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Maine’s History Magazine
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Volume 10 | Issue 5 |
2013
DiscoverMaineMagazine.com
Midcoast Region
Perry’s Nut House The Historic Marshall Bath’s Tom Plant Belfast’s historic roadside attraction
Point Lighthouse
Entrepreneur with a heart of gold
History of a St. George landmark
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Midcoast Region
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Inside This Edition
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It Makes No Never Mind by James Nalley
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A View Of The Harbor How much is 300 feet of water frontage worth? by John McDonald
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The King’s Highway Maine’s historic first roadway by Charles Francis
11 Illuminating The Maine Coast Stephen Etnier’s use of light by Charles Francis 15 Bath’s McDonald Clarke The mad poet of Broadway by James Nalley 20 The Genealogy Corner Never delay following up with potential contacts by Charles Francis 22 The Last Samurai From Maine Topsham native awarded the Victoria Cross by Charles Francis 26 Brunswick’s William Cranch Bond A self-taught genius by Charles Francis 28 North To Alaska History of a Bath-built vessel by Brian Swartz 32 The Legend Of Twenty-Mile Falls Early settlers thwarted danger by Charles Francis 35 Bath’s Tom Plant Entrepreneur with a heart of gold by Charles Francis 40 China’s John Nelson The tragedy of a Quaker congressman by Charles Francis 46 From Bunker Hill To Ocean’s Eleven Accredited screenwriter hails from Boothbay Harbor by Charles Francis 50 A Finger To The Wind Weather forecasting the native way by Charles Francis 54 The Historic (and Famous) Marshall Point Lighthouse History of a St. George landmark by James Nalley 60 The Gibson Girl Rockland’s all-American girl by Charles Francis 63 Perry’s Nut House Belfast’s historic roadside attraction by James Nalley 73 The Admiral Was A Pilot The career of Damariscotta’s Aubrey Fitch by Charles Francis 77 The Bandit From Washington Who Wouldn’t Give Up McCurdy’s corpse was on display for 66 years by Charles Francis 81 Gardner Sukeforth Opens The Panama Canal Midcoast native captain’s historic passage by Charles Francis 85 Reuel Robinson Camden’s adopted native son by Charles Francis 90 Mid-Coast Maine In The Civil War Always get a second opinion by Charles Francis
Maine’s History Magazine
Midcoast Region Publisher Jim Burch
Designer & Editor Liana Merdan
Advertising & Sales Manager Tim Maxfield
Advertising & Sales Catherine Driscoll Chris Girouard Sean Rendall Tim Maxfield
Office Manager
Liana Merdan
Field Representatives George Tatro
Contributing Writers
Charles Francis | fundy67@yahoo.ca John McDonald James Nalley Brian Swartz
Published Annually by CreMark, Inc. 10 Exchange Street, Suite 208 Portland, Maine 04101 Ph (207) 874-7720 info@discovermainemagazine.com www.discovermainemagazine.com Discover Maine Magazine is distributed to town offices, chambers of commerce, fraternal organizations, shopping centers, libraries, newsstands, grocery and convenience stores, hardware stores, lumber companies, motels, restaurants and other locations throughout this part of Maine. NO PART of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from CreMark, Inc. | Copyright © 2013, CreMark, Inc.
SUBSCRIPTION FORMS ON PAGES 30, 67 & 85
Front Cover Photo: Marshall Point Lighthouse item # 15573 from the Elmer Montgomery Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org All photos in Discover Maine’s Mid Coast edition show Maine as it used to be, and many are from local citizens who love this part of Maine. Photos are also provided from our collaboration with the Maine Historical Society and the Penobscot Marine Museum.
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It Makes No Never Mind by James Nalley
M
id-Coast Maine offers aspects that are as quintessentially “Maine” as Maine can be. Its breathtaking scenery varies by mile, which includes gorgeous bays, rocky peninsulas, foggy inlets, and photogenic fishing villages. This has inspired both visitors and residents to search for their favorite spot to grab a tasty lobster roll on U.S. Highway 1 and view of one of the 20 lighthouses that dot the coast. This includes Marshall Point Light, which was made famous by Tom Hanks who (as Forrest Gump) ended his coast-to-coast jog there before reluctantly turning around. As one delves deeper into the region, there are a number of important historical areas with a treasure trove of interesting facts. Several examples include Brunswick (home to both Bowdoin College, Maine’s oldest, and Joshua Chamberlain for his valiant defense of Little Round Top in the Battle of Gettysburg), Damariscotta (known for its prehistoric shell mounds, which are basically evidence that Native Americans 2,000 years earlier loved dining on a lot of seafood), and Rockland (known
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for its spectacular 4,346-foot breakwater). However, the region’s maritime heritage has almost singlehandedly inspired the laid-back and innovative spirit that coastal “Mainers” have reason to be extremely proud of. From the first sailing ship built at the Popham Colony in 1607 to the beautiful windjammers of the 19th century, the region has produced some of the world’s best handcrafted sailing vessels. Naturally accompanying the stories of the vessels themselves are the tales of valiant sea captains and their devoted crewmembers who never returned home from the sea, which has become the source for numerous legends. In fact, the term “ghost ship” has become a common one in everything from short poetry to full-length novels. One account in particular comes from the Harpswell Historical Society, which stated that the well-known “Dead Ship of Harpswell…was always under full sail…no matter what the wind and tide was like. The ship was mostly seen just before dark.” To make it even more threatening, it is also believed that if someone sees the ghost ship, then he/she would die.
It is these types of stories that have inspired this Mid-Coast edition of Discover Maine Magazine. So, take this copy and find a cozy corner to read it in as you enjoy your lobster roll. By the way, it helps if you put the magazine in your lap so that it catches the lobster meat as it falls out of the sandwich. In contrast to the ghost stories stated earlier, I will end on a lighter note inspired by all of this talk of the sea: A sailor appeared in front of St. Peter at the gates of Heaven. St. Peter asked him, “Have you achieved anything of true merit?” The sailor said, “I can only think of one thing. I saw a group of sailors threatening a beautiful young woman and I kindly asked them to leave her alone. But they simply laughed at me and continued to torment the woman. So, in desperation and anger, I approached the biggest and meanest looking one, and punched him hard in the face.” St. Peter, impressed by this chivalrous act, then asked the sailor, “When did this happen?”The sailor replied, “Just a few minutes ago.”
Midcoast Region
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A View Of The Harbor How much is 300 feet of water frontage worth? by John McDonald
M
y uncle used to tell the story of a retired sea captain — Captain Billings ― who lived in a classic Maine cape in the Knox County town of Tenants Harbor. The house had been built by Captain Billing’s great-grandfather ― also a sea captain ― and had been in his family for over a hundred years. My uncle said the fine old family house sat on about ten acres of land that ran down to the harbor, where Captain Billings owned 300-feet of deepwater frontage. One of the odd things about the house, my uncle would say, was that you couldn’t see the water from either
the large dining room or the big comfortable parlor beside it. Both rooms had large windows with views of the back field. But the land sloped up toward the back field, effectively blocking any view of the water. Being nosy my uncle said he asked Captain Billings if there was a view of the water from any of the upstairs rooms and he simply said “No, there isn’t.” He added there was no view of the water from any window in the house. My uncle said he was surprised by his answer, so after a polite pause he said he had to ask why he thought his great-grandfather would build a nice
house on a big beautiful piece of land with water frontage and decide to put it in probably the one spot where he’d have no view of the harbor. My uncle said Captain Billings gave him a glimpse into the mind of his 19-century forebears when he said, probably reciting an old family argument passed down from father to son: “You have to understand that back then Tenants Harbor was full of all kinds of vessels, large and small, that were coming and going ― some hauling passengers, some hauling granite, or coal.” Captain Billings said: “Today we have the Maine Turnpike to do all that hauling but back then it was all
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done by boats. My great-grandfather earned his living on ships and when he came home after a long voyage the last thing he wanted to do was look out onto a loud, busy harbor full of vessels. It’s probably the same reason that people today don’t want to build a nice place with a view of a busy exit on the Maine Turnpike. My uncle thought Captain Billings made a good case. My uncle said other waterfront towns in Maine, towns like Thomaston, whose Main Street was lined with fine old sea captain’s houses that didn’t seem to have much of a view of the harbor, either. After a while Captain Billings continued his explanation, saying “In those days, if you wanted a nice place on the water you bought land on a lake, like Chickawaukie. On a lake
you had no loud cargo vessels coming and going and no 12-foot tides to go out and leave behind nothing but seaweed-covered rocks, deep mud and the smell of clam flats.” My uncle’s story made me realize once again how the views and values on Maine real estate had changed in just my lifetime, especially in Maine’s mid-coast area. I remember as a kid hearing about small lots in St. George on the water ― deep water frontage ― that were being offered for sale for hundreds of dollars. Back in the 1960s there was a house on a small lot near us that was offered to my father for $400.00 cash. Dad said he’d think about it. Recently I was looking at the annual report of Tenants Harbor, where my uncle used to own a 4-acre piece
of land on the water. According to the town’s assessors my uncle’s lot alone was now valued at over a million dollars. He had sold it in 1963 for $16,000 and thought he had made a killing. Come to think of it, my uncle never had much luck with buying Mega Bucks tickets, either.
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Joyce’s Fried Clams, Freeport. Item # 111514 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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The King’s Highway Maine’s historic first roadway by Charles Francis
T
he Tuttle Road runs from old Maine Route 88 to Cumberland Center. It is the chief means to traveling from the Foresides and Yarmouth to Cumberland Center. From the mid-1700s a marker near the present day exit of ramp 1 with the simple inscription B 136 graced the end of the Tuttle Road. The B 136 meant that the stone was 136 miles from Boston. The marker was one of the original “Milestones” placed along the King’s Highway by order of the Massachusetts General Court. Originally B 136 was in the town of North Yarmouth, as ancient North Yarmouth once included not only modern Yarmouth but also Cumberland and Cumberland Center. Today the King’s Highway is desig-
nated as one of the state’s historic roadways and as running from Kittery to Machias. It is identified as having been completed as a military road in 1761. In addition, it is usually described as having evolved into Route 1. This leaves one with the impression that there was an overall plan o create a highway running almost the entire length of the Maine coast from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and that the order for its construction was a royal proclamation. It also leaves one with the impression that by 1761 there was a well constructed road bustling with all sorts of traffic running the length of Maine. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. The only portion of present day Route 1 that could be said to be part of the original King’s Highway laid out in
Maine under the auspices of the Massachusetts General Court is the section running from Kittery to Scarborough. Beyond that about all Massachusetts took responsibility for was the placement of Milestones like the one at the Tuttle Road ramp. Nevertheless, it was this portion of the King’s Highway in the general area of Portland, and especially in the Tuttle Road area, which could be said to be its most important in Maine. The King’s Highway developed from the building of roads connecting the towns of coastal New England below what is now Portland. Gradually, spurs were built off it such as today’s Route 25, or the Ossipee Road leading to Standish. Most of the early roads followed old Indian trails as did the Os(Continued on page 8)
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Midcoast Region
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(Continued from page 7) sipee Road, which followed the much older Ossipee Trail. The first section of the King’s Highway was built at the order of the Massachusetts General Court in 163 to connect York and Kittery to Boston. In the succeeding years it was extended t Scarborough. It would not be until the first years of the nineteenth century that there would be any significant road construction beyond connecting the town further down the coast. Prior to the Revolution, the King’s Highway was anything but a highway. One reason for this was there was simply no need for land transportations. Goods and people traveled up and down the coast by water. There was no need for wagons with four wheels to haul anything. The only wagon traffic consisted of the two-wheel variety used to transport passenger’s short distances, which were the only form of light vehicle that could use the ‘highway.’ Even after the Revolution, the condition of the King’s Highway did not improve. Seba Smith, Maine’s first great
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humorist who began his literary career working on Portland’s Eastern Argus around the turn of the nineteenth century, has left a description as to what it was like traveling the King’s Highway in the Portland area. Smith, who lived in North Yarmouth (now Yarmouth), spoke of the King’s Highway as a river of mud in the spring passable only on horseback, which no wagon – not even the two-wheel variety – could navigate. For him, the whole situation was like living on the most uncivilized of frontiers. The real impetus for the construction of a coastal highway began in 1802 with the construction of the Cumberland Turnpike, which first connected Scarborough and Portland. The Cumberland Turnpike was a toll road. It was built by a private company chartered by the Massachusetts General Court. It was extended the next year north of Portland to Yarmouth and then Brunswick and followed the old King’s Highway markers. Shortly after that it was continued on to Bath and then to
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Wiscasset by crossing the Kennebec by ferry at Arrowsic Island. Then, in 1805 a Maine Turnpike Association was chartered to connect Portland and Augusta. Its grandiose scheme would not become reality until the 1950s, however. The last turnpike charter issued by Massachusetts for Maine was for the Camden Turnpike built in 1820. It should be noted that it was private capital that financed these first turnpikes. These private companies collected tolls for a period of twenty years. Canals such as the 1807 Cumberland and Oxford Canal were also financed by private capital. That was why the Canal National Bank was founded. Today the King’s Highway is part of Route 1 which runs from Key West to Fort Kent. It can be argued that had it not been for the Cumberland Turnpike and the earlier King’s Highway with its Milestones like B 136 at the Tuttle Road ramp that this famous old road might never have evolved as it did.
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Bird’s-eye view of Lisbon Falls. Item #114667 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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The Whispering Pines in Brunswick. Item #100332 from the Eastern Ilustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Illuminating The Maine Coast Stephen Etnier’s use of light by Charles Francis
I
llumination is necessary to enable the mind to grasp the great mysteries of life. It is necessary to grasp the most basic truth of everyday experience. Stephen Etnier understood this. We see this understanding in his study of a cannon in the painting Fort Popham, and we see it in his study Hurricane Ridge, Harpswell. The paintings are an in-depth study of the play of light and shadow. Indeed, the works are a celebration of light and shadow. Stephen Etnier lived on Long Island at the mouth of the Kennebec. He lived in South Harpswell. And he lived on a boat. These were his bases for painting the Maine coast, though that was not
the only geographical area where he engaged in his celebration of light and shadow. Stephen Etnier’s career as an artist spans some six decades. From the 1930s on ¬ but for a break during World War II – that career centered in Maine, either on islands and the coast or in a boat. Maine was where Etnier chose to illuminate with intelligible light what his sense of sight and intellect perceived around him. Stephen Etnier’s work graces the walls of museums like the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Portland Museum of Art. His paintings can be found
in any number of galleries. His work is among the most prized possessions of some of the country’s and the world’s most discriminating collectors. Etnier’s work is in such places because it can be said to be a work of genius, a genius that abstracted and gave form to the sublime. One way to approach the paintings of Stephen Etnier is to place him in relation to his artistic antecedents. Curator Daniel O’Leary of the Portland Museum of Art says Etnier was preoccupied “with depicting the nature and vitality of light.” O’Leary speaks of the light in Etnier’s paintings as generating “attenuated diagonals of brightness and (Continued on page 12) Office of
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Midcoast Region
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(Continued from page 11) shadow…” There is something mathematical here, something both of geometry and logic. Mathematics and logic are the most abstract of disciplines; Etnier uses the two and light as means of working out his artistic metaphors in a coherent and systematic manner. Daniel O’Leary suggests that Stephen Etnier was a linear descendent of nineteenth century Gloucester, Massachusetts painter Fitz Hugh Lane. Lane was a luminist. He painted coastal scenes and seascapes and sailing ships. He spent five summers painting at Castine. For the nineteenth century luminist, light was as much of a medium as paint. Light for the luminist was as important a factor in choosing what to paint outdoors as vantage point. To make their work striking, appealing to the eye, to enhance the graphic detail of their particular subjects, luminists like Fitz
Hugh Lane and Stephen Etnier looked for the most effective light in which to see something, be it ship, tree-covered island or wave-pounded rock. With a seascape, light may be filtered by mist, haze, fog and cloud cover. Stephen Etnier didn’t start out painting in Maine and he didn’t start out as a luminist. He was born in Pennsylvania where he attended the elite Hill School. From that latter institution he went on to Yale in 1922 but not as an art major. He changed his major to art in 1924 only to be dismissed for poor grades. Etnier finished his undergraduate education at Haverford College and then went on to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His introduction to Maine as a subject for painting came when he apprenticed with Rockwell Kent. Rockwell Kent’s influence on Stephen Etnier needs in-depth exploration. Suffice to say Kent first trained as an ar-
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chitect. His works reflect a background in the profession as they reflect an appreciation of geometry. Kent spent five years painting on Monhegan in the first decade of the twentieth century. In addition, he journeyed to such pristine and undeveloped regions of North America as Alaska and Newfoundland. Stephen Etnier, likewise, sought subject matter in out-of-the-way locations for inspiration. In his case, however, they were places accessible by sail: Haiti, Nassau, the Bahamas and the Gulf of Maine. In the late 1930s and early 1940s Etnier and his second wife Elizabeth lived in a renovated farmhouse at Gilbert Head on Long Island. The couple stayed on board their schooner during the renovation period. The story of that experience was captured by Elizabeth Etnier in her journal On Gilbert Head. The work, which was published in 1937, won critical praise and is now
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12 State Road 6 Coastal Plaza Bath, Maine
13
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viewed as a classic of its genre. It portrays the foibles and misadventures of homesteading on a Maine island as well as the rewards associated with seeing a dream realized. Etnier’s first period as a Maine artist was brought to a close by the war. He enlisted in the Navy in 1941. In 1943 he was a lieutenant and commander of a converted war ship, the Patrol Yacht USS Mizpah. The Mizpah’s patrol duty extended from New York to Florida. It was important and dangerous duty. The Mizpah’s patrol area was on a major portion of Torpedo Alley, that portion of the east coast Nazi U-boat commanders referred to as “the happy hunting ground.” It was so named because of the ease of picking off commercial transport. Following World War II Etnier returned to Maine to build a house and studio in South Harpswell. It was at this time and in this particular location that Stephen Etnier achieved maturity as an
artist of light and shadow, as an artist whose forte was illumination. Much has been written on the theory of illumination. Is illumination necessary for all knowledge, or just for understanding abstractions such as mathematics and logic? Can abstraction best be understood with the use of metaphor? Is illumination an intellectual operation? Representing intellectual function in terms of sensory operations is a universal language. We may speak of something ‘smelling fishy’ or of a proposition as ‘ringing true’ or of ‘grasping a concept’. When we do, we are speaking metaphorically, using sense of smell, hearing and touch as references. In like manner, we can ‘see something to be true’. When we say “I see it to be true,” we are referring to something we understand innately, intuitively. We are speaking of intellectual vision, of the eye of reason. The implication is that
there is some medium through which we understand. Stephen Etnier was a luminist. And he was more. He was a luminary in the sense of being a leading light. A luminary sheds light. A luminary is a source of inspiration. Stephen Etnier understood things. He illuminated with his vision. Light was the medium of his vision. The sun and lesser luminaries are the source of light, that source is the mind of Stephen Etnier. There are objects of vision that may be concealed by darkness. There are objects of vision that may be revealed by light. This is what Stephen Etnier understood. This is what Etnier took as the subject of his art. It is the legacy of the artist who did much of his best work in a studio in South Harpswell.
• Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section.
WILSON’S DRUG STORE
CABIN PIZZA?
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THE CABIN
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Open Mon.-Fri. 8:30 AM to 8:00 PM Sat. 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM / Sun. 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
114 Front St. • Bath
442-8786
New Meadows
Seafood Since 1977! Gena Kilkenny Coastal Rt. 1, Woolwich, ME (between Bath & Wiscasset)
Open May thru Mid-October Fri., Sat. & Sun. 6:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. Wed. Antiques Day 5:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
(207) 443-2809 montsweagfleamarket.net
Our own fresh picked crabmeat
• Lobsters & Crabs (will cook)
• Clams • Scallops & Shrimp (fresh & frozen)
• Home Baked Goods
156 New Meadows Rd. • West Bath, ME 04530
(207) 443-9632
~ Lyndon & Beverly Harris ~
Midcoast Region
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The COURIER of Bath under repairs. Item #301273 from the Atlantic Fisherman Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
ASPHALT GENE REYNOLDS & SONS PAVING
Pogies • Herring • Redfish Fresh or Salted Wholesale & Retail
Open Daily from Memorial Day to Labor Day Closed July 4th
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371-2647 • 837-7343
Anna’s Water’s Edge Restaurant East of Malaga Island at the mouth of the New Meadows River
Hot Top Driveways & Parking Lots
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~ Family owned since 1979 ~
(207) 389-1803
(207) 389-9155
75 Black’s Landing Road Phippsburg, Maine
32 Bakers Wharf Rd. • Sebasco, ME
annaswatersedge.com
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Bath’s McDonald Clarke The mad poet of Broadway by James Nalley n March 8, 1842, poet Walt Whitman published the following in the New York Aurora magazine: Whoever has power, in his writing, to draw bold, startling images, and strange pictures – the power to embody in language, original, and beautiful, and quaint ideas – is a true ‘son of song.’ Clarke was such a one; not polished, perhaps, but yet one in whose faculties that all important vital spirit of poetry burnt with a fierce brightness. Three days earlier, this “son of song” was found drowned in a cell at the city jail due to an open faucet. It would be the end of a difficult road for this brilliant young poet who was
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as planned, and he managed to only “scrape a living” selling his poems to a variety of newspapers, journals, and magazines. According to an article in The New York Times dated November 12, 1893, Clarke even created a role as an “imitator of Byron, and copied his airs and costumes, but not his verses.” But Clarke’s attempts to break into the New York literary circles failed, mostly due to his eccentric personality. As stated in McDonald Clarke’s Adjustment to Market Forces by Andrew Higgins, he “embraced the mad-poet role and clearly relished his role as jester.” Although he managed to produce some sort of living, Clarke’s mental health was failing, especially since he often (Continued on page 16)
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known as the “Mad Poet of Broadway.” McDonald Clarke was born on June 18, 1798 in Bath, Maine. The illegitimate son of a merchant sailor, his mother (by Clarke’s own account) died at sea when he was only 12 years old. His childhood, needless to say, was troubled, and he lived for some time in the streets of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to his autobiography, he resided in Philadelphia for several years, and slept in the cemetery near Benjamin Franklin’s monument. By the age of 21, with little education except for a talent in writing poetry, Clarke moved to New York City with plans to establish a better life. After his move, things did not go
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Midcoast Region
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(Continued from page 15) slept on the streets, surviving only on crackers and milk. According to Higgins, “His character was innocent as a child, imbued with a mystic romanticism, and by common consent, he… always preserved a gentility of deportment that was always mild and happy.” In addition, Clarke still managed to regularly attend services at the trendy Episcopal Grace Church on Broadway. In the same period, he met an equally (economically) poor actress who worked at the Park Theatre and subsequently eloped against her parents’ wishes. The marriage began badly, and as Clarke struggled to make any type of living, tension rose in the relationship and it quickly ended in divorce. Despite his sometimes peculiar characteristics, many of his closer acquaintances stated that Clarke was amiable. But his behavior dramatically changed after his divorce, and he became wild-
er to the point where he fixated on women and followed them around the city. According to biographer L. Maria Child, “His life had become a restless one in search of the other half.” On the evening of March 4, 1842, Clarke combed the streets in a desperate search for his “better half” and met a group of youths who subsequently played an elaborate trick on him. Through their explanations, they managed to convince Clarke that a certain woman was completely in love with him. The hoax proved to be too much for his mental instability, and Clarke was later found by a policeman in a “demented condition.” The policeman, worried for Clarke’s safety, took him down to the station and placed him a jail cell. By the morning of March 5, Clarke was found drowned in his cell due to an open faucet. The pressures from life combined with his “failed
quest” was simply too much. Although Clarke was posthumously celebrated by a number of poets, he made the greatest impression on Walt Whitman. Not only did Whitman publish his eulogy stated above, he wrote another article about him just four days later. His final and lasting eulogy of Clarke was published on March 16, 1842, which was a parody titled, The Death and Burial of McDonald Clarke. But perhaps it was a fragment of Clarke’s handwritten autobiography written two months before his death that best summed up not only his life, but his overall character: Begotten among the orange-groves, on the wild mountains of Jamaica, West Indies. Born in Bath, on the Kennebec River, State of Maine, 18th June, 1798. First Love, Mary H. of New London: Last love, Mary T.
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Performing Arts Center
Entertainment & more since 1864
~ Historic Opera House ~
Performances, live music, theater, camps, community events, and more in renovated first floor. 280 Water Street • Gardiner, ME
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207-582-7144
www.johnsonhall.org
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of New York; intermediate sweethearts without number. No great compliment to the greatest Poet in America should like the change. Had to pawn my diamond ring (the gift of a lady), and go tick at Delmonico’s for dinner. So much for being the greatest Poet in America. The greatest Poet of the Country ought to have the freedom of the city, the girls of the gentry gratis, grab all along shore, the magnificent Mary, and with all the sweet Sisters of Song.
• Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section.
SPARROW FARM Owners Ted & Karen Sparrow
• Certified Organic by MOFGA • Eggs • Organic Vegetables • Cranberries
512-2234 253 Whitefield Road Pittston, Maine
~ Drawing of McDonald Clarke ~
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Midcoast Region
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Monument Park in Augusta. Item #104052 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
Reappearances
The Litchfield Country Store
Clothing, Apparel, Accessories, Vintage, Et Cetera on Consignment & Resale
(207) 621-0287 110 Water Street Downtown Hallowell
Fresh Meats • Fresh Produce Deli Counter • Pizza • Fresh Baked Goods Hot & Cold Sandwiches Gas/Diesel • Propane Exchange Family Owned Business Over 30 Years!
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268-9910
Corner of Rte. 126 and Hallowell Road Litchfield, Maine
Your Heating Experts R.J. Energy Services, Inc. Fuel Oil & Propane Delivery Commercial • Residential • Estimates Complete Heating & Air Conditioning Systems
622-7720
2184 North Belfast Avenue • Augusta
www.rjenergy.com
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High Street in Wiscasset. Item #102983 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
STEVE BRANN BRICK OVEN RISTORANTE
• fine homes • renovations • remodels
865-6674
A Wiscasset business since 1938!
Home Of Maine’s
#1 Lobster Roll 207-882-6128
39 South Freeport Road, Freeport, ME 04032
41 Water Street, Wiscasset, ME 04578
Voted Maine’s BEST PIZZA Since 1990
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Midcoast Region
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The Genealogy Corner
Never delay following up with potential contacts by Charles Francis
A
good number of years ago, around 1970, when I was working on expanding the data base for my family history, a Freeport acquaintance passed on the information that I might find it useful to talk to one of her neighbors. The acquaintance was Gertrude Ring. Gertrude, whose husband operated Ring’s LP Gas, knew Freeport and Freeport residents well, and her suggestion was most definitely worth taking the time to follow up on. Unfortunately, I put off doing so. My error was a common one that a good many individuals interested in developing their family tree and family history make. Because I put off following up on Gertrude Ring’s suggestion,
FALMOUTH
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I missed out on meeting an extremely interesting person, who, besides possibly having information on my own roots, knew a lot about the early years of one of the state’s most venerated institutions, the Maine Audubon Society. The Freeport resident I put off contacting died in 1977. Her maiden name was Mildred Washington. She had married Edward Busse and had been married to Roger Tory Peterson, author of the famed A Field Guide to the Birds. My possible connection to her came from the fact that she was a direct descendant of Robert Fulton of steamboat renown. I am descended from Sarah Bradlee Fulton. Sarah Bradlee Fulton, wife of John Fulton, is known as the
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“Mother of the Boston Tea Party” for having helped disguise the “Indians” who dumped the tea into Boston Harbor. My family had a suspicion that John Fulton was related to Robert Fulton. But I had no hard data as to the possible relationship, data that Mildred Washington might have been able to help me establish. Mildred Washington – I prefer to think of her by her maiden name – died in a boating accident in the summer of 1977. She was sailing alone out of Harraseeket. Her death was a tragedy. I later learned she had lost her youngest son when he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle in Freeport. Sometime after Mildred Washington
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drowned I discovered that both she and her mother, Mrs. Whiting Washington, were well-known figures in Maine birding circles in the early to mid-twentieth century. Mrs. Mildred Washington was a member of the Cooper Ornithological Club of Maine, a birding society which antedated the Audubon Society, and one of the early benefactors of the Maine Audubon Society. Mildred Washington had been involved with the Maine Audubon Camp on Hog Island off Friendship from its inception. In fact, she was there during its first summer of operation, which was how she met Roger Tory Peterson, who she would marry and later divorce. While Mildred Washington’s connections to the early years of the Maine Audubon Society are fascinating, it is her family history that is more intriguing, at least from a genealogical standpoint. Mildred Washington was a direct descendant of John Washington, the
uncle of the country’s first President. While most Americans know George Washington never had children, few know that there are a number of organizations devoted to Washington family history, and that these organizations are, for the most part, made up of descendants of the first President’s immediate family. While I do not know if Mildred was a member of one of the organizations, I know that she must have been proud of her descent – some genealogists and family historians use the term “pedigree pride.” At least one of Mildred’s obituaries referred to her ancestry, as did several other newspaper articles referencing her. Some time after Mildred Washington passed away I did discover a possible relationship between Robert Fulton of steamboat fame and John Fulton, the husband of Sarah Bradlee Fulton. The father of the latter was also Robert Fulton. He came from Lisburn in Ireland.
The family of Robert Fulton of steamboat renown came from Kilkenny in Ireland. The former settled in the Boston area and the latter in Pennsylvania. I have yet, however, to discover an exact relationship between the Lisburn and Kilkenny Fultons. Perhaps if I had not delayed in contacting Mildred Washington, I might have discovered one. The lesson there is clear; follow up on any leads into family history as quickly as possible. The number of stories and factual data that older family members and others may recall or know are too valuable to simply be taken to the grave. For those who are interested, The National Society of Washington Family Descendants documents lines of descent from President George Washington’s immediate family members. The society maintains a web site.
• Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section.
Seymour Excavating Inc. Residential • Commercial Easy Access For All Size RV’s • Laundry Hot Showers • Volleyball • Paddleboats and much, much more! For Reservations
869-5026
39 Baker Rd., Freeport, ME
• 2 miles to I-295, Rt. 1 & LL Bean
www.cedarfamilycampground.com
Septic Systems • Site Work • Water & Sewer Lines Foundations & Driveways • Snowplowing & Removal Sand • Loam • Gravel • Mulch
865-6452
Curtis Road • Freeport, ME
PAUL J. SEYMOUR, OWNER
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Midcoast Region
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The Last Samurai From Maine Topsham native awarded the Victoria Cross by Charles Francis
T
opsham-born William Seeley has become something of a figure of note in recent years. There are two reasons for this. One has to do with an advertisement placed in British newspapers like the London Times. The advertisement states that an anonymous figure is willing to pay a substantial amount for Victoria Cross (VC) medals. If the medal is old so much the better. William Seeley was presented a Victoria Cross on September 22, 1865. The presenter was Admiral Sir Michael Seymour. The location of the ceremony was Southsea Common, England. At the time, William Seeley was an Ordinary Seaman in the British Navy. Seeley received his VC for actions fighting the Japanese in September of 1864.
William Seeley’s VC would be a coup for any collector to acquire. Seeley was the first American to receive Britain’s highest medal for valor. And while other Americans have been so honored, all of them fought under the British flag during World War I. As to just how much Seeley’s VC might bring, that is a matter of conjecture. The medal of a fellow British Navy man who was awarded a VC during the same ceremony as Seeley recently sold for over 50,000 British pounds. Another reason why William Seeley has acquired more than a bit of notoriety recently has to do with the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai. The battle that William Seeley demonstrated his courage in was part of the inspiration for the movie Cruise both produced and starred in. William Seeley won his VC for ac-
tions in the Bombardment of Shimonoseki. The bombardment was a joint British, Dutch, French and American action. The British were the lead force. The other three nations had very minor roles. Shimonoseki, itself, was a fishing village. It is on the Strait of Shimonoseki. The village unfortunately happened to be the location of a Samurai stronghold. These particular Samurai were dedicated to expelling foreigners from their country. Those who have read novels or history of mid-nineteenth century Japan know that the 1860s saw the end of the Japanese Shogunate and the decline of the Samurai. The time period has been portrayed in a number of movies besides Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai. As Cruise’s movie suggests, western influence in Ja-
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com pan was a major factor in the decline of the power of local warlords and their Samurai mercenary. William Henry Harrison Seeley was born in Topsham in 1840. Considering William’s recent notoriety, little has been done researching his early life and his family. Little is known of them except that a branch of the family was well-established in New Brunswick. This may explain how William came to join the Royal Navy, as the British regularly canvassed the St. John, New Brunswick waterfront for recruits. His ship, the HMS Euryalus is on record as visiting St. John. Regardless, William Seeley was an Ordinary Seaman on the Euryalus, the flagship of Admiral Sir Augustus Kuper in the East Indies and China, from 1862 to1864. We tend to think of Samurai only as sword-wielding soldiers loyal to a particular overlord. By the 1860s, however, Japan had modernized to the extent that Samurai were routinely using guns. It was a Samurai force which controlled a
fort overlooking the Strait of Shimonoseki. From their fortress they bombarded both western warships and commercial vessels. This was the motivation for the British attack on the village of Shimonoseki. During the land phase of the Bombardment of Shimonoseki, William Seeley was assigned to a force of Marines. As such he volunteered to carry out a one-man reconnaissance of the Samurai position. According to the statement of Lieutenant Edwards, commander of the company Seeley was assigned to and the officer who submitted Seeley’s name for the VC, Seeley accomplished his goal with daring and intelligence. The report doesn’t stop here, however. Lieutenant Edwards’s statement continues to say that Seeley kept to the front of the attack on the Samurai fort even after he had been wounded in the arm. Two other Navy men received the VC at the same time as William Seeley, Duncan Boyes and Thomas Pride. They received the medals for actions at almost
the same time as Seeley’s. Theirs was a joint act, however. It was the Victoria Cross awarded to Boyes that recently sold for over 50,000 pounds. The purchaser is thought to be a millionaire medal collector. William Seeley did not stay a British Ordinary Seaman. He returned to the United States, eventually settling in Dedham, Massachusetts. He died there in 1914. There is a published list of the location and possessors of the Victoria Cross. The only information given for the one that William Seeley was awarded in 1865 is “not on display.” The whereabouts of this particularly unique VC are a mystery. There is another bit of a mystery involving William Seeley. Records indicate that his remains lie in Evergreen Cemetery in Stoughton, Massachusetts. The only Seeley in Evergreen Cemetery, though, would appear to be Bessie Marie, daughter of Dayton and Lucy Seeley.
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Quahog Bay Inn
Jane Waddle: Owner We are an oceanfront inn on Great Island in Harpswell. The Inn overlooks a deep-water dock and small lobster pound.
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725-9995
Lobster Lane, Harpswell, Maine
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Midcoast Region
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A Few Of Summer’s Favorite Things...
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Topsham - 11 Main St. (207) 721-8478 Gray - 168 Yarmouth Rd. (207) 657-5397
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Old high school in Wiscasset. Item #102981 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
Pickard Theater Brunswick, ME
207-725-8769 www.msmt.org
Midcoast Region
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Brunswick’s William Cranch Bond A self-taught genius by Charles Francis
T
here is no questioning that William Cranch Bond was a genius. Nor that he was self-taught. The facts say it all. They begin with Bond’s dropping out of school in Portland at the age of ten to help support his family. They end with a crater on the moon and a region of Hyperion – one of Saturn’s moons – bearing the Bond name. Sandwiched between those facts we find William Cranch Bond’s professions: clockmaker and director – the first – of Harvard Observatory. William Cranch Bond was not the only member of his family from Maine with the right to claim the appellation of self-taught genius. One of Bond’s cousins, publisher George Palmer Putnam of Brunswick, has
been described in just the same manner. Putnam made his reputation publishing such writers as Washington Irving, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Putnam founded the publishing house best known as G. P. Putnam & Sons. Like Bond, Putnam was forced to quit school while still a child. Nor is William Cranch Bond the only individual with Maine connections to be associated with the establishing of the Harvard Observatory in the 1840s. David Sears contributed $15,000 to the project. This is the same David Sears who gave his name to the towns of Searsport and Searsmont. Sears’ substantial contribution was in part responsible for Harvard being able to purchase the telescope known as the Great Refractor. The Great Refractor enabled William Cranch Bond as well as his son – who
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succeeded him as Director of Harvard Observatory – George Phillips Bond, to make some of the great advances in nineteenth century astronomy. How is it that William Cranch Bond with his lack of education was able to rise out of poverty and like his similarly disadvantaged cousin George Putnam Palmer be accorded the accolade of self-taught genius? William Cranch Bond was the son of William and Hannah Cranch Bond. The Elder William Bond was a sometime clockmaker, tinsmith and silversmith with little or no head for business. This we know from biographical material on William Cranch Bond. The facts of this biographical material are sadly inadequate, however, failing to mention Bond’s maternal influence, the Cranches. The
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Cranches, who George Palmer Putnam also claimed as relatives, were among the intellectual elite of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Boston. The Cranches included in their number influential jurists, educators and Unitarian ministers. Abigail Adams, wife of second President John Adams, counted Cranches in her family. William Cranch Bond also had a connection to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Horace Mann through his cousins the Peabodys. This latter connection also came through the Cranches. For much of his life William Cranch Bond’s vocation was that of clockmaker. Astronomy was an avocation. Tradition has it that William Cranch Bond witnessed his first solar eclipse at the age of seventeen. This was in 1806. Bond was so taken with the experience that he turned the family parlor into an observatory. He cut a hole in the roof. At the time, Bond was in the process of rejuvenating his father’s clock making business. Bond was an exceptional clockmaker. In fact, he didn’t make clocks, but rather chronometers. Bond chronometers were so
accurate that he had a major export market in England and to a lesser extent on the continent of Europe. All the while Bond was building up his clock making business in Boston – his first step in rebuilding his father’s business was to move to the larger city from Portland – he was donating his time gratis to Harvard’s then fledgling study of astronomy. Harvard did provide Bond a modest commission to travel to Europe to gather information on observatories there. Later, Harvard appointed Bond to an unpaid position, that of Astronomical Observer to the University. This was after Bond moved all his astronomical equipment to Harvard, allowing others the use of what was then the best in state-of-the-art American equipment. Bond’s big break with Harvard came in 1843, when the nation’s interest was directed towards a great comet that seemed destined to collide with the sun. While the comet missed the sun, interest in astronomy was raised to a fever pitch, so much so that Harvard decided to raise some $25,000 for an observatory. Bond designed the building. Then a contract was made with a Ger-
man firm to build the Great Refractor. The last step in this long drawn out process was Bond becoming the observatory’s director. The Great Refractor had a fifteen-inch lens, the largest in America. Its only rival was its twin in Russia. It enabled Bond and his son George not only to observe the moon and Saturn close hand, but also to take the first picture of a star. The pictures were daguerreotype. The star was Vega. The year was 1850. William Cranch Bond’s life story is indeed that of a self-taught genius. It is a story of the love of what intrigues man’s highest senses and where that love can lead. Note: Those interested in the interconnections of those families related to the Cranch family may find the recent biography The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, by Megan Marshall, of interest. It contains a much more in depth analysis of the relationship among those Cranch family relatives mentioned above. It should also be noted that William Cranch Bond married his wealthy cousin Selina Cranch. When Selina died, William married Selina’s older sister Mary.
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North To Alaska
History of a Bath-built vessel by Brian Swartz
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Bath-built steamer “swapped paint” with a Haitian warship in 1888, hauled freight (legal and illegal) in the Pacific Northwest during the 1890s, and died an ignominious death on a remote Alaskan beach. If ever a stout Bath-built vessel deserved the description “ill-fated,” the Haytian Republic did. Launched at Bath in 1885, the Haytian Republic measured 191 feet from stem to stern and just over 36 feet at her beam. Co-owned by “Mr. B.C. Morse,” as reported in the February 11, 1889 New York Times, and skippered by “Capt. Compton,” the steamer carried freight south to the West Indies. Haiti suffered political turmoil in 1888, when Captain Compton foolishly sold a brass cannon and ammunition to
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local rebels near Port au Prince. Learning about Compton’s interference in Haitian politics, Francois Deny Legitime ― a minister in President Lysius Salomon’s administration ― ordered the Haytian Republic seized. The steamer’s crew evidently sought the open sea, but the Nanette Valdroque, a Haitian gunboat, “ran into our steamer purposefully,” Morse told a New York Times reporter in February 1889. The Haytian Republic suffered damages that Morse estimated at $200,000 (“not … at all exorbitant,” he indicated), a figure that evidently included grand theft and larceny. After the damaged steamer regained her Port au Prince berth and “the crew had been made prisoners of war, a swarm of natives were sent aboard, and
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com ing, and the War Department dispatched a naval squadron commanded by Rear Admiral Stephen Luce to compel the Salomon Administration to release the Haytian Republic in late 1888. Convinced by Navy officers that their steamer was persona non grata in the Indies, the Haytian Republic’s owners dispatched the ship to Alaska and the Pacific Northwest via Cape Horn. After the steamer arrived in Puget Sound, Captain Harry Struve of Seattle took command. For the next few years, the Haytian Republic carried freight and passengers between scattered ports ― and apparently engaged in illicit and lucrative smuggling. On May 6, 1882, Congress had passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred unskilled Chinese immigrants from the United States for 10 years. Loose legal interpretation expanded the ban to educated Chinese, too. In the 1890s, as today, illegal im-
migrants could reach the United States for a price. Bribes convinced some ship captains to smuggle Chinese immigrants into remote American and Canadian ports along the island-dotted Pacific Northwest. If a ship could also smuggle another lucrative cargo into the ports, the skipper could earn additional cash as well. American Customs agents suspected the Haytian Republic smuggled illegal immigrants and opium into the Pacific Northwest, but could not prove a case before the steamer mysteriously burned and sank near Portland, Oregon. Raised and rebuilt, the Haytian Republic resumed sailing between various ports. Then in early June 1893, the United States District Court in Washington State “libeled the steamship Haytian Republic for violations of the Chinese Exclusion Act and for smuggling opium,” reports www.ourdocuments. gov. Court documents revealed that the ship’s crew had violated the CEA thirteen times between September 20,
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1892 and May 11, 1893, including smuggling a ton of opium into Portland, Oregon on November 21, 1892 and 1,000 pounds into a Columbia River port on December 7, 1892. Opium cost about $10 per pound dockside during those months. An additional U.S. District Court filing in early July 1893 backdated the opium smuggling to July 1892, and somewhere along the Pacific Northwest coast, the SS Haytian Republic dropped off illegal Chinese immigrants headed for Canada. The U.S. District Court ruled against the ship’s owners and ordered the vessel sold at auction by federal marshals. Recognizing the ship’s checkered past, her new owners renamed the steamer the SS Portland (after Oregon’s Portland, not Maine’s) — and the ship promptly sailed into a savage coastal storm that sank two similar vessels. Surviving that near miss, the SS Portland plied Alaskan coastal waters while hauling freight and passengers to remote fish canneries and whaling (Continued on page 30)
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(Continued from page 29) stations. In early summer 1897, the SS Portland moored near the SS Excelsior at Saint Michael, a decrepit port near where the Yukon River reaches the Bering Sea at Norton Sound. The previous year, prospector George Carmack had discovered gold on Klondike Creek, a Yukon River tributary. Some 1,500 “sourdoughs” swarmed along Klondike Creek in August 1896 and worked their claims until the Yukon Territory winter shuttered their operations. After ice-out along the Yukon River in spring 1897, sourdoughs hiding bags of gold in their baggage traveled downriver to Saint Michael to catch the first available ships stateside. Sourdoughs booked every available berth aboard the SS Portland and SS Excelsior. The latter steamer apparently slipped her mooring a few days prior to the SS Portland, departing Saint Michael for
Seattle; the SS Excelsior reached San Francisco on July 14, 1897, and disembarking sourdoughs bragged about finding gold, lots of gold, in the Great White North. As the SS Portland approached Seattle on July 16th, Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporters boarded the steamer offshore and questioned passengers about the rumors emanating from San Francisco. Suddenly wealthy sourdoughs, some speaking with liquor-loosened tongues, confirmed the tales and probably displayed long-hidden gold nuggets. The reporters hurried ashore, their paper scooped the competition, and 5,000 people packed the dock as the SS Portland eased alongside. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer claimed the steamer transported “a ton of gold” from the Klondike ― and the Gold Rush was on. For the next 13 years, the SS Port-
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land carried freight and supplies from the Pacific Northwest to Nome, Saint Michael, and Skagway. The ship evaded hull-busting storms and fog-hidden ledges until, approaching Katalla Island on November 12, 1910 while ferrying freight from Juneau, she holed her hull on an uncharted rock. Her captain ordered the steamer beached on a sand bar about 50 miles southeast of Cordova, Alaska. Because their damaged ship lay too far from a shipyard, her owners salvaged much hardware before abandoning the SS Portland to the elements. Katalla River silt covered the SS Portland, which physically vanished into history until a 9.2 magnitude earthquake struck Alaska on Good Friday, March 27, 1964. The earthquake heaved the seabed around Katalla Island by approximately 12 feet; 38 years later, Gabriel Scott of Cordova was working on Katalla Island when he
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noticed a sea-rusted steam engine exposed at low tide. In May 2004, History Detectives producers financed an expedition to confirm that the steam engine and a surrounding hull belonged to the SS Portland, in her day considered flagship of the Klondike Gold Fleet. Ten people, including at least one marine archeologist, worked two days during outgoing tides to photograph and measure the engines (investigators uncovered a second steam engine) and collecting samples from the well-preserved wooden hull. Investigators confirmed the wreckage and engines as being the SS Portland, the Bath-built steamer that survived a deliberate ramming, a disastrous fire, and multiple cruises along Alaska’s Inland Passage before dying on a remote sand bar.
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The Legend Of Twenty-Mile Falls Early settlers thwarted danger by Charles Francis Twenty-mile Falls is that section of the Androscoggin River that stretches from just above Lewiston and Auburn, to just below Lisbon Falls. Since earliest times, the falls have been featured prominently in the history ― not only of the cities and towns immediately bordering it ― but also well above and below it. Before the days of the first European settler, Indians came to the Twenty-mile Falls area to fish for salmon and hunt for game. Their favorite camping place was on the point where the Little Androscoggin joins its parent river. It is here that the most spectacular view of the falls is to be found. In the spring the water roars over massive ledges at the point which today is known as West Pitch. The Indians called this section of the falls Amitigonponpontook. The early settlers who lived along the
river generally referred to all the Indians who lived in the region as Androscoggin. There were other names for them, though, including Pejepscot, Canabis and Anasagunticook. According to legend, one of the tribes of Indians living along the Androscoggin suffered a major defeat not at the hands of white settlers, but rather by Twenty-mile Falls itself. At least it was the falls that was cause of their ultimate destruction, even though there were no white men involved. According to the legend, an Indian raiding party was lured to its destruction at the falls by an artfully placed fire. The fire was placed at a point that led the Indians to believe they were well above the falls. In reality, however, it had been built at a point where the canoes with their occupants were caught up in the irresistible current so as to be carried over the falls
and dashed to pieces on the rocks below. At least that is the part of the story that the various versions of the legend of Twenty-mile Falls agree upon. Who built the fire or fires and who the Indians were going to attack is another matter entirely. According to one version of the story the Indians were on their way to attack the settlement at Brunswick. Another version has them going to attack a lone settler who lived on an island just above the falls, most likely Gulf Island. The first version has the Indians who were lured to their destruction as living at Canton Point above the falls. The second has them coming from somewhere downriver. The version involving the attack on Brunswick is by far the bloodier. It has the entire village at Canton Point being wiped out. The story of the attack on the lone settler is the more romantic, as it
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com has a figure leading a Robinson Crusoe sort of existence defending not only his right to be left alone but his very life. In both instances quick wits triumph in the face of seeming insurmountable odds and evil intent. The version involving the attack on Brunswick has the Indians so sure of their victory that they bring their whole village – women, children and elderly – with them to witness their success. According to this tale, the Indians sent out scouts to light fires well above the falls at West Pitch so they would be sure to land before being caught up in the powerful waters rushing over the edge of the falls. As the story goes, the scouts were surprised and captured by two trappers from Brunswick. When the trappers learned what was afoot, they set two signal fires at points where the Indians would be caught up in the rapidly surging current and sent to their doom. The plan worked, and the bodies of the warriors, women, children and aged were found along the banks of the Androscoggin even as far down as Merrymeeting Bay.
The other version of Twenty-mile Falls has a hermit living on an island above West Pitch doing much the same thing as the trappers from Brunswick, by placing a fire so that it would lead the Indians to their destruction at the falls. According to this version of the legend, a hermit or recluse was living out his solitary existence on an island in the Androscoggin. Like all souls who live a lifestyle not in common with his neighbors, the hermit attracted the curiosity of those nearby, namely the Indians. They would often, in the evening, stand on the shores of the Androscoggin looking across the waters at his flickering fire wondering what diabolical schemes he might be brewing. Finally they decided that the only way to deal with the interloper was to kill him. Getting up their courage, some fifty Indians set out to invade the recluse’s island. However, the solitary soul had learned of his enemies plot to murder him. That night the hermit did not light his usual fire. Instead he went to the section
of the island that was closest to the falls and built a fire. Then he waited for his visitors. As the story goes, the hermit was sitting in the shadows on the bank of his island as the Indians drifted by all silent in their canoes, not even dipping a paddle lest it serve as a warning they were about to approach. Suddenly a horrible cry went up. The Indians realized they were trapped in the fierce current and beyond hope. Both these tales have another element in common besides the Indians being lured over the falls at West Pitch by carefully placed fires. In both cases the Indians are said to have gone to their doom singing their death song. It is a remarkable picture in the face of such an end. As with most tales of this nature, there is another element both have in common. Quick thinking and common sense coupled with a bit of luck again thwart evil intention.
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Bath’s Tom Plant
Entrepreneur with a heart of gold by Charles Francis
T
om Plant cared for people. Especially, he cared for the welfare of the old and infirm. Because Tom cared what happened to people when they entered their senior years, because he cared for the elderly who, through no fault of their own, found themselves destitute, he established one of Maine’s landmark charitable institutions, The Plant Home. Tom Plant built The Plant Home in Bath in 1917. Unlike many of the philanthropic institutions that began 100 or so years ago, The Plant Home is still in operation today. It is one of Bath’s hallmarks. In fact, it occupies not only a unique position in Bath and Maine but in the country as a whole.
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Entrepreneur by Barry Rodrigue. Tom Plant is regarded as a hero of Maine’s French community. Plant and his immediate forebears are included in a lengthy study of French-Canadian immigrants to Maine. The study is a combined project of the University of Maine and Laval University in Quebec. Then there is a wealth of material on the source of Tom Plant’s wealth in the Boston area and his subsequent development of a resort on Lake Winnepesaukee. Thomas Gustave Plant was born in Bath in 1859. He was the son of Quebec immigrants. His parents were Antoine and Sophie (Rodrigue) Plante. The decades before and after (Continued on page 36)
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The Plant Home was a prototype of the assisted living community. Bath-born Tom Plant is one of the great figures of the post-Civil War era. He made enough money to be called filthy rich. Then he lost it all, but not before he established The Plant Home, and built his own fabulous mansion on 6500 acres on the shores of Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire. Tom Plant is the stuff of myth and legend. And he is unlike many who fall into that category. Unlike so many who fit the rags to riches mythos, a lot is known about Tom Plant. There is a biography of Tom Plant, Tom Plant: The Making of a Franco-American
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(Continued from page 35)
the Civil War saw a major influx of French-Canadian immigrants to Maine from Quebec. Many came here on foot. Sophie Rodrigue walked here. She left the St. Lawrence region on foot and arrived in the Bath area the same way. Then she married Antoine Plante and began to raise a family in the French Hill section of town. Antoine Plante fought in and was wounded in the War Between the States. His injuries incapacitated him to the extent that he was unable to provide for his family. Tom Plant grew up in poverty. In this he was like many of the children of Bath. Tom didn’t let being poor keep him from dreaming, though. His dreams led him to leave Maine to seek his fortune when he was twenty-one. In the 1870s Maine’s famous shoe industry was just beginning to devel-
op. Tom Plant saw the shoe industry as a way for him to make money, a lot of money. However, Tom had the idea that to make “big” money he needed to go to a city. Cities have lots of willing workers, and they have lots of people who buy shoes. After several failed attempts at making it “big,” Tom built a shoe factory in what is now Jamaica Plain. The year was 1896. Earlier he had sought to reach his dreams on the West Coast and in a cooperative venture and in a partnership. What these experiences taught him was how to get things done. And get things done he did. Some sources indicate that the shoe factory Tom Plant built in Jamaica Plain was the most productive in the world. The same sources speculate that Tom Plant may have been worth as much as twenty-six million when he built The Plant Home in
Bath. Tom Plant retired from the shoe business in 1910. He sold out to what today we would call a multinational conglomerate. That was when he moved to New Hampshire and Lake Winnepesaukee. Tom Plant was a hands-on-man. He was a success when he was involved in managing things. When he retired from industry he thought to make more money through investments. He didn’t. Tom didn’t understand financial trends and he didn’t understand world affairs. Perhaps this was because he quit school while barely into his teens. Whatever the explanation, Tom lost money investing in Russia when the Communists took over, and in land and commodities investments. When Tom Plant died in 1941, he was broke. If his death hadn’t coincided with his bankruptcy, he would
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have needed the assisted living home he had founded in Bath back in 1917. While much as been written about Tom Plant and while much is known about Tom Plant, one of the points which seems to have been overlooked is that that he had a very immediate model for The Plant Home. That model was the Bath Military and Naval Orphan Asylum. The Bath Military and Naval Orphan Asylum was established in 1866 by Sarah Sampson. Tom Plant grew up playing with and attending school with children who made the asylum their home. These children were the needy offspring ― sometimes to the second generation ― of Civil War veterans. In short, they were what Tom, the son of an invalided veteran, was himself. While the State of Maine eventually took over the asylum and operated
it as the State Orphanage of Maine, it was begun as a private institution. Tom Plant clearly saw private philanthropy as a means of confronting society’s problems. Tom Plant was an example of the enlightened principles of Maine reformers like Dorothea Dix and Sarah Sampson. These were principles one associates with the era of the War Between the States, as growing out of that horrific time in the country’s history. As Sarah Sampson founded the Bath Military and Naval Orphan Asylum for less-than-fortunate children, who through no fault of their own were homeless, so Tom Plant established The Plant Home for those senior citizens who through bad luck or “... unmerited adversity or the death of relatives and friends” had been “... left poor in the world’s goods.”
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China’s John Nelson
The tragedy of a Quaker congressman by Charles Francis
J
ohn Nelson had the misfortune of serving on a House committee from which no one emerged looking particularly admirable. Though Nelson was almost the only member of the committee who in any way did anything to save face, he failed to seize center stage when he might have. In that lies his tragedy. His failure to seize opportunity when it was clearly before him played a part in his political demise. If Nelson had seized the day, he might now be remembered much as Margaret Chase Smith is remembered, as someone who stood foursquare for the principles set forth by the country’s founding fathers. John Nelson was a member of the House Committee to Investigate Com-
munist Activities in the United States. The House Committee to Investigate Communist Activities in the United States, commonly known as the Fish Committee after its chairman Hamilton Fish, was established in May of 1930. The Fish Committee conducted extensive investigations of people and organizations suspected of being involved with or supporting communist activities in the United States. Among the committee’s targets were the American Civil Liberties Union, a variety of left-leaning periodicals and assorted labor leaders. The background to the Fish Committee is, of course, the Depression. In 1930 some eight million were unemployed, and many with jobs were
so poverty-stricken due to dramatic decreases in wages that they were unable to provide for their families. The Depression was a time of social unrest with destitute workers and the unemployed participating in a variety of organized activities to protest their common plight. The protests included rallies, meetings, and demonstrations. They took place in the centers of industry – cities – and because of this they garnered the attention of the powerful. These powerful looked for causes for existing conditions and found it with the Communists, hence the establishing of the Fish Committee. The Fish Committee concluded that the Communist Party was a menace to the United States and an agent of armed
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com revolution directed from Soviet Russia. Among other things the Committee recommended that Congress: 1) deny Communists naturalized citizenship; 2) declare the Communist Party illegal; 3) deport all alien Communists; and 4) bar Communist propaganda from the mails. One committee member, however, disagreed with the committee report. John Nelson of Maine was the only Fish Committee member to see things differently, to see things other than the shades of Red. For Nelson the “best defense against the red shirt of the Communist and the black shirt of the Fascist is the blue shirt of the American workingman.” John Nelson took a stand. He was the only member of the Fish Committee not to vote with the majority. He issued a minority report. He stopped there, though. In that lies his tragedy. John Nelson was born in China, Maine in 1874. He was born and brought up a Quaker. As such he was
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familiar with the early history of the Quakers of Puritan New England. He knew how Quakers had been hounded and persecuted by the power of the established church of the time. One can draw a parallel between Quaker persecution and Communist witch hunts. China in the 1800s had a significant Quaker population. John Nelson went to China schools with Quakers. There were Quakers at Waterville High School when he went there. He graduated from the Friends School of Providence, Rhode Island. That was in 1894. Then he went to Colby, graduating in 1898. In 1904 he earned a law degree at the University of Maine. He had a Kennebec County law practice and he was elected to five terms as a member of the House of Representatives from Kennebec County. He ran for a last term and was defeated. He defeat came after his one-man descent as a member of the Fish Committee. Several points need to be made at
this juncture. All relate to the phrase “witch hunt.” Though Quakers were persecuted in Puritan New England, this persecution was not related to the infamous Salem witch hunts. Because of the Salem witch hunts, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s campaign in the 1950s to obliterate any trace of leftist “Reds” in Washington and in America has been called a witch hunt. Those familiar with Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, from high school, know that Miller wrote it to decry McCarthy’s antics. There is a relationship between Joe McCarthy’s Senate hearings and those of the Fish Committee. The Fish Committee was a precursor to McCarthy. The Fish Committee was also a precursor to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. This latter committee is the one which made Richard Nixon famous and featured such notables as Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers. The House Committee on Un-American Activities follows in (Continued on page 42)
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(Continued from page 41) a direct line of descent from the Fish Committee. These clarifications made, we will return to the Fish Committee and the tragedy of John Nelson. As a general statement, members of the Fish Committee – except for John Nelson – espoused the doctrine that the Soviets and Communists were one and the same. Both were then blamed for the country’s social and economic problems. Both were blamed for urban unrest and demonstrations. Soviet Russia was in large part responsible for America’s economic downturn. Russian imports were undermining the market value of American goods; leaving them unsold. In particular, the Fish Committee cited the timber of the Northwest. For this reason hearings were held in Seattle. As the largest employer in the Pacific Northwest, the timber industry was very important; therefore the claim that it faced virtual annihilation due to the importation of Russian lumber and pulpwood was serious.
In October 1930, the Fish Committee’s Seattle hearings called sixteen witnesses. The witnesses included representatives of the Seattle police department, county prosecutor’s office, and employers who claimed that Communists were a threat to public safety in Washington State. The committee also subpoenaed five members or suspected members of the Communist Party. The testimony served as the basis for the Fish Committee recommendations. It was, of course, ridiculous to blame the country’s problems on Soviet Russia. America’s economy was responsible for the Depression. Chairman Hamilton Fish must have sensed this when he said “It is up to the Capitalist system to clean its Augean stables and divest itself of some of its manifestations of greed, inhumanity and reaction. …I believe in Capitalism…” (Augean stables relates to the labors of Hercules. Cleaning up the abuses that led to the Depression was indeed a labor of great
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magnitude.) John Nelson must have had some of the same faith in America that Chairman Fish had. That seems clear in his reliance on the “blue shirt of the American workingman.” That reliance could also be seen as his tragic flaw. His flaw was his over-identification with certain basic principles. In this case the principles, though not strictly speaking. Quaker principles are similar. Nelson chose to believe in a fiction, that hard work always brings just rewards. Congressman John Nelson was defeated in the 1932 election. In part he was defeated for his unpopular stand. Much of the rest of the country wanted a scapegoat. Nelson called for hard work when it clearly wasn’t enough. Nelson was also defeated because he was a Republican. 1932 was a sweep for the Democrats. In the long run, his defeat may have come because he did not make more of his own individuality.
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From Bunker Hill To Ocean’s Eleven Accredited screenwriter hails from Boothbay Harbor by Charles Francis arry Brown’s most noted work is often given as The Poem of Bunker Hill. His last credits as a screenwriter appear on the remake of Ocean’s Eleven, a less than notable work. The Poem of Bunker Hill won critical praise from the likes of Louise Bogan and Robert Lowell. The Ocean’s Eleven redo did little more than provide actors like George Clooney and Brad Pitt an opportunity to show off their polished profiles. Yet the poem and the movie do have something in common, and that happenstance is totally due to the creative talents of Harry Brown. Harry Brown dropped out of Harvard after finishing his sophomore
H
year. That was in 1938. In 1939 the Poetry Society of America named Brown recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award. At the time Brown received the prestigious award it included a $3500 stipend. The award is given to those poets who evidence genius or potential genius and demonstrate financial need. It seems likely Robert Lowell had something to do with Brown being awarded the Shelley. Lowell and Brown were friends. This is not to suggest Brown had not demonstrated talent as a poet. He had achieved recognition with a limited edition collection of his earliest poetry and with poems in magazines like
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the New Yorker. Brown certainly had financial need, too. One of the reasons he dropped out of Harvard was related to his financial situation. The most important thing about the Shelley Memorial Award, however, is that it allowed Harry Brown to concentrate on his poetry. 1940 saw the publication of the critically lauded The End of a Decade. It was followed by the epic on the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Poem of Bunker Hill has been compared to The Iliad. Brown’s poem is long like Homer’s epic. The Charles Scribner’s Sons edition, which came out in 1941, runs 158 pages. Like The Iliad, The Poem of
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Bunker Hill tells the story of young men in war. Brown’s poem has also been compared to Homer’s and other classics of the genre in terms of style and imagery. What, you may ask, does a work like The Poem of Bunker Hill have in common with a movie like the Clooney and Pitt vehicle Ocean’s Eleven? The answer is that the characters in Ocean’s Eleven are World War II veterans. The Ocean’s Eleven being referred to here is not the remake, but rather the original with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. The Ocean’s Eleven remake came out in 2001. Harry Brown died in 1986. However, he is listed in the credits of the 2001 version. He authored the screenplay of the 1960 original. Harry Brown is best known for his war stories. Though combat is not his
only genre, Brown’s ability to portray war in a realistic manner is clearly seen in his first novel A Walk in the Sun. The subject of the book is the allied invasion of Italy. Its viewpoint is that of the infantryman. A Walk in the Sun was first serialized in Liberty Magazine in 1944. It was subsequently made into the movie of the same title. The cast included Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Lloyd Bridges and Sterling Holloway. Brown didn’t write the screenplay, however. He did do some fifteen screenplays, though. Harry Brown’s screen credits include such notable films as Sands of Iwo Jima, starring John Wayne, D-Day, the Sixth of June, a tale of the Normandy invasion. Between Heaven and Hell and The Deep Six, both about war in the Pacific. His A Place in the Sun is the screen adaptation of Theodore Drieser’s An American Tragedy.
The above brief listing of but a few of Harry Brown’s literary creations indicate that he was greatly drawn toward themes involving combat and the heroic. It should be noted that Brown’s approach to these themes was almost always romantic. What was the source of this romantic attraction? What was there in Brown’s personality, his mental makeup, which led him here? Harry Peter McNab Brown, Jr.’s Maine roots are in Boothbay Harbor and Portland. Beyond here, they extend to Nova Scotia and Revolutionary Boston. Harry’s mother, Bessie Giles Brown, was from Boothbay Harbor. Generations of the Giles family made their homes in that coastal community. Harry’s father’s immediate family was from Nova Scotia. In addition, the Brown family traced its tree to Boston and then to England. It is with the Browns that we encounter (Continued on page 48
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(Continued from page 47)
the romance that must have played a part in the formation of Harry Brown’s character as a writer. One Brown family tradition has it that the family is descended from royalty. The royalty in question is none other than George III of England. The tale involves the secret marriage of one Hannah Lightfoot and King George. Stories like this are the stuff a young boy can build all sorts of romantic ideas on and with. Coupled to this tale of possible royal ancestry was the tale of another Brown ancestor who took part in the Boston Tea Party. Then there was the McNab branch of the family. The McNabs lived on an island off Nova Scotia. During the War of 1812 the British Navy used a beach on the island for executions, for hangings. Each new hanging meant the construction of a new gallows. Gallows were left
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standing with bodies dangling from them until they rotted and fell apart. Hangman’s Beach was another part of Brown family lore. Stories such as these are more than the stuff of imagination. When taken together, they are the stuff of legend. No wonder Harry Brown chose as the subject for an epic poem the Battle of Bunker Hill. Harry Brown enlisted in the Army in 1941. During the war he was on the staff of Yank, the G.I. magazine. As a Yank writer Brown wrote humor. He created a persona for a column, PFC Artie Greengroin. The Greengroin columns were so good that a publisher picked them up for the book PFC Artie Greengroin. It came out in 1945. In 1946, Brown’s only stage play, A Sound of Hunting, made it to Broadway. The leads were Burt Lancaster and Frank Lovejoy. It was another tale of World War II. This was
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the work Brown turned into the movie Eight Iron Men. The film featured Lee Marvin. There was a television version, too. It had Peter Falk and Sal Mineo as its stars. Many find it difficult to see the author of such true-to-life recreations of the horrors of World War II and the sometimes refined, sometimes jocular but much needed at the time humor of Artie Greengroin in the screenwriter of the Rat Pack film Ocean’s Eleven. The same year Ocean’s Eleven came out, 1960, was the same year Brown’s most unsuccessful romance came out. This was Stars in Their Courses. The book was a retelling of The Iliad. It was set in 1870s Colorado. With it Brown demonstrated he had left realistic writing for good. It is too bad, too, for his last works like The Wild Hunt, a fantasy, fall far from his earlier high standards for creativity.
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A Finger To The Wind Weather forecasting the native way by Charles Francis
T
here is a good deal of wisdom of a scientific sort to be found in traditional practices, the sorts of practices that are sometimes referred to as common sense or folk knowledge. Take, for example, traditional practices involved in weather forecasting. Those who live by the sea know to look for what birds and animals are doing as a means for forecasting a particular bad bit of weather. For example, gulls fly high before a storm. If it is going to be an especially bad storm they will fly inland. Chipmunks and the like will disappear from their haunts in spruce along the shore of a cove or bay. Other signs of this nature include slow moving rollers that seem to have their origin somewhere far out in the ocean. Often as not
the rollers will bear bits of seaweed and other flotsam. Today most anyone living along the coast knows to look for the position of a low pressure system on a weather map to see if there is bad weather coming. A capitol “L” on a weather map stands for the low. At the least, the “L” indicates cloudy weather is on hand. Then, too, there could be a storm in the offing, perhaps even a tropical cyclone. A low over especially warm water can become a tropical wave, a hurricane. Back when I was a small child, I had two very good teachers in the art of forecasting bad weather. These two teachers were very different. One relied on tradition, the other on hard science. When I was a youngster in the late
1940s, we summered at McFarlands Cove in South Bristol. Some refer to McFarlands Cove as South Bristol’s other cove, the more prominent one being Christmas Cove. I will never think of McFarlands Cove in that way. Part of the reason for this is because I will always associate it with an old lobsterman named Cap McFarland. Cap was descended from Benjamin McFarland, the early settler who probably gave the cove its name. Cap McFarland was an old-time lobsterman. He lobstered from a dory. He rowed the craft standing up. He always wore thigh-high rubber boats, rolled down and often as not a sou’wester. At least that is how I remember him. It was Cap who taught me the traditional
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com method for forecasting ― whether or not there was a low in the offing. My great uncle Everett taught me the scientific approach to determining whether or not there was a low about to bring in some bad weather to McFarlands Cove. Looking back, I figure Everett Francis and Cap McFarland were about of an age in the late ‘40s, that is to say past eighty. Uncle Everett had a good deal of experience on the water. He had been born on Muscongus Island off Round Pond in 1863. Everett hadn’t followed in the footsteps of most who grew up around the water in the late 1800s, though. He studied engineering at Boston Tech and made a living building factories in the lower New England states. (Today Boston Tech goes by the name of MIT.) However, by the 1940s Everett was long retired. Uncle Everett spent his winters in Florida. He lived on a cabin cruiser. Each summer he travelled the inland waterway to Maine to visit relatives and
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friends, chiefly his brother Edwin who lived in Round Pond. Everett would stop at McFarlands Cove to visit us. Cap McFarland’s method for determining whether or not a low was in the offing wasn’t all that far removed from that of my Uncle Everett’s. When Cap showed me his way of forecasting a low it only took a moment, though. Uncle Everett had to tell me all about a Dutchman named Buys Bulot and a lot of things I didn’t understand at all, things like Variables and Coriolis Effect. Cap’s method of forecasting a low had to do with wetting his finger. The part of his finger that stayed wet indicated where the low was. Uncle Everett’s had to do with standing with his back to the wind and raising his left arm. Where his arm pointed was where the low was. Today most informed people know that the world’s weather patterns are the result of air masses and ocean currents. These patterns are described by
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terms like Coriolis Effect, Westerlies, Variables, wave size and fetch. Anyone, no matter where they live, is affected by these factors. I’ve always thought, though, that those living along the coast more clearly see themselves and where they live as linked to the overall pattern of things that affect their immediate environment. Certainly Cap McFarland and my Uncle Everett back up the conjecture. Maine lies almost exactly halfway between the Equator and the North Pole. The winds that predominently affect this region are the Westerlies and the Variables. Winds affecting Maine generally blow from west to east. These are the Westerlies. When the Westerlies are constant the fetch of the waves is constant. (Fetch is used here in the nautical sense meaning to hold a course.) However, Maine is also affected by the major confluence of air masses. When this occurs the Variables dominate. (Continued on page 52)
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(Continued from page 51) With the Variables, the wave’s fetch can veer, causing coastal erosion. The other great air movements that affect the state are the Continental Polar Air Mass, the Maritime Polar Air Mass and to a lesser extent the Continental Tropical Air Mass and the Maritime Tropical Air Mass. Continental air masses bring dry air; maritime air masses bring wet air. When the two meet, as they often do over the Maine coast, which is in a moist mesothermal region, they produce some form of perception. For example, in the summer, warm dry air moving down a river like the Damariscotta or the Johns produces fog when it meets the cooler moist air of the sea. (In the winter the converse occurs.) People who go to sea or who live along the coast are very aware of changing weather and seasonal patterns. Any seaman who is worth his salt can tell you how to find a low. Just stand with
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your back to the wind and raise your left arm or wet a finger. That’s how to determine the center of a low pressure system. It’s Buys Bulot’s Law. Bulot was a seventeenth century Dutchman. And, while the Maine lobsterman or fisherman probably couldn’t tell you this, he is certainly aware of the procedure. After all, his livelihood and perhaps even his life depend on his reading of the weather. What Cap McFarland did was to take a commonplace like wetting his finger and relate it to the grander pattern of environmental influences in a manner that most anyone could understand. My Uncle Everett did the same thing standing with his back to the wind. The only way he differed from Cap was that he thought of the procedure in technical terms.
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Main Street in Rockland. Item #102241 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Midcoast Region
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The Historic (and Famous) Marshall Point Lighthouse
History of a St. George landmark by James Nalley
O
verlooking the entrance to the harbor of Port Clyde sits one of the most photographed attractions in the state of Maine: the Marshall Point Lighthouse. It is unlike any of the other historic lighthouses on the coast and, in fact, it lacks the height, the design, and structural colors of more prominent beacons. But its lack of typical features is what makes it special. At only 31-feet in height, it stands as an intimate historic landmark that reminds visitors of how things “used to be” in this part of New England. Marshall Point Light Station, as it was originally called, dates back to 1831, when Sam-
uel Marshall sold approximately four acres of his land to the U. S. government. At a cost of only $120, it included a quarter-mile of prominent coastline with a rocky point that eventually served as the site for another addition to the U.S. Lighthouse Service in Maine. Marshall Point’s original lighthouse was first constructed of rubblestone and it included a circular tower 20 feet in height and 17 feet in diameter (at its base). According to the U.S. Coast Guard, “The base of the lantern was made of soapstone and the ‘light’ actually consisted of seven lard-oil lamps, each with a 14-inch reflector, four in
one row, and three directly above. The eventual cost of the tower and the keeper’s house was exactly $2,973.17.” The keeper’s house was built during the same year as the tower and it included basic amenities and ample space (46by-20 feet) with three rooms downstairs as well as upstairs. Based on records by the U.S. Coast Guard, the keeper who served the station for the longest period of time was Charles Clement Skinner, a Civil War veteran who worked at Marshall Point from 1874 to 1919. He had a wife and six children, one of whom was born in the house in 1891. (Continued on page 56)
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Marshall Point Lighthouse. Item #111666 from the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Midcoast Region
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(Continued from page 54) Much like its counterparts along the coast, the tower was eventually improved, both in design and strength. In this case, the year 1858 saw the addition of a new 24-foot tower built at its present site, which included the first 12 feet constructed in granite and the latter 12 feet in brick. A 5th order Fresnel lens replaced the antiquated lard-oil lamps and the white light remained fixed (not flashing). Since the primary focus was on the light tower itself, renovations (only internal) for the keeper’s house occurred only when necessary, which was more than two decades later in 18 79. In 1898 a 36-inch bell weighing more than 1,000 pounds was added to the site in order to warn ships during dense fog. It functioned much like a clock that was wound and it provided more than four hours of hammer strikes at intervals of 20 seconds. In
addition, a weather mast that displayed signals was also constructed by the U. S. Weather Bureau. In June 1895 a heavy storm hit the coast, and the keeper’s house was unfortunately struck by lightning. Unable to put out the fire, the keeper could only watch it burn to the ground. By November of that year, a new house was built on the former site in 19th century Colonial Revival style and it remains to this day. But as the lighthouses improved over time, Marshall Point was no exception. The light itself was electrified in 1935 and a kerosene oil lamp stood by in case of power outages. The U.S. Coast Guard took control of the U.S. Lighthouse Service in 1939, and with it all of the lighthouses in Maine, including Marshall Point. Charles Allen was the keeper at the time, and he served two tours at the site. By 1969, the large bell tower was dismantled
and the bell was replaced by a more up-to-date fog horn, which proved to be much more effective. Just two years later, the light had become automated and it no longer required the services of a keeper. Will Boddy was the site’s last keeper. Shortly after his departure, Marshall Point was transformed into a LORAN station, and the former keeper’s house was also changed to serve its new role. But by 1980, LORAN technology had become outdated and the house was left boarded up and deserted. Fortunately, the town of St. George assumed a multi-year lease in order to make the site available to the public, and in 1986 the St. George Historical Society helped to raise the funds to restore the house to its original glory. In 1990 the Marshall Point Lighthouse Museum was opened on the first floor and it now welcomes more than 10,000 visitors each summer. The present (Continued on page 58)
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Fire scene; Masonic Temple, Main Street in Rockland. Item #15712 from the Elmer Montgomery Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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Midcoast Region
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(Continued from page 56) light no longer includes a Fresnel lens and its light source now comes from a light bulb encased in a plastic lens. Of course, a battery back-up is ready at a moment’s notice. The U.S. Coast Guard is currently responsible for only the operation of the light and the fog horn. Today, the lighthouse grounds are open daily from sunrise to sunset and the museum is open on weekends during the month of May and seven-days-a-week from Memorial Day through Columbus Day. Of course, it goes without saying that its additional attraction to visitors is mostly due to the scene in the 1994 Academy Award-winning film Forrest Gump where actor Tom Hanks reaches the eastern point of his cross-country run by running up the same wooden walkway that still exists today. But unlike “Forrest,” you might want to stick around and take a look a bit longer.
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Park Street in Rockland ca. 1915. Item #26114 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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The Gibson Girl Rockland’s all-American girl by Charles Francis
T
he Gibson Girl was the fashion pate of the Gay ‘90s and the first decades of the twentieth century. She was the all-American girl, with emphasis on “American.” She was poised and patrician. She was always well bred. Her hair was perfectly coiffed and piled atop her head. She was tall, slim and elegant, with an almost impossibly tightly-corseted waist. Her modern day physical counterpart would be Barbie or Dita Von Teese. Neither of those, of course, combines the down-to-earth yet aristocratic ambiance of the Gibson Girl. From the first decade of the 1900s on you could find a real-life Gibson Girl frequenting the environs of Pe-
nobscot Bay. You might find her waiting for a boat in Rockland or Lincolnville. You might find her sailing off Ilesboro. You could certainly find her on 700 Acre Island. We are not talking about someone who aped the Gibson Girl image here. We are talking about a real woman. We are talking about Irene Gibson. Irene Gibson was a model Gibson Girl. Some say she was the first Gibson Girl model. That may be a matter of debate, though. Regardless, Irene was ‘the’ Gibson Girl. Her husband made her that. Irene’s husband was Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the Gibson Girl. Irene was her husband’s model. Her sister Nancy was, too. Nancy was
Nancy Astor. Irene and Nancy were southern aristocrats. They were born Langhorne. They had a couple of sisters. All the Langhorne girls were beautiful. None of the sisters of Irene and Nancy achieved their fame, though. Nancy was Viscountess Astor, wife of Waldorf Astor. Nancy was the first woman to serve in the British House of Commons. Though Nancy was well known – she was an Astor after all – she wasn’t as famous as ‘the’ Gibson Girl. So how does ‘the’ Gibson Girl come to have ties to Penobscot Bay? How did Irene and Charles Dana Gibson come to have ties to 700 Acre Is-
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been the model for his less known Gibson Man. The model for that figure is most often identified as writer Richard Harding Davis. Davis was the turn of the twentieth century example of an exciting, adventure-seeking legitimate hero. He was a writer of fiction and drama, and a journalist who covered the Spanish-American War, the Second Boer War and World War I. Davis was Gibson’s closest friend. The Gibson Girl influenced society in the early 1900s much like a real-life Katherine Hepburn or Audrey Hepburn influenced society of the late 1940s and early 1950s. She, like Katherine and Audrey, was a strong woman, a woman who could play sports while maintaining perfect aplomb. The Gibson girl, like the Hepburns in real life, was taller than the other women and more spirited and independent, yet altogether feminine.
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The story of Charles Gibson’s rise to fame as the creator of an iconic American figure is a rags to riches story or close to it. During a series of childhood illnesses, Gibson’s father, a Civil War veteran, taught him to make silhouettes of people, animals, and trees. By the time he was twelve Gibson was entering art contests. Though not destitute, the Gibsons had to scrimp and save to pay for their son’s art lessons. They were able to send him to the Art Student’s League in New York for two years. Those two years represents most of Gibson’s early formal training. In short, he was largely self- taught. In the Fall of 1886 Gibson sold a small drawing of a dog chained to a doghouse, baying at the moon. The purchaser was Life magazine. Life at this time was a humor and fiction magazine. The first sale grew into an (Continued on page 62)
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Packed to travel
ie s
land? Irene and Charles Dana Gibson built an eighteen-room summer ‘cottage’ on 700 Acre Island in 1904. The Gibsons spent most of their summers on the island until the early 1940s. The Gibson Girl and Charles Dana Gibson were staples of Life magazine for some twenty or more years. That was from the late 1890s on. The Gibson Girl was a regular in Harper’s, Scribners and Colliers, too. To understand the iconic nature of the Gibson Girl you must understand her heyday pre-dated the Roaring ‘20s. She was in no way a “flapper.” She didn’t drink bathtub or bootleg gin – though she may have drunk gin. After all, the Gibson Girl martini is named after Charles Dana Gibson. Gibson preferred martinis with a pickled onion garnish in place of the traditional olive. Charles Gibson himself could have
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Midcoast Region
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(Continued from page 61)
ever-expanding business. Charles Gibson married Irene Langhorne in 1895. The Langhornes had been Virginia plantation owners. The Civil War devastated family fortunes. Irene was born into near poverty. By the time of the marriage, though, Langhorne family fortunes were largely recouped. The rise of the Gibson Girl to superstardom and the marriage of Charles and Irene seem more than coincidental. The suggestion here is that Irene was Gibson’s real inspiration. Gibson used any number of models for the Gibson Girl. It was regarded as a mark of being accepted in polite society to pose for Gibson. Wellbred young ladies ¬– accompanied by chaperones – came to Gibson’s studio to pose. Years later, more than a few claimed to have been the ‘original’ Gibson Girl. The Gibson Man was the natural
accompaniment to the Gibson Girl. The Gibson Man, like Gibson himself, was handsome, courteous, romantic, and almost always just a bit in awe of the aloof Gibson Girl. And why was the Gibson Girl aloof? The answer is that Gibson portrayed her as the superior sex. She always won at tennis or croquet and other contests with the Gibson Man. Gibson never showed this superiority in a manner that offended the Gibson Man, though. The Gibson Man was comradely, even while rueful. Just how successful was Charles Gibson? From the late 1890s on there was merchandising of the Gibson Girl on the level of a Michael Jordan or Star Wars. Coffee table books, plates and saucers, ashtrays, tablecloths, pillow covers, souvenir spoons, screens, fans, and umbrella stands bore the image of the Gibson Girl and Gibson Man. There was Gibson Girl wallpa-
per for bachelor apartments. There were plays, songs and even a Gibson Girl movie. Magazines fought for the exclusive rights to Gibson’s services in negotiations which made headlines. No matter how enticing exclusive offers were, Gibson always maintained a connection to Life. It was the magazine that gave him his start. In fact, he became the magazine’s editor and major shareholder at one point. This was before it passed to Henry Luce. The close of World War I and the decade of the flapper brought an end to the popularity of the Gibson Girl. Gibson himself was probably ready to move on anyway. He and Irene spent more and more time on 700 Acre Island. Here Gibson dedicated himself to oil painting, depicting his surroundings and family. He earned critical praise for this later work.
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Perry’s Nut House
Belfast’s historic roadside attraction by James Nalley
B
ack in the day when road trips by automobile were the “thing to do” on weekends, special roadside attractions were established to welcome the weary travelers for much needed rest, snacks, and souvenirs. Scattered along the major thoroughfares in the country were businesses that ranged from gasoline stations and convenience stores to “kitschy” accommodations. Along Route 1 in Belfast, Maine, sits one roadside attraction and what many consider a mid-coast institution that has welcomed tourists for more than 85 years. Known as “Perry’s Nut House,” it was first opened by Irving Perry in 1927; he sold pecans from Georgia and other assorted nuts to buyers “Down East” Maine in Maine. After moving1 Perry's Discover ad 5.02"x2.35"_Layout
#2
to a former sea captain’s residence (its present location), the business slowly gained a reputation for selling a variety of nuts from around the world and delicious fudge. But one extra feature that made the business special was Perry’s knack for obtaining curious collectibles. Among its varied early collection included everything from stuffed crocodiles to a water buffalo shot by President “Teddy” Roosevelt. At some point, it had created a “P. T. Barnum-like quality” that attracted throngs of tourists who came to enjoy the fudge and satisfy their curiosities. According to the Bangor Daily News, one of the store’s most well-known customers was Eleanor Roosevelt, “who7:06 would stop 4/12/13 AM Page 1 by on her way to
MOON HARBOR
reason to visit You need Fudge. Badly! perrysnuthouse.com 207. 338. 1630 (US Coastal Rt. 1) Belfast, Maine
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Campobello Island each summer. A mention of the Nut House’s wild Maine berry jam in Mrs. Roosevelt’s syndicated newspaper column earned Perry’s Nut House a national following.” When Perry died in 1940, a 19year old businessman named Joshua Treat took over the business and continued to not only sell fudge and nuts, but expand Perry’s knack for the outrageous as well as the store itself. After Treat returned home from duty in the United States Navy in World War II, he brought back many items that eventually became part of the signature collection, including a stuffed albatross from the South Seas, a gigantic man-eating clam, a 30-foot python (Continued on page 65)
Belfast Area Chamber of Commerce Theater • Parks • Museums • Unique Shops Penobscot Bay Cruises • Great Dining Music • Art Galleries Contact us for a copy of our annual guide book, filled with exciting places to visit, our calendar of events, lodging, facilities and more
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P.O Box 58 • Belfast, ME 04915
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Midcoast Region
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Perry’s Nut House, Belfast. Item #27140 from the Frye Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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skin, and “Ape-raham,” a large mounted gorilla from Africa who eventually “greeted” customers at the front door. While many other businesses came and went, Perry’s Nut House continued to thrive in its same location for the next 50 years with a change of owners occurring in 1972. Again, they continued to sell the variety of nuts and delicious fudge to new generations of tourists. But in 1997, after 70 years in business, Perry’s Nut House was closed, and its large collection of so-called “curiosities” was sold at auction, which included the signature stuffed gorilla. Surprisingly, Perry’s Nut House was reopened under new management just a year after the auction was held. But since most of the collectibles had been sold and spread throughout the region, the store lacked its original
“kitschy” charm. Fortunately, according to the Bangor Daily News, a woman from Searsmont had purchased several of its most interesting items that included “the gorilla, the cougar, the 21-foot long python hide, two iguanas, and the 14-foot long alligator hide.” She had simply kept her purchases in a barn. In 2004, when George and Ellen Darling purchased the business, the Searsmont woman offered to sell the items to them at a reasonable price. According to Kim O’Brien, the owner’s daughter, “We’re about trying to give it a sense of the old Perry’s Nut House…The gorilla, the alligator, and the python were all pieces that people remembered.” Since then, the current owners have attempted to buy back as many of the auctioned items as possible. Today, visitors will find rows and rows
of bins filled with a variety of shelled nuts, along with its award-winning fudge in flavors that range from milk chocolate to pumpkin pie. Of course, the gorilla (now beautifully restored by a team of local taxidermists), the python, and the alligator hide are just some of the original items that welcome visitors from all over the country. Perhaps two of the “Top 10 Reasons to Visit Us at Perry’s Nut House” best represent the overall nature of the business in a “nutshell”: “You need fudge, badly” and “You’ve never seen a mummy outside of Egypt?”
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Locals in front of Perry’s Nut House in Belfast. Item #100222 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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69 Main Street • Bucksport, Maine
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“Come Home to The Good Kettle The Way Food Used To Be!” Homestyle Cookin’ Carry Out Homemade Entrees & Soups Catering • Packed Picnics Marmalades & Chutneys Light Catering off-site available Bi-Monthly Wine Tastings to benefit local non-profit organizations
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247 US Rt. 1 • Stockton Springs, ME
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Bucksport Drug Store. Item #104644 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
S.F. Eastman, LLC Since 1969
Residential • Commercial • Industrial Concrete Contractors Foundation Replacement Site Work • Demolition • Sand Gravel • Loam • Septic Systems Heavy Trucking
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Stockton Springs, Maine
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Aerial view of Searsport ca. 1930. Item #25250 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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Damon’s Pizza And Italians
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Students at public health visit in Yarmouth, ca. 1925. Item #7702 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com
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The Admiral Was A Pilot The career of Damariscotta’s Aubrey Fitch by Charles Francis
S
eeing a naval vessel cruising at sea is one thing, but seeing a warship under way from the bank of river is an entirely different experience. At sea even the greatest of naval vessels can look less than impressive when contrasted with the ocean’s vastness. In a river, though, especially if the river is the Kennebec, the same vessel achieves a unique grandeur. It has something to do with the limits of maneuverability dictated by the river channel. It has something to do with the distance or lack of distance between river banks. On July 20, 1982 Maine residents of or visitors to the Kennebec were privileged to witness a newly constructed guided-missile frigate wend its way down the Kennebec. What they were
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seeing was the maiden voyage of the Aubrey Fitch. July 20 was the date of the first sea trials of the frigate. As it was a fine day in mid-summer there were a good many in addition to those on land who saw the Aubrey Fitch execute its shakedown maneuvers. There were pleasure craft off the state parks at the mouth of the river. Some of these latter came from Pemaquid Harbor and from further up the Damariscotta, which was indeed fitting: the frigate held special significance for residents here if they knew it, though there were not all that great a number who did. The Aubrey Fitch was named for a local resident, a naval officer who loved Maine so much that he made it his adopted state.
(Continued on page 74)
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Admiral Aubrey Fitch retired from the Navy in 1947. He retired to Maine and the Damariscotta. He could have retired close to the water in the state of his birth. Michigan is a Great Lakes state. But Fitch chose Maine. Most likely he chose to retire to Maine because of circumstances that first brought him to the coast of the Pine Tree State back in late years of the second decade of the twentieth century. Back then Aubrey Fitch was a young naval officer who got to know the down east region well. Fitch served as ordnance officer at the Hingham Naval Ammunition Depot in Hingham, Massachusetts. The dual responsibility meant Fitch spent a lot of time traveling the Maine coast. Aubrey Fitch had one of the most
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(Continued from page 73) remarkable careers of any naval officer. Before retiring as a full Admiral he commanded or served on about every vessel imaginable. He also served as head of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Ironically, Fitch’s greatest love may not have been ships, but rather planes. Aubrey Fitch earned his wings as a pilot. In fact, he was the first airman to head the Naval Academy. Very briefly, Aubrey Fitch was born in Saint Ignace, Michigan, on 11 June 1883. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1906 and served on several ships, received torpedo training and was an instructor at the Naval Academy during the following eight years. In 1914 he was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet staff and was simultaneously Commanding Officer of USS Yankton. Fitch was Gunnery Officer of the battleship USS Wyoming (BB-32) during most of the First World War.
After the armistice, Fitch again served at the Naval Academy. He then was assigned as inspector of ordnance in charge of the Hingham Naval Ammunition Depot and naval inspector of ordnance in charge at the Naval Coaling Station in East Lamoine on Frenchman’s Bay. From 1920 to 1927 Fitch had a variety of shore duties, commanded a division of destroyer minelayers, and served with the Unites States Mission to Brazil. He then successively became Executive Officer of USS Nevada and Commanding Officer of USS Arctic. In 1930, following flight training, Fitch was designated a Naval Aviator. During the 1930s, Fitch commanded three naval air stations, a seaplane tender and the aircraft carriers Langley and Lexington. In 1940, as Rear Admiral, Fitch flew his flag from the Saratoga and the Lexington. This experience
meant that Fitch was one of the most experienced of all naval aircraft commanders when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Fitch and his flagship Saratoga figured prominently in the failed attempt to reinforce Wake Island in December 1941. The Saratoga was torpedoed off Oahu late in January of 1942. This loss seriously cut American carrier strength in the Pacific. In April of 1942 Fitch assumed command of his former carrier, the Lexington. During the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first sea battle in which the vessels of opposing sides never directly encountered each other, Fitch was in command of a task force that included the Lexington and the Yorktown. This was the battle that stopped the Japanese thrust to take Port Moresby, Australia. It was also the battle in which the Lexington was lost. Rear Admiral Fitch transferred his flag to the Saratoga.
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He was on his way to Midway at the time of that historic battle. On September 20, 1942, six weeks after the first American amphibious operation of the war got underway at Guadalcanal, Fitch assumed command of all aircraft of the South Pacific Force. All here means Navy, Army and Marines as well as aircraft elements of New Zealand. Fitch himself carried out numerous, hazardous flights into the combat zones, inspecting air activities and projected operations. For these, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross. Fitch’s planes protected Allied shipping, providing vital air cover. His planes were given much of the credit for the defeat of the Japanese in the Solomon Islands. In addition, Fitch oversaw the early experiments in conducting night bombing using radar. For his coordination of the Allied air effort in the South Pacific Fitch received a gold star. In the summer of 1944, Fitch went
to Washington as Deputy Chief of Naval [Air] Operations. For his work at this time he was awarded the Legion of Merit. In August of 1945 Fitch was named Superintendent of the Naval Academy. There he was instrumental in establishing the Department of Aeronautics. Fitch retired in 1947 after serving briefly in the office of the Secretary of the Navy and as senior member of the Navy’s clemency and prison inspection board. Few people in the Damariscotta and Newcastle area knew the extent of Admiral Fitch’s service to his country. There were those who knew him as a retired Navy man and a few who knew he had been an Admiral. The fact this is so is more a statement on Aubrey Fitch’s nature than lack of knowledge on the part of Fitch’s neighbors. Admiral Aubrey Fitch was a quiet man.
Admiral Aubrey Fitch died in Damariscotta on May 22, 1978. October 8, 1982 was the commissioning date of the Aubrey Fitch. A few people from Newcastle and Damariscotta and the surrounding area attended the commissioning. Most in attendance were Bath Iron Works dignitaries and Naval and government officials. These guests heard the Vice President make remarks regarding the launching and the significance of the man the frigate was named for. The guests also got to see a pretty young woman break a bottle of champagne on the bow of the frigate. For those who have forgotten, George Bush was Vice President in 1982. As to the pretty young woman, she was the granddaughter of Aubrey Fitch. Her name was Francesca Fitch Ferguson.
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Fire at Gay’s Store in Waldoboro, February 22, 1962. Item #16488 from the Boutilier Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
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The Bandit From Washington Who Wouldn’t Give Up McCurdy’s corpse was on display for 66 years by Charles Francis lmer McCurdy was shot and killed in Oklahoma’s Osage Hills. He was shot while resisting arrest. He had been identified as one of a gang that had robbed a passenger train. McCurdy was killed in a shootout when the hiding place of the gang was discovered by lawmen. Elmer McCurdy wasn’t a famous outlaw. Yet, he has more than a certain degree of notoriety, of minor fame. That notoriety began shortly after he was killed and continues right down to this very day. Elmer McCurdy’s last words were
E
“You’ll never take me alive!” At least performed an autopsy. Naturally, he that is how the legend that built up wanted to make something for his around McCurdy goes. You see, El- time. So he filled the body with arsenic mer McCurdy didn’t end up on or and put it on display. It wasn’t all that in Boot Hill, at least not right away. uncommon a practice back then. You McCurdy’s corpse was put on display can find any number of photographs by the mortician that embalmed him. of famous dead outlaws from those The mortician charged a nickel for the days today, outlaws like Billy the Kid curious who wanted to see the body. or members of the Dalton Gang. Most The hook, what made the corpse an of those outlaws had a display time of attraction, was how the little sideshow just a few hours or at most a few days. was billed. Elmer McCurdy was “The Elmer McCurdy’s display time lasted from 1911 to 1977. It ranged from Bandit Who Wouldn’t Give Up.” It seems no one showed up to claim Oklahoma to California and included Wasses PROOF DG12, 1/4p, stints in Prod1 wax museums, carnivals and McCurdy’s body. The mortician had (Continued on page 79)
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Swinging bridge between Boothbay Harbor and Southport. Item #19037 from the Boutilier Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.orhg
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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com (Continued from page 77) haunted houses. It is well documented, and for all intents and purposes concludes on a recent episode of the HBO series Autopsy. The HBO segment on McCurdy is called The Funhouse Dummy. The name comes from the fact that McCurdy’s corpse was found during a filming of The Six Million Dollar Man. That filming was in a Long Beach, California fun house. The corpse was first thought to be that of a papier mache’ dummy. Later it was identified as that of Elmer McCurdy of Washington, Maine. Elmer McCurdy’s career in the west prior to his demise seems well documented. While there are gaps in the passage of McCurdy’s remains after his demise and down to 1977, that history seems well verified also. The facts of McCurdy’s Washington,
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Maine origins, however, leave something to be desired. The best rendition of Elmer McCurdy’s adventures in the west as well as that of the perambulations of his corpse can be found in The Journal of Lawmen and Outlaw History of Oklahoma edited by Dee Cordry. The author of the piece is Terry Whitehead. There are plenty of cross-references. Unfortunately, cross-references are lacking for McCurdy’s early life in Maine. The title of the Whitehead piece is Sideshow Outlaw: Elmer McCurdy. Whitehead has McCurdy arriving in Kansas in 1903. There he worked as a plumber and as a miner. He enlisted in the Army and did a three-year stint. Following his discharge in 1910, he settled in Missouri. There he was picked up for “Possession of
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Burglars’ tools.” About this time McCurdy adopted the moniker “Missouri McCurdy.” As Missouri McCurdy, he and a couple of other less-than-upright characters decided to rob a train. The story of that robbery reeks of high comedy. The men got on board the train baggage car okay. Then Elmer tried to blow the train safe with nitroglycerin. He used too much. Silver coins in the safe fused to the sides of the baggage car. The silver was later pried off with a crow bar. Elmer wasn’t about to give up on using nitro, though. The next thing he tried to blow was a bank vault. The charge he used must have been huge. The vault was blown across the bank lobby but remained intact. So far the robberies McCurdy was involved in netted something like $600. Yet Elmer wasn’t about to give up his life of crime. His next tar(Continued on page 80)
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(Continued from page 79)
get was a payroll train. At least that is what he thought it was. In reality, McCurdy and his compatriots got the wrong train, a passenger train. It was enough, though, to get a posse of some fifty strong on his tail. The result was Elmer’s death. Most of the stories of Elmer McCurdy identify him as being born in Washington, Maine in January 1880. His mother is an unwed seventeen year old named Sadie McCurdy. Elmer’s father may have been Sadie’s cousin Charles Davis. These stories have Elmer raised as the natural son of Sadie’s brother and sister-in-law, George and Helen McCurdy. The census records for 1880 do not show a Sadie McCurdy in Washington. Nor do they show a Charles Davis or Elmer. They do show George and Helen McCurdy. According to the Maine story,
George and Helen McCurdy were good parents to Elmer. Then George died. Elmer would have been about seven at this time. George left a natural son as well as Elmer. At this point Sadie goes to live with her sister-inlaw to help with the children. Elmer subsequently learns who his mother is. Imagine, mother becomes aunt and aunt becomes mother! In modern day terms, Elmer suffers an identity crisis. As Elmer grows older he takes to drink. Eventually he leaves Washington for parts unknown, finally to surface out west. The man who discovered Elmer McCurdy’s corpse in 1977 was one of the crew of The Six Million Dollar Man. The show was being shot at the Laff In The Dark Funhouse in Long Beach. The crew man was supposed to move the corpse to facilitate a camera shot. However, he realized it was
not papier mache’ but human. The police were summoned. It was the HBO show Autopsy that identified the corpse as that of Elmer McCurdy. A photo of Elmer back when he first became the Bandit Who Wouldn’t Give Up was superimposed over now petrified facial features. The practice is an accepted forensic technique. The photo and the facial features matched perfectly. Elmer McCurdy was killed October 7, 1911. He was buried in the Guthrie, Oklahoma Boot Hill on April 22, 1977.
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Thorndike Creamery • Ice Cream • Homemade Soups • Fun Family Atmosphere
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Gardner Sukeforth Opens The Panama Canal
Midcoast native captain’s historic passage by Charles Francis t 4:00 p.m., August 15, 1914, the Ancon of the Panama Railroad Steamship Company completed its passage of the Panama Canal. Though the Ancon was not the first vessel to pass through the canal, its passage marked the official opening of the most important waterway of the Americas. As one would expect of a voyage of such historic magnitude, the Ancon carried numerous VIPs. President Porras of Panama was a passenger. So, too, was George Goethals, the engineer who has gone down in history as builder of the Panama Canal. As the history books tell us, in 1914 and for much of
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the twentieth century, the canal was the property of the United States. Therefore our country had its official representative. He was Captain Hugh Rodman of the United States Navy. However, Rodman was more than the Navy’s and America’s representative. He had an official duty as far as the canal was concerned, that of superintendent of transportation. Of course, there were other dignitaries, local politicos of lesser importance. The real VIPs, however, witnessed the historic passage from the bridge of the Ancon. At the most officious moments they stood beside the Ancon’s captain, Gardner Sukeforth. Gardner Sukeforth was a deep-wa-
ter sailor, and as seems fitting for such a momentous occasion, he was a Downeaster, a Maine man. Gardner Sukeforth was from the midcoast town of Washington on the upper reaches of the Medomak River. Ironically, for someone to have captained the ship that completed such a history making passage, Gardner Sukeforth’s name is missing from the history books. Even those who spend time drawing up lists of famous and not so famous Mainers seem to have missed it. Therefore, Discover Maine and this writer wish to thank Randall Gross of Waldoboro for bringing Gardner Suke(Continued on page 82)
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(Continued from page 81) forth to our attention and for sharing much of the material that makes up this article with Discover Maine readers. Gross is a genealogist. His research has led him to the probable conclusion that Gardner Sukeforth was the great uncle of another notable Washington-born figure, major league baseball player Clyde Sukeforth. This brings us back to the Ancon and how it was that Gardner Sukeforth came be her captain. The Ancon was the flagship of that Panama Railroad Steamship Company. To appreciate the significance of that fact it is necessary to understand something of the structure of the company that operated her as well as the steamship line itself. And as with so much of the history of the Panama Canal, it is a complicated and convoluted relationship. It is perhaps easiest to say that the Panama Railroad Steamship Company
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was a government operation. As the United States government was the ultimate authority for everything having to do with the Panama Canal, this means the Ancon was really a United States government vessel. This is so even though the company is identified as a joint stock operation. The United States bought up the bulk of the company’s stock in 1897. The U.S. took responsibility for all aspects of the railroad and in like manner in maintaining the company’s ships. It should be clear, then, that Gardner Sukeforth was the captain of a vessel flying the United States flag and in a roundabout way a United States government employee, not captain of a Panamanian vessel. So how was it that Sukeforth became associated with the official steamship line serving what the United States government considered its most important waterway? Gardner Sukeforth was born in
Washington on July 22, 1850. He left home while still a teenager to live in the Penobscot Bay town of South Penobscot. His early years were spent working on a variety of Penobscot Bay fishing vessels and coastal schooners. Besides South Penobscot, Sukeforth worked out of Sargentville, and that hometown of deep-water skippers, Thomaston. With the decline of the golden age of sail, Sukeforth switched to steamships. This meant leaving Maine waters. Gardner Sukeforth’s apprenticeship with steam came with the Red D Line. Red D operated in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. For some five years beginning in 1886 Sukeforth served on Red D ships operating between New York and South America. Then he moved to the West Coast, working the San Francisco to Japan Red D run. In 1896 he went to work for the Panama Railroad Steamship Company. He would end his
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career with the company, dying in 1920 while captain of the Ancon. As cited above, the Ancon made the first official passage of the Panama Canal. Other vessels had gone through the canal before her. Therefore, newspapers reporting on the Ancon’s historic passage headlined the fact that the Ancon set a record of nine hours for its voyage. (It actually took nine hours and twenty-five minutes.) That record didn’t have anything to do with the Ancon’s speed, though. It related to other factors and was remarkable, remarkable enough to be worthy of commentary. Passage through the Panama Canal in the early months and years of its use was not all that easy a matter. To start with, passage was a matter of logistics as well as navigation. Logistics involved raising and lowering water levels at various points on the canal, time consuming procedures. The lakes that interrupted direct passage by canal between the Atlantic and Pacific required exacting navigation, especially if the
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vessel making the ocean to ocean passage was a large one. When the Panama Canal opened there were no trained pilots as such. The Ancon made its passage under Gardner Sukeforth’s watchful eye and command. And the Ancon was the largest vessel to pass through the canal up to that time. At 10,000 tons, it was the largest ship the Panama Railroad Steamship Company owned. In making this first official passage Gardner Sukeforth was breaking new ground. And then, too, he had to contend with a lot of hullabaloo. The VIPs on the Ancon didn’t just come along for the historic ride alone. They each brought an entourage. The decks of the Ancon were crowded with passengers and more. In total there were seventy-four officers aboard representing both the American and Panamanian military. The Ancon left Cristobal, Panama’s Caribbean port, to the send off of two bands, the United States Army’s 19th Infantry Band and the Panamanian
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National Band. According to the New York Times reporter who made the passage, the bands were drowned out by the whistles of vessels in Cristobal’s harbor. All of the above points aside, perhaps the most remarkable fact of this first official passage of the Panama Canal is the fact that Gardner Sukeforth did it just by using canal blueprints and charts of the lakes connected by the canal. Sukeforth made the passage never having done it previously. But then, he was a Downeaster. There is a bit of irony involving the first official passage of the Panama Canal. The Ancon, of course, flew the Stars and Stripes. It was a United States vessel. As an international gesture belying the Panama Canal’s most important function, the Ancon also flew the flag of the American Peace Society. Below decks, in the cargo hold, there reposed artillery destined for Panama’s Pacific port of Balboa.
• Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section.
Five K
First Class Landscape Arborist Daniel A. Kaplinger
Trimming and Pruning Crown Reduction Emergency Tree Care • Removal
207-644-1908 207-350-6250
102 S Rd., South Bristol, Maine 04568 Maine License FCL2375 Fully Insured
Restaurant & Gift Shop Beside the Lighthouse, Pemaquid Point OCEANFRONT DINING Serving Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner Maine Gifts & Souvenirs Fri.-Mon. 7:30am-8pm Tues.-Thurs. 7:30am-3pm
Call for Dinner Reservations: 677-2374 www.seagullshop.com
b.y.o.b.
Midcoast Region
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Scene from Peyton Place on Main St. in Camden. Item #106473 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
SANTANA
EXCAVATION FOUNDATIONS
Over 15 Years of Experience New ~ Old ~ Repair Work House Jacking & Sills Sitework & Excavation Room Additions
975-0025 Rockport, ME
Promptly Serving the Mid Coast Region
Cayouette Flooring, Inc.
Area
Sales and Installation Carpet • Ceramic • Wood Vinyl • Area Rugs
207-594-2413 210 Park Street Rockland, Maine
• CHAMBER • OF • COMMERCE • Serving the Inland MidCoast
www.unionareachamber.org members list ~ calendar of events information PO Box 603 • Union, ME 04862
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Reuel Robinson
Camden’s adopted native son by Charles Francis ack at the midpoint of the decade of the 1920s a local mid coast writer named Hester Pierce Brown noted, in a publication of the Maine Writers Research Club, that Camden was home to many “wellknown people.” She went on to name some of them, including blind pianist Edward Baxter Perry, Gilbert Patten, who she said was better known as Bert Standish, an outdoor writer, and J. H. Stearn, developer of a system of duplex telegraphy. Unfortunately, Brown made several mistakes as well as some rather glaring omissions in her listing of prominent Camden residents. “Bert” Standish should have
B
been Burt and he was something more than an outdoor writer, having created one of the most famous fictional characters of the day, Frank Merriwell. Also, all Brown’s “well-known people” were Camden summer residents. There were any number of “wellknown” permanent residents Hester Brown might have mentioned in her brief vignette on Camden. Of all she might have included, however, perhaps the most noteworthy figure she left out is a man who might be described as turn-of-the-century Camden’s most vocal promoter and most loyal adopted son, and man, who ― if it is possible to use such a term
― could be identified as “an adopted native son.” That man is Reuel Robinson. Today Reuel Robinson’s name is most often connected to the 1907 History of Camden and Rockport. It is an excellent work. In fact, it is so good that the next work dealing with the history of Camden, that of John Williams, begins at the year Robinson’s ended. Robinson’s history is not the only reason why he stands as one of Camden’s most prominent residents of the decades just before and after 1900. He was a major influence on hundreds of Camden youth, a prominent business (Continued on page 86)
Offshore Restaurant Best in Local Seafood Daily Specials Lobsters Clams Scallops Haddock Steamers Sandwiches Burgers Steaks Fresh Salad Bar with over 30 Items Prime Rib every Fri. & Sat. Cocktails Children’s Menu
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Midcoast Region
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(Continued from page 85)
figure and an important force in creating what some considered Camden’s crown jewel of the period, the Camden Yacht Club. Reuel Robinson became a permanent fixture of Camden in 1883. That year he was named principal of Camden High School. Besides Robinson’s undeniable influence on Camden youth as an educator, and writing his History of Camden and Rockport, he was a journalist, editor of the Camden Herald, a jurist, an orator and entrepreneur extraordinaire. In the latter role, Robinson was president of the Camden Woolen Mills and one of the founders of the Penobscot Woolen Company. In addition, he was a member of a number of public service organizations. And, most of these roles were in addition to his profession, that of attorney. In short, Reuel Rob-
inson was ― possibly more than any other Camden figure — bound up in the civic and industrial milieu of what many refer to as the town’s golden years. Reuel Robinson was born in Palmyra in 1858. His parents were Daniel and Anna (Bruce) Robinson. The elder Robinson was a farmer. Robinson attended Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield and then enrolled at Bates College, graduating in 1881. At graduation he was named class orator. He then taught in Waldoboro and in Massachusetts. His success as a teacher led to his being offered the principal’s position at Camden High School. In 1884 he earned a masters degree from Bates. Then he prepared for the Maine Bar in the law offices of Thaddeus Simonton. In 1888, the same year that he was admitted to
the bar, he was elected Knox County Judge of Probate, a position he held for four years. Following that term of office, Robinson opened his own law office in Camden. Robinson’s association with the Camden Herald came through Thaddeus Simonton, the owner. While Robinson only served as editor of the paper for some three years, he wrote a Herald column almost up until the time of his death. Besides his newspaper columns and History of Camden and Rockport, Robinson wrote the History of Amity Lodge. Amity Lodge was the Camden area Masons chapter. Robinson’s writing seems to have decreased in output as his business involvement increased. However, this did not mean that he discontinued his studies of Maine local history. He served as
PINE GROVE COTTAGES Efficiency cottages with private decks and grills, all on three pine-covered acres. Studios, 1, 2 bedrooms, heat, AC, cable TV, 1 with jacuzzi/fireplace. Daily/weekly rentals. 4 miles from Camden, 2 miles to beach. PETS WELCOME.
800.530.5265 207.236.2929
2076 Atlantic Highway, Route 1, Lincolnville
www.pinegrovemaine.com
~ In Business Since 1971 ~
Specializing in Handcarved Signs Commercial / Residential
“ A Quality Business Deserves A Quality Sign”
236-2559
435 Commercial Street • Rt. 1 • Rockport, ME
www.dorrsigns.com
Explore our extensive inventory of fabulous yarns and hand-crafted accessories. We carry traditional wools, alpaca, cashmere, and cotton, as well as
novelty and hand-dyed yarns. We provide warm, friendly service, and weekly knitting groups. Visit us in the shop or on the web.
The Cashmere Goat A Knitting Shop
open ‘rou year nd!
20 Bayview Street, Camden, ME • 207.236.7236 • www.thecashmeregoatknit.com
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keynote speaker at a number of turnof-the-century centennial celebrations, including one in Palmyra and one in Newport. Robinson’s first major business involvement was as a director and a treasurer of the Camden Woolen Company. Besides his commitment to the fledgling Penobscot Woolen Company, he was also involved with the Camden Building and Railway Company. At the same time he was serving as a trustee of the public library and president of the Camden Yacht Club. Reuel Robinson died in 1928. He was Camden postmaster at the time. At his passing his close friend and Bates classmate General Herbert Lord, director of the United States Bureau of the Budget, characterized him as a man of “high ideals” and “in
Admiral’s Ocean Inn Located just east of Downtown Belfast on U.S. Route 1 Close to Shops, State Parks, Museums, Golf Courses and Restaurants!
207-338-4260
222 Searsport Ave., Belfast, ME
www.admiralsoceaninn.com
Gr
s n i f if
Open 7 Days A Week 9:30a-5:00p
207-342-5872 368 Augusta Road (Rt.3) Belmont, ME
every way a good citizen.” Reuel Robinson’s History of Camden and Rockport is something of an oddity in Maine local histories in its lack of reprinting. It is well written, as the following lines on the Maine Native Americans that explorer George Weymouth met, show: These natives of Maine were taller than the average white man. The men were of fine physique and many of the women comely of form and face. They were inclined to be of a friendly disposition to their pale-faced visitors and had the English treated them magnanimously, they probably would have had little trouble with them. These few lines are a wonderfully terse and accurate commentary not only on the physical characteristics of Maine’s native population in the 1600s but also of the causes of many
Flavored tortillas wrapped around gourmet fillings! Soups & Salads www.baywrap.com
338-9757
Come Visit THE HUB Full Espresso Bar & Coffee House 102 Main Street, Belfast
We’ve got it all wrapped up!
Open Monday - Saturday, Closed Sundays Also visit us at 1 Hitchborn Rd., Augusta 620-9727
THE OTHER PLACE Clothing & Accessories Hardware & Variety Goods ~ Blue Seal Feeds ~ “You Never Know What You May Find”
of the problems early English settlers encountered with their Indian neighbors. Lest there be any doubt, Reuel Robinson was something a cut above the run-of-the-mill local historian. Proof of this is found in the fact that his work was cited in a distinguished law lecture series not all that long ago. In 1996, Akil Reed Amar referenced History of Camden and Rockport when he gave a law lecture at the Donahue Lecture Series at Suffolk Law School in Boston. Amar was speaking on the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the subject of Writs of Assistance as a cause of the Revolution. Amar’s use of Robinson’s history is proof that this is one local history that has stood the test of time. • Other businesses from this area are featured in our color section.
Midcoast Region
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Hayford Block in Belfast. Item #27166 from the Frye Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
A Harvard Square Bookshop Located in Belfast, Maine
Old Professor’s Bookshop A Unique Collection of Scholarly & Other Books New • Used • Rare “All people by nature desire to know.” - Aristotle
207-338-2006
99 Main Street • Belfast, Maine
OldProfessorsBookshop.com
local + organic + fair trade
BELFAST CO-OP STORE
helping you meet your needs since 1976
123 High Street + Belfast ME 04915 open everyday to everyone 7:30-8:00 207. 338.2532
www.belfast.coop
BRYANT STOVE & MUSIC, INC. Come in and browse in the Bryant Stove Works Showroom. Visit Joe & Bea’s Doll Circus & Antique Museum
Antique Cars • Stoves Mechanical Music & Other Wonders
207-568-3665 27 Stovepipe Alley • Thorndike, ME 04986 Just 4 miles from Unity on Rt. 220
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Circus on Main St. in Belfast. Item #5213BL from the Coombs Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
Diesel Dan’s Repair AUTOMOTIVE, TRUCK & HEAVY EQUIPMENT REPAIRS Do you need reliable services for your tractor and farm equipment?
Give me a call!! Cell: 416-6361 • Shop: 968-6800
Propane Exchange • Movie Rentals
PATTERSON’S GENERAL STORE Pizza • Subs • Baskets • Cigs • Soda GAS
Unleaded • Diesel Fuel
OPEN 7 DAYS
207-948-3388
161 Waterville Rd., China (Located next to Taylors Gun Shop)
Cold Beer • Deli Case
Mac’s Start Right. Start Here. • Hardware • Paint • Plumbing Supplies • Nutrena Feeds for Pets, Horses, Livestock
948-3800
289 School Street, Unity Mon.-Sat., 7:30-5:00 Sun., 9:00-3:00
Complete Auto Body Repair & Painting
Free Estimates • Loaner Cars Used Cars • Glass Work Frame Straightening
4 Pond Road • Burnham
Open 7 days a week
Certified welding services available • Some machining available
Mike’s Auto Body
487-3179
366 Hunnewell Ave., Pittsfield Mike Braley, Owner/Operator
PINE TREE TIMBERFRAMES Building Maine-Made Quality at Home & Around the Globe Specializing in Traditional Mortise and Tenon Joinery Handcrafted Custom Doors
207-350-0267
6 Hussey Rd. • Albion, ME www.pinetreetimberframes.com pinetreetimberframes@yahoo.com
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Mid-Coast Maine In The Civil War Always get a second opinion by Charles Francis
T
he 4th Maine is one of the storied Union Army regiments. The 14th Maine is, too. Both regiments have close ties to the midcoast region. The 4th Maine is sometimes referred to as the Rockland Regiment. Four companies of the 4th were drawn from Rockland and the surrounding area. Yet calling the 4th the Rockland Regiment is probably misnaming. The Damariscotta Granite Rifles served as the base for another of the 4th’s companies. Too, there was a Wiscasset Company, a Searsport Company and others from beyond Knox County. The 14th Maine has been called the Waldo County Company. That’s because when the 14th held reunions, Waldo County men made up the great majority of those in attendance. When the 14th met in 1891 on Long Island in Portland Harbor forty of the fifty in attendance were from Waldo County. The above are examples of Civil War folklore, stories. It would not be all that inappropriate to call them fabrications of active imaginations. They and similar tales of the 4th and the 14th appear off and on in newspapers, popular magazine articles and on the ubiquitous internet. This happens even though there is an excellent recent history of the 4th in print and some good hard research on the 14th relatively easily accessible. The historic high water mark for the 4th may well have occurred at Gettysburg; that for the 14th as Cedar Creek. We all know – or should know – Gettysburg as the turning
point of the War Between the States. The Confederate defeat at Cedar Creek marks the last attempt of the South to invade the North. The involvement of the 4th and 14th in these respective battles is indicative of their historic significance. It may explain to a certain degree why stories have grown up about the two regiments and their men and officers. This is most notable in regard to the regimental commanders, but it doesn’t stop there. Hiram Berry was the first commander of the 4th. Charles Bickmore was second in command of the 14th at Cedar Creek. Hiram Berry was a Rockland man, though it would be correct to say he was born in Thomaston, as his birth occurred before Rockland was set apart from Thomaston. Charles Bickmore was from Waldo County. The official military record says he was from Searsport, though he may have been from Montville. Some – though not all – family records indicate Bickmore was born in Montville. Hiram Berry and Charles Bickmore feature prominently in the Civil War record. This is to be expected as they were high-ranking officers. The third individual we will deal with here was not a high-ranking officer, in fact he may not have been an officer, although more than one story has him as one. The third individual is Randall Humphrey. Humphrey was in the 21st Maine, a regiment little is written about. Unlike the 4th which was a three-year regiment and the 14th, which was virtually a three-year regiment due to mass reenlistment, the 21st was a
nine-month regiment. The 21st took part in but one major engagement, the Siege of Port Hudson. Randal Humphrey was born in Bremen. He died in Bristol. He made his home in South Bristol. At the time of his death in 1922, Humphrey is referred to as Captain Randall Humphrey. He died on his way to a veterans’ reunion. He was some nine months shy of his eightieth birthday. Randall Humphrey died on his way to North Campground in Bristol. He fell out of a wagon and hit his head on a rock. The Vital Records of Old Bristol and Nobleboro Including present towns of Bremen, Damariscotta, South Bristol and the Plantation of Monhegan Vol 1 identify Humphrey as a Bremen veteran. They refer to him as Captain Randall Humphrey. A newspaper article on Humphrey’s death is written so as to suggest he was a Union Army captain. 21st Maine regimental records give Humphrey’s rank as private at the time of enlistment and as corporal when mustered out. Given that Randall Humphrey made his living fishing, one suspects that his claim to captaincy was that of commanding a fishing boat. Nevertheless, there are local history articles that identify him as having been an officer in the War Between the States. Hiram Berry and Charles Bickmore have little in common with Randall Humphrey other than the obvious of being Maine men who served in the war. Berry and Bickmore do share some commonality, though. Both died young, or in the
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case of Berry, relatively so. Berry was forty-nine when he was killed; Bickmore, just twenty-four. Hiram Berry started the war as colonel of the 4th Maine. He was promoted to brigadier general and commanded a brigade during the Peninsula Campaign. Illness sent him home for much of the summer and fall of 1862. He returned to his command in time for Fredericksburg. He was promoted to major general, taking over Joseph Hooker’s division after Hooker was promoted. Berry was killed at the head of his command during the Battle of Chancellorsville. Hiram Berry and the 4th saw their first action at Manassas Junction. When the 4th’s Color Bearer was shot, Berry had his horse shot from under him while recovering the regimental flag. Though his uniform was riddled with bullets, he came away unscathed. The 14th Maine was the only regiment Charles Bickmore served with. Bickmore saw his most serious action at the Battle of Baton Rouge and at the Siege of Port Hudson. He was killed at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Charles Bickmore was one of the men who volunteered for the storm-
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Pre-Need Planning • Cremation Consultation
young
funeral home Albert C. Levesque
31 W. Main Street • Searsport • 548-2545
ing party at the Siege of Port Hudson. A total of 1000 volunteers were called for, but only 300 responded. The volunteers’ act was regarded as a last hope. For this reason the men who volunteered have gone down in the history books as the “Forlorn Hope.” Charles Bickmore led one wing of the Forlorn Hope column. Hiram Berry and Charles Bickmore were the sort of officers who routinely put themselves in harm’s way. That should be clear from the above brief anecdotes. Given this, it comes as no surprise that both would perish in battle. Perhaps ironically, both suffered much the same end. What is definitely ironic is that one of the most common misstatements of their respective ends states that both Berry and Bickmore were killed by bayonet thrusts. Each was fatally shot from a distance. There is a biography of Hiram Berry. It was written by Edward Gould and published in 1889. The title is Major-General Hiram G. Berry. The work is quite rare, so rare in fact that a recent copy went for in excess of $200 at auction. The rarity of the Gould book is no excuse for getting facts about Hiram Berry wrong. In 1998 local authors Peter and Cynthia Dalton published
With our Faces to the Foe, A History of the Fourth Maine Infantry in the War of Rebellion. The work is superb! Though it is a bit more arduous a task to unearth facts regarding the 14th Maine and Charles Bickmore, no one would call the chore a daunting one. After all, the Maine Historical Society has been collecting material about Maine since 1822. There is plenty of information on the 14th as well as good data on Bickmore there. However, I must say that sometimes even at the Maine Historical Society one can draw a blank. I know, because I tried to research Randall Humphrey there. He is a distant family member. At the time I tried to learn more about him, I had just read that he had been in the 20th Maine, not the 21st.
• Other businesses from this area are featured in the color section
Bucksport House of Pizza Specialty Pizzas
• Fresh Salads • Submarines • Specialty Wraps • Pasta • Clubs
• Calzones • Hot Wings • Steak & Cheese • and Much More...
469-7511
Open Monday-Sunday 11am - 9pm 132 Main Street, Bucksport
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Corner of Water St. and Main St. (The Searsport House). Item #110096 from the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
Bucksport Bay Area Chamber of Commerce
Bucksport MotorInn
Don Houghton photo
Free WiFi Cable TV, A/C, Microwaves, Refrigerators & Coffee makers in every room
Complete Lot Set-up Septic Systems * Driveways Gravel Products * Landscaping Snow Plowing & Removal Sitework for Cellular Towers Demolition & Seawalls Landscaping Sand * Loam * Gravel Residential/Commercial
~Open Year Round~
Great Deals For Summer!
“Welcome to Vacationland, Now Relax in Comfort” Dogs are always welcome!
800.626.9734 bucksportmotorinn.com 70 Route One Bucksport, Maine 04416
Bucksport Bay Festival July 27th Ghostport Oct. 19 - 10a-10p
207-469-6818 www.bucksportbaychamber.com
Do You Enjoy Writing? Do You Love Maine? Do You Love History? If so, give us a call.
223-2578 Frankfort, ME You ask for it.
A place to drive to, not through
We’ll do it.
We Are Always Looking for History writers to Contribute to our Magazine!
Discover Maine Magazine (207) 874-7720 • 1-800-753-8684
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Main St. in Winterport. Item #103218 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
Balsam Cove Campground Enjoy camping on a 10-mile-long lake while escaping the crowd. Camp in a clean, quiet campground with beautiful lakefront recreation and all facilities. A real campers’ paradise with reasonable rates.
207-469-7771
286 Back Ridge Road • Orland, Maine
1.5 miles off Rt. 1 on west side of Toddy Pond
balsamcove.com
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Ellingwood Corner in Winterport. Item #102980 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org
Join Us For Dinner & Drink Specials in our Casual Restaurant and Full Bar
The Mermaid RESTAURANT & PUB AT HOMEPORT INN
Andy’s Auto Repair Full Service Repair Shop
11,000 sq ft Sea Captain's Italianate Mansion on the National Register
Like Us On Facebook PUB: 207.548.0084 | INN: 207.548.2259 HOMEPORT INN 121 EAST MAIN ST. SEARSPORT, ME
www.homeporthistoricinn.com
24 Hour Towing Andrew Webster-Owner
548-7277 Nights 525-4557 1 Back Searsport Rd. • Searsport, ME Open Mon-Fri. 7:30am - 5pm
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Business
Directory of Advertisers Page
4 Seasons Guide Service ....................................................................82 44 Degrees North Architects ..............................................................45 A1 Diner ........................................................................................... 37 Admiral’s Ocean Inn ..........................................................................87 Alan’s Towing ....................................................................................61 Alewives & Ales ................................................................................74 Andrews’ Harborside Restaurant .......................................................48 Andy’s Auto Repair ............................................................................94 Anna’s Water’s Edge Restaurant ........................................................14 Ask For Homecare .............................................................................51 Athens Pizzeria ..................................................................................52 Atlantic Baking Co. ...........................................................................54 Atlantic Edge Lobster ........................................................................75 Atlantic Seal Cruises ..........................................................................20 Atwood Painting Co. ..........................................................................33 Augusta Civic Center Inn ...................................................................41 Augusta Seafood ................................................................................72 B&F Fresh Vegetables .......................................................................42 Ballard Meats & Seafood ...................................................................41 Balmy Days Cruises .......................................................................... 81 Balsam Cove Campground ................................................................93 Barnes Custom Window Treatments ..................................................53 Bath Book Shop ................................................................................ 12 Bay Wrap ...........................................................................................87 Belfast Area Chamber of Commerce ................................................ 63 Belfast Co-Op Store ...........................................................................88 Bennett’s Gems & Jewelry ................................................................64 Best Western Plus Augusta ................................................................41 BFC Marine .......................................................................................14 Bill Stevens Auto .................................................................................8 Birgfeld’s Bike Shop ..........................................................................67 Bisson’s Center Store .........................................................................12 Block & Tackle Restaurant .................................................................11 Bob Temple Well Drilling ..................................................................22 Bog Tavern .........................................................................................51 Boothbay Animal Hospital .................................................................16 Boothbay Lobster Wharf ....................................................................47 Boothbay Railway Village .................................................................46 Bowdoin Town Store ........................................................................ .4 Bowen’s Tavern ................................................................................ 63 Bragg’s Tree Care ..............................................................................56 Brambles ............................................................................................88 Bruce’s Burritos .................................................................................20 Bryant Stove & Music Inc. ................................................................88 Bucksport Bay Area Chamber of Commerce .................................... 92 Bucksport House of Pizza ..................................................................91 Bucksport Motor Inn ......................................................................... 92 Bucksport True Value .........................................................................91 Bullwinkle’s Family Steakhouse ........................................................51 C&J Chimney & Stove Service, LLC ................................................83 Cabot Mill Antiques ...........................................................................10 Capitol City Tire & Service ................................................................18 Cap’ N Fish’s Whale Watch ...............................................................46 Cappy’s ..............................................................................................57 Captain Daniel Stone Inn ...................................................................29 Captain Mike’s .....................................................................................9 Captain Sawyer’s Place ..................................................................... 75 Cayouette Flooring, Inc. .................................................................... 84 Cedar Crest Inn ..................................................................................58 Cedar Haven Family Campground .....................................................21 Chateau Cushnoc Apartments ............................................................18 China by the Sea ................................................................................78 Clark Auto Parts .................................................................................44 Clayton’s ..............................................................................................7 Coastal Critters Catering .................................................................. 65 Coastal Glass & Window ...................................................................12 Coastal Preventative Hygiene Services ............................................. 57 Coastal Veterinary Care .....................................................................16 Coggins Road Auto ............................................................................83 Come Spring Cafe ..............................................................................57 Comfort Inn Belfast ...........................................................................62 Comfort Inn Brunswick .....................................................................26 Comfort Inn Civic Center Augusta .....................................................41 Cornelia C. Viek, CPA ........................................................................11 Corson’s Auto Supply ........................................................................79 Country Storage .................................................................................58 Crosstrax ............................................................................................66 Curtis Custom Meats ......................................................................... 53 Cushing Diesel ...................................................................................76 Cuzzy’s Restaurant ............................................................................ 59 CWC Boat Transport, Inc. .................................................................15 D.H. Pinnette & Sons, Inc. ..................................................................6 Damariscotta Veterinary Clinic ..........................................................74 Damon’s Beverage Mart ....................................................................72 Damon’s Pizza & Italians ...................................................................72 David G. Thistle Auctioneers .............................................................26 Desert of Maine ....................................................................................3 Diesel Dan’s Repair ...........................................................................89 Doane Foundations ..............................................................................3 Donald E. Meklin & Sons ..................................................................82 Don’s Automotive ..............................................................................22 Dorr Woodcarving ............................................................................. 86 Downeast Rehabilitation Associates ..................................................57 Downtown Diner ............................................................................... 73 Dunton’s Doghouse .......................................................................... 75 Ed Bouchard Electric, Inc. ...............................................................10 Elmer’s Barn & Antique Mall ............................................................83 Estes Lobster House ...........................................................................26 Fairfield Antiques Mall ........................................................................4 Fairground Cafe .................................................................................. 9 Falmouth Inn ..................................................................................... 20 Fat Boy Drive-In ................................................................................10 Five Islands Lobster Co. ....................................................................35 Five K ................................................................................................ 83 Fleet Service ......................................................................................37 Flowers Etc. .......................................................................................10 Freeport Beads ...................................................................................22 Freeport Cafe ...................................................................................... 8 Fresh Off The Farm ............................................................................85 G. Drake Masonry ............................................................................. 66 Gary Ladner Landscape Design, LLC ...............................................38 Gediman’s ........................................................................................... 5 Gene Reynolds & Sons Paving ........................................................ .14 Genuine Automotive Services ........................................................... 54 Georgetown Pottery ...........................................................................36 Giant Stairs Seafood Grill ................................................................. 29
Business
Page
Giles Rubbish ..................................................................................... 75 Gilmore’s Seafood ............................................................................. 32 Goggin’s IGA ..................................................................................... 17 Good Tern Natural Foods Co-op & Cafe ............................................55 Granite Hall Store ...............................................................................82 Gray’s Homestead Ocean Campground ..............................................46 Green Bean Coffee Shop .....................................................................42 Griffins The Other Place ......................................................................87 Grill 233 ...............................................................................................21 Gurnet Lunch & Lobster .....................................................................28 H.T. Jones Lawncare ........................................................................... 51 Haggett Hills Kennels ......................................................................... 78 Hammond Lumber Company ..............................................................32 Hanna’s ................................................................................................49 Harraseeket Lunch & Lobster Co. .......................................................22 Harvest Time Natural Foods ................................................................40 Hatch Well Drillers...............................................................................73 Hawkes’ Lobster ..................................................................................11 Hawkes Tree Service ...........................................................................28 Hermitage Fiberart .............................................................................. 61 Highnote Bed & Breakfast ..................................................................16 Hilltop Store ........................................................................................88 Holbrook’s Snack Bar & Grille ...........................................................32 Homeport Inn ......................................................................................94 Homeshare, Inc. ...................................................................................51 Hoof ‘n Woof ...................................................................................... 74 Houston-Brooks Auctioneers ................................................................ 3 Howard’s Diesel Service ..................................................................... 76 Hussey’s General Store ........................................................................42 Hyde Schools .......................................................................................30 Hydraulic Hose & Assembly ................................................................ 6 Ideal Septic Service .............................................................................83 Interstate Self Storage .......................................................................... 8 J&B Marine Service, LLC .................................................................. 15 J&H Marine .........................................................................................77 J. Edward Knight & Co. ........................................................................4 James C. Derby Housewright ..............................................................82 Jensen’s Pharmacy ...............................................................................56 Jerry’s True Value ................................................................................91 Jess’s Market ....................................................................................... 84 John Marvin Tower Apartments ...........................................................18 Johnson Hall Performing Arts Center...................................................16 Johnson Well Drilling ..........................................................................66 Just Barb’s Restaurant ......................................................................... 67 KC’s Collision .....................................................................................55 Keag Store ...........................................................................................76 Kennebec Marine Services ..................................................................12 Kirby’s Lobster Shack .........................................................................64 Klassic Klunkers ................................................................................ 36 Knights Inn ............................................................................................9 Knot Gray’s Wharf ..............................................................................46 Kopper Kettle Restaurant .................................................................... 23 KV Tax Service, Inc. ............................................................................17 Lake Pemaquid Campground ..............................................................44 Lakeview Lumber Co...........................................................................73 Larrabee Insurance Agency .................................................................16 Le Club Calumet, Inc. ..........................................................................40 Leland’s Masonry ................................................................................40 Liberty General Store ...........................................................................59 Lobster Pound Restaurant ....................................................................59 Longfellow’s Cedar Shingles & Shakes ..............................................43 Longfellow’s Hydroseeding, Inc. .........................................................43 Long Reach Shellfish, Inc. ...................................................................27 M&B Masonry .......................................................................................8 Mac’s True Value ................................................................................ 89 Maine Coast Petroleum, Inc. ...............................................................77 Maine Historical Society .......................................................................5 Maine Maritime Museum ....................................................................31 Maine State Credit Union ....................................................................40 Maine State Music Theater ..................................................................25 Maine State Prison Showroom Outlet .................................................52 Maine Veterans’ Homes .......................................................................38 Marine Parts Express ...........................................................................45 Marsh River Electrical, LLC ...............................................................12 Marshall Swan Construction ...............................................................39 MerryMeeting Electrical Services .........................................................9 Metcalf’s Submarine Sandwiches ...................................................... 44 Mike’s Auto Body ................................................................................89 Mitchell-Tweedie Funeral Home .........................................................91 Mobile Marine Canvas Co. ................................................................. 25 Monhegan Boat Line ...........................................................................53 Monhegan Wellness .............................................................................52 Monkitree ............................................................................................ 37 Montsweag Flea Market ......................................................................13 Moody’s Diner .................................................................................... 51 Moody’s Seafood ................................................................................ 12 Moon Harbor Realty ........................................................................... 63 Morse’s Cribstone Grill .......................................................................29 Mount Battie Motel ............................................................................ 60 Mr. Tire & Company .......................................................................... 76 Muddy Rudder ..................................................................................... 7 Muscongus Bay Lobster ..................................................................... 52 New Meadows Seafood .......................................................................13 No. 10 Water Restaurant ......................................................................29 North Atlantic Blues Festival .................................................................3 North Country Wind Bells ...................................................................50 Ocean’s Edge Restaurant .....................................................................62 Offshore Restaurant .............................................................................85 Old Professor’s Bookshop ...................................................................88 Olde Bristol Days ................................................................................49 Out Of The Woods ...............................................................................60 Owls Head Transportation Museum ....................................................55 P&A Mechanics ...................................................................................52 Park Street Grille .................................................................................55 Pat’s Pizza Yarmouth ........................................................................... 21 Patterson’s General Store .................................................................... 89 Paul Hanna’s Plumbing ........................................................................37 Pemaquid Fisherman’s Co-Op .............................................................51 Pen-Bay Glass, Inc .............................................................................. 77 Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce ................................79 Penobscot Island Air ............................................................................54 Penobscot Marine Museum ....................................................... 69,70,71 Perry’s Nut House ................................................................................63 Pete’s Pig Southern BBQ .....................................................................38 Pine Grove Cottages ............................................................................86 Pine Tree Timberframes ...................................................... ................89
Business
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Pine Tree Timberframes .......................................................................89 Pinkham’s Seafood ............................................................................. 81 Pioneer Motel....................................................................................... 78 Pontes Marine Truck & Auto Service ................................................. 23 Pour Boyz, LLC ...................................................................................37 Prock Marine Company .......................................................................54 Pro-Rental of Rockport ........................................................................84 Purse Line Bait .....................................................................................14 Quahog Bay Inn ...................................................................................23 Quarry Run Disc Golf ..........................................................................72 Quick Turn Auto Repair & Towing ......................................................45 R.J. Energy Services, Inc. ....................................................................18 Ralph’s Cafe .........................................................................................64 Rapid Redemption ...............................................................................73 Reappearances ................................................................................... 18 Red’s Automotive ................................................................................93 Red’s Eats ............................................................................................19 Reunion Station Restaurant .................................................................74 Ricetta’s ...............................................................................................19 Richard’s Restaurant ............................................................................11 Rock Works ..........................................................................................50 Rockland Mercantile Co. .....................................................................80 Rocky Ridge Motel ............................................................................. 66 Rocky’s Stove Shoppe .........................................................................42 Rogers ACE Hardware ...........................................................................4 Rolfe’s Well Drilling Co. .....................................................................40 Round Top Ice Cream, Inc. ..................................................................74 Route 17 Auto Sales & Scrap Yard ......................................................84 Russell’s Gems .....................................................................................18 Russell & Sons Chimney Service & Masonry .....................................72 Rustica Cucina Italiana ........................................................................56 S.F. Eastman, LLC ...............................................................................67 Sadie Green’s .......................................................................................48 Salt Bay Art Supply ..............................................................................73 Salt Cod Cafe .......................................................................................13 Sam Patterson and Sons Paving ...........................................................58 Samoset Restaurant ............................................................................. 49 Santana Excavation ............................................................................. 84 Sara Sara’s ........................................................................................... 39 Sawyer Brothers, Inc. ...........................................................................53 Scallions .............................................................................................. 60 Scarborough’s Collision .......................................................................44 Sea Basket Restaurant ......................................................................... 15 Seagate Motel ...................................................................................... 81 Seymour Excavating, Inc. ....................................................................21 Shaw’s Fish & Lobster Wharf Restaurant ...........................................49 Sheehan’s Florist & Gifts .................................................................... 66 Sheila’s Dog House ..............................................................................11 Ship To Shore Store .............................................................................26 Ship’s Chow Hall .................................................................................35 Shore Hills Campground & RV Park ...................................................48 Shorty’s Towing Service ......................................................................79 Skidompha Secondhand Book Shop.....................................................44 Skip Cahill Tire ....................................................................................81 Smith’s Swiss Village ..........................................................................77 South Bristol Fisherman’s Co-Op ........................................................50 Southern Midcoast Chamber of Commerce .........................................23 Southgate Family Restaurant ...............................................................14 Sparrow Farm ...................................................................................... 17 Sprague & Curtis Real Estate ...............................................................40 Sprague’s Lobster ................................................................................36 Spruce Head Marine, Inc. ....................................................................76 Steve Brann ......................................................................................... 19 Stone’s Earthwork ............................................................................... 92 Strong-Hancock Funeral Home ...........................................................44 Swiss Time .......................................................................................... 19 T.E. Berry Excavation & Trucking.......................................................64 Team EJP Racing / PEP Classic Car Co. .............................................39 Texture Hair Designs ...........................................................................28 Thai Garden Restaurant .......................................................................22 The Birches ...........................................................................Back Cover The Cabin .............................................................................................13 The Cabins at China Lake ....................................................................43 The Cashmere Goat ............................................................................. 86 The Corsican Restaurant ..................................................................... 22 The Country Inn .................................................................................. 58 The Girltrend Shop ..............................................................................37 The Good Kettle ...................................................................................66 The Good Table ....................................................................................61 The Hearth Doctor ...............................................................................24 The Litchfield Country Store ...............................................................18 The Lodge at Camden Hills .................................................................59 The Mermaid Restaurant & Pub...........................................................94 The Musical Wonder House .................................................................36 The Narrows Tavern .............................................................................82 The Orland Market ...............................................................................93 The Plant Home ...................................................................................34 The Residence at Tall Pines ...................................................................5 The Salvation Army .............................................................................79 The Sea Gull Shop ...............................................................................83 The Theater Project ..............................................................................10 Thistlegaard Perennial Garden Design ................................................ 30 The Tidewater Motel ............................................................................56 Thorndike Creamery ............................................................................80 Thornton Oaks .......................................................................................8 Tip Top Tree .......................................................................................... 6 Twin City Security Solutions & Lock and Key ...................................16 Two Fish Boutique ...............................................................................45 Two Hogs Winery ................................................................................72 Union Area Chamber of Commerce .................................................... 84 Wasses Hot Dogs ................................................................................. 77 Wawenock Country Club .................................................................... 49 Weatherbird ......................................................................................... 43 Weaver’s Bakery ................................................................................. 61 Weskeag Inn ........................................................................................ 76 West Street Automotive ...................................................................... 56 Western Maine Screen Doors Co. ........................................................47 White & Bradstreet, Inc. ......................................................................41 Whitecap Builders ............................................................................... 87 White’s Auto ........................................................................................17 Wilson’s Drug Store .............................................................................13 Wiscasset Motor Lodge .......................................................................35 Witch Spring Hill Ice Cream ................................................................32 Ye Olde Fort Cabins .............................................................................50 Young’s Lobster Pound ........................................................................61
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2013 Midcoast Edition
Midcoast Region