power from water

The Vaughan Stream, located in Hallowell, Maine, was owned by the Vaughan Family.

At various times there were three dams on the Vaughan Stream generating power for various mills. One of the dams was the Wire Mill dam, which was located a few feet above what is now the now large stone arch bridge.

The arch bridge was completed in 1930, replacing the wooden bridge that had been part of the Wire Mill dam.

The stone dam we still see today is the Stickney & Page dam constructed in 1871. It replaced a earthen dam that had been built in 1849. The Stickney & Pages dam created Cascade Pond, a reservoir to provide a more constant source of water power to the mills downstream when Vaughan stream was low. When the stream was dried up, the factories were then powered by steam engines.

The various mills on Vaughan stream powered by the dams used Penstock power turbines to generate the power for the millwork.

mills on the stream

The Milliken Sawmill used the energy from Vaughan steam and was located just south of the Fuller Foundry on Sheppard’s Point. The area became known as Milliken’s Crossing at the southern end of town.

There were 9 mills on Vaughan Stream over the years providing lumber, wire, flour, sandpaper, oil cloth, linseed oil and even the first electricity to Hallowell.

Ice was cut from Cascade Pond during the winter months, stored in a huge ice house at Sheppard’s Point, where Vaughan Stream meets the Kennebec, and then shipped down river to fill ice boxes in Boston and points south during the warmer months.

13,000 years

The Wabanaki (Wôban-aki) #112 people have lived in the Kennebec valley, from the head waters to the sea, for over 13,000 years.

The Wabanaki nations include the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Abenaki. The term “Abenaki” has been wrongly used over the years to describe all the Wabanaki people. It is a mistranslation of the original Wôban-aki, meaning People of the Dawnland, the First Light or East, a term that refers to both the people and the land.

While not an original term describing a certain tribe of people, over the centuries “Abenaki” came into common usage describing native tribes from central Maine west as far as the Hudson River and Lake Champlain.

reference: The Wabanaki of the Kennebec

sacred place of rippling waters

The Wabanaki communities identified themselves with the rivers they lived on or with the lands along that river. The word Kennebec derives from the original Kwenebek or /kínipekʷ/ meaning deep river.

There was a large Wabanaki gathering place known as Koussinok, meaning sacred place beside the rippling waters, just above the “head of tide” of the Kennebec at the small rapids in what is now Augusta. Wabanaki people would gather in Koussinok in the warm months to grow foods they would use throughout the year. This land was sacred to the Wabanaki of the area as it was where their ancestors had long been buried.

The Wabanaki traditionally have a deep kinship with the land, waters and other beings with whom they share the forests, hills and rivers.

natural world

The granite circle #99 represents the natural world that envelops us. Carved in the ring are animals, plants and trees symbolizing the world.

small details

A detail of one section of the granite ring.

heading

Founded in 1937 as the Augusta Players, Gaslight Theater #51 is the oldest continuously operating community theater in Maine. Since the late ’70’s they have made their home on the stage in Hallowell City Hall, One Winthrop Street in Hallowell (map).

Rebecca Singer #62, is seen in the front as Puck from Gaslight’s production of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Gaslight Theater carries forward a long tradition of providing quality live entertainment to the Capital area community. We seek to provide a welcoming venue for artistic expression, education in the theatrical arts, and community engagement.“

GaslightTheater.org

gaslight logo

Matthew Perry #65, is also depicted in his role as Snug the Joiner, portraying the lion play-within-a-play, “Pyramus and Thisbe”. Matthews’ sisters, Rebecca Perry #78 and Hannah Perry #78 are also included in the mural at the far left and far right. Their father Eric Perry was a major donor to the mural project.

Richard Bostwick #66, a lifelong Gaslight performer and director is shown in the fedora from one of his performances.

Jen Greta Cart #67, (the artist’s wife) is not an unfamiliar face on the Gaslight stage is shown here as a witch for her leadership of Hallowell Hexen dancers in the annual Halloween parade. Jen was indeed a witch on stage when she brought the witch “Gillian” to life in the in Gaslight’s production of Bell, Book and Candle.

You can see the latest Gaslight Season of performances here.

a haven

Slates Restaurant #52 of Hallowell was gutted by fire in February 2007. The restaurant had been a fixture in the community since the early 1980’s. The community came together to help owner-chef Wendy Larson bring back the beloved place.

The unofficial logo or motif of the restaurant is the mermaid. Wendy Larson has painted many merfolk over the years in both the restaurant and bakery. In the mural a mermaid representing Slates is shown rising anew from the ashes—like the proverbial phoenix.

a short move

In 2016 Slates Restaurant moved from the historic 17th century building it had been in since the early 1980’s. Even after the 2007 fire Slates had rebuilt in the same location.

However, in 2016 Wendy Larson decided it was time for a change and moved just next door to its current location, a building on Water Street that she owns.

Dotti

(August 21, 1945-Sept. 11, 2022)

Born Dorothy Proctor Galley, #97 we all knew her as Dotti.

She worked at Slates Restaurant and Bakery in Hallowell for over 40 years, where she made many lifelong friendships with co-workers and customers alike. She started at Slates in 1982 as a waitress, and worked her way up to restaurant manager, then bakery manager. She was still helping manage the bakery part time from her home up until this past summer.

livelihood from the Kennebec #39

Atlantic salmon, American shad, the alewife and blueback herring-both river herring species, rainbow smelt and striped bass are all native Kennebec anadromous fish.

Estimates of the early abundance of salmon on the river prior to the 18th century range as high as 70,000 fish, of just this one species.

Vast numbers of salmon and other anadromous fish used to swim up the Kennebec every year to spawn. These fish were an important subsistence food source for the native people of the Kennebec Valley. Hunting by the Wôban-aki Nation #112 people was mainly by spears and traps, to provide enough food for the local people.

Not much changed in the river with the early European settlers. The fish were abundant and even with increased use the fish stocks were not, initially overused. Indeed early reports by the settlers expressed their awe at the great abundance of fish in the river.

a·nad·ro·mous /əˈnadrəməs/
adjective
Zoology
(of a fish such as the salmon) migrating up rivers from the sea to spawn.

overfishing

As more Europeans settled along the Kennebec the the river became more exploited for commercial use in addition to fishing to sustain the local people. Shiploads of fish began to be netted from the river and sent down river on route for sale down the coast in ports of Portland, Boston and New York.

Kennebec salmon was prized in restaurants down the colonial coast as well at European tables. And initially, the salmon was so bountiful and cheap, laws were enacted to restrict logging camps around the state from serving the fish more than three times per week.

However, by the late 18th century people were noting the depletion of the fish in the Kennebec valley. By the 1820 when Maine became a state, the Atlantic salmon were almost gone. The real depletion of all the anadromous fish on the Kennebec came after the Edwards Dam in Augusta was built in 1837.

The settlers along the Kennebec had seen raw the potential of the river to power industry. With this first dam being built at the head of tide in Augusta, the salmon and other fish could no longer swim up stream to their spawning grounds.

By 1850, just 13 years later, the Atlantic salmon was so scarce several drift net fisheries businesses were completely abandoned. And one hundred years later in the 1950’s and Atlantic salmon numbers had dwindled to just a few hundred fish on the Kennebec.

Industry on the Kennebec in the early 20th century also polluted the river so intensely that the Kennebec river, once pristine and prized for its clear ice in winter and delicious fish, had the gained the reputation of its reek and fish too unhealthy to eat.

highway to the world

The Kennebec River #29, was crucially important to Hallowell for most of its existence since 1762. The earliest settlers, Deacon Pease Clark #109 and his family arrived sailing up the Kennebec from southern Massachusetts.

All the goods manufactured and grown in Hallowell and anywhere along the Coos Trail inland from Hallowell were shipped out of Hallowell’s port to cities down the coast

For 8 months of the year from spring, ice out to the next winter’s freeze, ships would make their way the 46 miles upriver from the Atlantic to the harbor at Hallowell:

…bringing Pennsylvania flour, West India sugar, and English cloth and hardware, returning with shingles, clapboards, hogsheads and barrel staves, white oak capstan bars destined for Boston or Bristol or Jamaica.

from Maine Memory Network

For the 100 years of the ice industry‘s huge importance in the area ice was cut from the river and area lakes and shipped down the river to many southern ports. One account states that “Kennebec ice” was much sought for its clarity and clean flavor.

Alewife fishery on the Kennebec was big business for many decades.

And until the 1950’s logs from the forests of Maine were sent down the Kennebec to Hallowell for sorting and milling.

One man noted that in Hallowell at the time:
“Every boy who had arrived at the age of eighteen and who had not been on a voyage to the East or West Indies, was looked upon as ‘non compos’, and every man over thirty who was not called Captain had forfeited the respect of the community.”

From Maine Memory Network

There were several boatyards in Hallowell, building schooners for the river trade.

far reaching trade

There were three icehouses in Hallowell located on Summer Street, the Vaughan Stream, and where the Hallowell boat landing is today.

Kennebec Proprietors

Hallowell, Maine is named for the wealthy shipbuilder Benjamin Hallowell (1699-1773) of the 17th century. He was heir to one of the original Kennebec Proprietors owning over 50,000 acres in Hallowell.

In 1629 King Charles I of England, assuming authority over the lands in America, granted title of land along both sides of the Kennebec river to the Plymouth Colony. Those lands were used for almost a hundred years as access to the Wôban-aki nation people in the fur trade.

In 1661 four very wealthy Massachusetts businessmen, known as the Kennebec Proprietors, bought land from this original grant from the Plymouth Colony for £400. Benjamin Hallowell was one of the descendant Kennebec Proprietors who controlled the land and began to sell off portions of land to settlers.

Wars between the Native Americans, French and English in the Maine frontier and along the Kennebec valley discouraged most settlement for close to a century. It wasn’t until the second half of the 18th century that much actual settlement began in the valley.

The Hallowell who gives the town its name is not to be confused with his son and namesake, Captain Benjamin Hallowell born in 1725, who became a staunch British Loyalist during the Revolutionary War. This second Benjamin Hallowell was the Commissioner of Customs during the fabled Boston Tea Party and became known as “the second most detested man in the Boston.”