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By John Erickson

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Topsham

Topsham once had two paper mills that were owned by the Pejepscot Paper company. They owned several paper mills in Maine and one was downtown Topsham and a second was at Pejepscot. The mills have now closed and the Pejepscot mill has been torn down and Grimmel's Industries now operates a scrap yard on the site. The downtown mill seems to have had its rail access directly from the lower road. This one is still standing at 1 Mill Island and houses the Sea Dog Brewing Co. and other businesses.

Some confusion with the name of the two mills can stem from the fact that the mills were often called by the company name, Pejepscot. The one downtown also received the name of the Bowdoin Mill and was owned first by the Topsham Paper Company, then the Bowdoin Paper Manufacturing Company, and then the Pejepscot Paper Company. In 1893 the Pejepscot Paper Company built a new mill up river at Pejepscot Village and the name went with them until that mill was shut down and demolished.

I have been taking some pictures down the Lewiston Branch and getting GPS coordinates for a possible future train simulation of the area as it would have been in the 1970's.