FNCA Construction & Improvements Dates
This is a chronology of when the various FNCA buildings were built and altered. Several for which exact dates are unknown are listed at the bottom of the page. A few of these which have been narrowed down to a range of just a few years are inserted in the chronology roughly where they go with notes indicating what is known. These are also included in the list of Unknowns at the bottom of the page.
NEW items added in recent months:
Item Year:# Posted
Room A door moved 2024:7 7/27
completed new Deck photo 2024:6 7/23
new Deck built 2024:6 7/5
new waterfront ramp/walkway 2018.2 7/4
new round railings front porch 2024:5 5/26
new entry sill on Whitehead 2024:4 5/26
new entry sill on Murdoch 2024:3 5/26
new roof on Goddard Cabin 2024:2 5/26
Main Bldg porch before photo 1933:1 5/13
new pump/etc. in Pump House 2024:1 5/12
Main Bldg porch steps 1933:1 5/12
1928
1. The FNCA purchases nearly 12 acres of property between Rte 302 and the Saco River.
1929
© FNCA 2018 1. The Kitchen is built, a single floor.
1930
1. The current Dining Hall is added on to the northern end of the Kitchen. Referred to then as the "Assembly Room", the front end was used as the lecture hall and the back end as the dining hall.
1931 
© FNCA 2018
1. The Goddard Cabin is built.
2. The Tool Shed is built (or perhaps in 1930) but not in its current location.
3. "A new driveway has been built which swings around the back of the kitchen to the end of the main porch, and ample parking space has been cleared on either side of it, so that the open space between the buildings and the road will no longer be cut up, or filled with cars."
4. "The floors for the girls' tents have been moved to the ridge overlooking the river back of the kitchen, and those for the boys' tents to a similar location beyond the ravine at the other end of the open field." Girls' tents = where the Bray, Woofenden, and Taft cabins are. Boys' tents = across the ravine behind the Mack Cabin and the Treehouse (the Assembly sold this acerage in 1984).
5. Lower lawn is created. "At the top of the bank where it juts out over the river back of the Main Building, a space has been leveled large enough for a croquet ground."
1933 
© FNCA 1931
1. The narrow steps on the driveway side of the Main Building are replaced with full-width steps. (The other end doesn't have any steps yet! Nor are there any railings!)
1936
1. The Faxon Cabin is built ($360).
1937
1. 12+ acres of land between the original parcel and the State Line is purchased, bringing the total up to 22 acres.
1938-1941
(sometime in there)
1. The Hinckley Cabin is built.
1939
1. The Bellows Cabin is built ($440).
1940
1. Chalmers Lodge is built ($335.85).
2. The Claxton Cabin is built ($400).
1947
1. "City electricity" reaches the Assembly. The Main Building is rewired and the old gas-powered electricity generator is sold. The old coal stove in the kitchen is sold and two new electric stoves are installed.
1948 
© Jon Cousins 2013
1. The Taft Cabin is built before the camp session ($704.22).
2. An electric light on our sign on the road is installed, with the switch to it in Chalmer's Lodge.
3. Construction of the Murdoch Cabin is begun after the camp session, in the late Fall.
1949
1. The Murdoch Cabin is completed mid-summer before the Assembly session.
1950
1. Just before the session, the Twitchell Cabin is built ($1,475).
2. A wooden flagpole made from a tree grown on the property was erected on the upper lawn at the center of the top of the hill.
3. Before the session, the Maine Information Center across the street is built. It's original position was right next to Haley Town Rd, nearly directly across from our entrance.
1951
1. The Goddard Cabin porch is enlarged, roofed over, and screened in.
2. A fenced-in play yard for the children is built near where the current 4-Square cement tent platform stands.
1953
1. A toilet and cesspool are added to the Taft Cabin. It is also wired for electricity.
1954
1. The roof over what is now the front kitchen (where the dishwashing machine is) is raised 6+ feet on the road side making it a space tall enough to be the cook's sleeping quarters.
1955 
© FNCA 2018
1. The Bray Cabin ($2,800) and the Woofenden Cabin are built before the session.
1959
1. The Goddard Annex is added onto the southern end of the Kitchen. It includes a new back kitchen and children's play room on the 1st floor and the Girls Dorm on the 2nd floor.
1962
1. The Mack Cabin is built.
1963
1. The Lawrence Cabin is built.
2. The first of several cement platforms is poured to replace old wooden one. More are poured in future years.
3. The Taft Cabin gets its first hot water heater.
1964 
© Rev. George F. Dole 1964
1. The Dole Wing is added onto the northern end of the Dining Hall.
2. "A considerable amount of timber has been cut and sold... making a substantial contribution to the cost of the Dole Wing."
1968
1. The Perry Wing is added onto the back of the Dole Wing.
1972
1. A new fenced in play yard is built behind the Goddard Annex, and a new door and steps from the back of the Goddard Annex are added to access it.
1975
1. Whitehead Lecture Hall is added onto the northern end of the Dole Wing.
1976 
© FNCA 2018
1. The Perry Cabin and Bath House are built.
1983?
1. The Hinckley Cabin is razed.
1984
1. Unused land at the northern end of the property is sold in order to purchase two housing lots in the Weston Way housing development at the southern end in New Hampshire, thus both creating a buffer between us and the development, as well as providing space for two more cabins along the river bank.
1988
1. The Boston Cabin is built.
© Trevor 2011
2. The Boys Bunkhouse is built on the same cement platform where the old Big Boys Tent was.
1990
1. The Laird Cabin is built.
2. The first mention of Work Weekend in the minutes of the Trustees' meeting.
1991
1. Kitchen deck replaced.
1993
1. Main Building porch posts, railings, and handrails completely replaced.
2. Permanant stone steps built in the river up to the edge of the bank, primarily the work of Bruce Dole.
3. Deep sinks for washing pots are added to the middle kitchen.
1994
1. New metal roof on the Twitchell Cabin.
2. New roof on the Murdoch Cabin.
3. Stairways in the Main Building are sheetrocked to meet current fire code.
4. Work Weekend starts.
5. Rope swing removed from the waterfront due to liability.
1997
1. In the cooks' bathroom, the toilet is removed from one of the stalls and a shower is installed in its place.
2. Three more tent sites are cut.
1998
1. The Tool Shed is moved from the end of the Goddard Annex to next to Chalmers Lodge.
1999
1. A new metal flagpole is put up in the far corner of the lower lawn.
2. A wall is built in the Little Mack side of the Mack Cabin creating a private room that includes the pre-existing bathroom, separating it from the laundry area. At the same time on the Big Mack side of the Mack Cabin, the old entrance at the end of the building is replaced with a solid exterior wall, and a new interior wall is built creating a private room with a doorway into a new hallway that runs between the pre-existing bath on that side of the cabin to a new door on the front of the building so that both the residents of the new room as well
© FNCA 2002 as the boys sleeping in the Bunkhouse can share that bathroom.
2000
1. The Tool Shed, Pump House, and the water holding tank structure get new roofs.
2002
1. New back porch and stairs built on the Perry Wing.
2. Flames graffiti in Chalmers Lodge and the Boys Dorm and the Girls Dorms is painted over.
3. The Taft Cabin gets a fresh coat of paint.
2003
© FNCA 20031. Adrienne Frank Fellowship Hall is built.
2. The Bray Cabin porch and bathrooms are reconfigured.
2005
1. New metal roof on the Bray Cabin.
2011
1. The Twitchell Cabin doors on 
© Trevor 2011the front of the cabin are replaced with windows, and new doors added to the end of the porches so you no longer enter directly into the bedrooms, and a wheelchair ramp is added to Twitchell South.
2. The walls of little tiny Room 10 (the old "hospital room" upstairs above the pantry in the Main Building) are taken down and a long wall is built from there along the eastern edge of the Cook's Quarters to the main stairway up to the Girls Dorm, creating a new hallway
from the upstairs bedrooms' hallway above the Dining Hall over to the Girls Dorm.
3. The tool/bike shed on the end of the Woofenden Cabin was beyond repair, so it was removed before putting a new metal roof on the cabin.
4. New shelves are added floor-to-ceiling on the north wall of the Toolshed to make room for the late Rev. Dr. Pop Woof's extensive tool collection.
© 2018 Lee Dyer
2012
1. New metal roof on the entire Main Building.
2. New metal roof on the Perry Cabin.
3. New door and doorframe on the Laird Cabin.
2013
1. New metal roof on the Laird Cabin.
2015
1. New metal roof on the Bunkhouse.
2016
© Dana Richardson 20161. The Pump House gets a new foundation. ---------->
2. New metal roofs on the Taft Cabin and Claxton Cabin.
3. A small angled doorsill is added to the front door into the Dining Hall on the front porch to make it more wheelchair accessible.
4. Legal-size handicapped doorway installed on the 1st floor bathroom in the Dole Wing.
2017
1. The chimney on the back of the Kitchen is cleaned and re-pointed.
2. The screen windows and 
© Trevor 2017wood panels to cover them on the front of Chalmers Lodge are replaced with openable glass windows.
3. New metal roofs on the Faxon Cabin and Bellows Cabin.
2018
1. New metal roof on the Mack Cabin.
© Ian Woofenden 20182. New ramp walkway built for the Waterfront.
2019
1. The old sliding glass doors on the Boston Cabin are removed and replaced with a new entry door and a picture window.
2. A new railing built and installed on the building side of the handicap ramp between the porch and the deck on the Main Building.
3. The split rail fence along the walkway to the Faxon Cabin was repaired with several new rails and a new and improved end piece on the river side.
4. Replaced the ramp on Frank Hall.
5. Connected our fire alarm system directly to 911.
6. By eminent domain, the State of Maine takes a long narrow strip of land along the entire length of our property abutting the road, cuts down nearly all the trees and undergrowth between the back field and the road, widens
© Trevor 2020Rte. 302 and raises it about 7'.
2020
1. The State of Maine, after replacing our entrance (see 2019:6 above) with a steep and narrow driveway ------> last Fall, re-replaces it with a wider, longer, much more gradually inclined driveway. 
© Jon Crowe 2020
2. The chimney on the Goddard Cabin is re-pointed. ------------------------------>
3. The Boys Bunkhouse gets a new coat of stain and some new trim. Also getting a new coat of stain are Chalmers Lodge, the Tool Shed, and the Pump House.
2021
1. New metal roof on the Boston Cabin.
2. New metal roof on the Bath House.
3. New entrance porch on Lawrence West.
© Beki Greenwood 2021
4. Bell taken off the tree and hung on a new bell tower. -->
2022
1. The kitchen door on the Boston Cabin is replaced with a window.
2. After camp, a simple split rail fence is put up along the road side of the back field.
2023
1. Our very old pump in the Pump House dies before camp. Much work is done to supply the camp with water.
2. Rotting wood is removed and a complete new facing is put on the chimney side of the Goddard Cabin.
3. The front doors on the Lawrence Cabin are removed and replaced with windows.
4. The first planting for "Lalla's Memorial Garden" went in in August right after camp.
2024 
© Beki Greenwood 2024
1. Brand new pump, filtration, and UV system installed in the Pump House in May.
2. New metal roof on the Goddard Cabin. The last one. YAY!
3. New entry door sill and ramp (replacing the steps) on the Murdoch Cabin. --------->
4. New entry door sill on the back door of Whitehead Hall.
5. New round handrails on the front porch.
6. New Deck completely 
© Dan Dyer 2024 rebuilt on the front of -------> Whitehead Hall at level with the door and with an ADA-compliant on-ramp that wraps around the end of the building with a handicap parking spot.
7. The door to Room A in the Perry Wing is moved to where the hallway window used to be so it's now outside the door at the bottom of the stairs.
8. New tempory Waterfront stairs are dug into the bank just upstream from the old location that don't require lugging the ramp/railing down to the waterfront.
Exact Construction Dates Unknown:
Well House
(unknown, but probably in 1928 when the Dining Hall was built or in 1929 when the Kitchen was built)
Pump House
(sometime before 1931, probably in 1928 when the Dining Hall was built or in 1929 when the Kitchen was built)
Kitchen
(gas stoves switched in?)
Hinckley Cabin
(built most likely sometime between 1938-1941)
(razed most likely in 1983)
Woofenden Cabin tool/bike shed
(built sometime in the 1970s?)
Kitchen
pantry entrance double doors center post removed
(between 1990-1999)
Main Building
full width stairs installed on lawn end
(between 1934-1938)
double horizontal porch rails added
(between 1940-1947)
current porch railings installed
(1950 or 1951)