Caroline Grimm Discusses New Book

Yesterday, local author Caroline Grimm talked about her newest book Cabin in Glory, the story of Enoch Perley and his family, some of the founders of the town of Bridgton. The presentation took place on the porch of the historic Narramisic Farm during one of the thunderstorms that rolled through the area yesterday. Twenty-five of us (mostly Bridgton citizens and all of us over 60 years of age) listened as Caroline related what she discovered as she researched her historical novel. She told us how she incorporated what she found as she developed her characters and wrote the plot. Although it is fiction, the book is a significant contribution to the historical record. During the question and answer time, several folks related their own recollections about the town history and its sites and their relationship to the people and events in Caroline’s book. Gatherings such as these help to uncover even more hidden history, and help to preserve the community identity. The next step is to write down those recollections so that historical remembrances can be passed on to future generations: RECOVER and UNCOVER community history for future generations to DISCOVER.

Even More Hidden History Uncovered!

In Hidden History of the Sebago Lakes Region , Chapter 24, I relate the story of the widow who places a curse on Enoch Perley, known in the Lakes Region in the late 18^th century as “The Old Squire.” Recently, I finished reading Caroline Grimm’s Cabin in Glory, a novel based on the early days of Bridgton, Maine (Voices of Pondicherry, vol. 3, 2015). The novel tells the story of Enoch Perley, who built a cabin in what is now Bridgton, and then brought his wife and her black female slave Cloe to live with him in the Maine wilderness. In the novel, the cabin that Perley built becomes the metaphor for fortitude and survival.  It is no coincidence that the sturdy cabin built in 1776 still exists and is located near Highland Lake.  Grimm’s novel includes a photograph of the 18-foot square cabin, courtesy of the Bridgton Historical Society.  What I didn’t know:  another house built by Enoch Perley also still stands today. According to Grimm, “You can see it when you visit Enoch’s farm, now the apple orchard owned by the Gyger family.”