Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part 7

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USS Adams, as a 28-gun frigate. Below, rebuilt as a sloop of war.

by Mary Grow

War of 1812
Hampden and Wiscasset

Two events in September 1814 involved central Kennebec Valley residents directly in the war against the British, fortunately without recorded casualties.

The first and less significant began in Hampden, where British forces sailed up the Penobscot River to capture the USS Adams. The Adams began life in June 1799 as a 28-gun frigate; after service against the French in the West Indies and the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean, she was mostly inactive from 1803 to 1812, ending up in 1811 as a receiving ship (where new sailors live before they’re assigned to their ships) at the Washington, D.C., Navy yard.

In June 1812, Wikipedia says, the Adams was “cut in half amidships and lengthened 15 feet in the course of being completely rebuilt as a sloop of war.” After adventures on both sides of the Atlantic, on Aug. 17, 1814, she ran aground at Isle au Haut, off Stonington.

“Skillful seamanship aided by a rising tide managed to refloat the ship,” Wikipedia says. Leaking badly, she got up the Penobscot to Hampden and was being repaired when a British expedition followed upriver to seize her.

USS Adams rebuilt as a sloop of war.

On Sept. 3, her commander, Captain Charles Morris, chose to sink and burn her to keep her from the British. Morris and his crew headed through the wilderness from the Penobscot toward the Kennebec. Henry Kingsbury, in his Kennebec County history, gave a lively account of their adventures in his section on the Town of Clinton, though he misdated the episode as 1812.

The sailors got to the Sebasticook, found some bateaux and started downriver toward civilization, he wrote. The Clinton area was already buzzing with rumors of Indian attacks, so when one early afternoon Jerusha Doe and Polly Richardson saw boats with unknown armed men, they ran to the nearest house screaming, “The Indians are coming!”

Word spread, and residents headed for Winslow, seeking protection in what was left of Fort Halifax. It took until evening to identify the intruders as friends and welcome them, Kingsbury wrote, and a lame man who couldn’t escape fast enough “lay hidden all night in a potato trench on his father’s farm.”

The Adams crewmen left their boats at Clinton Village, walked to Noble’s Ferry opposite Nye’s Corner, in Fairfield, crossed the Kennebec and got a ride to Waterville from a man named Isaac Chase, whose son still talked about the event in the 1890s, Kingsbury said. (Other sources give other accounts of their cross-country hike.)

Wikipedia says Morris and most of the crew got back to their Portsmouth, New Hampshire, base by Sept. 9. Within another week the entire crew was present, “a source of great satisfaction for Morris.”

The British forces, meanwhile, killed a few local people and did a great deal of damage in Hampden, Bangor and other Penobscot River towns. An on-line source says the memory of Hampden led local residents to support Maine’s separation from Massachusetts, which had not protected them, and to continue opposition to the British, evidenced in the Aroostook War.

According to another on-line source, the Adams sat at the bottom of the Penobscot until 1870, when she was raised, repaired in Boston and began a new career “as a Navy sailing trainer ship, sailing all over the world before being retired in 1920.”

Other British ships hovered threateningly off the coast around Wiscasset. In the history of Fairfield, the writers named five residents who, “realizing the hazard to the Town if the British had control of the Kennebec,” joined the defense at Wiscasset: Samuel Bates, James Lander, Henry Lawrence, James Lawrence and William Lawrence.

The implication is that they went as individuals. If they did, they soon enlisted. Military records in the Maine genealogy archives show Samuel Bates at Wiscasset in Captain James Child’s Winslow militia company (part of Colonel Herbert Moore’s regiment) from Sept. 12 to Sept. 27, and in Joel Wellington’s Albion company, Colonel Elnathan Sherwin’s regiment, from Sept. 24 to Nov. 10.

James Lander and Henry Lawrence served in Sergeant Ansel Tobey’s detached company from Sidney, also under Sherwin’s command, at Augusta from Sept. 13 to Sept. 24. Lander and all three Lawrences are listed in another of Sherwin’s units, Captain Stephen Lovejoy’s Sidney-based company that served at Wiscasset from Sept. 24 to Nov. 10.

It could well have been the presence of the British navy that led to the Sunday, Sept. 10, special town meeting in Augusta. Historian James North wrote that voters unanimously authorized selectmen to buy powder, tent material, “camp kettles and small arms”; they approved a “special tax” to raise $500 for the supplies.

Their apprehension was justified the next day. On Sunday, Sept 11, North wrote, the Wiscasset Committee of Safety sent an urgent message upriver asking for troops to repel an expected British landing.

Augusta’s General Henry Sewall sent Colonel John Stone’s and Colonel Ellis Sweet’s militia regiments and the Hallowell Artillery to Wiscasset post haste – the first men arrived Monday morning. After ordering four more regiments to stand by along the river, Sewall joined the Wiscasset group, in camp at Edgecomb.

Colonel Stone was from Gardiner, and nine of the 13 large companies he led came from Augusta, Hallowell or Gardiner, with inland companies from Winthrop and Litchfield and two down-river ones from Pittstown. This regiment was sent home Sept. 25, after two weeks’ service.

Colonel Sweet was in charge of two regiments. One, of seven companies, came from Readfield, Farmington and Wilton and served at Bath through the second week in November. The other consisted of 11 companies with soldiers from Fayette, Lewiston, Mount Vernon, New Vineyard, Readfield, Wayne and Winthrop. These men were released in late September; most companies were sent to Wiscasset, but one stayed in Monmouth.

The Augusta-area regiments were joined by other militiamen from the Kennebec Valley. Many local histories, on line and in book form, list regiments, companies and often privates in each company by name.

Most regiments had two or three officers, four corporals, four sergeants, one or two musicians and between 30 and 50 privates (one had only five; others had 60 or more). Some had waiters.

(An on-line article from the Journal of the American Revolution explains that waiters, also called “servants, batmen or ‘bowman,'” were officers’ personal servants. At least in the Revolutionary army, they could not be boys or old men, and they were expected to accompany their officer wherever he went. In May 1779, General George Washington ordered that the waiters drill with the fighting men; but by the end of May, the article says, he changed his mind and said they should not be armed.)

Colonel Moore, from Winslow, led 11 companies raised in Fairfax (Albion), Harlem (China), Clinton, Vassalboro and Winslow. The majority of these companies served at Wiscasset from Sept. 12 to Sept. 27.

An on-line Maine genealogy source lists Colonel Moore’s companies, naming officers and men, as follows.

Lieutenant Benjamin J. Radcliffe’s company, no home town given, was one of the largest: ranks included an ensign, four corporals, four sergeants, two musicians and 57 privates.

Captain Daniel Wyman, no home town (another on-line source says he commanded one of Vassalborough’s four companies), had a lieutenant and an ensign under him, four corporals and four sergeants but only one musician for his smaller company.

Captain James Wing’s company and Captain Jeremiah Farwell’s companies were raised in Vassalborough.

Captain Joel Wellington’s company came from Fairfax (later Albion). Six Strattons were in this company: Ensign Ebenezer, Sergeant Charles, privates Austin, James and Paul and waiter Ness.

Captain Benjamin Robinson’s company was also from Fairfax. One of the smallest companies, with about two dozen privates, it had a full complement of officers and NCOs and two musicians.

Captain John Moore’s company came from Clinton, as did Captain Irial Hall’s company. This writer has not been able to find out whether Captain Moore was related to Colonel Moore.

Captain Robert Fletcher’s company, another large one, was raised in Harlem (later China). These men stayed at Wiscasset until Oct. 1, 1814. The company included Jacob, Joseph, Thomas and Zachariah Norton and Daniel, Jonathan, Nathaniel and Samuel Gray.

Captain Daniel Crowell’s company was also from Harlem. Jabish Crowell was a sergeant; David and John, Jr., were privates.

Captain James L. Child’s company was from Winslow.

The town of Palermo sent two militia companies to Belfast from Sept. 13 to Sept. 24. Millard Howard listed the men involved — some apparently from nearby towns — in his Palermo history: Colonel John Commings’ regiment included companies headed by Captain Moses Burley (or Burleigh), whose men were mostly from North Palermo, and Captain Job Lord.

The Palermo militiaman had been on standby since June. When finally called to action, they considered the government pay – about $10.50 a month, Howard said – not enough to risk their lives for and asked town officials to raise more. Town officials refused.

Colonel Sherwin was in charge of eight large companies of “drafted militia” (the term is not explained) from a wider geographic range – Starks, Bingham and Canaan, as well as Wellington’s Albion company; Lovejoy’s and Amasa Lesley’s Sidney companies; and Jeremiah Farwell’s Vassalboro company. Most of these companies had 60 or more privates plus the usual complement of officers.

Wellington’s was the largest, with 75 privates. There were five Hawes, David, Ebenezer, Isaiah, James and Seth, all privates; and six Richardsons, ensign Israel, sergeant Robert and privates Andrew, Ebenezer, Seth and Seth, 2nd.

Captain Tobey from Sidney was assisted only by Sergeant Elias Burgess and Corporal Joseph Nye, and had 13 privates. Notes after six of the names, including Burgess and Nye, say the men were credited with either eight or 11 days of service.

These companies went to Wiscasset and Edgecomb Sept. 24 and stayed until Nov. 10.

Another regiment under Colonel Sherwin was moved to Augusta to replace the local troops sent to the coast. The colonel and six of his nine officers were from Waterville (the other three are listed as residents of Fairfield, Sidney and Winslow); the 10 companies of enlisted men came from Belgrade, Dearborn, Fairfield, Sidney and Waterville. (Dearborn was a town from 1812 until 1843, gradually being divided among Waterville, Belgrade and Smithfield.)

In their coastal positions, North wrote, the Augusta-area regiments made camp at Edgecomb, across the Sheepscot River from Wiscasset. On Sept. 23, a sentry rode into camp with the news that “an English man-of-war was in the river evidently preparing to land troops.”

Units from Gardiner, Hallowell, Augusta and Winslow, commanded by Major Samuel Howard, hurried the six or eight miles to the expected landing point, “slept on their arms at night” and when no enemy appeared the next morning, went back to Edgecomb.

The whole affair turned out to be a false alarm. Most of the militia units returned to their home towns before the end of September; Sewall’s and one other division spent 40 days on the coast.

Counting the companies and averaging the number of officers and men per company leads to the conclusion that about 3,000 armed men should have converged on the area around Wiscasset and Edgecomb. The 1810 census listed Wiscasset’s year-round population as 2,083 and Edgecomb’s as 205.

How many men actually went, and how many decided they could not leave their farms in mid-September for an indefinite period? How many teen-aged boys joined them, and how many stayed with the women and younger children? How many wives encouraged, or perhaps joined, their husbands, and how many begged them not to go? These are the sorts of questions only the most diligent – or luckiest — historian can sometimes answer.

Main sources

Fairfield Historical Society, Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988).
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).
North, James W., The History of Augusta (1870).

Websites, miscellaneous.

Endicott College announces local dean’s list students

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Endicott College, in Beverly, Massachusetts, the first college in the U.S. to require internships of its students, is pleased to announce its Fall 2021 dean’s list students. In order to qualify for the dean’s list, a student must obtain a minimum grade point average of 3.5, receive no letter grade below “C,” have no withdrawal grades, and be enrolled in a minimum of 12 credits for the semester.

The following students have met these requirements:

Alana York, of Palermo, majoring in business management, is the daughter of Cheryl York and Andrew York.

Kristen Dube, of Sidney, majoring in nursing, is the daughter of Sarah Dube and Robert Dube.

Public hearing regarding proposed contracting with Liberty Ambulance

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(Photo courtesy of Palermo Community Library)

The Palermo Select Board will be holding a public hearing on Friday, February 11, at 6 pm. The meeting will take place at the Palermo Community Library, located at 2789 Route 3, in Palermo. The main topic of discussion will be the proposed contracting with Liberty Ambulance Service as an emergency service provider for Palermo. Chief Komandt (Palermo) and Chief Gillespie (Liberty) will present their proposal and will be happy to answer all your questions.

For those who prefer to attend via Zoom, the link is: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85682277706?pwd=S0RrU2V2cmk5alQ4OXptK3pEa3BuQT09, Meeting ID: 856 8227 7706, Passcode: 350168

All are encouraged to attend. Palermo residents will vote on the proposed contract with Liberty Ambulance Services at the Annual Town Meeting in March.

For more information call 993-6088 or email palermomelibrary@gmail.com or visit www.palermo.lib.me.us.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part 5

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by Mary Grow

Left, In 1780, at the age of 15, Samuel Downing joined the Continental Army. He served with the 2nd New Hamp­shire Regiment guarding forts on the New York frontier. Center, Lemuel Cook enlisted in 1781 when he was 16 years old. He served at the Battle of Brandy­wine, was present at the Surrender at York­town and was selected by Baron von Steuben to join the New York City campaign. Right, Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Albert Gallatin served as a volunteer under Col. John Allan, commander of the fort of Machias in Maine, according to his obituary. He later served three terms in the Pennsylvania House of Repre­sentatives. He also became the Secre­tary of the Treasury, served as the U.S. Minister to France and helped to established New York University.

The Revolutionary War ended in 1783 and photography was invented in the 1820s and 1830s, so most of the veterans of the war didn’t live long enough to have their portraits made. A handful of them did. In 1864, 81 years after the war, Rev. E. B. Hillard and two photographers embarked on a trip through New England to visit, photograph, and interview the six known surviving veterans, all of whom were over 100 years old. The glass plate photos were printed into a book titled The Last Men of the Revolution.

These are three of the Revolutionary War veterans who were over 100 years old when photographed.

Palermo, Sidney, Vassalboro

Palermo, Sidney and Vassalboro, like the central Kennebec cities and towns in the previous two articles in this series, had Revolutionary War veterans among their early settlers.

The grave of Isaac Worthen.

In Milton Dowe’s Palermo history, he identified Isaac Worthen (March 4, 1762 – March 1, 1841; later the name became Worthing), one of two brothers who moved to Palermo (then Great Pond Settlement) from New Hampshire, as a “hero of the Revolution.” An on-line search suggests he took the phrase from an article about Worthen, written by Samuel Copp Worthen (probably a descendant), in the Sprague Journal of Maine History, Vol. XII, No. 1, January-Mach 1924.

According to the article, Isaac’s father, Major Jacob Worthen, was a lieutenant in Captain Titus Salter’s company at Fort Washington, on Pierce Island at the mouth of the Piscataquis River, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The fort was designed by Capt. Ezekiel Worthen, Jacob’s father and Isaac’s grandfather.

Isaac Worthen was in Salter’s company by May 1777, when he was 15. The history article says he wanted a berth on the USS Raleigh, which was going to France to buy ammunition. Turned down as too young, he jumped aboard as the ship sailed; the captain let him stay and made him a marine effective Aug. 1, 1777.

Worthen served for the duration of the war in different companies. Millard Howard added in his town history that Worthen was a corporal in a militia unit before his 17th birthday; Dowe wrote that one of his posts was West Point, in 1780.

In 1782, he married Judith Currier and they came to Palermo, where, an on-line genealogy says, their son Jonathan was born in 1785. An on-line photo of Worthen’s gravestone in Palermo’s Old Greeley Corner Cemetery shows his name; the words “Marine Continental Marines Rev War” on four lines; and his dates of birth and death.

Howard identified another Revolutionary veteran, Sir John Bradstreet, who was “nearly 40 years old when he came to Palermo with his family in 1786” and settled at the north end of Sheepscot Pond. His descendants included Clair Bradstreet, who chaired the town select board for more than 40 years in the 20th century. Bradstreet and his wife Freda (Worthing) Bradstreet lived in the Worthing House, on North Palermo Road, now owned by the Palermo Historical Society.

Thaddeus Bailey (1759 – 1849) is identified in a genealogy found on line as a Revolutionary War veteran who lived in Palermo, Albion and Palermo again. Born in Newbury, Massachusetts, he enlisted at 18 as a private in the Massachusetts militia company that spent three days at Pownalborough in September 1777 “in the defense and retaking of a mastship in the Sheepscot River.”

In 1778, he was in a unit that enlisted from Lincoln County and served in Providence, Rhode Island. From June 30 to Sept. 25, 1779, he was a private in Colonel (later Brigadier General) Samuel Rogers McCobb’s Lincoln County militia regiment and participated in the unsuccessful attempt to oust the British from Fort George, in Penobscot Bay.

(General McCobb [Nov. 20, 1744 – July 30, 1791] was born and died in Georgetown, Province of Maine. He served throughout the Revolution, at least part of the time with the Lincoln County Militia. He was a captain at Bunker Hill, a colonel on Benedict Arnold’s expedition to Québec and in charge at Penobscot after the British finally left in 1784.)

After the war, Bailey returned to Pownalborough until 1795, when he bought 100 acres for $110 in Sheepscot Great Pond (now Palermo). He and his wife Mary, whom he married in 1783 and who died before 1810, had 11 children. Census records from 1810 through 1840 show him living in Albion; a record of Revolutionary War pensioners lists him in Palermo in 1841. His pension, which started May 3, 1831, was $30.65 a year, according to the genealogy.

* * * * * *

Alice Hammond claimed to have found another Isaac (besides Isaac Worthen) who enlisted as a teenager: in her history of Sidney, she said of Isaac I. Cowan (March 14, 1758 – July 19, 1828): “At age fourteen he went into the Revolutionary War and served three years.” However, by this writer’s reckoning Cowan would have turned 15 in March 1773, two years before the fighting at Lexington and Concord.

An on-line site lists yet another young volunteer who ended up in Sidney: Massachusetts-born Jabez Rollins or Rollings (about 1767 – Oct. 4, 1842, or Oct. 28, 1847 [sources differ]) joined the New Hampshire Line in 1782, when he was 15. After the Revolution, he was in a Massachusetts regiment from February through June 1787 and helped suppress Shay’s Rebellion, the website continues; but since Shay’s Rebellion, an uprising by farmers protesting economic hardship in western Massachusetts, was suppressed by February, his role must have been limited.

On July 15, 1792, Rollings married Lydia Haskell (or Harskell) in Bradford, Massachusets. By 1795, they were in Mercer, Maine; by 1780, in New Sharon; and from 1810 on in Sidney. They had at least five children.

Capt. Abiel Lovejoy

Captain Abiel (or Abial) Lovejoy (Dec. 16, 1731 – July 4 [probably], 1811) was one of Sidney’s best-known veterans; Hammond referred to him as “Squire Lovejoy, the old slaveholder.” Born in Andover, Massachusetts, he married Mary Brown, in Charlestown, in December 1758. He was part-owner of trading ships, and later owner and captain of a small fleet based in Charleston. Hammond wrote that his ventures extended north to “the Bay of Fundy and south to the West Indies,” and that Mary sometimes sailed with him.

In 1760, Hammond said, he bought land in Pownalborough; in 1761, he and Mary and their first two children moved to what became Dresden, where he was a merchant, a ferry owner, a shipbuilder and “involved in public office and in land transactions.” In June 1763, Hammond wrote, he was one of the first three men to receive land in Sidney (then Vassalboro) from the Kennebec Proprietors.

In 1764 Lovejoy, in partnership with Mary’s father Nathaniel Brown, bought “half a saw mill and adjoining land and a half interest in a dam” on what was later Hastings Brook. In 1776, the Lovejoys moved to a farm in Sidney overlooking the river.

Hammond wrote that Lovejoy was in the Massachusetts militia from 1755, and from 1758 to 1771 his assignment was in Lincoln County, in what is now Maine – hence, presumably, his interest in acquiring land there. She added, “He also served in the American Revolutionary War.”

But she gave no details of his Revolutionary service, instead listing wartime activities in Sidney: in 1777 petitioning for an extension of the postal service and in 1778 serving on a committee to choose the post rider; in 1781 becoming Justice of the Peace; and “between 1776 and 1798” holding many other local offices.

A detailed on-line source adds that in 1776 he was a member of the pro-Revolutionary Committee of Safety and Correspondence, and in 1779 on “a committee to settle with the women on account of supplies ordered to the soldiers [sic] families by the General Court.” He was also highway surveyor in 1776 and 1777; selectman in 1779 and 1780; in 1780 town meeting moderator in 1780; and town treasurer and a county convention delegate in 1781.

Apparently he was a delegate to the Massachusetts General Court during the Revolutionary years, too, because the on-line sources says he “had been elected year after year” before he was challenged in 1781 and 1782, partly on the ground that he was not a supporter of independence.

The unnamed author of the on-line piece disagrees, calling Lovejoy “a fiery American patriot.” Evidence cited includes Tory Parson Jacob Bailey (mentioned in the history article in the Jan. 13 of The Town Line) naming him an instigator of mobs that attacked Bailey and other Loyalists, and Lovejoy’s willingness to give officers and soldiers in Benedict Arnold’s 1775 army hard money in return for their already-depreciating paper currency.

“Captain Abiel Lovejoy lost some $30,000 this way and afterwards papered a room in the Lovejoy homestead with this ‘worthless money,'” the on-line account says.

The Lovejoys had eight children before they moved to Sidney, and Hammond wrote six more were born there. The family lived in an elaborate house and owned several slaves, three of whom were buried in the small family cemetery on their farm, which Hammond called the “oldest cemetery in Sidney.”

Hammond also wrote about the Reynolds family. Nathaniel Reynolds IV, Esquire, settled in 1779 on the south end of West River Road in what was then Vassalboro, with his family. He served in the Revolutionary Army and “loaned money to the government for the cause”; and five sons “were all Revolutionary soldiers,” Hammond said.

* * * * * *

One of Vassalboro’s pre-war settlers and veterans was Charles B. Webber (January 1741 – Nov. 20, 1819). Born in Old York, Maine, he fought in the French and Indian Wars in 1757 and 1759. During the Revolution, an on-line genealogy says he is recorded as serving as second lieutenant in the Second Lincoln County Regiment of the Massachusetts militia, which was organized in 1776 and sent to Riverton, Rhode Island, in 1777.

Webber married his first wife, Hannah Call, in 1761 in Dresden. In 1765 they moved to Vassalboro, settling in the Riverside area. The on-line genealogy says their second child, a daughter named Sarah, was the first white child born in the town.

The same website says Webber was Vassalboro’s first treasurer, in 1771, and served again in 1776, when he was also the third town clerk; in 1773 and from 1792 to 1796 was a selectman and in 1790 was one of the committee that laid out Vassalboro’s first nine school districts.

A search for Webber’s name in Vassalboro’s extremely valuable on-line cemetery database confirmed his burial site in the Webber Family Cemetery at Riverside.

One of Webber’s company commanders was Dennis Getchell (1723 or 1724 – early January 1792), who bought land in the Riverside area of Vassalboro in August 1770.

Getchell was born in Berwick and is identified first as a major, perhaps from service in the French and Indian Wars. He must have moved to Vassalboro as soon as he bought his land, because the website says he was elected selectman at the first town meeting, April 26, 1771, and many times thereafter.

On July 23, 1776, he was commissioned a captain in the Second Lincoln County Regiment, and led his 50-man company at Riverton in 1777. In 1786, he was elected a member of the Massachusetts General Court.

Amos Childs (July 5, 1764 – Feb. 19, 1847) was a Massachusetts native who spent at least part of his time in the Revolutionary force as a drummer. He served three years and was honorably discharged in 1783. On Nov. 1, 1801, he married Hannah Webber (born in 1780 in Vassalboro, Charles and Hannah [Call] Webber’s daughter) in Vassalboro; they had “at least two children,” an on-line source says.

Hannah died Feb. 14, 1860; she and Amos are buried side by side in the North Vassalboro Village Cemetery.

Main sources

Dowe, Milton E., History Town of Palermo Incorporated 1884 (1954).
Hammond, Alice, History of Sidney Maine 1792-1992 (1992).
Howard, Millard, An Introduction to the Early History of Palermo, Maine (second edition, December 2015).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).

Websites, miscellaneous.

PFAS: The “forever chemicals” making more headlines

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Space-filling model of the perfluorooctanesulfonic acid molecule, also known as PFOS, a fluorosurfactant and global pollutant.

by Pam McKenney

Many of you may have recently seen an article posted by the Town of Palermo about PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” and learned that the DEP would be investigating sites in our town. During the fall of 2021, you may also remember local headlines like this: “Toxic Water in Fairfield: Residents with drilled wells deal with sky high levels of PFAS.” PFAS are man-made chemicals known as per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances. They are a byproduct of plastics that resist degradation to the extreme that they are referred to as “forever chemicals.” They are linked to a number of health problems, and they are showing up in our well water and in our food supply. According to a Fairfield-area DEP investigation fifty-two wells were tested and found contaminated, some with rates as high as 1800 parts per trillion (new legislation calls for 20 parts per trillion as safe).

The article on the Town of Palermo site, composed by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), asserts that this is not just a Fairfield problem. Truth is: PFAS are everywhere, from the peaks of Mt. Everest to the bottom of our oceans, including Palermo. The Maine Department of Agriculture first identified the problem in Fairfield through a milk test from a local dairy farm. Further testing revealed the chemicals existed in drilled well water, chicken eggs raised in infected sites, and even prompted the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IF&W) to issue a “Do Not Eat” advisory for areas in Fairfield when excessive levels of PFAS were found when five of eight harvested deer were tested.

By their very nature, PFASs are here to stay and will be showing up in more headlines and in human bloodstreams. The post on the Town of Palermo website “A Brief History of PFAS (in Palermo)” Town of Palermo website, outlines Palermo’s status with this toxic substance. It is necessary to educate ourselves about the thousands of chemicals in PFAS and limit our exposure from products like: grease-resistant paper, fast food containers/wrappers, microwave popcorn bags, pizza boxes, and candy wrappers, nonstick cookware, stain resistant coatings used on carpets, upholstery, and other fabrics, water resistant clothing, and fire retardant materials. Because PFAS are at low levels in some foods and in the environment (air, water, soil, etc.) completely eliminating exposure is unlikely according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

Although these products contribute to contamination, the most common way in which PFAS can infiltrate groundwater in Maine is through the spread of sludge and septage on fields. The DEP defines these materials as:

  • sludge; a byproduct of wastewater treatment and waste from pulp and paper mills.
  • septage; a fluid mix of sewage solids, liquids, and sludge of municipal origin.

When you call to have your septic system pumped, it must be disposed of. Wastewater treatment plants do not store treated materials indefinitely; it has to go somewhere. The volume of sludge and septage production is prodigious and must be managed properly.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) offers an online map that charts the locations of approved land application sites and updates as more information becomes available. Among the hundreds of identified locations in Maine, this map shows three licensed application sites in Palermo, but the DEP cautions that “not all locations statewide were utilized and site status will be confirmed based on actual spreading records.” Testing for PFAS is complicated and expensive and currently has to be sent out of state for results, however, test kits are available through DEP. Additionally, fish test results from dozens of Maine lakes are reported on the map. Being from Palermo, I noted that a 2014 test result derived from a “skinless filet” was found to have the chemical PFOA (Perfluorooctane sulfonamide, PFOA info). It is unclear who collected the sample and why, although the “concentration level” was listed at “0.0.” A conversation with Mike Jakubowski at ME DEP indicated that this is a collaborative effort among departments and “testing of Tier One sites may extend through the end of 2023.”

The DEP has categorized one sludge application site in Palermo as a “Tier One” location, which means it will be investigated and sampled. A Tier One site has specific criteria: involves the application of 10,000 cubic yards or more of sludge to the land, have homes within a ½ mile of the application, is likely to have PFAS in the sludge based on the sources and contributors of the sludge. While the material used in Palermo was similar to the Fairfield sites, the volume applied was substantially less: over 147,000 cubic yards in Fairfield, but only about 5,000 cu/y here, and only for a period of about five years, from 1997-2002. The DEP website includes a table with dozens of Maine towns currently identified as areas with the need for immediate testing. Despite these concerns, according to current laws and regulations, DEP can test land and water “by permission only,” and the spread of septage and sludge continues to be permitted through the DEP.

So who is responsible for the problem? These chemicals get into our air, water, and soil through human consumption. Consumers assume that these FDA-approved products are safe, that testing and regulation makes the spread of sludge safe. It is not safe and we continue to understand how to limit exposure and minimize the damage.

Manufacturers like 3M and Dupont have known for decades the potential risks and toxic effects of PFAS. Areas of our country where these and many other chemical companies operate are highly contaminated and municipalities are seeking compensation for clean up and for legislation to hold corporations accountable. Here is recent testimony related to PFAS for the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform. I also recommend the documentary The Devil We Know concerning Dupont and PFAS contamination. Organizations like EWG (Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization) provide information and support these efforts for reform and action. For more about the illnesses that may be linked to exposure, consider these sites: EPA website and Natural Resources Defense Council.

We will be forever living with these “forever chemicals.” Although the human body is an amazing structure of systems that can tolerate exposure to an array of substances, there are things we can do to coexist with PFASs as safely as possible. We can stop assuming products are safe and demand rigorous, responsible government oversight. We can resist attitudes that value deregulation and promote corporate profit over human life and environmental protection. We can support citizens and community activists who seek change and advocate for research. We can educate ourselves. Here are further actions recommended by various biomonitoring sites.

  • Include plenty of variety in your (and your child’s diet), and limit foods in grease-repellent wrappers and containers.
  • Avoid products labeled as stain- or water-resistant, such as carpets, furniture, and clothing.
  • Check labels of household and personal care products; avoid those with “fluoro” ingredients. Contact the manufacturer if you can’t find the ingredients on the label. Demand safe products and testing. Boycott those that are questionable.
  • If you choose to use protective sprays, sealants, polishes, waxes, or similar products, make sure you have enough ventilation and follow other safety precautions.
  • Because PFASs can come out of products and collect in dust: Wash your and your child’s hands often, especially before preparing or eating food. Clean floors regularly, using a wet mop or HEPA vacuum if possible, and use a damp cloth to dust.
  • Contact DEP if you have concerns about your drinking water or live less than a half mile from a site with a history of sludge spread. Request a test.
  • Contact your legislator to support action aimed at zero exposure and support LD1911 which refines “loading rate” calculations (that amount of PFAS allowed in treated materials). Testimony from Maine hearing 1/24/22 discussing LD1911-concerning PFAS in Drinking Water .
  • To prevent PFAS and other toxins from entering groundwater, avoid flushing or improperly disposing of chemicals and pharmaceuticals. These toxins do not disappear when they go down the drain.

Above all, strive to be involved and work to preserve our towns and our world for future generations.

Pam McKenney, a Palermo resident, is a free lance writer, and teacher at Erskine Academy, in South China. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Sheepscot Lake Assn., and is not associated with any agencies or organizations mentioned in the article. She may be contacted at pamckenney@yahoo.com.

Katrina Smith announces run for Maine House

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Katrina Smith

Katrina Smith, a Republican from Palermo, has announced her run for State Representative for District 62; China, Palermo, Somerville, Windsor and Hibberts Gore.

Katrina, a real estate broker and small business owner is excited to meet her constituents and listen to the concerns and hopes they have for Maine.

“I care deeply for what is happening to Mainers which is why I have chosen to commit myself 100 percent to winning this district for Republicans. In the past two years Maine has faced a rapid loss of freedoms, one party legislation, jobs being lost and our elderly being abandoned. Our children have undergone undue stress and a severe loss of education that must be reversed. Mainers are now facing extraordinary cost of living increases which deeply worry families, and I cannot sit by and let it happen. The time to be quiet is far past and we must elect officials who will speak loudly for the people of Maine. I promise to be that person.

“I have spent my life in Maine and have lived in Palermo for the past seven years with my children attending the local elementary school and Erskine Academy, worshiping in local churches and enjoying the natural resources that abound in our area. We call this area home because we love the hard working people who believe in the way life should be. I am running because we need to ensure future generations can recognize the Maine we have always loved.”

In 2020 Katrina was a Republican candidate for District #96 against a two- time Democrat incumbent. After speaking to thousands of people and working every day to listen to constituents she won five out of seven towns and lost by only 67 votes. In 2021 Katrina became chairman of the Waldo County Republicans and focused on giving hope in tumultuous times, educating the public on pending legislation and working, with her team, to prepare for 2022 by raising the most money to elect Republicans of any county in Maine.

A graduate of Gordon College, she and her husband Mike have five mostly grown children and two granddaughters.

For more information you may visit www.katrinaformaine.com or on Facebook under Katrina Smith for Maine.

OPINIONS – A letter to Sen. Susan Collins: Is there a cynical plan to bankrupt USPS?

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COMMUNITY COMMENTARY

by Eugene Bryant, of Palermo

This letter was sent to Sen. Susan Collins by Eugene Bryant, of Palermo.

Dear Senator Collins:

First, thanks to you and your staff for your ongoing service in these difficult times. Considering everything else that’s been going on, I’m writing about a somewhat less dramatic issue, the United States Postal Service.

One of the charges I heard leveled against you in the last election was that you had sponsored or supported the bill that mandates the USPS fund, in just a few years, the full retirement and health insurance costs for its employees out for an incredibly long period – is it 70 years? It seems that no other public or private entity has ever been required to do this. This utterly baffled me until I heard the contention that it represents a cynical effort to bankrupt the Postal Service so that private delivery companies such as FedEx and UPS can acquire the most profitable parts of it. If it were not for this unreasonable mandate, the USPS would apparently be showing a decent profit.

People sneer at “snail mail”. But we all take it for granted that the Postal Service will safely and securely carry an original document practically from door to door anywhere in the U.S., usually in three or four days, for little over 50 cents.

I have been the executor for both my mother’s and elder brother’s estates and have depended on first class mail for transferring legal documents and sometimes checks for considerable sums. I never had any problems, until fairly recently.

Since Donald Trump’s appointee took over the Postal Service there has been a noticeable decline in the quality of service. The hours at rural post offices were cut back so that it became more difficult to mail packages or purchase stamps. Then, it was on the news that letter-sorting machines had been arbitrarily removed from many busy regional mail centers, although some were later returned. I understand you helped with that. Thank you.

Last year, I sent a letter to an out-of-state address. Over a month later it came back here as undeliverable – the street number was incorrect. There are fewer than 15 houses on the road to which it was addressed, so I doubt the letter made it as far as the actual postal carrier on the ground. Without exception the men and women I have known who carry the mail the last few miles are dedicated and knowledgeable people who take pride in bringing our letters, periodicals, and packages to their destinations as expeditiously as possible.

Earlier this year I delivered several cases of produce to the Curra family farmstand in Knox – perhaps you know it – it’s just below Knox Four Corners and the (former) Ingraham farm equipment dealership. Peter Curra, who is in his 80s and still works full time on the farm, was out, but later sent me a check for several hundred dollars. He had misplaced my street number and just wrote “Banton Road” on the envelope. There are 20-some homes here on the Banton Road and I’ve been living in this particular one for 45 years. For most of those years, my address was simply RFD #1, Palermo.

About a month later, Pete called me to ask if I’d gotten the check since it hadn’t showed up as cashed on his monthly bank statement. I searched my records and messy desk but couldn’t account for it. Finally, almost two months after it was sent, the letter came back to him as “undeliverable”. Again, I doubt if it made it as far as the Palermo Post Office and our regular mail carrier, Kirby, who is incredibly competent and hard working, and was officially diverted somewhere upstream.

Now I hear that the standard for first class mail delivery is to be slowed by several more days. The lifelines of people who obtain medications and other vital goods and services through the mail will be threatened.

From the earliest days of our nation the postal service was created as one of the essential public functions to help knit together a large and diverse country. Next to Social Security, it remains just about the most popular governmental institution. Please explain, Senator Collins, your past votes on this issue and what you intend to do to ensure the future viability of the United States Postal Service.

(Editor’s note: A reply from Sen. Collins was received and will be printed in next week’s issue.)

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part I

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Fort Western in 1754.

by Mary Grow

For the next however many weeks, this series will discuss 19th-century wars that affected central Kennebec Valley residents. After the British gained legal control of the region by the 1763 Treat of Paris, the valley was mostly peaceful, but military actions elsewhere had local effects.

Your writer will start with the American Revolution (1775-1783), and go on to summarize some of the local connections with two more wars that finally ended quarrels over Britain’s interest in this side of the American continent, the War of 1812 (1812-1815) and the Aroostook War (1838-1839).

Next will come a very incomplete story of the all-encompassing Civil War (1861-1865). Many men and some women from the central Kennebec Valley were actively involved.

This part of the series will conclude with the Mexican War (1846-1848) and the Spanish-American War (1898). Though Kennebec Valley residents were aware of these geographically distant events, local effects were limited, with the important exception of families whose menfolk fought, and sometimes died, on the fields or seas of battle.

* * * * * *

The United States in the 19th century had two forms of military organization, the national army and the local militia units.

The U. S. Army, the oldest branch of the national military service, is a direct successor of the Continental Army, organized June 14, 1775. After the Revolution, mistrust of a “standing army” in the newly independent country led to temporary abandonment of a national force.

Soon, however, frontier wars made an organized armed force necessary. Wikipedia says Congress created the Legion of the United States in 1791 and in 1796 renamed it the United States Army. The United States has had a national military ever since, though a small one until the 20th century.

Wikipedia says local militias date from Sept. 16, 1565, when Spanish Admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles organized the first unit in St. Augustine, Florida, leaving the men to guard supplies while he led his army to attack a French fort.

When English settlers arrived four decades later, they brought with them a tradition of organized militia units. Wikipedia says the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies (established in 1607 and 1620, respectively) started by enrolling every able-bodied man as a militia member.

“By the mid-1600s every town had at least one militia company (usually commanded by an officer with the rank of captain) and the militia companies of a county formed a regiment (usually commanded by an officer with the rank of major in the 1600s or a colonel in the 1700s),” Wikipedia summarizes.

After independence, colonies’ militia units became state militia units. Wikipedia says the federal government first began regulating them in 1792, and until the early 20th century relied on them “to supply the majority of its troops.” The militia became the National Guard in 1903.

Augusta historian Charles Nash included a chapter on the militia in his 1904 history. He described a typical local unit as enrolling able-bodied “citizens” (this writer is quite sure he meant male citizens) between 18 and 40 years old each spring.

“The organization of the militia consisted of companies of infantry in citizen’s dress (better known as ‘string-beaners’), light infantry in uniform, cavalry, artillery, and riflemen; these were organized into regiments, brigades, and divisions,” Nash wrote. Each infantry regiment normally had a company of cavalry and another of riflemen with it.

Uniformed infantry wore blue coats, artillery men “the revolutionary color [dark blue, according to Wikipedia] faced with red” and riflemen green, the better to hide in ambush in the woods. Infantry and rifle companies included fifers and drummers; the cavalry and artillery units had buglers.

Officers, Nash wrote, rode horseback. They wore the “wind-cutting” three-pointed, round-crowned black hat associated with Napoleon Bonaparte, “surmounted by lofty plumes,” and on their shoulders “glittering epaulettes.”

After organizing in May, militias drilled during the summer and in the fall held local musters that were the year’s main attraction for people of all classes, Nash said. Augusta’s muster ground for many years, well into the 1800s, was an area between Augusta and Hallowell named Hinkley’s Plains, after an early settler.

Nash described a typical muster, with demonstrations of military maneuvers, music and a final review before the mounted commander. Outside the muster area “tradesmen and peddlers and hucksters” assembled as for a fair; a great deal of liquor was consumed, inside and outside. In a footnote, Nash wrote that in 1844 the Maine Legislature banned musters because of the “gross intemperance practices.”

The 1817 muster at Hinkley’s Plains was special, Nash wrote, because Massachusetts Governor John Brooks came north to review the troops, only the second time a Massachusetts governor had visited the Kennebec Valley.

Governor Brooks had been a lieutenant colonel in the Revolutionary army and afterwards a major-general in the militia, and was known for his military appearance and skilled, graceful horsemanship. Local soldiers were eager to make their appearance before him, and, Nash wrote, people from 50 miles around made plans to attend.

Alas, early morning clouds and fog turned into a “cold and pitiless northeast rain storm.” The audience stayed home. The troops mustered anyway, with “drooping plumes, soiled uniforms and muddy boots and ruined gaiters.”

Brooks reviewed them from the back of “a fine dapple-gray clad in rich equestrian trappings.” The governor wore “a revolutionary three-cornered hat, with a large cockade on its left point, and a short black plume on its crown;…a blue military cloak, the cape of which was deeply bordered with red silk velvet, and its front and sides trimmed with gold lace; his breeches were buff and his high swarrow boots of shiny black polish, displayed silken tassels below the knees; a gold-hilted sword and gilded scabbard hung by his side.”

[“Swarrow,” or Suwarrow or Suarrow, boots are mentioned in the Askin Papers, documents relating to John Askin’s life in the northwestern United States, written between 1747 and 1820. Howard Franklin Shout, who wrote a thesis translating the papers into modern English for his Michigan State College Master of Arts degree in the 1920s, confessed that he was “not able to identify” the word.]

As Brooks and his staff began the review, Nash wrote, the governor took off his hat, “and while the merciless rain poured upon his whitened locks which fell upon his shoulders, he rode slowly before the line looking upon every soldier in it.”

Smaller towns, too, had their local militias. Ruby Crosby Wiggin, in her history of Albion, mentioned an 1808 town meeting vote to buy 32 pounds of powder. Other area towns had organized militia units and were stocking up on powder around that time, she wrote, adding, “Troops practiced on the town commons and were quite well organized when the War of 1812 called them to active duty.”

Her research in town records found local expenditures for the town militia, and supplementary payments from the State of Maine, part of the time (depending on successive town treasurers’ degree of detail) from 1839 until the Civil War.

Palermo had two muster fields, Milton Dowe wrote in his 1954 history. One was at Longfellow Corner, “where the Second Baptist Church was built in 1827”; the other was on Marden Hill.

* * * * * *

Six of the 12 central Kennebec Valley towns covered in these articles had legal European settlers by the spring of 1775 (Vassalboro, including Sidney, and Winslow, including Waterville, were incorporated on April 26, 1771), and four more by the time the Revolution ended in 1783. The exceptions were the off-the-river towns of Albion and Windsor, where the first settlements date from the 1880s. Your writer thinks it highly probable, however, that trappers, hunters, fugitives, hermits and other solitary types had homes in the region before record-keeping started.

Fort Halifax.

According to local histories, Augusta and Winslow were occupied first. Augusta was the site of the Cushnoc trading post, which dated from the 1620s, and then of Fort Western, built in 1758. Fort Halifax, in Winslow, was built in 1754-55.

Europeans mostly moved from the coast up the Kennebec, settling the east shore at Vassalboro around 1760 and around 1763 the west shore that later separated from Vassalboro as Sidney. Winslow settlers had spilled across the river into what became Waterville before Fairfield was settled in 1771.

By April 1775 Fairfield had nine families, according to the writers of the bicentennial history. The writers surmised that it took months for news of Lexington and Concord to reach them, and that between their immediate needs and the protection of nearby Fort Halifax, they felt little personal concern.

Clinton’s and Benton’s early arrivals date from around 1775. By then people were moving inland; China’s first family arrived in 1773, Palermo’s around 1776 or 1777.

Kingsbury, considering the whole of Kennebec County, did not share the later Fairfield historians’ opinion about the lack of local reaction. He wrote that news of the fighting at Lexington and Concord led to “bands of scantly equipped men and boys…pushing their way through the forests” to the nearest place where they could enlist.

“Many farms were abandoned or left to the care of women and minors,” Kingsbury continued, and not all the minors were content to remain behind (as examples in a following article will show).

In Augusta (then Hallowell), he said, a group of patriots organized themselves in January 1775 (before Lexington and Concord). In following months they formed a pro-Revolutionary military company and a public safety committee whose responsibilities included corresponding with Revolutionary leaders around Boston.

Winslow, similarly, had a three-man committee of correspondence, created in 1776 to keep town officials in touch with other pro-independence groups, Kingsbury wrote.

The specific event during the Revolutionary War that directly involved the Kennebec Valley was the expeditionary force sent in September 1775 to capture Québec from the British. Led by Colonel Benedict Arnold, about 1,100 men left Newburyport, Massachusetts, by ship on Sept. 17, or Sept. 19 (or thereabouts; exact dates differ from one to another of the many accounts of the expedition). They began landing at Major Reuben Colburn’s shipyard in Gardinerston (now Pittston) a few days later.

Colburn, a supporter of the Revolution, had collected information and built bateaux, flat-bottomed boats the army needed to navigate the river. The boats were built of green wood and therefore heavy and leaky; food, gunpowder and soldiers’ feet were wet most of the time.

After several days of transferring supplies to the bateaux, the expedition moved upriver. Stops along the Arnold Trail to Québec, as it is named on the National Register of Historic Places, included Fort Western, in Augusta; Fort Halifax, in Winslow; and Fairfield, where the 1988 bicentennial history says an early settler named Jonathan Emery repaired some of the bateaux, and a memorial stone marks the route.

By 1775 Fort Halifax had been out of service since the peace of 1763. Much of it had been torn down, and the central building had become a tavern, according to the centennial history of Waterville. Two area residents had explored up the river to provide advance information; another went with the expedition as a guide.

Disease and accidents, and in at least one case deliberate murder, claimed soldiers’ lives as the expedition moved on. Ernest Marriner wrote that Dr. John McKechnie (1732-1782), who had surveyed Waterville in 1762 and moved there in 1771, treated sick and injured men. Others are said to have been buried in the Emery Hill Cemetery, in Fairfield.

The murder, Kingsbury wrote, occurred as a result of a quarrel between two soldiers during several days the army spent at Fort Western. The shooter was court-martialed and sentenced to hang, but Arnold stayed the execution and forwarded the case to General Washington. The victim was buried “near the Fort burying ground”; later, Kingsbury wrote, Willow Street covered his “unheeded grave.”

Main sources

Dowe, Milton E., History Town of Palermo Incorporated 1884 (1954).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed. Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Marriner, Ernest Kennebec Yesterdays (1954).
Nash, Charles Elventon, The History of Augusta (1904).
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902).
Wiggin, Ruby Crosby, Albion on the Narrow Gauge (1964).

Websites, miscellaneous.

China transfer station committee agrees to budget $1,500 for travel expenses

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by Mary Grow

China Transfer Station Committee members used their Dec. 14 meeting to discuss, and in some cases re-discuss, a variety of waste disposal questions.

They made two decisions.

They will reduce the 2022-23 budget request for the committee from the $2,500 agreed on at their November meeting to $1,500. They will meet again at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022.

The funds requested from the town are intended to cover registration and mileage when committee members attend meetings, training sessions and similar relevant events. Committee Chairman Lawrence Sikora thinks $1,500 should be enough.

The major news from the meeting was that Town Manager Rebecca Hapgood and other town officials are considering – nothing is definite yet, Hapgood emphasized – reducing hours at the town office and the transfer station.

Currently, she said, China’s hours are among the most generous in Maine: the town office is open 45.5 hours a week and the transfer station 42.5 hours a week. Because of after-hours work, staff illness and other factors, overtime pay is frequent.

One suggestion is that the transfer station be open four days a week instead of five: Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday and Saturday. She again emphasized that the whole idea is in the conversation stage only; there has been no discussion at a select board meeting.

Other topics discussed Dec. 14 included:

  • The still-not-operating waste recycling facility in Hampden which China and many other Maine municipalities support. Hapgood repeated town attorney Amanda Meader’s advice not to try to get out of the contract.
  • How much the fee charged to Palermo residents for trash bags should be increased. Consensus was China has enough bags on hand for the next few months, and the earlier decision to wait for early 2022 information on bag prices and the consumer price index was sound.
  • Updating the five-year plan for transfer station equipment and other needs: no need to act immediately, committee members said.
  • Non-residents using China’s transfer station with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags to which they have no right. Committee members considered, without making any recommendation, checking each vehicle as it enters, or going back to the vehicle sticker system.

Give Us Your Best Shot! for Thursday, December 23, 2021

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To submit a photo for this section, please visit our contact page or email us at townline@townline.org!

FOGGY SUNRISE: Andrew Pottle, of Palermo, photographed, on film, two ducks gliding in the water during a foggy sunrise on Branch Pond.

STRUTTING: This male cardinal seems to be displaying his best profile, recently captured by Pat Clark, of Palermo.