Pleasant Ridge Plantation

I grew up on Pleasant Ridge before the Kennebec River was flooded to build a hydro dam. This course of action changed the lives of many people and now 71 years after the completion of Wyman Dam, there are still houses and cottages on Pleasant Ridge that have no electric power. Our property is one of the many without electric power, however, you can still live comfortably by using gas stoves, refrigerators, gaslights, generators or even solar power.

I was born on Sep 5, 1920 and worked at Carry Pond for a few years. Gerry and I were married in October of 1940. Like many families, our family goes back to 1645 when Richard Honeywell was born. It took from 1645 to 1819 before our family moved to Pleasant Ridge Plantation (then known as part of Carratunk). This book gives a little insight into our family history and includes four of the ponds in that area, Carry Pond, Rowe Pond, Bean Pond and Lost Pond.

I went into the Navy in 1943 and was a diesel engineer on an L.S.T. After returning to Maine, I built a house down in the old Earl Taylor field and worked at the Quimby Mill filing knives for the machinery until the mill closed in 1974. I then went to work at North Anson Reel Company. During these years, there was very little time to work on the family history.

For a few years, I served as a Second Selectman or Third Selectman, and then in 1982 the town elected me First Selectman. I remained First Selectman until 1998 when I was 77 years old and my wife, Gerry, decided it was time I retired. Like most wives, “she was right.”

In October of 1990, Gerry and I had been married 50 years and our children and friends gave us a 50th Anniversary party. We had no idea about the party or that we were going to be presented the following from the State of Maine.

In July of 2000, there was a reunion for all the “students” that attended the “Old Bingham High School”. The school closed and was torn down around 1962-1963. We were one of the “lucky families” in that both Gerry and I and all three of our children attended the same school before it was torn down.

BINGHAM GATEWAY TO THE MAINE FOREST

Read about a small area that is halfway between the Equator (3,197 miles) and the North Pole (3,107 miles). It is the Gateway to the Maine Forest. The book includes residents’ names, house location for several streets. The section of Main Street goes for 7-8 miles-from Moscow to Solon, Maine. It starts with the first settlers that arrived in 1784 and ends with the residents in 2000. It includes the location of who originally owned the properties up through who owned the property in 2000. There are many pictures of these properties and or residents from 1822 up to 2000. It includes the section on Moscow, Maine where GE was contracted by the Air Force to build an Over-The Horizon Backscatter Radar System. The Sectors in Moscow would provide surveillance covering 180 degrees from Greenland to Cuba. Two other sites, one in Oregon and one in Idaho were set up at the same time. The cost of the full program was $1.2 Billion. In 1991 the Pentagon decided to “Mothball the project because after the collapse of Communism the threat no longer existed.” The entire OTHBRS was demolished.