By Avis Armstrong
Special to the Aroostook Republican

The Maine and New Brunswick border controversy, and the “bloodless” Aroostook War, are among the first events directly relating to the development of settlements along the Aroostook River. Maine had become a state in 1820, albeit a state with vague borders, due to political procrastination. Both Great Britain and the United States wanted to claim the timberlands along the St. John and Aroostook rivers. The “perceived” border did not deter lumbermen from cutting on either side of the disputed territory. By the late 1830s both sides were prepared to go to war over the timber.

Contributed photo
Sweden Street traffic then …

    New Brunswick’s governor, Sir John Harvey, and General Winfield Scott, mediator for the United States, reached an agreement in 1839. Negotiations between Great Britain’s Lord Ashburton and Daniel Webster, acting for the United States, were finalized in 1842 and the Webster-Ashburton Treaty was signed, settling the issue. Ashburton conceded the Acadian settlements on the south bank of the St. John River, and Webster conceded the land north of it. Thus Great Britain kept an overland route to Quebec, and the St. John River became an international river, giving Maine the right of free navigation through New Brunswick. Access to the St. John was vital to the creation of a lumber economy in northern Maine. It was the only means of transporting the lumber.
   Peaceful settlements and lumbering activities were now possible along the rivers.
Eaton Grant
   The Aroostook River bends and makes a loop as it flows from Presque Isle through Caribou and back southeast. This loop encompasses most of the historic 10,000 acre Eaton Grant where the history of Caribou begins. In 1793 surveyor Park Holland described the northern part of Maine as “A handsome piece of woods of great extent”. No one knew the extent however. Holland reported seeing only two natives and a settlement of Acadians at Madawaska.
   Malicite (Maliseet) and Micmac Indians, indigenous to the area, hunted the woods along the Aroostook River and used it as a link to tribes in New Brunswick. Each year they made a temporary camp at the mouth of the Little Madawaska River, even after the settlers came to Eaton Grant, to hunt and put in a supply of plentiful salmon. There are not records of permanent Indian villages in the immediate area.
   The Maine Territory was part of The District of Massachusetts, which by the State Legislature in 1808, deeded this 10,000 acre tract of land to William Eaton in recognition of military services. The only access to Eaton’s Grant was up the St. John River and overland from New Brunswick, making this a dubious gift at best, and one which Eaton soon sold for fifty cents an acre.
   In 1825, soon after Maine became a state (1820), a surveyor John Norris reported a small settlement at the mouth of the Little Madawaska River and on Eaton Grant. A band of Scotsmen and Irishmen had immigrated to the area from Canada in 1823, and were clearing land and cutting the huge pines to be sent down the St. John and sold to England. They believed themselves to be in the newly admitted State of Maine.
Caribou Stream
   In 1829, a Scotsmen, Alexander Cochran, came to build a mill for these settlers. He found a stream a few miles up the Aroostook, more to his liking, and built his mill there. It is said that one of his sons once wounded a caribou, which ran up the frozen stream, thus giving the animal’s name to Caribou Stream, around which the village of Caribou was to grow.
   After the border was drawn in 1842, the settlers around the Little Madawaska on both sides of the Aroostook River (Eaton Grant), petitioned the state for title to their lots of land, gaining their place in Caribou’s history as “The Treaty Lot Settlers.” This was the first phase of Caribou’s development. This settlement was later called “Grimes Mill” after E.P. Grimes who built a shingle mill near the mouth of the Little Madawaska, with James Calkins, in the late 1880’s.
   The second phase of settlement began in 1842 when Ivory Hardison came from southern Maine and settled a few miles south of Caribou Stream on the newly lotted out, 160 acre, Letter H. Township. Having decided on this course on an earlier visit, he now built a log house and started a post office. The door to the house can be seen at the Caribou Historical Society Museum. A settlement grew in that area as well. In 1843 a road was cut through to Presque Isle.
   More settlers from southern Maine followed. In 1845 Samuel W.Collins and Washington Vaughn built Caribou’s first store, a grist mill, and a lumber mill around Caribou Stream. Vaughn built the first Vaughn House Hotel in 1860. This area was also part of Letter H.
   In 1859, Letter H. Township was incorporated as Lyndon. The population was 297.
   During the Civil War, 1861-1865, 122 men from the area enlisted at Lyndon, 40 percent of whom were from Eaton Grant.
   The third section of what was to become Caribou was Letter I (or Forestville), and a small township, Sheridan, to the north of Letter H. Letter I contained roughly 160 acres and was dense forest at the time.
   Lyndon annexed Letter I and Eaton Grant in 1869 making a double township twelve miles long and six miles wide. The population was then 1,410. The name of the township was changed from Lyndon to Caribou in 1877. No amount of research has turned up the origin of the name Lyndon.
   Since 1785 there were Acadian settlers at Madawaska, ousted by the English government of New Brunswick. As available farm land was taken up by their children, there was migration from the Acadian settlements southward. They settled in the northern section of Caribou, formerly Letter I. People of French Canadian descent who had come from Quebec Province and settled in southern Maine, migrated north and also settled in North Caribou, as the area became known. Here too, were strong, determined workers who farmed extensively and worked in the area’s many lumber mills. Devout Catholics, they built their own church and educated their children in Catholic schools. Many of their descendants are leading Caribou businessmen.
Cultural Diversity
   Caribou’s cultural diversity was further enhanced in 1870 when a group of Swedish immigrants settled in New Sweden and Stockholm, several miles slightly northwest of Caribou. Hard working and industrious, they became businessmen, farmers, tradesmen and skilled wood workers. Many lived and worked in Caribou, and their high school age children boarded with Caribou families during the winters when no roads were open between Caribou and New Sweden.
   In the early 20th century Lebanese families, added another ethnic group. Ardent, hard working entrepreneurs, they reinforced the legend of the county work ethic. A grocery business, begun by one of these newcomers, Joseph Sleeper, will enter the 21st century operated by the third generation of his family.
   Other enduring businesses include the Mockler Funeral Home, established about 1920 by Murray Mockler and currently operated by the third generation of his family. The Lancaster Funeral Home was founded in 1898 as the G.M. Morgan Co. George Morgan’s sons, Ralph and Clyde, operated the business from 1948 to 1975 when it was bought by Jack Lancaster. It is now operated by his son John Lancaster II.
   Caribou’s first newspaper, The North Star, was started in 1872. Our present newspaper, The Aroostook Republican, was begun in 1880.
   Caribou’s longest operating business, the S.W. Collins Pioneer Lumber Co., begun in 1844, has expanded to Presque Isle, and is being run by the fifth generation namesake of the first Samuel W. Collins.
   In the hundred years following the first business started in Caribou village in 1844, Caribou flourished and grew around an economy based on lumbering and agriculture. Tradesmen and professional people moved in. Public minded citizens, such as Samuel Collins, Judah Teague and John Arnold represented their community in the State Senate and Legislature.
   In 1871 Alba Holmes built the first of many of the county’s starch factories in Caribou. 1874 saw the town sporting board sidewalks; W.C. Spaulding opened a hardware store. The Patrons of Husbandry (Grange) was organized. In 1876 a high school was built and a narrow gauge spur of the New Brunswick Railroad was run in to Caribou. Commercial enterprises and new inventions brought about a steam plant on Caribou Stream, an electric power plant on the Aroostook, and a phone exchange. Caribou had another grand hotel, the Burleigh House, run by H. Mishou. A night’s lodging and bath cost $2. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union was organized in 1880 and still holds meetings with less than a dozen members. In 1882 Timothy Crockett built a woolen mill on Water Street.
   The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad began operation in January, 1895, opening new markets, to the great benefit of Caribou’s commerce. At that time Caribou was the largest town in Aroostook County with a population of 4087.
   Two Caribou men saw service in the Spanish-American War in 1898.
The Great Depression
   By 1900 the population of Caribou was 6010. By 1906 it was estimated that potato houses stretched for a half mile along the railroad tracks. Culls, a by-product of potatoes, were utilized locally in the starch factories. If the potato market was flooded, farmers sold all grades, including table stock, to the starch factories. Geo. W.P. Gerard was one of the largest producers of seed potatoes, which was a big business. Seed from the soils of northern Maine were known to produce better yields. Potatoes were the dominant agricultural money crop.
   There were 329 men from Caribou who served in World War I, 1914-1918.
   Ingenuity and hard work were needed to see the town through the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Scrip (a commercial form of i.o.u’s.) was issued to pay for town services and supplies, until money could be found to redeem it. Caribou operated a town farm where families could live in return for operating the farm.
   Families worked and boarded on the farm, raising their own food and animals. Fire wood was cut by unemployed men on woodlots owned by the town, and hauled to the fairgrounds, north of Teague Park.
   It was then cut into stove length by other unemployed men, and distributed to needy families. The project was directed by Grover Hardison, descendent of Ivory Hardison.
   The term “town pauper,” was used to list these people in the annual town reports. This was the only form of “welfare” program at this time, giving men the opportunity to work for what they needed. Only a desperate man would accept what he did not earn.
   Near the end of the Depression, government projects such as the Civil Construction Corp. and the Work Projects Administration, offered some employment. The Caribou Municipal Airport was built by the W.P.A.
   Social life included horse racing, held on Sweden Street until forbidden, on the pond and river in winter, and later at the trotting park at the fairgrounds (which included a grandstand) at Teague Park. Peter Powers built the Gem Theatre in 1912 and the Powers Theatre in 1916.
   Women voted for the first time at town meetings in 1921. The first electric radio was bought in 1927. An annual Winter Carnival was started in 1935, providing diversion from the depression, and a forum for competition in skating, skiing, snowshoeing, pistol shot, etc. It featured elaborate snow sculptures, a sportsman’s show, lumbermen’s banquets and gubernatorial visits. There was a ski jump for competition off South Main Street.
   In 1941 Caribou was still the largest town in the county, with a population of 8,218.
   During World War II, 1941-1945, 1130 Caribou men went into the armed forces. The community thrived on farm and forest related industry.
   Its social and cultural life was woven together by strong family units, devout, hard working individuals and able community leaders.
   The outbreak of World War II in 1941, and the building of Loring Air Force Base at Limestone in 1947, and its 47 years of operation, would seriously impact small rural communities in northern Maine. Good economic times, changing lifestyles, money for higher education, were, over these years to bring many changes to Caribou. It was no longer an isolated farm community.
   Birds’ Eye-Snyder Frozen Foods processing plant opened in 1946, processing potatoes and peas. Many Civil Service jobs became available at the base. Television programming came to Caribou via Loring and later WAGM.
   Caribou’s role in the United National Military Action in Korea, 1950-1953 involved 446 men.
   Many new businesses opened in Caribou to accommodate the thousands of base personnel. Military families from all over the United States introduced new interests, talents, and tastes into the social and cultural life of the county. Real estate and retail businesses prospered. Several national chains opened in Caribou.
   In 1960 the population was 12,464. Caribou became a city in 1967. By 1970 the population had dropped by over 2,000.
   The number of men serving in the Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-75 was 852.
Urban Renewal
   At the beginning of the 1970s urban renewal changed the physical features of Caribou. The old downtown buildings were torn down; the town square was gone. A highway by-passing Caribou was built for better access to Loring. The center of business began to shift from downtown to Bennett Drive.
   By 1980 the population drop was over 2,500, the largest drop being in the 18-24 year old age group. Our young people were looking elsewhere for employment.
   “Fewer jobs were available due to the decline of potato production. The western states began to dominate both fresh and processed potato markets. Our processing plants and potato farmers could not compete with the effects of the higher yields in the west, due to longer growing seasons and controlled water supply through irrigation.
   Hundreds of potato farmers went out of business and potato fields are grown over again, or are sold for house lots. Caribou’s potato-dependent economic base eroded. There are only several of the half mile long stretch of potato houses left.
   The J.C. Penney store, which opened in Caribou in 1926, moved to a new mall in Presque Isle. Loring Air Force Base closed in September 1994, causing many Caribou businesses to close.
   The closing of Loring Air Force Base has greatly influenced Caribou’s future. Caribou’s population in the 1990 census was 9,385, and has dropped 318 since then. All told the 1960 figure of 12,464 has dropped by nearly 25 percent. Growth is expected to be slow in all of northern Maine.
   There has been some positive sign of base reuse, but as Caribou’s economic base declines, businesses that will create jobs are needed. Entities that have the responsibility for marketing Caribou and attracting new businesses face a difficult challenge; that of revitalizing that economic base.
   This is not the first time that people have faced a challenge. The dense forest must have seemed insurmountable with only an ax and a saw to help clear it. Civil War soldiers from Caribou knew that their wives and children were subsisting on money from shaved shingles, which all the family worked on, and 75 cents a month each from a government allotment, when and if it arrived. Caribou people were led through the worst depression in our country’s history with dignity and determination.
   Many disappointments and failed dreams have had to be faced in the 174 years since the first settlers at the mouth of the Little Madawaska River arrived.
   We are inheritors of the best and the worst of their dreams, failures and strengths. For almost three quarters of that time we survived, built a community and prospered without a military base … and Caribou is still here, proud of the past and hopeful for its future.

Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Sweden Street traffic now …

Contributed photo
A panoramic view of Caribou before the days of SUVs and cell phones.

Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
A view of Caribou looking toward High Street, the way it looks today.

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Though fashion has changed considerably from the 20th to the 21st century, organizations will always make time for group photos.