Following is another story from Lincolnville’s past. Set in 1901, it’s about as far back as I got in my book Staying Put in Lincolnville, Maine: 1900-1950. Like all the stories in that book it’s based on family memory, in this case, that of Andy Andrews; his father, Burton, is the boy in the story. Burton grew up on his parents’ Slab City Road farm, which by the way, is still standing halfway across that road. Born in 1888, Burton lived most of his life in Connecticut, but was living in the house of his birth when he died in 1982.

Andy now wishes he’d paid more attention to his father’s stories. Don’t we all?! He told me that as a boy his father rode on the horse-drawn lime railroad that crossed Slab City Road on its way from the Coleman Pond quarry to the Ducktrap limekiln, though by that time they were hauling barrels down to the Trap, not limerock. Burton showed Andy where the Slab City School was (corner of Chester Dean Road and Slab City), and I believe there’s no one else alive who could point that out. Andy also told me that Burton’s stepfather, Frank Richards, was “hard on him.”

I took these bare facts and imagined Burton’s “Day Away”:

         Burton Andrews fought the urge to look back at the house, concentrating instead on staring into the thick grass of the hayfield. If Frank Richards happened to come back early, he could say he was looking for the little Bantam hen’s nest. Even though hunting for eggs in the grass was Geneva’s job, his sister was too young to go so far from the house alone. At least that’s what Frank, her father (and his stepfather) said. Their mother, Rose, didn’t see what harm it could do, since the little girl would still be in sight of the dooryard and her own watchful eye.

         If he could just make it to the edge of the woods to the tote road, he’d be safe. He hated sneaking away like this, but he figured Frank didn’t really need him today. The hay was mostly done, cut, dried and stored in the barn loft, and Burton knew he’d worked just as hard as his older stepbrother, LaForest. They weren’t mowing this field until tomorrow so nothing was pressing today. Still, his stepfather would be sure to put him to some task or other just to see him work.

         Finally he was close enough to the woods that he could slip into the darkness of the trees. He allowed himself a quick look back at the farm across the road, and saw his mother standing on the doorstep, shading her eyes from the sun. She was looking right at him.

         Burton gave her a quick wave and disappeared into the woods. Good. His mother had seen him go; she wouldn’t tell Frank, he was pretty sure, and now he knew she wouldn’t worry. She’d figure out where he’d gone.

          He estimated it to be about 7 a.m., since he’d finished his chores—lugging water to the hens and the pig, turning the cows and horse out to pasture and filling his mother’s woodbox—before slipping off. Walking along the woods road, he ate the cold biscuits he’d squirreled away in a pocket before chores; he hadn’t dared go back in the house for breakfast. The heat was oppressive even here in the shade of the pine forest, and he stopped to drink from the brook.

         Before long the tote road he was following came out of the woods and cut through a pasture where it joined a much wider road. Burton stopped and looked expectantly up and down its length. Two heavy timbers topped with iron rails ran parallel down the middle of the road, which went straight in either direction. Wooden ties held the rails some two and one-half feet apart. Rock walls followed the road on each side. He’d heard the men in the neighborhood say this was a three-rod road, calling it the Old County Road, but Burton always thought of it as the railroad.

         No one was in sight in either direction, but when he listened carefully, he heard a distant rumble. He hadn’t missed it after all! The cars were coming, probably just out of sight where the road dipped; he’d see them at any moment. He stood in middle of the tracks staring at the spot where they disappeared, until gradually an ungainly load took shape. The stack of barrels appeared first, then the mules’ ears, and finally the man driving them. It appeared to be his Uncle Sidney Andrews; Burton trotted alongside the rails to meet the oncoming “train.”

“Morning, Burton,” Sid greeted him, “where are you headed?”

“Down to the shore.”

         “Well, hop aboard then and ride down with me.” The boy gladly climbed up onto the driver’s seat; he’d been hoping to get a ride on the railroad. It wasn’t always that he could time it right to meet Uncle Sid driving his team with a load of barrels like this. The lead car with its board seat for the driver was attached to two more cars behind it, each one loaded with empty casks.

         They rode along in silence for a bit, as Sid concentrated on getting his pipe lit while trying to hold on to the reins. Finally, he handed them to Burton and got the job done. The sound of iron wheels on iron rail along with the creaking of the barrels, all roped together in high mounds behind them, made a noisy procession. The mules stepped steadily along, placing their feet carefully between the ties.

         “So, Frank gave you a day off from farm work?” his uncle asked without taking his eyes off the mules.

         “Um,” Burton hestitated. “Not exactly.”

         “Not exactly. I see.” Sid took his pipe from his mouth. “Does your mother know where you are.”

          “Oh yes, she knows,” he said, truthfully.

         “Well, that’s good,” he replied, and dropped the subject, giving his attention to the rails ahead. Suddenly Burton felt himself violently thrown against his uncle as the car lurched to one side. The load teetered on the brink of tipping over when Sid, shouting to the team—“Whoa! Hold up there!”—pulled them to a stop, and the top-heavy car settled back onto the track. Handing the reins to Burton, he said, “Keep ‘em still while I have a look.”

         They’d come to a low spot where the roadbed looked wet and mushy. Sid kicked at the rail, which obviously had no support under it. “Damn! There’s nothing under this track. Give me a hand shoring it up here.” He pulled a log from a stack at the edge of the road, apparently left there for just this purpose, and dragged it over to the track. Taking a sledge hammer from behind the seat he started driving it underneath the two timbers that held up the rails. Burton brought him another log, and then another, and another, until they’d covered the entire low spot with closely-spaced logs.

         “See how the logs make those humps? That’s why they call it a corduroy road. Trouble is, next month, depending on the rain, it’s liable to be sunk again, and we’ll have to do it all over again. Hard to say how many cords of wood have gone into this swamp of a road.”

         Most of an hour had passed since they’d nearly tipped over. Sid lit up his pipe again, and said, “You drive Burton. I’m going to walk alongside and look for trouble.”

The boy took the reins eagerly and clucked to the mules. Thanks to its corduroy surface, the road here was a bit higher than the surrounding cedar swamp, which was dotted with mossy, rotting trees and abuzz with mosquitoes.

         “Why did they build this railroad? It seems like it’s always broken down.”

         “You’re right about that! Originally it was for hauling limerock from the Coleman City quarry to the Ducktrap kiln. The idea was that a single team could pull several loaded cars without bogging down in the mud. Trouble was, they never built much of a bed under the tracks, especially through this section. Just laid it on top of the old county road. People hadn’t been using that road, and it wasn’t in very good shape. Over by the pond they built a good berm for the tracks, and that section’s never given the trouble this has.”

         “I heard Frank tell Ma it was shut down more than it was going.”

         “He’s right about that, I’m afraid. A good many men count on Ed Coleman for work in this town.”

         “Who’s Ed Coleman?”

         “The fella who owns the whole kit and kaboodle—quarry, railroad, kiln and all.”

          After a few minutes Sid added, “But he still needs me and my mules to haul the lime casks down here. These here casks are bound for Rockland, I reckon, if Ed Coleman doesn’t need ‘em. It’s more than enough to keep me and the stave mill our family used to own busy.”

         Burton made a mental note to ask his mother again about that mill on Black Brook. He knew only that his father, Harris Andrews, who had died when he was just a baby, and his father’s brother, David, had owned the big stave mill that supplied many of the town’s coopers, but had lost it through some problems he didn’t understand. At the same time people started referring to Andrews Pond as “Coleman” Pond, a name that invariably caused his mother to mutter darkly. He wondered how it was all connected.

         The road had come out of the swamp now into old pastureland bounded with stone walls and an occasional lonely-looking house or barn. Most seemed to be abandoned, and Burton wondered where the people had gone. He always thought there was something spooky about this road going through the forgotten middle of the town, and he was glad when they came to a newly-mown field. Somebody must live nearby. Then a substantial brick house came into view, and immediately after that the busy little Ducktrap harbor and Penobscot Bay beyond that.

         Uncle Sid pulled the mules to a halt where the tracks ended at the dusty Atlantic Highway. “Help me unload these, will you Burton?” Sid had looped the reins around the end of the track to keep the mules from going forward, and he climbed to the top of the load of barrels. He began handing them down to Burton who stacked them in the bed of a waiting wagon. The driver helped him make an orderly stack. When all were unloaded, his uncle handed him a dime. “Appreciate the help. Don’t be too long getting back home,” he advised him. “You don’t want to give Frank Richards a reason to be mad at you.” Burton thought it was probably too late for that.

         He headed straight over to the brick store on the corner of Atlantic Highway and the little Howe Point Road. Inside it was cool and dark, smelling of tarry ropes and tobacco smoke and dried fish. Old Bill Howe scooped out two pickled eggs from the crock on the counter and handed them to Burton on a piece of waxed paper. “I’ll take the rest in sour balls,” Burton said, putting the dime on the counter. The storekeeper filled a tiny paper bag with the candies.

          The rest of the day passed pleasantly, swimming in the Ducktrap Stream with some other boys he ran into down by the water. Together they watched the summer folks sailing along the shore or rowing around the Trap. He saw the barrels loaded on a schooner at the old lime wharf, watched while it was winched out through the channel to the Bay, and then sail off toward Rockport.

          The tide had gone way out, exposing the sand bar off the point when Burton thought to check where the sun had gotten to. It must be close to six o’clock! He trotted up the hill from the Trap, past Howe’s store, across the highway and onto the old road. He ran alongside the track wherever the road was wide enough, or between the rails where it wasn’t, pacing his steps to go between the ties, just like the mules did. Dusk was starting to settle over the trees when he finally came to the tote road that led to home. Burton slowed to a walk, catching his breath and hoping he’d find Frank in a rare good mood. He felt in his pocket for the crumpled up paper bag with two sour balls left in it, the ones he’d saved for his little sister who was still too young for adventures.

There are two more stories about Burton Andrews in Staying Put, one which takes place before this one, when he was a baby, and the other when he’s an older teenager. The book’s available at Western Auto; at the Schoolhouse Museum, 33 Beach Road; at Beyond the Sea at the Beach; and at Sleepy Hollow Rag Rugs, 217 Beach Road.

$250,000 Grant Awarded

Many listening to public radio the other afternoon were startled to hear that Lincolnville has been awarded a large grant for an improvement project. I couldn’t think what that could be, until I heard from Tom Crowley: “We [the Lincolnville Sewer District] have been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Northern Border Regional Council and will be advancing our efforts to build a new and better wastewater treatment facility for the Lincolnville Beach area.”

Rev. Kate Braestrup returns to United Christian Church for a Fall Sermon Series at the 9:30 am service on four Sundays; September 13, October 18, November 22 and December 20. Kate, who lives in the Center, is the chaplain to the Maine Warden Service, has done a book tour this summer with her latest publication Anchors and Flares. “You are welcome to attend any of these services, located right in the heart of bustling downtown Lincolnville, Maine! (I love walking to the church in my cassock…very Father Brown-ish)” says Kate. Pastor Susan Stonestreet will be conducting the service. Contact Susan Silverio  for more information.

Bringing in the Sheaves

         All right, so what’s a sheave? My computer dictionary says it’s part of a pulley. Google it and you get all sorts of places to order pulleys. Yet when we sing this in church, “Bringing in the Sheaves”, it means gathering the harvest. A sheave is a bundle of grain, no matter what Google says.

         When Wally and I moved into our house at the top of Sleepy Hollow in 1970 the very first thing I did was rent a rototiller from the Camden Farmers Union (High Mountain Hall today). “We’ll live off the land,” I said. “The hell we will,” he said, or some version of that.

         Well, we were both right. We lived off his salary as a teaching principal, then teacher for the next 30 years, supplemented with sales of my rugs and meager pay as a columnist. But we also lived off our land. We raised pigs, chickens, turkeys, and beef; we kept a dairy cow, made butter, yogurt, cheese, (not very good cheese, I must admit). We grew summer vegetables of all kinds, dry beans, a years worth of potatoes, onions, carrots, and garlic. I canned, froze or dried everything.

         Our kids grew up hating my black bean soup, baked beans, egg foo yung (egg foo yuck they called it), quiche. When you keep a cow and hens you eat a lot of custardy things. As an avid member of the L’ville Food Co-op (one of the precursors to today’s Belfast Co-op Store) I bought wheat and rye and corn and ground it in a hand mill. They hated the sandwiches I sent with them to school, the ones made of crumbly, homemade wholewheat bread and co-op peanut butter; they traded with other kids whenever possible. I have no idea who they traded with; who would have preferred a crumbly, dry peanut butter sandwich wrapped in wax paper to a bag of yummy potato chips and a pudding cup?

         Over the years our gardening skills (and our soil) improved; how could it not with a constant application of cow-pony-pig-chicken-turkey poop? To say nothing of the seaweed we hauled up from Ducktrap and the Beach most years. So yes, we’re bringing in the sheaves in spades this year. It’s the most rewarding thing we do at this stage in our lives.

Big Red

         Tom Crowley wrote to the Lincolnville Bulletin Board last week: “Thank you to everyone who came to our aid on Monday, Aug. 24, 2015, when our lobster boat Big Red caught fire off Lincolnville Beach as we were approaching our mooring.  Mike Hutchings, Harbormaster, and his mate were first at the scene within minutes, followed immediately by several other local fisherman, including Rich Osgood on his "Orca", who towed Big Red into the wind and out of the harbor.

           “The Lincolnville Fire Department, led by Ben Hazen, were quickly on board several vessels with a fire pump to put out the fire.  The Islesboro ferry, came out and stood by with two fire hoses to assist if needed.  Soon, the US Coast Guard appeared to gather information and assess any damage to the vessel, crew and the water.  Big Red was towed back to shore, burned to the waterline, but still floating on her own.  Fortunately, there was no gas or oil spillage or damage to the beach, and she was broken up and hauled away on Tuesday, August 25 by the Osgoods.

         “The fire started quickly in the engine room in our gas engine. My son, Tom and my grandson, Lochlan, were on board but wisely jumped to safety in our skiff as I tried to put out the fire.  This was a mistake as a gas fire is extremely dangerous and explosive.  I used up one fire extinguisher but the heat was so intense that I could not get near it and jumped overboard to join my son and grandson.  I was justifiably both ‘encouraged and chastised’ by Mike H in this delayed exit!

         “Big Red was a classic, wooden lobster boat built down east in 1972 by (we believe) Willis Beals or one of the other famous boat builders in the Jonesport area.  She was formerly named Sea Hunter, but we renamed her after my father-in-law. He was known to everyone as "Big Red" for his loving heart, not his size, as he stood only 5'6".  I loved him and his wife, Martha, and enjoyed their company, love and friendship for over 40 years, and we spent every summer with them here in Lincolnville Beach.

Every morning this week, as we clean up the Beach, we’ve seen flocks of geese – three just this morning – forming up in “Vs”, honking loudly, and heading in a vaguely southerly direction. I have no idea if they’re just practicing, turning around and doing it all over again the next day, or if they’ve really headed out…