The image “Potato Digging, Van Buren, Maine,” was included in the Penobscot Marine Museum’s 2011 exhibit, “Maine Agriculture: Views from the Past,” and in its publication, Maine on Glass, by W.H. Bunting, Kevin Johnson, and Earle G. Shettleworth Jr. The authors write, “Mechanical potato diggers were a great laborsaving invention for humans but not for horses, which required frequent rest breaks from the steady heavy draft. The upper St. John Valley was settled in the late 1700s by Acadian French, who had been expelled first by the British in Nova Scotia and later from New Brunswick by the Tories. Note the Catholic church in the background. Alongside the river lay narrow margins of good intervale soil, which resulted in the cutting up of river frontage into narrow farms extending a mile or so into the forested backcountry. Establishing the railroad right-of-way along the river ensured employment for many lawyers.”
“Potato Digging at Van Buren, Maine,” LB2008.19.116819, is part of the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. collection at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine. ✮
