5574-R3_ML&P_LSLA_2018_Web_SummerNewsletter

I Remember When…

The Story of Looney Cove By Jan Strout

Mountain View farm stood a top Adam’s Hill in Gray. A 3 story house with a shed that attache to the barn. The shed had large doors that opened on both sides to allow carriages to drive through and down to the shores of Little Sebago Lake. Wealthy families from places to the south of us, such as Boston and New York liked to come for summers. Fields that went down to the clear blue waters of Policeman’s Cove and offered fabulous views of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. In the 50’s Mountain View Road was a dusty dirt road passing the ruins of the farm yet still offering glorious views. It stopped prior to the lake for vehicular traffic because a big storm had washed out “The HILL”. Hurricane Carol in 1954 was the likely villain in the washout. Carol took down two beautiful maple trees and assorted other smaller ones, at our house giving me a reason to dislike my cousin Carol for a time. Amazingly, although “she” trapped us in the house, the only real damage was the complete destruction of our well-house. Branches blocked the front and back doors and the barn. My dad was working and he and some of the other men on the road used chainsaws to get to home.

even less so after my brother “dearest” marooned me on a beam in the barn by taking away the ladder. In 1955 Bill Qualey bought the old Mountain View Farm and developed lots on the Shores of Policeman’s Cove and beyond. He filled in the washout and made a road. My mom had grown up going to Campbell Shore at my Grammy’s camp, decided we should have lake property too. They picked out three 50 foot lots on a point that remains our little piece of paradise to this day. Our property had tiny natural beach located to the right of the point, and on the left a somewhat swampy area, overgrown with alders and Cat and Nine-Tails, in a small cove. During our first few years there were many baby snapping turtles born there, of which one had the good fortune to come home for the winter. Perhaps the turtle considered it a misfortune. Turtle lived in an aquarium and got fed greens, and the occasional bug or earthworm we would find for it in the dirt cellar amongst the wood for the furnace. We released the captive back to the wild in the spring.

While clearing the lots, Dad discovered that there was sand under the alders and used a “come along” to pull their roots back to expose it. We had a huge army surplus tent and had gigantic campfires on the point to burn the brush every weekend. Soon there was talk amongst the adults of building a small

I remember walking a mile to go swimming, passing the ruins of the Mountain View Farm at the top of the hill and skirting what seemed to be “the grand canyon” on the other side. I was not a big fan of heights even then. I became

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