Tom Seymour's Maine: A Maine Anthology

By Tom Seymour

In Tom Seymour's Maine, the author brings to life fascinating vignettes from Maine's colorful past. From early life in the vast Maine woods to favorite recipes of coastal residents, the book is fast-moving and spellbinding from start to finish. Experience the tension as Maine residents evacuate their homes during the British Invasion of 1814. Learn how to prepare bean-hole-beans and fall in love with some wonderful Maine old-timers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 21, 2003
• ISBN: 9781469710723

Tom Seymour

Tom Seymour, award-winning newspaper columnist and magazine journalist, has written Hiking Maine and Fishing Maine for Falcon Press and Foraging New England for Globe Pequot Press. Tom is a history buff and writes about local history in The Republican Journal.

Book preview

1

Prehistoric Maine

It’s hard to view the majestic mountains of northern Maine and at the same time, imagine that this place was once part of a vast, ancient ocean. But it’s true. Once, while doing research for a book on rockhounding in northern New England, I found myself on a rocky hillside somewhere between Jackman and Rockwood (MAG, Map 40, 2-C.) The place had been mentioned as having marine fossils and sure enough, it did. Besides the small fossil material that I collected, many of the larger boulders presented a mosaic of fossilized seashells. With high mountains all around, it didn’t seem possible that the tide once ebbed and flowed on this very spot.

Even more impressive is the petrified coral reef at the outlet of Chesuncook Lake, near Ripogenus Dam (MAG, Map 50, D-3.) The lake is, of course, an artificial impoundment. The dam holds back the waters of the West Branch of the Penobscot River. Anyway, after walking across the dam, turn left and climb over a headland (this is somewhat difficult and if possible, it may be wiser to risk getting wet feet and approach the reef by walking along the edge of the lake.) On the other side of the headland is a ledge of soft, marine mudstone. This stone is chock-a-block-full of seashells, chrinoid stems, corals and a host of other fossils, many of them bizarre-looking and hard to identify.

Other places have seashell fossils too. Gravel pits, places where marine sand and gravel is deposited, are ideal places to search for fossils. One pit in Mid-Coast Maine once yielded a fossil, walrus tusk. And sometimes, fossils are just there.

For instance, once, while bird-hunting with my dog, Ben, I made a good shot on a fast-flying partridge. Ben retrieved the downed bird and dutifully dropped it in my outstretched hands. And while bent down to take the bird from Ben, I spotted a fossil rock. The thing was slightly smaller than a loaf of bread and the top of it was peppered with fossil brachiopod shells. The rock was quite heavy, but because it fit into the game pocket of my canvas, hunting coat, I decided to call it a day and go home with one partridge, one fossil rock and a bunch of nice memories.

These fossils give me a starting point from which to view Maine history. They take us back to a time when oceans covered much of our state.

Glaciers played a big role in the prehistory of Maine. My backyard, if anyone could call it that (this is open woodland rather than manicured lawn) is strewn with glacial erratics, huge, granite boulders deposited by the glacier, approximately 12,000 years ago.

Signs of the glaciers ponderous movement are present on ledges, boulders and mountaintops all around Maine. Deep scratches in the hard granite attest to the great weight of the ice mass. Even along the seashore, it is easy to find glacier-scratched boulders.

The glacier left other calling cards as well, some of which were invaluable to early man. A deposit of grey rhyolite, or Kineo flint, on Mt. Kineo (MAG, Map 41, 1-A), a 1,789-foot mountain on a peninsula that reaches to the middle of Moosehead Lake, yielded material that was used for tool and weapon making. In its course of travel, the glacier ripped a significant portion of this gray, waxy rock and deposited varying-sized portions of it along the edge of what is now Penobscot Bay.

After the glacier retreated and the ice age ended, early man prowled the boulder-laden shores, fishing, harvesting clams, mussels, scallops, oysters and Kineo flint. The shell heaps left from these early shore dinners are with us yet, preserved for posterity. The flint is still here, too, but it takes a bit of detective work to locate it.

Goodness knows how long ago the last toolmaker sat, cross-legged on the beach and flaked useable shards from a large piece of Kineo flint. Suffice it to say this pre-dates European colonization by many years.

To continue, the toolmaker, after having taken the best portions from his flint nodule, left the rest of the stone on the beach. This would have had any number of facets, depending upon how many shards the toolmaker was able to remove. So there the many-sided stone remained, perhaps thousands of years on the same spot, buffeted by waves and smoothed by sea sand over the aeons.

By the present day, then, the facets on the stone would still be recognizable because they would obviously be a result of man having worked it. But instead of having sharp edges, the stone now has smooth edges on the various facets. This means that the nature of the flint stone would remain hidden from all but those who specifically seek it.

Sears Island (MAG, Map 15,1-A), that controversial island at the head of Penobscot Bay in the Town of Searsport, is my favorite location to seek Kineo flint. This flint, as mentioned earlier, has a waxy, grayish-green tint. It even feels waxy to the touch, an attribute that should aid in identification. It may take some time to discover the first worked bit of flint, but after that, the flint rocks should practically jump out at the determined flint hunter.

Actual arrowheads, scrapers and other stone implements and tools are a bit harder to come by. Nevertheless, a trained eye can locate bits of arrow points and other flint objects. Haphazard searching, however, is usually non-productive. Look on the edges of beach where the stony section tends toward sand or clay. Ants can help too.

Ants, you say? Sure. The earthen bank next to the seashore often is composed of fine loam, just the kind of place where ants like to establish a colony. In building their maze of underground tunnels, ants slavishly remove all obstacles, including small, clay beads, arrow points and other ancient, artifacts. So with the help of a fine brush, some window screening and a hand-held trowel, it is possible to find Indian artifacts.

It has long been supposed that seafaring Norsemen, Vikings, visited Maine well before the age of European exploration. Various artifacts have surfaced over the years, artifacts that point to at least a perfunctory visit by the hardy Norsemen.

Back in the late 1970s, my friend Emily Fogg, of Belfast (MAG, Map 14, 5-A) showed me a coin that she had been given. The coin was found along the beach in Belfast, early in the twentieth century. What caused Emily to remember this old coin was an article in the Bangor Daily News. The News article was about a coin that was found on a southern Maine beach and was thought to be of Viking origin. The coin was made of thin copper and had several concentric circles on its face. Emily’s coin was the spitting image of the coin in the newspaper. It’s hard to say for sure if this is another Viking coin but certainly, it is food for thought.

Emily’s son, Tim, also made an interesting find along the Belfast waterfront. It was a stone, hollowed out in the shape of a mortar. Tim gave the mortar, or stone bowl to me as a Christmas present. And today, the old Indian bowl performs the inauspicious duty of holding the used, wooden kitchen matches with which I light my gas, kitchen range. Better to be used, I say, than be relegated to some dusty, dark corner for safekeeping.

The beach at Ducktrap Harbor, in Lincolnville (MAG, Map 14, C-5) sometimes yields unusual objects made of a form of flint. The stones are mostly located quite far from shore, but this is no problem because every month, the tide goes out extra-far, what surf-clam harvesters call a low-drainer tide.

Once, while clad in hip boots and prodding the fine, white sand for the giant clams, I unearthed a curious, black stone. This was smooth, dense, and shaped like a perfect Valentine-style, human heart. I showed my find to Dr. Marshall, a scientist friend, who hypothesized that I had found an ancient fetish, perhaps used in some long-forgotten ritual. Whatever it is, the heart-shaped rock is on a shelf in my office, where every so often, I pick it up and rub it like a worry stone.

Is it possible that nature could have shaped my heart rock? Or, as Dr. Marshall suggested, is it a product of human intervention? This, too, is a mystery, albeit a pleasant one.

Fire is rapid oxidation, rust is slow oxidation. That pretty well compares the two processes. Now consider that fire also helps precipitate a long-term type of oxidation in ferrous material, specifically, the iron ores found in various rocks and stones. With that as a clue, it is possible to go to any rocky beach in Maine and find were man has kindled a campfire.

The heat of the fire changes the structure of the raw ore so that it can rust. This rust leaches into the surrounding sand and gravel. So it is entirely possible to find a patch of rusty-looking gravel on some remote beach and have a pretty good idea that here, perhaps 1,000 or more years ago, some aboriginal person sat by a warming fire. These old fire sites are also a tip-off that other, more tangible objects may be near. It is enough for me, though, to sit down near one of these places and in my mind, try and communicate with whomever it was that sat here so many years before me.

For what it’s worth, remember that we are only the present caretakers of what we call the State of Maine. Before us were the various, organized Indian tribes and before them, the so-called Red Paint People. We know little of the Red Paint People, other than that they buried their dead with lots of red ochre, from whence comes their name. So the next time you have a few quiet moments, go to the shore, away from other people, kids, radios and dogs. Sit down and consider that someone, in millennia past, may have sat on that very spot, for much the same reason.

2

The Europeans Arrive

About 20 years ago, a neighbor borrowed a metal detector and went treasure hunting along the Passagassawaukeag River in Belfast. It was dead low tide and where he walked, on the headwaters, the river bottom was nearly dry. A signal prompted him to stop and dig in the gravel. What he found was a beautifully-worked, silver vessel. Being low on funds, the man sold it to an antique collector, who told him it was part of a 16th-century, Italian tea service. Whether this identification was accurate or not is now a moot point. This may have been a stirring, historical find. But, sadly, my neighbor let it slide through his fingers for a certain sum of money.

The Italian teapot, though, is only a single example of what has been unearthed along the Maine coast. English, Scottish, Irish, French and Dutch artifacts are not uncommon. Among the former, as well as the latter, are clay pipes.

Anyone who digs into the soil in Maine’s long-settled areas, is apt to find a clay pipe, or at least the remains of a pipe. I have personally found many of these while working in my garden. The pipes initially had unusually long stems but the ones we dig up today consist mostly of the bowl and a stub of the stem. They were made with long stems for several reasons. First, the longer the stem, the cooler the smoke. And second, if a pipe was to be shared, such as in a tavern, the new user could break off a small section of the stem and begin a session with a new, untainted bit in his mouth.

Clay pipes are the most common of artifacts. Neither scarce nor especially costly to buy from collectors, the ubiquitous clay pipes are a great starter item for anyone wishing to acquire a collection of historically-significant items. And, for those who really delve into the hobby, it is possible to purchase authentic reproductions, made in the original molds and true to the originals in every way.

The early pipes were made in Europe and brought here