The Forks Plantation

This Slate article on place names with definite articles calls to mind Maine's only municipality beginning with "The."

The Forks Plantation lies at the confluence of the Dead and Kennebec Rivers in Somerset County. Benedict Arnold's expedition passed here on its way to Quebec in 1775; construction of the Old Canada Road made the way easier for subsequent travelers. The plantation was once home to The Forks Hotel, which burned a century ago.

[T]he entire distance from Skowhegan to the Forks the roadbed is good, and the scenery is delightful. Skilful drivers replete with good stories add to the pleasures of the drive; and when you are set down at the FORKS HOTEL, you will agree with me in saying that you have had the pleasantest ride you ever took in your life. You will also be agreeably surprised to find such a hotel as you see here, way up in the woods. The house was built in 1875 by Ex-Governor Coburn, and Mrs. Joseph Clark is the present proprietor. There are but few hotels in the State that will surpass it for size, comfort and convenience. The rooms are large and handsomely furnished, the parlor containing a nice piano Water is carried to each of the three flats, and the house contains modern conveniences, unlocked for in such a place. The hotel stands on the bank of the East Branch (the main Kennebec) and in sight of the West Branch (Dead River) and the rooms all command fine views. The two branches unite a short distance below the hotel; and a little way below the Forks our artist made the sketch an engraving of which graces the following page. This house has accommodations for one hundred guests, and it is almost useless to say that Mrs. Clark's table is unexceptionable. During their season, fish and game are served on the table in abundance. The Forks are the centre of one of the greatest sporting regions of the State find the scenery in the vicinity is charming. Mrs. Clark can supply plenty of guides at reasonable prices, who know the country thoroughly, and who can furnish you with good sport. Trout have been taken in the East Branch but a few rods from the hotel weighing as high as three pounds.

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Neighbor by Neighbor

Neighbor by Neighbor is a locally produced film about a grassroots effort to save a Lewiston neighborhood.

In the summer of 2004, the Mayor of Lewiston, Maine announced a plan to develop a four-lane boulevard across downtown’s low-income neighborhood. This project was called “The Heritage Initiative.” Contrary to its name, this plan was going to eliminate the downtown’s heritage by displacing 850 people from their homes as well as destroy playgrounds, vegetable gardens, and historic buildings. Moving residents out of the city and improving traffic flow was at the heart of this proposal… It was 1960’s Urban Renewal all over again.

As tragic as the circumstances were, the threat of a road destroying the neighborhood required residents to rise to the challenge of becoming community organizers. Instead of allowing their neighborhood to be paved over, the residents of downtown organized themselves into a group called “The Visible Community.” They received support from non-residents alike – social service leaders, college students, and other people who recognized the Heritage Initiative as an unfair way of “cleaning up” the downtown at the expense of the people who lived there.

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Lakenwild: Maine's Swampland Scam

In the 1880s, N. S. Reed bought 500 acres of bog land and untamed forest in Hinckley Township (now Grand Lake Stream Plantation and marketed it as "Lakenwild."

On the extreme tip of the point he built a handsome residence for himself. He had a boat house and a substantial wharf. An elaborate prospectus, printed by a map publishing company in Philadelphia, his original home, showed this residence as the scene of a pleasant bustle. Around it spread Lakenwild carefully surveyed. There was a boulevard around the lake shore, and well arranged streets and parks. A splendid hotel was also pictured; steamers were shown on the lake; carriages with prancing horses helped to enhance the scene. It is probable that when Mr. Reed studied this engaging picture he sometimes forgot that much of this land, save where his own residence stood, was hopeless bog and forests and believed in his scheme.

These advertisements naturally appealed to the imaginations of many "over worked, ill fed and plodding clerks, mechanics, mill operatives" and other struggling persons. Thousands of lots were sold.... Some eager purchasers took several lots.

Needless to say, the new landowners were disappointed.

Someone remembers meeting an old man on the wharf there one day. The stranger was trembling; his eyes were wet. He had sold his house, he said, to invest in Lakenwild. It had been all that he had in the world. He had bought land with two or three hundred dollars of the proceeds, and spent practically all of the rest for a grist mill. He had expected to put up some sort of temporary shelter for his family, set up his grist mill and grind corn for the new settlers who, said one pamphlet, needed just such work done. He dreamed of eventually building a fine house, and of spending his last days in peace and prosperity. He found his land useless swamp land and no new settlers nor old either, in the region.

Investors would have done well to heed the advice given in the American Agriculturist of October 1887:

Maine is a great and growing State, her own people are shrewd and "awful" calculating, every man and woman down there know "jest how many peas there are in a pod," and therefore we think that this Lakenwild plantation, with its highly ornamental circular, the "slick" portrait thereon, and "testimonials," including the offer of lots at "ten dollars each, for a while," intending to hold their fellows "at one hundred dollars and upwards" by-and-by, is just a "leetle" too liberal. That the country is a good one for summer sports we know well enough, but that it is a good policy for our readers to go into real estate operations up there, is doubtful. Yet each one should investigate, with all that the word implies, for himself, and not depend upon pretty handbills, poetical descriptions by professors, or personal reminiscences of "wild-roving half-brothers," of long dead or now living United States Senators, when seeking "a home for which to have a deed." [Link]

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The Cross on Maiden's Cliff

Barbara F. Dyer explains the origins of the cross on Maiden's Cliff in Camden.

A parking lot filled with automobiles very frequently is seen at the foot of Mt. Megunticook. Locals and tourist like to make the easy climb to Maiden's Cliff to see the view of Megunticook Lake from the cross.

If one is seeing it for the first time, their question may be, "Why [is] there a white cross as a sentinel on the sheer cliff?"

Answer: The cross marks a tragedy that happened many years ago.

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Maine Book Search

The Book Search feature on my Maine Genealogy website narrows the scope of a Google Book search to nearly 1,500 volumes about Maine and its residents. Included are town and state histories, government reports, genealogies, travel guides, and biographies of notable Mainers.

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Captain Enoch Snow, Maine Clambaker

The character Enoch Snow in Carousel was named for a real sea captain from Scarborough known for his clambakes.

After moving his family to Wells and later, Scarborough, in the 1840s, Enoch began harvesting clams to use as bait for commercial cod fishing. At that time, locals enjoyed the white-shelled clams cooked on the shore over seaweed on heated rocks, as the Indians had taught them in the 1600s.

After the Civil War, the Boston and Maine Railroad came to Pine Point. As a result, clambakes became a tourist attraction. The railroad also enabled clammers to easily distribute their products outside of Pine Point, leading Enoch to become a clammer instead of a sea captain.

This was the same family that founded F. H. Snow's Canning Company in 1920. When the 1956 film version of Carousel was released, stars Shirley Jones, Gordon MacRae and Robert Rounseville attended a clambake with Enoch's great-grandson in Scarborough.

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Wayne's Circular Cemetery

Wing Cemetery near Pocasset Lake in Wayne is laid out in concentric circles, with an obelisk at the center.

The concentric circle design of the cemetery was an engineering feat, Ault said. Those working on the cemetery, for example, had to temporarily move at least 39 graves while the redesign took place. Then they had to carry out a sophisticated plan for the property, cutting arcs from granite and shaping grave plots around them.

The concentric circles turned out to be a carefully conceived plan to reflect Wing family genealogy. The eight-sided obelisk at the center carries the names of all seven original Wing brothers. Descendants are buried in rows emanating out from the inscribed name of their Wing brother ancestor. [Link]

The cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is counted as one of the Seven Wonders of Wayne, Maine. See also "Search for the Origins of the Wing Family Cemetery" (and its background image).

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