COLLECTION OF ESSAYS

Below you will find various essays from persons who have given the Newcastle Historical Society permission to publish them on our web site.  We are very grateful for these essays and their authors for each one gives us an insight into life in Newcastle, Maine.  Stories are listed in alphbetical order by author

Newcastle Schoolhouses
By Arlene Cole
        The Kavanagh School A “list of the various schoolhouses that have been in operation in the Town of Newcastle and their locations” compiled by William Flye in 1956 has been given to the Newcastle Historical Society. William Flye lists 15 school districts in the Town of Newcastle. This list of Flye’s has brought the early schools of Newcastle to my attention. I checked with the Rev. David Quimby Cushman in his History of Ancient Sheepscot and Newcastle.
        The Rev. Cushman writes about “Schools, From 1753 to 1881”. He writes that early Newcastle did very little to support schools. The people were poor and there was much border warfare. The Town records show that on March 22, 1763 the town “Voted that we have no town schoolmaster this year”. The same year the Town was prosecuted for not having a public school. 
        In 1765, Mr. Eleazer Hudson was hired to teach Newcastle schools. “They also arranged that the school should be kept four months at the ‘Flankers’, (Sheepscot) two months at William Cunninghams, or thereabouts, where a place convenient might be provided; one month at the upper end of the town on Sheepscot river, (Woodbridge’s neighborhood) two months at Damariscotta Mills; two at Abner Perkins, and one month at Damariscotta river.”
        In 1792, money was voted for schools and, although the amounts varied, some money was voted for schools each year thereafter. On May 10, 1799, the Town voted that all “persons between the ages of 4 and 21 shall be considered scholars by the selectmen.”
       The Newcastle Historical Society has a record account book by D.W. Hodgkins, Superintendent of Schools, from March 17, 1890 through March 1892. This book, which was given to us by Sanford “Joe” Bartlett, some years ago, divides Newcastle into 15 Districts. Hodgkins and Flye seem to agree there were 15 school districts in Newcastle for many years.
      They were: District Number 1 was on the River Road and owned by Frances Perkins. It was sometimes called the Perkins school. I called Frances Perkins’ grandson, Tomlin Coggeshall and he confirmed that the school was still there and had been owned by the Perkins. The school is now on the west side of the road. There is an indication that it may have been moved across the road from its original location. His father used it for some time as a studio, but about 1986 it was sold. For a time it was converted into a home, but is now kept as a studio.
      District Number 2 was on what is now Stewart Street. We have a picture of the old school house, but it is no longer there. It sat on property owned by the late Eenezer Haggett. When Franklin Grammar School was built, Haggett donated much of the material for the new school. District No. 2 and No. 5 had consolidated in the year 1901 and moved to Franklin School.
      The Damariscotta Mills school was in District Number 3. We have a picture of the school with students standing in front of it, but it too, is gone. The school was down the hill toward the Mills from the Saint Patrick’s Rectory. The school was sometimes referred to as the Kavanagh School. Remains of the foundation are still visible.
       The original District Number 4 was on the Pond Road, south of Jones’ Corner. Later, Lyman McCurda sold a lot to the town for a new school. Although his land was on the Bunker Hill Road it is still referred to as the Pond Road School. This schoolhouse is still there and used as a storage shed. Although privately owned, the building still maintains its schoolhouse look.
       District Number 5 was located on the west Hamlet Road. An old map shows it to have been on the corner of the road into what was known as the old Vinal farm. At one time, this was a well-traveled road as the stagecoach traveled over it. Old timers still refer to it as the stagecoach road and where the school was located is referred to as “schoolhouse hill”. This district consolidated with District No. 2 in 1901.
       I am confused with the description of District Number 6 school. Flye claims it to be “under Railroad Bridge west of Shattuck’s crossing”. Likely it was moved. It was referred to as the Wright School. In 1956, it was the home of Lawrence Boyd.
        The only information I have on district Number 7 school was that it was in South Newcastle on the Cochran Road. It was called the Beach Hill school and we have a drawing by Olive Metcalf of what the school has developed into. At one time, it was said to have been used by the Town of Edgecomb as one of their schools.
         District Number 8 was located on the Sheepscot Road East of the Reach Road. It is referred to as the Kennedy School. For ,it has been a home for members of the Dodge family.
         The Garrison Hill school in Sheepscot was District Number 9. This was the first known school built in Newcastle. According to Cushman, on April 4, 1803, James Cargill and other, were granted leave to build a schoolhouse on the town’s land on Garrison Hill in Sheepscot. As a way to economize, pupils from this school sometimes attended part of the year in Alna School, just across the bridge. Then the Alna children would come to Garrison Hill school for a part of the year. In 1951, the school was bought by the Christian Science Church people and moved to Water Street in Damariscotta.
          District Number 10 school was in North Newcastle. The building is no more, but it is shown on the 1857 map. For several years after it was no longer used as a schoolhouse, it was used to store hay for the Russell farm.
         The District Number 11 was located on Dyers Neck. Later, it was moved up to the old mill (Erskine?) and was used as a boarding house. It was about ½ mile west of where Russell’s used to have their store. On Aug. 22, 1900, it was voted to sell the schoolhouse and transport the pupils to District No. 10. It became the home of Lester Hasson.
         District Number 12 was on the Lynch Road and may have been the school house that used to sit across from the Wood home. Later, when Edison School was built, students from Districts No. 12, 6, 7, 8 and 13 were sent there.
         District Number 13 was the building which has housed the Town Office for the past few years. This is at the corner of the River Road and Liberty Street. It was also used as a filling station, restaurant and the real estate office of Katherine Coleman. Although it is still there, the Town’s people voted to have it torn down.
        District 14 was on Academy Hill road, just below the railroad tracks. In 1872, Elijah B. Hussey sold a piece of land to School District No. 14 in the Town of Newcastle. The school was built between the former Mrs. Chandler’s house and the home of the Misses Wright. It was here, along with the grade school that Newcastle had a “Free High School”. (See Article on Newcastle Free High Schools in The Lincoln County News, Dec. 30, 1999)
         District Number 15 was near the Edgecomb line on the Lynch Road. It was said to have been a part of the Chester Davidson’s ell. Beryl Hunt wrote in The Lincoln County News on May 19, 1983 that Miss Althene Davidson said her kitchen used to be the old schoolhouse where her grandfather went to school, maybe 200 years ago.
         Edison School on the Lynch Road was built to replace School Districts Number 6, 7, 8 and 12. Franklin Grammar School on the Mills Road was built in 1901 and, at first, replaced School Districts 2, 5, 13 and 14. Later all the Newcastle grade school students came to Franklin School. In 1970 an agreement was made between Newcastle and Damariscotta that the first four grades of each town would attend Franklin School and the grades 5 – 8 would attend Castner School in Damariscotta. In 1979, a new consolidated school was built for Newcastle and Damariscotta students in Damariscotta. Bremen students joined the others in 1997. 

Bayshore Garage and Machine Shop
By Arlene Cole
       On Fri., March 8, 1963, black smoke could be seen for miles as it billowed up over the former Bayshore Garage and Machine Shop building on the Bay at Damariscotta Mills. This building was located on Rt. #215 in Newcastle, just south of the railroad crossing. The fire was so intense it endangered the house next door and burned a section of a 50 pair cable, putting 151 subscribers of the Nash Telephone Company out of service.
        The wooden building, which was burned to the ground, had been the business of Alfred Wikstrom, who lived across the road from the fire. Alfred Wikstrom, who was a native of Riga, Latvia, had come from New Jersey where he was manager of a bus company. He bought land at the Mills. The deed, dated March 26, 1923 and recorded in the Registry of Deeds at Wiscasset, reads in part: “Frank H. Hammond to Alfred Wikstrom of New York City … Beginning on Damariscotta Salt Bay adjoining land of the late Joseph Mulligan, now Wellington Clark, thence north 65 degrees west by land of said Clark 74¼ rods to a stone wall and SE corner of swamp field, so called, thence S 16 degrees W 25 rods to a stake and stone, thence S 65 degrees E 8½ rods to said Salt Bay, thence N. by Bay to first mentioned bound, together with the following personal property now in the building on the herein before described real estate, viz.; one riding buggy, one farm wagon, one sleigh, one smelt camp. One range, one oil stove, screen doors and all small tools.”
       Mr. Wikstron probably came to Maine about that time and to house his garage and machine shop, he purchased the old Newcastle Town House. This building, which was located near the junction of the Sheepscot Road and the Indian Trail, had been started in 1788 for a church. The Rev. David Quimby Cushman writes about the church and its problems in his The History of Ancient Sheepscot and Newcastle in great detail. Let me just say the church did not work out and the Town of Newcastle took over the building in 1795. It was used for years for Town meetings and business. Frank M. Lincoln wrote to The Lincoln County News in a “Letter to the Editor” dated March 17, 1963. He called the area where the Town House was located as, then, the center of the Town. He wrote, “On Sundays, my grandfather and his sisters, used to walk down to the church (from their home on Rt. #215). They went barefooted until nearly there to save wear on their shoes.” Later, when Frank Lincoln was drafted into World War I, he walked to the building to get his classification in the draft.
        But, the center of population moved toward the Damariscotta bridge area and the town meetings and affairs were held in that village. The old church became merely a landmark. At the annual town meeting in March 1923, Newcastle voted to sell the “old town house”. Information I have from a “Keepsake Album” by Joseph Shattuck, and now owned by his daughter Ave Shattuck Keene verifies this date. No satisfactory bids were received for the building until Alfred Wikstrom offered $50 for it. Even then, $50 was not a big sum for a building in fair repair, big enough to accommodate 300 people, but the bid was accepted. “The Town Fathers considered that a going industry was worth more than an old church doing nothing.” Mr. Wikstrom moved the building to his new lot on the Bay at Damariscotta Mills, a distance of about four miles. It is not certain how this was done. Frank Lincoln writes the building was “taken down and moved by John Deserve. The only change being in the roof.” Other sources merely say the “building was moved to its new location.”
        At a later date, Lincoln writes, Alfred Wikstrom purchased the Damariscotta Mills Maine Central Railroad station and had it moved and attached to his garage and machine shop to be used as an office. The station “was comparatively new” and had been built by the late George Oliver. The photo shows the typical railroad station roof line on the section of the building to the left.
        Alfred Wikstrom did general machine work. My husband George went there for items he wanted machined. I only remember being in the building once. I remember it as having large and interesting machines, all making lots of noise. The work included such items as v-pulleys, propeller shafts for boats and phone plugs. During World War II the shop was busy manufacturing small components for the federal government. Mr. Wikstrom retired after the war. 
        On the front page of The Lincoln County News for October 27, 1949, it was announced there was a “New Rug Industry at Newcastle”. Mrs. Clyde Strong told the Congregational Club the story of this new venture. It was The Pine Tree Rug & Accessories Co., Inc., and she showed some of the products developed for this business by her father, Eugene F. Clark. The location of this new business was a building next to the Bay Shore Machine Shop on the Bay in Damariscotta Mills. Mr. Clark had invented a rug-braiding machine, which he had patented, and it was now in use at the new shop. Mr. Clark had been active in the rug business for some time, but had recently retired to this area and started The Pine Tree Rug Company. He was its president and Alfred Wikstrom was its vice president. I have no information on how long or how successful the rug company turned out to be but at the time of the fire in 1963, the machine shop building was being used by Damariscotta Industries Company.
       The Damariscotta Industries Company was a woodworking business, a subsidiary of Tenterprises, Inc of this area. Charles Adams was president and Judge Arthur Nissen was vice president. According to The Lincoln County News, the company had recently obtained two contracts, one from the Esquire Shoe Polish Company for several thousand boxes to be manufactured from rock maple and a New York Publishing House for a toy train to be sold, packaged with a juvenile book. At the time of the fire, final samples of the shoe polish box had been sent to Esquire and 5000 trains were nearly completed for the New York Company. The stock was partially insured.
       In an open letter to the public, Charles Adams, writing for the company, called it a “black Friday” with the destruction of the business, just when it was really rolling into production. It was a personal loss to the ten members of Tenterprises, Inc. and likewise, a loss to Alfred Wikstrom in the loss of his building.
       The billowing smoke attracted many motorists and traffic was snarled until state troopers came. Newcastle, Nobleboro and Damariscotta fire companies responded and prevented the fire from spreading to the Herbert Russell house, which was only a few yards away. Volunteers moved Mr. Wikstrom’s car from the garage at the time of the fire. A pile of ashes, a cement slab and a chimney were all that was left of the once Town House and the Nobleboro Railroad Station buildings. The cause of the fire was never determined.

Superintendent Blynne Allen Story
By Arlene Cole
       Blynne Allen came to Newcastle with his family in 1924. He had accepted an appointment as Superintendent of Schools for Union 74. Mr. Allen was born in Raymond on June 1, 1888. His parents were Abner and Alice Dingley Allen. He graduated from Norway High School, Cornell University, and did graduate work at Harvard and Columbia. He held the degrees of L.L.B. and Doctor of Jurisprudence, according to information printed in The Lincoln County News notes Mr. Allen as, “Just before coming to the Union No. 74, he was located in the South.”
       The Allen family rented a house in Newcastle village, across from what is now the Lincoln Academy Performing Arts Building. Later, in 1935, Blynne and Florence Allen bought the old Sam Kelsey house at the top of Academy Hill. (It would be 15 more years before my husband George and I built our house across the road from them, and became their neighbors.)
        Julia E. Barker is listed as the Superintendent before Mr. Allen, in the 1925 Town Report. She was, also, the head teacher at Franklin School. She is listed as receiving her Superintending salary through June. I assume, Blynne Allen took over in July, for he is listed as being paid for Newcastle’s part of his salary from July on. Of interest, he received $22.20 for salary from Newcastle for that month. The amount per month varied for the rest of the year, but it was never over $30 per month.
        Blynne Allen made his first report in the Town Report in 1925. He noted that Newcastle’s tax rate for municipal purposes was $36 per thousand of which $8.90 was devoted to the schools. His plan was for “a good command of the three R’s, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Good English – both oral and written. Study of local geography, history, and government. The development of good health habits. Training for home life and good citizenship.”
        Mr. Allen arrived in Newcastle at a time when rural schools were being slowly closed down. He comments that, “Many rural districts previously thickly settled in the older days are now almost abandoned. Two schools have been closed for several years while the schools at Pond Road, Damariscotta Mills, Sheepscot, and South Newcastle have a very small number of pupils.” As it would be difficult to convey these children to other schools he felt it would be unwise to close the schools down at this time. But the consolidating was inevitable. By his death in 1952, the only rural school left in Newcastle was Edison.
        One of the problems Mr. Allen had to face, as he settled in as Superintendent, was the recession of the late 1920s and early 1930s. People were out of work and had very little money. Mr. Allen reported in the 1935 Town Report, “The recommendation for common schools made by your School Committee for the coming town meeting is $3500 as compared to the appropriation of $6000 for common schools in 1932. This is a reduction of over 40 percent.” Cost for the students, per capita, was approximately $35.
        Mr. Allen also faced the problems that were, later, caused by World War II. In the 1943 Report, Mr. Allen calls it his “teacher problem.” The need for manpower in military services and in war industries had made an extremely heavy drain on the teacher personnel. He expected the situation to continue as the war progressed and he thanked all the teachers who had stayed in their schools. The teachers at the schools helped with the paperwork when the government rationed sugar, gasoline, fuel oil and other products. They also helped in organizing drives to buy war bonds, collect scrap and milkweed floss for aviators’ suits and life jackets. Fingerprinting was carried on at the schools with all pupils above the fourth grade being finger printed. Students practiced drills on what to do in case of an air raid. Blynne
       Allen was a reserved man and in the short time I was his neighbor, I never really got to know him. Florence was more social and we became good neighbors and friends. Mr. Allen had a coupe he drove during World War II and for a time after the war was over. As Superintendent, he would start out in the morning on his business. He often visited at the different schools. He would walk into the classroom and quietly take a seat at the rear of the room. There he would sit and observe what was going on. He knew first hand about how each school was doing. He was a quiet man but his number of years of service to the district show he had his eyes and ears open for the good of the schools.
       At this time, Union 74 was composed of the towns of Newcastle, Damariscotta, Bristol and South Bristol. It is probably that Mr. Allen had many of his meetings with the School Committees of the towns at the schools, but his office was at his home. His wife, Florence, was his secretary although I can find no place in the Town Reports where any salary was paid to her. Blynne Allen did receive payment for postage and telephone calls. Florence Allen interviewed prospective teachers. (She even offered me a position during the Korean War. I suspect teachers were scarce at that time.) She taught briefly at Franklin school but I think it was another case of not being able to hire someone for the position. She did the bookkeeping. Members of the school Committee would drop in at all times of the day to sign the payroll. She once told me that she would never vote for anyone running for the office of School Committee, as she did not want to have to work with anyone she had voted against.
          Front page news for Jan. 17, 1952, in The Lincoln County News reported, “Supt. Blynne Allen resigns”. At a meeting of the joint boards, he resigned as of March 1st. After 28 years as Superintendent of Schools for Union 74, Blynne Allen was calling it quits. He had been ill for two months and felt he could no longer meet the demands of the office. Then the Jan. 24 front page reported his death. I will just quote the first paragraph of that news report. “The community was shocked this morning to hear of the death of Supt. of Schools, Blynne Allen of Newcastle. Mr. Allen, who had been ill for some time, resigned recently, his resignation to be effective, March 1.

The Africa and The Early Sheepscot River
By Arlene Cole
       The Africa, a 320-ton ship, was built by John Averill at Sheepscot in 1810 according to both William Armstrong Fairburn in his Merchant Sail, book V and Fannie S. Chase in her Wiscasset In Pownalborough. According to Fairburn, there were six ships by the name of Africa built. Three of these ships were British ships built between the Revolutionary War and 1850. Of the American ships, besides the one built in Sheepscot, one was built in Brunswick in 1853 and one in Brewer in 1866. 
       Chase writes that Joseph Tinkham Wood of Wiscasset purchased the Africa, with Capt. Jonathan Edwards Scott, from Averill. Wood owned three quarters of the vessel and Scott owned one quarter of the vessel. Capt. Scott was one of the commanders of the Africa. The first three ships “were used up or else lost in the service.”
       Early industries along the Sheepscot were based on forest products and shipbuilding. Ship owners sent freight of lumber and fish to the West Indies. They brought home sugar and molasses, a lot of which was manufactured into rum. “Before the United States became a salt-producing nation,” according to Chase, “the salt and spar trades carried on between Wiscasset and the principal European ports, was one of the earliest commercials developments along the Sheepscot River.” After the Revolutionary War, until the embargo in 1806 and 1807, the Sheepscot River was busy with shipbuilding and the shipping of many forest related products. 
       The Dyer River flows into the Sheepscot River at Sheepscot Village. I have not found whether John Averill’s shipyard, where he built his Africa, was located on the Dyer or the Sheepscot River. Neither do I have a picture of the Africa. Averill was a common name in the area. It is not clear whether all the Averills were related to each other or not. David Quimby Cushman writes in his The Story of Ancient Sheepscot and Newcastle that Samuel Averill began to build vessels in 1806, a little to the south of his barn, on land once owned by the Murrays. This appears to have been on Dyer’s Neck. The first vessel that Samuel Averill built was the Comfort. It was sold in a foreign port by its captain, who pocketed the money and ran off with it.” The last vessel Samuel Averill built was the Orleans. She was built at the “Landing on Dyer’s River.” She went to sea in the Gulf of Mexico and was never heard from.” 
       James Averill built several vessels in Sheepscot about 1830. One was the brig Union that was commanded by Captain Lincoln of Wiscasset. John Averill and his building of the Africa were prior to this. John Johnston & Sons bought the Africa in 1820 according to Fairburn.
       John Johnston was born in Stirling, Scotland and immigrated to this country in 1770. He married and settled in Salem in 1772, then moved to Haverhill and came to Wiscasset about 1803. He went into the shipbuilding and sailing business with his two sons John and Alexander. Besides owning the Africa, they earlier owned the Stirling (1). The Stirling (1) was a 99-foot ship and was named for the place in Scotland that John Johnston, Sr. came from. The Stirling (1) had been built at Sheepscot Farms in 1805, according to Fairburn. [Fairburn notes that the Stirling (II) was built in 1833 and was a 504 ton ship.] Young John (Jack) Johnston was Captain of the Stirling (1) during the War of 1812. On a trip to England Captain Jack was seized by the press gang in London, because he spoke with such a marked Scots accent he must be Scottish. Actually he had been born in 1778 in Haverhill, Mass. His papers were brought from the ship and he was freed but he was embarrassed and annoyed.
      In the family partnership John, Sr., is said to have built the ships, Captain Jack sailed them until 1835 when he quit the sea, and Alexander had charge of the books, papers and accounts. The Embargo Act of 1807, which forbade American ships to clear to foreign ports and prohibited all exports from the United States, put a deep crimp in local shipping. Although the Embargo was repealed in 1809, other decrees and acts brought on the War of 1812 and further shipping problems. The Johnstons were one of the few local families whose business survived these shipping embargoes and war from 1807 to 1815.
      After the loss of the Stirling (1) in 1819, Captain John commanded the Africa. Chase writes that the Africa was for several years engaged in the cotton trade, carrying cotton from the South to Liverpool. She would return with a cargo of iron, salt and copper.
      The Africa was finally sunk in a collision at sea, presumably the first night after leaving the Sheepscot River. It was hit by a brig bound for Boston and was in the vicinity of Cape Cod. Fairburn sets the date as December 1825; Chase claims it was in January. It went down with all hands on board. Chase continues, “At that time Captain Farnsworth of Waldoboro was master and Joseph Swett of Wiscasset was one of the mates, both of whom left families, and the majority of the crew belonged in Wiscasset and surrounding towns.”

Kiah Bayley
By Arlene Cole 
        The Bayley house with attached dorm Kiah Bayley was born in Newbury, Mass. (one reference says Brookfield, Mass.), March 11, 1770, according to Arthur Hamlin in his, Kiah Bayley, Founder of Maine Institutions. Much of the information in this article has been taken from Mr. Hamlin’s book. Kiah Bayley was the second son of Charles and Abigail Safford Bayley. It was a large family, eight boys and two girls. Two of the boys died in infancy. Kiah’s name is believed to have been a shortened form of Hezekiah” which was a common name at that time. Kiah’s father was a potter by trade and a farmer. He moved his family to Newbury, Vt. prior to 1775. This was on the Connecticut River. So it was in this village that Kiah spent his boyhood. Although men from Vermont fought for the country during the American Revolution, Vermont was not one of the original 13 colonies. New Hampshire and New York both wanted it as part of their state. From 1777 to 1791 Vermont was a completely independent Republic.
        Kiah Bayley was the first from his small village to attend college. He enrolled at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, also on the Connecticut River, in the fall of 1789. The physical trip of 30 miles was easy but the scholastic leap was much greater. Kiah attended an elementary school. Subjects specified were English, writing and arithmetic. But more than the 3 Rs was required to get in to Dartmouth College. It is believed he was tutored by a local clergyman. Kiah applied himself to the task and four years after entering Dartmouth College, graduated Phi Beta Kappa. To prepare himself for the ministry he sought practical instruction under Nathaniel Emmons, pastor of the church in Wrenthen, Mass.
         Emmons always had young men living with him in training for the ministry. Why he took in a young lady is not known, but he did. She was Abigail Goodhue and she clearly went to Emmons for religious instruction. Abigail was born May 7, 1756 in Newburyport, Mass. When she was 18 her father died and she was left with the care of her insane mother until she died. She went to live with two half sisters for about ten years. When her sister-in-law died in childbirth she took over the care of the children. At Nathaniel Emmons’ she became acquainted with Kiah Bayley and they were married in 1794. He was 24; she was 38.
         Kiah Bayley was by then a licensed preacher of the gospel. For more than two years the Bayleys moved from one place to another. In the spring of 1797 Kiah came, by himself, to Newcastle and, after about six months, he was settled as pastor. Newcastle was not a perfect location for a young minister. The people who settled Newcastle had all they could do to make a living and survive. Educational and religious concerns were notably lacking. From 1753 to 1797 there had been only two settled ministers and both of these pastorates were short according to The Rev. David Quimby Cushman in his History of Ancient Sheepscot and Newcastle. In 1794 an action had been brought against the town for not having the gospel “statedly preached”. At the same time the town voted to, once again, build a meetinghouse.
        An even greater problem was that the two settlements were at opposite sides of the Town. Churches were built, or half built, and abandoned. As the future was to show, the two settlements solved the problem by each having its own church, which they still do to this day. By 1788, Cushman writes “the feeling was increasing to unite in one meeting and one House. For April 18, the minds of the town were so far harmonized as to pass the important vote: ‘To have a Meetinghouse built on the county road from Sheepscot to Damariscotta, as near where the road parts, as there can be found a convenient spot for said Meetinghouse to stand on:” This appears to be the meeting house in use when Kiah Bayley arrived in Newcastle. It was voted to pay Bayley a salary of one hundred pounds per year. Hamlin writes that this translates to the sum of roughly four hundred dollars. To balance the difference in pounds and dollars, sixty-six dollars and sixty-seven cents was added to his salary. He was to be given three or four weeks each year to travel to visit relatives and friends. The Town also built him and Abigail a house. A “settlement” of one hundred pounds was allocated for this purpose. Hamlin writes, “Mrs. Bayley was well along in a pregnancy when she boarded a small coaster at Newburyport and arrived in Newcastle, Nov. 4, 1797.”
          On March 6, 1798, when Abigail was 42 years old, she was delivered of twin boys. But things were not right. One of the boys died when he was 14 days old and the second followed in a week. They are buried in the old Bryant cemetery on the shore of the Damariscotta River.
         The house was completed by the fall of 1798. This house, which still stands, is on the River Road overlooking Damariscotta River. It is a large, square, two-story residence with center chimney. According to Cushman, The Rev. Christopher Tappan came to the area in 1733 and surveyed his lots in the Sheepscot area. He gave two lots, one to the first settled minister and one to the inhabitants of Sheepscot as a parsonage. Bayley apparently preferred the lot on the Damariscotta side of the town. Tappan did donate a pastoral wood lot and it was here that the town’s folks turned out to cut wood for Bayley and haul the many cords to his house. In Bayley’s generation everyone needed to be a farmer and he was no exception. He planted a garden and raised food to help with expenses.
         According to Hamlin, Bayley began his ministry at the new meeting house halfway between the east and the west. Bayley was a stern minister. He found dancing contrary to his church policy. Card playing was also sinful. Although his congregation was very small when he came, through the years he built it up to a total of 85 members. It seems the people, in general, like Bayley. Many named their children for him and his wife Abigail. It is assumed, as there is few notices of problems in the church that the Rev. Bayley sought out, to reason privately, with any member of his flock whom he felt had strayed. 
         In the 26 years Kiah Bayley stayed in Newcastle he was active in other affairs. He was on the College Board of Overseers at Bowdoin College and was on the Maine Missionary Society Board. For one year he was a member of the Great and General Court in Boston. As probably the only college educated man in the area he was called on often to draw up wills, help with land surveys and advise on many legal matters. The pastor was the principle person for advice on school matters. Kiah Bayley had not been in Newcastle long before he was leading a movement for an academy. Perhaps the two things he is most remembered for were the founding of an academy, which would become Lincoln Academy and his influence in starting the Maine Charity School, which became the Bangor Theological Seminary in Bangor. Records show that Abigail Bayley worked with her husband to help him any way she could.
         Basic education in Maine was very weak. A child would probably attend school for two or three months in the winter to learn the 3 R’s. Higher education was needed. Cushman writes, “The earliest paper that I have been able to find, relating to this enterprise” for Lincoln Academy is a “paper drawn up for the purpose of buying a ‘piece of land’ on which to erect an Academy.” This was about 1800. The importance of his work with Lincoln Academy is shown by the fact that the school was located on the River Road near his house in order for him to be available to supervise. It as Kiah Bayley who gave the formal address on opening day, Oct. 1, 1805. Lincoln Academy accepted girls from the start. The lone teacher and many students from neighboring towns boarded with the Bayleys. A dormitory was built for the girls next to the Bayley home. The photograph is of the house built for Kiah Bayley with the attached dormitory. [As a side note, we all know that the school building burned in 1828 and the school moved to what is now Academy Hill. But this was long after the Bayleys had left the area.]
          The Charter for the Maine Charity School was approved on Feb. 28, 1814. To support the Missionary Work at the Maine Charity Society in Hampden. Bayley felt it was important for young people studying for the ministry to have a school where they could prepare for the pulpit. He was one of its first Trustees and took many a trip to Hampton to work with the new organization. Abigail formed a “Cent Society” of young ladies where they set aside a cent a week toward its support. In 1821 the Society moved to Bangor and became the Bangor Theological Seminary.
          And then, in 1823, at a town meeting on May 10, 1823, Kiah Bayley was voted out of his position as Minister of the Gospel in Newcastle. Nothing I have read makes it clear why this was done. One can only guess at the varied currents of public opinion and prejudice and the turn of events that caused Kiah Bayley to resign his pastorate and leave town. But he did. The Bayleys stayed at their home in Newcastle until June of 1824 and then, he at 54 and she at 68, left town never to return.
         Kiah and Abigail Bayley settled in Vermont in the Greensboro – Hardwick area. His father and brothers now lived in Hardwick. Kiah received a call to be the pastor in Greensboro. For a few years he occupied the pulpit in Thornton, N.H. but he and Abigail returned, once again, to the Greensboro-Hardwick area where the Bayleys bought a house next to one of his brothers. At some time, prior to 1846, the Bayleys moved in with Judith Bartlett Porter. She had been a girl of 18 when the Bayleys left Newcastle and she had moved with them. She later married James Porter. Mrs. Porter cared for the Bayleys in her home in their old age. Abigail died there on March 18, 1846. Mrs. Porter nursed Kiah in his last illness. He died on Aug. 17, 1857. He was 87 years old. He is buried beside is beloved Abigail in Hardwick, Vt. Vol. 131 - No. 31 

Who Was David Quimby Cushman?
By Arlene Cole 
       David Quimby Cushman: Newcastle residents who are interested in history are familiar with David Quimby Cushman and his History of Ancient Sheepscot and Newcastle, but who was David Quimby Cushman? David Quimby Cushman was born in Wiscasset, Dec. 2, 1806, according to the Annals of the Town of Warren by Cyrus Eaton. His parents were Kenelm and Hannah (Boynton) Nutter Cushman. Fannie S. Chase mentions David Cushman’s family several times in Wiscasset in Pwnalborough. His younger brother, Sidney Beaman Cushman, became a medical doctor and lived much of his life in Wiscasset. His younger sister, Sarah Spring Cushman, married, second, Sendol B. Munger and went with him to India as a missionary.
      Cushman, in his book, writes concerning his early days, “The trees which were first planted on the farm where I was born, in Wiscasset, were in existence in the days of my boyhood…” His farm may have been near the river. Chase speaks of “Cushman’s Point” and during the War of 1812, tells of men sent to guard Cowsegan Narrows as British ships were thought to be coming up through Back River. The men “crowded into the workshop for Kenelm Cushman who lived there.”
        Chase mentions that David Quimby was one of the early teachers in Wiscasset in 1795. The Registry of Deeds at Wiscasset refers to him in 1803 as a schoolmaster and again in 1807 as a “gentleman”. It seems, with his name, that he is almost surely the person who David Quimby Cushman was named for in 1806.
        Wiscasset voted in 1805 to build two schools, one in the north district and one in the south district. It was in the school in the south district that David Cushman is presumed to have started his education. The Rev. Hezekiah Packard came to Wiscasset to preach in the Congregational Church in 1802, and stayed until 1830. Besides his duties as minister, he kept a “boarding-school” for the purpose of fitting boys for college. One of his students was David Cushman. Cushman graduated from Bowdoin College in 1830 and from Andover Seminary in 1834. He was ordained as an evangelist in Millville, Massachusetts in August 1836. He accepted his first church at Boothbay in February 8, 1836.
     While at his church in Boothbay, the Rev. Cushman met with others at a church meeting in 1839 in Newcastle where there was a discussion on the dismissing of a Mr. Sewall. The Rev. Enos Merrill was chosen Moderator and the Rev. D.Q. Cushman of Boothbay was chosen Scribe.
      The Rev. David Cushman married Emeline H. Sewall (b. 1810) of Bath on Feb. 13, 1838. They had one daughter, Emeline Augusta Cushman, who was born about 1841.
      Cushman arrived in Newcastle on Saturday, October 26, 1844, according to what he wrote in his book, and “the next day being the Sabbath, he commenced his public labors by preaching.” He had preached in Richmond the year previous and, in Newcastle, came to the Sheepscot Church. As the Congregationalists owned but one-half of the church, and had preaching one-half of the time, the intervening Sundays Cushman spent in Bremen where he preached about eight years and then he supplied the church in Walpole two or three years. He remained in Newcastle 12 years, and on Oct. 27, 1856, preached his last sermon there.
      While in Newcastle, Cushman was elected to the Superintending School Committee for the years 1846 – 1851. On April 5, 1852, he was elected a Supervisor of Schools instead of a Superintending School Committee member, and held the position for three years.
      In 1857 the family moved to Warren where on May 30 Cushman was installed as pastor of the Congregational Church there. He appears to have been popular as in 1858 on Sun., July 4, 25 members were admitted to his church. Cushman organized The Band of Hope in 1860. This was a group of temperance society young people. William H. Hodgman was chosen its first president. It was William H. Hodgman who, later, married Cushman’s daughter Emeline Augusta, on June 13, 1865. The group celebrated the holidays with their band and speeches. One 4th of July they celebrated with a musical festival. There were “speeches and sentiments” followed by refreshments including ice cream. Festivities ended with a $70 display of fire-works in the evening.
      On the 4th of July in 1863, 500 people gathered to hear any news of the terrible battle of Gettysburg and the siege of Vicksburg. It was July 7th before they heard the news of the outcomes.
      Cushman became unpopular with some of the members and on Aug. 23, 1863 he “retired” from the Warren Congregational Church. Eaton writes that “some of his society, partly from his decided stand in the Union cause, had become dissatisfied, and granted his dismission Aug. 20th.”
       The Rev. Cushman comments in writing his book that “this history as far down as the year 1808 was written prior to the year 1863.” This implies he had much of his book completed, but not all of it, by the time he left Warren. It is a little unclear where he went immediately, after Warren. Did he come back to Newcastle to finish his book?
       In The Blackstones and Their Indian’s Paradise, E. Joshua Lincoln writes, “Mr. Cushman boarded with (Ephraim) Clark for a while as he worked on his book and was driven by Clark as he went to other parts of the town to gather notes.” There is nothing said about whether this was before or after Mr. Cushman’s stay in Warren. David Quimby Cushman had his book published by E. Upton & Son, Printers of Bath in 1882. By then Cushman was 76 years old.
        The couple moved to Bath, for it was in Bath on March 27, 1886, according to the Vital Records, Vol. 2, published in Rockland, that Emeline H. Cushman died. Records say that Cushman went to live with his daughter in Warren, and died there on Oct. 13, 1889 at the age of 82 years, 10 months and 11 days.

The Dump
By Arlene Cole
      My information on the history of the “dump” in Newcastle comes from the Newcastle Town Reports, through the years. When, in 1939, the Town voted to have a dump the Selectmen purchased a lot of land for $275 and paid $17.08 for care of the dump for the year. The land for the new dump site, according to the Registry of Deeds in Wiscasset, was purchased from Helen Foster, wife of N.H. Foster, on March 29, 1939. The deed reads, in part, “A certain lot or parcel of land situated in said Newcastle on the easterly side of the road leading from Newcastle to Damariscotta Mills, known as the New Road … three acres more or less.”
      In 1942 the Town paid $14.24 for labor on the Dump, $6 for labor on the road to the dump and $16.40 for a new gate. Credit for gravel taken from the land and sold by the Town was $14.30 leaving a total expense for the year of $22.34. In 1946 it was proposed a shed be built on the Dump Lot on the Mills Road. 
     Tthe site of the “old dump,” had gate posts. Are they new posts or are they all that is left of the $16.40 gate project and the old town dump? The location is now used to store sand for roads in winter and as a place to park equipment used for plowing and sanding the roads.
     By 1970 Newcastle had outgrown its dump. A new location was bought on Rt. 215. Construction costs were $3500. The new dump opened in August and the Mills location was closed.
     As time went by the dump became more specialized. In 1975 a disposal area of about two acres was set aside for septic tank sludge disposal. An access road was built and costs were reimbursed by neighboring towns. A user free was accessed with the hope it would pay for the yearly maintenance.
     In 1976 it was found necessary to limit dumping privileges to Town residents, property owners and other authorized people. A fence with gates were installed and posted hours were published. An attendant was hired.
     The word “dump” had disappeared from the report by 1980 and it was now a “sanitary landfill site.” It became necessary to shorten the hours at the landfill to save expenses. State regulations required the trash be covered. Several ideas were discussed and voted on. Disposing of trash had become a big business.
     To make a long story short, Newcastle joined with the Nobleboro/Jefferson Transfer Station in 1994. The Report from the Transfer Station writes of tipping fees, of demolition material, recycling material to reduce solid waste and developing a recycling area for metal, brush, clean wood and compost material.

Old Bunker Hill Road Story
By Arlene Cole
      Most travel in early Maine was by water and this was true of the area west of what was once Vaughan’s Pond, now Damariscotta Lake. William Vaughan is believed to have been the first to harness the waterpower at Damariscotta Mills. Vaughan owned much of the land on either side of the lake and floated the logs he had cut there, down to his mills. Undoubtedly, rude tracks and trails were used by the lumbermen and early settlers.
     The Rev. David Quimby Cushman in his The History of Ancient Sheepscot and Newcastle first mentions roads in the Bunker Hill area of Newcastle, when he writes that a committee was raised in 1766 to lay out a road, “from the county road upward on the West side of Damariscotta Pond to the Northwest corner of the town.” Apparently the committee did not carry out its duties for Cushman continues, “1770, March 14. Previous efforts having failed, a committee was appointed at this meeting to lay out a road, from the county road near Damariscotta Mills round Vaughan’s Pond and up the western side of it to the North town line.” A similar vote was passed in 1771 and again in 1772. This proved success-ful. “Several years had elapsed since the first effort was made; and it was not accepted until March 14, 1776. It was a great public convenience.”
      This road, laid out by the town in 1776 did not go where the road is today. It left what we call the Jones Woods Rd. near Jones’ corner and passed to the west of the house formerly owned by Patricia Geiringer. She told me there is a stonewall just west of the house and that was the east boundary of the road. The barn is no longer standing but early residents claim the road was between the house and the barn. This road followed the ridge through Newcastle and passed just west of the Bartlett house, now the first house in Jefferson. This road was used until around 1838.
      In 1838, the Lincoln County Commissioners laid out what has become the present road. I get much of my information from articles written by Beryl Hunt and printed in The Lincoln County News during 1982 and 1983. She wrote that the Commissioners laid out a new road “from Carter’s Hill (in Jefferson) to the intersection of 215, then known as Jones’ corner.”
     This new road, which is closer to the lake and less hilly than the old one, gives the older houses long driveways, like the former Talbot Wilson house. Next in line, the Peter Jones house, later owned by Sanford Bartlett, burned in 1932 when the Bartlett family lived there. (They moved north to the first house in Jefferson.) There is said to be an all season well at the old Bartlett homestead, where farmers watered their cattle and where passers-by could stop their horses and oxen for a refreshing drink. Also, the house near Hunt’s Hill burned. Beryl Hunt wrote, the old road went over the land near where Alvin Hunt’s house stood. This house burned and Mrs. Hunt was most emphatic that the new house be built on the east side of the new road – the present Bunker Hill Rd.
       The house where Lawrence Jones used to live was not built at its present location. They tell me that he moved it across the Lake after the “new” road had been built. The house that was known as the David Jones house, up on the old road, was moved about 600 feet from on top of the hill to its present location on the new road.
       The old road is still visible over the property where Eldon Hunt lived. There is a rock bridge across a brook, which flows through his pasture and into Damariscotta Lake. The original house here, once owned by the Edward Hall’s, burned and a new house, where Eldon and Beryl lived, was built along the new road.
      One late summer day a few years ago, Eldon showed my husband, George, and I where the old road went. As we stood on the bridge with Eldon sitting on his all terrain vehicle, we could see where the road ran south by the blacksmith shop once owned by Ed Hall. To the north, the old road was faintly visible between the trees, to where it passes over the town line into Jefferson. George and I climbed down over the stones to get a better look at the stone bridge. It still is in good working condition for the water to run down over the hill to the Lake. Eldon passed away on June 19 after 92 years of living on Bunker Hill Rd. His stories on the way life was in the early 20th century have added an important part to information of life in early Newcastle. His passing is an end to an era. Both he and Beryl were our friends. They will long be remembered.
      The County Commissioners’ report describes the new highway to be built, in detail, such as “thence south 30 degrees West three rods, thence South 44 degrees West forty four rods, thence South 40½ degrees West one hundred rods, to old road near the house of D. Jones, in Newcastle, said road to be three rods wide and the above course to be the middle of the road.”
      The report also awarded damages to the property owners for the taking of their lands. The amount ranged from $11 to Charles Hatch to $200 to Peter Jones. Money “to be paid out of the County Treasury and the County Commissioners do not consider any other individual is damaged in his property by reason of the location of said Highway. [Signed] B.C. Bailey, Joseph Weeks & Samuel T. Hinds.”
      It must have been an expensive project and I have asked many why the road was changed. Of course, no one knows, but the general feeling is the road that went up the side of one hill, down over it and up the side of the next, along the ridge, was difficult for the oxen pulling the carts. One person remembers his father telling of farmers starting out for Damariscotta Mills with three sets of oxen and carts. When they came to a hill, the men would trig the wagon wheels, unhitch the oxen and all three pair would pull the front cart up the hill. Then they would unhitch from that cart and do the same for the other carts until they had pulled the loads to the top. Down hill was also a problem. “Drag-shoes” were used. These obsolete pieces of hardware were hung in front of the rear wheels and when, in going downhill, a heavy load threatened to roll forward and push the cattle, the iron shoe was slid under the wheel so the back of the wagon became a sort of sled and the oxen actually pulled the load downhill. Later wheel-brakes were added to wagons. (I welcome comments on this type of early travel.)
      Had the early Commissioners known automobiles would be invented they might never have moved the road. But by the time of the “auto” the new road had been established. It had been widened and straightened many times. For example, after the house at Jones’ corner burned in 1949, the intersection between Rts. #213 and #215 was widened and re-built so that today the road is over the area where the old house used to sit. Signs of the old road are disappearing each year, and tomorrow’s generation will have forgotten it was ever there.

Dyer River
By Arlene Cole
       The Dyer River starts at the outlet of Dyer Long Pond and flows through the southern part of Jefferson before entering Newcastle. It then flows through Newcastle into the Sheepscot River. There is a stone marker at the town line between Jefferson and Newcastle. It is hard to read the inscription but it appears to have a “J” on the up river side and an “N” on the down river side.
      According to Stanley D. Atwood in his Length and Breadth of Maine, the river is 17.75 miles long. Dyer Long Pond is 126 feet above sea level. The lower Dyer River is tidal. In some of the earlier York county deeds the river is referred to as “Northeast River”. For many years the river was spelled “Dyer’s” and is still referred to often by that spelling.
       The river is named for William Dyer. William Dyer owned Dyer Neck that separates the Dyer River, for its last few miles, from the Sheepscot River. The Rev. David Quimby Cushman in The History of Ancient Sheepscot and Newcastle does not say when Dyer came to the area. However, he is listed as being in Sheepscot between the dates of 1623 and 1686.
        He built his house near the outlet of Dyer River and near where the Franklin L. Carney store in Sheepscot used to stand. It appears that William Dyer was an influential man about Sheepscot. When the first civil government was established the Commissioners under the county of Cornwall, plantation of Dartmouth, named William Dyer as a Justice of the Peace. He is referred to as “Esq.”
       Cushman goes on to write that as the King Phillip’s war moved north, the Indians began to “skulk around, waylay the English and fire upon them.” One day as William Dyer was mowing grass on his marsh, an Indian crept up near enough to fire at and kill him. His death “threw the family and the colony of Sheepscot into a gloom.” This was around 1675.
       Once Dyer River was a busy place. When the first settlers came to Sheepscot and North Newcastle they found places on Dyer River to set up mills. The Water Power of Maine by Walter Wells, Superintendent, Hydrographic Survey of Maine 1869, reported that on “Dyer’s River” were a saw and shingle mill, and a match factory. The mills operated most of the year.
       The 1873-1874 Maine State Year Book lists Erskine & Woodbridge as lumber dealers and J. Haynes & Son and E.G. Baker as producing match splints. The mill site commonly known as the Erskine mill was located in North Newcastle near where the Dyer River crosses under Rt. 194.
       According to Christine Huston Dodge’s notes, James Erskine came to the area when an infant and was brought up in the family of Ezekiel Laiten (Leighton). James married Susan Woodbridge about 1800. James was a trader and builder of vessels. His son, Hartley, was a lumber dealer. This picture shows an active lumberyard. Only remnants remain.
       According to Dodge, Josiah Haynes (Haines) did “match card manu (manufacturing)’ about 1870 but I have not found where it was located. Up Dyer River toward Jefferson is Winnisittico Falls. Here E.G. Baker had his match splint mill. Baker is listed as producing match splints until 1878. E(lbridge G(erry) Baker was born in Newcastle in 1836. He is listed as a merchant and lumberman. Baker also had a store in North Newcastle and was post master there for years.
       It is probable he sold his match splint equipment to the Diamond Match Company of Boston. A deed dated June 6, 1890 refers to the Match Mill lot. Baker sold a piece of land but reserved the right of way of river privilege, bank and landing privilege and right out way from the mill privilege to the highway. A Maine Coast Surveying map, project 87150, May 1988, refers to the area as the “Old Springer Mill’ a.k.a. ‘Old Match Mill.’” It is doubtful that completed matches were ever made here. The match splints were usually sawed into blanks and shipped elsewhere to be dipped.
       The Dyer River was the scene of much boat building. Dodge lists James Erskine as the “builder of 30 or 40 sail vessels.” Cushman writes that Thomas Erskine built more than “forty sail” near the head of tidewater on Dyer River. (Was there a family connection?) James and William Follansbee and the Woodbridges all built boats near the same spot. William Waters built there, too. He built a ship of 400 ton and had to launch her sideways into the narrow river.
       In Sheepscot, Three Hundred Years of Transition, Charlotte Donnell writes that Captain Thomas Chase built a substantial number of coasting vessels at his shipyard on “Dyer’s River.” His yard was just above the confluence of the Dyer and Sheepscot Rivers. Captain Thomas Chase (1778-1886) was a military captain in the War of 1812. He was a son of Charles and Hannah Stewart Chase.
       David Murray and Colonel Robert Murray also built vessels at their farm on the Dyer River. David Murray came to Newcastle from Londonderry, N.H. about 1764. He and his wife Elizabeth McLelland had 11 children, four girls and seven boys. In one way or another six of the sons died. Murray adopted his grandson, Robert Cunningham, son of John Cunningham and David’s daughter Mary. Robert Cunningham’s name was changed to Robert Murray. He was Colonel of a regiment and kept the title the rest of his life.
      Donnell notes that the location of David and Colonel Robert Murray’s boat yard gave rise to the story that the Murray vessels had to be launched with collars of air-tight barrels above the keel to raise the vessels high enough to get them down the river, around the bends. Murray vessels “ranged from the Betsy (133 tons) up to Damascus of 313 tons.” The Murray’s were building boats as late as 1858.
      Dyer River was also known for its alewives. At one time they were dipped and used. According to Cushman, James Greely and David Murray were appointed “fish keepers” in 1791. They were to see that the alewives had “free and easy” passageway up the Dyer and Sheepscot Rivers. This was to be from the first of May to the first of June. Should anyone prevent the free movement of the fish, Greely and Murray were instructed to prosecute the violators.
      Today all is quiet on Dyer River. There are no mills or boat yards and no fish are commercially harvested. The water runs free and clear through rural areas to where it joins the Sheepscot River at Sheepscot Village.

Wild Fires of 1947
By Arlene Cole
       No one who remembers 1947, when the state was ablaze, wants another fall like that one. Forest fires in Maine are nothing new. After all, this is a forested state. According to Austin H. Wilkins in his “Ten Million Acres of Timber”, there were fires before the white men came. Indians are believed to have set the woods and fields afire to drive game into the open, clear land for agriculture and encourage wild edible berries such as blueberries. And there have been fires through the years after the European settlers came.
      The 1947 fire disaster was the worst on record. Woods, fields, farms and towns were consumed. Newcastle escaped the devastating destruction that plagued many other towns. They could thank the patrols and luck.
       The season started very dry. In “Wildfire Loose” by Joyce Butler she writes, “Almost no rain had fallen in the southern half of the state since June 25… Total rainfall for September in Portland was 1.72 inches.”
       The Lincoln County News for Aug. 21, 1947 editorial reads “The continuous dry weather has created a serious fire hazard. Even if some rain should fall it will be some time before the danger is over. Already one small fire on the Newcastle shore of the river made a bit of trouble and might have caused real disaster.”
       And then the fires started in earnest. The air carried the haze of smoke and the smell of burning wood. Patrols were organized and everywhere citizens patrolled the roads questioning suspicious people and circulating the license plates of suspicious cars.
       The Newcastle Town Report for the year ending Feb. 14, 1948 noted, “The forest fire situation became so acute that, in accordance with an order from Governor Hildreth, the town was divided into five zones and seven patrols on a two or three hour basis from 6:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. This was set up on Oct. 23rd and carried through Nov. 4, 1947.”
       By Oct. 16, The Lincoln County News, wrote on Oct. 23, “If the game wardens read this column, all well and good, but if they do not, will some of you other readers please bring this to their attention. Gov. Hildreth closed the woods to the legitimate hunters, but those who take after game with searchlights are going at it strong now. A fire can start just as easily at night and gain considerable headway before sleeping people are aware of it. Jackers have been particularly active on Bunker Hill Road and the residents of this section have all asked me to bring it to the attention of the game wardens through this column.”
       At Halloween the Selectmen of Damariscotta put a notice in The Lincoln County News. It read in part, “Halloween – With the prevailing dry conditions, and the strain placed on every available citizen to patrol and assist through the fire department, American Legion, and local chapter of the American Red Cross we urge that parents assist by keeping the young folks off the street, Halloween.”
       The Damariscotta Selectmen again noted, “We still feel that conditions are such that we must keep up fire patrol through the heat of the day. Frost and dampness at night seem to offer some protection during the late hours. There is still great need for patrols during the afternoon and we urged any and all who possibly can, to volunteer their services for those hours. Stand-by is being maintained at the fire station, which uses the available time of all firemen.”
      The rains came in November and Hazel Tenny reported on Nov. 13, “It’s a nice morning on Bunker Hill and we are all breathing somewhat easier since the rain. Fire patrols are over and everyone who participated has the heartfelt thanks of their friends and neighbors. Bill Carter and his “gang” did a swell job!”
      Butler writes that approximately 200,000 acres of Maine forests burned. Millions of trees were killed. Farm buildings and entire villages were burned to the ground. Perhaps the most well known was the burning of the large homes at Bar Harbor. Fifteen people died because of fire-related causes. I remember my college roommate’s boyfriend, a student at Bowdoin College, was killed in a car crash while returning to the college after driving fire fighters to different fire fronts.
       The Town of Newcastle Report for 1948 closed the subject thus, “in behalf of the citizens and property owners of Newcastle we, the municipal officers, wish to again express our thanks and appreciation to all those who so willingly and conscientiously served in any way in this fire protection program.

Edward K. Gazet Enlists in the Civil War
By Arlene Cole
       Pvt. Edward K. Gazet Edward Kavanagh Gazet, Civil War private, Co. A 11th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers died at 9:30 a.m. on May 15, 1862 at Fortress Monroe Hospital in Virginia. Edward was born in Newcastle on May 13, 1839, the youngest child of Joseph and Mary Bookings Gazet.
      Joseph had been born in France and came to Newcastle with his wife. Joseph is listed as a soldier and a stone mason by Christine Huston Dodge in her records. Edward was the younger and eighth child born into the family.
       The family lived near the Damariscotta River where Edward learned to love the river. He moved to Boston about 1857 and worked as a laborer in a grain storehouse and a lozenge factory. A poem he wrote, believed to have been when he was 19, is titled, “To the river Damaiscotta”. [His spelling.] He writes of the rushing tide, the oyster banks, Johnny Orr and the roaring falls.
        After the firing on Fort Sumter on April 13, 1861, Edward joined the Army. As he was living in Massachusetts at the time, he became affiliated with Co. A, 11th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers. His path crossed, many times, the 4th Maine Regiment, which was composed of men from Lincoln County, and contained many of his friends from Newcastle. Edward Kavanagh Gazet was no different than many other Civil War soldiers except he kept a diary and many of the letters he sent home were saved.
       The Newcastle Historical Society is indebted to James F. Catania, Jr. of Woburn, Mass., for collecting and preserving this diary, the letters, poems, drawings and photos. Mr. Catania donated a copy of this collection, entitled, If It Be May Fate To Fall, to the Society. The book is at the Museum. Mr. Catania writes that the letters and poems use the original spelling and lack of punctuation; unless the misspellings are so serious their meaning would be lost without clarification.
       Edward Kavanagh Gazet was sent to Fortress Warren in Boston Harbor. Here he first met the boys from the 4th from Maine. “Monday 14, [April 1861] I rest well in my tent last night had an inspection and in the afternoon I got some oysters and C.K.C. came to see me from the Maine 4th I was very glad to see him.” On Tuesday, April 15th Edward and a friend Lucius Staples “went up to the Maine 4th and I saw all the Scota boys…”
       On June 12th Edward writes his mother, “Revielle beats at 5 o’clock… have breakfast which consists of salt beef, bread, and coffee.” He continues, “The dinner is usually the same as breakfast, sometimes we have a change in the shape of stewed beans of (or) fish chowder … [for supper] … we have bread and butter, cheese, and coffee.”
      They slept on the bare floor with blankets around them and overcoats over them. Ed comments that they had mattresses but they got so lousy the guys threw them out. They did have plenty of water and that helped.
       By July 3rd Edward had arrived in Washington, D.C. His company had traveled by water, first to New York, crossed on to New Jersey shore and marched to Baltimore. They took the “cars” for Washington, D.C. He remarks that the city was unfinished with only the capital and Washington monument finished. They marched in front of the White House where president Lincoln reviewed them. Then they arrived at Camp Sanford, located on the Treasury grounds near the White House.
      On July 11, 1861, Edward wrote to his sister, “Since writing last, I have had two days to run about in and I improved the first by going up to the fourth Maine Regt. Camp and saw the boys from Newcastle. It gave me the blues for the Newcastle girls and letters from home.”
      Many in the 11th Regiment were paid but it was in “Boston bills”. Up to 1863 each state issued its own currency. Thus the Boston bills were worthless as soon as the regiment left Massachusetts.
      He also comments on his uniform. Massachusetts was ill prepared to clothe and equip its volunteers in 1861. The state ordered grey flannel uniforms, including jackets for all branches and broadbrimmed grey felt hats. Grey uniforms went to the 11th Massachusetts Volunteers. During the battle of Bull Run “we lost our sergeant and several regiments… We could not tell our troops from the enemy.” James Catania, Jr. in his introduction comments that it is interesting to note that during the Battle of Bull Run some of the confederates were uniformed in blue. Because of the confusion, grey uniforms were not acceptable. Edward writes, “We have got a new uniform, it is a light blue jacket and (grey?) pants, the jacket has a little red binding down the front around the bottom the jacket is like the other only made more loose and has no lining, the pants have no trimming at all. The cloth is a kind of flannel stuff and it is very cool and comfortable.” 
       They were issued new guns. “Col. George Clark and 950 men of the eleventh Massachusetts Regiment are all armed with new smooth-bore muskets. In point of equipage, no regiment has exceeded the Eleventh.”
       By July 15th the regiment had crossed the Potomac and camped at Shuter’s Hill near Fort Ellsworth. Edward fought in the Battle of Bull Run and his Regiment suffered many losses. “The enemy kept in the woods out of sight, and poured the fire on us with deadly effect. The fourth Maine Regt and the second Maine Regt behaved nobly but they suffered too.” On his way back to his Regiment he got lost when he stopped to fill his canteen. However, he picked up a blanket and haversack that was better than the one he had thrown aside during the fighting. He arrived back at his camp with an empty canteen as he had emptied it giving water to the wounded he passed.

Private Edward Kavanagh Gazet 
By Arlene Cole
      Private Edward Kavanagh Gazet had fought in the battle of Bull Run. Back in his camp he relives the battle in a letter to his Mother. He felt stiff and lame but was cheered by getting a letter from a friend.
       Food was dull. To supplement rations the members of the Regiment shot pigs and sheep to eat. He also mentions a stealing expedition when they brought back a goose and two ducks.
       Personal care was difficult. The first part of this letter is missing but was probably written in the summer of 1861. He wrote, “You would laugh to see me the other day, standing up to my knees in the brook, stripped to the waist, washing my stockings and handkerchiefs. I had to watch [wash] my stockings and go barefoot until they dried, but the sun soon dries things in the country. It is the same with my shirt as I have only one, and I stole that, the others was stolen from me at various times, the stockings I wear I found in the havesack I picked up at Bull Run. I found a knife and spoon, a paper of sugar, a towl, and a cap cover.”
        The date is missing, but probably the end of July or the first of August 1861, Edward writes they started from camp about two o’clock in the morning and marched to the battlefield a distance of 15 miles. They fought until four p.m. and then retreated all night until 11 the next morning. As he was retreating he came upon some of his “townies” who belonged to the fourth Maine regiment.
        In September, he writes from Bladensburg, MD that he has had a touch of fever and ague but is then in splendid health. He wrote he had enough money to buy paper envelopes. Paper is expensive, “twenty five cents a square of writing paper that I could get in Boston for 12 and a better quality.” He comments on the ink. “This is queer looking ink, it is the juice of a berry called pigeon berry.” On his letters to them, “Our letters go free and that is one good thing, I wish they would let them come free.” He received his pay of 20 dollars and 67 cents and sent it home to his sister.
       In a moment of nostalgia he writes his sister on Sept. 15, Oh! How it recalls to my mind the pleasant summer hours that I have spent on the oyster bank beneath the shade of its grand old trees. Who can help drawing a long sigh as the thought rises that we may never see it again, but love, ever dying love for my country moves me on to do duty bravely, and if it be my fate to fall. Gods will be done.”
      The Regiment moved on to Camp Baker in Maryland. He wrote he had been unwell so the march was difficult. He took shelter under a piazza to get out of the sun. He passed a home with the door open and the supper spread on the table. The man invited him in and gave him a good supper of beefsteak, bread and coffee. They offered him lodging for the night and he slept on a mattress for the first time in a long time. He had slept with nothing softer than a cartridge box under his head and the ground for his bed, for two months.
        He arrived at the campground at noon. He got biscuits off one of the other regiments and some tomatoes from a passing farmer, for breakfast. “The boys” had stuck their muskets into the ground with the bayonets down and covered them with blankets to make shelters from the hot sun. He cleaned up at the river and found a small boat, which he took out and sent “the boat skimming over the water.” This reminded him of home and the Damariscotta River.
       On Nov. 23, they were living in tents. The weather was stormy and cold but no snow, yet. The tents were floored with sound logs and then covered with fine boughs of cedar and they were quite warm but “some of the nights are passed in a comfortless way.”
      For winter, Edward writes, they moved into a log house. He sketched it, but the sketch was damaged. It appears to be a wood lean-to. In January 1862, they saw their first snow. In February, he writes home that he now had a uniform authorized by “Uncle Sam.” It consists of a dark blue frock coast and sky blue pants. He was having a bad case of poison ivy. He hopes the doctors will cure it for him, “But I haven’t a great opinion of army doctors they give a man quinine for everything from a sore toe to a head ache.” In March he saw his first robin.
       By April 23, his regiment was before Yorktown. He was writing home using a lead pencil, as he could get no ink. Also, apparently he needed stamps now for he asks his sister to send him about 50 cents worth of stamps.
       On May 5, 1862 at the battle of Williamsburg, Va., Edward was wounded. He was struck three times. One ball struck the back of his left shoulder. The second ball entered his spine. The third ball passed through his capbox and into his right hip. This, the doctors determined was the fatal wound. He was transported to the U.S. General Hospital at Fortress Monroe, Va. There he lingered until May 15, when he died at 9:30 a.m. This was three days after his 23rd birthday. He was interred at the National Cemetery in Hampton, Va. His grave No. 4747 is directly to the left of the flagpole.
       Edward Gazet’s father Joseph had died April 8, 1853. His mother Mary died Sept. 16, 1874. They are buried in St. Patrick’s Cemetery. She shares her stone with Edward. It reads: “Mary, wife of Joseph Gazet, Died Sept. 16, 1874, AE 82 yrs.” Immediately below it reads: “In memory of Edward Kavanagh of the 11th Mass. Reg. Co. A. Died May 16, 1862 AE 23 yrs. Buried at Fortress Monroe, son of Joseph and Mary Gazet.” To the right of their stone, his flag holder reads, “Post 59, G.A.R.”
       It was two of his sisters, Mary and Sarah, who carefully preserved these letters and journals. Mary married Joseph Wharff and lived on Glidden St. She died in South Portland on April 9, 1901. Her sister, Sarah, was a nurse who never married. She lived with Mary and drowned on April 10, 1892, in the Damariscotta River, “just above the bridge,” according to Christine Dodge’s records. Vol. 131 - No. 31

Lincoln Academy 
The “Old Gym”
By Arlene Cole
       Breaking ground for the "Old Gym" The sign over the door to the Lincoln Academy Building on the north east quadrant, at the intersection where Hillcrest Road and Old East County Road meet Academy Hill Road, reads, “Performing Arts Center,” but most everyone refers to it, nostalgically, as the “Old Gym”. Robert Clunie came to Lincoln Academy in the fall of 1919, as its new principal. He was interested in sports. He organized the baseball teams and it won second place in the Knox-Lincoln League. The next year he introduced football. Then in the winter of 1920 he started boys basketball. Mr. Clunie was coach.
       The Lincolnian for March 1920 describes the basketball games. In the first year, on Jan. 9, 1920, Lincoln “decisively defeated the Lewiston High Independents (28 – 8) in a clean, well played game.” Lincoln lost to Morse High on Jan. 16, 52 to 10. Lincoln also played Freeport, winning 19 – 11, Camden, winning 23 – 21 and Rockport, winning 52 – 5. Lincoln won over Lisbon High School twice, 32 – 9 and 25 – 15. They split the two games with Rockland High School, losing the Feb. 13 game 14 – 12 and winning the Feb. 21 game 23 – 19.
        Also, information taken from The Lincolnian, Senior Class Number, June 1922 reads, “From the first the team showed its merit and won 12 straight games. Twice, special trains were hired for games, one for the game at Rockport, and the other for the game at Rockland, which gave Lincoln the championship of the Knox-Lincoln league.” The next year the girls’ basketball team was formed with Miss Farnum coaching.
        Practice and home games were held at the Lincoln Hall (present theatre) in Damariscotta. Clunie felt Lincoln needed its own place to play basketball. He proposed building a gymnasium on campus. At this long ago period, right after World War I, people were already worrying about young people being physically unfit. Page 13 of The Lincolnian reads, “Our boys are ruined by inactivity.” Sports encouraged students to do better academically, also. One note mentions that with the start of sports, at Lincoln, many students showed remarkable improvement in their marks. Students had to maintain a certain average to play on the teams.
       Of course, the school did not have the money for an elaborate building but a drive was launched, just the same. A copy of the ad, printed as a supplement (not dated) in The Lincoln County News, A History of Lincoln Academy, reads in part, “Big Drive Now On, Lincoln academy to Build Gymnasium and Assembly Hall.” The hope was to collect $10,000 before January of 1920. One could send their gifts to Miss Mary Hatch, Treasurer of the Alumni Association.
        In the photograph, the students do their part with picks and shovels digging the basement to the future gymnasium. Donations got off to a good start. Rallies were held in Lincoln Hall, a minstrel show was put on by the alumni association and various other things were done to raise $10,000. Each class raised $200 by selling lunches, candy and other things a school.
       But after the initial push, interest seemed to lag. The 1922 Lincolnian comments, “The gym fund started like a spark, suddenly kindled by public support into a blazing flame, but lately it has died down.” The story goes that the intention was to build a brick gymnasium. Each person was to buy a brick. This did not materialize. The gym was built, as we all know, but it was constructed of wood. The class of 1922 gave their gift to Lincoln before the building had been completed. They raised $40 and asked the money be put in trust “to be spent in buying a stained glass window, with the Lincoln Academy seal engraved upon it, and beneath a band of blue and gold, upon which is to be inscribed the words, “Class of 1922.” It seems this window was never constructed. However, the gymnasium /auditorium was completed in 1923.
        For years the gym was the pride of the community. Many a basketball game was played there. Some teams were champions, some teams learned how to take defeat graciously. The gym was also used for dances, plays, Class Day and Alumni Banquets. The community used it for twin meetings, political groups and Miles Memorial Hospital League rummage sales.
        In the 1940s, Industrial Arts and Home Economics were added to the curriculum. These classes were held in the basement of the gym. The Home Economics girls helped prepare and serve the lunches, which were offered there. Metal trays, such as used in Army messes, were used for the food. Students sat backwards on the bleachers with the next higher seat serving as a table. The sign over the front door read “Vocational Department.”
        With time the main school plant expanded and the shop moved into that new basement. The Home Economics girls took their classes in what is now the Hall House. Then in 1966 the new Nelson W. Bailey gymnasium was built. It seemed as if the school had moved away and left the “old gym” behind. On Aug. 9, 1988, we nearly lost it to fire. According to The Lincoln County News of Aug. 9, 1988, the alarm was sounded around noon as someone came running into the office to report the gym was on fire. Quick action by the Newcastle Fire Company with back up from the Damariscotta and Nobleboro companies brought the fire under control before it did too much damage. Sheepscot, South Bristol and Bremen units stood by. Damage included a hole in the roof where the firemen had to cut a hole, damage to the outer walls, and much interior ceiling, electrical, water and smoke damage. The basement was left undamaged and was used when school started in September.
        Since repairing and renovating, the old gym is now being used for band and choral classes, stage presentations and the arts, hence its present name. Lincoln Academy has many treasures from its 200 years of operation. After more than 80 years of service, the Old Gym is one of them.

Post Offices 
By Arlene Cole
        Newcastle Post Masters from 1889 to the present. Alonzo W. Glidden, a Republican, was appointed Postmaster in 1889, Captain Alexander Farnham, a Democrat, was appointed in 1893. It was under his appointment that rural free delivery (RFD) was started in the country. In 1897 the Republicans again won the Presidency and Alonzo W. Glidden became Postmaster again. This was under, first, William McKinley and then under Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt put a stop to this see-saw system. During his term it was “decreed that all fourth class offices north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi should hence forth be under the civil service law and that all postmaster of such offices should retain their places as long as they cared to do so provided they did nothing whereby lawful complaint might be brought against them sufficient to cause removal.” The civil service rules and laws have changed a lot in the passed 100 years. All Post Offices are now under the Civil Service rules. Alonzo Glidden, because of ill health, resigned in September, 1910.
         Newcastle has had four Post Offices within the town. The East Newcastle office was fairly short lived and was on the River Rd. The Newcastle Historical Society has a copy of a postcard cancelled at the East Newcastle Post Office. The post office in South Newcastle was near the old railroad station on Station Rd. At one time it was known by the name “Rosicrucian” in honor of Rosicrucian Spring over the line in Edgecomb. The North Newcastle Post-Office was in the Tildon Hodgkins store for many years. Sheepscot Village was the last to give up its Post Office. This was in 1972. The people who lived on the Newcastle side of Damariscotta Mills got their mail from the Post Office across the river in Nobleboro.
        Miss J(ulia) Gertrude Hatch was Newcastle’s first female postmaster. Julia Gertrude Hatch was born in Newcastle on Oct. 5, 1868, according to Christine Dodge, the youngest child of Crowell Hatch, Jr., blacksmith, and Julia Ann Hall. She never married. She had worked for many years as clerk and assistant at the Post Office. With the new civil service rules, Miss Hatch took the civil service exam, passed it and became Postmaster of Newcastle in 1910. In 1913, under Miss Hatch the parcel post system was inaugurated. Miss Hatch was Postmaster until 1920. She died Nov. 16, 1936 in Damariscotta.
       On October 14, 1920, William D. Murphy took over as postmaster of Newcastle, having also passed the civil service exam. He held the office until March 16, 1926 when Lillian Linscott Guptill became postmaster. Mrs. Guptill lived on Academy Hill Rd., in Newcastle and served as Postmaster for 30 years. The Post-Office was still at the Sproul Block but small changes took place. Patrons could tell by looking through small glass windows whether they had mail and the Postmaster would hand them their mail on request. Later glass doors were installed with each patron having a key to their “pigeon hole.” The Postmaster would graciously pass you your mail, if you had forgotten to bring the key. Combination locks were next added.
       The post office has used all kinds of transportation to carry its mail: the stagecoach, steamboat, canals, railroads, motor vehicles, airlines and even the short lived pony express. When air service started there was an extra charge for “air mail”. Now most long distant letters travel by air without any extra charge.
        Hubert (Tiny) Cowan followed Lillian Guptill as postmaster in 1957. He lived with his family on the Mills Rd. When train service ended in Newcastle in 1959, letters and parcel post were brought in by truck. There was a rear door to the Post Office at the Sproul Block but the bags of mail were brought in through the front door and dragged across the lobby to the rear where the mail could be sorted. In 1963 the ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) code system was started. This has made it possible for much automation in the system. Also, a two letter, capitalized, abbreviation used for all the states has made handling quicker. Early rules required a Postmaster to live in his or her town. Along the way, this changed. Cowan left the Newcastle Post Office, according to Arlene Cowan, his widow, in 1971 and was Postmaster at Wiscasset until he moved to the Waldoboro Post-Office in 1980. He still lived in Newcastle. The U.S. Congress approved the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970. This act transferred the Post Office Department into a government-owned corporation, called the United States Postal Service.
          This seems to have been the beginning of much movement of personnel. Marion Mulligan was Postmaster at Damariscotta Mills until the office there was closed in 1961. She then was clerk in Newcastle for 10 years until the transfer of Hurbert Cowan to Wiscasset. Marion Mulligan, then, was appointed Postmaster of Newcastle. Mrs. Mulligan’s daughters, Mary Jane Buchan and Sally Ann Mulligan have donated their mother’s framed appointment certificate as Postmaster, to the Newcastle Historical Society. It is on display in the Museum. Marion Mulligan was appointed on March 4, 1972 as Postmaster of Newcastle, Maine. It is signed by J.T. Klasser, Postmaster General.
         Edith Woodbury served from 1974-1976 as Officer in Charge (OIC). Officer in Charge was a new term used to distinguish a person in charge of the Post Office who had not been appointed as Postmaster. Until recently, it has always been the prerogative of the President of the United States to “appoint” Postmasters. It seems, until a Postmaster had been appointed to fill a position, the person in charge was called an OIC. 
         David Whitney took the office of Postmaster in 1976 under John Kennedy. He had worked up from being rural mail carrier to Postmaster in Newcastle. In 1983 he moved to the Post Office in Damariscotta.
        There was consideration for a time that the government might close the Newcastle Post Office. The building where the Post office was kept was getting crowded. Also, the parking places were few and traffic was heavy in front of the Post Office. The government “put out feelers” and got quite a reaction. The people of Newcastle did not want to lose their post office. Newcastle is an old town. Although incorporated as a District in 1753, they are still the oldest in Lincoln County government. They had lost their school. They did not want to drop from the map. The people circulated a petition to keep the Newcastle Post Office open and the government listened. However, during this time there was no Postmaster at Newcastle. From 1983 through 1987 there were many OIC. I want to thank Peggy Nelson for the following list. She has carefully listed each OIC and his or her date of serving at the Newcastle Post Office. Beverly Ripley became OIC in July 1983 and remained in charge until March 1984. She was followed by Lion Grover (03/84 – 10/84); Scott Johnson (10/84 – 02/85); Earle Chapman (02/85 – 05/85); Philip Poland (05/85 – 09/85); Peggy Nelson (09/85 – 03/86); Richard Wing (03/86 – 07/86); Joan Jackson (07/86 – 01/87); and Douglas Urquhart (07/86 – 01/87).
         Wayne Benner was appointed Postmaster in April 1987. It was under his appointment that the Newcastle Post Office moved its location to its new building. The decision had been made and the Newcastle Post Office would stay open. The Lincoln County News reported on the moving event. “Saturday following regular postal hours the Newcastle Post Office, which had been located by the bridge since Colonel John Glidden was appointed as Postmaster in 1830 according to Cushman’s History, moved.” (It had not always been at the same location at the bridge.) The new Post Office opened for business on Nov. 20, 1989. The new building is located on the Mills Rd. between Louis Doe Inc., and The Lincoln County Publishing Company.
        Wayne Benner moved to the South Bristol Post Office in April 1992. Blanch Johnson became Office in Charge (04/92 – 10/92) until the new Postmaster Norman St. Clair was selected OIC (10/92) and then appointed Postmaster in June 1993. 
        Mail is now delivered by truck. Since the 911 system has been put in place, all the Newcastle residents have their mail come in to the new post office. Residents may choose to have P.O. boxes there. There are two rural delivery routes for those who choose to have their mail delivered. It now costs 39 cents to mail a first class letter. 

Robinson’s Four Corners
By Arlene Cole
       Follensbee at Robinson’s Four Corners The lilacs still blossom around the front door steps of the old house that used to stand at Robinson’s Four Corners, on what is now known as the East Old County Road. The house, itself, has long been gone. 
        Capt. Alexander Nickels came to Newcastle, from Boston in the 1700s, according to David Quimby Cushman in his Ancient Sheepscot and Newcastle. His son, Samuel, Esq. was born ca 1738. Samuel Nickels bought large tracts of land between the Deer Meadow Brook and the Damariscotta River as far north as Ebenezer Clark’s (the former Eben Haggett’s farm). According to Susan Robinson Schwarz, in a letter written to Edward Joshua Lincoln in December 1950, Samuel Nickels sold one of his lots to Robert Robinson in the year 1785. Robert Robinson was born in Bridgewater, Mass. in 1751 and came to Newcastle in 1767. He married Jane Webb of Woolwich in 1777. It was here, at the four corners, that Robinson is believed to have built the house shown in the background of the photo.
       Although the area is being built up again after many years of inactivity, it is hard to imagine that the road by Robert Robinsons’ house was the main highway. Early travelers through Newcastle crossed the river on the ferry at Sheepscot. The bridge was built in 1793. They followed along the old Walter Philips cart path and swung left, east of the bridge across Deer Meadow Brook. When they came to the Robinson’s Four Corners they could make a swing to the east to get to Damariscotta. Later, a road to the left returned to Sheepscot. Straight ahead the road passed by Ebenezer Clark’s farm and thence toward Jefferson. A fifth road swung right after the four corners. This was known as the “Guide” or “Board Post Road” and led to Damariscotta Mills. In 1807 the road was repaired. Distance between the Sheepscot Toll Bridge and the foot of Damariscotta Pond was surveyed to be three and a half miles. The course was nearly east. In 1817 a guidepost was erected near Robert Robinson’s house. These “guide or board posts” were the early versions of the signposts we take for granted today. This sign gave directions to Damariscotta Toll Bridge with a distance of 1 mile. To the Sheepscot Toll Bridge, it was 2¼ miles, to Edgecomb 3 miles and to Nobleboro 1½ miles. This became a thriving area and Robert Robinson took advantage of it and ran a public place. He was active during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Cushman calls Robinson a “Retailer” and not an “Innholder”. Perhaps his place was for refreshments for the travelers and rest for the horses and was not an overnight inn. The word “tavern” might be another name for it.
       “Recollections of West Hamlet” in the Oct. 3, 1895 Herald and Record speaks of this area in its past. “The traveler [sic] over these rather neglected roads of the present time will hardly realize their importance as public thoroughfares 50 years ago, when all the travel of the Shore Towns from the west to the east passed over the “Guide Board Road’. We well remember in our childhood days, stopping from our play and looking across the ‘Kavanagh Burnt Field’, as it was then called, to catch the heavily loaded stage coaches of the Bath and Thomaston line hurrying on to ‘Boreland’s Tavern’ where horses were exchanged and a royal entertainment awaited the tired passengers at ‘Aunt Betsey’s “well spread tables.”
       Robert Robinson died in 1845 and his son Ebenezer Delano Robinson, Esq., (1787 – 1867) acquired the property and the house became a private home. Cushman writes that Ebenezer was “a man of integrity, uprightness, talents and sterling worth. Held many town and other public offices, was a warm friend of education, represented the town in the Legislature, exerted a wide and healthy influence and died in a ‘good old age’, after having served God and his generation with ability and acceptance.”
       For some reason the area around the four corners became sparsely settled. Frank Lincoln remembered good times when people in the neighborhood gathered to play games and dance in the old kitchen. His brother, Edward Joshua Lincoln told how he used to play the “fiddle” for the dances. A lively time was had by old and young alike. After that, it seems the house fell into decline. According to Huston Dodge the house was torn down, probably in the 1930s.

Joseph Shattuck’s Ledger Book
By Arlene Cole   
    The Newcastle Historical Society had recently been given a Ledger book compiled by J.B. Shattuck during the years of about 1922 to about 1936, although there are entries as late as the 1950’s. This book was presented to the Society by Mr. Shattuck’s daughter, Ava Shattuck Keene, of Bremen, and includes some pictures and loose documents found in the book.
      J.B. Shattuck was Joseph B., a son of Wilmot and Ann Eliza Hatch Shattuck. The Shattuck family, were early residents of Maine. Levi Shattuck and his wife Margaret Robbins came from Pepperall, Mass. and settled on Jeremisquam (now Westport Island). Their son David was born in 1774 on Westport Island and married Ruth Mahony. He is listed as a “mill man” by Christine Huston Dodge in her records. It was their son, also David, who was the first Shattuck to come to Newcastle. David, Jr. was born in 1806 and married Mercy Greenleaf. He bought from Joseph Cargill for $500, land with a sawmill and privileges, a mill house and millpond, a tide mill and the right of way to said premises, “always shutting the gates or bars.”
      David’s land bordered on the Marsh River and Deer Meadow Brook. If one travels from Rt. 1 along the Sheepscot Rd. to Sheepscot Village one can see the Shattuck Mill Rd. This was the area that David bought into and here he had his sawmill, had a tide mill and made bricks and carried on his business. David’s son, Wilmot was born in Newcastle and married Ann Eliza Hatch. They were the parents of Joseph (J.B.) Shattuck whose record book the Newcastle Historical Society now has.
      Joseph Shattuck was born on May 18, 1877 in Newcastle. He attended school on the Sheepscot Rd. The schoolhouse was small but had an upstairs room where the neighbors would gather to dance. The building still stands and is now a private home. Joseph married Marcia Vivian Parker on Nov. 25, 1915. Joseph was a farmer and a mill man. He carefully kept his records in a ledger, which tells much about what he did, prices and times. Joseph Shattuck had a mill and sawed lumber. The picture was taken at his sawmill. To the left is the log ready to be sawed; next the unsquared board lies, waiting to have its rough edges cut off. Shattuck sold some of his lumber to the Bath Box Company and as their company made wooden boxes; much of their lumber was bought unsquared. The fellow in the picture would be the roller. Undoubtedly he is holding his rolling hook. In front of him is the track and the carriage can be seen in the distance. The sawyer’s favorite, the receeder and other features can be recognized by folks familiar with this type of mill. To the right of the picture is a pile of slabs and edgings.
      Joseph Shattuck’s mill was on what is known as the Indian Trail Rd. and was portable so he could move it to lumber lots he was to saw. When people came into Newcastle, the mill sites on the rivers were of utmost importance for that constituted their power. Later mills were run by steam, and then by a gasoline or diesel engine and today, most are run by electric power. By the time Joseph Shattuck was running his mill, steam engines had been perfected and the waterpower that made his location on the River so important was no longer needed. We can be sure Shattuck had a steam engine to power his mill in the 1920’s as he hired a “fireman” whose duty it was to keep the steam up.
      Shattuck had a business card which read, “J.B. Shattuck, Manufacturer of and Dealer in pine, hemlock and oak lumber, soft and hard wood, Newcastle, Me.”
      Millwork was hard. Mr. Shattuck would get up in the morning, milk his cows, pack his lunch and head for the mill for a long day. Joseph was a sawyer at his mill but he apparently did not saw all the time. His ledger for May 30, 1922 shows expenses for a sawyer on the “Light Lot”. At the close of the day, Shattuck would return to his farm for the night milking and the chores.
      Joseph Shattuck bought standing trees to saw into lumber. For example in 1926 he “surveyed” on Warren Gray Farm and bought 10,585 feet of logs at $2.50 per thousand. One year from Jan. to April (no year given) he shipped to the Bath Box Co. Frank Lewis did the hauling. Frank Lewis did a lot of hauling for Shattuck. He is noted as hauling 1” hemlock, white birch and he hauled lumber to the mill to be edged. Frank Clark, Norman Campbell and Sam Tibets also hauled lumber for him.
        In 1922 he paid his sawyer $5, his fireman $3, his marker $3.50 and his roller $2.50 per day. For hauling out and sticking lumber he paid a man $2.50 per day. He paid $4.34 on Sept. 25, 1926 to team and man hauling wood.

Woman’s Club Cook Book
By Arlene Cole
       The Newcastle Historical Society has had a cook book compiled by the Woman’s Club of Damariscotta and Newcastle in 1910, presented to them. The book, donated by Eunice Kelley, belonged to her grandmother Offie Staples Kitteredge (1879-1972). Mrs. Kitteredge resided in No. Penobscott, and by the look of the book, it was well loved. According to “Oyster Shells and Sailing Ships”, Damariscotta’s sesquientennial book, the Woman’s Club was started in 1895 when a group of women in Damariscotta and Newcastle banded together toward “helping improve their environs.” In 1922 they joined with Skidompha Library in purchasing the Dixon House and in 1925 the members of the Women’s Clubs of Lincoln County combined their projects to prepare a home for the elderly people of the county. The cook book was one of their money raisers. The accompanying early picture of the Lincoln Home shows how much has changed through the years as a result of this small beginning. The cook book was printed in Damariscotta by Herald Book and Job Print, 1910. They write of themselves: “If you have noticed, our printing is different. That is, it is different from some in some respects. We usually have our words spelled correctly and we follow authorities in punctuation … The Herald Job Office guarantees to give you satisfaction. Telephone us as our expense.” They do not say at what number or where they are located. There were six members of the cook book committee. Miss Nellie Northey was a daughter of Daniel and Elmira Northey. Daniel was a carriage manufacturer according to Christine Huston Dodge’s records. Nellie never married and died in 1911 at the age of 52. Miss Geneva King, also on the committee, never married. She was a daughter of Dr. Joseph and Alzena King. Geneva was a nurse and was active in the hospital her father started in what is now the Clark apartments. Mrs. Maude David, the third mentioned committee member, was the wife of Frederick David and lived from 1865-1940. Mrs. Sunie C. Belknap, wife of Samuel, died in 1917. She was the mother of Dr. Robert Belknap of Damariscotta. Mrs. Bertha E. Hatch was the wife of Joseph P. Hatch. She was born in 1866 and died a widow, in Kinsington, MD. The sixth lady mentioned was Sarah E. Flye. Was she the second wife of Alden Flye? If so, she died in 1909 before the cook book was actually printed. The book contains recipes for such things as soups, entrees, bread, rolls, pickles, salads, puddings, custards, sandwiches, pies, cakes, candies, ice creams and sherbets: 86 pages of the best recipes of members of the community. Many recipes were short and to the point. “Entire Wheat Bread, 3 cups flour, 1 spoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon soda, 1 teaspoon salt, sift together and add 2 cups of buttermilk. Nellie Northey.” Many recipes had no instructions. “Yeast Rolls”, 1 pint warm water, ½ yeast cake, 1 tablespoon sugar, lard size of egg, salt, flour to make stiff batter. Mrs. F.W. Day.” Mrs. K.M. Dunbar’s lemon pie recipe seems to assume you know it has to have a crust. It reads: “Lemon Pie,” 1 lemon, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk, 2 spoons flour, 2 eggs, beat separately and add whites last. Mrs. K.M. Dunbar.” In making Mrs. J.P. Hatch’s clam chowder, after adding and cooking all ingredients she continues, “Now push to back of stove and add 1 pint or more of milk and piece of butter size of egg. When thoroughly hot serve with crackers.” Miss Mary Metcalf’s sponge cake has no pan size suggestion or temperature or time for baking. It reads in total, “Sponge Cake,” 3 eggs, 1 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoonfuls of water, teaspoonful of soda, 1 of cream tartar, 1 cup of flour, pinch of salt. Miss Mary Metcalf.” There are ads by the Newcastle National Bank, Thomas E. Gay and Son and Fred Harrington’s Furniture, “new and up-to-date furniture with right prices” in both Damariscotta and Newcastle. Ellis W. Nash advertises, “Notice! Booklovers! If you contemplate adding to your library, give us a call. We have on hand some standard works at low prices.” Page’s Marble and Granite Works dealt in “High Grade Marble and Granite Monuments, Tablets and General Cemetery Work … All work delivered and set up by experienced men anywhere in New England.” The Fiske House has “Livery in connection … Steam heat, Electric Lights and Telephone Connection.” But the Maine Hotel Stable has “Hacks to all trains, Carriages for Funerals … Local and Long Distance Telephone.”
        On page 18 one is cautioned that “Bad Soda Spoils Good Flour.” The Arm & Hammer Soda brand of soda suggests one use their soda as “it costs no more than inferior packages – never spoils the flour – always keeps soft.”
       Page 53 cautions one to use “Royal” baking powder. “Look out for alum baking powder. Do not permit them to come into your house under any consideration. They add an injurious substance to your food, destroying in part its digestibility. Alum baking powders may be known by their price. Baking powders at a cent an ounce or ten or twenty-five cents a pound are made from alum. Avoid them. Use no baking powder unless the label shows it is made from cream of tartar … In recipes calling for one teaspoonful of soda and two of cream of tartar, use two spoonfuls of Royal, and leave the cream of tartar and soda out. You get the better food and save much trouble and guess work.”
       Our thanks to Eunice Kelley for a glimpse into the kitchen of nearly 100 years ago.

Twin Village Yacht Club
By Arlene Cole
     There are still many folks who remember when there was a Yacht Club in Newcastle. The Twin Village Yacht Club was officially organized on Nov. 17, 1945 at the Damariscotta Recreational Center in Damariscotta. The name “Twin Village Yacht Club” was chosen and the purpose of the club was “to promote, operate and maintain a yacht club on the Damariscotta River in and about the towns of Newcastle and Damariscotta.” It was also proposed to “promote any related activities commonly carried on by a village yacht club and further develop local water front improvements incident to boating and yachting.” It was recorded at the Lincoln County Registry of Deeds on Jan. 16, 1946.
      Harold Castner was chosen President. Other officers were: Vice President, Dr. Neil Parsons; Sec., Joseph Melanson; Treas., Verne Batteese. Directors and Trustees were: Harold Castner, Verne Batteese, Neil Parsons, Raymond Brown, George Hulen, Spencer Gay, Charles Giles and William Millett.
      The location for the Yacht Club was at the old Socony wharf which in 1945 belonged to Weeks-Waltz Motors in Newcastle on the Damariscotta River. The Yacht Club leased the land. In looking through some old papers, Waldo Waltz found the original copy of the Lease Agreement. It is dated April 1, 1946 and was for three years. The Yacht Club paid the rent of one dollar annually. The Yacht Club (Lessee) agreed “to surrender the premises to the Lessor or his attorney, peaceably and quietly at the end of the term aforesaid in as good order and condition, reasonable use and wearing thereof, or inevitable accident excepted, as the same are or may be put into by the said Lessor; and the said Lessee shall not make or suffer any waste thereof and shall keep the premises and grounds neat and in good condition, and the said Lessee agrees that it will not assign or underlet the premises or any part thereof; without the consent of the Lessor in writing on the back of this Lease:”
       The entrance was agreed to be by way of the regular road on the east side of the river both by vehicle and on foot. There was a liability clause as a protection to Weeks-Waltz Motors from injuries and property damage to any property on or about the premises. The tenant was to carry indemnity insurance.
      The Yacht Club had the right to install and maintain floats and runways and to erect and maintain a suitable yacht Club house and locker room. The area to be used only for operation of a yacht club and not interfere with the garage business of Weeks-Waltz. The Yacht Club had the options of extending the lease for a further three year term.
      The Yacht Club members got busy and built a small club house. In its hey-day and with “runs” headed toward the river and the skiffs used for transportation to the larger boats.
       I have talked with several people who remember well the fun they had at the Yacht Club activities. They tell of the sail boat races with the Boothbay Harbor Club. Sometimes it would be on the upper River and sometimes in the Boothbay area. There were motor boat races, too, and the owners took the speed of their boats very seriously. One person remembers swimming off the pier. When she was little she used the river in another location but as soon as she could swim, that was where she and her friends went. They would dive or jump off the pier and swim near the Yacht Club. And there were dances. Several people have told me of the good dances they had, using records for music. “And it was better at low tide.” It took me a time to figure that one out but I was told that the Club House was low and when the wind and high tide came just right the floor of the Club House would flood. “But you didn’t care after 11 p.m.”, someone said!
      The Town of Newcastle recognized the benefit of having a Yacht Club on the River. In the Town Report for the year ending Feb. 16, 1954, the Warrant, Article 57 reads: “To see what sum, if any, the Town will vote to raise and appropriate for the town public landing, to be paid to the Twin Village Yacht Club as the maintenance agency. Budget Committee recommendation $75.” This was, apparently, passed and each year until 1965 the Town of Newcastle voted money for the public landing. By 1964 the sum had risen to $125.
      The lease to the Yacht Club was renewed. The latest date Waldo Waltz had was when on Feb. 14, 1959 the Twin Village Yacht Club renewed their lease for five years. On Feb. 14, 1964 Vivian Weeks and Clifford Waltz leased the area to the Damariscotta Area Recreational Alliance. The lease agreement is almost word for word the same as the previous one of the Yacht Club. Charles Adams signed as President.
      The leases for the use of the wharf behind Weeks-Waltz Motors all expired. The floats and runways were removed and the little building moved to School St. in Damariscotta near the Little League field. Later, I understand, the little building was moved to Bristol. In the Town Report for the year ending Jan. 31, 1972, Article 9, the Town voted $200 to the Public Landing, Damariscotta Municipal Parking Lot. Newcastle’s Yacht Club is but a pleasant memory.

The Day of Jubilee
Transcribed By Tracy L. Verney
From the notebook of Orianna Averill
         A centennial celebration and a free bridge all at once. The bells rang, the band played and lemonade ran in a river! Sheepscot Bridge, Maine June 23, 1894.  Hurray! Hurraw! Hurraw! shouted the throng.  The hats went up and waved like the tops of the grasses when the gale passes. The canon went bang and the Marshall’s fiery clangor - well he very weakly had a conniption fit!   The bridge was free by that same token of hurrah’s and jubilation!
        The people who cheered and smiled and rejoiced in the sweltering sunshine had paid toll across that plank highway for all their lifetimes and their fathers before them, for the Sheepscot Bridge has had its toll board up for a hundred years.  The hundred years were up yesterday, the charter had expired, the bridge was free, and twas also the Centennial of Incorporation of the towns of Alna and Newcastle, which towns the bridge has linked for so many years.
        Why shouldn’t the people shout and hear the band play and eat a banquet and listen to the speeches and have a good time generally and then go home and do the chores as tired as tired could be?  It was just 11:30 A.M. when that old toll board came down from the corner of F.L. Carney’s store and that was the king incident of the day.  Early in the morning the board had been wreathed in bunting and the nails had been loosened. Then after the forenoon exercises at the church the procession moved down to the head of the bridge, the Damariscotta band merrily tootling in the morn.
       All the throng expectantly “about faced” and looked up at the old board above the store’s piazza.  There were a few words of surrender and Honorable F.L. Carney, in the name of the bridge’s proprietor’s, passed over the keys of the draw to town authorities on the roof of the piazza stand Clarence E. and Richard I. Carney, son and grandson of F.L.   There was a mighty blast from the canon and then young men lowered the old toll board amid the plaudits of the crowd. The memory of an endless procession of nickels and dimes must have inspired the enthusiasm of the moment. Then the long procession “fell in once more and across the “free bridge” they all marched to the music of the band. 
        So you see what a good time we all had down at Sheepscott yesterday.  The celebration commenced at daylight, for when Maine folks take a day for jubilation; they make it a whole day full measure and red fire in the evening.  The flags were swirling and snapping when the sun rose over the gallows ‘ on the draw with the inscription that all who rode might read "1794-- Free Bridge - 1894."   
        By the way, the last man who paid the toll was Honorable. George B. Sawyer, collector of the port of Wiscasset and it happened this way.  About a week ago he drove up to Sheepscott and he got into such an interesting conversation with Mr. Carney that he drove along and clear forgot to pay this toll.  They must have been talking tariff, railroad or goin a fishin. But when Mr. Sawyer came up to the celebration yesterday he had a twinge of conscience, a pang of memory, and as he didn’t want to go down in history as the last man who ever “ran his toll”.  He stopped in paid the pence, and enjoys therefore, quite a different distinction. 
       But as to this celebration that commenced so early by the bright light,  folks came early too - father, mother and grammie and little Willie in behind.  They rode into the village under the flags, hitched Dobbin, Dorothy and the colt in the shade, and were ready for the concert at 9:30.  The exercises of the day were held in the Methodist Church and my how full it was!  And while the orator’s kept the ears of the multitude full, a busy throng of Alna’s housewives filled the vestry beneath with the clatter of dishes and preparations for filling that same multituder’s stomachs later on.  The tables were spread upon the grassy lawn in the rear of the church.  A canopy of cloth covered the banquet tables that occupied several hundred feet of territory.  Here was the busiest scene of the celebration.  The kitchens of the whole countryside contributed to the feast and such a wonderful variety of cake and confections we have not seen for many a moon!
        Twas a friendly field day of Alna and Newcastle cooks. Among the most zealous laborers were the youngsters who in the gloom of the horse sheds ground at the ice cream freezers and tried to keep time to the music of the band, and the happiest of all the celebrants were the hungry boys who were at loose on the fragments of the feast. 
        In the church, at 9:45 A.M. F.L. Carney called the assemblage together with a brief but hearty welcome. The divine blessing was invoked and after a solo by Mrs. A. C. True, F.L. Carney read the following history of the Sheepscot Bridge.  The fact so far as I can ascertain is that the charter of this bridge is the last charter existing in Maine for a toll bridge granted by Massachusetts lends additional interest to the occasion.  The history of ancient Sheepscot “extends back to the earliest settlements of New England and years before the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, June 1676.   One hundred years before the Declaration of Independence, the inhabitants of this village were either captured, killed or driven from their homes by the Indians and the village totally destroyed.  Again in 1688 the war hoop is heard at Sheepscot, lives are lost, bloody scalps deck the girdles of the savage’s, many of the inhabitants escape to the fort on yonder hill, from which they look out upon blazing houses, the slaughter of their cattle and the destruction of their crops. Years of toil again gone, winter near, the foe without but little food and starvation in their retreat. 
         A heroic young man picks his way through the forest to Boston and his help is obtained.  In 1697, those who were living of the people who left in 1688 returned and their descendants have ever remained here. 1n 1762 we find Job Averill licensed to keep a ferry at this place. The rate of toll was “four coppers for a man and three coppers for a horse. In 1793 David Sylvester Esq. and others petitioned the General court of Massachusetts for a charter to build a bridge over Sheepscot River and it was granted on June 22, 1793.  Job Averill deeded for the sum of 5 shillings, land at the West End of the bridge “to join the bridge to”.  The charter was to run 70 years from the time of first collecting toll and allowed 3 years for building.  Rates of toll were foot, 2 pence, horse and rider 6 pence, horse and chair, chaise, sulky, chariot, phaeton, etc. 1 shilling and 8 pence, sled, sleigh, etc, 9 pence, sheep and swine, 6 pence per dozen. 
         The first bridge was built in 1794 from Averill’s ferryway in Alna landing just north of the old store in Newcastle and stood about 16 years.  In 1811 the present bridge was built.  At a meeting in 1809, $1500 was assessed to build it.  The actual cost was $2866.70 besides the land and what of lumber from the old bridge was used.  The bridge was originally 24’ wide, reduced in 1876 to 20’.  In 1847 the Legislature authorized the county commission to lay out a free bridge over the present one.  The case was referred to the courts and losts.  The charter has been extended twice, once in 1862 for 30 years and in 1893 for 1 year. 
         In 1893 legislature authorized the County Commission to lay out a highway over or near the present bridge and we are here today to thank them for the good judgement they have shown in opening a free route through the center of this County from Waldoboro to the Kennebec river. That time expires this day and it is my personal pleasure and duty as agent of the propieters to deliver the bridge to the care and custody of the town authorities of Newcastle and Alna.  From Dr A.M. Card’s remarks, were the bridge endowed with the power of speech possibly it would say something like this - “For a century have I spanned this beautiful Maine River, while I have noted the progress of events and the deeds of men about me. The beloved land from which I have neither power nor Inclination to remove, have I observed in storm and in calm - invaded by a foreign foe and racked by civil strife. In these later years I have heard the distant scream of that iron horse which was never dreamed of in my youth.  The ripples that bathe my feet bear me tidings of man made water-craft, propelled from place to place by the very element upon which they ride, and with a force which waits for neither breeze nor current.
         The gentle zephyrs tell me of human speech, and of lights, rivaling in brilliancy the noonday sun, transmitted by a subtle force that knows neither time nor space.  I hear of minerals dug from the earth, being transmuted into structures very like my own spanning chasms once deemed impassable”. Immediately after the exercises, there was a concerted movement made over the tables and the next hour is fully accounted for.  It was a picnic and banquet combined, a jolly feast under the sun and the skies, and everyone had an appetite.  Divine blessing was again invoked. A concert and more speeches followed.

History of Sheepscot Bridge
By Tracy L. Verney
        In 1764 Job Averill obtained a license for a ferry across the Sheepscot River.  During the May session of the Massachusetts Legislature on June 22, 1793 an act was passed for the purpose of building a bridge over the Sheepscot River in Lincoln County and for supporting the same, at Averill's Ferry, between the towns of Pownalborough and Newcastle.  OnJune 22, 1894 the bridge linking Newcastle and Alna became toll free.  This old bridge was really two bridges separated by a small island, each structure within it's own draw.  By raising the surface of the new bridge nearly five feet, the draws was eliminated.  In August 1947 work started on the new bridge and the Sheepscot bridge was open to traffic in the Summer of 1948.  On October 3, 2005 The Sheepscot Bridge was officially closed to rebuild a new bridge.  As in 1894 and 1947 and again on October 3, 2005 it was a time of celebration and gathering on the bridges, as has been a long standing tradition.  On July 14, 20