timber cut during the winter months to mills downstream
at Old Town and Bangor. In those days, Bangor was one
of the largest lumber shipping ports in the world. Patten’s
fertile, agricultural lands were also key in supplying hay
for the oxen and horses used to yard logs in those lumber
operations.
camps for crews of 20-30 men.
During the period of The Aroostook War (1838-1839),
Maine militia and supplies traveled through Patten en route
to the disputed boarder areas of the St. John River, Fish
River and Aroostook River watersheds, where timber was
being harvested illegally on disputed land claimed by both
Almost everyone in Patten and the neighboring towns was Maine and New Brunswick.
connected more or less with lumbering. Country stores
carried needed supplies for the lumber camps. Men, young Patten continued to develop as mills, churches and schools
and old, worked in the woods during the winter, on the were built. It was officially incorporated in 1841. Other
river drives in spring and farmed in the summer. Blacksmith milestones include the printing of its first newspaper “The
shops sprung up, as did farms. Women in the community Voice” in 1860, the first stagecoach service in 1869 and the
worked the farms when the men were away, tended the arrival of the first steam locomotive in 1896.
animals, reared children and often cooked in the lumber
SUMMER 2011 Lumberman's Museum 31