When Newry artist Luke Paliocha was hired to sketch a tractor for a local couple, it evoked memories of a similar machine he rode as a child with his grandfather, Hugh Durgin. Remembering those rides behind the tractor’s distinctive white steering wheel, Paliocha set out to find the tractor his father had given his grandfather, a rare connection between two men who were estranged for much of his childhood.

Paliocha was around 8 or 9 when the family split occurred.

“I didn’t know why we didn’t go to grandma and grandpa’s house anymore,” he said.

The tractor rides through his grandparents’ Waterford property are among the few memories he has from that time. “My only good memories of him are tours of his garden.”

The garden helped feed the family of eight who eventually returned to his grandfather’s hometown of Newry to live.

The last time he saw his grandparents was by chance at a hospital when he was 18.

“They were hunched over,” he recalled. “I’m pretty sure my grandmother recognized me because she smiled.”

Over the years, he pieced together an image of his grandfather as a hard man who logged in the woods, worked at the Rumford paper mill and served in the military. As a boy, he suffered burns after stepping on hot coals, an injury that left him with pain for much of his life.

Paliocha, a 2014 Museum of Fine Arts School graduate, was in college when his grandfather died. His tractor had been sold several years earlier, around 2005.

THE TRACTOR

Paliocha had wanted to find the tractor for about 15 years, but his search intensified after an aunt mailed him a box containing three family photo albums. The package also led to his first conversation with a relative in nearly 30 years.

A clue had surfaced years earlier. In 2015, Paliocha was hired to draw a tractor for a longtime farmer. The machine looked remarkably similar to one he remembered from childhood.

“It jogged a memory,” Paliocha said. “I thought, ‘This looks a whole lot like my grandfather’s tractor.’ I recognized the model, started asking my dad questions, and the story came together — where the tractor came from and how it had started life as a forklift.”

Since then, Paliocha has spoken with an estimated 30 to 40 people in an effort to trace the machine, including three former owners, a bidder who once tried to buy it and the owner of the auction company that sold it.

The tractor’s history is rooted in Bethel.

Paliocha’s father bought the 1958 International Harvester tractor from Annemarie Saunders after Bethel’s Hanover Dowel Co. closed. The machine had been converted into a forklift for use at the Cross Street mill, and Paliocha’s father later restored it to its original purpose.

“Despite paying around $600 for it, he gave it to my grandfather,” Paliocha said.

According to Paliocha, his grandfather sold the tractor to Darrell Cox, who later sold it to another man. That owner sold it to a third man who consigned it to Paul Arsenault Auctioneers — who rented the Fryeburg Fairgrounds twice a year—where the tractor was sold between 2018 and 2020.

The auction house no longer has records from the sale and while Paliocha eventually located the consignor who brought the tractor to auction, that seller has no record of who purchased it.

The tractor search has taken Paliocha to auctions before dawn to distribute flyers and prompted him to post notices on Facebook and Craigslist. While he has received many leads, the trail has gone cold.

“These tractors are everywhere,” he said. “But I’ve never seen another one with a white steering wheel.”

He realizes by now the tractor may have been scrapped for parts or restored by a collector, however the consignor told him it was operational six or seven years ago, giving him reason to remain hopeful.

If he never finds it, Paliocha said he will likely create his own drawing of the tractor he remembers. For now, he continues the search.