Moscow’s 1819 Vote Against Statehood

It is interesting to note that Moscow voted very differently with regard to Maine's statehood than did the neighboring town of Bingham. Bingham voters were decisively for separation from Massachusetts, whereas Moscow's voters were against it - almost in an inverse ratio. Moscow's town records indicate that early town meetings were held at the home …

Bingham’s 1819 Vote for Statehood

Two hundred years ago, in July 1819, Constable Benjamin Goodrich received a directive from the selectmen of Bingham ordering him to notify the town's qualified voters of a meeting to vote on the separation of Maine from Massachusetts. The text of their notice follows: To Benjamin Goodridge Constable of the Town of Bingham, Greetings: You …

Walter Hughes – Concord’s Yellow Farm

The big yellow farm at the intersection of the Jackson Pond  and River Roads in Concord is a well-known landmark with a rich history. Walter Hughes was the proprietor there for many years, raising cows and other livestock, running a dairy operation, and haying extensively on his large tracts of rich Kennebec intervale land. John …

Concord’s Calvin Bates, 20th Maine

In the early 1830’s, the family of Warren and Elizabeth Bates left the town of Whitefield for a new home in Concord, where brother Rev. David Bates also settled along the Jackson Pond Road. They had eight children, several of whom were born in Concord. They moved on to Waldoboro by 1840, and afterward to …

The Tragic Death of Milford Baker

On May 1, 1933, Bingham and Moscow lost a favorite son in a tragic accident at the foot of Wyman Dam. Beloved local photographer Milford Baker was fishing with friends Vernard (Bunny) Pierce, Harry LaPointe, and Phillip Collette at the salmon pool below the dam, when their rowboat was caught in a whirlpool and dragged …

Moosehead’s Deacon Ford: Mayfield to Kokadjo

A few histories of the Moosehead region mention Deacon Enoch Ford as the first permanent settler at Roach River, also called Kokadjo.* He went to Roach River as a logger by at least 1841, traveling up from his home in the town of Mayfield. Enoch was born in Jefferson (Balltown), Maine about 1801, a son …

Men Who Worked on the Canada Road in 1819

Is your ancestor on this list of men who worked to build the Old Canada Road in 1819?

Moosehead Lumbering Trip 1867

Lumbering was a tough and dangerous business in 1867. Uriah Foss, born in Brighton, Maine in 1847, died about one year after this article was printed in the Independent-Reporter newspaper on May 24, 1928. It tells of a lumbering team's harrowing steamboat ride across Moosehead just as the winter ice was taking over.

Dr. J. Leon Williams and Concord Haven

James Leon Williams was born in 1852 in the farmhouse across the road from where he built his magnificent summer residence Concord Haven, on the banks of the Kennebec. Ernest Walker, in Embden, Town of Yore, wrote that at Leon's birth, the farm belonged to Leon's maternal grandfather, Ralph Wells.  Leon was the eldest of …

Moscow’s Chamberlain / Dresser Hill

The 1860 Chace map of Moscow, Maine shows the location of Dresser Hill, which was  better known, earlier and later, as Chamberlain Hill. The names come from families who settled there in Moscow's early days. Moses Chamberlain and his sons settled around 1820. The Dresser family came and went quickly during the 1830's and 1840's, …