2020 Western Lakes & Mountains Region

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Maine’s History Magazine Volume 29 | Issue 7 | 2020

15,000 Circulation

Western Lakes & Mountains

Bethel Native C.D. Howe

Dove Tail Bats Make A Big Hit

The farm boy who engineered Hitler’s defeat

Watch out Louisville — Shirley is on deck

Fryeburg’s Jigger Johnson

Maine Celebrates 200 Years!

The last old-fashioned lumberjack

Western Lakes & Mountains

Inside This Edition

2

Maine’s History Magazine 3

I t Makes No Never Mind James Nalley

4

Woodstock Soldier Meets Famous Cartoonist On The Battlefield A “Maine at War” exclusive Brian Swartz

10 The Coburn Brothers Of Maine’s North Woods The Ox Railroad at Northeast Carry

Charles Francis 16 Bethel Native C.D. Howe The farm boy who engineered Hitler’s defeat

Charles Francis 22 Dove Tail Bats Make A Big Hit Watch out Louisville — Shirley is on deck

Brian Swartz

Western Lakes & Mountains

Publisher Jim Burch

Editor

Dennis Burch

Design & Layout Liana Merdan

Advertising & Sales Jennifer Bakst Dennis Burch Tim Maxfield

Advertising & Sales Manager Tim Maxfield

26 The Falls Of Skowhegan From The Journal of Isaac Senter

Brian Swartz

Distribution Manager

31 Farmington’s Creative Genius The story of Chester Greenwood

Wanda Curtis

Jim & Diane Nute Don Plante

34 The Sandy River Valley Grange A bulwark to local agriculture

Charles Francis

Wanda Curtis Charles Francis

38 Lewiston’s Thomas McMahon

These things we do so that others may live

James Nalley 45 Fryeburg’s Jigger Johnson The last old-fashioned lumberjack James Nalley 49 Monmouth’s Revolutionary War Heritage The legacy of Henry Dearborn Charles Francis 52 Lewiston’s Senator Wallace White “All that the voters can ask”

Charles Francis 55 P aris’ Sidney Farrar Playing baseball for the Phillies

Charles Francis

Diane Nute

Field Representatives

Contributing Writers James Nalley Brian Swartz

Published Annually by CreMark, Inc. 10 Exchange Street, Suite 208 Portland, Maine 04101 Ph (207) 874-7720 info@discovermainemagazine.com www.discovermainemagazine.com Discover Maine Magazine is distributed to town offices, chambers of commerce, financial institutions, fraternal organizations, barber shops, beauty salons, hospitals and medical offices, newsstands, grocery and convenience stores, hardware stores, lumber companies, motels, restaurants and other locations throughout this part of Maine.

NO PART of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from CreMark, Inc. | Copyright © 2020, CreMark, Inc.

SUBSCRIPTION FORMS ON PAGES 48 & 57

Front Cover Photo:

Mingo Springs Hotel in Rangeley Item # LB2007.1.109699 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

All photos in Discover Maine’s Western Lakes & Mountains 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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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

It Makes No Never Mind

A

by James Nalley

fter returning from an approximate four-month hiatus, it is safe to conclude that the world as we once knew it has changed. In fact, at the time of this writing, we are still being bombarded with negative news regarding sickness, death, business and job losses, divisiveness, etc. However, it is important to remember the word “adversity” and our ability to show courage in the face of it.

In this regard, the list of Mainers with this ability is extensive. First, there is Robert Peary, who grew up in Portland and graduated from Bowdoin College. At the age of 24, he wrote the following: “I don’t want to live and die without being known beyond a narrow circle of friends.” With this goal in mind, it would take years of effort, physical suffering, and danger. As is well-known, he claimed to be the first to person to reach the North Pole. Although his feat has since been debated, he did make eight trips into the Arctic Circle, with one in which he sledged 1,250 miles to northeastern Greenland in sub-freezing temperatures. Among these trips, he would run out of food, break his leg, deal with flea infestations, and face constantly shifting ice

and deep crevasses, some of which forced him to turn back after months of travel.

Second, there is U.S. Army Sergeant George Libby from Bridgton. In July 1950, as his vehicle approached an enemy roadblock near Pusan, Korea, it encountered heavy enemy fire, which disabled the truck and wounded each of the passengers, except for himself. After taking cover in a ditch, he crossed the same road twice to administer first aid to his wounded soldiers. He then hailed a passing artillery tractor and helped the wounded on board oneby-one, all under constant enemy fire.

As the tractor pulled away, the enemy directed small-arms fire at the driver, after which Libby used his own body as a shield. Despite being shot multiple times in his arms and torso, Libby helped more wounded aboard. At the final roadblock, he continued to shield the driver with his body as it was pummeled by more bullets. He held that position until the tractor was safely away.

Then, he lost consciousness and died.

Finally, there is Christopher Knight, who has been referred to as the “North Pond Hermit” of Maine’s Belgrade Lakes region. According to the book

Daniel L. Steinke, D.D.S.

Hillary S. Caruso, D.M.D.

titled, “Stranger in the Woods” by Michael Finkel, Knight spent approximately 27 years living alone in the woods of Maine. During that time, he avoided building smoky fires (which would have revealed his location), relied on a propane camp stove to melt snow for drinking, and “borrowed” canoes from nearby camps to steal necessary supplies, all while surviving in (almost) total isolation during the harsh Maine winters. After reading his biography, it will put your quarantine experience into perspective.

Finally, many of my readers will expect me to end with a short joke. However, considering the changing times and theme of this article, I will postpone this until the next issue. Instead, I will close by paraphrasing part of a speech by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910: “The credit belongs to those whose faces are marred by dust and sweat and blood; those who strive valiantly, who err, who come short again and again; who spend time in worthy causes, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of achievement, and who at the worst, if they fail, at least fail while daring greatly.”

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Woodstock Soldier Meets Famous Cartoonist On The Battlefield

by Brian Swartz

A “Maine at War” exclusive

N

oticing a suspicious-looking individual hanging around his military post one day in winter 1865, William Berry Lapham decided to find out who the man was.

Lapham was in for quite the surprise.

Born in Greenwood in late August 1828, Lapham grew up in Bethel and looked back fondly on “the dear old town” later in his life. A Gould Academy graduate, he later attended Waterville College (the antecedent to Colby College), but left without a degree.

He subsequently studied medicine

with Dr. Almon Twitchell, a Bethel physician, and pursued further medical studies in Maine, New Hampshire, and New York until earning his medical degree in 1856. Returning to Oxford County, Lapham started practicing medicine at Bryant Pond in Woodstock.

Beneath this doctor’s calm exterior beat a patriot’s heart. After the Maine Legislature authorized 10 infantry regiments to defend the United States in mid-April 1861, “I went to Augusta and took out enlistment papers, the first given to a citizen of Oxford county,” Lapham recalled.

Governor Israel Washburn Jr. offered him an assistant surgeon’s slot, but Lapham wanted to fight. He recruited by newspaper, poster, and personal contact and soon “had two-thirds of a company in camp,” but sent his men home after the War Department decided enough soldiers had reached Washington, D.C. that spring.

In late autumn, Washburn summoned Lapham to provide medical care for the various new units gathering in Augusta. A year later, Lapham joined the 23rd Maine Infantry Regiment as a second lieutenant in Company F. The

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com regiment served in the Eastern Theater for nine months before mustering out in Portland in July 1863.

Lapham then joined the new 7th Maine Battery, which mustered into the Army on December 29, 1863. As the senior first lieutenant, he was second-in-command as the battery fought in Virginia in spring 1864 and ended up outside Petersburg that summer. Shifted hither and yon among the Union forts sprouting up like weeds, the 7th Maine Battery arrived at Fort Sedgwick around December 1.

There Lapham would spend the winter commanding the artillery and gunners assigned to Sedgwick. He sent his men, “most of whom were familiar with the use of the axe,” to cut trees in the “heavy growth of pine timber” behind the fort. The men built “bombproof” living quarters that incoming Confederate shells would hopefully not destroy.

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Lapham lived at Fort Sedgwick until early April 1865. With Confederate artillery and sharpshooters often targeting the post, he was ever watchful.

Sedgwick was nicknamed “Fort Hell” for some reason, and civilians visiting the Union positions outside Petersburg liked to stop by Sedgwick and stand at a high point where they could see the Petersburg church spires.

“The consequence was that we had many visitors,” Lapham recalled.

Then, “one morning as we were busy about our routine duty, I noticed a stranger looking over the works, and as this was of itself a suspicious circumstance, I decided to keep my eye on him,” Lapham said. “He was short in stature, had a dark complexion, black mustache, and seemed like a foreigner.”

Lapham watched the man as “he went round and appeared to be inspecting everything.” Could he be a spy?

“I was on the point of asking him

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his business when the Johnnies (Confederates) rendered it unnecessary” by firing “a sixty-four pound mortar shell which exploded in the fort,” Lapham described the beginning of another interminable enemy shelling.

Another mortar shell dropped inside the Sedgwick walls and blew up. “Our visitor was glad to cease his inspection and seek shelter in our bomb-proof,” said Lapham, quickly diving into the safe haven himself. Modern soldiers would call this bomb-proof a “bunker,” and then as now, it sheltered soldiers from enemy artillery fire.

The civilian “spent the greater part of the day with us as the bombardment was kept up, rendering it unsafe to leave the works, a large number of shells exploding in the rear” positions behind Fort Sedgwick, Lapham said.

He and other Maine soldiers chatted with their visitor; “we found him social and full of anecdote, and enjoyed his (cont. on page 6)

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(cont. from page 5) stay very much,” Lapham recalled. Introductions were made, and “we found that he was no stranger, though we had never before met him face to face.”

Like soldiers everywhere throughout the Civil War, the Maine boys read every available newspaper. Among the popular publications was Harper’s Weekly, its eight pages filled each issue with news and sketches of battles and military and political leaders.

Artists hired by Harper’s Weekly accompanied Union troops on different campaigns and sketched scenes from the camps and the battlefields. Shipped to New York City, these sketches were turned into woodcuts that left printed images on newspaper pages.

As for the oddball civilian checking out Fort Sedgwick, “he was Thomas Nast, the inimitable caricaturist of Harper’s Weekly, and was then out on a professional tour and filling his port-

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folio with sketches of scenes along the army line,” Lapham said.

Although active during much of the war, Nast would be best remembered for creating the caricature of the modern Santa Claus and for drawing the elephant that came to symbolize the Republican Party. Post-war he often drew hard-hitting cartoons targeting the ineptly managed Reconstruction and its tragic aftermath.

After the war ended, Lapham accepted a promotion to captain and reassignment as an assistant quartermaster, the Army no longer needing the 7th Maine Battery. He mustered out as a brevet major in late October 1865.

Returning home to Woodstock, he married Cynthia Perham in 1866 and transitioned to writing the genealogies and Maine-based histories that would make him well known in western Maine.

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The Coburn Brothers Of Maine’s North Woods The Ox Railroad at Northeast Carry

by Charles Francis

O

ne of the first big timber companies in northwestern Maine was the Coburn Brothers Company. The holdings of this company were immense. Their lumber camps ranged from Jackman on the Quebec border, to Holeb in the Moose River region, to Brassua Lake in the Greenville area. In fact, Moosehead was one of the company’s chief centers of operation. The Coburns even had a steamship line there, the Coburn Steamship Company, which included the famous steamship Katahdin.

Abner and Philander Coburn operated the Coburn Brothers Company.

Abner is better known, as he was one of Maine’s Civil War-time governors.

He was also the executive head of the company, taking care of the management end of things from the home office in Skowhegan. Philander was more the company’s man in the field, seeing to such details as to whether camps were running up to snuff, schedules were being met and so on. It was Philander who was largely responsible for the creation of one of the most unique

pieces of early north woods history, the Ox Railroad at Northeast Carry at the head of Moosehead.

Philander and Abner Coburn were the sons of Eleazer Coburn, who for many years was Maine State Timber Surveyor. The elder Coburn probably knew the value of state-owned timberlands better than anyone else in Maine, and, because of this, he and his sons were able to join the ranks of Maine’s great timber barons.

In the late 1820s and early 1830s, the State of Maine found itself in dire

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com financial straits and began selling its public lands for as little as fifteen cents an acre. Eleazer Coburn, with his superior knowledge of state timber holdings, began purchasing thousands of acres of Maine timberland. At one point, the Coburns held over 200,000 acres.

At the same time that he was investing in Maine timberlands, the elder Coburn was taking his two sons into the woods. The experience was an education, one that turned the two boys into men by the time they were in their teens. In other words, they were more than ready to take over the family business by the time their father stepped down.

One of the brothers’ early north woods enterprises was the development of the Ox Railroad at Northeast Carry. This was primarily a project of Philander, who, along with several other developers, built a wooden railway connecting Moosehead Lake with the

West Branch of the Penobscot. The railroad, which was powered by oxen and horses, proved a great success, carrying supplies the two miles between the two bodies of water. It was the first of the north woods “lumbering railroads,” and served as a prototype for later ones like the Chesuncook & Chamberlain.

Henry David Thoreau used the Ox Railroad on his 1853 trip to Chesuncook. At that time, the “carry-man” was an individual named Hinckley who lived on the Penobscot end of the railroad. He was called to the Moosehead end by a blast of the whistle of the boat that carried Thoreau and his party up the lake. According to Thoreau, the railroad was made of “rude logs which followed a two to three rod wide perfectly straight cut through the forest.”

The railroad’s cart, which was pulled by both a horse and an ox, was not for passenger use. Thoreau and his party had to walk to the West Branch.

While the Ox Railroad was hardly worthy of being called a railroad, it must have had a certain amount of significance to Philander Coburn, for he named his horse after it. The horse was called “Old Railroad,” and Coburn was famous for his daring rides through the woods on that spirited horse. Some people thought the beast would, in fact, prove Philander’s death. Old Railroad was extremely nervous and difficult to control. He often bolted for no reason at all, with his owner sawing frantically at the reins in a vain attempt to get him to stop. Sometimes these mad dashes occurred at night when it was pitch dark. Racing over lumpy, hard-pack tote roads, Old Railroad’s hoofbeats could be heard for a mile or more on a still night. He never, however, succeeded in harming his master.

Lumberjacks were always partial to working for the Coburns. Their camps, especially at Brassua Lake and Holeb, (cont. on page 12)

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(cont. from page 11) were considered the best camps to work at. One reason for this was that these camps had the best cooks, who turned out the best pies, cakes and freshly baked bread. Another reason was that the Coburns paid better wages than most of the other timber companies, as much as forty dollars a month.

Another of the Coburn enterprises in the Moosehead region was the Coburn Steamship Company, which had Stillman Sawyer of Greenville as general manager. At its peak, the company operated a dozen or so vessels on Maine’s largest body of water. These vessels carried summer visitors and sportsmen all over the lake to cottages and sporting camps. In the spring, Coburn steamships like the Governor Coburn and the Katahdin or “Big Kate,” as she was affectionately known, towed vast log booms down Moosehead to the

Kennebec, where they were floated in great drives to mills at Madison and Skowhegan.

Today, the Coburn name is largely forgotten. At one time, however, the Coburn Brothers Company owned over seven hundred square miles of Maine timberland. Of these holdings, around a hundred thousand acres in the Jackman area are still managed by the Coburn Land Trust, which is controlled by the descendants of Philander Coburn. Abner Coburn never married. While the days of the Ox Railroad are long gone, the Katahdin still graces Moosehead waters, recalling a time long past when the Coburns were dominant figures in the north woods, and the hoofbeats of Philander Coburn’s horse, Old Railroad, echoed on the shores of Moosehead Lake.

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The Emery Hill house in Fairfield, ca. 1900. Item # 10771 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Locals husking corn in Farmington. Item # LB2007.1.100745 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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Bethel Native C.D. Howe The farm boy who engineered Hitler’s defeat

by Charles Francis

O

n December 14, 1940 a torpedoed British merchant ship, the Western Prince, gave one last gigantic sigh as her stern lifted heavenward and then disappeared into the icy waters some two hundred miles off the coast of Iceland. Some hundred yards from the bubbling gray-green waters where the ship disappeared, the vessel’s few lifeboats clustered as the periscope of a German submarine broke the surface of the sea. In one of the lifeboats, a passenger, who just happened to be a reporter for Britain’s Manchester Guardian, watched the man with the bushy eyebrows and piercing blue-gray eyes beside him. As the deck of the Nazi sub-

marine broke the surface of the stormtossed North Atlantic, the man’s jaw muscles knotted and his fist-clenched arm reached out “as if he would grasp the black hull with his bare hands.”

By the time the fishing boat that rescued the passengers of the Western Prince reached Glasgow, Scotland, the story of the attack had already appeared in papers across Great Britain and every British subject knew the name of Clarence Decatur Howe, the Bethel farm boy who had risen to the position of Canadian Minister of Supply and Munitions, and who Winston Churchill’s office would later credit with doing more to save Britain from Hitler

and the Nazis than any other single individual.

Clarence Decatur Howe — he was universally known as C.D. — was one of those rock-ribbed New Englanders who migrated to Canada just after the turn of the century and made contributions to that country that are almost mythic in proportions. Among other things, he was responsible for modernizing the grain storage facilities of Canada’s prairie provinces, organizing the Canadian National Railroad, creating Trans-Canada Airway, which later became Air Canada, and directing Canada’s war effort during World War II. In the latter instance, he saw to the devel-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com opment of the Eldorado Uranium Mine which provided the uranium for the Manhattan Project which developed the first Atomic bombs. He organized the Royal Canadian Air Force, without which England would never have survived the Battle of Britain, and, in addition, saw to it that the Allies in Europe were supplied with countless tons of Canadian grain, without which hundreds of thousands of people would have starved to death. All told it is an incredible series of accomplishments for someone who had roots sunk deep into the soil of the little western Maine town of Bethel.

Clarence Decatur Howe was the only son of William Howe and Mary Hastings Howe. William Howe and Mary Hastings grew up on neighboring farms in Bethel. The Howe family was one of the oldest Puritan families in New England and one of the most noted. The first Howes had settled in the Boston area in the 1630s, where sever-

al had operated Sudbury’s Red Horse Tavern, better known as The Wayside Inn made famous by Longfellow.

The family included such individuals as Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine and truss bridge, Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the Perkins School for the Blind where Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher studied, Joseph Howe, first premier of Nova Scotia and one of Canada’s Fathers of Confederation, and, by marriage, Julia Ward Howe, author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The Howes were relative latecomers to Bethel, in relation to the Hastings, however. The first Howe, C.D. Howe’s great-grandfather, had come to Bethel in 1820, the year Maine became a state.

The first Hastings had come to the Massachusetts Bay Colony about the same time as the Howes. One of them, a Revolutionary War captain, had moved north in 1796 and had founded Bethel. One of Mary Hastings relatives

had been the naval hero Stephen Decatur, and C.D. Howe had received his middle name in Decatur’s honor. Mary Hastings grandfather, the Bethel town blacksmith, had built Bethel Academy.

In fact, when William Howe married her, she was teaching there.

C.D. Howe’s parents wanted the very best education for their only son so they moved to Waltham, Massachusetts, which in the late 1800s was one of Boston’s elite suburbs. In school, C.D. evidenced a natural proclivity for mathematics and the hard sciences, especially physics. At home, his one indulgence was an exceptionally elaborate train set, for which he was continually restructuring grades and inclines. His favorite books were those of Horatio Alger. The Howe family was well off but not wealthy. William Howe was a finish carpenter who later expanded his business by purchasing a small roofing company. During most

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(cont. from page 17) summers the Howes spent some time in Bethel. C.D. and his younger sister, Agnes, however, always spent the entire summer there with their grandfather Hastings, who had replaced the original family homestead with a Federal-style mansion overlooking the Androscoggin. The Howe family farm was now in the hands of William’s brother Fred so the two youngsters had a second home replete with various aunts, uncles, and cousins. C.D.’s summers were spent working on his uncle’s farm and enjoying the warm Bethel summers.

After graduating from Waltham High School, C.D. enrolled in Boston Tech. (Soon after he graduated the name was changed to Massachusetts Institute of Technology.) Here he concentrated on engineering. His favorite professor was George F. Swain, considered the best engineering teacher in the country. At his graduation he and his

best friend James Baker, had no idea what they would do next. Then Swain told them that Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia wanted him to recommend an engineering professor for its faculty. Both wanted the position, so they tossed a coin. Howe won and spent the next seven years teaching at Dalhousie. (Years later, Baker became Chairman of the Board of Sears Roebuck & Company.)

In the early 1920s, C.D. Howe left Dalhousie for the Canadian west, settling in Port Arthur, Ontario on Thunder Bay. Here he established the C.D. Howe Company and went into the business of constructing grain elevators.

Canada at this time was fast becoming the major grain producer in the world.

By 1925 the C.D. Howe company was employing a hundred and seventy-five men and had branched out into Saskatchewan and Alberta. By the time

the Depression hit, drying up construction orders, C.D. was worth over a half million dollars and was looking for a new line of endeavor. The opportunity presented itself when Canada’s Liberal Party asked him to stand for election to Parliament from Port Arthur. Because of his already established reputation, he handily won the election and was named Minister of Transportation in Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King’s new cabinet. One of his accomplishments in this position was the amalgamation of a number of failing rail lines into the Canadian National Railroad. It was also during this time that he created the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

When Canada entered World War II, there was only one man that Prime Minister King trusted to gear Canada up for the conflict — C.D. Howe.

Howe was named Minister of Supply

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and Munitions in 1940. In that capacity, Howe was to see that Canada built up its military, especially its air power, and see that Britain received those Canadian products it needed to fight the Germans. It was the latter that led to Howe being on the Western Prince when it was torpedoed off Iceland. The British actually had no idea what it needed in order to maintain its war effort, and Howe was on his way to confer with British military officials when the Western Prince was sunk.

After establishing what Britain needed in terms of what Canada could supply, Howe found himself working with the American researchers from the Manhattan Project, who were desperately seeking high-grade uranium. Of course, Howe the engineer knew where to look in Canada. The result was the fabulously rich Eldorado Uranium Mine. Howe was one of only about a

half dozen people outside of the Manhattan Project who were privy to the date and time of the first detonation of an atomic bomb. Later, Howe was responsible for the development of Port Radium.

In the early 1950s the economy of Canada was booming, thanks in part to the efforts of C.D. Howe. In fact, in 1952 Fortune reported Canada “had riches, it had resources, it had a future — and it had C.D. Howe.” The onetime farm boy who had worked on his Uncle Fred’s Bethel farm had certainly made his mark in his adoptive country.

It was not to last, however. The times were changing and C.D. Howe was not changing with them.

C.D. Howe lost one election in his life. It was his last in 1957. In 1957 C.D.’s opponent in the run for Parliament used the new medium of television to campaign. Howe realized too (cont. on page 20)

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(cont. from page 19) late that while he was speaking to a few hundred an evening, his opponent was reaching to thousands of homes at the same time on television. Odd for the man who created the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

C.D. Howe died of a heart attack in 1961. His career had not ended in 1957, however. Dalhousie University, where he had begun his career in Canada, had asked him to become chancellor and he had accepted. His last great contribution had been to science and engineering when he had secured an endowment for building a new science facility at the university.

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The Driftwood Lodge at the old Rangeley Lake House, ca. 1938.

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PO Box 1103 •Rangeley, ME 04970

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Band stand in Kingfield. Item # LB2007.1.101164 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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Dove Tail Bats Make A Big Hit Watch out Louisville — Shirley is on deck

by Brian Swartz

B

aseball players from Asia to South America and throughout the United States are swinging Maine-made wood baseball bats manufactured by Dove Tail Bats in Shirley.

Paul and Theresa Lancisi own the company, located at 163 Greenville Road. Originally from Massachusetts, Paul had moved to Shirley years earlier and started a business making furniture and kitchen cabinetry.

A Boston Red Sox tryout in 1982, Paul was coaching his son Nick, and the Foxcroft Academy Ponies’ baseball

team when the genesis of Dove Tail Bats took root in the 2000s. While the Ponies were required to swing aluminum bats during their varsity games, Paul urged the players to practice with wood bats.

Nick “wanted to play at a higher level, so we were going to big-box stores and buying [wood] bats, and they were just shattering,” Lancisi told the Bangor Daily News in spring 2019. “I brought some back to the shop and did some moisture testing and realized it was old, degraded wood.

“So I turned some bats down for him and my kids at Foxcroft out of some maple table-leg stock, and I still have those bats today. They didn’t break,” he said.

Paul started producing wood bats during the winter, when demand typically slowed for kitchen cabinets and furniture. Naming his business Dove Tail Bats, he utilized three regional species to make bats — white ash, white rock maple, and Canadian yellow birch. These slow-growing species develop denser wood fiber than tree spe-

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23

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com cies growing in warmer climates.

Yellow birch comprises 65-70 percent of all Dove Tail Bats, Paul told the Bangor Daily News. “What we found through all our testing is that the ball-exit speed off a birch or ash bat is 2 miles per hour faster than off a maple bat. I’ve split birch by hand. I know how hard it is.”

Paul buys yellow birch and maple from a northern Maine lumberyard that also provides hardwood for Steinway pianos. According to the BDN, wood arrives log-length at the Shirley mill, where employees split the logs and saw them “into squared lengths” that go into kilns for 14 days.

When dried, the squared lengths “are rounded into billets” before being turned into baseball bats on lathes, the BDN indicated. According to the Dove Tail Bat’s website, each “bat is cut from the highest grade stock” and must feature at least 24 inches “of straight grain

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Harris Drug Store Serving the Moosehead Lake Area since 1896

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The Dove Tail Bats location on Greenville Road in Shirley.

from the handle to the barrel.”

Employees sand and finish each bath with a non-yellowing clear-coat finish that is “incredibly hard and durable,” according to the company’s website.

First certified by Major League

Baseball in 2014, the company made 3,500 bats that year. According to the BDN, Los Angeles Dodger Yasiel Puig “was the first major leaguer” to use a Dove Tail Bat. (cont. on page 24)

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(cont. from page 23) Other MLB players have taken to using the bats since then. Kris Bryant, the National League MVP in 2016, was a fan, as are Yoan Moncada, an outfielder for the Chicago White, and Bryce Harper, an outfielder signed in early 2019 by the Philadelphia Phillies.

A big break came for Dove Tail Bats after Paul hired a new sales representative who knew people with the Kansas City Royals’ organization. After first baseman Eric Hosmer started swinging a Dove Tail Bat in 2015, other players followed suit, and in the post-season, “eight of the nine starters for the Royals in the World Series were swinging our bats,” Paul told the BDN. Defeating the New York Mets four games to one, the Royals won the series that year (marking only the second World Series championship in the team’s history), and “seventy percent of their runs came off Dove Tail Bats,” Paul said.

Increasing to meet the growing demand, company production rose from 7,000 bats in 2015 to the more than 30,000 bats that Paul predicted he would sell in 2019 in markets as far afield as Australia, Japan, Latin America, and Taiwan, the BDN indicated.

Competition is fierce to supply bats to Major League Baseball, which certifies only 35 companies to meet the needs of 1,280 big leaguers. Louisville Slugger, Mariccu, and Old Hickory are among the long-established bat suppliers, but Dove Tail Bats has gradually penetrated the market.

The company has also focused on selling bats to minor-league players, of whom there are some 6,400, Paul said in a May 2019 interview with americanmanufacturing.org. “When you go the next level, which is college, you are looking at 57,000 players,” he commented.

“High school, there is 455,000 plus

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[players], and youth baseball has 6.7 million, and it’s growing,” Paul told americanmanufacturing.org.

“I set the business up long term so that we start at a young age,” he said.

“We try to hit kids, train them, get them in the right model, and then go from there. That’s really what we are trying to do.

“It’s just a trickle-down effect of seeing a major leaguer swinging our bats. When the younger players see them on TV, they want to give them a try,” Paul noted.

“All of our bats are major-league quality, so the kids and youth-league players are the market we are going after. If they succeed, hopefully they will continue to use our bats as they progress,” Paul said.

Discover Maine

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Rod’s Cycle & RV Not the biggest, just trying to be the best

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Western Lakes & Mountains

26

The Falls Of Skowhegan From The Journal of Isaac Senter

by Brian Swartz

I

saac Senter and J.W. Hanson visited the waterfalls at Skowhegan 74 years apart — and came away with diametrically opposed observations about the town’s most prominent geographical feature.

Born in Londonderry, New Hampshire in the early 1750s, Senter studied medicine with Dr. Thomas Moffat, “a Scot physician of repute,” in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1775 Senter joined the other Rhode Island militiamen in the siege lines around British-held Boston, and that “September was appointed surgeon to Benedict Arnold’s forces,” according to The Journal of Isaac Senter, published in 1846.

Not yet the American hero who would morph into a traitor, Benedict Arnold believed that a military expedition could travel the Kennebec River to its headwaters, cross the height of land between the District of Maine and the Province of Quebec, and attack Quebec City. The expedition’s route looked direct on the available maps, and Arnold did not know about the many topographical obstructions in his path.

For Isaac Senter, the Arnold Expedition began in Cambridge, Massachusetts at 5 p.m., Tuesday, September 12.

He and three comrades “marched … seven miles on our way to Newbury Port,” camped that night “with some

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part of the army,” and kept walking until reaching Newbury in early afternoon on Thursday. An innkeeper running “a very agreeable place” put the men up until they boarded the transport “Broad Bay, a topsail schooner” on September 19, Senter noted.

Carrying “1,100 men, officers included,” the 11-ship fleet sailed with the tide. Wind-driven rain raised a heavy swell that night, and “most of the troops” heaved their last meals overboard, observed Senter, not indicating if he joined the rush to the rails.

The Broad Bay entered the Kennebec River as “the wind and rain continued exceeding hard” the next morning,

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com struggled through the river’s tide-swept entrance, and anchored a mile upriver, Senter wrote. The weather hampered the Arnold Expedition, and the transports struggled upriver against wind and tide. Senter finally went ashore on September 23 and walked five miles through woods “destitute of any road” to Fort Western in Augusta.

He noticed the upriver “Rapid … beyond which our transports could not pass.” Some ships could not pass above “Garden’s Town” (Gardiner), so many soldiers paddled upriver in batteau “made of green pine boards, which rendered them somewhat heavy,” Senter noticed.

He and the expedition moved upriver, passing Fort Halifax at Winslow and portaging Ticonic Falls. His own batteau delivered in sinking condition, Senter paid $4 for “a more portable well-built one, seasoned” and “fit for the business.

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“My boat’s crew consisted of three Englishmen, sailors, one old Swiss, and a young Scotsman,” Senter noted. As the crew struggled upriver “for about two miles” with the water “exceeding swift” on October 1, he walked along the shore.

Farther upriver “the water now grew very rapid” below falls called “Wassarunskieg,” Senter wrote, and the soldiers wore themselves ragged carrying the batteau around this passage. His crew carried his gear and the batteau “to the foot of the falls, where we were obliged to put in and cross over the opposite side” of the Kennebec River.

The soldiers took to the water again, but “not far had we advanced ere we came to a fall called Scunkhegon,” Senter reported.

This was the “Falls of Skowhegan,” where soldiers “found a rock of bluish flint, five feet high and twelve feet in diameter, in a conical form, just be-

low the Falls, scalloped to the water’s edge,” wrote J.W. Hanson in 1849 in History of the Old Towns Norridgewock and Canaan, Comprising Norridgewock, Canaan, Starks, Skowhegan, and Bloomfield.

The rock “was where the Norridgewogs (Norridgewock Indians) obtained their arrow-heads,” Hanson noted.

An officer with the Arnold Expedition described how at Skowhegan the Kennebec River “precipitates itself with great fury over high rocks, and being confined by high and rocky banks, runs a quarter of a mile with very rapidity, below which it forms a basin, and then directs its course to the south.”

“The falls at Skowhegan strike the lover of natural beauty with delight,” Hanson noted in 1849. “Situated in the middle of the river, is a high, rocky, wood-crowned island … and the waters, after meeting this obstruction, di(cont. on page 28)

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(cont. from page 27) vide, and passing along, they are precipitated over a fall on either side.

“The velocity of the river, as it hastens through its narrow channel, and its magnificent beauty as it tumbles over the precipice, in form and thunder-tones, make one of the wildest scenes in the State,” Hanson eloquently described the Skowhegan falls.

Before white men built dams at the island, “it must have been a glorious view” across the waterfalls and into the

Skowhegan Gorge, Hanson commented.

As for Isaac Senter and his wornout comrades in October 1775, “with a great deal of difficulty we passed” the falls at Skowhegan, “but not without coming very nigh [to] losing one of my hands,” the good doctor recalled. Past the falls, “I proceeded about half a mile and tented.”

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journal. By now seriously slowed by the Kennebec’s swift current and elevation-dropping flow, Arnold and his men portaged the river at Skowhegan and paddled toward the falls at Norridgewock. Dysentery caught up with the expedition there, and Isaac Senter had much work to do.

Ultimately Skowhegan became only another difficult waterfall among many on the Kennebec.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com

Farmington’s Creative Genius The story of Chester Greenwood

by Wanda Curtis

M

aine has been home to many inventors. One of the most memorable was Chester Greenwood who crafted what are known today as “ear muffs” when he was just 15 years old. Greenwood was raised in Farmington, along with five siblings. His family was poor and he only attended grade school. He worked hard on the family farm and walked many miles each day selling eggs.

Although Greenwood never graduated from high school, he had a brilliant mind and was very creative. He had more than 100 inventions patented during his lifetime. Maine Memory Network reports that his father, Zina Greenwood, was also very creative and

mechanically inclined. They note that Zina built bridges, wagons, and carriages. He was also active in the corn canning industry.

The author of Forgotten Tales of Downeast Maine, Jim Harnedy, described Chester Greenwood as “an avid skater.” However, he said that Greenwood’s ears got very cold when ice skating and he couldn’t wear a wool hat because he was allergic to wool.

Harnedy noted that Farmington was a major producer of New England’s wool during that time, with some residents having large herds of sheep.

One day Greenwood came in from ice skating and asked his grandmother, who was a seamstress, to sew tufts of (cont. on page 32)

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(cont. from page 31) animal fur over two ear-shaped wire loops. He added a steel band to connect them together to keep his ears warm. The ear muffs were lined with velvet. He applied for a patent for improved “ear mufflers” which were soon marketed as Greenwood Champion Ear Protectors.

A factory was opened in Farmington to produce the ear protectors which rapidly gained popularity. By the time that Greenwood was in his mid-20’s more than 50,000 ear protectors were being manufactured each year. Production increased to 400,000 ear protectors annually before his death in1937.

The author of edubilla.com/inventor/chester-greenwood/ reported that Greenwood Champion Ear Protectors were sold to U.S. soldiers during World War I to keep their ears warm while fighting battles overseas. Greenwood probably never imagined that his ear protectors would travel so far or help so many people.

For almost 60 years, Farmington area residents were able to secure employ-ment at the ear muff factory to feed their families. Production continued at the factory for several years after Greenwood’s death. Farmington found a place on the map with the title “ear muff capital of the world.”

“A Human Dynamo” According to https://www.maine. gov/sos/kids/about/people/entrepreneurs/ greenwood, some of the other inventions credited to Greenwood included a wide bottom kettle, a spring steel rake, a shock absorber which was a precursor of today’s airplane landing gear, a special type of spark plug, a donut hook, a folding bed, and bearing which prevented wheels from wrenching off. Greenwood has been ranked by the Smithsonian Institution as one of America’s 15 great inventors.

In addition to being a prolific inventor, Greenwood was a prosperous business man. He owned a bicycle

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business. He was successful at selling Florida boilers. He became involved in the Telephone and Telegraph business during the late 1800’s, and he owned and operated Franklin Telephone & Telegraph Company.

Greenwood designed and built a lovely Victorian style home for his wife and four children in Farmington. The 2 ½ story home, which still stands on Route 27, is just one more example of his creative genius. The home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places Inventory npgallery.nps.gov/ NRHP/GetAsset/ NRHP/78000160_ text, reveals that one of the most prominent features of the home is a “three-story octagonal tower topped by a bellcast pyramidal roof.”

In the nomination form, Greenwood was described as “a tall rangy human dynamo who eschewed both tobacco and alcohol and ran many miles a day

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com until the age of 75.” It says that Greenwood got up every morning at 4 a.m. and, before he even had breakfast, went to the factory on Front Street to light the fires. The factory is still standing in Farmington today. It now houses a restaurant and some offices.

Chester Greenwood Day The town of Farmington will never forget Chester Greenwood who provided work for so many people in the area and helped to meet practical needs through his inventions. The townspeople decided to honor Greenwood by celebrating his life each year on the first Saturday of December. They host a colorful parade and many other festivities which have drawn thousands of people into the area. In 1977, the Maine legislature recognized Greenwood by designation December 21 (the first day of winter) as Chester Greenwood Day.

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The Sandy River Valley Grange A bulwark to local agriculture

by Charles Francis

T

he Grange has been described as the bulwark of Maine agriculture. In its heyday, the fifty-five odd years centered around 1900, it initiated such forward-looking enterprises as cooperative stores, an insurance company, a mutual aid society, and a host of other programs in addition to acting as a wholesale purchasing agent for its members. The Grange was much more than these things, however. Its halls served as a community center where farm families living in isolation could meet, drawn together by like-minded concerns. It also served as an educational institution instructing young

farm people in the basic tenets of good crop and animal management. Without doubt, however, the most important thing the Grange did was to serve as a conduit for farmers to learn about scientific and technological advances in agriculture. One way it did this was through its newspaper, the Dirigo Rural. Another way it sought to bring information to farmers was by hosting or co-hosting agricultural institutes with other agricultural organizations like the Farm Bureau and Extension.

The Grange came to the Sandy River Valley in 1874. Farmington had one of the first Grange halls in Maine,

Farmington No. 12. Altogether, eighteen Granges were started in 1874 with Hampden in Downeast Maine being the very first. The other Grange that was established in the western mountain region in 1874 was North Jay No. 10. In the years to come, Granges would be established in other Sandy River Valley localities including West Farmington and Wilton. North Jay would have one of the largest Grange stores in Maine, and Farmington would have a branch of the Patrons Mutual Fire Insurance Company, the Farmington Mutual Fire insurance Company. The first master of the Farmington Grange, which makes

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com him a founding father of the Maine State Grange, was Peter Norton.

The early Grangers were extremely proud of their self-sufficiency as well as the security it and their Grange affiliation afforded them. By purchasing through the Grange they kept their expenditures at a minimum and by selling through the Grange they maximized their profits. There is an old Grange song that clearly illustrates this feeling.

It goes as follows: Let the wealthy and the great roll in splendor and in state; I envy them not I declare it.

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would take hold in Farmington. As the name of the town implies, it was first and foremost a farming community.

The first settlers began arriving shortly after the Revolution. A fair number of them came from Cape Cod and Martha’s Vinyard and immediately took up what today would be termed a subsistence style of agriculture.

These first farmers of the Farmington region began by felling trees and burning off lots of five-or-so acres. The ash from the burn was good fertilizer and allowed for planting without plowing. Their first crops were strictly for their own use. Any surplus they traded locally. However, as time passed and a system of roads was established from the Kennebec River to Farmington as well as towns like Avon, New Sharon, and Phillips, they began planting wheat as a cash crop.

During the winter months, the early market-oriented farmers of the Sandy River Valley loaded up their oxcarts

and, as an annual event, headed to the towns and villages of the Kennebec.

Villagers there welcomed the long lines of oxen that wended their way over the frozen and snow-packed roads as one of the high points of the long Maine winter. The Sandy River Valley wheat, grass seed, and other produce was sold or exchanged for goods to be used in the coming year. All in all, this early period in the agricultural history of Franklin County was one of peace, contentment, and reasonable financial security, if not prosperity.

As the decades passed, the once fertile Sandy River Valley wheat fields were exhausted. Farmers had planted too many wheat crops without rotating or fertilizing the soil. Part of this was due to the lack of knowledge of scientific advances in farming. Gradually, however, the region’s farmers became aware of the fact that their wheat crops were declining in quality as well as quantity. In addition, the valley was hit (cont. on page 36)

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(cont. from page 35) with various diseases that attacked the wheat. There were rust, smut, and the wheat weevil, plus a host of other associated blights. It was at this time that farmers began to turn to other crops like potatoes, and some like Peter Norton began looking to organizations like the Grange which had had remarkable success in the West.

Peter Norton was a descendant of the early Farmington settlers, the Nortons having come from Edgartown on Martha’s Vinyard. Norton had been born in Farmington in 1827. His father John, who was seventy-four when the Farmington Grange was founded and had also been born there, was a farmer.

The Grange, however, was not the only agricultural organization in Farmington and the Sandy River Valley. There was also the Franklin County Agricultural

Society.

In the 1880s Franklin County Granges and the Franklin County Agricultural Society combined on numerous occasions to promote exhibitions of scientific farming through the Franklin County Farmers Institute. Because of this, by the 1920s Franklin County had become Maine’s premier grower of sweet corn for canning, with hundreds of thousands of cases of canned corn being put up annually. In addition, the agriculture of the Sandy River Valley had diversified to include dairying and apple and vegetable raising, and many farmers were adding materially to their income through the making of maple sugar and syrup. The Grange, thanks in part to the foresight of Peter Norton, had indeed proved a bulwark to Sandy River Valley agriculture.

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Lewiston’s Thomas McMahon These things we do so that others may live

by James Nalley

I

n the Vietnam War, like their comrades who were fully armed with weapons and grenades, U.S. Army combat medics served as riflemen in the heat of battle. However, when one of their fellow soldiers was wounded, they became “first responders” who would run into the fray with their unmarked med-bags stuffed to the brim with everything from abdominal dressings and gauze to morphine syrettes (i.e., a device for injecting liquid through a needle). In many cases, with their attention drawn away from the battle, combat medics became open targets for the enemy. According to The New York Times, the Vietnam Veterans Memori-

al in Washington D.C. includes “2,096 Army medics and Navy corpsmen who were either killed or missing in action.”

Moreover, among the 259 soldiers who received the Congressional Medal of Honor during the war, 15 were Army combat medics. One such recipient was a 20-year-old from Lewiston, Maine.

Thomas J. McMahon was born in Washington D.C. on June 24, 1948, after which his family moved to Lewiston. According to an August 2017 article in the Sun Journal, McMahon had a “larger-than-life personality and found friends wherever he went.” As stated by a former classmate, “We all liked him…He liked to have a good

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com time. He was a really good guy.” After graduating from high school in 1967, McMahon enlisted in the U.S. Army in Portland, and became one of the approximately 490,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam at that time.

In 1969, the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam peaked at 549,000. U.S. forces were also extremely active. For example, in February, President Richard Nixon authorized Operation Menu, the then-secret bombing of Cambodia

by B-52s, which targeted North Vietnamese supply camps along the border. Moreover, in late February, North Vietnamese assault teams and artillery attacked U.S. bases throughout South Vietnam, killing 1,140 American soldiers. This resulted in U.S. troops conducting an offensive inside the Demilitarized Zone (between North and South Vietnam) for the first time since 1968.

On March 19, 1969, McMahon, a specialist four combat medic, was serving in the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Infan-

try Regiment. As McMahon and Company A were on patrol in the Quang Tin Province of South Vietnam, they came under heavy fire by a group of well-fortified enemy positions. According to his Medal of Honor citation, after watching three of his fellow soldiers fall, McMahon “left his covered position and ran through intense enemy fire to the side of one of the wounded soldiers, after which he administered first aid and carried him to safety.”

Although this was a typical action of many combat medics, what is not written is the unique relationship between battlefield patients and combat medics.

For instance, according to one combat medic in a January 2018 article by Jerome Chandler in Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine, a medic “must give his patient hope. My technique was to make a wounded soldier laugh by saying something like, ‘I can’t believe that you’re going home and I have to stay here.’ What you never, ever want to

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(cont. from page 39) say is ‘My God man, I don’t know if I can save you.’ Many times, such humor would increase survivability by 50 percent.” In regard to McMahon, he probably used a similar technique, knowing his outgoing personality.

After saving the first man’s life, McMahon immediately ran through the hail of enemy fire to the side of the second wounded soldier. Although he was wounded by an exploding mortar, McMahon still managed to tend to the wounded soldier and carry him to a secure position. Then, according to his citation, “McMahon refused medical attention and ran back through the heavy enemy fire toward his remaining wounded comrade.” Unfortunately, he was killed before reaching the last soldier. His body was returned home to Lewiston, where he was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery.

By April 1969, the number of U.S. deaths in Vietnam exceeded the 33,629 killed in the Korean War, which fueled

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For those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, different communities attempt to honor them in various ways. In regard to McMahon,

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com there is the Thomas J. McMahon Elementary School in Lewiston, in which the children can learn about his service and see the medals/memorabilia of their school’s namesake. There is also the Thomas J. McMahon Scholarship funded by the Lewiston High School Class of 1967, and awarded to deserving recipients at the Maine College of Health Professions. Finally, in 2017, a bench was unveiled in Lewiston’s Veterans Memorial Park, as a permanent tribute to McMahon and his more than 100 classmates who served in the Vietnam War. According to “NBC News Center Maine,” his friend and high school classmate Bob Mennealy fittingly stated, “He was dear friend…

What a hero. To crawl out there, not once, but three times, with no thought to his own safety.”

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Fryeburg’s Jigger Johnson The last old-fashioned lumberjack

by James Nalley

A

mong the numerous figures that have secured their places in American folklore along with Paul Bunyan, Casey Jones, and Johnny Appleseed, there was a man from Fryeburg who was known for his superhuman exploits, extraordinary strength, and drunken brawls. He was none other than Jigger Johnson or simply, “the Jigger.” In fact, logging historian Robert Pike, in his book titled Tall Trees, Tough Men, referred to him as the “last old-fashioned lumberjack” who “could cut a swath of timber from Maine to Oregon” and “yelled like crazy devils when they pounded the bars in Bangor,

Saginaw, St. Paul, and Seattle.”

Born in Fryeburg on May 12, 1871, Albert “the Jigger” Johnson was the son of a mother and father who called themselves “true Yankees.” Over time, his legendary exploits even produced stories regarding his birth and schooling. For example, according to the book Holy Old MacKinaw: A Natural History of the American Lumberjack

by Stewart Holbrook, “When the Jigger was born, he came out of his mother’s womb with a wad of tobacco in his lip, caulk boots on his feet, and a peavey (a cant hook used for logging) in one hand and an axe in the other.” In addition, (cont. on page 46)

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(cont. from page 45) “The Jigger had only two formal days of schooling — the first day, when the Jigger forgot his books, and the second day, when the teacher was out sick.”

More realistically, the Jigger’s love for the outdoors and logging began around the age of 12 when he worked as a cookee (a cook’s assistant) at a lumber camp in Milan, New Hampshire. At that time it was forbidden for the loggers to talk with one another during mealtimes since it could interfere with the cook’s and cookee’s jobs. However, on one particular evening several newcomers had decided to talk during the evening meal, after which the 12-year-old Jigger kindly asked them to stop. According to Robert Monahan in New Hampshire Profiles magazine, “An argument ensued, and the next thing the loggers knew was that the youth had jumped onto the fully-grown man and sunk his teeth into his ear. After the other men separated the two, part of the man’s ear remained in the Jigger’s mouth.” Sub-

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sequently, the other loggers were so impressed that they combined a portion of their wages and bought the Jigger a can of chewing tobacco.

By the age of 20 the Jigger had worked his way up the ranks and secured a position as the head chopper of a lumber camp along the Androscoggin River. As stated by Holbrook, the Jigger had few equals, especially “at a time when a man working in the woods was judged by the smoothness of the scarf of his axe’s undercut… He was also an unusually good logger who could fell a tree uphill or downhill and make it fall precisely on a stake previously set in the ground.”

Regardless of whether the Jigger was working in New England or across the country in Washington state, Pike stated that he would openly boast that he could “jump higher, squat lower, and spit further than any son-of-a-bitch in the camp.” As a foreman, he was also known to have kicked off the knots of

a frozen hemlock log barefooted and (supposedly) would not hire anyone who could not do the same.

As the stories of the Jigger spread throughout the logging communities, his characteristics of being an honest, hardworking boss that paid his men high wages drew eager workers aiming to earn a good day’s pay. As a result, he could walk into any bar from New Hampshire to Quebec and easily convince drunken loggers to help him

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drive logs down some of the most dangerous portions of the Connecticut River. However, with such high wages, the Jigger expected unfailing loyalty. According to Holbrook, on one occasion the Jigger ordered his men to wait at the camp as he went into West Stewartstown, New Hampshire, to recruit more loggers. Upon his return, he realized that his men had left for the Line House at the Beecher Falls/East Hereford Border Crossing. Upon entering the Line House, the Jigger “grabbed a peavey and ran into the crowd swinging.”

The bouncer, a bulky French-Canadian, knocked the Jigger to the ground and began stomping on him. The Jigger then lifted the bouncer by his feet, threw him on a hot stove, and held him there for a minute. Subsequently, the Jigger “grabbed a kerosene lamp and smashed it over the bouncer’s head, thus igniting the bouncer’s clothes.”

Naturally, the Jigger’s frightened men ran straight back to the camp.

The Jigger continued to work on the Connecticut River until 1915, when the last official long-log drive occurred. He eventually retired from logging in the early 1920s. Not one to sit around for too long, the Jigger then became a fire warden for the U.S. Forest Service, after which he was stationed at the Mount Chocorua and Carter Dome lookout towers in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As stated by Holbrook, “It was there that the Jigger, when sober, looked for forest fires. On days when he heavily drank, mostly when the weather was rainy, he clogged up the telephone lines with reports of bizarre snakes and small dragons.” This was due to hallucinations caused by his extreme alcohol abuse of bootlegged hard liquor.

After the U.S. Forest Service was forced to let the Jigger go (due to his drinking), he was stationed at a privately owned fire tower on Bald Mountain in Maine. However, this job did not last long, since one of the Jigger’s

— Jigger Johnson at Carter Dome Lookout Station —

homemade alcohol stills exploded and burned down the tower. Subsequently, the Jigger was hired as a survival skills instructor for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in Gilead. Unfortunately, the CCC also had to let him go due to his extreme alcohol consumption. The Jigger then realized that he would be better off working as a self-employed, wild game trapper.

According to Monahan, the Jigger built a crude cabin in the White Mountains and “became somewhat of a oneman Hudson’s Bay Company, catching lynxes, bobcats, minks, muskrats, and foxes with nothing but his bare hands.”

As stated in the book, Joe Dodge, by

William L. Putnam, “A man from Portland asked the Jigger if he could catch two bobcats for a show for $25. The Jigger easily captured two bobcats and tied their feet together. He then headed toward the train station, occasionally hitting their heads together to keep them quiet.” The Jigger then asked the stationmaster about the cost of shipping the bobcats to Portland and was told that he could not ship them at all. The Jigger eventually hired a taxi to drive him and the two bobcats to Portland where he received his pay.

In March of 1935 the Jigger spent the night in Conway, New Hampshire after selling a lynx pelt for $100. The (cont. on page 48)

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(cont. from page 47) next morning, he hired a man to drive him back to Passaconaway in order to check his traps. As the Jigger was getting out of the car, it apparently started sliding off the road, pinning him to a tree. The Jigger was taken to the Memorial Hospital in Conway, where he died from his wounds on March 30th.

After his death, various writers and historians stressed the Jigger’s exploits, strength, and alcohol consumption, all of which made him an American folk hero. In 1940 Warner Brothers released the film, King of the Lumberjacks, in which the hero called “Jigger” was loosely based on the real-life man. Despite his notoriety, both good and bad, in 1969 the U.S. Forest Service opened the Jigger Johnson Campground in the White Mountain National Forest, not far from where the Jigger once spread his wild tales of hard work, empty bottles, bar fights, and woodland adventures.

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Monmouth’s Revolutionary War Heritage The legacy of Henry Dearborn

by Charles Francis

W

hat do the town of Monmouth, a little log hut on the Chaudiere River in Quebec, and the Battle of Monmouth have in common? The bond between them is Henry Dearborn, one of the great heroes of the Revolutionary War. Dearborn spent a great deal of his adult life in Monmouth. He spent a short period of time recuperating from fever, dehydration, and other maladies in the hut on the Chaudiere. At the Battle of Monmouth, the regiment that Dearborn led received a commendation from George Washington.

Monmouth and the Battle of Monmouth have something very much in common. The former was named for the latter. Prior to its incorporation as the town of Monmouth on January 20, 1792, the township where Henry Dearborn chose to make his home had been known by a myriad of names — Freetown, Bloomingborough and Wales.

Dearborn, of course, was a factor in naming the town after a battle that was one of the most significant in the Revolution.

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Henry Dearborn came to what would become Monmouth because of his family’s association with the Kennebec Proprietors. It was not the first time he had been in the area, however.

He had been one of the eleven hundred volunteers who followed Benedict Arnold on his famous expedition up the Kennebec and Dead rivers, across the Height of Land, and down the Chaudiere River to Quebec City. That is how he came to lie, near death, in a hut on the Chaudiere in 1775.

Henry Dearborn is one of the most fascinating figures in the early history of the United States and Maine. Lauded as a hero in the Revolution, he was viewed as incompetent in the War of 1812. He was the Secretary of War under Thomas Jefferson, but the Senate refused to consider his nomination for the same post by James Madison.

Elected to Congress from what was then the District of Maine by a substantial popular vote, he incurred the wrath of settlers in the region for his support of the Kennebec Proprietors in the Malta War.

Henry Dearborn was born in Hampton, New Hampshire on February 23, 1751. While not of the Boston elite, the Dearborns were a substantial family going back five generations in New Hampshire, to Godfrey Dearborn, who came from England in 1639. Henry Dearborn prepared for a career in medicine and, beginning in 1772, practiced for some three years in Nottingham Square, New Hampshire, until the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Sensing that the signs of war were escalating, he raised a company of volunteers and, as their captain, led them to Massachusetts in time to take part in the Battle of Bunker Hill. There he fought as a captain in Colonel John Stark’s 1st New Hampshire Regiment on June 17, 1775.

Subsequently, Dearborn volunteered for Arnold’s march to Quebec.

It is, in part, thanks to Henry Dearborn that much is known about the trials and tribulations of Benedict Arnold’s men. His group toiled through an unseasonably cold and miserable fall along the Dead River to the high(cont. on page 50)

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(cont. from page 49) lands separating Maine from Quebec.

Dearborn’s Journal While on Arnold’s March to Quebec has served as a major resource for historians of the Revolution, as well as for Kenneth Roberts’ epic of the Revolution, Arundel.

It was while Arnold’s Expedition was crossing the highlands that Dearborn became incapacitated and had to be left behind on the Chaudiere. However, he recovered enough to rejoin Arnold’s forces and take part in the abortive attack on Quebec. He was taken captive there. Upon his release as a result of a prisoner exchange, Dearborn went back into service and participated in the assault on Ticonderoga, wintered through at Valley Forge, and finally served on Washington’s staff beginning in 1781 as deputy quartermaster general with the rank of colonel. He was present at Yorktown when Cornwallis surrendered.

It was during the Battle of Monmouth that Dearborn first came to General Washington’s attention. Here, when General Charles Lee’s forces disobeyed orders and began to retreat, Dearborn’s regiment distinguished themselves by maintaining order. In part because of Dearborn’s leadership, the battle ended as a draw. Today it is looked upon as the first conflict in which American soldiers demonstrated the professionalism of their British counterparts.

In 1783 Dearborn moved to what would become Monmouth. One of his reasons for moving to the Kennebec region was to watch over his family interests in the Kennebec Proprietary.

In 1787 Dearborn was made a general in the militia. Two years later he was named United States Marshal for the District of Maine. That same year he was elected as a Republican to the first of two terms in the House of Representatives. From 1801 to 1809 he served as Thomas Jefferson’s Secretary of War. In 1809 the so-called Malta War broke out on the Kennebec. Settlers of Malta, known today as Windsor, went on the rampage when the Kennebec Proprietors claimed the right to charge them full value for their improved land. Originally, the settlers had simply squatted, cleared the land, built homes and barns, and planted crops. When they resorted to armed resistance to the Proprietors’ inflated price demands in order to gain legal title to their lands, Massachusetts sent in the militia to maintain order. The overall commander-in-chief was Major General Henry Dearborn, who was then collector for the port of Boston. A great deal of the settlers’ ire was directed at him.

During the War of 1812, Dearborn was made commander-in-chief of New England and upstate New York defenses. He was in charge of the territory

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from the Niagara River to the New England coast. Today, most historians agree that Dearborn had lost the leadership skills he had demonstrated so notably during the Revolution. Whatever the case, even though he captured the capital of Upper Canada, known today as Toronto, Dearborn was relieved of that command and given an administrative command in New York City. At the close of the war, President Madison nominated him for reappointment as Secretary of War. The Senate, however, refused to entertain his nomination under any circumstances. Monroe then appointed Dearborn as Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal. He resigned in 1824 for matters of health. He died June 6, 1829, in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Monmouth can be justly proud of the fact that it is one of only a small number of towns in the United States to be named after a battle that played a significant role in the history of the United States. The town can be equally proud that Henry Dearborn, a man who could have chosen to live in one of the great cities of his day, chose to make it his home.

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Lewiston’s Senator Wallace White “All that the voters can ask”

by Charles Francis

W

hen George Mitchell was chosen Senate Majority Leader in 1989, it was a proud day for Maine. Countless newspaper articles extolled the Senator’s virtues, placing him in a continuing line of Maine’s great national political leaders.

Most often mentioned were Hannibal Hamlin, James G. Blaine, and Thomas B. Reed. Seldom, however, did the name Wallace White appear anywhere.

Yet White also served as Senate Majority Leader. In fact, he held that vaunted position in the memory of many Maine citizens, as he was the Majority Leader from 1947 to 1949.

Wallace White served thirty-two years in Congress. Fourteen of those years were in the House of Representatives and eighteen years were in the Senate. He introduced important legislation. It was said that his “colleagues considered him one of the kindest, gentlest, and most fair-minded men to grace the institution [of Congress].”

His is an outstanding record. Yet his name is not known in nearly the same way that other twentieth-century Maine Congressional leaders, such as Senators Margaret Chase Smith and Edmund Muskie are.

One of the reasons Wallace White

is not remembered is that he was a less-than-dynamic speaker. He never made a “Declaration of Conscience” speech the way Margaret Chase Smith did. Nor was he involved with any great cause the way Edmund Muskie was in his fight to clean up the environment. Nevertheless, White was a morethan effective legislator, especially in the House of Representatives, where he drafted pivotal legislation regarding our country’s merchant marines during the all-important years between the world wars and in the area of mass communication. He was in the Senate when Robert Taft, the man who was

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53

DiscoverMaineMagazine.com known as “Mr. Republican,” dominated the Republican Party.

Wallace Humphrey White, Jr. was born in Lewiston on August 6, 1877.

His parents were Wallace Humphrey White and Helen (Frye) White. Helen was the daughter of William P. Frye, a long-term member of both the House and Senate, and eight-year president pro tempore of the latter house. Frye is regarded as the consummate Maine politician of his era.

After attending Lewiston public schools, White enrolled at Bowdoin College, graduating in 1899. His grandfather secured a position for him on the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee, which he chaired. While working as a Senate staffer, White took law courses which enabled him to be admitted to the Maine Bar and begin a legal practice in Lewiston in 1911.

In 1916 he was elected to the House of Representatives. His grandfather

had passed away some five years earlier, and White was portrayed by the press as carrying on a family tradition.

Arthur Staples, the editor of the Lewiston Journal and a major influence in Maine politics, went as far as to say, “By inheritance, education, culture, initiative, and personality, Mr. White is all that the voters can ask.” And as far as most Maine voters were concerned, Congressman White was all they could ask for in a Representative.

During his first two terms in the House, White was a tireless worker on behalf of women’s suffrage. In this regard, he was reflecting the interests of his district. Charlotte Ball of Lewiston, one of the founders of the Pine Tree State Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, was a White supporter, as were all the clubs in White’s district.

In the 1920s White was a two-term chair of the committee that drafted the

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most important federal legislation relating to Maine industries, the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. In his capacity as Chair of this committee, he played a significant role in pushing the Merchant Marine Act of 1928 through Congress. The act was an important factor in keeping the United States a viable presence on the high seas in its isolationist years following World War I, and in preparing its merchant seamen for their contributions to the war effort during World War II. White also co-authored the Radio Act of 1927, the bill which led to the federal government’s oversight of all mass communication, including telephone, and later, television.

During White’s years in the House, the Republican Party was the ascendant political power in Washington. In 1930 Congressman White became Senator White. For most of White’s Senate tenure the Democrats were in power. Even (cont. on page 54)

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(cont. from page 53) so, White was able to maintain his influence in the area of marine and fisheries legislation by working with the Democratic majority. In fact, he was known for being able to communicate, not only with all the varying factions of his own party but also across the aisle.

For this reason he was chosen for a number of leadership positions. These culminated with his being named Minority Leader in 1944 and Majority Leader in 1947.

Today, students of Senate history regard Wallace White’s tenure as Majority Leader as that of frontman for Robert Taft of Ohio. Taft was a powerhouse who would have undoubtedly been the Republican nominee for President had Dwight Eisenhower not been chosen.

Taft was also the dominant figure in the Senate. He hand-picked White for the position of Majority Leader. This was because White was able to get along with almost everyone, whereas Taft had an abrasive personality.

Wallace White probably did not want to be Majority Leader when the opportunity first came his way. He was seventy years old in 1947 and in failing health. And, of course, he was not

a good speaker, a given requirement for any powerful leader. What he really wanted was to work in committees drafting legislation. However, when he tried to resign as Majority Leader, Robert Taft instructed the party to reject the request. Altogether, it was a sad situation for a man who had spent the greater portion of his life in dedicated service to his party and his country.

In December of 1947 Wallace White was hospitalized with what was first reported as the flu. Later the diagnosis was changed to nervous exhaustion, and still later, to a nervous breakdown.

When he finally returned to the Senate, an assistant carried on his duties as Majority Leader.

Wallace White left the Senate in 1949. His last years were quiet ones, spent back in Maine. He died in Auburn on March 31, 1952, and is interred at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

Regardless of the nature of Wallace White’s final years in politics, he stands as one of Maine’s great political leaders and public servants. If he had a real failing, it was one that we all have, that of aging.

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Paris’ Sidney Farrar Playing baseball for the Phillies

by Charles Francis

T

he village of Paris Hill is one of the most history-laden places in the State of Maine. The township of which it is a part was originally granted to veterans of the French and Indian War by the Massachusetts General Court in 1771. When Oxford County was incorporated in 1805, it became the county seat. Later, when the railroad reached the township, South and West Paris became the township’s business centers, and the original settlement on Paris Hill declined as a center of activity. Perhaps that was all for the best, though, as it allowed Paris Hill to maintain a good deal of its original smalltown quiet and charm.

There was a time, however, when the square on the top of Paris Hill with its views of the far White Mountains echoed to the footsteps of some of the best-known men in the state and the nation. In one office alone on Paris Hill, three Maine governors and one Vice President of the United States began their careers. Some Mainers take special pride in being able to name the famous and near famous who started their distinguished lives in the village

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of Paris Hill and in the township as a whole. The list almost always includes such notables as Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln’s first vice president, governors Sidney Perham, Enoch Lincoln, and Albion K. Parris, as well as other notables in the field of politics and elsewhere. Almost never, however, is the name Sidney Douglas Farrar included in this listing. Yet he, too, started out on Paris Hill before going on to make the name of Farrar one of the best-known in the country.

Sidney Farrar — he was known as Sid by most everyone — was a major league baseball player. In fact, he was the first Maine native to really make it in the big leagues. He did it with the Na-

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tional League Philadelphia Phillies, the oldest franchise in professional sports to maintain the same name and make the same city its home through all the years of its existence. Farrar joined the Phillies in the first year of the team’s existence, 1883.

While Sid Farrar was by no means a star, he was much better than simply a journeyman player. He was a regular in a Phillies lineup that included Ed Delahanty, who compiled a .346 lifetime batting average, the fourth-highest in major league history. Farrar’s average was a respectable .253. His high was .268 in 1889 and his low was .233 in 1883, the year he joined the Phillies.

Altogether he played in nine hundred and forty-three games and came to bat almost thirty-six hundred times. Farrar played first base throughout his career which lasted until 1890. Although fielding statistics were not kept then as they are today, by all accounts Sid Farrar was, as they say, “a pretty fair ballplayer.”

Sidney Farrar was born in Paris Hill on August 10, 1859. His parents (cont. on page 56)

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(cont. from page 55) were Sidney and Maria Farrar. The future Phillies player grew up in a home where, oddly enough, music was the centerpiece of family life. Before leaving Maine to play in the major leagues, Farrar was a member of the 10th Maine Regimental Band for which he played the cornet. Later, after he left the majors and settled in Melrose, Massachusetts, he was a featured soloist with the Melrose Band. In addition, he was noted for his fine tenor singing voice and was a member of church choirs in both Paris Hill and Melrose.

When Sid Farrar went to play for the Phillies he was a family man. In 1880 he had married Henrietta Barnes of Stoneham, Massachusetts. He met her while playing for various semipro baseball teams in the greater Boston area.

The marriage came as something of a shock to the Barnes family. They were

one of the most respected and well-todo families in Stoneham. It must be realized that at this time in history, ballplayers did not make the money they do today. Most were only paid by the game and not much at that. In other words, Sid Farrar sometimes found himself hard-pressed to provide for his family, which included a little girl. There is an intriguing story from Farrar’s days with the Phillies that illustrates just how strapped he sometimes was for funds.

The Farrar family attended almost every home game the Phillies played.

Sid’s little daughter, who was exceptionally precocious and quite pretty, was adopted by the team as its unofficial mascot. One day, after a game, a couple of the Phillies players noticed Farrar going through the stands picking up something every so often. What he was picking up was tinfoil. He was

collecting it to sell to pay for singing lessons for his little girl. When the rest of the team learned what he was doing they joined in. Soon the Philadelphia press got wind as to what was going on and began playing it up. At that point, the Phillies fans got in the act. Farrar had no more problems paying for his daughter’s singing lessons.

Sid Farrar’s daughter went on to a career in music. Her name was Geraldine Farrar. She was one of the most famous operatic divas in the world in the early decades of the twentieth century.

In addition, some critics consider her the most accomplished soloist in the history of the Metropolitan Opera. The attractive star of the operatic stage also starred in a number of films, including Joan, the Woman, the story of Joan of Arc, directed by Cecil B. DeMille. On the continent she was involved in a

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torrid affair with the Crown Prince of Prussia. The affair made headlines on both sides of the Atlantic.

Sid Farrar left baseball after eight years in the majors. At the time, he was still an excellent player. His batting average for his last year was .256, which was above his lifetime average. On August 28th of that year he had one of his best games, knocking in six runs with three triples in a 15 to 2 Philadelphia drubbing of Buffalo.

Sidney Farrar, the first Maine player to make it big in the major leagues, died in New York City in 1935 while visiting his daughter.

Addendum: Henrietta Barnes, the wife of Sid Farrar and mother of Geraldine Farrar, was my great-great-aunt.

Her sister Sarah was my great-greatgrandmother. I never met the Farrars.

My grandmother did, however. There are a good many family stories about them. One thing that was seldom men-

tioned, however, was the affair with the Crown Prince of Prussia. We do have some pictures of the Farrars. One is an incredibly striking portrait of Sidney and Geraldine. Even today one would call him a handsome man. He bears a striking resemblance to the actor Antonio Banderas. Pictures of Henrietta Barnes show that she is equally attractive. It is easy to see where Geraldine Farrar got her looks.

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1890 Primitives........................................................13 A-1 Seamless Gutters..............................................40 ABC Pool & Spa Center..........................................39 Above and Beyond, LLC.........................................39 Advantage Insurance...............................................19 Affordable Well Drilling Excavation & Forestry.....40 American Forest Management................................32 Andrew Ames Logging..............................................6 Archie's Inc. Rubbish Removal................................8 Bean Maine Lobster.................................................16 Beaulieu Garage Doors...........................................14 Belgrade Regional Health Center............................36 Benson Brook Pet Cremations................................45 Bessey Insurance.....................................................19 Bethel Family Health Center...................................36 Bingham Motor Inn & Sports Complex..................25 Blanchet Builders, L.L.C. ......................................27 Blanchette Moving & Storage Co. ...........................4 Bob's Cash Fuel.......................................................12 Bolster Monumental Works.....................................55 Boomers Restaurant & Saloon................................56 Boos Heating Company...........................................43 Bowley Brook Pure Maple Syrup............................18 Boy Locksmith..........................................................7 Bragdon-Finley Funeral Home................................49 Broderick Construction...........................................34 Casco Village Variety..............................................45 Central Maine Community College.........................43 Central Maine Sandblasting.....................................17 Central Tire Co. Inc. ................................................30 Chris' Electric..........................................................43 Cobb's Pierce Pond Camps........................................9 Cole Harrison Insurance..........................................21 Collins Enterprises..................................................33 Colonial Valley Motel..............................................33 Computer Improvements.........................................27 Conlogue's Building & Property Management.........34 Cooper Farms..........................................................18 Coulthard's Pools & Spas Inc. ................................19 Countryside Auto Body & Repair...........................53 Cushing Construction..............................................37 D.A. Wilson & Co. Excavation................................17 D.B. Industries.........................................................52 Damboise Garage....................................................29 Dan's Automotive Repair & Sales............................8 Design Architectural Heating..................................40 Dirigo Waste Oil......................................................30 Dixfield Discount Fuel, Inc. ....................................19 Don's Stove & Chimney.........................................36 Dyer Septic Service.................................................44 East Grand Fence....................................................51 Ed Hodsdon Masonry, Inc. ....................................50 Edmunds Market........................................................9 Emerald Janitorial....................................................41 End of the Rainbow Alternatives..............................32 Engine 5 Bakehouse.................................................14 Engstrom's Auto Service.........................................23 ESC Enterprises.......................................................18 Fairfield Antiques Mall.............................................5 Farmington Farmers Union & Union Rental...........15 Fine Line Paving & Grading....................................25 Finelines Auto Body................................................44 Finley Funeral Home...............................................49 Five Fields Farm........................................................6 Franklin Savings Bank............................................34 Franklin Somerset Federal Credit Union..................5 Frederick Heating....................................................13 Freeport Antiques and Heirlooms Showcase...........16 G&G Cash Fuels......................................................38 George's Banana Stand............................................27 Glen Luce Logging, Inc. ........................................38 Goin' Postal - Auburn.............................................53 Good Times Unlimited RV Sales & Service.............31 Gray Family Vision Center......................................41 Greenwood Orchards Farmstand & Bakery............38 Greg's Auto Repair...................................................14 Grimaldi Concrete Floors & Countertops..............35 H&R Block - Dover-Foxcroft.................................12 Hadley’s.....................................................................7 Hall & Smith............................................................22 Hammond Lumber Company..................................31 Hardys Motorsports.................................................13 Harris Drug Store....................................................23 Healthreach Community Health Centers.................36 Heart & Hand Inc. ...................................................46 Hero's Pizza and Breakfast......................................13 High Tide Low Tide Seafood....................................25 High Wire Hydroponics...........................................44

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Highland Farms Logging, LLC...............................58 Hog Heaven Bar & Grill...........................................9 Home Auto Group...................................................32 House’s Market & Redemption..............................51 Hungry Hollow Country Store...................................6 Ideal Electric Electrical Contractor.........................28 Image Auto Body.....................................................12 J&K Sporting Goods...............................................17 Jackman Auto Parts.................................................10 Jackman Hardware & Sporting Goods.....................4 Jean Castonguay Excavating...................................36 Jimmy's Shop 'N Save..............................................11 Johnson Foundations...............................................24 Jordan Lumber Co. .................................................20 JT's Finest Kind Saw..............................................28 Judd Goodwin Well Company.................................23 JW Awning Co. ......................................................52 Keith Hadley, Inc. & Auto Sales...............................7 Kezar Realty............................................................43 Kimball Insurance, L.L.C. ......................................12 Knowles Lumber Company.....................................52 Korhonen Land Care.................................................7 Kramers Inc. ...........................................................38 L&L Timber.............................................................49 Lakes Region Power Systems.................................20 Laney's Pit Stop.......................................................26 Langlois' Auto Body & Auto Sales..........................41 Larsen's Electric........................................................7 Lavallee's Garage.....................................................11 Law Office of Brian Condon, Jr, Esq. .......................36 Lewiston House of Pizza........................................39 Lincoln Street Radiator Shop..................................53 Linda Bean's Maine Kitchen & Topside Tavern.......16 Linda Bean’s Maine Wyeth Gallery.........................16 Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine Vacation Rental..........16 Linkletter & Sons, Inc. .............................................6 Long Green Variety..................................................50 Lovell's Guilford Hardware.....................................11 Lovewell Hearing....................................................56 Luce's Meats & Maple............................................25 Madison Area Health Center...................................36 Maine At War.............................................................6 Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.............28 Maine Family Federal Credit Union.......................53 Maine Historical Society...........................................5 Maine Maple Products Inc. ....................................12 Maine Mountain Millworks.....................................19 Maine Pellet Sales LLC.........................................52 Mainely Puppies Plus, LLC.....................................55 Maine's Northwestern Mountains............................21 Mama Bear’s Den....................................................22 Marston Industrial Services Inc. .............................28 Martin Stream Campground....................................37 McAllister Accounting and Tax Services.................48 McKusick Petroleum Co. ........................................24 McNaughton Construction......................................31 MEDCo..............................................................39 Memorial Guard LLC..............................................35 Mike Wainer Plumbing & Heating..........................28 Mills Market..............................................................8 Ming Lee Chinese Restaurant..................................30 Monmouth Federal Credit Union.............................36 Montello Heights Retirement Community..............41 Moose River Lodge & Motel...................................23 Moosehead Motorsports..........................................24 Moosehead Sled Repair & Rentals, LLC................23 Moulton Lumber......................................................58 Mount Blue Motel...................................................33 Mount Saint Joseph Residence & Rehab.................29 Mt. Abram Regional Health Center.........................36 Murdough Logging & Chipping..............................44 Naples Packing Co., Inc. ..........................................7 NewGen Powerline Construction............................28 Niedner's Floor Finishing........................................48 Northeast Laboratory Services..................................4 Northland Hotel.......................................................11 Ogunquit Beach Lobster House...............................16 Old Mill Pub Restaurant.........................................27 One Day At A Time Coaching..................................30 Otis Federal Credit Union........................................35 Our Village Market..................................................10 Packard Appraisal, Inc. ...........................................44 Penobscot Marine Museum.......................back cover Penquis Rental.........................................................12 Perkins Management...............................................30 Phil Carter's Garage.................................................15 Phil’s Concrete..........................................................7 Pine Tree Orthopedic Lab........................................35

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Pitcher Perfect Tire Service.....................................31 Polly's Variety..........................................................42 Poor Bob's Storage..................................................14 Presidential Pest Control.........................................17 Prime Financial Inc. ................................................30 Quinn Hardware......................................................26 R&B's Home Source...............................................25 R.E. Lowell Lumber, Inc. .......................................42 R.F. Automotive Repair...........................................13 R.W. Day Logging...................................................58 Randy's Full Service Auto Repair, LLC.................26 Rangeley Electric....................................................19 Rangeley Family Medicine......................................36 Rangeley Vacation Rentals.......................................8 Rare Woods USA.....................................................18 Record Building Supply, Inc. ..................................55 Renovate Right Construction..................................36 Residential Mortgage Services - Debbie Bodwell...40 Richard Wing & Son Logging, Inc. ..........................46 Rick's Garage...........................................................25 Rideout's Seasonal Services....................................22 Riverside Kwik Stop................................................48 Robert W. Libby & Sons, Inc. ...................................4 Rocky Ridge Orchard..............................................40 Rod's Cycle & RV....................................................25 Romah Motor Inn....................................................45 Ron's Market...........................................................15 Ron's Transmissions................................................52 Rottari Electric........................................................54 Route 26 Antiques...................................................42 S.A. McLean, Inc. ....................................................44 Sabattus House of Pizza..........................................40 Sackett and Brake Survey Inc. ...............................26 Sanders Auto Service................................................8 Sandy River Builders..............................................32 Sarge's Sports Pub & Grub......................................20 Scott Ranch Canvas & Upholstery LLC..................3 Shenn Corp..............................................................18 Siragusa Builders.....................................................50 Smile Again Dentures, Inc. ....................................41 Solon Corner Market...............................................27 Spectrum Property Management.............................31 Spencer Group Paving, LLC. ..................................37 Spillover Motel........................................................22 Stacy's Service Center.............................................56 Steinke & Caruso Dental Care...................................3 Sterling Electric.......................................................34 Stevens Electric & Pump Service Inc. ......................6 Strong Area Health Center.......................................36 Strong Hardware & Building Supply........................9 Styling Dog Grooming Boutique.............................53 T&L Enterprises Auto & Small Engine Repair.........10 The Apple Farm.......................................................29 The Garden Goddess................................................18 The Irregular............................................................21 The Meadows..........................................................52 The Old Maps of the 1800s.....................................46 The Sterling Inn Bed & Breakfast..........................21 The Sugar Bowl.......................................................21 Thompson's Orchard...............................................42 Tim Merrill & Co., Inc. ...........................................24 Town & Lake Motel & Lakeside Lodging................20 Town of Mexico......................................................19 Trail's End Steakhouse & Tavern...........................10 Trailside One Stop...................................................22 Trash Guyz..............................................................41 Trusted Souls Adult Daycare, LLC.........................42 V&G Home Improvements.....................................39 Valley ArborCare.....................................................14 Valley Gas & Oil Company......................................10 Valley View Orchard Pies........................................42 VintageMaineImages.com....................................5 Wadsworth Woodlands............................................43 Weber Insurance - Farmington................................19 Weber Insurance - Livermore Falls........................19 West Bethel Motel...................................................17 Western Maine Family Health Center.....................36 Whitewater Farm Market........................................15 Whittemore & Sons Outdoor Power Equipment......27 Wilson Excavating...................................................56 Wilson Funeral Home.............................................54 Window Man LLC...................................................34 Winslow Supply, Inc. .............................................14 Winthrop Roast Beef...............................................37 Woodlawn Rehab & Nursing Center......................26 Wood-Mizer of Maine.............................................49

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