Happy October! The article below was found on Page 1 of the October 1, 1896 edition of the RANGELEY LAKES. It captures the essence of an autumn trip by buckboard around Oquossoc as the weather and residents transition from summer to fall, just as we do today. The summer visitors have just about all headed south, so be sure to get outside and make some great Rangeley History of your own!
All text reprinted just as it appeared in 1896, otherwise Bill’s commentary appears in italics.
Side Tracks
After crossing the bridge at Rangeley Lake outlet, you soon come to a straight and narrow road and as we are commanded to follow such, the path is taken. It isn’t very long, for it ends where the ferry begins, but if the ferry is gone you can wait or swim. You can’ t turn, there isn’t room. Nevertheless, it’s a lovely little road and the last of September shows it at its best. It is a private road, by the way, and calculations must be made not to meet the Rock team (the large buckboard serving the guests of the Oquossoc Angling Association at Indian Rock), for on this thoroughfare “there’s only room for one,” and the outcome would be like two trains attempting to pass each other on a single track. You would be apt to find it Hubley, in case Stephen was driving. This road leads to Indian Rock, not the Rock as it was known 25 or 30 years ago, but what is now left out of water. It is supposed that years and years ago, the festive Indian gambled over and about the laminated veins which make the rock itself. That they gambled, over and about the rock, there can be no doubt, for the noble red man inherited a love for games of chance that was as deeply seated as his desire to add another scalp-lock to his varied collection (These blatantly stereotypical and racist statements are inaccurate in that the practice of scalping occurred in various cultures in both the New and Old worlds. A 5,000 year old burial ground in Denmark contained skeletal remains with evidence of scalping).
A few stone arrow points and spear heads have been found about here and if the whole section could be searched, a rich find would result. Across the stream are the buildings of the Oquossoc Angling Association, comprising quite a number of buildings and making quite a good-sized village. The Mayor, Alderman, and Common Council are all embodied in the person of the genial superintendent, C. T. Richardson, Esq. (Richardson was the dean of Rangeley guides at the time and was considered one of the greatest to ever row a Rangeley Boat. He once rowed the roundtrip from Oquossoc to Greenvale Cove in record time to fetch a doctor for a critically ill guest at Mountainview House. The passenger doctor was so amazed by his oarsmanship and speed on the return trip that he later described it as “the greatest feat of physical endurance I have ever witnessed.”)
By the time this paper is issued, the guests will have departed, and the main buildings will be closed. By leaving the main road that takes you “down the lake” – at the entrance to Broad View Farm and following it past the buildings till you reach the next road, you obtain a solution to the meaning of the name bestowed on the farm by its owner, Mr. Charles F. Quimby. The view is indeed broad and covers a large extent of territory, showing some of Rangeley’s choicest farms. Mr. Quimby has a young orchard that is beautifully brilliant with a large yield of handsome red apples. (It’s a good bet that some of those “young” apple trees still remain. As the country was settled nearly every pioneer farmer planted apple trees, to take a bite from one of Charles Quimby’s apples today would be like taking a bite out of the region’s history!)
A quarter of a mile beyond is the terminus of the road, the last house being that of J. D. W. Quimby, whose farm extends to the shores of Quimby Pond. The older frequenters of this pond, or those who made the journey to Kennebago, when the trail took them over Spotted Mountain, will remember “Uncle Dave” and ‘Aunt Happy’ and the jolly welcome they received at the old house. Uncle Dave has been dead many years, but Aunt Happy is just as smart and bright as in former years, and it seems hardly possible that she is past 88. (In 1890, only 5 percent of white females attained the age of 80, so at 88, Aunt Happy was rocking it!)
It was near here, on the lower side of the road, that in the 60’s Joseph Elba, Senior, built a shingle mill on the little stream that flows from Quimby Pond. The waterwheel was an immense one, into which “Hi” and “Joe” would climb, in a dry time, and make the old wheel whirl by running on the inside. (I Love This! Like a giant hamster wheel. And so, another unknown fact is revealed in that the first treadmill was invented by a Quimby, right here in Rangeley!)
Have a great week everyone.