SEARSMONT — Fred Wardwell is a man of few words but when he talks, each sentence carries weight. In his opinion, dealing with the national debt should be top priority. He’s glad he doesn’t have to do business in Maine, and though he’s not surprised to have been awarded a Boston Cane in his lifetime, he is surprised that there’s nobody older than 96 years of age living in Searsmont.

On January 10, Wardwell accepted his replica of the symbolic cane handed out periodically to the oldest resident currently living in towns across the United States. The Searsmont Historical Society has the original, Wardwell said, and according to him, a person could live in Searsmont his or her entire life, but if one up and moved to Belfast or another town, one would no longer be eligible to receive that cane.

For the Searsmont cane, one must be a Searsmont resident.

And so he is, with roots to the area that have dug in deep. While he is originally from upstate New York, growing up on a dairy farm there, he wound up in Maine following a stint as a Marine Corps pilot in World War II.

Wardwell met his wife, Ann, through mutual friends in the Boston area. They married, and since 1986, they have been “orbiting” between a Searsmont farmhouse (built pre-1835) and his family land in New York.

“You can say that we come for the black flies and mosquitoes, and when they are about done, then we leave,” he said, as he sat in their living room, as unassuming and uncluttered by television and internet as he is. 

The farmhouse has been in Ann’s family since there first of many hunting-season visits when she was but eight years old. Later on, according to Wardwell, the Williams family returned for occasional summer visits.

Her father, Ben Ames Williams, wrote the stories of the area’s early settlement, using fictional characters to put voice to rural Maine life in earlier centuries. Come Spring and Fraternity Village are two well known classics that provide a window to the hardscrabble existence of bygone Maine.

And Wardwell experienced a different, but not less broad, swath of American history.

He served three active years in the Pacific during World War II, flying flew B-25s, twin-engine bombers, anywhere between Bougainville and Okinawa; and two more years during the Korean War, though not directly involved.

He is an avid reader of history.  

“I probably know a good deal about the Napoleonic Era, and a certain amount about our Revolutionary Era,” he said. “And I have just read an interesting book about our government relations with England from 1945 to 57.”

According to Wardwell, that latter period is not thought about much nowadays.

“You wouldn’t think that [they were contentious],” he said. “Between the two countries, allies, that were predominate in World War II. They had great differences after the war....It’s not very different from today. It’s a budget problem: Who will spend how much money on an army to garrison something or other?”

Wardwell also holds strong opinions about Maine and its industries.

It was through his employment in the paper-making and chemical industries in New York and New Hampshire that lead to Wardwell’s belief that Maine had no future for the paper industry.

“It’s gone,” he said of the paper industry. “That was a correct assessment.”

He continued: “Overall, Maine has its appeal geographically, and its low population. It’s so impossible for business, I’m glad I never have to do any business here. I do not understand people’s attitude or politics. I do not understand why wealthy communities are typically democratic. Their wealth came – not by being socialists – they came from being capitalists, and then they retired and switched sides.”

But there is a venture that brings light to Wardwell’s eyes, and that is the business of keeping bees.

He and Ann concentrate on their land, keeping the open fields open. They’ve pruned the pine trees, cut out dead trees, and opened the forest area in order to make it “a more model wood yard,” according to him.

“Nothing remarkable,” he said. “Just general forestry, well-known principles.”

An outdoorsman, he also appreciates winter, and is happy at the helm of an ice boat as he is tending to his bee colonies. Wardwell’s bee hobby helps to sweeten fundraising efforts at Searsmont events. Those fundraiser beneficiaries can thank C. C. Miller for Wardwell’s hobby. After reading Miller’s 50 Years Among the Bees, he became interested in bees. As he read more on the subject, he got even more of the beekeeping fever.

“So, I ended up keeping a lot of bees,” he said. 

The local bee clubs have helped in teaching him how to keep his four colonies successful, he said. But, still, there is trial and error. Though he tries to keep only four colonies, one particular period of bee keeping got passed him.

“You get a colony, and then you double it, and then you double it,” he said. “The first thing you know, you’ve got more than you know what to do with. And then you don’t double it anymore.”

For him, 14 colonies was too much.

And though Wardwell puts in the work to keep his colonies thriving, he does not attempt to make correlations between beekeeping and life lessons.

“It’s just like going to the office,” he said. “You have things to do, and you go and do it. There’s no romanticizing, or anything like that.”

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com