History Story:
John T. Lindley and Lindley’s Drug Store, Canton, Maine
By Julie Martin
John T. Lindley, my Grandfather, was born in Welchville, part of Oxford, Maine in 1885.
His father had emigrated from England as a young boy, and his mother was born and raised in Maine. His father died when he was three and his mother remarried Anson Cash, and they had six children (One of whom, Mabel, later married Percy Davenport and raised a large family in Canton.)
John grew up in Greenwood and South Woodstock and attended High School in South Paris, Maine. Having grown up in a large family, he was an ambitious young man from the beginning. He worked as a clerk in a dry goods store in South Paris during high school and played on the football team.
He attended college at the University of Maine, Orono for a Pharmacy degree, from 1906-1910. He worked summers during college as a conductor on the Boston Elevated Railroad.
After college, he moved to Melrose, Massachusetts, where he worked as a clerk and pharmacist in drug stores. By 1919, he was proprietor of 3 drug stores in Everett, Mass., just north of Boston.
By the early 1920s, he operated 4 drug stores in Everett, Mass and had an office in Haymarket Square in Boston. I haven’t found deeds or other evidence that he owned the buildings there, so he must have just owned the businesses and rented the space.
In a January 1923 Deed, we see that John T. Lindley purchased the Drug Store building and business in Canton Village from James A. Reynolds, son of Nathan Reynolds, who had each operated the drug store for many years.
(Interesting to note that James A. Reynolds and his wife then moved to Everett, Mass where he had “a good position in a drug store” there. Perhaps connected to one of Lindley’s stores?)
John Lindley, his wife Helen, and their two-year old daughter Ruth (my Mother) first lived in the apartment over the drug store.
The following year, he purchased the Farm on what is now Lindley Road. Along with all his other business activities, he and Helen operated the Highlands as an Inn with cabins, much like those of Green Acres, Lakefield, and Pinewood during that time.
That lasted until the late 30s, when I think my grandmother had had enough of that! It appears that The Highlands became just their summer home after that.
During much of this time, he was still running or working in drug stores in Massachusetts. I can imagine the time it took to travel from Everett to Canton in those days!
John Lindley operated Lindley’s Drug Store from 1923 to 1957, except for a period during the late 1920s and 30s when he sold the drug store business (but not the building) to Cecil Quint, a pharmacist from Sanford, Maine, but then he was able to by it back the late 1930s.
Keep in mind that this was the time of the stock market crash and the Great Depression, and we can see evidence of that in all his mortgages, tax liens, foreclosure notices, and property sales back and forth from the late 20s into the late 1930s for both the store and the farm. His Everett businesses appear to have been lost during the crash of 1929.
By the 1930 census, the Lindley family was living in Beverly, Mass, and he was listed on the census as the “manager of a drug store” and renting an apartment. My mother and her brother Bud attended grammar school in Beverly.
By 1940, the family is living in Middleton, Mass and he is owner of the drug store there, Middleton Square Drug. He remodeled a barn that stood in the center of town into a drug store with a 4-bedroom apartment above, where they lived in the winter months.
He had mortgaged the The Highlands several times, but was able to keep the place throughout it all.
Here is a photo of the soda fountain at the Middleton store in the early 1950s – and it looks much like how I remember the Canton soda fountain. He would have bought the fixtures for both, so many things would be identical. We still have a few of those soda stools and some of the ice cream signs and sundae dishes.
From that time forward, Lindley owned only the two drug stores, Canton and Middleton. In 1949, John Lindley turned over ownership of the Middleton store and building to my Dad, his son-in-law James Martin who had served in WWII, and then graduated from Pharmacy School.
He and my Mom Ruth (Lindley) Martin owned and operated the Middleton store until their retirement in 1995. They both worked there full time. Growing up in Middleton, we all helped to deliver prescriptions all over town and I worked at the soda fountain making lime rickeys and chocolate frappes throughout High School.
The 1940 census lists Thane at 23 years old, as “soda clerk” at a drug store.
John Lindley later hired Thane Rose to manage the Canton drug store. So, Thane worked his way up from the ground floor!
John T. Lindley had planned to retire and raise Hereford Cattle at his farm in Canton. He had built a new red barn in 1951 to prepare for this new phase of his life.
But his retirement was cut short when he died of a heart attack in March 1957 at age 72, while fighting a grass fire behind the house.
The Lindley / Martin family sold the drug store to Thane Rose in 1965.
This is the period of time that most people in town remember. Thane served as the center of the community – open late with pots of strong coffee for those returning a little tipsy from a night out, and many remember the pizza and the ice cream sundaes, and playing the pinball machines in the back and making prank calls from the wooden phone booth.
Thane kept the name “Lindley’s” throughout his tenure. Though most people don’t remember John T. Lindley, everyone walked under his sign every time they went in for many years.
And though Thane kept the “Drug Store” name after he bought the store, he operated it more as a convenience store, with no pharmacist on staff.
Thane owned the store until 1978, when he sold it to the Jasper family.
So, John Lindley worked hard all his life through many ups and downs - and managed to save his businesses and his farm. The Drug Store in Canton was the last business he owned.
I love it when people in town say “I am going to The Drug Store to get a pizza” much to the confusion of new people.