USA > Maine > Oxford County > Waterford > The history of Waterford, Oxford County, Maine, comprising Historical address, by Henry P. Warren; record of families, by Rev. William Warren, D.D.; centennial proceedings, by Samuel Warren, esq > Part 1
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M. L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01091 8735
THE HISTORY
OF
WATERFORD, OXFORD COUNTY, MAINE,
4690 -15751
COMPRISING
HISTORICAL ADDRESS, BY HENRY P. WARREN ;
RECORD OF FAMILIES, BY REV. WILLIAM WARREN, D.D .;
CENTENNIAL PROCEEDINGS,
BY SAMUEL WARREN, ESQ.
PUBLISHED BY DIRECTION OF THE TOWN.
'PORTLAND: HOYT, FOGG & DONHAM, 1879.
PRINTED BY B. THURSTON & CO.
1169722
PREFACE.
THIS book has grown out of the Centennial Cele- bration of Sept. 1, 1875.
The Address is, in plan, the same as given at the Centennial. It was kept in this form rather than thrown into the topical order usually followed in local history, to retain the life and symmetry of the subject-matter. In the Address there is much of general history, notably in “The Sketch of Maine in 1775," "Separation from Massachusetts," and "Trans- portation Facilities ;" but as the particular is best understood when given in relation to the general and comprehensive, we think that this fact needs no justification.
But few authorities have been named, as the sources from which local history is drawn are well- nigh innumerable.
The Family Records were an after thought. We
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vi
PREFACE.
regret that they are not more complete, but a cor- respondence impossible under the circumstances would be necessary to any essential enlargement of them.
The report of the Centennial is complete, so far as it's Editor could make it. All speakers were in- vited to send a copy of their remarks, most of whom complied.
Each editor is solely responsible for his part of the book.
Each family has now in print the skeleton of its history. We hope it will insert any facts that may be gathered, and send a copy to Henry P. Warren, Gorham, Maine.
We thank all our friends who have helped us in gathering what is chronicled in this book. May we particularize Jabez Brown (deceased), Thaddeus Brown, and Josiah Monroe, whose aid has been well- nigh invaluable ?
We offer this book to the town-at whose expense it is published-with the heartfelt wish that it may do something toward fostering that local interest and pride, which are powerful incentives to good citizen- ship.
CONTENTS.
HISTORICAL ADDRESS. PAGE
I. HISTORY OF THE GRANT AND SURVEY OF WATERFORD, 1690-1775, .
9-29
II. PLANTATION HISTORY OF WATERFORD,
1775-1797, . 30-68 ·
III. TOWN HISTORY, 1797-1820, BEFORE
SEPARATION, . .
69-143
IV. TOWN HISTORY, 1820-1875, AFTER SEP- ARATION, 144-224
RECORD OF FAMILIES,
225-310
CENTENNIAL PROCEEDINGS, 1875, . 311-344 MEMORIAL OF REV. JOHN A. DOUGLASS, 345-357 INDEXES :
I. OF SUBJECTS, 357-360
II. OF SURNAMES, 361-371
١
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
WE are met to-day, my townsmen, to celebrate no brave deed of arms. There is no Concord Bridge nor Bunker Hill in Waterford. You have . come to hear the homely story of how a few brave men and women conquered a wilderness.
For a hundred years,-ending 1763,-the New England Colonies and Canada were in active hostili- ty, or recruiting their strength during an armed truce. National hate and provincial jealousy con- spired to make the struggle between England and France in the new world pitiless and obstinate.
Three generations of New England farmers were trained in the savage school of frontier warfare, un- til there were bred into them the traditions of the soldier. The heroes, who met and worsted British Regulars at Bunker Hill, Bennington, and Saratoga, were trained in the old French wars; they were comrades of Putnam, Warner, Stark, and Prescott.
2
10
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
During these years innumerable expeditions were sent against the chain of forts which guarded the approaches to Canada and the fisheries of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The French retaliated with war parties of Canadi- ans and Indians, who devastated the frontier settle- ments of New England until, in 1690, there were left in all the Province of Maine only four towns,- Wells, York, Kittery, and Appledore, or the Isles of Shoals.
That year the colonies determined to carry the war into Africa, so they fitted out a double expedi- tion against the Canadas. The part composed of troops from Connecticut, New York, and western Massachusetts was to march against Montreal by the way of Hudson River and Lake Champlain. The other, composed for the most part of troops from eastern Massachusetts, under the command of Sir William Phipps, was sent against the city of Quebec. Both attempts wretchedly failed. There was raw bravery enough, but little skill. Camp diseases thinned the ranks of the little army besieging Que- bec ; after a few skirmishes it re-embarked; storms accompanied the fleet on its homeward route. At length the shattered transports straggled into Bos- ton harbor. The pious fathers and sisters of Mount Royal were as sure that Providence had worsted the English as were the clergy of New England that the
11
PHIPP'S EXPEDITION.
same kind agency scattered the fleet of d'Anville, fifty years later.
The expenses of the expedition were enormous, considering the resources of the infant colony. Phipps had paid the cost of his enterprise against Nova Scotia, in the spring of that year, by plunder- ing the wretched Frenchmen; Massachusetts ex- pected to pay the charges of this by appropriating the revenues and trade of Canada, when conquered. In her extremity she issued paper money in amounts ranging from 2s. to £10; the whole sum put into circulation was £50,000. This was the first expe- rience of New England people with incontroverti- ble paper money, the blood-bought currency that our demagogues tell us of. New England liked it then just as well as she does now. In spite of the fact that the credit of Massachusetts was pledged to its future redemption, the soldiers grumbled and de- manded something tangible. The colony, though destitute of money, was rich in lands. Besides the millions of unappropriated acres in the District of Maine, there were great tracts in central Massachu- setts and in the territory between the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers (then in dispute between Massachusetts and New Hampshire), comprising what is now Cheshire and the greater part of Hills- borough, Merrimack, and Sullivan counties, New Hampshire.
12
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Our Massachusetts fathers, shrewdly reasoning that possession is nine points in the law at the least, concluded to grant a part of this disputed tract to the soldiers, or heirs of those who had fought in the different French and Indian wars, giving eight town- ships to those who served under Sir William Phipps, in 1690 in his expedition against the Canadas. These are known in history as the Canada Town- ships.1 Massachusetts had another object in view, beside barring the claim of New Hampshire, by pre- occupying these lands ; she hoped by pushing settle- ments into the wilderness to protect the older parts
1 Massachusetts granted thirty-seven townships, in all, in this dis- puted territory, most of them for military services in the French and Indian wars. The eight townships in New Hampshire granted for services in the expedition of 1690, under Sir William Phipps, were Bakers-town (Salisbury), Sylvester Canada (Richmond) (Turner, Me.), Beverly Canada (Dunbarton), Ipswich Canada (New Ipswich), Todds- town (Henniker) (Waterford, Me.), Salem Canada (Lyndeborough), Rowley Canada (Rindge) (Bridgton, Me.), and Bow.
The Maine townships indicated in the above list were subsequently granted in lieu of the townships that were surrendered in New Hamp- shire. Three townships in Maine, Raymond, Sudbury Canada (Bethel), and Phipps Canada (Jay), two townships in Massachusetts, Dorchester Canada (Ashburnham) and Roxbury Canada (Warwick), were original grants for services in the same expedition. Most of the townships in Cumberland county, except those on the sea coast, Buxton in York county, Lovell, Sweden, Fryeburg, Stow, Bethel, Rumford, and Water- ford in Oxford county, Jay in Franklin county, and Turner in Andro- scoggin county, were grants for military services during the hundred years of Indian warfare, ending with the expulsion of the French from Canada.
13
LAND TITLES.
of the Province against Canadian and Indian inva- sions.
One of the companies in the Canadian expedition of 1690 was from the counties of Middlesex and Worcester, Mass., and was commanded by Capt. An- drew Gardner. In 1735, Massachusetts gave John Whitman and others, soldiers or heirs to soldiers in Capt. Gardner's company, a tract of land six miles square, the sixth in the line of towns granted to the Suncook proprietors, so called. The present name of this town is Henniker, N. H. It was known as Todds-town, or No. 6, for the first few years of its history.
The grantees held possession of their townships but a few years, for in 1739 the king of England, who had been made arbiter in the dispute between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, decided in favor of the claim of New Hampshire, and the line was run as it now is. Twenty-eight new townships were thereby transferred to New Hampshire.
This decision destroyed the title by which the proprietors of these Canada townships in south- western New Hampshire held their lands. Some made terms with the Masonian proprietors of New Hampshire ; others abandoned their lands and ap- plied to the Province of Massachusetts for relief ; among the latter were the proprietors of Todds- town. Under date of Feb. 26, 1774, they sent to
14
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
the General Court of Massachusetts the following petition :
PROVINCE OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
To his Excellency, Thomas Hutchinson, Captain General and Com- mander in Chief in and over this Province.
To the Honorable, His Majesty's Council and to the Honorable House of Representatives in General Court aforesaid assembled, Feb. 26, 1774.
The petitions of the subscribers in behalf of ourselves and others, grantees of the township No. 6 in the line of towns, hum- bly showeth that the great and general Court of this Province, at their session, 1735, granted a township of the contents of six miles square, being No. 6 in the lines of towns between the Connecticut and Merrimack rivers; that the grantees were at very considerable expense in clearing its roads, building mills, etc., etc., in said township; that by the late running of the line between this gov- ernment and the government of New Hampshire the said town- ship was taken into the government of New Hampshire, and your petitioners and their associates have lost their interests therein, together with the money expended for bringing forward the set- tlement of said township.
Your petitioners humbly request that your excellency and hon- ors would in your known wisdom and practice grant petitioners and other grantees and proprietors of township No. 6, in lieu thereof, a township in some of the unappropriated lands in the eastward part of the Province, or otherwise relieve your petitioners as your excellency and your honors in your wisdom shall think proper, and your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray. JOHN GARDNER. STEPHEN MAYNARD. SETH RICE.
15
LAND TITLES.
The following is the answer to the above Petition.
FEB. 24, 1774.
On the petition of John Gardner and others in behalf of them- selves and the proprietors of a township of the contents of six miles square,-granted to John Whitman and others,-called No. 6 in the line of towns between the Connecticut and Merrimack rivers,
Whereas, It appears that the proprietors of said township ex- pended much money and labor in making roads and other ways bringing forward the settlement of said township, and that the whole of said township fell within the limits of said government of New Hampshire, for which the grantees have received no consid- eration from this Province of New Hampshire,
Therefore, resolved: That in lieu thereof there be granted to the proprietors and legal representatives or assigns of the original grantees, who were sufferers by losing their lands, a township of seven miles square in the unappropriated lands belonging to this Province. Provided; that the grantees settle thirty families in said township within six years, and lay out one sixty-fourth part for the use of the first settled minister,1 and one sixty-fourth part for the grammar school,2 and one sixty-fourth part for Harvard College.8
1 There were three lots known as the Ministerial Lots, L. 9, R. 5, L. 2, R. 12, and L. 15, R. 14; the latter was in the three tiers set off to Norway. Mr. Ripley cleared a few acres in L. 9, R. 5, and used it for a pasture; this lot was afterward sold for $667.00. L. 2, R. 12 was sold for $196.00 and four-fifths of L. 15, R. 14 was sold for $51.00. These sums make up the ministerial fund, the interest of which is divided pro rata among the four churches.
2 There were three School Lots, L. 4, R. 3, L. 9, R. 16, the third lot was in the three tiers set off to Norway. These lots were sold for about $1,000. This $1,000 constitutes what is called the school fund. Both the ministeri- al and school fund are loaned to present or past citizens of Waterford, who are required by law to give indorsed notes. Some of these notes have be- come worthless.
8 L. 10, R. 10 was known as the Harvard College Lot. It was covered with heavy growth of pine timber. It was sold very early in the town's history. Two of the college lots were in the three tiers set off to Norway.
16
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Provided, also, that said township be laid out adjoining to some former grant in that part of the unappropriated lands lying east of the Saco river, and Col. Whitcomb and Capt. Gardner, of Cam- bridge, with such as the honorable board, the council, may join, be a committee to determine who are to be admitted as proprietors in said township; and if any of the grantees of said township No. 6 shall appear to have been compensated, that said committee shall admit other sufferers in their stead, the expenses of said committee to be paid by said grantees.
Provided, also, that said proprietors return a plan taken by a surveyor and chainman under oath into the secretary of State's office within one year, for confirmation.
In council read and concurred in, and Artemus Ward is joined.
In the month of May of this year an outline map of this township, afterward Waterford, was left with the secretary of State in Boston. The state- ment that accompanies this plan reads as follows :
Land granted to the Suncook proprietors. A plan of the town- ship, of the contents of seven miles square, granted by the General Assembly of the State of Massachusetts Bay to the Rev. John Gardner, in lieu of a township granted to John Whitman and others that fell within the limits of New Hampshire on running the lines between the State aforesaid and the said State of New Hampshire, with an allowance of one rod in thirty for swag of chain, with an allowance of 2,500 acres for ponds; said plan was taken by a surveyor and two chainmen on oath and returned into the secretary's office in May, 1774.
The lands north, east, and west were at that time ungranted and unsurveyed, and the north-eastern boundary of Bridgton was not well defined. The two north-western lots, 1 and 2, Range 14, beyond
17
SURVEY OF WATERFORD.
the Kezar ponds, were considered worthless by the surveyor, so lines were not run around them; fifty years later they were valuable timber lots. The surveyor could not find the north-west boundary line of Bridgton,1 so he surveyed but half lots in the south-west corner of the town,-Range 1, lots 1, 2, 3, 4,-and in compensation for the loss took from the unassigned State lands on the north of Water- ford, now Albany, lots 1, 2, 3, 4, in north Range 1.
This survey, ordered by the State, was preliminary to the survey ordered by the proprietors. The first survey outlined the town, the second supplied the Range and cross lines, or in local phrase, the warp and filling. Mr. Jabez Brown, of Stow, Mass., and Col. Joseph Frye, of Pequawkett,? with ten assist-
1 That part of Bridgton was not lotted until 1793, and was very im- perfectly surveyed.
2 Fryeburg.
I give the meanings of some of the Indian names that were applied to ponds, rivers, and localities in this section of Maine, copied from the Reports of the Maine Historical Society, volume 4, which may be received for what they are worth; probably not strictly accurate.
Androscoggin, high fish place.
Casco, place of victory. Coos, cuckoo.
Keersarge, high place.
Ossipee, pine river. Penacook, nut place.
Pequawkett, crooked place, pelican, sandy land.
Suncook, goose place. [For others see note next page.]
18
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
ants, conducted this second survey commencing early in the summer of 1774. It was their inten- tion to divide the town into lots of 160 acres each.
The land was of little value, the hills and ponds were just as numerous then as now, their time was limited, so the surveyors run their lines carelessly. The cross lines north and south were run at very unequal distances from each other, the extremes of inequality being in the ratio of 7 to 12. Tradition says the Range lines east and west were run as fol- lows: One surveyor took the east the other took the west township lines, hoping to meet; sometimes they met, more often they did not, thus making "jogs." The unequal distance of our cross lines ac- counts in the main for the inequality in area of our lots, varying in size as they do from 120 to 254 acres; the careless running of those Range lines ex- plains our "jog " lots.
The surveyors feared that they would not com- plete their work before winter, so in the fall of 1774 Mr. Russell, of Pequawkett, was added to the survey- ing party. He had a fancy that it was not neces- sary to set a compass but once in running a line.
Sebago or Tabaga, meeting of waters or great water.
Songo, where the trap sprung and failed to catch the game. Saccarappa, where it empties toward the rising sun.
Sabattis. This is a corruption of Jean Baptiste, a name often given Indian converts by the French missionaries. e
19
SURVEY OF WATERFORD.
This conceit of his may account for some of the most ragged lines. Chaplin's map, while generally accurate, fails to show all the eccentricities in the lots of Waterford.
The surveying party was supplied with food by a pack man, Daniel Barker,1 who "backed " provisions from Stevens Brook.2 After finishing their work the surveyors compared notes and came to the fol- lowing conclusion ; that "the devil would be to pay" when settlers came in and found their 160 acre lots varying in size from 120 to 254 acres, and that they would grow dizzy in trying to follow the zigzag Range lines.
Tradition says that later the proprietors sent sur- veyors to re-run the lots; but settlers had come in and the surveyors saw that it would lead to endless confusion, so they returned to Boston, leaving the snarl of lines unraveled. The proprietors now threw their lands on the market.
1 This Barker, who afterward settled on lot 3, R. 4, was a giant in strength. He would leave his house, near the foot of Meeting House hill, in the morning, walk over Beech hill to Major Samuel Warren's,- four miles,-reap an acre of rye, bind and shock it, take a bushel of corn for his pay, and " back " it home.
2 Bridgton Center. The mills were half way between the lower vil- lage at Bridgton Center and Long pond. They were built by Jacob Stevens, of Andover, Mass.
·
20
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Let us briefly glance at Maine as it was one hun- dred years ago. The Province at that time was di- vided into three counties, York, Cumberland, and Lincoln. This division was made in 1760.1 York county included the territory within its present lim- its, Flints-town,2 Bridge-town, and the westerly half of Oxford county. The eastern county line run as now to the southern boundary line of Flints-town, thence it run to the center of Sebago pond, thence north through Sebago and Long ponds, between Waterford and Cummings Purchase,4 Oxford 5 and No. 4,6 Sudbury Canada7 and New Penacook,8 to Canada line.
Along the coast were old towns whose settlement dated back to the earliest history of New England. All of these, Kittery, Wells-town,1º Arundel,11 and Pepperelborough,12 were settled before 1645, and most of them ten years earlier, as was Berwick,18
1 Previous to that date York county included the whole territory of the present State. York was the shire town, where all jury trials were held except those of a minor class. At that date the population of the Province was about 17,000.
2 Baldwin, Sebago, and part of Naples.
8 Bridgton, part of Harrison, and a part of Naples.
4 Norway. 5 Albany.
6 Greenwood. 7 Bethel and Hanover.
8 Rumford. 9 Kittery and Elliot.
10 Wells and Kennebunk. 11 Kennebunkport.
12 Saco.
18 Berwick, No. Berwick, and So. Berwick
Wherever in this address the towns are not referred to in a foot note the name and limits are the same now as in 1775.
21
SKETCH OF MAINE.
Newichawannock of our early New England history. These towns had a population of about 10,000.
Beside farming they manufactured lumber exten- sively, which they sent in ships, built in their own yards, to the coast towns and to the West Indies, exchanging it for the luxuries of tea, coffee, rum, molasses, and sugar, or for the manufactured goods of Europe, which they distributed through York county and upper New Hampshire until the railroads de- stroyed them as local centers of trade. What was true of the coast towns of York county was true of those of Cumberland. The relative importance of these towns then was tenfold greater than now, with the exception, perhaps, of Biddeford and Falmouth Neck (Portland). Their absolute wealth at that time was sufficient to give them a respecta- ble position among the old towns of Massachusetts.
Back of this tier of coast towns was Berwick and what were called new towns,-Sanford,1 Lebanon, and Buxton. Above these towns were the following plantations,-Coxhall,2 Little Falls,® Hubbards-town,4 Parson-town, Massabesic,6 Ossipee,' Flints-town,8 Bridge-town,9 the Pequawkett grant,10 Brownsfield,11
1 Sanford and Alfred.
2 Lyman.
4 Newfield.
6 Waterborough.
8 Baldwin.
10 Fryeburg and Stow.
3 Hollis.
5 Parsonsfield.
7 Limington.
9 Bridgton.
11 Brownfield.
22
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
and Sudbury Canada. These plantations, except Coxhall, the Pequawkett grant, and Brownsfield, were not settled until after 1767, and had but a handful of inhabitants each. The Pequawkett grant and Brownsfield had a population of five hundred or more.ª Sudbury Canada was a wilderness, save where Lieut. Nathaniel Segar had cleared a few acres in 1774. A few townships, as Waterford and New Suncook,1 had been surveyed and were await- ing settlers.
Except at the three places that I have mentioned western Oxford county was an unsettled and for the most part an unsurveyed wilderness.
Through the coast tier of towns to Falmouth Neck, and beyond to Georgetown,2 Belfast, and Ma- chiasport, wound a rough cart road, so near impassa- ble that twelve years later the stage was two days in making the trip from Portsmouth to Stroudwater, Falmouth Neck,-less than sixty miles. For fifteen
1 Lovel and Sweden.
2 Georgetown, Phipsburg, Arrowsic, and Bath.
8 In 1768 Capt. H. Young Brown, the proprietor of Brownfield, who lived in Pequawkett, told Rev. Paul Coffin, D. D., that there were in Fryeburg and his town (Brownfield) 300 souls, 100 fighting men. This ratio of able bodied men to population, 1 to 3, held good in all the new towns for the first ten years of their history. Capt. Brown was an of- ficer in the French war and was a prominent man of his times in west- ern Maine. He owned at one time 23,544 acres of land, all the town- ship of Brownfield.
23
SKETCH OF MAINE.
years a postman had carried the mail to Falmouth Neck from Portsmouth over it, and tradition says that a brave dog during the last French war carried the mail tied around his neck from Portsmouth to Wells-town. The hero was shot by the Indians while on duty.
From Pepperelborough north to Pequawkett, through Little Falls, Ossipee, and Brownsfield, ran a rude way, well nigh impassable for teams save in winter.1 In the summer the river was commonly used in spite of its many rapids. Down its swift currents floated bateaux, for supplies from the coast towns.
1 Rev. Paul Coffin, D.D., of Buxton, in his "Ride to Piquackett," in 1768, speaks of making the trip from Saco river, in Buxton, in thirteen hours and a half, being on his horse eleven hours. This road was much better than most of the north and south roads in"Maine at that time, as it ran over pine plains most of the way. The state of the roads in Maine in 1775 may be judged from the following note to the memory of Rev. Paul Coffin, D.D., published in Maine Historical Soci- ety Collections, volume 4.
" In July, 1777, Stephen Gorham, Esq., late of Boston, with his wife, commenced a journey to Buxton to visit his sister Coffin. They traveled to Saco in a chaise, but were here advised not to attempt to go in a chaise to Buxton, as no vehicle of the kind had ever passed on the road. But his wife being unaccustomed to riding on a pillion, he · made the attempt and was four hours on the road, walking himself to steady the chaise. Dr. Coffin, Mr. Gorham, and their wives being de- sirous to visit the late Judge William Gorham, of Gorham, a relative, ten miles distant by the then road, were obliged to try the pillion." Yet both Gorham and Buxton had been incorporated towns for twelve years and more, and had a population of perhaps 500 each.
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