Grist Mill Equipment at Eskutarsis Stream in East Lowell (2014)

Grist Mill Equipment at Eskutarsis Stream in East Lowell (2014)

Location Map for Lowell

Location Map for Lowell

Year Population
1970 154
1980 194
1990 267
2000 291
2010 358
Lowell Population Chart 1840-2010

Population Trend 1840-2010

Geographic Data
N. Latitude 45:13:10
W. Longitude 68:29:46
Maine House District 141
Maine Senate District 8
Congress District 2
Area sq. mi. (total) 40.1
Area sq. mi. (land) 38.2
Population/sq.mi. (land) 9.4
County: Penobscot

Total=land+water; Land=land only
Sign for Lowell Town Office and Community Center on Route 188 (2014)

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[LOW-ehl] is a town in Penobscot County, incorporated on February 9, 1837 under the exotic name of Huntressville from the former township of T1 R1 NBPP. The current name was established the following year.

First settled in 1819, the area was known as Pages Mills, then Deanfield in honor of two esteemed residents: school teacher Mary C. Dean and Rev. Pindar Field. The final name, according to some, was given for Lowell Hayden, the son of Alpheus Hayden, one of the original settlers.

In 1841 Lowell annexed Pages Mills Plantation and then some land from Passadumkeag in 1842. It conceded some land to Burlington in 1847 to end its boundary changes. In 1856 a tannery was built on Tannery Road in East Lowell.  The Grange was organized in 1877.

Grange Hall in East Lowell (2014)

Grange Hall in East Lowell (2014) @

Here’s a little mystery.  Enlarge the Grange Hall image (click on it as with most other images). You see the sign “Eskutarsis Grange,” spelled as is the local road. The stream is locally named Eskutarsis. However the State of Maine government, Google maps, and Delorme all spell the place names “Eskustassis.”

Lowell Town Office and Community Center on Route 188 in East Lowell (2012)

Town Office/Community Center in East Lowell (2014) @

House in East Lowell on Route 188 at Eskutarsis Road (2014)

House in East Lowell on Rt. 188 at Eskutarsis Rd. (2014) @

The relatively new town office and community center is in East Lowell on Route 188 near Vinegar Hill Road. East Lowell village is centered at the intersection of Eskutarsis Road, Tannery Road and Route 188, known as West Main Road and East Main Road.

Just east of Enfield, on Maine Route 188, the town has frontage on Cold Stream Pond and on Eskutarsis Pond.  The latter pond has a broad outlet and a stream near East Lowell village.  Mill Stream once hosted a grist mill and a piece of its machinery sits on the bank near East Main Road.

Grist Mill Pond on Route 188 (2014)

Grist Mill Pond on Route 188 (2014) @

Grist Mill Equipment at Eskutarsis Stream, outlet from Grist Mill Pond, on Route 188 (2014)

Grist Mill Equipment, Eskutarsis Stream ’14 @

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lowell has been a high growth town, adding to its population at an average rate of 24% in each census since 1970, even though it is not close to an urban center. There is little development in the western, marshy portion. Lowell village, on the Passadumkeag River, is in the southeast, with East Lowell just a few miles north.

Additional sources

Chadbourne, Ava Harriet. Maine Place Names and The Peopling of its Towns.

Austin, Isaac. Account Book, 1826-1878. A volume used by Isaac Austin to record information about his work, mostly as a farm laborer, and the use of his horses and oxen. Entries in the volume are headed Windsor, Hartland, Bridgewater, and Lowell, Maine. The book was also used from 1874 to 1878 by N. I. Austin to record his time working on roads, shoveling, hauling shingles, threshing, etc. [University of Maine, Fogler Library, Special Collections.]

[Lowell, Maine, Centennial Celebration, September 4, 1937] 1937. (Cataloger Note: Photocopy of mounted newspaper clipings from the Bangor news and the Bangor commercial, September 2-7, 1937.)

Porter, Wayne S. A History of Lowell, Penobscot County, Maine. Brewer, Me. L. H. Thompson. 1993.

1 Comment

  1. As a Small boy after WWII, I lived in a small white house next to the Baptist Church in Enfield, Maine. My dad ran the plug mill at the head of the road opposite the church, it was called “Birchwood Industries”. I went to the two room school just S.E. of the Grange Hall across from Appelbees’s garage. I remember visiting abandoned homes on Vinegar Hill Road in Burlington. There were rumors at that time, between kids that there was a gold mine on Vinegar Hill Road. Was there ever a mine on that road?

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