The Redington Museum offers a comprehensive and charming view of life in Waterville during the past two centuries. Fascinating collections of furniture, accessories, household artifacts, toys, tools, and weapons as well as historical papers and diaries, are located in an elegant Federal-style home at 62 Silver Street. The museum is a civic treasure, maintained and supported with pride by the Waterville Historical Society. Waterville has had a long and varied history of commerce, agriculture, and manufacturing that in turn supported a lively community bound together by educational institutions, the arts, sports, politics, social and recreational activities. A visit to the Redington Museum affords accurate and engaging insights into the lives of the people who lived here.
The museum is housed in a handsome two story home built in 1814 by pioneer Waterville settler Asa Redington, a veteran of three enlistments in the Revolutionary War and a member of George Washington's elite Honor Guard. After the revolution he developed the water rights at Ticonic Falls and with his sons Samuel and William established a thriving flour mill on the banks of the Kennebec River. The father of six sons and three daughters, Asa built this substantial home for his son William. Fashioned of great hewn timbers, all hand pegged, it still features the original spiral staircase, fireplaces with period woodwork, and floors of wide pumpkin pine. The newel post in the entrance exhibits the "contractor's peace stone," a small smooth polished stone signifying in Colonial times that the project had been completed to both the owner's and builder's satisfaction. Today five rooms are furnished with antiques of the late 18th and early 19th centuries from the Redington family, the family of pioneer attorney Timothy Boutelle, and from other early local families. The house has been open to the public as a museum since 1927 and was entered in the National Register of Historic Places.
