The Rice Farm

            In conversation, people often mention the Rice Farm Road, but many do not know the origin of the name. An article in The Northern magazine from November 1925 has the story.

            The article states that on the old tote road to Medway is property known as the Rice Farm. That property had been first cleared by Charles & Daniel Watson and later owned by Gates, then Reed, and finally came to be owned by James Rice. In 1907, when the development of East Millinocket was projected, both the Rice Farm and the nearby Powers Farm were purchased by the Great Northern Paper Company.

            At that time (1907), the Rice Farm was about three acres with the ruins of an old log camp. The company (GNP) started to improve the site, planning to use it for log driving operations. The Powers Farm near that location would be flooded over after most of the buildings were moved to the Rice Farm. Buildings moved included the old boarding house and the barn used for driving horses (those used on the log drives). The barn was referred to as the middle barn. A new storehouse was built.

            The company had moved the old Powers farmhouse in 1907, but it was burned in 1909 and replaced by a new structure designed by Hardy Ferguson. (In the 1925 article, that “new” structure was still there at the Rice Farm. New buildings constructed included a harness shop and ice house, a new barn (Hardy Ferguson design) to hold fifty horses and 250 tons of pressed hay. A water tower, tank and pump house were completed soon after. By 1912, a boat house, wagon shed and other necessary structures were added. In 1914, two driving shacks were built to house the driving crews. These later burned and by the time of the 1925 article, they had been replaced.

            By 1925, the Rice Farm consisted of forty acres of cleared land surrounding the buildings. Its stables were used to supplement the Millinocket stables which had a capacity of about 100 horses. The Rice Farm also usually housed about three or four hundred hogs and in 1925 was said to have had a registered Ayrshire cow that “regularly provided sixty pounds of milk a day” and sometimes eighty pounds. The milk was very rich in butterfat!

            At the time of the article, the Rice Farm was mainly used as a depot for the driving crews covering the lower West Branch. For several years, the Rice Farm was the depot for sorting the four-foot wood from the long logs until only four-foot wood came down to the mills.

The article mentions Mr. A.I. Mann, who had worked as Superintendent of the Lower Drive for the past eighteen years where his territory extended from North Twin to Medway. He was responsible for the construction of the “many piers in the course of his work and is considered an expert in their construction.”

The article lists many others employed at the Rice Farm (until 1925) and states that “it is not one of the large farms, but the Rice Farm fills a mighty useful place in the company’s scheme of things.”