USA > Maine > Oxford County > Buckfield > A history of Buckfield, Oxford County, Maine, from the earliest explorations to the close of the year 1900 > Part 17
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Phebe Churchill was the daughter of Zachary Churchill of Sumner, who with several of his sons took part in the War for Independence. She was also a descendant of Mary Chilton, the first woman to land on Plymouth Rock from the Mayflower. The Cummings family is of Scotch descent and the name was anciently spelled in various ways but at the suggestion of Deacon Cummings, the present form has been generally adopted by all the Dunstable families. The American ancestor was Isaac who settled in Topsfield, Mass., in 1632.
Oliver Cummings, Jr., born in Dunstable, Mass., July 12, 1756, was one of the proprietors of Butterfield, now Sumner and Hartford. His first wife was Betsey Bailey, who was brought up in his father's family. He settled in West Butterfield, now Sumner. While making his clearing and building his log house, his wife and children boarded at Abijah Buck's in Buckfield, where he passed his Sundays. He kept an account of the days by cutting notches on a stick. Once he neglected to do so and worked all day Sunday, to the great disturbance of his con- science. He became a prosperous farmer. Fond of music, he played the bass viol and sang tenor in church.
His wife dying, he married Feb. 1, 1804, Phebe Churchill. By the first he had Sybil, who married Zadoc Bosworth and Oli- ver, who married Polly Churchill. By his second wife, he had three children, Betsey Bailey, who died young, Rev. Larnard, a Free Will Baptist preacher, noted for his droll, original and un- expected remarks, who married Nancy White, and Deacon Whit-
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ney, born Dec. 18, 1808. The latter, after attaining what educa- tion the schools of his town afforded, married Mary Hart Pren- tiss, daughter of Henry Prentiss of North Paris, and began life as a farmer on his father's place. She was a school teacher of note in the town, a great reader of good books and a writer of both prose and poetry for the newspapers. She took great in- terest in young people with ambition ; and her influence in the community was great and her memory will long be remembered and cherished.
Deacon Cummings became interested in mills and he owned and operated several at West Sumner. For many years, he was postmaster at Jackson Village and served several times on the board of selectmen. He was for so long a period deacon of the Baptist church, that during the latter part of his life he was called by all who knew him Deacon Cummings. He died past his three score years and ten, March 4, 1881, respected by all. His wife died Feb. 18, 1879 and they are buried in the cemetery at North Paris.
They had three children, Isabella, born April 15, 1834, mar- ried Joseph S. Ingraham, an apothecary at Bangor. He was a son of Rev. John S. Ingraham of Augusta. He died, leaving two daughters, Pauline, who lives with her mother at Brookfield, Mass., and Mary, who married Albert E. Davis of Brooklyn, N. Y. They have one daughter. The second child was named Prentiss and the third Mellen. The latter died young.
HON. PRENTISS CUMMINGS.
Prentiss Cummings, son of Dea. Whitney and Mary Hart (Prentiss) Cummings was born at West Sumner village, Sept. 10, 1840. When he had attained the age of fourteen he began working in the office of the Oxford Democrat on Paris Hill and here he remained for three years. He then began fitting for col- lege and attended the academy at Hebron and later he took a two years' course at Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H. Then he en- tered Harvard University where he graduated with distinction in 1864. The following year he was principal of the high school at Portland and began the study of the law in the office of Nathan Webb afterwards Judge of the United States District Court.
In the autumn of 1865 he entered the Law School at Harvard and while pursuing his studies was unexpectedly to him appointed
Dea. Whitney Cummings
Prentiss Cummings
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tutor in Latin and had charge of the Sophomore class in that de- partment till 1870. He had previously graduated from the Law School and in the autumn of that year having been admitted to the Suffolk County Bar, he opened a law office in Boston.
In 1874 he was appointed First Assistant U. S. District Attor- ney and for six years had almost exclusive charge of the law busi- ness of the Government in that important district. For three years he represented the great business ward of the city in the common council. In 1884 and 1885 he was a member of the General Court. In the latter year, he was chosen president of the Cambridge Railroad and held that position till the company was consolidated with the other Boston street railways under the name of the West End Company, of which he became vice-presi- dent. This office he held for ten years when the road was leased to the Boston Elevated Railway and he became advisory counsel for the company.
In 1880 he married Annie D. Snow of Cambridge, Mass. They have no children. His home is in Brookline, Mass. Mr. Cummings is trustee of the Public Library and Savings Bank there and of the Mt. Auburn Cemetery Association and for many years chairman of the school board and president of many soci- Eties and clubs. Of the many offices Mr. Cummings has held, he has never sought even one.
Mr. Cummings has a keen legal mind and would have made a good judge. He has a fine private library of choice books. Since retiring from active business after having attained eminent success at the bar, he has made a specialty of Homeric literature and his translation of the Iliad has given him great repute as a scholar. Mr. Cummings has a summer home on Paris Hill near that of his sister, Mrs. Ingraham.
REV. ELEANOR B. FORBES.
Rev. Eleanor Bicknell Forbes, second daughter of Melvander and Julia ( Bicknell) Forbes and great-granddaughter of Jonah Forbes, the Revolutionary soldier and "Minute Man," was born at East Buckfield, Nov. 11, 1860. Her mother was the daughter of William Bicknell, Esq., of Hartford, who was one of the noted school teachers of his time and a large contributor to the press under the nom de plume of "Hartford."
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The father of Miss Forbes died in 1873 and the mother wish- ing to give her two daughters a good education, took them to Hebron, where they worked their way through the academy and graduated with honors in 1878. Miss Eleanor B. Forbes then entered Bates College where she also attained high rank in her studies. During her last year at that institution, her health and eye-sight failed. But she persevered. Her mother read all her lessons to her and by this means she was enabled to pass cred- itable examinations and kept her standing in her class. She gradnated in 1882. For several years she was in very poor health. Of this period of her life she thus writes :
"For several years after graduation I struggled with ill health, seeking relief at the Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, also from the old school physicians, but all in vain. At last a friend sug- gested the metaphysical treatment. Accordingly, I went again to Boston and placing myself under the care and instruction of Mr. and Mrs. Julius A. Dresser, began the work of coming back to life through the understanding of 'divine law.' From that time I have been a student of the New Thought and it was this new revelation of the gospel of Jesus that awakened in my soul the desire to preach the glad tidings of universal hope. Improv- ing every opportunity for reading, attending lectures, studying in the school of experience, I thus prepared myself for my present work."
She was ordained as a Universalist minister at Gray, Maine, Oct. 17, 1901, where she has since resided.
Rev. Miss Forbes is a rising preacher in the denomination. She is a pleasing and eloquent speaker and an earnest worker with full confidence in her mission. She is beloved by her people and has the respect of all classes.
COLUMBIA GARDNER.
Columbia Gardner was one of the most talented women ever born in the town of Buckfield. Her parents were Ira and Naomi (Gray) Gardner of that town. She was their oldest child, born September 28, 1820. Her grandfather was Jonathan Gardner, who served in the Revolution from Hingham, Mass., and after that contest settled in Buckfield.
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Rev. Eleanor B. Forbes
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Columbia Gardner Gertrude Gardner
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Miss Gardner inherited her father's great strength of will and energy and her mother's amiable and lovely character. For her mother she ever showed the deepest feeling and the tenderest at- tachment. Her education was obtained in the grammar school in the village near where she was reared and at Kent's Hill (Me.) Seminary. She early developed a taste for study and literary culture.
Soon after she was twenty years old she went to Baltimore, Maryland, where she was engaged in teaching for some two years. From there she went to Memphis, Tenn., going alone by stage to York, Penn., by canal boats and river steamers to Cin- cinnati, Ohio, and through Kentucky and Tennessee to her des- tination. This journey was more of an undertaking at that period than a trip around the world to-day. She kept a journal in which are recorded many delightful incidents, interestingly related. At Cincinnati where she stopped for a few days with friends she heard the venerable ex-President John Quincy Adams deliver the address at the dedication of the observatory there which had been recently built.
At Lexington, Ky., she met Henry Clay, then the Whig candi- date for the Presidency, and was so impressed with his intellectu- ality and the charm of his manners that she determined to write her father to vote for him, but after sleeping over the matter and considering the intense partisanship of her parent for the oppos- ing party and its candidate she concluded it would do no good and her letter was not sent.
Before Miss Gardner reached the Tennessee line she had an adventure in a stagecoach where a robbery of some of the passen- gers who had attended a horse race and won large sums of money, had been planned. It was a very dark and stormy night and the coach had to pass down a very steep hill and cross an unsafe bridge over a raging torrent. This was the time and place for the highwaymen, but they must needs get all the persons out of the vehicle to walk over the dangerous part of the road to accomplish their purpose. One of the confederates was a passenger. The rain was falling in torrents, the horses became almost unmanage- able and the coach rocked and swayed back and forth in danger of being overturned.
Miss Gardner strenuously refused to leave the carriage and the passengers liable to be robbed followed hier example. Some,
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however, got out and went on foot. Lights were extinguished to prevent the robbers from making out the exact locality of the team on its way down the hill. Shots were fired but in the intense darkness and the great downpour of the rain no one was hurt. And, strange to relate, the carriage with its occupants went safely down the hill and over the bridge. Miss Gardner showed the greatest nerve and self-possession of any of the pass- engers, and they were profuse in their praises. Her action un- doubtedly prevented the robbery.
While at Nashville, Tenn., she visited the Hermitage, the home of Gen. Andrew Jackson. He was then in very poor health. When she told him that she was going to Memphis to teach, that her home was in Maine and that her father was one of his staunchest supporters, he praised her in the highest terms and when she went away, placed his hands upon her head and blessed her.
Miss Gardner taught in Memphis with great success for sev- eral years and in 1847 she went to New Orleans, La., as assistant teacher in a French and English seminary of which she soon be- came the head. There she formed a wide circle of literary friends among the cultured people of that section of the South, and was a frequent and esteemed contributor in both prose and poetry, to the leading journals and literary publications of the time.
In 1850 she came back to her Northern home, but soon re- turned to New Orleans. Some five years later her health began to fail and in spite of all efforts towards a restoration, she died on the 16th day of June, 1856, at Mt. Vernon, Alabama, while on a visit to a friend, and was buried there. Though greatly at- tached to the Southland and her many devoted friends and ac- quaintances there, she had expressed in one of her poems the wish to be buried in the land the Pilgrims founded.
Her writings attracted wide attention and favorable comment among literary people. She was a lady of attractive bearing, charming manners, well-informed upon the topics of the day and widely read in the classics and general literature. She was thus a general favorite in whatever society she happened to be.
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GERTRUDE GARDNER.
Miss Gertrude Gardner is the daughter of Oscar F. and Jen- nette (Thomes) Gardner and niece of the gifted Miss Columbia Gardner. Her mother was the daughter of a Universalist preacher and a very intelligent and most estimable lady. Her father was often in town office and was highly respected by all who knew him.
She was born in Buckfield, May 18, 1875, nearly a month after her father's death. Till she was old enough to take care of her- self, she lived in the family of her uncle, Samuel Thomes, who had married her father's sister, Brittania Gardner.
Miss Gardner obtained her education in the Buckfield village schools and began teaching at the age of sixteen. She soon se- cured a position in the Norway village schools which she has held to the present time (1915.) She has kept fully up-to-date in her methods of instruction, is a strict disciplinarian, and is one of the very best teachers in her grade in Maine.
There is no higher or more honorable calling than that of a teacher of youth and from her long period of service, the hun- dreds of her pupils. the foundation of whose character and future usefulness has been so largely due to right principles inculcated and the proper instruction given by her, must ever remember her with gratitude.
Miss Gardner comes of good Revolutionary and Puritan New England stock on both sides and both family lines are character- ized by deep moral conviction, great firmness of purpose, fine in- tellectuality and a very strong love of home and country, and she has inherited a full share of all these qualities.
HON. J. PRESTON HUTCHINSON.
James Preston Hutchinson, eldest child of John Colby and Emeline E. (Doe) Hutchinson was born in the southeastern part of Buckfield, Jan. 6, 1848. He was educated in the district schools and at Hebron Academy and at sixteen began teaching school, which he followed for several years with marked success. His parents having moved into Hebron, the year he attained his majority he was chosen a member of the school board and later superintendent of schools and was re-elected. In 1872 he went to Auburn, remaining there four years, then to Portland where
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he engaged in the milk business, in which he was very successful and accumulated a handsome property. In 1887 he sold out and traveled for a year in the West, spending the winter in California. Returning to Auburn in 1888, where he resided till his death, he purchased in June of that year a part interest in the real estate business of Lewis O'Brion. After five years, Mr. O'Brion's health being poor, he sold his interest to D. W. Verrill, from which time the management of the business fell upon Mr. Hutchinson. It steadily increased till the firm of J. P. Hutchin- son & Co. became one of the largest and most reliable dealers in real estate in Maine.
Mr. Hutchinson had no bad habits, was moral and upright, square in his dealings and was always interested and identified with all movements for the public good. Such a man is sure of public preferment. While in Portland he was a member of the city government. In 1892 he was elected as an alderman in Au- burn from his ward and in 1894 was chosen as representative to the Legislature and was re-elected. He was a member of Gov. Wm. T. Haines' Council, at the time of his death, Nov. 24, 1914. He was president of the Mechanics Savings Bank, a director of the National Shoe & Leather Bank, of the Central Maine Gen- eral Hospital and also a director in several other corporations. For four years he was a member of the Public Works Commis- sion, a member of the Board of Trade, Secretary of the Auburn Loan Association and president of the Androscoggin Board of Underwriters.
Mr. Hutchinson was prominent in several secret societies. In Masonic circles he held high position. He had been master of his lodge, commander of Lewiston Commandery, K. T., grand commander of the Grand Commandery of Maine, and Kora Temple representative to the Imperial Council in 1907 held at Los Angeles, California.
In politics Mr. Hutchinson was a republican and firmly be- lieved in the cardinal principles of his party. In religion he was a Universalist. For many years he was a trustee of the Auburn Universalist church and superintendent of the Sunday School. He married, March 4, 1873, Miss Maria Loring. Their children were: Lucy Augusta, born April 30, 1874 ; Ruth, born Dec. 15, 1879, died June 8, 1880, and Mina Emeline, born Dec. 25, 1883.
Mrs. Hutchinson died March 19, 1905 and Mr. Hutchinson married for his second wife, Mrs. Abbie Morse Southard of
J. Preston Hutchinson
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Lewiston, Oct. 30, 1909. She was born May 6, 1854. By her first husband she had two children. Colly, who married Dr. A. M. Andrews of Gray and Frank Elwyn Southard, Esq., a prac- ticing attorney of Augusta.
CAPT. JAMES JEWETT.
James Jewett was the son of James, Jr., and Lucy ( Farley) Jewett of Hollis, N. H., where he was born Sept. 13, 1789. He learned the trade of cabinet maker in Boston and came to Port- land to settle in business; but at that time the business of the cities had been seriously disturbed by the war of 1812 and while prospecting for a more promising location, he was attracted to Buckfield, where he settled and built up one of the most im- portant industries of the town. His first shop stood on the riverside near the present home of Emily A. Shaw. This was destroyed by fire Jan. 23, 1834, and he at once moved into the Farwell store, ever since known as the Capt. Jewett Cabinet Shop, in which he remained during the remainder of his business years. He was a skilled wood-worker, an energetic business man and probably employed more workmen than any other per- son in the village. His furniture found its way into nearly every home in Buckfield and adjoining towns and now remains as heir- looms in the homes of the older families. He was prosperous and retired from business somewhat early in life, a man of wealth for his times, though he later, in common with many others, suffered heavy losses through investments in the railroad. He was a pop- ular officer in the militia and highly respected as a citizen. He married, May 5, 1824, Vesta, daughter of John Loring, Esq. He died May 10, 1863. Children: John Loring, born May 28, 1825 ; married Eliza Jacobs of Camden. He was bred to mercan- tile life with his uncle, Lucius Loring, and, on attaining his ma- jority, he went into business in partnership with John S. Ricker of Turner in South Thomaston and later in Bangor, doing a large and prosperous business as wholesale and retail grocers ; but they lost their accumulations in the lumber business and the firm was dissolved. Mr. Jewett remained in business there and afterwards became a commission merchant in flour in New York and Milwau- kee. While on a visit to Buckfield he died of pneumonia, May 30, 1870. He had two daughters, who died young and one son, Ralph
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Loring, now a resident of Cripple Creek, Colorado. Ralph Cum- mings Jewett, born March 11, 1827 ; married Emma A., daughter of Dea. Benjamin Emery. Like his elder brother he was bred to trade with Lucius Loring, with whom he remained about ten years as clerk and partner. He then became associated with his brother, Loring, in Bangor and New York. He returned to Buckfield to reside with and care for his aged widowed mother, and engaged in the wholesale grain and flour business. He was also a general broker in stocks and bonds. He afterwards went to Auburn and became a partner in the firm of Oscar Holway & Co. He died in that city and was buried in his native town. Mr. Jewett was a careful, methodical man of affairs, of sound business judgment and upright character.
James Farley Jewett, born Dec. 4, 1837, was educated at Gould and Hebron Academies and at the age of sixteen years became a clerk in the large wholesale dry goods house of Wellington & Grose, later Wellington Brothers of Boston. He was salesman many years, making frequent and extended commercial trips for this firm of which he became a member. He formed a large ac- quaintance and was popular and successful in business. He mar- ried in 1862, Sarah W., daughter of Dea. Benjamin Emery, and resided in Malden, Mass., where she died. He subsequently en- gaged in the wool business in Auburn, and many years retained luis ancestral home in Buckfield as a stock farm and place of sum- mer visitation. He is now living in retirement in his native town.
ALPIIEUS AUGUTUS KEEN.
Alpheus Augustus Keen, the son of Simeon Keen and Sarah Adams ( Elwell) Keen, was born in Buckfield on his father's farm on the line between Buckfield and Hartford on Sept. 26, 1824. He attended the "Line" District School, then as now attended by scholars from both towns. When not at school he worked on his father's farm and was at once a studious and an industrious boy. Praise from some observer for a recitation in mathematics was the first impulse to ambition for a college education. He went to the High School in Buckfield in 1841, walking the three miles dis- tance daily back and forth. His mother encouraged his going to college and his father did not oppose it, but felt hardly able to meet the expense. The boy said that he would ask for only $100
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a year and would give his note for the amount and pay it as soon as possible after graduating. This he did, the amount paid back being $375. He earned money during his college course by teach- ing, as he had also by teaching and by manual labor earned money at the preparatory schools where he fitted for college, especially at Bridgton Academy and at North Yarmouth.
He entered Harvard College in August, 1845, and graduated there in July, 1849. In June before graduating he had charge of the high school in Marblehead, Mass., where he remained till 1854 when he went West to take charge of Pomeroy Academy, Pomeroy, Ohio. While there, in August, 1857, he was chosen Professor of Latin and Greek in Tufts College and hie re- turned to Massachusetts. In 1859, Mathematics was assigned to him in place of Greek. Later, he had the department of Latin Literature and Roman History. In 1862 he was made Librarian.
It was a notable and honored life and career, made especially interesting and exemplary by his early struggles and his steady growth in usefulness and influence as a scholar and teacher. While still in the full tide of his educational activities at Tufts he died in the fall of 1864, deeply lamented. In the words of the resolutions on his death, adopted by the trustees of the college he was "an accomplished teacher and devoted friend, a consistent Christian believer and self-sacrificing laborer and in the cause of liberal learning an earnest and faithful servant."
His denominational relations were with the Universalist church. His domestic life was a charm. No son of Buckfield merits more honored mention. He now lies in the little burying ground near his father's farm and only this last summer of 1914, his devoted wife was laid there by his side, by their son, Alpheus A., who is a resident of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
ZADOC LONG. By John D. Long
Zadoc Long was born in Middleboro, Mass., July 28, 1800. He was descended from the Pilgrim stock of 1620, though his sur- name came from a grandfather, Miles Long, who came from North Carolina to Plymouth, Massachusetts, and there mar- ried a descendant of Thomas Clark, who came to Plymouth in
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the Ann in 1623. On the maternal side, Zadoc was descended from three of the Mayflower Pilgrims, Bradford, Brewster, and Warren.
Zadoc's father, Thomas Long, a native of Plymouth, was often in summer time employed on board fishing vessels, then lived on a farm in Middleboro and also made shoes. In 1806 the family moved to Buckfield, going by sloop to Salem and thence overland by team to Buckfield. Zadoc often described the arrival at the foot of North Hill, up which he and his brother Tom ran, stop- ping now and then to pick the thistles from their bare feet. At the top were the house and farm now owned by his son, John D. Long. Here Zadoc, until he was fourteen, helped his father on the farm. The hardships of that pioneer time were severe, the living of the large family poor and simple, the firewood often taken in the morning from the snow that had covered it over- night.
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