OTISFIELD — A nearly 200-year-old town pound on Bell Hill Road may become one of only 46 known pounds left in Maine to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Otisfield Historical Society will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, at the Old Town House, 53 Bell Hill Road, for a presentation on the 1818 Otisfield Town Pound. The public is invited to attend.
The society is attempting to get the 33- by 38-foot pound on the National Register of Historic Places, but has run into several delays in preparing the extensive application, in part because property lines were unclear.
“The pound is town property, so we have to wait for go-ahead from the selectmen first,” society archivist Jean Hankins said. “They have made some progress, chiefly getting a surveyor in. Apparently, there’s no deed, and while there’s no real claim otherwise, they are hoping to get quitclaim deeds from the two abutting landowners in order to establish boundaries better.”
Board of Selectmen Chairman Hal Ferguson said the board is working on getting the deeds prepared.
The board voted earlier this year to support the society’s goal of getting the site on the National Register of Historic Places and voted to spend $1,500 to hire Maine Survey Consultants of Harrison to survey the site.
Hankins said the pound is on the east side of Bell Hill Road about half a mile beyond the meetinghouse. The pound is a small, stonewalled area that was once used to corral wandering livestock to keep them out of residents’ gardens.
During the presentation, Hankins will talk about the history of town pounds, also known as cattle pounds. She said at one time, town pounds could be found in most Maine communities as mandated by an 1821 Maine law that every town build one.
Polly Bartow will lead a discussion of recent efforts by the society and town officials to restore the site as a historic landmark.
Hankins said society members have been researching the town’s ownership and establishing boundary lines as part of the National Register application process, and will remove the small trees that have grown inside the stone walls in the many years since the pound was last used.
The Old Town House is wheelchair-accessible at the rear entrance.
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