Risk & Business Magazine F.A. Peabody Insurance Spring 2017 | Page 30

Rhonda Brophy, Museum Curator
Patten Lumbermen’s Museum:
BY: MATT FARNHAM, CIC
F. A. PEABODY INSURANCE
Log On To History
R
honda Brophy opened the doors
on a blustery March morning
for our Risk & Business
interview, ready to talk about
the exciting history of Patten
Lumbermen’s Museum and upcoming
museum events. Even though the museum
is closed this time of year, Rhonda is very
busy in her practically full-time paid job as
curator. She accepted this position 10 years
ago after 25 years of operating hunting and
fishing camps. She says running a museum
is much like running a business. A curator
for a museum is responsible for advertising,
writing grants, fundraising, organizing
events, public relations, maintaining
and coordinating the museum displays,
collections, activities and much more. The
museum’s purpose is to tell the story of
Patten, Maine’s rich and fascinating history
in the logging industry. A busy 2017 season
is ready to begin!
The museum was founded in 1963 by
Patten residents Lore Rogers and Caleb
30
Scribner. Rogers grew up in Patten, the
son of a prominent logger, and spent
most of his adult life in Washington,
D.C., as a bacteriologist for the USDA.
Upon retirement, he returned to Patten
and collaborated with Scribner, a fellow
Patten Academy graduate and long-time
game warden, to begin preserving logging
history.
In the early 1800s, Bangor, Maine, was
the largest shipping port for lumber in
the world. Just up the river in the heart of
the Pine Tree State, Patten was chock full
of trees ready for cutting. Teams of men
would travel to Patten every November
and spend the entire winter cutting wood,
which they would then float down the river
to Bangor in the spring. Wood was cut by
hand, hauled out of the woods by horses,
and stored until spring when the river was
ready to take it to Bangor.
During the winter, they would live in
simple wooden structures held together
without nails and with cedar roofs that
were tied down with roots and bark strips.
The cabins were built around a fire pit used
for warmth and cooking, with a hole in
the roof for smoke to escape. One section
of the camp was dedicated to the sleeping
area, with beds of balsam fir spread out on
the floors. Up to 15 men would sleep here
under one large blanket. A restored cabin
is housed at the museum and available to
tour in the summer, along with a larger
double camp used in later years.
In the early 1900s, the industrial world
started changing the logging industry.
Steam engines and diesel tractors meant
that lumber could be hauled on trains and
trucks. Roads were soon built. Hauling
lumber out of the woods became easier
with the invention of the Lombard log
hauler in 1901. The first “cleat track” was
an idea of Johnson Woodbury, a Patten
resident, and patented by Alvin Lombard
of Waterville. It was first used on the log
hauler which could then haul multiple
sleds of logs and replaced the work of