Timeline of the L.C. Bates Museum
A Nature Lover’s Dream of Opening a Museum | George Walter Hinckley’s Childhood
1858 — George Walter Hinckley (1858–1950) is born in Guilford, Connecticut. Growing up with a fascination with nature, Hinckley collects items he finds in nature, hoping one day he could display his collections.
1868 — Hinckley, who had learned the names of every plant and bird that his father was familiar with, visits Mr. S. W. Loper, a geologist who ran the gristmill in town, and acquires three rocks, which he later considered as “the nucleus of a larger museum that was to be someday—the museum for the multitude of young people then unborn.”
George Walter Hinckley and his family, 1908.
Moving Towards Creating a Museum |Good Will Hinckley School and the Display of Hinckley’s Collection
1889 — Hinckley founds the Good Will Hinckley School for underprivileged children.
1889 — In the the Good Will Museum, Hinckley showcases rocks, fossils, and seashells in “a small case with four or five pine shelves finished with black walnut stain.”
ca. 1890— After Good Will Cottage was opened as a home for fifteen boys, Hinckley has a small case made and placed in a room in the cottage. The case consists of four or five pine shelves finished with black walnut stain. On these shelves the specimens and a few additional ones are placed.
ca. 1890— Hinckley receives the first official donation, a mounted woodchuck, from Skowhegan taxidermist W. R. Gifford.
1895 — Collections are moved to a large room on the second floor of Good Will School’s Charles E. Moody Building. At that point, the collection consisted of 25 birds, 40 quadrupeds, and 650 specimens of minerals.
Reconstruction of the Charles E. Moody Building after the fire, ca. 1911.
A New Start After the Fire | The Start of the L.C. Bates Museum
Dec 31, 1904 — The Moody Building burns. According to Hinckley, the fire destroyed “one of the finest natural history museums in the state of Maine.”
ca. 1905 — Unsolicited donations begin arriving from all over the country
1905 — Collections are moved into a large room at the north end of the Quincy Manual Training Building, an industrial and manual training school.
1914 — The manual training school is forced to close, so the whole Quincy Building is no longer in use.
November 1922— Lewis C. Bates (1843–1929) “almost single-handedly financed the conversion of the Quincy Building […] into a building to house the museum, which was thereafter named in his honor.”
Quincy Manual Training building, 1911.
Important Contributors to the Museum | Ray W. Tobey and Charles D. Hubbard
1915 — Charles D. Hubbard visits the museum after he designs a logo for the Good Will School based on Hinckley’s request.
March 1919 — Ray W. Tobey, a former Good Will student, returns to work in the boys’ grammar school and serves as a curator for the developing museum. According to Tobey, the average number of visitors per day is 23, and the museum has a total of 1,100 specimens on exhibition.
May 1919 — Ray W. Tobey reports the number of visitors per day has doubled, and the museum collection now counts 1,550 specimens.
Ray W. Tobey, Good Will-Hinckley, ca. 1915.
1921 — Olive green signs with the name of the flora are made and placed next to their corresponding specimen to help young visitors identify plants. This marks the beginning of expanding the museum to include an outdoor section.
Hinckley in front of a Good Will trail, ca. 1923.
1923 — Hubbard paints Impressionist backgrounds for the dioramas in 18 museum exhibition cases. All of the paintings are based on real Maine places.
ca. 1923 — Hinckley gives the L.C. Bates Museum’s official opening address.
Good Will boys looking at the moose diorama, ca. 1945.
The Museum Opens to the Public
June 1924 — Trial period of opening L.C. Bates Museum to the general public. A signboard reads: “Bates Museum, Visitors Welcome” with an additional sign below: “Now Open.”
August 1924 — The museum receives an estimated 1,400 visitors during the 62 days when the museum is open to the public.
Feb 1943 — Ernest Hemingway’s marlin is installed in the Fish Room of the L.C. Bates Museum.
1960–1978 — Good Will Hinckley is a prep-school and the museum is not open to the public.
1978 — The school returns to its previous mission and the museum reopens to the public.
ca. 1985 — The museum begins hosting yearly summer art and history exhibits.
1996 — Charles Hubbard exhibit.
1998 — Sprague’s Journal of Maine history exhibit.
ca. 2000 — With IMLS support the museum’s 32 dioramas with backgrounds painted by Hubbard are restored.
2001— L.C. Bates receives NEH grants to purchase environmental monitoring equipment such as data loggers, preservation supplies, and funding for assessments by preservation experts and workshops on the proper care and handling of humanities collections.
References
Goff, Rachel. “The Beginning of the L.C. Bates Museum.”
Hinckley, G.W. “The Story of a Museum.” Good Will Record XVII.2 (March 1904): 6–9.