What follows are some clippings from the pages of the September, 1896 edition of the RANGELEY LAKES newspaper. It was Fair Time in Franklin County.
(Editor’s note: Contemporary commentary in italics, otherwise copy is reprinted just as it was in 1896).
The entire first page of this edition was devoted to the Big Doins’ at the Phillips Fair, including all the various agricultural judging of everything from vegetables to pies to livestock and horse racing. However, my personal favorite snippet was this…
Fakirs Row
Kenniston was on hand with his “victualing saloon” where he furnished eatables and drinkables. “Ice Cream and Oyster Stews.” From there the “row” consisted of candy and beer tents, “home brewed beer.” “Peanut Moody” was there with his hand-organ peanut roaster, which ground out the festive peanuts, “hot, hot, hot.” Grapes were well represented, Furbish was on his annual pilgrimage. The more goods he piled up the less the price. The Farmington bake cart sold “pies ’n things.”
“Dr. Drew” drew a crowd with his electricity bottled up in belts, soles, and vials, “cures everything from corns to consumption”. The “mayor of Biddeford” or an ex-mayor wears a belt, purchased from the doctor, which he values at one thousand dollars!!!
Seldom does a day go by at the museum in Oquossoc that someone ‘from away’ does not ask, “How do I get to the Bald Mountain trailhead?” But have you ever referred to it by its original name? The scenic reward for the relatively short hike has been popular for quite some time as this first piece relates.
OLD BALD HEAD
Not the one mentioned in the Biblical narration, but that older one which seems to be the geographical center of the whole Rangeley region, lifting its brow far above the level lands between Oquossoc and Mooselookmeguntic lakes.
To visit this charmed spot it is easiest to procure a boat at the Mountain View House and row across the narrow neck of the lake through a large field of pond lilies and landing at the beginning of the trail, or path. This trail is a very good one. You can’t miss it if you have eyes, and if you haven’t you will very quickly discover if you depart from it.
In places this trail could be improved by cutting out a fallen tree, and in others the bushes are making rather a luxuriant growth. If Landlord Bowley will send his lawn mower, with a good man to push, and run it up one side of the trail and down the other, the obstacles will be removed.
It is an easy climb and an hour will take you to the top without great exertion. Just as you get out of the woods, you will find at the left an abundance of water. It isn’t quite as sparkling or as clear as the spring water at the Mountain View House, but it has one redeeming quality, it is wet. If you are dry the one equalizes the other.
Better take a drinking cup for the birch bark cup may be gone.
From the drinking pool, bear off to the right. This will take you along the ledge instead of through the bog.
That old hymn beginning:
“Could we but climb where Moses stood, And view the landscape o’er.”
But you wouldn’t care to do it after once taking a look from Bald Head. Mount Pisgar isn’t in it, for varietv and beauty of scenery, when the two are compared. Not by a number of points.
Looking toward either of the four chief points of the compass you see views that cannot be surpassed on the face of the globe, and at each of the remaining 356 degrees are superior ones. In any direction lies a scene that the eye never tires of looking at.
And this next short piece shares the unfulfilled plan to run the Narrow Gauge line out to the East end of Kennebago Lake. The goal was to access even more timber and bring tourists to the Lake area. It could have quite possibly resulted in another large Hotel up there, but it never came to pass. It mentions the RR Station at Dead River and we acquired the station sign for Rangeley History Museum, just this year
Kennebago Railroad
The party of ten or a dozen who have been making a preliminary survey for a chance for a railroad from Dead River to Kennebago, under the direction of Mr. Hilton Civil Engineer, have completed that part of the work and reached Rangeley Thursday night. They left Friday morning to begin on the location of the line Mr. Hilton finds the distance 9% miles from the P. & R. railroad, near Dead River Station to the cove near the inlet of Blanchard Pond on Kennebago Lake. The grade is very easy and from the Pond he thinks an engine would have a third more freight coming out than going out.
In the early days of the National Pastime a challenge was thrown down. Hopefully, I will let you know if it was taken up and what the results were in a future edition. It seems those “Strattons” were a cocky bunch.
Ye Base Ball Players
The following was received by Postmaster Herrick last week and is published for the benefit of whom it may concern;
To the Postmaster.
Dear Sir,
Is there a ball team in your town? If there is one, please give them my address, and tell them that the Strattons would like to play them any time after this week. We prefer Saturdays.
Yours respectfully
Will Arnold,
Eustis, Me.
By referring to the communication from Stratton it will be seen that the base ball boys of this .place can arrange for a game of ball if they wish.
The papers in the old days were chock full of little one liner news bites like these that follow from this edition. Hard to get away with anything in a small town. Not even a simple horse and buggy trip..
A young lady who took her first drive over the carriage road from Rangeley to Phillips says it was the most beautiful road she ever saw. (Obviously, the current Rte. 4 rebuild project in Madrid had not yet started, it just seems like it’s been that long).
Ansel Soule has been helping Game Warden Huntoon build a camp on Kennebago Stream and has not been “watching the stream” as mentioned in our last issue. (‘Watching the Stream’ refers to protecting the trout on the spawning beds where they are so vulnerable to poaching, and 124 years later the local Wardens would probably share that it is still a challenge)
And from “A Cozy Corner for the Ladies” section a nifty and colorful recipe that was eveidently so popular they had to print it again!
(Repeated by request].
PICKLED EGGS,
Put your eggs to boil in cold water and let them actually boil for half an hour. When done drop at once into a pan of cold water and let them become perfectly cold before removing the shells. Take the vinegar in which red beets have been pickled, pour over your eggs and let them stand twenty-four hours. You will then find them a most lovely shade of pink. Serve in a dainty dish, garnished with lettuce or parsley. If beet vinegar is not to be had, add a little fruit coloring to the vinegar. These eggs are fine to use fora garnish to salads. Each slice will show three distinct colors—a narrow outer ring of pink, then one of white, and then the yellow center.
Until Next time…Have some fun and make some safe and interesting Rangeley History of your own and maybe 124 years from now they will share it again.
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