The tabulation of the books at the close of the fiscal year, June 30th, shows that the freight traffic of the Bridgton railroad for the past twelve months to have been the largest of any year since the road was opened.

With the mercury at 90, or there-about, the daily spectacle of the arrival of coal trains doesn’t exactly cause a shiver and a chattering of teeth, but still it is suggestive that the summer of our discontent will soon be succeeded by autumn frost, and then, lo! the old-fashioned down-east winter. “Just as of old the seasons come and go, summer with its heat, and winter with its snow.” Just as of old the pumpkins will be ripe. Just as of old Bill Webb will light his pipe.

“Weeman’s,” the East Sebago station on the B. & S. R. R. R., so far as its human occupants are concerned exists only in name. The house is closed, and Jacob Witham and wife have come to live with their son Freeman, in this village. Mr. Witham is a native of Denmark, but he moved from that town to his Sebago farm in 1857, where he has lived ever since except the time he was in the army–he serving in the Twenty-fifth Maine regiment. Again the double current of Portland round-trip excursionists by steamer and narrow-gauge. A happy lot they are.

The railroad company will freight this season an aggregate of over 2600 tons of coal. The larger part of which goes to the factories, the rest is for the railroad and home and shop use. Of this amount, Hall & Dresser receives this season 500 tons, although they will handle 700 tons, they having 200 tons left over from last year to start with; they supply more or less to North Bridgton and Harrison. An engine on this road can haul 60 tons despite some very heavy grades, while if the road were level all the way it could haul 200 tons. And notwithstanding this great amount of coal used here, there is constantly a good demand for wood, so that it brings $3.50 to $4.50 and even as high as $5. In pod-auger days men of the past generation would cut and haul wood three or four miles to this village and sell it for “nine shillings” or “ten-an’-six” ($1.50 and $1.75) a cord! Oh, “the good old times!”

Originally printed by the Bridgton News, July 20, 1894