Up and Down the Kennebec Valley: Arnold’s expedition

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by Mary Grow

Before continuing upriver, this subseries will summarize the one Revolutionary event that did have a direct impact on towns along the Kennebec River. That was the fall 1775 American expedition intended to take Québec City from the British (who had taken it from the French in September 1759).

In September and October of 1775, Colonel Benedict Arnold led an army of about 1,100 men from Newburyport, Massachusetts, up the Kennebec River, across the Height of Land and down the Chaudiere River to the St. Lawrence.

Among documents at Fairfield’s Cotton Smith House, home of the Fairfield Historical Society, is a 1946 Bangor Daily News article quoting Louise Coburn’s Skowhegan history: she said the army consisted of 10 New England infantry companies and three companies of riflemen from Pennsylvania and Virgina.

(The 1890 Cotton Smith House has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1992.)

Scattered partial reenactments of this “march to Québec” are being organized in the fall of 2025. Among organizing groups is the Arnold Expedition Historical Society, headquartered in Pittston’s Reuben Colburn house (built in 1765, a state historic site and on the National Register of Historic Places since 2004).

A personal note: your writer learned about Arnold’s march to Québec when she was very young, through the historical novels of Maine writer Kenneth Roberts. Arundel, published in 1930, tells of the expedition and the unsuccessful attack on the city. Rabble in Arms, published in 1933, is the story of the army’s retreat down the St. Lawrence and Richelieu rivers and Lake Champlain.

Roberts highly admired General Arnold. Each novel is told from the perspective of a participant looking back to his youth, so there are references to Arnold’s subsequent switch to the British side; but his conduct in 1775 is consistently praised, and his detractors damned.

Captain Peter Merrill, of Arundel, Maine, fictional narrator of Rabble in Arms, explained that he intended to write a history of part of the war, and found Arnold “an inseparable part” of his project. He wrote:

“Benedict Arnold was a great leader: a great general: a great mariner: the most brilliant soldier of the Revolution. He was the bravest man I have ever known. Patriotism burned in him like an unquenchable flame.”

Why, then, did Arnold switch sides in September 1780? To Roberts (and a few others) the answer is, again, patriotism. Having witnessed the incompetence, corruption and general worthlessness of the Congress that mismanaged the war, costing – wasting – too many lives, Arnold believed the country’s salvation required re-submitting to British rule, with competent Americans as administrators, until the colonies were strong enough to revolt successfully.

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Benedict Arnold

Arnold’s army left Massachusetts on Sept. 19, 1775; reached the mouth of the Kennebec the next day; and stopped first at Gardinerstown (later Pittston), south of Augusta. Here 200 wooden bateaux had been hastily built in Reuben Colburn’s shipyard at Agry Point (named for a 1774 settler), on the east bank of the Kennebec.

(An on-line map shows the Colburn House on Arnold Road, and Agry Point Road running south from the south end of Arnold Road and dead-ending on the south side of Morton Brook.)

According to Colburn House information on the Town of Pittston’s website, Colburn had suggested attacking Québec via the Kennebec and had sent General George Washington “critical information.” Given only about three weeks’ notice to provide the bateaux, he had had to use green lumber, which did not hold up well; the boats leaked copiously, and fell apart under rough handling, on the water and on portages.

The website says Colburn himself and some of his crew went upriver with the troops, “carrying supplies and repairing the boats as they traveled.”

Henry Kingsbury, in his 1892 Kennebec County history, wrote that the army moved immediately upriver to Fort Western in future Augusta, where Arnold arrived on Sept. 21. For more than a week, he and some of his officers stayed with Captain James Howard at the fort.

On the evening of Sept. 23, Kingsbury wrote (using Capt. Simeon Thayer’s diary of the expedition for his source), a soldier named John McCormick got into a fight with a messmate at the fort, Reuben Bishop, and shot him. A report in the January-February, 2022, issue of the Kennebec Historical Society’s newsletter says alcohol was involved.

A prompt court-martial ordered McCormick hanged at 3 p.m. Sept. 26. Arnold, however, intervened and forwarded the case to Washington, “with a recommendation for mercy.” The KHS report says McCormick “was sent to a military jail in Boston, where he ultimately died of natural causes.”

On a website called Journey with Murphy reached through Old Fort Western’s website, a descendant of Sergeant Bishop called him “the first casualty of the Arnold expedition.” She wrote that he was born Nov. 2, 1740 (probably in central Massachusetts); enlisted soon after the Battle of Lexington; and served at the siege of Boston before joining Arnold’s expedition.

By her account, McCormick’s quarrel was not with Bishop, but with his (McCormick’s) captain, William Goodrich. After McCormick was thrown out of the house where they were billeted, he shot back into it, hitting Bishop as he lay by the fireside.

Bishop was buried somewhere near the fort. Kingsbury believed Willow Street was later “laid out over his unheeded grave.” His descendant wrote that his body was moved to Fort Western’s cemetery, and was by 2024 in Riverside Cemetery.

On Sept. 24, 1775, James North wrote in his 1870 Augusta history, Arnold sent a small exploring party ahead to collect information about the proposed route. They went most of the way across the Height of Land. North said the party’s guides were Nehemiah Getchell and John Horn, of Vassalboro.

Alma Pierce Robbins mentions in her 1971 Vassalboro history several earlier histories. One, she said, referred to “Berry and Getchell who had been sent forward…,” implying that they were part of, or guides for, the scouting party.

Different sources list other local men as guides for parts of the expedition. WikiTree cites a 1979 letter from a descendant of Dennis Getchell, of Vassalboro (see last week’s article) saying Dennis and three of his brothers, John, Nehemiah and Samuel, were scouts for Arnold, with Arnold’s journals as the source of the information.

Rev. Edwin Carey Whittemore, in his 1902 centennial history of Waterville, also named Nehemiah Getchell and John Horn as guides for the exploring party. He added, quoting an unnamed source, that a man named Jackins, who lived north of Teconnet Falls, served as a guide for the expedition.

Major General Carleton Edward Fisher, in his 1970 history of Clinton, wrote that Jackins (Jaquin, Jakens, Jackens, Jakins, Jackquith) was a French (and French-speaking) Huguenot who came to Winslow via Germany around 1772. Fisher believed Arnold sent Jackins to Québec with a letter in November 1775, citing expedition records kept by Arnold and others.

(Your writer, extrapolating from other sources, guesses the letter was to supporters in and around Québec letting them know an expedition was on the way.)

Two Native guides, Natanis and Sabatis (Sabbatis, Sabbatus), are named in several accounts, and in Kenneth Roberts’ novel. Some sources identify them as Abenakis (also called Wabanakis), others specify the Abenaki/Wabanaki band called Norridgewocks. Some say the two men were brothers or cousins.

Robbins called them “guides of no mean ability.” Both spent time in Vassalboro, she wrote, and “there are a few reports of those settlers who actually knew these two Indians.” As of 1971, she said, Sabatis’ name was on a boulder on Oak Grove Seminary grounds. Natanis Golf Course, on Webber Pond Road, was named after the 18th-century Natanis.

North wrote that over the period between Sept. 25 and Sept. 30, Arnold’s men moved from Fort Western to Fort Halifax, some in the bateaux (with most of the supplies) and some marching along the east bank of the river on the rough road laid out in 1754, when the forts were built to deter attacks by Natives backed by the French.

Robbins cited an account that the whole army camped on both sides of the Kennebec, in Vassalboro “while their bateaux were being repaired”; and Arnold “was entertained” at Moses Taber’s house.

(Your writer found no readily available information on Moses Taber. He was probably one of the Tabers who were among Vassalboro’s early settlers. They were Quakers; Taber Hill, the elevation north of Webber Pond about half-way between the Kennebec River and China Lake, is named after them.)

In Winslow, according to Whittemore’s history, an early settler, surveyor, doctor and selectman named John McKechnie treated sick soldiers from Arnold’s army

Above Fort Halifax, there was a miles-long stretch of waterfalls and rapids. Here the men had either to unload the bateaux, carry them past the danger zone, bring up the supplies and reload the boats; or haul the loaded boats upriver, in waist-deep autumn-cold water, against a strong current, over a rocky bottom.

North quoted a letter Arnold sent to George Washington in mid-October in which he compared his men to “amphibious animals, as they were a great part of the time under water.”

Several sources say that while his army labored up-river, Arnold made his headquarters in the first house built in Fairfield, Jonathan Emery’s, a short distance north of the present downtown. The Fairfield bicentennial history says Arnold was there a week; a WikiTree biography says two weeks, during which Emery, a carpenter, helped repair some of the bateaux.

(There will be more about Jonathan Emery and his family in next week’s article.)

By the time the army reached Norridgewock Falls in early October, North wrote (referring to Dr. Isaac Senter’s journal), many of the boats were wrecked. Worse, the wooden casks of bread, fish and peas were soaked and the food ruined, leaving the men with little to eat for the rest of the journey but salt pork, flour and whatever game they could kill.

From Norridgewock, North wrote, it was forty miles to the Great Carrying Place where the army left the Kennebec to go overland to the Dead River. After a very difficult journey (described in more or less detail in numerous sources, including North), during which men died and several companies abandoned the expedition and went home, about 600 remaining soldiers reached the St. Lawrence River on Nov. 9.

They besieged Québec and, with reinforcements, attacked the city the night of Dec. 31 1775. They failed to overcome the defenders, and many men were killed, wounded (including Arnold) or captured.

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Kingsbury summarized one effect of the expedition on the Kennebec Valley in the first of his two chapters on military history. He wrote that “The rare beauty of the valley through which they passed, the waving meadows, the heavy forest growth, made a lasting impression” that was not erased by the much harder journey that followed. The post-war peace brought continued hardship and hunger in the valley as “famishing regiments of soldiers” seized any available food on their way to homes along the coast. It “brought, also, many of the members of the Arnold expedition back as permanent settlers.”

Main sources

Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892)
North, James W., The History of Augusta (1870)
Local historical society collections

Websites, miscellaneous.

Up and Down the Kennebec Valley: Revolution effects Vassalboro & Winslow

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William Vassal

by Mary Grow

A 1770s map of Kennebec River towns upriver from Augusta would look quite different from a 2025 map, or even an 1870s map. Currently, Augusta is the only area town with territory on both banks of the river (linked by two bridges).

Upriver on the west bank, one goes from Augusta north into Sidney, then Waterville and then Fairfield. On the east bank, the next town north of Augusta is Vassalboro, then Winslow, then Benton.

In the 1770s, Vassalboro included Sidney (the two separated effective Jan. 30, 1792) and Winslow included Waterville (which became a separate town on June 23, 1802). Fairfield, then a plantation (it became a town on June 18, 1788) was on the west bank only, as it is now. Opposite it was a piece of what became Clinton when the town was incorporated in 1795; Benton became a separate town in 1842.

These future towns along the river all had small populations in 1775. As previous articles have discussed, Fort Halifax, in Winslow, was built in 1754, and the area was inhabited thereafter. Much of the rest of the river valley attracted at least scattered settlers, especially after the Kennebec Proprietors had a survey finished and lots laid out by 1761.

Hallowell (including Augusta), Vassalboro (including Sidney) and Winslow (including Waterville) had large enough populations to justify their incorporation as towns on April 26, 1771.

The 1988 Fairfield bicentennial history says the first recorded log cabin was built on the river, a couple miles north of the present downtown, in 1771; in 1774, the area had enough families to be organized as Fairfield Plantation.

In Clinton, according to Carleton Edward Fisher’s 1970 town history (quoted in the town’s comprehensive plan on line), the first settler arrived after 1761, but before the Kennebec Purchase Company (aka Kennebec Proprietors etc.) began offering lots in 1763. Other sources propose other dates.

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Henry Kingsbury commented in his chapter on Vassalboro in his 1892 Kennebec County history that “The records of the town from 1771 to the present are in four leather-bound books, well preserved and beautifully written.”

Alma Pierce Robbins’ 1971 Vassalboro history includes numerous excerpts from these records, with miscellaneous references to the Revolution. She described residents as “somewhat lukewarm” and said they “did their share in a dilatory manner”; but “There were many who did join their fellow countrymen in the cause for ‘Liberty.'”

The earliest vote she cited was from an otherwise undated 1773 town meeting (probably in the spring): “to be exempt from sending a representative to the [Massachusetts] General Court, and to join Boston concerning the Liberty of the Colony.”

Another meeting was called in September 1773 to hear information from Boston and see if voters would create a Committee of Correspondence. (Committees of Correspondence were the local revolutionary organizations that shared information and coordinated efforts throughout the colonies.) Whether Vassalboro had one, Robbins did not say.

Town voters did choose a “Captain of the Town for the Emergency of the times” at a Jan. 16, 1775, meeting. The first captain was Dennis Getchell (see box), assisted by two lieutenants and an ensign.

At that same meeting, Robbins wrote, voters approved a long resolve to be sent to Massachusetts authorities. It referred to the Continental and Provincial Congresses’ “almost unexplained Love for the Liberties of their Country” and agreed to abide by current and future Congressional recommendations.

Town Clerk Samuel Devens added a promise to “tender their [the town’s] assistance whenever required.” A prominent resident named Remington Hobby carried the message to Massachusetts. (Hobby was mentioned in the Aug. 21 article in this series as Vassalboro’s delegate to a 1774 provincial congress.)

Robbins wrote that by July 1776, Vassalboro’s town meetings were called “in the name of the Governor and People of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay,” replacing the British monarch. (Hallowell made a similar change in January 1775, as reported in the Aug. 21 history article.)

During the war years, Tories were as unpopular in Vassalboro as elsewhere. Robbins mentioned instances of their being mobbed or arrested.

Her chapter on wars includes no details on Vassalboro soldiers in the Revolutionary army. In an earlier article in this series (see the Feb. 3, 2022, issue of The Town Line), your writer mentioned Amos Childs, Dennis Getchell and Charles B. Webber. On-line resources list land grant applications for John Bailey, Joab Bragg and Benjamin Collins, or their widows.

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The first Europeans in what is now Winslow were British traders. Kingsbury cited a 1719 survey that included reference to a man named Lawson who had a trading house at the Native village of Ticonic in September 1653.

By 1675, the firm of Clark & Lake owned this business, and Richard Hammond had a second trading post at Ticonic, Kingsbury said. Neither man survived the series of wars that began that year, as French-supported Natives tried to repel settlers coming into their territory from the coast.

As part of the settlers’ advance, the Plymouth Company (aka the Kennebec Proprietors and other titles) and the Massachusetts government built Fort Halifax (and its southern neighbor, Fort Western, in Augusta) in 1754. By April 26, 1771, the town by and across the Kennebec from the fort (still intact, though demilitarized after the French and Indian Wars ended in 1763) had enough people to be incorporated as the Town of Winslow.

Kingsbury had only one comment on the Revolution in his chapter on the town. He wrote: “In 1776 the people manifested their patriotism by appointing Timothy Heald, John Tozer and Zimri Haywood a committee of correspondence.”

Rev. Edwin Carey Whittemore, in his 1902 Waterville history, listed these three men as the first Committee of Safety (later, the Committee of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety), and eight more — Ezekiel Pattee, Robert Crosby, Manuel Smith, Ephraim Osborne, Nathaniel Low, Hezekiah Stratton, William Richardson and Benjamin Runnals – as members of Winslow’s Committees of Correspondence through the war.

(Heald, Tozer and Haywood also served the town as selectman, town clerk and/or town treasurer. Ezekiel Pattee served 19 years as a selectman, three one-year stints as town clerk and, Kingsbury said, as town treasurer from 1771 to 1794, except for 1781, when Haywood had the job. In the 1780s, Haywood and Pattee each represented Winslow in the Massachusetts legislature, Whittemore said.)

In Winslow, Whittemore said, the first town meeting to be called in the name of Massachusetts Bay was on July 8, 1776.

Winslow had no money to meet the requirement to buy ammunition, so Whittemore wrote that voters borrowed shingles and clapboards from residents, including Pattee, Tozer and Heald, sold them and bought ammunition with the proceeds.

He gave no date for that transaction, nor for the decision to send three men “up the river to see whether any British force was approaching.”

As in other towns, Whittemore wrote that Winslow had trouble finding men to serve in the army and meeting government requisitions of clothing and beef.

General Isaac Sparrow Bangs did a great deal of research for his chapter on the military in the Waterville history, apologizing for the scant results and regretting that records were not compiled while Revolutionary veterans and their families were still alive. He came up with a list of more than two dozen service men’s names (a few might be duplicates), with varying amounts of information about each.

The first man on the list is Captain Dean Bangs (May 31, 1756 – Dec. 6, 1845), the writer’s grandfather. Still living on Cape Cod when the war started, he was a privateer for a year before serving in the army for two years. Dean Bangs moved to Sidney in 1802 and died there; his grandson called Waterville “his mercantile home,” from where he raised an artillery company during the War of 1812.

A private named John Cool (died Oct. 5, 1845, aged 89 years and six months) served from March 12, 1777 to March 12, 1780. Bangs wrote that on May 26, 1835, Cool wrote (on a pension or similar application?) that he was 78 years old and had been a Winslow/Waterville resident for 70 years. After his death, Bangs said, Cool Street, along the west bank of the Messalonskee Stream, was named after him.

Sampson Freeman served as a private from Feb. 1, 1777, to Feb. 5, 1780, including wintering at Valley Forge from December 1777, to June 1778. He was a free Black man who enlisted from Salem, Massachusetts; moved from Peru, Maine, to Waterville in 1835; and died in Waterville in 1843.

(The Town Line’s May 5, 2022, history article has more information about Sampson Freeman.)

Salathiel Penny or Penney (1756 – Sept. 22, 1847) Bangs found listed several times. Enlisting from Wells on May 3, 1775, Penney served eight months; he re-enlisted Jan. 10, 1776, for another 10 months; and yet again Jan. 1, 1777. Bangs wrote that Penney was “present at the surrender of [British General John] Burgoyne” on Oct. 17, 1777, at Saratoga, New York.

In another chapter in Whittemore’s history, Aaron Appleton Plaisted names Penney among pre-1800 Waterville residents.

Dennis Getchell

On-line sources say Dennis Getchell was born in Berwick in 1723 and married Mary Holmes (no dates given) in Wiscasset, in September 1761; the couple had at least 11 children, FamilySearch says. It then confuses the issue by saying all but two were born in Berwick, including those born after the Getchells moved to Vassalboro.

This source says Dennis, Jr., was born in 1771, in Clinton; or, a different source says, in Vassalboro. Daughters Anstrus and Lydia were reportedly both born in 1775, Anstrus in Berwick and Lydia in Vassalboro.

WikiTree mentions Getchell’s experience in the British military before he bought land in Vassalboro’s Riverside area in 1769 and 1770. At Vassalboro’s first town meeting, on April 26, 1771, he was elected first selectman.

WikiTree says: “On July 23, 1776, he was commissioned captain of the 5th company, 2nd Lincoln County regiment of Massachusetts militia. He and his company of 50 men served at Riverton, R. I., in 1777.”

Kingsbury agreed that Getchell was elected a Vassalboro selectman in 1771, and added that he served for eight years. In 1775, he was town meeting moderator. Another source says in 1786, he represented the town in the Massachusetts legislature.

Getchell died Aug. 23, 1791, according to a reader’s comment on WikiTree citing Martha Ballard’s diary; or early in 1792 (per WikiTree, which says his Aug. 2, 1790, will was probated Jan. 6, 1792).

Main sources

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, (1902)

Websites, miscellaneous.

PHOTO: The finishing touch

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Tyler Fisher, 12, of Winslow adding the final touch on the roof at Mini Fenway, in Oakland. (photo by Central Maine Photography)

Bruce Bottiglierie, co-founder of Winslow Community cupboard resigns

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Bruce Bottiglierie, who co-founded Winslow Community Cupboard food pantry in early 2020 and who has directed its service and growth ever since, has announced his resignation as Operations Manager, effective August 6, 2025.

In an email sent to local Winslow Community Cupboard volunteers and to staff members at Good Shepherd Food Bank and MaineGeneral Health, Mr. Bottiglierie wrote: “I’m stepping down due to irreconcilable differences [regarding] the future of the pantry …. It’s been a great five-plus-years creating this amazing program to feed families throughout Maine.”

In November 2020, Mr. Bottiglierie was named one of 12 “Mainers to Be Thankful For” in a special Thanksgiving edition of the Portland Press Herald / Morning Sentinel / Kennebec Journal. Under his leadership, Winslow Community Cupboard grew from serving 24 families when it first opened to now serving as many as 300 on its service days.

How to Donate

Those who would like to donate to Winslow Community Cupboard food pantry may do so by sending a check payable to Winslow Community Cupboard, to 26 Lithgow St., Winslow, ME 04901, or by visiting WCCPantry.com and clicking on the white “Donate” button.

For more information please contact Winslow Community Cupboard at (207) 616-0076 or email WinslowCupboard@Gmail.com.

PHOTOS: Winslow summer track and field

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Photos by Galen Neal / Central Maine Photography

Andrew Smith

Kylie Wolfe

Lillian Warren

Barrett Brochu

Lane Poulin

Taylor Peterson

Ronin Mansfield

Local students named to St. Lawrence Univ dean’s list

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St. Lawrence University, in Canton, New York, congratulates more than 630 students named to the dean’s list for the Spring 2025 semester.

They include Lola Caruso, of Norridgewock. Caruso is a member of the Class of 2028. Caruso attended Skowhegan Area High School.

Nina Dabas, of Winslow. Dabas is a member of the Class of 2028 and is majoring in English and political science. Dabas attended Maine School of Science and Mathematics.

EVENTS: Winslow’s Blueberry Festival on tap for August 8 – 9, 2025

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One of Maine’s all-time most popular, beloved, and downright yummy summer events – Winslow’s annual Blueberry Festival – is coming this year on Friday, August 8, from 3 to 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, August 9, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., to Winslow Congregational Church, 12 Lithgow Street, Winslow. The Friday evening event will feature a delicious chicken BBQ fundraiser ($15 donation per supper) to benefit Winslow Community Cupboard food pantry, plus live music. Admission to the festival grounds is FREE both days.

Nearly 700 mouth-watering blueberry pies and “all things blueberry” baked goods will be available for purchase both days of the festival. Blueberry pies ($15 each; 2 for $25) may be picked up at the church anytime from 3 to 7:30 p.m. on Friday, or on Saturday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., or until they are sold out.

Live Music, Blueberry Pies, & Fun-Filled Activities

Both days of this year’s festival will spotlight more live music than ever before, with Friday’s line-up including Richie Bartolo (Pop, Rock, Jazz – 3 p.m.), Dave Deas, Bill Dolan, Brian Richmond, Maureen Vachon, Darren Beaudet, and Dennis Rock (Pop, Rock, Blues – 4 p.m.), and The Cellar Dwellers (Beatles and Other Classic Pop/Rock – 6 p.m.).

Saturday’s musical line-up will feature Will McPherson (Acoustic Pop/Rock – 8 a.m.) Uke ‘N Be Happy (Good-Time Ukulele – 9 a.m.), Josh Bickford (Classical Organ/Keyboard – 10 a.m.), Will McPherson (Pop/Rock – 11 a.m.), and an Open Jam featuring Wayne Berman, Dave Deas, Dave Carew, Bob Steinberg and Friends (noon). (Live music schedule subject to change.)

Blueberry Pancake Breakfast

Kicking off the 54th Annual Blueberry Festival on Saturday will be a delicious Blueberry Pancake Breakfast, from 7 to 10 a.m. Cost of the breakfast will be $7 per person and $5 for children ages 12 and under, payable at the door.

Other Great “Festival Festivities”

Other fun-filled activities will include a huge yard sale … arts & crafts vendors … a police car, ambulance, & firetruck for the kids … BBQ … a café, and more!

More about the 54th Annual Blueberry Festival

A beloved community favorite since 1972, the Blueberry Festival raises funds to empower the local humanitarian/Christian-service work of Winslow Congregational Church. Celebrating its 197th birthday this year, the historic church is housed in a building dating from 1796, which has been home to a worshipping congregation since 1828.

Everyone seeking a wonderful opportunity to gather and enjoy a treasure trove of “all things blueberry” is cordially invited to attend this year’s Blueberry Festival!

For more information about the 54th annual Blueberry Festival, please call (207) 872-2544 or email news.winslowucc@gmail.com.

Caron presentation at Vassalboro Historical Society

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Ray Caron

by Mary Grow

Historian Ray Caron’s illustrated talk on China Lake at the Vassalboro Historical Society Sunday afternoon, July 20, had his audience questioning, commenting and chuckling.

Caron, from Winslow, covered pieces of the history of the lake and its surroundings, including Winslow, from before the first Europeans arrived until the mid-20th century.

Caron said he has memories of China Lake from childhood, when his family visited his aunt and uncle on the northeast side of the east basin. He would sit on the dock and look across the water at “the scenic church,” China Baptist Church at the head of the east basin.

Long before Caron’s childhood, Native America tribes were familiar with China Lake. One of the assumed reminders of their visits is Indian Heart rock, on the southwest shore of the east basin, believed to be a Native carving.

Vassalboro Historical Society President Jan Clowes mentioned another rock on which the date 1850 is carved.

When Europeans settled this area in the second half of the 1600s, Caron said, streams, including China Lake’s Outlet Stream (then called Mile or Miles Brook), were vital sources of power for mills to grind grain and saw lumber. He showed a map of early Winslow mills on the brook.

Between 1675 and 1763, a series of wars between English settlers coming inland from the coast and would-be French influence from Canada decimated the Native Americans, Caron said. He cited one estimate that their numbers dropped from around 15,000 to around 4,000, mostly due to smallpox and other diseases the Europeans introduced.

Skipping to the years around 1900, Caron shared a variety of newspaper articles and other documents he had collected about China Lake and people who lived around it, including photographs of ice-cutting; information on the electric trolleys that brought visitors from Waterville and Augusta; and a reference to a boat trip to Abenaki Park, which neither he nor audience members could locate.

He also had information on proposed state water quality legislation, about 1909. John Woodsum, head of the China Lake Improvement Association, testified vehemently against it, on the ground that local people could protect their own water.

Vassalboro’s Albert Morris Bradley and his son, William Stickney Bradley, were credited with developing recreational facilities – dining room, bowling alley and dance hall – on Bradley’s Island, in the lake’s west basin, which they bought in 1876. Caron said they owned boats, including a 100-passenger sloop, to transport patrons to the island. He and audience members wondered which part(s) of the shore the boats lived on, and what passengers did during the ride to the island.

Bradley’s Island now belongs to the Town of China. Caron believes it was acquired for unpaid taxes.

The Bradleys also owned the Revere House, in East Vassalboro. Caron had photographs of A. M. Bradly, in his 90s, in the building. Clowes said a new owner is currently refurbishing the Revere House to eliminate lead.

The final stage in China Lake’s history that Caron covered was its use as Kennebec Water District’s water source for its customers in Waterville and surrounding towns.

Waterville’s drinking water used to come from Messalonskee Stream. That water was blamed for a 1906 typhoid epidemic that killed 40 people, leading to a search for a new source.

Messalonskee Lake might have been suitable, Caron said. He surmised China Lake was chosen because it is about 100 feet higher than Waterville, allowing gravity flow instead of pumping.

He showed numerous pictures of the job of laying miles of pipes in the early 1900s to bring the lake’s water north. Hundreds of Italian laborers from Massachusetts worked on the project. They were housed in 500-man camps; one photo caption referred to a “middle camp” in North Vassalboro and another to be built in East Vassalboro.

Caron currently heads the Friends of Fort Halifax, in Winslow. He showed pictures of the near-replica of one of Benedict Arnold’s bateaux the group has built in preparation for the 250th anniversary of Arnold’s expedition up the Kennebec to Québec, in September 1775.

Recently, he said, an excavation for a new stage in Fort Halifax Park unearthed what were determined to be Native American teeth. After identification and consultation with current Maine Native Americans, reburying them was found to be appropriate and was done.

LIFE ON THE PLAINS: The end of an era

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The Winslow Drive-In opened in 1949 and was operated by Lockwood & Gordon Enterprises. It was a basic drive-in, which had a capacity for 700 cars. It was located on the Winslow side of the river, next to Waterville. By 1955 it was operated by Daytz Theatre Enterprises Corp. It was still open in 1970. (contributed photo by Ken Roe)

by Roland D. Hallee

Hello, folks. I’m baaaaack! By popular demand.

Unfortunately, during our fast-paced lifetimes, we have seen the end of many eras. But the one that sticks out in my mind, which happened recently, was the disappearance of the drive-in theater. In recent years, the Winslow Drive-in, the Midway Drive-in, in Pittsfield, and more recently, the Skowhegan Drive-in, have all shuttered.

Growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, I remember our parents giving us a ”treat” every now and then with an evening at the Winslow Drive-In, especially when there was going to be a “good movie”.

My mom, being the thrifty person she was, would pack some snacks and get us ready by making us wear our PJs. That would facilitate going to bed when we returned home.

Once in the car, we drove the short distance to the Winslow Drive-In, on the Augusta Road, just about where Goodreau’s Retirement Home is presently located. Once there, my dad would look over the parking area and select “just the right spot”. He would position the car so everyone had a good vantage point, remove the speaker from its stand, and secure it to the driver’s side window.

At the base of the large screen was a playground. Our parents would tell us to go ahead and go to the playground. But, hey, we were in our PJs. No way we were going to be seen in public like that.

My dad would then walk to the popcorn stand and bring back a few bags. We munched while waiting for the movie to begin. It would include the usual “commercial” about popcorn and soda at the center building where the cameras were located. Next came a couple of previews for upcoming shows, and that was followed by cartoons until the feature film was presented.

As the sun was setting, and dusk began to fall, impatient people would start flashing their head lights at the screen, and honk their horns. Like that was going to prompt the camera operator to begin the show before it was dark.

Once the feature film was started, us four boys would quickly lose interest and began rough housing, which prompted our dad to put an end to the uprising. As time passed, we all eventually fell to sleep.

But, during intermission, we were commanded to go to the bathroom. It was dark, so it was OK to go in our PJs. Once the movie was done, it was quite a process to get out of the parking lot. Each row of cars would have to wait for the previous row to exit, then it became your turn. Quite a process to see grid lock in Winslow around 11 p.m. on a Saturday night.

One thing though, you had to remember to disconnect the speaker from the car window. I know of a lot of cars that went home those nights minus that side window.

Another thing, I don’t know whose job it was, but cleaning up the lot after all the cars were gone was quite a chore, as soda cups, popcorn bags, and other various candy wrappers littered the area. It was really quite a mess.

Now, those days are gone, forever, thanks to Netflix, Prime, Peacock and other various networks available for your mobile devices. It’s not quite the same as in the good ol’ days. The drive-in experience is something the next generations will not know.

EVENTS: Make an immediate difference by giving blood or platelets now

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The American Red Cross urges all donors to give blood or platelets now to keep the blood supply strong this summer. Type O blood products are most needed on hospital shelves – especially in the face of summer challenges that can quickly cause blood and platelet reserves to drop.

All blood types are needed, and donors who don’t know their blood type can learn it after donation. Book a time to give blood or platelets by visiting RedCrossBlood.org, calling 1-800-RED CROSS or by using the Red Cross Blood Donor App.

As a thank-you, all who come to give by July 14, 2025, will receive an exclusive pair of Red Cross x goodr sunglasses, while supplies last. Donors can personalize their one-of-a-kind shades with a blood type sticker that’s included! For details, visit RedCrossBlood.org/goodr.

For those who come to give July 15-31, 2025, the Red Cross will say thanks with a Fandango Movie Reward by email. Use it to catch a summer blockbuster on the Red Cross! See RedCrossBlood.org/July.

Upcoming blood donation opportunities:

Kennebec County:

Augusta

July 28: 11:30 a.m. – 5 p.m., Augusta Elks, 397 Civic Center Drive, P.O. Box 2206

Waterville

July 18: 9 a.m. – 2 p.m., O’Brien’s Event Center, 375 Main St.

Winslow

July 30: noon. – 5 p.m., MacCrillis-Rousseau VFW #8835, 175 Veterans Drive.