GRANDUNCLE CLARENCE REMEMBERS Pt1

My granduncle Clarence P(hilip) West was the caretaker of
the Azicoos Dam in Wilsons Mills, Oxford, Maine for
fifty years. He was born in Cambridge, New Hampshire on
17 March, 1895 to Philip J. West and Clara (Ellingwood)West
and died on 5 June 1983. The SSDI gives his place of
residence as Errol, Coos Co., New Hampshire at the time
of his death.


Clarence married Mabel Jane Ilsley on 25 Jun 1919 and
together they had three children: their son Lee and their
daughters Leita and Ruth.



When Wilsons Mills celebrated its sesquicentennial in 1975
they decided to mark the occasion by publishing a book:
“The History of Wilsons Mills-and- the- Magalloway-
Settlements”. It includes an interview with Clarence about
his memories of his time at the Azicoos Dam and it makes an
interesting companion to the memories my Aunt Dorothy
sent me about her and my Dad’s time there as children,
which I posted here.

Tomorrow is the 113th anniversary of Clarence’s birth, so in
honor of him, here’s part one of the interview from the book:

“Clarence P. West, at eighty still caretaker at Aziscoos
Dam, is an interesting man to talk with. He was here
recently to look at some old pictures that had been brought
into the book committee on the building of the Azizcoos
Dam and we got him talking of the old days. He came here
as caretaker in 1924 and has been here ever since. We first
asked him how he happened to come here. These are some
of his comments.

“When we were first married I went to Pontook to work on
a survey with Walter Sawyer. Mabel and I lived in a tent
that summer. Sawyer would have had a nice dam there if
they had let him. He had one planned that was near four
thousand feet across with penstocks clear to Twitchell’s
for power. From that job I went to Lisbon to work in a
sawmill for West Bros. Later I went to see Mr. Bean about
a job and he told me to send in my application. There were
about a hundred other applications but when they got
narrowed down to five I was still one of them. After
Vashaw died, Lewis Chadwick was transferred to Errol and
I came up here. That was in 1924.


When the new Dam was built the gate house on the old dam
was removed and set up for a blacksmith shop. It still stands
there to-day just in back of the parking area. You know, the
timbers in that old shop were hewed by hand.


One of the big towers to hold the cable was up back of the
house, the other one was almost over to where the road to
Rangeley is now. There was a double track from the end of
the dam to the quarry up back on the hill. The cars worked
from a cable, when one went down, the other came back
up. There was a track with a whole string of cars that they
loaded with a steam shovel. The tops of the cars turned
around to dump. That shovel was on wheels and they had
to keep planks under the wheels all the time. It was set up
in a pit to load dirt for fill on the south side of the cam. The
cars were hauled along the tracks by a big black horse. And
when the whistle blew at quitting time that horse stopped
right in his tracks and there he stood till someone unhitched
him and headed him for the stables.


When they were building the dam it was nothing to meet
a string of horses a half mile long from Colebrook to
Azicoos.”

(to be continued)

Source: The Town of Wilsons Mills Maine, “The History of
Wilsons Mills-and- the- Magalloway-Settlements”
(Wilsons Mills, Me. 1975.) pp.94-95

GOING UP HOME 2

Most of the time we spent up home was with the family of Dad’s
sister Flossie. Her and Uncle Herbie’s house served as the start
point for trips further upcountry to see the relatives in Errol or
visit Grandpa and Grandma West who lived apart.


Grandpa West was still logging when I was old enough to be aware
of things. I can recall a mustached man with a fedora perched on
his head, a pair of green workpants and suspenders over the green
workshirt. Most of all I recall fingers missing from each hand and
the small tin can into which he spat tobacco juice. I don’t recall
many conversations with him but looking back I can chalk that up
to two main reasons, one being the mix of awe and fright I had of
the stranger I saw once or twice a year who was missing fingers
and had brown spit. The other was that like my father Grandpa
West was not what you’d call a big talker, at least not that I ever
recall on our visits. But when I was younger I was too busy being
a kid exploring or playing while the adults were talking.


The last time I recall seeing my grandfather was on a trip my dad
and I made uphome by ourselves when I was a teenager. We drove
up in an old 1954 Chevy to Upton, Me. where Grandpa West was
living at the time. He'd been running a trap line and caught a fisher
which was frozen solid. It made a big thump when he dropped it on
the floor. I suspect that was for my benefit as was most likely what
I think was a jar of pickled deer tongues he set out on the table for
dinner with deer steaks, potatoes and sour dough biscuits.
I was a city boy, after all, and I think he got a grin out of my looks
at what was in that jar!

Friends became suspicious when they noticed he hadn’t come in
to the post office to pick up his mail. They went to his home to
check up on him and found him dead of a heart attack.

I have even fewer recollections of Grandma West. While we did
talk some when we visited it was the usual sort a grandchild
might have about school and how I was doing. The visits were
either not very long or took place back at Aunt Flossie’s in Milan
where I’d be busy playing with my cousin Bobby. And as I grew
older I didn't often accompany the rest of the family on the
trips.


I regret I never sat down to talk to them when I had the chance.
When you are young you think everyone lives forever and you
don’t have the time to spend listening to older folks reminiscing.
Now that I am closer in age to what they were back then, I wish
that I had.


We’ll stop here for how.