Tuesday, September 23, 2008



















How about going to Farmington, Maine today? Yes, let's go!!

The photos are: 1) looking south on Farmington's Main Street, 2) the historic Union Meeting House (once a church), 2) the historic Octagon House (aka the Hiram Ramsdell house, known for it's unique octagonal design), and 4) a pumpkin sale along a road in rural Farmington.

Farmington is a town in and the county seat of Franklin County, Maine, United States. As of the 2000 census, the town population was 7,410. Farmington is home to the University of Maine at Farmington, the Ski Museum of Maine and the annual Farmington Fair.
The area was once territory of the Canibas tribe of Abenaki Indians. They had 2 camps located near Farmington Falls, with fields cleared for cultivation of maize and potatoes. Their fort's stockade enclosed about an acre at the center of what is today Farmington Falls village. In 1703, the Massachusetts General Court granted the land to William Tyng and his company as reward for services to the state. It was variously called Plantation Number One or Sandy River Plantation.
It remained undeveloped through the French and Indian Wars, not least because Norridgewock, a fortified Indian village hostile to English settlement, was downriver. But Indian hostility ceased with the Fall of Quebec in 1759 and Treaty of Paris in 1763. A group from Topsham arrived in 1776 to explore the area with a view of laying out a town. Improvements were made, and in 1781 the first settlers arrived, the same year a sawmill was established. On February 1, 1794, Sandy River Plantation was incorporated as Farmington, named for its unusually fertile soil.
Beginning with a cluster of log houses at Farmington Falls, the town grew and prospered. Agriculture remained important, with hay a principal product. Orchards yielded apples and other fruit. Farmington became one of the largest wool producing towns in New England, with herds of sheep grazing hills and intervales. Water power from the streams attracted industry. In time, there were 5 lumber mills, 2 sash, blind and door factories, 2 brickyards, a foundry, a rake factory, 3 gristmills, nearly a dozen carriage factories, a cheese factory, 2 corn canning factories, 2 mowing machine factories, a spool factory and a tannery.
A manufacturing and agricultural trade center, Farmington was designated county seat when Franklin County was formed in 1838. The Androscoggin Railroad completed its line from Leeds Junction to Farmington in 1859, carrying freight and tourists. In 1879, the town became the southern terminus for the narrow gauge Sandy River Railroad (later part of the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad), making it a gateway to the Rangeley Lake and Sugarloaf Mountain areas. Farmington suffered a devastating fire on October 22, 1886, when 33 houses, 19 stores, 3 churches, the county jail and the post office were destroyed. The 1877 Methodist Church designed by noted architect Arthur H. Vinal survived. Farmington is today a college town and resort area.
Farmington is the subject of a prophecy by the Quaker Licia Kuenning about a Coming New Order in the town. This was originally prophesied for Tuesday 6 June 2006 but is now prophesied "within the next few years".
According to the prophecy, after the coming of the new order, within the municipal limits of Farmington:
There will be no death and no illness (except the remnants of earlier illnesses which will go away in three days or less)
There will be no crime or bad behavior. You will be safe in Farmington; nothing will harm you here.
If one goes outside the borders of Farmington at that time one will not be protected in this particular way, though one will be no worse off than before.

Today's Jumble (9/23/08):
HOACC = COACH; FREVE = FEVER; SEPORC = CORPSE; TERLIP = TRIPLE
CIRCLED LETTERS = OAERRSTL
What the sheriff always has in a western movie.
"(A) STAR ROLE"

Today is Checkers Day (because of Nixon's dog of the same name) and, coincidentally, Dogs in Politics Day (would they be better than some of our representatives now?).

Other things on this day in history:

1122 - Concordat of Worms.
1459 - Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the English Wars of the Roses, is fought at Blore Heath in Staffordshire.
1529 - The Siege of Vienna begins as Suleiman I begins his attack on the city.
1642 - First commencement exercises occur at Harvard College.
1779 - American Revolution; squadron commanded by John Paul Jones onboard the USS Bonhomme Richard wins the Battle of Flamborough Head, off the coast of England, against two British warships.
1780 - American Revolution; British Major John André arrested as a spy by American soldiers exposing Benedict Arnold's treason.
1803 - Second Anglo-Maratha War: Battle of Assaye.
1806 - Lewis and Clark return to St. Louis, after exploring the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
1818 - Border demarcation markers for Moresnet formally installed.
1821 - Fall of Tripolitsa, Greece, massacre of 30.000 Turks.
1845 - The Knickerbockers Baseball Club, the first baseball team to play under the modern rules, is founded in New York.
1846 - Discovery of Neptune by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and British astronomer John Couch Adams; verified by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.
1868 - Grito de Lares (Lares Revolt) occurs in Puerto Rico against Spanish rule.
1884 - Herman Hollerith patents his mechanical tabulating machine.
1889 - Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda.
1905 - Norway and Sweden sign the "Karlstad treaty", peacefully dissolving the Union between the two countries.
1922 - Gdynia Seaport Construction Act passed by the Polish parliament.
1932 - The Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd is renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
1938 - Mobilization of the Czechoslovak army.
1941 - The first gas murder experiments are conducted at Auschwitz.
1942 - First day of the September Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces attack Imperial Japanese Army units along the Matanikau River.
1952 - Richard Nixon makes his "Checkers speech".
1959 The M/S Princess of Tasmania Australia’s first passenger RO/RO diesel ferry makes maiden voyage across Bass Strait.
1962 - Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City opens with the first building completed, Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) home of the New York Philharmonic.
1969 - The Chicago Eight trial opens in Chicago.
1972 - Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos announces over television and radio the implementation of martial law and signs General Order No. 1 which orders the arrest of opposition leaders, media censorship, banning travel to other countries except for diplomatic missions, abolishing the Philippine Congress, establishing dictatorial government, take-over or sequestering of public and private corporations and suspension of classes for one week in the Philippines.
1973 - Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina.
1983 - Saint Kitts and Nevis joins the United Nations.
1983 - Gerrie Coetzee of South Africa becomes the first African boxing world heavyweight champion.
1988 - José Canseco of the Oakland Athletics becomes the first member of the 40-40 club.
1999 - NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter.
1999 - Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm. While some passengers only received minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas's history since 1960.
2002 - The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released.
2004 - At least 1,070 in Haiti reported killed by floods due to Hurricane Jeanne
2005 - FBI killing of Filiberto Ojeda on Plan Bonito Hormigueros, Puerto Rico.

1 comment:

Nicole said...

WOW there are far too many links for me to go through tonight :) But i will! Im determined. Nevertheless, great post, I found a cool new travel site that I think you will like a lot, baraaza.com