Family Connection

[Mike Fox]

My family (on my fathers side) has lived in the greater Lovell, Maine area for atleast 5 or 6 generations, quite possibly much longer. They have been involved with logging and lumbering and one distant relative even invented the Fox Rule, which was a log scale.

Anyhow, I stopped and visited one of my Uncles today. He has a great memory and can remember things that were told to him years ago. He is one of those guys you want to just listen to all day. And only hope that you can retain some of what you hear. And sometimes it is funny what can trigger the conversation.

Today he got to talking about one of the guys in town that is in an antique truck club. Today was a meeting at Owls Head Transportation Museum. I responded that I was there just last weekend and told him about the program on the Limerock Railroad.

That got us discussing various railroads and Finally settled on the B&SR. He then told me about the time one of our cousins, who's name was John, (who passed away at the age of 97 about 5 years ago) had ridden to Harrison on the B&SR. The story that was told was that my Johns father met him in Harrison with a horse and buggy. John said the ride from Portland to Harrison was much smoother than the ride from Harrison to Lovell on the Buggy.

The next thing he told me has me the most intrigued. He told me my Grandfather had the chance to buy one of the old locomotives of the B&SR to run his saw mill. He thought they wanted either $1200 or $1800 for it, he wasn't sure which.  It could have been any of them, as my Grandfather passed away in '76 or '77 at the age of 84. Apparently the pressure test that was performed on it last was sufficient for it to run a mill, but not enough for the railroad. I will look into this, I am thinking the 5 or 6. But that was close. I could have grown up with the locomotive down by the mill (that is still in occasional use) behind what is now my Uncles house, which was my Grandparents when they were alive.

I find these little pieces of history fascinating. I only hope to hear more like it.

[Keith Taylor]

Mike, you need to record these conversations.
The number of folks that have direct connections to the past grows smaller every day.
Keith

[Mike Fox]

Well, if you ask a few questions, a few other family members remember other things also. My father was telling me that the current mill is not the one that the locomotive would have been for. There was a left hand mill there that was powered by a small steam engine. It is not certain if the locomotive would have replaced this other one, or if the one they last used was the replacement for the original. Anyway, the steam engine that ran the mill went to a gentleman that has a steam powered boat. Now, I need to see a third family member (my father has 5 brothers and 2 sisters) that does caretaking for this gentleman and see if that engine is the one in his boat.

The left hand mill was torn down and the components were used to build the current right hand mill.