Western lakes and mountains 2015

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Volume 24 | Issue 7 | 2015-16

Maine’s History Magazine

15,000 Circulation

Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Skowhegan’s Abner Coburn

The farm boy who rose to the Governorship of Maine

The Big Bucks Of Jackman...

... and the skills of a Maine guide

Hannibal Crosses The Potomac

In a place of beauty a man was born who almost became president

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Inside This Edition

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Maine’s History Magazine

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It Makes No Never Mind James Nalley

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The Apple Fruit of fame Lauren Verlaque

9

Maine Recruits Struggled To Survive Brutal Winter A “Maine At War” exclusive Brian Swartz

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The Strange Case Of ‘Napoleon’ Thomas A former slave turns up unexpectedly in Rumford Point Jeffrey Bradley

Western Lakes & Mountains Region

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Sensational Silver Treasure Hoard Discovered in New Vineyard Sherwood Anderson

Jim Burch

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The Big Bucks Of Jackman... ...and the skills of a Maine guide John Murray

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Actor Mace Greenleaf From Dixfield ...and his free-spirited wife, Lucy Banning James Nalley

Publisher & Editor Layout & Design Liana Merdan

Advertising & Sales Manager Tim Maxfield

Advertising & Sales

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The Gray Ghost Of Maine John Murray

35

The Boy Memories of hunting and fishing at Moosehead Dale Murray

38

Skowhegan’s Abner Coburn The farm boy who rose to the Governorship of Maine Brian Swartz

Dennis Burch Sebastian Demers Chris Girouard Tim Maxfield Zackary Rouda Jacob Samson

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The Genealogy Corner Preserving family stories Charles Francis

Liana Merdan

Office Manager

Maine’s Elizabeth Anne Chase Life in Farmington inspired a 19th century poet Brian Swartz

Field Representatives

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Nellie French Stevens A dedicated advocate for Maine’s youth Dale Marie Clark

Contributing Writers

57

The Dwindling 1914 Moose Population From 3,000 then to 70,000 today Brian Swartz

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Marsden Hartley Lewiston’s painter of Maine James Nalley

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Hannibal Crosses The Potomac In a place of beauty a man was born who almost became president Jeffrey Bradley

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Hoppy Pays A Visit To Fryeburg Bill Boyd comes to Maine Charles Francis

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To Whom I Owe A Lot: My Mother I did not realize when I was growing up just how much she did Franklin Irish

75

William Wentworth Brown Clinton philanthropist graces town with a new library Brian Swartz

78

Jews In Maine The path to acceptance was often as rocky as the coast Jeffrey Bradley

82

Farnum’s Apple Orchard A Wilton treasure Alicia R. Bell

85

Ladies Delight Lighthouse Still charming the boaters of Cobbosseecontee Brian Swartz

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To Culp’s Hill And Back The 5th Maine Battery holds a reunion in 1911 Shirley Babb

92

Norway Soldier William Reed Jr. Eyewitness to the battle of Plattsburgh Bay Brian Swartz

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Cornish Schools Of Olden Days Humble beginnings yield great citizens John Woodbury

George Tatro

Sherwood Anderson Shirley Babb Alicia R. Bell Jeffrey Bradley Charles Francis | fundy67@ yahoo.ca Franklin Irish

Dale Murray John Murray James Nalley Dale Marie Clark Brian Swartz Lauren Verlaque John Woodbury

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Front Cover Photo: Main St. in Rangeley, Item #LB2007.1.102159 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

A

way from the relatively crowded Atlantic coastline of Maine sits the beautiful and serene Western Lakes and Mountains Region. If you have the patience to take the surprisingly long drive from Portland to this region, then the small towns will welcome you as well as take you back to a simpler time. Around the 1850s, the writer Henry David Thoreau explored this region on more than one occasion, canoed Moosehead Lake, and even wrote about it in his book, The Maine Woods.

However, if he had traveled just a bit southwest, then he would have loved 6,300-acre Rangeley Lake and what its surrounding wilderness would have offered him.

Although vacationers and sportsmen ventured to this lake in the mid-19th century for hunting, canoeing, and hiking, it was fly fishing that really put Rangeley on the map. In fact, once the news that brook trout (weighing at least 10 pounds) had been caught in the lake, fishermen throughout the U.S. arrived in droves. To make it even more special, a woman named Carrie Ste-

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vens (1882-1970) from Upper Dam, gained national fame as a self-taught fly lure creator or more specifically, a fly lure tier, by catching a 6-pound 13-ounce brook trout with her self-designed lure. With various names, such as Gray Ghost, the Green Beauty, the Pirate, and Blue Charm, her more than 150 fishing flies became widely known for their bright colors, beautiful craftsmanship, and most importantly, their effectiveness. In addition, she improved the craft by shortening the streamers to only extend beyond the hooks, thus increasing their overall efficiency. These former one-dollar lures, which were simply created with items ranging from deer hair and tinsel to blue heron’s feathers, now fetch more than several hundred dollars each from devoted collectors.

In 1963, after more than 30 years in the fly-tying business, Stevens tied her final fly and quietly closed her camp. After her death in August 1970, then Governor Kenneth Curtis declared it “Carrie Stevens Day.” To date, she is the only fly tier to be recognized by the State of Maine. On a side note, if you have ever skied Saddleback Mountain, then you might (or might not) have noticed that

the ski trails there are named after the famed fishing flies from the Rangeley region.

Well, to end this month’s edition of “It Makes No Never Mind,” I will close with the following fly-fishing inspired yarn: A couple of young men were fly-fishing at their special stream off the beaten path when suddenly, out of the bushes, jumped the game warden. Immediately, one of the men threw his rod down and started running through the woods. The game warden, realizing that this man was attempting to hide his infraction, ran after the young man. After approximately a half a mile, the young man stopped and stooped over with his hands on his thighs in order to catch his breath. Soon after, the game warden caught up to him.

“Let’s see yer fishin license, boy!” the warden yelled as he gasped for a breath. Then, the young man took his wallet out of his pocket and gave the game warden a VALID fishing license. “Well, son,” said the game warden, “You must be dumber than a box of rocks! You didn’t have run from me if you have a valid license!” “Yes, I know that sir,” replied the young man. “But my friend back there…well…he don’t have one.”

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

The Apple Fruit of fame

by Lauren Verlaque

T

he Apple. One played a starring role in the Garden of Eden. A golden sibling helped spark the Trojan War. Another contributed to the downfall of Snow White. One of the first and largest computer companies uses one as its symbol, and its name.

A big red one graces the cover of the cult book phenomenon, Twilight. An orchard of them form the backdrop of that great Maine book and movie, Cider House Rules. And every fall, Maine’s farmers’ markets overflow with their abundance. The Apple – one of Maine’s culinary treasures.

History is rife with stories featuring apples, particularly religious tales.

Judeo-Christian lore (as per the book of Genesis) describes the Garden of

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Eden, a blissful paradise, where the first humans created by God (Adam & Eve) live. That is, until they eat an apple, the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thus imparting upon them knowledge

and awareness, as well as condemning them to a life outside Eden’s borders.

In Greek mythology, the great hero Heracles (son of Zeus and Alcmene, forbearer of Roman hero Hercules) was faced with 12 daunting tasks in order to atone for the slaying of his family.

The eleventh task entailed his stealing the Golden Apples from the Garden of Hesperides, the location of the Tree of Life, which Gaia (Mother Earth) gave Hera and Zeus as a wedding present, and whose fruit granted immortality.

Heracles succeeded, in some versions of the tale, by tricking Atlas into carrying the heavens on his back. It was one of these apples that Eris, Greek Goddess of Strife & Discord, later threw into the crowd at the wedding of Peleus

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and Thetis (future parents of Achilles), inscribed with the word Kallisti, or “for the most beautiful one.” This created the mother of all arguments between Hera (Goddess of Childbirth & Marriage), Athena (Goddess of Wisdom & War), and Aphrodite (Goddess of Love & Beauty) as to who was the real recipient, which would only be resolved by the choice of Paris, the Prince of Troy, as appointed by Zeus. All three Goddesses tried to bribe the poor Paris – Hera offered political power, Athena unparalleled skill in battle, and Aphrodite the most beautiful mortal woman in the world — Helen, Queen of Sparta (and later of Troy). Paris chose Aphrodite, got his Helen, who happened to already be married, and so began the Trojan War. While this seems to paint a picture of apples being the source of much mayhem and strife, there are other religious – and historical – tales of the apple’s more pleasing and harmonious

aspects. Norse mythology shows the apples of the Goddess Iounn to be the bringers of eternal youth to the pantheon’s gods. One of our own country’s most beloved folk heroes, Johnny Appleseed, is based on the story of John Chapman, who traveled the country (or at least Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) in the early 1800s planting apple trees – a true pioneer nurseryman. And what child has not shown wonder at the star that lies hidden at the center of every apple, revealed when sliced horizontally? Apples truly are magical.

Maine’s countryside abounds with apple orchards. From late August through late October, many orchards open their proverbial doors and allow patrons to pick their own bushels. (To find one near you, check your local visitor’s center, or visit www.maineapples.org.) While Maine is by no means the country’s leader in apple production (that honor goes to Washington state), we still have our fair share of orchards,

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 5)

and consistently rank in the top half of states for apple production.

Some of the more common apples cultivated in Maine include the JerseyMac, McIntosh, Cortland, Honeycrisp, Gala, and both Red & Golden Delicious.

Less known yet still widely grown are varietals like Prima, Northern Spy, Spenser, and Jonagold. The Maine Heritage Orchard features heirloom varieties that originated here in Maine – rare, but a big part of our culinary heritage.

There are more than 30 varietals of this unique type, but they include Summer Sweet, Winekist, and Moses Wood. Be sure to attend the Great Maine Apple Day for more info – Sunday October 18, 2015, 12 noon-4pm — rain or shine — in Unity, Maine.

Children in the Finnish Congregational Church Sunday School in West Paris, ca. 1918.

Finns first arrived in the West Paris area in the 1890s. Item # 10794 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Fort Halifax dam and hydro station in Winslow, ca. 1909. Item # 74732 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Early view of West Front Street in Skowhegan. Item # LB2007.1.112397 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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Maine Recruits Struggled To Survive A Brutal Winter A “Maine At War” exclusive

by Brian Swartz

E

ven for hearty young men accustomed to the brutal cold of western Maine winters, camping at Augusta during the winter of 1861-62 was no picnic.

With the Civil War stalemated after the July 1861 brawl at Manassas in Virginia, many state-raised Union regiments started heading home as their 90-day enlistments expired later that summer. Afraid that his army would melt away, President Abraham Lincoln asked the loyal states to enlist men for three years’ service.

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Batteries of Light Artillery in Maine,” recalled Judson Ames of Foxcroft, who penned the History of the Fourth Maine Battery Light Artillery in the Civil War, 1861-65. Given that outfit’s introduction to the hard life of a soldier at Augusta, the book was ironically printed

by Augusta-based Burleigh & Flynt in 1905.

Recruiters combed the state in autumn 1861 to flesh out the ranks of the 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment “and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Regiments of Infantry,” Ames pointed out. “This large number made the filling of the different organizations rather slow.”

(continued on page 10)

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Meanwhile, O’Neil W. Robinson Jr. (a 37-year-old attorney from Bethel) lobbied Gov. Israel Washburn for an officer’s commission. Robinson sought a lieutenant colonelcy in an infantry regiment; perhaps because of Robinson’s Democratic leanings, Republican Washburn made him a captain and gave him the 4th Maine Battery.

Recruiting went forward that fall; “it was not until the 16th day of December that the recruits for the 4th Battery were called into camp” in Augusta, Ames wrote. The first contingents of wannabe gunners “were assigned to quarters in the tents, which had been erected for

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 9)

four of the Batteries just south of the State House,” he indicated.

“Our Battery (the 4th) was camped next to the road (modern State Street),” Ames wrote. Nearby were three more artillery batteries, and “south of the road toward the river were located the 14th and 15th Regiments and 1st Cavalry, and across the river at the Arsenal grounds were located” the 13th Maine Infantry and yet another artillery battery.

“Bringing with him quite a number of Oxford County boys,” Robinson joined his battery a few days later, according to Ames. The 4th Maine Battery mustered into the United States Army “for the term of service of three years” on Dec. 21.

All the stout-hearted patriots converging on Augusta that month figured they would soon ship off for the war and warmer climes. After all, had not the War Department summoned

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Maine’s earliest infantry regiments — the 1st through the 5th — to Washington, D.C, as fast as they had mustered into service the previous spring?

But little serious shooting was taking place that December; nor did the War Department expect any hard fighting until spring 1862. The word passed to Washburn and his capable adjutant general, John Hodsdon, that Maine should “hold” its new regiments until they were needed.

Not planning on sheltering some 5,000 men in permanent buildings, the budget-constrained state government consigned its enthusiastic volunteers to their tents.

“Our tents were of the Sibley pattern, being circular and about fifteen feet in diameter, with a small sheet iron stove in the centre, the stove pipe also answering for a tent pole,” Ames described the living arrangements. “A board floor was provided upon which

we spread our beds at night.”

He was not kidding about “beds.”

According to Ames, “at the time we went into camp[,] each man was provided with a blanket, a towel and a small bed tick which was filled with straw …” The straw-stuffed “bed tick” and blanket were all that sheltered a soldier from the cold at night — — and winter 1861-62 brought almost unprecedented cold that startled even the battery’s Oxford County contingent.

With 13 soldiers assigned to each tent, its occupants experienced “rather close quarters,” wrote Ames. “With three feet of snow on the ground and the thermometer at times down to 20 (degrees) below zero[,] we found it necessary to lie close together” at night.

“Unfortunate was the man who came next to the door,” Ames admitted.

The men suffered in warmth and chill. “Occasionally some belated com-

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rade who had been out on a pass would return, after all were asleep, and being cold would build a rousing fire in the little stove, giving us a terrible roasting,” Ames recalled. “As the fire quickly went down an hour later, we would awake shivering with the cold.”

“The result was that nearly every man had a cold and a cough, and it is surprising that more serious sickness did not occur,” he wrote.

Sickness did afflict many soldiers that winter, however, and some Maine boys died without ever firing a shot.

Buried in the cemetery alongside Route 15 in Abbot in Piscataquis County is Albert S. Crockett, who had joined Co. M, 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment, in late 1861.

His gravestone reveals that Crockett “died at Augusta Feb. 13, 1862.” This young man was among many either killed or debilitated by the wretched living conditions to which recruits were

exposed in Augusta that winter.

Even getting a meal challenged the soldiers. The 4th Maine Battery’s cook tent “was situated a little in rear of the camp,” according to Ames. When a bugler summoned the men for a meal, “each man would take his dipper for coffee and his plate and fall in line and wait his turn.

“During the severe cold and stormy weather, this was no pleasant thing to do,” he recalled.

The perpetually deep snow confined the drilling soldiers to “the narrow road (State Street) which was crowded with teams and traffic, and our drilling was not a great success,” Ames noted.

The three infantry regiments and one artillery battery headed south in February; the 4th Maine Battery boys endured — “all our growling was to no avail,” Ames wrote — until March 14, “when we were ordered to Portland and went into barracks that were located

west of the city.”

There Robinson and his Oxford County comrades enjoyed just about their last time under a real roof. Their quarters were “comfortable,” and “the weather was warm and spring-like,” according to Ames. The soldiers harvested and ate clams by the bushel and likely regained some weight lost to the wintry cold.

Then the 4th Maine Battery departed for the war on April 1, 1862; disease and Confederate bullets and cannonballs soon picked up where a Maine winter had left off in terms of turning western Maine soldiers into casualties.

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

The Strange Case Of ‘Napoleon’ Thomas A former slave turns up unexpectedly in Rumford Point

by Jeffrey Bradley The Civil War was full of happenstance and some of it happened in Maine. The Pine Tree State might have appeared solidly Yankee with Maine troops fighting nearly everywhere, but such was not always the case. For decades Maine’s economy had prospered on shipping southern slave-raised cotton, and especially initially, fugitive slave laws and abolitionist impetuosity were viewed with alarm. In fact, even as war-time shipping was lagging elsewhere, Maine’s economy boomed. That Maine eventually sent 70,000 troops to fight for the Union, the highest proportion to population of any northern

state, hardly negates the sympathies for Southern rights.

The Confederacy, crippled by a lack of armaments, resorted to unconventional warfare. Maine’s long coastline made it vulnerable to privateers.

By necessity, commerce raiders conducted hit-and-run forays designed to raise havoc with coastal communities.

Maine’s towns dependent on the sea lanes grew increasingly fretful of finding armed and desperate Rebels among them. Indeed, Confederate sympathizers threatened to burn Camden until a Federal war sloop entered the harbor with decks cleared for action, sending

the town’s Copperheads, and anti-war Democrats agitating for peace, fleeing for Canada. In June 1863 artful Secessionists disguised a commerce raider as a fishing smack and captured the Caleb Cushing before being cornered in Casco Bay. And when the Rebel steamer Tallahassee set fire to the fishing fleet off Matinicus Rock, panic set in. The Civil War vexed Maine’s shipping but proved crucial to its emerging industries.

Everywhere the Civil War sundered the Democratic Party. The anti-war faction in Maine advocated for a ceasefire, but such sentiments set mobs storming

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13

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com the newspapers to wreck the presses. The state, in fact, proved a hotbed of discontent. Most Mainers detested the Federal draft laws, which drew a crowd of 15,000 protestors in Dexter.

Draft-dodging was so endemic that Maine’s vast forests became known as “skedaddelers” havens.

Rumford Center, Rumford Point, and Rumford Corner sent some hundreds of men and one woman to war, many among the ranks of the 12th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment. These “lawyers and Democrats” mustered in at Portland in 1861 and joined the Department of the Gulf at New Orleans.

There it came under the command of General Benjamin F. Butler, a most colorful fellow. “Ben” Butler graduated from Colby College in Waterville, practiced criminal law, and became one of many “political generals” infamous during the Civil War. Intelligent but grandiose, he gave Lincoln fits with his administrative handling of the fed-

erally-occupied city. “Spoons” to his amused troops (he allegedly stole some silverware), and “Beast”(and worse) to the outraged citizenry of New Orleans, walrusy, ham-handed General Butler cared not a whit for southern sensibilities and proved in time less than a capable commander.

The 12th Maine produced many noteworthy men. William King Kimball of Rumford Point, for one, enlisted as a lieutenant colonel and gained rapid promotion. Attending Bethel and Bridgton academies before practicing law in Dixfield, he was County Attorney, Clerk of Courts, and a U.S. Marshal. Attaining the rank of brigadier general, he was commended for gallantry under fire. In History of Rumford, Oxford County, Maine: From Its First Settlement in 1779, to the Present Time, William Berry Lapham describes Kimball as “an efficient and popular officer, retired to private life with respect and esteem.” Yet, something dark

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(continued on page 14)

Simplicity

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was brewing. A sepia daguerreotype of Kimball portrays a steely but troubled resolve. Perhaps he had witnessed too much; he died by his own hand at home in Paris Hill in 1875, causing, author Lapham laments, “the deepest regret.”

It is improbable that Kimball did not know of the slave that had slipped through his lines.

Under his command was Elisha F. Goddard of Rumford Point, who enlisted at age 23. Promoted to captain of Company A, 12th Maine Infantry, like Kimball he also returned home to an untimely demise, felled in a logging accident on his farm — an event witnessed

by William Thomas, the 16-year-old former slave who had accompanied Goddard home from the war. Historian Stuart F. Martin explains: “the boy strayed into the quarters of Company A, of the 12th Maine Regiment while on duty in New Orleans… and became the Captain’s house boy.” Upon Goddard’s

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14

Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 13)

death, “Napoleon,” as he was known about Rumford, was left to fend for himself.

In a rural place such as Rumford his sudden appearance could only have caused consternation.

Apparently a benefactor appeared in Dr. Hiram F. Abbott, also of Rumford Point. Abbott enlisted in 1861 but was mustered out a year later when Congress abolished regimental bands. He enrolled in Bowdoin College’s Maine School of Medicine, graduated in 1864, married and settled down in Rumford.

His relationship with the young exslave remains unclear, but kindly “Dr. Hiram,” as he was known, took the boy in and saw he was given opportunities.

The good doctor had a long career; he died in 1921 at the age of 86.

Not unexpectedly, “Napoleon” Thomas led a checkered life. He found a plot, and a wife, marrying Angie El-

len Taylor, a widow with two small children at Hanover in 1887. Although they had three sons, all was not well.

Sylvester Thomas, born in 1888, died at 11 from a “fractured skull as a result of accident” according to the death certificate. An errant rock thrown by a schoolmate apparently killed him. Sons George and Clarence, born 1890 and 1892, were shortly abandoned when Napoleon’s wife left for good. George, too, disappeared, reportedly finding his way to Rangeley. Still, Napoleon and Clarence carried on, selling produce and accepting the odd jobs that friends and neighbors sent their way.

Thomas’s daguerreotype is vaguely disturbing. Clutching what looks like a bedstead or leatherbound books, he stares warily at the camera, equally ready to befriend or to flee. The penetrating, wide-eyed expression reflects perplexity with a life lived but not

quite understood, perhaps rightly so; while a boy he had crawled through the swamps and thrown in with a rough lot of soldiers who may or may not have offered the means of escaping from intolerable conditions. Breaking one’s fetters, emotional or physical, is a difficult feat, made doubly so for a fugitive slave.

“Naps” died of cancer in 1924 at age 72. He is buried in East Ellis-Goddard Cemetery with his sons Sylvester and Clarence, and Clarence’s wife, Maude.

Fittingly, his friend and mentor Dr. Hiram lies nearby.

His streaked and weathered headstone is starkly inscribed: Wm Thomas “Napoleon” 1848 — 1924 Perhaps should be added, Here lies a free man who was once a slave.

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15

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Bandstand built ca. 1897 in Kingfield. Item # LB2007.1.101164 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

SANDERS Auto Service

Top Of The Line Tree Service

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Route 27 • New Vineyard, ME

16

Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Sensational Silver Treasure Hoard Discovered in New Vineyard

by Sherwood Anderson

A

hoard of hundreds of U.S., Mexican and Spanish silver coins, hidden in rusting tin pots and buried by a burned down sawmill, was unearthed by three workmen digging the foundation for a new mill. The place was New Vineyard in Franklin County at the Porter Lake dam. The year was 1906. The treasure found came to $1,549.00, according the article in the Farmington Chronicle, or $1,284.67 according to the court’s accounting at the subsequent jury trial. It was a fortune for men working ten hours a day, six days a week, earning only $300.00 a year.

All three finders, Fessenden Hackett, Orlando Weeks and Edwin Morton, claimed ownership. But Hackett took

the silver to the First National Bank of Farmington, declaring he held it in trust for “the use of the owner or party who placed the same in the ground.” Weeks and Morton sued Hackett for their share, claiming he “converted the same to his own use and knowing the same to be the property of the plaintiffs has not delivered the same to the plaintiffs though requested, but then and there converted the same to his own use.”

Hackett maintained Weeks and Morgan had not found any part of the treasure, so “he is the owner of the property sued for, and that he found it under such circumstances as makes him the owner of the same.” The jury in September 1908 entered its judg-

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ment in favor of Weeks and Morgan, awarding equal parts ($428.32) to each of the three, but assessing Hackett for damages and court costs.

Who acquired all that silver and how? Who dug it into the earth a foot and a half deep, and when and why? Why was there a discrepancy of $264.33 between the initial newspaper report and the court tally two years later? Why had the true owner never recovered the treasure himself? Was its location, or even its existence, lost deep in his mind shriveled to uselessness by some old folks disease? Or did death disrupt his intention to spend it someday? Were it still there, tarnished by dirt and time, would not its numismatic val-

70 Fox Farm Road Stratton, Maine 04982

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354 Main Street • Kingfield, Maine

17

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com ue have increased even faster than the melt value of 125 pounds of bullion?

The lake is named for Alexander Porter, reputably a wealthy man, who built the dam and first mill around 1841.

Owned by several generations after Porter’s time, the dam, sawmill, house and barn (now 257 Lake Street) came down to Andrew J. Sweet in 1880, the year of his marriage at 44 to Mary Jane Knowlton, age 35. He died in 1892.

Mary Jane and heirs sold the property in 1897. The treasure was found in 1906.

Did Andrew J. Sweet bury the silver trove? Did Mary Jane? Would their only child Goldie Mae Sweet, born at the lake in 1892, know anything of it?

The 1860 U.S. Federal Census shows Andrew J. Sweet as a farm laborer, 23, living in New Vineyard. He must have moved that year to California, for he enlisted in the Union army in 1861 as a private in Company D, 2nd Regiment, California Infantry. He was discharged a Sergeant in 1864 as the Civil War was

ending. He remained in California at least until 1873, for his father’s obituary that year lists him there. In 1890 Sweet applied for a Civil War pension as an invalid and died two years later.

Was there a connection between Sgt. Andrew J. Sweet’s three year one month Union Army stint in the West and the silver coins from Mexico and Spain? Andrew had been stationed with the California Infantry only thirteen years after the United States took the territory from Mexico in 1848. Mexican and Spanish silver was still in circulation after the U.S. acquired California. The Civil War ended in 1865 but Sweet remained in California at least five years after working as a “lumberman,” according to the 1870 U.S. Census. The 1880 Census locates him back in New Vineyard, still single though married later that year. It is therefore probable Andrew J. Sweet lived in California up to nineteen years, where he could have acquired Mexican and Spanish coins as well as Ameri-

Pelton’s Electric LLC Erik Pelton

can. A single man, he might have been able to save the silver over those years.

But if obtained legally, why bury it?

If loot from an armed robbery or two, or won by gambling or some such, he might have wanted to hide the booty from the law, or even from his new wife. Anyhow, when Mary Jane sold the property in 1897, she knew nothing of the unimagined wealth secreted on it.

Still, news accounts say Alexander Porter, who built the first dam and mill, was “somewhat eccentric.” Foreign coin would have been difficult to find in rural Maine, but who knows the limits of eccentricity? Was it Porter who acquired and hid the silver?

The famous story of the New Vineyard Treasure has been told and retold in the century since it was found. It has even been fashioned into a fantasy adventure tale for boys and girls, but remains as mysterious a mystery as ever. Perhaps you have a theory? * Other businesses in this area are featured in the color section.

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18

Western Lakes and Mountains Region

The Big Bucks Of Jackman... ...And the skills of a Maine guide

by John Murray and roadways in the 1950s, the whitetail deer hunters came to Maine in big numbers. Through the 1950s, non-resident license sales exceeded twenty thousand licenses per year. The deep woods in the near vicinity of Jackman were considered to harbor many large bucks, and this drew many hunters to the area.

Whitetail deer are an elusive quarry, possessing superb eyesight, hearing and sense of smell.

More often than not, the whitetail deer will sense the presence of the human hunter that has entered the domain of the deer, and will easily evade being seen by the hunter. As often is the case with trophy animals, legends and

W

estern Maine has long been a favored destination for traveling hunters who seek the big whitetail bucks. Bucks in western Maine are not ranked by the size of the antlers; these bucks are ranked by their weight. Elsewhere in the country, whitetail deer average in the size range of one hundred fifty pounds for a healthy adult male buck. Two hundred pounds is possible for a whitetail buck, but rare.

Yet, western Maine is quite capable of producing whitetail bucks that can exceed two hundred and fifty pounds, and some larger males can tip the scales at nearly three hundred pounds.

With the improvement of vehicles

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19

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com stories began to filter out of the woods about mysterious giant bucks of incredible sizes and abilities. There is the story about the lone hunter who followed huge buck tracks in the snow for many hours around the vicinity of Enchanted Pond, only to find the tracks mysteriously disappear in the middle of a small clearing in the forest. Also, the story about the three hundred pound buck who would go for a daily afternoon swim in Little Big Wood Pond, snorting at the trout fishermen as he swam past their canoes. It was stories like these which would turn the giant bucks of Maine into a near mythical creature, further promoting the lure of the hunt.

Hunting camps were common in the Jackman area during the 1950s, and provided lodging, food and experienced hunting guides for many non-resident hunters. Techniques used elsewhere for hunting whitetail deer were mostly obsolete for the big bucks of the Maine woods. These big bucks were too smart

for the hunting strategies used in other parts of the country. Maine whitetail big bucks required special tactics.

The guides were the link to the special hunting tactics. These hardy souls were connected to the woods in ways that most people could never understand. Born in Maine, these guides were a part of the forest, and understood the habits and secrets of the whitetail deer.

This knowledge came with living in the woods, and was so fine-tuned that some guides could navigate in the deep woods without a compass. It was not an easy life being a guide, and many never knew what an easy life was. Born poor, the guides knew what it was like to be hungry, and when meat was scarce.

To survive in the Maine woods, these guides had to access that instilled predatory knowledge that all humans have tucked away in their ancestral past, but most have lost along the way. A good guide was a valuable necessity and the big buck hunters needed their services.

Some of the best Maine guides used a tactic that was called still hunting.

Contrary to the name of the hunting tactic, a hunter did not remain still in the woods by sitting under a tree, waiting for the buck to come to the hunter. With this tactic of still hunting, the deer hunter pursued the buck, but at the pace of the buck. Snow on the ground enhanced the tactic, as the tracks of the buck were evident, plus the snow would make the buck more visible. At first light, the guide would bring his hunter into the woods and the guide would walk through predetermined big buck territory looking for a fresh track.

Not just any track, but a big track.

Once a big track was located, the buck hunt would begin in earnest.

Still hunting is a gradual and methodical pursuit of the buck, the king of the forest, and this king of the forest is a very wise king. A big wise buck will know every section of his territory and his survival depends on keeping him(continued on page 20)

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20

Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 19)

self concealed. To achieve this required concealment, the big buck will immerse himself into the most dense areas of the forest. Within these dense woods, visibility is dramatically reduced for the hunter who is following the buck.

Often, the range of visible sight will not exceed thirty yards, and the buck will blend in with his surroundings to make himself virtually invisible to the untrained eye. This concealment is an important factor, and is combined with the heightened awareness of the buck.

Wise old bucks know every scent and sound within the forest, and anything out of the ordinary will place the buck on high alert.

A guide knew the importance of blending in with the forest. As the track of the buck was followed, the guide would walk as softly as possible, taking care not to break any noise-producing branches which were underfoot. The guide was not followed by the hunter that accompanied him, as the guide would always place the hunter a

few yards off to his flank.

By having the accompanying hunter on his side, the hunter could mimic the movement of the guide and have nearly the same visual perspective. Often, less than twenty steps were taken, and the guide would stop, listen and look towards the direction of the tracks. The guide would not move for a few minutes, remaining absolutely still as the terrain was visually scanned. An experienced guide who has matched wits with a cagy buck would not just look ahead, but he would also look right and left, knowing that a wise buck may circle around and get off to the side, to observe his pursuers from a concealed location. This stop, listen and look, then move forward again scenario was repeated as the guide moved through the forest.

The ultimate goal was to not make the buck aware that he was being followed. This was often compromised by the direction of the wind. If the wind was at the back of the guide, and blow-

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ing towards the direction of the buck, the guide knew that the human scent would be carried towards the buck. If the wind was in the favor of the buck, a good guide would abandon the track, and go elsewhere to pursue another big buck.

There were many a day when the buck was never seen during the tracking, and with the loss of daylight, the track would be marked, and the guide and hunter would return the next morn-

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21

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com ing to get back on the track. Many stories tell of buck tracking that lasted for days.

Some bucks were never seen, and other bucks only allowed themselves to be seen for a fleeting second, as they rapidly retreated deeper into the forest.

If the guide was skilled, and the buck was not aware he was being followed, the buck would travel a distance, sometimes hundreds of yards, or many miles, and then the buck would lay and rest. This resting was commonly referred to as bedding, and the buck would fold his legs and lay his belly down on the ground, with his head up. This bedding was a critical moment for the both the buck and the guide. The buck would never bed in the open, but would always be within an area of dense saplings or a thicket.

This was the moment when the buck had ceased movement, and the guide could get close to the buck. As was the case with many big bucks, the buck would often see his pursuers approach-

~ Serving the area since 1946 ~

ing in the near distance. Instinctively, the buck would not move, hoping that the approaching humans would not see him, and pass by.

This is precisely what the guide was hoping for also, which was for the buck to stay in one spot. The trained eye of the guide would now be able to see the buck. The visual picture would never be of the entire buck as he lay concealed within the dense vegetation. A piece of the buck may be seen. Something that looked out of place in the thicket.

Perhaps an ear, or the nose of the buck.

The wise buck would get nervous that the approaching humans had stopped, and the thought would quickly register that the humans had spotted him.

By now, the guide would indicate the location of the big buck to the hunter at his side. There was no time to waste, as the buck was fully aware that the human threat was a short distance away. In another moment, the buck would stand to evaluate the threat, then run off. The crack of the rifle shot

would fill the air, and if the aim of the hunter was true, the big buck would be mortally wounded.

This scenario of the hunt was repeated with success throughout the 1950s due to the prowess and skills of the Maine guide. To this day, the Maine guide is still an integral part of the forest, and continues to contribute to the success of the hunter.

KIMBALL INSURANCE, L.L.C.

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call 207-696-3040

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22

Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Old freight house on Pine Street in Madison, ca. 1900. Item # 1448 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

BROWNIE’S

Auto Service Since 1981

Bumper to Bumper Auto and Truck Repairs Foreign and Domestic Brakes • Exhaust • Tune-Ups Computer Diagnostics “Quality Work...

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~ Serving you for over 25 years ~

696-3084 45 Main Street • Anson, Maine

- Since 1925 -

HARDWARE & MILLWORK

696-4214 18 North St., Madison

23

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Early view of The Willows in Skowhegan. Item # LB2007.1.111856 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

Pulpwood, Logs, and Chipping Tracy Morrison Harmony, ME

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___________________________

MORRISON’S GARAGE

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

Main Street in Bethel, ca. 1935. This photo is part of the Witteman collection taken by members of the Witteman family.

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Actor Mace Greenleaf From Dixfield ...and his free-spirited wife, Lucy Banning

by James Nalley

A

fter the turn of the 20th century and prior to the outbreak of World War I, economic growth in the United States had significantly widened the gap between the poor and the rich. While the poor suffered and worked for pennies in various factories, the upper class thrived in their newfound wealth. It was within this class that many individuals, perhaps bored with their means, lived a life full of drama and angst that only television soap operas can match. One example was a strange turn of events between a Dixfield-born actor named Mace Greenleaf and his aristocratic wife, Lucy Banning.

Unlike today, news of their troubled relationship was worthy enough to make

The New York Times. According to an article dated November 18, 1911, the latest chapter in the eventful history of Lucy Banning Bradbury Greenleaf will

soon be complete. Mace Greenleaf, her husband, now of New York, by filing suit for divorce against this beautiful wife on the ground of desertion, is writing the closing lines of a page that has furnished Los Angeles society with an abundance of gossip.

Unfortunately for Greenleaf, his sudden death from pneumonia at the age of 39 prevented the lawsuit from going any further.

Mace Greenleaf was born in Dixfield on December 8, 1872. The only child of Charles Ward (a prominent surveyor) and Mary Greenleaf, Mace had a relatively uneventful childhood.

Eventually, he was drawn into acting, and he worked his way through var-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com ious roles in local stock productions.

His first major role came in his late 20s when he played Herbert in The Prisoner of Zenda. By 1900, he played major roles in New York, including, Mr. Hunston in Trelawny of the ‘Wells’ by Arthur Wing Pinero, Timar in The Pride of Jennico, and Myrtle May’s lover in The Parish Priest. During the next decade, Greenleaf had assumed leading roles in stage productions throughout the United States. With such success, he was noticed by producers in the burgeoning silent film industry, and by 1911, he appeared in more than 20 different films.

In 1906, five years prior to his success on the silent screen, Greenleaf met and married Lucy Banning in California.

Banning was a beautiful woman who came from one of California’s richest families. As a result of her inherited wealth, she simply ignored the so-called societal norms, and married one wealthy husband after another. In addition, she increased her bank accounts through

the consecutive divorce settlements.

Apparently, her beauty was intoxicating enough that one particular lover committed suicide since she would not divorce her current husband for him.

According to a memoir by Banning’s friend, Rebecca Lee Dorsey, “I don’t believe Lucy heeded anyone’s advice from the day she was born. With all her thoughtfulness and kindness, she had one great weakness – men. To phrase it very delicately, she was man-crazy.”

There were also numerous instances in which the men who had relationships with her seemed to boast of their “conquest” of her. For example, in 1893, John Bradbury and Banning eloped to San Francisco. According to Bradbury, “We have reasons why we desire the marriage to be known to the world.

It must go out in the newspapers this night that we are married.” The reasons for this hurried approach were never disclosed.

By 1903, Banning, in a fit of bore-

dom with rich entrepreneurs and industrial tycoons, took up acting and subsequently focused her attention on handsome actors. After meeting Greenleaf and being immediately attracted to his physical prowess and acting talent, they married in 1903. But, by 1910, according to Banning’s close friends, she had become disinterested in Greenleaf, stating that he was “no Romeo offstage.” After a short fling with a wealthy California ranch owner, Banning eventually met the son of a well-known and respected United States Circuit Court judge and eloped with him to Tijuana, Mexico. This is when Greenleaf took action. According to the sensational article in The New York Times: When Mrs. Greenleaf and Robert Ross eloped to Tijuana, Mexico, on October 27, 1910, and later sailed from a Mexican port for Japan, where they are now living, it was expected that the deserted husband, then an actor at the Burbank Theatre, would take steps for (continued on page 28)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 27)

a divorce.

He is now in New York and will act through his lawyer, Ward Chapman.

However, during a particular cold winter in Philadelphia, Greenleaf contracted pneumonia and died without warning on March 23, 1912 at the age of 39. Naturally, newspapers such as the Oakland Tribune published the news with its over-the-top flair: “Death Comes as Tragic Climax to Divorce Suit against the Wife of Actor Greenleaf.” Greenleaf’s body was returned to Maine, and he was buried at the Greenwood Cemetery in Dixfield. After his untimely death, Banning declared, “I’m through experimenting” and “I’m prepared to settle down.” She maintained this pledge until 1925, when she met a Japanese wrestler named Setsuzo Ota who was touring the United States.

In July 1926, Banning and Ota set sail

for Japan and within the year, Ross divorced her on the grounds of desertion.

Ironically, after marrying Ota, Banning contracted pneumonia in Europe and died on February 20, 1929 at the age of 53. Banning left Ota her fortune of approximately $500,000. But, after a series of lawsuits filed by her family, Ota returned to Japan with only $6,000.

Prior to all of this drama, it is the March 11, 1907 San Francisco Call article that best suggests simpler times: Mace Greenleaf, the young stock company actor and matinee idol, is spending part of his honeymoon in Boston with his bride, who was Mrs. Lucie Banning Bradbury of Los Angeles.

They are guest at the home of Rev. C.D. Young. From Boston, they will go to New York and thence to London and Paris before returning to Los Angeles, where they will make their home.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

The Gray Ghost Of Maine

by John Murray

A

fter four long years of world war, the nation had a desire for peace. The nineteen twenties were the beginning of a large influx of war-weary people who traveled to Maine. These people were in search of the healing quiet and solitude that nature possessed, and the pristine backwoods of Maine had plenty of that to offer. In 1920, the population of Maine was estimated to be approximately 768,000 people. Considering the size of the state, that was 9.6 people per mile. Perhaps even more inviting for those who sought solitude, wasthe fact that once you entered the wilderness of Maine, you could travel for miles and never see another soul.

The inland waters of Maine had a magnetic draw for many of the people

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Salmon and native brook trout were present. The fish that really lured anglers to the area were the brook trout.

Stories were beginning to spread of

massive brook trout that lived nearly unmolested within these waters. As the word spread, many people came to fish for these magnificent trout.

In 1924, an event would occur that gained national publicity. Field and Stream magazine published the story of a Maine woman who caught a 6 pound, 13 ounce brook trout. Her name was Carrie Stevens, and to make the story more interesting, Mrs. Stevens caught this large trout on a fly pattern that she had created and tied. Initially, Carrie Stevens called this fly pattern a “Shang’s go - gettum,” which was promptly changed to the revised name of “gray ghost.”

Carrie Stevens’ large brook trout was caught in the Upper Dam pool. (continued on page 30)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 29)

This large pool is located below Upper Dam, which controls the level of the water in Mooselookmeguntic Lake and Richardson Lakes. The dam was constructed in the 1850s by the Union Water Power Company and is located in the Rangeley Lakes region. Upper Dam and Carrie Stevens were thrust into the national spotlight by the story.

Trout fishermen packed their bags and headed north to Maine to fish Upper Dam pool and to acquire the gray ghost fly pattern from Carrie Stevens.

Born in Maine in the year 1882 in Vienna, Maine, Carrie married her husband Wallace in 1905. In 1919, the couple moved to what later would be known as Camp Midway in Upper Dam. Wallace Stevens was a knowledgeable fisherman and started a fishing guide business, catering to the well-heeled sportsmen of the day, affectionately known as “sports.” The clients that arrived to be guided by

~ Gray Ghost Fly Pattern ~ Wallace Stevens were mostly fly fishers and some brought English-style fly patterns to fish these brook trout waters.

These fly patterns peaked the interest of Carrie Stevens and she soon decided to take up the art of fly tying.

With trial and error, as she lacked a fly tying instructor, Carrie Stevens produced fly patterns which were considered unconventional at that time. She created beautiful streamer fly patterns that imitated the bait fish that were

prevalent within the local waters and a favorite forage food of the trout. Unlike other streamer fly patterns that were tied at the time, Carrie Stevens used hooks that had a very long shank.

She shortened her feather proportions.

With increased hooking ability, this was a far superior design that remains very popular to this day. Instead of using the traditional rare fly tying materials that were expensive and hard to acquire, Carrie Stevens used common, readily available materials.

The gray ghost fly pattern was designed to imitate a rainbow smelt.

Smelt are a preferred food for both trout and salmon. Carrie Stevens was not the only angler to have success with this fly pattern. Soon, many other anglers were enjoying success with this productive fly, and Carrie Stevens began her fly tying business to create many more gray ghost flies, plus additional new and unique fly patterns as well. Not long

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com after, she could barely keep up with the demand for her flies. A legend was in the making. Not only for the woman fly tyer that lived in Maine, but for the destination itself. Upper Dam pool turned into a pilgrimage for many anglers. This was hallowed water, and the only fly patterns that were being used within this special place were the flies which were tied by Carrie Stevens.

Ultimately, Carrie Stevens produced dozens of successful fly patterns over the years. Many of these fly patterns resulted in the capture of very large fish. The use and success of these creations by Carrie Stevens soon spread to many other waters in Maine and the surrounding northeast states. Fly fishermen everywhere were catching both trout and salmon with her fly patterns.

Not only was Carrie Stevens an accomplished talented fly tyer, but she was also becoming a master at marketing. Part of her success was developing fly patterns that not only caught fish,

but perhaps more importantly, her fly patterns caught the eye of fly fisherman, as they were truly beautiful. Realizing the need to protect her product, Carrie Stevens was very secretive about how her fly patterns were constructed and did not let anyone watch her create a fly pattern. This veil of secrecy only added to the near mystical fascination of them. Possessing a superb business sense, she was a true professional who never let her image become tarnished in any way, and her success bloomed.

As time passed, the fly patterns of Carrie Stevens developed a national, then international fame and following.

As the years passed and Carrie and her husband Wallace aged, they decided it was time to sell their successful fly tying business. Not only were they husband and wife, but they were good business partners. The success of Carrie’s fly patterns helped Wallace increase his angling clientele, and because he showcased her successful

flies, both would mutually benefit. In 1953, the fly tying business and material were sold to Wendell Folkins. It was only then that Carrie Stevens gave a demonstration of her famous, yet highly secretive fly tying technique. With the fly tying instruction acquired from Carrie Stevens, Wendell Folkins continues to produce and market many of the same fly patterns.

A true Mainer, Carrie Stevens never strayed long from the border of Maine.

She loved the beauty of the state deeply, and seldom had any desire to go anywhere else. Carrie Stevens passed away in 1970. To recognize her accomplishments as a successful woman of business and for diligently promoting the great state of Maine, August 15, 1970 was named Carrie Gertrude Stevens Day by the Governor of Maine.

Her life and fly patterns are chronicled within the Rangeley outdoor sporting heritage museum.

A plaque in her honor was erected at (continued on page 32)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 31)

Upper Dam. Fly patterns developed by Carrie Stevens are widely created and used today by fly fishing anglers throughout the world, proving how effective and versatile these fly patterns are.

Original fly patterns which were actually tied by Carrie Stevens are highly collectable and can sell for hundreds of dollars. For serious fly fishing anglers, it is impossible not to think of Carrie Stevens when discussing fly fishing or performing the art of fly tying.

Once and forever a part of the rich heritage of Maine, Carrie Stevens will always hold a place within the deep roots of fishing history.

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

The Boy

Memories of hunting and fishing at Moosehead

by Dale Murray

I

can’t remember the last time a hunting, fishing or camping trip went off without a hitch. Once, and only once, I left the tarp home so we weren’t able to protect ourselves from the constant weekend rain. Another time I got turned around while hunting deer and spent more than a few tense moments re-orienting myself. One time it was really serious when I forgot the coffee for a fishing trip down the West Branch of the Penobscot River. Last fall on our fathers and sons partridge hunt, my grandson took a shot at a bird that he didn’t even see. It was that episode that made his dad and I review all we thought we had taught the boy.

His dad had spotted the partridge and pointed to it, but the boy couldn’t locate it. As I aimed my camera, he finally raised the .410 to his shoulder, drew a bead, leaned into the shot, and squeezed the trigger. The bird erupted from the alder patch where it had been feeding and flew into deeper woods.

The boy didn’t have time to reload, but his father and I were delighted that he had at least taken his first shot at something other than targets. Three months later, as the boy and I reminisced about that day, he told me he hadn’t even seen the bird. That caused me to raise an eyebrow. The boy is stoic, like others in the family, so we often don’t know what he’s truly thinking. He must have felt significant pressure to shoot a bird, so much so that he didn’t identify his target. Instead, he had sighted along the line of his father’s pointed finger and fired. Obviously, we had missed something in the training process.

In fact, the boy had not been (continued on page 36)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 35)

schooled as thoroughly as his dad who had grown up at the foot of Moosehead Lake. There, it is convenient to slip off into the northern Maine woods to shoot at targets and to learn safe gunning in the innumerable gravel pits. His dad had tagged along with me on many hunting trips long before he was old enough to hunt. He was savvy to the nuances of our guns and the ways of the birds before he ever aimed at one.

For the boy, however, opportunities to learn about birds and guns were hit or miss, mostly due to his family’s hectic southern Maine lifestyle. All of his training opportunities took place at Muzzy’s pit just a few miles north of Greenville, but all his chances hadn’t added up to a score of times. Importantly, none of them involved a hunt.

He had seen many pictures of partridges and had handled those that his dad and I brought home, but he hadn’t had a chance to learn their habits. He hadn’t

most wanted to do was shoot his new gun.

Towards noon we pulled off into a gravel pit for some target practice and gun safety. He would shoot a Rossi with interchangeable .22 and .410 barrels that I had bought him. He had only used it once before and was anxious to try again. As he and his dad set up some targets, I pulled the gun from the truck, the trigger lock still in place. I looked in the gun case for the key, but it wasn’t there. I checked my pants pockets to no avail. I searched the truck with no luck. It lay on my desk back home.

The boy was devastated, but not much more than his dad or me. After all the hoopla, he missed out on the part that was most important to him. He did not get a chance that weekend to practice loading his gun. He did not have a chance to get a feel for it, to heft it, to learn anything about simply handling it. He certainly didn’t have a chance to

developed a feel for spotting them in the grass along the roads or on the banks or in the trees. He hadn’t crept along the twitch trails listening for the distinctive cluck. His ears weren’t attuned to the rustle of the leaves that often signals that a bird is nearby. He had missed those kinds of lessons.

To help make up for that, his father and I took him along on our annual bird-hunting trip the year before he could hunt. We hoped to fill the gaps in his learning as much as we could.

Even that trip was fraught with error.

He was attentive as his dad explained what to listen for, and he did hear partridge scurrying in the leaves. He did hear the cluck. He did spot them along the roads and on the banks and in the trees. We drove to all of our favorite areas where he did develop a liking for a walking hunt. He did in many ways make up for lost time. All morning he was a trooper even though what he

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

sight down the barrel and to be sure of his target. That mindset did not develop that year. Therefore, the first order of business on the morning of his first real hunt was to bring him up to speed with some serious target practice. We spent the first hour of the day covering the basics of shooting. However, sighting in on one pound coffee cans in a gravel pit is not the same as lining up a partridge in the alders.

His dad and I had failed to appreciate how important it was to the boy to shoot a bird that day. We had regaled him with bird-hunting stories for over half his life so we should have sensed its importance. We should have remembered our own youthful egos when we shot our first birds. We didn’t think that he might want to contribute his own story around the campfire that night. In an effort to not disappoint us, he simply devised a logical way to possibly hit the bird. Imagine the pressure he felt.

On the bright side, he got up to speed that weekend. He comfortably handled his gun. He used it safely, keeping it pointed in a safe direction.

He competently loaded and unloaded it. He learned to make sure of his target. And, as a bonus, he shot his first three partridges. That’s not to say

that we don’t need to spend more time shooting with him. Mostly, however, he needs to learn that he doesn’t have to bluff his way to earn our respect. It’ll be fun to see how things work out next year. Hopefully, all three of us will remember our lessons well and the next hunt will be a rare, error-free outing.

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Skowhegan’s Abner Coburn The farm boy who rose to the Governorship of Maine

by Brian Swartz

T

he concept of Maine as a state was 17 years in the future when a governor of that future state was born in Somerset County.

On Wednesday, Jan. 7, 1863, successful Skowhegan banker and businessman Abner Coburn took the oath of office in Augusta as the 30th governor of Maine, created as a “free state” in 1820 as part of the so-called Missouri Compromise. In just 42 years (Coburn had won his election the prior fall), Maine voters (all men then) had elected 30 governors, of whom a few — among them John W. Dana, John Fairfield, and Edward Kent — were counted at least twice.

~ Abner Coburn ~

In the ultimate test of term limits, a Maine governor served one year before facing voters again.

Coburn faced daunting challenges when he took over from two-term Gov. Israel Washburn Jr.. The state was supporting with its blood and treasure the cause of the Union in a bloody civil war. Patriots dominated state and local governments, but a burgeoning anti-war movement — its adherents known nationally and collectively as “Copperheads” — threatened to disrupt government efforts to wage the war.

Yet with his deep roots in the Somerset County soil, Coburn was prepared to meet those challenges. (continued on page 40)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 38)

He was born on March 22, 1803 to Eleazar and Polly Weston Coburn, who farmed in Canaan. At that time the town extended west to a point well above the dangerous Kennebec River falls that had bedeviled Benedict Arnold and his Quebec-bound troops in 1775.

Eleazar had arrived in Canaan as a 15-year-old youth in 1792. Polly’s paternal grandfather, Joseph Weston, had settled in Somerset County in 1772 and had guided Arnold’s expedition.

Eleazar and Polly married and had 15 children, of whom Abner was the second-born (and the second son).

He worked on the family farm and, when time permitted, studied at Bloomfield Academy in the town of Bloomfield, which lay across the Kennebec River from the western section of “Old Canaan.” In his teens Abner Coburn taught school in the winter. The job paid only $10 a month, but the cash in his pocket spurred Coburn to go into

business to earn more money.

In 1830 — seven years after the western section of Canaan became the town of Milburn — Coburn joined his father and brother, Philander (fourth in birth order) in business as E. Coburn & Sons, well-qualified buyers and sellers of Kennebec Valley timberlands. Proving astute in a business sector that cost other men their fortunes, the Coburns made money and employed land surveyors, loggers, and other men who helped settle towns “above” Milburn.

As for that town, residents voted to name it “Skowhegan” in 1836.

Some Coburn siblings — born in March 1827, twins Sarah and Sylvanus were the last of 15 Coburn children — joined the family business over the years. The Coburns strongly supported the extension of a railroad to Skowhegan, and Abner served as a director for Skowhegan Savings Bank and Maine Central Railroad.

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He won election to the Maine House of Representatives in 1838, 1840, and 1844 and served on the governor’s Executive Council (which wielded considerable power) in 1855 and 1857.

Maine Republicans tapped Coburn as their gubernatorial candidate in autumn 1862. He faced Bull Run hero Charles Jameson (the first colonel of the 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment), running as a War Democrat, and Bion Bradbury, running as a Peace Democrat. Coburn won the election with 42,744 votes; Bradbury ran a distant second with 32,108 votes.

When Coburn took office, a Union army had just fought a bloody stalemate at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Only 25 days before his inauguration, another Union army had lost 12,500 men at Fredericksburg, Virginia. The latter battle had seen several Maine regiments shot literally to pieces; extensive casualty lists were appearing in local

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newspapers, and bodies were arriving by train for burial in Bangor, Portland, and elsewhere.

In The Life of Abner Coburn, author Charles E. Williams stated that “at no time were the duties of the Executive [of Maine] more delicate and arduous.”

Coburn brought to the governor’s office “large experience in business; a rare perception of the value of men; prodigious industry … and, above all … that unswerving integrity which ennobled his whole life.”

Coburn worked closely with state legislators and Adjutant Gen. John Hodsdon to sustain Maine’s war effort. In July 1863, Gettysburg left hundreds of Maine boys dead, wounded, or missing. Draft notices being delivered across Maine spurred disdain and supposed rebellion in some towns. Abner Coburn called out the Lewiston militia to quell perceived treason in Kingfield that summer.

He stepped away from politics in 1864 to return to private business.

Coburn died in Skowhegan at 5 a.m. on Sunday, January 4, 1885. He had suffered from dyspepsia (a common 19th-century ailment) for a long time before suddenly falling ill while casting his Electoral College vote in Augusta after the 1884 presidential election.

Coburn, of course, voted for the Republican candidate, James G. Blaine, himself a common fixture around the State House during Coburn’s term as governor.

Coburn received the best definition of a “state funeral” as Maine could organize. Dignitaries came from across New England to honor him.

Fittingly, Coburn probably made his greatest impact on Maine after his death. He was a millionaire at a time when a million dollars represented “real” money, yet Coburn lived relatively modestly. He did not flaunt his

wealth as the nouveau riche of a later century would do.

In his will, Coburn bequeathed $100,000 to Maine General Hospital in Portland and $100,000 to the Maine State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Orono. That college would become the University of Maine, where Coburn Hall was dedicated in 1888. That venerable building underwent extensive renovations in the 21st century.

Abner Coburn bequeathed $250,000 to Colby College (his family had a long and pleasant history with that Waterville school), $50,000 to the Maine Insane Hospital in Augusta (the forerunner of the Augusta Mental Health Institute), and $7,000 to Bloomfield Academy. He also bequeathed funds to various Christian ministries.

And to his beloved Skowhegan Abner Coburn left $30,000 to fund “a Free Public Library” and “all that part of the (continued on page 42)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 41)

Russell Lot, that lies South of Water Street, in said Skowhegan, for a Public Park…”

That 12-acre Russell Lot became Coburn Park in 1907. Well-landscaped, the park lies between Water Street (Route 2) and the Kennebec River, slightly east of downtown Skowhegan.

For more than 107 years, people have picnicked and relaxed amidst the park’s natural and crafted beauty.

Of all the bequests that Abner Coburn dispersed in death, perhaps Coburn Park remains the greatest testament to this unsung governor of Maine.

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The Genealogy Corner Preserving family stories

by Charles Francis abez Holden was a Revolutionary War hero. He fought at Bunker Hill and in other engagements of the Revolution. There is a wonderful story about Jabez at Bunker Hill. It has been preserved by his descendants and appears in numerous histories. Jabez married Rachel Farnsworth. Both were of Groton, Massachusetts. The couple had a number of children, including a son named Samuel.

Samuel Holden was a Maine pioneer. He is a founding father of Moose River. His mother Rachel is a Maine pioneer, too. When her husband Jabez died in 1807, Rachel moved to Moose River. She was almost seventy when she moved to the wilds of the Moose

J

River Valley. Rachel Farnsworth Holden’s story, like that of her husband’s at Bunker Hill, is a wonderful one. It has been preserved by descendants and it appears in histories.

The stories of the three individuals mentioned above are part and parcel of the building of America. They are the sorts of stories family historians hold dear. There is a caveat that must be considered when one encounters stories like them, however. There are differing versions of the tales. The differences relate to when the stories were or are told and who is doing the telling. For one thing, the stories appear in Maine and Massachusetts histories.

For another thing the stories appear in

a number of family histories. Jabez Holden and Rachel Farnsworth were both members of very large extended families. In some cases those families have differing versions of the stories of Jabez, Rachel and their son Samuel.

They also have tales of the progenitors of both Jabez and Rachel. For example, Richard Holden, great grandfather of Jabez, was one of the original proprietors of Groton. Richard was driven from the town during King Philip’s War in 1676. The war decimated Groton.

Richard Holden was one of the settlers who returned to rebuild it.

History is fickle in what it preserves. Just look at what you can see in a museum. Sure, there are works of (continued on page 44)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 43)

art: statues, jewelry and the like. But then there are broken pieces of pottery, simple tools, weapons, and objects of everyday life. Often as not these are items scavenged from a trash heap.

There is a lesson here — that which is most treasured does not stand any better chance of preservation than the most common object. For example, we have one letter my great grandfather wrote from the gold fields of California. He was a ‘49er. Once there were a whole series of letters chronicling his experiences looking for riches. They have disappeared.

Stories of our ancestors’ pioneer persistence, military service, and flight from a life that may have been one of poverty and despair in the old country deserve to be known and cherished by all. We are intimately connected to these peoples’ lives. But for them we wouldn’t exist, and communities like Moose River, Maine and Groton, Mas-

sachusetts perhaps wouldn’t exist either. This leads to a question: just who were the Farnsworths and the Holdens?

There is a sidebar, too. It deals with the other families that have tales of Jabez and Rachel, their son Samuel and their forebears. It also deals with some of the sources of these tales.

The marriage of Jabez Holden and Rachel Farnsworth was more than the marriage of two residents of Groton, Massachusetts. It was a marriage of cousins.

In earlier times, families lived very near to one another. They worked, laughed, and cried together. They had plenty of time in each other’s company with which to share stories of how grandparents, great-grandparents and all those who came before worked to make life better and safer for them.

Families in Maine frontier communities like Moose River were close.

There was intermarriage. The same

was true for Groton.

Richard Holden wasn’t the only Groton proprietor. Matthias Farnsworth was another. Samuel Woods was, too. The families intermarried.

For example, Sarah Holden married Lemuel Woods. A Woods cousin of Jabez Holden, Benjamin, served with Jabez at Bunker Hill. So, what of the story of Jabez at Bunker Hill?

The tale of Jabez Holden appears in local Maine histories like that of Francis Sprague. Sprague cites Jonas Colby and Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the War of the Revolution, Vol. 8 for his version. The exploits of Groton soldiers at Bunker Hill are discussed in Samuel A. Greene’s Colonel William Prescott and Groton soldiers in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Green bases his account on one David Kemp, a Groton soldier. It was Prescott who gave the famous command “Don’t fire until you see the white of their eyes.” Given the

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almost mythic stature of the Battle of Bunker Hill there are a great many other accounts. It should be noted that the Prescott family was related to the Farnsworth, Holden and Woods families.

As to the Bunker Hill tale of Jabez himself, it goes something like this.

Holden was a company captain in Prescott’s regiment. He and his men were behind a trench. At the point when the Patriots ran out of ammunition the British charged around the end of the trench. It seems, though, that Captain Holden still had one load of buckshot, nine shots to be exact. Holden fired.

His comment was “If powder and ball ever killed human beings it must have killed some there.”

Holden was wounded at Bunker Hill. Though the exact extent of his injuries is not clear, he broke an arm.

Nevertheless, he continued to carry his rifle.

Jabez Holden was ninety-one when

he died. It was his death that led to Rachel Farnsworth Holden becoming a Maine pioneer, joining her son Samuel and his family in Moose River.

Samuel Holden first settled in Anson. He had eleven children. Two were born in Groton, the rest in Anson.

When Samuel moved to Moose River, he brought with him a goodly assemblage of willing hands to hew out a place in the woods.

There are a wide variety of ways to honor those who came before us. Preserving family history and stories is one of those. The above material on the Holden and Farnsworth families is little more than a brief introduction to the two. It is presented as a suggestion as to just what anyone might find about their own ancestors that would be worth preserving.

Disclaimer: The Woods and Farnsworth lines are two of my family lines. I am descended of both Matthias

Farnsworth and Samuel Woods, two of the original Groton, Massachusetts proprietors. The story of the wounding of Jabez Holden at Bunker Hill has long been one of my family tales. Tradition has it that the Samuel Holden who settled Moose River was named for Samuel Woods. The Samuel in this instance may be the third to bear the name, the grandson of the proprietor. It seems Rachel Farnsworth Holden thought highly of this particular relative. At least that is how this particular story goes.

A special “Thank You” to Charles Francis for sharing all his great The Genealogy Corner stories with us!

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Maine’s Elizabeth Anne Chase Life in Farmington inspired a 19th-century poet

by Brian Swartz be considered “gifted and talented” today) took such traditional subjects as mathematics, Latin, and science.

Although it closed in mid-century, the school provided the name for Academy Street in modern Farmington.

Chase displayed an early passion for writing, then among the few “professions” open to women. Adopting the pseudonym “Florence Percy,” Chase started writing when she was 15; supposedly the Boston Olive Branch, a Bean Town literary magazine, published a Chase-penned poem that year.

Chase’s first marriage, to Marshall Taylor, occurred in 1851, but ended a while later in divorce. By 1855 Chase was living in Portland and working at

A

formal education received at Farmington Academy helped prepare Elizabeth Anne Chase for a literary career that spanned more than a half century.

Born in Strong on Tuesday, October 9, 1832, Chase survived a brutal childhood. A repeated victim of domestic violence, she suffered frequent involuntary confinement in a locked cellar.

Possibly her entrapment led the young Chase to imagine a better life; books (or at least writing) evidently offered her an opportunity to “escape.”

Chase went to Farmington Academy during her teens. The academy had opened in 1807 as a school where the tuitioned students (of whom many would

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com the Portland Transcript, a publication self-styled as “an independent family journal of literature, science, news, markets, etc.”

Still writing as “Florence Percy,” Chase published her first poetry book, Forest Buds from the Woods of Maine, in 1856. The book evidently earned money for the aspiring writer; drawing on her own funds, Chase spent much of 1859 and 1860 in Europe. She supplemented her income by writing for the Portland Transcript and the Boston Evening Gazette.

Italy inspired Chase to write the poem with which she would always be associated. Titled Rock Me to Sleep, Mother, the poem struck a sentimental nerve in a United States teetering on the verge of a civil war. Written from the viewpoint of an adult longing to meet a long-dead mother again, the poem was a big hit during the upcoming war, too.

“Backward, turn backward, O time, in your flight; Make me a child again, just for to-

night!

Mother, come back from that echoless shore; Take me again in your heart as of yore -— Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair, Over my slumbers your loving watch keep — Rock me to sleep, mother — rock me to sleep!”

In a society where death was all too common — many women did not survive childbirth nor babies or toddlers their first infectious diseases — Rock Me to Sleep, Mother likely recalled memories of Chase’s beloved mother.

“Mother, dear mother! the years have been long Since I last listened to your lullaby song; Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem

Womanhood’s years have been only a dream; With your light lashes just sweeping my face, Never hereafter to wake or to weep — Rock me sleep, mother — rock me to sleep!”

The Philadelphia-based Saturday Evening Post published Rock Me to Sleep. Unfortunately for Chase, although her poem proved popular, her name became submerged amidst the chaos of the Civil War and the national attention focused on Harriet Beecher Stowe and her Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

An Atlantic Monthly contributor since 1858, Chase married Maine sculptor Benjamin Paul Akers in August 1860. They had met in Rome; he was from Saccarappa, the early name for Westbrook. The Akers had one child, Gertrude Rothermel; she died while an infant.

Akers was likely sick with tubercu(continued on page 50)

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(continued from page 49)

losis when he married Chase; after his death in Philadelphia in May 1861, he was buried at Portland’s new Evergreen Cemetery.

Having lost her daughter and husband, Chase only wrote occasionally during the Civil War. She earned a living by working as a federal clerk in Washington, D.C. during the war’s latter years.

Chase married Elijah Allen (her third and final husband) in 1865. The next year she published her poetry as Poems, released under her second wedded surname, “Elizabeth Akers.”

Throughout her literary career, Chase never strayed far from her native Maine, at least she applied pen to paper. Published in Century Magazine, the poem Witch-Hazel captured the essence of a northern New England autumn.

“The last lone aster in the wood has died, And taken wings, and flown;

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Over my heart, in the days that are flown, No love like mother-love ever has shone; No other worship abides and endures, Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours: None like a mother can charm away pain, From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.

Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep; Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!

The sighing oaks, the evergreens’ dark pride, And shivering beeches, keep their leaves alone.

From the chill breath of late October’s blast That all the foliage seared, Even the loyal gentian shrank at last, And, gathering up her fringes, disappeared.”

Moving back to Portland in 1874, Chase worked as the literary editor for the Daily Advertiser, another in the Forest City’s long retinue of newspapers, magazines, and other publications.

In 1881 Chase and Allen relocated to Tuckahoe in New York’s Westchester County.

Chase published other works before her death on Monday, August 7, 1911. She lies buried in the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. Her tombstone identifies her as “Author of Rock Me to Sleep Sleep.

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Nellie French Stevens A dedicated advocate for Maine’s youth

by Dale Marie Clark

T

he Industrial School for Girls in Hallowell opened its doors in 1875 as a place of refuge and learning for neglected and vagrant girls ages seven to fifteen. The founders believed that with kindness, practical training and physical activity the girls could be groomed for useful and honorable lives.

The school was placed under state control in 1899, and in 1915 the name was changed to the State School for Girls. Early accounts of its conditions were somewhat unfavorable. Conditions at most institutions like this were not ideal in those years, and the inmates, as they were then called, did not

Miss Nellie French Stevens was superintendent of State School for Girls in Hallowell 1933-1959.

This picture was taken in front of the administration building during her tenure there. (courtesy of Susan Welsh)

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have a well-intentioned advocate like Nellie French Stevens until later.

Stevens has been described as gentile, humble, strong-willed, capable and a maverick. She was also completely dedicated to reforming the school and “her girls” from the day she arrived in 1933. Her approach was new, even ground breaking, and helped set a national trend.

Nell, as she was warmly called, was born in 1891, the youngest daughter of Charles H. and Charlotte (French) Stevens of Readfield. Her father was a successful farmer and, for many years, the treasurer of the Kennebec County Agricultural Fair. He was given much

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com credit for its being the largest and most successful county fair in Maine. Stevens’ 150-acre farm was located near Lake Maranacook, a half-mile from the bustling village of Readfield Corner, and two miles from Maine Wesleyan Seminary and Female College (Kents Hill School). Nell received training at the Morse Conservatory of Music at the Seminary, became an adept pianist, and pursued music as her career. But her course was set in another direction long before she realized it.

In 1865 Nell’s great-uncle, Rev. John L. Stevens, and her maternal grandfather, E.R. French, had witnessed the incarceration of a fourteen-year-old girl for a minor offense, and they began advocating for a school for wayward girls.

The family rallied around the concept from the beginning, and E. R. French gave the first fundraising donation in 1870 towards building the Industrial School for Girls in Hallowell. Stevens’

aunt, Fannie French Morse, was a pioneer in this field, having been superintendent at three Industrial Schools — in Lancaster, Massachusetts, Sauk Center, Minnesota, and lastly in Hudson, New York. Two of Stevens’ relatives served as housemothers at the school in Hallowell and her sister Edwina worked there as a “farm lady,” years before Stevens arrived. The mission had subtly become ingrained in her soul.

Stevens had been assistant director at Coburn Classical Institute in Waterville for ten years when she took a one month absence to visit her aunt Fannie at the Industrial School for Girls in Hudson, New York. Stevens immediately became drawn to that mission and remained as French’s assistant for three years. She then joined the staff at the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women for nine months, until she was offered the superintendency at Maine’s State School for Girls. By then the school in

Hallowell was described as “penal and corrective in nature” – a deviation from its original purpose.

In 1937 Superintendent Stevens presented the annual report saying: “…the girls ‘crimes’ consist mostly of truancy, running away from home, disorderly conduct and ‘wanton and lascivious behavior’… only two or three of them were accused of anything as serious as assault or larceny… the school tries hard to improve the girls but the institution cannot work miracles such as changing the habits of fourteen or fifteen years…” She had a big job ahead of her, but she was up to the task.

Stevens’ grand-niece, Susan Welsh of Wayne, tells how her aunt Nell spoke about “her girls” in glowing terms. So much so that Welsh, as a youngster, perceived the State School for Girls as a boarding school where young women were trained in the finer things, attended teas and learned music, arts and the (continued on page 54)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 53)

classics. In fact, Stevens did expose “her girls” to all that and more in her quest to improve their chances for a good life as adults. In January, 1958 Portland Sunday Telegram ran a feature story about the school and Stevens. The reporter interviewed staff and young residents and returned with glowing reports of Stevens’ efforts and the school’s positive impact on the girl’s lives. He wrote: “While she has brought about gradual change since her administration began one fundamental principle has guided her.” He quoted Stevens by adding “…

These are not problem children. These are children with problems… Young people want emotional security more than anything else under the sun and that’s what’s been lacking in their lives when they get into trouble. We try to give it to them here.”

Nellie Stevens served as Chair of the National Conference of Women Superintendents. She was also treasurer of

the Maine Welfare Association, and active in other professional organizations.

In 1957 she was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters by Nasson College and thereafter called Dr. Stevens. A short time before her retirement she attended a national seminar in New York.

Afterwards she told her sister “I must be getting out of touch. The only person I knew there, who I could carry on a conversation with, was Margaret Meade!” Perhaps that was when she decided to retire.

Stevens’ final year at the school was in 1959 when, as she presided over her final graduation, a special announcement was made. The State School for Girls would be officially renamed the Stevens Training Center in Dr. Stevens’ honor.

Stevens’ longtime friend, Grace Burleigh of Wayne, tells of one time several years after Stevens’ retirement, when the two women went to observe

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“We quietly made our way to the balcony,” said Burleigh, “No one knew we were coming, but the Speaker of the House spotted Nell and announced to the legislators they had an important visitor.” The entire House rose, turned to face the balcony, and gave Stevens a standing ovation. “She stood up to receive their applause,” said Burleigh, “but only because I insisted. She was a very humble lady.” Burleigh also related that Stevens continued to support and care about downtrodden youth throughout her days, and told Burleigh she thought the State of Maine made a mistake when they closed the Stevens School in 1970.

After retiring, Stevens set up residence in her cozy bungalow in Wayne, adjacent to her sister Edwina and husband. This could be the end of her story, but far from it. She continued to serve on various welfare committees,

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was given a certificate of merit by the Maine Welfare Association and was in demand for public speaking engagements. She dove into music as church organist and choir director at Wayne Community Church. She became wellknown for the bell ringer groups she started in Wayne, Winthrop and South Portland, where she travelled weekly to direct a group of ringers at the South Portland Training Center. According to Welsh many of the gals who Stevens mentored over the years stayed in touch, and her pride and interest in them never waned.

Nellie French Stevens died in 1988 at age ninety-eight. She is buried with her parents and two siblings in Readfield Corner Cemetery, a short distance from her childhood home.

Discover Maine

Nellie French Stevens assumed duties as superintendent at the State School for Girls in Hallowell at age 42. She reformed the school and provided growth opportunities for hundreds of wayward girls during her 25 years as administrator. (courtesy of Susan Welsh)

The Sedgley Place

In an era of chain restaurants, all-you-can-eat buffets and drive-through windows, the world is full of forgettable meals. This is not the case at the Sedgley Place in Greene, Maine.

For over 25 years, Sedgley Place has focused on quality and commitment to seeking constant improvement. Such was the case 12 years ago, when the owners, Paul and Susan Levesque, started using vegetables grown on their organic farm. The farm is located a few miles from the restaurant in Leeds, Maine. In late May they start picking greens and tomatoes out of their greenhouses, and through late November produce is picked fresh daily for use in the kitchen. From eggs to eggplant, potatoes to tomatoes, the ingredients at Sedgley Place are always farm fresh.

Their farm has been certified organic by MOFGA for the last 17 years, which once again shows their commitment to quality, the environment, and the consumer’s health.

Sedgley Place’s owners pride themselves on having a limited menu that changes weekly, offering the customer a unique variety of tastes. This allows them to focus on excellence, not quantity. Their menu always includes a prime rib served au jus, a filet mignon, a poultry entree and a fresh fish entree. It also may include duck, lamb, shellfish, veal or perhaps some venison.

Generally their menu has six different entrees to choose from.

One of the unique things about the Sedgley Place, located on Sedgley Road in dining experience at the Sedgley Place is Greene, is housed in a stately federal home their inclusive pricing. For one fixed price that was built in 1786. you receive homemade cheese and crackers, homemade bread, and honey whipped butter. You also get your choice of an appetizer, choice of entree and choice of a homemade dessert. They also have a full bar and a diverse wine cellar which boasts 63 different wines from all over the world. The bar includes wines and microbrews from our own great state of Maine. Sedgley Place is a fine restaurant for those with hearty appetites. The multiple courses ensure that dinner guests never go away hungry.

Take time in your busy schedule to come relax and experience the ambiance of a stately federal home built in 1786 and enjoy one of the finest dining experiences in New England.

They are located 2 miles off of 202 in Greene, Maine, 45 minutes south of Waterville, 20 minutes south of Augusta, and 45 to 50 minutes north of the Portland/Falmouth area. The Sedgley With the help of the Levesques’ sons, Josh and Peter, vegetables are Place is reservations only. Please call 1-800-924-7778 or 207-946-5990. Also, visit them online at harvested daily from their MOFGA certified fields and greenhouses. www.sedgleyplace.com. You can also re e t the weekly menu at e e e e a e. o .

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

22

2

The Stevens homestead on Winthrop Road in Readfield in 1898. R to L: Charles Haines Stevens, his father David Stevens, his daughters Nellie, Marguerite, Edwina. Standing behind the fence is another daughter, Nettie, and Charles’ wife Charlotte (French) Stevens. (photo courtesy of the Readfield Historical Society)

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The Dwindling 1914 Moose Population

by Brian Swartz

From 3,000 then to 70,000 today

A

century before the Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife Department issued 4,110 permits to hunt moose in the state’s various Wildlife Management Districts, sportsmen faced a contrary situation — too few moose to hunt.

During the 2013 moose hunt, hunters killed 2,971 moose, only 72 percent of the authorized total. In winter 1914, so-called “sportsmen” (the era’s popular term for hunters) wondered if Maine should even allow a moose hunt.

What a difference 100 years can make.

In early January 1914, R.J. Hodgson

of Lewiston attached a questionnaire to a general letter that he sent to every member of the Maine Sportsmen’s Fish and Game Association. The group’s president that year, Hodgson sought responses (detailed or otherwise) to a vexing problem: What should be done to bolster the dwindling numbers of Maine moose?

Conservation-minded hunters had formed the Maine Sportsmen’s Fish and Game Association in 1893. Three years later, member J.F. Sprague of Monson detailed the group’s “cardinal principles”: “We would not kill any of God’s

mute creatures unnecessarily; we would not kill a deer or a trout except in open season and then only by the methods of the true sportsman, who always gives the game, the trout or the salmon all of their natural advantages in the fight.”

By the late 19th century, overhunting and habitat loss had decimated many Maine game species — bird, fish, and mammal — including the majestic Maine moose. Possibly not overly abundant in pre-colonial times, the moose had survived where the woodland caribou had not; the last caribou sighting in Maine occurred on Mount Katahdin in 1908 (and that animal was (continued on page 58)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 59)

shot).

Worried about the moose population (and other hunting-related issues), Hodgson sent his letter to MSFGA members and awaited their responses. He and other association officers planned to use the information to lobby state legislators into tightening wildlife-protection laws.

The returned questionnaires, plus some one hundred accompanying letters that expanded on the writers’ responses, revealed some interesting thoughts: • First and foremost, the moose population could not withstand the current level of hunting. By 80 percent to 20 percent, the respondents favored closing the moose hunt altogether, and 90 percent set a minimum closure of four to five years.

• A Maine resident hunting license should be pegged at $1. A few respondents thought the cost should be $2 or $5.

• Eighty percent of respondents felt that Maine should mandate a resident hunting license, a fact that rendered moot the question about the license fee.

Maine was one of eight states that did not require a hunter to buy a license.

• Sixty percent of respondents believed that the current $25 fee for a non-resident hunting license was too high. Some sportsmen claimed that not enough game existed in Maine to charge such a price. Other sportsmen recommended scaling the non-resident license fee to start at $5 to hunt birds, rising to $15 to hunt birds and deer, and topping at $25 to hunt birds, deer, and moose.

But there weren’t many moose to hunt; some sportsmen could foresee the species going extinct sometime down the road.

• Pertaining to hunting the elusive whitetail deer, 75 percent of respondents felt that a hunter should not be restricted to shooting only one buck

during an annual deer hunt. Eerily prescient of deer-hunting conditions in 21st century Maine, some respondents recommended that does not be hunted.

And respondents unloaded on the hunting techniques pursued at “lumber camps,” the places where well-heeled out-of-state hunters headed to participate in guided hunts. Countless photos still depict the successful hunters and their unlucky prey — a few moose, whitetail deer galore, the rare caribou and other legally hunted mammals — posing outside such a camp.

Some members of the Maine Sportsmen’s Fish and Game Association alleged that lumber-camp operators (some, not all) must be hunting big game illegally, given the success rates enjoyed by camp clients. Lumber camps were “making a wholesale slaughter of deer,” MSFGA generally believed.

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sand moose remained in Maine that year, and, unfortunately, the state moved slowly to protect the dwindling resource. But the Legislature gradually tightened the law, and in 1935 banned moose hunting altogether.

Leading the efforts to save the Maine moose were such organizations as the Maine Sportsmen’s Fish and Game Association and other groups representing the Maine hunter. The collective efforts paid off; much Maine farmland reverted to forest, loggers created ideal habitat with new harvesting techniques, and the moose population rebounded.

A 1980 trial hunt involving 700 permits caused no harm to Maine’s burgeoning moose population, state wildlife biologists reported. The Legislature re-established the moose hunt in 1982; today biologists estimate that 60,000 to 70,000 moose live in Maine.

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Marsden Hartley

by James Nalley

Lewiston’s painter of Maine

A

lthough Marsden Hartley’s works hang on the walls of some of the world’s most prestigious museums, including The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, this American modernist’s rather dramatic life story is somewhat unfamiliar. Shattered by the premature deaths of several close family members, he never really coped with the feeling of abandonment. In addition, his personal identity as a gay man further isolated him from society. As a result, he expressed his angst through painting, and fell in love with remote landscapes such as Maine’s thick forests and mysterious coastline. Amidst his bouts of de-

pression and purposeful isolation, this self-proclaimed “Painter of Maine” created some of the most emotional works in the genre.

Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine on January 4, 1877. The youngest of nine children, his mother died when he was eight years of age and his father remarried a woman named Martha Marsden roughly four years later.

Although his birth name was Edmund, Hartley took Marsden as his first name during his early 20s. After his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio when he was 15, he took his first painting lessons and received a scholarship to study at the renowned Cleveland School of Art. At the age of 22, Hartley moved to New

York to study painting at the William Merritt Chase School of Art. But, even then, the cost of living in New York and the tuition proved to be too much for Hartley and he was forced to transfer to the more affordable National Academy of Design. This period in New York did have a significant influence on Hartley, and he spent his spare time conversing with author Albert Pinkham Ryder and reading the works of the American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. This experience influenced Hartley to view his sojourn into art as a spiritual endeavor.

In 1906 Hartley returned to Lewiston and found work as a handyman at (continued on page 62)

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(continued from page 61)

the Green Acre religious institution in Eliot, Maine. Through his connections at the facility, he received an opportunity to exhibit his works, which proved so successful that he subsequently exhibited his works in Boston at the Rowlands Gallery. This led to an invitation to return to New York and present a small exhibition there, which caught the attention of Alfred Stieglitz, the renowned American modern art promoter and owner of Gallery 291. This particular gallery, although small, became the preeminent center for presenting the works of Rodin, Matisse, Cézanne, and Picasso. Although Hartley’s exhibition at the gallery was successful at introducing him to the elite avant-garde, its failure to actually sell any of his works put him into a bout of depression. He did find some financial relief after a sympathetic art dealer offered him a stipend to continue painting, which he promptly accepted. For the follow-

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ing three years, he remained in Maine where he painted in total isolation.

Upon the encouragement (and financial help) of Stieglitz and painter Arthur Davies, who both realized his talent, Hartley made his first visit to Paris in 1912 where he became friends with sculptor Arnold Ronnebeck, a German officer named Karl von Freyburg, and Gertrude Stein. It was also during this period when Hartley explored his homosexuality. Within the year, he had become completely absorbed in German society and everything it had to offer. With the outbreak of World War I, artists were highly urged to relocate for their safety. However, Hartley remained in Berlin where he soon received news of Karl von Freyburg’s death in battle. Overcome with sadness, he expressed this loss through some of his best works, including Portrait of a German Officer. This particular work shows Hartley’s combination of Cubism and German Expressionism. In ad-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com dition, the colorful images (e.g., badges, flags, and medals) reflect Hartley’s fascination of the military’s pageantry as well as his revulsion to war.

Despite his persistence, the worsening war forced Hartley to return to New York in late 1915. Upon his return, a badly timed exhibit of his German-inspired works at the Gallery 291 prompted critics to call them “pro-German” and “anti-American.” Following this disastrous exhibit, Hartley went into seclusion for an entire winter.

Beginning in 1917, Hartley focused on writing (in addition to painting) and led a rather nomadic life, all in the name of spiritual learning. For example, after returning to Maine, he moved to Taos, New Mexico, where he studied Native American art. During the next decade, his travels included a return to Berlin followed by stints in Italy, France, and Mexico. In 1934, after returning to the United States, Hartley suffered another bout of depression when he could not

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find the funds to store his artwork. In order to resolve the issue, he burned approximately 100 of his canvases.

In 1935, Hartley traveled to Nova Scotia where he befriended a local fisherman, Francis Mason, and his family.

Still scarred from his childhood, Hartley found a sense of family in his relations with them and happily returned the following summer. However, during this second stay, two of the family’s sons died when their boat capsized during a storm. Devastated by this loss, Hartley left after the summer and never returned. Hartley subsequently published a story titled Cleophas and His Own: A North Atlantic Tragedy, which was based on his time with the Mason family. In the story, Hartley idealized the Masons so much that they were portrayed as mythic folk heroes. According to Hartley, “Cleophas is a natural mystic of the sea, which has taught him to be brave, fearless, trusting, full of faith – all simplicity.” Needless to say,

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this experience had a deep impact on Hartley.

Afterwards, Hartley’s life had come full circle and he spent his last days doing what he liked most: painting the Maine coastline in total seclusion. In the summer of 1943, his health fell into decline and he died of heart failure on September 2. He was 66 years of age. After his death, he requested that his ashes be strewn along the Androscoggin River.

In regard to his work, it is interesting to note the following quote by Hartley: “I am not a ‘book of the month’ artist and do not paint pretty pictures; but when I am no longer here my name will register forever in the history of American Art and so that’s something too.” He certainly said it right. Because in May 2008, one of his paintings sold for $6.31 million at Christie’s in New York, which set an auction record for an American modernist work.

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Hannibal Crosses The Potomac In a place of beauty a man was born who almost became president

by Jeffrey Bradley endless tracts that escaped the woodsmen’s axe; spruce, hemlock, birch and beech, rock-hard rock-maple looming in a vastness so absolute you can feel it.

Within the recess snow-clad peaks cut by impassable glens beckon with a disturbing attraction but give way to more peaceable valleys and meadows below.

Cloud-reflecting lakes and breeze-swept landscapes under the deep blue vault of sky impart a restorative influence.

Ancient Fryeburg, nestling amid these rolling hills, was founded following the Indian wars, with Waterford, Bethel and Rumford soon thereafter.

Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants, but Hannibal Hamlin

O

xford County abuts New England for a hundred miles along the western edge of the great Maine plateau. Summits elsewhere may be higher, but none are more grand.

Eminent Mt. Pleasant in Denmark, Streaked Mountain in Buckfield, and glittery Mt. Mica in Paris display bands of striking gneiss with streaky veins of precious ores and rusty red iron.

Glaciers pulverized this granite into a coarse gravelly “pan” overlain by a thick, loamy soil excellent for farming.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com crossed the Potomac with a donkey — (the donkey of course becoming the symbol of the Democratic Party). A former Democrat, Hamlin became disillusioned with the party’s pro-slavery stance and joined the nascent Republicans in 1856. His resume, including U.S. House representative, U.S. Senator — even a brief stint as governor of Maine — made him a safe bet politically. And it helped that Maine was the first state in the Northeast to embrace the Republican Party.

Born in Paris, Maine in 1809, Hamlin attended Hebron Academy and was later admitted to the bar in Bangor. He began his career in 1836 with a term in the Maine House of Representatives, and with negotiations helpful in ending the bloodless Aroostook War. Hamlin and Lincoln never met before their election. Used to the hurly-burly of political life, Hamlin was eager to join the national fray, literally — the 1860 election touched off what Lincoln called “combinations of

forces too powerful to be suppressed”; the Civil War. But once in the nation’s capital, Hamlin also found powerful combinations of suppressive forces and was soon complaining “[I’m] the most unimportant man in Washington, ignored by the President, the cabinet, and Congress.” He had a cordial relationship with Lincoln, calling him “the best story teller in the House.” He argued against Seward’s inclusion in the war cabinet, more successfully naming Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, a New England man with an ill-fitting wig (Lincoln fondly called him “Father Neptune” despite the bad wig). Hamlin also lobbied for using black troops, and pushed prematurely for emancipation.

Later, he backed controversial “Fighting Joe” Hooker as Commander of the Army of the Potomac. Still, the inactivity chafed. He felt capable of more.

A powerful orator and socially gregarious, the principled Hamlin could not overcome the inertia viiewing vice presidential input as unseemly, Lin-

coln’s distraction with the war, or Mary Todd Lincoln’s dislike. As aide William O. Stoddard observed, “Etiquette… keeps him away from the Executive Mansion.” For his part, Hamlin lamented, “I am only a fifth wheel and can do little.” Instead, he began shuttling between Maine and New York. Returning for a special session of Congress, he encountered a “very busy” Lincoln, who appeared glad to see him. In reality, the president was already writing him off. Still, as he informed his wife, “I said nothing of it.” (He apparently also had a soft spot for Mrs H, adding that Lincoln had especially asked about her. “He must have known such kind words of my little wife were very gratifying — and they were.”) He described his office as a “nullity,” fuming “nor do I think there is much disposition in any quarter to regard any counsel I may give much if at all.” He even bumbled dispensing patronage, as an irritated notation by Lincoln makes clear: “The (continued on page 66)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

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Vice-President says I promised to make this appointment, & I suppose I must make it.” Further, Lincoln’s secretary John Hay tells of the president’s instructing Hamlin “to write a daily letter in regard to the number of troops,” but his dejected vice president had already departed.

Always an opponent of slavery, his later support of the radical “Black Republicans” probably cost Hamlin their nomination. Lincoln saw no reason for changing vice presidents but realpolitik decreed Hamlin be dropped for Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat. The president commiserated, “It is too bad, too bad. But what can I do? I am tied hands and feet.” Lincoln, with Johnson, won reelection handily in 1864.

Adrift but not bereft, Hamlin eventually took pride in the fact that his election harbinged a Golden Age for Maine’s Republican Party. Between 1861 and 1911 Mainers occupied Washington’s most powerful positions

barring the presidency in a tour-deforce of national influence that few states could ever match.

Hamlin’s vice presidential denouement came on March 4, 1865. Relinquishing the Senate floor following a short farewell speech, he stood horrified as the hard-swilling Vice President-elect Johnson, unwell, unwise, and unkempt, rambled on incessantly.

The straightlaced Hamlin had ironically risked Senate ire earlier by banning spirits from the chamber — one of the few instances that august body actually gained decorum. More disturbingly, two of his grown children, Sarah and Charles, attended Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was assassinated.

Briefly Collector of the Port of Boston before resigning huffily over Johnson’s Reconstruction policies, Hamlin returned to the Senate with more clout than he ever wielded as vice president.

His last public duty was as ambassador to Spain. In 1882 he left Washing-

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ton, D.C. for good, rolling through the mystic, legend-haunted hills of New England before stepping down from the train and onto his beloved Oxford County soil. It was twilight, and Hannibal Hamlin had come home.

He died on Independence Day 1891.

The Hannibal Hamlin Memorial Library, erected in 1822, is a unique granite building standing next to his birthplace on historic Paris Hill.

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Hoppy Pays A Visit To Fryeburg Bill Boyd comes to Maine

by Charles Francis Silver-haired Bill Boyd paid a visit to Fryeburg in 1950. If you were a kid growing up in the ‘40s or ‘50s, you know how big that was. William Boyd ‘was’ Hopalong Cassidy. There is no other way to say it. They were one and the same for most of us whose childhood memories center in the first decade of the post-war years.

I saw Bill Boyd in person twice. I should say, I saw Hopalong in person twice. Both times were in parades.

Hoppy was riding Topper, his white horse. They came down the street to a wave of applause and cheers, the white horse and the man in black with

the pearl-handled six-shooters. Topper pranced and danced. Hoppy grinned and waved.

Just how much of an experience was it for a kid of around 1950 to see Hopalong Cassidy? It was more eventful than seeing the President. After all, Hoppy’s face was better known to us kids than that of either Truman or Eisenhower. Today, when I think back on the early 1950s and the dominant face of the time, three visages first seem to run together, that of the man we knew as Ike, that of a freckled faced wooden puppet named Howdy Doody, and Hoppy, AKA Bill Boyd. When the fea-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com tures of the three resolve themselves, it is Boyd’s that emerges triumphant.

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. It and imagination take us back to childhood, when times were sweet and the world was an adventure waiting to unfold. Today there is a place any of us adults — no matter how jaded we think we are — can go to find a bit of childhood’s wonder, to rekindle our childhood imagination. That place is the library, a library like the Fryeburg Library. I mention the Fryeburg Library because when I visited there some years ago I discovered a room devoted to Hopalong Cassidy. That room is the Clarence Mulford Room.

That the Fryeburg Library would have a room devoted to Hopalong Cassidy and his creator Clarence Mulford is fitting. If the fictional Hopalong could be said to have a real hometown it would be Fryeburg. Clarence Mulford moved there in 1926. And there he wrote many of his Hoppy tales. The fact that Bill Boyd visited Fryeburg is

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explained in part by that happenstance.

Clarence Mulford biographers invariably refer to him as a recluse. They do so in a context that can only be viewed as pejorative. It is a disservice.

To use the term to describe any writer or other creative person is prejudicial.

As a predicate it is more a reflection on the particular sensitivities of the person using it than on the subject. Clarence Mulford wrote some twenty-eight Hopalong Cassidy books. There are at least thirty-five more westerns bearing his name. That kind of production entails spending a lot of time alone.

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those seeking solitude.

Clarence Mulford was an avid outdoorsman. He loved to hunt and fish.

He was a gun aficionado. In the 1920s Mulford lived in New York City. No wonder he came to Maine and Fryeburg, nestled in the shadows of the White Mountains. No wonder that as Mulford gained success as a writer, and financial security as a result of that success, he spent more and more time with a rifle or fishing pole and less writing.

No wonder when he felt he had all the financial security he needed, he quit writing altogether, devoting himself to the outdoors, and hobbies like making model stagecoaches and amassing a collection of western memorabilia.

The story of Bill Boyd’s visit to Fryeburg is an intriguing one. At least one Mulford biographer suggests it was a fence-mending visit. According to this particular version, Boyd was intent in bringing Hoppy’s creator on board the Cassidy show bandwagon as a fan (continued on page 70)

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(continued from page 69)

and supporter. It seems Mulford had criticized Boyd’s portrayal of Hoppy as a squeaky clean, sarsaparilla swigging do-gooder. In Mulford’s books Hoppy was more of a rowdy sort, he drank and generally acted as any real life western ranch hand would. According to this particular tale, Boyd is supposed to have won Mulford over with his first words. They were something to the effect of “How are you doing, you son-of-a- bitch.” The thought here is, of course, Boyd trying to act like Mulford’s Hoppy. But would this have really won Clarence Mulford over to the Bill Boyd persona? One wonders.

Their is a more likely scenario.

Clarence Mulford was a family man.

He had a young grandson. Mulford told an interviewer “Grandpa’s stock sure went up for having brought to Fryeburg such a famous man as Hopalong Cassidy.” Fryeburg youngsters had acted just like the rest of those across the country at seeing Boyd dressed in his Hoppy

paraphernalia.

The interviewer mentioned above represented Life magazine. Therein we have the real story of Hopalong Cassidy’s visit to Fryeburg. It was a publicity jaunt. Life followed Bill Boyd to Fryeburg and there captured a picture of Boyd, Mulford and his grandson sitting on some granite steps. Boyd is smiling into the camera. He is holding Mulford’s grandson. Clarence Mulford looks more the westerner than Boyd.

Hoppy’s creator doesn’t appear all that enthralled at what is going on. One

suspects he wishes Boyd would leave.

Whether or not that is truly the case is a matter of conjecture, though. That Clarence Mulford was more than ready to leave Hoppy behind for good isn’t, however.

Late in his life Mulford was asked to write some more Hopalong Cassidy books. He declined. The writer who picked up the job was Louis L’Amour.

Louis L’Amour wrote four Cassidy books as Tex Burns. Like Bill Boyd, L’Amour violated the basic Mulford schema. He had Hoppy leaving Topper behind at every opportunity. It was a total violation of the Cassidy canon as presented by Mulford.

Clarence Mulford’s Hopalong Cassidy continues to live on. So does that of Bill Boyd and Louis L’Amour.

Mulford books are still in print. So are L’Amour Cassidy tales. As for the silver-haired Boyd, he can be found on one of the hundreds of available television stations that still air the Hopalong Cassidy show.

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To Whom I Owe A Lot: My Mother

by Franklin Irish We had up to 16 boarders several times during the summer. My ma usually had two girls to help, and they were country girls, to whom hard work was no surprise. They served breakfast; and I will add that is was a good one. They cleaned up the dining room dishes and so forth and also cleaned all the rooms. Ma might be doing a wash and that’s where I came in. When I got large enough, we carried water from a big tub in the kitchen (10 or 12 at a session), filled two wash boilers, plus 2 rinse tubs. We had an old cook stove in the wood shed. We heated the water on that and boiled the clothes.

When they had been washed to her specifications, Ma would use a large wooden fork to put them in the tubs to

rinse. She would rub them some on a washboard and then they went through the hand-ringer, which was run by me and then went to hang out to dry. This was a weekday job although Mondays were the worst.

While this was going on, she usually had dinner started. If it happened that we got the wash out by 10 a.m. she would grab a pail and order me to pick enough berries for dinner, usually a pie or shortcake. Believe me — no one ever complained about her pie or shortcake — only that they ate too much.

After dinner, she might relax for 15 minutes or so and then get the clothes in and start ironing with the old heavy irons heated on the stove. Well, sometime in the late 1920s she got a gas

engine washer from Sears. Do you think that engine lacked care? Boy, all I had to do was fill it with gas and oil and fill it with water. She usually had a boiler or two heating that had to be transferred, of course, but it did pump it out, I think. Anyway she had more time to go berry picking, which was her love, go stay some place over night, then compare the bill she used to get for a week room & board per person.

She usually charged $14 per guest. She may have cut the price for a couple because they usually came for the entire summer, and why not?

Her usual breakfast menu consisted of coffee, homemade donuts, hot & cold cereal, eggs, your choice of toast (homemade bread), homefries and ba-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com con. Lunch was vegetables in season, beans, lettuce and whatever else was ready in the garden, potatoes mashed, baked or however you want them, meat or fish, which I had the pleasure of supplying. Then pie or shortcake with real whipped cream, also puddings, which were good, too.

Needless to say, the folks were not night owls like Dad. Usually he got me up at 4:00 a.m. and of course Ma got up, too. We had our breakfast by 6:00 a.m. and the boarders by 7:30 a.m.. I don’t see how she did it. It was one of the things she took in stride.

Discover Maine

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

Margaret Chase Smith home in Skowhegan, ca. 1940. This mansion on Locust Ave., now the site of the Redington-Fairview Hospital, was built about 1882 for Manley T. Pooler and his wife, Mary Ella Coburn, a niece of former Maine Governor Abner Coburn. Clyde Smith bought it in 1927 and Margaret Chase Smith moved in when she married Clyde in 1930. She sold the house in 1945.

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Campers outside of dining hall at Camp Norridgewock in Oakland. Item # LB2007.1.103795 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

FREDERICK HEATING Complete Heating and Central Air Conditioning Installation & Service

Winslow Supply, Inc. Plumbing, Heating & Electrical Supplies Open Monday-Friday 7am-5pm Open Saturday 7am-noon

Stephen Frederick 592 Mercer Road Norridgewock, ME 04957

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William Wentworth Brown Clinton philanthropist graces town with new library

by Brian Swartz

“

Old Home Week” in Clinton culminated in a special event on Wednesday, August 15, 1900 as a successful “local boy” gave Kennebec County’s northernmost town a new library.

William Wentworth Brown was born to Jonathan and Betsey Brown in Clinton in 1821. Maine had been a state for about a year, agriculture dominated the Clinton economy, and William Brown moved away to make his fortune elsewhere in the Pine Tree State.

Sometime in the late 1890s, Brown visited his hometown for the first time in some years. “He noted that the town had a lot of the old time marks about it,” from “the same hills” and “the

same strips of plains” to a brook that would “babble now just as it did in the long ago,” a newspaper reporter waxed eloquently about Clinton.

After passing “his old home about a half a mile from the post-office,” Brown decided to construct a public library that would serve “as a monument of his love for his old town,” the reporter wrote.

Brown saw the proposed library as a way to memorialize “my dear parents[,] who were my ideal of all that is best and purest in life.”

Meeting with some unsuspecting Clinton powerbrokers at the Maine Central Railroad train station in June 1899, Brown offered to build the li-

brary at his own expense. Flummoxed by his generosity, the Clinton movers and shakers accepted the offer and then did the right thing by getting out of the way and letting Brown get on with his project.

He hired a well-known Portland architect, John Calvin Stevens, to design the library, which would feature red granite quarried in Redstone, New Hampshire. For exterior trim, Stevens incorporated red freestone quarried in Longmeadows, Connecticut. The architectural plans called for sea-green slate to cover the roof.

Brown advertised for construction bids; after reviewing them, he awarded the contract to Horace Purinton & Co., (continued on page 76)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 75)

a Waterville firm. Brown paid $600 for the land; with many Clinton residents and a Purinton crew watching, he thrust a shovel into the soil and upended the first dirt during the official groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday, August 29, 1899.

When Purinton workers laid the cornerstone a few weeks later, “the Masonic bodies of the town took charge of the exercises[,] and the event was attended by members of the grange, Order of the Eastern Star and children,” the newspaper reporter noted.

The new library measured 37 by 60 feet. People approaching along “a wide, artificial stone walk” entered the building at an outer vestibule with a granite floor, then stepped into an inner vestibule with a tile floor. “Finished in quartered oak,” the inner vestibule had plate glass in its doors, the reporter wrote.

The inner hall to which visitors passed from the vestibule measured 14 by 17 feet. Equipped with a fire-proof

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safe, the librarian’s office stood to one side.

Visitors could use either the 17-by30-foot reading room on the south side of the building or the 28-by-27-foot stack room on its north side. The reading room featured a bay window and a brick-and-stone fireplace.

Brown hired four experienced librarians to recommend what book titles should be acquired for the library.

Each librarian submitted a list of 2,500 titles; in turn, Brown gave these lists to a Bowdoin College librarian who culled the lists until 2,500 titles remained. Brown paid $2,500 for the actual books, which were placed on the library’s metal stacks by the time that librarian Grace Weymouth opened the library’s doors to the public on July 21, 1900. Like Brown, Weymouth was a descendant of Jonathan Brown, who was 25 when he arrived in Clinton and cleared land for a farm about 1800.

Town officials scheduled the li-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

brary’s grand opening for Wednesday, August 15. Bringing with him some guests and a large orchestra, William Brown caught a train north from Portland early that day.

Local representatives met Brown and his entourage at the Clinton station and escorted everyone to the town hall, fabulously decorated with American flags and bunting, flowers, and plants. Listening to opening remarks by a Clinton physician, Brown spoke at length about his family’s association with Clinton.

He described his mother, Elizabeth “Betsey“ Michaels, as “comely, of good figure, with dark eyes and complexion abounding in health and inured to the toils of frontier life.” Seventeen when she and Jonathan Brown wed, Betsey gave him six daughters and six sons, all of whom remarkably survived to adulthood. Eleven Brown children moved away; only William and another sibling still lived in summer 1900.

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For reading material the Brown family had “the Bible and a few school books, and one newspaper, the ‘Zions’ Herald,’” Brown said. Among the school books “was the old English Reader edited by Lindley Murray.

“I read and reread it, and can still read it with the greatest delight,” Brown explained the origination of his passion for reading. In his late teens Brown acquired and devoured a copy of Rollin’s Ancient History.

Brown admitted that “I had a great love of books and early resolved that one of the first things I would do, if I was able, would be to collect a good [personal] library.”

As he spoke, Brown gazed at the Brown Memorial Library, already the pride of Clinton. He would establish a $5,000 endowment (with a 7-percent yield) for the building.

Thanking his listeners, Brown sat down. He was followed by Hamilton W. Mable, the Outlook of New York ed-

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itor; after expansively quoting Brown verbatim, the newspaper reporter scribbled that “Mable spoke at some length in an interesting manner.”

The remaining festivities involving the library’s grand opening included a social hour at the Brown family homestead and a grand dinner “served in the banquet hall under the town hall.”

Brown Memorial Library, which later passed to the town’s control, remains open to this day.

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Jews In Maine The path to acceptance was often as rocky as the coast

by Jeffrey Bradley

I

n colonial times, only a handful of Jews lived in Maine. Not until 1849 did the state boast a synagogue, for Bangor’s “large” Jewish community of six families! By 1930 the nearly 6,000 Jewish residents in Maine were well-established despite adversity, weaving enriching strands into the social tapestry of Maine. In 2010, Eliot Cutler became the first person of Jewish descent to ever run for governor.

Like many immigrant groups, Jews came with hopes of making a living amid the state’s natural and cultural splendors. As Susman Russakoff wrote in Memoirs in 1907, “I was willing to do all kinds of work just to have my wife and baby in a good, small place

with plenty of fresh air.” But the Jewish reality was far from typical, defined mostly by their occupational choices, values of Judaism, and experiences with anti-Semitism.

Maine saw only a trickle of the millions of Jews flowing in from Eastern Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. A few eschewed the bustling life of New York or Boston and opted for the tranquil towns of Maine. Among the many Jews that settled in Bangor by 1829 was Captain A. Goldman, late of the 17th Maine Regiment, the only known Mainer Jew to die for the Union during the Civil War. Being Jewish while becoming American could pose difficulties.

Maine’s immigrant influx between 1880 and 1920 found work mostly in the factories, but Jews tended to go into business for themselves. In time, many opened a store in town. The first entrepreneurs were itinerant Russian or German peddlers that carried backpacks filled with trinkets. These intrepid individuals tramped the highways and byways of Maine from town to town and farm to farm selling their items and wares. Soon they had stepped up to driving a cart to accommodate their expanding business. Disdained by the culture, and with little command of English, they still managed to firmly establish themselves, leaving behind the carts, the contempt, and some of their

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79

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com unusual characteristics.

Jewish clothier retailers were especially adept at opening outlets in downtown districts. In Bangor, Farmington and Livermore Falls, even in tiny Wilton, the whole family often pitched in to make the shop a success. Jews also became involved with the junk trade, today’s recycling industry. Five of the six junk dealers in Waterville, for instance, during the 1930s were Jewish.

Some families — often Orthodox following strict rituals — came to dominate Main Street, or more locally, Lisbon Street, in Lewiston.

Waterville had become a thriving Jewish community by 1830. Jews here were also focused on transitioning into owning a business. Plans for a prosperous future meant having limited families; as they grew affluent, Jews moved out of the old Ticonic Street neighborhood and into a house in the suburbs.

Recognized as a burgeoning center of Judaism, Waterville chartered Beth Is-

rael Congregation in 1902.

Here was the Jewish dilemma: to merge a traditional heritage with American informality into rapid upward mobility. This took a great deal of boldness, an ability to shed orthodoxy while retaining a Jewish identity, and selective fidelity to Jewish traditions.

Maine has always been a popular vacation spot, but not everyone has always been welcome. Finding a hotel or resort during the early 20th century that didn’t exclude Jews became increasingly difficult as a rising tide of anti-Semitism swept the nation. Initially open to wealthy Jews, many establishments turned to discrimination. In one response, Jewish-owned Summit Springs opened just a few hills over from Poland Spring, a destination alternative that displayed just how Jews by their presence could modify the local culture. Cleverly combining American camp traditions with Judaism was Camp Lown, in Oakland, the gateway

to Belgrade Lakes. Owned and run by Jews, for Jewish children (it also welcomed goyem kids), Lown was American with a Jewish twist: Shabbat services were held every Friday night, and end-of-summer sports games were Maccabiah competitions.

Especially during the 1950s, a policy of separation kept undesirable hoi polloi, mainly immigrants, mostly Jews, away from the bluebloods. Polite society tolerated alpha-achievers like Joseph Pulitzer (the Pulitzer Prize), and Ambassador Henry Morgenthau simply because of wealth and prestige. Although Maine gradually became more tolerant, most Jews found it expedient to assimilate; being accepted meant “oy vey” would have to go.

The quiet anti-Semitism that persisted into the ‘70s kept Jews from buying property in certain neighborhoods, and out of social organizations and many professions. The Jewish riposte was to open their own community associa(continued on page 80)

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80

Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 79)

tions, which began to spring up in many cities. Bangor contained half a dozen at least, with most Jews belonging to one or more. Besides several synagogues, Augusta also had a community center, fraternal organizations, various youth groups and a debating club.

Jews eventually overcame these barriers to becoming full-fledged Mainers.

Jewish life in smaller towns such as Eustis and Kingfield followed the pattern of immigration, occupation, and traditional values. But supporting even a single synagogue, finding a rabbi, or keeping kosher could present problems. To provide a Jewish education, celebrate the holidays or prepare for important ceremonies like bar mitzvahs meant keeping ties with towns like Waterville. Under trying conditions, many Jews abandoned strict observance and enjoyed traditional matzo balls while also indulging in Maine’s delicacies.

David M. Freidenreich, Assistant Pro-

~ 175th Annual ~

fessor of Jewish Studies at Colby College, mischievously calls this “lobsters and latkes.” And Harvey Sterns, of Sterns’ Department Store in Skowhegan, recalled, “We did not have a kosher home for even a second. My mom was happy to have bacon at breakfast and ham in a sandwich for lunch, but pork for dinner was unthought of.” He also explained that his parents kept a kosher house mostly so his grandparents could eat there.

The state continues to attract Jews, and many remain atypical in their occupations and educational choices. Yet, a cultural price has been paid. Integrating in Maine’s society has meant a Jewish lifestyle of less intensity. Many Jewish institutions have been subsumed by more secular organizations or have disappeared altogether. But then, the adaptable Jews have always relied on their distinctive culture to help define what it means being Jewish in Maine.

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81

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Farnum’s Apple Orchard A Wilton treasure

by Alicia R. Bell For centuries, Maine has been the perfect place to have an apple orchard, because of its climate and rich soil conditions. Many have come and gone, though, because there are other factors that wish to fight against another orchard trying to survive. It’s always a sad day when another one goes out of business. A hundred years ago, there were many other kinds of apples than what we have today, such as the Ben Davis, King, Northern Spy, Wealthy, Gravenstein, Fameuse and Bell Flower, just to name a few. Rumor has it the apples that were around back then had a much better flavor than the ones we have today. How I would love to sink my teeth into one of those!

This story is based on the Farnum Orchard, located in the beautiful foothills of western Maine, in a little town called Wilton. A boy, Marty Farnum was born and raised here, and by the time he was eight years old, he was working on the orchard. Back in the early days of the farm, one of Marty’s distant relatives, Charles Green, owned it and had cattle. Marty’s parents, Paul

and Marcelyn Farnum, bought the farm in the early 1950s from his stepfather and mother, Fred and Irena Blanchard, for a sum of $7,000. Fred and Irena used this as a logging farm, so the main orchard was already cut down.Paul and Marcelyn started the apple orchard, planting the trees for the main orchard, which was about 25 acres. They then added apple trees in three more fields.

Marty helped them plant these trees, which consisted of about 5 acres in one field, 5 acres in another field and 15 acres in the third field. They had seven different varieties of apples, including McIntosh, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Early McIntosh, Cortland, Wealthy and Yellow Transparent.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Paul worked full time at Bass Shoe as a credit manager, and he did so for forty years. In addition to this and running the orchard, he also raised 15,000 poultry chickens every nine months. He was a very busy man. He would get up around three or four in the morning, spray the trees, go to work, and then come home and spray some more. He had a constant tan from being outside so much. Spraying wasn’t easy, because spraying could only be done when the weather conditions were ideal — not windy or raining. When the ground was wet, an airplane sprayed the orchard. For either one or two years, a helicopter sprayed it. The water used for spraying came from two of the farm ponds and a beaver bog. The sprayer had airplane tires, a big propeller in the back and nozzles on its outer edges.

Marty and his brother George would haul the apples from the field to the apple barn for packing. Marty’s mother worried that her eight and nine

year old boys were driving and working around a tractor and trailer. The boys proved to their mother that they could do this all by themselves and would get the job done, efficiently and effectively.

Each year they planted about 100 new trees. Between the deer, the mice and the weather, quite a bit of damage would be done to some of the trees, so they would need to be replaced. Also, they liked to add a few more trees to the orchard each year. The mice could be a big problem. One year, they weren’t able to get the mouse bait out on the trees. Unfortunately, the mice ate away at the bark and damaged at least 100 trees. Paul ended up hiring a couple of older gentlemen to graft these trees.

They spent weeks doing this. They planted saplings on some, while grafting above the girdled bark.

Local people were hired to help harvest the orchard during apple season. Some would even come back every year and help. They had regular

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jobs, as well, so they couldn’t make it every day. Because of this, three to five Canadians were also hired, to be sure all of the apples were picked when they needed to be. The Canadians lived with the Farnums for one apple season.

Then, for about four or five years after that, they would continue to come down from Canada at the start of each apple season. They would stay at The Perkins Motel through the seasons, which was right at the end of the road. Picking apples was hard work and made for a long day, so occasionally, the family would have the Canadians over for dinner.

Marty would only pick the apples when they were short of pickers or if there was a threat of heavy frost.

They used buckets with straps and a canvas bottom, and were taught to treat the apples as if they were eggs, to avoid any bruising. They delivered the Early McIntosh apples, which needed to be spot picked, with their pickup truck to

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Berry Hill, Livermore Falls, for packing and cold storage. They would deliver 50-60 bushels in one load, sometimes up to three times a day. For all of the other apples, a tractor trailer truck would come directly to the orchard and load the apples two or three times a week. This was when they would have around 500-1,000 bushels of apples harvested. The truck would deliver the apples to J.P. Sullivan in Massachusetts, where they would be kept in cold storage for packing.

Some of the apples on the trees needed to be thinned in the summer time. When the apples were in their early stages, they would grow in bunches on the tree. The apples were thinned so they could grow to be a good size. If this wasn’t done, the apples would be too small. The Golden Delicious apple trees had long stems on them, so it was hard for them to thin, and of course, they needed it more than the other

trees. Today, there is a thinning spray that orchard owners can use. In the winter, when the trees were dormant, entire days would be spent pruning the trees.

The orchard meant so much to Marty that when it came to proposing to his true love, he picked a particular place underneath the beautiful blossoming apple trees, and he proposed to Sheryl Edgar in the spring of 1981. They have been married now for 34 years and have two grown sons.

In the mid 1980s, Paul leased the orchard but things didn’t work out, and the orchard was shut down. By the year 1999, Paul had passed away, and the apple trees had become so overgrown they needed to be cut down. They left about thirty trees standing for the deer and such, and they are still there today.

Marty has many fond memories of the apple orchard. It was a lot of hard work, but well worth it. The apples were de-

licious, and will never compare to any apple at the grocery store. Marty says, “Buying apples is difficult for me now, after being able to walk into the orchard with that wonderful smell, choose that perfect apple, and eat it right there.”

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Ladies Delight Lighthouse Still charming the boaters of Cobbosseecontee

by Brian Swartz

D

espite the best efforts of water-borne vandals, Ladies Delight Lighthouse still warns boaters away from a rocky island on northern Cobbosseecontee Lake in Kennebec County.

An Abenaki term that supposedly translates as “the place of many sturgeon,” Cobbosseecontee lies far enough off the beaten automotive path that most Mainers — let alone tourists — do not know that it exists. Except for Route 201 motorists brushing against the lake’s northern shore while driving past the Augusta Country Club in Manchester, “Cobbosseecontee” is only a name on a sign between exits 49 and 51 of Interstate 295.

Of all the large lakes in Maine, only Cobbosseecontee has a lighthouse — and of those large lakes, would not Moosehead, Rangeley, or Sebago be more important in terms of boaters needing the bright beam of a lighthouse lamp to guide them through the dark?

Not according to “flatlander” Daniel C. Robinson, a Newton, Mass. resident who summered on the Cobbosseecontee Lake shore at the turn of the 20th century. His home was located at Hammond’s Grove in Winthrop.

Robinson enjoyed boating on Cobbosseecontee, then considered a resort destination; hotels, inns, and summer cottages dotted its shore. Local roads ranged from dry and dusty in sunshine

to wet and muddy in rain; to get around the lake, people boarded steamboats in the summer and fall rather than travel by land.

People also went boating on this eel-shaped lake bordered by Litchfield, Manchester, Monmouth, West Gardiner, and Winthrop. Sailboats and canoes plied the lake, and summerfolk often organized sailing regattas.

Robinson was right at home when at the helm of a sailboat. He explored Cobbosseecontee during the many summers he spent at Hammond’s Cove; charting the various rocks, ledges, and shoals that could damage a boat’s hull, he compiled that information in his 1900 book, “The Cobbosseecontee Pi(continued on page 86)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 85)

lot.”

Robinson established the Cobbosseecontee Yacht Club in 1904 and served as its first commodore. Members were serious about sailing on the lake — which was occasionally serious about sinking a sailboat. A particularly nasty, low-lying rocky island (dubbed a “reef” by some people) in North Bay seemed a perfect place to build a lighthouse, Robinson figured, and so he did in 1908.

Robinson hired Boston architect Frank Morse to design the lighthouse, one of three that eventually appeared on Cobbosseecontee Lake. Barging two oxen to the island, workmen constructed a 16-foot lighthouse topped with a 9-foot cap containing kerosene lanterns.

Robinson assigned the lighthouse’s operation to the Cobbosseecontee Yacht Club. For some years, a lighthouse tender would sail to the island in the evening, check the wicks and globes, and light the lanterns. He also wound the weights (removed from a grandfather clock) that rotated the beacon.

The lighthouse was quickly dubbed Ladies Delight Lighthouse. A steamboat circumnavigated the lake to connect its various important sites, including Island Park on the north shore. The cruise took five hours; to benefit women passengers needing to use a bathroom (which the steamboat lacked), a stop would be made at the island upon which the lighthouse stood.

Considering that several large hotels serviced by the steamboat could open their doors to desperate women passengers, taking those women ashore by small boat to an island scarcely big enough to hold a lighthouse (much less an outhouse or two) does not make sense today.

The Cobbosseecontee Yacht Club maintained Ladies Delight Light while the 20th century churned toward its mid-point. During World War II vandals too cowardly to face Nazi steel repeatedly broke into the lighthouse, sacked its interior, busted its windows, and stole its light.

With the war ending, three men — Paul Bailey, Charles Harris, and Anton Lund — constructed and installed a new top on the stone tower in summer 1945. They installed a new light, which vanished in the hands of vandals in less than two weeks, despite the door to the light tower being locked.

A replacement light blinked for another year before disappearing. Then the top of the tower (not its 16-foot stone base) was gone with a strong autumn wind in 1950.

The missing top section later reappeared. Towed ashore, it underwent extensive repairs.

In spring 1951, Brainard Jacobs and his brother-in-law, Melvin Blackburn, organized volunteers to repair the light tower and re-install the top section.

Jacobs, who owned Packard’s Camps

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on the lake, devised a way to power the light with the wind; a wind charger placed atop the tower spun in the often steady breezes and generated electricity stored in a battery.

Jacobs built a timer with parts from an alarm clock and a car clock; the timer automatically turned on the light at 8 p.m. and shut it off at midnight, daily.

Volunteers hurried to finish the project by June 1, 1951, just in time for the new boating season. By mid-July the vandals struck again. Failing to gain entry to the tower the first time, the vandals caused only minor damage during the second break-in.

An underwater power cable later run out from Manchester powers Ladies Delight Lighthouse today. The Cobbosseecontee Yacht Club still maintains the tower; volunteers raised and reset it in 2001 after the tower developed a “Leaning Tower of Pisa” list.

Four years later, CYC members installed a marine-grade aluminum top on the tower. The light’s 100th birthday was celebrated in August 2008.

Ladies Delight Lighthouse has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1984.

The light still shines across Cobbosseecontee Lake today.

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Photo of Ladies Delight Lighthouse taken in 2005

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To Culp’s Hill And Back The 5th Maine Battery holds a reunion in 1911

by Shirley Babb n 1911, nearly fifty years after the 5th Maine Battery returned north after its Civil War tour of duty, it held a reunion in Lewiston, Maine, as reported in the Lewiston Evening Journal.

Never numbering more than 150 at any one time on the battlefield, only 17 of its former members attended. Captain G. T. Stevens, the battery commander, explained, “You mustn’t expect to see a great crowd here as our battery was recruited from all over the State, and 23 of the men were from New Hampshire.

What few of the boys that are left are widely scattered, and it is difficult to bring them together.”

Although it was a small unit of

I

fighting men, the 5th Maine battery had a great history. A battery cannot charge and then retreat like the infantry. “They must stand by their guns come weal or woe. This organization planted their cannon and stood by them in 21 pitched battles and lost only two at Cedar Creek and four at Bull Run. Those lost at Cedar Creek were not only recaptured the same night, but 68 were taken by them from the enemy. This evened matters up nicely, and made the boys look pleasant thru the rest of that Shenandoah Valley Campaign.”

But “it was at Gettysburg where the old 5th Maine won its greatest laurels.

In the darkness of the night they were

charged by the Louisiana Tigers, one of the crack regiments of the South. They came down like a wolf on the fold, and the charge was something terrific. Not for a single moment did the boys from Maine waver. It was their position on Culp’s Hill and a highly important one.

Although the Tigers had the advantage of a sudden onset, they were met and hurled back like chaff before the wind.

The hill was saved and so was Gettysburg.”

Charles Smith of New Auburn, Maine, reminisced that “at Cedar Creek five of our horses were shot from (Did he mean “by”?) one of our guns and Thomas Menneally of Lewiston and (continued on page 90)

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(continued from page 89)

Captain Stevens seized the pole, and by sheer strength, pushed and saved the gun. This was done in full sight of the enemy and under terrific fire. It was one of the bravest and most dare-devil acts that I ever saw. The whole army cheered at the sight.”

Smith also recounted the Battle of Chancellorsville, where “we were ordered into the line of battle by the side of the plank road near the Chancellorsville House. One of our batteries had been driven from this position and then we took their place. We faced 18 pieces of heavy artillery that were pouring solid shot and shell into our ranks. We lost Captain Lapine and 28 men in a few minutes. Forty-three horses went down and we lost one caisson and five gun limbers with ammunition chests.

Our second gun was hit in the muzzle and put out of action. At that moment, Charles Witham of Lewiston was standing between the guns and was stunned.

There were several others knocked flat

and I was the only one left standing.

Oh, that was a hot old day. After we were stove up, Gen. Hancock sent a detail to haul our guns off the field. The men were from the 116th Pennsylvania Irish Brigade. Not an Irishman quivered while standing in a rain of bullets, or our men either for that matter.”

In addition to these men’s reminiscences, other accounts further detail their exploits. At the Second Battle of Bull Run, they were roughly treated by the Confederacy troops. “Roughly treated” hardly describes that disastrous August 20th day. On account of their infantry supports deserting, four of the 5th’s guns were captured, but they saved their first line of caissons.

During the retreat, all of their records were lost, while their baggage and other property was ordered to be abandoned. Their casualties included Lieut.

William F. Twitchell and three other killed, and seven men were wounded, two mortally. Because of these losses

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in men and equipment, the 5th was ordered to Washington to regroup.

And regroup they did. In all, the 5th Maine participated in the following major battles: Bull Run 2nd, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Opequan, Fisher’s Hill and Cedar Creek. It is to their credit that the Maine men performed their duties without “a flinch or a quail,” in spite of seeing their comrades killed or wounded.

In June of 1865 the Steven’s 5th Maine battery was finally mustered out and discharged in July. Among those who made it back to Maine, apparently none the worse for his service, was Ruel William Dutton, my great-grandfather. He attended that reunion with his wife, Ellen. Fortunately for us Duttons, he must have dodged a lot of bullets to be there and to continue a family line that started way back in the 1600s.

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Norway Soldier William Reed Jr. Eyewitness to the battle of Plattsburgh Bay

by Brian Swartz

D

espite the British cannonballs whizzing over his head, Norway soldier William Reed Jr., enjoyed the ringside seat he occupied during a blazing War of 1812 naval battle.

Although Massachusetts businessmen, as well as many politicians, vehemently opposed “Mr. Madison’s War,” — a slap at President James Madison — Norway men responded enthusiastically when summoned to join the Bay State militia. During September and October of 1812, Bailey Bodwell recruited a Norway-centric company numbering 50 privates, four corporals, four sergeants, two musicians, and

three officers. Bodwell held the captaincy, William Twombly became Bodwell’s lieutenant, and William Reed Jr. signed on as ensign.

The Norway lads, their ranks lightly bolstered by recruits from Greenwood, Paris, and Waterford, raised their collective right hands and solemnly swore to defend country and Constitution that November. Officially assigned to the 45th Infantry Regiment, United States Army, they served exactly two months, and mustered out in January 1813.

Wartime requirements saw the Norway boys serve hither and yon, typically only a few weeks per “call up.”

With Napoleon exiled to Elba in 1814,

Whitehall — British military headquarters in London — released veteran infantry regiments and artillery batteries for duty against the American upstarts.

Serious British expeditions challenged America’s overextended army, and revealed how well inadequately trained militia would perform against British regulars.

Except for a successful American defense of Fort McHenry in Baltimore in the late summer of 1814, British forces essentially ran rampant along the East Coast. President Madison and his stylish wife, Dolly, fled Washington, D.C. shortly before British troops captured and sacked the city, and in ear-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com ly September, Maine militiamen only briefly defied other British soldiers marching north through Frankfort— now Winterport — and Hampden to occupy Bangor and Brewer. The Battle of Hampden saw Maine boys fire a volley or two against seasoned British infantry and marines before bolting like rabbits for their nearest holes.

The British fleet operating along the Maine coast sparked fear upriver along the Penobscot, Kennebec, Androscoggin, and Stroudwater. Older Portland residents vividly recalled the Revolutionary War raid conducted against their seaport, and envisioned rapacious British soldiers looting and sacking their town.

Across Maine the cry went forth, “Call out the militia!” Bailey Bodwell — Captain Bodwell, that is — promptly raised another company numbering four sergeants, two corporals, two musicians, and 46 privates. Among the men he drew from Norway and nearby

President James Madison

(continued on page 94)

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 93)

Oxford County towns were veterans released just days earlier from active duty at Burlington, Vermont. They had protected western New England from a strong British offensive “up” Lake Champlain, a route taken by General John Burgoyne almost 40 years past.

The British troops, escorted by a strong fleet led by Commodore George Downie, intended, as had Burgoyne, to split New England from New York, and force the five New England states to end their participation in the American war effort.

While Captain Bodwell rallied his company to Portland’s defense in mid-September of 1814, Ensign William Reed Jr. served in the American lines at Plattsburgh, New York. British troops had entrenched there to await their fleet’s imminent arrival. According to a letter penned on Thursday, September 22nd to Ichabod Bartlett, a Norway friend, Reed arrived at Plattsburgh on Wednesday, September 7th.

“We … found it surrounded on the land side by about fifteen thousand of Lord Wellington’s veterans,” Reed indicated. He referred to the war-hardened British soldiers opposing a mixed regular-militia American expedition that had, thus far, blocked their enemies’ southward movement.

“A partial cannonading was kept up between our forts and the enemy until the 11th instant, when we had a general action by land and water,” Reed wrote.

“The result … was truly glorious,” he succinctly described a savage naval battle waged that Sunday between the British fleet and an outgunned American squadron led by Captain Thomas Macdonough.

Realizing that his four ships and ten gunboats would fire less “metal” than could Downie’s four warships and twelve gunboats, Macdonough anchored his vessels in Plattsburgh Bay and let Downie attack him. Moored with their broadsides facing east, the American warships formed a northsouth line not far from British shore batteries.

Downie’s fleet attacked almost simultaneously with a British assault against American shore installations.

The lead British warship, the 37-gun frigate Confiance, sailed confidently ahead to attack Macdonough’s fleet at approximately 9 a.m. that Sunday. As the frigate slid into range, Macdonough yelled, “Commence firing!”

“I had a fair view of the whole action on the lake, which was the highest gratification to me,” Reed wrote, indicating that he paid close attention as both naval squadrons clashed.

“I perceived the enemy [fleet] vastly superior to ours in metal, as well as men,” Reed informed Bartlett. “When the action commenced, the enemy was said by every one on shore to have the weather gage,” a factor that Macdonough had actually sought in anchor-

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ing his fleet rather than battling Downie on the open lake.

Reed watched as the eight larger ships — four American, four British — and their crews fought savagely. Macdonough commanded his fleet from the 26-gun Saratoga, which received a withering Confiance broadside at approximately 9:30-9:45 a.m. Debris struck and injured Macdonough, who stayed at his post.

Around 11 a.m., Macdonough ordered a naval maneuver that won the day. By then, Confiance shell fire had shattered or upended all Saratoga cannon facing the British frigate. “Wind ship,” Macdonough told his surviving crewmen. They promptly released the Saratoga’s stern anchor and cut her bow cable. The easterly wind swung the Saratoga so her other broadside could target the Confiance. The American sailors resumed their accurate gunnery.

Literally shot to pieces, the Confiance’s crew soon surrendered, as did the surviving British warships. The British lost 84 men killed, including Commodore Downie; American naval casualties totaled 52 men killed and 59 wounded.

Ashore, the British infantry assault fell apart as Royal ensigns vanished from naval mastheads in Plattsburgh Bay. During the next few weeks, many British deserted their regimental standards. Commanding the American provost guard by September 22nd,

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Reed informed Bartlett that “deserters have been sent to me who appear to be well-informed men in things relating to an army.” Fifteen British deserters, including “three … light dragoons,” reached American lines on September 21st, and “the [total] number of deserters amounts to between four and five hundred [men],” Reed wrote.

He downplayed his own combat experiences, adding in a post script that “I stood the test of action as well as I expected.” Reed revealed that “the tremendous singing of bombs (mortar shells), Congreve rockets (“the rockets’ red glare” of “Star Spangled Banner” fame), and cannon balls around my ears, [and] over my head is something less delightful than the singing of a fair maid.”

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

RED MILL LUMBER

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96

Western Lakes and Mountains Region

Cornish Schools Of Olden Days Humble beginnings yield great citizens

by John Woodbury Editor’s note: The following text is taken from a speech given by John Woodbury (1863-1945), written as a retrospective for the Cornish School Association. The content has been edited to fit our magazine’s format.

M

any of our younger generations seldom stop to think that our town was not always favored with an outstanding institution of learning, the pride of our citizens for half a century. Previous to this building’s contruction, what was known as the district school system yielded our town’s only source of knowledge.

Small box-like buildings were built at locations more or less central to certain groups, each designated by number, to which were usually added a locally distinctive name such as the Berry School, Pease School, Pugsley School, High Road School, and so on.

These scattered schools were usually taught by women during the spring and summer terms. But during the winter term, when work was slack on farms and the older boys attended, a man’s skill was required. The men were often chosen with regard to their muscle rather than their knowledge. Some of those husky boys enjoyed getting fresh with

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the schoolmaster on occasion. Professor Ayer will undoubtedly tell you that such conduct is unheard of today.

At one time, Cornish had at least nine district schools. Individual attendance policy was, in most cases, quite liberal, for the outlying school population was greater then, than it is today.

The range of studies was limited by necessity. Reading, writing and arithmetic were pretty much the curriculum.

But these primitive schools afforded our youth a sound and practical education that was sufficient to meet life’s needs. And within those humble walls many strong foundations were laid for

Jerry Day - Owner

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97

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com future success.

The Towle’s Hil School, a typical example, was attended by such citizens as the Morrills, Barkers and Pikes. Abner Barker traveled around Cape Horn as one of the Forty-Niners and eventually accumulated a fortune of a million dollars in California. Henry Morrill became a large building contractor in our nation’s booming West. And the life story of he and his wife are responsible for the construction of the splendid school building that exists today. Leroy’s brother, William, became a Nevada state senator. Winfred, another brother, became a prominent physician in Boston. Many of the family’s women also enjoyed great success. All of these men and women, as well as the Pikes of the famous Highland Farm, got their first taste of knowledge at the old Towle’s Hill School.

Dr. Jesse Haley is another product of those district schools, and in his retirement he enjoyed nothing more than strolling over the crude roads along which he wandered barefoot as a boy on his way from the farm road to the little building where he first attended school. In doing this, he obtained a greater thrill than he did during his days as a practitioner.

The O’Brion boys, three of whom became prominent citizens and businessmen, acquired their sole education from a school in the south part of town.

Henry Hyde Smith (who later became the principal at Fryeburg Academy), as well as others in that family, got their start at the High Road School, a site now marked only by a few scattered stones.

There were also the Peases, including the celebrated B.F. Pease, who ascended to greater political power than any man of his time. The Small family, of which Lauriston W. Small, the Brooklyn journalist is a part, attended these schools. And the list goes on: the Thompsons, including the eccentric Dr. Benjamin G.; the Lincoln family that was related to our country’s president;

the Brackett family, founders of the I.N. Brackett Co.; and dozens of others, all who received their first public instruction from our district schools. As the Duke of Wellington once said while revisiting the school of his boyhood, “It was here I won the Battle of Waterloo.”

And our local citizens, too, might truly say of their childhood school, “It was here I won the decisive battles of my life.”

District No. 2, better known as the Village School, was the one with which I am most familiar. For 75 years it was housed in the Old Yellow Schoolhouse, which was later replaced by the Pike Memorial Hall. It was a plain two-story building with sparse furnishings and rudimentary seats and desks. The only heat came from a huge box stove at the back of each room, and we experienced temperatures between 70 and 110 degrees in the back row to below freezing in the front of the classroom. Ventilation was nonexistent, and the only running water was down the road at the old Woodbury place. Or we could go over to the Tristram Storer pump and bring some back by the bucket. There were no fire escapes, or even fire drills, and none were needed. At the word “dismissed,” 40 youthful scholars would go tumbling down the stairs through the single exit in three seconds flat. There is no modern fire drill that is capable of producing such efficient results.

Grade school and high school were terms unknown to us then. It was simply upstairs and downstairs. I doubt that the scholars of today get as much of a thrill from passing from grade school into high school as we did when privileged to take our seats on the school’s upper floor.

There were no huge graduation ceremonies, but on that much-anticipated last day of the last term of the year, visitors would come in to hear recitations and dialogues. There were also presentations of prizes and many fond farewells. The girls shed copious tears, but the boys were more occupied with

the impending long vacation.

At the time, there were no school buses or well-plowed roads. After a snowstorm, the boys went out in hightopped cowhide boots, and the girls in leggings, and cleared their own roads.

The Pike boys, Al, Vint and Jack, and the Smith boys, would come wallowing down from the High Road. Fred Chick was another boy that no storm could stop. The farmers got out their old pungs and literally pushed through the drifts with the girls. Among the girls from the outlying districts were the four Boynton girls, including Lizzy Boynton Wadsworth, who served many years of faithful service as a local teacher. She is buried in California, but will long be remembered by scores of former pupils.

My mind teems with memories of those old-time teachers and my fellow pupils, many of whom have passed on.

How differently most of us turned out from what our childhood fancies pictured. Fred C. Small was a thoughtful, studious lad to be sure, but probably none of his classmates thought he would eventually own half a dozen townships.

And his brother Eddie, who received many a spanking from his teachers, became one of the town’s best citizens.

Ed Brackett, our ideal athlete, grew in size, and later generations of boys looked incredulous when we spoke of how he used to run and play ball. It seems strange to hear our own H.P. Jameson protesting about rowdy boys, when he himself used to average three fights a week. And our now-staid merchant, Mr. F.A. Partridge, was adept at sneaking cats into schools and churches. Ben Lincoln was expected to become a star football player because of his skill at kicking the bottom out of the water pail and elevating it from the first to the upper floor. It was not surprising that Jack Pike became a lawyer, for as a boy he had a judicial mind. And the fun-loving Fred Bickell became the dressy Dr. Bickell of Springfield, Massachusetts, for Bick was always some(continued on page 98

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Western Lakes and Mountains Region

(continued from page 97)

thing of a sport.

Then there was the class that followed us from downstairs, including Harry B. Ayer. How that fellow arose to the position of judge is a matter of wonder, for he spent more time scheming mischievous acts than he did with his books. Little white-haired Nat Colcord, who became a leading journalist and a representative, was a whiz at remembering dates, a true characteristic of the entire Colcord family. Wes Cole caused several teachers to believe that he could not be taught, but one particular teacher knew otherwise, and Wessie’s loafing days were soon over.

We trust in the mathematical skill of George Bragdon to figure our corporate taxes correctly. M.I. Knight became a bookkeeper in Boston (you’ll remember that Marsh was always talking about Spencerian pens and Bryant Stratton College).

Many others are equally worthy of

mention: Will Blake, a prince of good fellows, Fred Smith, Dr. H.I. Durgin, Ernest Tarr, Ed Riley, the Clarks. Then there were the girls: Carrie and Sadie Brackett; Allie and Fannie Jameson; Callie, Louise and Clara Woodbury; the Danforths; the Pike girls from the cottage; the studious Richardson girls; Georgia Colcord; the brilliant Gurney girls; the famous Hatch girls. But we always regarded girls as something to be admired at a distance. And we would suggest that they later be favored with a chapter of their own, written by one qualified to speak — Ben Lincoln, if his wife were not present.

And with thanks to our listeners for their kind attention, we will bring to a close our humble reminiscences of Cornish schools of other days. * Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section.

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3rd Generation Flooring ..............................................10 45th Parallel Grill & Bar ..............................................28 A to Z Custom Picture Framing .....................................23 A&A Property Maintenance & Trucking ....................56 A.E. Robinson Oil Co., Inc. ..........................................35 Above & Beyond, LLC ..................................................60 Absolut Services, Inc. .................................................17 ABT Plumbing, Heating & Cooling .............................49 Ace Tire ......................................................................78 Alfond Youth Center ..................................................42 Ames Construction, Inc. ..............................................36 Andrew Ames Logging ................................................5 Androscoggin Bank .....................................................59 Apple Pumpkin Festival ..............................................82 Archie’s Inc. Rubbish Removal ....................................12 At Home Electric .........................................................45 Auburn Plaza Family Dentistry ...................................62 Augustus Bove House ................................................94 Bay Haven Two Lobster Pound Restaurant ............71 Belgrade Lakes Marine & Storage, Inc. .......................45 Belgrade Regional Health Center ................................5 Benchmark Appraisal ................................................66 Bert’s Awesome Stuff ................................................89 Bessey Motor Sales .....................................................92 Bethel Family Health Center ......................................5 Bill’s Auto Transport ....................................................54 Bingham Area Health & Dental Center ..........................5 Bissonnette’s Plumbing & Heating............................85 Blanchet Builders, LLC ..............................................40 Blanchette Moving & Storage Co..................................9 Bob’s Cash Fuel ..........................................................21 Bolster Monumental Works .......................................91 Boomers Restaurant & Saloon .................................93 Boos Heating Company ..............................................69 Boothby Perry LLC Attorneys at Law............................66 Boothby’s Orchard & Farm Winery ...............................50 Bowley Brook Pure Maple Syrup.................................25 Boy’s and Girls Club ....................................................42 Breau’s Too .................................................................11 Brian Bickford Plumbing & Heating LLC.....................41 Bridgton Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce ..........94 Brownie’s Auto Service ..............................................22 Bruce A. Manzer, Inc. Paving Contractor ..................38 Buy The Fire Stoves and Fireplaces ...........................64 C.L. McNaughton ........................................................75 Canaan Motel ............................................................38 Captain Bly’s Tavern ...................................................90 Carpentry & Odd Jobs ...............................................14 Carrabasset Valley Bike, LLC ......................................16 Casco Village Variety ..................................................68 Casey’s Redemption ....................................................42 Central Maine Community College ...............................4 Central Maine Powersports .........................................61 Central Maine Sandblasting ........................................72 Central Maine Septic & Portable Toilet Rentals ........23 Central Tire Co. Inc. ...................................................77 Cheney Jewelers ........................................................52 Chim Chiminey Chimney Sweep ...............................84 Chris’ Electric .............................................................66 Chris Zelenkewich Independent Contractor ................38 CJ’s Appliances ..........................................................79 Clinton Lions Agricultural Fair ..................................75 Cobbossee Motel .......................................................51 Cole Harrison Insurance .............................................30 Collins Enterprises .....................................................80 Colonial Valley Motel ................................................80 Columbia Classic Cars .................................................83 Complete Denture Center ..........................................46 Conlogue’s Building & Property Management ..........48 Cooper Farms .............................................................25 Cornerstone Plumbing & Heating ............................79 Cote’s Transmission ....................................................89 Coulthard’s Pools and Spas .......................................11 Country Crow Primitives ............................................39 Covered Bridge Motel ...............................................34 Cushing Construction ................................................50 D. Roy and Son Fencing ............................................59 D.A. Wilson & Co. Excavation ......................................25 D.B. Industries ...........................................................84 D.H. Pinnette & Sons, Inc. ........................................9 DAC Distributors, Inc. ...............................................76 Daddy O’s ....................................................................91 Daggett’s Garage ........................................................80 Dancing Pines Nursery ...............................................23 Danny Boy’s Irish Pub & Restaurant .............................89 Dave’s Janitorial Services............................................13 Dave’s Towing & Recovery .......................................90 Davis Concrete ............................................................10 Debra Achramowicz CPA, PA .....................................43 Decker-Simmons American Legion Post 51 ...............43 Deluxe Diner ...............................................................13 Designed Living Kitchen Showroom & Home Center ..33 Devaney, Doak & Garrett Booksellers .....................79 Dick’s Auto Body & Collision Center .........................53 Dionne & Son Builders ..............................................40 Dixfield Discount Fuel, Inc. .......................................26 Dockside Sports Center ...............................................29 Don’s No Preference Towing .......................................62 Douglass Construction, Inc. ........................................67 Dunn & Pakulski Optometrists .................................73 E.H. Ward & Son Hardware & Millwork .....................22 E.R. Palmer Lumber Co. ..............................................5 E.W. Moore & Son Pharmacy ....................................18 Echo Lake Lodge & Cottages .....................................50 Ed Hodsdon Masonry .................................................84 Edge Automotive ........................................................48 Edmunds Market .......................................................14 Elias Woodworking ....................................................22 Ellis Variety .................................................................11 Family Pet Connection & Grooming ..........................73 Farmington Fair .........................................................80 Farmington Farmers Union .........................................81 Farmington Save-A-Lot .............................................79

Business

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Fayette Country Store ...............................................83 Fine Line Paving & Grading .......................................37 Finish Line Construction .............................................37 Finishing Touches Remodeling ...................................77 Fireside Inn & Suites Waterville ................................43 Fireside Inn & Suites Auburn .....................................89 Fireside Stove Shop & Fireplace Center ......................61 Five Fields Farm ............................................................5 Flagstaff Area Business Association .........................30 Flagstaff Construction .................................................16 Flagstaff General ........................................................16 Floormaster North ......................................................39 Forks In The Air Mountain Bistro ..................................14 Foster Tree & Landscaping .........................................43 Four Seasons Restaurant ...........................................19 Franco Center .............................................................61 Franklin Memorial Hospital .........................................47 Franklin Savings Bank ...................................................4 Franklin-Somerset Federal Credit Union .....................9 Frederick Heating ......................................................74 Fryeburg Fair ...............................................................70 Fusion Dining & Entertainment ..................................60 Gendron’s Seafood .....................................................86 Generators of Maine ....................................................44 George’s Banana Stand .............................................72 Gibson’s Orchard ..........................................................25 Glen Luce Logging, Inc. ................................................54 GLP Builders ..............................................................51 Gray Family Vision Center ...........................................56 Greenheads Insulation Services ................................91 Greenwood Orchards Farmstand & Bakery ............53 Gridiron Restaurant & Sports Pub .............................60 Griswold’s Country Store & Diner ................................31 Hair By Tim ................................................................12 Hammond Lumber Company .....................................44 Hannaford Supermarket & Pharmacy - Jay .................81 Hardy’s Motorsports ..................................................74 Harris Drug Store ........................................................32 Harris Real Estate ......................................................49 HealthReach Community Health Centers ......................5 Heart & Hand Inc. ......................................................69 High Tide Low Tide Seafood ......................................37 Highland Lake Resort .............................................68 Hight Dealerships ........................................................8 Hillman’s Bakery .......................................................77 Hodgdon Well Drilling, Inc. ..........................................7 Holidae House Bed & Breakfast ...................................25 Home Care For Maine ..................................................3 Homestead Realty .....................................................52 Houston-Brooks Auctioneers ........................................4 Hoyt Chiropractic Center ............................................83 Hungry Hollow Country Store .....................................6 Hunter’s Truck & Tire Service, Inc. ...............................85 Hydraulic Hose & Assembly .....................................6 Image Auto Body .......................................................21 J&N Automotive Repair ............................................20 J.D. Potter Construction ..............................................69 J.L. Brochu, Inc. Logging & Construction .....................16 J.T. Reid’s Gun Shop .....................................................7 J.T’s Finest Kind Saw ..................................................40 Jackman Auto Parts ....................................................19 Jackman Power Sports ................................................32 Jackman-Moose River Region Chamber of Commerce..19 Jake’s Garage ...............................................................26 James A. Wrigley Well Drilling .....................................78 James Painting & Renovations ..................................13 Jason Nadeau & Sons Excavation & Plowing ..............32 Jason Stevens Excavation & Earth Work .......................79 Jay-Livermore-Livermore Falls Chamber of Commerce.82 Jean Castonguay Excavating ......................................51 Jean’s Moosehead Rentals ........................................20 Jimmy’s Shop ‘N Save ...................................................19 JMH Excavation .........................................................64 John Firth Builders .....................................................34 Johnny Castonguay Logging & Trucking .....................50 Johnson Foundations ..................................................34 Jordan Lumber Company ............................................16 Judy’s Variety .............................................................13 K&J Heating Inc. .......................................................56 Keith Hadley, Inc. / Hadley’s .......................................10 Kelley Petroleum Products, Inc. ..................................73 Keystone Masonry Inc. ..............................................90 Kiesman Drywall Inc. ................................................69 Kimball Insurance, LLC ..............................................21 Knowles Lumber Company ........................................84 Kokernac Generator Sales & Service .........................51 Kramers Inc. ...............................................................53 KSW Federal Credit Union .........................................77 Kyle Mann Tree Work ................................................65 L.E. Taylor & Sons ..........................................................6 L.P. Poirier & Son Inc., Excavation .............................59 L.R. Nadeau Inc. Excavation ......................................54 La Fleur’s Restaurant ..................................................50 LaCasse Shoe Repair, Inc. ..........................................72 Lake Region Auto Supply .............................................66 Lakewood Continuing Care Center ...........................43 Lander & Sons Inc. .......................................................36 Laney’s Pit Stop .........................................................39 Langlois’ Auto Body & Auto Sales ................................59 Larsen’s Electric ...........................................................11 Larsen’s Jewelry .........................................................77 LaVallee’s Garage ........................................................19 Law Office of Brian D. Condon, Jr., Esq. ......................51 Leo’s Custom Upholstery .............................................84 Lewiston House of Pizza .............................................57 Liberte Auto Sales and Service ...................................87 Linkletter & Sons, Inc. ................................................72 Lisbon Community Federal Credit Union .....................57 Logan Home Builders ................................................69 Long Green Variety .....................................................83 Lovewell Hearing .......................................................95 Luce’s Maine-Grown Meats ..........................................38 M.A. Vining Landworks, LLC ......................................20

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MacCrillis Rousseau VFW Post 8835 ..........................75 Madison Area Health Center .........................................5 Maine Forest Service ............................................71,80 Maine Historical Society ............................................88 Maine Lakes Brewfest ................................................94 Maine Maple Products, Inc. ........................................21 Maine-ly Foam ..........................................................69 Maine Pellet Sales LLC ................................................86 Maine Veterans’ Homes ..............................................65 Maine Warden Service ................................................98 Major’s Heating, LLC ...................................................90 Mama Bear’s Den ........................................................32 Marc’s Auto Body .......................................................61 Martin’s Sales & Service ...........................................27 Matheson Tri-Gas ........................................................58 Maynard’s In Maine ...................................................33 McAllister Accounting & Tax Services ..........................81 Meadow Lanes ............................................................81 MEI Excavation ............................................................66 Memorial Guard LLC ..................................................65 Merle Lloyd & Sons Earthwork Contractors ...............22 Mexico Trading Post ..................................................12 Michael E. Witham Trucking Inc. ..............................31 Michael Greenham Bagpiper .....................................98 Mid-Maine Equine & Canine Therapeutics .................45 Mike Carey Carpentry .................................................18 Mike Polland Construction & Property Services .......68 Mike Wainer Plumbing & Heating ..............................44 Mill St. Cafe .................................................................49 Mills Market ..............................................................13 Ming Lee Chinese Restaurant .....................................42 Monmouth Federal Credit Union ...............................54 Montello Heights Retirement Community ..................58 Moose River Campground & Cabins .............................20 Moosehead Motorsports ............................................33 Morrison Forest Products, Inc. ...................................23 Morrison’s Garage .......................................................23 Mosher’s Meats & Seafood .......................................46 Moss Enterprises ........................................................53 Mother India Fine Indian Cuisine ................................57 Motor Supply Co. ..........................................................7 Moulton Lumber Co. .................................................98 Mount Blue Motel .......................................................80 Mr. Bill the Handyman LLC..........................................62 Mt. Abram Regional Health Center ............................5 Mt. Blue Drug ..............................................................46 Naples Packing Co., Inc. ...........................................12 Nelson’s Candies ........................................................72 Niedner’s Floor Finishing ............................................76 North Camps ..............................................................27 Northeast Laboratory Services .....................................7 Northwood Builders .....................................................5 Not-A-Con Home Improvements ................................84 Old Canada Road Inn .................................................20 Old Mill Stream Ice Cream Shoppe .........................83 Oquossoc Marine .......................................................28 Orphan Annie’s Antiques ............................................89 Otis Federal Credit Union .........................................82 Ouellette & Associates, P.A. .......................................60 Our Village Market ....................................................15 Oxford Casino ...................................................bk cover Oxford Federal Credit Union........................................26 Oxford Hills Taxi ..........................................................92 P&C Automotive, Inc. .................................................95 Packard Appraisal, Inc. ...............................................67 Parris House Wool Works .........................................92 Pelton’s Electric LLC ....................................................17 Pen-Bay Tractor Co. ......................................................76 Penobscot Marine Museum .......................................24 Perkins Management .................................................42 PFBF CPAs ..................................................................44 Phil Carter’s Garage ....................................................76 Piscataquis Chamber of Commerce ..............................36 Pitcher Perfect Tire Service ........................................46 Plum Creek ..................................................................41 Poor Bob’s Storage ....................................................75 Potter Plumbing Co. ..................................................52 Prime Financial, Inc. ................................................42 Quartermaster Sales ...................................................96 R&B’s Home Source .....................................................37 R & D Self Storage ........................................................76 R.E. Lowell Lumber Inc. .............................................64 R.F. Automotive Repair .................................................73 R.S. Pidacks, Inc. ............................................................5 R.W. Day Logging .......................................................96 Ralph Libby Chain Saws ...........................................64 Ramada Conference Center ......................................60 Rangeley Electric .......................................................29 Rangeley Family Medicine ............................................5 Rangeley Saddleback Inn ............................................28 RDA Automotive .......................................................57 RDM Electric ...............................................................79 Red Mill Lumber .........................................................95 Redington-Fairview General Hospital .........................39 Remco Radiator & Auto Care ...................................62 Richard Wing & Son Logging Inc. ...............................98 Ricker Hill Orchards ...................................................54 Rick’s Garage ...............................................................37 Ripley & Fletcher Ford ................................................65 River Valley Grill .......................................................12 Riverbend Campground ..............................................83 Riverside Kwik Stop ..................................................82 Robert W. Libby & Sons, Inc. ..................................3 Robert’s Heating .......................................................92 Rod’s Cycle & RV ........................................................21 Rodney Ellis Jr. Construction ......................................45 Rolfe Corporation ......................................................67 Ron’s Transmissions ....................................................84 Roopers Liquor Stores / Redemption .......................63 Rooster’s Roadhouse ..................................................10 Rowell’s Garage Sales & Service ................................21 Roy I Snow, Inc. .......................................................61 Russell & Sons Towing ................................................66

Business

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Russell’s Lakeside Rentals ..........................................14 S&K Earth ....................................................................48 Sabattus Antique Mall ................................................85 Sackett & Brake Survey, Inc. .................................74 Saco River Brewing ....................................................71 Sally Mountain Cabins .................................................20 Sam-O-Set 4 Seasons .................................................29 Sanders Auto Service ..................................................15 Sandy River Farms .......................................................46 Sarah Frye Home .......................................................88 Scissor Hands Hair Salon ............................................88 Sebago Lake Lodge & Cottages ...................................69 She Doesn’t Like Guthries ..........................................86 Shelly’s Hometown Market .......................................49 Simplicity Full Service Salon .....................................13 Siragusa Builders ......................................................82 Skowhegan & Waterville Tire Center .........................73 Skowhegan Electric Motor Inc. ................................72 Smedberg’s Crystal Spring Farm ..................................91 Smile Again Dentures, Inc. ..........................................61 Solon Superette ..........................................................31 Somerset Auction Company ....................................77 Sound Effects ..............................................................88 Spanky’s Speed Shop ..................................................96 Spencer Group Paving, LLC ........................................53 Spillover Motel .........................................................31 SR General Contractors ..............................................60 St. Pierre’s Garage ......................................................49 Starks Village Store ....................................................78 Sterling Electric .........................................................48 Stetson’s Auto Service ................................................91 Steve Violette and Son Paving Co. ...........................41 Stevens Electric & Pump Service Inc. .............................9 Stevens Forest Products .............................................52 Stony Brook Recreation ............................................27 Stratton Plaza Hotel & Traitor Lounge .....................17 Strong Area Health & Dental Center ........................5 Strong Hardware & Building Supply ..........................15 Styling Dog Grooming Boutique .................................87 Sugarloaf Rentals & Cleaning Services ......................30 Summit Roofing .......................................................28 Sun Auto & Salvage ................................................74 Sunrise Property Services ..........................................67 T&T Construction .......................................................22 Taylor’s Drug Store ....................................................37 The Belmont Motel ....................................................40 The Black Horse Tavern .............................................67 The Framemakers ......................................................42 The General Country Store .......................................16 The Good Beer Store .................................................71 The Irregular ...............................................................30 The Korner Store & Deli .............................................44 The Little Red Hen Diner & Bakery .............................27 The Looney Moose Cafe .............................................17 The Maine Bookhouse .................................................64 The Meadows ..............................................................85 The New Zealander, Inc. ..............................................94 The Nor’easter .............................................................20 The Sedgley Place .......................................................55 The Sterling Inn Bed & Breakfast ..............................32 The Storekeepers ........................................................90 The White Elephant Country Store ............................29 Thomas C. Goding & Son Building Contractor ............49 Thomas Logging & Forestry, Inc. ...............................34 Thompson’s Orchard ..................................................57 Thompson’s Restaurant ...............................................18 Tilton’s Market ...........................................................90 Tim Merrill & Co., Inc. .................................................36 Top Notch Fabrication ................................................58 Top of the Line Tree Service ......................................15 Town & Lake Motel & Cottages ................................29 Town of Farmington .................................................48 Town of Mexico ..........................................................12 Trail’s End SteakHouse & Tavern .................................18 Turner Contracting & Remodeling, LLC .....................71 Tuttles Auto Sales ......................................................46 United Fitness & Martial Arts.....................................83 Upper Kennebec Realty ..............................................18 Upright Frameworks, LLC ............................................81 V&G Home Improvements, Inc. ..................................52 Valley Gas & Oil Company ...........................................15 Vermette Carpentry ...................................................32 Village Market ...........................................................41 Vintage Maine Images ..............................................88 Virgin’s Auto Electric Service ...................................11 W.D. Bickford Machinery ..........................................41 W.L. Sturgeon, Inc. ......................................................96 Wadsworth Woodlands Inc. ......................................71 Warren Brothers Construction ....................................78 Weber Insurance Group ...........................................27 Western Auto ..............................................................82 Western Maine Family Health Center ........................5 Western Maine Flooring ...............................................27 Western Maine Pharmacy, Inc. ..................................30 Western Maine Towing & Recovery ...........................65 Weston’s Meat Market ..............................................51 Whited Peterbilt / Whited Truck ....................................62 White’s Land Management .......................................26 Whitney Tree Service ..................................................57 Whittemore & Sons Outdoor Power Equipment ........39 Whittemore Pool & Spa Management ........................25 Whitings Electric .........................................................31 Wilson Excavating, Inc. .............................................93 Wilson Funeral Home ................................................85 Wind Swept Acres Arabians .....................................45 Wings Hill Inn & Restaurant ........................................45 Winslow Automotive & Tire .........................................75 Winslow Supply, Inc. .................................................74 Wolf Creek Farm Store LLC ........................................52 Woodlawn Rehab & Nursing Center .............................40 Woodman’s Sporting Goods ........................................92 Wood-Mizer of Maine .................................................82 YMCA - Waterville ........................................................42

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