Strong, a Mussul Unsquit village

Schools, Social Life and Community Service
Strong offered a variety of social and service organizations, including the Gift Club, Senior Citizens Club, Aurora Grange, American Legion, Order of the Eastern Star, Freemasons, and Knights of Pythias. With a decline of industry and jobs, the population supports only a handful of these organizations today.

Support for education has never waned. Teacher Claudia Fletcher remembered that, in 1918, “I was given a key to the school building to use during of my year. I planned to open the door one-half hour before the children came. Sometimes I built a fire in a long stove, using odd pieces of discarded shovel blocks.”

Everyone used the same long-handled dipper to drink from the pail of fresh water. Students said the Lord’s Prayer, sang "America," and saluted the flag. They learned poetry and performed plays. Future school teachers could begin training as school juniors. The pay, by today's standards, was low. In 1918, teachers in charge of all eight grades, earned $10 a week, and they usually boarded with a local family. Today, MSAD 58 students from kindergarten to eighth grade attend the Strong Elementary School; they attend four years at Mount Abram Regional High School in Salem Township. Strong's alumni still gather one weekend each August.

By today’s standards, late 1800s and even early 1900s rural life may have seemed harsh and austere, but life also was less hurried. People had less, but what they had, they valued more. Although children worked hard, helping to feed the animals, bale the hay and weed the gardens, they were well-educated. After the start of the 20th century, students had less pressure to support the family farm, and education became more important. Schools added Physical Education to the curriculum and organized intramural boys’ and girls’ sports teams. Strong's first baseball team won their first nine games without a coach. Starting in the 1920s, students began to compete in intermural basketball, track, tennis, volleyball, skiing, snowshoeing, cross country, football, and soccer. The community remains very proud of its athletic teams, awards, and spirit.

Transportation
Before the days of automobiles, horses were the means of transportation. People treated their horses well, and most towns had one or more livery stables. Strong had a livery stable in the center of town. Horses brought the mail from the train to the post office. Salesmen, stagecoach passengers, and lumbermen were taken to their destinations on horseback or by carriage. Drivers, the equivalent of today's taxi drivers, were expected to keep late hours and endure all sorts of bad weather.

Townsfolk rented horses to attend an evening dance, take a leisurely afternoon trip, or go longer distances for family trips or for business. The cost to rent a horse for a trip to nearby Phillips and back was $1.50. After the advent of the automobile in the early 1900s, farm children continued to travel to school by horse for many more years, but as prices for cars became more reasonable, livery stables became obsolete.

Agriculture and the Food Industry
Strong has a rich history of food production. Corn and apples were sent across the country. In April, 1871, a group of farmers organized the Sandy River Cheese Company, the first in the state. Other companies processed and distributed milk, cream, and butter, and the surplus milk was used to make cheese. The investors formed a joint stock association, with shares selling for $50 dollars each. That first year, workers produced about 15,000 pounds of cheese, which was sold mostly to Lewiston and Portland businesses for 15¢ a pound. The cheese making business generated a need for more milk, because 10 pounds of milk produced one pound of cheese. The cheese shop survived more than a decade, but the business owners struggled with the process of collecting the milk, and even faced a lack of cows to produce milk. Little is known about what happened to the company after it closed in 1882.

Some landmarks remain today. One of them is the present Beal’s General Store. In the late-1800s, this store was operated by Albert and Washington Daggett, and was known as Daggett Bros. store. Shoppers could buy a barrel of flour for the price of a cord of wood. They also sold large dried codfish, which customers would take home to hang in their cellars. In January, 1866, the store burned, but a portion was saved by a volunteer bucket brigade from the Mill Stream behind it. All the rescued goods were stored in the nearby Methodist Church, while the store was rebuilt. Today a portion of that building makes up part of Beal's General Store.