Industry & Commerce


Chase Store, Post Office, Baring, ca. 1910

Chase Store, Post Office, Baring, ca. 1910
Item 88011   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

The Granville Chase Store was the company store of the Chase sawmill enterprises in Baring. As with many general stores of its time, it doubled as the local post office.

From the front door, one had a view of the St. Croix River and the international bridge to Upper Mills, New Brunswick. Nearly everyone in town did their trade at the Chase store, and the store account of most was continually in the red.

Prices were high but options few for his customers, as Chase was the town’s only large employer. With the railroad depot nearby, the Chase store was at the center of village life in Baring for many decades.

Danforth Garage, Danforth, ca. 1920

Danforth Garage, Danforth, ca. 1920
Item 88032   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

The Danforth Garage was located on Depot Street in Danforth between the Mark Lodge residence (first known as a boarding house of William Foss) and the residence of Mancil Gillis on the left.

The building was covered with metal, which was a rarity in this woods town. Gasoline sold for 19 cents per gallon. Notice the 55-gallon drum used to store the fuel and the hand pump and black hose for fill-ups.

Because the building was built on a hill, there was another large space under the main floor, entered from Central Street, for mechanics’ work. An apartment occupied the second floor.

Clarence "Weiger" Spinney operated this garage for many years.

An interesting story about the garage is that a man named William Springer put together a small plane in the front of the building. So that he wouldn’t have to take the plane apart to get out of the building, he had the entire front of the building removed when the plane was finished.

'David Cohen' before launching, Dennysville, ca. 1918

'David Cohen' before launching, Dennysville, ca. 1918
Item 88029   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

The Pushee Brothers shipyard operated from 1890 to about 1930 at Hinckley Shore in Dennysville. It built renowned four-masted schooners, Passamaquoddy Bay ferries, lobster smacks, and pleasure boats.

The shipyard built the David Cohen, the first of the four-masted schooners, for David Cohen and Company in New York. She was an ocean-going vessel of 752 gross tons (length, 155 feet; beam, 35 feet; depth of hold in shoalest place, 13 feet, 6 inches), a sailing ship with auxiliary power.

Of her launching on July 25, 1918, Fred L. Gardner wrote in his journal, "The keel was laid early in July last, 160 feet on keel. She slid into the water most beautifully. Never a false move. There were thousands of people there. All around shores, both sides of the river. There were 400 autos at least."

In 1921, the auxiliary engines were removed and she was renamed Victoria S. She was lost off North Carolina on August 23, 1925.

View of East Machias, ca. 1910

View of East Machias, ca. 1910
Item 87980   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

This is a view of East Machias River looking down river. Each spring during the alewife run, men stood on the wooden platforms and dipped for the fish. The alewives were then smoked and were a very popular item for sale and consumption.

V.L. Coffin and Son’s Store, Harrington, ca. 1910

V.L. Coffin and Son’s Store, Harrington, ca. 1910
Item 88006   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

In 1876 Capt. Voranus L. Coffin purchased the interests of his partners, all shipbuilders, and in 1884 the company became V. L. Coffin and Son. His son was Charles A. Coffin. Their business interests included the general store shown here.

Coffins were among Harrington’s earliest settlers, and several generations contributed significantly to the development and industry of the town. E. S. Coffin was one of the first merchants in Harrington village. Temple, John B., Adams, and V. L. Coffin were all shipbuilders.

V. L. Coffin and Son’s Store later became K. A. Smith General Store and then Anderson’s General Store. By the 1920s a three-story building stood on the site of the two small buildings next to the store.

At various times that building was Self’s Drug Store, Hall’s Drug Store, and Scott’s Variety.

Lawrence Lumber Company's Mill, Jonesboro, ca. 1915

Lawrence Lumber Company's Mill, Jonesboro, ca. 1915
Item 87962   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

Timber was plentiful along the Chandler River when the first settlers arrived in Jonesboro. In 1763 or 1764 Judah Chandler built a sawmill on the north side of river, on the dam where other sawmills were later erected.

Over time Jonesboro mills produced lumber, staves, shingles and box shooks (parts for unassembled boxes). There were mills along the main river as well as "tide mills" on the east side of the river, three miles below.

Lawrence Lumber Company appears in the annual Maine Register as a manufacturer of long and short lumber from 1900 to 1916. The building, then the Look Brothers empty box mill, was destroyed in 1937 when a fire jumped the river, consuming houses and a store as well as the mill.

The title on this glass plate photograph is "Lawrence Lumber Cos Mill, Jonesboro Me. 10"

Post Office and store, Jonesboro, ca. 1915

Post Office and store, Jonesboro, ca. 1915
Item 88026   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

This was originally the company store operated by the Bodwell Granite Company in the late 1800s on the corner of Route 1 and Station Road in Jonesboro. Note the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company vehicle parked in the far right of the frame.

Harvey, Joel and Harry Look bought the store in 1915 and operated it with their sister Millie. Harry and Millie lived in the adjoining house. The store became an IGA member, and a salesman from Calais came every Monday to take orders and identify weekly specials.

Mail came and went twice a day. The store was a center of community life.

A detailed plan of the store shows the post office and waiting room in the front section on the right, with the store office and storage behind. The store section details the display locations for IGA specials, hanging bananas, milk pitchers for tourists, first aid supplies, smoked alewives, clothing racks, meat cutting, a hand crank kerosene pump, canned goods, jewelry and gifts, oranges, penny candy, chewing tobacco, nail bins, and many other items.

Millie Look continued to work in the store until 1970, and Look family members owned and operated it until 1986.

View from Moosepeak Light, Jonesport, ca. 1920

View from Moosepeak Light, Jonesport, ca. 1920
Item 88010   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

Moose Peak Light Station, located on Mistake Island, was also known as Mistake Island Light, Head Harbor Light and Moose-a-bec Light.

The rocky 27-acre Mistake Island is about five miles southeast of Jonesport. The original light station was established in 1826.

The present tower, 57 feet high, 18 feet in diameter, and standing about 32 feet above mean sea level, was built in 1851.

The photo shows the Keeper’s House with part of the boardwalk and covered boardwalk between the house and the light tower. About half the length of the walk was covered. The house and the boardwalk were built in 1903, replacing an earlier house.

The Keeper’s House was blown up in 1982 by a government military team.

All that is left of Moose Peak Light Station is the brick and masonry light tower on four acres of land. The rest of Mistake Island belongs to the Nature Conservancy.

American Can Plant, Lubec, ca. 1910

American Can Plant, Lubec, ca. 1910
Item 88021   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

Sardine canneries lined Lubec’s wharves in the early 1900s. They operated day and night, employing hundreds of workers of all ages. Each cannery fabricated its own sardine cans until 1908, when the American Can Company opened and began manufacturing the cans.

In this photograph, children pose near the American Can Company plant built in Lubec village after its North Lubec factory burned. The first mechanized "tin" can manufacturer in Lubec, it soon erected a much larger building, and those shown here became warehouses.

In a few decades the company was turning out 350 million cans a year. Sardine production peaked in 1950 at 3,806,000 cases of 100 cans.

The can plant went out of business in 1972, and the last structures were moved in the early 1990s. The last sardine packer closed in the 1990s.

Lubec and Eastport canneries employed many children, attracting the attention of well-known documentary photographer and social reformer Lewis Hine. In August 1911 he photographed young workers, many under the age of 12, cutting and packing fish in local canneries.

West Side View, Machiasport, ca. 1910

West Side View, Machiasport, ca. 1910
Item 87969   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

Although a fire destroyed 14 structures along the Machiasport waterfront in 1893, it was again a busy place about 1910, when this photo was taken.

The large building on the left, next to the schooner at the Stuart Boatyard, is the W. S. Cates clam factory. Clams and sardines were important industries at the time, and the Machiasport Canning Company and Booth Fisheries had sardine factories on the waterfront.

The Congregational Church stands on the hill along Route 92. Note the tugboat Emmel B. Jones docked at the pier.

Nathan Gates built the three-story white house in 1810 and died insolvent six years later at age 33. The Gates House is now home of the Machiasport Historical Society, which also owns the Cooper House, once home of Gates’ married daughter, next door.

The Samuel Small General Store stands next to the Gates house, beyond which are the remains of the Whitneyville and Machiasport Railroad wharves.

W. T. Murchies Store, North Perry, ca. 1915

W. T. Murchies Store, North Perry, ca. 1915
Item 87982   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

In the 1920s, Harry and Ethel Bishop purchased this general store that W. Todd Murchie built on U.S. Route 1 in North Perry. The Bishops lived above the store. The vehicle parked at the far right is quite possibly an Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company vehicle.

Members of the Bishop family operated the store until the mid 1960s. Frances (Morrison) Raye, the Bishops' oldest grandchild, was born in 1928 and recalls Bishop’s Store as a popular establishment and gathering place, featuring a pickle barrel, bulk flour and sugar, and a gasoline pump, and where Harry Bishop conducted business as First Selectman.

Renamed the Chalet under new ownership in the late 1960s, it featured take-out food. It closed in the 1990s and the building was razed when Route 1 in Perry was rebuilt in 2007.

Murchie Mill, Perry, ca. 1915

Murchie Mill, Perry, ca. 1915
Item 87997   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

Taken from Passamaquoddy Bay, this photo shows the Murchie Mill at Lewis Cove in North Perry. The mill was located on Gin Cove Road.

To the right of the stack is the Pottle House, which at one time housed a restaurant, and still stands. Murchie’s Store, later Bishop’s Store, is visible in the background on what is now U.S. Route 1.

The Murchie Mill was gone by the 1930s. Later, Herbert Adams and C. Marshall Washburn built a sardine factory at the site. That building, along with most of the buildings in this photo, is no longer standing.

Woodland Cash Store, ca. 1920

Woodland Cash Store, ca. 1920
Item 88015   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

An early history of Woodland referred to Charles Murray’s general merchandise store as "among the leading industrial and mercantile houses of the St. Croix Valley." He erected the Murray Building, shown here, in 1915. He ran the Woodland Cash Store on the first floor, and apartments and storage were on the second and third floors. The building burned in 1969.

Charlie Murray, an Italian immigrant who changed his name when he came to the United States, arrived in Woodland as the St. Croix Paper Company was just getting under way. He quickly became an energetic and influential member of the new company town.

He recruited many of the Italians who built the mill and was the contract "enforcer" who rounded up the Italians who ran off before they had completed what the company considered their term of employment.

In 1907 he built the Woodland Opera House, known initially as Murray’s Hall. It was reported to have "one of the finest fitted bowling alleys in New England woodland" as well a hall for dancing, roller skating, and music, plays, and other entertainment.

St. Croix Paper Mill, Woodland, ca. 1910

St. Croix Paper Mill, Woodland, ca. 1910
Item 87974   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

About 1900 Sprague’s Falls on the St. Croix River, five miles north of Baring, was identified as an ideal location for a dam and a paper mill by a consortium of businessmen.

The St. Croix Paper Company was formed, land was purchased, and in 1905 the largely uninhabited area around the falls was cleared. About a thousand Italian contract laborers built the Woodland Mill in the summer of 1906.

By the end of September of 1906 the mill had produced its first paper, and in 1907 a second paper machine was added. In 1909 the town had grown to over 800 people, some the Italian laborers who had built the mill. Woodland prospered and the mill continued to expand. It remained a successful operation in 2013.

The foreground of this photo shows the mill pond, the large expanse of water that held many thousands of logs cut the previous winter and driven downstream during the spring thaw.

Saw mill, Baring, ca. 1920

Saw mill, Baring, ca. 1920
Item 87985   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

The Chase lumber and box mills in Baring were the successors and final heirs to a long tradition of Baring mills begun by William Vance in 1804.

In the 1800s mills spanned the St. Croix River from Baring on the American side to Upper Mills on the Canadian side. In 1890 Granville Chase, a Baring native, returned and purchased the remaining mills owned then by Lendall Tyler. He converted a portion of the operations to a box mill and, at his death in 1904, left his sons Edward and Clifford a well-established and profitable business.

The brothers continued the business until the 1930s when they sold all of their holdings to the St. Croix Paper Company. On January 9, 1933 a fire destroyed all of the buildings, leaving hardly a trace of 130 years of milling operations in Baring.

Bridge, Baring, ca. 1930

Bridge, Baring, ca. 1930
Item 87960   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

The Baring bridge may well have been the first international bridge in Maine. It was certainly the first bridge over the St. Croix River and connected the mills in Baring with those in Upper Mills, Canada.

Histories differ but the first bridge between these two communities, a rude affair, was constructed about 1804.

Over the next 150 years both communities prospered and became a single community, sharing churches, fraternal and social organizations. Marriages across the national border were common.

In 1948, when the U.S. Government closed the bridge, both communities were devastated. The closing was especially difficult for Upper Mills, which lost its only direct connection with a major highway.

In the background of the photo are the Chase Mills in Baring.

Cherryfield, ca. 1935

Cherryfield, ca. 1935
Item 87959   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

When lumber was king in Cherryfield, the banks of the Narraguagus River were thick with lumber awaiting shipment. In the decades after the Civil War, local mills produced 12 to 15 million board feet of lumber a year as well as other wood products.

Logging camps upriver cut timber, "branded" the logs, and sluiced them down to Stillwater Pond, where the logs were sorted according to each company’s marks. Products from Cherryfield mills were loaded on small sloops or barged to Millbrook for shipment far and wide.

Across the river, from left, are the Nickels House, Campbell–Burbank House, Adams House, and the Baptist Parsonage. The Adams house was a boarding house run by Charles Adams for mill workers.

The Wilson Steam Mill, just before the covered bridge, was the only steam mill on the Narraguagus River. Beyond it is the Nash building.

The covered bridge, built in 1848, was one of two vehicle bridges in town; the other was at the Upper Corner. Until 1940, there was a footbridge between the two.

Baskahegan Co. Mill, Danforth, ca. 1915

Baskahegan Co. Mill, Danforth, ca. 1915
Item 87971   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

This photo is taken from up above the Baskahegan Stream in Danforth. Note the logs held in place by the booms.

On the left is the long lumber mill, and to its right is the box mill. The corner of the gristmill is just visible on the far right.

Everyone laughed at Obed Foss for keeping his oxen, but they showed their strength when they raised the smokestack for the steam mill when horses couldn’t do it. With the production of steam, the mills could run in the coldest weather.

After many years of trying to attract the establishment of a gristmill with the promise of no taxes for 10 years, one was finally built in the 1870s. Constructed underneath a sawmill at the falls, it was owned by the firm of Dodge and Goodwin. After the two dissolved their business arrangement, Dodge built a gristmill on the east side of the dam; Goodwin Brothers’ mill was on the west side.

The gristmill served local farmers from as far away as Topsfield and also ground a large amount of corn shipped direct from the West at a low rate of freight. It stood until the flood of 1923.

Dam, Grand Lake Stream, ca. 1920

Dam, Grand Lake Stream, ca. 1920
Item 88005   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

The Grand Lake Stream Dam is shown with an old company building at far right where tools and equipment were stored.

The low buildings facing the water were boathouses where guides or other boat owners could rent space from the town. A long building adjacent to the boathouses called "The Lockers" had storage spaces with individual doors where guides rented space from the town for their gear.

The piers showing over the top of the dam were used to tie the boom logs during the log driving days. Logs were boomed up or chained together to make a corral to contain logs, which would then be towed by a boat down the lake to the dam.

From there the logs were sluiced down the river, across Big Lake and Lewy Lake, to the West Branch of the St. Croix River, where they ended their journey in Woodland at the St. Croix Paper Company mill.

Sawyer’s Store, Jonesport, ca. 1910

Sawyer’s Store, Jonesport, ca. 1910
Item 87968   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

Brothers Daniel James Sawyer and Edward Mansfield Sawyer had this building constructed on Sawyer’s Square in Jonesport in 1896 at a cost of $2,485. It replaced their original store, which was located where the present Jonesport Marina Building is.

This building housed a general store, ship chandlery, and customs office. During WWII the U. S. Navy had a dental office in the building, and the U. S. Coast Guard dispensed refrigerated goods to the people of Jonesport from here.

The Worcester-Sawyer Insurance Agency occupied the building from 1932 to 1994. In January 1936 the top two floors became the Masonic Lodge.

In January, 2011 John Vassar Sawyer II, the great-grandson of Edward Mansfield Sawyer, donated the building and its contents to the Jonesport Historical Society. The first floor now houses a museum and restored U.S. Customs Office from the late 1890s.

The building behind the Sawyer store was Charles Henry Mansfield’s General Store and the telegraph office. Mansfield, only four feet and eight inches tall, was a successful businessman and landowner.

He doubled the size of the original building and moved it 90 degrees. In 2013, the building was the Harbor House bed & breakfast and an antiques store.

Pumping Station, Perry, ca. 1925

Pumping Station, Perry, ca. 1925
Item 88008   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

This photo, believed to have been taken about 1925, shows the Old Pumping Station on South Meadow Road, in Perry.

It was built for the Eastport Water Company in 1890-91, when water rights were purchased from James Leighton, who operated the station until 1906.

The reservoir was created by a dam as Boyden Stream passed under the bridge east of the intersection with Golding Road.

These buildings and the reservoir are long gone, replaced by a new pumping station further upstream in the mid 20th century.

Third Avenue, Woodland, ca. 1915

Third Avenue, Woodland, ca. 1915
Item 87977   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

"30 Cities Souvenir," published in 1908 by P.J. Layton Co., described Woodland:
"Three years ago what was a wilderness is now a town of over eight hundred people, and is metropolitan in every respect having fine stores, a bank, two churches, a town hall a fine fire department, excellent sewer and water systems, electric lights furnished by the company, and every facility and convenience of an old established town, and all because of the St. Croix Paper Company locating here."

Woodland was a planned town, ensuring that employees had good housing and services. Streets were laid out in a regular pattern with company-built houses for employees lining them.

In this photo the Methodist Church sits on the corner of Third and Summit Streets. It was one of two churches in town, the other being the Catholic Church at the corner of Hillside Street and Second Avenue, attended by the many Italian immigrants.

Third Avenue runs down hill to the St. Croix mill; the tall building to the left of the water tower is the digester.

Pulp pile, St. Croix Paper Co., Woodland, ca. 1910

Pulp pile, St. Croix Paper Co., Woodland, ca. 1910
Item 98636   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

Beginning in 1906, St. Croix produced newsprint in Woodland for more than 50 years.

When this photo was taken, piles of pulp wood logs were the raw materials for papermaking. By the time Georgia-Pacific purchased the paper company in 1963, a river full of logs had given way to small mountains of wood chips, brought in by tractor-trailers.

Waterfront, Calais, ca. 1910

Waterfront, Calais, ca. 1910
Item 87957   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

In this circa 1910 photo taken from the St. Stephen shore, a steamship, possibly the Henry Eaton, is docked at the upper landing in Calais.

The Calais end of the international bridge can be seen to the far right. Steamboats made daily round trips from Calais to Robbinston, St. Andrews and Eastport.

At times of very low tide, steamboat passengers were forced to disembark at the lower landing on Steamboat Street, and relied on one of the many livery stables to provide transportation into town.

To the right of the steamboat is a river tug, and to the left are the Murchie lumber wharves and Upper Main Street. The prominent building to the left facing the river is the Andrews Hotel at the corner of Whitney Street.

Canning Factory, Robbinston, ca. 1915

Canning Factory, Robbinston, ca. 1915
Item 88041   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

Frontier Packing was the first sardine canning plant in Robbinston. It was built in 1880 and was also called Holmes Packing/Canning.

The Maine State Register listed three canneries in Robbinston in 1889: Frontier; A. Wentworth & Company, sardines; and Hart & Balkam, sardines and lobsters.

Frontier Packing burned in 1929 in a spectacular fire, which, had the wind been blowing in the opposite direction, would have taken much of the town of Robbinston with it.

O. H. Taylor’s potato crew, Topsfield, ca. 1905

O. H. Taylor’s potato crew, Topsfield, ca. 1905
Item 87994   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

The O. H. Taylor property was on what is now U.S. 1 south of its intersection with Route 6 in Topsfield.

Otis Taylor was a selectman and postmaster and also owned a general store. Although there were commercial potato farms in Topsfield, Taylor was not a commercial potato grower, so the huge potatoes being harvested are most likely for sale in his store or for his own use.

A.D. Lane’s Store, Topsfield, ca. 1925

A.D. Lane’s Store, Topsfield, ca. 1925
Item 87984   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

In the 1920s Daniel Lane operated a general store on his property next to the Lane Hotel in Topsfield. The store is on the right, with the barn between it and the hotel.

The post office sign at the corner of the building indicates that Lane, who served on the Board of Selectmen, was Topsfield postmaster at the time.

Small town post offices were often located in a store. The position of postmaster was a political appointment so might move from store to store, depending on which party was in office.

The school is in the background.

Ora and Ida White bought the land to the north of the Lane property and owned and operated a store and Gulf station there until the 1960s or later. At the same time Hazel Noyes owned and operated the "Corner Cottage." It housed a restaurant, small store, Texaco station and post office.

The Webbers added a lunch counter and Esso station to their property. Only the Webber's building still operated as a store and restaurant in 2013.

The Lane buildings are gone, and James Harriman built a house on the site, which is across the street from the current Topsfield Country Store.

Lamb and Crane Mill, Whiting, 1910

Lamb and Crane Mill, Whiting, 1910
Item 87992   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

The Lamb and Crane sawmill was on a small millpond on the Orange River in Whiting near where the Route 1 bridge crosses the Orange River.

Brothers Hatevil and William Bell had started the original mill on the site in the 1830s. Around 1910, when this photo was taken, it looked like Lamb and Crane’s mill was a busy place.

In 1920, however, it was torn down and none of the buildings remain.

Sardine factory, North Lubec, ca. 1910

Sardine factory, North Lubec, ca. 1910
Item 87983   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

In this image, Millard Reynolds drives his 1909 Maxwell Model "A" Runabout southward along the North Lubec Road. This is said to have been the first car in North Lubec.

The small buildings on the right house sardine factory workers. The cannery behind them is the "Penny Catcher," one of several plants operated by the Lawrence family’s North Lubec Manufacturing Company.

Ward’s Stave Mill, Cherryfield, ca. 1915

Ward’s Stave Mill, Cherryfield, ca. 1915
Item 87966   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

The O.C. Ward Stave Mill in Cherryfield, owned by Obediah Ward, was located on the west side of the Narraguagus River below the Freeman Mill.

Note the falls that provided power on the right.

The mill was originally owned by Charles P. Nickels, a prominent Cherryfield businessman who owned parts of several mills. Its size is typical of a specialty mill.

The wagons are loaded with bundles of barrel staves, known as shooks, manufactured here at the mill and ready for shipment or delivery directly to customers.

View of Cutler from Sand Beach, ca. 1910

View of Cutler from Sand Beach, ca. 1910
Item 88042   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

This view, taken from the Cutler Sand Beach, looks seaward toward Little River Island, on the left. The Little River Lighthouse is on the far side of the island. Note the Friendship sloops at anchor in the harbor, in addition to the figure rowing a dory near the middle of the frame.

The lighthouse and boathouse were built in 1847. The boathouse was replaced in 1881.

The ruins of the steamboat wharf are on the left. The Cutler Land Company built the wharf in the 1880s, but by 1910, the company was defunct. However, Elias Grimes, its owner, paid the company’s debts and got its properties.

Last of the Byther Block buildings, Steuben, ca. 1915

Last of the Byther Block buildings, Steuben, ca. 1915
Item 88004   info
Penobscot Marine Museum

This general store on Spruce Street (today Roger’s Point Road) in Steuben was owned by David and Dora Smith in the early 1900s.

In later years, the store was owned by the Parritt family and part of the Nation Wide cooperative of independent grocers. It had been part of a group of stores called the Byther Block.

The Byther Block was torn down leaving the general store building. Byther was a lawyer and prominent businessman in Steuben who lived in a large house on the village green.

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