|
PENNY LAKE The following appeared in the Boothbay Register on June 13, 2002. Reprinted with permission of the author. On March 7, 2002, I wrote about the visible Meadow in Boothbay Harbor, the built-up part we drive through on Route 27, and its evolution from wet-and-deep-and/or-swamp to mall. This week I'll write about the not-so-obvious Meadow and Penny Lake. Not until you go on foot do you see our hidden landscapes. Actually, they're not hidden at all, but those who only move about on tar in cars are necessarily limited in what they see. And, the tar-car people express great surprise when they find the half mile between, for instance, Route 27 and the Middle Road is not just a big blank. St. Andrews Village has filled in part of that blank, but before that subdivision sprouted nearly only natives knew what that stretch consisted of. Many more people will get to know it now that the Boothbay Region Land Trust has obtained part of it, an 18-acre piece the land trust calls "Penny Lake" and is caring for by mowing and putting in trails. Obviously, there are no trails through Penny Lake; the land trust property open to the public totals 12 of the 18 acres, is well above water, and is northeast of the "lake." It is a parcel behind Hannaford bought from the McKenneys who obtained it from Elliott Barlow in 1982. The land trust is working on extending the public's enjoyment with permits to traverse other abutting owners' parcels, including those on Penny Lake. Penny Lake The best spot to get a view of the watery part of "Penny Lake," where it really looks like a lake, is at the head of Mill Cove. One of the things I try to do in local history is to define the communally accepted bounds of a given area. Some are debatable—where does East Boothbay end and Linekin start? What is the west bound of the east side of Southport? I asked Lester Barter, born 1906, to define Penny Lake. He said it went from the stepping stones south to Mill Cove; north above was the Meadow. I asked Elliott Barlow and he said that within that watery corridor above Mill Cove, "If it's under water, it's Penny Lake." The two definitions amount to the same thing. I'd often heard of the stepping stones, the way across the stretch
called "the Meadow drain" in early Harbor town reports. It was the place to cross the brook, and Asa Tupper used to talk about Bertha, and later
Beatrice, McCobb walking that route to the Harbor from the McCobb Road, and he'd walked it too. I've never actually gone and looked for the
crossing rocks at the narrowest point of the brook's banks; I think By the late 1910s icecutting on Penny Lake was a thing of the past, but Eddie Hodgdon, who lived just a little northwest of the dam, controlled the water level and made sure the boards that held the water back were in place for skaters. Skating was a pastime for people of all ages. Lester Barter, a youngster in the teens, could skate from the site of the dam at the head of Mill Cove all the way north nearly to Poole Brothers. Skating northeast from Mill Cove, he and his companions crossed the road in the vicinity of Flagship and skated on up to and past Jennie and Charlie Emerson's farm, now the Y site. Skaters always have a favored bonfire site and the Mill Cove-Meadow skaters favored a spot near the stepping stones for theirs. The Barlow Farm If you turn your head from the water and look for the best view in
Boothbay Harbor, I'd vote for west from the Oak Street sideyard of the museum. From the museum down to the high school—about 60 acres—was all Though there was no family farming background, Elliott always loved animals, having as a child mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, mink, hawks, raccoons, woodchucks, and an owl. His pet raccoon Bill rode on the handlebars of his bike. When Elliott got his first heifer in high school, there was not enough pasture and field for that one animal on the family place. By 1960 there was enough for 70 head, with all the land, three miles around, fenced in barb wire. The cattle consumed 200 tons of hay a winter. Mostly the land was pasture; occasionally what hadn't been eaten down was mowed. The Northwest Field The best part of the land trust piece (I think) is the field that was cleared by the Barlows and called by the family and townspeople "the northwest field." It includes the high point and gives a good view. Elliott's mother Lillian Gilbert Barlow, born 1880, remembered or was told that Indians used to camp on the property. Probably they were Indians, such as the Ranco, Sockbesin, and Gabriel families, who came to town summers when the tourist industry started in the 1870s. They made baskets and trinkets for tourists, often gathering sweetgrass at choice local spots adjoining fresh water. Elliott's father Luther Barlow started cutting the piece off when Elliott was young, eventually cutting hundreds of cords. Luther did not work the land, but simply sold off cordwood for firewood and pulp in the 1930s. Every winter he'd put a crew of Fisher's Hill guys, such as Archie Brewer, in to cut with bucksaws. They'd cart it out to a lot, sometimes with Bickford Giles and his team. Near the present schools, Elliott would chunk it up into firewood size and retail it by Chevy one-ton truck. In the 1940s Elliott and Norman Brewer totally cleared the land, digging the stumps out with a tractor backhoe, piling them up, and burning them on the meadow. Aside from having built cabins with the wood, Elliott built two three-story hen pens, one 24x108' and one 40x114'. In the 1950s they raised hens until the market collapsed. After the northwest field was cleared of trees, Elliott planted it
in timothy and clover, as he did most of his land. From time to time, he planted about four acres of the northwest field in crops. One year he
planted pumpkins, but it rained so hard that Elliott, his wife Lib, and helper Norman Brewer couldn't get the trucks in to bring them out. They
harvested the crop, about 10 tons, and piled them up. When they finally The next year they planted Golden Delicious squash and melon which
they sold to the First National (now Bob's Photo). The store filled its windows with Elliott's produce. Another year they planted the northwest A lot of Barlow decades were devoted to improving the northwest field and its adjoining acreage. The field was on the verge of being recaptured by 20 years of relentless shrub and tree growth, but the land trust has halted the process and will preserve the field and its surroundings for enjoyment by the general public. |