By Paul Sylvain

It took the Machias planning board a mere 10 minutes from opening gavel to adjournment to approve three building permits and call it a night at its July 2 meeting. Of more importance than the permit applications on the meeting’s agenda, however, was a scheduled discussion with West Branch Farm’s owner Chris Meroff over his proposed addition of four more rental cabins on his West Kennebec Road property. 

By Jayna Smith

After decades of planning and years of construction, a new six-mile stretch of highway connecting I-395 to Route 9 officially opened to traffic Friday, June 27, 2025, marking the completion of one of Maine’s most significant recent transportation infrastructure projects.

The $107 million project — formally known as the I-395/Route 9 Connector — extends east from Brewer to Eddington, creating a more direct route for travelers and commercial vehicles between the Bangor-Brewer area and eastern Maine, including access to Atlantic Canada.

Review by Paul Sylvain

In my Sept. 4, 2024, review of Pitch Black Ribbons’ Aug. 29 show at Bad Little Falls Park, I wrote, “As for me, I hope it's not another year before I see them again. Their show … was a genuine late summer treat.”

Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but fortunately, I didn’t have to wait a year and managed to catch brothers Clint and Cody Phipps on July 3, in the third of this summer’s Kitchen Concerts at Bad Little Falls Park. 

By Paul Sylvain

Station 1898 — the old repurposed railroad station near the dike and Lee/Pellon Event Center — has served as home to the Machias Bay Area Chamber of Commerce since the chamber signed a 100-year lease with the town for one dollar. In return, the Chamber agreed to maintain the building and allow its use for community events several times a year.

Fishermen’s Pottery Uniquely Downeast

By Nancy Beal

Broderick Alley is a full-time Beals Island lobster fisherman with the maximum allowable number of lobster traps — 800 — which he hauls from a 43-foot lobster boat named Miss Jennifer. 

The boat is named after his daughter, Jennifer Ciappetta, who also lives on Beals and, like her father, fishes 800 traps from her 36-foot Bigfoot & Carissa, named for her two standard poodles. They act as each other’s sternman, hauling his gang of traps one day and hers the next.

By Paul Sylvain

Town meetings — even the monthly selectboard meetings, which are separate from voting by the general public — in Machiasport have a reputation for being unpredictable. Sometimes quiet, often fiery, they seldom disappoint anyone who attends them regularly.

The town’s 49-article warrant for its June 23 annual town meeting certainly appeared benign on the surface. Ultimately, voters dispensed with the 2025-‘26 spending package, without any fireworks, in less than an hour.

By Phil Stuart

Fred Kneeland Jr. of Cherryfield will be inducted into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame on Oct. 26 in Portland. Freddie follows in the footsteps of Addison’s Dickie Norton who was inducted in 2023 and joins a surprising number of Downeasters selected for that honor. 

Kneeland becomes the 16th Washington County resident to enter the Hall of Fame and the second from Cherryfield, joining major leaguer Carlton Willey, who was in the initial class back in 1970. 

By Paul Sylvain

The gun smoke has cleared from last month’s Margaretta Days skirmish reenactments, but one of that week’s events that might have been overlooked by visitors enthralled by reenactments, vendors, music, and food involved the digging up and opening of a time capsule buried in an old cemetery behind Rev. James Lyons house on Lower Court Street, across from American Legion Post 9.

By Paul Sylvain

Today’s youths will one day determine the future of their community. Fort O’Brien School seventh and eighth grade students in principal Susan Almendinger’s class spent the recently completed school year learning about their town’s government and history and developing a group project that will one day lead to a recreation trail for residents and visitors to enjoy.

By Will Tuell

It was an up-and-down week for fans of Machias Area Little League softball as the area’s 12U squad won three straight games to earn a berth in the Downeast-Acadia district championship this week. While Happy Gardner award winner Sarah Hennesey and her teammates found themselves in an enviable position to qualify for the state tournament, things were not quite so rosy for Machias’s 10U softball squad, who were bounced from their double-elimination tournament with losses to Sunrise Little League of Western Washington County and Coastal of Blue Hill.