Snow swirled around the first Sandy River settlers in the winter of 1780, testing pioneering spirits. But the founders proved tough and able, incorporating Farmington in 1794 and soon establishing other towns, raising crops, building roads and institutions and bringing Franklin County to life. Former Lewiston Sun Journal columnist Luann Yetter describes the early years, the rumored Indian attack that led to the discovery of Rangeley Lakes, the World War I sacrifices of Company K and the Weld baseball player who managed Babe Ruth’s Red Sox to two World Series championships. Yetter also notes the delinquent debt collected by Paul Revere, the murder suspect who made history by (unsuccessfully) defending himself and the near total destruction wrought by the flood of 1869. Describing war, wealth, industry and oddity, she reveals the richness of Franklin County’s past.