The four Cumberland County towns―Standish, Baldwin, Sebago, and Naples―along the west shore of Maine’s second largest freshwater body of water, Sebago Lake, form the core of the latest work by Diane and Jack Barnes: Sebago Lake: West Shore. Even at a time when the vast hinterland of Maine was plagued by raids from Native Americans allied to the French, intrepid woodsmen and settlers ventured into the rugged, primeval wilderness via the Presumpscot and Saco rivers as far as Standish. But by 1830, the Cumberland &amp; Oxford Canal was completed, and the four towns in this volume and several others in the area were linked to Portland and beyond. For the next 40 years, the area was well served by this 17-mile canal. In 1870, the Portland &amp; Ogdensburg Railroad reached the west shore of Sebago Lake. This gave birth to the colorful steamboat era, invited sportsmen, excursionists, and vacationers to flock to the area, and encouraged many enterprising farmers to open their doors to boarders. Hotels, however, soon replaced many of the boarding houses, and a strong tourism industry had begun in earnest. Through precious old photographs and extensive research, Sebago Lake: West Shore chronicles the time of the earliest settlement of Standish, Baldwin, Sebago, and Naples, to the grand hotel era and more recent times. These pages are replete with common and unfamiliar images that combine to regale the history of the west shore.

Sebago Lake: West Shore, Standish, Baldwin, Sebago, and Naples (Images of America: Maine)

Arts & Photography

Jack Barnes

Diane Barnes

Photography & Video

Arcadia Publishing

Until 1725, the Saco River was the main artery for the Pequawket Indians traveling in canoes to and from the Atlantic. Soon thereafter came trappers, followed by loggers, who harvested the colossal white pine and sent the logs floating down the river to sawmills mushrooming all along its course. By 1871, the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad had reached Fryeburg, fifty miles from Portland, thus linking the Upper Saco River with Boston and beyond. Soon, a steady stream of summer visitors began arriving in the region and the White Mountains beyond. Upper Saco River Valley: Fryeburg, Lovell, Brownfield, Denmark, and Hiram visits the days when logs floated down the river and trains thundered up and down the valley. The first stop is in Fryeburg, home of Fryeburg Academy and the Fryeburg Fair, the oldest and largest fair in Maine. Next is Lovell and its many lovely brick homes and Kezar Lake. The book then journeys to Brownfield, largely depicted before the devastating fire of 1947. Denmark was the home of Rufus Ingalls, the quartermaster general under Ulysses S. Grant. The volume ends in Hiram, the home of a famed Revolutionary War general who was also the grandfather of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Throughout the region and throughout this book are rarely seen vintage photographs of the Saco River and the nine covered bridges that once spanned it.

Upper Saco River Valley: Fryeburg, Lovell, Brownfield, Denmark, and Hiram (ME) (Images of America)

Lake Region: Bridgton, Harrison, Otisfield, Waterford, and Bridgton and Saco River Railroad

Maine’s Lake Region is uniquely endowed with a network of lakes and waterways that define its identity. Long before the first resemblance of a road extended into the hinterland from Falmouth (Portland), the more intrepid and rugged individuals traveled up the Presumpscot River to Sebago Lake, and then up the serpentine Songo River to where they either chose to meander up Crooked River or continue following the Songo the short distance from the confluence of the two rivers into Brandy Pond, and up beautiful Long Lake (or Long Pond, as it was first named). For little more than 40 years beginning in 1830 the Lake Region reaped the benefits of the Cumberland &amp; Oxford Canal that extended from Portland to the Lower Basin on Sebago Lake. By 1870 the rails of the Portland &amp; Ogdensburg Railroad were laid to Sebago Lake Station and this momentous event ushered in the colorful steamboat era. A little more than a decade later the Lake Region was directly linked to the outside world by the lilliputian Bridgton and Saco River Railroad.

The Oxford Hills have always been unique in the history of Maine. They were not settled until after the French and Indian War of 1763, and their isolation allowed the communities to develop distinct identities apart from external influences. The arrival of the railroad connected the area to Portland and Boston, sparking the development of a thriving wood products industry to complement the region's agricultural economy. As transportation developed, so did the outside world's awareness of the pristine natural beauty of the Oxford Hills, and the resulting influx of tourists and sportsmen brought further growth and diversity to the area. Despite the many changes that have transpired since the sound of the first axe resounded through the valley of the Little Androscoggin River, the Oxford Hills remain one of the most rugged, independent, and beautiful regions in all of Maine.

Oxford Hills: Greenwood, Norway, Oxford, Paris, West Paris, and Woodstock, The (ME) (Images of America)

Before her death in 1910, Nettie Cummings Maxim chronicled the people, landscapes, and animals of a typical Maine farm at Bird Hill in Bethel at the turn of the century. In a time before mass media, her world consisted almost entirely of her family and farm. This intimate familiarity with her immediate world and a degree of cultural isolation allowed Nettie to explore and capture on film the details of farm life through the seasons and the innocence and wisdom in the eyes of the children whose lives were so closely entwined with life on a rural Maine hill farm. After one look at her photographs, her innate artistic talent becomes immediately apparent: her use of natural light, the composition of her images, and her eye for detail lend a tremendously beautiful, evocative quality to her images. She turned the long exposures mandated by film at the turn of the century to her advantage, and somehow manages to create the illusion of motion in her photographs. Through her cameras, Nettie recorded the world that was so endearing to her, a world that has gone largely undocumented by photography. In doing so, she has given immortality to the people, buildings, and even the animals that were part of her life and her microcosm of society nearly a century ago, as well as giving us a rare insight into the intricacies of daily life in the nearby communities of Locke's Mills and Greenwood. Allow her to lead you back into life in rural Maine at the turn of the century: it is a journey worth making, and one that you will never forget.

Maine Life at the Turn of the Century: Through the Photographs of Nettie Cummings Maxim (Images of America: Maine)

History

Americas