Brewer council sets day of remembrance

BREWER – As the impact of last week’s terrorist attacks continues to sink in, city officials announced plans Monday night for a community day of mourning, a time set aside for remembering the thousands lost in the tragedies and for beginning the long process of healing.

Plans still are being firmed up for the citywide ecumenical service to be held late Sunday afternoon or early Sunday evening, City Manager Stephen Bost said. The time, place and other details for the service, which Bost says likely will involve several area clergy, will be released later this week.

In addition to a service, officials and others at the meeting observed a moment of silence at their regular recitation of the pledge of allegiance. Mayor Michael Celli also read into the official meeting record a moving poem expressing the feelings experienced by many Americans in the aftermath of the attacks.

Bost and City Solicitor Joel Dearborn are among the dozens of Mainers with family in New York City at the time of Tuesday morning’s attacks. Though their loved ones escaped unharmed, they and other city officials expressed deep sympathy for those less fortunate. Sunday’s worship service is being planned at the request of Brewer city councilors.

Dearborn’s older son Jay was working at an American Express office inside the World Trade Center when the hijacked planes struck.

Doug and Carolyn Bost, the city manager’s brother and sister-in-law, live about a mile from the trade center site and could see much of the damage from the top of their apartment building.

During the Monday council meeting, members voted to send $500 to the Red Cross to help with the recovery effort.

In other business Monday, the councilors heard an appeal for monetary assistance from some of those leading the effort to commemorate Maine’s role in the anti-slavery movement. Officials took no action on the request for $5,000 Monday night. The project is being spearheaded by the Maine Underground Railroad Association, a subcommittee of the Brewer Historical Society.

According to Dick Campbell, co-chairman with Brian Higgins of Chamberlain Freedom Park in Brewer, supporters of the proposed “North to Freedom” statue are within less than $15,000 of their $35,000 goal. Now that the final push is on, statue advocates say they are in the midst of visiting municipal officials and schools to secure the funds needed to install the piece. The goal, they said, is to unveil the statue on Veterans Day.

The $20,000 raised so far is enough to have the statue cast and brought to Brewer. Once the $15,000 balance is raised, Campbell said, the statue will be erected in the park on top of the stone-lined vertical shaft found in 1996 after the Holyoke House was torn down as part of the Penobscot River Bridge reconstruction project.

Plans for the statue, by Houlton sculptors Glenn and Diane Hines, call for a slightly larger-than-life depiction of a runaway slave looking back toward the south and leaning to the north as he hoists himself out of an underground tunnel to freedom. It will be erected over a shaft purportedly used by slaves en route to freedom in Canada.

John Jenkins, former Lewiston mayor and the first black member of the state Senate, said the project is attracting national attention. He also told city officials that the statue and other features of the park will bring tourists to the area. According to Jenkins, research suggests that every $1 spent on historic preservation brings in $5 from visitors who spend money on lodging, food, gasoline and similar expenses.

Though not documented, oral tradition passed down by generations of local residents has it that the Holyoke House, once occupied by wealthy abolitionist John Holyoke and also known as the Christmas House, was one of the stations of the Underground Railroad. When the house was torn down in the mid-1990s to make room for the rebuilt Penobscot River Bridge, a “slave-style shirt” was found tucked in the eaves of an attic room.

Jenkins said that project will be the only one of its kind in the nation dedicated to all of those who traveled to freedom on the Underground Railroad, to the abolitionist movement and to Maine’s role in the Underground Railroad. The Holyoke House is believed to be one of an estimated 130 possible Underground Railroad stations in Maine.