GRANDUNCLE CLARENCE REMEMBERS PT2

((Another of three blogposts in celebration of Clarence West's 120th
birthday. First posted in 2008.)) 

Here’s part two of my Granduncle Clarence’s memories
of the construction of the Azicohos Dam as it appeared in
“The History of Wilsons Mills-and- the- Magalloway-
Settlements” including a wandering cow and Clarence taking
a shortcut across the top of the dam:


“Roberge cut the flowage. They used to bring the water
up to the works to keep the frost out of the north side of
the dam. When the water is low you can still see where
the steam pipes cooked the cement. Roberge finished the
flowage by cutting off the trees right at the top of the ice.
Brown Company’s tow-boats had quite a time at first.
Sometimes they’d make a mistake and end up in the woods,
or wind the tow-line up in the propeller, or knock a blade
off the propeller in the dri-ki(driftwood). Stan Wentzell was
the one who finally corralled the dri-ki by booming it in the
coves. Stan was a good man. When he told you something
you could believe it.


There used to be a quarry up in back of the barracks.
When Clarence Gray logged in there a few years ago he
cut trees out of it. That concrete pit up back was the water
pit. Water lines ran down to the houses, storehouses, cook
camps, etc. On one of the cottages the front porch was way
up high. When I had a cow, every time she didn’t come
when I called, I always knew where to find her. Under
that porch!


They used to have a telephone line run up from the top of
the dam to the foot of the sluice. You remember Pat
Crowley. It was his job to stay on the top of the dam and
stop the wood if anything went wrong. It took six feet of
water to sluice and the wood went nine-tenths of a mile in
three minutes. That sluice was the slickest piece of work I
ever saw. It sure took some figuring. George Freeman
designed it. He went to school with Paul Bean. He came
from Gorham, Me. After he left here he went to Chicago
to work on a hotel that was tipping over. Then he helped
build a railroad through the Rocky Mountains. After that
he went out to San Francisco and worked on the Golden
Gate bridge.


Bean and Harris came up one day to see about doing
something to the sluice gates. We drove around to the other
side of the dam and then Bean discovered he need the
blueprints that had been left over at the house. He was
going to send his driver over after them but I told him I
could do it quicker. There was about an inch of water
running over the splashboards but I went across and got
the papers. When I got back, Bean stood there with his
hands in his pockets watching me. He said `I didn’t like to
see you do that, Clarence!’ It wasn’t long after that they
put in the bridge above the splashboards.”

Source: The Town of Wilsons Mills Maine, “The History of
Wilsons Mills-and- the- Magalloway-Settlements”
(Wilsons Mills, Me. 1975.)
pp.95-96