2016 Western Lakes & Mtns

Volume 25 | Issue 7 | 2016/17

Maine’s History Magazine

FREE 15,000 Circulation

Western Lakes & Mountains Region

When The Fishing Was Good Living the simple life in Maine

The Grand Old Man Of Maine

The Naming Of Evans Notch

Alonzo Garcelon relives his past History of a Western Maine landmark

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

Inside This Edition

2 3

I t Makes No Never Mind James Nalley

4

Deadline An excerpt Gerry Boyle

9

Sister Patti Sessions Mormon midwife Charles Francis

14 Picturing The Western Highlands The beautiful Chain of Ponds

Charles Francis 20 The Ubiquitous “Fog” Smith The notorious man’s ties to Androscoggin County

Charles Francis 23 Oquossoc’s Outdoor Sporting Heritage Museum Rangeley Region’s world-famous sporting heritage

Brian Swartz 26 When The Fishing Was Good Living the simple life in Maine

Penny S. Harmon 31 An Abnaki Dictionary Maine’s original natives owe a debt to Father Rasle

Charles Francis 38 The Legend Of Father Thomas

The man who gave Leeds its name

Charles Francis 46 The Grand Old Man Of Maine Alonzo Garcelon relives his past Barbara Adams 53 The Harlow-Maxim-Ripley Union A South Paris “Who’s Who”

Charles Francis 58 T he Deadliest Disease The Maine State Sanatoriun saved many

Charles Francis 63 Waterville’s David E. Kelley Maine-born writer and producer brought well-known series to TV

Brian Swartz 66 Sisters Of Charity Hospital In Waterville Maine Catholics celebrated a gain and suffered a loss in 1924 Brian Swartz 70 Giddings Lane ...and the Androscoggin Railroad

Charles Francis 75 Norway Teen Joined The Army To Buy His Parents Their Dream Farm Adapted from “Maine At War”

Brian Swartz 78 The Naming Of Evans Notch

History of a Western Maine landmark

Charles Francis 80 Monson Hermit Project

“Hank” the hermit

Richard Wing

Maine’s History Magazine

Western Lakes & Mountains Region

Publisher & Editor Jim Burch

Layout & Design Liana Merdan

Advertising & Sales Manager Tim Maxfield

Advertising & Sales Julian Bither Dennis Burch Tim Maxfield Sam Pelletier

Office Manager Liana Merdan

Field Representatives

Ted Foss Dale Hanington George Tatro

Contributing Writers

Barbara Adams Gerry Boyle Charles Francis | fundy67@yahoo.ca Penny S. Harmon James Nalley Brian Swartz Richard Wing 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, barber shops, beauty salons, newsstands, grocery and convenience stores, hardware stores, lumber companies, motels, restaurants and other locations throughout this part of Maine.

NO PART of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from CreMark, Inc. | Copyright © 2016, CreMark, Inc.

SUBSCRIPTION FORMS ON PAGE 33 & 81

Front Cover Photo:

People watching a tennis match at Yorks Log Village in Rangeley, item # LB2007.1.103148 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org All photos in Discover Maine’s Western Lakes & Mountains 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

L

ocated far from the picturesque Atlantic coastline is the vast Western Lakes and Mountains region, which stretches from the border of New Hampshire to Canada. Within this diverse landscape are features that include the state’s deepest lake, Sebago, and the 4,000-foot peaks of Crocker and Sugarloaf Mountains. It is no surprise that outdoor enthusiasts flock to this area throughout the year. However, during the height of World War II, the thick forests were used for two specific purposes.

First, in 1944, approximately 4,000 German POWs arrived at four internment camps at Princeton, Houlton, Seboomook, and Spencer Lake. Although the military had voiced concerns regarding how to control the significant number of prisoners, those in charge stated that the camps were extremely remote and any attempt of escape would be thwarted due to the thought of living on berries and fighting freezing temperatures. According to Ron Joseph in Down East magazine, “Few prisoners spoke English, and many had seen enough Hollywood movies to believe that the woods were swarming with bears, wolves, and bizarrely, hostile Indians.”

Second, the state government had lobbied the U.S. government to send captured

Germans to the western region in order to fill the vacant positions in Maine’s potato and paper industries, both of which lost many men due to the war effort. Meanwhile, the War Production Board forced Maine to “double-down” its lumber production, which would be used for war-related products. Subsequently, the 22-building POW camp at Spencer Lake was built, complete with intimidating guard towers and barbed wire. As Joseph stated, the camp opened in the summer of 1944 “amid considerable public outcry. At 3 a.m. on July 10, a rowdy crowd in the town of Bingham met the passenger train carrying 250 POWs.” However, according to one local, the mood changed after they watched the scores of scared young men, many of which served in General Rommel’s defeated Afrika Corps, disembark the train.

On a good note, unlike their American counterparts in the Pacific POW camps, the German POWs in Maine were treated humanely. For example, when the Red Cross visited the camp to evaluate the prisoners’ conditions, one German prisoner stated that they were tired of eating American white bread. After hearing this complaint, the officer in charge provid-

Daniel L. Steinke, D.D.S.

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Comprehensive Dentistry

ed the Germans with a Dutch oven and ingredients for making German bread.

After the war, many of the Germans actually volunteered to remain in Maine, instead of returning to their devastated homeland.

In fact, numerous letters from former prisoners included the same sentiment; that is, they were treated so well by the locals that they had forgotten that they were prisoners.

This is a positive testament to the Mainers at that time.

Well, at this point, let me close with three military-inspired one-liners: 1) “The Pentagon announced that its fight against ISIS will be called Operation Inherent Resolve. They came up with this name using Operation Random Thesaurus”; 2) “A recruit thought that he was special since he was an Eagle Scout. After the drill instructor picked up on this fact, he ordered him to build a nest.

Then he had him squat over it in order to keep his eggs warm”; and 3) “I was working in Army security when a VIP from another base called to ask to whom he should address a letter. Knowing my tough-to-spell last name would give him a fit, I said, ‘Just put down Sergeant Gary, since my last name is too hard.’ The next day, I received a letter addressed to Sgt. Gary Toohard.”

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Deadline

4

by Gerry Boyle

D

eadline is the first book in Gerry Boyle’s Jack McMorrow crime series. McMorrow is a recent transplant from New York City to Western Maine. He expects a small, sleepy town to be a drastic change from his fastpaced job at the New York Times, but the undercurrent of crime in his new home manages to draw him deeper into dangerous waters. Following is an abridged version of the first chapter of Deadline.

They laid Arthur on a green canvas tarp, so close to the crowd that a few people tried to back away but couldn’t because the people at the rear were still pushing forward to see. Nobody could move so we just had to stand there in the cold night and stare down at Arthur and his head that was at a funny angle and his wet hair that was starting to freeze to his forehead.

We all stood there and wished something would happen but there was some screw-up with the hearse being blocked by a fireman’s pickup so we had to wait. There was nothing you could say so we stared dumbly at Arthur — at his glasses that were still on his face but perched crooked, at the bare patch of hairy white ankle that showed because his socks had fallen down.

He really didn’t look bad, considering.

“Come on,” I said. “Where’s a cop when you need one?”

The cop turned out to be Lieutenant Vigue who, by the time I got to him, was all worked up — not by the tragedy of Arthur’s death, but by the traffic snarl it was causing where the mill road met the highway.

Vigue was standing in the road, waving a flashlight. Half the town had stopped to see Arthur pulled from the water, and now their cars

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and trucks were streaming back onto the highway while Vigue held back the log trucks that waited in a long dieseling line, their air brakes hissing impatiently, drivers commiserating into the mikes of their CBs. “Hey, Lieutenant,” I said. “What’s happening?”

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“You know what we know,” Vigue said.

“What’s that?”

Vigue looked at me sideways, tense and irritable in the flashing glare of the strobe lights.

“Not much. It’s Arthur. He was in the river.

He’s dead.”

“So what do you think happened?” I said.

“Who the hell knows?” he said.

“Where’s the autopsy?”

“Augusta.”

“State guys in on it?”

“Only on paper. Unless it turns out to be something.”

“Like what?”

“Not suicide. Not accidental. Five bullet holes in the back. Something like that. But don’t get your hopes up.”

“Even without that it’s strange,” I said.

Vigue waved a balky truck through.

“That so?”

“Don’t you think so? I mean, how’d he get here? Out here in the middle of nowhere. Mill people don’t even come down here. He didn’t drive. You see him walking all the way down here? In the cold? What’s he gonna do? Go for a swim?”

“Wouldn’t be a long swim,” Vigue said.

“Friggin’ ice water sucks the life right out of you, Mister Man. Only good thing is they don’t smell when you pull ’em out of the water.”

“Nothing like a silver lining,” I said.

Deadline, and the rest of the Jack McMorrow mysteries, can be purchased at islandportpress.com or at your favorite local bookstore.

Straw Man, the eleventh book in the series, was published in May 2016.

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Sister Patti Sessions

by Charles Francis

P

Mormon midwife

atti Bartlett Sessions died at ninety-seven in 1892. She died a matriarch; she died leaving two sons, thirty-three grandchildren, 137 great-grandchildren, and twenty-two great-great-grandchildren. The figures are for those living at the time of Patti’s death.

Patti Bartlett was born in the wilds of western Maine. She spent the greater portion of her adult life in the West, in the wilderness the Mormons called Deseret. Patti was a Mormon convert, one of the earliest, if not the very first, in Maine.

To briefly introduce our subject: Patti Bartlett Sessions is important because she kept diaries of her later life.

The diaries serve as a window into the creation of Mormon Utah. Patti’s dia-

ries begin with the Mormon migration west and continue on through the early days of settlement there. The diaries document the physical, social, and religious circumstances of the settlers, especially of women, and are frequently cited by historians. Her diaries are a primary source of birth records in the community, as they document almost 4,000 births. Also, Patti was the mother of Peregrine Sessions, founder of Bountiful, Utah. In addition, some authorities recognize her as one of the wives of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter-Day Saints.

Patti Bartlett was born in Bethel February 4, 1795. Her parents were Enoch and Ann (Hall) Bartlett. Enoch Bartlett was from Cambridge outside of Bos-

ton. Ann Hall was from Standish. They were among the first settlers of Bethel. Enoch is described as hard-working and industrious, Ann as very intelligent. The Bartletts were Methodist.

Patti Bartlett and David Sessions married in 1812. David was five years Patti’s elder, having been born in 1790 in Farley, Vermont. He was the son of David and Rachel (Stevens) Sessions.

The Session line traces back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the time of Thomas Dudley, suggesting the family was Congregationalist. The marriage took place in Newry where the couple made their home before moving to Andover. The couple’s first child was born the year Patti and David married. Seven more would be born in Maine. (continued on page 10)

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(continued from page 9) A note as to dates and spelling: The date for the marriage of David and Patti sometimes appears as 1813. Patti’s name sometimes appears as Patty. In the case of these and other variations I have used what seems the more generally accepted.

1833 is most often given as the date for Patti’s conversion to the faith of the Latter Day Saints. Mormon missionaries visited the Sessions home that year. There is a question as to the degree of Patti’s commitment at this time.

It is generally accepted that she was not baptized into the faith until 1835.

The most frequent reason given for the seeming hesitation is Patti’s desire that David be baptized at the same time as she.

Brigham Young came to western Maine in 1835. The man who would later be called the “American Moses”, the “Mormon Moses” and the “Modern Moses”, chose western Maine towns like Andover, Bethel, Upton and Ne-

wry to gain converts for Mormonism.

In Andover, Young centered his crusade at the Sessions’ home. David and Patti Sessions’ baptism has been attributed to the visit. Regardless as to the truth or relevance of this, Brigham Young was a decided influence on the Sessions family. He was responsible for them pulling up roots and moving to Illinois and finally to Utah.

The Sessions family left Maine in the summer of 1836. November of the year found them 2000 miles west in Missouri. They had traveled by horse cart, camping all the way. Three or four weeks later and 350 miles more and they were in Nauvoo, Illinois, the “New Jerusalem” of prophet Joseph Smith, the Latter Day Saints’ elected “prophet, priest and king.” The Sessions family would stay in Nauvoo for close to ten years.

As noted above, Patti Sessions is given as one of the wives of Joseph Smith. Her daughter Sylvia Sessions

Lyon is, too. It is not the purpose of this piece to comment on any aspect of the marriages. Discussion on the subject exists in abundance. Suffice it to say there are records stating Patti Bartlett Sessions and Joseph Smith have a marriage date given as March 9,1842. Patti was forty-seven. The same records state “Her daughter Sylvia Porter Sessions Lyon, who had married Smith one month before, was present at Session’s wedding to Smith.”

Patti did not bear Joseph Smith any children. Patti’s daughter Sylvia, who was twenty-three according to the marriage record, is recorded as informing her daughter Josephine Lyons that she was Smith’s daughter. Sylvia made the statement on her death bed.

Joseph Smith died in 1844. After a period of internal struggle and church politics Brigham Young rose to the Mormon presidency.

Patti Session’s diaries begin with a journal that she received from her (continued on page 12)

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(continued from page 10) daughter, Sylvia, on February 4, 1846.

The month and year are those of the Mormon departure from Nauvoo for the west under the leadership of Brigham Young.

Patti Bartlett Sessions was handpicked by Brigham Young as a member of one of the lead Mormon companies on the westward trek. She was chosen because, during her ten or so years at Nauvoo, she had acquired a reputation as a midwife helping to bring infants into the world. Patti also had an overall reputation as a healer.

Specifically, Brigham Young instructed Patty Sessions to go with the pilot company to care for the sick and afflicted, as well as to serve as midwife.

She delivered nine babies on the banks of the Mississippi River and many more on the trek west.

Patti spent the winter of 1846–47 at what are now famous as Winter Quarters, Nebraska. Then in June of 1847, at age fifty-two, Patti left Winter Quarters

for “the mountains.” On September 24, 1847 she arrived at Salt Lake Valley. A terse comment in Patti’s diary says: “I had driven my wagon all the way, except for the last two mountains, and had walked 1,030 miles.”

Within a year of arriving at Salt Lake Valley, Patti delivered 248 babies. Her diary records a total of 3,977 births. Only two are noted as “difficult cases.” Patti was paid an average of $2 a birth. She continued to deliver babies until she was close to eighty-five.

When Patti died the Deseret Weekly published a tribute to her. The Weekly spelled her name Patty; the article was titled “Sister Patty Sessions.” The piece on Patti concluded “She was ever a true and faithful Latter-Day Saint... devoted to the church and the welfare of mankind.” Patti Bartlett Sessions’ life was remarkable and long — long both in journey from Maine to Utah and long in years. Few have had such a journey. * Other businesses in this area are featured in the color section.

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Please tell our advertisers how much you love Discover Maine Magazine by doing business with them whenever possible.

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Ferry crossing on the Kennebec River at Bingham taken in June 1904. Item #23398 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

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Picturing The Western Highlands

by Charles Francis

The beautiful Chain of Ponds

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hain of Ponds Township lies between Coburn Gore and Eustis.

Route 27 traverses all three in a southeasterly direction before continuing on to Stratton and the Carrabassett Valley. This is a beautiful region, one of dense evergreens highlighted by silver birch and glossy green maple.

Looking into Maine from vantage points in Coburn Gore one is presented with mile after mile of green- mantled slopes. Moving along Route 27 there is the occasional view of deep gorge and shimmering Chain of Ponds. Mt. Pisgah and Mt. Sisk are dominant, distant, landscape features. This is a land for campers, canoeists and fishermen.

There is a dam at the outlet of Chain of Ponds. This is the beginning of the

North Branch of the Dead River. The dam washed away in 1957. It was rebuilt in 1968. At times during the eleven-year, damless time period low water revealed an unsightly shoreline.

Sarampas Falls lies a bit beyond the dam. The little cascade is the grace note to a quiet birch grove.

Many consider the Chain of Ponds region the epitome of the western Maine highlands. The highlands serve as the dividing point between the headwaters of Maine’s Kennebec and the sources of the Chaudiere in Quebec.

The highlands are a region of ponds and streams with long, rocky rapids.

Long ago these streams and ponds were the source of a myth. It was a myth of a secret road through the mountains sep-

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arating the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean. The myth was a tale told by Native Americans.

The man who proved the tale of the secret road to be more than myth, to be reality, was a British Army officer named John Montresor. Montresor – his name sometimes appears as Montressor – was a cartographer and military engineer. In 1760 and 1761, Montresor made trips along the mythical roadway. He made the trips both ways. Montresor kept a diary of his journeys. It was published as Journal of a Scout. Montresor also made a map of his travels. The map is most often referenced as the Montresor Map. The map’s more formal title is “A Map of Sources of the Chaudiere, Penobscot

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com and Kennebec Rivers.” Montresor’s map is the first real picture of Maine’s western highlands.

There are those who may not consider a map a picture. Paintings, drawings, photographs and three-dimensional models are all readily acceptable as pictures. But maps? The thesis that a map is a picture just like a drawing is not all that implausible when we realize that a map is a world as it were put together experimentally. In other words, a map is one example of the theory of representation in general.

John Montresor made his journeys into Maine in 1760 and in 1761. Both times he started in what would become Quebec City. Both times he went up the Chaudiere. Both times he went along the Chain of Ponds.

In 1760, Montresor followed a section of the Dead River. He then veered south and a bit west to touch on Rangeley Lake. Then he proceeded south and a bit east to the Androscoggin River. He followed the Androscoggin to

Topsham. (Somehow he came to place Topsham in New Hampshire.)

In 1761, Montresor proceeded along the South Branch of the Penobscot to Moosehead Lake. From there he again veered south and a bit west but this time to the Kennebec which he followed as far as Fort Halifax and the Sebasticook River. He proceeded upstream along the Sebasticook to Sebasticook Lake, exploring around what is now Unity.

He then backtracked to the Dead River, exploring the section he had missed in 1760.

Journal of a Scout is dated 1761; the Montresor map, a year later. The map includes depictions of territory Montresor did not explore, most notably to the north and east of the Dead River and Chain of Ponds and along the length of the Height of Land, the highest of the highlands.

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it correctly or incorrectly. The distinction between those two features of representation is whether what it means is true or false. A map goes proxy for the elements it represents. This is what makes a map a picture. In addition, the elements of the map must be related to each other in a particular way. Positioning represents spatial relationship. Positioning gives structure. Every map, then, consists of structure plus pictorial relationship. The relationship between features on a map is fact. They are fact in that they represent possibilities in the real world.

John Montresor began his first trip in February of 1760. As Britain and France were still at war, he had an escort of three regular soldiers and ten Rangers. The party encountered severe cold and deep snow in the highlands.

At one point in his journal Montresor notes “to the Eastward a remarkable high sugar load Mountain.”

By the time Montresor’s party exit(continued on page 16)

Western Lakes & Mountains Region

16

(continued from page 15) ed the highlands they were out of food.

The situation reduced them to eating their leather breeches and snowshoe laces. Montresor writes of consuming raw woodpecker. If this all sounds familiar, it should. The same happened with Benedict Arnold and his men.

Arnold used Montresor’s map for his famous trek. A copy of the map and Montresor’s journal somehow fell into Arnold’s hands. In fact, Arnold might not have had what little success he did on his march had it not been for the British cartographer. Montresor’s map was a good one. For the most part, Arnold’s problems arose when he strayed from it.

How does a picture connect with the reality is represents? This is done by the choice of an object that is in the character of the object it represents in pictorial form. The connection with reality comes by making the correlation between the elements of the picture and the elements of the situation it

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is to represent. Montresor’s map is a matter of correlation. The elements of John Montresor’s map combined with each other in a pattern corresponding to the relationship of the elements of what was pictured. This does not mean, however, that the map was not open to interpretation. In fact, Montresor’s map played a part in the boundary dispute between Maine and Great Britain.

The boundary dispute between Maine and Great Britain was an ongoing issue that finally reached its climax with the “bloodless” Aroostook War in 1839. The boundary dispute began with the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution in 1783. It had much to do with the western highlands.

It had much to do with the meaning of the word ‘highlands’ as used by the Americans and British.

Americans construed the word highlands as meaning any ridge of land that divided waters, whether actually high hills and mountains or otherwise. The

English contention was that its proper definition was a high and mountainous region like the ‘highlands’ of Scotland.

The highlands in question in the boundary dispute were those directing the flow of water into the St. Lawrence and into Maine. The highlands were mentioned in the Treaty of 1783. The word ‘highlands’ was the storm center of the Northeast Boundary Controversy between the English and American governments for more than half a century. The controversy was so serious that a war between Britain and the United States was barely averted.

Today the western highlands, particularly the region around Chain of Ponds that John Montresor mapped, is a major recreation area. It is a region of unsurpassed beauty. At least that is how many picture it today. It is doubtful that John Montresor or Benedict Arnold held the same picture in their respective memories.

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

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The Ubiquitous “Fog” Smith The notorious man’s ties to Androscoggin County

by Charles Francis

“

Fog” Smith was Francis Ormond Jonathan Smith. When people referred to him as Fog they didn’t do it approvingly. “Fog” was a derisive sobriquet. Today we would call the nickname – as used to describe Smith – a decided “putdown.”

Back in the middle of the nineteenth century F.O.G. Smith seemed everywhere and nowhere, just like a fog bank. Have you ever tried to drive a vehicle in a thick fog? Have you ever tried to navigate a boat in a fog bank?

It’s next to impossible. You can’t tell where you are. That’s what it was like dealing with Fog Smith. You never knew where you were, just when you might run into something unexpected.

There were reefs, shoals and potholes

all around Smith. You might run afoul one or any at anytime.

If you were to search for one single word to describe Fog Smith, a single adjective, you would probably arrive at notorious. Fog’s reputation could only be described as that. That was his reputation nationwide and even outside the country. That was his reputation in Maine. And that was his reputation in the Androscoggin Valley, especially in and around towns like Buckfield, Danville and Rumford.

You could fill a lot of books with the shenanigans of Fog Smith. On a national and international level, he helped Samuel Morse get the telegraph off the ground and up and running. Then he

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tried to sidestep Morse and get control of his invention. Mainers elected Fog to Congress three times. Fog then worked with Daniel Webster to get the state to give up a goodly portion of the northern Aroostook region – perhaps all the way to the St. Lawrence. Webster saw the settlement as a stepping stone to the White House. Fog probably saw it as a way to ingratiate himself with a powerful politician. In the Androscoggin Valley, Fog figured out a way to take over the Buckfield Branch Railroad. What resulted under Fog went through several incarnations, the most recognizable being the Portland & Oxford Central.

At least that is the most recognizable until the line manifested itself as the Portland & Rumford Falls with Hugh

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Chisholm as president.

Fog Smith was good at sticking his fingers in juicy pies. That’s how he came to own one quarter of Samuel Morse’s telegraph. He was good at getting loans. He was even better at avoiding paying them back. That’s why, even years after Fog died, his estate still had creditors.

In 1896, The New York Times ran a long and curious piece about Fog. This was twenty years after his death. The article began, “The legal fraternity are deeply interested in one of the most curious wills that was ever probated in Portland.” The will is, of course, that of Fog Smith. It seems that after naming a number of beneficiaries Fog had “left the residue of [his] estate to establish ‘A Home for Aged Couples.”

Fog died leaving numerous creditors. Some were paid off when what was believed to be the entire estate was probated. Some weren’t. There the matter stood, at least until 1896, when rumors surfaced that there were still

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bank accounts in Fog’s name. There was an account in a Portland bank to the tune of $23,000, a lot of money then. Plus, there was an account in a New York bank. Maybe. After all, Fog had been in on the ground floor at the time the telegraph was developed. Fog was the prime mover behind the Portland Gas Works. And he was known to have footed the bill for building a goodly portion of the Portland & Oxford Central, which was now making a good deal of money as the Hugh Chisholm-directed Portland & Rumford Falls. Suddenly Fog Smith creditors had visions of not just getting their money back but a substantial amount of accrued interest, too. There might even be stock shares sitting in a safe deposit box for one of Fog’s old companies that would fall their way. It would be wonderful to own a piece of a money-maker like the Portland & Rumford Falls Railway Company.

The Portland & Rumford Falls Rail-

way Company began as the Buckfield Branch Railroad back around 1847.

The intent of the line had been to link Buckfield with Mechanic Falls on the Atlantic & St. Lawrence.

The Buckfield Branch Railroad was the brainchild of Virgil Parris. Parris was the line’s key promoter, developer and first president. Parris had all the credentials to make the line a success.

He was variously congressman, President of the Maine Senate, acting Maine governor and United States Marshal for the District of Maine. All of this was behind him, but for serving as United States Marshal when he set out to make the Buckfield Branch Railroad a success, though. Enter Fog Smith.

Fog Smith was a schemer. In 1843 Samuel Morse wanted to get $30,000 from Congress to build an experimental telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. To help sell his telegraph to the government, Morse accepted Fog’s partnership in his company. Fog was (continued on page 22)

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(continued from page 21) Chairman of the Committee on Commerce. Morse’s line was finished in May of 1844. On the 24th the inventor tapped out his historic code for “What hath God wrought!” Remember Fog Smith had one quarter interest in what was going on.

Fog didn’t stay in Congress. Why would he? He had bigger fish to fry.

The next few years find Fog out on the lecture circuit. He is out raising money to extend the telegraph from New York to Boston and then to Portland. He intends using his own funds.

Naturally, by his own funds, he means money he has raised on the lecture circuit.

Fog has big plans. He wants a telegraph running from Portland all the way to Canada. From there it’s a hop and skip to Great Britain. Just lay a cable from Newfoundland to Ireland.

Fog has competition though, the Associated Press.

There is a long and involved story here, one that does not belong with this particular narrative. Suffice it to say Fog’s dreams of a telegraph empire fail.

He turns his attention to Maine and the Androscoggin Valley.

The Buckfield Branch Railroad fails in 1857. The reason for the failure is not at all clear. One could say they are hidden in the mists of the past. The company stockholders lose their investment. Fog Smith takes control.

Under Fog, the Buckfield Branch becomes the Portland & Oxford Central. He reorganizes the line twice.

Each time there is a new name and a new board of directors. Fog’s connection to the line ends in 1876 with his death.

In 1876 there were three executors of Fog’s estate. By 1896 they are dead.

Three new ones get appointed. Creditors hope for a windfall what with rumors of hidden bank accounts and the

possibility of safe deposit boxes filled with stock shares to be discovered.

Of course, nothing is found. Fog’s name proves appropriate. A New York City attorney hired to investigate banks there finds nothing. The same is true for Portland. As for Fog Smith interests in the Portland & Rumford Falls, that line is well managed and in the firm control of the ubiquitous Hugh Chisholm.

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Oquossoc’s Outdoor Sporting Heritage Museum

23

Rangeley Region’s world-famous sporting heritage

by Brian Swartz

I

f the Rangeley lakes and woods could talk, oh, the stories they could tell!

But trees and water cannot talk, so the Outdoor Sporting Heritage Museum in Oquossoc is telling those tales in excellent fashion.

“Rangeley is a fabulous destination” with “wonderful natural resources,” said OSHM volunteer Bill Pierce.

“Because of Rangeley’s history as a world-famous outdoor destination, there is a tremendous amount of history, stories, and individuals in our past that had impact on the outdoor scene” on both the regional and national lev-

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spearheaded an effort to establish the Outdoor Sporting Heritage Museum to focus on exactly what draws visitors to the region in the first place: the great outdoors.

According to Pierce, the Palmers are part-time Rangeley residents; a past president of the Rangeley Guides & Sportsmen’s Association, Don is the current president of the historical society.

The museum opened in 2010 in a classic two-story log lodge at the intersection of Routes 4 and 17 in Oquossoc. The museum gave the historical

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(continued from page 23) society the opportunity to, according to its mission, “discover, identify, collect, preserve and interpret artifacts, printed material and original historical records which document the history and traditions of the region and its people.”

And that history goes way, way back. Fishing for brook trout and hunting the woodland caribou migrating along the local river valleys, Native Americans roamed the Rangeley Lakes Region long before the first Europeans arrived.

The “newest” of the Rangeley Lakes, Aziscohos Lake “was formed by a dam in 1929,” Pierce said. When the lake was drawn down for routine dam maintenance about 35 years ago, amateur archeologists led by Dr. Richard Gramly, Ph.D., found many Paleo-American Indian artifacts, including two meat caches (made from stone) about 13,000 years old.

Native Americans stored caribou

meat in such caches. Gramly “believes these two structures are some of the oldest known human structures in North America,” Pierce said.

“Stonehenge is 6,000 years old.”

He placed that “middle-aged” British site in proper timeframe to the Rangeley Lakes meat caches.

One meat cache has been displayed at the Maine State Museum for years; the second cache is on display at the Outdoor Sporting Heritage Museum.

Now that is pushing the dawn of Maine history a long ways back in time!

According to Pierce, Rangeley “was discovered” when George Shepard Page of New York City came to Rangeley in 1863 to pursue rumored record-breaking brook trout. Because of the cost of equipment, fly fishing “was pretty much an elitist sport” in that era, and the Adirondack Mountains in New York “were considered the place to go to catch large brook trout.”

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Staging from Rangeley, Page “had a remarkable fishing trip” and “caught many large brook trout that were in the 10-to-11-pound class,” Pierce said.

That visit “changed the region forever.”

Returning to his NYC office with eight brook trout weighing a cumulative 52 pounds, Page shared some fish with his disbelieving fishing buddies.

Immediately “an awful lot of affluent people came to this new place,” Pierce said.

To accommodate the anglers and hunters flocking to Rangeley, “camps were built, guides opened businesses,” he said. “Rangeley had this huge eco-tourism boom,” and local residents developed the “Rangeley boat” to meet the demands of navigating the Rangeley lakes. “‘Indian Rock’ was the original name of the Rangeley boat,” which “was such a popular boat, and was the Ferrari of row boats,” Pierce said. “You michael e. witham

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com could travel great distances” in such a boat.

Likely “one of the earliest examples” of such a boat, an Indian Rock boat owned and used by Upton guide Steven Morse was acquired by the Outdoor Sporting Heritage Museum in 2015, according to Pierce. Another watercraft exhibited at the museum is a birch-bark canoe handcrafted with only an ax and a crooked knife by Henry Vaillancourt.

The museum displays many other artifacts, such as flies tied by Carrie Stevens, “widely recognized as the greatest fly tier there ever was,” Pierce said. “Her business really took off when she won second place in the Field & Stream national fishing contest” with a trout caught in the Rangeley region.

“We have the largest collection of Carrie Stevens flies in the world,” Pierce said.

The museum highlights many interesting people long associated with

the Rangeley region, such as Fly Rod Crosby from Phillips. “She was quite the lady, quite the show person,” Pierce said. “Here she is, the first registered Maine guide, and she impacted the sporting world nationally.”

Captain Fred Barker hiked into the region as a young boy and became “a self-made man, [and] built a steamship line (several steamboats plied the lakes) and three different lodging properties,” Pierce said. “He trapped with John Danforth, another really amazing individual.

“Daniel Heywood started as a trapper and became a noted naturalist and photographer of his day,” he said.

“They were just amazing people, one person after another.”

Last year, the museum unveiled two new exhibits: The Rustic Woodcraft of the Great Northwoods and an exhibit dedicated to the fishing trip that President Dwight D. Eisenhower made to Rangeley in 1955. Don Cam-

eron served as Eisenhower’s guide; the exhibit features “eight White House letters” written to Cameron by Eisenhower, plus “long-lost video film” of the president fishing at Little Boy Falls and an audio recording of the welcome reception that Rangeley residents extended Eisenhower.

“It’s a wonderful exhibit,” Pierce said.

The Outdoor Sporting Heritage Museum has 3,500 square feet of exhibit space, as well as outdoor, weather-resistant exhibits. In the first five years that the museum was open, Yankee Magazine twice named it the Best Sporting Museum in New England.

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

26

When The Fishing Was Good Living the simple life in Maine

by Penny S. Harmon

R

obert Brown, known as Brownie by those in Milo, was a gentleman of seventy-three and was proud to say he had lived through some hard times. He’d been married and had a few children, but they had all moved out of the Milo area for what they considered a better opportunity. Brownie always said that opportunity was right in front of you, and he didn’t understand why they’d had to leave to go find it.

After Brownie’s wife passed away, Brownie opted for the simpler life. He lived in a small shack in the woods, as far removed from town as possible. He wasn’t exactly a recluse, but he preferred spending his time alone and not having to see people when he stepped out his front door.

Brownie had friends and saw family every now and then. However, the one thing Brownie never did was make plans with anyone in June. From the time that he was a boy, Brownie’s month of June was always spent on Moosehead Lake. As soon as he’d been released from school, Brownie took off with his grandfather and they

always ended up in Greenville.

When his grandfather had passed away, Brownie was just sixteen years old and he’d kept up the habit. Every year, June would arrive and no one would see Brownie for three or four weeks. Throughout the years, his wife had understood, but Brownie had been disappointed that none of the children had wanted to go. But this never stopped him from carrying on his early summer tradition.

Of course, things were different now that Brownie was in his seventies. Instead of camping out in a tent wherever he ended up, Brownie now camped out at one of the local campgrounds. Too many “No Trespassing” signs littered the woods, and most of that was due to

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com the lack of respect that visitors to the area displayed. He didn’t blame people for wanting to protect their land, but it sure did hurt his fun and spontaneity.

This year was going to be different for Brownie, though. This May, Brownie’s son had shown up on the steps of his camp. Brownie was shocked. His son Roger was having a hard time with his own son. Living in the city, his son was more interested in getting in trouble. Roger wanted to know if his fourteen year-old son, Johnny, could go on Brownie’s annual trip.

Brownie did what any respectable grandfather would do. He agreed to take the boy with the condition that the boy didn’t bring anything but books, clothing, and whatever he wanted to snack on. He wouldn’t need anything else.

Two weeks later, Brownie had packed up his truck and his camper with all his equipment. This year, though, there was an added level of excitement.

He hadn’t seen Johnny for almost a year and he’d been a sullen boy, spoiled, and a little rude for Brownie’s taste. This summer reminded him of the first time he’d set out to Moosehead Lake with his own grandfather.

It was 1951 and Brownie was just eight years old. He’d told his parents he didn’t want to go with his grandfather, but they didn’t listen. They just said it would be good for him and sent him with his packs full of snacks and a few changes of clothes.

Brownie and his grandfather headed toward Greenville with just a few basic food items and a tent big enough for the two of them. His grandfather had told him that they didn’t need to bring anything else with them. They would be catching their food. Brownie was anything but excited.

That level of excitement soon changed. The minute he caught his first trout, he was hooked. After fishing all day, he spent his first night cooking his

own fish over a campfire in the woods.

He didn’t know exactly where he was and he didn’t care. He just wanted to catch more fish.

Brownie’s grandfather wasn’t surprised at how quickly his grandson’s attitude had changed in just a few hours.

Fishing could do that to a man. But he also wanted Brownie to know that things wouldn’t always be this good.

“Let me tell ya a little thing about fishing, Boy. First, it ain’t always gonna be like this. You think fishing is good right now? Well, let me tell you about when the fishing was really good.”

Setting down near the fire, Brownie’s grandfather continued.

“It was in 1901 that I first came here to Moosehead with my father. Things were different then. We came to stay for a week at the most. We brought a big old container with us. Back then the limit on trout was fifty pounds a (continued on page 28)

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

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(continued from page 27) day, and that was for each person. We didn’t need to be out here more than a week to get stocked up on fish for the family.

Between me and my father, we caught almost three-hundred pounds of fish that week. We probably ate another twenty pounds sitting around the fire, just like we’re doing now.”

Brownie couldn’t imagine just how many fish that was. They’d each caught their limit that day of two fish weighing about three pounds apiece. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like.

“Those were the good old days when the fishing was good. Times have changed. Back when my grandfather started fishing at Moosehead, people fished from the shores and the lucky ones jumped in their canoes. Today, you got motorboats. That’s why everything changed.”

“Fishing’s still good, Gramps. Look what we’re eating!”

Of course, now that Brownie was in his seventies and getting ready to take his own grandson with him, Brownie could see the point his grandfather was making to him. When the fishing was good, it wasn’t just because of the large amount of fish you could bring home.

It was good because people were respecting the sport. They were respecting the land. Things changed over the years and, in 1951, on Brownie’s first fishing trip, he didn’t see the difference because he hadn’t lived long enough to see change.

Now, in 2016, at seventy-three, he had seen many changes. The fish were still there, but so were the people, and they came in droves. There weren’t many places in the Moosehead Region where you could get away from everything and just enjoy the land. Everywhere you looked there were signs about trespassing, and no hunting allowed on the land.

Times had changed everything from how many fish you could catch and where you could fish. The one thing Brownie was certain of, however, is that he would be teaching his grandson, Johnny, about when the fishing was good. Perhaps it would be the one thing that Brownie could teach the boy.

If that was the only thing he learned, it would be the only thing that mattered.

With a smile, Brownie looked up to see his son coming into the driveway with his own brooding son beside him.

Brownie knew without a doubt that this would be the year that his tradition would finally be passed on to another generation.

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The old Catholic church in Madison. Item # LB2007.1.101316 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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An Abnaki Dictionary Maine’s original natives owe a debt to Father Rasle

by Charles Francis The last fully fluent speaker of Eastern Abnaki, a Penobscot, has passed on.

What is it like for the last Penobscot to speak and fully comprehend Eastern Abnaki? Could anything be lonelier than to be enveloped in silence, to have no way to pass on the wisdom of your ancestors or anticipate the continuation of your culture? Fortunately, several Penobscot elders still speak some of the languages and are working to preserve it in the Penobscot Nation today. And fortunately, they have a tool to use in doing so, the Dictionary of the Abnaki Language compiled by father Sebastian Rasle.

Father Rasle was a missionary to the Abnaki from 1694 to 1724. He was in

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charge of the mission at Norridgewock on the Kennebec. Here he made a thorough study of the Abnaki language. In January 1723, a band of 300 men under Colonel Thomas Westbrook destroyed the mission, burned the church, and pillaged Rasle’s cabin. There they found an iron box which contained, besides Rasle’s correspondence, his three-volume dictionary of the Abnaki language.

This is now preserved in the library of Harvard College. It was first printed in 1833 in the Memoirs of the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Abnakis, together with the Maliseets, the Passamaquoddy, and the Mi’kmaqs were members of Wabanaki Confederation, traditional enemies of (continued on page 32)

____

T

here is a long-standing joke about the Maytag repairman being the loneliest person in the world. Quite clearly the Maytag man wasn’t all that lonely. He had friends and family to talk to and with. So who might the loneliest person in the world be?

The loneliest person in the word is, without a doubt, the last to speak his or her native tongue. Think what it would be like to be the last to speak the language you learned as a child.

The Abnaki language was once the dominant language of much of the northeast. Today only a handful of Abnakis still speak the Western Abnaki language. They are found in Canada.

Fax

Western Lakes & Mountains Region

32

(continued from page 31) the Iroquois. These allies of the Atlantic northeast spoke related languages, and Abnaki and Wabanaki have the same Algonquian root, meaning “people from the east.” Today there are about 12,000 Abnakis living in New England and Quebec. There are about 3,000 Penobscots living in Maine.

A note must be made at this point. I have chosen the spelling “Abnaki” as that is the spelling used by Harvard in the title of Father Rasle’s dictionary. I could just as well have used “Ábenaki” or one of several other variations.

Spelling here depends on source or authority being cited. The same is true for the spelling of Rasle. “Ralle” and “Ralles” and other spellings have been used on occasion. My primary source for spelling is invariably the most scholarly authority I could find. Now for a bit of background.

Anthropologists tell us that of some 7,000 languages spoken today, at least

half are not being taught to children.

That means half of the world’s languages, including Abnaki, are on the brink of extinction. It means that in a short time period we will have lost half of the world’s social, cultural and intellectual traditions.

To those who say ‘so what’ to the above, that it would be better if all spoke the same language, that there would be more understanding in the world, one might ask what language should be the single worldwide language? A language is much more than a set of grammatical rules or a vocabulary. A language brings the spirit of a people to the fore. If, say, Mandarin came to be the word language, what would happen to everything written in English or French or Russian, to the King James Bible, to Balzac, to Tolstoy?

Sure, a lot of languages are now extinct. The language of ancient Sumer is about as dead as dead can be. Latin is

dead, too. Yet Sumeria did lead leave a legacy. Dividing a minute into sixty seconds is one. Latin survives with the Romance languages. We read ancient Greek too – in transitions of Homer, for example. But, if the translation is your answer to the issue of languages becoming extinct, think again.

There is actually another Abnaki dictionary besides that of Sebastian Rasle. Gordon Day has compiled a Western Abenaki Dictionary. Day points out a problem common to translation. According to him “the Abnaki word for clock is babizookwazik.” Day points out “babizookwazik” translates as “that thing that ticks.” He says the traditionally Native Americans did not measure time as westerners do.

Language is the means by which the culture of a people comes into the world. It is the way a people look at the world, their imagination, their beliefs, ideas, and inspirations. This is what we

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find in Dictionary of the Abenaki Language.

Father Rasle’s dictionary had three columns of entries for “canot,” canoe in English. The entries translate as “my canoe, dug-out, small cedar planks to make…wood that is thin at the end, that is upright.”

Rasle’s dictionary reveals a totally different way of looking at things. It is other than western. “Canoe” speaks to a natural orientation, a life in the outof-doors. It speaks to parts rather than wholes. It speaks to use. A wigwam was a “cabane,” a “maison” (a cabin or house). The entries were “grande” (big), “petite” (little), “ronde” (round) and “logette pour e bois de chauffage” (small cabin for firewood). Corn was Indian corn, whole corn that isn’t stacked and white, black, red and yellow corn.

We are told that the biosphere is being eroded. With the loss of habi-

tat comes the loss of plant and animal species. The world is becoming less biologically diverse. The same is so culturally.

Language loss tells us the world is becoming less culturally diverse. We are not going to lose fifty percent of the world’s species of plants and animals but it looks as if we are going to lose that percentage of the world’s languages. Eastern Abnaki will be one of those lost languages unless things change.

A very wise man once said, “The Indian’s earthly life was as far off from us as heaven is.” Father Sebastian Rasle, the Norridgewock missionary, would have found this is a troubling thought.

We seem to live in an age of environmental disasters. Thanks to Father Rasle’s dictionary we can see there are other ways of thinking and interacting with the earth. This is more reason than enough for preserving Abnaki.

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Early view of Main Street in Watervile. Item # LB2010.9.117709 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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A view through the front window of Atherton Furniture Store in Waterville, ca. 1911. Item #10766 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Early view of the high school in Farmington. Item # LB2007.1.100767 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

38

The Legend Of Father Thomas The man who gave Leeds its name

by Charles Francis

I

n the time before history was written down, Indian Carry, in what is now North Leeds, was a busy place. This was especially so spring and fall. Native Americans whose home was the upper Androscoggin River and who fished Merrymeeting Bay in the summer knew it well and used it on a regular basis. Indian Carry was on the shortcut between the upper Androscoggin and the lower section of the river where it joins with the Kennebec. To use the shortcut and Indian Carry meant saving time. It was more direct to follow the Dead River to Indian Carry and Androscoggin Lake, proceed on across Androscoggin Lake to Wilson Pond and Annabesacook Lake, and then follow Cobbosseecon-

tee Stream to the Kennebec. The term “carry” relates to the summer months of low water at Indian Carry when it was necessary to portage.

Native American use of Indian Carry is prehistoric: in other words, what is known of the carry so long ago comes by word of mouth. It is oral tradition.

Indian Carry has its place in history,

--------

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though. Its significance extends into the time of written record keeping.

Thomas Stinchfield, the man who gave Leeds its name, came to Indian Carry sometime in the 1770s. Here, tradition has it, Stinchfield met some 500 Indians. Tradition is the key word of this abbreviated version of Thomas Stinchfield’s arrival in the future Leeds.

It is a tradition that presents an intriguing picture, that of a solitary man stepping out of the woods to encounter a significant number of aboriginal Americans. Was this really the way it was?

We can’t be sure.

Tradition also has it that Thomas was often accompanied by his brother. You can find accounts in the history

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com books of Thomas Stinchfield and his brother exploring the upper reaches of a number of Maine rivers. These accounts do name the brother, however, his name varies. Sometimes Thomas’s brother is Roger, other times he is Rogers or Robert or Richard. More than one Stinchfield family history, however, gives the name as Rogers.

One might ask is there any corroborating evidence to the tradition of Thomas Stinchfield’s arrival at Indian Carry? The answer is yes.

Archaeological evidence indicates there were a number of Native American campsites in the immediate area surrounding Indian Carry. One of these encampments was at what is now known as Stinchfield Point. Moreover, one of the encampments may have been other than seasonal. This is the village usually identified as that of Chief Sabattis.

Thomas Stinchfield is a significant

figure in the history of Leeds and of Maine as a whole. It would also seem that Thomas Stinchfield left a mark in Maine Native American tradition, so much so that those Native Americans he came in regular contact with called him “Father Thomas.” Wrapped up in this oral Native American tradition is the tale of how Father Thomas came by his land in Leeds. It is a tale that seems almost impossible to believe.

The village and lands of Chief Sabattis were on the Dead River in the general vicinity of North Leeds. As the story goes, the villagers so valued the friendship with Thomas Stinchfield that they urged him to settle in their midst.

To this end they offered him the land where their village was situated, saying they would move to allow him unimpeded access. Father Thomas accepted, and Sabattis and his people moved.

Stinchfield Point would likely have been a part of this “gifted” land.

According to the genealogical re-

cord Thomas Stinchfield was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1749.

He was the son of John and Elizabeth Stinchfield. John Stinchfield was born in Leeds, England. This gives us the link for the naming of Leeds, Maine.

John Stinchfield moved his family to New Gloucester in what was then the District of Maine in 1755. Here his son Thomas made his first acquaintance with Native Americans. Thomas is described as taking “a most unusual attitude for those days towards the Indians. He held that by a kindlier attitude toward them, they could secure their confidence and friendship.” There is a bit more to the legend of Thomas Stinchfield/Father Thomas, than this, though.

Thomas and Rogers Stinchfield are said to have known the country and Indians between the Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers as well as they knew New Gloucester and their neighbors (continued on page 40)

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(continued from page 39) there. The brothers camped on the Dead River or in the area of Indian Carry on a regular basis. Here they bartered with the Indians for furs. It is said they won the Indians’ trust and “friendship by fair dealing and acts of kindness.”

One intriguing tale has Father Thomas or both Stinchfield brothers preventing an Indian attack on the infant settlement of Farmington.

Again we are dealing with tradition, a tradition that says Thomas Stinchfield once found the Sandy River Indians preparing to attack Farmington in retaliation for thefts committed by some less than honest Farmington settlers. The Sandy River Indians are also known as the Amaseconti. They had two villages in the general region of what is now New Sharon. Their chief was known by the name Pierre Paul, corrupted by early settlers to Pierpole and Perepol.

Pierre Paul had been given 100 acres of

land on the Sandy River for his service in the Revolution. Even given this he could be a vengeful individual.

After trying to talk Pierre Paul and the other belligerents out of their plan to attack Farmington and failing, Father Thomas offered to replace their stolen traps and kettles, and in addition give them ten gallons of rum. The offer was accepted. Grateful Farmington residents later paid Stinchfield’s bill and then expelled the thieves. This is the story at any rate.

Thomas Stinchfield / Father Thomas brought his family to North Leeds in June of 1780. That year, with only the villagers of Chief Sabattis for neighbors, the Stinchfield family settled in to make a life for themselves farming and operating a trading post. With this begins the history of the Town of Leeds.

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The old granite stone yard in North Jay. Item # LB2007.1.101841 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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The Grand Old Man Of Maine Alonzo Garcelon relives his past

I

by Barbara Adams

n his eighty-seventh year in 1900, physician and ex-Governor Alonzo Garcelon spoke of his home life on his Lewiston farm, old times, and other experiences. Garcelon is considered one of the strongest characters Maine has ever produced, both physically and intellectually. He was a staunch Democrat living in a Republican state, not only admired, but beloved by all, even those of the opposing party. He was one of the founders of Bates College in 1855, where he was an instructor, and Bates’ Garcelon Field is named for him.

He served as Maine’s surgeon general in the Civil War, and became known as the Grand Old Man of Maine.

Garcelon was born on May 6, 1813

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to French Huguenot parents, and in his later years resided in a farmhouse about a mile and a half out on the Sabattus Road with his family, his cattle, and his rabbits.

“I can easily remember when there were not over six or eight houses in Lewiston,” he said. “Auburn was still smaller. This led to much dissatisfaction, and almost led to open warfare.

Among the Lewiston people Colonel Thompson was one of the first. Then there were the Davis family, the Reeds, the Garcelons, Pettingills, Nevenes, Harts, Merrills, and Dingleys. These people were all farmers. In fact, there was no other business that they could follow. Ike Holland, an old fisherman

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com was here, and Doctor Gorham, but these were the exception. Lewiston had been settled about thirty years, but it was still a small country town.”

Garcelon noted the farmers also cut a small amount of timber which they hauled through the woods to Freeport, Harpswell, and Brunswick, the nearest seaport towns.

“The house I was born in on Garcelon Road gives you a good idea of the better class of houses in the 1800s. You wil find in all of these old houses the same general plan. A front door is usually in the center. A parlor on one side, and a sitting room on the other. The parlor was sacred in those days, and was rarely opened except on some extraordinary occasion. Very few houses were painted then.

“There was much trouble among the old settlers over the land. The old lines run under King James, and his successors were very uncertain. They were run by degrees of latitude and longi-

tude, and frequently overlapped each other. When the first settlers came in, land was plenty and there was enough for all. As the land was taken, others came in, and then it was discovered their titles were not perfect. It became necessary to extinguish some of the charters granted by King James, and the result was a continual racket. Old Squire Little caused much trouble and he was a heavy claimant. Some of the settlers had to pay him, and others were ejected. He got himself cordially disliked in consequence, and they even tried to kill him. Ezra Purington, an inoffensive old Quaker was once taken for Little, and shot as he stood in his own door.”

Garcelon noted that Auburn was non-existent at that time. Part of it was Minot, and part was Danville.

Goff’s Corner was known as ‘Pekin’ and prominent men of that time were Briggs, Stetson, Bradbury; and down at Danville, the prominent men were Pen-

leys, Gillingses, Ingersolls and Dingleys. There was no bridge, and Minot and Danville people were required to ford the Little Androscoggin, and cross the river in an old ferry just below the place.

“When I was a boy,” Garcelon said, “there were no churches but there was an old Quaker building down on Lisbon Road which is now known as Webster Street.

Well, the living in those days was not exactly what might be called high.

Pork, potatoes, and corn bread constituted the main diet. Sometimes we got a little flour from Virginia. We would go down to Brunswick with a load of lumber or potatoes, and exchange for these luxuries. I lived on the farm until I was seventeen years old, and they were among my happiest days. We used to get two or three months of school in the winter for the large children, and about six weeks in the summer for the small (continued on page 48)

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(continued from page 47) ones.”

Garcelon said when he was a junior at Bowdoin, his goal was to become an engineer. An uncle came from New Brunswick for a surgical operation, and Garcelon met with the surgeon, Professor Muzzy, who invited him to view the operation. Shortly after he graduated from Bowdoin in 1836, he went to Boston to see what opening he could find to become a civil engineer.

“They discouraged me all they could,” he said, “and I was advised to give up the idea, as railroad building in the future was very slight. My family also thought it was unwise, and wanted me to become a surgeon. There was no surgeon in this place at the time, and it was thought to be a good opening. After thinking the matter over, I concluded to see Professor Muzzy and he advised the same. That settled the matter. He called to the medical school in Cincinnati, and I followed him there

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and graduated in 1839.”

Garcelon returned to the area to confront an epidemic of smallpox in what became Auburn. The authorities had sent for him, and with the approval of the Minot selectmen, put him in charge of six patients. Thirty more people had been exposed, and Garcelon put them in quarantine. All the patients recovered, and there was no further spread of the disease. As a result, Garcelon’s practice expanded, and he covered many miles. He received the reputation of being a reckless driver, taking desperate chances with the horses, but he scoffed at the suggestion.

“Nonsense, nonsense,” he said, “the newspaper is responsible for all that stuff. There isn’t a more careful driver in these two cities than I am. Here is the trouble. Every time I get thrown out of a carriage, or a horse runs away with me, the newspaper always picks it up and makes a big splurge over it.

That is how people have got this wrong idea. I, a reckless driver? Poppycock!

You heard about the time I fell into the cellar didn’t you? Well, that was quite a scrape. I had been out in the country several miles, and came home in the night. It was very stormy and pitch dark. I was driving at the rate of about ten miles an hour, and trusted to the good sense of the horse to keep the road. There was an old cellar side of the road and, as luck would have it, the horse ran out just at that place and I was plunged head down into it, at a depth of over eight feet. It wasn’t exactly a picnic to get out, but I did it without any broken bones.”

Despite his injuries, two days later Garcelon went to Mexico to attend the Pan American Congress of the Medical Association.

He was the co-founder of the Lewiston Journal in 1847, served in the Maine House of Representatives from

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com 1853-1854 and 1857-1858. During the Civil War he served as Maine’s surgeon general, and after the war became dissatisfied with the Republican Party and became a Democrat. In 1871, and again in 1883, he was elected Mayor of Lewiston.

Garcelon said the Republicans part in his being elected governor in 1879 for one term was “monstrous.”

“The truth about it has never been told,” he said. “I was elected Governor, not because the Republicans liked the Democrats more, but because they hated the Greenbackers worse. In the legislature the Democrats and Greenbackers sent up Smith’s and my name as there was no election by the people.

Smith had received much the largest vote, but the Republicans threw their strength to me, and I was chosen.

“See here, I can’t fool with these tales any longer. Here are five tons of hay to be raked up, and I must be at it right away. I have cut one hundred tons this summer, and I do a good part of

the work myself. I rake altogether with this old horse. He has been in my possession for thirty years, and is just as good as ever.

And the eighty-seven-year-old Grand Old Man of Maine gave Dobbin a slap on the side, and began to roll up the hay. Six years later, Garcelon died in Medford, Massachusetts on December 8, and was buried in Riverside Cemetery in Lewiston.

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Early view of Pine Grove Camps in Lewiston. Item # LB2007.1.101452 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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General Neal Dow flagpole at Opportunity Farm in New Gloucester. Item # LB2007.1.101725 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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The Harlow-Maxim-Ripley Union A South Paris “Who’s Who”

I

by Charles Francis

saac Harlow and Elizabeth Maxim were united in marriage November 22, 1832. They were joined in holy matrimony by the Reverend John Tripp of Hebron. Though Isaac resided in Buckfield at the time of marriage and Elizabeth in Paris, the roots of both were in the latter town. The couple made Paris their home and there they raised three children: Flore, Augustine and William. Flora and Augustine would leave Paris to seek their fortune in the larger world, eventually making Massachusetts their home. William, the youngest, would have his own family in Paris.

The Maxim name is a well-known one in Maine. Elizabeth Maxim was of

the same family as inventors Sir Hiram and Hudson Maxim. Isaac and Elizabeth were also connected to the Ripley family of Paris. Ben Conant, a student of Paris history, describes the three families as among the “most talented families from Paris – very gifted…” He goes on to say “One could write volumes of their lives.”

Ben Conant has a collection of newspaper clippings, photographs and other memorabilia relating to the Harlow, Maxim and Ripley families. Recently he was kind enough to pass on a bit of that material as well as some of his personal observations on the three families. The following is an example of some of the wonderful stories Ben

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Conant has of the Harlow, Maxim and Ripley clan.

Isaac Harlow and Elizabeth Maxim were not the only members of their respective families to unite in marriage.

Benjamin Maxim married Susan Harlow. Two of that couple’s children were twins, daughters Martha and Mary.

Martha and Mary were talented. They sang, played instruments and painted.

Martha was one of the first women in the United States to teach guitar. She was also one of the first women to write travelogues. Ben Conant describes Martha as once making a “grand tour” of England and Scotland. She did it by automobile. The driver was none other than her cousin Sir Hiram Maxim. (continued on page 54)

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(continued from page 53) There would seem to be at least one constant uniting the Harlow, Maxim and Ripley clan. That theme, perhaps more fitting, a grace note, is music.

Winfield Scott Ripley serves as one example here.

Winfield Ripley grew up making a name for himself in the Norway-Paris-Bethel area of the 1840s and 1850s.

This was the era when brass instruments like the cornet and saxophone were beginning to attract competent and accomplished musicians. In the 1850s Ripley led the Norway Sax Band. Then he became the first of the Harlow, Maxim and Ripley families to move to the Boston area and involve himself in its variety of musical offerings. In Wakefield, Ripley took over the local Mozart orchestra and formed his own band. He went on to compose and arrange band music, a good deal of which is still played today. The Yankees Brass Band of Bethel held its first annual W.S. Rip-

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Martha and Mary Maxim sang in the Boston area. While Martha gave her guitar lessons, Mary taught piano.

It was the twins’ cousin Flora who attained musical heights, though. Flora Harlow was the diva of the Harlow, Maxim and Ripley clan.

Flora Harlow is better known as Flora Barry. Early in her career she toured with Patrick Gilmore, the man John Phillip Sousa called “the father of the American concert band.” Then she went on to even greater acclaim as an operatic contralto. She sang on the Continent and was a darling of the Italian opera circuit. She was chosen to sing La Messa Solenne on the occasion of the death of Gioachino Rossini.

Tradition has it that Maine produced three great operatic divas, Annie Louise Cary, Lillian Nordica and Emma Eames. Before one retired the next was taking center stage. Flora Barry of Par-

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is should be added to this list. Actually, so, too, could another diva with Paris connections, Geraldine Farrar, whose father Sidney Farrar came from Paris.

Flora Harlow Barry is something of an enigma as far as the history of the operatic world of the nineteenth century is concerned. For some reason she is largely ignored by the operatic historians of the period. Moreover, and in what one must be forced to view as a shocking oversight, she is ignored by music historians of her own home state. George Thornton Edwards, author of the most definitive work ever published in Maine on the state’s music and musicians, has almost nothing to say about Barry. One point Edwards does mention of Barry, in fact, seems contentious. This is the fact that when she died in Roxbury, Massachusetts on November 3, 1926 at the age of ninety, she died in penury. Does this mean Barry died forgotten and alone? Edwards’

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comment could be taken as suggesting this.

Flora Barry was a recognized talent.

Her talent was appreciated. In 1889 she was honored with a testimonial concert in Boston. The sponsors of the concert read like a listing of the elite of Boston society. That list of sponsors included two Danas, a Parker and an Apthorp.

James Russell Lowell’s name is there. So too is that of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Julia Ward Howe’s is another.

It is a heady group of blue bloods and socially prominent lions.

As for Flora Barry dying penniless, when she was eighty she was still doing much of her housework. This activity she attributed to the “scarcity of suitable help.” That Flora Barry did her own housework would seem to be a matter of choice rather than a result of poverty. She seems to have been a stickler for things being done just so.

Ben Conant indicates that Martha

and Mary Maxim were devoted to Barry throughout her life. So, too, was her nephew Leon Harlow. She and Leon appeared in concert together at Barry’s home on the occasion of her eightieth birthday. The concert was a hosted event and included one of the foremost accompanists of the day, George Taylor. Again we have more evidence that Flora Barry was neither destitute nor forgotten. And in like manner we have indication that Barry was never far from her roots.

In October of 1888 Flora Barry took part in a concert at New Hall in South Paris. The concert took place during one of Barry’s many visits to friends and family in the place of her birth.

At the time of her death Flora Harlow Barry was eulogized in the Boston Daily Globe as the “leading artist of the celebrated Mahn English Opera Company, and her voice, of wonderful compass and sweetness, made her (continued on page 56)

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(continued from page 55) acclaimed in Europe.” In 1870 Flora Barry appeared as a soloist in Bangor.

The occasion was a production of The Messiah. Barry was backed up by a 600-voice chorus. At the time the Bangor Whig described her as having already become “one of the greatest contralto soloists of the country and other places.” The first quotation comes from some of the many newspaper articles collected by Ben Conant. The second is available to anyone who searches diligently for material on Barry. They clearly speak to the diva’s celebrity.

There is information aplenty on Flora Barry, in archives, libraries and elsewhere. Perhaps sometime someone will decide to mine it.

Discover Maine Magazine wishes to thank Ben Conant of Paris for sharing some of his collected material on the Harlow, Maxim and Ripley families of his hometown.

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The Deadliest Disease The Maine State Sanatorium saved many

by Charles Francis

I

n 1908 Jennie Y. Small wrote a letter to Dr. Estes Nichols of the Maine State Sanatorium in Hebron. Nichols was superintendent of the facility.

Small, a twenty-six-year-old woman from Denmark, was reporting on her progress since leaving the facility.

The Maine State Sanatorium on Hebron’s Greenwood Mountain is more commonly known as the Western Maine Sanatorium. Its sole reason for being was the treatment of tubercular patients. It was primarily through Dr. Nichols’ efforts that the Sanatorium was founded. Nichols chose the western Maine location because he believed mountains with their abundance of

clean, clear fresh air a beneficial environment for the treatment of tuberculosis, the illness looked upon as the deadliest disease of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Tuberculosis or TB, which is short for Tubercle Bacillus, is a common and often deadly illness caused by a bacteria. It usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body. It is spread through the air, when people who have the disease cough, sneeze, or spit. In the first half of the nineteenth century it is credited as causing one quarter of all deaths in New England.

For much of the century it was viewed as the deadliest disease in North Amer-

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TB’s classic symptoms are chronic coughing often accompanied by blood-flecked mucus or sputum and fever, night sweats and weight loss. In the 1800s fifty percent of all those who came down with TB expired.

When Jennie Small wrote to Dr. Nichols she was, in part, following Nichols prescribed protocol for longterm treatment and evaluation of TB. It was not enough for Dr. Nichols that patients seem well enough to be released from the Sanatorium. Nichols sent those released on their way with instructions as to diet, sleeping arrangements and exercise. He also asked

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com that patients write him as to their general health and progress once they left the Sanatorium’s care. Under the superintendency of Nichols, the Western Maine Sanatorium became a model for other Maine TB sanatoriums and for sanatoriums elsewhere in New England and in eastern Canada.

Estes Nichols was Maine’s first expert on TB. Nichols graduated from the University of Vermont in 1900 with the degree of Doctor of Medicine and almost immediately entered the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, where he remained for two years.

During that time, he made a special study of tuberculosis, subsequently establishing the Greenwood Mountain TB facility.

Tuberculosis, or “consumption” as it was once commonly known, caused the most widespread public concern in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This concern was largely due to the fact that the disease was not understood. And

it wasn’t just the public that misunderstood TB. A common recommendation of nineteenth century doctors was to suggest those afflicted with consumption travel to the Caribbean for recovery. Puerto Rico, Cuba and St. Croix were regularly recommended as destinations by northern physicians.

About all these trips did, though, was to provide a diversion in an inexorably downward course. While some would experience relief from ailments, the ailments would not include TB. Estes Nichols opened the Western Maine Sanatorium just as TB was beginning to be understood. TB was not identified as a single disease until the 1820s and was not named “tuberculosis” until 1839. The bacillus causing tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, was not identified and described until 1882. As late as 1916 fifty percent of all patients entering sanatoriums died. Vaccination for TB began in 1921. The following example serves to

illustrate some of the horrors associated with the deadliest disease.

In 1837 twenty-three-year-old George Peabody, a member of the Peabody-Putnam family of the Brunswick area, came down with what was diagnosed as “numb palsy.” George complained of weakness in the legs. A cot was set up for him in the parlour. Within months he was unable to walk at all.

This was the beginning of his travail.

By early 1838 George Peabody was paralyzed from the waist down.

His ‘prescription’ was a hydrostatic bed. The bed was a water trough set on sawhorses. Its purpose was to keep Peabody from developing bedsores. TB had attacked the marrow of his spine.

It was eating him from the inside out.

At twenty-four, a young man who should have had a long and productive life ahead of him was addicted to morphine. The drug was all that carried him from one pain-filled day to the next. (continued on page 61)

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com (continued from page 59) Estes Nichols was part of a new and enlightened approach to dealing with tuberculosis. In the nineteenth century the disease most likely as not invoked fear among friends, family and community. When one member of a family died from TB or consumption, the other members that were infected would lose their health slowly. People believed that this was caused by the original victim having drained the life from the other family members. People with TB often exhibit symptoms such as red, swollen eyes, pale skin, and extremely low body heat. They also manifest a sensitivity to bright light, wanting drawn shades and darkened rooms. These are the sorts of characteristics that prey upon the superstitions and imaginations of the uneducated. In part, they explain why some early sanatoriums were little more than prisons.

Maine writer Lizzie Norton French visited Hebron in the mid 1920s. Her

description of the Western Maine Sanatorium is a telling one. She described the lights of the facility as “twinkling cheerfully across the valley to each other at night.” The image Norton presents is that of a welcomed addition to the community.

Perhaps one of the reasons the Western Maine Sanatorium was welcome in Hebron had to do with the fact many of the patients treated there were local. The bulk of the patients came from western Maine, from Androscoggin, Oxford and Franklin counties. Many, like Jennie Small, returned to their homes and families from the facility revitalized. They returned with a seeming new lease on life.

Another reason for the success of the Western Maine Sanatorium had to do with its supporters. Hiram Ricker of the famed Poland Spring House was on the board of trustees. Ricker took a personal interest in the facility.

When he went over budget, Dr. Nichols sometimes submitted bills of the indigent to Ricker. The Poland Spring magnate was one of the Sanatorium’s active fundraisers and supporters in its early years.

The main regimen of the sanatorium was plenty of fresh air, rest and a high calorie diet. As patients got stronger they were encouraged to play outdoors, take part in games and even roughhouse. In her letter to Dr. Nichols, Jennie Small said she was continuing to follow the Sanatorium’s routine. She was eating regular meals, drinking a lot of milk, exercising, and even sleeping in the out-of-doors.

Facilities like the Western Maine Sanatorium helped in the struggle with the deadliest disease. So did the institution of the Easter seals campaign in 1904. Thanks to both and similar developments tuberculosis came to be viewed as a treatable illness and not simply as the deadliest disease.

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Waterville’s David E. Kelley Maine-born writer and producer brought well-known series to TV

by Brian Swartz

W

hat is the common connection between popular TV series Ally McBeal, L.A. Law, Boston Public, and Chicago Hope?

Maine-born David E. Kelley, a TV producer and script-writer with an incredible work ethic.

Kelley’s connection to Maine lies with the lifetime passion that his father, John H. “Jack” Kelley, had for hockey. A top defenseman for the Boston University Terriers, Jack Kelley won honors as BU’s most valuable player in hockey in 1952 and skated with the Terrier teams in the 1951 and 1952 NCAA hockey tournaments.

A 1952 BU graduate, Jack Kelley

coached collegiate teams, a career path that put him at the helm of the Colby College Mules for seven seasons. Under his guidance, the Mules racked up 89 wins, 15 losses, and five ties; Jack Kelley was widely admired in Waterville, where son David Edward Kelley was born on April 4, 1956.

Leaving Colby College (but not before he was named an NCAA coach of the year), Jack Kelley coached larger programs, including the BU Terriers and the New England Whalers of Hartford, Connecticut. David Kelley picked up his father’s love for hockey; after graduating from Belmont High School in Belmont, Massachusetts, Kelley

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pursued a bachelor’s degree in political science at Princeton University.

A hockey captain for the Princeton Tigers by his senior year, Kelley demonstrated a penchant for writing in the classroom. Before graduating in 1979, he wrote for his senior thesis a Bill of Rights-based play that lent an anthropomorphic touch to each of the individual 10 bills.

Because the play did not meet the traditional definition of a political science paper, two professors graded Kelley’s thesis. The political science professor for whose class Kelley wrote the thesis gave it a B; an English professor gave it an A. (continued on page 64)

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(continued from page 63) That professor was probably onto something.

From Princeton, Kelley returned to Massachusetts to study law at BU. Honing his writing skills with the law student-run Legal Follies, Kelley later took his degree to work as an attorney with the Boston legal firm of Fine & Ambrogne.

Kelley was quite satisfied handling criminal and real-estate cases; despite dabbling in the art, he expressed “no intention of ever being a writer,” he told The New York Times in 1998.

“I never even in college thought writing was something I intended to do,” Kelley said.

But the desire was there; “I guess I probably had characters in my head as a kid, but never thought I’d put them into prime time,” Kelley noted.

Bit by the writing bug in 1983, he wrote a screenplay script that evolved into the 1987 courtroom drama From The Hip. Before filming started on the

movie that starred Judd Nelson and Elizabeth Perkins, Kelley fielded a phone call from TV producer Stephen Bochco, of Hill Street Blues fame.

Bochco wanted Kelley to join the writing team for the upcoming L.A. Law series. Their subsequent meeting in Los Angeles launched Kelley on a phenomenal and prolific TV-based writing and production career.

His early experience was with L.A. Law. Kelley became the show’s executive producer in 1989; he wrote most episodes for the popular series’ first five seasons while finding time to co-develop with Bochco the Doogie Howser, M.D. series.

The shows that Kelley brought to TV screens since the early 1990s are legendary. His company, David Kelley Productions, brought to CBS Picket Fences in 1992 and Chicago Hope in 1994.

And, for a while, Kelley wrote many scripts for both shows.

Kelley’s next show was The Practice, first broadcast on ABC in 1997.

That same season saw Ally McBeal premiere on FOX. A legal drama like The Practice, Ally McBeal starred Calista Flockhart and remained popular with fans until 2002.

Kelley produced other dramas, including Boston Public and Boston Legal. More recent Kelley-connected series were Harry’s Law on NBC (2011), TNT’s Monday Mornings (2012), and CBS’s The Crazy Ones (2013), the last TV show in which Robin Williams starred.

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Neither nomination resulted in an Emmy award.

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1-800-287-5608 873-5608 567 Benton Avenue, Winslow, ME

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Kelley garnered his first Emmy in 1989 for Outstanding Drama Series for L.A. Law; he shared the award with eight other people. A solo nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series, again for L.A. Law, went unrewarded.

Kelley has won a total of 10 Emmys; the last two came in 1999, first for Outstanding Drama Series (The Practice)

MacCrillis Rousseau

and the second for Outstanding Comedy Series (Ally McBeal). Kelley shared both Emmys with people involved with each show.

In January 1993, friends arranged a blind date for Hollywood A-lister Michelle Pfeiffer, who had already started adopting a baby girl. The date saw David Kelley taking Pfeiffer to see

VFW Post #8835

BINGO - Tuesdays at 6pm and Sundays at 6pm SUPER BINGO - 1st Sunday of every month Pays State Maximum plus Winner Take All Doors open at 3pm • Hot and Cold food Available Packages that include all games start at $12 For more info call: 873-1908

Banquet Facility ~ Able to accommodate up to 330 people Weddings • Dances • Reunions • Family Gatherings • Trade Shows and more!

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175 Veteran Drive, Winslow, ME 04901

R

and

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Self Storage We have the space to keep your stuff safe!

453-8113 • 649-7222 451 Bangor Road • Benton, ME

Phil Carter’s Garage

Bram Stoker’s Dracula; their chemistry clicked, and a whirlwind courtship led to a successful, long-term marriage, a rarity in transitory-relationship Tinseltown.

Pfeiffer adopted baby Claudia Rose that January; when she and Kelley exchanged their vows that November 13, their daughter was christened Claudia the same day.

Pfeiffer bore Kelley a son, John Henry, in August 1994. * Other businesses in this area are featured in the color section.

Poor Bob’s Storage

SNOWMOBILES • BOATS • CARS • FURNITURE • ETC.

Over 385 Spaces AND 12 Different Sizes: 5x10 to 12x30 Call Anytime

453-7108

4 miles from Waterville 4 Poor Bob’s Lane (just off Unity Rd.), Benton

E IND

PENDENT ROOFIN

“Serving you since 1960”

Air Conditioning Specialist

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From Foreign & Domestic to 18-Wheelers When It Comes To Air Conditioning, Phil Carter’s Garage Is The Only Name!

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1 Pleasant Drive, Benton Station

Standing Seam Metal Roofing

Free Estimates Marty Cutten

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

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Sisters Of Charity Hospital In Waterville Maine Catholics celebrated a gain and suffered a loss in 1924

by Brian Swartz

M

aine Catholics celebrated a gain and suffered a loss on Monday, May 12, 1924.

Despite a steady rain, thousands of people toured the new Sisters of Charity Hospital in Waterville from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Construction of the $500,000 hospital had begun in August 1922 with blasting of a large ledge on the building site.

Nine months had passed before construction workers completed the foundations, but the hospital (built with brick and cast stone) rose quickly on them. Waterville-area Catholics

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8 Bartlett Street, Waterville, ME

Warren Brothers CONSTRUCTION Complete Site Preparation Bulldozing • Septic Systems Sand • Loam • Gravel • Fill

362-5652

now celebrated the hospital’s unofficial opening — and doctors had already scheduled a few surgeries for Wednesday, May 14.

Meanwhile, from the offices of the Diocese of Portland came terrible news that the Rt. Rev. Louis Sebastian Walsh, the Catholic bishop for Maine, had died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage at 12:15 p.m. on Monday, May 12.

Upon reaching Waterville, the news of the loss of Walsh slightly dampened spirits at the four-story hospital, designed by Lowell, Massachusetts architect Henry J. Rourke and built by the

Lowell-based D.H. Walker Construction Company. The building adjoined the hospital originally operated by the Sisters of Charity; visitors passed through that facility while en route to visit the new hospital.

Equipped with four modern operating rooms, the new building stood on a scenic and valuable lot. “No more beautiful place could have been found to build a hospital in this part of the State,” a local newspaper boasted. “The view from practically every window in the building is superb [,] and from the upper floors one can look off over roll-

Larsen’s Jewelry

Jason Stevens

~ Serving You Since 1962 ~

“Our Customers Come First!”

Watches • Diamonds Expert Watch Repair Stonesetting • Goldsmithing

207-872-6301 1-800-697-1874

57 Main Street • Waterville, ME larsensjewelers.com

Belgrade Performance & Repairs

Excavation & Earth Work

• Septic Systems • Bulldozing • Gravel/Sand/Loam • Free Estimates • Fully Licensed • Insured 314 Horse Point Rd. • Belgrade, ME

649-8070

J.P. & SON’S ODD JOBS

Excellence in service & reasonable rates

Your one-stop service shop We repair: automobiles, trucks, marine equipment, small engines

Jason Poulin Owner

cell: 314-6402

If it has a motor...we can fix it!

905 Smithfield Rd. Belgrade, ME

168 Warren Hill Rd. Smithfield, ME

(207) 495-4002

(207) 314-7424

139 Depot Rd. • Belgrade, ME

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com ing country for many miles.”

Throughout Monday afternoon people wiped their wet boots and shoes on rugs upon entering the Sisters of Charity Hospital, then toured the facility; Colby College co-eds served as guides as an orchestra played on a lower-level sun porch.

Visitors noted the building’s “practically fireproof” construction, reflected in the concrete floors, marble-and-steel staircases, and fire alarms and fire hose placed strategically on each of the four floors. Two possible fire sources (the laundry area and boiler rooms) occupied a separate building behind the hospital.

Visitors checked out the four modern operating rooms on the fourth floor; nearby were the lab, a scrub room, and a room for sterilizing surgical equipment. Not far away were five X-ray rooms in a separate suite; a visitor noted that “the radiographic room is lined with lead and this is the only substance through which the light rays will not penetrate.”

The Sisters of Charity assigned to the hospital lived in dedicated quarters on the west end of the fourth floor. Sun porches lined the east and west ends of the hospital; doors gave access to the glass-encased sun porches, and when not on duty or in the chapel, the Sisters could relax on the porch just off their living area.

Lower-level sun porches were dedicated separately to the doctors, nurses, and patients.

The new hospital could shelter 125 patients in normal conditions and during an epidemic could take in an additional 75 patients.

The recent Spanish Influenza outbreak was still fresh in many Maine minds.

As for the patients’ rooms, the Waterville Rotary Club and Kiwanis Club had each furnished one room in black walnut; a third room dedicated to Frank Redington was furnished in cream enamel. The Columbus Guild furnished (continued on page 68)

DEVANY DOAK & GARRETT BOOKSELLERS FARMINGTON’S INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE SINCE 1991

Quality Books, Gifts & More Mon.-Wed. 10-5 Thur. 10-5:30 Fri. 10-6:30 Sat. 9-5 Sun. 12-3

Kenny Brechner Proprietor

kenny@ddgbooks.com

193 Broadway • Farmington, ME, 04938 | (207) 778-3454 Info@ddgbooks.com • http://ddgbooks.com

DAGGETT’S GARAGE Sales & Service

Major & Minor Repairs Reasonable Rates Over 20 years experience

778-9289 US Rts 2 & 4 • East Wilton

CORNERSTONE PLUMBING & HEATING

Plumbing • Oil & Solid Fuel Systems Sales • Service • Installation New Homes • Remodeling Radiant Heating • Free Estimates ~ Over 30 Years Experience ~ Mike Farrell - General Manager - Farmington

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778-5200

442 Farmington Falls Road

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ATV & POWER EQUIPMENT

ATV & Snowmobile Parts • Repairs • Accessories

Husqvarna 450 Chain Saw

Lawn Mowers, Trimmers Chain Saws and Accessories

L.D.C. BUILDERS Expert Carpentry, Minor Plumbing & Electrical Lightning fast response to all your maintenance needs.

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Maintenance Specialist / Expert Carpenter

207-320-5758 | ldcbuilders@gmail.com

Western Lakes & Mountains Region

68

(continued from page 67) a fourth room; other beneficiaries similarly furnished more rooms.

The new hospital boasted 12 single-patient rooms and 21 double-patient rooms. Administrators did not expect to house more than 56 patients at a time, but other patients’ rooms could be opened quickly.

Other stops on the guided tours through the floral arrangement-decorated hospital included the kitchens, the elevator, and the chapel, “a large room furnished with quartered oak pews with kneeling rails,” according to a local newspaper. The Waterville Knights of Columbus had provided a lovely stained-glass window for the chapel.

As the evening tours wound down, Maine Catholics started mourning the death of Bishop Walsh, who had not felt well since recently returning from a months-long visit to the Vatican. Born in Salem, Massachusetts on January 22, 1858 (five years after the Portland dio-

cese was established), Walsh attended Holy Cross College in Worcester and pursued his seminary studies in Montreal and Paris. He was ordained as a priest at the Vatican in 1882.

Appointed the fourth bishop of the Maine diocese on October 18, 1906, Walsh launched Maine Catholic Historical Magazine and ensured the diocese obtained in 1920 the land where a French Capuchin mission had stood at Castine in 1635. The Our Lady of Holy Hope Catholic Church is located in a house built near the mission’s site in 1880.

Walsh appeared in public only once after returning from Italy in early May 1924. While speaking to children gathered during a mass held May 7 in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Walsh left a worshiper thinking that “it was noticeable that he was not strong.”

Two younger priests assisted Walsh

as he left the altar and the cathedral.

Rumors quickly spread that the bishop had suffered a stroke; while not denying the scuttlebutt, a doctor ordered Walsh to step away from his bishopric responsibilities for some months.

Catholics and some local dignitaries filled the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception for Walsh’s pontifical mass, held at 10 a.m., Friday, May 17.

His body was transferred to the cathedral to lie in state on Thursday afternoon; the cathedral was open all night so mourners could pay their respects to the late bishop.

Walsh was interred in the vault beneath the cathedral’s chancel. He was succeeded by the Rt. Rev. John Gregory Murray, consecrated as Maine’s fifth Catholic bishop on October 12, 1925.

* Other businesses in this area are featured in the color section.

Beer Bottle Bob’s REDEMPTION CENTER

~ 176th Annual ~

September 18-24, 2016

Open: Mon-Fri 8:30 to 5 Sat: 8 to 4 Closed Sunday

Located corner of Routes 2 & 27 New Sharon farmingtonfairmaine.com

778-6582

FARMINGTON FARMERS UNION “Celebrating 100+ Years of Serving the Area’s Agricultural Needs”

We offer a complete line of plumbing, hardware, paint, farming supplies, and livestock needs

~ Tool Rentals Available ~

•APPLIANCES•

HEATING & COOLING Sales & Service

778-3375 • 1-800-756-3375 Clayton & Joyce King: Owners

~ 244 Front St., Farmington, ME • 778-4520 ~ 778-5674

TiTcomb Hill Road • FaRmingTon CJSAPPLIANCE.COM

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The Bass Shoe Shop in Wilton. Item # LB2007.1.102934 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

MEADOW LANES ~ Celebrating over 50 years in business ~ Route 2 • East Wilton

NON-LEAGUE HOURS

Mon. 6pm-10pm Tues. 9am-12pm / 6pm-10pm Wed. 9am-12pm Fri. 1pm-6pm / 8:30pm-11pm Sat. 12pm-10pm Sun. 2pm-5pm

207-778-6078

Great for Birthday Parties!

Jerry D. Bean, Jr. owner

207-491-9624

Shop: 207-645-9780 gdbean@beeline-online.net 14 Shea Street • Wilton, ME

Supermarket & Pharmacy

Route 4, Jay Plaza Store: 897-4376 Pharmacy: 897-7033 Jay, Livermore, Livermore Falls area’s most complete grocery store

McAllister Accounting And Tax Services Serving your business and personal tax planning and preparation needs for over 30 years.

Ronald E. McAllister Marcus E. McAllister

897-5667

404 Main Street • Jay, ME

170 Main Street Jay ME Established in 1954

Serving Franklin County and the local communities

897-0900 • 800-848-3688 www.otisfcu.coop

414 Lakewood Rd, Rt 201 | Madison ME

Western Lakes & Mountains Region

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Giddings Lane ...and the Androscoggin Railroad

by Charles Francis

G

iddings Lane was a mover and a doer. He liked being in on the cutting edge of things. He especially liked anything that had to do with the latest mechanical device.

What he liked above all else, however, was finding profitable uses for those mechanical developments. As far as he was concerned machines existed not to make life easier but for making money.

Giddings Lane’s mechanical bent involved him in a wide variety of business endeavors. At an early point in his life he peddled off-beat farm machinery. Later he got involved in gold mining out west with a new-fangled quartz

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Agency Liquor Store • ATM Sunoco Gas • New England Coffee Soda • Beer • Tobacco • Lottery Pizza & Sandwiches • Ice Cream

207-897-6234

crushing machine. And he helped develop a couple of early Maine railroads, one of which, the Androscoggin, had the oddest history of any railroad in the state.

We will begin our story of Giddings Lane and the Androscoggin with a few brief words about Lane himself.

Giddings Lane was born in Leeds in 1802. He died there in 1879. During his lifetime the United States changed from a sparsely settled, agricultural land to an urbanized industrial giant. Railroads spread from coast to coast. Farming changed from being labor intensive to machine-dominated.

of Maine “From Our Forest to Final Form”

AUTHORIZED SALES CENTER New Equipment Sales & Service Ross Clair, Manager/Sawyer

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Dave’s Appliance “Quality Service ... Always”

377-8858 1-800-298-8858

www.davesappliancewin.com 59 Central Street • Winthrop, ME

Though Maine did not industrialize as some states did, railroads spread up the coast and into the hinterland to serve the timber industry. Leeds and Leeds Junction, which started out as a part of Leeds and became part of Wales, was central to a lot of inland Maine railroad development. Giddings Lane had a role in this development. Some say he was a prime mover in it. Others say he was a hindrance, the kind of hindrance that gets the process server out. This latter statement gets us ahead of our story, though.

Giddings Lane was the son of Deacon Giddings and Jemima (Norris)

Watch Batteries Buying Gold & Silver

Cheney Jewelers

DB ENERGY PRODUCTS PHIL NICKEY Owner

FIREWOOD

(Clean, Cut, Split, Delivered)

Wood Processing, Select Cut, Trucking, Logging

Shop Hours: Tues.-Fri. 10-5, Sat. 10-2, Closed Sun./Mon.

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Fully Insured • References

207-212-4403

71

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Lane. He grew up on the family farm and attended local schools. He grew up tinkering with those machines that were used on the traditional family farm of the early 1800s. At the same time, he acquired enough education so he was able to teach school. School teaching didn’t pay much, though, and Lane wanted to make money. This meant getting involved in the world of business.

In 1834 two Buffalo mechanics, brothers John and Hiram Pitts, patented an agricultural machine they called the Pitts Horse Power. It was a separator.

It separated grain from chaff. A horse walked on a revolving belt like a treadmill to run the separating machinery.

Giddings Lane learned of the separator and thought he could make money peddling it to farmers down South. He was right. He made money. It was probably a good thing, too, as Giddings had married early in 1834.

Giddings Lane was a dairy farmer.

STUMP GRINDING / ROTOTILLING MOWING / LIGHT TRUCKING EXCAVATION AND MORE IVAN AUSTIN

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He was active in town and state politics. He was Leeds town clerk and town treasurer. As a militia captain he was involved in the Aroostook War. He served in the Maine legislature and he was involved in the formation of Androscoggin County. His involvement in state and county politics is getting us ahead of our story again. First we need to deal with the coming of the railroad to Leeds.

In 1847 the Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad was organized. It was to run from Danville to Waterville, through Lewiston, Leeds, Monmouth and Winthrop. Leeds here means the future Leeds Junction. The formation of the Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad gave Giddings Lane the idea that now was the time for Leeds to get into the railroad business. His idea was a line connecting to the Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad at Leeds and running to Jay and then Farmington.

The same year the Androscoggin and

Ed Hodsdon Masonry

Kennebec Railroad got its charter Lane got a charter for his railroad, the Androscoggin.

The Androscoggin has been called a “vague little concern.” One of the reasons for this is it took a long time for it to get anywhere. Though the track to Jay was laid by August of 1851, it didn’t reach Farmington until 1859.

The company would also operate a line to Brunswick. The latter was constructed because the Androscoggin was having trouble with the Androscoggin and Kennebec about the division of freight rates, so it decided to obtain a better position by extending its line from Leeds Junction to the coast. In 1860 it received a charter to construct the line. It went through Wales along the shore of Sabattus Pond. The cost of construction was covered by wrangling a loan from Bath, which would benefit as much from the line as Brunswick, if not more. It was a Standard gauge line, the same as the Portland and Ken(continued on page 72)

Knowles Lumber Company Hours: M-F: 7am-4:30pm • Sat: 7am-12pm

“Your Full Service Commercial Masonry Contractor”

Owners: Paul King & Bill Abbott

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Fully Insured 933-2171 ~ 1-877-445-2171 Route 202

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knowleslumber@gmail.com 1015 US Rt. 202 • N. Monmouth, ME

Ron’s Transmissions Ron Charpentier Jr., Owner Transmissions - Clutches - Auto Repair ~ Since 1979 ~

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

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(continued from page 71) nebec, the line the Androscoggin connected to on the Bath / Brunswick town line. Construction was completed later in 1861.

Another of the reasons the Androscoggin has been called “vague” is it went by a variety of names. The Farmington line has been called the Leeds and Farmington; that to Brunswick, which also connected to Lewiston, was more often designated Androscoggin.

Our last reason for why the Androscoggin has been called “vague” has to do with the lack of availability of the railroad’s officers. As mentioned above, Giddings Lane was involved in a process serving against the line.

The process serving proved impossible when no appropriate official could be found to serve.

As to the process serving itself, this involved the Androscoggin deciding to drop the gauge of its track from Leeds

MAINE PELLET SALES LLC

to Farmington from Broad to Standard. The Androscoggin and Kennebec was Broad gauge. The Androscoggin and Kennebec procured an injunction against the Androscoggin’s proposed change. Androscoggin officials successfully dodged the process servers until a weekend when the servers didn’t work. With the weekend a force of track men laid the new track. Through all these shenanigans Giddings Lane was the – so to speak – power behind the throne of the Androscoggin.

In 1862 the Androscoggin became one of the lines merged to form the Maine Central.

With the Androscoggin now an interest of the past, Giddings Lane looked for new challenges. He found one in the form of gold mining in Colorado.

In 1862 Lane organized a gold-mining company with Maine and Massachusetts backing. The next year he

headed across the prairies with a wagon train carrying quartz-crushing machinery and other state-of-the-art mining equipment.

Lane wasn’t a miner himself. Rather he operated a plant serving miners.

The plant was some fifty miles west of Denver. For five years Lane was the plant’s superintendent.

In 1869 Lane got involved in another Maine railroad project. This time it was building a section of the Knox & Lincoln railroad.

From the above it should be clear that Giddings Lane was good at making money. He died a wealthy man. He also left Leeds a legacy. He built the town’s Universalist Church.

JW AWNING CO.

Gearhead Garage

* Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section.

“We Sell High Heat & Low Ash Pellets”

• Okanagan • Northern/Cubex • Vermont Wood • La Crete • North Country • Regency Pellet Stoves

1064 Center Minot Hill Rd. Minot, ME

Commercial & Residential Boat Canvas • Truck Covers

~ Available NOW for pick-up or delivery ~

353-9700

Lisbon Falls, Maine www.MainePelletSales.com

PHYSICAL THERAPY Treating the individual, not just the injury.

Lewiston 1977 Lisbon Rd. 784-3400

www.headtotoept.com

207-353-8842 15 Pine Street • Lisbon Falls, ME 04252

www.jwawning.com

(207) 240-3384 Mon-Fri: 8am-5pm Closed for Lunch 12p-1p Closed Sat. & Sun.

Christopher D. Caouette - Owner ASE Certified Master Technician ASE Certified Undercar Specialist

ONLINE.MOBILE.LOANS SAVINGS.CHECKING AND SO MUCH MORE SERVING THE FINANCIAL NEEDS OF ANDROSCOGGIN COUNTY SINCE 1938 555 Sabattus St., Lewiston | 831 Minot Ave., Auburn 207-783-2071 www.mainefamilyfcu.com

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The old swimming hole and bridge in New Gloucester. Item # LB2007.1.101721 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

Styling Dog Grooming Boutique

207-513-1454

Toenails Cut $5 (no appointment neccesary)

M, Th, F 8-4 • T, W 10-6:30 Sat 8-12

1032 Sabattus Street Lewiston, ME stylingdogs.wix.com/stylingdog

ROTTARI ELECTRIC Specializing in automatic transmissions, standard & transaxles

784-1455 Potatoes Available Year-Round Super-Sweet Young Corn & New Vegetables in July

1552 Riverside Drive, Auburn

General Repairs Diagnostics All Makes, All Models 257 Washington St. • Auburn

207-784-9477

Robert Rottari Master Electrician

~ 30 Years Experience ~ Specializing in Electrical Repair, Service and Installation

207-653-9225 New Gloucester

RJROTTARI@MAINE.RR.COM

Western Lakes & Mountains Region

74

Early view of Main Street in Norway. Item # LB2007.1.101987 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

Wilson Funeral Home

TA G G I N G S TAT I O N

“When Service Matters”

~ Family Owned Since 1927 ~ For Cremation Information Visit:

Offering Affordable Funeral CremationMaine.com Memorials and Direct Cremations

Jason C. Wilson

657-3204 24 Shaker Road • Gray, Maine 04039

wilsonfhllc.com

Major’s Heating, LLC Colby Major

911 Station Rd • Hebron, ME 207-966-2733 Well known for great Pizza and other fine foods!

The Storekeepers Where you’ll always find great food and friendly service!

Open Everyday 8 am - 8:30 pm

see our menu at http://thestorekeepers.weebly.com

STETSON’S AUTO SERVICE

68 Ledge Hill Rd. Hebron, ME 04238

(207) 966-3428 Home (207) 212-4002 Cell We Clean Oil Tanks!

Over 30 years experience

Work on all Makes & Models ___________ State Inspections

Service • New Installations • System Upgrades

John Stetson, Owner

24 Hr. Emergency Service • Gas & Oil Master Licensed & Insured ~ SERVING WESTERN MAINE ~

258 Fore Street, Oxford

743-2886

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

Norway Teen Joined The Army To Buy His Parents Their Dream Farm Adapted from “Maine At War”

by Brian Swartz

A

s Joseph G. Herrick stepped into an Army recruiting office in Androscoggin County around mid-March 1864, he wondered if the stories could be true.

If Herrick, a hard-working farmer from Norway, joined the Army, would he really receive $300 in enlistment bounties?

“For sure,” a smooth-talking Army recruiter replied.

“Wow,” the blond-haired Joe Herrick blurted. Dollar signs flashed before his eyes; he had never held or seen so much money in all his 19 years.

“Just sign on the dotted lines, and

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the money is all yours,” purred the recruiter.

Joe thought about what he could do with the money.

He lived in Norway with his parents, Henry and Ruth Leach Herrick, and his 13 siblings: Sarah, Harriet, Eliza, Rebecca, Edward, Mary, Newton, Orpha, Daniel, Ruth, Willie, Howard, and Rose. As the oldest son, Joe had stepped up to the plate when his father, then 43, had joined Company G, 14th Maine Infantry Regiment on January 21, 1862.

Then 17, Joe had wanted to go with his father, but he needed a par-

ent’s signature to enlist. Henry put his foot down because Ruth needed Joe at home; older sisters Sarah, Harriet, and Eliza could not swing an ax or guide a plow horse as well as could their brother.

So Henry departed Boston aboard the steamer North American in February 1862. His occupation listed as “farmer,” the 5-6 Henry had blue eyes, brown hair, and a dark complexion.

After the 14th Maine landed in New Orleans in late May, rheumatic fever sickened Henry so much that he was “discharged for disability” on June 29. (continued on page 76)

Smedberg’s

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Complete Line Of Building Materials Featuring Muralo Paints

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A family owned business for 44 years!

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AUTO SALVAG RISONCorporation R A E H

Rising Sun Cafe & Bakery HOMEMADE & FRESH Open Tues.-Sat. 130 Main Street • South Paris, ME

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Owner: Derek Boutilier Cell: 207-256-7036 Scrap Metal & Auto Removal • Used Parts & Tires Metal Buyer of All Types...

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207-743-6723

Route 26, Oxford, ME

Western Lakes & Mountains Region

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(continued from page 75) He returned to Norway.

During his father’s absence and after his homecoming, Joe Herrick worked hard to support the family. According to Tracey McIntire, a direct descendant of Harriet Herrick, “Some neighbors wrote testimonials on how Henry and Ruth depended on their son for income prior to and during the war.

“Joseph apparently worked in the lumber industry and was often paid in grain, which he would carry home on his back,” she noted.

Joe continued working past his 18th birthday. Henry and Ruth dreamed about owning a farm, but lacked a sufficient down payment.

While talking to the Army recruiter in March 1864, Joe suddenly realized what $300 could buy: a farm. He discussed the idea with his parents; raising his right hand on March 29, he promised to defend and upheld the Constitution and to defend the United States.

When his hand came down, Joe belonged to Company G, 32nd Maine Infantry Regiment. He mustered into the regiment at Augusta on April 16.

Henry and Ruth Herrick made good use of Joe’s generosity. “A neighbor wrote that Joseph gave his enlistment bounty to his parents so they could purchase a farm in Greenwood,” McIntire indicated.

Greenwood is one of those Maine towns that seldom make the news.

Mention “Bryant Pond” and “Locke Mills,” and modern Mainers nod their heads and say, “Sure, we’ve heard of those places.”

Bryant Pond and Locke Mills are villages in Greenwood, a next-door neighbor to Bethel; buying a farm (but not sight unseen) in that Greenwood, Henry and Ruth moved their 12 other children to the property sometime that spring.

The War Department shipped the

32nd Maine to Virginia in two contingents. Six companies left Maine on April 20; the last four companies, including Joe Herrick and Company G, left the state on May 11. He started sending most of his $13 monthly private’s pay home to his parents; the money helped pay their farm mortgage.

The delayed departure from Maine spared Joe exposure to enemy lead during the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania in early to mid-May. He saw combat at Cold Harbor in June, then fell sick and reported to a military hospital.

So Joe missed the battle that erupted after a massive mine was exploded beneath Confederate lines at Petersburg on July 30. The men of the 32nd Maine charged through the Crater and up and out its far side, but suffered heavy losses before retreating.

Joe rejoined Company G in time to participate in an attack on Petersburg

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com on September 30. The attack expanded into the three-day Battle of Peeble’s Farm, but Joe never saw its conclusion.

Confederate troops captured him on September 30. Transported on a well-guarded train to Salisbury Prison in North Carolina, Joe saw his health decline as Union prisoners suffered from exposure and malnutrition.

Joe died at Salisbury Prison on November 21, 1864. In the “How Left Service” box on his Soldier’s File at the Maine State Archives, a clerk wrote “died while prisoner.”

Ironically, that same file indicates that Joe Herrick was “transferred to Co. G, 31st Me. Inf.” on December 12.

Neither the Army nor his parents knew that he was dead.

Joe and about 200 other Mainers went into unmarked burial trenches by spring 1865. According to McIntire, only a stone marker etched with the word “Unknown” now identifies the

particular trench in which Joe Herrick is buried.

With their son’s pay now stopped, Henry and Ruth Herrick lost their farm. To pour more salt into their open wounds, the War Department later rejected Henry’s application for a disability pension. He was physically unfit when he joined the Army, federal bureaucrats claimed without explaining how such an unqualified recruit got into the service in the first place.

After losing their cherished farm, the Herricks “depended on the town of Greenwood for assistance” and “were living on the Greenwood poor farm at the times of their deaths,” McIntire noted. Henry and Ruth probably lie in unmarked graves; McIntire has not yet found where they are buried.

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

78

The Naming Of Evans Notch History of a Western Maine landmark

F

by Charles Francis

or some, Oxford County’s Evans Notch means hiking. Others know it as a pleasant drive amid towering peaks and a picnic. Then there are those who see the Notch as a gateway to the White Mountains.

Evans Notch is all of the above.

And it is more. Like those who see Evans Notch as a gateway, I apply that image to the Notch. My gateway isn’t physical, though. It has nothing to do with geography. Rather it has to do with time. I think of Evans Notch as a gateway to the past. To appreciate this you need to have a bit of curiosity as to the origin of place names.

How many bikers, day-trippers and passers-through ever wonder how Evans Notch came by its name? Where did the names of the mountains like East Royce Mountain that make the Notch what it is come from? What about some of the trail names like Albany Mountain Trail — not to forget Albany Mountain itself. Then there is a Brickett Place where a lot of hikers park their vehicles. And let’s not forget Evans Notch is on the Pequawaket Trail.

Evans Notch is generally said to take its name from an Indian fighter named John Evans. Evans held the

rank of captain in the famous Rogers’ Rangers. East Royce Mountain is one of a matched pair. West Royce Mountain is in New Hampshire. Sometimes you hear of the Royce Range. Royce was a Vera Royce. Don’t be confused by the name Vera. Royce was male, a surveyor and a soldier. Albany Mountain is in the town bearing the same designation. The name comes from the Duke of Albany. Brickett Place is in the Cold River Valley section of Evans Notch. Brickett is the name of a family that settled there. The Pequawaket Trail is a designated scenic byway. It is also a section of Route 113 Back in August of 1781 an Indian raiding party from St. Francis, Quebec attacked Bethel. It was the last Indian raid in Maine. It is also when Captain John Evans makes his mark in Maine history.

The raiders from St. Francis plundered Bethel and took two captives, Nathaniel Segar and Benjamin Church. Bethel residents, hoping that Segar and Clark might be rescued, sent to Fryeburg for aid. It was a group either under the leadership of John Evans or including him who answered the call.

Captain Evans and company fol-

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lowed the trail of the Indian raiders from Bethel towards what would eventually be known as Evans Notch. Some four miles out of Bethel they learned that if their pursuit continued Segar and Church would be killed. At this point they gave up. Segar and Church would not be released until after the end of the Revolution.

Did the Indians know who was on their trail? The answer is quite likely; John Evans and his brother David had been with Rogers’ Rangers when the raid on St. Francis took place. The raid was successful. Many Indians were killed and their village destroyed.

Since the raid on Bethel originated at St. Francis it is clear the village was rebuilt. Raids into New Hampshire and Maine were common from there. Revenge is a motivating force. So was the fear of the Indians who raided Bethel.

It is no wonder they made the ultimate threat of killing their captives with John Evans on their trail.

As to Evans Notch itself, it is the wilderness region between Fryeburg and Gilead. Streams in the north side of the notch flow into the Androscoggin River. Streams in the south flow into the Saco River. The entire area is mountains and forests.

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79

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Early winter of 1781-82 Captain Evans established a guard outpost just beyond East Royce Mountain. The post was a result of fears of another attack from St. Francis. It should be noted that there is an Evans Brook in Gilead.

This is where John Evans may have had his outpost.

There is at least one detractor to the naming of Evans Notch. New Hampshire historian Jeremy Belknap suggests Evans Notch and Brook may be named for the Evans family as a whole rather than John Evans. He notes Amos Evans, the family patriarch, brought the family to the region.

East Royce Mountain is extremely popular with hikers. Captain Vera Royce was given 2000 acres in the region of the Upper Saco for his services in the French and Indian War. He surveyed and named much of the area.

Albany Mountain, like the town, and Albany Brook and Basin are all named for James II of England. This is the James Stuart who was Duke of Albany while his brother Charles II was king. Albany Mountain is served by a National Forest campground.

Brickett Place takes its name from John Brickett. Brickett was a surveyor who settled there in 1803. A proud and successful man, Brickett was living in a fine brick house in 1812. The house still stands, and is under the ownership of the National Forest. Hikers park nearby to head off up the Brickett Brook Tail. The Brickett Brook Trail

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connects to trails ascending Blueberry Mountain and Speckled Mountain.

This leaves us with the origin of the name of the Pequawaket Trail.

The name Pequawaket is most often associated with a battle. The Battle of Pequawaket in 1725 was an important one, so important that some historians identify it as the most significant battle prior to the American Revolution.

The battle marked the end of hostilities between the English and the western Wabanakis of Maine. Because of the victory settlers could now move up the

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Place names are fascinating, especially those in wilderness regions that offer windows into the past. It is all too easy to overlook the fact that seeming pristine territory can have just as much history as an urban area. The next time you go for a drive in the country or take off on a wilderness trek ask yourself just where it is you are and what went on there in the past. * Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section.

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

80

Monson Hermit Project

A

by Richard Wing

mong the more colorful, yet mysterious characters of Monson, Maine, is Ralph Perkins, better known as “Hank the Hermit.”

Many are the stories that surround him, but very little is actually known; it’s hard to separate the fact from the folklore.

We do know that Hank was born Ralph Albert Perkins in Belfast, on April 18, 1893, to Horace and Villa Perkins, evidence borne out by his birth certificate. As Horace’s son, he was the grandson of James Henry Perkins, a “well-known and respected Sea Captain” sailing out of Belfast. In 1910, according to the Census, Ralph, age 17, was still living at home and working as

“Hank” the hermit a bench worker in a shoe factory. Seven years later, Ralph shows up again when he registered for the draft, listing him as single, living in Swampscott, Massachusetts, and working as a teamster in Marblehead. Further evidence appears on the 1920 Census, where at age 26 he is working as a chopper for Great Northern Paper Company at Chesuncook. The last piece of evidence is his death certificate, showing his death in Monson on October 18, 1962.

Aside from this evidence, we know very little about Hank, outside of rumor and anecdote. Those stories reveal that Hank was “a tall (6’1”) raw-boned man with great strength who always appeared dirty and in need of a shave.”

They also reveal he was well-educated and frequently picked up newspapers to keep up with the news. His rough appearance was often the cause of many a frightened woodsman who stumbled across him. One lost hunter revealed that “he would rather have stayed lost than receive the scare of Ralph’s whiskey rough face” that greeted him when Ralph found him. Of course, that face lit by a barn lantern held at eye level intensified his rough appearance enough to scare any man lost in a darkened wood. Those who knew him, though, didn’t fear him, and just accepted him for who he was — rough, but harmless.

While his appearance may have been cause for alarm and his actions some-

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81

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com what mysterious, Ralph mostly wanted to keep to himself and didn’t like folks around he didn’t know, “social on his own terms.” He much preferred his camp near mile 24.2 on the Canadian-Pacific Railroad line, one mile east of Secret Pond, near Elliotsville. Rather than being out in the public, he would often ask others to pick things up for him or refuse invitations for company, though sometimes he would accept a ride to town from people he knew; it’s a long walk from Elliotsville to Greenville for provisions and the mail.

And dangerous, too, as Hank walked the rail line through the woods. One source reported that as a steam train drifted down a grade toward him, Hank jumped into a clearing just in time, and rolled down a bank about 80 feet. The Greenville section crew, searching for him, discovered where he went down the bank and also found his size 14 boot prints where he disappeared into the woods heading towards his camp. It

is rumored that he had served a year in prison for “going into a camp on Lake Onawa and taking a flashlight and blanket,” which could, I suppose, account for his anti-social behavior, but this, like many things about Hank, cannot be confirmed.

Being woods-wise, Hank earned a meager living from the forests. In the fall and winter he would trap for mink, coon, muskrats, and weasel. Summers he would cut wood for people. He was known for his cutting stride, using the whole length of his bucksaw, a skill he no doubt learned in his time cutting for Great Northern in his life before his hermitage. Hank also picked up Spruce Gum which he sold to Harry Davis, who owned a gum processing factory. Once, Hank, short on money, filled a burlap bag with bark and wood chips, topping it off with spruce gum, and sold it to Elmer Berg. Some months later, Elmer received a note from Hank apologizing for his deception and giving him money

to cover the debt. Elmer, however, had not taken the bag to Davis, so was unaware of the contents. The apology and cash were enough to speak for Hank’s honesty, and Elmer extended credit to Hank whenever he needed it.

Hank is most known in the area for his heroism, saving the lives of Charlie Douglass and his son Clifford. In April 1948, Charlie and Clifford went fishing with Bob Zimmerman who was standing in the bow of their canoe breaking the porous ice with his paddle. As he turned to sit down, the canoe overturned and the three were thrown into the frigid water. Weighted down by his wet clothes, Bob was drowned, while Charlie and Clifford clung to the canoe. Clifford eventually swam to shore through the frigid water to get help, leaving his father still clinging to the canoe. Hank heard their cries and came to their rescue by stealing a second canoe, a true testament to his character. A (continued on page 82)

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Western Lakes & Mountains Region

82

(continued from page 81) Hermit, yes, but a Hero as well.

The big question arises, though: why did Ralph Perkins give up his identity to become Hank the Hermit?

Nobody knows for sure. After the 1920 census putting him at Chesuncook, there are no more records of him, just the stories told around Bodfish Valley.

There is, however, one story that could be true, could explain his decision. It’s been said that Ralph was in World War I, and on his return he found his wife had run off with another man. Devastated, he wanted nothing more to do with civilization, so he came to Maine and hermited himself in the woods of Elliotsville.

Is this a possible explanation? We know Ralph registered for the draft, and while we can find no military re-

cords, we know at his death that he was a veteran, the VA having paid $250 towards his funeral costs. Is it possible he married before leaving for military service, even potentially fathering a couple of children as the story claims?

As the war ended before 1920 and the Census shows him at Chesuncook working in the woods, this account becomes a real possibility; it would be a short trip from Chesuncook to Monson and his life as a Hermit, all because of an unfaithful wife. We will never know the truth, never know why he left the comforts of civilization for a life alone in the woods. That secret he took to his grave.

Hank’s last days were spent in the town of Monson. On October 18, 1962, he died alone, “sitting in an easy chair,”

of “cardiac issues.” He is buried in Belfast next to his parents and grandparents. Oddly, in any family records found, his parents’ or his grandparents’, there is no reference to him, almost as if he didn’t exist to them. Perhaps they thought him dead or had disowned him, cutting him out of their lives and their wills; this will remain one of the big mysteries surrounding him, mysteries relegated now to speculation and lore.

We just have to accept that he was one of us, Hank the Hermit, one of Monson’s colorful yet mysterious characters.

83

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A.E. Robinson Oil Co., Inc. ............................................................................................... 28 ABC Pool & Spa Center ...................................................................................................73 Absolut Services Inc. Excavation .....................................................................................14 Absolut Services Inc. Repair Shop ..................................................................................14 Advantage Insurance .......................................................................................................21 Alfond Youth Center .......................................................................................................33 Alternative Heat Source ..................................................................................................58 Altus .................................................................................................................................55 American Legion Bourque-Lanigan Post 5 .....................................................................34 Ames Construction Inc. ...................................................................................................29 Andrew Ames Logging .....................................................................................................8 Androscoggin Bank .........................................................................................................47 Archie’s Inc. Rubbish Removal ..........................................................................................9 Ashby’s Towing ...............................................................................................................36 At Home Electric ............................................................................................................36 Austin’s Tractor Services ..................................................................................................71 B&M Auto Repair ...........................................................................................................73 Barker Tree Service & Logging .........................................................................................55 Bay Haven Two Lobster Pound Restaurant ..................................................................61 Beer Bottle Bob’s Redemption Center ...........................................................................68 Belgrade Lakes Marine & Storage, Inc. ........................................................................36 Belgrade Performance & Repairs ....................................................................................66 Bell Farms .......................................................................................................................73 Benny’s Barber & Style Shop ............................................................................................62 Bessey Insurance .............................................................................................................21 Bessey Motor Sales .........................................................................................................76 Big Dawg Concrete ..........................................................................................................20 Bill’s Auto Transport .......................................................................................................46 Bingham Motor Inn & Sports Complex ............................................................................25 Blais Barber Shop ...........................................................................................................50 Blanchet Builders, LLC ...................................................................................................31 Blanchette Moving & Storage Co. .....................................................................................4 Blue Iris Motor Inn ........................................................................................................21 Boards Under My Feet ...................................................................................................33 Boat Pros Mobile Marine .................................................................................................59 Bob’s Cash Fuel ..............................................................................................................17 Bolster Monumental Works ............................................................................................75 Boomers Restaurant & Saloon .......................................................................................76 Boos Heating Company ..................................................................................................55 Boothby’s Orchard & Farm Winery .................................................................................57 Bowley Brook Pure Maple Syrup ....................................................................................21 Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Waterville .....................................................................33 Bradbury’s Market & Diner ................................................................................................9 Brady’s ATV & Power Equipment ...................................................................................67 Breau’s Too ........................................................................................................................9 Bridgton Hospital .............................................................................................................57 Bridgton Urgent Care .......................................................................................................57 Broderick Construction ....................................................................................................39 Brownie’s Auto Service ....................................................................................................18 Burbank Logging, Trucking and Excavation ....................................................................23 Carpentry & Odd Jobs ...................................................................................................11 CDL USA Maple Pro, Inc. ................................................................................................41 Central Maine Community College ....................................................................................3 Central Maine Sandblasting .............................................................................................18 Central Tire Co. Inc. ..........................................................................................................33 Cheney Jewelers ..............................................................................................................70 Chim Chiminey Chimney Sweep ......................................................................................71 Chretien’s Construction ...................................................................................................42 Chris’ Electric ...................................................................................................................54 Chuck Wagon Restaurant ...............................................................................................42 CJ’s Appliances ................................................................................................................68 Cobbossee Motel .............................................................................................................44 Cole Harrison Insurance .................................................................................................24 Collins Enterprises ...........................................................................................................38 Colonial Valley Motel ......................................................................................................38 Complete Denture Center ...............................................................................................36 Cooper Farms ..................................................................................................................20 Cornerstone Plumbing & Heating ..................................................................................67 Cornish Ace Hardware .....................................................................................................80 Coulthard’s Pools & Spas ...............................................................................................10 County Seat Realty .........................................................................................................40 Crooked River Resources .................................................................................................55 Cushing Construction ......................................................................................................42 D.A. Wilson & Co. Excavation ............................................................................................20 D.H. Pinnette & Sons, Inc. ..................................................................................................6 D.R. Salisbury & Son, LLC .................................................................................................24 Daggett’s Garage ............................................................................................................67 Dave’s Appliance ..............................................................................................................70 Davis Concrete ...................................................................................................................8 DB Energy Products .......................................................................................................70 Deluxe Diner .....................................................................................................................11 Den’s Automotive Services, Inc. .....................................................................................77 Devaney, Doak & Garrett Booksellers ............................................................................67 Dick’s Auto Body & Collision Center ................................................................................44 Dirty Bristles Chimney Sweep Inc. .................................................................................56 Douglass Construction, Inc. ...........................................................................................57 Dover Audiology & Hearing Aid Sales .............................................................................27 Dover True Value Hardware .............................................................................................16 Dunn & Pakulski Optometrists .........................................................................................63 Dyer Septic Service .........................................................................................................56 E.H. Ward & Son Hardware & Millwork ...........................................................................17 E.R. Palmer Lumber Co. .....................................................................................................8 E.W. Moore & Son Pharmacy ..........................................................................................14 East Grand Fence ............................................................................................................45 Echo Lake Lodge & Cottages .............................................................................................43 Ed Hodsdon Masonry .....................................................................................................71 Edge Automotive .............................................................................................................39 Edmunds Market .............................................................................................................12 Ellis Variety .......................................................................................................................9 Fairfield Antiques Mall ......................................................................................................7 Family Auto Repair ...........................................................................................................78 Family Pet Connection & Grooming ................................................................................18 Farmington Fair ..............................................................................................................68 Farmington Farmers Union ..............................................................................................68 Fayette Country Store & Old Mill Stream Ice Cream Shoppe .........................................70 Fine Line Paving & Grading ..............................................................................................30 Finish Line Construction ..................................................................................................29 Finishing Touches Remodeling .........................................................................................66 Fireside Stove Shop & Fireplace Center ...........................................................................51 Five Fields Farm .................................................................................................................5 Flagstaff Area Business Association ................................................................................23 Food For Thought ............................................................................................................55 Fox Hollow Cottages .......................................................................................................59 Foxcroft Pharmacy ..........................................................................................................27 Franklin Memorial Hospital .............................................................................................37 Franklin Savings Bank ......................................................................................................6 Franklin-Somerset Federal Credit Union .........................................................................5 Fraternal Order of Eagles #1248 - Rumford Aerie .........................................................11 Frederick Heating ............................................................................................................64 Freeman Ridge Forestry ...................................................................................................12 Fryeburg Fair .............................................................................................................60 Fyre Flye Creations ...........................................................................................................35

BUSINESS

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G&G Cash Fuels ............................................................................................................46 Gearhead Garage ........................................................................................................72 Generators of Maine ...................................................................................................35 George’s Banana Stand ...............................................................................................32 Glen Luce Logging, Inc. ............................................................................................45 Gray Family Vision Center ..........................................................................................52 Greenwood Orchards Farmstand & Bakery ................................................................46 Gregory S. Mayer Professional Carpenter ...................................................................58 Gridiron Restaurant & Sports Pub ............................................................................51 Griswold’s Country Store & Diner ...............................................................................25 Hammond Lumber Company ....................................................................................35 Hannaford-Jay ............................................................................................................69 Hanson’s Home Improvements .................................................................................17 Hardys Motorsports ...................................................................................................64 Harris Drug Store ......................................................................................................26 Harrison Auto Salvage Corporation ............................................................................75 Hartford’s Forklift Battery Division ............................................................................49 Head To Toe Physical Therapy ...................................................................................72 HealthReach Community Health Centers ......................................................................8 Heart & Hand Inc. ......................................................................................................59 High Tide Low Tide Seafood .....................................................................................30 Highland Lake Resort .................................................................................................58 Home Care for Maine .................................................................................................20 Homestead Realty ......................................................................................................43 Houston-Brooks Auctioneers .......................................................................................8 Howie’s Welding & Fabrication, Inc. ...........................................................................41 Hungry Hollow Country Store ......................................................................................7 Hydraulic Hose & Assemblies ......................................................................................4 Image Auto Body ......................................................................................................17 Independent Roofing .................................................................................................65 J.P. & Son’s Odd Jobs .................................................................................................66 J.T. Reid’s Gun Shop ....................................................................................................5 Jackman Moose-River Region Chamber of Commerce .............................................15 Jason Stevens Excavation & Earth Work ..................................................................66 Jay’s Small Engine & Appliance Service ...................................................................48 Jean Castonguay Excavating ......................................................................................41 Jimmy’s Shop ‘N Save .................................................................................................13 JM Electric Inc. .........................................................................................................78 JMH Excavation .........................................................................................................53 John Firth Builders .....................................................................................................27 Johnny Castonguay Logging & Trucking ....................................................................42 Johnson Foundations .................................................................................................29 Jordan Lumber Company ............................................................................................13 JT’s Finest Kind Saw ...................................................................................................32 Judy’s Variety .............................................................................................................11 Justin Carlson Tree Service ........................................................................................15 JW Awning Co. ...........................................................................................................72 K&J Heating Inc. ........................................................................................................51 KC’s Country Store ......................................................................................................16 Kiesman Drywall Inc. .................................................................................................59 Kimball Insurance, LLC ..............................................................................................16 Knowles Lumber Company ........................................................................................71 Kramers Inc. ...............................................................................................................44 Kyle Mann Tree Work ................................................................................................54 L&L Day Firewood & Snowplowing .........................................................................77 L.R. Nadeau Inc. Excavation .....................................................................................34 Lacasse Shoe Repair, Inc. ...........................................................................................63 Lake Region Auto Supply ..........................................................................................56 Lakewood Continuing Care Center ............................................................................34 Laney’s Pit Stop ..........................................................................................................31 Larsen’s Electric ..........................................................................................................10 Larsen’s Jewelry .........................................................................................................66 Lavallee’s Garage .......................................................................................................15 L.D.C. Builders ............................................................................................................67 Lewiston House of Pizza ............................................................................................48 Linkletter & Sons, Inc. ................................................................................................7 Lisbon Community Federal Credit Union .................................................................47 Lloyd Downey Property Maintenance .......................................................................29 Logan Home Builders .................................................................................................59 Long Green Variety .....................................................................................................70 Long Pond Camps & Guide Service ...............................................................................8 Lovell’s Guilford Hardware .........................................................................................27 LP Poirier & Son Inc., Excavation .............................................................................48 Luce’s Meats & Maple ................................................................................................30 M.A. Vining Landworks, LLC .......................................................................................15 MacCrillis Rousseau VFW Post 8835 ..........................................................................65 Madison Automotive & Recreation .............................................................................17 Maine Family Federal Credit Union ............................................................................72 Maine Forest Service ..................................................................................................40 Maine Historical Society ...............................................................................................4 Maine-ly Foam ..........................................................................................................59 Maine Motel & Cabins ...............................................................................................50 Maine Pellet Sales LLC ...............................................................................................72 Maine Veterans’ Homes .............................................................................................54 Maine’s Outdoor Learning Center ..............................................................................80 Maine’s Paper & Heritage Museum ............................................................................42 Maine Warden Service ...............................................................................................80 Major’s Heating, LLC ..................................................................................................74 Mama Bear’s Den .......................................................................................................26 Matheson Tri Gas .......................................................................................................49 Maurice Restaurant ...................................................................................................54 Maynard’s in Maine ....................................................................................................27 McAllister Accounting & Tax Services .......................................................................69 McNaughton Construction .........................................................................................44 Meadow Lanes ...........................................................................................................69 MEI Excavation ..........................................................................................................54 Merle Lloyd & Sons Earthwork Contractors ..............................................................17 Metcalf’s Trading Post ...............................................................................................62 Mexico Trading Post ..................................................................................................10 Michael E. Witham Trucking Inc. ..............................................................................24 Mike Wainer Plumbing & Heating ..........................................................................35 Mills Market ..............................................................................................................11 Ming Lee Chinese Restaurant ...................................................................................34 Monmouth Federal Credit Union ..............................................................................46 Montello Heights Retirement Community ................................................................49 Moosehead Lake Region Chamber of Commerce ......................................................15 Moosehead Motor Sports ...........................................................................................26 Moosehead Pinnacle Pursuit .....................................................................................15 Moosehead Sled Repair & Rentals, LLC.......................................................................26 Morrell’s Septic Tank Service & Excavating ................................................................76 Motel 6 - Lewiston ....................................................................................................48 Motor Supply Co. ........................................................................................................6 Moulton Lumber ........................................................................................................62 Mount Blue Motel ......................................................................................................38 Mt. Blue Drug ............................................................................................................40 Mtn. View Carpentry ..............................................................................................69 Naples Packing Co., Inc. .............................................................................................10 Next Generation Logging ..........................................................................................25 North Camps ..............................................................................................................23 Northeast Laboratory Services ....................................................................................6 Northwood Builders ......................................................................................................7 Not-A-Con Home Improvements ...............................................................................71

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Oquossoc Marine ........................................................................................................22 Otis Federal Credit Union ...........................................................................................69 Ouellette & Associates, P.A. .......................................................................................46 Our Village Market ....................................................................................................12 Oxford Casino .................................................................................................back cover Oxford Federal Credit Union .......................................................................................21 Oxford Hills Taxi .........................................................................................................55 Packard Appraisal, Inc. ..............................................................................................57 Penobscot Marine Museum .......................................................................................19 Perkins Management .................................................................................................34 Phil Carter’s Garage ...................................................................................................65 Phillips Towing & Auto Repair ..................................................................................23 Piawlock Construction ..................................................................................................9 Pine Tree Orthopedic Lab ..........................................................................................43 Pins and Needles ........................................................................................................39 Piscataquis Chamber of Commerce ............................................................................29 Pitcher Perfect Tire Service ........................................................................................40 Poor Bob’s Storage ....................................................................................................65 Prime Financial, Inc. ..................................................................................................34 Quinn Hardware ........................................................................................................64 R&B Property Service ..............................................................................................61 R&D Self Storage ......................................................................................................65 R.E. Lowell Lumber Inc. ............................................................................................53 R.F. Automotive Repair ............................................................................................18 R.W. Day Logging ......................................................................................................79 Rails Local-Motive Dining .........................................................................................47 Ralph Libby Chain Saws ............................................................................................53 Randy’s Full Service Auto Repair, LLC .....................................................................31 Rangeley Building & Remodeling .............................................................................22 RDA Automotive ........................................................................................................49 Record Building Supply, Inc. .....................................................................................75 Red Mill Lumber ........................................................................................................59 Redington-Fairview General Hospital .........................................................................32 Remco Radiator & Auto Care .......................................................................................50 Richard Wing & Son Logging Inc. .............................................................................61 Rick & Kevin Lewis Building & Remodeling ..............................................................77 Ricker Hill Orchards ...................................................................................................44 Rick’s Garage ..............................................................................................................30 Rideout’s Seasonal Services .......................................................................................16 Rising Sun Cafe & Bakery ..........................................................................................75 River Valley Grill ........................................................................................................10 Riverside Kwik Stop ....................................................................................................69 Robert W. Libby & Sons, Inc. .....................................................................................5 Rod’s Cycle & RV .......................................................................................................29 Ron’s Transmissions ....................................................................................................71 Rottari Electric ...........................................................................................................73 Rowell’s Garage Sales & Service and Car Wash .........................................................16 Rt. 197 Diner ...............................................................................................................3 Russell & Sons Towing ...............................................................................................55 Russell’s Lakeside Rentals ..........................................................................................11 S.A. McLean, Inc. ........................................................................................................62 Sackett & Brake Survey, Inc. .....................................................................................63 Sanders Auto Service .................................................................................................13 Searles Excavation Inc. ..............................................................................................56 Shelly’s Hometown Market ......................................................................................40 Skowhegan & Waterville Tire Center .........................................................................63 Skowhegan Area Chamber of Commerce ..................................................................18 Smedberg’s Crystal Spring Farm ..................................................................................75 Smile Again Dentures, Inc. ..........................................................................................46 Solon Corner Market ...................................................................................................32 Solon Superette ..........................................................................................................25 Spanky’s Speed Shop ................................................................................................80 Spencer Group Paving, LLC ......................................................................................45 Spillover Motel ..........................................................................................................24 SR General Contractors ..............................................................................................49 Stacy’s Service Center ................................................................................................77 Steinke & Caruso Dental Care ......................................................................................3 Stellar Electrical Services ............................................................................................49 Steph’s Barber Shop ....................................................................................................78 Sterling Electric ...........................................................................................................39 Stetson’s Auto Service ................................................................................................74 Stevens Electric & Pump Service Inc. ...........................................................................5 Stony Brook Recreation Campground & Variety Store ..............................................22 Strong Hardware & Building Supply ........................................................................12 Styling Dog Grooming Boutique ................................................................................73 Summit Roofing .........................................................................................................22 Sun Auto & Salvage .....................................................................................................64 Taylor & Son Trucking, Firewood & Plowing ...............................................................30 Taylor’s Drug Store .....................................................................................................29 The General Country Store ..........................................................................................13 The Irregular ...............................................................................................................23 The Korner Store & Deli ...............................................................................................35 The Little Red Hen Diner & Bakery .............................................................................22 The Looney Moose Cafe ..............................................................................................14 The Sterling Inn Bed & Breakfast ..............................................................................26 The Storekeepers ........................................................................................................74 Thompson’s Orchard ..................................................................................................53 Thompson’s Restaurant .............................................................................................25 Tilton’s Market ...........................................................................................................74 Town of Farmington ....................................................................................................40 Town of Mexico ............................................................................................................9 Traction Heavy Duty Parts ...........................................................................................51 Trash Guyz ..................................................................................................................53 Tuck’s Ale House .........................................................................................................67 Tuttles Auto Sales ......................................................................................................36 Upper Kennebec Realty ...............................................................................................14 Valley Gas & Oil Company ...........................................................................................13 Village Market .............................................................................................................33 Vintage Maine Images .................................................................................................4 W.D. Bickford Machinery ............................................................................................33 Warren Brothers Construction ...................................................................................66 Weber Insurance .........................................................................................................21 Weber Insurance Group ...............................................................................................21 Western Maine Pharmacy, Inc. ..................................................................................23 Western Maine Towing & Recovery ............................................................................53 Whited Peterbilt / Whited Truck ................................................................................52 Whittemore & Sons Outdoor Power Equipment ..........................................................31 Whittemore Pool & Spa Management ........................................................................20 Whittemore’s Real Estate ............................................................................................31 Wicked Good Electric, LLC .........................................................................................61 Willie’s Towing ............................................................................................................79 Willyn to Do What You Can’t Find Time To Do ...............................................................79 Wilson Excavating, Inc. ...............................................................................................77 Wilson Funeral Home ..................................................................................................74 Windham Barber Shop ...............................................................................................61 Winslow Supply, Inc. ..................................................................................................64 Woodlawn Rehab & Nursing Center ..........................................................................32 Wood-Mizer of Maine ..................................................................................................70 YMCA of Auburn-Lewiston .........................................................................................51 YMCA of Greater Waterville .......................................................................................33

~ 2016 Western Lakes & Mountains Region ~ Western Lakes & Mountains Region

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Southern Maine’S CaSino 24/7 CaSino aCtion 26

Lewiston/ Auburn

11

95 26

196

EXIT 63 Gray

95

295

The fun never stops at Oxford Casino! Over Oxford Casino is southern Maine’s 850 state-of-the-art home for wicked good fun! slot machines, 26 heart-pounding table games and delicious food, only minutes from Portland.

Portland

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