Press Herald - Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment received a grant to partner with the Penobscot Nation on a research project to survey the property at Wolfe’s Neck Farm, once home to the Wabanaki and Abenaki peoples.
Wolfe’s Neck Center was among the 14 community groups to receive a $10,000 grant this month from the Maine Semiquincentennial Commission, which provides education and, more recently, funding opportunities to highlight Maine’s role in American history. The Maine State Archives and the Maine State Cultural Affairs Council funded the grant to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and to support community-centered research projects.
One question Wolfe’s Neck Center will explore is what the land looked like 1,300 years ago, as well as what changed during and after the Revolutionary War and into the present day.
Researchers at Wolfe’s Neck Farm and the Penobscot Nation will study the tribal nation’s effects on the landscape and identify which areas were historically used to grow food.
“We decided to put one [application] in that would look at this place from the perspective of the Penobscot people,” said Tilly Laskey, public historian for Wolfe’s Neck Center and manager at the new Casco History Lab.
The research project, “Rediscovered and reconnected: Penobscot people in Casco Bay and the formation of America,” will last through 2026, but will be a springboard to future projects with the Penobscot and Abenaki peoples, Laskey said. She will explore six archives throughout the state for in-depth research of historic manuscripts and maps to amass a database of mentions of Wabanaki people being in the area that is today Freeport.
From the database of Wabanaki people, Wolfe’s Neck Center will apply its 626 acres and around 250 acres of Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park to determine Wabanaki cultural uses on the land. Members of the Penobscot Nation cultural and historic preservation staff will walk the land at Wolfe’s Neck Center and the state park for verification.
... One goal Wolfe’s Neck Center has for the commission’s grant is to educate Freeport residents and visitors about the traditional homelands of the Penobscot people, why they are no longer on the land and to learn about regenerative agricultural practices the Penobscot people implemented.
“The erasure of Wabanaki people from this landscape is pretty thorough, and so what we are doing is trying to reconnect Penobscot people in particular and Abenaki people … to this place, which is their traditional homelands,” Laskey said.
Wolfe’s Neck Center’s website estimates that between 10,000 and 20,000 Wabanaki people lived in southern Maine before European settlement.
....Wolfe’s Neck Farm has been in Freeport for generations, with the Smith family starting the farm in the 1950s. The Casco Bay History Lab connects to the landscape through a historical lens with place-based learning specific to the area of Wolfe’s Neck Farm. Wolfe’s Neck Center is interested in learning more about regenerative agriculture — something that Wabanki people were already doing historically, Laskey said.