USA > Maine > Waldo County > Unity > A history of the Town of Unity, Maine > Part 17
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In the eighteen fifties Solomon Hollis made carriages, sleighs, and pungs in a small shop located in the village. With his single forge and two helpers he manufactured some twelve wagons and sleighs a year. He also turned out cart wheels for dump carts and wagons for farm- ers. When required, Hollis likewise repaired carriages, which took a beating on the terrible roads.
Nelson Dingley had a slightly larger establishment for making car- riages. Dingley moved to Unity in 1838 from Durham, Maine, and bought a general store. The carriage making was a side business. Dingley owned two forges and employed four men in his carriage shop. His annual output consisted of thirty-five wagons and sleighs. However, Dingley, not finding Unity to his taste, moved to Parkman in 1854.
Others who manufactured carriages and sleighs on a small scale were Andrew W. Myrick, Adam W. Myrick, Newell Murch and Samuel G. Otis.
UNITY CHEESE FACTORY
There was a conscientious effort by the agriculturists of Maine dur- ing the nineteenth century to improve their farms, breeding animals, and crops, in fact, all phases of farming. There was a wide interest in animal husbandry, and the progressive farmers were anxious to im- prove their cattle. Most farmers kept only enough cows for their own use, but following the Civil War there was an earnest effort in build- ing up better herds of cows. However, a large herd was unprofitable unless there was a ready market for dairy products.
In the early seventies certain Waldo county dairymen formed an association called the "Waldo County Dairyman's Association". These agriculturalists sought the promotion of dairying and the establish- ment of cheese factories which would afford a market for the surplus milk.
In 1872 Searsmont and Montville Center cheese factories were es- tablished. By the fall of 1874 there were nine cheese factories in the county.52 George Brackett of Belfast was one of the chief promoters who traveled through Waldo county towns speaking before farmers in the interest of building cheese factories. In March 1874 a large group of Unity, Troy and Thorndike farmers gathered in White- house's hall and discussed the subject of building a cheese factory in Unity. The farmers favored the plan and proceeded to form a com- pany. At this March meeting the Unity farmers chose Peter Moulton president, and James R. Taber secretary, and nominated a commit-
52. Maine Farmer, August 8, 1874. The factories were located in Monroe, Searsmont, Northport, Montville, Freedom, Brooks, Waldo, Unity and MacFarland's Corner in Montville.
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tee to solicit support.53 William Taber, Thomas B. Cook, James M. Cook, Benjamin Bartlett, H. B. Rice, Gorham Clough, F. T. Thomp- son, Joseph Mitchell, and Nathaniel Webb with Moulton and Taber formed a corporation by the name of Unity Cheese Manufacturing Company. Its purpose obviously was the manufacture of cheese and "carrying on all branches of trade connected therewith."54 The capital was not to exceed three thousand dollars. When the company was finally organized, W. H. J. Moulton was elected president; Benjamin B. Stevens, secretary; and Jonathan Stone, treasurer. The shares sold for ten dollars each.
Construction was started in the spring of 1874 on the bank of Sandy Stream, where the old corn cannery stood later.55 It was sixty by thirty feet, two stories high, a white painted and clapboard structure. The lower story contained the vats and sixteen presses and the second floor was reserved for the drying and curing room. An elevator car- ried the cheese to the upper floor. The company commenced business July thirteenth. Thomas B. Cook superintended the cheese making. The stockholders mainly furnished the factory with milk, which aver- aged about seventeen hundred pounds a day.56 It took approximately nine pounds of milk to a pound of cheese. The cheeses were fifteen inches across and weighed from forty to sixty pounds each.57 An in- teresting feature was that everything was entirely of local production; the rennet supplied by the butchers, and cheese boxes made by Atwood N. Newell's mill in Unity.58 The factory closed in the fall but opened again in June 1875. The first year was evidently productively suc- cessful since they made somewhere between four and five tons of cheese. Most of the cheese found a ready market in the vicinity, al- though part of it was sold in Portland, where a party well satisfied bought a second lot selling it at fifteen cents a pound.
The second summer found more farmers patronizing the cheese factory. They were taking in about thirty-four hundred pounds of milk daily and the factory was capable of handling milk from four hundred cows.59 This year they made about thirteen tons of cheese and nearly all was sold before the third season, for twelve cents a pound.
The cheese factory continued in operation until 1882. Interest diminished with the dropping prices and the competition of home
53. Maine Farmer, March 21, 1874. The committee consisted of B. B. Stevens, J. R. Taber of Unity, Reuben Call, George L. Tyler, Winslow Whitaker of Troy; Thomas Cornforth, Lyman Cates and Allen Cates of Thorndike.
54. Laws of Maine, 1872-74, Vol. XII, p. 607.
55. Where Marsh Lane resides.
56. No teams were sent out to collect milk.
57. Maine Farmer, September 5, 1874. A complete description is provided here written by George Brackett.
58. The boxes cost fourteen cents apiece.
59. Maine Farmer, July 17, 1875. Gorham Clough became presi- dent during the second and third years. Other directors included George W. Clark and Edwin Rand.
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and out-of-state concerns nearer the larger markets made it econom- ically impossible to keep in operation. James R. Taber took over the closed factory and sold the machinery to a similar concern in Aroos- took county. The building was torn down.
In 1895 Charles S. Cook bought the "red school" house on Quaker Hill and turned it into a cheese factory, but it operated only a few years. Also Benjamin Fogg opened a small butter factory which was only partially successful. The creameries backed by outside invest- ment were the answer to the dairyman's problem.
THE ICE INDUSTRY
During the last half of the nineteenth century a thriving ice cutting industry sprang up, particularly along the Kennebec river60 and soon after the Civil War big ice companies, like the Knickerbocker Ice Company of Philadelphia, entered the then infant industry. The de- mand for ice came about because of the need of refrigeration in the growing American cities and the great impetus given to the summer resort trade. Often southern cities were unable to obtain ice near at hand, consequently Maine could be depended upon for a large supply .. When the winter crop of 1890 failed on the Kennebec and Hudson Rivers, ice businesses looked further inland and "ice was housed on inland ponds and lakes never before attempted."61
As early as 1874 the prospects of ice cutting on Unity Pond were contemplated and perhaps some ice shipped. A news item appearing in the January thirty-first issue of the Republican Journal revealed that "a company are preparing to harvest ice from Unity Pond, the shores of which they bought for this purpose when the Belfast railroad was opened."
The first real ice harvest on Unity Pond commenced in the mid- dle of March 1880. A rather unusual incident brought about the se- lection of the pond for an ice cutting site. Earlier in the same month a man by the name of S. Lydecker, of the Nyack Ice Company, heard of good prospects for ice near Belfast. Lydecker came to Belfast, but on the last stage of his trip from Burnham to Belfast on the Belfast Moosehead railroad caught a glance of a wide expanse of ice. Ly- decker inquired of the conductor, "Is this the Penobscot?" The con- ductor informed him it was Unity Pond. The idea occurred at once to Lydecker to have some ice samples sent to Gardiner. Later he remarked that, "It is the best ice I have ever seen in Maine, so I came back and secured rights to cut."62
60. Ice houses dotted the banks of the Kennebec from Augusta to Bowdoinham in 1890.
61. L. C. Ballard, "The Ice Industry", Report of Industrial and Labor Statistics, 1891, p. 164. After 1890 chemical methods of re- frigeration began to supplant the old fashioned industry.
62. Republican Journal, March 18, 1880.
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A HISTORY OF UNITY, MAINE
Lydecker made the necessary arrangements with Axel Heyford of Belfast then doing a large ice business. Lydecker's men began cutting on the thirteenth of March and quit on the fourteenth of April. One hundred and fifty men worked feverishly day and night and harvested three thousand tons in a day. The company planned on shipping forty thousand tons from here; twenty thousand for the Nyack com- pany itself. The ice was worth three dollars per ton. The crews were hired from the surrounding farms at a dollar a day.
A steam engine of the Maine Central Railroad furnished power for hoisting the ice cakes which were deposited on a sluiceway and pulled by an endless chain to a staging area close to the tracks. The ice was stacked until ready for shipment. The first shipment of one hundred tons was sent by rail to Belfast the last of March and was there loaded into ships.63
Despite the high quality of the ice, none was taken from the pond again for ten years except that for local use. Farmers always put up a few tons every winter. A small quantity was cut on the stream, too.
Three ice companies in the second week of March 1890 worked full blast gathering ice64 on Unity Pond. Two were outside companies and a third, George Fred Terry, the Unity station agent, contracted with an outside company to buy all the ice he could harvest at two dollars and seventy-five cents a ton. The other two were the Connec- ticut Company, and the Knickerbocker Ice Company. When all three companies were working, it was estimated they put up five tons a minute. On the twelfth of March the Journal correspondent wrote that, "Over two hundred men were at work and on some days more than one hundred horses employed."65
Each company had at least one ice house put up along the railroad tracks. The Terry and Knickerbocker ice houses measured two hun- dred by one hundred fifty feet and were capable of holding ten thou- sand tons. The Knickerbocker company used an engine, while the other two used horses for pulling the ice to the ice houses. The cakes ranged from twenty-two by thirty-two to twenty-two by twenty-eight inch blocks, the latter being the Connecticut Company's specifications. Help received from one dollar and a quarter to two dollars a day de- pending on the job. This was the last large scale attempt at putting up ice on the pond. The demand continued for a while longer, but Unity was too far away to make it worthwhile. Only the ice failure on the Kennebec brought the large concerns here.
63. Republican Journal, April 1, 1880.
64. A fourth group of local men, Frank Bartlett and Peter Ayer, put up ice, but failed to make it worthwhile. In this year (1890) there was no ice on the Hudson and the ice on the Kennebec was thin. Consequently ice companies fearing an ice shortage investigated the ice privileges on the ponds. Unfortunately more ice was put up than was needed. The summer of 1890 being unusually cool Maine ice glut- ted the market. Therefore, the little concerns, which expected a big de- mand during the hot months, lost out.
65. Republican Journal, March 20, 1890.
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INDUSTRIES OF UNITY
THE CREAMERIES
In 1901 there were three creameries in Waldo County, one each at Belfast, Monroe, and Unity.66 The local cheese and butter making episodes were unprofitable, largely because of their local origin, limited capital, and limited market. It required outside capital to finance a plant of any size. In the eighteen nineties farmers in Unity began to find a market for their cream and milk in the summer resorts and outside the state, particularly in Massachusetts.67 In 1901 Waldo county ranked ninth in the number of dairy cows in the state, thus the growing interest in dairying brought about the establishment of a creamery in Unity rather early in this section.
In February 1893, a group of businessmen met in the office of Seth W. Larrabee in Portland and organized a new company named the Crystal Spring Creamery to be located in Unity. Its purpose was, "To manufacture butter, cheese and to buy and sell and deal in milk, cream, and butter, cheese, eggs and all products of the farm and dairy including all kinds of country produce; to build and erect and complete and equip and operate in the county of Waldo factories for the manufacture of butter, cheese and other dairy products . . . "68
Among the stockholders were J. C. Libby of Waterville, Seth Larra- bee, Thomas Shaw, Rufus C. Fuller of Portland, Frank L. Oakes of Yarmouth, Frank Bartlett and Lindley H. Mosher of Unity. Thomas Shaw was chosen president, and Frank L. Oakes, treasurer.69
A factory was built in the spring of 1893 at a cost of three thousand dollars and opened for business employing three men.7ยบ It was located at the railroad station behind the present Farwell store. Dedication exercises and a dance were held in the creamery to celebrate its open- ing. Charles Smith of Newport became manager for several years and Willis Giles and Benjamin Fogg were buttermakers. Unfortu- nately the company could not make money, and the Crystal Spring Creamery was mortgaged to Joseph Farwell (old Joe), but continued in operation until 1904 when H. P. Hood and Company purchased it. Hood's have maintained a creamery, or receiving station, here ever since. Hood's employ three men and for many years have sent a refrigerator car of milk to Boston three hundred and sixty-five days of the year.
66. Report of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Maine, 1901, "The Dairy Business", p. 31.
67. Ibid.
68. Certificate of Organization of a Corporation, Crystal Spring Creamery, Secretary of State's Office, Augusta, Vol. XX, pp. 231- 232.
69. Libby was the largest stockholder, the others held ten shares apiece except Mosher, who owned one share.
70. Report of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Maine, 1893, p. 183.
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A HISTORY OF UNITY, MAINE
TURNER CENTER CREAMERY
The Turner Center Dairying Association was started in 1882, moving in 1898 its main headquarters to Auburn.71 In 1900 it was considered one of the three largest in the United States and was the largest in Maine. Branch creameries in this area soon became estab- lished at Richmond, 1904; Farmington, 1906; Newport, Thorndike, Jackson, 1906; Newburgh, Carmel 1906; Troy, 1905, and Unity. At first the Unity branch was only a receiving station and ice house. Albion, Palermo, Brooks, Belfast and Pittsfield were also receiving stations. In 1908 the Turner Center people built a fine new creamery at the railway depot in Unity. Guy Norton held the manager's posi- tion and was succeeded by Harry J. Whitney. Milk was hauled by team from the creamery to Troy. George Meservey used to drive the milk wagon. Since gasoline driven trucks have appeared, milk is col- lected and hauled in trucks to the creamery from Troy, Albion, Thorndike and the Unity farms. However, local farmers every morn- ing used to carry their four or five ten-gallon metal cans in their own wagons or pungs, depending on the season.
In 1929 the Unity Branch of the Turner Center plant was sold to H. P. Hood and Sons. Hood's closed their old factory and moved into the Turner Center plant. The present manager is James Neal, assisted by two employees. Now all milk is shipped direct to Boston.
PORTLAND PACKING COMPANY
The canning industry is much older than might be supposed. Though the early attempts were crude and unsatisfactory, a beginning was made in 1840 by Isaac Winslow of Portland, Maine. He con- ceived the plan of preserving green vegetables by hermetically sealing them in cans.72 Before the Civil War, another Winslow, a brother of Isaac and his nephew, John W. Jones, engaged in the "packing busi- ness and was practically the only one in the business."73 In 1861 Davis, Baxter and Company started packing lobsters and in 1862 "in connection with Rumery and Burnham" founded the "Portland Pack- ing Company." The business was owned jointly for four years and then Davis, Baxter and Company bought the interests of Rumery and Burnham. The Portland Packing Company at this time was headed by William G. Davis, James P. Baxter and Samuel Rumery. Other companies appeared like "United Packer" located at New Glouces- ter; H. F. Webb and Company at Rumford; and in 1888, three firms entered the business, H. C. Baxter and Brothers, Fernald and Keene, and Winterport Packing Company.
71. There was a plant at Turner first. H. C. Haskell, President, George B. Bradford, clerk, and L. P. Bradford. Later E. D. Chase of Unity became one of the directors.
72. Report of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Maine, 1900 "The Canning Industry", p. 68.
73. Ibid.
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INDUSTRIES OF UNITY
In May 1887 the Portland Packing Company began building its twenty-eighth cannery at Unity.74 The Republican Journal corres- pondent wrote, "The buildings for the corn packing factory are now underway and are larger than originally stated. The main building is to be two hundred and forty feet. The husking house will be eighty by twenty feet and engine house thirty by twenty feet."75 Six varieties of corn were distributed to the farmers.
CANNING FACTORY
During the spring and summer the Unity farmers planted, culti- vated, and hoed two hundred and forty-eight acres of corn contracted for by the company. The new enterprise stirred up talk and activity in the town, so that the small village buzzed with activity, speculation, and comments. The new factory arose from its foundations, and, new hands were employed setting up boilers, canning machinery and laying pipelines. During July and August a newcomer, William Rolfe, overseered the manufacture of tin cans, his machines manufacturing about 3,000 cans per day.76
All was in readiness when the canning factory opened during the week of September seventh. The 150 laborers found the work grueling, especially in the yards under the hot September sun. On one record canning day they canned 25,600 cans of corn.
At the close of the season (about October 5) the Portland Canning plant had canned a total of 343,255 cans of corn, equal to about 327 tons. The expense for the company was estimated for the new build- ing, machinery, and labor slightly over $13,000.77
For the farmers it did not prove a too profitable venture probably because of the unfavorable season that year. However, the farmer profited from fourteen to fifty dollars per acre depending on his in- dividual yield. The farmers received a cent and a half a pound for the green corn with a promise of one cent and three-quarters for the fol- lowing year.
The first superintendent was a Mr. Hamilton, but in the summer of 1888 he was succeeded by William Rolfe of Monmouth. Rolfe and his family remained here until 1904, and then Albert Bacon succeeded him as superintendent. In 1915 Harry Brown took over this position. In the first year's operation a training crew came from Nova Scotia but since that time nearly all help has been local.78 Gurney Stevens was yard man; James B. Frost moved here from Gorham and was assigned supervision of the retorts.
74. Republican Journal, May 5, 1887.
75. Ibid., The canning factory was originally erected on the bank of 'Sandy Stream near the bridge on the same spot where Marsh Lane has his house, shingle and cidar mill, where the cheese factory stood.
76. Belfast Free Press, August 16, 1887.
77. Belfast City Press, October 11, 1887.
78. During the man shortage of World War II one year-Jamaicans were imported as hands and another year German prisoners of war were used, being brought every morning from Bangor.
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A HISTORY OF UNITY, MAINE
According to the 1910 labor statistics the Portland Packing Com- pany then employed eighty-five people, forty-five men and forty women.79
Sweet corn was the only vegetable canned for many years. Methods and processes of packing corn have changed radically over the years. The Unity factory was built at the time power cutters were first at- tempted for cutting the corn off the cob. Farmers dumped their wagon loads of green corn in the yard, where yard workers husked it by hand. Workers received four cents a basket, a standard price for years. This job represented a husking bee on a large scale. Much to the consternation of the men certain women huddled over piles of corn with their full skirts covering the ears like a setting hen with her chicks. The purpose was to monopolize the corn and thus to gain more baskets of husked corn. Many a boy and girl after school earned a little pocket money husking. Little checks were issued to each person, who kept track of his work and turned them in at the end of the day. After the corn was husked, it was run through cutters.80 The hulled corn was screened and ingredients added for taste (salt) and then carried to the cooker, where it was partially cooked by steam. The cans were filled in the cooker, and then were capped by hand. However, the cans were not yet sealed, but passed to the soldering machine, where the caps were soldered on. Each cap had a small needle hole, probably allowing for expan- sion. Now the cans passed on an endless belt between two men with soldering irons who sealed the vent. The cans went through a brief under-water bath to determine if there were any leaks, easily detected by air bubbles. The next step involved a two-hour cooking under steam pressure in large retorts. After this process they were removed and placed on a platform where a man with a hose sprayed water on them. Now the canned goods were packed in bulk in an attic room. The whole process was quite complicated and required hours of hard work. The corn canning season lasted from four to six weeks and commenced usually during the latter part of August. In the fall months the bulk cans were labeled and "Joe" Libby's or Clough Mo- sher's teams hauled them to the station for shipping. All this was required before the cold weather.
In 1923 the old corn shop was torn down, and a new one built at the station. In this year the Portland Packing Company tried for the first time to can peas. Farmers, always conservative, were reluctant about planting a new crop; thus the first year only one hundred and fifty acres were planted. The third year the farmers in the vicinity planted eleven hundred acres for the Unity plant. Beginning with a pack of fifteen thousand cases in 1923, they packed one hundred thou-
79. Industrial and Labor Statistics, Maine, 1910, p. 192.
80. There were a half dozen cutters in the Unity shop.
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sand cases three years later.81 In Albion, Newport, and a place near Thorndike viners were built. From these points trucks hauled the shelled peas to the Unity plant where they were processed.
Unity farmers planted anywhere from a half acre to twenty-three acres, although they usually planted an average of three and a half acres.82 Beans were likewise canned, and a few years later carrots and beets were tried. The latter vegetables, however, are not now packed at Unity. In recent years more peas than corn have been canned. The shop starts operation soon after the fourth of July. Five weeks usually takes care of the pea canning season. The bean canning season fol- lowed, but now is done elsewhere and an interim of three or four weeks comes between peas and corn.
A few men are employed the year round in the shop. Labeling and shipping is done through the winter. The canning factory has been an asset as far as providing incomes for laborers; to a few this has been their largest source of income. Less peas and corn are at present planted in Unity than formerly; potato farming now plays an impor- tant role in the economic life of the community.
81. Maurice D. Jones, Methods Used in Growing Peas for Canning in Maine and Problems Connected with their Economical Production, University of Maine Studies, Second Series, No. 9, 1927, p. 11.
82. Ibid., p. 12.
CHAPTER X
THE NORTH WALDO AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY
From the North Waldo Agricultural Society eminated the Unity Fair. A marked interest was shown by Maine farmers in agricultural improvement especially during the latter half of the nineteenth cen- tury. This was revealed through the several agricultural societies or clubs which were formed between 1800 and 1870. On July 3, 1847, a group of farmers and other interested men from Waldo county met at the court house in Belfast and organized a new agricultural so- ciety named the Waldo County Agricultural Society. Among the officers elected were Isaac Twombly, president; William C. Sibley of Freedom, secretary; and Josiah Murch of Unity, one of the two vice presidents.1 Organizations like these fostered general interest and exchange of diversified information. Fairs were held annually, where farmers inspected or exhibited the best of live stock and farm prod- uce. The Waldo County Agricultural Society resulted in a great suc- cess and soon the northern towns in the county felt that they would benefit even more by having an organization nearer home. Cattle shows like one held in October 1849 at Belfast exhibited stock from Thorndike, Unity, Montville, Searsmont, Freedom, Appleton, Brooks, Waldo, Searsport, Knox and Belfast, and impressed the farmers.2 About the same time a North Kennebec Society was formed in which Thomas Fowler, first vice president, and Grant Gilpatrick of Unity participated.3
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