March 28, 2024
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Searsport Union Hall’s 1930s curtain restored Experts clean, repair painted canvas sea scene

SEARSPORT – For more than 70 years, a square-rigged schooner, its sails full of wind, has been sailing on choppy seas, bound for Searsport Harbor but never quite arriving.

At least that’s the way you might imagine the scene painted on a canvas curtain that hangs in the second-floor auditorium of Union Hall, the building that houses Searsport’s town office.

It’s a fitting image for a town that produced more ship captains than any other during the 19th century.

The canvas curtain, measuring about 22 feet wide and about 14 feet high, is a throwback, said Valerie Murphy.

“These canvas curtains – roll-up curtains – were common in halls like this all over New England,” she said.

Itinerant artists traveled around New England painting such curtains, customizing the scene for the town. Searsport’s curtain is believed to have been painted in 1932.

“It’s such an important part of this building,” she said.

Murphy had been chairwoman of a committee that worked to restore Union Hall, built in 1863, to its former glory, an effort she began in 1985 when town officials wanted to abandon – or possibly demolish – the building. The Union Hall work has been done for several years, but the final touch was restoring the curtain, which had begun to show its age with a few tears in the canvas and years of grime diminishing the luster of the painting.

“We’ve got to save that curtain,” Murphy remembers thinking. “That was one of the things I bugged people about.”

The town landed a $6,500 grant from the MBNA Foundation and a $6,200 grant from the Maine Community Foundation. The money paid for hiring Curtains Without Borders of Burlington, Vt., a company specializing in such restoration.

The company came to town last summer and with the help of about 20 volunteers, carefully brushed, vacuumed and cleaned the canvas. The experts also repaired the tears.

Union Hall was once heated with two furnaces that burned both coal and wood, Murphy said, and the auditorium included two large grates.

“They belched heat and smoke and soot,” Murphy said, which accounts for the grime covering the curtain.

The results of the restoration work are pleasing, Murphy said, in part because the curtain does not look new. There are still some faint water stains from years ago, and though the scene is brighter than it had been before the cleaning, it still has an antique look.

Murphy, 76, grew up in Searsport and remembers the curtain being a fixture in Union Hall. She and fellow local historian Joshua Curtis believe the seafaring scene is generic and not meant to represent a view from Searsport’s shores. Murphy has been told the scene may have been painted over another scene, meaning the curtain could date even further back than the 1930s.

Part of the charm of the curtain is the advertisements painted across the bottom. All the businesses represented are gone except Consumers Fuel, which is still thriving in Belfast. Only three have phone numbers listed, such as Tel. 20. The other businesses are gone but not forgotten.

There’s The Home Furnishings Co., touted as “Belfast’s Greatest Store,” and Rogers Motor Sales, offering Fords and the now-defunct Ziphyr line (perhaps a misspelling of Zephyr).

And who could resist the ad urging people to “Visit Vivian’s Hat Shoppe – Exclusive Models,” or “Merrill’s Music Shop,” with “everything musical.”

Murphy remembers the B.F. Colcord Insurance Agency and Florence Colcord, who is listed in the ad as manager.

“She was also the telephone operator in town,” Murphy recalled, with an office over Searsport Drug.

The curtain’s story is intertwined with the story of Union Hall.

In recent years, the auditorium has been the focus of upgrades: The suspended ceiling was removed; dark paneling on the walls was painted white, contrasting nicely with the original dark wainscoting; and the stage surface was rebuilt.

Murphy remembers the auditorium playing an important role in the town’s life. It was used to hold the annual town meeting, for basketball games and for countless theatrical productions by the high school and community groups.

In the early 1970s, Murphy remembers being part of the Ebb Tide Players, a community theater group that staged plays in Union Hall. She has programs from plays, including a Lions Club “Minstrel and Variety Show” performance on July 10, 1958, and, from Aug. 17-18, 1931, “Henry’s Wedding,” billed as a “laugh sensation.”

Curtis recalled how difficult it was to raise and lower the canvas curtain.

“It was a little hard to operate. The boys who raised it used gloves to handle the rope because it was so heavy,” he recalled.

Town Manager James Gillway remembers using the auditorium for Boy Scout meetings 15 years ago and seeing piles of junk stored where the seats are today.

“To think about everything that’s happened in the building, it’s amazing that we still have the curtain,” he said.


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