York in American History: York builds a library

Note: This essay is a tribute to the citizens of York who brought the first public library into existence at a difficult time following a movement that would have split the town into two subregions. Further, it shows the level of commitment of this small group of citizens and the overall support of the community because it was financed entirely by local taxes and donations without the benefit of large contributors such as was the case with libraries in nearby communities. 

"To see what sum of money the town will vote in aid of the York Public Library on the petition of Ralph W. Hawkes and twenty-nine others." The 57th Article of the March 1915 annual Town Meeting was decisive, for with the approval of the $500 appropriation by the voters, the town became the partner of a dedicated group to create a library.

Within less than a decade of the vote, a building of finished fieldstone would be a reality. The building close to the First Parish Church on York Street was to serve the town residents for the next three quarters of a century. Only three decades from the first opening of the doors, as many as ten thousand books would be housed within the walls.

This year 2022, marks the 100th anniversary of the York Public Library. The successor to the original structure, is the present, much larger library but a short distance away, that has been a vital cultural institution for the town of the 21st century. The founders, I think, would be in awe of what their efforts had brought about, and the contribution it has made to the quality of life here.

The small group of founders would certainly be mystified by the tables furnished with computers, and by a technological outreach that allows for books from throughout the state of Maine to be transported for the use of patrons. Library science has become far more demanding than what it might have been a century earlier, with the familiar card catalogs and the hundreds of paper cards supplanted by an innovation that can summon the information in an instant.

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Despite the array of transformative changes to how the librarians do their work, the underlying spirit behind that work remains much the same, and that, more than anything, provides the thread of continuity bridging the era of the fieldstone library to its successor. Regardless of their size, their refinements, their complexity, public libraries are the embodiment of the expansiveness of human knowledge, with that knowledge organized on the shelves in conformity with Melvil Dewey's famous scheme, the Dewey Decimal System encountered in hundreds of thousands of libraries throughout the world, including the library in York.

So how did it begin, this important institution for our town? For the answer we must look to the pages of the original record book, and the brief notes written in blue ink on white lined paper; “A meeting held at the home of Charles L. Grant Friday, November 13, 1914, for the purpose of forming a public library association." 

Grant, the host of the meeting, was a Civil War veteran in his seventies. He had risen to the rank of corporal in the famed First Maine Cavalry during the war, a soldier who was a member of Company K, together with others from this town. In the decades since the war ended, he partnered with John C. Stewart in operating a stagecoach and managed a horse farm. 

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When the crisis of town division loomed in the two years that culminated in the referendum vote of September 1910, Grant assumed an active role in the defense of his community, and that perhaps is why his involvement in the library's founding is noteworthy. The library was the first institution of any significance to be brought into existence in the immediate aftermath of the division controversy, and it required the tax dollars of the entire town for support.

The 1915 allotment was only a start and was followed by additional tax contributions as construction was underway. In March 1924, $3,500 was approved at town meeting directed toward the completion of the interior of the building. A year later, another $750 was voted, and then in 1926, $3000. A public library by definition is a tax-supported library and that is what York has possessed.

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The three older libraries in the contiguous towns, the Rice Library in Kittery, which opened in 1888, the Ogunquit Library, in 1898, and the Fogg Library in Eliot of 1907, all began with sizable bequests or donations from the Rice family, the Conarroes of Philadelphia, and the Fogg family of Eliot. Not so in York, for this library depended so much upon the town's residents' willingness to advance the tax monies so soon after the bitter strife caused by town division.

Is it somehow a monument to how the town endured in defiance of those who had sought its demise, including Grant's one-time partner Stewart. Perhaps, and that conjecture is only further reinforced by a look at the early membership. President Ralph Hawkes, the first president, was the son of doctor Hawkes of Hawkes Pharmacy fame, and the stepson of the daughter of Josiah Chase who led the fight to save York as the intact town in the state Legislature.

"New Library at York Dedicated," the Portsmouth Herald carried the story in the issue of March 5, 1925. And there it is, the new library, featured in a photograph that accompanies the article. "The completion of the building is a fine testimonial to community enterprise," the article declares, and then lists the ways in which people participated, from Edward C. Moody and the fieldstone from which it is fashioned, to all of the artisans who put in their time and energy for the project. 

There had been no bequests, only incremental donations, and tax dollars. That is how the York Public Library was brought into being around a century ago, and this town has certainly been much better for it ever since.

James Kences is the town historian for the town of York.