USA > Maine > Oxford County > Norway > Centennial history of Norway, Oxford County, Maine, 1786-1886, including an account of the early grants and purchases, sketches of the grantees, early settlers, and prominent residents, etc., with genealogical registers, and an appendix > Part 6
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HISTORY OF NORWAY.
of Land belonging to the Commonwealth and included in our North Line may be granted to the Inhabitants as an equivalent to said Publick Lots generally given to purchasers of an Township. We therefore pray that if your Honours think proper to Incorporate us into a Body Politick by the name of NORAGE and your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Nov. 26, 1795.
RUSTFIELD SUBSCRIBERS.
CUMMINGS & LEE'S GRANT.
Ebenezer Whitmarsh
Job Eastman
George Lessley
Jonathan Cummings
Nathan Noble
Benj. Fuller
Anthony Bennett
Silas Merriam
Nathaniel Bennett
John Henley
Amos Hobbs
Nathan Foster
Samuel Perkins
Nathan'l Stevens
John Parsons
Jeremiah Hobbs.
Joshua Smith
Daniel Knight
WATERFORD THREE TIERS.
Benjamin Witt
Thomas Crockett
Jonathan Stickney
Levi Bartlett
Joseph Dale
John Cushman
William Parsons
Darius Holt
Benjamin Herring
Benj. Flint.
John Pike
John Millett
Joseph Stevens William Stevens Jonas Stevens Isaac Cobb
Asa Dunham.
PETITION FOR INCORPORATION. NO. 2.
To the Honourable the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General Court assembled :
The petition of the Subscribers Humbly Sheweth - That whereas we your Petitioners Inhabitants of Rustfield, Cummings Grant with others at the last Session of the General Court Petitioned your Honours, Praying you to take under your wise consideration the peculiar Situation of Rustfield Cummings Grant, Lee's Grant and three tear of Lots on the Easterly end of Waterford and that if your Honours, should think proper to Incorporate us Into a body politick and as in our petition we made mention that having no Land for the first settled minister the use of the ministry and a public School, that the small Gore of land containing about one thousand acres belonging to the Commonwealth included in our north line might be Granted to the Inhabitants as an equivalent to the Publick Lots generally given to the purchasers of any Township, we therefore beg leave to renew our petition to your Honours for the Gore of land belonging to the Commonwealth Included in our north line of the Plan by which we wish to be Incorporated to which we beg leave to refer your Honours to, and that the same may be granted to the Inhabitants aforesaid for the first settled minis- ter, the use of the ministry and a public School, and your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
May 10-1796.
Asa Case
1
47
HISTORY OF NORWAY.
RUSTFIELD SUBSCRIBERS.
Wm Parsons
John Millett David Gorham Ebenezer Whitmarsh Benj. Herring
Nathaniel Bennett
John Parsons
James Stinchfield
Joshua Smith
Moses Twitchell
Nathaniel Millett
CUMMINGS' GRANT.
Peter Buck®
Nathaniel Stevens
Nathan Noble
Jonathan Cummings
Zebedee Perry
Jeremiah Hobbs
John Henley
John Pike Reuben Hubbard Levi Bartlett Samuel Ames
Benj. Fuller
Silas Merriam
Job Eastman
Thomas Cowan
This is to certify to whom it may concern that I the subscriber have received an attested copy of the Petition to the General Court, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of a number of the Inhabitants of Rustfield, Cummings Grant and of three tear of Lots on the Easterly side of Waterford, praying for an act of Incorporation with the ordering of Court thereon.
JONA. CUMMINGS.
Cummings' Grant Apr. 20- 1796.
This is to certify to whom it may concern that I the Subscriber an Inhabitant of Lee's Grant have received an attested copy of a Petition to the General Court of the Common- wealth of Massachusetts of a number of the Inhabitants of Rustfield - Cummings Grant - and of three tear of Lots on the Easterly side of Waterford praying for an act of incorpo- ration with the orders of Court thereon.
JOSIAH BARTLETT.
Lee's Grant Apr. 3- 1796.
This may certify all whom it may concern I the subscriber an Inhabitant of Rustfield Plan- tation, have received an attested copy of a Petition to the General Court of the Common- wealth of Massachusetts of a number of the Inhabitants of Rustfield - Cummings Grant - and of the three tiers of Lots on the Easterly end of Waterford, Praying for an Act of Incorporation, with the order of Court thereon.
JOSHUA SMITH, Clerk of said Plant' n.
Rustfield April 30- 1796.
ACT OF INCORPORATION.
An Act to incorporate several tracts, or grants, of land situate in the County of Cumber- land, into a town by the name of Norway :
SECT. I .- Be it enacted, by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That one tract, or grant, of land, known by the
Joshua Crockett Dudley Pike Benj. Witt Anthony Bennett
Samuel Pierce Amos Hobbs Joel Stevens
Joseph Stevens Jonas Stevens
Asa Dunham
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HISTORY OF NORWAY.
name of Rustfield; another by Lee's Grant; a third by Cummings' Grant; together with the three tiers of lots, which formed a part of the plantation of Waterford, lying next to, and adjoining the easterly side of said plantation - the outlines of the said town of Norway being as follows, viz : - Beginning at a certain birch tree, standing on the westerly side line of Paris, and on lot number thirteen, well marked, thence running northerly, one thousand one hundred and sixty rods, by said Paris line, to a spruce tree, marked; thence south, seventy- six degrees west, one thousand (one hundred) and four rods, to a cedar tree, standing on the easterly side of Cummings' Grant; thence north, twenty-five degrees west, fifty-five rods, to the northeasterly corner of said Cummings' Grant; thence south, sixty-five degrees west, four hundred and eighty rods, to the easterly side line of said plantation, ( of Waterford ; ) thence north, twenty-five degrees west, on said easterly line of said plantation, about three hundred and thirty rods, to the northeasterly corner of the plantation aforesaid ; thence south, sixty- five degrees west, on the northerly side line of said plantation, crossing three tiers of lots to the dividing line between the third and fourth tiers of lots, from the aforesaid easterly side line of said plantation ; thence south, twenty-five degrees east, on said dividing line, by the town of Waterford, as incorporated, to the southerly side line of said plantation ; thence north, sixty-five degrees east, on said southerly side line of said plantation, crossing the ends of the aforesaid three tiers of lots, about three hundred and thirty rods to the southeasterly corner of said plantation ; ( the last-named distance ought to be four hundred and eighty rods; ) thence south, twenty-five degrees east, by Phillips' Gore ( so called ) six hundred and twenty-four rods, to Hebron line; thence north, fifty-four degrees east, by Hebron line, about one thousand and seventy-four rods, to a tree standing on the westerly side line of Paris, marked; thence northerly by said Paris about nine hundred and seventy rods to the first bound ; together with the inhabitants thereon, be, and hereby are incorporated into a town by the name of Norway; and the said town of Norway is hereby invested with all the powers, . privileges and immunities which other towns in this Commonwealth do, or may enjoy. Pro- vided, nevertheless, that Waterford, as incorporated, exclusive of the before-mentioned three eastern tiers of lots, are and shall be entitled to four-fifths of all public lots lying within the aforesaid three tiers of lots. Provided, also, that no taxes of any kind be laid on any part of the land contained within the bounds of Lee's Grant until the expiration of ten years from the passing of this act.
SECT. 2 .- Be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that Enoch Perley, Esq., be, and he is hereby empowered to issue his warrant, directed to some suitable inhabitant of the said town of Norway, requiring him to notify and warn the inhabitants thereof, to meet at some convenient time and place for the purpose of choosing all such officers as towns are by law required to choose in the months of March or April, annually.
This act passed March 9, 1797.
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CHAPTER VII.
THE EARLY SETTLERS.
WITHOUT the assistance of plantation or early town records, and a hundred years after the town of Norway was first settled, it is difficult to determine authoritatively some of the questions connected with or immediately preceding that event. No diary or journal, so far as we are aware, was kept by the early settlers, and nearly fifty years have elapsed since the last of the half a dozen first settlers passed away and beyond. The story of when they came and how they came, of the privations and hardships they endured in opening up this wilderness and establish- ing homes for their children, has come down to us, but mostly in the form of tradition, and while a portion of it is reliable, it is quite certain that some of it is not. Different persons do not remember the same events in the same way, and. when repeated from generation to genera- tion, facts become distorted and exaggerated.
According to his own statement on page fifty-five of his history, Mr. Noyes came to Norway, February 12, 1804. He was then a young man, in fact, a minor. This was eighteen years, at least, after the beginning of the plantation, and seven years after the incorporation of the town of Norway. The early settlers, or many of them, were then alive and in the full possession of their faculties. Nearly fifty years from his arrival in town, Mr. Noyes wrote his history of Norway. How long he had been gathering material for his history, and the manner in which he preserved it is not stated in his work ; but he does state his obligation to sons and daughters of the early settlers whom he calls by name, and which leads to the conclusion that he did not begin to gather his data until the settlers themselves, or most of them, had passed away. He doubtless had conversed with them all upon the subject of their early trials in the new town, but, if he did not write it down at the time, much of it would be likely to be forgotten before he com- menced his book. It is not purposed to throw discredit upon the statements of Mr. Noyes, respecting the precise time when certain set-
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50
HISTORY OF NORWAY.
tlers came, or who came first, for there is no doubt that they are in the main correct; at any rate, they constitute almost the only evidence that we have. But there are certain discrepancies in Mr. Noyes' state- ments, which can be accounted for only in the idea that he did not get his evidence as early as he might, and did not get it from first hands.
As for instance, on page eight, he tells us that five certain persons, giving their names, came into Rustfield in 1786, and felled trees during the summer and fall, and made what preparation they were able to make, in order to move their families the ensuing spring. These, we are to infer, were the first to fell trees with the purpose of settling here. On page twelve he says, "The writer has good reason to believe, from sufficient authority, that William and John Parsons came into Rustfield the first of June, 1786, looked out their respective lots, and actually commenced felling trees on the third day of June; the first tree cut was a large hemlock on Job Parsons' lot, and the roots of that tree are said. to be still in their primitive place ; at least they were till since his death, which took place December 6th, 1847, aged eighty-five years." Now we submit, that this leaves us in some doubt as to who felled the first trees in Rustfield, because he does not tell us definitely when the five first named came to town, nor when they commenced felling their trees. I do not propose to try to settle the question of priority in felling trees in Rustfield or Norway, but will give a statement made by Mr. Simon Stevens, son of Joseph Stevens, the early settler, now living and the oldest representative of the Stevens family of Norway. It was com- municated through his son, Sydney A. Stevens, and is in substance as follows : -
"In 1784, Jonas Stevens, Joseph Stevens, George Leslie, and Amos Hobbs, with James Stinchfield as guide, came into Norway and along the shores of the Pennesseewassee Pond and up the streams which empty into it, for the purpose of hunting and trapping otter, beaver, and other wild game, and then for the first time, saw the beautiful forests which, saving the water surface, cover this whole region. In the fall of 1785, they came again, and at that time took up their respective lots. They also built a camp about forty-five rods from the Great Pond, and felled a small piece of trees near where the first house was built, near the house now occupied by Amos Downing, and Joseph Stevens com -
5I
HISTORY OF NORWAY.
menced to build his house. In March of 1786, Jonas and Joseph Stevens and George Leslie moved their families from Gray to Paris, to the houses of William and Daniel Stowell. They then came to Nor- way, crossing the brook near where Horne's tannery now stands, on a pine log, to about where Stephen Hatch now lives ; thence through where the village now stands to a little above where George Cole now lives ; then crossing the stream to the west side, on a log ; thence up to near where the ice-house is, and thence in a canoe up to their landing, near the first camp. They commenced in April of this year to enlarge their clearing and finish the house of Joseph Stevens ; they also com- menced houses for the others. In May, 1786, Joseph Stevens moved his family from William Stowell's in Paris, to his home in Norway. The family consisted of himself and wife and children, Daniel about ten years of age, Jonas eight, Amy six, and Apphia, an infant of five or six months, which the mother carried on her back in a shawl, and a couple of kittens in her hand. The others were loaded with household necessities, Dan- iel carrying a gun. About the first of June, 1786, Amos Hobbs moved his family in with Joseph Stevens. They then commenced to junk and pile and put in their crops. Joseph Stevens' first house was built about twenty rods southeast of the house owned by Amos Downing; Jonas Stevens' house was built southeasterly, twenty-five or thirty rods from the house occupied by Amos Grover. Amos Hobbs' first house stood forty-five rods west of the house now owned by James Crockett ; George Leslie's, ten rods west of the first county road, on land now owned by Benjamin Tucker. Jeremiah Hobbs moved into Norway in August or September of the same year, on land now owned by Frank A. Dan- forth. Nathaniel Stevens came in sometime in the summer of 1786, and commenced a clearing just north of where the church now stands, at the center of the town. Nathan Noble came in in 1788, and settled on land now owned by William O. Perry, and moved in his family early in the spring of the following year. Joel Stevens came in 1793, and built his first house on land he purchased of his brother Joseph, near the southwest corner of his lot, it now being part of the Andrew Mills estate."
Such is the statement of Mr. Simon Stevens, who, born in 1798, must have heard it from his parents and other early settlers who were familiar
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HISTORY OF NORWAY.
with the circumstances, and whose authority is certainly entitled to great weight. It will be noticed that in all minor details there is no essential disagreement between the story as told by Mr. Noyes, and the state- ment made by Mr. Stevens, indicating a common origin, but in regard to time, there is a difference of one year. Mr. Noyes fixes the time of the actual occupancy of the land at 1787, and Mr. Stevens, at 1786. We know of no way to settle this point of difference authoritatively, and shall not attempt it, for the question is really of but little conse- quence. It is agreed, on all hands, that the first actual settler within the present limits of Norway, was Joseph Stevens, and that his wife was the first white woman in town. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Hobbs, born in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and she was a sister of Jere- miah and Amos Hobbs, who moved into Norway the same year that she came. Mrs. Stevens' first night's experience in town is told by Mr. Noyes, and also by her son Simon. The family came over from Paris in the afternoon, and at the foot of the pond expected to find their canoe, but it had broken its moorings and drifted away. They then attempted to find their way around the pond, but it becoming dark before they reached the path that led to the house, and having no means of making a light, they were obliged to spend the night where they were. They cut a few hemlock boughs, and constructed their rude couch by the side of a large wind-felled tree. The weather was not cold, and they had a good night's rest and sleep, and early in the morn- ing they made their way to their house. George Leslie moved his family in soon, Noyes says the next day, and took up quarters in the Stevens house ; a little later, came Jonas Stevens, and about the first of June, Amos Hobbs moved in. Hobbs also took temporary quarters with Joseph Stevens, making three families in one small house, only sixteen by twenty feet. Jeremiah Hobbs, with wife and a large family of children, moved in in September, making in all five families in Rust- field the first winter.
The first settlers of Norway were called upon to endure the hardships and suffer the privations common to new settlements. It is true that Paris, the adjoining town on the east, had been settled four or five years, Waterford on the west a little longer, and Hebron on the south about the same time; but the settlers in these places were poor, and
I
53
HISTORY OF NORWAY.
had not yet got over the struggle for existence. There were no roads to connect the different settlements, communication being had only by means of spotted trees and the course of the streams. The nearest mill was at Stony Brook in Paris, and was a small affair, hardly sufficient to accommodate the settlers of that town. It was often out of repair, and then the settlers here were obliged to take a bushel of corn or grain upon their backs and go to Otisfield, or if in winter, hauling it on a hand-sled and traveling on snow-shoes. When all other resources failed, as was sometimes the case, they pounded their corn in a wooden trough, making a coarse meal which they called samp or hominy, and the troughs in which the corn was pounded, were called samp-mortars. The actual necessaries of life were very scarce, and of luxuries there were none. Their stock of old corn and grain was often exhausted before the new crop could be harvested, and then the good housewife was obliged to shell out a little grain by hand and boil it for the family meal. The building of the mills, in 1789, marked an era in the history of the settlement which few can appreciate in these days of plenty. The building of the mills gave employment to all who had time to spare, and enabled them to pay for their land, an acre of land being the price of a day's work. The grist-mill insured good meal and bread to all who had the grists to be ground, and the saw-mill supplied the settlers with lumber with which to improve their old dwellings or erect new ones. The early settlers had generally constructed log houses and log hovels, covering the gables with clapboards, and the roof with long shingles rived by hand from the white pine, which was then abundant in some parts of the town. In some instances, they brought boards, one at a time, from Jackson's mill on Stony Brook, with which to lay their floors ; but, in most cases, the floors were made of plank rough-hewn by hand. In a few instances, the hardened earth formed the floor of the log cabin. After the saw-mill was put in operation, there was no longer any necessity for resorting to these devices, for timber suitable for boards, plank, shingles, and clapboards, was everywhere, and labor was cheap.
In these days of plenty and prodigality, it is well to reflect for a moment upon the enforced privations of the early settlers of this town. They were poor men, most of them had served in the war for independ-
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HISTORY OF NORWAY.
ence, and had been paid for their services in a currency, which was then greatly depreciated, and which soon became worthless by the action of that very government they had helped to establish. Like thousands of others, they looked to the eastward as their promised land, where, upon soil more fertile by nature than that of the old Bay State, and yet in the state of nature, they could make homes for themselves, and leave them to their posterity. They came to New Boston, now the town of Gray, or to New Gloucester adjoining, and here they had spent a few years, but their hopes were not realized. These were no longer border towns ; they had become comparatively thickly settled, and land was high. Already several colonies had gone out from here, and the sound of the woodman's ax had been heard far in the interior. They must go where land was cheaper, where the price would come within the scope of their means. It is said that Joseph Stevens and his friends came up here to hunt, but it is very evident that their ulterior object was to spy out the land. It was the nearest land then belonging to the common- wealth, and they well knew the advantages of settling upon government land under the liberal policy adopted and practiced toward the pioneer squatter. They were men of intelligence; they clearly foresaw what the future of the town would be, though they knew that for themselves the journey through the wilderness, and the passage of the Jordan lay between them and the promised land, and that few of them would live to behold it in all its glory; and few of them did, and none of them, to see it as we see it today. But they were ready and anxious to make the sacrifice for posterity's sake. And how they must have suffered and toiled to lay the foundations of this municipality, and with nothing but their hands with which to do it. When the first settlers came here, there were no surplus products in hardly any of the towns, and if there had been, there were no means of transporting them to places where there were no roads. Each settlement was obliged, for the most part, to depend upon itself, and a short crop compelled the strictest economy, and often involved pinching want. And then, when the bread-winner was disabled by accident or sickness, what fearful forebodings settled upon the household, and how ghastly hunger stared them in the face. The story told by Mr. Noyes of the early settler's wife, who, when her husband was disabled by a falling tree, dug up her neighbor's seed pota-
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HISTORY OF NORWAY.
toes with which to feed her starving children, is full of pathos, and well illustrates this part of the subject. She was a pious woman, her char- acter above reproach, and her walk exemplary before this occurrence, and through a long life succeeding it, every one spoke well of her. Of this we have the testimony of Mr. Noyes. But her children must be fed, and what should she do? Nature asserted itself, and she sought a supply where it only could be had. Was it a sin? Technically, yes ; but it was one that was never laid to her charge. Other cases of suffer- ing from hunger, and cold, and sickness, have come down to us through the years that compose the century since these occurrences took place, and, in looking back, we not only wonder that they lived through it, and succeeded so well, but even that they succeeded at all. It is a wonder, almost, that they did not give up in despair, and return to the older towns before deliverance came. It was, perhaps, the alternative of be- coming hewers of wood and drawers of water in the service of others in the older towns, or independent lords of the soil here, that strengthened their hearts, and impelled them to fight it out on this line. The grand- sons and great-grandsons of those sturdy settlers are today enjoying the fruits of their labors, and tilling the lands which they redeemed from the wilderness, and under what different circumstances !
After the first five settlers had paved the way, others came in rapidly, and soon the territory now comprising the town of Norway was dotted all over with clearings. Those who came in before and including the year eighteen hundred, may properly be regarded as early settlers, and so far as can be ascertained, are comprised in the following list. Most of them will again be referred to in other portions of this work.
Ames, Samuel
Bancroft, Jacob
Dwelly, Barzillai
Abbott, Moses Andrews, Samuel
Barrett, Alfred Bodwell, Bailey
Furlong, Thomas
Beal, William
Case, Asa
Fuller, Benjamin
Bennett, Anthony
Cummings, Jonathan
Foster, Nathan
Bennett, Nathaniel
Cummings, Amos
French, James
Briggs, Ephraim Buck, Peter Bartlett, Levi
Cummings, Elisha Crockett, Joshua
Frost, Jacob
Cobb, Isaac
Flint, Benjamin
Bartlett, Rufus
Cowan, Thomas
Gorham, David Godding, Samuel Hobbs, Amos
Bartlett, William Bartlett, Tilden
Curtis, Stephen
Hobbs, Jeremiah
Bancroft, Nathaniel
Cobb, Ebenezer
Hobbs, Daniel
Dunham, Asa
Hubbard, Reuben
Dale, Joseph
Herring, Benjamin
Blake, Richard Bird, John Blanchard, Amos
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