The Hemlock Bridge Of Fryeburg, ME

Tucked away in a spot of the Fryeburg woods in Maine is a living relic of the bygone past. Known as the “Hemlock Bridge”, it is the oldest Paddleford Truss System bridge in the state of Maine. Maine once had many covered bridges and know only lays claim to 8. The beauty of this bridge is not even the bridge itself but its great surroundings. Bordered by fields on two sides and wood on one the site sits on a once very important road. Now the area is all but abandoned, the road does not even get winter maitenance. It is because of this that the bridge has been preserved to the point it is now. Nothing can explain the calm and serenity associated with the bridge and the surrounding area. One can only visit to see.

Fort Baldwin – A Piece Of Maine’s Military History

I recently visited to document Fort Baldwin in Popham Beach, ME. For those going down to take a look this is a lengthy drive down the penninsula. The site is extremely well preserved and one can walk through almost all of the buildings to explore. Sadly the fire tower was not open at the end of the path. Here is a Wikipedia roundup of it………….

Fort Baldwin, a coastal defense land battery near the mouth of the Kennebec River in Phippsburg, Maine, United States, was named after Jeduthan Baldwin, an engineer for the Colonial army during the American Revolution. The fort was constructed between 1905 and 1912 and originally consisted of three batteries, all of which were removed in July 1924:

• Battery Cogan with two three-inch guns. Named in honor of a lieutenant in the 5th Continental Infantry during the American Revolution. Cogan, who had also been quartermaster of the 1st New Hamsphire Regiment, died August 21, 1778.

• Battery Hawley with two six-inch pedestal guns. This battery also housed the fort’s original observation station and electric equipment. Named in honor of Brigadier General Joseph R. Hawley who served with distinction during the American Civil War.

• Battery Hardman with one six-inch pedestal gun. Named in honor of a Captain in the 2nd Maryland Regiment, Continental Army during the American Revolution. Hardman was taken prisoner at Camden, South Carolina and died while a prisoner of war on September 1, 1780.

During World War I, Fort Baldwin and Fort Popham held a garrison of 200 soldiers including the 13th and 29th Coast Artillery.

During World War II, between 1941 and 1943, D Battery, 8th Coast Artillery protected Fort Baldwin and its Fire Control Tower that could radio the precise position of enemy vessels to batteries in Casco Bay.

 

Boobytown

For some time now I had the knowledge of a mysterious part of Maine’s varied history, this time from Lewiston. I lived almost my entire life in the tri-state region of Massachusetts so upon reading this story I never acted on actually going for an actual visit. I cannot even tell you now that I have been there, I haven’t. What I can tell is the unusual stigma attached to a village in Maine by the name of Lower Dallas.

In the mid 1800′s the prosperous city of Lewiston in Maine had an innovative and at the same time bastardy plan at the same time. The roll call for welfare was quite large during this period. The city needed a way to turn the tide of people depending on the system. Someone, I do not know who, came up with the idea with shipping them off to what is known as Lower Dallas just east of Rangely in the northwest corner of the state. These people were hard up while living in Lewiston and after the move to Lower Dallas things only got worse. Stories of people running off into the fields to eat dandelions raw were the norm. Of all of these welfare afflicted Lewstonians the most prominent family was the Bubiers thus the towns name of “Boobytown” came into being.  The Boobytowners were always known by the people of Rangely as honest and fair trading partners and always had the utmost respect for them. Sad that such a quality of people was shipped away in favor of saving a few dollars (in today’s money mush more).

Today if you can find the way to the location of Lower Dallas you will find a virtual ghost town, complete with newspapers from the period around WW 2 on the floor of some of the structures. It is in these ways that Maine is trully unique as if someone leaves the forest locks it up until later discovery. Last heard, the is only one descendant of the Bubiers still living near Boobytown, Virgil Bubier. If anyone is looking to go there I hear he is one of the best people out there with the history of the place.  It’s an understatement to say that a general feeling of paranormal activity also prevails here according to reports, which can only be imagined with the history of these people stolen from their home. I hope in the future more attention can be brought to this incident in Lewiston’s history and the whole state of Maine in general. I can only hope this article keeps alive the drive for people to find out more about it.

I want to give special credit to Art Sordillo and Yankee Magazine for this other, somewhat related article, definitely a good read.

http://www.outtakes.com/45th/45thnopics.html

The Poland Springs Resort, A Bygone Treasure

I recently brought my family to the Poland Springs Park in Poland Springs, ME. The hill and area contained on top the said hill once had the wondorous Poland Springs Resort upon them. People from all walks of life from presidents to common men came to this spot to relax and drink in the “miraculous” waters contained there in. The resort is no longer there but the Maine House, a tourist mecca, is in the general spot where it once was. Here is the photo set from there and I encourage everyone as always to check out these great places.

The Maine House

The Entrance To The Park

The Gazeebo

Mt Washington seen from Poland Springs

The hotel now occupying the land

The Enigma Of Bancroft Tower

In the middle of Worcester, Massachusetts lies a remarkable oddity. A “lite” castle or tower as it is refered to sits in the middle of a park. The only way to describe the structure is that you imagine a castle and then imagine it 2d. It has very little depth and mimics a Hollywood prop castle. The unique history with which is attached to it is really quite interesting as well.

The tower was built in 1900 to honor George Bancroft (1800-1891), he was Secretary of the Navy,Founder of the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Minister to Great Britain and Germany. Quite an accomplished man. This was to be his legacy. A tower that when the true “tower” was open afforded a 360 deg. view of Worcester. This memorial was built by his friend and admirer Stephen Salisbury III. Thanks to the City Of  Worcester Parks And Public Works Website they offer a quite inclusive history.

“The Bancroft Tower was built by public benefactor Stephen Salisbury III, who bequeathed it to the Worcester Art Museum, which deeded it to the Parks Department in 1912.  Salisbury intended the feudal-like castle to be a recreational oasis. Its spiral staircases, fireplace chambers, stone benches, and parapets were frequently the scene of picnics and social outings. The summit has a 360-degree view of the city,  greatly enhanced by a climb to the lookout tower. A locator map in the stone walkway helps to identify the distant hills. George Bancroft was a politician, statesman, and writer. His list of achievements is exceedingly long, ranging from cultivator of the American Beauty Rose and eulogist at Abraham Lincoln’s funeral, to Secretary of the Navy (founder of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis) and author of a scholarly ten-volume history of America. But, Stephen Salisbury III built the memorial to Bancroft because Bancroft and Salisbury’s father had been childhood friends. A plaque marks Bancroft’s birthplace just below the park on Salisbury Street.

Honorable Stephen Salisbury III became a member of the Parks Commission in 1887.  Mr. Salisbury owned a great deal of land in the northern part of the city and was always eager to improve that section. He was involved in the donation and development of a plot of land on the south side of Salisbury pond soon to be named Institute Park. Initially Stephen Salisbury set aside 20 acres of land along Massachusetts Avenue which included Bancroft Hill.

In 1900, he erected a tower on the summit of this hill to honor George Bancroft, the famous historian whose birthplace was just below on Salisbury Street.  The tower is 56 feet high and is constructed of boulders, cobblestones, and is trimmed with a rock-faced granite.  It looks like a miniature feudal castle.  The construction cost was about $15,000.  Stephen Salisbury opened it to the public during this time. Some of the finest views in the City could be seen from this tower.  It is named on the National Register of Historic Places.   When Mr. Salisbury died, this property was bequeathed to the Worcester Art Museum who in turn presented it to the City in 1912.”

The true enigma may be actually the stories of hauntings and the marks carved in stone placed in the ground the “supposedly” pointing to the seven hills of Worcester. The lines actually dont point to the hills and are quite confusing. Many believe they are actually ley lines across the earth that intersect at the point of the tower. One can only believe that if someone took the time to carve them in stones they must represent something. But what?

The Trains Of Eagle Lake And The Allagash Wilderness

 

You are walking in the woods and suddenly, there in a clearing are two locomotives, rusted and aging but trains all the same.

This is the case in northern Maine in the Allagash wilderness, once one of the top foresting areas in the country. Trains were once used to haul all of the timber out of the forest farther southward to be shipped to far places. It was a very lucrative business. Thanks to The Department Of Conservations Of Maine website they put together a amazing historical narrative of the trains.

“There are not a lot of places in the world where you can be hiking through a remote wilderness and suddenly stumble upon rusting locomotives. One of the things that makes the Allagash so fascinating is the possibility of a sudden discovery of remnants from a bygone lumbering industry. For example, you could be walking through the wild forests of northern Maine and then suddenly you’re staring down the nose of two steam locomotives.

For those lumbering operations still driving logs south from Eagle and Churchill Lakes to Penobscot waters, the Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad replaced the Tramway. In 1926 this railroad ran from the Eagle Lake end of the tramway thirteen miles to Umbazooksus Lake, which connects to the West Branch of the Penobscot River via Chesuncook Lake. Edouard “King” Lacroix’s Madawaska Company purchased a ninety-ton steam locomotive in New York and converted it from coal to oil burning for this operation. To haul the large supply of oil needed for the train, the company leased a Plymouth gasoline engine from Great Northern Paper. The oil was brought in barrels by truck from Greenville to Chesuncook Dam. From there, a scow would carry the barrels to the terminal end of the railroad on Umbazooksus Lake.

During the winter of 1926-27, Lombard tractors hauled all of the materials for the railroad from Lac Frontiere to Churchill Depot, then across Churchill Lake to the shore of Eagle Lake. This included the fifteen hundred foot trestle for Allagash Stream, steel rails, loaders, two gas-powered switchers, sixty train cars, and the two one hundred ton locomotives. King Lacroix, however, never got the railroad into operation because the Great Northern Paper Company bought his operation early in 1927. On June 1, 1927, the railroad made its first successful trip as the Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad.

To load the train cars on the Eagle Lake end of the line, logs were drawn along two conveyors that raised them up twenty-five feet over a two hundred twenty-five foot length. With a forty-horse power diesel engine powering each conveyor, a cord of wood could move from lake to car in just ninety seconds. Each twelve-cord car could be filled in eighteen minutes. Operators soon discovered that the time it took to neatly pile the logs into the cars horizontally made the practice inefficient, so they resorted to just dumping them in as they fell from the conveyors. The cars were built with a twelve-inch tilt in them so that when they drove out onto the unloading trestle at the Umbazooksus end (where the tracks were tilted six more inches) an operator could knock loose the pins holding back the car wall hinged at the top and most of the load would tumble out into the water. A little picking and prodding of the remaining logs and the train was on its way back for another load.

Since the round trip over the curvy road made a single-train operation too slow and inefficient, the company used two trains of ten cars each, with a passing track in the middle so the empty car on its return route could pass the full car headed in the other direction. The trains of twelve cars each ran on the road both day and night stopping only ten minutes to service the steam engine. While this happened, the Plymouth engine pushed a set of loaded cars away from the conveyors where the locomotive could hook up to it. The Plymouth then took the empty cars, just back from their run, and pushed them under the conveyors for loading. This system, along with the addition of an electric lighting system for loading the cars and storage towers to allow faster refilling of the trains’ water and oil, increased the log-hauling capacity four hundred percent. In an average week, more than six thousand five hundred cords of wood moved across the tracks.

The Plymouth engines at each end of the train route shifted empty cars around the yard while the locomotives refueled. Logs could not float away when too much bark gathered near the unloading trestle, so engineers designed a special scraper that was attached to the Plymouth by means of a pulley and anchor and this system scraped the bark out of the way. The railroad crossed over the northwest arm of Chamberlain Lake where it reaches toward Allagash Lake.

The most significant structure of this operation was the fifteen hundred foot long railroad trestle sturdy enough to carry both the train and its regular supply of heavy log cargo across this piece of water. Only a few remains of the trestle are still visible.

Aerial photographs from 1966 show that only one structure, the shed built over the locomotives, remained at the railroad site on the Eagle Lake end of the tramway when the Allagash Wilderness Waterway was created. While still owned by the Seven Islands Land Company on April 9, 1969, the Maine Forest Service mistakenly burned the shed, causing damage to some of the wooden elements of the locomotives (i.e. the wooden cab).  Both locomotives have also suffered from vandalism and souvenir hunters. Photos show the burned area on June 11, 1969

.

On August 16, 1969, the Maine Parks and Recreation Commission painted the trains to prevent further rusting.  In 1995, the boiler jackets on both locomotives were removed in order for asbestos surrounding the boilers to be removed and abated.

Members of the Allagash Alliance worked to right and stabilize Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad Locomotive Number 1 and its Tender. Built in June 1897 at Schenectady Locomotive Works (4-6-0 stamped #4552), it was originally a steam locomotive but later converted to burn crude oil to eliminate the forest fire threat caused by cinders. Number 1 was purchased by Great Northern in 1926 and used to haul pulpwood in the Allagash area from 1927-1933.

ELWB Locomotive Number 2, and its tender, were built in December 1901 at Brooks Locomotive Works (2-8-0 stamped 4062). Number 2 was also used as a steam locomotive and later converted to burn crude oil. It was purchased by Great Northern in 1928 and used as the main engine for hauling pulp cars from 1928-1933. When the railroad stopped operating, both locomotives were relatively obsolete and not worth the cost of transporting them back out of the Allagash area. Instead, they were stored inside a shed at the Eagle Lake facility where they remain today.”

The fact they are so well intact is a benefit of their location. Far from the “accessible” world of human society they sit in the quiet of the vast northern portion of Maine. If these trains were say, in Augusta, they would have been picked apart by prying hands of vandals and souvenir seekers. The earth always reclaims things that are left behind as well as preserving them.

Any trip to see the trains must be well planned out and all must be accounted for including food, gas and survival gear. From Portland the trip can take two days or mor, depending on time of stay and conditions. Keep a head on your shoulders and you should be fine.

Credit on the photos to Rich Pace, RoadRunner and JonWillard all from Panaramio.com, the site which posts its images on Google Earth and Google Maps. Thank you.

My August Expedition To The Ram Tail Mill Site, Rhode Island’s Only Officially Haunted Site

In August of this year I visited the Ram Tail Mill Site in Foster, Rhode Island. According to the Source: Belanger, Jeff. Encyclopedia of Haunted Places. 2005, “

“Perhaps the oldest and most haunted place in Rhode Island is the Ramtail Factory in Foster. It was even put in the 1885 State Census Record as a haunted location. In 1799, the Potter family started operating a mill. William Potter expanded the mill in 1813. At this time, William took his son-in-law Peleg Walker as a partner. The Potter’s ran the mill by day and Walker was the nightwatchman at night, walking from building to building with his lantern.

This went well for several years, until one day Walker and Potter were seen having an argument. Walker preceded to say that if something kept up, he’d walk in one day and grab the keys from a dead man. On May 18, 1822 Walker’s words came true. Potter walked in and saw that Walker had hung himself from the bell rope with the keys hanging visibly from his pocket. The Potter’s then buried him in the family plot. However, this is when the strange events started to happen.

The night of Walker’s death, the bell tower struck at the stroke of midnight. The Potter’s went to go investigate this but no one was there pulling the chord while it was happening. This went on for a few days until the Potter’s then replaced the bell with a new one. Now it got even more interesting that night. The town awoke to the loud sound of the mill running at full service. Everywhere in the town went to the spot to watch in shock as the mill was running without anyone operating it, and the water was flowing in the opposite direction of the stream.

Most of the town villagers left after this for fear of the mill. The people who remained in the town would see the apparition of Walker going from building to building with the lantern in his hand. Later on in the 1880s, the factory mysteriously went on fire. The remains of the factory still lie in the woods of Foster to this day, and is a hot bed for paranormal activity. The Rhode Island Paranormal Group investigated the site recently and have come into contact with Walker as well. They were standing around the site, when they the crunching of leaves and the sound of a lantern swinging as it walked past them and into the main building.”

The day we went ( my wife and I) it was quite hot and humid. It was the beginning of the fall season that I do the majority of my exploring in. We arrived early and took the entrance to Ram Tail Rd. Directly after the right there is a cemetary on the left. The relatives of the mill descendants are buried in this plot.  After the cemetery on the left side there is a dirt road which leads into the woods and runs toward the lakeside of Barden Reservoir. I parked our trusty mini-van(giggles to a minimum) in a pull-off of the trail. We followed the trail  towards the location of the site. As we came to the true North side of the reservoir we reached a point where a bridge or crossing had once been, unfortunately it was unavailable.  We had to find a way across and it was not going to be there. The water was far to deep. To make a long story very, very short we found a spot farther North on the river that feeds in to the reservoir. Logging seems to be in full swing all arond the area at this point. I saw tree’s cut all around the original foundations but all the area of the mill site is really quite protected. Blue marks denoted cut lines that indicated the trees inside the foundations were not to be touched. Im glad to report a trouble free visit and quite an interesting one (wading in 2 feet of water across a river). My wife would not go in the main foundations and had a bad sense of something not right in the area. I experienced none of those things just a calm and peacefull visit. Altough I wouldnt want to be visiting in the dark………

Site above ground

Foundation along the way to the site

Ramp into a smaller building of the mill

Looking at the main foundation above

Some type of stairwell

Inside foundation wall of main foundation

Front yard of main building

Foundation of smaller mill building

Cornerstone of stone wall

Waypoint Map Of Oddities and Ghost Towns Of New England On Google Maps

I created this map back in August of this year. It has 113 places in the greater New England area that are really worth a visit, at least some due research. I have visited at least half of the sites on the map and am trying to finish off Southern New England before my departure for Maine and the North Country. I hope with the best intention that people visit these places with great respect and please help maintain these great sites. If you see any litter please pick it up. It takes only one person to make a difference. Thanks everyone and enjoy!

View Larger Map

Eerie Eleanor Slater Hospital (Zambarano), My Trip

I grew up on Wallum Lake in Douglas, MA and always was intrigued by the little mental hospital on the south side of the lake (Rhode Island Side). The hospital is always clearly visible by way of a water tower which rises high above the tree line. I rode my bike through the hospital grounds as a kid and listened to stories of the place being haunted for many years. In fact for a long time it was used as a Tuberculosis hospital. The environment of Wallum Lake was deemed beneficial to afflicted patients. Anyway on to my last visit recently…..

I arrived on a blustery, cold fall day. The hospital always gives off such a lonesome aura. I finished my set in 15 minutes but just before I did a security guard managed to catch me saying “I don’t think the state would like you taking pictures”. Well I did indeed already take some and here they are. Note the radiation/fallout sign on the hospital.