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M. L.
Go 974.102 C19w 1524699
White
Stella Jing
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
1
حمه نهم
EARLY HISTORY OF C
CARIBOU
MAINE
1843 - 1895
BY
STELLA KING WHITE
In recognition of the excellent result obtained by the author of this Early History of Caribou and of its people, and the financial support given by her hus- band, S. L. White, the citizens of Caribou have had this photograph of them printed on the opposite page.
Mrs. Stella King White, the author, was born in Caribou and she knew many of the people she has written about. Other information was obtained by dili- gent search, inquiry, and investigation. She is gener- ously giving the entire proceeds from the sale of this history to the Caribou Public Library for the purchase of new books.
1524699
MR. and MRS. S. L. WHITE
"There comes a voice that awakes my soul; It is the voice of years that are gone; they roll Before me with all their deeds as on a scroll." Ossian Gaelic bard of the 3rd century
"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood When fond recollection presents them to view."
The Old Oaken Bucket By Samuel Woodworth
FOREWORD
Believe it or not, much time, thought and real work have been expended upon the following pages in gathering facts and making sure of their accuracy. My heartfelt thanks go out to all the many friends- present and past residents of Caribou-without whose help this historical sketch (I hesitate to call it a his- tory) never could have been brought about.
Some explanations and apologies must be made for having ventured at all upon these annals of my na- tive town when laboring under the handicap of not having lived there for the last thirty six years, though often visiting there. But when the Caribou Public Library officials discovered a real need of a history of Caribou for the young people of the town, they decided that one should be written, if possible, by some one who had been born there and who had actually lived there through some of the early pioneering years.
As I had lived through some of them, having been born only two years after the arrival of my parents, Mr. and Mrs. L. R. King, I seemed to answer to the specifications. When approached upon the subject by the Librarian, Mrs. Lettie Hale, I was greatly astonish- ed, but upon a little reflection I came to a realization of the fact that I was very nearly "the last leaf upon the tree", and as such, perhaps I had a duty to per- form, and moreover, perhaps it should be done quickly, for "the last leaf" might fall at any time. So I prom- ised Mrs. Hale that I would see at once what I could do.
One qualification I did have: I could remember the faces of every one of the first pioneers, my fath- er's friends, as they passed our house or came to our
door, or as I went into their stores or mills when I was a small child.
I soon found, however, that I was facing what might be called an insuperable obstacle. The war- time restrictions on the use of gasoline, coupled with the distance of fifty four miles between Houlton and Caribou-so lightly considered in happier days- made travel back and forth for historical research work practically impossible with only an A card in our possession. That information would have to be secured by correspondence which is in no way so satisfactory as verbal communication.
The one bright spot in the picture was that I had interviews in 1909-1910 concerning pioneer days with children of the first settlers, then old people them- selves, all now passed away. I had been asked, and had promised to write the Caribou chapter for a History of Aroostook County that the State Librarian of that day was endeavoring to get written by the plan of securing a chapter from each town. The book never materiaized but the chapter that I had written thirty- five years before containing first-hand information about the early days of Caribou had been kept by way of being published in a county newspaper and the col- umns being cut out and pasted into a scrapbook.
This scrapbook which I had not seen for at least twenty years and the existence of which I had forgot- ten was resurrected and proved a godsend at this time. With this as a nucleus I began on the work. If I had lived nearer the base of supplies-a war term much used just at present-I could have secured a great deal more material but my Caribou friends never failed me in finding the information I asked for - if it was to be found.
In addition to this, I found all the records in the Registry of Deeds in the Houlton Court House thrown wide open to me by the Recorder in my search for titles to lands taken up in early days. The Clerk of Courts also furnished me with historical data from his office to clear up many dates and facts. It was pleasing to find so much kindly co-operation on the part of busy people when one is searching for help on a project in which these people could have no personal interest whatever.
The assistance of Caribou friends in connecting the past with the present, bridging the gap of thirty- five years between the first writing and the present day, has been invaluable .. Otherwise it would have been impossible for the present generation-for whom this is written-to locate farms and homes spoken of in the "first edition", in other words, to make sense of it all. Much care has been taken in the verification of all facts when possible, even going as far as the Pacific Coast in this search. Otherwise this historical sketch would be worthless. Some errors have doubtless been made in spite of the pains taken but after reading these explanations the reader may, perhaps not con- demn but forgive. "To err is human, to forgive divine"
One thing more: In writing town histories it is customary to bring them down approximately to the present day. In this case it meant almost exactly one hundred years - from 1843 to 1943. Not half that time had been covered when I realized that it would not be humanly possible for me to write up the whole century of progress as first planned. I had undertaken too arduous a task. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. "The first fifty years are the hardest", therefore the most interesting, so the end of the half
century was chosen as an appropriate time for bringing this to a close. Anyone that has lived in Caribou the past fifty years can write the story of the last half century far better than I could.
In closing I wish to say that I was made the more willing to do this work by a feeling that perhaps it might be doing something for a town to which my father and mother came in the early years as young people with nothing but their courage, and who had so much love for the town, and pride even in the difficult years - in the later rapid growth and progressiveness not only of Caribou but of all Aroos- took. It has always been a matter of deepest regret to me that my father - who died in April 1894, eight months before the arrival of the Bangor and Aroos- took Railroad-could not have lived until that day because he would hve been so rejoiced with the assur- ance of the town's still greater growth and prosperity, for nothing lay nearer his heart. He lies buried beside my mother in Evergreen Cemetery where the graves of so many of Caribou's early settlers are to be found.
"After life's fitful fever they sleep well".
Stella King White
Houlton, Maine, 1945
EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
The first white man to set foot on the soil of what is now known as the town of Caribou was probably Alexander Cochran, a Canadian, who came up the St. John and Aroostook rivers in 1829 looking for a mill- site.
In two articles written by Olof O. Nylander (now deceased) for the Presque Isle Star-Herald, March 13th and 20th 1941, are found the following extracts giving full and explicit information concerning the life and death of Alexander Cochran, showing real re- search work on the part of the writer. This certain- ly pertains to the early history of Caribou and no other information concerning Cochran, so authoritative, can be found.
"The first settlers and lumbermen came up the St. John River about 1820, all Canadians and most all Irish, and the territory was considered a part of New Brunswick.
Alexander Cochran, a Protestant, came from a place in the north of Ireland, though what year he left Ireland, no one seems to know. He came to St. John, N. B. and there he married a girl from this province by the name of Polly Arm- strong. Together they came up the St. John River to throw their lot with the early settlers along the Aroostook River, which at the time-in the years 1828-29-was considered part of the Province of New Brunswick.
In going up the Aroostook River he selected a site for his liome on the Caribou stream. He built a log cabin on the north bank of the stream near the present site of W. E. Crockett's woolen mill. In 1829 he built a dam across the Caribou stream
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
and erected a grist mill. Then he "grubbed out" a road up over the steep bank of the Aroostook River on the north side of the stream, to the grist mill. In the early days he had an ox and crude cart and used to go down to the river and meet those who came up with the grain in bateaux or canoes to the landing, but it often happened that Cochran was away, and they carried the grain on their backs to the mill. At a later date a road was cut through the heavy woods of spruce and cedar on the south side of the stream up to the Cochran mill- pond, and then he had a horse to haul the grain to his mill.
Cochran built a barn on the Aroostook River flat near where the B. & A. R. R. roundhouse now stands, and a road was cut through the woods from this mill.
At the close of the Bloodless Aroostook War, Alexander Cochran was given by the Maine Commissioners to Locate Grants, lots number 3, 4 and 9, containing 468 acres of land in what is now known as Caribou village.
Alexander Cochran and Polly Armstrong-his first wife- had two children, John and Mark. Polly died and was buried in the old Kelly flat on the north side of the Aroostook River near the Fort Fairfield town line.
Alexander married for his second wife, Olive Virginia Jane Parks who was born in Ireland. To them were born ten children, George, Tom, Ann, Henry, Alexander Jr., Rachel, Lydia, David, Olive and Rosetta. Alexander Cochran died Nov- ember 6th 1864 and was buried beside his first wife in the old Kelley cemetery. There are no markers on these graves. This is one of the oldest burying places in Caribou and many of the pioneer settlers are here laid to rest.
After they disposed of the Caribou property in 1865, Mrs. Jane Cochran (the second wife) and part of her children moved to New Brunswick and located on the Tobique River. They moved the grist mill from Caribou to a point about eight
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
miles below Plaster Rock on the east side of the Tobique River, built a dam across the Cochran Brook, erected the grist mill and in the upper story over the mill they had living quarters. Mrs. Cochran operated the mills some years, then sold the millstones and machines to Alfred Giberson who moved them to the Monquart stream at Bath, N. B.
I am under great obligations to all who have given me Information. Caribou, November 21, 1939."
Olof O. Nylander
There is a legend that the name of Caribou stream came from the shooting on that stream, of a caribou -- then, as now, rather a rare animal -- by one of the Cochran boys when they first camped on that stream. From the stream the name extended, later, to the village that grew up along its banks.
The land that is spoken of in Mr. Nylander's art- icle as being granted to Cochran by the Maine Com- missioners to Locate Grants extended from the river up the north side of the Caribou stream, as far as the Main Street of the present day; from thence as far north as the Letter I line (upon which the standpipe is located) then to the river again.
No more settlers followed the coming of Alex Cochran in 1829, and when the Bloodless Aroostook War threatened, the winter of 1839, Caribou was liter-
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
ally not on the map. The settlers at Presque Isle and Fort Fairfield communicated with each other by means of the Reach road, ten miles in length, which had been blazed across to cut off the long distance by river, twenty-four miles.
The actual settlement of Caribou may be said to have commenced with Ivory Hardison, the first American settler, who drove a span of horses bring- ing a load of soldiers from Bangor to Fort Fairfield that winter of 1839. The danger of war was soon over, but Mr. Hardison stayed that summer to assist State Land Agent Cunningham in surveying and lotting out land for the settlers who were beginning to come to Aroostook, attracted by the new opportunities made known by the war.
Ivory Hardison, being a practical farmer, sur- mised the wonderful fertility of the virgin soil under the fine hardwood growth, and decided to make his home in this county. He took up a lot for himself in township Letter H, Range 2 running up from the Aroostook River, and from the Prestile brook south up over the hill to the farm later taken by Winslow Hall.
The Aroostook River was the route for all travel and transportation, by dugout, canoe or raft in sum- mer, and on the ice in winter. In an eddy where the waters were deep and still, was an old landing place used by British trespassers before the Aroostook War, to reach their camp, which they had hastily abandoned
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
upon the approach of the State Militia, leaving tons of fine timber behind them.
From this landing place Mr. Hardison "grubbed" a road through the woods, a half mile or more up the hillside to a spot where he had decided to locate his house.
Mr. Hardison then returned to his home in Wins- low, Kennebec County, Maine, sold his farm, moved his family to China village, and in the spring of 1840, accompanied by his oldest son, Jacob -- a boy of fif- teen -- and one or two other men, started again for Aroostook. At that time, the road from Houlton to Presque Isle did not extend much farther than to Monticello, and they took the "Old Aroostook Road" from Mattawamkeag through Patten to Masardis on the Aroostook River.
At Masardis Mr. Hardison sent the team back, constructed a raft and took the river where they floated down to the landing selected -- a quick journey with the swift current of a spring freshet -- reaching Presque Isle the first day.
The first summer (1840) Ivory and his son spent chopping on their lot, also helping the officials the State had sent to finish the surveying of the township and to locate the road as now travelled from Presque Isle to Caribou.
1842
Then the Hardisons returned to Kennebec County in the fall, not coming back again until the spring of
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
1842 when they chopped and burned and cleared their lot still more, and planted wheat, corn and potatoes between the logs.
They also built during the same year the house of hewn timber, occupied in later years by Ivory Hardison's grandson, George Hardison, until his death in 1941. Ivory was assisted in the building of the house by Harvey Ormsby and John T. Pike of Frye- burg who came in the summer of 1842 on a prospecting trip. In December 1842, having harvested their small crops and hauled a good supply of wood to the door, Mr. Hardison and son started back to China to get the rest of the family.
1843
On February 12, 1843 the family of father, mother and six children started for Aroostook on a two-horse sled, on which was also loaded all their household effects. They were sixteen days on the jour- ney of two hundred and fifty miles, which means some fifteen or sixteen miles a day, on an average. Some may wonder why Mr. Hardison chose to bring his family in the dead of winter instead of summer. It was because it was easier, in old times, to move heavy loads on runners than on wheels.
From Presque Isle to Caribou they drove down river on the ice as there was no road between the two places, though a rough road had been grubbed out be-
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
tween Monticello and Presque Isle in the year or two previous. The Hardisons arrived at their new home on the last day of February, 1843 - sixteen days, and "the mother wept with joy that the long journey was ended in safety" as a grand daughter wrote of her many years after.
Shortly after their arrival heavy storms came on and the snow became so deep that travel on the river -- their only highway -- became impossible and they had no snowshoes. The middle of April the snow was six feet deep and their supplies began to run short. They were practically alone in the snowy wilderness, their nearest neighbors living some three miles away, and no road between.
For several weeks all the bread they had was made from meal ground in a small coffee-mill, though they had plenty of potatoes and salt pork. At last there came a thaw and a crust, and the boys took a grist of buckwheat on a handsled to Cochran's mill on the Caribou stream, and the bread famine was broken.
This family, Mr. and Mrs. Ivory Hardison and their seven children, Jacob, Dorcas, Oliver, Mary Ann, Martin, Ai, and James were the first American family to settle at Caribou with the purpose of staying and making a home. Mr. Hardison's other children, Har- vey, Ida and Wallace were born after they came to Caribou. Harvey, born February 9, 1844 has the honor of being the first American child born in Caribou.
A few more words regarding Ivory Hardison should be said before going on to later comers. A Souvenir Edition of the Aroostook Republican issued in 1894 contains the following sketch of his life and that of his wife:
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
"Ivory Hardison was born in Berwick, Maine in the year 1800 therefore was in his early forties when he came to Aroostook. He was a wheelwright by trade but settled upon a farm in Winslow, Maine wnen young and married Dorcas Libby Abbott in 1824. After the family came to Aroostook in 1843 he engaged largely in farming and lumbering and was successful in bus- iness. He erected the first framed barn in the town- ship which, the first year, was used also for a meeting house and school house.
Mr. Hardison always took a deep interest in town affairs, was many times elected to positions of trust, and was never found wanting. He was the first post- master of Lyndon (which Caribou was first called) under Pierce and Buchanan.
He was a man of marked executive ability, indus- trious, prudent and farseeing, upright in all his deal- ings. He was a good citizen and possessed the entire confidence of all his acquaintances.
His wife, Mrs. Dorcas Hardison was a woman well calculated to adorn any home, whether in palace or cottage, but somehow she seemed to be remarkably well fitted for a pioneer life; of excellent physique, and a cheerful, hopeful temperament, she was able to endure the toils, privations and hardships of a back- woods life with a courage and cheerfulness that im- parted something of her spirit to all with whom she came in contact".
By such people as these, endowed with upright- ness, courage and cheerfulness, was Caribou started on its way.
Mr. Hardison died May 11, 1875, aged 75, his wife March 7, 1887, aged 82, and they are buried in Ever- green Cemetery in Caribou.
·
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
In March of this year, 1843, Harvey Ormsby of Fryeburg who, with John T. Pike, had been prospect- ing this country the summer before, returned with his family and settled where he had taken up four lots cornering on the Carr schoolhouse lot on the back Presque Isle road so-called, some three miles from the Ivory Hardison farm.
It may be mentioned in passing that John T. Pike stayed and lived to a good old age, marrying Mrs. Sylvester Washburn, later in life. He is buried in Ever- green Cemetery, his marker giving his birth date as 1820, his death date as 1880.
In June of 1843, Winslow Hall from Hartford, Maine and his brother Hiram from Buckfield, a neigh- boring town, came to Presque Isle, practically the end of the road. There they built a raft on which they de- scended the river to the Hardison landing place. Winslow selected the next lot south of the Hardison lot, afterwards called the "Griff Hall farm" from his son Grinfell who lived and died there. This farm is now owned by Lewis Emery.
Hiram took the lot in more recent years owned by Silas Hatch, just between the George Hardison lot on the north and the "Griff Hall place" on the south.
The Halls "toted" their supplies a mile and a half, up from the river, through the woods, went into camp and made a clearing. In the fall, Winslow built a log house and Hiram a small frame house on the road which was cut through from the Aroostook River at Presque Isle to the Caribou stream, by the State, that summer of 1843.
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
Then the Hall brothers returned to Oxford County and Winslow fitted out a four ox team to convey the household goods. On Christmas day Abram Parsons, a neighbor who had been secured as driver, started with the ox-team from Hartford. At Buckfield he was joined by two four-ox teams loaded by Hiram Hall, one of which was driven by Cephas Sampson. After getting the other teams started, Winslow fitted up a large covered sled provided with a stove.
1844
In January, 1844, he left Hartford with his wife and six children, Edward, Grinfill, Marcella, Sarah, Ruth Abigail and Jennette, the eldest son, Joseph, being left behind to finish a term of school he was teaching.
On arriving at Presque Isle, they stopped at the tavern kept by E. Packard. Here the families remained until the road through the woods had been broken out by the ox-teams to the log cabins built the summer before. These teams were thirty days making the trip, arriving at the clearing February 15th, 1844. Ox- teams, of course, are the slowest form of travel or transportation but oxen were considered more valuable for farm work than horses in Oxford County a hun- dred years ago, and Mr. Hall used ox-teams for the double purpose of transportation and farm work which, in this case, included tough clearing, felling trees, pulling and burning stumps and the like.
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
The Souvenir Edition of the Aroostook Republican alluded to before, gave many valuable sketches of the pioneers of the town, the more valuable because written, many of them, while the subjects, or their immediate descendants, were still living - has the sketch from which we have culled the following facts clothed in the words of the sketch.
"Winslow Hall, the subject of this sketch, came of good old Puritan stock. His father, Enoch Hall, was a Revolutionary soldier who was with Washington's army during the terrible winter of Valley Forge, and later, saw the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. After the close of the war, Enoch followed the tide of immigration into the Province of Maine and settled on a new lot in Buckfield, Oxford County.
There Winslow was born June 19, 1798. On May 3rd 1824 he married Ruth Howland, daughter of Dr. Michael and Abigail Blake Howland of Bowdoin. Mrs. Hall was a lineal descendant of Admiral Robert Blake of the British Navy, and Dr. Howland was a descend- ant of the John Howland who came over in the May- flower.
1
Winslow Hall and his wife settled in Hartford, a town adjoining Buckfield, where he engaged in farm- ing and trading, building saw and grist mills. In 1835 he represented his class in the Maine Legislature, and was for many years postmaster of Hartford. He came to Aroostook in the spring of 1843 and moved his family here in 1844. Mr. and Mrs. Hall's later years were spent in Washburn with their youngest daughter Jennette, who had married Wesley Stratton of Wash- burn. There Mrs. Hall died in 1879, five years after their golden wedding, and her husband followed her into the 'land of rest' four years later, in 1883."
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EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU
This sketch closes with the following tribute to Winslow Hall found in a newspaper clipping written at the time of his death.
"He was a man of incorruptible integrity, of rare purity of heart and life, of modest, retiring habit and always enjoyed the esteem and full confidence of his fellow citizens."
Winslow Hall's children are as follows :
Joseph Blake, eldest son, was married twice, first to Frances Newhall of Sangerville, second to Lucinda Todd of Lyndon; had three sons and a daughter, viz: Joseph E., lawyer in Caribou and Portland, deceased ; Alfred Winslow, editor of Aroostook Republican, de- ceased; May Frances Stetson, and Willis Blake, a law- yer in Portland. .
Marcella, eldest daughter of Winslow, married Joseph Edward Hines of Washburn where they lived some years, then moved to Massachusetts where they died. They had one daughter, Marcella Hines Gibson, who continued to live in Washburn.
Grinfill, married Martha Pratt of Presque Isle. They had three children, Minnie, Vernon and Nettie; always lived on Presque Isle road.
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