Every once in a while, one of my Internet searches for column material gets sidetracked by some fascinating information that has nothing to do with the subject of my research.

Recently, I had been looking for stories about old baseball teams of the Lewiston-Auburn area when a story in an April 1923 edition of the Lewiston Journal Illustrated Magazine Section caught my eye.

It was an account of an afternoon’s visit with a family in Greene by L.C. Bateman, the longtime reporter and editor whose writing filled many of those Saturday newspaper pages. Bateman’s interview skills could uncover the most fascinating facts in the simplest of casual conversations.

Bateman had dropped in at the home of Walter E. Mower. In the course of that short visit, he heard the memories of one of New England’s most skilled drivers of multi-horse teams. He also viewed Mower’s museum-class collections of shells, eggs, coins and stamps; he saw Mrs. Mower’s fine dinnerware; he admired her artistic talents in oil painting; and he learned much about Greene’s early history.

Mrs. Mower’s 85-year-old uncle, Joseph S. Rounds, was then living at the Mower homestead. He had earned a reputation as one of the region’s best heavy team drivers, and he gave Bateman a detailed account of what that work was like soon after the Civil War.

“To drive six and eight horses with heavy loads was a mere pastime,” Bateman wrote.

Advertisement

A native of Buxton, Rounds drove a six-horse team from that area to Portland with all the heavy freight that would eventually be carried by railroad. His skill earned him a call to drive an eight-horse hitch of horses from Conway, N.H. Many of his loads weighed upwards of 20 tons, and it was no small matter to travel up and down hills with such a massive cargo.

His fame as a horseman led to a job in Boston in charge of the great trucking team of the Standard Sugar Refinery. After seven years, he went to work for the Sewall and Day Cordage Co.

“My business now was to drive anywhere and everywhere with heavy rope and cordage, but mostly to and from the Navy Yard,” Rounds said. “At that place, I loaded with old and condemned rope to make oakum at the factory.”

He told Bateman, “I was supposed to have my loads weighed at the city scales. But after a time the keepers refused to serve me as they said that the great weight ruined the scales.”

Rounds said, “Oh, yes. I love to think of the old days while on the road and in Boston. Perhaps I have hauled heavier loads than any other man in that city. I have taken as many as 84 barrels of sugar at a single load.”

That afternoon of reminiscence with Joseph Rounds yielded a lot of detail about a man’s life long ago, but Batemen continued to talk with the three longtime residents of Greene, and his article also drew a picture of Walter Mower’s eclectic interests.

Advertisement

“Mr. Mower is a natural collector and his home is a veritable museum,” Bateman said. “Several cases of minerals include all the gems and minerals known to Maine, and many of these are very rare.”

Mower also had extensive displays of shells from around the world, and he had collected all kinds of eggs over a period of 40 years. There were 160 specimens in the collection, including a pair of eggs less than half an inch in diameter.

There was also a collection of 1,500 postage stamps and a significant coin collection that had every copper cent since 1810, with but five exceptions.

Today, it’s easy to start browsing through Internet sites and find an unimaginable amount of information about everything. Nevertheless, the computer can’t compare with the excitement of sitting down with interesting people, listening to their memories and personal passions, and discovering details that would never be preserved without the remarkable reportorial skills of an L.C. Bateman.

That account was a welcome detour in my column research. Now, back to searching for the old-time baseball stories I hope to share soon.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and a native of Auburn. He can reached by sending email to dasargent@maine.com.


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

filed under: