Road Tripping Through History

Up to now, the history I have shared on this website has had direct relevance to the stories I am writing about my Larson relatives. So far I have told their immigration story from the perspective of what was happening in Sweden and in Western Pennsylvania in the latter half of the 1800’s. In articles later this summer I will be writing more about my great grandfather Frank’s children and some of the events leading up to their 1938 trip to California. This is the trip that I will be repeating this fall. I have been fully immersed in that history, but this trip to New England for a month has opened a side door that I can’t resist traipsing through.

What I’m discovering on this road trip (and what I kind of knew already) is that my love of family and history isn’t limited to my own family or to particular places my family members went or lived. There is history all around us all the time and knowing more about the places I visit adds depth and texture to my experience of being there. In this article are some examples of what I’m talking about.

I offer the disclaimer that I am not a professional historian and any actual research while travelling is either non-existent or limited to what I can quickly pull off the internet (from hopefully credible sources) or do on the fly at the location (through collection of brochures, pamphlets, markers on the street, etc.) before I move on to my next place. Nevertheless, I enjoy trying to answer questions that I have about some of the places I’m visiting. By necessity I’m cherry-picking what to focus on to satisfy my curiosity. Despite the limitations of not being able to do full justice to any of the topics I choose to talk about, here is a summary of some of the breadcrumbs I’m finding interesting as I go from town to town and region to region:

Shipbuilding

It is low tide in Kennebunkport, Maine when I get there. I only have a short opportunity to explore the town because I am on my way to a lunch date after leaving the women camper rally (and all that rain I wrote about in my Week 2 Report).

The ships were used for commercial fishing as well as pleasure and commercial transport of goods and people. In 1808 it became illegal to transport people for the purpose of enslaving them. Prior to that time, however, a number of the ships built in Kennebunkport and other towns along the eastern seaboard, operated regularly off the coast of Africa. The owners of the companies who built them and the captains who sailed them profited directly from the industry borne out of enslaving people. After the passage of the 1808 law, the shipbuilders and operators continued to profit from the work that went on in the plantations in the South that used forced labor, as cotton, tobacco and other goods produced in the South were transported on those ships to far away places.

Today, in a town like Kennebunkport, there are many architectural examples of the money that flowed from those shipbuilding days and the opulence that accompanied the cash. The large houses and the grounds they sit on are beautiful and stately. After its shipbuilding fame dissipated in the early late 19th and early 20th centuries, the town became a prime summer destination for wealthy families wishing to escape the dense, urban environments of Boston and New York. In fact, many people know of Kennebunkport because of the Bush family (of Pres. George H.W. and his son Pres. George W. fame), who spent much time at their vacation home there for many years. I believe the Bush compound is still in the family and was retained by family members after the elder Pres. Bush died in 2018.

Textiles and Cotton

Up the road not far from Kennebunkport lies the town of Biddeford, which sits in the shadow of Portland just north. Biddeford also built ships, but found its true calling in the early to mid-19th century as a center for manufacturing cotton fabric. Textile mills proliferated along rivers and falls throughout the northern Atlantic seaboard during this period. Water was needed to drive the machinery in the mills, and textile operations popped up all over New England once the technology for mass-producing cotton fabric became available. As was happening in every industry during the Industrial Revolution, the rise of factories made possible the expansion of manufacturing and immigration. You may recall that I discussed this phenomenon in the context of the tanneries in Pennsylvania (see my earlier articles about the Larsons in western Pennsylvania), which were in great demand because shoe factories needed the leather to mass-produce shoes for the large numbers of families flowing into the U.S. and laying down homesteading stakes during this period. The same was true for textiles. The boom was on for anyone who could mass-produce fabrics, which were exported abroad as well as made into clothing and other items in the United States to meet the rising demand.

Biddeford was a perfect place for a textile mill, given that it sat near a 47 foot waterfall coming from the Saco River. It provided a steady flow of water from the White Mountains and promised good fortune for anyone who could capitalize on the opportunity it offered.

Because of its prime geography and access to abundant, flowing water, investors lined up to open mills there. One of the most successful was the Pepperell Mills, which opened in 1850. During the 1850s the three largest mills together operated in 11 different mill buildings, employed over 3500 people, housed them in 70 boarding houses, and produced over 25 million yards of cotton cloth annually.

The Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century had many different facets. While the logging companies in Pennsylvania recruited strong young immigrant men for the difficult and challenging labor required to fell and process the trees and bark, the opposite was true in the textile industry.

Young women were recruited in large numbers to work in the mills. They flocked to the factories from surrounding farms, and when that source didn’t meet the demand, they were recruited from among the immigrants flowing into the country. The (mostly) young women were needed to run the machinery that spun the cotton into threads, which were then woven into cotton fabrics.

Apparently, in its heyday, the mills also actively recruited men from Albania, who were known for their expertise in fabric design and dyes. This was a counterpoint to the recruitment of Swedes by the logging industry in Pennsylvania based on the knowledge and experience with logging they brought with them from Sweden.

The textile mills in the north during the mid 19th century relied almost exclusively on cotton coming from the plantations in the South. Again, another example of how the North profited from the enslavement of Africans while also convincing themselves that they were not participating in it. In 1820 the Missouri Compromise ensured that Maine would enter the union a free state, while allowing Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state. (prior to this Maine was part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which had abolished slavery by 1783) This was an attempt by Congress to preserve the balance of power between states allowing people to own other people and those who didn’t. Sadly, even this feeble attempt by Congress to control the spread of slavery was overturned as unconstitutional in 1857 (after working its way through the lower courts for over 10 years) by the United States Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision. This decision is widely considered to be one of the worst decisions to come from our Supreme Court, constituting one of the darker moments in the Court’s history.

Meanwhile, up in Maine, when the Civil War broke out, cotton production basically came to a screeching halt and many of the northern mills had to close because their sources of cotton had dried up. Interestingly, the Pepperell Mill was able to stay open by contracting with the U.S. Army to make duck fabric, which was used for army tents and wagon covers. They also produced drill fabric, which is a strong fabric used for clothing similar to denim but made using a different process. It isn’t clear where the cotton came from, but in any case the mill did not close and instead continued its success well into the 20th century. Pepperell Mill is credited with creating the synthetic blanket in the 1950s called Vellux (I think I remember having one as a child!). This material creates a very soft, almost spongy blanket using layers of polyurethane foam (highly flammable!!!).

Today the mill buildings stand as a testament to the industrial success of the region. They are used as a mixture of commercial property and residences and include a nice museum display in one of the main buildings as well as numerous markers throughout the downtown honoring those former pillars of the community. Many original buildings remain.

Side Note to Biddeford Visit

One of the happy benefits of the trip I’m taking is the occasional surprise meet-up. Turned out that my friend Kim (my camper buddy from Ann Arbor and fellow “drinking with dogs” club member) was going to be in town to visit her son Alex who lives there, at the exact same moment that I was going to be passing through! This only happened because of the torrential rains in Vermont that you might have read about in the news (or experienced them yourself!). I also wrote about them in my Week 2 Report.

Kim was staying with a friend at Lake George and had planned her trip to Biddeford on the very day of the rains. Roads were washed out and accidents were happening and she had to turn back before getting very far. We had known we would both be in New England at the same time, but had concluded weeks ago that we would not see each other because our timetables for being in different places just didn’t overlap. That is until July 11, when my extra day in New Hampshire and her extra day in Vermont conspired to give us a unique opportunity to have lunch. She was on her way south to Boston and I was on my way north to Bailey Island. The bonus was that I had a chance to say hello to Alex, whom I don’t see nearly often enough now that he has moved away from Ann Arbor. Win-win!

Fishing

After sightseeing a bit in Kennebunkport and having lunch in Biddesford, I made my way to the Driftwood Inn, which sits near the tip of Bailey’s Island in the town of Harpswell, Maine. Except for its neck extending south from the mainland into Casco Bay from Brunswick, Harpswell is comprised exclusively of more than 40 islands and covers an area of over 24 square miles. Bailey Island is one of those, and you have to cross Orr Island to get there. The region was originally a plantation in the 18th century, devoted to cutting timber and building ships. But during the gilded age of the late 19th century, the beauty of the area and the rocky coast attracted the barons of the industrial revolution looking to get out of the city during the warmer months (a similar story that repeats itself all along this beautiful and serene coast). After visiting there it is easy to see why this area was so attractive to the aristocracy. I don’t think there is a more serene place on earth than standing on the shores of one of our great oceans (and I say this as a lover of the Great Lakes in the midwestern United States, which have their own singular charm).

Side note: Bailey’s Island became a firm destination for me shortly after I decided to take this month-long trip. Jay, Conrad and I visited the Driftwood Inn several times during the years we lived in Massachusetts, when Conrad was in grade school. We even had a family gathering there one summer for Jay’s relatives. So good memories and a nostalgic look back as I drank in the ambience, ocean waves, and peacefulness of the two days I spent there. I was not camping for this part of the trip.

*If you look closely in the photo you can just about make out the lobster buoys in the water.*

Fishing became a prime driver of the economy fairly early on in this region of the country, and focused originally on “horse mackerel” which most of us know as tuna. In fact, Bailey’s Island borders Mackerel Cove, presumably named for the abundant horse mackerel that was caught there.

In the 18th and 19th centuries lobster was not appreciated nearly as much as the tuna was. Lobster was so plentiful that they washed up on shore and were freely plucked from the beach. Native Americans used them as fertilizer. To the more recent arrivals to this country, lobsters were known as a poor person’s food, and served to apprentices, enslaved and imprisoned persons, and children. This did not begin to change until the late 19th century when lobsters began to make their way into Boston and New York restaurants. From there demand grew and supply went down, leading to the current situation of expensive prices and regulation of the industry to prevent overfishing and protect the jobs of the lobstermen. Lobster trapping, marked by the proliferation of colorful buoys dotting the numerous lobster coves all along the Maine coastline, became the primary method for catching lobsters in the late 19th century.

Luxury Living and Presidential History

My last historical account involves our 32nd President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I confess that, although I am a student of the New Deal and all the important legislation enacted during the Depression after Roosevelt became President, I have never really studied the man himself. I probably know more about Francis Perkins (first woman cabinet member - Labor Secretary - who almost single-handedly wrote the original Fair Labor Standards Act and Social Security Act), and Harry Hopkins (Roosevelt’s Secretary of Commerce who directed all the early New Deal programs) than I do about Franklin.

So when I arrived on Campobello Island and settled into my campsite at the Herring Cove Provincial Park in New Brunswick, I was delighted to discover that Roosevelt’s beloved summer home was less than two miles away. I did not know this when I was making my reservations weeks ago. Preservation of the home and site is a unique collaboration between the countries of Canada and the United States, each having an equal responsibility for maintenance and upkeep. This cooperation is evident everywhere you go on the grounds of this truly international park, and best of all it is free to anyone who wants to visit and tour the home!

Campobello Island, located on the Bay of Fundy, served as a destination for the rich and famous during the Gilded Age just as the coastline communities all along the seacoast down to Boston and New York did. After spending time at one of the famous large hotels on the island in 1883, Franklin’s parents decided to build a cottage there. Franklin was two years old at the time that decision was made (note that he was born in 1881, which is the same year that my Larson ancestors sailed from Sweden to New York!). Franklin grew up spending summers on the island during a time when large summer cottages and hotels proliferated, made possible by the Campobello Company who owned the land and wished to develop it. Franklin developed a love for boating, fishing, building ship models, swimming, and other activities, and enjoyed remembering and reliving those early years long after he became President and his health was failing. That original cottage of his childhood is long gone, but the one that remains was acquired by Franklin’s mother Sara in 1909 on condition that she gift it to Franklin and Eleanor, who were married in 1905. She did so.

*It was in this house that the Franklin Roosevelt family spent summers while raising their five children.*

During the early years of the 1900’s Franklin was busy planning and getting groomed for his life in politics, and Eleanor was busy managing the household, which included a number of servants and many social gatherings. Campaign strategists would stay at the home as they planned Franklin’s future. Eleanor was a prolific letter writer and her original desk remains in the home. One of the children, Franklin Jr., was born in the house in 1914.

It was also in this house in 1921 that Franklin, then age 39, first contracted the symptoms that would later be diagnosed as polio. Two weeks earlier he had attended a large gathering of Boy Scouts who were camping at Bear Mountain in New York, about 40 miles north of the city. Franklin was one of several VIPs who visited the scouts and was serving as president of the Boy Scout Foundation of Greater New York at the time. He had also been the Vice Presidential candidate on the losing Democratic ticket in 1920, so he was well known as a national figure. Sadly, in 1921 there was no vaccine and no cure for this potentially deadly virus that attacks the nervous system. For Franklin the diagnosis did not end up being a death sentence, but it most certainly had significant implications for his rising aspirations to national office. Roosevelt had been a vigorous and active man all his life, and the prospect that he might never walk again must have been devastating. After the diagnosis he continued to return to Campabello over the years, but had to stay in a bedroom constructed for him on the first floor since he could no longer climb the stairs.

We know the ending of Roosevelt’s fight to overcome the ravages of the disease and how he learned to live with it (and hide it from his adoring public while he was alive). Eight years after the diagnosis he was elected governor of New York, and was later elected to the Presidency four separate times, eventually dying in office in 1945 of a cerebral hemorrhage.

I truly enjoyed learning this part of the Roosevelt family history, and almost talked myself into buying one or two of the voluminous biographies of Franklin, Eleanor, or of the two of them that were available in the park gift shop. My more rational senses told me that I had better not add to my well-intentioned but as yet unread book collection piled up in my camper (I’m working on it, but slowly and can’t seem to get into any of the books I brought with me). Adding any of these thick volumes to my tiny camper probably would have put me over the weight limit on some highways, so I did not make the purchases.

Coming Attractions

As I finish this article I am sitting on Salisbury Beach headed to Framingham and then the Cape. Campobello Island was the furthest east and north for me on this trip, but I definitely want to return. I did venture as far as Saint John in New Brunswick, but only as a day trip. In my next article I’ll share more about my camping adventures, other places and people I’m seeing, and what I’m continuing to learn about myself and camping as I travel. That should be coming soon if all goes according to plan!

Resources for This Article

Some of the resources I used when researching my questions from the areas I visited:

Encyclopedia Brittanica: https://www.britannica.com/event/Dred-Scott-decision
Klein, Jonas. (2003). The Roosevelts at Campobello. Roosevelt Campobello International Park.
Library of Congress: https://guides.loc.gov/missouri-compromise
Todd, Margaret and Charles. (sometime in the 1950s). Beautiful Harpswell: The Neck and its 45 island jewels.
U.S. Senate website: https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Missouri_Compromise.htm