Rochester Recreation Offers Rehab 3 Introduction.

Come over to Rochester Recreation on Thursday, May 14, 2015 and listen as Bill talks about the benefits of fitness, stretching, cardio and weights for Seniors.
Also there will be information on the present programs and pricing for area Seniors at Rehab 3.
12:30 to 1:30 in Conference Room 1A at the Rochester Community Center. Presenter: William Stewart.
For more information or to pre-register, please call Rochester Recreation at (603) 332-4120

The Command Central Page GOT Us!! Rescue Sure Did Miss an Early Morning Call!!

An Open Letter to the Members of the Lebanon Fire and Rescue Departments,

To Whom it May Concern;
Since I'm personally being called out on the call for a broken arm after 4 in the morning, I thought I would speak to all of you Volunteers in the Town of Lebanon and do it publicly.
While I am a STRONG supporter of our current Fire and Rescue Departments, I too was disappointed when I logged on at 10 this morning to the ridicule of the "other" pages, who name me personally, and somehow find me responsible for the entire Fire and EMS Department.
For a moment, I even felt personally let down.
How could I fight so hard to have people believe they are safe and covered by our Fire and Rescue Departments and then have you folks not wake up and answer a call for a driver to transport someone to the hospital??
What would have happened if this were a heart attack, or a stroke, or someone was having seizures, or bleeding badly, or had been shot??
But then I got my second wind. I finished my cup of coffee and woke up!!
I'm not going to let the reports of a disgruntled group of 15 unnamed people drag me down!!!
OR our Fire and Rescue Departments either!!
No, I'm sure not!!
That particular scenario is EXACTLY why we have Mutual Aid.
First, I want to apologize to whichever of our EMTs is Basic 21. YOU were magnificent!! You got up out of your bed and went to that call and stayed with your patient no matter how frustrated or tired you were! You did the RIGHT thing by calling for a Fire Department Driver to come drive that ambulance, and then you asked for a Mutual Aid ambulance to come and transport. I'm sorry that I let the "other" pages put me in doubt of you for even a moment!!
Nowhere on the "other" pages does it talk about what you were doing during that time you were at the patient's side. I'm SURE you assessed the situation, kept the patient calm, and took care to stabilize the arm. I'm SURE you realized within minutes that this was not a life threatening problem, because if it had been, I'm also SURE you would have called for paramedics from Sanford rather than waiting for Milton's Mutual Aid.
HAD you called for Sanford, at a cost to the town of $2,000.00, I'm also SURE you would have been berated publicly and smeared all over the Facebook world on the pages of the 15 unnamed volunteers.
The people of this town have put you in a very bad situation, Basic 21. While you sit and wait, continue to check vital signs and monitor your patient, you must have been having your doubts about waiting. You must have realized, while you were in a stranger's home at some ungodly hour of the morning that your fellow Rescue Volunteers were fast asleep in their beds and the decisions were yours and yours alone.
Do you call for Mutual Aid and wait?? Or do you call for Sanford and hear the flack about a $2,000 charge for Sanford's services??
I personally think you made the RIGHT call.
KUDOS to you for your decision making in the light of all you knew you'd be reading this morning!!
Now let's address the OTHER Volunteers, the ones who did NOT respond.
I wonder how many people in town realize what you did, as a Volunteer Group, yesterday??
You didn't walk into ONE fire, you walked into THREE. You took care of the people in our own town, and responded to TWO Mutual Aid fires.
I know people in Lebanon have a LOT to be thankful for. For as much as they complain, point fingers, and call names, not ONE of them would go and do the same thing. If they would, they'd have paid for the certification classes and have been there!
But YOU were there!! THEY were not.
So the "other" pages have reported that you're being PAID for your Volunteer work, but do the folks of Lebanon know how MUCH you're being paid? I didn't. Not until this morning when one of our Volunteer folks told me that you get $3.50 PER CALL to work sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes 2 hours, or sometimes 5 hours putting out a fire.
Our Rescue gets $4.35 PER CALL to go and sit with someone at 1 in the morning, 2 in the morning, or 10 in the morning.
Which one of the finger pointers would do that?? Which person calling you names would go, at that time of the morning to go and pull someone out of a car wreck, stop their bleeding, step into a home with protective dogs to give orange juice to a Diabetic in distress, or even sit with a woman in pain from a broken arm?
So, I'm figuring this all out in my head.
And NO, I'm not the best mathematician.
You folks worked on a VERY HIGH Fire Danger Day and put out 3 Fires. I also believe there was a Rescue call or two in there as well.
Since the State of Maine does not require that businesses pay their employees when they are on a Volunteer Department and have to leave work for the day, I figure most of you lost a day's pay. And in return for that loss of paycheck, you each made about $10 for the day from the Town of Lebanon as Volunteers on either Fire or Rescue Departments (and some of you are on both).
Working all day, fighting fires, in 80* temperatures must be exhausting.
Were any one of you capable of driving without the impairment of being overtired at this point??
Impaired driving puts a patient, sometimes, at more risk than waiting for an ambulance to come for a broken arm. In some states it is actually illegal to drive when you're overtired. And driving with a CDL license is monitored via log books to be sure the drivers aren't overtired.
So, did you all do the right thing by staying home and getting some sleep?
Maybe.
Considering that today is another VERY HIGH FIRE DANGER day in the State of Maine, and there is the possibility that the next three days after that are VERY HIGH FIRE DANGER days.
If you were unable to drive and drive safely, you did the RIGHT thing!!
Don't let one missed call get you down!!
You keep on doing what you do!
I, for one, am VERY proud of the things that you do!!
ROCK ON Lebanon Fire and Rescue Departments.
Sincerely,
Deborah Dorey Wilson

The History of the Church in West Lebanon Maine, by Jean Dimon. (1992)

Prpared by Lebanon resident, Jean Dimon for the Town of Lebanon's 225th Anniversary in 1992.

Presented to Lebanon Truth Seekers for posting by Jean Dimon, May 2015.

History of the Church in West Lebanon, ME

 

The town of Lebanon, ME, to be incorporated, had to have a meeting house and a preacher, so in 1753, one was built on Barley Road in Blaisdell's Corner.  The Rev. Amos Main of Rochester, NH was the first to conduct services. The Town was incorporated in 1767.
 

Photo of the Rev. Amos Main statue, which stands in the center of Rochester, NH.

by photographer J. Stephen Conn

 

The first Baptist to preach in this town, so far as we know, was Elder Pelatiah Tingley, (Yale-1761, Cong. of Free Baptist Church of Waterboro), who came here about 1769 and baptized by immersion, Tozier Lord and two or three others. This was the first baptism by immersion done in this town.

Gravestone of Elder Pelatiah Tingley, Waterboro ME

photo by Jennifer Eastman

 

July 2, 1774, Tozier Lord, at a church meeting in Sanford, stated it was the desire of the bretheren of the branch church in Lebanon to embody in a church by themselves, which was met with approval by the Sanford Church. On August 6, 1774, Deacon Powers reported to the Sanford Church that "The Church in Lebanon is embodied in peace".

In October, 1776, Tozier Lord was set apart for the work of the ministry in the first Parish Meeting House of Blaisdell's Corner. On that occasion Dr. Samuel Shepherd of Brentwood, NH preached from II Corinthians 4:7.  Dr. Shepherd was the leading Baptist minister in NH, a physician, who traveled by horseback with his saddlebags of medicine and his Bible over a wide stretch of country.

In 1776, Tozier Lord ordained Elder Benjamin Randall, who became te founder of the Freewill or Free Baptist Denomination, which believed in the doctorines of free salvation, started in New Durham, NH on April 5, 1780. In 1795 the First Freewill Baptist Church was organized in Lebanon by Elder John Buzzell.

Reverend John Buzzell, founder of First Freewill Baptist Church, Lebanon, ME

Photo: stock photo from Google.

 

November 21, 1799, two native born sons of Lebanon were ordained into the ministry. They were Gersham Lord and John Blaisdell. Elder Benjamin Randall preached on this occaision. Elder John Blaisdell continued to preach in Lebanon until his death in August, 1823.

 

 

 

Grave of Rev. John Blaisdell and his wife Abigail

Cold Springs Cemetery, East Rochester, NH

Photo from Google Images.

 

In 1801, the Society purchased the First Parish Meeting House and moved it to West Lebanon to the approximate site of the second and third houses on Orrel's Hill road. This building was 40 feet long and 30 feet wide and was used as the Baptist Meeting House until 1833.

On August 26, 1831, the members of the Free Baptist Society held a meeting to decide if the Society would build a new meeting house or repair the old one. August 27, Nathaniel Lord, Edmund Cowell, James Stanton, Joseph Lord, Noah Lord Jr., Stephen Dixon, William Wentworth, Isaac Copp, Seth Wentworth and Jesse Furbush met and discussed the question. On September 6, 1831, the Society met again and voted to build a new meeting house. On October 15, 1831, they voted to accept a plan drawn by the committee for a building 50 feet long and 40 feet wide with 16 floor posts, underpinned with split stone, with an inclined floor and two doors. You entered facing the congregation with the pulpit on a platform facing directly between the two doors and a recessed singing gallery above the pulpit. The building had a low pitched roof that leaked badly in every storm. This meeting house would be lit by oil lamps, had small windows, and held 50 pews purchased by the parishoners. The meeting house was dedicated in November 1832 on 1/4 acre of land purchased from Eben Legro, which is still the present location.

In 1844 there were 391 Freewill Baptist members in the four Freewill Churches in Lebanon the four churches came into being because of a disagreement on temperance. In March, 1834, about 40 members requested dismission to organize a church in the north-easterly part of town, and the Second Freewill Baptist Meeting was erected in North Lebanon. The Third Freewill Baptist church was organized at Blaisdell Corner and the Fourth Freewill Baptist Society organized on October 22, 1844, and shared the West Lebanon Meeting House with the First Freewill Baptists. A lack of harmony existed due to a dispute about temperance, slavery, and the way ministers should be supported, as well as what education should be required of them.

On March 10, 1845, a meeting was held to incorporate into a body politic, to be known by the name of "The Proprietors of the First Freewill Baptist Meeting House in Lebanon". On May 25, 1848 the clerk of the church wrote, "... An Academy in process of building to be finished for the fall term of school". On December 14, 1852, it was voted that the men who take care of the House shall ring the bell as long as the preceptors of the Academy are willing.

On December 14, 1854, twenty two members made a request for repairs to be made to the Meeting House and on January 2, 1855, it was voted to raise $400 for those repairs. On June 5, 1855, it was voted to unite the First and Fourth Churches into the Union Freewill Baptist Church, which is still the name used today.

During the repairs, great changes were made with a pitched roof placed over the old roof, new larger windows added, a cupola added, a projection built in the front, a level floor replaced the inclined one, a platform was built in the rear of the church and the pulpit was moved to its present location. The pews were replaced and turned around to face the rear. The singing gallery remained. When the choir sang, all arose and faced about during the singing. This continued from 1855 until 1894. In 1894, extensive alterations were again made. The old stoves were replaced with a furnace installed under the church, the old pews were again replaced, and the chandelier was removed. The organ was placed in the platform to the right of the pulpit and the walls of plain plastering were painted.

 

Union Freewill Baptist Church, you can still see a bit of the old horse barns to the right of the photo. Photo from Google images.

 

April 27, 1833, the old Meeting House was sold to Nathaniel Lord for $52.

March 3, 1846 it was voted to paint the Meeting House. As there is nothing mentioned in the original contract about painting, it seems that the Church must have stood here for 14 years before it was painted.

In 1867, Johnathan Goodwin's buildings burned and sparks ignited several fires on the church roof. James B. Stanton, in his stocking feet, carried several buckets of water onto the roof to put out the fires. The pulpit of the church was made and given by James B. Stanton.

 

The grave of James Stanton sits in a cemetery on Upper Barley Road in Lebanon.

Photo from Google Images

 

These Christians had a real impact on the town. They were against the use of alcoholic beverages, against slavery, and encouraged the young people to improve their education. One young man, born on a farm adjoining the Gully Oven, John Marshall Willoughby Farnham, joined this church, graduated from the Academy in 1851, graduated from Union College in Schenectady, NY and gave himself to the life of a missionary. On July 20, 1859, he left West Lebanon and spent over a half a century in China, from 1869 to 1917. In Shanghai, his lifelong friends and pupils gathered on March 9, 1916 to pay tribute to him for 59 years of service.

 

Photos of the Chinese Idol given to Union College, Schenectady, NY

by John Marshall Willoughby Farnham

Photos courtesy of Union College, Schenectady, NY

 

In the fall of 1956, the old wood furnace of the church was removed and replaced with four gas floor furnaces and a wall heater in the back room. In about 1960, a new organ was given jointly by Norman and Dorothy Meader and B.F. and Mabel Powers. In 1973 the interior of the church was repainted, the floors refinished and storm windows installed.