CHESTER FIRST FRIDAY ART STROLL
February 3, 2023 from 5 - 8 pm
Enjoy some of the oldest and newest paintings of my home and travels in the gallery.
Choose your favorite bottle at the Chester Package Store across the street, get a snack from any of Chester's fine restaurants and grab a growler from the Little House Brewing Company next door and enjoy yourself for a happy hour or two.

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Join us for a book talk and book-signing with author Claire Smith and hear about THE CHESTER HOUSE
(now the Leif Nilsson Spring Street Studio and Gallery)
at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, an eventful, colorful time in Chester, when:

· The Chester House was a hotel with tavern on the bottom floor,
· Chester was in controversy over whether to be a wet or dry town,
· The Temperance (Curb the drinking!) Movement was brewing,
· The Women’s Suffrage (Let Women Vote!) Movement was gaining steam,
· A fire destroyed the top floor of the Chester House.

Claire Smith will read from her newest book, Georgiana, Like So Many, which includes sections on Chester and the Chester House, drawn from century-old town records, newspapers, and documents.

"Georgiana, Like So Many" is the true story of a Connecticut woman, Ella Georgiana Smith Cook (1849-1930), who lived as a happily married woman in the era when woman’s role was transforming. Part of Georgiana’s story if that she became owner of the Chester House, buying it from her brother Frank Smith, who, according to Kate Silliman’s "Chester Scrapbook", was “considered the more successful proprietor of the Chester House.”

Author Claire Smith lives in Westbrook. Frank Smith, proprietor of the Chester House 1880-1903, is her husband Peter’s great-grandfather.