PALERMO: Residents approve 33 articles at town meeting

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Palermo town meeting. (courtesy of Will Armstrong)

Submitted by Will Armstrong
Deputy Clerk, Town of Palermo

Editor’s note: This story has been updated because of editing errors in last week’s issue.

The following is a summary of the Palermo town meeting, which was held last Saturday, March 12, 2022.

We had a great town meeting on Saturday, thanks to all our residents and guests who attended.

Moderator Dick Thompson presided over three hours of respectful questions and insightful dialogue as we practiced direct, participatory democracy. Thirty-three warrant articles were approved, including the highly anticipated Liberty Ambulance emergency transport contract; funding commitments for Palermo Days 2022, the Palermo Consolidated School eighth grade class trip, and a number of local charities; a revised article 21, which allocated $200,000 towards reducing the 2022 tax rate; and a comprehensive road paving and maintenance budget.

Thank you to Liberty Chief Bill Gillespie and Deputy Chief Earle Albert for addressing the meeting and thoughtfully answering questions about what this service change means for our residents; two of the most significant are Liberty Ambulance’s average response time of six minutes and an expansion of in-town paramedic service.

Results of the 2022 Palermo Town Election:

Assessor – Blake Brown (70 votes);

Road Commissioner – Steve Childs (67 votes);

Select Board – Pam Swift (70 votes);

General Assistance Administrator – Miriam Keller (75 votes).

Residents heard from several candidates for local offices: current Chief Deputy Jason Trundy (Waldo County Sheriff), Katrina Smith (Maine House District #62), and Palermo Select Board member Pam Swift (Maine House District #62).

Hunter Christiansen, a seventh grader at Palermo Consolidated School, spoke passionately about how meaningful the eighth grade class trips are and how important it was to him and his classmates to be able to travel next year; residents then unanimously approved that funding.ion, which seeks to improve and expand high-speed internet access in our towns. He also noted there were no foreclosures in Palermo this year.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part 12

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The Civil War left China, like Albion and other towns, deeply in debt, paying to outfit the soldiers and compensate their families.

by Mary Grow

Civil War

The United States Civil War, which began when the Confederates shelled Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, and ended with General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, had the most impact on Maine, including the central Kennebec Valley, of any 17th or 18th century war.

Nonetheless, your writer’s original plan was to write only a single article about the Civil War. As usual, she found an oversupply of material that she hopes will interest readers as it interested her; but she still limits coverage to two articles, for three reasons.

The first and most important reason to downplay Civil War history is that unlike, say, the War of 1812, the Civil War is already familiar. Citizens who know nothing about the Sept. 13, 1814, bombardment of Fort McHenry (which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that became the national anthem) recognize at least the names of battles like Bull Run and Gettysburg. Many people can name at least one Civil War general; few can name one from the War of 1812.

A second point is that numerous excellent histories of the Civil War are readily available, including books specifically about Maine’s role.

And the third reason is that this war is recent enough that some readers undoubtedly have memories of their grandparents telling stories of the generation before them who fought in the Civil War.

Any reader who would like to share a family Civil War story is invited to write it, attach photographs if available and email to townline@townline.org., Att. Roland Hallee. Maximum length is 1,000 words. Submissions will be printed as space permits; the editor reserves the right to reject any article and/or photograph.

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Maine historians agree that the majority of state residents supported President Abraham Lincoln’s decision to fight to preserve the Union. Those who initially disagreed, James W. North wrote in his history of Augusta, found themselves a small enough minority so they either changed their views or moderated their expression.

By 1860, the telegraph was widely used. News of Fort Sumter reached Augusta the same day, followed two days later by Lincoln’s call for 75,000 three-months volunteers, including one regiment from Maine.

On April 22, North wrote, the Maine legislature, in a hastily-called special session, approved enrolling 10,000 soldiers in ten regiments for three years, plus “a State loan of one million dollars.”

Augusta had filled two companies by the end of April. Other Kennebec Valley companies joined them; they camped and drilled on the State House lawn. The Third Regiment started south June 5, 1861; those soldiers were promptly replaced by others from other parts of Maine, volunteers succeeded by men paid bounties and in 1863 by draftees.

North wrote that the first draft in Augusta was held July 14 through 21, 1863, starting two days after the New York City draft riots began, with news arriving hourly. In Augusta’s Meonian Hall, eligible men’s names were drawn from a wheel by a blindfolded man named James M. Meserve, “a democrat of known integrity and fairness, who possessed the general confidence.”

The process began with selection of 40 men from Albion. Augusta followed, and, North wrote, the initial nervousness gave way to “a general feeling of merriment,” with draftees being applauded and congratulated.

Being drafted did not mean serving, North pointed out. Physical standards were strict; out of 3,540 draftees, 1,050 were “rejected by surgeon for physical disability or defects.” It was also legal to pay a substitute or to pay the government to be let off.

Augusta remained a military hub and a supply depot through the war, centered around the State House and Camp Keyes, on Winthrop Hill, at the top of Winthrop Street. There were large hospital buildings on Western Avenue, North wrote, which were so crowded by 1863 that the Camp Keyes barracks were also fitted up as hospital wards. The trotting park between the State House and the river was named Camp Coburn and hosted infantry and cavalry barracks and enlarged stables.

North described the celebratory homecomings for soldiers returning to Augusta when their enlistments were up, like the one in August 1863 for the 24th Regiment. The “bronzed and war-worn” men had come from Port Hudson, Louisiana, up the Mississippi to Cairo and by train to Augusta, a two-week trip. Greeted by cannon-fire, bells, torch-carrying fire companies, a band, state and city officials and “a multitude” of cheering citizens, they marched straight to the State House, enjoyed a meal in the rotunda and “dropped to sleep on the floor around the tables, being too weary to proceed to Camp Keyes.”

Historians describing the effects of the Civil War on smaller Kennebec Valley towns tend to emphasize two points: the human cost and the financial cost.

Ruby Crosby Wiggin found as she researched the history of Albion a record saying that “out of 100 men who went to war from the town of Albion, 45 didn’t come back.” She listed the names of more than 150 Albion soldiers, six identified as lieutenants.

By 1862, Wiggin wrote, the state and many towns offered enlistment bonuses. In addition, towns paid to equip each soldier. Total Albion expenditures, she wrote, were $21,265; the state reimbursed the town $8,033.33.

Wiggin concluded, “No wonder the town was heavily in debt at the close of the Civil War.”

The China bicentennial history says almost 300 men from that town served in Civil War units. The author quoted from the 1863 school report that said attendance in one district school was unusually low, “the large boys having gone to the war.”

The Civil War left China, like Albion and other towns, deeply in debt. The China history says when the State of Maine began tallying municipal costs and offering compensation in 1868, China had paid $47,735.34 to provide soldiers. The state repayment was $12,708.33, and town meetings were still dealing with interest payments and debt repayments into the latter half of the 1870s.

China town meetings during the war were mostly about meeting enlistment quotas, and, the history writer implied, by 1864 voters were tired of the topic. In July and again in December 1864, they delegated filling the quota to their select board.

When the late-1864 quota had not been filled by February 1865, voters were explicit; the history writer said they agreed to “sustain the Selectmen in any measures they may take in filling the quota of this town.”

The Fairfield historians who wrote the town’s 1988 bicentennial history found the list of Civil War soldiers too long to include in their book and noted that the names are on the monument in the Veterans Memorial Park and in the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) record books in the public library across Lawrence Avenue from the park.

Of Larone, the northernmost and likely the smallest of the seven villages that made up the Town of Fairfield for part of the 19th century, the history says, “Larone furnished her full quota of ‘boys in blue’. These averaged one for every family, three-fifths were destined never to see their homes again.”

Millard Howard, in his Palermo history, wrote that “The Civil War was by far the most traumatic experience this town ever experienced.” Of an 1860 population of 1,372, 46 men, “or one out of every 30 inhabitants,” died between 1861 and 1865.

Looking back from the year 2015, Howard wrote somberly, “No other war can remotely compare with it.”

He listed the names of the dead, with ages and causes of death where known. The youngest were 18, the oldest 44. More than half, 26, died of disease rather than wounds; Augustus Worthing, age 31, starved to death in Salisbury prison, in North Carolina.

Sidney voters spent a lot of town meetings in the 1860s talking about the war, according to Alice Hammond’s town history. As early as 1861, they approved abating taxes for volunteers.

As the war went on, voters authorized aid for volunteers’ families and monetary inducements to enlist for residents and non-residents, with preference given to residents. At an 1863 special meeting, they authorized selectmen to borrow money as needed “to aid families of volunteers.”

Hammond noted that Sidney was debt-free before the war, “but in 1865 it issued bonds for $24,000, a debt from which it recovered very slowly.”

Alma Pierce Robbins found from military records that 410 men from Vassalboro enlisted for Civil War service. From census records, she listed the 1860 population as 3,181.

As in other municipalities, voters approved wartime expenses. Robbins wrote that $7,900 was appropriated for bounties and aid to soldiers’ families in 1861. The comparable 1863 figure was $16,900. Perhaps for contrast, she added the 1864 cost of the new bridge at North Vassalboro (presumably over Outlet Stream): $1,057.82 (plus an 1867 appropriation of $418.62).

In Waterville, General Isaac Sparrow Bangs wrote in his chapter on military history in Reverend Edwin Carey Whittemore’s 1902 centennial history, recruiting offices opened soon after the news of Fort Sumter. A Waterville College student named Charles A. Henrickson was the first to enroll, and, Bangs wrote, his example “proved so irresistibly contagious at the college that the classes and recitations were broken up” and the college temporarily closed.

Henrickson was captured at the Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. He survived the war; later in the Waterville history, Chas. A. Henrickson is listed among charter members of the Waterville Savings Bank, organized in 1869.

These Waterville soldiers became companies G and H in the 3rd Maine Infantry, Bangs wrote. After drilling in Waterville, they went to Augusta and were put under the command of regimental Colonel Oliver O. Howard. On June 5, Howard was ordered to Washington, “carrying with him, as Waterville’s first contingent, seventy-four of her boys into the maelstrom of war.”

Bangs spent years verifying the names of 421 men who either enlisted from Waterville or were Waterville natives who enlisted elsewhere. The names are included in Whittemore’s history.

Bangs added that the Maine Adjutant-General’s report says Waterville provided 525 soldiers. He offered several explanations for the discrepancy, pointing out the difficulties of accurate record-keeping.

Waterville paid $67,715 in enlistment bounties, Bangs wrote. Henry Kingsbury, in his history of Kennebec County, put the figure at $68,016 and said the state reimbursement was $19,888.33.

Linwood Lowden wrote in the history of Windsor that more than one-third of Windsor men aged 17 to 50 fought in the Civil War, most of them in the19th and 21st Maine infantry regiments.

Like other towns, Windsor paid bonuses to enlistees and, Lowden wrote, $2,663.87 “in aid to soldiers’ families…from 1862 through 1866.” He added that Windsor first went into debt during these years.

Camp Keyes, Augusta

A history of Camp Keyes found on-line says that the 70-acre site on top of Winthrop Hill, on the west side of Augusta, had been used as, and called, “the muster field” since before Maine became a state in 1820. It was still available, although the militia had become less significant, when the Civil War broke out.

On Aug. 20, 1862, Maine Adjutant General John L. Hodsdon designated the field one of Maine’s three official “rendezvous areas” for militia and volunteers and named it Camp E. D. Keyes, in honor of Major-General Erasmus D. Keyes, a Massachusetts native who moved to Kennebec County (town unspecified on line) as a young man. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1832 and fought in the Civil War until 1863, when a superior removed him from command, claiming he lacked aggressiveness.

(The other two Maine rendezvous areas were Camp Abraham Lincoln, in Portland, and Camp John Pope [honoring General John Pope from Kentucky], in Bangor.)

Thousands of Civil War soldiers from Maine passed through Camp Keyes. It also housed Maine’s only federal military hospital, named Cony Hospital in honor of Governor Samuel Cony.

After the war, the site remained a militia training ground. The State of Maine bought it in 1888. In 1893 the militia became the National Guard and continued to use the training ground, with Guard headquarters in the Capitol building until 1938.

The on-line site gives an undated description: “Small buildings were constructed of plywood for mess halls, kitchens, latrines, store houses, and lodging for senior military officers. Companies pitched their tents on pads that had been built.”

Main sources

Fairfield Historical Society Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988).
Grow, Mary M., China Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions (1984).
Hammond, Alice, History of Sidney Maine 1792-1992 (1992).
Howard, Millard, An Introduction to the Early History of Palermo, Maine (second edition, December 2015).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Lowden, Linwood H., good Land & fine Contrey but Poor roads a history of Windsor, Maine (1993).
Marriner, Ernest, Kennebec Yesterdays (1954).
North, James W., The History of Augusta (1870).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902).
Wiggin, Ruby Crosby, Albion on the Narrow Gauge (1964).

Websites, miscellaneous.

Endicott College announces local dean’s list students

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Endicott College, in Beverly, Massachusetts, the first college in the U.S. to require internships of its students, is pleased to announce its Fall 2021 dean’s list students. In order to qualify for the dean’s list, a student must obtain a minimum grade point average of 3.5, receive no letter grade below “C,” have no withdrawal grades, and be enrolled in a minimum of 12 credits for the semester.

The following students have met these requirements:

Alana York, of Palermo, majoring in business management, is the daughter of Cheryl York and Andrew York.

Kristen Dube, of Sidney, majoring in nursing, is the daughter of Sarah Dube and Robert Dube.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part 10

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Brigadier General John Chandler

by Mary Grow

Brigadier General John Chandler, profiled in the February 24 issue of The Town Line, was not the only area resident to have served in the Revolutionary army and again in 1812. Nor were these two wars the end of disagreements between the United States, and specifically the State of Maine, and Britain and British-controlled Canada.

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According to an on-line genealogy, Thaddeus Bailey (Nov. 28, 1759 – March 4, 1849) was born in Newbury, Massachusetts, served in the Revolutionary War from Lincoln County, lived in Palermo for some years and served in the War of 1812 while living in Albion.

In 1778, he was part of a Lincoln County troop sent to Providence. On June 30, 1779, he officially enlisted as a private in Capt. Timothy Heald’s company, Col. Samuel McCobb’s regiment.

(McCobb [Nov. 20, 1744 – July 30, 1791], who later became a brigadier general, was born and died in Georgetown. He had served at Bunker Hill, and led the Lincoln County militia in the unsuccessful July-August 1779 Penobscot expedition, in which Bailey participated for two months and 27 days, according to the on-line source.)

Bailey was discharged Sept. 25, 1779. The genealogy says he received a Revolutionary veteran’s pension in the amount of $30.65 annually, starting May 3, 1831.

In 1783, Bailey married Mary Knowlton, of Wiscasset. The couple moved inland to the north part of Pownalbourough, which an on-line source says is now Alna, where the first three of their 11 children were born.

In 1795 they moved inland again; Millard Howard’s Palermo history cites an 1809 record confirming on-line reports that Bailey bought (for $110) 100 acres in Sheepscot Great Pond Settlement, now Palermo.

In 1801, Bailey was among a large number of residents who signed a two-part petition to the Massachusetts General Court. The petition asked to have the settlement incorporated as a town to be named Lisbon, bounded by Harlem (later China), the Sheepscot River and Davistown (later Montville, from which Liberty was separated in 1827).

Further, the petitioners wrote, “from the new and unsettled state of their country they have a great proportion of roads to make and maintain within their aforesaid bounds and also at least ten miles of road to maintain outside of their aforesaid limits which road leads to the head of navigation on Sheepscot river, their nearest market. Wherefore, your petitioners pray that they may be exempted from paying State taxes during the term of five years next ensuing….”

(Howard went on to explain that while the Massachusetts legislators considered the request, another Maine town was incorporated as Lisbon. Sheepscot Great Pond’s clerk was Dr. Enoch Palermo Huntoon; and given the popularity of using famous cities’ names – like Lisbon — for new Maine towns, the petitioners chose Palermo as the fall-back name.

Palermo was incorporated June 23, 1804. Howard did not say how the tax exemption request was received.)

Mary Bailey’s on-line genealogy says the Baileys “were early members of the Baptist Church of Palermo, founded in 1804.”

The family soon moved again, and again inland. Census records from 1810 and 1820 show Bailey living in Fairfax (Mary died in January 1816).

Bailey served briefly and uneventfully in the War of 1812, going to Belfast Sept. 3, 1814, and coming back Sept. 14. Howard listed him among the privates in the Palermo militia (apparently he enrolled or re-enrolled there rather than in Fairfax). By then he would have been coming up on his 55th birthday.

In the 1830 and 1840 censuses, Bailey is still in the town that had become Albion in 1824. The Roll of Pensioners mentioned on line says in 1841, he was 80 years old and had returned to Palermo.

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Dean Bangs’ (May 31, 1756 – Dec. 6, 1845) Revolutionary service was summarized in the Jan. 20 issue of The Town Line. By 1812, Bangs was living in Sidney and doing business in Waterville.

In Whittemore’s history of Waterville, Bangs’ grandson, Isaac Sparrow Bangs, wrote in the military chapter that in the War of 1812 Bangs raised a company of men from Waterville and Vassalboro to serve in Major Joseph Chandler’s Artillery Company. The company was held at Augusta from Sept. 12 to Sept. 24, 1814, the period during which other Kennebec Valley units went to the coast to meet a British landing that never occurred.

(Your writer has spent a great deal of time trying to find the relationship, if any, between General John [Feb. 1, 1762 – Sept. 25, 1841] and Major Joseph Chandler. One of several on-line Chandler genealogies lists the 12 children of Joseph Chandler III and Lydia [Eastman] Chandler as including Joseph IV [1755-1785] and John [1762 – 1840]; and 1840 is as close as genealogies sometimes get to the 1841 found in on-line sources. However, if this Joseph Chandler died young in 1785, he cannot have led an artillery unit in the War of 1812.)

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Michael McNally (about 1752 – July 16, 1848) must have been among the oldest Revolutionary War veterans to fight in the War of 1812. An on-line family history calls him “a man of superior education and strong intellectual powers.”

The history says he was born in Ireland and emigrated with his parents to Pennsylvania, where his father was wealthy enough to provide for his son’s education. On May 13, 1777, he is recorded as enlisting as a gunner in the state’s artillery regiment.

On Jan. 1, 1781, McNally received “depreciation pay,” described online as negotiable, interest-bearing certificates given to military personnel to compensate for the decreased value of United States currency during their wartime service. Family stories say he left the army and served on some kind of armed ship, “whether a man-of-war or a privateer is unknown.” Later, he received a pension as a Revolutionary veteran.

Around 1784, he moved to the Kennebec Valley. In 1785, he married his first wife, Susan Pushaw (1768-1811), of Fairfield. The couple settled in the part of Winslow that became Clinton in 1795; McNally built a log cabin on the Sebasticook, the family history says.

The McNallys had nine children between 1786 and 1809. Susan Pushaw’s on-line genealogy spells her father’s name Pochard and says he was born in France. Michael and Susan’s children’s names are variously spelled Mcnally, Mcnelly, Mcnellie and Mcknelly).

Despite being a single father, when the War of 1812 was declared, the family history says: “Michael’s martial spirit was aroused, and although a man of sixty years he enlisted at Clinton, May 17, 1813, in Capt. Crossman’s company of the Thirty-fourth Regiment, U.S. Infantry, and marched to the frontier. He received a severe wound in the collarbone at Armstrong, Lower Canada, in Sept., 1813, while serving in detachment under the command of Lieut.-Col. Storrs. He was mustered out in July, 1815. For this service he received a pension.”

McNally married for the second time about 1830, to a Pittsfield widow, Jane Varnum Harriman. Her death date is unknown, but the family history says McNally spent his last years with his sons Arthur (1796-1879) and William (1798 or 1799-1886).

William McNally was a farmer in Benton. His wife, Martha Roundy (Sept 13, 1803 – summer of 1903) was the daughter of Job and Elizabeth or Betsey (Pushaw or Pushard) Roundy and the source of much of the information in the family history.

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Louis Hatch’s 1919 history of Maine includes a summary of the final settlement of the boundary between the eastern United States and adjoining Canadian provinces, an issue that troubled relations between the two countries from 1783 until 1842.

The St. Croix River had been defined as the boundary line by the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolution. But the St, Croix has three branches, and the two countries disagreed over which was the “real” St. Croix.

The Jay Treaty of 1794 (properly, the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America) created a three-man commission whose members unanimously and permanently defined the St. Croix River boundary on Oct. 25, 1798, Hatch wrote.

The boundary north and west from the head of the St. Croix still remained undefined. The United States claimed an area reaching north almost to the St. Lawrence River; Britain, on behalf of Canada, claimed a good part of what is now northern Maine.

The Dec. 24, 1814, Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812 included a clause establishing a commission to define this part of the boundary, from the source of the St. Croix River around the “northwest angle of Nova Scotia,” and south and west along the highlands that separated the watersheds of the St. Lawrence from the watersheds of rivers that ran into the Atlantic, all the way to the headwaters of the Connecticut River.

The treaty further provided that if the two commissioners disagreed or failed to act, the boundary question should be submitted to “a friendly sovereign or State.”

The commission was activated in the spring of 1816. Hatch wrote that after five years, its members had not even agreed on a map showing what areas each country claimed. The commission dissolved.

On Sept. 29, 1827, the United States and Great Britain agreed to submit the dispute to the King William I of the Netherlands. Hatch summarized the king’s responsibility: to interpret the 1783 treaty provisions by fitting them to the geography. The king needed to locate for the disputants the headwaters of the St. Croix, the “northwest angle of Nova Scotia,” the significant highlands and the “Northwesternmost head of the Connecticut River.”

King William issued his judgment on Jan. 10, 1831. Hatch called it “a compromise, pure and simple.”

Between the 1816 commission’s creation and King William’s 1831 report, Maine had become a state, with its own legislature and representation in the United States Congress. An increasing number of United States citizens were expanding settlements in Maine, as far north as the St. John River valley.

The 1831 Maine legislature established a committee to review King William’s judgment; the ensuing resolutions strongly condemned it. In June 1832, the United States Senate refused to ratify it.

The 1831 Maine legislature also incorporated the Town of Madawaska on the St. John River, including, Hatch wrote, the present Madawaska south of the river and some land north of the river. The area north of the river is now Upper Madawaska, New Brunswick, he said.

Hatch quoted part of Governor Samuel Smith’s 1832 annual message summarizing what happened next. The governor said Madawaska residents had organized their town, apparently acting before the state’s approval, and had elected town officials and a legislative representative. New Brunswick officials, “accompanied with a military force,” had arrested and imprisoned many residents.

Smith had appealed to the United States government. Though neither he nor federal authorities were sure the Madawaska residents had acted legally, President Andrew Jackson promptly intervened, and the prisoners were freed.

In following years, Maine governors and legislatures continued to push for a resolution of the boundary issue that would get the British out of the state. Hatch quotes from an 1837 Maine legislative resolution that referred to “British usurpations and encroachments” and said:

“Resolved, that [British] pretensions so groundless and extravagant indicate a spirit of hostility which we had no reason to expect from a nation with whom we are at peace.”

How that peace turned into a war, or at least a pseudo war, will be next week’s topic.

Main sources

Hatch, Louis Clinton, ed., Maine: A History 1919 (facsimile, 1974).
Howard, Millard, An Introduction to the Early History of Palermo, Maine (second edition, December 2015).
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902)

Website, miscellaneous.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part 7

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USS Adams, as a 28-gun frigate. Below, rebuilt as a sloop of war.

by Mary Grow

War of 1812
Hampden and Wiscasset

Two events in September 1814 involved central Kennebec Valley residents directly in the war against the British, fortunately without recorded casualties.

The first and less significant began in Hampden, where British forces sailed up the Penobscot River to capture the USS Adams. The Adams began life in June 1799 as a 28-gun frigate; after service against the French in the West Indies and the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean, she was mostly inactive from 1803 to 1812, ending up in 1811 as a receiving ship (where new sailors live before they’re assigned to their ships) at the Washington, D.C., Navy yard.

In June 1812, Wikipedia says, the Adams was “cut in half amidships and lengthened 15 feet in the course of being completely rebuilt as a sloop of war.” After adventures on both sides of the Atlantic, on Aug. 17, 1814, she ran aground at Isle au Haut, off Stonington.

“Skillful seamanship aided by a rising tide managed to refloat the ship,” Wikipedia says. Leaking badly, she got up the Penobscot to Hampden and was being repaired when a British expedition followed upriver to seize her.

USS Adams rebuilt as a sloop of war.

On Sept. 3, her commander, Captain Charles Morris, chose to sink and burn her to keep her from the British. Morris and his crew headed through the wilderness from the Penobscot toward the Kennebec. Henry Kingsbury, in his Kennebec County history, gave a lively account of their adventures in his section on the Town of Clinton, though he misdated the episode as 1812.

The sailors got to the Sebasticook, found some bateaux and started downriver toward civilization, he wrote. The Clinton area was already buzzing with rumors of Indian attacks, so when one early afternoon Jerusha Doe and Polly Richardson saw boats with unknown armed men, they ran to the nearest house screaming, “The Indians are coming!”

Word spread, and residents headed for Winslow, seeking protection in what was left of Fort Halifax. It took until evening to identify the intruders as friends and welcome them, Kingsbury wrote, and a lame man who couldn’t escape fast enough “lay hidden all night in a potato trench on his father’s farm.”

The Adams crewmen left their boats at Clinton Village, walked to Noble’s Ferry opposite Nye’s Corner, in Fairfield, crossed the Kennebec and got a ride to Waterville from a man named Isaac Chase, whose son still talked about the event in the 1890s, Kingsbury said. (Other sources give other accounts of their cross-country hike.)

Wikipedia says Morris and most of the crew got back to their Portsmouth, New Hampshire, base by Sept. 9. Within another week the entire crew was present, “a source of great satisfaction for Morris.”

The British forces, meanwhile, killed a few local people and did a great deal of damage in Hampden, Bangor and other Penobscot River towns. An on-line source says the memory of Hampden led local residents to support Maine’s separation from Massachusetts, which had not protected them, and to continue opposition to the British, evidenced in the Aroostook War.

According to another on-line source, the Adams sat at the bottom of the Penobscot until 1870, when she was raised, repaired in Boston and began a new career “as a Navy sailing trainer ship, sailing all over the world before being retired in 1920.”

Other British ships hovered threateningly off the coast around Wiscasset. In the history of Fairfield, the writers named five residents who, “realizing the hazard to the Town if the British had control of the Kennebec,” joined the defense at Wiscasset: Samuel Bates, James Lander, Henry Lawrence, James Lawrence and William Lawrence.

The implication is that they went as individuals. If they did, they soon enlisted. Military records in the Maine genealogy archives show Samuel Bates at Wiscasset in Captain James Child’s Winslow militia company (part of Colonel Herbert Moore’s regiment) from Sept. 12 to Sept. 27, and in Joel Wellington’s Albion company, Colonel Elnathan Sherwin’s regiment, from Sept. 24 to Nov. 10.

James Lander and Henry Lawrence served in Sergeant Ansel Tobey’s detached company from Sidney, also under Sherwin’s command, at Augusta from Sept. 13 to Sept. 24. Lander and all three Lawrences are listed in another of Sherwin’s units, Captain Stephen Lovejoy’s Sidney-based company that served at Wiscasset from Sept. 24 to Nov. 10.

It could well have been the presence of the British navy that led to the Sunday, Sept. 10, special town meeting in Augusta. Historian James North wrote that voters unanimously authorized selectmen to buy powder, tent material, “camp kettles and small arms”; they approved a “special tax” to raise $500 for the supplies.

Their apprehension was justified the next day. On Sunday, Sept 11, North wrote, the Wiscasset Committee of Safety sent an urgent message upriver asking for troops to repel an expected British landing.

Augusta’s General Henry Sewall sent Colonel John Stone’s and Colonel Ellis Sweet’s militia regiments and the Hallowell Artillery to Wiscasset post haste – the first men arrived Monday morning. After ordering four more regiments to stand by along the river, Sewall joined the Wiscasset group, in camp at Edgecomb.

Colonel Stone was from Gardiner, and nine of the 13 large companies he led came from Augusta, Hallowell or Gardiner, with inland companies from Winthrop and Litchfield and two down-river ones from Pittstown. This regiment was sent home Sept. 25, after two weeks’ service.

Colonel Sweet was in charge of two regiments. One, of seven companies, came from Readfield, Farmington and Wilton and served at Bath through the second week in November. The other consisted of 11 companies with soldiers from Fayette, Lewiston, Mount Vernon, New Vineyard, Readfield, Wayne and Winthrop. These men were released in late September; most companies were sent to Wiscasset, but one stayed in Monmouth.

The Augusta-area regiments were joined by other militiamen from the Kennebec Valley. Many local histories, on line and in book form, list regiments, companies and often privates in each company by name.

Most regiments had two or three officers, four corporals, four sergeants, one or two musicians and between 30 and 50 privates (one had only five; others had 60 or more). Some had waiters.

(An on-line article from the Journal of the American Revolution explains that waiters, also called “servants, batmen or ‘bowman,'” were officers’ personal servants. At least in the Revolutionary army, they could not be boys or old men, and they were expected to accompany their officer wherever he went. In May 1779, General George Washington ordered that the waiters drill with the fighting men; but by the end of May, the article says, he changed his mind and said they should not be armed.)

Colonel Moore, from Winslow, led 11 companies raised in Fairfax (Albion), Harlem (China), Clinton, Vassalboro and Winslow. The majority of these companies served at Wiscasset from Sept. 12 to Sept. 27.

An on-line Maine genealogy source lists Colonel Moore’s companies, naming officers and men, as follows.

Lieutenant Benjamin J. Radcliffe’s company, no home town given, was one of the largest: ranks included an ensign, four corporals, four sergeants, two musicians and 57 privates.

Captain Daniel Wyman, no home town (another on-line source says he commanded one of Vassalborough’s four companies), had a lieutenant and an ensign under him, four corporals and four sergeants but only one musician for his smaller company.

Captain James Wing’s company and Captain Jeremiah Farwell’s companies were raised in Vassalborough.

Captain Joel Wellington’s company came from Fairfax (later Albion). Six Strattons were in this company: Ensign Ebenezer, Sergeant Charles, privates Austin, James and Paul and waiter Ness.

Captain Benjamin Robinson’s company was also from Fairfax. One of the smallest companies, with about two dozen privates, it had a full complement of officers and NCOs and two musicians.

Captain John Moore’s company came from Clinton, as did Captain Irial Hall’s company. This writer has not been able to find out whether Captain Moore was related to Colonel Moore.

Captain Robert Fletcher’s company, another large one, was raised in Harlem (later China). These men stayed at Wiscasset until Oct. 1, 1814. The company included Jacob, Joseph, Thomas and Zachariah Norton and Daniel, Jonathan, Nathaniel and Samuel Gray.

Captain Daniel Crowell’s company was also from Harlem. Jabish Crowell was a sergeant; David and John, Jr., were privates.

Captain James L. Child’s company was from Winslow.

The town of Palermo sent two militia companies to Belfast from Sept. 13 to Sept. 24. Millard Howard listed the men involved — some apparently from nearby towns — in his Palermo history: Colonel John Commings’ regiment included companies headed by Captain Moses Burley (or Burleigh), whose men were mostly from North Palermo, and Captain Job Lord.

The Palermo militiaman had been on standby since June. When finally called to action, they considered the government pay – about $10.50 a month, Howard said – not enough to risk their lives for and asked town officials to raise more. Town officials refused.

Colonel Sherwin was in charge of eight large companies of “drafted militia” (the term is not explained) from a wider geographic range – Starks, Bingham and Canaan, as well as Wellington’s Albion company; Lovejoy’s and Amasa Lesley’s Sidney companies; and Jeremiah Farwell’s Vassalboro company. Most of these companies had 60 or more privates plus the usual complement of officers.

Wellington’s was the largest, with 75 privates. There were five Hawes, David, Ebenezer, Isaiah, James and Seth, all privates; and six Richardsons, ensign Israel, sergeant Robert and privates Andrew, Ebenezer, Seth and Seth, 2nd.

Captain Tobey from Sidney was assisted only by Sergeant Elias Burgess and Corporal Joseph Nye, and had 13 privates. Notes after six of the names, including Burgess and Nye, say the men were credited with either eight or 11 days of service.

These companies went to Wiscasset and Edgecomb Sept. 24 and stayed until Nov. 10.

Another regiment under Colonel Sherwin was moved to Augusta to replace the local troops sent to the coast. The colonel and six of his nine officers were from Waterville (the other three are listed as residents of Fairfield, Sidney and Winslow); the 10 companies of enlisted men came from Belgrade, Dearborn, Fairfield, Sidney and Waterville. (Dearborn was a town from 1812 until 1843, gradually being divided among Waterville, Belgrade and Smithfield.)

In their coastal positions, North wrote, the Augusta-area regiments made camp at Edgecomb, across the Sheepscot River from Wiscasset. On Sept. 23, a sentry rode into camp with the news that “an English man-of-war was in the river evidently preparing to land troops.”

Units from Gardiner, Hallowell, Augusta and Winslow, commanded by Major Samuel Howard, hurried the six or eight miles to the expected landing point, “slept on their arms at night” and when no enemy appeared the next morning, went back to Edgecomb.

The whole affair turned out to be a false alarm. Most of the militia units returned to their home towns before the end of September; Sewall’s and one other division spent 40 days on the coast.

Counting the companies and averaging the number of officers and men per company leads to the conclusion that about 3,000 armed men should have converged on the area around Wiscasset and Edgecomb. The 1810 census listed Wiscasset’s year-round population as 2,083 and Edgecomb’s as 205.

How many men actually went, and how many decided they could not leave their farms in mid-September for an indefinite period? How many teen-aged boys joined them, and how many stayed with the women and younger children? How many wives encouraged, or perhaps joined, their husbands, and how many begged them not to go? These are the sorts of questions only the most diligent – or luckiest — historian can sometimes answer.

Main sources

Fairfield Historical Society, Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988).
Howard, Millard, An Introduction to the Early History of Palermo, Maine (second edition, December 2015).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
North, James W., The History of Augusta (1870).

Websites, miscellaneous.

Endicott College announces local dean’s list students

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Endicott College, in Beverly, Massachusetts, the first college in the U.S. to require internships of its students, is pleased to announce its Fall 2021 dean’s list students. In order to qualify for the dean’s list, a student must obtain a minimum grade point average of 3.5, receive no letter grade below “C,” have no withdrawal grades, and be enrolled in a minimum of 12 credits for the semester.

The following students have met these requirements:

Alana York, of Palermo, majoring in business management, is the daughter of Cheryl York and Andrew York.

Kristen Dube, of Sidney, majoring in nursing, is the daughter of Sarah Dube and Robert Dube.

Public hearing regarding proposed contracting with Liberty Ambulance

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(Photo courtesy of Palermo Community Library)

The Palermo Select Board will be holding a public hearing on Friday, February 11, at 6 pm. The meeting will take place at the Palermo Community Library, located at 2789 Route 3, in Palermo. The main topic of discussion will be the proposed contracting with Liberty Ambulance Service as an emergency service provider for Palermo. Chief Komandt (Palermo) and Chief Gillespie (Liberty) will present their proposal and will be happy to answer all your questions.

For those who prefer to attend via Zoom, the link is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85682277706?pwd=S0RrU2V2cmk5alQ4OXptK3pEa3BuQT09, Meeting ID: 856 8227 7706, Passcode: 350168

All are encouraged to attend. Palermo residents will vote on the proposed contract with Liberty Ambulance Services at the Annual Town Meeting in March.

For more information call 993-6088 or email palermomelibrary@gmail.com or visit www.palermo.lib.me.us.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part 5

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by Mary Grow

Left, In 1780, at the age of 15, Samuel Downing joined the Continental Army. He served with the 2nd New Hamp­shire Regiment guarding forts on the New York frontier. Center, Lemuel Cook enlisted in 1781 when he was 16 years old. He served at the Battle of Brandy­wine, was present at the Surrender at York­town and was selected by Baron von Steuben to join the New York City campaign. Right, Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Albert Gallatin served as a volunteer under Col. John Allan, commander of the fort of Machias in Maine, according to his obituary. He later served three terms in the Pennsylvania House of Repre­sentatives. He also became the Secre­tary of the Treasury, served as the U.S. Minister to France and helped to established New York University.

The Revolutionary War ended in 1783 and photography was invented in the 1820s and 1830s, so most of the veterans of the war didn’t live long enough to have their portraits made. A handful of them did. In 1864, 81 years after the war, Rev. E. B. Hillard and two photographers embarked on a trip through New England to visit, photograph, and interview the six known surviving veterans, all of whom were over 100 years old. The glass plate photos were printed into a book titled The Last Men of the Revolution.

These are three of the Revolutionary War veterans who were over 100 years old when photographed.

Palermo, Sidney, Vassalboro

Palermo, Sidney and Vassalboro, like the central Kennebec cities and towns in the previous two articles in this series, had Revolutionary War veterans among their early settlers.

The grave of Isaac Worthen.

In Milton Dowe’s Palermo history, he identified Isaac Worthen (March 4, 1762 – March 1, 1841; later the name became Worthing), one of two brothers who moved to Palermo (then Great Pond Settlement) from New Hampshire, as a “hero of the Revolution.” An on-line search suggests he took the phrase from an article about Worthen, written by Samuel Copp Worthen (probably a descendant), in the Sprague Journal of Maine History, Vol. XII, No. 1, January-Mach 1924.

According to the article, Isaac’s father, Major Jacob Worthen, was a lieutenant in Captain Titus Salter’s company at Fort Washington, on Pierce Island at the mouth of the Piscataquis River, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The fort was designed by Capt. Ezekiel Worthen, Jacob’s father and Isaac’s grandfather.

Isaac Worthen was in Salter’s company by May 1777, when he was 15. The history article says he wanted a berth on the USS Raleigh, which was going to France to buy ammunition. Turned down as too young, he jumped aboard as the ship sailed; the captain let him stay and made him a marine effective Aug. 1, 1777.

Worthen served for the duration of the war in different companies. Millard Howard added in his town history that Worthen was a corporal in a militia unit before his 17th birthday; Dowe wrote that one of his posts was West Point, in 1780.

In 1782, he married Judith Currier and they came to Palermo, where, an on-line genealogy says, their son Jonathan was born in 1785. An on-line photo of Worthen’s gravestone in Palermo’s Old Greeley Corner Cemetery shows his name; the words “Marine Continental Marines Rev War” on four lines; and his dates of birth and death.

Howard identified another Revolutionary veteran, Sir John Bradstreet, who was “nearly 40 years old when he came to Palermo with his family in 1786” and settled at the north end of Sheepscot Pond. His descendants included Clair Bradstreet, who chaired the town select board for more than 40 years in the 20th century. Bradstreet and his wife Freda (Worthing) Bradstreet lived in the Worthing House, on North Palermo Road, now owned by the Palermo Historical Society.

Thaddeus Bailey (1759 – 1849) is identified in a genealogy found on line as a Revolutionary War veteran who lived in Palermo, Albion and Palermo again. Born in Newbury, Massachusetts, he enlisted at 18 as a private in the Massachusetts militia company that spent three days at Pownalborough in September 1777 “in the defense and retaking of a mastship in the Sheepscot River.”

In 1778, he was in a unit that enlisted from Lincoln County and served in Providence, Rhode Island. From June 30 to Sept. 25, 1779, he was a private in Colonel (later Brigadier General) Samuel Rogers McCobb’s Lincoln County militia regiment and participated in the unsuccessful attempt to oust the British from Fort George, in Penobscot Bay.

(General McCobb [Nov. 20, 1744 – July 30, 1791] was born and died in Georgetown, Province of Maine. He served throughout the Revolution, at least part of the time with the Lincoln County Militia. He was a captain at Bunker Hill, a colonel on Benedict Arnold’s expedition to Québec and in charge at Penobscot after the British finally left in 1784.)

After the war, Bailey returned to Pownalborough until 1795, when he bought 100 acres for $110 in Sheepscot Great Pond (now Palermo). He and his wife Mary, whom he married in 1783 and who died before 1810, had 11 children. Census records from 1810 through 1840 show him living in Albion; a record of Revolutionary War pensioners lists him in Palermo in 1841. His pension, which started May 3, 1831, was $30.65 a year, according to the genealogy.

* * * * * *

Alice Hammond claimed to have found another Isaac (besides Isaac Worthen) who enlisted as a teenager: in her history of Sidney, she said of Isaac I. Cowan (March 14, 1758 – July 19, 1828): “At age fourteen he went into the Revolutionary War and served three years.” However, by this writer’s reckoning Cowan would have turned 15 in March 1773, two years before the fighting at Lexington and Concord.

An on-line site lists yet another young volunteer who ended up in Sidney: Massachusetts-born Jabez Rollins or Rollings (about 1767 – Oct. 4, 1842, or Oct. 28, 1847 [sources differ]) joined the New Hampshire Line in 1782, when he was 15. After the Revolution, he was in a Massachusetts regiment from February through June 1787 and helped suppress Shay’s Rebellion, the website continues; but since Shay’s Rebellion, an uprising by farmers protesting economic hardship in western Massachusetts, was suppressed by February, his role must have been limited.

On July 15, 1792, Rollings married Lydia Haskell (or Harskell) in Bradford, Massachusets. By 1795, they were in Mercer, Maine; by 1780, in New Sharon; and from 1810 on in Sidney. They had at least five children.

Capt. Abiel Lovejoy

Captain Abiel (or Abial) Lovejoy (Dec. 16, 1731 – July 4 [probably], 1811) was one of Sidney’s best-known veterans; Hammond referred to him as “Squire Lovejoy, the old slaveholder.” Born in Andover, Massachusetts, he married Mary Brown, in Charlestown, in December 1758. He was part-owner of trading ships, and later owner and captain of a small fleet based in Charleston. Hammond wrote that his ventures extended north to “the Bay of Fundy and south to the West Indies,” and that Mary sometimes sailed with him.

In 1760, Hammond said, he bought land in Pownalborough; in 1761, he and Mary and their first two children moved to what became Dresden, where he was a merchant, a ferry owner, a shipbuilder and “involved in public office and in land transactions.” In June 1763, Hammond wrote, he was one of the first three men to receive land in Sidney (then Vassalboro) from the Kennebec Proprietors.

In 1764 Lovejoy, in partnership with Mary’s father Nathaniel Brown, bought “half a saw mill and adjoining land and a half interest in a dam” on what was later Hastings Brook. In 1776, the Lovejoys moved to a farm in Sidney overlooking the river.

Hammond wrote that Lovejoy was in the Massachusetts militia from 1755, and from 1758 to 1771 his assignment was in Lincoln County, in what is now Maine – hence, presumably, his interest in acquiring land there. She added, “He also served in the American Revolutionary War.”

But she gave no details of his Revolutionary service, instead listing wartime activities in Sidney: in 1777 petitioning for an extension of the postal service and in 1778 serving on a committee to choose the post rider; in 1781 becoming Justice of the Peace; and “between 1776 and 1798” holding many other local offices.

A detailed on-line source adds that in 1776 he was a member of the pro-Revolutionary Committee of Safety and Correspondence, and in 1779 on “a committee to settle with the women on account of supplies ordered to the soldiers [sic] families by the General Court.” He was also highway surveyor in 1776 and 1777; selectman in 1779 and 1780; in 1780 town meeting moderator in 1780; and town treasurer and a county convention delegate in 1781.

Apparently he was a delegate to the Massachusetts General Court during the Revolutionary years, too, because the on-line sources says he “had been elected year after year” before he was challenged in 1781 and 1782, partly on the ground that he was not a supporter of independence.

The unnamed author of the on-line piece disagrees, calling Lovejoy “a fiery American patriot.” Evidence cited includes Tory Parson Jacob Bailey (mentioned in the history article in the Jan. 13 of The Town Line) naming him an instigator of mobs that attacked Bailey and other Loyalists, and Lovejoy’s willingness to give officers and soldiers in Benedict Arnold’s 1775 army hard money in return for their already-depreciating paper currency.

“Captain Abiel Lovejoy lost some $30,000 this way and afterwards papered a room in the Lovejoy homestead with this ‘worthless money,'” the on-line account says.

The Lovejoys had eight children before they moved to Sidney, and Hammond wrote six more were born there. The family lived in an elaborate house and owned several slaves, three of whom were buried in the small family cemetery on their farm, which Hammond called the “oldest cemetery in Sidney.”

Hammond also wrote about the Reynolds family. Nathaniel Reynolds IV, Esquire, settled in 1779 on the south end of West River Road in what was then Vassalboro, with his family. He served in the Revolutionary Army and “loaned money to the government for the cause”; and five sons “were all Revolutionary soldiers,” Hammond said.

* * * * * *

One of Vassalboro’s pre-war settlers and veterans was Charles B. Webber (January 1741 – Nov. 20, 1819). Born in Old York, Maine, he fought in the French and Indian Wars in 1757 and 1759. During the Revolution, an on-line genealogy says he is recorded as serving as second lieutenant in the Second Lincoln County Regiment of the Massachusetts militia, which was organized in 1776 and sent to Riverton, Rhode Island, in 1777.

Webber married his first wife, Hannah Call, in 1761 in Dresden. In 1765 they moved to Vassalboro, settling in the Riverside area. The on-line genealogy says their second child, a daughter named Sarah, was the first white child born in the town.

The same website says Webber was Vassalboro’s first treasurer, in 1771, and served again in 1776, when he was also the third town clerk; in 1773 and from 1792 to 1796 was a selectman and in 1790 was one of the committee that laid out Vassalboro’s first nine school districts.

A search for Webber’s name in Vassalboro’s extremely valuable on-line cemetery database confirmed his burial site in the Webber Family Cemetery at Riverside.

One of Webber’s company commanders was Dennis Getchell (1723 or 1724 – early January 1792), who bought land in the Riverside area of Vassalboro in August 1770.

Getchell was born in Berwick and is identified first as a major, perhaps from service in the French and Indian Wars. He must have moved to Vassalboro as soon as he bought his land, because the website says he was elected selectman at the first town meeting, April 26, 1771, and many times thereafter.

On July 23, 1776, he was commissioned a captain in the Second Lincoln County Regiment, and led his 50-man company at Riverton in 1777. In 1786, he was elected a member of the Massachusetts General Court.

Amos Childs (July 5, 1764 – Feb. 19, 1847) was a Massachusetts native who spent at least part of his time in the Revolutionary force as a drummer. He served three years and was honorably discharged in 1783. On Nov. 1, 1801, he married Hannah Webber (born in 1780 in Vassalboro, Charles and Hannah [Call] Webber’s daughter) in Vassalboro; they had “at least two children,” an on-line source says.

Hannah died Feb. 14, 1860; she and Amos are buried side by side in the North Vassalboro Village Cemetery.

Main sources

Dowe, Milton E., History Town of Palermo Incorporated 1884 (1954).
Hammond, Alice, History of Sidney Maine 1792-1992 (1992).
Howard, Millard, An Introduction to the Early History of Palermo, Maine (second edition, December 2015).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).

Websites, miscellaneous.

PFAS: The “forever chemicals” making more headlines

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Space-filling model of the perfluorooctanesulfonic acid molecule, also known as PFOS, a fluorosurfactant and global pollutant.

by Pam McKenney

Many of you may have recently seen an article posted by the Town of Palermo about PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” and learned that the DEP would be investigating sites in our town. During the fall of 2021, you may also remember local headlines like this: “Toxic Water in Fairfield: Residents with drilled wells deal with sky high levels of PFAS.” PFAS are man-made chemicals known as per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances. They are a byproduct of plastics that resist degradation to the extreme that they are referred to as “forever chemicals.” They are linked to a number of health problems, and they are showing up in our well water and in our food supply. According to a Fairfield-area DEP investigation fifty-two wells were tested and found contaminated, some with rates as high as 1800 parts per trillion (new legislation calls for 20 parts per trillion as safe).

The article on the Town of Palermo site, composed by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), asserts that this is not just a Fairfield problem. Truth is: PFAS are everywhere, from the peaks of Mt. Everest to the bottom of our oceans, including Palermo. The Maine Department of Agriculture first identified the problem in Fairfield through a milk test from a local dairy farm. Further testing revealed the chemicals existed in drilled well water, chicken eggs raised in infected sites, and even prompted the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IF&W) to issue a “Do Not Eat” advisory for areas in Fairfield when excessive levels of PFAS were found when five of eight harvested deer were tested.

By their very nature, PFASs are here to stay and will be showing up in more headlines and in human bloodstreams. The post on the Town of Palermo website “A Brief History of PFAS (in Palermo)” Town of Palermo website, outlines Palermo’s status with this toxic substance. It is necessary to educate ourselves about the thousands of chemicals in PFAS and limit our exposure from products like: grease-resistant paper, fast food containers/wrappers, microwave popcorn bags, pizza boxes, and candy wrappers, nonstick cookware, stain resistant coatings used on carpets, upholstery, and other fabrics, water resistant clothing, and fire retardant materials. Because PFAS are at low levels in some foods and in the environment (air, water, soil, etc.) completely eliminating exposure is unlikely according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

Although these products contribute to contamination, the most common way in which PFAS can infiltrate groundwater in Maine is through the spread of sludge and septage on fields. The DEP defines these materials as:

  • sludge; a byproduct of wastewater treatment and waste from pulp and paper mills.
  • septage; a fluid mix of sewage solids, liquids, and sludge of municipal origin.

When you call to have your septic system pumped, it must be disposed of. Wastewater treatment plants do not store treated materials indefinitely; it has to go somewhere. The volume of sludge and septage production is prodigious and must be managed properly.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) offers an online map that charts the locations of approved land application sites and updates as more information becomes available. Among the hundreds of identified locations in Maine, this map shows three licensed application sites in Palermo, but the DEP cautions that “not all locations statewide were utilized and site status will be confirmed based on actual spreading records.” Testing for PFAS is complicated and expensive and currently has to be sent out of state for results, however, test kits are available through DEP. Additionally, fish test results from dozens of Maine lakes are reported on the map. Being from Palermo, I noted that a 2014 test result derived from a “skinless filet” was found to have the chemical PFOA (Perfluorooctane sulfonamide, PFOA info). It is unclear who collected the sample and why, although the “concentration level” was listed at “0.0.” A conversation with Mike Jakubowski at ME DEP indicated that this is a collaborative effort among departments and “testing of Tier One sites may extend through the end of 2023.”

The DEP has categorized one sludge application site in Palermo as a “Tier One” location, which means it will be investigated and sampled. A Tier One site has specific criteria: involves the application of 10,000 cubic yards or more of sludge to the land, have homes within a ½ mile of the application, is likely to have PFAS in the sludge based on the sources and contributors of the sludge. While the material used in Palermo was similar to the Fairfield sites, the volume applied was substantially less: over 147,000 cubic yards in Fairfield, but only about 5,000 cu/y here, and only for a period of about five years, from 1997-2002. The DEP website includes a table with dozens of Maine towns currently identified as areas with the need for immediate testing. Despite these concerns, according to current laws and regulations, DEP can test land and water “by permission only,” and the spread of septage and sludge continues to be permitted through the DEP.

So who is responsible for the problem? These chemicals get into our air, water, and soil through human consumption. Consumers assume that these FDA-approved products are safe, that testing and regulation makes the spread of sludge safe. It is not safe and we continue to understand how to limit exposure and minimize the damage.

Manufacturers like 3M and Dupont have known for decades the potential risks and toxic effects of PFAS. Areas of our country where these and many other chemical companies operate are highly contaminated and municipalities are seeking compensation for clean up and for legislation to hold corporations accountable. Here is recent testimony related to PFAS for the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform. I also recommend the documentary The Devil We Know concerning Dupont and PFAS contamination. Organizations like EWG (Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization) provide information and support these efforts for reform and action. For more about the illnesses that may be linked to exposure, consider these sites: EPA website and Natural Resources Defense Council.

We will be forever living with these “forever chemicals.” Although the human body is an amazing structure of systems that can tolerate exposure to an array of substances, there are things we can do to coexist with PFASs as safely as possible. We can stop assuming products are safe and demand rigorous, responsible government oversight. We can resist attitudes that value deregulation and promote corporate profit over human life and environmental protection. We can support citizens and community activists who seek change and advocate for research. We can educate ourselves. Here are further actions recommended by various biomonitoring sites.

  • Include plenty of variety in your (and your child’s diet), and limit foods in grease-repellent wrappers and containers.
  • Avoid products labeled as stain- or water-resistant, such as carpets, furniture, and clothing.
  • Check labels of household and personal care products; avoid those with “fluoro” ingredients. Contact the manufacturer if you can’t find the ingredients on the label. Demand safe products and testing. Boycott those that are questionable.
  • If you choose to use protective sprays, sealants, polishes, waxes, or similar products, make sure you have enough ventilation and follow other safety precautions.
  • Because PFASs can come out of products and collect in dust: Wash your and your child’s hands often, especially before preparing or eating food. Clean floors regularly, using a wet mop or HEPA vacuum if possible, and use a damp cloth to dust.
  • Contact DEP if you have concerns about your drinking water or live less than a half mile from a site with a history of sludge spread. Request a test.
  • Contact your legislator to support action aimed at zero exposure and support LD1911 which refines “loading rate” calculations (that amount of PFAS allowed in treated materials). Testimony from Maine hearing 1/24/22 discussing LD1911-concerning PFAS in Drinking Water .
  • To prevent PFAS and other toxins from entering groundwater, avoid flushing or improperly disposing of chemicals and pharmaceuticals. These toxins do not disappear when they go down the drain.

Above all, strive to be involved and work to preserve our towns and our world for future generations.

Pam McKenney, a Palermo resident, is a free lance writer, and teacher at Erskine Academy, in South China. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Sheepscot Lake Assn., and is not associated with any agencies or organizations mentioned in the article. She may be contacted at pamckenney@yahoo.com.

Katrina Smith announces run for Maine House

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Katrina Smith

Katrina Smith, a Republican from Palermo, has announced her run for State Representative for District 62; China, Palermo, Somerville, Windsor and Hibberts Gore.

Katrina, a real estate broker and small business owner is excited to meet her constituents and listen to the concerns and hopes they have for Maine.

“I care deeply for what is happening to Mainers which is why I have chosen to commit myself 100 percent to winning this district for Republicans. In the past two years Maine has faced a rapid loss of freedoms, one party legislation, jobs being lost and our elderly being abandoned. Our children have undergone undue stress and a severe loss of education that must be reversed. Mainers are now facing extraordinary cost of living increases which deeply worry families, and I cannot sit by and let it happen. The time to be quiet is far past and we must elect officials who will speak loudly for the people of Maine. I promise to be that person.

“I have spent my life in Maine and have lived in Palermo for the past seven years with my children attending the local elementary school and Erskine Academy, worshiping in local churches and enjoying the natural resources that abound in our area. We call this area home because we love the hard working people who believe in the way life should be. I am running because we need to ensure future generations can recognize the Maine we have always loved.”

In 2020 Katrina was a Republican candidate for District #96 against a two- time Democrat incumbent. After speaking to thousands of people and working every day to listen to constituents she won five out of seven towns and lost by only 67 votes. In 2021 Katrina became chairman of the Waldo County Republicans and focused on giving hope in tumultuous times, educating the public on pending legislation and working, with her team, to prepare for 2022 by raising the most money to elect Republicans of any county in Maine.

A graduate of Gordon College, she and her husband Mike have five mostly grown children and two granddaughters.

For more information you may visit www.katrinaformaine.com or on Facebook under Katrina Smith for Maine.