Covers towns roughly within 50 miles of Augusta.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Trolleys

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The Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland Railway trolley on Main St., in Fairfield.

by Mary Grow

Not long after finishing the piece about street railways that appeared in The Town Line, Sept. 10, this writer came across a small paperback book published in 1955. Written by O. R. (Osmond Richard) Cummings, it is titled Toonervilles of Maine, the Pine Tree State.

(The title refers to Fontaine Fox’s comic strip called Toonerville Folks that Wikipedia says first appeared in the Chicago Post in 1908 and last appeared in 1955. Toonerville was a suburban community with an assortment of oddball characters. One was Terrible-Tempered Mister Bang, who drove the Toonerville Trolley that met all the trains, Wikipedia explains.)

Additionally, the Connecticut Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society’s April-December 1965 Transportation Bulletin, available on line, includes a well-illustrated article Cummings wrote about the Waterville & Fairfield and other area street railways. Cummings and the Fairfield history both have information on trolleys in Fairfield, but they do not always agree. Cummings’ work is much more detailed, with information from multiple historical records.

The Waterville & Fairfield Railroad, which was initially powered by horses, is described in both books. Cummings wrote that it was incorporated on Feb. 24, 1887, and authorized to run horse-drawn cars the three and a third miles from Waterville to Fairfield. With $20,000 in bond sales and $20,000 borrowed, Amos F. Gerald, of Fairfield, and the other organizers acquired four cars and six horses. They oversaw the laying of tracks along the west side of the Kennebec roughly where College Avenue now runs and construction of a wooden carhouse for the cars and stable for the horses in Fairfield.

One online photo shows an elaborate open passenger car, rather precariously balanced on two sets of small wheels under its middle third, drawn by two white horses. Two women in floor-length skirts stand on the sidewalk in front of a row of large-windowed two-story brick buildings on Main Street, in Fairfield. The car is identified as Horse Car No. 1, and the estimated date is opening day, June 23, 1888 (the Fairfield historians wrote that service began June 24, 1888).

Car #1, in 1902.

Cummings said the open cars had eight benches and could accommodate 40 passengers. Another photo shows a closed car outside the Fairfield carhouse; the closed cars had space for 20 passengers, according to the text.

The railway soon had 24 horses. The Railroad Commissioners’ 1889 report, quoted by Cummings, said the horses “are well fed and kindly treated.”

The Waterville & Fairfield was well-patronized, Cummings wrote, carrying almost 95,000 passengers between its June 1888 opening and Sept. 30 that year. In its first full year, Sept. 30, 1888, to Sept. 30, 1889, there were 232,684 passengers, and despite having to buy snow-moving equipment and repair tracks in the spring, the line made a profit: $657, of which stockholders got $600 as dividends.

The next two years saw deficits almost $1,400. Nonetheless, early in 1891 two things happened indicating the railway was considered a going concern.

First, Cummings wrote, Gerald and other local men organized the Waterville & Fairfield Railway & Light Company, chartered by the Maine legislature on Feb. 12 and approved to buy the Waterville & Fairfield and two electric companies, in Waterville and Fairfield. The two railway companies became one on July 1, 1891.

The second event was that on March 4, the legislature authorized the Waterville & Fairfield to build a line through Winslow to North Vassalboro and to become an electric railroad.

The next year, horses were replaced by electricity, a conversion that involved adding poles and overhead wires, large generators at both ends of the line and new equipment in the cars. The first electric cars ran July 20, 1892. Cummings wrote that residents were excited and every car was full on opening day.

13-bench open car #11 of the Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland Railway, with conductor William McAuley, standing left, and motorman John Carl, on Grove St., in Waterville, near Pine Grove Cemetery.

The Waterville & Fairfield was the first of several street railways serving the area from the late 19th century well into the 20th century. Another that the Fairfield history describes was the Benton & Benton Falls Electric Railroad. It opened Dec. 7, 1898, and extended its tracks to Fairfield in July 1900. Cummings wrote about the Benton & Fairfield Railway, which had been operating a shorter line before it connected Benton to Fairfield in 1901. (The writer suspects the two were the same, perhaps going by slightly different names and owners’ names at different times.)

The Benton & Fairfield, Cummings wrote, was owned by Kennebec Fibre Company and served primarily to carry pulpwood delivered on Maine Central freight cars to Benton and Fairfield paper mills. Its first three miles of track, all in Benton, opened Dec. 7, 1898. Extensions in 1899 and 1900 brought the line across the Kennebec to Fairfield and increased mileage to a little over four miles.

Cummings wrote that the railroad made a profit in only nine of its 32 or so years, and state railway commissioners were frequently dissatisfied with its maintenance. What little passenger service was offered ended in 1928, and the railroad went out of business around 1930, Cummings found.

The Fairfield & Shawmut connected those two villages in 1906 (Fairfield history) or October 1907 (Cummings). Amos Gerald was among its founders. It was primarily intended to serve passengers; Cummings wrote that its schedules were designed to let people transfer to the Waterville & Fairfield. The fare was five cents; the three-mile trip took 15 minutes, and cars ran every half hour.

The line, a little more than three miles long, served Keyes Fibre Company near Shawmut and Central Maine Sanatorium on Mountain Avenue between downtown Fairfield and Shawmut. There was a waiting room for sanatorium visitors at the foot of the avenue, Cummings wrote.

Like the other electric railroads Cummings described, the Fairfield & Shawmut was partly built with borrowed money — $30,000, in this case. Cum—mings wrote that when the 20-year bonds came due July 1, 1927, there wasn’t enough money to redeem them. The bondholders chose a receiver who got approval to abandon the railroad; the last trolleys ran July 23, 1927.

The Waterville & Fairfield met the lines from Benton and from Shawmut in Fairfield, and provided electricity for both.

As the Waterville & Fairfield grew, local businessmen formed the Waterville & Oakland Street Railway. (Yes, one was Amos F. Gerald, and Cummings lists him as the railway’s first general manager.) It was chartered in 1902, despite opposition from the Maine Central Railroad that also connected the two towns. Construction began in April 1903; the line from downtown Waterville to Snow Pond opened July 2, 1903, Cummings wrote.

High trestle over the Messalonskee Stream, in Oakland, with one of the Duplex convertibles crossing at the Cascade Woolen Mill.

The new line required two bridges across Messalonskee Stream, one in Oakland and one off Western Avenue in Waterville. The railway and the city split the cost of the Waterville bridge, which Cummings said was 53 feet long and 28 feet wide.

The Waterville & Fairfield and Waterville & Oakland met in Waterville. Thence passengers could travel to Fairfield and connect for Benton or Shawmut.

By 1910, the Waterville & Fairfield tracks had been extended into the southern part of Waterville, out Grove Street to Pine Grove Cemetery and out Silver Street. There might have been a plan to connect the two lines at the foot of what is now Kennedy Memorial Drive; if so, it was never achieved.

The Waterville & Fairfield and Waterville & Oakland consolidated in 1911 under the auspices of Central Maine Power Company (which owned two other street railways in Maine). As of December of that year, Cummings wrote, the new Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland had 10.5 miles of track plus sidings.

A postcard showing Main St., in Waterville, after an ice storm with iced lines and plowed Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland trolley tracks running the middle of the street, on March 10, 1906.

The line through Winslow and Vassalboro was eventually built by the Lewiston, Augusta & Waterville Street Railway. This company opened a railway from Winslow to East Vassalboro on June 27, 1908, and continued it from East Vassalboro to Augusta by November 1908.

The Lewiston and Waterville lines were connected by an arched concrete bridge across the Kennebec between Winslow and Waterville that opened Dec. 15, 1909, Cummings found. He wrote that after the 1936 flood took out the highway bridge, the trolley bridge was temporarily the only local way to cross the Kennebec (except by the footbridge).

The trolley bridge had survived its builders. The Lewiston, Augusta & Waterville became the Androscoggin & Kennebec in 1919 and stopped running July 31, 1932.

Cummings described in some detail routes, equipment, power sources and facilities. Fairfield’s two carhouses were on High Street (plus a smaller one on Main Street for the Fairfield & Shawmut); Benton had one, at Benton Falls; Waterville had one, at the Waterville Fairgrounds; and Oakland had elegant Messalonskee Hall, on Summer Street at the foot of Church Street near the lake. Cummings wrote that the Hall’s ground level accommodated three trolley tracks; the basement had a restaurant and a boathouse; and on the second floor were a dance hall and dining room.

The trolley fare remained a nickel until 1918, rose to seven cents that year and later to 10 cents, Cummings wrote; but regular riders could buy tickets in bulk and get a discount. Children rode for half price.

Schedules called for a trolley-car every half hour on each of the various routes. Cummings commented that as more and more automobiles and trucks competed for space on the streets, staying on schedule became increasingly challenging.

The Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland surrendered on Oct. 10, 1937. On its final day, passengers again filled the cars, as when the first electric cars ran more than 45 years earlier. Cummings wrote that the last trip over the Waterville to Oakland line began at 10:35 p.m. on Oct. 10; the last run to Fairfield began at 12:40 a.m. on Oct. 11. Bus service began at 5:15 that same morning.

Main sources

Cummings, O. R. , Toonervilles of Maine The Pine Tree State (1955)
Fairfield Historical Society Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988).

Websites, miscellaneous.

Fall foliage report: Peak conditions occurring in most of Maine

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This week’s Fall Foliage Report from the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry (DACF) reports peak and slightly beyond peak conditions for this upcoming weekend in northern, western, and central Maine. Coastal and southern regions are displaying moderate color changes (less than 50 percent color change).

Typically, northern Maine (zones 6 and 7) reach peak conditions the last week of September into the first week of October. The rest of the state’s color progression will start from north to south in early to-mid-October.

“The lack of rain this summer and the early widespread frost jumpstarted the progression of foliage colors this season,” noted Gale Ross, DACF’s fall foliage coordinator. “Color is still emerging daily in portions of southern and coastal regions of Maine beyond this week and into October. But remember, it has been the shorter sunny days, followed by the cool nights of autumn that brought about the brilliant colors being displayed this week. It’s Mother Nature’s way of protecting and putting her trees to bed for the long winter months ahead.”

This weekend, take in the quickly progressing foliage from Sunday River’s Chondola scenic lift rides, or for coastal explorers, Camden Snow Bowl’s chairlift rides. Maine Craft Weekend, an annual statewide tour, will take place on October 3 and 4, with safety measures and changes to the typical weekend format. Check the website to learn about Maine-made crafts and support local artists and craftspeople.

For those looking for a fun virtual experience, the Maine Whoopie Pie Festival has been reimagined this year as a virtual event and a month-long ‘WHOOPtoberfest’ celebration.

For this week’s fall adventure, make your way to Maine’s Kennebec Valley for a relaxed leaf-peeping tour. Begin in Solon and wind your way to the Canadian border along the 78-mile Old Canada Road Scenic Byway. Pack a picnic for a stop at Robbins Hill for panoramic views of the valley, and don’t miss the Moxie Falls Scenic Area in The Forks, where you have the chance to enjoy the changing leaves on foot with a two-mile hike to the 92-foot vertical drop of the falls. Adventure seekers can still feel the thrill of whitewater rafting on the Kennebec River, a great way to experience fall foliage from the water for a few more weeks. And for leisure peepers, enjoy the fairytale-like trail system of Vaughan Woods in historic Hallowell.

During these unusual times, please be safe while exploring Maine this fall. For travel and visitor information as it relates to COVID-19, go to visitmaine.com/travel-with-care.

Autumn enthusiasts can visit the state’s official foliage website at www.mainefoliage.com to sign up to receive weekly reports by email and are encouraged to share foliage images from regions throughout Maine as the progression of color unfolds. Be sure to tag your pictures with @mainefoliage on Instagram and use #MaineFoliage. The Maine Foliage Facebook page also includes safe ways to enjoy fall this year. For more information about visiting Maine safely this fall, visit maine.gov/covid19.

Autumn enthusiasts can visit the state’s official foliage website at www.mainefoliage.com.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley – Transportation: roads

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1904 Cadillac

by Mary Grow

Previous articles have discussed transportation by water and overland by railroads, local and long-distance. This article discusses aspects of the evolution of roads and travel over them.

Laying out roads was a major task for local governments in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In the central Kennebec valley area, schools and roads were main topics at town meetings. Local histories quote from town records about deciding where to build roads; when and where to relocate them; when and how to maintain them, at what cost; and when to discontinue them.

Laying out a road, Linwood Lowden explained in his history of Windsor, refers only to choosing the route, not to actually building the road. Some roads laid out were never built. Sometimes male residents were required to contribute labor toward building roads.

As described earlier, the first road in the central Kennebec valley connected the trading post and fort at Cushnoc (now Winslow) with Fort Western (in what is now Augusta). Running along the east bank of the Kennebec, it was completed in 1754. The area around Fort Western and on the west side of the river was all called Hallowell until 1797, when the northern part that is now Augusta was incorporated as Harrington in February and renamed Augusta in June.

Kingsbury wrote in his Kennebec County history that at Hallowell’s first town meeting, held May 22, 1771, at the fort, about 30 voters appropriated 36 British pounds for road-building to connect houses around the fort (and 16 pounds for schools). By 1779, the west side of the river had grown enough so that roads were laid out there. The first part of Augusta’s Water Street came into being in 1784, two rods (33 feet) wide; part of it was widened in 1822, and in 1829 a section was widened again, to 50 feet, Kingsbury wrote.

At Harrington’s first town meeting on April 3, 1797, voters appropriated $1,250 for roads (and only $400 for schools). Kingsbury found that in 1798 Augusta voters laid out a road north to Sidney on the west side of the river and Stone Street going south on the east side. (Stone Street was named to honor Rev. Daniel Stone [1767-1834], a Harvard graduate and Hallowell/Augusta preacher from 1794 to 1809.)

On June 24, 1802, Kingsbury wrote, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts appointed two men, Jonathan Maynard and Lothrop Lewis, to do the ambitious job of laying out a four-rod (66 feet wide) road from Augusta to Bangor, connecting the Kennebec and Penobscot valleys. They were to choose as direct a route as the terrain allowed and to estimate the construction cost. On Feb. 26, 1803, the two were paid $610.04 for their work, included supplies and costs.

Vassalboro voters also began dealing with roads in 1771, according to Robbins’ history, though it is not always clear what they did. For example, Robbins quotes from a Sept. 9, 1771, town meeting report: voters were asked to decide whether to “do their Highway work this year by Rate where they are marked out” and how wide to make roads. The votes were to make the roads “forty rods wide as marked” (40 rods equals 660 feet!) and “Work four days on the highways” (an obligation for each property-owner?).

In March 1772 Vassalboro voters decided to lay out roads according to “Mr. Jones Plan”; but, Robbins added, the Kennebec Proprietors who then owned the area did not hire surveyor John Jones until 1774.

Early roads followed trails or surveyors’ range lines between tiers of lots, or went across private land. Robbins wrote that often voters approved compensation, in early days called an eight-rod allowance (eight rods equals 132 feet), when a road crossed private property instead of following a range line.

Vassalboro voters repeatedly set wage rates for work on roads. In 1804 or 1805, men were paid $1.25 a day. Their oxen earned 43.5 cents daily, and the owners were reimbursed 33.5 cents for a cart and 66.5 cents for a plough. In 1875, men earned 20 cents an hour; a team of oxen got the same rate and a team of horses 25 cents. By 1880 the hourly rates were lower: 15 cents for men and oxen, 10 cents for a single horse and 20 cents for two horses.

In Waterville, Kingsbury wrote that the first streets (he gave no dates) were Front, Main, Water and Silver, running roughly parallel with the river, and Temple, connecting Front and Main. Silver, he said, was named by Isaac Stevens, a wealthy carpenter who lived there along with Nathaniel Gilman and Simeon Mathews and said that among them, they controlled more money than any other three men in town. (Kingsbury does not say whether Gilman Street and Mathews Avenue were named to honor Stevens’ neighbors.)

Elm Street, laid out later, got its name because an early resident, David McFarland, lined it with elm trees. Kingsbury approved.

In Palermo, Millard Howard wrote that the first road, laid out in 1802, connected the southern and northern settlements. The contemporary roughly-corresponding roads, he wrote, are Turner Ridge, Parmenter, Marden Hill and North Palermo.

In 1802, also, the equivalents of Level Hill and Jones Road were laid out. More roads followed in 1805. Then Howard listed some of the complications, like Hostile Valley Road, laid out in 1807, relocated in 1816; or Western Ridge Road, laid out in 1811 and relocated in 1838.

Milton Dowe’s 1996 reminiscence of Palermo ends with a list of 20 discontinued roads, although only 18 are named and several are in China rather than in Palermo. One is described as the first road from George Studley’s house to the Perkins (formerly Black) Cemetery; Dowe added that closing the road explains “why grave markers are now lettered on the back.” (Google map shows the cemetery on the north side of North Palermo Road, just west of the Rowe Road intersection.)

Residents of Freetown (Fairfax after March 1804, now Albion) had held at least two town meetings before a special one on Oct. 8, 1803, at which they appointed three three-man committees to lay out roads in the town’s northern, southern and eastern districts, Ruby Crosby Wiggin wrote. By March 19,1804, when voters accepted all but one of the recommended roads, she deduced that the Bangor and Sebasticook roads were already in use.

Many of the roads went over existing trails, Wiggin wrote. When new roadways separated farms, land was taken equally from owners on both sides.

Model T Ford.

The April 16, 1804, town meeting approved $1,200 for road maintenance, Wiggin found. But the town did not spend any such sum. Instead, each district road commissioner divided his district’s appropriated amount among landowners and offered each the chance to pay his taxes in road work. Most accepted.

In Windsor, Lowden described an 1809 town meeting vote to lay out seven roads. From the descriptions, Lowden was able to identify contemporary equivalents of five. For the other two he was reduced to speculation.

One of the 1809 roads he identified as current Route 17 between South Windsor Corner and Coopers Mills (a village in Whitefield, the town south of Windsor). By 1835, he wrote, this stretch was part of the main road from Augusta to Thomaston. Nonetheless, at a July 18, 1835, town meeting, voters voted to discontinue it. The next month, an attempt to discontinue what is now Windsor’s piece of Route 105 between Augusta and Searsmont failed. (He did not say when Route 17 was reinstituted.)

In the early 20th century, road improvements were a consequence of development of automobiles and trucks. Dowe recalled traveling by Model T Ford (sold from 1908 to 1927, according to the web). A round trip between Palermo and Augusta without a flat tire was a memorable event, he wrote.

Stanley twins, Francis and Freelan, invented the Stanley Steamer in 1897, in Kingfield, Maine.

In spring, it was smart to travel early in the morning, before roads thawed and turned to mud. When a car got stuck, the driver sought a nearby resident with a horse to rescue him.

In fall, Dowe wrote, ruts were so deep and hard that whenever two cars met on a three-rut road, at least one driver would likely be carrying an axe to cut grooves to let his car move aside.

Dowe wrote that a relative had an eight-passenger Stanley Steamer. To start it, the owner lighted a gasoline burner, which warmed a kerosene burner until it came on and heated water in a boiler to produce steam to run the vehicle. The boiler had a hose so the driver could add water as necessary.

(The Stanley Steamer was invented in 1897 by twin brothers Francis E. and Freelan O. Stanley, born in 1849 in Kingfield, Maine. In 1902 the Stanley Motor Carriage Company was formed in Watertown, Massachusetts. Production declined beginning in 1918 as gasoline-powered cars took over.)

Alice Hammond commented in her history of Sidney that many owners of early cars put them up for the winter and took out their sleighs and sleds. Heavy town-owned snow rollers packed down snow to make a firm surface, instead of shoving it aside.

Horse-drawn snow roller.

Ernest Marriner’s Kennebec Yesterdays includes a not-very-clear 1890s photo of a snow roller with eight horses ready to go, at least three men on board, a bystander with a shovel and two children. The circumference of the roller appears to be approximately the height of the watching man.

In 1907, Hammond wrote, Sidney voters approved a 15-mile-an-hour speed limit for automobiles in town. In 1920, automobiles were included in the list of taxable personal property; there were 55 in town.

There was at least one car in Albion by 1907 (probably more): Wiggin wrote that in that year, Charles Abbott bought a building to garage the first car he owned.

(The building, Wiggin reported, started life as a farmer’s hired man’s house. It was moved and turned into a store that went through at least three owners before Abbott made it his garage. When Abbott became postmaster into 1914, he turned the building into the post office. That incarnation ended in 1960 when Francis Jones built a new post office; the old building was still standing in 1964.)

In China, the bicentennial history tells of a dozen autos early in the 20th century. One was the Oldsmobile runabout Richard Jones, of South China, bought, probably in 1903, for $875. He sent it and Bert Whitehouse to Boston, where Whitehouse learned to drive and maintain the vehicle. They came upriver by boat to Gardiner and Whitehouse drove to Jones’ Pine Rock home on Lakeview Drive.

1920 Velie.

Will Woodsum is credited with bringing the first car to China Village, a 1904 one-cylinder Cadillac he owned by 1909. In 1912, his father, John Woodsum, bought a Velie (one of the early ones; the web says Velies were produced by the Velie Motor Corporation, in Moline, Illinois, between 1908 and 1928).

In 1911, the China history says, Sewall McCartney and Buford Reed bought a second-hand Packard, in Albion; it took them two days to drive it to China, apparently because the engine was seriously underpowered. They sold the engine to Verne Denico, who sawed wood with it, and installed a stationary engine behind the front seats. Years later, someone discovered they had purchased the second Packard ever built.

Main sources

Dowe, Milton E., Palermo, Maine Things That I Remember in 1996, (1997).
Grow, Mary M., China Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions, (1984).
Hammond, Alice, History of Sidney Maine 1792-1992, (1992).
Howard, Millard, An Introduction to the Early History of Palermo, Maine (second edition, December 2015).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892), (1892).
Marriner, Ernest, Kennebec Yesterdays, (1954).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).
Wiggin, Ruby Crosby, Albion on the Narrow Gauge (1964).

Websites, miscellaneous.

Trying to make sense out of absentee ballot applications

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by Roland D. Hallee

With the push by municipal officials encouraging voters to cast their ballots early, and the aggressive campaigns taken by political candidates to get-out-the-vote, much confusion has surfaced as to the process of voting absentee.

At the head of the confusion is the fact that many households are receiving multiple unsolicited applications in the mail.

According to area election officials, individual voters are receiving multiple absentee ballot applications.

Michelle Flewelling, Fairfield town manager, stated, “There are two registered voters at my address, we have received eight absentee ballot requests in the mail so far.”

China Town Clerk Angela Nelson pointed out, “We have received multiple absentee ballot applications from individuals. When this happens, we write ‘Duplicate Submission’ on the additional requests and staple them to the first processed application. If residents are receiving these additional applications in the mail they can simply destroy them.”

Vassalboro Town Clerk Cathy Coyne stressed, “Once you have applied for an absentee ballot, toss all other requests. You can only apply for one absentee ballot.”

Patti Dubois, Waterville city clerk, informed the public that if a voter receives multiple applications, “Do not call your municipal clerk, since these mailings are coming from outside civic/political groups. If a voter has already submitted an absentee ballot request form, disregard any additional ones received in the mail.” According to Dubois, to check on the status of an absentee ballot, go to https://apps.web.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/AbsenteeBallot/ballotstatus.pl.

Flewelling added, “If you should happen to fill [out a second ballot] and mail it to your town office, the second application will be denied. Since you are only allowed to receive one set of ballots per election, and all absentee requests are processed through the state of Maine, Secretary of State computer system, it will be obvious to the election clerks that more than one request has been submitted.”

In most towns, absentee ballot applications can be found on the community’s website. If you have not applied for an absentee ballot, and receive one in the mail, it may be filled out and returned to your municipal office.

Once a person receives their ballots, which will be mailed on or about October 3, there are multiple ways to cast the ballot. They can be mailed back to their respective town offices; they can be hand carried to the municipal offices, or, in some communities, placed in the convenient ballot collection boxes located outside their town offices. They should not be brought to the polls on election day.

In Waterville, the drop box is located outside the main entrance to city hall. In the town of Fairfield, the ballot collection box is located at the town office near the handicap accessible ramp. In China, the drop box, once it arrives, according to Nelson, will be located outside, in front of the town office.

According to Flewelling, should voters who have applied for absentee ballots not receive them in the mail by October 15, they should contact their respective town office.

But the COVID-19 pandemic will cause other election day problems. Since many people will insist on in-person voting at the polls, state CDC guidelines will be observed.

According to Dubois, “In Waterville, anyone who waits to vote on election day should plan for long lines. Due to social distancing requirements and gathering limits that are capped at 50, including staff and voters, there will only be approximately 25 voters within the voting area at one time.”

Voters should also be aware that eligible voters must be allowed to vote on election day whether they choose to wear a mask or not.

All the town officials stressed that voters are asked to have patience with the election workers who are all doing the best they can under the challenging conditions.

The polling places are: In China, in the portable building at 571 Lakeview Dr., behind the town office, from 7 a.m. – 8 p.m.;

In Vassalboro, according to Coyne, at the Vassalboro Community School, 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. In Fairfield, at the Fairfield Community Center, 61 Water St., from 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.; in Waterville, Waterville Junior High School, 100 West River Rd., 6 a.m. – 8 p.m.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley Railway transportation

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by Mary Grow

Although the narrow-gauge railroad that was built inland from Wiscasset starting in 1894 never reached either Québec (its first name was the Wiscasset and Québec) or Waterville or Farmington (later it was the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington) (see The Town Line, Sept. 17), as the WW&F it was an integral part of towns along its route.

Reminiscences from Palermo include the WW&F. Dean Marriner mentioned the WW&F in two Kennebec Valley histories. The histories of China and Vassalboro include the WW&F. Clinton Thurlow, of Weeks Mills, wrote three small books on the WW&F. Ruby Crosby Wiggin titled her town history Albion on the Narrow Gauge; the cover has a sketch of engine number 7 taking on water at the Albion water tank, and her introduction says that for 40 years the WW&F was vital to the town and in 1964 residents still remembered it fondly.

Milton E. Dowe’s 1954 Palermo history (the town was incorporated in 1804, so this booklet would be a sesquicentennial history) points out that the WW&F did not even enter Palermo; the Branch Mills station, though called Palermo, was in China, west of the village the two towns share. However, Dowe wrote in the history and in his later book, Palermo, Maine Things That I Remember in 1996, the railroad carried Palermo residents on business and pleasure trips; it brought things they needed, like mail and foodstuffs for local grocery stores; and it took away things they sold, like milk and cream, lumber and bark, apples, potatoes and grain.

Dowe wrote in his history that the regular passenger fare to Wiscasset was $1.25, and excursion fares were $1.00 round trip. After the branch line to Winslow opened in 1902, Palermo residents had the option of riding to Waterville.

The railroad served traveling salesmen, Dowe wrote. They would sell to Palermo residents, play cards and swap stories in Branch Mills stores and spend the night at the Branch Mills Hotel. The next day they would move on to China Village or Albion.

The Palermo station was flanked by three potato houses where local potatoes were sorted and bagged ready for shipment, mainly to the Boston market. One year (presumably early in the 20th century), Dowe wrote, 100,000 bushels of potatoes were shipped through the station. At that time, farmers could expect to be paid $1 per barrel.

The creamery, also near the station, collected and pasteurized milk, brought in by the wagonload. Butter was made by the pound; Dowe said production averaged 3,000 pounds a week. The creamery later became an apple cannery and cider mill. Dowe described a line of 75 wagons waiting to unload apples during a week in 1920 when 3,000 bushels of cider apples arrived for processing.

The China bicentennial history says there were three other WW&F stations in China. From south to north, they were west of Weeks Mills; south of South China; and east of China Village. (The China Village station was on the east side of the head of China Lake; the village is on the west side. A causeway crosses the inlet stream.)

Each station was a small rectangular wooden building with an overhanging roof, the history says. The stations were painted the WW&F colors, two shades of green. Weeks Mills, South China, and China Village stations each had one nearby potato house.

The Weeks Mills station complex was west of the Sheepscot River and south of Main Street. It included a freight building and one of the WW&F’s five water tanks, put up in 1913; south of the station building was a roundhouse with space for four engines (used as a hay barn for a few years after the WW&F went out of business).

South of the roundhouse was the turntable on which an engine was shifted to either the Albion or the Winslow line. The China history describes the turntable as having ball bearings in the middle, a circular outer rim encasing a wheel and two tracks that could be turned different directions as needed. The machinery ran so easily that two men could operate it with a locomotive on it, the history says.

Frank Noyes opened a canning factory about 1904 and used the WW&F to ship out canned corn and succotash and later each fall apples and cider. The factory closed in 1931; the China history blames the Depression, which killed Noyes’ profit.

Thurlow’s three small, generously-illustrated books start with a focus on Weeks Mills, where he retired after a career teaching history. He found numerous original documents, like a 1911 set of operating orders. Among other things, the orders absolutely prohibited smoking around the trains and drinking alcohol on duty.

While the WW&F’s line to Winslow served Vassalboro between 1902 and 1915 or 1916, Vassalboro residents and goods traveled both ways. James Schad’s chapter in Anthology of Vassalboro Tales says that lumber, potatoes, canned corn and poultry were shipped to Wiscasset, to continue by water to Boston and other points south. Imports included coal to power North Vassalboro mills, feed and grain for farmers and supplies for local retailers.

Vassalboro had at least two WW&F stations. Schad’s article is accompanied by a photo of one on Oak Grove Road that served North Vassalboro, and Robbins’ bicentennial history mentions East Vassalboro’s “pretty little station,” later converted to a house that was evidently still occupied in 1971.

The photo in the Vassalboro anthology shows Engine No. 4, with no cars attached, in front of a rectangular wooden building. The engineer (probably) stands in shirtsleeves and cap, right hand on right hip, left arm draped casually on the engine. Two more formally dressed men accompany him, and three others stand on the trackside platform under the building’s overhanging roof.

Thurlow’s WW&F Two-footers includes 1964 photos of the former Winslow and North Vassalboro stations, both converted into two-story houses.

The Winslow line brought people to two attractions on the west side of China Lake a bit north of South China. One was a dance pavilion; excursion cars from Winslow took passengers out for the evening and brought them home around midnight, Thurlow and other sources say. Thurlow adds that north of the pavilion was a mineral spring where train crews were known to make unofficial stops so they and their passengers could have a refreshing break.

Wiggin speculated that the WW&F was more important to Albion people than to others it served because George H. Crosby, prominent among the railway’s founders, was an Albion native (see the article on Albion in the June 11 issue of The Town Line, p. 11), and because many Albion residents invested heavily in railroad stock. Additionally, she wrote, the railroad employed Albion residents (and those in other towns).

The Albion station had the northernmost of the WW&F’s five water tanks, coal sheds and a turntable. The building was the only one of the 15 WW&F stations (11 on the Albion line, four on the Winslow line) to have a second floor; Thurlow wrote that a conductor named Alfred Rancourt and his family lived above the station for 11 years.

In 1908 the Albion-Wiscasset fare was $1.50. In ideal conditions, the trip could be made in two hours; on the five-and-a-half mile stretch between China Village and Albion, several sources say the train often traveled at 60 miles an hour.

There are many, many local stories about the WW&F as a sort of family railroad. Most, unfortunately, are undated. Some are handed down; others local writers witnessed or heard directly from participants or observers.

Wiggin wrote from personal experience with the railroad and from interviews with other local residents, especially Earl Keef, who worked for the railroad for about 30 years, much of the time as an engineer. Consequently she included many personal stories in her Albion history.

For example, she quoted the neighbor who said she and two other women were admiring the first bananas they had ever seen in a local store window. The foreman of the Italian crew building the rail line bought each of them the first banana she’d ever eaten.

Another story is of a train that left Wiscasset at 2 a.m. in a snowstorm, with an attached plow and flange blocking the engineer’s view. At Palermo, the train was flagged down: a local doctor heading home after an emergency call was using the track ahead for his snowmobile (converted from an old Ford).

One of the crew volunteered to ride on the snowplow to watch out for the popular doctor. At the next trestle, they paused to make sure the doctor hadn’t fallen off it; but his tracks continued across.

The train finally caught up with him in Albion. China’s roads were plowed, so he switched to roads and reached Albion as the train did. Later, he said he made better time on the tracks than on the highway.

Yet another story, in Thurlow’s Weeks Mills “Y” (repeated in the China history), tells of Weeks Mills resident Edna Van Strien reaching East Vassalboro on the WW&F as the electric trolley by which she planned to continue to Augusta was leaving. The WW&F engineer stopped the train athwart the trolley tracks and waited until she was safely on board before moving out of the trolley’s way.

Ernest Marriner has two of the best anecdotes about the WW&F. Neither, alas, is dated.

The first, in his Kennebec Yesterdays (1954) concerns the line’s most successful – and unsuccessful – train. A mixed (freight and passenger) train, it carried an unusually large load of bark from Winslow, which was to go by sea from Wiscasset to a Massachusetts tannery. It also had an unusual number of passengers planning to witness the launch of a new schooner from a Wiscasset shipyard.

Marriner related that WW&F stockholders, informed of the big – and profitable — run, started touting the railroad to residents along the line. A welcoming committee assembled in Wiscasset.

The engineer and fireman added to the publicity by blowing the loud whistle constantly. Thus, Marriner wrote, they used a lot of steam and had to stop at water tanks. Perhaps because they allegedly had a generous supply of rum, they soon forgot about the water; and in Alna, the engine died. The load of bark eventually reached its destination, but neither the stockholders nor the excursionists were happy.

Marriner’s second story is in Remembered Maine (1957). He (like other local historians) wrote that WW&F engineers would usually stop wherever they saw someone trying to attract their attention, not just at stations and when the flag was up at a flag stop. One day, a Weeks Mills woman ran trackside and waved her apron.

The engineer shut down the engine and climbed out of the cab. The woman allegedly told him her hen was about to lay the twelfth egg; as soon as she had the full dozen, she wanted the engineer to take the eggs to the store in Wiscasset and swap them for a spool of thread and a bottle of vanilla.

Main sources:

Bernhardt, Esther, and Vicki Schad, compilers/editors, Anthology of Vassalboro Tales (2017).
Dowe, Milton E., History Town of Palermo Incorporated 1884 (1954).
Dowe, Milton E., Palermo, Maine Things That I Remember in 1996 (1997).
Grow, Mary M., China Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions (1984).
Marriner, Ernest, Kennebec Yesterdays (1954).
Marriner, Ernest, Remembered Maine (1957).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).
Wiggin, Ruby Crosby, Albion on the Narrow Gauge (1964).
Websites, miscellaneous.

 

The WW&F Railway Station Restoration Project Albion, Maine

by Phillip Dow, Albion Historical Society

The year was 1976. Albion townsfolk banded together to present a week-long period celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of our great country, the United States of America.

It was suggested that the Albion railroad station be preserved. Nothing was done to improve the structure for another 10 years. New blood got involved and the Albion Historical Society was formed. Their first major project was to try to save the old railroad station. John and Ora Rand, the owners of the station, graciously gave it to the Albion Historical Society for a museum.

Time and money were the big factors holding up progress on the restoration of said building. Donations finally came in and away we went. Dirt work around the building started. The old building was braced up, inside and out. The station had to be gutted, both downstairs and up. Cobwebs, spiders, bats and mice had to find a new home.

But, 10 years later, with the help of many people, a concrete slab was poured to the tune of $20,000. Floor joists and studs were added. New lumber replaced the old rotted boards. Asphalt shingles and a new chimney were added. A $500 grant was received and new wooden-framed windows were purchased.

We discovered stamped on one of the hidden window sills “Mathews Bros., Belfast, Me.” The original windows had been installed in 1895. Where did we purchase the new windows? Mathews Bros., with one “t,” Belfast, Me., one hundred years later.

Pine clapboard siding was painted and added. The interior of the railroad station is fairly simple in style, but it is the simple style that we should go back to, at least for a few days.

Albion railroad station, before, left, and after restorations.

Let Them Play Rally on Labor Day

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Members of the Messolonskee football team rallying in Augusta hoping they have a season! (photo by Central Maine Photography)

Messalonskee field hockey team member Jenna Cassani at the Let Them Play Rally. She is a senior this year. (photo by Central Maine Photography)

Messalonskee and Cony High School football team members at the Let Them Play Rally on Labor Day, in Augusta. (photo by Central Maine Photography)

KV tourism council awards sponsorship to Mid-Maine Chamber

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Kimberly Lindlof

The Kennebec Valley Tourism Council (KVTC) has awarded Sponsorship Support funds in the amount of $2,500 to the MERGEFIELD Business Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce for the MERGEFIELD Project Taste of Waterville. This funding will assist in the growth of tourism in Maine’s Kennebec Valley and produce a positive economic impact on the region.

The Chamber received one of six sponsorships awarded as part of the 2020 KVTC marketing partnership program. In total, the 2020 KVTC sponsorship support application requests reached nearly $17,500. The organization was able to fully fund all regional sponsorships to its members this year. KVTC is excited to award local organizations who are helping KVTC promote the Maine’s Kennebec Valley Region as a destination place with their own marketing initiatives.

Mid-Maine Chamber President & CEO Kimberly Lindlof said she greatly appreciates the support of the Kennebec Valley Tourism Council. Kim added, “This grant will assist in allowing us to continue the long tradition of the Taste of Waterville event and to further grow tourism in the central Maine region. The Taste draws large numbers of residents and visitors, showcasing the rich diversity of the area through demonstrations, music/entertainment and food. This year’s event will take place at Head of Falls and will focus on ethnic culture and cuisine, tying into the state’s Bicentennial celebration.”

“KVTC is excited to be able to support local organizations with our 2020 partnership program. These sponsorships help provide funding for key marketing elements including advertising, printing, branding and more,” says Tanya Griffeth, executive director of the KVTC. “This year has been difficult for our signature events, with many events canceled and/or had to change their strategy; we are happy to say all but one is scheduled to take place. These funds are dedicated to support marketing efforts in some of the more rural areas in Maine. While established events can rely on word-of-mouth and brand awareness to help drive attendance, new events and destinations have quite a bit of ground to cover to pull visitors from neighboring regions.”

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington

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1894 Forney.

by Mary Grow

When railroads first began operating in the United States, different companies used different gauges (width between the tracks). “Standard gauge” ranged from four feet eight-and-a-half inches (imported from Britain, used by the Baltimore & Ohio and Boston & Albany lines, among others) to six feet (used by the Erie and the Lackawanna, among others), and was not definitely established at four feet eight-and-a-half inches until after the Civil War. The war emphasized the need for interconnected rail transportation; the transcontinental railroad was completed on May 10, 1869.

In addition to the standard gauge, there were “narrow-gauge” railroads. According to Ernest Marriner’s Kennebec Yesterdays, a narrow-gauge line could have tracks anywhere from two feet to three-and-a-half feet apart.

Maine, Marriner wrote, was the state with the most narrow-gauge railroads. Linwood Moody wrote a generously illustrated book about them, published in 1959 and entitled The Maine Two-Footers. How many there were depends on when they were counted, because, as with the standard-gauge lines, companies consolidated. Moody is certain, however, that the central Kennebec Valley hosted two: the Kennebec Central, with which he fell in love as a child of 10 or 11, and the one remembered locally as the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington.

The Kennebec Central was the shortest narrow-gauge in Maine. It had five miles of track, from Randolph to the Togus veterans’ home in Chelsea, and ran from July 23, 1890, to June 29, 1929. Wikipedia says Randolph had a small station from which stairs led to the covered bridge crossing the Kennebec River to Gardiner.

1894 Baldwin.

During those 39 years, the railroad used four engines, an 1890 Baldwin and three Portlands built between December 1890 and April 1892. The first two were apparently bought new; the Baldwin was scrapped about 1922 and the first Portland about four years later.

The two later Portlands were second-hand, one acquired about 1922 (to replace the Baldwin) from the Bridgton & Saco River line and the other (no date given; probably 1925 or 1926, as it replaced the first Portland) from the Sandy River line. Moody wrote they both went to the Waterville, Wiscasset & Farmington in the early 1930s, after the Kennebec Central closed and as the WW&F in turn was about to go under.

(The Bridgton & Saco operated from 1883 to 1941. The Sandy River started in 1879 and ran until 1908, when it merged into the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes and ran until the mid-1930s.)

The Kennebec Central engines hauled passenger coaches, open-sided excursion cars, combination passenger and baggage cars, freight cars and coal gondolas. A main purpose of the railroad was to let Civil War veterans get from Togus to Gardiner and their relatives and other visitors from Gardiner to Togus. Both Moody and Wikipedia describe the Sunday afternoon baseball games and concerts that brought crowds of visitors to the veterans’ home grounds.

The railroad’s other use, and probably more dependable income source, was to deliver supplies to Togus, especially the coal that was shipped up the Kennebec to a government-owned facility in Randolph and was used as heating fuel. Therefore, when the government switched the coal-hauling contract to a trucking company, the railroad closed.

Its rolling stock was stored until 1931, when a fire damaged the WW&F engines housed in Wiscasset. Wikipedia says Frank Winter, then the WW&F owner, bought the entire Kennebec Central, brought the engines back into use and sold what trackage and cars he could; the left-overs were carried down the river in the 1936 flood.

The WW&F, also known as the Weak, Weary and Feeble and the Little Wiggler, went through multiple corporate incarnations, according to Moody. It started in Wiscasset because Wiscasset was a major port, and was first chartered in 1854 as the Wiscasset & Québec.

For 40 years, Moody wrote, nobody developed the railroad. In 1894, a group of local entrepreneurs raised funds to start laying track, improving Wiscasset’s docks and connecting the new railroad via a very long trestle across the Sheepscot to the docks and adjoining Maine Central yard.

The railroad’s first engine was an 11-year-old Forney bought from the Sandy River and used to haul work trains with supplies and crews as the line was built. Two Portlands built in November 1894 were the next engines added.

The W&Q tracks went along the Sheepscot River through Sheepscot station, which served Alna, where there was a flag stop, and Sheepscot Village; through Head Tide; past a railroad-owned water tank and gravel pit and across the Sheepscot to Whitefield; thence to North Whitefield and Coopers Mills. Leaving the river, the line continued through Windsor, Weeks Mills, Palermo and China to Albion, which it reached in November 1895.

Moody commented that the typical station was in the countryside a mile or more from the nearest village.

The promoters still had Québec in their vision statements. Moody wrote that tracks were laid from Albion to the point between Burnham and Pittsfield where the W&Q would cross the Maine Central tracks and continue north. In 1897, the Maine Central vetoed the crossing.

Representatives of both lines went to the three-man Maine Railroad Commission. The commissioners ruled that the W&Q could build an overpass; and that while the overpass was being built, the W&Q could install a temporary crossing, called a diamond, if the company could do the job without interfering with Maine Central traffic.

The overpass idea was a non-starter; the ground was too flat.

As Moody told the story, the Maine Central trains, passenger or freight, normally ran about every two hours. W&Q officials hauled in a pre-made diamond and assembled an Italian crew to install it. The foreman waited for the morning Maine Central to go through and signaled the crew to get started. But whoops! here came another Maine Central train. It passed, the crew moved in – and another engine was bearing down on them.

(Moody thought the whole deal, including the commissioners’ role, smelled of fish. He doubted the railroad promoters seriously planned to continue the line to Québec, or would have prospered if they had; wondered why, if they were serious, they didn’t fight harder against the Maine Central; and believed their stockholders were gypped.)

The result was that as of 1897, the main line of the W&Q ran 43-1/2 miles from Wiscasset to Albion, carrying passengers, mail and freight.

The promoters still promised Québec and, Moody wrote, organized two new companies, the Waterville & Wiscasset to connect Weeks Mills via Vassalboro to Winslow and the Franklin, Somerset & Kennebec to continue through Waterville to Farmington.

In 1898 and 1899 most of the line between Weeks Mills and Winslow was finished. But a vital connection in Farmington to the Sandy River line required crossing a piece of land the Maine Central owned; and the Maine Central refused passage. (Moody wondered why the FS&K wasn’t relocated around the Maine Central lot, and suggested the Sandy River directors were unenthusiastic about the proposed connection.)

The result of this second failure was that the W&Q went bankrupt. In 1900, according to the history on the WW&F’s Alna museum website, Leonard Atwood bought the Wiscasset to Albion and the Weeks Mills to Winslow lines, three engines and 60 or more cars, mostly freight cars. He renamed the line the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railroad, though no one cites evidence he aimed for either Waterville or Farmington.

(An on-line genealogy says Atwood was born in Farmington Falls in 1845, and served two years in the Union navy during the Civil War. His mechanical interests led him to invent elevator machinery that he installed in hotels in the 1870s. After selling his patents to Elisha Graves Otis [founder of the Otis Elevator Company], he moved to Nova Scotia and organized a narrow-gauge railroad south from Yarmouth in the early 1890s, before he became president of the WW&F. He died in 1930.)

By 1902 the WW&F line to Winslow was finished and the new company had a new Forney engine, a new passenger car and a new combination passenger/mail car. In the next few years, as North Vassalboro mills expanded, the Winslow route became the main line. But, Moody wrote, the railroad failed to generate enough income to repay debts, keep up with maintenance and show a profit.

In 1906, W. W. Woolworth Company Vice-President Carson Peck bought the WW&F for $93,000, “after spirited bidding,” the museum’s website says. Peck renamed the company the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway (not Railroad); paid off its debts; and bought three classy engines, a Forney from the Bridgton & Saco and two new Baldwins, one designed for freight and one for passenger cars, that were bigger than any the WW&F had owned before.

For another two decades, Peck and after his death in 1915 his heirs ran a slowly-declining business. The decline was partly because cars and trucks took over passenger and freight movement.

The museum history says after the owners started asking for dividend payments in the early 1920s, maintenance and service began to suffer. The line was discontinued from North Vassalboro north to Winslow, passenger service from Weeks Mills to North Vassalboro ended and Wiscasset to Albion was again the main line.

1922 Portland.

By 1926 the Peck heirs were ready to sell the railway. Local people raised the $60,000 asking price, and, Moody wrote, long-time General Manager Sam Sewell continued to run the business. But with profits small or non-existent and service and maintenance still being cut, in 1930 a Palermo lumberman named Frank Winter was able to buy the company for $6,000 (Moody said there was $5,000 in the till, so Winter actually got it for $1,000).

Winter’s main interest was to keep trains running to ship timber from his land. Moody wrote that maintenance focused on engines (including the defunct Kennebec Central’s), flatcars for lumber and the mail car that generated $9,200 a year.

The final trip on the WW&F was on June 15, 1933, when the remaining useable engine, heading coastward from Albion, left the track in Whitefield and slid down the bank toward the Sheepscot. Engineer Earl Keefe and the other three crewmen were unhurt; they continued to Wiscasset on what the museum history calls a motor railcar.

Winter continued to transport the mail and a postal clerk in a rented truck until October 1933. He did not abandon the idea of selling the railway for another three years, during which vandals and souvenir-hunters damaged stock and buildings. Eventually, most that remained was sold for scrap metal or allowed to fall down.

Next: what the railroad that didn’t get to Québec did for the central Kennebec Valley area; and what’s left in 2020.

Main sources

Marriner, Ernest , Kennebec Yesterdays (1954).
Moody, Linwood W., The Maine Two-footers: The Story of the two-foot gauge railroads of Maine (1959).
Websites, miscellaneous.

Mainers invited to dispose of unusable pesticides

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Free disposal, pre-registration by Oct. 9 required

Thanks to a project sponsored by the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry’s (DACF) Board of Pesticides Control (BPC) and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Mainers can dispose of unusable and unwanted pesticides for free. The Obsolete Pesticides Collection Program has kept more than 109 tons of pesticides out of the waste stream since its start in 1982.

This free annual program is open to homeowners, family-owned farms and greenhouses. Collections will occur at four sites: Presque Isle, Bangor, Augusta, and Portland. Participants must pre-register by October 9, 2020. Drop-ins are not permitted. Collected pesticides are taken to an out-of-state disposal facility licensed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Information to register and fill out your obsolete pesticide inventory form may be found under “Resources” on the BPC website: www.thinkfirstspraylast.org.

Pesticides accepted include: herbicides, insecticides, rodenticides, fungicides and similar products used in agricultural production or around the home. Past participants in the program have reported finding obsolete pesticides in barns of family properties, garages of newly purchased homes and other unexpected places. While removal of these pesticides can seem daunting, it is important for the protection of public, wildlife and environmental health, that they are dealt with properly and not thrown in the trash or poured down the drain, where they can contaminate land and water resources.

“The Obsolete Pesticide Collection Program is an excellent opportunity for free disposal of unusable and unwanted pesticides,” said DACF Commissioner Amanda Beal. Register in advance, bring your pesticides to one of the designated collection sites, and let the professionals dispose of these materials responsibly and safely.

DEP Acting Commissioner Melanie Loyzim encourages Mainers to take full advantage of this free opportunity. When improperly disposed ofin the trash, poured into the environment, down the drain, or kept in storage for long periods pesticides threaten wildlife and the quality of our drinking water sources, Loyzim said.

More information about Maine Board of Pesticides Control can be found at thinkfirstspraylast.org.

Free webinars on invasive forest pests

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Clockwise, from top left, Asian Longhorned Beetle, Emerald Ash Borer, and Browntail moth caterpillar.

by Hildy Ellis

Maine Association of Conservation Districts is offering free regional webinars to highlight how to protect Maine forests from Invasive Forest Pests. Webinars will be presented by local Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) staff and will focus on statewide and regional pest problems. Maine Forest Service staff will be on hand with information on current local forest pest management issues. Presentations are scheduled for Wed, September 23 from 3-4 pm (Knox-Lincoln SWCD); Thu, October 1 from 4-5 pm (Cumberland SWCD); Wed, October 7 from 3-4 pm (Penobscot SWCD); and Tue, Oct 13 from 9-10 am (Central Aroostook SWCD).

Maine already has several Invasive Forest Pests targeting our trees and spreading throughout the state including emerald ash borer, hemlock woolly adelgid, browntail moth and winter moth.

There are additional Invasive Forest Pests in neighboring states that we don’t want moving to Maine, such as Asian longhorned beetle, spotted lanternfly and oak wilt, all of which have the potential to have devastating effects on our forest, landscape and agricultural tree species. Join us to learn how to identify and report sightings of these potential threats – and how to keep them out of Maine.

Webinars are free and sponsored by a grant from USDA-APHIS. Participants may attend any webinar that is in their region or at the most convenient date and time. Pre-registration is required at www.cumberlandswcd.org/conservation-shop/have-you-seen-me-invasive-forest-pest-webinar. Participants will receive information on how to join the webinar after they register. For questions or more information, please contact Hildy at Knox-Lincoln SWCD at 596-2040 or hildy@knox-lincoln.org