FARMINGTON – Farmington paid homage Saturday to its most renowned inventor with the annual Chester Greenwood Parade.
Hundreds of marchers gathered at the Mallet School in the morning to organize into their respective groups and to compete in a float contest. Chester Greenwood was there, in the form of Clyde Ross, of Farmington, who was elected to portray the earmuff inventor at a town meeting in 1986.
“I like playing Greenwood a lot,” he said. Ross has even been in a documentary film about the earmuff-maker.
Elizabeth Greenwood Thomas, 16, of Cumberland, who has portrayed Greenwood’s wife in the parade for four years, stood at the Greenwood float with Ross and with other descendants of the inventor, including George Greenwood, Chester’s grandson.
George remembered his famous grandfather as a tall man. “We lived right next to his house up on the bluff,” he said
More than 1,000 people turned out to watch the parade. First place went to WKTJ, for its float entitled “45 Years in Greenwood Land.” Second went to Western Maine United Soccer, with a float full of young soccer players who sung Christmas carols along the parade route and tossed candy for parade-watchers to grapple over. Third place went to the Temple Brownies, dressed as Santa’s elves.
Among other marchers were police, ambulance and firefighters from around Franklin County, the Red Hat Society, the Rotary Club, New Hope Baptist Church, the Civil War Society and the Franklin County cast of “Inherit the Wind.”
The parade wrapped up in front of the courthouse with birthday cake. Marchers and spectators warmed their hands with chili as they sampled seven varieties before casting ballots.
Necessity, it has often been said, is the mother of invention. For Chester Greenwood, necessity came by way of a chilly winter cold snap that drove him in from skating one day, ears too cold to spend any more time outdoors. According to popular lore, Chester’s ears were too sensitive for the traditional method of keeping warm. The woolen scarves most Farmingtonians wrapped around their ears left him itchy and unhappy. And so, on that fateful winter’s day in 1873, the 15-year-old Greenwood invented the earmuff. Bringing two ear-shaped wires into his grandmother’s kitchen, he asked her to sew fur around them. So began the illustrious career of Farmington’s native son.
The grammar school dropout soon skyrocketed into fame. First in Maine, then across the country, earmuffs were in vogue and Americans everywhere clamored for a pair. “Greenwood’s Champion Ear Protectors” on Front Street supplied muffs to soldiers in WWI.
Greenwood went on to invent hundreds of other gadgets, including a shock absorber that became the precursor to modern aircraft landing gear.
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