Massage Therapy: More than just a muscular experience

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Danielle Dickey

by Gillian Lalime

Slowing down and creating stillness may feel impossible at times. And yet, we can slow down. Practices such as meditation, yoga, breathwork, massage, and dance can help by allowing us to create a somatic experience which – in essence – connects the mind to the body. “I work to create a space for deep listening to the messages that are coming up, emotionally, physically and mentally. I aim to create a sense of safety to allow the body and mind to fully relax, easing tension and providing stress relief while targeting specific muscle groups that need attention,.” says Danielle Dickey, a licensed massage therapist and owner of Guided By Breath, LLC, which operates in Vassalboro.

When asked about why she does what she does for work, Danielle says, “I love what I do. I deeply enjoy connecting people to their breath and bodies as I find most people in our world don’t truly breathe. We go throughout our days living in the sympathetic (fight, flight, freeze, faint, etc.) part of our nervous system”. Often, this manifests as taking unconscious, shallow breaths which fill only our chest, or lead to having a tight jaw and stomach. Taking the time to breathe deeply allows us to drop into the parasympathetic, or the ‘rest and digest ‘side of our nervous system. Lying on the table in Danielle’s massage studio, you will be encouraged to invite the breath all the way to the belly and lungs and to check in with the jaw. This action automatically stimulates the body to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.

Danielle’s journey to becoming a massage therapist was a long one. At age 19, during a challenging period of life, she and a friend attended a yoga class. Little did she know this moment would open a door to a future career path. “Looking back, connecting with my body was a pretty big deal for me… it was exactly what my body, heart, and mind needed.” Finding the class helpful, Danielle began looking into other alternative health practices to incorporate into her lifestyle.

Out of college, Danielle worked as a CNA with Alzheimer’s patients, went through training to become a certified birth and postpartum doula, and spent time working with preschool age children. Danielle’s work has always required compassion and patience, and yet, “I was struggling with the fact that I’m a very empathic person and I wanted a career that could highlight that.” Yoga and bodywork offered tools for grounding herself while helping others. Over time, Danielle felt the calling to become a yoga teacher. “It has truly helped me in so many ways. Yoga is always there for you. Particularly now as a mother, my relationship with yoga has changed. What the body, soul and mind go through during these childbearing years has been huge and yoga and bodywork have been my best tools to call upon. Being able to connect to your body on very busy days…it’s the most important thing you can do for yourself. I’m a firm advocate for meeting yourself where you are at…some days grabbing a tennis ball to do self massage or doing breathwork is the best I can do and that is okay!”.

Danielle completed a local yoga teacher training program and has since participated in further courses focused on trauma-sensitive yoga, and she is grateful to all she learned. Currently, Danielle works with clients in individualized sessions focusing on restorative, prenatal, yin and gentle yoga.

While completing her yoga teacher training, she decided to take the opportunity to enroll in Massage Therapy School. “I loved the massage program. It went hand-in-hand with yoga. I loved learning the anatomy, which built upon [my] previous knowledge from CNA training.” Over the last five years Danielle has been a Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT) in a variety of settings and understands how important it is to be present with each client. “I value the time to sit with my clients, both during intake and post-massage. As the business owner, I enjoy being able to get to know my clients as people and fellow community members.”

Danielle launched her business, Guided by Breath, in 2018, and has recently moved into her own space in the offices of Maine Family Natural Health, in Vassalboro. She offers prenatal and postnatal massage, trigger point therapy, breathwork, Swedish massage, assisted stretching, cupping, aromatherapy and corporate chair massage.

“People are so appreciative. What I love about chair massage is that it makes massage accessible to people who wouldn’t otherwise take the time to do it.” Danielle encourages her clients to practice self-massage and work out trigger points in tight muscles by using objects such as a tennis or lacrosse ball. She brings an understanding of anatomy and basic ergonomics into sessions, offering small adjustments to her clients’ work positioning such as the way you move your mouse. For folks whose occupations are computer-based, she says, this can make a huge difference in preventing future hand, wrist, and shoulder injury.

Danielle also works with people who are recovering from surgery, people who have had cancer, serious injury, managing menopause symptoms, and those who have had pregnancies or miscarriages. “I really want to support women and moms in our community.” Being a mother herself, she understands the mental, emotional, and physical shifts that happen throughout pregnancy, birth, and raising a little one. “For prenatal and postnatal clients I work side-lying, targeting muscle groups that get taxed during pregnancy in the low back, glutes and hamstrings. I also focus a lot on forearms, wrists, neck and shoulders…all of which become strained with a new baby. Danielle explains how engaging a side-lying position creates a more targeted approach for the low back and is a safer experience for pregnant or injured clients. “This work requires being fully present, checking in with the client often and following their lead. Now, I recognize that being empathic makes me the best therapist I can be.”

“So much comes up in massage…it’s more than just a muscular experience.”

Danielle explains, “Oxytocin (the love hormone) along with other hormones are released for both practitioner and receiver. Increased blood circulation and circulation of the endocrine system are just a few benefits of massage.” Massage and yoga allow everyone the space and setting to focus on the breath and tap into their inner workings.

Guided by Breath is a massage therapy and private yoga practice, located at 12 Priest Hill Road, in North Vassalboro, in the building of Maine Family Natural Health. Danielle is excited to be taking on new clients, particularly women’s health focused and is by appointment only. She is grateful to offer this work within her home community.

Danielle Dickey-Hefeits is currently accepting new clients at her practice in North Vassalboro. Danielle is a Licensed Massage Therapist and Yoga Teacher. To learn more, please visit her website: https://www.guidedbybreath.com/ or call 207-578-4090.

LETTERS: More volunteers needed at Window Dressers workshop

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Damaris Mayans at the China build in 2022. (photo by Eric W. Austin)

To the editor:

Last year The Town Line ran a piece about Window Dressers, a grassroots, volunteer-run, nonprofit organization that trains, supplies, and supports volunteers to construct Insulating Window Inserts for residents who need help in keeping their homes warm.

Even though I did not get a response last year when I applied, this year volunteers came to my house and measured my windows for the inserts I desperately need.

I volunteered to construct my inserts and inserts for others for three days in the November 6 – 11 period that they will be doing this at the Olde Mill Place, 934 Main St., No. Vassalboro.

As the saying goes, “life happens”, and I had to call today to see if I could go in on November 7, at 12:30 p.m., instead of the 8:30 a.m. shift that I had signed up for in October.

During the conversation I heard that more volunteers are very much needed.

If you know anyone who has a few hours in a morning or afternoon, from November 7 – 11, to help construct insulating window inserts for those people who need help keeping Maine’s cold winter days and night outside, it will be very much appreciated.

Anyone who has the time can get contact details at https://windowdressers.org/

Another one of those great nonprofit positive things happening in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

You know more people than I do in this area, so thank you for contacting anyone who might have the time.

Roberta Barnes
Windsor

Davidson Nature Preserve Full Moon Hike

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Join Kennebec Land Trust staff and volunteer property stewards to take advantage of the full moon for a hike at the Davidson Nature Preserve on Monday, November 27 at 5:30 p.m. Bring what you need to be comfortable for a night walk, including a headlamp or flashlight, warm clothes, water, snacks etc. The family-friendly hike will be approximately one mile long. For more information or to RSVP, contact Marie at mring@tklt.org or 207-377-2848

Directions: From Augusta or Waterville take Route 201 to Vassalboro. Turn east on Bog Road for approximately 2.2 miles to the intersection with Taber Hill Road. Turn north (left) on Taber Hill Road for approximately 1 mile. Look for the KLT sign, parking lot, and sign-in box on the left (west) side of Taber Hill Road, just before Hussey Hill Road.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Inventions, agriculture & others

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The Lombard log hauler, one of only six remaining, at its home at the Redington Museum, in Waterville. (photo by Roland Hallee)

by Mary Grow

Previous articles have talked about how agricultural work changed from the 1700s through the 1800s, as manpower was replaced by animal-power and then machines.

Other changes, too, helped farmers produce more or expend less effort or both. One example is the development of wire for fences. (Barbed-wire fencing was mentioned in the Sept. 7 issue of The Town Line, in the account of the skaters who burned part of a farmer’s stump fence for bonfires and redeemed themselves by putting up barbed wire as a replacement).

In his history of Windsor, Linwood Lowden wrote, “As early as the year 1861, it had been modestly estimated that an old-fashioned wood or stone fence takes a strip of land at least four feet wide out of cultivation.”

Losing a four-foot strip was not a problem while a farmer was battling to clear trees and rocks to make fields to grow food for his animals and his family. When he intended to sell some of what he raised, and when wood became scarce, he needed different fencing material.

Wire fences were the solution, Lowden wrote. Citing an 1882 Maine Board of Agriculture report, he said the first fence wire might have might have been made as early as 1815.

The industry was “still in its infancy” in the 1820s, with an individual worker “able to produce but from 15 to 40 pounds of fence wire per day.” By 1882, new technology made it possible for a single worker to “produce between 1,000 to 2,500 pounds per day.”

(There is an on-line controversy about who invented wire. The candidate list begins with Thomas Malham, Sheffield, England, in 1830; Jean Francois Martin, of France, about the same time; and other contemporary foundry owners, unnamed. Another historian calls their nominations “manifest nonsense.” He says Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs [3,000 B.C. and following centuries] made wire from gold, silver and copper, and wire made from iron “was achieved about 1450, in Augsburg [Germany].”)

Barbs came later. Wikipedia says Lucien B. Smith, of Kent, Ohio, got the first patent for barbed wire in 1867 and “is regarded as the inventor.” In 1874, Joseph F. Glidden, of DeKalb, Illinois, made enough “modifications” (or, another source says, “invented a practical machine for its manufacture”) to get his own patent.

The Board of Agriculture report said in 1874, the United States had 10 miles of three-strand wire fence (in 37 states). By 1882, there were 166,000 miles (in 38 states; Colorado was added in 1876).

* * * * * *

The invention of wire fencing, unlike the use of it, had nothing to do with any part of Maine. However, Maine had its share of inventors, including some from the central Kennebec Valley area.

Vassalboro historian Alma Pierce Robbins named two Vassalboro inventors who helped with farm and other outdoor work. One was the comparatively well-known Alvin Lombard (see below).

The other, more obscure, was Hanson G. Barrows, who, she wrote, invented a mowing machine & a snowplow; models extant in 1971 “go to prove what a true genius he was.”

(On-line sources on the origin of the mechanical reaper [which the web discusses in reply to requests for mowing machines] do not mention Barrows, focusing instead on the competition between Obed Hussey [1792-1860] and Cyrus McCormick [1808 or 1809 – 1883 or 1884] in the 1840s and 1850s. Colby College historian Earl H. Smith included both these inventors in his 2021 book, Downeast Genius: From Earmuffs to Motor Cars Maine Inventors Who Changed the World.)

Hussey was born in a Quaker family, in Hallowell; they moved to Nantucket, Massachusetts, when he was a child, and his work was done in Maryland and Ohio. Smith commented that Hussey realized Maine was an unfair place to test his reaper – not only was Maine farmland “hilly and difficult to plow, the real curse was the rocks, which often broke the shafts and blades of his machines.”

Smith connected Virginia-born McCormick with Maine only through his “War of the Reapers” with Hussey, which covered much of the United States; in 1851 was part of London’s Great Exhibition, “the first world’s fair”; and later moved to France and elsewhere in Europe.

Robbins wrote that Hanson Barrows (1831-1916) was the oldest of three sons and two daughters of Caleb Barrows and his wife (whose name your writer cannot find). She called Caleb an early settler in Vassalboro; Henry Kingsbury, in his Kennebec County history, said he moved to Vassalboro from Camden in 1830.

Hanson Barrows spent his life on the farm he inherited from Caleb, named Twin Oaks, on Barrows Road (Kingsbury said the farm was “on the pond road,” probably meaning Webber Pond Road). In 1971, Robbins wrote, the Barrows family home still stood, with a view across the golf course to Webber Pond.

(Barrows Road ran west from Webber Pond Road to the section of Old Route 201 named Holman Day Road. On May 13, 2010, the Vassalboro select board ordered the road discontinued, without retaining a public right-of-way. Voters at the June 7, 2010, town meeting ratified the decision.)

Hanson Barrows and his wife, Julia E. (Wood) Barrows (1854-1942), are buried in Vassalboro’s Union cemetery. Their son, Leon Martell Barrows (Oct. 24, 1888 – March 5, 1956), in 1911 married Bertha May McCloud (1892-1913).

(Hanson’s brother Edwin [April 2, 1842 – April 20, 1918] was profiled in the article on Civil War veterans in the March 31, 2022, issue of The Town Line.)

* * * * * *

The Lombard house in Waterville, today, across from the public library. (photo by Roland Hallee)

Alvin Orlando Lombard was born June 15, 1856, in Springfield, Maine. Various sources say by the age of eight he was at work in the family mill – a shingle mill, in Lincoln, Maine, Smith wrote, where the “[s]toutly built, inquisitive, and energetic” boy “quickly mastered every woodland task from lumberjack to river driver and from stacker to mill sawyer.”

The child also built machines. Several sources mentioned his miniature water-powered sawmill (or wood-splitter – sources disagree) that he demonstrated by cutting up cucumbers.

Later, Lombard and his younger brother Samuel operated a blacksmith shop, in Waterville. Wikipedia said Alvin designed “sawmill and logging equipment” and Samuel supervised manufacturing.

Smith wrote that in the summer of 1899, Lombard, age 43 and already known as an inventor, shared a streetcar ride with his wealthy Fairfield friend, E. J. Lawrence. Lawrence “bemoaned the cost and cruelty” of using horses to haul harvested trees out of the Maine woods in the winter and asked Lombard if a machine could be used instead.

Two days later Lombard showed Lawrence a wooden model of a tracked vehicle. Lawrence liked it. The two built a full-size sample at Waterville Iron Works, “and on May 4, 1901, U. S. Patent #674,737 was issued for the Lombard Log Hauler, arguably the most significant invention ever to come from the State of Maine.”

Lombard’s machine was powered by “a steam engine with an upright boiler” and ran on steerable front skis and rear caterpillar treads. Here is Smith’s description: “A continuous belt of hinged steel lags (treads) was fitted over two pairs of geared wheels, allowing the heavy machine to pull itself along on a rolling carpet of steel…, like a caterpillar.”

These machines replaced “the work of 50 lumber-pulling horses,” one source said. Another called the log-hauler the model for “every snowmobile, tank and bulldozer ever built.” Even after trucks succeeded tractors in the Maine woods in the 1930s, the caterpillar tread continued to expand its uses world-wide.

The Maine Forest and Logging Museum website lists the six known Lombards remaining of the 83 built between 1900 and 1917. Two are at the museum in Bradley, the website says.

In addition to the log hauler for which he is best known, Smith wrote that Lombard’s commercially successful inventions included “a device for tossing (de-barking) pulpwood, and an apparatus that separated knots and sawdust from ground pulp.”

Smith said Lombard was most proud of an 1893 invention, “an automatic mechanical device…that maintained the speed and power of water turbines.” Lombard made and sold this useful regulator for six years before selling the patent and, according to Smith, dividing his time between his house in Waterville, where he had a basement workshop, and his country house in Vassalboro.

An online genealogy says Lombard and Mary Etta Bates (Sept. 8, 1856 – April 13, 1931) were married June 13, 1875, in Webster Plantation. They had one daughter, Grace Vivian Lombard Vose (Dec. 8, 1876-Aug. 24, 1947).

Alvin Lombard died Feb. 21, 1937. He, his wife and their daughter are buried in Waterville’s Pine Grove cemetery.

Online sources list two memorials to Lombard. Mount Lombard, in Antarctica, recognizes his contribution to driving over snow; and his Waterville house, now an apartment building, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Your writer, and Vassalboro Historical Society president, Janice Clowes, add Lombard Dam, on Outlet Steam, in Vassalboro, recently removed to allowed alewives to migrate into China Lake, and Lombard Dam Road.

Who invented the snowmobile?

Earl Smith nominated O. C. Johnson, of Waterville, who, inspired by Alvin Lombard’s log hauler, “is said to have built one of the first snow machines in 1909. It was ten feet long and powered by a ‘one lung’ engine.”

Your writer failed to find additional information on O. C. Johnson. On-line sources say early versions of the snowmobile were invented in 1911 by Harold J. Kalenze, of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada; in 1915 by Ray H. Muscott, of Waters, Michigan; in 1917 by Virgil D. White, of Ossipee, New Hampshire; in 1922 (much improved by 1935) by Joseph-Armand Bombardier, of Valcourt, Québec, Canada; and in 1924 (patented in 1927) by Carl Eliason, of Sayner, Wisconsin.

A snowmobile history found on the Volo Museum’s website credits White, Eliason and Bombardier, and agrees with Smith. The website says: “One of the earliest snowmobile ancestors is the steam-powered Lombard Log Hauler….”

Appeal to our readers

An appeal to our readers, especially those in Windsor, to help an out-of-state historian.

Peter Pettingill, from Barrington, New Hampshire, is seeking local information on an event in Windsor that he described as “the death of Charles Northey, Jr., which occurred in South Windsor, in October, 1905, resulting in the sensational six-and-a-half-week trial of resident Alice Spencer Cooper.”

He added, “It was the longest trial in Maine’s history at the time and was in the press from Maine to California and involved countless folks from your area and a lot of prominent Maine characters.”

Mr. Pettingill has done a lot of on-line research; he visited the area this past summer to check out graveyards and remaining buildings. He would appreciate more information from local people – does anyone have an ancestor in the Northey or Cooper family, or perhaps one who was involved in the trial?

In 2022 he published Porter: The Murder of David Varney (your writer found favorable reviews on line). His second book, titled The Murder of Mattie Hackett, is due out by the end of the year, he said.

For anyone with relevant information, Mr. Pettingill’s email address is pettingillp@yahoo.com. His postal address is 58 Waterhouse Road, Barrington, NH 03825.

Main sources

Kingsbury, Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Lowden, Linwood H., good Land & fine Contrey but Poor roads a history of Windsor, Maine (1993).
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971).
Smith, Earl H., Downeast Genius: From Earmuffs to Motor Cars Maine Inventors Who Changed the World (2021).

Websites, miscellaneous.

Vassalboro scouts learn orienteering

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Front row, from left to right, Lion Scouts Alex Madison and Boone McLaughlin, Tiger Scouts Greyson Malloy and Kasen Maroon. Second row, Webelos Scouts Henry Gray, Anthony Malloy, and Eli Richmond, AOL Scouts Christopher Santiago, Hunter Brown, and William Vincent, Wolf Scouts John Gray, Sam Madison, Beckett Metcalf, Connor Millett, Lux Reynolds, and Declan McLaughlin. Back row, Cubmaster Chris Santiago and members of the Maine Wardens Service. (photo by Chuck Mahaleris)

by Chuck Mahaleris

Members of the Maine Warden Service took time out of their schedules to teach Scouts in Vassalboro Cub Scout Pack #410 orienteering to help the Scouts understand how to navigate their way in Maine’s woods. The compass training took place at Thurston Park, in China, on Monday, October 16. Jessica Murray was very pleased, “Thank you wardens,” she said. “My kids learned a bunch and we appreciated the time everyone gave the kids and parents.”

Vassalboro board works toward solving heat problems at school

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Vassalboro Community School (contributed photo)

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro school board members have decided on measures to minimize heat waves inside Vassalboro Community School (VCS), no matter what the weather outside does.

At their Oct. 17 meeting, board members unanimously approved two recommendations from Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer.

They will have ceiling fans installed in almost every room, as an interim measure; and they will find a consultant to do a comprehensive energy audit, to plan future improvements to cooling, heating and lighting in the building.

Pfeiffer had a bid for $27,740 for ceiling fans in all classrooms and most other spaces, a figure that includes installation costs. Postponed are the high-ceilinged spaces like the gymnasium, cafeteria and music room.

Principal Ira Michaud said after considering two types of fans, the recommendation is for Hampton Bay Industrial ceiling fans, because they move more air than the other type. He said he stood under one and can testify the moving air will not throw papers around.

Michaud said installation will begin during the Christmas break, with the top-floor classrooms first on the list. Next priority, probably during February and April vacations, will be the east-facing ground-floor classrooms that get a lot of sun.

Pfeiffer intends to use most of the rest of the school department’s federal CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act funds for the ceiling fans.

Shelley Phillips, director of maintenance and grounds for Vassalboro and Winslow schools, said the fans do not make much difference in the electric bill. Winslow High School has had fans since about 2012, she said; two have needed to be replaced so far.

All three administrators emphasized that the fans and the controls will be high out of reach of curious young students.

Pfeiffer summarized the process for an energy audit, which he said has not been done at VCS for 17 years. The school board would contract with an energy company, whose representatives would do an inspection and present a report. Board members would then select a company to make changes. After that company made a public presentation and the board accepted its plan, work could begin, possibly in the summer of 2024.

Vassalboro school department would incur no bills until the project was under way, Pfeiffer said – the audit would be paid for along with the work.

Phillips said because “a whole new world of new equipment that is very energy efficient” has been developed in the last 17 years, changes should quickly result in lower costs.

Superintendent Pfeiffer supported his recommendations with colorful charts showing the days over 90 degrees and over 80 degrees since 2018. The charts showed increasing warmth in May and June and, especially in 2023, September and early October. A staffer at the National Weather Service Office, in Gray, had enjoyed preparing the charts for him, Pfeiffer said.

The Oct. 17 meeting included an update on the daycare program at VCS by Jennifer Lizotte, who heads it. The program runs on school days from 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Lizotte said, and some parents need to use it at both ends of the day as they commute to out-of-town jobs.

There are currently 54 children enrolled, from pre-kindergartners to sixth-graders. A space rearrangement agreed with Michaud and assistant principal Tabitha Brewer will provide space for five more, to be taken from the waiting list.

Lizotte praised Michaud and Brewer for their help, and the Vassalboro Parent-Teacher Organization for including the daycare program in their fall festival.

Pfeiffer also praised Vassalboro’s “really awesome” PTO volunteers.

Michaud’s principal’s report included a photo of the new sandbox for the younger students. He thanked PTO members Julia Sidelinger, Chris Reynolds and Jandee and Kevin McLaughlin for getting materials and building the box, and said donated sand was due to arrive Oct. 19.

Among policies board members reviewed and updated (one of their on-going responsibilities) was the VCS homework policy. Michaud commented that teachers assign less homework than they used to, because parents – and older children responsible for younger siblings – are so busy.

Board member Erin “Libby” Loiko said there is less homework for high-school students, too, partly because of study halls during the school day. Michaud said the heads of Erskine Academy and Waterville High School have assured him VCS students are well prepared to enter their schools.

Pfeiffer observed that the Oct. 17 meeting was held during National School Bus Driver Appreciation Week, and praised Vassalboro’s drivers; other towns have had shortages, but “our folks are here every single day.”

The next regular Vassalboro school board meeting will be Tuesday evening, Nov. 14, the second Tuesday rather than the usual third Tuesday to avoid Thanksgiving week.

VASSALBORO: TownCloud Inc. selected to design and maintain new website

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by Mary Grow

After another long discussion, Vassalboro select board members at their Oct. 19 meeting unanimously accepted town Manager Aaron Miller’s recommendation: TownCloud, Inc., will design and maintain the new town website.

TownCloud representatives Christopher Haywood, Chief Amazement Officer, and Dennis Harward, Wizard of Light Bulb Moments, made a presentation and showed a sample website at the Sept. 7 select board meeting. Board members created a committee to review alternatives, whose members reported at the Sept. 21 meeting. Discussion continued Oct. 5.

Resident David Trask, who has been doing the town website, is ready to step aside. He offered advice at the Oct. 19 meeting, as did several other residents with relevant experience.

The Sept. 7 committee listed some of the features they considered desirable in a website; Miller explained how TownCloud could provide each. For example, the site can include a calendar of official municipal events, like select board meetings; and forms to fill out on line, like registration for recreation department programs.

Miller thinks TownCloud will be easy for residents to navigate. An important advantage from his viewpoint is the comparatively low cost: $3,600 for a three-year contract, or $1,200 a year for the first three years.

Changes can be made if needed, the manager said. If TownCloud is unsatisfactory, he said Vassalboro could buy out the contract.

Replying to one of Trask’s concerns, Miller said he believes TownCloud is mobile-friendly, so people without computer access can use their mobile phones. The present Vassalboro website is not mobile-friendly, Trask said.

Related questions discussed were upgrades needed to town office electronics, to handle the new telephone system Miller wants and other electronic upgrades; and whether or on what terms to allow the public to join municipal meetings on line.

Board members talked inconclusively about ways public discussion could be moderated or comments could be prescreened, to avoid the kinds of abuse other Maine municipalities have reported.

Board members returned to the topic of the North Vassalboro fire station roof, assisted by aerial photos fire chief Walker Thompson said were taken by a drone. After discussion, they postponed action on bids for repainting the roof and for replacing it, agreeing instead to have it inspected.

They approved the fire department’s request for a new refrigerator at the North Vassalboro station and a new oven at the Riverside station, to be purchased with up to $2,500 in ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds. The kitchens are used when the department hosts fundraisers and other public events, to provide cold water for firefighters and for similar purposes.

In other business Oct. 19, board members approved recreating Vassalboro’s advisory energy committee. They suggested starting by asking if members of the previous committee will serve again. Other interested residents, especially those with expertise in energy management in public buildings, should contact the town office.

Resident Holly Wiedner said state Department of Transportation staff sent ideas for experimental traffic-calming measures in East Vassalboro village.

Miller intends to propose changes in the list of projects for which Vassalboro officials can spend Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds. For one thing, he said, state law has been amended to allow expenditures on municipal buildings. TIF money might also be used for the East Vassalboro traffic issues, with an amended local plan.

Any change in a municipal TIF plan requires public input – select board members talked of a January 2024 public hearing – and approval by town meeting voters and the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.

The manager reported 2023 road paving was finished, at a lower cost than expected. He suggested the possibility of using left-over funds for more paving in the spring of 2024, sparking another brief argument over whether to pave additional pieces of dirt road or repave additional already-paved stretches.

Miller shared 114 responses to the survey sent out with tax bills. On the questions submitted by the planning board, results were as follows:

  • Additional measures to control phosphorus run-off into water bodies, 81 in favor and 13 opposed.
  • Limiting commercial development to certain areas of town, 74 in favor, 20 opposed.
  • Setting aside land for conservation and recreation, 87 in favor, 15 opposed.

The select board’s survey questions were open-ended – how do residents learn about town events? What changes would they like to see? What concerns do they have? – and the answers took up several pages.

Resident Laura Jones recorded the Oct. 19 select board meeting. She has made the recording, and copies of the survey results and other documents, available on Facebook at @laurajonescommunitymatters.

The next regular Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for Thursday evening, Nov. 2.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Agriculture – Part 7

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Holderness cattle

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro

Recent articles have mentioned two Vassalboro men, Thomas Stackpole Lang and Hall Chase Burleigh, who each deserve more attention for their agricultural contributions, along with Lang’s father, John Damon Lang.

The early focus of the two families’ agricultural activities was what Alma Pierce Robbins, in her Vassalboro history, called the John D. Lang farm, which, she wrote, became the Hall Burleigh farm and by 1971 was a dairy farm owned by Romeo Rossignol.

The farm was on the west (Kennebec River) side of what was then the main road between Augusta and Winslow. The main road – Route 201, aka Riverside Drive — has been partly relocated, and this section is now the northernmost piece of old Route 201, paralleling the older road. It is named Burleigh Road.

John Damon Lang (May 14, 1799 – 1879) was, according to an on-line source, a Vassalboro native. Henry Kingsbury, in his Kennebec County history, said Lang came to Vassalboro from Rhode Island before 1836. Robbins said he was born in Gardiner and built a house on the river in Vassalboro by 1841.

Lang married Ann Elmira Stackpole (1800-1879, maybe; sources differ), a Vassalboro native (maybe). Their six children, born between 1822 and the 1830s, included Thomas Stackpole Lang (1826-1895).

The elder Lang was a businessman and a farmer. In his chapter on Vassalboro, Kingsbury described the businesses that made the Getchell’s Corner area of northwestern Vassalboro an early commercial center.

Among them was “a steam saw mill, built as a water mill first, on the river shore on what was then the Lang farm.” Lang built the mill “for cutting the logs of the farm,” but soon abandoned it, Kingsbury wrote.

North Vassalboro, with water power from China Lake’s Outlet Stream, became another commercial center. Kingsbury credited Lang for much of its development, writing that he helped two brothers-in-law develop their “wool carding and cloth dressing mill on the dam” into a woolen mill. It was running by 1836 and was an economic mainstay for much of the following 120 years.

Lang and partners invested in shipbuilding, too, Robbins and Kingsbury said. President Ulysses Grant appointed Lang a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners that Congress established in April 1869. Board members represented different Protestant religions (Lang was a Quaker); their responsibility was generally to advise on more constructive policies toward Native Americans.

Samuel Boardman mentioned John Damon Lang and Thomas Stackpole Lang repeatedly in his chapter on agriculture in Kingsbury’s history.

He described them as “early and continuous importers and improvers of sheep, having always the best flocks of Southdowns and Cotswolds.”

Writing about the North Kennebec Agricultural Society, organized in 1847, Boardman listed both Langs among “noted breeders and farmers” who helped it succeed. He named John Lang among the early importers of Ayrshire cattle (from Massachusetts, in 1855 and 1856).

Another of John Lang’s contributions Boardman mentioned was an article on Holderness cattle Lang wrote for an 1874 publication titled Agriculture of Maine. As Boardman tells the story, the import of Holderness was by chance: in 1812, a privateer out of New York captured a British ship bound for Halifax with a Holderness bull and cow aboard and brought them to Portland.

Descendants of these two Holderness, “known as the ‘Prize’ stock,” reached Sidney and Vassalboro, Boardman wrote. He did not specify that Lang owned or bred them.

British Shorthorn cattle

Lang did breed British Shorthorns. Boardman wrote that in 1860 he and his son Thomas jointly imported Shorthorns from two prominent cattlemen in Massachusetts and New York “and bred with a good deal of spirit.”

Before the family’s interest in Shorthorns, Boardman wrote that Thomas Stackpole Lang’s Herefords were among cattle shown at North Kennebec Agricultural fairs from the 1850s; and the younger Lang was one of the first local men to bring in Holsteins (in 1864, from a Massachusetts breeder).

The Eastern Kennebec Agricultural Society, organized in the spring of 1868, had its half-mile track on a 16-acre parcel off Dirigo Road, in China, and held its first exhibition there that fall. Boardman wrote that when the society added an exhibition hall in 1869, Thomas S. Lang, a major exhibitor, was a speaker.

(This society held annual fairs through 1874. Bad weather – in more than one year, Boardman implied – reduced revenue; debt accumulated; and the society sold its real estate in 1877.)

The Langs’ interest in cattle waned after the Civil War. Boardman wrote that they had 32 Shorthorns at the North Kennebec Agricultural Society’s 1864 fair, “but soon after disposed of their animals to give attention to another class of stock.”

This other class was almost certainly horses, and Thomas Stackpole Lang was probably the leader in the switch to horses. As readers learned two weeks ago, he brought the famous trotting horse, General Knox, to the Kennebec Valley in January 1859. Robbins wrote that in 1860 Lang was “Master of Ceremonies at the ‘Horse Breeders Association’ exhibit in Augusta.”

The breeding business that Lang started in 1859, Boardman wrote, “soon took high rank among the most noted in the country. This was maintained for many years and brought Kennebec county into great prominence.”

Lang started with four stallions, including General Knox, and one brood mare, Boardman said. He added five more stallions, including Gideon of the Hambletonian line (mentioned last week).

Boardman had high praise for General Knox. “He was one of the most remarkable horses ever owned in Maine, and has done more toward improving our stock of horses, bringing the state into prominence as a horse breeding state and causing more money to come to Maine from other states for the purchase of fine horses than any other single horse ever owned here,” he wrote.

He called Lang “one who builded better than he knew when his breeding operations were being carried on.”

In 1868, Boardman said, Lang bought from the government of Nova Scotia a stallion named Annfield. J. W. Thompson’s 1874 booklet listing noted Maine horses, found on line, says Annfield was a bay with black points, “small star in forehead, and white feet behind.” He stood 16 hands high and weighed more than 1,100 pounds.

A “special agent” of the Nova Scotian government imported Annfield from England (no reason was given), where he had won several races. Lang sold Annfield to a breeder in Oxford, Maine, in 1871 (again, no reason was given).

The list of Annfield’s central Kennebec Valley descendants includes three daughters, Ann, a chestnut born in 1869, and Victoria, a roan born in 1871, both bred by H. G. Abbott, of North Vassalboro; and Eugenie, a sorrel born in May 1869 and bred by C. A. Fuller, of Fairfield Center.

In addition to the big Lang farm on the Kennebec River, John Damon Lang must have owned a parcel on the west side of Webber Pond. Robbins wrote that when a road was laid out there in 1886, the landowners who received town compensation included “heirs of J. D. Lang.”

* * * * * *

Hall Chase Burleigh was born in Fairfield on Dec. 13, 1826. Robbins wrote that after he married Clara (or Clarissa) Kelly Garland (in the fall of 1853, in Fairfield, an on-line genealogy says), the family moved to what had been John D. Lang’s farm, in Vassalboro. But Robbins also called Burleigh, “of Vassalboro” when she said he was “developing a Hereford herd” by the 1840s.

Boardman gave more details on the Hereford breeding operation. He wrote that Burleigh cooperated with a Fayette breeder in the 1860s, and in 1869 (still living in Fairfield, according to Boardman) joined with George E. Shores, of Waterville, to buy what was then considered “the most famous herd of Herefords on the continent” from a Québec breeder.

Three years later, there were enough Herefords for each man to take a separate herd. In 1879, Burleigh (by then definitely in Vassalboro) went into partnership with Joseph R. Bodwell, of Hallowell, and the two got serious about importing Herefords, some from Canada, most from England.

In the next half-dozen years, Burleigh made five trips to England to inspect potential additions to the herd. In 1883, he chartered a steamship to transport 200 cows in one load.

In total, Boardman said, the two men imported more than 800 Herefords. Some stayed in the area; most were shipped to southern and western states. Between 1880 and 1890, according to Burleigh’s obituary (found on line), he sold more than a million dollars worth of stock.

In 1881, Boardman wrote, Burleigh took some Herefords on “the grand Western circuit of the great inter-state fairs,” where they “won everywhere in all classes in which they were shown.” In 1883, he took cattle to the Kansas City, Chicago and New Orleans fairs, again winning prizes.

Boardman wrote that on the 1883 tour, a two-year-old heifer named Burleigh’s Pride, a Hereford-Polled Angus cross, was awarded “the champion gold shield for the best animal of any sex, breed or age, exhibited by the breeder.”

In 1891, Boardman said, Burleigh’s Herefords “won fifteen first prizes, eleven second prizes and one third prize at the Maine State Fair.”

Polled Aberdeen Angus

Burleigh and Bodwell brought in Polled Aberdeen Angus between 1880 and 1884, the second time this breed had come to the United States. In 1883 and 1886 they imported Sussex cattle, which Burleigh and his son Thomas were still breeding in 1891.

Bodwell took time out to get elected Maine’s 40th governor in 1886. Inaugurated Jan. 6, 1887, he died in office Dec. 15, 1887. (Edwin Chick Burleigh, the 42nd Maine governor, was one of the Palermo Burleighs [see the Jan. 5, 2023, issue of The Town Line]. They seem to have no direct connection to the Vassalboro Burleighs.)

Hall Burleigh, his obituary said, was a state legislator in 1889 and state assessor in the 1890s.

Burleigh’s wife Clara was born Sept. 18, 1833, in Winslow. The couple had seven daughters and four sons, born between July 1854 and May 1874. Robbins wrote that three of the 10 “settled on farms in Vassalboro.”

The oldest daughter, born March 5, 1856, and named Clara after her mother, “retired from teaching and raised turkeys on her farm for many years,” Robbins wrote.

Son Thomas, born Oct. 4, 1868, “took over the home farm,” Robbins wrote. Boardman said he, too, bred cattle.

Next to youngest daughter Nettie, born May 2, 1874, first gained public attention when she was 11 years old: she and her 15-year-old brother Sam began publishing a local newspaper called The Clarion in March 1886 (see the Dec. 3, 2020, issue of The Town Line for more information on this newspaper).

Nettie began teaching in Vassalboro schools around 1893. Robbins said she had a successful career in local and state politics, including becoming the first female selectman in Vassalboro in 1922. She bought what Robbins called the “Old Doe Farm” where she continued the family tradition of raising thoroughbreds (horses, cows or both? Robbins did not specify.)

Hall Chase Burleigh died May 17, 1895; his widow died Feb. 3, 1915. They are buried in Winslow’s Drummond cemetery with other family members, including children Clara May (died Jan. 8, 1934); Thomas Garland (died Oct. 7, 1951) and his widow; Samuel Appleton (Nov. 27, 1870 – 1952) and his wife; and Nettie Caroline (died March 2, 1963).

Your writer found one clue to the location of the second-generation Burleigh farms. On March 30, 1931, the Maine legislature established the approximately 1,700-acre Natanis Game Preserve, in Vassalboro.

The legislative act described its western boundary as the Kennebec River and listed included and abutting landowners. Among those included are Clara C. (Clara May?), Nettie C. and Thomas G. Burleigh.

Information from current Vassalboro residents suggests that the game preserve was slightly north of Oak Grove Road, which goes east from Riverside Drive less than two miles south of Burleigh Road.

The Maine hunting rules list “Oak Grove Area, Vassalboro” under the heading “Closed and Special Regulation Areas.” If this area is the Natanis Preserve, the 1931 law says it is illegal to “hunt, chase, catch, kill or destroy any wild bird or wild animal” therein.

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).

Websites, miscellaneous.

An afternoon of viewing a slice of the ‘Roaring ‘20s’

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The audience takes a trip to the past with silent films at the Vassalboro Historical Society. (photo by Roberta Barnes)

by Roberta Barnes

Sunday October 15, 2023, the Vassalboro Historical Society opened a window into the past by showing silent films written and produced by Holman F. Day, a native of Vassalboro.

photo by Roberta Barnes

These black and white silent windows into the past remind us of the importance of body language, musical sounds, and even tapping of the foot. While in silent films we cannot hear what is spoken, the actions and body language of the characters speak in a language sometimes overlooked.

Another important part of silent films, just as in films today, was always the piano or organ music. At one time I spoke to an older woman who had watched silent movies in theaters and said how there was always a piano player. It is the music that tells you if a person is joyfully running to something or fearfully running from something. Sunday in Vassalboro Joel Estes, a music teacher from Temple Academy, in Waterville, with his electric keyboard provided the perfect sound background that enhanced the actors’ actions.

Prior to showing the first silent film, Suzanne Griffiths presented the history of Holman F. Day, born in Vassalboro 1865. Griffiths covered his career as a newspaper man, journalist, novelist, poet, and filmmaker. While she spoke, the society’s president Janice Clowes, and others set up the popcorn maker and made certain there was enough coffee and bottled water for film viewers.

David Theriault explained differences to expect between black and white silent films of yesterday, and today’s movies filled with special effects. Any needed dialogue and background story appears written in full screen rather than in captions as we see in today’s films. Once people sat down with popcorn the lights were turned off, and the score or music introduced the film Knight of the Pines. This silent comedy filmed in the cold around Augusta, Maine, in 1920 was produced by Holman Day Film Company.

Following a short intermission, more popcorn and Kent London speaking about Day’s life, the lights were again turned off. Music introduced the 1921 silent film Brother of the Bear. Written by Day, this film introduces a tame bear adopted by a man living in a shack in the forest. Between the body language of those not knowing the bear had been trained, and the keyboard sounds, spoken words are not required to know what is happening in the film.

The afternoon of delights from the 1920s ended with the silent film, My Lady O’ the Pines. It revolves around Norah Collison, a young woman who owns a huge timberland in Maine, full of white pines. Collison is played by Mary Astor, who later became one of Hollywood’s big stars.

The afternoon of visiting a part of our past closed with a raffle of several donated arrangements of white roses.

Roberta Barnes is a freelance contributor to The Town Line.

photo by Roberta Barnes

VASSALBORO: Town awarded 95K heat pump grant

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Thanks to the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, Efficiency Maine, Eco Heat Maine and volunteers from the Vassalboro Conservation Commission, the Town of Vassalboro received about $95,000 worth of heat pump systems and service at the Town Office, North Vassalboro Fire Station and the Public Works Garage.

The Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future has awarded $34,745 in grants to the Town of Vassalboro. This project qualifies for $60,348 in Efficiency Maine grant money. The town was asked to contribute $3,693 toward this endeavor at the October 5 selectboard meeting.

The process began in June by joining the Community Resilience Partnership. As a result the town has shown commitment toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and investing in energy efficiency.

Here are the improvements that will be done expected by the end of November:

North Vassalboro Fire Station – (2) 18k wall mounted heat pumps in the upstairs meeting room – $13,869.

Town Office – (2) 18k btu heat pumps in the meeting room; (1) 15k btu heat pump in the clerk’s office; (2) 7.5k btu heat pumps in the town manager and assessors’ offices; and (2) 5k btu heat pumps in the bookkeeper and CEO offices – $39,878.

Public Works Garage – (4) 32k btu heat pumps in the garage; and (1) 9.5k btu heat pump in the director’s office/meeting room – $44,038.