New exhibit at Vassalboro Historical Society depicts textiles

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Painting signed by Hedwig Collins. Eva (Pratt) Owen, headmistress at Oak Grove School from 1918 – 1958, front and center in a light blue gown and matching hat, holding a white shawl; her husband, headmaster Robert Everett Owen, under the trees at left in a dark suit, behind a young lady in red. The woman in purple hat coming down the lawn is said to be Mrs. Owen’s sister.

by Mary Grow
Photos courtesy of Jan Clowes, VHS president

The new display at the Vassalboro Historical Society (VHS) Museum in East Vassalboro is titled “All Things Textile,” and the name is appropriate.

The most eye-catching items are women’s dresses, from the early 1800s to the 1950s, in varied materials and colors, and on one wall a large painting of young ladies in spring outfits (and two gentlemen) gathered on the lawn of the Oak Grove School.

The gentleman in black, half hidden behind a bevy of students under the trees in the left of the painting, is identified as Headmaster Robert Owen. Front and center is his wife, Headmistress Eva (Pratt) Owen, wearing a light blue gown and matching flat hat. Behind and to her left, the woman in the purple dress and hat coming toward the viewer is said to be her sister, Edith (Pratt) Brown.

By the castle, on the right side of the painting, students greet an unidentified man on horseback.

The painting is signed by Hedwig Collin. Wikipedia identifies her as a Danish artist, born May 27, 1880, and known primarily as a writer and illustrator of children’s books. She also did portraits and landscape paintings, Wikipedia says, and another on-line site includes reproductions of fashion illustrations from different decades.

Collin spent World War II in the United States, and VHS President Jan Clowes says the Oak Grove painting is dated 1940. Collin died near Copenhagen, Denmark, on April 2, 1964.

The black dress is a walking suit from 1910. The red dress is a teenager’s from 1830 and the white wedding dress Mary C. Haynes designed and wore when she married John Bussell on June 13, 1953.

On other walls are three samplers stitched by young Vassalboro residents in 1816, 1821 and 1836. Shelves and display tables and cases contain a working sewing machine from the late 1870s, children’s clothing, men’s hats and shoes and other items. Two interactive stations let visitors test their skills by working on a hooked or a braided rug.

There is also an antique quilt frame that Clowes said is being raffled off as a fund-raiser for the Society.

The Society’s website says the display was put together with help from Textile Conservation Specialist Lynne Bassett, who is from Massachusetts. Her assistance to museum volunteers included identifying fabrics and estimating ages of items in the collection; advising on proper storage; and teaching volunteers four “conservation stitches” so they can do authentic repairs.

Bassett is scheduled to continue working with Society volunteers later in July. “We take care of things, and consult experts when we need to,” Clowes said.

Elsewhere in the building, visitors can enjoy replicas of a 1950s kitchen and a much earlier Native American encampment; view local artists’ work; and admire a collection of furniture, tableware and dozens of other items once used by Vassalboro families.

The Society’s library has an invaluable collection of letters, documents, books and other sources of information on past events in the town. The website credits volunteer Russell Smith for answering reference questions.

Other volunteers mentioned are Juliana Lyon, in charge, with Clowes, of organizing accession records; Ben Gidney, Stewart Carson, Jeremy Cloutier, Dawn Cates, Simone Antworth, Judy Goodrich, Steve and Sharon (Hopkins) Farrington and David Theriault; and specifically for the textile conservation project, Goodrich, Cates, Maurine Macomber, Theriault, Terry Curtis and Holly Weidner. More volunteers are always welcome, Clowes said.

Clowes also welcomes donations of local items, although she does not know where there will be room for them. Some families who have donated larger items are storing them for the Society, Clowes said.

This dress, part of the textile display, is a two-piece wedding dress, with a long train trimmed with lace. Annie Mae Pierce wore it when she married Henry Allen Priest on Aug. 31, 1880.

The next major project is acquiring a barn. In Clowes’ vision, it has two stories; generous space on the ground level will display farm equipment and similar large items, with smaller items above. Monetary donations toward the barn project, and to maintain the present building, are appreciated; the VHS is a non-profit organization and donations are tax-deductible as allowed by law.

The museum is in the former East Vassalboro Schoolhouse, at 327 Main Street, on the east side of Route 32, just north of the boat landing at the China Lake outlet. In one room, the old tin ceiling is visible, and the floors show the circles of screwholes where students’ chair-and-desk combinations were attached.

The VHS website is vassalborohistoricalsociety.org. The telephone number is 923-3505; the email address is vhspresident@gmail.com; and the mailing address is P. O. Box 13, North Vassalboro ME 04962. Regular open hours are Monday and Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The summer and fall calendar includes open houses Sunday afternoons from 1 to 4 p.m., on July 24, Aug. 14 and 28, and Oct. 9 and 23.

Three special programs are scheduled for Sunday afternoons from 3 to 5 p.m.: on July 17, Sharon Hopkins Farrington, on “Rug Hooking Past & Present”; on Aug. 21, Nate Gray, on “River Herring Ecology & History”; and on Oct. 16, Suzy Griffiths, “Holman Day Film-Fest.”

In September, the museum will be open during the Vassalboro Days celebration Sept. 10 and 11. The annual meeting and potluck meal are scheduled for 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25, at the East Vassalboro Grange Hall.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Natural resources – Part 2

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An old sawmill with a rock dam.

by Mary Grow

Rocks & clay

Last week’s article talked about some of the towns in which European settlers found naturally-occurring resources, like stones and clay. Stones were described as useful for foundations, wells and similar purposes on land; another use was for the dams that have been mentioned repeatedly.

Palermo historian Milton Dowe, in his 1954 town history, said settlers coming to the area then called Great Pond Settlement (because it was near the head of Sheepscot Great Pond) in the late1770s lived in log houses until entrepreneurs built sawmills to make boards. The prerequisite for a sawmill, he wrote, was “a dam of rock and dirt on a brook of almost any size.”

The majority of local histories describe early water-powered mills in Kennebec Valley towns, most built on streams (many of them tributaries to the Kennebec) before men had the courage to try to dam the larger river. Assuming a dam for each mill or cluster of mills, thousands of stones must have been moved.

In Vassalboro in the 1820s, according to an unnamed source quoted in Alma Pierce Robbins’ town history, there were “19 water powers,” presumably dams and presumably at least partly made of stone. Thirteen were on Outlet Stream, which flows north from China Lake through East and North Vassalboro to the Sebasticook; the other six were on Seven Mile Stream, Webber Pond’s outlet into the Kennebec.

Windsor historian Linwood Lowden described the agreement that allowed the building of an 1809 dam across the West Branch of the Sheepscot River, at Maxcy’s Mills, in Windsor. Cornelius Maguire and Joseph Linscott signed a 15-year lease allowing Joseph Bowman, from Gardiner, to dam the river and build a sawmill.

Bowman’s lease included land on each bank to anchor the dam, and “the right to as much gravel, dirt, timber or stones” as he needed, except he could not cut pine or oak. Other Windsor streams also had mills; the remains of some of the mill dams were visible in 1993, Lowden wrote.

Robbins and Dowe mentioned another use for stone: building bridges. Robbins found that an 1831 town meeting voted to build a stone bridge “near Jacob Southwick’s plaster mill.” In 1841, Dowe wrote, Palermo town meeting voters appointed a three-man committee to oversee construction of a 640-foot-long bridge “of stone covered with earth,” a four-year project.

Stone has multiple meanings, and historians seldom specify what size, shape or material they’re talking about. Stones interrupting plowing are not the same as the stone in Thomas Saban’s Palermo quarry “near the head of Sheepscot Lake” that Dowe described.

Dowe wrote: “Here the stone was found in layers of various thicknesses all standing on edge from the upheaval of the earth centuries ago. To obtain any size wanted the stone was drilled and wedged.” The two specific uses he cited were steps and well covers.

(Wikipedia provides engineering information on wedging. The process could work several ways. If the stone had natural cracks, steel wedges were hammered into the cracks to split the stone into desired sizes. If there were no cracks, the quarryman made some. He drilled a row of holes, into which he inserted conical wedges called plugs and flat wedges called feathers and hammered them; or, one source says, he put wooden plugs with the feathers and wetted the plugs so that they expanded and broke the stone.)

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Bricks, their production and uses, were the focus of last week’s article, and, as usual, your writer found more than a page’s worth of information, so this week’s installment will continue the topic.

Robbins tossed off a comment in her Vassalboro history, in a section on early settlers: “Bricks were a great business, developed almost as soon as the sawmills according to most histories of Maine. (The town records confirm this statement.)”

There were several brickyards in Palermo, Dowe said. One, not long after 1800, was on the Marden brothers’ property (presumably in the Marden Hill area, east of Branch Pond); they sold their bricks to neighbors for “chimneys; fireplaces and brick ovens.” A mixture of ashes and clay made mortar, Dowe added.

Another 19th-century brickyard was “in the meadow… where clay was very plentiful” on the Sumner Leeman farm near Greeley Corner, the intersection of what is now Route 3 with Turner Ridge Road, east of the head of Sheepscot Lake.

Sidney had at least one brickyard in 1780. The quotation from Robbins’ Vassalboro history about the importance of brickmaking was in reference to a proposed road on the west side of the Kennebec River (in what became the separate town of Sidney in 1792) that was to follow a way already in use “on the east side of the Brick Kiln at Dudley Does.”

Kingsbury in his Kennebec County history and Alice Hammond in her Sidney history agreed Sidney had many clay deposits. As Kingsbury put it, “wherever bricks were wanted for one or more buildings in times past, when wood for burning them was always at hand, they were made in that locality.” Kingsbury said one yard (perhaps Doe’s) was producing “excellent brick” before 1800.

Hammond mentioned two houses on Middle Road made of brick, reportedly from a nearby brickyard by a brook, and three early River Road farms with brickyards. Perhaps citing Kingsbury, she wrote that in 1860 Nathaniel Chase’s bricks from the Bailey farm (one early Bailey farm was Paul and Betsy’s, on River Road across the Kennebec from Riverside in Vassalboro) “were transported by flat boat to the Augusta market.”

In Vassalboro, Robbins wrote that the Farwell family, Isaac (1704 – 1795) and his son Ebenezer, acquired large tracts in the southern part of town in the 1760s. Their holdings included land around Seven Mile Stream, where they built early mills, and extended south; Isaac built for Ebenezer the large house with white columns called Seven Oaks, still standing on the east (river) side of Riverside Drive (Route 201) near the Augusta line.

Robbins wrote that Isaac’s first house was near a brook – probably Seven Mile Stream – on which he built “a grist mill, saw mill and brick kilns.”

(Another prominent family in southeastern Vassalboro were the Browns, Benjamin and his son Benjamin, Jr. Robbins did considerable research to record their contributions to the town and the area. Riverview, their 1796 one-and-a-half-story Cape house on Riverside Drive, has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2001.

(Robbins wrote that when Benjamin Brown needed bricks for fireplaces in his “large and quite handsome tavern” that he built sometime before he became postmaster in 1817, he imported them from England. Were the Farwell kilns closed by then? Quite likely; or perhaps the Farwell bricks were not to Brown’s taste.)

And here is another question Robbins raised: did “John DeGrucia, brickmaker,” make bricks in Vassalboro in the 1770s? She wrote that in 1769, DeGrucia “gave bond for forty pounds to Samuel Howard, mariner, for land on the east side of the river on Lot No. 80”; she didn’t mention him again. (Lot 80 is one tier inland from the Kennebec River and about half-way toward Vassalboro’s north boundary.)

In 1806, Robbins found, town meeting voters elected a “Surveyor of Bricks,” apparently for the first time.

When John D. Lang started his first woolen mill, in North Vassalboro, in 1850, Kingsbury wrote that he bought and moved a tannery building. Then he had a brick kiln built on the site, “and after the brick were burned the walls of the mill were built around it.” The mill was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Oct. 5, 2020.

Your writer was unable to find information about Windsor brick production in available sources. Kingsbury made one reference: Thomas Le Ballister, from Bristol, acquired 300 acres in southeastern Windsor and built a log cabin around 1793. When he upgraded to a frame house about 1803, “The chimney was laid with the first bricks manufactured in Windsor.”

In Winslow, Kingsbury listed eight or nine places with “good clay for making brick,” identifying their locations by their pre-1892 owners. A major operation started in 1873 was by 1892 Horace Purinton & Co., with a workforce of 15 and an annual production of 1.5 million bricks.

Kingsbury also described a series of mills built by men named Runnals, Norcross and Hayden on a stream he did not name (identifying it by the mills still operating in 1892). Other sources’ information on the family names suggest it might be Chaffee Brook, which runs into the Kennebec in southern Winslow.

Hayden’s mill dam backed up the stream to make Hayden Mill Pond, and Kingsbury wrote that on one side of the pond was a bed of clay good enough to make pottery. William Hussey, a skilled potter, and Ambrose Bruce started a pottery factory in the late 1820s.

Kingsbury wrote that Hussey’s earthenware was popular – “Most of the milk pans then in use by the housewives in this section were his handiwork.” Unfortunately, according to Kingsbury, Hussey was “[t]oo fond of convivial enjoyments” and drank up so much of the proceeds that the pottery went out of business.

William Hussey is listed in Lura Woodside Watkins’ Early New England Potters and Their Wares, originally published in 1950.

Winslow buildings using brick that Kingsbury mentioned included a century-old house standing in 1892, made of brick from an adjacent yard “near the river two miles above Ticonic falls”; and an early tavern “in a house with a brick front” south of the junction of the Sebasticook River. The Hollingsworth and Whitney mill building, under construction as Kingsbury finished his history, required 2,500,000 bricks, he said.

Winslow’s brick schoolhouse on Cushman Road, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was described in the Jan. 28, 2021, issue of The Town Line. Two other brick school buildings in Winslow were mentioned in the Oct. 28, 2021 issue.

Update on Fairfield Center’s Victor Grange

Members of Victor Grange #49, in Fairfield Center, organized Oct. 29, 1874, continue to make progress on rehabbing their Grange Hall, which dates from 1903 (see the May 13, 2021, issue of The Town Line). The Grange’s July newsletter reports the building is insulated and as of mid-June has a ventilation system.

The next ambitious project is to have the ground-level hardwood floors professionally refinished, Grange Lecturer Barbara Bailey believes for the first time ever. Grange members need volunteers to help move the furniture from the building to a storage trailer on July 24, beginning about 11 a.m., and will need them again to move everything back about two weeks later. They offer hot dogs and hamburgers to the July 24 crew.

Funds have been donated; Timmy’s Trailers, aka C and J Trailer Repair and Towing, of Fairfield, has loaned the trailer; and Pro Movers, of Waterville, will move out, store and return two pianos.

As a fundraising effort, Grangers are selling more than six dozen 1880s chairs from the organization’s early days, at $10 apiece.

The newsletter writers expressed their appreciation to community members who support the Grange and included the weekly and monthly schedule of ongoing public events. People listed as sources of information about Grange activities are Rita, 453-2945; Roger or Wanda, 453-7193; Marilyn, 453-6937; Deb, 453-4844; Barb, 453-9476; Rick or Lurline, 453-2082; Janice, 453-2266; Steve, 347-254-8556; Anastasia, 835-1930; Tina, 649-5396; and Sherry, 238-0334. The email address is Victorgrange49@gmail.com

Main sources

Dowe, Milton E., History Town of Palermo Incorporated 1884 (1954).
Hammond, Alice, History of Sidney Maine 1792-1992 (1992).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892),
Lowden, Linwood H., good Land & fine Contrey but Poor roads a history of Windsor, Maine (1993).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).

Lake Association Annual Meetings 2022

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Image Credit: chinalakeassociation.org

2022 Lake Association Annual Meetings

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SHEEPSCOT LAKE ASSN.
THURSDAY, JULY 21
7 p.m.
Palermo Consolidated School
Route 3

CHINA LAKE
SATURDAY, JULY 30
9 – 10:30 a.m.
China Middle School
Lakeview Drive

WEBBER POND
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13
10 a.m.
Vassalboro Community School
Webber Pond Road

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To be included in this list, contact The Town Line at townline@fairpoint.net.

Vassalboro school board elects new chairman

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Vassalboro Community School (contributed photo)

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro School Board members began their June 21 meeting by electing Jolene Gamage chairman, succeeding Kevin Levasseur, with Jessica Clark vice chairman, and proceeded through routine business.

Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer reported the 2021-22 year ended well, with field trips, a student concert and the annual eighth-grade promotion ceremony. He thanked all the staff, including the new substitute teachers who made in-school classes possible; the parent-teacher association; and everyone else who made a difficult year successful.

Pfeiffer said summer plans include hiring new people to fill staff vacancies and the usual building maintenance, which will feature interior painting. Board members unanimously gave him authority to issue contracts to new personnel from June 22 through Sept. 15.

Speaking for finance director Paula Pooler, Pfeiffer said the Vassalboro school department will end the fiscal year on June 30 with the budget in the black. The exact amount to be carried forward won’t be known until final bills are paid.

Board members approved the proposed 2022-23 school calendar, which has classes beginning Sept. 1. The calendar is on the school’s website, vcsvikings.org.

The website says summer school begins June 27, and from June 27 through Aug. 19 Vassalboro Community School will offer free lunches to residents under 21 years old. Hours are 11 to 11:20 a.m., Monday through Friday, except July 4.

The Vassalboro School Board will not meet in July; the next meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 16. It will be preceded by a workshop beginning at 5 p.m.

VASSALBORO: Redmond to head select board; church scheduled for demolition

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Razing scheduled for July 13. (The Town Line file photo)

by Mary Grow

At newly-elected Vassalboro select board member Frederick “Rick” Denico, Jr.’s first meeting June 23, he and Chris French promptly and unanimously elected Barbara Redmond, senior member of the board, as the new chairman.

Discussion at the lengthy meeting covered planned demolition of the condemned former church building on Priest Hill Road in North Vassalboro; improvements at the transfer station; and end-of-fiscal-year matters, including appointments to town positions for the new fiscal year that begins July 1.

Town Manager Mary Sabins said she has agreed with Mickey Wing, of Casella Waste Management, that his company will demolish the former church, in North Vassalboro, on Wednesday, July 13, and remove the debris, for $14,500.

An order to property owner Chad Caron, prepared by town attorney Kristin Collins and served on June 23, told Caron that any personal property he does not take away before July 13 will be removed. A camper and four vehicles in the yard will also be removed if they are in the way of the demolition, and Caron will be billed for removal and storage.

Sabins said she asked Road Commissioner Eugene Field to block off the lower section of Priest Hill Road for as long as necessary on July 13. Police Chief Mark Brown plans to be present, probably accompanied by a deputy sheriff.

Audience members pointed out dangerous situations on the property. Sabins said she would pass on their information to Wing.

Board members also discussed a non-agenda item, water companies in town, at the instigation of resident Marshall Crandall.

Crandall said Kennebec Water District and the East Vassalboro Water Company are taking up space, limiting use of waterfront property, banning swimming in China Lake’s east basin and generally preventing residents from enjoying a premier natural resource.

He did not expect select board members to do anything about it; he wanted townspeople to get more control, specifically over the East Vassalboro Water Company that serves his household.

Company President Donald Robbins said the company is for sale. He offered two suggestions: a group or individual investor could buy it, with Public Utilities Commission approval (“it’s a good investment,” he said); or customers could band together to create an association or a water district chartered by the Maine legislature. Crandall said he had already spoken with state representative Richard Bradstreet.

Select board members took no action.

Nor did they make a decision on providing a cover for the new compactor at the transfer station. They asked station manager George Hamar to develop some concepts, and agreed to carry forward money left over from improvements made in 2022 into the new fiscal year.

Sabins presented a long list of appointments to town boards and committees, plus herself as town manager and to three other positions and Ellery Bane as town assessor. Most are re-appointments.

There is a vacancy on the planning board, Sabins said; Betsy Poulin has resigned, Paul Mitnik will be moved from alternate member to full member and a new alternate is needed. Three people have expressed interest.

Board members talked about whether they should have candidates fill out applications, or interview the candidates, or both; and about how the present planning board members should be involved in the selection. They decided to ask the current members to review the candidates and afterwards consider what, if anything, select board members should do.

Recreation committee member Melissa Olson said two members of that committee do not want to continue, and Ryan Reed is interested. With these and a few other changes, select board members approve the list, with thanks to the many residents willing to volunteer.

Sabins said she has had three inquiries, one very promising, about the newly-created staff position of program director, to coordinate recreation and related programs.

At the June 14 balloting, 239 voters in a straw poll told select board members they would like to see a new town ordinance to govern commercial solar development; 58 voters said no to the idea. French has collected other towns’ ordinances as guides, and hopes the board will have a Vassalboro ordinance ready to submit to voters on Nov. 8.

The next regular Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 14.

Erskine Academy’s Paige Reed named America’s Most Spirited Student for 2022

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Paige Reed, front, surrounded by cheerleading coaches, from left to right, Tarsha Donar, Julie Wing and Amy Rau. (contributed photo)

Submitted by Amy Rau

Varsity Brands, the national driving force behind cheerleading’s transformation into the high-energy, athletic activity it is today, has named Erskine Academy senior Paige Reed America’s Most Spirited Student for 2022. The award program celebrates schools, organizations, and individuals that go above and beyond to build school pride, student engagement, and community spirit, and carries with it a $3,000 cash prize.

Reed’s classmates voted her as “most school spirited” earlier in the year, recognizing her love for Erskine Academy and its community of students, faculty, and staff.

Reed, of Vassalboro, was nominated for Varsity Brands’ award by her cheerleading coaches Amy Rau and Julie Wing, and her school advisor Shara MacDonald. The nominators penned the required 500-word essay, solicited letters of recommendation, and gathered “spirited photos” of Reed in action.

On June 1, Reed joined other finalists from across the country for a virtual awards presentation, viewed by Rau, Wing, and MacDonald, who were anxiously awaiting results. The three fought back the tears when hearing Reed named Varsity Brands’ Most Spirited Student in America, and accepting the award on her behalf, as she could not accept it while recovering from a stem cell transplant as part of her battle with a second bout of leukemia. Early in the school year and following a 12-year remission, the Reed family and Erskine community were shocked yet united by the resurgence of leukemia affecting Paige. Subsequently, Reed endured several months of chemotherapy, lumbar punctures, and stem cell transplant with cells donated by her hero brother, Seth.

Paige and her journey, entitled Paige Power, became well known by the outpouring of support and good will through fundraisers, benefits, and gatherings, particularly within the cheerleading and basketball communities, all worthy yet bittersweet. “It is a welcome change to be in the news at this time to celebrate the positive for Paige,” said cheerleading coach and nominator Rau.

Paige is currently home from Boston and recovering well. Coach Wing was able to Facetime her about the award, and with the news, she was back to her sassy, fierce teenage self. The entire EA community cannot wait until she is well enough for visitors and when she returns to her friends and teachers in her special and favorite place, Erskine Academy.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Native Americans – Part 4

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Early drawing – An Indian Campsite At The “Rips” On Cobbossee Stream, Maine, Circa 1750.

by Mary Grow

East side of and away from the Kennebec

Last week’s article talked about Native American sites along the Kennebec River between Fairfield and Sidney on the west bank, but the east bank between Ticonic (Winslow) and Cushnoc (Augusta) was skipped for lack of space. This week’s article will remedy the omission by talking about Vassalboro and about sites inland on the east side of the river (as was done for the west side last week).

Vassalboro either was popular with the Kennebec tribe or has been more thoroughly explored than other areas (or both), because various histories mention several areas connected with Native Americans, including at least one Native American burial ground on the Kennebec.

Alma Pierce Robbins, in her Vassalboro history, quoted a historian of the Catholic Church in Maine who claimed Mount Tom was an “Indian Cemetery.” Mount Tom is now in the Annie Sturgis Sanctuary a little north of Riverside, on the section of old Route 201 between the present highway and the river named Cushnoc Road.

Charles E. Nash, in the chapter on Native Americans in Kingsbury’s Kennebec County history, reported a large burial ground north of the mouth of Seven Mile Stream (or Brook), which runs from the southwest corner of Webber Pond to join the Kennebec at Riverside.

Kingsbury himself, in his chapter on Vassalboro, suggested that Robbins’ source and Nash were talking about the same site. Kingsbury wrote that the burial ground was the south side of Mount Tom, “sloping to the brook, on the Sturgis farm.” Artifacts and bones were still “plentiful” there in 1892, he said.

Nash wrote that the Native American name for Seven Mile Brook was Magorgoomagoosuck. James North, in his history of Augusta, spelled it Magorgomagarick.

The pestle was used against the mortar for crushing and grinding and were commonly used for meal preparations such as reducing grain and corn into wheat and meal. Mortar and pestles would have also been used in the preparing of medicine as well as the manufacturing of paint.

An undated on-line copy of a University of Michigan document titled Antiquities of the New England Indians includes descriptions and photographs of a variety of artifacts, including knives, axes and mortars and pestles. The writer explained that mortars and pestles, either wooden or stone, were essential for crushing dried corn kernels.

One pestle that the writer particularly admired came from Vassalboro, and when the description was written it was owned by Kennebec Historical Society. It is now in the Maine State Museum, according to KHS archivist Emily Schroeder.

The pestle is described as 28.5 inches long, made of green slate, topped with a small human head. The illustration shows an almost round head, with oval eyes, a nose indicated by two straight lines with a connecting line at the bottom and a pursed mouth. The writer said the lower half of the pestle was found near Seven Mile Brook; the upper half was found a few miles away four years later, and “The two pieces fitted perfectly together.”

The pestle was broken intentionally, the writer asserted. He wondered whether the destruction of what could be seen as an idol was related to the nearby seventeenth-century Catholic mission.

There are also references to a Native American site farther north along the river, on the section of old Route 201 called Dunham Road.

Robbins wrote that many artifacts had been found on the shores of Webber Pond – so many, she said, that cottages built around 1900 used them as trim around fireplaces.

The major Native American site in Vassalboro located and partly investigated to date was at the outlet of China Lake in East Vassalboro, partly on property on the east side of the foot of the lake and the east bank of Outlet Stream owned for generations by the Cates family. The Vassalboro Historical Society museum in the former East Vassalboro schoolhouse has a room dedicated to information about and artifacts from the site.

According to the exhibit, the area was occupied at least sporadically from 10,000 years ago until Europeans displaced the Native Americans. Different types of tools, weapons and houses are displayed or illustrated and explained. Alewives were harvested at the China Lake outlet 5,000 years ago.

Correspondence on exhibit shows that the Maine Historic Preservation Commission listed the Cates farm site as a protected archaeological site on the Maine Register of Historic Places in the fall of 1989, as requested by George Cates.

The part of China Lake that is in the Town of China was also frequented by Native Americans. The town’s comprehensive plan says the Maine Historic Preservation Commission has found prehistoric sites on two islands in the lake, Indian Island in the east basin and Bradley Island in the west basin (plus one at the north end of Three Mile Pond, and an accompanying map shows a fourth site on Dutton Road). Commission staff think it “highly likely” that there are other sites in town, especially along waterways.

According to the China bicentennial history, the lake was part of one of the Native Americans’ routes inland from the coast in the fall. After final seafood feasts, people would paddle up the Sheepscot to a place about two and a half miles south of China Lake, portage to the south end of the lake and paddle northwest to the outlet in Vassalboro. From there Outlet Stream carried them to the Sebasticook and then to the Kennebec at Ticonic.

The Kennebecs left behind on the west shore of the southern part of the lake’s east basin a heart shape carved into a boulder. World-famous Quaker Rufus Jones, of China, told a story about this carving several times, including as a chapter in Maine Indians in History and Legends.

Jones began by warning readers that his version of The Romance of the Indian Heart is part history and part imagination. He refused to say which was which.

The legend features a Kennebec brave named Keriberba, son of Chief Bomazeen (or Bomaseen, mentioned in the June 9 article in this series), from Norridgewock, and his wife Nemaha, from Pemaquid, whom he met at one of the annual seafood feasts at Damariscotta.

Coming home from the coast, Keriberba, Nemaha and their companions stopped to roast and eat the last clams on the west shore of China Lake’s east basin by “a large sentinel granite rock” from the glacial age. They continued to Norridgewock, where Father Sebastian Rale married them beneath a picture of the Sacred Heart that hung above the altar.

Nemaha immediately organized a group named “The Sisters of the Sacred Heart,” Jones wrote. The women took lessons from Father Rale and hosted an annual feast.

When the British soldiers made their final and successful attack on Norridgewock in August 1724, Keriberba and a few other young men “escaped across the river.” Nemaha grabbed the picture of the Sacred Heart from the church and with others of her sisterhood ran to a secret hiding place in the woods.

The next morning the two groups reunited. After burying Bomazeen, Father Rale and others, they gathered up what the British had left of their belongings and went back to settle at the feasting spot on China Lake.

Jones described the 300-year-old pines that sheltered their wigwams, and the shrine they built for the Sacred Heart picture that became “the center of their religion.” The importance of the picture was reinforced when, one evening, Keriberba called across the lake, “Le sacré Coeur,” (“the sacred heart” in Father Rale’s native French). His words echoed back to him across the water.

Jones wrote that he too had experienced the echo, from the place on the shore that repeats whole sentences. But to the Kennebecs, it seemed to be the voice of the Great Spirit. From then on, Keriberba called every evening and they were comforted by the reply.

Jones described years of living in peace, traveling to Norridgewock to grow corn (because they could not clear enough land by the lake), hunting deer, moose and an occasional bear, importing clams that fed muskrats (both edible), netting and smoking alewives. As children were born and grew up, the group became larger.

One night, a storm destroyed the Sacred Heart shrine and blew the picture into the lake, where it turned to pulp. The next day, Keriberba began carving a recreation of the sacred heart into the granite rock.

When his picture was finished, the group feasted and danced until late at night. Before they went to bed, Keriberba stood beside his carving and shouted, “Le sacré coeur” – and the words came back just as they should.

There is a little more to Jones’ story; it will be continued next week.

* * * * * *

Your writer has found only bits and pieces of information about Native Americans in the areas now included in the towns of Albion, Clinton and Palermo, and nothing from Windsor.

The 2004 report on the archaeological survey around Unity Wetlands and along the Sheepscot River, reprinted on line and mentioned last week, cited a person named Willoughby who, in a 1986 publication, described one pre-European relic from Albion. The reference is to “an isolated Indian artifact recovered by a farmer in the town of Albion – a ‘mask-like sculpture’ of sandstone with pecked and incised eyes, mouth, and other facial lines. It is unclear if the portable rock sculpture was found within the Unity Wetlands study area or simply nearby.”

A photo of what is almost certainly the same sculpture, described as “found while digging potatoes in Albion, Maine” appears in the on-line Antiquities of the New England Indians. The writer described the head as sandstone, about 10 inches long by two inches thick at the thickest point.

The writer continued, “Its natural smooth surface was used for the face, and the rougher fractured surface of the back was smoothed by pecking.” The face tapers to a chin; ears round out on either side; two small round dark eyes each has a circular outline; a smaller dark circle represents the nose; and parallel horizontal lines make a slightly off-center mouth.

The writer described traces of red pigment on the front and yellow pigment on the back. He surmised the effigy came from a grave.

Clinton’s 2006 comprehensive plan says the Maine Historic Preservation Commission had found four prehistoric sites within the town boundaries, one on the Kennebec River, one on the Sebasticook River and two on Carrabassett Stream. Commission staff suggested waterside archaeological surveys. The 2021 plan gives no new information.

Palermo historian Millard Howard doubted there were permanent Native settlements within the boundaries of present-day Palermo, either before or after 1763, because, he wrote, most settlements were on rivers like the Kennebec or the lower Sheepscot.

Kerry Hardy’s map of Native American trails converging on Cushnoc shows one from the coast near Rockland that crosses the east branch of the Sheepscot River a little north of Sheepscot Pond, about where Route 3 now runs east-west a bit south of the middle of town.

Linwood Lowden began his history of the Town of Windsor with the first European settlers. Because the Sheepscot River running out of Long Pond is in southeastern Windsor, including the junction of Travel Brook, it seems likely that parts of the town would have been at least a Native American travel route, if not home to settlements.

Main sources

Grow, Mary M. China, Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions (1984).
Hardy, Kerry, Notes on a Lost Flute: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki (2009).
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).
Maine Writers Research Club, Maine Indians in History and Legends (1952).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).

Websites, miscellaneous.

Vassalboro election results (Spring 2022)

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by Mary Grow

Vassalboro Town Clerk Cathy Coyne reported the following June 9 local election results.

Frederick “Rick” Denico, Jr., was elected to the select board with 269 votes. He succeeds Robert Browne, who did not seek another term.

For school board, Jessica Clark was re-elected with 227 votes, and newcomer Amy French received 213 votes. French succeeds Kevin Levasseur, who is also retiring.

There were no contests for any position. Coyne said on the ballot for each board, there were seven write-in votes for various people and 15 voters turned in blank ballots.

Voters reaffirmed the 2022-23 Vassalboro school budget approved at the June 6 open town meeting with 235 votes in favor and 55 opposed.

On a straw poll question asking if voters want select board members to draft a new town ordinance to regulate future commercial solar installations, 239 voters said yes and 58 said no. Any ordinance would become effective only after voters approve it.

Vassalboro select board authorizes church demolition

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Following an executive session, Vassalboro select board unanimously authorized Town Manager Mary Sabins to negotiate and sign a contract to have the building taken down and the remains taken away. (The Town Line file photo by Roland D. Hallee)

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro select board members began their June 9 meeting with a party, recognizing retiring board chairman Robert Browne’s final meeting.

After the cake and cold drinks, they went into executive session with town attorney Kristin Collins to discuss demolition of the former church in North Vassalboro.

Vassalboro select board chairman Rob Browne was recognized at his final board meeting. (photo courtesy of Mary Sabins)

After the executive session, they unanimously authorized Town Manager Mary Sabins to negotiate and sign a contract to have the building taken down and the remains taken away. The focus will be on removing the building, which has been declared dangerous; accumulated items on the grounds will be moved as necessary to provide access to the building.

Board members discussed details like making sure property-owner Chad Caron is notified and providing a police escort for the demolition contractor. North Vassalboro resident Raymond Breton urged caution around the many sharp, heavy and damaged objects on the lot.

Caron reportedly has an alternative storage area on Reynolds Road. Select board member Barbara Redmond said he will be given reasonable time to move more things there if he wants to.

The land will remain Caron’s, Redmond said. The town will bill him for demolition costs.

In other business June 9, by a unanimous vote select board members adopted the Compensation Administration Policy they discussed earlier in the year, establishing a salary scale for town employees.

Sabins reported the contracts for hauling bulky waste and municipal solid waste (MSW) from the transfer station to disposal sites expire in August. She proposed either seeking new bids, or negotiating with the current contractors for one-year extensions.

Sabins said transfer station manager George Hamar is satisfied with the current haulers, and as far as she knows they are satisfied. Select board members unanimously authorized her to negotiate for one-year contract extensions.

North Vassalboro resident Lauchlin Titus asked Sabins to ask haulers to remind their drivers to obey speed limits. Sabins said she had done so once years ago without a problem.

Sabins shared another truck-related issue raised by fire department members: a tractor-trailer intermittently parked near the food pantry and the North Vassalboro fire station threatens to damage fresh pavement. Police Chief Mark Brown intends to talk with the driver.

Select board member Chris French asked Brown for statistics on crime in Vassalboro, leading to a discussion of whether it is time to repeat the neighborhood watch type program organized in North Vassalboro about a decade ago. Brown urged residents to report suspicious activities to law enforcement professional and to leave action to them.

Vassalboro Legion Post Commander Tom Richards raised another North Vassalboro question: who owns the flagpole that stands with the stone monuments in front of the former North Vassalboro school, former town office and former health center? Breton now owns the land and building.

Richards said the Legion Post replaced the flagpole recently. Having little money and no fund-raising plans – there are only about 25 members, “and you’re looking at about the youngest one,” Richards explained – the Post had billed the town.

At Sabins’ suggestion, select board members approved closing the transfer station Sunday, June 19, for the new Juneteenth holiday. The town office will be closed Monday, June 20, to observe the holiday.

The next regular Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 23.

VCS names three new staff

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Vassalboro Community School (contributed photo)

At a short special meeting June 6, Vassalboro School Board members hired three new staff members, Chairman Kevin Levasseur reported.

Joining the Vassalboro Community School staff are assistant principal Tabitha Brewer, SLP (speech-language pathologist) Madison Morneault and school counselor Gina Davis.

The next regular Vassalboro School Board meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 21.