Barnard's station

[Mike Fox]

Nice bit of research there. Very interesting..

[Bruce Wilson]

Great job Dana and as Mike has said, interesting to read. I had a thought that Mike Davis at the Bridgton Historical Society might be able to help you out with any information on Seth Berry. As I have only gone through the B.H.S. collection of Bridgton News articles pertaining to the railroad, I never thought to search beyond the obvious and dig deeper. I imagine Mike could help you with looking through other Bridgton News that the society has and maybe arrange for you to review microfilm at the News offices.

When I was volunteering at B.H.S , I made copies of all of their railroad related articles and put them in two 3" three-ring binders...that's how many there were. The binders are an odd lime green color which should be easy to find. All the articles are (or were) in chronological order. Most are from the 1930's to close of business in '41. Very little from the years prior.

Mike Davis has a great working knowledge of Bridgton history. I was very impressed with how he could speak on nearly any historical subject that came up. When he was a youngster, he knew Bill Shelley and no doubt began an interest in the narrow gage.

Dana, I am planning on bringing some Bridgton materials to display at the W.W. & F. Ry. Museum on Saturday October 4th from roughly noon and on. I will have copies of a Bridgton check register from 1893, an accounting ledger from 1922 and a transcribed accounting record book from 1913. If you'd like to see these, come on by.

If I know you are coming and you'd like to see my own copies of Bridgton News articles, I can bring those as well.

[Dana Deering]

Bruce,  I would be very interested in seeing your Bridgton material, unfortunately I won’t be there on the 4th as I will be at a wedding.  I will be up for the FWW and maybe as early as Tuesday of that week to help with the prep.

I have some additional info about the mills at Sandy Creek that I will post soon.  Haven’t found much about Barnard’s but I was looking at an 1871 map of Bridgton and there was a Barnard family living at the end of the road that ran past Adams Pond in South Bridgton.  Their place would have been close to where the railroad started to swing northeast toward Sandy Creek.  I’m starting to think that Barnard’s was the South Bridgton depot.  More research is needed.

[Dana Deering]

Ok.  I was looking through an old discussion thread from 2009 in which Glenn Christiansen stated that Bill Shelley showed him a cottage in South Bridgton that he claimed was the South Bridgton depot that had been moved there.  What was very interesting is that Bill also said that this building is very similar in design to Perley’s Mills and Sandy Creek.  Well, we know that Seth Berry built the stations at Perley’s Mills and Sandy Creek and those two buildings were almost identical before the addition was built onto PM.  We also now know that Seth Berry also built the station at Barnard’s Road.  I’m becoming more convinced that Barnard’s was South Bridgton. 

[Dana Deering]

So, in Peter Barney’s photo journey book he has some info in the back that includes station building dimensions.  Sandy Creek was 16x30, Perley’s Mills was 16x30 prior to the addition of the freight shed which made it 16x62, and South Bridgton was 16x30.  Those buildings, I believe, were all built by Seth Berry from the same basic plan, and that leads me further to conclude that South Bridgton and Barnard’s are the same station.

I have never seen a photograph of the South Bridgton station.

[Dana Deering]

The dimensions of the stations were 16x36 not 30. 

[Bruce Wilson]

Dana, we'll have to keep an eye out for I.C.C. valuation reports on the Bridgton. Somebody must have them, maybe they exist within the Peter Barney collection.

Ed Bond amassed a large collection of those forms for valuation on the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes. The data is very thorough and Ed had reports on buildings, rolling stock, motive power and on rail infrastructure. I spent most of late July and August going through it and inventorying each piece.

Jerry DeVos told me that Ed Bond was friends with Emons Lancaster. Emons was able to have Ed come in to the Maine Central engineering offices at St. John Street in Portland and help himself to whatever of the obsolete records he wanted. The W.W. & F. Ry. Museum archives now have Ed's val reports and blue prints. I should mention that both men were Civil Engineers.

Today, I was showing Marcel a collection of 48 pages of val reports on every structure between Boston and Springfield, Mass., once owned by the New York Central and operated by the Boston & Albany in 1948. The records list each building, coal pocket, water tank, inspection pit, etc. The dimensions are given as is the original date of construction. In 1948, much of that was no longer used by the railroad, but leased to customers. That information is given also. The detail is incredible and that comes to us in the H. Lincoln " Linc" Harrison collection.

If we can find such records on the Bridgton, wouldn't that be great? Gotta be out there...

[Dana Deering]

It would be, Bruce.  They’re probably right under our noses somewhere.  As popular as the B&SR was at the end I can’t imagine those reports would have been tossed.

[Allan Fisher]

I copied all of the Maine Two-Footer ICC Val sheets at the National Archives about 15 to 20 years ago and gave scans of them to the WW&F Archives.

[Bruce Wilson]

Thanks for passing that information along Allan. I will ask Linda about those at my next opportunity.

[Bruce Wilson]

Dana,

Within the Ed Bond collection (collection no. 25-07-08) are the following items pertaining to the Bridgton & Saco valuations and inventories:

Bridgton 1916 Inventory - items no. 209 through item no. 245



Valuation records - items no. 348 (list of facilities & fixtures) through item no. 369.
Note that item no. 353 is for the West Sebago section house

Also see item no. 405, which is a plan of the Sandy Creek station.

Happy hunting!

Bruce