We have seen many changes to this area in our lifetime. The Twin Villages are strategically rooted on both banks of the Damariscotta River, some 12 miles from the sea, and they are a commercial center in Lincoln County.
In my younger years I was a member of the Newcastle Fire Department. When I married, I moved to Damariscotta and joined the Damariscotta Fire Department, then I served as selectman for seven years in Damariscotta.
As a young boy I used to hear my uncle Arthur Blair tell my aunt that they were going to “Scotty today.” This saying has been a part of the local language and practice for as long as many senior citizens can remember.
Because of the Twin Villages’ location near the center of a large rural area, it has developed into the only major shopping center in Lincoln County. This came to our attention so often this winter. We both would go downtown to get some fresh air and some walking exercise in the local grocery stores or specialty shops.
We would meet many of our friends from Bristol, Bremen, Pemaquid, South Bristol, Nobleboro, Jefferson, Alna, and as far away as Waldoboro and Friendship. Some would often say they can to do their grocery shopping and planned to have a meal at one of our local restaurants which are among the best in Maine.
We both can truly say our twin village has a variety of shops and services and ample municipal parking area.
The Twin Villages also offer a wide vital link of services to people coming here on vacation in our area for the summer and fall months with the help of the staff of the Damariscotta Regional Information Bureau.
We have beautiful area churches which conduct services every Sunday. Some can boast a historical record older than the United States itself.
The most ancient church in the immediate area of the twin village is St. Patrick’s Catholic Church and the old section of the church is the oldest Catholic Church in New England, built in the first decade of the 1800s, before Maine was a state. Local history reminds us the Catholic religion in Maine got its start amid a small Irish colony on Great Salt Bay.
The beautiful St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church was built on Glidden Street, Newcastle, in the year 1883 with the help of the Glidden family who hired the Englishman Henry Vaughan, who then built the chapel at St. Paul’s school in Concord, N.H. and then went on to oversee the building of the magnificent Episcopal Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
The local church is now 131 years old and has a strong active congregation.
The beautiful Baptist Church was built here on Main Street overlooking the town village of Damariscotta in 1845. The beautiful tower clock was made by George M. Stevens Co. of Boston. It was given to the Baptist Church by a sea captain in 1885. The church tower was rebuilt and stands overlooking the town village today.
We both have wonderful memories of the many social events we attended in the 1960s and Marjorie and I were married on Sept. 3, 1961 in the Damariscotta Baptist Church by Rev. Donald W. Harrington.
Across the Main Street from the Damariscotta Baptist Church stands the so-called Chapman-Hall House. It was completed in 1754 and was built by the housewright Nathanial Chapman who came to Damariscotta from Ipswich, Mass. In 1835 Tilden Hall came to Damariscotta from Waldoboro and purchased the house.
The Chapman-Hall House is now owned by the Lincoln County Historical Society and is open to the public during the summer and fall.
Now as you travel up Business Route 1B, every shop is occupied with some kind of business which offer a wide range of supplies to the area public.
We are so fortunate to live in such a diverse community. We have the beautiful remonetized Lincoln Theater which offers the area public movies, lectures and all types of plays and music. This has proved to be a great center for the arts.
Just one building beyond the Lincoln Theater we had an art studio and work rooms for the artists until recently. They have now moved to 241 Business Route 1 North, called River Arts Gallery. These area artists often display their paintings in the local banks and at Miles Memorial Hospital. We can be very proud with the quality of art they do. Then we have the CLC YMCA which offers a wide variety of community programs to all ages and they are now planning to build a large swimming pool.
The Twin Villages also offer a great grammar school system and our high school at Lincoln Academy is one of the best in our state for quality education.
To sum it all up, our town is a growing business area full of variety shops and stores of all kinds, but has still kept its beauty as a small coastal town and a great place to live and raise a family.
For the past several years, Huston Dodge and myself have given talks in the month of September at the Skidompha Public Library on subjects which took place in the Twin Villages over the past years. In our talks we try to weave many of the past events into the memories of our audience so they will come away from our talks with memories of the past and what really took place some 100 or so years ago.
We often refer to this as what the true fabric of our ancestors were all about.
