During these years, Deering developed a reputation as an energetic promoter of the Belgrade Lakes. He was instrumental in the formation of Belgrade Lakes Region, Inc., and for ten years served as the area’s public relations representative, actively marketing the region at sportsmen’s and travel shows, including the New York Sportsman’s Show. His efforts helped broaden awareness of the Belgrades beyond New England and reinforced their identity as a summer destination.

In 1946, Deering sold Snug Harbor Camps to Roland Nadeau, but he remained active in the hospitality industry. From 1949 to 1954, he operated Hillside Camps in Rome, and for ten winters managed the Gulfstream Golf Club in Delray Beach, Florida. He also managed the dining room at the Hotel Templeton in Waterville, further strengthening his experience in hotel and food service operations.

In 1954, Maurice and his wife Marjorie Deering entered the restaurant business, establishing the first Chicken Coop Restaurant, which proved highly successful. An additional location followed, as a popular Oakland restaurant. The Deerings also acquired Galley I, a modern restaurant building on Route 27 south of the former Salmon Lake House.
By the mid-1960s, changing travel patterns and the decline of traditional American Plan camps led to Snug Harbor’s closure during the 1965 season, and the property fell into disrepair. Seeing renewed opportunity, the Deerings repurchased Snug Harbor Camps in 1966, returning to the site of Maurice Deering’s first Belgrade enterprise with the same enthusiasm that had marked his arrival in 1926.

Plans were announced for a comprehensive renovation, including repairs to porches, repainting cabins and general improvements to the grounds. The Deerings envisioned a revitalized Snug Harbor, combining elements of traditional camp life with more modern, motel-style operations, while reaffirming their belief in a resurgence of American Plan camps in the Belgrade Lakes – at a time when many had shifted to housekeeping cottages.
Maurice Deering died in 1970, leaving behind a legacy that spanned summer camps, hotels, golf clubs, and restaurants, and a lasting imprint on the development and promotion of the Belgrade Lakes as a destination for generations of visitors.

Source: Morning Sentinel (Waterville, Maine)

Nestled at 182 Main Street, the store occupies a building believed to have been constructed in the mid-19th century, tying its roots not only to family tradition but also to the long history of commerce in Belgrade’s village. Over the decades, Day’s Store evolved to meet the needs of its community, offering farm-fresh groceries, pantry staples, sporting goods, fishing supplies and lakeside souvenirs. Locals and vacationers alike came for the essentials, the donuts, the coffee — and the chance to bump into a neighbor or share a story by the water’s edge.

Across four generations of the Day family, the store remained rooted in its founding values of hospitality, family and service. Diane Day and her husband Kerry Oliver carried the business forward for decades, reinforcing its role as a community hub. Younger generations — including Diane’s daughter Melissa and her husband Kirt Furbush — have continued that legacy, launching the 1958 Café within the store as a seasonal lakeside eatery, blending new ideas with the comfort of longtime tradition.

Day’s Store has long been more than a place to shop: it is a touchstone of daily life in the Belgrade Lakes region, where generations of families have stocked up for picnics, gathered for coffee, or stopped by after a day on the water. Its longevity and continued evolution reflect both the rhythms of the seasons and the enduring appeal of a family-run business at the heart of a community.

What followed was the transformation of a local sawmill into a modern long-log operation capable of producing studs, boards and dimensional lumber at scale. By 1973, the mill employed more than twenty people and had become one of Belgrade’s most significant employers, supporting local families and the broader building trades.

Resilience remained central to the company’s identity. When fire again destroyed the mill in 1988, the Tukeys rebuilt within months—constructing a larger, purpose-built facility from their own lumber along Route 8.

Through the 1990s and 2000s, Tukey Brothers diversified its offerings to include hardwood boards, hemlock landscape timbers, pine log-home stock and finger-joint materials. Contractors, landscapers and woodworkers across Maine came to associate the Tukey name with quality, consistency, and local craftsmanship.

In October 2020, after more than eighty years of family ownership, the Tukeys sold the North Belgrade mill to Hammond Lumber Company, another historic Maine lumber business. Hammond has continued operations at the site, preserving its role as a working mill within the region.

The history of Tukey Brothers Lumber reflects Belgrade’s long relationship with its forests and lakes—an enduring story of family enterprise, hard work, and adaptation in a changing economy.

Paul Yeaton never married during the early years of the house. His brother Andrew, Andrew’s wife, and their five children lived with him for many years, until Paul later fell in love with a much younger woman.

With the assistance of local antique dealers, the Taber family furnished the house with period-appropriate furniture dating to the 1820s and 1830s, supplemented by items from their family camp. Much of the home’s original architectural fabric remains intact, including interior shutter doors, original door hardware, and 9-over-6 window sash.
The long tenure of the Yeaton family contributed to the preservation of both the house and its associated outbuildings.

Historic farm tools remain on site, along with an original ox cart stored in the barn. The house retains its original brick fireplace, including beehive ovens once used for smoking hams. A blacksmith shop occupies the basement, and an attached carriage house survives as part of the original working farm complex. An early cooper’s shed also remains on the property, reflecting the self-sustaining nature of the Yeaton farm.
Excerpts from the Morning Sentinel, June 30, 2002

Immediately above the porch roof and centered below the gable peak is a set of four small six-over-six windows, recessed from the wall surface, which curves inward to meet them. In addition to the porch alterations noted above, the original wide steps and balustrade have been replaced, and sections of the porch balustrade that once flanked the steps and featured slat detailing have been filled in.

The north side elevation has a symmetrical fenestration pattern comprised of pairs of six-over-six windows near the northeast and northwest corners, with a trio of six-over-six windows between them. A fieldstone chimney punctuates the roof near the midpoint of the structure.

On the south elevation, the paired windows are repeated in the same locations as on the north side; however, the central section of the wall is occupied by a recessed porch that has been enclosed with a storm door and large four-pane storm windows. Spanning this central area and located about one-third of the way up the roof slope is the eyebrow dormer, which contains five windowpanes of varying size.

The rear elevation features paired six-over-six windows on the first story, separated by a ribbon window composed of four small three-over-three windows. On the upper level is a set of five six-over-six windows. A recently installed concrete block flue serving the furnace rises between the southeast paired windows and the first-story ribbon windows.

The interior of The Birches is virtually intact and is particularly notable for its varnished tongue-and-groove sheathing on walls and ceilings. The central great hall, open to the ceiling, contains a large stone fireplace and a balcony that wraps around all four sides of the space.

In plan, a short hallway separates the two front rooms, which are lit by paired windows behind the porch and along the side elevations. This hallway leads into the great hall, which occupies the central portion of the house. The fireplace is located on the north side of the hall and is flanked on the west by a recessed doorway opening into the kitchen, originally a sleeping porch.

The secondary entrance and recessed porch are located opposite the fireplace, and the stairway to the balcony is positioned at the southeast corner of the great hall. Behind the stairway, occupying the eastern third of the house, are two bedrooms separated by a pair of bathrooms – one opening off the hall and the other from the southeast bedroom.

The second story contains two additional bedrooms and a third bathroom, as well as a niche beneath the eyebrow dormer. Window and door surrounds are composed of symmetrically molded trim with corner blocks. The stair and balcony balusters are turned, as is the main newel post. Wainscoting is employed only in the hallways and the great hall, and several original light fixtures remain in the house.

The Burbanks next marched to reinforce Fort Ticonderoga. In 1777, Silas was promoted to Captain, and he is credited with leading a fourteen day march to Bennington, VT that ended in a victorious battle. Later they took part in the battle of Saratoga. In 1778, the troops moved to Pennsylvania, where their winter quarters were 20 miles outside Philadelphia at Valley Forge. Although in dire want of food and clothing that winter, the American army miraculously held together, and the Burbanks later fought in the battle of Monmouth. The remainder of their service was protecting West Point before retiring from the army on January 1, 1781.

You may go to a listing of those buried in the Quaker cemetery at the bottom of this webpage.

After purchasing the property in 1800, Eleazer must have gotten busy building a house for his family, because in 1818 when he sold the farm to his eldest son John Burbank for $1, the deed described the property as “located on the road that connects the Kennebec River to the Sandy River, and having a dwelling house and barn thereon.” In 1846 John Burbank married Emily Avery. He is buried in the Quaker cemetery on the farm property.

The Burbank barn

Clarence Chase carried on the tradition of selling milk from his herd of Guernsey cows and raising produce on the farm. Many remember his vegetable stand at the east end of Pine Grove Cemetery on Route 11. Always a well-liked man, Clarence served as Master of the Belgrade Grange.

Rene and Katharina Burdet

The house had been vacant for several years when the Burdets purchased it in 1983.

Moving the ell on the Burbank house

Rene Burdet’s runway

 The Burbank house under the Burdets’ stewardship in 2001

QUAKER CEMETERY – BURBANK FARM

Much of what we know about the history of Ervin Bean (1876-1940) comes from the narrative he told a summer visitor to Belgrade Lakes in 1923. That man, Edward Mott Woolley, lived in New Jersey and was a popular author and journalist who, from 1923 to 1925, wrote a series entitled “Romances of Small Business” that were syndicated weekly in newspapers. In the BHS archives, we have a copy of the one he wrote about Ervin Bean. This copy originally appeared on p. 6 of New Brunswick, NJ’s The Central New Jersey Home News for November 14, 1923. According to Mott, everywhere in that vicinity [Belgrade Lakes region] I heard people speak of Bean’s store … No matter what anyone wanted, he went to Bean for it— from groceries and patent medicines to bait. Bean seemed to dominate the business of the place. So, it looked as if Bean was worth a story—and he was. Mott ‘interviewed’ Ervin Bean and wrote his story by quoting him directly in the article. Here is what Bean had to say: “I was born in Maine on a farm. My father and mother died and were buried on the same day, and I, the second youngest, was sent to live among strangers on another farm.

In 1908 the camp was acquired by Dr. Eugene L. Swan, whose family would guide Pine Island for more than a century. Under Dr. Swan, and later his son Eugene “Jun” Swan, many of the camp’s defining programs and traditions took shape. Campers lived in canvas tents on wooden platforms, worked together in daily routines, swam and rowed on Great Pond, and undertook extended wilderness canoe trips. The camp emphasized independence, cooperation, and respect for the natural environment of the Belgrade Lakes.

Ritual and shared experience have always been central to Pine Island’s culture. The King’s Game, a multi-day, island-wide competition blending strategy, endurance, humor, and teamwork, has become one of the camp’s most celebrated traditions — a unique test of community and spirit. The annual Thorndike trips, extended canoe expeditions into Maine’s backcountry, require paddling, portaging, campcraft, and group problem-solving, forging deep bonds among campers and staff alike.

A $50 gamble that changed everything

In 1953, Skip and a partner started a small, diesel-powered sawmill along Route 27 in Belgrade. The partnership didn’t last, and later that year Skip bought the whole operation for just $50 – money borrowed from his wife, Verna.

At first, it was a humble three-man crew. On fair days they worked in the woods cutting logs; when rain came, they’d saw them in an open shed. In 1958, Skip built his first forklift from the frame of an old four-wheel-drive Army truck – proof of the mechanical creativity that became his trademark.

A lasting legacy

Skip Hammond passed away in 2022, but his spirit is still everywhere – in the handcrafted equipment still in use, in the values passed down through four generations and in the company’s unbroken commitment to serving Maine’s builders, homeowners, and communities.

From a $50 bet on a small sawmill to a 900-employee enterprise with over 20 locations, Hammond Lumber remains, at its core, a Belgrade family business built on hard work, self-reliance and the belief that if you can’t buy it, you can build it.