A full year of events offered by the Old Berwick Historical Society will begin with a virtual ride on the Boston and Maine Railroad of the 1800s led by historical writer Nelson H. Lawry on Thursday evening, January 22, at 7:30 pm at Berwick Academy.
Lawry’s PowerPoint talk, “The Not-So-Vanished Railroads of the Berwicks,” will allow audience members to rediscover the main and branch lines of the B&M Portland Division’s Eastern Route (once named the Eastern Division), which ran through the Berwicks between Boston and Portland from the mid 1800s through the mid 1900s.
An author who focuses on the history of technology, Lawry recently photographed the vestiges of the railroad. His digital images begin in coastal Massachusetts, where the MBTA runs today over active track, and proceed up the largely abandoned line through the Berwicks and Wells.
The show will be held in the Margaret and Owen Stevens Room of Berwick Academy’s new Jeppesen Science Center, next door to Fogg Memorial. The hall is handicapped accessible and served by an automatic elevator. Admission is free, and refreshments will be served by volunteers.
A resident of Rollinsford, NH, Lawry holds a Ph.D. in cell biology and electron microscopy from the City University of New York. He has published articles in three railroad magazines, formerly served as chairman of the Rollinsford Historical Committee, and is a member of the Northern New England Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology.
He has written historical columns for both Foster’s Daily Democrat and the Dover Times. He is first author of “Portsmouth Harbor’s Military and Naval Heritage” (2004).
The railroad program will be the first in Old Berwick Historical Society’s 2009 series of talks, walks, and historical events. These public programs, supported by a $3500 grant from Kennebunk Savings Bank, include seven monthly Thursday presentations, all starting at 7:30 pm, as well as other local history events around South Berwick, including the society’s Counting House Museum. OBHS web site.
