Commerce

Trees -- any discussion of the commercial aspects of the area must begin with tress. The abundant pine and oak were the ideal raw material for shipbuilding and repair. This raw material was quickly combined with the energy from falling water common in Maine rivers to produce the boards and planks for ships as well as the lumber required for the subsequent settlement of the land. Mills in the Damariscotta Lake Watershed started with William Vaughn at Damariscotta Mills. As the body of settlers moved to the north, so also did the mill sites. Mills would spring up wherever there was sufficient water quantity. By the middle of the 19th century, four mills were operating on Jackson’s Stream in Jefferson (now Davis Stream). Gradually, waterpower began to lose favor as the costs of dam and sluice maintenance became greater than the costs of converting to steam or internal combustion engines. The Meserve Mill in Jefferson, built in 1827, was converted to diesel power in 1952.

Saw and gristmills were not the only commercial establishments. Most of the settlers were subsistence farmers; growing what they needed to feed their families. Few had the land required, the storage facilities or the markets for making a living selling their produce. Each, however, had a marketable skill he could use to provide the cash needed for those things that the farmer could not produce himself. Farmers would identify themselves as bricklayers, wheelwrights, surveyors, or other trades. They would then accept jobs in those crafts to the extent that they could be dovetailed into their farming routine. In time, children growing into adulthood may have helped generate a surplus labor pool which could have been absorbed by the cheese factory, the corn canning factory, leatherboard factory, match factory, brickyards and granite quarries which, at one time or another, operated in the watershed. These large employers eventually left the area, the farm economy continued to diminish through the 20th century. Now the towns of Damariscotta Lake Watershed are largely bedroom communities of the larger commercial centers between Bath, Rockland, and Augusta.

Initially, the raw materials for Vaughn’s mills were transported by water. In all probability the logs would be hauled to the water’s edge by oxen, rafted together, and driven by poles or sweeps down the lake or, in winter, sledded over the ice by ox teams. As the territory became more organized, the state would build arterial roads and the towns and counties would lay out and maintain the feeder roads. In 1832, the town of Jefferson commissioned a local surveyor to draw a map of town roads. Today’s pattern of roads is easily recognizable from that early map. The appearance of sawmills at the north end of the lake about this time gave lumbermen several options. Raw logs could still be rafted down to the mills where they could be milled and shipped out, or they could be carted past the dams (for a toll fee) and shipped out as raw logs, or they could be milled at the north end of the lake and delivered to market by wagon. The efficiency of lake travel improved in the middle of the 19th century when steamboats began operating. The first, and largest, steamboat was the Jefferson, a 103 ton side-wheeler. The shallow draft allowed her to go most anywhere on the lake. She was used extensively for hauling cargo, towing rafts, delivering supplies around the lake and taking passengers. The enterprise lost money and two years later, the boat was sold and moved over land (at great cost) to salt water where she continued to operate for many years. Other, smaller boats were operated on the lake through the end of the century. By then, the bulk of the traffic was in transporting summer guests from the train station at the foot of Muscongus Bay to the Lake House Hotel on Davis Stream. The boats also saw heavy use when camp meetings were being held in the Glendon section of Nobleboro. None of the boat operators made any money. By 1900, the era of the lake as a traffic artery was ending and, as the number of summer cottages grew, the era of the lake for recreational use had begun.

In a sense, the seasonal population of Jefferson represents its biggest industry. About half of the 1990 residential property tax receipts came from seasonal properties. This situation had a beginning. In 1900, Frank Pratt bought 2 acres of land on Chimney Point. The size of the lot, the remote location, and references to Pratt’s cottage in subsequent deeds all point to the conclusion that this was to be a summer place. A dozen years later, Eva Bond had the first cottage on the Great Bay built. Mrs. Bond’s cottage was built mainly for family use. In 1925, Ernest and Willis Bond built several cottages solely for summer rentals. Growth of the summer cottage industry dawdled through the Depression years and then showed a rapid rise after World War II. It is important to note that the summer people constitute not only a large portion of the town’s tax base but also a large portion of the clientele of the town’s businesses and tradesmen.

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