Editor,

With Biddeford rising, what about the Lincoln Mill clock tower rising too?  Majestic in its beauty, a feat of architecture and engineering, forces in the community tried to save it from ruin.  Before it was cut down before its time, I heard that four men tried to restore it.  They spent a month fixing the boards, replacing the rot and then, for some inexplicable reason, it was beheaded and discarded as salvage on the Lincoln Mill grounds.

I don’t know the why.  Someone said a piece of trim board fell and then the whole tower was sawed off with a chain saw in an act of architectural savagery.  Someone said it was safety, but none of the why really matters.

The facts are there. It was stripped of its bell and the weathervane in 2008. A person bought it, worked on further restoration of this Biddeford treasure, and it now sits in a parking lot, exposed to the brutal elements of our seasons and faces certain ruin if we don’t do something to change this trajectory.

Many of you reading this see its ghostly form when you walk by Lincoln Street.  It stands as a testament to a covenant broken with the community that it served for over 150 years.  Its bell was the sound beacon that chimed for Biddeford forefathers and mothers when they entered and left the mills every day.  It was the majestic architectural tower that greeted you when you walked or drove down Lincoln Street.

For some, the Lincoln Mill clock tower was that watershed moment for Biddeford.  It was the moment that Portland witnessed in 1961 when the beautiful Union Station was torn down before its time and replaced by an unsightly strip mail.  Portland did the right thing – they formed the Greater Portland Landmarks and spearheaded a movement that still has powerful repercussions for the Portland we see today.  This is a testament to the foresight Portland had and the community’s invisible covenant with the generations to come.

It is fruitless for us to blame specific individuals or organizations for this tragedy.  It is powerful for us to come together as a community to save it.

The Lincoln Mill Clock Tower needs to be the watershed moment for Biddeford.  This needs to be our story of how we didn’t turn the other way and watch this beautiful structure rot on the ground.  It needs to be our story of how we stopped being silent witnesses to its deterioration. This is the moment where we come together as a community to do something about it.

The story of Biddeford is a story of amazing technological innovation.  It’s the brilliance and dreams of Samuel Batchelder who had a vision of the mills and what he could accomplish.   It’s the story of the immigrants who were recruited to the mills for their talent in stonework and weaving. It’s the story of Israel Shenevell who heard about the mills in the 1840s and walked hundreds of miles to see it for himself, and usher in a wave of Franco-American immigration.  It’s the story of our community’s ancestors who spent their entire lives in the mills and forged a connection to this industrial evolution.

The Lincoln Mill Clock Tower is connected to these stories and to our collective story as a community.  We need to stop looking the other way.  We need to come together as a community to do something about this.  Our history depends on it.

Louise Merriman

Biddeford