Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part 14

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The battleship USS Maine.

by Mary Grow

Mexican & Spanish-American

The wars on which this series has provided information so far began with fighting against the European power that once claimed the United States and continued with the 1861-1865 war between two parts of the United States.

Ongoing were a third category, wars the United States’ founders fought to establish and expand its land area. From their first arrival in the 1600s, Europeans pushed aside the Native Americans, from the eastern seaboard first and the rest of the continent later.

(Consequences of those years persist as Natives reclaim parts of their historic home. See, for example, here in Maine the restoration to the Passamaquoddy tribe of 140 acres of the 150-acre Kuwesuwi Monihq, Pine Island [or White’s Island], in Big Lake.)

Starting with 13 states facing the Atlantic Ocean, the country reached to the Pacific with the 1850 admission of California. Adding Utah in 1896 brought the number of states in the continental United States to 45 by the end of the 19th century. Oklahoma was added in 1907, Arizona and New Mexico in 1912.

Alaska went from a territory to state in January 1959. Hawaii became the 50th state in August of the same year.

Two formally declared wars were part of 19th century growth, one with Mexico (April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848) that added land in the southwest and one with Spain (April 21 – December 10, 1898) that gave the United States its first overseas territories.

(Liberia, in west Africa, was settled beginning in 1820 by former slaves from the United States, under the auspices of the American Colonization Society [ACS]. The historical consensus is that it was never a United States colony or possession; in fact, Wikipedia says, “The United States government declined to act upon requests from the ACS to make Liberia an American colony or to establish a formal protectorate over Liberia, but it did exercise a ‘moral protectorate’ over Liberia, intervening when threats manifested towards Liberian territorial expansion or sovereignty.” Liberia became an independent country on July 26, 1847.)

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Wikipedia explains that the prelude to the war between the United States and Mexico was the declaration of independence by residents of part of northern Mexico in 1836. The Battle of the Alamo in late February and early March 1836 was part of that struggle.

Mexico did not recognize Texas as an independent republic. The United States (and Britain and France) did. Most Texans, Wikipedia says, were willing to join the United States, and after political maneuvering, Texas became a state on Dec. 29, 1845.

In the spring of 1846, President James Polk sent United States military forces into the new state. Mexican forces resisted, leading to battles in April and May followed by a May 13 United States declaration of war.

A series of battles stretching as far west as present-day California led to United States occupation of major Mexican cities, including in September 1847 Mexico City. The war was officially ended by the Feb. 2, 1848, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico gave up the area that, Wikipedia says, became “the present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming.”

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The proximate case of the Spanish-American War was the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor on Feb. 15, 1898. Built at the navy yard in Brooklyn, at a cost of almost $4.7 million, and commissioned Sept. 17, 1895, she was the first ship named in honor of the State of Maine.

Wikipedia says the Maine had been sent to protect United States interests as Cubans fought for independence from Spain. Later in 1898, a naval inquiry concluded a bomb had been the cause; but, Wikipedia says, some naval officers suggested instead an internal explosion in a coal bunker. A 1974 re-investigation supported their theory. Wikipedia says the cause of the sinking “remains a subject of debate.”

Meanwhile, however, United States opinion had settled immediately on Spain as the villain. With “Remember the Maine!” as its battle cry, Congress approved a declaration of war on April 21, 1898. Fighting in Cuba and in the Spanish possessions of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines was over by August. On Dec. 10, 1898, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and gave the United States the former Spanish territories.

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The effects of the Mexican War and the Spanish-American War in Maine were slight. Exceptions would be the few families with members who served, who had connections with the affected areas or were otherwise involved on a personal level.

In his history of the State of Maine, Louis Hatch didn’t mention the Mexican War. About the Spanish-American War, he wrote that in response to President William McKinley’s call for volunteers, Maine sent “one regiment of infantry, four batteries of heavy artillery and a signal corps, amounting in all to 1,717 non-commissioned officers and men.”

Other Maine men volunteered, and Portland’s and Bath’s “volunteer naval reserve associations” were “mustered into United States service,” Hatch wrote. The troops assembled in Augusta. He said nothing about casualties.

The 1898 Maine Adjutant General’s report, found on line, has long lists of Kennebec Valley volunteers.

Most local historians omit any mention of either war. Two exceptions are Alma Pierce Robbins, in her Vassalboro history, and General Isaac Bangs, in the military history chapter of Edwin Whittemore’s Waterville history.

Robbins wrote that when the “off and on” Mexican border dispute led to the United States declaration of war in 1846, not many people in Vassalboro cared. “Those who had gone west and those who were ‘tired of farming’ did go,” she wrote.

In the 1890s, as tension with Spain mounted preceding the Spanish-American War, Vassalboro was involved in national military exercises.

“Encampments and ‘war games’ were encouraged everywhere,” Robbins wrote. Massachusetts troops came “to compete with Maine men to demonstrate proficiencies in military techniques, with official sanction.”

Some of the encampments were on Horace Sturgis’ River Road farm. Robbins’ history includes a photograph of then-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt’s mounted Rough Riders in front of Sam Mitchell’s house on the River Road at Riverside in 1897, as they recruited area volunteers.

About the actual war Robbins was silent. But, she said, names of Vassal­boro residents who died in the Spanish-American War and World War I share a bronze plaque on the bridge at North Vassalboro.

The plaque has been moved since Robbins’ history was published in 1971 and is now on the larger of the two stones in the memorial on Main Street, in North Vassalboro. The memorial sits in front of the large building that used to be the North Vassalboro schoolhouse, then the town office and later a health clinic.

The names from 1898 are Prince Bessey, John O. Brown, Alton M. Lord, Andrew Peterson, Agra Pooler (state military re­cords list his name as Ogra), Fred Pooler, Bert J. Priest, Charles H. Priest, Charles H. Simpson, David Simpson and William J. Surman.

Prince Manter Bessey

Robbins erred when she wrote that all these men died in the Spanish-American war; your writer has found post-war information about several of them.

On-line sources say Prince M. Bessey was born Sept. 14, 1879, in China, Maine. On May 17, 1898, he enlisted from Augusta as a private in Battery A, Maine Volunteer Artillery Battalion; he was discharged May 31, 1899, in Savannah, Georgia.

After the war Bessey lived in North Vassalboro from 1907 to 1911. He worked as a salesman in several places, including Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he met and married Nora Smith in 1920. After he retired from Gimbel’s Depart­ment Store in 1948, the couple moved to Nora’s home town, Ceredo, West Virginia, where he died.

Charles Henry Priest was born July 12, 1881, in East Vassalboro, and died June 27, 1960. He is buried in Priest Hill Cemetery.

Peterson and Fred Pooler were privates in Battery A; each was 19 when he enlisted. Both Poolers were reportedly born in Waterville. Ogra or Agra Pooler, who enlisted at 21, was a North Vassalboro resident.

David Simpson, a Waterville native, was 24 when he enlisted. Surman was 27; his birthplace is listed as Dover, England.

Most Battery A men were from Lewiston or Auburn. In addition to those from Vassalboro, an on-line list includes First Lieutenant and Assistant Surgeon Robert J. Martin and Privates Harvey J. Libby, Nathan T. Shaw, of Augusta. Bangs’ chapter in Whittemore’s history gives names of a dozen privates from Waterville in Battery A, including Joseph Butler, who enlisted May 17, 1898, and deserted at Fort Popham July 16, and another deserter named Edward Lessor.

Battery C included 21 more Waterville men and smaller numbers from Augusta and Fairfield.

Bangs added a list of a dozen Waterville men who served in the First Maine Infantry in the Spanish-American War. William J. Surman is one of them. In the Maine Adjutant-General’s Report for the year 1901, Ogra Pooler, Charles H. Priest and William J. Surman are listed among Company D men who received $22 each in “Extra Pay of Maine Volunteers.”

The war with Spain continued until 1902 in what some historians call the Philippine-American War, as the United States consolidated its power over those islands. It was an appropriate introduction to the 20th – and 21st – centuries, as one country or ideology after another used – and uses – force against others.

Update from Brown Memorial Library in Clinton

The Dec. 2, 2021, article in this series talked about the Brown Memorial Library in Clinton, named in honor of William Wentworth Brown (April 19, 1821 – Oct. 22, 1911). The article said that Brown gave the library a portrait of himself by Frederic (or Frederick) Porter Vinton (Jan. 29, 1846 – May 19, 1911); in November 2021, the portrait had been sent away for cleaning.

William Wentworth Brown

It is now back on the wall, and assistant library director Cindy Lowell says she and Director Cheryl Dickey-Whitish are very pleased. Mr. Brown is “holding a pair of red gloves you couldn’t even see before,” she said. The head of his cane is visible and his hair and beard have turned from salt-and-pepper to almost pure white.

The following information is copied from the March-April 2022 issue of the Clinton Community Newsletter.

“The Trustees of the Brown Memorial Library recently had Mr. Brown’s very large 100-year-old portrait sent to a professional art restoration company for cleaning. Last week the portrait was returned to its place of honor displaying new details that were previously hidden by layers of coal dust!”

The newsletter has a color picture of the portrait and invites area residents to stop in to see it, an invitation Lowell seconds.

Brown Memorial Library is at 53 Railroad Street, in Clinton, on the east side of the street a block north of Main Street (Route 100).

Main sources

Hatch, Louis Clinton, ed., Maine: A History 1919 ((facsimile, 1974)
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971)
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902)

Websites, miscellaneous

Vassalboro budget committee recommendations may not be final; school budget unknown

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by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO, ME — Vassalboro Budget Committee members made their recommendations on the 2022-23 municipal budget at their March 31 meeting. Not all votes were unanimous, and because the school budget is still unknown, committee members did not guarantee their recommendations are final.

Members had varying attitudes toward the school budget. Optimists said the school, like the town, should have enough extra federal revenue so that the proposed 2022-23 budget will not be significantly higher than the current year’s.

If the optimists are wrong, some budget committee members would revisit the municipal budget with the goal of lowering their recommendations, so that the two budgets combined would not increase taxes.

Chairman Rick Denico, Jr., quoted former select board member Lauchlin Titus’s advice: don’t base budget decisions on the mil rate, don’t penalize either the school or the town for the other.

Member William Browne said if the school budget does provide a surprise, anyone on the budget committee who voted in favor of an item can move to reconsider it.

And the final decisions will be up to the voters who attend the June 6 open town meeting, where they will have the option of disregarding any recommendations.

A longer-range pending issue is whether the Vassalboro Select Board will adopt a salary schedule for town employees, following up on a study they commissioned (see The Town Line, March 10, p. 3, and March 24, p. 3).

After discussion of potential costs, and despite Select Board Chairman Robert Browne’s reminder that the select board decides policy issues, Denico called a straw poll and announced that eight of the 10 budget committee members supported the estimated $37,000 additional cost in 2022-23. That figure includes one-time larger raises for employees below scale.

Committee members then proceeded to review Town Manager Mary Sabins’ draft budget and draft warrant for the June 6 part of the annual town meeting item by item. They discussed two articles.

Article 5 in the draft asks voters how much they want to raise and appropriate to support 14 individually-listed town departments or services totaling $2,582,004. Individual figures range from $3,000 for general assistance to $593,925 for public works.

Public works brought concern from budget committee members about paving costs and a question about a recently-announced federal grant to the Maine Department of Transportation, from which $800,000 has been allocated for about three-quarters of a mile of Route 32, in Vassalboro.

Road Foreman Gene Field, from the audience, said he budgeted assuming paving material will cost $85 a ton. That is not a firm price. The large grant, he said, is for road and sidewalk improvements in North Vassalboro in 2024.

The amount proposed for recreation in 2022-23 is $44,327, and for the library, $60,500. Both are significant increases over the current year and both include personnel: Sabins recommends hiring a half-time recreation director, and library trustees want to add hours for the library director, to open the library one more day a week and for programming (see The Town Line, March 24, p. 3).

Sabins told budget committee members she expects the two positions would complement each other, not overlap or compete. The recreation director would organize sports programs on the ballfields and she hopes could also write grants, do long-range planning and help the town in other ways. She is working on a job description for select board review.

Library programs would be intended for residents of all ages, Sabins said.

A motion to recommend a lower library budget was defeated by a one-vote margin.

Draft warrant Article 6 has three fund requests: $20,000 for streamside park development (parking, picnic tables and perhaps other improvements at the town-acquired lot on Outlet Stream and Route 32 between East and North Vassalboro); $25,000 to demolish a dangerous building (the former church on Priest Hill Road in North Vassalboro); and $106,000 for roadside mowing equipment (if obtainable, Field’s recommended attachment for the loader).

Budget committee members endorsed all three, the mowing equipment by a one-vote margin. Field has been renting mowing equipment. He expects rental to cost around $16,000 for two mowings. Omitting a fall cutting one year let roadside grass grow high enough to block visibility some places, he told select board members at their Feb. 24 meeting.

The proposed April 5 budget committee meeting is canceled. As of April 5, committee members expected to hear on April 6 whether the 2022-23 school budget would be ready for review at an April 7 meeting. Residents who want to know whether the budget committee will meet the evening of April 7 should contact school Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer at apfeiffer@vcsvikings.org.

Town meeting to be in two parts

The first part of Vassalboro’s two-part 2022 town meeting is the open meeting, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 6, at Vassalboro Community School. Voters will assemble in person to act on funding and policy issues for 2022-23.

Written-ballot elections and the written referendum on the school budget adopted June 6 are scheduled for Tuesday, June 14, with polls open at the town office from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Local officials to be chosen are one select board member and two school board members. Signed nomination papers must be returned to the town office by noon Friday, April 8, for candidates’ names to appear on the June 14 ballot.

Vassalboro budget committee change of venue

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by Mary Grow

The Vassalboro Budget Committee meets at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 31, in the town office – not at Vassalboro Community School as previously planned – to make recommendations on the proposed 2022-23 municipal budget. The school budget will not be ready for review by March 31, committee chairman Rick Denico reported on March 28.

Vassalboro school board begins budget review

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Vassalboro Community School (contributed photo)

by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO, ME — Vassalboro School Board members began reviewing sections of the 2022-23 school budget at their March 22 meeting, hearing proposals for funding technology, health, ELL (English Language Learners’ programs), certification and maintenance.

They got updates on the lunch program, the pandemic and pre-kindergarten registration, and accepted the resignation of Principal Megan Allen.

The lunch program drew criticism from a parent in the audience. Her children refused most of the menu items, she said, adding, “half of them I don’t even know what they are.”

Food Director John Hersey said he is developing a survey, to be distributed electronically, asking what kinds of food students would like to see on the school lunch menu. He hopes to have the survey ready in a week or two, he said.

The Vassalboro Community School (VCS) breakfast and lunch menus are posted by the month on the school website, vcsvikings. Students opting for the school meal Thursday, March 31 (an early release day), should expect a bologna and cheese sandwich, coleslaw, orange wedges and milk.

Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer reported three weeks of negative pool testing for coronavirus. Pool testing will continue for another few weeks, he said.

Pfeiffer said currently 27 students are signed up for pre-kindergarten at VCS in the fall. Thirty students are the minimum needed to open a second pre-kindergarten class, supported by a state expansion grant, he said.

A student must be four years old by Oct. 15, 2022, to enroll in pre-kindergarten.

Allen is resigning to pursue other opportunities, Pfeiffer said.

Turning to the partial budget review, Pfeiffer said he did not yet have figures for other sections of the budget, nor could he predict when he would have them.

Finance Director Paula Pooler offered one date for more information: she expected Anthem Blue Cross to provide the maximum insurance increase for schools on March 24, and to give each school its specific increase by the second week in April. Meanwhile, she said, her placeholder recommendation is for a 10 percent increase.

Maintenance Director Shelley Phillips’ presentation drew the most questions, about both interior and grounds work.

Phillips said residents should expect increasing building maintenance costs, because, in addition to inflation in fuel, materials and labor, VCS “is not a new building any more.” It is time to upgrade lighting, she said, and to replace things that have worn out.

Having the building designated a Red Cross emergency shelter requires new showers and upgraded toilets for the locker rooms adjoining the gymnasium, at an estimated cost of more than $22,000. No, Phillips said, the Red Cross will not pay the bill.

Plowing and sanding, in early years done by the Vassalboro Public Works crew, is now contracted, because the road crew hasn’t the time. High gasoline prices will increase the cost. Phillips added that when she has a minor need, like a little sand, Road Foreman Gene Field will help out – “The town is very good to us.”

Grounds maintenance was in-house in the early days, but the custodian who had to abandon indoor jobs to mow the extensive lawn also ran into a time crunch, and that job is contracted. Phillips is pleased with the quality of the work.

Audience members were concerned about tick control, especially with a child care program at the school in the summer. Phillips said the work is done thoroughly and safely.

Technology coordinator Will Backman told board members his recommended 2022-23 budget is $1,837.59 below the current year’s budget, and explained the changes.

Pfeiffer summarized contents of the health budget: salary and benefits for the school nurse, supplies, record-keeping software and a contracted physician’s services, the doctor shared with Waterville and Winslow schools.

Pfeiffer is not aware of a need for an ELL program in 2022-23, although there has been one at VCS in the past, he said. He did not discuss the state-required appropriation for staff certifications, since board members have no control over it.

As the budget discussion ended, Pfeiffer reminded board members they still have major areas – tuition, regular and special education, transportation – to discuss. Since he could give no date when he would have sufficient information, board members postponed scheduling a budget workshop meeting.

KWD asks planners for changes to treatment plant

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by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO, ME — The Kennebec Water District (KWD) is asking the Vassalboro Planning Board’s approval to make changes at its water treatment plant at 462 Main Street (Route 32), a little north of East Vassalboro Village. Planning board members will hear the application at their Tuesday, April 5, meeting, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the town office meeting room.

A letter from KWD Water Quality Manager Robbie Bickford said the project includes “replacement of equipment that has reached the end of its useful life, addition of an access door into the chemical storage area of the plant, and expansion (approximately 300 sq. ft.) of the existing driveway.”

“The primary function and general aesthetic of the Water Treatment Plant will remain unchanged,” Bickford continued.

He invited people with questions to email www.kennebecwater.org/contact.

VASSALBORO: Funds added to budget for church razing

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by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO, ME — Vassalboro Budget Committee members continued their pre-town-meeting work at a March 15 meeting. They reviewed the third draft of the proposed municipal budget, and heard more details about the Vassalboro Public Library trustees’ plans.

Town Manager Mary Sabins had amended the earlier budget proposal by increasing recommended amounts for heating and vehicle fuel, and adding $25,000 to demolish the former church on Priest Hill Road, in North Vassalboro, designated a dangerous building.

Sabins had also increased the expected income from state revenue sharing, based on a revised estimate from the state that she said is still not final.

Librarian Brian Stanley and library trustees Susan Taylor and Liz McMahon explained plans to expand library hours and services.

The library on Bog Road is currently open 24 hours a week, from noon to 6 p.m. Mondays and Fridays and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays. Weekly programs for children and home-schoolers are listed on the library’s website.

The trustees recommend adding another six hours, opening either Sundays or Thursdays, and expanding program offerings. They propose paying Stanley for an additional 12 hours a week, half for another day at the check-out desk and half for program planning.

They would like to present additional programs for residents of all ages, when possible in cooperation with Vassalboro Community School staff and other town groups.

“There’s so much more we could be doing that doesn’t rely on people checking out books,” Taylor said.

Town funds pay staff salaries, she said. Trustees do fundraising and seek grants for building maintenance, programs and all other expenses.

Budget committee members asked many questions. They were not ready to make decisions.

The library presentation was followed by another discussion of employee compensation, another topic on which conclusions would be premature.

Budget committee member Douglas Phillips raised objections to the employees’ salary scale select board members are considering (see The Town Line, March 10, p. 3), sparking discussion that covered the need for financial flexibility, employees’ expectations and the competitiveness of Vassalboro’s employee compensation package compared to other towns’.

Lacking information on the 2022-23 school budget, budget committee members canceled a meeting scheduled for March 17, hoping to have more to talk about the following week. The Vassalboro School Board was scheduled to meet Tuesday evening, March 22.

Sabins told committee members the final deadline for making their recommendations to the select board is Tuesday, April 12. Select board members are scheduled to review the town meeting warrant at their April 14 meeting.

Vassalboro’s annual town meeting will be in two parts as usual, an open meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 6, and written-ballot elections and perhaps other questions on Tuesday, June 14. Polls are scheduled to be open from 8 a.m.to 8 p.m. June 14.

Nomination papers for local elective office are available at the town office. They must be returned with at least 25 registered voters’ signatures by noon, Friday, April 8, for a candidate’s name to be on the June 14 ballot. Positions to be filled are one seat on the select board and two seats on the school board.

Vassalboro select board approves suggested marijuana business ordinance changes

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by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO, ME — At their March 17 meeting, Vassalboro Select Board members recommended ways to spend part of the town’s $231,692.56 in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds and discussed amending the town’s Marijuana Business Ordinance, approved by voters in June 2021.

They had anticipated two marijuana ordinance issues, a virtual interview with Town Attorney Kristin Collins and an in-person discussion with resident Richard Ferris.

Collins suggested clarifications in the wording of the ordinance, but no substantive changes. By consensus, board members approved her suggestions.

Ferris did not attend the meeting. Town Manager Mary Sabins said he had planned to ask select board members to consider an amendment that would allow an additional marijuana growing facility in town, so that he could convert the Ferris’ Market building on Main Street, in North Vassalboro, to that use.

The current ordinance prohibits new operations, defining “new” as an operation not in existence or approved by the planning board when the ordinance became effective Feb. 18, 2021, retroactively after voter approval. It does not cover marijuana grown for personal use, or medical marijuana grown in an area less than 1,000 square feet.

All three select board members agreed that they are not willing to present Ferris’ proposed amendment to voters. Ferris’ alternative, Sabins said, is to obtain petition signatures from 209 registered Vassalboro voters to put the question on the town meeting warrant.

ARPA expenditures were the topic of a special meeting March 2 and brief discussions at other meetings. Sabins said the $231,692.56 has been available since October 2021; must be spent by 2024 for approved purposes only; and is a little more than half Vassalboro’s ARPA grant. She expects the remaining $229,637.26 by early fall 2022.

Board members recommended grants of $100,000 to the Vassalboro volunteer fire department to buy updated equipment, especially self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) masks, accompanying Scott air packs and air bottles; $41,000 for the First Responder Unit, for 12 new automated external defibrillators (AEDs), N95 masks and other personal safety equipment; and $75,000 for the Vassalboro Sanitary District, primarily to fix manhole covers in streets and roads.

Board members again talked about using ARPA funds to reward town employees and volunteers who worked through the pandemic. Sabins said the ARPA regulations would allow grants to employees, but not to volunteers like firefighters and first responders.

Board Chairman Robert Browne commented that “It feels kinda funny” to reward employees but not volunteers. No action was taken.

Resident Amy Davidoff urged board members to put some ARPA money toward broadband service in town, at least a survey to see whether most town residents currently have adequate service. She further recommended that everyone with a home computer conduct a speed test. Instructions are on line.

Select board members thought a needs assessment a useful idea, and considered establishing a broadband committee. Again, they postponed a decision.

In other business March 17, board member Chris French suggested they create another new committee, a Transfer Station Committee to monitor planned work at the facility, consider recycling and look into similar issues.

By unanimous votes, select board members:

  • Raised the mileage rate for town employees using personal vehicles on town business from 51 cents a mile to the federal rate, 58.5 cents a mile.
  • Approved Sabins’ request to close the town office at 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 30, to give the bookkeeper time to close the books as the fiscal year ends.

The next regular Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for Thursday evening, March 31. At this point it is scheduled for 6 p.m. with a budget committee meeting to follow; because schedules sometimes change during budget season, people planning to attend are advised to confirm the time on the town website, Vassalboro.net.

VASSALBORO: Fuel costs to affect several budget areas

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by Mary Grow

Vassalboro Budget Committee members started their second meeting on March 10 with a wrap-up of the previously discussed 2022-23 public works budget proposal. They moved on to solid waste, and then stopped until they have updated estimated fuel costs, which will affect several budget areas.

The price of paving material fluctuates with petroleum prices. The earlier discussion considered an estimate of $75 a ton for the 2022 season. Road Foreman Eugene Field told committee members he thinks the figure will be higher, and the draft paving budget was reworked at $85 a ton.

Town Manager Mary Sabins has locked in heating oil and diesel fuel at prices lower than current market prices. Committee members realized they need to reconsider petroleum prices in all relevant accounts.

Other topics included updates on planned work at the transfer station and on the proposed park on a tax-acquired lot on the west shore of Outlet Stream, between East and North Vassalboro.

Select board member Chris French asked whether the 2022-23 budget should include money to demolish the former church on Priest Hill Road, in North Vassalboro, condemned as a dangerous building.

The budget committee’s schedule called for its March 15 meeting to be with the school board at Vassalboro Community School. However, Committee Chairman Rick Denico, Jr., said Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer said the school budget will not be ready, partly because state figures are not yet available.

Budget committee members therefore scheduled their March 15 meeting at the town office, beginning at 7 p.m. They will invite Vassalboro Public Library representatives to talk about plans for expanded activities and a resulting request for more town funds than in past years.

Pfeiffer said later the school board will not meet March 15; its next meeting will be March 22.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part 10

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Brigadier General John Chandler

by Mary Grow

Brigadier General John Chandler, profiled in the February 24 issue of The Town Line, was not the only area resident to have served in the Revolutionary army and again in 1812. Nor were these two wars the end of disagreements between the United States, and specifically the State of Maine, and Britain and British-controlled Canada.

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According to an on-line genealogy, Thaddeus Bailey (Nov. 28, 1759 – March 4, 1849) was born in Newbury, Massachusetts, served in the Revolutionary War from Lincoln County, lived in Palermo for some years and served in the War of 1812 while living in Albion.

In 1778, he was part of a Lincoln County troop sent to Providence. On June 30, 1779, he officially enlisted as a private in Capt. Timothy Heald’s company, Col. Samuel McCobb’s regiment.

(McCobb [Nov. 20, 1744 – July 30, 1791], who later became a brigadier general, was born and died in Georgetown. He had served at Bunker Hill, and led the Lincoln County militia in the unsuccessful July-August 1779 Penobscot expedition, in which Bailey participated for two months and 27 days, according to the on-line source.)

Bailey was discharged Sept. 25, 1779. The genealogy says he received a Revolutionary veteran’s pension in the amount of $30.65 annually, starting May 3, 1831.

In 1783, Bailey married Mary Knowlton, of Wiscasset. The couple moved inland to the north part of Pownalbourough, which an on-line source says is now Alna, where the first three of their 11 children were born.

In 1795 they moved inland again; Millard Howard’s Palermo history cites an 1809 record confirming on-line reports that Bailey bought (for $110) 100 acres in Sheepscot Great Pond Settlement, now Palermo.

In 1801, Bailey was among a large number of residents who signed a two-part petition to the Massachusetts General Court. The petition asked to have the settlement incorporated as a town to be named Lisbon, bounded by Harlem (later China), the Sheepscot River and Davistown (later Montville, from which Liberty was separated in 1827).

Further, the petitioners wrote, “from the new and unsettled state of their country they have a great proportion of roads to make and maintain within their aforesaid bounds and also at least ten miles of road to maintain outside of their aforesaid limits which road leads to the head of navigation on Sheepscot river, their nearest market. Wherefore, your petitioners pray that they may be exempted from paying State taxes during the term of five years next ensuing….”

(Howard went on to explain that while the Massachusetts legislators considered the request, another Maine town was incorporated as Lisbon. Sheepscot Great Pond’s clerk was Dr. Enoch Palermo Huntoon; and given the popularity of using famous cities’ names – like Lisbon — for new Maine towns, the petitioners chose Palermo as the fall-back name.

Palermo was incorporated June 23, 1804. Howard did not say how the tax exemption request was received.)

Mary Bailey’s on-line genealogy says the Baileys “were early members of the Baptist Church of Palermo, founded in 1804.”

The family soon moved again, and again inland. Census records from 1810 and 1820 show Bailey living in Fairfax (Mary died in January 1816).

Bailey served briefly and uneventfully in the War of 1812, going to Belfast Sept. 3, 1814, and coming back Sept. 14. Howard listed him among the privates in the Palermo militia (apparently he enrolled or re-enrolled there rather than in Fairfax). By then he would have been coming up on his 55th birthday.

In the 1830 and 1840 censuses, Bailey is still in the town that had become Albion in 1824. The Roll of Pensioners mentioned on line says in 1841, he was 80 years old and had returned to Palermo.

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Dean Bangs’ (May 31, 1756 – Dec. 6, 1845) Revolutionary service was summarized in the Jan. 20 issue of The Town Line. By 1812, Bangs was living in Sidney and doing business in Waterville.

In Whittemore’s history of Waterville, Bangs’ grandson, Isaac Sparrow Bangs, wrote in the military chapter that in the War of 1812 Bangs raised a company of men from Waterville and Vassalboro to serve in Major Joseph Chandler’s Artillery Company. The company was held at Augusta from Sept. 12 to Sept. 24, 1814, the period during which other Kennebec Valley units went to the coast to meet a British landing that never occurred.

(Your writer has spent a great deal of time trying to find the relationship, if any, between General John [Feb. 1, 1762 – Sept. 25, 1841] and Major Joseph Chandler. One of several on-line Chandler genealogies lists the 12 children of Joseph Chandler III and Lydia [Eastman] Chandler as including Joseph IV [1755-1785] and John [1762 – 1840]; and 1840 is as close as genealogies sometimes get to the 1841 found in on-line sources. However, if this Joseph Chandler died young in 1785, he cannot have led an artillery unit in the War of 1812.)

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Michael McNally (about 1752 – July 16, 1848) must have been among the oldest Revolutionary War veterans to fight in the War of 1812. An on-line family history calls him “a man of superior education and strong intellectual powers.”

The history says he was born in Ireland and emigrated with his parents to Pennsylvania, where his father was wealthy enough to provide for his son’s education. On May 13, 1777, he is recorded as enlisting as a gunner in the state’s artillery regiment.

On Jan. 1, 1781, McNally received “depreciation pay,” described online as negotiable, interest-bearing certificates given to military personnel to compensate for the decreased value of United States currency during their wartime service. Family stories say he left the army and served on some kind of armed ship, “whether a man-of-war or a privateer is unknown.” Later, he received a pension as a Revolutionary veteran.

Around 1784, he moved to the Kennebec Valley. In 1785, he married his first wife, Susan Pushaw (1768-1811), of Fairfield. The couple settled in the part of Winslow that became Clinton in 1795; McNally built a log cabin on the Sebasticook, the family history says.

The McNallys had nine children between 1786 and 1809. Susan Pushaw’s on-line genealogy spells her father’s name Pochard and says he was born in France. Michael and Susan’s children’s names are variously spelled Mcnally, Mcnelly, Mcnellie and Mcknelly).

Despite being a single father, when the War of 1812 was declared, the family history says: “Michael’s martial spirit was aroused, and although a man of sixty years he enlisted at Clinton, May 17, 1813, in Capt. Crossman’s company of the Thirty-fourth Regiment, U.S. Infantry, and marched to the frontier. He received a severe wound in the collarbone at Armstrong, Lower Canada, in Sept., 1813, while serving in detachment under the command of Lieut.-Col. Storrs. He was mustered out in July, 1815. For this service he received a pension.”

McNally married for the second time about 1830, to a Pittsfield widow, Jane Varnum Harriman. Her death date is unknown, but the family history says McNally spent his last years with his sons Arthur (1796-1879) and William (1798 or 1799-1886).

William McNally was a farmer in Benton. His wife, Martha Roundy (Sept 13, 1803 – summer of 1903) was the daughter of Job and Elizabeth or Betsey (Pushaw or Pushard) Roundy and the source of much of the information in the family history.

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Louis Hatch’s 1919 history of Maine includes a summary of the final settlement of the boundary between the eastern United States and adjoining Canadian provinces, an issue that troubled relations between the two countries from 1783 until 1842.

The St. Croix River had been defined as the boundary line by the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolution. But the St, Croix has three branches, and the two countries disagreed over which was the “real” St. Croix.

The Jay Treaty of 1794 (properly, the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America) created a three-man commission whose members unanimously and permanently defined the St. Croix River boundary on Oct. 25, 1798, Hatch wrote.

The boundary north and west from the head of the St. Croix still remained undefined. The United States claimed an area reaching north almost to the St. Lawrence River; Britain, on behalf of Canada, claimed a good part of what is now northern Maine.

The Dec. 24, 1814, Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812 included a clause establishing a commission to define this part of the boundary, from the source of the St. Croix River around the “northwest angle of Nova Scotia,” and south and west along the highlands that separated the watersheds of the St. Lawrence from the watersheds of rivers that ran into the Atlantic, all the way to the headwaters of the Connecticut River.

The treaty further provided that if the two commissioners disagreed or failed to act, the boundary question should be submitted to “a friendly sovereign or State.”

The commission was activated in the spring of 1816. Hatch wrote that after five years, its members had not even agreed on a map showing what areas each country claimed. The commission dissolved.

On Sept. 29, 1827, the United States and Great Britain agreed to submit the dispute to the King William I of the Netherlands. Hatch summarized the king’s responsibility: to interpret the 1783 treaty provisions by fitting them to the geography. The king needed to locate for the disputants the headwaters of the St. Croix, the “northwest angle of Nova Scotia,” the significant highlands and the “Northwesternmost head of the Connecticut River.”

King William issued his judgment on Jan. 10, 1831. Hatch called it “a compromise, pure and simple.”

Between the 1816 commission’s creation and King William’s 1831 report, Maine had become a state, with its own legislature and representation in the United States Congress. An increasing number of United States citizens were expanding settlements in Maine, as far north as the St. John River valley.

The 1831 Maine legislature established a committee to review King William’s judgment; the ensuing resolutions strongly condemned it. In June 1832, the United States Senate refused to ratify it.

The 1831 Maine legislature also incorporated the Town of Madawaska on the St. John River, including, Hatch wrote, the present Madawaska south of the river and some land north of the river. The area north of the river is now Upper Madawaska, New Brunswick, he said.

Hatch quoted part of Governor Samuel Smith’s 1832 annual message summarizing what happened next. The governor said Madawaska residents had organized their town, apparently acting before the state’s approval, and had elected town officials and a legislative representative. New Brunswick officials, “accompanied with a military force,” had arrested and imprisoned many residents.

Smith had appealed to the United States government. Though neither he nor federal authorities were sure the Madawaska residents had acted legally, President Andrew Jackson promptly intervened, and the prisoners were freed.

In following years, Maine governors and legislatures continued to push for a resolution of the boundary issue that would get the British out of the state. Hatch quotes from an 1837 Maine legislative resolution that referred to “British usurpations and encroachments” and said:

“Resolved, that [British] pretensions so groundless and extravagant indicate a spirit of hostility which we had no reason to expect from a nation with whom we are at peace.”

How that peace turned into a war, or at least a pseudo war, will be next week’s topic.

Main sources

Hatch, Louis Clinton, ed., Maine: A History 1919 (facsimile, 1974).
Howard, Millard, An Introduction to the Early History of Palermo, Maine (second edition, December 2015).
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902)

Website, miscellaneous.

VASSALBORO: Junkyard, marijuana licenses approved by planners

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by Mary Grow

The March 3 Vassalboro Select Board meeting began with two public hearings, followed by unanimous approval of applicants’ licenses, as recommended by Codes Officer Ryan Page.

Robert Parise, owner of Platinum Core, LLC, at 1702 Riverside Drive (formerly RAP’s Auto – see The Town Line, Feb. 10), received a junkyard license, with no discussion.

Five medical marijuana business licenses were approved for the property at 55A Old Meadows Road, for building owner Leo Barnett and growers Colin Dorsey, William Cunningham, Zeena McMullen and Jason Luce.

After the decision, audience members asked about other medical marijuana businesses in town. Page said a total of nine licenses are current, valid through Dec. 31, 2022. In the future, Barnett has planning board approval for operations on Sherwood Lane (see The Town Line, Dec. 17, 2020) and in two more Old Meadows Road buildings (see The Town Line, Nov. 19, 2020).

In other business, Page reported no change in the situation of the former church on Priest Hill Road, in North Vassalboro, currently slated for demolition.

Select board members appointed John Fortin a member of the Recreation Committee.

Town Manager Mary Sabins reported on three foreclosed properties. The town now owns them; she is trying to locate former owners or their heirs.

The next regular select board meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m., Thursday, March 17. Like the March 3 meeting, it will start an hour earlier than usual and be followed by a budget committee meeting.