The Best-Laid Plans of Men

A portion of Fort Fairfield's commercial district, bridge crossing the Aroostook River, and eastern side of the town (1893 map by George E. Norris, Brockton, Mass.) Number 50 shows the location of Arthur P. Libby's horse, carriage, and livestock business.

Arthur Preston Libby was known for his warm humor and quick deal-making. A livestock trader, carriage and sleigh dealer, town selectman, and creamery owner, he teamed up with grocer Miles F. Dorsey in 1896 to form the Fort Fairfield Water Company, a company in direct competition with the town’s Frontier Water Company.

On the Center Limestone Road, Dorsey and Libby acquired the rights to build and maintain a dam on Charles Knight's land, excavate and construct a reservoir on the Hacker or so-called Weston Brook, which ran through Knight's property, and flood up to two acres. 

The businessmen also obtained permission to build a fence around the reservoir and pipe water across several other properties including Calvin S. Rich’s farm and the William Fisher farm that bordered the Aroostook River.

Portion of the town from the 1980s.

The Aroostook River, looking east towards Canada. Commercial district of Fort Fairfield, right; East Riverside Avenue, left. Around the bend is where Hacker Brook enters the river.

In February 16, 1899, the Northern Leader broke with the news that “a movement is on foot” to give the town an additional water supply. A company had been formed, the water supply “fixed,” and the rights to build a dam and lay pipes had been obtained. The only thing in the way was getting state approval for a charter.

Frontier, it was reported, opposed the new venture.

The Leader explained that the resources of Frontier were not adequate. “Across the Aroostook River there is no water furnished either for household or fire and yet these people are taxed and are within the corporation limits.” Frontier serviced the more populated portion of the township, separated by the river from the more sparsely settled area near Hacker.

Some citizens felt that the town should own its own water system, which eventually did happen some years later. But not in the 1890s or early 1900s. “Next to public ownership comes the advantage of competition and this should be encouraged,” the newspaper stated. “The charter would allow a private corporation to tax people.”

A few days later, the state’s Committee on Legal Affairs in Augusta concluded that “An Act to Incorporate the Fort Fairfield Water Company” should not and would not pass. No reasons for the denial were published.

The relationship between Libby and Hacker Brook, however, did not end there. The following year, Charles Knight sold Libby 22 acres of his lot on the south end where Hacker ran along and then flowed under the road and beyond. Forever the businessman, Libby no doubt had some indication that the land and Hacker Brook might yet turn into a profit.

He didn’t have long to wait.

Hacker Brook, next to a road culvert.

During the summer of 1903 there was a severe drought in northern Maine, and Frontier’s system was examined by civil engineer W.H. Whitcomb of Philadelphia, the firm’s then primary owner. Under contract with the town to furnish water for both domestic and fire use, Frontier’s supply was “hardly sufficient and water has been pumped into the main from one of the mill ponds to help out,” according to the Fort Fairfield Review. The mill water was thought by some to be “impure.”

By Aug. 26 of that year, Whitcomb decided to enlarge the water system by pumping in water from Hacker Brook, with pipe to be installed across the river to near the railroad station. The pipe would be ordered for the following spring, after the ground had thawed.

“With this proposed extension…there will be all the water necessary for all purposes for many years to come,” the Review promised.

Libby stood to gain from his land purchase from Knight. But did he already have the reservoir dug—the reservoir intended for his first venture?

Part of Center Limestone Road and the former Libby lot, left of the road. Nearest tree line hides Hacker Brook.

Even today, a sharp dip in Libby’s former land can be seen. It could easily have been filled with water from Hacker Brook. Whether this formation was made naturally or from human hands, no one knows, and no mention of a reservoir for the Frontier proposal was mentioned in the Review.

In 1904, Frontier Water changed plans. The owners decided to acquire additional water from Pattee Brook and not from Hacker. Pattee is located on the other side of the river, near the downtown area. Perhaps the shorter distance from Pattee to Main Street was cheaper to complete, or maybe something didn’t turn out right with Libby.

At any rate, in 1909 Libby sold his Hacker land to Jarvis Parks, the town veterinary, who then sold it to the farmer across the road. Part of the steep, oddly shaped lot is still under cultivation today, and the lower section is partially filled with trees and wild roses, nearest the brook.

From time to time, the lower end is also inhabited by beavers. A dam is built, a mud and stick lodge constructed, and a lovely, wild pond is maintained for the equally wild trout. Then after a few years, the beavers leave and sometime later another family shows up to start the process all over again.

Proving, in a way, that Arthur Libby’s adventurous water ideas may not have been all that far off.

You Don't Say!

One summer morning Helen’s black convertible with wings slowly came to a stop in front of our glassed-in porch.

“Are your parents at home?”

I nodded and ran into the farm house kitchen.

“Helen’s here.”

Helen came in behind me. She never knocked on the door and neither did any of our other relatives. We’d just come into each other’s kitchens and yell, “We’re here!”

“Take a seat,” Dad said to his cousin, as if she needed any prompting. He sat down in his corner chair between the table and the counter that held his radio and the latest Bangor Daily News.

Helen sat opposite Dad and dropped her canary yellow handbag on the floor next to her canary yellow shoes. Her platinum blond hair was neatly coiffed, pixie style, and her left hand sparkled with the diamond from her late husband.

“How’s it going?” Dad asked.

“Well,” Helen began, leaning over the table, “Dicky said that Rob got in trouble last night at the Plymouth.”

“No!” Dad said, shaking his head. “What’d he do now?”

“He was dancing with another man’s wife.”

“Ain’t that going’ some,” Dad said, under his breath.

Helen lit her first cigarette in the house, and Mom ran to get one of her glass ash trays shaped like a star. She placed it next to Helen’s right hand.

Helen blew smoke out from her lips in a small circle, like she had been practicing for decades. She held the cigarette delicately and smiled.

“And then, after a few dances, he got into a fight with her husband.”

“No!”

“Yes! Knocked him out cold and had to be carried out.”

By now, I wasn’t listening to Helen’s tales of what had gone on the night before at the local hotel that everyone called Peyton Place—after the TV show filled with gossip and wild living.

The Plymouth Hotel, Fort Fairfield, Maine

I was amazed that she had even grown up on the very farm I was growing up on, decades earlier, earning money by selling hens’ eggs and buying her first piano. Her father and mother had owned the farm for years before selling it to my dad, their nephew.

Helen went on to study at the Boston Conservatory of Music and marrying a New York businessman. He had spied her singing at a nightclub one night and fell in love at first sight.

But here she was, a rather youngish widow, tending to her aging parents who still came back to Maine every summer and wintered in Florida. You’d think she’d be bored coming back to the little town with her parents, but she seemed to relish connecting with her cousins and old girlfriends and, most of all, swapping the latest and most savory town news.

Internet was not even dreamed about back in those 1960s summers. But my father and Helen didn’t need the internet. They had something better, more exciting, and, in a way, more honest.

“You. Don’t. Mean it,” Helen said, jolting me back to reality.

“Yes, sir.” Dad nodded his head. He looked like a little boy who had just told a really big fib. Instead, he was relating what someone had told him the night before about a business closing in Caribou.

Helen only used that phrase when she was super impressed, and Dad had succeeded in super impressing his cousin.

“You don’t say!” she added.

Helen’s alto voice then droned on about stocks in New York and companies doing well and conversations with her broker. Dad shook his head again. "Mister man!" he said.

Then Helen looked down at her watch. “I’m meeting the girls at the club house for brunch before a round of golf." She picked up her cigarette pack and tapped it one last time on the table. "I’ll see you, Freddy, in a day or so.”

She pulled the straps of her bulging purse over her shoulder and smiled at me and Mom. “Good seeing you! Have a good day!”

As soon as the Cadillac left the driveway, Mom grabbed the ash tray, threw the butts out the back window, and opened the front door for cross ventilation. Dad put on his straw hat and headed towards the machine shop, beyond the barns.

He and Helen had cleared the air on the local news and gossip. They tried to make sense of things in the world and doing that face to face was better than anything else.

A Tale of Two Barns in Limestone

The first and biggest G. Howard Nichols barn, Limestone, Maine, 1922

William B. Ward and G. Howard Nichols were good enough neighbors. Nichols gave Ward needed feed for his livestock while Ward was building his landmark barn in 1920. But Nichols also had another interest in mind.

Ward's son, Homer Sr., described the conversation like this:

"How long is your barn?" Nichols asked.

"One hundred and ten feet," Ward replied.

"I'll guess I'll make mine 120," Nichols said. "How wide?"

"Fifty-five feet."

"I'll make mine 60. How high are the posts?"

"Twenty-five feet."

"I'll make mine 28."

Nichols' first and largest barn, designed in 1921 and finished a year later, was the biggest showplace around. Thousands of people traveled hundreds of miles to take the tour for only 25 cents each. It was the largest barn in Maine and may have been the biggest in New England. On some Sundays during tourist season, total admissions for the tour sometimes exceeded $400.

Nichols' wife, described by historian George H. Collins as able to "tip the scales at about 250 pounds...a very pleasant woman," helped sell postcards featuring the barn.

The main structure stood seven stories high with an ell on one side measuring 44 x 60 feet and a woodshed 10 x 76 feet. An underground passage from the road was wide enough for two trucks, three cars, or an eight-horse team to drive through and turn around in the barn cellar and drive out to the road again.

The barn took over $80,000 to finish, and Nichols paid $70,000 in cash. The six foot high gold weathervanes and more than 200 windows added to the building's expense.

The Ward barn was not so fancy but still was a very large structure. It had enough room to house hay and grain for six horses, 30 to 40 head of cattle, and four to 10 hogs. A stable 110 feet long on the east side housed the animals.

"It served as a recreation area for a lot of neighborhood kids who found its huge haymow and massive beams an irresistible playground," Homer Sr. wrote in 1980.

Then on a windy day later on in the 1920s, a fire broke out in the Nichols barn. The loss was estimated at $150,000 while Nichols' insurance covered only $12,000.

He built a second barn, but for unexplained reasons, that too was later engulfed with flames. A much smaller barn was then built on the same spot.

And the Ward barn? The original stood for 60 years before fire claimed its dry beams in 1980.

Homer Sr. said there wasn't another barn like it in the state. (Echoes, Fall 1989.)

An Old Remedy for Busy Bee Season

A tri-colored bumblebee on lilac.

It’s the busy bee season in Maine and wasps, hornets, honey and bumblebees are out in force. They don’t want to sting you, but if they do, here’s an old-time sting remedy:

Mud or, in modern-day terms, clay.

Some Mainers have been known to grab a small amount of wet mud from a nearby puddle to slap onto a fresh sting from an accidental encounter with a bee. When the moist dirt begins to dry on top of the wound, you can see the mud turn yellow from the venom being drawn out. (Of course, if you are allergic to bee stings, medical attention is the priority. The information in this post is for informational purposes only.)

If you don’t want to grab nearby dirt to relieve your sting, a certified herbalist I knew years ago suggestive an alternative: powdered clay. 

You may have some in your home right now in a store-bought container of French green clay used for facial masks. Some labels even state insect bites and stings are another reason to use the powder. Just take a small amount and mix with water to form a thick paste, apply to the sting area (or black fly or mosquito bite), and let it dry before washing the clay off with water. And if you find the clay is difficult adhering to the wound, place a bandaid over the top to keep the clay in place.

Like plain, old mud, the clay will start to turn the color of bee venom as it draws the poison away from your skin. 

I could thank that herbalist lady a thousand times, it seems, during the growing up years of my two children. Both adults now, they each keep a small bottle of powdered clay in their first aid cabinets. As kids, they learned how to apply clay to their multiple bug bites and occasional bee stings acquired during their frequent outdoor romps.

There are various kinds of powdered clay, and all of them are good for insect issues. Bentonite clay is an off white color, while red desert clay is a darker hue. And of course green clay is famous for facial masks. You can find clays in the health and beauty sections of stores, health food markets, or online. 

Powdered clays are great for reducing the swelling and pain of bee stings and those irritating bug bites we get during Maine's short, beautiful summers--with or without the mud puddles.

The Art of Katahdin Iron Works

Out in the middle of Maine’s woodlands, near Brownville Junction, sits the remains of a Victorian iron works company town surrounded by trees, bushes, and the sound of Pleasant River.

The 55-foot high blast furnace, restored by the state in 1966, is the focal point and the amazing craftsmanship of unknown stonemasons from the mid-1800s. Nearby is the one remaining beehive-shaped charcoal kiln, also restored. In the iron works heyday, about 400 workers cut and hauled wood from the surrounding woods, and others mined iron ore from Ore Mountain.

Walking into the furnace is like walking into a complex sculpture with its various shaped stones and brick work.

Outside, small trees and vines artfully grow from the sides and tops of both furnace and kiln.

The historic site—set in wilderness and black flies, spring greens and autumn reds—is an exhibit that’s free to visitors, both human and otherwise.

The Curious Love Story of Lot 42

“The Woodards were the first to settle this farm,” Forest Spear told me. 

He would have known. He had owned that farm from 1912 until 1947 when my dad bought the place. The farm changed hands several times after that and was featured in the final chapter of The Pioneer Homes of Fort Fairfield, Maine, published in 2008. 

But something was wrong.

Part of an 1877 atlas showing the farm lots in Fort Fairfield.

The so-called original Weston farmhouse.

It was not the David Weston farm that was depicted in those lovely colored photographs, and the author had described the wrong family. You can tell by looking at the above map that shows where the brook runs along the north side of Lot 42—the lot the Woodards settled. The David Weston family settled Lot 41, on the opposite side of the brook. The author got the lot number right for the Westons. But there are no surviving buildings on the Weston lot and haven't been since at least the 1950s. Instead, the book features photographs of the original house and remaining buildings on Lot 42--the lot cleared and built on by the Woodards in the early 1870s.

Here is a 1900 photograph of the Lot 42 farm with members of the Calvin S. Rich family, who bought the place from the Woodards in 1894:

And here is the view of the same farm as I remembered it from 1957-1982:

Although sympathetic, the book publisher couldn't do anything about a correction unless another edition was printed. That never happened. Last time I checked, the company was no longer in business.

The federal 1870 census recorded New Brunswick natives Benjamin James and Clarissa Wilmot Woodard and their seven children, plus a servant, living near or on Lot 42. Benjamin called himself a shingle weaver, a common profession before shingle mills grew more efficient and took over that industry. He and members of his family cut down the best cedars and made hand-shaved shingles. Northern Maine cedar shingles brought a high price in urban markets like Boston and New York, and in the 1860s they were even used as currency. The Woodards had plenty of currency.

By the 1880 census, Benjamin called himself a farmer and operated a middle-class farm that equaled many of his neighbors. The little town of Fort Fairfield was booming with cheap, virgin land for crops and plenty of trees for lumber. Many new families were settling there.

The deed records at the Houlton District Court building showed that Benjamin was issued a land certificate from the state in 1872 that gave him permission to move onto Lot 42, chop down wood for his use, pay about $73, clear so many acres, work on the road, and in a few years, build “a comfortable dwelling place.” After those duties were finished, Benjamin would be granted the state deed to the lot.

But Benjamin's name was not found on any deed after those settling duties were completed in 1875. Instead, I found this:

The state granted Clarissa the farm, even though Benjamin was still alive and stated as the farm owner on the 1877 atlas map and in the 1880 census. Clarissa continued to solely own the place until her family moved south in 1894. She signed the document selling her "homestead farm” to Calvin Rich, a neighbor.

So why was Clarissa the owner and not her husband? That is still a mystery. But what I came away from this information is this:

Forest Spear was right. “The Woodards” settled the farm featured in the pioneer homes book. The entire family worked hard and deserve credit for what parts of their farm are still evident. 

Clarissa was entrusted with the deed to a piece of property that she and Benjamin designed, maintained, and kept in beautiful condition. Benjamin apparently was not put out by her being the owner--a rare thing back in Victorian days.

He probably loved her. And she probably loved him. And together they created a place that several families, after them, enjoyed as a happy, working farm for well over a century. 

And that is a curious feat.

A portion of Lot 42 in the distance, after a thunderstorm.

Considering the Lilies

Lily-of-the-valley

Today would have been my mother’s birthday. She was born in 1922, and I imagine it might have been a sunny day as all the irises are blooming this week and Mother’s oldest sister, Mae, named her new sister “Iris.”

Flowers were always a big part of Mother’s life, so it was not surprising that she wanted to share a special place with her daughter, some years ago. She drove me to Riverside Avenue West, along the Aroostook River in Fort Fairfield, and parked the car along the graveled edge just past St. Denis Catholic Cemetery.

I followed her down from the road shoulder to a small patch of woods between the cemetery and the next house. We stepped around a few grave stones that had apparently been forgotten, brushed away low-growing vines, and bent underneath trees. The air was warm inside our cocoon of forest, new plants bursting forth after a winter of dormancy, and yellow-green leaves springing from the young trees. Soon, we were surrounded by green and the drone of road traffic was only a hush.

Birds sang at every turn, yet I did not realize why we were here or what we were going to do. Then another low branch brushed against my face. As I pushed it back and tramped forward, trying to keep up with my mother, my nose caught a strong whiff of something almost like heaven. I inhaled deeply.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Mother said. “Have you ever smelled anything like it?”

I looked down and found the source of the sweet aroma.

“They’re lilies-of-the-valley,” Mother called out again. “My mother used to take me here when I was a child. I had forgotten about it for years, but then I remembered and wondered if it was still the same.”

I saw the top of her yellow kerchief, worn over her hair, bend low to the ground as she kneeled down, surrounded by a carpet of delicate white, bell-snapped flowers—escapees, no doubt, from the cemetery. I picked one and held it next to my nose.

Mother had brought a small container half filled with water. She and I placed our blooms inside. We worked in silence, creeping along the forest ground, standing every few minutes to gaze through the trees to see just how far this fair meadow went.

Old-fashioned bearded iris from Mom's garden

A few years later another spring came, and Mother was ill. She had many flowers decorating her hospital room now: pink and white carnations, baby’s breath, gladiolas, paint daisies, and purple asters. And yet, something was missing.

Passing by a garden one morning, I finally knew. She was missing our annual trek to the lilies. I carefully picked a few blooms and brought them to her room. She inhaled their fragrance for several long seconds and then placed her head back onto the pillow. “Thank you,” she smiled. “That’s just what I needed.”

Mother had taught me to depend on God and to appreciate how even the humble lilies are clothed with splendor. The small bouquet reminded us both that if He cares so for the little flowers, how much more does He cares for us? (Vista, March 1, 2009.)