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By SUSAN M. COVER
Staff Writer

enlarge Special to the Kennebec Journal

BACK IN THE DAY: A postcard from the period shows a small picture of Maine Governor Frederick W. Plaisted in one corner, and a drawing of the newly expanded Maine Statehouse. The governor has a bushy mustache curled at the ends, deep-set eyes, a dapper suit and a receding hairline.

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In the early 1900s, he served as Augusta mayor, Kennebec County sheriff and as editor of two newspapers.

And while those accomplishments are part of his official biography, his two-year stint as governor has been overshadowed in recent years by his decision to evict poor blacks and whites from a tiny place called Malaga Island.

Six months after taking the oath of office in January 1911, Plaisted visited the island off Phippsburg, home to a fishing community.

"I think that the best plan would be to burn down the shacks with all their filth," he said, according to a story printed in the Brunswick Record. "Certainly, the conditions there are not creditable to our state, and we ought not to have such things near our front door, and I do not think that a like condition can be found in Maine, although there are some pretty bad localities elsewhere."

By July 1, 1912, he evicted them from the island, ordered all buildings to be removed, had their graves dug up and relocated, and shipped their school to another island.

Historians and others who have studied the Malaga issue say Plaisted made his decision at a time when Maine and the country were caught up in the eugenics movement, a fear that immigrants would destroy the dominant culture.

"In retrospect, it's a pretty awful decision," said William Barry, a reference assistant at the Maine Historical Society. "But in terms of the time, it's part of the eugenics movement."

Today, the island is owned by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, which is preserving the 40 acres as open space. Archaeologists from the University of Southern Maine are studying what's left of the island settlement.

The trust, aware of the need to educate and be sensitive to a painful chapter in Maine history, is trying to figure out how to preserve the island and its legacy.

"It's part of history that's good for people to know about and understand that things like this happened, even in Maine," said Jane Arbuckle, director of stewardship for the trust.

As part of a continuing series on former Maine governors, the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel examine the life of Plaisted, a Democrat who served only two years as governor -- before the advent of four-year terms -- but made a decision that ties him to a sad chapter in state history.

If Plaisted was worried about life on Malaga Island when he took office in January 1911, it isn't evident from his inaugural address.

MONEY AND ALCOHOL

Delivered on Jan. 5, 1911, Plaisted spoke harsh words of his predecessors, blaming them for a $1 million budget deficit.

"The financial condition of the state is such as to seriously embarrass the administration at its inception and to compel the most rigid economy," he told lawmakers.

He complained about high taxes and said "the list of state employees should not be permitted to become a pension roll of worn-out politicians."

At this point in the state's history, the issue of alcohol and state-mandated prohibition continued to be a major topic. First signed into law in 1851 by Democratic Gov. John Hubbard, the law was poorly enforced and, at least according to Plaisted, not supported by the public. He wanted to put the matter out to voters, arguing that the state could have done more to curtail drinking with a public relations campaign than by passing a law.

"More could have been accomplished by an honest effort to get our fellow man to regulate himself by forces from within than by trying to regulate him by forces from without," he said.

Yet Plaisted, 45 at the time he delivered the speech, felt good about Maine and its future. He spoke about the need for water power, railroads and the importance of the timberlands and the fishing industry.

"The state of Maine has before it a rich and splendid future," he said. "Wonderfully endowed by nature, ours is a state of undeveloped resources."

EARLY YEARS

Born in Bangor on July 27, 1865, Plaisted was the son of Sarah Jane Mason Plaisted and Harris M. Plaisted, a decorated Civil War veteran and governor from 1881-1883.

Frederick attended Bangor public schools and St. Johnsbury Academy, graduating in 1884, according to biographical information on file at the Maine State Archives.

He succeeded his father as owner and editor of North Star, a Presque Isle newspaper, and later edited the Augusta New Age. He twice tried, and failed, to get elected to Congress.

At some point, he moved to Augusta, and served as mayor from 1906 to 1908. During those final two years, he also served as Kennebec County sheriff. Plaisted ran for governor at a time when Republicans dominated the position. When he won in November of 1910, he broke a Republican run that began when his father left office in 1883.

And if you widen the lens a little, it's easy to see that Republicans dominated the governorship, with few exceptions, from 1857 to 1955.

Plaisted won with the help of disgruntled Republicans who didn't like the way their party was being run, according to the 1966 Maine Political Handbook written by Elizabeth Ring.

A postcard from the period shows a small picture of Plaisted in one corner, and a drawing of the newly expanded Maine Statehouse. The governor has a bushy mustache curled at the ends, deep-set eyes, a dapper suit and a receding hairline.

MALAGA DECISION

Plaisted's decision to evict residents from Malaga points to a "clash of cultures" at the beginning of the 20th century, according to John P. Mosher, who wrote his master's thesis on the subject.

"The saga of Malaga Island, an isolated fishing community comprised of poor African-Americans, mulattos, and white families from around the New Meadows River area, is really a story of a clash of cultures and the contested meanings of community in the late 19th- and early 20th-century America," Mosher wrote.

The thesis, titled "No Greater Abomination: Ethnicity, Class and Power Relations on Malaga Island, Maine, 1880-1912," points to four factors that were at play when Plaisted made his decision to order islanders from their homes.

First was the development of a middle class that believed in "self-improvement and moral reform."

Across the nation, whites worried about immigrants and believed African-Americans to be inferior, he wrote.

Also, after the Civil War, coastal Maine fell on hard economic times.

And finally, Maine became a popular place for vacationers who visited hotels and built summer homes.

"Poor fishing families who had traditionally settled on many owned and unowned islands, found themselves island hopping to keep ahead of the real estate market," he wrote.

When Plaisted visited Malaga in mid-July 1911, he brought with him members of his Executive Council, and many of their wives. A story in the Brunswick Record describes how Plaisted inspected every home -- which the writer described as "shacks" -- and how he talked to the island children at the schoolhouse.

"He tried to make them see the importance of right living and of the necessity when they grow up of making the best possible use of life, but the Governor as well as all who listened to him felt how hard is the battle before them and how likely they are to go down to the level of the place rather than to rise above it," the story said.

Although the story described the governor as tired after his visit to the island, he made comments about the island tour.

"The people cannot be forced to leave their poor homes," he said. "And we must not encourage others to go there."

A year later, they were all forced to leave.

"Some were able to float their homes to the mainland with littleincident," Mosher wrote. "Others were met by angry residents intent on sending the newcomers packing."

Archaeological research conducted in recent years shows that the islanders lived in circumstances not atypical of many poor Maine communities, said Robert Sanford, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Southern Maine. They've found smoking pipes, buttons, and early plastics, along with bones that show the types of food the islanders ate.

"From our perspective, it shows they are making a living and using all kinds of food and fish," he said. "They were getting by. It was a hard time, but it was for 95 percent of the rest of Maine."

Arbuckle, of the heritage trust, said eventually they may build a trail around the island while keeping in mind the history.

"This was in fact pretty typical of a relatively poor Maine island community, whether it was black, white or mixed," she said.

OBITUARY

Plaisted died on March 4, 1943, at age 77 in California, where he had lived since retiring, according to an obituary printed in the Daily Kennebec Journal. The front-page story lists an impressive record of public service, including work on the local school board, public library, water district, hospital, and as a corporator of Kennebec Savings Bank. He attended the Congregational Church, according to the obit.

The final paragraph notes that he welcomed visitors from Maine to his California home.

However history judges Plaisted's Malaga decision, which was never mentioned in his obituary or other biographies, Plaisted offered these thoughts on his decision-making process in his inaugural address.

"When a decision is to be rendered, let the question be: 'What is right?' and the answer, 'The greatest good to the greatest number.'"

Susan Cover -- 623-1056

scover@centralmaine.com

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