USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 54
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Opposition to the plan was immediate and vigorous. Both sides marshalled their forces and the struggle was on, increasing in intensity up to the March meeting. In mid-February, Bernard Allen, City Manager of Auburn, was invited to come to town and explain the system in detail. A heavy ice storm resulted in a meager attendance, and in consequence a second citizens' meet- ing was held on the 9th of March, with Messrs. Elden Shute and Paul Powers of Freeport discussing the system and its workings in that town. There was a large turnout representing both sides of the issue. Not entirely content, the committee circularized the town at the last minute with a flyer, placed in all mail boxes, which explained the system and sought to dissolve all objections by printing a long series of questions and answers in reference to the plan. On March 14th the citizens met in Town Meeting and cast their ballots. The vote was a close one, 277 votes having been cast for the system and 259 opposed to it. The question had been listed at the very bottom of the printed ballot, and in consequence was passed perhaps unnoticed by some. Hence there were sixty- seven blank ballots, a fact which still left the issue a burning one, since it was alleged that the plan had been adopted by a minority of those voting.
The reaction to the defeat of the old system was definite and prompt. The Board of Selectmen, apparently lacking interest
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
in the new method of administering town affairs, resigned, and in consequence it became necessary to convene the voters in an- other meeting to elect new town officers. The town received the action of its Board of Selectmen in resigning office as somewhat unsportsmanlike, and a strong undercurrent of disapproval devel- oped. In the meantime a warrant had been drawn up for a Town Meeting on the 7th of April, and the opposition to the manager plan, unwisely and inexpertly led, inserted an article to rescind the action of the earlier meeting, which had adopted the new plan. Again the political pulse registered high speed, but this time, to use a mixed figure, the tide flowed all in one direction.
The April meeting was a memorable one, a revelation of Democracy at its most vigorous best. Those who could talk were there to talk, and the rest were there prepared to enjoy the spec- tacle and to vote. After hours of arguing and crude parliamentary maneuvering the article to rescind came to a vote and was literally overwhelmed. Only eighty-nine votes were cast in favor of re- scinding the manager plan, and 284 votes were recorded against such action. The new Board of Selectmen was made up of John H. Foster, Chester Light, and Herbert L. Stahl. In due season Mr. Ralph Irving of North Berwick became Waldoboro's first town manager. The new Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, Mr. John H. Foster, a retired vice president, treasurer and director of the Florence Stove Company, resident in the town since 1946, has most generously and effectively devoted his leisure to the public interest. He has been responsible for giving the town the most efficient administration of its affairs in the present century. He, too, more than any other, has led and promoted the economic development of the community, the Waldoboro Locker Plant and the Sylvania Electric Corporation here today being monuments to his intelligent and vigorous leadership.
There was a further episode in the closing months of 1949 which was basic to the expanding economic life of the town. This concerned an adequate and palatable supply of water for domestic and industrial use. Since the ownership and control of this service passed out of the hands of the original Waldoboro Water Com- pany, the property has repeatedly changed ownership, and it is now controlled and operated, along with a number of other small water services in the state, by New York interests. When this service was first installed in the town there were relatively few users and the supply was drawn from artesian wells located on my property and the adjoining Fred Scott estate. As the service grew a supplementary supply was drawn from the old Shoe Factory reservoir on the farm of Dr. F. M. Eveleth.
485
The Decades of Rebirth
Over the years users have multiplied and the growth of town industries using large quantities of water has rendered the old supply insufficient. Matters came to a head following a series of severe droughts in the summers of 1947, 1948, and 1949, during which users were without an acceptable water supply at times, and the town without adequate fire protection. In the face of general complaint the attention of the State Utilities Commission was direced to the matter, and in consequence a public hearing was held at Waldoboro on August 25, 1949. About a dozen wit- nesses appeared for the town, and the company was represented by its attorney, Edward N. Merrill of Skowhegan. The wrangle lasted for several hours, from which some witnesses emerged bat- tered and confused and others triumphant. The company con- tested every inch of ground, defending the use of chlorinated water pumped into mains from the Medomak River between Soule's Bridge and the Great Falls, despite the fact that the refuse from the plant dressing three million pounds of poultry annually and the raw sewage from several homes were discharged into the river at this point. On the basis of evidence submitted at this hear- ing the Commission decreed the service inadequate and ordered the company to file in writing within twenty days a report show- ing steps taken to remedy the deficiency.
In due time the company countered with the proposition to install a filtration plant on the river, to cleanse the water by a diatomite filter using diatomaceous earth, a slurry tank, and a chlorinator at a cost of from five to ten thousand dollars. This pro- posal did not meet the approval of the Commission. In conse- quence the company after a long battle capitulated, and in late October purchased the old Booth Brothers quarry on the height of land about a half mile beyond the railroad track. As a result of excavations made in solid rock a half century before, it now has a reservoir ranging in depth from sixty to eighty feet, and a reserve of water roughly estimated at more than a million gallons. The work of piping the water down to the mains south of the railroad track was begun in the late autumn of 1949 and com- pleted in the spring of 1950. In case the quarry reservoir, as it now seems, is well fed from seams deep in the rock, this reserve source should meet the town's need for service far into an unfore- seeable future.
With this chapter the history of Waldoboro has been brought down to the year 1950. From this point looking backward for nearly three centuries there seems discernible a rather definite cyclic rhythm. The period from the 1660's to the 1740's was a long sequence of hanging on and intermittently letting go. From
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
the 1740's to 1800 the rhythm of development was slowly upward, attended by tragic hardship and the convulsive shocks of three major wars. In the era from 1800 to 1870 the upward surge was a proud and mighty one, denominated in this history as the Great Days. Around 1870 the swing turned again downward, and the decades became quieter and quieter, another period of hanging on reaching down into the 1930's, when again there was a sudden renascence of energy, confidence, and hope, and the sweep of this long, historical rhythm curved sharply upward, where we leave it in the year 1950.
L
IN THE YEAR 1950
History is life and life moves as a whole. It moves with the impetus of the past but it moves towards realization. The present is pregnant with the future. JOHN ELOF BOODIN
Tx HIS CHAPTER ESSAYS THE TASK of a frank evaluation of the pres- ent. In it I will at times step on to the historical scene in the mantle of the seer, and will attempt a sociological essay. Using history as a springboard I will occasionally take off into uncharted and, as yet, unexplorable seas. I will assume that the economic, edu- cational, religious, social, and cultural life of the town in the present is susceptible of a competent evaluation.
In essaying such a task certain risks are unquestionably in- curred, for history is made from day to day, from year to year. The human flux is ever in motion. It does not stabilize for long at any single moment. Hence an evaluation of the present is always hazardous, for today the swiftly changing scene suggests one in- terpretation, tomorrow another. Indeed, the trends of the future more often than not belie the predictions of the present. This chapter is frankly an attempt to catch history on the march; to depict a condition as though it had come to a stop in a single year. By the time this book is in print developments will have refuted portions of it. Especially is this true of the town's economy, for the economic tides sometimes move rapidly and strangely, and no man, so far as the present is concerned, can predict their course. In other areas it is different. Social, religious, educational, and cultural patterns are more fixed. They are rooted in conduct and custom. There will be certain changes in these areas, too, in the direction of value and virtue, it is hoped, but they will be almost imperceptibly slow. Hence such evaluations will stand for some time by reason of their own strength. It is not as an apologist that I have offered these words. I know quite well how ephemeral human judgments can be, and have written this paragraph to dispel on the part of the reader any illusions that an historian does not know the difference between solid rock and shifting sands.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
I
The economy of present-day Waldoboro is in itself sound, diversified, and productive, more so, perhaps, than any other social unit in this area. This condition is, however, a comparatively re- cent development. In its inception it stemmed from two major sources, the war industries in this region and the lowly clam of the Medomak River.
The disparaging conception of the clam as "lowly" goes back to the earliest periods of colonial New England, when the poor survived periodically on clams, since there was nothing else to eat. Thus it was that the clam came to be thought of as the diet of poverty, a stigma of indigence which adhered to it un- shakably for centuries. It is, in fact, only in the modern period that this plentiful bivalve has achieved dietary respectability. In the earliest days of mankind on this river it proved itself a saving sustenance, and in his later days on the river it has proved itself a restorative force in his economic life.
Only in the last decade has the potential of our great river "flats" been fully - perhaps too fully - exploited. These Medo- mak flats are one of the largest flats areas of any Maine coastal river. In fact, the three rivers of Lincoln County produce only a little less than half of all the clams dug in the eight coastal counties. Taking the year 1947 as a measure of clam production - and it is a good yardstick - of the 7,898,292 pounds of clams dug in the coastal counties, valued at $1,496,642, 3,190,034 pounds were taken from Lincoln County,1 and of these rivers the Medo- mak flats are the most productive. According to Warren A. Hume, supervising warden2 of this district, the flats of the Medo- mak River yielded in 1946 better than $3,000 daily - the hundred and fifty diggers averaging from two hundred to three hundred barrels per day. A conservative inference from this figure would warrant the conclusion that $630,000 worth of clams were taken this year from this single river, bay, and coastal area.
Not all this profit accrued to Waldoboro diggers, though they were by far the most numerous. Operations had started on a large scale in 1941, and by 1947 there were forty-eight dories going out from Storer's wharf, fifteen from the Back Cove and twenty-five from Dutch Neck.3 In this year one of the seven buyers bought one hundred barrels daily, covering a period of six months, and disbursed $147,000. The best diggers cleared $5,000 for the season, and one man and his son banked $8,000 in the single year. In this period (1941-1950) it is conservatively
1Fifteenth Biennial Report, Me. Dept. of Sea and Shore Fisheries (Augusta, Me., 1948).
2Waldoboro Press, Oct. 17, 1946.
3John L. Stevens, Second District Warden.
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In the Year 1950
estimated that the clam added $3,000,000 to the town's wealth. The results from this bounty of nature were highly beneficial, for many of those least favored by Fortune became a moneyed class. Houses were bought, fully repaired and modernized, a high standard of living was realized, homes were freely cleared of mort- gages, and substantial bank accounts were set up.
For a decade the clam beds were a gold mine, and, if ade- quate controls were set up regulating their use, they would be still. The life history of the clam is so well known to science that by intelligent control of the flat-beds, they could easily be- come a source of steady and substantial revenue. This would involve state regulation, for man is too greedy an animal ever to be willing to inaugurate voluntary or local controls.
The digging of clams is only one phase of the exploitation of the bivalve. There is also the employment furnished to buyers, shuckers, processors, canners, and distributors. This secondary process is also a part of the Waldoboro industry; for in 1948, Soffron Brothers of Ipswich, Massachusetts, acquired a part of the old Reed & Welt shipyard property and erected there a sizable factory which employs five trucks delivering and collecting clams. These are hauled in from Kittery to Jonesport. In 1949 a third of those processed came from the Medomak River. The plant gives employment to seventy-five people. A considerable part of the processed product is packed raw in gallon cans for distribution to the Howard Johnson chain of restaurants. All told, when this in- dustry is analyzed in its varied ramifications, it nets the people of the town an income ranging from $100,000 to $200,000 annually.
The lobster fishing in the town is a considerably smaller ac- tivity. It is carried on by about ten fishermen from Goose River district, fifteen from Back Cove, five from the Necks and five from the village area. By using motorboats, they can trap lobsters in the outer reaches of the bay. During the war years as many as 330 barrels were sold in one day, and the largest individual catch for any one day netted the fisherman $54.00.4 These are maximum figures, substantially above the seasonal average, but from such data as can be obtained, it appears that the industry nets the fishermen $75,000 per annum.
Another phase of the fishing industry is the catch of smelts taken through the river ice by "smelt shanties." This is a winter industry lasting from three to four months. Each year there is an average of one hundred houses on the ice, forming a colorful winter scene on the river, with smoke soaring up from little black funnels which project through the roofs of "shanties" of every conceivable hue. A maximum seasonal net is $500 with a maxi-
4John L. Stevens, Second District Warden.
4.90
HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
mum of $161 for a week's work by Clinton E. Matthews in 1945. A good winter average would be $300 per fisherman. The fish are of all sizes, ranging from five to fifteen fish per pound. They are expressed to the Boston and New York markets. The recent dredging of the river will unquestionably leave a greater depth of water under the thick ice at low tide and result in a better run of fish.5
An important phase of the Waldoboro agricultural economy is the blueberry industry. The town's great geographical area in- cludes many hundred acres of land in pasture and cleared-off woodland that are highly suitable for blueberry growth. Some of the berries are sold fresh on the Boston and New York markets, but the major portion of the crop each year is canned, frozen, and dehydrated. The annual harvest is sold to so many different buyers and factories that its value is difficult to estimate. In 1948 the Bird Factory at Winslow's Mills canned and packed 100,000 pounds. One hundred thousand dollars annually is probably a very con- servative estimate of the income derived from this source. It may be further noted that only a small fraction of first-rate land for blueberries is devoted to this industry. With relative ease the town could increase excellent berry land tenfold.6
Closely connected and supplementing the blueberry industry is the plant of the Medomak Canning Company. There are few people in the town with any clear notion of the scope of this industry, located at Winslow's Mills, two and one half miles from the village. It was established in 1917 by Henry Bird of Rockland and is one in a chain of factories. The local plant is under the management of Edwin Hussey. It operates from April to Decem- ber, reaching its peak production during the blueberry season. During the past ten years it has canned many products in the fish, vegetable, and fruit line. In the year 1943, by early August, its pack had reached a total of 760,000 cans. Broken down into specific products this included 150,000 cans of sea herring; 120,000 cans of mackerel and alewives; 20,000 cans of shrimp; 100,000 cans of mussels, and 250,000 cans of blueberries. By the end of the season of 1943, the pack far surpassed 1,000,000 cases. During the year 1948, the factory turned out 1,872,000 cans of blueberries, which it processed at the rate of 1000 bushels a day. At the peak of a good season this work employs eighty hands, with the season's overall about forty hands.7
The most productive branch of the town's agricultural econ- omy is poultry, a field in which Waldoboro is one of the state's major producers. Its 1940 census showed more poultry per square
5Data furnished by Clinton E. Matthews.
6Based on data furnished by Frederick H. Bird, Ivan Scott, and other local growers.
7Data furnished by Frederick H. Bird and Edwin Hussey.
491
In the Year 1950
mile than any other town in the state, and since the 1940 census this field has been expanding rapidly and continuously, until at the present time the poultry population is around 200,000 birds. The rugged climate seems to breed a hardy stock, since it calls out everything there is in the adaptive mechanism of the birds, thus producing a greater weight for marketing at the end of the growing period. The prevailing breed is a sex-linked cross of the Barred Rock hen and the Rhode Island Red cockerel.
There are about ninety people whose major business is the raising of poultry. Their flocks range in size from 1,000 to 7,000 birds; 1,500 provides a good living and from 2,500 to 3,000 birds is the economical size for management. The largest flock, of about 7,000 birds, is probably that of Russell McLeod and is handled by three men. Profit per bird per year ranges from one to three dollars with a year-long average of two dollars per bird. Egg pro- duction is but one phase of this business. Closely related is the hatching of chicks. There are three major hatchers in the town, Melville Davis, Wilmot Dow, and Foster Jameson, and these hatch- eries produce 300,000 chicks annually. Another phase of the busi- ness, broiler-raising, nets the poultrymen between $50,000 and $75,000 annually. Most eggs are sold to local buyers, who trans- port them by trucks to the city markets. Hence some of the middle man's profit is retained in the town. The same holds true of the subsidiary grain business which at present price levels reaches an annual total of around $5,000,000. The poultry business is a flexible one, expanding and contracting to meet economic demands. Judged by long-range net income, it is a safe assumption that it is the town's million dollar industry.8
An allied business is the big live and dressed poultry plant of Phillip Cohen.9 In 1935 Mr. Cohen acquired the old Medomak Flour Mill which he converted into his headquarters for the pur- chasing and shipping of live poultry. In 1943 he began the dressing of poultry, a business which has undergone a rapid expansion. At the present time the plant employs fifty workers as truck drivers, pick-up crews, and processors. The trucks range through the south and central counties of Maine and into Canada. All poultry is brought to the Waldoboro plant for dressing and packing, and from there is shipped to the Boston and New York markets in refrigerator trailers. The scope of this business may be seen in the fact that it ships more than 3,000,000 pounds of poultry an- nually and has a yearly payroll of $175,000.
To some degree related, but a business of a more varied scope, is the new Frozen Food Center of the Waldoboro Lockers, Inc. The idea of such a plant was initiated in 1947, when the plan
8Data furnished by Wilmot Dow and Foster Jameson.
"Recently destroyed by fire.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
was first formulated. It was discarded, then revived over the fol- lowing two years. The Center was finally built in 1949 at a cost of $65,000 raised through the sale of stock. It is the only industry of its type between the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers, and has 537 individual lockers with space for the addition of 210 more. The plant is set up not only for processing and storage, but will serve as a center for the distribution of frozen foods, grown locally and otherwise. The Locker Plant was opened on December 3, 1949, and on that day was visited and inspected by 1000 persons. Today it employs eight hands and has an annual payroll of $16,000.
The "tourist trade" in Waldoboro is not as highly developed as in some other towns in the county, such as Boothbay Harbor, and this is in a degree fortunate, for it is a seasonal industry and hence an unsteady source of income. There are a goodly number of homes in the town owned by seasonal visitors and occupied from three to five months. A half-dozen houses, the cabins owned by James Wood on the Benner Hill, and four other places are open to visitors during the season. The four resorts are Medomak Farms at North Waldoboro, Quiner's at Butter Point, Moody's Cabins, and Slaigo Ledges.
The Medomak Farms, located on a hill overlooking Medomak Pond, received 270 guests in the year 1949. The little resort known as Slaigo Ledges is a smartly managed guest-home with a maximum capacity of ten persons. During the year 1949, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Butters entertained eighty-seven long and short-term guests. Quiner's at Butter Point is a somewhat larger resort, a big, old expanded farmhouse with smaller lodges adjacent. For a number of years it has operated at its full capacity of forty guests and is served by a staff of eight people directed by Frances B. Quiner, who imparts to the place an atmosphere of genial warmth. During the season this resort provides rest and relaxation for several hun- dred people and is a decided asset to the town on the economic and social side.
The largest tourist center in the town is Moody's Cabins, and under the efficient and energetic direction of Percy Moody, it handles a larger volume of tourist business than any resort in the county. Pisturesquely located on a plateau at the top of Willett Hill on the site of the old Deacon William Cole-Everett Simmons farms, are seventeen cabins. Each accommodates from two to six persons, and their total capacity at any one time is sixty-four people.
Here guests come from June to November, some for over- night and some for a stay of weeks. Being reasonably priced and serviced, this place is popular far and near. In the year 1948, 6,800 persons were housed in the cabins. Down under the hill on No. 1
FREDERICK G. PAYNE Governor of Maine 1949-1953 United States Senator 1953 ---
493
In the Year 1950
highway is the picturesque adjunct known as Moody's Diner, fre- quented all day and all night by a colorful feeding population drawn from every stratum of American society. Here as many as 1,000 people have been fed in a twenty-four hour period. The cabins and diner are staffed by about twenty people. Food is good, the price range is fair, and here has grown up an institution known all over eastern America - one of the best managed and most sub- stantial businesses in the town. The full extent of the tourist busi- ness in Waldoboro may be in part inferred from the fact that in 1949 these centers cared for 7,400 guests.
Under the long hill next to the river at the foot of Main Street, in the old "Steve Jones" sail loft is an active braided rug industry, the Colonial Craft Rug Company owned and operated since 1947 by Mrs. Grace Bean. This is a national enterprise as well as a centralized home industry. Here on file are the names of 220 braiders, 175 of whom live within a fifteen-mile radius of the local center. A staff of nine sewers works at the plant under the direction of Mrs. Bean. The market is nationwide, and the product is handled by the most widely known dealers, such as Paine in Boston, W. & J. Sloane in New York, Marshall Field in Chicago, and Meyer & Frank in Portland (Oregon) and San Fran- cisco. While Colonial Craft will sell rugs retail, ninety-five per cent of its business is done wholesale with big, national dealers. These rugs vary in size from two by three feet to sixteen by twenty-four feet, but any size is made on order and can be de- signed to harmonize with hangings and upholstery. The produc- tive capacity of the shop is about 4,000 square feet per month.
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