LETTERS: More volunteers needed at Window Dressers workshop

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Damaris Mayans at the China build in 2022. (photo by Eric W. Austin)

To the editor:

Last year The Town Line ran a piece about Window Dressers, a grassroots, volunteer-run, nonprofit organization that trains, supplies, and supports volunteers to construct Insulating Window Inserts for residents who need help in keeping their homes warm.

Even though I did not get a response last year when I applied, this year volunteers came to my house and measured my windows for the inserts I desperately need.

I volunteered to construct my inserts and inserts for others for three days in the November 6 – 11 period that they will be doing this at the Olde Mill Place, 934 Main St., No. Vassalboro.

As the saying goes, “life happens”, and I had to call today to see if I could go in on November 7, at 12:30 p.m., instead of the 8:30 a.m. shift that I had signed up for in October.

During the conversation I heard that more volunteers are very much needed.

If you know anyone who has a few hours in a morning or afternoon, from November 7 – 11, to help construct insulating window inserts for those people who need help keeping Maine’s cold winter days and night outside, it will be very much appreciated.

Anyone who has the time can get contact details at https://windowdressers.org/

Another one of those great nonprofit positive things happening in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

You know more people than I do in this area, so thank you for contacting anyone who might have the time.

Roberta Barnes
Windsor

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Agriculture & Inventions – Part 2

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Above, a sawmill using a circular saw blade. Below, vintage circular saw blades.

by Mary Grow

Colby College historian Earl H. Smith found four more local inventors besides Hanson Barrows and Alvin Lombard, whose work was last week’s topic. They were William Kendall, of Fairfield, and Waterville; Laroy Starrett, of China and Newburyport, Massachusetts; and in the 20th century, Martin Keyes and Frank Bunker Gilbreth.

An on-line genealogy says Captain William J. Kendall, Jr., was born Jan. 2, 1784, in Kendall’s Mills. Kendall’s Mills, named after William, Jr.’s, father, was until 1872 the name for the part of Fairfield that is now the business district.

The Fairfield bicentennial history says the senior William Kendall was a Revolutionary War veteran. He is referred to as “General” Kendall, and Smith called him a “Revolutionary War general”; your writer found military records consistently say he was a private during the Revolution.

In 1780, he bought most of the area that is now downtown Fairfield and “took over” a saw and grist mill started two years earlier by Jonas Dutton. With it he acquired the first Fairfield dam that Dutton built between the west shore of the river and the westernmost island (now Mill Island).

The senior William Kendall married Abigail Chase on Christmas Day 1782. The Fairfield historians wrote that she lived upriver at Noble’s Ferry (near the present Goodwill School); Kendall paddled his birch-bark canoe to the ferry, where they got married, and let the current bring them back to Kendall’s Mills.

William, Jr., was born Jan. 2, 1784, probably in William Sr., and Abigail’s first house, “a log house near the river” close to the present intersection of Main Street and Western Avenue. An on-line genealogy lists the younger Kendall’s occupations as “millwright & mill owner, inventor.”

His first mill, according to the multi-authored chapter on businessmen in Edwin Carey Whittemore’s history of Waterville, was on Ticonic dam, south of the Waterville-Winslow bridge. No date is given.

A list of early patents found on line says Kendall’s patent for a “reciprocating sawmill” was issued Dec. 31, 1827. He was then from Waterville.

Smith agreed with the location, but not with the date. He wrote that there is disagreement over the first inventor of the circular saw, but probably the first one in Maine was “around 1845 in Waterville,” and was Kendall’s work.

Whittemore’s history accepts the 1827 date. Actually, 1827 might be late: another on-line source dates the patent to 1826, and Whittemore quotes a Jan. 4, 1827, Waterville newspaper article describing the Jan. 1 presentation of a gold medal to Kendall “in approbation of the improvement he has made in the circular saw.”

The newspaper report said Mayor Bolcom made the medal, which looked like a circular saw. (This statement makes sense only if “Mayor” is a first name rather than a title, as Waterville did not become a city until January 1888.)

The Waterville history says Kendall’s saw “was six feet in diameter, built of boiler plates riveted together; and the steel teeth, about three by four inches, were fastened in proportion by fifteen or twenty rivets for each tooth.”

Smith and the Fairfield historians agree on the importance of this invention. Smith said the circular saw “doubled the speed” of making logs into boards, with one circular saw doing the work of four up-and-down saws. Whittemore added that the saw turned a single pine log into “3310 feet of clear boards.”

Whittemore told the story of workers from a traveling “caravan” that charged 25 cents admission: the workers came to Kendall’s mill and contributed 25 cents each for a visit, “saying that it was more of a show to see the saw walk through a log than it was to see their own exhibition.”

The Fairfield historians wrote that the invention of the “circular log saw blade” “revolutionized the industry.” They added, “It is a sad commentary to note that General William Kendall did not live to see the success of his son’s invention, as he died that same year [Aug. 11, 1827, according to on-line sources].”

The Fairfield history says two generations of Kendalls ran the mills into the 1830s, when the family sold them.

In later years, Whittemore said, Kendall made “an invention pertaining to the casing of water wheels, which he patented” and installed in Fairfield and Waterville mills.

The on-line genealogy says Kendall married Sarah Chase, who was born Nov. 22, 1787, in Andover, New Hampshire, and died in Gardiner in January 1822, when she was only 34. The couple had seven children. Whittemore located the Kendall home “near the west end of Ticonic bridge.”

Kendall died Nov. 27, 1872, in Fairfield, according to the genealogy.

* * * * * *

With China-born inventor Leroy S. Starrett, the factual disagreements start with his name. Smith called him Leroy S. Starrett; a reproduction of patent number 47,875, issued May 23, 1875, calls the inventor “Le Roy S. Starrett.”

The China bicentennial history and on-line sources say Laroy S. Starrett. The Davistown Museum website lists him as “Laroy (often incorrectly recorded ‘Leroy’) S. Starrett.” (The Davistown Museum website says the museum in Liberty and Hulls Cove, Maine, that specialized in hand tools has closed.)

Find a Grave says his full name was Laroy Sunderland Starrett.

There is general agreement that Starrett was born April 25, 1836, in China, Maine. Find a Grave lists his parents as Daniel Dane Starrett (born Nov 25, 1802, in Francestown, New Hampshire; died Feb. 9, 1896, in South China), and Anna Crummett Starrett (born Jan. 27, 1803, in Boothbay; died March 3, 1875, in South China).

There is further agreement that one of Laroy Starrett’s job descriptions is “inventor.” Others include farmer, businessman, carpenter and tool manufacturer.

The China bicentennial history says when he was 17, Starrett began working for nearby farmers to earn money to help pay off the mortgage on the family farm. In 1855 or soon thereafter, he moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he either worked for a local widow on her farm or rented a farm (sources again differ).

Though he was a successful farmer, winning prizes at the local fair, he soon turned his attention to inventing metal gadgets.

The Find a Grave website has a 28-item list of his patents. Some are specific, like his first and best-known, the meat chopper or meat cutter for which he received a patent on May 23, 1865. It is followed by “shoe studs and hooks,” Jan. 28, 1868, and a “combination square”, with the patent dated Feb. 26, 1879.

The Newburyport, Massa­chusetts, history website adds “a washing machine and a butter worker.” In all, Starrett received 100 patents, many for precision tools, a lot of which are still used today.

The “combination square” is probably the invention Smith credited to Starrett, describing it as a “combination square and ruler with a sliding head.” Smith added, “The tool, essentially unchanged, is still routinely found in toolboxes of woodworkers everywhere.”

The Newburyport website writer believed Starrett’s invention of the meat cutter in 1865 led the family to move from rural to downtown Newburyport. Citing city directories, the website says Starrett made and sold meat cutters from an address on Merrimac Street (shown on contemporary maps as paralleling the Merrimack River).

In 1867 and 1868, Starrett “was advertising the meat cutter/chopper a lot in the local newspapers,” the website says.

The story continues, “He was so successful that he left Newburyport to manufacture his inventions…in Athol, Massachusetts, which is in the upper western part of the state near Gardner.”

There, Wikipedia says, Starrett founded L. S. Starrett in 1880, so he could manufacture the combination square he had patented two years earlier “and other precision tools.” The company has steadily grown and expanded into an international business; websites list Douglas Arthur Starrett as the current CEO and president.

Douglas Arthur Starrett lives in Athol, Massachusetts; he is 72 years old, according to the most up-to-date site your writer found. Patient genealogical research suggests that he is the great-great-great-grandson of Laroy Sunderland Starrett.

Laroy Starrett and Newburyport resident Lydia Webb Bartlett (Sept. 4, 1839 – Feb. 3, 1878) were married in 1861. They had five children, a son born in 1862 and a second, born in 1869, who lived only 13 months, according to Find a Grave.

The youngest daughter was born Jan. 10, 1878, in Athol. Lydia’s death less than a month later left Starrett with a 15-year-old son and three daughters, one an infant.

The China history says Starrett was deaf from about 1904 on. Widowerhood and deafness did not end his career, or “his generous concern for others,” the history says. He supported charitable projects in Athol, and in South China gave the Chadwick Hill cemetery a $1,000 gift in 1916, another $600 in 1917 for perpetual care of the Starrett family lots “and an even larger sum in 1920.”

Starrett died April 23, 1922, in Saint Petersburg, Florida. He and Lydia are among several generations of the Starrett family buried in Athol’s Silver Lake cemetery.

* * * * * *

Next week: a bit of information about Martin Keyes and Frank Gilbreth.

Up and Down sawmills

The Fairfield historians explained that sawmills in the 1700s and early 1800s used an up and down saw. Milton Dowe, in his 1954 history of Palermo, gave a more complete description of such a saw.

He wrote that water coming over a dam powered a water wheel. Attached to the water wheel was a crankshaft connected to an “arm” connected to the saw frame.

The saw frame was rectangular, “about six feet long and eight feet wide…with the saw fastened in the center.” The saw itself was similar to an ice-cutting saw and was “about six feet long and seven inches wide.”

Dowe continued, “The frame holding the saw was set in guides in an upright position in such a way that the short arm from the crankshaft, as the waterwheel turned, would push and pull the frame up and down.”

A carriage held a log that was pushed forward “by a rachet on a feed wheel” each time the saw blade came down. Each log was sawed into boards about an inch at a time, Dowe wrote.

Main sources

Fairfield Historical Society Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988).
Grow, Mary M,. China Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions (1984).
Smith, Earl H., Downeast Genius: From Earmuffs to Motor Cars Maine Inventors Who Changed the World (2021).
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902).

Websites, miscellaneous.

China assessment review board denies abatement request

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by Mary Grow

At an Oct. 25 meeting, three members of China’s board of assessment review unanimously upheld the board of assessors (also the select board), who on Aug. 28 denied Marie Michaud’s application for a property tax abatement.

Michaud believes her shorefront lot on the west side of China Lake is overvalued. She said the lake bottom in front of her property is weedy and muddy and the water is shallow, making the area unfit for swimming.

Select board members denied Michaud’s abatement request on a 3-2 vote. Michaud appealed to the board of assessment review.

Assessor William Van Tuinen answered questions about how he – or any assessor – determines property values, based on the property’s characteristics and on area selling prices.

There are three categories of lake frontage, he said. The highest, A, is for properties with a good view of the water and usable frontage. A lot with a buffer – conforming to recommended water quality protection practices – that blocked the view, or with less usable frontage, would be rated B.

Michaud’s lot Van Tuinen rated C, the lowest category, indicating he shared her opinion that it was not among the most desirable lots on the lake. He calculated the valuation and resulting tax bill using that rating.

After considering Van Tuinen’s information and lists of “comps” – supposedly comparable properties – presented by both parties, board members voted unanimously that the assessment was appropriate.

The board’s meeting, the first since February 2021, began with re-election of chairman Dale Peabody and secretary Harold Charles.

CHINA: Only three of six candidates take part in forum

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Albert Church Brown Memorial Library in China Village.

by Mary Grow

Three of the six candidates on China’s Nov. 7 local election ballot attended the Oct. 28 candidates’ forum at the Albert Church Brown Memorial Library, in China Village.

Moderator Louisa Barnhart, chairman of the library’s board of trustees, asked about the candidates’ favorite charities, their reading preferences and their positions on local issues.

  • Jeanne Marquis, candidate for select board, lives on Neck Road and described her occupation as an organizer for Mobilize Recovery (see Box below).

Mobilized Recovery explained

Mobilize Recovery is a national organization with a branch in Augusta. Its purpose is to deal with the national addiction crisis, including preventing addiction and helping people already addicted to survive and to recover.

The Maine Recovery Advocacy Project Facebook page says:

“We are thrilled about the level of support we have received by Kennebec County and our awesome volunteers. We are now beginning to see that our first year’s goal of visiting 5,000 homes is well within our reach. We want to thank the Kennebec County Commissioners who provided the grant to enable us to do this project and thank all the 3,882 homes we have visited so far.

“We are encouraged to see so many people realize the importance of carrying Narcan in their purses, back packs, brief cases or glove compartment of their cars – even if they don’t know someone who uses drugs. You’ll never know when you might be able to save someone’s life.”

It adds details about achieving the 2023 goal:

“So far this year, we visited 3,882 homes, trained 1,592 people to use Nar[c]an and distributed 3,510 boxes of Narcan.”

The Facebook page says the physical address is 59 Bangor Street, Augusta; the telephone number is (207)593-6251; and the email address is courtney@recoveryvoices.com.

Nonprofit groups she supports include local organizations (China Lake Association, the volunteer fire department and China for a Lifetime); environmental organizations (Nature Conservancy and Sierra Club); and addiction recovery organization (Maine Recovery Advocacy Project and Mobilize Recovery).

Her favorite living author is non-fiction writer Johann Hari. Her favorite writer is the late Toni Morrison, especially her poetry.

  • Elaine Mather, planning board candidate, lives on Weeks Mills Road and is retired from her job as a prosecutor for misdemeanors in Henderson, Nevada. She moved to China to be near family members.

Mather’s charities include the American Diabetes Association, the Salvation Army and the Boy Scouts of America. Her favorite writer is Brad Thor, author of the Scot Harvath thrillers.

  • Thomas Rumpf, budget committee candidate, lives on Hanson Road and works as a bridge estimator. He devotes volunteer time – up to 60 hours a week, he said — to the China Four Seasons Club, of which he is president.

He also supports the Masons and is a member of two local lodges; and the Red Cross, including as a platelet and blood donor. He spends his working hours reading blueprints and has little time for leisure reading.

The two policy questions Barnhart asked were about the proposed LS power line and about a future public beach on China Lake. Candidates added two more issues, lack of volunteers for town boards and organizations, and the need to entice more businesses to locate in China.

None of the three supports the LS powerline. Rumpf’s principal objection is “the very sneaky way it came about – the landowners were all taken by surprise.”

Marquis and Mather were concerned about the effect on China’s rural nature and environment, especially the potential loss of good farmland. Marquis emphasized she was speaking personally, not for the select board. Mather said her decisions as a planning board member would be based on ordinances, not on her personal views.

No candidate had a plan for providing public beach access to China Lake. All agreed a town-owned beach would make more work for the town’s public works department and would require additional insurance.

Marquis praised the Four Seasons Club beach on China Lake’s east shore. It is open to club members for what the club website says is an annual $35 general membership fee.

All three regretted the lack of volunteers for town boards and local organizations. Rumpf praised the excellent volunteers who keep the Four Seasons Club active, and said if there were more, the club could add projects and events.

He raised the issue of attracting business, calling China “business-unfriendly” and naming businesses that have moved to other towns. China officials do not offer tax breaks to new businesses; and they collect the state-mandated personal property tax on businesses, a requirement he said some Maine municipalities ignore.

Rumpf’s main argument was that more businesses would increase the local tax base. He acknowledged the need for regulation to protect local values.

Librarian Miranda Perkins’ video of the forum is available on line for interested voters, via a link on the Albert Church Brown Memorial Library website.

No contests on China ballot

There are no contests and no new names on China’s Nov. 7 local election ballot, though there are lines for write-in candidates.

For the board of selectmen, Wayne Chadwick and Jeanne Marquis seek re-election.

For planning board District 3 (southeastern China), Elaine Mather, appointed in late August to finish Michael Sullivan’s term, is a candidate for re-election. There is no candidate for District 1 (northwestern China).

For the budget committee, chairman Thomas Rumpf and District 1 candidate Kevin Maroon are unopposed for re-election. There is no candidate for District 3.

The position of budget committee secretary is also open, Trishea Story having resigned some months ago. Because that term does not end until 2024, it is not on the ballot.

Anyone interested in serving in an unfilled position is invited to call the China town office at 445-2014.

On Nov. 7, China polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the former portable building behind the town office on Lakeview Drive.

China transfer committee reviews 5-year plan

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by Mary Grow

At their Oct. 17 meeting, China transfer station committee members reviewed the five-year plan for the facility and talked about relations with neighbors Palermo and Albion.

The plan includes repairs and replacements and a few minor additions, like a storage area for propane tanks and the previously-discussed lighting for the free for the taking building (both scheduled for 2024).

A main topic was what to do with the elderly skid-steer. Opinion leaned toward replacing it with a tractor, not another skid-steer; committee members listed things a tractor could do, for the transfer station and the public works department, that a skid-steer cannot do.

Director of Public Services Shawn Reed offered to look into prices of different-sized tractors.

Staff intends to do more checking on options and costs for other pieces of equipment that need repair or perhaps replacement. They are also investigating state grants.

Committee members considered investing in another storage building so transfer station staff can keep more recyclables, waiting for fluctuating prices to rise. They made no recommendation.

Palermo committee member Robert Kurek and China town manager Rebecca Hapgood sparred, again, over the new transfer station identification system scheduled to begin Jan. 1, 2024. Vehicles entering the facility will need a sticker on the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag with the vehicle license plate on the sticker.

The goal of adding the sticker identified with the vehicle is to eliminate Palermo and China residents’ habit of lending their RFID tags to out-of-towners who do not help fund the transfer station.

Hapgood plans to charge $2 a sticker. Kurek insists the China-Palermo contract says Palermo residents pay no new fees. The contract took effect Jan. 1, 2017, and runs for 17 years, a term Kurek said China officials chose to match their contract with the now-closed Hampden disposal facility.

Under the contract, Palermo pays China an $18,000 yearly fee, and Palermo residents pay for and use special colored trash bags. The bag price has been adjusted, and there is a formula for future adjustments.

Hapgood said China’s town attorney called the contract “one of the worst contracts she’s ever seen.” Committee chairman Paul Lucas called it “ridiculous.”

Hapgood’s suggested alternative to a sticker fee was to have each Palermo vehicle stopped at the entrance and checked to make sure it was entitled to enter. Lucas asked how the cost of the additional labor would compare to the cost of giving Palermo residents free stickers.

The discussion ended inconclusively. Hapgood intends another discussion with China select board members, and she and Kurek exchanged assurances that they’re still friends.

Transfer station manager Thomas Maraggio and Hapgood said fewer transfer station users are being rude to employees, though there are still instances Hapgood investigates.

Maraggio said the new agreement with Albion is working well. Albion residents are now allowed to bring some of the items excluded from the town’s curb-side pick-up to China, for a fee.

Hapgood reported China has hired a new town employee, who will work for both the transfer station and the public works department. The position was in this year’s budget, she said, especially to provide an additional plow driver so staff will be less exhausted by snowstorms.

The next China transfer station committee meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14.

China select board acts on three spending requests

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by Mary Grow

China select board members acted on three spending requests at their Oct. 23 meeting.

They held a long discussion about trucks with Director of Public Services Shawn Reed. Reed reported the previously authorized new town truck, once scheduled for September delivery, is not yet even “on the assembly line,” due to a series of delays (including a major fire at a supplier’s factory).

Reed would like to buy another truck, to replace a half-ton truck China bought in 2011 that has 185,000 miles on the odometer and needs work to pass inspection in December. Despite the shortage of both new and used trucks, he has found a replacement that will cost $65,862.25.

Town manager Rebecca Hapgood said the (unaudited) public works capital reserve fund balance is $150, 939.

Two China select board members have considerable experience with trucks, so there was a detailed discussion about the truck, including considering whether it could double as a plow truck, as Reed recommended.

The unanimous decision was to authorize Reed to buy the truck but not, for now, a plow to go on it. The plow might be considered next year, board members said.

Board members had three bids for each of two projects in Thurston Park, the 400-acre town-owned recreation area in northeastern China.

The relatively simple project is a 20-by-20-foot building to store park equipment. Board members accepted the lowest bid, from Reardon Brothers Construction, of Albion, for $19,763.59.

The other project is repairing Yorktown Road, the entrance to the park from the north. The area needing attention is partly in Albion and partly in China.

Hapgood had no definitive legal opinion on whether China officials can spend taxpayers’ money in another town to access China property. Bidders were therefore asked to submit a separate bid for each town’s part of the road, and select board members took no action on the Albion part.

For work inside the China town line, they again accepted the lowest bid, from S. D. Childs and Sons Excavation, of Palermo, for $30,700.

Returning to a previously-discussed issue, Palermo’s use of China’s transfer station, Hapgood presented a revised version of the new transfer station admission policy that goes into effect Jan. 1, 2024.

Since Palermo officials object to their residents being charged $2 for the new annual access permits that will be required for China residents, the new policy offers Palermo residents two options.

  • A Palermo resident can obtain an access permit, for $2, at the transfer station;
  • Or, each Palermo vehicle must stop at the entrance and the driver must “see an attendant before unloading any items.”

Board members approved the revision on a 2-1 vote, with Janet Preston and chairman Wayne Chadwick in favor, Brent Chesley opposed, Jeanne Marquis not yet present and Blane Casey excused from the meeting.

On a related issue, Hapgood reported that she had talked with town attorney Amanda Meader about terminating the 2016 transfer-station-sharing contract between China and Palermo. Termination by either party must be for breach of contract or just cause, and requires a year’s notice, she said.

Board members asked Hapgood to invite Meader to a board meeting to discuss the topic.

In other business Oct. 23,

  • Board members appointed Benjamin Weymouth to the broadband and tax increment financing committees. The tax increment financing, or TIF, committee is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 30.
  • Preston reported that China is enrolled in the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments’ Community Resilience Program, making the town eligible for certain grants.
  • Three people reminded select board members they have not yet done anything substantive about improving the South China boat landing and Town Landing Road. All three are concerned about erosion into China Lake.

One suggestion from earlier discussions, endorsed again by China Lake Association president Stephen Greene, is to limit the landing to hand-carried canoes and kayaks, minimizing vehicle traffic. Greene said grant money is available to work on the landing, and the lake association will contribute funds.

  • Resident Scott Pierz again asked about the China Lake water level (see the Oct. 19 issue of The Town Line, p. 3). Hapgood replied she had talked with Vassalboro town manager Aaron Miller and was waiting for more information.
  • Hapgood’s report included a reminder that the town office will close all day on Nov. 7, with polls open in the nearby former portable building from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. On Monday, Dec. 11, in recognition of China’s local Municipal Employees’ Appreciation Day that Hapgood invented, the town office and public works department will be closed from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

The Oct. 23 meeting was held at 5 p.m. as board members consider whether to change to that earlier time. The time for the next regular China select board meeting, scheduled for Monday, Nov. 6, in the town office meeting room, remains to be determined.

EVENTS: Thank you for your service!

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Boynton-Webber  American Legion Post #179, in South China, will be hosting a turkey dinner for veterans, and one guest, on Wed­nesday, Nov­ember 8, starting at noon, at the South China Legion Hall, at 79 Legion Memorial Drive, South China.

CHINA: Chadwick proposes solar panels at closed landfill

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PFAS detected in area water supply

by Mary Grow

China select board chairman Wayne Chadwick suggested to his fellow board members at their Oct. 10 meeting the possibility of installing solar panels on the closed landfill at the Alder Park Road transfer station.

Palermo resident Troy Nelson proposed the idea, Chadwick said. He pointed out that the three-phase power to which a solar development would connect is already available at the transfer station.

Chadwick envisioned leasing the area to a solar developer; board member Janet Preston suggested a town-owned project.

Other board members, and town manager Rebecca Hapgood, agreed the idea is worth exploring, though they were concerned the footings for the panels would go deep enough to puncture the landfill cap. They talked of finding documentation on closing the landfill, and of other types of solar-panel ground mounts.

Hapgood reported less welcome news from the transfer station: late on Friday, Oct. 6, a state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) staffer told her testing had found PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in the station’s water supply, and in two private wells nearby.

Hapgood said the DEP plans to test more wells in the vicinity. The holiday weekend had delayed follow-up; board members postponed action for more information, including the extent of the contamination, whether the capped landfill is the cause and the cost of providing PFAS filters at the transfer station.

China residents presented two issues involving cooperation with adjoining towns.

Scott Pierz, executive director of the China Region Lakes Alliance (though he said he intends to resign the position soon), expressed concern about the unusually low level of China Lake.

According to a state DEP water level order, China Lake is supposed to be drawn down in the fall. The drawdown is intended to flush out algae after the lake has “turned over” – layers of deep cool water and warm surface water have mixed, so that nutrients from the bottom rise toward the surface. Pierz is concerned the drawdown is too early this year.

The Town of Vassalboro owns and controls the China Lake outlet dam. Pierz recommended establishing better communications between China and Vassalboro and perhaps seeking a role for China in dam management.

Jeanette Smith, chairman of the Thurston Park Committee, returned to the issue of access to the park, discussed at the Sept. 25 select board meeting (see the Sept. 28 issue of The Town Line, p. 2). Contrary to the report on that meeting, she said committee members would prefer the southern access to the park, if it can be made possible.

The Yorktown Road runs through the park, from Albion on the north to the Mann Road on the south. The road was discontinued many years ago, with a public right of way retained. However, the landowner on the south treats that end of Yorktown Road as his private driveway and does not want park visitors using it, Smith said.

From the north, a dirt road liable to washouts runs down a steep hill that Smith said is intimidating to some drivers. The hill is partly in Albion and partly in China, and Albion is not maintaining its section.

Smith said she attended the most recent Albion select board meeting to talk about the road and found board members “willing to work with China.” They offered to find out the legal status of their section of the road – one audience member thought it had been discontinued, Smith said – and to continue discussion.

Smith said there are now two bids for each of two Thurston Park projects, road repair and a storage building. Select board members postponed action, hoping for at least three bids to choose among.

In other business Oct. 10:

  • Board members unanimously appointed Benjamin Weymouth to the comprehensive plan implementation committee. Hapgood said there are now three committee members; she would like seven.
  • Board members unanimously appointed election workers and ballot clerks for the Nov. 7 election, and provided that pre-election hours for the registrar of voters and town clerk will be the usual town office hours. Absentee ballots for Nov. 7 are now available.
  • Board member Jeanne Marquis shared a draft of a new town logo, which met with general approval from the rest of the board. When board members adopt the new logo, Hapgood intends to use it on municipal vehicles and on China T-shirts and China caps.
  • Hapgood reported briefly on numerous violations of local land use ordinances. She encouraged all residents planning building or renovation projects to check with the town office to find out if a permit is needed, and if one is, to get it before beginning work and to read it carefully for limitations, inspection requirements and other follow-up actions.

Board members supported her recommendations, citing the need to protect China’s natural resources.

The next regular China select board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 23.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Agriculture – Part 6

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Nelson, the horse owned by Charles Horace “Hod” Nelson, of Waterville. (photo courtesy of Lost Trotting Parks Heritage Center)

by Mary Grow

Waterville horses continued “Nelson”

Another locally-bred trotting horse, even more famous than General Knox (described last week), was Nelson.

Nelson was a bay horse. The color is described on line as “a reddish-brown or brown body color with a black point coloration on the mane, tail, ear edges, and lower legs.” Several on-line pictures dramatically contrast his dark mane with his lighter body. He stood a little over 15 hands (readers will remember a hand equals four inches).

He was born in 1882, probably in January. Various on-line sources say his sire (father) was Young Rolfe, born in Massachusetts and brought to Waterville by Charles Horace “Hod” Nelson, owner of Sunnyside Farm, before he was a year old.

Nelson’s dam (mother) was Gretchen, a daughter of Gideon, who was a son of Hambletonian. Thomas Stackpole Lang, of Vassalboro, brought Gideon to Maine around 1860, one of many well-bred horses he introduced to the Kennebec Valley.

Hambletonian (1792 – March 28, 1818) was a famous British Thoroughbred who won 18 of his 19 races before being retired to stud in 1801. The Hambletonian Stakes for three-year-old trotters, run annually since 1926, honors the British horse. This year’s race was held Aug. 5 at Meadowlands, in New Jersey.

The horse “Nelson”

Nelson the man (whom your writer will disrespectfully call “Hod” throughout this article to minimize confusion) bred, trained, raced and deeply loved Nelson the horse. Stephen D. Thompson’s long and well-researched article on the website losttrottingparks.com, titled “When Waterville was Home to Nelson, the Northern King,” gives a great deal of information about horse and man.

Nelson first attracted attention in 1884, winning a race for two-year-olds at the state fair in Lewiston. At the 1885 state fair in the same city, he won two cups, as the fastest three-year-old and the fastest stallion, and set a record.

He continued his winning ways in 1889 in Boston, Massachusetts, and in Buffalo, New York, where he won a $5,000 stake before, Hod wrote, 40,000 people.

On Sept. 6, 1890, in Bangor, he set a world record for a half-mile track. From there he was shipped to Illinois, where, on Sept. 29, 1890, in Kankakee, he set what Samuel Boardman, in his chapter in Kingsbury’s Kennebec Cunty history, called “the champion trotting stallion record of the world” over what Thompson said was a mile-long track.

This record stood for a year, Boardman wrote, until September 1891, when it was broken in Grand Rapids, Michigan – by Nelson.

After September and October 1890 races in Illinois and Indiana, Nelson and Hod returned to Sunnyside for the winter. In November, Hod, but presumably not Nelson, attended a “Banquet in celebration of the Champion Trotting Stallion Nelson at the Elmwood Hotel.”

Due to rumors that the 1889 Boston race had been fixed, Nelson and Hod were suspended by the National Trotting Association from December 1890 to Dec. 6, 1892. (Thompson wrote that Hod had refused to fix the race, but apparently someone else did and Hod was somehow caught up in the scheme.)

The suspension did not preclude racing, apparently, because E. P. Mayo, in his chapter in Edwin Whittemore’s Waterville history, described Nelson’s many journeys and busy fall schedules in 1891 and 1892.

Hod took Nelson to Michigan in October 1891 (or earlier? – see Boardman, above) for more racing; this time, according to Thompson’s account, he lost one race. Mayo said this western tour, “which was nothing short of a triumphal procession,” began in Saginaw, Michigan, and included nine cities in Michigan, Iowa and Indiana.

The duo apparently returned immediately to Maine, because on October 30, Thompson wrote, Nelson left Waterville “[i]n his own train car” with three grooms and Hod for Chicago’s American Horse Show. He was received enthusiastically at stops along the way and “Became the idol of the show!”

(Mayo said Nelson’s triumph at the Chicago horse show was in 1890, rather than 1891; he, too, said Nelson returned from Indiana and rested a week in Maine before heading to Chicago, and he, too, used the word “idol.”)

In 1892 and 1893, Mayo wrote, Nelson continuing racing and exhibiting at many tracks, from New Jersey through New England to New Brunswick.

On June 24, 1902, Hod drove Nelson in Waterville’s Centennial parade. According to William Abbott Smith’s account in Whittemore’s history, they were right behind the carriages containing “invited guests,” city officials and the centennial organizing committee.

After Hod and Nelson, Smith wrote, came “Horses from Sunnyside Farm, driven by young ladies, two mounted, handsomely arrayed.”

At his last public appearance, on “Nelson Day” (honoring both horse and man), held Sept. 10 at the 1907 Central Maine Fair, in Waterville, Nelson “received the cheers of thousands as he went around the track with his old time style, and was visited by thousands in his stall” (according to a Dec. 9, 1909, Waterville Sentinel obituary for the horse that Thompson quoted).

Hod put Nelson down on Dec. 1, 1909, at Sunnyside Farm. Thompson described plans for his burial and grave marker, but apparently failed to find the marker or its presumed location.

An inscribed granite marker at the Sterling Street Playground, in Waterville, honoring the life of Nelson. The playground is part of what was once Sunnyside Farm, the home of Nelson. (photo by Roland Hallee)

In the Sentinel article, Hod described his horse as “a clever old fellow and…kind to everybody. In all his life he has only bitten at two or three persons and would not have done so then had they let him along [sic] or had they not been intoxicated. He could tell when a man had been drinking and seemed to take a dislike to them on that account.”

Hod added that someone offered him $125,000 for Nelson when the horse was eight years old, and he refused.

In 1994, Nelson was elected to the Harness Racing Hall of Fame’s Hall of Immortals, horse division. One source says he was the only Maine-bred trotting horse so honored.

Another indication of his fame, according to on-line sources, is that Currier and Ives made six prints of Nelson. The famous New York City printmakers also did portraits of Lady Maud and Camors, two of many horses sired by Thomas Stackpole Lang’s General Knox.

Charles Horace “Hod” Nelson

“Hod” Nelson

Hod Nelson was born April 16, 1843, in Palermo (or China; sources differ), the younger son of a storekeeper named Benjamin Nelson and his wife Asenath (Brown) Nelson. Hod spent his life farming and breeding horses, with an interruption during the Civil War.

According to the Find a Grave website, quoting submitted information, Hod enlisted in the 19th Maine Infantry as a private on Aug. 1, 1862; was “discharged for disability” March 13, 1863; re-enlisted as a private in the 12th Maine Infantry on Oct. 2, 1865; and was promoted to first sergeant before his honorable discharge March 3, 1866. Later, he was commander of Waterville’s W. S. Heath G.A.R. Post.

On Nov. 7, 1867, Hod married Emma Aubine Jones, who was born in China, Jan. 31, 1848, the only child of Francis and Eliza (Pinkham) Jones. An on-line genealogy lists no children of the marriage.

Hod owned a farm in China until 1882, when he bought what became Sunnyside Farm, off the Oakland Road – now Kennedy Memorial Drive (KMD) – in Waterville.

Thompson, through diligent research, established that Sunnyside Farm was on the south side of KMD between Nelson and Carver streets. He quoted an 1888 description that said there were actually two farms on the 540 acres of pasture and hayfields.

The farm for the brood mares and foals included three barns and “a fine residence” (presumably Hod and Emma’s home). The farm for the stallions had “two large barns” – and in 1888 a third was being planned – and a “substantial, old-fashioned house” where the employees lived.

By April 1894, Hod had another farm in Fairfield, mentioned in an April 23, 1894, article in The Kennebec Journal that Thompson found. Nelson’s dam, Gretchen, age 27, was still living at Sunnyside, and still had “the same fine limbs, the same straight back, and general proportions of beauty as a filly of four or five.”

Hod had 76 horses at Sunnyside and 41 “brood mares and colts” at his Fairfield farm, according to the article.

Later in life Hod suffered health issues – Thompson mentioned his war-related disability – and financial problems. By mid-March 1915 he was seriously ill, and Emma, who was caring for him, had a stroke. Her nephew took Hod to the veterans’ home at Togus, where he died on March 29, 1915.

Emma recovered and lived in a Waterville apartment until her death on Aug. 12, 1916, Thompson wrote. (An on-line genealogy dates her death Aug. 11, 1916.)

Hod and Emma Nelson are buried in Waterville’s Pine Grove Cemetery. One on-line genealogical source says the same cemetery holds the graves of Hod’s brother, Edward White Nelson (1841 – Nov. 9, 1906), Edward’s wife Cassandra Marden Worthing (born in Palermo, July 16, 1843, and died in Waterville Dec.7, 1903) and at least three of their four children, Hod’s nieces and nephew.

The Find a Grave website does not list Edward or Cassandra Nelson in Pine Grove cemetery. It does show the tombstone of their son (and Hod’s nephew), lawyer and Congressman John Edward Nelson (July 12, 1874 – April 11, 1955).

Main sources

Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902).

Website, miscellaneous.

China public hearing on solar garden canceled

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by Mary Grow

The China planning board’s public hearing on Novel Energy Systems’ proposed community solar garden on Parmenter Hill Road, scheduled for Oct. 10, was canceled due to lack of a board quorum. A new hearing date will be set and announced.