2021 Aroostook & Northern Penobscot Counties

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Maine’s History Magazine Volume 30 | Issue 1 | 2021

15,000 Circulation

Aroostook & Northern Penobscot Counties

The Founding Of Aroostook Farm

Experimental farming at its best

The Pine Tree Trail Project

History wrapped in hope

Millinocket’s Stephen Groves World War II naval aviator

www.discovermainemagazine.com facebook.com/discovermaine

Aroostook & Northern Penobscot Counties

Inside This Edition

2

Maine’s History Magazine 3 It Makes No Never Mind

James Nalley Aroostook & Northern Penobscot Counties

4 The Pine Tree Trail Project History wrapped in hope

Robbie McKay

Publisher Jim Burch

Editor

Dennis Burch

8 Nixon’s Visit To Loring Air Base Mixed enthusiasm in troubled times

James Nalley

14 Fort Kent Travelogue How the BAR changed Aroostook County

Jeffrey Bradley

18 Madawaska’s Acadian Community

1820 census takers anglicized French surnames Brian Swartz

22 Caribou’s S.W. Matthews The labor commissioner favored river over rail

Brian Swartz

25 The Aroostook Basketball Train And the Caribou/Presque Isle rivalry

Brian Swartz

30 Defending The Maine Border Congress established a fort in Houlton to make the British behave Brian Swartz 34 The Founding Of Aroostook Farm

Experimental farming at its best

Charles Francis

38 Millinocket’s Stephen Groves World War II naval aviator James Nalley

Design & Layout Liana Merdan

Advertising & Sales Dennis Burch Tim Maxfield

Advertising & Sales Manager Tim Maxfield

Distribution Manager Diane Nute

Field Representatives Jim & Diane Nute Don Plante

Contributing Writers Jeffrey Bradley Charles Francis Robbie McKay

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 Discover Maine Magazine is distributed to town offices, chambers of commerce, financial institutions, fraternal organizations, barber shops, beauty salons, hospitals and medical offices, newsstands, grocery and convenience stores, hardware stores, lumber companies, motels, restaurants and other locations throughout this part of Maine.

NO PART of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from CreMark, Inc. | Copyright © 2021, CreMark, Inc.

SUBSCRIPTION FORMS ON PAGE 42

Front Cover Photo: Houlton House & W.F. Mott in Houlton. Item # LB2007.1.101051 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and 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

A

by James Nalley

side from individual changes, the traditional Thanksgiving dinner generally includes a large roast turkey/ham, mashed/sweet potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and cranberry sauce. As for cranberries, they are one of only three commercially grown fruits native to the United States (the other two being blueberries and concord grapes). As to why these berries have become a staple at Thanksgiving, we can only speculate. According to Joanna Fantozzi at Insider.com, “Native Americans were known to eat cranberries regularly and use them as a natural dye for clothing, so they were most likely found on Thanksgiving Day in 1621.”

Initial reports of a Native American cranberry sauce recipe (made with sugar and water) date back to the late 17th century, after which it was regularly paired with game meat. However, as stated by “The Washington Post,” “The first acknowledgment of a cranberry sauce recipe can be found in the 1796 cookbook ‘American Cookery’

by Amelia Simmons, which calls for serving roast turkey with boiled onions and cranberry sauce.”

By the early 19th century, cranberry farmers were dry harvesting the berries from vines, which was difficult and

time-consuming. However, according to Fantozzi, “It wasn’t until Ocean Spray reinvented the cranberry game in the 1930s by introducing the wet harvest (known by the popular image of a farmer standing up to his waist in a cranberry-topped bog) that cranberries became commercially viable.” Moreover, although the typical bag of cranberries boiled in sugar and water makes a delicious sauce, Ocean Spray found two ways to deal with the cranberries damaged from mechanical harvesting: 1) Turn them into jelly and sell them in cans; and 2) Sell them as juice.

For those who dislike cranberries, keep in mind that they are considered a “superfood.” According to “Medical News Today,” they offer many health benefits. First, due to their high level of antioxidant proanthocyanidins (PACs), they are effective for treating urinary tract infections (UTIs). Second, the polyphenols contained in cranberries may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, by improving the regulation of blood sugar and increasing the levels of HDL lipoprotein. Third, a 2016 review of 34 pre-clinical studies showed that cranberries slow the growth or trigger the death of cancer cells. Finally, cranberries have been shown to prevent bacteria from binding to the teeth, thus

preventing long-term gum disease.

Well, on this note, let me close with the following jest: New to the country and not knowing a word of English, Jonas got a job at a fruit stand. The manager told him, “Look, you only have to know three phrases. If they ask, ‘How much are the cranberries?’ then you say, ‘$5 a pound.’” “If they ask if they’re ripe, then you say, ‘Some are, some aren’t.’” If they say they don’t want to buy any, then you say, ‘If you don’t, then someone else will.’” After practicing a dozen times, the manager leaves Jonas alone.

Soon after, a customer asks, “How much are the cranberries?” Jonas says, “Five dolla a pound.” The guy asks if they are ripe, after which Jonas says, “Sum dey are, sum dey aren’t.” The guys say, “No thanks,” after which Jonas replies, “If you don’t, sum body else will.” The guy shakes his head and leaves. Then, another customer asks for the time. Jonas replies, “Five dolla a pound.” The guy looks confused and asks, “Is your whole family crazy like this?” Jonas replies, “Sum dey are, sum dey aren’t.” The guy gets angry and says, “Buddy, do you WANT me to punch you in the face?” Jonas replies, “If you don’t, sum body else will.”

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The Pine Tree Trail Project History wrapped in hope

by Robbie McKay

O

n a cold, spring day in 2012, a man carefully walked along a town line in a small Aroostook County township. As something caught his eye, he bent to examine the object further. He tugged firmly and a rusted piece of metal jutting from the bed of leaves, rocks, and soil where it had made its home for decades broke free. Brushing it off, he realized he had found an old, embossed road sign, riddled with bullet holes from midnight riders who had traveled the road years before. Clutching his find to his chest, the man made his way across the frozen ground to the house on the homestead. There, the sign remained a wall

hanging until curiosity motivated him to dig some more; this time, however, the digging was done into Maine’s history... and what he found could potentially impact the state for generations to come.

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Nathan Nipula of Molunkus Township had no idea that spring day that the old sign he rescued from its lonely grave had the potential to impact uncountable lives in the future. The sign is an elongated octagon with embossed lettering that reads Pine Tree Trail. The sign also, curiously, has the image of a pine tree at the center. The old paint pattern on the reverse side shows the colors of white and hunter green as well as two holes (top and bottom) where the sign was fastened to its post.

When Nipula began researching the sign, he was unable to find very much information about the Pine Tree Trail in Maine. Contacting the Secre-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com tary of State’s office, he was informed that they had no information on it either. As Nipula continued digging into this evolving mystery, Maine’s history revealed a story of good intentions gone astray by forces beyond the state’s control.

After the Great Depression, leaders in the state were looking at ways to draw more people to the entire state, and they knew tourism worked. In 1936, Vacationland appeared for the first time on Maine’s license plates. In 1937, the Maine Legislature introduced legislation to create the Pine Tree Trail in the Pine Tree State: MAINE STATE LEGISLATURE PINE TREE TRAIL - AN ACT AS PASSED BY THE Eighty-eighth Legislature OF THE STATE OF MAINE 1937 Chapter 43: AN ACT Designating a Certain Road as “Pine Tree Trail.”

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine, as follows: “Pine Tree Trail” designated. The road leading

from Portland through Auburn, Lewiston, Winthrop, Augusta, Belgrade, Oakland, Waterville, Pittsfield, Newport, Bangor, Orono, Old Town, Lincoln, Mattawamkeag, and Macwahoc, Route A from Macwahoc to Houlton by way of Haynesville Route B-from Macwahoc to Houlton by way of Island Falls, from Houlton to Mars Hill,-Route A from Mars Hill to Fort Kent by way of Presque Isle, Caribou, and Van Buren-Route B-from Mars Hill by way of Ft. Fairfield, Limestone and Van Buren, is hereby designated as the “Pine Tree Trail.” Approved March 29, 1937.

One can only imagine the excitement and hope this must have given people as they struggled to recover from the years they had just spent in financial misery. Pine Tree Trail signs were installed, but then everything came to a standstill when the United States entered World War II. Supporting the war effort and our troops became the total focus of Maine’s people. By the time

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the war was over, the state had decided to form the Maine Turnpike Authority and create an interstate highway system. The Pine Tree Trail was forgotten in history before it had its chance to shine.

With the discovery of the sign, Nipula decided to bring back the history of the route and recreate what had been envisioned years ago. The Pine Tree Trail Project is endeavoring to bring back the nearly 500- mile automobile trail which originally ran from Portland to Fort Kent. Eventually Nipula wants to extend the route to Kittery as old maps and road atlases of the day show the Trail along that route as well.... another mystery!

Nipula held an informational meeting with legislators and the director of tourism in February and was pleased with the response he received. An attendee of the meeting dubbed the Project “Maine’s own Route 66.” (cont. on page 6)

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(cont. from page 5) Following that session, Nipula met with the Secretary of State, Matt Dunlap, who told him that the legislation was the “law of the land” and that the Department of Transportation had better get right on that. Secretary Dunlap also told the Bicentennial Commission about the Project and they loved the idea. It seemed that as it was Maine’s 200th birthday, it would be the perfect time to launch the Project.

Things were progressing nicely until the outbreak of Covid-19. For obvious reasons, meetings were out of the question, so the introduction of the Trail Project is being done by staff through social media, phone calls, and team building. Beginning in Aroostook County, town and city officials that were contacted were extremely excited about it. Despite the virus, progress is being made.

One of the first things that Nipula says needs to be done is to gather the funds to get the entire route signed once

Nathan Nipula is shown at the site where the original sign was found which he is holding along with the recreated version.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com again. Other ways to be able to navigate the trail will be via travel maps and social media apps. Businesses will benefit by the purchase of products and services from the people who will travel the trail. With the demand for more products and services, job creation will be another added benefit. Municipalities can showcase their town and its attractions as well as offer links to nonprofits in their area so visitors may make donations as they see fit while they travel.

When people “Leave the I and travel the Trail,” they will experience Maine’s longest historic auto-trail: approximately 500 miles in length and connecting over 100 communities on the trail from the coast to the crown. For more information, visit Pine Tree Trail’s Custom Creations LLC on Facebook, on the web at pinetreetrail.com, email at thegreatnorthwoods@hotmail.com or call 207-765-3383.

n a cold, spring day in 2012, a man carefully walked along a town line in a small Aroostook County township. As something caught his eye, he bent to examine the object further. He tugged firmly and a rusted piece of metal jutting from the bed of leaves, rocks, and soil where it had made its home for decades broke free. Brushing it off, he realized he had found an old, embossed road sign, riddled with bullet holes from midnight riders who had traveled the road years before. Clutching his find to his chest, the man made his way across the frozen ground to the house on the homestead. There, the sign remained a wall hanging until curiosity motivated him to dig some more; this time, however, the digging was done into Maine’s history...and what he found could potentially impact the state for A large cemetery overlooking the town of Fort Kent. generations come.

Item to # 1977.55.113.4 from the Carroll Thayer Berry Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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Nixon’s Visit To Loring Air Base Mixed enthusiasm in troubled times

by James Nalley

D

uring the Cold War, new U.S. Air Force bases were built along the northern border of the United States, since the most direct routes to the Soviet Union for aircraft and long-range missiles were through the Arctic Circle. Among the numerous sites, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers selected a location near Limestone.

Originally named Limestone Army Airfield, it was changed to Loring Air Force Base in 1954, after Charles Loring Jr., a U.S. Air Force Medal of Honor recipient. The most important benefit of the base was that it was several hundred miles closer than any other base to potential targets in Europe. Naturally, the

base became of symbol of U.S. air superiority and a suitable publicity stop for then-President Richard Nixon. However, like other divisive periods in history, there are two sides to every story.

On the one hand, on July 3, 1974, President Nixon stopped at Loring Air Force following a summit in Moscow, where he and Leonid Brezhnev had signed the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited the testing of nuclear devices with a yield exceeding 150 kilotons. This “threshold” was militarily important because it removed the possibility of testing new (or existing) nuclear weapons beyond the fractional-megaton range. With his pending

arrival, excitement increased at the base. According to the article, Nixon Visit Causes a Stir at Isolated Maine Base (July 4, 1974) by The New York Times, “Painters swarmed all over Loring Air Force Base, civilians with rollers covering every surface in sight, and long-haired young men touching up the faded signs that warned of guard dogs patrolling the perimeters of this large Strategic Air Command outpost plopped down here among the potato fields.” Moreover, “A red carpet was ordered for President Nixon’s arrival and a special set of stairs for disembarking Air Force One was flown in.

Hundreds of airmen, including at least

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com one lieutenant, prowled the grass with plastic sacks picking up scraps of paper and cigarette butts. Roads were resurfaced and mowers chopped through the long grass. Last night, an airplane even sprayed against insects.”

At the time, the President’s arrival was billed as a “major address” and an official “news event.” In his speech in front of approximately 5,000 people crammed in a double-cantilever aircraft hangar, Nixon focused on the importance of the treaty. As stated by The New York Times, “There was a loyal cheering crowd, mostly composed of Air Force personnel and their families, members of the Caribou High School Band, with their plumed hats and Viking mascot symbols, and a pool of network television cameras.”

Among those that were present was then-band director Kenneth Matthews of the Caribou High School Marching Band. According to the article, Former Band Director Remembers Nixon Visit (cont. on page 10)

Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon in 1973.

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(cont. from page 9) (April 27, 1994) by the Bangor Daily News, “He stepped off Air Force One and went right over to the band. He was very much interested in meeting the individual members.” In addition, “The band members seemed equally as interested in meeting the President on his first stop on American soil. The kids were so flattered to meet him, and I had a lot of confidence in Nixon.”

President and Mrs. Nixon were welcomed home by Vice President Gerald Ford, who flew from Washington, D.C. for the occasion. In Ford’s welcome speech, he praised Nixon’s efforts by stating, “What better way could the American people celebrate our 198th Fourth of July than with the assurance you bring that our world is a little safer and saner tonight than it was when you left. Your strategy for peace has been bold, but never rash, courageous but never foolhardy, tough but never rude,

gentle but never soft. I cannot escape the conclusion that the Biblical injunction, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ has been confirmed.”

On the other hand, there was little discussion of the President’s stopover outside of the air base, with equally limited enthusiasm. According to The New York Times, “Last night, the budget committee met in the town offices above the firehouse to discuss one of their major problems: a police car that keeps breaking down. After the meeting, a few remained to discuss the President’s visit and there was general agreement that the inquiry into impeachment of Mr. Nixon was going on too long. As Ben Gallagher stated, ‘It is costing too much…St. Clair isn’t getting any $25 a day’ for his work.” Meanwhile, Horace Edgecomb maintained that “If the President was doing it for the good of the country, then he should have kept on

doing it!” However, Phil Perry protested and stated, “But, we never had such things before, breaking into offices and stealing from safes!” Eventually, June Noyes, the town clerk, concluded that “They are just dragging this thing out and it’s bad for the country. It is just terrible that the children are losing respect for the Presidency. We’re tired of it and it’s not helping the country.”

On the night of August 8, 1974, with impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate all but certain, Nixon took to the airwaves and delivered an address in which he announced his decision to resign the following morning.

Apparently, his attempts to get past the impeachment process with a pair of successful diplomatic trips (i.e., the Moscow summit and the meeting with then-President Anwar Sadat in Egypt) were not enough to save him from his troubles at home.

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Methodist parsonage in Caribou. Item # LB2007.1.104752 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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The U.S. Custom House in Madawaska. Item # LB2007.1.101312 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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The Fish River in Fort Kent, ca. 1920. Item # 6801 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Fort Kent Travelogue How the BAR changed Aroostook County

by Jeffrey Bradley

A

roostook County, bigger than Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, is filled with natural riches. Dense stands of forest yield bountiful timber, while from the good earth, Maine’s famous potatoes sprout.

Yet getting it to market proved daunting; not much came or went from this isolated place.

Enter the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad.

The transformative “BAR”, as it came to be called, was a late comer to American railroading. Yet it caught up rapidly; by the turn of the 20th century rails were already extending from Bangor to Canada, with branch lines popping up seemingly overnight.

Product flowing from this cornucopia to the world’s far-flung markets brought an amazing prosperity. Migrants influxing into the new mills and factories to help process and transit the massive amounts of material rolling over the shiny new rails found lodging in towns and hamlets that appeared as if by magic along the line. Paper mills especially proliferated, although promoters were careful to extol the region’s pristine nature; BAR even published a magazine designed to lure the “worldly rich” into the woods! Everywhere commerce swelled with a new-found pride and Aroostook County stood at its height, all thanks to the railroad.

Hard beside the St John’s River,

sleepy Fort Kent was thrown into a turmoil. Rails emanating from or terminating in town formed a tapestry of spidery lines weaving throughout the county and into Canada. With three new stations and a bustling train yard it seemed the world had finally, by 1913, arrived at Fort Kent’s doorstep. In time the stylish passenger liners Aroostook Flyer and Potatoland Special would put big city destinations and even the coast within easy reach — a remarkable feat considering the minuscule population inhabiting this northernmost region.

One faded era postcard shows a string of impressive passenger coaches entering a station during the golden glow of evening.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Although at the tip of an extension — the trunk line came roundabout ways from Van Buren — Fort Kent eventually offered three directions of outbound travel: a passenger might embark west and enter Canada via the bridge at St Francis; over the main line looping back along the scenic river to Van Buren for points east and beyond; or along the most directly southerly route on the Ashland Branch Extension, the old Fish River Railroad, perhaps the best known of them all.

Envisioned as a parallel shortcut through the wilderness to Fort Kent beside the roily Fish River, construction costs were borne by enthusiastic subscription when BAR initially balked at the prospect. In a time before trucks, planes, or even reliable roads, horsedrawn conveyance proved too cumbersome and the rivers far too wild to permit predictable travel. The railroad, with its schedules and timetables and no-nonsense approach brought an orga-

nization local business appreciated and they quickly hopped aboard.

It also brought the daily mail, a real novelty.

By the summer of 1901 nearly two thousand hard-working Italians who spoke little English were laboring to finish the fifty-two mile stretch in under a year. Lacking interpreters, the company employed a simple stratagem to pay them: they would present a small brass token inscribed with a number!

BAR reconsidered and one year later bought the line lock, stock and barrel and renamed it the Ashland Branch Extension.

Surveying and hewing a railroad through these “wildlands” seem dubious, especially given the rugged terrain and lack of modern equipment, but it was not. As disagreeably dangerous as the process of building a railroad by hand and dynamite could be, by 1900 it was well understood. Some 200,000 miles of track had already been laid that

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way in this country alone. Besides, two steam-belching diggers were on hand to assist them. A grainy photograph shows the clanky duo deep in the woods hard at work grading a cut.

As the line proceeded piecemeal, in many places at once, coordination was essential; even as the tracks were going down the telegraph lines were going up to ensure good communication. It also doubled the workload, making this among the last big labor-intensive projects of the early 20th century.

Time was always of the essence, so teamwork was key. Men were assigned to different details to perform different duties: those, for example, finishing grading the embankment worked just a step ahead of the two-man crews rushing to precisely align the heavy wooden ties that supported the rails; next came the gangs of roughnecks bearing tongs who seized and moved forward the prodigious lengths of rail placed on the (cont. on page 16)

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot Counties

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(cont. from page 15) ties; after them were the sledgehammer wielders who drove home the iron spikes that secured the rails to the ties.

Meanwhile a flatcar, pushed by a chuffing steam locomotive, followed closely behind bearing all the supplies for carrying the process on up the line — an altogether boisterous, impressive, manly affair of raw muscle power that could sometimes resemble ballet.

Amid this blend of science and art the lowly wheelbarrow was king. Impatient of anything that did not keep schedule, sharp-eyed foremen closely monitored the proceedings, no doubt with watch-fob in hand. An engineering manual of the time estimated a man “could trundle a wheelbarrow at a rate of 250 ft. per minute” at about 2¼ minutes a trip, including time for “adjusting wheeling planks and rests”—meaning that no lollygagging was permitted

on this job, and make no mistake about it! It also noted the life of a wheelbarrow was “very short.”

One odd old photo depicts a Charlie Chaplin like figure tramping along the tracks toting a weeding spade.

Mainers learned how to engineer their railroads by changing the landscape. Practicality was found to have its limits: grading those crucial embankments certainly required more than just a level eye! Still, no enterprising Yankee worth his salt could resist such an enterprise and, besides, what today we call “exploitation” was back then known as progress.

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A surveying crew in Madawaska. Item # 5424 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Madawaska’s Acadian Community 1820 census takers anglicized French surnames

by Brian Swartz

D

uring the first United States census taken after Maine became a state on March 15, 1820, English-speaking census takers enumerated the people living on the American side (i.e., the south bank) of the upper St. John River. Madawaska was the largest settlement.

After the census takers finished their work, the 1820 census indicated “there are 55 distinct family names for 1171 souls,” wrote the Rev. Charles W. Collins in The Acadians of Madawaska.

“The names are given as the census takers took them down, often with a startling disregard for French orthography,” Collins gently noted.

Not so Lawrence Violette. “The

American census takers murdered some of the French names,” he thundered in How the Acadians Came to Maine — and any Maine genealogist who has ever struggled to translate a particular census taker’s wretched handwriting can appreciate how the “Maine” Acadians felt after the 1820 nose counting.

After all, how many ways could someone spell the monosyllabic surname “Cyr”?

First settling along the upper St. John River in summer 1785, Acadians lived under British jurisdiction until the United States paid attention to the region. With the District of Maine’s northern boundary undefined by the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Massachusetts

claimed that Maine’s border extended almost to the St. Lawrence River.

If so, then the upper St. John Valley lay fully within American jurisdiction.

The federal government wanted to know how many of its “citizens” lived along the river, so “in order to assert its jurisdiction on Madawaska, the United States undertook to take the census in the entire area,” according to Violette.

The 1820 census identified 148 families and 1,171 people living along the St. John River’s south bank, claimed Violette. Collins identified two surnames as English, Nathan Baker and Francis Carney, with the latter’s surname “familiar to English ears.”

Violette disagreed and stated that

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Collins “was fooled by the name of Francis Carney … which was the anglicized name of Francois Cormier.”

Violette mentioned the corruption of specific names. “Jean Baptiste Cyr is John Beltishire,” he wrote, and “David le Sourd became David Lewsure, nickname of David Cyr. Benjamin Boucher became Barnum Buschiere.” Pity poor “Anselm Albert,” his name phonetically changed to “Handsome All Bear.”

And then there was “Honore Levasseur,” which became “Honerd Lerassus,” Violette noted.

How the “English” ears of American census takers could so misinterpret French surnames makes no sense today, but throughout the 19th century, census takers often anglicized difficult-to-pronounce European names.

Of Irish extraction, Collins offered an excuse for the 1820 census aberrations. “It may be presumed that the census man knew how to spell English names, and the other names in this list

are so atrociously misspelled that one is justified in assuming that they were foreign to his ears,” he wrote.

So Alevey Thibodeau (whose household contained eight people) became “Tibedore,” and Joseph Mercure (a single man) became “Markure,” an almost Germanic spelling. Jeremiah Dube saw his last name rendered as “Dubey,” and Loron Cyr (with 12 people living in his home) became “Sear.”

Ironically Elecis and Joseph Cyr saw their surnames correctly recorded as “Cyr” — but other Cyrs saw their surnames recorded as “Cyer” or “Sier.”

All the Theriaults (among them Francis with six people at home, plus Simon and the other nine people in his household) became “Tareos” or “Tarrios,” indicating that the census taker wrote down what his Anglo-Saxon ears heard, rather than asking the heads of households to spell their surnames.

The several Violettes (a spelling common in Maine today) became “Vi-

olets,” like the flower, and the several Daigles became “Daggle” or “Dogle.”

Arguably the census takers working the upper St. John participated in a boondoggle. How else to explain that Joseph Michaud became Joseph “Mashaw”? Or that Joseph Audette was renamed Joseph “Adyet”?

Louis Ouellett saw his name anglicized to “Lewis Willet.” A census taker decided a Nadeau was a “Nadard” or a “Nedar” or a “Nedow,” and a Doucette became a “Dusett.” Counting 27 people between their three households, Nicholas, and Augustus and yet another Nicholas saw their shared surname recorded as “Peltiere,” a derivative of “Pelletier.”

Then there were the four Crocks — David, Alexander, Peter, and Jeremiah — whose surname sounds non-French, but Collins thought otherwise. He wondered “if the name Crock is identified with Cyr,” and Lawrence Violette did (cont. on page 20)

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(cont. from page 19) not disagree while writing his book in 1951.

After the 1820 American census, French-speaking inhabitants of the upper St. John Valley retained their traditional surnames among themselves despite the anglicized misspellings.

Economically oriented for several decades toward New Brunswick and to a lesser extent toward Quebec, Valley residents remained geographically isolated from Maine.

The Webster-Ashburton Treaty politically transformed people living on the St. John’s south bank into Mainers and Americans. Change would come, especially in governance, which affected public education, infrastructure, and other aspects of Valley life.

But French surnames would remain French, no matter what the census takers recorded.

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot Counties

22

Caribou’s S.W. Matthews The labor commissioner favored river over rail

by Brian Swartz

W

hile many Aroostook County residents eagerly awaited the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad’s arrival in the County in 1890, the former publisher of the Caribou-based The Aroostook Republican cautioned loggers and timber barons against abandoning their traditional method for moving logs to market.

S.W. Matthews had launched the paper in 1880 and blended local, national, and international news in the eight-page weekly. Then in 1887 the Maine Legislature established the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics (the forerunner to Maine’s Department of Labor} and approved Matthews as the state’s first labor commissioner.

He took “over the task of gathering statistical data” about labor and manufacturing and wrote the bureau’s “first annual report,” according to History of the Bureau of Labor and Industry 1974.

Matthews’ initial report explained the purpose of the bureau and stressed that it “could not become involved in questions of strife, wages, etc.” He kept his mouth shut about owner-labor struggles, meticulously published the facts and not his opinions, and won sufficient respect that subsequent governors retained him as labor commissioner into the 20th century.

But Aroostook County remained near and dear to his heart, and when investors funded the B&A, Matthews

saw its advantages and disadvantages.

However, he favored the timberland owners interested in maximizing their investments, and those men did not want a railroad.

In Augusta, the legislature was considering repealing a lumber law specific to Aroostook County, too. The repeal would not benefit landowners who “with few exceptions, [had] been opposed to the development of Aroostook and the building of a direct line of railroad,” commented the Republican’s new owners in April 1890. County residents wanted lumber-manufacturing jobs and “the vacant lands occupied by settlers.”

A railroad would bring both.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Writing to The Aroostook Republican, Matthews laid out his concerns about the railroad coming to the County. Ironically, his letter ran alongside a W.F. Sleeper history piece titled “History of the Aroostook River Railroad,” an existing line connecting with the New Brunswick Railroad at the border.

The 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty guaranteed that people living in Maine and New Brunswick could freely navigate the St. John River “and its tributaries,” thus the river theoretically belonged to the United States and Great Britain, Matthews reasoned.

With no railroad connecting Aroostook to American markets, timberland owners along the Allagash, Fish, and St. John rivers had “no other way by which lumber may be got to market” other than running their logs along the St. John into New Brunswick. There, sawmills “owned or leased” by Americans cut the logs into lumber, noted Matthews.

Scalers calculated the board feet in Aroostook-harvested logs and submitted notarized manifests to the loggers paying stumpage fees to the landowners. Matthews estimated that getting logs “to the boundary line” (a County term for the international border) cost $4 per 1,000 board feet. “This is all paid out” in Maine, he noted, and even loggers hired from New Brunswick to work in Aroostook County spent “a large sum of money” there “for labor and supplies.”

The Republican’s owners argued that when the Canadians “are paid off here … when they return home their money goes with them.”

According to Matthews, running logs from the Canadian border to downriver mills cost “about three dollars per thousand” board feet. While County businessmen would rather “see this money expended” in Maine, how could “Aroostook lumbermen” compete with their counterparts elsewhere

“if deprived of cheap water transportation?”

An in-state railroad offered another route to American markets — and obviously not just for lumber. But Matthews asked if shipping lumber by rail would be as inexpensive as by the St. John.

“Without the water way as a check upon the railroads, even if adequate railroad facilities were provided, the [lumber] manufacturer would soon find his occupation gone,” Matthews argued.

“What Aroostook needs … is not destruction of what facilities she has, but to retain what she has and open new and competing lines of transportation,” he believed.

Switching gears, Matthews admitted that with the railroad, “many [saw] mills will spring up along its line, and much of the Aroostook lumber will thus be manufactured at home.” However, County lumbermen should still rely on (cont. on page 24)

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(cont. from page 23) the St. John River “as a check upon any railroad corporation.”

Matthews pointed out what Aroostook landowners already knew. The County had “no monopoly of spruce and other kinds of lumber” and could “only sell its lumber in the market by getting it there as cheaply as it can be obtained as elsewhere.”

Then, as now, transportation costs impacted selling Aroostook products, including lumber and potatoes. Matthews argued that “when mills to manufacture lumber of Aroostook have been built, or guaranteed, and … some railroad has reached its great rivers,” only then could lumbermen know what the railroad would charge for transporting County lumber to markets downstate and out of state.

Only at that point “can we reasonably ask and expect it [lumber] to be manufactured at home,” he believed.

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The Aroostook State Normal School, a facility for training teachers, in Presque Isle, ca. 1930. Item # 6572 from the collections of the MaineHistorical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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The Aroostook Basketball Train And the Caribou/Presque Isle rivalry

by Brian Swartz

W

hen some two hundred fans accompanied their vaunted Caribou High School team to Presque Isle that Friday, they rode the Aroostook basketball train to and from the game.

In January of 1915 County observers had noted the unusual weather, “the most temperate in the memory of the ‘oldest inhabitant,’” a local newspaper reported. The unexpected thaw had made travel easier on the Aroostook Valley Railroad, an electric railroad begun in 1909 by Aroostook County businessman Arthur R. Gould.

Not quite an electric trolley, definitely not a long-haul railroad, the Aroos-

took Valley Railroad originally extended eleven miles northwest along the Aroostook River from Presque Isle to Washburn. Gould wanted to move logs down-river to his Aroostook Lumber Co. in Presque Isle. On July 1, 1902 he gained approval from the Maine Railroad Commission to create his railroad, but not for another seven years could Gould overcome the financial and legal obstacles to building the Aroostook Valley Railroad.

When he started construction, however, he moved fast. After the winter of 1909-10 suspended activity, construction resumed with the spring thaw.

Within a few hours after the Maine

Railroad Commission certified the Aroostook Valley Railroad as “safe” on June 20, 1910, Gould ordered the trains to roll. He scheduled the grand opening for July 1st.

During the intervening ten days, the Aroostook Valley Railroad carried 17,292 passengers, a hefty number when, according to Aroostook Valley Railroad, “the total population of the area that the railroad would serve was only a little over five thousand.” Gould obviously knew the Aroostook Valley Railroad could not depend on passenger traffic for its economic success, but 17,292 ticket-buying customers? Not bad for ten days’ work! (cont. on page 26)

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(cont. from page 25) The Aroostook Valley Railroad officially rumbled into Washburn on July 1st. According to the Star Herald, the event marked “a red-letter day for ...

Washburn. The electric road was formally opened, and A.R. Gould was presented with a fine service of silver by the citizens of the town.”

Competing with the main-line Bangor & Aroostook Railroad, Gould soon extended the Aroostook Valley Railroad to Caribou and Sweden, a village in New Sweden. He envisioned extending the line one hundred and eleven miles west to connect with the Quebec Central Railway, but that dream never came to fruition.

Designed to haul freight, the Aroostook Valley Railroad garnered passenger traffic in unprecedented numbers.

The Aroostook Valley Railroad Co. Bulletin #65, dated November 1946, estimated the “average number of passengers carried each day” on the Aroos-

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took Valley Railroad at “six hundred to seven hundred twenty or more years ago,” a mid-1920s timeframe. “The advent of the hard road” wiped clean the passenger traffic slate, according to Bulletin #65, with service dropped to New Sweden in the 1930s, but from 1910 to then, County residents liked their electric railroad.

The line was particularly handy in cold weather, always evident during an Aroostook winter. Instead of struggling into Caribou or Presque Isle to shop or work on blustery January mornings, people could hop a ride on the Aroostook Valley Railroad.

From concert-goers to opera-lovers and basketball fans, riding the Aroostook Valley Railroad proved a godsend on a bitter winter’s day. Friday, January 29, 1915, was such a day when organizers rolled the Aroostook basketball train into Caribou.

Throughout the long winter, as

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Mother Nature thawed and refroze the Country that January, basketball rivalries dominated talk around the pot-belly stoves in local stores, churches, and saloons. Eighty years ago, County teams battled each other as hard as they do now — and the intense cross-line rivalry between Caribou and Presque Isle was no exception.

The two schools were locked in a virtual tie for first place in their County league. The game on January 29th would decide “where the championship of the league would go,” the press reported, so Caribou and Presque Isle fans turned out in earnest for the ballyhooed game.

While the Presque Isle fans would travel, at most, a few miles to the game, Caribou fans — especially those living in the built-up portion of the city — faced a daunting prospect — deep County cold.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Canada had frozen the thaw. By sunset, the outside temperature probably hovered around zero as high pressure built across Maine from Quebec. Anyone traveling from Caribou to Presque Isle in a horse-drawn conveyance had better be bundled up.

Fortunately, the Caribou High supporters had organized an Aroostook basketball train. About suppertime, the two hundred-strong fans trooped to the West Caribou Station, boarded the passenger cars, and enjoyed a 1,200volt ride — the power supplied to the Aroostook Valley Railroad’s overhead wires — to Washburn and on to Presque Isle.

Fans turned out in the biting cold for a less than well-fought game. “The game was witnessed by a large and enthusiastic crowd, each side cheering their favorites,” the press reported on Monday. But the Caribou boys apparently did not encounter any real competition, as the second half would reveal.

The teams played hard during the first half, with Caribou leading Presque Isle 37-20 at halftime. What the Caribou coach said to his boys out of hearing remains a mystery, unless he suggested the “stall-ball” routine perfected some seventy years later by Bob Cimbollek, the John Bapst Memorial High School coach. During his between-halves conference, the Presque Isle coach probably encouraged his players to come out hard and score often. If he did, he wasted his breath.

The reporter who entrained to Presque Isle with the Caribou supporters was not impressed by either team’s second-half performance. “The second half was unproductive of runs for the visitors,” he recorded, indicating the Caribou boys weren’t really trying to score.

They needn’t do so. “The Presque Isle team piled up a couple of couples — 1915 jargon for ‘a couple of two-pointers’ — making the final score

37-24,” the reporter wrote.

Caribou did not score a single point in the second half. Presque Isle scored only four. Not exactly an exciting basketball game even by those far-away standards.

The win “practically assured the pennant will come to Caribou,” so the other league teams, including Presque Isle, would battle for second place. Presque Isle fans trudged or road home in the rising wind, while Caribou fans celebrated all the way back to West Caribou Station aboard the Aroostook Valley Railroad.

Saturday morning dawned thirty degrees below zero in Caribou, “and the day was cold with a fair wind, making the cold seem intense indeed.” Caribou fans did not mind, though, because they’d ridden the Aroostook basketball train to victory the night before.

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Parade in Presque Isle. Item # 197 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Defending The Maine Border Congress established a fort in Houlton to make the British behave

by Brian Swartz

A

resurgent interest in Maine history sparked several restoration projects in the early to mid1960s, including a state attempt to build replica British barracks at Fort George in Castine.

In Houlton in summer 1963, the Aroostook Historical Society assigned its Garrison Hill Committee to reconstruct the Hancock Barracks, an army post operated from 1828 to 1845. Almost forgotten except in Aroostook County, the post let flippant British officers in New Brunswick know that the United States would defend the Maine border.

Except for a monument, time had

erased the buildings and stockade fence at the barracks’ site on outer Military Street. Working with limited funding, the Garrison Hill Committee built a 600-foot stockade from 10-foot cedar logs. A large gate stood at the entrance facing Military Street.

Led by A.E. Holden, committee members envisioned creating a parade ground and constructing several replica buildings, including officers’ quarters, enlisted men’s quarters, a “mess hall, powder house, store, stables and a hospital,” the Houlton Pioneer Times reported.

Holden priced the stockade at $3,000. Houlton town councilors had

provided $2,000 toward the project, and Maine would supposedly cough up $1,700. The Aroostook County commissioners had approved building on the site, which was owned by the county, and “several residents and businessmen” had already given “generous contributions of materials and time” and labor, the Times noted.

Houlton’s proximity to British-held New Brunswick had led the federal government to build Hancock Barracks in Aroostook’s Shiretown. Retired British officers living along the St. John “had a contemptuous and bitter feeling for the ‘Yankee’” and instilled similar attitudes in younger officers stationed

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com at Fredericton in the early 1800s, wrote Francis Barnes in The Story of Houlton, 1889.

The active Royal Army officers were “pleased … to annoy the settlers” around Houlton, and “occasions for friction were constantly arising.”

Search parties pursued soldiers deserting the Fredericton garrison. Some fled upriver to Houlton, and residents squirreled away the men when the provosts, who “never paid any attention to such a thing as a Boundary Line,” suddenly “pounced right in upon the settlement,” Barnes noted.

He claimed that no deserter harbored by Houlton residents was ever recaptured.

According to Barnes, Jonah Dunn moved his family from Cornish to Houlton in 1826 and “looked on at this defenseless ‘No Man’s Land,’” as the Houlton region was considered. New Brunswick loggers crossed the border to cut Maine trees, and British troops

still chased deserters on American soil.

Deciding that Washington, D.C. should defend its northeastern border, Dunn asked Colonel John Hodgdon to create a congressional petition designating Houlton “a Military Post.”

Residents signed the petition, which Congress granted by establishing and funding an army post at Houlton. On July 25, 1828, Army Lieutenant Joseph S. Gallagher paid Joseph Houlton Jr. $609.27 for five acres atop a hill east of town. That high ground became known as Drake’s Hill.

Gallagher had brought Company C, 2nd U.S. Infantry Regiment to Houlton in June. Marching up over the “Baskahegan trail” and “down over the rough road of the Groton Grant,” the soldiers tramped “through … the struggling village, to the music of the fife and drum,” Barnes wrote. Reaching the hill designated for a fort, the soldiers “grounded arms, pitched their tents, and the next morning, at sunrise, threw out the Stars

and Stripes to the breeze.

Companies E, F, and K later reached Houlton. Major N.S. Clarke commanded the garrison, and “all of the reckless [British] marauding ceased” as “the settlers … rested, at last, under the protection of the flag,” wrote Barnes.

Throughout that summer and fall, the soldiers worked on several buildings, especially officers’ and enlisted men’s barracks, a storehouse for supplies, and a hospital. Plagued by granite ledges, the men used 500 pounds of blasting powder to level land for a parade ground. Their permanent quarters incomplete when winter began, the soldiers slept in tents in the deep Aroostook cold.

Before the post closed in 1847, the weather and disease killed 37 soldiers, all buried in a local cemetery. The members of Masonic Monument Lodge No. 96 acquired 37 gravestones for the soldiers in 2003; now lined in neat rows, (cont. on page 32)

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(cont. from page 31) the stones honor soldiers sent to watch the British troops across the border.

Friction rose again between Maine and New Brunswick in the 1830s, and Hancock Barracks housed the 1st Artillery Regiment during the “Bloodless” Aroostook War. The War Department shuttered the post in 1845 and auctioned off the buildings and property in 1873.

As the new stockade rose in late summer 1963, Holden envisioned “the day when the Hancock Barracks will be completely restored,” replete with “a full-time caretaker” and a picnic area.

The Aroostook Historical Society believed the replica fort would become “a major tourist attraction,” according to the Times.

The Houlton restoration project did not completely pan out, and the replica Hancock Barracks did not draw as many tourists as anticipated. The Fort George restoration project at Castine fell short, too, as funding shortfalls impacted both projects.

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The Founding Of Aroostook Farm Experimental farming at its best

by Charles Francis

M

aine is an agricultural state.

The first settlers came to what would become the state of Maine less for fishing and timber than for farming. Today timber is the economic backbone of Maine. In the nineteenth century, however, agriculture was the mainstay of the state’s economy. Recognizing this fact, in the late 1800s and early 1900s the state and federal governments took steps to provide scientific and technical support to Maine’s farmers. Out of this came the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station on the campus of the University of Maine and the first two of the state’s experimental farms, Highmore in Monmouth and Aroostook in Presque Isle.

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From its earliest days, Aroostook Farm has served the farmers of not just Aroostook County but the state and nation, with research into everything from potato blight to how best to plant oats, to fighting pests. The story of the founding of Aroostook Farm is one of the most intriguing stories in Maine because, had it not been for the farsighted and dedicated residents of Aroostook County, the farm might never have come into existence.

The story of Aroostook Farm actually begins almost fifteen years before the Civil War when Dr. Ezekiel Holmes, one of the early pioneers in Maine in applying science to agriculture and the first secretary of the Board of Ag-

riculture, called for the establishment of an experimental farm in Aroostook County. It would not be until 1913 that Holmes’ call would be heeded, however. Prior to that the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station and Highmore Farm would be established.

The Maine Agricultural Experiment Station grew out of a fertilizer control research facility on the campus of the University of Maine. In 1888 the federal Hatch Act charged the research station with “the investigation of [all] agricultural problems, [including] original experiments.” Within a decade the need for other experimental stations or farms to meet the needs of the state’s diverse soil types and particular regional

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com problems became apparent. Out of this came Highmore and Aroostook farms.

In 1909 the state legislature provided funds which purchased two hundred and twenty-five acres in Monmouth to “conduct scientific investigations in orcharding, corn and other farm crops.”

Then, in 1913, the legislature appropriated ten thousand dollars to purchase a farm in Aroostook County. Even then, however, Aroostook Farm might not have been established had it not been for the residents of Presque Isle and Houlton, the most notable of whom was John Watson, and the timely intervention of the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad.

The committee that was charged with purchasing the farm felt that ten thousand dollars was inadequate for acquiring a suitable site. It therefore sought local financial support and within a short period of time an additional ten thousand dollars was raised and two hundred and seventy-five acres were

purchased on the Westfield Road in Presque Isle. The additional ten thousand dollars were raised primarily through the efforts of men like John Watson.

John Watson was one of the most substantial businessmen in Houlton at the turn of the nineteenth century.

He owned the John Watson Company, which dealt in hardware and farm implements, nine starch factories scattered about the county, as well as a prosperous farm. In addition, he was a director of the First National Bank and the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad.

Watson had come to Houlton from Andover, New Brunswick when he was twenty, literally penniless and knowing no one in the area. Watson’s success is attributed to his work ethic and his willingness to innovate. An example of this is seen in his own farming methods.

For some years before the establishment of Aroostook farm, Watson had maintained a working relationship with the Maine Agricultural Experi-

ment Station. For example, in 1907 and 1908 he had taken part in a modified culture experiment which led to planting seed potatoes in lower ridge rows.

The object of the experiment was to see if certain types of planters and weeders, such as the Robbins, were better suited for the modified ridges than the more traditional high ridge system. The experiment was closely controlled and monitored. Previously unplanted acreage was used and there were check plots using the traditional high ridge method for comparative purposes. The modified ridge plots produced three times the number of potatoes in 1908 as the high ridge plots. John Watson, then, clearly saw the advantages to be gained from controlled research into farming and crop management. For this reason he was a strong supporter of the establishment of an experimental farm in Aroostook County and was one of the major contributors of the additional (cont. on page 36)

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(cont. from page 35) money that was raised to purchase the farm in Presque Isle.

Even with the acquisition of the land for Aroostook Farm things did not go smoothly. The house and barn on the farm had been destroyed some years earlier by fire. Even though a new barn with a spacious cement basement for potato storage had been built, there was no farmhouse to provide living quarters for a superintendent. Again local financial support was sought and again it was forthcoming. By the end of 1913, an additional three thousand dollars had been raised to build a farmhouse.

In 1914 there was a fine new dwelling on Aroostook Farm to house a superintendent.

The next problem was funding for the planting of the first research acreage. The legislature, which had promised an appropriation for carrying out experimental work in 1913, did not live up to its commitment. At this point the

Bangor and Aroostook Railroad come through with a one-time contribution of twenty-five hundred dollars for carrying out research in 1914. The railroad saw that if Aroostook County benefited from Aroostook Farm, it would benefit in turn. And, of course, the fact that John Watson was one of the Bangor and Aroostook directors was a factor in itself.

The first crops tested for suitability to Aroostook soil at Aroostook Farm came from Highmore Farm. Over fifteen varieties of oats as well as various types of hill seed potatoes from Highmore were tested using various methods of applying fertilizer.

The establishment of Aroostook Farm brought about increased activity by the United States Department of Agriculture in Aroostook County. The federal Department of Agriculture first used twelve acres at Aroostook Farm for testing various seed potatoes. In ad-

dition, four farms in diverse sections of Aroostook County became federal test sites for the chemical effects of potato diseases. One of them was the farm of John Watson.

In May of 1927 Silas Hanson was hired as superintendent of Aroostook Farm. Hanson came from Minnesota, where he had worked at the experimental station in St. Paul. Hanson had been hired because of his experience in a region of the country whose climate and soil types where similar to that of Aroostook County.

With the appointment of Silas Hanson as superintendent, the first period in the development of Aroostook Farm came to a close. Today Aroostook Farm is part of a growing number of facilities operated by the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station of the University of Maine.

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Millinocket’s Stephen Groves

by James Nalley

World War II naval aviator

O

n June 7, 1942, just six months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy (under admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond Spruance) defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). Known as the Battle of Midway, the Japanese had hoped that another demoralizing defeat would force the United States to retreat from the Pacific, thus ensuring Japanese dominance in the region. However, after aircraft from four Japanese aircraft carriers attacked the U.S. base on Midway, the U.S. carrier forces (unbeknownst to the Japanese) were just east of the island. Immediately after the attack, torpedo-bombers and dive-bombers from

Ensign Stephen Groves

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the U.S.S. Enterprise, the U.S.S. Hornet, and the U.S.S. Yorktown retaliated.

By the end of the four-day battle, the Japanese had lost approximately 3,057 men, four carriers, one cruiser, and hundreds of aircraft, while the United States lost roughly 362 men, one carrier, one destroyer, and 144 aircraft. Among the latter was Ensign Stephen Groves, who took off nine times from the U.S.S. Hornet in his F4F-4 Wildcat before being shot down.

Stephen Groves was born on January 29, 1917, in Millinocket. He graduated from Schenck High School in East Millinocket, after which he earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Maine

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com in 1939. With the increasing presence of Germany in Europe and Japan in the Pacific, Groves joined the U.S. Navy in December 1940, completed the demanding naval aviator training program, and was commissioned as an ensign in August 1941. In December 1941, he was assigned to the U.S.S. Hornet, which became widely known as the aircraft carrier that transported Lt. Col. James Doolittle and his bombers for the Doolittle Raid on Japan in April 1942.

As stated earlier, following the first attack on Midway by the Japanese on June 4, the U.S.S. Hornet, the U.S.S. Yorktown, and the U.S.S. Enterprise launched their aircraft. However, according to the book The Ship that Held the Line: The U.S.S. Hornet and the First Year of the Pacific War by Lisle Rose, several bombers and all of the escorting fighters were forced to ditch when they ran out of fuel attempting to return to the ship. Prior to this decision,

The U.S.S. Stephen Groves in 2008 15 torpedo-bombers found the Japanese ships and attacked but were met with overwhelming opposition. Among the 30 men in that squadron, Ensign George Gay was the only survivor.

By the afternoon of June 4,

dive-bombers from the U.S.S. Enterprise and U.S.S. Yorktown had successfully attacked three Japanese carriers, resulting in enormous fires and the sinking of the IJN’s carrier, the Hiryu, by the next morning. Mean(cont. on page 40)

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40

(cont. from page 39) while, 25-year-old Groves (also known as “Snuffy” Groves) and his small group of six fighters from the U.S.S. Hornet were credited with shooting down 14 Japanese planes and forcing six others to retreat, as the enemy forces attempted to finish off the damaged U.S.S. Yorktown. Moreover, Groves himself was particularly busy. According to Lt. Cmdr. John Brewer, USNR (ret.), who graduated from flight school with Groves, “Ensign Stephen Groves, fresh and innocent, hardly dry behind the ears as a fighter pilot, took off nine times, but only landed eight. This New England Yankee, in all probability, was more secure than many in the lonesome privacy of his F4F-4 Wildcat. He was a master of positive thinking and self-control, as he revealed consistently during the elimination flight training phase over Boston Harbor when we had to fly solo in ten hours or else go back to boot camp.” Brewer also mentioned

CROSSROADS

that Groves had a laconic sense of humor, which was frosting on the cake.

It would be difficult to find a better role model in the present age of uncertainty.” Groves was declared missing and presumed dead on June 5, 1942.

He was also the first Millinocket/East Millinocket serviceman to be killed in World War II. In 1980, approximately 38 years after his death, the U.S. Department of the Navy informed Stephen’s mother that a new ship would be named in her son’s honor. Built by Bath Iron Works and launched on April 4, 1981, the U.S.S. Stephen W. Groves (FFG-29) was the 21st ship of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class of guided missile frigates.

Like its namesake, the U.S.S. Stephen W. Groves was involved in many noteworthy events. First, during her maiden voyage, it was assigned to support the United States Marines in Beirut, protect the U.S.S. New Jersey (and

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other surface units) from air threats, and provide direct fire support against hostile units in Lebanon. Second, in September 2003, it captured a drug smuggling boat carrying 1.5 tons of cocaine. Finally, in May 2011, she intercepted the Taiwanese vessel Jih Chun Tsai 68, which had been hijacked by a group of Somali pirates. After receiving fire from the pirates, the U.S.S. Stephen W. Groves sunk the vessel, killing three pirates and wounding two others.

A total of 19 Somali pirates and two Chinese hostages were taken on board.

On February 24, 2012, after 30 years of service, the U.S.S. Stephen W Groves was decommissioned, and the crew disembarked for the last time. Although the Battle of Midway has faded into history as one of World War II’s greatest naval victories, the sacrifice of Ensign Stephen Groves has not been forgotten.

For example, the Feeney-Groves American Legion Post 13 in East Millinock-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

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F4F-4s (as flown by Stephen Groves) in 1942. et is named after him, complete with a memorial to the soft-spoken pilot that (according to his Navy Cross citation) “fearlessly plunged into aerial combat against large formations of enemy air-

craft threatening the American carriers in the Battle of Midway [and] contributing decisively to the disruption of the enemy, despite the desperate odds.”

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Aroostook & Northern Penobscot Counties

42

Jordans Mill in Macwahoc. Item # LB2007.1.101302 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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DIRECTORY OF ADVERTISERS BUSINESS

PAGE

A&L Construction Inc. ..........................................35 A.N. Deringer, Inc. ...............................................38 Acadia Federal Credit Union................................16 Alan Clair Building Contractor...............................36 Aroosta Cast, Inc. ..................................................4 Aroostook Foam Insulation...................................29 Aroostook Real Estate..........................................16 Ashland Food Mart, Inc. ......................................36 Babin Construction, Inc. ........................................5 Bacon Auto & Truck Care...................................11 Barresi Benefits Group.........................................25 Bean Maine Lobster..............................................12 Ben's Trading Post, LLC.......................................26 Bolstridge Building, LLC.......................................37 Bouchard Country Store.......................................15 Bouchard Family Farm.........................................15 Bouchard's Seamless Gutters.................................4 Bowers Funeral Home.........................................37 Briarwood Motor Inn..............................................33 Buck Construction, Inc. ........................................36 CAM Manufacturing..............................................34 Caribou Inn & Convention Center.........................24 Caron’s Paving & Sealing......................................15 Cary Medical Center.............................................21 Central Aroostook Chamber of Commerce..........28 Central Building Supplies, Inc. .............................8 City Jewelry & Loan..............................................10 Coffin's General Store...........................................36 Colin Bartlett & Sons, Inc. ....................................4 Country Village Estates LLC................................21 County Abatement Inc. ........................................4 County Electric Electrical Contractors..................22 County Qwik Print.................................................22 Crandall's Hardware.............................................39 Crossroads Motel & Restaurant...........................40 Crosswinds Residential Care................................19 Crown Park Inn.....................................................23 Cummings Health Care Facility, Inc. .....................33 Cushmans & Son Inc. ...........................................26 Daigle & Houghton.................................................14 Dirigo Waste Oil....................................................13 Drinkwaters Cash Fuel..........................................40 Dubois Contracting................................................14 Dubois' Garage.......................................................7 Elwood Downs Incorporated.................................41 First Choice Market & Deli...................................23 Fish River Logging..................................................5 Fitzpatrick & Peabody Farms.................................37 Forest Diversity Services, Inc. .............................13 Fort Kent Powersports..........................................15 Freeport Antiques and Heirlooms Showcase.........12 Freightliner of Maine Inc. .........................................3 Gas-N-Go................................................................5 Gervais Fence.......................................................10 Giberson-Dorsey Funeral Home.............................9 GJ Auto Body.......................................................10 Greater Fort Kent Chamber of Commerce..............7 Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce..............37 Greenmark Information Technologies...................28 Ground Tek Inc. ......................................................7 Haines Manufacturing Co., Inc. ...........................35 Handy Stop Neighborhood Market.......................41 Hanington Bros., Inc. ...........................................40

BUSINESS

PAGE

Hannaford - Caribou...............................................10 High Street Market................................................41 High View Rehabilitation & Nursing Center............21 Hogan Tire.............................................................39 Houlton Towing Auto Salvage & Repair.................29 House in the Woods...............................................32 Huber Engineered Wood, LLC.............................24 Hy-Grow Organics................................................30 Inn of Acadia........................................................18 Irish Setter Pub.....................................................35 Irving Woodlands, LLC.........................................17 J. McLaughlin Construction, LLC.........................30 J.R.S. Firewood......................................................6 JATO Highlands Golf Course..................................41 Jerry's Shurfine.....................................................38 John's Food Store..................................................6 Katahdin Valley Motel...........................................31 Ken L. Electric, Inc. ...............................................5 Kirkpatrick & Bennett Law Offices.........................11 Langille Construction, Inc. ...................................23 Lawrence Lord & Sons Inc. Well Drilling...............32 Leisure Gardens & Leisure Village.......................28 Levesque Business Solutions..............................17 Limestone Chamber of Commerce.....................10 Linda Bean's Maine Kitchen & Topside Tavern...12 Linda Bean’s Maine Wyeth Gallery.......................12 Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine Vacation Rental........12 Long Lake Camps & Lodge...................................13 Long Lake Construction..........................................9 Long Lake Motor Inn.............................................14 Louisiana Building Solutions.................................30 M. Rafford Construction........................................29 Macannamac Camps............................................31 Madtown Clothing.................................................17 Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife........16/19 Maine Historical Society..........................................4 Manpower Maine..................................................26 Mars Hill Pharmacy...............................................36 Martin's General Store..........................................13 Martins Motel........................................................20 Martin's Point Health Care....................................22 McCain Foods.......................................................24 McClusky's RV Center..........................................26 Mike's Quik Stop & Deli........................................23 Mockler Funeral Home.........................................11 Monica's Scandinavian Imports............................25 Morris Logging Inc. ................................................5 Nickerson Construction Inc. .................................38 North Country Auto...............................................25 North Woods Real Estate.....................................31 Northeast Propane................................................11 Northern Dispatch Energy.....................................29 Northern Door Inn................................................17 Northern Lights Motel...........................................28 Ogunquit Beach Lobster House..........................12 One Stop...............................................................34 Ouellette Cleaning Service......................................7 Ouellette's Garage..................................................9 Overlook Motel & Lakeside Cottages....................13 P&E Distributors.....................................................8 Pat's Pizza - Presque Isle.....................................25 Pelletier Sewer Services.........................................5 Penobscot Marine Museum.....................back cover

BUSINESS

PAGE

Perham Logging Corp. ........................................11 Presque Isle Inn & Convention Center...................24 R.L. Todd & Son, Inc. .............................................11 Raymond's Variety & Diner.....................................40 Reliant Repair.......................................................29 Rendezvous Restaurant.........................................9 Ridgewood Estates...............................................19 River's Edge Motel................................................32 Riverside Inn Restaurant.......................................36 RLC Electric............................................................9 Robbie Morin Paving...............................................6 Robert Pelletier Building Contractor.....................16 Robinson Builders.................................................33 Roger Ayotte Electric, Inc. .....................................8 Rozco....................................................................15 Russell-Clowes Insurance Agency, Inc. ................21 S. Paradis & Son Garage.......................................14 S.O.B. Oil & Earthworks Co., LLC.........................41 Salmon Brook Valley..............................................11 Savage Paint & Body.............................................31 Scootic In Restaurant............................................39 Scovil Apartments.................................................38 Scovil Building Supply, Inc. .................................38 Select Designs & Embroidery...............................41 Service First Automotive.......................................35 Shaun R. Bagley Construction..............................34 Sonny's Gun Shop.................................................10 Spartan Arms and Ammo.....................................26 Spudnik............................................................27 St. John Valley Chamber of Commerce...................8 St. John Valley Pharmacy.....................................16 St. John Valley Realty Co. .......................................6 St. Joseph’s Memory Care, Inc. .............................19 Stardust Motel.......................................................30 STEaD Timberlands, LLC.....................................40 Storage Solutions..................................................35 Sturdi-Bilt..............................................................31 Sullivan's Wrecker Service....................................33 TA Service Center.................................................34 Taylor's Katahdin View Camps..............................38 The County Federal Credit Union..........................3 The County Stove Shop........................................21 The Pioneer Place, U.S.A. ...................................39 The Swamp Buck....................................................6 Thompson's Hardware Inc. .................................41 Timberland Trucking Inc. .....................................39 TNT Road Company.............................................16 Town of Enfield......................................................41 Town of Fort Kent....................................................6 Town of Lincoln.....................................................32 Town of Linneus....................................................29 Town of Madawaska..............................................19 Town of Mars Hill.....................................................5 Tulsa, Inc. ...............................................................7 Turner Sanitation LLC...........................................21 Twin Rivers Paper Company................................20 Underwood Electric, Inc. ................................34 VintageMaineImages.com.................................4 Ware's Power Equipment......................................40 Wayne's Body Shop & Service Center..................8 York's of Houlton...................................................37

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