WILLOW CREEK — The simmering dispute over Homan’s Hole erupted into open legal warfare this week when Elias Homan and the newly formed Willow Creek Hardwood Flooring Company filed suit against William and Ezra Thorne II to establish the right to dam the pond’s outlet for a mill race.
The suit argues that with Thorne & Sons Shipworks closed for eight years and the yard’s launching ways abandoned, any historical claim to the river’s flow has lapsed. “The Thorne family built vessels on that river for three generations,” the complaint reads. “They no longer build vessels. The yard is silent. The tools have been sold. The river belongs to the town now.”
Ezra Thorne II responded with indignation. “My father and his father before him gave this town its first industry,” he said. “They employed a hundred and thirty men. And now, because the railroad has made the river unnecessary for shipping, the men who profit from that railroad wish to take the river itself from us.”
The railroad connection is central. The Bangor & Aroostook line, whose arrival rendered river shipping obsolete, is the proposed route by which the mill would ship its flooring. Asa Pendleton has secured a commitment from the railroad for a siding and loading facility contingent on the mill’s construction proceeding.
The case is expected to be heard in the spring term. Both sides have retained counsel from Houlton.
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- Court Rules in Favour of Mill, Dam Will Be Built
- Dam Completed; Pond Level Rises Four Feet
- Edwin Thorne’s Gazette Article Christens ‘Homan’s Pond’ in Print