Tomorrow’s headlines will settle a lot of political questions when today’s primary elections trim the field of gubernatorial candidates. That doesn’t mean political debate will diminish. It continues and intensifies through November’s election, and it doesn’t end there. It has always been that way.

The Androscoggin Valley and Oxford County can lay claim to some giants of the political world. However, this column is not about Edmund S. Muskie from Rumford who became a famed U.S. Senator, a vice presidential candidate and Secretary of State. It’s not about Hannibal Hamlin of Paris Hill who was Abraham Lincoln’s vice president.

It’s about an extremely opinionated storekeeper at Paris Hill whose political views were renowned for their forcefulness and “gall.”

A story by C.F. Whitman in the July 17, 1905, edition of the Lewiston Journal’s magazine section profiles Stephen Drew Hutchinson. It reminds me of the establishments that have always existed in towns and cities where cracker barrel meetings and lunch counter debates were daily occurrences.

I remember when local officials and citizens talked over coffee at Mac’s Grill, Seavey’s and the Sugar Bowl in Auburn in the 1950s. Of course, Simone’s Hot Dogs is still the political hot-spot in Lewiston, and for many years there was a barbershop in Augusta where predictions of election outcome were gospel.

Hutchinson’s store was that kind of place about 150 years ago.

Whitman wrote that he talked with Hutchinson in 1895, and though it was 30 years after the end of the Civil War and Hutchinson was a Maine resident, he had declared, “My grandfather was a rebel, and so be I.”

“He was an old man then, 83 years old, but full of animation and spirit as he was in his younger days. His nature was strong and ardent,” Whitman said.

For about 40 years, Hutchinson’s store on Paris Hill was a noted place for gatherings of “the faithful.” Hutchinson liked to have his political opponents call at his place of business. Whitman’s story said, “He prized their trade, but he liked an argument with them better.”

At one time just before an election during the Civil War, Whitman recalled going into the store and finding it totally “decorated with statements showing the increased cost to the consumer of articles used by the farmer and mill operative.”

He said, “Every part of the inside, except the floor, was so covered with these printed statements that the goods were scarcely discernible.”

Just as Hutchinson never feared to speak his mind, his opponents, including the newspapers, could also mount some fierce attacks. He was running for a county office in 1857 and Gen. John J. Perry, a solid Republican and political editor of the “Oxford Democrat,” took issue with Hutchinson’s campaign.

Perry wrote, “How a man who has slandered, abused and calumniated the Republican Party, its principles and men as has this noisy, brawling, pro-slavery politician, can have the unblushing impudence to ask a Republican to vote for him is past our comprehension.” The editor added, “We counsel all our friends to look out for this fellow and his emissaries.”

Political debaters didn’t pull any punches in those days. Hutchinson was defeated in that race for Register of Deeds by 3,163 to 2,589. He always blamed Perry for an unfair attack upon him, and he wasn’t about to take his defeat quietly.

The date when a Register of Deeds was to take office was not clearly spelled out in those days, and Hutchinson defied his opponent’s attempt to be seated.

Whitman said the election winner, Alden Chase of Woodstock, demanded possession of the office on Jan. 1, 1858, but Hutchinson “had it locked up and put the key in his pocket.” In response, Chase had the lock taken off and a new one installed.

It seems Hutchinson decided he had met a man as strong-willed as himself, and he let the matter drop, but he told Whitman, “Mr. Chase broke into the office.”

Stephen D. Hutchinson was just one of the colorful personalities who enliven the political scene to this day.

To some people, politics is dirty work, and the twists and turns of candidates in their quests for office make them shake their heads in disbelief. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that it takes a special kind of Quixotic faith and determination to charge onto the fields of political battle, and it can be fascinating to watch it all unfold.

Dave Sargent is a native of Auburn and a freelance writer. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].