OWLS HEAD — The Mussel Ridge Historical Society of Owls Head hosted an ice cream social Sunday afternoon, May 18, at the Owls Head Central School. In addition to ice cream, visitors got a glimpse into the past with photos and pages from an old scrap book from the school that was found on eBay and purchased for the historical society. The book, while it didn’t carry a date, was thought to be from the late 1950s to very early 1960s.

Kay Dodge is president of the Mussel Ridge Historical Society and she explained why an ice cream social.

“We just thought it might be a fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon,” she said. “We’ve had pot luck suppers on Friday nights and we had good turn outs, but we thought we might try it this way. This one is to celebrate our schools, and the other ones were more to celebrate the one-room schools in town. This one is to celebrate the Owls Head Central School, which we still call the new school even though it’s been here since 1952.”

Susan Oakes-Cran pointed to a picture of herself, and said that it was taken when she was a kindergarten student at Timber Hill School.

“We were the last class to graduate from the one-room school and that was in 1950,” she said.

The Mussel Ridge Historical Society was formed in 1960.

“It was pretty active and then slowed down, but in 2004 we reactivated it and it’s been active ever since. We have a very small active membership. We have a large membership, but the active members are a small number,” said Dodge. “Eight of us put the ice cream social together. Chocolate, coffee, vanilla and strawberry with a host of homemade sauces that include caramel, hot fudge, banana and whipped toppings. You can choose nuts, sprinkles and cherries as well. 

The pride of the Mussel Ridge Historical Society is a house on Ash Point that was built in 1820.

“It was a farm and the house was in really bad shape,” said Dodge. “We had a newly formed fire department and the town was going to seize the property because of taxes and give it to the fire department to burn for training. The historical society was new at the time and asked if the town would let them have that property. The society leased the property and we still have a lease on it. We’ve done a lot of work on it, but it still needs a lot of work.”

Dodge said the house is in need of half a roof, and the upstairs has not had anything done to it, so it needs to be finished as well.

“There’s one room downstairs that needs to be finished and all the work that was done in the 70s needs to be re-repaired now,” said Dodge.

The Ash Point house is open for tours in the summer on Wednesdays, from 2 to 4 p.m., in July, August and September.

Contact Chris Wolf at news@penbaypilot.com.