OTISFIELD – Local historian and longtime civil servant John David Hankins died unexpectedly Thursday after being struck by a tree while snowshoeing, according to police.
Hankins, 69, of 202 Scribner Hill Road, was snowshoeing in the woods off that road when he walked through a logging area, said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine State Police.
“One of the members of that logging crew was cutting down a tree and did not know that Hankins was in the area,” McCausland said Friday. The tree struck Hankins as it fell.
McCausland said a company named L.E. Taylor & Sons was in charge of the logging operation. No phone number was listed for the company in the local area.
McCausland said the accident was reported at 3:15 p.m., and Hankins was pronounced dead at the scene.
Hankins was well-known in Otisfield and the Oxford Hills community for his involvement with the Bell Hill Meeting House Association and the Otisfield Historical Society. He was president of the historical society at the time of his death.
Society treasurer and longtime friend Ethel Turner said Friday that it was devastating to learn about Hankins’ accident.
“He was just so much more than president of the historical society,” she said. “He was an exemplary person.”
Turner spoke of Hankins’ level of community involvement and willingness to volunteer himself. Also, she said, “He was just kind and considerate and warm.”
Apart from his historical interests, Hankins was an active member of the Oxford Hills Rotary, had just been re-elected Otisfield director of SAD 17, and was involved with groups ranging from the Thompson Lake Environmental Association to the Hills Alive Chorale and Hillsmen Barbershop Group.
Dan Allen, who met Hankins at a community musical years ago, said Hankins not only had a good baritone, but also was an avid outdoorsman who restored and kept a large collection of canoes.
“He said, A man cannot have too many canoes,'” Allen recalled Friday as he told stories of renovating barns on Hankins’ property, one of which stored the vessels.
In addition, Hankins was a cross-country skier, master gardener and beekeeper, Allen said. He had recently taken up maple sugaring; Allen last saw him a few weeks ago while helping him tap out trees.
“Dave was the most accepting, non-judgmental friend I ever had,” he said.
Jean Hankins on Friday said she has lost a friend and companion.
“I think the last 11 years have been the happiest of my life,” she said, referring to the time since she and her husband retired from teaching positions at the University of Connecticut and retired to his family farm in Otisfield. Jean Hankins said she and her husband were able to pursue many activities and interests together in retirement.
“I’m getting through this one hour at a time,” she said.
She described her husband as a “good committee person because he could compromise and he never got mad.” She added that he thought it was important to be a real, contributing member of the community.
David Hankins believed there were two types of people in the world, Jean Hankins said: the kind who, when asked to do something, always had a reason they couldn’t, and the kind that always accepted.
David was the kind that always accepted, she said, “so he got called on a lot.”
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