John Hedman - it takes a village to build a life (from Jämtland, Sweden, to Jemtland, Maine)
John Hedman's great-grandfather Per arrived with his family in New Sweden in 1871. Met by an unkept promise of cleared land from the state of Maine, he and his fellow Swedes took matters into their own hands and built a life in the wild forests north of Caribou.
- They had two choices: work together or die alone.
Step by step, land was cleared, houses built, farm life grew - and the family named their community of homesteads "Jemtland" - after the county in Sweden they had all left behind.
I parked my Volvo and Airstream on the small gravel parking lot outside New Sweden Historical Museum, at the crossing of Station Road and Capitol Hill Road, to meet John at the exact same spot where it all started.
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