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The Harpswell Islands Genealogy and History Center has a new home on Bailey Island, rescuing a former bed-and-breakfast at the corner of Route 24 and Oceanside Road that had been slated for demolition as recently as last year.
The young nonprofit bought the building from the Bible Broadcasting Network Inc., a North Carolina-based chain of evangelical radio stations that has broadcasted religious programming from a tower on the site since 1997.
The house needs a lot of work, but the Genealogy and History Center — run by a group of locals with ties to multigenerational island families — wants to use it to make island history come alive for younger generations.
There’s a lot on their plate. It all had to wait a moment, however, at a recent board meeting, while members confirmed whether someone brought doughnuts and whether there were napkins on hand. Doughnuts and napkins appeared, and their first problem went away.
These island natives know that bigger challenges await as they embark on a mission to not just preserve their local history, but also add to the sum total of knowledge about the entire town.
At the mid-August meeting, they put a pause on the agenda to talk about their passion for local history, their commitment to making sense out of oral histories, their need to connect with an age group that spans from 10 years old to 50, and whether anyone could offer their visitor a succinct breakdown of their family connections to each other. (They laughed and said no. Their family histories cross paths and overlap, primarily through the Doughty family.)
The cousins, as they call themselves on their website, want to make it clear that the Harpswell Islands Genealogy and History Center does not want to usurp or compete with the Harpswell Historical Society. They want to fill a void in the town’s institutional knowledge about Great Island, Orr’s Island and Bailey Island.
“We’ve been underrepresented” in the public narrative about Harpswell history, said Gerry York, president of the organization’s board.
York said he hears from people who don’t want to donate family artifacts to local groups because they’re not sure there is enough space for their treasures.
“Too much history is being lost,” he said.
Other board members include Beth York, Melinda Richter, Chip Black, Laurie Smith and Betsy Leland. Born out of an informal lunch gathering and best known for the popular Facebook page Harpswell Yesterdays, which posts historical photos of the islands, the organization incorporated in 2023.
The organization envisions its headquarters as a treasure trove of digitized information collected from families, including young adults and middle-aged residents searching for a way to preserve what their grandparents and parents left behind.
More important, board members stressed, is their dream of making history dynamic for Harpswellians young enough to be their grandchildren through events, displays and celebrations of island culture.
The Harpswell Islands Genealogy and History Center bought the house at 10 Oceanside Road — described by the cousins as a colonial revival with a Dutch gable roof — earlier this year. The property alone could provide material for a historical video or lecture.
The house once belonged to the late Albert and Catherine Johnson. For a time, they turned it into a bed-and-breakfast called Katie’s Ketch.
The Bible Broadcasting Network bought the building from the Johnsons in 2013, then sold it in 2022 to a company called Coastal Wireless. That business gutted the house, but didn’t follow through with its plans for the property.
The Bible Broadcasting Network reacquired the house in 2024 and tore down a garage with an apartment. Neighbors and town officials convinced it to delay plans to raze the house while they sought a developer to convert the building into affordable housing.
That effort didn’t advance, but the house survived and the cousins pooled their resources to purchase it.
The Doughty descendants are now busy with fundraising efforts to make 10 Oceanside Road an effective home for historic preservation, an inviting place for visitors to get a taste of island history, and a resource for locals to conduct deep-dive research themselves.
History is messy, the cousins acknowledge. At the Aug. 12 board meeting, they spent a fair amount of time talking about how nourishing and exciting they find history — especially when they try to untangle four different accounts of a family story about the same event.
They joked about a family member saying, “You got it all wrong!” and about board member Richter declaring, with passion, “People don’t realize how interesting we are!”
Everyone at the table knew she meant the legacies of the islands. They are eager to spread the message.
