Document Type
Book
Publisher
Mountain Explorations Publishing Company
Rights and Access Note
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author/copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Publication Date
2023
Publisher location
Farmington, Maine
Abstract/ Summary
Abstract provided by the author:
Rendezvous at Chesuncook, 1827-1902 is the only comprehensive history of Chesuncook Lake and Chesuncook settlement (village) from 1827 through 1902.
The text’s two major focal points are people and old photographs. Over 350 biographical sketches include surveyors, landowners, lumbermen, drive bosses, loggers, settlers, and builders of dams and boats. For the 170 plus pictures this book is their only aggregate presentation. The photos communicate a history of what the landscape and settlements once looked like and how they changed over the decades in this book.
This book purposely ends December 30, 1902. Through 1902 the loggers were independent and orchestrated their cooperation through their organization the Penobscot Log Driving Company, an entity that reformed every year with those who were logging. The book’s decade-by-decade chapter organization draws attention to their consistent year-to-year remarkable efforts and successes.
Within each chapter the content focuses on who surveyed the land, who bought property, who logged, who settled, and who worked with sports; what were their activities; and how and with what did they function. Within this information are the wilderness farms that served the area: Lily Bay, Roach River, Ragged Lake, Ripogenus Lake, Deer Pond, and the head of Chesuncook Lake. The decade-by-decade organization reveals how ways and means of living and logging evolved. For example loggers used horses, but prior to the 1890s the predominant work animal was an ox; why was that? The last chapter, “Remembering the drive bosses,” has pictures of 13 of these 22 men and for everyone a verbal snap shot through which to remember them.
Repository Citation
Geller, William W., "Rendezvous at Chesuncook: A Chronicle of Surveyors, Landowners, Loggers, Settlers, & Sports" (2023). Maine History Documents. 699.
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistory/699
Version
publisher's version of the published document
Included in
Rights Statement
