Maine’s History Magazine
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Volume 29 | Issue 6 | 2020
15,000 Circulation
Hancock-Washington-Penobscot Counties
“Billy” Mitchell Comes To Maine Wows Bangor fairgoers
The Great Ellsworth Cattle Raid Farmers save their cattle from the British
Maine Celebrates 200 Years!
Dover-Foxcroft’s Blethen House Once the place to be
Hancock-Washington-Penobscot Counties
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Inside This Edition
Maine’s History Magazine 3 It Makes No Never Mind James Nalley 4 The Yankee Luck Of Dr. Joseph Lowe Stevens A surgeon’s adventure at sea Wilson Museum staff 9 The Ghost Did It Strange goings-on at the Fair View Mansion Margo Cobb 17 The Great Ellsworth Cattle Raid Farmers save their cattle from the British Brian Swartz
Hancock-Washington-Penobscot Counties
Publisher Jim Burch
Editor
Dennis Burch
Design & Layout Liana Merdan
Advertising & Sales Manager Tim Maxfield
Advertising & Sales Jennifer Bakst Dennis Burch Tim Maxfield
22 Jonesport’s Centennial Celebration Festivities honored all who ever lived here Brian Swartz
Distribution Manager
25 People Of The Dawn — 1610-1675 Passamaquoddy kept the peace during turbulent times Kenneth Smith
Contributing Writers
30 “Billy” Mitchell Comes To Maine Wows Bangor fairgoers Charles Francis 38 Dover-Foxcroft’s Blethen House Once the place to be Brian Swartz 42 Katahdin Region Cemeteries Early burial grounds Joyce Pye
Diane Nute
Field Representatives Diane & Jim Nute Don Plante
Margo Cobb Charles Francis Terry Hussey James Nalley Joyce Pye Kenneth Smith Brian Swartz Wilson Museum staff
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.
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Front Cover Photo:
48 A Look At Newport Home to an early silkworm business Terry Hussey
Student and teachers in front of the Deer Isle School, ca. 1900. Item # 7802 from the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImahges.com
All photos in Discover Maine’s Hancock-Washington-Penobscot counties edition show Maine as it used to be, and many are from local citizens who love this part of Maine. Photos are also provided from our collaboration with the Maine Historical Society and the Penobscot Marine Museum.
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It Makes No Never Mind by James Nalley
I
n the book titled, “The Poem and the Insect” by David Spooner, he refers to poet Thomas Gray’s evocation of a summer night and how he “weaves the insect into the art of being”: Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. Such lines evoke the true essence of the first month of summer. However, in Maine, this month is also dominated by June bugs, which, according to Vincent Dethier in “Yankee Magazine,” are “boisterous, rowdy blunderers that bang on the screens, thump at the doors, and whirl around porch lights as though intoxicated by the import of their message.” June bugs are red-brown beetles with shiny wing covers that appear in the northern hemisphere in general, and Maine in particular. A June bug begins as an egg in the soil that was placed by its mother before her death. For three years, the small grub feeds on roots and
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lives in total darkness until it emerges as an adult beetle. However, since each female buries between 50 and 200 pearl-sized eggs, the sheer number of grubs can destroy entire crops and kill lawns by severing the grass from its roots. Moreover, after the grubs have labored for three years, they emerge and make the most out of life over a single summer. According to Dethier, “In human terms, it is as though a person spent a childhood of 68 years in order to enjoy as an adult a mere two summers.” Although adult June bugs are generally harmless, they are attracted to light, which can make the time on one’s porch/patio an unpleasant experience. There are many instances in which a person is relaxing outside and is “dive-bombed” in the head by one of these flying nuisances. For those who want to take a more active approach to stopping them, the online magazine “The Spruce” suggests “applying an insecticide that contains carbaryl or trichlorfon in September, since the grubs are still close enough to the soil surface to be susceptible. This also makes it easier to wipe them all out.” For those who are more passive, by mid-summer, female June
bugs burrow into the ground and lay their eggs before they die. During this period, there is a considerable drop in the number of June bugs. Also keep in mind that frogs, birds, and snakes love to feast on them. As for their erratic behaviors, CBC Radio-Canada stated that “June bugs have just weeks to reproduce. Then they die. You’d be frantic too.” Well, on this note, let me close with the following: A sad, depressed man was sitting at a bar, contemplating the end of his life, and staring at a small, uneaten sandwich. Then, a trouble-making truck driver walks in, stands next to the man, and eats his entire sandwich. After the sad man begins to cry, the truck driver says, “Oh, I was just joking man! I’ll buy you another sandwich.” The sad man wipes his tears and says, “This is the worst day of my life. First, I was late to work and I got fired. Second, my car was stolen. Third, my wife left me. Fourth, I spent $10,000 on two African leaf beetles, which exude a poison that causes death by paralysis within two minutes. The confused truck driver asks, “Um, I don’t get it… What’s wrong with the last one?” The sad man replies, “Well, the two beetles were in that sandwich!”
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The Yankee Luck of Dr. Joseph Lowe Stevens A surgeon’s adventure at sea
by The Wilson Museum staff
J
as “prizes.” This was the fifth privateering expedition of the Yankee during the War of 1812. Dr. Stevens made notes in a small personal diary while on this four-month trip of 1814. In 1919 excerpts were taken and published in the Rhode Island Historical Society’s quarterly booklet by courtesy of Dr. Steven’s son, Dr. George B. Stevens, while the original is in the collection of the Wilson Museum. The first entry dated Wednesday, March 23, 1814, states: Sailed from Newport in the Brig Yankee. Blew hard from the N.W. for several days. April included notes on fishing and
oseph Lowe Stevens was a lucky man. Born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1790, he graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1814. Just a few weeks after graduation, he embarked upon an adventure of a lifetime, sailing from Bristol, Rhode Island, as Surgeon aboard the privateer Yankee. A privateer was a privately owned and officered, armed sailing vessel holding a government commission and authorized for use in war, especially in the capture of enemy merchant shipping. Private individuals were enticed to put their ships and crews into harm’s way on the prospect of great gain from the sale of the ships and cargoes taken
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com the phrase “Nothing important happened for several days.” May began with the Surgeon’s sick list: the sick are three-syphilitic, one-hernica humoralis, one-intermittent, tertian type, and a number with slight colds. It started to become real, however, on May 7th when they were spotted by an English sloop of war: 7. Chased from nine o’clock of this day by the sloop of war, Myrmidon, distant when she began to chase about seven miles at dark, we happily lost sight of her by altering our course a little. A week later they took their first prize: 14. Blew hard in the morning: at one o’clock made a sail; gave chase and coming up with her fast. At 6 came up and made prize of her. She proved to be the Hugh Jones of Belfast, F. Thomas, Master, belonging to a convoy of merchantmen bound for Guadaloupe, un-
der protection of 174, one frigate, two brigs. The fleet were then in sight to leeward; laid by her all night. The next morning took out 95 boxes of linens, besides bread, rigging, etc. Put I. Diaz, prize master, and ten men on board. And, another prize was taken just two days later: 16. pleasant weather. in the afternoon boarded the Port. ship San Jose Indiano, from Liverpool bound to Rio Janeiro. sent her in for having a large quantity of English goods on board took out all her crew except Capt. and put Mr. Carpenter and 12 men on board. Note that these entries calmly report the events. The excitement and danger of each possession was extremely great and the risk of becoming an enemy prize was real. An entry at the end of May gives a better idea of how dangerous their situations often were: 29. Pleasant and calm all day. At sunrise made a sail on our weather quarter; from her maneuvering sup-
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posed her to be a neutral. Gave chase and fired a gun at her, when she hoisted Spanish colours; but not being able to get at her on acct. of the calm, sent our boat with Mr. Jones and 5 men. As soon as they got on board, she hauled down Spanish and sets E. colours, when we discovered to our extreme disappointment and sorrow that she was an E. sloop of war. She immediately began firing and continued 10 minutes, until we got out of her reach by means of our sweeps. The Yankee took a prize on June 6th loaded with salt and fruit. From this vessel they took what was of value then burned the vessel. Before the trip ended, Dr. Stevens reported that they had taken eight prizes. July began “with the crew in good health.” The following entries show that not all the dangers faced by the Yankee came from foreign vessels. 11. Blew very hard in the morning – at ½ past 6 A.M. made a sail sight astern (cont. on page 6)
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(cont. from page 5) in chase, made what sail we could carry - but it blew so hard she draws upon us in great danger of upsetting – coming on rainy & thick – lost sight of her - found ourselves on soundings on Georges - in 45 fathoms at 2 o’clock. 12. at daylight discovered several fishing craft - took a pilot from one – found ourselves near Nantucket at 9 made the land to windward in great danger of running ashore struck on a shoal twice - at midnight came to anchor. The final entry: 15. Got under weigh & beat up to N. Bedford; ran a great risk; a frigate & Brig went into Tarapaulin Cove the hour after we left it. British cruisers were swarming along the coast and the entire crew deserted the brig in New Bedford – lucky for them. Of all the prizes gained on this trip, only the San Jose Indiano reached an American port and realized a profit. That ship and her cargo sold for more
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than half a million dollars. It was just another piece of “Yankee luck.” Luck would prove to follow Dr. Stevens later in his life as well. In 1817 Dr. Stevens began public practice in Warren, District of Maine, where he received, two years later, a letter from an old college friend, Dr. Moses Gage: Castine 3, February 1819 My old friend Stevens, …know by this that a disease of the lungs has got fast hold of me. Therefore, I wish you to take my place. It is a better one than where you are. If you come stop at this house, Mr. Lakemans – and use my room, books and medicine as if your own. Your humble servant… And written two days later: Castine 5, February 1819 Dear Jo. …I am induced, from motives of prudence and safety, and a hope of
obtaining relief in a southern atmosphere, to voyage to the South. To execute this project, I have everything in readiness, but wind and weather. It is my wish, and the wish of the good people of this place, that you would come here and supply my place, at least to make them a visit, and judge for yourself in relation to the expediency of the welcome. …Regarding my return and stay in this place in future, it is extremely equivocal. If I find a southern climate agrees with me better than another, I shall not. Provided I do return, it, in my opinion would be for your interest to stay – There is more business than two can attend to – Dr. Mann is now about 65, and exceeding broken – Five years, probably, will terminate his active life… Upon inspection, this did, indeed, look like a better situation to Dr. Ste-
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com vens, and a lucky break. By March 3, 1819, Dr. Stevens had taken up residence at Mr. Lakeman’s boarding house and was seeing Dr. Gage’s patients. Dr. Gage visited Castine once more in 1821, but he took a turn for the worse and no number of tropical breezes could save him. He died of tuberculosis in 1822 in Havana, Cuba, at the age of 31. Dr. Steven’s practice thrived. In 1821 he married Dorothy Little, of Castine, the daughter of Otis and Dorothy Little with whom he had nine children. The Stevens were a family of wide-ranging interests. An avid gardener and chronicler of the weather, Dr. Stevens was also interested in the history of the area as evidenced by a treasured collection of ancient coins speculated to have belonged to the Baron de St. Castin. Son Joseph, Jr. became good friends with artist Fitz Henry Lane who often visited Castine with Joseph. Dr. Stevens had a long and illustri-
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— Dr. Stevens 1814 diary — ous career. He undoubtedly made good use of the seamanship skills learned on the Yankee when visiting patients by boat, up and down Penobscot Bay and on both sides of the River. Still taking risks at the age of 82, Dr. Stevens was the first surgeon in eastern Maine to administer sulphuric ether by inhalation. Luckily, not only was this leg
amputation successful, but the patient recovered quickly. Dr. Stevens died in Castine on February 19, 1879, and his wife Dorothy died in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on January 3, 1885, aged 82, at the home of their son Dr. George B. Stevens. Discover Maine
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Downtown Ellsworth, ca. 1890. Item # 1221 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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The Ghost Did It
Strange goings-on at the Fair View Mansion by Margo Cobb
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The Bat, with Avery Hopwood, which became a success in 1920. Mrs. Rinehart was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she studied nursing. She used this training as material for several of her books. She married Dr. Stanley Marshall Rinehart and the two lived half of each year in Washington. D.C. and the other half in Bar Harbor. Despite luxurious living at the mansion on Eden Street, she was a practical woman with a hard-headed business sense that brought her great wealth. But she began to succumb to her own overactive imagination shortly after World War I. During those years her own chef once tried to kill her. Yet, whether at Bar Harbor or in
Washington, D.C. she was the toast of the town, having won the Pershing Medal for bravery for her exploits as a war correspondent. She was successful, wealthy, and content. And then she began to hear and see things that she attributed to an actual haunting. Mrs. Rinehart insisted that her “personal ghost” vexed and terrified her. Her maid came to her room at odd hours, bringing her coffee and food when she had not been summoned. There were knocks at the door, and when answered, no one was there. Curtains fluttered, drapes closed across windows without being touched, and cold drafts swept through the rooms. The author kept locking her door, but every time (cont. on page 10)
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ong before Martha Stewart became the talk of Mount Desert Island, another woman caused tongues to wag. It began when a cottage was built on Eden Street in 1909 for Commodore Philip Livingston. It had several owners over the years, however. One of the last owners of Fair View was Mary Roberts Rinehart, whose cleverly plotted books often dealt with murder and horror, but are leavened with humor and wit. Mrs. Rinehart’s Bar Harbor cottage was burned down in the 1947 fire, but before that disaster she wrote many of the popular mysteries of the early 1900s. Her works included The Circular Staircase (1908) and The Man in Lower Ten (1909). She also wrote a play,
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(cont. from page 9) she checked the door it was unlocked. She continually heard dishes and books crash to the floors in other rooms, but, when checking, found nothing broken or out-of-order. Then Mrs. Rineheart began to find dead birds and bats in the hallways and closets. Her bull terrier took to snarling viciously as if “some unseen thing had advanced upon him.” The dog’s hair on his neck would bristle as he leaped frantically into the writer’s lap. Mrs. Rinehart swore to her closet friends that all these inexplicable events were actually happening to her. Then the tragedy! Mrs. Rinehart’s mother had been living with them as she had previously suffered a stroke and was paralyzed. So helpless was the woman that she had to be carried to her bath. The Rinehart maid was preparing the old woman’s bath one night when she heard the doorbell ring. Turning on the bathwater, the maid went to answer the door. No one was there. The
bathwater, meanwhile, had become searing hot. When the maid returned to the bathroom she looked at the tub and then went screaming hysterically into the night. Mrs. Roberts was in the tub, dead, scalding hot water swirling about her. She died from the shock. Mary Roberts Rinehart always pointed out the fact that her mother was completely helpless and could not have gotten into the tub from the bedroom by herself. But the writer had an answer to the mystery — the ghost did it.
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Lubec public landing, ca. 1910. Item # 11410 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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The Great Ellsworth Cattle Raid Farmers save their cattle from the British by Brian Swartz
F
ew people know about the Great Ellsworth Cattle Raid of ‘79. The tale isn’t about a great Irish legend, but about a bovine footnote in local history. With British warships sailing where their captains desired, the Royal Navy controlled the Gulf of Maine during the American Revolution. In the summer of 1779, the British occupied Castine, a peninsula not that far west of Ellsworth, and started building Fort George. The alarmed Colonials in Massachusetts sent forty-three ships and fifteen hundred soldiers to drive the British out. Foot-dragging and outright cowar
dice by senior American officers gave the Royal Navy time to send a squadron of warships from the nearest British military base in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Instead of fighting the outnumbered British, the Americans abandoned their hard-won positions in Castine and fled upriver to Bangor. The Royal Navy sailed after the Americans, and within a few days, every American ship had been captured or burned. With the military threat removed, the British turned their attention to securing the Maine coast. This sets the stage for the Great Ellsworth Cattle Raid.
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Sometime in the autumn of 1779, two British warships hauled into Union River Bay. The sailors and soldiers and possibly some Royal Marines that were aboard the brig Breme and the sloop Rattler apparently came to Ellsworth on a scavenger hunt, seeking anything that would benefit the garrison at Castine. The expedition could not be classified as a lightning raid. Extensive mudflats in the bay and the current flowing from an unhindered Union River forced the warships to beat upriver, finally anchoring at an unidentified location downriver from Ellsworth. (cont. on page 18)
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(cont. from page 17) Local Yankees espied the Breme and Rattler long before the warships dropped anchor. Realizing that their cattle represented dinner-on-the-hoof for hungry British sailors — who weren’t interested in stealing the bovines to start a dairy herd at Fort George — the local farmers herded their cattle through the woods to a clearing in Trenton. Those woods comprised thick, trackless virgin timber, not the overgrown fir-and-alder forests that surround Ellsworth today. Only a single trail connected Ellsworth with the Trenton clearing which had been cleared by two farmers named Bloxton and DeBeck. There was another road, one running to Bayside, but that rough track went in the wrong direction. The morning after the Ellsworth cattle exodus, British soldiers came ashore and occupied the town. Bayonet-tipped Brown Bess muskets convinced the Yankees not to cause trouble. If the
Breme and Rattler had anchored close inshore, their unstoppered portholes and run-out cannon would have delivered a more powerful message. Across the Colonies, the British sought to neutralize opposition by forcing civilians to swear allegiance to King George II. The extortion voiced roughly at Ellsworth, Castine, and elsewhere in Maine was, “If you swear fealty to the crown, we won’t burn your home.” Few if any Ellsworth residents took the oath. However, at least one Loyalist apparently lived in Ellsworth. By midday, the British soldiers learned where the cattle had gone. Only a tip could have provided that information. Of course the British could guess how many cows were missing by simply counting the empty barn stalls. That number must have justified a hot pursuit since the British soldiers ventured into the forest after the van-
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ished cattle. By late afternoon, the lowing cattle betrayed their location to weary troops who finally reached the clearing, summarily dismissed the few people left to watch the cattle, and herded the animals toward Ellsworth. How did the British know which way the cattle had gone? Speculation suggests that a Loyalist betrayed the location and perhaps led the soldiers to the clearing. Or the sharp-eyed soldiers might have noticed the cattle tracks leading into the woods and decided to follow an obvious trail. That theory flies in the face of military reality, however. By late 1779 the Royal Army had experienced many unpleasant ambushes at the hands of Yankee farmers, ambushes often sprung in woods less thick than the Ellsworth forest. The nervous officer commanding the detachment probably wondered what awaited his troops in the woods.
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com His decision to send his soldiers after the cattle indicates someone’s assurance that no armed opposition was hidden among the forbidding trees. So the British marched through the woods, captured the cattle, and started back. Sunset overtook the troops deep in the forest so their commander ordered them to camp for the night. He deployed his pickets to watch his camp and the cattle. The angry Yankee farmers didn’t rest, though. They had apparently pursued the British at a discreet distance and watched as the soldiers made camp. The farmers debated about how they could get their cows back. Darkness pro vided an excellent opportunity to raid the enemy camp, but the out‑gunned Yankees knew they couldn’t survive a military confrontation. They also knew their families were hostage to the British troops still in Ellsworth. Someone (history doesn’t record
his name) suggested another approach. If the Colonials blocked the trail and kept the cattle from passing, the British might abandon their booty and return to their ships. Good idea, the Ellsworth farmers agreed. They struck into the woods past the British camp and emerged about two miles closer to town. Working through the night with axes and fettocks, the farmers built an impenetrable log barrier across the trail. History mentions that a man named Reed helped the farmers construct their barrier. Was he the man who suggested it? No one knows. The British soldiers stirred early the next morning, rounded up the cows and headed for Ellsworth. Some distance from the river, the red-coated cowboys encountered the log barrier. They herded the cattle against it and tried to drive them across it, but the cows would not budge. Imagine the scene. Tired and ner-
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vous soldiers untrained as cow handlers had spent a cold night in the deep forest. Aware that hostile farmers lurked nearby, the troops slept fitfully. Though they probably ate a breakfast cooked over campfires the next morning, the soldiers heard their stomachs growl as they herded the cattle along the primitive trail. No one knows if the British troops had slaughtered and eaten a cow the previous evening. Suddenly, the soldiers rounded a bend in the narrow track and piled into the log barrier. “Where did that come from?” they asked, knowing full well that someone had built it since they’d passed by less than twenty-four hours ago. History does not indicate why the cattle refused to go around the barrier. Did it extend deep into the forest? Were the woods so thick that the cows balked at entering the trees? Why didn’t the (cont. on page 20)
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(cont. from page 19) British soldiers tear down the barricade? Did they lack the proper tools? Were there indistinct and possibly hostile figures flitting at the forest edge beyond the barrier? No one knows today. By 12:00 noon, the British soldiers abandoned the cattle, climbed the barricade and returned to Ellsworth. They embarked on the Breme and the Rattler and sailed away, never to return. The Yankee farmers tore down their barricade and herded their cattle home. The Great Ellsworth Cattle Raid of ‘79 ended without bloodshed.
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Jonesport’s Centennial Celebration Festivities honored all who ever lived here by Brian Swartz
T
hrow a party in Jonesport and they will come — as the celebration tossed in honor of the town’s centennial proved. After Britain won the French and Indian War in 1763 more settlers drifted ashore on the District of Maine’s far eastern coast. Families settled on the mainland and offshore islands. Settlement was particularly focused on where the Chandler and Indian rivers reached the sea. Those rivers flowed across the 48,000 acres granted to land speculators, including John C. Jones in 1789. The entire parcel became the Town of Jonesborough on March 4, 1809. Twenty-three years later, people living
along Moosabec Reach petitioned the Maine Legislature to incorporate a new town that would be split out of Jonesborough. The legislature authorized the formation of Jonesport on February 3, 1832 — and Beals would split off from Jonesport in April of 1925. Rather than celebrate Jonesport’s centennial during a frigid February, residents opted to celebrate on Labor Day weekend, the last ‘summer’ weekend in Maine. “Under ideal weather conditions … the crowd started coming early” on Saturday, September 3, 1932, noted the News-Observer of Machias. For the past weeks, newspaper advertisements and handbills had ballyhooed the big party. “Probably the larg-
est crowd of visitors ever to be here” packed Main Street as the morning wore on. Activity focused on the area between the opera house, the practically brand new Peabody Memorial Library, and the town ballfield at which Passamaquoddies had camped. Orono and Jonesport baseball teams kicked off the official events with a 10 a.m. game, won by the visitors. The Passamaquoddies sold their exquisitely-made baskets, and vendors occupying “the large number of tents, stands, and shows … vied with each other in selling candy floss, ice cream sandwiches,” or “offering a shot at the dolls. The good food and the very reasonable prices were appreciated by the visiting
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com public,” the News-Observer commented. After lunch people started gathering for “the historical parade.” Led by parade marshal Bart Tucker who was clad “in full Indian costume” and riding “a spirited horse,” the parade kicked off at 1:30 p.m. The parade traveled along a Main Street lined with spectators. The Jonesport Band provided “joyous music,” and “a long line of cars passed in review.” Jonesport residents went all out decorating the floats, “many … historical” in theme. Replete “with fireplace, churn, spinning wheel, and two old ladies in their favorite rockers,” an “old colonial room” went past, as did “a hayrack load of modern girls in beach pajamas.” One float featured a Passamaquoddy camp with Indians “gathered about the burning campfire.” Other Passamaquoddies paddled “a graceful canoe.” Reflecting Jonesport’s traditional
focus on the sea, at least one lobster dory “with traps aboard and the oilskin-clad fisherman a-rowing” traveled along Main Street. There was “a fullsized pinky with mast, cabin, pilot, and all, sailing majestically along.” People laughed as “an open-air hearse” carried past them the “neatly boxed” body of “‘Old Man Depression’ … with only his boots showing, and carrying the legend, ‘to be cremated after the parade.’” Afterward, people gathered on the library’s lawn to dedicate “a handsome brick granite memorial” erected for the centennial. The Jonesport Band played “an opening selection, and Elder Newman Wilson, who chaired the Jonesport Centennial Committee, made the opening remarks. Addison resident Clayton H. Small spoke on behalf of Addison summer residents Frank T. and Anna S. Mayer Lang who had funded the monument. The Langs owned an Addison granite quarry. Anna Lang wrote
to Small on Monday, August 24th and offered “Jonesport a monument or slab to commemorate” the centennial. She envisioned the monument “as a companion piece” to the veterans’ monument set up next to the library some years earlier. The Langs telegraphed the monument’s design to their quarry and granite-workers immediately started carving a piece of black granite. Another source suggests the monument was still being carved on September 3rd, but the dedication ceremony went ahead with or without the actual stone, It stands to this day as “an eloquent reminder of the growth of the town from its earliest beginnings,” noted Small in speaking for the Langs. The Dennysville and Jonesport baseball teams battled that afternoon amidst “the good humor of the crowd and the players.” Dennysville took an early lead but the Jonesport team “commenced to play ball” late in the game, the News-Observer reported. “Replete (cont. on page 24)
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(cont. from page 23) with heavy hitting, good base running, and spectacular catching,” the game saw the Jonesport boys stage “a whirlwind finish” with two outs “in the last of the ninth.” Losing 6-5, the local boys shook hands with their Dennysville opponents. On Saturday evening the Jonesport Opera House “was packed to capacity by a crowd bent on enjoying a perfect ending to a perfect day.” Passamaquoddies conducted traditional tribal dances on stage, a duo and a quartet sang separately. Among the speakers were former Governor Ralph O. Brewster and John Utterback. Both were running for Congress, Brewster as a Republican and Utterback as a Democrat. They “both gave very inspiring patriotic addresses,” but Machias lawyer Oscar Dunbar stole the show by delivering “a fine historical reading on Jonesport.” His talk “was exceedingly pleasing and educational to the audience,” according
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of so many friends and acquaintances. “It seemed as though everyone who had ever claimed Jonesport as his habitation was back for this occasion,” he noted.
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People Of The Dawn — 1610-1675 Passamaquoddy kept the peace during turbulent times by Kenneth Smith
O
n September 20, 1621, King James I of England gave a huge chunk of North American real estate he didn’t own (from Cape Sable to the St. Croix River, back to the St. John River, called New Scotland or Nova Scotia) to his Secretary of State, Sir William Alexander. Sir William sent a group of Scots, who themselves had been forcibly expelled from the Highlands, to roust out French settlers, most of whom were shipped to Virginia. The native resident landowners who had dwelt in the St. Croix Valley for several thousand years were not consulted by King James. Alexander did nothing with this Maine-Maritime territory for 10 years.
In 1632 it was returned to the French according to the terms of the Treaty of St. Germain. The French didn’t own these lands either. Treaties on parchment bearing wax seals were struck about every decade, trading ownership back and forth. In the interim, both powers ignored them and attacked each other’s settlements and trading posts with vigor. Confusion and chaos reigned as friction between Catholics and Protestants, various European merchants and banking interests, and political intrigues between France and England festered. The prizes were fish, fir, timber, and land. Initially, Passamaquoddy and other area tribes welcomed and assisted
the Europeans and in many instances were instrumental in their very survival. Natives had the natural resources and were willing to share some of the land. They welcomed the iron tools, guns, traps, cookware, and blankets, but actions of the whites at first confused then disenchanted them. Europeans viewed this area as a howling wilderness, yet the region had been settled for thousands of years, first by the Red Paint People who vanished, and later by the Lenni Lenape, or “original people.” Historians estimate that across New England there were thirty distinct tribes of Algonquin stock. The Etechmins and Abanakis dwelt in (cont. on page 26)
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(cont. from page 25) Maine. Etechmins (‘the men’) were referred to as seafarers and lived in the land between the St. John and Penobscot Rivers. Openangas occupied the Passamaquoddy Bay area, and the Merechites dwelt along the St. John. In 1615 it was estimated that these three tribes could collectively field 5,000 fighting men. Early on they could have driven the English back into the sea. Peaceable by nature, they chose not to do so. The Passamaquoddy (dawnlanders), slow to anger, were reluctant to war on either the French or English, preferring to attack their traditional foes, the Mohawks. These fierce Mohawks who lived to their west routinely raided their clans. In fact, U.S. Route 1, which meanders up coastal Washington County, was once part of the Mohawk Trail. Early English settlers described area Indians as “well-made persons with
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acute senses and keen perceptions.. grave and taciturn, hospitable, generous, grateful for favors but never forgetting an injury.” One English surveyor stated, “They are numerous, valiant and ingenious… attaining eminence in painting, carving, and drawing pictures of men, beasts, and birds.” This was high praise from the aloof English, who generally viewed the rest of humanity as inferior. Through choice and design, the French chose to meld with the natives, living with them, accepting their customs and lifestyle and intermarrying. Their black-robed Jesuit priests converted many to Catholicism. Bonds of trust were established that did not exist between the Indians and English. Still, these Native Americans maintained neutrality, refusing to become pawns of either of the then great powers. Given that they were exposed to
the cajolery of the cleverest diplomats on earth, and baited with trade goods and promises, this was a remarkable feat. From 1621 to 1624, 140 ships crowded with English immigrants arrived at New England ports. Whites soon outnumbered the red men 10 to 1. Unfortunately, we brought our diseases, to which the natives had no natural immunity. Chicken and smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, and mumps ravaged them. The introduction of rum was no less devastating. Englishmen viewed the scattered Indian bands as wandering nomads, which they were not. Each spring, clans planted squash, beans, and corn, speared salmon, and netted alewives and eels. Summers were spent on the coast to escape insects and enjoy clams, mussels, oysters, lobsters, fish, and berry harvests. Joined by other clans,
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com week-long family reunions were held, featuring clam bakes and bean-hole beans. While the women and children gathered and dried seafood, the men ventured far out to sea in log dugouts to spear swordfish. Come fall, the dawnlanders would canoe back up river to their winter quarters, harvesting spring-planted crops and preparing for winter. Hunters and trappers took to the woods, bringing back moose and furs. After the harvest a two-week feast of thanksgiving was held, featuring song, dance, and turkey. During winter storm lulls, the young men went forth on snowshoes to hunt, trap, and ice fish. Winter was a time for the tribe to adjudicate problems and conflicts (major crime was unheard of). Each tribe was governed by a Sagamore, who took advice from a council of sachems, or wise men. Having no written code of laws, each
case was decided on its own merits, in light of tradition and overall tribal benefits. Shamans, medicine men (often women), did double duty as healers and religious leaders. For 65 years, from 1610 to 1675, the Passamaquoddy kept the peace, while the terrible culture clash between white and red man took its toll. Imagine if some foreign power took control of our lands today and told us we should no longer speak English, practice our faith, or retain our form of government. Suppose we had to change our dress and lifestyle and were forced to leave our homes. This is just some of what Native Americans dealt with. It took Europeans just a century to decimate a happy people and a system which had functioned smoothly for thousands of years. Today, 300 years later, the People of the Dawn are in the process of reclaiming their culture.
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A MUST READ!!!
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“Billy” Mitchell Comes To Maine Wows Bangor fairgoers by Charles Francis
F
irst there was a faint high pitched whine, which quickly grew louder as it was joined by a dull growling rumble which rapidly turned to a thunderous roar causing everyone in the sleepy central Maine town of Pittsfield to stop what they were doing and gaze skyward. Farmers stopped their labors in the fields, housewives came out of their kitchens, and youngsters swimming in the Sebasticook River climbed out and stood dripping with mouths agape as the greatest display of American military air power since the Great War passed overhead. Then, impossibly enough, their astonishment increased as a rain of leaflets released by the larger planes came fluttering through the air.
The armada, in full battle formation, consisted first of eight de Haviland twoseat scout planes followed by sixteen olive-drab Martin bombers, the largest military aircraft of the day. From Pittsfield the formation continued on to Newport and Unity, dropping more leaflets, and then on to Bangor where spectators watching the 5:00 P.M. air show of barnstormer Merle Fogg at the 1923 Bangor State Fair were treated to an air show of spectacular proportions. Controversial General Billy Mitchell had indeed come to Maine, although it was not the first time. General William Mitchell, known more familiarly to the public as Billy, was fighting a losing battle for the de-
velopment of an American air defense system. Opposed to him was the conservative military mind-set possessed by the majority of superior officers in the post World War I American military hierarchy and especially those in the navy, who saw battleships as the country’s first line of defense. Mitchell’s chief weapon in this one-sided struggle was the press, and he was a master at utilizing it as well as in manipulating politicians, which was quite understandable as he had grown up in a political family, his father having served as Wisconsin’s senior senator. Billy Mitchell had chosen Maine as the site for his publicity-driven campaign strategy for several reasons. Part
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com of his overall plan in developing an air defense system for the United States called for the development of a system of military airfields on both coasts. For northern New England he had considered Burlington, Vermont and Bangor, Maine, opting for the latter. Mitchell was familiar with Maine as he summered at York Beach, where his personalized, gleamingly-polished mahogany airplane was a familiar sight. In addition, Maine in the early 1920s was represented by two of the most powerful figures in the senate, Bert Fernald and Arthur Gould, and Mitchell knew that bringing the attention of Maine residents and the Maine press to the need for a strong American military air defense system would influence the two senators. Finally, the Bangor State Fair, which drew thousands of spectators yearly, would provide the perfect backdrop for a fly-in. Billy Mitchell was, most definitely, an impresario par excellence. He was also a man used to
getting his own way and a man that had already had an extraordinary military career. William George “Billy” Mitchell was born in Nice, France, where his parents were vacationing, on December 29, 1879. He grew up in Milwaukee and attended Racine College and Columbia University. At the onset of the Spanish-American War in 1898 he enlisted as a private in the First Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers. Until 1925 Mitchell’s military career would be marked by rapid advancement through the ranks and unparalleled success. In Cuba he received a field promotion to junior lieutenant in the Signal Corps. At twenty-three he was the youngest captain in the army. After serving in the Philippines, he established a communications system in Alaska and then in 1912 he become the youngest member of the General Staff. Just prior to joining the General Staff, Mitchell had served on the Mexican border. It was
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here that that he began to develop his first real interest in Maine. The Second Maine Regiment of the Maine National Guard was also stationed there and a continual topic for conversation among the Maine men, who found the border climate intolerable, was how good it would be to get home and head for the cooling ocean breezes of the coast. Perhaps it was this yearning of the Downeasters for their rock-bound coast and fine sand beaches that set the first seed that led Mitchell to summer at York Beach. It was in 1916 that Mitchell learned to fly when he was assigned lo the United States Army Air Service. His greatest achievements were yet to come, however. Billy Mitchell was already stationed in Europe as an observer of what would later be referred to as World War I when the United States entered the conflict. Using his own plane — it took months for American planes and (cont. on page 32)
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(cont. from page 31) fliers to cross the Atlantic — Mitchell became the first American to fly over enemy lines. Within a short time of the arrival of the first American pilots and planes, Mitchell was appointed Air Officer of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). He would later be appointed as Commander of all Allied Air Services. In that latter position, he directed a force of over fourteen hundred pursuit planes, observation planes and bombers in an attack on the St. Mihiel salient. It was something the Germans were totally unprepared for and proved exceptionally devastating in its effectiveness. He was also successful in neutralizing the German planes of Manfred von Richthofen, the infamous “Red Baron.” Mitchell returned to America a much-decorated hero and to be appointed the Assistant Chief of the Air Service. A short time later he was elevated to the rank of brigadier general.
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While in Europe, Billy Mitchell had been successful in alienating almost all of those officers who were his superiors with the exception of Douglas McArthur, who would remain his lifelong friend. This was a situation that worsened as Mitchell crusaded to build up the country’s air defense system. Even when he demonstrated that bombers could sink naval vessels, including one that the navy considered unsinkable, he was unable to secure the funding needed to modernize the Air Service. This is what lead him to take is message to the public through the press and to Bangor, Maine. Prior to the Bangor flight, which was essentially a publicity stunt — the leaflets that the Martin bombers dropped in towns like Pittsfield were recruiting pamphlets — Billy Mitchell had sent small groups of planes from Langley Field in Virginia across the country
and even to Alaska. What he wanted to show was that using Langley as the country’s chief air base, it was possible to provide an air defense system for the entire United States. When this, along with his bombing demonstration, failed to influence his superiors, he decided to go over their heads and straight to the American people. In the early summer of 1923 Mitchell sent Lt. Clayton Bissell to Bangor to find a suitable landing site. Bissell found it on the outskirts of the city off of Hammond Street, where there were two nice flat pastures, one owned by F.F. Rich and the other by Charles Morse. Later these same pastures as well as additional acreage would become Dow Air Force Base, which would in turn become the site of Bangor International Airport. An agreement was made with the two Bangor farmers for use of their fields by the Air Service, and a make-
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com shift hangar was constructed. On August 18th two Martin bombers flew in from Langley Field carrying equipment to set up a temporary base. Within hours, the Bangor pasture had acquired an operational weather station, communications center, and a sophisticated emergency medical facility. The stage was set for the arrival of Billy Mitchell’s air extravaganza. And Mitchell was prepared to put on a show. The bombers carried, among other things, dummy bombs, smoke screen generators, and machine guns. All the planes were equipped with radios so that they could coordinate their movements under Mitchell’s guidance, as well as time their arrival in Bangor to achieve the greatest impact possible. The planes left Langley on the morning of August 20th, flying in combat formation and over the major population centers of the east coast, where they conducted battle maneuvers for
appreciative crowds below. The planes refueled at Mitchell Field on Long Island and then headed for Maine, where they thundered up the coast to Portland before heading inland towards Pittsfield and finally Bangor, which was packed with fairgoers. What a show it must have been that hot August afternoon. People from all over Maine had come to see barnstormer Merle Fogg and wing-walker George “Daredevil” Sparks. Fogg, who was the first licensed pilot in Maine, had flown up from Florida in the spring and had received wide publicity for his act. He had been joined by George Sparks, a member of the Sparks Family Flying Circus and the pair had been giving exhibitions around the state all summer, drawing bigger and bigger crowds as people learned what a great show they put on. Fogg was circling low over the crowd just as Billy Mitchell’s planes (cont. on page 34)
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(cont. from page 33) flew over the fairgrounds. Bangor had never seen anything like it. From the Bangor State Fair, Mitchell’s planes continued on over the city to the landing site that had been prepared for them. The Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Albert Day, and an enthusiastic crowd of area residents were already there to welcome the flyers. In a brief ceremony, Mayor Day welcomed Major John Reynolds, commander of the mission, and his men to Bangor. Then the flight crews, except for those that had guard duty, were whisked away to the city to be feted at the Bangor House, the premier hotel in northern New England at the time. Billy Mitchell would not make his entrance until the next day. Mitchell flew his own plane from York Beach to the Hammond Street strip the next day. He was accompanied by an aerial photographic plane. With the addition of these planes, there were
now twenty-six planes lined up in a quarter mile stretch of Bangor pasture. Mitchell then addressed a gathering of city and state dignitaries at the hall of the Abenakis chapter of the Improved Order of Redmen. In his address he called for government funding for an air defense system and stated that Bangor would soon become an important component of that system. (It would not be until World War II that Mitchell’s prophecy for Bangor would be realized.) That afternoon Mitchell took off for Augusta in his plane. After circling the Blaine House, official residence of the governor of Maine, he dropped a canister addressed to Governor Percival C. Baxter. One can but wonder what would have happened to any pilot other than Billy Mitchell who choose to buzz the governor’s mansion. Mitchell then returned to Bangor, where the city was hosting a dance for his flyers at the chateau at Kenduskeag Plaza. The next
day Mitchell returned to York Beach, leaving Major Reynolds in command. He also left orders for the squadron to split up and conduct maneuvers along the southern coast of Maine. Two planes flew to Old Orchard Beach to take part in an air show. Two more flew to York Beach to give Mitchell’s summer neighbors a show. And several others flew on to summer colonies further south. Maine would not see the like for years to come, nor would Billy Mitchell, because two years later he would be court-martialed and convicted. In 1925 Mitchell issued his famous statement in which he accused top-ranking army and navy officers of “almost treasonable administration of the national defense” for not building an air defense system for the country. He warned that Japan could easily attack and sink naval vessels protecting the west coast and the future of warfare was to be found in the skies. Mitchell
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was found guilty of insubordination, though the vote was not unanimous. Douglas McArthur dissented. Mitchell was given a five-year suspension from duty but chose to resign. Billy Mitchell died in 1936. In 1946 Congress posthumously promoted him to the rank of major general and authorized a special congressional medal in his honor. The 1956 movie The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell, starring Gary Cooper, further ensured that Mitchell would always be remembered as a national hero. Billy Mitchell spent the last years of his life farming in Virginia. He spent several more summers at York Beach. It was not until his last years when a heart condition forced him to curtail his activities that he gave up coming to Maine. Discover Maine
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Dover-Foxcroft’s Blethen House by Brian Swartz
I
Once the place to be
n those halcyon years when railroads connected Dover-Foxcroft to points around Maine’s compass, wealthy businesspeople and traveling sales reps alike “crashed for the night” at the Blethen House, considered the town’s “Grand Hotel” for several decades. Constructed in 1844 by Isaac Blethen, rebuilt in 1861, and remodeled in 1890, the Blethen House rose four stories above Main Street in Dover, a sister town to Foxcroft across the Piscataquis River. Various dignitaries and many less well-known people would lodge overnight in the hotel’s forty-two rooms (the affiliated motel rooms would not appear until the mid-twentieth century) or at least dine in a restaurant considered Dover’s most elegant.
The Blethen House appeared as Dover developed economic and political muscle. The future town remained only an unmapped wilderness until 1791 when in exemplary bureaucratic fashion, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts created the Committee for the Sale of Eastern Lands and dispatched Samuel Weston to survey land measuring thirty-six square miles along the Kenduskeag Stream north by west from Bangor. Louis Stevens, writing in Dover-Foxcroft: A History, noted that the land tract encompassed twenty-one townships, with “Dover ... bounded by Foxcroft on the north.” Weston completed his survey and a map delineating the township’s geographical and political boundaries. Settlers gradually cleared the thick forests
growing along the Piscataquis River and dominating the adjacent hills. Stevens quoted a noted local historian, John F. Sprague, as noting that “Dover has the distinction of being the first town settled in Piscataquis County,” with Eli Towne credited as “the first actual settler to come into the town, bringing his family and becoming a permanent settler.” Foxcroft developed across the Piscataquis River, a natural boundary that seldom, except in flood stage, prevented people from visiting friends and relatives in Dover. As more people settled along the river, Foxcroft residents claimed initial political honors by organizing their township as a plantation in February of 1812. Dover residents hastily petitioned the Massachusetts
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com General Court — the Bay State’s legislature — for similar status as a township. The General Court granted Dover that privilege in August of 1812. Dover and Foxcroft were incorporated by the Maine Legislature as separate towns in 1821. Dover and Foxcroft continued growing during the nineteenth century. Railroads gradually reached both towns, with the Maine Central Railroad extending a line north from Newport and other lines connecting the towns to Milo in the east and Guilford in the west. A large construction project saw the Blethen House completed on Dover’s Main Street in 1844. Traveling sales representatives lodged at the Blethen House while calling on thriving local industries. According to Stevens, these ranged from “the first pulp mill in the state,” located in East Dover, to woolen mills, various sawmills and gristmills, and “five grocery stores.”
The railroads brought freight and passengers to Dover and Foxcroft, with many travelers changing trains or at least briefly resting in the towns before “riding the rails” north and west to Greenville. Investing ten thousand dollars to purchase “iron rail” stocks, area residents strongly supported building the Bangor & Piscataquis Railroad. So did Dover, which appropriated thirty-five thousand dollars to buy stock. The Bangor & Piscataquis Railroad reached Dover in 1869, then extended its steel rails upriver to Guilford, which saw its first inbound train in December of 1871. The railroad would ultimately reach Moosehead Lake. Later acquiring the line running from Dover to Monson, the Maine Central Railroad shunted slate-laden freight cars through Dover and Foxcroft en route to large American cities, where a slate roof denoted wealth. The trains, whether carrying freight or pas(cont. on page 40)
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(cont. from page 39) sengers, rolled seemingly 24/7 through Dover. “People can well remember when four passenger and two freight trains stopped daily at the railroad station and mail was distributed at the post office,” Stevens reported. The train station and rail yard stood only a relatively short walk to the Blethen House. Travelers disinclined to “hoof it” to the hotel could hire a driver and wagon to haul body and baggage between there and the station. Other travelers stepped down from stages and horse-drawn wagons passing through Dover. Although some private homeowners advertised “rooms for rent,” most short-term visitors would opt for the Blethen House. In time, the hotel developed a reputation as being haunted. No violent “Amityville Horror” incidents sent guests screaming into the Piscataquis County night. The spooks, such as they were, apparently preferred somnolent
haunting. Their legends survive in Ghosts of the Blethen House, written by well-known Piscataquis County author William Sawtelle. In 1922 Dover and Foxcroft politically merged to form Dover-Foxcroft. For many years, the Blethen family actually owned and operated their eponymous hotel, with Isaac’s son William becoming the proprietor later in the nineteenth century. The Blethen House later saw other owners, with Paul and Val Plourde acquiring the massive wood-framed building in 1952. They operated the Blethen House for the next quarter-century. Senators Margaret Chase Smith and Edmund S. Muskie graced the hotel’s venerable halls, and during the 1960s and 1970s, many people “down Bangor way” would make a Sunday drive to Dover-Foxcroft to dine at the hotel’s restaurant. Local civic groups held meetings at
the Blethen House. Many wedding receptions took place there, too, over the years. For some time, Dover-Foxcroft’s grand hotel appeared to thrive as the twentieth century slipped into its third quarter. Times were changing, however. Overtaken by paved highways and the family automobile, the railroads eventually disappeared and with them their paying passengers and cargo. Multiple-use recreational trails now run along the abandoned Newport-to-Dover-Foxcroft and Dover-Foxcroft-to-Greenville Junction railroad beds. With cars and trucks now able to travel from Bangor to Greenville in a few hours rather than a day, Dover-Foxcroft no longer was an overnight destination, and the guest count dwindled at the Blethen House. Various new owners attempted to stem the tide, but time and financial resources worked against the venerable hotel. Existing owners closed the
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41
DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Blethen House on October 26, 1992, costing twenty employees their jobs. A year later, new owners leased the lounge and restaurant to entrepreneurs who felt they could “make a go of it” in Dover-Foxcroft. Glory days had long since passed by the Blethen House, however, and on May 6, 1998 a Waterville company purchased the hotel. Demolition occurred soon afterward, and a pharmacy replaced the Blethen House. Today, travelers headed along East Main Street might notice the pharmacy standing near the Piscataquis County Courthouse and Jail and across the street from a brick building jointly occupied by two banks. In the years since the Blethen House vanished into history, children have been born who will never take a date to dine at the hotel, but their parents and grandparents still remember when the Blethen House was the “happening place” in southern Piscataquis County.
Great Northern Paper Co. Mill in East Millinocket Item # LB2007.1.100624 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Hancock-Washington-Penobscot Counties
42
Katahdin Region Cemeteries by Joyce Pye
T
Early burial grounds
he earliest burying-ground noted in A History of Lincoln, Maine is in the Mattanawcook settlement on “what was formerly called Snowville at the south line of Winn,” and one of the first gravestones to be located there is that of Betsey Babcock who died at the age of 33 years in 1825. Possibly the next cemetery in the area was “on the hill at Lincoln Village on State Road.” It was a small lot which grew in time as additional land was acquired, and is most likely mentioned in an 1882 description in the History of Penobscot County: “Lincoln Village is a flourishing place... with a railroad station, with side-tracks to the tannery and the saw-mill,” two churches, a schoolhouse, and a cemetery. Other industries listed by the authors were spool, furni-
ture, coffin and casket makers, granite and marble workers, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, and tailors. Among the names of early settlers laid to rest in Lincoln’s burying grounds are Gates, Nelson, Chase, Hammond, and Pinkham. Whether the Mattanawcook Islands were the primary burial sites of the “302 Indians on the Penobscot” reported in the 1815 census was difficult to determine. Southwest of Lincoln and lying at the junction of the Piscataquis and the Penobscot Rivers is the village of Howland. As reported in the county history published in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Howland was comprised of a “town post office, school No. 2, two stores, a saw-mill, a hotel, a shop or two, and a cemetery a little
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north of the village.” Buried here in 1857, when diphtheria was a constant concern throughout the state, were the wife and two children of Mr. Emory Bailey, a Howland farmer. One might add that both Lincoln and Howland had many bears, for a Howland veterinary surgeon was said to have killed fifty-two since moving there in 1862 and the Treasurer of Lincoln — shortly after the town’s incorporation in 1829 — paid one hundred and twenty-three dollars in bounty fees on forty-one bears. Within a few years, a bounty was passed on wolves and Canadian lynx as well. These facts suggest that at least a few folks buried in Lincoln and Howland may have tangled with wildlife and lost. The town of Brownville, north-
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of such frantic growth as laborers — Welsh, Italian, English, Scottish, Irish, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, German, Estonian and French-Canadian — poured into the area. Driving through the tidy town today the casual eye sees no evidence of “Little Italy” or “Shack Hill,” hastily built housing for that influx of humans. But by 1902 the rapid increase in population had created a cesspool for germs, resulting in an epidemic of children’s diseases. The following year typhoid fever, diphtheria, and smallpox raged through the community and necessitated the creation of a “Pest House” for quarantine purposes. The demand was such that a second building was required to accommodate the overflow. One hundred persons were said to have been quarantined and public funerals barred. And, perhaps, the most telling outcome of this period was the establishment of the Millinocket Cemetery in 1903.
O
Boarstone Mountain just above Onawa.” Passenger service had been particularly heavy before the holidays with an “average of 41 trains a day passing little Greenwood Pond.” The weather had closed the St. Lawrence River to traffic and as a result, passengers from “The Empress of France” bound for Montreal were aboard, in addition to other travelers from Maine, the U.S., and Canada. With fifty-nine people injured and nineteen dead, it was one of the most devastating collisions in the history of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Located north of Brownville in Katahdin Country, Millinocket was a late-bloomer. The formation of the Great Northern Paper Company in 1899 and planned construction had brought a flood of immigrants. By 1900 the population had soared to two thousand. The town incorporated a year later. Millinocket: Magic City of Maine’s Wilderness, conveys the challenges
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west of Howland, was incorporated in 1824. An old photograph published in Of Brownville and the Junction depicts dozens of mourners in formal dress posed before a train at the railroad station. The caption indicates it was the mode of transport that carried them “out to the cemetery in the 1890s.” Last week, a futile search for the site where the photo was taken ended at a brick building posted “Private Property.” Nearby, boxcars lay idle on the track but earlier in the day an engine snaking through town with freight cars labeled “Bangor and Aroostook Railroad” and “Canadian Pacific” had reeled history back to 1919 — two decades after the photo was taken. In December of 1919, caskets were piled on the lawn of Brownville’s newly-built YMCA. The building itself served as the hospital; the freight shed became a morgue. For just days before Christmas, Canadian Pacific Train No. 39 had smashed into a Canadian Pacific misguided freight train “on side of
Always Remembered: Theresa, Ricky & Peter
Hancock-Washington-Penobscot Counties
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Hotel Fransway in Old Town. Item # LB2007.1.102032 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Broadlawn - 14B Union Street in Bangor. Item # LB2007.1.104083 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Hancock-Washington-Penobscot Counties
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The Merrill Drug Co. and the entrance to the bridge in Brewer. Photo courtesy of the Brewer Historical Society
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Tent at Camp Idlewood in Palmyra. Item # LB2007.1.114374 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Hancock-Washington-Penobscot Counties
48
A Look At Newport Home to an early silkworm business
J
by Terry Hussey
ohn Hubbard of Readfield contracted with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the purchase of the entire township which they labeled East Pond Plantation, later to become the town of Newport. Hubbard assigned his contract to David Greene of Boston for the price of $5,635.00, or about seventeen cents per acre. As was the custom, four lots in the township were reserved for school and church. James Houstin from Fairfield is credited with being the first settler. In 1800 he built a small log house on Birch Point at Great Pond and derived his livelihood from trapping. The first family to settle here was that of Deacon John Ireland who came in 1807 from the Skowhegan area to north Newport. Soon he was followed by others — James Stewart, Nathaniel Burrill, Daniel Bicknell, and Elam Pratt, all settling in the north Newport area. Settlers came into the village or the mill area at this time too — Esquire Benjamin Shaw, Iphidiah Ring, and Nathaniel Martin. It was called the mill district because Squire Shaw and Daniel Stuart built a sawmill near the present middle bridge.
There are records of the first formal gathering of town citizens in 1812 to talk about defending themselves from Indians as there were rumors of an intended massacre. Each family was instructed to have a pound of powder, balls and a loaded flintlock hanging over the fireplace. The women were to keep kettles of boiling water ready to throw at their attackers, and the young boys were to keep a sharp lookout. This preparation was accomplished none too soon because within a few days one hundred and fifty Indians came to camp on Birch Point. When they made no attack, two volunteers went to talk to them. They were Penobscots. They were on the run from some St. John Indians who they feared were pursuing them. There was no attack by either band of Indians, but there must have been some sleepless nights in the community until the Indians moved along to another location. The settlers were interested to note the Indians’ travel route. They went via the Kenduskeag and Black Streams to Stetson, across Stetson Pond to the Great East Pond (now Sebasticook Lake) and on to the Kennebec by way
of the Sebasticook River. This seemed to be the Indian highway between the two great rivers, the Penobscot and the Kennebec. The town derived its name from the fact that the Indians here found a portage on their route to and from the Penobscot. By 1810 there were sixty-two inhabitants in the Newport area. There were nearly one hundred by the time they petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts for incorporation. They were duly incorporated on June 14, 1814 and annexed to be a part of Hancock County as per their plea that transportation was easier to the Penobscot than to the Kennebec. A big event in the community was when the brother of Squire Shaw arrived in town in a horse-drawn wagon. This was the first wagon to be seen in town and the first known to have crossed from the Penobscot to the Kennebec. The roads must have been improving. By 1825 the town was on the stage route from Skowhegan to Bangor, a round trip of two days. The little town was continuing to grow and prosper. By 1820 the population had increased to five hundred and
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com twenty, most of whom were centered near the present upper bridge. The mills were centered at the middle bridge. In 1834 Benjamin Shaw II and his brother Enoch became convinced that they could produce silk from silkworms in Newport. Benjamin had lived in Georgia where he had seen it done. He first bought mulberry slips and planted them. In two years they had matured enough to support a colony of India silkworms and eggs. He began the project in the house but later it spread into what had been a store on one end of the house. The first year he produced about fifteen hundred silkworms that fed on the mulberry leaves. The worms could not eat wet leaves, so they had to wait each morning until the morning dew had dried. On rainy days the leaves had to be picked and carefully dried before feeding them to the silkworms. The larger they became, the greater the care required. They had to be moved from one table to another to assure great cleanliness. They shed their skins twice during this period. Upon reaching maturity, they would stop eating and seek places to cocoon. The family built shelves an inch and a quarter apart behind the worm tables using clapboards. The worms found these the perfect place and immediately commenced to make their cocoons. Two worms were never permitted to cocoon side by side as the threads would become entangled causing problems in thread collection.
When the cocoons were completed, they were carefully taken down and placed in baskets. Some were saved to produce moths, and then worms for next year’s production, but the rest were baked in the oven. They would turn into moths in just three weeks, so they had to work quickly. Francis Shaw, son of Benjamin, in the Centennial History of Newport recalls, “After the second year we had about four bushels of cocoons to care for. When the moths came out, we placed them on paper in a darkened room and the eggs were deposited in clusters. The eggs were then kept in a cool room for the following year.” His mother would produce silk thread by boiling the cocoons to dissolve the gum used in making the case. She could then pick up a thread from each cocoon and wind it onto a reel. The silk could be dyed or left in its natural unbleached white. The business continued for about eight years until the mulberry blight of 1843 brought things to an abrupt end. In 1848 Mrs. Shaw took a spindle of silk to the Mechanic’s Fair in Chicago where she was awarded a silver medal for “the best knitting silk raised from silkworms.” Other more conventional businesses in town included a tannery, a saw and grist mill, a brickyard, a carding mill, and a potash plant. In 1838 Mark Fisher operated a foundry where he patented a process to weld together cast iron and
cast steel, something that was thought impossible to do. His plant produced anvils, but the cost of transportation of materials and finished products was too high and he moved the operation to New Jersey. In the late 1890s a woolen mill was started which, in various forms, served the community for many years. A condensed milk company was started at this time too. It offered a market for the milk of the many surrounding farms for many years and was ultimately bought by the Borden Company.
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Hancock-Washington-Penobscot Counties
50
Workers at the O’Brien (Brooks) Brickyard in Brewer, ca. 1906. Photo courtesy of the Brewer Historical Society
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DIRECTORY OF ADVERTISERS
BUSINESS
PAGE
A.C. Inc. Quality Seafood.................................................22 A.N. Deringer, Inc. ...........................................................40 A.R. Whitten & Sons Inc. ..................................................5 ABM Mechanical, Inc. ......................................................33 Amherst General Store & Restaurant..............................47 Aroosta Cast, Inc. .............................................................5 Baker Family Chiropractic................................................34 Bangor Truck Equipment.................................................31 Bangor Window Shade & Drapery Company..................33 Bar Harbor Campground.................................................19 Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce..................................10 Bar Harbor Grand Hotel...................................................20 Bar Harbor Inn..................................................................20 Bayview Takeout..............................................................23 Bear Brook Kennels.........................................................46 Bean Maine Lobster..........................................................14 Ben's Auto Body..............................................................47 Blacks Heat Pumps..........................................................30 Blackwell Insurance Agency..............................................4 Blaze Restaurants............................................................19 Bloomer, Russell, Beaupain Attorneys at Law................33 Blue Hill Cabinet & Woodwork.........................................17 Blue Hill Co-op...................................................................7 Blue Hill Peninsula Chamber of Commerce....................17 Bluenose Cottage............................................................22 Bowden Marine Service....................................................9 Brian Billings Excavation..................................................16 Briarwood Motor Inn........................................................29 Brookings-Smith.................................................4 Brooks Tire & Auto............................................................36 Bucksport Golf Club...........................................................6 Bucksport Regional Health Center..................................16 Bunny's Downeast Septic Services Inc. ........................26 C&J Variety......................................................................45 Call Construction..............................................................35 Carousel Diversified Services.........................................30 Carroll Drug Store..............................................................9 Carroll F. Look Construction Co. Inc. ...............................11 Cary Brown Trucking & Excavating.................................27 Clark Insurance Agency...................................................13 Clouston Trucking............................................................44 CMD Powersystems........................................................45 Coach House Restaurant.................................................46 Colin Bartlett & Sons, Inc. ................................................3 Complete Hydraulics, Inc. ..............................................37 Complete Tire Service, Inc. ..............................................8 Cottonwood Camping & RV Park....................................11 Crandall's Hardware........................................................41 Crossroads Motel & Restaurant.......................................41 Cummings Health Care Facility, Inc. .............................29 Cushings Carpentry.........................................................24 Cyr Northstar Tours.........................................................30 D&D Paving, Inc. ...........................................................28 Designed Living Kitchen Showroom & Home Center......36 Dexter Lumber Company................................................48 Dorsey Furniture..............................................................15 Dow's Eastern White Shingles & Shakes.........................4 Drinkwaters Cash Fuel....................................................42 Eastport Area Chamber of Commerce...........................13 Eastport Health Care, Inc. ..............................................24 Ellsworth Chain Saw..........................................................7 Ellsworth Area Chamber of Commerce...........................17 EverClean Water Treatment Systems.............................31 Feed Commodities International......................................36 Fletcher Mountain Aviation...............................................37 Freeport Antiques and Heirlooms Showcase..................14 G.F. Johnston & Associates.............................................18 Gateway Lobster Pound..................................................17 Gerald L. Wood & Son LLC............................................11 Greenhead Lobster, LLC................................................16 Gutter Guys......................................................................21 Hammond Lumber Company..........................................32
BUSINESS
PAGE
Hanington Bros., Inc. .......................................................41 Hannaford - Bar Harbor....................................................20 Hannaford - Ellsworth.........................................................8 Harris Point Cabins & Motel.............................................26 Herrick Excavation...........................................................38 High Street Market...........................................................43 Highland Builders.............................................................10 Hogan Tire........................................................................40 Hometown Health Center.................................................36 Houlton Towing Auto Salvage & Repair............................27 House in the Woods.........................................................28 HW Dunn & Son Inc. ........................................................8 Ideal Recycling Inc. ........................................................35 International Motel...........................................................26 Island Auto Repair............................................................20 Island Fishing Gear & Auto Parts......................................7 Island Nursing Home........................................................15 J. McLaughlin Construction, LLC......................................27 J. Wilbur Construction......................................................45 J.D. Logging, Inc. ............................................................39 J.M. Brown Construction General Contractor, Inc. ...........32 Jack's Air Service.............................................................38 Jato Highlands Golf Course.............................................43 Jimar Construction Products LLC....................................31 John R. Crooker Agency Insurance.................................15 John Williams Construction.............................................33 Johnson Foundations......................................................39 Judd Goodwin Well Company.........................................37 Katahdin Clapboard Company...........................................3 Katahdin Health Care.......................................................42 Katahdin Shadows Campground & Cabins.....................41 Katahdin Valley Motel.......................................................27 Kimball Insurance, L.L.C. ...............................................49 King's Appliances & Floor Coverings..............................36 Leclair Construction.........................................................44 Levesque Business Solutions..........................................32 Lighthouse News & History Magazine.............................23 Linda Bean's Maine Kitchen & Topside Tavern................14 Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine Vacation Rental....................14 Linda Bean’s Maine Wyeth Gallery...................................14 Loon-ey Snak Shak..........................................................15 Lubec Hardware..............................................................12 Lunt’s Lobster Pound.......................................................17 Lupo's Gym, Inc. .............................................................49 Lyme Laser Centers.........................................................34 Machias River Inn............................................................23 Magoon Realty, Inc. ..........................................................8 Maine At War by Brian F. Swartz......................................28 Maine Collision Center.....................................................33 Maine Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife....................49 Maine Equipment Company...............................................6 Maine Historical Society.....................................................6 Maine Forest Service.......................................................10 Maine Lobstermen’s Association.....................................15 Maine Veterans' Homes...................................................23 Mainescape Garden Shop.................................................7 Maritime International Coins & Currency.........................31 McFadden's Variety..........................................................12 McKusick Petroleum Co. ................................................39 Morrison Manufacturing Inc. Marine Contractors.............13 Motel East........................................................................25 Natural Living Center........................................................30 Newcomb Construction....................................................12 Newport Glass.................................................................36 North Woods Real Estate................................................28 Old Sow Grill....................................................................24 Ogunquit Beach Lobster House......................................14 Paredes Painting & Pressure Washing, LLC..................21 Parker Ridge Retirement Community..............................16 Parks Pond Campground................................................46 Pat's Pizza - Orono, Holden & Hampden......................30 Penobscot Marine Museum...............................back cover
BUSINESS
PAGE
Perkco Supply, Inc. ........................................................37 Perry O'Brian - Attorney at Law.........................................44 Pine Grove Crematorium.....................................................4 Piscataquis Chamber of Commerce................................39 Pleasant Hill Campground...............................................31 Ramsay Welding & Machine, Inc. .................................43 Raymond's Variety & Diner...............................................42 Rideout's Seasonal Services...........................................39 Robinson Builders............................................................28 Robinson's Cottages........................................................24 Rocky Shore Realty..........................................................10 Roger's Market Inc. ........................................................44 Rt. 9 Towing & Recovery.................................................46 S.O.B. Oil & Earthworks Co., LLC..................................44 Savage Paint & Body.......................................................27 Sawmill Woods Golf Course............................................47 Schooner Gallery..............................................................10 Seal Cove Auto Museum..................................................18 Seawall Motel....................................................................18 Sebasticook Valley Federal Credit Union........................38 Select Designs & Embroidery..........................................42 Shannon Drilling Water Wells..........................................23 Sips 2.0.............................................................................19 Sips Café..........................................................................19 Southwest Harbor & Tremont Chamber of Commerce........9 Spruce Mill Farm & Kitchen..............................................49 St. Croix Valley Chamber of Commerce..........................13 Stardust Motel...................................................................28 STEaD Timberlands, LLC.................................................41 Steinke & Caruso Dental Care............................................6 Sullivan's Wrecker Service...............................................29 Sunrise Realty...................................................................11 Sunset Park Marina..........................................................40 Taylor's Katahdin View Camps..........................................40 The BlackSheep..................................................................9 The Colony Cottages & Motel...........................................21 The Handy Stop................................................................43 The Merle B. Grindle Agency Insurance...........................17 The Milbridge House Restaurant.......................................21 The New Friendly Restaurant, Inc. ..................................12 The Quoddy Tides.............................................................13 The Red Barn Motel...........................................................21 Thomas Logging & Forestry, Inc. ....................................37 Thompson's Hardware Inc. ..............................................43 Tim Merrill & Co., Inc. .....................................................39 Timberland Trucking Inc. ..................................................41 Town of Enfield.................................................................43 Town of Hampden.............................................................35 Town of Lincoln.................................................................29 Town of Mars Hill................................................................3 Tri City Pizza.....................................................................45 U-Save Car & Truck Rental...............................................36 Varney's Newport Ford.....................................................48 Vazquez Mexican Food.....................................................10 VintageMaineImages.com...............................................6 Wagner Forest Management, Ltd.....................................45 Walls TV, Appliance & Home Furniture...............................11 Ware's Power Equipment..................................................42 Washington County Community College...........................26 West's Coastal Connection.................................................5 Whited Truck Center..........................................................32 Whitney's Outfitters...........................................................42 Whitten's 2-Way Service, Inc. ..........................................33 Williams & Taplin Water Wells.............................................5 Wilson Museum..................................................................4 Wilsons On Moosehead Lake...........................................38 Winter Harbor Food Service..............................................10 Wreaths Across America..................................................22 Yanni's Pizza.......................................................................7 York’s of Houlton...............................................................40
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— Hancock~Washington~Penobscot Counties — Hancock-Washington-Penobscot Counties
Own a piece of history! Visit our collection online www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org Route One Searsport, Maine 04974 207-548-2529 www.penobscotmarinemuseum.org
