100 Years Ago: 1923

Mrs. Otis Witham, of Phillips, an elderly woman, hearing a commotion among her chickens, this week, hurried to the coop and found a snake attacking them. Getting a pitchfork she jabbed the life out of the reptile, which measured three feet and four inches.

50 Years Ago: 1973

A plow that folds? Rene Lavoie of Danville Junction, has designed just that. It’s a snow plow that hinges in the middle and is capable, he claims, of faster, more efficient snow removal than is the traditional one piece rigid plow. “This plow will outplow any kind of plow now made,” he said.

25 Years Ago: 1998

Before it was nearly wiped out by disease early in this century, the American chestnut tree once grew on nine million acres of land, from Maine to Florida to the Ohio Valley. Now, a loose knit group of Mainers has joined a national effort to bring back the American chestnut tree. “In the balance it was probably one of the most important trees in the history of the United States. Mom, apple pie and the American chestnut,” said Welles Thurber, who is part of a group scouring the Maine countryside for remnant trees they can use to breed genetic resistance to the blight.

The material used in Looking Back is produced exactly as it originally appeared although misspellings and errors may be corrected.