Members of the Massasoit Engine Co. stand with their new 1930 Packard fire truck. This truck was used to battle the Lincoln County Motor garage fire which destroyed 22 cards and two trucks on Junuary 10, 1936. The two young boys in the truck are Horace C. Brewer and brother Prescott Brewer.
This year the Fourth of July was a very special day in the life of the United States of America. It was our 250th anniversary of the founding of our new nation. Here in Damariscotta our historical society celebrated this very special event with the Chapman-Hall House and the Newcastle Historical Society with an open house at all three places.
In the Damariscotta Historical Society building, we put together a display of posters highlighting the Revolutionary War veterans buried in the local cemeteries along with some Centennial Revolutionary War memorabilia.
This was all put together by the help of our members and students of our area. Our society building is located at 3 Chapman St. in Damariscotta and we are so proud of our new home and all it has to offer and rooms to display history items of memorabilia of Damariscotta.
For the past 25 years our society has taken on a program to reclaim and clean up the grounds of all 32 cemeteries in the Damariscotta area and repair all the broken and fallen gravestones in them. We have also cleaned many of the local stones so they are now readable to one’s eyes. We have now located all the veterans of past wars in these cemeteries so flags can now be put on them at Memorial Day by the local Lions Club.
The money to do the restoration of these cemeteries is raised at a silent auction each year.
Looking back in history our area of Damariscotta was once part of the towns of Nobleboro and Bristol. We find a man by the name of Nathaniel Chapman came from Ipswich, Mass. He was a housewright or house builder and built the so-called Chapman-Hall House in 1754, which is located at 270 Main St.
We also find that five other homes were built shortly after in the Damariscotta area. History shows us that the young men of the Damariscotta area have always been ready to fight and protect the land and homes of our area as well as our young nation.
From the American Revolution (1775-1783), we have 21 of these revolution soldiers buried in our Damariscotta cemeteries. The War of 1812, we have six buried in Damariscotta cemeteries. Then the Civil War (1861-1865), Damariscotta had around 150 men who served according to a 1906 history of Damariscotta.
From World War I (1915-1918), there are somewhere around 53 names of Damariscotta men. Then World War II (1939-1945), Korean War (1950-1953), the Vietnam War (1973-1975), and the Gulf War (1991).
We must not forget the miscellaneous conflicts in which some Damariscotta men served. The Aroostook War (1838-1842), the Mexican-Amereican War (1846-1848), the Spanish-American War (1898), and the Mexican Border War (1913-1918).
On my wife’s side, her grandfather Mr. Shepard W. Bubar, born Oct. 14, 1835 in Fort Fairfield, served in Company C 15th Maine Reg. in the Civil War. He came to live with his daughter Mrs. Kathleen Cooper here in Damariscotta in his older years. He died Feb. 2, 1929 here in Damariscotta.
I also have my grandfather expert rifleman auto rifle medal he received while serving in the U.S. Army Calvary in the Spanish-Mexican event. I also have my father’s dog tags and a group photo of his Navy outfit in 1945.
A postcard of the Damariscotta Baptist Church. (Photo courtesy Calvin Dodge collection)
I also served six years in the Maine Air National Guard at Dow Air Force Base in Bangor.
In its early days before Damariscotta became a town of its own, here on the east side of the Damariscotta River, a young man by the name of Matthew Cottrill arrived in 1790. He bought land on the east side of the Damariscotta River and built a store, a shipping and receiving building, on a long wharf that went out into the harbor and deep water.
He also built a house across the street from the wharf and behind the house in an area called back cove on the river he built a shipyard with his partner James Kavanagh. Here they built 26 sailing vessels.
This was the start of shipbuilding here in Damariscotta then a man by the name of Benjamin D. Metcalf came from South Bristol and bought land in an area that is now called Water Street. Here he built a shipyard and it turned out a number of fine vessels and he built a large home at the corner of Main and Water streets with the money he made in shipbuilding. Then he merged with Elbridge Norris, another shipbuilder, and they turned out a number of so-called clipper ships that set world records.
We also turn to Joseph Day and his shipyard located on the Bristol Road in an area called Day Cove. From the year 1828-1874 the yard built 27 vessels, barks, schooners, brigs, and clipper ships. Then C.E. Merry took over the yard from 1868-1877 and built 12 sailing vessels, brigs, schooners, and barks.
We must remember all these shipyards contributed in building our young U.S. Maritime fleet and made us a world power on the high seas and shipping across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the tea trade to Japan and China.
Over the 250 years our new nation has stayed true to its Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Here in Damariscotta, our church steeples still reach high into the skies over our town and new churches have been built in past years on Upper Main Street and the Belvedere Road. Three of these new churches are the Friends Meetinghouse, the Mormon Church with its high steeple, and the Assembly of God Church with its steeple. They all have a good attendance each Sunday.
We have kept up with modern times and built a new fire station to house our new equipment, a new Great Salt Bay Community School, made the Castner School over into a new town office and police station, and have a new building for Central Lincoln County Ambulance Service to work out of and park its ambulances.
A postcard of the Methodist Church in Damariscotta. The church, which is located at the intersection of Church and Hodgdon streets, was rebuilt in 1913. (Photo courtesy Calvin Dodge collection)
Our community has become actively engaged in preserving the beauty around our town and saving its natural cultural and historic heritage. We have built the Great Salt Bay Sanitary District to keep our ponds, lakes, brooks, rivers, and Damariscotta River free from pollution.
A great deal of work has been done to improve the town water system, which comes from Little Pond, a pristine 77-acre spring feed pond with a ultraviolet light water treatment system.
We have to thank the Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust for preserving the Round Top Farm land area as well as the Salt Bay Heritage Center at the head of Great Salt Bay on the Belvedere Road. This protected ecological and archeological areas adjacent to the farm that allowed the public to view the shell heaps, aquaculture, and fishery activities of the river and bay, a diversity of water birds, mammals and plant life.
We also belong to the Nobleboro-Jefferson Transfer Facility where we can dispose of most types of solid waste generated in the town of Damariscotta.
We have just completed a major parking lot project with sewer lines relocated and the public restrooms constructed and the installation of an underground stormwater retention system, new drainage, outfalls, boat ramp improvements, and parking lot resurfacing. A job well done and more parking for cars who want to visit and shop downtown.
We also want to be proud of Skidompha Library and all the services and shows it provides over 52 weeks a year. The people of Damariscotta, young and old, can be very proud of the Central Lincoln County YMCA for all the find programs it offers to all ages throughout the year.
