Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part 2

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by Mary Grow

As readers know, major wars have major effects, beginning before the battles, continuing for the duration and lasting years afterwards. Early historians tended to focus on economics and politics: whether development was slowed or speeded or both, who replaced whom in leadership. Later came interest in social effects, especially significant in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Individual psychological effects of war, now commonly labeled PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), have been recognized for centuries, but did not receive a lot of attention until the present century. A 2017 Smithsonian magazine article found on line discusses psychological effects suffered by Civil War soldiers, though not under the modern name.

Some of these young men, far from home and family and witnessing the horrors of face-to-face war, developed “what Civil War doctors called ‘nostalgia,’ a centuries-old term for despair and homesickness so severe that soldiers became listless and emaciated and sometimes died,” according to the article. Others had physical symptoms, like “soldier’s heart” (chest pain, difficult breathing, palpitations), or mental breakdowns.

After World War I, PTSD was called “shell shock.” “Combat fatigue” was the best-known of several terms used after World War II.

It is unlikely that 18th and 19th century soldiers from the Kennebec Valley avoided psychological stress, but finding records demonstrating the condition would be even more unlikely. There are, however, numerous reports on and analyses of economic consequences, and social and political consequences are sometimes obvious.

Many of the central Kennebec Valley towns, especially the larger ones, suffered economic distress during the Revolution. The level of distress in Augusta (then Hallowell) is recorded by historians Henry Kingsbury and Charles Nash.

Kingsbury summarized: “A town of so few inhabitants, however willing, could not give much aid to the continental cause, and its part in the war was necessarily small and inconspicuous. It suffered much during the period of the revolution – its growth was retarded and well-nigh suspended….So great was the depression that even the Fourth of July Declaration [of Independence] was not publicly read to the people.”

Nash wrote that by 1777, British warships so “infested” the Maine coast as to practically stop overseas trade, a blow to the shipbuilders and shipmasters of Hallowell (and downriver towns). A year later, though, he wrote that a Hallowell shipbuilder sold the government hundreds of pounds worth of ships’ masts, spars and bowsprits for the budding Continental navy.

According to Kingsbury, only about 100 heads of families lived in Hallowell in 1779, presumably after many Tories had left. When the new national government started assessing towns individually for soldiers and supplies, townspeople could not easily meet the demands.

By the 1780s, according to information Nash compiled from town meeting records, Hallowell voters were raising money to pay soldiers. In October, for example, they raised 12,000 pounds to pay $500 each to soldiers who served eight months in Camden. Many were paid in lumber or shingles instead of money.

Another series of votes in January 1781 raised 90 guineas (Wikipedia says a guinea was about the same value as a pound) for six men to “go into the service of Massachusetts” (Kingsbury added that they were required to enlist for three years); directed that “the selectmen and commissioned officers shall do their endeavors to procure said men”; and for that purpose directed them to “hire money upon the town’s credit.”

That the effort was not fully successful can be inferred from the February vote to “petition the General Court [of Massachusetts] for relief of the beef tax, and our quota of soldiers sent for from this town.”

In March, annual meeting voters gave town leaders “discretionary power to get the continental men in the best way and manner they can be procured.”

Nash found a September 6, 1781, vote (three weeks before Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown) that sounded even more desperate. Voters directed selectmen to “endeavor to procure this town’s quota of shirts, stockings and shoes and blankets required of this town, upon the town’s credit if they can be procured.” Kingsbury detailed the requisition: “2,580 pounds of beef, 11 shirts, 11 pairs of shoes and stockings, and 5 blankets,” and said the Massachusetts legislature threatened to fine the town if it did not produce.

From what little Whittemore wrote in his history of Waterville, the townspeople in what was until 1802 Winslow on both sides of the Kennebec also had trouble meeting quotas. Town officials had neither money for supplies nor willing volunteers for soldiers. The price of beef rose to five dollars a pound, indicating, Whittemore said wryly, “either a depreciated currency or that some primordial beef trust already had taken possession of the country.”

He was serious about the depreciated currency. Nash gave examples through the 1770s of a steady decline in the value of the paper money issued by the new government.

By 1781, he wrote, currency was worth so little that the government made a “new emission.” Defined as legal tender and valid for paying taxes, Nash wrote that it held its value briefly, but within a few months it lost almost half its value, a dollar becoming the equivalent of a half-dollar in silver.

Ernest Marriner picked up the theme in his Kennebec Yesterdays. Money, either paper currency or coins, was scarce in the valley anyway, he wrote; people often paid for things they could not make at home with things they could, especially crops, like wheat, corn, peas, potatoes and apples, and also butter, cheese, wool, flax and similar products.

The naval supplies Nash described were paid for partly in dollars (presumably Continental paper currency), with 100 dollars equal to 30 pounds, but also in corn, “New England rum,” sugar and glass.

Marriner found that by 1789, a Continental paper dollar was worth one-fortieth of a silver coin. By then, he wrote, hay, previously costing a maximum of $10 a ton, was $200 a ton. Butter cost $1.50 a pound; by 1802, it was down to 15 cents a pound.

Many Kennebec Valley families were left in precarious circumstances by the combination of limited access to outside supplies; heavy taxes to support local, Massachusetts and federal military and civilian needs; depreciated currency; and breadwinners off fighting, home recovering, in a British military prison or dead.

Rev. Jacob Bailey

Nash quoted from the journals and letters of Rev. Jacob Bailey, a Tory who lived in Pownalborough (now Dresden) for most of the war years. Bailey referred to “nakedness and famine” among his neighbors.

Some had no bread for months, he wrote. It was impossible to find grain, potatoes or other vegetables; meat, butter or milk; tea, sugar or molasses. People lived on “a little coffee, with boiled alewives or a repast of clams,” and not enough of that diet to forestall hunger, Bailey wrote.

* * * * * *

Tories, especially outspoken ones like Bailey, were a minority in the Kennebec Valley, and became a smaller minority as the war went on. When it became clear that the rebellion was succeeding, fence-sitters joined the winning side; opponents of independence went away, usually to eastern Canada.

In the Hallowell area, many of the big landowners, like the Gardiner, Hallowell and Vassall families for whom towns were named, were British sympathizers. During or after the war, they emigrated to Canada or Britain; post-war local governments confiscated their lands.

A notorious Tory in the Augusta area was John “Black” Jones (c. 1743 – Aug. 18, 1823).

Nash wrote a great deal about “Black” Jones in his Augusta history, distinguishing him from three other men named John Jones who were in the area earlier or simultaneously. The Tory Jones’ primary work was surveying for the Plymouth Proprietors, laying out lots on both sides of the Kennebec River, including the future towns of Hallowell/Augusta, Vassalboro, China, Unity and Skowhegan. Kingsbury added that he built the first mill on the west side of the Kennebec at Hallowell.

“Black” is said to have referred to his dark complexion, not his character. Indeed, Nash wrote that he was “a skillful surveyor and a man of good character,” who was repeatedly elected to local office in 1773 and 1775, despite being stubbornly pro-British in a divided community.

In April 1777, Nash found, town meeting voters chose Lieutenant John Shaw “the man to inspect the tories, and make information thereof.” At another meeting in July, they implemented a Massachusetts law intended to protect the country from “internal enemies” by instructing Shaw to collect evidence against Jones, “who they suppose to be of a disposition inimical to the liberties and privileges of the said States.” In Oct. 1777 they again voted Jones “inimical to the liberties and privileges of the United States.”

After a brief imprisonment in Boston, Jones escaped and went to Canada, where he enlisted on the British side. Assigned to Fort George, in Castine, he led a band of soldiers who raided local rebel towns. An on-line Canadian biography says he worked as a surveyor in New Brunswick, Canada, after the war.

Returning to Hallowell, according to Nash as early as November 1785, Jones was met by antagonists who escorted him out of town. He came back, and, Nash wrote, “by his many good qualities and an exemplary life he largely overcame, long before his death, the bitter prejudice which his attitude and acts during the revolution had aroused in his fellow-citizens.” Kingsbury wrote that in 1794 it was Jones who surveyed the division of Hallowell into three parishes.

Another mention of Tory sentiment is in Alma Pierce Robbins’ history of Vassalboro. She gave the Revolutionary War only a few sentences, mostly focused on Congress’s approval of aid and pensions to soldiers and their dependents.

Robbins said records indicated that Vassalboro residents were “somewhat lukewarm” patriots who “did their share in a dilatory manner.”

She added, however, that town officials fined “those who spoke too openly against the Revolution,” that the town’s beef quota was “finally” paid “under strong pressure” and that “many” did fight on the Revolutionary side.

Main sources

Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Marriner, Ernest, Kennebec Yesterdays (1954).
Nash, Charles Elventon, The History of Augusta (1904).
North, James W., The History of Augusta (1870).
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 board rules Priest Hill Rd. church is a dangerous building

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by Mary Grow

In her 1971 history of Vassalboro, Alma Pierce Robbins wrote that the North Vassalboro Methodist Church was organized around 1850. Its members met in a Union Church (whose origins apparently are not recorded) until about 1875, when they bought an unfinished Winslow church and brought it to Vassalboro.

Fifty years ago, Robbins wrote, “This pretty little church stands to this day,…white, with a steeple pointing heavenward and a bell to ring on Sunday morning.”

Chad Caron told Vassalboro selectmen many residents would like to see the former Methodist Church on Priest Hill Road in North Vassalboro restored, not demolished. Some, he said, have helped him as he works on the dilapidated building.

People serious about preserving the church need to act fast, because select board members have given Caron 30 days to make progress in two directions.

After a public hearing that took more than an hour at the beginning of the Jan. 6 select board meeting, the two board members present voted that the church as it now stands is, legally, a dangerous building. The dangerous building order they approved directs that the building be demolished after 30 days.

However, select board members accepted Caron’s offer to get an engineer’s certification that the building is structurally safe; and they authorized new Codes Officer Ryan Page to extend the deadline if Caron can justify asking for more time.

Caron agreed Page will be invited to be present during the engineer’s inspection.

Just-retired Codes Officer Paul Mitnik reminded Caron and board members that Caron currently has no building permit and therefore cannot work on the building. However, board members expect Caron to continue to clean up the lot around it.

Caron has owned the former church for about two years. He explained that his first plan was to rebuild it as his own house.

He is using the property for his business, buying, selling and trading miscellaneous items. He stores things in North Vassalboro until he sells or reuses them; the collection in the yard changes, he said.

Mitnik and other residents said the unattractive “junk” reduces neighbors’ property values, could harbor rodents and includes bulky items so close to the road that they are in the way of town snowplows.

Mitnik said he has tried to get Caron to make improvements to the building and lot for 18 months, without success. Caron is hard to get hold of and does not meet deadlines to which he agrees, and overall the property is not improved. After too many missed deadlines, Mitnik said, he revoked Caron’s building permit – a year ago, Page added.

As the basis for their contention that the building is unsafe, Page and Mitnik supplied select board members with photographs that they said showed an inadequate foundation and inadequate support for the church’s steeple.

A solid foundation is essential, Mitnik said. He does not expect the building will fall down on its own, but is concerned about what might happen in a major storm.

Caron agreed that he has “overpromised and underdelivered,” giving Mitnik unrealistic deadlines and being too embarrassed to admit he couldn’t meet them. He apologized to Mitnik, to his “great neighbor” who puts up with the mess and to town officials.

The building is not going to fall down, Caron said, nor is the steeple going to topple over. He explained how solid the basic post-and-beam construction is – the crumbling bricks on the ground are a façade, not building support, he said – and what he has done for run-off control on the lot and repairs underneath to remedy past damage and prevent future damage.

He also removed an outhouse that had been attached to the back, relieving stress on the back wall and eliminating any possible source of sewage contamination.

He did do some clean-up as Mitnik requested, he said, and he is arranging a different storage location on a small part of a friend’s property on South Reynolds Road.

Select board member Chris French pointed out that despite promises to clean up the lot, Caron keeps bringing in more things.

Acting board Chairman Barbara Redmond asked Caron when he would have the lot cleaned up. Caron invited her to stop by and watch him working, and said he intends to finish “by summer” – having learned not to promise impossible time frames.

Fire Chief Walker Thompson asked for an overall time limit. Caron said he originally thought making a livable house would take eight months. After a year and a half just getting the structure level, he figures he’ll need another five years if he continues working alone.

Caron said he could not afford the estimated $1,500 to have an engineer’s safety report done when Mitnik raised questions about structural integrity last year. Caron’s mother, sitting beside him at the hearing, immediately said she will pay for it.

Caron said he now plans to restore the church as part of Vassalboro’s history. The front columns that he took down are in Norridgewock being refinished, and he has not removed the old tin ceiling.

He offered to give the building to someone who could and would undertake restoration. Now that he intends a community project, he plans to consult with the Vassalboro Historical Society and community leaders and to ask for financial help.

If the building must be demolished, Caron said he will take it down piece by piece, number each piece and store them until he is able to reassemble them.

Because select board Chairman Robert Browne was unable to attend the Jan. 6 meeting, most other agenda items were postponed to the board’s Jan. 20 meeting.

Redmond and French approved the Conservation Commission’s letter asking the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to let the town take over maintenance of the trail to Spectacle Pond.

A brief discussion of the sunken Vassalboro Sanitary District manhole covers on Main Street in North Vassalboro led to no decision. Resident Tom Richards recommended putting money for repairs in the 2022-23 town budget. Town Manager Mary Sabins said one effort to fill in around them had failed when the fill promptly washed out.

Vassalboro food pantry to receive matching grant

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Photo source: Vassalboro Food Station Pantry

Submitted by Don Breton

We are fortunate to have a group of volunteers that run and manage the Vassalboro Food Station Pantry. They have been recognized and selected to receive up to $1,000 from American Precision, Inc., a machine shop business from Indiana, with whom I am associated. They have challenged the residents of Vassalboro and friends of the pantry to make monetary donations between December 23, 2021 and February 1, 2022, to the pantry. They will match whatever is donated up to $1,000. You can send your donation(s) to Cindy Ferland, 26 Ferland Lane, Vassalboro, ME 04989, or you can also send a donation via Paypal to dlbreton@roadrunner.com. If you mail a check, please put “American Precision Donation Match” on the memo line.

Let’s all help the food pantry achieve this goal, please donate.

Vassalboro select board to meet January 6, 2022

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by Mary Grow

The Vassalboro Select Board will meet at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, in the town office meeting room. The advance agenda is the same as for the Dec. 22, 2021, meeting that was canceled due to treacherous roads, including a public hearing at the beginning of the meeting.

The hearing is to determine whether the former church on Chad Caron’s property at 14 Priest Hill Road, North Vassalboro, meets the definition of a dangerous building.

Vassalboro Select Board agendas are posted on the town website, Vassalboro.net, usually by the Tuesday afternoon before a Thursday evening meeting.

Vassalboro school board approves raising hourly wage for substitutes

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Vassalboro Community School (contributed photo)

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro School Board members had the usual variety of issues on their Dec. 21 agenda, with more discussion than decision-making.

One decision board members made, unanimously, was to raise the hourly wages of substitute food service personnel, educational technicians and teachers to meet the new state minimums effective Jan. 1, 2022.

Board members, Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer and an audience member suggested offering substitutes minimum wage is not enough to attract personnel. Since Vassalboro Community School (VCS), like many other schools nation-wide, is struggling with staffing issues, board members are likely to consider further pay increases as they develop the 2022-23 budget request.

Pfeiffer reported that VCS has conditional approval from the state Department of Education to expand the pre-kindergarten program in the 2022-23 school year, if there are enough interested families.

The additional early release days approved at a previous board meeting started in December. Assistant Principal Greg Hughes said teachers found them useful.

Two early release days a month are planned for the rest of the school year. They are listed on the calendar on the school website, vcsvikings.org.

Hughes thanked the Parent-Teacher Organization for supporting school staff, and Pfeiffer thanked the many donors who made the VCS Christmas giving program a success.

Board members accepted the resignation of school social worker Tabitha Sagner. Pfeiffer said she has accepted a job closer to her home. “We will miss her,” he said.

As at previous meetings, board members continued review of school policies, approving an updated policy on public participation at their meetings, reaffirming the policy titled “Magnet School Program,” and beginning review of policies on dropout prevention and student conduct on buses.

Board Chairman Kevin Levasseur said he did not know of a VCS student enrolling at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics, in Limestone, in recent years.

School policies are available for public viewing on vcsvikings.org. Under the heading “Main Office” is a subheading “Superintendent’s Office,” and one of the 10 items under that heading is “Policies.”

The next Vassalboro School Board meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. There will be no school on Monday, Jan. 17, in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

January’s early release days are Friday, Jan. 14, and Thursday, Jan. 27.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Library series conclusion

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Old Winslow Library

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro, Waterville, Winslow

There is no evidence that the Town of Vassalboro had a public library before 1909, when the ancestor of the present lively institution was founded.

The 1909 association’s bylaws give it two names, the Free Public Library Association of Vassalboro, d/b/a Vassalboro Library Association. The library has always been in East Vassalboro, and the bylaws say it must remain there.

According to an essay by Elizabeth “Betty” Taylor in Bernhardt and Schad’s Vassalboro anthology, Eloise A. Hafford organized Vassalboro’s Library Association, getting advice from the Maine State Library and providing the association’s constitution.

Then, Taylor wrote, “she disappeared from the records.” Her name was crossed off the list of members in 1910.

Intrigued, Taylor did research that identified Hafford, born Sept. 30, 1860, in Massachusetts, as an early pastor at the East Vassalboro Friends Church. She was a high-school and university teacher for many years, and by 1930 was in California doing public health work, at one time serving as executive secretary of the Southern California Society for Control of Syphilis. She died in 1938.

The first Vassalboro library building was a converted summer cottage on South Stanley Hill Road, on a small lot donated by George Cates, south of the Friends Meeting House. The cottage was a gift of the Kennebec Water District and in 1914 was hauled across China Lake “on skids by four teams of horses,” according to a Jan. 25, 1971, newspaper article at the Vassalboro Historical Society.

The single-story building was about 500 feet square, according to another source. Everett Coombs built bookshelves early in 1915. Madeline Cates was Vassalboro librarian from 1910 to 1948. When the Library Association was inactive during the Depression, she continued to open it one day a week without pay, and her husband Percy provided fuel without charge.

In the 1950s, Taylor and Mildred Harris took the lead in reviving the library.

The wooden building and the book collection burned in 1979. Taylor, who was librarian for more than three decades, was again a leader in obtaining replacement books after the fire.

Vassalboro Public Library (photo: vassalboro.net)

In 1980, the library reopened in its current home, a single-story brick building at 930 Bog Road, on the west side of the village. An addition in 2000 on the back (north side) doubled the size of the building.

The Vassalboro Library receives significant town funding every year, but donations are always welcome, and are tax-deductible.

Vassalboro has at least one of the libraries in boxes described in last week’s essay. It is on the south side of the Olde Mill complex in North Vassalboro, facing Oak Grove Road, identified by the word “BOOKS” across the top.

In Waterville, the first library was started before Waterville became a town, never mind a city, according to Estelle Foster Eaton’s chapter in Whittemore’s 1902 history.

Waterville was separated from Winslow on June 23, 1802. Eaton wrote that eight months earlier, Reuben Kidder (a member of the 1801 committee chosen to petition the legislature to make Waterville a separate town) had bought 117 books from Boston bookseller Caleb Bingham, for $162.65 (with a 10 percent discount).

Waterville Public Library

(Caleb Bingham [April 15, 1757-April 6, 1817] was an educator, textbook writer and publisher as well as a bookseller. An on-line article by Encyclopedia Britannica editors says he directed Boston’s public library for two years without pay; donated many books to the library in his home town of Salisbury; and helped other New England town libraries. His bookstore was a gathering place for Boston teachers and liberal Jeffersonian politicians and “a focal point of agitation for free public schools.”)

The books were mostly non-fiction, Eaton wrote. Exceptions she listed were The Beggar Girl and A Fool of Quality, each in three volumes. (Welsh novelist Anna or Agnes Maria Bennett’s The Beggar Girl and Her Benefactors was published in 1797; Irish writer Henry Brooke’s The Fool of Quality was published between 1765 and 1779, originally in five volumes.)

The books reached Waterville Nov. 18, 1801. Although Kidder had ordered them in the name of the “Winslow Library,” they were labeled as belonging to “The Waterville Social Library.”

Eaton could not determine how long the library lasted, but the books ended up with Abijah Smith, one of the people who signed a note to help Kidder pay for them. Smith let the Sons of Temperance use them when that organization started a short-lived library (Eaton gave no dates).

Kingsbury wrote in his 1892 Kennebec County history that the Waterville division of the Sons of Temperance was organized Nov. 27, 1845, reorganized in 1858 and still flourishing in 1892.

In 1902, Eaton wrote, a Smith descendant owned relevant documents and, apparently, books; she wrote that when the new public library building was completed, he wanted the remainder of the Waterville Social Library to “find [a] fitting home within its walls.”

The present library organization dates from 1896, the present building from 1902.

According to Eaton and Kingsbury, there were other predecessors besides the Waterville Social Library.

Eaton lists two bookstore-based “circulating libraries.” William Hastings, who was a printer and the publisher of the Waterville Intelligencer newspaper (see The Town Line, Nov. 26, 2020) as well as a bookseller, offered “well-selected books” from 1826 to 1828. Around 1840 Edward Mathews started lending books from his bookstore; he sold the library to Charles K. Mathews, who continued it until 1874.

The Waterville Woman’s Association, founded in 1887, by 1892 had a library of 400 volumes, Kingsbury wrote, “from which 100 books are taken weekly.” (The Woman’s Association was mentioned in the Nov. 11 The Town Line.)

Eaton made the Waterville Library Association, founded in March 1873, sound like the most important predecessor of the present library. She listed the founders by initials only, except for President Solyman Heath; apparently they were all men, although Kingsbury mentioned “the cooperation of a few spirited ladies.” Association membership was $3 a year; dues were used to buy books.

The directors of the Ticonic Bank gave the library space in the bank building for 26 years, and the library was nicknamed the Bank Library, according to Eaton. A. A. Plaisted (the Waterville history’s index lists many entries for A. A. Plaisted, Aaron Plaisted and Aaron Appleton Plaisted) was librarian, “assisted within the last few years by the Misses Helen and Emily Plaisted, Miss Helen Meader and Miss Elden, now Mrs. Mathews.”

In 1892, Kingsbury wrote, the library had 1,500 books and about 30 members.

Meanwhile, a movement for a free public library began. In 1883, Eaton wrote, former resident William H. Arnold willed to the town (Waterville did not become a city until January 23, 1888) $5,000 for a public library, conditional on the town matching the gift. The town did not, and Arnold’s heirs got the $5,000.

In 1896, Lillian Hallock Campbell spent early February visiting more than 50 women to ask them to help start a free public library. On Feb. 13, the Waterville Library Association organized, with an all-female list of officers, though some men were interested in Campbell’s project.

(The first president was Mrs. Willard B. Arnold, sister-in-law of the late William H. Arnold. Her husband, the first of five generations of Willard Bailey Arnolds, founded the W. B. Arnold Company, a Waterville hardware store that closed in the 1960s.)

“Public interest was aroused,” Eaton wrote, and business leaders, including W. B. Arnold, donated generously. On March 25, another meeting organized the Waterville Free Library Association, with Mayor Edmund F. Webb president, ex officio, and a mainly male group of officers and trustees (though Lillian Campbell, Mrs. Arnold and Annie Pepper were among the dozen trustees, as was Colby College professor and future president Arthur J. Roberts).

Library supporters began collecting books and money immediately; an April 7, 1896, public notice requested donations. Books were first circulated out of Harvey Doane Eaton’s law office (he was the husband of Estelle Foster Eaton who wrote the library chapter). A five-member book selection committee recommended initial purchases.

The library formally opened Aug. 22, 1896, in a room “in the Plaisted Block.” It moved to the Haines Building in 1898. Agnes M. Johnson was the first librarian.

Eaton wrote that by May 1902 the original 433 books had become 3,088. Circulation for the year ending May 16 was 20,692. Fiction circulation had declined, but “reference work in connection with the schools” was increasing.

Funds came from individual donations; from the City of Waterville, which increased its $500 a year to $1,000 in 1902; and from the State of Maine, whose annual $50 was “supposed to cover the running expenses; although as a matter of fact it has not,” Eaton said.

After the free library opened, interest in the membership-supported Waterville Library Association declined. Eaton wrote that its 1,500 books were donated to the Woman’s Association in 1900.

The earlier reference to a pending new building foreshadowed the 1902 construction of the main part of the present Elm Street building, with a $20,000 Carnegie Foundation grant. The library’s website describes the building’s architectural style as Richardson Romanesque, similar to other area libraries in Augusta, Clinton and Fairfield. The architect was William R. Miller of Lewiston, who also designed Fairfield’s Lawrence Library (see The Town Line, Nov. 11).

The building is of brick with granite trim. The original entrance on Elm Street is approached by wide granite steps leading to three arches, and the typical tower rises beside the entrance, with a tall triple window below nine small square windows.

The original building has been renovated and expanded several times. A banner on the side of the building proclaims Waterville Public Library a “2017 Winner National Medal for Museum and Library Service.”

New Winslow Library

This writer has failed to find a comprehensive history of Winslow’s public library, located since the late 1980s in a handsomely-converted former roller-skating rink at 136 Halifax Street. The town web page identifies the current library as a department of the town, with a board of trustees.

For at least part of the time between 1905 and 1927, the library was on the east side of Lithgow Street, in the north end of a single-story clapboard building it shared with the town office. Historian Jack Nivison wrote that the building was between the 1926 library and the Congregational Church, set farther back from the street than they are.

A photograph shows a single-story building with a peaked roof. Above what looks like a paneled front door is a three-section semi-circular window, and above it, under the peak of the roof, a second similar one. Windows on either side have decorative shutters and window boxes.

A side door has a small rectangular window beside it. This door and two larger windows on the south side are topped with arched semicircles of what looks like stained glass.

The first librarian, Jennie Howard, served from 1905 to 1933 and was paid $52 a year. Nivison wrote that Howard was also a teacher and superintendent of schools.

The second recorded Winslow library building was built in 1926-27 on an adjoining lot donated by George Bassett, at a cost of $30,000 (the on-line source that says $3,000 must have dropped a zero).

The 1926-27 library is a two-story, flat-roofed brick building. A semi-circular columned portico the height of the building shelters an arched, glass-paneled front door. Above the columns are the words “Winslow Public Library.”

Two tall windows on the front have decorative medallions above them; the window on the south side is topped by a smaller arched window. The library now houses the Taconnett Falls Genealogy Library; its sign says it is open from 1 to 4, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

After the 1987 Kennebec River flood, the library moved to its Halifax Street home.

Nivison adds a second Winslow library with a limited clientele. He wrote that “there was a Library in the Taconnet Clubhouse, built in 1901-02. This library was open to all families who worked at H & W.”

H & W was the Hollingsworth & Whitney Paper Company mill, which operated from 1892 until, after two changes of ownership, 1997. The H & W Clubhouse also offered its employees use of pool tables, a bowling alley and a swimming pool, according to Wikipedia.

Main sources

Bernhardt, Esther, and Vicki Schad, compilers/editors, Anthology of Vassalboro Tales (2017).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902).

Personal conversations.
Websites, miscellaneous.

VASSALBORO – Small problem turns out bigger: resolved anyway

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by Mary Grow

Vassalboro Planning Board members started their Dec. 7 meeting thinking they had a small problem. It turned into a bigger one, and they solved it anyway.
At issue was the solar development at 2579 Riverside Drive. It was originally proposed by and permitted to a company named Longroad Energy (see The Town Line, Sept. 10, 2020), and repermitted in August 2021 as the permit’s one-year expiration date loomed.

The work had not started because Central Maine Power Company had not, and still has not, given final approval for adding the solar energy to the power grid.

After several changes, the project now belongs to a different company, Summit Ridge Energy, based in Arlington, Virginia. Ben Aparo, Summit’s Senior Director for Northeast Development, and Brook Barnes, representing a prior owner, asked the planning board to please change the permit to the new owner.

However, board member Douglas Phillips pointed out the clause in the Vassalboro Site Review Ordinance that says: “Permits shall be issued to the applicant of record. The permit(s) are not transferable to a new owner.”

Board members agreed the restriction makes sense. The new owner might not be able to carry out the permitted project; or ordinance requirements might have changed since the original permit was issued.

Neither situation was applicable to the solar development. Aparo and Barnes presented evidence that Summit has the financial capacity to build the solar farm; they assured board members that they intend no changes from the previously-approved plan; and Vassalboro voters have not amended the ordinance.

Barnes and Aparo therefore submitted a revised application in the name of the new ownership, incorporating the information from the original application. Board members voted unanimously to approve it.

The Dec. 7 meeting was Paul Mitnik’s last as Vassalboro’s Codes Enforcement Officer. Ryan Page will succeed him in the position as of Jan. 1, 2022, and Mitnik will become an alternate member of the planning board, appointed by select board members at their Nov. 18 meeting.

Vassalboro select board discusses money, ordinances

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by Mary Grow

Much of the discussion at the Dec. 9 Vassalboro select board meeting was about either ordinances or money, the money as a preliminary to consideration of the 2022-23 municipal budget.

Ordinances included the Marijuana Business Ordinance town voters approved in June and the Mass Gathering Ordinance they rejected in November.

The former requires licenses for marijuana businesses operating in Vassalboro before it was enacted, and is intended to ban new marijuana businesses. The codes officer is responsible for dealing with license applications.

At a public licensing hearing during the Dec. 9 meeting, Codes Officer Paul Mitnik recommended approval of four licenses for a Cushnoc Road facility. One is for building owner Daniel Charest. Three are for tenants Joseph Fucci (doing business as Grown Men LLC); Ryan Sutherland; and Robert Rosso (doing business as Kennebec Healing LLC). The licenses are for the calendar year 2022.

Mitnik said the owner and licensees had been cooperative, license fees were paid and operations met ordinance requirements. After the hearing, selectmen unanimously approved all four licenses.

Leo Barnett, owner of two buildings on Old Meadows Road used for marijuana-growing operations, had filed license applications, Mitnik said. However, no tenant of either building had applied; no license fee had been paid; and Mitnik had been denied admission to the buildings, in violation of both Marijuana Business Ordinance and building codes requirements.

After discussion with the town attorney, Mitnik had issued an order to vacate the buildings. He recommended denying Barnett’s license applications; selectmen agreed.

Mitnik’s second issue was his objection to the provision in the Marijuana Business Ordinance that exempts operations of less than 1,000 square feet, as it is being interpreted. He and incoming codes officer Ryan Page believe “operation” should include not just the grow area, but all related processing and storage spaces.

If the 1,000 square feet applies only to the grow area, which Mitnik called the canopy, then a 50,000 square foot building could house 50 new individual beds of marijuana plants, without any town review. Mitnik thinks such a development would be contrary to voters’ and officials’ expectations from the ordinance.

Town Manager Mary Sabins reminded those present that amending the ordinance to eliminate the exemption requires approval by town voters.

Mitnik and Page said there are other operations in Vassalboro that might need to be licensed. Investigation continues. They said the approved business in the Olde Mill complex in North Vassalboro is closing; and Barnett’s approved facility on Sherwood Lane is not yet built.

The defunct Mass Gathering Ordinance was mentioned in connection with the planned country music concert in July 2022. Local promoter J. R. Garritt (or Jr Garritt, on websites) was scheduled to speak with select board members, but did not attend the Dec. 9 meeting.

Board Chairman Robert Browne said he understood Garritt wanted to relocate the concert from the planned Nelson Road site to the town recreation fields. Board members postponed action until they hear from Garritt.

Without a mass gathering or similar ordinance, Browne said, town officials cannot regulate such events on private property. The defeated ordinance would have allowed them, for example, to require on-site drinking water, sanitary facilities, security and medical facilities.

The money issues select board members considered were raised by Vassalboro First Responder Chief, Daniel Mayotte; Vassalboro Public Library Director, Brian Stanley; and Sabins.

Mayotte suggested using about $75,000 of Vassalboro’s expected ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) money for covid-related and other purchases. His recommendations included replacing the First Responders’ outdated AEDs (automated external defibrillators); providing new ENVO N95 masks for First Responders, fire department members and town employees who work with the public; adding a fit-testing system to make the masks more effective; training and equipping new First Responders; helping fund Delta Ambulance’s chaplain service; and adding a cardiac monitor to the First Responders’ equipment.

Sabins said Vassalboro is expected to get about $460,000 in ARPA grants, half now and half in 2022. She displayed the inch-thick notebook of ARPA regulations she is studying to find out what uses are permitted. The process, she said, has no pre-approval component: the town will spend the money and apply for reimbursement hoping the expenditure qualifies.

Select board members suggested other possible uses for ARPA funds that Sabins will research. Awaiting more information, they took no action on Mayotte’s list.

They approved unanimously the updated schedule for replacing town vehicles and equipment over the next decade. Items most likely to be in the 2022-23 budget request include replacement Scott air packs for the fire department, a new town office computer system and a new backhoe for the transfer station. Sabins’ note on the last item quotes station Manager George Hamar: the backhoe “should have been replaced seven years ago.”

Stanley led discussion of reviving the town recreation program. While promising full cooperation, he said the library director does not have time also to be the recreation director.

His recommendation was that select board members budget more than $18,000 in 2022-23 to pay a recreation director who would be expected to work 15 hours a week, plus seasonal sports directors for baseball/softball, soccer and basketball. Board members postponed action.

In other business Dec. 9, Sabins reported progress on turning Vassalboro Community School into an emergency shelter. The generator is installed, though not yet switching on every time it should; and Maine Emergency Management officials have scheduled an early-January walk-through, to be followed by a shelter training program later in 2022.

Select board member Barbara Redmond said she had been invited to succeed former board member John Melrose on the Kennebec County budget committee. Browne and fellow board member Chris French approved.

Board members considered a new policy on background checks for people applying for town positions, paid or volunteer, but postponed action. Sabins said most applicants already undergo background checks.

The next regular Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 22, moved a day earlier than usual to avoid keeping the town office open late on Thursday, Dec. 23.

The Vassalboro town office will be closed from 4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 23, to 8 a.m. Monday, Dec. 27. The transfer station will also close at 4 p.m. Dec. 23 and will not be open Saturday, Dec. 25. However, it will open as usual at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 26.

For the New Year holiday, the town office will be closed Friday, Dec. 31. The transfer station will be closed Saturday, Jan. 1, but open as usual Sunday, Jan. 2.

Vassalboro American Legion Post donates stockings to veterans at Togus

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American Legion Post #126, Vassalboro, filled and donated 160 Christmas stockings to veterans at Togus Veterans Administration Hospital. The Christmas stockings were made by the Sew for a Cause ladies at St. Bridget Center, in North Vassalboro.

From left to right, Thomas Richards, commander, James Kilbride, adjutant and Kylie Higgins, chief of voluntary services.

From left to right, Thomas Richards, commander, Michael Poulin, Doug Grasso, youth officer, James Kilbride, adjutant and Robert Whitehouse.

From left to right, Thomas Richards, commander, Nicole Jordan, and James Kilbride, adjutant.

Vassaslboro Community School honor roll (Fall 2021)

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Vassalboro Community School (contributed photo)

GRADE 8

High honors: Emily Almeida and Ava Lemelin. Honors: William Ellsey, Madison Estabrook, Timothy Kiralis, Jacob Lavallee, Alxandria O’Hara and Addison Witham. Honorable mention: Moira Bevan, Addyson Burns, Jordan Cressey, Paige Littlefield, Brayden McLean, Emily Piecewicz, Leahna Rocque and Leah Targett.

GRADE 7

High honors: Taiya Rankins, Bryson Stratton and Landon Tassinari. Honors: Aliya Bourque, Madison Burns, Tallulah Cloutier, Owen Couture, Ryley Desmond, Eilah Dillaway, Alora Esquibel, Madison Field, Xavier Foss, Adalyn Glidden, Bailey Goforth, Kylie Grant, Caspar Hooper, Jack Malcolm, Henry Olson, Josslyn Ouellette and Natalie Rancourt. Honorable mention: Emma Charleston, Peyton Dowe, Wyatt Ellis, Olivia Leonard, Kaitlyn Maberry, Harley McEachern, Alexis Mitton, Mackenzie Oxley, Noah Pooler and Grady Sounier.

GRADE 6

High honors: Drew Lindquist, Paige Perry, Judson Smith, Alana Wade and Reid Willett. Honors: Benjamin Allen, Dominick Bickford, Juliet Boivin, Tristyn Brown, Gabriella Brundage, Dylan Dodge, Ryleigh French, Drake Goodie, Cooper Lajoie, Caleb Marden, Oliver Olson, Bentley Pooler, Trinity Pooler, Abigail Prickett, Kayden Renna, Hannah Tobey and William Trainor. Honrable mention: Zoey, DeMerchant, Jennah Dumont, Zachary Kinrade, Brooke Reny and Jade Travers.

GRADE 5

High honors: Samuel Bechard, Keegan Clark, Basil Dillaway, Fury Frappier, Allyson Gilman, Chayenne Lizzotte, Mia McLean, Agatha Meyer, Mackenzy Monroe and Ava Woods. Honors: Davontay Austin, Peyton Bishop, Bryleigh Burns, Kaleb Charlebois, Emily Clark, Preston Duenne, Baylee Fuchswanz, Zoe Gaffney, Bayleigh Gorman, Lillyana Krastev, Jack LaPierre, Kaitlyn Lavallee, Aiden McIntyre, Jaelyn Moore, Kaylee Moulton, Weston Pappas, Kassidy Proctor, Emma Robbins, Landen Theobald and Grace Tobey. Honorable mention: Mason Brewer, Olivia Dumas and Elliot McQuarrie.

GRADE 4

High honors: Zander Austin, Xainte Cloutier, Twila Cloutier, Mariah Estabrook, Dawson Frazer, Sarina LaCroix, Olivia Perry, Cassidy Rumba, Haven Trainor and Cameron Willett. Honors: Aliyah Anthony, Kiara Apollo, Lukas Blais, Jayson Booker, Sophia Brazier, Grace Clark, Kaylee Colfer, Samantha Craig, Wyatt Devoe, Riley Fletcher, Peter Giampietro, Lucian Kinrade, Landon Lagasse, Isaac Leonard, Elliott Rafuse, Isaiah Smith and Meadow Varney. Honorable mention: Dekan Dumont, Camden Foster, Aubrey Goforth, Jade Lopez and Juliahna Rocque.

GRADE 3

High honors: Hunter Brown, Levi DeMerchant, Cooper Grant, Tanner Hughes, Olivia Lane, Simon Olson, Landon Quint, Willa Rafuse, Alexis Reed, Jackson Robichaud, Liliana Tassinari and Gabriel Tucker. Honors: Alexander Bailey, Amaya-Lynn Belanger, Rylee Boucher, Maverick Brewer, Kandryn Couture, Braiden Crommett, Ashton Derosby, Addison Dodge, Sophia-Lynn Howard, Kendall Karlsson, Jase Kimball, Brooklyn Leach, Landon Lindquist, Christopher Santiago, Asher Smith, Elliot Stratton, William Vincent and Robert Wade. Honorable mention: Ryder, Austin, Reese Chechowitz, Liam Dowe, Mikkah-Isabella Grant, Aubrie Hill, Desmond Landreth, Aria Lathrop, Jace Reeves and Addison Suga.