The Eastern Manufacturing Co. in South Brewer was the biggest employer in the Bangor area a century ago. Its modern sawmill, reputed to be the largest in Maine, and its pulp and paper mill dominated the waterfront across the Penobscot River from Bangor. The company’s president and founder, Fred W. Ayer, one of the state’s top industrialists, was a legendary character, one of the last links to the area’s glory days as a lumbering capital.

When Eastern Manufacturing Co.’s pulp and paper mill slowed production and then closed for a couple of months at the end of 1907 and the beginning of 1908, it was a major economic blow. The Bangor Daily Commercial said “700 or 800” residents of South Brewer worked there. Their labors were the chief means of support for 2,000 people.

Part of the paper mill cut back production in December because of the economic depression associated with what historians call the Panic of 1907. Then, in January, the entire plant closed when its electrical supply was switched off by the Bodwell Water Power Co., which was shorted out by its own economic problems. The Bangor Daily Commercial reported “great rejoicing” when the mill reopened on Feb. 17. The company recently had won a contract to manufacture “a superior grade of writing and office paper” for the federal government. A great future was expected.

The previous spring, on May 31, the Commercial had presented readers with a feature headlined “THE IMMENSE INDUSTRIAL PLANT AT SOUTH BREWER.” The story was immense as well, filling most of a page. “It is doubtful if more than a comparatively few people in this section realize the enormous business that is being done at Eastern Maine Manufacturing Company,” wrote the awed reporter.

The property extended for a mile along the waterfront from the Stetson Ice House to the Sedgeunkedunk Stream. The plant covered 20 acres and a much greater area was filled by immense piles of wood. Logs were towed from the Bangor Boom to Dyer’s Cove at the upper end of the property for storage. The wharves near the sawmill were piled high with lumber. In warm weather, a fleet of vessels was constantly loading.

No more trees had to be cut down than necessary because of this mill, declared the reporter. Nothing was wasted. “The saw gets all that is good for lumber. The bark, sawdust and smaller waste are used for fuel to generate steam to operate some other parts of the plant [although electricity was gradually replacing steam power]. The edgings are used for fuel and the slabs and larger edgings go to the pulp mill where they are made into pulp.”

Ayer had purchased the property, which was known as the old Palmer Mill, in 1881, said the Commercial. He operated it as F.W. Ayer and Co. until 1901 when he sold it to the Eastern Manufacturing Co., remaining as company president. The pulp mill was built in 1890 and the first of several paper mills in 1896.

“Ayer’s mill was a marvel,” according to David Smith in his history of Maine lumbering. He was known as an innovator. He introduced the first band saw, “the wonder of the age,” in the Penobscot area. Mill men came to see the new miracle saw demonstrated from as far away as New Brunswick and New Hampshire. It was said to have set a new world’s record.

Ayer was also an aggressive capitalist. In the early 1890s he had tried with only limited success to corner the Penobscot log market. Later he played a major role in the battle with Great Northern Paper Co. for control of the log drives in the Penobscot.

He was a complex man who worked hard and played hard. His obituary in the Bangor Daily News on Sept. 28, 1936, said, “His interests were as intense as they were varied. He made a profession of his sports and hobbies and brought to his business the thrilling gamble of sports. The quality which most strongly marked Mr. Ayer’s attitude toward his passionate interests was the will to excel.”

One of his passionate interests that he raised almost to the level of a profession was stamp collecting. His accomplishments in that field were so well known that he was invited to England to meet with the Duke of York, the future King George V, who was also an avid stamp collector. After they spent an afternoon conversing, the Duke bought his collection.

Ayer also did what was expected of upper-crust Bangor males. He joined exclusive clubs including the Knickerbocker Whist Club of New York and the Algonquin Club of Boston as well as the Tarratine Club. He was a noted sportsman. The New York Times reported April 1, 1900, that he caught “with the fly” 500 pounds of salmon in one season at the Bangor salmon pool. His obituary suggests he invented fly-fishing at the pool.

Ayer was a noted yachtsman. The New York Times reported on Aug. 10, 1902, the launching of his 90-foot steam yacht Helena. It was built in its entirety on the premises of the Eastern Manufacturing Co., the hull and engines designed by Charles B. Clark, one of the company’s executives.

Ayer loved speed and power on the water as well as in the mill. During the summer of 1907, the Bangor Daily News noted that 500 people lined the banks of the Penobscot River to watch a race between the Helena’s tender and another motorboat.

Ayer was connected to the living past a century ago, but he was always trying to leap into the future. While that particular past has receded a bit since then and it no longer lives for most Bangoreans, it was Fred Ayer and all those like him, noted for their “wide scope, initiative and daring,” who built the base upon which Bangor still rests today.

wreilly@bangordailynews.net