Today

Behind the Town Office at Routes 199 and 175 is the wide expanse of the Bagaduce River where it is called Northern Bay.

Tourists dream of retiring to places like this, on the edge of the ocean, a white-steepled church just down the road, a  country store and gas station a stone’s throw away.

Time slows appreciably for those coming to Penobscot. Even the Town Office abides by a slower pace. Hours are Mondays from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m., Tuesdays from 4 to 8 p.m., and Thursdays from 9 a.m. to noon and 2 to 5 p.m.

Mary Ellen Gross is town clerk, treasurer and tax collector. Arnold J. “Bing” Gross, is chairman of the Board of Selectmen—“Mr. Penobscot,” to townspeople who know him well. Mary Ellen says of Bing, “He’s my ‘uncle-in-law.’” Bing is uncle to Cordell Gross, Mary Ellen’s husband, who recently retired after 35 years at International Paper Co. in Bucksport.

Between Mary Ellen and Bing Gross, they know everything that’s worth knowing about Penobscot.

Mary Ellen came to the Town Office in March 1997, after working as a certified nurses aide at Blue Hill Memorial Hospital and at the Penobscot Nursing Home, just up the street from the Town Office.

She has three grown daughters, two of whom live within an hour’s drive and one in the western part of Maine, still an easy drive to visit.

Maine is home and Penobscot is a close community as much like a family as you can find.

Mary Ellen can reel off the names of one resident after another and knows who owns what business and what it was before the present owner took over.

That’s not to say there is a lot of business in Penobscot, but the Grosses know just about all the 1,344 residents.

“I don’t think that figure’s accurate,” Mary Ellen says of the population she has just looked up in the Town Report. “But that’s just my opinion.”