116 Station Road
PO Box 33
New Sweden, ME, 04762
207-896-5200
newswedenmehistorical@gmail.com
280 Main Street
Stockholm, ME 04783
Sandra Hara
1149 New Sweden Rd.
Woodland, ME 04736
Today, there is very little of the old fashioned farming in Westmanland
(or the colony), but Sven Bondeson and the Margison family do raise organic
potatoes and beef cattle while Steve and Barbara Miller are carrying on
a diversified organic market garden type of operation. Others are pursuing
gardening and tree farm operations, but mostly the town has become a bedroom
community for those working in other towns; a retirement/recreational area
on the shore of Little Madawaska Lake; with a few scattered forme farms
with absentee owners. About the only descendants of the earliest settlers
now left in the town are Tom Hale (from Carl Gustaf Peterson and Emil Johnson),
Ronald Nelson (from Nils Nelson); and perhaps Ernest and Sheldon Akerson
(sons of George Akerson, who in 1941 took over the John Peterson place
after Peter Viberg). Several residences have been built in recent years,
and many camps on the Little Lake Road, with a fine new bridge and town
road maintenance.
The second Westmanland schoolhouse is still used for town affairs but no longer as a school; the Westmanland Cemetery across the road continues as the main burial site and is well kept up; and Blackstone Siding is still used for logging and trucking operations even though the railroad is gone. Students are now transported to schools in New Sweden or Caribou by bus, not horse-drawn sleds. Mail service was originally provided from the Nelson Post Office at the Andrew Nelson farm on West Road; later from Jemtland and now Stockholm, with rural delivery beginning about 1908. The 1994 Maine's Swedish Colony Calendar features all of the log buildings from the early days of the Colony, including Westmanland. A summer's drive along Westmanland Road is still a pleasant and picturesque excursion. One may even continue on beyond Blackstone Siding through the woods to gain access to the pre-Civil War Goddard Farm, and eventually end up at Eagle Lake.
Privacy Policy-We do not share contact information. Site comments, correcctions, and questions? No change is too small – email the official web guy: Bill Duncan, Bill@WilliamLDuncan.com ©2019 Site hosting courtesy of WilliamLDuncan.com. This site was originally developed with assistance of a Discovery Research grant from the Maine Arts Commission, the New Century Fund of the Maine Community Foundation and the historical societies of the Maine Swedish Colony.
Note, Dec 2019. This site is not updated on a regular basis. See individual historical society pages on Facebook for the latest.--Bill