Then and Now: The racked remnants of a lonely enterprise

The building shown here represents the life’s work and livelihood of a lonely man. In its present condition it reflects a gloom that may have long lurked within its walls.

Henry Harvey Burnham was born in Bridgton, Maine, on May 4, 1865. His father was a carpenter, but Henry — as he was known for most of his life — preferred finer work and apprenticed with a watchmaker. By the early 1890s, when he was ready to open his own business, he chose the Fryeburg, Maine, market. Watchmakers were really only watch repairmen by then, fixing and regulating factory-made pocket watches that were still fairly expensive, and worth fixing. In a town of 1,400 people there were not that many watches needing repair, and the population was declining when he arrived, so he took up the similarly close work of selling and repairing jewelry, like most other watchmakers of that era.