MECHANIC FALLS — Sixty-three years later a Bible has resumed its residence in Mechanic Falls.

The pulpit Bible of the First Universalist Parish of Mechanic Falls was been returned. The Bible was found in a banana box. Kevin Farr and Pat Shearman happened across the Bible while combing over the records of the The First Universalist Church of Norway. Farr and Shearman have spent a year curating the records of the Norway church, which was founded in 1799 and is the oldest continuously existing Universalist church in the state of Maine.

The Bible was given to the Universalist Church in Mechanic Falls by the Norway Universalist Sunday School in 1876, a year after the parish hall was built on Elm Street. In 1950, when the parish disbanded, the Bible was returned to the Norway church. The church building was later demolished.

Farr approached the board of directors of the Norway church and sought permission to offer the Bible to the Mechanic Falls Historical Society since it seemed “pertinent to the town of Mechanic Falls rather than the Norway church in spite of the connection.”