Flying diverse missions for the Maine Forest Service
Brian Swartz
17 The Lumberjack War
Was it settled...or not?
Charles Francis
20 Presque Isle’s Northeastland Hotel
From 1930s landmark to community beacon again
Collin Darrell
24 Bringing The Swedish To Aroostook County
The diplomat who helped establish the colony
Brian Swartz
29 A B-18 Goes Down In Maine
A navigational error costs the Army a bomber
Brian Swartz
34 Presque Isle’s Jessica McClintock
Gunne Sax’s fashion icon
Wanda Curtis
Publisher Jim Burch
Editor
Dennis Burch
Design & Layout
Liana Merdan
Field Representative
Don Plante
Contributing Writers
Collin Darrell
Wanda Curtis
Charles Francis
James Nalley
Brian Swartz
Doug Tibbetts
AIt Makes No Never Mind
by James Nalley
t the time of this publication, Thanksgiving will yet again be upon us. When asked about traditions, most people will mention family gatherings, abundant meals, and expressions of gratitude. Among the other traditions, several come to mind such as watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and enjoying a football game. However, two additional traditions are symbolic of this time of year: 1) the breaking of the wishbone; and 2) volunteerism.
As for the former, the tradition of the wishbone dates back to 800 BC, when the Etruscans (an ancient civilization in modern-day Italy) believed that chickens had magical powers. Unlike the modern practice of breaking the wishbone (furcula), they would dry the bone and stroke it to make wishes.
The Romans also adopted this practice, but instead of stroking the bone, they broke it, with the person holding the larger piece believed to have his/her wish granted. Interestingly, the Roman army carried cages of “sacred chickens” with them, with the designated chicken keeper known as the “pullarius” (seriously). According to Backyard Poultry magazine, “In one instance, the sacred chickens suggested that a Roman general remain in camp. Ignoring this premonition, he and his army were slain with-
in three hours. The moral of the story: Obey the chickens!
Moreover, the article “Wishbone Tradition” (2024) by the Museum of Osteology states, “By the 1400s, this custom spread to England, where it became known as ‘Merry Thoughts.’ The English used goose wishbones during the autumn harvest, and incorporated the act of making wishes.” Later, when the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts, they found turkeys, instead of chickens and geese. Naturally, they made the turkey wishbone the key part of this tradition. By the 1800s, breaking turkey wishbones became a post-feast Thanksgiving tradition.
Regarding the second tradition, i.e., volunteerism, there are several options in this month’s region. First, there is Senior Corps RSVP, a volunteer network for people 55 and older sponsored by the Aroostook Agency on Aging. It connects volunteers with opportunities to improve the quality of life for older adults in their communities. Volunteers choose how and where they want to serve. For more information, go to www.aroostookaging.org. Second, there is volunteering for a food bank in your community. One of the best resources is www.feedingamerica.org. There, you can enter your zip code, find a food bank near you, sign up for a volunteer
shift, and have fun. This is especially pertinent around Thanksgiving. Finally, there is United Way Aroostook (www. unitedwayaroostook.org), which brings people together to give, volunteer, and take action to support the community’s ongoing challenges in education, financial stability, and health.
At this point, let me close with the following jest. Three Buddhist monks die in a tragic accident. They arrive in a beautiful clouded world and begin to walk towards a man who is standing in front of golden gates. “Hello! I am Peter and behind me is Heaven. Unfortunately, I cannot let you in since you are not Christians. But, if you can tell me what the meaning of Easter is, I will gladly open them for you.” The monks nod in agreement. The first monk says, “Easter! Big man. White beard. Gives presents to children!” Peter looks at him with sadness. “No, that is Christmas,” after which the monk instantly vanishes. The second monk says, “Easter! Families sit together, cook turkey, and pray.” Peter replies, “Wrong,” as the monk vanishes. Finally, the third monk looks serious and says, “Yes, Jesus. Son of God. Taken. Beaten. Nailed to cross. Die. Put in cave. Three days go by. Cave opens. Jesus comes out. Sees shadow. Goes back inside!”
Search For A Missing Fisherman
by Doug Tibbetts
In my youth I recall coming home from school and quite often someone would ask me, “what did you learn today.” As I remember it, I always replied, “nothing.”
It was somewhere around Memorial Day in 1971 when my boss called a little after supper time and informed me of a missing fisherman in T7R4. The particulars were that a man who was a little long in the tooth and part of a railroad section crew, out of Smyrna, was missing. The crew of two had just held up with their motorcar at a location on the Bangor & Aroostook tracks, about a mile south of St. Croix Lake, that ran adjacent to Smith Brook to have their lunch. While there the missing man had
taken his fishing pole to try his luck at the brook which was only a stone’s throw off the east side of the tracks.
The section foreman, Archie McDonald, waited for him to return. He did not return so McDonald began to look for him, both by calling his name and going down to the brook, but had no luck. After some time, he had to give up and move the motorcar to a place off the tracks so a scheduled train could pass. He returned later in the afternoon hoping his partner had found his way back to the tracks but had to eventually give up and head down the tracks to Smyrna Mills.
Bright and early, I packed lunch and struck out on the trip into Smith Brook.
It was a little over 20 miles through the woods, and the sun was glistening through the hardwoods over my left shoulder. I arrived near the tracks where I had to park my truck and walk the last one hundred yards or so. It was there that I met up with my boss, Virgil Grant, and his friend Blaine Lambert, a trapper from Houlton that usually helped us out when we were searching for missing people. Also, Darrell Crandall, Sr., the Aroostook County Sheriff and one of his deputies arrived to give us a hand. As we all arrived over on the tracks, we found Archie McDonald was already there with a couple of other men that had traveled up with him that morning on the motorcar.
We split into groups of two and commenced to search up and down the brook. The general consensus was that the missing man must have suffered some medical incident as there was no reasonable explanation why anyone could not find their way back onto the tracks that ran almost parallel to Smith Brook and crossed under the tracks a short ways downstream.
We had no luck and after about an hour the Warden Airplane out of Eagle Lake arrived overhead, piloted by Jack McPhee. Virgil had called Jack the night before and given him the information about where we would be. He began to circle around the brook area. At first tight circles, and then expanding out. The hardwood foliage that had recently erupted to soak up the summer sun and engage in the process of photosynthesis would make seeing the forest floor difficult in many places, but Jack kept at it. As time passed, we became
perplexed on how the man seemed to have vanished.
As time passed the plane began to work more to the west and it became an issue regarding how long Jack could stay without getting low on fuel as he had been there for some time with no success.
In those days we had no portable radios to communicate with the plane, but just as discouragement began to hang heavily on our shoulders, we heard the much-anticipated sound of Jack revving the plane’s engine; that was the universal signal. A sound heard that day and other days to follow, a sound I can re-create in the canyons of my mind any time I wish to. He had found him, well to our west and making a tight circle with the Cessna 180, sporting a set of floats. I could not imagine our missing fisherman could be that far away. He had left the brook and went in the opposite direction from the tracks;
there was nothing in that direction but woods for almost ten miles from the tracks to Route 11, in T7R5.
Being the youngest and already on the west side of the brook, I headed in post haste towards the sound of the plane. Jack stayed overhead, getting low on fuel, until he could see me closing in on the guy. He then flew straight over me, wagged his wings and set out dead reckoning for Eagle Lake. He had saved this guy’s life; we would never have looked for him there.
The man had worn himself out, he could walk but only a short distance before needing to sit down and rest. As we started to work our way eastward Virgil and Blaine met up with us. They had a few bites of food and some water for him. It was slow progress, and I concluded that he would never have extricated himself from his predicament without help.
It was well after noon when I got (cont. on page 6)
(cont. from page 5)
back to my truck and headed up past St. Croix Lake to take the northern loop past Number 9 Lake, back to Bridgewater. I wolfed down my two tuna fish sandwiches and stopped at a spring to re-fill my water bottle. I took my time getting out of the woods and made several side trips checking for fishermen.
After supper time and a quick shower I began to feel poor. As night fell, I became very nauseous and began a pattern of vomiting that kept up all night long. I had never been so sick and spent much of the night making friends with the toilet bowl.
By the next day I had learned two important lessons. “Lost or missing people are often not where you think they should be and never leave tuna & mayonnaise sandwiches in your hot vehicle.”
“See
Houlton’s Lester D. Mallory
His long-lasting strategy on Cuba
by James Nalley
In April 1960, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs wrote an internal memo regarding a strategy for dealing with Cuba. Little did this Maine-born diplomat, with degrees in agriculture, know that his memo titled The Decline and Fall of Castro, would not only reach the desk of President Dwight Eisenhower, but it would also result in the administration instituting the United States embargo against Cuba later that year. According to On Cuba News, “Cuba’s communists love the memo, and today it is cited almost monthly in Granma (the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party) because it validates their
Lester D. Mallory
arguments about the U.S. embargo.
Lester D. Mallory was born in Houlton on April 21, 1904. He spent his early years in Oregon and British Columbia (Canada), and attended Naramota and Oak Bay High Schools in the latter from 1919 to 1922. Upon graduation, he went on to study agriculture at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the field. From 1927 to 1928, Mallory served as an assistant in horticulture at the UBC, and in 1929 he became the secretary of the British Columbia Fruit Growers Association.
In 1931 Mallory began working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
as the Assistant Agricultural Commissioner in Marseille, France. As stated in a memo by Nils Olsen, the Chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Mallory was “selected for this position on the basis of his expertise in the analysis of horticultural products.” Over the next seven years, he continued to work his way up through the ranks, with appointments in the United States Dairy Association (USDA), and assignments in Paris, France, as the Agricultural Attaché. Meanwhile, he completed his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1935.
With the outbreak of World War II (pre-U.S. involvement) in September 1939, Mallory was evacuated and assigned as the first U.S. Agricultural Attaché in Mexico City, Mexico. At that point, he began his steps into the world of diplomacy. For example, in the same year, he was commissioned
as a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. Department of State. After serving in liberated Paris, from December 1944 to mid-1945, Mallory returned to the United States, where he became a liaison officer between the USDA’s Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations and the U.S. Department of State.
In 1947 Mallory was assigned to Havana, Cuba, as the Deputy Chief of Mission, after which he served in the same capacity in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After serving with distinction, President Harry Truman appointed Mallory to the rank of Minister. From 1953 to 1958, he served as the Ambassador to Jordan, and from 1958 to 1959 he served as the Ambassador to Guatemala. In 1955, he was promoted to the then-highest foreign service rank of Career Minister. In 1960, Mallory became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and retired in October of the same year.
Although his career progression seems somewhat straightforward and relatively uneventful, one action had a long-lasting effect on millions of people. On April 6, 1960, Mallory, as Deputy Assistant Secretary, wrote an internal memo (de-classified in 1991) that stated the following: “Most Cubans support Castro…There is no effective political opposition…The only possible way to make the government lose domestic support is by provoking disappointment and discouragement through economic dissatisfaction and hardships…Every possible means should be immediately used to weaken the economic life…denying Cuba funds and supplies to reduce nominal and real salaries with the objective of provoking hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of the government.” As stated earlier, the Eisenhower administration instituted the U.S. embargo against Cuba based on this memo.
(cont. on page 12)
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Interestingly, according to On Cuba News, “The embargo is still in place today, and Mallory’s ideas are very much alive, despite six decades of failure in practice.” For example, in 1992, after Cuba’s government survived the fall of the Soviet bloc, the United States cut off trade with foreign subsidiaries of U.S.-based companies to punish the country for its resilience. Four years later, with Fidel Castro still in power, the Helms-Burton Law was enacted to continue a so-called chokehold on Cuba’s economy. According to U.S. Representative Ben Gilman of New York, the law “would bring an early end to the Castro regime by cutting off capital that keeps it afloat.” Again, like its counterparts, it failed.
More than a quarter-century later, U.S. administration officials are still attempting to “financially strangle the Cuban regime,” with Title III of the Helms-Burton law attacking tourism
investments. However, despite such attempts, On Cuba News stated the following: “More than one million Americans are visiting Cuba each year, a U.S.-Cuban business venture is seeking cancer remedies, our musicians tour each other’s countries, our environmental scientists collaborate, our university remains connected, and our farmers look for ways to work together. One might say that many on both sides of the straits, even in hard times, are working now on the next normalization.”
As for Mallory himself, following his retirement in 1960, he joined the Inter-American Development Bank and worked in Washington, D.C., Costa Rica, and Panama. He even returned to his academic roots by establishing the anthropology department at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico. In 1961, the government of Guatemala presented him with the Order of the
Quetzal, the country’s highest award. According to the United States Agency for International Development, this award “acknowledges officials of nations, organizations, and other entities whose artistic, civic, humanitarian or scientific works merit special recognition.”
Mallory spent his remaining years in Lake Forest, California. He died on June 21, 1994, following a heart attack, at Saddleback Hospital in Laguna Hills, California. He was 90 years of age. Today, aside from his name frequently mentioned by Cuban communists in Granma, a conference room of the Foreign Agricultural Service’s office in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City is named in his honor.
Smyrna Mills’ Scott Bates
Flying diverse missions for the Maine Forest Service
by Brian Swartz
Scott Bates figured out his future career while growing up in Smyrna Mills in southern Aroostook County — and that career would take him skyward.
“I knew what I wanted to do since I was a kid,” Bates said. His grandfather, Paul Burnett, was a Maine forest ranger stationed at Telos Lake on the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, living at a camp on Round Pond between Chamberlain and Telos lakes. Bates visited him every summer and ultimately set his sights on becoming a forest ranger.
After graduating from Lee Academy, Bates studied forestry at the Uni-
versity of Maine forestry and joined the MFS in 1972, at age 19. He was assigned to the same Round Pond camp once utilized by Burnett.
“I liked being outdoors,” Bates recalled. “I always wanted to fly.” He met MFS pilot Charlie Robinson, who flew fixed-wing aircraft and a Bell 47 helicopter; inspired by Robinson’s missions, Bates started taking flying lessons in 1973 with a Shin Pond instructor pilot who had a Super Cub float plane.
Soloing in that aircraft, Bates got his private pilot’s license in autumn 1975 and his commercial license at the Houl-
ton International Airport on Valentine’s Day 1976. He continued paying for flying lessons and eventually got his multi-engine rating.
In summer 1976 he flew as a Maine Forest Service pilot, based at Clayton Lake and flying a float-equipped Super Cub on fire patrols and ranger transportation. Realizing he needed more training on flying helicopters, Bates resigned from the MFS and flew initially for Skinner’s Flying Service in Shin Pond.
Then “I ran a store in Smyrna for a couple of years” while flying when he could. Bates and Ken Larson bought
a twin-engine Piper Aztec and formed Southern Aroostook Aviation, which was run by Larson’s son, Terry.
Selling the Smyrna store in 1979, Bates flew for Greenville-based Folsom’s Air Service, “hauling sportsmen in and out” of camps in the Moosehead Lake region. “I got my helicopter rating while I was there,” he said.
Bates rejoined the Maine Forest Service as a full-time pilot in spring 1983. Based at Portage, he flew a Cessna 185, a DeHavilland Beaver, and a UH-1 Huey, a former military helicopter. Fire patrols were an important part of his work, and Bates dropped water on fires breaking out in the northern Maine forests.
“The Beaver was used as a water bomber,” he recalled. Equipped with floats, the plane would land on a lake and fill a 125-gallon belly tank via two forward-facing tubes that forced water
into the tank.
“You needed a half mile or longer to fill up the tank,” which could take 20 seconds or so, Bates said. Then he would take off from the lake to fly to the fire.
“The goal was to be on any fire within a half hour after it was reported,” he recalled. Dropping water on a fire “is more of an art,” with the pilot taking his plane’s air speed and the wind’s direction and air speed into account.
Bates believes the Maine Forest Service obtained its first Huey in 1976, and the agency “had a bunch of them” by 1983. He trained on the helicopter “in house” and started flying the Huey at Portage by late summer 1983.
Used to haul troops and supplies in Vietnam, the UH-1 proved ideal for fighting fires anywhere in the state. The Huey “was so much more efficient, so much better” for dropping water than a
fixed-wing aircraft, Bates said.
“It had a 250-gallon bucket” that, suspended beneath the helicopter, “could be filled” in any water body, even a small pond, he pointed out. This capability meant that a pilot need not find a lake or pond large enough for landing a Beaver and also improved the turn-around time for dropping water on a fire.
“I flew it [the Huey] every chance I got,” Bates said. “When I got in a helicopter, I didn’t care if I saw another airplane.
“It was just the versatility, the places I could go with” a Huey, “the mountaintops” and other places inaccessible to planes, he said. “The Huey was a dream to fly.
“There have been a lot of fires over the years,” Bates recalled. One particular fire “burned underground and spread. There was an osprey nest in a (cont. on page 16)
(cont. from page 15)
high pine tree, and they had young in it, and they survived” the fire upon which Bates dumped water.
Simmering underground, the fire reignited the next day and “crowned and killed the birds,” he said.
While stationed at Portage, Bates flew helicopters on fire-suppression missions and search-and-rescue or medical evacuation missions. “I have picked people off the Allagash River” and elsewhere, and in winter he often flew Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife biologists conducting aerial surveys of moose and deer yards. Missions also ranged from counting ice fishermen on various ponds in winter to enforcing the Maine Forest Products Act. One year the Maine Forest Service sent Bates to Washington State to fly fire-suppression missions there for three weeks.
After spending 13 years at Portage, Bates transferred to the Maine Forest Service facilities at Dewitt Field in Old Town in 1996. “For the air people,
that’s where the main hangar is,” he said.
Several years later he transferred to the MFS facility at Bolton Hill in Augusta and flew a helicopter from there. Bates retired from state employment in 2004. After moving to Fort Myers, Florida, one day “I went over to see the aircraft” flown by Lee County Mosquito Control, he said. “They needed a pilot, and I left with a job.”
Until his permanent retirement from flying in 2011, Bates flew 1940s-era DC-3s and C-47s “to spray for mosquitoes late at night, when the people were in, not out. We used to spray 20,000 to 30,000 acres a night.
He and his wife, Christine, have a summer home in Orrington and live in Florida during the winter.
The Lumberjack War
by Charles Francis
Much has been written about the so-called “Aroostook War” of 1838-39, though what has been said has, in the main, been dismissive of the incident. It has been called a “bloodless” war, which strictly speaking is not true. It has been termed a tempest in a teapot in which angry Mainers faced equally angry New Brunswickites separated by either the Fish or the Aroostook or St. John rivers and who mainly shouted insults, shook fists or brandished old flintlocks at each other. Those dealing with the facts surrounding the brouhaha trot out the names of the various Maine agents, like state surveyor-general S.S. Whipple, and New Brunswick law enforce-
ment officials like James MacLauchian, the so-called “Warden of the Disputed Territory,” that had actual contact. The major point these accounts make of the incident is that a minor clash of interests occurred in a disputed territory that was virtually unpopulated and of no real intrinsic value.
There is another side to the Aroostook War, however. To begin with, it would be more appropriate to refer to it as the Lumberjack War or perhaps the Timber Baron War. The reason for this is that the majority of violent acts — and there were many — were committed by lumberjacks. Moreover, when militia companies and volunteers on both sides were called out to face off,
it was done at the behest of big timber interests on both sides of the conflicted border.
The conflict took place in an ill-defined region called The Aroostook. While no international border had been established here, the same could not be said of the financial interests of logging operators and timberland owners in Maine and New Brunswick. As early as 1800 Maine timber cruisers like Moses Greenleaf and Massachusetts surveyors like Park Holland had been investigating the value of standing timber and laying out township lines, and the same was true for New Brunswick.
On the Maine side, the first of the great north woods land speculators (cont. on page 18)
(cont. from page 17)
had already turned their attention to The Aroostook. They included men like Samuel Veazie, the most aggressive of the early Bangor lumbermen, who owned some forty-two mills on the Penobscot, Andrew Sinclair, who was credited with starting the log boom above Old Town, and rugged downeast individualists like Moses Giddings, Arad Thompson, and Waldo T. Pierce, who had been wheeling and dealing in the northern Penobscot County township market as early as the 1820s, and speculators from away like David Pingery of Salem, Massachusetts. What these individuals wanted, as did their New Brunswick counterparts, were the great white pines of the disputed Aroostook region. In 1838, when the Maine lumberjack crew bosses reported that New Brunswick crews were cutting in the “Maine” woods, they went into action.
Without doubt, Samuel Veazie was one of the chief instigators of the Lumberjack War. Veazie knew how to get things done in Augusta. He had already gotten the legislature to set aside one of Bangor’s wards as a separate town. Besides naming it after himself, he saw to it that all the town’s assessors were his hand-picked men. So when Veazie and his fellow timber operators asked Augusta to investigate the alleged claim jumping, the State of Maine sent a team of land agents to look into the matter. In the meantime, Maine lumberjacks had already taken matters into their own hands.
Lumberjacks, like the tough Irishmen who called themselves the Bangor Tigers, seized great rafts of logs on the Aroostook River, which had been cut by New Brunswick loggers to be floated down the St. John. Then the New Brunswickites retaliated by cutting
them loose in the dark of night. The violence began to escalate. Oxen used in pulling logs to the water were seized on both sides. Supplies of stockpiled hay were set on fire. Fistfights erupted, quite a number of which ended as outand-out brawls with eyes being gouged out, ears bitten off and bones broken. At this point, Maine decided to send in the militia.
In 1839 several militia companies were sent to garrison Fort Fairfield and Fort Kent. They had with them a couple of old brass cannon which had been loaded on scows and sent up the Penobscot and then transferred to oxcart for the trek through the woods. In the meantime, a force of some two hundred men under the command of a New Brunswick constable and former army sergeant had been organized. For a time there was spirited sniping from both sides. Then Washington sent General
The whole matter of the disputed border was settled with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. That is, it was settled as far as most everyone was concerned except for the lumberjacks. For years after the “bloodless” war, blood continued to be spilled as
and New Brunswick loggers had
and
arguments as to whether a particular stand of timber was on one side of the border or the
Has the Lumberjack War finally ended? Just ask those Aroostook County loggers who, in 1998, barricaded one of the north woods roads connecting Maine and New Brunswick.
Presque Isle’s Northeastland Hotel
by Collin Darrell
The brick walls of the Northeastland Hotel rise along Main Street in Presque Isle, much as they have for more than ninety years. To walk through its lobby today is to encounter a building that has witnessed and shaped the life of a northern Maine town. Generations of Aroostook County residents recall weddings, reunions, and business gatherings held within its walls, while travelers from Boston, Bangor, and beyond came to rest here before pressing farther into Aroostook.
The Northeastland opened in 1932, at a time when Presque Isle was firmly establishing itself as the commercial and cultural heart of northern Maine. The hotel’s construction was itself an
act of confidence. It stood as proof that this once-rural farming community had grown into a center of commerce and travel. For decades the Northeastland was more than a place to stay. It was where visiting salesmen laid their heads, where local families came to celebrate milestones, and where civic organizations held banquets. In the words of one longtime resident, “If it mattered in Presque Isle, chances are it happened at the Northeastland.”
Like so many Maine communities, Presque Isle’s fortunes have waxed and waned with the passing decades. Agriculture, long the foundation of the local economy, shifted with markets and mechanization. Businesses opened and
closed. New industries brought growth, while population changes brought uncertainty. Yet through it all, the Northeastland remained, its red-brick façade a constant reminder of the town’s enduring spirit.
By the late twentieth century, however, the challenges facing many rural towns were felt in Presque Isle as well. Downtown quieted. The hotel, once filled with activity, began to show its age. Some wondered if its best days were behind it.
But in Aroostook County, where resilience is nearly as abundant as potato fields, decline has never been the final word. In recent years, Presque Isle has experienced a renewal of civic energy.
New shops and cafés have appeared along Main Street. Cultural programming has expanded. And at the center of this revival stands the Northeastland Hotel, restored and reimagined for a new era.
The turning point came with the purchase of the property by Ignite Presque Isle, a nonprofit committed to fostering innovation and community development. Their vision was not to erase the past, but to honor it — restoring what was good and strong, while preparing the hotel for the needs of today.
Under Ignite’s leadership, the hotel has undergone extensive renovations. Guest rooms have been modernized with new amenities while retaining historic character. The event spaces have been refreshed to host everything from business conferences to wedding receptions. In the lobby, visitors find a blend of old-world craftsmanship and contemporary comfort, a marriage of tradition and progress that mirrors the (cont. on page 22)
Northeastland Hotel in Presque Isle. Item
(cont. from page 21)
town itself.
Just as important, the Northeastland has once again become a hub of activity for locals. Where once its future seemed uncertain, the hotel now buzzes with meetings, social gatherings, and cultural events. It is once again a place where community life unfolds.
Among the most visible signs of this renewal is the restaurant, Rodney’s at 436 Main, established in honor of Rodney Smith, the late husband of longtime benefactor and Presque Isle native, Mary Barton Smith. Rodney’s is more than just a dining room — it is a tribute to memory and community.
Here, locals gather for lunch specials or celebratory dinners, while hotel guests enjoy a taste of Aroostook hospitality. The menu combines comfort food with regional flavors, making Rodney’s a destination in its own right. In the evenings, the restaurant glows with conversation, laughter, and the clink of glasses — an echo of the con-
vivial spirit that has always been part of the Northeastland’s charm.
The story of the Northeastland is, in many ways, the story of Presque Isle itself. Both began with ambition. Both endured trials. And both are finding new life in the 21st century. For longtime residents, the hotel’s revival is a reminder of what their town has always been capable of. For visitors, it offers a glimpse into a community that values its past even as it looks ahead.
The Northeastland today is not only a place to stay — it is a living link between generations. Guests walking through the lobby may imagine the salesmen and civic leaders of decades past, even as they attend conferences on innovation or enjoy a local art show. Families celebrating a wedding reception can know that their joy adds another layer to the hotel’s history, just as others did fifty or seventy years ago.
The work of renewal is ongoing. Ignite Presque Isle continues to invest in
programming that brings people downtown, from professional development series to cultural gatherings. Rodney’s, too, is expanding its reach, offering seasonal menus and hosting events that bring together locals and visitors alike.
The Northeastland is, at its heart, a promise: that tradition and progress can coexist, that old walls can house new ideas, and that the best way to honor history is to keep writing it. For Aroostook County, it is a sign of resilience. For Presque Isle, it is once again the cornerstone of Main Street.
Nearly a century after it first opened its doors, the Northeastland Hotel still welcomes the world to Presque Isle. Its story reminds us that buildings, like towns, can be renewed. And in that renewal, they remind us who we are.
Bringing The Swedish To Aroostook County
by Brian Swartz
His love for Sweden led a Portland native to recruit Scandinavians to settle in Aroostook County after the Civil War. Born in Portland to William W. Thomas and Elizabeth White Thomas on August 26, 1839, William Widgery Thomas Jr. graduated from Bowdoin College in 1860 and soon joined America’s diplomatic corps. After serving as the consul in Galatz, Romania, he was only 23 when President Abraham Lincoln appointed him the American consul to Gothenburg, Sweden, a major seaport
on the Kattegat between Sweden and Denmark.
After waging a short, messy war in summer 1814, Norway and Sweden had merged as the United Kingdom of Sweden and Norway, with each country retaining its official church, constitution, and military and sharing a king and foreign policy. Many Scandinavians had already emigrated to the United States. Thomas assumed his new post in mid-June 1863, and in February 1864 Denmark and Prussia started fighting over three duchies along the border
between both countries. Swedish volunteers joined the Danish army; after the war ended in October 1864, Thomas learned that many of those veterans wanted to join the Union army.
How fortuitous! In spring 1864 Congress had passed the Lincoln-supported Act to Encourage Immigration to ostensibly keep America working and growing. “There is still a great deficiency of laborers in every field of industry, especially in agriculture, and in our mines,” Lincoln had told Congress. Immigration would solve that problem.
By now fluent in Swedish, Thomas realized he could simultaneously send veteran soldiers to bolster Union forces and ensure future Scandinavian immigration. Once Swedish veterans arrived in the United States, would not their families soon follow?
Thomas negotiated half-price transatlantic passage for Swedish veterans shipping from Hamburg to the United States. Then he and several acquaintances contributed funds to get the emigres to Hamburg from Scandinavia. “I am well aware that as consul I can have nothing to do with enlisting soldiers,” but nothing “can prevent me from paying a soldier’s passage” from Gothenburg to Hamburg “out of my own pocket,” Thomas informed the State Department after the fact.
Thomas then decided to recruit other Scandinavians to move to the United States. After taking a leave of absence in late June 1865, he traveled through interior Norway and Sweden “to see and talk with the people … in their own
homes.” Ultimately, he focused primarily on Norway, and his efforts bore fruit, with Thomas reporting that some 10,000 Scandinavians headed to America in 1865.
He resigned his consular position in early November and returned to Portland. After studying law at Harvard, Thomas gained admittance to the Maine bar in 1866. Meanwhile, Maine’s population growth had stagnated since the Civil War broke out. In fact, many returning Maine veterans quickly uprooted their families and moved west to seek better soil and greater economic opportunities.
Governor Joshua L. Chamberlain named Thomas the commissioner of public lands in 1869. Seeking new Pine Tree State settlers, the legislature established the Maine Board of Immigration in March 1870, and Chamberlain appointed Thomas as the state’s first immigration commissioner.
He promptly traveled to Sweden, recruited 51 immigrants, and brought (cont. on page 26)
We don’t stop at
ask “And how
(cont. from page 25)
them to Aroostook County to establish a Swedish Colony in Township 15, Range 3 (outside Caribou) on July 23, 1870. Other Swedes moved to Maine, and the colony became New Sweden Plantation in 1876 and the town of New Sweden in 1895.
Swedish immigrants also founded adjacent Stockholm and Westmanland.
After immersing himself in Swedish colonization for almost four years, Thomas served in the Maine House of Representatives for several years and then won election to the State Senate. He rejoined the diplomatic service as the American minister to the United Kingdom of Sweden and Norway, holding that post three different times, the last period running from February 8, 1898 to May 31, 1905. A week after he resigned the United Kingdom dissolved; Thomas was America’s last ambassador to that geopolitical association.
He married a Swedish noblewom-
an, Dagmar Törnebladh in Stockholm, Sweden in October 1887. She was 30 years younger than him. The Thomases moved to Maine and had at least two children. Dagmar died in 1912; her husband returned to Sweden in late spring 1915 to marry her younger sister, Aina Törnebladh, who was 38 years younger than her former brother-in-law.
Aina would live until 1967, but William Widgery Thomas Jr. died at age 87 on April 25, 1927. He was buried in Portland’s Evergreen Cemetery.
Besides the Swedish-founded towns in Aroostook County, Thomas’s legacy lives on in Cape Elizabeth. While at Bowdoin College, he taught students at District School No. 8 in Cape Elizabeth. Thomas donated that building to Cape Elizabeth as the Thomas Memorial Library in 1919.
A MUST READ!!!
the new book Maine At War, Volume 1: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg tells the story of Maine’s involvement in the first 18 months of the Civil War, as experienced by Maine men and women who answered the call to defend and preserve the United States. Maine At War Volume 1 draws on diaries, letters, regimental histories, newspaper articles, eyewitness accounts, and the Official Records to bring the war to life in a storytelling manner that captures the time and period.
Written by Maine at War blogger and Discover Maine contributor Brian Swartz,
A B-18 Goes Down In Maine
A navigational error costs the Army a bomber
by Brian Swartz
Twenty-two days before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army Air Force lost a plane and its crew near Lee. The crash marked the first time an army aircraft had gone down in Maine.
By mid-November 1941, the American war effort was gearing up for a possible showdown with Nazi Germany, and while not desired, imperial Japan. After establishing an airbase in Bangor, the Army stationed different aircraft there.
On Wednesday, November 12, a twin-engine B-18 assigned to the 43rd Bombardment Squadron flew from Bangor to Langley Field (now Langley
Air Force Base), Virginia. Lieutenant Peter Beckham flew as the pilot, Lieutenant Wyman Thompson as his co-pilot.
At Langley, the B-18 picked up two additional crew members before participating in practice bombing missions with other military aircraft. Corporal J.P. Parson boarded the plane as engineer, and Private L.E. Rothermel came aboard the plane as the radio operator. They remained on the plane when it departed Langley for Bangor on Saturday, November 15.
The B-18 landed at Westover Field in Chicopee, Massachusetts, to drop off eight enlisted personnel who had
hopped a ride from Virginia. The plane soon took off from Westover and headed northeast into Maine.
Thompson, a North Dakota native, had been dating a young Bangor woman, Mimi Merrill. Before Thompson left for Virginia, he had arranged a dance date with Merrill on Wednesday, November 19.
At Bangor, Army officials expected the plane to land about 7 p.m. With the airfield still under construction, and radio communications ― much less adequate approach controls ― unrefined, the B-18’s crew depended on solid navigation to get them home safely. A last radio message was heard from the (cont. on page 30)
(cont. from page 29)
plane about 6:30 p.m., indicating that the crew believed they were flying over Augusta.
That Saturday, Vaughan Pickering and the Lowell brothers, Alton, and Elgin, had hunted deer along the Lee-Springfield boundary in northeastern Penobscot County. They holed up for the night at a hilltop hunting camp, stoked a fire in the woodstove, and settled down for a relatively quiet evening.
As the B-18 droned through the night sky toward Bangor, Beckham and Thompson miscalculated their proximity to Bangor. A heavy fog had shrouded the Queen City and its airbase. The B-18 overshot its field and continued flying northeast.
By 7:30 p.m., the pilots apparently realized their mistake. A starboard turn pointed their bomber southwest toward Bangor, even as the fuel ran low.
In their camp, Pickering and the Lowells heard a large plane fly over about 7:30 p.m., “and a minute later,”
according to the Bangor Daily News, “they were startled by a terrific crash.”
The three men rushed outdoors, and “horrified, saw a bright red glow reflected against the sky,” a newspaper reporter wrote. “Its tragic significance was apparent.”
The B-18 had landed, but 60 miles beyond its destination.
Pickering and the Lowells abandoned their camp to head for Lee. Word reached Bangor later that night that a plane, apparently the overdue B-18, had crashed in the thick woods near Lakeville. But what had happened to the crew?
Army personnel and local volunteers converged on Lee to mount a search mission. Several Army aircraft, including at least one B-17 Flying Fortress (relatively rare in the AAF’s inventory) searched the rugged terrain in Lee, Springfield, and adjacent townships.
A plane spotted wreckage late Sun-
HIGH STREET MARKET
day afternoon. With the site roughly pinpointed, searchers organized two teams that set out late on Sunday, November 16. Spending the night in local hunting camps, the teams proceeded into the thick forests near Taylor Brook by dawn on Monday.
The B-17 arrived from Bangor. Its crew flew low, pointing their plane to indicate the wreck’s general direction to the searchers, and as the teams drew near, circling the site and dipping a wing to mark the spot.
There was no need to hurry. Thompson would not be keeping his date with Mimi Merrill.
Afterwards, Army investigators examined the wreckage, finding the main landing gear in the “down” position. They speculated that Beckham had believed his plane was over Bangor and started his approach or had tried to crash-land in a field as his fuel ran out.
He dropped a landing flare, which the three hunters had reported seeing shortly before the plane crashed. Peering through the flare-brightened fog, Beckham discerned a field and turned his aircraft to starboard while lowering the wheels.
Then the B-18 descended through the fog. To his horror, Beckham realized too late that the “field” was a burned-over hilltop studded with hemlock and other trees. Giving the engines full throttle, he yanked backwards on the controls to raise the nose.
As he did, the starboard wing dipped, then clipped the ground. the B-18 cartwheeled about 300 feet uphill, snapping off trees and shedding parts. Tossed from the B-18 upon impact, the four crewmen died instantly. The two engines bounced farther into the woods, and despite the widespread damage, the wreckage burned only a bit.
Evidence at the scene indicated the bomber had crashed at 7:38 p.m., Saturday. Searchers did not reach the site until mid-Monday morning. They gathered the four men and wrapped them in parachute silk. Army personnel dispatched from Bangor recovered the bodies on Wednesday, November 19. Six soldiers included in that contingent got lost and spent a cold night in the Maine woods. They were found safe on Thursday, November 20.
Seventeen days later, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor hurled the United States in World War II. Although the first Army aircraft lost in Maine, the B-18 would not be the last.
Enjoy Discover Maine All Year!
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Presque Isle’s Jessica McClintock
Gunne Sax’s fashion icon
by Wanda Curtis
One of Maine’s most gifted fashion designers, who rose from humble beginnings to heights of fame, was Presque Isle native Jessica McClintock. Her father was a shoe salesman, and her mother was a beautician. Her grandmother was an artist and skilled seamstress who passed down her knowledge to Jessica at a very young age. According to the online article Jessica McClintock: The Fashion Icon Behind Gunne Sax, Jessica never went to design school but from the time that she was five years old she would sit at her grandmother’s Singer sewing machine and make everything that she could get her hands on. Jessica said that her grandmother was a “fabulous pattern
maker and designer.”
The author of that article wrote that Jessica’s rise from humble beginnings in Maine was “like a once upon a time story.” She said that it was “a solid foundation for imagination, ingenuity, and creativity that gave birth to an icon of women’s fashion, embracing what would become a powerhouse blend of fantasy and feminine.”
Jessica (Gagnon) McClintock was born on June 19, 1930. Her parents divorced when she was a child. She was raised by her mother and grandmother. She attended Boston University from 1947 until 1949. She took a break from her studies when she married Al Staples, an engineering student at Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology. Jessica later earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree at San Jose State University in California.
Tragedy struck in 1963, when Jessica’s husband Al was killed in a car accident. She was left widowed with her 10-year-old son Scott. Shortly after that, she married a friend of her first husband whose name was Fred McClintock. He was a commercial airplane pilot. Their marriage ended in divorce within a few years.
Jessica returned to her roots in New England. She taught school in Massachusetts and New York. Later, she and her son moved to San Francisco where she taught elementary school. She also
made a very important acquaintance there who helped to shape her future.
In 1967 two seamstresses, Carol Miller and Eleanor (Elle) Bailey founded a dress company in San Francisco known as Gunne Sax (named after the burlap gunny sacks used to harvest potatoes). Elle was managing the company and began looking for another partner to join them. Along came Jessica McClintock, who turned out to be the perfect fit. Jessica joined the company with a $5,000 investment in 1969. She later became the sole owner of the very successful Gunne Sax company, whose employees produced thousands of beautiful feminine frilly frocks for women of all ages.
According to https://www.worthpoint.com, Jessica McClintock’s clothing line was sold worldwide. She opened her first retail store in San Francisco in 1981. Her son Scott joined the company a year later and introduced two new clothing lines under his name. In 1987, the company name was
changed from Gunne Sax to Jessica McClintock Inc. By the mid-90s, Jessica owned 41 boutiques with estimated annual sales of $100 million. She eventually added sleepwear, fragrance, jewelry, eyewear, handbags, and home furnishing lines.
The original Gunne Sax dresses were prairie-style dresses with high Victorian collars and were decorated with lace, small pearl buttons, and satin ribbons. The dresses were made from tulle, satin, silk, velvet, and other very feminine fabrics. Prom gowns for high school girls, bridal party gowns, and evening dresses for red carpet celebrities were among Jessica’s creations that became very popular across the nation.
Though McClintock’s dresses appeared in the windows of high-class stores like Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Ave, she priced her clothing sensibly enough that women from all social strata could afford them. It wasn’t just the beautiful, feminine, romantic styles that made her clothing lines best sellers
but also their affordability.
Like many Aroostook County natives, Jessica lived a long, productive life. She retired at 83 and died a millionaire at 90 years old. She was buried in Presque Isle alongside relatives. Having grown up in potato country, it’s interesting that the Gunne Sax label was what made her wealthy and famous. Her net worth was estimated to be around $5 million.
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