A deed in the Alna Town Office states Head Tide dam, “shall not be destroyed.”
Louise Jewett, whose late husband Allen turned the dam over to the town 45 years ago, said she is “very upset” that the historic structure may be removed.
The possibility surfaced when the Sheepscot River Watershed Council approached Alna selectmen last year to gauge their interest in removing the barrier to facilitate fish passage. A public informational meeting last month drew an interested audience to hear the pros and cons of the proposal (The Lincoln County News issue of Feb. 19, “Demolishing Head Tide dam debated in Alna”).
On a hilltop above the picturesque country village of Head Tide, and just across the road from Louise, live Merle and Charlie Jewett. One of four witnesses and cosigners of the 1964 conveyance protecting the dam, Merle said recently, “My view is leave it alone.”
She grew up in the Puddledock section of town and remembers walking as a girl in the 1930s and ’40s to Head Tide when the lumber mill was still operating. “All of a sudden you’d feel cooler!”
The mill, located on the west bank of the Sheepscot, was the last of several on the site. Right after the Second World War, in 1945, Charlie returned home from overseas. The mill, owned for decades by the Jewett brothers (a different family than his), was shut down and the general store was closed. “It was like a ghost town,” he said.
Along with several other local men, Charlie worked for Linwood Bailey, the last mill operator, until the building burned in 1949. Jewett’s job was to roll logs up on the carriage for sawing.
Head Tide developed as a small commercial and industrial center, with stores, stables, a dress and milliner’s shop, post office and various other services and suppliers springing up to support a rural town.
By the early 20th century, brothers Glenn and Lon Jewett were successful local businessmen, tending a large apple orchard and running a prosperous country store and lumber mill, which included a shingle mill. Although the bridge, mills on the north side, and the wooden dam were washed away by the 1896 freshet, the dam and bridge, at least, were rebuilt.
In 1916 the Jewett Bros. undertook the construction of a reinforced concrete dam, which is the one existing today.
Joan Gregoire, of Nobleboro, said recently her late mother Alice (sister of Allen Jewett, niece of Glenn and Lon, and co-owner of the dam) shared memories of a large derrick, operated by a steam engine, situated mid-river to maneuver construction materials.
According to a Nov. 8, 1916 article in the Sheepscot Echo newspaper, a gravel deposit was discovered to be conveniently nearby. Mingled with it were small stones and sand “just suited for this work,” according to the news story. “It would seem as though a wise providence had foreseen the necessity of a dam of this kind being constructed some time and had stored the necessary material in close proximity to the site…. At any rate all the material was there except the cement and so handy that one team was all that was needed to haul the material and dump it on the spot,” the article continued.
The Jewetts had harvested 700 barrels of apples that fall, a job requiring 36 workers. The brothers “have installed machinery for manufacturing the barrels in which they ship their big crop of apples. They also manufacture quite a lot of lumber.”
Louise Jewett said that when she and Allen Jewett, both schoolteachers, were married in 1937, their brick home on Head Tide hill and other residences received dam-generated electricity. “The lines came up through the field,” she said, gesturing toward the west side of the house, “not along the road, and they lighted the whole village.” It was direct current (DC), not the more common alternating current (AC), and “you had to have DC appliances,” she said. Her washing machine and the radio ran on DC. At low water times in summer, electrical generation “was just enough to give a little light,” she recalled.
The concerns expressed in the report of Floyd G. Bryant and James S. Fletcher were similar to those of present day conservationists and fish biologists: high water velocity pouring through the side sluiceways hindering upstream fish migration to spawning grounds.
During the visit, the biologists observed that a run of several hundred alewives, “was being held up below the dam by the high velocity and drop at the sluiceway and by debris blocking the sluiceway opening.”
The engineer proposed blowing open a 25-foot wide hole in the dam center, at an estimated cost of $400-$500. With a central break, fewer fish would be poached than if the side sluiceways were blown open, the biologists wrote. Additionally, there would be less clogging by debris and easier passage of salmon, alewives, shad, and striped bass.
A further advantage to the central opening was that a hole deeper than eight feet on either side of the structure would “absorb more of the blasting debris and thereby decrease the secondary clearing cost.”
While the report states that Alice Gregoire and her husband Victor “desired to sell the dam,” Louise Jewett said Allen opposed removing the dam or “blasting a hole” in it.
He preferred a fishway located at the right bank (north side) sluiceway, an alternative the biologists and others in the inspection group considered the worst option. For shad to pass, many more pools would have to be constructed.
Jewett requested plans for this wooden fishway. Its estimated cost, according to the report, “will probably be between $1000 and $3000. Annual maintenance and the constant adjustments necessary to meet the changing stream flows make such a fishway more costly and less satisfactory than the simple direct passage recommended by the biologists.”
While a 1959 report noted that the Head Tide dam was modified in 1952 to allow fish passage, the only change appears to have been enlarging the west bank (south side) sluiceway.
In 1974, Head Tide Village was named to the National Register of Historic Places as a district containing “structures and sites of historic and architectural merit,” with many described as having “forthright simplicity” in their design.
Fourteen houses and other buildings, including the 1884 J.A. Jewett General Store, the 1881 J.A. Jewett stable and 1907 grain store, the 1838 Head Tide Church and 1860 school house, were singled out as distinctive and well preserved examples of 18th or 19th century rural Maine architecture. Double chimneys, hipped and gable roofs, superior interior paneling and moldings were listed as special features.
The mid-18th century foundation of the village as a mill community spurred two centuries of prosperity, although floods or fires since then have erased tangible evidence of the mills themselves.
“The man-made and natural assets of Head Tide have been fully appreciated by current residents, who have worked individually and as a group to maintain the special character of their community,” the National Register inventory form reads. “The results have been the preservation of one of the most authentic village settings to survive from Maine’s past.”
To Christi Mitchell, architectural historian with the Maine State Preservation Commission, “If the dam’s not there, you look at the site and say ‘why are all these buildings here at this spot?’
“The reason is there was a cataract that could be harnessed for power. That’s the defining thing, for Kings Mills and Coopers Mills in Whitefield, and Head Tide in Alna. Those communities wouldn’t be there without the fall of water to provide power. And people 200 years on don’t realize how important that was.”
Billie Willard, Alna selectwoman, mused, “If the dam starts deteriorating, what problems does that cause the river?” She said she has “some mixed feelings” on whether to keep or remove the aging structure, but ultimately that decision is up to voting residents. She doesn’t believe removal will impair the popular swimming hole that offers refreshing summer afternoons to locals, and she is confident the site’s history could be effectively preserved by a kiosk with explanatory panels.
At the same time, Willard doesn’t think the barrier poses a problem for salmon. It’s further up the Sheepscot, at Coopers Mills dam, “where their problem is. Their problem isn’t with Alna,” she said.
A second informational meeting will be held, probably in April, Willard said. She doubts the dam vote can be presented to townspeople at the May special town meeting when the school budget will be voted on, even though the watershed council would like a decision then.
Louise Jewett wonders, “How can they destroy something if it was given to the town with the stipulation that it not be removed?” She thinks there would be danger of erosion and believes, as does her neighbor Charlie Jewett, that the dam still serves a purpose during spring freshets. It helps hold back ice jams.
“I’ve seen times this intervale was completely covered with ice and water,” the retired schoolteacher said.
