The Bangor Maine Masons - Before & After - Page 2

The Chapel

The Corban Society in Bangor was a benevolent society of women. The function of this group, in the 1970’s was to provide fellowship for campus women. Wives of faculty members and student wives gathered once a month for meetings held usually in Maine Hall’s social room to broaden and deepen acquaintances and to provide helpful programs of instruction and inspiration. It was this group that responded to the appeals for financial help in the mid 1850s and in 1857 these ladies announced they had raided $5,000 towards the construction of a new chapel. The total estimated cost would be a total of $12,000. On June 27, 1859 at the time of graduation, the building was dedicated.⁸

The new chapel is fifty feet by 74 feet with a tower 16 feet square and eighty feet tall and the front faces east. The Seminary bell that was mounted in a crude wood frame, nearby, was at last mounted in the tower.⁹ Besides the chapel being housed in the building there was a library and classrooms.

The Gymnasium

The earliest mention of a Gymnasium was in 1884 when the Trustees voted to authorize the Treasurer, with the advice of the Faculty to provide a temporary Gymnasium. The funds were eventually raised and in 1895 a building was erected. It was brick with a slate roof and measured 80 feet by 42 feet. The basement had a handball court, a dressing room, a bathroom, various baths and the furnace room. On the first floor there was the large exercise room and a two-lane bowling alley. A flight of stairs led to the gallery, which contained a running track. The cost of the building and its equipment was about $12,500. It was opened in the fall of 1895. After the first year the seminary made arrangements with the Bangor YMCA to provide instruction. The students were required to attend four exercise classes per week. This arrangement continued until the Gym was converted to a dining facility and the commercial kitchen was added.

The Hutchins Center

This building was designed to connect the Chapel with the Gymnasium. It was constructed in 1986. This building added a foyer with an elevator shaft containing four stops and a kitchen on the first floor. Although there are only two floors and a basement in the building the additional elevator stop provided a ground level handicap entrance halfway between the basement and the first floor. The top or second floor added two handicap accessible bathrooms, a large classroom, a small kitchenette and a janitor’s closet. It also provided access to the indoor track on the upper level of the gymnasium. Upon completion of this building the gymnasium became a large dining room with access directly from the kitchen and the foyer of the new addition. There is a full basement under the structure and the exterior of the building copied the 1895 architecture around the doors and windows of the gymnasium. The decoration around the doors and windows has the edge of the extended bricks chipped alternately in one of the columns. The access to the chapel from the foyer is also copied with the same style.

This addition is a wood frame structure with a brick veneer on the north side and wood siding on the exterior of the southern protrusion. The building measures thirty feet by thirty-four feet between the chapel and the commons and thirty-five feet by thirty feet on the rear of the connector, for a total of 2,070 square feet on each floor and the basement.

What’s next?

The chapel will become the lodge hall. The dining room and kitchen will continue to function in the same fashion and be available for the use of non-profit groups as well as the Masonic Fraternity. The large classroom over the kitchen and the adjacent office will become a second lodge hall and DeMolay room. The basement classroom where the childcare is located will continue in its same capacity. The classrooms above the church that are no longer rented by the Penobscot Theater Group will become the Learning Center. One of the two rooms off the lodge hall will be a Masonic library and museum. The other one will be a preparation room and storage for the two Blue Lodges. The rest of the building will be used as storage for the equipment and regalia of the other Masonic bodies.

There is some cosmetic work to be done as well as a few repairs to the exterior of the building to make it perfect. The biggest job will be the renovation of the chapel to a lodge hall and the installation of the 32 Learning Center. We also have to install a new electrical entrance. While it was in the possession of the Seminary the buildings received excellent care, which will make our endeavors a lot easier.

The land area consists of 3 acres and has 94 existing parking spaces, with a possibility of increasing it to 144 spaces. We hope to see them used frequently by various Masonic and related bodies.

The Foundation is a 501© (3) tax-free corporation. Needless to say we will have a fundraising campaign. Anyone who wishes may make donations to the Bangor Masonic Foundation at 294 Union St., Suite 1, Bangor, ME 04401.

1. Bangor Theological Seminary by Walter Cook, 1971
2. See Cook p. 1
3. See Cook p. 2
4. See Vol 716, Pages 214 & 216, Penobscot Registry of Deeds
5. History of Bangor Theological Seminary Calvin M. Clark p 62,
6. See Clark p. 66
7. See Clark p. 134-5
8. See Cook P. 30-31
9. See Cook P. 31