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Industry at the Mouth of the Vaughan Stream

Jake Allen, Ethan Ballew & Avery Page

McClench Machine Shop, Hallowell, 1879
McClench Machine Shop, Hallowell, 1879
Courtesy of Sumner A. Webber, Sr., an individual partner

The Boston Flint Paper Company, Whiting Mill, Machine Shop,
and the Slate & Plaster Mill operated along the Vaughan Stream in 1800ʼs.

The first automobile in Maine was made in Hallowell in 1858. It was made in the McClench Machine Shop on Water Street. JHallowell residents, Jude Rice and Dr. Hill, supplied the money to build the automobile. George McClench, Frank McClench, and Charles L. Spauding were the builders of the first automobile in Hallowell. The car was powered by a small, locomotive engine. They drove it to Augusta and back to the McClench Machine Shop in Hallowell to be dismantled and not to be run again.

The Boston Flint Paper Company was started in 1890. It was located at the bottom of Greenville Street before the railroad tracks. After many experiments, the owner, Ben Tenney, decided to use quartz for sandpaper. Tenney got glue for his paper at the George Seavey Glue Factory in Farmingdale. Boston Flint Paper Company bought out the Sand Paper Mill, Reservoir Dam, Glue Mill, Quartz Mill, Machinery & Oil Mill, and Flint Paper Stock Isinglass & Stock for Same.

Stickney & Pages Slate and Plaster Mill
Stickney & Pages Slate and Plaster Mill
Hubbard Free Library

The Stickney & Page Slate and Plaster Mill was located on the Vaughan Stream. The mill lasted about eighty years. They made slate, plaster, and putty. The company was worth $10,000. The plaster was made of hydrated lime, sand, water, and horse hair. The slate was made of clay or volcanic ash. Slate, a rock formed from shale and mined by quarrying, had low heat and not very much pressure put on it. The putty was made of ground chalk, linseed oil, and polybutene. Slate was used for roofs, floors, paints, and blackboards. Plaster was used for making and fixing walls. In the end, the mill was bought out by Ben Tenney and made into five other mills with the last being the Whiting Mill.

The Stickney & Page Whiting and Slate Mill was founded in 1873.  The business was  powered by water, and when there wasn’t enough water, a steam engine. A steam engine worked as a heat engine that performed mechanical work using steam as the working fluid. To use the water, they piped it from a dam into a pipe that came down from a dam and powered the turbine at the other end. The turbine turned gears, wheels, and belts that powered the mill machinery. Whiting was made from finely powdered chalk. Whiting was used to make a variety of things such as putty, whitewash, metal polish, and is sometimes added to paint to improve it’s opacity. Slate was a fine-grained, metamorphic rock, derived from clay or volcanic ash. Slate was frequently grey in color, especially when seen in masse covering roofs.


Created by 7th grade Hall-Dale students 2011.





Historic Hallowell
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