Two hundred years ago, six tiny villages-Ripley, Corinna, Harmony, St. Albans, Dexter, and Cambridge-were established in the rolling hills of Central Maine, each no more than a few miles from the next. By 1810, the village populations were virtually identical. As waterpower technology advanced, the populations of the villages on bodies of water with sufficient fall increased as industry and commerce developed. However, electric power, the telephone,...