Fall! Enjoy the beauty of the Charles and Connie Schmid Preserve! Come meet your neighbors! Get some exercise! Work parties are forming to clear and maintain the seven trails through the Preserve. A wonderful way to explore one of Edgecomb's cherished attractions. You can reach Deb Sondergaard of the Schmid Committee at sondergaard@clinic.net or 882-6265. Oh, and incidentally, the Committee needs another member. Please consider helping the Town preserve its natural areas by helping to plan its exciting projects for the coming year. Discuss this with Deb or Bob Leone, Committee Chair, 882-9613.
My spouse Bruce tells me to tell you the 2004 Schmid Committee minutes are slowly coming up on the Edgecomb website (see below).
Last Tuesday, Deck House School students Max Beal, Nick Pearson, Jack Chumley, Teddy Bach, Dan Sevigny and Sean Ugur helped out at the Edgecomb Eddy School, digging holes and planting trees. With them were the Deck House' Assistant Head Jeremiah Burrows, new Housemaster David Bullis, and new Social Studies teacher David Ragsdale. It's nice to see such cooperation among the several kinds of school in the region.
Coastal Economic Development is now scheduling appointments for people qualifying for HEAP Fuel Assistance. An outreach site will be in Lincoln County during October, November and December. If you believe you qualify for this aid, please call 442-7963 or 1-800-221-2221 as soon as possible to schedule an appointment.
Notice to Taxpayers: If you have refinanced a mortgage or taken out a new mortgage in the last year and are escrowing your taxes, then the mortgage holder needs to have a copy of your tax bill. Mortgage companies usually request copies of tax figures from the Town Office, but they have been notified that this should be done annually, in July. This year, however, only a few mortgage companies have complied to date. You can call the Town Office from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or e-mail the Tax Collector at leesmith269@yahoo.com to find out if your mortgage holder has requested your tax bill. If you need a copy of your tax bill, you can get one at the Town Office during the above office hours.
The Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association is sponsoring a symposium, "Linking Land Use to Water Quality," on Wednesday, Sept. 29, 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. at the SVCA Office, 624 Sheepscot Road. Anyone with an interest in municipal planning to protect water quality is invited to attend. Call Maureen Hoffman at 586-5616 or svca@sheepscot.org for more info.
The Friends of Fort Edgecomb will be holding their monthly meeting Wednesday, Oct. 6, at 7:00 p.m. in the lobby of the Sheepscot River Inn. Come join them as they discuss the next year's re-enactment schedule and their plans for the Fort Edgecomb Bicentennial!
Speaking of which... The Town's Bicentennial Committee is off and running. Nick Dean has been collecting super data from State, local and academic sources. We are pleased to make the long distance acquaintance of Joshua Smith, professor of maritime history at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in King's Point NY (and a Lincoln Academy alum!), most helpful. Projects are starting to cohere: 1) An outbuilding in post and beam construction, in keeping with the Fort, for storage and a workshop; 2) a book (of course!), the best way to gather together in one place all the factual nuggets and stories, not to mention photos and drawings, now so greatly and frustratingly dispersed. Anyone with Fort Edgecomb lore, we urge you to share it with us, be it an 1808 ancestor who might have manned the garrison, or a 1958 class picnic on the grounds. All is grist for our mill.
To date, committee members are Nick Dean, Tom Blackford, Susie Stephenson, Topher Belknap, Bruce and Jo Cameron, Fred Maitland of the Friends of Fort Edgecomb, with the active advice and support of Park Ranger Jim Davis.
Another historical focus: The Truth about the Rosicrucian Spring. Alas, to date, after our splendidly boisterous Edgecomb Historical Society meeting on the subject last Thursday, "case still not proven." Sue Carlson, Ros Strong and I tramped down paths and woods roads off Atlantic Highway, Dodge Road (past the cemetery) and to the railroad tracks on Station Road, down from Jackeroo's. Much suggestive, nothing tangible. Again, the ever resourceful Nick has found lists of stockholders in the Rosicrucian Spring Company. Altogether, it looks as if a major resort were in the planning stages in the 1880s, but perhaps the investors bit off more than they could chew, or wasn't there a major economic recession in that era? Another case of almost total eclipse of a once prominent feature in the community.
I have often been tempted to teach a class in History backwards. Start with the known, and by progressing into the past, 10 year installments, 50 years, 100... one can perhaps gain an understanding of why things are so in the present. This can apply as well to the Rosicrucian Spring mystery as to the entire Middle East pattern of continuous conflict. I hasten to admit I have never tested this theory.
Gazing in a crystal ball in reverse at 234 River Road, 633-2978, bonesukl@midcoast.com. This column appears in several local papers, and at www.Edgecomb.org.