`Gin train,’ hours at the lake among memories of Wallagrass

The townspeople of Wallagrass, none of whom I know any more, decided to retain their town government at a special meeting this week. In this time when centralization of government affairs seems to be in vogue, it was refreshing to read the news report that Wallagrass will struggle on, as independent as a small town can be in these times.

For six years, from 1942 to 1948, Wallagrass Plantation was home. Father worked for the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad Co. as foreman of the track maintenance crew stationed there. B&A’s “gin train” stopped twice a day — once on the passenger and mail run up from Oakfield and again in the late afternoon on the trip back from Fort Kent and St. Francis. The little steam-powered train with its express and baggage car, mail and smoker combination, and coach was our only connection with the outside world.

We lived in Wallagrass station in two rooms that had been the ticket agent’s office and the passenger waiting room until the station was closed in 1942. I still have the agent’s oak desk, more than 50 years later, and it is a treasured piece of my railroad collection.

Water was fetched from a well near the station and the “facilities” were contained in a tiny but conspicuous building at the end of a long wooden platform.

I remember summers as a glorious time for the neighborhood children because we spent hours at a time swimming in Eagle Lake, located just across the track.

When it came time for school, classes were held in a one-room building by the side of Route 11, just south of Plaisted village. A dozen pupils from grade 1 to grade 8 were versed in reading, writing and arithmetic at Smith School in the 1940s. Later, the older children were moved to the elementary school in Eagle Lake. Smith School is gone now, and a piece of slate from the roof is all I have for a memento. Most of the scholars in Wallagrass proper attended the Catholic school in the plantation center.

I never found anyone who knew the origin of the name `Wallagrass,” although the suggestion was offered on several occasions that it was a derivation of an Indian term. The town was settled by French Canadians, and about the only English people who ventured in came with the railroad.

We left Wallagrass in 1948, and a few years later the station was torn down. A bus was substituted for the passenger train in 1954, and that too was discontinued by the 1960s.

From far away, I applaud the people of Wallagrass who chose to retain local control of government. I hope the town lives on, if only because of its unusual name and some pleasant childhood memories.

Herb Cleaves is a copy editor with the Bangor Daily News.