by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

The only recent news I have received in time to get it printed is the following: Support your community. The Embden Community Center’s Neighbor Thrift Shop needs your help. Volunteers are needed in the Thrift Shop on Wednesdays 9 a.m. to noon, and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. All Thrift Shop proceeds support the ongoing maintenance of the Community Center. As a volunteer you will get a first look at the fabulous donations we receive and a discount on your purchases. Thanks so much Carol.

In order to get any news in on time, I have to receive it by Sunday.

Those of you who read this column, know that I have been going back in time to hopefully send out news of the Good Old Days that you might enjoy in these troubled times. This week this news was published in the paper that I was writing for at that time….. the Somerset Gazette, in Skowhegan, on October 8, 1993, entitled, Rafting & More The Kennebec River, by Marilyn and Chandra Rogers.

“It came right so that I could go down to the Evergreens Campground on Wednesday morning and watch as students from Carrabec High School started on their journey down the Kennebec. The river lay heavy with a cold fog as guides from Unicorn Rafting Expeditions made sure the 36 rafts were ready for the young voyagers about to arrive in their assigned school buses. As each bus arrived, names were called for the students to embark in raft number one and so on down through the numbers and students waded in, rather gingerly at times as the water was crisp that morning. Everything was very well planned and the students were great. I heard the guy calling off the names of the students exclaim, “This is fantastic!” Along with the fun and comradeship, the students learned of the importance of the river economically and environmentally to this region.

I wanted to get an idea of the trip through a student’s eyes so asked granddaughter, Chandra to write her views of this different learning process and she said she had thought of writing a letter so that you, the taxpayer, wouldn’t be disturbed at this new method of teaching and I think she puts it so well as she writes. (The following words are written by Chandra) … “Rafting on the Kennebec”…. When I first heard the idea of the whole school of Carrabec rafting the Kennebeck River, I was surprised and excited at the same time. The idea of a whole high school working together as one unit was something new and different at Carrabec.

The week started out with a day trip on Monday of traveling around the Kennebec region seeing sites of importance and landmarks. Mixed in alphabetical order, we traveled on several buses to different stops of interest. We then all learned about Wyman Dam, eating there at lunch. The last stop was at the Piper Farm. We had an entire tour and saw many demonstrations on the care of cows, soil nutrition, farming equipment and how the river affects the land and soil around the farm. The trip ended with everyone receiving a hayride back to the farm.

On Wednesday, everyone arrived at school dressed and ready to go in warm clothes for our trip down the river. We then met with our rafting crew and waited to be told to get on the bus. When they called my boat, #27, we received our lifejackets and paddles and started off. When arriving at Evergreens Campground we were directed to our boat and jumped in to start our trip. Working together, the students paddled along in the direction of the lead boat, which had a guide. Then we traveled along the gently flowing river for quite a time until we reached an island designated for eating the cookout lunch prepared by the cafeteria cooks. After relaxing and talking with friends, we shoved off to continue in the last hour of our trip. When we arrived at the dump road in North Anson, we paddled the rafts to the indicated finish line. Then the students worked together to dump the water out of their rafts and they were loaded onto a trailer.

The whole trip was great fun for everyone and taught us much about the river being a recreational resource and that teamwork can be developed even if you aren’t with your closest buddies. I want to thank everyone that was involved in making these two trips possible and taking that risk of doing something new and exciting to bring all the students at Carrabec together as one, Signed, Chandra Rogers.

Knowing, Chandra, I’m sure she did really enjoy that experience to its fullest!…… and you know, as I typed that whole 27-year-old report I thought of a brilliant idea! I’m going to tell Chandra that if I ever get the good sense to quit writing, or even before!) she should be writing……? what do you think, Roland?)

Now for a brief memoir from Percy: To know Love is to know Life; To give Love is to know Happiness.

by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

There will be a Marijuana Ordinances public hearing on Wednesday, September 16, at the fire station at 6:30 p.m. If input at the public hearing results in the ordinance committee deciding to further revise these draft ordinances, another budget committee meeting and public hearing will be required. The budget committee meeting and public hearing will be held on September 23, at the town office at 6:30 p.m., with the public hearing immediately following the budget committee meeting.

There will be a special town meeting on Saturday, October 3, at the Solon School at 10 a.m.

Again my thanks go out to more real up to date local news. The New Portland Community Library will begin its Sundays hours September 13 through May 31. Hours are 1 – 3 p.m. Closed September 6 for the Labor Day weekend. So the hours will be Sundays 1 – 3 p.m., Tuesdays 9 a.m. – noon, Wednesdays 4 – 6 p.m., Thursdays 1 – 3 p.m., and Saturdays 9 a.m. – noon. The “free table” of books is just inside the door. All library items can be checked out for up to two weeks. We have plenty of new books and some DVDs to browse. Please come in and enjoy one of your free community services!

And now for one of Percy’s cheerful little memoirs these difficult times! Deal omly with the present, Never step into tomorrow, For God asks us just to trust Him And to never borrow sorrow – For the future is not ours to know And it may never be. So let us live and give our best And give it lavishly – For to meet tomorrow’s troubles Before they are even ours Is to anticipate the Saviour And to doubt His all-wise powers – So let us be content to solve Our problems one by one, Asking nothing of tomorrow Except “Thy Will be done.” (words by Helen Steiner Rice.)

by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

This week’s column will be taken in part, from an article I wrote when my cat Percy and I started a paper of our own, dated March 25, 2005.

It starts with these words: Good Morning My Friends, Don’t Worry be Happy!

This week I am dedicating this issue to friendship. Would like to start with these words from Thomas Hughes: “Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God’s best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one’s self, and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another.”

Would like to say once again how much I appreciated the many, many kind and encouraging words I have received from so many of you in response to this little paper. Tears of joy have formed in my eyes more than once at your appreciation for my efforts to bring you love and laughter via the written word. To a certain extent this is the way I have always written, some editors have let me get away with it, some have not ! (Being the editor of this paper, I got away with it.)

Could write a book about editors, have written under many in the over 40 years that I’ve writing. This is a neat example of some of the support I have received from loyal readers when I was having a problem with an editor. This was many years ago when I was writing for the Somerset Reporter. This lady in her middle 80s, who didn’t have a license to drive, hired someone to take her to the Somerset Reporter office in Skowhegan. She had whoever had taken her to Skowhegan go in the office and bring the editor out so she could give him a piece of her mind. She was a lady who only needed a few words to get her message across. She helped my case immensely! As I said, I could write a book, but only once did I ever quit writing (for a short time) because of an editor! ( Roland is the perfect example of a wonderful editor!)

Now more on this paper I had started: And since this issue is dedicated to friendship, I am going to print a picture of some of the SCCEBDMSS members. For those of you who have never heard what those letters stand for, we are Solon Chapter Chowder Eating Beer Drinking Marching and Singing Society members. And to set the record straight, we are not a boozing bunch! They don’t know I’m putting this picture on the front page, it was taken 16 years ago, (sorry I can’t print it here) but they were Gloria Barnes, Dorothy Brown, Marge Adams and Alice Heald.

There was quite a bit of local news in, as it was back in the time when every thing didn’t get canceled!

And then I wrote, “Some of you who have been picking up these little papers since the first issue on January 15 will know that I couldn’t afford to give them to you forever. This is the seventh and last issue of, probably the smallest and shortest lived newspaper ever. I do believe that the newspaper business is in my blood, and when I couldn’t get the news printed in the paper I was writing for at the time I decided to start my own paper. Knew I couldn’t keep giving them away forever and prayed for a miracle. As stubborn as I am, don’t know how deep a financial hole I would have dug myself into if the miracle hadn’t materialized! Next week you will be seeing Percy and me once again in The Town Line. Those of you who pick up that paper will have started to see how much it has improved since Roland Hallee has taken over as editor.

Just a few facts about this little paper I started, the first week I printed 62 copies with two pages in it on my printer. I distributed them to the three stores here in Solon and to Pinkham’s Elm Street Market, in North Anson. The next three issues I also printed on my protesting old printer, and they were now up to three pages. By that time I had started checking out the cost of having them printed professionally because I was having to buy a print cartridge for each issue.

The fifth issue had a picture of my faithful helper Percy on the front page as well as a couple of ads and was printed by Deck Copy and the distribution is up to 170 papers a week, and again I can’t tell you, my friends how much I have loved your support. Didn’t realize it was going to be a full time job, I had become an editor/publisher, writer, ad salesman, business manager and paper deliverer.

I am going to print my financial statement so that you will understand that it takes money to run a paper and I hope businesses in this area will take out ads in The Town Line to keep it in Somerset County. My printing costs for the seven issues published …$231; received $20 for ads, making a total spent of $211, this doesn’t include money for gas, all the time I spent writing, postage for all the papers I mailed out. I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me, just hope you know how much I want a small weekly paper in this area.

I have made many friends through my writing (and a few enemies) but can’t stress enough how much I have loved your appreciation for this little paper.

This week Percy approves highly of these words by William Penn: “A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.” (Editors note: Have had more comments on how much you like Percy’s good advice, he is one smart cat, the only problem is he knows it!)

I told Roland I didn’t know as I could go back to being a writer after being an editor, but I’ll do my best. My many thanks and love, Marilyn.

Percy’s memoir is short and to the point: Service to a just cause rewards the worker with more real happiness and satisfaction than any other venture of life. (words by Carrie Chapman Catt.)

by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Before I get into this week’s third column of the Burial of Flagstaff, I’m going to print the only recent news I have received: The August 10, 2020, Embden Historcal Society meeting has been canceled. My many thanks go out to Carol Dolan for keeping us informed.

The Burial of Flagstaff: The anxiety of waiting by Roland Hallee and Marilyn Rogers.

The dam was now under construction and the residents of Flagstaff knew the end of their quaint little town was near. Anticipating the changes that were coming, residents were saddened and serious. They were not resentful, rather, but rather bewildered. As to what they will do and where they will go, no one had a definite answer.

Outside the community the project meant work, cutting flowage, construction and after completion, more industry from storage water power.

The men of Flagstaff had always been lumbermen, rivermen and guides. Among the families who came down through the years were the Viles, the Wings, the Savages, the Hines and Taylors.

The most noted and remembered set of buildings to go was the so-called Parsons Place. A huge set of buildings built in the early 1880s by Thomas Butler and later sold to Samuel Parsons. This was a road house or old time tavern open the year around. The stage from “down river,”originating from New Portland and connecting with “up-river,” Eustis, and tied up there, lumbermen, river drivers, hunters, fishermen, guides and all who traveled the Dead River region planned to stop at the Parsons Place whenever going that way.

The Dead River was about 50 miles long. It ends at The Forks where it flows into the Kennebec River. It rises out of Chain of Ponds and watershed of the United States and Canada.

Also within the water area was the DAR market place in honor of Col. Timothy Bigelow, one of the leaders in the Arnold Expedition and the first known white man to ascend the mountain that bears his name.

Also taking place at this time was a meeting of the Flagstaff and Dead River boards of selectmen to discuss and name the desired location for the removal of their cemeteries. Eustis Ridge was the desired site.

Leroy Parsons, who was second assessor of the plantation, while referring to his own home and while pointing to the eaves of the house, grimly remarked, “They say that will be the high water mark.”

Mrs. Kenneth Taylor, a great-great granddaughter of one of the early settlers, Rufus Viles, remembered earlier happier days.”The beauty of these days, make us all realize our homes here are more precious than ever before.”

In an article in the Waterville Morning Sentinel, on March 7, 1949, columnist Clayton LaVerdiere wrote:

A gallant little town that is slated to die came out with one last, bold gesture of defiance here tonight.

As if nothing had ever happened – or ever would – some 30 of Flagstaff’ s voters conducted their annual town meeting in a business-like manner that belied the apprehehension lurking in the hearts of all.

Sitting in the the tiny schoolhouse, bronzed woodsmen and their wives studiously avoided discussing the numbered days of a community that will probably, by next March, be at the bottom of a lake….

They tackled 25 articles of the town warrant with enthusiasm, voting to keep their schoolhouse, and appropriated $1,000 for an “Old Home Day” that promises to be the biggest thing to hit Flagstaff in many a moon.

Deep in their hearts they all knew, though, that this celebration would be a colorful farewell to a town they knew so well, a town rich with the history of America’s struggles for freedom.

Voters dropped their ballots into a hat in the old-fashioned way, raised $11,368 and the called it a night.

Flagstaff had been an active, busy little town since 1865, thriving on the vast woodlands bounding it on all sides. It was established close to the banks of the Dead River, whose waters eventually would be backed up to cover the town.

Although town residents watched as 700 men were swarming over adjacent property, clearing the land for the huge project, they were still uncertain as to when the evacuation date would come.

Perry Burbank, who had just been elected to his 21st term as town clerk said, “we’ re still looking ahead as if nothing ever happened.”

Captain Cliff Wing, attending his 55th town meeting, slouched behind the tiny desk and said little. There was a gleam of sadness in the 76-year-old gentlemen’s eye. “I guess it’s a good thing in the end probably,” he said, after awhile, “but I kind of hate to leave. It’s just hard to tell where we’re goin’, what we’re going to do.”

Hilda Ames’ big job was teaching some of Flagstaff’s four high school, 14 grammar school and 22 primary grade pupils, but that night, she too, felt rather sad, “I’ don’t like it very well, she said. “I’ve always lived here. It’s hard to think of any other place to live.”

Her husband, Hazen, who owned a store on Flagstaff’s Main St. said “I wouldn’t mind if I had been younger. No one knows where to go, what to do.”

Evan Leavitt, postmaster and proprietor of the town’s general store, added “nobody likes to be forced out of their home. It’s just human nature.”

The light point of the meeting came when Perley Stevens was unanimously re-elected as road commissioner. He responded by saying he wasn’t sure he could do the job that year. (Perley Stevens was my dear uncle).

The residents now awaited the full flood of the spring runoff which once signaled the re-awakening of the lovely rural country side.

The residents of Dead River Plantation also faced the same fate. By March 1950, the highway was already flooded, thus closing forever the Dead River Road from the intersection where the new road leads to the dam at Long Falls. By this time, Bert Witham’s home had already been burned, as well as the old landmark of the highway, Parson’s Place and the old Ledge House.

By the spring of 1950 the waters of the Dead River crept slowly over a barren burned-over countryside with only a few scattered buildings, all abandoned to a watery death.

Water flowing into a 25-mile man-made water reservoir had already cut off the roads, and all the residents of Flagstaff and nearby Dead River, had moved.

And now for Percy’s memoir: People are only complete when they have a true friend to understand them, to share all their passions and sorrows with and to stand by them throughout their lives. Always remember: Don’t worry, be happy!

by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Good morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

It has been awhile since I sat down at this computer (I had threatened to trash it from all the problems it had given me )….. But thanks to Peter it is up and running again!

As those of you know who read this column, I am very against the CMP Corridor……. and I have managed to get a few printed to the editor of the daily paper. A lot of that is due to the fact that I can remember when we had to sell our homes and move from Flagstaff (it was a very upsetting time for many of us). But……I can also remember how happy I was when Roland and I did the four part series called The Burial of Flagstaff. The following is from the first one in the series: “Like all progress, it will not be accompanied without some heartaches, for the waters to be backed up by the dam will cover the land on which is now located the little community of Flagstaff.”

Twenty-two years ago, I asked John Alden, editor of the Somerset Reporter, if he would print a story about Flagstaff. He had never heard of the place, but he did print the article which included parts of newspaper clippings of the building of the dam that flooded the area – 1949 was the year many of us headed out to a new adventure after living in Flagstaff and Dead River our entire lives.

I wonder what my life would have been like if 35 years ago we hadn’t been ordered from our homes in Flagstaff and Dead River by Central Maine Power Co. Did you ever stop to think what it would be like not to be able to go back home-town?

Like all progress , it will not be accompanied without some heartaches, for the waters to be backed up by the dam will cover the land on which is now located the the little community of Flagstaff.

In the Waterville Morning Sentinel, Tues., July 5, 1949, Eva Bachelder wrote:

The Rev. Arthur R. Macdougall Jr. called what was perhaps Maine’s most solemn Independence Day a “seeming burial.”

At this seeming burial of your little village, Rev. Macdougall said, “You the people of Flagstaff, can broadcast for all to hear that you have lived in one of Maine’s small villages beside a river, surrounded by mountains…a place where there was room to live and to work and to own ones acre… that you have the dignity of everyday freedom the like of which there is no wealth or treasure to compare.”

The words above are all taken from the first week of this four part article written by Roland and myself, Marilyn Rogers, before I became a Bull.

It continues: “I finally went back to where Flagstaff used to be … and the peace and tranquility were still there; and the strength of Mt. Bigelow towering in the distance was as comforting as it had always been in my childhood years.

Would the pace of modern-day living have reached Flagstaff? Some of us didn’t have electricity or plumbing, and yet I don’t feel underprivileged because of the pleasant memories I treasure.

The skiing and sliding on Jim Eaton Hill, skating on Flagstaff Pond in winter and swimming in summer. Everyone turned out for school socials and plays. It was a wonderful place to grow up in. But all during my childhood, every so often during the grown ups conversations, mention was made of a dam being built and having to move. The thought was intolerable, and yet it did come to pass, and in the fall of 1949 the people of Flagstaff and Dead River sadly went their separate ways..

Any homeowner, deep rooted in his own community and neighborhood, with many long-time friends, can easily realize the feelings of those about to be dispossessed. It may not be much consolation to say that the flooding of Flagstaff and Dead River is part of the price of progress long paid in the history of our national growth. First it was the Indians, who were driven off their lands to make way for the white man. At intervals since others have had to sacrifice for the benefit of the majority.”

Like all progress, it will not be accompanied without some heartaches, for the waters to be backed up by the dam will cover the land on which is now located the little community of Flagstaff. (Some of the above was printed in the Lewiston Daily Sun on July 1, 1948.)

This first article was called The Price of Progress, by Roland Hallee and Marilyn Rogers. Tucked away diagonally east of both Eustis and Stratton, in Somerset County, was once a small hamlet known as Flagstaff. The tiny village was located in a low lying area which the Dead River snaked through. Off in the distance could be seen majestic Bigelow Mountain. It was a post card picturesque community.

It received its name from the fact that Benedict Arnold on his way to attack Québec City in 1775, encamped there with his forces. They chose a tall juniper tree and created a flag pole to fly the national standard on that site. Until the demise of the town in 1950, a flagstaff always marked the spot.

Legend has it, according to family records of Isaiah Taylor and wife, that “six families had cleared land and built log houses, then came the big freshet of 1831, water coming into the houses causing the families to leave their homes and going to John Berry’s on high land. One man with a broken leg lay in his bed when Isaiah Taylor paddled right into his bedside, taking him and his bed into his log boat, and carrying them to a place safely on high land.” The log boat referred to was a hollowed tree.

It ends with this remark from guess who? Marilyn’s final comment in that article was: “With the price of electricity climbing steadily, will someone please tell me how high is the price for this thing called progress?”