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A HISTORY OF WINDHAM, MAINE
FREDERICK H. DOLE
TOWN
Gc 974.102 W68do 1337823
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01085 8311
SKETCHES
OF THE
History of Windham, Maine 1734-1935
THE STORY OF A TYPICAL NEW ENGLAND TOWN
BY FREDERICK HOWARD DOLE
ILLUSTRATED BY RAYMOND E. HANSON
OWN
INHAB
INCORPORATED JUNE 12 1762
N OF WINDHAM
*
MAINE
WESTBROOK, MAINE HENRY S. COBB, PRINTER 1935
COPYRIGHT, 1935 BY THE TOWN OF WINDHAM MAINE
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FOREWORD 1337823
T HIS series of sketches of Windham history was pre- pared in connection with the 200th anniversary of the town. The chief purpose of the book is to show the young people of Windham that their ancestors had a very vital part in the settlement and development of the nation of which we are so justly proud. It is to be used in connection with the study of American history, in particular with the colonial and Revolutionary periods. If the author is able to create and foster a real spirit of patriotism by the publication of these sketches, he will have fulfilled the purpose for which they were written.
The chief source of my material is the published and unpublished writings of Samuel Thomas Dole, author of Windham in the Past, published in 1916 by the Town. Where I have used Mr. Dole's language, I have made no acknowledgment other than this. I give my grandfather, the historian, full credit for the largest part of this book. The ideas and the language, to a large extent, are his. The source of information I used, next in importance to Mr. Dole's, is the history of the Town published in 1873 by Thomas Laurens Smith. I have made due acknowledgments to this source of information wherever I have made use of it. The other source of information from which I was able to get many valuable ideas is an old pamphlet published in 1840, and containing the historical address of Thomas L. Smith, delivered one hundred years ago, along with other important material relating to the early history of the Town, collected by Mr. Smith. This pamphlet, the only one in existence so far as I know, was loaned me by Mrs. Charles A. Smith, who got it from the late Urban Lowell. Due acknowledgment has been made, wherever this pamphlet was used.
Windham has an extremely interesting history. Its settle-
ment at the time of the Indian wars and its position that made it the location of the last Indian attack in this part of Maine are features of unusual interest to the local historian. The beautiful setting of lake, river, forest, and hill has influ- enced its history to no slight degree, and these superb natural features will always have much to do with the destiny of the Town.
The value of the text is many times multiplied by the superb illustrations made by my colleague, Mr. Raymond E. Hanson, a well-known Boston artist and a descendant of one of the oldest families in Windham. Without Mr. Hanson's cooperation I should not have undertaken the history. It is intended to be, in a large sense, a Pictorial History of Windham.
The following persons have materially assisted in pro- ducing the book: Mrs. Charles A. Smith, before mentioned, also supplied the material for the illustration of old-fashioned furniture and weapons. Harry W. Kennard furnished the Indian tools and weapons for that illustration. The Atlas Powder Co. supplied the picture of the Old Stone Mill at Gambo for a copy. My colleague in the Roxbury Memorial High School of Boston, Peter Kean, Head of the Art Depart- ment, drew from the printed description the pen and ink sketch of the Old Province Fort. Prof. Reginald R. Goodell wrote the sketch of the Parson Smith House, which he and his sisters occupy in the summer season. To all of these helpers I hereby express my hearty thanks.
Great thanks are also due to the public school officials of the Town for their interest and their earnest efforts in bring- ing the subject of a pictorial history of Windham before the voters on election day. Messrs. Frederick H. Aikins, Clarence W. Proctor, Fred L. Haskell, and Mrs. Stella M. Currier have had more to do with making this volume possible, from a financial standpoint, than the author. But every citizen of the Town who voted for the appropriation for a history of his
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community is to be congratulated on taking this active inter- est in a thing that will make the story of Windham permanent. The book is, then, not only the product of the author but also a monument to the citizenry as well.
FREDERICK HOWARD DOLE.
Windham, July 15, 1935.
5
OUR TOWN
B EAUTIFUL for situation, with its numberless streams, fair farms, wooded hills, and bordered by Sebago on the northwest and the placid Duck Pond on the east, lies Windham, formerly called New Marblehead, the six- teenth town to be incorporated in the District of Maine.
It was by no mere chance that this beautiful tract of land was selected by the Great and General Court of Massachu- setts for the new township that was to be laid out in 1735. All of the coast line in this part of the District had been allotted to earlier townships, and the next grants must extend inland. Next to the ocean in importance for a highway were the rivers. The Presumpscot flowed into the sea through the limits of Falmouth, now Portland; Colonel Westbrook had already built a mill on the falls at Saccarappa. It was nat- ural and proper that the next grant should lie along the Presumpscot, and there the survey was made.
We, the residents of this beautiful town, may well be thankful that the feet of our ancestors were directed to so fine a location, even if it seemed only chance that turned them hither. They were from Marblehead and had obtained the township from the Great and General Court by petition. It was, of course, by chance that they made the petition when this particular grant was the next to be allotted ; yet, whether chance or Providence gave them this location, we, their descendants, may well give thanks for so fair a heritage.
Windham is essentially a farming town. The Presump- scot River that forms its western boundary furnishes manu- facturing power now employed at Mallison Falls, Little Falls, Gambo, and Great Falls. But, as we shall show later, this power is little used, as compared with eighty years ago; and farming is still the most important industry.
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THE ABORIGINES-INDIAN ENCAMPMENT AT WHITE'S BRIDGE
A MERICAN history begins with the relations established between the early explorers and the race of men which they found in possession of these shores. When the first settler of New Marblehead arrived here in 1737, there was comparative peace between the whites and the Indians. The Treaty of Utrecht had put an end to Queen Anne's War, and King George's War was not to begin until 1744. These wars with the French are rightly called French and Indian wars because these two were allies against the English. The Indians were anxious to resist the encroachments of the English, who were entering New Marblehead and other unsettled grants and pushing them farther and farther west and north out of their ancient hunting and fishing grounds.
Let the observer stand on the hill just to the north of White's Bridge and look about him; and he will be inclined to say with the late Samuel T. Dole, historian of the Town, "I don't wonder that the Indians fought to keep this land."
About half a mile beyond the village of North Windham, on the Roosevelt Trail, is a small stream known as "The Little Outlet." This brook is the outlet of Pettingill and Chaffin Ponds. It was formerly the outlet of Little Sebago, as well, until an artificial passage was made through the ridge at the foot of Little Sebago, allowing the waters of that pond to discharge through the Ditch Brook into Pleasant River. Now the volume of water discharged through the Little Out- let is very small. The brook pursues a westerly course and enters the Basin Pond a short distance south of the residence of Harry W. Kennard.
Near its mouth were to be found numerous relics of a peculiar people, who dwelt there from time immemorial. These relics consist of stone axes, tomahawks, arrow and
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spear heads, chisels and gouges, and pieces of pottery. Along the shore of both brook and pond were to be seen the remains of ancient campfires.
In 1895, Mr. Dole visited this spot with the late Albert Kennard, grandfather of the present occupant of the farm. Mr. Kennard had spent his long life in this place, having in- herited the farm from his father, William, who first settled there in 1818. At the time of this visit there was the unmis-
INDIAN RELICS FROM OLD CAMPGROUND
takable location of an ancient camping ground on the north- erly bank of the brook, and quite near the shore of the pond. It consisted of circular depressions in the ground, about fif- teen feet in diameter, and three feet deep. Doubtless when occupied, they were roofed over and considerably deeper than at that time. Mr. Kennard said that, a foot or more below the surface, he had found the remains of ancient camp fires. He also stated that, along the shore, were other depressions of a similar nature. Now, only forty years later, not a sign of those depressions remains. We are, however, showing you a picture of tools and other implements picked up on this spot.
The first white man to visit this spot was a Mr. Elliott, who lived at ancient Saccarappa. Having a curiosity to learn the source of the magnificent river on whose banks he
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lived, one fine spring morning he shouldered his trusty gun, and, calling his dog, he started on a tour of investigation. Taking the eastern bank of the river, he crossed the many affluents with considerable difficulty, and at nightfall arrived at the place now called the head of the river and there pitched camp. The next morning, after taking a careful survey of the surroundings, he became convinced that a much larger body of water must lie beyond ; so he again pressed on and, in a short time, arrived at the spot where the Kennard house now stands.
Spellbound, he gazed on the beautiful panorama of broad lake and distant mountains spread before him; when, on looking across the narrow channel at his left, he saw two Indians fishing from the rocks, while several others were paddling their graceful canoes across a nearby arm of the lake. Alarmed at the sight, he hastily retreated, fortunately without attracting their attention, and arrived home in safety. No further attempts were made to explore this wil- derness until after the Indian wars were over. Tradition says that the next white man to visit this spot was a Mr. Roberts, who was so well pleased with the locality that he built a log house on the Standish shore near White's Bridge. He was probably a squatter, who lived principally by hunting and fishing. His old cellar is still pointed out.
Tradition says it was at this camping ground that Polin, the last chief of the Rockameecooks, gathered his forces for that memorable contest with the whites to be described in a later sketch. After his death his body was brought back here and buried in the manner related in Whittier's Funeral Tree of the Sokokis. Selections from that poem will be given, in connection with the account of the battle.
Yes, they are gone, those "knights of old," and have left little besides these relics to remind us that here once dwelt a race of warriors, lords of the soil that we now occupy in peace.
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BEGINNINGS OF NEW MARBLEHEAD-NOW CALLED WINDHAM
I 'N 1649, the year in which the Puritans beheaded King Charles the First for treason, there was incorporated in New England the Town of Marblehead. It had been set- tled principally by emigrants from the Channel Islands, and, for that reason, had many peculiarities of speech and customs that persisted long after it was first settled. At the time of the Revolution it was the second settlement in size in the Prov- ince. Its peculiar situation on a rocky peninsula left little room for expansion ; and so, on November 20, 1734, Abraham Howard and Joseph Blaney, Representatives from the Town to the Great and General Court of the Province, petitioned that body for a grant of land, as they were "more numerous than in most towns in the Province, so that they were straitened in their accommodation."
On December 27th the petition was granted, under cer- tain conditions. There were to be laid out immediately sixty- three ten-acre lots "in as defensible a manner as possible." One lot was to be for the first settled minister, one lot for the support of the church, and one lot for the support of schools. Each of these lots was to draw an equal amount of land in all future divisions. Each of the sixty Proprietors was to pay five pounds at once to defray the cost of the sur- vey. Each settler was to build a house at least eighteen feet square, with seven-feet posts, have at least seven acres of land "brought to English grass and fit for mowing"; and the Proprietors must "erect a convenient meeting-house for the publick worship of God" and settle a "Learned Orthodox Minister," all this within five years of their admission. Fail- ure to comply with these conditions would be punished by the forfeiture of a settler's land, or by a reversion of the grant to the Province. Because of Indian troubles, some of
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these conditions proved incapable of fulfillment, as we shall see later, and the Proprietors were granted an extension of time.
John Wainwright, John Hobson, and Daniel Epes were appointed on the part of the House, William Dudley and Ebenezer Burrill, on the part of the Council, "a committee fully authorized to admit sixty inhabitants belonging to the Town of Marblehead that are most likely to settle and bring forward a new plantation, and that most need a tract of land."
Agreeably to the power vested in the committee for the above-named purposes, they repaired to the Town of Marble- head and admitted "the sixty grantees specified in the grant." Who actually selected the sixty names for grantees, officially confirmed by the above committee of non-residents, we do not know. As both Abraham Howard and Joseph Blaney, the original petitioners, were among them, we are inclined to believe that they may have had considerable influence in selecting a suitable group. Neither of these men settled in the township. Howard disposed of his lot to Stephen Manchester, and Blaney's lot was settled by Thomas Bolton.
We have a list of all the lots that had been actually settled in 1759, twenty-five years after the township had been granted. Twenty-nine of the sixty-three lots are on this list. A few of the surnames are alike on both the lists, but not a single man was then living on the lot drawn against his name in 1735. This is a matter for curious speculation to the future historian, but the present author sees no clear explana- tion for this situation. The original grantees were supposed to be the most likely settlers, as we have seen above. Why, then, did they not improve their grants themselves ? Were they mere land speculators ? We don't know. What we do know is that the men who actually settled the town were those best adapted to be our founders. Of the original sixty names, there were three "gentlemen" and seventeen whose occupation
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was evidently associated with seafaring. Taxes began to be assessed at once on all sixty, to survey lots, build bridges, make roads, and build a meetinghouse. Although we do not know why they signed up for a lot, it is easy enough to see why they were discouraged from going into the forest and developing it, unaccustomed as they were to such a life. Chute, Mayberry, Manchester, Anderson, Bodge, Graffam, Knight, Brown, and Winship-you were the pioneer stuff that made Windham.
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THE MOST IMPORTANT STONE IN WINDHAM
N April 19, 1735, Mr. Rowland Houghton, a sur- veyor, and two chainmen set out for the District of Maine to lay out the township that had been granted to the sixty Proprietors. They "began at a place called Sacaripy Falls in the Presumpscot* River, and so as the river runs to a great pond called Great Sebago Pond." Thence they surveyed northeast to the North Yarmouth line, thence south to Falmouth, thence southwest to Sacaripy Falls. They had laid out a township of "the contents of six miles square-exclusive of water." They returned from this trip and made their report on May 17th, having been gone nearly a month. This tract of land was made New Marblehead legally by the Great and General Court on June 18th following; and on the 27th of that month the sixty Proprietors of the new township met to dispose of the sixty-three lots by lot.
The first lot, or No. 1, was to be for the use of schools. That is, the sum of money to be realized from the sale of that lot and from one-sixty-third of all future divisions of the public lands was to be invested for the use of a school or schools, whenever there were any. Lot No. 1 was "bounded at the northwestermost end of said division of home lots at a large pine tree marked E. B. 1, and on the northeastward on a road or highway, said highway being about half a mile from Presumscot River, and on said road or highway to measure in breadth ten rods from said pine tree, and from said highway and return on right angles and parallel lines home to Presumscot River, be it more or less."
* Pes-ompsk-ut (Presumpscot) - Falls at the Standing Rocks. This is the Indian name of Saccarappa, where Colonel Westbrook had his mill when New Marblehead was granted. It was a part of Falmouth, which then included Portland and Westbrook.
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The remainder of the lots were bounded in the same man- ner as No. 1, each being laid out ten rods wide on the road, in a southerly direction from the pine tree that marked the "Northerwestermost" corner of Lot No. 1.
The venerable pine stood nearly opposite the Dole Road, so-called, and was destroyed by lightning in the early part of
140!
CORNER STONE OF LOT NO. 1
the nineteenth century. Its site is now marked by a granite slab, set there in the earth by the town authorities many years ago. THIS ROCK MUST NEVER BE MOVED, for all land titles in the town depend upon it.
As mentioned above, these lots were ten rods wide and half a mile long, and were, in a very peculiar manner, "Indian lots," having great length and little width. The design in laying out the lots in this singular form must not be forgotten. It was to fulfill that condition of the grant that they be laid out "in as defensible manner as possible." The General Court incorporated this condition in all grants made
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at that time, from their extreme anxiety to protect the settlers from being destroyed by Indians. It was believed that com- pact settlements were more secure from attacks than sparse settlements ; hence this condition was imposed in the grant.
It should be remembered that the road, or highway, above mentioned, was not really in existence when this description was made. After the settlers had arrived in sufficient num- bers to cut a road through at the head of the lots and so on to Sacaripy Falls, that was done. The road is now called the River Road and extends from Cumberland Mills to North Windham. The first man to settle on the road was the fifth settler, Abraham Anderson. He came here from Groton, Mass. in 1738 and lived two years on the road before any other settler came there. The first four had built their log houses near the river.
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THE BROOK WHERE THE INKHORN WAS LOST
T HIS stream is in the extreme southerly part of Wind- ham. It has three branches, called respectively the west, middle, and east branch. The east branch rises in springs at the base of Sawyer's Hill, in Westbrook; the middle branch, which is the largest, rises in a swamp on the
INKHORN BROOK - WHERE THE INKHORN WAS LOST
east side of Canada Hill; while the west branch, the smallest and shortest, rises in a spring on the farm of George W. Lowe. These unite near the residence of H. T. Lorenzen and form Inkhorn proper. The general course of all these streams is southwest. It empties into the Presumpscot River near the dividing line between Windham and Westbrook.
The westerly branch is of historic renown, for on its banks, on May 14, 1756, a few settlers broke forever the
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power of the haughty Rockamcecooks. There are no falls on this stream suitable for manufacturing purposes, as the volume of water is small, except during the spring freshets, but it has many beautiful spots scattered along its entire course, especially a deep, narrow gorge on the middle branch. There the water, confined by narrow, rocky walls, rushes with great velocity down a steep declivity two or three hundred feet in length, and then loses itself in placid, shady pools, once the home of innumerable speckled trout.
This stream is said to have taken its name from the fol- lowing circumstance. In the old days our fathers kept their ink in the horns of cattle. Rowland Houghton, the surveyor of the township, was provided with one of these articles. He began his survey at the head of the falls at Saccarappa and proceeded up the Presumpscot until he reached this brook. He and his chainmen had some difficulty in crossing the stream swollen by the spring rains. After several trials they accomplished the feat, but in some way they lost the inkhorn. How they managed to keep the records after this mishap tradition fails to state, but the brook was then and there called Inkhorn.
It was on the banks of this brook that Joe Knight and his brother William were captured by the Indians, as we shall show you in a later sketch. We here give you a picture of that spot, as nearly as we can locate it from the traditional account.
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THE FIRST SETTLERS
A S a result of the drawing of the sixty-three home lots first . laid out in the new township, Mr. Thomas Chute had come into possession of Lot No. 12. It is now a part of the farm of Mr. Charles Freeman on the River Road. After Mr. Chute had drawn this lot, he closed his business in Marblehead, removed from there to Falmouth, now Portland, and opened a small store and tavern. He also did a little tailoring evenings, for that had been his trade. On July 30, 1737, he traveled up the Presumpscot in a boat and cut the first trees in the settlement of New Marblehead. During the remainder of that season he was clearing his land and building a log house for his family. There has been some dispute as to whether he actually moved his household to the township in 1737 or 8. We recently had access to an article on the Chute family, written by a descendant, many years ago. This article is now in the possession of Mrs. Charles A. Smith of Windham. It contains several items from Chute's account book against Portland and Windham parties. The charges in the winter of 1737-8 are against Portland parties, and the New Marblehead charges begin in 1738. This serves to prove that Chute waited until it was suitable weather to move his little family, consisting of his wife and young son, Curtis, along with their tools and furniture, up the Presumpscot in a boat. After clearing the seven acres on his own lot, as required by the terms of the grant, he purchased lots 13 and 14 and cleared seven acres on each of these.
Mr. Chute was eminently fitted to be a pioneer leader, and his wife was equally suited to be a real helpmeet in this forest life. He became the leader from the very first. He was the first deacon of the church, and later, the first town clerk. He held both these offices as long as age permitted.
It should be remembered that when Mr. Chute came here
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as the first settler, there was nothing but woods, streams, and ponds in the township. The sixty-three lots that had been laid out all lay on the river, for that was the only highway into the settlement. What is now Windham was as much a wilderness as the rockbound coast of Plymouth when the Pil-
MONUMENT TO ABRAHAM ANDERSON, FIFTH SETTLER
grim Fathers first landed from the Mayflower. Wild beasts roamed supreme. Fortunately, there was a lull in the Indian wars that lasted until there were enough settlers to build a fort and hold their own till the savage foe was subdued forever.
The next persons to settle here, in order of their arrival, were William Mayberry, an original grantee and a black-
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DESDE
smith; John Farrow, ill-suited for a pioneer and mortally afraid of Indians ; Stephen Manchester, who followed Grace Farrow, his best girl, into the wilderness and married her; Abraham Anderson, who settled away from the others on the road; Gershom Manchester, father of Stephen; Thomas Bolton, a man of considerable means ; Samuel Elder, an Irish emigrant ; John Bodge, ancestor of a large number of well- known Windham citizens; Thomas Humphreys, about whom but little is known; Samuel Webb, a runaway boy from Redriff, England, who came here from Rhode Island; and the Rev. John Wight, the first settled minister. To Mr. Wight fell Lot No. 34, which had been drawn for the man who should first minister to the parish of New Marblehead.
Lot No. 2 had been drawn by a Marblehead man named Calley Wright. When he came to view his property, he found it traversed by a very crooked stream, now called Dole's Brook. Disgusted at being cheated out of land by a brook, he went back to the crowded ( ?) settlement of Marblehead and sold his entire interest in the township for one pound sterling.
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