Penobscot Piscataquis Bangor Edition

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Volume 10 | Issue 3 | 2013

Maine’s History Magazine

Penobscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor Region

The Flying Tigers Come Vincent McKusick Ellsworth’s Lady A legal life Candlepin Champ To Dow Field Famous fighter squadron holds reunions in Bangor

Local woman crowned world champion in 1972

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

Inside This Edition

Maine’s History Magazine 3

It Makes No Never Mind

4

Whatever Happened To The Leavitts Of Smyrna?

Mid-1800s was a hard time in Northern Maine

8

James Nalley

Charles Francis

Boys Of Summer Baseball in Aroostook County Charles Francis

12 Francis Parkman’s Maine Woods Experience Reflections of an unforgettable trip

Charles Francis 15 Still Stands The Schoolhouse Memories of a one-room schoolhouse

Ruth MacGowan Knowles 16 Mattawamkeag Folksongs Songs and ballads of the Maine lumberjack

Charles Francis 19 To Split Or Not To Split: That Was The Enfield Question Enfield almost split into two towns Ian MacKinnon 24 Never Punch A Gentle Giant Lincoln’s Bill Rideout

Charles Francis 28 Temptation Lured Waterville Burglars To Their Doom In Newport

Burglars met their Waterloo in Newport

Ian MacKinnon 32 What Maine Furnished For Epicures Maine’s turn-of-the-century delicacies Barbara Adams

34 The Brewer Bank Robbery Of 1903 Early morning break-in woke up half the town

James Nalley 39 Vincent McKusick A legal life

Charles Francis 42 The Ralph Owen Brewster / Howard Hughes Faceoff

Maine plays a big role in The Aviator

Charles Francis

45 The Genealogy Corner Saving family records Charles Francis

50 The Flying Tigers Come To Dow Field Famous fighter squadron holds reunions in Bangor Charles Francis 55 A Matter Of Conscience Bangor’s Norman Cahners and the 1936 Olympics

Charles Francis 59 Ellsworth’s Lady Candlepin Champ

Eleanor Patten crowned world champion in 1972

Charles Francis 63 The Penobscot: A Historic Graveyard

Underwater graveyard holds historic vessels

Charles Francis

Penobscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor Region

Publisher Jim Burch

Designer & Editor Liana Merdan

Advertising & Sales Manager Tim Maxfield

Advertising & Sales Barry Buck Chris Crosby Chris Girouard Tim Maxfield

Office Manager Liana Merdan

Field Representatives George Tatro

Contributing Writers Barbara Adams Charles Francis / fundy67@yahoo.ca Ruth McGowan Knowles Ian MacKinnon James Nalley

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, fraternal organizations, shopping centers, libraries, newstands, 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 © 2013, CreMark, Inc.

SUBSCRIPTION FORMS ON PAGES 38 & 62

Front Cover Photo: Exchange Street in Bangor, Item #199 courtesy of the Maine Historical Society and www.vintagemaineimages.com All photos in Discover Maine’s PenobscotPiscataquis-Greater Bangor Region 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

Maine’s Piscataquis and Penobscot Counties, as well as some parts of Aroostook and Hancock Counties, includes a long list of remarkable features. First, it is home to the tallest mountain in the state, the towering 5,268-foot Mt. Katahdin, which dominates the skyline above the 200,000-acre Baxter State Park.

Next, there is the gigantic Moosehead Lake, which is not only the largest lake in Maine, but the largest mountain lake in the eastern United States. What this all translates into is a four-season dreamland for outdoor enthusiasts that offers everything from whitewater rafting and fishing in the warmer months to snowmobiling and skiing in the dead of winter.

But it is the history of the area that makes it even more fascinating. Imagine the time when logging trucks outnumbered the RVs on the road and rustic seaplanes flew in wealthy tourists for weekends of relaxation on the lake or isolation in the surrounding forests. It comes as no surprise why such isolation has inspired stories of madness and the supernatural. In fact, it is well known that famed

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writer Stephen King was inspired by many of the locations near his home in Bangor. And if you ever wonder what and how such inspiration occurred, just stand on a remote shore of Moosehead Lake after the summer tourists leave and you will quickly understand.

Of course, if you need a reminder that modern civilization still exists, then the city of Bangor is not too far away. The third most-populated city in the state, Bangor includes a typical New England charm and an incredible history that dates back to when the Penobscot people first inhabited the area followed by a long list of explorers including the Portuguese and even Samuel de Champlain himself. The area even saw action during the American Revolution in 1779, when the rebel Penobscot Expedition fled up the Penobscot River after being overwhelmed by the smaller British force in what historians say was the worst naval defeat in history until Pearl Harbor in 1941. In fact, when the last of the ships were burned or captured, it even sent the famed Paul Revere fleeing for his life into the nearby woods.

Historical accounts such as this have a way of distracting the mind of the reader. Hopefully, the stories in this edition will do so for

a bit, which would be helpful just in time for the first stage of spring in Maine, which is better known as the infamous mud season.

So, congratulations on surviving yet another winter and prepare yourself for the slushy roads, dirty cars, and unpredictable weather.

In homage of the cold weather, I will include a helpful Maine temperature conversion chart (in Fahrenheit): 60 degrees: New Yorkers turn on the heat as Mainers plant gardens.

40 degrees: Californians bundle up as Mainers drive with their windows down 20 degrees: Floridians wear thick coats as Mainers have their last cook-out before it gets cold.

0 degrees: Maine girl scouts begin selling cookies door-to-door.

-20 degrees: Maine National Guard postpones “Winter Survival Training” until it gets cold enough.

-40 degrees: Mainers get out their winter coats.

-60 degrees: Mainers start saying “Cold ‘nuff for ya?”

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Whatever Happened To The Leavitts Of Smyrna?

Mid-1800s was a hard time in Northern Maine

by Charles Francis The town of Smyrna was founded

by Nehemiah Leavitt. On that point there is little or no disagreement. However, there seems to be some disagreement on such matters as to why Leavitt left Smyrna, and where he went. There also seems to be some disagreement on Nehemiah Leavitt’s feelings toward the town he named, as well as the feelings of his descendants toward the town.

Tradition and at least one published account of Nehemiah Leavitt and his relations to Smyrna indicate he left the community in a huff to head west.

Leavitt, according to this account, was angry because he had to give up his grant to the township. It does make

sense. Anyone would be upset over losing rights to some twenty-three thousand acres.

Nehemiah Leavitt was a Methodist minister. The State of Maine granted Leavitt the township which he would name Smyrna in 1830. The grant had stipulations attached to it. Leavitt proved unable to meet the stipulations.

That’s why he lost the rights to the township.

As one would expect of a minister, Nehemiah Leavitt was a devout man.

He was, however, a tolerant man. There was room in his faith to accept the differences of others as to religion. This particular fact does not agree with the

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fact that Leavitt hoped to establish a community restricted to Methodists in his southern Aroostook township.

A good deal of the information contained herein comes from Mary Freeman. Mary is a direct descendant of Nehemiah Leavitt. She is quite proud of her ancestor’s role in the founding of Smyrna. In like manner, she is proud that Leavitt’s son Nehemiah Leavitt Jr. was an important figure of early Smyrna. He set out the first metes and bounds of the community his father founded.

It seems clear that Nehemiah Leavitt did not intend that his township be named Smyrna, at least not at the beginning. Leavitt was from Royalton,

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Vermont. He was born there. He wanted his township named for his birthplace. Folk tradition has it that when some of the township’s settlers objected, Leavitt opted for the name Smyrna.

That tradition notes that Smyrna in Turkey was famous for debauchery. That it had a reputation akin to that of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament.

Somehow, naming a Maine community in this manner does not seem the act of a tolerant man.

Smyrna of the Bible is generally associated with Paul. It has been described as the most beautiful city in the region around Ephesus, a city where Paul preached. The name is related to the Greek for myrrh. Myrrh is a wonderfully fragrant perfume. One need but remember myrrh was one of the gifts given to the infant Jesus to appreciate the rarity and significance of the name Smyrna.

Mary Freeman is the granddaugh-

ter of Robert Greenleaf Leavitt. Robert Greenleaf Leavitt was the grandson of Nehemiah Leavitt Jr.. Robert Greenleaf Leavitt was a notable figure both in scientific and educational circles.

Holder of a Harvard doctorate, he was a pioneer in the field of American botany just before and after 1900. He was instrumental in developing a model school system at the secondary level in New Jersey. He also started a Unitarian church in New Jersey. He retired to the ancestral home of his mother’s family in Parsonsfield in western Maine. One of his projects there was to write a history of Parsonsfield Seminary. His father John Greenleaf Leavitt served the seminary as principal for a time in the late 1850s.

John Greenleaf Leavitt was a Congregationalist minister. He served churches here in Orono and Webster, Massachusetts. John Greenleaf Leavitt, born in what would become Smyrna,

was brought up as a Congregationalist.

Based on the variety of various religious persuasions of the descendants of Nehemiah Leavitt, founder of Smyrna, it would seem tolerance was a family tradition. Also it would seem that the Leavitt family did not fade away from Smyrna to someplace far to the west never to be heard from again.

Nehemiah Leavitt and his son were both born in Royalton, Vermont. That community had a tradition of neighbor helping neighbor. It was perhaps most notable in the custom of barn-raising.

Smyrna and the surrounding area were once famous for community barn-raisings.

Today one can still find barns in Smyrna and surrounding towns that recall a time when friends and neighbors would come together to help one of their number raise the frame of that once all important rural landmark. As the barn’s great beams rose to the heav(Continued on page 6)

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

(Continued from page 5) ens, the barn-raisers’ wives would lay out a sumptuous repast on rough-hewn plank tables, shaded by the leaves of a spreading maple or oak or beech. In the evening, after the meal, there would be folk dancing. The dances were those of traditional reels, squares and jigs. The music was that of the fiddle. Nehemiah Leavitt was not the sort of preacher to frown on pastimes like these.

Under the terms of his grant, Nehemiah Leavitt was supposed to see to the settling of 100 families in his township.

Other stipulations included that he build a grist mill, a sawmill and make appropriate provision for the schooling of children. The 1830s was not the time to found a new community in northern Maine.

The middle decades of the first half of the nineteenth century saw a mass exodus from Maine to the west. This was the time period famous for the year

in which there was no summer. Actually, there was a string of extremely short summers that made the planting and harvesting of crops an exercise in futility. Maine farmers left the state in droves in this time period. They hoped to find milder climes to the west and more fertile fields for sowing their crops. The last place they thought of for starting anew was further north in Maine. That, of course, was a recipe of disaster for the Leavitt township.

Nehemiah Leavitt applied for and received a five-year extension on his grant. It wasn’t enough time, though.

He sold out.

Did Nehemiah Leavitt leave the town he founded for parts unknown out west after he sold out, as tradition suggests? Well, if you consider East Rumford the west, one might say so.

The founder of Smyrna died there in 1856. Nehemiah Leavitt Jr. stayed on in

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Smyrna, though. His son, John Greenleaf Leavitt married a local girl, Susan Blazo. Susan had an uncle in Parsonsfield. From him she inherited the family home. Other members of the Leavitt family married in Smyrna and the immediate area. Among others, they married into the Record and Irish families.

Mary Freeman still has relatives in the area.

I wish to thank Mary Freeman for much of the above. She is justly proud of the part her ancestors and extended family members played in founding the town of Smyrna, which, like its namesake in Turkey, is a beautiful community.

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

Boys of Summer Baseball in Aroostook County

by Charles Francis

Happy Iott managed the Bangor White Soxx for a season. That was back in 1907. Happy is one of the boys of summer this essay on the early days of the national pastime — and the players who made it so — is all about. It’s about Happy and a couple of other boys who played baseball in their youth and what happened to them as men — and the winter of their lives.

Happy Iott had a good run as a baseball player. He played on a town ball team, played in the minors, and even made it to the big leagues with Cleveland for a season. He then coached Bangor in the Maine State League.

Happy was an Aroostook County boy. He ended his days in Island Falls.

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Baseball was the biggest thing in his life. Managing the Bangor White Soxx was probably Happy’s last brush with organized baseball. It wasn’t much of a swan song, either. The Maine State League was a small league. In 1907 it had four teams. Besides Bangor, there were Biddeford and Portland. Portland had two teams, the Blue Sox and Pine Tree.

The other two boys of summer this piece is about are Bob Vail and Jim Cox. One of the things that give unity to this little essay is that Iott, Vail and Cox were all southern Aroostook boys.

Vail’s home was Hodgdon for his early playing days. Cox’s was Houlton.

Iott, Vail and Cox all played town

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ball team baseball. They played for Houlton. One year they played together. That was in 1902. Ironically, 1902 wasn’t the best year the Houlton town team had. That came in 1897 when Houlton was state champion. Iott was the only one of the three to play for Houlton that year. Vail and Cox all had notable baseball careers, though. What makes the careers notable is the fact that the three played at a time when players didn’t think in terms of big salaries and similarly lucrative sponsorship deals. They played when baseball was just beginning to be known as the national pastime. Some might say these were baseball’s glory days.

Bob Vail went from Houlton to play

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com in the minors. Like Iott, he had one season in the majors, with Pittsburgh. Like Iott, baseball was the biggest thing in Vail’s life. When he died in Pittsburgh, only a handful knew he had once played ball.

Jim Cox had a very good career as a Bowdoin baseball player. Before that he was a standout at Ricker Classical Institute. He also had a stint in the minors, with the Holyoke Paperweights of the Connecticut League. Cox’s minor league play was a little more than a summer hiatus from college. His real interest was Bowdoin Medical School.

He went on to become a successful and respected physician in Bangor.

His name can be found in Bowdoin’s athletic records. One expects that of a college.

How far back down the years, the decades, can we go and find records of baseball being played in Maine? I don’t (Continued on page 10)

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(Continued from page 9) mean the occasional pickup game, but something really organized. I am talking about baseball teams vying for some sort of championship or trophy.

The kind of thing that bragging rights are attached to.

There are records of Maine baseball leagues all the way back to the beginning of the last century. Baseball as organized into semi-pro leagues was a thriving pastime in Maine of the Roaring ‘20s and earlier. There were a fair number of bitterly contested town team contests in the first two decades of the twentieth century. There were some in the Gay ‘90s and even earlier. High school baseball pretty much parallels the development of semi-pro and town ball team baseball. It’s hard to find really early records, though. Old State Principal Association baseball records date from around 1930. The State Principal’s Association was started in 1927.

If you look up the Maine State League that Happy Iott managed in 1907, you will most likely find that it

existed for just that year. With a bit of digging, however, you can find an earlier Maine State League. That league existed at least as early as 1887. It had teams like the Augusta Kennebecs, Bangor Millionaires and Belfast Pastimes.

It isn’t clear that it’s the same league as Happy Iott managed in, though. The Maine State League Happy managed in had Fred K. Owen as president.

Fred Owen was a guy who loved baseball. That is why he got involved in a league. Owen was a Cumberland County Republican politico and journalist. It was said of him that “when he spoke, people listened.” People didn’t listen, though, when he tried to expand his Maine State League. Owen stayed with it for two years, not the ‘one’ usually found in the record book. Happy Iott didn’t make it to 1908. Maybe it wasn’t enough after his stint in the big time and the minors. There were other early baseball leagues, for example, the Maine and New Brunswick League. It

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came along a year or two too late for our three southern Aroostook boys, though.

What hooked Happy Iott, Bob Vail and Jim Cox on baseball was town ball.

Town ball is a term that’s outdated today. It’s not part of the popular lexicon of words. Back around 1900 and earlier everyone knew the term. Town ball meant town rivalry. The players were for the most part young. That doesn’t mean high school age, but a bit older.

Town ball games drew crowds the way high school basketball games do today.

It was that kind of rivalry. To understand town ball you have to know a bit about the origin of baseball.

Baseball is based on the English game of rounders. Rounders became popular in the United States in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Back then the game was called “town ball,” “base” or “baseball.” In 1858, the National Association of Base Ball Players, the first organized baseball league, was formed. Sometime in the 1860s town

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ball began being called America’s “national pastime.” The key to appreciating this is “town” rivalries.

Town ball teams played by formal rules and they had managers. Beecher Munson was Houlton manager when the team won the state championship.

Houlton managers were serious about their role as manager. One even went out and recruited in southern Maine.

Given the likes of Iott, Vail and Cox, one wonders how necessary this was.

The trio were exceptional town ball players. As to how they did later, that is a matter for consideration.

Happy Iott’s real name was Frederick. His middle name was Bidds. He went by Happy, Happy Jack and Biddo.

Take your pick. Happy was a journeyman player. His five year lifetime batting in the minors was 289. His fielding – he was an outfielder – was respectable but not exceptional. His showing at Cleveland was lackluster. Happy’s best year was 1903: he hit .317 for the Fall River Indians and won the New

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England League batting title. At the close of that season, he was picked up by the Cleveland Naps, the forerunner to the Cleveland Indians. He played three games in late September, getting two hits in ten at bats.

Bob Vail was a pitcher. He had a 7773 record in the minors. In 1906 and 1907, he went 14-9 and 19-9 for Lynn of the New England League. Like Happy Iott, Vail was picked for the majors at the end of a season, late August of 1908. He pitched three games for Pittsburgh, going 1-2.

Jim Cox was not a star at Bowdoin, though one source called him that.

He was a good player, though. His one season batting average with the Holyoke Paperweights was .182. Happy Iott could be said to have achieved the most baseball-wise of our three boys of summer. This means after he left Houlton.

That was at Bangor as a manager. Happy’s 1907 White Soxx team won the Maine State League.

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote of

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the boys of summer in I See the Boys of Summer. The poem is a sad one. Thomas saw the boys as old men. The first line reads “I see the boys of summer in their ruin.” For Thomas the “pulse of summer” has turned to “ice.” Old age is the time when “damp muscle dries and dies.”

Roger Kahn wrote a book called The Boys of Summer. It’s about the Brooklyn Dodgers of 1955 World Series fame. It’s about the likes of Jackie Robinson and Gil Hodges. Kahn took his title from the Dylan Thomas poem.

The Kahn book is about a dream of summer, a myth. The Thomas poem is reality. However you choose to look at the likes of Happy Iott, Bob Vail and Jim Cox is up to you. For me they are the boys of a long ago summer, a southern Aroostook summer of town ball.

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12

Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

Francis Parkman’s Maine Woods Experience Reflections of an unforgettable trip

by Charles Francis In the early decades of the nineteenth century, a new breed of hunter began frequenting Maine’s great north woods.

This hunter was neither a Native American — treading carefully with moccasins on his feet — nor a white-skinned French or English rifleman or trapper.

He was a naturalist seeking to understand the wilderness, and its effect on the lives and history of the Americas.

Henry David Thoreau was one of them.

His writings of the upper Penobscot, Katahdin and Chesuncook serve as a prototype literature describing the Maine wilderness experience.

Thoreau was not the first romantic writer/adventurer to be influenced by the Maine woods. He was not the first naturalist with a literary bent to capture the essence and majesty of Katahdin,

its environs, and the north woods as a whole in words. That honor belongs to historian Francis Parkman.

Discover Maine magazine brings Maine history to many who might never know the uniqueness of the State of Maine. Therefore, it seems more than fitting the magazine pay tribute to the Maine experiences of the man who took it upon himself to write on what many in the early 1800s considered a dead and gone subject — the war between England and France — for the conquest of North America.

When Francis Parkman wrote his greatest history, he wrote of what was then called “the old French war.” His work on the conflict culminates in the monumental two-volume Montcalm and Wolfe. Montcalm and Wolfe sets

the standard and is still regarded as the seminal interpretation of the Seven Years War. Today every historian of the subject finds himself obligated to reference Parkman.

As a youngster growing up in Boston, and that city’s outlying communities, Francis Parkman was intrigued by the natural world. Of his early school days he wrote “...I learned very little, and spent the intervals of schooling more profitably in collecting eggs, insects and reptiles, trapping squirrels and woodchucks, and making persistent though rarely fortunate attempts to kill birds with arrows.” When Parkman wrote these words he was describing his early years in then sylvan Medford, Massachusetts. But Medford didn’t satisfy Parkman’s desire to experience the

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wilderness. How could it?

At seventeen, in 1840, Parkman entered Harvard, where he studied law. Even at that early age, however, he knew what he wanted as his life’s work: to write a history centering on the American wilderness. Of his subject Parkman said “...My theme fascinated me, and I was haunted by wilderness images day and night.” Parkman’s theme crystallized into the history of the struggle between England and France for the control of North America. Did that crystallization happen in the Maine woods? In the shadow of the mountain that so influenced the writings of Thoreau, of whom it must be said merely followed in Parkman’s footsteps, in journeying there? Was the Katahdin region Francis Parkman’s very inspiration? It seems quite possible.

In the summer before his sophomore year at Harvard, Parkman, and classmate Daniel Slade, ventured into the north woods by canoe. Parkman’s stated goal was to seek “...a superior barbarism, a superior solitude, and the potent charm of the unknown.” The two young scholars found that and more.

Parkman and Slade began their ad-

venture in Albany, New York. They visited French and Indian War battlefields around Lake George and Lake Champlain. Then they traveled across Vermont and New Hampshire and into Canada. Their trip culminated at Katahdin.

Francis Parkman spent the bulk of his life beset by illness. Among other ailments, he suffered from headaches, semi-blindness, a heart problem, depression, insomnia and rheumatism.

Late in life he attributed this host of illnesses to spending three days and nights in the north woods in the rain without shelter when his spruce-bark canoe fell apart. Yet, it was on this trip that he first slept outdoors, saw a Native American, and shot a deer. Out of this experience came the beginnings of Parkman’s understanding of the natural world. Because of this understanding Parkman changed his vocation from the law to horticulture. He was Harvard’s first professor of horticulture. Because of Parkman’s wilderness experiences he was able to excel at his avocation, the writing of his history of North America.

Francis Parkman’s contributions to

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American history are myriad. Perhaps the most important is that his work is readable, even by the common reader. His work has the flow of a novel.

Many, however, are drawn to Parkman because of his feeling for the land, for his naturalistic descriptions. He is a romantic, in the sense of the British Lake Country poets like Wordsworth. This he has in common with Thoreau, who may be considered America’s first great romantic.

Today readable history like Francis Parkman’s is viewed as suspect by much of the academic community.

What makes Parkman readable is his understanding of and love of the wilderness. The struggle between England and France during the Seven Years War to create a new world was a wilderness struggle. At least that is how Parkman saw it. That insight found its germination in Francis Parkman’s imagination in the north woods during the summer of 1841. Perhaps the very first seed was planted in the shadow of Katahdin. ❦ Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section

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14

Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

Main Street in East Millinocket. Item #100623 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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15

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Still Stands The Schoolhouse

Memories of a one-room schoolhouse

by Ruth MacGowan Knowles One roomed schoolhouses here in Maine are nearly gone. A few have been restored by local Historical Societies, but one remains in the town of Bancroft, “the schoolhouse on the hill” which today serves as the town office.

The year was 1946. I had just graduated from high school. Superintendent Horace Pullen from Danforth gave me a teaching position at Bancroft Station that began my teaching career. During my interview with Mr. Pullen he discussed many issues with me. Including how a teacher should dress and the responsibility to all of her students, as well as the community. He promised to visit me within a few days after school opened, and to continue to work closely and guide me throughout the year, and that he did.

School opened the day after Labor

Day. Fourteen students — grades one through eight — arrived. Here I presided in all the dignity I could master.

I knew I must keep order in the classroom. On my desk was a medium sized shrill tone bell, which I was no doubt ringing constantly the first few weeks to keep order. Each morning before classes began, we saluted the American Flag and repeated the Lord’s Prayer, and none of the parents protested.

Sometimes it’s good to relive old memories, so bright and early one morning a few years ago, I, my sister, and her husband left my cottage in Ripley to return to Bancroft to visit my first classroom.

The only things that remained the same were the blackboard that graced the front wall, the picture of George Washington, the father of our country,

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The well-carved desks were all gone, as was the old pot-bellied iron stove that heated the classroom. Every morning Dorothy Irish, a parent, would start the morning fire so that the icy chill of the room was going away by the time I arrived from Wytopitlock. I can still recall the bright sparks that showed between the cracks in the stove, and the smell of the wood that filled the room.

After recess in the winter came the odor of mittens drying under the stove.

Where did the pail of water sit with the long handled dipper? I could not recall, but I could still see my fourteen happy students making their drinking cups by folding arithmetic paper.

I could feel water trickling down my face. Perhaps I was crying a bit as we turned toward my car and drove away.

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

Mattawamkeag Folksongs

Songs and ballads of the Maine lumberjack

by Charles Francis Late in 1916, Roland Gray, a professor at the University of Maine, visited Mattawamkeag. The purpose of his visit was to collect folk songs and traditional songs. Gray described his day in Mattawamkeag as a bitter December one. As to the exact reasons for his visit, Gray wrote “I had been told that men were there who had spent most of their lives in the woods or in boats in lumber operations. My arrival had to be previously arranged, for the lumberjack is different about singing his songs to one from the polite world.”

The above quote comes from my copy of Roland Palmer Gray’s Songs And Ballads of the Maine Lumberjack With Other Songs From Maine. It has

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Acadia University in Nova Scotia, and Indiana University before coming to the University of Maine. In addition, he had served as Acadia University Librarian. Gray was the author of several academic works, one of which was Some Helps to Sentence Analysis. In other words, Roland Palmer Gray had some pretty hefty credentials as far as academia is concerned.

Gray collected a number of songs in Mattawamkeag, two of which I will comment on: When the Taters Are All Dug and The Cumberland Crew. He visited with three traditional singers.

He gives brief but fascinating pictures of each. What he does not do is clearly identify them. Nor does he really iden-

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a copyright date of 1924. This means the work should have been edited some seven years after Gray visited Mattawamkeag. I wish to emphasize this point as it has direct bearing on some of the observations I will make. First, I wish to say something about Roland Palmer Gray the academic and scholar.

Gray was forty-eight when he visited Mattawamkeag. He had a respectable career as an academic behind him when he made his visit. He earned a B.A. and an M.A. from Columbia.

He did additional graduate work at Harvard, Yale, Oxford and the British Museum. He had taught English and/ or English literature at the University of Nebraska, University of Rochester,

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17

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

tify the individual who is probably his most important source, the individual who set up his visits with the singers.

And therein lies a bit of a tale, at least if I am right in my assumptions as to who they all were.

Gray identifies his singers as Mr. Shedd, Mr. Fowler and Mr. Chadburne (note the spelling here). He also credits Chadbourne’s daughter, Miss Chadbourne, as a source. Mr. Shedd is later identified as J.F. Shedd. This would probably have been Josiah Shedd.

Shedd is credited with The Prentice Boy’s Love for Mary, a broadside and not a true traditional folksong, and Mary Aclon. There is a single note to the effect that Shedd’s daughter also sings Mary Aclon. That’s the only mention of this daughter. Mr. Fowler, also identified as Frank Fowler, is probably Francis Marian Fowler. One of his songs is Blithe and Bonnie Fair Scotland, which was taken down by Miss Chadbourne. Mr.

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Chadbourne is Danville Chadbourne.

His daughter, Miss Chadbourne, is Ava Harriet Chadbourne. Ava Chadbourne was one of Roland Gray’s students. She would most likely have set up the meetings between Gray and the singers. The most Gray can say of her is that she is “a college graduate.” There is a good deal more to Ava Chadbourne than this.

By the time Songs And Ballads of the Maine Lumberjack With Other Songs From Maine was published Ava Chadbourne was Dr. Ava Chadbourne and a member of the University of Maine faculty. Dr. Chadbourne authored a number of books. Today she is best known for Maine Place Names And Peopling Of Its Towns. While Chadbourne’s works were published well after Gray’s, he should have credited her as a fellow faculty member. He should have been able to spell her name correctly too!

Ava Harriet Chadbourne was born in

Mattawamkeag. She received her A.B. in 1915 and her M.A. in 1918 from the University of Maine. In 1922 she earned a PhD. from Columbia University. She was a professor of education at the University of Maine and retired as a full professor in 1942. Chadbourne Hall on the campus of the University of Maine is named in her honor.

Another individual I wish to comment on is Frank Fowler. Fowler was born in what is now Millinocket. He was there when Thoreau visited. Thomas Fowler Jr. served as one of Thoreau’s guides to Katahdin. Gray should have been able to pick up an interesting story here. Thoreau’s relationship to Thomas Fowler Jr. is well known in the family.

This brings us back to the singers themselves.

Gray did a good job making his folk singers real. When Gray arrives at Shedd’s home, Shedd is “out of doors in

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(Continued on page 18)

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

(Continued from page 17) his shirtsleeves and without head-covering.” He is an individual of “over seventy years of age, tall, slim, and rugged, with gray hair and beard.” In the house, which is where he sings for Gray, he sits “in rocking chair with his head resting on the back, and, rocking gently as if to keep time to the melody, he sang, in a kind of chant, ballad after ballad, for over two hours. He sang as if he loved to do it, and he never hesitated, though all was from memory.”

Without doubt this is one of the best descriptions of a traditional folk singer ever written.

Fowler and Chadbourne are described as old men, “over seventy, who had been woodsmen all their lives.”

Fowler knows over one hundred songs, “all of which he, with others, used to sing in the woods.” Fowler and Chadbourne discuss the merits of various rhymes in one song. Gray found their

“facility as rhymesters” surprising.

Chadbourne actually contributes little to Gray beyond the broadside When the Taters Are All Dug. It seems Chadbourne bought a copy of the broadside.

The piece is a rare one in that it is one of only a few that can be directly attributed to a migrant worker picking potatoes in Aroostook County. Chadbourne says the person he bought it from was probably the creator. If so, this may just be the only reference to the author in extent.

Fowler’s most fascinating contribution to Gray’s collection is probably The Cumberland Crew. The United States frigate Cumberland, commanded

by Lieutenant George Morris, was sunk by the Merrimac off Newport News, Virginia, on March 8, 1862. There are a good many printed versions of this song. Fowler’s is different, however.

This speaks to the fact that Civil War

songs were still a part of the traditional singer’s repertoire in eastern Maine of the early 1900s.

Roland Palmer Gray’s Songs And Ballads of the Maine Lumberjack With Other Songs From Maine is more than a collection of old songs. It’s more in that it brings to life Mattawamkeag’s past.

In doing this, Gray’s work recreates a bit of history that otherwise might have been forgotten.

It should be noted that there are a good many more songs and broadsides in Songs And Ballads of the Maine Lumberjack With Other Songs From Maine. This piece only deals with the songs and broadsides collected in Mattawamkeag.

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19

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To Split Or Not To Split: That Was The Enfield Question Enfield almost split into two towns

by Ian MacKinnon To split or not to split: That was the question that some 200 Enfield residents discussed before the 100th Maine Legislature committee in Augusta on Tuesday, November 28, 1961.

The Town of Enfield lies between Cold Stream Pond and the Penobscot River and borders Howland, Lincoln, Lowell, and Passadumkeag. Enfield “proper” lies along the Routes 155-188 corridors; West Enfield stretches between Route 2 and the Penobscot River opposite Howland.

In the early 1960s, more people lived

in West Enfield than in Enfield, and political power apparently tilted toward West Enfield. Strong support for splitting Enfield came primarily — and literally — from the east side of the Maine Central Railroad tracks; folks living there felt that their collective votes carried no political weight.

“Supporters of the proposal to divide the present town … alleged they were being denied a voice in town affairs by the superior voting strength of West Enfield residents at town meeting,” wrote reporter C.M. Washburn in the Novem-

ber 29th “Bangor Daily News.”

“Paul Gray, who headed the Enfield separation movement, charged that Enfield citizens were being denied their constitutional rights and that the situation amounted to taxation without representation,” Washburn wrote.

Under the proposed legislation, the new Enfield-West Enfield boundary would extend north from Enfield Station to Mohawk Island in the Penobscot River. Some 7,500 acres would become West Enfield, where 650 people would live; Enfield would retain 450 residents and

(Continued on page 20)

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

(Continued from page 19) “about 10,800 acres, plus Cold Stream Pond,” according to partition supporters.

Despite snow-covered roads, about 200 Enfield residents traveled to Augusta to appear before the Committee on Towns and Counties. Folks traveled via Route 2 to Bangor and then cross-country to Augusta; although under construction between Bangor and Newport, Interstate 95 would not link Augusta and Bangor for another few years.

State Senator J. Hollis Wyman, who hailed from Milbridge, chaired the hearing. He and other legislators politely (and patiently) listened as more than 100 people “enthusiastically supported” the proposal to split Enfield, according to Washburn.

Legislators also learned that townsfolk particularly disagreed about “the construction of school facilities,” Washburn wrote. “That situation had been considerably aggravated when the grade

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school building at Enfield” burned in June 1961.

As for replacing the school, the late Allie J. Cole - or at least his estate might help. Hailing from Enfield, Cole became affiliated with Enfield Station in 1910, when he handled baggage and freight there for the Maine Central RR. Seven years later, Cole started Coles Express, a freight carrier that grew during the next several decades and led to Allie J. Cole becoming a Maine legend. After expanding his freight services north to Houlton, he equipped trucks with plows and started plowing the snow-covered roads between Lincoln and Houlton.

Even the Maine State Highway Commission did not believe that anyone could possibly keep those roads open during winter. Cole proved it could be done.

Coles Express would prosper late into the 20th century, but Allie J. Cole would

die in 1955. The Maine Department of Transportation would name in his honor a scenic Interstate-95 overlook in Benedicta.

During their committee hearing on November 28, 1961, legislators learned that pertaining to the burnt Enfield school, “the estate of the late A.J. Cole” had offered “to erect a memorial school on land to be donated nearly midway between the two communities,” Washburn wrote.

“The offer included outside construction materials for the school with the only condition being the stipulation that the building be named” for Allie J. Cole, according to Washburn.

That generous offer drew criticism, primarily that the new school could “be expensive” and “that plans were already drawn up for an addition” to existing

(Continued on page 22)

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

(Continued from page 20) school facilities, Washburn reported.

People opposed to splitting Enfield viewed the separation issue, or at least its public discussion, as almost embarrassing. James Dudley, a former legislator and current Enfield selectman living in West Enfield, “claimed that it was not the wish of most voters in the town to bring their family quarrels to the Legislature,” Washburn noted.

Also opposing the proposed split was another West Enfield resident, Chester Currie, whom Washburn described as “a West Enfield businessman and former [Enfield] selectman.” Currie astutely observed that dividing Enfield into two towns would economically hurt both.

The hearing ran almost two hours.

Wyman then gaveled the hearing to a close, and Enfield residents headed home in treacherous driving conditions.

The 100th Legislature ultimately decided that Enfield was a perfectly good

town and left it intact. As for the new elementary school, well, Allie J. Cole’s family really did play a role in educating local youngsters — but not in the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s.

Cole’s son, Galen, led family efforts to donate land so Maine School Administrative District 41 could construct a new elementary school in the early 1990s.

The land was once part of the Cole Farm.

The Enfield Station School opened in January 1993.

And the original Enfield Station so familiar to Allie J. Cole passed into history, but not as another demolished local landmark. Galen Cole had the station moved carefully to Bangor and placed in the Cole Land Transportation Museum about 20 years ago; today, the restored station occupies a visible location amidst the museum’s railroad exhibit.

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

Never Punch A Gentle Giant Lincoln’s Bill Rideout

by Charles Francis Bill Rideout was a very strong man.

There seems to be no argument to the matter. Of course, there are those who will say that strong men of the past, those who have come down to us with a certain reputation for great strength or as unstoppable fighters, are nothing more than the stuff of legend. They are nothing more than folk tale.

Now Bill Rideout is something of a legend among his descendants and other family members. Bill’s nephew Gaston Rideout said his uncle was known as the strongest man in the county. Of course Gaston could have been a bit

prejudiced. Most everyone likes to brag about ancestry or relatives. To have a family member who stands out or stood out for something kind of rubs off. It does something for one’s self esteem.

The county Gaston Rideout was referring to was Charlotte County, New Brunswick. Bill Rideout was from the little New Brunswick community of Oak Hill. Bill was the son of George and Elizabeth Sturgeon Rideout. The Rideout family was a big one. Bill had eight brothers and sisters. There were plenty of other branches of the family

in the area too, as well as across the border in Maine.

The Rideout family had a prosperous farm. Back when Bill Rideout lived in Oak Hill, the hamlet was something of an afterthought of St. Stephen. In fact, a lot of people thought of it as St. James because it was included in the Parish of St. James. Moreover, some people called it Moore’s Mills because the mill was the most important structure in the area.

Now, Bill didn’t live his entire life in Oak Hill. For a good portion of his

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adult life he lived in Lincoln, Maine.

One reason Bill moved to Lincoln was to work in the woods. Jobs were good there. Of course there were good jobs working in the woods of New Brunswick. However, Bill had other reasons for moving to Lincoln. For one thing, he had family there. Rideouts had lived in what was to become Lincoln as early as 1810. Probably the biggest reason Bill moved, though, was that he hoped to leave his reputation as a strong man and as a fighter behind him.

Bill thought, by leaving New Brunswick, and moving to the United States he would leave his reputation behind.

Things, however, didn’t work out that way, as we shall see.

In considering Bill Rideout, it must be understood from the very beginning that Bill was a larger than life figure.

That’s important for the time period we

are talking about, the late 1800s — Bill was born in 1849 or 1850.

People love to tell stories of larger than life figures. This was especially true before there were forms of entertainment like movies, radio and television, when, to pass a cold winter’s night beside the wood stove, storytellers told of the prodigious exploits of fishermen or lumberjacks of previous generations.

Invariably, these figures were bigger and stronger than the current generation. They were able to lift incredible weights, knock out a local bully or a famous fighter who just happened to be in the neighborhood with a single blow or perform some Herculean task that ten or a dozen men had been unable to accomplish. It was stories like these that Bill Rideout hoped to put behind him in moving to Lincoln.

One of the stories about Bill Rideout

before he came to Lincoln involves a hired hand who worked on the Rideout farm in Oak Hill. The hand was supposed to hitch a horse to a huge log and move it from one location to another.

The log was so heavy that the man couldn’t even get a rope around it to twitch it. The next day, when the hand showed up to work, he found Bill carrying the log over his shoulder.

While this story and other like them involving Bill may seem farfetched, they have some documentation. Pictures of Bill Rideout exist showing him holding, with seeming ease, a 200 pound barrel on his shoulder and a 100 pound sack of grain under his arm. One description of him carrying this particular load has him climbing over a fivebar fence with it rather than removing any of the cross pieces.

(Continued on page 26)

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

(Continued from page 25) Bill Rideout was a big man. He was over six feet tall and weighed in at over 220 pounds. Nevertheless, Bill was a gentle soul at heart and soft-spoken, too. The latter two characteristics probably explain how it was that no matter where Bill went there was always someone eager to pick a fight with him or challenge him to a trial of strength.

In short, and as strange as it may seem, Bill, like most reported strong men (and reputably weak men), was picked on. An incident in the Houlton area is an example here. It happened shortly before Bill moved to Lincoln.

Bill was working in an Aroostook logging camp when he was jumped by eight lumberjacks who pummeled him to the ground. When some of his friends rushed to his aid, he waved

them off saying “I’m about to get up.”

Then shaking off his assailants as a dog shakes himself dry after a swim, he proceeded to rise and trounce all his attackers.

The above tale brings us to Bill attempting to live quietly and peacefully in Lincoln.

Bill just couldn’t seem to shake his reputation. His fame – if you want to call it that – followed him like some kind of demonized bad dream.

Now it seems Lincoln had its particular bad bully, a great lumberjack of the boastful sort. When the bully learned Bill had moved to town he went around telling everyone how he was looking forward to mixing things up with the interloper. That is, if he ever met up

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with him. Well meet up they did.

Bill and the lumberjack met up in the street. As soon as the lumberjack saw Bill, he began belittling him to his face, inviting him to fight.

The fight didn’t go for more than two seconds. One punch was thrown,

by Bill. The boastful bully lay there out cold for a good half hour.

Anyone interested in Bill Rideout’s particular branch of the Rideout family can find information in Rideouts in America.

Bill married twice, Christina Rideout and Amanda Thompson. Bill Rideout, the gentle giant, died in Lee in 1928.

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

Temptation Lured Waterville Burglars To Their Doom In Newport Burglars met their Waterloo in Newport

by Ian MacKinnon Temptation lured three hoods to the Newport Post Office and their doom on November 14, 1911.

Figuring that poorly policed Newport might be a great place to commit burglary, theft, and other assorted crimes, three Waterville men disembarked from the 8:25 p.m. train arriving from Bangor that Tuesday. Louis Gerioux, Angus Henderson, and Paul Luby would later claim that they had blown their available cash in Bangor after cutting wood for the Great Northern Paper Co. Apparently short on funds, the trio rode the rails to Newport where, only 30 miles from Waterville, they intended

to steal what they could not earn.

Gerioux, Henderson, and Luby proceeded to blunder and burgle their way across Newport that cold, rainy night.

The gaffes started when C.B. Osborne, identified by the press as “a Newport public carriage driver,” apparently asked the three men if they needed a ride and received a rude rebuff for his efforts. Osborne and W.H. Mitchell would remember watching the trio stepping down from the arriving train.

Then Charles T. Libbey, a local reporter who also worked as a “special [police] officer” for Newport, noticed three men standing at the Elm StreetPark Avenue intersection at 9 p.m. Po-

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Busting a rear window at Weymouth’s Wool Factory, they ransacked the business’s main office; “papers from the desk drawers were scattered in the men’s search for booty,” Libbey would report to newspaper readers on Friday, November 17.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com from the [Judkins & Gilman’s] general store,” Libbey wrote. “The burglars had cut away the knob of the safe but that was the extent of the damage of the receptacle; nothing was taken.”

Someone soon noticed the broken window at Weymouth’s Woolen Factory. John E. Heffron, another Newport special police officer, investigated the factory break-in about 11 p.m. “and noticed the littered condition of the office floor,” Libbey wrote.

Then, as he walked past the Newport Post Office, Heffron spotted “a man within at work on the safe.” Confusion exists as to exactly what happened next. Seeing Heffron approach the post office, two men standing nearby “ran down the street toward the railroad [yard],” Libbey reported. Heffron claimed “that he discharged his revolver at the men, and that they responded in like manner.

“No damage was done to either

side,” Libbey commented.

The gunfire apparently startled the post-office burglar, who “upon seeing the officer (Heffron), threw up his hands in surrender [while] asking the officer not to shoot,” Libbey wrote.

Heffron grabbed the safe-cracker — quickly identified as Angus Henderson — and hustled him to the Newport Police Station.

Deputy Sheriff Edgar R. Dow and Newport postmaster A.M. Stewart converged on the post office, where Stewart discovered that the thieves had stolen “four dollars worth of stamps … from the registry drawer.” The burglars had also tampered with the knob on the safe door.

They had also abandoned ample evidence. After breaking out a rear window and crawling into the post office, the burglars left a hammer, several chisels, revolver cartridges, and a fuse on the floor. Two men apparently went

outside to serve as lookouts for Henderson and then had run away when Heffron fired at them.

If Henderson knew where his partners-in-crime had fled, he was not telling. Gerioux and Luby left a trail, however.

At 3:30 a.m., Wednesday, MCRR night telegraph operator Louis J. Duffey staffed the Pittsfield train station.

He had already learned about the criminal proceedings in Newport, so when he “saw Gerioux and Luby coming down the tracks from the direction of Newport,” he surmised just who they might be.

Their clothes soaked from the relentless rain and from struggling 6 miles along the snowy tracks from Newport to Pittsfield, Gerioux and Luby asked Duffey if they could warm themselves in the station. He invited them inside and waited for N.C Corey, the MCRR night watchman assigned to Pittsfield, (Continued on page 30)

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(Continued from page 29) to arrive after making his rounds.

Also aware of the Newport crime spree, Corey was patrolling along the tracks when he discovered the burglars’ southbound footprints. Hurrying to the Pittsfield station, he joined Duffey and the suspects at 3:50 a.m.

Within minutes, Corey and Duffey escorted the half-frozen suspects to the Pittsfield jail, where they claimed “that they lived in Waterville and had left Newport that night,” according to Libbey. Inspector Edward P. Boutelle interrogated Gerioux and Luby in Pittsfield; they maintained their innocence while claiming “they came from Waterville to Pittsfield that night and had slept in a box car,” Libbey wrote.

If the blundering burglars had confined their B & E to the general store and woolen factory, they would have faced state justice. Breaking into a post

office was a federal crime, however, so the next afternoon, Deputy U.S. Marshall Burton Smith escorted the three prisoners to Bangor after taking a train north from Portland.

The wheels of justice ground quickly. The United States government appointed Bangor attorneys James Rice and William Robinson to represent Gerioux, Henderson, and Luby. Also catching a train to Bangor from Portland, Assistant United States Attorney Arthur Chapman presented the government’s case during a probable cause hearing held Thursday morning at a hastily convened federal court session in Bangor City Hall.

With United States Commissioner Charles Reid Jr. presiding, the court heard evidence presented by such witnesses as Corey, Heffron, and Libbey.

The suspects were arraigned “upon the

charge of breaking and entering the United States post office at Newport with the intent to commit larceny,” according to Libbey, who was playing a dual reporter/witness role.

Asked how he pled, Henderson replied, “Guilty.” Gerioux and Luby claimed they were not guilty.

After the prosecution witnesses finished their testimony and the defense presented no witnesses, Reid “ordered each respondent held in bonds of $1500 for his appearance at the December term of the U.S. District court to be held in Portland,” Libbey reported.

The defendants could not post bail, so Reid ordered them held over until the trial. Meanwhile, tongues wagged in Newport for days about the burglars who had met their Waterloo after busting into the post office.

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What Maine Furnished For Epicures Maine’s turn-of-the-century delicacies

by Barbara Adams Few states in the 1900's could provide such tempting morsels for epicures as Maine. In many other localities, the hotels were larger, and the menus more elaborate, but the list of delicacies was made almost entirely of food items brought from other regions. Many of them were products of the Pine Tree State.

A special experimental dinner was served in 1900, purposely made up entirely of Maine products that but few other states could equal. The soup was a rich venison broth, which, when made by someone who understood the hard work, was difficult to surpass. Deviled lobster was served as the entrée, and the game course consisted of Maine woodcock, which had been in cold

storage, and was served on toast. Then followed a fillet of venison with fresh Maine mushrooms, and a salad made of lettuce from a Maine hot house. It was decided that this was only one of a hundred combinations, all equally good, which could have been made from the products of Maine's fisheries, forests, and fields. Mane venison and moose were in great demand all over the eastern section of the United States, and were it not for wise game laws enacted by the legislature, the game would soon be exterminated by pot hunters, who would shoot the animals for the sake of shipping their carcasses to the Boston and New York markets.

At that time, deer and moose could only be taken out of the state when

accompanied by the persons who had shot them. But few sportsmen cared to sell their meat to the markets, preferring to eat it themselves, or give it to their friends. For this reason, very little was placed on sale outside of the state. As far as birds were concerned, partridge, woodcock, snipes, and wild geese were numerous, and during the season frequently found their way to Maine dinner tables.

Maine was famous all over the country for the quality of her fish, and Penobscot River salmon were prized as a delicacy from Eastport to the Golden Gate. Many of them were shipped away every season, and hundreds of Bangor people even sent whole fish each Spring to friends and relatives in We wash it like we own it!

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com other states. The Penobscot River salmon was much finer than the St. John and Canadian fish, and the difference could be detected instantly. Far fewer Penobscot salmon were caught each year than most people thought, and unfortunately thousands of Canadian fish masqueraded under the name without anyone suspecting the deception. Landlocked salmon and trout were considered nearly as delicious as the sea salmon by many people, and large quantities of them were shipped each year.

Just like today, the lobster stood prominently among the products of Maine's shore fisheries, and thousands of them were put in tanks and shipped as far west as Kansas City and Denver.

The number was gradually dwindling, however, due to the disregard of the law against trapping those under nine inches in length. Many of the fishermen were finally starting to realize, for their own benefit, to protect the young lobsters, and a much needed reform eventually took hold.

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

The Brewer Bank Robbery Of 1903 Early morning break-in woke up half the town

by James Nalley In the warm, early morning hours of Aug. 29, 1903, the residents of Brewer, Maine, had settled in for a night of rest just like any other quiet summer evening. The summer months had been good for them and many were looking forward to the cooler autumn weather. But across town, four men had different intentions and long-term plans for prosperity. By 2 a.m., they had awoken the town’s residents in a bold attempt to rob the local bank and were later running for their lives from the entire Bangor police force and Penobscot County’s Sheriff and posse.

The Brewer Savings Bank was a thriv-

ing financial institution that tried their best to safeguard the money of most of Brewer’s residents. But amidst some criticism about its location and vulnerability, especially in regard to the rash of recent bank robberies, the management of the bank decided to regularly deposit the majority of its funds into a more fortified Bangor bank for greater security. Apparently, the four men had not fully researched their planned heist and began their breakin even though a minimal amount of money remained in the Brewer vaults.

At approximately 1:30 a.m., the four burglars slipped in through one of the

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bank’s windows with a bag of tools and explosive charges that were used to “blow the vault.” After the first explosion, many Brewer residents were awoken from their sleep only to hear two more explosions within the next half hour. By 1:57 a.m., the final explosion had successfully opened the vault.

But to the burglars’ surprise, the vault was surprisingly empty with only $300 in cash sitting on its bare shelves. With no time to think about their blunder, they threw the cash into one of their satchels and headed toward the door.

In the meantime, all of the commotion had stirred many of the town’s resi-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com dents from their sleep and they now focused their curiosity on the bank itself. According to the New York Times article on Aug. 30, 1903, “During this time a number of Brewer people, who were aroused by the first explosion, watched the men from across the street, making no attempt to molest them, because of their guns.” One man who shouted at the burglars was deliberately fired upon and this caused the slowly building crowd to disperse for safety.

As the robbers left the bank on foot, witnesses stated that they fired more than a dozen shots into the air in order to create a cover for their escape.

They also exchanged gunfire with several Bangor policemen who attempted to intercept them as they crossed the bridge into the city and threatened any civilians who also tried to block their way. Fortunately, no one was injured

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during their desperate escape. Within the hour, the entire police force of Bangor as well as the Sheriff of Penobscot County with a number of deputies began a county-wide manhunt for the armed fugitives.

According to the New York Times report, “The morning passed without any encounters between the searchers and the robbers, but information was received that four men had been seen driving furiously from Bangor toward Hampden that afternoon. The information came from the watchman employed at Lowell & Engel’s Mill in East Hampden.” The watchman apparently knew nothing about the bank robbery in Brewer and assumed that they were only “horse thieves,” which prompted him to report his sighting to the local police anyway.

By the afternoon of Aug. 30, only rumors remained about the four gunmen with one of them being that they were chased by the Sheriff’s posse into the deep woods beyond Bangor where they were lost. That same afternoon, a bag of tools used in the robbery was found in the railroad yard in Brewer, which was apparently dumped in their frantic escape. Finally, due to the mistakes and the ditching of the tool bag, it was believed that the four men were not at all experts. It was just one incredibly risky attempt that ultimately ended in splitting only $300 four ways.

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

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Colonial Inn

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

Vincent McKusick A legal life

by Charles Francis If one were to identity the single individual who best understood Maine law of the past sixty or more years, it would have to be Vincent McKusick. Simply put, Vincent McKusick saw — and in many respects oversaw — the modernization of the state’s legal system.

Maine civil law changed hardly a whit from statehood to the decade of the 1950s. Vincent McKusick once alluded to this particular circumstance when he said “a lawyer from 1856 could have come into a [Maine] court room in 1956 and would have felt completely at home.” Given the circumstances

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surrounding Maine’s civil laws as the decade of the 1950s wore on, it would not be inappropriate to say that the state’s legal system lagged behind most of the other states of the country, and most decidedly behind that of the federal system of civil law. All of this began to change in the last years of the decade of the 1950s, though. Vincent McKusick played a part in that initial change, and the changes that followed.

Vincent McKusick was deeply involved in modernizing the rules of procedure for the Maine courts.

He served on procedural rules com-

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mittees appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court and he co­-authored two editions on the practice of civil law in Maine. Today those two editions of Maine Civil Practice; Rules of Civil Procedure With Commentaries, written with Richard Field, are regarded as classics of the legal genre.

McKusick served fourteen and a half years as Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Those fourteen and a half years are described as “marked by significant improvements in the structure and operation of all courts.” The im(Continued on page 40)

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

(Continued from page 39)

provements include the state’s pioneering mediation program and the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program.

Vincent McKusick was both a lawyer and judge. While it is natural to think of judges as first being lawyers and then judges, McKusick is almost unique in the State of Maine for having been tapped for the highest judicial office in the state directly from the practice of law. You have to go all the way back to 1820 when Prentiss Mellon was so honored.

One thinks of lawyers as verbally talented. It is a talent one associates with debate. Vincent McKusick attended Bates College in the early 1940s. This was when the Bates debating team was internationally renowned. In the 1920s and 1930s, the

college won competitions in Great Britain, and toured as far away as Australia and New Zealand. Vincent McKusick honed some of his legal talents as a Bates debater. He was a natural, even though he attended a high school that did not have a debate team. That high school was Guilford High School. Vincent McKusick was Guilford High School valedictorian. He shared that honor with his twin brother, Victor.

The McKusick twins were from Parkman. Victor McKusick went on to become a renowned geneticist, and is acknowledged as the father of modern medical genetics. The McKusick twins started their educational career being home schooled by their mother. That was for first grade. The next seven years of their

education were spent in a one-room schoolhouse in Parkman.

Vincent and his identical twin Victor, the younger by some twenty minutes, were born on October 21, 1921 in Parkman. Their parents were Carroll L. and Ethel (Buzzell) McKusick. The twins’ father was a graduate of Bates College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Their mother was a school teacher.

Carroll McKusick had been a high school principal before becoming a Parkman dairy farmer.

From Bates, Vincent McKusick went directly into the army. He was a member of one the myriad of research groups working on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. His particular group’s responsibility was the detonator.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

McKusick would later say that when working on the Manhattan Project, neither he, nor other workers, knew of the purpose connected with their labor. He would also say he later saw its necessity — that necessity being the bombing of Japan — to bring about a quicker end to World War II. Perhaps the best way to describe the McKusick twins would be to say they were multi-talented and that they were polymaths. A polymath is a person with superior intelligence, whose expertise spans a significant number of disciplines. Victor McKusick was a physician, and a research scientist. He laid much of the groundwork for the Human Genome Project. Vincent McKusick was similarly talented.

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vard Law School in 1947. His goal was to become a patent attorney. As part of his preparation for achieving that goal, he studied electrical engineering at M.I.T. He had an M.I.T. Master’s degree before he started Harvard Law. At Harvard, he was President of the Harvard Law Review. From Harvard he went on to serve as law clerk to Chief Judge Learned Hand of the United States Court of Appeals, and to Justice Felix Frankfurter of the United States Supreme Court.

In 1952, McKusick returned to Maine to work for the Portland law firm best known by the name Pierce Atwood. His initial tenure there lasted twenty-five years.

In 1977, Governor Longley appointed McKusick Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

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Chief Justice McKusick had responsibility for managing Maine’s entire court system, as well as for presiding over its highest appellate court.

Vincent McKusick should not be regarded as simply a Maine attorney and Maine judge. McKusick has a national and international reputation. He has served on the governing boards of both the American Bar Association Journal, and the American Bar Foundation. He also led groups of state and federal judges on “People to People” visits to both China and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He served as President of the National Conference of Chief Justices, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Center for State Courts.

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42

Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

The Ralph Owen Brewster/ Howard Hughes Faceoff

Maine plays a big role in The Aviator

by Charles Francis

The movie The Aviator, a blockbuster in Hollywood’s grand tradition, is one of the big screen’s most successful films of recent years. To begin with, its lavish scenes cost hundreds of millions of dollars to shoot.

Then it featured some of the biggest names in the entertainment business, including director Martin Scorsese, and actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Blanchett, Alan Alda, and William Baldwin. These facts aside, what really made The Aviator a “must see” movie was the fact that it “name dropped.”

For those of a certain age it was great fun to see figures like Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Errol Flynn and Jean Harlow show up as characters in a movie. It was as if they had simply been away for a while.

Strangely enough, there was the name of a Maine man included among those of Hollywood’s rich and famous of a bygone era. That name was Ralph Owen Brewster.

Dexter-born Brewster, who was a Maine

Governor and U.S. Senator, had the singular honor of being the film’s “bad guy.”

The Aviator is the purported film biography of Howard Hughes, once the richest man in America. Besides chronicling Hughes’ decline into paranoia, the film portrays his ventures into film-making, aviation design, and most notably his struggle to make Trans World Airlines (TWA) a fitting rival for Pan American Airways (Pan Am). Ralph Owen Brewster features prominently in the latter subplot.

Leonardo DiCaprio has the Hughes’ part. Ralph Owen Brewster is played by Alan Alda. While DiCaprio falls a bit flat as Hughes, the same cannot be said of Alda.

He is more than adequate as the balding, conniving politician that director Scorsese wants Brewster to be.

The conflict between Hughes and Brewster revolves around whether or not the federal government will allow TWA to

compete with Pan Am as an international carrier. Brewster is presented firmly on the side of Pan Am. Because of this Hughes says that he will do all in his power to ruin Brewster.

Ironically – while The Aviator does not go into it – there is a good deal of history involving Maine and Pan Am. If the film had mentioned it, Brewster would have come off worse than he did. And, if the film had mentioned Brewster’s alleged Klu Klux Klan (KKK) connections, he would have come off worse than that.

While it is largely forgotten in Maine today, Pan Am was a major presence in Maine. The air carrier, the first great one in the U.S., had regular Maine routes. There were stops in most major Maine cities, including Portland and Bangor. It even extended to Eastport and Presque Isle. Pan Am’s Maine air routes were operated in conjunction with the Boston & Maine Rail-

(Continued on page 44)

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43

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~ Howard Hughes ~

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44

Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

(Continued from page 42) road. In fact, the most famous Pan Am passenger plane, The Clipper, had a decided Maine flavor. It alluded to the clipper ship of old.

Pan Am was developed by its most famous president and CEO Juan Trippe. (William Baldwin plays Trippe in The Aviator).

Pan Am’s expansion into Maine occurred when Ralph Owen Brewster was elected Maine official, a member of the State Legislature, Governor, and later a member of Congress. Brewster and Trippe were well acquainted.

Ralph Owen Brewster – he went by his middle name – was born in Dexter in 1888.

A Bowdoin and Harvard Law School graduate, he was a partner in one of the state’s most prestigious law firms, Chapman and Brewster. A World War I veteran, he served in the Maine House and Senate before succeeding Percival Baxter as Governor. Then his career took something of a down turn.

In the late 1920s Hodgdon Buzzell, an admitted member of the KKK, ran for U.S. Senate. When Buzzell saw that he could

not win, he threw his support to Brewster.

Brewster did not repudiate it. The incident caused a good deal of furor in Maine with former Governor Baxter openly denouncing Brewster. While Brewster did not become a Senator then, he was elected in 1940 and served until 1952.

In the U.S. Senate, Brewster was an ally of none other than communist witch hunter, Joe McCarthy. During his second term in the Senate Brewster was Chairman of the Special Committee on National Defense.

The confrontation between Chairman Brewster and Howard Hughes arose over the latter’s acceptance of a $40 million dollar government plane contract without delivering any planes. It came to a head over whether or not the federal government would allow TWA to go international.

The Aviator presents the TWA/Pan Am rivalry with reasonable accuracy. Juan Trippe wanted his company to have the exclusive American rights to fly across the Atlantic. In the hearings, Hughes stated that Brewster pressured him to give TWA

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over to Pan Am. That has never been substantiated. It did make for a great movie scene, however.

The addendum to this little story is that Howard Hughes contributed to the 1952 U.S. Senate Republican nomination campaign of Frederick Payne. Payne defeated Brewster for the party nomination and went on to serve in the Senate.

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The Genealogy Corner Saving family records

by Charles Francis In May of 1867 Judah Rockwell wrote a letter home from Old Town to his brother James in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia. After saying that he misses his friends and family he goes on to describe something traumatic that happened to him in 1850 and which probably led him to move to Old Town.

The above letter is part of a series Judah Rockwell wrote from Old Town to his family in Nova Scotia. The single letter is valuable for a number of reasons. It has value for reasons of family history and genealogy. It has historic value as it references an important figure in Canadian history. And it has value for its insight into a social phenomenon of the times. The single letter is in the possession of Mary Lou Rockwell. Judah was Mary Lou’s great, great uncle. Mary Lou is more than willing that the letter be used for historical purposes. In fact, she has allowed it to be so used. Portions of the letter have appeared in a publication of the Rockwell Family Foundation, and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the series of which the letter is a part has passed into the hands of a branch of the family who have no interest in genealogy, family history or Canadian history. Suggestions that the letters be placed in the hands of those best suited to use them have been to no avail.

Many genealogists and family historians as well as historians in general have stories of family records that have been rescued from destruction at the last possible moment. Perhaps the old document was destined for shredding, a burn barrel or compost pile. Or perhaps it was placed in a box bound for a treasures and trash barn or auction house.

Recently a picture of Isaac Rockwell went up for sale on eBay. Isaac Rockwell may have been closely related to Judah Rockwell. Judah had a cousin by that name. There is no way of knowing who this particular Isaac Rockwell was, though. However, his style of dress would place him in Judah’s time period.

How did Isaac Rockwell’s picture come to be on eBay? Someone who saw no particular value in it but a possible few dollars put it there. Family records can be lost through situations beyond our control. Records can be destroyed by fire or in floods or because of simple human error. For one family member to withhold a family treasure from other family members’ perusal or for professional use for whatever reason is, at the least, an act of negligence .

Judah Rockwell was a descendant of John Rockwell of Stamford, Connecticut. A descendant of this John Rockwell, another John, went to Nova Scotia as a Planter in the 1760s. Other descendants of John of Stamford spread throughout New England and beyond.

Judah Rockwell came to Old Town. His nephew James, the son of his brother James, came to Maine, to the Old Town area. He lived there for a time, working as a teamster. He then moved to Watertown, Massachusetts. Other Rockwells settled in the Alton area and in Corinna.

The letters of Judah Rockwell are a treasure trove of primary source historical material. This statement is made based on an examination of the single letter in the possession of Mary Lou Rockwell. They are also a valuable record of family history. They describe occupations, family interconnections

and social structure of the day. They do this giving specific names, describing emotions and discussing business practices.

Judah Rockwell’s letters were found under the upstairs floorboards of an old house in Nova Scotia in 1970. A family Bible dated 1838 containing Rockwell family names, dates and events was with the letters. They were found by members of the Rockwell family.

Judah Rockwell’s one letter tells of something that happened to him in 1850. That year he came down with a malady that he only identifies as something that caused him intense suffering. The doctor that treated him he identifies as a Dr. Borden. According to Rockwell, Borden was not in the least concerned with his suffering and did nothing to help him. In the letter he comes close to damning the doctor for his uncaring attitude and lack of understanding. In fact, he describes one of his relatives, a child named Nathan Rockwell, as showing more understanding during his time of suffering than Borden, who only provided him with two vials of medicine.

The Dr. Borden mentioned in the letter was Jonathan Borden. The Borden family is well-known in Canada.

Jonathan Borden was a hero of the Boer War. His cousin Robert Borden was a Canadian Prime Minister.

Judah Rockwell’s malady and his experiences with Dr. Borden were responsible for him turning to patent medicine as a cure for aches and pains and whatever else ailed him. This led to his becoming an expert on the use of patent medicines. It also led to his becoming a patent medicine salesman (Continued on page 46)

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Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

(Continued from page 45) in Old Town.

Judah Rockwell was what is known as a “high pitch” patent medicine salesman. “High pitch” salesmen travelled around giving their spiel from the back of a medicine wagon. This is how Judah Rockwell made his living in the Old Town area for some twenty years.

Judah Rockwell sold Nova Scotia patent medicines in Maine. He seems to have done his principle business with a man named Caleb Gates from the Annapolis Valley town of Wilmot. Gates bought his patent medicines in Halifax. While the Rockwell correspondence does not mention any particular manufacturers or specific brands, it seems clear that he handled a variety of medicines. Caleb Gates specifically uses the term ‘stocks’ as to what he is bringing Rockwell. In addition, Gates asks specifically of a particular route to the Digby area for making his delivery,

an indication that Rockwell’s goods left Nova Scotia by the Bay of Fundy.

Judah Rockwell was a patent medicine man in an era when there were few doctors. Those that claimed to be seldom had much if any formal medical training. It was a time when most people turned to home remedies or else purchased patent medicine at travelling medicine shows or from patent medicine salesmen to do their own doctoring. Even if there was a doctor in their immediate area they were more inclined to use their own tried and true nostrums or one of those that itinerant patent medicine salesmen peddled rather than give ‘good’ money to someone who styled himself a doctor. And with this background we have another reason why Judah Rockwell’s letters are important.

There is a lesson in the above little

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tale of Judah Rockwell’s letters. Except for the single letter in Mary Lou Rockwell’s possession, the Judah Rockwell letters were passed on to the eldest son of the owner of the house. He, in turn, passed them on to his eldest son.

Neither evidenced any interest in the letters. We have here another instance of how family documents are lost. Perhaps serendipity will once more rescue Judah Rockwell’s letters. Perhaps not.

The lesson here is don’t wait for serendipity to intervene in your own search for family documents. Get in touch with relatives to see what they may have and see if they are willing to share.

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The Flying Tigers Come To Dow Field Famous fighter squadron holds reunions in Bangor

by Charles Francis Without doubt, the Flying Tiger squadron is the most famous fighter squadron of all time. Its exploits in the Far East have been the subject of books and movies. Its first commander, General Claire L. Chennault, is a figure of larger-than-life proportions, who, himself, has been the subject of several biographies.

One Flying Tiger, Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, was the subject of the movie and television show Baa Baa Black Sheep. One of the lesser known facts about this famed squadron is that it — or the 75th Fighter Squadron, which absorbed the Flying Tigers shortly after the United States entered World War II

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— was stationed for a time at Dow Air Force Base, where it played a vital role in the nation’s defense during the critical years of the Cold War. The history of the 75th Fighter Squadron, which still flies under the Flying Tiger flag, is one of the longest and most decorated of any military flight group. That a portion of the story of the Flying Tigers focuses on Maine, in general, and Dow Air Force Base, in particular, points out the vital role the State of Maine played in the defense of the United States. In addition, it should be noted that the Flying Tigers consider Bangor their true home as they continue, to this day, to hold their

reunions there.

The first Flying Tiger squadron, which was more formally known as the American Volunteer Group, consisted of reserve pilots who were given permission to fly in aerial combat against the Japanese in the China-Burma-India Theater in 1941. In this capacity, they provided air support for the embattled Chinese forces of Chiang Kai-shek, which had no military aircraft to speak of, and kept the Burma Road, the only supply line into China, open.

The exploits of the Flying Tigers are the stuff of legend. At times, they were involved in engagements

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where they were outnumbered as much as eight to one. They landed their P-40’s in jungle clearings and rutted fields that had never before had an airplane pass over. As a group, they amassed more kills, in a shorter period of time, than any fighter squadron in history. (“Pappy” Boyington, who continued on as a Marine pilot, may have had the highest number of kills of any World War II ace.) The Flying Tigers accomplished these feats without the logistical and materiel support of the regular army. Their mechanics often kept planes flying on little more than a wing and a prayer.

The 75th Fighter Squadron, which was to absorb the Flying Tigers, was born as the 75th Pursuit Squadron on December 17, 1941, exactly ten days after the Japanese

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attacked Pearl Harbor. On May 15, 1942, after almost six months of arduous training on the west coast, it was renamed the 75th Fighter Squadron. The squadron was then sent to Southeast Asia, where it absorbed the Flying Tigers of Claire Chennault.

The first action the 75th saw was on July 4, 1942, the day the squadron was activated. On that particular Independence Day, the 75th flew the first night interception in the China-Burma-India Theater against a Japanese bombing raid. The Japanese were so unprepared for the attack that they lost at least two and possibly four bombers. From then on, the 75th compiled one of the most impressive records of World War II, a record that would win it the Presidential Unit Citation.

(Continued on page 52)

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For the rest of the war, the 75th operated out of various airfields in China. Its primary mission was to maintain air superiority over China, and it did so admirably. The 75th attacked, strafed and destroyed more enemy airfields and supply depots than any other fighter squadron during World War II. Following the war, the 75th was assigned to various airfields abroad, including Guam and the Panama Canal Zone.

Then, on January 12, 1951, it was designated as the 75th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron and, with its F-86’s, assigned to Presque Isle Air Force Base.

At this time, terms like Cold War, Iron Curtain and nuclear proliferation were just beginning to be used. The Soviet Union had sealed off eastern Europe and the Berlin

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(Continued from page 51)

Air Lift had taken place, showing that the allies would not countenance Communist bullying. However, the Soviets had exploded their first atomic bombs. To counter the growing Soviet menace NATO had been formed, and there was now an American-Canadian joint alliance called the Air Defense Command, designed to protect North America from a Soviet attack. From the latter would come the Strategic Air Command and a proliferation of new air bases like Loring in Limestone.

However, Loring was still on the drawing boards. For a time, then, Presque Isle Air Force Base and Dow Air Force Base were among the closest American bases to the Soviet Union, and for that reason, possibly the most important air bas-

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es in the country. It was not a new role for them, however.

To understand why Maine would be the site of some of the most important air bases in the United States like Dow Air Force Base, it is necessary to examine conditions and geography in Maine. Maine, at the northeastern corner of the United States, is the closest state to Europe.

Therefore, for most of the twentieth century, it has been considered vital to the defense as well as offense of the country. When war threatened in Europe with the rise of the Nazis in Germany, the state and the nation as a whole had begun to take steps to gear up for the possibility of being drawn into a conflict.

On June 20, 1940, the Maine legislature created the Military

Defense Commission, which was charged with preparing the state for possible hostile developments. This commission gave its attention to two defense priorities: the building of armories and airport construction in those places that were considered vital for national defense. In the latter instance, the commission provided engineering expertise, supervision and financial assistance in buying land for airport sites and expansion. All in all, over thirty airports like Dow Field in Bangor were either upgraded or created by the commission. All together, from 1940 and through World War II, over fifty million dollars in federal, state and local funds was expended in Maine for airport development, and Dow Air Base had its share of

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the funding.

During the war, Dow Air Base was one of the most important and largest bases of the Army Air Corps.

Thousands of heavy bombers thundered out of Bangor, almost monthly, heading for the war theater in Europe. With the close of World War II, Dow Air Base, or as it would soon be known, Dow Air Force Base, as well as the entire State of Maine, continued to be regarded as vital to the nation’s defense. This was why fighter-intercept squadrons like the 75th of Flying Tiger fame were stationed here.

The primary mission of the 75th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, while it was in Maine, was to fly its F-86’s with “a high degree of operational proficiency so that it might repel any possible air attack.”

The 75th was stationed at Presque

Isle twice in the 1950s. Its first stay ended in October of 1952, when the squadron was assigned to Suffolk County Air Force Base in New York. It returned in 1955. That same year the squadron’s F-86’s were replaced by F-89’s. From Presque Isle, the 75th moved to Dow Air Force in Bangor where it remained until 1968, making its stay there the longest of its assignments. In 1959, while at Dow, the squadron converted to flying F-101’s. The 75th was deactivated at Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Michigan in November of 1969. This was not the end of this legendary fighter group, however.

The 75th was reactivated in May of 1972 at England Air Force Base in Louisiana, this time as the 75th Tactical Fighter Squadron. The 75th remained at England Air Force Base until November, 1991, when it was

again deactivated. In April of 1992, it was again activated under the famous Flying Tiger flag. The squadron is now stationed at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina.

Over the years, hundreds of 75th pilots and support personnel helped to maintain the traditions of the first Flying Tigers who went as volunteers to fight the Japanese in the Far East. This past fall, the men of 75th held a reunion in Bangor. The reunion was attended by Flying Tigers from across the United States who came to remember and pay tribute to the traditions of their squadron.

As for Dow Air Force Base, it is now Bangor International Airport. one of the premier airports on the east coast, as well as one with a history that few other airports can rival.

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A Matter Of Conscience

Bangor’s Norman Cahners and the 1936 Olympics

by Charles Francis

Norman Cahners qualified for the U.S. Olympic trials of 1936.

He did not take part. Some have called that decision boycotting.

Some have called it a protest. Others have suggested it was highly personal — a matter of conscience.

Norman Cahners was a very good track and field athlete. He was a standout in the sport at Harvard, and before that at Phillips Academy. Before that he showed his athletic temperament on the fields and playgrounds of Bangor.

The 1936 Olympics were the Berlin Olympics. This fact provides the context of Cahners’ decision. The 1936 Olympics were the Nazi Olympics. Norman Cahners

was Jewish.

From the perspective of today, it seems clear to many — if not most — that the 1936 Olympics were a stepping stone to the Holocaust.

Back in 1936, few Americans understood what was going on in Nazi Germany as far as Jews were concerned. American Jews had the best insights. Those insights extended to the fact that Jews in Germany were slowly being stripped of their rights and property. Rights included the freedom to participate in sport. 1933 saw Jewish athletes being dropped from German sports organizations and clubs. By 1935, Jews were denied membership in all German sport associations.

For much of the twentieth century qualifying for the Olympics was the amateur athlete’s dream. The statement is so worded because the attitude of some athletes regarding the Olympics has changed since the addition of professionals. This point aside, it must be noted that the United States as a country has boycotted only one of the Olympics — the Moscow Olympics.

That boycott involved the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Many American athletes objected to the boycott. In part, the objection related to politics. The Olympics was viewed as being — or intended to be — a hiatus from politics. That was part of the Olympic ideal. Of (Continued on page 56)

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(Continued from page 55)

course, some American athletes objected to the boycott on personal grounds. The boycott put their athletic careers on hold. It had financial implications. Athletes could lose endorsement opportunities, the chance for guest shots on television, and possible movie deals.

Some saw it as the last chance for sport stardom.

Norman Cahners’ 1936 decision is often linked to the selfsame decision of Milton Greene.

Greene, like Cahners, was Jewish.

Both were track and field stars at Harvard. Both qualified for the Olympic trials. In 1936 Cahners and Greene combined to take six first place gold medals at the Harvard/Yale track and field meet.

This was at a time when there was no national NCAA track and field championship. The Harvard/Yale meet was ‘the’ meet of the colle-

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giate season. Because of their Harvard/Yale accomplishment there was a good deal of speculation as to how Cahners and Greene might fare at the Olympics.

Norman Cahners was the son of James Cahners of Bangor. James was the son of Samuel Cahners and Celia Kopit. He owned a furniture company, and depending on the source, either owned or managed the Bangor Gas Company.

James married Katherine Louise Epstein. The couple had four children: Charlotte, Norman, Walter and Fulton.

Norman Cahners was a track and field weight and sprint man.

His best event was the hammer.

His distances in that event were routinely in the 160 foot range.

There is little question of his not qualifying for the U.S. Olympic team in the event. Milton Greene

r o g n a B

was a sprint man. His specialty was high hurdles. Greene was co-holder of the 45-yard indoor high hurdle mark. He should have easily qualified for the Olympic team in the 110-high hurdles.

Based on subsequent interviews, it seems clear that neither Cahners nor Greene had a thorough understanding of the situation for the Jews in Nazi Germany.

What, then, led to their decision to forego the U.S. Olympic trials?

It would appear that Cahners and Greene knew enough about what was going on in Germany to seek out the advice of someone whose opinion they valued. That individual was Rabbi Harry Levy of Temple Israel in Boston. Rabbi Levy had seen the speculation regarding Cahners’ and Greene’s potential as Olympic athletes. The two Harvard men had great re-

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spect for Rabbi Levy. Greene later described the meeting with Levy as “a shocker to both Cahners and myself.” Rabbi Levy described Nazi book burning and depriving Jews of rights. The athletes found the acts repulsive.

Cahners and Greene were not the only Jewish athletes to boycott the U.S. Olympic trials. That is not the point. What is to the point, however, is that once they made their decision no one seemed to care. The decision generated little if any publicity.

Sometime after the meeting with Rabbi Levy, Norman Cahners was chosen as one of two Harvard undergraduates to speak at the Harvard Tercentenary Ceremonies of 1936. He spoke before an alumni audience of 10,000. In addition, the speech was broadcast over a worldwide radio hook-up.

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pensation for the boycott decision.

Cahners was also elected president of the Harvard Class of 1936.

Much later he was inducted into the Harvard Varsity Athletic Hall of Fame.

Norman Cahners went on to become a major American publisher and philanthropist. The Cahners Publishing Company, which he founded in 1960, grew into the largest United States publisher of trade magazines. Norman Cahners died in 1986.

Looking back from the presentday, one may see the decisions made by Norman Cahners and Milton Greene as obvious and logical. We, however, have the advantage of present day knowledge and hindsight. Cahners and Greene and Rabbi Levy did not know what we do, facts such as the German people of Hitler’s Germany killed 1,000,000 children. What they did

know only involved book burning and depreciation of rights.

When Norman Cahners and Milton Greene visited Rabbi Levy they were young men, still in college. They were young men wrestling with moral dilemma. Cahners and Greene could have overlooked book burning and the deprivation of rights given their dreams of participating in the Olympics. They could have if they were possessed of sloppy morals. They weren’t, however. Norman Cahners and Milton Greene made hard ethical choices. They did so as a matter of conscience.

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Four Seasons Small Engine Repair Parts - Service Repairs All Makes & Models

Pickup & Delivery Available Art Baker, owner 218 Surry Road Ellsworth, Maine

(207) 667-4150

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Main Street in Bucksport. Item #100351 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

BEAL’S GARAGE

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Ellsworth’s Lady Candlepin Champ Eleanor Patten crowned world champion in 1972

by Charles Francis

Eleanor Patten took up candlepin bowling when she was in her mid-forties. The new interest became an engaging passion. In 1972, when she was sixty-one, Patten was crowned world champion candlepin bowler. There were a long string of championships in Ellsworth, the State of Maine, and New England preceding the world title.

Age and physical and mental health aren’t mutually exclusive. No matter how old we are, we will remain healthy so long as we seek out novel things to do. There is a caveat to this dictum, though. Once we find something that interests us, we must turn our full attention to it. That’s what’s necessary to bring healthy change into our lives.

Eleanor Patten was a serious competitive bowler. The attraction to competitive bowling lasted some twenty years. It began when Eleanor won her first Ellsworth City Championship in 1961. Altogether she won twelve city titles. After the twelfth, Eleanor gave up that competition to, as she said, “give others a chance.” It didn’t mean she gave up candlepin competition, though.

Candlepin bowling is sometimes described as being a New England pastime. This isn’t true, though. It’s at

least as popular in eastern Canada as it is in the region where it was born. In fact, if you ask a Canadian from New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, they will tell you the only sport that surpasses it in popularity, among adults, is hockey.

There are a number of different varieties of bowling. There is ten-pin, duckpin, and candlepin. Curling sometimes is included as a variation. Then there is bowls, and/or boules. The latter, sometimes lumped under the heading of lawn bowling, is related to the Italian game of bocce. Generally speaking, in bowls, you roll a ball as close as possible to another ball. Ten-pin and duckpin, and candlepin are alike in that the object is to knock down pins. Duckpin and ten-pin are similar in that the pins are rounded, with a bulbous base. They are dissimilar in that the duckpin ball is smaller than the ten-pin ball with its finger holes. Candlepin pins have the shape of a candle. They taper to the same circumference at each end. The candlepin ball is the smallest of the three. Passionate candlepin bowlers argue that, because of the size of the candlepin ball, candlepin bowling requires the greatest dexterity and mind body coordination. If this is indeed the case, then Eleanor Patten was the master’s

bowling master.

Eleanor Patten was an Ellsworth native. Her amateur, competitive bowling career began here. Her amateur career ended when she defeated perennial Massachusetts state champion Stasia Czernicki. That Patten’s amateur career would end with the defeat of the Bay State Champ is somehow fitting. Candlepin bowling is said to have originated in Massachusetts — in Worcester.

Stasia Czernicki was defending world champ when Eleanor beat her.

In fact, Czernicki had a string of eight straight world championships. Patten beat Czernicki 1,212 to 1,198.

Eleanor Patten had an amazing candlepin career. It included Eastern Maine championships, state singles, dual and team championships and being voted Maine’s Top Woman’s Bowler four times. It included a year on the Pro-bowlers tour, which resulted in her being named professional Bowler of the Year. There is no question that Patten was a remarkably successful bowler. If there is a question regarding her, it might be why she was so successful.

There is a good more to being a successful athlete than familiarity with the basics of diet, motivation, and training.

(Continued on page 60)

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(Continued from page 59) Yet, these are the factors that are most often cited as being the most important components of winning as a competitor.

Most anyone can run, jump, or throw to some degree. The basic skills or abilities are in our genes. To do these things well — really well, one must strengthen neuronal connections in the brain. To throw well, to throw to, and reach or connect — with an intended and difficult target — the visual functions which process images, and the motor functions which move the hand and arm, require intense and long-term development. The superior athlete is one who has modified his or her brain.

The process is sometimes described as cognitive fluidity. The superior athlete is one who has modified his or her brain, or a part of his or her brain, to a high degree. In a sense, it can be said that the brain is really like a muscle.

The most common conceptual analogy is to describe the brain — or a portion of the brain — as plastic.

A good athlete knows ways of training or modifying his or her brain. This helps explain why Eleanor Patten Webber was a great candlepin bowler.

Eleanor Patten starred on the basketball team, track team, and baseball team while a student at Ellsworth High School. Baseball involved girls versus boys.

When Eleanor married Roland Webber, he introduced her to pool. Eleanor was sixty-eight at the time. Roland was the better player. Given Eleanor’s ability develop her hand and eye coordination, can anyone imagine that situation continuing?

Fittingly, Eleanor Patten’s achievements in, and contributions to, candlepin bowling have been marked with induction to the Candlepin Bowling Hall of Fame. She is also an inductee of the Maine Sports Hall of Fame.

Eleanor Patten serves as a role model for all those who consider themselves as ‘too old’ to try new things. She also serves as an example that one need never give up the things one loves, or the things that really keep one young and alive.

Eleanor Patten ‘retired’ from competitive bowling in 1975. She was sixty-four then. Ten years later, in 1985, she came out of retirement to lead a candlepin team to the Maine Mixed Handicap Title. Clearly age was no handicap.

There is one last note on the remarkable candlepin bowling champ from Ellsworth. Seeking out novel ways of engaging one’s mental and physical self is just one of the marks of healthy

ageing. There was another side to Eleanor Patten. She had a sense of social responsibility — one that had nothing to do with the world of competitive athletics.

During her lifetime Eleanor Patten donated over six gallons of blood to local blood banks. And not only did she donate her blood to this worthy cause, but she was a tireless volunteer worker for the American Association of Blood Banks. She was recognized for her service to this latter organization, as well as others like the Grange, and Odd Fellows, with a number of achievement awards.

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PRECISION AUTO BODY, INC Collision Specialists

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Indians Camping ~ Camp Winnecook, Unity. Item #102780 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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Judson House in Unity, 1703. Item # 102777 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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It is possible to enjoy Discover Maine year ‘round by having all eight issues mailed directly to your home or office.

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The Penobscot: A Historic Graveyard Underwater graveyard holds historic vessels

by Charles Francis

Some years ago I was contacted by two University of Maine engineering students who wanted to know if I had any information on old wrecks in the Penobscot River. It seems the two were scuba diving enthusiasts, and intended searching the bottom of the Penobscot for sunken vessels and whatever else they might find.

They were especially interested in discovering old cannons, especially the rare ones, bearing Paul Revere’s distinctive markings and brass work. Their idea was to sell whatever they could find.

At the time, the most recent dive work in the Penobscot that I knew of had been conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Maine Maritime Academy back in the early 1970s.

Their search had concentrated on the Penobscot Expedition vessel Defence. The Defence had gone down in Devereaux Cove off Sandy Point.

I told the two would-be marine archaeologists that there were any number of Revolutionary War era vessels sunk in the river, and that there were all sort of rules and regulations — including the international Law of the Sea Convention — governing diving on military wrecks, and that divers had been prevented from exploring a World War II German submarine sunk in Penobscot Bay because the sub was viewed as a grave site. I suggested that they contact a former professor of mine at the University, John Battick, to find out just

what sort of problems they might encounter. Battick is an acknowledged authority on maritime history in general, and that history as it relates to the State of Maine in particular. I later found out that the two students decided on just diving for the fun of exploring. Their dive sites were off Frankfort, the Winterport docks, and Oak Point in Winterport, where ill-fated Penobscot expedition vessels were thought to have gone down back in 1779.

Paul Revere’s ship, the Spring Bird, is believed to lie off Frankfort. Revere was the expedition’s colonel of artillery. The artillery brig, Samuel, is thought to have been scuttled at Winterport. Commodore Dudley Saltonstall’s flagship, the Continental Navy frigate Warren, is also believed to lie off Winterport. Saltonstall, the expedition’s Navy commander, would be subjected to court martial, and dismissed from the service for failure to engage the British.

I suspect that the two student divers discovered that while it is perfectly legal to dive on old military wrecks, it is illegal to remove anything associated with them.

This caveat extends to debris from sunken military vessels, and even to debris fields that cover a wide area, though no vessels have been found for evidence.

The Penobscot River is rife with history — be it in the form of wrecks — whether ships, or at least one airplane. In the 1980s a private airplane carrying two peo-

ple disappeared between Bangor International Airport and Belfast Airport. After a wide and long-going search, it was found in the river. There are tunnels running from the river bank to buildings hundreds of yards inland. Some date back to the days of the Underground Railroad. One of the latter is well-known in Winterport.

There is another further upriver in Hampden. However, historically the Penobscot is best known as the last resting place for a large number of vessels from the Penobscot Expedition.

In the summer of 2007 the Penobscot Expedition’s watery graveyard became front page news, as local newspapers blared headlines like “Remnants of major naval defeat found,” and Penobscot’s Hidden History Uncovered.”

News stories included photos of Dominic Serres’s famous painting Destruction of the American Fleet at Penobscot Bay. Actually there were only a few details in the news stories on the Penobscot Expedition that were new. Having taught history for a good number of years at Searsport District High School, I was well aware of the expedition, and its significance in American history.

After all, it was the greatest naval disaster in the country’s long naval history until Pearl Harbor. Then, too, Searsport’s DAR chapter is the Penobscot Expedition chapter.

It was formed in 1972.

The impetus for the news stories on the last resting place of Ex(Continued on page 64)

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(Continued from page 63)

pedition vessels had to do with the fact that recent dredging work in the Penobscot had run into sites of the long-sunken vessels. The articles’ major point seemed to be that nothing would be done to disturb the integrity of largely mud-obscured timbers.

What was new in the way of news involving the Penobscot Expedition was the Navy’s interest in the sites. The Navy’s interest came in the form of Robert Neyland.

Neyland is head of the Underwater Archaeology Branch, Naval Historical Center. Among other things, Neyland headed up the recovery of the H. L. Hunley. The H. L. Hunley was a Confederate submarine that went down off North Carolina.

Referencing Robert Neyland and the Naval Historic Center served to place the Penobscot Ex-

pedition in a new, and more important context. Suddenly Maine in general, and the Penobscot in particular, had a place in mainstream national and world history.

According to Robert Neyland, nothing of the remains of the Expedition are to be considered as salvageable under traditional Admiralty salvage laws: “none of it,” he said, “is abandoned property.”

Neyland went on to say that there are “civil penalties for unauthorized taking of materials from federally recognized wrecks,” like those of the Penobscot Expedition.

That means that those timbers seen off Frankfort, the Winterport docks, Oak Point, Devereaux Cove, and elsewhere on the Penobscot at low tide, and long known to any number of local residents, are protected under law by the property clause of the Constitution.

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Perhaps the most important recent aspect of renewed interest in the Penobscot Expedition is active involvement of the Navy with local organizations. A partnership has been created with the Navy, the Maine Historical Preservation Commission, and the University of Maine, for purposes of exploration and site mapping. Given the identity of the vessels lying in the depths of the murky river, the partnership is important to keep attention focused on preserving the integrity of the Penobscot’s historic graveyard.

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Main Street in Dexter. Item #26117 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

Jerry’s Painting

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B&L auto Body Inc. Specializing in Antique & Classic Restoration • Engines • Exhaust • Transmissions • Suspensions

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Main Street in Millinocket. Item #101513 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

Town Hall in St. Albans. Item #112042 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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DIRECTORY OF ADVERTISERS Business

Page

ABM Mechanical ........................................................................33 A.E. Robinson Oil Company .......................................................25 Al Benner Homes ........................................................................37 Albert Fitzpatrick ..........................................................................9 Al’s Diner ......................................................................................8 Ames Construction ......................................................................24 Aroostook Milling Co. .................................................................21 Auto Radiator Service .................................................................35 B&L Auto Body Inc. ...................................................................65 Bagel Central ...............................................................................54 Bangor Area Visiting Nurses .........................................................3 Bangor Frameworks ....................................................................53 Bangor Letter Shop & Color Copy Center...................................35 Bangor Motor Inn & Conference Center .....................................52 Bangor Pipe & Supply, Inc. .........................................................53 Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce ......................................51 Bangor Tire Company .................................................................33 Bangor Truck & Trailer Sales, Inc. .............................................56 Bangor Window Shade & Drapery Co. .......................................34 Bartlett Chapel ...............................................................................5 Beal’s Garage ..............................................................................58 Bear Point Marina .......................................................................20 Behavioral Health Center ............................................................51 Big House Sound, LLC ...............................................................38 Bowman Constructors .................................................................42 Bowman Mini Storage .................................................................42 Bradley Redemption Center ........................................................48 Bragdon’s Woodworking .............................................................47 Brookings-Smith Funeral Home .................................................54 Brooks Tire & Auto .....................................................................44 Brownlee Builders .......................................................................11 Bruce’s Tractor Sales ...................................................................49 Bucksport Monuments & Sandblasting .......................................64 Bucksport Motor Inn ...................................................................64 Budge Heating .............................................................................48 Bud’s Shop N’ Save Supermarkets ..............................................28 Bugaboo Creek ............................................................................31 C & I Custom Builders, LLC ......................................................19 Canaan Motel ..............................................................................29 Carmel Oil ...................................................................................44 Caron & Son Screening Co. ..........................................................4 Carousel Diversified Services .....................................................30 Carter’s Citgo ..............................................................................61 Center Theatre .............................................................................39 Chloe’s Collections Florist & Gift Shoppe .................................27 Clay Funeral Home .......................................................................5 Coach House Restaurant .............................................................56 Coastal Car Care, Inc. .................................................................57 Coburn Family Restaurant ..........................................................24 Cold Stream Storage ...................................................................19 Cole Land Transportation Museum ..............................................7 Colin Bartlett & Sons, Inc. ......................................................... 16 Colonial Health Care ....................................................................7 Colonial Inn .................................................................................38 Complete Tire Service, Inc. .........................................................58 Corinna Auto Body ......................................................................44 Country Junction Greenhouse & Garden .....................................23 Cox Law Offices ..........................................................................43 Cozy Corner ..................................................................................9 Crandall’s Hardware ....................................................................14 Cummings Health Care Facility, Inc. ..........................................19 Cunningham Brothers, Inc. ..........................................................11 Currie Roofing .............................................................................15 Custom Sled & Cycle ..................................................................16 D.L.C. Cedar .................................................................................4 Daigle Oil Company ....................................................................51 Dan’s Handyman Services ..........................................................18 Dave Eaton Water Treatment ........................................................7 Designed Living ..........................................................................27 Dewitt Jones Realty .....................................................................24 Dexter Internal Medicine ............................................................46 Dexter Lumber Company ........................................................... 46 Discovery House .........................................................................36 Doane Foundations .......................................................................7 Dover True Value .........................................................................39 Downeast Mobile Power Wash ....................................................32 Downeast Seamless Gutters ........................................................57 Draper’s Garage .......................................................................... 41 Drummond Construction .............................................................41 E.H. Downs, Inc. .........................................................................18 E.R. Palmer Lumber Co. .............................................................42 Eagle Arboriculture ................................................................... 58 Eagle’s Nest Restaurant ...............................................................37 Earth’s Bounty .............................................................................18 Eastern Maine Home Care ............................................................3 Enfield Citgo & Service Center ...................................................18 Exeter Auto Repair & Salvage ....................................................46 F.A. Peabody Company ............ ...................................................9 Fish Stream Kennels ................................................................... 10 Forget-Me-Not Shoppe ................................................................11 Fort View Variety .........................................................................61 Four Seasons Small Engine Repair .............................................57 Freightliner of Maine Inc. ...........................................................53 Frost Septic & Sons, LLC ...........................................................50

Business

Page

Gateway Inn ................................................................................ 13 Gazebo Sports and Gifts ..............................................................54 General Rental Center .................................................................48 Gerald Pelletier, Inc. ....................................................................22 Global Self Storage .....................................................................30 Grassroots Catering & Cafe ........................................................ 12 Gray’s Custom Builders .............................................................. 22 Green Door Framing ................................................................... 40 H.C. Haynes, Inc. ........................................................................17 Hammond Lumber Co. ................................................................27 Hangar Pizza ............................................................................... 10 Hanington Bros., Inc. .................................................................. 16 Hannaford ....................................................................................18 Hanson Landworks ......................................................................26 Harris Drug Store ........................................................................26 Hermon Meadow Golf Club ........................................................57 Highlands Tavern ........................................................................ 15 Hilton Garden Inn Bangor ...........................................................32 Hobnobbers Pub ..........................................................................19 Houlton Higher Education Center .................................................8 J&N Automotive Repair ..............................................................42 J.D. Brawn, Inc ............................................................................40 J.D. Logging ................................................................................20 J.M. Brown Construction General Contractor, Inc.........................34 Jackman-Moose River Chamber .................................................40 Jack’s Barber Shop ......................................................................58 Jay’s Towing ................................................................................40 JDL Towing & Salvage ................................................................44 Jerry’s Painting & Decorative Finishes..........................................65 Jerry’s Shurfine ............................................................................11 Jim’s Small Engines ....................................................................37 JKA Motor Sports ........................................................................60 Johnson Foundations .....................................................................3 Jones Custom Painting ................................................................32 K&K Towing, Auto Salvage & Garage .......................................43 Katahdin Cruises .........................................................................25 Katahdin Shadows Campground .................................................15 Kerry Golding Construction ..........................................................9 Kimball Insurance, LLC ..............................................................41 King Bros. ...................................................................................19 King’s Appliances & Floor Coverings ........................................43 Knight’s Grocer ...........................................................................16 L&J Trucking & Recycling .........................................................10 LP Corp ....................................................................................... 21 LandJet Transporter, LLC ........................................................... 37 Lander & Sons, Inc. .....................................................................26 LaPierre’s Cleaning Service ........................................................12 Larry’s Wood Products ................................................................12 Lee Historical Society & Museum ..............................................17 Lehr Agency ................................................................................29 Leighton’s Stove Shop ................................................................ 18 Lennie’s Superette .......................................................................14 Levasseur’s True Value Hardware ...............................................13 Lincoln Lakes Region Chamber ..................................................17 Lincoln Maine Federal Credit Union ...........................................23 Linkletter & Sons, Inc. ................................................................42 Lougee & Frederick’s Florist .......................................................51 Louisiana Pacific Corp. ............................................................... 21 Lovell’s Guilford Hardware & Building Supplies .......................41 Lucky Dog Boarding House ..........................................................8 Macannamac Camps ................................................................... 22 Main St. Auto Care ......................................................................60 Maine Collision Center ................................................................33 Maine Energy, Inc. .......................................................................33 Maine Equipment & Party Rental ...............................................54 Maine Equipment Company ..........................................................5 Maine Highlands Federal Credit Union ......................................29 Maine Historical Society ...............................................................6 Maine Hydraulics ........................................................................57 Maine’s Own Treats .................................................................... 59 Matheson Tri-Gas ........................................................................34 McKusick Petroleum Co. ............................................................39 Milford Motel ..............................................................................48 Millinocket Fabrication & Machine, Inc. ....................................12 Millmark Products, Inc. ...............................................................59 Mitchell-Tweedie Funeral Home .................................................64 Moose River Lumber Co., Inc. ....................................................41 Moosehead Building, Inc. ........................................................... 27 Moosehead Lake Region Chamber ............................................. 40 Moosehead Marine Museum .......................................................25 Morrell’s Hardware & Home Center ...........................................40 Mt. Hope Cemetery Corporation & Crematory ...........................36 Napa Auto & Truck Parts ..............................................................6 New England Salt Co. .................................................................52 Newport Big Stop Family Restaurant ......................................... 28 Newport Glass .............................................................................43 Nicky’s Cruisin’ Diner .................................................................35 Norm Cookson Realty .................................................................46 North Woods Real Estate .............................................................22 Northeast Applicators, LLC .......................................................... 3 Northeast Historic Film .................................................................5 Northeast Truck & Refrigeration .................................................65 Owen Gray & Son, Inc. ............................................................... 35 P&L Country Market ...................................................................47

Business

Page

Page Farm Home & Museum ......................................................30 Pamola Motor Lodge ...................................................................15 Pat’s Pizza Orono ........................................................................30 Patten Drug Co. ...........................................................................10 Peete’s Neat Sweep ......................................................................42 Pelletier Loggers Family Restaurant ........................................... 22 Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. ...................................................7 Penobscot Marine Museum .......................................... Back Cover Penobscot Nation Cultural & Historical Preservation...................50 Perkco Supply, Inc. ......................................................................47 Perry O’Brian, Attorney At Law ..................................................52 Peter’s Truck & Trailer Repair .................................................... 21 Pine Grove Crematorium .............................................................54 Piper’s Auto Body and Sales, LLC ..............................................61 Piscataquis Chamber of Commerce .............................................20 Pleasant River Lumber ................................................................39 Plumbline Carpentry ................................................................... 24 Precision Auto Body ....................................................................60 Pri Steen Builders ........................................................................38 Pushaw Lake Campground ..........................................................30 R&B Realty .................................................................................43 R.A. Thomas Logging .................................................................41 R.H. Auto Sales and Rentals ........................................................11 R.J. Morin, Inc. ............................................................................49 Rawcliffe’s Service Center ..........................................................57 Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. ......................................6 Raymond’s Variety & Diner ........................................................16 Rick’s Market ..............................................................................12 Rideout’s Market .........................................................................14 Rideout’s Seasonal Services ........................................................39 Rioux Electric ..............................................................................14 River’s Edge Motel ......................................................................23 Rockwell Properties .................................................................... 22 Rockwell Tires Plus .....................................................................21 Rocky Ridge Motel ......................................................................32 Rooster Brother ...........................................................................37 Rustic Rail Fence Co. ..................................................................23 S.F. Eastman, LLC .......................................................................38 Sam’s Trucking & Excavation .....................................................47 Sandman Painting ........................................................................54 Scotties Bookhouse .....................................................................61 Sebasticook Family Doctors ........................................................28 Sebasticook Valley Chamber .......................................................43 Sewing Machine Sales & Service ................................................46 Shorey Oil Inc. ............................................................................28 Sign Services Inc. ........................................................................44 Simpson’s Small Engine Repair ..................................................49 Snow’s Saw Shop ........................................................................40 Soucy’s Auto Repair & Auto Electronics ......................................8 Spring Break Sugarhouse & Gift Shop ........................................21 Stairs Welding R.L., Inc. ............................................................. 16 STEaD Timberlands, LLC ...........................................................16 Steinke & Caruso Dental Care .....................................................39 Stepping Stone Farm ...................................................................44 Stewart’s Wrecker Service .............................................................5 Stone’s Earthwork .......................................................................64 Stucco Lodge ...............................................................................51 Sturdi-Bilt Storage Buildings, LLC............................................... 4 Sullivan’s Wrecker Service ..........................................................49 Sweet Seniors Guest House .........................................................13 Swett’s Tire and Auto ..................................................................53 T&S Market .................................................................................10 T&W Garage ...............................................................................29 The Chimney Man .......................................................................21 The General Store and More .......................................................20 The Hair Razor ............................................................................12 The Maine Store ..........................................................................44 The Old Creamery Antique Mall .................................................58 The Pioneer Place, USA ..............................................................10 The Rock & Art Shop ..................................................................32 The Tax Clinic, Inc. .....................................................................49 Thomas School Of Dance ............................................................34 Thomas Tax & Financial Services ...............................................54 Thomas W. Duff ............................................................................6 Thompson’s Hardware, Inc. ........................................................19 Tim Merrill & Co., Inc. ...............................................................26 Tim’s Plumbing ...........................................................................23 Tradewinds Market ......................................................................24 Tri-City Pizza ..............................................................................52 Tucker Auto Repair .....................................................................52 Two Rivers Canoe & Tackle .......................................................14 United Insurance .........................................................................29 Vacationland Estates Resort ..........................................................3 Whitten’s 2 Way Service, Inc. .....................................................36 Willard S. Hanington & Son, Inc. .................................................8 Wing Wah ..................................................................................... 5 Winn Equipment & Parts .............................................................17 Winn Service Center ....................................................................17 Withams’s Garage ....................................................................... 20 WKIT/WZON .............................................................................33 Yates Lumber, Inc. .......................................................................17 Yates Trucking, Inc ......................................................................17 York’s of Houlton ..........................................................................9 Young Funeral Home ...................................................................64

2013 Penobscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor Region 68

Penosbscot-Piscataquis-Greater Bangor

FOR THOSE

IN PERIL

Shipwrecks, Memorials , and Rescues May 28 to October 20, 2013

4 0 E . M a i n S t ., S e a r s p o r t , M a i n e 207-548-2529 • 800-268-8030 www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org