Anna and Millard Chandler in Sap House

Millard Chandler

It was about the summer of 1960 that we were working on building two hunting camps on land owned by Edwin Ames and Bill Chadwick. They were friends from Wareham, Mass., and WWII Vets.  They were friends of Mert Charles in Fryeburg and Walt Charles in North Chatham.  Ed and Bill bought some of the land behind Walt Charles.  I was in high school, and Bill’s daughter, Kathleen, and I were boyfriend and girlfriend.  We later married.  I would help to build both camps.  Usually arriving on Friday afternoon, we would immediately walk to Millard Chandler’s to purchase bread and butter from Anna.  Millard, sitting on his front porch, would often greet us with this saying, “ Here comes more summer complaints”.  Usually we would complain about black flies, mosquitoes, too hot, etc. etc.
 
We always enjoyed our visits with Millard.  He had a wealth of knowledge about the history of Chatham and its geology.  Also hung on the wall of his porch was a small set of deer horns.  He always claimed they were from a doe.  He was known as being a prankster, but we believed him.
 
I believe that Anna, Mert, and Walton were siblings to Simeon who had the store in Stow, and Albert.
 
I was recruited mainly to dig post holes for the footings of the camps.  I used a long crowbar to dig the holes 90 percent of the time.  It was like digging down through a stonewall, 36 inches deep on all of the post holes. 

-- Doug Beaton