In early April about 100 years ago, Herbert Rogers and his young wife needed to get to the Chain of Ponds sportsman club to ready it for the wealthy who would follow when the weather improved.

The Eustis couple were determined to make the journey together despite the fact that Mrs. Rogers had given birth to twins only a few weeks before.

Kenneth Chisholm, Elmer Tanguay and their wives volunteered to help the Rogers family make the move to their summer home. The group left Alder Stream Farm at daybreak, expecting to cover the 10 miles to the camps in less than a day.

Mrs. Rogers rode in a horse-drawn cart, her two babies in her arms. As the party headed northeast, they were met with an increasingly muddy road. When they reached the point in Jim Pond Township where Alder Stream flows into the Dead River, they were stopped in their tracks. The spring melt had pushed the stream over its banks and flooded the intervale. They could not continue on horseback or on foot.

It seems the prudent thing would have been to head back home and try again when conditions improved. Instead, they built a raft.

They loaded all their household supplies, men, women and newborn babies onto a bunch of hastily lashed-together logs, launched the contraption into the raging water and attempted to pole across the flooded stream.

Somehow, they made it.

Without benefit of cart or horses on the other side, the group trudged on, encountering high water with every dip of the road. The Lewiston Evening Journal report describes how “the men were obliged to sack the women on their backs in many places.” How Mrs. Rogers managed this while carrying two small infants is not described. The account simply notes that “the mother with the twins had to be guarded with special care.”

Slow travel forced the group to put up for the night in a deserted shack along the way. The next day they were able to slog through the snow and mud to a farm at the southern tip of Lower Pond. There they had some food and rested only briefly before continuing. On Lower Pond they had access to a boat.

The ice was still breaking up, so this two-mile journey was hardly an easy one. Eventually, the group paddled to Chain of Pond Camps where Rogers and his wife began their caretaking responsibilities.

Chisholm, Tanguay and their wives were obliged to turn around and retrace their steps.

Luann Yetter teaches writing at the University of Maine at Farmington. Additional research by UMF student David Farady.