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TIt Makes No Never Mind
by James Nalley
oday, our society offers so much on a daily basis that we tend to take our surroundings for granted. However, there are some attractions that are so unassuming that we literally pass them without a thought. In any case, they have interesting backgrounds and are worth seeing yourselves. The following are five such locations.
First, there is the Zebulon Smith House in Bangor. Located at 55 Summer Street, it is one of the two oldest houses in the state with a Greek Revival temple front. The house was built in 1832 for Zebulon Smith, who was most likely in the lumber business. Today, this two-story structure with brick side walls and four white columns is tucked away in a sea of industrial buildings and parking lots.
Second, there is the Criterion Theatre. Located at 35 Cottage Street in downtown Bar Harbor, it is one of only two Art Deco theaters in the state. Built in 1932, it was the centerpiece of the town’s summer scene, featuring vaudeville performances and movies. During the height of prohibition, the basement operated as a speakeasy, serving Canadian alcohol smuggled into the United States. After periods of financial struggle, it now offers movies, live theater,
and music performances year-round (www.criteriontheatre.org).
Third, there is the Thomas Hamilton House, located at 78 South Street in Calais. Built in 1857, it is a high-style Italianate house, which is unusual considering what was then a remote frontier. Hamilton was a local businessman who had some success in the field but chose to portray himself as more. For example, he not only built this ornate house, but he also wore fancy clothes and purchased expensive carriages. This overextended him financially, and the house was soon mortgaged and lost. Hamilton died in the poor house. Today, it serves as the dental practice of Karen Delaney.
Fourth, there is the Old Fire Engine House in Orono. Located on North Main Avenue, it was built in 1892 and is a well-preserved late-19th century wooden fire station. It includes double doors topped with a belfry and pyramidal roof. The town’s first engine house was built in the 1860s, but on the south side of the Stillwater River. In 1892, the town authorized the construction of this building on the north side, with a bell to summon the volunteers.
Finally, there is The Grand in Ellsworth. Located on Main Street, it is the
other Art Deco theater in the state. Built in 1938, it includes a prominent marquee, complete with a stepped steeland-glass tower. In 1933, an arsonist destroyed much of the Ellsworth business district, starting a fire at the first movie theater, the Bijou. The Grand was built as part of the recovery effort. Its acoustic ceiling tiles are arranged in similar patterns to those on the building’s exterior, with gold-painted Art Deco trim accenting the walls and continuing into the auditorium. Today, it offers live theater performances, concerts, and Met Opera HD broadcasts (www.grandonline.org).
At this point, let me close with the following jest: An architect, doctor, and a lawyer are boasting about how smart their dogs are. The architect calls his dog, puts some clay on a table and says, “Build me a model of the Eiffel Tower.” The dog does and the architect throws him a biscuit. Then, the doctor calls his dog and sees that a cow is about to give birth. He says, “Deliver the calf,” after which the dog does the operation, and the doctor throws him a biscuit. Finally, the lawyer calls his dog. His dog screws the other two dogs and takes their biscuits.
Seboeis Plantation’s Jordan And Hussey Camp
by Brian Swartz
FSportsmen flocked here
or more than 80 years hunters and fishermen from around the world pursued their outdoor passions at the legendary Jordan and Hussey Camp in Seboeis Plantation, originally the eastern half of Township 3, Range 8 in central Penobscot County.
The county commissioners organized this section as Seboeis Plantation in 1890, when 98 people lived there. Loggers and farmers (often one and the same) and their families settled in the plantation, especially in Seboeis village, “located on Seboeis Stream just below the confluence of waters drain-
ing south from East Branch Lake and Endless Lake,” wrote historian William W. Geller. The plantation’s population gradually shrank during the 20th century; 40 people lived there in 2020.
There are two versions as to how the Jordan and Hussey Camp came to be during the 1890s. According to one version, Freeman “Bert” E. Hussey and Steve C. Jordan encountered a man constructing a camp alongside Sebeois Stream while they hunted in the area. The man decided “that he was no longer interested in” the camp “and gave it to them,” Geller reported. Hussey and
Lori Whitten President
Jordan were in their 20s.
“The other family story is that Steve’s uncle built the camp and gave it to them,” Geller wrote. “Bert and Steve negotiated a 99-year-lease that the families retained until 1977.” The camp’s success was due to the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which built a line from Megantic, Quebec across Maine to connect with the Maine Central Railroad at Mattawamkeag. The MCR owned the railroad running from Mattawamkeag east to Vanceboro, and the CPR ran trains across this track before buying it in December 1974.
The Canadian Pacific constructed a siding at Seboeis village. The siding and its related station were only three miles from the Jordan and Hussey Camp. Sportsmen and their families could take the MCR to Mattawamkeag and catch a westbound CPR train. The train ride from Portland to Mattawamkeag took about nine hours.
While sportsmen could travel to Brownville Junction via the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad and catch an eastbound CPR train to Seboeis, Mattawamkeag was the preferred route for out-of-staters staying at the camp. Some sportsmen “came by buckboard from Howland,” Geller noted. “By 1916, a car could drive to the Seboeis station.”
Guests arriving there were met by “either Bert or Steve,” who transported travelers “and their luggage by canoe upstream to the sporting camp,” Geller wrote. An alternative route involved walking a mile west on the rail-
road tracks and then following a path through the woods to the camp.
Men staying at the camp hunted, fished, or pursued both interests, but hunting was the main attraction. “The sporting camp grew quickly and developed a loyal clientele,” Geller noted. “By 1910” the Jordan and Hussey Camp had “two small sleeping cabins and a large structure with a kitchen on one end, a dining room in the middle, and bunks at the other end.” Approximately 20 men could stay in the main camp; wives and daughters stayed in a separate cottage. Maggie Hussey (Bert’s wife) and Agnes Jordan (Steve’s wife) cooked for hunters “for many years,” with Agnes staying on well into the 1940s, according to Geller. “A hunter, in October 2016, described Mrs. Jordan’s cooking as the equivalent of Thanksgiving Day every day at the camp.” Bert and Steve maintained the cabins, guided sportsmen, and hauled in supplies.
No one lived year-round at the Jordan and Hussey Camp. Steve and Agnes Jordan operated a farm in Kenduskeag. They “raised and grew most of the food used at the camp,” Geller wrote. Each fall, prior to the start of the hunting season, “Steve trucked items like potatoes and squash, canned vegetables plus large cocks of different types of meat” to the Seboeis Stream landing in Seboeis village. From there everything was loaded into canoes and transported by water “to the sporting camp, a process that lasted into the 1950s.”
Bert and Maggie Hussey grew up in Sebeois but moved to Dover-Foxcroft sometime during the 1920s. When not operating the sporting camp, Bert “worked as a logger and lumberman until an injury in the 1950s sidelined him.”
Bert and Steve ran their namesake camp into the 1950s. “Both men’s love for the camp continued and they went there until their health made it impos(cont. on page 6)
(cont. from page 5)
sible,” according to Geller. “In his last years, Bert had his grandson George Hussey paddle him to the camp and leave him for a few days before returning to pick him up.
Steve Jordan died in 1960; Bert Hussey died approximately seven years later. In 1968, Norris Jordan (Steve’s son) and his wife took over the camp. They operated it until selling the property in 1977 “to their long-time hunting guests,” New Jersey residents Albert Colley, Henry Kutz, Louis Scottolina, and Albert Testa. “They bought the sporting camp for their private use,” Geller wrote.
View from Ethelbert Nevin estate in Blue Hill, ca. 1937. Item # 1249 from
Discovering Southwest Harbor Newspaper correspondent admired its beauty
by Brian Swartz
Anewspaper correspondent fleeing Washington, D.C.’s sultry summer of 1858 discovered Mount Desert Island’s natural beauty many miles before stepping ashore at Bass Harbor.
Robert Carter decided that June to take a “summer vacation” from “the arduous duties of a Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune.” He had little to do; Congress habitually did not meet during the District’s summer heat and humidity, so his departure coincided with little news occurring in the capital.
Carter described June 1858 as a “hot month” and recalled how “I had pa-
tiently sweltered and sweated” during “a long succession of hot nights and days.” Hailing from “from seacoast of Massachusetts,” he just could not physically adjust to the District’s hot climate.
“On one of the hottest evenings” that June he visited a friend — “the Professor” — living on G Street in Washington. The men discussed the weather. “I cannot stand it any longer. I shall start on a cruise on the coast of Maine next week, and you had better come along, if you do not want to die of a fever,” the friend said.
Carter joined the Professor and two other characters (identified as “the Assyrian” and “the Artist”) for the cruise. He and the Professor agreed to hire the sloop Helen for $7.50 per day. “Built for a yacht,” the 17-ton sloop was “stout and tight and roomy, with four berths” and drew 5½ feet of water, Car-
ter reported. He arrived at the Long Wharf in Boston at 5 p.m., Saturday, July 3. There he boarded the Helen, then owned by John Gordon and William G. Gurney of Swampscott. The sloop was 32 feet, 7 inches long and 12 feet, 5 inches wide. The Professor was already aboard, so when Carter stepped onto the deck, the crew cast off, “and in a few minutes she was going with wind and tide down Boston Harbor.”
Carter avidly described the scenery and his adventures as the Helen sailed along the Maine coast. Days into the voyage, the sloop “made a splendid run down” a white-capped Eggemoggin Reach, cleared Deer Isle, and emerged into Jericho Bay. “Far before us, on the right, rose the blue summit of Isle [au] Haut, as the early French navigators named it — a mountain rising from the waves,” Carter noted. Then he looked toward the sloop’s bow. “Before us the peaks of Mount Desert came gradu-
ally into view, at first misty and blue, then green and wooded, until, as we advanced, still loftier summits showed themselves in grim and stony desolation.”
Today most visitors approach MDI from the north via Route 3. Carter came from the west, across island-studded Blue Hill Bay, and he was dumbfounded. “The approach to Mount Desert by sea is magnificent,” he realized. “The island is a mass of mountains crowded together, and seemingly rising from the water. “As you draw near, they resolve themselves into thirteen distinct peaks,” he noticed. “It is difficult to conceive of any finer combination of land and water than this view. Certainly, only in the tropics can it be excelled, only in the gorgeous islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans.
“On the coast of America it has no rival, except, perhaps, at the Bay of Rio [de] Janeiro,” Carter thought.
As with many first-time visitors in the 21st century, “none of us knew anything of the localities of Mount Desert,” Carter admitted. Rounding Lopaus Point, the Helen “therefore put into the first harbor that we saw on the coast, which proved to be Bass Harbor.”
Joined by the Assyrian and the Artist, Carter went ashore about sunset and checked out “the village.” Finding no place of interest there, the men asked around and soon “started for Southwest Harbor, which was described to us as the place of most resort on the island.”
The visitors could not find a horsedrawn conveyance to transport them to Southwest Harbor. “All of the horses of the place [Bass Harbor] … [were] absent on some rustic excursion,” Carter learned. He and his companions then “walked through the forest for several miles, after dark, and for the last hour of the way had a fine night-view of the mountains, serene and solemn in the (cont. on page 10)
(cont. from page 9)
mystical starlight.”
Their route may have been along the modern Bass Harbor Road (Route 102) or along a well-tramped path visible in the starlight. Despite the calendar saying “July,” the night was chilling. The sky was clear.
Bass Harbor residents had recommended the men stay in Southwest Harbor at “a public house, kept by a deacon” and thus considered respectable. “Cold, hungry, and exceedingly tired,” the trio approached the inn around 11 p.m. and saw no light showing; this indicated “that apparently everybody had gone to bed,” Carter believed. “Our hearts sank.”
The Assyrian “pounded on the front door with his fist,” and “the landlord speedily appeared.” Leading his visitors to the kitchen, the deacon served them “cold meat and apple-pie,” Carter said. The food tasted good.
The Birth Of Hancock And Washington Counties
Petitioning for a new county east of the Union River
by Brian Swartz
By spring 1786, Lincoln County covered all of Maine extending from the Kennebec River eastward to the St. Croix River. Fed up with being far from the county’s seat of power at Pownalborough, Machias residents reasoned that they needed their own county much closer to home.
Meeting on Monday, May 8, 1786, Machias voters decided the town should apply “to the General Court to erect this Eastern District into a separate County and make Machias the Shire Town.” In long-standing Yankee tradition, voters also “appointed”
Lobster Bait
a committee to petition the General Court and initially approved five men to serve on that committee. Caleb Davis and Benjamin Hichborne evidently made some noise — or their supporters did, because voters swiftly added both men to the committee.
The petition informed the Massachusetts legislators “that the Eastern part of the County of Lincoln” endured “the greatest inconvenience & distress by reason of the largeness and extent of said County.” Pownalborough on the Kennebec River was 220 miles away. It was a hassle to travel there to attend
the Court of General Sessions and the Court of Common Pleas.
Yes, the General Court had previously designated “that part” of Lincoln County “Eastwards of Union River” as the Eastern District. Yes, the General Court had established in Machias a probate court and a registry of deeds for this district. “We experience great relief & are free’d from a considerable expence by having” those two government services, the Machias petitioners admitted.
However, they “still lay under the heaviest part of the Burden” by having
to go to Pownalborough “both in Civil & Criminal Cases,” the petition indicated. “We therefore beg leave to call your serious attention to our situation.”
The petitioners conveniently played off the recently won American Revolution. Machias “is the first settlement to the Westward of Passamaquoddy” Bay, where many Loyalists — or “Refugees,” as the petition identified them — had settled, especially at what became St. Andrews and Saint John.
“In case there should be any dispute between them & the Citizens of America, Machias would be an asylum for the distressed Americans,” a place “where they could find immediate assistance and support,” the petition noted.
There were economic and public-safety concerns. Many Loyalists “settled at Passamaquoddy and other parts of New Brunswick will find it difficult” to find work in that province,” so “they will Naturally seek it this way & perhaps many of them have led vicious
lives,” the petitioners claimed. Such Loyalists “may be & are often guilty of Theft, house breaking, assaults & other enormities which deserve exemplary punishment, but must escape with impunity, if no relief is granted.”
Imagine unemployed “Refugees” drifting into Machias and terrorizing the loyal Americans living there! How could Lincoln County authorities deal with an outbreak of crime Down East? It “wou’d almost ruin the Prosecutor if he is in comfortable circumstances” financially, and the sheriff charged his travel costs to the litigants involved even in civil cases.
And the Eastern District had earned its own county. During the Revolution “this district exerted itself to the utmost in defending the [Lincoln] County against the Enemy & since the Peace have continued loyal to the Commonwealth” of Massachusetts “and have not taken any part toward dismembering the same.” That statement referred
to budding talk about making Maine a state.
“By Erecting this district into a Separate County many of those difficulties wou’d be removed, which wou’d encourage settlers” to move into eastern Maine “and raise the Value of the Lands belonging to the Commonwealth,” the petitioners figured.
They asked the General Court to make “this Eastern District” into a new county, its name not written in the petition. And would the legislators declare Machias “the Shire Town”? Doing so made sense on the map. Located “near the Centre” of the Eastern District, Machias was “about 45 miles” from the St. Croix to the east “and 55 miles from Union River” to the west.
Machias was “the most Suitable place of any in this district” in which to site a shire town, the petitioners felt. Here “Strangers cou’d get Entertainment,” and “we have a Meeting House” that could double as a courthouse and (cont. on page 14)
(cont. from page 13) a blockhouse that could serve as a jail.
Four committee members signed the petition sent to Boston. Accompanying the petition were letters in which “the Inhabitants of Passamequodia” and those of Pleasant River Township indicated strong support for creating the new county.
Massachusetts legislators did not act immediately upon the petition. Deep in debt after the Revolution, Massachusetts needed to pay its soldiers for their military service. With hard cash at a premium, why not offer veterans free land in the District of Maine? Veterans accustomed to Massachusetts’ small farms saw the opportunity to obtain much larger properties in Maine; immigration from Massachusetts fueled strong population growth in Maine during the latter 18th century.
The General Court ultimately decided to split Lincoln County east of the Penobscot River into two new counties,
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Stonington Quarry Inspires
John D. Rockefeller
It drew inspiration for his mansion fountain
by Brian Swartz
While visiting St. Petersburg in Russia in the early 20th century, John D. Rockefeller noticed “an immense granite bowl from which spouted up a magnificent fountain.” Russia’s capital was famous for its Peterhof Fountains, among which stand the Bowl Fountains sculpted and installed during the 18th century. Sited in individual pools near the Grand Cascade, each fountain spews a plume of water high in the air, almost reminiscent of an erupting Old Faithful Geyser. Rockefeller decided to acquire a similar fountain for Kykuit, the pala-
tial 40-room mansion he had finished building in 1913 at Tarrytown in the Hudson Valley highlands. Rather than simply duplicate the St. Petersburg fountain, “like all his other undertakings, he planned to go the other fellow one better,” a Maine reporter noted. Rockefeller specifically wanted a round granite bowl with a diameter measuring 20 feet, 8 inches and a depth of three feet, four inches. The bowl “scoops out in the middle after the manner of an earthen platter,” the reporter said. Once the foundation was set up, pipes would feed water to a center hole
View from Kykuit’s entryway
two feet, three inches in diameter. Rockefeller contracted with John L. Goss to sculpt the granite bowl. Born in New York in mid-July 1858, Goss owned the John L. Goss Corporation, which had offices in Stonington and Boston and operated granite quarries on Crotch Island and Moose Island in Stonington.
Goss bought the 101¼-acre Crotch Island in 1887. He and his father, Job Goss, opened a granite quarry on the island that David Coffin had bought from Massachusetts for $225.55 on February 23, 1801. Crotch Island then was “barren ledges covered with thin soil and a small growth of wood.”
Located on the western side of Stonington harbor, Crotch Island is almost split in two by Mill Cove. A granite dam constructed across the cove’s mouth used “the rising and falling tides” to provide “very strong waterpower at a meagre expense” to run a sawmill run by Captain David Thurlow, the reporter
noted.
The Thurlows also established a shipyard on Crotch Island and launched “seventeen different coasting vessels and fishing craft” over the years. The family operated a fish yard and a smokehouse and “bought and sold and cured fish, built vessels, sawed lumber, and ground wheat” and pastured cattle and oxen on Crotch Island.
But its bedrock granite soon made valuable that island and its smaller neighbor, Moose Island (which lies nearer the shore). Job Goss and his father became partial owners in quarries on the two islands, and John L. Goss grew up in the trade. “When a boy he commenced at the bottom” in quarrying operations, “and now he knows every inch of the granite business, and his knowledge is the kind that comes by hard knocks and not from books,” the reporter observed.
Goss purchased Crotch Island’s F.S. Warren quarry in 1896 and start-
ed quarrying on Moose Island around the same time. The demand for Maine granite was strong in that era before steel supplanted granite solidity; a local source indicates that by 1905 the John L. Goss Corporation employed 80 men on Crotch Island and 100 men on Moose Island. Granite quarried on the two islands “has been used in the construction of some of the largest buildings and longest bridges on the American continent,” the reporter said. By 1914 Goss lived mostly in Boston, but often visited Stonington. His long-time friend Fred A. Torrey lived in Stonington and managed the quarries. He was also Goss’s bookkeeper. The quarries ran year-round, with Torrey overseeing the hard-working men skillfully cutting granite intended for buildings rising far away. Goss had the “ability to select men to run his quarries who can do all that can be expected of them and just a little more,” the reporter commented. (cont. on page 20)
(cont. from page 19)
Rockefeller’s water fountain certainly challenged Goss’s quarrymen. The fountain began its existence as “a huge piece of granite” weighing more than 225 tons. According to the reporter, “the St. Petersburg bowl required a crew of men working several years for its completion.
“It is no ordinary achievement to quarry out a single piece of granite” so large, he admitted. No derrick crane on the Maine coast could move the massive block. Instead, the Crotch Island quarrymen excavated “a hole … in the pile of grout (or waste stone).”
After it was quarried, “the big stone … was turned and got into position for cutting by dumping it partially into this hole,” the reporter explained. Workers used “wire guys” to pull the granite block upright and hold it in place.
With the “big stone” now immobile, the quarrymen would use pneumatic drills, cutting machines, “and all modern quarry equipment” to transform all
that granite into Rockefeller’s desired fountain bowl, the reporter said. “Only a small gang of men” were working on this project, “but they have been supplied with all that modern invention has given to the granite quarrying business.”
Rockefeller’s fountain bowl took shape after its granite pedestals were quarried and sculpted on Crotch Island. “These have already been shipped from Stonington” to Kykuit, the reporter said. Once set on its pedestals, the fountain bowl would rise 11 feet above the ground.
“This is only one of many [fountains] which already adorn the Rockefeller gardens and crowds, but this latest outstrips the others in size,” he noted.
Ellsworth’s John Bapst
The Swiss jesuit missionary and
by James Nalley
In the 19th century, there were two types of public torture and humiliation used to enforce “unofficial” justice or revenge: 1) Tarring and feathering; and 2) Riding the rail. As for the former, the victim would be stripped naked or to the waist, after which wood tar (sometimes hot) was then poured or painted onto the individual. Then, the victim either had feathers thrown on them or was rolled on a pile of feathers. Regarding the latter, which was also called “Being run out of town on a rail,” the victim was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two or more men. The victim was then paraded around town, taken to the city
limits, and dumped by the roadside. In rare cases, the so-called offender would receive BOTH punishments from an angry mob. Surprisingly, in 1854, both forms were given to a Swiss Jesuit missionary in Ellsworth, Maine.
John Bapst (also known as Johannes Bapst) was born in La Rouche, Fribourg, Switzerland, on December 17, 1815. At the age of 12, he began his studies at the College of Fribourg and by September 1835, he entered the novitiate (i.e., the period of training in preparation to take religious vows) of the Society of Jesus. At the age of 31, Bapst was ordained as a Jesuit priest, after completing the required studies (cont. on page 22)
Father John Bapst
(cont. from page 21)
and gaining the necessary teaching ex
perience.
In 1848, Bapst, with no English skills, arrived in New York, and was sent to minister to the Native Americans in Old Town, which had been without a priest for more than two decades. Interestingly, he did not speak the Penobscot language as well.
Meanwhile, the Know Nothing Party (also known as the American Party) had emerged in society. This group was a far-right nativist political party in the United States that was primarily anti-Catholic and anti-immigration. They obtained their name based on their somewhat secretive reply of “I know nothing” when asked about their various activities. According to the New England Historical Society (NEHS), “Prejudice was aimed especially at Irish immigrants and Jesuit priests… The Know Nothings published anti-Jesuit pamphlets and novels, including one featuring an evil order of female
Jesuits and another featuring a Jesuit who kidnaps and murders an innocent woman.”
As for his assignment in Old Town, Bapst had some trepidation about it, since he did not speak the Penobscot language and 10 of his predecessors had been killed. However, as stated by the NEHS, “he mastered the languages, started a temperance society, and even established peace between two warring parties.” Eventually, his mission included Irish and Canadian Catholics in Maine. From 1850 to 1853, Bapst actively preached and converted numerous Protestants in Eastport and Bangor to Catholicism. Due to his work across the state of Maine, he attracted the attention of the general public, including the members of the Know Nothing Party.
He soon established a small Catholic church and school in Ellsworth, where he also proposed that the students be exempted from reading the
King James Bible, since it was not the version that Catholics used. This apparently enraged the Know Nothings. According to the U.S. Catholic Historical Society, “On July 8, 1854, the Know Nothings blew up the Catholic school with gunpowder, broke the windows of the rectory and the church, and adopted the following resolution: ‘…if John Bapst be found again on Ellsworth soil, we will provide for him, and try on an entire suit of new clothes, such as cannot be found in the shops of any tailor, and then when thus appareled, he be presented with a free ticket to leave Ellsworth upon the first railroad operation that may go into effect.”
As stated by the NEHS, there were two versions of what occurred on the night of October 14, 1854. Based on the first version, “they carried him on a sharp rail to a lonely place, stripped him naked, bound him to a tree, hav-
ing smeared him with tar and feathers. They then piled brush around and attempted to set it afire, but their matches gave out. The sheriff finally arrived on the scene and dispersed the mob at the point of a pistol.” According to the second version, “the mob left Bapst on the wharf. When he came to, he covered himself with matting, and wandered in a daze into the center of town. Catholics found him, took him to Mr. Kent’s home and cleaned him up. He celebrated Mass the next day, as his supporters guarded him with pitchforks. Maine’s attorney general made a half-hearted investigation, but no charges were filed.” In either case, Bapst promptly returned to Bangor, where he built the St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in 1856 (which is currently on the National Register of Historic Places). He remained there for three years, after which he was sent to the College
of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and then to Boston College, where he served as the rector of the house of higher studies for the Jesuit scholastics. In 1863, Bapst was named the first president of Boston College, and remained in the position until 1869. In 1877, Bapst was serving as the rector of St. Joseph’s Church in Providence, Rhode Island, with hopes of establishing a college there, as he had done in Boston. However, in 1879, he started showing signs of dementia. According to the “History of the Archdiocese of Boston,” Bapst began experiencing intense nightmares and would shout out that his attackers were coming in the window to get him. In his final days, Fathers Robert Lord, John Sexton, and Edward Harrington wrote: “Once more, he was in the hands of his persecutors. The horror would engulf him. Finally, in terrific mental agony, (cont. on page 24)
(cont. from page 23)
he would have to seek the protecting presence of one of his fellow Jesuits. Thus, after a lifetime of bodily sacrifices, he finally sacrificed his mind to the cause of Christ.” He died on November 2, 1887, in Mount Hope, Maryland.
As for his legacy, there are two prominent examples. First, there is the Bapst Library, which served as the original Boston College Library from 1925 to 1984. It currently contains more than 51,000 art-related volumes. Second, there is the John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor. Founded in 1928, it serves approximately 500 9th to 12th grade students from across the region and around the world.
Mother Sends Five Sons To Save The Union
by Brian Swartz
AAdapted from Maine at War
lthough she could not fight to save the Union herself, Mary “Polly” (Tucker) Tibbetts of Addison did not get in the way when her five sons decided to do so.
Mary (born in 1804) and her husband, David (born in 1802), lived in Columbia and Addison, both western Washington County towns. They had at least nine children prior to the Civil War, ranging in age from oldest to youngest: Catherine “Kate” (1825), Julia Ann (1828), James Richard (1833), Joseph (1833), Mary “May” (1836), Hillman Look (1838), David (1840), and Arthur (1842).
The death year appears unknown for the ninth child, Lydia. The senior David Tibbetts died in 1863, daughter Catherine in 1860.
Although Mary still lived in Addison when the Civil War began, her five sons had dispersed well across Maine.
James Richard — he apparently preferred being called “Richard” — was a farmer living in Augusta. Joseph had learned the blacksmith’s trade and had moved to Massachusetts.
A sailor standing 5-10, Hillman still claimed Addison as his hometown, as did David, a 5-10 “block maker” possibly employed in the shipbuilding trade.
Arthur was a shoemaker living in Cherryfield.
Technically David was the first Tibbetts boy to join the war effort by enlisting as a private in Company G, 6th Maine Infantry Regiment on May 1, 1861. Single at the time, he had a light complexion, blue eyes, and brown hair. The same description applied to Hillman, who joined Company G on May 2.
Of the 6th Maine’s ten companies, five formed in Down East Maine, five elsewhere, and Company G was known as the “Cherryfield company,” with most recruits drawn from west-
ern Washington County, plus the occasional Irishman and stray recruit from elsewhere in Maine. The company’s first captain was Rockland carpenter Ralph W. Young; he died during the regiment’s heroic charge up Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg on May 3, 1863.
Having signed up for three years’ service, David and Hillman mustered with the regiment on July 15, 1861. They likely fought in various battles involving the 6th Maine, such as Williamsburg in early May 1862 and Second Fredericksburg in early May 1863.
Both brothers made corporal, David on July 22, 1863, but Hillman later lost his second stripe for a reason historically fuzzy. The brothers fought during the Overland Campaign; a modern 6th Maine history places Hillman squarely in the Wilderness gloom and horror in early May 1864.
That same history claims David was discharged for disability on January
28, 1863, but his promotion to corporal six months later exposes that error. He transferred to the 6th Maine Battalion on July 14, 1864, as the regiment’s original recruits — at least those who did not stay with the colors — mustered out as the 6th Maine disbanded.
David re-enlisted in the 1st Maine Veteran Volunteers on February 15, 1864. This regiment fought with Phil Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley in autumn 1864, and David was actually discharged for a disability on May 27, 1865.
Hillman was mustered out and honorably discharged at Portland on August 15, 1864.
Two of Mary Tibbetts’ five sons had survived the war so far.
The next brother to enlist was Arthur, 20 and single when he joined Company H, 18th Maine Infantry Regiment as a corporal on July 30, 1862. He mustered on August 21 in Bangor and went to Washington, D.C. By January
the regiment converted to the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery Regiment, assigned to garrison duty in the D.C. forts.
Busted to private somewhere along the way, the 5-8 Arthur also had a light complexion, blue eyes, and brown hair. He lucked out by transferring to the Navy on April 17, 1864. Ulysses S. Grant culled the 1st MHA and similar regiments from the Washington forts shortly after his army suffered hideous losses in the Wilderness, and two months after Arthur went “Anchors aweigh, me boys,” the 1st MHA charged to its annihilation at Petersburg.
Joseph was the fourth brother to enlist, chronologically. On August 4, 1863, he joined Company C, 2nd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery Regiment as a private and reported to Camp Meigs in Readville, Massachusetts. Assigned with Company C to garrison duty at Morehead City, North Carolina, he jumped at the opportunity to join the (cont. on page 28)
(cont. from page 27)
expanding Navy, which needed sailors.
Joseph transferred to the Navy at Hampton Roads, Virginia on May 17, 1864. He mustered out on August 24, 1865.
The military service of James, the oldest brother, possibly started with a 2nd Maine Infantry Regiment enlistment. However, his Soldier’s File at the Maine State Archives in Augusta does not mention the 2nd Maine.
Also single, the 5-9 James enlisted in Company C, Maine Coast Guards on March 30, 1864 and mustered on May 16. He had a light complexion (what else?), blue eyes, and dark hair.
The Coast Guards garrisoned the different forts scattered along the Maine coast. James saw no action and mustered out at Augusta with an honorable discharge on July 6, 1865.
Mary Tibbetts could thank God or her lucky stars that all her sons survived the war. She died on May 12, 1876.
The Eggplant Table From Eastport
A beloved family heirloom
by John Raye
Why do I call it my eggplant table? Well, it’s been in the family for almost two hundred years. It’s a round top regency style tilt top game table with a distinct eggplant shaped pedestal. Plus, I love eggplant and tradition, and I love the table.
Great Aunt Mary had it in the parlor on Key Street in Eastport around 1959. It called to me with its deep mahogany tones and elegant yet earthy shape. It highlighted a circular wooden solitaire marble game with ancient colorful swirl marbles in deep shades that appealed to my eight-year-old sensibilities quite well. A miracle, in all its formal surroundings, I was allowed to play with it. Great Aunt Mary’s father,
Henry, a Civil War veteran, had loved the table too. The marble game had helped pass the time during frigid, long winters during his dotage.
Cards flew! Henry’s brother, Ferdy, who had been a card shark and upended the table during a drink induced rage,
had not damaged it much. The aging table had proved most resilient. Ferdy’s dad, George Wadsworth, who was decorating his new old house on High Street, had bought the table when it shouted out to him through the wavy glass showroom window on a misty, snow spitting day in April of 1830. He had a playing card drawer installed the following year.
All this family lore was passed down to my Dad, John F. Raye, who wanted the family heirloom when Aunt Mary passed. Time has a way of slipping by, but like the cards that flew, also have a way of fading away into memory.
I just want to eat an eggplant dinner and to play the ancient marble game just one more time.
Guided Cottage Tour!
The Micmacs
Downeast Maine’s forgotten tribe
by Charles Francis
That the Micmacs once frequented Washington County is a largely forgotten fact. Native American historians, when they refer to the Micmacs at all, identify them as a Canadian tribe that also was known to frequent what is now Aroostook County. And while it is true that the only organized group of Micmacs in Maine today is the Aroostook Band of Micmacs with headquarters in Presque Isle, little is known about this Abnaki tribe, its relations to the other six Abnaki tribes, the French priest Le Loutre, who instigated some of their raids, including raids in what would become Washington County, the kindly French priest Father Maillaird, who finally brought peace to the tribe,
or its leaders like the warlike Cupo or the wise Argimualt. In order to understand the role played by the Micmacs in Downeast Maine it is first necessary to place them in relation to the rest of the Abnaki tribes and then consider the role they played in that region of vague boundaries and vaguer loyalties prior to their signing a peace treaty in 1759, a treaty that forever ended their hostilities against other tribes and English settlers.
Prior to the coming of Europeans to North America, the Micmacs were the most powerful and influential of all the Abnaki tribes. They controlled the most territory of any of the Abnaki and were the cultural arbiters of the time. The language of the Micmacs, like that
of the other Abnaki tribes, was derived from Algonquin, the largest Native American language group. Today, when we see a place name of Native American origin, it most likely came from the Micmacs, for all Micmac place names were descriptive. For example, they called the strait at the head of a tidal estuary Kebec. From this comes the name of Maine’s second greatest river, the Kennebec. The most common suffix for place names in the Micmac was ak-a-de meaning “place of.” The early French explorers in North America thought this suffix was the name the Micmac gave their country and so they put it on their maps as “Acadie,” from which we derive Acadia today. (cont. on page 32)
(cont. from page 31)
Most of the Abnaki tribes lived along rivers. The Sokoki lived along the Saco River, the Norridgewocks along the Kennebec and the Passamaqouddy along the St. Croix. The first European chronicler of note of the Abnaki, the Boston ecclesiastic Cotton Mather, realized this and applied the names of those rivers to the particular tribes living there. Thus the Norridgewocks became the Kennebecs. In like manner, the Micmacs became the St. John River Indians. In fact, the first treaty drawn up with the Micmacs in Boston in the 1600s referred to them as the St. John River Indians.
The Micmacs actually called themselves Meeg-a-maage but the English, who first encountered them, twisted this to Mickamuck before settling on Micmac. Their name notwithstanding, the tribe controlled more territory than any other Abnaki tribe. While they centered on the St. John River, which they
used as their chief means of transportation, they spread out from it in all directions. In the winter they lived upriver in what is now Aroostook County and New Brunswick in communal dwellings which resembled Quonset huts. These communal dwellings were built to preserve body heat. In the summer they traveled to their summer fishing grounds in what is now Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy, Passamaquoddy Bay and westward. Here they lived in wigwams, which were individual family dwellings. They were fierce warriors who thought nothing of raiding into the territory of the Iroquois of upstate New York or the Beothuks in Newfoundland. While the first European records of contact with the Micmacs do not occur until 1604, when the Sieur De Monts and Samuel de Champlain came to Dosia or St. Croix Island near the present town of Calais, there obviously had been contact before this as
the first task the French settlers set for themselves was building fortifications against expected Micmac raids.
The first written account of a meeting between the Micmacs and Europeans comes from Champlain and was published in 1613. It relates to the one winter that De Monts and Champlain spent on St. Croix Island in 1604 and 1605. That the French had knowledge of how dangerous the Micmac could be explains why they chose to settle on an island. An island would be easily defensible. When De Monts little sloop sailed up the St. Croix River, the men aboard her must have quailed with fear as the first thing they saw upon spying the island was Indian children splashing in the shallows around it. The children quickly vanished, however, and the French landed. The first thing they did — even before planting crops — was to build a palisade and place the two cannon they had brought with them at
either end of the island. With these precautions in effect, they then felt safe to build houses and plant crops. However, it was the elements and not the Indians that was to defeat them. That winter of 1604-05 was as severe as any Maine winter can be. Having used all the wood on the island for building their palisade and homes, the settlers almost froze to death. In addition, they suffered from scurvy. Having spent the entire winter huddled together for warmth and listening for the fearsome warhoops of attacking Indians — which never would have come as the Indians were in their comfortable communal dwellings far inland — the French gave up on St. Croix, which for summers afterward echoed with the shouts and splashes of Indian children who undoubtedly had fun playing in the houses built by the French.
The real trouble between the Micmacs and the English settlers of
Downeast Maine and the surrounding region began in the 1700s when the series of wars between England and France spread to the New World, where they were known as the French and Indian wars. It is at this time that the French priest Jean-Louis Le Loutre plays a role in directing the Micmac to attack English settlers.
The chief bone of contention between the English, who were centered in and around Boston, and the French, who were on the west coast of Nova Scotia, were the rich cod fishing grounds of the Gulf of Maine. It was there that the two came into conflict, particularly in the Bay of Fundy and Passamaquoddy Bay. Whenever the Boston-based fishermen went ashore they were liable to be attacked by Micmacs. Because of this situation, the New Englanders decided to eliminate what they considered their greatest danger, the Fortress of Louisbourg.
This they did in 1745, much to the surprise of the French, who had considered the fortress impregnable. In retaliation, the French sent a fleet to deal with the upstart New England fishermen. One of the express purposes of the French, who were vastly outnumbered by the English in the New World, was to bring the Indians to their side of the conflict. And this meant the Micmacs, the majority of whom had already been converted to Catholicism. This is where Le Loutre comes into the story.
Jean-Louis Le Loutre came to the New World aboard the French frigate L’Aurore in 1746. By this time, hostilities between the English and the French had reached a boiling point. In fact, the French had begun paying the Micmacs for every English scalp they brought in. Prior to the arrival of Le Loutre, however, the Micmac attacks on the English had been haphazard and sporadic. What the priest did was to organize the (cont. on page 34)
(cont. from page 33)
Micmacs and extol the virtues of scalp taking.
When the French fleet dropped anchor at Chebucto on the coast of Nova Scotia, it had already sunk almost a score of New England fishing vessels and taken one hundred and sixty-eight prisoners. On shore was a band of some hundred and fifty Micmac warriors who had been told they would be getting their own priest. The Indians welcomed Le Loutre and his companion, the soldier Repentigny. After much celebrating, the Indians, now under the leadership of Le Loutre and Repentigny, set out to march the prisoners to Quebec. None of the prisoners were heard from again and they definitely did not make it to Quebec. After this, Le Loutre took up his grisly task of encouraging more Micmac attacks on New Englanders who ventured ashore. One of his most successful recruits was the Micmac chief Cupo, who came to
be feared wherever he ranged in the noman’s-land either side of the St. Croix.
When France ceded Nova Scotia to Britain, it was thought that the Micmacs would cease their attacks. This was not to be, however. Cupo and Le Loutre continued to call for more English scalps, and the Downeast region remained a dangerous place on which to set foot. In desperation, rangers were brought in. For a time, the famous Roger’s Rangers pursued the Micmacs. Then Gorham’s Rangers, most of whom were half Mohawk, were brought in as well. Neither group was successful in capturing Cupo. Then sometime around 1757 Cupo simply disappeared. One tribal legend has it that he died in battle and that his burial site is hidden. Regardless, with his death as well as with the subsequent one of Le Loutre, the scalping slacked off. One of the reasons for this was that France sent a new priest to the Micmacs, Father Maillaird.
Another was the rise to power of the Micmac chief Argimualt. Father Maillaird was a man of peace and so was Argimualt. Together the two led the Micmacs to a state of peaceful coexistence with the English settlers of Nova Scotia, which at that time included New Brunswick and the downeast region, which at that time fell under the jurisdiction of the governor of Nova Scotia. The Micmacs for the most part ceased to frequent what would become Washington County, preferring to summer on the west side of the Bay of Fundy and winter on the upper reaches of the St. John River, especially in the St. John Valley. The fact that they wintered there may have played a role in why some of the Acadians, who were driven from Nova Scotia, chose that region to settle.
The Maynard F. Jordan Planetarium
Celebrating 70 years at UMaine
by Brian Swartz
The University of Maine’s Maynard F. Jordan Planetarium will celebrate its 70th anniversary in October 2024. Named for UMaine mathematics and astronomy professor Maynard F. Jordan, the planetarium has survived many maintenance and budgetary challenges to become a premiere New England planetarium.
An observatory equipped with an Alvan Clark refractor telescope opened at UMaine in 1901. Not until the 1950s did support coalesce for opening a campus planetarium.
The Maine Campus reported in November 1952 that Professor Spofford Kimball believed the university “will have a planetarium in the near future,” if funds could be raised to buy “projectors and a precision-made dome.” Kimball, who chaired the department of mathematics and astronomy, said that backers must find “a building on the campus which will accommodate a piece of equipment this size.”
University officials announced in November 1953 that the planetarium would be located on the second floor at Wingate Hall. Much equipment had already arrived, said Maynard F. Jordan, associated with the planetarium from its inception.
Construction was done almost entirely by “university crews,” and the $8,100 project wrapped up in June 1954. With the finishing touches completed, the planetarium opened in October 1954, one of the first 10 university planetariums in the United States.
Intended “primarily for use in classroom demonstrations by the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy,” the planetarium could seat 50 people and “will be toured by various civic groups, such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and high-school science classes,” a newspaper reported. These aspects of the planetarium’s initial purpose are true today.
A projector “sprinkled with pinholes to produce beams of light” created 650 stars on the round dome. Jordan said the planetarium would “increase astronomical knowledge through practical demonstrations.”
Chris Lowe, a chemical engineering
major, was the volunteer director when the planetarium underwent renovations in 1976. The facility had “no regular hours,” but Lowe “or one of the two other students on the staff” were usually there. The planetarium hosted shows for elementary-school students during the academic year.
Despite rising attendance, the planetarium was “deteriorating piecemeal” by the early 1980s. Backers launched a $60,000 fund-raising drive to buy a new star projector and “other types of projectors for slides and special effects.” The Friends of the Planetarium formed to raise funds and to provide volunteer help. Alan Davenport, a Friends’ member, became the planetarium’s first fulltime director.
He sought public funding after electrical issues shuttered the facility in 1981. The Friends “organized raffles and other money-making events to help us along,” he noted, and those fund-raising efforts helped pay for electrical-system repairs that let the planetarium reopen by 1982. Fund-raising efforts resulted in new seats and a Spitz Model 373 Star Projector being installed in the planetarium by 1983.
A professor emeritus since his 1960 retirement, Jordan died in late Novem(cont. on page 40)
(cont. from page 39)
ber 1986. His daughter and son-in-law, Massachusetts residents Dorothy and Theodore Whitehouse, established a $1 million endowment for UMaine’s planetarium and observatory in spring 1993. The Whitehouses also committed to donating $5,000 a year to the planetarium for the next five years. At a dedication ceremony held that June 5, both facilities were named for Jordan.
The planetarium continued operating at Wingate Hall through the 1990s and 2000s. Then in 2012, the university received an anonymous $3.2 million donation to build “a new home for the planetarium and observatory.” With Davenport overseeing the project for UMaine, construction started on land at 167 Rangeley Road.
Named for Emera Inc., which contributed $1 million for the project, the $5.2 million Emera Astronomy Center opened in summer 2014. After Versant Power purchased Emera, the facility
became the Versant Power Astronomy Center in October 2020.
The project also resulted in UMaine installing a 20-inch PlaneWave optical reflecting telescope in the research laboratory located behind the astronomy center. The research lab contains a dome; next to this building is the 1901 observatory, still operational today.
The Jordan Planetarium relocated to a 10-meter dome inside the astronomy center. A new, high-tech Sky-Skan Definiti 4K digital projection system uses two laser-based JVC projectors and six high-powered computers to seamlessly meld and project onto the overhead dome a stunning eight-channel video that appears three-dimensional. A 5.1 audio system enhances the full dome videos shown in the planetarium.
Davenport retired after the astronomy center opened, and Shawn Laatsch became its director in January 2016. Involved with planetariums since 1984,
Shawn Laatsch, Director of the Versant Power Astronomy Center at UMaine. Located inside the center is the Maynard F. Jordan Planetarium, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary in October 2024.
he is past president of the International Planetarium Society and is the current treasurer of Dark Sky Maine.
“Planetariums are a place of inspiration, a place of informal science learning” and “are a teaching tool, a way of teaching the night sky, celestial navigation,” and other sciences, Laatsch said. “We’re very excited about our upcoming 70th anniversary,” which will feature special programs and events.
Open to the public weekly at 7 p.m., Friday and 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., Sunday, the planetarium shows traditional astronomy-related programs and offers other programs that explore nature (“Expedition Reef” was a popular program offered last winter), climate change, and even the human body, such as taking visitors inside a virus. The planetarium offers six to eight new programs every year. The astronomy center and planetarium are available for use by schools and private groups.
Small steamboat FLORENCE, which was built in 1882 in Brewer, pictured here on the Penobscot River in Bangor. Item # LB200.63.85 from the Richardson Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
Bangor’s Everett Glass
Hollywood character actor
Iby James Nalley
n the 1910s, a Bangor-born young man attended Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he was active in drama and the arts. Upon graduation, he was appointed as a full-time drama coach at the college. After gaining experience as a stage actor in everything from Shakespeare dramas to Broadway musicals, he ended up in Berkeley, California, where he had a long career as a theater director/playwright. Then, well into his 50s, Hollywood noticed his potential as a character actor. He went on to appear in more than 80 films and television shows, mainly as “wise” older men such as ministers, professors, doctors, elders, and judges.
Everett William Glass was born in
Bangor on July 23, 1891. After attending public schools, he enrolled at Amherst College, where he was active in plays and musicals, and was also on the editorial staff of the Amherst Monthly. Upon graduation in 1914, he was hired as a full-time drama coach, after which he founded the “Amherst Masquers,” an acting troupe consisting of college students and local amateurs/semi-professionals. In search of more opportunities, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1916, Glass was working as an assistant to the Polish director Richard Ordynski in producing Henry IV for the Shakespeare Tercentenary (1616–1916). In the following year,
Everett Glass
Glass became one of the original members of the permanent company at the Greenwich Village Theatre in New York, after which he balanced roles in this company with those on Broadway for the next five years. By 1922, Glass had made connections on the West Coast and relocated to Berkeley, California, where he initially joined the Greek Theatre. In 1926, Glass received rave reviews for his starring role in The Drunkard, one of the first American plays to focus on temperance (i.e., the movement promoting temperance or the complete abstinence of alcohol). In this regard, when the original play premiered in 1844 in Boston, it ran for an unprecedented 140 performances. The success of the play led to the growth of the temperance movement at the national level.
By 1928, Glass had made a name for himself in the Bay Area and became a director at the Berkeley Playhouse. He
was also in charge of the Wheeler Hall Plays series at the University of California, Berkeley, a position he held into the 1930s. Around 1938, he was writing plays, producing works such as Princes, Ltd. (a comedy), Summer Heat, and Coolhaven (a horror story). However, as stated earlier, his life changed when Hollywood noticed him as a potential character actor in 1948.
Interestingly, Glass entered the film industry in several uncredited appearances. For example, in 1948, he had uncredited roles in four films, followed by 10 more in 1949. According to workonfilm.com, although it is rare today, there are four main reasons why an actor is uncredited. First, the actor’s involvement has not been confirmed. For example, “there have been many stories of actors filming for a character, only to get cut out of the final production.” Second, “for some productions, the identity of the actor
will be a well-guarded secret for the element of surprise.” Third, sometimes, “more well-known actors help out their friends by agreeing to briefly appear in a film on the basis that it will be unpaid and uncredited.” Finally, the most common reason is that an actor is not part of the principal cast. In this regard, “often times, actors that are just starting out and are struggling to get credits work as an extra on a production.” As for Glass, he falls under the last category. However, with experience, Glass earned his first credited part as Virgil Ryan in Easy Living (1949), starring Victor Mature, Lucille Ball, and Lizabeth Scott. Subsequently, Glass found more regular work in television, beginning with an episode of Family Theatre in 1951 and Jane Wyman’s Fireside Theatre in 1952, where he acted in seven episodes. From there, he found his niche as a character actor, playing scientists, judges, doctors, elders, priests, (cont. on page 44)
(cont. from page 43)
and equally distinguished roles in dozens of television shows. In the 1950s and 1960s, his credited/uncredited roles ranged from appearances on The Twilight Zone, which ran from October 1959 to June 1964, to Rawhide, the Western television series starring Clint Eastwood that ran from January 1959 to September 1965.
Among all his film appearances, his most well-known roles were Annas in the Jesus Christ-based film Day of Triumph (1954), Dr. Ed Pursey in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and Timmek in the post-apocalyptic World Without End (1956). However, he also played more dramatic roles in The Harder They Fall (1956) with Humphrey Bogart, Pal Joey (1957) with Rita Hayworth, and Elmer Gantry (1960) with Burt Lancaster. In 1962, Glass retired from acting following an appearance as Carlton Gage in “The Case of the Capricious Corpse” on Per-
Cyr,
Everett Glass and Frank Ray at The Mountain Theater in 1934. (courtesy of the Marin County Free Library)
ry Mason, which ran from September 1957 to May 1966.
On March 22, 1966, Glass died in Los Angeles, California. He was 74 years of age. As for his legacy, aside from his more than 40 Hollywood films and dozens of television appearances, Glass spent much of his career in Berkeley, where he and his wife (who also taught at Berkeley) built a house on Twain Avenue in the Berkeley Hills. Today, the Everett and Marie Glass House is a designated City of Berkeley Landmark that is considered one of the best residential designs in the area. According to its inscription, “This simply detailed, shed roof house was built on a modest budget and sited on a double lot to capture spectacular views. Its design expresses a regional approach to modernism that emphasizes harmony with nature.”
Steamer TREMONT launching from Barbour Boat Yard
Mildred Thayer Collection
Moosehead Coffee House And Overnight Camps
by Sean & Johanna S. Billings
Coffee. So many of us love it and swear by its ability to help us face the world and achieve our goals.
In Greenville, the Moosehead Coffee House and Overnight Camps nurtured our local coffee culture, starting in 1927. It’s likely that this wasn’t the only place in town to get coffee, but the caffeinated beverage got prominent billing in the business’s name.
It all began with Lawrence K. Hall’s plans for the Highlands development, which consisted of approximately 750 cottage lots on the mountainside in
the vicinity of the famous Blair Hill Inn. The plans, drawn by J.D. Ring of Guilford — and later modified by E. W. Vickery Jr. — called for lots of approximately 5,000 square feet or a little more than a tenth of an acre. The roads in the development included Ridge Parkway, Fairmount Street, Sunset Avenue, Wayne Avenue, Highland Avenue and Pine Street, all of which remain as offshoots of present-day Lily Bay Road. Fairmount Street no longer exists and Pine Street is now called Halls Avenue.
An ad from the June 4, 1927 edition of the Bangor Daily News called the
50x100-foot lots “big and roomy” and noted prices started at $300.
The high-density cottage development made the location perfect for a restaurant. Edith M. Barney bought several lots, including two that face Lily Bay Road. The locations of these lots gave her access to potential customers, both in the development and those passing by. A Bangor Daily News article from 1927 reports Barney had a crew laying down the foundation for a $5,000 public dining room. The completed building offered a wonderful view of Moosehead Lake, according to (cont. on page 50)
the paper’s Nov. 23, 1927 edition.
Barney had cabins constructed on mentions that the Moosehead Coffee House was on the direct route to the Ripogenus Dam. Barney eventually had a total of 11 rental cabins built. Some had kitchens and bathrooms while others were one-room cabins with attached baths.
News reports say the business opened in 1928 with dining available in a screened front porch and sun parlor, each big enough to seat 60 people. Marguerite Kinney ran the kitchen and Elaine Bartley and Ruth Duty were waitresses.
The dining rooms were attractively furnished with dainty ivory finished tables and chairs painted with bright color to harmonize with the draperies. The view was spectacular because the area between Lily Bay Road and the lake had been mostly clear cut.
The coffee house opened May 15 for (cont. from page 49)
1939 season,
published four days later. Barney was managing the business with Wayne Hussey and his wife taking charge of the dining room and kitchen. Muriel Huggard of Houlton and Faye Gregan of Greenville were
The Lily Cat
North Woods Antiques
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The biggest small antique shop in Maine!
Edith’s husband, Lawrence, died April 19, 1946, leaving her to operate the coffee house alone. On June 17, 1953, she sold the business to Howard R. “Dutchie” and Doris E. Murray. According to the Piscataquis County deed (cont. on page 52)
Blair Hill and Highlands on Moosehead Lake: A History
Autographed copies are available at our shop, Lily Cat Antiques. It is also available at area bookstores and gift shops.
Most people are familiar with the Blair Hill Inn. But the rest of the hill has a fascinating history, too, including a former resident who was a Titanic survivor and a landscape painter who was Greenville’s �irst preacher — and who died after being accidentally poisoned by his wife. This book covers the history of the hill overlooking Moosehead Lake from the original settlers to the present.
the
according to a Bangor Daily News article
the waitresses.
A view of the Moosehead Coffee House from Lily Bay Road. Notice the gas pumps out front.
(cont. from page 50) records, Barney kept the portion of the property on which her log cabin home was located.
The Murrays were experienced. They had previously run the Log Cabin Restaurant, the Aeroplane Diner and variety stores in Greenville and Greenville Junction. At the time they purchased the coffee house, they were running Murray’s Cabins at Center Cove in Greenville.
Barney agreed to stay on and run the coffee house. Unfortunately, she died exactly six months later, on Dec. 17, 1953. The Murrays sold their Center Cove business so they could concentrate on the coffee house with Doris running the kitchen and Howard doing maintenance. By 1961, however, they were looking to sell. They contacted friend and longtime customer Joseph Quartucci to see if he was interested. He was. The New Jersey resident had been visiting the area and staying in the cabins on the property since 1950. He and his wife, Gloria, had no
experience running a restaurant and were unsure if they could do it. As a result, the Murrays agreed to lease the restaurant for one season as a trial run while they continued to operate the cabins. The trial run was a success and the couple purchased the restaurant on June 23, 1962, changing the name to Quartucci’s North Woods Inn. In May of the following year, the Quartuccis purchased some of the rental cabins and, later, bought more. The Murrays eventually sold the remaining ones to Lancy Christie, John Files and Maxim Squiers.
The Quartuccis operated The North Woods Inn until 1976, when the building was torn down. When Joseph Quartucci died in November 2009, ownership passed to his son, Chris, who died April 24, 2021. The Quartucci family still owns the property. Now, however, all that remains is an overgrown lot along Lily Bay Road. There’s not a coffee cup in sight.
Foxcroft Academy’s Basketball Team
Making perennial runs to the tournament
by Brian Swartz
Well known to opposing teams and fans in Northern Maine
Class B basketball, the Foxcroft Academy Ponies once played in Class L — and not that long ago.
For the purposes of intervarsity athletic competition, Maine high schools were grouped by school population through the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s in classes L, M, and S. Just about every decent-sized town had a high school, and the small schools played in Class S. Being a much larger school, Foxcroft teams played in Class L into the 1960s.
Not until the 1963-64 season did
the Foxcroft boys (under Coach Wayne Champeon) reach the playoffs during that decade, finishing the regular season in seventh place at 9-9 and losing to Madison in the B quarterfinals. The Ponies and coach Champeon returned
to the Eastern Maine L tournament in February 1965, only to lose to Bucksport in the quarterfinals.
Robert Koscmiersky took over from Champeon for the 1967-68 season. Foxcroft finished fourth with an 11-7 record and knocked off Piscataquis Community of Guilford in a quarterfinal game. Orono defeated the Ponies in the resulting semifinal.
Coach Ron Marks took 12-8 Foxcroft to the February 1969 tournament, but Schenck eliminated the Ponies in the quarterfinal. Skip Hanson began his seven-year run as coach with the 1969(cont. on page 54)
(cont. from page 53)
1970 season. As the Maine Principals Association reclassified high schools as A, B, C, and D, the Ponies lost to Schenck in back-to-back B quarterfinals (February 1971 and February 1972). Foxcroft finished the 1972-73 season 13-5, defeated Hampden Academy in the quarterfinal, but lost to the Schenck Wolverines in the semi.
The next tournament, the Ponies knocked off Hermon and MDI to advance to the Eastern Maine final, only to lose that game to Orono. Foxcroft finished the 1974-75 season undefeated at 18-0 and defeated Limestone and Van Buren to gain a championship rematch with Orono. This time the Ponies won, taking the Eastern Maine crown, and then beat Medomak Valley in the State Class B championship. The Ponies brought home the gold basketball identifying them as the best boys’ team in state Class B.
Rusty Clukey coached Foxcroft over the next four seasons. The Ponies lost to Bucksport in the February 1979
Eastern Maine B finals. The 1980 tournament saw FA fall to Orono in a semifinal matchup.
There followed a long drought in Foxcroft basketball fortune. Winning only 10 games over the next four seasons, the Ponies reached the tournament in February 1985 and February 1986 (losing both years in the quarterfinals), then returned only twice during the next 15 seasons.
The 2001-2002 season brought a new coach, David Carey. Except for one season under Jonathan Funk, Carey would coach FA through the 2014-15 season and would take the Ponies multiple times to the Eastern Maine Class B tournament in Bangor.
His first season saw the 8-10 (and fifth place) Ponies defeat Orono in the playoffs but lose to Camden Hills in the quarterfinal. Foxcroft went 17-1 in 2002-2003 and defeated Mt. View of Thorndike in a B quarterfinal. The Ponies fell to Erskine Academy in the semifinal.
Carey took Foxcroft to the tournament in February 2004 (losing to Hermon in a semi) and February 2005. This time the Ponies advanced to the Eastern Maine B title game, only to lose to Camden Hills. Graduation and other factors limited Foxcroft’s talent for the next three seasons, but under Carey’s guidance the Ponies reached the Class B regional tournament again in February 2009. After knocking off Caribou in the playoffs, the 13th-place Ponies fell to Hermon in a quarterfinal game.
Foxcroft shifted to Class C for the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 seasons and lost to Washington Academy in the Eastern Maine C tournament in February 2010. Returning to Class B for 2011-2012, the Ponies began a post-season run stretching over nine of the next eleven seasons.
Finishing 13th in 2012-2013, FA defeated Oceanside of Rockland in the playoffs and Caribou in the quar-
terfinals but lost the semi to Medomak Valley. The next three seasons saw the Ponies lose their playoff games, not reach the playoffs for two consecutive seasons, and then lose playoff games to Presque Isle (February 2019) and MCI of Pittsfield (February 2020).
Covid shortened the 2020-2021 season. Coach Toby Nelson, who had taken over from Tyler Erickson the previous year, guided the Ponies to a 5-7 record and a seventh-place finish in Northern Maine Class B. Foxcroft lost to Orono in the quarterfinals.
Playing a full schedule again during the 2021-2022 season, the Ponies went 13-5 and finished third in Class B. They defeated MDI in a playoff game but lost to the John Bapst Crusaders in the quarterfinals. Foxcroft finished in fifth place in Northern Maine Class B for the 2022-2023 season, beat MDI in the playoffs, and lost to Orono in a quarterfinal game.
Interstate 95’s Missing Mile
Howland’s ghostly stretch of pike
by Charles Francis
Maine has a rich tradition of myth, legend, tall tales, witchcraft, and superstition, all of which fall under the study of folklore. Many myths can be traced to the state’s Native Americans. An example of this is the story of how Moose and Deer islands in Passamaquoddy Bay came into existence. Legend says the mythical trickster, Glooscap, was paddling a canoe out in the bay when he spied a deer about to be taken down by wolves. Waving his hand, he changed the animals into islands, creating Moose and Deer islands.
Another legend deals with Plum Island off Ogunquit, where settlers went to gather plums in late summer. One
day, as the story goes, the residents of Ogunquit awoke to find that Plum Island had disappeared. When some fishermen went out to the island’s location, they found a dark reef. Today, the reef is known as Sunken Island.
Paul Bunyan, the creation of loggers sitting around a camp stove deep in the north woods on a cold winter’s night is, of course, the greatest of Maine’s tall tales.
In Bucksport, on the marker at the grave of Colonel Jonathan Buck, the mysterious image of a leg stubbornly refuses all attempts of removal. Legend says it is the result of the curse of a witch that Buck was responsible for executing.
And, of course, there are countless superstitions. One example would be the belief that some gifted individuals can find water underground with the aid of a willow branch or some other wand-like instrument. Even noted author Kenneth Roberts, who wrote a book on the subject, believed in the power of water “dowsers.”
But perhaps no other example of Maine folklore is stranger than the stories surrounding what some refer to as the missing mile on Interstate 95, just outside of Howland. I-95’s missing mile isn’t exactly missing, it’s just that there is almost nothing there. For mile upon mile on either side of Howland, I-95 passes through woods or wetlands.
There are moose, deer and other animals in the forests. Bogs teem with waterfowl. It is not unusual to see blue heron or an eagle. In the spring there are wildflowers in abundance along the roadside. But on this particular stretch, I-95 passes through an area that seems almost completely devoid of life. Only unhealthy-looking fungi and withered grass are found there. What little water that is there appears in stagnant, brackish pools. A few streams move sluggishly or not at all. There are few birds or animals. It is as if they choose to shun the area. For just over a mile, the whole area looks like a blasted heath straight out of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. The missing mile is, in short, rife with fodder for myth, legend, and superstition. Maine folklore falls into two broad divisions based on geography. The line of demarcation runs roughly across the state from just north of Bridgton, Lewiston-Auburn, Waterville, and Bangor
until it reaches Calais in the east. South of the line folklore reflects the traditions of New England and the Northeast. For example, Reverend George Burrows of Wells was hanged for witchcraft in the seventeenth century. His accuser was a girl who lived in Salem, Massachusetts, and who claimed he practiced witchcraft on her from Wells. In South Harpswell, there is the legend of a headless horseman with a billowing white cloak, whose horse’s ghostly hoofbeats can be heard on crisp autumn nights, much as in the legendary Washington Irving work The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. North of the line, however, folklore has a different tone, because it is primarily derived from Canadian tradition. In Blaine, in Aroostook County, there is the story of George Thompson, who supposedly could draw whiskey from a tree. And there are stories of a tiny two-foot-tall, hairy creature that walks upright on two feet and is sometimes seen at the side of the road at night
when caught in the glare of passing headlights. This is Maine’s equivalent of Bigfoot, and is either of Indian or French-Canadian origin or a combination of both. There have been sightings of this elusive creature along Howland’s missing mile.
I first heard about the missing mile when I passed through it with a young Eagle Scout named Matt Wilson. His explanation for the creation of the missing mile involved a flying saucer. Matt and his fellow scouts did a lot of camping in northern Maine, and like most young people around a campfire, listened to the stories of older scouts. The story Matt had heard about the missing mile was that sometime before I-95 was built, a flying saucer had landed there, blasting the area so that nothing could ever grow there again. Indian lore has another version, however. According to one Abenaki tale, a young brave went out on his vision quest. He had been instructed to find a (cont. on page 58)
(cont. from page 57)
spot where he had a clear view of Mt. Katahdin, the abode of the gods, and wait for his vision. Under no circumstances was he to go to sleep. If he did, he was warned, the gods would punish him. As the story goes, the young brave, after several days of staying awake, could no longer keep his eyes open and dozed off. When he awoke, he saw a magnificent, tall warrior standing before him. He immediately knew it must be one of the gods from the mountain. The warrior’s voice rang out like thunder, causing the young brave to fall, trembling, to the ground. “For your crime,” the voice said, “you will be doomed to this spot forever, and no Indian will ever visit it or your spirit, which will remain here forever. Moreover, this spot shall forever be without life.” And with that, a bolt of lightning struck the young man and devastated the surrounding area. This must have been an effective tale in instruct-
ing youths about to go on their vision quests.
Still, the folklore of the missing mile is unique. It should reflect the influences of northern Maine traditions, but it doesn’t. While there are some characteristics similar to the folklore of the northern part of the state, there are elements drawn from Indian mythology. There are also more contemporary tales, particularly in the form of urban legends.
One such story about the missing mile falls into the category of urban legend and probably has little validity. Although urban legends all start somewhere, most stories show up with similar versions in other cities. For example, virtually everyone has heard the tale of someone finding a rat in a fried chicken restaurant’s meal, or of someone finding cat remains in a garbage can in the back of a restaurant. An urban legend surrounding the missing
mile is about a lady from Medway who decided to go shopping at the Bangor Mall. While she was driving through the missing mile, her car struck a cat and killed it. Being a fastidious person, she got out of her car and put the remains in a shopping bag with the intention of disposing of them in a trash container. By the time she got to the mall, she still hadn’t found any place to dispose of her burden, so she took the shopping bag with the cat in it into the mall with her. While searching for some item in her handbag, she placed the bag with the cat in it on the floor. As the story goes, a woman shoplifter grabbed the bag and disappeared into the parking lot with it. Shortly thereafter, the lady from Medway heard a scream from the parking lot. This urban legend can be found in almost every city. It always involves someone from a rural area passing through a deserted area, then hitting a cat, then going to a
The missing mile is the perfect subject to use to conjure tales around a campfire. Storytelling, especially if the story has a hint of the bizarre, is as old as man. Storytelling is a great way to pass time, and if the stories are a little on the weird side, so much the better.
So what’s the real story on the missing mile? It actually appears to be nothing more than a slightly out of place piece of tundra, and tundra is not an uncommon occurrence in northern Maine. But the next time you take a drive around Howland along I-95, see what comes to your mind as you cross that barren, haunted land. You may decide that simple tundra is not the cause of that barren stretch of pike.
Men standing on the platform of the Bangor & Aroostook
Northern Maine Junction in Hermon.
Pabst Welcomes Hunters Advertising at its finest
by Retired Lt. Doug Tibbetts
You have all seen the signs in the fall of the year that adorn many mom-and-pop stores and proclaim, “Budweiser Welcomes Hunters.” The fact is “Bud” was not the first to welcome hunters in this manner, it was Pabst Blue Ribbon (AKA-PBR) in 1994.
I remember this so well as I questioned why Pabst went to such lengths to welcome hunters but not any other outdoor enthusiast. It became a point of conversation among several of us wardens and we had some laughs over it but at any rate it must have been a good idea as the next year “Bud” beat them to the punch with their own welcoming sign for hunters and the PBR sign was no longer displayed.
Someone had made a report to me about hearing a gunshot, at night, off in the distance of a remote part of the Town of Garland, east of route 7. I decided to reconnoiter the area and found access by way of a muddy woods road. There was one camp on this road, but I went beyond that camp, as far as I could drive, then continued on foot past a washed-out bridge and came to another camp that I could see was being
accessed by way of another woods road that had to be connected, somehow, to the Oliver Hill Road.
It was a Sunday and there was nobody at the camp, so I proceeded to look around a little. Right away, some things started to pique my interest, such as a pile of apples about 120 feet from a window on the east side of the camp. Finding somewhat of a trail leading away from the camp, I followed it about 150 yards to a tree stand, in a large pine, that overlooked another pile of apples in a recently cut over area.
As I departed the area, I formulated a plan of how best to proceed with addressing this situation. I had a relatively new warden working for me, Durward Humphrey, he was also a pilot, and he had some occasional access to the use of a warden plane.
At the first chance I had, I met with Warden Humphrey and filled him in on the camp. We agreed that he would contact the Chief Pilot, Roger Wolverton, to see if he could arrange to fly over the camp on Friday of the coming week and see if it was occupied. I asked him to stay up high and not to circle the camp so as not to tip anyone off about our interest in their activities.
On Friday afternoon Warden Humphrey reported that he had made a flight over the camp in the middle of the afternoon, and he could see a vehicle at the camp. With that information in hand, I arranged for Warden Humphrey and Warden Dave Georgia to meet up with me at the edge of dark and we would make our way to the camp by the same route I had taken on the previous Sunday. The only problem was that the weather had turned wicked cold, adding to that a stiff breeze had come up and it was not going to be a pleasant night to be out in the cold.
Warden Georgia brought along his full mount decoy deer, which had a removeable head, and required considerable effort for us to carry, along with all our other stuff, the half mile to the camp.
The vehicle was still there, and smoke was coming out of the camp stovepipe but the camp was all dark inside and very quiet.
Georgia and I worked to set up the deer as close to the apple pile as we dared to get without being discovered or shot, a rather nerve-racking process. Now, we just needed to wait for something to happen.
After about an hour a spotlight, very briefly, shone out the window of the camp in the direction of the apple pile but didn’t move around much and we were sure the deer had not been seen. After about another hour this process was repeated and, again, it was obvious the deer had not been seen. Deciding to stay with it, Georgia and I made the risky move to re- locate the deer closer to the apple pile and if we were going to do it, now was the time as we felt the hunter in the camp would wait a while before lighting up the area again. Looking back, this was a dangerous and foolhardy undertaking, but we were desperate and not wanting all our efforts to go for not we proceeded to get the deer right in front of the apples.
Now, we were waiting again and getting very cold in the process. We were afraid the person in the camp had given up for the night and gone to bed. We waited in the cold raw wind and had to do push-ups and other exercises to keep from freezing. Each of us thinks that the hunter should at least try one more time before midnight. None of us was going to be the first one to give in to our suffering, and we were suffering. I know we were each thinking, if someone suggests we cash it in, it’s not going to be me.
It was now well after midnight, there had been no action for three hours and our courage was beginning to slip. Then, in an instant, a light shone from the window and immediately a gunshot
rang out. We all ran for the door of the camp but were so cold it was difficult to make our legs work. Finding the handle to the door was a little problematic but we announced ourselves and gained entrance.
Inside, we found the lone occupant in his long johns and looking very stunned. He had tossed his loaded 44 Ruger rifle onto a couch and dropped his light on the floor. The window was on hinges and held open with a string wrapped around a nail.
His name was Ray, he was calm and resigned to his fate. Ray said he had seen a plane that afternoon and wanted to know if it had been wardens. I told him that I didn’t think so and he replied, after seeing the plane I thought about going home and wished I had. Warden Humphrey noticed that Ray was limping a little and upon inquiring Ray stated that a couple of days ago he was up in the pine tree deer stand and his friend pretended he was a warden and scared him, causing him to fall while trying to get down from the tree.
As we were about to leave the camp, I noticed that Ray had been drinking a 16 ounce can of Pabst. I asked Ray if Pabst was the beer that welcomes hunters. He replied, “ya I seen them signs.”
Mrs. Addison’s Library
A window to the vast world beyond
by Wendall B. Kinney
It was 1943, the middle of World War II, and I was a young boy. The impressions that war had on me were few. I remember that my father got his draft notice but was deferred because he was a farmer with eight children. And, of course, I remember the shortage of sugar. My mother replaced it with buckwheat honey — a poor substitute.
Dexter was, and is, a beautiful place to live and raise a family. A small dairy farm, however, was hard work with little reward. I think my parents found their reward in their happy and healthy offspring, for they rarely complained. I was the third oldest behind my brother Arden and sister Patricia.
Our neighbors, the Addisons, lived about a half-mile distant along an unpaved and rutted road, impassable in “mud season,” dusty in summer, and snow-packed in winter. Mrs. Addison was but an inch over five feet tall with hair as white as snow. She always met us at the door in her flowered housedress and full-length apron on which could be seen puffs of flour where she had wiped her well-wrinkled hands. Her glasses sparkled, as did her smile.
I remember Mr. Addison as being
as tall as Mrs. Addison was short. His head was topped with a heavy hank of dark, unruly hair, and a curved yellow-stemmed pipe protruded from the corner of his mouth. He walked with a stoop, seemingly to minimize his height. He was friendly enough, but always seemed to be busy with some outside chore or other during our visits.
On many a Sunday afternoon, I would follow my older brother and sister down that rutted road from our home, across the floating bridge at the end of Moore’s Pond, to theirs. The small cottage in which they lived was a magical place. The white shutters accented the green of the house and the pines amidst which it stood. The windows were framed in white lace curtains, and doilies lay crisply upon furniture shining with the scent of lemon. The floors sparkled from scrubbing, and everything was in its place. A grandfather clock and a mantel clock ticked in harmony, yet not in unison. These things I remember, for I came from a house alive with the healthy, and sometimes raucous, enthusiasm of my seven siblings and me.
There were no children at the Ad-
disons. I never knew why and didn’t question it at the time, for it was a place of peace and wonder.
Her welcoming smile always included, “Gracious, it’s good to see you,” even though we had come uninvited, for we had no telephone or other means of calling ahead. We knew from the light in her eyes and her smile that she looked forward to our visits as much as we did.
In summer, we would hurriedly dust our bare feet on the braided rug near the front door. I can still see that rug, braids like my sister’s hair, only in colors of red, black, green, and yellow, all woven together to make a mat the size of a small table. In winter, she would take our coats while we removed our boots and then let us warm up by the wood stove. Winter or summer, she would serve us one of her delicious date-filled cookies or some other sweet with a glass of fresh cold milk or a cup of hot chocolate, depending on the season. When we had finished, we would be led through the French doors into the library where we would bend our necks to gaze in awe once more at row upon row of mysterious books neatly ar-
ranged on shelves from floor to ceiling.
Our wonder at the rows of volumes arose from the rarity of books at our house. My mother, too busy with cooking and cleaning for her large family, and my father, who had dropped out of school in the sixth grade at the insistence of his father, had no interest in reading.
There, on Mrs. Addison’s library shelves stood an unknown world to be explored. Waiting was Zane Grey, to show me the cowboys and Indians and the wolves and buffalos of the west. Edgar Rice Burroughs stood impatiently in dark binders to tell of the jungles of Africa, Tarzan, and the great apes. Jack London wanted me to know of the frozen north in Alaska and Canada and sled dogs and gold. DeFoe would put me on a desert island with his man Friday.
We were permitted one book each to read and to be returned on our next visit. One book each meant that we had three because we always read those chosen by our siblings. Nancy Drew mysteries, which my sister borrowed, I read as well — secretly, for what young boy would be caught reading a girl’s book?
Mrs. Addison undoubtedly knew we shared, though I think she would rather we each read only our own selection so that we would come back sooner. It is a mystery to me why Mrs. Addison had all those books for adolescents. Was it
because she never had children, or had she lost a child? Perhaps she bought some of them just for us because she knew of our poverty and saw a way to help us rise above it.
I think of her now and see her snowy white hair, her sparkling eyeglasses, and her smile as she opened the door to her cottage. I can still smell her warm
and the wood burning in the Home Comfort cook stove. But most of all, I see her wonderful library. She helped make me who I am today because she and her library taught me to read. Not that they taught me my ABCs, but they introduced me to the world and the wonder of the written word.
Charles "Charlie" Laurance Humphrey Francis, age 80, of Lower Wolfville passed away June 10, 2023, in the Valley Hospice, Kentville. Born October 1, 1942, in Portland, Maine, USA; he was the son of the late Henry Russell Francis and Marguerita (Woods) Francis.
Charlie was first and always a teacher. He grew up in the Unitarian Church. He was also a voracious reader in the fields of science, theology, literary critique, and popular history. Genealogy was a strong interest. He became a regular contributing writer for Discover Maine Magazine, sharing articles on the popular history of Maine for over 20-years until his death.
Charlie earned degrees from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, where he obtained a degree in Canadian Studies; and University of Maine at Orono, where he earned a Master of Science Degree in Education. After his studies, Charles taught first in Mars Hill, Maine, USA. He then continued teaching at NYA in Yarmouth, Maine, USA, and at Searsport District High School where he taught history and English, was involved in curriculum development and coached cross-country.
Following retirement in 1990, Charlie moved to Monroe, Maine, USA, where he served as Chair of the Selection Board. In the early to mid-1990s, he served aboard the light ship “Nantucket”. His interest in the history of his community was shown in his leadership in restoring the Civil War statue in Monroe. His fascination with Canadian history led him to Halifax and his Howe family connection.
Charlie fell in love with his wife’s country and became a proud and fervent citizen of Canada in 2002. Together they were the owners of his “Shangri-la” near Annapolis Royal. He delighted in living in the heart of Canada's birthplace. Nature and the environment were his sources of spiritual connection. Gardening, daily runs, which in later years became daily walks, fed his joy.
Charlie is lovingly remembered by his wife, Mary Lou Rockwell of Wolfville; daughter, Sarah Francis of Gray, Maine, USA; grandchildren, Curtis Austin and Margaret (Maggie) Austin of Gray, Maine, USA; special first cousin, Jack Woods, Peapack, New Jersey, USA; and Jetta the Cat of Wolfville.
Cremation has taken place and in accordance with Charlie’s wishes, there will be no service. Memorial donations may be made to the Valley Hospice in Kentville or The Lodge That Gives in Halifax (1-888-939-3333). Arrangements have been entrusted to Serenity Funeral Home, 34 Coldbrook Village Park Dr., Coldbrook, NS, B4R 1B9 (902679-2822).
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