They can find no other Dixfield listed, anywhere.
Townspeople also are proud of the fact that theirs was the 147th town incorporated in Maine. Not the first, not even the 10th, but the 147th.
Town banners and calendars also announce this fact.
Folks talk about town resident Henry O. Stanley, who had the great honor of having a fish named for him - the Coregonus Stanley.
The town even has its own mascot, Bullrock the moose, memorialized in a statue on Main Street. He supposedly climbed to the rock face of the twin-peaked Sugarloaf Mountain north of downtown, then became so captivated by the view that he plunged to the valley below.
All this from a town of 2,500 that has seen better days.
Mills have closed. Young people went away to college and did not come back.
Proud supporters of the town, like historical society President Donna Towle, call it a "bedroom community" to the paper mill town of Rumford. Can a town of 7,000 have bedroom communities?
Dixfield this year went to a part-time town manager. They hired John Madigan, town manager in neighboring Mexico, to run their town half the time and Mexico half the time.
"It makes sense in a lot of ways, but the important thing is for towns like this to not lose their identities" said Madigan.
No chance of that in Dixfield.
"There are a few of us who try to keep the spirit going," said Towle, 58, a lifelong resident.
Besides heading the historical society, Towle and her husband run Towle's Hardware and the Corner Store variety downtown. Her father worked in the paper mills in Rumford, and her husband is the third generation of Towles to run the hardware store.
WHAT YOU'LL SEE AROUND TOWN
Main Street in Dixfield is Route 2, a busy east-west state highway that runs through several major towns, including Rumford, Farmington and Skowhegan. Despite the truck traffic, Dixfield's village center area remains quaint and picturesque, framed by mountains all around.
There are also stores and shops, including an antiques business in the old opera house. North of downtown, on both sides of Weld Street, are dozens of streets in grid patterns with well-kept older homes. The several Craftsman-style homes on North Street are especially pretty.
Most of Dixfield is fairly rural, with the built-up village of Dixfield taking up just the southwest corner. The much smaller village of East Dixfield is in the northeast corner, some 12 miles away on the Wilton line. In between, there are mostly farms and rural residences.
Edna Holman, 85, lives in a trailer in the section of town known as The Commons, the first settled area, located just about at the geographic center of town. It's a quiet patch of farmland, and next door to Holman's trailer is the oldest house in town, a house built by the founding Holman family more than 200 years ago. Edna Holman lived in that house with her husband and children for years, before moving into smaller quarters.
Holman says she can't imagine living anywhere else. Even the bustle of Dixfield village is sometimes too much for her, what with stoplights and truck traffic.
"But I'm always happy to get home," she said.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Dixfield residents seem to appreciate the quaintness and the deep connections many residents have to their community.
The town was incorporated as Dixfield in 1803. Before incorporation, it was known as Holmantown, after Edna Holman's ancestors, among the founding families.
But then Dr. Elijah Dix, a large landowner in town, made the townsfolk an offer they chose not to refuse.
He said he would donate money for a town library if the town was named for him.
The townsfolk made the name change, but never got their library from Dix. He eventually did send some books for the would-be library - medical textbooks, written in German.
He apparently was persuasive too, as the Maine town of Dixmont, located between Waterville and Bangor, is named for him as well.
His granddaughter may have tried to make up for his schemes.
Her name was Dorothea Dix, and she became a noted social reformer of the 19th century. She spent much of her life improving the treatment of mentally ill patients and bettering prison conditions.
LONGTIME TIES
Dixfield eventually did get a library, established in 1939, thanks to money from the trust fund of town resident Verdurina Ludden. The library, on Main Street, is named for her.
Dixfield today has descendants of several families who were around during Dr. Dix's time.
She worked at the town and school libraries and involved herself in many town committees and events. She raised her seven children here, and most of them, plus many of her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren still live in the area.
Fish lives in the 200-year-old Main Street home she was born in. Lumber trucks going to and from Rumford roar just feet from her front door.
"I'm semi-used to it," said Fish dryly, sitting on her front porch.
Originally published Sunday, August 7, 2005
Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at rrouthier@pressherald.com
More about Dixfield