PARIS – The Oxford bear symbol once embraced by area residents will be making a comeback as part of the Oxford County bicentennial celebration this year.
Larry Glatz, coordinator for the 2005 Oxford County Bicentennial Committee, said Norway artist Pat Chandler has created two bicentennial logos that feature renderings of early Oxford bear images. The logos will appear on everything from flags to stickers as the bicentennial celebration gets under way.
“We’re really lucky because we have this image which not only is a piece of history, but also is nice to look at,” Glatz said Wednesday.
Glatz believes Oxford County residents were first called “bears” in an 1837 article published in The Voice of the People, a campaign newspaper that was printed in Augusta. The term was meant to imply that the county’s residents were burly backwoodsmen with little education who were “unfit for governance,” he said.
However, Oxford County’s inhabitants took a liking to the nickname. Soon people were signing letters to the editor with names such as “Huge Paws,” and “An Oxford Bear,” according to Glatz. The name’s popularity grew right through the turn of the century. There was even a formal society of Oxford Bears.
One of the later references to the Oxford bear that Glatz found dates back to 1930, when Norway resident Don Partridge campaigned for a seat in the Maine House of Representatives.
“He campaigned as the Oxford Bear and, as I understand it, when he spoke he actually had a couple of people stand next to him in bear suits,” Glatz said.
Partridge won the seat, but lost it shortly thereafter when a redistricting occurred as a result of the 1930 U.S. Census, Glatz said.
Glatz has written a detailed article on the Oxford bear. The article will appear in an issue of the Maine Historical Society Quarterly dedicated the Oxford County bicentennial this year. Copies of the magazine will be made available to the public as part of the celebration, Glatz said.
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