From left to right, Vassalboro selectmen John Melrose, Barbara Redmond and Rob Browne listen as fire department member Mike Vashon, right, describes the functions of one of the town’s fire trucks during a recent tour of the town’s two fire stations. (photo courtesy of Mary Sabins)
The Vassalboro Business Association is sponsoring a Light Up The Season in Vassalboro outdoor holiday display contest, for and in Vassalboro.
To enter simply call or text your name and the address of the display site to 631-3303 or email the information to lindatitus@hotmail.com, before December 15. It is free.
Prizes will be awarded in two categories, Best in Town, and Most Creative. The prizes will range from $50 – $150 and the winners will be announced on December 19.
The sites will be judged between December 16 and 18. It is asked to have your lights on from 5:30 – 9 p.m. Only addresses – no names – of the participants will be published online so the community may drive by to appreciate all your hard work.
We all have bad days. Maybe your cat got run over or maybe the jelly in your PB and J sandwich made the bread way too soggy for the desired taste of the sandwich, or maybe you’ve had your head in your screen all day. I find myself having days where I ponder life more than others, where I come up with incredibly insane situations that I would never be in, and then I find myself having days where it kills me to tear my eyes away from my screen for two seconds. Social media is a disease that is being spread upon the youth. Many teens are struggling to find motivation and purpose. Very engaging and authentic opening paragraph, with a clear thesis!
The day I was handed my iPhone was the day my life changed. I stopped being the carefree child that didn’t have a care in the world. I was consumed with dark thoughts. I now had voices in my head making me second guess if my picture was pretty enough, if someone would say something about my imperfections, and if I needed to lose a little extra weight because I didn’t look like the supermodels that would pop up in my ads. My care-free spirit suddenly started to care. That’s what’s happening to our youth. If you hand your child a smartphone, it’s not a matter of if they will become consumed with darkness, it’s the matter of when. Wow!
Growing up a girl, all eyes are now on you and how you mature. I personally hear it all the time, “ oh wow Hannah, it looks like you have lost weight.” or “ Hannah, you look so different”, as if they are looking for these things the second I arrive in their presence, but for a few minutes you have the gladdening thought of the comment. Social media, however, can take this comment too far; all of a sudden the need for compliments takes over and you find yourself googling how to lose weight or how to be prettier. No girl should have to go through the expectations that society puts out for us. All of this could be avoided if the unfair comparison between teenagers and supermodels stopped. 72% of all teens use Instagram daily. This data is scary because that is 72% of the youth being brainwashed everyday.
Sixty-nine percent of children have their own devices by the age of 12, which was a 41% increase from 2015. The problem keeps growing and won’t stop. Smartphones were introduced in 2007 and from 2010 to 2015 visits to doctors regarding depression jumped nearly 30%. Now, I know it is hard to believe that social media causes depression. It is not a direct cause, however, it is a major contribution.
Technology is killing kids’ sense of adventure and their creative wavelengths. Sure, you may think that your kid has it under control because they still get active. For example, they will walk your dog (yay, exercise) but soon enough the whole world knows that your little Susie took old sparky for a walk. Parents now observe children with their eyes gleaned (Glued?) to a screen instead of drawing a picture or playing with friends.
Social media is causing kids’ minds to alter completely. Thirty years ago the biggest worry in parents’ minds was if their kids were going to eat a worm at recess; today the biggest worry in a parents mind is if their child will be a victim of this darkness that consumes young teens. Social media causes so much hate and discontent that we can’t experience the joys of walking alone at night or leaving the house in the morning and making it back just in time for dinner. This is a problem that will become out of hand if we do not take action today.
Student Writer’s Program: What Is It?
The Town Line has published the first in what we hope will be many articles from local students under the heading of the “Student Writer’s Program.” While it may seem plainly evident why The Town Line would pursue this program with local schools and students, I think it’s worth the time to highlight the reasons why we enthusiastically support this endeavor.
Up front, the program is meant to offer students who have a love of writing a venue where they can be published and read in their community. We have specifically not provided topics for the students to write on or about, and we have left the editing largely up to their teachers. From our perspective this is a free form space provided to students.
From the perspective of the community, what is the benefit? When considering any piece that should or could be published, this is a question we often ask ourselves at The Town Line. The benefit is that we as community are given a glimpse into how our students see the world, what concerns them, and, maybe even possible solutions to our pressing problems. Our fundamental mission at the paper is to help us all better understand and appreciate our community, our state, and our nation through journalism and print.
We hope you will read these articles with as much interest and enjoyment as we do. The students are giving us a rare opportunity to hear them out, to peer into their world, and see how they are processing this world we, as adults, are giving them.
To include your high school, contact The Town Line, townline@townline.org.
An Edison light bulb.
Many local histories find the arrival and expansion of electricity and telephone service noteworthy, especially in Maine’s smaller communities.
As most of us learned in grammar school, Benjamin Franklin is credited with discovering electricity in 1752, by flying a kite into a thunderstorm with a metal key attached to the wet string. His recognition that lightning caused sparks from the key was expanded and put to practical use by, among others, 19th-century British physicist Michael Faraday, whom a Wikipedia article calls one of the fathers of electricity (Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison share the title).
Faraday invented the electric motor in 1821, beginning a long series of practical developments that made electrical engineering, in Wikipedia’s view, “an essential tool for modern life.” Two early applications were the electric telegraph, which dates from the 1830s and expanded globally in the 1860s, and the first electric lights, in use by the 1870s.
The Fairfield bicentennial history gives 1886 as the year Amos Gerald created the Electric Light Company. (This was the same Amos Gerald who developed and electrified street railways; see The Town Line, Sept. 10.) In 1891, the company built a generating station on Mill Island. The William Connor house, on Summit Street, built in 1858, was the first to have electric lights.
The history further claims that Fairfield was the first Maine town to have electric lights; whether the reference is to private or public lighting is unspecified. Another note records a 1921 town vote to install streetlights in Shawmut; there is no indication whether other villages already had them.
Ruby Crosby Wiggin barely mentioned electricity in her Albion on the Narrow Gauge. The first lights were in 1920, she wrote, starting on the Unity Road and at Albion Corner and spreading town-wide in following years.
Alice Hammond, in her Sidney history, focused on the value of electricity to farm families. She wrote that Central Maine Power Company (CMP) extended its line from Augusta along Pond Road in 1925. Power reached Bartlett Road by 1927, part of River Road by 1933 and Middle Road by 1937.
The first night after the Wendell Bragg family on River Road got their house connected to the power line and lights installed, Hammond wrote, they turned on all the lights and went outdoors to admire the effect.
Electricity expanded Sidney’s dairy industry, as electric milking machines and milk coolers made large-scale production possible. Hammond wrote that Ernest Wyman was among the first farmers to buy a milking machine, and Dean Bailey had the first milking parlor, leading his cows to the machine instead of moving the machine from cow to cow.
Electricity was even more essential to the broiler industry, important in Sidney and much of the rest of central Maine from the 1950s into the 1970s. Multi-story chicken houses with thousands of chickens required lights, heat, and automatic feeding and watering devices.
Hammond paid special attention to electric radios, a new connection to the outside world after World War I. Six Sidney households had radios in 1925, she wrote, and neighbors would visit just to listen. There were 37 radios in town in 1928 and 65 by 1933.
In China, the bicentennial history says China Telephone Company manager E. J. Thompson asked Central Maine Power Company in 1920 to provide service to South China village. CMP agreed if residents would pay and would put up the necessary poles. They did, and in 1921 and 1922 houses acquired electric lights, water pumps and other amenities.
The Ladies’ Aid Society raised funds for the initial project and, the history says, supported South China streetlights for a few years. Town voters appropriated $100 for streetlights in 1923; skipped funding in 1924 and 1925; in 1926 and 1927 gave South China $100 and in 1927 added $75 for China Village street lights. Since 1928, when streetlights for the whole town cost $420, town meeting voters have routinely approved annual expenditures; the figure for 2020, included in the public works budget, is $10,000.
In Branch Mills, the village that is partly in China and partly in Palermo, the Village Improvement Society first explored replacing kerosene street lamps with electric lights in May 1919, Milton Dowe wrote. A four-man committee was appointed and apparently got in touch with CMP, without success.
By the spring of 1927, an enlarged committee negotiated an agreement with the company to run a line from South China, if Palermo would guarantee to pay $1,500 annually for five years. Committee member Harold Kitchen persuaded enough residents to sign up, some for $50 a year and some for less, to raise $1,200.
CMP offered to lower the guarantee if it could save money by using local materials and labor for the poles, Dowe wrote. The town bought poles and found a local contractor to put them up. CMP credited the final $100 when Palermo residents did the clearing needed to bring the line from Dirigo Corner to the village.
It was Aug. 8, 1928, that the electric lights were turned on in Branch Mills, Dowe wrote, and on Aug. 10 residents celebrated at the Grange Hall in the village.
Weeks Mills village had electricity by or soon after 1922, according to town records of pole permits. China Village, at the north end of town, acquired Central Maine Power service about 1927, the bicentennial history says. Earlier, local residents Everett Farnsworth and E. C. Ward shared power with neighbors from their noisy generators at opposite ends of Main Street.
Left, an 1878 Coffin phone. Right, a rotary dial phone.
Many of us also learned in school that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Actually, Wikipedia says, several other men could be credited as well, depending on definitions and whose story is believed; but Bell was the first to patent it, in 1876.
At first used primarily by businesspeople, the telephone began to appear in private homes (usually wealthy people’s) before 1880. Widespread household telephone service developed in central Maine in the first two decades of the 20th-century.
For example, Sidney historian Hammond, citing a 1976 book published by the Independent Telephone Pioneer Association’s New England Chapter, wrote that Sidney’s service started in 1901, when the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company set up a switchboard in Silas Waite’s house. The headquarters moved from house to house, ownership changed and lines and services were added over the years.
In 1908, John Field and Clyde Blake bought the business from New England T and T and made it the Sidney Telephone Company, a name it kept until 1965. There were 18 subscribers in 1908, 100 in 1941 and 250 by the late 1940s.
Hammond wrote that in addition to letting people talk with friends, the telephone system was a public address system and a fire alarm. To announce a town meeting, Grange supper or other event or to report a fire, the operator had a special ring that would let everyone on the service pick up.
In 1950, when Lewis Johnson bought the company and moved the switchboard to his Middle Road home and his wife Thelma became the operator, Hammond wrote that service became all day every day. Until then, only emergency calls were allowed at night and Sunday and holiday service was limited to an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Hammond’s history of Sidney has a photo of the Johnsons and their equipment.
In the winter of 1959-1960, Hammond wrote, Johnson converted from the crank phones to a dial system, building a separate building for the additional equipment. In 1965, Continental Telephone Company of Maine bought and incorporated the former Sidney Telephone Company.
Hammond added that Sidney had a second, smaller telephone company called the Farmers Line; she gives no dates. Some families started with Farmers and switched to Sidney Telephone; others used both services, she wrote.
In Vassalboro, the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company was operating by 1903; historian Alma Pierce Robbins found in town meeting records the company’s request to “change poles” on private land at Riverside in the southern end of town and to install a new line along the road from North Vassalboro to the Kennebec.
W. J. Thompson organized the China Telephone Company in South China in 1904 and was its general manager, president and head employee until illness forced him to retire in 1947. The company started with 29 subscribers, mostly businesses. Three public pay phones were available, in stores in South China and Weeks Mills and a private home at Dirigo Corner.
Thompson had two assistants. Howard L. Fuller was with him from 1904 and succeeded him as general manager in 1948, and R. C. Maxwell joined in 1906 and stayed with the company until he died in 1948. The bicentennial history says the three men and their families did everything from managing inventory and billing to repairing lines. Thompson was also president of the Maine Telephone Association in the 1920s.
According to the history, Maxwell used to collect bills door-to-door. When he was paid in produce, like apples or potatoes, he would substitute cash from his personal salary, $2.50 a day. The company’s first motorized vehicle was a motorcycle that did not survive Thompson’s handling; it was followed by a Model T and a Dodge touring car, both second-hand.
Starting with two lines, in South China and China Village, China Telephone connected more and more area residents. By 1923, according to a Maine Public Utilities Commission report, the company served people in all or parts of China, Palermo, Vassalboro and Windsor. The bicentennial history says long distance service was added– no date is given – via New England Telephone Company, in North Vassalboro.
The history says the company introduced dial telephones between 1959 and 1962 and in 1967 provided the first touch-tone telephones in New England.
Albion got its early telephone service from two competing companies, one based in Unity, which adjoins Albion on the northeast, and the other in Thorndike, which adjoins Unity on the northeast (both are in Waldo County). Wiggin told the story in detail in her history of Albion.
On May 31, 1905, she wrote, the Unity Telephone Company asked a special Albion committee for permission to put up poles and string lines throughout the town. The committee approved the request on June 21. On July 29, the Half Moon Telephone Company, in Thorndike, made a similar request, which was approved Aug. 15.
The Albion committee prescribed pole distances from each other and from roads, wire height and other specifications for both companies. Wiggin wrote that Half Moon got a head start, connecting three families’ businesses and houses in the fall of 1905, and charging them nothing. In 1906 Half Moon continued expansion and connected Albion with the exchange in Thorndike.
Unity Telephone started its construction in 1907 or 1908, Wiggin wrote. For some years the two companies competed; Wiggin wrote that in some places, Half Moon lines ran along one side of the road and Unity lines along the other.
People served by one line could not talk directly with people on the other. Some storekeepers signed up with both companies; if the two lines’ telephones were close enough to each other, someone in the store could allow cross-communication by holding them together.
Wiggin did not give the date at which Unity Telephone Company became Albion’s only telephone-service provider.
Dowe, Milton E., History Town of Palermo Incorporated 1884 (1954).
Fairfield Historical Society, Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988).
Grow, Mary M., China Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions (1984).
Hammond, Alice, History of Sidney Maine 1792-1992 (1992).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).
Wiggin, Ruby Crosby, Albion on the Narrow Gauge (1964).
Websites, miscellaneous.
by Mary GrowVassalboro selectmen got rid of one item of continuing business at their Oct. 28 meeting: they learned that the Vassalboro Conservation Commission seems on the way to reviving itself, and decided they did not need to discuss its future again.
An issue raised at their Oct. 15 meeting, use of the town ballfields during the coronavirus epidemic, was rediscussed, with final action possible at the Nov. 12 selectmen’s meeting.
Town Manager Mary Sabins had drafted a policy for selectmen’s review. Board members suggested three changes, including making it clear that management of school fields is up to school officials, even though the school is now a town department.
Melrose, who had been listening to news on his way to the meeting, shared information on the alarming increase in Covid-19 cases in Maine provided during a hastily-scheduled Oct. 28 news conference by Dr. Nirav Shah, director of Maine’s Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Governor Janet Mills.
At Sabins’ request, board members reviewed the draft request for bids on the Gray Road culvert prepared by Calderwood Engineering of Richmond. Most questions they left to Sabins and the firm’s representative to resolve.
An issue of particular local importance is how long the Gray Road will be closed. The bid specifications say 30 days; board Chairman John Melrose wondered whether giving the chosen contractor less time would be possible, and if possible, would increase the price.
Current plans are to seek bids early in 2021, with the work to be done in the summer. State regulations limit in-stream work to the period from mid-July to the end of September, Sabins said.
Sabins’ financial report for the first quarter of the fiscal year that began July 1 indicated the town is “doing okay,” with revenues slightly higher than expected, Melrose summarized.
Melrose raised two issues related to plans for Vassalboro’s 2021 semiquincentennial (250th) anniversary celebration. Fellow board members Robert Browne and Barbara Redmond endorsed his plan to look for a safe place for a fireworks display. No one could suggest a historic place, he said, because no one could remember a public fireworks display in town.
The Vassalboro Historical Society has talked with a craftsman who will begin restoring the damaged statue of a Civil War soldier in the East Vassalboro park beside the Historical Society building (formerly the East Vassalboro school), Melrose said. Historical Society members have a design for the project and a source of matching granite (in Rhode Island). Melrose said they plan a fundraising campaign and probably a request for town funds in the 2021-22 municipal budget.
Sabins presented the initial schedule of selectmen’s and budget committee meetings leading up to the 2021 annual town meeting, scheduled for Monday evening, June 7, and Tuesday, June 8. June 8 will also be the state voting day; in Vassalboro, voters will elect local officials, approve or reject the school budget approved at the open meeting the night before and act on any local referendum questions selectmen might propose.
If coronavirus restrictions remain in place, public meetings with 10 budget committee members, three selectmen and the town manager, plus a potential audience, might have to be virtual.
As selectmen prepared to adjourn, Melrose asked if Sabins, Browne and Redmond are comfortable with in-person meetings. The answer was yes, with the hope they can continue to open windows in the town office meeting room when the weather gets colder.
The selectmen’s meeting, held – unusually – on a Wednesday afternoon, was followed by a tour of the town’s two fire stations.
Grant request made for school generator
The day after the Vassalboro selectmen’s Oct. 28 meeting, Town Manager Mary Sabins submitted a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant request for a generator at Vassalboro Community School. The purpose is to make it possible to use the school as an emergency shelter when needed due to extreme weather or other disruptive events.
Sabins said the expected cost of a generator large enough to power the entire building is $115,000. Vassalboro will be expected to provide 25 percent of the cost, or $28,750. Voters at the June 2019 town meeting appropriated $28,000 for the project; Sabins said the money is still available, and the additional $750 could be taken from elsewhere in the budget or from the $15,000 contingency fund voters grant selectmen each year.
The town manager expressed thanks to Anne Fuchs, Director of Mitigation, Planning, and Recovery/State Hazard Mitigation Officer at the Maine Emergency Management Agency, for help in preparing the application.
Sabins does not know when she will hear whether FEMA has awarded Vassalboro a grant.
Vassalboro Community School (contributed photo)
Alan Pfeiffer, superintendent of schools in Vassalboro, issued a letter on November 1, to inform the community that the spouse of a staff member at Vassalboro Community School recently tested positive for the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID 19). The letter was sent to notify the public of the closing of the building for the next two weeks, per a strong recommendation from the Maine CDC (November 2 – November 15). “We are going to do full remote learning for the next two weeks. Our in-person learning will plan to resume Monday, November 16 – a BLUE cohort day,” said Pfeiffer. “You will be updated more as we hear from the Maine CDC.”
Maine CDC or a school representative will contact you directly if you are identified as a close contact to an individual who tested positive. Close contacts will be asked to quarantine for 14 days after the last exposure to the positive individual. A negative test result does not get an individual out of quarantine.
Maine CDC recommends measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. These measures include proper hand washing with soap and water, which is especially important after using the bathroom, before eating, and after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing. When soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol. Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands, and avoid close contact with people who are sick. Cover your cough or sneeze into a tissue, and then throw the tissue in the trash. Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray and wipe.
Vassalboro Community School will be cleaned according to the federal CDC guidelines.
For general COVID-19 questions, dial 211 (or 1-866-811-5695). You can also text your zip code to 898-211 or email infor@211maine.org, www.maine.gove/dhhs/coronavirus or www.cdc.gove/coronoavirus. The letter can be read in its entirety at vcsvikings.org.
Augusta Post Office, built in 1886, depicted on a post card.
The previous article talked about postal service in the southern part of the central Kennebec Valley. This article completes the story with summary postal histories of Sidney, Fairfield, Benton, and Clinton, plus miscellaneous notes.
As mentioned in last week’s article (see The Town Line, Oct. 15), Henry Kingsbury found Sidney had six post offices at various times. Alice Hammond built on his information in her history of Sidney to provide additional information on several of them.
The earliest Sidney post office dated from 1813, when Stephen Springer became postmaster on March 13. It was on River Road, location unspecified.
The Sidney post office was probably toward the southern end of town, because Hammond wrote that the North Sidney post office opened in January 1854 toward the north end of River Road. According to Kingsbury, first Postmaster John Merrill served until August 1867, when Stephen Springer took over and served for almost 16 years. (With a 41-year interval between appointments, it was probably not the same Stephen Springer.)
Meanwhile, the Sidney Centre post office opened at Bacon’s Corner, on Middle Road, in 1827. (Google locates Bacon’s Corner at the intersection of Middle Road with Dinsmore and Shepherd roads, not far south of the James H. Bean School.)
Four years later, in 1831, the West Sidney post office opened for the first time. Hammond wrote that it had the distinction of being discontinued four times “for want of a proper person to run” such an undistinguished and unprofitable operation. (A contemporary map on line identifies West Sidney as the intersection of the south end of Pond Road with Route 127.)
Sidney’s fifth post office was named Eureka – Hammond gave no explanation — and was on the north end of Middle Road, toward the Oakland line. Opened in 1879, closed in 1886 and reopened in 1887, it closed for good in 1902.
The final Sidney post office, which operated only from 1891 to 1902, was named Lakeshore. Neither Hammond nor Kingsbury suggested a location; presumably the lake referred to was Snow Pond (Messalonskee Lake).
Hammond wrote that Martha C. Bacon was the first Lakeshore postmaster; Moses Sawtelle followed her, but she had the job back when the office closed permanently in 1902. Hammond’s history has a photo of former post office “pigeon holes” – rows of open-front wooden boxes that appear to be four or five inches square – in the Bacon house.
The Fairfield bicentennial history lists seven post offices serving seven villages: Fairfield, Fairfield Corners, Kendall’s Mills (now downtown Fairfield), East Fairfield, North Fairfield, Larone and Somerset Mills (now Shawmut). The Fairfield post office was established in 1807; in 1872, the name was changed to Fairfield Center.
The Fairfield Corners post office (1822 to 1882) was at what is now Nye’s Corner, on the Kennebec between Shawmut and East Fairfield.
The Kendall’s Mills post office is undated; the history says its name was changed to Fairfield in 1872. It was relocated at least twice before 1938, when the current building, which the history says cost $50,000, came into use in January.
East Fairfield is now Hinckley. The Fairfield history has an undated photo of a large three-story building with two-story and one-story annexes, identified as Palmer’s Store and the Hinckley post office.
The history gives no date for the establishment of the post office in the mostly Quaker North Fairfield settlement. It closed in 1908; a 1913 photo of the village shows the building and adjacent store.
Waterville Post Office, built in 1911, as seen in this 1960s photo.
There are no dates for the Larone post office, either. The history says after the village grew enough to rate mail service, two residents of nearby Norridgewock helped villagers petition successfully to get mail delivered by the stagecoach that ran from Waterville to Norridgewock.
The Shawmut post office was called Somerset Mills from 1853 to 1889, when it became Shawmut.
Clinton’s mail was carried after 1816 by a horseback rider going from Winslow to Bangor, Kingsbury wrote. The earliest of Clinton’s three post offices was established June 13, 1836, at East Clinton (after July 2, 1842, simply Clinton), and the rider began coming twice a week. About 1850, the stagecoach driver going from Augusta to Bangor became the mail carrier.
On June 10, 1825, the Pishon’s Ferry or North Clinton post office opened on the east bank of the Kennebec River opposite Hinckley. The third post office, at Morrison Corner, was established Nov. 10, 1891, Kingsbury wrote. (The contemporary Google map shows Morrison Corner as the intersection of Battle Ridge, Peavey and Hinckley roads.)
Benton separated from Clinton in March 1842, was Sebasticook for eight years and in March 1850 became Benton. According to Kingsbury, the first two of its four post offices also had a habit of changing their names.
Post office number one was established July 29, 1811, as Clinton; became Sebasticook May 11, 1842; and became Benton June 1, 1852. Post office number two opened Aug. 5, 1858, as East Benton; became Preston Corner on Dec. 28, 1887 (Daniel Preston was postmaster); and was changed back to East Benton May 29, 1891.
The other two post offices were at Benton Falls, opened May 31, 1878, and Benton Station, opened Jan. 27, 1888.
* * * * *
The rural free delivery (RFD) system began operating in Sidney and Vassalboro in 1901, Hammond and Alma Pierce Robbins wrote. Mail from Augusta was distributed to roadside boxes in those two towns. In 1902, Oakland and Waterville also began RFD service, with the north end of Sidney getting mail from both. As Hammond describes the expansion of the service in Sidney, service from Augusta replaced the Sidney and Sidney Centre post offices in 1901 and the West Sidney post office in 1902; Waterville replaced North Sidney in 1902; and Oakland took over Eureka and Lakeshore in 1902.
Ruby Crosby Wiggin wrote that RFD started in Albion July 1, 1903, with three mailmen, Charles Byther, Arthur Skillin and Elmer Wiggin. Each mailman was directed to ask residents on his route to buy and put up a mailbox. Historian Wiggin quotes mailman Wiggin’s account of the resident who scoffed at this new idea and promised to buy a mailbox after he saw Wiggin delivering the mail.
In Palermo, Milton Dowe wrote, a petition to institute RFD was circulated early in the 20th century; there was a lot of opposition, but the system was inaugurated on Nov. 15, 1904. The East and Center Palermo post offices were discontinued immediately; the one at North Palermo stayed open a few years longer.
* * * * *
Waterville, like Augusta, has a historic post office building, located at 1 Post Office Square, in the southern triangle of the X-shaped intersection of Main Street, Elm Street, Upper Main Street and College Avenue. The elaborate one-story masonry building, now housing commercial establishments, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 18, 1977.
Wikipedia says the Greek Revival building was built in 911; the architect was James Knox Taylor. Taylor was the supervising architect for the U. S. Treasury Department from 1897 to 1912, giving him credit for hundreds of federal buildings all over the country.
Waterville’s current post office at 33 College Avenue was officially named the George J. Mitchell Post Office Building by an act of Congress approved Sept. 6, 1995. (See The Town Line, July 23, for information on the former Senator.)
* * * * *
Current post offices in the central Kennebec valley in 2020, alphabetical by town or city, from U. S. Postal Service websites:
Albion: 36 Main Street. ZIP 04910
Augusta: 40 Western Avenue. ZIP 04330
Water Street: 295 Water Street. ZIP 04330
Benton apparently does not have a post office within town boundaries. ZIP 04901.
China Village, 19 Main Street. ZIP 04926.
South China, 382 Route 3. ZIP 04358.
Clinton: 15 Railroad Street. ZIP 04937.
Fairfield: 130 or 132 (sources disagree) Main Street. ZIP 04937.
Hinckley: 753 Skowhegan Road. ZIP 04944.
Shawmut: 117 Bray Avenue. ZIP 04975.
Palermo: 111 Branch Mills Road. 04354.
Sidney apparently does not have a post office within town boundaries. ZIP 04330.
East Vassalboro: 361 Main Street. ZIP 04935.
Vassalboro: 25 Alpine Street. ZIP 04989.
North Vassalboro: 847 Main Street. ZIP 04962.
Waterville: 33 College Avenue. ZIP 04901 (P.O. Boxes 04903.).
Windsor: 519 Ridge Road. ZIP 04363.
Winslow: 107 Clinton Avenue (in The 107 convenience store, by contract). ZIP 04901.
Dowe, Milton E., Palermo, Maine Things That I Remember in 1996 (1997).
Fairfield Historical Society, Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988)
Grow, Mary M., China Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions (1984).
Hammond, Alice, History of Sidney Maine 1792-1992 (1992).
Howard, Millard, An Introduction to the Early History of Palermo, Maine (second edition, December 2015).
Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971)
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902).
Wiggin, Ruby Crosby, Albion on the Narrow Gauge. (1964)
Websites, miscellaneous.
by Mary GrowFour residents, three of them young parents who said they were speaking for others, attended the Oct. 15 Vassalboro selectmen’s meeting to protest closing the town-owned ballfields in East Vassalboro.
Zachary and Melissa Olson said groups of parents and children had been using the fields, with their own sports equipment and with no town involvement. Someone notified Police Chief Mark Brown and they were ordered to leave.
Selectmen and Town Manager Mary Sabins explained they had closed the fields two weeks earlier, after children in the Vassalboro recreation program shared transportation with students from Windsor school, where Covid-19 was found.
Sabins said she consulted with Recreation Director Danielle Sullivan and school officials, especially nurse MaryAnn Fortin, before ending the town recreation program for the season and closing the fields for two weeks. The two weeks ended Oct. 15, she said, and if people want to use the fields, they may.
“I’m a risk manager,” Sabins said. “Your children and all of us were at risk.”
The discussion ended with consensus that there is no plan for town-sponsored use of the ballfields this fall. Residents who bring their own equipment and supplies may use the property at their own risk. Sabins warned everyone on the fields to stay well away from the snack shack that is being reroofed, to avoid machinery, roofing nails and other possible hazards.
Board Chairman John Melrose said selectmen could have done better at explaining and publicizing the closure. He reminded the audience that, not for the first time since March, board members were dealing with a novel situation and making up a solution on the spot. He proposed they discuss developing a policy for pandemic-related decisions.
Returning to items from past meetings, selectmen voted unanimously that they support the volunteer fire department’s five-year lease-purchase of a new fire truck, as authorized by town meeting voters. Firefighter Michael Vashon said the fire department reserve fund lacks about $11,000 of the July 2021 lease payment; the department is fund-raising.
Selectmen will again wait for more information on the fire department’s need for a new repeater and on the future of the Conservation Commission. Sabins said a Conservation Commission meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 20.
Selectmen voted unanimously to deny Susan Little’s request for an additional streetlight in East Vassalboro, but to include the request in the proposed 2021-22 budget next year.
Sabins said Central Maine Power Company account manager Tammy Pierce said the new light would cost $9.10 a month rental, plus the energy cost. Little offered to cover the monthly charge for at least a year, but Sabins said town policy doesn’t authorize such donations.
Selectmen were concerned about the precedent they might set. Between now and budget preparation time they intend to see if they receive other requests. Sabins could remember only one new light approved during her tenure, on Cemetery Street near the Sanitary District office.
The next Vassalboro selectmen’s meeting is scheduled for an unusual time and day: 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28, instead of the usual Thursday evening. Beginning at 4 p.m., Oct. 28, board members will tour the North Vassalboro and Riverside fire stations, under Fire Chief Walker Thompson’s guidance.
by Mary GrowFaced with a four-item agenda that included three pre-application reviews, Vassalboro Planning Board members have scheduled public hearings on two of them, for Leo Barnett’s requested medical marijuana growing facilities.
The hearings are to begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10 (a week later than the board’s usual monthly meeting night because Nov. 3 is Election Day). Due to space limits at the town office, Codes Officer Paul Mitnik hopes to arrange to use St. Bridget’s Center on Main Street, in North Vassalboro. The location will be announced once it is final.
Barnett described plans to build two new marijuana-growing buildings on Sherwood Lane, and two more on Old Meadow Lane near his current business. Both roads run off Riverside Drive. He intends to rent out the space, he said, perhaps an entire building to one tenant, perhaps half a building.
Residents from both areas voiced a variety of concerns about the proposals, and Brackett said the board had received emailed comments. The decision to hold public hearings was intended to give interested residents a chance to get their information and opinions on the record.
Issues raised included access for emergency vehicles and an adequate water supply for the fire department (required for commercial buildings, firefighter Michael Vashon said); the kind of bathroom facilities required by state plumbing regulations; odor control (odor from marijuana-growing operations is a common subject of complaint, State Representative Richard Bradstreet said); security; effects on nearby property values; and traffic.
After the Nov. 10 hearings, board members intend to review Barnett’s applications for completeness and, if they are voted complete, discuss whether they meet town ordinance requirements.
The other two Oct. 6 applications were from Susan Traylor, to expand a non-conforming building in the Webber Pond shoreland, and from Jeremy Soucy, to open a used-car business at 24 Webber Pond Road, at the junction with Riverside Drive.
Traylor had a 2018 permit that expired before work was started. The new application is for a smaller expansion, not toward the water nor toward neighbors, she said. Board members unanimously approved her permit.
Brackett made sure Soucy was aware of information needed for his full application.
The Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland Railway trolley on Main St., in Fairfield.
Not long after finishing the piece about street railways that appeared in The Town Line, Sept. 10, this writer came across a small paperback book published in 1955. Written by O. R. (Osmond Richard) Cummings, it is titled Toonervilles of Maine, the Pine Tree State.
(The title refers to Fontaine Fox’s comic strip called Toonerville Folks that Wikipedia says first appeared in the Chicago Post in 1908 and last appeared in 1955. Toonerville was a suburban community with an assortment of oddball characters. One was Terrible-Tempered Mister Bang, who drove the Toonerville Trolley that met all the trains, Wikipedia explains.)
Additionally, the Connecticut Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society’s April-December 1965 Transportation Bulletin, available on line, includes a well-illustrated article Cummings wrote about the Waterville & Fairfield and other area street railways. Cummings and the Fairfield history both have information on trolleys in Fairfield, but they do not always agree. Cummings’ work is much more detailed, with information from multiple historical records.
The Waterville & Fairfield Railroad, which was initially powered by horses, is described in both books. Cummings wrote that it was incorporated on Feb. 24, 1887, and authorized to run horse-drawn cars the three and a third miles from Waterville to Fairfield. With $20,000 in bond sales and $20,000 borrowed, Amos F. Gerald, of Fairfield, and the other organizers acquired four cars and six horses. They oversaw the laying of tracks along the west side of the Kennebec roughly where College Avenue now runs and construction of a wooden carhouse for the cars and stable for the horses in Fairfield.
One online photo shows an elaborate open passenger car, rather precariously balanced on two sets of small wheels under its middle third, drawn by two white horses. Two women in floor-length skirts stand on the sidewalk in front of a row of large-windowed two-story brick buildings on Main Street, in Fairfield. The car is identified as Horse Car No. 1, and the estimated date is opening day, June 23, 1888 (the Fairfield historians wrote that service began June 24, 1888).
Car #1, in 1902.
Cummings said the open cars had eight benches and could accommodate 40 passengers. Another photo shows a closed car outside the Fairfield carhouse; the closed cars had space for 20 passengers, according to the text.
The railway soon had 24 horses. The Railroad Commissioners’ 1889 report, quoted by Cummings, said the horses “are well fed and kindly treated.”
The Waterville & Fairfield was well-patronized, Cummings wrote, carrying almost 95,000 passengers between its June 1888 opening and Sept. 30 that year. In its first full year, Sept. 30, 1888, to Sept. 30, 1889, there were 232,684 passengers, and despite having to buy snow-moving equipment and repair tracks in the spring, the line made a profit: $657, of which stockholders got $600 as dividends.
The next two years saw deficits almost $1,400. Nonetheless, early in 1891 two things happened indicating the railway was considered a going concern.
First, Cummings wrote, Gerald and other local men organized the Waterville & Fairfield Railway & Light Company, chartered by the Maine legislature on Feb. 12 and approved to buy the Waterville & Fairfield and two electric companies, in Waterville and Fairfield. The two railway companies became one on July 1, 1891.
The second event was that on March 4, the legislature authorized the Waterville & Fairfield to build a line through Winslow to North Vassalboro and to become an electric railroad.
The next year, horses were replaced by electricity, a conversion that involved adding poles and overhead wires, large generators at both ends of the line and new equipment in the cars. The first electric cars ran July 20, 1892. Cummings wrote that residents were excited and every car was full on opening day.
13-bench open car #11 of the Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland Railway, with conductor William McAuley, standing left, and motorman John Carl, on Grove St., in Waterville, near Pine Grove Cemetery.
The Waterville & Fairfield was the first of several street railways serving the area from the late 19th century well into the 20th century. Another that the Fairfield history describes was the Benton & Benton Falls Electric Railroad. It opened Dec. 7, 1898, and extended its tracks to Fairfield in July 1900. Cummings wrote about the Benton & Fairfield Railway, which had been operating a shorter line before it connected Benton to Fairfield in 1901. (The writer suspects the two were the same, perhaps going by slightly different names and owners’ names at different times.)
The Benton & Fairfield, Cummings wrote, was owned by Kennebec Fibre Company and served primarily to carry pulpwood delivered on Maine Central freight cars to Benton and Fairfield paper mills. Its first three miles of track, all in Benton, opened Dec. 7, 1898. Extensions in 1899 and 1900 brought the line across the Kennebec to Fairfield and increased mileage to a little over four miles.
Cummings wrote that the railroad made a profit in only nine of its 32 or so years, and state railway commissioners were frequently dissatisfied with its maintenance. What little passenger service was offered ended in 1928, and the railroad went out of business around 1930, Cummings found.
The Fairfield & Shawmut connected those two villages in 1906 (Fairfield history) or October 1907 (Cummings). Amos Gerald was among its founders. It was primarily intended to serve passengers; Cummings wrote that its schedules were designed to let people transfer to the Waterville & Fairfield. The fare was five cents; the three-mile trip took 15 minutes, and cars ran every half hour.
The line, a little more than three miles long, served Keyes Fibre Company near Shawmut and Central Maine Sanatorium on Mountain Avenue between downtown Fairfield and Shawmut. There was a waiting room for sanatorium visitors at the foot of the avenue, Cummings wrote.
Like the other electric railroads Cummings described, the Fairfield & Shawmut was partly built with borrowed money — $30,000, in this case. Cum—mings wrote that when the 20-year bonds came due July 1, 1927, there wasn’t enough money to redeem them. The bondholders chose a receiver who got approval to abandon the railroad; the last trolleys ran July 23, 1927.
The Waterville & Fairfield met the lines from Benton and from Shawmut in Fairfield, and provided electricity for both.
As the Waterville & Fairfield grew, local businessmen formed the Waterville & Oakland Street Railway. (Yes, one was Amos F. Gerald, and Cummings lists him as the railway’s first general manager.) It was chartered in 1902, despite opposition from the Maine Central Railroad that also connected the two towns. Construction began in April 1903; the line from downtown Waterville to Snow Pond opened July 2, 1903, Cummings wrote.
High trestle over the Messalonskee Stream, in Oakland, with one of the Duplex convertibles crossing at the Cascade Woolen Mill.
The new line required two bridges across Messalonskee Stream, one in Oakland and one off Western Avenue in Waterville. The railway and the city split the cost of the Waterville bridge, which Cummings said was 53 feet long and 28 feet wide.
The Waterville & Fairfield and Waterville & Oakland met in Waterville. Thence passengers could travel to Fairfield and connect for Benton or Shawmut.
By 1910, the Waterville & Fairfield tracks had been extended into the southern part of Waterville, out Grove Street to Pine Grove Cemetery and out Silver Street. There might have been a plan to connect the two lines at the foot of what is now Kennedy Memorial Drive; if so, it was never achieved.
The Waterville & Fairfield and Waterville & Oakland consolidated in 1911 under the auspices of Central Maine Power Company (which owned two other street railways in Maine). As of December of that year, Cummings wrote, the new Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland had 10.5 miles of track plus sidings.
A postcard showing Main St., in Waterville, after an ice storm with iced lines and plowed Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland trolley tracks running the middle of the street, on March 10, 1906.
The line through Winslow and Vassalboro was eventually built by the Lewiston, Augusta & Waterville Street Railway. This company opened a railway from Winslow to East Vassalboro on June 27, 1908, and continued it from East Vassalboro to Augusta by November 1908.
The Lewiston and Waterville lines were connected by an arched concrete bridge across the Kennebec between Winslow and Waterville that opened Dec. 15, 1909, Cummings found. He wrote that after the 1936 flood took out the highway bridge, the trolley bridge was temporarily the only local way to cross the Kennebec (except by the footbridge).
The trolley bridge had survived its builders. The Lewiston, Augusta & Waterville became the Androscoggin & Kennebec in 1919 and stopped running July 31, 1932.
Cummings described in some detail routes, equipment, power sources and facilities. Fairfield’s two carhouses were on High Street (plus a smaller one on Main Street for the Fairfield & Shawmut); Benton had one, at Benton Falls; Waterville had one, at the Waterville Fairgrounds; and Oakland had elegant Messalonskee Hall, on Summer Street at the foot of Church Street near the lake. Cummings wrote that the Hall’s ground level accommodated three trolley tracks; the basement had a restaurant and a boathouse; and on the second floor were a dance hall and dining room.
The trolley fare remained a nickel until 1918, rose to seven cents that year and later to 10 cents, Cummings wrote; but regular riders could buy tickets in bulk and get a discount. Children rode for half price.
Schedules called for a trolley-car every half hour on each of the various routes. Cummings commented that as more and more automobiles and trucks competed for space on the streets, staying on schedule became increasingly challenging.
The Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland surrendered on Oct. 10, 1937. On its final day, passengers again filled the cars, as when the first electric cars ran more than 45 years earlier. Cummings wrote that the last trip over the Waterville to Oakland line began at 10:35 p.m. on Oct. 10; the last run to Fairfield began at 12:40 a.m. on Oct. 11. Bus service began at 5:15 that same morning.
Cummings, O. R. , Toonervilles of Maine The Pine Tree State (1955)
Fairfield Historical Society Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988).
Websites, miscellaneous.