Palermo Historical Society

03/21/2026

The first meeting of the year will occur this coming Tuesday, March 24, at 6:00 p.m., at the Worthing House on North Palermo Road. All are welcome to attend.

03/10/2026

One more reminder!

Tonight is the final installment in the Winter Lecture Series for this season (goodbye, winter!), with Mike Falla, Palermo's resident surveyor. Come on out and learn more about property rights and boundary management throughout Palermo's history! Doors of the Worthing House will open at 5:00 p.m. Presentation begins at 6:00 p.m.

02/04/2026

Did you see our end of year newsletter? PHS members and friends got this first!

https://tinyurl.com/5xyfwv5h

We voted last year to publish a biannual newsletter, and this is our second issue. We've got two more evenings in the Winter Lecture Series, with Mary Grow and Andy Pottle in Conversation coming up next week. Our first business meeting of 2026, and officer elections, are Tuesday, March 24th at 6pm. Two officers are stepping down so there's opportunity for new voices to help determine our future.

Contact us at [email protected] with any questions.

Palermo Historical Society Winter 2025 Newsletter Hello and Happy Holidays to PHS members, family, and friends! We hope you enjoy this second issue of our semi-annual newsletter, published in June and December. Inside you’ll find recollections of the second half of our 30th anniversary season, in....

01/12/2026

Doesn't this cardinal look handsome among the frosty flowers? Want to learn how to capture such stunning photos yourself? Come on out to the Worthing House (54 N Palermo Rd) starting at 5pm on Tuesday, 1/13, for an evening with the naturalist behind Here in the Wild: Field Notes and Photography, North Palermo's Logan Parker. The house opens for refreshments at 5, with Logan's talk at 6.

Logan is the third guest speaker in the Historical Society's new Winter Lecture Series, launched to commemorate our 30th anniversary in 2025. Previous guests include Greg Parker of Set in Stone Cemetery Restoration and John Bunker, apple scientist and historian.

Northern Cardinal.

I met up with a friend over the weekend to go birding at a few locations on the Pemaquid Peninsula. We started out along a small stretch of beach just as the day was beginning to warm. Unlike in summer, when birds will often vocalize at or just before the first suggestion of daylight, winter mornings start slowly. Birds will stir from their roosting places and set themselves to foraging, building up stores of energy to help ensure their survival through the winter night to come. A cardinal was slow to rise, or at least to make herself known, but we spotted her among the beach rose hips and winterberry.

10/12/2025

We couldn't ask for a better capstone of our 30th anniversary season than the crowd that came to the Worthing House on Tuesday, drawn by the promise of fresh baked apple desserts and the pomological prowess of John Bunker. It is no exaggeration to say we were at Standing Room Capacity only! With roughly 50 attendees and a dozen apple desserts, Applefest was a true community success. Everyone received tickets to vote for their favorite dessert: Kate Pottle's Apple Cream Sourdough Horns won by a single vote, with Pam Partridge's Swedish Apple Pie coming in second. Kate and Pam both took home a copy of Apples and the Art of Detection, with Kate also winning an apple tree from Bunk, to be collected in the spring. Thank you to all our bakers, including Vicki Dyer, Bernie Sky, Logan Parker, Nancy Richards, Bonnie Hunter, Sandrine Pottle, and to all the hungry folks who made sure there were no leftovers!
While many hands made light work for this event (PHS members Carol Gilette & Rich Tozier helped set up & decorate the Worthing House), Applefest was a success because of John Bunker. Bunk spoke for over an hour, pulling apples from paper bags and telling stories about all the different varieties right here in Palermo: Ben Davis, which looks phenomenal and robust but tastes worse than cardboard; Baldwin, one of the first "cash crop" apples that fell out of favor because it didn't keep well; what "russet" is on an apple and the challenges of discerning one russet from another - especially interesting because one distinct "golden russet" genotype is traced to our neck of the woods. He told us about knocking on Howard Glidden's door to ask if he could pick apples from his tree and being told "no," then finding Howard's grafting setup and being exposed to that concept for the first time; grafting is a growing technique by which any variety of apple can be grown on the rootstock of another apple. It was a fun and educational experience, and if you missed it don't despair - we recorded the audio from Bunk's talk and will be sharing it soon.

10/07/2025

We're ready at the Worthing House for our Apple Fest. Stop by! John Bunker is speaking at 6:30 pm.

10/07/2025

Today! We're delighted to welcome John Bunker and host the Apple Dessert Contest at the Worthing House this evening. Doors at 4.30, contest at 5.30, Bunk at 6.30. There's still time to make an apple dessert, though you'll probably want more time for one of the most iconic ones - the apple pie.

For inspiration, here's a PBS clip on John Bunker's Apple Pie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOr-PXfX1BQ and his own recipe https://www.pbs.org/food/recipes/john-bunkers-apple-pie

Ingredients
For the CRUST:

1 ½ cup flour
1 stick cold butter (¼ lb)
4 Tbsp ice cold water

For the FILLING:

Around 8 good pie apples
⅓ cup cane sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
¼ tsp. ground cloves

Instructions

1
In a large bowl, press the cold butter into the flour using your hands, until the flour is sandy and the butter well incorporated. (You can also use a food processor for this). Add the water and mix until the dough just comes into a ball. Shape into a ball, place it in a sealed plastic bag and let it rest in the fridge for a minimum of one, ideally two hours.
2
Cut the apples into slices to fill your pie plate. You can either peel the skins or leave them on, as you prefer. (John usually leaves them on because a good pie apple generally doesn’t have a tough skin).
3
Once your apple slices make a nice rounded mound in your pie plate, you’ll know you have enough. Transfer your sliced apples into a bowl and add 1/3 cup sugar as well as your spices. Mix it well with a spoon so the apples are uniformly coated in sugar & spices.
4
Remove the dough ball from the fridge and cut it in half. Use a little flour on your counter top and rolling pin so the dough doesn’t stick and roll out half the dough for the bottom crust.
5
Lay the crust bottom into your pie pan. Place the apple mixture into the crust. Roll out the remaining dough for the top crust. Lay the top crust onto the apple slices. Crimp together the edge of the crusts. Prick holes into the crust with a fork. Decorate the crust to taste!
6
Bake at 375 F for 15 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 350 F and bake for another 45 minutes. Enjoy!

10/03/2025

This Tuesday!
Here's a recipe for baked apples that could make you a winner!

4 good-quality apples

1/4 cup chopped walnuts, or pecans

1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

2 Tablespoons butter, room temperature

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup water

vanilla ice cream, for topping (optional)

Instructions



Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Use a paring knife or apple corer to remove the stem and seeds from the apples, making a deep hole where the filling will go.

Combine the brown sugar, butter and cinnamon in a small bowl and mix well to combine. Add the nuts. Spoon mixture evenly into each of the apples.

Add ¼ cup of water to a baking dish and place apples on top.

Bake for about 40-45 minutes, or until apples are tender when pierced with a fork. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Spoon the sauce drippings from the pan over the apples. Serve with ice cream, if desired.