2022 Southern & Coastal Maine

Publisher Jim Burch

Editor Dennis Burch

Design & Layout

Liana Merdan

Field Representative Don Plante

Contributing Writers

Charles Francis

James Nalley

Brian Swartz

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.

FORM ON PAGE 42

Front Cover Photo: The King and Queen of the Winter Carnival in Portland, ca. 1924 Item # 89 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society/Maine Today Media and www.VintageMaineImages.com

All photos in Discover Maine’s Southern & Coastal Maine 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.

It Makes No Never Mind

by James Nalley

At the time of this publication, the summer months will be behind us, and the air will have begun to get cooler. Of course, Maine’s impressive Atlantic coastline and fall foliage will be plenty to see. However, for those wanting a bit more to do, there are three “trails” to consider.

First, there is Maine’s Pumpkin Trail, which covers 40 miles of coastline and features various events to celebrate the arts, history, and of course, this giant fruit. Although the official start to Maine’s pumpkin season was in May, one of the major events in the region is the Damariscotta Pumpkinfest & Regatta. Held annually on Columbus Day weekend, “pumpkin boats” (400700 pound, hollowed out pumpkins) are paddled/motor-powered by captains racing against one another in a regatta on the Damariscotta River. It also includes related events such as a giant pumpkin weigh-off, a t-shirt contest, pumpkin decorating displays (carved and/or decorated), a parade, music, etc. It has also been named “Best Fall Festival in Maine” by Travel and Leisure magazine. For more information, see www.mainepumpkinfest.com.

Second, there is the Maine Wine Trail. Founded by the Maine Winery Guild, it consists of 29 wineries across the state. Among the many along the southern coast, there are: Solar Rock

Winery in Dayton (www.solar-rock. com), Maine Mead Works in Portland/ Kennebunk (www.mainemeadworks. com), Oyster River Winegrowers in Warren (www.oysterriverwine.com), Cellardoor Winery in Portland/Lincoln (www.mainewine.com), Fat Friar’s Meadery in Newcastle (www.thefatfriarmeadery.com), Urban Farm Fermentary in Portland (www.fermentory. com), and Eighteen Twenty Wines in Portland (www.eighteentwentywines. com). Additionally, visiting six wineries will get you a Winery Guild t-shirt and a chance at the grand prize!

Finally, there is the Maine Beer Trail. Connecting more than 100 craft breweries, you can find about every type of beer to suit your taste. Many breweries incorporate ingredients to make a unique Maine beer, such as the Maine Beer Company in Freeport (www.mainebeercompany.com), while others have produced brews found in many restaurants throughout the state, including Maine’s largest brewer Shipyard Brewing Company (www.shipyard.com). Some brewers even find interesting locations to produce their products, such as Flight Deck Brewing in Brunswick (www.flightdeckbrewing.com), which is located in the former Small Arms Range of the Brunswick Naval Air Station, complete with

bullet holes. Furthermore, 25 visits will get you a Maine Brewers’ Guild hat, 50 will get you a Maine Brewers’ Guild t-shirt, and 100+ will get you a prize pack!

On this note, let me close with the following trail-related jest: A lone hungry traveler finds an isolated inn on a mountain trail. Excited for his first hot meal in days, he opens the door and finds the inn packed with people eating/drinking. After a long search, he finds a table with an old man with his head hanging low. The traveler asks if he could join him, and the old man nods. After sitting down, he notices that the old man has a large bowl of stew in front of him, barely touched. “The stew looks delicious,” says the traveler. The old man doesn’t respond. With such slow service, the traveler becomes more ravenous by the minute. After 20 minutes, he says, “Sir, I would be happy to take your stew if you’re not going to eat it.” Without a word, the old man pushes the bowl toward the traveler, who immediately devours the hot stew. Upon reaching the last bit in the bottom, the traveler notices a dead mouse. Disgusted, the traveler vomits the stew back into the bowl. He looks up and sees the old man staring. Without blinking, the old man says, “Wow… you made it as far as I did.”

The 1879 Murder Of A Cumberland Farmer

Sibling animosity led to his death

by Brian Swartz

Shocked by the murder that claimed a pleasant young farmer, his neighbors in Cumberland steered the law toward a particular suspect.

On Friday, September 27, 1879, people flocked to closing night at the West Cumberland and a dance scheduled to run into Saturday’s wee hours. Cumberland farmer Joseph A. Lowe, an eligible bachelor, escorted his sister Hannah to the dance.

As promised, it wound up around 2:30 a.m., Saturday, and the Lowes headed home in a wagon, Joseph driving and neighbor George W. Morrill along for the ride. The Lowes arrived at

their farm, Morrill quietly said, “good night,” and Joseph walked around the house to open its back door for Hannah. Discovering the door already open, which it should not have been, he searched the house from bottom to top. The only occupants Joseph found were his mother, Abigail, and his sister and brother-in-law (Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey, their first names unknown) and their children.

Satisfied the coast was clear, Joseph let Hannah inside before driving the wagon to the barn to unhitch the horse and put it in its stall.

Apparently awakened by the wagon

rumbling into the yard or by Joseph’s room-by-room search, Abigail Lowe went to her bedroom window and looked toward the barn. She saw Joseph opening the barn door. He had a lamp.

Hannah also called to him from a window.

Hannah rousted her brother-in-law, Ramsey. Walking to the barn, he discovered a blood-covered body. Afraid, he got a lamp and awoke neighbor Cyrus Shaw. They went to the stable and found Joseph lying dead, the horse’s harness and his busted lamp nearby, as well as the blood-covered ax

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with which someone had almost decapitated him.

Law officers arrived, investigated, and asked questions. Evidence indicated the killer was familiar with the property. Always kept sharp, the ax was stored with two others in a special storage area in the woodshed, so only an “insider” would know where to find the weapon. And a particular latching mechanism opened the back door; only an “insider” would have known where to find the latch’s exterior knot in the dark.

Investigators found footprints leading from the barn to a nearby bridge.

Neighbors suspected James F. Lowe, two years younger than his murdered brother. But James had an alibi; he and his wife, Sadie, had spent Friday at the four-story New England House (later the City Hotel) in Portland.

James and Sadie told detectives they had spent the entire night at the hotel.

Investigators pursued clues and ar-

rested the Lowes at 5 p.m., Friday, November 28. James was charged with murder, Sadie for accessory to murder. He apparently staged a meltdown, and she boo-hooed the night away after the Lowes’ prompt arraignment in Portland’s municipal court.

Cumberland County Attorney Thomas H. Haskell dropped the charge against Sadie and declared her just a witness. Asked how he pleaded to his murder charge, James responded, “Guilty.”

Surprised investigators exclaimed, “Wow!”

Cumberland neighbors of Joseph Lowe had first sicced the law onto James. He always had a volatile temper, even from childhood, neighbors claimed, and he hated Joseph. Before dying in March 1876, their father George had, in agreement with Abigail, willed the farm to Joseph, and the thoroughly ticked off James married Sadie and moved to Nova Scotia.

The Lowes returned to Cumberland and lived on the family farm. James and Joseph quarreled violently, with Joseph “thrashing” his brother, and this time James and Sadie left for good.

Before arresting the Lowes, Portland City Marshal Bridges had conducted a good cop-bad cop scenario in which he befriended James, who suddenly started hanging around the Portland police station after the murder. Bridges brought in Oxford County Deputy Sheriff Wormell to play the “sleuth-hound of justice,” often turning up where James could see him and talking like he was close to cracking the case.

At 1 p.m., Friday, November 28, James was chatting with Bridges at the police station. “James, I must see your wife,” Bridges confidentially said. “Wormell has the strongest evidence against you, but she and I may be able to arrange matters.”

James sent Sadie to meet with Bridges. “Wormell has got his evidence (cont. on page 6)

(cont. from page 5)

solid against your husband,” the marshal said. “Now, Mrs. Lowe, I cannot save him, but if you are innocent, it is for you to save yourself. You can only do it by telling all the truth.”

Sadie did. Stating that James left the New England House about 8 p.m., September 27, she said he returned around 4:30 a.m., Saturday. “I asked him where he had been,” she recalled.

“Don’t ask me. Time will tell,” James replied, according to Sadie.

After the Lowes were arrested, police put them in adjacent cells. Bridges and Wormell hid around the corner and listened as the couple talked. At Wormell’s urging, Sadie cried sufficiently and repeatedly urged James to tell her that he had killed Joseph. However, James would not confess to her.

On Saturday, November 29, James told Bridges, “I done it, but my wife

knew nothing about it and had no hand in it.” He signed a written confession on Sunday, November 30.

Afraid that he would wind up a pauper, James had decided to commit a felony so he would be sent to the state prison. Leaving the hotel on September 27, he walked the 12 miles to his family’s farm — he described the exact route — opened the house’s back door, figured Joseph was at the fair, and then found the ax in the woodshed.

Waiting until Joseph took the horse into the barn, James walked silently inside and chopped him. Joseph never saw his killer or the death blow coming.

James walked back to Portland and reached the hotel around 5 p.m. He got his “three squares a day” after a judge sentenced him to the state pen.

The distraught Sadie went free.

A MUST READ!!!

Written by Maine at War blogger and Discover Maine contributor Brian Swartz, the new book Maine At War, Volume 1: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg tells the story of Maine’s involvement in the first 18 months of the Civil War, as experienced by Maine men and women who answered the call to defend and preserve the United States. Maine At War Volume 1 draws on diaries, letters, regimental histories, newspaper articles, eyewitness accounts, and the Official Records to bring the war to life in a storytelling manner that captures the time and period.

Released by Epic Saga Publishing. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers: 492 pages, 313 photos and illustrations. $30.00

Dolbeck and Ricker of the Chandler Concert Co. in Freeport, ca. 1908. Item # 17728 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

Steamer Potomac Goes Up In Flames Off Cape Elizabeth

Winter fire forced passengers and crews overboard

by Brian Swartz

Afew hours before a cold winter’s dawn in 1865, a steamboat captain steering along the Maine coast spotted the two familiar lights flashing from their respective towers in Cape Elizabeth. Moments later disaster engulfed the captain’s world.

On February 16, 1860, the Maine Legislature passed a bill authorizing eight investors, including Henry Cromwell from New York City, to form the New England Screw Steamship Company to conduct “the business of navigation by vessels propelled by steam or otherwise” between Portland and the

Big Apple “and from any other port in Europe or North America.”

A Brooklyn, New York native, Cromwell was well experienced in

steamers, having established the namesake H.B. Cromwell & Company in the early 1850s. He bought the New York, Baltimore and Alexandria Steamship Company in 1854 and converted several small coal-hauling steamers so the ships could carry people instead.

Cromwell assigned the steamers Caledonia and Western Port to start sailing between Portland and New York City in June 1855. Within a few years his steamers also connected New York with Baltimore, Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; and other coastal cities, including Washington,

D.C. Among Cromwell’s ships was the 448-ton Potomac, overhauled with new boilers and a new engine in late 1858.

After the 35-year-old Cromwell died in Brooklyn in April 1864, his widow, Sarah, was forced to dispose of his business assets. The New England Screw Steamship Company purchased Cromwell’s New York and Portland Steamship Line in early December; the new owners “have arranged to increase the [size of] the line, and two new steamers are understood to be under contract,” reported the New York Times

Under Captain Sherwood, the Potomac slipped its lines at a New York wharf at 4 p.m., Wednesday, January 4, 1865 and steamed for Portland. The ship carried five passengers, including a woman, and 18 crew members.

Dealing with normal winter weather, Sherwood made decent time on this routine run, and by 4:30 a.m., Friday, January 6, he could see the lights flashing from the Cape Elizabeth lighthous-

es, nine miles to the northeast.

“Fire! Fire!” sailors shouted. Smoke swirled as flames erupted “in the after-house by the steam chimney,” the Portland Daily Press reported. Sailors deployed the fire hose. Sherwood ordered crewmen “to work the donkey pump,” but sailors venturing into the engine room to start the pump discovered a fast-spreading inferno there.

“A strong breeze” rolling from the southwest fed oxygen to the fire. Sherwood ordered “abandon ship,” and sailors “commenced clearing away the boats.” Crewmen rushing to release the starboard lifeboat found it already “enveloped in flames.”

Fire licked at the port lifeboat, which “would not contain all the passengers and crew,” but sailors released the boat, and the cold sea extinguished the flames. Sherwood sent sailors to “cut away” the ship’s foremast to make a raft.

The furiously burning Potomac

poured dark smoke around Sherwood, the passengers, and 10 sailors who climbed into the port lifeboat. The seven other crewmen climbed onto the raft, which vanished in the night. Sailors took to the oars to maneuver the lifeboat away from the burning steamer.

Three eternal hours passed slowly until a schooner reached the lifeboat at 7:30 a.m. and rescued its occupants. The schooner’s skipper, Capt. Willard, steered his ship toward the Potomac, still afloat and burning, its smoke rising into the Friday morning sky off Cape Elizabeth.

Willard hailed three schooners already hovering near the Potomac. No one had seen the raft, but knowing that if intact it would move with wind and tide, “Willard then worked about five miles to windward.”

His crewmen spotted the raft, to which three men still clung. Willard reached the raft at 10 a.m. and sent a boat to rescue the frozen sailors, who (cont. on page 12)

(cont. from page 11)

reported that the sea had washed their comrades overboard and drowned them. Willard then brought the Potomac’s surviving crew and passengers to Portland.

The Potomac ironically fared better than the sailors drowned in the cold Atlantic. Aware that the steamer had salvage value, the three schooners’ captains ordered their ships “fastened to the wreck,” by mid-morning more steam than flame. Two tugboats (one government-owned) sallied from Portland Harbor “to go to the assistance of the burning vessel,” but when the tugs reached the Potomac, the schooner captains prevented the tugs “from doing anything” that could affect salvage efforts.

Pulling near the Potomac, the tugs “started their pumps and succeeded in subduing the flames so that the wreck could be towed” to Portland, the PDP reported. Passing Portland Head Light

in Cape Elizabeth, the strange smoky parade entered Portland Harbor, and the Revenue Service cutter Dobbin sent a boatload of sailors to help tow the Potomac to the steamboat wharf located at the foot of State Street, and a Portland fire engine arrived and poured water on the wreck until its fire went out. The steamer burned to its waterline.

Investigators determined the fire and the sea had destroyed the steamer’s cargo, ranging from “185 kegs nails” to 100 barrels containing salted beef to leather, oil cloth, “1 iron safe,” and liquor-filled barrels. Merchants as far away as Auburn, Hallowell, and northern New Hampshire lost freight.

As for the Potomac, which was worth approximately $40,000, “nothing but the iron will be saved from it,” the PDP noted. The steamer was insured for $27,000.

New Gloucester’s Opportunity Farm

Life at the shelter for boys

by Brian Swartz

After Fred Forest Pease came to Lewiston to help Frank Winter organize the Androscoggin Boys Club in Lewiston, the men realized that for various reasons some boys needed greater opportunity to improve their lives. This need led to establishing Opportunity Farm for Boys on a New Gloucester hilltop in 1910 and incorporating the organization in mid-June 1912.

Intended to shelter boys and help them develop life- and work skills, the farm was managed initially by Pease and his wife. Coming from broken homes, poverty, and often both situations, boys attended school and worked on the farm. Its first residents

were three homeless boys involved in the Social Settlement of Lewiston and Auburn.

Operating with two separate New Gloucester campuses, the organization was renamed Opportunity Farm for Boys and Girls in 2002. Many residents have lived at Opportunity Farm over the years; among them was Ray Darling, only age 2 when he was placed in foster care after his parents’ 1923 divorce.

His older brothers Clifford and Melvin went to live at Opportunity Farm, and Ray joined them in 1924 and stayed at the farm until 1936. During the Opportunity Farm’s 2010 centennial celebration, he shared with the Lewiston

Sun Journal his “very positive, favorable thoughts” about living at the farm. “We did every possible job that needed to be done. Opportunity Farm helped me to develop a work ethic.”

After Ray died in Florida in May 2019, a subsequent Citrus County Chronicle article about his life included memories about his Opportunity Farm years.

Another former resident, Roland Soucy of Levant, has different memories about living there. He and his brother, Raymond, came to Opportunity Farm via a family breakup. After their parents divorced, their mother could not care for them and their sister, Tammy, two years older than Roland.

Because the Soucys were Catholic, the boys went to the Healy Asylum, a Franciscan nun-operated boys’ orphanage at 81 Ash Street in Lewiston.

When Roland was 11½, the Soucy brothers were transferred to Opportunity Farm because boys had to leave Healy Asylum when they turned 12. The brothers arrived at New Gloucester, where “they separated us,” said Roland. “I was older, but he grew up so fast” and was so tall that Raymond moved into what Roland called the “Big House,” a large farmhouse where the older boys lived. “There was close to 35 boys, teenagers,” in that building, which was managed by a married couple.

Roland lived in the “Lower Dorm,” which housed about 25 boys ranging from 8 to 12 years old. The house parents were a married couple with a child “who did not play with us.”

Another married couple with a son

TRASH GUYZ

and a daughter managed Opportunity Farm and lived in a separate house.

The boys rode in a wooden-seat bus to a New Gloucester public school.

“We saw boys and girls,” but “didn’t even mingle” with the latter, Roland said. “I didn’t even know how to talk to a girl.” and the Opportunity Farm boys “often kept to themselves.”

On Sundays they went to a Protestant church. “I went from Catholic to Protestant,” he said.

At Opportunity Farm the older boys cared for the farm animals (horses and pigs), feeding them and cleaning the pens and stables. The younger boys could earn 10 cents an hour by picking peas before supper, Roland recalled.

The older and younger boys did not play together, but Roland could visit Raymond at the Big House, and boys “raced bicycles around the property.” There were no fences enclosing the boys inside the farm’s boundary, unlike

What’s

the Healy Asylum where “we were all fenced in.”

Each summer the boys went to Camp Don Bosco in Wayne. Roland and Raymond were at Opportunity Farm one summer’s day when “my real father and two of my aunts and one uncle came up to see us. This was the first time I’d seen” the aunts, Roland recalled. “We felt privileged to have them there visiting us. It was like heaven.”

The guests brought a new Western Flyer bicycle for the Soucy brothers, plus a rare warm physical contact. “We did not know what we were missing, hugs and kisses,” Roland explained. “We never got any affection.”

He remembered one time when the younger boys were taken to a Lewiston movie theater. Roland fell asleep during the movie — he smiled while admitting he “cannot remember its name” — and stayed that night with a Lewiston family. That brief sojourn with parents and (cont. on page 18)

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(cont. from page 17)

their children remains a pleasant memory.

The Soucys discovered that life could be difficult at Opportunity Farm. Lined up “almost according to height, you had to march militarily to the cafeteria and back,” Roland said. “There was no talking” while boys went to and from the cafeteria and ate there. “It was very regimented. You had to clean up your plate.”

Punishment did occur, and one time the Soucys ran away. “We were on the main road,” but were caught, returned to the farm, and punished, Roland said. Referring to the farm’s name, he said “it wasn’t an opportunity for us. For us little kids, we had to go someplace.” The state “couldn’t put us out on the street.

“It was good getting away from the farm when the bus picked you up,” he said.

Roland “was 13 or 14 when our mother found us.” She had married

a New York man; removing her sons from Opportunity Farm, she took them and Tammy to live with their stepfather in Middletown, New York. Disaster befell the Soucy children there; Roland

praised a particular local family for helping him escape the nightmare that his new home became. He later served in the military.

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

Ships For Victory

Portland’s shipbuilding industry during World War II

by James Nalley

Although it is widely known that the United States did not officially enter World War II until December 1941, it began to provide military supplies and assistance to the Allies in September 1940. The majority of such assistance flowed to Great Britain through the Lend-Lease Program, which offered ships in exchange for leases of land (in British territories) that could be used as U.S. naval and air bases. As a result of such an agreement, Portland’s shipyards had become a hive of activity. For example, in 1940, the Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding Corporation was established to build 30 Ocean Class freighters for the British, after

which the South Portland Shipbuilding Corporation was formed to build Liberty ships for the U.S. Maritime Commission. In 1942 Todd-Bath Iron completed its Ocean Class contracts and it also began building Liberty ships. By the time that the last Liberty ship was launched in October 1945, a total of 266 ships had been constructed in Portland.

Between 1940 and 1941, defense spending in Maine increased from $130 million to more than $500 million. Such funding was aimed at shipbuilding, which, in turn, required thousands of skilled and unskilled workers to fill the available positions at the two shipyards. The workers were offered up to

$1.20 an hour for an eight-hour day, six or seven days a week. Due to the influx of men and women from Maine and around the country (at least 30,000), Portland’s economy and lifestyle had dramatically changed. According to the Maine Historical Society, the economic “impact quickly spread…boosting real estate values, and quickening the pace of business along Congress Street. Portland’s population grew from 73,643 people in 1940 to 77,634 in 1949, while South Portland was transformed from a quiet residential neighborhood into a bustling industrial city.” Throughout the region, various housing projects, homes, and small villages were quickly

constructed to house all of the workers. Some of the most densely populated included neighborhoods such as Redbank Village, Elizabeth Park, and Sagamore Village. Within the various neighborhoods, United Service Organizations (USOs), city recreation centers, the Masonic Temple, the YWCA, the Armory gymnasium, the Boys Club, and numerous churches welcomed the sailors on leave, the workers, and their respective families with open arms. Although the daytime activities of these individuals were somewhat tame, the night brought about a different side of the workers (searching for some respite from their occupations) and the sailors (looking to enjoy themselves on liberty). According to an article dated, March 16, 1943 , in The Telegraph, “A shouting, bottle-throwing crowd of shipyard workers rioted for more than an hour inside and in front of the downtown Colonial Theater after a special (cont. on page 22)

Mass launch of five liberty ships in Portland on August 16, 1942.

(cont. from page 21)

midnight ‘stag’ show had abruptly halted at about 1:45 a.m.” Due to the shutdown of the impromptu stage show, a “dozen or more seats were smashed, bottles and broken glass littered the floor and stage, and several windows and the glass panels in all of the lobby doors were broken.” The workers were apparently disappointed that the dancers did not perform a “true striptease.” Police Capt. Harold Maguire estimated the crowd to be approximately 1,500. Furthermore, he stated, “the workers had paid $1.50 each and that the show had been stopped after a couple of dances.” The riot call brought U.S. Navy and Coast Guard patrolmen, the fire department, and military police, as well as available Portland policemen to Congress and Temple Streets. According to Maguire, “The police made no effort to drive the men away for fear of

greater violence and…aside from some small skirmishes, the men slowly dispersed.”

Despite these incidences, Maine’s shipyards became a vital component of the war effort. During World War II, Maine’s shipyards built a total of 1,358 ships for the U.S. Navy, Army, and Maritime Commission. The three primary shipyards launched 404 steel vessels, including 234 Liberty ships, 64 destroyers, and 71 submarines. Regarding the relationships among the ever-growing society, historian Joel Eastman of the University of Southern Maine states, “By the fall of 1944, the greater Portland area had adjusted to the impact of the shipyards, the army, and the navy, three-and-a-half years after their arrival.”

After the end of the war in 1945, the need for shipbuilding ceased, the ma-

jority of the men and women lost their jobs, and the shipyards slowly fell into decline.

In addition, the skilled labor force returned back to the men returning from military service. Some of the socalled Rosie the Riveters and Wendy the Welders returned to school, while others became store clerks or found work in the region’s mills and shoe shops. However, some female workers were skilled enough to remain in their former positions. As former welder Shirley Wilder fondly recalls, “I loved welding. You need a woman’s touch for welding, because it requires coordination and accuracy, not brute strength.” In regard to the dilapidated buildings, P.K. Contracting demolished the last rusted steel skeleton in January 2011.

Released

Written by Maine at War blogger and Discover Maine contributor Brian Swartz, the new book Maine At War, Volume 1: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg tells the story of Maine’s involvement in the first 18 months of the Civil War, as experienced by Maine men and women who answered the call to defend and preserve the United States. Maine At War Volume 1 draws on diaries, letters, regimental histories, newspaper articles, eyewitness accounts, and the Official Records to bring the war to life in a storytelling manner that captures the time and period.

by Epic Saga Publishing. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers: 492 pages, 313 photos and illustrations. $30.00

Gorham’s Frederick Robie

The Governor who supported women’s suffrage

by Brian Swartz

Maine’s political parties conducted their municipal caucuses in spring 1882, and Republicans nominated Gorham physician Frederick Robie as their gubernatorial candidate. By then he had paid his political dues — and he was a veteran to boot.

Born in Gorham to Toppan and Sarah Thaxter Robie on August 12, 1822, Robie attended Gorham Academy and then Bowdoin College, graduating from there in 1841. He then taught a few years down South, including a stint as a tutor for a Florida plantation owner’s family. Returning north, Robie graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1844 and

practiced medicine in Biddeford for 11 years and in Waldoboro for three years before moving his practice to Gorham. Elected to the Maine House of Rep-

resentatives as a Republican in 1859, he won re-election in 1860. After Fort Sumter, Robie offered his services to President Abraham Lincoln, who appointed him an army paymaster and a major, effective June 1, 1861.

Two years later Robie transferred to Boston as the army’s New England chief paymaster. He ended the war on July 20, 1866 as a brevet lieutenant colonel of volunteers.

“This is the first instance of a Maine Paymaster securing such an honor [the brevet promotion] and it could have been bestowed on no more faithful, modest and unassuming officer,” stated the Portland Star. “He is held by the Paymaster General as one of the best

Governor Frederick Robie

officers in the Pay Department of our country.”

“He has been a gentlemanly and courteous officer and has faithfully discharged the duties of his office,” said Portland’s Eastern Argus.

Robie stayed in the army long after the war’s end to calculate final pay for discharged New England soldiers, especially Maine men. He signed thousands of discharge papers and met countless veterans, many of whom would support his political career.

Elected to the Maine Senate in 1866 and 1867, Robie later returned to the Maine House. Majority Republicans made him House Speaker in 1872 and 1876. He lived on a Gorham farm that had long belonged to the Robie family, married Olivia M. Priest, and had at least three daughters and a son with her.

A strong Gorham Academy supporter, Robie pushed to transition that venerable school to become the Gorham Normal School, where prospective

teachers could be educated. Decades later that school became the University of Southern Maine, located in the heart of Gorham. Robie contributed financially to his alma mater.

With his legislative experience, he was expected to run for governor. Robie traveled to France in 1878 as an American commissioner at the Paris Exposition. During his absence Maine Republican leaders tossed his hat into the gubernatorial ring, and he garnered a few Republican votes when legislators met in late 1879.

That year’s election saw no clear-cut winner for governor, political obfuscation tossed the State House into turmoil, and outgoing Governor Alonzo Garcelon summoned Major General Joshua L. Chamberlain to Augusta to deal with armed factions prowling the State House corridors and grounds. Ultimately the Maine Supreme Court sorted through legal and illegal votes and declared Republican candidate

Daniel F. Davis the winner.

Upon taking office on January 17, 1880 he named Robie to the Executive Council. Recognizing his talent, incoming Democratic Governor Harris M. Plaisted retained Robie on the council after taking office in January 1881.

Robie became Maine’s 39th governor upon being sworn into office on January 3, 1883, and he served two consecutive two-year terms by winning re-election in 1884.

Robie supported women’s suffrage. During his January 1885 inaugural address he referred “to the necessity of some change of our laws which would and should give women increased opportunities to discharge the duties of citizenship.

“By innumerable deeds of noble conflict on every field of moral, intellectual and social effort, women have won equal honors with the other sex, and established by works her right to a just recognition and equality which (cont. on page 26)

(cont. from page 25)

selfish rule has heretofore prevented,” Robie said. “Intelligence of the citizen is the only true basis of suffrage, and if equality is assured, let us not ignore its logical consequences, but give to women all the rights of citizenship.”

Unfortunately Maine women would not gain the right to vote until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, but Robie had opened the political doors for other state bills that advanced women’s rights.

Although employed as a doctor, Robie always retained strong interest in agriculture and ran the large family farm for many years. After serving as president of the Cumberland County Agricultural Society, he became the Worthy Master of the Maine State Grange. Active in the Grand Army of the Republic Post 101 in Gorham, Robie also joined the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.

Olivia Robie died in 1898; Frederic

Robie married Martha Ellen Cressey in 1900. Upon his death in Gorham at age 89 on February 3, 1912, his family buried him in the Eastern Cemetery run-

ning between Main Street and the New Portland Road.

Eastern Cemetery in Gorham, ME

Brunswick’s Captain James Thompson

Leader of the Brunswick minutemen

by Charles Francis

By early 1775 relations between the American colonies, especially Massachusetts and England, had deteriorated to the point where it would only take the smallest spark to set off open rebellion. While Boston was the chief hotbed of anti-British sentiment, discontent also spread east into the District of Maine. One of the centers of this discontent, perhaps the most fervent, was in Brunswick.

According to most accounts, Brunswick anti-British sentiment was fanned in a tavern owned and operated by the Thompson family. Captain James

Thompson, the head of the clan, was born in Kittery and moved to Brunswick as a young man. He opened a general store, became a town selectman, and organized a company of militia, hence his military title. The militia included his brothers Cornelius and Alexander, and his son Samuel, who was the family firebrand and the most militant. Samuel convinced the Massachusetts General Court to appoint him a militia colonel, a position which made him one of the officers in charge of defenses in an area lying east of Falmouth, now Portland, to the Kennebec. During the

Revolution Samuel Thompson rose to the rank of brigadier general. He welcomed the “shot heard ‘round the world” when it was fired at Lexington and Concord. Now all he needed was the occasion to fire his own shots at the Redcoats. That occasion manifested itself less than a month after Lexington and Concord.

Early in May the British decided to make a display of force in the Falmouth area in the form of the sloop-ofwar Canceau, sailing into Casco Bay under the command of Lieutenant Henry Mowatt. When Samuel Thompson

heard of the ship’s presence in the bay, he decided it was time for the militia to act. Their actions became one of the factors leading to the burning of Falmouth.

Around May 7th Col. Thompson commandeered two vessels with fifty to sixty Brunswick militiamen ready to fight the Redcoats as their counterparts had at Lexington and Concord. Under the cover of darkness, Thompson and his men landed at the back of Falmouth Neck on May 10th. Once the ships were hidden, the men infiltrated part way onto the neck. There they secreted themselves waiting for whatever fate might bring their way. The next afternoon Lt. Mowatt, a local minister, and the surgeon from the Canceau were strolling on Falmouth Neck on a route that took them right into the middle of Thompson’s concealed forces.

When the arrogant Lt. Mowatt was captured, he underestimated the intent

and nature of the men who held him prisoner. He threatened his captors, and said that if he wasn’t summarily released he would destroy Falmouth. The threat didn’t faze Col. Thompson. In fact, he sent a message to Mowatt’s second in command, Ensign Hogg, to surrender the Canceau and all hands. Ensign Hogg didn’t comply, and said that if his superior wasn’t released by six o’clock, he would fire on Falmouth. Backing up this threat, Hogg set off two cannon loaded with powder, but not balls or shot. The action, of course, upset a number of Falmouth residents. The action in no way dissuaded Samuel Thompson from pursuing his aims. Later some prominent Falmouth residents persuaded Thompson to enact a hostage exchange. Mowatt and the surgeon were exchanged for some Falmouth residents. Lt. Mowatt gave his word as a British officer and a gentleman that he would return. He did not.

Instead, the Canceau raised anchor and sailed out of Casco Bay. It was a lesson which Samuel Thompson wouldn’t forget as he rose to become one of the heroes of the Revolution.

As the history books tell us, in October Lt. Mowatt and the Canceau, accompanied by several other British warships, returned to Falmouth and fired upon the defenseless town and destroyed much of it. This act of revenge was considered terrorism.

Back at the end of May, Samuel Thompson and his militiamen returned to Brunswick with stories of being robbed of a victory that should clearly have been theirs. This expedition of the Brunswick militia to Falmouth is often referred to as Thompson’s War.

Discover Maine

Bath’s Susan Marr Spalding Renowned sonnet writer

by James Nalley

In the field of poetry, writing lines in iambic pentameter is one of the most difficult parts of writing a sonnet. This means that each line in the sonnet must have 10 syllables, and the syllables alternate in emphasis. However, in the late 1800s, a Bath-born woman had mastered this peculiar and difficult form of composition. According to Charles Moulton in The Magazine of Poetry (1890), “Artistically considered, they are very nearly beyond criticism, perfect in execution, and of exquisite finish.” Not surprisingly, one of her nearly perfect compositions became so popular that it was widely copied and claimed by others under a different title.

Susan Marr was born in Bath on July 4, 1841. Her parents died while she was still young, after which she moved to

New York City to live with her uncle’s family. There, as stated by Moulton, “she had the advantages of refined and cultured surroundings.” At the age of 18, she married 32-year-old Rodolphus Spalding, “a gentleman of intelligence and literary taste.” After residing in New York for several years and then moving to Philadelphia, her husband died. As a widow, Spalding spent her time with friends and family in both Philadelphia and Bath, while balancing the ongoing demands of being a nurse and a counselor. However, it was her talent as a poet, particularly as a sonnet writer, that would make her renowned in the writing circles. The following is a prominent example from the poem Fate: Two shall be born the whole wide world apart, and speak in differ-

Celebrating 30 Years of Service

Susan Marr Spalding

ent tongues, and have no thought each of the other’s being, and no heed; And these o’er unknown seas to unknown lands shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death; and, all unconsciously, shape every act and bend each wandering step to this one end: That one day, out of darkness they shall meet.

The following is another example of her writing, from the poem A Winter Rose: O Winter Rose, by what enchanting power was wrought thy shining miracle of bloom? Who hid from thee the golden, glowing hour That turns to summer this December gloom? What thrilling impulse, like a hidden fire, melted the snows wherein thy heart doth hide? What tender memory, what dear desire for the fond sun, they lover long denied?

Her poems were immediately and positively received in the writing circles. According to Moulton, “A careful study of its artistic requirements and a conscientious and painstaking habit of

composition have resulted so successfully that she is considered by many competent critics as one of the best sonnet writers of the day.” Despite such high praise, her poem Fate was widely copied and claimed by many to be their work. For example, when Edwin Milton Royle (the renowned American playwright) used it in his play Friends, he was inundated with letters from individuals claiming to be its author. Consequently, he placed Spalding’s name on all of his programs. In another instance, in 1876, Spalding wrote the following in the New York Graphic, “I happen to have still in my possession the note from William Augustus Croffut (one of the editors of the Graphic) accepting the poem, speaking of it in the highest terms and expressing his regret that he could not pay for the poetry, since it has more than once quenched a too-insistent claimant.” It was not until 1893 that her right of authorship was officially settled in court.

(cont. on page 34)

Two shall be born the whole wide world apart, And speak in different tongues, and have no thought

Each of the other’s being, and no heed:

And these o’er unknown seas to unknown lands Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death; And, all unconsciencly, shape every act

And bend each wandering step to this one end: That, one day, out of darkness they shall meet.

(cont. from page 33)

In her remaining years, she regularly spent her winters in Wilmington, Delaware. However, in 1894, she permanently moved to Boston and then traveled abroad. Spalding died at her home in West Medford, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1908. She was 66 years of age.

Today, her name has basically disappeared in the literary circles and Spalding, according to the Montreal Witness, is “best known or least known by her poem, Fate. However, perhaps closing with the following verse from Fate will be a reminder of her true skill as a sonnet writer: And two shall walk some narrow way of life so nearly side by side that, should one turn ever so little space to right or left, they needs must stand acknowledged face to face, and yet, with wistful eyes that never meet, with groping hands that never clasp, and lips calling in vain to ears that never hear, they seek each other all their weary days and die unsatisfied – and that is Fate!

The 102’ wooden dragger FOUR at Sample’s Shipyard in Boothbay Harbor, ca. 1957. Item # LB1992.301.270 from the Atlantic Fisherman Collection and

The Story Of Samoset

A name with colonial origins

by Charles Francis

Scattered throughout the midcoast region are various businesses and memorials bearing the name Samoset. These include restaurants, hotels, and other businesses as well as historical markers ranging from New Harbor and Damariscotta to Thomaston and Rockland. Often the name of Samoset appears along with that of another Native American by the name of Squanto.

Although the name Samoset is a midcoast fixture, few actually know anything about who he really was. Those who are able to place him in any kind of historical context generally associate him with the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving. One commonly held

misconception involving Samoset has him welcoming the Pilgrims when they landed at Plymouth Rock with the words “Much welcome, Englishmen.” Another gives him credit for helping them survive their first winter and then sitting down to celebrate the first Thanksgiving with them, even though it is extremely doubtful he was there. Still another implies that Samoset and Squanto were members of the same tribe.

While Samoset was one of the first Native Americans to have contact with the Pilgrims, and he will always be associated with them for that reason, it is the explorer George Weymouth with whom Samoset had the most contact. In

fact, Samoset, as well as Squanto, who was the first translator for the Pilgrims, both sailed with Weymouth.

Samoset was a member of an Abnaki or Wabanaki subgroup that was probably associated with the Pejepscots, who lived in the midcoast area. While he is often referred to as a member of the Pemaquid tribe, it is doubtful that he thought of himself in those terms. Pemaquid is a Micmac place name, and the Micmac, who lived much further downeast, had an adversarial relationship with the midcoast and southern Abnaki. Squanto was a Wampanoag from Patuxet on Cape Cod, where the Pilgrims established their first settlement. Yet these two are irrevocably

linked.

Samoset and Squanto met in — of all places — England. As to how two Native Americans from what would come to be called New England met on an island across the Atlantic, the answer is simple: treachery. Squanto was kidnapped by slavers and escaped to England, and Samoset was kidnapped by George Weymouth and taken there. However, it was Weymouth who returned the two to the New World in time for them to be among the first to greet the Pilgrims.

George Weymouth was the first English explorer to investigate the possibility of establishing a colony on the Maine coast. His expedition was financed by Thomas Arundell, John Popham, and Ferdinando Gorges. In 1605 Weymouth explored much of the midcoast area in his ship the Archangel. He landed on Monhegan, which he called St. George, sailed up the St. George River to the site of present-day Thomaston, where he left a cross, and visited the Camden Hills. While in the Thomaston-Camden region he induced

five Indians to come on board, and without telling them what he intended, set sail for England. One of these was probably Samoset, who would become Weymouth’s friend and travel with him back and forth across the Atlantic at least one more time.

Sometime after Weymouth’s 1605 voyage he met and developed a friendship with Squanto. In a way, this was unfortunate, because Squanto came to trust all Englishmen, and this led to his being kidnapped and sold into slavery. He was captured by a British slaver and sold in the Caribbean. Fortunately, a Franciscan priest befriended Squanto and helped him escape to Spain, so that eventually he made his way to England where he made contact with Weymouth. It was at this time that Samoset and Squanto met.

Early in 1621 Weymouth returned Samoset and Squanto to America, landing them close to Squanto’s home on Cape Cod. In March of 1621 Samoset and Squanto walked into the Pilgrim’s Plymouth Plantation settlement, and Samoset greeted them with the words

“Much welcome, Englishmen.”

Squanto would go on to become the Pilgrim’s chief translator. He, along with other Wampanoags like Massasoit, would help the Pilgrims to adapt to life in the New World. Samoset most likely returned to his home in Maine, which is why it is doubtful he was present at the first Thanksgiving.

Samoset does not disappear from the pages of history at this time, however. In 1623 and 1624 Captain Christopher Levett explored much of southern Maine. While in what would be named Portland harbor, Levett encountered Samoset, whom he called Somerset and a great “sakamo,” and several companions fishing. For a time, Samoset must have felt he might develop a relationship with Levett similar to the one he had with Weymouth, but although Levett promised to return to visit his sakamo “cousins,” he never did. That incident is the last in which the name of Samoset appears.

Samoset, however, is still linked to the first Thanksgiving, forever serving as a symbol of what might have been.

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America’s father of watchmaking

by Charles Francis

Eli Whitney had something to do with it. Samuel Colt was the first American to perfect it for use in firearms manufacturing, and it made Henry Ford rich. It was the development and use of interchangeable parts.

The development of interchangeable parts is cited as one of the reasons why American manufacturing came to dominate the industrial world from the mid-nineteenth century and into the twentieth. It was the use of interchangeable parts that made the assembly line possible. Historians refer to the use of interchangeable parts in the U.S. as the American System of Manufacturing.

The names Eli Whitney, Samuel Colt and Henry Ford are known to everyone who has taken U.S. history.

The names of these inventive giants are prominently featured in even the most basic of history texts. There is another name, the name of another giant in the development of American industry, that is the equal of the above mentioned. It is, however, a name that is missing from all but the most inclusive of American history texts. It is the name of Freeport-born Aaron Dennison.

Aaron Dennison was the father of the American system of watch manufacturing. You have to go to specialized treatises on the history of clock and watch manufacturing to find him identified as such. One wonders why this is so. Does it say something about how watches are viewed? Their importance? Oddly, a watchmaking company that

Aaron Dennison

Aaron Dennison was very much associated with, the Waltham Watch Company, sometimes receives mention in U.S. history texts. This may be because the name Waltham, as it relates to watches, was once as well known as Timex.

During its existence from 1860 to 1957, the Waltham Watch Company, also known as the American Waltham Watch Company, produced some forty million watches and related timepieces. Aaron Dennison was one of the founders of this company.

Aaron Dennison successfully demonstrated that the American system of manufacturing, the use of interchangeable parts, could be applied to watchmaking. It was Dennison’s ideas, practices, and developments, more than anyone else’s, that made the name Waltham one of the most honored and respected in the watchmaking world.

Aaron Dennison’s watchmaking innovations are generally credited to visits Dennison paid to the Springfield, Massachusetts Armory in the early

1840s. The Springfield Armory is often identified as a major influence on the development of mass-production and the assembly line. The military wanted interchangeable parts for its weapons. Interchangeable parts require improved gauging, division of labor, and quality control. This method relies on an intensive use of machines. It was the Springfield Armory’s example that Dennison applied to watchmaking. Aaron Dennison’s fascination with machinery and watchmaking didn’t begin, though, with his visits to the Springfield Armory. They began back in Dennison’s birthplace of Freeport and continued on to Brunswick.

Aaron Lufkin Dennison was born in Freeport on March 6, 1812. His parents were Andrew and Lydia (Lufkin) Dennison. Andrew Lufkin was a shoemaker. Sometime during Aaron’s boyhood, Andrew Dennison moved his shoemaking business to Brunswick. While Aaron Dennison first worked in his father’s business, his real interest lay with me-

chanics.

In 1839 Dennison apprenticed to James Carey, a Brunswick watchmaker. While Carey called himself a watchmaker, it is more likely he was little more than a watch repairman. Nevertheless, Dennison learned enough from Carey that he was able to move on to the position of journeyman with the Boston firm of Currier & Trott. He then found employment with a succession of additional Boston firms. As it is today,

(cont. on page 40)

(cont. from page 39)

the watch and jewelry businesses were often combined in those firms where Dennison found himself working. Jewelry is as much a precision occupation as watchmaking and repair. Out of this combination of pursuits, Dennison devised the Dennison Standard Gauge. It was a step on the road to Dennison earning the title of “Father of the American System of Watch Making.”

In 1844 Dennison took something of a hiatus from watchmaking to go into the business of box manufacturing. His idea was to go into competition with importers of paper boxes. What Dennison did was to take box-making materials back home to Brunswick. Here in Maine, Dennison, with the help of his father, his sisters, and his brother Eliphalet, came up with a design and method of box construction that would be manufactured and marketed successfully. The boxes were produced by the Dennison Manufacturing Company of Framingham, Massachusetts. Aaron

turned his interest in the business over to his brother Eliphalet in 1849.

Aaron Dennison designed the first factory-made watches. The factory where they were made was in Roxbury, Massachusetts. The company name went through several changes that include the American Holograph Company and the Boston Watch Company. In 1854 the company moved to Waltham. Here the company went through more name changes, including the American Watch Company and American Waltham Watch Company. This latter company, best known as the Waltham Watch Company, was the first watchmaking concern to mass-produce inexpensive, reliable timepieces with interchangeable parts.

Sadly, Aaron Denrnson’s story is not that of a Horatio Alger. Dennison never became wealthy. In fact, he ended his career making cases for someone else’s watches. Dennison had gotten involved

with a scheme that included making watch parts in Switzerland and assembling them in the United States. The American part of the enterprise was the Tremont Watch Company. Tremont went bankrupt with Aaron getting the company’s machinery as his part of the settlement. Lacking the wherewithal to do anything with the machinery, Dennison sold his assets to a British firm. The machinery went to Birmingham, England and Dennison followed it. Here Dennison was relegated to providing cases made for the watches the machinery he had once owned and produced. While Aaron Dennison’s place in American history may not be included in general U.S. history texts it is not unknown in his hometown. The Balzer Family Clock Works of Freeport designed and manufactured a special timepiece in Dennison’s honor. It is the Aaron L. Dennison Memorial Timepiece.

Discover Maine Magazine is published eight times each year in regional issues that span the entire State of Maine. Each issue is distributed for pick up, free of charge, only in the region for which it is published.

It is possible to enjoy Discover Maine year ‘round by having all eight issues mailed directly to your home or office. Mailings are done four times each year.

Name Address Phone

DIRECTORY OF ADVERTISERS

Richardson Monument Co., Inc. ...........................................26

Risbara Bros. ........................................................................24

Riverview Eyewear and Optical.............................................35

Route 26 Antiques & Flea Market.........................................11

S.A. McLean, Inc. ..................................................................15

Samuel's Bar & Grill..............................................................21

Sky High Tree Service............................................................14

St. Pierre Concrete Services..................................................29

Steve Brann Building............................................................27

Storer Lumber.......................................................................41

Tangeré Massage Therapy and Wellness.................................7

Thai Garden Restaurant........................................................27

The Chimney Doctor.............................................................40

The Good Life Market............................................................16

The Great Impasta................................................................30

The Great Lost Bear..............................................................21

The Lodge At Kennebunk.....................................................12

The Park Danforth................................................................19

The School House 1913.........................................................31

The Tipsy Butler Bed and Breakfast.......................................36

The Village Donut Shop & Bakery...........................................7

Tim's Heating & Cooling......................................................37

Tony's Donut Shop................................................................21

Trash Guyz............................................................................17

Vintage Maine Images..........................................................38

V.I.P Eyes..............................................................................23

Wadsworth Woodlands........................................................15

Warren Auto Barn.................................................................34

Waterfront Flea Market........................................................40

Western Maine Screen Doors...............................................11

Wilson's Drug Store..............................................................40

Woodsome's Feeds & Needs..................................................6

Yankee Yardworks.................................................................28