armchair traveler”. I can get pretty far. Just look here.

I started like any traveler would, by learning some of the language. I went on-line at C/WMars and got out all the language books I needed. From them I was able to choose the course I liked best and which I later purchased. I study every day. I had some old travel books and those are always easy to supplement with library loan so I went further and started reading the books by people who had lived in Tuscany, their childhoods or their travels there, or their experience buying and renovating a house there. I needed something more. What do the houses look like, what do Tuscans eat, how do they cook, what do they wear? I ordered some books. I now know how to cook porcini mushrooms with pecorino cheese or how to make fried zucchini flowers stuffed with potato and basil. That information was all easily attainable from, yes, you guessed it, my Buckland library.

I’m glad I have a color copier at home, because I’ve copied some of those lovely Tuscan scenes and have them on my walls. I walk into my office and I am in Tuscany. A glance at the wall and I am picking olives and letting them fall into the nets below the trees. Another glance and I am walking up a stone path into a golden stuccoed house with a tiled roof bathed in the Mediterranean sun at the end of a tiring day in which I’ve picked in the vinyard that stretches out into the landscape for half a mile. In another spot on the wall, I join other women in the stone room at the back of the house where we make pecorino from the Pecora sheep’s milk. But a very favorite place is the piazza of a small town where shops line the edges and it takes you three hours to do your shopping for that night’s meal because you simply must stop and speak to each person you know who is doing likewise. I can feel that sense of community there in Tuscany because of my Buckland library.

And it’s not only books, because my library can get me all kinds of Italian films. I have been in Italy all week, listening to the language, looking at the amazing pink buildings, hearing the children squabbling in the streets. Films bring it all so near. And I’ve heard some different dialects because of the films.

This weekend I am touring Florence. I have my Rick Steeves’ guidebook and a good map of the city and I expect my big coffee table book on Florence to be in today. I’ll probably stay in Florence for a week and maybe go back there as more books arrive. Then there’s the bicycle trip and the hiking trips to the different regions and Tuscany has a coast, too. I’ll need to go there. Pisa is in Tuscany and I may want to read some about how they shored up the tower a few years ago to stabilize it as I travel in that city. I read and it just opens up new areas to explore. And I never run out of time like I do in real-time travel and I never get so exhaustedly tired.

I thought I would spend three months in Tuscany but it may take me a bit longer to perfect my gnocchi and my ravioli. And I’ve always wanted to see Rome. And because I love opera, I think I’ll study something of the lives of Puccini and Verdi. Then, too, I’ve discovered that so many of my favorite authors loved and wrote about Italy. I can’t wait to get books on their Italian stays by Henry James, Edith Wharton, D. H. Lawrence or Charles Dickens. What was it like in Italy 50 years ago, 100 years ago? They wrote about it and I can get their books from my library. I love dogs, so I’ve read about the sheep guard Maremma dogs. I spin and knit, so I know I’ll have to find out about the famous Italian knitting mills. (I didn’t know how to knit until I got out books through the library).

Oh, there’s another nice thing about armchair travel. I can be with my husband and my dogs and I don’t have to leave my violin behind. It’s with me all the time. I still have to get out a songbook and learn some Italian songs. Then, of course, my trip won’t be complete without some books about the famous violin makers. How I would love to play a Stradivarius! And then, I might just want to learn about the restoring of the old violins and what goes into the perfect varnish. Oh, did I tell you that I learned how to play the violin through the library? Yes, this trip might take longer than three months.

So there you have it, Liz and Diana. Thank you for helping me with the books.

There’s something so special to me about a book. It makes me feel rich when I hold one. I love my library.

Ann Bodkhe
Buckland MA
9/5/2008