USA > Maine > Biographical sketches of representative citizens of the state of Maine > Part 28
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John W. Weston, son of Samuel and his wife
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Mary White, was born in Canaan (now Skow- hegan), Me., and there spent his life, his death occurring in October, 1878, at the age of eighty- five years seven months. For nearly half a century he was actively engaged as a lumber manufacturer. His wife, Sally P. Walker, was a native of the neighboring town of Madison. Ten children were born to them, and three are now living.
Levi Wyman, their third child and son, grew to manhood in his native town. He was educated in the public schools and at Bloom- field Academy-a flourishing institution of learning in the early part of the nineteenth century. The lumber industry was naturally the first with which he identified himself, enter- ing the employ of his father, and then in com- pany with him carrying on the business of lumber manufacturing, and finally carrying it on alone.
A friend to progress, a believer in public improvements, he has had various interests in later years. He was the first president of the Skowhegan Electric Light Company, also of the Skowhegan Loan and Building Association, and is still holding the last-named position. In former years he was a director of the First National Bank of Skowhegan and trustee of Skowhegan Savings Bank, also a director of the Kennebec Log Driving Company.
A Republican in politics, he served as a Selectman and also on the School Board of the town of Bloomfield, and has served as chair- man of the School Board of Skowhegan, and as Assessor of the Skowhegan Village Corpora- tion.
He has been twice married. His first wife was Sophia Walker. . She died leaving no children. He married for his second wife, in 1861, Mrs. Clementine Houghton Brainard, of Skowhegan, widow of Marcellus Brainard. Of the five children born of this union one, Gertrude S., is now living. She is a member of the firm of L. W. Weston & Co. By her first marriage Mrs. Weston had two children, namely: a son, Charles Marcellus Brainard, who was a partner of L. W. Weston in the lumber business at the time of his death; and a daughter, Mrs. Lewis J. Field, of Alameda, Cal.
ILLIAM S. GRANT, who after a long and strenuous career of useful ac- tivity, connected in part with some of the most stirring events in our national his- tory, is now spending his declining years in Farmingdale, was born in Hallowell, Me., Feb- ruary 18, 1825, son of Samuel Clinton and Eliza- beth (Vaughan) Grant. He comes of hardy stock that has furnished to America many men of ability and force, foremost among them being President Ulysses S. Grant, who was a lineal de- scendant of Matthew Grant, one of the carly settlers of Dorchester, Mass., and afterward of Windsor, Conn.
The Grant family appears to have been flour- ishing and influential on British soil at least two hundred and fifty years before Columbus dis- covered America.
Keltie's "History of the Highland Clans" states that "the first of the name on record in Scotland is Gregory de Grant, who in the reign of Alexander II. (1214 to 1249) was sheriff of the shire of Inverness. The slogan, or gathering- cry of the clan Grant, was 'Stand fast, Craigel- lachie!' the projecting rock of that name being their hill of rendezvous." On the Grant coat of arms. represented in the same book, the motto is "Stand sure."
Mr. William S. Grant, of Hallowell, is a rep- resentative of that branch of the family founded in New England by Peter Grant, who was one of the twenty-seven original members of the Scots Charitable Society, which was organized in Boston, Mass., January 6, 1657 (the list also including James and Alexander Grant).
The line of descent is: Peter,1 Captain James,2 Lieutenant Peter,3 Captain Samuel,+ Major Peter," Samuel Clinton," William Sullivan .?
Peter1 Grant in 1659 bought land in Kittery, Me., and there became a resident. He married about the year 1664 Joane, or Joanna, widow of his brother James, of York, Me. She was a daughter of Lieutenant George Ingersoll and grand-daughter of Richard Ingersoll, who came from Bedfordshire, England, in 1629, and settled in Salem, Mass. Lieutenant George Ingersoll was living in Falmouth, now Port- land, Me., as early as 1657. Ilis house was burned by the Indians in 1675, and he removed to Salem. Peter Grant's will was dated
WILLIAM S. GRANT.
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October 19, 1709, and proved October 30, 1718.
James,2 son of Peter and his wife Joanna, married in October, 1693, Mary, daughter of Jonathan Nason. He served as Representative in the General Court in 1725-28 and 1732.
Peter,3 born in 1696, resided in Berwick, Me., and died in 1756. He was a Lieutenant in the Louisburg expedition of 1745. He married first, in 1717, Lydia Frost. His second wife was Mary, daughter of Captain Samuel Lord, of Kittery, and widow of Joseph Stuart.
Captain Samuel+ Grant was baptized in 1745 in Berwick. He was married first, September 20, 1768, by the Rev. Matthew Merriam, to Abigail Jones. Before 1777 he married a sec- ond wife, Elizabeth Seaward, a widow.
At the beginning of the war for American in- dependence Samuel+ Grant raised a company of soldiers in York County, marched to the siege of Boston as a Lieutenant, fought at Bunker Hill, and was afterward made Captain. He was in the Rhode Island campaign, and served under General George Clinton, to whom he was greatly attached. After the Revolution he came to Gardiner, Me., but subsequently re- moved successively to Vassalboro and Clinton, where he established the first lumbering on the Sebasticook River.
He furnished the first masts for the frigate "Constitution," then being built in Boston. For his military services he received a grant of land in Kennebec County, upon which was built the town of Clinton, named by him in honor of General Clinton. He was a member of the con- vention of Massachusetts that ratified the Con- stitution, and treasurer of the town of Clinton in 1798 and in 1804. A quiet, reserved man, he spent his last days chiefly in Gardiner with his son Peter. He died in Clinton, August 13, 1805. His grave is in the family lot in the Gardiner cemetery.
Major Peter Grant, born in Berwick in Febru- ary, 1770, the only son of Captain Samuel Grant, inherited from his father large landed property. He established the shipyard at Bowman's Point (being the father of ship-building in this locality and founded the old Gardiner bank and was its first President) afterward carried on by his de- scendants. He also built a house near the yard,
which in later years was used for various pur- poses. When it was torn down in the summer of 1897, an old coin was found in the chimney place, bearing the date of 1790. Major Peter Grant married in September, 1791, Nancy Barker, of Liverpool. At his death, June 10, 1836, he left a comfortable fortune. to each of his six children. The business of the shipyard was continued by his sons Samuel Clinton and Peter, until the latter withdrew on account of ill health, leaving the entire control to Samuel C.
In addition to his business in Gardiner, Samuel Clinton Grant built ships in Bath with Major Harward and William Richardson. He suc- ceeded his father, Major Peter, as president of the Gardiner Bank, and also had other business interests, including the cotton (now woollen) factory, of which the late Robert Thompson was acting superintendent. He married March 2. 1820, Elizabeth Frances Vaughan, youngest daughter of Dr. Benjamin Vaughan, of Hallo- well, and grand-daughter of Samuel and Sarah (Hallowell) Vaughan.
Samuel Vaughan was a London merchant of the eighteenth century, engaged in commerce with America. He married in 1747 Sarah Hallowell, who was born in 1727, daughter of Benjamin and Rebecca (Briggs) Hallowell, of Boston, Mass. Her father, a merchant and ship-builder, was one of the largest proprietors of the Kennebec purchase in Maine, formerly owned by the Plymouth Company; and the town of Hallowell, incorporated in 1771, then includ- ing the present Hallowell, Augusta, and other territory, was named for him. Two of his sons -Benjamin, born in 1725, and Robert, in 1739- appear to have been custom-house officers in Boston, probably up to the time of the evacu- ation of the city by the British. As narrated in Deacon Tudor's Diary, during the Stamp Act riots of August, 1765, in Boston, of which he was an eye-witness, the mob went to the house of "Benjamin Hallowell, Comptroller of the Custom House, broke down the fence and win- dows and then entered the house, broke the wainscot and great part of the furniture and carried off £30 sterling in money," besides "in- flaming themselves with the rum and wine in his cellar."
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Robert Hallowell, younger brother of Sarah, married Hannah, daughter of Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, and was the father of Robert, Jr., whose name was legally changed to Robert Hal- lowell Gardiner. 1
Benjamin Vaughan, M.D., LL.D., son of Samuel and Sarah (Hallowell) Vaughan, of London, was a highly educated man. In 1792 he became a member of the British Parliament. A friend of Franklin and of Priestley, he was strongly imbued with Republican principles, and in 1796 he came to New England, and set- tled with his family in Hallowell, Me. His wife Sarah, the mother of Elizabeth Frances, was the daughter of William Manning, a wealthy mer- chant of London.
After his marriage Samuel Clinton Grant built a house in Hallowell, directly back of the Vaughan home, where he resided for the rest of his life, though his business interests were in Gardiner. Born March 25, 1797, he died De- cember 12, 1853. His wife Elizabeth, born in England in 1793, died June 12. 1855. They had six children, three sons and three daughters. One of the sons, Horace, died when a youth, and of the two survivors-William S. and Frank -the latter died when about twenty-years of age, the three sisters, Ellen, Olivia B., and Louisa, being then living. Ellen Grant married John Otis, of Hallowell, afterward member of Congress from Maine. Olivia B. Grant married George Bacon, of Boston. Louisa L. Grant married Mr. Alfred Gilmore, who served as Congressman from Pennsylvania.
William Sullivan Grant, born February 1S, 1825, was educated at Hallowell Academy and the Gardiner Lyceum at Gardiner, Me. His father then sent him to serve an apprenticeship in the wholesale grocery house of Emmons & Weld, Boston, Mass., where he remained for two years, at the end of that time receiving the offer of a partnership in the firm, which, however, he declined. At the age of eighteen he went to Europe in his father's ship "Meteor," and from Havre, France, started on a thirteen months' trip, during which he visited Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Dublin. The last four months he spent in London visit- ing his uncle and great unele, Petty and Wil- liam Vaughan, at their London residence, and f corn, which he bought along the Missouri River,
the Mannings at "Seven Oaks," and the Dar- beys, his cousins on the Vaughan side, living at Marklay, near London. On his return, after a brief period spent in business as a ship-chandler, he became associated with his father in the shipyard, of which he soon became superintendent and after his father's death the owner. He was married January 12, 1848, to Betsey L. Josselyn, of Augusta. She (lied in Augusta in March, 1849, leaving an infant son, Samuel C. After living for a while with his son in the Gardiner cottage, Mr. Grant took up his residence in the okl house of his uncle Peter at Farmingdale, where he remained while he was building his own house at Bowman's Point, now occupied by Isaac Carr. In this latter he lived some ten years, building ships in the shipyard established by his grandfather Peter. Among other vessels he built those composing Pierce & Bacon's Galveston Line. His two surviving sisters, Mrs. Bacon and Mrs. Gilmore (mentioned above), had an interest in the concern until ships became a poor invest- ment, when they withdrew, leaving him and his brother-in-law, George Bacon, the sole owners. The last ship built by him, and named for his father, the "Samuel C. Grant," was of one thou- sand, one hundred tons, and cost seventy thou- sand dollars. It sailed from Gardiner to New Orleans, bearing a "Buchanan and Brecken- ridge" flag, and later, when Mr. Grant called on President Buchanan in Washington, with his brother-in-law, Mr. Gilmore, an old friend of the President's, the incident was the occasion of some pleasant and congratulatory remarks. Mr. Grant was one of five who built the steamer "Eastern Queen," and owned the line now known as the Kennebec Steamboat Company. In 1859 he sold out his yard, and gave up the ship-build- ing business. At the instance of his brother- in-law, Mr. Gilmore, who was then in Congress, he went to Washington, where he obtained a goverment contract to deliver one hundred and fifty thousand bushels of corn to Fort Leavenworth and Nebraska City for the use of the army in Utah, the corn to be transported thither in wagon trains. He at once closed out all his business interests in Gardiner, and went to Nebraska City to fulfil the contract. The
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was paid for in Gardiner bank-bills, which he carried with him, and had expressed to him in twos and threes to the amount of eighty thou- sand dollars. These bills, which the natives styled "Yankee money," became very popular in that region, and stayed there a long time after, most of the paper money there being at a large discount and some of it worthless. On one occasion, having with him no money but some Platte Valley bank-bills, it was refused, and he was obliged to pawn his watch to get to St. Louis. Seventy thousand bushels of the corn that he had shipped to Fort Leavenworth was rejected as damaged by dampness, so that he was obliged to ship it to St. Louis, where, owing to a rise in the corn market, he had the good fortune to sell it to the distillers at a price equal to the government price.
On his return to Gardiner he received a letter from the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell, governinent contractors, asking if he could get some Floyd acceptances cashed in Maine for them. He replied that he would see what he could do. Immediately he received from them three drafts of ten thousand dollars each, ac- cepted by John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, which Mr. Grant got discounted in the banks in Gardiner at seven and three-tenths per cent. interest, remitting them the checks by return mail. This interest was so much less than they had paid in New York that they at once sent their broker to Maine, and Mr. Grant introduced him to the banks in Gardiner, Augusta, and Bath, which cashed quite an amount of acceptances. He also gave the broker a letter to Pierce & Bacon, Boston, who discounted one hundred thousand dollars of acceptances at nine and a quarter per cent. interest, and introduced him to their friends, who cashed another one hundred thousand dollars,
accepted, and an order was issued by the Sec- retary of War, March, 1860, authorizing Mr. Grant to furnish all supplies and transportation required by all forts in Arizona and any that might be established during the next two years. After his departure for Arizona the banks and Pierce & Bacon continued to cash Floyd ac- ceptances to the amount of eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, not a dollar of which was ever paid except by renewals, the government finally repudiating the whole transaction on the ground that Secretary Floyd had no right to issue them.
For fulfilling his contract Mr. Grant made his headquarters at Tucson, Ariz. . Here he pur- chased an old flour-mill. and two ranches, and began buying his supplies of corn, flour, and beef, cattle, mules, etc. He sent to California and bought machinery for a new mill, also wagons and harness. His mule train consisted of fifteen wagons, with from four to ten mules to a wagon, which were constantly at work delivering supplies to the different forts. He was obliged to keep from four hundred to eight hundred head of cattle on the ranches, being liable at any time to a call of from twenty-five to forty head for one or another of the different forts. Each month he visited the forts to get the requisitions for the supplies needed and the settlements for those delivered. He received his pay monthly, remitting to Pierce & Bacon. On one occasion, owing to the delay of the train in Texas, Pierce & Bacon were obliged to dis- count his notes to the amount of fifty thousand dollars, which they indorsed. The forts in Ari- zona ran out of money, and, for some time before they abandoned the Territory, paid for supplies in certified accounts. All this time Pierce &. Bacon were cashing his drafts, and their accounts with him show that they cashed these drafts to the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This period of his life was one of thrill- ing adventure, including hair-breadth escapes from the Indians, to say nothing of difficulties and delays in getting his supplies to their destination. The delay of two and one-half months, caused by the government's inspection of supplies, left him stalled for the winter, without food for his stock. When spring arrived and he started on his jour-
Pierce & Bacon, as well as Mr. Grant, con- tinued to get these drafts discounted. In re- turn for these favors Mr. Russell wrote Mr. Grant to come to Washington, saying there was a good contract to be given out by the govern- ment, and he thought Mr. Grant could get it. He went at once, put in a bid to furnish the forts in Arizona with supplies and transportation at twelve per cent. less than had been paid by the army officers the previous year. This bid was ( ney, the war of the Rebellion was so far advanced
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that his supply trains were captured by troops sent out by the governor of Texas. But for this delay of the government he would have arrived at the forts long before hostilities broke out, and would have received his money. The transporta- tion from New York to Fort Buchanan, about thirty cents per pound, would have amounted to seventy-five thousand dollars, the wagons would have sold in Tucson for six hundred dollars each, and the cattle-three hundred yoke-would have been received by the government on his beef contract.
Soon after this orders came from Washington to destroy all forts and bring the troops to the States. Mr. Grant's mills and storehouses were also included with the forts for destruction, and he was given but half an hour in which to gather up his papers and return with the troops. A squad of cavalry sent to one of his ranches thirty-five miles away, to bring back the two men in charge, found that they had been mur- dered by Indians and the warehouses burned. After the forts were destroyed, his team hauled all the effects of the officers and families and sick soldiers, going to Fort Fillmore, three hun- dred miles distant. When within one and one- half days' march of Fillmore, an express met them, saying Fort Fillmore had been captured- by the Texans, who were coming to capture them.
Captain Moore, U.S.A., at once ordered all Mr. Grant's wagons burned, spiked the cannon belonging to the battery, and ordered each man to take but a pair of blankets and ten days' ra- tions, mounting the infantry, two men on each of Mr. Grant's mules. As sixteen companies surrendered at Fillmore, Captain Moore, suppos- ing a strong force was coming to capture then, ordered a retreat to Fort Craig across the moun- tains. They rode to death some thirty mules before reaching Fort Craig, where they met the sixteen companies paroled from Fillmore, who surrendered through the treachery of Major Lynde, the officer in command, to three hundred and seventy-five Texans, without firing a gun. Major Lynde, a Vermont man, married a Vir- ginia lady, and in the confusion at the beginning of the war he went to California and escaped court-martial. The quartermaster at Fort Craig bought Mr. Grant's mules and wagons, paying in certified accounts, which were later
paid by the government. From Fort Craig they went to Sante Fe, and there, with officers and their wives, soldiers, and Mr. Grant's men, made up a party of thirty-five for mutual protection in crossing the plains. The Indians, knowing that all the troops were ordered to the States, were very bold and threatening, and the little party was obliged to use every precaution to avoid being surprised and wiped out. The journey East was marked by hardships and terror of Indians, and other exciting incidents; and he arrived in St. Louis with but the suit of clothes that he was then wearing, his papers being in possession of his book-keeper. In St. Louis he was unable to get his treasury drafts cashed until he was identified by Captain Callender, U.S.A. (formerly in command of the arsenal at Augusta, Me.), when he received eighteen thousand dollars on his vouchers, and in com- pany with Mr. Williams, his book-keeper and assistant, he arrived in Washington and pre- sented his unsettled accounts for fifty-two thou- sand dollars for payment and an item of five thousand dollars for transportation. Here he found that the forty-eight thousand dollars in certified accounts that he had forwarded to his Boston agents, Pierce & Bacon, months before, had not been paid.
For eight months he worked incessantly at the treasury department trying to obtain a settlement, but without result. His case was finally taken up by the Hon. Hannibal Hamlin and Senator Morrill and the Maine delegation, and after many delays he succeeded in collect- ing forty-one thousand dollars, the department having cut the accounts down twelve thousand dollars, owing to the lack of returns from some of the government officers. This made one hun- dred and twelve thousand dollars paid him after leaving Tucson. He then brought suits against the government for sixty-one thousand dollars, for the mills and other property destroyed, and for one hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars more for captured trains. On the first suit the government paid forty-one thousand dollars. On the claim for one hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars the Superior Court ruled against him, but in their decision said that there were equities in the case that made it one to be de- cided by Congress. It wasaccordingly presented
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to Congress, first by the Hon. James G. Blaine, through whose advice Mr. Grant secured the services of Mark H. Dunnell, of Maine, who took it up at a salary of three hundred dollars per month and expenses. During the years that passed up to 1898, eleven different law firms worked on the case. Mr. Dunnell had re- ceived over twenty-one thousand dollars, and more than fifty thousand dollars in cash had been paid to the different attorneys connected with it, until it reached Mr. Heath, of Augusta, who was successful in bringing it to a final settle- ment.
While in Washington, Mr. Grant had a ten- thousand-dollar interest with his old friend, Charles Lombard, of Augusta. Me., in the rail- road he with his associates was building through the State of Iowa, from Clinton to Omaha. This interest he sold to Russell, and took stock in the Overland Stage Company and Pony Ex- press, which he afterward sold to Ben Holiday for twenty thousand dollars-five thousand cash and fifteen thousand in notes. The notes were made payable in Chicago, and were paid with Mr. Grant's interest. Holiday, who had seventy- five thousand dollars in the line, took possession, and operated it, running stages from Fort Leavenworth, Kan., to California, in connection with the Pony Express.
Mr. Grant, on his return to the States and after being a widower for fourteen years, married Miss Ellen C. Woods, of Mount Vernon, Me., and resided in Washington for about a year and a half. He then removed to Winona, Minn., where he purchased a residence, and in connec- tion with a New York man established a carriage factory, employing about thirty men. Mrs. Grant, having inherited some money from her brother, Greenleaf W. Woods, put thirty thou- sand dollars into her new home, which she built according to her own ideas; and her name was used in the firm instead of Mr. Grant's on ac- count of the old Arizona claims against him. The firm finally failed, and the business was con- ducted for a time by the creditors, subsequently becoming a stock company under the name of the Winona Carriage Works.
Mr. Grant then went to St. Louis, Mrs. Grant selling her house at auction for half its value. There he met his old friend, Mr. Pierce, formerly
of the Boston firm of Pierce & Bacon, who was then president of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Company. Mr. Pierce placed him in charge of a company organized to develop cer- tain lead deposits on lands belonging to the railroad, giving him an interest in the enter- prise. It proved unsuccessful, however, and he returned to Washington to prosecute his claim. There he borrowed seven thousand dol- lars of Peter Bradstreet, and purchased a Mary- land farm of five hundred and five aeres, which at the end of four years he sold, returning the borrowed money to Mr. Bradstreet. Leaving his family in Washington, he went to Fall River and thence to New Hampshire, where for a year he had charge of the large lumber in- terests of Pierce & Bacon. His next move was to Portland, Ore., where he was employed in boating materials down the Columbia River and building jetties. From Portland he went to Gray's Harbor, on the coast, and here he re- ceived the news of the death of his cousin, Mr. Peter Bradstreet, who had remembered him in his last illness. Soon after he returned again to Gardiner, Me., and purchased the old Rollins farm, on the river road, where he remained till 189S, when, his claim being settled, he received the sum of seventy-eight thousand dollars, about one-half the original claim, without any inter- est. For this he feels under great obligations to the entire Maine delegation in Congress, who gave him every assistance in their power.
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