Last sunset in town of Centerville

CENTERVILLE – Margaret Dorsey, first selectman of this 162-year-old town located deep in the blueberry barrens of Washington County, noted the lengthening shadows cast by the sun Wednesday afternoon and said, “Only a few more hours to go.”

It would be the town’s last sunset. Today, July 1, Maine’s smallest town – hailed by Yankee Magazine in 1987 as New England’s smallest town – isn’t a town anymore. After midnight it joined 417 other townships and 76 offshore islands as part of the state’s extensive unorganized territories.

The new township of Centerville, which boasts 26 people among its 17 households, is located above Route 1, 15 miles northwest of Machias.

Residents said the transformation, which took approval from the state Legislature, brings up a mix of feelings. Bittersweet sadness runs from one house to the next, but so does relief. Particularly after the last 18 months, ever since residents voted to deorganize.

Nobody likes losing town status, but residents felt they didn’t have a choice. No one was willing or able to take on the responsibility of governing the town for the long run.

“Now I know how Marjorie Gaudette must have felt all those years,” said Gloria Bagley, who agreed to take on the roles of town clerk, tax collector and treasurer when Gaudette stepped aside 18 months ago.

“She did it all from her home, and I presume she got really tired.”

Gaudette’s sudden resignation from those positions forced the residents to look among themselves and say, who will do the work of the town, if not her? And who would take on all the other tasks of town business, such as selectman, for the years ahead?

As the town decided to deorganize, Bagley said she would help however she could, in spite of never having done these kinds of things before.

Dorsey said Wednesday that Bagley has handled the shutting down of the town beautifully.

On June 8, the selectmen held their last meeting. On June 10, Bagley consolidated all the town’s accounts into one, having paid all the bills.

Today the state takes control of that account, which has about $5,000 left.

Today, too, William Skinner of Columbia, an assessor for the state, comes to collect the town’s official records on behalf of Maine.

The taxpayer lists and tax maps will go to someone’s desk in Augusta. The oversized ledgers containing lists from years long gone of valuations and minutes from meetings will go, presumably, to the state archives. So will the box of official records, indicating every birth, death and marriage that ever occurred in Centerville.

Dorsey, who had the material in her home for many years, has placed all of it in the town building for Skinner to pick up and take away, dust included.

As for that building, it went up for bid. Merton Bagley, a Centerville native now living in Columbia Falls, won out for $3,500.

Then came a controversy of sorts, but the town just ran out of time before the matter could be settled by selectmen.

Bagley thought his family owned the land the building sits on. That’s why he wanted it.

But the town came up with a deed, dated 1875, indicating that John Ingersoll donated the land, “free and clear and without reservation to the town of Centerville for their school building.”

The old Centerville School sat on the spot until about 10 years ago. It had fallen into disrepair and was torn down to make way for the single-story building, a basic one with a single room and cement floor. That became the town building.

Merton Bagley had a deed from 1927 for the land, yet he hadn’t realized that the quarter-acre where the school stood wasn’t part of his grandfather’s parcel.

By the time selectmen realized there was a problem, the calendar was moving quickly toward June 30. There were not enough days to call a special town meeting in order to decide on a sale of property. Nor were there the resources for the town to consult a lawyer for a title search and a new deed.

So the possible sale now becomes the decision of the state. If Merton Bagley can buy that quarter-acre from the state, he won’t have to move the building.

With the former town building now in private hands, gone, too, are the town meetings. That’s what Dorsey, who has attended town meetings for all the 26 years she has lived in Centerville, will miss most.

“It’s not just the name that makes Centerville,” she said of the changeover. “We’re still Centerville. It’s the people who live here and who have lived here for many years, who make the town.

“In our hearts, we are still Centerville.”