The following is an excerpt from Leona Hall Edwards' book Growing up on Quaker Ridge.

"When Grandfather Watkins was in his early teens, he began working as an apprentice to learn the blacksmith's trade. In his late teens, he bought the shop in South Casco and started out on his own as a blacksmith. A few years later, he married Margaret Elizabeth Chute, who was from the Songo Locks area of Naples, and they lived in the house next to the blacksmith shop for the rest of their lives, raising five children there.

Even when I was a child, my grandfather was getting along in years, and my uncle Albert was doing the heaviest work. I never tired of watching them at work in the blacksmith shop, although I had to sit in a far corner where I wouldn't get hit by sparks flying from the forge as my uncle pumped the bellows or pounded the red-hot horse shoes into the right shape for the horse that was being shod. The shop was smoky and the air was heavy with the acrid odor of seared hooves, but I enjoyed every moment of it.

Grandfather said that in the old days he made his own nails during long winter evenings, while Grandmother was knitting near the open fire. In fact, he said the first machine-made nails weren't good for anything because they broke so easily.

He certainly was not a religious person in the customary sense, but he read the Bible, especially on Sundays in winter, and he was fond of quoting passages of Scripture. On Sunday afternoons in summer, however, he took his chair out on the front piazza where he could see everyone who passed along the road. In those days, when traffic consisted of people in wagons, on bicycles, or on foot, there was always time to stop and 'pass the time of day' or even to 'come up and set a spell'. Grandfather loved that, and everyone enjoyed his wry, dry Yankee humor. For example, when asked "Where does this road go?" he was likely to reply, "I've lived here a long time, and it hasn't gone anywhere yet!"