The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-04-15
VILLAGE SUDDENLY
d.. CEASES TO EXIST
Whole Community Migrates in
Preference to Working for
a Trust.

Norway, Me-, April l5.-Hastings
not in the United States, has suddenly
ceased to exist, and where more than
1000 persons lived week ago not one
is to be found now. The church. school
house and public store, all built with
money contributed by the men who
worked in the lumber camps and mills
in the settlement, are deserted, and the
shutters have been drawn in the houses
which o few days ago were comfortable
homes for the workingman and his fam
lily. The wood pulp trust is response
The territory on which Hastings was
situated was granted to Richard Batch
elder by the state of Massachusetts,
more than hundred years ago. About
there from Fryeburg and cleared a spot
in the valley of about 100 acres. A few
years later they abandoned the place
and G. A. Hastings and D. R. Hastings,
OF Fryeburg, became the purchasers.
In 1891 they sold the village site and
twenty acres of land to the Wild River
Lumber company Of Island Pond, Vt.
This company purchased at the same
time 10000 acres Of timber land in.
Hampshire, line, and which gave them
the largest timber tract in the world
owned by one company. They put in
big steam mill, store, most of the
houses, the electric system, sewers and
public water systems, the cost of which
was contributed to by the inhabitants,
VINO were regarded as equal owners of
the town with the mill proprietors.
They cut their timber at Bean IS Pur-
steam mill at Hastings, where it was
cut up and shipped on single track
railroad to the main line Of the Grand
Trunk road, thirteen miles away. Since
the first stick of timber was cut the in
habitants of Hastings paid no taxes of
any sort, and the visit, of the tax col
1ector. in his official capacity was an
experience they never knew.
1t was the most cosmopolitan of vii
nationalities within its borders. When
the. employees Of the mill received
their pay one. could find conversing in
group Russians, Poles, Swedes, Ger
mans, Austrians, Danes, French, Irish.
Armenians, Turks and English. The
houses Of the village had a foreign as
poet, those on Main street being about
goods boxes, painted Venetian red, with
out outside shutters, each with six
| rooms and each a counterpart Of the
| other. All the houses were surrounded
with huge piles of lumber, and the
larger buildings were bound to the earth
by huge chains as safeguard against
mountain gales or the spring freshets.
Despite the fact that more than one
thousand persons lived in the village
and nearly every nationality was repre-.
scented, there is no record Of an arrest
being made for crimes. There had
never been policeman or constable liv.
ing in the village. The place never had
i a pauper and had never considered it
! necessary to make any public provision
for the support Of the poor.
/ Hastings was the only town in the
| United States which did not have 8
carriage road, the only means of access
/. to the town being over the railroad
I tracks, which skirted perilously near the
edges Of the mountain side. On every
! other side Of the village, except where
4 the railroad tracks are laid, the noun
i tain is so steep that even a pedestrian
could only climb it with difficulty.
i Maine s wild game is primarily re
i sponsible for the passing of Hastings
y Two years ago party of sportsmer
from New York, headed by the