New England trip report - Fall 2015
My family has made many trips out West but our last long trip together was somewhere entirely different, New England. My husband and I met up with Dad in New Jersey where we visited with a relative t...
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OCT 2
We didn’t get a chance to explore Camden State Park the night we arrived so the next morning we drove up to the park’s mountaintop overlook. There we enjoyed an expansive view across Penobscot Bay including the town of Camden where we’d dined the night before. There was a stone tower at the overlook which afforded an even better view.
If you want to a place to eat lunch while enjoying a view, this would do! We had just eaten breakfast though so we headed off for the day’s travel. We all had something different we wanted to do this day so we traveled separately with an agreement on where to rendezvous for the night.
Traveling along Hwy 1, we stopped at Fort Point State Park near Stockton Springs ME. This park features the remnants of Fort Pownall which was constructed in the mid-1700s by the English to protect the area from the French. It had a modern design for the time with a blockhouse surrounded by four bastions, a palisade, a ditch, then an earthen bank. With the decline of French influence in the area, the fort instead served as protection and a trading post for settlers in the area. The fort met its end during the American Revolution when, in 1775, British sailors secretly removed its guns then American rebels retaliated by burning the blockhouse and filling in the moat. Just enough remains today to give a visitor a feel for the size of the place.
I wonder if this apple tree was planted by the British?
Another attraction at the park is Fort Point Light which was built to aid navigation on Penobscot Bay. A granite structure built here in 1836 was the first light station in Maine but it was replaced in 1857 with the present light tower and keeper’s house. Leaving the fort, one first comes to a small wooden structure housing a bell which was rung every 20 seconds by mechanical means when the bay was enveloped in fog. It needed to be rewound every 4 hours so the light keeper could forget about getting a straight 8 hours of sleep on foggy nights but at least he could get more than 20 seconds at a time. This was used until the 1960s when a more modern fog horn was installed.
`
It was a short walk from the fog bell tower to the light station. And a beautiful view of the bay was seen every step of the way.
The mailbox was cute!
The light keeper house and tower were quite picturesque. Nearby was a small flower garden which we also enjoyed.
Back at the parking area, we saw a truck that had more stickers than I’d ever seen on a vehicle. Looks like Also Bob made a lot of stops on his way from California to Maine. The driver’s side was equally festooned. I wonder what he’ll do when he runs out of space? Somehow I think this doesn’t help the resale value of the truck so maybe he’ll just park it in the yard as a reminder of his travels.
Just 10 miles further up Highway 1 we came to the Fort Knox State Historic Site. No gold bars at this Fort Knox, just a lot of granite. The fort was named after the Revolutionary War veteran and first U.S. Secretary of War, Major General Henry Knox, who hailed from Boston but retired to Maine. The structure was completed in the mid-1860s after more than two decades of construction. The fort sits at the head of Penobscot Bay, just across the Penobscot River from Bucksport ME.
It’s hard to get a good view of the fort except from the water as it was built into the hillside so this aerial view helped us get oriented. The parking lot is at the top of the picture and the trail at left took us to the fort’s entrance. The fort was designed by Joseph G. Totten, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s foremost fortification expert. Considering the war armament and methods of the day, it looked pretty impregnable to me!
At the interior of the fort is a large open parade ground. The large arched casements housed cannons facing the river while the concrete squares in the grass are the powder magazines.
It took elaborate brickwork to create a vent in the ceiling.
A stairway took us down to Battery B on a lower level by the river. The guns placed here could fire hot shot, cannonballs heated in a brick furnace, which were used to set wooden ships afire. I guess that’s one reason ironclad ships were invented.
The opening to the right is where the stairway to Battery B ends. It also provides access to the riverside area where it was seen a large part of the hillside had been excavated and terraced with stone. Iron mooring rings set into a stone waterfront wall were still in pretty good shape considering they are over 350 years old. One reason the fort is in such good shape is that it never saw battle.
Reversing our steps, we climbed up to the top level of the fort, the terreplein. From there we got a good view of Bucksport. It was easy to see how the fort could control traffic on the river … if all the guns were in place. Around $1,000,000 was used to build the fort structure but cannon were never installed on this upper level as the need for the fort had passed.
We descended back down the beautifully fitted spiral granite staircase and exited the fort. Those stone masons did a fantastic job!
Highway 1 crosses the Penobscot River just downstream of the fort. The Waldo-Hancock Bridge, constructed here in 1931, was the first bridge over the river downstream of Bangor and was also the first suspension bridge in the state. Then, in the early 2000s, when corrosion finally made it impractical to repair the bridge. All that remains is a plaque marking the site.
A replacement for the doomed Waldo-Hancock Bridge was designed and built in just 42 months. The Penobscot Narrows Bridge went into service in 2006 and is the first cable-stayed bridge in the state. This beautiful structure also features an observatory at the top of one of its two 420-foot tall towers. This is the tallest bridge observatory in the world and the only one in the western hemisphere. I’m sure the view would be stunning on a good day but this wasn’t a good day. It was cloudy and hazy so we decided against checking out the observatory and instead motored on up to Bucksport.
We found a nice place to park on the river and ate lunch while we enjoyed the view. After a stroll along the riverside greenway, we traveled on to where we were to stop for the night, Acadia National Park. The others had already arrived so we picked a site as close to them as we could get and settled in for the night.
To be continued …
We didn’t get a chance to explore Camden State Park the night we arrived so the next morning we drove up to the park’s mountaintop overlook. There we enjoyed an expansive view across Penobscot Bay including the town of Camden where we’d dined the night before. There was a stone tower at the overlook which afforded an even better view.
If you want to a place to eat lunch while enjoying a view, this would do! We had just eaten breakfast though so we headed off for the day’s travel. We all had something different we wanted to do this day so we traveled separately with an agreement on where to rendezvous for the night.
Traveling along Hwy 1, we stopped at Fort Point State Park near Stockton Springs ME. This park features the remnants of Fort Pownall which was constructed in the mid-1700s by the English to protect the area from the French. It had a modern design for the time with a blockhouse surrounded by four bastions, a palisade, a ditch, then an earthen bank. With the decline of French influence in the area, the fort instead served as protection and a trading post for settlers in the area. The fort met its end during the American Revolution when, in 1775, British sailors secretly removed its guns then American rebels retaliated by burning the blockhouse and filling in the moat. Just enough remains today to give a visitor a feel for the size of the place.
I wonder if this apple tree was planted by the British?
Another attraction at the park is Fort Point Light which was built to aid navigation on Penobscot Bay. A granite structure built here in 1836 was the first light station in Maine but it was replaced in 1857 with the present light tower and keeper’s house. Leaving the fort, one first comes to a small wooden structure housing a bell which was rung every 20 seconds by mechanical means when the bay was enveloped in fog. It needed to be rewound every 4 hours so the light keeper could forget about getting a straight 8 hours of sleep on foggy nights but at least he could get more than 20 seconds at a time. This was used until the 1960s when a more modern fog horn was installed.
`
It was a short walk from the fog bell tower to the light station. And a beautiful view of the bay was seen every step of the way.
The mailbox was cute!
The light keeper house and tower were quite picturesque. Nearby was a small flower garden which we also enjoyed.
Back at the parking area, we saw a truck that had more stickers than I’d ever seen on a vehicle. Looks like Also Bob made a lot of stops on his way from California to Maine. The driver’s side was equally festooned. I wonder what he’ll do when he runs out of space? Somehow I think this doesn’t help the resale value of the truck so maybe he’ll just park it in the yard as a reminder of his travels.
Just 10 miles further up Highway 1 we came to the Fort Knox State Historic Site. No gold bars at this Fort Knox, just a lot of granite. The fort was named after the Revolutionary War veteran and first U.S. Secretary of War, Major General Henry Knox, who hailed from Boston but retired to Maine. The structure was completed in the mid-1860s after more than two decades of construction. The fort sits at the head of Penobscot Bay, just across the Penobscot River from Bucksport ME.
It’s hard to get a good view of the fort except from the water as it was built into the hillside so this aerial view helped us get oriented. The parking lot is at the top of the picture and the trail at left took us to the fort’s entrance. The fort was designed by Joseph G. Totten, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s foremost fortification expert. Considering the war armament and methods of the day, it looked pretty impregnable to me!
At the interior of the fort is a large open parade ground. The large arched casements housed cannons facing the river while the concrete squares in the grass are the powder magazines.
It took elaborate brickwork to create a vent in the ceiling.
A stairway took us down to Battery B on a lower level by the river. The guns placed here could fire hot shot, cannonballs heated in a brick furnace, which were used to set wooden ships afire. I guess that’s one reason ironclad ships were invented.
The opening to the right is where the stairway to Battery B ends. It also provides access to the riverside area where it was seen a large part of the hillside had been excavated and terraced with stone. Iron mooring rings set into a stone waterfront wall were still in pretty good shape considering they are over 350 years old. One reason the fort is in such good shape is that it never saw battle.
Reversing our steps, we climbed up to the top level of the fort, the terreplein. From there we got a good view of Bucksport. It was easy to see how the fort could control traffic on the river … if all the guns were in place. Around $1,000,000 was used to build the fort structure but cannon were never installed on this upper level as the need for the fort had passed.
We descended back down the beautifully fitted spiral granite staircase and exited the fort. Those stone masons did a fantastic job!
Highway 1 crosses the Penobscot River just downstream of the fort. The Waldo-Hancock Bridge, constructed here in 1931, was the first bridge over the river downstream of Bangor and was also the first suspension bridge in the state. Then, in the early 2000s, when corrosion finally made it impractical to repair the bridge. All that remains is a plaque marking the site.
A replacement for the doomed Waldo-Hancock Bridge was designed and built in just 42 months. The Penobscot Narrows Bridge went into service in 2006 and is the first cable-stayed bridge in the state. This beautiful structure also features an observatory at the top of one of its two 420-foot tall towers. This is the tallest bridge observatory in the world and the only one in the western hemisphere. I’m sure the view would be stunning on a good day but this wasn’t a good day. It was cloudy and hazy so we decided against checking out the observatory and instead motored on up to Bucksport.
We found a nice place to park on the river and ate lunch while we enjoyed the view. After a stroll along the riverside greenway, we traveled on to where we were to stop for the night, Acadia National Park. The others had already arrived so we picked a site as close to them as we could get and settled in for the night.
To be continued …
