EAST NEWPORT, Maine — Deep into the woods just northeast of Sebasticook Lake, students were unearthing the past Tuesday.
Five students and instructor Howard Whitten were digging near the ruins — just a granite and stone foundation — of what was once a farmhouse, ell and attached barn in Mullen Woods.
In the early 1820s, the original farmhouse was built by the Fendersons and then sold in 1850 to the Mullen brothers, Guy and Joseph, who had emigrated from Ireland. No one has lived in the house since 1942 and little remains but the cellar hole and some farm implements scattered about.
But it was the hidden past that the students were looking for and found.
First, the well was explored using a special underwater camera. “No skeleton,” commented one student, either with relief or disappointment. Measurements were taken, and information about distance and size was recorded.
Armed with metal detectors and shovels, the students then began canvassing the property, prompted by Whitten to look near foundations and under large trees.
Justin Williams of Dixmont hit pay dirt almost immediately. He and Jon Grant of Etna began digging up a leather harness, hand-crafted for workhorses. The leather was wide and thick but crumbling at the joints. The metalwork was clearly handmade.
On the other side of the barn’s former site, Sarah McEwen of Newport and Brock Leavitt of Hartland found an ornate parlor stove, pots, pans, a teakettle, a button and a boot.
“That makes me sad,” McEwen said, looking at the boot. “They once lived here and farmed here and now it is all gone.”
Whitten said that is exactly what he hoped the students would gain by the excavation.
“This is our past,” he said, digging at a piece of metal machinery partially buried in the dirt.
Whitten said the students will bring anything they recover back to the school, clean and catalog it then donate it to the Newport Historical Society.
“Mullen Woods is a treasure,” Whitten said. “We need to take advantage of this outdoor learning center.” To that end, Whitten recently used a small Learning Tree grant to purchase portable chairs to allow for a complete classroom to be set up in the 117-acre wooded parcel.
The students hope to expand beyond the farmhouse and rediscover an icehouse, henhouse, blacksmith shop, brickyard and orchard that have been noted on earlier maps.
Mullen Woods was purchased by the Maine Chapter of The Nature Conservancy in 1967, according to Bangor Daily News articles, to preserve an ancient stand of white pines.
The pines, some more than three feet in diameter, are estimated to be more than 130 years old, according to the Conservancy.
The property had been vandalized repeatedly and the Conservancy had it burned in 1971.
The property recently was given to the district to be used solely for educational purposes. But Whitten said it has been 15 years since his science class has been to the location.
“Our work at this time of year is limited,” Whitten said. “But we will return in the spring for a more complete dig and full classroom study.”
Wandering around the location, picking up artifacts, Whitten said “I could stay out here all day.”
“Me too,” echoed one of the students.
“This is cool,” Williams said.