Category: American Affairs

Sometimes a little curiosity falls into place

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

You know, you drive past a thousand times and finally decide to explore a side street.

That’s what happened in Dover when I had a half-hour to spare before my presentation at the public library.

Upper Factory Road off Tollend was the excursion in question, and I was curious to see if I could actually get a glimpse of Kimball Falls in the Cochecho River through somebody’s back yard.

Yeah, suburban-style sprawl.

What first appeared was this falls, or rapids, at the foot of the trail. It’s the fourth of six falls as the river runs through Dover, though some of them are more accurately rapids. (I’m guessing there’s a nuance of meaning I hadn’t gotten previously – a waterfall seems to be a more clearly defined kind of “falls,” in contrast to fast-running streams like Jones Falls and Gunpowder Falls in Maryland as well as the Salmon Falls River abutting Dover.)

This one would have been the site of the Dover Cotton Factory, which bought the land before 1820, erected a dam, mills, and housing, and sold it in 1830, when the operation moved downstream to the first falls, now the heart of downtown.

Whittier Falls, which are discussed in my book Quaking Dover, were the second set going upstream.

To my surprise, Upper Factory Road actually leads to a small trail down to the water, along with a twist along the riverbank to a definite waterfall. Alas, that part was too wet to use at the time, but it is on my list for a future trip.

Upstream I could see an actual waterfall, where water pours vertically from a lip into a pool
The water level was up, thanks to recent rain and melting.

Checking the aerial map when I got home, I realized I had frequently passed the falls on the community trail on the other side of the river, but the path had veered too far inland for a direct view. But you can definitely hear them, as I recall.

It’s rather surprising how much you can find in what’s essentially your own back yard when you look. Or, perhaps more accurately, know what you’re looking for. I lived in Dover 21 years and found this 2½ years after I left.

By the way, there’s no Lower Factory Road.

What is it that makes a waterfall so appealing?

Did you know about the war between the U.S. and Canada?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

More officially, it’s the Aroostook War a.k.a. the Pork and Beans War or Madawaska War of 1838-39 over the international boundary between Maine and the British province of New Brunswick.

Although militia units were called out, no actual fighting took place.

Well, there was a skirmish between armed lumbermen, the Battle of Caribou, in 1838.

The dispute was settled by negotiations by British diplomat Baron Ashburton and U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster in an 1842 treaty.

Without getting into the myriad details, it is how the Aroostook County towns of Fort Kent and Fort Fairfield got their full names. And most but not all of the disputed territory wound up in the USA, with Aroostook County being formed in 1840.

Reported casualties came from accidents and disease rather than actual combat.

Lest we Friends be too proud

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

From Bowen Alpern’s book, Godless for God’s Sake:

“Much of what we tend to regard as the achievement of Friends as a whole was, in fact, the work of individual Friends, or small groups of Friends, often in the face of opposition or neglect of their monthly meetings. (One of the most positive – if often tedious – aspects of Quaker culture may be its capacity to produce or attract individuals who are willing to stand up to it).”

 

No index and no footnotes

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

November is the month many amateur writers set out to draft a full novel within 30 days.

My book Quaking Dover is nonfiction, but with eight published novels, I can still sympathize.

I should have been suspicious when this book seemed to write itself, producing what one beta reader then sensed as not just stream-of-consciousness but a mind-dump.

Ouch!

Revising it, aiming at a more consistent, creative non-fiction tone, was much more torturous and required much more time and attention than I can calculate. Still, I have to admit the result feels satisfying. Just don’t make me do it again.

As a history book, it wound up with no index and no footnotes but instead focused on a community of people over time.

Well, the ebook edition can be easily searched for items. Not so with the paperback.

As for footnotes? Much of my research in the Covid outbreak was conducted online, not exactly a permanent source of information.

The effort did push me far beyond my journalism discipline, pushing me into the story as an active observer, not that I was comfortable with that.

But it seems to work, all the same.

‘There were no yachts!’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

That’s what many of the autumn cruise ship passengers have noted on their arrival at the Breakwater here in Eastport. As they were told, that’s because ours is a real working fishermen’s harbor. Even in the height of summer, there are few pleasure boats.

The visitors have been largely charmed by the unspoiled nature of this place, especially in contrast to Bar Harbor, Camden, Portland, or Boston, and to the welcome they’ve received.

It did keep a festive spirit alive before winter kicks in.

Community life around here has definitely hunkered down now, at least until the scalloping season kicks in.

Looking for God in the details

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is often credited as the origin of the quip, “God is in the details,” but the phrase actually goes back much earlier.

Still, however tedious but essential, details do extend to the minutia of building and sustaining a marriage, a family, and a wider community. You can also apply it to any number of other things, including business, sports, the fine arts, politics.

In researching Quaking Dover, I am left with many gaps in the records of Friends’ godly endeavors. When, for example, did Dover Friends cease to run their own schools?

In addition, in writing a history, the details can drive one mad.

May I suggest the devil’s at work there, too?

Election reflections

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

These shoulder elections, where nobody’s running for national office, are still important.

In small places like Eastport, getting someone to run even unopposed for local office can be a challenge. We had all the bases covered, although the surprise was when a write-in candidate won one of the two city council seats.

I can’t imagine that happening in a bigger setting, but who knows. A write-in for president? My!

Statewide, a radical proposal to take over the two widely hated electrical utilities failed. Big money is hard to comprehend, even if we’ll be paying it one way or the other. The frequent storm outages won’t be going away, nor will the continuing higher-than-national bills customers here receive. Somehow, I don’t think the issue will be going away, despite the lopsided tallies.

Just how much do those emergency home generators cost altogether, anyway, as insurance against the current setup? It’s not that many households before we’re talking billions.

Otherwise, the initiatives moved in a progressive direction, including the right-to-repair measure.

I am relieve to see opportunities for right and left to come together at a local level, however gingerly.

 

Maine voters face two hot issues 

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The Pine Tree State has a tradition, so I’m told, of placing complex issues on the statewide ballot because many of the elected state representatives and senators are afraid of negative reactions in a controversy.

Normally, public officials are expected to thoroughly investigate the issues and come to a reasoned decision. That’s why we elect them. Instead, shifting this responsibility to a general public that is rarely fully informed can be like rolling the dice.

This year, there are two issues of special note along those lines.

One is the so-call Right to Repair Act, which would prohibit manufacturers from keeping replacement parts and technology from independent repairmen. I’m still bummed by HP’s ink replacements policy – your machine shuts down if you try to use over-the-counter cartridges. Apple computer users have their own experiences. I know the list of big businesses’ proprietary efforts is growing.

The other issue is Pine Tree Power, which would have the state take over Maine’s two largest electrical utilities. Mainers have some of the highest electrical bills in the country accompanied by some of the longest and most frequent outages. Folks are still worked up over being cut off for weeks years ago after some storms before Central Maine Power got the lines working again. Despite the already high rates, CMP and Versant, the utility in our part of the state, both received permission this past summer to hike the bills another 20 percent. The utilities have lined up 15 times as much money for advertising than the grassroots effort has, no surprise there, and the campaign has a lot of emotional scare. What should be obvious is that somebody’s expecting to be repaid handsomely by staying in power (sorry for the pun). They’re not doing the customers any favors there, either.

So, when you’re checking the news reports tomorrow night or the following day, check the Maine results. They could be enlightening. Or, should we venture, shocking.

Oh, grunt

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

I’ve said it before and I know I’m not the only one.

Changing our clocks back an hour is the real beginning of winter. Everyone will be out of sorts for the next week and have no idea why. It really takes us that long, internally, to readjust.

Even those of us who are officially “retired.”

My genealogical research experience was a plus

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my mid-30s, a decade after I started worshiping in the Society of Friends, I heard that my great-grandfather had been a Quaker who moved from North Carolina to Ohio after the Civil War.

I’d no clue and was shell-shocked, in a good way.

That soon got me into genealogical research with another, older, cousin, which in turn led me to others through correspondence. Many of the results can be found on my Orphan George blog.

Central to that research were Quaker Meeting minutes and learning to interpret those records. For family data, they can provide some of the best information before the census of 1850, the first to name everyone in a family, along with ages and some other facts.

Serving as clerk of Meeting and in other roles also deepened my understanding of the faith and practice.

While I gained some skill navigating this field, other researchers specialized in public records, such as wills, tax filings, and property maps.

Admittedly, working as a census taker in 2020, I did develop a sympathy for lapses and errors in the federal population documents.

When it came to researching Quaking Dover, I found myself returning to others’ genealogical summaries, where one version differed from another, as well as other records. I knew to treat what I saw there as tenuous but still helpful.

Somehow, though, it felt familiar.