Barber’s shaving mug collection reflects Old Town’s history

Editor’s note: This story ran in the May 25, 1956, edition of the Bangor Daily News

OLD TOWN – The shade has been drawn for the last time over the large plate glass window at the front of Sam Harris’ barber shop.

But a striking display of shaving mugs at the foot of the stairway leading to the basement of the Old Town Public Library is assurance that the story of the business establishment which became a local institution will be remembered for generations to come.

The Sam Harris story is an important part of the history of Old Town as a city because Sam, still spry at 83, opened the shop less than a decade after the community was granted a city charter.

And from the barber shop, Sam and his valued co-worker Henry Shaw, now 82, together with their many patrons watched the city grow and noted the course of human events for more than a half-century.

The idea of creating the display of shaving mugs at the library was novel, it’s true, but more important, it was designed to help viewers better understand some of Old Town’s earlier history as a city and learn more of the men who led in its development.

In these days of electric shavers and lather expelled from cans in snowy balls, not many of us recall the days when barbers completed their tonsorial operations on patrons with slick shaves using lather generated from the customers’ own mugs.

And because visits to the barber were much more frequent in those days, Harris’ shop became a gathering place for discussions on politics, civic improvement and business conditions, plus more frivolous and less weighty topics.

There are 64 mugs in the black-stained, varnished pine trophy case made for Sam and the library by Alton “Jake” Spruce, formerly of Bradley, now residing at Orono. The case has 11 shelves and the mugs are protected by a glass cabinet face.

Mr. Harris has four mugs still to be added to the collection before it will be complete. They await the application of an artistic touch by Mrs. Milton M. McGorrill, wife of the pastor of the Church of Universal Fellowship, who did the gilt scrollwork on five of the mugs already in the case. All others were made to order by a firm outside Maine.

A majority feature fraternal emblems, such as the Odd Fellows, Elks, Knights of Pythias and others, but some indicate the professional or business activities of their owners.

For instance, the mugs of M.L. Jordan Jr. and his father bear pictures of the Jordan Lumber Co. mills. Also occupying a prominent place are the mugs of two widely known physicians, Dr. M.G. Madden and Dr. G.E. Landry.

On a slightly more somber note, the mug of Charles Rackliff, a mortician, has a picture of a hearse.

These men and countless others in all walks of life knew and liked Sam Harris. And sharing their affection for 50 years was Henry Shaw, who came to Sam’s shop not long after it opened, at a time when the thriving young business employed six men. Mr. Shaw remained until he became ill a short time ago.

Mr. Harris, who began his career in 1896, moved to Old Town at the turn of the century to establish his business. In 1901 he married Evelyn Nealey at Bangor.

Mr. Shaw began work as a barber at Bangor in 1903 and joined Mr. Harris a short time later. He married Vivien Sibley of Lowell in 1905.

W.V. Wentworth, 92 years old, resigned last year as vice president and manager for the Penobscot Chemical Fibre Co. This year he resigned as a director and clerk from the company he had served since 1898.

Four times weekly throughout his PCF career, Mr. Wentworth stopped at Sam Harris’ shop for a tonsorial sprucing. And to this day Mr. Harris goes to Mr. Wentworth’s residence to shave the well-known business executive and philanthropist.

Then there’s S.B. Gray, still active president of the Old Town Canoe Co. A regular patron, “ever since Sam was in business,” Mr. Gray noted that the barbershop “has been the headquarters for the leaders of Old Town for the past 50 years – really an institution.”

Incidentally, Sam’s shop served Mr. Gray’s father and several uncles, and Sam remembers when George Gray and W.V. Wentworth would arrive on Saturday evenings with their newspapers and chat until closing time.

Edward Koite, “going on 82,” says he has been a Sam Harris patron for “quite a few years.”

Proof of the esteem in which Sam has always been held by his fellow townsmen was shown a short time ago when the shop was moved. Old Town merchants banded together to present the venerable barber with a handsome 8-foot wall clock. It fascinates Sam because “you wind a weight and the weight unwinding keeps the clock going.” It’s still at the shop and Sam says he won’t part with it under any circumstances.

Mr. Harris, a man of youthful appearance, has received international recognition in trade journals because of the clock and the shaving mugs.

Seven generations of his own family have been his customers, including his grandfather.

And no one could be happier about Sam’s gift to the library of the mug collection than the city’s affable librarian, Miss Lulu J. Brown.

And so Old Town has this token of esteem from Sam Harris, a man to whom it gave the greatest of riches – good friend and pleasant memories.

Sam Harris’ shaving mug collection is still housed at the Old Town Public Library. To learn more about it, call the library at 827-3972.