Covers towns roughly within 50 miles of Augusta.

Scouts collect food for needy

/0 Comments/in , /by

Augusta Pack 684 and Troop 631

Area Scouts have been busy helping feed the hungry and honor our deceased veterans. Scouts from Jackman to Camden took part in the Scouting for Food Drive which collected hundreds of pounds of food to help fill shelves in local food pantries. Pittsfield Troop #428 hosted a Senior Dinner to Go program on December 9 at the Sebasticook Valley Elks serving up hot dogs, baked beans, corn and cornbread in Covid-compliant meals to go kits. Scouts from Winthrop, Augusta, and West Gardiner placed wreaths on the graves of those who served our nation. This was as part of the nationwide Wreaths Across America Day. Some Scouts helped place wreaths at the cemeteries at Togus, others helped at the Veterans Cemeteries in Augusta and at the veterans’ burial spots in West Gardiner. In all, Scouts helped honor hundreds of veterans this holiday season.

Text and photo by Chuck Mahaleris

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Maine Supreme Court Chief Justices from Kennebec Valley – Part 2

/0 Comments/in , , /by
by Mary Grow

William Pattangall
Robert Williamson
Daniel Wathen

After the three Maine Supreme Court Justices whose biographies were summarized last week (see The Town Line, Dec. 10) the next Chief Justice listed as an Augusta resident was the 15th, William Robinson Pattangall (1865-1942).

William Pattangall

Pattangall was born June 29, 1865, in Pembroke, almost on the Canadian border. He graduated from the University of Maine (then Maine State College), Class of 1884, and studied law in a Calais office.

Maine Chief Justice Raymond Fellows’ short 1954 book about Pattangall (not a biography, Fellows wrote) says his father was a sailor and shipbuilder, and Pattangall went to sea in a Pattangall-built ship for two years. Then he worked in shoe factory offices in Massachusetts and New York before returning to Machiasport in 1891, where he taught high school, including navigation courses.

He married twice, in 1884 to Jean M. Johnson, who died in 1888, and in 1892 to Gertrude Helen McKenzie, who died in 1950. He and Jean had one daughter, born in Massachusetts in 1886; Gertrude, who was a former student of his, bore him three more daughters.

By continuing to study law, Pattangall earned admission to the Maine bar in April 1893. He practiced in Columbia Falls, then Machias, and briefly in Bangor until 1905, meanwhile serving in the Maine House of Representatives in 1897-1898 and 1901-1902 and from 1903 to 1909 editing the weekly Machias Union. In those years he authored satirical political articles, later collected as The Meddybemps Letters (Meddybemps is close to Pembroke) and The Maine Hall of Fame. Fellows’ book includes the two books.

In 1905, Fellows wrote, Pattangall was invited to become editor of the Waterville Sentinel, so he and his family moved to Waterville. In addition to practicing law, he was mayor of Waterville and Maine Attorney General from 1911 to 1913 and Attorney General again in 1915; and an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress in 1904, 1913 and 1914.

(Current Governor Janet Mills, when she was sworn in for her second term as Attorney General on Jan. 7, 2013, said she was following Pattangall’s pattern: she had served as Maine’s 55th and now 57th Attorney General, and Pattangall had been the 32nd and 34th, the only two she knew of who took a break between terms.)

In 1915 the Pattangalls moved to Augusta. From there he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1922 and 1924. He was a delegate to the 1924 Democratic National Convention.

He was also, Fellows wrote, an extremely successful lawyer, so good that “his attainments and qualifications for high judicial office could no longer be overlooked.” Consequently, on July 2, 1926, Republican Governor Owen Brewster appointed Democrat Pattangall an Associate Justice of the Maine Supreme Court.

In following years, Pattangall became so disillusioned with President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal that he switched parties. One on-line source says the change was not long before he was appointed Chief Justice on Feb. 7, 1930, by Brewster’s Republican successor, Governor William Tudor Gardiner.

Pattangall retired from the court July 16, 1935, and continued his successful law practice. He died Oct. 21, 1942, in Augusta.

Sources describe him as a supporter of public education, civil rights and President Woodrow Wilson and a determined opponent of the Ku Klux Klan, which was active in Maine in the early 20th century. Fellows wrote that Pattangall believed judges, and everyone else involved in the law, had two responsibilities: to protect “constitutional rights and liberties,” specifically individual and state rights against federal incursions; and to adapt the legal system to the contemporary world, slowly and thoughtfully.

When Bowdoin College awarded Pattangall an honorary Doctor of Laws during his tenure as Chief Justice; the accompanying citation referred to his earlier career as a journalist and editor. It praised his literary achievements, calling him “a master of epigram and satire.”

Fellows, who knew Pattangall, mentioned his sense of humor, his kindness, his ability as a speaker and the simplicity and clarity of his written opinions.

A bit over 21 years later, Robert Byron Williamson (1899-1976) became Maine’s 22nd Chief Justice on Oct. 4, 1956.

Williamson’s great-grandfather was Maine Senate President Joseph Williamson, younger brother of Maine’s second governor, William D. Williamson (1821), and his grandfather was Edwin C. Burleigh, who was Maine’s governor from 1889 to 1893.

According to Bill Caldwell’s combination obituary and tribute in the Jan. 2, 1977, Portland Sunday Telegram (reprinted in the Congressional Record at the request of then-Senator Edmund Muskie), Williamson was the fourth of five generations of lawyers.

Born in Augusta, Williamson attended Cony High School and graduated from Phillips Andover Academy. Two sources say he served in World War I, his Dec. 28, 1976, obituary in The New York Times specifying that he was a lieutenant of infantry; neither source gives dates. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, where he edited The Harvard Crimson, in 1920 and a doctorate of law (J.D.) from Harvard Law School in 1923.

On June 2, 1925, he married Grace Warren Whitney, a graduate of Cony High School and Wellesley College. Their son, Robert B. Williamson, was a lawyer in Cape Elizabeth in 1976.

Caldwell quoted an earlier newspaper report that Williamson began practicing law in Augusta in partnership with Lewis Burleigh; his father and Lewis Burleigh’s father had been partners in the earlier Williamson and Burleigh firm. He also wrote for the Kennebec Journal at some point. His first public position was as U. S. Commissioner for Kennebec County, in 1926. He resigned from that job in December 1928, after being elected to his only term in the Maine House of Representatives.

On Aug. 15, 1945, Governor Horace A. Hildreth made Williamson a Maine Superior Court justice. Governor Frederick Payne appointed him a Supreme Court associate justice on April 28, 1949; on Oct. 4, 1956, Governor Muskie made him Chief Justice. Seven years later Governor John Reed reappointed him for a second term. Williamson retired from the court on Aug. 21, 1970.

The New York Times obituary said that in 1967-68 Williamson served as head of the national Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ), created in 1949 to let states’ top judicial officers discuss common problems. (As of January 2016, Wikipedia says, the CCJ included all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five United States territories [American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands, Puerto Rico and the U. S. Virgin Islands.])

Caldwell, quoting employees at the state Law Library and others who knew Williamson personally, called him gentle, quiet, modest, compassionate, courteous and well-liked. And, Caldwell wrote, he was in his quiet way a rebel who made many improvements to the Maine court system during his two terms as Chief Justice. In granting him an honorary doctorate, Bowdoin College credited him with updating the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure, the document that describes procedures for state district and superior courts in civil cases.

The Bowdoin citation also praised his service as president of the Maine Congregational Conference and said that B’nai B’rith had praised him for exemplifying brotherhood.

After Williamson’s retirement from the Court, an on-line source says he was a teacher for a year, and then-Senator Muskie’s tribute in the United States Senate said he served on state and national committees. Williamson died Dec. 27, 1976, four days after being admitted to the coronary care unit at Augusta General Hospital.

Daniel Wathen

Daniel Everett Wathen, Maine’s 25th Chief Justice and the most recent one from Augusta, was born Nov. 4, 1939, in Easton. He graduated from Easton High School and Houlton’s Ricker College, Class of 1962. He earned his law degree from the University of Maine School of Law in 1965, graduating cum laude and serving as editor of the school’s Maine Law Review for two years. In 1987 he earned a Masters of Law (LLM) from the University of Virginia School of Law.

In an interview with a Maine law school representative (unnamed) available on line, Wathen credited the law school with providing his life’s direction. In his youth, he confessed, he left college more than once before he got married in his junior year (to Judith C. Foren, also of Easton) and settled down, becoming a dean’s list scholar.

Admitted to the Maine bar in 1965, Wathen was a member of the law firm of Wathen and Wathen, in Augusta. The first Wathen was his brother George; after George’s untimely death in 1971, Wathen became head of the firm.

In September 1977, Governor James Longley abruptly appointed him a Maine Superior Court justice. Governor Joseph Brennan named him to the Supreme Court on Aug. 31, 1981, and on March 20, 1992, Governor John R. McKernan Jr. made him Chief Justice. Wathen told the law school interviewer he had enjoyed everything he worked at – except “picking potatoes and shoveling manure” – but found the position of Chief Justice “the best job by far,” providing interesting cases, a mandate to decide them the right way and authority to carry out the mandate.

Reappointed in 1999 by Governor Angus King, he resigned Oct. 4, 2001, for a brief candidacy for governor in the Republican primary. The experience showed him that he did not enjoy being part of the political process, and he quit after seven weeks.

He then joined the Augusta law firm Pierce Atwood, which became the successor to Wathen and Wathen in 1977 when Wathen became a Superior Court Justice. The Pierce Atwood website lists him as Of Counsel, specializing in arbitration and mediation and dealing with issues nation-wide and in Puerto Rico. The website has a long list of types of issue in which he uses his expertise, most of them business-oriented.

On June 8, 2011, Governor Paul LePage appointed Wathen chairman of the board of the Maine Turnpike Authority. He was reappointed in 2019; his term ends March 31, 2024. He serves on several other state and national boards overseeing legal and educational programs.

Other on-line sources (see, for example, the list of winners of the Access to Justice Award on the Muskie Fund for Legal Services home page) describe his roles in mental health and domestic violence issues, improving access to legal services for poor people and charitable and educational activities.

The Muskie Fund website has a long list of Wathen’s honors, including honorary degrees from the University of Maine at Augusta, Thomas College, in Waterville, and the University of New England, in Biddeford. He has received awards from the University of Southern Maine, the Maine Bar Foundation, the Kennebec Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Commission on Safety and Health in the Maine Workplace, the Maine Child Abuse Action Network and Maine Seniors, among others.

Wathen, like Senator Angus King, rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle (known affectionately as a hog). Several Maine newspapers, including the Lewiston Sun Journal (Aug. 21, 2017) and the Ellsworth American (Aug. 15, 2018), have run stories about the two and their companions touring the state. According to the interview mentioned above, Wathen is a fan of Robert Pirsig’s book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Main sources

Fellows, Raymond, and Edward J. Conquest, compilers, William R. Pattangall of Maine Lawyer, Politician, Jurist, 1954.
L’Hommedieu, Andrea, Interview with Dan Wathen, Sept. 29, 1999, part of Bowdoin College’s George J. Mitchell Oral History Project (found on line).
University of Maine School of Law, anonymous and undated interviews with alumni (found on line).

Other websites, miscellaneous.

Gov. Mills launches $40M economic recovery grant program

/0 Comments/in , /by

photo: Janet Mills, Facebook

Governor Janet Mills has announced an economic recovery grant program to support Maine’s tourism, hospitality, and retail small businesses. Backed by $40 million in Federal CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Funds (CRF), the Tourism, Hospitality & Retail Recovery Grant Program is focused specifically on supporting Maine’s service sector small businesses, such as restaurants, bars, tasting rooms, lodging and retail shops, which have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and now face additional challenges with the coming winter months.

“Maine’s hospitality, tourism, and retail industries are a vital part of Maine’s economy, supporting tens of thousands of jobs across the state,” said Governor Mills. “In the face of this unrelenting pandemic, many of these businesses have adapted with classic Maine grit and resilience but still face historic and unprecedented challenges. I hope this program will help provide at least a small amount of financial support to sustain them through these difficult times. I continue to urge Congress to pass additional, robust relief for Maine people and businesses.”

Scouting continues during pandemic – with caution

/0 Comments/in , /by

China Cub Scout Pack #479 sold masks to help support scouting. (contributed photo)

by Chuck Mahaleris

Covid-19 has changed the way society has operated this year. Governments and businesses have altered operating practices and new rules have been put in place to keep everyone safe. The same is true for the programs of Scouting.

Waterville Troop #436 scout climbs the trail at Tumbledown this past August. (contributed photo)

“The Scout motto is ‘Be Prepared’,” said Kennebec Valley District Chair Kelly Pillsbury. “Scouts are prepared for hiking in bad weather. Scouts are prepared to treat someone in need of first aid. Scouts are prepared to teach others to protect nature. And Scouts are prepared to continue the programs of Scouting during a global pandemic.” Local Scout Troops and Packs have followed guidance from the State of Maine, the Center for Disease Control and from the National BSA to ensure they are doing all they can to keep Scouts and Scouters safe while delivering the values-based activities of Scouting.

“When our programs can meet indoors, we do so following the rules on masks, social distancing and frequent hand-washing,” Pillsbury said. “When we can’t meet indoors, we meet outdoors and follow the Covid-19 procedures. When we can’t do either, our Scouting Packs and Troops and leaders meet virtually. The generations before us overcame a lot and we will overcome this too,” she said. Scouts have stepped up to show that they don’t quit even during national emergencies.

For example, important ceremonies look a little different but continue to be held like Augusta’s Michael J. Fortin who was awarded his Eagle Scout rank during a socially-distanced ceremony in July and Cub Scout Christopher Smith of Pack #585 who, along with his parents, wore a mask when he received his Arrow of Light award, in Farmington.

At camping trips, hikes, meetings and other events, Scout leaders communicate with parents and Scouts to be sure each participates in the most appropriate and comfortable way possible. For some it is in person, for others it may be virtual. For any in-person event, Scouts, parents and leaders should be screened for any signs or symptoms of Covid-19 including coughing, shortness of breath, chills, etc. “We’ve gotten good at finding ways to make things work,” Pillsbury said. “Some of our Scouting units have met at schools but when schools are closed, no Scout meetings happen there, so we have learned to find alternative meeting sites.

When that isn’t possible, they have developed virtual meeting plans to help Scouting leaders keep their Scouting program going. It has become so important to our youth that things remain as close to normal as possible. I have been very impressed. Not only are the Scouts continuing to meet and camp and hike but they are finding ways to help others. Scouts are collecting food for food pantries, doing neighborhood cleanups, and sending emails and video messages to residents of nursing homes to encourage them.

In Jackman, the Scouts have asked for food donations for the needy and people can leave it on their step, let them know and a Scout will pick it up. The same is true in Camden and Rockport where Pack #200 Cubs put out fliers to area homes seeking food for the needy and then collecting on November 22. All while being safe and keeping those donating safe. Some of our Scouts, like Cubs in China Pack #479, have been selling masks to help others while helping support their programs. We want all of our Scouts, during this crisis and when things return to normal, to do a good deed every day. We all want this pandemic to be over soon, but until it is, Scouting will be there just as it has been for more than 100 years.”

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Notable women

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Novella Jewell Trott

by Mary Grow

As background for this piece on a small selection of women of importance from the central Kennebec Valley, some historical notes might establish a useful timeline.

1) The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution says: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” It was passed in the House of Representatives on May 21, 1919, by a generous margin, and in the Senate on June 4, 1919, by a vote of 56 to 25, two votes more than the two-thirds majority required for a Constitutional amendment. The necessary 36th state ratification was Tennessee’s on Aug. 18, 1920.

The 89th amendment to the Maine Constitution, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex or ancestry, was approved by referendum, by about a five to two margin, on Nov. 5, 1963.

2) According to an online history of the Maine Medical Association (founded in the spring of 1853 after its predecessor, the 1820 Medical Society of Maine, disbanded in 1845), in 1900 Maine had 1,206 physicians registered, of whom 67 were women. In 1982, 1,300 of 1,952 Maine practicing physicians were Association members, including 75 women.

In September 2003, the Maine Medical Association elected its first female president, Dr. Maroulla Gleaton, a Palermo resident and board-certified ophthalmologist practicing in Augusta.

3) Maine’s State Teachers Association was founded in November 1859, in Waterville. It became the Maine Education Association (MEA) in 1867 (and inherited the Teachers Association’s treasury’s assets of $1.26); in 1882 briefly merged with the 1876 Maine Teachers Association (MTA) to form the Maine Pedagogical Society; became MTA for much of the 20th century; and in 1993 became MEA again.

The initial association’s all-male founders are described on the MEA website as “superintendents, principals, college professors and teachers in large towns.” The two-thirds of Maine teachers who were women were not included until 1862. Their dues when admitted were half the men’s dues – proportional to their pay, the website comments.

In 1881, while Nelson Luce, of Vassalboro, was the State Superintendent of Schools, one of his recommendations led to state laws that for the first time allowed women to be school board members and school supervisors. The MTA’s first woman president was Helen Robinson, elected in 1927.

4) The Maine legislature created the Maine State Bar Association on March 6, 1891, to promote the legal profession and propose legal reforms. Wikipedia calls Maine’s a “relatively progressive bar,” having admitted the first recognized black lawyer in the United States, Macon Allen (who practiced briefly in Portland) in 1844. The Bar Association accepted its first woman member, Eva Bean from Old Orchard Beach, in 1911.

Against this background, it is easier to understand the importance of women who succeeded in traditionally male professions and activities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

One of the employees in the Augusta-based E. C. Allen Publishing Company (see The Town Line, Nov. 12) was Woolwich native and former teacher Novella Jewell Trott (1846-1929). Joining Allen’s firm in 1881, she became an editor within two years, in charge of magazines called Practical Housekeeper and Daughters of America. An online site says she was responsible for all editing work, including reading submissions, choosing and improving material and composing her own articles. By 1894, Trott was an assistant editor for William Howard Gannett.

In 1893, Trott was one of seven women “of national reputation” who represented the Queen Isabella Association’s press department at the World’s Columbian Exposition, in Chicago, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America. A group of professional women organized the association in 1889 to honor Queen Isabella, of Spain, who financed Columbus, by commissioning a statue of her by an association member, sculptor Harriet Hosmer.

Florence Whitehouse

Florence Brooks Whitehouse (1869-1945) was born in Augusta and later lived in Portland. Her mother, Mary Caroline Wadsworth, was related to the family of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; her father, Samuel Spencer Brooks, was a wealthy shipbuilder and businessman, a hardware store owner with a reputation for integrity.

Educated in Augusta schools and at a private Episcopal finishing school called St. Catherine’s Hall, Whitehouse was unusually independent for her time. Online sources say she skipped college to study fine arts in Boston for several years; visited Europe and the Middle East; and spent the winter of 1892 on a sailing barge on the Nile River with members of the McCormick family (descendants of mid-Westerners Robert and Cyrus McCormick, inventors of the McCormick reaper). While in Egypt, Kingsbury wrote, she was a newspaper correspondent.

On June 21, 1894, Florence Brooks married Robert Treat Whitehouse, also Augusta-born, son of Vassalboro native William Penn Whitehouse, who was an Associate Justice (later Chief Justice) of the Maine Supreme Court. Robert Whitehouse was a Harvard-educated lawyer who wrote several law books early in the 20th century.

The Whitehouses lived in Portland and had three sons, born between 1895 and 1904. An online source describes the marriage as “egalitarian.” Florence Whitehouse wrote two romance novels with Middle Eastern settings, The God of Things: A Novel of Modern Egypt (published in 1902) and The Effendi: A Romance of the Soudan (1904), as well as short stories and plays.

According to an online biography by historian Anne Gass and Loyola University student Robert Pirages, Whitehouse’s activity in Portland’s Civic Club showed her that if women and children were to be treated justly, women needed a greater voice in public affairs.

In 1914, Whitehouse joined the Maine Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA), whose main goal was a state equal rights amendment. She soon became a leading speaker, debater and writer for the group. Gass and Pirages wrote that she had significant family support: her father-in-law had been advocating for women’s suffrage since 1874, and in 1914 her husband helped found and chaired the Men’s Equal Suffrage League.

In 1915, frustrated by state legislators’ inaction, Whitehouse founded and, for five years, chaired the Maine branch of the Congressional Union (CU), a national organization fighting for a federal equal rights amendment. CU was considered a radical group because of its tactics, which included picketing President Woodrow Wilson’s office. Whitehouse joined out-of-state protests; in Maine, not all her fellow suffragists could support CU. In 1917 she resigned from MWSA.

Whitehouse lobbied hard to persuade Maine’s national legislators to approve and state legislators to ratify the 19th amendment. When Governor Carl Milliken called a special session of the Maine legislature on Nov. 4, 1919, to act on ratification, Whitehouse and national suffragist Alice Paul were leaders in bringing about its passage, by a four-vote margin.

The CU became the National Women’s Party in 1916, and Whitehouse remained involved. She was also active in the Portland Chamber of Commerce and increasingly in state and national anti-war movements. Supporting the League of Nations and international disarmament, she chaired international cooperation committees for the Maine League of Women Voters and the Maine Federation of Churches, represented Maine’s Peace commission on the World Unity Council and was a member of the National Council on the Prevention of War.

Whitehouse was chosen a member of the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame in 2008.

Ninetta Runnals

Ninetta May Runnals (1885-1980) was born in Dover-Foxcroft, but earned both her bachelor’s degree and her professional reputation at Colby College in Waterville. Graduating in Colby’s Class of 1908 with a mathematics major, she taught at Foxcroft Academy in Dover-Foxcroft for three years and was Maine Central Institute’s Dean of Girls for another five years.

When Colby trustees decided in 1916 the college needed a dean of women, President Arthur Roberts invited Runnals to apply for the job. Two sources quote from his letter: the invitation was for “the coming year and the rest of your life.”

Runnals refused, because she wanted to complete her master’s degree in mathematics at Columbia University. After she received it in 1920, she told Roberts she would accept his still-open offer, provided that the position included a professorship and that the trustees gave the dean broader responsibilities. Her conditions were approved, and in 1920 she became Colby’s Dean of Women and an Assistant Professor of Mathematics.

Runnals held the deanship for 27 years, with a break (1926-28) to work at Hillsdale College, in Hillsdale, Michigan. In 1923 she became a full professor at Colby, and after 1928 she taught education courses as well as mathematics.

Colby had begun in 1813 as a Baptist institution, but shed its religious affiliation after Maine separated from Massachusetts. The college was originally located on College Avenue, in Waterville. The present Mayflower Hill campus was acquired in 1931.

Students were all men until 1871, when Mary Caffrey Low, of Waterville, became the first and for two years only woman enrolled. She was valedictorian of the Class of 1875, which by then included five female students.

Male and female students were “resegregated” in 1890, Wikipedia says, and when Runnals became Dean of Women the trustees had plans to create a separate women’s college. Knowing the men’s college would get the bulk of resources if the separation occurred, Runnals successfully fought the proposal.

In following years she brought about other changes that improved Colby and especially enhanced women’s education. Her causes included upgrading the women’s physical education program, fighting for equal salaries for women faculty members, leading a 1930s fund drive for the women’s union building on the Mayflower Hill campus (renamed Runnals Union in 1959) and helping plan women’s dormitories in the early 1940s. In 1938, she was the first female faculty member to be honored by the senior class dedicating the college yearbook, the Colby Oracle to her “[i]n hearty appreciation of her enthusiastic participation in and cooperation with the academic, administrative, and social life of Colby.”

Runnals retired on Sept. 1, 1949. She served on the Colby Board of Trustees for six years, and remained active in college business the rest of her life, especially supporting equity for women. Colby awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1929. In 1992 she became a member of the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame.

Runnals was a founder of the Waterville branch of the American Association of University Women. In 1973 a citation from the national AAUW recognized her promotion of women’s education.

Jean Gannett Hawley (1924-1994) became executive vice-president of Guy Gannett Publishing Company in 1953 (see The Town Line, Nov. 12). An online source says it was she who changed the company name to the more inclusive Guy Gannett Communications.

Hawley was educated at Bradford Junior College (since 1971, Bradford College), in Haverhill, Massachusetts, where an online biography says she was a music major and harpist. Another website lists her four honorary doctorates, including a 1959 Doctorate of Humane Letters awarded by Colby College, on whose Board of Trustees she served from 1960 to 1972.

Her online biographer commented that her job overseeing Gannett’s newspaper chain was “made more difficult by the absence of other women in similar positions.” Nonetheless, from her base in Portland she expanded Gannett’s business in television and computers, including adding television stations in other states.

Hawley was chairman of the Gannett Board of Directors from 1959 until her death Sept. 4, 1994. Her niece, Madeleine G. Corson, who had been the board’s vice-chairman since 1990, succeeded to the chairmanship on Sept. 27, 1994.

There is no photo of Jean Gannett Hawley available.

Main sources

Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).

Websites, miscellaneous.

The written word in business to be presented at chamber breakfast

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Ted Helberg

Ted Helberg, retired business executive and former English instructor will deliver a presentation sharing the importance of good writing in business communications. This is a facilitated discussion on using effective and accurate word choice, grammar, and organization in business writing.
Ted will interject a little humor, discuss common errors, and offer methods to correct them.

This informative presentation will be the focus at Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce’s December Business Breakfast. December’s breakfast will be held on Thursday, December 3, from 7:15 to 9:00 a.m. at the Best Western Plus, 375 Main Street, Waterville.

Ted Helberg is a recently retired business executive. He worked in Human Resources for almost forty years in several industries. He also served as an adjunct instructor of English at several colleges.

During graduate school, Ted was a teaching assistant in English, tutor for law students, and helped create a national grammar hotline.

Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce holds monthly informative presentations on a variety of educational business topics. Cost of the Business Breakfast is $20 for members, $27 at the door and for non-members. Breakfast is included with the reservation.
To register, e-mail Cindy@midmainechamber.com or call 207-873-3315.

The major sponsors for the Business Breakfasts are: AT&T; Cross Employee Benefits; New Dimensions Federal Credit Union; Nicholson, Michaud & Company; O’Donnell, Lee, McCowan & Phillips, LLC; Sheridan Corporation. The print media sponsor is Morning Sentinel, a division of Masthead Maine; radio sponsor is MIX107.9; video sponsor is Kennebec Savings Bank.

Some items regarding CDC guidelines for attendance: out of concern for the safety of attendees, registrations at this indoor event will be limited to a maximum of 50 persons. Tables and seating will be spaced out, and a plated breakfast will be provided, as opposed to the buffet offered in the past. Masks are requested to be worn for registration, and until seated. Separate entrance and exits are offered to minimize passage of attendees, upon arrival and departure, and hand sanitizer will be provided.

About Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce: Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and advocating for business prosperity and regional economic improvement.  Its region includes the towns of Albion, Belgrade, Benton, Branch Mills, Burnham, China, Clinton, Fairfield, Hinckley, Oakland, Rome, Shawmut, Sidney, South China, Thorndike, Unity, Vassalboro, Waterville, Weeks Mills and Winslow.  For more information on the Chamber, including how to become a member, call (207) 873-3315 or visit www.midmainechamber.com.

Sabrina Jandreau joins Central Maine Growth Council as Development Coordinator

/0 Comments/in , /by

Sabrina Jandreau

Central Maine Growth Council, a public-private collaborative regional economic development partnership, has hired Sabrina Jandreau as its next Development Coordinator.

Jandreau, a graduate of Gordon College, in Wenham, Massachusetts, will be responsible for supporting the execution of economic and community development projects and programs put forth by the Growth Council.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to work for the Growth Council. As a life-long resident of central Maine, having the ability to return home and work for an organization that supports the betterment of small businesses and overall community development is humbling.”

Sabrina brings previous experience as a Strategic Planning and Business Development intern for Northern Light Health’s home office, in Brewer. Throughout her Gordon College career, she served as the NCAA Commonwealth Coast Conference SAAC president from 2018-2020 and served as the Vice President of Finance for Gordon’s student government. In this role, Sabrina was responsible for organizing the fiscal budget for the 2020-2021 school year, totaling more than $250,000, respectively.

Sabrina graduated in May 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Economics, and Law. Her background in studying economic development and public policy will support the Growth Council’s economic development plan, which facilitates the implementation of both public and private investments and projects.

“Central Maine Growth Council is excited to have Sabrina join our dynamic team during a time in which we’re scaling our organization and will be launching a regional accelerator initiative,” said Garvan Donegan, director of planning, innovation, and economic development. “Sabrina’s work will be critically important to continuing to advance our development pipeline, fuel our organizations growth, and deliver on our mission of cultivating a robust local and regional economy.”

Central Maine Growth Council is committed to fostering a robust regional economy. Its belief is that the standard of living and quality of life of our citizens is best served by a vibrant, healthy economy. To find out more about how CMGC can help your business succeed, give us a call at (207) 680-7300.

All Things Irish virtual show planned

/0 Comments/in , /by

The Best of All Things Irish in Maine 2020, a live virtual show featuring a delightful mix of all things Irish in Maine, will be held on Sunday, November 22, from 4 – 6 p.m. on YouTube.

Enjoy some of the best Irish talent from across the state of Maine. Music, dance, theater and more. Go to maineirish.com/best to register for the event. Help celebrate Maine’s bicentennial by honoring the Irish culture and history of the state.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Electricity and telephones

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

An Edison light bulb.

by Mary Grow

Many local histories find the arrival and expansion of electricity and telephone service noteworthy, especially in Maine’s smaller communities.

As most of us learned in grammar school, Benjamin Franklin is credited with discovering electricity in 1752, by flying a kite into a thunderstorm with a metal key attached to the wet string. His recognition that lightning caused sparks from the key was expanded and put to practical use by, among others, 19th-century British physicist Michael Faraday, whom a Wikipedia article calls one of the fathers of electricity (Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison share the title).

Faraday invented the electric motor in 1821, beginning a long series of practical developments that made electrical engineering, in Wikipedia’s view, “an essential tool for modern life.” Two early applications were the electric telegraph, which dates from the 1830s and expanded globally in the 1860s, and the first electric lights, in use by the 1870s.

The Fairfield bicentennial history gives 1886 as the year Amos Gerald created the Electric Light Company. (This was the same Amos Gerald who developed and electrified street railways; see The Town Line, Sept. 10.) In 1891, the company built a generating station on Mill Island. The William Connor house, on Summit Street, built in 1858, was the first to have electric lights.

The history further claims that Fairfield was the first Maine town to have electric lights; whether the reference is to private or public lighting is unspecified. Another note records a 1921 town vote to install streetlights in Shawmut; there is no indication whether other villages already had them.

Ruby Crosby Wiggin barely mentioned electricity in her Albion on the Narrow Gauge. The first lights were in 1920, she wrote, starting on the Unity Road and at Albion Corner and spreading town-wide in following years.

Alice Hammond, in her Sidney history, focused on the value of electricity to farm families. She wrote that Central Maine Power Company (CMP) extended its line from Augusta along Pond Road in 1925. Power reached Bartlett Road by 1927, part of River Road by 1933 and Middle Road by 1937.

The first night after the Wendell Bragg family on River Road got their house connected to the power line and lights installed, Hammond wrote, they turned on all the lights and went outdoors to admire the effect.

Electricity expanded Sidney’s dairy industry, as electric milking machines and milk coolers made large-scale production possible. Hammond wrote that Ernest Wyman was among the first farmers to buy a milking machine, and Dean Bailey had the first milking parlor, leading his cows to the machine instead of moving the machine from cow to cow.

Electricity was even more essential to the broiler industry, important in Sidney and much of the rest of central Maine from the 1950s into the 1970s. Multi-story chicken houses with thousands of chickens required lights, heat, and automatic feeding and watering devices.

Hammond paid special attention to electric radios, a new connection to the outside world after World War I. Six Sidney households had radios in 1925, she wrote, and neighbors would visit just to listen. There were 37 radios in town in 1928 and 65 by 1933.

In China, the bicentennial history says China Telephone Company manager E. J. Thompson asked Central Maine Power Company in 1920 to provide service to South China village. CMP agreed if residents would pay and would put up the necessary poles. They did, and in 1921 and 1922 houses acquired electric lights, water pumps and other amenities.

The Ladies’ Aid Society raised funds for the initial project and, the history says, supported South China streetlights for a few years. Town voters appropriated $100 for streetlights in 1923; skipped funding in 1924 and 1925; in 1926 and 1927 gave South China $100 and in 1927 added $75 for China Village street lights. Since 1928, when streetlights for the whole town cost $420, town meeting voters have routinely approved annual expenditures; the figure for 2020, included in the public works budget, is $10,000.

In Branch Mills, the village that is partly in China and partly in Palermo, the Village Improvement Society first explored replacing kerosene street lamps with electric lights in May 1919, Milton Dowe wrote. A four-man committee was appointed and apparently got in touch with CMP, without success.

By the spring of 1927, an enlarged committee negotiated an agreement with the company to run a line from South China, if Palermo would guarantee to pay $1,500 annually for five years. Committee member Harold Kitchen persuaded enough residents to sign up, some for $50 a year and some for less, to raise $1,200.

CMP offered to lower the guarantee if it could save money by using local materials and labor for the poles, Dowe wrote. The town bought poles and found a local contractor to put them up. CMP credited the final $100 when Palermo residents did the clearing needed to bring the line from Dirigo Corner to the village.

It was Aug. 8, 1928, that the electric lights were turned on in Branch Mills, Dowe wrote, and on Aug. 10 residents celebrated at the Grange Hall in the village.

Weeks Mills village had electricity by or soon after 1922, according to town records of pole permits. China Village, at the north end of town, acquired Central Maine Power service about 1927, the bicentennial history says. Earlier, local residents Everett Farnsworth and E. C. Ward shared power with neighbors from their noisy generators at opposite ends of Main Street.

Left, an 1878 Coffin phone. Right, a rotary dial phone.

Many of us also learned in school that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Actually, Wikipedia says, several other men could be credited as well, depending on definitions and whose story is believed; but Bell was the first to patent it, in 1876.

At first used primarily by businesspeople, the telephone began to appear in private homes (usually wealthy people’s) before 1880. Widespread household telephone service developed in central Maine in the first two decades of the 20th-century.

For example, Sidney historian Hammond, citing a 1976 book published by the Independent Telephone Pioneer Association’s New England Chapter, wrote that Sidney’s service started in 1901, when the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company set up a switchboard in Silas Waite’s house. The headquarters moved from house to house, ownership changed and lines and services were added over the years.

In 1908, John Field and Clyde Blake bought the business from New England T and T and made it the Sidney Telephone Company, a name it kept until 1965. There were 18 subscribers in 1908, 100 in 1941 and 250 by the late 1940s.

Hammond wrote that in addition to letting people talk with friends, the telephone system was a public address system and a fire alarm. To announce a town meeting, Grange supper or other event or to report a fire, the operator had a special ring that would let everyone on the service pick up.

In 1950, when Lewis Johnson bought the company and moved the switchboard to his Middle Road home and his wife Thelma became the operator, Hammond wrote that service became all day every day. Until then, only emergency calls were allowed at night and Sunday and holiday service was limited to an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Hammond’s history of Sidney has a photo of the Johnsons and their equipment.

In the winter of 1959-1960, Hammond wrote, Johnson converted from the crank phones to a dial system, building a separate building for the additional equipment. In 1965, Continental Telephone Company of Maine bought and incorporated the former Sidney Telephone Company.

Hammond added that Sidney had a second, smaller telephone company called the Farmers Line; she gives no dates. Some families started with Farmers and switched to Sidney Telephone; others used both services, she wrote.

In Vassalboro, the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company was operating by 1903; historian Alma Pierce Robbins found in town meeting records the company’s request to “change poles” on private land at Riverside in the southern end of town and to install a new line along the road from North Vassalboro to the Kennebec.

W. J. Thompson organized the China Telephone Company in South China in 1904 and was its general manager, president and head employee until illness forced him to retire in 1947. The company started with 29 subscribers, mostly businesses. Three public pay phones were available, in stores in South China and Weeks Mills and a private home at Dirigo Corner.

Thompson had two assistants. Howard L. Fuller was with him from 1904 and succeeded him as general manager in 1948, and R. C. Maxwell joined in 1906 and stayed with the company until he died in 1948. The bicentennial history says the three men and their families did everything from managing inventory and billing to repairing lines. Thompson was also president of the Maine Telephone Association in the 1920s.

According to the history, Maxwell used to collect bills door-to-door. When he was paid in produce, like apples or potatoes, he would substitute cash from his personal salary, $2.50 a day. The company’s first motorized vehicle was a motorcycle that did not survive Thompson’s handling; it was followed by a Model T and a Dodge touring car, both second-hand.

Starting with two lines, in South China and China Village, China Telephone connected more and more area residents. By 1923, according to a Maine Public Utilities Commission report, the company served people in all or parts of China, Palermo, Vassalboro and Windsor. The bicentennial history says long distance service was added– no date is given – via New England Telephone Company, in North Vassalboro.

The history says the company introduced dial telephones between 1959 and 1962 and in 1967 provided the first touch-tone telephones in New England.

Albion got its early telephone service from two competing companies, one based in Unity, which adjoins Albion on the northeast, and the other in Thorndike, which adjoins Unity on the northeast (both are in Waldo County). Wiggin told the story in detail in her history of Albion.

On May 31, 1905, she wrote, the Unity Telephone Company asked a special Albion committee for permission to put up poles and string lines throughout the town. The committee approved the request on June 21. On July 29, the Half Moon Telephone Company, in Thorndike, made a similar request, which was approved Aug. 15.

The Albion committee prescribed pole distances from each other and from roads, wire height and other specifications for both companies. Wiggin wrote that Half Moon got a head start, connecting three families’ businesses and houses in the fall of 1905, and charging them nothing. In 1906 Half Moon continued expansion and connected Albion with the exchange in Thorndike.

Unity Telephone started its construction in 1907 or 1908, Wiggin wrote. For some years the two companies competed; Wiggin wrote that in some places, Half Moon lines ran along one side of the road and Unity lines along the other.

People served by one line could not talk directly with people on the other. Some storekeepers signed up with both companies; if the two lines’ telephones were close enough to each other, someone in the store could allow cross-communication by holding them together.

Wiggin did not give the date at which Unity Telephone Company became Albion’s only telephone-service provider.

Main sources

Dowe, Milton E., History Town of Palermo Incorporated 1884 (1954).
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).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).
Wiggin, Ruby Crosby, Albion on the Narrow Gauge (1964).

Websites, miscellaneous.

Maine: the fifth most supportive state for veteran-owned businesses

/0 Comments/in , /by
by Amanda Postma

Some veterans have a hard time getting into the workforce after having served. That’s why so many of them start their own business.

With more than 2.4 million of all American businesses being veteran-owned, it goes without saying that some states are definitely more supportive than others.

So we looked into it. By finding how many veteran-owned businesses were in each state and how many state-based sales go toward veterans, we were able to determine the states that provide the most support.

Most Supportive States

1. New Hampshire, 2. South Carolina, 3. Mississippi, 4. Alabama, 5. Maine, 6. Tennessee, 7. West Virginia, 8. South Dakota, 9. North Carolina, 10. Virginia.

These states are great places of support for veterans who are looking to start their own company. Make sure you keep reading to find out which states are the least supportive.

How we determined the most supportive states for veteran-owned business:

There are many ways to measure support. Ultimately, we decided to see where veteran-owned businesses are thriving to determine which states are creating an environment where veterans have all the tools they need to succeed.

We looked at two factors to determine the best states for veteran business owners:

  • The percent of all businesses owned by a veteran;
  • The percent of state-based sales that go towards veterans;

Our data came from the US Government’s Small Business Administration, and used the most recent numbers available.

New Hampshire is the most supportive state for veteran-owned businesses. In fact, the state is so supportive that veteran-owned businesses occupy 12 percent of all businesses there. But what may be even more impressive is that 6 percent of state-based sales go toward veterans, which is the highest percentage in the U.S.

Maine found its spot on this list at No. 5. From 4 percent of the state sales supporting veterans to 11 percent of all businesses being veteran-owned, it’s easy to see why.