USA > Maine > Franklin County > Rangeley > Pioneer days of Rangeley, Maine > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Gc 974.1 H65p 1770888
M. G.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01187 1073
ITO
1
PIONEER DAYS of RANGELEY MAINE
Published by J. SHERMAN HOAR RANGELEY, MAINE 1928
PRINTED BY THE LEWISTON JOURNAL PRINTSHOP LEWISTON, MAINE
--.. ...
F8417556.4
1770888
Copyright 192S J. Sherman Hoar
This Little Book
Containing The Early History of Rangeley, is founded on stories and facts gleaned from the older generation, who personally and intimately knew the principal characters who are mentioned in this sketch.
Published by J. SHERMAN HOAR Son of ANSON M. HOAR Son of DANIEL HOAR Son of
DAVID HOAR Son of LUTHER HOAR, First Settler of Rangeley, Maine
A 4269
Builded they well for the future, Pioneer settlers of old. Often in song and in story Their valorous deeds are told.
...............................
......
·U
S.
RANGELEY
T HE early history of Rangeley Lake Region is one that will hold the interest of all those, lovers of the Rangeley Lakes. Many believe that Squire Rangeley, from whom was derived the euphonic name, was the first settler who came in the year 1825. But in the summer of 1815, Luther Hoar, with two companions, went from Madrid across the mountains to spy out the Dead River Region because a rumor of the presence of hostile Indians had reached that little hamlet.
Luther Hoar was a born pioneer. But a year had gone by since he and his family had removed from the historic town of Concord, Mass., to Madrid, and here he was already spying out a more remote wilderness. No Indians were seen, but the man was so impressed by the country he had traversed that he stopped to explore a big lake whose beauty and loneliness had penetrated his soul. Here on a northern height, looking south- ward over the lake, with the wonderful landmark,
[5]
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
Saddleback, on his left hand and Bald Mountain on his right, he felled trees and made a clearing. He then followed his companions back to Madrid. The next year he came through again, burned over his clearing and planted potatoes. After harvest- ing a good crop, he housed them in a pit which he had dug deep for that purpose, and carefully cov- ering them to protect them from the long winter's cold, struck out for home. This was in the fall of 1816.
In early April of the next year might have been seen an American father and mother with a sturdy brood of youngsters trudging onward over the snow which lay hard and firm beneath the spruce and pine of this northern wilderness. On its kindly, supporting glaze they dragged behind them on hand-made sledges their scanty stock of household goods and plenishings. Spring then, as now, was the recognized time for moving, but for far different reasons.
-
The family consisted of John, David and William of the older ones; Joseph, who had at- tained to the age of thirteen, and the three young- sters, Daniel, Sally and Mary. Luther, the oldest, had been left behind, adopted by a family in Madrid. The total numerical strength of the family has not yet been reached, for on one of those sledges, wrapped warmly against the winter's cold,
[6]
-
Part of the Original Squire Rangelcy House
It.
1
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
and securely tied in a big bread-mixing trough, lay the baby of the family-Eunice Hoar. Of all this family, little Eunice was destined to be the most famous, for as she lay sleeping in her improvised cradle, something happened to her which was des- tined to be told wherever a native and a summer visitor, or a guide and a sportsman get together and talk about the first settlers.
They had reached the top of one of the long heights which marked their way, and the nucleus of the future township had paused for breath, when it was discovered that Eunice and the mix- ing trough were gone.
The little band retraced their weary way, dis- heartened, for on that glaze of snow no track or trace was discernible. At last, after a long and weary search, the sharp eve of one of the children discovered a twig at one side of the trail, that looked a little bent. Off they started at right angles to the trail, and far down the mountain side, lodged against a giant evergreen, they found the bread tray and in it, still sound asleep,-Baby Eunice.
At last, after a long day's travel, they came to the beautiful lake which the Indians had named Oquossoc. The region around this part of the lake was later named Greenvale. Here they found the huge dugout which Luther Hoar had used and
[8]
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
.
Rangeley Village About 1860
hidden the previous fall. Although amply able to contain the whole family, for it was made from olie of the primeval pines which gave to Maine its famous sobriquet, they yet must walk the remain- ing four miles across on the ice, for the lake was frozen hard and fast.
When they reached the headland which Luther Hoar had selected as the site of their future home, they built their camp-fire and prepared for the first of many nights in the open. A bitter disappoint- ment awaited these hungry, tired pioneers. When Deacon Hoar went to the pit which he had stored full of potatoes, he found it empty. The potatoes were gone!
[9]
.
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
During the winter, the Indians had discovered them and had fared sumptuously on the first fruits of Luther Hoar's industry. After their scanty supply of provisions was exhausted, until their first crop was harvested in the Fall, the family lived principally on ground nuts. So thoroughly was this form of food searched out and devoured that there have never been seen any ground nuts in Rangeley from that day to this.
It was on the fifth of May, 1817, that Deacon Hoar and his family built their first camp-fire. They had laid the foundations of a settlement which was destined to become famous under a name not their own, but that of a stranger and an alien.
There is yet another member of the family to be accounted for. Over a year had gone when, one July day, Joseph, now a big fourteen-year-old boy, got into the big dugout and paddled across the lake. Here he struck out along the spotted line for Madrid. When he returned, two days later, he walked more slowly, for he was accompanied by a woman long past middle age. She is known in the spoken traditions of Rangeley as "Old Mis' Dill." She arrived in the log cabin of the Hoar family none too soon, for on the night of July 10, without other aid than that of this old midwife, in that far outpost of the northern frontier the heroic
[10]
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
pioneer mother brought forth the first white child of the future township-Lucinda Hoar.
The old midwife liked the place and in a year's time she came back, accompanied by her husband, this time to stay.
The first birth naturally calls to mind its antith- esis, and, appropriately enough, Freeman Tibbetts, a noted guide, the son of Lucinda Hoar, is the narrator.
" 'Old Mis' Dill' was the first white person buried here," said he. "She wanted to go to Madrid to see her folks, so Uncle Dan'l (he was the youngest son) walked across the lake with her and set her upon the trail to Madrid. 'Twas in the winter. As they went by Dixon's Island, she see a pine that was all bent over. 'What is that?' says she, for she was old, seventy years, and more too, I guess. Unele Dan'l he telled her what it was. 'That looks like a house waitin' for me,' says she.
"Well, Uncle Dan'l, he put her on the trail and she went on. She got as fur as 'The Height of the Land,' and then she must have got tired and turned round and come back. Some folks come in from Madrid that day and they see where she had broken off some twigs and set down and they fol- lowed her trail down the mountings and across the lake to Dixon's Island, and there they found her
[11]
-
-
Squire Gilbert Farmington = Galli_
1 ..
Farming ton then July 3 d. His
major Rug informa cione you will have function. 4. say it's The i'd be obliged if The world, svine watch thereupon come and finish the material Part of my racle, what is to say it seems. It- Enent Breast us heet, The two Shorts with their I rum, and it. nochung bog. whenhe for and the. Straining any of the chewy , finish The
pique a seguirata ficha continente, marie i · Wie jonchent ang interimenne undi dieses for say what Can you ....
... .....
- directed roz ..
-8 ....
-
Original Letter Written by Squire Rangeley
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
right under that bent old pine tree-froze to · death!"
There was a pause, then, "Did you ever hear how they got their bread?" he asked, reverting to his grandfather's family.
"Grandfather Hoar used to put a bushel of corn on his back and walk to Strong. It was twelve miles to Madrid; from Madrid to Phillips was six miles, and from Phillips to Strong was six miles more, and he walked there and back in three days and carried a bushel of corn besides. He was a powerful man.
"He was some kin to Senator Hoar of Massa- chusetts," went on Freeman after a pause. "It was a number of years after he came in to Range- ley before a horse could get through, but after that grandfather used to ride to Massachusetts and back to see his relatives most every year.
"I remember well the last time he went. He come home and rode into the barn. His wife she come out to see him. 'How do you feel ?' says she. He was a-hangin' up his saddle when he answered her. 'Fine,' says he, and with that he dropped at her feet-stone dead."
The year 1825 saw a happening that meant great things for this little settlement along Oquos- soc Lake, for by this time other families had come
[14]
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
in,-the Rowes, the Thomases, the. Kimballs and the Quimbys in the order named.
This happening was the advent of the man after whom the whole country roundabout this beautiful lake was to be named and even the great chain of lakes itself,-Squire Rangeley. He and his wife and two sons and two daughters came through on the spotted line. It must have been a strange experience for this English gentleman and his family to travel in such fashion, and stranger yet must it have seemed to them when they emerged upon the borders of the lake that this sparsely cleared country was to be their home.
Who was Squire Rangeley and how happened he to come to this remote settlement of the north- ern frontier ? He was of a good old Yorkshire fam- ily which owned Tweed Mill near Yorks, England, and who, according to a great-grandson now liv- ing in England, went out to America to redeem a bad debt. His wife's people were the Newbolds, likewise of Yorkshire, their place being at Intake, North Sheffield. A third son was left in England with his mother's family during their proposed brief sojourn in America. Mr. Kimball, who ran the first stage line which connected Rangeley with the outer world, said: "It was the time of a great land speculation. Land was lotted out and explored and then Rangeley came."
[15]
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
Even with this explanation it might still be a puzzle to account for the fact that an English gen- tleman, but recently arrived in New York City, should come to know of land in a northern outpost of New England. A hunter, guide and patriarch who had heard much of Squire Rangeley from both his father and mother, gave the reason.
"Rangeley got this place by his folks. It fell to them through the Seventeen Hundred and Ser- enty-Six War, through depredations they had committed." It may take the reader some time to puzzle out the meaning of this statement.
"This here was a certain tract of land, set off, you understand. So when he came and found peo- ple had settled it, he was pleased. He built a grist-mill and saw-mill for them.
"He was a kind man. 'Don't haul your lum- ber way down to the mill. Cut my lumber,' he would say. Of course there was plenty of lumber then, but Burnham wouldn't have acted that way. "
Of this same Burnham we shall hear more, later.
"He didn't make the people who had settled here pay for their land; he was only too glad to have the place settled. He claimed he come here fur his health, but he came to get rid of this town- ship.
[16]
THE RANGELEY LAKES.
The "Adirondacks" of New England, situated in Western. Maine, near the New Hampshire and Canada borders.
RANGELEY LAKE HOUSE, RANGELLY, ME.
Raugelen Make House,
J. A. BURKE, PROPRIETOR. One day from Boston into the "Heart of the Wilderness." Fine Scenery, Excellent Trout Fishing, Steamboat Excursions, Delightful Rides. Good Accommodations. Moderate Prices.
Early Advertisement of John Burke on Land Now Occupied by Rangeley Tavern
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
"When he built his house it was before the . saw-mill was built, and the biggest part of it was done by hand labor. In them days, they would saw two or three logs in a day, two men would. I don't know just where they lived at first, but it must have been in a log house till their own was built."
Let us describe this house, which, for its loca- tion and the circumstances under which it was built, seems almost as much of an achievement as one of the pyramids.
All around the house between the clapboards and the plastering ran a brick wall. There were brick partitions, hidden by plastering, between the rooms. The great kitelien contained a big brick oven, the other rooms had brick fire-places. Be- sides the kitchen and dining-room, the "Mansion Part" as the villagers still speak of it, contained four rooms, two on the ground floor and two on the floor above .. Underneath all was the cellar hewn out of the solid rock.
It would have been a house of note in Portland; for this locality it was a veritable castle.
Of the original house only two rooms remain,- the kitchen and its connecting dining-room. Every vestige of a brick has disappeared, gone to the village two miles away to assist in its upbuild- ing. The "Mansion Part" has likewise gone to
[18]
---
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
the same place, where it served as a separate dwelling until destroyed by the fire which burned up Rangeley, in August, 1876.
The floors of the remaining rooms deserve a parting word, for they are made of half logs of the real "Punkin Pine," some of them twenty-seven inches in diameter, and if one goes down cellar he can gaze up at the scalloped ceiling above him, made by the reverse side of these same pine logs.
Deck Quimby, a well-known Rangeley charac- ter, thus described the Squire: "He was a good man, Squire Rangeley was, he paid people what they asked. My father worked for him seven months and got this farm. Uncle Dan Quimby dug the old Rangeley well. That well is forty-two foot deep. It took Uncle Dan seven months and he got a hundred acres fur it. Good land, too. It's the Alton Quimby Farm, now.
"It was while my father was workin' fur Squire Rangeley that he met my mother. She lived in Phillips but she come here to work for Squire Rangeley. She was the first hired girl that was ever in the Town of Rangeley. Her father was a blacksmith and he made her a shovel and a pair of tongs fur a wedding present and he made my father a chainhook.
[19]
-
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
"But all Squire Rangeley's tools come from England. He didn't have any of them made here. He got everything from England.
"He wouldn't go to Boston and he wouldn't trust anybody in Boston or Portland, either. All he knew was England.
"There was two tradin' vessels that did his business for him. It took a year, and weather had to be pretty good or it would take longer. These tradin' vessels would come as fur as Port- land. Then they'd put the things into smaller boats and come as fur as Hallowell and from there on teams to Madrid. Then from there they'd bring 'em through by the spotted line.
"They had to take account of stock every little while to see how low they were gettin'. Still, if the vessel happened to be three weeks late, they would get pretty short of some things.
1 1
"He used to say to my father, 'Go, tap on the barrel of rum, David.' The Squire, he was afraid the rum would run out before the other barrel got here. He had a barrel on the way all the time. He had two barrels and he used to keep them goin' back and forth to England. It was cheaper doin' that than buying a new barrel every time.
----------
"While the cellar of his house was bein' built, every day, just such a time, he'd pass each man down a glass of liquor.
[20]
.
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
"His money would come from England once a year in an iron box. If the vessel had sunk, that would have gone, too.
"One time the salt gave out. You know salt had to come from England, too, like everything else. Well, one year, the vessel was so late that when it got here, the sheep was salt hungry. Squire Rangeley, he thought he'd give 'em the salt himself, so he let down the bars and stepped inside. Them sheep smelled the salt and was on him in a minute. They jumped on him and knocked him down, and if my father and some others hadn't heard him call, he'd 'a' been killed. That night he says to my father, 'You couldn't put a pin point on my body but their damned huffs hev been there!'
"He was a dreadful neat man. He wouldn't have the hawgs near his house and all the slops had to be carried away down the hill and thrown into the swamp. He said they worked their way through the ground, or something like that.
"He was an Englishman-he was funny," said Deck, as if the one were necessarily the corollary of the other. "He claimed new-turned ground was healthy. He never held a plough himself but he would walk all day in a furrow. He always wore a rubber coat to keep out the heat. He used to say to my father, 'I don't see how you can stand the heat, in your thin shirt. Here I be in a rubber
[21]
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
A Day's Catch of Rangeley Beauties
coat and a heavy coat under that, and I'm most sweltered.'
"But he was a nice man. He paid all wages right down in money. He would pay a man twelve dollars a month. My mother, she got fifty cents a week the first year she worked for him and a dollar and a half a week the year after.
"My mother had to learn to cook the English way for the Squire and his family but she cooked our way for the men; and the Squire's children got hold of it and liked it. I suppose they must have told their father and mother for, after awhile, Squire Rangeley would come out in the kitchen and say to her, 'Now, then, Happy, make some of
[22]
1
View of Town at Publication of This Book
.
-
-
---
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
them nice light flakes for dinner.' He meant our saleratus biscuit. The English like their bread baked hard-sort of logy, you know. They got so that they liked our way of cookin' meat, too. The Squire, he was very fond of little pigs, baked. Oh, they were real sportin' people!"
The years went on. The saw-mill and the grist- mill were built; and likewise a road of more than ten miles in length (the first of its kind) to connect the township, and its great product lumber, with the outside world.
When one considers the difficulties that stood in the way of these enterprises, the isolation of this little community, the well-nigh impossibility of procuring any labor other than hand labor and, to crown all, the immense difficulties in the way of transportation, one stands amazed at the results achieved by this English gentleman and his Amer- ican auxiliaries.
But the last undertaking was the proverbial last straw. Before it was completed, Squire Rangeley had come to realize that his ideas for the development of the region were premature and belonged to a later generation.
Another reason for their going was the death of their daughter, Sarah Rangeley. She died Dec. 25, 1827, aged 19 years. On the banks of Sandy River in the Town of Phillips was made her grave.
[24]
------
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
At the time of the big freshet of 1869, this.grave as well as many others, was washed away.
In the almost Arctic cold of a Rangeley winter, the life of the young girl went out. As no medical aid had been available, neither was there any con- solation of the clergy. To use the language of an old man who as a little boy had seen the English Squire in his latter days at Rangeley, "Squire Rangeley sent a man for a good man, whom he liked, to preach the funeral sermon."
Over the deep snow of that far-off winter, the body of the young girl was drawn on a hand sledge to Phillips. Here it lay, unburied, for many months, the dear hope of the sorrowing family being to take it with them to that England to which they looked forward to return before long.
. Things fell out far differently, and August +, 1841, found them in Portland whence Squire Rangeley writes Seward Dill, Esq., concerning an offer which the latter had made him for the prop- erty at the lake and also about a law-suit which he was having with Mr. Burnham in New Hampshire.
It was during the residence in Portland, which lasted two or three years, that the Squire was pre- paring for his Hitting. He eventually sold the Township of Rangeley to that Mr. Burnham who has been mentioned more than once in these chron- icles. According to the son of Rangeley's first
[25]
---
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
hired girl, Deck Quimby, the Squire owned a large tract of land in Virginia. "He and one of his boys went to Virginia one winter and liked the climate better. They found that no one had meddled with their land." He and his family then departed to Virginia where "They kept slaves, one hundred and fifty or that amount." Neither he nor any member of his family ever returned to that beau- tiful lake country to which he had given not only a name but its first real impetus toward civiliza- tion. Nor did they ever return to that England which they regarded so highly. Both sons went through the Civil War, James being a colonel in
-
Noonday Lunch Under the Pines
[26]
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
Overlooking Rangeley Lake
the Southern army, and their descendants are vet living in Henry County, Virginia.
Thus the English country gentleman left his impress upon two widely different sections of America. In that land where he had expected but to conclude a business venture, he found a country and a grave.
And now we come to Burnham, Rangeley's last real squire, as he may be called, for he was the last entire owner of the township save only for a strip of land at its eastern end which Squire Rangeley had sold to another man.
There are probably more stories told in con- nection with Burnham than with any other man
[27]
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
who has ever been connected with Rangeley in any capacity whatsoever, be it farmer, guide, sports- man or landed proprietor.
In person he was tall, "Kind o' big through his shoulders," and of ruddy complexion. Wore a . full beard. "He used to wear a black swallowtail coat, a white vest, and a tall, black fur slick hat. He used to go like a gentleman on horseback, all rigged up."
This was the appearance of Squire Burnham as he came riding into Rangeley, one fine morning, to take possession of his lately acquired domain. The new proprietary, like his predecessor, was to live at "The Old Rangeley Place." Unlike his predecessor, he was, although past middle age, unmarried; and consequently a man named Elliot looked after the place while his wife kept house for the new Squire. To say that Elliot looked after the place is not quite correct, for, whenever he was at home, Burnham kept a sharp supervis- ion. One instance will be sufficient to show the fine scrutiny to which he subjected his hirelings. One day they were having and he being present, and observing that the grass grew sparsely in places, ordered the mowers to skip those spots with their scythes whenever they came to them; this being in order to save the expense of just so much of the men's time as would be employed in
[28]
-
Camp Life in Maine Woods
-
PIONEER DAYS OF RANGELEY, MAINE
mowing an insignificant quantity of grass. Of course, not being versed in the science of mowing, his order caused just the opposite effect to that intended, as the effort of lifting the scythe and carrying it a few feet took as long or longer than it would to have done the mowing; while the grass left standing was a source of annoyance and hind- rance to the hay-makers who came after.
Mention has been made of the Squire's age. Up to the time of his death no one in Rangeley knew how old he was. With simple or deep guile, plans were laid to entrap him into a categorical statement, but he, keener witted than any of his adversaries, saw through them all ere they came to the point and was always ready with an answer whose form never varied. Upon one occasion he remarked that he had been present when Boston's first mayor had been inaugurated. One of his auditors with that broad brow of calm innocence which the Yankee knows so well how to assume, said carelessly, "How old were you at that time, Squire Burnham?" The habitual answer came quick as a flash: "None of your business, damn you!"'
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.