quoting louise dickinson rich on merrymeeting bay
Quoted also in Maine Metaphor, The Gulf
Quoting Louise Dickinson Rich on Merrymeeting Bay:
The Kennebec has been both a cradle and a boundary. It has been worshiped as a god. It has watered crops and turned the wheels of mills and factories. It has been a vast shipyard and a clear road into the wilderness. Wars have been fought because of it, and whole ways of living determined by its characteristics.
It is only 164 miles long; but it and its largest tributary, the 174-mile Androscoggin, drain more than half of Maine. Their myriad brooks and creeks and ponds lie like a huge silver net over the whole central portion of the state. The Kennebec, which the Indians called the Quinnebequi, the river god, comes down from Maine's largest lake, Moosehead, deep in the heart of the state; and the Androscoggin rises in the Rangeley Lakes, that lonely and lovely chain far over in the northwest corner. Deviously but surely they find their way down from the hills to mingle in Merrymeeting Bay, a large shoal body of water into which three other rivers, the Abagadasset, the Cathance, and the East River, also flow.
That's popularly supposed to be the reason for the bay's name—so many streams meet there so merrily. I myself am not satisfied with that explanation. The name originally was spelled Maremiten, which I think could be translated roughly to mean "inland sea"; and I believe Merrymeeting to be only a rather charming corruption. As always, I could be wrong, however.
Yes, she could be.
She was a writer (related to poet Miss Emily Dickinson), not to my knowledge an academic historian or geographer, Louise Dickinson Rich wrote an impressive array of books on regional subjects. The Bay is not a true bay, and is described elsewhere as an inland delta. But she wrote one of my favorite nonfiction books...about Maine. it's called =We Took To The Woods= and, personal memoir, it is a heart capturer for me. there's more than one on my friends-list who'd like it. but, as always, I could be wrong. ;']
Loved the autobio of her childhood as a daughter of a small town newspaper published. Innocence Under the Elms By Louise Dickinson Rich. Both books interlibrary loanable.
