Spotlight Wiscasset

Salt ’n Spar

I was going through some papers the other day and came across a small but interesting pamphlet produced in 1994 by the town of Alna’s Bicentennial Committee. Alna is a part of Lincoln County and…

Take pride, Wiscasset, as people from all over Maine, and other parts of the country, came to peek inside our fascinating collection of homes on tour!

The weather on tour day, Saturday,…

Salt ’n Spar

Three years from now on July 4, 2026, America will celebrate its "Semiquincentennial,” our nation’s 250th year of independence. Here in “Maine’s Prettiest Village,” there’s also a 250th birthday…

When Lucia Droby and other early organizers of Wiscasset Art Walk were planning its 2013, inaugural season, their strategy was to “start small and simple and then build the event, and to develop…

Boothbay Harbor WIndjammer Days Festival

Ahoy, Boothbay Harbor Windjammer Days (WJD) fans! The 61st event is near and the Friends of Windjammer Days are now nailing down the final few details.

The Festival begins Sunday, June 25…

Salt ’n Spar

“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.”  Theodore Roosevelt

Not long ago, Larry Rines of Wiscasset telephoned…

Wiscasset selectmen

Two years ago, Susan Murray moved to Wiscasset from Pennsylvania. Tuesday night, May 16, she stepped up to the microphone at the selectmen’s…

Salt ’n Spar

“Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits.” – Henry David Thoreau.

I had intended to write this Salt ’n Spar column last September but one thing led to another and I never got…

Asked what letter grade he would give Wiscasset’s sewer treatment plant, Town Manager Dennis Simmons responded, probably a C-. The facility approaching its 60th year of operation at the upper end…

Salt ’n Spar

“Being bissextile, or Leap-Year, and the Thirty-sixth of Independence of America. Fitted to the Town of BOSTON, but will ſerve for any of the adjourning states. Containing, beſides…

Salt ’n Spar

Do you remember the big wind harp off the Cochran Road in Newcastle? It’s long gone but once upon a time it sat on top of a small knoll not too far over the Edgecomb town line just past where…

Wiscasset selectmen

As Wiscasset faces possibly moving its sewer plant and how moving or not moving it could impact rates, selectmen are seeking to expand the town’s options: March 7, the board agreed to request…

The Virginia the Popham Colony built in 1607, with Maine wood and the iron, ropes and sails the colonists brought over from England, was pretty much a UPS truck, created, like the colony,…

National Stalking Awareness Month

You look out your kitchen window ... and he’s standing outside right next to your car.

At the grocery store, as you walk from your car toward the store, the hair on the back of your neck…

Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission Executive Director Mary Ellen Barnes told Wiscasset’s broadband committee Jan. 5, applying without other towns would not hurt…

Our thanks to Wiscasset’s Matt Haeberle for sharing these photos he took at the Wiscasset waterfront during the high spring tide and storm on Dec 23. 

The same night a Wiscasset man shared with selectmen his struggle to not “end up a homeless person in Maine,” two fellow attendees of the board meeting Dec. 6 at the town office, and carried over…

The extent of federal aid coming to Maine for broadband access is unprecedented and “will never happen again,” Axiom’s Mark Ouellette told Wiscasset, Woolwich and Dresden selectmen, broadband…

Woolwich residents like the idea of making a traffic signal at the Route 1/Nequasset Road intersection permanent but urged Maine Department of Transportation officials to add turning lanes here to…

Holbrook Excavating is no longer Alna’s plowing contractor, First Selectman Ed Pentaleri and the Woolwich firm’s owner Evan Holbrook each confirmed Nov. 10: Pentaleri, responding to questions via…

Salt ’n Spar

The other day I was listening to the radio, the hosts of the morning show were asking listeners to share what it is they loved most about their hometown. I was surprised to hear how many listeners…

Three candidates are seeking two, three-year terms on the Woolwich select board. The candidates are Dale Chadbourne, Thomas B. Davis and Allen Greene. Chadbourne and Greene are incumbents. Voting…

Salt ’n Spar

The first thing you need to know about Wiscasset’s Langdon Mountain is elevation-wise, it’s not much more than a high hill. It rises roughly 180 feet at its highest point, which is best…

A few weeks into his job as Wiscasset Middle High School’s athletic director, Cameron “Cam” Bishop is already hearing praise for his performance. “He is taking my place, and he is awesome,” said…

Salt ’n Spar

On Sept. 28 it will be 36 years since the new U.S. Route 1 bridge linking Wiscasset to Edgecomb was dedicated to Detective Sergeant Donald E. Davey of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department. I…

number of strandings increasing

On July 20, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an Unusual Mortality Event…

Residents filled the conference room at Wiscasset Community Center Tuesday evening, June 28 to see plans for developing White’s Island into a recreational area, including replacing the footbridges…

Wiscasset School Department is continuing safeguards after the latest results on lead. It was found at “elevated” levels, meaning greater than four parts per billion, in water from six fixtures at…

Wiscasset school committee

Veteran school administrator Robert England Jr. figures challenges such as those the pandemic gave education can be viewed in one of two ways: “You can look at things as either depressing, or you…

“Don’t start crying. I will,” Wiscasset Elementary School reading interventionist Carol Adams told longtime colleague, first grade teacher Trae Stover at the outdoor classroom Friday, May 13.…

Wiscasset budget talks

Slips at the recreational pier and showers at the harbor master’s office are possible if Wiscasset seeks a grant and is willing to chip in, the waterfront committee told selectmen and the budget…

Salt ’n Spar

Once upon a time there was “Wiscasset Open House Day,” a day-long celebration held every August when people living within the village opened the doors to their historic homes and offered guided…

Salt ’n Spar

Two of Wiscasset’s current select board members, Terry Heller and Dusty Jones, hail from Texas. But long before they arrived in Maine’s Prettiest Village, Wiscasset had a connection to the Lone…

Marita Fairfield said she has “always been all about making sure people can use technology.” Now she is doing it as chief operating officer of Wiscasset-based National…

Like she did growing up, Cindy Collamore has worked her way through Wiscasset’s schools. She is transferring from…

Salt ’n Spar

Years ago, I took the picture you see here showing Wiscasset’s once famous schooners, the Hesper on the left, and Luther Little on the right. The old ships as you probably know…

Salt ’n Spar

During the holiday break, I spent one afternoon visiting Burlington in Burlington County, New Jersey. Settled by Quakers in 1677, Burlington is located on the shores of the Delaware River across…

What has a new inside, a new, taller building next to it, and jobs temporary and permanent? The former Wiscasset Primary School within the next two years, according to one of the people working to…

Salt ’n Spar

Once upon a time there was “Cow Island.” It was just north of Wiscasset village, a short walk from where the train station used to be. As the story goes, folks got to calling it Cow Island because…

LincolnHealth reported 20 new cases of COVID-19 for the week of Aug. 23; 381 tests were administered, down from 456 the previous week, bringing the percent-positive up to 5.25%.

Director of…

LincolnHealth reported Aug. 11 a jump of 20 positive COVID-19 cases for the week of Aug. 2. The 424 tests over the week brings testing rates nearly to mid-May levels; the percent-positive tests…

Town of Edgecomb

On July 12, Edgecomb Select Board Chairman Dawn Murray described a recent experience driving along U.S. Route 1. She described  traffic as an accident waiting to happen.

Murray was inching…

The committee Wiscasset voters nodded last month to study the schools’ future is near forming. Thursday night, July 8, the selectboard, school committee, Town Manager Dennis Simmons and…

Stacey Souza has served Wiscasset’s schools 13 years. She still will, but fewer hours a week after she went to school for a longtime interest, real estate. Living all over New England and moving…

Art Mayers of Newcastle, a news contributor with the Boothbay Register and Wiscasset Newspaper, and formerly with the Lincoln County News, has been recording video oral histories of Lincoln County…

Salt 'n Spar

Her name was Rosalie. Sorry, I don’t have a last name for her and can’t positively say that Rosalie was her real name. It’s possible she was using a pen name, a common practice when she was the…

Is regularly pool-testing students and adults for COVID–19 doable, and could it help prevent spread? Wiscasset School Committee listened and asked questions Tuesday night, May 11 as staff nurse…

Salt ’n Spar

The town of Edgecomb, “in the southern part of Lincoln County, is situated upon the peninsula formed by the Sheepscot and Damariscotta Rivers, having Newcastle on the north and Boothbay upon the…