In later years known for his gas station on Main Street, Albert J. McLean was a milkman in his earlier years. Shown here is McLean’s delivery wagon that he used to bring product to his customers’ homes. Contributed / South Portland Historical Society

Well known in South Portland in the early 1900s, Albert J. McLean was born in Richmond, Quebec, in 1861. After his mother died in 1879 and his father in 1882, McLean immigrated to the United States in 1883, arriving in the Portland area about 1887.

In his first appearances in local directories, about 1889, McLean was living and working as a watchman at the Clark & Chaplin ice houses in South Portland (known then as Cape Elizabeth). While that job would have paid for his living expenses, he also showed his entrepreneurial spirit by working on the side as a manufacturer of hulled corn (which would be a product similar to hominy/grits, made by soaking dried corn kernels in a mixture of water and wood ash). An announcement in the Evening Express in May 1891 indicated that McLean was delivering his hulled corn product to residents of Knightville, although in that time, the boundaries of Knightville extended from the waterfront down to South Portland Heights (around the intersection of Ocean and Sawyer streets).

In January 1892, McLean partnered with Allon W. Sanborn in purchasing a 100-by-100-foot lot of land on the east side of Ocean Street at South Portland Heights from Charles L. Harmon. In March, they secured a three-year $1,000 loan from Eugene Sherry, a man from Boston who was lending money to people in the Greater Portland area. They used the money to construct a building and purchase the machinery to set up a creamery.

Their partnership was known simply as “McLean and Sanborn” but they also sometimes used the name Cape Elizabeth Creamery. They sold milk, cream, butter and, at least at the start, they also listed themselves as hulled corn manufacturers.

McLean and Sanborn appeared to be struggling a year later, as the loan payments were coming due. Sanborn sold his half share in the land to McLean in June of 1893, and McLean took out a $1,300 loan from Casco Loan & Building to get out of the repayment schedule on the loan from Sherry.

In November of 1893, McLean married Estella Brown (her sister, Clara Brown, would later marry Allon Sanborn). Their first year of marriage would not have been an easy one, however, as McLean and Sanborn were declared insolvent, individually and as a business, in December of 1894.

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Just after the insolvency, McLean used the name “Knightville Dairy Association” for butter making that was going on in the same building, but just for a short time. In 1895, the building was sold off to pay creditors and the partnership was over. Sanborn went back to working his dairy farm on Westbrook Street and McLean continued working as a milkman, selling product under his own name. In the accompanying photo, circa 1900, McLean’s delivery wagon advertised his sale of milk, eggs, butter and pickles.

In 1900, Albert McLean purchased the Gideon Tupper farm at 620 Main St., adjacent to the John H. Johnson farm. He and Estella moved to the home there and McLean started selling milk in the Thornton Heights area. In 1906, the McLeans again met with loss when they suffered a devastating fire. It started in a barn at the rear of the house and resulted in the complete destruction of their story-and-a-half home, two sheds, and two barns. Two pigs and several hens also died in the fire. According to the newspapers, the sheds and barns were filled with hay, which was why the fire was so large and destructive.

Luckily, the McLeans were at church when the fire broke out, so no people were injured. They rebuilt and McLean then listed his occupation as a market gardener, like his next-door neighbor John Johnson. About 1918, McLean went back to work as a watchman, this time for Gulf Refining Company on Danforth Street in Portland. He was employed there for about a decade, then decided to build a gas station next to his house on Main Street.

The A.J. McLean filling station opened at 618 Main St. about 1927 and McLean would operate that gas station until his death in 1937. Albert and Estella McLean had one adopted daughter, Dorothy “Dot” McLean. Dot married Warren Wilkes who later operated the gas station at 618 Main St., as well.

If you’d like to see more information and photographs related to A.J. McLean or other people and places from South Portland’s past, check out South Portland Historical Society’s free Online Museum with over 17,000 images available for viewing with a keyword search. You can find it at https://sphistory.pastperfectonline.com and, if you appreciate what we do, feel free to make a donation by using the donation button on the home page. If you have photographs or other information to share about our community’s past, we hope you will reach out to us. South Portland Historical Society can be reached at 207-767-7299, by email at sphistory04106@gmail.com, or by mail at 55 Bug Light Park, South Portland, ME 04106.

Kathryn Onos DiPhilippo is executive director of the South Portland Historical Society.

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