Tin Roof Toboggan

Jim Degerstrom remembers sliding down Derby Hill in Milo on a tin roof toboggan.

The huge field was different at 150 feet wide and just as long. It was wide open without any major obstacles like trees or rocks, so the only dangerous spot was a 6 foot drop into the ditch along the road. Backing up a bit, I did say we were creative inventing rides like the tin roof toboggan? I didn't say the idea was brilliant. Ouch! If you can imagine speeding downhill on soft snow riding a sharp and rusty sheet of tin, the inevitable wreck had consequences. A crash meant stitches and a tetanus shot or bandages at the least. In retrospect I think the thrill was worth it.

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Possible Right Whale Wintering Ground Found

North Atlantic right whales appear to be wintering off the coast of Maine.

A large number of North Atlantic right whales have been seen in the Gulf of Maine in recent days, leading right whale researchers at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) to believe they have identified a wintering ground and potentially a breeding ground for this endangered species.

The NEFSC’s aerial survey team saw 44 individual right whales on December 3 in the Jordan Basin area, located about 70 miles south of Bar Harbor, Maine.

With a population estimated to be about 325 whales, knowing where the whales are at any time is critical to protect them. [Link]

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Southern Maine Veterans' Memorial Cemetery

Work began in October on a new 88-acre veterans' cemetery in Springvale. The work should be completed by spring, 2010, with burials starting next fall. The Master Plan renderings may be viewed here.

The state currently operates two veterans' cemeteries in Augusta, and a third in Caribou.

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How Some Towns Got Their Names

1. Milbridge
The name is thought to have been suggested by John Gardner of Boston, who built the first bridge across the Narraguagus River.

The spelling of Milbridge has been a subject of much discussion. Some say that two "ls" should be used because the name is a blending of the two words, "mill and bridge." They further assert that the early incorporators meant it to be such. The one "l" supporters affirm that their spelling should prevail for if the town's namers did not mean it to be such, they would not have used the spelling with one "l" in the Act of Incorporation. They affirm that a mistake could not have been made, there, for the word was spelled too many times.

[The Milbridge register, 1905]

2. Norway
Petitioners in 1795 requested that their proposed town be named "Norage." Charles F. Whitman, in his History of Norway, suggests two explanations for this suggestion: Either it was an alternate spelling of "Norwich," the name of an English city; or it was an alternate spelling of "Norridge," a Native American word for waterfalls. Whatever the petitioners' intentions, the General Court interpreted "Norage" as an alternate spelling of "Norge," the Norwegian name for Norway.

3. Dixfield
Legend has it that Dixfield was named for Dr. Elijah Dix as a quid pro quo.

The good doctor had promised to build a library for the town if the citizens voted to change its name from Holmantown to Dixfield. The citizens voted to do just that, but the library never materialized. Dr. Dix in the meantime had moved, and mailed the citizens dusty, old boxes of medical books - printed in German, no less with which to found a library. [Link]

The town would not have a proper library until 1935.

4. Presque Isle
Presqu'île is French for "peninsula." The town center was located on a peninsula formed by the Aroostook River and Presque Isle Stream.

5. Damariscotta
Said to derive from an Abenaki term for "place where alewives are plentiful."

6. Embden
Named for Emden in what is now Germany. Town clerk Benjamin Colby, Jr., is credited with changing the spelling by adding a "b" a year after the town was incorporated.

7. Mars Hill
Named for the town's prominent mountain, which was named for the Areopagus in Athens.

8. Stoneham
Stoneham was incorporated and named for the Massachusetts town in 1834. A proprietor named Ellis B. Usher succeeded in having the name changed to "Usher" in 1841. The townsfolk protested, and had the change reversed two years later.

9. Orland
First settler Joseph Gross is supposed to have found an oar on the shore of the river when he arrived in 1764. By the time of incorporation in 1800, "Oarland" had become "Orland."

10. Roque Bluffs
Nearby Roque Island (in Jonesport) is said to have been named for Saint Roch by Champlain.

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Rejected Town Names

Some proposed and rejected names for Maine towns:

• Sunbury (Bangor)
• Reach (Bath)
• North Wood (Corinna)
• Sharon (Durham)
• Sumner (Ellsworth)
• Russia (Greenwood)
• Fluvanna (Guilford)
• Columbia (Hebron)
• Winchester (Islesboro)
• China (Rumford)
• Independence (South Thomaston)
• Sparta (Woodstock)
• "Hertford, Woodstock or Lisbon," or Williamston (Hartford)
• New Hancock, or Gilman (Sumner)
  
• Knoxbury, or Knoxburgh (Prospect)

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Three Junks of Pork

There are at least three places in Maine called "Junk of Pork." One lies a few miles beyond Peaks Island, and was described by Samuel Drake Adams in 1891 as "a tough morsel even for old salts." A photograph taken last year confirms the following description from 1892:

The rock is called the Junk of Pork, and is one of the most dangerous on the Maine coast. It rises precipitously to a height of nearly fifty feet from the surface of the sea, and is encompassed with countless bowlders and jagged reefs. [Link]

A second Junk of Pork lies in Flanders Bay, in the town of Sorrento. It was described by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey as "a small dirt cone of unusual appearance."

An even smaller Junk of Pork, shown here, is located in Beech Hill Pond, in the town of Otis.

The Maineism "junk"—meaning "a fairish-sized piece; a hunk"—made it into the Dictionary of American Regional English in 1985.

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Pronouncing "Mount Desert"

A debate over the proper pronunciation of "Mount Desert" pitted 19th-century scholars against year-round residents of the island.

The accentuation should not fall on the last, but on the first syllable of Desert, although the name is almost universally mispronounced in Maine, and notably so on the island itself. Usually it is Mount Desart, toned into Desert by the casual population, who thus give it a curious significance.

[Nooks and corners of the New England coast (1875)]

It would hardly seem necessary after quoting Champlain's statement with regard to the name of this Island and his reasons for so naming it, to call attention to the proper accentuation of the word "Desert," but there are still many who place the accent on the last syllable, a practice which has a tendency to obscure its meaning. We have seen that Champlain called the place the "Isle of the Desert Mountains," and from this, doubtless, it came to be called Mount Desert. The French words for this name are Mont Desert the last word pronounced as though written "dezer." Now, since we have substituted Mount for the French "Mont," why should we not give the word Desert, which is written alike in French and English, the English accent? It is true Champlain did not call the Island a desert, only its mountains, but the words "Mount Desert" or "Desert Mount," convey the meaning intended by him, and the word Desert with the accent on the first syllable used in its ordinary sense of solitary, unfilled, uninhabited, is part of the name. The fact that many of the natives of the Island accent the word differently and give a different significance to the terms employed by Champlain, proves nothing. We have Champlain's own statement that the name was intended to describe an island filled with solitary, uninhabited mountain wastes, and no words better described such a place than those used by him.

[William Berry Lapham, Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island (1886)]

Lapham's argument was picked up in 1886 by the New York Times, by way of the Lewiston Journal.

How shall Mount Desert be pronounced? is a question asked many times. Shall it be Mount De-sert or Mount Des-ert? Dr. Lapham, who is an authority on such matters, is in favor of the latter pronunciation. The Maine Historical Society has adopted it—made it an English name. Dr. Lapham's suggestion that as we have given it the English orthography it should have English pronunciation is sensible. Let it be Mount Des-ert, then.

And yet, the "corrected" pronunciation didn't catch on.

"Everybody now seems to say Mount Desert (de-zert')."—Boston Globe.

[Seven Thousand Words Often Mispronounced (1895)]

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