2017 aroostook northern penobscot edition

Volume 26 | Issue 1 | 2017

Maine’s History Magazine

FREE 15,000 Circulation

Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

Maine Poachers An enduring tradition

“Wildcat Lynch” Comes To Ashland

He found his version of heaven here

Times In Aroostook Memories of living in The County

www.DiscoverMaineMagazine.com facebook.com/discovermaine

Inside This Edition

2

Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

3

I t Makes No Never Mind James Nalley

6

The Rock Facing challenge on the Allagash Dale Murray

8

Maine’s History Magazine

Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

Publisher & Editor Jim Burch

The Shot A family tradition of deer hunting Dale Murray

Layout & Design Liana Merdan

Advertising & Sales Manager

12 Times In Aroostook Memories of living in The County

Dorothy Boone Kidney

Tim Maxfield

Advertising & Sales Julian Bither Barry Buck Dennis Burch Tim Maxfield

15 Maine Poachers An enduring tradition

Marvin B. Dow

Office Manager Liana Merdan

Field Representatives

22 Red Ribbons On The Penobscot Maine’s early temperance movement began in Winn

Charles Francis

Ted Foss Dale Hanington

Contributing Writers

Jeff Bradley Marvin B. Dow Charles Francis | fundy67@yahoo.ca Dorothy Boone Kidney Lois Muller Dale Murray James Nalley 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

25 Houlton’s 1932 Cross-Country Champions Members gathered 50 years later

Oscar Cronk (with revisions by Brian Swartz) 29 “Wildcat Lynch” Comes To Ashland He found his version of heaven here

Brian Swartz 33 The Aroostook Valley Trail

What would Thoreau think?

Charles Francis 38 Fort Kent Heroes American Legion Post honors two WWI veterans Jeff Bradley 42 Fort Fairfield’s Fighting Fitzherberts

Crops took second fiddle during Civil War years Brian Swartz

45 M adawaska, Maine A little town with a lot of history

Lois Muller

Discover Maine Magazine is distributed to town offices, chambers of commerce, fraternal organizations, barber shops, beauty salons, 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 © 2017, CreMark, Inc.

SUBSCRIPTION FORM ON PAGE 50

Front Cover Photo: Early view of C. Nadeau in Fort Kent. Item # LB2007.1.100836 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection & www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org All photos in Discover Maine’s Aroostook & Northern Penobscot 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

B

y the time you read this, you will most likely be knee deep in snow, which brings me to this month’s topic: snowshoeing. Based on the natural design of snowshoe hares, this form of transportation dates back more than 6,000 years to Asia, after which the first instances of snowshoes used by Native Americans were observed in the 1600s. Although some of the earliest snowshoes were simply wooden planks lashed to the bottom of the feet, subsequent designs were as long as seven feet in length and specifically designed to the environment as well as the hunter’s needs.

In any case, they were still incredibly helpful for traversing deep, powdery snow. Naturally, more efficient designs were modeled after certain animals that thrived during the winter. For example, the “beaver tail” includes a round nose with the ends coming together to form a long “tail,” while the “bear paw” is short with a round tail. Overall, the four main styles are Huron, Alaskan, Ojibwa, and Bear Paw, with lesser-known styles such as Beaver Tail, Elbow, and Pick-

erel. Over time, the old-fashioned wooden versions evolved into high-tech models complete with plastic, metal, and neoprene.

Regardless of the make or model, the basic mechanics of snowshoeing has remained the same.

As in any activity, there are those who like to take it “one step further.” For instance, according to www.recordsetter.com (which includes video evidence), Doug McManaman holds the world record for “The Longest Time Balancing a Bear Paw Snowshoe on Thumb” at 10 minutes, 12.57 seconds. He also holds the world record for “Fastest Time to Walk 200 Yards in Snowshoes” at one minute, 30.14 seconds. For those who feel that the distance of two football fields is too short, in February 2016, the U.S. Snowshoe National Championship featured a 26.2 mile snowshoe marathon for the first time. Until then, the race was capped at 13.1 miles (half-marathon). What is most impressive is that the current snowshoe marathon record is held by Tom Sobal of Colorado, who completed the 26.2 miles

in 3:06:17, which is faster than the majority of mortal runners completing a marathon on pavement! Well, now that I have either inspired you to get out there and try it or I have exhausted you with the thought of trudging through the snow, I will close with the following “Top 10 Signs of Cabin Fever”: 10) You start to tell time by the sky, i.e., dark gray = morning, light gray = afternoon, and very dark gray = evening; 9) You start building snowmen out of loneliness; 8) You start to think that the Donner Party didn’t have it all that bad; 7) You start discussing your life’s goals with the aforementioned snowmen; 6) You start to truly believe that the aforementioned snowmen are plotting to take over your house; 5) Normal people start to worry you; 4) 9 out of 10 voices in your head agree that you are sane; 3) You can’t remember if you are the evil twin or the good one; 2) You install a rear-view mirror on your stationary bike; 1) You start to believe that the ice cracking on the roof is telling you a message through Morse code.

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

“Kitchen Talk”

by Jim Lawrence

www.Houzz.com & Facebook is the Hot Spot for kitchen ideas.

There is a whole generation gap between my daughter and me. It’s getting better now that I am a grandpa and it helps when she can get free baby sitting from me. But still, most of the time her Mom (that’s my wife) has to translate our comments to each other for us to understand what the other just said. But I just got one up on her the other day... here goes her quote onto my Facebook...” You’re right Dad, this Houzz is the best app ever.” I will take the credit on this one because I don’t win many family issues.

On the serious side, if you are doing any type of building, decorating, designing or kitchen or bath projects, it would be wise to check out HOUZZ.com.. For design ideas for kitchens and baths, these guys are without question the hottest spot on the planet. www.HOUZZ.com is a Pinterest type of website devoted to house and home ideas. It’s incredibly easy to navigate and does an unbelievable job while scrolling through using an I-pad or PC. Of course that does not mean you cannot still work through magazines or newspapers such as the one you are now reading.

All sources of design ideas will enhance any project, and if you are working with a professional designer, Houzz will help jump start the design process. Just be careful; it’s addictive!

On the social Media side, if you do Facebook, and if you want to see Amazing Kitchen Before and After’s, check out https://www.facebook.com/AvondaleKitchensAndBaths. Not only are these great make-overs, but the page is full of real kitchens by real people all in your local and surrounding area.

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Check them out on www.AvondaleKitchen.com or www.Houzz.com or www.Facebook/AvondaleKitchensAndBaths

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6

The Rock

Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

Facing challenge on the Allagash

by Dale Murray

T

he other five canoes had eddied below the class two rapids.

Only that single boulder where the river funneled into a trough posed a challenge. However, it was more than enough to ensnare the inexperienced or careless. Pat was both. The rapids had wrapped the canoe around the rock to a perfect boomerang shape.

Pat sat there wide eyed, stunned that he was not coursing along down river. He looked downstream to see if we were on our way to help him. The last thing he wanted was help from adults, especially his dad. The strength of the mighty Allagash River surprised him as his young mind raced to assess the situation. He was surprised that the river had turned on him. To this point, it

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had been a friend. It had cooled him during the unseasonable ninety-degree days. It had put twenty brookies a day on the breakfast table. More importantly to Pat, it had provided solitude for private conversations with the guide’s granddaughter as they dawdled behind our column. Now, however, the river had showed him its other side.

Pat did not hesitate. He was rugged, more so than most his peers, and maybe people generally expected more of him because of it. His fine physique and bold demeanor masked an inner turmoil as he slipped into the river. Gentleman-like, and he was always that, he guided the girl to calmer water and looked downstream. The adult males

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had beached their crafts and were making their ways to him. He waded back to his stricken craft and set earnestly, though naively, to work. Grasping the stern, he hefted with all his strength and gained new respect for the river that clamped the canoe to the rock with a force Pat could never have imagined. For the first time in four days on the water, he became aware of the river as something more than a benign friend. With a newfound respect, he bent low to use his legs for more power, re-gripped and tried again. The canoe did not budge. Glancing towards the adults, he felt a sense of urgency.

He needed to free that canoe before his dad reached him. All his Little League lessons about teamwork failed him in

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com his quest to demonstrate his manliness.

Quickly, he repositioned and reached deep for resources he was not sure he had. Somehow, he felt that if he succeeded alone the act would mitigate his failure to navigate the chute. Crushed gunwales would be forgotten in a wave of fatherly pride over a son’s physical prowess.

Pat’s face creased with worry and his stomach ached with the hollow feeling that all people have known in times of trouble. In his innocence, he blamed himself for an error that only the experienced could have avoided. It was not fear of the river reflecting in his face, though. Pat feared nothing physical. He had that supreme confidence of all thirteen-year-old boys.

The worry on his face ran much deeper than that, deeper even than all the waters that swirled around him. Deeper even than any concern about what the girl might think of him. Pat’s concern was far more primal. It was a father

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and son thing, a thing as old as humankind. Pat feared his father’s anger. He feared recriminations. He just was not ready for another of his father’s looks, the ones that reached to the very soul and chipped away at a fledgling ego.

Pat was used to conflict with his dad.

God knows he had caused many in his young life, so he frantically searched for a way to salvage a bad situation.

Hurriedly, Pat moved to the bow.

Of the six canoes on the trip, five were rented from the Fort Kent Boy Scouts.

The only borrowed one was misshapen, enfolded around his antagonist, and he struggled furiously to salvage it. He attacked the river’s grip with every fiber of his young body. Repeatedly, he assailed his nemesis and each time the river mocked his efforts. He forgot his dad for the moment and finally focused entirely on the immediate issue. He realized that the river had to have ensnared others and deduced that others had found a way to force the river to

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relinquish its captives. Otherwise, similar shipwrecks and their flotsam would litter the banks around the rapids. Emboldened, he renewed his efforts. Determined as he was, his pubescent body was no match for the Allagash. Exhausted and despondent, he straightened; shoulders drooped, and he waited for help.

As his dad came abreast of him, Pat averted his eyes, stared at the crippled boat and braced for the storm. However, on this day the father used insights learned only after years of rearing four children. Wordlessly, he joined his son, and shoulder-to-shoulder, on the count of three, they released the canoe from the river’s stranglehold. They passed it off to the rest of us, and, as we shuttled it to shore, Pat felt his dad’s arm slip over his shoulder. He looked into his father’s eyes, and for a moment, they shared a smile before wading after the canoe. * Other businesses in this area are featured in the color section.

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8

Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

The Shot

A family tradition of deer hunting

by Dale Murray

T

hough we distributed the weight of Nate’s first deer among the four of us, we struggled to get up the sixty-degree slope to the road a hundred feet above us. By mid-morning the temperature was unseasonably warm, contrasting with the early morning cold, and sweat streaked all our faces. I have never liked dragging deer so I was delighted to have the young muscle of two teenagers to help. Shivering on a stump for hours at a time, stalking through Whip City with future sugar maples snapping at my cheeks, gutting from pelvis to breastbone, butchering late into the night didn’t bother me a bit.

But the dragging did. So, I counted my blessings that Bill and I had the help.

This wasn’t our longest drag, but it was

sure the hardest. As things turned out, it was also the luckiest day of our lives because it almost ended before it even began. Only devoted paternal training prevented a disaster.

It wasn’t often that we could convince the boys to hunt deer with us.

They’d hunt partridge all day, anytime, but neither had developed a love for hunting Maine’s whitetails. Bill and I had modeled the manly role for them from their pre-school days, but they hadn’t taken to it like we had at their ages. Our wives liked that and maybe they were part of the reason. However, on this day the boys joined us and even showed some interest in the adventure.

We met at Bill’s house at 4:30 that morning. Matt and I sipped coffee

and savored Nancy’s Anadama bread as Bill and Nate checked and loaded their gear. I only owned one rifle, a Winchester .32 Special that I had given to my dad for Christmas in 1969 and had subsequently inherited after his passing six years later. It was with that gun that I had trained Matt. Therefore, Matt would use the .32, and I would try Bill’s Winchester .30-30. By 5:00 we were on the road. Bill led in his pickup.

I followed in mine. Bill led because he was the guide in all senses of the word.

He was our spiritual leader, exhorting us on to success, and conjuring images of the trophy bucks with record-setting racks like those on the covers of all hunting magazines every fall. Bill was our earthly mentor, too. Each Oc-

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9

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com tober he scouted several areas prior to the season so he knew where the deer were. He always knew where the deer were, and for the price of our company, he shared all he had learned.

Year in and year out, Bill held to the same strategy. He’d hunt one area for a few hours and, if unsuccessful, move to another. Often he probed three, sometimes four, areas in a day. That was the plan this time. He gave us the lay of the land for our first try, a hollow through which a brook gurgled past a clear cut on the right and a heavily spruced hillock to the north. Matt and I would take stand not far into the woods from the trucks, looking downstream. Bill and Nate would circle a mile east of us, and taking advantage of the morning updraft try to stir something up toward us. Neither of the boys had ever hunted alone so each would stay with his dad.

All of us concentrated fully as Bill laid out his strategy. I watched Matt carefully. Like all young men, he felt that

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teenage pressure to impress his dad.

More importantly, on this day, he was even more deliberate in his preparation because his best friend would be privy to all of the day’s events, good or not.

Though he had loaded the .32 many times before, I surreptitiously scrutinized his every move. He was a careful boy. I knew that, but I still worried and I watched, one eye on his task and one on my own. Surely my own father had monitored me in a similar manner as he taught me over and over how to load. At that moment, proud of my son, I appreciated how my Dad must have felt in the fall of 1957 when I shot my first deer. God, how I wanted that for Matt! For me! And for Dad. So with the hubris of the cocksure, I perfunctorily thumbed the fifth round through the loading gate and drew back the hammer to set the safety.

Then it happened! Ka-bang! A blaze of light illuminated the early morning gloom. The sound of the shot

hung for a moment in the heavy morning air. Then it echoed down the brook where splashing waves and dense underbrush eventually muffled it. Eyes wide, mouth agape, heartbeat in suspension, I spun my head searching for my son. Wide-eyed, Matt stared back, trying to figure out what had happened.

I turned to Bill and Nate. Thunderstruck, they stood motionless, looking first at Matt and then at me. Numb with shock, I looked down at the smoke spiraling from the barrel of my rifle.

Nobody died that morning. Nobody was hurt. The bullet did not travel far.

It had harmlessly burrowed into the ground in front of me just like it was supposed to in such circumstances. Silently, I thanked God. Aloud, I thanked my dad for teaching me to always keep gun barrels pointed away from people.

He had pounded that into me every time he took me into the woods, and I had done the same with Matt. Then (continued on page 10)

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

(continued from page 9)

I cursed myself for not asking if Bill’s gun operated differently than mine.

Ever gracious, Bill chastised himself for not telling me that a coil spring, rather than the leaf spring of my .32, controlled the gun’s hammer, a significant difference.

We did not start our hunt then. We were too spooked. As the acrid odor of gunpowder dissipated in the increasing breeze, we drank coffee. We talked about had happened. We talked ourselves down, mostly Bill and I, in our fatherly roles. The boys said little. No teacher had ever held the attention of those two young men more than we did at that moment. When we had finally steadied ourselves, Bill and I realized that it was even more important that the boys hunt that day. Bill reiterated the plan, and with senses quickened, we stepped off into the woods.

Early view of Main Street in Houlton. Item # LB2007.1.101048 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

View of the Elks Club in Houlton, ca. 1930. Item # 6834 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

Times In Aroostook Memories of living in The County

by Dorothy Boone Kidney

A

fter many years of living in the southern part of the state, I returned to Aroostook County to

live.

On the day of my arrival in Presque Isle, I walked into a beauty parlor and knew immediately that I was home at last. In fact, if someone had blindfolded me, flown me to northern Maine and dropped me at that door, I could have pinpointed at once my location as being in Aroostook County.

Hanging on the door of the beauty shop was a long, pink-and-white Maybasket made with tissue paper. To my knowledge, Aroostook is the only place in the world where long Maybaskets

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are cut in that design from tissue paper.

While the two beauticians worked, they discussed “fiddleheading,” which was music to my homesick ears! In North Carolina, where I lived one winter, whenever I mentioned fiddleheading, North Carolinians thought I was referring to collecting wood tops of violins!

Through my years of living in other places, I have learned that there is a unique vocabulary and familiar patterns up here in Aroostook which bind us comfortably together and sets us off from the rest of the world. If someone invites, “Come over and have baked beans with us this week,” we don’t have to have it spelled out that they

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mean Saturday night. In fact, we could almost throw away our calendars. If someone promises, “I’ll return by digging,” you know just what season he’ll show up.

In Aroostook we have planting time, berry time, time of the new peas, “fair” time, canning time, and time to get the tree. Everyone knows what we are talking about. We even abbreviate holidays and streets to our liking without loss of meaning. We talk about the Fourth, and here in Presque Isle, “The Flat,” “The Highlands,” and the “Fort Rod (meaning the Fourth of July, Chapman Street, Hardy Hill and the Fort Fairfield Road.)

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13

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com We also manufacture our own expressions. We are going to “tan someone’s hide,” and someone has “kicked the bucket.” People in Aroostook don’t complain, they “belly-ache.” And in some localities of Aroostook they “comb their heads” and “dress their feet.”

We even change names to suit us and still retain the meaning through the years. Quoggy Joe Mountain, for some of us, has become Foggy Joe. And not long ago I overheard a very elderly woman promise to meet her very elderly husband “at the Candy Kitchen after she shopped at the Red Front.”

Those names take us back a long way, but I’m sure her husband met her at the right place and recognized that she was using the original names of Marston’s store and the A & P store (although she would grocery-shop at their popular, present-day store because that A & P store is no longer in business.)

With the exception of rolls put out by the Howard Johnson Company, I have found that Aroostook County is the only place in the world where hotdog rolls are split on the top instead of along the sides. And to my liking they are much better our way.

Yes, we Aroostook folk are knit together. We have our differences of opinion, our preferences in elections, belong to different churches, and we each do our “own thing.” Yet we are firmly bound together by our Aroostook heritage, vocabulary, customs and shared experiences.

In digging time, fiddleheading time, “fair” time and all the times in Aroostook, we have found Aroostook a fine place to be!

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

Maine Poachers

by Marvin B. Dow

H

An enduring tradition

unting by a people we call Indians began in Maine untold centuries ago. Then came generations of white trappers, woodsmen and farmers who depended on hunting to supplement their meager diets.

Finally came game laws to regulate hunting and to preserve wildlife. Although the great majority of Maine citizens obey the hunting laws, many quietly admire the people who steadfastly refuse to obey. The struggle between game wardens and poachers resembles an insane morality play in which the good guys, the wardens, are really the bad guys and the poachers are the good guys. The fierce independence of Maine people and the viewpoint that

hunting is a God-given right are, I believe, reasons why poaching became an enduring tradition.

In the late 1940s, I lived in Oakfield, a small railroad town in southern Aroostook County. In common with other Maine towns, Oakfield had its expert poachers and those learning a dubious skill.

Most of the townspeople were law abiding. But when it came to hunting, law abiding and law acceptance were two separate issues. An unwritten code seemed to govern how the public viewed the endless struggle between the wardens and the outlaws. If a town poacher was so inept as to be caught, the townspeople wasted no sympathy

on him. However, the law abiding citizens expected the wardens to pursue and arrest the outlaws using “fair” means.

I learned about the fairness code when John, a legendary deer poacher, was arrested for Sunday hunting and promptly convicted. As details of John’s arrest spread about town, many in Oakfield were outraged with the wardens and were vehement in denouncing the mean-spirited trick played on John.

Instead of looking for poachers the “fair” way, the wardens had used an airplane. As the wardens flew over John, he looked up and waved in friendly fashion. As a result, the law had a perfect photo of John and his rifle out for (continued on page 16)

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

(continued from page 15)

a Sunday hunt. By Oakfield reckoning, however, the law had violated the fairness code by using an airplane. Therefore, John was a victim of the law! Of course, the deer were not asked for their opinion.

Another Oakfield deer poaching expert, named Bernard, was caught red-handed one night hunting deer. In the struggle with the wardens, he broke free, ran for his car and sped into the night. However, as he was fleeing, a warden shot his trunk lid full of holes from shotgun pellets. Rather than pursue Bernard, the wardens drove to his house to wait for him to arrive with the evidence. However, the wily Bernard drove all the way to Bangor and paid a fellow outlaw to put a new trunk lid on his car. When at last he drove into his driveway, the waiting wardens announced that the pellet holes in his trunk meant a sure conviction. They were nonplused when Bernard showed

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them his perfect trunk lid and announced that he was innocent. Oakfield was right proud of its native son!

Our mother, a steadfastly law abiding citizen of Oakfield, accepted the viewpoint that the poachers were mainly victims instead of lawbreakers. After a master poacher of Oakfield was arrested while hunting in the darkness before dawn, Mother vehemently insisted that his arrest was unfair and unlawful. She agreed that the law forbid night hunting, but she insisted he had been hunting after midnight which was morning, and therefore legal. Nobody could convince her it was darkness that mattered and not time. To her, the game laws had claimed another innocent victim.

My relatives have hunted for decades in northern and eastern Maine.

A favorite story involves my brother Mac and brothers-in- law, Dick and Bob, who did a bit of innocent night

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With his railroad lantern, Mac led the way as they set off. Despite their experience, the darkness and winding trails soon had Mac and Dick thoroughly confused. Not willing to admit being lost, they asked Bob, a rookie hunter, to break out his compass. Bob placed his compass on the ground, studied the dial in the lantern light and announced in solemn tones that North was right where it was supposed to be!

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com the trio set off down a path which was lined with all but impenetrable brush.

Suddenly, they heard people coming towards them. If they were to meet, game wardens’ tough questions would be sure to follow. The obvious solution was to hide off the trail and let the wardens pass. But getting off the trail proved to be virtually impossible what with thick brush and darkness. Then, in the midst of his own struggle, Mac heard similar sounds coming from the direction of the “wardens.” With that, he knew their hunting companions had arrived, and that two groups of hunters were desperately trying to get off the path and hide from “game wardens.”

Having recognized the situation, Mac shouted to the other hunters but they refused, at first, to answer his shouts. They suspected a game warden was trying to trick armed men into arrest for night hunting. Finally, identities were established and the two groups met. The new arrivals were furious be-

cause they had not seen Mac’s light-a railroad lantern which cast a small light on the ground.

Moreover, the other men had flung their rifles into the brush before trying to get in themselves. The angry hunters had to return to the place at daylight to find the last of their weapons. To emphasize their hatred of wardens, they claimed to have rigged the path the night before with a booby trap consisting of a trip wire and a shotgun. Wardens had to deal with mean people.

And wardens had to deal with desperately poor people among whom it used to be a common practice to eat deer meat throughout the year. The game wardens overlooked the hunting if the deer were shot in daylight, if the hunter used all the meat and if it was not done too often. The game wardensaccepted the hunting as part of deer herd management. However, night hunting was never tolerated.

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Without question, all regions of Maine have stories of compassionate wardens overlooking illegal hunting by hungry families.

Hunting is hard-wired right into the genes of these good old boys. Often, during the deer season, these Maine men start the day with a hunters’ breakfast. To make money, fraternal organizations offer these meals where hunters gather. Often world-class eaters gather to enjoy a favorite indoor sport. One of these athletes may consume a tidy dozen pancakes, six eggs, sausage and bacon and several cups of coffee.

While eating, they extend an arm along each side of their heaped plates and then bend over to the food.

They are unwilling to risk losing any food by lifting it to the mouth. Finally fortified, the hunters rise, belch a time or two, and head outdoors to take part in a ritual much older than history.

Mac enjoys relating stories of the re(continued on page 18)

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

(continued from page 17)

lentless war between the poachers and the wardens. In his region of eastern Maine and elsewhere, the wardens have gone “high tech” by using dummy deer made of Styrofoam to trap the poachers. In Maine, it is illegal to shoot from a vehicle or from a paved road. But the poachers, hard wired as they are, can’t resist when a deer is sighted. The usual stakeout is for the warden to lie in the ditch between the roadway and the decoy. Some poachers once described to Mac how they blazed away at the decoy and were amazed that it didn’t fall.

None noticed the bits of white Styrofoam flying out the back of the decoy.

To bring more firepower to bear, they turned the vehicle around so the driver could join the shooting. Finally, the warden stood up and hollered, “Don’t shoot him anymore boys. I think you got him.”

Beginning with simple deer heads,

the wardens now employ elaborate models with moving heads and eyes that shine in a light. Mac tells of the eastern Maine warden who placed his dummy deer one night and then hid in the ditch beside the road. Soon, a pickup truck approached with a spotlight sweeping the fields. Spotting the fake deer, the hunters stopped their truck right beside the warden. In moments, the night was torn with the sound of gunfire. When the gunners paused to reload, the warden stood up and announced they were all under arrest for a variety of offenses.

He told them that his fake deer cost the state two-thousand dollars and he had to save it for other nights.

Finally, Mac tells of a group from Massachusetts who spied one of the decoys out in an open field on a Sunday afternoon. In the car was a fifteen-year old boy who had never hunted a deer. In order for him to have an unlawful shot and join the great society of poachers, the Bay Staters drove a long way back

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to their camp to get a rifle. Returning to the scene forty-five minutes later, they were elated to find the “deer” standing in the same spot. It can only be imagined why they weren’t suspicious about a wild animal remaining motionless so long. Nonetheless, they succeeded in providing the boy his first shot at a decoy and his first up close and personal meeting with a Maine warden!

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

Red Ribbons On The Penobscot Maine’s early temperance movement began in Winn

by Charles Francis

I

n the 1860s Silas Buswell operated a saloon in Winn. The establishment catered to tannery workers, loggers, steamboat crewmen and passengers, and anybody else that wanted a drink.

Buswell was an enterprising sort. He was seen an entrepreneur, as seizing the opportunity of the times, as a doer. At least that’s how he was looked upon for a time.

B. F. Fernald, a Winn attorney and mill owner, wrote a brief history of his community. In it he described Silas Buswell as an individual “whose opportunities were golden but whose actual life was leaden.” Buswell, Fernald said, “left Winn a drunken sot, and went to Medford, Wisconsin, where he

now is.”

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a large number of Winn entrepreneurs viewed alcohol as central to their prosperity. Michael McCue had the first trading post in what would become Winn; he sold rum. There was Morley’s Winn Hotel. There is a long list of places where one could get a drink in Winn, and the general area around the community — the Fay House, the Katahdin House, and numerous small stores and hostels that operated during the middle of the nineteenth century. In short, alcohol was an important part of the economy of Winn and everywhere else along the Penobscot, and it was a problem.

Just how bad a problem was alcohol in Winn of the 1860s? Well, it

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com would seem even the town doctor was a drunk. The doctor was named Henry Reynolds.

Dr. Henry Reynolds came to Winn in 1865. This was after serving with the First Maine Heavy Artillery in the Civil War. Fernald described Reynolds as a man “with good abilities, with a good physique and pleasant ways.” Reynolds established a flourishing practice.

Then, Fernald says, “toward the last of his stay in Winn, he lapsed into intemperate habits.” In short, Dr. Reynolds turned into a drunk. This is not the end of this particular tale, however. Fernald put it this way — “Dr. Reynolds was happily rescued by the Red-ribbon movement.”

The above is about all that the Winn historian has to say on the subject of Henry Reynolds except for the fact that the doctor’s career “is well known to all” and that “he is now living in a town named in honor of him — Reynolds — in Dakota Territory, [ and is] practicing

farming, and is postmaster of his town.”

So what happened to change Winn’s foremost professional from a drunk to a well-known and respected figure?

What happened is that Henry Reynolds became a temperance reformer. He established the Red Ribbon movement.

Though it does not fit with this story, another Maine man needs to be introduced before we continue. He is Francis Murphy, another reformed drunk.

In the middle of the 1870s, Henry Reynolds and Francis Murphy conducted great nationwide temperance crusades. The red ribbon was the emblem of the Reynolds pledge, and blue that of the Murphy pledge. Reynolds started on the Penobscot, Murphy in the Portland area.

Around the time he left Winn, Reynolds organized the Bangor Reform Club. This was in 1874. The club was devoted to the cause of temperance. It was the first Red Ribbon Club. Its motto was “Dare to do Right.” From Ban-

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gor, the movement spread up and down the river and then across the state.

Reynolds believed God had called him to the work of saving men from intemperance and leading them to Christ.

He gave up the medical profession and threw himself into the work of preaching temperance and organizing reform clubs. A year from the formation of the first club there were forty-five thousand reformed men in Red Ribbon Clubs in Maine.

Red Ribbon speakers attacked the sources of alcohol. They did it by completely demoralizing the “rum power” of saloons and hotels that sold liquor.

The goal was getting every imbiber of alcohol to take the pledge of total abstinence and don the “red ribbon.”

Red Ribbon workers were often associated with the Order of Good Templars. A brief comment is needed here about the Order. The Order was nationwide and there were chapters in Maine. (continued on page 23)

24

Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

(continued from page 23)

The Order of Good Templars flourished in larger communities along the Penobscot. The Order originated as a fraternal organization for temperance and then total abstinence in the mid-nineteenth century. The Order had a structure modeled on the Masons, using similar ritual and regalia.

It admitted men and women equally, and made no racial distinctions. There were chapters in towns on both sides of the river in the Bangor and Brewer area. The chapters sent speakers upriver and beyond to carry the message to any hamlet that had a saloon or hotel. If a town did not have an Order of Good Templars chapter it had a Red Ribbon Club. Winn had a Red Ribbon Club.

Red Ribbon Club members wore red ribbons on their lapels, signed a pledge that they would “never make, buy, sell, use, furnish, or cause to be furnished to others” any liquor. They promised to discourage consumption of liquor in their communities.

Today ribbons of the Red Ribbon Club are collectibles. They are rare.

Once upon a time they were not. Once upon a time they were one of the most common sights along the Penobcot.

Addendum: Henry Reynolds wasn’t the first temperance reformer to use the ribbon for his temperance organization.

The very first were the Washingtonians.

The Washingtonians began in Baltimore as the Washington Temperance Society in 1840. The very rarest of all temperance ribbons have a picture of George Washington.

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Houlton’s 1932 Cross-Country Champions Members gathered 50 years later

by Brian Swartz

N

ot as slim, trim, and speedy as in their collective youths, four men representing a high point in Houlton athletics met their fans at Cary Library on Main Street in Houlton on Monday, December 6, 1982. For a few precious hours that morning, 50 years fell away as everyone recalled what Roy Gartley, Lawrence Brown, Fred Murphy, and Garald Wiggins had accomplished in autumn 1932.

When classes started at Houlton High that August in 1932 (County schools opened early because of the manpower-intensive potato harvest), Darrell Barnes, Lawrence Brown, Roy Gartley, Jasper Hardy, Fred Murphy,

Garald Wiggins, and Eugene Williams decided to run for the cross-country team coached by Clyde Stinson.

Stinson tapped Wiggins as the team captain, and under his leadership and Stinson’s guiding hand, the Houlton boys did well.

Both in his deportment and in what he expected of them athletically, Stinson set a good example for his runners.

He was not interested in glory, even as the Shiretowners won repeatedly against the solid competition from other Maine schools.

“He was very quiet,” said Murphy, referring to Stinson. “He set an example by himself. There was no smoking

or drinking.”

Stinson’s fiancée, Mildred, was well aware of how important cross country and running were to her future husband. “He would talk track and cross country until it came out your ears,” she recalled.

“Monday would be a six-mile day for us,” said Murphy, describing how Stinson pushed his athletes to run harder and farther than other coaches expected of their runners. “He’d run with us.

“He looked after us,” Murphy said.

“Before a race we would all have new shoelaces” provided by Stinson. “If it (continued on page 26)

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was a wet day, he would get us liniment.

“At the end of a race, he’d shake your hand and congratulate you,” Murphy recalled. “He used everyone alike; it didn’t make any difference if you were on the first team or the second team.”

The Houlton High runners traveled for some meets, and Stinson took care of his runners even on the road. “When we went to a town, he would arrange for our meals to be ready for us at a restaurant,” Murphy said.

The undefeated Shiretowners were so good, an invitation was extended to them to compete in the 1932 national championships to be held at Branch Brook Park in Newark, New Jersey.

Stinson accepted the invitation.

Five players and Stinson rumbled out of Houlton in the coach’s 1929 Model A Ford on Monday, November 21. Interstate 95 was not even a civil

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engineer’s recurring dream; with Stinson behind the wheel, the Model A navigated the rough roads of southern Aroostook County before reaching the equally rough roads of northern Penobscot County.

Due to a lack of funding, Barnes and Hardy stayed in Houlton. Seniors Gartley, Murphy, Wiggins, and Williams and junior Lawrence Brown bundled up inside Stinson’s car. All five runners were on the adventure of their lives.

Stinson had scouted the competition via every published article he could find. “He studied those New York and New Jersey runners and told the boys, ‘You’ve got to place here, and you’ve got to place here, and you’ve got to place here,’” Mildred said.

“He had those boys psyched up as much as he was,” she recalled.

The Shiretowners arrived in Newark and prepared for the national championships, scheduled for Thanksgiving

morning, Thursday, November 24. Like Gene Hackman’s character Norman Dale in the basketball classic Hoosiers, Clyde Stinson believed the Shiretowners could win everything.

The Houlton runners caught his mood. “I had a feeling before the start of the race that we were going to win,” Murphy recalled. “It was such a nice day, and we were feeling good, and I just had a feeling we were going to win.”

Things did not automatically go well for the Shiretowners. Gartley was sick with the flu; slightly woozy as he prepared to run the 2½-mile course, he focused on the end goal of crossing the finish line. He would get there somehow, no matter how he felt.

As the Houlton runners competed, Stinson kept score. Brown ran the course in 13:49, placing him sixth in the competition. Wiggins finished seventh. When Fred Murphy stepped to the

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starting line, a competitor had stepped on his right heel before the race started.

Off came Murphy’s right shoe beneath the pressure of the competitor’s foot, and a spike scraped the Houlton runner’s heel. The officials did not wait for Murphy to put on his missing shoe; when the race started, he tore away from the starting line practically as fast as some competitors — and faster than others.

Even with one shoe on and one shoe off, Murphy finished the course in 14:01, good enough to place 13th in the competitive field.

Eugene Brown ran well, too. The flu-stricken Roy Gartley never gave up; he finished 27th.

While awaiting the judges’ final team rankings, Clyde Stinson checked and rechecked the times he had recorded. Suddenly he and his runners learned they had accomplished the impossible.

They had captured the 1932 national

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Stinson found the nearest telegraph office and dictated an all-caps telegram to Milton Lambert, the Houlton High School principal. “HOULTON WON NATIONALS” the telegram began.

The news spread quickly. “Bells rang and whistles blew” in Houlton that “beautiful Thanksgiving morning,” remembered Houlton resident Roy Thomas. “Boy, oh, boy, it was something.”

Stinson and his team returned home to warm greetings and congratulatory celebrations. The cross-country team’s outstanding achievement became a bright memory, and when team survivors came back for the 1982 reunion 50 years later, they remembered the companions no longer with them.

Eugene Williams had died in combat in France in World War II; Clyde Stinson had died in 1977. The other four members of the 1932 team were in

their late 60s, but the memories of 1932 had not faded.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

“Wildcat Lynch” Comes To Ashland He found his version of heaven here

by Oscar Cronk (with revisions by Brian Swartz)

A

Missouri outdoorsman whose hunting and trapping exploits were legendary in the Show Me State discovered in 1917 that the critters and fish abounding in the forests near Ashland — and the weather — tested his skills to a degree unimaginable.

Duty with the Army had brought Virgil E. Lynch to Kittery in the first decade of the 20th century. He met and married Sarah Steward, a local woman, and for the next several years the Lynches and their two young children traveled to Missouri and back to Kittery.

Lynch sought work in the Kittery

area after leaving the service in 1917.

He needed to support his family, but working in the naval shipyard, a factory, or an office seemed monotonous to a man so attuned to the great outdoors.

Lynch had subscribed to the Hunter, Trader, Trapper since its 1900 debut.

He even scoured the ads while imagining “what it would be like to hunt, trap, and fish in a virgin country,” as author and outdoorsman Oscar E. Cronk noted in his book, They Called Him “Wildcat.”

An ad placed by Ashland outdoorsman Henry Rafford particularly caught Lynch’s attention. The ad bragged about

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“the huge black bears, the record sized bobcats, the trout, togue, and salmon pools that had never been fished” in the thick forests west of Ashland, according to Cronk.

The region had been heavily harvested by the mid-1910s, and natural regeneration had provided a dining mecca for white-tailed deer. Their burgeoning population offered more food for bears and bobcats, and the region’s physical isolation prevented fishermen from emptying the myriad pools in the brooks and streams that flowed everywhere.

Thus, the north woods were a sports(continued on page 30)

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

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man’s paradise, and Lynch wondered if he might find his version of heaven there.

Lynch scheduled a two-week stay at Rafford’s Forks of the Machias Camps, located at the confluence of the Machias River and its South Branch in Township 10, Range 7. The Machias River flows into the Aroostook River at Ashland.

To reach Ashland in summer 1917, Lynch rode the Maine Central Railroad to Northern Maine Junction in Hermon and then the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad to Aroostook County. Climbing onto a buckboard, the excited Lynch bumped and jolted “over the rough old tote road” to the Forks of the Machias Camps and met Henry Rafford.

Guide Zeph Prossor took Lynch into the back country on a fishing trip.

“Lynch could see this was one of the greatest game countries he had ever been in,” Cronk noted. Lynch almost tripped over the white-tail deer wher-

ever he and Prossor traveled, and abundant sightings and droppings revealed that “the black bear were … thick in the region.”

Seeing fewer signs of bobcats, but hearing campfire tales about the felines’ abundance, Lynch also noticed that “where they went trout fishing, the furbearing animals were there,” according to Cronk.

With an eye to potential employment, Lynch “watched Prossor closely and realized that he was a superb woodsman,” Cronk noted. Prossor treated his assigned sportsman “like a friend and pal,” an attitude that Lynch decided to emulate if he could work as a guide.

His stay completed, Lynch hied by train to Kittery, packed up every bit of outdoor gear he owned, and returned to Ashland. Unfortunately, he and Sarah had already agreed to divorce because his work would take him away from home for long periods of time.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Lynch wired ahead to Prossor, who stood on the station platform as the B&A train carrying Lynch rumbled into Ashland. Staying briefly with Prossor, the independent-minded Lynch found his own place and worked “at odd jobs” to pass the time and earn money “until the trapping season began.”

Lynch arranged to use a Henry Rafford line camp as a base of operations.

The moment the trapping season legally opened, Lynch was out the camp door.

Though “he put in one of his most enjoyable seasons” that autumn, Lynch knew he needed to learn “more about this wilderness country,” such as “some ways to keep traps from freezing down,” Cronk noted.

The “extreme weather conditions” familiar to Aroostook County woodsmen surprised Lynch, but “he ended up with a good catch and more knowledge on some animals that he had never trapped,” according to Cronk.

Thrilled by his experiences in the

forests west of Ashland, Lynch asked Rafford to take him on as a guide. Augusta set the standards for a guide high, so “under the scholarship of Henry Rafford and Zeph Prossor” the intrepid Lynch “became well-schooled in woodcraft.”

The on-the-job training paid off for Lynch, named a registered Maine guide on July 1, 1918. “It was a joyous occasion for him … and he took his new job seriously,” Cronk commented.

The B&A delivered big-game hunters to Ashland in autumn 1918, just before the official opening date of the deer season. Up from Providence, Rhode Island came Miles Harris and two companions; Rafford assigned them other guides, and Harris got Virgil Lynch.

“Guide, I have been informed that you have never guided before, and you have only had a guide’s license but a short time,” Harris told Lynch their first morning together at the Forks of the Machias Camps.

“This is true, Mr. Harris … but I

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have guided in other parts of the country,” Lynch replied.

Harris wanted another guide; Lynch responded, “If you will give me two days, I am confident I can show you a good buck.”

Harris acquiesced to the request — and after spending just two hours that day on a ridge dominated by beech trees, he “connected with a trophy,” described by Cronk as “a monstrous seventeen-point buck.”

Suddenly Virgil “Wildcat” Lynch was a recognized guide. His services were soon in demand.

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The Aroostook Valley Trail What would Thoreau think?

by Charles Francis

T

he Aroostook Valley Railroad was once a mainstay of northern Aroostook County. It provided towns like Washburn, Caribou and New Sweden with dependable passenger and freight service for close to a half century. School children rode it. So did housewives off to do some shopping. More importantly — from a monetary standpoint — a goodly amount of Aroostook potatoes made their way to market on the railroad. It made more money off its freight rates than its passenger rates.

At its most extensive the Aroostook Valley Railroad covered some thirty-two miles. There had been dreams of extending it to 110 or maybe even

more. At least that had been the dream of Arthur Gould, whose vision saw to the creation of the railroad. Arthur Gould was a businessman and politician. He was a go-getter. His business acumen led to his becoming one of the richest men in the County and Maine.

His political savvy resulted in his being elected to the U.S. Senate. Gould was the principal guiding light of the Aroostook Valley Railroad until 1932.

1932 was the year Gould sold his stock holdings in the line to the Canadian Pacific. The CP kept Gould on as president for a time. He understood the workings of the Aroostook Valley. Under Gould the line was an electric railroad. The CP converted it to diesel.

The heyday of the Aroostook Valley’s operation was the first decades of its existence. Then automobiles and trucks began their inevitable inroads on the line’s profits. The war years revived the line for a time.

It ended its service to the county in 1952. That didn’t mean the line was doomed to be forgotten.

The Aroostook Valley Railroad still has a place in the economy of northern Aroostook County, though not as a rail line. Today it is part of a North American rail and trail system providing countless numbers of outdoors-minded people with the opportunity to refresh themselves mentally, physically and (continued on page 34)

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(continued from page 33)

spiritually in wild settings. In fact, the Aroostook Valley Trail, as the old railroad is now known, is remarkable in its wildemess offerings. The reason for this is that the Aroostook Valley Trail is easily and readily accessible from New Sweden, Caribou or elsewhere.

Yet, one can be as far as ten miles from the nearest habitation or other sign of civilization in short order.

As for that short order, ATVs and snowmobiles are among the favored methods of traversing the Aroostook Valley Trail. Riders of these machines aren’t the only ones to access the trail, however. There are also cross country skiers, mountain bikers, hikers and joggers. All co-exist in harmony. At least that seems the case.

The Aroostook Valley Trail and the larger rail-trail system of which it is a part is a manifestation of the North American conservation ethic. These trail systems allow civilization-bound urban and suburban dwellers the oppor-

tunity to experience nature, to experience wildness. The trail systems allow for easy access to regions and areas of unsullied nature.

Explorers of the Aroostook Valley Trail, whether they be on internal combustion powered machines or skis or bicycle or just on foot pass through stands of spruce, pine and cedar. One section of the trail crosses a bog protected by the Nature Conservancy. Those willing to stand quietly for a time will likely see muskrat or moose or other wild an-

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imals most anywhere. Because of the abundance of service berry and other berry bearing bushes the trail is a bird watchers’ paradise.

The Aroostook Valley Trail and the county-wide system of which it is a part has its origins in the conservation ethic espoused by naturalists like John Muir and before him Henry David Thoreau.

Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, never visited Maine’s north woods, though. Thoreau, of course, did. In fact, the sage of Walden came relatively close to the region that the Aroostook Valley Trail traverses.

That fact poses a question. What would Thoreau think about the rail-trail systems that are crisscrossing North America today. How might he critique the Aroostook Valley Trail?

Henry Thoreau was not opposed to civilization and its comforts. In fact, he didn’t particularly care for nature in the raw. His visit to Katahdin’s summit was not the high point of his Maine north

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woods sojourns. On Katahdin he experienced driving winds and a nature that was in no way obligated to be kind to man.

After Thoreau visited Katahdin, his next trip away from staid and peaceful Concord and Walden Pond, was to Cape Cod. His views and descriptions of the dunes of the Cape are an extension of his Katahdin piece. On the Cape he experienced the vagaries of a ship pounded by the sea. He saw pale white, bloodless corpses that had washed ashore. The result was Thoreau’s assertion that nature must be tempered by civilization for man to best appreciate wilderness. Thoreau traveled the Penobscot River and to Chesuncook by canoe. That was his second north woodsexperience. Chesuncook was the closest he came to the region once served by the Aroostook Valley Railroad. He describes paddling “along in a narrow canal through an endless forest, and the vision I have in my mind’s eye,

still, is of the small dark, and sharp tops of tall fir and spruce trees, and pagoda-like arbor vitaes, crowned together on each side, with various hardwoods intermixed.” He writes of asters and goldenrod, of dark-reddish birds and myrtle birds, of moose and bear.

Thoreau clearly loved primitive wildness, “wild, damp and shaggy.” In fact, when he left Walden to visit Katahdin, he had gone to experience nature in the raw. What he found on that first trip he didn’t particularly care for.

What he found on the second, when he floated down the Penobscot to Chesuncook, he greatly preferred. That is why his description of Chesuncook rather than that of Katahdin is one of the foundation statements of the conservation movement.

In Chesuncook Thoreau makes a decisive statement for national preserves as a means for sustaining the wild. The call is not anti-civilization. It is not an-

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ti-society. It is a call to integrate civilization and nature, society and wildness.

The preservation of the one sustains the other.

What would Thoreau have thought of the Aroostook Valley Trail with its ATVs and snowmobiles?

Thoreau enjoyed his north woods canoe trip. The Walden sage was a devote walker. His habit was to take walks of three or four hours every day.

Only in his Katahdin piece does he take time to describe a hike or walk. To be appreciated, the wilderness must be accessible. But for a canoe, Thoreau might never have experienced Chesuncook. One can imagine, then, Thoreau approving of the idyll of the Aroostook Valley Trail. Perhaps he might even have ridden an ATV there should that have been an option for him.

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

Fort Kent Heroes American Legion Post honors two WWI veterans

by Jeff Bradley

W

orld War I, “the war to end all wars,” the Great War, was infamous for pitting men in massed formations against advanced weaponry capable of inflicting casualties not in the hundreds of thousands but in the millions. Any romantic notions still attached to war died ingloriously on those killing fields as death reaped an awful harvest. A static warfare set in along those trenches etched in the earth, with bludgeoning the enemy into submission its only purpose. Imagine rushing across a cratered No-Man’sLand through reams of barb-wire while dodging artfully camouflaged machine gun nests and skirting hulking boo-

by-trapped obstacles as the whizbangs crash overhead — but this was exactly what men were ordered to do. It was observed, with a gallows humor, that whichever side could scrape up the last 100,000 men would win. Much culling and bloodletting would have to come first.

Artillery shells screamed in and machine guns chattered their deadly staccato amid noxious clouds of poison gas rolling over the battlefield, as if Satan himself, the black goatherd from hell, seemed astride the swarm.

This conflict was able to harness the power of modern technology to make total war.

As both sides dug in and became adept at the killing, a dreary stalemate enveloped the Western Front. Wherever the Germans confronted the Allies (England, France, and later America) over their sandbagged parapets in northern France, the war took a particularly nasty turn.

The Pine Tree State has long produced its share of men willing to fight, and then some. It may be considered a kind of Yankee Virginia. And so Mainers once again went off to war.

Two enlistees from Fort Kent, Kenneth Klein and George F. Martin — one a Jew and the other Franco-American — were among the first locals to vol-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com unteer, and also the first to die. For this ultimate sacrifice, Martin-Klein American Legion Post 133 in Fort Kent now proudly honors their names. Killed in the relatively “quiet” Meuse-Argonne defensive sector, where American troops had deployed before launching their blow against an alarming but lastgasp German offensive, both died on May 10, 1918, before that drive even got under way.

That they stepped up to defend their country seems nothing out of the ordinary; but that they did so and so quickly, given their backgrounds, vey certainly is. For each belonged to an “outsider” class when cultural norms accepted certain prejudices.

The entire nation was nativist at the time and suffered immigrants and other groups with hostility and suspicion.

Jews, of course, have always suffered from stigma. As a supple and resilient people, however, they have relied on a culture of education, hard work and sheer persistence in order

to prosper. By adhering to traditional beliefs, they were able to also assume successful positions within their communities, and bestow benefits on the rest of society.

Jewish military service was long considered suspect. In 1896 the Hebrew Union Veterans organization formed to counter this perception, which makes it the oldest veterans’ group in America.

Morphing into the Jewish War Veterans (JWV) of the United States following World War I, the mission continues today: to defend Jews against antisemitism and providing support for veterans and their families.

Post 133 is one of five in Maine named after Jewish soldiers. Eleven Jewish Mainers died in World War I, and twenty-three more in World War II. Franco-American George F. Martin suffered no less the slings and arrows rife in those cultural times. French-Canadian immigrants may indeed be considered among the ultimate in outsider groups, in that their unique blend (continued on page 40)

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

(continued from page 39)

of language, religion and culture kept them insulated and apart, but its cohesiveness also kept them together.

Despite the handicaps, both men held the notion that ‘my country right or wrong is still my country,’ and signed up for duty as doughboys, and left for France as privates.

As the war stalled, heavy artillery came to be viewed as key to the offense and to victory. One tactic called the “creeping barrage” developed that envisioned lobbing high-caliber explosive shells directly in front of advancing troops. This let them move forward in short bursts to gain more ground with fewer casualties. The plan — keep the enemy’s heads down while cutting their wire, ravaging their trenches and upsetting their guns — looked good on paper. But the ‘creep’ proved difficult to coordinate. Too slow and “friendly fire” wreaked havoc with the troops; but too rapid left them out in the open and helpless.

Machine guns were the biggest killer. Charging bunched infantry at the enemy trenches was standard operating procedure, but well-emplaced machine gun nests, spewing hundreds of bullets per minute, inflicted appalling carnage.

Rows of soldiers hundreds deep barely “went over the top” of their trenches before being mowed down.

Perhaps most horrific of all were the clouds of deadly poison gas unleashed on the wind. In minutes, hundreds would fall out dead or incapacitated for life. These ghastly concoctions brought a choking, bewildering death or left victims blinded or hideously maimed.

Gas masks proved little more than psychological props.

Even more fiendish methods were put in play by both sides to move the trenches for sometimes little more than a few hundred yards. Battles turned bitter as the war dragged on, meat-grinders in a larger war of attrition. At Ver-

dun, the Germans deliberately fed their troops in piecemeal to maximize casualties and “bleed France white” into surrender. In truth, before the American Expeditionary Force arrived and tipped the balance, the German army was digging defenses faster than the Allies could mount attacks.

From the bucolic St John Valley to a frontline trench on the Western Front must have come as a shock. Consider what the two volunteers faced. Ahead lay the fortified Hindenburg Line, strengthened over the past four years into a series of heavy defensive positions nearly impregnable. A maze of intricate trenches connected massive concrete pillboxes surrounded by loops of razor wire with the echeloned-in-depth, blast-proof bunkers for protecting the troops until the artillery lifted. Interlocking and mutually-supporting heavy machine gun nests created zones designed to lure attacking troops into kill boxes. Dominating it all was fortified,

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rugged Montfaucon, the 1100 foot-high German observation redoubt that called destruction down on anything moving on the plain below — and a position that the Americans had to have. But neither Martin nor Klein would be answering roll call, because both had been killed long before even clearing the trenches.

But their comrades soldiered on, successfully, against these horrors.

Research on the two men proved surprisingly scarce. The trail of so many of these young, unmarried servicemen simply vanishes after the war. The deaths of Martin and Klein were officially noted to “other causes,” which could mean almost anything, including getting lost in the fog of war to never be seen again. But there are many interpretations.

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

Fort Fairfield’s Fighting Fitzherberts Crops took second fiddle during Civil War years

by Brian Swartz

T

hree hundred Yankee dollars lured Samuel Fitzherbert far from Aroostook County in January 1864. A similar sum attracted his son, Amos, to Virginia less than 10 months later; by mid-April 1865, he could look back and wonder if $600 was worth the price paid by Fort Fairfield’s Fighting Fitzherberts.

The surname’s well-known in central Aroostook County, where James Fitzherbert settled along the Aroostook River circa autumn 1820. Hailing from New Brunswick, he married Bridget Dennison; probably by the time that James constructed a log cabin and stable on land that would later lie within Fort Fairfield, the Fitzherberts had a son named Samuel. He was born in Fredericton in 1820.

On May 4, 1842, Samuel married

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himself out physically.

Established in summer 1863, the Lincoln-inspired draft had fueled bitter resentment among many Americans. The Union army needed men, but less-than-patriotic Americans claimed that Washington could not force them to don military uniforms.

But a $300 enlistment bounty could lure hardscrabble farmers like Samuel Fitzherbert to enlist for three years.

For the middle-aged Samuel, $300 was probably as much money as his farm could earn during Aroostook’s short growing season. Besides, his strapping son Amos could run the farm, so Samuel traveled south to join Company G, 15th Maine Infantry Regiment at Augusta on Tuesday, January 26, 1864.

The next day, Company G mustered into federal service. Samuel received

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Phebe Bishop; among their children was a son, Amos, born in New Brunswick circa 1854-1855. He likely was born on American soil. Although the Bloodless Aroostook War had “settled” the American-Canadian border less than 20 years earlier, farmers and tradesmen like Samuel Fitzherbert paid little attention to an imaginary boundary.

Forty-four years later, with the Civil War raging Way Down South in Dixie, life proved hard for older farmers like Samuel Fitzherbert. Standing 5-9 and blessed with blue eyes, light hair, and a light complexion (a contemporary written description suggests he was a blond), Samuel worked the soil, ran a tavern for a while, cut firewood to heat the Fitzherbert homestead during the bitter Aroostook winters, and wore

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com $60 toward his $300 bounty and remained in Maine until he and other 15th Maine recruits sailed from Portland in April. Unlike most Maine infantry regiments, the 15th Maine was stationed in the lower Mississippi Valley; Samuel Fitzherbert arrived at a replacement depot in Alexandria, Louisiana and then reported to Company G on May 1.

Nowhere did the hot, humid, and mosquito-infested Louisiana countryside resemble Aroostook County’s rolling green hills. Fetid waterways wound across the terrain, and bad food, biting insects, and disease inflicted more casualties among the 15th Maine boys than did Confederate bullets.

In fact, Samuel probably never fired a shot in anger before “chronic diarrhea” felled him by mid-June. This nasty disease quickly dehydrated and weakened afflicted soldiers; an older man like Samuel might recover if administered clean, disinfected water, but the chicanery that passed for mid-19th century medical care saw diseases kill more soldiers than enemy gunfire ever

did.

Evacuated to University General Hospital in New Orleans and designated Patient 4123, Samuel Fitzherbert lingered until dying on July 5. When he was buried in Monument Cemetery the next day, the federal government still owed him $240 from his enlistment bounty. Whether or not the Army assessed a $33.26 clothing allowance against the bounty remains unknown.

His death certificate was signed by Army surgeon Samuel Kneeland.

Samuel left behind Phebe, Amos, and at least two young sons: 10-yearold Samuel Jr. and 2-year-old George.

In March 1870 Phebe married William Barker of Andover, New Brunswick.

If Amos recorded his thoughts upon learning about his father’s death, his writings apparently do not survive. He helped bring in the harvest, then traveled to Bangor in early October 1864 to join the 11th Maine Infantry Regiment.

The draft had tapped Lewis Brown, an Exeter resident, but like so many other men (including the future philan-

thropist Andrew Carnegie), Brown paid a substitute to take his place. For $300, Amos Fitzherbert signed on with Company E, 11th Maine, and joined the outfit in the Petersburg siege lines.

Standing 5-9½, Amos had blue eyes, dark hair, and a fair complexion; he possibly received the hair color from his mother. Described in his discharge papers as a “farmer,” he was likely a muscular man accustomed to hard physical labor (which Union troops often performed during winter 1864-65 as their siege lines extended west from Petersburg.)

Amos definitely experienced combat that long, cold winter, remembered as among the colder winters in Virginia’s history. Gunfire rattled constantly along the lines and among the trenches, and by late March 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant pushed sufficient cavalry and infantry westward to stretch General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia to the breaking point.

And break the Confederate lines (continued on page 44)

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

(continued from page 43)

they did during a massive Federal assault on April 2. The 11th Maine and Amos Fitzherbert participated in the attack on Forts Baldwin and Gregg near Petersburg, then marched west with the Third Brigade, 24th Army Corps as the Army of the Potomac pursued Lee’s fleeing troops.

Repeatedly the 11th Maine fought Confederate soldiers. Amos helped block General James Longstreet and his soldiers at Rice’s Station on April 6 and helped capture High Bridge (a vital Appomattox River crossing) the next day. Then Amos Fitzherbert and his foot-sore comrades tramped across the Virginia countryside to a village named Appomattox Courthouse.

Fog blanketed the village at dawn on April 9 as Confederate General John Gordon deployed his infantry west of Appomattox Courthouse. Advancing along the Stage Road, his troops shot up Union cavalry attempting to block the Confederate retreat west to Lynchburg. The Union cavalrymen kept look-

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ing behind themselves for supporting infantry; horsemen alone could not deter well-armed infantry.

Then, deploying in long lines that would overlap Gordon’s thin ranks, Union infantry suddenly appeared farther west. Gordon realized the jig was up, yet his men battled the approaching Billy Yanks for a while.

Amos Fitzherbert advanced with the 11th Maine and traded gunfire with Confederate troops that Sunday morning. He needed to survive only another few hours to see the war ended and a return trip home guaranteed; suddenly a bullet struck Amos, and he went down.

Lee surrendered to Grant that afternoon.

On June 21, the United States Army officially discharged Amos Fitzherbert at Baltimore. He went home crippled; his discharge certificate described his wound as a “gunshot wound of [the] right knee joint, causing subsequent amputation of the middle third of the

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Amos came home to Fort Fairfield as a mangled hero, but unlike his father, he did survive the war. The wound did not prevent Amos from flourishing afterwards; he apparently helped his mother on the Fitzherbert farm for some years before marrying Flora Barker on March 25, 1882. Justice of the Peace William Spear performed the wedding in Fort Fairfield. Flora was a niece of William Barker, Amos’ stepfather.

Ada Fitzherbert was born on September 25, six months after her parents married. Edith followed in November 1884, Ernest in September 1886, and Elmira in June 1890.

A heart attack killed Amos Fitzherbert on June 21, 1891, exactly 26 years after he left the Army. Six days later, Flora filed a Declaration for [a] Dependent Widow’s Pension because the last Fighting Fitzherbert of Fort Fairfield had passed into history. * Other businesses in this area are featured in the color section.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

Madawaska, Maine A little town with a lot of history

by Lois Muller

T

here is so much to be said about Maine. And even more to be said and written about Upper Aroostook County and the northeastern corner of the United States. Of course, all states have their history, adventures and stories studied in American history.

Having grown up on the west coast of California, my only memories of Maine were of lobster, light houses and Caribou (a funny name for a town). Oh yes, and Evangeline. That was a painful lesson on writing prose in English class.

Somehow, the real significance of the story was lost in the study. So, moving years later to Maine, learning about the Acadian story and Evangeline from a different perspective, there is so much

more to tell about Maine.

So allow me to share a little bit about the Madawaska Historical Society and the St. John River. The Historical Society was formed in 1978 by the persistence of Austin Wylie. Among those founding members were Geraldine Chasse, Bernette Albert, Blackie Cyr, Agnes Beaulieu, Rolande Levesque and Msg. Albert Long. That year in late June, The Madawaska Historical Society established an Acadian Festival to commemorate the arrival in 1785 of the early Acadians to the Valley. Since that time, each year on June 28th (or the Sunday closest to that date) a Mass is said at the St. David Church with a processional of families carrying their

banners with the family crest. The participants wear traditional Acadian attire as part of the celebration.

The Society sponsors a different family for a reunion at the Cross Landing site. This site is on the National Registry of Historic Places. The Acadian Cross is the symbolic memorial site for the earliest settlers who came by bateau on the St. John River to begin a new life. To remember those brave souls, a cross was placed near the river.

It was first made of wood, very rustic but significant to the travels of the earliest Acadians to settle in a primitive area north of Bangor, and Grand Falls, New Brunswick. (continued on page 46)

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

(continued from page 45)

Over the years, because of the harsh winters, the wooden cross was replaced several times until the Society created the present permanent Cross and rock wall in 1985. This lasting memorial was created by Romeo and Roland Daigle.

Today, this is a favorite gathering site for visitors, and a historic trail path for walkers and bikers. The Landing site is open to the public and there are many family plaques with a tree planted behind each to commemorate the early Acadian families.

This is the 412th year anniversary of the naming of the St. John River. In 1604 explorer Samuel de Champlain gave the river its current name. This year the Madawaska Historical Society celebrated this event with a bateau arriving at the Acadian Cross Landing site in St. David on June 24th. That is St. John the Baptist Day on the Christian calendar. Sadly, however, the bateau sprung a leak and had to be trailered to the Landing. Still the activity

was successful, and can be seen on a video on the local WOWL channel.

A log style building was made in 1969 by the Town of Madawaska for the Centennial celebrations. It was later donated to the Historical Society for use as a museum. It stands east of the St. David Church and rectory and is named the Tante Blanche Museum.

Here is where the Madawaska Historical Society Complex begins. The museum has genealogy books published by many of the families that have hosted family reunions. Numerous other books of historical significance and Acadian souvenirs are available there also.

If you are lucky, our resident historian and tour guide will be on site to share his vast knowledge on the artifacts, maps, and families of the Valley as he takes you through the complex buildings. Guy Dubay is a well published historian and extremely well

versed on the history of Madawaska and the St. John Valley Located behind the Tante Blanch Museum is the Madawaska School District #1, the first school. The school was moved to the complex in the 1970s after having been used for storage for many years. Bernette Albert rescued the building and it was moved to the present site. The Schoolhouse was constructed in 1870 by Eloi Cyr, with two exit doors, one for the girls and one for the boys. Several items are original to the school, including a map, and pictures of the Pledge of Allegiance, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Betsy Ross, proving the students of the Northern Valley were receiving an Americanized education. Some of the original books still there were copyrighted as early as the 1800s. The one room school was first located in St. David, and closed its doors in 1930 when the larger Evangeline School was built in Madawaska.

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MOOSESHACK Restaurant & Bar

Pizza, Subs & Moosellaneous Eat In or Take Out

~ Fully Insured / Free Estimates ~ ~ Years of Experience ~

SALES & INSTALLATION

Fully Insured

Furnaces • Boilers • Oil Tanks Water Heaters

Josh Babin President

CLEANING, SERVICE & REPAIR

Mitchell Dumond

Home: (207)543-5012 Cell: (207)316-8117

BUS: 207-543-5159 • CELL: 207-436-0178

St. Agatha, ME 04772

179 Bouchard Rd. • St. Agatha, ME 04772

st. peter’s

country store Groceries • Tulsa Gas • Oil Fishing Tackle • Live Bait ~ On ITS 83 ~

207-834-4444

Snowmobile Camp Rentals Hunting & Fishing Camp Rentals jules@fairpoint.net

76 East Main St. • Fort Kent, ME

3580 Caribou Rd. (Rt. 161) • Cross Lake, ME

Open Tues-Sun

Landscaping • Septics • Excavation Shale • Gravel • Loam • Snow Removal

834-5625

ROBBIE MORIN

PAVING

Residential • Commercial FREE ESTIMATES OWNER OPERATED 30 YEARS EXPERIENCE

834-6582 Fort Kent, ME

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

The next building is the Tool Shed, built in 2000 for storage of the many books acquired by the Society. The shed now houses many of the artifacts as there isn’t enough room in the museum. Even now, the shed could use an expansion. There are wooden plows, two-man saws, and a screwdriver tool to create circular holes in wood for joining wood parts together with pegs.

How hard the early families worked just to survive and grow food for their families.

The last and largest building is the Albert House. Four generations lived in the house; the last to live there was Fred Albert who died in 1970. The house was built and expanded at least one time, evidenced by differences in the structure on the north and south sides of the building. It was moved to the Complex from near the Madawaska County Court House on Main Street.

The Albert house is post and beam construction and has many original

NADEAU LOGGING, INC.

834-6338

18 First Avenue Fort Kent, Maine 04743

items on display. It was built in approximately 1840. The kitchen was a summer kitchen, and was not relocated when the house was moved. There are plans to rebuild the kitchen on the back side of the house and include handicap access to the building. The house once had two separate staircases with a wall dividing the upper floor. Once again — one for the girls, one for the boys. Original looms, spinning wheels, cradles, and other original furniture fill the living space. Additionally, many kitchen items are on display, including a butter press, numerous washing boards, and a shoe maker’s station with leather working tools.

Unlike the Acadian villages in Van Buren, Lafayette, Louisiana, and Caraquet,New Brunswick, the Tante Blanche Museum Complex is small, but equally significant. It rests on the upper flats of the St. John River, where the earliest Acadians settled on

DORIS’ CAFE

“The Valley’s Finest Home-Cooked Food”

Hours: Monday-Friday 5AM to 2PM (Serving Breakfast & Lunch) Saturday 5AM to 12 Noon (Serving Breakfast Only) Closed Sunday

Linda Daigle, Proprietor

834-6262 345 Market Street • Fort Kent Mills

both sides of the river. St. Basile, New Brunswick, is across the river, and before the river became the dividing line between the United States and Canada, the entire area was Madawaska. Families lived and worked together on both sides, and worshipped together on both sides. The St. John River was the highway, not a dividing line or boundary.

The Tante Blanche Museum Complex is open during the summer months from June through September. The Complex relies on donations, books and souvenir sales to continue its operations and to maintain a tour guide.

This is just a sampling of the many stories of history that are here in the St. John Valley to be shared and explored.

Travel north sometime and visit Madawaska, the northeastern most town in the United States. That’s another story to be told. Until next time . . . * Other businesses in this area are featured in the color section.

J.R.S.

FIREWOOD

834-4139 • 436-0841

Seasoned wood cut to any length or tree length Fort Kent, Maine ST. JOHN

Valley Rentals LLC.

Experience the thrill!

Snowmobile Rentals (207) 834-6310 • mikesandsons@yahoo.com Evening or Emergency: (207) 231-1202 545 Caribou Rd., Fort Kent, ME 04743

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

Early view of a saw mill in Fort Kent. Item # LB2007.1.100832 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

St. John Valley Realty Co.

DUBOIS’ GARAGE

8 East Main Street Fort Kent, Maine

(207) 834-6725

Real Estate • Rents • Management Michael Albert, Broker/Owner stjohnvalleyrealty.com

Fine Dining • Full Service Bar Delicious Pizza • Daily Specials Open Mon-Thu: 10:30am-8pm Fri-Sat: 10:30am-9pm • Sun: 8:30am-8pm

207-834-4445

MEC MET HANIC S A PAI L FAB • AUTO NTI • BO AU NG • SE TO DE DY RVI CE C TAIL ALL S

CODY DUBOIS

FORD CERTIFIED MECHANIC SERVICES ALL MAKES & MODELS

(207) 316-6325

271 Market Street • Fort Kent, ME

CODYDUBOIS5@HOTMAIL.COM 81 N PERLEY BROOK RD., FORT KENT, ME

JOHN’S SHURFINE FOOD STORE

NORTHEAST REMODELING

Tom & Jess Audibert

John Pelletier Carpenter

Fresh Cut Meats, Produce, Groceries, Gas, Subs, Pizza, Chester Fried Chicken, Lottery, Agency Liquor Store

For career opportunities, visit:

www.jdirving.com

Mon-Thu: 6am-9pm • Fri-Sat: 6am-10pm • Sun: 7am-9pm

REMODELING • METAL ROOFING NEW CONSTRUCTION • PAINTING VINYL SIDING • HARDWOOD FLOORING

207-834-5181 │ 207-834-6566

207-834-5259 • Cell: 207-316-7736

182 Market Street • Fort Kent, ME www.johnsshurfine.com

2304 St. John Rd. • St. John PLT, ME

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Early view of Main Street in Fort Kent. Item # LB2007.1.100839 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

Allagash Gardner Homestead St. John River Side Lodging

• Hunters • Fishermen • Snowmobilers

398-7700

7 Sugar Shack Rd. St. Francis, ME

~ All Season Vacationers ~

Book Your Stay Now 207-398-3378

Pizza • Subs • Groceries Fried Foods • Beer

133 Allagash Rd. • Allagash, ME 04774

Open 7 Days A Week!

Do You Enjoy Writing?

DESJARDINS LOGGING

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Do You Love History?

If so, give us a call.

We Are Always Looking for History writers to Contribute to our Magazine!

Discover Maine Magazine (207) 874-7720 • 1-800-753-8684

• General Trucking • Wood Contractor Soldier Pond, ME

BALD EAGLE Manager: Tom Roy Owners: John Martin & Gary Voisine

Lottery Tickets Tickets •• MEGABUCKS MEGABUCKS Grocery Grocery Items Items • Beer • Wine SodaSoda • Beer • Wine Prepared Prepared Sandwiches Sandwiches Sporting Goods Sporting Goods Propane • Diesel • Gas

Propane • Diesel • Gas

The Consistent Store The Consistent Store DAILY LUNCH SPECIALS!

DAILY LUNCH SPECIALS!

FULL SERVICE TAKEOUT 10AM-7PM FULL SERVICE TAKEOUT 10AM-7PM

MON-SAT 4:30am-10pm SUN 6am-10pm

444-5115

JD's: 444-3458 3318 Aroostook Road Eagle Lake, Maine

James Desjardins

207-834-5189

Convenient to ITS Trail

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot

Locals on Main Street in Eagle Lake. Item # LB2007.1.100550 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

Enjoy Discover Maine All Year!

Discover Maine Magazine is published eight times each year in regional issues that span the entire State of Maine. Each issue is distributed for pick up, free of charge, only in the region for which it is published.

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Directory of Advertisers

Business

Page

A&L Construction Inc. ....................................................15 A.N. Deringer, Inc. ...........................................................10 Alan Clair Building Contractor .........................................16 Albert Fitzpatrick ............................................................10 Allagash Gardner Homestead ........................................49 Allagash Roof Rakes ......................................................40 Anderson’s Store .............................................................42 Aroostook County Tourism ...............................................32 Aroostook Foam Insulation...............................................29 Aroostook Forest Services ..............................................42 Aroostook Hospitality Inn ..................................................30 Aroostook Real Estate .....................................................36 Art’s RV Repair & Service, Inc. ...........................................7 Ashland 1-Stop ................................................................18 Ashland Food Mart, Inc. ..................................................17 Avondale Kitchens .............................................back cover B.S. Carpentry .................................................................34 Babin Construction, Inc. ...................................................46 Bald Eagle .......................................................................49 Barresi Financial, Inc. ...................................................14 Bates Fuel, Inc. ................................................................11 Bear Paw Inn ...................................................................24 Ben’s Trading Post, LLC ...................................................25 Bob & Tom’s Gun Shop .......................................................6 Bob’s Alternative Energy Services Inc. ..........................15 Boondock’s Grille ............................................................31 Bouchard Country Store .................................................38 Bouchard Family Farm ....................................................38 Bowers Funeral Home ...................................................10 Brandon Berube Carpentry .............................................28 Briarwood Motor Inn ........................................................23 Buck Construction, Inc. ....................................................17 Budget Traveler Inn & Suites ..........................................30 Buffalo Ride-In Restaurant ...............................................28 Caribou Theatres .............................................................19 C&J Service Center ........................................................42 Caribou Vet Center ...........................................................41 Carol’s Creative Painting & Wallpapering ........................34 Caron & Son Paving ........................................................38 Cary Medical Center ........................................................33 Central Aroostook Chamber of Commerce ....................15 Chez Helen .....................................................................44 Clark’s Handyman Services .............................................18 Clark’s Variety ...................................................................9 Clay GMC-Chevrolet of Lincoln ........................................23 Coffin’s General Store ....................................................17 Cold Stream Storage ........................................................7 Colin Bartlett & Sons, Inc. ...................................................3 Collin Builders ..................................................................36 Complete Construction ....................................................11 Countryside Retreat, LLC ................................................44 County Abatement Inc. .....................................................3 County Electric ................................................................41 County Super Spuds .......................................................12 Countyqwik Print ............................................................32 Crandall’s Hardware ........................................................4 Crossroads Motel & Restaurant .......................................6 Crosswinds Residential Care ..........................................36 Crown Home & Building ....................................................10 Crown Park Inn ................................................................33 Cummings Health Care Facility, Inc. ...............................23 Cushman & Sons Inc. ......................................................27 Daigle & Houghton ...........................................................39 Dean’s Motor Lodge ........................................................31 Desjardins Logging .........................................................49 Dodo’s Market ................................................................41 Donahue’s Maintenance & Masonry ................................10 Doris’ Cafe .......................................................................47 Duane Thompson’s Masonry ............................................27 Dubois’ Garage ...............................................................48 East Grand Health Center ..................................................8 Ed Pelletier & Sons Co. ...................................................35 Elwood Downs Incorporated .............................................7 Enfield Citgo & Service Center ..........................................7 F.A. Peabody Company ....................................................3 Farms Bakery & Coffee Shop ..........................................41 First Choice Market & Deli ..............................................32 First Settler’s Lodge ........................................................24

Business

Page

Forest Diversity Services Inc. .........................................46 Fort Fairfield Chamber of Commerce ............................18 Frank Landry & Sons, Inc. .................................................8 Freightliner of Maine Inc. .................................................3 Gary Babin’s Groceries & Meats .....................................45 Gateway Motel ................................................................44 Gateway Variety ..............................................................29 Gerald Pelletier Inc. ........................................................22 Gerard Raymond ............................................................44 Gervais Fence ................................................................18 Giberson-Dorsey Funeral Home .....................................17 GJ Auto Body ................................................................43 Graves’ Shop ‘N Save Superstore ....................................16 Greater Fort Kent Area Chamber of Commerce .............47 Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce ........................11 Greater Madawaska Chamber of Commerce ..................45 Greenlaw Electric ...........................................................31 Griffeth Auto & Truck Dealership ....................................32 Ground Perfection Specialists Inc. ...................................15 H.C. Haynes, Inc. ............................................................7 Haines Manufacturing Co. Inc. .......................................17 Hampton Inn by Hilton .....................................................28 Hillside Apartments .........................................................44 Hogan Tire ......................................................................11 Home Town Fuels, Inc. .....................................................31 Huber Engineered Wood, LLC ........................................25 In-Home Care Personal Care Services .............................6 Inn of Acadia ...................................................................37 Irish Setter Pub ...............................................................13 Irving Forest Products ....................................................48 J. McLaughlin Construction, LLC ....................................24 J.R.S. Firewood ..............................................................47 JD Irving ..........................................................................48 Jerry’s Shurfine ................................................................8 John’s Shurfine Food Store .............................................48 Katahdin Health Care ........................................................6 Katahdin Valley Motel .......................................................8 Keith Mitchell & Sons Trucking .........................................8 Kerry Golding Construction ...............................................9 Kirkpatrick & Bennett Law Offices .................................19 Kitchen Talk from Avondale Kitchens ...............................5 Lancaster, Morgan, Duncan & Graves Funeral Homes .....3 Langille Construction, Inc. ..............................................34 Leisure Gardens ..............................................................26 Leisure Village .................................................................26 Levesque Business Solutions .........................................34 Limestone Maine Chamber of Commerce ......................19 Long Lake Motor Inn .......................................................38 Long Lake Sporting Club Restaurant ................................3 Longlake Construction ....................................................44 Louisiana Pacific Corp. ...................................................24 Lou’s Auto Service .........................................................41 LP Building Products ......................................................24 M. Rafford Construction ...................................................30 Madawaska Auto Parts ..................................................34 Madawaska Pharmacy, LLC .........................................34 Maine Cedar Specialty Products ........................................9 Maine Forest Service ......................................................24 Maine Historical Society ....................................................4 Maine Solar and Wind .....................................................39 Maine Warden Service ....................................................18 Mars Hill Pharmacy .........................................................12 Martin Acadian Homestead ...........................................45 Martin’s General Store ....................................................35 Martin’s Motel .................................................................35 McCain Foods ................................................................25 McGillan Inc. Earthwork Contractor ..................................18 McGlinn’s Plumbing & Heating ........................................16 Mike’s Quik Stop & Deli ....................................................32 Mill Bridge Restaurant ....................................................48 Millinocket House of Pizza ................................................4 Mitch’s Heating ...............................................................46 Mockler Funeral Home ...................................................42 Mooseshack Restaurant & Bar ......................................46 Nadeau Logging, Inc. ......................................................47 Nickerson Construction Inc. ...............................................9 North Country Auto .........................................................16 North Woods Real Estate ...............................................21

Business

51

Page

Northeast Applicators LLC ...............................................4 Northeast Propane .........................................................42 Northeast Remodeling ....................................................48 Northern Door Inn ...........................................................40 Northern Lights Motel .....................................................26 Northern Maine Veterans Cemetery Corporation ............41 Oakfield Railroad Museum ...............................................9 One Stop .........................................................................13 Overlook Motel & Lakeside Cottages ..............................39 Pat’s Pizza - Presque Isle ...............................................27 Penobscot Marine Museum ............................................20 Percy’s Auto Sales ........................................................15 Piper’s Carpentry ............................................................35 Portage Lake Cabins ......................................................18 Presque Isle Pharmacy ...................................................14 Presque Isle Snowmobile Club, Inc. ................................27 Randy Brooker General Contractor .................................31 Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. ......................22 Reliant Repair ..................................................................30 Rendezvous Restaurant ..................................................19 Ridgewood Estates ........................................................36 River’s Edge Motel ..........................................................22 Riverside Inn Restaurant ................................................14 RMJ Cash Plus ..............................................................26 Robbie Morin Paving .......................................................46 Robert Charette Home Improvements ...........................13 Robert Pelletier Building Contractor ...............................39 Rosette’s Restaurant ......................................................45 Rozco .............................................................................36 Russell-Clowes Insurance Agency, Inc. .........................19 S. Paradis & Son Garage .................................................45 S.O.B. Oil & Earthworks Co., LLC ......................................7 Sandra’s Kitchen & Pizza To Go ..................................45 Saucier’s Grocery ..........................................................43 Savage Paint & Body ......................................................24 Scootic In Restaurant ........................................................6 Scovil Apartments ...........................................................12 Scovil Building Supply, Inc. ............................................12 Service First Automotive .................................................13 Shallie’s Place ...............................................................12 Shaun R. Bagley Construction .........................................17 Shaw Financial Services .................................................12 Shear Delight ..................................................................14 Sleepy Hollow Storage ....................................................14 St. John Valley Chamber ................................................45 St. John Valley Pharmacy ...............................................39 St. John Valley Realty Co. ...............................................48 St. John Valley Rentals ....................................................47 St. Joseph’s Memory Care, Inc. ......................................36 St. Peter’s Country Store ................................................46 Stardust Motel ...............................................................25 Stewart’s Wrecker Service .............................................21 Storage Solutions ..........................................................13 Studio L5 Salon ..............................................................32 Sullivan’s Wrecker Service .............................................22 T.A. Service Center ..........................................................14 The Braden Theater ........................................................19 The Forum ......................................................................16 The Homestead Lodge ...................................................28 The Pioneer Place, USA ..................................................9 The Store on Sugar Shack Road ...................................49 Thomas W. Duff Financial Advisor .................................22 Tidd’s Sport Shop ...........................................................25 Town of Lincoln ...............................................................23 Town of Madawaska ......................................................35 Town of Mars Hill ..............................................................4 Tulsa, Inc. .........................................................................43 University of Maine Fort Kent .........................................38 Vacationland Inn .............................................................21 Vaillancourt Building .......................................................42 Van Buren Hardware .......................................................42 Village Acadien ...............................................................43 Village Car Wash .............................................................43 Vintage Maine Images .......................................................4 Visit Aroostook.com .........................................................32 White Smiles Family Dentistry .........................................29 Whited Truck & Auto Center .............................................29 York’s of Houlton .............................................................10

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Aroostook &~ Northern Penobscot ~ 2017 Aroostook & Northern Penobscot