Until 1725, the Saco River was the main artery for the Pequawket Indians traveling in canoes to and from the Atlantic. Soon thereafter came trappers, followed by loggers, who harvested the colossal white pine and sent the logs floating down the river to sawmills mushrooming all along its course. By 1871, the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad had reached Fryeburg, fifty miles from Portland, thus linking the Upper Saco River with Boston and beyond. Soon, a steady stream of summer visitors began arriving in the region and the White Mountains beyond. Upper Saco River Valley: Fryeburg, Lovell, Brownfield, Denmark, and Hiram visits the days when logs floated down the river and trains thundered up and down the valley. The first stop is in Fryeburg, home of Fryeburg Academy and the Fryeburg Fair, the oldest and largest fair in Maine. Next is Lovell and its many lovely brick homes and Kezar Lake. The book then journeys to Brownfield, largely depicted before the devastating fire of 1947. Denmark was the home of Rufus Ingalls, the quartermaster general under Ulysses S. Grant. The volume ends in Hiram, the home of a famed Revolutionary War general who was also the grandfather of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Throughout the region and throughout this book are rarely seen vintage photographs of the Saco River and the nine covered bridges that once spanned it.

This may be the only millennium title on bookstore shelves today whose purpose is not to mystify and obscure but to reveal and clarify. The social devastation, financial panics, political turmoil, and military assaults accelerating all around us are not chaos. They are the inevitable product of lawful and understandable forces unleashed by capitalism.

But the future capitalism has in store for us is not inevitable. It can be changed by the timely solidarity, courageous action, and united struggle of workers and farmers conscious of their power to transform the world. That is what this book has been written to bring closer.