Working the Bay

This map, based on a map from the Maine GIS Library, shows major towns and islands in Penobscot Bay. Yellow on the west side of the Bay shows the approximate location of lime deposits. Pinkish tan shows granite quarrying areas, both along the southern part of the Bay and also in Frankfort. Reddish-brown depicts the location of some of Penobscot Bay's brick industry. More brickmaking occurred upriver in Orrington and Brewer, on the east side of Penobscot Bay.

Felling a white pine tree. Smaller trees have been cut and their boughs and trunks laid for a soft landing for the mast tree.

It's hard to imagine trees this size today, and even harder to imagine cutting them down without chain saws. It took sharp axes and strong men.

From the book, New England Masts and the King's Broad Arrow, by Samuel F. Manning, 1979. Illustrations courtesy of the author and illustrator.

These eagles were carved for the Buffalo, New York, Post Office. From 1896 to 1898, carvers and stone cutters at the Sands Quarry on Vinalhaven, operated by the Bodwell Granite Co., cut stone for this building. These eagles were famous enough to have their carvers recorded: Robert Whyte, Charles Athearn, Robert Clarke, and Elbridge Rolfe. According to Whyte it took 150 work days to carve an eagle. 

Another photograph of these eagles and more photographs of the Vinalhaven Quarries are in Images of America, Vinalhaven Island, Vinalhaven Historical Society, 1997.

The Eastern Steamship Company's Bangor division 1903 brochure includes the schedule, fares, vessel layout, and a route map for the two steamships that sailed from Boston to Bangor, by way of Rockland, Camden, Belfast, Searsport, Winterport, and other Penobscot Bay and River ports on the way to and from Bangor. This was the summer schedule valid from May 4 to October 31, and it included stops in Northport from June 22 to September 5. With two boats, the City of Bangor and the City of Rockland, the company could provide daily service.

The sardine industry was very important in Maine, along with the businesses of making sardine cans and canning sardines. By 1910, there were more than thirty sardine canning businesses in Maine, and each had at least one "line" of sardines, some sardines being cut up into steaks, whole herring, or other snacks.

There must have been hundreds of waterpowered saw mills in Maine. It does not take much water to run one. Here Belfast photographer, undertaker, and chronicler of his town, Charles R. Coombs, caught this small mill on the Goose River in Belfast, just off Swan Lake Avenue. It was then run by Dan Robertson.

Hay was a very important export from Belfast. In 1887, Belfast shipped out 11,000 tons of hay, much of it coming from interior sections of Waldo County. Hay was just about as important then as oil is today, as it provided the "fuel" for horses in big cities like Boston and New York before there were automobiles and trucks.

Here a two horse team pulls a hay wagon on which two men stack the hay tossed up by two others with pitchforks, somewhere in Waldo County.