“Come eat, Elden. I’ve got your favorite meal”, called Lois from the small trailer-home kitchen. Elden slowly rose from the easy chair where he had been resting that Saturday evening, to sit down at the kitchen table where Lois Jones served him baked beans, slow-baked with molasses, mustard, with plenty of salt pork. She set down a plate of hot biscuits with real butter. Then came a piece of fresh-baked custard pie.

Lois and Arthur Jones had been awfully good to Elden in his declining years after he’d foolishly given away his little house on the banks of True’s Pond. In the house on the site where he had been born, he had three rooms, a kitchen with a large polished Clarian wood-burning cook stove, a small bedroom, and his cobbler’s shop in the room across the back of the house.

After supper, Elden returned to the easy chair, closed his eyes, and reminiscence of the many adventures of his lifetime. He had lived a colorful eighty-plus years. Elden enjoyed telling tales to spell-bound listeners at the only octagonal-shaped retired post office in the United States, which housed the Liberty Historical Society. He had donated many of his cobbler’s tools to them, along with the large sign which read, “E. N. ROWELL, successor to P. W. ROWELL, BOOT and SHOE MAKER”.

Elden had a remarkable memory. He could recall the streets of Liberty, Maine in the early Twentieth century as though he was walking through them as he talked. There was the Tannery, the wood-working shop of Lucius Morse, where caskets were made and sold, the woolen mill, stave mill, ax factory, foundry spring shop powered by water power, grist mill to grind grain into flour, broom factory, dance halls, stages for traveling shows, Knowlton’s tin smith shop, sliding and skating parties, and the canning factory where he had been a night watchman. Elden’s memory of life back then was so vivid that he’d drawn sketches of how he remembered the town.

Elden had been born just down the road from Liberty Village over the line in Montville, in 1890, the son of Charles M. and Ida (Sanborn) Rowell. He had attended the Liberty schools until he was eighteen years old. His parents decided to live apart when Elden was two years old. His father raised Elden and his two brothers in a house where no woman resided.

Charles’ brother, Philander “Wheeler” Rowell had taken over the cobbler business from their father. From the time that he was a small child, Elden had observed his grandfather, and later his uncle, make shoes and boots. The family had the cobbler bench, tools to do ‘Saddle-stitching’, hammers, knives, punches and everything to make a pair of shoes or boots from a piece of ‘tanned’ leather. The soles were pegged on with wooden pegs which measured about five-eighths of an inch long.

Uncle Wheeler would let Elden work with the leather scraps and tools from the time he was very young. When he was thirteen years of age, he became an apprentice. By the time that he was fifteen, Elden considered that he was old enough to go into the cobbler business by himself. He was taking orders to make handmade shoes and boots. He could make three pair in a long ten-hour day, for which he got $3 for a pair of shoes and $4 for a pair of boots.

But Elden was restless, wanting to see more of the world than Liberty Village and South Montville with its water-powered mills offered.

On a hot August night in 1908, he and some young friends were drinking hard cider together. Elden decided that if he had a dress suit, he could make his way in the world. That very night Hollis L. Jackson’s General Store in South Montville was broken into. All that was taken was a suit of clothes, a revolver, and some small incidental items. Elden had left Liberty. His ‘friends’ told the Sheriff that Elden Rowell had been looking for a suit of clothes. The officers began searching for a well-dressed, armed culprit.

One Monday afternoon, the Sheriff stepped up to Elden, as he left the Schooner operated by Capt. Fitz Patterson, in Belfast, Maine, and asked, “Are you Elden Rowell?” Elden replied, “No, I never heard of him.” “Do you come from Liberty, Maine?” was the next question. “No”, replied Elden. “I’ve never been in Liberty in my life.” A man stepped forward from the crowd, who identified eighteen-year old Elden Rowell. Consequently he was arrested and taken off to jail.

After that escapade, Elden decided to “go to sea”. He worked as a deck hand on the sailing ships for several years. He had even sailed the South Seas.  In 1915, while Elden was at home in Liberty, he married Leola Choate.

In Portland, Maine, on the fourth of July, about 1924, he and a shipmate went ashore. They went to a Sparks Brothers Circus that was in town. After purchasing tickets, they saw a “Men Wanted” sign. They were immediately hired, fed a hot meal, and began hoisting tent poles of the large Three-Ring circus tents. The next morning his friend was no where to be found. Elden assumed that the friend could not do the hard work, and went back to the ship.

Elden stayed on traveling with the circus during the summers, working on the “Big Top” tents, keeping them in repair, as well as leather harness work. In the winters, ‘Whitey’, as he was now called by the circus people, worked in the harness shop at the winter quarters in Macon, Georgia. Elden had been in every state in the continental United States, Canada, and down to Mexico.

After being away from home for a few years, one evening Elden walked into the home that he had shared with Leola. She stood at the stove preparing a meal, obviously expecting another child, with a man seated at the kitchen table. Elden threw his hat into the corner, pulled up a chair and said, “What’s for supper?” After eating the evening meal, he donned his cap, gathered up his meager belongings and traveled on his way. He and Leola divorced.

The Sparks Brothers Circus eventually got a gas-powered engine to drive the large tent stakes, which became ‘Whitey’s’ job for about seven years.  Elden sported tattoos on his large biceps. He got his favorite tattoo at The Bowery in New York. 

The Coast of Maine was calling Elden home. He was tiring of the constant travel. After all, he was a pretty darn good cobbler. There was plenty of work back home in Maine, making boots and shoes. His Uncle P. W. Rowell, a Master at cobbling, had died in 1911, while Elden was away. It was time to go home and settle down..

In 1926, Elden married a home-town girl, Bertha M. Davis. Apparently he wasn’t cut out for married life, perhaps because of his all-male home life from his early youth.

Elden remembered that in his younger days, when he returned from being a ‘roustabout’ with the Starks Brothers Circus, he drank hard liquor way too much. In fact, he called himself “the worst drunk in town”. He’d given up drinking many, many years ago. He had friends who’d say, “Join me in a drink. A little drink won’t hurt anyone.” His reply was, “A little drink leads to a lot of drinks!” and he figured that he didn’t have to drink to have friends.

Elden recalled walking to Camden from Liberty, stopping at Wentworth’s store on Moody Mountain for his tobacco, and spending the night in a barn before traveling on his way. The farmer might never have known that he’d been there. He might eat an apple or a vegetable stored in the barn. He’d be careful not to start any fires, which he’d have no need to do, as he never smoked.  If Elden had a vice, it was chewing tobacco. Visitors saw him spit a stream of ‘tobaccy’ into a saw-dust filled can, or from the front step, missing his cat. Of course, if he’d wanted to hit his cat, he could have.

Once he settled down in his own little house, he’d always had a cat. The cat would keep rodents from the house, as well as being great company. Once when Elden was given a can of Spam, he shared the contents with his cat. The cat refused to eat it. Elden said that if the cat wouldn’t eat it, then it warn’t fit’n to eat.

In his cobbler shop, Elden made leather heels for the shoes. He could not understand why people complained that leather soles were slippery. “Why,” he commented, “The whole United States was built on leather.”

In his latter years, Elden thoroughly enjoyed going to the Liberty Historical Society, where he sat and spun tales. No one ever knew if he embellished on these tales or not. One tale that he delighted in telling was about Martin Hannan of Company B of the Nineteenth Regiment of Maine Volunteers, who had hung his scythe in a tree in Montville and gone off to fight in the Civil War.

Elden recalled that Martin was a very smart sharpshooter. Elden had been fourteen years old when Martin died, having lived in the same neighborhood. Martin Hannan was a poor man, who had been wounded in the Civil War, raising a large family, bringing many shoes to be repaired at Uncle Wheeler’s cobbler shop. While waiting for the shoe repair, Martin had told the young Elden that when he served in the Civil War, there was a certain spring of water where the soldiers filled their canteens, and knelt down to drink the sparkling water. A Rebel soldier, who had hidden himself in the bushes, picked off the Yankee soldiers, one by one at the spring. A Union General said that he’d give $100 bounty and promotion to the rank of Sergeant to any man who could bring in the Rebel, dead or alive. Elden recalled that Martin camouflaged himself as a tree, waiting patiently for the Rebel to appear. His patience was rewarded when he “did away” with the sniper. He sent the $100 home to purchase the 100-acre Lermond farm next-door to his parents’ farm in South Liberty. Martin soon received the papers promoting him to Sergeant. Elden delighted in showing Martin Hannan’s great-grandson, Bob Maresh, the tree in Montville where Martin had hung his scythe on the fateful day in July of 1862 and gone off to War.

Elden enjoyed company and regaled them with his many tales. Elden recalled Martin Hannan’s grand-daughter, Gladys, coming home from Massachusetts for summer vacation with her Russian-born husband, Tony Maresh and children. Elden told Bob that he remembered when he, Bob, was a three-year old and was very worried about stepping on the “Flowters” on the lawn. The “Flowters” were dandelion blossoms. Elden chuckled when he said that Bob could trip over the “Flowters” in a linoleum. He chuckled much as he told his tales.

When a customer brought a pair of shoes to be repaired by his skilled workmanship, Elden carefully labeled them. If he was going away, he would put out his sign, “DON’T LEVE NO SHOES” with a big padlock on the door. He’d take a cart, hauling the repaired shoes to Abbie Hannan below the Village to deliver to the right customer. He knew that he could trust Abbie, but there were a few people that he couldn’t trust “as far as he could throw them”. He’d make the mistake of over-trusting a few times in his life.

Elden was a man of many talents, but these days, after nearly nine decades of life, he just enjoyed people. He said that people didn’t bore him, but they amused him. He told visitors that he’d lived past the ‘dying age’. He was ready to die and had no regrets abut how he’d lived his life. If he had it to do over, he would just live more of it. He loved to go on rides with friends, especially his younger friends.

Elden had made himself a gravestone. He said that they could put it on his final resting place, and he didn’t care where that would be. They could bury him anywhere.

Elden enjoyed his final years with the Jones’ family. They were good to him. Elden Nathan Rowell passed away on Wednesday, May 23, 1979, at the Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast, Maine, aged 89 years. His final resting place is in the Hunt Cemetery in Liberty, just a short way from where he was born and raised, from where he later had his cobbler shop, and from where he spent his last days with the Jones family. He had lived an adventurous life, as he said, “With nothing to be ashamed of”. He had lived when Liberty, South Montville, and Montville were bustling communities of factories, mills, stores and prosperity to a time when the major roadway by-passed the towns, leaving them as peaceful little retirement communities. That is progress!