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By Dominik Lobkowicz
Waldoboro resident Bill Maxwell got a bit of a shock and a peek into the past when he received a piece of mail Nov. 1 nearly 57 years after it was printed and nearly 55 years after its intended recipient died.
A somewhat discolored and battered envelope, marked “Produce Market Report” and addressed with a typewriter to Mr. William H. Maxwell (Bill Maxwell’s grandfather, who died in February 1960) and sent from the Maine Department of Agriculture’s Division of Markets made it into Bill’s mail.
When sorting his mail Saturday afternoon, Bill didn’t pay much attention to the envelope at first, but perked up when he later saw the middle initial (his own middle initial is E., not H. like his grandfather’s) and noticed the old rural delivery address.
“That’s his address from Back Cove, down in South Waldoboro,” Bill said.
The U.S. Postal Service’s zip code system had not been established by the time William H. Maxwell died, and Waldoboro’s zip code was handwritten under the typed address.
The envelope was not sealed, and it contained two editions of an apparently weekly, two-sided newsletter called “Maine Markets,” dated Jan. 10 and 17, 1958.
The newsletters list market prices for a variety of produce, eggs, poultry, feed grains, and livestock, and included space for about a half a page of livestock ads from around the state. A year’s subscription in 1958 cost $1.50.
A dozen extra large eggs, for example, cost an egg buyer 42 to 45 cents to buy at the farm the week of Jan. 17. Ten pounds of U.S. No. 1 potatoes cost 35 cents. Bulls cost $17 to $20 per hundredweight that week.
The livestock ads in the reports included not only cows, rabbits, and Nubian goats, but also puppies, a horse sled, and a “Delaval sterling milking machine” with various related equipment for $100.
John Bott, the communications director for the now-Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry, said the department published such reports until Bob Spear, of Nobleboro, served as commissioner. Spear served in the role from 1999 to 2005.
“During that time they eliminated it to save the cost of printing and postage, and presumably because it was available online,” Bott said.
Such market information is now available online through the U.S. Department of Agriculture at www.ams.usda.gov.
The department’s current commissioner, Walter Whitcomb, is a farmer from Waldo County who used to rely on the Maine Markets report.
“As a farm family, we waited for the market report each week before we set the price of the fresh eggs we sold in town on Fridays,” Whitcomb said.
Becky Maxwell, Bill’s mother and William’s daughter-in-law, said William used to operate a filling station near the intersection of River Road and Business Route 1 in Newcastle before he died.
William traveled from Back Cove to Newcastle seven days a week to operate his station, called Bill’s Filling Station or Maxwell’s, Becky said.
William was a barterer, Becky said, and would have likely used the market reports to guide his deals.
“He jockeyed cattle and horses and things like that,” Becky said. He also loved animals and kept ducks, geese, a cow, and a pony, she said.
She described William as a quiet man at home, but “jolly and happy” when out and about and “amazing” in how he could talk to people and barter with them.
“That man, I’ll tell you, could dance and ice skate like you wouldn’t believe,” Becky said.
It is not yet clear where William’s envelope was found or sent from before it came to Waldoboro and was delivered to Bill Maxwell. The envelope is printed with “Bulk Rate U.S. Postage Paid” where a stamp would typically go, and was not stamped with a post mark.
Bill Maxwell has a theory someone at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry, and Conservation may have mailed it.
“I’m wondering if they found it behind a filing cabinet up there and somebody put the zip [code] on it and threw it in the mail,” he said.
Bill said he plans to hang on to the mail, but may donate it to the Waldoborough Historical Society.
“I don’t know if it’s anything special,” he said, “but it’s kind of neat.”
