In 1969 the post office at Clayton Lake was located in an annex on the right side of the house in the center of the above photo. You can actually see the post office that is currently still at Clayton Lake to the left of the porch of what was used as the Chief forester's home. William (Bill) Sylvester lived there the longest of any Clayton Lake resident.
The center building was the Clayton Lake Post Office. The building on the left was first Carl & Margo Holden's camp, then Jolyne & Roger Guay's camp, then Bernard and Barbara White's camp (my parents), then Kieth Smith and his wife Edie. The company tore down the camp in 1996, and the Barn was on the right of the post office.
The unused refurbished post office and barn at Clayton Lake!
One could have a huge barn dance in the barn now, because it floor is a huge concrete slab!
Below is an article written by a newspaper writer in 1969 about the small Clayton Lake Post Office with possibly the youngest US postmaster Jackie May from Mapleton, Maine!
POST OFFICE IN THE WILDERNESS CIRCA 1969
Tucked away in the northern wilderness of Maine (62 miles from any other town in the state) is a tiny community served by a tiny post office. It even has a zip code number - 04018.
There’s a piece of driftwood tacked to the side door of an annex on the only real house in the area, the residence of a forester, Jim May, stating Post Office, Clayton Lake, Maine.
Jacqueline May, the forester’s young wife is the postmaster. Aided by her baby daughter, Jennifer, age 2, who likes to play with empty envelopes, she sorts incoming mail, sells stamps, weighs packages and stamps and bags outgoing mail.
The mail is brought in once a week during the winter months (Jan 1 - May 1) and three times a week for the other months. It is brought in from Lac Frontiere, Province of Quebec. We are told that this is the only office along the Canada-U.S.A. border that receives its mail from a Canadian post office.
This really makes a long distance for a letter from the States to travel in order to reach Clayton Lake. Mail destined for this remote post office is channeled through to Quebec City and thence bused to Lac Frontiere. The mailman, Camille Beaulieu, lives on the Maine side of the border not far from Lac Frontiere. He picks up the mail at the Lac Frontiere office and in his VW makes the 12 mile run over the Canadian roads to Daaquam and thence over 30 miles of gravel log- hauling roads to Clayton Lake.
You may well ask why this devious route? The answer is that, generally speaking, the road from Clayton Lake to the border at Daaquam P.Q. has been the only road open the year round.
Twenty years ago there were many winters when the Nine Mile road, which was used up until 1955, was not open in the winter and Camille had to ski or snowshoe and backpack the mail in. Sometimes he would be able to hire a small plane to take him in, sometimes he used his dog team.
I will have more stories about Camille Beaulieu in the future! Until Again!
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