The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-10-10
EVERY VOTER HOLDS OFFICE.
No Disappointed officeseekers in the
 Maine Town of Perkins.


 Maine Town of Perkins.
 Unique among all the towns of the State and nation this place, bearing the hon ored name cf Colonel T. H, Perkins, founder of the deaf and dumb home at South Boston. Mass, has an office for overy voter, and on election day every citizen suffragist draws some prize. says Perkins, Me, letter to The Boston Record. It may be a selectman's berth, or it may be d job as fence viewer, but there is an official plum for everybody. two souls and sixteen voters has solved the eternal problem of popular govern ment.
 The presidency may he thrown into the House of Representatives, disgruntled Senator may overturn the affairs of his State, but in Perkins's vocabulary there is no such word as disappointed office seeker There is patronage for all. and 1t is the only real land where milk and honey flows in ceaseless streams into the very mouths of the men who want a place. Every ofiiceholder Is his own con- stitusnt. and the ship of. State sails serenely over calm seas to the harbor of political content. K Aside from. the fact that there are only sixteen voters in Perkins, with a popula- ton of seventy-two, the town has other
 
 political perfection, make 1t a veritabie beauty spot in the American Common wealth.
 Perkins as @ town Is confined within l the shore line of Swan Island, washed on | all sides by the waters of the Kennebec, | whose channels on either side are navi- gable. to steamers of appreciable draught. About four miles long and one mile in width, it lies like power, its inhabitants &LN- .or., fAn Ak.a.4 ! gets an office, and at peace with the world. because there is no discontent to | carry abroad.
 | This summer many Boston people have visited the town, which is reached by an | old-fashioned chain ferry across the Ken | nebec channel It was in Perkins that Miss Dumaresq. who became the wife of | Colonel Perkins of Perkins Deaf and Dumb Institute fame. was born, and here l she used to make a pilgrimage to her old home until recent years. Many other old l Boston families, from the Bowdoins to the Holmeses, have family traditions | which cluster around the island town. ! History says that Aaron Burr met a beautiful Indian girl with French blood | in her veins on one visit to Maine, and had by her a daughter, who was the one | soul on earth to be faithful to him at the time of his demise, when the world knew 1 lot. HS tOWH EICh HI 1Huidh | legend and lore, and some terrible trage- dies have occurred on its verdant slopes. Captain James Whidden of the Massa- chusetts militia, and his family of thir- l teen. so the story goes, were wiped out l in single night by some of the Nor ridgewoc tribe in 1750 those who were not tomahawked being carried to a worse | fate as captives to Canada. The great l Sachem Abbagarassett is said to have | bod Ht x.rfrx k1a tel a,,1 f,,r of his power, and when Arnold made his | trip up the Kennebec in his invasion of the northern country he rested for the night in the now prosaic town of Per kins.
 What has conduced to it's present ideal | political state the residents know not. | Whether out of the bloody annals of the | past has come the brotherly love and | perfect government of today no one will | say, but Perkins stands before the world politically and socially the modern Gar den of Eden.