The winter solstice of 1871 wrapped Bangor, Maine, in a hush broken only by the distant shriek of sawmills. On December 21, as loggers celebrated the season’s last timber haul, Lillie Ellis drew her first breath in a clapboard house smelling of pine tar and wool blankets. The Penobscot River, choked with ice and floating timber, flowed just blocks away—a silvery highway carrying the wealth of Maine’s forests to the world.