The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1905-04-18
ENTIRE TOWN
Is DESERTED.
+.
MIGRATE RATHER THAN WORK
FOR TRUST.
WERE TRUE TO PRINCIPLE
Workn1en of Maine Lumber Company
Leave Home and All for
Strange Cause.

! AVA B@Ss ME- April IOs-AaSLlngS
the most unique settlement in Maine
II not in the United States, has sud
denly ceased to exist, and where more
than 1000 persons lived a week age
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 lumbe.
camps and mills in the settlement
are deserted, and the shutters have
been drawn in the houses which a few
days ago We're comfortable homes for
the Workingman and his family. The
wood pulp trust is responsible for il
all.
The territory on which Hastings
was situated was granted to Richard
Batchelder by the state of Massachu-
setts more than a hundred years ago.
About 40 years later four families
moved there from Fryeburg and
| cleared a spot in the valley of about
loo acres. A few years later they
abandoned the place and G. A. Hast
irgs and D. R. Hastings of Fryeburg
became the purchasers.
An Ideal Community.
In 1891 they sold the village site
and 20 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
Beams Purchase, just across the New
Hampshire line, and which gave them
the largest timber tract in the world
owned by any one company. They nut
in a 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 in
hibitants, who were regarded as equal
owners of the town with the mill pro.
prietors.
They cut their timber at Beans
Purchase and hauled it by rail ID
their steam mill at Hastings, were It
was cut up and shipped on single
track railroad to the main line of the
Grand Trunk road, 13 miles away.
Since the first stick of timber was cut
the inhabitants of Hastings paid no
taxes of any sort, and the visit of the
tax collector in his official capacity
was an experience they never knew.
All Nations Renrasen+nr2
It was the most cosmopolitan of viii
lagos, and had representatives OF
many nationalities within it's borders. |
When the employees of the mill re-
ceived their pay one could find con-
versing in groups Russians, Poles,
Swedes, Germans, Austrians, Danes,
French, Irish, Armenians, Turks and
English. The houses of the village
had foreign aspect, those on Main
street being about 40x4O feet, as
square as immense dry goods boxes,
painted Venetian red, without outside
shutters, each with SIX rooms and
each counterpart of the other All
the houses were surrounded with huge
piles of lumber, and the larger buili-
ngs were bound to the earth by huge
chains as safeguards against noun
ain gales or the spring 1reshets.
Despite the fact that more than one
thousand persons lived IN the village
md nearly every nationality was rep
'esented, there is no record of an ar
'ests being made for crimes. There
lad never been a policeman or con- {
stable living in the village. The !
2lace never had pauper and had ]
lever considered it necessary to make I
my public provision for the support I
If the poor. t
Remarkable in One Respect. G
Hastings was the only town in the 1
United States which did not have a S
'arriage road. the only means of ac- s
'ess to the town being over the rail- t
Dad tracks, which sklrted perilously t
ear the edges of the mountain side. /
IN every other side of the village, ex- +
ept where the railroad tracks are
aid, the mountain Is so steep that
ven a pedestrian could only climb b
with difficulty n
Names wild game is primarily re- i
ponstble for the posing OF Hastings. 3
'wo years ago a party OF sporssmen