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Maine’s History Magazine Volume 28 | Issue 4 | 2019
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Western Maine
Lewiston’s Nealey Rifles
Drill company wows spectators in Washington D.C.
A Fly Is Born
Messalonskee salmon and trout meet their match
A Maine Yankee Of The 1930s Growing up in rural Dayton
www.DiscoverMaineMagazine.com facebook.com/discovermaine
Western Maine
Inside This Edition
2 3
It Makes No Never Mind James Nalley
4
The Haunting Cry Of The Loon Maine’s oldest resident John Murray
8
Auburn’s Moses Hanscom The preacher’s son Charles Francis
Maine’s History Magazine
Western Maine Publisher & Editor
12 The Little Graveyard In Cornish An ancient resting place C.J. Pike
Jim Burch
16 Brigham Young Pays A Visit The Mormons and their Western Maine connection Charles Francis
Advertising & Sales Manager
20 Lewiston’s Nealey Rifles Drill company wows spectators in Washington D.C. Brian Swartz 23 The Hunt For Henry “Harry” Kirby Lust and robbery fueled a 1925 murder in Winthrop Brian Swartz 28 A Maine Yankee Of The 1930s Growing up in rural Dayton Marvin B. Dow 34 Paris Hill’s Hannibal Hamlin Hard work in the winter woods helped him mature Brian Swartz 38 Livermore Falls’ Louise Marie Bogan Our nation’s 4th poet laureate Brian Swartz 44 A Fly Is Born Messalonskee salmon and trout meet their match John Murray 51 The Death Of Sarah Rangeley Squire’s 19-year old daughter interred in Farmington Brian Swartz 56 Groucho’s Visit To Lakewood Theatre Audience applauded his memorable performance Brian Swartz 62 The Naming Of A Town The early settlement of New Sharon Brian Swartz 65 Rumford’s William Wallace Kimball Piano entrepreneur Charles Francis 68 The Bird Hunter Life in the shadow of East Kennebago Thomas J. Roth 72 One Heck Of A Yarn Harmony’s Woolen Mill Jeffrey Bradley
Layout & Design Liana Merdan Tim Maxfield
Advertising & Sales Jennifer Bakst Dennis Burch Dan Coyne Tim Maxfield
Field Representatives Jim Caron Don Plante
Office Manager Liana Merdan
Contributing Writers Jeffrey Bradley Marvin B. Dow Charles Francis John Murray James Nalley C.J. Pike Thomas J. Roth Brian Swartz
Published Annually by CreMark, Inc. 10 Exchange Street, Suite 208 Portland, Maine 04101 Ph (207) 874-7720 info@discovermainemagazine.com www.discovermainemagazine.com Discover Maine Magazine is distributed to town offices, chambers of commerce, financial institutions, fraternal organizations, barber shops, beauty salons, hospitals and medical offices, newsstands, grocery and convenience stores, hardware stores, lumber companies, motels, restaurants and other locations throughout this part of Maine. NO PART of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from CreMark, Inc. | Copyright © 2019, CreMark, Inc.
SUBSCRIPTION FORMS ON PAGES 59 & 74
Front Cover Photo:
Post Office in Fayette. Item #LB2007.1.100785 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
All photos in Discover Maine’s Western Maine edition show Maine as it used to be, and many are from local citizens who love this part of Maine. Photos are also provided from our collaboration with the Maine Historical Society and the Penobscot Marine Museum.
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com
It Makes No Never Mind by James Nalley
A
t the time of this publication, the mud season from the recent hard winter will be in full force. However, there is always the relatively nice spring weather and the abundance of flora ahead. Regarding the latter, May is also fiddlehead season. For those unaware of such plants, fiddleheads (or Matteuccia struthiopteris) are rolled-up fronds of baby ferns (thus resembling the scroll at the end of a stringed instrument), which are harvested, sold fresh/ frozen, and cooked as a vegetable dish, due to their similarity in flavor with asparagus. Since they are only available in the market for roughly four weeks each spring, they can be expensive for consumers and lucrative for harvesters. In fact, it is well known that some “fiddleheaders” can make several thousand dollars, which has naturally spawned a rush of harvesters aiming to cash in on this short-lived crop. For example, at W.S. Wells & Son in Wilton, once the only fiddlehead processing plant in the country, throngs of harvesters start showing up in mid-April every year. Although it stopped canning in 2009, the plant continues to supply the fresh market. As for the casual harvesters, they sim-
ply forage for fiddleheads on the riverbank in Wilton in order to invite friends/family over for a so-called fiddlehead fry. However, the patches are picked clean by the professional harvesters well before the casual harvesters arrive. In order to avoid such unnecessary stress, some residents have resorted to growing their own fiddleheads. According to the Portland Press Herald, “A home garden patch of just 10 plants can supply a family with two/three fiddlehead meals each spring.” Regarding the recipes, fiddleheads, which are full of vitamins A and C, are extremely versatile. As shown in Food Network Magazine, the recipes include: Gruyere Fiddlehead Tart, Spring Vegetable and Grapefruit Salad, Fiddlehead and Saffron Soup, Maple-Soy Glazed Fiddlehead and Salmon, and Fiddlehead Omelette. Interestingly, Dave Fuller from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service in Farmington states that “most people simply use them as ornamentals and never make the connection that the ferns are edible.” For those who are curious and want to avoid any of the back-breaking work, there is always the Fiddlehead Foodie Fest held
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each May. The 2019 festival will be held on May 16 at the Fiddlehead Art & Science Center in Gray, Maine. This event will include a fiddlehead cooking competition and tastings from various chefs in the region. Well, on this note of harvesting and mud, let me close with the following: A young couple are driving down a dirt road on their way to visit some friends. They suddenly come to a muddy patch in the road and attempt to drive through it. However, their car gets bogged down and stuck. A few minutes later, they see a farmer coming down the road with some oxen. The farmer stops and offers to use his oxen to pull the car out of the mud for $50. The husband accepts and a few minutes later, the car is free. Afterwards, the farmer says to the husband, “You know, you’re the 10th car I’ve helped out of the mud today!” The husband looks around at the cornfield and asks, “Wow! So, when do you have time to harvest your crops? At night?” The farmer replies, “No way! Night is when I put the water on that patch of dirt road that you just drove through.” Discover Maine
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The Haunting Cry Of The Loon by John Murray
Maine’s oldest resident
G
eologists can only speculate what Maine looked like twenty five thousand years ago before the Laurentide Glacier pushed its way southeast. This great glacier of ice was nearly two thousand feet thick and covered most mountains in the region. Rock debris at the base of the ice scoured the entire landscape down to bedrock, and this caused previously existing rivers, streams, lakes and forests to virtually disappear. Unimaginable as it seems, the unfathomable weight of the heavy ice literally lowered the earth’s crust by hundreds of feet. The common loon that resides in Maine today was a resident of the territory thousands of years before the gla-
cier event occurred, and may be one of the few species that actually survived the cataclysmic event. During the previous Pleistocene time period, the loon shared the region with many unique species of animals that no longer exist today. Among those extinct species of animals were the saber tooth tiger, ground sloth, wooly mammoth, and the dire wolf. With certainty, none of the
animals that resided in the region were aware of the fate that would befall them. As the loon floated on the surface of a pristine lake for the final time as the ice crept near, the large bird sang its haunting cry at sunset. In the distance, a dire wolf’s soulful howl echoed off the surrounding mountains. With the strong instinctive urge to leave, the loon took to the air, and ultimately kept ahead of the encroaching glacial ice by migrating to points further south. As the earth ultimately began to experience a warming trend four thousand years later, the Laurentide Glacier slowly receded, and started to expose the barren bedrock that was previously covered by ice. Glacier ice contin-
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com ued to recede, and by thirteen thousand years ago, the present-day location of Maine’s southeastern edge was icefree. But, with the earth’s crust being depressed by hundreds of feet, what was once covered by ice would now be covered by the Atlantic Ocean. The ocean would completely flood southern Maine as the glacier continued to retreat, and these ocean waters would extend far into the present-day Penobscot and Kennebec river valleys. At the height of the rising ocean waters, the Atlantic would reach elevations of four hundred and twenty feet in the central part of Maine. With the heavy glacial ice disappearing, the Atlantic kept a firm grip on its new submerged territory until approximately eleven thousand years ago. No longer being restrained by the weight of the heavy ice, it was at this time when the crust of the earth was able to achieve an upward movement, and the present day coastline of Maine
was raised out of the Atlantic Ocean. Depressions cut into the bedrock would gradually fill with fresh water, and create the lakes, rivers and streams that are present today. Organic growth would begin as well – first as a tundra environment, and then becoming a forest as the years ticked by. The loon ultimately returned to Maine as the habitat improved. For the loon, that return to its ancestors’ previous home must have felt like arriving in a brand new world, because in reality it truly was. The area that is now known as Maine undoubtedly looked little like it did in the past. Loons have been residents of earth for a very long time, and have seen many changes in the world, but the bird took to its new environment and continued to exist. As a testament to the survival of the ancient bird, fossil records have verified that the loon was present during the Eocene period – which was 33 million years ago. Unlike the majority of other birds,
the common loon has a solid bone structure, instead of the lightweight hollow bone structure of most birds. A solid bone structure is perfect for what this large bird is designed to do, which is diving underwater. Truly a water bird, the loon spends the vast majority of its time on the water, and loon are expert underwater swimmers. Loon have been documented to dive down to depths of nearly sixty feet as they easily ambush and overtake fish. Underwater dive times have been clocked at more than ninety seconds, and the loon can travel underwater distances of half a football field in length. The fishing success of the loon requires crystal clear water, because the loon are visual underwater hunters. Crystal clear lakes and ponds abound in Maine, and this region has always supported good populations of common loon. Encountered by the Native Americans thousands of years ago, the (cont. on page 6)
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(cont. from page 5) indigenous humans always held this bird in high regard. Loons were considered spiritual creatures that were the wise caretakers of the water. Unfortunately, a different attitude arrived with the European settlers. Unquestionably, a hungry settler would begin the demise of the common loon in Maine, and throughout the northeast. To its advantage, the fish-eating loon doesn’t have a very tasty meat, so this factor probably helped the survival of some of the birds. Yet, many loon were still being killed in later years for the unrealistic logic that the loon were a threat to the fish population. With rapid near extermination occurring in many areas, the loon was given total protection during 1918 under the federal migratory bird treaty act. Since the implementation of this law, the common loon population rebounded in many areas, and especially in the state of Maine, where the residents were cultivating a true appreciation for this unique bird. The people of
inland Maine would eagerly await the spring thaw that would remove the ice upon the lakes. Not just for the reason that the disappearing lake ice truly signified the end of winter, but because the spring thaw meant the beautiful loons would soon return to the lakes. The common loon that has residence in Maine doesn’t remain in the lake environment for the entire year. When winter loosens its icy grip on the northern state, the loons depart their winter home on the Atlantic Ocean, where they have just spent many months hugging the Maine coastline. When the spring season arrives, the loons take flight, and fly to the lakes. For the large body loon, the act of becoming airborne for flight isn’t an easy endeavor. The heavy loon vigorously flaps its wings while running long distances across the surface of the water. Direction of the wind is important for this process, and the loon must run into the wind to achieve lift. After achieving flight, the loon is an intense flying machine. With
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com wings flapping furiously, the loon’s air speeds have been clocked at ninety miles per hour. Once inland, water is chosen by the loon returning to the same lake or pond that it inhabited the season before. Both female and male loons will defend this home territory from other intruding loons, as they prefer having their personal space to ensure survival. Small lakes and ponds will usually be occupied by only one mating pair of loons, and the larger bodies of water can have multiple pairs of loons who remain territorially separated in individual bays. Defending or trying to claim a body of water often results in deadly battles between male loons, who will viciously beat an opponent with heavy wings, and stab repeatedly with their long sharp beaks. When the battles cease, courtship begins, and the female loon will soon be laying eggs on a hidden floating nest near the shoreline. Both parents protect and feed the hatchling
loons who grow rapidly, and the young loons are fishing for their own meals by the end of the summer. With the shortening of the days in October, all loons will depart for the winter stay on the Atlantic Ocean. This cycle of life continues every year for the loon. 1918 federal protection helped stabilize the population of the common loon, but a few decades ago, a new health threat appeared for the loon. People were beginning to find deceased loons with no apparent visible injury to explain their death. These mysterious fatalities were attributed to lead poisoning that occurred after the loon ingested lead fishing sinkers. In order to digest their food, loons must consume small rocks for the digestive process to function, and discarded lead fishing sinkers were unintentionally being consumed by the loon. Lead fishing sinkers have now been outlawed in the state of Maine, and this has helped correct the situation.
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Recently, another hazard is threatening the common loon. Scientific tests have revealed that many loons which live in Maine have trace amounts of deadly mercury in their bodies. As the levels of mercury increase, the loon becomes adversely inflicted by the poison, because the mercury hampers the loon’s ability to successfully raise hatchlings. Unfortunately, this dire situation has been created by man, as the mercury is being deposited into the water via fossil fuel emissions in the industrial Midwestern states. With prevailing winds out of the west, the common loon is literally at the end of a toxic tailpipe. Hopefully this situation can be corrected, so that the common loon in Maine may continue to sing its haunting song at sunset. * Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section.
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Auburn’s Moses Hanscom by Charles Francis he year 1842 was a significant one for Moses Hanscom. In the early Spring, he was ordained as a Baptist minister. The ordination took place in his hometown of Danville. That same year his wife, the former Mary Vickery, gave birth to a son. The son was named for the Reverend Hanscom. Sadly, soon after the birth of young Moses Hanscom, Mary Vickery Hanscom died. The Reverend Hanscom was ordained as an evangelist. That meant he was to be a traveling preacher, carrying his message wherever and to whomever possible. The life of an itinerant preacher would have been an untenable one for a newly widowed parent. In ad-
T
The preacher’s son dition to his infant son, the Reverend Hanscom had three other children, William, Ruel, and Sarah. Then came what the Reverend could only account for as a miracle. The last of the significant events in Reverend Moses Hanscom’s life for the year 1842 occurred when he was asked to take over the Union Baptist Church in Durham. The Durham Baptist congregation that met in Union Church was a small one. The fellowship had been established just two years before in 1840. During Reverend Hanscom’s pastorate, the congregation grew and prospered. It is notable that the Reverend and the church were stalwart supporters of the temperance movement. As for Rever-
end Hanscom’s young family, he built a home for them in 1843. Eventually, Moses Hanscom married again. His second wife was Elvira Snow of Brunswick. The couple had six children. Reverend Hanscom’s now large family, of course, suggested a move to a larger church, one which would enable the Reverend to better support his greatly expanded family. In 1857 the Reverend experienced a second miracle. He was called to the pastorate of a much larger church. This church was in Bowdoinham. The Bowdoinham congregation was well enough endowed from a financial point of view that Reverend Hanscom had no problem supporting his family.
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Reverend Moses Hanscom was a man who believed that God’s hand was to be found in all things. That is why he spoke of events in his life as miracles. Without a doubt, what Moses Hanscom saw as the greatest of miracles in his life and that of his children was the one which brought his namesake back home safely from the Civil War. Moses Hanscom, the son of the Reverend Moses Hanscom, appears in the historical record as Moses C. Hanscom. In 1862 Moses C. Hanscom enlisted in the Union Army. His regiment was the 19th Maine. It was a volunteer regiment. Its commander was Selden Connor. Connor would later serve as a Maine governor. Moses had just celebrated his twentieth birthday when he became a 19th Maine private. His company was Company F. Moses C. Hanscom enlisted in the Army when a recruiter out of Augusta came to Bowdoinham. The recruiter set up a table outside the Bowdoinham
town office. It was standard recruiting procedure to be as visible a presence as possible. One can only imagine what the Reverend Hanscom thought as he saw his namesake off to war. After all, Moses was a direct tie to his hometown and his ordination, and he was the youngest son of his first wife Mary. Given what the imagination suggests of Reverend Hanscom’s feelings as to when he wished his son Godspeed, one can appreciate what he must have felt when Moses returned from the war apparently whole and healthy some three years later in the summer of 1865. Moses C. Hanscom returned to Bowdoinham from the great War Between the States a hero. He performed as every soldier should or must and then some. Indeed, Moses C. Hanscom was that rarest of soldiers. He was a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery above and beyond the call of duty at the Battle of Bristoe
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Station in Virginia. During the Battle of Bristoe Station, the 19th Maine was set against the 26th North Carolina. The 19th Maine was the superior regiment. Records of the 26th North Carolina, though terse, attest to this. One notation from Confederate records states simply “26th North Carolina lost 179 men and flag.” Bristoe Station no longer exists as a Virginia place name today. Perhaps that explains why there are several different spellings for Bristoe, including Bristo and Bristol. Regardless of this fact, the battle was an important one. General George Meade faced off against General Robert E. Lee. Meade was the victor, but his victory came at such cost that the Union forces were forced to give up what ground they had won by withdrawing some twenty miles. October 14, 1863 is the date of the Battle of Bristoe Station. It is also the date that Moses C. Hanscom won his (cont. on page 10)
Western Maine
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(cont. from page 9) Congressional Medal of Honor. He did it by capturing the flag of the 26th North Carolina. He did it by engaging North Carolina infantrymen in hand-tohand combat. As to how hard the North Carolina men fought, they had already lost their flag once. The men of the 26th had vowed never again to be so humiliated. Moses C. Hanscom returned home with corporal’s stripes. Though he was mustered out of the 19th whole in body, one wonders as to his mental state. Moses Hanscom, recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, did not live out what one might consider to be his allotted number of years. Perhaps this had something to do with the fact that he had seen action in more than twenty major engagements. The 19th Maine was at Gettysburg. It was at the Battle of the Wilderness, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. These are all names that high school American
history students are exposed to. There is a reason for this. They are the greatest of the bloody confrontations of the War Between the States. Moses C. Hanscom was there for all of these and more. The Reverend Moses Hanscom and his second wife Elvira retired to Auburn. It wasn’t all that far from the Reverend’s hometown of Danville. Moses C. Hanscom made his home with his father and stepmother until he died. He was just thirty when he passed away. The father conducted the son’s services. Corporal Moses C. Hanscom’s Congressional Medal of Honor can be seen in the Maine State Museum in Augusta. The Reverend Moses Hanscom donated it to the state. As for the Reverend Hanscom, he passed on in 1890. For the last years of his life, he regularly visited the grave of his hero son. Both Hanscoms, father and son, are interred in Auburn.
Discover Maine Magazine has been brought to you free through the generous support of Maine businesses for the past 28 years, and we extend a special thanks to them. Please tell our advertisers how much you love Discover Maine Magazine by doing business with them whenever possible. Thanks for supporting those businesses that help us bring Maine’s history to you!
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Western Maine
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The Little Graveyard In Cornish by C.J. Pike
An ancient resting place
E
ach early settler in Cornish buried his dead in some dry spot upon his own farm, but as the years rolled away a neighborhood “graveyard” was in the rear of the schoolhouse opposite the mouth of High Road. In that schoolhouse, religious services were sometimes held, which made the location more appropriate. In later years the schoolhouse was removed, and the new Baptist church was erected upon its site, and at the end of another cycle the church was also removed, and the little graveyard was left with no building in which to hold funeral services. It is one of the most beautiful places for a graveyard in all the world. Around it is the quiet farm lands from which gi-
Seth
ant trees were removed by the strong hands now motionless beneath its sod. In the north the Hiram hills arise, crescent shaped, as if to protect it from some later Attila and his destroying horde, and in the hazy distance prouder hills and mountains lift their lofty heads. A little money and labor would make the yard a gem of beauty. Rebuild the tumbling walls and tidy up a bit, plant a few maple trees, fertilize with wood ashes and keep the green grass closely clipped with a lawn mower and it would be a beauty spot unequalled. The bad practice sometimes seen in rural graveyards of elevating a lot here and there is a very bad practice indeed. It destroys the symmetry and artistic
beauty of the place, and makes it look like a Dutch vegetable garden with its scattering hotbeds of early beets. At the graves of the early dead flat stones were placed, but in later years slate stones with inscriptions were used. The first marble stone ever placed in High Road graveyard stands at the grave of Deacon Jewett’s daughter Harriet. It is a plain slab, set in the ground like a post, but was thought at the time to be a grand thing. It was placed there about 1845, I think. The early settlers buried their dead with the head toward the west, and with rare exceptions we do the same thing. Why we do it is well worth looking into. Videlicet: All the nations of Eu-
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com rope and America have descended from the Aryans, and all the languages are descended from the old Aryan languages. Of course, many of the thoughts and customs of our Aryan parents of thousands of years ago have come down to us from father to son. Our Aryan parents or grandparents called the skies father and the earth mother and worshipped them. They especially worshipped the sun as the son of the sky father and the earth (dawn) mother. They worshipped upon their knees and, as they could not look at the sun, they always closed their eyes during that worship. From that has come down our habit of praying upon our knees with closed eyes. The dead were always buried upon their backs, with their heads to the west so that they could see the sun rise each morning, and to this day we bury our dead in the same way. Burying with the head to the west is the oldest custom in the world, I think, and should be continued because it is old. Our German cousins have kept
alive more of the customs of our common parents than we have. Go to the top of the nearest hill on the morning of each May Day and there greet the rising sun. Even in New York the Germans keep up that custom. The little graveyard contains the Pikes, Lewises, Boyntons, Chadbournes, Storers, Jewetts, Hills, Bark-
ers, Remicks and other old families, and historically it is the most interesting spot in Cornish. A little labor and money would make it much more beautiful. Let us hope that someday a descendent of one of these old families will bequeath to the graveyard an enough sum of money to keep it tidy forever.
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Brigham Young Pays A Visit The Mormons and their Western Maine connection by Charles Francis
B
righam Young came to western Maine in the summer of 1835. His purpose was gaining converts to the newly formed Church of Latter Days Saints, the Mormons. Young visited Andover and Bethel. Given that several Andover and Bethel residents eventually converted to Mormonism, Young’s visit must be regarded as a success. Brigham Young is the “American Moses.” He is sometimes referred to as the “Modern Moses” and the “Mormon Moses.” The name comes from his leading Mormons from the Midwest to the Far West, to the Utah desert. Utah was the “promised land.”
Young’s followers called him the “Lion of the Lord” and “Brother Brigham.” He was a polygamist. He was President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877. He was one of the church’s “Twelve Apostles,” the most important of the twelve. When Brigham Young came to Maine, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, was alive. Smith would die in 1844. In 1835 Young was in the process of establishing himself as an important and vital Mormon leader. One way to do this was for Young to make converts. In short, Brigham Young came to Maine as a missionary.
This point introduces our subject. Our subject is why Brigham Young chose Maine to gain converts for Mormonism, specifically in western Maine towns like Andover, Bethel, Upton and Newry. In Andover, Young centered his crusade at the home of David and Patty (Bartlett) Sessions. Patty Sessions later converted to the Mormon faith. Some records and authorities believe Patty Sessions was the first Mormon convert in Maine, or at least in western Maine. In would seem Brigham Young was an influence on her. This is not surprising. We will see why momentarily. Neither is it surprising that Young would go to
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Bethel from Andover. In 1835 Brigham Young was at the beginning of his career as a Mormon missionary and leader. He had not been a church member that long, having converted in 1832. As a new missionary Young chose to work among people with whom he was connected. A good deal of genealogical work has been done on Brigham Young’s descendants. Less has been done on his antecedents. This is not surprising as Young’s descendants are a part of Mormon church history. The same is not the case in most instances for the descendants of his forebears. However, it is by examining some of the latter that we discover a reason for Brigham Young’s visits to western Maine. He had relatives here. At this point this writer must issue a disclaimer. I have several family connections to Brigham Young. In the same manner, I have connections to some of the people Young preached
to in western Maine and to some of those he converted there. I discovered this in tracing out lines of descent from three of my ancestors, Samuel Howe of Marlborough, Massachusetts, Abraham Howe of Roxbury, Massachusetts and Thomas Barnes of Sudbury, Massachusetts. Any errors I make in referencing these lines are mine and not those of someone else. Brigham Young was the son of John and Abigail “Nabby” (Howe) Young. Brigham Young was born in Whitingham, Vermont. Nabby Howe was the granddaughter of Peter Howe and Thankful Howe. Peter and Thankful Howe were first cousins. Samuel Howe Sr. of Marlborough was their grandfather. Nabby Howe was the great granddaughter of Samuel Brigham Sr. and Elizabeth Howe. Elizabeth Howe was the daughter of Abraham Howe of Roxbury. Brigham is, of course, the source for our subject’s first name.
The Howe family is one of the oldest in New England. It dates to the early 1600s. Howes were among the earliest settlers of Sudbury as well as Marlborough, Roxbury and other Boston area communities. Samuel Howe’s immediate descendants owned and operated the Red Horse Tavern in Sudbury. This is the tavern Longfellow made famous as “The Wayside Inn.” Sudbury is especially important here. Before being incorporated as a town in 1796, Bethel was known as Sudbury Canada because land grants established along the Androscoggin were given to descendants of soldiers of Sudbury, Massachusetts who served in the invasion of Canada in 1690. Many of those descendants were cousins of Brigham Young. Jonathan Keyes is an example. Keyes had Howe ancestry. Dr. Timothy Howe, the father of Senator Timothy O. Howe, practiced in Turner. There are several Howe place names in western Maine such as Howe (cont. on page 19)
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com (cont. from page 17) Maine was indeed successful. So was Brook and Howe’s Corner. Howes also intermarried with oth- the next. er families who settled western Maine Brigham Young returned to western such as the Barnes and Bartlett fam- Maine in 1836. On this visit several ilies. The first Barnes was Thomas Bethel and Newry families convertof Sudbury. His son Thomas mar- ed and subsequently sold their Maine ried Mary Howe, daughter of Samuel property to move to the Midwest. The Howe. A later Thomas Barnes was a observation has been made that they noted Universalism minister in western wanted to live “according to their reMaine. Brigham Young was connected ligious beliefs without fear of persecuto the Barnes family through his Howe tion.” ancestry. He was also connected to the The first Mormons to leave Maine Bartlett family for the same reason. In settled in Ohio and Missouri. In 1846 short, when Brigham Young came to Brigham Young was the leader who iniAndover and Bethel he was on familiar tiated the Mormon exodus to Utah from the Midwest. Young and the Mormons ground. So just how successful was Brigham following him spent the winter of 1846Young at making converts in western 1847 in Nebraska. In July of 1847 the Maine? To begin with, members of trek ended in Salt Lake Valley. Among the Sessions family eventually headed those who took part in the great journey west. Today their descendants can be were Mormons who had once lived in townshorizontal like Andover, Newry and Bethel. found in Provo, Utah. firstvertical trip to x 7.625 Discover MAine MagHis 4.85
Some were Brigham Young’s cousins. Addendum: My great grandmother was Mary Barnes. Mary was a direct descendant of Thomas Barnes of Sudbury. Mary Barnes’s grandfather was Jonathan Barnes of Brookfield, Massachusetts. Jonathan married Dorothy Howe, a direct descendant of Samuel Howe of Marlborough. The Barnes family Bible records a visit Dorothy made to Whitingham, Vermont to care for her ailing Cousin Nabby. The Bible passed to Geraldine Farrar, the famous opera singer, whose mother was Henrietta Barnes. Geraldine’s father was Sidney Farrar of Paris Hill. The Farrar name is a common one in western Maine. Note: My great grandmother Mary Barnes married George Howe of Medford, Massachusetts. George Howe was descended of Abraham Howe of Roxbury.
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Lewiston’s Nealey Rifles Drill company wows spectators in Washington D.C. by Brian Swartz
L
ike their fathers did in the 1860s, Androscoggin Valley militiamen reporting to the National Drill and Encampment in spring 1887 learned how much the weather affects a military campaign, whether real or pretend. Thirty-four militia units from 19 states and Washington, D.C. converged on the nation’s capital to participate in the May 23-30 National Drill. Competitions ranging from close-order drill and individual marksmanship to target firing by artillery and machine-gun detachments took place on the National Mall, the Ellipse, and other open spaces in the District. Proudly representing Maine, from
Lewiston came the Nealey Rifles, officially Company D of the 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment. Drawn from many Androscoggin Valley cities and towns and led by Captain W.A. Goss, the Maine boys arrived by train at 3 p.m., Sunday, May 22, and settled into their tents amidst several Southern companies at Camp George Washington, set up around the Washington Monument. “The tented field makes a handsome picture and photographers are capturing every scene therein,” a Nealey Rifles’ correspondent informed the Lewiston Evening Journal. Each day featured a full round of competition that kicked off at 10 a.m.
Militiamen polished their gear and weapons so everything shone when individual companies took the field before admiring spectators. The sharpeyed judges missed nothing. “All experienced army officers,” they had spent “many years at the leading institutions where the manual of arms was thought of first,” the LEJ correspondent noted. A harbinger of weather to come, “a furious thunder storm, almost a cyclone … upset everything” around 4 p.m., Tuesday, he reported. Spectators packed the temporary grandstand. Suddenly “the rain fell in sheets and the panic was widespread,” the Lewiston soldier wrote. “At least a thou-
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com sand straw hats sailed off higher than the Washington Monument,” and “the screams of women and children and the flying boards and fixtures made a bedlam” as the wind disintegrated the grandstand. “Some women were blown off but have since been found,” he noted, “but beyond a few sprained ankles and barked shins and wrecked structures, nothing serious happened.” Workmen scrambled to make good what Mother Nature had shattered. Everything was shipshape by Wednesday, which dawned hot. Their fathers and uncles had tramped through the Virginia heat a quarter century ago; now this “day was boiling hot” and “a very broiler,” and the militiamen suffered as they paraded past President Grover Cleveland, his wife Frances, General Phil Sheridan, “and 300 other prominent persons” on “a stand in front of the White House,” the soldier wrote.
Another “heavy shower set in” around 4 p.m. to postpone the late afternoon activities. The Nealey Rifles returning to their camp that night “were a pretty weary lot,” the soldier admitted. “The march through the streets was pretty much like actual campaigning.” By Thursday the Lewiston-area boys “have got pretty well tired with Washington weather,” the LEJ correspondent commented. “Such part of it as hasn’t been hot has been cyclones and showers. “But the Nealey Rifles are not at all disturbed … they are ready for the competition,” he stated. The schedule called for the Nealey Rifles to participate in the drilling competition between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Friday. Beyond regional pride, the stakes were high: The best company would take home $5,000, the second best $2,500, the third best $1,500, and fourth place $1,000.
When not competing, the Maine soldiers spent time in camp, where “the fun … has been fast and furious,” the soldier wrote. Many wives had accompanied their husbands to the National Drill, and “the ladies … have spent a good deal of their time preparing their pets for the contest” by sewing buttons “or tacking a white collar on a soldier’s coat.” Friday came, and the Nealey Rifles competed. Although they finished 21st, they made a good impression clad “in light blue trousers, dark blue dress coats with gold trimmings, three rows of brass buttons, and black helmets, with gold fronts and spikes” in the Prussian pattern, the Washington Star reported. As for how the Maine boys drilled, “some of the movements were creditably executed,” but “their marching was quite good,” the Star politely ob(cont. on page 22)
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(cont. from page 21) served. Unfortunately “in resuming arms one [rifle] was dropped from the stack, but its owner stooped and recovered it.” The Nealey Rifles had “attracted notice by their good soldierly appearance and their excellent conduct in camp,” the Star’s reporter noticed. He had spoken with Goss about the wool uniforms worn by the Maine boys. They “had come right from a snow bank into August weather, with their winter clothing,” Goss pointed out. With the official competitions over by late Friday afternoon, the militiamen relaxed on Saturday. Company bands performed round robin concerts that evening, and civilians packed the camps. Then yet another rainstorm swept
Washington around 9 p.m. and “quickly emptied the camp of visitors,” the LEJ correspondent noted. Sunday brought “a perfect day at last!” he exclaimed. Visitors paid 25 cents admission and 25 cents per chair to occupy good perches in the grandstand. After hearing the Marine Band in concert, some 15,000 people filled the seats and every bit of available standing space to watch the soldiers pass in the final grand parade. “The sight was one of great beauty,” the Maine soldier realized. “One army with banners faced another with a sea of umbrellas.” Camp George Washington broke up on Monday, May 30, and the Nealey Rifles caught a train for Lewiston as the National Drill passed into history.
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com
The Hunt For Henry “Harry� Kirby Lust and robbery fueled a 1925 murder in Winthrop by Brian Swartz
P
olice solved a sordid murder in Winthrop in 1925 because the killer’s second victim played pos-
sum. Thirty-year-old Aida Hayward and her aunt, Mrs. Emma M. Towns, lived in a 38-by-12-foot, “thoroughly modern and expensively furnished� cottage on Lake Maranacook, according to the press. The women “were much attached to each other.� Standing 5-5, Hayward weighed 125 pounds and had a fair complexion, brown eyes, and light brown hair. She “had inherited considerable property from her parents� and habitually kept her jewelry and other valuables in a
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bank’s safety-deposit box. There was little cash in her home. Since the Augusta, Hallowell, & Gardiner Street Railway tracks ran close by the cottage, early in the evening of Tuesday, May 19, 1925, Hayward and Towns caught a trolley to attend “an Eastern Star entertainment� in Winthrop. Clad in “a red Georgette dress with black ligures and black band at the bottom,� plus “a rose-colored coat, untrimmed� and “no hat,� Hayward looked her best as she and Towns rode the 11:15 p.m. trolley home. The conductor later told police that he “waited until he heard the two women enter the cottage and close the door.�
Then the trolley rumbled away to Augusta. Only the piazza light glowed as Hayward and Towns stepped into the darkened cottage. Hayward headed to the bathroom, Towns for the living room. Suddenly a “man appeared at the door� of that room and fired two shots from “presumably ... a 22-calibre revolver,� Towns later told police. One bullet struck her “near the jaw,� the other in “her right arm.� Groaning, Towns collapsed on a couch, and a man “of medium height� and “rather stout build� leaned close and told her to shut up. Telling Hay-
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(cont. from page 23) ward “to keep quiet,” the man demanded “money and valuables.” He also told Hayward that they were going for a long ride “and that no harm would come to her. “‘Your aunt is already dead,’” Towns heard him tell her niece. Her blood soaking the pillow cradling her head, Towns listened as “the man and her niece left the cottage.” Perhaps 90 minutes later, he “returned alone” and examined the supine Towns, playing possum as the killer lifted her eyelids and studied her “lifeless” eyes. Yep, she was dead. Spending some time upstairs, the man left the cottage. “A few minutes later” Towns “heard a crackling sound, smelled smoke and then realized” the cottage was on fire. She crawled across the floor, pushed out a window screen, and climbed through the opening, only to tumble next to the flaming cottage. Afraid she would burn
Scene from the Harry A. Kirby murder case, ca. 1925. Item #103944 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society / Maine Today Media and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com with it, Towns “dragged herself” about 50 feet to “a little waiting room” alongside the trolley tracks. Meanwhile, George Smith of Winthrop noticed the distant fire and sounded the alarm. Rushing to the scene, neighbor Charles Towle discovered Towns “in a helpless condition” in the waiting room; rescuers swiftly sped her to the Winthrop Community Hospital. Leaving only a chimney standing, the fire flattened the cottage and a nearby ice house. After Towns told her tale, lawmen converged on the scene and essentially tore Winthrop apart while seeking Hayward. From the Lewiston Police Department came Officer Benjamin E. Hodgman and his tracking dog, “a German police dog” named “Sergeant.” An officer let Sergeant smell “shoes and stockings which were the property of Miss Hayward,” and Hodgman and his dog
went to work. Nose to ground, Sergeant “circled around the ruins” before trotting east along the trolley tracks, veering into the woods, and beelining for the barn on Frank Higgins’ farm just off the Old State Road. Working with little evidence, police could only theorize that Hayward’s kidnapper had parked a car near the barn. Searchers spread farther afield, and aviators flew over Winthrop in hopes of spotting a clue. Up from Lexington, Massachusetts raced Hayward’s desperate sister, May Moulton, and her husband, Fred, averaging 50 miles per hour “in their Lincoln roadster” and covering the 175mile route in 3½ hours. Fred Moulton “immediately offered a reward of $1,000” for Hayward’s recovery, “dead or alive.” Investigators were already look-
ing at Henry “Harry” A. Kirby as the prime suspect in several burglaries in Winthrop. Kirby was living at a Maranacook cottage owned by Burton Gray and his sisters; arriving to grab Kirby, lawmen searched the cottage and found the dead Hayward, at least partially undressed and rolled up in a mattress. On the lam for a few days, Kirby was nabbed in Massachusetts on May 25, hustled to the Cumberland County Jail in Portland, and then smuggled into the Kennebec County Jail on May 26 to avoid a lynch mob wanting to stretch his neck. Searchers found a 22-caliber Smith & Wesson beneath the Gray cottage’s steps. Based on the evidence, Kirby was charged with murder, arson, and assault with intent to kill Emma Towns. Self-identifying as “Louis Blunt,” Kirby unexpectedly confessed to all three crimes on June 4. Claiming that (cont. on page 26)
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(cont. from page 25) he was drunk the night of May 19, he said that he broke into Hayward’s cottage, dark except for the outside light. Hearing the women come home, he confronted Emma Towns and shot her when she snatched up “a large carving knife.” Stealing a few dollars from his victims’ purses, Kirby then marched Hayward at gunpoint to the Gray cottage. In an upstairs bedroom he made her undress, then suffocated her a while later and stuffed her body in the mattress. Somewhere along the way he returned to the victim’s cottage and torched it to cover Towns’ murder. Something — perhaps guilt, perhaps Aida Hayward’s ghost — ate at Harry Kirby as he rotted in jail. He committed suicide there later in 1925.
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Western Maine
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A Maine Yankee Of The 1930s Growing up in rural Dayton by Marvin B. Dow
W
ith a brother and two sisters, I grew up in Dayton, a rural township in southern Maine. We were children of the Depression years in the 1930s, but this story is not about hard times. Ours was a secure family and we always had food prepared by a devoted mother. No, this story is about some of the notable characters of Dayton, including my grandfather and uncles. They were, and we became Maine Yankees. In recent years, it has become fashionable to say people are what they eat. If that were true, by the age of six I would have been either a kidney bean
or an Irish potato. However, people are a product of their roots, with some influence from the environment. Our Yankee roots date back almost to the time of the first English-speaking people in America. Our environmental influence was Dayton Yankees — independent, blunt and hard-headed people. They asked no quarter of life, they received none and they granted none. Foremost among the Dayton Yankees who influenced my life was Grandfather Wendell Cole. A small man, with immensely strong hands and arms, he had spent his entire life in Dayton wresting a living from a small
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farm with rocky fields and poor soil. He was a master gardener, and most of his money came from the sale of his vegetables. To provide more money, he kept a few dairy cows that he milked by hand morning and night, seven days a week. Grampa could milk a cow in five minutes. With his hands upon them, I am sure it was a long five minutes for each cow. Disease had cost Grampa a lung, and he was not in good health. Despite his health problems and being in his sixties, Grampa worked all day long every day. Except for breakfast, he had little interest in food, and he
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com was constantly urging my brother and me to hurry with meals, the quicker to resume work. To this day, I remember his urging, “Come boys. Come, come. It’s time for work.” Grampa cooked his own breakfast which was French toast, molasses and coffee every day of the year but one. On Christmas morning, Grandmother served him a pig’s foot pie. It consisted of a pastry cover over a thin flour paste filled with pig’s feet. Bone and gristle comprised ninety-nine percent of the ingredients. To be so wretched a dish, it must have been an English recipe handed down by generations of Yankees. Grampa, the model of a hard-headed Yankee, had installed indoor plumbing in his house to satisfy his women-folks but he refused to use it. Notice that I did not say he strove to please women-folk. That he would never do. He rejected a bathroom as useless luxury and always used a privy. He loved to read trash detective novels which he
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kept in his privy. I read them, of course. Grampa had all the social graces one could seek. I never saw him drink coffee from a cup; he siphoned it off the rim of his saucer with the appropriate sound effects. He chewed tobacco constantly, and his brand was Uncle Sam – black as coal and strong as sin. He drove a pickup truck which bore ample evidence of his chewing. The entire left side of the truck from the door to the tailgate was stained a brown color from his spitting. He always rode with the windows half open and often he missed the opening. As a result, the window was also stained, inside and out, with tobacco juice. My brother and I worked on the farm on weekends and all summer, and we often rode in the back of his truck. Quickly, we learned to stay on the right side, away from the tobacco juice slipstream. Grampa’s big dog Mike loved to ride, and he also learned to never stand on the left side of the truck. MODERN TIMBER HARVESTING, WITH OLD FASHION VALUES!
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At Grampa’s farm one never had to worry about running out of work. Always, the gardens needed hoeing and weeding – the corn had to be cultivated and hoed. If nothing else needed immediate attention, we were put to work pulling wild carrots or picking rocks. New England farmers had picked rocks from their fields almost from the time the Pilgrims landed. I remember my Uncle Alfred Grantham for his handsome team of black horses and for his knack of blunt speech. In the winter, he and my Dad cut timber and firewood using the horses to move the wood on a large wooden sled. For me, the best time of day was the noon meal in the woods beside a small fire. Nearby, the horses would be enjoying their noon meal of oats in a nose bag. My favorite story of Uncle Alfred was his offer of a medical cure to a suffering business man while both were in the barber shop. To all who (cont. on page 30)
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(cont. from page 29) would listen and to those trying to ignore him, the business man complained about his insomnia which defied every remedy known to medical science. The man’s whining was too much for Uncle Alfred. He said, “Friend, if you come home with me, I can cure your problem in one week. I’ll get you up at 4 a.m. to feed a barn full of livestock and to milk six cows. After a bit of breakfast, you harness up a team of horses and drive them to the woods ready to work when daylight comes. Except for a meal at noon, you use a cross-cut saw and ax until dark. Then, you return to my place where you feed the animals and milk the cows again. Only after the animals are cared for do you sit down to eat. By the end of a week you might find yourself dozing off along about 10 o’clock in the evening.” Uncle Phil Cole did not farm; he
earned his living operating earth moving equipment. As a skilled operator, he readily found work in construction. But he had an obsession for prospecting mica, feldspar and semi-precious gems in the rocky hills of Maine and New Hampshire. He discovered mica and feldspar but never in important amounts. To his death, he remained convinced that a fortune in gems was waiting to be found in the next hole he blasted in the rocks. He worked at construction to earn money for drills and dynamite – then it was off to the hills to drill and blast until the money ran out. Because circumstances limited his money and God limited his time, many a beautiful hill was spared his blasting. Near our house in Dayton lived an elderly sister and brother, Emma and George Smith. Their entire lives had been on the Smith farm and neither had married. Emma and George owned an
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automobile but, according to Dayton folks, they had never used its headlights. Indeed, George never had spent a night away from home and never in his life had seen a streetlight in the nearby cities of Biddeford or Saco. My Uncle Joe Cole told of taking George to visit his neighbor Luther Burbank, who had lost his legs because of diabetes. When they entered Luther’s house, Uncle Joe asked Luther how he was doing. Luther said, “I’m doing good.” At hearing that comment, George blurted out, “Doing good! You ain’t doing good. You can’t do nothing because you ain’t got no legs.” George, a Yankee, was speaking cold, hard facts without preamble or pretense. Measured by his hard creed, a man had worth only if he could work. A Dayton cultural center was the filling station owned by Percy Dow. A visit to Percy’s place was an event for kids because he sold nickel cold drinks
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and candy. Men in the town bought gas and oil from Percy and, on occasion, a bit of water would be included with the gas. Complaints about frozen fuel lines never stirred Percy to install new gas storage tanks. Near the filling station lived another Dayton character named Charley Huston, a sand and gravel contractor. Charley had considerable money, but he did not dress the part. His wardrobe was basic tramp, which varied little with the seasons except for a greasy coat he used in the winter. Uncle Joe, a friend of Charley’s, loved to tell the story of their trip to the city to shop for a dump truck. The truck salesman did not know Charley, but he recognized a tramp by the clothes. Excusing himself, the salesman went inside and told the manager that he was about to run off a tramp posing as a customer. When the manager heard the name, he promptly told his salesman to
invite Charley and Joe inside and to get them coffee. Stifling the protests, the manager stated that the “tramp” probably had over a thousand dollars in his pockets and a line of credit for at least five thousand more. In those days one could ransom a prince with that amount of cash. Most of the Yankees that shaped our lives are gone, but one uncle remains. And he embodies all that is old-time Yankee. Paul Cole is the owner of Toad Island, in Dayton, where he and his wife Pauline still work from sun up to dusk raising apples and vegetables. Like his father before him, Uncle Paul is a master gardener and he carefully guards his expertise. Weeds are not tolerated, therefore, and the orchard and garden are immaculate. Born in 1912, Uncle Paul is from a time when a person paid cash for an item or went without. In the Yankee tradition, creature
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comforts counted for little and money was not lightly spent. Uncle Paul’s farm buildings and equipment reflect that rock-hard conservatism – everything looks old and worn. When I was a youth, Uncle Paul used the Yankee method to cure me of using a particular expression. Convinced that all adults were feeble-minded, I questioned their orders or explanations by saying, “Huh?” in a sneering tone of voice. While working one day with Uncle Paul, I voiced my favorite expression once or twice. He told me to stop saying the word. Too cocky to heed a warning, I used the word again. He hit me with a savage blow to the shoulder that almost knocked me off my feet. My shoulder hurt for hours but I never rubbed the hurt. Let it be known that I bore up bravely when, sometime later, Grampa’s horse kicked Uncle Paul in the arm.
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The Green Parrot Tea Room and Gift Shop in Naples, ca. 1930. Item #6615 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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Students outside Cook’s Mill School in Casco, ca. 1925. Item #7681 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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Western Maine
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Paris Hill’s Hannibal Hamlin Hard work in the winter woods helped him mature by Brian Swartz
H
annibal Hamlin had certainly seen the Paris of Maine, but not the actual “gay Paree” of La Belle France, and Dr. Cyrus Hamlin had no idea of how to keep his restless teen-ager “down on the farm” in 1827. Turning 18 that year, Hannibal Hamlin wondered what his future held. Eight years earlier, lawyer Enoch Lincoln had started boarding at the Hamlin house at Paris Hill. He became good friends with the Hamlins and invited the young Hannibal and his cousin Cyrus (the name ran in the family for a few generations) to read his extensive book collection. Hannibal Hamlin was a farmer’s son
in those years. Up at 5 a.m., seven days a week, he milked several cows and fed them and other cattle (and mucked their stalls) before working the family’s farm all day. Evening found Hannibal again milking the dairy cows and doing his other cattle-related work before he could knock off around 7 p.m. Lincoln’s books opened a new world to Hamlin. “He read and studied every night he could spare as late as his strength would permit,” his grandson, Charles Eugene Hamlin, would note years later. A congressman from Maine from 1820 to 1825, Enoch Lincoln left Paris Hill in 1826 after winning election as
the new state’s governor. Suddenly the big house on Paris Hill was too quiet for Hannibal Hamlin. With Lincoln gone, “Hamlin resumed his plodding life on his father’s farm with undecided ideas as to the profession he should follow,” his grandson would later write. Hamlin wanted to earn money so he could “pursue a college course,” so Cyrus Hamlin sent his boy to work in Boston for a while. Perhaps Cyrus could foresee what happened next. These past several years, he had opened his home to “the ambitious Thespian Club of the Hill.” His sons Elijah and Hannibal had played the “star actor” each in their
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com own time; hired in Boston as a fruitstore clerk in 1827, Hannibal naturally gravitated to the Boston Theatre, “a place of great interest,” according to his grandson. Hamlin worked hard as a clerk, then hastened to the theater almost daily. The actors and plays and related excitement intrigued him; deciding he wanted to be an actor, he wrote his parents, Cyrus and Ann, and asked what they thought. Cyrus foresaw unhappiness in a thespian career; Hannibal should pursue politics. “If you want to be a fool, and give up opportunities for a promising career, you can go on the stage,” Cyrus wrote his restless son, “but if you want to be sensible, and make use of your talents in a sensible calling, come home.” Where another son might have rebelled, Hannibal Hamlin did not. Returning to Paris in late 1827, he looked around for employment in rural Oxford
County. Cyrus Hamlin hired his son “and others to survey a township of land they owned on Dead River,” according to Charles Eugene Hamlin. The expedition was led by “an odd character named Ellis, who never seemed to be happy unless he was away from civilization.” Ellis told Cyrus that Hamlin could earn his way by cutting wood for fires and hauling water for the cook. Winter had settled deeply in northwestern Maine as the “party of five or six” headed “out for a six week expedition.” Traveling on snowshoes across a wild wintry landscape where the snow lay several feet deep, the men reached the Dead River and started surveying the Hamlin-owned township. Ellis and the other men “found their way from point to point back to camp” without retracing their snowshoe prints; how was this done? Hamlin asked. The surveyors taught him how, with
their highly honed “powers of observation,” to find the “little landmarks” that let him know where he was. Hamlin learned well. He also picked up surveying pointers, but his assigned job often kept him at the camp while the surveyors ranged afield. Hamlin asked questions about surveying. Realizing he was serious, Ellis and the other men often provided detailed answers. Christmas Day 1827 arrived with the expedition still deep in the woods. “The men were a little blue, thinking about the festivities at home, and were rather silent when they gathered in camp for the night meal” on December 25,” according to Charles Eugene Hamlin. But his grandfather had been busy these past few days. Hannibal Hamlin and the cook left camp; the teen-ager returned holding “an immense pan,” and the cook carried “various pots and stew pans, all of which emitted appetiz(cont. on page 36)
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(cont. from page 35) ing odors.” The two men spread before their hungry, homesick comrades “a feast for lords.” In preparation for this sumptuous meal, Hamlin had “tramped miles through the woods” these past days. Chopping holes in the ice, he caught trout; with his musket, he shot “partridges, wild turkeys, and other game.” Hamlin brought everything back to the camp and helped the cook prepare the holiday dinner. A jack of almost all trades, Hamlin even “cooked a partridge pie, which was the principal dish. “It was a red-letter night,” wrote his grandson, “and there was no merrier band of Christmas revelers in Maine that year than those who enjoyed Hannibal’s dinner amid its forests.” Hannibal Hamlin returned home focused and matured. In spring 1828
he became the teacher at the Paris Hill school. With his students ranging “from children in pinafores to young men and women,” he taught for a year before moving to a downeast Maine school in
Columbia. The 20-year-old Hannibal Hamlin was finally en route to his appointment with destiny.
~ Historic Hannibal Hamlin house in Paris. ~
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Livermore Falls’ Louise Marie Bogan Our nation’s 4th poet laureate by Brian Swartz
B
y spring 1931, literary-minded Mainers knew that Livermore Falls native Louise Marie Bogan had risen high in the ranks of nationally known poets and the New York City literati. Then she traveled to Portland that spring and, during an interview with writer Alice Frost Lord, talked about poets, poetry, and other aspects of her career. Bogan was born in Livermore Falls on August 11, 1897 to Daniel Joseph and Mary Helen Bogan, both of Irish descent. Daniel’s father, James Bogan, was a Portland sea captain. Daniel worked in regional paper mills, so he moved his family around quite a bit as his daughter grew up.
According to Lord, Louise Bogan “began to write poetry” at Boston Girls’ Latin School; she listened avidly as an English teacher read works by the English poet Alfred Edward Housman. The genre fascinated the young Bogan. Aware that an aspiring poet, like an aspiring writer, must start somewhere, “she did a vast amount of apprenticeship work,” Lord noted. “My early enthusiasms were Christina Rossetti, Francis Thompson and Mrs. [Alice] Meynell,” Bogan said. She believed that Rossetti was a more talented poet than Elizabeth Barrett Browning. “The Victorians I do not care for greatly,” Bogan explained to Lord.
“Tennyson was a great lyricist, but rather a fool, and Browning has never moved me very deeply. I think Keats a far greater poet than Shelley.” Graduating from Boston Latin, Bogan spent the 1915-1916 academic year at Boston University. Offered a fellowship to Radcliffe College, she passed on that and her BU education to marry U.S. Army Corporal Curt Alexander. Their marriage produced a daughter, Maidie Alexander. Seeking a writing career, Bogan then moved to New York City; Maidie remained with her parents. Ridgeley Torrance, poetry editor for The New Republic, liked Bogan’s poems so much that the magazine pub-
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com lished some soon after Bogan arrived in the Big Apple. Torrance “was a great advisor and friend for years” for Bogan, Lord observed. Other literary talents with whom Bogan mingled were Malcolm Crowley, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, and Edmund Wilson. The 1920 death of Curt Alexander shook Bogan. Catching a liner to Europe, she soon settled in Vienna and honed her writing technique. Bogan later returned to New York, and in 1923 McBride & Company published her first book, Body of This Death: Poems. During its release and marketing, Bogan met and fell in love with Raymond Holden, a poet and novelist raised on the Upper West Side of New York City. In 1923 he was transitioning from the Macmillan Company to Travel magazine and from bachelorhood to marriage; he and Bogan soon wed. Bogan earned a living writing “articles and book-reviews” for magazines,
~ Louise Marie Bogan, ca. 1920. ~
according to Lord, and collected works by other poets. “I wish I could produce a book a year, in order to see it so exquisitely printed,” she told Lord, “but I cannot work that fast. “In fact, I work very slowly and erratically,” Bogan admitted. Charles Scribner’s Sons published her book Dark Summer in 1929 in “a beautiful binding, in cloth blue with violet paper covers and silver printing
thereon,” Lord noted. Scribner’s proclaimed that “with the publication of Body of This Death, Miss Bogan took her place among the younger poets of the first ranks. Her new book reveals the growth of an artist who knows very well what she is about.” Bogan took her writing seriously. “I think that poetry is rightfully termed the crown of literature,” she told Lord. “It is the expression, at best, of the deepest and most valuable components of the human spirit.” Poetry “is not only a mode of expression, it is a craft,” Bogan said. “I know this sounds pompous, but it is true. The poet must live and learn.” Despite her success to date, Bogan believed that “no one can make money from poetry. I do not think that anyone cares for poetry any more, in the way poetry should be cared for.” She explained that “American di(cont. on page 40)
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(cont. from page 39) versions are too mechanical, too light and too passing. Poetry … is difficult, to read and to write. We have no real training for its appreciation or production,” although American “poets will continue to appear and to publish.” Bogan’s thoughts turned to her younger years. “Since early childhood I have had an affection for the state,” she said. Bogan remembered nothing about life in Livermore Falls, which “I left … at the age of 16 months or so” when her family moved to Portland. She fondly recalled growing up in the Forest City, “the look of the streets, in summer so heavy with green, the color of the old houses, the flashes of the harbor seen at the ends of town,” and even on a winter’s morning “a running sea breaking over the foot of a lighthouse.” “One is fortunate to remember such romantic aspects of a place,” Bogan said.
Lord found that Bogan “has a distinctive personality, as befits a poet.” Her “eyes are langorous (sic), as if she were, perhaps, southern-born.” Bogan’s “countenance is highly expressive and the eyes meditative. “Without doubt richly endowed emotionally, Miss Bogan bears every evidence of bringing to her work a serious intellectual attitude,” Lord realized from reading Bogan’s poems. Bogan soon returned to New York. The poetry editor for The New Yorker from 1931 to 1969, she published again, with The Sleeping Fury appearing in 1937, the same year that she and Holden divorced. Eight years later she became the fourth poet laureate of the United States, succeeding Robert Penn Warren. A heart attack claimed Bogan in New York on February 4, 1970.
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A Fly Is Born Messalonskee salmon and trout meet their match by John Murray
W
ith a low pressure system hugging the Maine coastline, the morning sky above Messalonskee Lake was thick with sun-obstructing clouds. Doctor J. Herbert Sanborn of Waterville glanced upward at the overcast sky, and gave an approving nod. In the vast fishing experience of Doctor Sanborn, the absence of bright sun shining down upon the surface of the water created prime fishing conditions for the resident brook trout and landlocked salmon. With high hopes, Doctor Sanborn knew that the weather combined with his intimate knowledge of Messalonskee Lake would increase his odds of fishing success.
The sportsmen say the tandem streamer fly was devised by Emile LeTourneau, who was the brother of the famous outdoor writer Gene LeTourneau
That particular morning occurred during the 1940s, and would turn out to be the catalyst for a new idea. In the boat with Doctor Sanborn that morning was his regular fishing companion and good friend Gene LeTourneau. Gene LeTourneau was also from Waterville, and had acquired fame from his profession as a newspaper outdoor writer through the syndication of his column
“Sportsmen Say.” Both men were seasoned anglers, and their fishing tactic for the day would consist of trolling. Trolling was a fishing technique in which the lure – in this case a streamer fly – was towed behind the slow moving boat. This trolling technique was often quite productive, as the anglers were able to cover far much more water than compared to casting from a stationary boat. Doctor Sanborn and Gene LeTourneau’s fishing lures for the day would include some of the favorite time-tested and popular streamer fly patterns of that era which effectively imitated the smelt. These streamer flies were hand fashioned by securing feath-
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com ers, yarn and tinsel onto a hook shank, to mimic the appearance of a smelt – a favorite item on the dining menu for both brook trout and landlocked salmon. As it turned out, a day with high expectations of catching many fish would become a day that was less than stellar. Over the course of the morning, Sanborn and LeTourneau both experienced many vicious strikes at their streamer flies, but were unable to set the hook as the trout and salmon grabbed on to their streamers. The induced strikes at the streamers showed that the fish were obviously interested with the streamer flies that were being presented to them below the surface of the water, but the fish just weren’t making contact with the hook. This was a situation known as “short strikes,” where the fish would only grab the rear portion of the long feathers that extended far past the back end of the streamer fly, and miss the sharp barbed point of the hook. Short
A modern nine three tandem streamer fly tied with the up wing feathers. The original fly pattern had the green feathers tied flat along the top of the hook, and also used jungle cock eye feathers.
strikes would occur with many other anglers as well, and most anglers linked it to ill fate, or just plain old bad luck. Becoming more frustrated with the situation, Doctor Sanborn reeled in his fishing line and gave his streamer fly a hard look. Doctor Sanborn knew the problem was multifaceted, and consisted of two major factors. Firstly, the trout and salmon were attempting
to grab onto a moving streamer fly as it zipped past the fish. Quite simply, the fish may not always have the best accuracy, and they certainly can miss, or make a poor grab. The gap in distance between the rear of the feathers on the streamer fly and the hook was the other factor. Doctor Sanborn was an accomplished fly tyer, and had al(cont. on page 46)
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(cont. from page 45) ready attempted to use shorter feathers on the streamer fly to compensate for this problem. Unfortunately, shortening the feather length seemed to generate a negative, and non-natural appearance for the streamer fly in the mind of the trout and salmon. As the doctor mulled over the problem, the answer to the dilemma struck like a lightning bolt. Doctor Sanborn knew what he must do. That evening after returning home, Doctor Sanborn lashed a secondary trailing hook to the shank of the leading hook, and also decided to try a different combination of feathers and tinsel to mimic the smelt. His new double hook fly pattern was nearly double the length of other traditional streamer fly patterns that were in existence. Sanborn tied sparse white buck tail hairs over a flashy body of silver tinsel. Three medium green chicken saddle hackles were tied flat over
the top of the hook shank – which was a radically different design compared to other streamer flies. To provide a dark back section for the smelt imitation, Sanborn added two black chicken saddle hackles tied in the traditional upright manner over the flat green feathers. To create the illusion of eyes, two jungle cock feathers were added on each side of the cheeks. The next morning, Doctor Sanborn and Gene LeTourneau returned to Messalonskee Lake. The weather conditions were similar to the day before, but this morning the anglers were rigged with the newly tied streamer flies that had a connecting pair of hooks. Even though the streamer fly pattern was new, it was decided to troll in the same manner that was used on most every fishing outing. The fisherman running the outboard motor on the back of the boat would fish one rod directly off
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the rear of the boat with 30 feet of line extended. The other fisherman in the front portion of the boat would be responsible for monitoring a fishing rod on each side of the boat which had 50 feet of line extended. This three-rod system was a proven technique. As the boat moved across the surface, a fish would first see the closer center streamer fly. If the fish missed or refused the initial streamer fly that passed by, the fish would still get another chance at the other two following streamer flies as they passed along the right and left. Doctor Sanborn and LeTourneau were usually verbally engaged during their time together in the boat, but on this day both were unusually silent as they anticipated the fish in the lake to strike at their fly pattern. Turning the boat towards a section of promising water that produced fish in past trips, LeTourneau suddenly let out a
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loud whoop as a fish struck hard at his streamer fly. His fishing rod bent in half and his reel screamed as the large fish rapidly descended into the depths to escape. Minutes later, a large 4 ¾ pound brook trout was successfully brought to the net. Handshakes and laughs were exchanged, as the new double hook fly pattern had worked quite well. But, both silently questioned if the event was just a fluke, and would it catch another fish. That question was answered the next day shortly after the boat’s outboard motor sprang to propulsion in a wispy cloud of grey smoke. Not to be outdone by LeTourneau, this time it was Doctor Sanborn’s fishing rod that experienced the hard strike of a hungry fish. Unlike the diving brook trout of the day before, this large fish accelerated its speed upwards to the surface of the lake and exploded out of the water
with a large leap. This was followed by a series of many more giant leaps, and the fishermen held their breath on each leap, praying that the streamer fly would remain in the mouth of the great fish. After an epic battle that shook both fishermen to their core, the large fish finally tired, and was brought to the net. To their amazement, the big fish was a landlocked salmon that tipped the scale at a weight of 9 pounds and 3 ounces. It was at that moment that the new fly pattern earned the name of “Nine Three,” in reference to the weight of the large salmon. When LeTourneau described the events of the day to his brother Emile, another thought process was set into motion. Emile LeTourneau was also a fine fishermen and fly tyer. Emile recognized the merits of the two-hook concept, and modified it in a bet-
ter way. Instead of two longer shank hooks being lashed together to create a two-barbed long hook assembly, Emile used two short shank hooks and connected them with a strand of wire so the hooks were a few inches apart in distance. This two-hook tandem system would become the birth child as to how all tandem streamer flies were tied afterward. Emile Letourneau would of course reproduce the successful nine-three streamer fly with the new tandem twohook system, and would ultimately create his own new tandem streamer fly which was named in honor of his brother’s newspaper column – the “Sportsmen Say.” The tandem two-hook system and the “Nine Three” streamer fly were introduced to the angling world through a vivid description in Gene LeTourneau’s newspaper column. Short(cont. on page 48)
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(cont. from page 47) ly thereafter, all fishermen wanted to have the famous fly pattern that was born on the waters of Messalonskee Lake. Neither Sanborn or LeTourneau were commercial fly tyers that could produce this new fly pattern on a large scale for hundreds of fishermen, so resident commercial fly tyers undertook the production task. Commercial fly tyers would eventually produce the nine three streamer fly with upright feather wings, instead of tied flat down along
the hook shank. Even though Sanborn’s original nine three caught fish, the fly wasn’t considered a pretty fly in the eyes of a fishermen. A pretty fly sells better, and the tying modification made this nine three streamer fly more marketable. The modification would still produce catches of trout and salmon. To this day, sportsmen say both the nine three streamer and the tandem streamer fly are the standard for all trolling fly patterns.
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The Death Of Sarah Rangeley Squire’s 19-year old daughter interred in Farmington by Brian Swartz
T
he fading words on a Farmington gravestone led a local resident to discover in September 1909 that a woman with intimate ties to Rangeley had been buried in the Franklin County shire town almost 85 years earlier. The reality of death was well acknowledged in Maine in the early 20th century, when diseases now rare in the United States swept away children and adults alike. Many Maine cemeteries are dated to the late 1700s and early 1800s, and by 1909 lichens had covered the older stones, just as lichen now covers the gravestones of people who
died in the mid- to late 20th century. Some Farmington residents enjoyed walking through the town’s cemeteries. “Few places give more or suggest more of local history than the old-time cemeteries,” a resident explained to the Farmington Chronicle. “There we … learn much concerning all [socio-economic] classes.” And visiting a cemetery “awakened a desire to learn more of the lives of those who sleep around us,” the Farmington resident explained. One day in early September 1909, he and a few companions went “walk-
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ing … in the old cemetery back of the [Franklin County] court house (also called the center meetinghouse). We came upon a headstone of goodly proportions and for the first in many visits noticed the inscription, now well-nigh obliterated by the finger of time.” The engraving revealed the large headstone was placed: “In Memory of SARAH RANGELEY Died Dec. 25, 1827 Aged 19 years” Who was Sarah Rangeley that she should die on Christmas Day and be (cont. on page 52)
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(cont. from page 51) buried in Farmington rather than in the town to which her family gave its name? Her mother was Mary Rangeley, and her father was Squire James Rangeley Jr., an Englishman from Yorkshire. Inheriting 31,000 acres in northwestern Maine from his late father, James Rangeley Sr. Stretching from the Kennebec River west to the New Hampshire border, the land encompassed the future Rangeley lakes. After his father died, James Rangeley Jr. bought out the other three land owners and moved to Maine in 1825 with the idea of creating a feudal estate. He would be the lord of the manor, and the people leasing land from him would be the tenants. Not serfs, but tenants: Rangeley possibly did not understand the difference, but the hardworking yeomen who started buying land from him certainly did.
The Farmington resident who stumbled across Sarah Rangeley’s gravestone investigated Rangeley, “the first proprietor” of his namesake town. “With his accomplished family he had come to New York to reside,” the Farmington man noted in the Chronicle. After inheriting his 31,000 acres, Rangeley visited his new property. Traveling from Farmington to Madrid and then to Aquassuc Lake on a trail roughly followed by modern Route 4, Rangeley “was so much pleased with the scenery and the business opportunities he thought he saw there, he decided to settle there,” according to the Chronicle. Building a sawmill and a grist mill “near the outlet of Rangeley Lake” (as Aquassuc Lake became known), Rangeley moved his family to Maine and settled in the woods near the lake. Among his children was a daughter, Sarah, probably only 17 when she ar-
rived in a wilderness inconceivable to a sprightly young woman who had lived in New York City. As would so many people coming in later decades, James Rangeley realized that “some places of much beauty” existed around Rangeley Lake, “and on one of these elevated spots” he “built his home” and established a farm, according to the Farmington man writing in the Chronicle. Squire Rangeley soon encountered two facts that cast doubt on his planned status and success as a feudal lord. As the Chronicle writer explained, “the remote situation of Rangeley was a great drawback to the lumbering interests in the early days.” The good squire could cut and saw every tree he desired, but getting his lumber to market was challenging, to say the least. And then there were his neighbors, not like the Yorkshire tenant farmers who would tug their forelocks in the
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com presence of a lord. “The English fashion of landholding was not agreeable to the independent-minded Yankees who came to make homes and to own homes about the lakes,” the Chronicle writer noted. Then Sarah Rangeley fell ill and died on Christmas Day 1827. “The death of the beloved daughter” left James and Mary Rangeley grieving deeply, the Chronicle writer described the family’s sense of loss. Rather than bury Sarah in the hills overlooking Rangeley Lake, her parents had “her remains … brought to Farmington for internment.” An older individual as indicated elsewhere in his commentary, the Chronicle writer wondered what the Rangeley family had endured in those last days before Christmas 1827. “The question naturally arises whether her death resulted from lack of nearby medical aid, and one cannot help but think of the long, sad journey of those
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who accompanied the body in the dreary days of late December to its last resting place,” he wrote. James Rangeley hired an English stone worker to carve Sarah’s gravestone out of good English rock. Upon discovering the young Rangeley’s grave in September 1909, the Farmington resident realized “the love of the parents is manifest in the headstone brought over the seas from their native country and so carefully set that after more than eighty years it stands erect today.” The heart-broken Rangeleys later moved to Portland and then to Henry County, North Carolina. Then the writer expounded upon the “great changes” that had “taken place in the section about the wilderness home of Squire Rangeley.” A railroad had reached the town on Rangeley Lake’s eastern shore, “numerous crafts of every sort” appeared daily on the
lake, and “there is life and activity on every hand. “If the growth of Rangeley was so rapid as James Rangeley fondly hoped, it has come at length,” the Chronicle writer noted.
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Western Maine
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Public Library in Madison. Item #LB2007.1.101318 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Shore along the Kennebec River in Skowhegan. Item #LB2007.1.103174 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Western Maine
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Groucho’s Visit To Lakewood Theatre Audience applauded his memorable performance by Brian Swartz
A
clean-shaven Groucho Marx left his comedy routine at the Lakewood Theatre door on Monday, August 13, 1934. An audience drawn from across central Maine packed the lakeside theater that night to see Marx, already a famed comedian (and movie star), perform in the play, Twentieth Century. Marx’s presence at Lakewood, located on Wesserunsett Lake in Madison, guaranteed an excellent turnout. So did an appearance by another illustrious American, aviatrix Amelia Earhart. The same night that famed New York thespian and playwright Donald
Blackwell was starring in There’s Always Juliet at the Mount Desert Playhouse in Bar Harbor, Groucho Marx stepped on stage without assistance from his zany brothers, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. The Lakewood audience wondered if Groucho could successfully transition from comedy to drama. He could. “Groucho, minus the bold, black mustache which has been a part of him these many years as a brash comedian, appeared at ease” during his performance, wrote a newspaper’s drama critic. Twentieth Century spurned the slapstick routines perfected by the Marx Brothers, but Groucho handled
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com his lines with aplomb. In fact, someone unfamiliar with the famous Marx would not have recognized him, except, as the critic noted, for “an occasional sly glance” that “was the principle reminder of his more familiar personality.” Groucho played the role of Jaffee, a “modern” man plagued by a press agent (performed by Louis Jean Heydt), a manager (Harland Tucker), and sundry other characters, including a Lily Garland (Leona Maricle), actor Howard Miller, and actor John Hammond Dailey. He played an angel later unveiled as a nutty fruitcake intent on doing no harm. Supported by the Lakewood theatrical troupe, these better-known thespians thrilled the audience. The drama critic waxed eloquent about Groucho’s innate ability to perform live theater. “…The comedy was not lacking,” the critic reported. “Instead of quick repartee and clownish action, there was subtle comedy, satire, and clear-cut characterization. Those
(spectators) who know their show world have recognized living figures in more than one of the characters presented.” The play, which ran the week, “proved an admirable vehicle for the ambitious Groucho,” whom the audience applauded and cheered as he appeared for Act I. The drama critic penned that “from the first act…there remained no doubt that he (Marx) could handle the situation masterfully…” In fact, Groucho played his role so well, particularly when he mimicked various Hollywood types, “in that respect (he) bettered by several hundred percent Moffet Johnson, who played the Jaffee role on Broadway, or (John) Barrymore, who did it for the screen.” Obviously, the most famous Marx (except for Karl) played for a friendly press that warm August night. But the evening was not all Groucho’s. Only a day earlier, Earhart had captivated Bangor and central
Maine by flying Maine clubwomen on excursion flights from Godfrey Field (later Dow Field). She planned similar flights elsewhere in Maine, but this night, Earhart sought only relaxation at Lakewood. The audience could not ignore its famous compatriot, however. A thunderous applause shattered the evening calm as Earhart ascended the stage between acts to speak to her fans. Some women present had undoubtedly flown with Earhart, a claim few Maine men could make. Spectators awarded her “a royal welcome,” the press reported. Groucho received a similar welcome, of course, even after checking his comedy routine and mustache at the door. Not every serious drama actor could adequately perform comedy – especially slapstick – but Groucho, certainly the most recognizable comedian of his generation, could tackle drama.
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Western Maine
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Water Street in Skowhegan. Item #LB2007.1.103172 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Pine Street in Madison. Item #LB2007.1.107908 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Western Maine
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R.G. House Store in North Turner. Item #LB2007.1.101919 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
ket r a M s ’ e Hous emption & Redls
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Miller Library at Colby College in Waterville. Item #LB2010.9.117694 from the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Western Maine
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The Naming Of A Town The early settlement of New Sharon by Brian Swartz
I
f not for an 80-plus-year delay in the Massachusetts General Court approving a land grant promised a colonal war veteran, New Sharon might be called “Tyngstown” today. Born in Dunstable in Bedfordshire, England in 1600, Edward Tyng emigrated to Massachusetts with his wife, Mary (another Dunstable native) “and settled in Boston as a tea merchant in 1639,” according to Collections, Volume II, published by the Manchester Historic Association in Manchester, New Hampshire. Forty years later, the Tyngs moved to “what is now known as Tyngsboro” and settled in a township soon named Dunstable at the request of
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Mary Tyng. She and Edward had six children, the eldest being son Jonathan, born in December 1642. Growing up while relations between colonists and Indians deteriorated, Jonathan married Sarah Usher and became “the earliest permanent settler” in Dunstable, staying there through the bloody King Philip’s War. Jonathan and Sarah “had six or more children,” including a son, William, born in April 1679 in Dunstable. William grew up toting a musket and learning a militiaman’s lifestyle. Physically tough and a natural leader, he fought during Queen Anne’s War, waged by Britain and France in the early 18th
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century. Fighting engulfed both countries’ North American colonies. Armed by the French and often accompanied by French soldiers staging out of Canada, Indians raided the Massachusetts frontier, including Dunstable. In winter 1703 “Captain William Tyng, commanding a company of ‘snow-shoe men,’” attacked an Indian camp “near Lake Winnipiseogee” (Winnipesaukee) in New Hampshire, noted historian Samuel Adams Drake. The fight killed six Indians. According to Drake, in 1703 the Massachusetts General Court “subsequently granted to the heirs” of Tyng
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63
DiscoverMaineMagazine.com and his “snow-shoe men” an expansive “tract of land” later known as Manchester in New Hampshire. According to New Sharon Remembered, written by Pamela Bonney and Marie Kearney, “New Sharon was part of a tract of land first granted” to Tyng’s soldiers for their 1703 service. The original grant included terrain stretching across what would become Maine and New Hampshire. However, once Queen Anne’s War ended, Massachusetts legislators promptly forgot their promise. Not until 1727 did “snow-shoe expedition” survivors Ephraim Hildreth and John Shipley petition the General Court “for themselves and other Volunteers” in Tyng’s unit for “a grant of Lands for a Township” only “Six Miles square” in “the unappropriated Lands” of Massachusetts, according to Collections, Volume II. The General Court dithered and dallied, much of the original grant van-
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ished behind the legal borders of New Hampshire, and the expedition’s survivors and their descendants fell by the wayside. Notes Collections, “after a long and tedious fight in the courts the heirs of Captain William Tyng and their associates were given a grant in the province of Maine, in 1785, which became known and settled as Tyngstown. “In 1803, upon its incorporation by the state [of Massachusetts], the name of this township was changed to Wilton,” according to Collections. New Sharon had long since escaped possible designation as “Tyngstown.” Apparently first explored by English explorers in 1724, the Sandy River Valley lay within the French-dominated regions of Maine and remained a “nogo zone” for English settlers until the French and Indian War ended. “Glowing accounts of the richness of the Sandy River valley” lured five Massachusetts men north in 1776 to explore the region by canoe and on
foot, according to New Sharon Remembered. Led by Thomas Wilson, who had previously visited the region, the explorers “crossed the Sandy River in the vicinity of New Sharon village” and then walked along “what was known as ‘the older Indian Trail’ to Farmington Falls.” There the explorers meet Indians — not many, the 18th century’s wars having devastated Maine tribes living along the Androscoggin and Kennebec valleys — camped “at the site of a still earlier Indian fort and burial ground,” indicates the New Sharon book. The first man to settle in New Sharon (then known as Carr’s Plantation) was the regally named Prince Baker, arriving “from Pembroke, Massachusetts by way of Readfield” in the Kennebec Valley in 1782. He “built the first log cabin” in the plantation. Baker and Hallowell residents “James Carr, Samuel Dutton and Na(cont. on page 64)
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Western Maine
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(cont. from page 63) thaniel Dummer” became “the original proprietors” of the 23,600-acre Carr’s Plantation, states New Sharon Remembered. The four men paid 12½ cents an acre for their land in 1791, and Baker bought 5,900 acres. He was the only man mong the quartet to actually live in the plantation. Surveyed several years later, what was now Unity Plantation attracted land-hungry settlers escaping crowded Massachusetts, which paid off many Revolutionary War veterans by passing out land over much of central and western Maine. If they could not receive hard cash for their military service, veterans would take land in the District of Maine. Unity Plantation’s four proprietors sold land to the arriving settlers. Prince Baker charged “6 pounds, or 37 shillings” for “original settlers’ lots,” indicates New Sharon Remembered, and “prices for other lots ranged from 18 to
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160 dollars.” Soon numbering enough that self-governance became a goal, settlers petitioned the Massachusetts General
Court to incorporate Unity Plantation as the town of New Sharon. Governor Samuel Adams signed the deed passed by the legislature on June 20, 1794. * Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section.
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Rumford’s William Wallace Kimball by Charles Francis
Piano entrepreneur turning out his first in 1823. Chickering was a craftsman who designed and built a line that came to represent the state of piano art in the mid-1800s. Today the Chickering name is marketed by Baldwin. Of the three big American names in the piano industry today, Steinway is the oldest, having been founded as Steinway & Sons in 1853. Kimball followed four years later when it opened its doors as W. W. Kimball & Company in 1857. Baldwin began as a music store operated by D. H. Baldwin in 1862. Steinway began by manufacturing pianos; Kimball and Baldwin began as retailers. While Steinway began as an east coast operation in New York, (cont. on page 66)
W
hile the origins of the piano stretch back through the centuries in Europe in various forms, the modern- day piano is largely an American innovation. Today three names mean American pianos, names that came into existence in the mid-nineteenth century. Those names are Steinway, Kimball and Baldwin. Of the three, the name Kimball has direct ties to Maine. The Kimball company, which exists today as Kimball International, was founded by an Oxford County man named William Wallace Kimball. Jonas Chickering of New Hampshire is most often identified as the father of the modern American piano,
e ob W
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Western Maine
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(cont. from page 65) Kimball and Baldwin began in the Midwest in Illinois and Ohio, respectively. William Wallace Kimball, the man who gave his name to the Kimball piano as well as Kimball organs, was born March 22, 1828. His parents were David and Lucy (Wheeler) Kimball. Both the Kimball and Wheeler families were among the early pioneers of what would become Oxford County, Maine. There is a certain degree of confusion as to exactly where William Wallace Kimball was born. Some sources give Rumford as his birthplace. Others simply say Oxford County near Rumford, while still others give it respectfully as Rumford Center, where his parents married and where Lucy Wheeler Kimball was from. Regardless, it seems safe to say that William Kimball was an Oxford County man. It is known that the first Kimball to settle in what would become Rumford came there in 1785. This was Moses
Kimball, a veteran of the Revolution. Moses Kimball had ten children, one of whom was David, the father of William Wallace Kimball. It is also known that among traditional skills handed down from one generation to another in the Kimball family were carpentry and cabinet making. They were skills that would come to make William Wallace Kimball’s fortune and reputation. In 1853 William Kimball married Eva Cone of Oxford. Following their marriage the couple set out for the west, first settling in Iowa. Here William Kimball attempted to make a living in real estate and insurance. When he failed at this, the couple moved to Chicago, where Kimball acquired some farm land on the outskirts of the town. One thing Kimball felt he had learned in Iowa was that there was money to be made selling goods to westerners. The question was what sort of goods. In 1857 a potential product
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presented itself to him in the form of four pianos. Kimball traded his land for the pianos, and using his carpentry and refinishing skills, refurbished them, selling them for a profit. The rest, as they say, is history. By the 1870s, W. W. Kimball & Company of Chicago had established itself as one of the two major piano manufacturers and distributors in the west. The other was Baldwin, which was based in Cincinnati. This was the era when having a piano in the home was a mark of middle class affluence as well as culture. For this reason Kimball and Baldwin had a more than ample market to support both companies. Kimball and Baldwin pianos became familiar pieces of furniture in the homes of the relatively well-to-do and the well-to-do of the Midwest, and Kimball pianos routinely made the passage across the Great Plains by wagon train to set the standard of culture and
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society on the Pacific coast. The Kimball Square Piano was the most popular of the early Kimball pianos. One reason for this was that it was affordable. Another was that its square shape was specifically designed for being shipped long distances with the least amount of damage. The square shape made it possible for them to be placed in high-sided wagons so that they could be hauled even to the most remote of locations, including mining towns accessible only by steep winding trails. Today a Kimball Square Piano can be identified by serial numbers ranging from 40000 to 45000. They
are highly valued by collectors. W. W. Kimball & Company changed its name to the Kimball Piano and Organ Company when it began the manufacture of pipe organs. By the time William Wallace Kimball died in 1904, the company was as well known for its organs as it was for its pianos. In 1957 the Kimball Piano and Organ Company was bought by the Jasper Company of Jasper, Indiana. Jasper subsequently changed its name to Kimball International. Today Kimball International is a diverse corporation involved in industries ranging from forest products to electronics. It still markets
the Kimball line of instruments as well as Conn, Lowery and Thomas organs. The story of the migration of William Wallace Kimball and his wife Eva from Oxford County in the mid-nineteenth century is not all that unique in Maine history. Nor is the fact that Kimball went on to make a name for himself in the West. Many Mainers made their fortune there. What is remarkable about the story of William Wallace Kimball is how this Maine-born man helped create a culture of music and refinement in the American West.
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Western Maine
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The Bird Hunter Life in the shadow of East Kennebago by Thomas J. Roth
W
ith the morning chores on the farm done, the gentleman farmer had time for a leisurely breakfast before he headed out. His wife had the wood stove going so it didn’t take long for the coffee pot to perk. With a little salt pork in the pan for grease and a few eggs, our friend had his breakfast going in no time. The bread was placed in the rack on the rear of the stove to toast slowly and be turned by hand. Last fall’s pears and apples made a fine jam that his wife had put up in her green glass jars, and he thought about the work it had been to pick those tart fruits, so she could make
his favorite spread. With a dab of butter from the ice chest and that famous jam, the bread tasted even better than if she had just served it warm from the oven. While sitting at his table and enjoying his meal, our farmer glanced out the window at the mountain leaves which seemed to be ablaze with color. Fall was here, his favorite time, for it signaled the beginning of bird hunting season, a short span of days that he lived for each year.
That was East Kennebago Mountain that he was looking at. He knew that hilt as well as anyone in the Eustis-Stratton region, having grown up on that small farm in Coplin Plantation. It seemed only fitting that he died there, too, as his father had several years ago. The farm was his now, but that could wait as he began to get ready for the day’s hunt. A fellow named Leon Bean from Freeport had recently fashioned a pair of boots which he called “The Maine Hunting Shoe,” and our farmer friend had ordered a pair through the mail.
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com They seemed to be well-suited to his task with gum rubber bottoms and sturdy leather uppers. Surely, he could finally keep his feet dry as he skirted the marshes for woodcock and grouse and even the occasional puddle duck. If they didn’t work, Mr. Bean offered a money-back guarantee and to our hunter, the two dollars for the boots was a lot of money if they wouldn’t live up to their claims. With his boots laced up and his canvas coat on, he filled his pockets with the paper shotshells that he had stashed in his dresser drawer. The shells said, “Peters High Velocity - 12 gauge,” and they were supposed to be the best ones on the market — at least that’s what the hardware store owner told him. He also placed two shells containing buckshot in his pocket in case a deer made an appearance. Meat was meat during the early 1900s and a fat doe would surely please his wife and children at the table. Next, he made his way into the family room where a dozen rifles and shotguns stood against the wall in a rack that his grandfather had built. Hunting was a way of life in his family, and he had inherited all the arms that his forefathers carried. There were muskets that saw service in the Civil War, as well as several modern firearms, but he always took the old Parker shotgun that his father had left him, for he felt that his father would enjoy the use it got. The gun felt good in his hands, and it was obviously made by craftsmen who
cared about their product. The wood, although somewhat scarred from years of use, fit snugly against the metal. There was still a bit of color on the gun’s metal except where the oil from his father’s hands had removed it over the years. He broke the action open and headed out on his hunt. Almost without realizing it, he had forgotten his most prized piece of hunting gear, his pointer, Daisy. She shook all over as he took her from the barn and told her of his plan. They would walk the old path along the pasture wall and walk the road that his grandfather cleared to haul timber off the mountain. Daisy knew the way and knew the reason they were going. Her nose began to work open and shut in hopes of getting a sniff of that familiar scent that a grouse leaves on the ground. As they neared the end of the rock wall, Daisy began to whine and tremble. She locked up on a point and our hunter quietly slid two shells into the old shotgun. He closed it as gently as he could and walked up on the dog. In an instant, a whir of wings erupted from the forest floor and made for the sky. The gun came up in a snap and the front trigger of the gun was slapped home. The partridge crumpled in the air and was soon in Daisy’s tender grasp. She deposited it at the feet of her master and arched her back as she sat beside him. The bird lay still and was tucked into the game bag. Daisy was given her usual pat on the head, and she rose
to sniff the hand that handled the bird. They both glanced at each other as if to say, “Alas, another year together on the mountain.” Daisy continued to hunt on both sides of the trail that wound around the base of the mountain that not long ago was the home to Indians and not the white farmers of today. She drew up into another point amongst a thicket of alders and was surprised when her master missed the woodcock that flew up and out of the trees. He nearly stepped on another timberdoodle when it flew away in a straight line. The old Parker spoke again, and the woodcock got tangled up in the fork of a tree, just out of Daisy’s reach. When the hunter removed the tiny bird from its resting place, Daisy ran over to get a whiff of it as well. While not her favorite odor, she recalled that this diminutive bird provided great sport for her master who loved to pursue these migratory autumn visitors almost as much as he liked to hunt the grouse. The farmer took out his pocket watch and popped the cover open. It was only 8:30 and already he had two birds in his bag. This was a good year for birds, he mused to himself as Daisy locked up tight on another point. This time, two grouse took converging paths and our confused hunter fired at their apex a few moments too late. A single breast feather floated down and landed at his feet. He laughed as Daisy re(cont. on page 70)
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ed deer. She found the deer’s bed and drove her nose into the soft, warm grass that was matted down at her feet. She looked back at her master in wonder as he broke open the shotgun and slung it over his shoulder. There was no need to take any more game from the land as they had enough for a proper meal. The root crops of the autumn were already harvested and in the fruit cellar, ready to stuff the birds he had and provide a hearty meal for his family. He pondered on that thought as they walked into the barnyard. He looked back at the mountain and thanked it for its bounty. He also thanked Daisy for her part in the hunt. He felt a part of the mountain as his thoughts raced back and forth from the Indians that lived there before and his children who would surely live thereafter. He wondered if they too would have the same game to hunt as he did. He hoped so and hung the birds on the barn wall. The old shotgun went back in the rack, the shells in the drawer, and Daisy to her bed of hay in the barn. The old man was tired, and he sat down in the chair on the porch, still looking at the mountain. It had been a good day, and he prayed that his children and their children could do the same thing and feel the same way that he did, in the shadow of East Kennebago. * Other businesses in this area are featured in the color section.
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ing to her master’s side with the heavy duck dragging in the mud. He took out his pocket knife and removed the warm heart from the bird and fed it to his dog. Surely his wife would complain as she always used the heart and liver in her gravy, but the dog had truly earned it. She relished the treat and it seemed to take the chill out of her as they pushed on along the trail. When the trail began to climb up towards the top of East Kennebago, he decided that they had gone far enough. They turned around and began the walk back to the farm. He decided to walk through the meadow to save a little time and struck out through the woods for the corner of the field. He recalled that he had seen a buck and a doe in the corner of the meadow for the past few nights as he brought the water pail in for his wife, so he took the two buckshot shells and replaced the birdshot that was previously in the gun’s chambers. No sooner had he snapped the action shut when a deer sprang up from the tall grass in front of him. As he mounted the gun to his cheek, all he could see was a bobbing white flag as it bounded into the thickest part of the woods. “You are greedy,” he told himself as he felt the weight of the three birds in his pouch. Daisy began to chase the deer but soon realized that it was in vain, her legs being so much shorter than those of the fleet-foot-
_____________
(cont. from page 69) trieved her prize and it became stuck on top of her nose. “Let’s go, girl. We have to check the pond before we turn back,” he told her as they made their way to the little pond where the icy water from the mountain collects before a stream carries it away. As they crept up to the shoreline, they could already hear the chuckle of a mallard or black duck as it cried out for company. He told daisy to stay put as he parted the reeds to get a better look. With the barrels of his shotgun jutting out at the water, he studied the pond and shoreline weeds to find the source of that noise. As the sun broke through the trees, he saw a glint of green. He knew what that was. It was the iridescent head of a drake mallard, a tasty prize that his wife would love. The market hunters of a few decades’ prior had wiped out most of these birds from the state, and he remembered how his father would brag of downing dozens of such ducks in a single day. Those birds were hauled to Bangor, Portland, or Bar Harbor and wound up in the fancy restaurants of those cities. He couldn’t bring himself to shoot the beautiful bird on the water, so he whistled and moved about until the bird lifted off. As it climbed to clear the trees, the old man shot twice and sent the bird spinning down into the water. Daisy reluctantly walked into the frigid water and swam out for the duck. She returned shiver-
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Western Maine
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One Heck Of A Yarn Harmony’s Woolen Mill by Jeffrey Bradley f you are dropping off fleece during the weekday, please plan to arrive by 2 pm.” So says the sign in oldtimey language that harkens back to an earlier era. And it should; a textile mill of one sort or another has stood on this spot for some two hundred years. The latest, Bartlettyarns, has been operating since 1920 when the original building burned down. Twenty miles north of Skowhegan along the banks of Higgins Stream is the tiny village of Harmony, where sits the old woolen mill looking every bit its age. Funky blue paint can’t conceal the nicks and dings on its crumpled siding, nor spruce up that rusty tower atop the corrugated roof. Inside on wooden flooring buffed shiny by decades of footsteps are contrivances that click and whir, ceaselessly spinning raw wool into yarn. Everything thumps and bumps in a kind of catchy refrain within the wheezy old structure that gleams with wool lanolin and machine oil blending seamlessly into the latticework stairs, beams and bobbins scattered throughout the three-story
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building. And it takes a lot of maintenance to keep all this retro stuff turning out oodles of yarn. The mill dating back to the 1800s, and the equipment to the 1900s, retain a kind of creepy charm — to the point that it served as a backdrop for a 1990 horror movie! Founded in 1821 by Ozias Bartlett, the mill ceased operation following that disastrous fire a century ago. Four generations of Bartletts oversaw the business until it began to change hands in the 1940s. Now, a former shepherd and his hard-knitting wife have been running it since 2007. At the time, the mill, still relying on typewriters, handwritten ledgers, and other dubious business systems, verged on insolvency. But computers, accounting software, and a website for online shopping have changed all that. As the last mule-spun yarn mill left in the country Bartlettyarns continues a long regional tradition of spinning. Powered at first by a water wheel, then by a water turbine, and finally by electricity, that old timber structure was replaced by modern brick clad
with siding, lots of window spaces, and a fire-retardant metal roof. Still, you might mistake it for a working museum instead of a production mill. Even the owner admits to endless requests for taking a tour! The mill turns out world-famous “lofty” woolen products. The two upper floors hold a carding machine from 1919 and a 1928 twister. Leather belts slap noisily around whirling cogs while metal weights whiz up and down like something from Dickens. But what really catches the eye is the “spinning mule” that runs hypnotically back and forth on rails like an indoor narrow-gauge railroad. At 150 feet long and manufactured in 1948 — it’s the mill’s “newest” old machine (another called the round rover dates to the 1880s) — the mule is purposeful: twisting those endless strands of wool into much stronger yarn. An ability to duplicate the nimbleness of a hand spinner, on 240 bobbins at once, gives this odd machine its utility. These apparatuses are so aged that replacement parts must be fabricated; it takes a year to master their intricacies. Maybe that’s why the
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73
DiscoverMaineMagazine.com mill employs only seven persons inside the old factory, and one more across the street in the main office/retail shop. A commercial wool baler from Australia was a more recent purchase. It packs wool so densely into the tractor-trailers that it effectively doubles their load. In a roundabout route, the wool heads south for washing and dyeing before being returned to Harmony for finishing into knitted products. Making yarn begins in the basement that, according to an article in the Portland Press Herald dated January 31, 2016, served as a backdrop for the 1990 Stephen King horror movie “Graveyard Shift.” There a vintage 1935 “duster” removes impurities and tumbles the wool to loosen the fibers so an appliance known as the picker can tease them open. The whole barn rocks to the rhythmic cadence of the old machinery amid the faintly earthy odor of sheep. Clouds of heathery fleece swirl into a holding room to be sorted by hand then blown upstairs to the clattering thingamabobs going baboomph, baboomph as the stream nearby rolls peaceably on. After the carder and mule have twisted the fibers into long strands for spinning, the bobbins drop down to the second floor where that ratchety old twister awaits. It’s favored over more modern technology because it’s fine-tunable to produce lighter or heavier threads. Finished skeins and cones of yarn popping
School building in Harmony. Item #LB2007.1.106777 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
from a spooler are taken across to the shop for sale or distribution, although much returns to the sheep farmers to sell in their family outlets. Yarn products come in dozens of colors and in different sizes and weights. Although found as far away as Japan, Bartlettyarns prefers to deal with the local trade. One such is the Happy Knits shop inside the Somerset Grist Mill complex in the old county jail in downtown Skowhegan.
On a cloudy day that ancient building can appear downright spooky. But besides having historical cachet, the old mill and trusty machines keep right on spinning that legendary ‘Made In America’ yarn. A faded 1940s ad affixed to the wall might well be onto something. In extolling the robust flexible product as being of “Harmony grade,” it means, of course, that the old ways, ‘round here, at least, are still the best ways!
Paul Keaten II
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207-474-0593
126 Lakewood Rd. • Madison, ME
Western Maine
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DIRECTORY OF ADVERTISERS
BUSINESS
PAGE
A-1 Seamless Gutters...............................................................24 ABC Pool & Spa Center...........................................................21 Above and Beyond, LLC...........................................................20 ACV Enviro.................................................................................58 ADA Fence Company, Inc. ......................................................55 Advantage Insurance.................................................................48 Affordable Auto Repair.............................................................35 Affordable Well Drilling Excavation & Forestry.....................21 Altus Construction LLC ............................................................37 American Forest Management..................................................47 Andrew Ames Logging................................................................6 Androscoggin Title Company...................................................21 Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments .....................22 Archie's Inc. Rubbish Removal.................................................64 At Home Electric........................................................................61 Athens Corner Store..................................................................71 Bancroft Fencing.......................................................................35 Bay Haven Lobster Pound & Restaurant..................................30 Bean Group ................................................................................31 Belgrade Regional Health Center ..............................................6 Bemis Construction...................................................................71 Benson Brook Pet Cremations.................................................31 Bessey Insurance .....................................................................48 Bethel Chamber of Commerce.................................................17 Bethel Family Health Center ......................................................6 Betty's Laundry..........................................................................34 Big Dawg Concrete....................................................................38 Bingham Area Health Center .....................................................6 Bingham Motor Inn & Sports Complex....................................54 Blanchet Builders, L.L.C. .........................................................58 Blanchette Moving & Storage Co. ...............................................6 Bob's Cash Fuel.........................................................................69 Bolster Monumental Works........................................................9 Bonanza Steakhouse - Sanford ...............................................29 Bonneau & Son Excavation.......................................................57 Boomers Restaurant & Saloon.................................................16 Boos Heating Company.............................................................35 Borsetti Construction Inc ..........................................................36 Bowley Brook Pure Maple Syrup ............................................47 Boynton's Greenhouse..............................................................58 Bradbury's Plumbing & Heating................................................14 Bragdon-Finley Funeral Home ...............................................60 Brian's Brake & Muffler..............................................................28 C. Caprara Food Service Equipment .........................................9 Carol Chaffee, Realtor...............................................................31 Casco Village Variety..................................................................32 Central Maine Community College..........................................34 Central Maine Disposal.............................................................43 Central Tire Co. Inc. ...................................................................29 Chim Chiminey Chimney Sweep................................................10 Chris' Electric.............................................................................33 Chuck Wagon Restaurant.........................................................39 Clark Auto Parts.........................................................................70 Cobbossee Colony Golf Course.................................................8 Cobb's Pierce Pond Camps......................................................65 Cole Harrison Insurance...........................................................51 Computer Improvements...........................................................59 Cooper Farms.............................................................................37 Copy Kat's Printing & Design..................................................11 Cornerstone Plumbing & Heating.............................................63 Coulthard's Pools & Spas.........................................................48 Countryside Auto Body & Repair..............................................7 Creaser Jewelers........................................................................34 Crooked River Resources.........................................................37 Crosstone Conference Center & Restaurant ............................16 Cushing Construction................................................................41 D.A. Wilson & Co. Complete Excavation Services ..................37 Damboise Garage.......................................................................43 Damon's Beverage & Redemption - Waterville ....................61 Dan's Automotive Repair & Sales ..........................................65 Danzig Painting & Home Improvements...................................35 Dedrick's Auto............................................................................12 Den's Automotive Services, Inc. .............................................13 Design Architectural Heating....................................................21 Devaney Doak & Garrett Booksellers......................................62 DeWolfe & Wood Rare & Used Books ...................................29 Diggin Riggin..............................................................................56 Dixfield Discount Fuel, Inc. ......................................................47 Dutch Treat..................................................................................47 Dyer Septic Service...................................................................36 Echo Lake Lodge & Cottages....................................................38 Ecopelagicon...........................................................52 Ed Hodsdon Masonry, Inc. ........................................................9 Edmunds Market........................................................................66 Ed's Grove Discount Warehouse..............................................29 Elder Law Offices of John and Mark Nale .................................42 Ellis Variety..................................................................................64 Engine 5 Bakehouse..................................................................61 Evergreens Campground & Restaurant...................................68 Fairfield Antiques Mall................................................................4 Farmington Farmers Union & Union Rental.............................63 Farmington Ford ........................................................................46 Fast Eddies.................................................................................24 Fine Line Paving & Grading........................................................55 Finelines Auto Body...................................................................32 Finley Funeral Home..................................................................60 Fireside Stove Shop & Fireplace Center..................................22 Floormaster North......................................................................58 Four Winds Too Lobster Co. & Redemption Center ...............60 Franco Center.............................................................................20 Franklin Chrysler........................................................................46 Franklin County Chamber of Commerce .................................63 Franklin Savings Bank................................................................6 Franklin-Somerset Federal Credit Union..................................3 Fryeburg Glass...........................................................................13 G&G Cash Fuels..........................................................................24 Gamache & Lessard Co. Custom Window Treatments .............23 Generators of Maine...................................................................44 George's Banana Stand .............................................................59 Georgio's Pizza & Donut Shop....................................................8
BUSINESS
PAGE
Giberson Funeral Home..............................................................54 Gingerbread Farm Perennials....................................................39 Glenn Snow Building and Remodeling.....................................32 Goin Postal - Auburn.....................................................................8 Gray Family Vision Center..........................................................26 Greater Bridgton Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce ........35 Greg's Auto Repair......................................................................72 Grimaldi Concrete Floors & Countertops.................................40 H.D.C. Roof N Construction........................................................65 Hair by Tim...................................................................................65 Hall Implement Co. .....................................................................26 Hall & Smith Energy ....................................................................53 Hammond Lumber Company......................................................45 Hardys Motorsports....................................................................70 Harris Drug Store........................................................................53 HealthReach Community Health Centers.....................................6 Healthy Healing Counseling, Inc. .............................................44 Heart & Hand Inc. .......................................................................31 High Tide Low Tide Seafood.......................................................56 Highland Farms Logging, LLC...................................................12 Hight Family of Dealerships........................................................5 Hodgdon Well Drilling, Inc. ..........................................................7 Home Auto Group.......................................................................46 Homestead Realty........................................................................24 House's Market & Redemption..................................................60 Hungry Hollow Country Store....................................................17 Hydraulic Hose & Assemblies......................................................5 Ideal Electric ..............................................................................42 Image Auto Body.........................................................................73 Irregular Weekly Newspaper & Seasonal Guides .....................50 J.T. Reid's Gun Shop.....................................................................3 Jackman Auto Parts....................................................................68 Jackman Hardware & Sporting Goods ...................................74 Jake White Logging....................................................................29 Jay, Livermore-Livermore Falls Chamber of Commerce........60 JD Canvas....................................................................................24 Jean Castonguay Excavating....................................................40 Jimmy's Shop 'N Save.................................................................68 Joel Torrey Painting...................................................................67 Johnny Castonguay Logging & Trucking.................................38 Jordan Lumber Co. ....................................................................50 JT's Finest Kind Saw..................................................................55 Kanine Kare..................................................................................15 Kash for Kans Recycling, LLC...................................................11 Kennebec Montessori School....................................................43 Kezar Realty.................................................................................37 Knowles Lumber Company..........................................................8 Korhonen Land Care & Excavation............................................17 Kramers Inc. ...............................................................................40 L.R. Nadeau Inc. Excavation......................................................23 Lacasse Shoe Repair, Inc. ........................................................72 Lakepoint Real Estate.................................................................44 Lakes Region Power Systems...................................................67 Laney's Pit Stop...........................................................................57 Larsen's Electric..........................................................................65 Larsen's Jewelry..........................................................................61 Lavallee’s Garage........................................................................68 Law Office of Brian D. Condon, Jr, Esq. ....................................24 Lewiston House of Pizza............................................................21 Linkletter & Sons, Inc. ...................................................................3 Lisbon Community Federal Credit Union................................22 Lisbon Falls Baptist Church and Christian Academy...............23 Logan Home Builders.................................................................30 Long Green Variety.....................................................................60 Luce's Meats & Maple................................................................54 Lyn's Spring Service, Inc. ...........................................................25 Madden Beverage ......................................................................28 Madison Area Health Center.........................................................6 Maine Asphalt Services.com ......................................................28 Maine Family Federal Credit Union..............................................7 Maine Forest Service .........................................................53 & 69 Maine Historical Society................................................................4 Maine Insurance Benefits Group...............................................27 Maine Mountain Millworks.........................................................52 Maine Pellet Sales LLC.................................................................8 Maine Verminator LLC.................................................................14 Maine Veterinary Medical Center.................................................19 Mainely Puppies Plus, LLC........................................................14 Mama Bear's Den........................................................................54 Marston Industrial Services Inc. .............................................43 Martin Stream Campground........................................................38 Maurice Restaurant.....................................................................33 McAllister Accounting and Tax Services...............................60 McNaughton Construction.........................................................42 Mel's Raspberry Patch................................................................30 Memorial Guard LLC...................................................................38 Merchants Floor Sanding...........................................................72 Merrifield Farm............................................................................27 Mid Maine Chamber of Commerce...........................................41 Mike Wainer Plumbing & Heating .............................................45 Ming Lee Chinese Restaurant...................................................41 Mollyocket Motel & Swim Spa ..................................................16 Montello Heights Retirement Community.................................20 Moosehead Motorsports.............................................................53 Mosher's Meats & Seafood.........................................................45 Mother India.................................................................................20 Motor Supply Co. ..........................................................................3 Mount Saint Joseph Residence & Rehabilitation ................41 Mt. Abram Regional Health Center ............................................6 Mt. Blue Drug...............................................................................47 Murdough Logging & Chipping.................................................32 Naples Marina..............................................................................32 Naples Packing Co., Inc. ............................................................64 New Portland Lions Agricultural Fair .....................................66 Nordica Homestead Museum ...................................................48 North Camps................................................................................51 Northeast Laboratory Services....................................................4 Norway/Paris Soft Serve.............................................................15 Old Mill Pub Restaurant..............................................................58 Otis Federal Credit Union...........................................................61
BUSINESS
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Our Village Market.......................................................................67 Oxford Casino, Hotel & Event Center .......................back cover Oxford Federal Credit Union......................................................49 Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce.........................................15 Packard Appraisal, Inc. .............................................................31 Paradise Inspection, LLC............................................................17 Pat's Pizza - Windham................................................................27 Pawz & Clawz Petz......................................................................11 Payroll Management, Inc. ..........................................................23 Penobscot Marine Museum........................................................18 Perkins Management..................................................................42 Phil Carter's Garage....................................................................62 Pine Tree Orthopedic Lab Comfort Shoe & Footwear Center ..39 Pitcher Perfect Tire Service........................................................45 Poland Mining Camps.................................................................25 Poor Bob's Storage.....................................................................61 Pork Chop Tree Company..........................................................27 Potvin’s Quick Stop ...................................................................28 Prime Financial Inc. ..................................................................40 Profenno's Restaurant & Pub....................................................27 Quinn Hardware...........................................................................58 R&B's Home Source....................................................................55 R.E. Lowell Lumber Inc. .........................................................37 R.F. Automotive Repair...............................................................71 R.W. Day Logging.......................................................................14 Randy's Full Service Auto Repair, LLC.....................................57 Range Pond Campground.........................................................10 Rangeley Building & Remodeling..............................................51 Rangeley Electric........................................................................52 Rangeley Family Medicine ...........................................................6 Rangeley Lakes Chamber of Commerce...................................52 Ranger Pest Services.................................................................30 Record Building Supply, Inc. ...................................................14 Redington-Fairview General Hospital.......................................56 Rev It Up Sport Shop..................................................................52 Richard Wing & Son Logging Inc. ...........................................28 Ricker Hill Orchards....................................................................38 Rick's Garage..............................................................................55 River Valley Chamber of Commerce..........................................65 Riverside Realty..........................................................................64 Robert W. Libby & Sons, Inc. .......................................................4 Ron's Market................................................................................62 Ron's Transmissions....................................................................9 Rottari Electric.............................................................................11 Route 202 Antiques......................................................................9 Route 26 Antiques.......................................................................33 Roy's All Steak Hamburgers & Golf Center...............................22 Russell & Sons Towing...............................................................35 S.A. McLean, Inc. ........................................................................29 Sackett & Brake Survey Inc. ......................................................56 Sanders Auto Service.................................................................66 Sandy River Cash Fuel...............................................................50 Seth McCoy's Excavating...........................................................12 Smile Again Dentures, Inc. ........................................................20 Solon Corner Market ..................................................................59 Spruce Salon...............................................................................26 Stacy's Service Center................................................................15 Sterling Electric...........................................................................45 Strong Area Health Center ..........................................................6 Strong Hardware & Building Supply.........................................66 Styling Dog Grooming Boutique.................................................7 Sunset Lakes Real Estate...........................................................33 T&L Enterprises Auto & Small Engine Repair ........................67 Taste of Waterville ......................................................................42 Taylor's Drug Store......................................................................56 The Downtown Press Café..........................................................46 The Good Life Market.................................................................25 The Kingfield Woodsman Restaurant......................................51 The Little Red Hen Diner & Bakery..............................................50 The Meadows...............................................................................10 The Old Bookshop.......................................................................13 The Sterling Inn Bed & Breakfast..............................................54 The Sugar Bowl Family Entertainment......................................51 Thompson's Restaurant.............................................................55 Timberstone Adventures............................................................36 Town of Farmington....................................................................46 Town of Mexico...........................................................................64 Trail's End Steakhouse & Tavern................................................67 Trailside One Stop .......................................................................53 Trash Guyz...................................................................................25 Treehouse Glass Studio..............................................................27 Triple D Redemption & Tanning Spa........................................69 Tri-State Steel..............................................................................22 Tuck's Ale House.........................................................................63 Tuttle’s Auto Sales LLC .............................................................46 Twin Town Homes........................................................................15 Valley Arbor Care.........................................................................62 Valley Gas & Oil Company.........................................................67 VintageMaineImages.com..............................................4 Visions Flowers & Bridal Designs ..........................................44 W.D. Bickford Machinery............................................................44 W.L. Sturgeon, Inc. ....................................................................13 Wadsworth Woodlands..............................................................30 Weber Insurance - Farmington .................................................48 Weber Insurance - Livermore Falls ..........................................48 Weber Insurance Group .............................................................48 Welch's Hardware & Lumber.......................................................12 Western Maine Family Health Center ..........................................6 Western Maine Pharmacy, Inc. .................................................50 Westwood Cottages....................................................................31 White's Land Management........................................................48 Whittemore & Sons Outdoor Power Equipment......................57 Wilson Excavating, Inc. ..............................................................16 Winslow Supply, Inc. ..................................................................62 Woodland Rehab & Nursing Center.........................................57 Woodlawn Valley Disc Golf ........................................................13 Woodsome's Feeds & Needs....................................................11 YMCA of Auburn-Lewiston.........................................................22 Zippy Copy Center.......................................................................12
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~ 2019 Western Maine ~
Western Maine
ALWAYS OPEN,
ALWAYS FUN! Maine’s home for wicked good fun, with 24/7 casino action and our convenient hotel and pub!
OxfordCasino.com
Experience round-the-clock casino excitement on our expanded gaming floor, including nearly 1,000 slot machines and 30 table games! With a new hotel featuring over 100 rooms and a new pub-style restaurant offering the best in Maine and New England cuisine, we’re building excitement every day!
Oxford Casino Hotel is just minutes from the Maine Turnpike on Route 26!
Persons under 21 years of age may not enter the gaming area unless licensed as employees. Gambling problem? In Maine, call 2-1-1 or (800) 522-4700 for help.