SANDWICH — Late last year, the Sandwich Historical Society orchestrated the relocation of the Quimby Barn to Quimby Park, no small feat. The 1,500 square-foot building was built in the late 1800s, and used at one time as the town's high school. The structure had to be lifted off its original foundation and moved by flatbed trailer to its new site near the Sandwich Historical Society's headquarters at the Elisha Marston House in Center Sandwich.

After a year of work stabilizing, raising, moving and rebuilding the historic barn, it reopens this weekend as home to the society's Transportation Museum, according to Sandwich Historical Society Director Adam Nudd-Homeyer.

The public is welcome to the 2012 Opening Day celebration to be held Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Transportation Museum includes an authentic array of carriages and vehicles.

Free hayrides will be offered from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and attendees can also purchase raffle tickets for a once-in-a-lifetime ride in the Sandwich Concord Coach itself.

The event is just the latest in an ongoing list of historic preservation activities in this tucked-away town in the northern Lakes Region. Earlier this spring, the society unveiled the restored Niobe statue at the head of the Great Wall of Sandwich. And next year, the town will celebrate its 250th birthday.

“Sandwich has always been a preservation-oriented town,” said Sandwich Historical Society President Geoffrey Burrows. The town has two historic districts, and more than 25,000 acres of land are protected through conservation measures or classified in current use. More than 17,000 acres of town are part of the White Mountain National Forest. Numerous buildings are on the National Historic Register, including the Quimby Barn constructed in the late 1800s, which is part of the homestead of local doctor Charles White. After a fire destroyed the main buildings of the homestead, the barn was used as an educational facility for the adjacent Quimby School, which served as the Sandwich High School until it closed in 1963.

Burrows credits the inception of a transportation museum to Sandwich native Robert Peaslee. Before he passed away in the 1990s, Peaslee served as director of the Sandwich Fair, Sandwich Historical Society and a selectman. Burrows said in the early 1970s Peaslee first noticed back that antique wagons were being auctioned off by an auctioneer at the North Sandwich Schoolhouse. Fearing that pieces of local history would be lost forever, Peaslee promoted the idea of a transportation museum to SHS members. Antique items, such as a snow roller used in the early 1900 to roll and pack snow on a roadway, and a genuine horse drawn carriage used by the Concord Coach Company, an antique hearse and other wheeled chariots of the day were donated or acquired over time.

“The items would have been sold off. Mr. Peaslee saw they were to be taken out of town, never to be seen again. He thought the town should have these for future generations,” said Burrows. “He was a Sandwich guy through and through, an advocate for the history of the town,” said Burrows.

As for the barn's restoration, Nudd-Homeyer said the work was intensive — and continues to this day. The overall cost to restore the Quimby Barn/Transportation Museum will run about $200,000. To date, the building has been relocated and stabilized, a new roof installed, rotted wood timbers have been replaced, a new gable, new flooring, moldings, wainscoting, and electrical systems have been installed. The to-do list includes installing a replica of a cupola on the roof and a weathervane.

Nudd-Homeyer said to him, preserving history provides perspective.

“It gives us a sense of place,” he said.

“It gives us an opportunity not to just look at history, but to touch it. It gives us a sense of reverence of things,” he said.

And then, there is comfort in the past in a hectic world.

“The world is moving as such a fast pace. We are creating so many factors of unknowns. The past is always known,” said Nudd-Homeyer.

Donations can be sent to Sandwich Historical Society, P.O. Box 244, 4 Maple St., Center Sandwich, 03227. On the web, go to www.sandwichhistorical.org.

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Larissa Mulkern may be reached at LMulkern@newstote.com.