The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-07-16
ELECTRICITY IN PLENTY.
Syndicate Purchases Water Powers
on Presumpscot.
AND CHARTER GIVING THEM
RIGHT TO ENTER PORTLAND.

Deal Includes Erecting Big Paper Mill in
Gorham and Furnishing Cheap Light
and Power to This City Principals
Claim All Contingencies Have Been
Looked After.
yesterday of great deal that has just
been completed that will bring another
system of electric lighting IN to Portland
in competition with the existing COM
pany. Messrs. f. j. Collier of Hudson,
N. Y, Charles d. Brown of Boston, and
George W. Brown of this city of the
Belknap Motor company are the parties
that are pushing the enterprise. This is
what one of the gentlemen interested told
the reporter:
Mr.. F. j. Collier is a paper manu-
facturer and it is his intention to move
his paper mill to Gorham. This mill that
he Will establish will have an output of
ten to fifteen tons per day. Mr.. Collier
is also lawyer and is counsel for a large
English syndicate of manufacturers of
silk plush. He is also railroad man and
has recently built and opened a railroad
in the Berkshire hills, Massachusetts,,
that connects with the Boston and
Albany railroad. 1t will thus be seen that
he has ample resources at his command.
I Mr.. Charles D. Brown, formerly of
Portland and now of Boston, was one of
the developers of Rumford Falls, and also
prominent in the Indurated Fibre COM
pany. He is heavy dealerl in paper
manufactures for home use and export.
Mr.. George W. Brown is well known
to all our business men from his connec-
tion with the Belknap Motor company.
1t may not be impertinent if we say here
that the success of that company's busi-
ness under his hands gives assurances
all the push and energy that have marked
his efforts for the Belknap company. The
Belknap company has to show the fact
that they have already paid $4,000 in
dividends, spent $4,000 in advertising
and developing their plant, and in
600 surplus aside, these three sums
amounting to more than the stockholders
ever paid in, and they have property of
more than 100000, a highly creditable
showing.
Now, said the gentleman to the reporter
the cost of electric lighting in this city as
is well known is very high SO much SO
that less than fifty houses are lighted by
this means. The rates charged for a
single incanescent lamp is $12, per year,
while the rate charged in the neighboring
city, of Deering is $25, for five lights, or
if in excess of five lights, then So light
of sixteen candle power. The cost for
power in Portland at the present time is
six cents per horse power per hour or
sixty cents per horse power per day. This
amounts to $50 year for horse power,
and there is no possibility of lower prices
unless competition comes in. 1t is need
less to say that water power rates will
eventually obtain. and if any one has
fears as to how this is TO be accomplished
they may put their fears at rest for Port.
land can be lighted by competing COM
pany without let or hindrance, this COM
pany having charter granting it every
power, privilege and authority to furnish
light and power.
1t Is also fact, continued the gentle
man, that poles rights have been secured
from Great Falls on the Presumpscot to
Portland, so that everything is made
secure. The Rockameecook power is one
of the most valuable water powers in
Maine. 1t has head of 81 feet inches,
covering two falls, one known as the
Whiting and the other as the Upper Falls.
A dam can be SO constructed at this
point that less than one hundred feet has
to be covered for the tail race to give the
required head
i. The Great Falls plant or what is known
as the United Indurated Fibre company
has head of % 1-2 feet with dam all con
structed and wheels all set to the extent
of $50 horse power, but the entire amount
of power at this point is 1860 horse. This
and the Rockameecook power, and an
other power with eleven feet head, one
half mile below the Rockameecook,
amounts to about 5000 horse power, $500
of which will be delivered to Portland.
The remarkable quality of these powers
is due to the fact that they are not subject
to floods, and in the dryest time in sum-
1ner there is the same amount of water as
in the wettest part of the season. So that
these powers can be fully depended upon,
a fact common to but few other plants
of this kind.
Options have been secured covering
these entire properties Of the United In,
| durated Fibre company, the Indurated
Fibre company and the Rockameecook
AS matters develop themselves said the
gentleman we shall have no hesitancy in
giving them to the public for these are
matters that are of vital interest to them
and that they wish to keep well informed
| upon.
| Forest City Rink,