(guitar music) (gun shooting) (canon blasting) (guitar music) - Welcome folks to the opening of the Gambo Pedestrian Bridge.

This is the missing link of the puzzle to what is a great loop trail if you haven't been on it yet.

It's quite an undertaking actually, and we're very fortunate to be in the middle of what is just a gem.

We are like the best kept secret, and it's one of those things that you hate to tell everybody about, but it is a, it is a gem.

- [Narrator] With much fanfare and excitement.

Shaw Park opened in the spring of 2006.

Shaw Park is located along the historic Presumpscott River in Gorham and Windham, small rural towns located 15 miles west of Portland, Maine's largest city.

Shaw Park features a nearly two mile long wooded loop trail located alongside the Presumpscott River.

- The word Presumpscott, is a native American term that means river of many rocks or a river of many falls.

(water flowing) - [Narrator] Shaw Park became a public land when Shaw Brothers Industry donated property to the town of Gorham.

To make the park a reality, the company worked collaboratively with state and government officials, rail trail groups, the Presumpscott Regional Land Trust, municipal officials, nature enthusiasts, and historic preservationists.

Shaw Park is a popular stop on what is known as the Mountain Division Trail, a 25 mile walking and riding path that flows from Sebago Lake to Casco Bay in Portland.

The stretch of land on the Windham and Gorham side of the Presumpscott River is historically significant.

Prior to the Colonial Era, native Americans hunted and fished along the banks of the Presumpscott River for over 10,000 years.

Today, the Presumpscott Regional Land Trust seeks to raise awareness of the park's history.

Interpretive signage can be seen at intervals along the forested path.

These posters tell an incredible story that is worth remembering.

- It was top secret for so many years, so people who lived like I did in Gorham and grew up in Gorham, we were never told about it, never studied it in school, never heard neighbors talk about it, and yet it was a good source of jobs, and a lot of income for a lot of families.

So, that surprised me.

How can that something that big be so secret?

- The magnitude of the mill, I think is somewhat obscured by the forest here.

There was a mill here on the Gorham side, and there was a store on the Windham side.

One of the issues that came up shortly after it was purchased was there was a, an injunction against the gunpowder mill, because there's a law that says you can't have something that's potentially dangerous to the public within a certain distance of the public.

And of course, the gunpowder mill was within distance of the store, and so they had to pay a fine in order to clear that, in order to continue to run the gunpowder mill.

(soft music) - [Narrator] It's hard to imagine that this quiet, peaceful setting was once home to the historic Gambo Powder Mills, a 19th century gunpowder production facility in operation from 1824 to 1905.

(guitar music) The men who originally established the mills were Edmund Fowler and Lester Laughlin from Southwick, Massachusetts.

Laughlin's family had been making gunpowder since the Revolutionary War.

In the summer of 1827, Fowler and Laughlin drowned when their boat capsized during a storm on Sebago Lake.

The men left widows behind and these women hired superintendents to continue operations at the mill.

When this didn't work out, they sold the mills to Oliver Whipple of Lowell, Massachusetts.

Whipple was Lowell's largest taxpayer.

He expanded land holdings on both sides of the Presumpscott River to grow the business.

He appointed his brothers to work as superintendents at the mills.

On October 12th, 1855, another terrible explosion killed Oliver Whipple's brother, James and his grandson, along with five other workers.

This explosion did extensive damage to the complex.

Given the tragic personal nature of his loss, Oliver Whipple decided to sell the complex to G. G. Newhall of Salem, Massachusetts.

The Newhall's operated the Gambo Powder Mill throughout the US Civil War.

(drums strumming) - So I usually start my tours by gathering people on the bridge that crosses the Presumpscott River.

And one of the first questions that people seem to want to know is where did the name Gambo come from?

There was a person who apparently was brought to the area, probably back in the 1700s by a sea captain, and he had perhaps been a former slave, but he was not a slave at that time.

And he became a resident of the the Gambo area, and then the Gambo area became known through his name, which some, I don't know if it was a first name or a last name, but everyone referred to him as Gambo.

And it was apparently one of the activities of the locals was to, on a Friday night, go down to Gambo and listen to the music and dance to the fiddle music played by this individual.

(fiddle music) When you turn to come down Gambo Road.

The first building on the right was the home of the superintendent.

There are at least two other structures, I believe, on the right hand side that were boarding houses where the workers lived, individuals who were at one time or another responsible for the mill operations here.

Not on the land trust property, but farther down the to the towpath, there are at least three more old stone foundations.

Those old foundations have endured for a couple hundred years.

(soft music) - [Narrator] Today, the scattered rock walls and building foundations are all that remain of the old gunpowder mills that once operated here.

(soft music) (birds chirping) (water flowing) (upbeat music) The land where the gunpowder operation was located looked substantially different in the 19th century.

Former pathways leading to and from the industrial complex are now underwater.

And the historic wooden dam that proceeded today's concrete structure is also submerged in about 25 feet of water.

(upbeat music) The concrete dam seen today was built in the early years of the 20th century, thereby raising the water level substantially.

- There's a small island that you can see on the north side of the Gambo Road, and it was occupied by five large buildings.

The building containing the ovens for cooking the woods, so to speak.

The black powder consisted of carbon, which came from local trees, usually alders that were brought in from local farms or brought to the site by local farmers and packing as much as possible into these ovens.

So that, and it ultimately would yield, charcoal.

Then the charcoal had to be pulverized in the mills that would basically break up the chunks of charcoal into a very fine powder.

We assumed that it was a 24 hour operation, because it didn't make sense to stop.

But particularly, you know, the making of the raw ingredients, the carbon, the charcoal, those operations continued around the clock.

- Each mill was considered its own entity, even though it was a sequential function to make gunpowder.

You had a mill for the carbon.

You had a mill across the river to process the saltpeter, the potassium nitrate.

You had a mill on this side to process the sulfur.

So now you have the sulfur powder, you have the potassium nitrate powder or crystal, and you have the charcoal powder, and then they would go to the mixing mill.

And the best of our understanding, this round mill next to us here was probably a mixing mill.

(guitar music) - [Narrator] In its heyday, the Gambo Powder Mill complex was a bustling operation that employed hundreds of men for nearly a century.

- [David] We know from Windham Historical Society records that there was a stone mill here circa 1800.

This was in front of the stone mill, and this would've been late 1800s.

It gives you, I think, a flavor of the youthfulness and the ragtag appearance for the people that were working here.

- [Narrator] When you look around the Gambo preserve today, you'll see clear evidence of the former gunpowder operation.

- [Don] There's a large rock right near one of those foundations that's got these iron rods in it.

And those were connections for bridges, foot bridges that were across the river.

They went to a little, what I call, an island in the middle, which is still there.

And then there was another bridge on the other side of the island that went over to the Windham side.

- I found, found out where it was, I took different people down there, and there's nothing.

There's a few foundations, and then we were right beside a railroad track and there was a pile of old rusty cans, and we picked them up and they were from the Oriental Powder Mill.

- [Narrator] The mills produced gunpowder for a wide variety of uses.

Gunpowder produced here was used for a range of explosives.

Most commonly, the blasting powder needed to blast through rock ledge For western expansion.

(rail clicking) Major projects included construction of railroad beds, canals, quarries, roads, and for farming purposes, the clearing of tree stumps and large rocks on forested land.

(horns blaring) Perhaps most noteworthy, this once thriving gunpowder manufacturing company supplied vast amounts of gunpowder for some of the deadliest wars of the 19th century.

These battles were most notably the Mexican War of 1846 to 1848, the Crimean War of 1854 in Russia, and much closer to home, the United States Civil War fought from 1861 to 1865.

During the US Civil War, the mills and Gorham and Windham produced an estimated 25% of all the gunpowder used by the Union troops.

- The Gambo Mills had the reputation for being one of the highest quality sources of gunpowder during the Civil War and perhaps in all other times as well.

- Very interesting thing happened in the Civil War.

At that time, England owned India, and England was very favorable to the Confederacy.

And when the war broke out, England enacted an embargo that neither England nor India could send any more saltpeter to the United States.

When Lincoln got the news, he dispatched a man by the name of Lammot du Pont to England, who argued and must have been very diplomatic, because the British finally decided to rescind the embargo.

If Lammot du Pont had not succeeded in that thing, we most likely would all be whistling Dixie up here right now.

(soft music) - [Narrator] During the final year of the war, the powder mills produced over a million pounds of the volatile and dangerous black powder.

(fire blaring) The Gambo Gunpowder Mill complex began operations in 1824.

The Gambo Powder Mill was easily the largest such mill in Maine and the fourth largest in the US.

The largest at the time was the DuPont Industries in Rhode Island.

Gambo produced all three types of gun powder, military, hunting, and blasting powder.

(explosives firing) (gun clicking) Gunpowder is believed to be a Chinese invention that arrived in Europe around the year 1240.

(fire lighting) Gunpowder was first introduced in Massachusetts in 1639, prior to the first of many brutal Native American wars that were fought throughout New England.

(gun shooting) The three ingredients used to make gunpowder back then, charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter were carefully weighed and mixed together in the proper proportions, depending on the type of powder being produced.

The mixture was then transferred from the production mill to the incorporating mills along both sides of the river in Windham and Gorham.

- [David] And they just looked like little sheds.

I mean, it was what was going on inside them that made a difference, as to whether it was a pressing mill, a kernelling mill, a mixing mill, sorting mill, you know, 'cause they, they had to sort the grain to determine whether it was for civilian use for birdshot, a rifle shot, or whether they were making it for military use, which had just a slightly different formula, and it went in anything from small multi ounce flask all the way up to a hundred pound barrels.

- [Narrator] Despite careful packing, the gunpowder remained a seriously dangerous material and was a challenge to transport in those days.

Back in the 19th century, the historic Cumberland Oxford Canal made transport of gunpowder and other goods safer and more efficient.

The historic canal towpath was a manmade series of canals connecting Sebago Lake with training centers along Portland's coast.

- [Don] The canal was originally financed by creating a new bank called Canal Bank.

And they were the forerunners of what is today KeyBank.

- [Narrator] The canal was constructed to enable transport of vital supplies to the settlers.

The Gambo powder mills had their own canal boat, and it was in use from 1830 until the canal closed in 1871.

A time corresponding with the introduction of railroad transport.

- [Don] The trains came through about 1870 through Windham at least.

They had been in operation for a few years before that.

The tracks still exist.

The right of way was sold by the Oriental Powder Company to the railroad at the time.

That led to the demise of the canal, because the canal, first of all, was seasonal.

It only operated, you know, during warmer months.

Trains could run year round.

However, the trains were reluctant in the beginning to carry explosives.

Eventually, I guess they determined that it, that if they took proper precautions, that they could could do that.

- [Narrator] Prior to the railroads, gunpowder would be transported by boat from the mill to Portland, and from there it would be transported to Boston and other ports along the eastern seaboard.

- [Don] Sometimes they would sail all the way to Boston, but they also discovered that they would not always be allowed to tie up (Don laughing) on a wharf.

They had to anchor offshore and transfer their load through some other means.

(Don giggling) (soft music) - [Narrator] Gunpowder mills in Maine and elsewhere were all built on rivers or streams to ensure they had a good source of water power.

The various production buildings were usually of wood construction on stone foundations.

Most of them were one story high, and each building was positioned at some distance apart so that if an explosion or fire occurred, the whole production operation would not be destroyed.

The charcoal house was built on an island separate from the rest of the operation.

Trees also served as natural barriers.

The charcoal house and various buildings located on both sides of the river were connected by wooden plank walks, which had to be kept free of sand and dirt.

Iron and steel were prohibited in building construction to prevent striking a spark.

- There was always a risk of a spark.

You know, there was no occupational safety and health people at, in those days, and it was just a dangerous place to work.

And everyone was encouraged to be careful.

- That's the bane of the existence of the gun powder mill, were sparks.

One of the story goes from Morris Whitten is a farmer neglected to change, went home, and as he was standing next to his kitchen wood stove, he started to spark, because he had so much gunpowder dust on him.

- [Narrator] To further prevent sparking all of the wheelbarrows and various tools used by the workmen were made of wood.

Workers were not allowed to smoke or carry matches on the premises.

No artificial light was allowed except for a kerosene lantern outside of the window on each wheelhouse.

All workmen had to have specially constructed boots or shoes with no iron nails.

Wooden pegs were used instead of nails.

Some workmen chose to go barefoot in the warmer months to help ensure safety.

Others used cotton felt boots or slippers.

Every meal had a wash house and the men were required to launder their work attire and to change into other clothes before leaving the premises.

Returning home in work clothes covered with gunpowder dust was risky and dangerous, not only to the laborers, but also to their families who would be put at risk from a possible explosion.

Despite these safety precautions, the ongoing risk of gunpowder ignition in the mills was real and deeply feared.

- The gunpowder operation over the years there in, in the 80, approximately 80 years that it ran, was a dangerous place to work.

There were multiple explosions.

The buildings themselves were also built very loosely.

They were built that way on purpose, you know, so that if they did have an explosion, (explosion blasting) the building would come apart easily and maybe be deflected more upward than outward.

So they knew what they were dealing with.

It wasn't like it, every explosion was a big surprise.

(fire blaring) - [Narrator] Over the 81 year span of the Gambo Powder operation, 46 men tragically lost their lives in horrific explosions.

- The incorporating mills were one of the places where they, they were very much subject to explosions.

The tray that these large granite wheels roll slowly around driven by the water mill, had to keep a constant charge of the mixture between the wheel and the metal tray.

And the reason, of course, is that if the granite wheel came into contact with the metal tray, it was a steel or iron tray, and it, if it was just one spark (explosion blasting) ignited by that interaction, the whole thing would go up in a, in a giant explosion involving about 300 pounds of blasting power.

And it happened.

It happened more than once.

Beside the towpath, if you walk towards the power line, there's a wheel, two halves of one of them.

We don't know how that one actually got there.

We were curious that it might have been blown there by an explosion 'cause it's quite a ways from where it would've been utilized, you know, as a part of the machinery.

- [Narrator] It's impossible to convey how terrifying and gruesome the injuries caused by these explosions were.

The blast shook nearby farms on both sides of the river and could be felt as far away as Portland.

- [Linda] Buildings were, would shake and sometimes windows would break.

(glass shattering) So there was a big rush of doctors and undertakers and workmen who would show up to get those jobs that were now available.

- [Narrator] These catastrophically deadly explosions once provided sensationalist front page news fodder for the 19th century newspapers.

like the "Portland Advisor" and "The Eastern Argus."

One story described an explosion at the mill this way, (explosion blaring) "A frightful explosion that the Gambo Powder Mill in Gorham took place yesterday morning, causing a great loss of life.

A devastating explosion occurred as seven men were loading a canal boat with gunpowder.

One man was thrown nearly a quarter of a mile.

Two men were blown into the canal and their mutilated bodies were recovered shortly after the disaster.

The smoke from the explosion cast a dent black funeral pall over the site for hours.

Most of seven men killed leave behind wives and children."

- There was a lady who wrote a lot about history in Windham and she told about the schoolchildren at school when they heard explosions, they all put their heads down on their desk and they started to cry.

And the reason why was their fathers were working in the gunpowder mills, so they were afraid it might be their family.

- If you lost your breadwinner, the family was gonna be in a bad way for a long time.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music) - [Narrator] One might reasonably believe mill operators would have trouble locating replacement workers after such gruesome fatalities, but that was hardly the case.

Astonishingly, these horrific deaths were not a deterrent for those seeking good paying work.

The mill paid roughly $2 per day to laborers, an impressive sum of money at the time.

After a deadly explosion at the mill, as many as 15 or more job applicants would be in line the following day, seeking to replace the unlucky souls that had perished.

Some of the descendants of the original owners were among those unlucky enough to be killed in a workplace detonation.

On July 19th, 1828, a severe explosion killed seven workmen.

Many more employees would fall victim to explosions before the mill finally closed in 1905.

(dramatic music) - Moses Little was a well-known member of Windham's and he provided funds for people when they needed money.

He was a money lender.

He had a giant store in South Windham and he didn't even work there.

He owned it, but he made a lot of money from that store, so he built perhaps one of the biggest houses at that time in Windham.

He had six children and only two lived to be over the age of six years old and one of them was his only son.

So when his son got older, his son worked at the gunpowder mill and he was killed in one of the explosions.

His only son got killed and he had no one to leave all his money to.

He had no one to leave his name to.

(dramatic music) (soft music) (soft music) - [Don] The mill continued to operate as the Oriental Powder Mill right up until its demise in about 1904.

At that time, the demand for black powder was diminishing significantly.

There were other powder manufacturers that had sprung up across the country.

The railroads were also moving the country west, so the demand for powder from the Gorham-Windham Mills were diminishing.

(dramatic music) Based on the number of job duties that existed there during the time when there were more than 50 buildings, both sides of the river.

If you looked at all the different mill operations and all the storage operations and supporting operations and maybe administrative functions, we estimated 60 people to support the operation, at its peak.

And that's based on just how many people does it take to run an incorporating mill.

Would they be running it 24/7?

(bugs chirping) (soft music) (dramatic music) During the Civil War, they were losing employees to the draft.

One of the affiliates was a gentleman by the name of William Jackson, and he had been a mill superintendent at that time.

Mr. Jackson had his legal folks draft a letter to the Governor of Maine at the time, and this letter was submitted to him by Mr. Jackson's attorneys explaining that they were losing employees to the draft and that that was going to impact the ability to produce the military grade gunpowder needed during, by the Union Army.

- "Will your office go so far as to use your best endeavor with the governor of the state to have the workman employed by this company in manufacturing gunpowder exempt from the draft?

It must be obvious that without powder, wars cannot be carried on and that our expert workman in a powder mill is of more service than he would be as a soldier.

The loss of workman is enough by accident beyond control, and we should not have them taken from us by draft.

If you can aid us in this matter, you would confer a favor, William Jackson."

- [Don] They made an appeal to the governor to declare that people who were working in the gunpowder operations would be exempt from the draft.

That was approved by the governor and put into law at the time.

- [Narrator] In 1870, a major financial crisis was underway and many companies went bankrupt during this period.

The mill sold for $100,000 and was renamed the Oriental Powder Mill.

In 1879, other large firms started buying stock in the company and the operation was eventually sold, yet again.

The DuPont firm of Rhode Island, at the time the largest producer of gunpowder in the United States wanted to buy the mill, but was not able to secure sufficient capital for the purchase.

DuPont was eventually able to identify sufficient resources and ultimately acquired the Oriental Powder Mill operation.

- Due to the reduction in the demand for various types of gunpowder, The other gunpowder operations around the state, Buckfield, Warren, and Camden, many of the resources utilized in those locations were acquired by the Oriental Powder Company, possibly some of it consolidated back in the Delaware area where the DuPont company had major operations.

(water flowing) (guitar music) SD Warren Company acquired property here in the early 1900s.

The 1907 dam was created in order to provide a greater supply of water that could be used to run through their hydro power generating station, which is just downstream from here.

So, hydropower is still being utilized from here down to the Sappi mill in Westbrook, and they're utilizing the electricity generated right here in Gambo as we speak.

(guitar music) - [Narrator] The remains of the gunpowder mill hold a certain mystique for visitors exploring the woods and waters where the operation once stood.

Today, walking the pathway through this historic site is a peaceful, serene experience.

Visitors are often unaware they are hiking on hallowed ground once traveled by 19th century men, working long grueling hours in an extremely dangerous environment to earn money to support their families.

- Most of the immigrants here in Windham, at least first generations, were all out of Massachusetts, and a lot of 'em did have Scotch-Irish backgrounds.

They paid a heavy price, yeah.

(soft music) (guitar music) - [Narrator] The Presumpscott River has a rich and storied past.

And the gunpowder mills remain one of the most fascinating chapters in Maine's industrial history.

- I find it very interesting that they were able to use the water power and to harness that power very creatively requiring considerable engineering talent.

It's a testimony to what mankind can do.

Back in those days, that was considered high-end engineering technology even though it was dangerous.

To me, that, you know, represents one legacy of the the mill operation, what it took to make it work and what they were able to do with it.

During the Civil War, they were producing almost 3 million pounds of powder from the Gorham mills to support the war effort.

When the powder mill ceased operations here, the land, particularly on the Windham side, continued in some business orientation.

The property where the saltpeter mill was located originally was acquired by the Eastern Dynamite Company, and they were producing there a product called wood flour that was used as an ingredient in the manufacturer of dynamite.

(spark igniting) (guitar music) - [Narrator] Today, Shaw Park and the Gambo Preserve are places locals go to experience the outdoors in a peaceful, quiet environment.

The Gambo Preserve is a tranquil place, one that stands in stark contrast to the noisy grind of a productive wartime industry that once produced millions of pounds of gunpowder for some of the 19th century's deadliest wars.

Whether we realize it or not, history is always beneath our feet, and our landscape offers mysterious clues to our past.

Today's visitors enjoy recreating here, but some visit the site of the old gunpowder mills to remember and honor those whose lives ended here, the hardships they endured, and the generations of families they left behind.

The laborers who worked in the extremely dangerous and stressful conditions at the Gambo powder mill were the backbone of the local economy for generations.

May their sacrifices never be forgotten, for they too were casualties of war.

(guitar music) (guitar music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music)