Three Lisbon Villages, One Community More than Moxie to survive

Three Lisbon Villages, One Community

More than Moxie to survive

by Charles Francis L isbon is one of the most unique communities in Maine. One of the things that makes it so unique is, with a population of some nine thousand, it is one of the most populous municipalities in New England that maintains a town meeting form of government. Lisbon is also the host community for the famous Moxie Festival, which celebrates what many Maine and New England diehards consider the state’s (and the region’s) official soft drink. However, more than anything else, the one thing that really makes Lisbon unique is that it is a community comprised of three distinct villages.

If you were to ask a resident of Lisbon where he or she lived, you would most likely get one of three answers: Lisbon Falls, Lisbon or Lisbon Center. Lisbon Falls is the largest of the town’s three villages. It is also the most southerly, bordering on Topsham. Lisbon is the oldest of the three. It borders on Lewiston and Sabattus. Between the two, on the highland overlooking the Sabattus River where it joins the Androscoggin, is Lisbon Center.

As a town, Lisbon is something of a contradiction. While the community is bordered by the four small towns of Bowdoin, Topsham, Durham and Sabattus, in addition to the city of Lewiston, it also has something of the flavor

of an urban center. Over a hundred thousand people live within twenty miles of it. Back in the Roaring 20s, Lisbon was a transportation center for much of the lower Androscoggin Valley. It was here that the Androscoggin and Kennebec Trolley Line made its connection with the Lewiston-Bath Branch of the Maine Central Railroad. While the trolley line went out of business during the Great Depression, and passenger service on the Maine Central Railroad ended almost sixty years ago, Route 196, which traverses the entire length of the town, is a major connector between Interstate 95 and Interstate 295.

Because of the readily available wa- (cont. on page 8)

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terpower in the region, Lisbon’s origins are steeped in industry. Just prior to 1770 Galen Moses, John Tebbets and Edward Plummer organized a stock company to establish mills in the Little River section of what is, today, the village of Lisbon Falls. The three acquired their holdings from the Pejepscot Proprietors. What was for a time known as Little River Plantation was a gore of land whose boundaries were the Androscoggin, Sabattus and Little Rivers.

Lisbon’s first mills were concentrated around the upper falls. Between the Revolution and 1800, there were at least six major sawmills and a gristmill here. At least as early as 1806 there was a mill manufacturing cloth on Little River Stream. A plant that manufactured scythes, and a brick factory, followed it. In 1808 Little River was annexed by Lisbon, and from that point on was known as Lisbon Falls.

The village of Lisbon lies on the banks of the Sabattus River. The seven- (cont. from page 7)

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mile-long Sabattus has as its source Sabattus Pond. Originally, the pond was included within the bounds of Lisbon. In 1840 what is now the town of Sabattus was set off as the town of Webster. The Sabattus was the power source for one of the first of Lisbon’s great woolen mills, the Farnsworth Company.

Lisbon was originally a part of the town of Bowdoin. Except for the Lisbon Falls section, most of it was included in the Kennebec Purchase. The inhabitants of the westerly portion of Bowdoin asked to be incorporated as a separate town in 1798 because of the distance they had to travel to attend town meetings. The actual incorporation took place on June 22, 1799. The name for the new town was Thompsonborough. Thompson had been one of the early owners of the gore purchased by Moses, Tebbets, and Plummer, as well as much of the newly incorporated town. In February of 1802 the name was changed to Lisbon because the pre-

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vious name had been too cumbersome. The cloth mill on the Little River, which was one of the very first in Maine, was followed by carding and dressing mills. Then, in I864 the Farnsworth and Worumbo companies, the first of the great Lisbon industries, were incorporated.

The Farnsworth Company opened it doors on the Sabattus River in Lisbon Center. It specialized in dress goods, shirts, and suits. In the 1920s the mill employed some one hundred and twenty-five workers. They oversaw the complete development of the company’s products from raw stock all the way to finished garments.

Without a doubt, the Worumbo Company was the most famous of Lisbon’s woolen mills. Part of its fame was based on having contracts to supply officers of the United States Army and Navy, as well as the cadets at West Point and Annapolis, with uniforms. Another part of its fame lay with the high quality of its camel’s hair overcoats, which set the fashion tone at some of the trendiest boutiques of the early 1900s, during the era of the flapper and the open touring car.

Other notable Lisbon mills of the early twentieth century included the Lisbon Falls branch of Pejepscot Paper and the Lisbon Mills division of New

England Southern Mills. Today, however, Lisbon is known as the hometown of Moxie.

Lisbon’s annual Moxie Festival got its start with a book signing in 1982. The book was The Moxie Mystique, by Frank Potter. The signing was held at the Kennebec Fruit Company, which was also known as The Moxie Store. The initial signing, which was the idea of Frank Anicetti, who is also known as The Moxie Man, has grown into a three-day celebration featuring a parade, a dance, and other festivities, as well as Moxie memorabilia of every shape and variety. The entire festival has the flavor of an old-fashioned Old Home Days celebration, the kind that only a town with a real sense of community can put on. In fact, it is just that sense of community that makes Lisbon, the town of three villages, what it is today.

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