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Osborn: A Town Upon a Hill
They say life is
lonely at the top, but that’s not so in Osborn.
Up on Moose Hill,
where most of the 70-or-so residents live, a neighborhood has formed
in the old farming and logging community.
Osborn natives Crystal and
Brandon Shorey are volunteer firefighters for their hometown. |
From the hilltop, residents can look out over
Graham Lake, its tributaries and
most of northern Hancock County. Just as often, though, the townspeople choose to look
out for their neighbors.
A unique feature in such a small town, Osborn has its own fire
department. It sits up there on the hill, as does Allen Shorey, the
town’s volunteer fire chief.
Shorey said he has also been designated forest firewatcher by the
Maine Forest Service. From his camp on the hill, he can see around
the upper Hancock
County region 360 degrees.
For the fire department, the hill serves practical uses as well.
One of the town’s old fire trucks, on loan from the Maine Forest
Service, is a relic, a six-wheel beast that often needs a bit of a
push.
“It helps,” Shorey said of the downhill stretch that gets the truck
moving.
Shorey’s neighbor, Ken Silsby, also on the volunteer fire
department, explained another hill-helper.
Eyeing some old holding tanks at nearby Mace’s Store one day, an
idea struck some men in the fire department.
Why not bury the tanks behind the fire station, run water lines down
either side of the hill and install some gravity-flow fire hydrants?
With the aid of some state grant money, the idea streamed downhill.
When the project was complete, the department tested the gravity
hydrant hypothesis by opening a valve and releasing a gush of water.
“It cut down a tree this big around,” said Silsby, shaping a circle
with his thumbs and forefingers. “You wouldn’t want to stand in
front of it!”
Like the water lines cascading down the hill, new and old homes and
families line its sides.
In other cases, old buildings have been made new again: Sylvia
Sawyer’s place, for instance, was built by her great-grandparents in
1840.
After moving away for many years, Sawyer returned to her hometown
and restored her parents’ home to its former grace.
Being “civic minded,” Sawyer said, is simply in her blood.
It was Sawyer’s father who headed a pair of state block grants to
build a fire station and revitalize the old town schoolhouse.
“It’s free for any town resident to use,” Shorey said of the old
school building. He said the place now hosts everything from
Mother’s Day suppers to fire safety training and even small weddings
and receptions.
The old building has found new life in the old neighborhood. It is a
community center that is truly at the center of the community,
sitting upon the pinnacle of Moose Hill in Osborn. |
