Car strikes Orrington historic site

ORRINGTON – A Bucksport woman apparently fell asleep at the wheel Wednesday afternoon, moments before the minivan she was driving crashed into a historic stone structure that once served as the town’s animal pound.

Charlene Kennedy, 67, was driving north on Route 15 with her husband, Cleveland Kennedy, 69, when the minivan they were in crossed into the southbound lane and struck the Orrington Pound, Trooper Dan Ryan of the Maine State Police said Wednesday. Charlene Kennedy told the trooper that she had fallen asleep.

The husband and wife were wearing seat belts, and Ryan said the husband injured his right arm or wrist and his wife, the driver, had general complaints of pain. Both were taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. No information about their condition was available.

The accident heavily damaged the 2003 Dodge Caravan and left a gaping hole and rubble at the Orrington Pound, near the edge of the road.

The circular stone wall structure is all that remains of the pound that was built in 1843, and it is believed to be one of the last standing historic animal pounds in the state, an Orrington historian said.

“There aren’t many pounds left in the state,” Henry Wiswell, president of the Orrington Historical Society, said Wednesday afternoon. “If there were a dozen, I’d be surprised.”

Like today’s animal shelters, the Orrington Pound kept stray animals until the owners came to claim them. One big difference, however, was that rather than cats and dogs, this pound housed horses, cows, pigs and sheep.

At 33 feet in diameter, the pound had room for some animals, but as far as Wiswell could tell, there was rarely more than two animals kept there at a time and there were days when none were. The historical society has kept detailed documents about the pound, including daily logs dating back to its earliest days.

Although a sign that remains on the structure states that the pound was built in 1807, that refers to the original wooden structure that was replaced in 1843 with the existing stone wall structure at a cost of $111, society documents showed.

Aside from the occasional vandalism – where young people took souvenir stones from the pound – Wiswell doesn’t know or hasn’t read of any damage that had been done to the structure. Wiswell was around at the town’s sesquicentennial in 1938 – he was 10 years old at the time – and nothing substantial had happened to the structure since then, he said.

With the pound serving as a reminder of the town’s past, Wiswell said there is a strong interest in seeing it restored.

“We will insist on it being rebuilt,” he said.