Sun, 08/17/2025 - 12:14pm

Ed O’Brin

A stonewall among the trees next to an old cellar hole. (Photo by Ed O’Brien.)

The old road winds beneath the tress. (Photo by Ed O’Brien.)

The view as one walks from the trees into the blueberry field. (Photo by Ed O’Brien.)

The view over the center of Lincolnville. (Photo by Ed O’Brien.)

A stonewall among the trees next to an old cellar hole. (Photo by Ed O’Brien.)

The old road winds beneath the tress. (Photo by Ed O’Brien.)

The view as one walks from the trees into the blueberry field. (Photo by Ed O’Brien.)

The view over the center of Lincolnville. (Photo by Ed O’Brien.)

I went for a little walk Saturday. Parking at the trailhead at Stephen’s Corner, Youngtown and Beach Road, I hoisted a backpack with a large bottle of water and a midday snack, put in my AirPods, and started my “Walking Book”.

The “Walking Book” has become a thing over the last year; the audio book I only listen to when I am purposely walking. With little Belladonna along Ducktrap Road in the early morning, or along Beauchamp Point or Beech Hill when there is a gap in my daily work schedule, I like to walk.

I mean, as a man just north of 50, I know I need to exercise for my physical health, but my mental health finds the most immediate benefit. I always feel better when I walk, more at peace.

My first “Walking Book” was The Lord of the Rings in its entirety. A great tale to walk to. The story of the diminutive and agrarian hobbits leaving their peaceful homeland to take part in greater deeds, over and under mountains, into darkness, and back to their home. Forever changed by their journey.

My current book is The Stand, by Maine’s greatest talespinner, Stephen King. A much darker story, but similarly the story of a journey, across the ruins of plague stricken America, to find a new home.

I was bound, this Saturday, for Cameron Mountain. The first part of the walk is mostly uphill, and very popular with tourists and locals, as the trail to Bald Rock. Bald Rock, with its stunning vistas of Penobscot Bay. But where most turn left to ascend the summit, I instead turn right, puffing a bit from the ascent, onto the old road that leads to Cameron.

Once I turn to this track — the tale of Stu Redman, Frannie Goldsmith, and Larry Underwood unfolding in my ears — I see no more people. Just the old road, empty, with the overhanging trees.

Occasional patches of horse apples confirm that someone still uses this path; but, on this particular Saturday, it is deserted.

I have walked here so many times before; in my earliest memories, alongside my dad, who carried a packet of Necco wafers, and a bucket to collect blueberries.

In meditation exercises, one is often asked to imagine a place in their head where they feel at peace. For me, it has always been that moment when I step from the cool forest overhang to the blueberry hill atop Cameron Mountain, where the sun shines and the sky goes on forever.

In those early memories, my dad, shirtless and smoking a pipe, collects berries destined for pies, muffins, and the freezer, while I sit in a patch and eat my fill. A gender-reversed scene straight from Blueberries for Sal.

This day, I found myself noticing the rock walls. New England rock walls are famous. As the early European settlers tried to scratch out an existence farming, they first had to clear the trees and dig the glacial rocks out of our thin soil. The wood built their homes and the rocks made up the boundaries of those early farmsteads.

After many of the sons and daughters of the early settlers headed west in search of better farmland following the Civil War, the walls remained, and the forest grew back.

So here, along the old road to Cameron Mountain, the walls still stand among the trees.

Did you know that 150 years ago, the entire Midcoast was clear-cut? The Frohock family who built my house could probably see all the way down to French Beach, and Penobscot Bay beyond.

When I see an ancient oak in the forest, I usually start looking for a nearby cellar hole. A tree that predates European settlement tends to indicate the presence of an early home. The shade tree that was not cut down for firewood, or to make space for the crops.

Locating one such tree, I found the cellar of an old home. This road once supported a settlement. Allegedly, the early Europeans lived here among the hills to hide the smoke from their chimneys from the British, who controlled the Bay.

Like most of the early history of Lincolnville, the accuracy of this is debatable, though I am told that some of the homes were later moved to nearby Youngtown Road, leaving the cellar holes and rock walls behind, to be retaken by the forest.

As a young man, first traveling to Europe in the mid 1990s, I remember being struck by how old things were. The castles, the Iron Age ruins, the Neolithic burial mounds of Ireland. Nothing in my homeland were older than a couple hundred years, not even those stone walls in the forest.

People were here, though, for thousands of years before my first Northern European kin made their way across the ocean, immigrants seeking a better life.

The native people walked the same hills, picked the same mushrooms, their children sat in blueberry patches eating their fill. They did not build rock walls, but they did pile the shells of their summer feasts of clams, mussels, and oysters along the shore. The stone walls of the indigenous peoples, their reminder that they were here. Older than the tombs of Celtic royalty, and just as important.

At the top of Cameron, looking out over Lincolnville Center, Norton’s Pond, LCS, and the new homes built atop the ridges of North Lincolnville, I turned off my walking book, drank some water, ate my snack. Felt the breeze blow over me, and the muscles in my legs and back ache — I need to step up my exercise routine.

Rock walls in the forest. Shell mounds on the shore. Reminders of people long gone.

Bean Supper at the Grange

This coming Saturday, August 23, at 5 p.m., there will be a benefit bean supper to support Cliff and Ann Marriner, followed by live music. The show will feature award winning country star Everard Dodge, Maine Country Music Hall of Fame guitarist Brian Celina, and Lincolnville’s own Lise and Rose, together on one stage, along with special guest Bobby Coombs. Admission will be by donation. Come support your neighbors in this most traditional of Lincolnville events.

Bess the Book Bus at Lincolnville Central School

On August 21 at 2 p.m., Bess the Book Bus will be at LCS. Bess is a mobile library which travels the nation giving out free books, serving 25,000 kids and giving away over 50,000 books per year. The LCS Parent Teacher Organization will be handing out ice pops, and the Lincolnville Community Library will have a craft table for kids.

Library Happenings

Needlework from 3-5 p.m., Tuesday, August 19, followed by book discussion of James, by Percivel Everett at 5 p.m. On Wednesday, August 20, the Lincolnville Community Library poetry group will meet at 3 p.m. Finally, join the Library Summer Kids Yoga, Stories, and Crafts at 10 a.m. on Saturday, August 23.

Here we are, nearly at the end of summer. If you are able, take your own little walk, find the stonewalls in your neighborhood, the remainders of the people who came before.

Look out for each other, Lincolnville. Reach out at ceobrien246@gmail.com.

Municipal Calendar

Monday, August 18

Historical Society Museum Open, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., 33 Beach Road

Tuesday, August 19

Library open 3-6 p.m. 208 Main Street

AA Meeting 12:15 p.m., Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road

Wednesday, August 20

Library Open, 2-5 p.m., 208 Main Street

Historical Society Museum Open, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., 33 Beach Road

Bayshore Baptist Church, Youth Group, 6 p.m

Thursday, August 21