Celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day with historic artifact at Old York Historical Society

YORK, Maine — Celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2024 with a Community Free Day at Old York Historical Society on Monday, Oct. 14.

The event, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., features the opening of the Old Gaol to the public and a special exhibit in the Remick Gallery , showcasing a 500-year-old Indigenous artifact from York. This artifact, a fragment of pottery discovered in 2014 by Kevin Cambridge of Kittery, Maine, in the York River, dates back to between 1500 and 1620. This period marks the first contact between local Indigenous people and Europeans. At that time, the area now known as York was called Agamenticus and was inhabited by the Pennacook people.

“Indigenous earthenware from this time period, especially a fragment this large, is very rare,” said Peggy Wishart, Old York Historical Society research center director and former archaeologist. “I honestly couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it!”

Wishart and Cambridge worked with Maine archaeologists to identify the fragment and prepare it for public display. To honor the history of the Indigenous peoples in York and provide visitors with a complete picture, Wishart collaborated with Peter B. Jones, an Onondaga ceramic artist from New York state, to create a replica of the original cooking pot. Jones, who has studied Indigenous pottery since the 1970s, used traditional methods to hand-build and pit-fire the replica.

“Our traditional pottery died out around the 1500s,” Jones explained. "The transition to European kettles and metal pans replaced our early [vessels].”

“On this day, which honors and celebrates Indigenous American peoples and commemorates their histories and cultures,” said Joel Lefever, Old York Historical Society executive director, “we are delighted to highlight this extraordinary find and the replica pot in our gallery space.”

The creation of the replica pot was made possible by a grant from the Rosamond Thaxter Charitable Foundation .

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day with historic artifact at Old York Historical Society