Odds and Ends From The MUSEUM!
When Millinocket was just beginning, people came from many parts of the world to help build the mill and town, to provide services and to work in the logging industry. One of those early families was the Hikel family who ran a store in Millinocket. The museum has two small record books from Hikel’s Store with pages dated 1942-1945. They were brought to the museum a few years ago by the person living in the former Hikel house.
What kind of store did Hikel’s run during those years? Many today remember the sporting goods store at the location now occupied by Memories of Maine. One of the record books shows checks written and cash given. It also reveals purchases of soda, beer and lots of ice. One of the companies Hikel’s purchased soda from was the Millinocket Bottling Company located on the corner of Aroostook Avenue and Central Street. It appears Hikel’s made purchases from this local company every 3 or 4 days. Stock for the store was also purchased from various area distributors, but specific items are not listed. These are in larger amounts ($20 to $100 at a time).
Numerous pages in the record books are for rent and hired help. Throughout 1943-1944, $15.00 weekly was paid to George Simon for rent and a later page for part of 1944-45 shows the amount to be $75.00. In 1943, larger sums of money were paid out to the T & K block. This was for labor, rubbish removal, plumbing, electric light fixtures and coal. Throughout these ledgers, the one employee paid appears to be Benjamin Klein with a weekly salary of $25.00.
Pages titled “miscellaneous” list a wide variety of monies paid out including those for telephone, electric, auto repair and one payment of $12.00 for a Syrian newspaper (home country of the Hikel family). One entry for February, 1945 indicates insurance on the family home on Katahdin Avenue was paid for the sum of $101.99. This is the house where these ledgers were found.
The Laverty book, Millinocket, Magic City of Maine’s Wilderness, gives the following account of teenager Miriam’s travel from her homeland of Syria to the growing settlement of Millinocket in 1903. Miriam, age 16, and her teenage cousin Maria left their homeland near Beirut, Syria, to come to America. Passage was arranged by Fanny and John Simon who at that time had a peddler’s cart on Shack Hill behind the mill. The two girls were to meet the Simons in Bangor. Laverty describes the girls’ trip as follows. “They sailed from Beirut to Marseilles and on to London before crossing the Atlantic. Arriving in Philadelphia, they found their trunks had been lost and they had only the clothes on their backs.” Then the girls were sent to Buffalo, NY instead of Bangor. Luckily, in Buffalo a publisher of a Syrian newspaper sponsored them until their families were found and they continued on to Bangor where they were met by the Simons and continued on to Millinocket.
Miriam married William Hikel and Maria married Solomon Hikel. The Hikel family started their business near the end of Penobscot Avenue near where the Simon’s had established a business.
Pictured is believed to be Miriam Hikel's marker in the Millinocket Cemetery.
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