The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-30
A STRANGE MAINE VILLAGE.


 Among the strange and primitive communities of people who live in the
 deep woods of northern Maine none if more worthy of note than the larmlhs and numbering settlement Whlch mas been in existence at the junction or 0t John River and Chementicook stream sixty-one years. The village is in thai part of Aroostook County which +
 known on the map as township l6 range 12,
 The families are q mixture o1 Nova
 Ccotia Scotch and Montreal French and although the two races nave helu opposing religious faiths many years
 the residents of township Is have made
 an agreeable compromise by having nc
 religion of any kind, and get along hap oily without minister or priest
 Nearly a century ago few families
 in Scotland came to northern Maine
 and took up meadow lands along the Allegash, having a patent from ths King of England to hold as much terri
 tory as they could enclose inside the span of a big moose hide, put into thin strips and fastened end to end They killed a huge bull moose, and all of one winter the women spent their leisure time in pairing and stretching the strips
 of skin, so as to make them reach as far as possible Then the men went out on the crust, In March, to survey
 the land to which the deed of gift en-
 titled them. They made the shredded moose skin encompass 96,OOO acres of land, equal to four full townships of sixty-six square miles, Then they built village of logs, cleared up land and began farming.
 All went well until 1S40 when Edward Kent the Whig candidate, was chosen governor of Maine. to succeed Reuben Fairfield, the Democratic incumbent of the office. A hot presidential fight was in progress at the time and the Demo crats, wishing to redeem their State in November, called a special session of the legislature, and organized new form of municipality, to which they gave the name of plantations, every one of which was given the right to vote in State and national elections It was hoped that, as the inhabitants of these plantations were strongly Democratic, their vote, added to the regular party vote in the towns and cites. would stem the tide of Whiggery, and redeem the State; but when the November re- turns came in, and Maine was found to have cast it's electoral vote for Harri- son, nearly every Democrat in Allegash resolved to become a Whig, out cf spite, and those who would not change their politics were compelled to emigrate from the plantation.
 Three families packed up their goods and moved west to township IS, range F, where they have resided until now Though they cannot vote under a town ship form of government every man of voting age is a Democrat, while at the election held at Allegash two years ago the entire vote of fifty-threa was cast for the Republican nominee.
 Allegash has a stage line ap ostoffica and a root and herb doctor to give a semblance of civilization to it's acts; but township 16, range 12, is still in primitive innocence. The nearest doc tor, lawyer, or clergyman lives at Fort Kent sixty miles to the east There is no church, postoflice, or store of any kind within the town, two-acre plot on warm hillside serves as a common burying place for the village dead, whose graves are surrounded by strong stump fence. Every resident is a farmer or lumberman The crops grown are hay, oats and potatoes. all of which are sold at high prices to the firms who send crews into the woods. During six months after April and three months in midwinter goods for the use of the families are brought from Fdrt Kent by canoe or sleds. In the other three months the place is as inaccessible as the moon.
 The ruler and supreme dictator of township 16 is Alexander Castleton, who is the richest man in the village, and who, among other property, owns a farm of 1,50O acres, which yields 1000 tons of hay every year. This is sold to the lumbermen from the stacks, for SIS a ton. King Castleton," as he is call ed, fixes the amount of money or labor every resident must pay for roads schools, and contingent expenses, He makes the assessments, and his sub iects pay without quetioning his decls- ions.
 Jean Boyer, who is of French origin and who does a large business in cut ting timbersand putting them into drives for the Fort Kent mills, having no sons to assist him, has trained bis three daughters to his calling. and takes them 10 camp every winter, where they have charge of different crews, They are skilled in walking on snow shoes and can handle an axe or a cant dog better than most men.
 The company which has bought the land, instead of obiecting to having the squatters clear up farms and cut off such wood as they need, is pleased to favor the villagers and do everything possible to make them contented with their lot. Their presence is not only a asfeguard against forest fires, which