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And the winners are...
1. Job Fuller, first settler: The first recorded trip through Wayne was in 1751, just about when Job Fuller was born. Job was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts. One of Job's brother's died when Job was eight years old, and his older brother left to settle in a different part of Massachusetts. When Job was 22 years old the Kennebec Purchase Company offered settlers 200 acres of land with good soil and lots of trees, but first they had to clear five acres of the land and build a house. Once they had lived there for seven years the land would be theirs. Job and his wife, named Elizabeth (Wing), accepted the offer and got here in 1773, right after their first child was born. They brought oxen to move the heavy rocks and trees. Their land was covered with trees, so at first they fed
their oxen the natural meadow grasses that grew along Wilson Pond, which was near their land. Later they had cleared a field and could grow hay for the oxen. When Job Fuller got to Wayne he built a log house and buried all their valuable items next to the house so the Indians wouldn't find them. Job died when he was 80 years old. Mr. Fuller is buried in Evergreen Cemetery on the corner of Fairbanks Road and Old Winthrop Road. (Cameron)
 
2a: Annie Louise Cary was one of Wayne's most talented and famous citizens. She was an opera singer. She was born in Wayne in the Cary House, which is now a Bed and Breakfast, on October 22nd, 1842. She was the youngest child of her family. People used to hear her sing with her family on the porch of her home. She went to Boston to study music when she was 17. In those days most opera singers came from Europe, so it's cool that she came from Wayne. In 1866 she had a concert in Boston. She used the $600 that she earned there to study music in Italy. Later she sang at LaScala in Italy. She traveled all around Europe singing. She even performed for the Russian court. She sang for the last time in Philadelphia on April 22nd, 1881. Ms. Cary had to stop singing
because she had throat problems. The next year she married Charles Raymond. She died on April 3rd, 1919.
2b: The Cary Memorial Library opened in 1938. It was made of brick and had a slate roof so it wouldn't burn down. It was paid for by a trust fund of $10,000 in honor of Annie Louise Cary. Inside the library there's a large oil painting about Annie Louise Cary's singing career. She is shown wearing several of the costumes that she performed in. Her family also donated many books to the library. It now has about 12,000 books, books on tape, CDs and magazines. The library has a Board of Trustees to run it. They raise money to keep the library open by quilt raffles, silent auctions, bake sales and book sales. In the historical vault and display cases there are old town records, crutches, a shovel handle, Native American artifacts found in the Wayne area and some of Annie
Louise Cary's clothes and her tiny shoes. (Paige)
3. The Wing Family Cemetery is a circle of graves of members of the Wing family. It was designed by Alonzo Wing in 1867, two years after the Civil War ended. He made it circular. There were seven Wing brothers. There's a different section of the circle for each brother's family to be buried. In the center of the circle of graves there's an obelisk. An obelisk is a four-sided thing that is a monument or a landmark. This one is a monument. Only people in the Wing family can be buried in Wing Cemetery. Wing Cemetery is in the National Register of Historic Places because it's such an unusual shape. Usually cemeteries aren't allowed in the National Register of Historic Places, but Wing Cemetery is there because of its circular shape, which is very unusual. (Cameron)
 
4. The view from Morrison Heights: At the top of Morrison Heights you can see Androscoggin Lake, lots of little islands (like Black Sand Island and Norris Island) and best of all you can see Mt. Washington and the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The reason you can see that far is that when you look at the view you see foothills but if you look over them there's Mt. Washington! It's about 60 miles as a bird flies from Morrison Heights to Mt. Washington. When the rain falls on Morrison Heights it either goes on one side or the other. On one side it goes into Wilson Pond (Kennebec River watershed) and on the other side it goes into Androscoggin Lake (Androscoggin River watershed). Morrison Heights is the watershed divide between the two rivers. If you ever look across the Morrison Heights
view at night, the town you see is Leeds. There are so many lights it looks like a city! Sometimes you can see Livermore, too. (Mira)
5. From Morrison Heights you can see Black Sand Island (also called Lothrop Island) in Leeds and Norris Island in Wayne. People can camp on Norris Island because it is owned by the Kennebec Land Trust. The sand on Black Sand Island is black because it's igneous rock that cooled underground instead of erupting like a volcano. The sand is called black gabbro sand, and there's a lot of it (black gabbro sand is not very common). It's also magnetic! Molly Saunders is the person who owns Black Sand Island. There's an eagle's nest on the island and there's a rare Tupelo tree there, too. A long time ago, Native Americans crossed over Black Sand Island as a shortcut from the Androscoggin River to the Kennebec River. At Indian Carry the land is still depressed where they walked for so
many years. Their shortcut was from the Androscoggin River to the Dead River to Indian Carry, where they carried their canoes over land and put them into Androscoggin Lake. They may have paddled to Black Sand Island to camp overnight. They carried their canoes from the shore of Androscoggin Lake to Wilson Pond, then paddled to Anabassacook Lake and from there to the Kennebec River. From Morrison Heights the Native Americans could be seen crossing by canoe. The people in Wayne were afraid they might be attacked or have their belongings stolen. They put watchmen on the top of Morrison Heights to warn the town when canoes were on Androscoggin Lake. (Paige)
6. The Desert of Wayne: During the last Ice Age, that ended about twelve thousand years ago, a glacier slid over all of Maine, including Wayne. As it slid over rocks it ground them into sand and left the sand where the Desert of Wayne is now. Much later, ways of farming that cleared and dug up the land (in the 1800s and early 1900s) exposed part of the desert, too. At first plants couldn't grow that well in the sand. There were only small plants growing, but later pine trees started growing. When the settlers arrived they wanted to put animals on the land to graze so they cut down the trees and plowed the area. Plowing dug up the sand created by the glacier and the wind blew it all around. The real Desert of Wayne is on Berry Road but the sandy area on Strickland Ferry Road could also
be a desert. There is a Desert of Maine in Freeport that you can walk around in. That desert was formed the same way the Desert of Wayne was made. (Mira)
7. The Village of Wayne: Wayne Village starts about at the Wayne General Store and goes about as far as the Corner Store. There are lots of interesting places in Wayne Village.
Wayne General Store was built soon after the Great Fire of 1863 (on July 1st a building near Mill Dam caught fire; wind spread the fire to several other buildings). It is 143 years old this year. In the winter they get 85 to 120 customers a day; in the summer they get 250 to 350 customers a day. It is now owned by Ken and Jeanita Burnside. Jeanita says that working there is different from working in Portland or Augusta because it's easier going and you get to know your customers more. Earlier owners of the store were Joseph Berry, Allen Stinchfield and his wife, Katie, Joseph Stetson, Nancy and Skeet Mullen, and Pat Murray and her husband.
One of our favorite places is Ladd Recreational Center. It was built in 1976. It is called the Ladd Center because the Ladd family gave money to give a place for the community to have recreation. There have been at least six directors of the Ladd Center since it opened. The director now is Donna Freeman. Six things that I know about the Ladd Center: (1) there's a summer camp that a lot of kids go to, including kids from out of state who are living in Wayne for the summer, (2) kids go there after school and have fun playing; different grades go on different days of the week, (3) quilters go there and quilt, (4) they have meetings (including the town meeting) and shows there, (5) people can hold birthday parties there, (6) Brittany Myles helps at the Ladd Center; she watches the kids, pitches
for kickball, helps pass out snacks and stuff. She's a senior in high school.
 
These pictures show one corner of Memorial Park as it looks during the winter and on Memorial Day. The plaque on the rock says: WAYNE MEMORIAL PARK In memory of the veterans of Wayne who served in all our wars. World War I: 1914-1918: Benjamin P. Bradford and Leland Gordon from Wayne died in that war. World War II: 1941-1945: Joseph Ford Berry, George E. Dodge and Paul W. Manter of Wayne died in that war. The park was dedicated on May 30, 1949. It's a nice idea to have a park for those people because they were serving for our country, Maine and Wayne and they died doing something brave and important. By fighting in those wars they were helping people in other countries have rights and freedom. (Jason)
Tubby's: Skip Strong owns and operates the only ice cream stand in Wayne, which opened in 2001. It is called Tubby's and it's only open in the summer. It is very popular with everybody who lives in or comes to Wayne. At Tubby's you can get homemade ice cream in unusual flavors (they make up their own!). You can also get flavored ice and sandwiches for lunch or supper. Once you get your ice cream you can walk down and look at the dam on Mill Brook while you eat it. At the end of the school year everyone at Wayne Elementary School -- but not all at the same time! -- walks to Tubby's and gets ice cream. It's great ice cream! This summer Mr. Strong will give a free ice cream cone to any child the Cary librarian agrees has read at least ten books during summer vacation. Each
child's name will also be posted in Tubby's window! (Jason)
  Wayne's Town House was built in 1840. Before it was built, town meetings were held in a schoolhouse in the village. The town decided to build a Town House to have a place for the selectmen to meet. The Town House cost $350.25 to build. On the inside it has slanted floors and 5 benches on each side of the room. In the old days the women and men sat on opposite sides of the room because the women weren't allowed to vote. They had town meetings on the first Sunday in March. Now town meetings are held at the Ladd Center in June. The Historical Society meets in the Town House once a year, and there was a wedding there once. It is special because it is so old. It is the only town house in Maine to survive until now! (Jason)
The Corner Store is now owned by Belinda LaMontagne. Before the one that is up today, there was a store across the street that burned down. After it burned, a man named O'Malley built the one that's there now. The one that is up today was built either in the late 1950s or early '60s. In the summer they get 300 to 400 customers a day. In the winter they get 150 to 200 customers a day. They probably get so many customers because they're the only place in town that sells gas. Every thirty years they have to dig up the gas tank that's underground and replace it. Belinda agrees that you get know your customers better in Wayne than in Augusta or Portland. Earlier owners have been Harry and Pauline Chase, Joe Hanley, and some people from Leeds (the town right next to Wayne).
THANK YOU!
We would like to thank all the people in Wayne who helped us choose The Seven Wonders of Wayne and who taught us more about them. Thank you to everyone who completed a survey, to the Wayne Historical Society for all their help with specific details and our field trip, to the Capital Weekly for information about the Wing Cemetery, to Dawn Brooks for driving us on our photography trip, to Stefan Pakulski for the sunset photo of Mt. Washington and the Presidential Range from Morrison Heights, to Ben Berry for allowing us to walk in and see the Desert of Wayne, to Janet Adelberg and Ed Kallop for showing us the library and what's inside the vault and for letting us inside the Town House (we love its key!), to Cathy Cook and Anne Huntington for adding information to what we already knew during our field trip, to Theresa Kerchner
for inviting us to eat our picnic at her farm (where we drew water out of her well and drank it right from the bucket!) and giving us a tour of her 220-year-old house, to the Kennebec Journal for having put our project in the newspaper, and to the people we interviewed: Lois Ault, Ed Kallop, Anne Huntington, Janet Adelberg, Theresa Kerchner, Donna Freeman, Jeanita Burnside and Belinda LaMontagne. Thanks, too, to Jan Kolenda and Diane MacGregor for helping Mrs. Miner put our project on-line.
May 30, 2008
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