Up and Down the Kennebec Valley: Education: Waterville, Winslow high schools

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by Mary Grow

Before moving on to 19th-century Winslow and Waterville high schools, your writer will share one more item about Waterville grammar schools. With its ramifications, it was too long for last week’s article.

Readers learned last week that Waterville school authorities once created two classrooms in the town hall. Following is another example of improvised classroom space, from Henry Kingsbury’s 1892 Kennebec County history.

Kingsbury quoted a resident’s article in the April 21, 1882, “Waterville Mail” remembering when George Dana Boardman taught in “Lemuel Dunbar’s carpenter shop,” because there was no schoolhouse in his newly-created district.

Your writer thought it appropriate to add that Boardman (Feb. 8, 1801 – Feb. 11, 1831) was an internationally known missionary, and Dunbar (May 3, 1781 – c. Aug. 6, 1865) did important work in Waterville.

Boardman, a native of Livermore, Maine, was half the graduating class at the Aug. 1, 1822, first commencement at Waterville College (now Colby College).

He taught at least one term of school in Dunbar’s shop in 1820, while still a student, according to Aaron Appleton Plaisted’s chapter on early settlers in Rev. Edwin Carey Whittemore’s 1902 Waterville history. On July 16 of that year, Kingsbury said, Baptist minister Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin baptized Boardman.

After graduation, according to Wikipedia, Boardman was a Waterville College tutor in 1822-1823, before he went to Andover (Massachusetts) Theological Seminary. When he was ordained a Baptist minister in West Yarmouth, Maine, on Feb. 16, 1825, Wikipedia says Chaplin, by then Waterville College’s President, was a speaker.

On July 4, 1825, Boardman married Sarah Hall (Nov. 4, 1803 – Sept. 1, 1845), from Alstead, New Hampshire. On July 16, they sailed for Calcutta, on their way to Burma (now Myanmar), where they spent their lives as missionaries.

The couple lost at least two sons in infancy; the survivor they named George Dana Boardman (frequently called “the Younger,” Wikipedia says). After Boardman’s early death from consumption (tuberculosis) in Burma, Sarah married another missionary and associate, Adoniram Judson.

* * * * * *

The other half of Boardman’s class was Ephraim Tripp (c. 1799 – April 7, 1871). After graduation, according to on-line information about Waterville/Colby graduates, he served as principal of Hebron Academy in 1822-1823. Then he, too, became a tutor at his alma mater, from 1823 to 1827.

During these years, according to the chapter in Whittemore’s history on Waterville churches, Tripp was one of the three-man building committee for the First Baptist Church, planned in 1824 and dedicated Dec 6, 1826. The dedication ceremony included “a sermon by Dr. Chaplin.”

Later in his life, Tripp was a teacher in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and in Mississippi, and was Clerk of Courts in Carroll County, Mississippi. He died in Winona, Mississippi (now the Montgomery County seat), at the age of 72.

(The author of the chapter on churches in the Waterville history is “George Dana Boardman Pepper, D.D., LL.D., Lately President of Colby College.”

(Pepper [Feb. 5, 1833 – Jan. 30, 1913] was the fourth and last child of John and Eunice [Hutchinson] Pepper. Born in Ware, Massachusetts, he attended two seminaries and Amherst College. From 1860 to 1865, he was pastor of Waterville’s First Baptist Church. Changing to education, he taught religious subjects before and after serving as Colby College’s ninth president from 1882 to 1889. Religion ran in the family; Find a Grave identifies his father as Deacon and one of his older brothers as Rev.)

* * * * * *

Lemuel Dunbar was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and married Cordana Fobes there on June 23, 1806, according to Find a Grave. This source says he bought land in Waterville Oct. 1, 1805; Plaisted said he moved to Waterville around 1808. They agree he built his house and shop at the corner of Main and North streets, at the north end of the present downtown.

Sources disagree on how many children Dunbar had. One implies that Cordana died and he remarried; Find a Grave says Cordana lived until 1869.

Their oldest son was Otis Holmes Dunbar (May 22, 1807 – Sept. 30, 1892), like his father a carpenter. Find a Grave says he was born in Penobscot, Maine; married Mary Talbot in Winslow, Maine, in 1836; worked in Maine and “the Boston area”; and by June 1860 was living in Princeton, Illinois, where he died. His body was returned to Waterville for burial in Pine Grove Cemetery with family members.

Find a Grave says the Dunbars had nine children, born between 1807 and 1826, and lists three daughters and three sons buried in Pine Grove Cemetery. Youngest son Lemuel was the only one still alive in 1902, Plaisted wrote.

Chaplin taught the first Waterville College classes in July 1818 in a house not far from Dunbar’s shop, according to Edward W. Hall’s chapter on Colby in Whittemore’s history.

Hall continued, “In 1821 the South College was built and eighteen rooms finished besides fitting up a part of the building for a chapel. The second dormitory, known as the North College…was built in 1822.” Dunbar was the carpenter for both buildings, he said.

By 1902, Plaisted said, Dunbar’s original house had been removed and replaced, and the shop had been converted to a house “now occupied by Mr. A. M. Dunbar” (the first Lemuel’s grandson?).

* * * * * *

Your writer’s next topics are Winslow and Waterville high schools, about which she has found little second-hand information. Long-time readers will remember that second-hand information is important: original research, in enclosed spaces among unknown people, has been forbidden since this series started early in the Covid epidemic.

The earliest information your writer found about Winslow high schools was from Kingsbury. He said in 1892, Winslow appropriated $250 to support two free high schools. One, he said, was in “the village of Winslow” and the other “in the eastern part of the town near the Baptist church.” That year they had 80 students between them.

Two on-line sites provide tantalizing bits of information from the first half of the 20th century. One says a wooden, three-story high school building on Halifax Street (which was then Getchell Stret) burned in 1914 and was rebuilt on the same lot in 1915. Halifax Street, also Route 100, runs east from the Kennebec at Fort Halifax.

Another site says the new high school that opened on Danielson Street in 1929 replaced the previous schools, plural. The Danielson Street school started out housing grades seven through 12, but seventh grade was soon moved elsewhere. Danielson Street, site of the current Winslow High School, is several blocks north of Halifax Street.

* * * * * *

Your writer’s short part-article on Waterville’s high schools in the Sept. 9, 2021, issue of “The Town Line” is unsatisfactory, in spite of editor Roland Hallee’s attractive illustrations. The following paragraphs will expand it a bit:

Elwood T. Wyman, in his chapter on public schools in Whittemore’s history, listed the “masters” of Waterville’s public high school “since its permanent organization in 1876.” There were nine of them up to 1902, and Richard W. Sprague, Colby Class of 1901, was about to become the tenth. Wyman commented that “every one of the masters in the list quoted has been a Colby graduate.”

This permanently organized school was not Waterville’s first high school, but information on previous ones is scanty. From what Wyman wrote, it appears that by the 1830s, some, at least, of the district schools provided some high-school-level courses. Wyman mentioned that in 1855, “Latin and French were authorized as studies in the high school.”
Education Winslow and Waterville high schools number 224 for Nov 14 2024

Before moving on to 19th-century Winslow and Waterville high schools, your writer will share one more item about Waterville grammar schools. With its ramifications, it was too long for last week’s article.

Readers learned last week that Waterville school authorities once created two classrooms in the town hall. Following is another example of improvised classroom space, from Henry Kingsbury’s 1892 Kennebec County history.

Kingsbury quoted a resident’s article in the April 21, 1882, “Waterville Mail” remembering when George Dana Boardman taught in “Lemuel Dunbar’s carpenter shop,” because there was no schoolhouse in his newly-created district.

Your writer thought it appropriate to add that Boardman (Feb. 8, 1801 – Feb. 11, 1831) was an internationally known missionary, and Dunbar (May 3, 1781 – c. Aug. 6, 1865) did important work in Waterville.

Boardman, a native of Livermore, Maine, was half the graduating class at the Aug. 1, 1822, first commencement at Waterville College (now Colby College).

He taught at least one term of school in Dunbar’s shop in 1820, while still a student, according to Aaron Appleton Plaisted’s chapter on early settlers in Rev. Edwin Carey Whittemore’s 1902 Waterville history. On July 16 of that year, Kingsbury said, Baptist minister Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin baptized Boardman.

After graduation, according to Wikipedia, Boardman was a Waterville College tutor in 1822-1823, before he went to Andover (Massachusetts) Theological Seminary. When he was ordained a Baptist minister in West Yarmouth, Maine, on Feb. 16, 1825, Wikipedia says Chaplin, by then Waterville College’s President, was a speaker.

On July 4, 1825, Boardman married Sarah Hall (Nov. 4, 1803 – Sept. 1, 1845), from Alstead, New Hampshire. On July 16, they sailed for Calcutta, on their way to Burma (now Myanmar), where they spent their lives as missionaries.

The couple lost at least two sons in infancy; the survivor they named George Dana Boardman (frequently called “the Younger,” Wikipedia says). After Boardman’s early death from consumption (tuberculosis) in Burma, Sarah married another missionary and associate, Adoniram Judson.

* * * * * *

The other half of Boardman’s class was Ephraim Tripp (c. 1799 – April 7, 1871). After graduation, according to on-line information about Waterville/Colby graduates, he served as principal of Hebron Academy in 1822-1823. Then he, too, became a tutor at his alma mater, from 1823 to 1827.

During these years, according to the chapter in Whittemore’s history on Waterville churches, Tripp was one of the three-man building committee for the First Baptist Church, planned in 1824 and dedicated Dec 6, 1826. The dedication ceremony included “a sermon by Dr. Chaplin.”

Later in his life, Tripp was a teacher in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and in Mississippi, and was Clerk of Courts in Carroll County, Mississippi. He died in Winona, Mississippi (now the Montgomery County seat), at the age of 72.

(The author of the chapter on churches in the Waterville history is “George Dana Boardman Pepper, D.D., LL.D., Lately President of Colby College.”

(Pepper [Feb. 5, 1833 – Jan. 30, 1913] was the fourth and last child of John and Eunice [Hutchinson] Pepper. Born in Ware, Massachusetts, he attended two seminaries and Amherst College. From 1860 to 1865, he was pastor of Waterville’s First Baptist Church. Changing to education, he taught religious subjects before and after serving as Colby College’s ninth president from 1882 to 1889. Religion ran in the family; Find a Grave identifies his father as Deacon and one of his older brothers as Rev.)

* * * * * *

Lemuel Dunbar was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and married Cordana Fobes there on June 23, 1806, according to Find a Grave. This source says he bought land in Waterville Oct. 1, 1805; Plaisted said he moved to Waterville around 1808. They agree he built his house and shop at the corner of Main and North streets, at the north end of the present downtown.

Sources disagree on how many children Dunbar had. One implies that Cordana died and he remarried; Find a Grave says Cordana lived until 1869.

Their oldest son was Otis Holmes Dunbar (May 22, 1807 – Sept. 30, 1892), like his father a carpenter. Find a Grave says he was born in Penobscot, Maine; married Mary Talbot in Winslow, Maine, in 1836; worked in Maine and “the Boston area”; and by June 1860 was living in Princeton, Illinois, where he died. His body was returned to Waterville for burial in Pine Grove Cemetery with family members.

Find a Grave says the Dunbars had nine children, born between 1807 and 1826, and lists three daughters and three sons buried in Pine Grove Cemetery. Youngest son Lemuel was the only one still alive in 1902, Plaisted wrote.

Chaplin taught the first Waterville College classes in July 1818 in a house not far from Dunbar’s shop, according to Edward W. Hall’s chapter on Colby in Whittemore’s history.

Hall continued, “In 1821 the South College was built and eighteen rooms finished besides fitting up a part of the building for a chapel. The second dormitory, known as the North College…was built in 1822.” Dunbar was the carpenter for both buildings, he said.

By 1902, Plaisted said, Dunbar’s original house had been removed and replaced, and the shop had been converted to a house “now occupied by Mr. A. M. Dunbar” (the first Lemuel’s grandson?).

* * * * * *

Your writer’s next topics are Winslow and Waterville high schools, about which she has found little second-hand information. Long-time readers will remember that second-hand information is important: original research, in enclosed spaces among unknown people, has been forbidden since this series started early in the Covid epidemic.

The earliest information your writer found about Winslow high schools was from Kingsbury. He said in 1892, Winslow appropriated $250 to support two free high schools. One, he said, was in “the village of Winslow” and the other “in the eastern part of the town near the Baptist church.” That year they had 80 students between them.

Two on-line sites provide tantalizing bits of information from the first half of the 20th century. One says a wooden, three-story high school building on Halifax Street (which was then Getchell Stret) burned in 1914 and was rebuilt on the same lot in 1915. Halifax Street, also Route 100, runs east from the Kennebec at Fort Halifax.

Another site says the new high school that opened on Danielson Street in 1929 replaced the previous schools, plural. The Danielson Street school started out housing grades seven through 12, but seventh grade was soon moved elsewhere. Danielson Street, site of the current Winslow High School, is several blocks north of Halifax Street.

* * * * * *

Your writer’s short part-article on Waterville’s high schools in the Sept. 9, 2021, issue of The Town Line is unsatisfactory, in spite of editor Roland Hallee’s attractive illustrations. The following paragraphs will expand it a bit:

Elwood T. Wyman, in his chapter on public schools in Whittemore’s history, listed the “masters” of Waterville’s public high school “since its permanent organization in 1876.” There were nine of them up to 1902, and Richard W. Sprague, Colby Class of 1901, was about to become the tenth. Wyman commented that “every one of the masters in the list quoted has been a Colby graduate.”

This permanently organized school was not Waterville’s first high school, but information on previous ones is scanty. From what Wyman wrote, it appears that by the 1830s, some, at least, of the district schools provided some high-school-level courses. Wyman mentioned that in 1855, “Latin and French were authorized as studies in the high school.”

After 1846, some students qualified for high-school level studies attended one of two private high schools, Waterville Academy (later Coburn Classical Institute) or Waterville Liberal Institute. After the Civil War, Waterville temporarily abandoned its public high school(s).

Wyman wrote: “In 1864 pupils of high school rank were sent to Waterville Academy where Dr. [James] Hanson received $4.50 a term for their tuition. This arrangement was continued until the establishment of an independent high school in 1876.”

(Hanson was then starting his second term as Academy principal; he served from 1843 to 1854 and again from 1865 to his death in 1894.)

Skipping to 1902, Wyman wrote that the southern of the two brick primary schools built in or soon after 1853 was by then “the main part of the present high school building.” But he did not describe how it attained that role, or where high school classes were held before the mid-1850s or after 1876.

* * * * * *

Waterville Academy was established in 1829 as a preparatory school for Colby College, Waterville Liberal Institute in 1835 as a Universalist high school. (See the Oct. 21, 2021, issue of The Town Line.)

Waterville Academy boys initially took classes at the college. In 1828, college trustees decided on a physically, but not yet legally, separate school.

Timothy Boutelle, a prominent Waterville lawyer, donated land, Wikipedia says, and President Chaplin raised the funds for “a small brick building” where classes started in the fall of 1829, with 61 students. The first head of the academy was Colby senior Henry W. Paine, assisted by a classmate; Kingsbury wrote that Paine returned in August 1831 for another five years.

The Academy closed in 1839 and 1840, because, according to Waterville historian Ernest Marriner, Waterville Liberal Institute took too many of the eligible students. It reopened in 1841 and a year later separated legally from the college.

Kingsbury wrote that in the fall of 1843, when Hanson became principal for the first time, the Academy had five students. By 1853, there were 308 students, and Hanson got an assistant, George B. Gow, who became principal when Hanson left in 1854.

Female students were admitted beginning in 1845. Kingsbury wrote that “another room was fitted up and Miss Roxana F. Hanscom was employed to teach a department for girls.”

In 1865, according to the Wikipedia writer, the Academy was renamed Waterville Classical Institute. In 1882, it was renamed again, Coburn Classical Institute, in honor of benefactor Abner Coburn. In 1970, Coburn merged with Oak Grove School; the combined school closed in 1989.

* * ** * *

Waterville Liberal Institute was chartered by the Maine legislature Feb. 28, 1835, and opened Dec. 12, 1836. The first principal was Nathaniel M. Whitmore, Kingsbury said, and the school started with 54 students.

A “female department” opened in 1850. In 1851, according to that year’s catalog, the Institute had 174 students, 91 boys and 83 girls. Most were from Waterville, but other Maine towns, Massachusetts and New Brunswick were represented.

The Institute closed in 1857, when, Kingsbury wrote, “the growth of Westbrook Seminary sufficiently filled the field.”

Main sources

Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892)
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902)

Websites, miscellaneous

Up and Down the Kennebec Valley: Education in Winslow & Waterville

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Sand Hill School, in Winslow.

by Mary Grow

The northernmost of three area towns incorporated on April 26, 1771, was Winslow, on the east bank of the Kennebec River, then including Waterville and Oakland on the west bank.

As discussed in earlier articles, Teconnet or Ticonic, later Winslow, was one of the earliest European-settled areas on this part of the river, with a British trading post in the 1650s and a British fort in 1754. Henry Kingsbury wrote in his Kennebec County history that Winslow’s first town meeting was held Thursday, May 23, 1771.

Your writer has found little information on 18th century schooling in Winslow and less on the 19th century. Elwood T. Wyman, in his chapter on education in Whittemore’s 1902 history of Waterville, commented that early residents on the Winslow side of the Kennebec could not always afford an education appropriation.

In 1778, town meeting voters agreed to pay a preacher but not a teacher, he said. In 1780, 1788, 1789 and 1790, they funded neither.

In 1791, they appropriated 50 pounds for schooling and nothing for preaching. In March 1796, voters – still representing both sides of the river – approved $250 for education, by now switching to dollars.

Wyman wrote that in addition to the struggling public schools, some wealthier residents supported private schools. He gave as an example a Dec. 28, 1796, agreement (signed Feb. 7, 1797) between nine residents (from both sides of the river) and Abijah Smith (later Waterville’s town clerk) for Smith to run a school in Ticonic Village (on the Winslow side) for three months.

Smith was to find his own room and board and a schoolroom (whether the living and teaching quarters were separate is unspecified). He was to be paid a total of $60, $2 a month for board and the remainder at the end of the term; and his sponsors would deliver firewood for the school.

Wyman switched his focus from Winslow to Waterville in 1802, when the two towns separated. Kingsbury provided no historical details on education in the Winslow chapter in his history. Again (as with Sidney), he described Winslow education only in 1892, the year his book was published.

Notes by Winslow historian Jack Nivison on the Winslow Historical Society’s website describe two 19th-century school buildings depicted there: the 1819 Fort School on the west side of Lithgow Street, near the Kennebec; and the 1887-88 Sand Hill School, at the corner of Monument and Bellevue streets, well uphill from the river.

Second Fort School, Lithgow St.

The original Fort school was one room. Nivison said it might have been Winslow’s earliest public – he emphasized “public” – school.

An on-line site says it was used until 1909, when increasing enrollment required the new, larger Fort School, built in 1910. This two-room Fort School was on the east side of Lithgow Street, three lots south of the first one.

The original Fort School was reused for a year or two after a high school burned down in 1914, the on-line site says. In 1976, the building became the Winslow Historical Society’s museum. It was destroyed in the Flood of 1987.

The Sand Hill School was the largest in town when it was built, Nivison wrote. The accompanying photograph, taken after a 1909 addition, shows a tall, two-story, L-shaped building. Sand Hill School was “always an elementary school,” though with “different grades at different times.” It closed after the 1929-30 school year.

Kingsbury, describing Winslow education in 1891-92, said there were 16 school districts, 15 schoolhouses “and eleven schools that were taught in 1892,” attended by 247 students.

Funding, he summarized, consisted of $1,400 “in public money” (state funds?), $1,500 from town taxes and another $250 “for the support of free high schools.”

* * * * * *

In the 1902 Waterville history, Wyman summarized education-related actions at early town meetings after Waterville was incorporated as a separate town on June 23, 1802.

At the first meeting on July 26, voters elected 10 men as school agents. At an Aug. 9 meeting, they raised $300 for education. In March, 1803, they approved another $400; and on May 2, 1803, they accepted a report from the selectmen establishing 10 school districts.

Eight districts were named after residents; the “village district,” No. 1, was Ticonic and the third was Ten-lot. Names had changed to numbers by around 1808. But, Wyman said, in 1902 some districts’ residents were still using the family names.

The selectmen also recommended, and voters approved, having annual town meeting voters choose school agents and letting each district’s residents contract with their teachers, within legal limits. Selectmen were authorized to aid small districts (financially? with supplies? with expertise?), and “Rose’s district was advised to join with neighboring families in Fairfield in support of a union school.”

(Elsewhere, Whittemore’s history lists a George Rose from Water­ville who served during the winter of 1839 in a militia unit raised in Fairfield and Waterville for the Aroostook War.)

By 1806, Wyman wrote, the education appropriation was increased to $600. That year, too, voters elected a five-man committee to inspect Waterville’s schools during the following year. Wyman commented that two members, Dr. Moses Appleton and Hon. Timothy Boutelle, were Harvard graduates; other sources say Appleton graduated from Dartmouth College, Class of 1791.

Wyman (like Kingsbury) listed family names of the 145 students in District 1 in 1808. He said they came from “Main, Silver, Mill, College, Water and lower Front streets.” Except for Mill Street, these are current names of major streets in downtown Waterville.

In 1808, Wyman said, the streets were “rough roads,” running through “an area still largely covered with woods, and used mostly for pasturage.” He listed two schoolhouses, “the little old yellow one close by the town hall, and the brick one on College street,” farther north along the Kennebec.

Voters at an 1812 town meeting made a decision that Wyman said recognized “the importance to public schools of official inspection.” They chose Appleton and Daniel Cook “visiting inspectors,” directed to visit every public school at least once in the winter term, and in the summer “if they thought proper,” and to tell each schoolmaster “the most proper mode of instruction.”

Appleton and Boutelle were two of the five 1821 school committee members Wyman named. Appleton was elected again in 1826, when, Wyman said, the committee had three members.

By then voters had approved paying school committee members “a reasonable sum” for their work, and in 1827 Appleton got $6. That year, too, voters approved a long motion by Boutelle that considerably expanded the men’s responsibilities.

Committee members were now required to prepare a detailed annual report. It was to cover how much each district spent and what for (specifically, expenditures for schoolmasters, for schoolmistresses and for wood); teachers’ names, wages and lengths of service; the number of students, what kinds of textbooks they had and what subjects they studied; the committee’s opinions on the quality of each school; and anything else committee members thought useful or interesting.

Wyman surmised it was because of the reporting requirement that committee members’ annual stipends went up to eight dollars in 1828.

In 1828, too, he wrote, the boundaries of Waterville’s 13 school districts were described in such detail as to take up three pages in town records. For years thereafter, he said, almost every town meeting included a vote on “setting off certain persons from one [school] district to another. This business and the laying out or discontinuance of roads furnished a never-failing subject for discussion and action.”

The comprehensive reports gave historian Wyman a surplus of material to choose from. His reports for the rest of the century are fragmentary, based apparently on his estimates of importance and interest.

In 1829, Wyman found, voters approved $900 for schools for the year, higher by $200 than any prior appropriation.

The 1834 school committee consisted of three ministers, Rev. Calvin Gardner (Universalist, who served his church from September 1833 to January 1853), Rev. Samuel F. Smith (Baptist, author of America, who served in Waterville from Jan. 1, 1834 to early 1841) and Rev. Jonathan C. Morrill (whose name is listed nowhere else in the Waterville history index and whom your writer could not find elsewhere).

Wyman wrote nothing about what this committee did.

By 1836 Waterville had 1,049 students in 14 school districts, and 26 teachers for the year. District 1 was the most populous, with “212 scholars on its census roll” – and an average attendance of 50.

In that district, one of the men was paid $26 a month for 18 weeks, and one of the women $14 a month for 23 weeks. Her pay, Wyman commented, “was more than was paid to some of the male teachers.” Six other districts paid female teachers $4 a month.

The most common school term was 22 weeks, longer in “the village schools” and somewhat shorter in “the smaller districts,” one of which had only 14 pupils.

Myrtle Street School

Wyman summarized several years of arguments over whether and where to build new school buildings. A long-debated schoolhouse on the Plains, the area along Water Street south of the Kennebec River bridge, was authorized in 1846 “at a cost of $250”; and voters further agreed “to furnish two school rooms in the town hall.”

Some of the disputes were between residents of Waterville’s north and south ends. In 1853, Wyman wrote, a four-man committee created a 10-man committee that proposed a brick schoolhouse in each end; the idea was accepted.

The southern building was near the site of the present Albert S. Hall school, at 27 Pleasant Street, two blocks inland from the Kennebec.

North Grammar School, in Waterville.

The northern schoolhouse was on the lot that by 1902 was occupied by North Grammar School, opened Feb. 28, 1888. The 1853 building had been moved to College Avenue and was described as “a brick tenement.” After being relocated, it had been used as a school until the Myrtle Street School opened in 1897.

Wyman called the Myrtle Street School “in most respects the best school building in the city” in 1902.

A Dec. 4, 1981, report on the Waterville Fire and Rescue website locates the Myrtle Street School at the end of Myrtle Street, which dead-ends westward off College Avenue. The report is of a suspicious two-alarm fire; it says the three-story brick building, by then a warehouse for used tires, was gutted and one firefighter was slightly injured.

Main sources

Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892)
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902)

Websites, miscellaneous.

CAMPAIGN 2024: Candidates address issues concerning Maine voters (Part 4)

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LETTERS: Elect Labranche and Soucy

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To the editor:

As election day nears, Winslow voters in Districts 2 and 4 will have the opportunity to select their next Town Councilors.

Winslow is a great community but faces significant challenges.

To meet those challenges, the people of Winslow will need council leaders who will do the work to ensure that objective informed decisions are made. They will need to work together to find solutions not excuses, communicate with and listen to the people they represent.

Fortunately, there are two people running for the Town Council who have the will and ability to achieve balanced solutions both in the short term and the long term. Doris Labranche and Steve Soucy have the experience and ability to ensure the best solutions for the people are realized. Please vote for Doris and Steve on election day.

Ken Fletcher
Winslow

LETTERS: Elect Labranche and Soucy

/0 Comments/in , /by

To the editor:

As election day nears, Winslow voters in Districts 2 and 4 will have the opportunity to select their next Town Councilors.

Winslow is a great community but faces significant challenges.

To meet those challenges, the people of Winslow will need council leaders who will do the work to ensure that objective informed decisions are made. They will need to work together to find solutions not excuses, communicate with and listen to the people they represent.

Fortunately, there are two people running for the Town Council who have the will and ability to achieve balanced solutions both in the short term and the long term. Doris Labranche and Steve Soucy have the experience and ability to ensure the best solutions for the people are realized. Please vote for Doris and Steve on election day.

Ken Fletcher
Winslow

CAMPAIGN 2024: Candidates address issues concerning Maine voters (Part 3)

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PHOTOS: Youth football action in Oakland

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Messalonskee youth team member Andrew Proctor running with the football while Winslow’s Tristan Blaney (32), Nathan Merrill (41) and Freddie Pullen (75) move in for the tackle. The game took place on October 7. (Photos by Casey Dugas, Central Maine Photography)

Waterville team member Malahki Klaiber (12) looks for open field while, Alex Sheehan (80), Connor Jones (27) and Quincy Brittingham (4) form a wall on Messalonskee defender Zoeey Emmons. The game ended in a 12-12 tie. (Photos by Casey Dugas, Central Maine Photography)

Scouts spend weekend at wildlife refuge

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Troop #433 Winslow participated as the first unit to spread gravel on the trail to the new Moosehorn photo blind built for visitors to take photos of wildlife without being seen by the wildlife. Front row, from left to right, Ashish DeBas, Parker LeHay, Zack LeHay, Ashlyn McDermott, Fallyn Soucy, and Addison Poulin(SPL). Middle row, Millard Davis(SM for the weekend), Wyatt Smith, Wyatt Collins, and Allison Dorr. Back, Gerard Fortin, Ryan Poulin, and Garth Smith. (photo by Chuck Mahaleris)

by Chuck Mahaleris

The Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge in Barring, is a 30,000-acre treasure that is home to over 225 species of birds, endangered species, resident wildlife and for one weekend in September it was also home to Gods and Demigods and nearly two hundred Scouts and leaders.

Scouts from both Canada and the United States camped on the refuge’s rolling hills and competed in activities near her streams and bogs and marshes during the event that took place on the weekend September 27-29.

“This was an absolutely fabulous weekend,” said Christopher Bernier, of Winslow, who served as Campmaster for the 62nd annual Moosehorn/Cobscook International Camporee. “The kids all had a great time and so many people from the Moosehorn Ranger staff to the Scouting volunteers from two countries made this incredible weekend possible.”

Scouts not only competed in fun activities during the camporee, they also had to set up their tents, cook their meals, and help with other chores in the campsite. Joshua Gilpin prepares breakfast for eager fellow Troop #485 scouts Thomas Gage (left) and Derek Dubois (back wearing hat). All are from Skowhegan. (photo by Chuck Mahaleris)

As part of the activities, all of the Scouts took part in trail maintenance projects at the refuge as their “Good Deed” for nature.

The theme, which was selected by Scouts who attended last year’s event at Cobscook State Park, put Scouts in the role of hero to complete the challenges set before them by Gods and Demigods from myths of old.

These included, among others, Dagda’s Challenge from Celtic mythology to help nature; Artemis Archery Ace from Greek mythology where archery talent was needed to defeat the Trojans; Thor’s Hammer where Scouts see if they are worthy; Scouts stormed the Temple of Ra to find treasure but then they had to get out, too; and Zhu Rong’s Light where the Scouts had to prove they were worthy of the Chinese diety’s blessings three times.

Many Scouts chose to get into the spirit by wearing costumes for the event. The top-scoring patrol overall was 3rd and 4th Fredrericton, New Brunswich, Canada, followed by the Scouts who formed a Provisional unit because their troops did not attend, 1st Gondola New Brunswick, Troop #433 Winslow, and 1st Westfield.

Activities were not just for the Scouts. Adults competed in the “Epic One Pot Stew Competition”. Clinton’s Millard Davis’venison stew was the overall fan favorite.

Scouts who attended the camporee met before it was over to pick a theme for the 63rd annual international camporee – Zombie Apocalypse.

The program also included a campfire where each troop provided a song, skit, cheer, story or dance approved by their leader.

(photo by Chuck Mahaleris)

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