USA > Maine > Knox County > Rockport > Camden Hills; an informal history of the Camden-Rockport region > Part 2
USA > Maine > Knox County > Camden > Camden Hills; an informal history of the Camden-Rockport region > Part 2
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Brave men are seldom brave where their hearts are in- volved. It seems probable it was Elizabeth who set her cap for John; but all we know, incontrovertably, is that soon after this they were married. In 1782, John Harkness for 30 pounds purchased 82 acres on the west side of Goose River bridge from William Simonton. He built a frame house some- where near the corner of Beech and Camden Streets and produced six children, John, Mary, William, Robert, Thomas and Elizabeth, before his untimely death from cancer in 1806. He now lies in the Amsbury Hill cemetery.
News of the great victory came to the Plantation of Camden in the fall of 1782. It is clear, accepting Locke's ac- count, that this great day was celebrated with true pioneer lustiness. A carnival spirit prevailed and the jubilant revelers foregathered at the home of Robert Thorndike to make merry.
Locke in his history, though approving of the motive that fired this high celebration, took pains to apologize for his antecedents' unrestraint.
Remarked Locke reprovingly, " .... The actions of men are to be judged by the light of the influence with which they were surrounded and hence no further apologies are here re- quired for the way our patriot settlers gave vent to the ebullition of their feelings at the success of their country's cause. A hogshead was tapped ..... After partaking of a feast of bread, cheese and fish, the company then passed
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around the 'occaba' and drank to the health of the prominent actors in the struggle ..... And they marched around the hogshead, drinking of its contents, and growing more merry under its influence, the toasts were multiplied . . . . The festivities were kept up until morning when dawn of day ad- monished them it was time to bring them to a close "
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the Mantation of Ducktrap County of Hancock Spruce Tree win Tono.
FIRST MAP OF CAMDEN
This first map of the Town of Camden is a reproduction of the true copy discovered in recent years among the old town records. It is now a possession of the Camden Historical Soci- ety. The original, executed four years after the formation of the Township (probably by John Harkness) is in the Archives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The southern bound Thomastown, is, of course, Rockland and the westerly bound, Barrettstown, Hope. The Plantations of New Canaan and Ducktrap later became Lincolnville.
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the Mantation of Ducktrapo County of Hancock
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FIRST MAP OF CAMDEN
This first map of the Town of Camden is a reproduction of the true copy discovered in recent years among the old town records. It is now a possession of the Camden Historical Soci- ety. The original, executed four years after the formation of the Township (probably by John Harkness) is in the Archives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The southern bound Thomastown, is, of course, Rockland and the westerly bound, Barrettstown, Hope. The Plantations of New Canaan and Ducktrap later became Lincolnville.
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IN the year 1791, the region was known as the Plantation of Cambden. This region of roughly seventy-five square miles, extending from Clam Cove to Little Ducktrap along the coast, bounded by Thomaston, Warren and Union on the west, Bar- rettstown Plantation (Hope) on the north and New Canaan (Lincolnville) and Ducktrap Plantations to the east. Here, in this year, lived 331 settlers.
There was at this time but one road that could be dignified by the term thoroughfare. This was the County Road, later to be termed the Post Road. It serpentined from Thomaston through Clam Cove, Goose River and the Negunticook settle- ments, holding them together by a thin, tenuous thread. The crossing at the "River" was a crude, wooden affair and the bridge over the Negunticook (at the spot where the Knox Mill now stands) was little more than a log jam. The secondary "roads," connecting the outlying settlers with one another and their main artery, were mere trails indicated by spotted trees.
In addition to those who had taken up land along the shore, a yeoman breed was moving in. Isaiah Tolman, coming right after the vanguard had taken up 500 acres at Tolman Pond (Lake Chicawaukie). Charles Barrett, an agent of the Twenty Associates, was offering bright inducements in the way of grants to those who would clear the land back country. James Simonton had come (the original deed dated 1790 shows he paid Charles Barrett five shillings for a 100 acre tract) and at his heels John and Samuel Annis, Benjamin Barrows, Daniel Andrews, Waterman Thomas. To the foothills of the mountains back of Cambden Village had settled the Philbrooks, Hosmers, Mansfields, Hodgmans, Russells. Among the other names that appear in the first pages out of our towns' early history are the Wadsworths, Alexanders, Wilsons, Conklins, Davis', Tibbetts, Nutts, Samuel Jacobs, Thomas Spring, Sam- uel Mclaughlin, Elisha Gibbs, John Gordon, Zackariah Hardy, Waterman Hewett, Jacob Vaning, Isaac Harrington, Hezekiah Prince, Daniel Chaney.
To the north, along the Belfast Road, William and Joseph Eaton were purchasing tracts of the land (this was the land of the Waldo heir, General Knox). Joshua and Lemuel Dilling- ham were clearing lands, laying the groundwork for their bright future in the new settlement.
It was these men, and many unsung who, held together by common needs and aspirations, decided they were ready for self government. They asked for a charter and got one. In the spring of 1791, the Plantation of Cambden emerged as a township.
The name Cambden (or Camden as the name soon evolves) had been used to designate this region as early as 1768 in the plan of the Twenty Associates. The new free- holders were not moved to change it for Lord Cambden had been an ardent friend of the Colonists, prior to the Revolution.
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The first town meeting was called in April and, either because Goose River seemed to be the center of population at the time, or for the practical reason that there was no other likely place to meet, the citizens gathered at the Tavern of Peter Ott.
This memorable meeting was brief, informal and doubt- lessly without benefit of parliamentary procedure. Affable William Gregory was made Moderator and bookish John Harkness was named Town Clerk. John Harkness was elected First Selectman, William Gregory, Second and William McClathry, Third. Other officers filled at this solemn assem- bly were Paul Thorndike, Constable; Nathaniel Palmer, Tax Collector (this job went to the lowest bidder) ; Joseph Eaton, Treasurer. The most important office of Surveyors of the Highways was filled by William Gregory, Ephriam Gay, John Harkness, Joseph Eaton, Joshua Dillingham, Nathaniel Hos- mer and Thomas Harrup. The Fence Viewers, Abraham Jones and Joseph Eaton. The Surveyors of Lumber and Cul- lers of Staves, James Richards, David Nutt, David Blodgett. The Tythingmen, David Blodgett, Joseph Eaton, Barak Buck- lin, Thomas Mace. Sealers of Leather, David Nutt, Hogreeves, Peter Ott, Nathaniel Palmer. Sealer of Weights and Measures, John Harkness.
There were about thirty-two freeholders qualified to vote at this first meeting. The qualifications were quite specifi- cally mentioned in the posted warning. This privilege was limited to those male citizens . . .. "being 21 years of age, a resident in said town for the space of a year and providing having freehold estate within said town of the annual income of three pounds or having any estate to the value of sixty pounds."
The main concern. of this first meeting and most of the subsequent meetings during this decade was the matter of roads. Another equally vexing problem was the vagrant live-
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stock. At the first gathering, it was voted to pay Robert Thorndike three pounds "to build a pound on Peter Ott's land and Peter Ott to be Pound Keeper." The said pound was to be "Seven feet high and tight enough to stop pigs a month old, a door with iron hinges, a lock and kee.".
And there was a bridge controversy, the first of a long succession. In the second year of the new township, William McClathry, a shrewd man with an eye for an easy dollar, talked the town into voting 150 pounds for a new bridge over the Negunticook and giving him the contract to build it. The freeholders apparently thought this over later and decided they'd been taken in. Another meeting was called and this time the appropriation was reduced to 12 pounds, 12 shillings. Moreover, it was specified that this bridge should be of planks three inches thick and sixteen feet long and two teams across. (The McClathry house built in 1792 on site of Camden's Methodist Church and moved to Sea Street at the time of the Church construction, is considered by many the oldest house in Camden.)
After the first few years, it was decided that future town meetings should alternate between the "River" and the "Har- bor." On the posted warrant for the meeting July 10, 1793, Peter Ott's Tavern was crossed off and John Bower's Tavern substituted. Up to the turn of the century, and a few years beyond, we see mentioned as hosts of this meeting, Ebenezer Paine, Philip Crooks, Edward Payson, Benjamin Palmers, Benjamin Carleton, Holbrook Martin, Isaac Dow, Elisha Hobbs, Benjamin Cushing and John Eager.
Camden's first church was a little slow in organizing, too slow, it appears, for the Commonwealth authorities. In 1794 the town was indicted under a current law for failing to support a minister of the gospel and a fine of two pounds, fourteen shillings and six pence was levied. It wasn't until
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the following year that the settlement began receiving spirit- ual sustenance from itinerant preachers.
We learn from the faded first volume of the town records that it was the Free-Will Baptists of West Camden (West Rockport) who were first moved, in 1798, to form a church but it was to be some seventeen years before they were in financial position to erect a meeting house. The first Camden meeting house was built in 1799 on the Post Road near the site of the junction of Park and Elm Streets. Pews were sold at public auction and the individual subscriptions ranged from fifteen to three hundred and fifty dollars.
Pews so bought became a very tangible property, judging from the legal papers involved in transferring this church right. Here is a section of one document filed in the town records :
" . . . that I, Daniel Mansfield, of Camden in the County of Lincoln and State of Maine, Yeoman, in consideration of fifteen dollars paid by Jonathan Thayer of Camden ..... do hereby acknowledge, give grant, sell and convey unto said Jonathan Thayer, his heirs and assigns forever, one undivided half of one undivided seventy-fifth part of one acre of land on which the meeting house in said Camden stands together with one undivided half of a pew on the lower floor thereof, number- ing eighteen .
The first Post Office was established on Eaton's Point (just south of Atlantic Avenue on Sea Street.) Joseph Eaton was appointed first Postmaster.
Camden's first shipyard (1791) was run by William Mc- McClathry and his first vessel, a sloop of 26 Tons, Industry. Camden's first Harbor Master, as well as first school master, was Asa Hosmer.
This initial schoolhouse stood somewhere near the corner of Wood and Elm Street. (The original building was subse-
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quently moved around the bend of Union Place and is now a part of the frame house that stands there). There is evidence that Goose River's first schoolhouse stood on Russell Avenue, just across from the town office.
From the early records we note that Camden, from the very beginning, had its wards. The town's first charge was one, Mehitabel Bayley, for, at the town's second meeting, the citi- zens voted ten shillings a month to "support Jos. Bayley's daughter that lives at Mr. John Thompson's.
John Hathaway, Camden's first lawyer, was a charming and talented young man. He came to town and married an equally charming young woman, Deborah Cushing. He built a fine house on lower Chestnut Street (Hathaway-Cushing house, 1798) and began a practice of law. Camden's first lawyer died tragically a year later of typhus, leaving a stricken wife and a young son.
And inevitably there were marriages in this first decade of the new Township. The first intentions of marriage filed in the yellowing records were those of Daniel Andrews and Olive Gregory in 1790. And just as inevitably there was plighted love that went awry, or so it would appear from the intentions filed in September, 1792 by James Laurence and Sally Simonton and the marriage recorded three months later of our James Laurence and Lila Simonton.
This was the Township of Camden as the new century approached. It was called a Township and down at the "Har- bor," at least, it seemed to have assumed the appearance of a town. We quote a transcript from the journal of Reverend Paul Coffin, one of our early circuit riders, that appears in Locke's History of Early Camden.
"Squire McClathry," Coffin wrote, "treated me with true and simple politeness and hospitality. It is a place beauti- ful for situation and promising for trade. The Harbor has a
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mill for boards and corn, on a fresh stream, and the adjacent, gently rising lands make good appearance, and are quite con- venient. The back country, east and west, have no market but this. One ship and one schooner have this year been launched here and six or seven heavy vessels on the stocks. The streets are beaten and worn. The place looks more like home and a seat of trade than Ducktrap, Northport or Belfast . · about fifteen neat houses, some large with other build- ings, make appearance of a compact town "
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HOFFE
PETER OTT'S TAVERN
It was here that Camden's first town meeting was held in 1791. Peter Ott, German born, was the region's first Inn Keeper as well as the town's first Keeper of the Pound. This venerable house, just south of Rockport Village on the Rock- land road, was the scene of a number of British raids during the Revolution and it was here that John Harkness courted the Inn Keeper's Daughter, Elizabeth. Peter's son, born Peter, Jr., fancied the English spelling of the name. Dying within a year of one another, father and son are buried side by side at the Mountain Street Cemetery under a headstone marked OTT-OAT. This house has undergone some changes since it was built (probably about 1780) including an ell; but examina- tion of the cellar and roof suggest that the general shape of the main house has been little altered.
Five
AT the spring Town Meeting in the year 1808, the citizens of Camden voted "to raise $100 for the purpose of purchasing powder and ball." This was a straw in the wind, an ill wind bearing the acrid scent of war.
In the decade following the century's turn a fresh wave of settlers had doubled the population. In 1810 the Township contained 1600 people. Joseph Sherman had cleared lands along the Belfast Road and had become one of the region's most prosperous farmers. Benjamin and Joseph Cushing were already business men of considerable importance. Micah and William Hobbs, newly come from Massachusetts, were identi- fied with numerous enterprises, including a "modern" water system.
There was Belcher Sylvester who had come to town with a keg of rum and a bolt of India cotton to open a store. Ephraim Wood had built a mill on Megunticook (this spelling was now generally accepted) stream. Captain Noah Brooks was building ships at his new Yard. A William Carleton was
establishing a prosperous trade at his store on the site of the present Camden Bank. Robert Chase, later a perennial first selectman, was the village blacksmith. (His home is now the shop of Bucklin, the Tailor).
Simeon Hunt was another young businessman in those early years of the century. His harness establishment stood on what is now the village Common. He married in 1810 and built his home on Elm Street. (Now owned by Captain Swift). Long after his death, the old harness shop was moved, land- ing, curiously enough, right beside his old homestead where it stands today as a two family residence.
Samuel Jacobs, whose hundred acres of land extended at one time from the quarries to the Harbor, had built a stately home on what is now Limerock and Chestnut Streets in 1800. (He had bought the farm from McClathry in 1793 for 86 pounds, 2 shillings). He was a shipwright by trade but he had his finger in most of the leading enterprises of the village. Squire Jacobs was the town's first representative to the General Court.
Another shipwright was John Eels. He had recently married Lucy, the young daughter of Paul and Bathsheba Thorndike. His home (1800) stands on lower Chestnut Street. Together Lucy and John were to produce a famous shipbuild- ing family.
Here also, in the growing settlement on the Harbor, just before the "Sailor's War" with England, were Calvin Curtis, the carpenter; Erastus Foote, lawyer; Edward Hanford, hatter; Nathaniel Martin, merchant; Joseph Huse, doctor ; the brothers, Frye and Joseph Hall, Moses and Joshua Trussell. These were, for the most part, young men and each in his way was to play a role in the early development of the town.
It was during this expanding decade that Daniel Barrett, a pious man, full of great and imaginative schemes, engineered
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his astonishing Turnpike. Daniel had recently purchased Beau- champ Point from William Molyneaux (in 1793 for 90 pounds to be paid for in clearing lands) and built his farmhouse south of the Lily Pond. The Turnpike, a mile long toll road, was cut out of the foot of the cliffs along Lake Megunticook at the cost of $6,000. The toll rates were scaled upward from one cent each for swine and sheep to eighteen cents for a horse and chaise. The backers, however, never got their money out of it and the Turnpike was abandoned some years later.
It was in this decade (1805) that Camden called its first settled minister at a salary of $500 and a third of a lot on Goose River and at whose ordination ceremonies one, John Norton, of Lincolnville "Made an unnatural fool of himself by imbibing to excess and while endeavoring to accomplish the feat of a glutton, swallowed a piece of unmasticated meat and choked to death."
This was the Township that in June of 1812, received word that Congress had declared a state of war to exist be- tween Great Britain and these United States. On the second day of July, following the procedure of the Revolution, a Com- mittee of Public Safety was appointed. The town warned "Every citizen forthwith to arm and equip himself . . . . . for defense of the town."
The first general muster was called by William Carleton and the companies assembled at the Inn of John Eager (which stood on the site of the town common). Troops were drilled and vacancies filled. Those too young tagged along, the Revolutionary veterans, too old for active service, were formed into a volunteer company led by one of the Committee of Public Safety, John Pendleton.
The coastal citizens, who had bitterly resented the Ameri- can embargo acts that were blighting their trade, now were ready to fight a war for commercial survival. The temper
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of the times was stated with eloquence by Paul Thorndike, Jr., the son of Goose River's second citizen, when a privateer on which he had sailed was captured by the British in the English Channel. When questioned by his captors concerning Yankee military dispositions, he is said to have replied, "Why, sir, every stump is a place of defense and every pile of rocks is a fortification and you might as well think of subduing Satan in tophet as try and subdue the Yankees by fighting them."
This was a fair estimate of the job the British had on their hands in the waters of the Penobscot. In those days the coast villages depended on the sea, not only for their livelihood, but their very subsistence. During the period of the hostili- ties, the Maine coast was infested with enemy craft. To survive, the town had to stay in sea trade against all hazards. The Maine coast became the scene of hit and run warfare with British privateers preying on American merchantmen and American privateers intercepting the British merchant- men.
In this kind of warfare, the Yankees had a slight advan- tage for they knew the waters and their ships, though smaller, were usually faster and more ably handled. A good percen- tage of the towns became engaged either in blockade running or privateering.
In 1814, when the British once again occupied Castine, the war came close to the "Harbor" and the "River." An enemy force had sailed up the St. George (the scene of Way- mouth's memorable voyage) and had burned the fort near Broad Cove. An attack on Camden was expected momentarily. Colonel Erastus Foote (who later moved to Wiscasset and became Attorney General of Maine) called up his regiment to defend the town. Hastily, fortifications were thrown up on Eaton's Point and across the inner harbor at Jacob's Point. The spiked guns from the St. George fort were lugged over
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by ox teams and mounted. Two 12 pounders procured from Boston were dragged up Mount Battie. Barracks were estab- lished at the Harbor and picket stations were set up at Ogier's Hill and at Clam Cove. The September morning a British fleet appeared in the Bay, the whole town was at battle stations.
But Camden's perilous day of trial was postponed. The British sailed up the Bay.
It was soon after this tense day that Asa Richards and Peter Oat, the son of the Goose River's innkeeper, Peter Ott, had their exciting adventure. Fishing off-shore they were captured by a British cutter. Released the following day, they returned home with the alarming intelligence that North- port was about to be raided.
A force was quickly organized and dispatched from Cam- den. They arrived too late to thwart the landing for the British were already roving over the neighborhood committing assorted unfriendly acts, the least of which was using insulting language to a Mrs. Crowell and ripping open feather beds and casting the feathers to the winds. The Camden troops promptly ended these depredations and drove the Invaders back to their barge.
It was this same year that the British privateer Thinks I To Myself landed troops at Clam Cove only to be turned back by a handful of embattled farmers. It was during this fall that a party of Camden men were captured off-shore and carried off to Castine on a trumped up charge of espionage. The men, Robert Chase, Simon Hunt, Alden Bass and Perley Pike, were released a few days later after negotiations.
It was this year (November) that Camden had its nar- rowest squeak in this rough and tumble sea war. Noah Miller one of the region's patriot pirates, with his reach boat and an armed crew had succeeded in capturing a British merchant-
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man off Turtle Head. This rich prize he took to Northport and subsequently, with Major Philip Ulmer, the Ducktrap Deputy Inspector of Customs, at the helm, the prize sailed into Camden where it was promptly declared confiscated.
Fearing quick reprisals the selectmen ordered the cargo unloaded and transported to Portland and the vessel taken to St. George and secreted. The trouble they expected came promptly. The lookout on Mount Battie, a few days later, sighted a large and heavily armed British Man of War making into the Harbor. The village expected the worst and the town began evacuating women and children.
About one p. m. the Furieuse, her deck pierced for thirty eight frowning guns, hove to off the Ledges. A barge put off from Camden and at the meeting off Negro Island, the town officials heard the grim demands. If the prize, or, in lieu of that, $80,000, was not delivered within a designated time, both Camden and Lincolnville would be burned to the ground.
A special town meeting was hastily convoked. The en- suing discussions were academic. The town no longer had the cargo and they certainly didn't have $80,000. So negotiations were resumed with Robert Chase and Erastus Foote pleading the town's case before a rather unfriendly court. In the mean- time, all the available manpower was mustered out from the surrounding towns. According to one witness, the troops marching in platoons extended from the center of the town one half mile along the Post Road to the meeting house.
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