The men in this photo are Bently Glidden, Dr. Sam Belknap, Dr. Mac Day, Jake Day, Jack Glidden, Ed Pierce, and Justice William O. Douglas.
All this information was hand printed on the back of this picture by Bently Glidden. This photo hung in his office when he worked in the post office and then was taken back to his home, which was located on Academy Hill.
After Bently’s death, we bought part of the contents of his home from his wife and children. I was a young man of 24 when this picture was taken and I personally knew all of the local men, except Justice William O. Douglas.
In 1957 I was working as a carpenter for Mr. Carroll Ludwig, a local contactor here in town. I helped Mr. Ludwig remodel a room off to one side of the main house of the Days.
This new room was to be Jake Day’s new studio where he did his carving and paintings. He would often come out and set on a stool and talk to us on different subjects around the local town. Many of my parents’ friends had different water colored paintings he had done for them.
Jack Glidden was also a good friend of my father’s as well as myself. We both bought our car insurance through the Glidden Insurance Agency and we also enjoyed meeting Jack at some of our favorite fishing spots.
Jack loved to go deer hunting in the fall season.
Mr. Ed Pierce worked in the Yellowfront Grocery for his father, located on Main Street where the coffee shop of the Maine Coast Book Shop is today. He also loved to hunt and fish everywhere here in Maine. I met him many times out on the so-called Indian Trail in Newcastle, deer hunting.
Bently Glidden was also a person who loved to camp out and enjoyed fishing as well as deer hunting. He belonged to the area fish and game club and was their secretary for a number of years. We have a good number of badges Bently had collected over the years as well as a shoulder patch he received from the State of Maine for tagging the biggest buck in Maine for the season.
We also have a painting by Jake Day of Bently, showing him upside-down in his overturned canoe in the middle of a small pond.
I once had Bently’s Maine Guide Book and his Maine Guide License and maps of the north woods. Bently truly enjoyed the outdoor lifestyle when he had a chance to get away from his home and work.
We both knew Dr. Sam Belknap since we were both small children. Dr. Belknap was one of the doctors who would give us checkups when we wanted to go out for sports at Lincoln Academy.
I remember one time back in the summer of 1961; back in those days you were required to have a blood test before you got married. It was the state law, so I made an appointment and went into Dr. Sam’s office.
His nurse sat me on the bench and said, ‘Do you mind which arm I take the blood out of?’ I replied ‘no’ and she started. After six attempts I said, ‘You better get Dr. Sam,’ and she went out of the room and brought back Dr. Sam and he had a big smile on his face. He rubbed my arm once and he hit the vein and the test was over.
Marjorie and I often joke about that time when we both have blood work done.
Now for Dr. Mac Day, he was our veterinary doctor for both of our parents’ families as well as for our pets. After Marjorie and I were married in September 1961, I used to take all our pets to the vets office and Dr. Mac Day would give them all their shots and cut their nails.
One funny thing we always remember was when we used to take our German Boxer Blondy to ride with us. If she was riding in the back seat when we drove down past Dr. Mac Day’s office she would always move to the other side of the car seat when we passed by.
One day I took Blondy down to have her nails cut. When Dr. Mac put her up on the table, I said, ‘You better put a muzzle on her Doc.’ He replied, ‘Oh, she’s your dog and she won’t bite you.’
The job was almost complete when he cut too close to a nerve on one nail and Blondy bit right down through the top of my thumb nail. He stopped and looked at me and said with a big smile, ‘I guess I have two patients with nail problems.’
We both left the office in slight pain but both recovered quickly.
I also have a nice photo of their hunting and fishing camp Down East where they use to go deer hunting as a group each November and they always came back with a number of good-sized deer. These men all grew up here in the Twin Villages and were all close friends who really loved the outdoors and loved to fish and hunt together and truly enjoyed each other’s company.
We have a photo of Bently, Jack, Ed and Dr. Sam standing behind four deer they had shot and tagged on one hunting trip Down East.
I found Bently Glidden’s A.M.C. Maine Mountain Guide Book that was published by the Appalachian Mountain Club in 1961. It is a first edition. This book has a beautiful map of Mt. Katahdin, 1961, Grafton – Evans Mountain area, Rangeley-Stratton areas and the Mount Desert Island area.
This proves Bently and his friends loved to fish, hunt, and walk through many of these beautiful areas with many wonderful cold and clear brooks and streams running through them with brook trout in every pool and abundance of wildlife behind every tree or thicket.
Back in the late 1950s I used to go fishing in the early evenings out to Sherman Lake down by the second bridge and I would see Jack Glidden and Mr. York fishing in a cove that went up into the outlet of Mount Hunger brook, which also had nice brook trout in it. We all had many wonderful evenings fishing in the spot.
Now the dam which held the freshwater in Sherman Lake is gone and all that is left is a saltwater inlet for Marsh River. I often remind myself that I had the privilege to know all these local men who belonged to the groups known as Jake’s Rangers.
