USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Sebago Lake Land in history, legend & romance > Part 4
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The opening of the canal on Tuesday, June first, 1830 caused great excitement in the farm settlements along the canal's course. For the first time the inhabitants of Harrison could deliver farm produce to Portland without recourse to a long tiresome road journey over narrow rocky trails for most of the way. Starting at Harrison the canal
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boats sailed down Long Lake to Naples, through Brandy Pond (Bay of Naples) into the Songo River where they entered the first of a series of locks. The Songo Lock is still used by the Songo River Steamers. They were then poled along the twisting narrow Songo into Sebago Lake where they raised their stumpy little masts, set sail and, wind per- mitting, sailed down Sebago between Frye's Island and the tip of Raymond Cape, across Jordan's Bay to White's Bridge. From White's Bridge they were again poled the length of Sebago Basin to another lock, and then entered the canal where they were taken in tow by horses and led along the way to Portland.
The first boat to make the historic initial trip through the canal bore the illustrious name of George Washington, and was painted in glowing national colors, with carvings of George and Martha at the stern. Its chief attraction was a well stocked bar, and it catered to special charter parties. They advertised an "Exhilarating cruise in the country with- out danger of squalls and seasickness." On June fifth, 1830, the Portland Light Infantry celebrated their twenty-seventh anniversary by sailing on the George Washington to Stroudwater Bridge, - "Where they landed and shortly thereafter sat down to a sumptuous dinner served in Mr. Broad's (of Broad's Tavern) best style". Nathaniel Hawthorne, as did Longfellow the poet, journeyed to Sebago Lake in this manner. But the George Washington was not a financial success, due to the fact that liquor was sold at a dozen places along the route, while the boat could be in but one place at a time. Thus the patronage of the thirsty did not come up to expectations. Neither did passenger traffic show its appreciation. Natives wishing to go to Portland took the first boat that came along, or arranged to go with some skipper who might be a personal friend. So the elab- orate George Washington soon joined the procession of prosaic freighters.
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On the day after the opening of the canal the first two "freighters"arrived at the outlet in Fore River, - one was the Columbus piloted by Captain Thayer, with twenty thousand feet of timber, and the other was Captain Thurston's Berrien loaded with wood.
It took an average of three days for a canal boat to nego- tiate the entire distance of about fifty miles, providing the winds were favorable, and there were no undue interrup- tions, such as "cave-ins" along the route of the canal, or too frequent alcoholic festivities. The quickest trip ever made was by Captain Goodridge, from the old drawbridge at Naples to Portland in one day. He had a load of apples from the Perley farm in Naples safely on board the Schooner Fanny Perley in Portland harbor by nightfall. "That was some going for a canal boat", exclaimed the captain, "and probably never was beat. We had the wind with us, though, that day." These open craft made frequent trips along the coast eastward, and occasionally carried a cargo to Boston. Captain Luther Fitch, who ran a store and saw mill at East Sebago, owned a canal boat which he loaded with planks, joists, and boards, and made three successful journeys to Boston to supply his niece at Groton, Massachusetts, with all the lumber material necessary to build a house for herself. The house is said to be still standing.
But everything was not always lovely and pleasant for pas- sengers or boatmen on this beautiful and picturesque journey, for ugly storms sometimes occurred, and Sebago Lake is not a comfortable body of water on which to encounter a "howl- ing gale" in so frail a craft as one of the old canal boats. An early passenger relates his experience during a bad blow :-
"I can never forget that sensational experience of riding out one of the most formidable gales ever encountered by any craft upon that inland sea. I was not frightened, for I had unbounded confidence in my companions (Hanson Fields, Eli Plummer, and Charles Cates) yet there was no knowing what might happen at any moment. I looked about for a
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piece of board or plank, or any available thing which might serve me as a life preserver, but in vain, so I philosophically resolved to keep a stiff upper lip, and abide the chances. The waves ran high, and our boat tipped sideways to an alarming degree, as ever and anon a big wave dashed over the deck, leaving more or less water in the hold.
I was interested in watching sturdy Uncle Eli manage our little ship. I can see him this moment as plainly as then, as he stood at the helm, his black locks streaming behind his ears, his dark keen eyes for the moment diverted from the straight look ahead. Now he brought the boat more to the wind as the gale slightly strengthened, and now he turned her instinctively a trifle away. He was master of his profession if not of the elements, and under his skilled guidance we rode out the gale in safety. What was unusual in those days with men of his calling, Uncle Eli was an abstainer from strong drink, and hence his naturally level head was never unsettled by potations.
And now was the twilight hour, and the faint light of the new moon aided in making the scene one of real grandeur and sublimity, as we approached the dark outline of the north shore. At nine o'clock we ran into the mouth of the Songo. Now the scene changed as if by magic. No longer the sound of the wind and waves, but in their stead a deathlike stillness. The darkness of the forest on either side of the river was intense, but the stream itself was visible by reason of the reflection of the sky upon its meandering surface.
The solemn stillness was unbroken, save by the steady tramp tramp of the boatmen as they walked the length of the gunwhale, pushing the craft along with the heavy long poles, and tramping back again and again to the bow, while the northern lights which shone with unusual brilliancy danced and shot like phantoms, giving additional weirdness to the scene. I sat on the deck until almost ten o'clock, then sought the cozy cabin and turned in. I must have slept soundly, for when I awoke the sun was shining brightly. I
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rose and went on deck, and to my great surprise our boat was just heading for the nearby wharf at Plummer's Landing. A few minutes later we were moored to the wharf. My first and last canal boat voyage was ended."
In the period of early Sebago Lake transportation before the advent of steam, huge rafts of lumber valued at thou- sands of dollars were "worked" across the lake from the mouth of the Songo River to the saw mills on the Presumpscot River. In the decade from 1835, to 1845, the amount of white pine timber that came by way of the lake was enormous. At times the whole surface of the river was completely bridged with logs for miles, and all this lumber had to be sluiced over the dams. This rough dangerous work was done by a crew of "rivermen" garbed in red flannel shirts, tarpaulin hats, and heavy-caulked shoes, and they made things pretty lively in the then placid neighborhood of Sebago Lake Land, with their roistering and ballad-singing:
"Instead of the woods on a 'rafter' I went, I thought it much better to my poor heart's content, All day with a pole in my hand I would poke Till I wished that the Devil had all the live oak."
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the novelist, witnessed this inter- esting spectacle, as a lad in his teens, while residing at South Casco, and notes it in his diary : -
"The lumbermen from Saccarappa (Westbrook) are getting their logs across the Great Pond (Sebago). Yester- day a strong northwest wind blew a great raft of many thousands over almost to the mouth of Dingley Brook. Their anchor dragged for more than a mile, but when the boom was within twenty or thirty rods of the shore, it brought up and held, as I heard some men say, who are familiar with such business. All the men and boys went from the mill down to the pond to see the great raft, and I among them. After we got down to the shore, several of the men came out
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on the boom nearest to us, and striking a single log, pushed it under and outside. Then one man, with a gallon jug slung to his back, taking a pickpole, pushed himself ashore on the small single log, - a feat that seemed almost miraculous to me."
The rafting was done by means of a device called "head- works" and these cumbersome affairs propelled in such a manner made the trip across the lake in an average of two days, the wind favoring. The "headworks" consisted of a platform, which was a raft in itself, about twenty feet long and fifty feet wide. Upon this was set up a windlass or cap- stan, around which the crew walked in a circle, taking up line which was attached to an anchor, and as the raft of logs hitched behind the platform progressed, the anchor was carried ahead by a small boat called the "anchor boat" and dropped. This method could almost be likened to a man lifting himself by his bootstraps. Progress at the rate of about one-half mile an hour was made if the winds favored.
During the passage of the raft from the mouth of the Songo River across the lake to the Presumpscot River mouth, many points were passed which bore far different names in those days than they do at present, and although some of the names are now obsolete, summer people might be interested to know the original names of some of the landmarks of the lake. A raft leaving Songo River first reached Cub Point near Songo Beach, then Bear Point, upon which the raft would swing around New Place or Maple Cove to Green Island, then to Twin Islands, Millstone and Hubble Islands. Next the crew would "work" the raft for Straight Shore, a strip three- quarters of a mile long; they then would come down Broad Cove, pass Caleb's Point and the Images, then Caleb's Cove, passing through the Notch to "Pitch of the Cape", from thence to White's Point on the Standish shore. Coming to White's Bridge, the logs were run under the bridge into the "Basin", and then through a dam into the sluiceway to the mill, a mile or so away. The canal also opened into the lake
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at this point, and ran parallel to the Presumpscot River past the Wescott Mill at Middle Jam. Passing from the inlet of the river one encountered Wescott's Falls in those days, and on following the river down to the sea, flanked as it was by the old Cumberland and Oxford Canal, one would next meet up with Quickstep Falls, then Steep Falls, and in succession Harding's Falls, Great Falls, Whitney's Falls, Dundee Falls, Gambo Falls, South Windham Falls, Horse Beef Falls, Saccarappa Falls, Congin Falls (Cumberland Mills), and Smelt Hill Falls at the entrance of the river into salt water.
The timber was bought in thousand foot lots, surveyed and "driven" in the Spring. In those days the best pine was often sold for two dollars per thousand feet, and three dollars was considered an exorbitant price.
The first actual attempt to operate a steam-propelled freighter on the lakes, was made by Captain Christopher Sampson, who installed a crudely constructed engine in his canal boat, which he named the "Monkeydena". Though the Captain was not entirely successful in his experiment, he might be regarded as having pioneered the steamboat business.
The freighter crews were a tough hardy lot, often given to roistering carousels, and mishaps were frequent. In conse- quence some of the craft were named "Alcoholic Ships". Tis said that the present Bay of Naples was once called Brandy Pond, (and still is) due to the fact that a hogshead of precious brandy slipped overboard, and still reposes there to this day.
An amusing story is told by an old-time boatman of a Fourth of July celebration on a freighter :
"Our boat lay becalmed on Long Pond on the Fourth of July. The crew had been very anxious to reach Bridgton Center Landing early in the day, but the elements were per- verse, and gradually all hopes were abandoned of reaching port in season to see the show that they were desirous of attending. So the crew turned their minds to other matters.
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They informed the captain that they must have 'Something to take for the sake of the day', but were informed that he 'hadn't a drop on the boat'. One of the crew replied that they were going to have something for a treat, and told the captain that if he would watch sharp he would find out how they would obtain it. The captain was horrified to see the man, who was a cooper, approach a hogshead of rum that was being carried to Merchant Andrews, put it in position, start up the bar across the head, and bore a small gimlet hole through the head. Of course this made a place for the liquor to run through, and the man quietly proceeded to draw out some two quarts of the liquid. He then stopped the hole with a small plug which he had all ready, drove the bar back into position, and as he had done a very neat job, no mark was left. Sweetening was next called for, but none was to be had, and recourse was again had to the freight.
The man next attacked a hogshead of molasses belonging to the same man, knocked out the bung, and proceeded to dip out what molasses he needed, using a large spoon for the purpose. He then replaced the bung very neatly, and that job was hidden. Of course the captain had protested vehemently against this work, but all protests were in vain. The next thing was to mix the 'toddy', the ingredients being ready at hand. The captain was very politely asked if he wouldn't 'have something to take', and it is said that he did not refuse the invitation."
From the opening of the "Big Ditch" in 1830, until 1850, when railroad competition began to cut into the trade, freighting on the canal did a thriving business. Sweating teamsters no longer had to goad their plodding oxen up the steep grade of Windham Hill on the long haul from the mountains to Portland. Instead they went "boating on the C. and O. Canal.".
To the late Lewis P. Crockett of Portland, goes the distinc- tion of being the last man to navigate a canal boat in the Cumberland and Oxford Canal, and it was in the Arthur
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Willis that the trip was made to the store and mill of Goff and Plummer at Middle Jam, about one mile from the entrance to the canal. After the closing of the canal Crockett confined his activities to carrying freight about the lake, and also boating apples to the lower extremities of Sebago. These shipments were usually sent by Sam and "Putt" Perley, and were carried to the railroad that had displaced the once busy canal.
However in the year before the canal closed, Mr. Crockett and his father made many trips to Portland, and one time carried the school wood supply to the islands in Casco Bay. On the return trips from this occupation they carried over one hundred tons of coal to the lake district, and that week they netted over seventy dollars clear, which was considered a "big" week in those days.
An amusing story is told by Mr. Crockett about two sur- veyors of the City of Portland, George Libby and Ben Tibbetts by name, whose duty it was to estimate the amount of wood the boats were carrying as they came from the canal to Libby's Cove for discharge of their cargoes. The boatmen swore that Ben Tibbetts always underestimated the amount of lumber in their loads, and the more they carried to him the more they were convinced they were right. Accordingly one practical joker loosely piled a few cords of wood in his boat and placed bark over the gaps so that it resembled a sizable boatload. "H'm", said Libby, when he saw the boat swing up to the wharf. "Mighty big load you've got there, boys." However as he clambered aboard, the better to appraise the load, he broke through the bark, much to his discomforture, and the boatmen's unconcealed mirth. He did recover his composure sufficiently to say, "Nothing but a mere brush pile, boys, nothing but a mere brush pile."
With the completion of the railroad route to Sebago Lake the glories of the old canal began to fade. To quote an old rhymster: - "Railroading is all the go, canal boats travel mighty slow". The railroads furnished cheaper and more
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rapid transportation. By 1872, the last boat had passed through the thoroughfare which assisted so materially in opening Bridgton, Windham, Gorham, and Portland trade. Bad management and poor methods of accounting hastened the end. In fact, the whole enterprise of building and oper- ating the canal was a series of mishaps and misfortunes from beginning to end. While the original cost of building "The Big Ditch" was estimated as only $137,000, the actual amount spent before operation was $206,000. Not a dollar in dividends was paid on the investment, and the whole shoreline and vicinity of Sebago Lake was stripped of its valuable pine and hardwood which sold for just enough to cover the cost of cutting. The farmers too, had the extra expense of maintaining fences along the route of the canal. Ultimately the whole property, heavily mortgaged, was sold for $40,000.
The channel where once floated the queerest navy this State has ever witnessed, is all but dried up and in most places is overgrown with trees and brush. Of the twenty- eight locks only one remains in good condition, the Songo Lock, which is still operating today. Fortunately, however, there remains for the interested spectator an excellent reminder of other times in the two or three mile stretch of the canal in its almost pristine stage, which can be observed at the iron bridge on Route 35, from Sebago Lake Station to the North Windham highway.
And a visit to the fast crumbling remains of the Upper and Lower Kemp's Locks, and the picturesque covered bridge over the Presumpscot in Windham, - the last covered bridge of its kind in Cumberland County, and one of only two or three left in the entire State of Maine, - would delight any lover of olden days. Of the locks there can be seen some of the heavy masonry and the rotted timbers with their hand hewn pegs, and the twisted shafts which opened the "pads" in the locks. Ghosts of a hundred "boaters" accompany one down the old towpath nearby, and
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once more in imagination, he hears the faintly blaring echo of the horn, as Israel Kemp trots down to 'lock' a boat through. One more ghost frequents this lonely ruin; - that of the first boat to pass through the canal, the gaudy George Washington. Here in the mud below the lock her bones forever rest.
One or two relics of this romantic period can be seen in the derelict remains of partly exposed hulls of the old canal freighters. On the west shore of Long Lake, directly in the rear of the cemetery in Naples, lie the few rotting timbers of the once proud sixty-ton freighter, the Ethel, the last of the fleet that carried lumber down Sebago Lake and along the canal to Stroudwater and the sea. First rigged as a schooner, she was later steam driven, and made her final trip in 1904. The fast disappearing hulk of the old Columbia lies at the mouth of Muddy River in South Naples. Captained by Walter Crockett of South Casco, she is said to have been the last of the canal boats to carry freight in Sebago Lake, having been in operation up to a few years ago.
Today comparative quiet reigns over a scene that was once disturbed by the raucous noise of a bustling enterprise. The romantic mellow notes of the boatman's horn have been replaced by the lowly tinkling of cowbells.
Dame Nature has indeed reclaimed her own.
The Towns of Sebago Lake Land and Their Story
*
N all the annals of New England history there is no chap- ter more adventurous and romantic, or remarkable, as a record of human achievement than the conquest of the Maine wilderness by the early pioneers.
Until the close of the seventeenth century the smiling countryside of Sebago Lake Land was a dense forest peopled only by savages, and the vast solitudes adjacent to Sebago Lake and its waterways had been trodden by few if any white men. Thus the first settlers were compelled to force their way through deep woodlands, penetrating an unknown country inhabited by Indians and wild animals, and to carry with them their families and all their earthly possessions to establish homes in the new land.
It was common practice in those days for the early col- onists to draw their goods to their destination on handsleds, as the paths were too rough and narrow for loaded teams. And to enable them to survive after they arrived, corn had to be hoed on new soil without plowing, as green corn with milk and game in summer, and rye and Indian corn and pork in winter, formed their chief diet aside from the weekly baked beans.
Nor were the women less hardy than the men. They helped to plant and garner the crops, clothed and reared the children and were as skilled in the use of an axe or gun as were their men. There was little personal comfort, as their
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rudely constructed cabins did not offer much better shelter than the wigwams of the Indians. A frame house was a sign of wealth and prosperity.
WINDHAM AND STANDISH
To encourage the settlement of Maine, it was the custom of the General Court of Massachusetts to offer choice lots of one hundred acres to any resident of that state who would move to Maine with his family, build a house, and clear four acres within a certain period of time. The present town of Windham, formerly called New Marblehead as it was first settled by men from Marblehead, was incorporated in 1762 under the name of Windham (derived from the English Windham in the County of Norfolk) .
It was by no mere chance that the beautiful country of Windham was the first white settlement of any kind to be made in Sebago Lake Land. Most of the coastline in this part of the District of Maine had already been allotted to earlier townships, and the next grants must extend inland. Next to the ocean in importance for highways were the rivers, and the Presumpscot River which flows through a great part of Windham to Sebago Lake, was a part of the old Sebago Trail that the Indians had traveled for centuries. It was practically the only thoroughfare available to the early colonists, and Windham's first settler, Thomas Chute, poled his way up the river, felled the first tree, and built the first house in the new territory. The site of this habitation is still pointed out to the interested visitor.
He was the vanguard of a small group of enterprising citizens of Marblehead, Massachusetts, who petitioned the Massachusetts government for grants of land in the District of Maine, because their own town was "ancient and much straightened in its accommodation, and they wanted more space, light, and air." As in all New England villages of that day, the first buildings to be erected were a tavern and
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a house of worship, but the inhabitants were compelled to demolish the latter shortly afterward and use the timber to hastily build a fort to shelter the people from Indian raids.
The town of Windham is literally in the heart of a lake section boasting twenty-five miles of lake shore frontage, on eight different bodies of water,-namely Highland Lake, Little Duck Pond, Collins Pond, Pettingill Pond, Chapin Pond, Sebago Lake Basin, Big Sebago Lake and Little Sebago Lake. Little Sebago is unique in that it has a dif- ferent outlet than the original one, which gives it a water level several feet lower than nature intended. Thus curiously enough, many of the summer cottages of today are resting on what was once the submerged bed of the lake. It hap- pened in this way. Back in 1781 a Major Anderson erected a large saw-mill on Pleasant River near Windham Hill. Finding his water supply inadequate, he cut a ditch across a ridge separating the lake from the valley. In May 1861, a great freshet, known afterward as Pope's Freshet, occurred following a heavy rainstorm, which caused the dam to give way, and the rushing waters practically washed out of exis- tance, the village of Popeville, where the mill stood, including almost all the bridges on the Presumpscot River.
The sprawling territory contained in Windham embraces six attractive villages or hamlets, - North Windham, Foster's Corner, Windham Hill, Windham Center, Newhall, and South Windham, - all truly typical of Maine's pictorial scene. It is a farm country and agriculture is now its princi- pal industry. Many of the early settlers were farmers and spent most of their time clearing the land and cultivating the soil. It is interesting to note that among its first citizens the names Manchester, Mayberry, Anderson, and Knight are still listed in the town books as owners of large tracts of farm lands.
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