Vassalboro scouts present stockings to veterans at Togus hospital

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Front row, from left to right, Webelos Scout Henry Gray and Wolf Scout John Gray. Second row, Arrow of Light Scouts Christopher Santiago and William Vincent. Back, James Kilbride, Adjutant for Post #126 and Christopher Santiago, Cubmaster Pack #410. (photo courtesy of Chuck Mahaleris)

by Chuck Mahaleris

On Monday November 27, 2023, Pack #410, represented by Arrow of Light Scouts William Vincent and Christopher Santiago, as well as Webelos scout Henry Gray and Wolf Scout John Gray, delivered 240 pens and 240 notebooks to the Charter Organization, American Legion Post #126, during their scheduled business meeting at St. Bridget Center, in North Vassalboro. The donation is for the Christmas Stockings made by Sew for a Cause that will be stuffed with essentials for the veterans spending the holiday at the Veterans Administration Hospital, at Togus.

Vassalboro Sanitary district topic of meeting

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by Mary Grow

The Dec. 14 Vassalboro select board meeting will be in the Vassalboro Community School cafeteria, instead of the town office, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Town Manager Aaron Miller said the change is to accommodate the large crowd expected because of the first agenda item, “Discuss Vassalboro Sanitary District.”

The main issue is that sanitary district fees are stressing the budgets of residents of East and North Vassalboro. The district is in debt, mostly because of its recently-completed connection to the Winslow-Waterville system. Additionally, Winslow sewer rates have gone up.

At a Dec. 6 community meeting, some three dozen residents discussed information they hope to gain Dec. 14. They developed a list of questions to put to town and sanitary district officials and to Vassalboro’s state representatives, Senator Matthew Pouliot and Representative Richard Bradstreet.

Also on the Dec. 6 select board agenda are Vassalboro’s Tax Increment Finance District; local implications of a new state law on affordable housing; providing a generator at the town office (see the Nov. 23 issue of The Town Line, p. 3); proposed updates to cemetery rules; and engineering services for a new transfer station building (see the Dec. 7 issue of The Town Line, p. 3).

Area food pantries: people helping people

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Text and photo by Roberta Barnes

It is that time of year when people need help shoveling their walkways and heating their homes, but something that everyone needs at all times is nutritious food. Illnesses and accidents do not care about age, occupation, or gender. Misfortune can hit individuals or families at any time. Businesses and companies can go out of business. At unexpected times, individuals or families can be in a situation where resources have been stretched beyond the point of trying to eat balanced meals.

Neighbors, relatives, and others in the community have been helping for decades, but sometimes people are struggling themselves or do not know that a person or family needs help. The nice thing is that there are nonprofit organizations formed and supported by the community, who can help in our community, and our State, those that do not have the nutritious foods needed to keep their body and mind functioning during this stressful season.

Last week, several local food pantries in China, Jefferson, Windsor, Vassalboro and Winslow took time to talk with me. These volunteer-driven initiatives are located in spaces where businesses have closed down, in renovated town garages, and in churches. Some even operate mobile trailers that can be moved to different locations.

Each of the volunteers who spoke with me expressed compassion and a willingness to give without judgement. They are able to operate thanks to generous donations by local businesses, farms, and individuals, plus countless hours by volunteers. Their work is filling a need by helping supply needed nutritional foods.

How and when you can receive needed food varies with location. Some pantries are open one or two days a week, others are open only once or twice a month. In some locations the space is too small for people to walk into the area where the food is safely stored. In those cases, once a person checks off the list of food needed, volunteers bring those foods to the person’s vehicle. Other organizations have a space large enough that clients can walk through in single file and do their own shopping.

I heard from Jefferson food pantry, located in St. Giles church (207-315-1134), and Windsor food bank in a section of the Windsor Town Hall garage (207-445-9030), that in the case of an emergency situation they have delivered the needed food to a home. All organizations distributing food in Maine are focused on helping people in their communities have the food they need to stay healthy.

In October 1929 when Wall Street crashed and 15 million people were unemployed by 1933, there were no safety nets in place.

Today we are lucky to have help in place. But getting nutritious foods to the pantry locations, correctly storing perishable foods, and safely handling all foods, requires numerous steps from many different people.

Donations and volunteer work are the most important aspect in providing these additional safety nets, and in continuing to keep them available for those people who at certain times cannot buy food, or are having trouble with other basic needs.

The Federal Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP, began with donation efforts of surplus foods, such as cheese, by the USDA in late 1981. Foods from this program are given to each State based on the number of unemployed persons and the number of people with incomes below the poverty level. It is then given to the organizations that directly serve the public and submit all the correct forms. The receiving and passing out of these foods requires detailed paperwork completed by volunteers. This is just part of the effort that goes on behind the scenes that many people do not see.

In 1981, the Maine nonprofit organization Good Shepherd Food Bank was formed in Auburn through donations of individuals, retailers, and large food companies in Maine. The small grassroots effort has grown, expanding to Hamden and delivering foods to organizations throughout Maine that are contracted with them.

Good Shepherd’s purchasing power and relationships with wholesalers allow these organizations to use the donations they receive to purchase food at a fraction of the cost they would pay through standard retailers. Five dollars can result in thirty pounds of food. Because safely handling and storing perishable foods is important, annually each organization is inspected to be sure all foods are handled safely. Everything is carefully monitored and that requires accurate paperwork.

Donations made to Good Shepherd Food Bank and other organizations come from many sources. One of the donating companies, Hannaford Bros. Co., established a reclamation center to facilitate the process of distributing products to Good Shepherd and other food banks. In certain stores you may find programs inviting customers at the register to donate money or buy boxes of food staples for local pantries.

Speaking with volunteers in Windsor, I heard about a food bake sale that resulted in major funding for Windsor Food Bank Inc. Farms in some communities also donate various veggie and protein foods that are properly packaged, from late July sometimes into November.

When China Food Pantry was established in 1992 (1320 Lakeview Drive), it started by connecting with local stores for over-stocked and other foods that could not be put on the grocery shelves even though they were still safe to eat. With stores being willing to donate some foods, similar pantries in Albion, Palermo, Windsor, Jefferson and Vassalboro quickly followed. The volunteers in these locations drove to pick up food in various locations, including farms and Good Shepherd in Auburn. Today Good Shepherd delivers to those contracted with them.

The joy that pets of all sizes can bring into a home is obvious. Pets also are great listeners, help with depression and loneliness, can relieve stress, increase your physical anxiety, help you see the beauty around you and much more. But pets need pet food to continue to help the people they live with. Some of the volunteers shared with me that they will personally go to retailers and purchase pet food that can be picked up with the other needed foods at the organization’s location.

While I was not able to connect with all local organizations providing food at no charge, The Town Line’s website has a list of pantries and phone numbers here. You can also find the location by calling or dropping into the town office in your community.

In Vassalboro, there is the Vassalboro Food Station on Rte. 32 open on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to noon. The Winslow Community Cupboard also distributes food at The Mill, in Vassalboro, Wednesdays 4 – 7 p.m. and Sundays 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Winslow Community Cupboard also serves people in communities other than Winslow, which you can see by visiting their website. They are at the Winslow Congregational Church, 12 Lithgow Street, the second and fourth Thursday each month from noon – 3 p.m., and from 5 – 7 p.m.

As you are reading, these organizations require many volunteers to make all of this happen. Being a volunteer or donating can be extremely rewarding as you see the thankful faces of those receiving. If you would like to donate or volunteer, either contact your local food bank, food pantry, community cupboard, or town office.

Roberta Barnes is a freelance contributor to The Town Line.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Dams and Mills

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Building Two of the Olde Mill on Main Street in Vassalboro. (photo by Sandy Isaac)

by Mary Grow

The list of old dams on China Lake’s Outlet Stream started last week with dams in Vassalboro, as far downstream as the North Vassalboro dams described below.

In following weeks, your writer plans to finish summarizing the usefulness of Outlet Stream with descriptions of dams and mills in Winslow, between the Vassalboro line and the Sebasticook River; discuss two larger mills on the Kennebec, in Winslow; share rather scanty information about dams and mills on lesser streams and brooks in Winslow; and describe some of the industries supported by Seven Mile Stream, a/k/a Seven Mile Brook, in southern Vassalboro.

Readers who are tired of dams and mills might want to ignore these history articles until 2024.

* * * * * *

In his Kennebec County history, Henry Kingsbury started the North Vassalboro mill story with the arrival of Dr. Edward Southwick, who came from Danvers, Massachusetts, early in the 1800s, bought water rights from John Getchell and by 1820 was running “the largest tannery in New England.” The sheds to store the tree bark used in tanning covered over an acre, Kingsbury said, and “His business was the life of North Vassalboro.”

In her Vassalboro history, Alma Pierce Robbins quoted George Varney’s Gazeteer of the State of Maine as the source for naming Jacob Southwick, not Edward Southwick, as the tannery owner. Kingsbury said Edward and Jacob were brothers, and Jacob had a tannery at Getchell’s Corners (which was one of Vassalboro’s commercial and industrial centers for most of the 19th century).

Peter Morrill Stackpole and his son-in-law, Alton Pope, started their “wool carding and cloth dressing mill” (Kingsbury) on Outlet Stream in 1836 (Robbins).

John D. Lang (1799-1879) was brother-in-law to Stackpole (Kingsbury; Lang’s wife was Anna Elmira Stackpole [1800-1879]), and “an experienced mill executive” (Robbins), who came from Rhode Island and invested capital. Lang, Stackpole and Pope created, by 1836, the woolen mill that Kingsbury called North Vassalboro’s “chief industrial pursuit” for the rest of the century.

They also had a sawmill, which burned in 1848. Peter Stackpole was killed that November during the rebuilding.

(See the Oct. 19 issue of The Town Line for the Lang family’s agricultural contributions.)

Lang bought the Southwick tannery around 1850, and the next year built the first brick mill building on the site. According to Kingsbury, “A brick kiln was built, and after the brick were burned the walls of the mill were built around it.” The remains of the tannery were burned.

This mill was on the west side of Main Street, between the street and Outlet Stream, on the north side of Oak Grove Road, which runs west off Main Street and across the stream.

Kingsbury and Robbins wrote that the mill’s moment of international fame was in 1851, when one of its products was awarded a gold medal at the London World’s Fair.

Robbins said the prize was for “finest Broadcloth or Cassimere in the World.” The fabric was a “beautiful blue color,” mixed by brothers George and Jonathan Nowell.

(The senior George Nowell [1777-1868] moved to Vassalboro in 1806 and later to Winslow, where he farmed. He and his wife, Winifred [Parker] Nowell, had 10 children, according to Kingsbury, including sons George [1818-1904] and Jonathan [1820-1897].)

Jonathan Nowell worked at the mill for 40 years. Robbins called him “a dye mixer,” and Kingsbury said he was “boss of the dyeing works.”

The old Stackpole and Pope mill building on the dam, Kingsbury said, was moved to Main Street, where it served first as a “dry house,” then as a boarding house and by 1892 as a “dwelling and a hall.” (“Dry house,” in this context, might mean the building was used to dry materials used in the woolen mill. It was probably neither a saloon without liquor nor a recovery house for addicts.)

In a major renovation in 1861, Kingsbury said, a 47-by-200-foot building was added to the 1851 one, so close he referred to the two buildings as “practically one.” The result was “the largest woolen mill in New England,” in 1861 and still in 1892.

In the second half of the 19th century, the North Vassalboro mill had several different owners and names. Kingsbury said Lang and Boston partners organized the North Vassalboro Woolen Manufacturing Company before 1856. By 1892, he said, “Boston people” were the only owners. Robbins called the business the Vassalboro Manufacturing Company, until the mill was sold to American Woolen Company in 1899.

To Robbins, one of the significances of the mill was its effect on the population of North Vassalboro. In the 1850s, she wrote, Vassalboro Manufacturing Company began advertising for workers in newspapers in England and Ireland.

“Thus the family names in Vassalboro began to change. Nearly every other family had one or more ‘foreigners’ boarding with them,” she wrote. Immigrants from Canada joined those from England and Ireland.

The contribution to North Vassalboro’s economy was significant. When architectural historian Michael Goebel-Bain, of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, wrote the application for listing on the National Register of Historic Places in March 2020, he included census figures. They showed the mill had 180 employees in 1860; 263 in 1870; 300 in 1883 and “close to 600” before it closed in 1955.

Goebel-Bain pointed out that expansion of the mill was often in response to wartime demand for cloth. He cited new buildings in 1861 and 1863 and expansions in 1917 and 1943.

The historian pointed out that there were also contractions as demand dropped. In November 1888, he wrote, the mill closed briefly, because its owners owed $90,000 to a “Boston cotton mill owner” named T. W. Walker. Walker put up another $75,000 and bought and reopened the mill.

And, Goebel-Bain added, if there were a major drought, Outlet Stream might drop too low to provide power, forcing a – usually short – halt to production.

* * * * * *

Goebel-Bain’s application was for a Vassalboro mill historic district. He described nine separate buildings and one “structure” that were worthy of preservation, plus two related but non-historic buildings on the 6.8-acre parcel.

Parts of the 1851 building survived, Goebel-Bain wrote, but they were “indistinguishable as an entity” because of the many changes and additions between 1861 and 1943. He listed the period of historic significance as 1861 to 1955.

Goebel-Bain divided the buildings into categories, describing the single-story brick office building; a 444-foot section of mill with towers and many original windows; other mill sections; and the single-story Dye House, first built in 1894 and completed between 1903 and 1911. The 444-foot section, he observed, has the same roof height from one end to the other, but “due to the sloping lot two stories are visible at the east and four stories at the west end.”

The contributing structure is described as a 90-foot tall smokestack, built around 1894 of “hollow, glazed structural tile.” Goebel-Bain added, “The associated boiler house and boilers were removed in 1981.”

The application described some of the many physical changes during the life of the woolen mill. Goebel-Bain wrote that a canal from a dam “800 feet north” used to run “directly under several mill buildings and ended as an exposed tail race.” Many of the walkways between buildings “by enclosed corridors and in many cases more substantial connector buildings” had been demolished.

Additions were made at intervals in the 19th and 20th centuries. Goebel-Bain found that one building started out as brick, two stories high, built between 1861 and 1863; acquired a third story, also brick, in 1894; and by 1906 had a wooden fourth floor.

Despite the changes, Goebel-Bain found the mill complex historically valuable. He wrote, “The common characteristics typical of mill construction include brick walls, large window openings, open floor space, heavy wood framing, exterior stair towers, and flat roofs. All or many of these features exist across the major buildings.”

He saw the Vassalboro buildings as an example of “slow-burning construction,” common in mills: construction methods that would hinder spread of fires in buildings with mainly wooden interiors.

Goebel-Bain concluded: “The largest and most significant buildings remain and collectively form a district that has integrity to reflect is [sic] industrial development from 1861 to 1955.”

The Vassalboro mill was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Oct. 5, 2020.

Lombard log hauler exhibit locations

The Lombard log hauler, one of only six remaining, at its home at the Redington Museum, in Waterville. (photo by Roland Hallee)

Local readers who would like to see a Lombard log hauler (introduced in the Oct. 26 issue of The Town Line) will have two local opportunities.

The Fall 2023 issue of the Maine State Museum’s Broadside newsletter reports that when the museum reopens in 2025, a new exhibit will showcase its Lombard log hauler. Museum officials are also helping the Waterville Historical Society upgrade its Lombard log hauler display.

The projects are funded by a grant from the Bill & Joan Alfond Foundation.

Readers might also want to visit the Maine Forest and Logging Museum, in Bradley, northeast of Bangor (website maineforestandloggingmuseum.org), or the Maine Forestry Museum, in Dallas Plantation, with a mailing address in Rangeley (website maineforestrymuseum.org). The Forest and Logging Museum’s website advertises its Lombard log hauler; the Forestry Museum’s says it has a variety of equipment and tools.

Both websites list 2024 event schedules.

The Forestry Museum is closed for the winter, reopening in June 2024. The Forest and Logging Museum is hosting Santa Claus on Dec. 9.

Tannery owner Jacob Southwick

Tannery owner Jacob Southwick was involved in other businesses in the village near the Kennebec that began as Getchell’s Corners, was called Vassalboro in Kingsbury’s time and is now Getchell Corner. Kingsbury wrote that he had a pail factory an “ashery” and a plaster mill on a brook there.

(Wikipedia says an ashery made hardwood ashes into lye, potash or pearlash. Lye was an ingredient in soap; pearlash, made by kiln-baking potash, was often exported to Britain to be used in making glass and ceramic materials.)

Around 1825, Jacob, his father, Dr. Edward Southwick, and others started Negeumkeag Bank at Getchell’s Corners, with $50,000 capital; it lasted about 15 years. After it closed, Kingsbury said, the “queer old strap, wrought iron safe” went to another tannery the Southwicks owned in Burnham.

By 1836, Kingsbury said, one of the places for posting notices of town meetings was the Jacob Southwick and Company store.

Jacob was a selectman for two years in the 1820s. In 1843, he was innocently involved in what appears to have been election fraud. Whether deliberate or accidental is unclear.

The story is told in an 1843 report of the Maine legislature’s Committee on Elections, reviewing returns from the newly-created Fourth Senatorial District. The district included Augusta and eight nearby towns.

Votes were cast for a total of 11 men, plus “all others.” Four men got more than 3,300 votes each. Three more were closely grouped in the 2,600s. Jacob Southwick was one of four men who each got fewer than 550 votes.

However, the committee found that many voters had marked four names on the ballot, when the instructions said to vote for no more than three. This conduct they condemned as illegal, disorderly and corrupt.

The report concluded, “That a great evil would result from permitting the voter to determine, not only for whom he may vote, but for how many, must be obvious to all.”

The committee therefore rejected numerous ballots, including 323 from Vassalboro – one of the higher numbers, exceeded only by Augusta and Hallowell – and declared the new senators to be none of the four top vote-getters, but the three in the second tier, John Hubbard, Jacob Main and John Stanley.

John Hubbard was Dr. John Hubbard, of Hallowell, later governor of Maine. Jacob Main was from Belgrade; David Stanley was from Winthrop.

Main sources

Goebel-Bain, Michael National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Vassalboro Mill (March 24, 2020), supplied by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).

Websites, miscellaneous.

Local scout leaders attend training session

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Front row, from left to right, Chris Santiago, of Vassalboro, Ginger Fails, of New Sharon, Sara Anderson, of Pack #585, in Farmington, and Walter Fails, of New Sharon. Back, Shane Maroon, of Winslow, Nate Gray, of Vassalboro, Shaun Edwards, of Pack #585, Chris Reynolds, of Vassalboro, and Kevin McLaughlin, of Vassalboro. (photo courtesy of Chuck Mahaleris)

by Chuck Mahaleris

On Sunday, November 19, Vassalboro Cub Scout Pack #410 hosted adult Scout leader training at Thomas College, in Waterville, for leaders from the local pack and from Farmington’s Pack #585.

The instructors were Walter and Ginger Fails, of New Sharon, and Christopher Santiago, of Vassalboro. Walter Fails is the Kennebec Valley District of Scouting Training chairman.

“The training went really well,” Walter Fails said. “We had a good group of new leaders who listened, and participated. They asked many great questions and were really engaged. I think the BSA axiom, “every Scout deserves a trained leader,” is spot on in many respects. When a leader is well trained and believes in the Scouting program, they are more confident, prepared, and provide a more quality program for their Scouts. Most importantly, I think in-person training lets leaders know they are supported, by giving them valuable connections to peers and instructors they can rely on for advice and direction.” The training was the Cub Scout Leader Specific Training.

VASSALBORO: Auto junkyard permits approved by select board

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by Mary Grow

The two Vassalboro select board members at the Nov. 30 meeting approved six 2024 auto junkyard permits, after a public hearing that drew no comments.

Codes officer Jason Lorrain said he received renewal applications from six of seven residents listed as junkyard operators. He found no complaints on record; he inspected the premises; and he recommended select board members approve the applications.

Those approved are: Stanley Garnett, North Belfast Avenue; Robert Parise, Riverside Drive; Voit Ritch, Route 3; Dale Clement, Taber Hill Road; Bill Pullen, South Stanley Hill Road; and James Cogley, Main Street.

Lorrain said he had not received applications from 2023 junkyard licensee Olin Charette or auto hobbyist Robert Dore. Board members said the two could apply in time for a second hearing at either of the December select board meetings; whoever did would be charged for a second round of notices.

The other major agenda item Nov. 30 was opening requests for proposals for engineering services to design a new building at the transfer station. Town Manager Aaron Miller said he sent emails inviting 21 Maine engineering firms to submit proposals; he received one reply, from SENDERS science, engineering and construction in Camden.

Board chairman Chris French and member Michael Poulin agreed not to accept nor reject the bid, but to refer it to the transfer station task force, which Miller said was scheduled to meet the following week. They asked Miller to ask some of the other firms why they had declined to respond.

The request asked engineering firms to provide information on “permitting, design and cost estimates for a 60-foot by 80-foot transfer station building.” Task force members are interested in either “an open-ended Quonset steel building or a steel-pole barn structure.”

Select board members intend to discuss the issue at their next meeting, scheduled for Dec. 14.

They had planned a workshop session on local issues immediately following the Nov. 30 meeting, but with Frederick “Rick” Denico, Jr., absent, they skipped it.

Local scouts conduct drive to benefit area food pantries

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Scouts food drive Troop 631 (photo by Chuck Mahaleris)

Text and photos by Chuck Mahaleris

Callum Dorias, of Madison, is a member of Pack #428, in Pittsfield, and took part in the Scouting for Food Drive on November 11. (photo by Chuck Mahaleris)

Lord Robert Baden Powell, the founder of Scouting worldwide, said, “The most worthwhile thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.” Scouting isn’t just about earning badges and recognitions. Scouting strives to prepare youth to become responsible, participating citizens and leaders who are guided by the values of Scout Oath and Law. Scout Leaders throughout Kennebec Valley District, try to foster in our Cubs and Scouts an attitude of service especially for those in their community who are struggling. That’s where the annual Scouting for Food Drive comes in.

According to Kennebec Valley District Scouting for Food chairman Shelley Connolly, of Pittsfield, the national food drive began in 1985. Connolly said, “On average, 1 in 4 children in Maine is at risk for hunger daily, and 37 percent of them do not qualify for public assistance. They are even more vulnerable when school is not in session (summers, vacation weeks and weekends). All Scouting Units (Packs, Troops and Crews) are charged with conducting at least one Scouting for Food collection annually.” She stressed this can be done either in the Fall or the Spring depending on when the greatest need exists in their particular community.

“It’s our National Good Turn for America. Fall and Spring collections are recommended.” Scout leaders, working with their local food bank or pantry, pick a date to conduct their food drive. Some choose to go door to door collecting food while in other towns the Scouts fill a tent or a canoe outside a grocery store. Any funds donated to the Scouts at these collection efforts is used to buy additional food for the needy. “Our Scout Oath calls on our young people to “help other people at all times,” and Scouting for Food demonstrates to the nation how our movement can make a difference in their communities,” Connolly said.

Scouts in Vassalboro held their “Scouting for Food” drive on November 19 and collected 142 pounds of food that was delivered to the Vassalboro Food Station Pantry.

“On behalf of all of the families in Troop #497, we would like to thank the Jackman community for your overwhelming support of our annual Scouting for Food Drive,” Scoutmaster Karla Talpey said after the Scouts from the Moose River Valley held their food drive on Saturday, November 18. “We continue to be amazed at the generosity of everyone. We delivered boxes- each filled with a Turkey (or ham), potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sugar, flour, butter, pasta and pasta sauce, peanut butter and jelly, juice, cereal, turnip, carrots, and yes, even a roll of paper towels- to 12 families. A special Thank you to Mountain Country Market for always allowing us to set up in their parking lot for the day. We would like to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.” The troop also received $709 in donations which bought additional food for the needy. “We have been doing this for more than 30 years. The community is so generous.”

Connolly is also the leader for Cubs and Scouts in the Pittsfield area. “Troop and Pack #428 held its annual Scouting for Food event at Danforth’s Downhome Supermarket, in Pittsfield, on November 11,” she said. “Scouts accepted food items from the very generous customers in the community. Additionally, the Scouts set up a Veterans Day display and gave veterans a small gift as they came through. Some customers gave the Scouts a monetary donation for the event. The older Scouts would then take a Cub Scout shopping. It’s always interesting to see what elementary school aged children think would be good in a pantry. They also were able to practice thrifty shopping skills to yield the most amount of items for the amount they had to spend. In the end the Scouts collected just over 900 pounds of food. This food was distributed to three area pantries: Hartland’s Food Cupboard, Somerset Elementary Food Pantry and Warsaw School’s Food Pantry.”

Augusta Troop #631 Scouts and leaders helped pack Thanksgiving food bags on November 19 with the American Legion Post #2. These bags are going to veterans and to the community.

Pack #410 Vassalboro Wolf Scout Declan McLaughlin and Lion Scout Boone McLaughlin, at the Vassalboro Food Station Pantry, show off the 142 items of food collected by local Scouts. (photo by Chuck Mahaleris)

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Vassalboro dams

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by Mary Grow

As last week’s article on the Masse family suggested, from the late 1700s through the 1800s central Kennebec Valley entrepreneurs dammed streams and rivers to provide water power for industry.

Local histories have long lists of dams on streams tributary to the Kennebec River, before people got up the courage to try to control the river itself. Falling water managed by dams and waterwheels provided power, especially for sawmills to convert trees into lumber and grist mills to grind grain into flour.

One website dates grist mills to the first century B. C. Here is an explanation of an American grist mill, mostly from a Texas website:

The mill workings consist of two large stones, one atop the other. One source said four feet in diameter was a common size. The bottom stone, or bed stone, is fixed; the top stone, or runner stone, “rotates on top of the bed stone.” The runner stone has a hole in the top where grain is poured in to be “ground between the two stones.”

Wikipedia says the Romans built water-powered sawmills in the third century A.D. In the Nov. 2 issue of The Town Line, readers learned about the transition in Kennebec Valley sawmills from early up-and-down saws to the more efficient circular saw that William Kendall, Jr., of Fairfield, invented around 1827.

Outlet Stream, which runs from China Lake to the Sebasticook River (which flows into the Kennebec River in Winslow), was an example of a power source. The villages at East Vassalboro and North Vassalboro were established primarily because water power was available.

Your writer found no date for the China Lake Outlet Dam, in East Vassalboro. Henry Kingsbury, in his Kennebec County history, described it as a manufacturing hub. John Mower had an (undated) bark mill on the east end; his father, Nathan Mower, and another man named Thomas Sewall ran nearby tanneries; and on the west bank was “Thomas Greenlow’s shop, with its four forges and trip-hammers run by water.”

The Vassalboro Woolen Company, owner of North Vassalboro’s major mill, bought the outlet dam in 1872, so it could control the flow of water to accommodate its mills. The company donated it to the Town of Vassalboro in 1961, according to Herman Masse’s 1977 History of the Old Water Power Grist and Saw Mill.

The Masse mills in East Vassalboro, introduced last week, were not the first on the stream: Kingsbury said East Vassalboro village had a water-powered sawmill before its first houses. He wrote that the original landowners, the Kennebec Proprietors, “probably were instrumental in the erection of the first saw mill here, a few rods below the village bridge, before this portion of their territory was settled.”

Vassalboro was settled around 1760, and Masse’s history says the town had 10 families in 1768, so this first mill must have been in operation before the American Revolution.

Here a succession of owners cut boards for settlers’ houses and to ship down the Kennebec to sell, according to Kingsbury. Later a tannery (for making animal hides into leather) succeeded the sawmill, operating into the 1870s.

Downstream from this mill, Kingsbury wrote, were another sawmill, still operating in 1892, and a grist mill with a stone bottom story (these were the mills the Masse family acquired); and farther downstream, “but within East Vassalboro,” another grist mill.

The East Vassalboro Grist and Saw mill, a/k/a the Masse mill, was owned by Herman Masse when it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in January 1982. The Maine State Historic Preservation Com­mission’s October 1980 application was prepared by historian Frank A. Beard and architectural historian Robert L. Bradley.

They wrote, “The East Vassalboro Grist and Saw mill may well be the oldest mill site in Maine continuously operating in its original buildings and still using water power exclusively for the generation of energy.”

The property consisted of two buildings on either side of a dam across Outlet Stream, on the east side of Route 32 toward the north end of East Vassalboro. Outlet Stream runs generally north-south; but just upstream of the Masse dam site it turns sharp left (west), so it runs briefly from east to west. Masse’s two mills were on the north and south banks, the grist mill on the north and the sawmill on the south.

The application provided historical information, most taken from Herman Masse’s 1977 history. Additionally, Stephen Robbins shared with your writer a history of the mill as described by his cousin, Donald Robbins, in a 2015 presentation to the Vassalboro Historical Society.

Donald Robbins said that in 1797, John Getchell deeded half the water rights and 1.5 acres of land to Nathan Breed for a sawmill. Herman Masse added that Getchell reserved the right to build a grist mill and specified that his mill would have preference over Breed’s mill for water rights.

The Historic Preservation application credits Getchell with building the sawmill in 1798, “about 300 yards above its present location,” or, Masse wrote, about where the East Vassalboro Grange Hall now stands. It was described as a story and a half post and beam building, with a gable roof and attached sheds on the east and north.

Both sources say Jabez Dow built the grist mill, in or maybe after 1805. Beard and Bradley wrote that the sawmill was moved to face it across the stream.

The grist mill was also post and beam, story and a half, gable roofed, with one attached shed. The state historians wrote: “The most distinctive feature of the grist mill is its cut granite foundation walls which on the rear (west side) of the building are exposed and fitted with a door and four windows.”

The grist mill was “owned by retired ship captains” – Herman Masse’s history said several from Nan­tucket moved to Vassalboro in 1827 — and “operated, but not owned” by Zachariah Butterfield after 1812. Jacob Butterfield ran the sawmill, and handed it down to his son, Henry Rice Butterfield. The state preservationists could not determine how these two Butterfields were related to Zachariah.

In her 1971 Vassalboro history, Alma Pierce Robbins listed a dozen Nantucketers, most of them Quakers, who settled in Vassalboro. They came, she explained, because they knew the area from trips to the Kennebec to buy lumber to build their houses on Nantucket. Some planned to continue “shipping and shipbuilding” on the river; others were ready to try farming.

The Vassalboro Woolen Company bought both these mills and all water rights in 1872 “in order to control the flowage.” Warren Seward or Seaward leased the sawmill from 1872 to 1890.

The 1879 map of the village, reproduced as part of Donald Robbins’ presentation, shows a large mill pond along the east side of East Vassalboro, behind the houses lining Main Street.

In 1890, Robbins said, Seward bought his mill and half the water rights from Vassalboro Woolen, and Josiah Evans bought the grist mill and the other half of the water rights. After arguing over who should contribute what to dam maintenance, in 1912 they both sold to Louis Masse. From Louis Masse the properties went to his son Herman in the 1920s and then to Herman’s son Kenneth.

In the 1920s, Herman Masse wrote, lumbermen dumped logs into China Lake, where they were gathered inside a chain boom and towed to the Outlet Dam and thence into the mill pond on their way to the mill. It took about two days to bring a boom from South China to East Vassalboro, he said.

After describing some of the 20th-century improvements and updates the Masses made, Donald Robbins’ presentation ends, sadly, with photos from 2010, 2011 and 2015 showing crumbling stone, rotting wood and other deterioration. He mentioned a granite wall that partly collapsed in 2009-2010, damaging a water company pipe, and a floor that rotted out and fell into Outlet Stream in 2015.

In 2016 the buildings and the dam were removed as part of the program to restore alewives to China Lake, and also to protect the water company (see the article by Landis Hudson of American Rivers in the July 14, 2016, issue of The Town Line, available on line).

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Stephen Robbins directed your writer to an on-line copy of the 1869 water sites report, which describes 13 dams and dam sites for the lower part of Outlet Stream, from East Vassalboro through Winslow to the Sebasticook River.

Information was based on a report by Ira E. Getchell, Esquire, of Winslow, and “the Statement of the Select­men.” Since the dams are listed under Vassal­boro, though some are in Winslow, your writer assumes the Vassalboro selectmen made the statement.

Lombard dam

The first dam was 120 rods (one rod is 1/320 of a mile, so 120 rods is a bit over a third of a mile) below Outlet Dam, owned by Vassalboro Mills Company and powering a woollen (the report’s spelling) and grist mill “when in operation.” H. R. Butterfield was using surplus water for a sawmill and “shovel handle factory.” He apparently inherited the latter, at least, from his father, because the 1850 census copied in Alma Robbins’ Vassalboro history lists Jacob Butterfield as a maker of shovel handles.

(When Alma Robbins wrote, “In 1833 the shovel handle factory burned,” she must have been referring to an earlier shovel handle factory; where it was, she gave no clue.)

Dam number two, another 120 rods downstream, powered Butterfield’s grist mill. (This was probably what was in the 21st century the Morneau dam, or a predecessor nearby.)

Number three, 200 rods (a little over 0.6 miles) downstream, powered a “shingle mill, wood and iron machine shop” owned by Charles Davies. (Probably the Lombard dam.)

The Ladd Dam in North Vassalboro. (Photo by Roland D. Hallee)

The fourth dam site, immediately below the Davies’ dam, was undeveloped.

Another 440 rods (more than a mile and third) downstream were the dam and canal where the Vassalboro Mills Company made woolen goods and had a wood and iron machine shop and other facilities. This dam, in North Vassalboro, seems to have generated the most power of any on Outlet Stream.

(The history of the North Vassalboro mills is too long to compress into this week’s remaining space. Please see next week’s issue.)

Number six on the 1869 list was “an unoccupied stone dam” beside the canal. (Modern names for North Vassalboro’s dams were Box Mills and Ladd.)

The dams along this stretch of stream were untypical, in that they survived – not all intact and functioning, but visible and with names – into the 21st century.

Box Mill Dam.

In the last decade, the Masse, Morneau and Lombard dams have been removed. At Box Mills, Ladd and Outlet dams, fish ladders have been installed to allow migratory fish to reach China Lake from the Atlantic Ocean, via the Kennebec and Sebasticook rivers.

Main sources

Beard, Frank A., and Robert L. Bradley, National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form, East Vassalboro Grist and Saw Mill (October 1980).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Masse, Herman C., History of the old water power grist and saw mill at East Vassalboro, Maine, 1797-1971 : owned and operated by the Masse family since 1912 (1977).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).
Robbins, Stephen, Personal correspondence.

Websites, miscellaneous.

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CORRECTION

In the November 23, 2023, issue, Kennebec Valley History, on page 10, in the third column, sixth paragraph, it should have read: “Robbins dates the mill complex to 1797.”

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Louis Masse

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The Masse Sawmill site on Rte. 32, in East Vassalboro. (contributed photo)

by Mary Grow

When Louis Masse’s name appeared in last week’s article on the Starrett family of China, knowledgeable Vassalboro residents might have been surprised. They thought he was theirs, founder of the family that owned and ran the Masse mill on the Masse dam, in East Vassalboro.

Same man. First he lived and worked in China, building barns and houses and a water company; then he moved to East Vassalboro.

The Find a Grave website and a genealogy Vassalboro Historical Society president Jan Clowes shared both say Louis Zephirin Masse was born Feb. 18, 1876, in Becancour, Québec. The genealogy adds that his parents were born there, too, and he was baptized there on Feb. 20, 1876. Becancour is a town on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River, about halfway between Montreal and Québec City.

(The 1940 census says he was born in Maine. Masse most likely gave that information to the census-taker himself, in a face-to-face interview.)

In reply to an inquiry from Clowes, Stephen Robbins (Louis Masse’s great-grandson) shared and added to a high-school essay written by Masse’s granddaughter, Marion, in 1950. According to these two Masses, Louis, known as ‘Phirin, began working very young, cooking in a logging camp when he was 11 and taking jobs with neighboring farmers and maple sugar producers and in a cheese factory. One summer, he drove a neighbor’s cattle a mile to and from their pasture daily – “for two cents a week.”

Masse got some basic education as a child, Robbins wrote. It was in French, of course; when he moved to the United States, learning English was his first challenge.

Louis Masse followed his half-brothers south across the border when he was 16, Marion Masse said. He joined one half-brother in a mill in Vermont (probably in Newport, Vermont, on the Canadian border, Robbins added), and then another in Fairfield, Maine, where he worked in Totman’s and Nye’s mills.

After the mills burned (they burned several times; this reference is probably to the Aug. 21, 1895, fire described in the Fairfield bicentennial history), Marion Masse wrote that her grandfather went to a mill in Coopers Mills, in the town of Whitefield. By now, Robbins said he was calling himself Louis, not Zephirin.

Soon Van Renssalaer “Rance” Turner hired him to work on his farm on Turner Ridge, in Palermo, and encouraged him to get an education. When he was 19 or 20, Louis started school in Palermo, with much younger local children as classmates.

In the spring of 1897 he entered Erskine Academy, in South China, as a freshman. Within six months, he was in the senior class.

For part of his time at Erskine, Masse boarded with Samuel Starrett, thus meeting Samuel’s daughter, Edith Emily Starrett (niece of Laroy Sunderland Starrett; born Jan. 29, 1880, according to Robbins and Find a Grave, or Jan. 30, 1881, according to an on-line article). The China history describes her as “a lovely young lady of eighteen.”

Masse became a United States citizen on Dec. 31, 1897, and he and Edith were married July 16, 1898. Masse worked as a carpenter in China and Windsor, the China history says.

Robbins wrote that the Masses lived with Edith’s family for a while. In 1903, Louis built the first home for his family, on Windsor Road not far from the Starretts.

The 1940 census says Edith, like her husband, had four years of high school. An on-line article based on her diaries says she taught at Erskine before she met her husband, but gives no dates.

The Vassalboro Historical Society’s on-line collection has a photograph of a China cabinet, or hutch, Masse built. It has two sections, the bottom with vertically-paneled solid doors and the top with three shelves visible behind the glass doors.

The description says it is seven and a half feet tall, a little over four feet wide and 22 inches deep. On it, Masse wrote: “Married July 16, 1898, Made August 11, 1898.”

In 1905 Masse bought the sawmill (which dated from the early 1800s) on the West Branch of the Sheepscot River, in Weeks Mills. In 1907, according to Robbins, he built his family’s second home, in Weeks Mills village.

In September 1916, Masse organized what became the Weeks Mills Water Company, the only village water system in the Town of China.

Masse’s main goal, the China history says, was to improve fire protection (the village had had major fires in 1901 and 1904). He started “by pumping water from the river to about twenty subscribers, each of whom paid $50 to join the system and was responsible for digging from the central water main to his own house; there were also three hydrants in the village.”

The river water wasn’t satisfactory, so Masse “dug out and lined with cement a spring on the east side of the village,” whence water was pumped to a hilltop reservoir and flowed downhill to subscribers. A windmill was the first power source, succeeded by gasoline and then electric pumps.

When the China history was published in 1975, the company had “about fifteen customers, whose bills are based on the number of faucets in the house.”

Weeks Mills Water System is listed on the Maine state government’s Sept. 1, 2023, list of public water systems in China. It is described as a community system, with water coming from a 12-foot spring that produces 25 gallons per minute.

After the Masses moved to Vassalboro, the China history says, he continued area construction projects. Several sources credit him as head builder of China’s first consolidated elementary school. The five-classroom building on Lakeview Drive opened in early 1949 and is still part of China Middle School.

Masse bought an existing mill in East Vassalboro in 1912, according to Robbins (the on-line diary-based article says 1914), to expand his lumber business. Robbins wrote that he paid Warren Seaward $1,800 for it, and his family soon moved to the third house he built for them, on the west side of Route 32 across from the mill complex.

According to Henry Kingsbury’s Kennebec County history, the Masse mill was the second one on Outlet Stream in East Vassalboro village. There were two mill buildings, he wrote, a sawmill, still operating in 1892, and a grist mill with a stone bottom story.

Robbins dates this mill complex to 1797. He wrote that after buying the sawmill, Masse bought the grist mill across the stream, thus acquiring full “water rights and dam privileges.”

Robbins wrote that Masse “built a new dam” and replaced old-fashioned machinery. He started with eight men, Robbins said, paying them $10 a week apiece. In Weeks Mills, he worked alongside his crew when an extra hand was needed; whether he did the same in East Vassalboro, Robbins did not say.

Masse founded the East Vassalboro Water Company in 1914. Robbins wrote that it started with eight customers; installing lines to serve their houses took only four months. By 1950, the company served 55 houses.

An on-line source says in the 21st century, the company owns over 13 acres in three lots; its properties include springs and a 650-foot well.

Another source of information about Louis Masse is Alma Pierce Robbins’ 1971 history of Vassalboro’s first 200 years. One of the people she thanked in her introduction was “my grandnephew, the sixth generations of the Robbins family, Stephen Robbins.”

Alma Robbins traced the Robbins family history back through Stephen’s father, Gerald (see below), Maurice, Ira James and Heman, Jr., to Heman, Sr., the first Robbins in Vassalboro. An on-line genealogy says Heman Robbins Sr., was born in 1735 or 1736 in Harwich, Massachusetts, and died about 1817 in Vassalboro.

Alma Robbins’ first mention of Louis Masse in her Vassalboro history is in 1916, when he “installed hydrants and water mains at East Vassalboro.” In 1935, she said, he added seven more hydrants.

The on-line family history says the China Lake outlet dam was built in the 1930s. “Louis Z. directed the project and the W.P.A. [federal Works Progress Administration] provided six workmen.”

In 1940, the census-taker recorded that Masse was 64 years old, still working as a millwright, putting in 26 weeks in 1940. He shared a home in East Vassalboro with his wife, Edith S., aged 60.

Masse sold the water system in October 1943 to his son Herman, from whom it passed to his grandson, Kenneth Masse. Currently, Donald Robbins is listed on line as co-owner and designated operator, and the company is described as an investor-owned public water utility.

Stephen Robbins told your writer that Donald is his first cousin, son of his father’s brother Wallace.

Louis Masse died Nov. 14, 1959, in Waterville, and Edith died Sept. 17, 1960, also in Waterville. Both are buried in Chadwick Hill cemetery, on Windsor Road, in China.

Louis and Edith had three children Their son, Herman Charles, was born in China Oct. 29, 1904, according to an obituary found in on-line Masonic records. Herman Masse ran Masse Lumber Company in East Vassalboro from 1927 to 1969, and the East Vassalboro water system from 1950 to 1982. He died Feb. 2, 1990.

Louis and Edith’s younger daughter, Agnes Masse Plummer, died in 1989.

Their older daughter, Malvena Pearl Masse, was born July 8, 1899, in South China; graduated from Oak Grove Academy, Class of 1917; and died March 3, 1993, in Vassalboro. On Oct. 15, 1921, she married Maurice Smiley Robbins, who was born in Vassalboro Aug. 22, 1893, and died in Waterville Feb. 6, 1970.

Malvena and Maurice Robbins had three sons and a daughter between 1922 and 1932. Their second son, Gerald Laroy Robbins (Stephen Robbins’ father), was by your writer’s calculation, the great grand-nephew of inventor Laroy Sunderland Starrett, whose work was summarized in the Nov. 2 issue of The Town Line. (Stephen Robbins calls him “2nd-great-nephew”). Gerald’s grandmother was Starrett’s niece, Edith Emily (Starrett) Masse.

Gerald Laroy Robbins was born in Waterville Oct. 13, 1925. He interrupted his high schooling to join the Navy in 1944 and came home to earn a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Maine at Orono in 1951.

After a brief stint in New York, Robbins came back to Maine and took a job with Keyes Fibre, in Waterville (the company founded by Martin Keyes, profiled in the Nov. 9 issue of The Town Line).

According to his obituary, he worked at Keyes for 34 years, until he retired in 1988. He died June 5, 2013. The obituary says, “While at Keyes Fibre, he developed a number of improvements for the company’s production machinery and products, and earned two U.S. patents for his designs.”

Main sources

Grow, Mary M. , China Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions (1984).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).
Robbins, Stephen correspondence.

Websites, miscellaneous.

CORRECTION: This article previously said the mill complex was dated to 1897. It should have said instead 1797. This has been corrected. We apologize for the error.

Vassalboro planners discover omission in solar ordinance

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by Mary Grow

In the course of exploring two applications for solar power developments at their Nov. 14 meeting, Vassalboro planning board members found what most of them consider an omission in the town’s new solar ordinance.

The application that raised the issue was from ReVision Energy for a small array on Route 32 (Main Street) to provide power to several apartment buildings in the same ownership (see the Oct. 12 issue of The Town Line, p. 3). Board members decided the project was not commercial, because no power will be sold.

Therefore it does not need board approval; and it does not need a decommissioning plan to describe how it will be dismantled and its components removed when its useful life ends.

The project is proposed to have 176 solar panels. Board members asked what will happen to them – and for that matter, what will happen to the hundreds of individual residential rooftop and ground-mounted solar panels already in place in Vassalboro.

Two planning board members have solar installations, one with 20 panels and one with 32. No one knew where no-longer-needed panels are supposed to go. Board members said the State of Maine has no disposal regulations.

Whether Vassalboro should amend its ordinance to add decommissioning provisions to non-commercial projects was left undecided. Several board members advised waiting for more examples, not acting on the basis of a single application.

The new application on the Nov. 14 agenda was a preliminary discussion of another project by ReVision Energy. It is intended to be commercial, with power sold to area residents (a community solar farm, or CSF) or to small businesses.

The site is on land owned by Eileen M. Flanagan, at 1026 Webber Pond Road, south of Vassalboro Community School. It is not far from a previously-approved solar project by SunVest that meeting participants said is under construction.

ReVision project developer Alex Roberts-Pierel described the property as an agricultural field along the road with a wooded area to the back boundary. The landowners want the solar development in the wooded area, away from the road and neighbors along the road.

To make space for a commercially viable operation Roberts-Pierel asked for a waiver of the 150-foot setback requirement from the rear boundary, reducing the setback to 50 feet. Board members consulted ordinance requirements for a waiver, leading to a discussion of what hardship the developer would suffer if it were denied and what alternatives were available (like reducing the size of the project or using part of the field).

Roberts-Pierel intends to ask the two abutting landowners for their input on the buffer. He pointed out that he cannot prepare detailed engineering plans until he knows whether the waiver is granted.

Preliminary plans, he said, call for using about five acres for fixed (non-tracking) solar panels 10 to 12 feet tall, enclosed in an agricultural-type fence the state Department of Environmental Protection recommends. The application will include a decommissioning plan and funding for it.

He said Vassalboro’s requirement for monitoring wells is unusual, and asked what ReVision was supposed to monitor for. Board members explained the requirement was a response to concerns about possible leaching from damaged panels (cracked by hail or fallen trees, for example).

The next regular Vassalboro planning board meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 5.