Text by Julie Brownie

Images from Stetson Historical Society

Over one hundred years ago, A.S. Rand of Stetson decided he would breed a pair of oxen for size. His thoroughbred cross of Holstein and Durham resulted in the world’s record for a pair of oxen, both by size and weight.

Rand named these two oxen Mt. Katahdin and A. Granger after the two largest items in Maine at the time: the mountain and the agricultural Grange.

Rand, with his sons Fred Blaine and Clyde, raised these giant oxen at the turn of the 20th century on Creambrook Farm in Stetson.

An article from the Bangor Commercial, titled "Beautiful Oxen," described two pair of oxen Rand showed at the Exeter Fair. "The younger pair, three year old Mt. Katahdin and Granger, took first premium for the best pair of oxen at the fair, also, first premium in sweepstakes pulling. They were six feet eight inches girth at that age."

The Rands decided to see how large and heavy they could grow Mt. Katahdin and Granger. The pair were large calves and at two years they tipped the scale at 6600 pounds.

The cattle did not require special diets, nor enormous quantities of food, just constant feeding. Consequently, they soon became too large for farm work.

Thus, how to exercise them became a problem.

To strengthen their leg muscles, Rand placed their water supply at the foot of an eight-foot flight of four stone steps that they descended and ascended each day.

For five years, Alphonso and Clyde Rand displayed the oxen in the northeastern states, southeastern Canada and the Stone & Austin museum in Boston.

In 1906 they traveled to Madison Square Garden in New York City. On a postcard sent to his sister, Eda Rand Smith of Stetson, Rand wrote, "They had me go on parade ahead near to the Band and they announced my Oxen the Largest in the world after going Round the Ring before over 50,000 People..."

The oxen traveled by train and made quite a scene walking from train stations to places of exhibition. Alphonso Rand – handsome, silver-haired, twirling his goad like a baton – marched ahead of his prizes, Mt. Katahdin and Granger, their black coats, satin smooth and horns and hooves polished, stepped smartly along behind him as if they enjoyed the spotlight.

"Looking at them up close was like looking at a coal-black mountain with a flat top – an animal mountain," one man remarked upon seeing the oxen.

Their impressive stats were:

* Granger weighed 4800 lbs.

* Mt. Katahdin weighed 5000lbs. (2 ½ tons)

* Mt. Katahdin was 13 ½ ft. from tip of nose to tip of tail

When he was 11 years old, Mt. Katahdin died suddenly from a burst bladder.

Rand had him mounted by the S. l. Crosby firm of taxidermists in Bangor for $175. Rand continued to show the two oxen until his death in 1910.

The mounted Mt. Katahdin appeared in parades and at events in the Stetson area until 1934.

That year the barn the mounted ox was stored in, owned by Rand’s grandson, Bernard Shepardson, burned, destroying the ox as well. Prior to the fire, Rand's young great-grandsons posed with the mounted ox.

Granger was put down at the age of 17 and lore says, buried under an apple tree on Cream Brook Farm in Stetson.

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