YESTERDAY …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Sept. 4, 1998

BUCKSPORT – The medal is a masterpiece of British understatement. Great Britain’s highest military honor, the Victoria Cross, is just a simple bronze cross with a lion and crown stamped on one side.

Stanley Metcalf turns it over. On the back of the bronze band affixing the cross to its worn purple ribbon is etched his father’s name, William Metcalf, and the date, Sept. 2, 1918.

Almost 80 years ago, a young man from the Eastport area led a tank toward four German gun nests on the Hindenburg Line amid a hail of shells and bullets. The tank blew up three of the nests and William Metcalf captured 10 Germans in the fourth, and became the first Allied soldier to step into that line of German defense in northeastern France.

William Metcalf had enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces four years earlier while on a fishing trip in New Brunswick, lying about his age because at 18, he was still too young to sign up without his parents’ consent.

After four years of brutal trench warfare, Metcalf performed the “act of valor” that won him the Victoria Cross which now lies in a manila envelope at his son’s house in Bucksport.

Only six Americans have ever won the Victoria Cross, and two were from Maine. William Henry Harrison Seely of Topsham won it in 1864 while serving in the Royal Navy as a seaman.

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CASTINE – When admissions director Daniel Jones arrived at Maine Maritime Academy in the early 1980s, entering freshmen wore uniforms on campus and envisioned careers as navigation officers or engineers aboard large ships.

As freshman orientation begins this week, however, the image of the school, the makeup of its newest members, has undergone a sea change. And as a result, enrollment is booming.

The 232 freshmen, who come from 25 states plus India, Poland and Jamaica, represent the second-largest class in the history of the school. The academy now has 650 students, Jones said, up from fewer than 450 a decade ago.

This year’s class includes 38 women, up from 30 last year.

25 years ago – Sept. 4, 1983

ORONO – She was a world-famous scientist and author, but the libraries in the town don’t have a complete collection of her books.

Edith Patch’s life was full of such contradictions, according to Dr. Elizabeth Gibbs and Mary Jo Sanger, who have been studying Patch’s life and contributions to science and children’s literature.

Patch studied insects. She was an entomologist who made contributions to the study of aphids – plant lice – that still stand. But she also was a gifted writer who published 18 books and more than 100 articles and stories on nature for children. Despite her international scientific reputation, her work as a writer was unknown by many of her contemporaries in Orono.

Gibbs has a daily reminder of Edith Patch. She works at Patch’s old desk in the University of Maine Department of Entomology, started by Patch in 1903. Gibbs is the first woman entomologist at UM since Patch retired in 1937.

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BREWER – Young, performance-oriented and a Brewer native, Fred C. Danforth had a career with Citibank of New York under his belt by the time he was 30, and now is president of a major Tulsa, Okla., bank with assets of $330 million.

Danforth was called to the Utica National Bank and Trust Co. in February as a “Mr. Fix-It” to help the Tulsa bank out of a financial tight spot as a result of the debacle in the oil and gas industries.

The 33-year-old Danforth graduated in 1968 from Brewer High School, where he played varsity baseball, football, basketball and track.

He went on to Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., and then Yale, where he played football and majored in economics, while working summers at the Merrill Trust Co. in Bangor.

50 years ago – Sept. 4, 1958

BANGOR – Rustling book pages, the scratching of chalk and shuffling feet were heard in John Bapst High School, St. John’s Grammar School and St. Mary’s Grammar School as 1,476 pupils resumed classes in the parochial schools. The registration ran 51 over the estimated 1,425 students expected in the schools.

There were many beaming smiles and a few glum faces but on the whole, the majority of students appeared glad to be back in school, if just a bit restless the first day. The girls wore bright cotton dresses, with plaids and stripes as popular as ever for the back-to-school set. The boys sported neat suits, white and colored shirts, and ties, many of them bow ties.

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BANGOR – Beal Business School will open for its 67th fall term, according to Peter D. Chase, president. The school office is open daily for counseling and registration. Many advance registrations have been made and a big enrollment is expected, according to Mr. Chase.

The business school offers courses in beginning and advanced work in the stenographic, secretarial, accounting, salesmanship and business administration fields.

The school is approved for veterans and maintains an employment department for the placement of students as soon as they are competent.

In addition to Mr. Chase, Edgar Alward and Miss Frances Shaw are members of the teaching staff.

100 years ago – Sept. 4, 1908

ORRINGTON – The races at the Orrington fair were very interesting, and there were some hat brushes around the three-times-to-the-mile track. Nancy S., the well known campaigner, driven by Charles Rowen, made a new track record, going around three times in 2.28, beating the previous record of 2.30.

W.T. Trask of Hampden was starter. The judges and timers were J.R. Spencer, W.O. Cobb and C.L. Phillips of Bangor, and A.C. Swazey of Bucksport.

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BANGOR – At 6 o’clock in the morning at Northport campground in the Mower cottage occupied by the Rev. G.G. Winslow of Belfast, Miss Ellie Blaisdale of New York and William C. Bryant of Bangor were married by Mr. Winslow. The bridal couple then left on the steamboat City of Bangor for Bangor on their way to New York, where they will reside.

Miss Blaisdale is the daughter of P.C. Blaisdale, a wealthy New Yorker who owns a fine summer place at Northport, where he has for many years spent the summers with his family. Miss Blaisdale is the eldest daughter, a young woman of charming manners and very genial disposition which has won her many friends. She is a graduate of Wheaton Seminary and very accomplished.

It was the wish of the bride and groom to avoid anything like display or ostentation and the ceremony was as simple as it could be made.

The groom, the son of W.C. Bryant, the Bangor jeweler, also has spent many seasons in Northport making friends.

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BUCKSPORT – The machinery, tools, land, buildings and everything connected with the shipbuilding yards of McKay and Dix, situated at the head of Verona Island, were sold at public auction.

There was a good attendance from Portland, Bangor and other places. All of the property was put up, in one lot, and was started at $3,000 and run up to $3,765, at which point it was sold to Thomas Towle of Portland. Nothing definite has been given out about what will be done with the property, but the rumors are that it will be sold in small lots to whoever wants any part of that property.

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CASTINE – Mr. Herbert Harmon of Portland, state agent for the White steamer and Franklin gasoline automobiles, has been in town for a few days showing a beautiful 1908 White steamer to a number of prospective customers who have enjoyed some nice long rides.

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BANGOR – The substantial achievements of the Republican party in its administration of affairs of Maine and of the nation was the dominant note of the oratory in City Hall when the first Republican rally of the campaign was addressed by U.S. Sen. William E. Borah of Idaho and Asst. Attorney Gen. Warren C. Philbrook of Waterville.

The crowd began to gather early, and when the Bangor Band had concluded a very enjoyable concert at the Hammond Street entrance of the hall, most of the seats, floor and balconies, were occupied by the audience, including a considerable number of women.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin