USA > Maine > Piscataquis County > Historical collections of Piscataquis County, Maine, consisting of papers read at meetings of Piscataquis County Historical Society, also The north eastern boundary controversy and the Aroostook War, V. I > Part 1
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Gc 974.101 P67h 1198572
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
E
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01085 7735
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014
https://archive.org/details/historicalcollec01pisc_0
COLLECTIONS
OF THE PISCATAQUIS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
VOLUME I
67771 DESTRO
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
OF
Piscataquis County, Maine U.I
CONSISTING OF PAPERS READ AT MEETINGS OF
Piscataquis County Historical Society
ALSO FORT WA
The North Eastern Boundary
Controversy and the Aroostook War
With Documentary Matter Pertaining Thereto COUNTY,INDS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
DOVER: OBSERVER PRESS 1910
ROYED
1198572
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
An Address Delivered Before the Piscataquis County Historical Society by Its President, John Francis Sprague, at Sebec, Maine, July 23, 1908, 1
Early History of the Town of Sebec. Its Incor- poration and Development. Read at the meeting of the society in Sebec July 23, 1908, by Major Wainwright Cushing, 10
Some Facts in Regard to the Early History of the Town of Guilford. By Henry Hudson, Esq., 35 Some Facts Relating to the Early History of Greenville and Moosehead Lake. Presented by Charles D. Shaw, Esq., 52
History of the Baptist Churches in Piscataquis County. By Rev. F. H. Pratt, 66
Universalism in Piscataquis County. By Rev. A. Gertrude Earle, 86
Foxcroft Academy. By Hon. Willis E. Parsons, 100
Historical Sketch of Monson Academy. By John Francis Sprague, 118
Early Navigation on Sebec Lake. By Charles W.
Hayes, Esq., 127
Peter Brawn and His Celebrated Bear Fight on Sebec Lake. By Edgar Crosby Smith, 138
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sketch of Hunter John Ellis. By Sarah A. Martin, 142
Page Edgar Wilson Nye. By John Francis Sprague, 147 Sketches of Some Revolutionary Soldiers of Pis- cataquis County. By Edgar Crosby Smith, 154 Notes of the Crosby Family and a Sketch of the Life of Josiah Crosby. By S. P. Crosby, 204
The North Eastern Boundary Controversy and the Aroostook War. By John Francis Sprague, 216 Documentary History of the North Eastern Bound- ary Controversy, 282
State Papers Relative to the North Eastern Boundary Controversy, 328
History of the Shaw Family with a Sketch of Milton G. Shaw of Greenville. Presented by Charles D. Shaw, 424
William Bingham and the Million Acre Tract. By John Francis Sprague, 434
The Blanchard Family of Blanchard. By Edward P. Blanchard, 442
Resolutions on the Death of Dr. William Buck of Foxcroft, 446
Resolutions on the Death of Columbus W. Ellis of Guilford, 449
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An Address Delivered Before the Pis- cataquis County Historical Society by its President, John Francis Sprague, at Sebec, Maine, July 23, 1908
MEMBERS OF THE PISCATAQUIS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Ladies and Gentlemen :
I T is customary with the members of historical soci- eties to have an outing, or, as it is usually called, a "field day," at least once a year, and the places usually selected, are those of especial historical interest, thus combining the work which they are engaged in with pleasure and recreation.
Your standing committee concluded, and I think wisely, to have our first outing at this sylvan lake, and in this pretty and picturesque little village, quietly reposing at its gateway, and which was one of the earliest settlements in our county.
At first thought it might seem that while they desig- nated a most delightful spot for pleasure and enjoyment it is not of particular historical interest; that it is only one of hundreds of other lakes in our Pine Tree State where nature has been lavish in fashioning the scenery, the beauty and the grandeur about it-that it is after all only Sebec Lake, bearing the same name as the town of Sebec.
This would appear to be true to the casual observer, but possibly it will occur to the more thoughtful that we
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may be to-day upon what is really and in fact historic ground. In the early part of the present year some prominent men from the new State of Oklahoma, who were interested in the Indians, their reservations, lands and varied interests in their state, called upon President Roosevelt to present to him some plans or projects rela- tive to those Indians. In his reply Mr. Roosevelt gave utterance to one of his characteristic expressions that, "It should ever be remembered that the Indian was the first American."
We are now within the limits of a route traveled when this was all a vast wilderness by the first Americans for untold centuries, before the white man ever saw it, in their journeyings from the land of the Delawares, the Iroquois, and other more western nations to the country now known as Canada, and especially to and from what is now known as Mount Kineo, midway of Moosehead Lake.
The rock formation of Kineo mountain is what in com- mon language we know as hornstone or horn flint and is peculiar to itself in many ways, so that whenever a mineralogist or geological student familiar with it finds its fragments in any part of the country he can immedi- ately recognize it as the Kineo rock.
Jackson in his report on the geology of Maine, in 1838, says of this mountain, "Hornstone, which will answer for flints, occurs in various parts of the State, where trap-rocks have acted upon silicious slate. The largest mass of this stone known in this country is Mount Kineo, upon Moosehead Lake, which appears to be entirely composed of it, and rises 700 feet above the lake level. This variety of hornstone I have seen in every part of New England in the form of Indian arrow- heads, hatchets, chisels, etc., which were probably
.
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OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
obtained from this mountain by the aboriginal inhab- itants of the country."
Henry D. Thoreau in his valuable work, which has done so much to make our magnificent forestry famous throughout the world, "The Maine Woods," referring to this subject says: "I have myself found hundreds of arrow-heads made of the same material."
The late Honorable Augustus Choate Hamlin of Ban- gor, besides being an eminent physician and surgeon, was also a mineralogist of considerable fame, and several of his books upon these subjects were published from 1866 to 1870.
He once informed me that the Kineo rock was in some respects so much different from the ordinary horn- stone that scientists could easily distinguish it from that found in any other localities, and that arrow-heads, etc., made from this rock had been discovered much farther south and west than the boundaries of New England. Thus the evidence seems to be conclusive that aboriginals traveled from distant parts of the country to obtain this rock, which they made into crude implements for their use in war and in peace and in the pursuit of game.
We are now within the limits of their great thorough- fare from the Penobscot River to Kineo and Canada, which has, perhaps, been trodden by millions during ages which we know not of.
To substantiate this contention I will refer to "An account of a journey from Fort Pownal, now Fort Point, up the Penobscot River to Quebec, in 1764, by Joseph Chadwick, surveyor," who was employed by the Colony of Massachusetts to make a survey and exploration of a route for a highway from Fort Pownal to Quebec, which was published in Vol. 4 (1898) of the Bangor Historical Magazine, edited by the late Col. Joseph W. Porter,
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HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
who was a most accurate student of the history of east- ern Maine.
A journal of the work of Mr. Chadwick, accompanied by a plan of the territory over which he passed, is now in the archives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a copy of which was furnished to this magazine by Doctor John F. Pratt of Chelsea, Mass.
He (Chadwick) was a stranger and had no knowledge of the country and had to depend entirely upon Indian guides whom he employed at Old Town. The party consisted of John Preble, who acted as captain and in- terpreter, and who was afterwards much employed dur- ing the Revolutionary War in that capacity and in dealing with the Indians. He died in Portland in 1787. Also Joseph Chadwick, surveyor ; Doctor William Craw- ford, second surveyor; Philip Nuton, assistant; and Joseph Askequenent, Sock Tomah, Assony . Neptune, Messer Edaweit, Sac Allexis, Joseph Mary, Sakabis and Francis, who were the Indian guides.
Here was a man penetrating an unknown wilderness, relying entirely upon the knowledge and good faith of the Indians to lead him and point out the way to Que- bec. The Indians were friendly and had no object in traversing other than the old trails which they and all of their ancestors had ever traversed so far as they knew.
From the Penobscot River they went up the Piscata- quis, which in Chadwick's journal is spelled Perscatie- quess, and the notes are that it, "Is a rapid stream and rocky, rough land, but in some parts are good tracts of land on which grow pine and other timber."
The next place noted in the journal is Soback Pond, and now known as Sebec Lake. The name given the beautiful and charming Lake Onawa is Obernestzame- booh Pond, and the notes mentioned Borestone Mountain by saying that, "It has a very remarkable mountain
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OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
which serves to rectify our reckoning about 50 miles each way."
Moosehead Lake is called Lake Sebem or Moose Hills, and Chesuncook Lake is named Gesencook, while Mount Katahdin is given the name of Satinhungemoss Hill.
These unfamiliar names for places, which conflict with our ideas regarding their original Indian names, can be accounted for from the fact well known to students of Indian history and tradition, that different tribes often had different names for the same places.
We find in this journal further evidence that this had been a way long used by the Indians when it states : "At Quebec some of the gentlemen being desirous of forwarding so good a design of opening a road to New England, they began an inquiry of their hunters and Indian traders, who all advised that the above passage is the nighest and most practicable part of the country for opening a road from Quebec to New England," etc.
When one contemplates the awful story of that disas- trous and fatal expedition of Arnold's up the treacherous Dead River and through the Maine woods to Quebec, and thinks of its tragedies, its cruelties, its terrible sufferings, of soldiers resorting to eating all of their dogs except one which belonged to the beautiful half-breed girl enamoured of Aaron Burr, and who accompanied the little army, as did two or three other women who were the wives of officers, and at last boiling their moc- casins for a soup in their desperate efforts to sustain life, he cannot but speculate as to what might have been the result if they had gone up the Penobscot instead of the Kennebec.
It is among the possibilities that if Washington and Arnold had informed themselves regarding this passage where we are to-day, and had found and studied this Chadwick survey and sailed to Penobscot Bay and not to
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HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Merrymeeting Bay, the history of North America might have been changed.
Those of you whose imaginative powers are developed along poetic lines, who are often inspired by the muse, may here, at this moment, upon this ground, in your mental visions behold myriads of red men for ages un- counted paddling their birch canoes over these shimmer- ing waters and softly treading these shores, or you may see the deadly arrows and tomahawks aimed at enemies and hear the war-whoops and conflict of tribal battles; or your strange reveries may lead you into the realms of mysterious romances, of a mysterious past peopled by sleek and swift-footed hunters, valiant and brave warriors and coy and fascinating maidens.
As has been expressed by our sweet singer of Piscata- quis, Anna Boynton Averill, we may well imagine that,
In the sunbeams Paleface fairies hide their tiny spark;
In the raindrops Indian fairies veil their faces dark.
Brightness hides the sunbeam fairies, smiling, fair and warm; Shadows shroud the dusky fairies, dwellers of the storm.
As this is the first meeting of our society since its organization, a word in regard to its objects may not be out of place.
History, concisely speaking, is a record of human events. Since the earliest dawn of civilization man has preserved this record and it has ever served as a beacon light to guide his footsteps in his advancement and prog- ress.
The rise and fall of the republics of history aided our forefathers in laying the firm foundation for our govern- ment for freedom and liberty. And the history of the formation of the integral parts of our nation such as states, counties, cities and towns, is in a smaller way of the utmost importance and value to the generations as they appear and disappear in the mysterious procession
OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
of human existence, having in their keeping the material, political, moral and intellectual welfare of the community while engaged in life's activities.
For these reasons historical societies are formed for the purpose of collecting and preserving such incidents in the lives of men and women, and such events in the history of localities as would necessarily be overlooked by the writers of general history. In this work we gather from state, county and town archives, recorded facts relating to the founding of municipalities and the lives of the founders; we save from destruction the con- tents of fugitive papers, letters, scrap-books and docu- ments, and rescue from the weakening memories of aged citizens facts and traditions which are rapidly passing into oblivion.
Then we make record of contemporaneous facts and events as we have knowledge of them ourselves, for the best time to write history is when it is being made. Such labors are not only an inspiration to those engaged in them, but their fruition will be of inestimable worth to those who will soon come after us.
The Maine Historical Society was organized in 1822 and has had a most prosperous career ever since, and has performed a great work for the State; but it cannot do for the subordinate communities all that ought to be done, hence local societies have been formed and are being formed to carry on this work.
Piscataquis County, although not chartered until 1838, was composed of towns taken from Somerset County, organized in 1809, and Penobscot County, or- ganized in 1816.
When the representatives of the people of the Prov- ince of Maine assembled at Portland on the eleventh of October, 1819, for the purpose of forming a constitution for the new State of Maine, five towns from Penobscot
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County, which are now a part of Piscataquis County, were represented upon the floor of the convention as follows: Foxcroft, Samuel Chamberlain; Guilford, Joseph Kelsey ; Sangerville, Benjamin C. Goss; Sebec, William Lowney ; Atkinson, Eliazier W. Snow.
Among other members of this convention whose names are interwoven with the history of our county may be mentioned Col. Joseph E. Foxcroft of New Gloucester, proprietor of the township of what is now known as the town of Foxcroft; Sanford Kingsbury of Gardiner, once proprietor of Kingsbury Plantation, and for whom it was named; and Alexander Greenwood of Hebron, who subsequently became a citizen of Monson and a land surveyor of note in this county.
Ten of our municipalities have been named for men of prominence in the affairs of their day and generation as follows: Atkinson, Blanchard, Brownville, Foxcroft, Orneville, Parkman, Sangerville, Williamsburg, Elliotts- ville Plantation and Kingsbury Plantation.
Thus it will be seen that we have a field for exertion which reaches back into and is a part of the early history of our State. Very little, as compared with other parts of Maine, has been written of Piscataquis County, and yet its history, if compiled, would be of great interest to all.
The liberal policy which our Legislature has pursued in aid of the Maine Historical Society and similar in- stitutions is an earnest that we may not be too optimistic in believing that our society may receive some assistance from the same source.
I sincerely hope that we may be enabled to publish occasional volumes of the proceedings of these meetings and the papers and collections which may come to us from our members regarding the early days of our county, its pioneers, its civil, religious, political, indus-
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OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
trial and military history, its Indian traditions and legends, its schools, churches, etc.
Whether the objects of this society are ever fully ac- complished will depend on the efforts which the members put forth and upon the sympathy and aid which we re- ceive from our fellow citizens generally.
We invite, therefore, the cooperation of all in carry- ing forward the work which we have begun.
Early History of the Town of Sebec
Its Incorporation and Development
T HE following paper was read by Major Wainwright Cushing July 23, 1908, at the meeting of Pis- cataquis County Historical Society in Sebec. Mr. Cushing took pains to examine the early records of the county in Boston in order to get facts :
Petition for the incorporation of the town of Sebec which was circulated for signatures in the spring of 1811 :
To the Honorable Senate and House of Representa- tives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General Court assembled :
Your petitioners, inhabitants of township number 4 in the seventh range, north of Waldo patent in the County of Hancock, beg leave to represent that although it is now but about eight years since the commencement of the settlement of said township, it already contains between thirty and forty settlers, and that we are sub- ject to all the great and many evils that arise from our unincorporated state, we your petitioners therefore pray that said township may be incorporated into a town by the name of Sebec, vested with all the powers and privileges that other towns do or may enjoy in the Com- monwealth, and your petitioners are in duty bound and will ever pray.
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HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
No. 4, range 7, County of Hancock, May 1811.
James Lyford
Alex Thompson
Hez Hall
Joseph Dennett
Daniel Hall
John Smart
John Wentworth
John Brien
Ric'd Downing
Noah Cross
Clement Bunker
Abiel Gould
Jason Hassell
Joseph Noyes
Silas Herriman
Abel Chase
Geo. Knight
Peter Morrill
Jonathan Lyford
James Douglass
Jeremiah Douglass
John Keene
Wm. Douglass, Jr.
Wm. Douglass
Seth Dowman
Jacob Doe
Joel Crockett
Wm. Mckinney
Patrick Morrill
James Dennett
Moses Page
Boston, Mass., June 11th, 1811.
Read and committed to the Committee of towns. Sent up for concurrence.
Joseph W. Story, Speaker.
In the Senate June 11th. Read and concurred. Samuel Dana, President.
Remonstrance against the incorporation of the town of Sebec.
To the Honorable Senate and House of Representa- tives, Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General Court assembled.
Humbly represent your memorialists inhabitants of township 4 range 7 north of Waldo patent in the County of Hancock, that a petition was presented to your Honorable Body last session praying that this
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township might be incorporated into a town by the name of Sebec, which prayer your memorialists, some of whom were subscribers to said petition, beg leave to say ought not to be granted. Because the signatures to said peti- tion were obtained in an improper manner, and under the influence of false representations, inasmuch as there was never any meeting of the inhabitants to consult upon the subject, or any means to take the sense col- lectively, but the petition was originated by a few in- dividuals and presented to the inhabitants separately, with a representation to each that the other inhabitants were mostly if not altogether in favor of the measure, that not only the inhabitants but the non-resident proprietors were desirous of incorporation, and that if the inhabitants would not petition the proprietors in- tended to take measures to procure an assessment of taxes on them which representations and the reasoning obviously drawn from them, were the prevailing if not the sole motives which induced many, among whom are some of your memorialists to sign the said petition, and it was circulated through the township with such rapidity that though the representations under the influence of which they signed said petition, have been since found to be wholly without foundation in truth, yet there was no opportunity to detect the deception which had been practiced upon them to obtain their signatures until it was too late to make a proper representation of their case at the last session of the Legislature. Therefore your memorialists pray that the petitioners for the in- corporation of the township aforesaid may have leave to withdraw their petition, and the prayer thereof may not at present be granted. As in duty bound will ever
pray. Aug. 1811. Ezra Gould Ezekiel Chase Moses Cross Jeremiah Moulton
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OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
Caleb Cross John Johnston, Jr.
Thomas Roberts
Jonathan Chase
John Webster
Luke Perry
Jonathan Carter
Noah Cross
Abel Chase
Richard Townsend
Bill to establish the town of Sebec.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twelve.
An act to establish the town of Sebec in the County of Hancock.
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, that the township numbered four in the seventh range of the Waldo Patent in the County of Hancock, be and hereby is established as a town by the name of Sebec, and by the following bound- aries, viz: East by number three in the same range, South by the river Piscataquis, West by number five in the same range now incorporated as Foxcroft, North by number six in the eighth range. And the said town of Sebec is hereby vested with all the corporate powers and privileges and subject to the like duties and requisitions of other towns according to the constitution and laws of the Commonwealth.
Section 2. Be it further enacted that any Justice of the Peace for the County of Hancock is hereby author- ized upon application therefor to issue a warrant directed to a freeholder and inhabitant of the said town of Sebec requiring him to notify and warn the inhabitants thereof to meet at such convenient time and place as shall be appointed in said warrant for the choice of such officers as towns are by law required to choose at their annual town meetings.
This bill having had two general readings passed to
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be engrossed. Send down for concurrence. In Senate Feb. 25th, 1812.
Samuel Dana, President.
In the House of Representatives. Feb. 20th, 1812.
This bill having had three several readings passed to be engrossed.
In concurrence. E. W. Ripley, Speaker.
For some reason the town of Sebec did not vote at the annual election in 1813.
The first vote recorded was in 1814.
For Governor
Samuel Dexter, 33 votes
Caleb Strong, 21 votes For Lieutenant Governor
William Gray, 29 votes
William Phillips, 22 votes
1812
To James Lyford one of the freeholders of the town of Sebec.
Greeting :
(L. S.) You are hereby required in the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to notify and warn the freeholders and other inhabitants living within the territorial limits of Number 4, seventh range North of the Waldo Patent now incorporated into a town by the name of Sebec, qualified by law to vote in town meet- ings, viz: Such male citizens as are twenty-one years of age and upwards, liable to be taxed, who have resided within said number four one year preceding his voting, to meet and assemble at the dwelling house of James Lyford in said town on Saturday the twenty-first instant
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OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
at ten o'clock in the forenoon to act on the following articles, viz :
First, to choose a town clerk.
Second, to choose a moderator to govern said meeting.
Third, to choose three able and discreet persons for selectmen.
Fourth, to choose a suitable person to be treasurer.
Fifth, to choose three meete persons to be assessors.
Sixth, to choose a constable.
Seventh, to choose a meete person to be collector of taxes.
Eighth, to choose two or more suitable persons for surveyors of lumber.
Ninth, to choose one or more suitable persons for surveyors and measurers of boards, plank timber and slitwork.
Tenth, to choose surveyors of shingles and clapboards.
Eleventh, to choose two or more judicious and dis- creet freeholders for fence viewers.
Twelvth, to choose a tythingman.
Thirteenth, to choose a fish warden.
Fourteenth, to choose two or more persons to be hog reeves.
Fifteenth, to choose a pound keeper.
Sixteenth, to choose a field driver.
Seventeenth, to choose a school committee if the town see fit.
Eighteenth, to agree in what manner they will have the future town meetings warned, or act anything rela- tive to the subject.
Nineteenth, to make such by-laws as the town sees fit, and choose all such committees as the town think necessary.
Given under my hand and seal the seventeenth day
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of March in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and twelve.
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