NORWAY — The Norway Historical Society’s 1828 building on Main Street is undergoing some capital improvements this week with the installation of a new walkway, a new bulkhead and a new sill.

David Dodge of Dodge Stoneworks in Waterford is laying dozens of bricks, some 20 to 30 years old and some 75 to 100 years old or more, in the front walkway. The walkway had begun to sink and became hazardous.

“It’s challenging,” Dodge said. The bricks are different heights and widths and all of them are from the existing walkway. The work is expected to take several days.

Dodge said normally he can lay about 700 square feet of stone in a day but the 4- by 11-foot walkway will take him at least two days to complete.

Once that work is done, Dodge said he will work on the granite steps that need support from crumbling mortar behind it.

While Dodge works on the front side of the building, Mark Grover of Lloyd Grover & Son in Otisfield is replacing the bulkhead and repairing a portion of the sill along the back wall that is rotted. Grover said it appears the rot in the sill is only on the outside of the sill.

The society’s home at Main and Whitman streets in the downtown is known as the Mark P. Smith house. According to information from the Norway Historical Society website, Smith was a successful businessman who established a tannery on the street that still carries that name and a grist mill in the Steep Falls section of town.

The house was built in 1828 at Main and Danforth streets and moved around the corner in the 1950s to face Danforth Street, according to information from the Norway Historical Society. It became home to the society in 1977, when Norway Savings Bank purchased the property to expand its facility and offered the house to the society. The house was moved to its current location in 1978.

Norway Historical Society President Sue Denison said the work is part of ongoing projects on the building, which serves as the society’s museum and meeting facility.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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