Old Berwick Historical Society

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Old Berwick Historical Society

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This is the official site of the Old Berwick Historical Society and Counting House Museum located in South Berwick, Maine

OPEN WEEKEND AFTERNOONS JUNE-OCTOBER AND YEAR ROUND BY APPOINTMENT

The Old Berwick Historical Society promotes public awareness of and appreciation for local and regional history through a variety of activities that explore, preserve, interpret, and celebrate the past, and through stewardship of the Counting House and its collections. We serve history lovers from all over the country, especially Seacoast New Hampshire and Southern York County, Maine. The Counting House Museum is a regional treasure containing one of northern New England’s last textile mill ballrooms. Home of the Old Berwick Historical Society, it is a repository for documents, photographs and historic curiosities covering a wide spectrum of community life in and around the Berwicks, site of the first permanent settlement in Maine.

11/09/2026

Going Once, Going Twice… i last call for donations!

November 16 is the final deadline to make a donation!

Have something to donate? Call 603-534-4889. We’re happy to help!

Clear out the attic, check the china cabinet, call your favorite restaurant, or dream up a fun experience! The Old Berwick Historical Society Annual Online Auction is coming!

This is OBHS’s ONLY fundraiser of the year! Every donation and winning bid helps care for our collections, maintain the Counting House, support educational programs, and share our community’s stories.

What Can You Donate?

We’re looking for fun, interesting, and unique items and experiences, including:

Antiques, vintage treasures, art, jewelry, pottery, and handcrafted items
Gift cards to restaurants, shops, salons, theaters, and local businesses
Tickets to concerts, sporting events, museums, and attractions
Food & Experiences: special dinners, afternoon tea, lobster dinners, cocktail parties, garden tours, cooking classes, craft workshops, and more!
Services & Talents: photography, gardening, lessons, decorating advice, or something you do especially well!
Have another creative idea? We’d love to hear it! Donations don’t have to be expensive. Sometimes the most popular items are simply those with a great story or an experience you can’t buy in a store.

Mark Your Calendar!

ONLINE AUCTION: November 27 – December 6

Browse, bid, get outbid, bid again, promise yourself you won’t go any higher… and then bid one more time!

Have fun, find something special, and support OBHS!

11/08/2026

Are you familiar with William Cummings? Chicago-born and Boston-educated, Willie was a prominent figure in early 20th century South Berwick, and eventually was named vice president of the Boston and Maine Railroad.

Under his management, his uncle’s factory was a meticulously run operation. Employees arrived on the job at 7 am and worked until the departure of the 6 pm streetcar on weekdays, and until noon on Saturdays, at which point the window shades throughout the building were pulled down exactly half way. Business prospered, grass was mowed, streets and sidewalks cleaned. At Christmas each employee received a $10 bonus, a calendar and a box of chocolates.

September 22, 1890, William’s father died in Springvale. There is some evidence he had been indicted for barn burning and killed himself with poison. In 1909 Willie built for his mother Mary a 13-room mansion at 75 Railroad Avenue, on seven acres, complete with veranda, carriage house, summer house, pergola, garden shed and three barns. He also raised prize “Berwick” sheep as a hobby. In 1925, Cummings served on a seven-member school committee overseeing the construction of the new South Berwick Central School.

In 1940, however, at age 71, he wed 60-year-old Louise Kohlrausch. After his mother’s death the next year, the couple moved into the Cummings mansion.

With the arrival of the Great Depression, the Cummings company had faltered. In 1932 it was taken over and renamed South Berwick Shoe, Inc., and in 1946 William I. Cummings died in his factory office at age 77. Louise Cummings lived until 1961. They are buried in South Berwick’s Woodlawn Cemetery with his parents, Sylvester and Mary Jane Cummings, and his older sister, Nellie F. Cummings (1862-1883).

For almost four decades after Willie Cummings’ death, the factory continued to employ South Berwick residents and produce footwear, ultimately as the Duchess Shoe Company, until it closed its doors in the early 1990s.

11/07/2026

This 1893 photograph of Quamphegan Falls on the Salmon Falls River beautifully captures a moment of economic shift as the old cotton mill on South Berwick’s side of the river closed, its hydropower system converted to produce electricity for the community. The Gundalow on the Rollinsford side of the river, once a critical craft to bring raw materials up to the mill and finished cotton goods down to Portsmouth for shipment, is no longer needed and sits abandoned, left to rot.

Today the area still produces power and the riverbank on the South Berwick side supports a park and is, the Old Berwick Historical Society.

11/06/2026

How different Portland Street looks with its dirt road, wood fences, and towering elms. Taken just south of Colcord Street, looking north, the houses visible here are still there today but some have changed.

11/05/2026

It’s another taste of history post. Beans and franks with brown bread was once a Saturday night New England tradition, in some houses it still is. The bread, bought in cans, has its origins as a steamed bread made in Boston. With this Portsmouth, NH recipe, you can make your own!

Published in 1941 in “Nutter House Recipes,” a cookbook put out for the Thomas Billy Aldrich Memorial of recipes supposedly associated with the family that owned the house.

The building was the setting for Aldrich’s hit 1870 novel “The Story of a Bad Boy” that drew from his experiences as a boy living here in the 1840s. The book was the first of the “bad boy” genre in literature. During his lifetime, Aldrich was a household name, but fame is fleeting and he has slipped into obscurity. The house, once an independent house museum, is now owned and maintained by Strawbery Banke Museum.

11/04/2026

It is amazing how much our town square looks the way it did when this photo was taken in the 1880s.

11/03/2026

Going Once, Going Twice… It’s Auction Time!

Clear out the attic, check the china cabinet, call your favorite restaurant, or dream up a fun experience! The Old Berwick Historical Society Annual Online Auction is coming!

This is OBHS’s ONLY fundraiser of the year! Every donation and winning bid helps care for our collections, maintain the Counting House, support educational programs, and share our community’s stories.

What Can You Donate?

We’re looking for fun, interesting, and unique items and experiences, including:

Antiques, vintage treasures, art, jewelry, pottery, and handcrafted items
Gift cards to restaurants, shops, salons, theaters, and local businesses
Tickets to concerts, sporting events, museums, and attractions
Food & Experiences: special dinners, afternoon tea, lobster dinners, cocktail parties, garden tours, cooking classes, craft workshops, and more!
Services & Talents: photography, gardening, lessons, decorating advice, or something you do especially well!
Have another creative idea? We’d love to hear it! Donations don’t have to be expensive. Sometimes the most popular items are simply those with a great story or an experience you can’t buy in a store.

Donations Needed by November 10!

Have something to donate? Call 603-534-4889. We’re happy to help!

Mark Your Calendar!

ONLINE AUCTION: November 27 – December 6

Browse, bid, get outbid, bid again, promise yourself you won’t go any higher… and then bid one more time!

Have fun, find something special, and support OBHS!

Address

2 Liberty Street
South Berwick, ME
03908

Opening Hours

1pm - 4pm

Telephone

+12073840000

Website

http://www.oldberwick.org/

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