Chase, Solon, 1822-1909

Solon Chase, son of Isaac and Eunice Chase, was born on a farm at Chase's Mills in the town of Turner, Maine, January 14, 1822 and died there in 1909. He attended Gorham Seminary and in his 19th year he was admitted to West Point, but after a month he was pronounced physically unfit and dismissed. He was twice elected to the Maine State Legislature representing the town of Turner. In 1874 a post office was established at Chase's Mills and Solon Chase was appointed postmaster, an office he held until 1897. He established a Greenback paper and in 1876 helped form the Greenback Party in Maine. The Greenback party (also called the National Greenback party) was organized in 1876 to campaign for expansion of the supply of paper money ("greenbacks") first issued by the federal government in 1862 to help pay for the Civil War. He gained much of his fame with "them steers," a pair of steers which he drove about the country in his campaigns for the party. He also published a weekly political paper The Chase's Mills Chronicle from 1875 to 1879 when the paper was moved to Portland and the name changed to Greenback Labor Chronicle. It suspended publication about a year later. He also published a paper Them Steers which continued from 1882 to 1883. The Greenback Party collapsed in 1884 and he returned to work on his farm. A portrait of him painted by his granddaughter Mrs. Ethel Chase MacColl hangs in the State House in Augusta, Maine.