WILLOW CREEK — Twenty men from Willow Creek have volunteered for Company G of the Maine Volunteer Infantry, answering President McKinley’s call following the outbreak of war with Spain.

Willow Creek's volunteer company musters on Main Street before departing for the Spanish-American War.
Willow Creek's volunteer company musters on Main Street before departing for the Spanish-American War.

The volunteers gathered on the platform of the Bangor & Aroostook depot on Tuesday for a farewell that drew nearly the entire town. They will travel by rail to Bangor, then to the training camp at Cape Elizabeth.

It is the first time Willow Creek men have gone to war by train rather than by riverboat, a fact that Harold Finch notes in his editorial. “In the War of 1812, the men travelled to the coast by Thorne & Sons sloop. In the War of the Rebellion, they went by stagecoach and on foot. Today, they board the Bangor & Aroostook and reach Bangor in hours. The railroad has shrunk the distance between Willow Creek and the world.”

Francis Thorne, a 22-year-old mill hand and a great-grandson of the shipyard’s founder, was among the first to enlist. “I work at the depot now, not the shipyard,” he said. “My grandfather built boats. I load freight cars. The work is different, but the duty is the same.”