George Walter Hinckley, the founder of the Museum and the Good Will School, (1858–1950) grew up in Guilford, Connecticut, and developed a fascination with nature and collecting from an early age. Hinckley liked to recount that three rocks he was received as a young boy from a local geologist formed the nucleus of the Museum. During his schooling, Hinckley noticed the impact of poverty on his classmates, and even took in an orphan, Ben Mason, into his family’s home. Hinckley was a spiritual man who wanted to become a minister and was brought to Maine during a Sunday school, which inspired him to build a home for needy boys. In 1889, Hinckley founded the Good Will-Hinckley School in Fairfield, ME. Hinckley valued the educational merit of a museum was equal to that of a library, thus creating the Good Will Museum as a key feature of the school. Later, due to Lewis C. Bate’s funding, Hickey then transformed the Good Will Museum into the L.C. Bates Musuem.
Lewis C. Bates (1843–1929), after whom the Museum is named, was the president of the Paris Manufacturing Co. in Paris, Maine, and a prominent benefactor for Good Will. George Hinckley met Bates at a father-son banquet in South Paris, Maine, where they bonded over their mutual love of nature. This initial meeting formed a lasting friendship, which in addition to Bates’s support of the Good Will School’s mission, led him to make many monetary contributions over the years. His most significant contributions include converting the Quincy Building into the museum and bequeathing to it in his will $20,000. Hinckley admired Bates for “his steadfast look towards the future” and the modesty with which he lived his life, recalling that his legacy provided for a museum that preserved the past.
William R. Miller, born in Durham, Maine in 1866, was the lead architect for the L.C. Bates Museum. Miller, a Maine native, studied at Bates College and architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Miller designed many educational institutions, libraries, churches, and residential areas throughout Maine. Many of his architectural works reflect his fascination with the Romanesque style.
Charles D. Hubbard (1876–1951) grew up in Guilford, Connecticut, and was a vital contributor to the L.C. Bates Museum. Hubbard was an artist, illustrator, painter, and teacher. He worked with taxidermists and with Geoge Walter Hinckley to create many of the Museum’s diorama exhibits. He painted his diorama landscapes in the Impressionist style. The L.C. Bates Museum is the only museum to hold am an extensive collection of dioramas in the Impressionist style. Hubbard also contributed to the museum’s and the Stone House’s architecture.
Ray W. Tobey is another previous Good Will alum, who worked as Museum curator of the L.C. Bates Museum starting in 1919.
