A rock bearing century-old carvings has been moved from its former resting spot in the woods near the Orono-Old Town line to its new home at the Old Town Museum.
Museum president Eisso Atzema said crews on Tuesday brought an excavator to the site, which is between the Penobscot River and the railroad tracks and owned by Mike Thornton of Milford-based Thornton Construction. They carefully dug up the rock, a large piece of granite that was partially buried in the soil, likely deposited there by a glacier during the last Ice Age.
During the excavation, the rock split into three big pieces, which Atzema said made it easier to transport, as one of the pieces doesn’t have any carvings on it. The other two pieces have carvings. At least three more inscriptions can now be made out, and there possibly are more that can’t yet be seen, Atzema said.
Initially, Aztema and local artist Kathy Pollard, who discovered the inscriptions during a spring walk in the woods, could make out names carved on the rock, like McMahon, McClair, Sawyer, Chelsea and Rayes, as well as dates including 1892 and 1894. There’s also a reference to Fort Howe, a fort built in what is now Saint John, New Brunswick, during the Revolutionary War.
Now that the rock is excavated, and Thornton and his crew power-washed it and scrubbed off moss and lichen, Atzema said they can make out three new carvings. The first one spotted was the word “Shorty,” which is likely someone’s nickname. The second is what appears to be a fragment of a sentence, with the words “as can red” written out.
Atzema also identified the words “St John, NB,” at the end of some other text that is unreadable. It lends further credence to the theory that the carvers may have been railroad workers, stopping off between St. John and Orono sometime in the late 19th century.
The two pieces bearing the carvings are now located outside the Old Town Museum, directly next to its front entrance. Atzema said he and museum volunteers plan to do rubbings all over the rocks to see if any more carvings can be made out, and also take high-contrast images to see if that could help boost the clarity.
The Old Town Museum is located at 353 Main St. in Old Town. Its hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays, but the rocks are located outside and can be viewed anytime.