Another one of those "I've been meaning to check this out" places I visited was the Buxton Powder House. I arrived on an early May evening, pulling the car just off the main road and onto the dirt track that led to the powder house. The Buxton Powder House is one of only three powder houses left standing in Maine, so this was a rare opportunity to see a piece of local history. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
The Buxton Powder House is located 250 yards off the west side of Route 22 in Buxton Center. The dirt track winds through the woods, though the powder house was originally situated in a field. I found an old photo of the powder house when it still had the weather vane and one could see it was in a field. Unfortunately I could not retrieve the photo, but it can be found in a book called "Buxton" by James D. Libby, and one can see a preview of the page online.
The way was very tidy, with the lone exception of a Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee cup by the building. The building was small, made of brick, and altered a bit from the original specifications, which was for it to be “10' square, 1'1" thick and was to be made of the best bricks and lime and it had to have a good brick floor and shelves to store ammunition and kettles".
The building was, surprisingly, unlocked, so I was able to enter past the very large and watchful spiders. The floor was wooden, and the ceiling, which was originally vaulted brick, was made of timbers. The building was constructed for $59.00 in 1813 by the lowest bidder, Theodore Elwell. The local militia kept munitions there, flints, balls, powder and more, so they could keep them accessible but safe in case they needed to protect the town. This was built during the War of 1812, when Maine was feeling the brunt of the British attacks in New England, so there was likely a real feeling of urgency to this project. Local shipping was shut down, the British and Americans were battling off the coast of Maine, and local Buxton men were mustering and being stationed at Saco in 1813. Building a powder house and storing munitions there was at least safer than storing them at the local committeeman's house down the road, as these were!
I was unable to find if the powder house was ever used after the munitions were moved to it in the spring of 1814, but an old poem from the Buxton centennial celebrations in 1872 refers to it as part of larger piece describing the town's history:
"How oft we went to muster, or hurried trembling by
The old brick powder-house that might blow us to the sky"
(Perhaps one of the hazards of going with the lowest bidder!)
There was some vandalism to the sides of the entryway, where people had carved their initials into the wood. Yet other than that, the site felt at least marginally cared for, and a note on the Buxton Hollis Historical Society site says it "is in process of repair". The building also used to have two doors, but there is only one now. One can see it is not a large building, but it was certainly adequate for the times.
Sources consulted include: http://www.buxtonhollishistorical.org/images/buxton_bhhs_page_tour.pdf
http://books.google.com/books?id=uUUyAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=buxton+powder+house&source=bl&ots=A8R-1_4U9F&sig=2ieD-ltJsdVBwuwGIgfPu1_rfgI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mz2IUbuwDqnq0wHhz4HQCA&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBDgU#v=onepage&q=buxton%20powder%20house&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=AUN4DQcggHMC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Nice job!
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