[PAT-ehn] is a town in Penobscot County, incorporated on April 16, 1841 from the township T4 R6 WELS and named for Amos Patten, a wealthy Bangor lumberman who bought the township about the time it was first settled in 1830.

According to Irene Olsen,

“Through his land agent, Ira Fish, a resident of Lincoln, several people were induced to settle in this area, among them Samuel Wiggin and Elijah Kellogg. The earliest settlers came by boat up the Penobscot River to Mattawamkeag, thence up the Mattawamkeag River to what is now Island Falls, and from Island Falls by way of Fish Stream to the foot of Mars Hill in Patten. [Not the same “Mars Hill” in the town of Mars Hill near Presque Isle.]

By 1830 a spotted trail extended from Mattawamkeag to Patten, over which the first white woman, Ellen Blake, and her three-months-old daughter, Sarah, made the trip on horseback. Her husband, Henry Blake, had preceded her and had a cabin well under construction. Ellen Blake’s son, Ezra F. Blake, was the first male child to be born in Patten.”

In 1835 Samuel Leslie from Lincoln established a sawmill and a grist mill. Since the nearest mill was many miles from Patten, it was a boon to the growing community.

By 1840 the settlement had grown enough to organized it as a plantation. Shortly thereafter it was incorporated as a town.

In 1847 the legislature authorized the creation of the Trustees of Patten Academy.

The Academy opened on the 2nd Monday in September, 1848 with 61 students: 33 boys and 28 girls who came from Pittsfield, Enfield, Lincoln, Benedicta, Masardis, Golden Ridge Plantation (now Sherman), and Belfast Plantation. Patten Academy continued until at least 1998. In 2019 Patten students attend Regional School Unit 50 schools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1887, the Industrial Journal reported

Patten is the center of extensive lumbering operations. The lumber cut in that vicinity will be very much above the average and probably never before have the woods thereabouts been the scene of so much business as now.

The town has continued its focus on lumbering since early settlement, including its interesting Lumberman’s Museum on the Shin Pond Road (Route 159).

Patten is served by Route 11 (its Main Street) and Route 159. Their intersection is the site of the popular “Clam Shop” and the playground (above left). The museum on the Shin Pond Road is not far from the Clam Shop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Stetson Memorial United Methodist Church (above left) anchors the southern end of the main street of the small community that has witnessed a dwindling population over the past several decades with the loss of jobs in farming, lumbering, and the paper industry.

The heritage of lumbering by woodsmen is preserved at the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum on Route 159.

Ruins of an old dam on Fish Stream (N45° 59′ 36.58″ W68° 26′ 46.16″) lie near more recent industrial enterprises on Mill Street. In 1886, George Varney reported,

The manufactories are at this point; and consist of one lumber-mill, a sash, door and blind factory, a grist-mill with two sets of stones, a tin-ware factory, a wheelwright shop, a tin-shop, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where Mill Street and Station Street meet (N45° 59′ 37.46″ W68° 26′ 32.36″), the remains of railroad tracks are now recreational trails and unoccupied buildings recall better days. Patten Junction was once part of the Patten & Sherman Railroad, eventually acquired by the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad, then discontinued. [2014 photos]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patten is the northern gateway from Interstate 95 to Baxter State Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

South Patten Road (actually north of the village) is home to a private airstrip and “The Hangar” restaurant specializing in pizza.

Form of Government: Town Meeting-Select Board-Manager.

Additional resources

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

Banks, Russell. The Invisible Stranger: The Patten, Maine photographs of Arturo Patten. New York; HarperCollins Publishers. c1999.

Hackett, William C. Letters Written to Eugene Thorn by William C. Hackett from Bangor, Me. and Beaufort, S.C. while he was serving with the 8th Maine Regiment. 1862-1863. [Maine State Library]

The Industrial Journal. January 21, 1887.

Miscellaneous Letters sent to Eugene Thorn. 1862-1873. [Maine State Library]

Olsen, Irene A. The History of Patten Academy, 1847-1947. Patten, Me. The Trustees. 1947? Bangor, Me. Printed by Furbush-Roberts.

Patten, Maine. Compiled by L. A. Rogers Patten, Me.? I. B. Gardner & Sons?. 1898? (Old Town, Me. Record Print)

Patten Lumbermen’s Museum. 61 Shin Pond Road, Patten, ME. http://www.lumbermensmuseum.org/ (accessed February 14, 2012)

Patten’s Bradford House. [moving image recording] Presented by Aroostook County Historical Center, University of Maine at Presque Isle Presque Isle, Maine. The Center. 1985.

Rogers, Mary E. Barker, 1853-1942. Down East. Between 1922 and 1942. [University of Maine, Presque Isle. Special Collections].

Varney, George J. A Gazetteer of the State of Maine. 1881. p. 430.

National Register of Historic Places – Listings

Bradford Farm Historic District

[100 Main Street] The Bradford Farm Historic District is comprised of a house, landscape features, five agricultural outbuildings and a site in the town of Patten. Farmed from the mid-1840s until the late 1990s, it reveals patterns in the settlement of Patten, the growth of the town due to lumbering, and changes in agricultural trends that fed and supported the towns population. As one of many similar farms, the Bradford farm contains one of the largest intact clusters of agricultural buildings in the Patten area. Few historic farms in Maine retain all of their outbuildings from the first barn and house to the last. Fires in the 1970s and 1980s leveled at least four structures, including 2 potato houses, a storage building and another barn.

The Bradford Farm grew and evolved over 150 years, reflecting the means, skills and desires of a series of farmers and their families. At the same time, analysis of the inner workings of the farm reveal the spatial microclimates of production, distribution, storage, shelter, processing and labor that develop on a diversified family farm. Each of the buildings, separately and together, contribute to an understanding of how a farm functioned on a day to day basis. By understanding the functions of the farm complex, and the context in which it flourished or foundered, our understanding of the nature of Northern Maine farming can increase. This is how the Bradford Farm Historic District is best understood.

The settlement that became Patten was one of the many six mile-square townships laid out by the State of Maine to encourage development in the years after gaining statehood. The town is located on a broad plain 96 miles north of Bangor, and just east of Mount Katahdin. The first setters arrived in the 1830s; by the 1840 Federal Census there were eleven families in town. In 1841 Patten was incorporated, and five years later an Academy was started. By 1850 the potential for exploiting the lumber resources of the north woods had become evident, and 470 people took up residence in the town, including merchants, innkeepers, farmers, blacksmiths and laborers. The growth of the town continued on a steady trajectory through 1920 due substantially to the lumber industry, and aided by the introduction of the Bangor and Aroostook railroad. The influence of the lumber industry on the growth of Patten cannot be underestimated.

The Bradford farm was first occupied by David Haynes sometime prior to 1850, and perhaps as early as 1841. Haynes had acquired a full lot with160 acres on the west side of the main road. By 1850 he had improved 60 acres, built a 1 1/2 story house, a barn and sowed 350 bushels of oats, 125 Ibs of potatoes and tons of hay. His 21 year old son was an apprentice blacksmith; one of his neighbors ran a boarding house. Merchants lined the street to the south. Over the next 10 years David Haynes sold at least 10 house lots along Main Street.

In 1893 Ezekiel F. Bradford bought the farm his family was to work for the 105 years. In a few years Bradford has expanded the farm substantially. The expansion of the barn reflects the increased importance of dairy farming. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s much of the milk produced on family farms was consumed by the family, with a small, but important amount increasingly being sent to cheese and butter factories, or creameries. By 1900, the production of dairy products in the state had increased significantly. Over the next 40 years, advances in storage, feed herd management, and breeding enabled farmers to increase the production from their cows, and many, such as Ezekiel and his son Freeman, responded by increasing the size of their herds as well. By adding the new section to the barn, the Bradford’s were able to more than double the size of their herd.* [Amy Cole Ives photos]

In 2018 the farm was operated as The Bradford House, a bed and breakfast lodging.