Chapter 1: Roots in the Timber – George Sewall Reed’s Early Life (1876–1896)

The Penobscot River ran thick with sawdust the spring George Sewall Reed was born. On May 8, 1876, in the lumber town of Stillwater, Maine, his first breaths mingled with the scent of pine pitch and coal smoke from the nearby mills. His parents, Helen Sewall and Frank Reed, were children of the Industrial Age—a time when Maine’s forests fed the insatiable hunger of America’s growing cities.