Then and Now: Over the river and through the woods

One of the Indian trails that served Conway settlers as an early roadway ran from Fryeburg, Maine, through Conway Center. Half a mile past that village, the trail veered across a ford in the Saco River near a cabin inhabited by John Dolloff, then climbed the hill past Conway’s first meetinghouse and cemetery. Early in the 19th century, Richard Odell owned the sprawling intervale farm where Dolloff’s cabin had sat, and Joel Eastman acquired it when he married Odell’s daughter.

When the town built a new meetinghouse in Conway Center, travel across the Saco became more important, but the selectmen equivocated over where to build a public bridge over the river.