Batson – BIDDEFORD GAZETTE

By RANDY SEAVER | Editor

This is a piece that was first published in 2012 on my blog, All Along the Watchtower (Today known as Lessons in Mediocrity | Outlaw Journalist).

This story has a very sad ending, but it provides a detailed account of what happened to the former Lincoln Mill clocktower that once sat proudly atop the Lincoln Mill building, which is today known as The Lincoln, a luxury hotel that is also home to Batson Brewing and features a rooftop swimming pool.

The story about the clocktower’s demise goes back more than 25 years, to the beginning of this century.

Man, a lot has changed in the last 25 years.

**ABANDONDENED AND ROTTING** | This 2012 photo shows the former clocktower shortly before its historic, metal innards were sold and the rest was scrapped. | *Seaver photo*

Can you hear me scream? was the title of the 2007 letter-to-the-editor that was never published. The letter was written in the voice of the discarded clocktower, but it was actually penned by Greg Bennett. I cannot remember why Greg never submitted the letter for publication. I think he was probably just too sad.

A Cry for Help

Bennett’s five-page, single-spaced, typewritten letter to the editor about the Lincoln Mill Clock Tower drips with irony, anger and sadness.

It tells the story of the Lincoln Mill Clock Tower’s removal and gutting. It chastises the community for not stepping up to save it. It ponders the injustice of the tower’s fate and paints a complicated portrait of apathy, political impotence and despair.

Bennett has some serious skin in this particular game. He and his business partner, Chris Betjemann, purchased the former Lincoln Mill building just days after its clock tower was removed from a perch that overlooks the city’s downtown.

**STILL STANDING TALL** | This photo was taken just days before the clocktower was removed from its historic perch. Through the late 1800s and early 1900s, Biddeford was known as the city of bells, because this tower and the nearby City Hall tower would ring simultaneously.

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Perhaps no one is more upset about the clock’s removal than these two men who agreed to pay more than a million dollars for the property and then spent several weeks in York County Superior Court and a lot more money fighting to prevent the clock tower’s dismantling.

“It made us sick,” Bennett recalled during a recent interview. “Too many people make assumptions about the tower. Too many people have no idea about what really happened or about what we intend to do with the clock tower’s remains.”

Betjemann, who unsuccessfully sought an at-large seat on the Biddeford City Council in November, says most people would be shocked if they “knew the truth” about the clock tower’s removal.

“I’ve had people accuse me of ruining the city’s skyline,” Betjemann said. “That’s so far from the truth that I don’t even know where to begin. We are the ones who want to put the tower back up. It would be easier and a lot less costly for us to just scrap the remains, but that’s not what we want to do.”

In fact, Bennett and Betjemann recently had a meeting with Mayor Alan Casavant to discuss the clock tower and their plans to restore the structure.

MORE PHOTOS of the clocktower’s mechanisms may viewed on Randy Seaver’s blog site.

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A Bit of History | A New Owner

At the time, Bennett — a principal of Odyssey Properties — said he and Betjemann still had “big plans” for the five-story building they purchased nearly five years ago from Gordon McDonald and Michael Scott.

But Bennett also says it’s important for the community to understand a bit of local history in order to appreciate the new owners’ vision for the iconic downtown building.

For starters, most people don’t know that the clock tower was actually a transplant. The clock tower was originally placed atop another downtown building before it was moved to the Lincoln Mill building. The clock tower’s former home is today nothing more than a faded memory, long since gone from the city’s landscape.

More recently, in 2000, the building’s former owners announced that they needed to remove the clock tower because of “structural concerns and potential liability issues.”

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News of the clocktower’s imminent departure sent an emotional shockwave through the community. A non-profit group was formed to “save the clocktower.

The Friends of the Clock Tower made several efforts to spur community support, hoping to raise money for the tower’s repair and preservation.

Disclosure notice: I served as vice president of Friends of the Clock Tower.

McDonald and Scott agreed to allow the new group some time to raise money. If the new group could raise the money, the building’s owners said they would sign a conservation easement that would guarantee the clock tower’s preservation for public access and historical appreciation.

For the next two years, the Friends of the Clock Tower attempted to raise the estimated $200,000 needed to make the repairs and needed improvements.

**A FAILED ATTEMPT** | Randy Seaver, then editor of the Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier, was also the vice president of Friends of the Clocktower, a non-profit group established in 2000 to save the Lincoln Mill clocktower. The group conducted a day-long telethon on the roof of City Hall, but all of their efforts failed, Donations raised were returned to donors and/or given to the Biddeford Historical Society.

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The group held a series of meetings and established itself as a 501(c)3 corporation. A fundraising telethon was conducted and televised on the city’s public access television station from the rooftop of nearby Biddeford City Hall.

Rob Tillotson, principal of Oak Point Associates, volunteered his services to the group. Tillotson said the tower was structurally sound and only needed some minor repairs.

The building’s former owners, however, held their ground and continued expressing concerns about the tower’s condition and potential liability.

Recognizing that the building was private property, the Friends of the Clock Tower briefly considered purchasing a liability insurance policy but soon learned it would be a tricky proposition for a non-profit group to insure a piece of privately owned property.

So, the group continued its fundraising campaign and applied for state and federal historic preservation grants.

But the larger community seemed generally apathetic, and the Friends of the Clock Tower fell far short of its fundraising goal.The non-profit group was eventually disbanded, and the money raised was returned to donors with the balance given to the Biddeford Historical Society.

The community failed and the clock tower’s fate seemed doomed.

Eventually, what remained of the tired clocktower was moved to a nearby parking lot. There was talk about possibly restoring the framework and converting it into a memorial.

That never happened. The clocktower’s guts were sold. The rest of the structure was dismantled, scrapped.