Covers towns roughly within 50 miles of Augusta.

Healthy Living for ME awarded grant to expand programs

A recently awarded grant will allow Healthy Living for ME and its statewide Area Agency on Aging partners to expand the reach of two popular programs, Bingocize and Building Better Caregivers. The grant to fund the program expansion was awarded to Healthy Living for ME by the University of New England’s Aging ME: Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP).

“This award is an exciting opportunity to bring two important workshops to all regions of Maine. It is also a recognition of the work our partners have already been doing to provide falls prevention and caregiver education to communities,” said Maija Dyke, Contract and Business Manager of Healthy Living for ME. “Both Building Better Caregivers and Bingocize address important health and wellness issues for Mainers.”

NESN regional sports network removed from DISH-TV

New England Sports Network (NESN) was removed from DISH TV tonight, affecting access in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Connecticut. With this removal, DISH TV customers no longer have access to NESN.

“The current Regional Sports Network (RSN) model is fundamentally broken,” said Brian Neylon, group president, DISH TV. “This model requires nearly all customers to pay for RSNs when only a small percentage of customers actually watch them. As the cost of these channels continues to escalate and a la carte viewing options become ever more accessible, we no longer think it makes sense to include them in our TV lineup.”

“We have offered multiple solutions to keep NESN on DISH TV while providing the best value to all our customers,” added Neylon. “We made an offer for NESN to be a separate stand alone package, similar to premium channels like HBO or Showtime — they refused. We also offered NESN to be part of select DISH programming packages, but they refused this as well.”

DISH has offered these consumer-friendly alternatives to NESN, but they have been unwilling to accept them and insist on continuing with the old, broken model. DISH remains open to working with NESN to offer sports content in a way that provides choice and value to all customers.

DISH customers can visit DISHPromise.com for more information.

Don Plourde named CMGC’s 2021 Developer of the Year

Don Plourde

Central Maine Growth Council is pleased to present its annual 2021 Developer of the Year award to Don Plourde, broker and co-owner of Coldwell Banker Plourde Real Estate, in Waterville. The award was presented at Central Maine Growth Council’s Annual Meeting, sponsored by Central Maine Motors, Kennebec Savings Bank, MaineGeneral Health, New Dimensions Federal Credit Union, and Huhtamaki.

Don’s passion for developing central Maine through commercial real estate has been exemplified by his commitment to growing businesses and supporting economic and community development throughout the region. Beyond Don’s day-to-day real estate operations, his investments within the region, along Robert LaFleur Airport Business Park, and, most recently, acquiring two flagship buildings in downtown Waterville – 36 Main Street and 70 Main Street – have all made significant contributions to the local economy and will support further investment and new business development opportunities during an exciting period of redevelopment within the municipality.

“The city of Waterville is poised to continue its trend of revitalization and renaissance due to key private sector stakeholders like Don. Similarly, his commitment to regional betterment extends beyond development and associated business expansion and growth initiatives, but is equally reflected in community projects and the innumerable volume of new families and young professionals that have been welcomed into the area housing market, including throughout COVID-19, where Don has transitioned new rural remote workers and Maine ‘boomerangers’ across the country into our local economy,” stated Garvan Donegan, director of planning, innovation, and economic development for Central Maine Growth Council. “Don is a champion of the region and has pursued his projects in a dedicated fashion, encouraging a bright future for central Maine and its residents.”

The Winslow native opened Coldwell Banker Plourde in 1989, growing from a staff of two to more than 20 and counting in its 30 years of operation. Don serves on the Maine Real Estate Commission, where he previously served as the organization’s board chairman. His work in real estate development has laid the groundwork for welcoming new businesses and families to central Maine while contributing to a renewed quality of place throughout mid-Maine and beyond.

Don has served on several boards throughout central Maine, including Waterville Development Corp., Maine State Housing, Winslow Capital Planning Committee, and Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce, where he served as the organization’s chairman in 1998. Acknowledging Plourde’s many years of community betterment and service, Don and Irene were recognized as the 2016 Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Community Service winners.

“I am humbled to receive such an honor from the Growth Council,” said Don. “Having the ability to contribute to the vitality and success of the region has been my life’s work, and I could not have done it without the support from the community and my family.”

Katie Brann named emerging leader of the year by CM Growth Council

Katie Brann

Central Maine Growth Council and KV Connect are pleased to present their 2021 Emerging Leader of the Year Award to Katie Brann, chairman of KV Connect, the young professionals’ group of mid-Maine, and Financial Advisor at Golden Pond Wealth Management, in Waterville. The award was presented at Central Maine Growth Council’s Annual Meeting celebration, sponsored by Central Maine Motors, Kennebec Savings Bank, MaineGeneral Health, New Dimensions Federal Credit Union, and Huhtamaki.

Katie has been involved with KV Connect since February of 2020, previously serving as the organization’s treasurer and marketing committee chairman, currently serving as chairman of the organization. A 2016 graduate of Boston University, Katie returned to her home state of Maine to pursue a career in financial services where she supports clients in comprehensive financial planning and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing. Katie received her Certified Financial Planning (CFP) designation in March of 2021. In addition to her leadership of KV Connect, Katie also serves on the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce’s Marketing and Membership committee and serves as the varsity field hockey coach at Messalonskee High School in Oakland.

“Katie embodies outstanding leadership, impact, and performance within the region’s emerging youth workforce and is continually working to create an environment to facilitate responsible investing, creativity, and innovation of young people to excel, develop, and grow. Working closely with Katie through KV Connect, her passion for the Kennebec Valley region shines through her organization of several community initiatives, including our Yoga in the Park and Pints with a Purpose series”, states Sabrina Jandreau, vice-chairman of KV Connect and development coordinator at Central Maine Growth Council. “Her drive and commitment to celebrating the region’s young professionals are a testament to her dedication for making mid-Maine an attractive location to live and work in.”

During a time of robust growth and development in central Maine, Katie’s stewardship has spotlighted KV Connect as an organization that champion’s connectivity through relationship building, community service, social media marketing, and placemaking initiatives, encouraging the continued retention and recruitment of young professionals to the region. At the forefront of KV Connect’s continued growth, Katie’s passion for cultivating opportunities for networking and development will sustain further expansion of the organization’s membership and encourage greater participation by young professionals throughout mid-Maine.

“Waterville is an incredible community and provides a compelling site profile for those who wish to enjoy the area’s eateries, diverse recreational opportunities, or start a business”, said Katie. “Having the opportunity to bridge the gap between young professionals and networking has provided KV Connect with the tools to showcase and celebrate all the region has to offer with those who are new to the area or are just starting out in their careers.”

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Libraries

The Lawrence Library, in Fairfield.

by Mary Grow

The differential treatment in education discussed last week did not necessarily make women less interested than men in learning and literature. Local histories mention discussion and debate groups, most by and for men, some by and for women, and early libraries.

Daniel Cony

Augusta had two men’s literary groups, one formed in 1817 and a successor in 1829. Kingsbury credits Daniel Cony’s example for “a reading room and social library organization” started on Oct. 1, 1817.

It was reorganized June 2, 1819, and chartered June 20, 1820, as the Augusta Union Society. The Society’s incorporation was “the first act passed by the legislature of Maine” after the separation from Massachusetts, according to James North’s Augusta history.

North wrote that the Union Society’s goal was “improvement in useful knowledge by means of a library of choicely selected books, magazines and public newspapers.” By 1825, the Society had outgrown its first headquarters and moved to the Kennebec Journal building on Winthrop Street. The Union Society had disbanded by October 1829, Kingsbury said.

In the 1820s, North said, Cony’s Female Academy had the largest library in Augusta. There was also William Dewey’s circulating library.

By then, North wrote, debating societies were common. He mentioned the Nucleus, organized in 1825, and the Franklin Debating Club.

Both Kingsbury and North offered information on the Augusta Lyceum, which Kingsbury said replaced the Union Society in 1829, “as the organized exponent of the intelligence of the town.” North explained that lyceums succeeded debating societies as “a form better calculated to impart instruction, and at the same time afford equal amusement.”

North said the Augusta Lyceum’s October 1829 constitution established dues at 50 cents a quarter-year (25 cents for members under 18), and life memberships were $20. Meetings were weekly, with monthly debates that Kingsbury said “were sometimes brilliant and exciting.”

North offered as an example the debate over the treatment of Indians by Puritans. Discussion continued for weeks, with clergymen on one side and “a vigorous attacking party” on the other. The eventual decision was “against the Puritans, more from a spirit of victory in debate than any intention to defame that noble but austere race of men.”

Another interesting evening North described was April 18, 1830, when John A. Vaughn, of Hallowell, delivered an illustrated talk on railroads, which were not to reach Augusta until 1851.

Vaughn brought a model railroad, with two cars attached to each other. One held two 56-pound weights, the other a grey squirrel running on a treadmill. The squirrel’s motion pulled the heavier car, illustrating the minimal energy needed for a great effect.

Vaughn also had a picture and explanation of a British “Novelty Steam Carriage,” which provided 30-mile-an-hour passenger service. He concluded by predicting the expansion of railways throughout the United States, North said with impressive accuracy.

The Lyceum movement was national, at the state, county and town level, North wrote. The institutions became “a prominent educational means by developing a spirit of inquiry and creating a fondness for reading and a pleasure in receiving and imparting knowledge heretofore unexperienced by the mass of the community.”

State and county lyceums did not last long; local ones continued into the 1850s. North blamed their decline and disappearance on “a plethoric feeling which constantly demanded, from year to year, a higher grade of talent in lectures and new sources of excitement.”

In the adjoining town of Vassalboro, Alma Pierce Robbins’ history mentions, but provides too few details about, groups whose members might have been interested in reading, as well as sociability and needlework. Three appear to have been women’s organizations.

Local organizations on Webber Pond Road included a Christmas Club, apparently primarily a women’s needlework group, and a Browning Club, a Vassalboro branch of the international group organized in 1895 to expand women’s literary and cultural knowledge and named for English poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

(At a 2017 meeting reported on line, a Browning Club historian said the organization “served as an outlet for its members to educate each other during a time when attitudes toward women did not include higher education.”

She continued, “[T]hese women strived to provide each other with the opportunity to read, explore, and learn from one another.”)

Robbins said Vassalboro’s Christmas and Browning clubs met year-round at members’ houses. She did not date either organization.

In Riverside, she continued, there was a Riverside Corporation and later a Community Club, about which she provided no information beyond the names; and a “Riverside Study Club.” Vassalboro Historical Society President Janice Clowes says the Study Club was organized in 1947 and disbanded in 2001; Robbins wrote that it “became an affiliate of the State Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1949.”

Waterville, according to Whittemore’s history, was home to a series of debating clubs, exclusively for men. The earliest he mentioned was the Ticonick Debating Society, started Sept. 18, 1824, with “the leading men in the town” as founding members.

It was succeeded in 1837 by the Waterville Lyceum, which Whittemore said lasted only two years. Its 1841 successor, the Waterville Debating Society, apparently lasted a year. The Mechanics’ Debating Club Whittemore dates in the mid-1850s.

The Woman’s Association in Waterville was organized in 1887 and was still going strong, with 50 members, when Kingsbury published his history in 1892. He said its purpose was to provide women and girls with “useful information” and “special instruction.”

The organization had a 400-volume library. It sponsored evening classes “through the cold seasons,” where attendees could learn “needlework, penmanship, music and a variety of useful arts.”

Contemporary Facebook pages on the web list a Waterville Woman’s Association, founded in 1887, and a Waterville Area Women’s Club, founded in 1893.

The only similar organization Linwood Lowden mentioned in his history of Windsor was not organized until 1913, and was primarily a social group. The Unity Club, organized Dec. 17, 1913, apparently lasted into the 1930s, Lowden wrote.

Lowden said the “short literary program” that was initially part of each twice-a-month meeting was frequently replaced by a social service type activity, like making baby clothes for a needy family or knitting for the Red Cross.

* * * * * *

It is tempting to consider literary groups as precursors to public libraries, and one women’s group clearly was.

According to the Fairfield bicentennial history and an on-line source, a group of 24 women, led by Addie M. Lawrence, Mary Newhall and Frances Kenrick, organized a circulating library called the Ladies Book Club in 1895 or 1896. The club started with 48 books, kept in two bookcases in a small room above C. E. Holt’s candy store on Main Street.

The bookcases could accommodate 200 books, the history says, and were filled in three years. In July 1899, the club moved to two rooms in a Fairfield bank (the history is inconsistent in naming the bank), where residents continued to donate books and magazines.

Addie Lawrence was Edward Jones Lawrence’s daughter, and she “persuaded her father to offer the town a public library.” (Edward Jones Lawrence also established Fairfield’s Lawrence High School; see The Town Line, Oct. 7, 2021.)

At the March 1900 town meeting, voters accepted the offer. In May 1900, the renamed Fairfield Book Club held a meeting at which Lawrence promised to build a library when a site was found. Louise E. Newhall donated a lot between her house and Lawrence’s house, on the south side of Lawrence Avenue, facing the town park.

The result was Lawrence Library, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places since Dec. 31, 1974.

It had one precursor, according to the Fairfield history. The writers quote from the Jan. 29, 1867, issue of the Fairfield Woodpecker the statement that “The Ladies Library had been very active prior to the Civil War but was not used much at this time.”

(The Woodpecker was published in Kendall’s Mills, the name for what is now downtown Fairfield, from 1867 to at least 1874. The Fairfield Historical Society has copies on film; the Lawrence Library also has copies, according to an on-line site.)

William R. Miller

Maine architect William R. Miller designed the new library. In the application for National Register listing, Earle Shettle­worth, of the Maine Historic Preservation Com­mission, described the architecture as Romanesque Revival modified by H. H. Richardson.

Miller (1866-1929) was born in Durham, Maine, and worked mostly in Maine throughout his career, based first in Lewiston and later in Portland. Wikipedia says his projects included “schools, libraries, hotels and churches as well as private residences.”

Other local buildings Miller designed include the original Lawrence High School, the Gerald Hotel and two Goodwill-Hinckley buildings in Fairfield, and Water­ville’s Carnegie Library.

Henry H. Richardson

Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886) developed the form called Richardson Romanesque. Wikipedia says he is considered one of the titans of American architecture, with Louis Henry Sullivan (1856-1924) and Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959).

The Lawrence Library building is made of “slate rock with granite trim,” Shettleworth wrote. It is two stories high with a hip roof. The rock is of different colors, mostly variations on light reddish-brown, with darker browns and greys interspersed.

The main entrance door on the north side, facing the park, is set under a large granite arch. Above the arch, a sign identifies the building. An elaborate edifice above the sign includes three stained-glass windows inside granite-topped arches flanked by small towers. Still higher is a shield labeled “1900” (the year construction started) below a peaked roof.

Beside the entrance is an octagonal tower with more arched windows. On either side of the door and tower, the main floor rooms have large triple-arched windows. Granite above the windows and on the building’s corners and “cornice level granite strong courses” contrast with the vari-colored stone.

Shettleworth wrote that the same themes – stone, granite and arched windows – were continued around the building, with the back (south) side the least elaborate.

Lawrence Library was dedicated July 25, 1901. Shettleworth quoted physical descriptions, but nothing about the ceremony, from the July 26, 1901, issue of the Waterville Sentinel.

The newspaper writer said the stacks in the west room could hold 5,000 books and were almost full. The books were “arranged according to the Dewey system and a glance over the titles will delight the soul of any book lover,” he wrote.

The east room was the reading room. The “pastel portrait” of Edward Lawrence was done by Flora Gross Clark; the Fairfield Book Club donated it. Also mentioned were the oil painting of the Moor of Venice by local artist F. E. McFadden (who was also a lawyer and in the 1880s town clerk for at least two years); and the “splendid globe,” “18 inches in diameter… on a bronze pedestal 43 inches high” given by Mrs. E. P. Kenrick.

The Clark and McFadden portraits still hang in the east room. Portraits of Addie and Alice Jones, set in stained glass rectangles, decorate the wall behind the librarian’s desk. Overhead, the inside rim of an off-white dome lists well-known New England writers.

Above the front door, a large bronze plaque says Jones donated the building and 2,000 books, and Newhall donated the land and another 2,000 books. Librarian Louella Bickford says the plaque is identified on the back as made by Tiffany, the New York studio led by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933).

Commenting on Edward Jones Lawrence, the 1901 Sentinel writer observed that many towns owed their libraries to “the Scotland born and American made millionaire” [Andrew Carnegie], others to a native son who made his fortune elsewhere.

But, he wrote, “Fairfield rejoices in the gift of a man who was born within her borders, educated in her public schools and whose position of wealth and influence among the foremost business men in the State has been won in his native town. … He is one also who has worked his way up from the bottom of the ladder by his hard work and who has shown that success is possible for any man in Maine and in Fairfield. The gift is therefore especially prized.”

* * * * * *

Six-masted schooner Addie M. Lawrence was launched on December 17, 1902. It carried military supplies in World War I and ran aground in a gale off the coast of Brittany on July 9, 1917.

Three of the schooners that Lawrence helped finance in Bath were named the Addie M. Lawrence, the Alice M. Lawrence and the Edward J. Lawrence.

The Dec. 23, 1902, Fairfield Journal reported that the “Addie M.” was launched at 12:45 p.m. on Dec. 17, “a date that will long be remembered by many as one of great pleasure.”

The six-masted schooner was built at Percy & Small’s shipyard at a cost of $130,000. The reporter wrote that she was 2923 feet long and 483 feet wide, a patent absurdity; another on-line source gives the dimensions as 292 feet, four inches by 48 feet, three inches. Each mast was 118 feet tall; topmasts were 56 feet long, and the sails totaled “about 8700 yards of canvas.”

Wikipedia says the largest sailing ship ever built was another Percy & Small six-masted schooner, the Wyoming. Launched in 1909, she had an overall length of 450 feet, counting her 86-foot jib boom and “protruding spanker boom”; her deck length was 334 feet. (The jib boom is an extension of the bowsprit; the spanker boom supports a sail over the stern.)

(For more comparisons, the RMS Titanic was 882 feet, nine inches long. The future USS Daniel Inouye, the U. S. Navy’s newest guided missile destroyer, launched from Bath Iron Works Oct. 4, 2021, is 513 feet long. The Daniel Inouye is scheduled to be commissioned at her home port, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December.)

The 1902 Journal reporter said the “Addie M.” had three cabins, the aft (stern) one “a thing of beauty being of quartered oak, mahogany and cypress with furniture of leather trimmings.” Sternward rooms were gold and black, forward rooms aluminum and black; the captain had an office “and a stateroom prettily furnished and very light and pleasant.”

For the launching, the ship was decorated with flags and bunting. Addie Lawrence smashed the traditional bottle of champagne against the bow as the ship started down the ways.

The reporter was one of a “large crowd,” including many Fairfield residents. He wrote, “[W]hen the giant craft had left her cradle and made a mighty leap into the river a mighty cheer went up from the bystanders, while all the neighboring craft and manufacturing establishments along the river saluted by blowing three long whistles, to which the Lawrence responded.”

The South Portland Historical Society has a history of the Addie M. Lawrence that says she carried military supplies in World War I and ended her career off the coast of Brittany on July 9, 1917, when she ran aground in a gale.

Another on-line site says six-masted schooners were too big to be practical. Fewer than a dozen were built; the Edward J. Lawrence, built in 1908 and burned in 1925, was the last in use.

Edward Jones Lawrence

Edward Jones Lawrence (Jan. 1, 1833 – Nov. 27, 1918) was educated through sixth grade and first worked as a farm hand in Fairfield Center, his birthplace. A job in a Norridgewock store gave him bookkeeping experience, which led to an accounting position with the Gardiner-based lumber business Wing and Bates.

In 1860 he bought a one-third ownership in Wing and Bates. After another decade, he and his brother, George W. Lawrence, had money enough to buy the company’s Shawmut building and replace it with their own mill.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, the Fairfield history says, Lawrence and Benton native Amos Gerald “invested extensively in street railroads.” An on-line source lists him as president of two street railway companies, the Waterville and Oakland and the Portland and Brunswick, in 1909.

The Lombard log hauler, which used to be on exhibit near the Waterville-Winslow Bridge, is now on display at the Redington Museum, on Silver St., in Waterville.

Other ventures included supporting Alvin Lombard’s Lombard hauler; supporting Martin Keyes’ pulp-wood plate business, ancestor of today’s Keyes Fibre* (“Keyes’ first machinery was set up at the Lawrence mill” in Shawmut); and investing in ship-building in Bath.

After Lawrence’s first wife died in 1865, in 1868 (or 1870; sources differ) he married Hannah Miller Shaw, who became the mother of Annie (born in 1870, died in 1886), Addie (born in 1873) and Alice (born in 1879).

The bicentennial history says Lawrence moved from Shawmut to Fairfield, where he built “the grand house at the corner of High Street and Lawrence Avenue,” because he wanted his daughters educated and Fairfield had better schools. He represented Fairfield in the state legislature for one term, in 1877, as a member of the Greenback Party.

A history of Lawrence Library says Representative Jones fought for two causes, safe working conditions and fair pay for workers and legislation “allowing only the federal government to print paper money.”

After Annie’s death in 1886, Hannah had a nervous breakdown, and the two younger girls went to a Massachusetts boarding school.

Both were artistically talented. Addie was on the verge of becoming a portrait painter, but returned to Fairfield because of her mother’s health and family finances. Alice studied piano with pianist and composer John Carver Alden (1852-1935). She married Walter Daub and had two daughters; and after a divorce in 1919 returned to Fairfield.

Alice’s older daughter, Mary Lawrence (Daub) Halkyard (Sept. 25, 1910 – Nov. 15, 2013), and her husband Neil were teachers; they founded the Shepherd Knapp School, in Boylston, Massachusetts. The school no longer exists, but its building, which dates from 1848, is a National Historic Landmark.

After retiring from teaching, the Halkyards lived in China (Maine) when they were not traveling. Mary Halkyard remained fond of, and like her grandfather generous to, the Town of Fairfield.

* Today’s Huhtamaki plant.

Main sources

Fairfield Historical Society, Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988).
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).
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).

Websites, miscellaneous.

China’s treasured community leader retires

Irene Belanger upon receiving a plaque of appreciation from the town of China. (contributed photo)

42 years service to town; 22 years as select board member

by Deborah Belanger-Warnke

Whether in the public eye or behind the scenes, over the past 22 years China residents have placed their trust and confidence in Irene Lydia Belanger. Serving as an elected member on the China Select Board, she has been steadfast in representing the people’s best interests and moving the community forward.

While many of us may struggle to find time to volunteer for basic community endeavors, there are those individuals who strive to make a difference for the community at large on a frequent basis. We are fortunate that one of those individuals came to reside in China, Maine, in 1969. Since then, Irene has been serving China in many capacities; wearing many hats over the last 42 years. In today’s standards it is a rarity to find such enduring dedication and strong sense of duty to one’s community.

Irene’s service to China started when she literally wore the hat of a Cub Scout leader in 1970. Her interest in community work sprung from the leadership and teaching of a young pack of cub scouts that included several of her sons. This initial volunteer work planted the seeds of a community leader who went forward to impact China in so many ways.

No matter the roles she served in, it was Irene’s moral compass and compassion for community that became her guiding light throughout a life-time of community service in China. If you talk with Irene, it becomes quite evident that serving her community in multiple capacities over 42 years has left her feeling extremely proud and satisfied.

Irene was never one to say “no” to a request for her assistance. She volunteered to drive community members to medical appointments or shopping, Trunk or Treat, Transfer Station drug drop off and many other town events. Her community outreach left a footprint on the following local committees: Comprehensive Planning Board, China Days, Economic & Community Development, Transfer Station, Recreation, Lake Access, Thurston Park and Roadside Clean-up.

In representing the town of China, Irene’s work led to travel to many areas of Maine, working alongside politicians, community business leaders, RSU #18 teachers and superintendents, along with many municipal leaders. Over the years, Irene’s hard work and esteemed dedication to duty led to her selection on the Board of Directors for the following organizations: the Municipal Review Committee (MRC), the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments (KVCOG), the Maine Resource Recovery Association (MRRA), and Spirit of America. Irene also served as the president of KVCOG and worked on various committees for the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce (MMCC).

It is no wonder Irene has been recognized for outstanding achievement from the Maine Real Estate Commission, the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments, the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce, Spirit of America, the Messalonskee High School Eagle Award from the Alumni Association, and the Maine Resource Recovery Association. She most recently received an award from the Town of China on Monday, October 25, honoring her service.

Irene wishes to thank her spouse Joseph V. Belanger, her family, the China Town Manager Becky Hapgood, state wide committee and board members, fellow China select board members, the transfer station staff, the China community and many others for their caring and support over the past 42 years.

“My service to the China Community has been important work and very satisfying to me,” Belanger said. “I’m honored to have done my very best for others and to have represented the Town of China. My love of community has served me well over the years, I feel so grateful to have done this valuable and rewarding work”.

Irene was quick to say, “I will so miss being a China select board member, however, I’m still here to serve, and will continue to be active in my community anyway I can.” With a twinkle in her eyes she laughed saying, “Don’t worry, Becky Hapgood has my number! Besides, my interest in the Transfer Station Committee, recycling and Free for Taking building will keep me busy.”

Irene graciously passed the torch to current and newly-elected China Select Board members on November 2. Thank you, Irene, for a “Job Well Done” and your selfless service to the citizens of China, Maine, and beyond for over 42 years! Enjoy your retirement!

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Women in education

Mary Low Carver (left), Amy Morris Bradley (center), Louise Helen Coburn (right)

by Mary Grow

Readers of recent articles in this series on the history of central Kennebec Valley towns will have noticed differences between education for men and education for women from the late 1700s into the 20th century.

The primary schools, for the most part, taught boys and girls similarly. After about eighth grade, boys were more likely to continue their education, and to have more varied opportunities.

These articles have named several women who aspired to open schools of their own, or actually did so, but there has been little or no follow-up information in written histories or on line. Most high-school founders, principals and teachers who left records of achievement were men.

One exception to this generalization was Daniel Cony’s Female Academy in Augusta (1816-1857). The academy had a woman as its first principal; its students included boys as well as girls (see The Town Line, Sept. 2, 2021).

The Augusta Classical School had several women as teachers in the 1830s (see The Town Line, Sept. 9, 2021). And, as mentioned last week, Naomi Bunker ran a seminary in Fairfield in the mid-nineteenth century.

In high schools reviewed in previous articles, boys out-numbered girls most of the time. Nineteenth-century high-school boys were being prepared for college or careers; high-school girls were getting “an elevated course of female education” (Vassalboro Academy, 1856).

Hallowell Classical Academy offered three separate courses in 1876. The first provided preparation for college. The second was “especially for young ladies” and promised more education than the public schools provided. The third was a shorter course for both boys and girls.

Despite fewer educational opportunities, some women from the central Kennebec Valley “made good” in different ways, with or without education. They included Martha Ballard (Hallowell), Amy Morris Bradley (Vassalboro) and Mary Caffrey (Low) Carver (Waterville).

The best-known to Maine readers, and therefore the one who will receive the least attention here, was Martha Ballard (1735-1812), who moved from Massachusetts to Hallowell in 1777 and has become famous since Laurel Thatcher Ulrich published A Midwife’s Tale: the Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785-1812 in 1990.

Ballard was a successful midwife, as well as a diarist whose writings described daily life in the Kennebec Valley between the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. In an article published on line by the University of Houston College of Engineering, John Lienhard wrote, “Martha was literate but not educated. Her spelling was – well – highly creative.”

In Bernhardt and Schad’s Anthology of Vassalboro Tales, Simone Antworth of East Vassalboro wrote that her late husband, Howard, was an indirect descendant of Martha and Ephraim Ballard. According to her research, Howard’s mother’s mother, Nellie Martha (Coombs) Earle (1887-1976), was the daughter of Archie Coombs and Elvira Goddard Ballard. Elvira Ballard was the great-great-granddaughter of Ephraim Ballard’s brother Jonathan and his wife Hannah (Kidder) Ballard.

Simone Antworth added that Nellie Earle “was a pillar in the Vassalboro community,” active in the Grange, the Methodist Church and other groups and “always ready to help anyone.”

Nellie’s younger brother, Roy Coombs (1889-1985) lived in China, where in 1933 he and George Wayland Jones started the Jones and Coombs Bean Cleaning Plant in China Village. Roy and his wife Mabel (Ward) Coombs (1888-1978) were parents of Hazel Ward Coombs (1913-2001), remembered as the assistant librarian at the Albert Church Brown Memorial Library in the village.

An earlier Vassalboro resident, Amy Morris Bradley (1823-1904), earned a national reputation for her service during and after the Civil War. She was a teacher, a nurse and an advocate for soldiers and children.

Born in East Vasssalboro, youngest of eight children, Bradley lost her mother when she was six and was raised by her father and siblings. Esther Bernhardt wrote in the Vasssalboro anthology that Bradley started teaching when she was 15 (Wikipedia says two years later) and saved her money to enter Vassalboro Academy.

The Academy qualified her for a teaching principalship in Gardiner in 1844. By 1846, Wikipedia says, she was teaching in Massachusetts.

Pneumonia compelled her to move south in 1849. When neither South Carolina nor a return to Maine restored her health, in 1853 she went to San Jose, capital of Costa Rica, where she taught herself Spanish and, Wikipedia says, “established the first English school in Central America.”

After a brief stay in East Vassalboro in 1857 and 1858, Bradley took a job in Massachusetts translating letters for the New England Glass Company. From there, in August 1861, she volunteered as an army nurse, beginning her service Sept. 1 in the Third Maine Regiment’s hospital near Alexandria, Virginia.

Bradley held important nursing positions throughout the war, including, Bernhardt said, as superintendent on the Ocean Queen, the ship that brought wounded soldiers from battlefields to Washington, D. C., hospitals. In Washington, she helped “establish a home for discharged soldiers” and helped many of them collect their back pay.

An on-line women’s history points out the low regard for female nurses in the 1860s, referring to drunken surgeons and contemptuous generals. The author credits Bradley, as a Special Relief Agent for the United States Sanitary Commission, with transforming dirty, unsanitary, poorly supplied army medical facilities into “clean, efficiently-run hospitals.”

In 1866, the Boston-based Unitarian philanthropy called the Soldiers’ Memorial Society asked Bradley to carry out its mission of establishing free schools for poor white children in Wilmington, North Carolina. Her first school opened in January 1867, in a building that had housed a similar school before the war, with three students. By 1869 she was in charge of three separate schools with 435 students.

Alma Pierce Robbins wrote in her Vassalboro history that Bradley’s niece, Amy Morris Bradley Homans (1848-1943) was a teacher in North Carolina and an early promoter of physical education for women. Her work led to the 1909 creation of Wellesley College’s Department of Hygiene and Physical Education, Robbins said.

Waterville native Mary Caffrey Low Carver (1850-1926) was still Mary Low when she entered Colby College in 1871. In July 1875 she became the first woman to graduate from Colby, and one of the first women in New England to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Low was class valedictorian. One on-line source says she gave the valedictory address at graduation. Wikipedia says she did not, because that role was traditionally for a man; but she did offer the prayer, in Latin.

Soon after graduation, Low married fellow Colby graduate Leonard D. Carver, who became Maine State Librarian. After teaching for a few years, his wife also became a librarian and worked as a cataloger for the state library. Wikipedia says she started the library’s card catalog.

Leonard Carver was co-founder, with Bowdoin College Librarian George Little, of the Maine Library Association, organized in March 1891.

Low continued to support Sigma Kappa and women’s education at Colby for the rest of her life. She spent her last years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her daughter, Ruby (Carver) Emerson.

Colby gave Low an honorary doctorate in 1916 and named a building after her. Mary Low Hall is a residence hall on the Mayflower Hill campus; a Colby website says it houses the Mary Low Coffee House, “a venue for concerts, international coffee hours, and informal gatherings.”

In 1873, four more women joined Mary Low at Colby: Louise Helen Coburn, Ida Mabel (Fuller) Pierce, Elizabeth Gorham Hoag and Frances Elliott Mann Hall. The five founded Sigma Kappa sorority, authorized on Nov. 9, 1874. Ruby Emerson was a member of the Sigma Kappa chapter at Colby and in 1935-36 president of the national Sigma Kappa sorority.

The second woman to graduate from Colby was Louise Helen Coburn (1856-1949) of Skowhegan, daughter of Stephen Coburn, Colby ’39. She graduated in 1877 and for the rest of her life helped promote women’s education at the college; she and Mary Low Carver led the unsuccessful protest against the 1890 division into men’s and women’s colleges.

A botanist, Coburn edited Maine Naturalist and was president of the Josselyn Botanical Society. She published a book of her poetry titled Kennebec and Other Poems (1916) and a two-volume history, Skowhegan on the Kennebec (1941). The Skowhegan History House Museum and Research Center is her legacy to her home town.

(Maine Naturalist was published in the 1920s in Thomaston. Its subtitle was Journal of the Knox Academy of Arts and Sciences on the Fauna, Flora and Geology of Maine.)

Frances Mann (1853-1935) was from Yarmouth and had taught high school in Rockport, Massachusetts, before coming to Colby. She met her husband, George Washington Hall, in college; she left Colby after her junior year because of health problems, and she and her husband both had careers as teachers, at least part of their lives in Washington, D.C.

When Albion native Ida May “Mabel” Fuller (1854-1930) decided to enter Colby, still primarily a men’s college, her older brother, David Blin Fuller (1853-1915) was reportedly so angry that he refused to follow the Colby family tradition and went to Bowdoin instead. His sister left college in her junior year and moved to Kansas, where she married a Dr. Pierce and after his death, Wikipedia reports, “became a successful businesswoman, founded a hotel for girls in Kansas City, and was vice-president of a bank.”

Elizabeth Hoag (1857-1875), who designed the Sigma Kappa emblem, died of tuberculosis in her graduation year, at the age of 18. Like her four friends, she was from Maine; this writer has been unable to find which town in Maine.

Adeline Weymouth (1817-1896), of Clinton, has a weaker, and more unusual, claim to notice than the women previously described.

Readers familiar with Henry Kingsbury’s History of Kennebec County, to which this writer often refers, know that the chapter on each town or city ends with a list of “personal paragraphs.” For the 10 Kennebec County municipalities on which this series has focused (Fairfield is in Somerset County, Palermo is in Waldo County), Kingsbury listed almost 600 names.

Some were nationally known people like James G. Blaine, of Augusta, who got eight pages. Others were local farmers or merchants whose single paragraphs totaled about eight lines. Kingsbury did not say how they were chosen; this writer wonders if subscribing to buy a copy of the book was a factor.

Of the almost 600 names from 10 towns and cities, only one was a woman, Mrs. Adeline (Goodwin) Weymouth. Kingsbury gave her a long paragraph, about a third of a page, mostly about her husband and children.

Adeline Goodwin was the only daughter of Jediah (according to his gravestone) or Jedediah (according to Kingsbury) Goodwin (1786-1870), born in Berwick, and Mercy (Wing) Goodwin (1783-1873), born in Massachusetts. Adeline married Sargent (or Sergeant) Weymouth (1812-1890), probably in 1833 or 1834.

Kingsbury wrote that the Weymouths had seven sons and three daughters, although he refers to them as “His [Sergeant’s] children.” Four of the six oldest boys, Jacob, John, Alonzo and Warren, born between 1835 and 1846, joined the army in 1861 and after their three years were up re-enlisted for another three years.

Jacob “died in the army July 7, 1864,” and Alonzo died Nov. 1, 1868, at the age of 26 or 27 (Kingsbury gave no cause for his death).

The youngest of the three Weymouth daughters, Addie Justina (Kingsbury called her Justana), was born Sept. 22, 1857. When Kingsbury finished his book in 1892, Sergeant Weymouth had been dead for two years and Adeline and Addie were living “on the old homestead, where they settled in 1863,…carrying on the farm.”

An on-line genealogy says Adeline Weymouth died Aug. 16, 1896, and is buried in Clinton’s Town House Hill Cemetery (also her parents’ and her husband’s burial place). On Oct. 11, 1896, Addie married Abner P. True in Clinton.

Abner was born in 1849 and died in 1916; Addie died in 1940. They, too, are buried in Town House Hill Cemetery. The genealogy lists no children.

Main sources

Bernhardt, Esther, and Vicki Schad, compilers/editors Anthology of Vassalboro Tales (2017).
Fairfield Historical Society, Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 – 1971 n.d. (1971).
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902).

Websites, miscellaneous.

Various broadband initiatives across Maine to provide improved access

Photo credit: Barta IV, https://www.flickr.com/photos/98640399@N08/9287370881

by Jeanne Marquis

Communities through the Central Maine and Coastal regions are creating initiatives to improve their internet services to existing users and provide connection to underserved areas. Each community or coalition of communities is in a different stage of their progress, yet all have similar goals of future proofing their internet connections, providing reliable service to underserved residents and more affordable service to those who are currently served.

The Southwestern Waldo Broadband Coalition (SWBC) is one of these initiatives. Their goal is to connect Freedom, Liberty, Montville, Palermo, and Searsmont with affordable, accessible broadband coverage. In a survey conducted from April to September of 2021, fifty-five percent of respondents stated that no company was able to provide internet service to their homes. The survey results are further supported by a Geographical Information System (GIS) Mapping of the area showing most of Southwestern Waldo is in an internet desert devoid of connection.

Bob Kurek, Palermo selectman, explains why he works actively to advocate for SWBC,

“This is my second term as a selectman. I would like to leave the town doing something good for the town and I think this is probably the one thing that will benefit most of our residents.

“My next reason is funding. I would call myself a pragmatic conservative. I wouldn’t normally have gone after the government put in a lot of money. But as long as the government has decided they’ve got money that’s available [for broadband coverage], I want to be ready, willing and able to accept it and put it to use to solve a problem for our residents.”

The SWBC is fueled by volunteers from the five towns that comprise the coalition. Kurek explains, “If you realize the resources that it takes to pull together the information that you need to work on these grants? Small towns, like the R5 towns, don’t have enough resources to do it but when we combine we have the resources – I’m just thrilled by the people who work with us. We’ve got engineers, we’ve got educators, we’ve got accountants, we’ve got a good group of people who understand what it is that we’re wanting to do. They’re all working to solve the problem. They realize that our area is so unserved and underserved by broadband service. We could enhance our economic development, we can enhance education, and we can make it easier for people who need to communicate with doctors.”

The SWBC completed an extensive survey to ascertain the level of interest and need in their five town area. Key members of the coalition presented the results this September in informational sessions at town meetings. The SWBC earned the approval of all five select boards to use funds from the first distribution of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for a feasibility study. The SWBC is now soliciting bids from eight consulting firms.

Another broadband initiative in the Central Maine region is the Western Kennebec Lakes Community Broadband Asso­ciation, which combines the towns of Fayette, Leeds, Mount Vernon, Readfield, Vienna and Wayne. A statement on the association’s website expresses that their towns need improved access to the internet to help their students get an education, promote remote work opportunities, access information and reduce isolation by connecting family and friends. The association also views internet access as vital to the future financial wellbeing of their communities by encouraging new residents to settle and their current families’ youth to stay or return.

The WKLCBA is currently gathering survey information from residents from their six communities. Video testimonials are posted on their website expressing the need for improved internet service from a variety of sectors: health, education and business.

Ellsworth is an example of a community with a newly-installed fiber network serving three miles of their downtown area. The city is currently offering leases to connect to the network to both residential and business customers. The goal of the fiber network project is to position Ellsworth as a technology-friendly city to attract remote workers and companies for whom broadband is a vital component of their business.

The Ellsworth city website says the city may expand the network overtime as the interest grows and update the technology at either end of the cable as needed.

The Town of China appointed a broadband committee to research options for better internet service and this committee has been meeting since early 2017. The China Broadband Committee (CBC) found that the major internet provider services only 70 percent of the town, the rest are serviced by a lower quality DSL or have no service. The committee’s solution to provide more reliable, more affordable internet service to every resident and business in China is similar to the fiber network plans of the broadband initiatives in progress across our state. The CBC plan is highly detailed and analyzed in an October 14, 2021, article by The Town Line technical advisor Eric Austin found at https://townline.org/category/sections/columns/tech-talk/ and on the CBC website at https://chinabroadband.net/.

Maine’s Congressional district map approved

by Jeanne Marquis

The last week in September, the bipartisan Maine Apportionment Commission approved final congressional and legislative district maps based on the 2020 census results and submitted both to the legislature. The Maine Senate and House of Representatives approved the state’s congressional and legislative district maps. September 29, 2021, Gov. Janet Mills signed the legislation enacting the redrawn congressional and legislative districts, which will take effect for Maine’s 2022 elections.

In developing the new district maps, the Apportionment Commission followed the instructions outlined by the Maine Constitution mandating that districts be “compact and contiguous, and that they cross political subdivision lines as few times as possible.” Following these directions, the new congressional district map leaves counties mostly intact.

Congressional District 1, population of 681,179; includes the towns of Albion, Benton, China, Clinton, Litchfield, Pittston, Unity, Vassalboro, Waterville, West Gardiner, Windsor, and Winslow; and the counties of Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc, and York.

Congressional District 2, population of 681,180; includes the towns of Augusta, Belgrade, Chelsea, Farmingdale, Fayette, Gardiner, Hallowell, Manchester, Monmouth, Mount Vernon, Oakland, Randolph, Readfield, Rome, Sidney, Vienna, Wayne, and Winthrop; and the counties of Androscoggin, Aroostook, Frank­lin, Hancock, Oxford, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset, Waldo, and Washington.

The approved legislative district maps for State Senate and State House of Representatives can be found on Maine.gov at https://legislature.maine.gov/apportionment/final-maps/11534.

EVENTS – Question #1: CMP corridor debate Oct. 14

COMMUNITY COMMENTARY

by Jan John
Event organizer

The next Lincoln County Community Conversations event will take place on Thursday, October 14, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. The panel discussion focuses on the November referendum Question 1 in order to provide voters “Views from Both Ends of the CMP Corridor.”

Supporters and opponents of Question #1, a citizen’s initiative on the November 2 ballot, have Maine voters pitted against each other in an all out tug-o-war. The question reads, “Do you want to ban the construction of high-impact electric transmission lines in the Upper Kennebec Region and to require the Legislature to approve all other such projects anywhere in Maine, both retroactively to 2020, and to require the Legislature, retroactively to 2014, to approve by a two-thirds vote such projects using public land?”

A “Yes” vote will ban the construction of the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC), colloquially known as the CMP Corridor, and any other high-impact electric transmission lines in the Upper Kennebec Region. It will make it so all construction of high-impact electric transmission lines in Maine has to be approved by the State Legislature. If the transmission lines are on public lands, a yes vote would require a supermajority in the Legislature in order for construction to be approved. These provisions would apply retroactively to September 16, 2020, meaning that all projects previously approved within that time frame would become subject to review and reapproval of or denial by the Legislature. Finally, a yes vote would require the Legislature to review and reapprove or deny the use of public lands for any poles, transmission lines and facilities, landing strips, pipelines and railroad tracks, retroactively to September 16, 2014.

A “No” vote would allow the construction of the CMP corridor and similar projects to continue as permitted in the Upper Kennebec Region. It would uphold the status quo of not requiring state legislative approval for the construction of high-impact electric transmission lines in the state and not requiring two-thirds of the State Legislature to approve the use of public lands for any poles, transmission lines and facilities, landing strips, pipelines and railroad tracks.

Event organizer, Jan John, of Bristol, shares, “There is a lot to this question and we want to use our Community Conversations forum to bring together representatives from both sides of this issue. We hope that our panel will help us unpack it all, calmly, and present facts and figures so that the voters of Lincoln County are able to make informed choices on election day. This vote has the potential to set precedents for generations to come.”

Please contact John at janjohn1us@yahoo.com or 207-529-6502.