#8 - Greenville — Sandbox Atlas

Preserving history at Moosehead Lake

Cathy Jewitt, Author & Editor
John T. Meader, Photo & Content Editor

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”
~Rudyard Kipling

The first view of Moosehead Lake as seen from Indian Hill approaching Greenville, Maine, 2014,
52 years after Gus made this same approach. Photo by John Meader.

On a sunny day in August 1962, after an early breakfast at home in Northeast Harbor, Gus loads up the Rambler with postcards and maps and heads to Greenville, a town on the southern edge of Maine’s Moosehead Lake. The license plate on his new blue station wagon announces MAPS. He’s already made several deliveries this season to sporting camps, stores, and trading posts in Maine’s North Woods. Today he’ll return to the Moosehead region.

Aerial view of Bangor, Maine, circa 1955.
Postcard #269 by Luther Phillips.

Driving along Route 15 to Greenville, Gus lets his mind drift back to the day in June when he bought the Rambler. Both Mary and he had taken a half-day off work to drive to Bangor. With trepidation, he’d dropped Mary off at Freese’s department store to look for curtains—“Those upstairs bedrooms need a facelift, ‘Gustus!”—while he dickered with a salesman at Linehan’s Auto Sales. Parting with a thousand-dollar down payment for the new vehicle hadn’t been easy.

Thuya Gates carved by Gus, circa 1962.
Postcard by Gus Phillips.

Not easy, either, is his entire life right now, he admits to himself. The last few months have sped by—he’s accepted too many carpentry jobs for neighbors. Carving the Thuya Garden gate panels has brought him joy, but the detailed work is time-consuming and tiring. Keeping on top of the steady stream of map and postcard orders flowing in by phone and mail consumes his evening hours. Escaping when he can to shoot for new postcards provides a respite, albeit a working one, as do delivery trips like the one he’s making today. He worries about the price of gas—it’s up to 31 cents a gallon.^1

His feet are on the ground—and in the air—and perhaps it’s in the air where he feels most free. Lately he's been hiring bush pilots so he can snap aerial views. Usually he goes up for just twenty or thirty minutes at a time, but sometimes for an hour when he can afford it. Thinking of Ray Porter, over in Shin Pond, makes him smile. Maybe he can fit in a flight and visit with Ray sometime soon, after he completes his Greenville stops.^2

Finally, almost to town and eager to visit with his customers and stretch his legs, Gus crests Indian Hill. Here he focuses only on the view, as the panorama of town, lake, islands, and hills unfolds before him. He never tires of this moment, this opening up. He pulls off the road to take a few photos—and a few deep breaths.

*Aerial view of Greenville and Moosehead Lake from above Indian Hill, circa 1950. Postcard by Luther Phillips.*

His thoughts turn to his older brother Luther, gone for two years now, but with him here in spirit. The view from Indian Hill reveals a vast territory they’d explored together for years. Inheriting his brother’s State O’ Maine Postcards and The Phillips Maps of Maine businesses has been both a gift and a burden. To keep his brother's trades viable, Gus has been updating Luther’s maps while also creating his own. With advances in printing and other technologies, he’s adapting to keep their work relevant and saleable. So far it’s working.

Gus sells a lot of maps and postcards to Greenville businesses these days; the town is a hub of activity, a jumping-off point for sports and tourists alike who come to explore the forest and waters of Maine’s North Woods. Gus thinks perhaps some visitors are familiar with the area’s recent past, but how many realize that the Wabanaki people’s history in the area goes back, not just hundreds, but thousands of years?

Henry David Thoreau,
photo by B. D. Maxham
National Portrait Gallery.^3

Gus has told his grandchildren stories of Henry David Thoreau and his explorations of the area with Penobscot guides. Two of Throeau’s three journeys in the Maine woods included Greenville. On Thoreau’s 1853 trip to Chesuncook, Chief Joseph Attean guided him. Four years later, Thoreau explored the headwaters of the Allagash and the East Branch of the Penobscot with Joe Polis showing him the way. Both men taught Thoreau the tangibles of woods and water travel and the intangible, ancient connections between these places and those who have been their stewards for centuries. This area speaks volumes to those who want to hear it—and preserve it.

Looking over Moosehead, Gus remembers past trips in the spring when he and Luther marveled at the steamers towing huge rafts or “booms” of logs across the lake. Each boom might hold as much as 4000 cords of wood and cover between 20-30 acres.^4 The log drives, which floated the logs to downriver milltowns, began at Moosehead’s East Outlet, which is where the Kennebec River begins. Once on the river, those logs were “driven” by log drivers who worked to keep the logs moving and off the shore, preventing dangerous log jams.

Log boom on Ripogenus Lake. Similar booms were routinely towed down Moosehead Lake.
Postcard #204 by Gus Phillips.

Ulysses S. Grant,
A Brady-Handy Photograph, Library of Congress

Gus decides to begin today’s deliveries at Wilsons on Moosehead Lake, a sporting camp situated at the mouth of the East Outlet. Gus revels in the camp’s history. A teller of tales himself, he especially likes the story of Henry Wilson, the first operator of the dam at the East Outlet. Wilson floated his house down Moosehead to this spot in 1865 and began welcoming sports to stay there. One of the camp’s more famous guests was Ulysses S. Grant. Wilsons is one of many Maine sporting camps which carries Phillips maps and postcards.^5

The Rambler descends the last half mile into Greenville. As Gus turns left on Pritham Avenue, he waves to Albert Faye, proprietor of The Indian Store and one of his best customers. Later Albert and his wife Ida will catch Gus up on the latest happenings in town. Turning the corner by Bretton’s Store in Greenville Junction, Gus heads north on the Rockwood Road for the scenic drive up the west side of Moosehead Lake.

“The Indian Store” as it appears in 2021.
Photo by John Meader.

Wilsons on Moosehead Lake sporting camps near the East Outlet.
Postcard by Eastern Illustrating Company, New London, NH, 1965.^6

After eleven miles he spots the Wilsons on Moosehead Lake sign on the right and turns onto the dirt road. He’s looking forward to swapping stories with Don Wilson after they take care of business—if Don’s not too busy taking care of guests. As Gus makes his deliveries on this day in 1962, he embraces both his own family memories of trips with Luther and the history of the area. He feels lighter here. Whether hiking, photographing, mapping or visiting with friends, Gus feels at home here, too.

L to R: Map1. Luther’s and Gus’s pictorial map. Map 2. Gus’s recreational map.
Map 3. Gus’s painted map. Map 4. Luther’s and Gus’s postcard map.

Perhaps this is why the Phillips brothers created four distinctly different maps of Moosehead Lake. Luther published his pictorial map in 1953. Gus updated and republished it again after Luther’s death. As he adapted to advances in printing and the needs of residents and visitors to the North Woods, Gus created two more Moosehead maps of his own. He first published his recreational map in 1963. His 1971 Moosehead map demonstrates Gus’s final map style, which combines his talents for both painting and cartography. Several versions of a separate postcard map of Moosehead also exist; Luther created the card in black and white, and Gus updated and colored it in future editions.

Tom Watt shares stories about the Moosehead area, his family, and the people who live in this part of Maine.
Photo by John Meader.

Sixty years after Gus took his trip to Greenville in the Rambler, Cathy and John made the same journey. On an evening in June they visited Tom Watt, a young man who is a seventh-generation Greenville resident, a senior at University of Southern Maine, and during the summer of 2022 he was busy working two summer jobs. Tom described himself as “into outdoorsmanship and local history, especially the preservation of it.” Although Gus and Tom are a couple of generations apart, they are kindred spirits. One can easily imagine the two of them swapping stories around a campfire, both happy and at home in Maine’s North Woods.

Caulked boots were the shoes of a river driver.
Photo by John Meader.

Tom shared stories and his knowledge of local history with us. He spoke about the woods: “In the Lumberman’s Museum, there’s a lumberman's exhibit, and a lot of those chainsaws belonged to my great-grandfather Johnny.” He talked about steamboats, kick-sleds, diaries, and an early floor-model crank record player. The area’s past came alive for us, populated by Tom’s ancestors.

“My grandmother’s grandfather was a steamboat builder and captain. If you’ve ever heard of the Twilight, it was the sister ship of the Katahdin, that was Stillman Sawyer’s boat, my great-great grandfather. It sank just under the water off Kelly’s Landing. You can snorkel right up to it. It’s mostly intact . . . . Most of them [the steamboats], I think, all except the Twilight, were burned—that was when you were done with them, you just set them on fire, and that one [Twilight] got sold.

The steamboat company went out of business in 1940 and the ice poked a hole in it [Twilight], and so when they built the last set of dams it got washed out and covered with water, so it’s mostly intact and then of course the Katahdin is the remaining one, the Twilight and the Katahdin were sister ships, very similar in size and layout.

Stillman’s father, my great-great-great grandfather, built and captained steamboats. His wife was a lady named Lousia Sawyer. She was born in Stillwater in 1855 or 1856, and she died here in Greenville at the age of 101, and she worked until she was 100. She was physically and mentally competent her entire life. When my grandmother was growing up, they called her Nana Upstairs.”

Glancing up, Tom calls our attention to a chair on skis that’s suspended above us:

Kick-sled on a frozen lake in Finland.
Photo courtesy of *Burn Out City.^7*

“That kick-sled that’s up on the ceiling there—so, I don’t know if you’re familiar with kicksleds at all . . . .It’s a Finnish thing. They use them on the ice, and so they’re all over the place here and Monson and Greenville because of the big Finn population in Monson . . . .That one belonged to my Finnish great-great grandparents and . . .it is my mother’s. We had it and I restored it . . . .It didn’t look that nice a few years ago . . . .I restored it.

I don’t know if you’re familiar at all with a guy named Louis Oakes . . . .You might have heard of his brother Harry Oakes who was a prospector in Canada and became fabulously rich . . . . and Louis paid for the building of Greenville High School and Foxcroft Academy . . . . He used to own a camp in Kokadjo, that my great grandparents bought, and he had abandoned it, like he left all the furniture in it . . . .I have Louis Oakes’s crank record player, a big floor model.

*Louis Oakes’s hand-crank record player, operated by Tom Watt, June 2022. Photo by John Meader.*

One of the really valuable sources that I have is, my great-great grandmother Bertha Watt, kept diaries from 1940 to 1972, and I have them. They're five-year diaries, and I’ve read 1940 to 45. It’s very interesting to read about what her daily life was like and especially 1940 to 45 world events that were going on, and some things, like I as soon as I got my hands on them I went through and I looked up different important dates in history. And there were some things that were noticeably missing from—like she didn’t make any comment on—like an assassination or something like that that she didn’t mention. In the back of the book she writes how much they paid in taxes each year. I think one year it was fifteen dollars altogether, selling horses, and that kind of thing. She lived in Blanchard most of her life, and you know it’s a big deal to go to Greenville.”

As Tom shared stories of Greenville’s past and his knowledge of Maine’s North Woods, we contributed some memories of our own. Chatting about experiencing a truly dark, star-filled sky and deep-woods silence filled all three of us with gratitude.^8

Earlier that day we also visited Wilsons on Moosehead Lake sporting camps, where Gus had visited Don Wilson in 1962. On a previous trip to Wilsons in late March, we had experienced the “mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful” ground under a “blue true dream of sky.”^9 We chatted with Scott Snell, who with his wife Allison, runs Wilsons today. Scott was working on spring projects before they welcomed their guests—many of whom have vacationed there for decades—for the summer season. Here at Wilsons on Moosehead Lake the view across the frozen lake to Katahdin was stunning.

When we re-visited Wilsons in June, a violent thunder and lightning storm challenged John’s determination to photograph the lake from the dock. Luther had photographed Wilsons and the nearby dam at the East Outlet almost three-quarters of a century earlier.

L: Luther’s postcard of Wilsons on Moosehead Lake’s Driftwood Cabin, circa 1950.
R: John’s view of Driftwood Cabin in 2022.

*The dam at East Outlet with* Wilsons on Moosehead Lake in the back ground, circa 1955.
Postcard photo by Luther Phillips.

Our choice to visit the Greenville area in both late winter and early summer was a deliberate one. Winter is as popular a season there for visitors as the other three. Although we were too late to catch the cars ice racing on Moosehead, we did encounter ice boaters on the West Cove near Kelly’s Landing. When Gus was 12 (in 1910), he was photographed in front of an iceboat on Lower Hadlock Pond in Northeast Harbor. Were the children in the picture given rides that day?

During the winters in 1960s Greenville, the snow and ice offered opportunities for a variety of winter sports, including snowmobiling and skiing. Probably one of the most unusual-and fun-activities was downhill canoe racing on the snow during the Moosehead Lake Winter Carnival.

Winter recreation in the Moosehead area during the 1960’s included snowmobiling, downhill skiing, and downhill canoe racing. The snowmobile and canoe racing photos are courtesy of the Penobscot Marine Museum; the skier image by Paul A. Knaut, Jr. is from a postcard, #ME1514D, published by Bromley & Company, Inc., Boston, MA.

Aerial view of Mt. Kineo and Moosehead Lake,
circa 1962. Postcard by Gus Phillips.

Knowing that Gus relished the flights and friendships he formed when flying with bush pilots to shoot the North Woods, we stopped at Currier’s Flying Service at Greenville Junction. We chatted with Sara Currier and pilot Roger Paradise. Currier’s was founded by Sara’s father Roger Currier in the early 1980’s. Roger spent much of his final years creating a museum devoted to local bush pilot history. Although the museum and Currier’s Flying Service didn’t exist during Gus’s lifetime, we hoped the visit would give us insights into Gus’s flying experiences. Indeed, it did, and confirmed our intent to dedicate a future entry to a re-creation of Gus’s and Luther’s aerial postcards of the North Woods.^11

Currier’s Flying Service and Museum 2022, photos by John Meader.

Before our day in Greenville was over, and eager to explore more sporting camps that Gus visited that day in 1962, we drove north to Rockwood on the west shore of Moosehead Lake. Our first stop was at The Birches Resort, which opened as a hunting and fishing lodge in the 1930s. We explored the pine-paneled dining room in the main lodge and walked along the lake in front of the rustic cottages. We imagined Gus there, perhaps accompanied by his wife Mary, enjoying the day.

The Birches, Rockwood, Maine, 2022. Photos by John Meader.

Traveling further north, we stopped at Tomhegan Wilderness Camps, built in the early 1900s and originally accessible only by water. A 1940s photo of the Tomhegan Camps’ main lodge shows Luther’s pictorial map of Moosehead in the library.^12 Although that library is gone today, Tomhegan Camps is still actively welcoming guests to the shores of Moosehead Lake. Tomhegan is part of a game preserve, and we saw many deer and ducks while we strolled around.

Tomhegan Wilderness Camps 2022. Photos by John Meader.

Sporting camps have a long history in the Greenville area. In 1904 there were at least 300 sporting camps in operation in Maine, but by 1997, there were fewer than 78. Today the number of sporting camps is even lower.^13 Gus saw the beauty of these rustic camps and the Moosehead area landscape upon which they existed. He loved the tales the owners shared about their lives in the region. And he also saw the prospect that sports might like to take a memory or two home with them, perhaps in the form of a few postcards or a map. Those sporting camps that are still thriving today, and many others which are no longer in existence, are an integral part of both Gus's story and North Woods history. As we further explore this area of Maine, we believe that one day we'll discover an old Phillips map tacked onto a rustic cabin wall.

A Phillips map in a cabin at Medawisla Lodge, 2024.
Photography by John Meader.

2024 update: John, who has been leading stargazing workshops for the Appalachian Mountain Club at their Medawisla and Gorman Chairback Lodges in the midst of their 115,000 acre Maine Northwoods International Dark Sky Park, has found that many of the cabins are sporting Gus’s maps, framed and mounted inside. Gus’s maps are still part of camp decor, just as they were 50 years ago at other camps in the Moosehead region.

Writer’s Notes—Cathy P. Jewitt

When I was growing up, my parents took my brother and me camping, skiing, hiking, and exploring the north woods. At Albert Faye’s Indian Store, I bought treasures, such as clam shells that, when placed in a glass of water, opened to produce beautiful paper flowers. Creating and composing this entry has been a gift for me, and there’s much more to share. In a future post, we’ll take you to Kokadjo, Kineo, and other locations in Maine's North Woods. With more stories to tell, history to learn, and Gus’s postcards and notes to guide us, we’re excited to continue this adventure and take you along.

*A coming storm over Moosehead Lake, 2022. Photo by John Meader.*

Photographer’s Notes—John T. Meader

I’ve been visiting the Moosehead region since I was a young boy traveling to the big lake on annual fishing trips with my father and two grandfathers soon after the ice went out. I remember cold days on the lake trolling for togue, sipping my root beer, listening to my grandfathers exchanging stories, and waiting for the big one to bite.

When I was a dad with young children, we again explored the Moosehead area, but in the warmth of summer and from the seat of a canoe. Camping along the shore, hiking Mount Kineo, and swimming in Moosehead’s cool waters, my family returned to the region for many north woods adventures.

As a photographer, Moosehead has always drawn me—the vast vistas of the lake, the surrounding mountains, including the distant summit of Katahdin more than 40 miles away, and the impressive cliffs of Kineo which plunge into Moosehead’s deepest hole, more than 240 feet deep. Following in Gus’s footsteps, I feel his presence—a connection on many levels: as an artist, a photographer, an explorer, and a lover of the State of Maine. The vistas over Moosehead’s expansive waters have always been a microcosm of the overall beauty of the inland regions of Maine. This lake is surrounded by mountains, deep forests, running rivers, whitewater, and history. Native peoples have lived here for millennia. When I explore the area I often think about their past presence on these shores, from the flint of Kineo, to the birchbark canoes that once plied the lakes and rivers, to the villages and camps they had throughout the region. Here there is much to learn, much to see, and much to appreciate. It’s a haven for a photographer and artist. When I walk in Gus’s footsteps, I, like him, am walking in the footsteps of a history that goes back thousands of years.

Special thanks:

The Penobscot Marine Museum and Photo Archivist Kevin Johnson for image use, preserving the Phillips Collection, and continued support; Thomas Watt for sharing his extensive knowledge of and passion for the Moosehead Lake region’s past and future; the Birches Resort, Tomhegan Camps, Wilsons on Moosehead Lake, and Currier’s Flying Service for allowing us to explore and photograph; the Moosehead Historical Society for an informative May visit; the Northeast Harbor Library for image use; project scholar Pamela Dean, Ph.D.; Mary Jane Phillips Smith, Gus’s daughter, for sharing family history and continued support; Rhumb Line Maps for technical support and hosting; and John Meader for photography.

Partners for the Postcards from Gus blog:

Endnotes and works consulted:

1. Augustus Phillips, handwritten entries in personal notebooks, collection of the author.

2. Augustus Phillips, pilot notes and lists and receipts for flights, collection of the author.

3. Thoreau photograph, National Portrait Gallery, Public domain via Wikimedia Common, accessed August, 2022.

4. Sunken Steamboats of Moosehead Lake, and Ambajejus Boom House, via Maine Memory Network, accessed August 2022.

5. Ulysses S. Grant visit and history of Wilsons Camps: Wilsons on Moosehead Lake.

6. Aerial view postcard of Wilsons Camps on Moosehead Lake, Hippostcard,
accessed August 1, 2022.

7. Kicksledding in Finland: photos and tour information, Burn Out City, accessed July 15, 2022.

8. Thomas Watt, Greenville, Maine, in-person interview with Cathy Jewitt and John Meader, June 13, 2022.

9. Excerpts from e.e. cummings’s poems:
e.e. cummings, “in Just-,” Poetry Foundation, accessed July 2, 2022.
e.e. Cummings, “i thank you,” Harvard Square Library, accessed July 2, 2022.

10. Richard H. Rothe, “Lower Hadlock Pond, 1910,” Northeast Harbor Library, accessed October 10, 2022, https://nehlibrary.net/digitalarchive/items/show/3480. Item 4473.

11. Visit by Cathy Jewitt and John Meader to Currier’s Flying Service, June 13, 2022.

12. Everett L. Parker, The Moosehead Lake Region 1900-1950, Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, South Carolina, 2004, page 105.

13. The Maine Sporting Camp Heritage Foundation and The Maine Sporting Camp Association.

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