The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1904-02-12
IN MAINE
WOODS INCREASING
The Lumber Land Owners Are
Fearful Lest Their Holdings
Be Absorbed by hem.
THEY APPEAL TO STATE.
Not All the Law or Sheriffs in Man
Are Potent to Keep Them OFT
the Rich Mans Timber
Land. A-zO

Bangor, Me, correspondence New YORK
tribune: Away up on the northeastern
border of Maine, along the st. John ana
Aroostock rivers, are hundreds of Mite
clearings in the forests, where squat
ters' from New Brunswick have come in,
cleared a few acres of land not belonging
10 them, built log houses, raised small
crops and large families and settled down
to the serene and happy existence known
pnly to the Acadians, who are the direct
descendants of the refugees from the
Land Of Evangel.ne. The men who own
the lands have tried In all sorts of ways
to get rid of these unlimited colonists.
and on numerous occasions have invoked
the law to drive them away. Then fol-
lowed evictions by the score, with scenes
as pathetic and distress as bitter as any
ever witnessed In Ireland, but the rem
edy has always been ineffective, for more
squatterS' came in to occupy the lands,
and not all the law nor all the sheriffs
IN Maine are potent to keep the mild
hammered but persistent Acadians off the
domains of the rich timber land owners.
The little farms increased from scores
to hundreds, and the timber land owners
appealed to the state to do something
lest their entire holdings be one day alb
sorbed by "squatters," and so last WIN
ter the legislature passed an act appro-
prlating enough money to buy $1,000 acres
or the lands, to be presented to the set
tiers, thus making good their title TO
what they had come and taken without
leave. The state also has 'hsquatters" to
contend with, for many Of them have set
tied on the school lands, and lately it
has been decided, instead of evicting
them, to sell to them the lands they are
occupying at a nominal price. For the
purpose Of making these transfers State
Land Agent Ring has this week made a
trip to Letter e plantation and in a
snort time the settlers there will have
full title to their little farms.
While it IS not denied that the settle
ment of the rich Aroostock lands by the
INDUSTRIOUS and well-behaved Acadians
must result in great benefit to the state,
the land owners are strongly opposed to
the colonization process. They bought
the lands and paid for them, and want to
keep them for numbering purposes: thew
are looking to their own personal inter-
ests, and not to the interests of the state
In future years. 1t is frequently pointed
out that the owners of the lands got the
property, or much of it, for a mere song.
but their title is good, whatever they
paid, and while the "squatters" who
want to farm and the sportsmen and
poachers who want to shoot and fish
complain that the rich men are monopo-
ll2lng the earth up north, no one has any
!egal ground for complaint. The wild
lands of the state were AT first arcolad
out as counties to revolutionary soldiers.
put many of the beneficiaries failed to
pay the taxes upon the lots given to
them, and so the lands came back bv
forfeit to the state. Then came the ia
nous lane auctions of old davs. when
vast tracks were bought by wealthy mon
at a Few cents an acre. After generations
OF numbering there is more spruce left in
Maine than can be cut, at the present
rate, in half a century to come, allowing
nothing for renewal Of growth, and now
me pulp and paper industry has come.
doubling the value of the timber, and
causing the big corporations like the
Great Northern and the international Pa
per company to scramble for all the de-
sirable lands in sight.