Updated: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 11:45 AM

According to the Ellsworth American the winter of –‘89 has seen the least amount of snowfall of any winter for the past 106 years of record keeping. Having recently returned from a weekend the Ellsworth areas I found about 5 6 inches of dry powder covering the ice on Branch Pond. Those of us who generally spend many anxious moments during an average winter worrying about the snow piling up on our fragile roofs have had a reprieve.

This does not imply however that it has been an easy winter for all. The constant freezing and thawing have raised havoc with the roadways. Ice forming on many of the roads has resulted in numerous accidents. Sportsman driving their vehicles on to the ponds and lakes have done so at great risk this winter. At lost count four trucks have broken through the ice on Branch Pond. Throughout the northeast the lack of precipitation has caused concern for severe water shortages this summer and some communities are preparing water conservations plans.

With a full calendar month left to winter and the harsh realities of early spring in Maine the local residents still feel that "things will average out". If they are rights then mounds of heavy wet snow building up an the cottage roof may still cause many sleepless nights.

At the 1988 Annual Meeting of the Branch Pond Association, members discussed the problems created by overnight camping and large numbers of day-users of the Sand Beach property. This land is Owed by the Maine Department of Parks and Recreation but maintained by no one (except neighbors who haul away piles of trash). There are no bathroom facilities, refuse containers, or collection of trash.

Although concern was expressed regarding the concept of "shutting off the lake" to the public it was also felt that if the property is to be used as a public beach it should be maintained in an authorized fashion with sanitary facilities, fireplaces, adequate parking, trash collection, etc. BPA Executive Board members agreed to pursue the matter with the City of Ellsworth and the Maine Department of Parks and Recreation.

Before we get involved in any discussion or negotiation with either authority, written documentation substantiating claims of what transpired there during the summer of 1988 will be needed. Photographs taken of the area will be very helpful. Please forward this information to:

Branch Pond Association
PO Box 66,
Ellsworth, Maine 04605

In a related matter, concern was expressed at the Annual Meeting with regard to public access to private land. The Land and Water Resources Center at the University of Maine provided the following information.

The State of Maine has a long tradition of adhering to the concept of "permissive access". This is described as a custom in which people use private property with the informal permission of the owner. Such people include hunters, fisherman, hikers, cross-country skiers, etc.

Under the laws the use a sportsman can make of someone’s land depends not only upon that persons generosity but also upon legal rights and obligations that have evolved over centuries. For instances the question of public rights on private lands depends an what land one is talking about. On land not adjacent to water a hiker or sportsman has no legal right of access and must rely on publicly owned land or the permissive access custom. On water and shorelands, some public rights exist.

On lakes and lakeshores considered to be great ponds ( in excess of 10 acres), the public can canoe or boat on the water, walk an the bottom, swim, water-ski, cut ice, skate, hunt ducks, fish from a boat or canoe, and even drive a vehicle over the ice. However the public has no right to engage in activities from the shore without permission from the shoreland owner. The shoreland owner owns to the natural mean low water mark of the lake or pond.

The public has the right to cross private lands to access a great pond as long as the area is wooded and not enclosed. This right of access however, is not of much value. Someone can walk through the woods to got to a lake, look at the lake, and walk back. A person connot, except for the permissive access custom, swim or fish from the shore.

With regard to trespassing the following regulations apply. Anyone entering another persons land without authorization is a trespasser whether or not the land is posted. Trespassers are liable for any damage to structures or land including damage to private roads caused by vehicles during the spring thaw. Trespassers may not park a vehicle on a private road if passage of other vehicles is blocked.

For further information regarding specific questions about your property contact:

Water Resources Center
11 Coburn Hall
University of Maine
Orono, ME 04469

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The players in the LaFreniere Development plan continued to make their moves throughout the fall and winter months. What follows is a brief update of the actions taken by the Ellsworth Planning Board, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, and the Branch Pond Association.

The Ellsworth Planning Board gave approval to Thomas Christinat for a subdivision containing six lots ranging in size from 2.52 acres to 3.4 acres. Mr. Christinat had previously bought a 43 acre parcel from Mr. LaFreniere in 1988 and had submitted a subdivision plan of 18.32 acres to the Planning Board. Approval of Mr. Christinat’s subdivision opened the way for Mr. LaFreniere to receive approval to construct a house an 2.84 acres of land that is accessed via the road over Christinat’s property.

However, the Planning Board tabled a request by Mr. LaFreniere to Construct: or excavate a road and bridge to 28 Acre Island. It is the Board’s position that state approval from the DEP is necessary before the Planning Board can act.

According to Clifford Goodell, Mr. LaFreniere's attorney, the State Department of Environmental Protection has not yet given the proposals even an initial review. It may be sometime this summer before the outcome of Mr. LaFroniere’s request to build a bridge to the island is resolved. At present, the DEP is averaging 12 - 14 months to review applications.

The DEP was also involved in the Christinat subdivision. Under the Site Location for Development Act, DEP approval is required for a lot of 20 or more acres which is to be divided into 5 or more lots. Although Mr. Christinat owns over 40 acres of land, his subdivision application was for less then 20 acres. Therefore the DEP decided that they have no jurisdiction over the subdivision.

Meanwhile, the Branch Pond Association has been pursuing all possibilities. Attorneys for the Association attempted to convince the Planning Board that Mr. Christinat proposes to subdivide 40 acres of land and should therefore come under review of the DEP before the Board could act upon his application. Although technically correct, the Christinat Subdivision plan was 18.32 acres in size making it immune to DEP review.

The BPA attorney is contacting the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection and proceeding with other investigations. With regard to the request for the bridge permits the BPA has requested a public hearing with the DEP at the time that it is acted upon.

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The first phase of work to establish a better water supply for Ellsworth has begun with the construction of an access road from Route I to Branch Pond. An intake and treatment plant at the end of the road will enable the city to take water from the middle of the Pond, which will be cleaner and less turbid than the water it know takes from Branch Pond Stream. According to City Manager Herbert Gilsdorf this marks the beginning of a very expensive upgrading of the city's 100-year-old water distribution system.

The plan includes the construction of a now standpipe an Dollard’s Hill which will improve the pressure in the system. The increase in pressure will necessitate the replacement of many of the city’s old water mains which would blow out under the stress. Completion date for the project is expected to be 1991.

The following is a continuation of a discussion that Don Hayes had with Hilda Walls last summer.

Q: Was the lake different before the dam?
A: Of course the dam was put in in the 1800s, so that’s way back. But the lake was different. It was Smaller. I think it was several ponds then. It was called Nicolin Lake, named -for Chief Nicolin. He was the Indian chief of this territory. Down here at the mouth of the brook there is an old spring. It's cribbed up with huge cedars. The Indians cribbed it. It is on this side of the brook, near the mouth. They say that it’s at least 1875 and it's bottomless. You take a rock and a string and it will go forever. It will slow up when it reaches the soft mud, but it will keep an going. Those were the Wincumpaugh Indians who used to come here summers to get their fish to smoke for winter. Nicolin was their Chief.

Q: What do you remember about the other shores of the take?
A: There was only a camp once in a while. They were just something that natives had. All they amounted to were little hunting camps. We developed the first shore. We gave it away! We got the going prices, but boy the going prices didn’t amount to much. Of course, Senator Hale had a big place on Lower Lake. He had a big stable and place on the left hand side, way after you go through the narrows. He had buckboards for four-horse teams, and he used to bring them out from town. There was a boat, too. My mother, in 1898, came up from Ellsworth with a big crowd. They came in with buckboards and horses. This was a party camp and they'd have dinners there. Then they would go on the boat which was a side wheeler. It was a small replica of the Mississippi river boats. Yes, a side wheeler. It is supposed to be somewhere down in there now. I don’t know how it sank.

Q: Who were your woodcutters that we used to see working an your property?
A: They were mostly Finns. There were a lot of Finns in Holden and Dedham. Dedham is mostly Finn. There was a lot of wood cutting then. We got $6 per cord for wood delivered down to Ellsworth, all sawed, split, and ready for the stove--and dried. And it had to be split. They wouldn’t take any round wood. With $6, Alan would got a bag of grain, groceries, gasoline and come home with money in his pocket.

Q: When did the blueberries start?
A: That hadn’t started when we first came from Mt. Desert Island. There were no blueberry factories then. About the time we came up here, they were beginning to develop a few fields. They were $2 a bushel, the first ones we sold. You paid 50 cents a bushel to the rakers. We had to make two trips to Ellsworth for each load. But It was kind of fun. I’ve raked a good many bushels and you get used to it.

Q: Earlier you mentioned that you taught. Was that in Happytown?
A: The school house burned over at Happytown soon after we got here. But, I taught the other way at the County School House in North Orland, up by Babcock’s. The Happytown School was right on the top, at the brow of the hill. You could look right down and see the lake. It burnt in about 1928. When we came, there was just Irwin Brown there, plus a family out in back.

Q: During the depression, did the city take over the property in Happytown?
A: Yes. But the people didn’t want it anymore. It benefited them. It was better to let it go back to the city then to try to sell it. It was hard, but they prepared for the hard times--the winters. Summers took care of themselves. And then they prepared for the winters. They all went to the Island with their two-horse teams, with cabbage and potatoes, apples, turnips, and butter. Every one of them came from the Island to start with.

Q: You must have had to work hard when you first came out here?
A: We couldn’t have made it if I hadn’t been teaching. I only got $18 per week teaching. I also used to drive the truck to the island to sell stuff three times a week. I sold to the summer cottages: one day to Bar Harbor, one to Northeast Harbor and one to Southwest Harbor. The other days I went to Bangor and picked up stuff at the square. This was during the heyday of Bar Harbor. I sold to the Rockefellers and the Fords. That was the beginning of the big summers. I don’t know where I am when I go down there now--this was before the fire. We used to go across the lake in the winter. See, they didn’t plow the roads. So my husband and John Gray made a plow with planks that he put an the front of the truck. We used to go across the lake to go to town--across to Phillip’s Landing. We would take off from Cunards, at the bottom of the hill. The Cunards didn’t want people to use the road, so other people used to sneak on.

Q: Do you remember drownings on the lake?
A: Most all of the cars going through on the ice, they got out. Of course, Dr. Snow presumably drowned. But I have some doubts. If they had gotten his insurance, they would have saved his daughters husband from jail. He had embezzled a lot of money. There was a lot of mystery to his disappearance, but Allan Burnham had it awful mixed up in his memoirs--he had him living on the other side of the lake. There was a fellow who worked for Dr. Snow and the doctor always had a lot of money with him. The two of them went across the lake where Dr. Snow never fished. The helper said the canoe turned upside down. And he got him straddled an the canoe, but when he looked around, Snow wasn’t on the boat anymore. I don't know. Thou hunted but never found him. They did find his wallets but it was empty. He was in his late sixties and still doctoring. He used to come out here to drink, his wife wouldn’t allow him to drink at home and when he was doctoring he couldn't drink. Mrs. Snow died not too many years after that and Margaret, her daughter, finally sold the cottage. They said that Dr. Snow went west. He was a nice old fellow. He was awfully nice to Allan. This all happened in about 1928.

Q: Did you ever feel isolated out here?
A: I never had time to. No. Allan and I worked together. We had to. People have always been very nice to us. Very nice.

Editors’ note: Hilda Walls was 88 at the time of the interview. We thank her for sharing her remembrances with us and look forward to sharing many more summers with her on the Pond.

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Members of the BPA Executive Board wish to remind all members that a map showing all fire roads with the new fire road numbers was mailed last year. Fire road numbers are extremely important and should be readily available by your telephone. If you need a copy of the maps please contact:

Gloria DeAngelis
PO Box 152
Orrington, ME 04474

The BPA wishes to thank those members who check on the loons and eagles during the fall, winter, and spring and extend special recognition to Sonny Sanborn, Roy and Rachael Jack, Dee Reed, and Medwin and James Taylor.

As mentioned in the last Newsletter, the Executive Board wishes to acknowledge those members who have made special donations to the BPA to help defray the expenses of monitoring development on the Pond. Those who made contributions include:

Rodney and Joyce Pinkham
Kenneth and Carol Robertson
Fred and Anita Schult
Walter and Marilyn Schult
Gordon and Thelma Shaw

Thank You!