Neighbors

If you’d like to learn about Surry’s history in a concise, easily readable format, with lots of old photos, you’ll want to read Osmond (“Oz”) Bonsey’s history, “Surry, Maine, An Informal History,” which he wrote for the town’s upcoming Bicentennial in 2003.

Geo. E. Kane and Son’s store, as it appeared in 1948, was one of three in Surry in the 1940’s. Oz Bonsey

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Its 20 or so chapters cover such subjects as the early history of the area, the town’s incorporation, an early 19th century Surry-Ellsworth boundary dispute, the “great fire” of 1822, Surry’s two murders (in 1884 and 1912), local industries, including ship building and smelt fishing, and the town’s schools and churches. 

 Bonsey has always had an interest in history, but never had the time to do this research, which took him three years. He pored over town and historical society records and read microfilm copies of The Ellsworth American at the Ellsworth library. 

Bonsey describes himself as being from a “long lineage of Surry people” and grew up in Surry in the ’30s and ’40s.  After graduating from Surry Village School and Ellsworth High School, Bonsey earned a degree in public administration from the University of Maine. He left the area to work as a town and city manager for various municipalities throughout the state, mostly in the greater Portland area.

He and his wife, Ann, also from Surry, “always had an attachment to Surry,” said Bonsey. “We always had it in the back of our minds to come back.”

He also owned land on Newbury Neck, so when he retired in 1991 they came back and had a home built there.

On his return, Bonsey got involved with the Surry Historical Society, becoming its president for a time. He helped organize a reunion of the Old Surry Village School, which had closed in 1952. (According to Bonsey’s history, the school was built in 1872 for $2,000 and was “considered modern for its day, sporting a three-hole air-conditioned” outhouse attached to the building. Electricity was added in 1931.)

More than 200 former students attended the reunion held 40 years after the school had closed. He is now helping to organize the town’s bicentennial celebration on June 21, 2003. 

The road to Newbury Neck was a dirt road when Bonsey was a boy riding his bicycle on it.  Yet the road “still gives me the same feeling,” he said.

“Surry has changed, of course,” he said.

The population, for example, has nearly tripled. A positive change in recent years, he said, has been the addition of a professional administrative assistant to the three selectmen. Bonsey believes the position gives the town a “good solid local government.”

Yet, he said, “in many ways [Surry] hasn’t changed. There are not many old natives like myself still around. [But] there are many new people who are wonderful—they’ve got the same feeling of community spirit today that I saw in town when I was growing up.

It is this “community spirit,” Bonsey said, that he most appreciates about the town.

Bonsey’s history, designed by Studio 3 in Ellsworth, can be purchased for $15 at the Surry Town Hall. All proceeds will go toward Surry’s bicentennial celebration.