USA > Maine > Knox County > Warren > Annals of the town of Warren; with the Early History of St. George's, Broad Bay and the Neighboring Settlements on the Waldo patent > Part 17
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" July 18. Voated by the whole Majority that Capt Den- nis Fogearty be a Committee-man in the place of Capt. J. Nutting Now absent.
" To Capt. Wm. Pendleton. July 17, 1775. Sir, &c. We cannot think proper for you to Contrack any Traid which we sopose is for the Kings Troops, which you No by the Congress orders is Contrey to our oblegation, which we are determined to adhear to. Per orders of the Com'tee. J. Shi- bles, Clerk,
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" At a meeting Heald at the House of Mr M. Packard on Mon. Aug. 28, 1775, chose M. Wheaton chearman. voted that Adam Teal, belonging to Georges Islands, by order of the Com'tee shall receive Ten Stripes Weal Lead on at a post prepared for the same, for a crime which said Teal is found Guilty of, * stealing of a piece of Tow Cloth from Arch'd Gamble on the 25th day of July, 1775. Which Pun- shement was executed on said offender the said day and at said place.
" At a Meeting Heald at the House of Capt. Wheaton on Tuesday Sept. 19, chose Mr E. Snow, Chearman. 2d. per- mitted Capt. Sam. Hathorn in sloop Sally to sail to Ipswich. 3d. permitted Capt. Wheaton's schooner to sail to Portsmouth. 4th. permitted Capt. James Watson to sail to Ipswich. 5th and 6th. that Capt. Wm. Hutchings' sloop and Capt. Philip's schooner remain in custody till farther orders. 7th. that Capt. Gragg bring Linneken to Justeas on Friday next. 9th. that Lieut. Benj. Burton take Capt. Philips' schooner to go a fish- ing and for said Burton to return the fourth part of his earn- ings to the Com'tee or to said owner. 10th. that Capt. Gragg send the party of men that was to be stationed at Wessowes- geeg to Tennas Harbor to Duble the guard there. J. Shibles, Clerk."*
By a later entry, it seems that the schooner committed to Burton was lost ; and the same committee, in 1777, paid the owners £37 10s. lawful money, as indemnity. The multifa- rious duties performed by this anomalous committee, though sufficiently incongruous, were not more so than is usual in the time of a revolution, when the people, having taken into their own hands, must of necessity exercise, all the powers of government.
This record, (slightly injured, where blanks occur, by mice, ) was preserved among the papers of Wm. Watson by his daughter, Mary, till her decease, and is now in the possession of Mr. A. Brown. From the difference in orthography and penmanship, it is probable that the former part of this record was revised and copied, and the remainder, from July, made up extempore.
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CHAPTER IX.
INCORPORATION OF WARREN IN 1776, WITH OTHER TRANSACTIONS TO 1780.
1776. One of the first measures adopted in 1776, was the reorganization of the militia. That of each county in Maine, was placed under the command of a Brigadier Gen- eral. Charles Cushing of Pownalborough was appointed to that office for the county of Lincoln. The regiment which included St. George's, extended to Newcastle. It had been recently under the command of Col. Cargill, but how long he retained his office is uncertain .* The regimental officers in commission during this war, were, as near as can be ascer- tained, Col. Farnsworth of Waldoborough, Major, afterwards Colonel, Mason Wheaton of Thomaston, and Major Hanse Robinson of St. George's, now Cushing. The two last had previously commanded companies. The first company offi- cers in the upper town under the new government, sponta- neously elected by the people in 1775, were, Thomas Star- rett, Captain ; Hatevil Libbey, Lieutenant ; and Alexander Kelloch, Ensign ; the last of whom was the first in the place to display the stars and stripes of the national flag. Besides the officers, the company then consisted of thirty-four pri- vates. Under the auspices of Capt. Starrett, who possessed as much moderation as firmness, the military affairs of the place, were, during the war, conducted to the general satis- faction. Massachusetts was, this year, called upon by Con- gress for a levy of 5,000 men ; yet so exposed were the eastern settlements, that none were taken from the County of Lincoln, and but thirty-nine from Cumberland. The wages paid at this time to a private soldier, were ££3 per month ; but. in consequence of recent emissions of paper money, this was probably worth less than its nominal value.+
The Declaration of Independence, which passed on the 4th of July of this year, was printed and sent to all the min- isters of the Gospel in the State, to be publicly read by them on the first Lord's day after its reception, and to be recorded by the town clerks in their respective town books. His part of the service, we may readily imagine, was performed with
* We find him in 1779 at the head of a party employed in demol- ishing and leveling Fort Pownal. - Wil. His.
+ 2 Will. His. p. 445, 446. A. Kelloch, Ist. R. Hall, 1st.
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alacrity by Mr. Urquhart, and it must have been an occasion of great interest and deep emotion to his audience.
After this decisive measure, the friends of freedom took a bolder position ; their opponents were denounced as traitors and foes to their country, all lukewarm persons were suspected, and the property of notorious tories was consider- ed as lawful plunder. The whig and tory principles also ran high among the eastern Indians; but the whigs among them being much the most numerous, the tories remained at home as neutrals, whilst the whigs, as agreed upon by a treaty made this year at Watertown, formed themselves into bands and joined the American army.
The country was now involved in a serious and expensive conflict, with no prospect of an immediate termination. Business was interrupted ; and the government found it diffi- cult to provide means for paying and subsisting its troops. Besides the ordinary recourse to taxation, requisitions were, from time to time, made upon the counties and towns for various articles of clothing according to their several abilities. Of 5,000 blankets which the State called for in the autumn, the quota to York county was 212; to Cumberland, 123 ; to Lincoln, 89.
Two hundred men, for the defence of the coast between Camden and Machias, were raised this year; one company of which, under Capt. Jacob Ludwig of Waldoboro', was recruited in this vicinity. Of this company, the present town of Warren furnished the following officers and men, viz : Joseph Copeland, Lieut. ; Samuel Counce, Sergeant ; and James Anderson, William Dicke, Andrew Malcolm, Francis Young, and Joseph Peabody, privates. On the third of November, they marched to Megunticook, embarked for Machias, did duty there through the winter, and were absent about six months .*
The difficulty in raising the minister's salary and assess- ing taxes, together with the desire of participating with other towns in the measures of the revolution, induced the inhab- itants of the upper town on St. George's to petition to be in- corporated. Their petition was granted ; and on the 7th of November, 1776, the said plantation was incorporated into a town, and, in honor of Dr. Joseph Warren, who had the preceding year fallen so gloriously on Bunker Hill, was
* S. Peabody. Col. J. Ludwig. D. Dicke. Counce's Jour.
14*
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named WARREN. It included its present linrits, together with all that part of the present town of Thomaston lying above Mill River. Messrs. Porterfield, Shibles, and others, being dissatisfied with the minister of Warren, or otherwise indis- posed to be connected with it, immediately joined with the inhabitants of the adjacent territory in petitioning for the incorporation of another town, which was granted the 20th of March following, and a gore of about 6,000 acres of land between Oyster and Mill Rivers, taken from Warren and annexed to the new town .* This was named THOMAS- TON, in honor of Major Gen. John Thomas, of the Massa- chusetts line, who died the preceding year at Chamblee. As the Watsons preferred to continue their connexion with the town of Warren, the point occupied by them, was, for the present, retained within the limits of that town. Thom- aston, then containing South Thomaston and Rockland, grad- ually increased in wealth and population till the census of 1790, when its inhabitants amounted to 801. Its growth was much more rapid, after Gen. Knox made it the place of his residence in 1794; but the history of this town is worthy of a separate volume, and will not be pursued here farther than its connexion with that of Warren may render necessary.t
As there were no representatives from this part of the country in the General Court, it was necessary, in order to obtain acts of incorporation, to dispatch special agents for the purpose to Boston. The petition from Warren was commit- ted to Capt. Gregg. His account of services in getting the incorporation act passed, was subsequently presented to the town, and seems to have given some dissatisfaction, as on two different occasions a committee was appointed to examine it ; and, as late as 1784, the town voted to pay him "£3 out of the town money."
The petition from Thomaston seems to have been entrusted to Benjamin Burton ; or if not, there must have been a peti- tion for another town on the river, about the same time. For we find, in his memorandum book, an account of expenses in getting the town of St. George's incorporated ; from which it appears that he set off on horseback on the 26th of Novem- ber, and crossed Winnesimmet ferry into Boston on the first of December, thus making a journey in six days which is now
* Mr. Shibles, however, did not live to see the measure completed, his death occurring Feb. 7, 1777.
+ Acts of incorporation, &c.
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performed in about twelve hours. At that time, there were eight ferries between this river and Boston, the first being at Waterman's in Waldoborough, and the last at Winnesimmet in Chelsea. The whole expenses of himself and horse till his arrival in Boston, were £1 7s. 5d. = $4,56. This was certainly a moderate sum, and shows the high value of money compared with other articles at that time. From six pence to one shilling was paid for a meal of victuals, and from four pence to eight pence for crossing a ferry, being about one third of what is charged at present. Allowing for the differ- ence in the value of money, the expense in getting from here to Boston, at that day, was not less than $13 or $14, besides a week's labor of a man and horse amounting to at least as much more, making the whole little short of $30 .*
The prompt and versatile Burton seems to have under- taken this journey almost at the moment of closing his sum- mer's work in the present town of Union, where he had been employed as architect in erecting the first dwellinghouse of any importance in that place. This business he had taken up of his own accord, commencing the use of tools when quite a boy, in the construction of a violin - an instrument that so completely fascinated his youthful mind, that he im- mediately set about, and succeeded in making one. From this, he proceeded to greater undertakings ; eventually be- came a skilful house, mill, and ship carpenter; and was, the present year, together with Benjamin Packard, employed by Dr. John Taylor in building a mill, house, and other structures. The first attempt to settle the town of Union, was made in the autumn of 1772, by James Malcolm, Archibald Ander- son, (2d,) James Anderson, and John Crawford. They were young men belonging to St. George's, mostly natives of Scot- land brought over in their infancy, who, in their hunting excursions, had become acquainted with the advantageous localities about Seven-tree Pond. With the consent of Mr. Fluker, who agreed to sell them the land for $2 an acre, they selected their favorite lots, and determined to commence a settlement. Malcolm and A. Anderson chose the place about Vaughan's mills ; while Crawford and J. Anderson took up the neck between the upper part of Seven-tree Pond and the main river. They spent the greater part of that and the following winter, in clearing the land and getting out staves and lumber. On the 13th of May, 1774, they got their lots
* Town Records. Burton's Ledger, &c.
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surveyed, preparatory to farther improvements. No crops were raised by them, the method of raising grain upon burnt ground being ill understood here, till subsequently taught and practised by Dr. Taylor. In July following, their plans were disconcerted by the arrival of the gentleman last mentioned, who had purchased the whole township, and came with John and Phinehas Butler, two young men of Lunenburg, the place of his residence, to commence a settlement. They disem- barked at Miller's landing, and, having purchased a ferry-boat of Capt. McIntyre to transport their stores and baggage, pro- cured teams and hauled it across from Boggs's landing to the river above Starrett's bridge, where they again embarked and proceeded to the place of destination. Some altercation took place between Taylor and the young men whom he found encamped there, and who were unwilling to relinquish their possessions. Taylor offered to allow them to retain their clearings, but refused to give up the water privileges ; and they, disappointed in their principal aim, and finding themselves without remedy, abandoned the whole. The place had been named by them, and was long after called, Stirlingtown. Taylor went back that fall, and the next spring, in consequence perhaps of this purchase, was chosen a member of the Council for the eastern, or Sagadahoc pro- vince. The Butlers remaining, continued their labors this and the following summer, hiring out during the winter in Thomaston. Taylor returned in the autumn of 1775, and entering into an agreement with Mr. Packard, induced him to remove to his new township. Packard erected a house on the western side of the pond, and with the two Butlers spent the following winter in getting out timber for the buildings to be erected in the spring. The next summer he and Bur- ton were employed in constructing a grist-mill and dwelling- house for Taylor, as before mentioned. Thus commenced the settlement around this beautiful sheet of water, which took its name from the seven trees that waved over the island in its bosom. This island was at that time, and for many years afterwards, tenanted by a pair of wild geese, who rear- ed their annual broods around the ancient Indian tomb, that for want of sufficient depth of soil, was raised with stones and earth several feet above the surface. These stones were sacrilegiously removed to form the hearth and jambs of Tay- lor's chimney ; the geese were driven from their old domain by the vandal hand of sport; fields of waving grain suc- ceeded to the forests removed by the axe and flames ; the settlement increased, slowly at first, but more rapidly after
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the war, till in 1786 it was incorporated by its present name of Union. It then contained 17 families, and about 150 in- habitants. Coming from an agricultural region, and being remote from salt-water privileges, the inhabitants of this town devoted themselves almost exclusively to the cultivation of the soil, and became thrifty farmers. They gave early attention to fruit trees, most of them having extensive orch- ards ; a matter rather neglected, or thought incompatible with the climate, in the plantations below. But the history of this town is in the able hands of one of her own sons, and must not be farther encroached on here .*
1777. On the 10th of March, 1777, by virtue of a warrant from Waterman Thomas, Esq. of Waldoboro', the town of Warren held its first annual meeting at the meeting- house, and made choice of William Watson for Moderator. At this meeting, the following town officers were chosen, viz. William Boggs, town clerk ; William Watson, Hatevil Libbey, and Thomas Starrett, selectmen and assessors ; Reuben Hall and Joseph Copeland, constables ; Patrick Peb- bles, Wm Boggs, and Stephen Peabody, committee of safety ; Alexander Lermond, town treasurer; Capt. McIntyre, Samuel Creighton, Alexander Lermond, Jr. and Robert Montgomery, surveyors of highways ; Boice Cooper and John Spear, fence viewers ; and William Robinson, hogreeve. At a subsequent meeting on the 19th of April, they made choice of Hatevil Libbey as a delegate to attend a county convention, and voted to pay him ten shillings a day. Thus began the records of the town, which are preserved unbroken, down to the present time. Some of the earlier portions, however, have the legal defect of not being signed by the clerks who made them ; as, till 1784, they were kept on loose sheets, and at that time copied into the town book by the clerk then in office. Mr. Boggs was town clerk two years. The office was then filled one year by Alexander Lermond ; and he was succeeded by his son, Alexander, 2d, who held the office from 1780 to 1817, a period of thirty-seven years. The last, who copied the loose sheets as before mentioned, wrote a fair and legible hand, and his records compare most favor- ably with those of many neighboring towns of the same period.
A committee of safety, so efficient in the earlier stages of the revolution, was at this time deemed a necessary organ in
* Col. B. Burton. D. Dicke.
Rev. J. L. Sibley, Assistant Li- brarian of Harvard College.
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every town. Its primary object was to correspond with other towns, and to concert measures for the public defence. Mr. Peabody, who this year was chosen one of its members, came originally from Middleton, Mass., in 1767, and com- menced working at his trade as a blacksmith near Owl's Head. Settling on a lot of land without any title, as was customary in those times, he had raised or purchased a yoke of oxen, and began to form hopes of overcoming the disad- vantages of poverty, and providing for a numerous and rising family in part by farming. But Mr. Fales, agent of the Waldo heirs, and Mr. Wheaton, commenced actions against him, the one for trespass, the other for debt; and when at the beginning of winter he was returning from Lermond's mills with some meal and potatoes which he had obtained for his winter stores, he was met near Mill River by the sheriff, who attached his oxen and left him to transport his provisions as he might. His potatoes were frozen and lost, the oxen kept at charges till spring, when they were sold to pay for their keeping and the cost of court. Discouraged and dis- heartened, he soon after moved to the neighborhood of Oyster River, where he resumed his occupation ; and after a few years and the loss of his wife, who died about 1774, went on to the Scot farm. Having married the widow of Mr. Scot, whose second husband, Dr. Locke, was now dead, he resumed his trade there, and carried on the farm till the present year, 1777, when he removed to the place since owned by his son Stephen Peabody, 2d. At the latter place, a saw-mill had been erected in 1774 by Col. Starrett, John Lermond, and Abraham Locke, son of the doctor. The last of these having a claim upon the Scot farm, an arrangement was made by which he sold that farm to Sampson, of Waldoboro', and Peabody took the saw-mill and possessory claim to a valuable tract of the surrounding land. Constructing, in the course of two days, a slight habitation, with no other frame than posts of spruce poles connected by plank instead of plates and beams, he moved his family and lived in it many years. The best of the lumber to the eastward of the mill having been cut away, the remainder was felled, burnt, and the logs hauled up in two large piles near the house for firewood, and the ground sown with rye, which, producing a bountiful crop, relieved their present want, and gave encouragement for the future. Some years afterwards, he was followed hither by two brothers, Samuel, who settled in Union, and Daniel, who succeeded Capt. John Wyllie on the present Haskel farm.
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From these three, are descended all the Peabodys of this and the neighboring towns.
Soon after the building of this mill, John Lermond, who seems to have had quite a fancy for these structures, took possession of the burnt land, removed his family thither in 1775, and built a saw-mill on the main branch of Oyster River at the great falls, a mile or so below Packard's present mill. He was attracted there by the advantages afforded by the meadows for raising cattle, and entered upon farming and lumbering with his usual laborious zeal .*
The Haskel farm was at this time occupied by Thomas Calderwood, who came from Long Island. It was afterwards successively owned by a Mr. Houston, who returned to Dam- ariscotta, and by Capt. John Wyllie. The last named, also of Damariscotta, had recently married in this town, and in this year, 1777, or the preceding, was, together with the vessel in which he was coasting to Boston, taken by the British and carried to Long Island. After being detained there nearly a year, he was assisted by the steward in whose service he was, to escape to New York, where, after living some weeks in a Dutch family, he found an opportunity to return home. A few years after, he went on to the Haskel farm and afterwards removed to the Giffen lot, where he spent the rest of his life, having built the house still standing and owned by his son-in-law, Capt. R. Robinson. Two years after the period we are treating of, he commanded a sloop in the expedition against Biguyduce, for a long time was an energetic master of a coasting vessel, sustained many town offices, and once represented the town in the Legislature.
The Scot farm being now in the hands of Mr. Sampson, was tenanted by Philip Sechrist, a German from Waldoboro', who introduced saur kraut to the town, and, after residing there several years, settled the farm now occupied by T. Jones.
To complete the State quota of troops, the General Court provided, this year, clothing for the recruits, and offered addi- tional bounty ; the ministers of the Gospel read the legislative address to their respective congregations ; and it was made highly penal either to discourage enlistments into the Conti- nental army or navy, to depreciate the bills of credit, or to weaken the supports given by the people to the National Inde- pendence. In short, if there were good reason even to sus- pect any one inimical to the United States, he might be arrest-
* S. Peabody, 2d. John Starrett. H. M. Watts.
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ed on a justice's warrant, and banished to the enemy, unless he would take the oath of allegiance ; and his return incurred a forfeiture of his life. Under this authority, the oath of alle- giance was tendered to several of the Scottish settlers of Warren, most of whom readily subscribed to it, and two, who refused, being arrested by Reuben Hall with a file of men, were discharged on giving their word of honor to undertake nothing against either party .*
The exposed situation of the eastern coast, offering many temptations to the unscrupulous or disaffected, to engage in illicit traffic, and exposing others to the depredations of hostile vessels, the militia were frequently called out ; and a force, enlisted for the purpose, was regularly employed for guard- ing and protecting the coast. In the latter service, a company was again raised by Jacob Ludwig, Capt. ; William Farnsworth and Jacob Winchenbach, Lieutenants ; Jonathan Nevers, Ensign ; Caleb Howard and Godfrey Bornheimer, Sergeants ; Peter Hilt and Andrew Knowlton, Corporals ; with 18 privates, who went down to Machias in the spring, and with some diffi- culty returned by water at Christmas. A similar company was raised for a shorter service on the Penobscot, commanded by Nathaniel Fales, Captain, Thomas Robbins, Ist Lieutenant, Samuel Boggs and John Black, 2d Lieutenants, and consisting of 67 privates and 8 non-commissioned officers, mostly belong- ing to Thomaston, St. George's, and the shores and islands of Penobscot Bay. Besides Lieutenant Boggs, several pri- vates, in one or the other of these companies, were from Warren.+
Yet the coast was, this season, so infested by British ships of war, as to interrupt the supply of provisions, which on this river rose to an extravagant price. Moses Copeland, in a manuscript sketch, says he gave five dollars for two bushels of grain. Mr. Counce's family were without bread or pota- toes for nearly forty days, subsisting mostly on fish; and for one bushel of corn, which he obtained in the lower town, he agreed to give four days' work in haying time. John Ler- mond, had this year a large field of rye at the Burnt Land, which ripened earlier than usual. This he threshed out upon a flat, smooth, ledge of rock, for want of a better threshing floor, and sold it all by the peck, and half-bushel, to relieve the famishing population .¿
2 Will. Hist. p. 457. T. Kirkpatrick.
+ Pay Rolls in Sec. office, Boston.
# Copeland's MS. R. B. Copeland, Esq."
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Other places were alike, or even more, destitute. Noah Miller, who at the commencement of the revolution resided as a land surveyor at Coveket, N. S., and, on account of his whig principles and refusal to take the oath of allegiance to the royal government, was obliged to leave that province with his family, which he effected with difficulty, and, with Mr. Knights and some others, had settled at a place called Canaan in the present town of Lincolnville, found himself cut off from all resources except those the woods and waters afforded. Having long subsisted upon flesh and fish alone, and having previously sold many of her best articles of clothing, his wife reluctantly consented to part with her silver shoe-buckles, the precious gift of a distant friend ; and with these, which cost $5} in Philadelphia, the husband made his way on foot to Owl's Head, and was glad there to obtain for them three pecks of Indian corn, which, after being ground, he carried home on his back .*
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