The Portland daily press., 1894-07-28
WILD BERRIES.
How They Began To Be Sold In
Portland.
A WOMAN STARTED THE BUSINESS
FORTY YEARS AGO.
She Has Conducted 1t Successfully Ever
Since-She Retires This Year to Well
Earned Leisure-Remarkable History
of Mrs. L. S. Libby of Locke's Mills.

Earned Leisure-Remarkable History
of Mrs. L. S. Libby of Locke's Mills.
Everything of course has it's beginnings
and SO did the business of selling wild
berries in Portland. 1t wasn't so very long
ago either. One would suppose that since
there have always been berries and since
they have always been good to the taste
and digestion they must have been sold here
as long ago as anything else.
But there is woman in Portland today
who says to the contrary. She is business
woman and she has the best of reasons for
knowing because shs herself introduced
the wild berries into the Portland market.
Mrs l.. S. Libby of Locke's Mills is staying
with her brother in this city. She is a
plump, pleasant faced little woman of sixty
years of age, and yet her hair is scarcely
touched with grey.
Following is her story substantially as she
tells it. She was born in Massachusetts
was married very young and came to this
city to live, her husband, Mr.. A. @. Libby
being a painter. Just before she was
twenty they.moved to Locke's Millsss..in.the
town of Greenwood on the Grand Trunk,
where her husband found work in the
carriage factory. ss@
1t was in the summer and young Mrs.
Libby heard from the neighbors of a field
about a mile from the town where the rasp-
berries were very thick. Not having picked
any since she was a child in Massachusetts,,
she resolved to go out there. She got an
eight quart pail, started early in the morn
ing and found plenty of the delicious
berries. When she returned home her pail
was full. Her husband wanted to know
what she had gathered all those berries for.
She said she did it for the enjoyment of it.
He suggested that they couldn't use them
and she suggested that he take them down
to the station and Try to sell them to people
on the train. He ridiculed the idea and
said that nobody wanted them. She said
that if he wouldn't take them she would.
and she did. He went along too.
One Joe Chandler was engineer of the
train. Mrs. Libby, (onlysa girl of 10 years,
remember) asked him to buy the berries and
take them to Portland and sell them.
''What are they good for?' said he 81
didn't know they were good for anything"
Her husband explained that his wife had
gathered them before breakfast almost, and
Mr.. Chandler said he'd buy them as a re-
ward of industry.
H gave her a dollar for the eight quarts
When he came back the next day he said
that he had sold them so readily in Portland
that he wanted two pailfuIs next trip. So
she earned two more dollars. The next trip
he wanted four pailfuls. She hired woman
to help her for so cents a pa1lful, and thus
made 100 per cent on the two pals the
woman picked.
And that was the beginning of her bust
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