The mills are built directly over and across the river. Here is a close jam, a hard rub, at all seasons; and then the once green tree, long since white, I need not say as the driven snow, but as a driven log, becomes lumber merely. [Thoreau]

 [OLD town] is a small city in Penobscot County, incorporated on March 16, 1840 from a portion of Orono. After annexing land from Argyle, Argyle Plantation, and Alton, it was incorporated as a city in 1891.

The “Old Town” reference is to the ancient use of the area by the earliest natives, the “red paint people.”

Since 1669, the area has been the principal home of the Penobscot Indians. At that time it was known as Pannawambskek, “where the ledges spread out” according to Eckstorm.

The French established missions there in the 1680’s, but the English speaking settlers did not arrive from almost a hundred years later, in 1774. In 1798, Richard Winslow built a dam to support a double sawmill on Old Town Falls, marking the beginning of mills and lumbering that would grow substantially in the area throughout the 19th century.

When Thoreau visited in 1846 he toured a “batteau-manufactory,” making these small boats for use on river log-drives.  He described them as “a sort of mongrel between the canoe and the boat, a fur-trader’s boat.”

According to the Gazetteer of Maine,

In 1870 two blocks of mills here formerly owned by Samuel Veazie, contained 14 shingle saws, 5 gang, 3 shingle, 2 clapboard and 4 lath mills. These usually run about seven months in the year, manufacturing in that time, 25,000,000 feet of long lumber, 4,500,000 shingles, 1,000,000 clapboards, 13,500,000 laths, pickets, etc. There are also three steam sawmills.

In addition to the mainland on the west, Old Town occupies most of a large island created by the Penobscot River and the Stillwater River, and another to the north – Orson Island. The swift currents have provided many opportunities for mills and the power to run them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pushaw Stream enters the Stillwater River at yet another Island – Orono. Gilman Falls in this area has been harnessed to produce electric power. While called a “falls” it was a former set of rapids which has now been displaced by a small dam.  It does not meet the World Waterfall Database minimum criteria to be classified as a waterfall.

In the 20th century, textiles, shoes and paper making dominated the economic base, but recent declines in these industries have been accompanied with a concurrent, consistent decline in population over the past forty years.

The once Georgia Pacific Paper Mill at Great Works in southern Old Town had been closed with few prospects. Then in 2018  is was sold to the Hong Kong based Nine Dragons.  In 2019 the owner visited the site and proclaimed that the mill is intended to be renovated and operate for the next 100 years.

Prior to its idling in the fourth quarter of 2015, the mill manufactured and distributed about 155,000 tons annually of bleached hardwood kraft pulp. The new owner has said the mill will be reconfigured to operate at substantially lower costs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heavily influenced by the nearby University of Maine in Orono and the long-lived Old Town Canoe Company, the city benefits from an outlet that attracts customers from the University.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DeWitt Field, Old Town’s municipal airport, was activated on November 1, 1942.  With three runways, the airport covers 360 acres. It is owned by the town and is open to the public. Artist Bernard Langlais was born in Old Town in 1922 and had a long career in painting and sculpture. The James W. Sewall Company has been a tradition since 1880, offering engineering, mapping and forestry services.

Congressional Medal of Honor

Civil War

LEWELLYN G. ESTES

 

 

2020

The eastern, Bennoch Road region of the town contains a residential area near the Penobscot River. Alton’s United Methodist Church is also on the Bennoch Road in Alton.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Form of Government: Council-Mayor-Manager.

Additional resources

 

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

Barry, Ellen. “A Maine Paper Mill’s Unexpected Savior: China.” New York Times January 23, 2020. nytimes.com/2020/01/15/us/maine-mill-china.html (accesses January 27, 2020)

City of Old Town and its Environs: 1906 souvenir: early settlement, growth and historical facts, advantages for new industries, industrial and mercantile concerns, educational, religious and charitable institutions, opportunities for home seekers. Bangor, Me. R. J. Lawton. 1906.

Cunningham, George B. Ten Old Houses in Old Town, 1865 and 1940. 1980.

Devitt, Mary Josephine Orr. Selected Aspects of the Political, Economic, and Social Development of Old Town, Maine.1949. [Thesis (M.A.) in History–University of Maine, 1949.

“Gilman Falls, Penobscot County, Maine, United States.” https://www.worldwaterfalldatabase.com/waterfall/Gilman-Falls-20511. (accessed November 25, 2019)

Gilman Family. Business Records, 1852-1900. (Cataloger Note: The Gilman family owned several sawmills in Old Town. The mills were purchased in 1852 and were run under the name Spencer, Gilman & Co. until 1858, when they passed briefly to George K. Jewett, who then sold the mill property in 1861 to Samuel B. Gilman.) [University of Maine, Fogler Library, Special Collections.]

History Revenue Committee. Old Town, Maine: the first 125 years 1840-1965. Old Town, Me. Town of Old Town. c1965.

In Their Own Words [moving image recording]: personal reflections on the history of Old Town, Maine. A project by the Old Town Museum in association with the Maine Folklife Center and the University of Maine Department of Public Affairs and Marketing. Orono, Me. University of Maine Dept. of Public Affairs and Marketing. c2005.

Norton, David. Sketches of the Town of Old Town, Penobscot County, Maine from its earliest settlement, to 1879; with biographical sketches. Bangor. S. G. Robinson, printer. 1881.

Maine State Archives. George French Photo Collection. “Covered Bridge in Old Town, No Longer in Existence.”

Nos Histoires de l’Ile. Nos histoires de l’ile: History and memories of French Island, Old Town, Maine. Old Town, Me. Nos Histoires de l”Ile. c1999.

*Maine. Historic Preservation Commission. Augusta, Me.   Text and photos from National Register of Historic Places: http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/nrhp/text/xxxxxxxx.PDF and http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/nrhp/photos/xxxxxxxx.PDF

Patch, Edith Marion, House: 01001269.PDF

Old Town (Me.). City Council. Charter and Ordinances of the City of Old Town. Old Town, Me. Published by order of the City Council. City Steam Printing House. 1893. [University of Maine, Fogler Library, Special Collections.]

Pawling, Micah A. Wabanaki Homeland and the New State of Maine. pp. 17-29.

Sewall, George T., 1844-1909. To Katahdin: the 1876 adventures of four young men and a boat. Gardiner, Me. Tilbury House. Augusta, Me. Friends of the Maine State Museum. c2000.

Stanley, Robert Dana. The Rise of the Penobscot Lumber Industry to 1860. 1963. [Thesis (M.A.) in History–University of Maine at Orono.]

Torkildsen, Trina N. (Trina Noren). Old Town, Maine: Profile of a Community’s Development.1978. [Thesis (M.S.) in Community Development–University of Maine, 1978.

United States. Army. Corps of Engineers. Floods on Penobscot and Stillwater Rivers: Old Town & Milford, Maine. Waltham, Mass. U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers, New England Division. 1976

Valigra, Lori. “Shuttered Old Town paper mil to be sold to owner of Rumford mill.” Bangor Daily News. October 10, 2018. https://bangordailynews.com/2018/10/10/business/shuttered-old-town-paper-mill-to-be-sold-to-owner-of-rumford-mill/ (accessed January 27, 2020.

Varney, George J. A Gazetteer of the State of Maine. 1886. pp. 409-412. Image of Old Town Falls from p. 410.

[quote from The Maine Woods]

National Register of Historic Places – Listings

Patch, Edith Marion, House

[500 College Avenue] Braeside, the Edith Marion Patch House,  is a one-and-a-half-story vernacular domestic structure built round 1837, and was expanded several times. From 1913 to 1954 Braeside was the home of the internationally recognized scientist, Dr. Edith Marion Patch, who taught entomology at the University of Maine and served as director of entomology at the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station from 1903- 1937. Patch was the first woman to head a state agricultural experiment station department and was honored for her scholarship and educational leadership in 1930 by being elected president of the American Entomological Society, at a time when many scientific societies refused to admit women.

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1876, Patch arrived at the University of Maine in 1903, at the age of twenty-seven. A graduate of one of the first coeducational universities in America, University of Minnesota, Patch was one of the few women of her day to hold an academic specialization in entomology. For two years after college she struggled to find work in her discipline. After two years of supporting herself by high school teaching, Patch was invited to come to Orono by Charles D. Woods, Director of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. Though his critics scoffed that Miss Patch wouldn’t be able to climb trees or catch grasshoppers, he hired her anyway, to start an entomology department. No funds were approved for her position, so Patch had to work a year without salary to prove herself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next year, having created an entomology department and mapped out its research agenda, Patch was granted the paid position of entomologist. She became the first woman in the nation to head an experiment station and devoted the rest of her professional life to the University of Maine. Patch earned her Master’s degree from the University of Maine in 1910, and her Ph.D. from Cornell in the following year. She published more than eighty technical reports and scientific articles. The focus of her research was on aphids, which cause enormous damage to potato, timber, and other economically important plant species in Maine and the world.

In addition to her contributions to scientific research, Patch was a renowned educator and author of many books and articles for children and the general public. Her writings, popular among families, were also adopted as textbooks in elementary schools around the country. Her work as a writer and educator was honored by her election, twice, to the presidency of the American Nature Study Society, the nation’s leading science education organization. Patch’s effort to integrate scientific research and public education are evident in her early calls for ecological awareness. A generation ahead of Rachel Carson, she warned of the dangers of chemical pesticides, and used both her popular writings and her work with farmers to demonstrate more ecologically appropriate forms of pest control.* [Martha McNamara photo]

St. Anne’s Church and Mission Site

See Indian Island off Maine Route 43.

St. James Episcopal Church

[Centre Street] St. James Parish in Old Town was organized in 1849. The first church, built in 1852, was of Gothic design. In 1892 it was replaced on the same foundation with the present building designed by the noted Gothicist, Henry Vaughn, one of only four designs by him in Maine. The others are the Searles Science Center and Hubbard Hall at Bowdoin College and St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Newcastle. Henry Vaughn, well known as an ecclesiastical architect, was born in England in 1846. Educated there he studied under George F. Boadley, the famous English Gothicist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vaughn came to the United States in 1881, after several years of successful practice. His apparent intention was to bring an authentic interpretation of Gothic architecture to America. Vaughn acquired a considerable reputation in the design of English Gothic churches and institutional buildings.

In the early 1900s, Boadley, now in this country, invited Vaughn to share in preparing a competitive design for the proposed cathedral church (Saints Peter and Paul) in Washington, DC. Successful in the competition, the two men were commissioned architects for the project in 1906. Following Boadley ‘s death the next year, Vaughn assumed full charge of the work on this monumental edifice, a task that he continued until his own death in 1917. Old Town’s St. James Church, though relatively small, reflects the skill and maturity of its designer and is an excellent example of Henry Vaughn’s work.* [Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr. B&W photo]

US Post Office–Old Town Maine

[Center Street] The Post Office was designed in 1912 and built in 1914, one of forty post offices built throughout the United States that year. The building was one of the first, (along with the Camden Post Office) designed by Oscar Wenderoth. The design reflects James Knox Taylor’s philosophy of designing “Classical Styles of Architecture” and the use of fine high quality, durable building materials, symmetry and ornamentation.

This building contains many of the architectural elements and styling of James Knox Taylor’s Bar Harbor Post Office (1908) and may have served as an influence of the somewhat more restrained Camden Post Office, also designed by Wenderoth in 1912. The building is a strong reminder of the entirely eclectic period when public buildings were designed to inspire awe in the public. A building of classic design and materials, unique to its local, it is a strong focal point in the community and serves to dignify the area with significant architectural effort.* [Dennis Griggs photo]