 Hilary, we're here today at McHang's Hall, and you're doing a service of workshops on preservation and action. Tell us about it. Well, the workshops are an effort to get out to people who are actually working on their older homes. We have an amazing group of people who are experts in historic preservation in the southern main area, and we brought them together with the people who have projects and questions about how to restore or preserve their older homes. We'd like to do this kind of program because it's a way of reaching out to the public, and it's fun for us to be here today at the Mechanics Hall because the Mechanics Hall is about people who are makers, and people who are into preservation are also makers in that way as well. They're actually causing good work to be done and preserving these buildings. Your organization is all about preservation, but why is preservation important? Preservation is a great way to link our current lives with our history and our place. The buildings that are here are all because of the stories behind them and the place that we are. Portland is a port. We have a lot of marine connections. We are connected with the inland part of Maine, with the timber. The buildings here really reflect the people that were here. Portland's old port was the center of the commercial district. It grew up after the Great Fire of 1866. Why were all the buildings brick? Well, it's because there was a big fire. They wanted to use better materials. The same thing with the Mechanics Hall. I just learned that the Mechanics Hall actually had a very large exhibit space in it because that was what was needed at the time. And that exhibit space evolved as new technologies and new information came forward. So very much when you go into a place like Portland City, you see through the architecture and through the places, the parks, the sculptures, how the place evolved. And then you think about how am I here? How am I influencing it? And how everything is part of the fabric of the story of a place. When these buildings were originally built, they were just buildings. They were just houses. They were just office buildings or stores. What's the tipping point to make it interesting or historic that's worth preserving? Well, I think it's always interesting when you talk about the fabric of a place. That means the buildings, the great and grand ones, the public ones, and then the more ordinary places, the residences, the stables, the kind of back story behind a place. And I think it's a mix of those elements that make a fabric of a city or a community. And also, those places evolve. So they become, we have additions, a second or third floor is added to a house like the Longfellow House had a story added to it. There are office buildings where you can clearly see a second and third floor added. To those buildings. So that tells about the prosperity. It tells about the aspirations of a place. So I think there's a continuum of what's historic and what's worthy of preservation. There's also opportunity for new construction in a city, in a place, in a town, and in a neighborhood. I think the challenge and the opportunity for us is to be sure that those, what we call essential elements are kept. But they also are kept vital and alive through adaptive reuse, through creative additions, through enhancements to areas that are historic and have a good story behind them. A preservation project can be overwhelming when you first start thinking about it. Your organization, Greater Portland Landmarks, offers a lot of resources, people including the workshops that you're having today. Talk about the workshops you had today and what other resources are available. Well for example, today we had a workshop on how do I start my project? Where do I begin? You bought a wonderful old house, then you're sitting there in it and you're thinking, oh my gosh, there's so many things I need to get done. So how to prioritize who to bring in, what are the experts you need to bring in to do a project? Can you do it yourself? How do you phase it in over time? So those are the questions that homeowners and building owners have. So that's the kind of topic we've dealt with. We also have a lot of interest in researching older buildings and older properties. And so we did a workshop on how to research your old house and using contemporary technology as well as historical documents to find out who lived there, what was the building originally used for, what was the neighborhood like. And then other practical topics like, I need a new kitchen in my old house. How do I get it to fit in? How do I rethink the space for contemporary uses but keep the personality? So those are the kinds of topics we've been looking at, windows. People are always discussing windows. How do I keep my house more energy efficient? Can I restore the windows that I have there that have the original old growth wood that were built to be repairable? Or is it time are they are very far gone and do they need to be replaced with contemporary high quality windows that will serve a future need? Those are the topics we've looked at today. And today's workshops are being held in Mechanics Hall, a 170-year-old building itself. And Herb Adams, an icon himself, is talking about the history of that. Talk about that for a bit. Well, Herb Adams is an amazing local historian. He brings such enthusiasm and color to the stories behind the buildings. So the Mechanics has a great story. If you had snapped open your morning Portland paper would have been the Eastern Argus on a snowy February day. When this building was young, you'd have read about Napoleon in Europe, Simon Bolivar in South America, Andy Jackson in New Orleans, and the end at last of the War of 1812 and the beginning on page three of where you are sitting right now, the Main Charitable Mechanics Association. All of you are mechanics, believe it or not. Now, you're looking around saying, you mean everybody in this room except me works on cars? No, not necessarily. Mechanics in their day were like you, doers, creators, makers, just like those that appeared in the newspaper article I've referenced of 202 years ago. The mechanics of 1815, the year we were founded, those who made this association gathered for a, quote, mutual support and for the promotion of the useful arts, the Main Charitable Mechanics Association. It is today one of the sixth oldest such remaining in the United States. You would have been glad to have mutual support after the disaster that was the embargo of 1807 to 1809 and then the War of 1812. Young Portland was a place then with its face to the mountains but its feet in the sea. Everything was tied in one way or another to seaborne commerce and its support trades and it was at sea where we had suffered as a subset of Massachusetts unwilling in that shotgun marriage that Maine suffered so badly. It was for those reasons that if Boston won't help us and London attacks us that we band together among ourselves and that is still us. This group we still do. Now the first president of our organization was a man named Deacon John Phillips. He was a cord wainer, a shoemaker, very appropriate because we stand in his shoes today and two hundred two years later and they have traveled far. You can go down and see his picture, his actual likeness, two hundred and two years later it still hangs on the wall of our library downstairs where I'm encouraging all of you to go when that chance presents itself in the program today. About two hundred years of those faces of people that have led this organization can still look down upon you very approvingly. They'd be very pleased that you were here. Now Deacon Phillips associated with fellow mechanics to make this place. They were pump and block makers. They wound rope. They were mirror guilders. They were saddle makers. They cast spoons. They made clocks. They framed stairways. There were shipwrights, housewrights, tool makers. They all made something and they all made them here. That is in Portland town. And in less than 30 years after getting together they being self-reliant, independent. I can do it sorts, much like Portland is today. They gathered to build this structure in which we're sitting now. They built it with their various skills. They framed the timbers of the building we're in now. They quarried the granite. They chiseled the designs. They glazed these windows. They laid the brick and their work still stands today. Now first I should tell you how a hall seemed to become necessary to these people. If you had been meeting for over a generation and they had before the building went up their need for their own place was probably underscored on a single night, the 2nd of June 1855 when the members of the Main Charitable Mechanics Association had been meeting in Klaps Block, a building that stood then on Congress Street facing into what they called market, what we call monument square, opposite the key bank today, corner of Elm and Congress. And as the mechanics troop out of their hall after a meeting they marched directly into the line of fire of the great Portland rum riot of the 2nd of June 1855 when Mayor Neil Dow had ordered the city militia to fire into a mob that had gathered to get at the city supply of medicinal liquors that were locked in the basement of Portland City Hall which then stood exactly where the monument does in monument square today. They walked right into the first discharge of bullets and a shot went through the hat of John Alfred Poor a man who was the founder of the Portland company and the builder of Commercial Street a little bit lower and we would not have an old port festival today. So then Mayor Dow had the square cleared with the bayonet. When you get chased home with a bayonet you want to have a different place to meet. Hillary, take note. And so this hall the lot was purchased in the fall of 1857 here on the corner of Casco in Congress. The granite was hauled in the spring of 1858 comes from Bideford, Emory's quarry so that you will know. Those are the stones that you walked between when you came into the hall today. We think the one that was erected first would as you face the hall be standing on your left. The grand building was designed by Portland its very first actual architect his name is Thomas Sparrow and you can go look into his face in that huge oval portrait that hangs on the second level and all the people around him all the people had helped to build this hall in 1858. It was opened with a grand ball in February 1859 but not this room that we're sitting in more on that later. It would have greeted you as you came in with a large corridor that went clear to the back of the building there would have been an exit onto Casco Street that way you can find it still it's between the uprights of Granite but all bricked in now. The library was on the first floor and in the rear and it was well stocked. Now what was a library for you would say? Well it was meant to quote reward the fidelity of apprentices it opened in April 1820 one month after Maine Statehood many years before there was a Portland Public Library when you visit the library today you will be standing in one of the oldest literary institutions in the entire state of Maine because it almost is exactly minus one month the same age as the state of Maine apprentices would come here at night if you'd got up and were at work at 6 a.m. casting spoons or cutting saddles or winding rope or hammering at the forge all day you'd come here at night and you'd read the daily papers you'd read the classic books you would attend debates you would listen to your learned elders who were masters of their various arts so during the day you improve your skills and at night you improve your mind this is the place where you'd come to do it now I'm sure you're all familiar with that every single one of you has teenagers who go to school all day and come home at night and dip right into the dickens I'm sure so you know what I am talking about but the hall would have looked different as they came through the door in those days facing them would have been a steep stairs that would have gone up to this level now who are the first people that come to a hall like this remember this floor is probably not here well originally they were the dancing teachers the original Portland dancing academies were in this building these were taught by distinguished ladies to polish the young ladies of Portland into high toned and well prepared young women worthy of a good marriage now that legacy accounts for the three paintings here of the dancing masters which are well worth you looking at the paintings themselves being incredible works of art that we're researching more about but that is our legacy and that is why they are here who are the second tenants spiritualists spiritualists they held balls here and they contacted the beyond in this very space where we are sitting now their original hall was on what would have been the second floor where the library is now we believe that this little rim running around the edge of this room was the original balcony from which you would observe the people dancing and holding events on the level that is the library below so you can imagine that it was in a vast open space with grand two-story windows and a high ceiling one of the most impressive buildings in Maine and made by the hands of people just like you in different professions back then the top floor their third floor our fourth floor was a special story in a double sense when the Civil War broke out the top floor of this building which you would call a Celestory today illuminated by the long avenue of round windows that you can see when you stand across the street this was used as the feeding station 24 7 365 for Union troops arriving from all over Maine by train to stay one night in Portland and end train for the south you know it still looks the same there are great Hammersmith beams a cross of sturdy hemlock painted by master artisans using feathers chicken and turkey feathers to look foe f-a-u-x oak it is still exactly there they span the entire space and there is a small balcony like this one up there meant for a small orchestra to entertain all those that were making use of the hall and there's something else very special there if you were a young man coming by train in the middle of the night to a city in a hall where you'd never been before shouldered your musket and your heavy pack and walked up a stout of stairs into a room where you'd never been before ducked through the low door, whack your musket would have hit what is the floor of the balcony those musket marks are still there 151 years and more later I mean a visible touch of the young boys and men of Maine who went away to fight the Civil War if a Civil War soldier was to come back today with the exception that the gas jets are no longer there and there are no more tables you would find the ruins of the dumbwaiter you can see a stove, not their stove but there is a stove there you can see those marks and you can stand for a moment into one of the last places in Portland that a soldier returning would recognize instantly today collapses all time doesn't it why is it one of the last places left well because of course of the enormous great fire of Portland which struck us on the 4th of July 1866 that roaring fire tore northeastward across the city from down on the waterfront to the foot of Monjoy Hill actually just opposite the observatory it roared by on the other side of the street 45 feet this way this hall would not exist as the fire did leap the street and took the new Portland City Hall just a couple of blocks down there where the current city hall now stands in fact after that great fire of 1866 this was Portland City Hall for over two and a half years this is where the city government of Portland directed the recovery of the city because it was the grandest and largest hall still standing in the ruins of the city that could be used in a double sense it saved the main charitable mechanics association the association was nearly crushed by the construction debt on this building the rent from the ruined city of Portland saved this building in a sense the great fire spared us once and saved us twice and here you have the advantage of sitting in it today now during the war this was the place where many sanitary fairs were held so they called them them there being no established nursing order it had to be an invented profession during the war and no government way of necessarily paying for this a lot of it was all raised by fairs that they would have in this very hall to raise money for troop hospitals and etc. down in the south in the space on the second floor where I hope you will go and stand in the library all sorts of famous people spoke not so famous but very significant there was a woman named Abba A. Goddard Rutherford who brought Aunt Jane with her here in 1862 a freed slave who'd run to the union lines after her children had been sold by a cruel master in Virginia the actual thing was related down in the space you can go stand in and just away and just a little while you know it brings those things home in a very personal way soldiers above, ex-slaves below there's much research to be done about this but it's part and parcel of our own story in a sense it's a precursor to the noontime talks that are still presented here and the travel talks which are still presented by the main charitable mechanics association as they said in the 19th century these are notable presentations eloquent word pictures with illustrations of rare beauty thrown upon the screen in those days by candle powered magic lanterns by our days of course by good projectors we've moved those lectures to during the high school where in order to accommodate the crowds now so from the battlefields of Virginia to the far reaches of Mongolia which was a recent lecture just given there this place has seen them all now remember too we've been created for the excellence of presentation of the skilled arts fairs or shows of those skilled arts would have been what you would be well familiar with you have fairs where you show how to repair windows or save trim or restore tin ceilings or do that gilding work that's all around us here so did they in the 4th of July 1826 mainsmen estate less than six years they had a one day event showing all these great useful mechanical arts in September of 1858 it expanded to three weeks and in 1854 they were given the use of Old City Hall Neal Dows City Hall the one that stood where the monument is now and in front of it our mechanics built a wooden building 120 feet long 45 feet wide in other words be about as big as your house if you live say in South Portland or Cape Elizabeth in front of what today would be the monument and a 43 foot arched bridge into the Lancaster building which would be what you and I would know is the old Loring Shorten Harmon where Kinko's is today the printing place in there they had displays of all the great mechanic arts for a month all sorts of things you know Silver Smith jewelers, piano forte makers printers, book binders enormous mechanical machinery built by our mechanics driven by their own steam power plant across the street the main central railroad ran special trains just to bring people to Portland to see this absolute miracle over 26,000 tickets were sold you know almost a thousand today that was more than the population of Portland was then and when some of our mechanics went over to the great crystal palace in London to see that in subsequent years they said it didn't hold a candle to what we could produce here in Portland, Maine now a word about the awards that they gave after that grand exhibit they gave 106 gold, silver and bronze medallions and 260 hand printed steam press diplomas now we have a good set of those on display down in the library you can see the actual diplomas printed and the actual medals awarded there are maybe a dozen downstairs on exhibit and maybe 10 more on exhibit over in the Portland Public Library that way one right now in a glass case dedicated to our presentations also made by the mechanics themselves there are many more of these medals and certificates out there if you find some in your travels around our state and New England please help them come home because these are part and parcel of our story your story in a real way that story in many respects marched down the street in the middle of October 1841 there was a march of the tradesmen banners through the Portland streets to the first parish church the one that's still down the street still stands these were huge canvas banners full color hand painted upon broad sheets of canvas and held up on 20 foot poles down which pole marched the craftsmen themselves house rights, plasterers, blacksmiths cabinet makers, coopers um...haters bankers, bakers, printers watchmakers, tanners plow makers, shipwrights, housewrights bridge builders, house framers about 40 of these gigantic banners were covered with telling puns also the shoemakers for example give their all to mend the souls of mankind the banners still exist they are the last and the best of their kind in the country, they're going to be on display this summer down at the main historical society a cooperative effort of the society this society the main state museum and the other institutions that co-own them now they have been repeated and you walked beneath them today coming up here last Labor Day in 2016 new banners had been painted up here in this hall in that corner throughout the entire summer celebrating the new creative arts and these two signs of our new artists in Republic were marched down Congress Street to Monument Square where there was a great rally around them these banners will one day be hung in this hall so all may see them, you may see them downstairs just walking up, a good sample there of now you are sitting in the hall of the velocipeds not velociraptors velocipeds main charitable mechanics were never behind the times we are sitting in what was the velociped vector of the entire state of Maine in the year 1869 now velocipeds were the brontosaurus of bicycles big wheel bikes, no brakes, hard seats tendency to tip over, all of that Harper's Weekly talked about the importation of the velociped craze from France in a December 1868 article that took the United States by storm by January 1869 a man named C.P. Kimball from my hometown in Oxford County had moved down to Preble Street here in Bayside right behind the charitable mechanics hall and was making velocipeds he was a carriage maker by profession, so picture two big heavy carriage wheels multi-spoked with a pointy uncomfortable seat, very high pushed by pedals, there were no chains on those bicycles, big wheel meant you traveled further with a single rotation of the pedals and, not to be outdone, the charitable mechanics built this floor thereby cutting the hall in two and bisecting the great windows and isolating what we think was the balcony, and it was in this hall this hall where you could have come and paid $3 which was worth about 60 bucks then in today's money and learned how to ride a velociped, as Mr. Kimball said no posts, well actually posts are just what you need to get on one of these machines to mount it or to wheel it meant you had all sorts of faced first impacts and colossal collisions where you'd be left underneath a spinning machine, and if you want to see a picture of that there is an illustration of it on the second level going down, but you are sitting in the place where Maine's love affair with the bicycle began and we still have no posts now unfortunately we have not as much time as I wish but just to give you a taste of it all, I've tried to give you some idea of our successes and the interesting people that preceded you in the seats where you now sit, by the 20th century the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association was getting perhaps a little tired there are no more apprentices as you know perhaps the Maine Charitable Mechanics had earned a little bit of rest and it did enter rather a period of satisfaction and some would say a little bit too much sleep it woke up in the early 21st century by any standard of survival. The revival involves the makers movement you are all mechanics but you are also all makers that is in our third century because we are entering the realm of making things that can't be ridden like a philosophy but will take you far like the internet these are the the new makers they debuted in the society here and changed all things this hall was opened in a grand fashion in 2015 after 60 years of semi-darkness cleaned up cleaned out and reopened to a tremendous evening of congratulations of dances of acts of singers of presenters the library opened and the metals shining and all the presidents looking down so happily upon us to a new set of building trades who have opened an office downstairs opposite the library people who also make things with their hands who built all the bathrooms for us here plumbers, tradesmen, sheet rockers who moved back into the building where in a sense the cultural ancestors began and have made this place once again a living spot here Shakespeare was shouted and echoed by the Acorn Theatre Company look at that balcony up there wherefore art thou this is a perfect place for Shakespeare to be done candidates for mayor have debated here some making things today like the old pump and block makers they are pumping new blood like water was once pumped into the society we have a series of lecturers called the new makers series and they cover everything from bagels to book binding from couturiers to software makers violin makers my neighbor and friend Neon Dave spoke here last week he doesn't like that nickname but he makes neon signs and a violin maker and a lute maker Jonathan Cooper will be here next week these and you are the new mechanics like the old members you are the new creators of the new things for another century whether you spun rope or write software and make web designs just like the old charitables we of the new charitables are very generous we welcome everyone you are makers you are mechanics and you are also building for the new future making lasting things maybe not a thing that can be seen but that shall in its new sense last and like the old mechanics many times you are in the business of making joy so wonderful byproduct of everything you do but it's true well may you make a lot of joy while you are here and may you learn a lot and take it home and enjoy tomorrow today the old ghosts in this place look down and they smile they recognize you you know the over the front door that you walked in to this building today there are three symbols number one Vulcan the Lord of Fire and the Anvil the second is the bearded Archimedes whose lever could move the world and in the middle of the mall the arm of the brawny blacksmith frozen forever in mid-stroke before it falls and makes a good thing we've left so much out I just wanted to give you a little taste of everything to follow your taste of cookies after lunch you know there's so much more to say but to leave you with the best words in which I found it said 60 years ago in the year 1859 my predecessor Mr. Charles Holden one of the great historians of this organization wrote our brethren our friends must recollect that this is an hour of exultation the noble temple of the mechanic arts this result of their handiwork is well placed to illustrate their vocations to charm the public's ear for what music to the mechanic is sweeter than the notes which ring out and the various octaves of the mechanical scale raise the windows of this hall on either hand any weekday from early hour to dusky eve and what do you hear and see listen to the stirring sounds pleasant sounds to hear the ring of the shoemaker's hammer the whir the warplane of the saw the click of the chisel or high above all the ring of the hammer of the sturdy son of Vulcan the thud of his sledge upon the anvil music, music sweet and apt weaving a tale of wondrous power and beauty to the appreciative listener of industry, of patience of thrift the symphonies of our national wealth men who have lifted above the roar of labor of the shop in the evenings they hurry home happy husbands happy wives happy sons of fathers and that the domestic circle for which they have been laboring shall itself be happy true men, true women fulfilling a noble destiny honest and as elevated a heart as becomes the richest in all the land to this our modern website adds these closing words today we welcome you to this space to share our knowledge to hope that other hopeful minds will find and share the mutual spark to support each other with conversations with similar goals to join for the chance to make the spirit soar to them to the phrase that greet you on your literature and above the door to this hall let's close with their words which are ours to be just and fear not welcome to this special place here's a building that over 170 years tells a huge part of Portland's story and a part of our country's story so if people are coming into the building they can feel inspired that they're tied into a long continuum of history and they're also making that history so the people who are preservationists today are the makers of today so we're actually making the future story that future generations will be talking about at a lecture like one Herb has given today if people want more information about Greater Portland Landmarks or some help with the project where can they go for more information they can go to our website at Greater Portland Landmarks it's portlandlandmarks.org www.portlandlandmarks.org and you can find our preservation directory for example if they're looking for people and experts to help them with their projects we also have lots of other information links to research resources and other activities that Landmarks sponsors is on that site