2021 Western Maine

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Maine’s History Magazine Volume 30 | Issue 4 | 2021

15,000 Circulation

Western Maine

Lewiston’s Clarence White “Farther along”

Skowhegan Bridges Many helpless against the ravages of nature

Benton’s Sergeant Brian L. Buker Lest we forget

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Western Maine

Inside This Edition

2

3

I t Makes No Never Mind James Nalley

4

Phillip’s Zachary Taylor McLaughlin A Civil War veteran remembered Jay S. Hoar (submitted by Brian Swartz)

9

Amos Garnsey And Sanford Mills A “quiet” investor Charles Francis

14 Lewiston’s Clarence White “Farther along”

James Nalley

Maine’s History Magazine

— Western Maine —

Publisher Jim Burch

Editor

Dennis Burch

Design & Layout Liana Merdan

22 Newfield’s Curran Village Museum Final days of a treasured landmark

C.J. Pike

Advertising & Sales

26 Buckfield’s Alfonso Ferdinand Warren Civil War veteran serenaded patriotic tunes

Jay Hoar (submitted by Brian Swartz)

Advertising & Sales Manager

30 General John Winslow The father of Winslow, Maine

Charles Francis 34 Tragedy On A Summer Afternoon Great loss to Rumford and Mexico families

Charles Francis 38 Stratton’s Local Hero

Pregnant housewife receives Carnegie award for bravery

Brian Swartz 42 Skowhegan’s Hannah Judkins Starbird An angel of mercy James Nalley 45 Skowhegan Bridges Many helpless against the ravages of nature

Brian Swartz 48 T he Oxford County Copperheads Residents thronged an 1863 rally at South Paris

Brian Swartz 51 Benton’s Sergeant Brian L. Buker Lest we forget

James Nalley 54 Waiting For “Ice Out” Let the fishing begin Brian Swartz

Dennis Burch Tim Maxfield

Tim Maxfield

Distribution Manager Diane Nute

Field Representatives Jim & Diane Nute Don Plante

Contributing Writers Charles Francis Jay S. Hoar James Nalley

C.J. Pike 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 FORM ON PAGE 44

Front Cover Photo:

Goat team at Grants Camps in Kennebago.

Item # LB2007.1.100925 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

All photos in Discover Maine’s Western Maine edition show Maine as it used to be, and many are from local citizens who love this part of Maine.

Photos are also provided from our collaboration with the Maine Historical Society and the Penobscot Marine Museum.

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It Makes No Never Mind

by James Nalley

R

egarding this month’s issue, April is not only known for its showers and ability to bring May flowers, but it is also known for its numerous holidays such as Good Friday, Easter, and Earth Day. However, there are more than 100 holidays and observances in this month, including April Fools’ Day (April 1), National Burrito Day (April 1), and National Peanut Butter and Jelly (PB&J) Day (April 2).

As for the latter, according to a survey conducted by Peter Pan Peanut Butter, the average American will eat approximately 3,000 PB&J sandwiches in their lifetime, with the average age when children first experience this food staple at four years and two months. But how did this evolve?

In 1901, the first recipe for a PB&J sandwich appeared in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics. In this case, the recipe by Julia Davis Chandler simply used currant or crab-apple jelly. Eventually, according to the National Peanut Board, “Grapelade and pre-sliced bread became popular, and commercial brands found a way to create creamier peanut butter that did not stick to the roof of the mouth as easily as previous versions.” In addition, during the Great Depression in the 1930s,

many families discovered that peanut butter “provided a satisfying, high-protein, less-expensive meal” for both the adults and children.

Interestingly, the breakthrough for PB&J sandwiches came in World War II when they were included on the U.S. military ration menus. As stated by the National Peanut Board, “peanut butter was a high-protein, shelf-stable ingredient that was easily portable. With pre-sliced bread so easy to use, the inclination was to combine the bread, Grapelade, and peanut butter,” and turn them into a quick, easy-tograb food for long marches and stretches of waiting prior to battles. Naturally, when the soldiers came home from the war, PB&J sales soared. Moreover, “kids loved it because it tasted great, the parents loved how easy it was to make, and most importantly, how their kids could make it themselves.”

Today, there are many variations of the sandwich. For instance, some people substitute honey or sliced fruit (e.g., banana) for the jelly component or use marshmallow fluff for added flavor. Meanwhile, the popularity of almond butter has inspired some to transition to almond butter and jelly sandwiches. However, regardless of whether you are a classic (e.g., creamy

~ Over 40 years experience ~

peanut butter and grape jelly) or a maverick (e.g., almond butter and strawberry preserves), we can all agree that the PB&J sandwich has a well-deserved spot in the canon of American cuisine.

Well, on this note, let me close with the following peanut-inspired jest: There was a doctor at a mental hospital who had to take care of the most mentally unstable patients, who he called the “nuts.” The doctor and his assistant had a breakthrough by giving them simple commands and addressing them as “nuts.” Soon after, the doctor and assistant took the nuts to a baseball game, as one last test before releasing them into society. At the start of the National Anthem, he said, “Stand, nuts!” and the nuts stood.

After the anthem, he said, “Sit, nuts!” and the nuts sat. When the player hit a home run, he said, “Cheer, nuts!” and the nuts cheered. At the 7th inning stretch, the doctor left to use the bathroom. Upon his return, he saw that the nuts were being attacked by everyone in the stand. “What happened?” asked the doctor. Then, the panicked assistant replied, “I don’t know! Everything was fine until someone came by yelling “Peanuts!”

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Phillip’s Zachary Taylor McLaughlin A Civil War veteran remembered

by Jay S. Hoar (submitted by Brian Swartz)

M

aine’s lone living Civil War veteran Zachary “Zach” Taylor McLaughlin was made of the very stuff typical of small-town America in his day. The first M(a) cLaughlin to settle in New England was a Scottish baron’s son, according to family tradition, and New Boston and Hillsboro County in New Hampshire were where the family settled for generations. Zach’s grandparents moved to Weld in Oxford County, and his father, James McLaughlin, married Rhoda Lawrence of Temple on December 31, 1832.

Rhoda had 15 children, including Zach, who was born on November 18, 1848. She later died in childbirth, and

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James McLaughlin married two more wives, who each gave him two children.

Zachary learned early the intimacies of rural education, of wooding up, shoveling snow, caring for farm animals, and of raising crops to go the winter.

The 16-year-old looked all a man on February 9, 1865, when by stretching the truth “jest a mite,” he enlisted.

Two weeks later Zachary was mustered at Augusta into Co. F, 12th Maine Infantry. The company was one of six new companies organized during February and March 1865. These men were sent south to join their regiment, which a few weeks earlier had been ordered to Savannah, Georgia after performing

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It was early March when Pvt. McLaughlin listened to President Abraham Lincoln make a short speech to him and his comrades while they were on their way south. “That speech was a good one an’ he looked jest as his portraits did at that time — kinda old an’ a bit sad,” Zachary recalled.

Hostilities were nearly over when Co. F reached Savannah. Zach spent several tough weeks in a hospital there while fighting off an illness that included dysentery. According to an April 9, 1971 interview with his daughter-inlaw, Helen McLaughlin, age 83, Zachary took steeped cherry tree bark as a cure.

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The 12th Maine had duty maintaining order until October 1865. Still 16 when he mustered out, Zachary went home for a few months, but that winter he decided to work for a new-found comrade, a Capt. McCarthy, and did stonework on a jail in Tennessee.

The idea was to see some of the world outside Franklin County. To this end, Zachary went to Ohio, where he worked three years in a sawmill. Then for three summers he acted as a guide in the Rangeley Lakes region and spent the winters lumbering in Livermore.

On April 7, 1874, Electa Record of Phillips became his wife. Their children were Charles W., Lilla M., Fred Leslie, Elwin L., Ralph E., and Carl Wilmor. The McLaughlins first lived on the George Keef farm, just above Sand Hill enough to be over the town line in Salem.

They also lived in East Madrid, where Lilla and Ralph had homes near-

by, though Ralph died young. The Mclaughlins finally moved back to Phillips to care for Electa’s aged parents.

All these years Zachary was a woodsman in winter and a gardener in summer. In Madrid, he was for years the road agent, retiring “from work” upon his return to Phillips. Electa died there in May 1926, leaving Zachary to live fairly by himself, though he exercised an open welcome in the Phillips’ homes of sons Elwin, Carl, and Fred.

The highlight of Zach’s old age was a motor trip to Coloma, Wisconsin in July, and August 1935 to visit his younger brothers and sisters and their children and grandchildren. His brother, Chandler McLaughlin, of Laconia, New Hampshire, accompanied him.

In a letter home to Phillips, Zach reported passing through flood waters that came over the vehicle’s running boards.

But life in Phillips was far from dull.

As a Civil War veteran, he had a free pass from J. Sherman Hoar of Rangeley, owner of the Wilbur (later Strand) Theatre, so that Zach could see a movie whenever he chose. He fished many a local stream even in his 80s.

He could count on family reunions each year from his 87th birthday onward. Besides belonging to Mt. Saddleback Lodge, I.O.O.F., Zach was a longstanding comrade of James E. Cushman Post 87, G.A.R., and he outlived the post’s disbandment by a dozen years. From 1936 to 1944 he lived with his son and daughter-in-law, Elwin, and Helen, until he moved to Turner to be with Charles, his other son.

In an October 24, 1980 letter, Mrs. Christine Baker, the daughter of Carl W. and Edith Hilda Bangs McLaughlin, wrote that “I well remember Grandfather Zachary was a quiet person. His home smelled strong of tobacco smoke issuing from a pipe equally strong. (cont. on page 6)

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6 (cont. from page 5)

“I was told by folks who knew him as a neighbor that he prayed and read the Bible every morning with my father (the youngest) and Ralph (the next youngest) kneeling beside him. He had read the whole Bible, but did not in his later years attend church,” Christine wrote.

“People said he walked as a man of sixty when he was in his eighties. He had his own teeth, but for a few [teeth] he had pulled with pliers himself. His only glasses, used sometimes for reading, were magnifying glasses from the dime store,” she wrote.

McLaughlin was isolated geographically from what in his earlier years had been a sustaining fraternity. Ironically, though Zach never did get to the late Maine Department encampments of the 1930s and ’40s, he lived just long enough to become the state’s final life state commander.

From June 9-12, 1947, when Maine

held its 80th (and final) State G.A.R. Encampment in Rockland, he and Melvin Jellison were the only Boys in Blue left in Maine, although they never met each other in a hundred years. Zach became the last of Maine’s 72,945 Civil War veterans to live within the state’s borders upon the death of Jellison at age 100.

Bed-ridden for several months, Zachary became seriously ill during his last few days. He died on November 7, 1947 in the Turner home of his son, Charles.

On Sunday, November 9, his funeral was held in the Phillips Congregational Church, where American Legion members attended in a body. Among the mourners was Grace Nelson Darling of West Gray, the long-time and last secretary of the Maine Grand Army.

Zachary McLaughlin was laid to rest in Evergreen Cemetery in Phillips.

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Amos Garnsey And Sanford Mills A “quiet” investor

by Charles Francis

T

he history of the creation of the Goodall Industries of Sanford is usually summarized as the story of Thomas Goodall and how he came to town and bought up two marginal mills which became the basis of the Sanford Mills Corporation, the Goodall Worsted Company and a number of allied businesses. As with all beginnings, however, there is more to the story, and it includes the contributions of a man named Amos Garnsey, who in his own right played an important role in the development of Sanford Mills and the town of Sanford.

In fact, Garnsey’s connection to Sanford predates that of Thomas Goodall by a year.

Thomas Goodall was an Englishman who immigrated to America in 1846.

He first settled in Troy, New Hamp-

shire and then Keene, where he made a substantial amount of money during the Civil War as a woolens manufacturer selling horse blankets and overcoats to the military. In 1867 he moved to Sanford, where for fifteen thousand, five hundred dollars he purchased the William Miller flannel factory and the James Clark saw and grist mill. The Miller property became Sanford Mill No. 1 and the Clark property Mill No. 2. This scenario with varying amounts of detail has served to describe the origins of Goodall Industries since the turn of the twentieth century. No major undertaking rests on the shoulders of a single person, however, and the role played by Amos Garnsey in the founding of Goodall Industries is a good example of this.

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The Garnsey family is one of the oldest in New England. There are literally hundreds of references to Garnseys in local histories of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine. One of the best sources of information on the Garnseys, as with the majority of old families in this country, is the Compendium of American Genealogy. This work traces the Garnseys from the Isle of Guernsey, from which they took their name with various spellings, including Garnsy, Garnzy and the Garnsey used by those who settled in Sanford.

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terbury, Connecticut. The branch of the family that Amos Garnsey of Sanford descended from was among the earliest settlers of Rehoboth, Massachusetts.

From there they moved to Richmond, New Hampshire as well as Westminster, Vermont. At least one New Hampshire Garnsey, Deacon Garnsey, fought in the Revolution. (New Hampshire Revolutionary records spell his name Guernsey.)

Amos Garnsey’s grandfather, who was also an Amos, came to Richmond from Rehoboth, where he took up farming. His son Amos followed in his footsteps as a farmer. The Amos Garnsey who came to Sanford was to break the pattern, however. The Amos Garnsey who would play a significant role in the founding of Sanford Mills was born on his father’s Richmond farm on December 26, 1831.

After attending Richmond public schools, Amos Garnsey apprenticed

Seth

to a blacksmith. After a fair degree of success in that trade in Richmond, he moved to Sanford in 1866 and set up business not only as a blacksmith but as a mechanic.

When Thomas Goodall arrived in Sanford in 1867, Amos Garnsey became one of the first investors and original stockholders in Sanford Mills. He was much more than an investor and stockholder, however.

Amos Garnsey was the first master mechanic to work in the Sanford Mills.

As the mills expanded and required more supervision, Garnsey assumed more and more management responsibilities. At least one source, the 1928 Maine - A History put out by the Lewis Historical Publishing Company, states that Garnsey was “largely responsible for its [the mills’] start and subsequent remarkable expansion, along with the Goodall brothers.” (The Goodall brothers were the sons of Thomas Goodall.)

Amos Garnsey was directly involved with the workings of the Goodall mills for thirty years. He was also one of the major investors in the Mousam River Mills and mills in Troy, New Hampshire. One of Amos Garnsey’s two sons, Frederick Amos, followed him into the Sanford Mills in a managerial position.

His second son, Almon, after a brief stint in the mills, opened a jewelry and watchmaking business in Sanford.

Amos Garnsey serves as an example of those individuals who quietly invested their time and money in an enterprise to make it a success. When he was asked to write about his contributions to Goodall Industries and the town of Sanford in the mid-1920s by the Maine Publicity Bureau, Garnsey responded by saying more about his son Frederick, who died at the age of thirty-eight, than himself. Perhaps that says more about his character than all the accolades that could be said of him.

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14

Lewiston’s Clarence White

by James Nalley

I

“Farther along”

n the early 1960s, following its explosive trend in the 1950s, rock ‘n’ roll was gradually overtaken by different genres such as pop rock, beat, psychedelic rock, blues rock, and folk rock. In fact, the country- and folk-influenced style in the latter half of the 1960s spawned a new generation of bands highlighting different guitar techniques and talented artists. Among them was a Lewiston-born guitarist (and former child prodigy) who went on to become a pioneer of the country rock genre and a member of two prominent bands — The Kentucky Colonels and The Byrds.

Clarence White (originally Clarence Joseph LeBlanc) was born on June 7, 1944, in Lewiston. Soon after arriving in Maine from New Brunswick, Can-

ada, the LeBlanc family changed their surname to White. The father, Eric White, played many different instruments, including guitar, banjo, fiddle, and harmonica. Naturally, Clarence began playing guitar at the age of six, despite his hands being somewhat small for the instrument. After the White family moved to Burbank, California in 1954, then 10-year-old Clarence joined his brothers and Eric Jr. in a trio called Three Little Country Boys. Although the name suggested country music, the trio generally performed bluegrass. In 1957, banjoist Billy Ray Latham and dobro player LeRoy Mack were added, after which the group was renamed The Country Boys.

By 1961, the group added Rog-

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er Bush on double bass and appeared on two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. Between 1959 and 1962, the group released three singles on the Sundown, Republic, and Briar International record labels. According to Christopher Hjort in the book So You Want to Be a Rock ’n’ Roll Star: The Byrds Day-by-Day (2008), “following the recording sessions for their debut album, the band changed its name to The Kentucky Colonels in September 1962, at the suggestion of country guitarist and friend Joe Maphis. In early 1963, the band’s debut album was released by the Briar International label under the title The New Sound of Bluegrass America.

Meanwhile, White’s flatpicking guitar style was quickly becoming a main

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com highlight of the band’s style and music.

However, as stated by Paul Kingsbury in The Encyclopedia of Country Music (1998), “After attending a performance by legendary guitarist Doc Watson, White began to explore the possibilities of the acoustic guitar’s role in bluegrass music. At that time, the guitar was largely regarded as a rhythm instrument in bluegrass, with only a few performers, such as Doc Watson, exploring its potential for soloing.” As a result of meeting Watson, White began to integrate his solo elements into his flatpicking guitar technique. Moreover, according to Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” (2013), his “breathtaking speed and virtuosity on the instrument waslargely responsible for making the guitar a lead instrument within bluegrass.”

As for The Kentucky Colonels, the group became well known on the bluegrass circuit and performed through-

Clarence White (third from left) on tour with The Byrds in the Netherlands, June 1970 (photo courtesy of Joost Evers)

(cont. on page 16)

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out the United States. Between their concerts, White made guest appearances on Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman’s New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass album, which was later re-released as the soundtrack album to the film Deliverance (1972).

In 1964, White and the band released their second album, Appalachian Swing! in which White’s flatpicking performance significantly expanded the role of bluegrass guitar, or as Thom Owens, in his review for AllMusic stated, “White helped pioneer a new style in bluegrass; namely, he redefined the acoustic guitar as a solo instrument.”

Over time, it became increasingly difficult for The Kentucky Colonels to make a living, due to the British Invasion (e.g., The Beatles) and the rise of folk rock (e.g., The Byrds and Bob Dylan). Consequently, the band switched to electrical instruments and hired a drummer. Despite such chang-

es, The Kentucky Colonels dissolved in October 1965. Fortunately, although the band dissolved, White had already become a respected guitarist in the field. He even temporarily abandoned bluegrass and switched from his Martin D-28 acoustic guitar to an electric 1954 Fender Telecaster. According to John Delgatto on the CD booklet of White Lightnin (2008), the transition “required White to modify his right-hand playing technique, switch from open chording to fretting the whole guitar neck with his left hand, and practice using the tone and volume controls. However, he soon mastered the instrument, and between 1965 and 1968, he undertook session work for various artists, including Ricky Nelson, The Monkees, and The Gosdin Brothers.

In 1967, White began performing in the band The Reasons, which mainly performed in El Monte, California. In the same year, White and

band member Gene Parsons invented a device that enabled him to simulate the sound of a pedal steel guitar on his Fender Telecaster. According to Hjort, “The device, known as the “Parsons/ White StringBender,” was a spring-lever mechanism built into the inside of White’s guitar. When it was activated, by pulling down on the guitar neck, it pulled on the B-string and caused the guitar to simulate the ‘crying’ sound of a pedal steel. White would go on to use the device extensively as a member of The Byrds, and as a result, its distinctive sound would become a defining characteristic of the band’s music.”

Regarding The Byrds, following the sudden departure of singer and guitarist Gram Parsons in July 1968, White was invited to join the group as a fulltime member. The White-era version of the band released five albums (i.e., Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde (1969); The Ballad of Easy Rider (1969); a double album

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com (untitled) (1970); Byrdmaniax (1971); and Farther Along (1971) and toured relentlessly between 1969 and 1972.

As stated in an album review by Steve Leggitt titled, Live at Royal Albert Hall 1971, “although the original line-up of The Byrds gets the most attention and praise, the latter-day version, featuring White and Roger McGuinn, was regarded by critics and audiences as much more accomplished in concert than any previous configuration of the band.” Similarly, David Fricke in Rolling Stone magazine stated, “with White’s powerful, impeccable tone and melodic ingenuity, he did much to rebuild the creative reputation of The Byrds and define the road-hearty sound of the group at the turn of the 1970s.”

Following the release of the album Farther Along, the band continued touring throughout 1972. However, later that year, the original members of The Byrds reunited, after which McGuinn

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decided to disband the existing version of the group. The last concert by the White-era version of The Byrds was on February 24, 1973, in New Jersey. According to Hjort, “White and McGuinn jokingly fired each other from the band afterwards.”

Over the next few months, White played in the recording sessions of other bluegrass and country artists. He even performed with The New Kentucky Colonels, as part of a four-date tour with Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, and Chris Ethridge, among others. Following the tour, White entered the recording studio in late June, with plans to create a solo album. Overall, he recorded a total of six songs.

On July 15, 1973, White and his brother, Roland, were loading equipment into their car following a White Brothers concert in Palmdale, California. Shortly after 2 a.m., White was struck by a drunk driver and killed. (cont. on page 18)

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He was 29 years of age. Shaken by his death, Gram Parsons led a sing-along of Farther Along at White’s funeral. He was buried at Joshua Memorial Park in Lancaster, California.

As for his legacy, aside from being ranked No. 41 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” perhaps it was best said by music archivist Alec Palao: “White was one of a handful of true greats amongst the instrumentalists of 20th-century popular music…the waves created by the guitarist’s idiosyncratic style are still forming ripples within bluegrass, country, and rock ‘n’ roll.”

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

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The Reverend Paul Coffin house in Buxton, ca. 1888. Item #23389 from the colllections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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22

Newfield’s Curran Village Museum Final days of a treasured landmark

by C.J. Pike

1

9th Century Curran Village at 70 Elm Street in Newfield closed this year, 2020, after many years of operation in the small town.

The closing of our beloved local museum struck a chord in our hearts of when it was in its heyday. It will always be a treasured landmark in Newfield, and we have many wonderful years and fond memories of when we were able to step back in time, to the Victorian era, to experience how life was back then.

The museum was originally 19th Century Willowbrook, and was founded in 1970 by Donald King, Sr., and his wife Pan. He had “a vision and a passion to preserve history and show how life was actually lived during 19th Century rural Southern Maine.”

It was a one-of-a-kind museum

which operated for 50 years. His main goal was to enhance Willowbrook’s role as an educational experience for adults and children.

According to the historical records, to accomplish this, he collected a wide variety of objects from homes, farms, and businesses, most within a 100-mile radius of the museum. King restored many of these artifacts of the past to show them as they were when in use during the 1850s to 1920s. Then, he purchased two early 1800s homesteads in Newfield, that are both now on the National Register of Historic Places, to display the artifacts.

As King continued to acquire more artifacts, he constructed other buildings and structures to specifically house the collection. He died in 1985, but his

wife carried on this dream for many years, until she retired. The museum relied heavily on financial support from its members and the community, from individuals committed to preserving history, and from foundation grants.

In his lifetime, he acquired a collection of over 10,000 historical artifacts making 19th Century Willowbrook an experience of what life was like in rural Maine during that era. Don King started coming to Maine to hunt, at a hunting cabin near Moosehead Lake, but he wanted to be closer to his Massachusetts home, so he started looking for property in southern Maine.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com ball tool and figure out what it did,” said his son, Doug King, former president of the board of trustees. “Then he’d go out and find ten others just like it to see how it changed over the years.”

The Abbott Downing Concord Stagecoach, a pre-Civil War stagecoach which shuttled passengers between Bath and Small Point before the Civil War, became part of his extensive collection. And, the Armitage-Herschell Carousel, a portable steam riding gallery that operated in southern Maine from 1896 to 1922, also became a gem in his collection. A few of the other treasures that the museum had to offer were delivery wagons, an authentic blacksmith forge, and several historic buildings that have been on the very same piece of land since the early 1800s.

Limerick resident Georgia Perry worked with the Kings as the director of the museum for 37 years until her retirement. She worked with them on restoring the artifacts and getting the

museum opened. She recently passed away but was always proud of the integral work that she did in the realization of this historic museum, and the restoration of the 1894 Armitage-Herschell carousel.

Museum directors who followed her are Amelia Chamberlain, who served as the director for several years until 2011 and John M. Micholowski was the director for a couple of years after her.

Dr. Robert Schmick took over as the director and served until it closed.

During that time, the museum was known as 19th Century Curran Village.

While Micholowski was director, they acquired an 1880 W. M. Tibbetts Carriage, which was built here in Newfield. He was contacted by Mrs. Maddy Enman, who was in possession of the carriage, which had been purchased from the W. M. Tibbetts Carriage Company by her grandfather, Stanley Scott of Milan, New Hampshire. It was restored in 1989 by her late husband, Kenneth Enman, who enjoyed pleasure

The Armitage-Herschell Carousel, a portable steam riding gallery that operated in southern Maine from 1896 to 1922, also became a gem in King’s collection.

driving and exhibiting it in local parades.

Ice harvesting was one of the events that Director Robert Schmick brought back to 19th Century Curran Village (cont. on page 24)

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when he took over. Schmick got people involved in the hands-on aspects of visiting the museum with plenty of things to do for adults and school kids, and was instrumental in getting the S.T.E.A.M. (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) workshops started.

He set up the annual Field Trip program, where local schools in Maine and New Hampshire visited the museum for the day and learned the crafts of the 19th Century, but on February 1, 2020 the museum closed for good. The very last ice harvesting event was held with 250 people attending.

Back in the day, there was an old fire engine on the lawn that was an attraction for Ruth Ayers’ sons when they were young. Ayers is a historian and member of the Newfield Historical Society. And I remember the first time that I ever went to the museum with my aunt and uncle who came out for the day. We walked around the muse-

um campus, had a snack in the restaurant, and thoroughly enjoyed the whole ‘19th Century country museum experience.’

Over the years, children enjoyed the carousel rides and having a picnic on the lawn by the replica of the old schoolhouse, but those days are gone now, as are all the other 19th Century activities.

The museum was always privately owned, and the current owners, Curran Homestead in Orrington, decided to move some of the artifacts and small buildings to that campus. Curran Homestead had taken over the operation of the museum 4 years ago, but in the end, the decision was made to close the museum, due to low attendance.

At the final event on February 1, 2020, visitors to 19th Century Curran Village enjoyed a beautiful day, but it was a bittersweet send off for our local museum, because we will never get a chance to visit again.

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26

Buckfield’s Alfonso Ferdinand Warren Civil War veteran serenaded patriotic tunes

by Jay S. Hoar (submitted by Brian Swartz)

I

n downtown Buckfield on a late May afternoon in 1922, “Billy” Bridgham, 75, and “Fon” Warren, 74, were fine tuning themselves in Warren’s harness shop, a stone’s throw west of the small iron bridge across the swiftly flowing Nezinscot River.

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Incredibly these two men began their musical talents when they were only ages 9 and 10, well before the Civil War. Bill and Fon had been serenading patriotic tunes for some sixty years.

For as long as most folks could recall, they had been an institution in western Maine and had been invited to perform for all public occasions.

Billy and Fon had practiced for Memorial Day, when they would lead their brother comrades of Fessenden Post 43, G.A.R., and local War Ones, followed by scores of schoolchildren carrying small flags. Bill’s and Fon’s melodic

woodwind-percussion could be heard eastward beyond Doc Atwood’s office nearly to Smith’s Livery, westward to the brush factory, southerly to beyond Rawson’s Pharmacy and Ricker’s Barbershop and northerly halfway up to the cemetery.

Warren roots go back to Guarenne (or Varenna), Calais, Normandy, and France. In fact, Warren is a variant spelling of that very place and means “stop-hold-repel-guard.”

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com of Warren. His descendant, John Warren (born in 1585), sailed in middle age to New England with Winthrop’s fleet in the 1620s and settled in what became Watertown, Massachusetts.

A son, James, settled in Kittery in 1656. His son, Tristram Warren, a soldier in the French and Indian wars, married Mary Neal. They eventually moved upriver to Berwick, where their first child, John, was born on May 20, 1756.

John settled on the northern edge of Buckfield before 1784, having married Abijah Buck’s daughter, Elizabeth.

Their 1781 wedding was the first such ceremony in the township.

Among John’s and Elizabeth’s nine children was John Jr., born on November 11, 1783. He married Esther Buck.

Their son, Ferdinand A. Warren, was born on May 5, 1819. He married Sylvia I. Bartlett; Ferdinand was a harness-maker prominent in Temperance matters. They had two daughters and

two sons, of whom the youngest was Alfonso “Fon” Warren.

On September 10, 1862, he enlisted as a drummer boy in Capt. Charles A. Prince’s Company C, 23rd Maine Infantry. Fon said he was 16; but he was exactly 14 years, 11 months, and seven days old. He stood 5-4 and had a light complexion and black eyes.

His mother did not want him to go, but she had said that if Capt. Prince formed a company, Fon could go. Easing her conscience somewhat was the truth that more Buckfield men enlisted in the 23rd Maine, a nine-month regiment, than in any other Maine unit.

Fon mustered as a private at Portland in late September. With minimal training the soldiers embarked by rail for Washington, D.C. on October 18.

They camped a week at East Capitol Hill, where Fon learned a dozen new drum calls.

On October 25, the regiment moved to Seneca, Maryland. From December

until April 19, 1863 the soldiers did guard duty at Edward’s Ferry on the Potomac. Then they moved to Poolesville, Maryland and then to Washington.

On May 24 they arrived at Alexandria. On June 17 they returned to Poolesville. Their final three weeks of guard duty were spent at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. Whether as part of Glover’s Brigade, initially, or as part of Jewett’s Brigade or of Slough’s Brigade of the XXII Corps, the regiment’s entire tour was devoted to defensive maneuvers on the greater D.C. perimeter.

Fon mustered out at Portland on July 15, 1863. One of the least embattled Maine units, the 23rd lost only fifty-six enlisted men, all to disease.

Fon Warren’s fondest episode from the war was the day the officers in his regiment strode up to his tent and ordered him to accompany them. He feared he was to be reprimanded for some mistake.

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The officers took him to the best music store in town, on Lexington Avenue in Washington, D.C. Carefully selecting a vintage drum embellished with military décor, they presented it to him. Fon used it the rest of his life.

Fon Warren married a Buckfield native, Elizabeth Ann Young, about 1871 and they had a son, James Elmer (“Ellie”), who married Mary E. Spaulding.

Fon followed his father in the harness-making craft. On October 14, 1995, Fon’s grandniece and “adoptive granddaughter,” Barbara Ricker Beane, talked about Fon where she lived in Canton.

“My folks were Walter Ricker, a barber [for] 45 years across from Buckfield’s bank, and (Phoebe) Louise Young, a daughter of Fon’s wife Elizabeth’s brother, Lucius Lovell Young, and Jane Davis, who died in 1887,” Beane said.

“When Jane died, Elizabeth and Fon took (Phoebe) Louise, an infant, and

brought her up,” Beane said. “My parents took care of me at their home from my birth, December 5, 1907, until late in 1912, when, poorly in health, they let me begin living with my ‘grandparents,’ Fon and Elizabeth on Elm Street.

“They practically brought me up, as they were like parents and so good to me,” she said.

“Four trains a day ran from Lewiston up to Rumford and Oquossoc, a branch of the Maine Central Railroad,” Beane said. “Grampa, on his day off, would take me for train rides. I well remember one such trip to Lewiston.

“Fon and Mr. Bridgham went from Buckfield to Gettysburg in 1913 and met thousands of ex-soldiers there, many who’d been their foes,” she said.

“Grampa brought me home a gold locket which I still treasure.”

Fon Warren died on September 23, 1922. He was buried in Section B, Lot 283 in the Village Cemetery in Buckfield.

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General John Winslow The father of Winslow, Maine

by Charles Francis

O

ne of the saddest tales in the history of North America. has its origins in the year 1755. It is the tale made famous by Longfellow in his epic poem Evangeline. It is the removal of the Acadians from Grand Pre, an event which John Winslow, the officer in command of the forces whose responsibility it was, regretted having to carry out.

Everyone who has read Evangeline is familiar with the little church at Grand Pre where the men of the village were told to gather for an address by an army officer. In the poem, as in the actual event, the Acadian men gather in the church as ordered. When they are all there, they are addressed by the officer, who is John Winslow. Then they are sealed inside, under guard, until it JOHNNY

is time for them to be loaded on ships which will transport them from their homes forever.

It is a sad story. One which presents the officer in charge, John Winslow, as something of a fiend. Few know that Winslow regretted having to carry out his orders. Fewer still realize that it was this same John Winslow who had command of the Kennebec when Fort Western and Fort Halifax were built, or that the town of Winslow is named in his honor.

John Winslow was born in 1703 in Marshfield, Massachusetts, which he made his home for most of his life.

He was a great-grandson of Edward Winslow, one of the Pilgrims who made the crossing on the Mayflower, and a governor of the Plymouth Colo-

ny. Winslow’s occupation was that of a professional soldier. The first action he saw was in the 1740 to 1748 War of Austrian Succession. During that conflict, Winslow was captain of a Massachusetts militia company sent to Cuba as part of a major British action against the Spanish. Following this indoctrination into the military, Winslow’s family managed to get him a commission as a regular British army officer — a rare occurrence for a “colonial.”

Winslow’s first duty as a British officer saw him stationed at Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia from 1748 to 1751, where the Britsh were maintaining a holding action against superior French forces. In 1751 he went off active duty and returned to Massachusetts to serve as a military advisor to Gover-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com nor William Shirley, who made him a major-general.

In 1754 Winslow was placed in command of eight hundred men by Shirley and sent to the Kennebec, as it was feared that the French and their Indian allies in Quebec were about to launch a major attack. Winslow had under his command Joseph Frye, who was to found the town of Fryeburg, and William Lithgow, who would play an important role in the founding of the town of Winslow. It was at this time that Fort Western and Fort Halifax were constructed.

Early in 1755 Governor Shirley placed Winslow, as a colonel, in command of a Massachusetts expedition to fight the French in Nova Scotia.

Winslow raised most of the two thousand men himself, a fact which stands as a tribute to his reputation in Massachusetts at that time. Arriving in Nova Scotia, Winslow fell under the orders of British Governor Lawrence.

On September 5, 1755 Winslow is-

sued the infamous order for all of the male inhabitants of Grand Pre to gather in the village church. Winslow’s address to the Acadian men went, in part, as follows: “The duty I am now upon, though necessary, is very disagreeable to my natural make and temper...” He then went on to say, “I deliver to you His Majesty’s instructions and commands which are that your lands and tenements and cattle and livestock of all kinds are forfeited to the crown, with all your other effects, except money and household goods, and that you yourselves are to be removed from this province.”

Five days later the first of the Acadians were loaded onto ships for transport from Nova Scotia.

Following the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia, Winslow returned to Massachusetts. In 1757 he led a Massachusetts force in the campaign to gain control of Crown Point in New York. When the overall expedition failed due to the ineptitude of British

commanders, Winslow left the military.

He went on to serve several terms in the Massachusetts Legislature and as Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Plymouth County. He died in 1774 in Hingham.

Permanent settlers began coming to what would become the town of Winslow in 1764. Originally the town was known as Kingfield, and included what is now Waterville as well as a part of Oakland. The town was incorporated as Winslow in 1771. In 1802 Waterville was set off from it, mainly because there was no bridge across the Kennebec to connect the two sections of the town.

Today the town of Winslow stands as a tribute to General John Winslow, the man who fortified the upper Kennebec from attack. Winslow’s own words at the time of the expulsion of the Acadians from Grand Pre stand as a testament to his character.

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Tragedy On A Summer Afternoon Great loss to Rumford and Mexico families

by Charles Francis

M

onday morning, June 30 1941, started out like any other workday in Rumford and Mexico. Men got ready to leave for their jobs at the mill. Their wives packed their lunches. School children, with the luxury of knowing that endless summer lay before them, lingered in bed or sat on front stoops thinking of all they would do in the coming weeks. Then phones, which the previous night had sounded a minor note of alarm, began ringing to spread a story that something was seriously amiss. Some thirty Rumford and Mexico area residents were missing and feared lost at sea.

Just the day before, a group of Rumford and Mexico millworkers, their

wives and other family members and friends had set off for the coast for a day’s excursion on the ocean. The boat trip was to include a clam and lobster bake and a chance to enjoy an early summer day on the water. Now just over twenty-four hours later the pleasure seekers’ friends and family back home were being alerted by the Coast Guard that something was definitely wrong off the coast.

Eventually, all the Rumford and Mexico excursionists would be declared dead. While fourteen bodies would eventually be recovered from the sea, the ultimate fate of the rest would only be guessed at. The fate of the boat they set out on, the Don, would

likewise only be guessed at. However, conjecture would run from everything to its having been the victim of sabotage to having been sunk by a German U-boat. There was even evidence that it might have blown up or that it had caught fire. In the final analysis, what happened to the Rumford and Mexico residents who set out for a Sunday afternoon sail in June of 1941 has gone down as an unsolved mystery. There are, however, a number of facts which came to light regarding the mystery that point to simple negligence rather that the possibility of foul play at sea or even an act of war causing the loss of so many unfortunate people.

The Don set out from Dyer’s Cove

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35

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com in Harpswell on Sunday morning. Dyer’s Cove is on the east side of Harpswell above Orrs and Bailey islands.

The vessel was to make a round trip to Monhegan Island, where a clam and lobster bake was to take place. It stopped at Phippsburg before heading out for Monhegan. That was the last time the Rumford and Mexico people were seen by anyone on shore. After that the ultimate fate of the Don and its passengers and crew enters the realm of hearsay and mystery.

Concern for the Don first began to manifest itself late Sunday. The official search for her began early Monday morning, when the Diligence, a one hundred and twenty-five-foot Coast Guard search-and-rescue cutter set out from Portland. By noon on Monday a number of concerned Rumford and Mexico citizens had driven to Dyer’s Cove to stand anxiously on the dock, peering out to sea. Eventually reports began to filter in that the last sighting of

the Don had been somewhere off Bailey Island the previous day.

The first body of one of the passengers was found on July 2nd floating off Bailey Island. Then others were found.

The first medical examinations indicated evidence that the bodies had been burned. Though this was later changed to the effects of long immersion in the water, it led to stories of a fire or an explosion. One theory was that a mine had broken free from Halifax Harbor in Nova Scotia and had followed the Labrador current to the waters between Bailey Island and Monhegan, where the Don encountered it. Tales like this and the possibility that the Don had been sunk by a U-boat continued to circulate for some time. Then investigators began to unearth more plausible explanations as to what might have happened.

A fisherman came forward who reported hearing a boat racing its engine as if it were trying to get off a ledge. The time element was about right for when

the Don would have been somewhere off Bailey Island. The most telling facts involved the Don itself, however.

More investigation turned up the fact that the Don was less than seaworthy. She had been sitting for an extended period — at least the whole winter — docked with no maintenance performed on her engine. Her captain and owner, Paul Johnson, hadn’t the wherewithal to keep her seaworthy. Moreover, she was a converted rumrunner on which an excessively burdensome superstructure had been added. Knowledgeable seamen thought she was ripe for capsizing. The fact that her engines hadn’t been up to snuff led to the theory she had lost power, causing her to run onto a ledge. Possibly Captain Johnson had got her off the ledge only to run her into deep water to sink from damage from the grounding. The other theory was that she had suddenly capsized. This was backed up by the fact (cont. on page 36)

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that none of the bodies that had been recovered wore lifejackets. If the Don had capsized there wouldn’t have been time for the passengers to put on floatation gear.

Today what happened to cause the loss of some thirty men and women from Rumford and Mexico in the summer of 1941 is as much of a mystery as it was then. Of the fourteen bodies that were recovered most were found in the general area of Bailey Island. A paper worker from Mexico named Earl Decker was found on Orrs Island. Other bodies were found extending out to the tip of Bailey Island, either on the rocks or floating at sea.

The waters of Orrs and Bailey islands can produce serious swells, which could easily lead a top-heavy craft to capsize. There are also a number of ledges that a boat could run on.

Any could punch a hole in a craft.

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38

Stratton’s Local Hero Pregnant housewife receives Carnegie award for bravery

by Brian Swartz

W

illiam Luce, who lived in Flagstaff before growing up in Stratton, will never forget Alice Scribner, the 39-year-old housewife who saved him from drowning when he was 11 years old.

Bill was born in Anson to Kenneth and Lucille Luce. The family later moved to Flagstaff on the upper Dead River, and Kenneth worked in the woods, cutting pulpwood.

Planning to dam the Dead River to impound water for hydroelectric facilities farther south on the Kennebec River, Central Maine Power acquired all the property in Flagstaff and neighboring Dead River Plantation and started building Long Falls Dam in 1948.

When the new lake flooded Flagstaff,

“we moved to Stratton and settled beneath Bigelow Mountain,” Bill said.

Near the South Branch of the Dead River lived Kenneth E. and Alice D. Scribner, married in 1936. Kenneth pumped gas at a local filling station, and Alice cared for the growing family.

Loggers stacked pulpwood on frozen streams during the winter. “When the ice melted, the pulpwood floated down the rivers to the lake,” Bill said.

“Pulpwood would often wash up” on the South Branch shore.

In spring 1953 “I fashioned a raft with four-foot sticks of pulpwood and took some boards and nailed them all together to make a raft on the South Branch,” he said.

On Saturday, May 16, Bill was play-

ing near the river with Randy Scribner, about age 13. A friend named Terry had fashioned a boat from boards but did not caulk them. He pushed off from shore and the boat started sinking with him still aboard.

“It was kind of a cool day,” so Bill had donned a sweatshirt, a jacket, and jeans. “The ice maybe had been out for a couple of weeks. The water was extremely cold.”

Terry shouted for help. Stepping onto his raft, Bill “poled out” into the river toward the boat. Then “my pole stuck in the mud” about 30 feet from shore; the raft flipped, spilling Bill into water seven feet deep.

“Normally I was a pretty good swimmer, but I had so many clothes

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com on, it weighted me down,” he remembered.

“I kept going under, and I finally went under and didn’t come back up.”

After sending his little sister running home to get their mother, Randy Scribner ran to the blacksmith’s house, where “as luck would have it, his son [Donald Tiner] was home on leave from the army,” Bill said.

Three months’ pregnant with daughter Melissa, Alice Scribner ran about 200 feet from her house to the riverbank, took off her shoes, and dove into the river where Bill was last seen. She first felt around for him with her feet, then looked beneath the surface; there he was, floating three feet down!

Alice brought him to the surface.

Despite the cold now numbing her body, she swam while towing Bill to a log boom. Alice “got me up over a boom log,” Bill said. “I was regaining some consciousness, but it seemed like a dream.” (cont. on page 40)

THE

Rangeley Lakes

William Luce of Stratton stands beside Alice Scribner as she displays the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission medal awarded to her for saving Luce from drowning in the South Branch of the Dead River on May 16, 1953.

(Courtesy of William Luce)

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Still partially in the water, Alice clung tightly to the boom and Bill. Arriving about 10 minutes later, Don Tiner went onto the boom and brought Bill to shore. Alice climbed from the river.

Arriving firefighters used a resuscitator to help Bill breathe easier; when he was fully conscious, they hustled him to the Scribner house, “stripped me naked, left a little blanket around me, and fed me warm milk and whiskey to warm me up,” Bill recalled.

Kenneth Luce was in a boat out on Flagstaff Lake, “trying to get a boom around the pulpwood” floating there after the spring thaw, Bill said. Residents “went out on the lake” and told Kenneth what had happened; he hustled into Stratton and took his son home.

Lucille Luce was cleaning a summer residence on an island at Chain of Ponds. “She knew nothing of it [the near drowning] until she got home, probably around suppertime,” Bill said.

Alice had sore muscles and caught a

cold, but neither she nor Bill came out the worse for wear. Lucille Luce soon wrote to U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith about Alice’s bravery. Smith contacted the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission about the incident; investigators arrived in Stratton “and interviewed me and the other children that were involved and Alice,” Bill recalled.

The Carnegie commission soon cited Alice for her bravery (citation 387842870) and mailed her a letter “to tell her she had been awarded $500,” Bill said. The Scribners “lived in an old, old farmhouse, and she bought a house intown, in Stratton.

“By the mercy of God, she saved me,” said Bill. “I had my life; I didn’t lose it by drowning.”

The Luces later moved to Winthrop after Kenneth developed heart trouble, but Bill stayed in Stratton until Lucille turned ill. He joined the family in Winthrop, which “to me was a very big town, and Augusta was huge. Never

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Bill “joined the Navy out of high school” and “made a career of it. It was the light of my life. I got to do many things that many people [his age growing up in Eustis] haven’t done.”

A medical corpsman assigned to Marine units during his first four years in the Navy, Bill said that “by the grace of God I didn’t go to Vietnam.” He went to Antarctica instead, and “the penguins didn’t shoot me.”

As for Alice, “I got to see her in her later life,” Bill said. “It was never brought up about my drowning, but it was always a happy time visiting with her.”

Edward Scribner died in 1987. Alice died on August 30, 2001; she and Edward lay side by side in the Stratton Lower Cemetery in Eustis.

“It’s not about William Luce,” Bill said. “It’s about Alice Scribner and what she done. It was a heroic deed,” and “because of her I had my life.”

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42

Skowhegan’s Hannah Judkins Starbird

by James Nalley

P

rior to the U.S. Civil War, many nurses in the United States were male since social taboos prevented females (especially “well-todo” ones) from working outside of the home. However, after the outbreak of the war, the Union Army leadership quickly realized that they required more medical staff to tend the injured on the battlefield. Thus, it decided to accept female nurses to fill the gap. According to the National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War, “More than 3,000 middle-class white women served as paid or volunteer nurses during the war, working under Dorothea Dix, the Superintendent of Army Nurses. Many of them had no prior medical training

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An angel of mercy and they learned on-the-job through hard experience, while being exposed to the dangers of the battlefield.” One such nurse was from Skowhegan, who provided detailed accounts of her experiences at a hospital in Maryland.

Hannah Judkins was born on August 10, 1832, in Skowhegan. She was the daughter of Levi Judkins and Hannah Emery Judkins, and the granddaughter of John Emery, who fought in two prominent Revolutionary War battles: The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston. Judkins served for approximately nine years as a schoolteacher, with plans to continue teaching as a lifelong career. However, this changed when she decided to enlist, with no pri-

Hannah Judkins Starbird ca. 1895

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com or medical training, as an army nurse in August 1864. As stated by Judkins in the book Our Army Nurses: Interesting Sketches and Photographs of Nearly 100 Noble Women Who Served in Hospitals and on the Battlefields during the Civil War by Mary Gardner Holland, “I reported to Miss Dix at her house in Washington, D.C., and was immediately sent to Carver Hospital, where I ministered to the wounded and afflicted soldiers.” Apparently, Judkins had passed Dix’s strict guidelines for nurse candidates. Under such guidelines, volunteers were to be between the ages of 35 and 50 and “plain-looking.” Moreover, they were required to wear unhooped black or brown dresses, with no jewelry or cosmetics. In this regard, Dix wanted to avoid sending attractive young females into the hospitals, where she believed that they would be exploited by the male doctors and patients.

Meanwhile, as the country’s bloodiest war raged on, army nurses were pushed to their limits. In fact, for every

three soldiers killed in battle, five more died from non-combat-related diseases. In addition, according to American Battlefield Trust, “The primitive nature of Civil War medicine, both in its intellectual underpinnings and in its practice in the armies, meant that many wounds and illnesses were unnecessarily fatal…Meanwhile, soldiers suffering from what we now recognize as post-traumatic stress disorder were uncatalogued and uncared for.” Thus, in addition to providing basic medical care, army nurses simply comforted, fed, wrote letters, read, and prayed with the patients.

Judkins served at Carver Hospital in Washington D.C. for only three weeks, after which she was transferred to St. John’s College Hospital in Annapolis, Maryland. During her service, she witnessed the horrors of war from another perspective: the treatment of former prisoners of war. As she stated in Holland’s book, “The hospital accommodated about 1,200 patients and includ-

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ed 14 nurses. It was a post for paroled prisoners. Pen cannot describe the first boat-load of half-starved, half-clothed, thin, emaciated forms whose feet, tied up in rags, left footprints of blood as they marched along to be washed and dressed for the wards.” She continued, “In many cases, their minds were demented, and they could give no information as to friends or homes and died in such conditions. Their graves were marked as ‘Unknown.’” As she cared for the sick and dying soldiers, she heard stories of their suffering in prison, “all of which corroborated with what I have seen in print, only one-half cannot be told!” This experience left a lasting impression on Judkins who later wrote the following: “The patience, bravery, and fortitude of our soldiers will ever be cherished in my memory.”

It is important to note that, despite their determination, knowledge, and emotional and physical strength, female nurses were generally unpaid for their services. According to Curator Sue (cont. on page 44)

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44 (cont. from page 43)

Ann Gaitings of the Bangor Historical Society, “Some of the nurses felt that money demeaned their patriotism and Christian sense of duty.”

Judkins subsequently married Solomon Starbird, who worked as a lawyer in New York and served in the war as a 1st lieutenant in the 55th Massachusetts Volunteers, an African American regiment, and the sister regiment of the renowned Massachusetts 54th Volunteers (depicted in the 1989 Academy Award-winning film “Glory”). The couple moved to Nebraska and then to Colorado, where Solomon continued his work as a lawyer.

After Solomon’s death in 1889, Judkins moved further west and became an active member of the National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War, which was a social organization established by Dorothea Dix in 1881 that advocated for and helped secure recognition and benefits for former Civil War nurses. In 1910 and 1913,

Judkins served as junior vice-president of the national association and section president of the association in California, respectively. She died on February 15, 1922 and was buried at the Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. She was 89 years old.

Regarding the experiences of Judkins and other Civil War nurses, perhaps it was best said by American novelist, poet, and volunteer Civil War nurse Louisa May Alcott in her Hospital Sketches (1863): “My ward was divided into three rooms; and, under favor of the matron, I had managed to sort out the patients in such a way that I had what I called, my ‘duty room,’ my ‘pleasure room,’ and my ‘pathetic room,’ and worked for each in a different way. One, I visited, armed with a dressing tray, full of rollers, plasters, and pins; another, with books, flowers, games, and gossip; and third, with teapots, lullabies, consolation, and sometimes, a shroud.”

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

Skowhegan Bridges Many helpless against the ravages of nature

by Brian Swartz

N

orridgewock shipped a bridge downriver to Skowhegan in March of 1849. Unfortunately, by the time it arrived at Skowhegan Island, the bridge was a bit battered — to say the least.

From its eastern border with Pittsfield, Canaan originally stretched west to the Norridgewock boundary. People living in Canaan south of the Kennebec River formed Bloomfield in 1814.

Perhaps envious of their neighbors’ freedom from Canaan taxation, residents in western Canaan petitioned the Maine Legislature to form the town of Milburn, incorporated on February 5, 1823. Located where an island split the Kennebec, which dropped twenty-eight

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feet over some distance, the place was known by the Norridgewock tribe as “Scoogun,” “Schoughegan,” and other anglicized pronunciations that essentially meant a “watching place” for fish, especially abundant Atlantic salmon.

Usage whittled the names to “Skowhegan,” which became Milburn’s name in 1836. Bloomfield merged with Skowhegan in 1861, and Cornville and Norridgewock both lost bits and pieces to Skowhegan through the mid-19th century.

Rather than construct a bridge across the gorge downriver from Skowhegan Island, Canaan officials paid Norridgewock contractor William Weston $5,500 in 1809 to build two covered

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bridges from each river bank to Skowhegan Island. Named for the North and South channels that they respectively spanned, the covered bridges served their purposes for a long time.

Decades later a narrow suspension bridge dubbed the “Swinging Bridge” opened to pedestrians on the island’s western side. The Maine Central Railroad spanned the Skowhegan gorge with a bridge now open to bicyclists and pedestrians crossing the river from downtown Skowhegan to access the paved Skowhegan Riverwalk.

Meanwhile, the first bridge spanning the Kennebec River at Norridgewock opened on October 31, 1810.

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inauspicious; broken up by warming temperatures, river ice swept down on this bridge on March 25, 1811 and tore away one pier and two hundred feet of the bridge itself.

Not repaired until that December, the bridge survived until destroyed by ice on March 26, 1826.

A replacement bridge opened in April of 1828. “Its existence was short, and on March 31, 1831, it bade us a final farewell,” recalled J.W. Hanson in his History of the Old Towns Norridgewock and Canaan, published in 1849.

Costing around $4,700, the third Norridgewock bridge opened in September of 1835 and, with the rampaging Kennebec “leaving a wreck behind, ceased to exist as a bridge” on January 31, 1839, Hanson noted.

The fourth bridge opened in the autumn of 1839 and survived to “a very considerable age — for a Norridgewock bridge,” Hansom commented. “It

took French leave on March 26, 1846.

“Designed to be a strong structure... bridge No. 5” was contracted for $11,000 in the autumn of 1848. Before starting the bridge’s construction, workers raised granite abutments on both banks and “solid granite” piers in the Kennebec, Hanson reported.

Granite “was thought to be an immovable foundation,” he commented.

Workers finished the abutments and piers and extended the bridge “to the second pier” in late March of 1849, Hanson reported. Then after dark on March 29th, “a small body of ice moved against” the bridge and “laid the woodwork a waste of ruin.”

Hanson witnessed what happened next. On Friday, March 30th, “the whole field of ice, from the bridge to Bomazeen Rapids, began to move.”

Now two and a half feet thick and “loosened... from the shores” by “a violent rain” lasting “several days,” the ice

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broke up as the Kennebec River rose, Hanson noted.

“All day the large floating cakes had been drawn under the immense [ice] field above the bridge, and as they struck the ice over them, and as the rapidly rising waters broke the great body [of ice], the hollow, booming sound filled the ear like distant thunder,” Hanson recalled.

Its movement starting and stopping, the ice field commenced its “grand march” at 6 p.m., he said. “With a steady, stately, but irresistible movement, it passed down the river,” and “all obstacles gave way before it.”

Tearing “trees, deep-rooted and gigantic” from the river banks, “the mighty waters” reached Bridge No. 5 at Norridgewock. Trees and ice “struck the northern pier,” and “the iron bands confining the [granite] rocks were sundered like flax in a candle’s blaze,” the awe-struck Hanson watched.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com “The granite rocks forming the pier, many of them weighing several tons, were hurled from their resting-places or borne away on the ice, that moved on regardless of their vast weight,” he said.

Hanson apparently rushed to “the Falls of Skowhegan,” where “the huge body of ice bore down in wild majesty against the rocky island, as if to overwhelm it... and the island, indignant at this assault, crushed the huge mass, which parted, and passed on over the falls.”

Hanson watched as “fallen trees, logs, and earth, plowed from the shores, went over in wild confusion, and the roar filled the ear of the spectator.”

Somewhere amidst that debris and ice traveled the remaining wooden wreckage and at least a few granite-pier stones from the Norridgewock bridge.

It slid beneath the Skowhegan Island bridges and vanished into history. Not until the next winter would Bridge No.

5 be rebuilt.

Ironically, Skowhegan’s South Channel Bridge, the original 1808 covered bridge, survived until a steady rain loosened the thick Kennebec River ice in mid-December of 1901. Sweeping logs, ice floes, and even a Madison footbridge before it, the raging river piled debris into the South Channel Bridge. Its battered deck and sides repaired afterwards, the covered bridge gave way to a steel bridge in 1904.

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The Oxford County Copperheads Residents thronged an 1863 rally at South Paris

by Brian Swartz

B

y late summer 1863, Republicans detected a Copperhead behind every rock maple and white pine in Maine, and pro-Republican newspapers like the ironically named Oxford Democrat in South Paris fed the hysteria.

A well-designed and thoroughly read weekly published every Friday in South Paris, the paper sprinkled its August 14 edition with such headlines as “Portland Copperhead Convention,” “Copperhead County Convention,” and “The Peace Advocates in the Copperhead Democracy.”

And how did the Oxford Democrat define Copperheads? As “the

friends and followers of Jeff Davis in this state,” the paper described the pro-peace advocates who convened in Portland in early August. Reading like a Republican poster pasted to a South Paris barn, the article about the “Portland Copperhead Convention” called the event “a convention of the old stagers,” where “more fanatical rant and vulgar abuse of free institutions and a free government was never witnessed.”

Then “a Union meeting” took place in Portland on Saturday, August 15, and the Oxford Democrat waxed eloquent about Vice President Hannibal Hamlin and Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard speaking to participants. From Leeds

in Androscoggin County, Howard had lost his right arm in combat 15 months later.

He was a real hero, not a Jeff Davis backer. “Urging the setting aside of a party feeling” so Mainers could focus on saving the United States, Howard reminded his listeners “what the unflinching bravery of our armies had accomplished” in 1863, the South Paris reported.

But the Copperheads were everywhere in Oxford County, weren’t they?

Were many pro-Union men left? Their nerves probably rattled by the incessant Copperhead coverage, Lincoln backers in Androscoggin County called for a

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Union County Convention to be held at 10 a.m., Tuesday, August 25.

Its name masked the fact that the convention was a Republican event “to nominate county officers.”

Surely Oxford County’s pro-Union supporters could do better?

Yes, they could. “Grand Union Mass Meeting!” proclaimed an Oxford Democrat headline on Friday, August 28.

“A Mass Meeting of the citizens of Oxford County” would be held at Union Grove “between South Paris & Norway Village” on Tuesday, September 1.

The big guns would appear. Just beginning his national ascendancy in Republican circles, state representative James G. Blaine would speak, and so would Hannibal Hamlin, a Paris native.

From New Hampshire would come U.S. Senator Daniel Clark.

Apolitical in his avowed party affiliation, focused solely on defeating the Confederacy, Howard would speak, too.

“The paramount importance of the issues involved in the coming election … demand that this shall be the grandest demonstration the County ever witnessed,” the Oxford Democrat proclaimed. “Let there be such a gathering as shall carry consternation into the already shattered ranks of traitors in our midst.”

P.S.: “The ladies are especially invited.”

If “the weather” should “prove unfavorable,” organizers planned to move the event “to Agricultural Hall, which will accommodate a large number” of people. The building was arranged so “that one speaker can address an audience on each floor,” according to the Oxford Democrat.

The weather held on September 1.

The ladies came. They brought their children, and they brought their men — who had no choice in the matter if they were smart. People packed “the beautiful forest of pines” known as “Union

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Grove,” the newspaper reported three days later.

“At an early hour carriages commenced pouring in from every direction, and soon Union Grove was filled with such an audience as could not fail to inspire the hearts of the speakers,” a reporter noticed. “All parts of the county were represented; all trades and professions came out to hear.”

Returning to that one-line invitation extended on August 28, the reporter stressed, “The patriotic mothers and daughters were there in overwhelming numbers.”

Calling the meeting to order at 10 a.m., Ezra F. Beal of Norway successfully nominated Colonel William Wirt Virgin of Norway as the event’s president. Raising the 23rd Maine Infantry Regiment a year earlier, Virgin had just brought his boys home from garrisoning forts near Washington, D.C. At appropriate times, “the North Bridgton band … furnished excellent (cont. on page 50)

Western Maine

50 (cont. from page 49)

music,” and the Norway Light Infantry “fired salutes, at Norway, both morning and evening,” a reporter observed.

Virgin introduced the first speaker, the pro-Union E.B. Turner of Texas. People listened as in his Texas drawl, Turner explained that while a slave-owning Democrat, “he was grateful” to escape the Confederacy to stand “to-day on Freedom’s ground.”

“Are you willing to be a traitor, or will you support the government?”

Turner asked. “God smiles on America when she is true to her mission of Universal Freedom.” He spoke into the early afternoon, so attendees broke briefly for lunch. Hannibal and Clark then delivered “able and telling speeches” that ate through the afternoon’s schedule, the Oxford Democrat noted, and the Union Meeting adjourned about 4 p.m.

No mention was made of Hamlin or Howard speaking.

Did the South Paris rally achieve its goal? Well, the mood had certainly shifted in Maine’s northwestern mountains, the Oxford Democrat claimed on September 11. “From every part of glorious Old Oxford, we have the most cheering reports. Her noble sons are alive to the great interests pending in the coming election ...”

From Buckfield to Hebron to Canton Mills to Peru Center, Rumford Centre, and Hanover, a South Paris journalist traveled Oxford County to learn what was happening at the local level. “Everywhere we found our friends full of enthusiasm and hope,” he reported on September 11, just three days before the state and national election.

“The gallant sons of Old Oxford … are for the union, the constitution and the old flag,” the journalist wrote.

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Benton’s Sergeant Brian L. Buker Lest we forget

I

by James Nalley

n 1961, in anticipation of the Viet Cong insurgency in South Vietnam, President John F. Kennedy began activating Special Forces units, including the 5th Special Forces Group (SFG).

The 5th SFG was first deployed as a battle advisory group for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. However, after the war was in full swing, it became a mainstay battle force that used both unconventional and conventional warfare.

By the end of its 10-year service in the Vietnam War, a total of 18 Special Forces soldiers were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, including one man from Benton.

Brian L. Buker was born on Novem-

ber 3, 1949, in the town of Benton. The youngest of four sons of Opal Buker Clark, he eventually graduated from Lawrence High School in Fairfield in 1967. According to a September 2010

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article in the Portland Press Herald, one of Buker’s high school classmates, Harry Fitzpatrick stated, “He was a regular 1967 version of a teenager…

He was more inclined to go off to war; he did talk about joining the Army and serving the nation that way.” In 1968, as expected, Buker enlisted in the U.S. Army in Bangor, and earned his way into the 5th SFG. It is important to note that, by the late 1960s, the 5th SFG had become unique for its heavy use of watercraft, particularly Hurricane Aircat airboats.

In 1967, the group launched a campaign against Viet Cong forces over a wide area of the Mekong Delta, a (cont. on page 52)

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52 (cont. from page 51)

15,600 square-mile region in southwestern Vietnam. As stated in the book, History of Special Forces in Vietnam, 1961-1971 by Francis Kelly, the campaign, “conducted jointly with the South Vietnamese Army, members of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group, and the U.S. Navy and Air Force, was built around the use of 84 airboats as well as helicopters, U.S. Navy warships, and civilian vessels.” Their combined efforts “turned the flood season into a significant tactical advantage for the United States” and allowed the 5th SFG “to capture large swaths of territory that were formerly overrun with Viet Cong.” However, such gains came at a cost, since “55 Special Forces soldiers, 1,654 Vietnamese, and an estimate 7,000 Viet Cong were killed during the campaign.” In April 1970, the 5th SFG began reducing its numbers in Vietnam, despite the continuing presence of enemy soldiers in the region. This was

5th Special Forces on the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. when Buker, a sergeant in the 5th SFG, joined the fray.

On April 5, 1970, 20-year-old Buker was serving in Detachment B-55 and acting as a platoon advisor for a Vietnamese mobile strike force’s mission in the Mekong Delta. That morning, he led the platoon and cleared a strategically located and well-guarded pass

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to establish the first foothold at the top of what was formerly an impenetrable mountain fortress. According to his Medal of Honor citation, “When his platoon came under intense enemy fire from two heavily fortified bunkers, and realizing that withdrawal would result in heavy casualties, Sgt. Buker unhesitatingly, and with complete disregard

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com for his personal safety, charged through the hail of enemy fire and destroyed the first bunker with hand grenades.”

Meanwhile, as he reorganized his men for an attack on the second bunker, “Sgt. Buker was seriously wounded.

Despite his wounds and the deadly enemy fire, he crawled forward and destroyed the second bunker.” Buker then refused medical attention and continued to reorganize his men for another attack. That was when he was killed by enemy fire. As a result of his actions, many casualties were averted, and the assault of the enemy position was successful.

By November 1970, further reductions in personnel resulted in a complete withdrawal of the 5th SFG in March 1971. Members of the group, however, continued to conduct intelligence operations in Southeast Asia until the collapse of the South Vietnamese government on April 29, 1975.

According to the Portland Press

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Herald, “Buker was one of four brothers to go to war in Vietnam in the mid1960s, and the only one of them not to come home.” Buker was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions, making him one of three servicemen from Maine to receive the award in the Vietnam War (the others being Thomas J. McMahon and Donald S. Skidgel). Buker was buried at Brown Cemetery in his hometown of Benton.

As for his legacy, the same article stated that “Buker’s mother, Opal Buker Clark, always said that after she died, she wanted the medal donated to her son’s high school for permanent display.” Thus, following her death in May 2010, members of her family, including Buker’s brothers Victor and Alan, presented his Medal of Honor and other awards, such as the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, to school officials at Fairfield High School, with plans to display them in the school library.

According to Victor, the family agreed that Brian’s medals “should be given to the high school so future generations will know who he was and what he did for his country, lest they forget.”

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Waiting For “Ice Out”

by Brian Swartz

R

Let the fishing begin

angeley residents anxiously awaited “ice out” in the spring of 1901. Winter had passed, tourists would soon ride the Phillips & Rangeley Railroad into town, and locals like St. John Hoyt just wanted the ice gone.

“May 1st, so say the wise weather prophets, the ice will leave Rangeley Lake,” Hoyt broadcast the local expectations on April 17th. Conditions looked favorable for May Day. The “warm rain” (defined as any temperature above freezing) falling since midMarch “had the desired effect” by starting the snow on its way out.

“Then came the warm, soft, cutting wind and melting sun to finish the

work,” Hoyt reported. In a short while “people were gazing on snow no longer.”

Melting the Rangeley Lake ice was another matter, however.

Yes, the rain “had melted the snow which covered the ice, and gradually this water penetrated the three feet of ice,” Hoyt noted. Now the “wind and sun” could eat at the ice, and surely in “only a short time” it would disappear.

Surely... Maybe…

By mid-April water covered the Rangeley Lake ice “at least two feet deep, and in other places five or six” feet deep, Hoyt described the lake’s “unusual appearance.” The “water would roll and ripple” as if the ice had van-

ished, but people still walked across the lake. From Bemis, “Capt. F.C. Barker... walked as far as Bald Mountain camps on his way to Rangeley,” and all along the way he sloshed through 18 inches of water.

“The hotel men... and the guides” looked forward to an early spring, and the local “fishermen (and women) have got out their fishing tackle, looked it over carefully, and invested in new lines and leaders,” according to Hoyt.

Unfortunately, outdoorsmen (and women) could only dream, with Rangeley Lake frozen and flooded over, but from all around the lake — and especially in Rangeley village — the sounds of hammers and saws echoed (cont. on page 56)

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56 (cont. from page 54)

from the surrounding hills. “The improvements in the village are many,” Hoyt commented about the remodeling and new construction taking place near his home.

“The hotel and camp owners have done all they can to make their houses and resorts better than ever before,” Hoyt noted. “All things are ready.”

Ice out was always a big deal at Rangeley. The earliest recorded ice out was April 30, 1889, the latest on May 21, 1888. In 1900 “the lake was clear”

by May 15, according to Hoyt.

The ice still covered Rangeley Lake when he next observed the local happenings on April 23, 1901.

“All the interest of the people in the town, as well as out of the place, is centered on the lake,” and “nearly everyone is making some sort of a guess as to when it will go,” he commented.

Barker had predicted that “the ice will be practically all out” by May 5th or 6th, but “well-known game warden”

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George M. Esty “said that if the present weather held good,” May 1st “would see the lake clear of ice,” Hoyt reported.

The local guides differed in opinion. David Haines, “one of the oldest and best-known guides,” said May 10th for ice out. Daniel Heywood claimed “that May 5th will find the lake clear,” according to Hoyt. No matter when Rangeley Lake opened, “every indication points toward one of the earliest fishing seasons that has been known for years,” he reported.

April 29 found Hoyt chomping at the ice bit. On Wednesday, April 24th, “a telephone message from Haines’ Landing” on Mooselookmeguntic Lake had reported, “the ice was going fast.”

On Saturday, April 27th, local residents found Haley Pond next to Rangeley village “entirely clear” of ice, and “the big lake” (Mooselookmeguntic) “was clear halfway to the Birches,” Hoyt groused.

What about Rangeley Lake? “The

ice has not really gone out, although it was predicted that it would by this date,” he admitted. “There is one consolation, and that is that it can’t possibly last much longer.”

And the Rangeley Lake ice was now dangerous. Several horse-drawn conveyances had broken through the ice on April 24th. In one situation, “the load broke through first instead of the horses, which is not the usual way,” reported Hoyt, declining to mention the horses’ fate.

By now everyone around Rangeley village forecast a May 7th ice out, which meant “there will be nearly a week of fishing down on the big lake before there is any at all here,” Hoyt complained.

Suddenly the Rangeley Lake ice “quickly and quietly began to break up on Tuesday,” April 30th. By late afternoon “a large gap” opened from “Maneskootuk Island to the wharf,” Hoyt cheered.

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maining ice a day earlier.

In mid-April he had predicted that “when the ice goes out and the message goes flashing out over the wires to different states, the people will come thronging our way, for the Rangeley region is becoming better known each year.”

Compiling his Rangeley notes on May 7th, Hoyt observed, “Thus has fishing begun at the Rangeley lakes and the fishermen are already here.”

_____________

As people cheered from the village shore, a steamer churned across the open water to “Marble’s wharf, waiting there until the 7:05 mail had come in, when it steamed slowly back,” Hoyt exhilarated. “This was the first trip by any steamer” on Rangeley Lake in 1901.

A strong wind broke up the remaining lake ice on May 1st, “but not until May 3rd was the [Rangeley] lake entirely clear of ice,” Hoyt reported.

Mooselookmeguntic had lost its re-

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1890 Primitives.................................................................................58 3D Equipment Mobile Repair Service...............................................46 @ Home Electric................................................................................51 A-1 Seamless Gutters........................................................................18 ABC Pool & Spa Center......................................................................15 ADA Fence Company, Inc. ................................................................43 Advantage Insurance.........................................................................36 Affordable Well Drilling Excavation & Forestry..................................16 All Season’s Power Equipment...........................................................24 Andrew Ames Logging.......................................................................5 Archie's Inc. Rubbish Removal..........................................................53 Back Office Solutions Maine..............................................................32 Bay Haven Lobster Pound & Restaurant............................................22 Bean Maine Lobster...........................................................................13 Beaulieu Garage Doors.....................................................................51 Belgrade Regional Health Center......................................................28 Benchmark Appraisal........................................................................38 Bessey Insurance...............................................................................36 Bethel Chamber of Commerce...........................................................49 Bethel Family Health Center..............................................................28 Betty's Laundry.................................................................................24 Bingham Area Health Center.............................................................28 Bingham Motor Inn & Sports Complex.............................................41 Black Bear Media Blasting & Construction......................................38 Blanchet Builders, L.L.C. ..................................................................44 Blanchette Moving & Storage Co. .....................................................6 Bob's Cash Fuel..................................................................................58 Bolster Monumental Works..............................................................47 Boomers Restaurant & Saloon..........................................................48 Boos Heating Company.....................................................................25 Bowley Brook Pure Maple Syrup......................................................35 Boynton's Greenhouse......................................................................45 Bragdon-Finley Funeral Home..........................................................50 Central Maine Community College...................................................24 Central Maine Sandblasting..............................................................14 Central Tire Co. Inc. ..........................................................................21 Chalet Moosehead Lakefront Motel..................................................40 Chim Chiminey Chimney Sweep..........................................................8 Chris' Electric.....................................................................................24 Clark Auto Parts................................................................................58 Cobb's Pierce Pond Camps................................................................55 Cole Harrison Insurance....................................................................37 Collins Enterprises.............................................................................33 Colonial Valley Motel........................................................................33 Computer Improvements..................................................................45 Cooper Farms.....................................................................................26 Copp Excavating................................................................................17 Copy Kat's Printing & Design............................................................10 Coulthard's Pools & Spas Inc. ............................................................35 Country Corner Inn............................................................................42 Countryside Auto Body & Repair........................................................7 Cushing Construction........................................................................29 D&R Paving & Sealcoating................................................................9 D.A. Wilson & Co. Complete Excavation Services.............................26 Damboise Garage..............................................................................32 Damon's Beverage & Redemption - Skowhegan.............................58 Damon's Beverage & Redemption - Waterville...............................52 Dan's Automotive Repair & Sales....................................................54 Danzig Painting & Home Improvements.........................................25 Design Architectural Heating............................................................14 Dirigo Waste Oil.................................................................................30 Dixfield Discount Fuel, Inc. ..............................................................36 Dyer Septic Service & Excavation......................................................25 Ed Hodsdon Masonry, Inc. ................................................................7 Edmunds Market...............................................................................55 Ed's Grove Discount Warehouse........................................................21 Emerald Janitorial.............................................................................16 Engine 5 Bakehouse.........................................................................52 ESC Enterprises..................................................................................26 Evergreens Campground & Restaurant...............................................4 Farmington Farmers Union & Union Rental......................................54 Fine Line Paving & Grading...............................................................43 Finley Funeral Home.........................................................................50 Firefly Boutique....................................................................back cover Flagstaff Rentals...............................................................................56 Floormaster North.............................................................................45 Four Winds Too Lobster Co. & Redemption Center............................50 Franklin Somerset Federal Credit Union.............................................5 Freeport Antiques and Heirlooms Showcase...................................13 Freightliner of Maine Inc. ...................................................................4 G&G Cash Fuels................................................................................17 George's Banana Stand.....................................................................44 Giberson Funeral Home....................................................................42 Gingerbread Farm Perennials...........................................................28 Glen Luce Logging, Inc. ...................................................................27 Goin' Postal - Auburn........................................................................16 Good Times Unlimited RV Sales & Service........................................34 Gray Family Vision Center.................................................................19 Greater Bridgton Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce....................22 Greg's Auto Repair............................................................................58 Grimaldi Concrete Floors & Countertops..........................................29 Hadley’s...................................................................................50 Hall Implement Co. ..........................................................................19 Hall & Smith.....................................................................................40 Hammond Lumber Company............................................................31 Hardys Motorsports..........................................................................57

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Harris Drug Store..............................................................................39 Healthreach Community Health Centers...........................................28 Heart & Hand Inc. ...........................................................................22 Hi 5 Maine........................................................................................18 High Tide Low Tide Seafood.............................................................42 Highland Farms Logging, LLC..........................................................11 Hilton Garden Inn Auburn Riverwatch.............................................17 Hodgdon Well Drilling, Inc. ..............................................................3 Hog Heaven Bar & Grill...................................................................55 Home Auto Group.............................................................................34 Homestead Realty.............................................................................18 Hungry Hollow Country Store.............................................................3 Ideal Electric Electrical Contractor....................................................30 Image Auto Body..............................................................................58 J.P. Carroll Fuel Co. .........................................................................11 J.P. Clarke Plumbing Services...........................................................37 J.R. Nunes & Sons Excavation...........................................................36 J.T. Reid's Gun Shop..........................................................................3 Jackman Auto Parts..........................................................................57 Jay, Livermore, Livermore Falls Chamber of Commerce.....................50 JD's Package Store & Redemption..................................................21 Jean Castonguay Excavation Trucking & Logging.............................28 Jimmy's Shop 'N Save.......................................................................57 Joel Torrey Painting..........................................................................55 Johnny Castonguay Logging & Trucking...........................................30 Jordan Lumber Co. ..........................................................................37 JT's Finest Kind Saw........................................................................46 Judd Goodwin Well Company..........................................................40 Kash for Kans Recycling, LLC............................................................10 Keith Hadley Inc. .............................................................................50 Knowles Lumber Company.................................................................7 Kramers Inc. .....................................................................................32 L&L Timber Land Management.......................................................49 L.R. Nadeau Inc. Excavation..............................................................18 Lakepoint Real Estate.......................................................................31 Lakes Region Power Systems............................................................38 Laney's Pit Stop.................................................................................43 Larsen's Electric................................................................................53 Lavallee's Garage..............................................................................57 Law Office of Brian Condon, Jr, Esq. ...............................................18 Lewiston House of Pizza...................................................................15 Liberte Auto Sales............................................................................16 Lincoln Street Radiator Shop..............................................................5 Linda Bean's Maine Kitchen & Topside Tavern.................................13 Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine Vacation Rental....................................13 Linda Bean’s Maine Wyeth Gallery...................................................13 Linkletter & Sons, Inc. .......................................................................4 Long Green Variety...........................................................................50 Luce's Meats & Maple......................................................................41 Madison Area Health Center.............................................................28 Maine at War.......................................................................................6 Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife...........................23 & 47 Maine Historical Society......................................................................5 Maine Lakes Brewfest.......................................................................22 Maine Lobstermen’s Association.......................................................47 Maine Pellet Sales LLC.........................................................................3 Maine Veterinary Medical Center.........................................back cover Mainely Puppies Plus, LLC.................................................................47 Maine's Northwestern Mountains....................................................38 Mama Bear's Den.............................................................................40 Marston Industrial Services Inc. ......................................................31 Martin Stream Campground.............................................................26 McAllister Accounting and Tax Services............................................51 McNaughton Construction................................................................31 MEDCo........................................................................................15 Memorial Guard LLC..........................................................................27 Mid-Maine Finish Carpentry, LLC.....................................................52 Mike Wainer Plumbing & Heating....................................................46 Mills Market......................................................................................54 Montello Heights Retirement Community........................................14 Moose River Lodge & Motel..............................................................41 Moosehead Motorsports...................................................................40 Morrell’s Septic Tank Service Excavating.............................................9 Mount Blue Motel............................................................................33 Mount Saint Joseph Residence & Rehab..........................................29 Mountain Greenery Greenhouses......................................................25 Mt. Abram Regional Health Center...................................................28 Murdough Logging & Chipping.........................................................22 Naples Packing Co., Inc. ..................................................................54 NewGen Powerline Construction......................................................46 Niedner's Floor Finishing..................................................................49 North Camps.....................................................................................39 Northeast Laboratory Services...........................................................4 Northland Hotel................................................................................56 Norway / Paris Soft Serve.................................................................48 Oberg Insurance & Real Estate Agency............................................47 Ogunquit Beach Lobster House........................................................13 Old Mill Pub Restaurant....................................................................45 Otis Federal Credit Union.................................................................28 Our Village Market...........................................................................56 Oxford Hills Chamber of Commerce..................................................48 Packard Appraisal, Inc. ....................................................................23 Pat's Pizza - Auburn.........................................................................16 Peck's Family Acupuncture...............................................................20 Penobscot Marine Museum.............................................................12 Percy's Tires & Auto Repair LLC..........................................................9

BUSINESS

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Perkins Management........................................................................30 Phil Carter's Garage..........................................................................51 Pine Acres Disc Golf Course...............................................................17 Pine Tree Orthopedic Lab..................................................................27 Pitcher Perfect Tire Service..............................................................32 Presidential Pest Control..................................................................14 Prime Financial Inc. .........................................................................30 Pro Flooring Installation & Cleaning Services LLC..........................28 Profenno's Restaurant & Pub..........................................................20 Quinn Hardware................................................................................44 R&B's Home Source..........................................................................42 R&P Auto..........................................................................................55 R.E. Lowell Lumber, Inc. .................................................................26 R.F. Automotive Repair....................................................................57 Randy's Full Service Auto Repair, LLC.............................................44 Range Pond Campground...................................................................8 Rangeley Electric..............................................................................39 Rangeley Family Medicine................................................................28 Rangeley Lakes Chamber of Commerce............................................39 Rangeley Vacation Rentals...............................................................38 Rare Woods USA...............................................................................34 Record Building Supply, Inc. ...........................................................47 Reid’s Service Center.........................................................................24 Richard H. Lewis & Son Building & Remodeling................................47 Richard Wing & Son Logging Inc. ...................................................20 Rick Labbe Construction...................................................................53 Rising Sun Café & Bakery.................................................................24 River Valley Chamber of Commerce.................................................54 Riverside Kwik Stop..........................................................................51 Robert W. Libby & Sons, Inc. .............................................................6 Rod's Cycle & RV...............................................................................42 Romah Motor Inn.............................................................................23 Ron's Market....................................................................................53 Ron's Transmissions............................................................................7 Rottari Electric....................................................................................8 Route 26 Antiques............................................................................23 Roy's All Steak Hamburgers & Golf Center.......................................17 Russell & Sons Towing & Recovery...................................................25 S.A. McLean, Inc. .............................................................................22 Sabattus House of Pizza...................................................................14 Sackett and Brake Survey Inc. ..........................................................43 Sarge's Pub & Grub...........................................................................39 Sebago Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce....................................8 Seth McCoy's Excavating..................................................................10 Shenn Corp.......................................................................................26 Siragusa Builders................................................................................7 Skip's Lounge...................................................................................20 Skowhegan Regional Chamber of Commerce..................................43 Smile Again Dentures, Inc. ..............................................................15 Solon Corner Market.........................................................................44 Spencer Group Paving, LLC...............................................................27 Stacy's Service Center.......................................................................47 Sterling Electric.................................................................................34 Stevens Electric & Pump Service Inc. ...............................................4 Strong Area Health Center...............................................................28 Strong Hardware & Building Supply.................................................55 Styling Dog Grooming Boutique........................................................6 T&L Enterprises................................................................................56 Tangeré Massage Therapy and Wellness..........................................11 The Garden Goddess.........................................................................26 The Good Life Market.......................................................................19 The Irregular.....................................................................................36 The Kingfield Woodsman.................................................................37 The Meadows.....................................................................................7 The Sterling Inn Bed & Breakfast...................................................41 The Village Donut Shop & Bakery..................................................8 Three Lakes Storage Units................................................................53 Town of Mexico................................................................................35 Trail's End Steakhouse & Tavern.......................................................56 Trailside One Stop.............................................................................40 Trash Guyz........................................................................................19 Treehouse Glass Studio....................................................................20 Triple D Redemption & Tanning Spa.................................................57 Twin Town Homes, Inc. ...................................................................48 Valley Arbor Care..............................................................................52 Valley Gas & Oil Company................................................................56 VintageMaineImages.com.............................................................5 W.L. Sturgeon, Inc. .........................................................................11 Wallace Dumpster Rental................................................................19 Wallace Trailer Parts Sales & Service...............................................19 Warren Brothers Construction..........................................................52 Weber Insurance - Farmington......................................................36 Weber Insurance - Livermore Falls..................................................36 Welch's Hardware & Lumber...........................................................10 Western Maine Family Health Center...............................................28 Western Maine Glass........................................................................11 White's Land Management..............................................................35 Whittemore & Sons Outdoor Power Equipment.............................46 Wilson Excavating, Inc. ...................................................................49 Wilson Funeral Home.........................................................................6 Winslow Supply, Inc. .......................................................................52 Woodland Valley Disc Golf...............................................................10 Woodlawn Rehab & Nursing Center.................................................45 Wood-Mizer of Maine.......................................................................50 Woodsome’s Feeds & Needs................................................................9

Discover MAine Mag 4.85 vertical x 7.625 horizontal Western Maine

Maine Veterinary Medical Center A Specialty Hospital and 24/7 Emergency Center in Scarborough

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WWW.FIREFLYSHOPMAINE.COM

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Emergency & Specialty Hospital Scarborough, Maine

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207.885.1290 • mvmc.vet

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— 2021 Western Maine Edition —

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1500 Technology Way • Enterprise Business Park • Scarborough, ME

Globally Inspired Finds from New England and Beyond!

A surprising variety of American-made clothing and a diverse collection of jewelry, scarves, bags and accessories.

Over 1,200 sq. ft. of retail!

Summer Hours: Open 7 Days a Week 10am-6pm

103 Main Street, Bridgton (across from Beth’s Cafe) 207-647-3672 • www.fireflyshopmaine.com