Pittsfield Historical Society

08/10/2026

We can't wait to have this item on display later this year! Thank you to Sue Friend for this wonderful donation.

08/08/2026

A little bit of local history turned up in an unexpected place this week.

Sarah DeLong reached out to us while renovating the kitchen of her home on Easy Street. After working their way down through several layers of flooring, they reached what appears to be an early or original hardwood floor. On the back of a number of the boards is the same stencil:

“G. D. Jacobs — Pittsfield, Me.”

She wondered whether Jacobs might have been a local mill, lumber yard, builder, or perhaps simply the person for whom the flooring had been ordered.

We did some digging.

The 1904 Pittsfield Register lists G. Dennis Jacobs in the area and gives his occupation as carpenter. Other records appear to identify him as George Dennis Jacobs, and we also found a Burnham municipal record showing a payment to “G. D. Jacobs” for labor, material, and lumber.

That gives us a fairly good picture, although not quite a complete one. Jacobs seems to have been a local carpenter or builder who also supplied or worked with lumber. We have not found evidence that he operated a mill himself.

Exactly why his name was stenciled on these floorboards is still an open question. They may have been an order made by Jacobs, material being delivered to one of his jobs, or lumber he supplied himself. Pittsfield had an active lumber industry at the time, including Bryant & Company near Easy Street, so there are several possibilities.

The house is currently listed as having been built in 1900, but that date should also be treated cautiously. Many older Pittsfield properties were assigned a generic 1900 construction date in later records, so the actual house may be older. The flooring gives us another small piece of evidence to work with, but not enough by itself to establish a construction date.

And this is one of the things we enjoy most about local history. It is not always a major event, a famous person, or something preserved carefully in an archive. Sometimes it is a name stamped on the back of a floorboard, hidden under a kitchen for more than a century.

It is, as Sarah put it, “just regular people living their lives.”

Those lives are the history of Pittsfield too.

Thank you to Sarah for sending us the photographs and giving us permission to share them. If anyone recognizes the Jacobs name, knows more about G. D. Jacobs and his work, or has found similar markings in an older Pittsfield home, we would be very interested to hear from you.

08/07/2026

Thanks to the 6(!) volunteers that we had today we were able to make excellent progress and complete the first step in getting the artifacts organized and on display. The next step is to get the storage room cleaned up and some shelving added and then work from the front of the building backwards. Following discussion we have set a goal to have the front room cleaned up and ready for visitors with a number of display items out by the end of August. Keep an eye out here or join our mailing list for more volunteer opportunities!

08/05/2026

Upcoming volunteer opportunity!

We are happy to report that efforts are underway to sort, review, and fully catalogue the collection of artifacts and documents at the Depot. As part of this very tall order, members of the Historical Society, and any new volunteers that would like to help, will be meeting regularly starting this week. These will be working sessions with the goal of getting the depot open to the public in September or October of this year. Our first such working session will be this Friday, August 7th, starting at 3:00 pm at the Depot at 114 Central St. If you have any questions, please send us a DM and we will respond as quickly as we are able.

11/15/2025

11/08/2025

10/23/2025

Have you ever wanted to know more about the site of the former Pittsfield Redemption Center? We took a little stroll through the Pittsfield Advertiser archives available on our website, and this is what we could put together! If you have any more information or pictures please share them in the comments.

December 1935
Owned (?) by J. Trickey - Unclear use

February 1944
Kennedy Service Station - noted as “Formerly DeWitt’s Garage”

May 1945
Noted as the residence of Mrs. George Kennedy

May 1949
Fairmount Cleaners - Dyeing, Hat-blocking, Shoes

February 1950
Residence of Mr. and Mrs. George Kennedy - Their daughter, Bette, was married at this location on February 4, 1950 to “Ellis (?) A. Doherty, son of Mr. & Mrs. Franklin Doherty, of” location unclear. The “double ring” ceremony was presided over by Rev. Hinckley of the First Universalist Church of Pittsfield.

April 1951
Veda MacDonald received a Victualers’ or Inkeeper’s License for “MacDonald’s Lunch”

January - April 1952
Listed for sale - ads include “Store or garage, modern apartment upstairs, main highway, 10 North Main, Pittsfield, $7500” and “10 North Main Street, Pittsfield, first floor store or garage, 6 room apartment second floor, bath, oil hot water heat, $7500”

February 1958
Quiet’s Service Station (a Gulf station), owned and operated by Lloyd D. Quiet, noted because Mr. Quiet was honored by the Gulf Oil Corporation

March 1960
“Mr. & Mrs. Leon A. Davis of South Main St., Guilford, Maine announce the engagement of their daughter, Brenda Louise, to Harold D. Quiet, son of Mr. & Mrs. Lloyd D. Quiet of 10 North Main Street"

April 1964
Lloyd & Nellie Quiet are granted a Victualers’ or Inkeeper’s License for “Mom’s Lunch”

September 1969 - August 1972
Morrison’s Market

January 1980
Listed for sale: “Commercial building wth 5 room upstairs apt. Excellent income potential. Price reduced to $23,000. Owner financing available with reasonable down payment. Call 487-2211 for details.”

May - July 1980
Still listed for sale - price noted as “low twenties”

September 1983
Advertised as Pittsfield Redemption Center

04/19/2025

Checking in from the Battle Green Rededication in Lexington, MA—marking 250 years to the day since the first shots of the American Revolution.

It’s a strong reminder: the stories we preserve in small towns like Pittsfield are part of a much bigger arc. Some of our earliest residents served in the Revolutionary War, and their legacy lives on in our cemeteries, family names, and town records.

The uniforms may have changed—but the responsibility to remember hasn’t.

04/18/2025

History is hiding in plain sight!

This granite post on Manson Street may not look like much—just another old stone standing by the roadside. But it once marked the front of a thriving business that helped define Pittsfield’s industrial past.

In 1886, R.A. Conant built the town’s largest pant factory behind his home at what is now 11 Manson Street. The two-story building stretched nearly to the railroad tracks and produced workwear at scale—one employee reportedly turned out 60 pairs of overalls in a single day. Fourteen women worked there, and the overhead ran over $3,000 a month.

The building is gone now. But this hitching post remains, a quiet, weathered witness to the working lives and aspirations that once moved through that spot.

Thanks to Richard Davis for sending in this photo—and reminding us that history isn’t always locked in books or behind glass. Sometimes it’s waiting for us on the side of the road, disguised as nothing at all.

Want to help us find, document, and share more of Pittsfield’s hidden history? Join the effort. The Historical Society is back in motion, and there’s plenty of story left to uncover.

04/17/2025

📸 Pittsfield Historical Society is Back!

We had a full house at the Depot tonight—new faces, returning members, and a shared commitment to preserving and celebrating Pittsfield’s incredible story.

This meeting marked the first step in relaunching the Historical Society as a vital part of Pittsfield’s civic life—not just a museum, but a living, working memory system for our town.

We talked about:
✅ Reopening the Depot Museum this spring
✅ Creating hands-on, intergenerational programming
✅ Recording and preserving oral histories from our neighbors
✅ Building partnerships with local schools, businesses, and organizations
✅ Digitizing our archive and bringing it to life in new ways

It’s clear: there’s real energy in this town to remember where we came from—and use that history to build what comes next.

If you want to volunteer, contribute, or just stay in the loop, drop us a message or stop by during one of our upcoming events. We’ve got big plans and room at the table for everyone.

This is how a town remembers who it is—and shapes what it can become.