Date of Award

1939

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Open-Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

Abstract

This study of mill development in Aroostook County attempts to survey a phase of Aroostook’s industrial history up to the time of the County’s definite emergence as a predominantly agricultural area. The treatise likewise has tried to show how the present status has been achieved out of a definitely varied background. The scope of treatment has been, of necessity, somewhat restricted because, by and large, source materials relating to the County’s history are scattered and fragmentary. In only a few localities have there been any attempts made toward a concrete analysis of the town’s activities, economic or otherwise. Where possible the author consulted all records such as town and county histories, town meeting records, the newspapers printed in the various towns from the time of their establishment, statistical surveys made of the State as a whole in which a recognition had been given to this County, State year books, and business directories. A direct approach was made through a systematic series of interviews with individuals in every town who would be best fitted by virtue of age and residence or business and social association to know something at least of this phase of Aroostook's past history. This type of information is more possible and valuable in Aroostook than it would be elsewhere in the State because of the comparative immaturity of the County’s settlements,the beginnings of many being easily within the memory of living citizens. This information has been substantiated from the newspaper citations of the time, and dates were confirmed in many instances by consulting the files of recorded deeds in the County Court House in Houlton.

Aroostook is rich in certain resources particularly in the abundance of water power, fine lumber, and smooth tracts of fertile soil. Because of its lack of a transportation system to outside markets, the early industrial history of the towns individually and of the County collectively was uniformly connected with varying phases of the production of lumber. Saw mills, therefore, claim a major consideration in this analysis. Since farming could be used to guarantee an existence, the citizens found in their forested areas the most natural means for an economic livelihood. This material advantage has been by no means exhausted, but its opportunities gradually diminished as those of agriculture noticeably increased after transportation facilities were provided with the outside markets by the completion of the Canadian Pacific and the Bangor and Aroostook Railways.

As a purely industrial area, Aroostook is undoubtedly too far removed from business centers to attain anything approaching the success it has enjoyed as an agricultural section. The industries which have continued to flourish in the few larger towns have found their chief markets among local people and in nearby business centers. Although the Aroostook of today seems remote from the primitive saw and grist mill developments of the nineteenth century, evidences of these former mills can still be traced in towns from one end of the County to the other. In a few cases they serve the same purpose as did their predecessors of an earlier period, local depots of service in food and building materials for a constantly growing population.

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