Fred Sutcliffe: The Sanford Years (1919-1924)
In 1919, Fred Sutcliffe left Rhode Island and moved to Springvale, Maine, during a time of significant change for both the textile industry and his young family. The previous year, the Goodall Worsted Company—Sanford’s largest employer and one of New England’s premier woolen manufacturers—had endured a major strike that ended with hundreds of workers dismissed. To rebuild production, Goodall placed calls throughout the region for skilled operatives familiar with the fine weaving of wool and mohair fabrics. Fred, already experienced from his years at Joseph Benn & Sons Company in Greystone, Rhode Island, would have been an ideal candidate for such a recruitment drive. Higher wages, steadier hours, or simply the promise of opportunity in a respected Maine mill may all have influenced his decision to make the move.
Fred did not go alone. His mother, Ellen Sutcliffe, retired from her own mill work and accompanied him north to help care for his two small sons—Wilbur, age three, and Herbert, age one. The family settled in Springvale, a quiet village adjacent to Sanford, where Fred took a position at Goodall Worsted. Curiously, his wife Maude remained behind in Rhode Island. The reasons for this separation are not recorded, but it may have reflected the practical challenges of mill life—limited worker housing, the demands of caring for very young children, or marital strains brought on by long hours and financial pressure. On July 18, 1919, Maude briefly joined Fred in Maine, only to return to Rhode Island with baby Herbert, leaving Wilbur in Sanford under Ellen’s care.
By January 1920, census records list Fred and Ellen living at 12 Allen Street, Sanford, with Wilbur. The address placed them within walking distance of the Goodall mills and among dozens of other working-class families who had followed the same cycle of hope, hardship, and perseverance that defined New England’s mill towns in the years after the First World War. Whether Fred found the stability he sought in Maine is unknown, but the move stands as a testament to his willingness to adapt—to seek opportunity wherever it might appear, and to rely on the quiet strength of family in times of uncertainty.
In an extraordinary coincidence, some seventy-five years later, Fred’s grandson, Ernest, and his wife, Candace, would purchase a vacation home on Wilson Lake, just outside Sanford. At the time, the family believed they were choosing a peaceful, remote location with no ancestral connection. Only decades later did they discover that this tranquil corner of Maine had once been a chapter in their own family’s story—where Fred, Ellen, and little Wilbur had lived and worked generations earlier.
Journal Tribune - 25 Jul 1919