PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE NEWS BY JULIA BAYLY Wooden buttons were popular keepsakes during Fort Kent's centennial celebration 40 years ago.

FORT KENT, Maine — As a young boy, Chad Pelletier would hear his father’s stories of days gone by while the two piled wood or worked at other chores around the house.

Those early firsthand accounts of national events such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or more local occurrences such as the celebration of Fort Kent’s centennial in 1969, sparked an early interest in history for Pelletier, now 34 and one of the town’s most enthusiastic collectors of stories, artifacts and memorabilia.

This summer Pelletier is splitting his time between exhibits in one of the town’s historic buildings and the Acadian Archives on the University of Maine at Fort Kent campus, hosting a display highlighting Fort Kent’s 1969 centennial events.

“I guess I first started learning about Fort Kent history when I was about 7 years old,” Pelletier said. “I would ask my grandfather questions and listen to all of his friends tell stories.”

While milestone events in his hometown’s history captivate Pelletier, it’s the stories of the everyday people in the town’s past that really drive his passion.

People like Mary Conrad, who, at the age of 18, found herself abandoned by her first husband in the 1860s with a small child to raise, Pelletier said.

“Her story just really touches me,” Pelletier said. “Here’s a woman who lost her mother to the Irish potato famine, her husband left her, and, because they didn’t know what happened to him, she could never remarry.”

But, Pelletier said, Mary Conrad’s story has a happy — albeit nontraditional for its day — ending.

“She met a man named Abel Marquis and they were a couple cohabiting by 1865,” he said. “He adopted and raised her daughter as his own and together they had six more children.”

Abel Marquis, who operated a blacksmith shop, and Mary Conrad are featured characters in a summer exhibit Pelletier has put together on the Marquis family in recognition of the giant Marquis family reunion held earlier this summer in Madawaska.

The exhibit is in the Fort Kent Historical Society-owned Dube House on the corner of East Main Street and Dube Street.

Photographs, household items, books, furniture and the original family Bible of Abel and Mary and their descendents have been painstakingly collected and labeled by Pelletier.

All of Abel and Mary’s children remained in the Fort Kent area, Pelletier said, and descendents include their grandson Edgar Marquis, who was a mechanic for 52 years at the old Etscovitz car dealership in town.

Other notable family members are Claude Marquis, born in 1914, who went on to compose songs for the likes of Perry Como and Bing Crosby.

Another relative, Annette Marquis, was active in the theater and counted among her friends the famed stage star Helen Hayes.

“It’s really amazing when you think these people came out of Fort Kent,” Pelletier said. “There are just so many stories out there like this.”

Fort Kent’s most famous Marquis is arguably the late Rev. Alphee Marquis, who for six decades served as a Catholic priest until his death in 2003.

“One section of this display is devoted to Father Marquis,” Pelletier said. “He would have been 100 years old this year and celebrated 70 years as a priest.”

A popular priest, Marquis was best known for his years spent as a chaplain with the Boy Scouts and for his love of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway.

Among the items on display in the Dube House are Marquis’ sturdy L.L. Bean wool shirt and winter hat in addition to his cassock, personal items, and gifts presented to him by the bishop of Portland.

Working on the centennial project has taken on a more personal meaning for Pelletier.

“My father had been drafted and was in the Vietnam War during Fort Kent’s centennial,” Pelletier said. “He would always say, ‘I missed that,’ and it’s one of his biggest regrets not being here for it.”

Women of the town were asked to create special centennial dresses, several of which Pelletier has on display.

Among them is the child’s dress worn by Fort Kent resident Rachel Charette and made by her mother, Egline Charette.

“I remember there were many groups in town involved in the centennial,” Egline Charette said. “I ended up giving my dress to the Good Shepard [Thrift Shop] and some woman bought it and made a quilt from it.”

Egline remembers that good times and good will infused the town in 1969.

“Everyone was involved,” she said. “It was all the townspeople doing it.”

So popular were the events, Pelletier said, the state police were called in to stop people from coming into town on the day of the parade.

“They had 27,000 people here and could not take any more,” he said.

The centennial event took place June 28-July 5, 1969. Pelletier said the current display would last at least a month.