Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Blacks in Maine – Part 3

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(Luther Jotham: A Journey for Country and Community) An excerpt from the paper: On paper, Luther Jotham’s Revolutionary War service record reads like a typical service record of a Minute Man from rural Massachusetts in 1775. Volunteering to serve at a minute’s notice in case of an emergency, Jotham trained weekly with his neighbors in battle tactics. On April 19, 1775, when the alarm sounded at Lexington and Concord, Jotham joined his company of Bridgewater Minute Men in defense of their community.
Luther Jotham, however, differed from most Minute Men. As a free man of color, Massachusetts law excluded men like Jotham from participating in militia training days in peacetime. Yet in the midst of a looming emergency, he volunteered to protect his neighbors. Following the April 19 alarm, Jotham ultimately signed up to serve on four different occasions during the Revolutionary War. (photo courtesy of National Park Seervice)

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro

Records tell of a Kennebec Valley slave-owner, Captain Abiel or Abial Lovejoy (Dec. 15, 1731 – July 4, 1811), who lived in Vassalboro from 1776 and in Sidney after the west side of the Kennebec River became a separate town in 1792 (see the Feb. 3 issue of The Town Line). He was a native of Andover, Massachusetts, who came to the lower Kennebec Valley as a Massachusetts soldier (rising to the rank of captain) in the 1750s.

An on-line source says when Lovejoy and his wife Mary (Brown) married in 1758, they were given their first two slaves, a man named Boston and an unnamed woman who became Boston’s wife. After they moved to Dresden in 1761, Mary’s father gave them two more slaves, Salem and Venus.

In 1776 the household moved to a farm on the west side of the Kennebec, where Lovejoy became a leading Vassalboro citizen. Henry Kingsbury, in his 1892 Kennebec County history, listed him as a selectman from 1779 through 1784, apparently doubling as town treasurer in 1780. The on-line source tells two stories from those days.

Capt. Abiel Lovejoy

One is Lovejoy’s reaction when told Massachusetts ordered slaves freed, in 1788: he summoned “Salem and Venus, and offered them their liberty. They refused to leave and Salem’s answer to the Squire was, ‘You’ve had all de meat, now pick de bones.'”

The second story is about the time Lovejoy brought a jug of liquor to the field where a mixed group of slaves and hired hands was cutting hay, not to his satisfaction. When he demanded to know who did the poor job, the hands blamed Boston. Lovejoy said since Boston did all the work, “he shall have all the grog.”

The Lovejoys, their child who was born and died in 1784 and Boston, Venus and Salem were all buried in a family cemetery on the Sidney farm. The on-line source says, “As similar stones marked the burial place of the negroes, it is impossible to know which are the graves of the master and mistress and which are the graves of their servants.”

Remington Hobby (also Hobbey or Hobbie) was another Vassalboro slave-owner, briefly. Kingsbury called him a prominent Vassalboro citizen, listing him as town meeting moderator in 1774, selectman in 1777 and treasurer in 1778.

One on-line genealogy says Hobby was born in 1746 and was a Harvard College graduate. Converted to Quakerism, he became a “powerful” preacher, and died in Winslow in 1839. Different sources list his wife’s name was Anstrus or Anstress. The genealogy writer just cited said he married her about 1837, pointed out that by then he was in his 90s and wondered if there were a father and son of the same name and it was the son who got married in 1837.

The story in the Vassalboro Historical Society records (in the form of a letter in the Feb. 12, 1910, “Kennebec Journal”, reprinted in the Feb. 2, 1997, issue of what was by then the Central Maine Newspapers) says that a Boston merchant who owed Hobby money gave him as part payment an enslaved Black man from Guinea named Denmark. Hobby gave Denmark his freedom and sent him to join the Black “colony” in northeastern China.

Denmark soon returned to Vassalboro, claiming his new neighbors had robbed him, the story continues. After Hobby’s death, Hobby’s son John and John’s brother-in-law, Steven Jenkins from China, took care of Denmark. When he died, they arranged his burial in the Friends Cemetery on the east (lake) side of Neck Road in China.

Kingsbury’s history talks about a Black section of a cemetery in East Vassalboro in the early 1800s. He wrote that the cemetery was beside the First Baptist Church building on Elm Street.

(The1856 map of East Vassalboro shows the south end of present-day Main Street, from the four corners south, as Elm Street; north of the four corners is Water Street. Kingsbury wrote in 1892 that John Greenlowe was “well remembered” by East Vassalboro residents for the iron plows he patented and manufactured at the dam and for planting “most of the trees that so beautifully shade the streets of the village.”)

The First Baptist Church was organized June 3, 1788, and prospered for about a decade. In the 19th century membership declined, and about 1832 the building was sold for $43 to Ezeziel or Ezekiel Small, who let it deteriorate until it was removed.

This church building was “north of the old grave yard and south of the outlet landing,” Kingsbury wrote. The cemetery had not been maintained, and after the church was torn down, it was ignored, “except that the portion next to the mill [one of several owned by members of the Butterfield family] has been used by the colored people.”

By 1892, Kingsbury wrote, the area north of the mill was “an enclosure called the Baptist burying ground,” without headstones or grave mounds, shaded by tall elms along the street. The site of the former church had become “John Warren Butterfield’s garden.”

In her Vassalboro history, Alma Pierce Robbins gave the First Baptist Church a few paragraphs, including a reference to “the Baptist Burying Yard at the outlet of 12 Mile Pond [China Lake].”

At the Vassalboro Historical Society, the following Black families are listed from the 1810 census: James Bennett, with a three-person household; Prince Brown, 10 people; John Foy, six people; Luther Jotham, seven people.

In 1820, census-taker Abijah Smith listed Jotham with two others in his household, an adult woman and a male child. In 1830, he was living with two adult women and two male children. Smith also listed Bennett, but not Brown nor Foy.

Your writer has found information on only one of these families, the Jothams.

The author of an on-line paper by the Boston National Historical Park (hereafter BNHP), titled Luther Jotham: A Journey for Country and Community, used military, census and other records to find details about Jotham’s life.

The BNHP writer said Jotham was born a free Black in Middleborough, Massachusetts, about 1751. Sometime before 1775 the family moved to Bridgewater, Massachusetts. As tension with Great Britain increased, rules were changed to allowed Colored men to join the militia; when the Revolution began April 19, 1775, Jotham was a member of the Bridgewater Minute Men.

The essayist surmised he might have joined for the shilling he earned for every half day of training, or because “For men of color, joining a military community helped forge a more equal status with their white counterparts.”

After this first stint, Jotham enlisted in militia units three more times. On Aug. 1, 1775, he began five months’ service as a private “in Josiah Hayden’s company in the Plymouth County regiment of militia, stationed in Roxbury.” From January to March 21, 1776, he was again in Roxbury as a member of “Captain Mitchell’s company in Colonel Simeon Cary’s regiment,” identified in another on-line source as the Plymouth and Barnstable County Regiment (Cary was also from Bridgewater, which is in Plymouth County).

In September 1776 Jotham re-enlisted in Cary’s regiment. The regiment was ordered to New York City, then partly under British control.

On Sept. 16, British forces attacked near Harlem Heights, and General George Washington ordered several regiments, including Cary’s, to counter-attack. This was Jotham’s first experience of battle, the BNHP writer said; it was soon followed by another at White Plains. Jotham then “faithfully completed his term of service on December 1, 1776 and returned home to Bridgewater.”

Jotham’s fourth enlistment, in October 1777, put him in “Captain Nathan Snow’s company, in Colonel [Cyprian] Hawes’ regiment,” which was sent to Rhode Island in an unsuccessful effort to chase the British out of Newport. The American success at Saratoga, New York, on Oct.17, 1777, took enough pressure off New England that militia units were sent home that fall.

The BNHP writer found that Jotham and Mary Dunbar were married soon after he came home. In January 1779, he wrote, Jotham paid 320 pounds for “about 15 acres of land.” He thereby elevated his status from “labourer” (who worked for someone else) to “yeoman” (who “farmed his own land”) in relevant documents.

The couple had three children, Loriana, Lucy and Nathan.

The BNHP writer found records that Bridgewater officials “warned out” Jotham – and many others – in November 1789. Such a warning, the writer explained, was a notice to anyone who might become a town charge that he or she was not eligible for town support, and a demand for evidence of self-sufficiency. Since Jotham was a landowner, the writer surmised that his getting such a notice might be evidence of racial discrimination.

Jotham apparently satisfied the selectmen, because the 1790 and 1800 censuses showed his family in Bridgewater.

Sometime in the early 1800s, the Jothams moved to Vassalboro, where he bought 20 acres and presumably continued farming. The BNHP writer did not know why he moved to Maine, nor why he chose Vassalboro.

Mary Jotham died before 1816, and all three children by 1820. On May 25, 1816, Jotham married his second wife, Reliance Squibbs; they had two more children, Mary Anne and Orlando. Rachel and both her children had also died by May 1820, when Jotham applied for one of the veterans’ pensions the U. S. Congress approved in 1818.

(Robbins said that the 1818 federal law set pension payments for anyone who had served at least nine months during the Revolution and was in “reduced circumstances:” privates got eight dollars a month, officers twenty dollars a month.)

The BNHP writer found Jotham’s application, in which he wrote that his property consisted of “a house, small hut, a few tools and household items, and several animals, including one cow, three sheep, and one pig.” He said his annual income was $5; at age 69, he was unable to work much.

“Jotham seemed well connected to other Black families living in Vassalboro and the surrounding area. His pension application includes many testimonies from friends and acquaintances who vouched for his military service,” the BNHP writer said.

Jotham was awarded an annual pension of $96.

On Dec. 20, 1821, Jotham (by then about 70 years old) married for the third time, to a woman information at the Vassalboro Historical Society identifies as Rhoda Parker or Rhoda Dunbar. The BNHP writer did not list a last name for Rhoda; he said the couple had “at least” three children.

The next set of documents the writer found date from August 1827, when a Vassalboro overseer of the poor found that Jotham was mentally incompetent and arranged for a man named Abijah Newhall to be his legal guardian. Sometime after the 1830 census, the Jothams moved to China, where Luther died on June 22, 1832, aged 81, and, the writer said, was buried in the Talbot Cemetery.

Rhoda applied for a widow’s pension in 1860, when she was 73. The BNHP writer did not say whether her application was successful.

The writer concluded with a summary that applied to many Black veterans.

“Jotham attempted to build a better life for himself in the new nation he helped fight for. Though respected for his service by those who knew him personally, his honorable status as a Revolutionary War veteran did not make him invulnerable to the “colorphobia” that plagued many in his community.”

The writer continued by pointing out that many veterans, regardless of their race, eventually had to go through the humiliating process of demonstrating that they were so poor they needed a federal pension.

“Luther Jotham’s story is just one of many post-war experiences of ordinary soldiers who later struggled to support themselves, despite the valiant sacrifices they made while serving this country in its fight for liberty and democracy.”

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.

PHOTOS: Area food pantries walk to feed ME

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Vassalboro Food Pantry team included, from left to right, Mary White w/Maggie, Cindy Ferland w/Feebee, Diane Bailey w/Midget and Shadow. Not in photo, Albert Ferland who was taking the picture.

The China Community Food Pantry’s Team that participated in the Feed ME 5K walk were, front row, from left to right, James Maxwell, Ann Austin, Rachel Maxwell, Naomi Harwath and Kimberly Goneau. Back, Brad Bickford, Caley Pillow and Aurie Maxwell.

Meanwhile, volunteers back at the China Food Pantry hold down the fort and prepare to serve clients.

Volunteers at China Community Food Pantry, from left to right, Cindi Orlando, Donna, and Jen Zendzian pack produce boxes.

On the porch at China Community Food Pantry: Kimberly Goneau, Peter Moulton, Jodi Blackinton and Susan Cottle stand ready to serve.

Contributed photos

Outside activities return to VCS; other good news

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Vassalboro Community School (contributed photo)

by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO, ME — Vassalboro School Board members got quite a lot of good news at their April 13 meeting.

Assistant Principal Greg Hughes shared the first item, in his administrator’s report: extracurricular programs are being scheduled again, after two years of pandemic-induced hiatus.

He said one field trip has already been held and two more are planned before the term ends. In-school programs like the book fair and group discussions of shared problems are back, too.

“It feels really good,” Hughes said. He thanked members of the Vassalboro Community School (VCS) Parent-Teacher Organization for their help.

Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer joined Hughes in thanking PTO volunteers. He added another piece of good news: enough four-year-old students have enrolled so next year’s pre-kindergarten will have two sections.

State funds will pay almost all the costs, Pfeiffer said, including a teacher aide for the second class and furniture and supplies for the additional classroom. The local school budget will fund a second pre-kindergarten teacher.

Previously and this year, the superintendent said, after the single pre-kindergarten class was full VCS administrators helped parents enroll their children in out-of-town programs.

Finance Director Paula Pooler had yet more good news.

The audit for the prior fiscal year, 2020-21, showed the food service program was in the black, for the first time in several years; and this year, so far, it still is, she reported. For the current year, overall spending is on target; there is no indication the total 2021-22 budget will fall short.

Next year’s budget, approved unanimously on a first (preliminary) reading by school board members, totals $8,722,176.29. That figure is an increase of more than $400,000 over the current year.

However, state revenue is also up, with the result that if $80,000 is taken from the school’s surplus account (deliberately increased in previous years, Pfeiffer said, so that it could be a revenue source), the school will ask for a little over $77,000 less from Vassalboro taxpayers next year than this year.

Budget committee and school board members were scheduled to review the proposed budget at an April 19 meeting. Vassalboro voters will make final decisions on 2022-23 school spending at their open town meeting June 6 and will reaffirm or reject the budget by written ballot June 14 (the so-called school budget referendum).

Pooler emphasized that higher federal funding due to the pandemic is a big contributor to this year’s and next year’s budgets. When federal funds decline, local spending will need to increase again. Meanwhile, she said, Vassalboro (and its former partners in AOS [Alternative Organizational Structure] #92, Waterville and Winslow) are making sure they get everything they’re entitled to.

In other business April 15, school board members accepted several resignations, including that of assistant principal Hughes.

Principal Megan Allen resigned earlier this spring. Board Chairman Kevin Levasseur opened the meeting by denying a rumor that she and Hughes had been fired. Only the school board could fire them, and the board did not do so; they resigned, for their individual reasons, he said.

Allen wrote in the March 27 school newsletter that she resigned because her experience as principal showed her that “I am a teacher at heart and belong in a classroom.” She plans to work at the college level “to teach future teachers” and to return to middle-school teaching.

A 13-person committee, including school personnel and members of the public, was scheduled to start reviewing resumes of applicants for Allen’s and Hughes’ positions on April 14. This committee, Levasseur told audience members, cannot accept additional volunteers; because it deals with personnel, deliberations are by law confidential.

However, he and Pfeiffer said, volunteers are welcome for other tasks at VCS, including playground and cafeteria monitoring and assisting with a planned library reorganization. There are plans to post volunteer opportunities on the website, vcsvikings.org.

Board member Jessica Clark added that librarian and media specialist Melora Norman is choosy about her volunteers: she wants people who will follow her instructions, not try to tell her how things should be done. Board and audience members smiled understandingly.

Clark asked Pfeiffer what he and other administrators are doing to reduce the number of remote days, when too few staff are available to cover all classes.

“We need people,” Pfeiffer replied. He thanked VCS personnel who have filled in when colleagues are out sick.

The problem is not just local, he added, citing the state-wide shortage of teachers and especially substitute teachers and the difficulty many schools have retaining staff. In an April 12 letter posted on the website, Pfeiffer wrote that during this school year 21 Maine principals have “left their positions” and there have been “22 changes in superintendencies,” including 15 retirements.

After the April 19 budget meeting (and follow-up meetings if needed), the next regular Vassalboro school board meeting is currently scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 17.

Select board approves trail at Spectacle Pond; postpones decision on background checks

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by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO, ME — Vassalboro select board members approved four of the varied items on their April 14 agenda, one formally; rejected one request; and postponed other decisions for more information.

By a unanimous vote, they approved a trail agreement with the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IF&W) for maintenance of the Spectacle Pond Trail, a loop trail off Cross Hill Road across state-owned land to the east shore of Spectacle Pond.

John Melrose, speaking for Vassalboro’s Trails Committee, said the agreement codifies existing arrangements. The trail will remain a “primitive hiking trail” for “walking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing,” but no motorized use; and IF&W can close the trail or terminate the agreement at any time for any reason.

Vassalboro is to maintain the trail and oversee its use and condition. The town may put up an informational kiosk at the road with a map and trail rules, and Melrose intends to discuss with IF&W officials putting markers at trail intersections and providing roadside parking.

Because of the steep descent, Melrose doubts the Spectacle Pond Trail will be heavily used.

Without voting, select board members approved Town Manager Mary Sabins’ first draft of the warrant for the June 6 (open meeting) and June 14 (written ballot) annual town meeting.

They added a non-binding question to the written ballot asking if voters want a new town ordinance that would govern solar development in town. The advisory question was suggested because town officials spent time drafting a Mass Gatherings Ordinance that voters rejected in November 2021.

That ordinance was presented in anticipation of a country music festival on Nelson Road this summer. Some audience members said they believe the festival is still scheduled, for July.

Also approved without a formal vote was Sabins’ proposed job description for a new town employee whose responsibilities would include running the recreation program. Given the more extensive duties listed, the job was retitled Community Program Director. Sabins said she had received no negative reactions from people currently heading recreation activities.

The town manager had a request from the Municipal Review Committee (MRC), the body representing the Maine municipalities that invested in the closed Fibreright trash recycling plant in Hampden, for financial support as the MRC looks toward buying the facility. Selectboard members agreed with her recommendation that they ignore the request.

Select board members put off a decision on Codes Officer Ryan Page’s recommendations for higher permit fees until Page talked with planning board members (their next meeting is May 3, he said) and until they hold a public hearing on the proposed increases.

The decision on adopting a salary schedule was also postponed. Board member Chris French was ready to act, but Chairman Robert Browne and member Barbara Redmond wanted to wait until after town meeting voters act on salaries proposed in the 2022-23 budget.

A proposed background check policy was postponed for rewriting to limit it to employees and volunteers who are not already covered and who work with children. One suggestion was to add requirements to individual boards’ bylaws, where appropriate, instead of creating a town policy.

Sabins and others said employees, firefighters, first responders and other groups already have background check requirements. Sabins said she did not think it appropriate to ask people who have served for years on committees like the planning board or the budget committee to undergo background checks.

The April 14 meeting was delayed for almost an hour as select board members met in executive session with town attorney Kristin Collins. During the wait, audience members talked in the town office lobby about drug dealing in town, the condemned former church building in North Vassalboro and other issues.

They brought up the church building with select board members near the end of the meeting. The church has been condemned as a dangerous building, and town meeting voters are asked to approve $25,000 for demolition.

Residents who spoke want faster action. People are living in the building, they said, although it has no electricity, running water or sanitary facilities, creating a potential fire hazard as they use a stove to keep warm.

Browne told them the situation is being addressed.

The next regular Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 28.

Vassalboro Centenarian

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Lois Bulger, of Vassalboro.

VASSALBORO, ME — Lois Bulger, Vassalboro’s oldest citizen, was feted recently by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, on the occasion of her 100th birthday.

She was born in Oakland on April 24, 1922. She has lived most of her adult life in Vassalboro where she and her husband raised their family, raised horses and later owned and operated a small antique shop.

Vassalboro couple invites furry friends into their home for temporary care

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Drizzle, left, and Fritter, at the Kitten Korner. (photos by Chris Choyce)

by Gillian Lalime

Entering into the apartment of Justin Saragosa and Chris Choyce you’ll most likely hear tiny meows coming from a certain corner.

Justin Saragosa and Chris Choyce

In the summer of 2018 the young couple was facing increasing rent prices in Portland and decided to move up to central Maine, where Justin is from. When the pandemic hit they were temporarily furloughed. This newfound time inspired them to begin something they’d wanted to do: foster animals! The in-law apartment they’d moved to had a little extra space, an empty corner to be specific. The Kitten Korner was born on Easter Sunday 2020, becoming a temporary home to their first foster kittens.

Over the last two years, The Kitten Korner has provided a home for 70 cats and two dogs with support from the Humane Society Waterville Area. Many animal shelters don’t receive funding from their town or state and rely on donations from local folks.

Fostering animals serves an important role in the community. Instead of an animal growing up in a shelter or becoming a neighborhood stray, fostering provides cats and dogs with a warm, nourishing, and loving home. Most of the costs associated with caring for animals are out of pocket, so the couple set up a Facebook page for the small operation. The Kitten Korner posts photos of the cute creatures, shares animal care tips, and promotes shelter events. Additionally, people from the community have connected with The Kitten Korner when encountering stray animals in their neighborhoods and to donate pet food, litter, toys, or make financial contributions.

While always having tiny bundles of fur roaming your home might sound like fun, Justin and Chris say the last two years have had their ups and downs. To anyone interested in fostering, Chris offers a few words of advice: “Compassion fatigue is a real thing – be sure to give yourself a break now and then.”

Once kittens are old enough for adoption, they are returned to the shelter. They have found it difficult to return animals they have nurtured, yet rewarding to watch them grow. It is also a lesson in understanding the importance of spaying or neutering pets and making sure they don’t get lost or wander off.

The Kitten Korner looks forward to a future where they have an entire room devoted to the care of foster animals. Possibly expanding to “pocket pets” like guinea pigs or rabbits, and working with other local shelters.

For more information about the operation please visit: https://www.facebook.com/thekittenkorner/photos/.

 

 

 

VASSALBORO: Three candidates on June 14 ballot

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by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO, ME — Vassalboro residents will have three candidates for three open local positions on their June 14 election ballot.

Town Clerk Catherine Coyne reported that Frederick L. “Rick” Denico II is the only candidate who filed nomination papers for a seat on the select board. Robert Browne, whose term ends this year, is not seeking re-election.

The two candidates for two seats on the school board are incumbent Jessica Clark and Amy M. French. School board chairman Kevin Levasseur is not running for another term.

Polls will be open for Vassalboro’s June 14 election from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the town office.

The open town meeting at which voters set the 2022-23 municipal and school budgets and decide town policy issues is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m., Monday, June 6, at Vassalboro Community School. The June 14 voting will include acceptance or rejection of the school budget that is approved at the June 6 meeting.

Vassalboro planners approve minor exterior changes at Kennebec Water District

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Kennebec Water District treatment plant in Vassalboro. (Internet photo)

by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO, ME — Vassalboro Planning Board members quickly and without dissent approved a minor exterior change at the Kennebec Water District (KWD) treatment plant at 462 Main Street (Route 32), between East and North Vassalboro.

KWD Water Quality Manager Robbie Bickford said the plant was opened in 1993 and is due for upgrades, both to replace aging equipment and to meet current requirements, like updated earthquake standards and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations.

The pending project is to replace the chemical feed system, including two 18-foot-diameter tanks inside the building. The building was built around the tanks, Bickford said. To get them out and new tanks in, KWD needs to add a door and to pave a small area that is now grass so heavy equipment can go over it.

There will be no other external changes, Bickford said, except a temporary sign during construction acknowledging financial support from the state Drinking Water Program’s revolving fund.

Planning board members had questions about disposal of chemicals and other safety and environmental issues. Satisfied with Bickford’s replies, they granted the permit.

Bickford said this project, like so many others, is delayed by supply chain hang-ups. He expects work to start in late summer or fall 2022; once started, it should be finished within 180 days, he said.

KWD has no plans to expand the Vassalboro treatment plant, he said. In the 1990s, KWD supplied water to large mills in Waterville; now that its customer base is mainly residential, it operates at about one-third capacity.

The ban on swimming in China Lake’s west basin is to protect water quality. Asked why motor boats are allowed, Bickford had a triple answer.

KWD officials want to accommodate recreational activities as much as possible, he said; and since petroleum products tend to float and KWD’s intake pipe is at the bottom of the lake, it is unlikely that any gas or oil would reach the treatment plant; and if any did, it would be mixed with so much lake water as to be insignificant.

“The solution to pollution is dilution,” he quoted.

Up and down the Kennebec Valley: Wars – Part 14

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The battleship USS Maine.

by Mary Grow

Mexican & Spanish-American

The wars on which this series has provided information so far began with fighting against the European power that once claimed the United States and continued with the 1861-1865 war between two parts of the United States.

Ongoing were a third category, wars the United States’ founders fought to establish and expand its land area. From their first arrival in the 1600s, Europeans pushed aside the Native Americans, from the eastern seaboard first and the rest of the continent later.

(Consequences of those years persist as Natives reclaim parts of their historic home. See, for example, here in Maine the restoration to the Passamaquoddy tribe of 140 acres of the 150-acre Kuwesuwi Monihq, Pine Island [or White’s Island], in Big Lake.)

Starting with 13 states facing the Atlantic Ocean, the country reached to the Pacific with the 1850 admission of California. Adding Utah in 1896 brought the number of states in the continental United States to 45 by the end of the 19th century. Oklahoma was added in 1907, Arizona and New Mexico in 1912.

Alaska went from a territory to state in January 1959. Hawaii became the 50th state in August of the same year.

Two formally declared wars were part of 19th century growth, one with Mexico (April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848) that added land in the southwest and one with Spain (April 21 – December 10, 1898) that gave the United States its first overseas territories.

(Liberia, in west Africa, was settled beginning in 1820 by former slaves from the United States, under the auspices of the American Colonization Society [ACS]. The historical consensus is that it was never a United States colony or possession; in fact, Wikipedia says, “The United States government declined to act upon requests from the ACS to make Liberia an American colony or to establish a formal protectorate over Liberia, but it did exercise a ‘moral protectorate’ over Liberia, intervening when threats manifested towards Liberian territorial expansion or sovereignty.” Liberia became an independent country on July 26, 1847.)

* * * * * *

Wikipedia explains that the prelude to the war between the United States and Mexico was the declaration of independence by residents of part of northern Mexico in 1836. The Battle of the Alamo in late February and early March 1836 was part of that struggle.

Mexico did not recognize Texas as an independent republic. The United States (and Britain and France) did. Most Texans, Wikipedia says, were willing to join the United States, and after political maneuvering, Texas became a state on Dec. 29, 1845.

In the spring of 1846, President James Polk sent United States military forces into the new state. Mexican forces resisted, leading to battles in April and May followed by a May 13 United States declaration of war.

A series of battles stretching as far west as present-day California led to United States occupation of major Mexican cities, including in September 1847 Mexico City. The war was officially ended by the Feb. 2, 1848, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico gave up the area that, Wikipedia says, became “the present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming.”

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The proximate case of the Spanish-American War was the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor on Feb. 15, 1898. Built at the navy yard in Brooklyn, at a cost of almost $4.7 million, and commissioned Sept. 17, 1895, she was the first ship named in honor of the State of Maine.

Wikipedia says the Maine had been sent to protect United States interests as Cubans fought for independence from Spain. Later in 1898, a naval inquiry concluded a bomb had been the cause; but, Wikipedia says, some naval officers suggested instead an internal explosion in a coal bunker. A 1974 re-investigation supported their theory. Wikipedia says the cause of the sinking “remains a subject of debate.”

Meanwhile, however, United States opinion had settled immediately on Spain as the villain. With “Remember the Maine!” as its battle cry, Congress approved a declaration of war on April 21, 1898. Fighting in Cuba and in the Spanish possessions of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines was over by August. On Dec. 10, 1898, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and gave the United States the former Spanish territories.

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The effects of the Mexican War and the Spanish-American War in Maine were slight. Exceptions would be the few families with members who served, who had connections with the affected areas or were otherwise involved on a personal level.

In his history of the State of Maine, Louis Hatch didn’t mention the Mexican War. About the Spanish-American War, he wrote that in response to President William McKinley’s call for volunteers, Maine sent “one regiment of infantry, four batteries of heavy artillery and a signal corps, amounting in all to 1,717 non-commissioned officers and men.”

Other Maine men volunteered, and Portland’s and Bath’s “volunteer naval reserve associations” were “mustered into United States service,” Hatch wrote. The troops assembled in Augusta. He said nothing about casualties.

The 1898 Maine Adjutant General’s report, found on line, has long lists of Kennebec Valley volunteers.

Most local historians omit any mention of either war. Two exceptions are Alma Pierce Robbins, in her Vassalboro history, and General Isaac Bangs, in the military history chapter of Edwin Whittemore’s Waterville history.

Robbins wrote that when the “off and on” Mexican border dispute led to the United States declaration of war in 1846, not many people in Vassalboro cared. “Those who had gone west and those who were ‘tired of farming’ did go,” she wrote.

In the 1890s, as tension with Spain mounted preceding the Spanish-American War, Vassalboro was involved in national military exercises.

“Encampments and ‘war games’ were encouraged everywhere,” Robbins wrote. Massachusetts troops came “to compete with Maine men to demonstrate proficiencies in military techniques, with official sanction.”

Some of the encampments were on Horace Sturgis’ River Road farm. Robbins’ history includes a photograph of then-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt’s mounted Rough Riders in front of Sam Mitchell’s house on the River Road at Riverside in 1897, as they recruited area volunteers.

About the actual war Robbins was silent. But, she said, names of Vassal­boro residents who died in the Spanish-American War and World War I share a bronze plaque on the bridge at North Vassalboro.

The plaque has been moved since Robbins’ history was published in 1971 and is now on the larger of the two stones in the memorial on Main Street, in North Vassalboro. The memorial sits in front of the large building that used to be the North Vassalboro schoolhouse, then the town office and later a health clinic.

The names from 1898 are Prince Bessey, John O. Brown, Alton M. Lord, Andrew Peterson, Agra Pooler (state military re­cords list his name as Ogra), Fred Pooler, Bert J. Priest, Charles H. Priest, Charles H. Simpson, David Simpson and William J. Surman.

Prince Manter Bessey

Robbins erred when she wrote that all these men died in the Spanish-American war; your writer has found post-war information about several of them.

On-line sources say Prince M. Bessey was born Sept. 14, 1879, in China, Maine. On May 17, 1898, he enlisted from Augusta as a private in Battery A, Maine Volunteer Artillery Battalion; he was discharged May 31, 1899, in Savannah, Georgia.

After the war Bessey lived in North Vassalboro from 1907 to 1911. He worked as a salesman in several places, including Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he met and married Nora Smith in 1920. After he retired from Gimbel’s Depart­ment Store in 1948, the couple moved to Nora’s home town, Ceredo, West Virginia, where he died.

Charles Henry Priest was born July 12, 1881, in East Vassalboro, and died June 27, 1960. He is buried in Priest Hill Cemetery.

Peterson and Fred Pooler were privates in Battery A; each was 19 when he enlisted. Both Poolers were reportedly born in Waterville. Ogra or Agra Pooler, who enlisted at 21, was a North Vassalboro resident.

David Simpson, a Waterville native, was 24 when he enlisted. Surman was 27; his birthplace is listed as Dover, England.

Most Battery A men were from Lewiston or Auburn. In addition to those from Vassalboro, an on-line list includes First Lieutenant and Assistant Surgeon Robert J. Martin and Privates Harvey J. Libby, Nathan T. Shaw, of Augusta. Bangs’ chapter in Whittemore’s history gives names of a dozen privates from Waterville in Battery A, including Joseph Butler, who enlisted May 17, 1898, and deserted at Fort Popham July 16, and another deserter named Edward Lessor.

Battery C included 21 more Waterville men and smaller numbers from Augusta and Fairfield.

Bangs added a list of a dozen Waterville men who served in the First Maine Infantry in the Spanish-American War. William J. Surman is one of them. In the Maine Adjutant-General’s Report for the year 1901, Ogra Pooler, Charles H. Priest and William J. Surman are listed among Company D men who received $22 each in “Extra Pay of Maine Volunteers.”

The war with Spain continued until 1902 in what some historians call the Philippine-American War, as the United States consolidated its power over those islands. It was an appropriate introduction to the 20th – and 21st – centuries, as one country or ideology after another used – and uses – force against others.

Update from Brown Memorial Library in Clinton

The Dec. 2, 2021, article in this series talked about the Brown Memorial Library in Clinton, named in honor of William Wentworth Brown (April 19, 1821 – Oct. 22, 1911). The article said that Brown gave the library a portrait of himself by Frederic (or Frederick) Porter Vinton (Jan. 29, 1846 – May 19, 1911); in November 2021, the portrait had been sent away for cleaning.

William Wentworth Brown

It is now back on the wall, and assistant library director Cindy Lowell says she and Director Cheryl Dickey-Whitish are very pleased. Mr. Brown is “holding a pair of red gloves you couldn’t even see before,” she said. The head of his cane is visible and his hair and beard have turned from salt-and-pepper to almost pure white.

The following information is copied from the March-April 2022 issue of the Clinton Community Newsletter.

“The Trustees of the Brown Memorial Library recently had Mr. Brown’s very large 100-year-old portrait sent to a professional art restoration company for cleaning. Last week the portrait was returned to its place of honor displaying new details that were previously hidden by layers of coal dust!”

The newsletter has a color picture of the portrait and invites area residents to stop in to see it, an invitation Lowell seconds.

Brown Memorial Library is at 53 Railroad Street, in Clinton, on the east side of the street a block north of Main Street (Route 100).

Main sources

Hatch, Louis Clinton, ed., Maine: A History 1919 ((facsimile, 1974)
Robbins, Alma Pierce, History of Vassalborough Maine 1771 1971 n.d. (1971)
Whittemore, Rev. Edwin Carey, Centennial History of Waterville 1802-1902 (1902)

Websites, miscellaneous

Vassalboro budget committee recommendations may not be final; school budget unknown

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by Mary Grow

VASSALBORO, ME — Vassalboro Budget Committee members made their recommendations on the 2022-23 municipal budget at their March 31 meeting. Not all votes were unanimous, and because the school budget is still unknown, committee members did not guarantee their recommendations are final.

Members had varying attitudes toward the school budget. Optimists said the school, like the town, should have enough extra federal revenue so that the proposed 2022-23 budget will not be significantly higher than the current year’s.

If the optimists are wrong, some budget committee members would revisit the municipal budget with the goal of lowering their recommendations, so that the two budgets combined would not increase taxes.

Chairman Rick Denico, Jr., quoted former select board member Lauchlin Titus’s advice: don’t base budget decisions on the mil rate, don’t penalize either the school or the town for the other.

Member William Browne said if the school budget does provide a surprise, anyone on the budget committee who voted in favor of an item can move to reconsider it.

And the final decisions will be up to the voters who attend the June 6 open town meeting, where they will have the option of disregarding any recommendations.

A longer-range pending issue is whether the Vassalboro Select Board will adopt a salary schedule for town employees, following up on a study they commissioned (see The Town Line, March 10, p. 3, and March 24, p. 3).

After discussion of potential costs, and despite Select Board Chairman Robert Browne’s reminder that the select board decides policy issues, Denico called a straw poll and announced that eight of the 10 budget committee members supported the estimated $37,000 additional cost in 2022-23. That figure includes one-time larger raises for employees below scale.

Committee members then proceeded to review Town Manager Mary Sabins’ draft budget and draft warrant for the June 6 part of the annual town meeting item by item. They discussed two articles.

Article 5 in the draft asks voters how much they want to raise and appropriate to support 14 individually-listed town departments or services totaling $2,582,004. Individual figures range from $3,000 for general assistance to $593,925 for public works.

Public works brought concern from budget committee members about paving costs and a question about a recently-announced federal grant to the Maine Department of Transportation, from which $800,000 has been allocated for about three-quarters of a mile of Route 32, in Vassalboro.

Road Foreman Gene Field, from the audience, said he budgeted assuming paving material will cost $85 a ton. That is not a firm price. The large grant, he said, is for road and sidewalk improvements in North Vassalboro in 2024.

The amount proposed for recreation in 2022-23 is $44,327, and for the library, $60,500. Both are significant increases over the current year and both include personnel: Sabins recommends hiring a half-time recreation director, and library trustees want to add hours for the library director, to open the library one more day a week and for programming (see The Town Line, March 24, p. 3).

Sabins told budget committee members she expects the two positions would complement each other, not overlap or compete. The recreation director would organize sports programs on the ballfields and she hopes could also write grants, do long-range planning and help the town in other ways. She is working on a job description for select board review.

Library programs would be intended for residents of all ages, Sabins said.

A motion to recommend a lower library budget was defeated by a one-vote margin.

Draft warrant Article 6 has three fund requests: $20,000 for streamside park development (parking, picnic tables and perhaps other improvements at the town-acquired lot on Outlet Stream and Route 32 between East and North Vassalboro); $25,000 to demolish a dangerous building (the former church on Priest Hill Road in North Vassalboro); and $106,000 for roadside mowing equipment (if obtainable, Field’s recommended attachment for the loader).

Budget committee members endorsed all three, the mowing equipment by a one-vote margin. Field has been renting mowing equipment. He expects rental to cost around $16,000 for two mowings. Omitting a fall cutting one year let roadside grass grow high enough to block visibility some places, he told select board members at their Feb. 24 meeting.

The proposed April 5 budget committee meeting is canceled. As of April 5, committee members expected to hear on April 6 whether the 2022-23 school budget would be ready for review at an April 7 meeting. Residents who want to know whether the budget committee will meet the evening of April 7 should contact school Superintendent Alan Pfeiffer at apfeiffer@vcsvikings.org.

Town meeting to be in two parts

The first part of Vassalboro’s two-part 2022 town meeting is the open meeting, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 6, at Vassalboro Community School. Voters will assemble in person to act on funding and policy issues for 2022-23.

Written-ballot elections and the written referendum on the school budget adopted June 6 are scheduled for Tuesday, June 14, with polls open at the town office from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Local officials to be chosen are one select board member and two school board members. Signed nomination papers must be returned to the town office by noon Friday, April 8, for candidates’ names to appear on the June 14 ballot.