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Sea Chantey Singalong
October 8, 4–5pm
Free, donations welcome
Sing along or listen as PMM staff and volunteers lead an afternoon of sea chanteys and sailors’ songs. If you have a chantey to share, you are welcome to lead one. We will also talk about how these songs were used as work songs. All ages are welcome, and no experience is needed.
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Homeschool Days
October 8, 10:30am–12:30pm
$5/person, $20/family
Registration required
Homeschool families are invited to the museum for a hands-on educational visit designed for all ages. Participants can learn about Searsport sea captains and their families, enjoy crafts, and join a Set Sail demonstration. After the structured program ends at 12:30pm, families are welcome to explore independently.
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SardineFest
October 3, 10am–4pm
Free, donations welcome
Join us Saturday, October 3, for SardineFest at PMM. The event will feature food, music, vendors, family activities, and more celebrating Maine’s sardine industry and coastal heritage.
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Last Day of the 2026 Season
October 10, 10am–5pm
$10 admission all day
Visit Penobscot Marine Museum for the final opportunity to explore all of our exhibits and historic buildings before the 2026 season comes to a close.
While the campus closes after today, the Museum’s digital collections, research library, photo archives, education department, and administrative offices remain open year-round.
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Twilight Tours
October 24, 3–6pm
$8 pre-registration / $10 at the door
Meet the spirits of those lost at sea and hear their stories of shipwrecks, waterspouts, Confederates, yellow fever, and even a menagerie at the bottom of the ocean.
This indoor evening event takes place throughout the historic Merithew House. Volunteer actors stationed throughout the house portray ghosts from the past, and visitors move through the building to hear their stories.
Pre-registration is encouraged, but walk-ins are welcome. Tours begin at 4 p.m. and depart every 10 minutes.
For those who prefer to remain seated, an accessible version of the program will be offered at 3 p.m. In this format, the ghosts rotate through the room to share their stories.
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Sardine Snacks Workshop
November 7, 1–3pm
$50 or $65 for two participants with a shared workspace
Registration required
Create sardine dishes inspired by the Maine Sardine Council cookbooks. Attendees will create several of these mid-to-late twentieth century no-bake recipes, plus a recipe or two with a modern take on flavors and food trends. All ingredients and supplies will be provided.
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Holiday Workshops
November 14 & 21
Get creative this holiday season with a series of hands-on workshops inspired by Maine’s coastal traditions. Learn to tie a traditional Turk’s head knot and make your own sailors’ knot ornaments or wreath, create a seashell-decorated photo frame, or weave an ocean-inspired tapestry using yarn, fabric, and other fibers. With materials provided and guidance from local artists and educators, these workshops offer a chance to make something by hand and take home a one-of-a-kind piece.
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SardineFest returns to Penobscot Marine Museum on Saturday, October 3, from 10am to 4pm, with a full day of music, stories, demonstrations, food, and family activities celebrating Maine’s sardine industry and the coastal communities connected to it.
Highlights
Come for the sardines, stay for the stories, music, and community. SardineFest is free and open to everyone.
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Preserving Our Past (POP) Studies series is back with new opportunities to learn practical skills for caring for family heirlooms, photographs, and historical objects. Designed for adult learners, these continuing education workshops are led by PMM staff and are useful for everyone from family historians to museum and historical society staff and volunteers. |
“New” South Brooksville Collection Now Online
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By Kevin Johnson, Photo Archivist |
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In 2024, we received a donation from the Town of Brooksville of 250 negatives that were used to make real photo postcards. They were made by Morris Chatto of South Brooksville and had been left to the town by the family of Grace Dillion and Basil Ladd. A generous donation from Julie Cleveland provided funding to digitize and catalog the collection. Interviews with Lorraine Dyer and Liz Hotchkiss of the Brooksville Historical Society provided identifications and information used in the database descriptions. A hundred of the negatives were recently added to our online database.
Morris Haskell Chatto was born in December 1897. His father, Melvin, ran a general store in South Brooksville, and his mother, Georgia, was from the local Gray family. During his life, he worked as a farmer, served in World War I, taught school in Yarmouth, and acted as a naval architect during World War II. In the early 1930s, he took up photography and started a small side business out of his barn, selling real photo postcards of scenes and views primarily around South Brooksville. He also took photographs for the Brooksville School yearbook and the school’s theater productions.
Chatto built a postcard printing machine that could print five postcards at a time. His daughter, Emily Chase, was the primary operator of the machine. PMM borrowed the machine from the Brooksville Historical Society for our 2016 postcard exhibit, Wish You Were Here.
South Brooksville had a summer population and a yacht club, providing Chatto with both subjects and customers for his postcards. South Brooksville is home to Bucks Harbor and Heart Island and was featured in Robert McCloskey’s famous children's book, One Morning in Maine. Chatto’s views of racing sailboats, windjammers, summer visitors, and local people make this collection a wonderful addition to the PMM Photo Archive.
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Diving Deep into Searsport Maritime History |
By Cipperly Good, the Richard Saltonstall Jr. Curator of Maritime History |
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We love our interns at the Penobscot Marine Museum, and we had a winner this summer with Erica Buswell. Erica is a long-time Searsport resident embarking on a second career and is currently enrolled at Simmons University in the Library and Information Science program. We were more than happy to give her some hands-on experience with the collections.
As those of you who have visited our At Home, At Sea guided historic house tours know, we have a wealth of objects on display, which our team of interpreters use as the basis for the stories they tell. To increase the information at the interpreters’ fingertips, Erica enhanced the descriptions and interpretive texts linked to each object in our online database, as well as a curated slideshow available on the interpreters’ tablets. She conducted one-on-one interviews with the interpreters to understand their needs and shadowed a curator-led tour where interpreters posed the questions that stumped them. Based on the feedback, Erica revised and provided robust catalog descriptions for 287 artifacts! All in just 165 hours of her time.
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Education Department News |
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Kids’ camps, our sardine-cutting booth at local festivals, cruise ship passenger visits, seeing our neighbors, welcoming people from away, chanteys, Big Jim, and so much more. We’ve had a great season so far and we’re not done yet!
This year, we hosted three Homeschool Days in the spring and another three in the fall. They’re a great opportunity for local homeschool families to explore the museum. Coming up, our final fall Homeschool Day is October 8th and the theme is Boats, Boats, Boats!
Twilight Tours have moved toward the end of the month. This year’s spirited event will be on Saturday, October 24th. Each October, the ghosts of local people who were lost at sea visit Penobscot Marine Museum to share their stories. Tragedy, adventure, and even humor intermingle as these ghosts tell of their lives—and demise.
Note: Our “ghosts” are portrayed by volunteers. Interested in joining our cast? Email Jeana at jganskop@pmm-maine.org.
As the 2026 season draws to a close, are we ready to move on from Sardines? I’ve learned a lot about the history of the Maine sardine, eating sardines, and the many crafty things you can do related to sardines! I also own 12 t-shirts featuring sardines. If you, like me, are looking for just a little more sardines, I invite you to join me for our next Sardine Snacks Workshop on November 7th!
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Penobscot Marine Museum’s Family Fun Newsletter is a great way for families to stay connected to the Museum’s programs, activities, and stories. Each issue shares simple, engaging ways to explore Maine’s maritime history together—whether you’re visiting in person or following along from home. Join the family fun email list here. |
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