Sweat Morin Homestead signage on School Street
Photo: Barbara Sutcliffe
By Lawrence Furbish
If you have driven past the Sweat Morin Homestead on lower School Street lately, you may have noticed a change signifying major progress. The “Restoration in Progress” sign has been taken down and replaced by the attractive sign pictured above. Some work remains to be done on the second floor and in the surrounding landscape, but enough has been completed so that the Homestead will have its official grand opening on Saturday, July 19 from 10am to 1pm.
The opening will include guided tours of the house, barn and cemetery as well as refreshments and a very short talk about Reverend Moses Sweat and a description of the extensive and painstaking restoration work done to bring the buildings back to life. The Mousam Way Land Trust has worked to expand and improve the walking trails on the 100-acre Virginia Hurd Morin Preserve, upon which the Homestead sits. The trails traverse a fully mature forest with massive pines and hemlocks, vernal pools and wetlands. Deer, turkey and other wildlife can often be spotted.
On June 14, the Homestead celebrated a “soft opening” joint program with the Sanford- Springvale Historical Society titled, “The Age of Medicine and Midwifery.” About 50 interested listeners heard SSHS Executive Director Patti Violette describe and demonstrate how various herbs and ingredients like camphor, turpentine and rum were used to concoct a variety of colonial era medicines and poultices. More joint programs are planned for the summer and are the result of the collaboration between the Historical Society and the Homestead.
The Homestead and the Preserve are the result of a very generous gift from Virginia Hurd Morin, who passed away in 2022 at the age of 99. She had lived in the house enjoying the deer, birds and other wildlife as well as the shrubs and the woods surrounding her home. The land is on both sides of School Street running down to the Mousam River across from the new high school. Virginia battled ceaselessly with her groundskeeper to retain the trees and shrubs which gave the home its seclusion, so much so that many people did not even know it was there.
Planning is ongoing for the Homestead to be open as a living history museum. Initially, it will likely be open one day a week with the opportunity for people to request individual visits and tours. The Sweat Morin Homestead is the oldest (1786) restored property in Sanford. Visiting is like stepping back 240 years to 18th century rural Maine in the time of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. For more information, visit the Homestead online. https://www.sweatmorinhomestead.org/
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