USA > Maine > Aroostook County > Caribou > Early history of Caribou, Maine : 1843-1895 > Part 2
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Sarah, married Henry Rackliff of Easton, where they lived until Mr. Rackliff's death when Mrs. Rack- liff moved to Caribou. They had five children; Ethel, married Carl C. King of Caribou, both deceased ; Alton, married Althea Bridges of Mars Hill, both deceased ; Earl, married Maud Hayward, niece of Mrs. Salmon Jones, both deceased; Elva, married Eben Welts of Caribou where they have always lived, and Clinton,
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married, lives in South Carolina where he is engaged in his profession of electrical engineering.
Ruth Abigail, married Nathaniel Bartlett, had one son, Roy, who died in his youth ; adopted a daught- er, Charlotte, who married Wilber Roberts.
Jennette, married Wesley Stratton of Washburn where they lived until Mr. Stratton's death when Mrs. Stratton moved to Caribou. No children; adopted a daughter, Grace, unmarried, living in Boston.
Edward, a photographer in Caribou, married Henrietta Leach of Wisconsin, well known as Town Clerk for years. She long outlived her husband, dying in 1931 at the age of 81. No children. One adopted daughter Mildred, married, living in California.
The first postoffice at Presque Isle was establish- ed in 1843 and thereafter the mail came via Houlton, once in two weeks at first; afterwards once a week, the settlers in Letter H taking turns in going after it. The first postoffice in Letter H was in the house of Ivory Hardison who was appointed the first post- master in 1844.
In the spring of 1844 the next settlers arrived. two single men, Samuel W. Collins born in Bangor but brought up in Calais, and Washington A. Vaughan, born in Burlington, Vermont but brought up in Brookfield, Mass.
Mr. Vaughn was among the earliest of the pion- eers of Aroostook, first coming to the county in 1829, when in company with four other men, he ascended the Penobscot River to its headwaters in a "bateau" (the French name for boat) then "carried over' to the
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headwaters of the Aroostook River, and descended the river to Presque Isle. There Mr. Vaughan formed a partnership with Dennis Fairbanks, (the first settler in Presque Isle) in building the first saw and grist mill at that place. Mr. Vaughan remained at Presque Isle about nine years, then in 1838 he "pulled out" and went to St. Stephen, N. B. just across the St. Croix River from Calais. While here he made the acquaint- ance of Samuel Collins, somewhat younger than him- self, and told him much about the wild woods country one hundred and fifty miles north of them. They talked over the possibilities of making some money in those virgin forests and decided to go there together and take a chance, the spring of 1844.
At this time legislation had been enacted in Maine by which the settlers could get two lots of land for every mill they built and maintained, on certain named streams of which the Caribou stream was one. So Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Collins decided to build two mills, a saw mill and grist mill, the latter first, be- cause food for the stomach was more important than a roof over the head. Mill stones were the most essen- tial thing in a grist mill, of course to grind the grain, also they were the hardest to get. But the partners knew of a place in Ohio where they could be obtained and they ordered a set.
The stones - a pair of thick heavy stone disks - put on a boat on the Ohio River, shipped up that river until they reached the Allegheny River in Pennsyl- vania, then across that state by water ways - rivers,
S. W. COLLINS, I
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streams and canals -- to Philadelphia. At that port, the stones were put on a sailing vessel for Boston, and from Boston to Bangor. There were no dams in the Penobscot River then but a tow boat ran from Bangor to Mattawamkeag, so the stones were towed to Mattawamkeag and from there they were hauled to Ashland - a road of sorts, having been grubbed out from Mattawamkeag via Patten to Masardis and Ashland on the Aroostook River. At Ashland the stones were put on a raft and floated down the river to the mouth of the Caribou stream, from which point it was no light task to get them up stream to the lo- cation chosen for the mill. A long and arduous journey from Ohio! But those mill stones served first a small, then a large community for many a year.
The flour bolt that the flour was sifted through was made of silk gauze; the new ones were back-stitched by hand at home by Mr. Collins' wife after his marriage, as the old ones wore out. There was no one else to do it and pioneer wives were always ready to help their husbands in any emergency. They worked hard but cheerfully to overcome the disadvan- tages of life in a pioneer country, which the older portions of the state had outgrown.
After the grist mill was built, perhaps while they were waiting for the millstones to arrive, a matter of weeks and weeks, Messrs. Collins and Vaughan pro- ceeded to build a saw mill a little farther upstream.
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The saw mill was burned two years later but was immediately rebuilt on the same site - the one still occupied by the S. W. Collins Co., very much enlarged today, however, extending many acres up along the banks of the Caribou stream.
Through building the two mills Collins and Vaughan secured four lots comprising all the land now occupied by Caribou village except that owned by Aleck Cochran. Mr. Vaughan also bought of the State two more lots, 19 and 20, three hundred and sixty one acres for $21., paid in road work. In the sawmill they had built, they sawed the great pine trees into square timber for shipment to England, floating it down the St. John River.
Much business came to Collins and Vaughan as the county grew in population - from all the settlers up and down the Aroostook River, grist being brought from as far away as Ashland and Masardis, by canoe or rowboat for several years thereafter. Logs were also needed for local use as the new settlers coming in had to have homes. This was the beginning of the village proper.
The very first settlers, the Hardisons and Halls, had chosen the higher ground to the south for their farms, probably because of better drainage, less
-
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swamp-land, and greater fertility of soil under the dense hardwood growth on the hills. They chose even better than they knew. Messrs. Collins and Vaughan were not looking so much for farms as for commer- cial possibilities. They were the first business men of the little plantation, under rather difficult circum- stances.
The supplies for the lumber camps and settlements at this time had to be hauled from Bangor, one hun- dred and seventy miles away. A few years afterward an arrangement was made by which the supplies could be placed in bond and brought from St. John, N. B. by steamboat, up the big river to Woodstock and even Andover, N. B. for several months in the year. The first steamer was put on the St. John River in 1816 and it ran regularly until the 1830s. A stern-wheel steamer with a draft of only fourteen inches plied the river between Fredericton and Andover, N. B. as late as 1850. In later years the river grew more shallow as the woods along the banks of the Upper St. John were being stripped for lumber to float down to the St. John harbor for the English trade. Stern-wheel steamers of still lighter draft were then put on the river and they gave good service carrying freight up and down the St. John until the railways came.
Shaved shingles were an important part of the freight shipped out from the Aroostook settlements to Boston in the earliest days. Cedar trees grew in a-
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bundance in the swamps of Aroostook and after a man had his log cabin built and his family settled, he could go into the woods, cut a cedar log into short bolts, split them into slabs, shave them into shingles, then tie them in bundles with birch withes. These could be taken to the general stores in the settlements where they could be exchanged for the necessities of life, keeping the family from hunger many times. Then the store keepers, like Collins & Vaughan and David Adams, shipped the shingles to the outside world where they were in good demand. The four-horse teams used in this transportation to Bangor (from whence the shingles were shipped down the Penobscot River to Boston) were loaded for the return journey with groceries of all kinds besides clothing and hard- ware for the merchants. This gave employment to scores of teamsters and their teams, and led to the opening of many small taverns all along the way from Caribou to Bangor where the drivers could be fed and housed and stabling found for their horses.
Thus was the machinery to supply the wants of the settlers set in motion in this region during the early years.
Another settler who came in 1844 was Abram Parsons from Hartford, who had driven one of Winslow Hall's "moving vans" the January previous, and who had remained a month before he returned to his home. He came back in April, making the whole journey on foot. He took up the lot next south of Winslow Halls-long owned by L. E. Hildreth and in more recent years by Joseph Brown, now by his son,
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Ray- and started making his clearing. He felled four acres of trees, built a log house, and the latter part of August started on foot for Hartford. He returned to his new home with his wife and six children, by ox- team, taking twenty-three days for the journey, arriv- ing in October, 1844.
Other settlers came in that summer of 1844. Cephas Sampson-who had driven one of the Hall ox- teams the winter before-his brother George, and Watson R. Starbird came from Hartford, and took up lots. George Sampson took the first lot north of the Prestile Brook-now the John McElwain farm ; Cephas took the next one north, now occupied by Arthur Ginn.
The Sampson brothers kept bachelor's hall to- gether in a log house until 1851 when George built a house and married Louisa Hoyt of Fort Fairfield. They had four children, Albert, May, Lottie and Lizzie, only one of which is now alive, Lottie, who married John Pattee now deceased, living in California with one son, George, who is married.
Cephas married Irene Small, daughter of Robert Small, had two children who lived to maturity, Edward and Myra. Watson Starbird took the farm across the road from Cephas, now occupied by Ernest Murphy.
Most, if not all, of these men now seeking farms hailed from Oxford County and it is noticeable how many of the early settlers of Caribou came from that section of the state.
At this time State lands were sold for only $1.25 an acre, twenty-five cents in cash and the rest to be worked out in labor on the settlers' own roads. This seems very cheap, but other prices went to the oppo-
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site extreme. Flour cost from $12. to $20. a barrel; pork $4. a barrel; molasses $1. a gallon; black tea $1. a pound; common cloth 15 to 20 cents a yard; and salt $2. a bushel.Pretty high prices considering the small amount of cash coming into the settlers hands in those days, but when one stops to consider the high cost of "teaming" everything over the abominable roads of those days, and the time it took to make the round trip from Caribou to Bangor and return-twenty days some times-one can not wonder at high prices.
On the 22nd day of August that summer of 1844 a heavy frost came, killing the crops and freezing the growing grain so hard that the heads would break off when they were touched. One can only conjecture the state of mind of those early settlers and wonder that they stayed any longer in such a country. But of such stern stuff were these hardy pioneers made that history records no discouragement on their part.
During the summer of 1844 a clearing was com- menced by Jacob Hardison, eldest son of Ivory, on the farm nearest to the village-as it happened-which he occupied for forty two years before selling it.
1845
In 1845, Joseph B. Hall, eldest son of Winslow, commenced clearing the lot afterwards called the Pett
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Todd farm, now occupied by Idell Jacobs. Joseph Hines came over from Presque Isle and took up the A. W. Todd farm next north and later married Marcella, eldest daughter of Winslow Hall. A shingle and clapboard mill was built on Hardwood Creek in this vicinity by Winslow Hall in 1845, the first of its kind in the region. The State, this year, pushed the road-now the main street in Caribou-through to Van Buren, building also the little bridge across the Caribou stream.
Among the men who settled on farms in 1845 was David F. Adams of Rumford who came late in the fall of the preceding year (1844) with his wife and young son, Weston, nine years old. Mrs. Adams rode horseback from Bangor to Presque Isle, then was rowed in a boat down the Aroostook River and up the Caribou stream until they came to the camp her hus- band had built on the shore of the stream (just below the Vaughan House) beside the camp of Collins and Vaughan and there they lived through the winter.
Mr. Adams assisted the firm in getting out lum- ber for their business while he was preparing for the building of his own log cabin on the lot he had taken up; the wife taking over the cooking for both camps- which the men gladly gave up for the time being. In the spring (1845) the Adamses moved to their lot adjoining Cephas Sampson's on the north (now the Arthur Thomas farm) .; finished their cabin and made a good clearing that summer. The previous winter, December 14, 1844, the second child, Maria came to
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the Adams family. The question may be asked where they got a midwife in those years. The answer is that the wives of the Canadian settlers living along the Aroostook River between Caribou and Fort Fairfield, were always ready to assist in any time of trouble, sickness or death. They came by boat or horseback, whichever was the quickest way. Bless them !
Other settlers coming that year were John Hall, (a cousin of Winslow) ; Joseph Bickford, his son-in- law, Haskell Farnham; and Ansel G. Taylor. The last named was the man for whom the Caribou G. A. R. Post was afterward named, he having been the first man from Caribou who was killed in the Civil War. Captain Amos Dwinal of Bethel took up the lot (oppo- site the Lorenzo Todd farm) that of late years has been occupied by the widow and son of Joseph Brown.
In the summer of 1845 Frances K. Newhall of Sangerville came and taught the first term of school in Winslow Hall's log house. After the building of a new house by Winslow, his old log house was used as a school house for some time.
The first frame house in the village was built in 1845 by Collins and Vaughan. They built it for a boarding house (in connection with the sawmill they had built) at the other end of the mill-dam, across
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the stream-getting to it by a foot bridge over the dam. This house-a mere shack at first-is still stand- ing on what was first called Myrtle (now called Grove) Street; and for many years was called the "Jim Smith house", Mr. Smith and his family occupying it for at least two generations, the second being the W. P. Allens. (The house is now occupied by Russell Getchell.)
The second frame house in the little settlement in the woods was also built in 1845 by a Mr. Hubbard; a little one-story cottage situated, originally, a little in front of the present Collins residence but moved across the road to its present location in 1857 by S. W. Collins who had bought the lot to place the little house upon from Aleck Cochran, the owner of all the land on that side of the road, it will be remembered. Later, after some changes in ownership, the little house was occupied for a long time by Henrietta Hall (widow of Edward Hall, one of the sons of Winslow) who after her husband's death was acting Town Clerk for many years. For this reason the house, to this day, is often called the Henrietta Hall house though occupied at the present time by W. E. Warman.
1847
The first marriage among the Americans in the settlement was that of S. W. Collins to Dorcas, eldest daughter of Ivory Hardison, in 1847. Dorcas was only twenty years of age at the time but she made an ideal wife for a pioneer, a woman of strong character and tireless industry. They lived first in the little house
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above mentioned for ten years, then moving it across the road they built on its present location a larger house, which since then, has been much changed, not- ably in 1899, when it assumed its present appearance, a handsome home on its slight elevation, continuously occupied by the Collins family for nearly ninety years.
Mr. and Mrs. Collins had a family of thirteen children but only five lived to mature years : Charles, Clara, Florence, Herschel and Edith.
(Charles, the eldest, early in life went to Pennsyl- vania where he entered the oil industry, and made a fortune. He married Ida, daughter of Luther Merrill, and they made their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and died there in later years. Clara, married Milton Teague, eldest son of J. D. Teague ; later moved, first to Kansas, then to California where Mr. Teague died. They had three children, Zoe, Madge and Charles, all born in Caribou, all married, and all living in Cali- fornia. Charles is very prominent in California in the growing of citrus fruits; president of Limonera, (one of the largest lemon growing organizations in Ameri- ca) also president of California Fruit Growers Associ- ation; of both for many years. Has one of the most beautiful homes in California, located in Santa Paula; has a wife and three children.
Florence, married Rev. C. W. Porter, Congrega- tional clergyman; had three children, Helen, Florence and Charles. After her husband's death in Caribou, she with her children moved to California, to join her many relatives there, where she took up journalism as a profession and became very prominent in women's club work and in politics.
REV. C. W. PORTER Pastor of Union Church in the late 70's and early 80's
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Herschel married Freda Files, daughter of Eben P. Files of Caribou; successfully carried on his father's extensive business in Caribou during his life which ended only a few years ago, leaving, besides his widow (now deceased) one son, Samuel Wilson, living in Caribou, four daughters, Mary, Maude, Clara and Ida, all married, Mary, living in Caribou, Clara and Ida in Massachusetts, Maude, in Portland, Maine.
Edith, the youngest of the Collins family, married Charles Oak formerly of Garland. They lived in Caribou some fifteen or twenty years then moved to Augusta where they lived some time while Mr. Oak was holding State office, then moved to Bangor where he died in later years. His wife is living in Orono. They had four children, Zelma, Gertrude, Edson and Donald. Zelma married A. K. Gardiner, for many years member of faculty of University of Maine, now State Commissioner of Agriculture, still retaining his home in Orono; Gertrude married, lives in Massachusetts. Edson and Donald, married, living in Tulsa, Okla- homa.
The death of S. W. Collins - the head of the family - took place in February, 1899 when he was 88 years of age. His wife died in September, 1919, aged 92.)
A very interesting book may be found in the Caribou Public Library entitled, "Our Folks and Your Folks", compiled by the two elder daughters of S. W. Collins, Clara and Florence; a real genealogy of the Hardison, Collins, and Teague families.
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Of Mr. Collin's partner, W. A. Vaughan, a little more needs to be said. Born in 1807 he did not take unto himself a wife until 1856 when he married Lydia Bickford, daughter of Joseph Bickford and sister of Haskell Farnham's wife. They lived in the upper story of the first store that Collins & Vaughan built, until 1860 when Mr. Vaughan built the original Vaughan House. They moved there but that was burn- ed July 5, 1863 and Mr. Vaughan immediately rebuilt on a larger scale. Mr. Vaughan was the first post- master in the village - often carrying the mail around in his pocket to be distributed to the settlers when he saw them - keeping the office from the late 40s to 1861.
They had three daughters, Abia, Mabel, and Martha.
(Abia married a Swedish minister, Rev. A. Wiren, and lived thereafter in New Sweden; had one son, Washington.
Mabel married Freeland Jones, who came from Bangor in 1884. They had three sons, Vaughan, Lawrence and Austin, all born in Caribou and two married to Bangor girls, the family moving back to Bangor while the boys were still small. Lawrence is a lawyer in Bangor, Austin living in Veazie, Vaughan in Colorado.
Martha was the first wife of Fremont Small, died young, leaving one daughter, Lucy.)
Mr. Vaughan's first wife, the mother of the three girls, died in February 1864 at the age of 29. Two years later he married Mrs. Lizzie Carlton, who was of much assistance to him in caring for his young daughters and managing his hotel. Mr. Vaughan died
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suddenly at his home - the Vaughan House - in June 1883 at 76 years of age.
Caribou was again fortunate in having among its earliest settlers business men like Samuel W. Collins and W. A. Vaughan.
The third frame house in Caribou village was built in 1847 by Joseph Bickford, father-in-law of W. A. Vaughan, on the corner of Grove and Main streets, next to the present Universalist Church. It was occupied by Mr. Bickford for twenty two years.
1848
A meeting was held in the barn of Winslow Hall on April 24, 1848 and the plantation of Letter H was organized on that date. Ivory Hardison was chosen moderator, Harvey Ormsby, clerk, and Samuel Collins, Winslow Hall and John Bubar, assessors; Harvey Ormsby, David F. Adams and Joseph B. Hall, superin- tending school committee. Ivory Hardison, Washing- ton A. Vaughan and William Bubar were chosen as a committee to divide the plantation into school dis- tricts. (The settlers were mindful of schools from the first.) At this meeting thirty votes were cast and this number would indicate approximately two hundred people. Almost all of the business at this time was done at the Center (as it was called) where Hiram Hall had opened a tavern called the Letter H House. The post office was only a short distance away, in the
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house of the first postmaster, Ivory Hardison and J. W. Hines had opened a store near the Winslow Hall house not far away.
1849
For several years now, settlers came in very slow- ly. Cyrus Small, a brother-in-law of Captain Amos Dwinal, came from Rumford in 1849, the only man to come that year, and "took up" (as they called it then) what is now known as the Aldice Hitchings farm on the Presque Isle road. Mr. Small brought his family three years later (1852) bringing, also, a string of wagons he had built by hand with iron work forged by hand also, notable for being the first wagons to be brought into the town. They were five weeks on the way. The horse-and-buggy-era had arrived !
1850
In 1850 Lorenzo Todd came from Hodgdon with his brother, Howard Pettingill (or Pett as he was fam- iliarly called), and his father, Alfred Todd. Lorenzo bought from Joseph Hines the lot now owned by A. W. Todd's sons, and Lorenzo's father (Alfred Todd) took the next farm south begun by Joseph B. Hall (now owned by Idell Jacobs).
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Looking back over the record of farms taken up in the first seven years of settlement it will be seen that a large proportion of them were taken on the Caribou-Presque Isle road. Later years justified the wisdom of these early pioneers for no less an authori- ty than Dr. Augustus O. Thomas, then State Superin- tendent of Education, hailing from Omaha, Nebraska, in writing of a trip he had just made through Aroos- took County in 1916 said in a newspaper interview on his return.
"I made the drive from Presque Isle to Fort Kent, a distance of fifty miles and it is interesting every foot of the way. But from Presque Isle to Caribou, a distance of thirteen miles, is the finest agricultural possibility in America. The homesteads are wonderful, the fields of timothy and clover are up to your neck and the fragrance is country wide. I never saw such potatoes. The Lord made a good job when he created Aroostook County and the people were no fools when they moved into it."
So later judgment has proved these men were wise in their generation when they took up farms on this thirteen mile road - "the finest agricultural possibility in America".
Jacob Hardison, Ivory's eldest son, went back to his old home and married at Fort Halifax, Winslow, on March 5th, 1850. Adeline Smiley of China, who had been a friend of his boyhood days. They lived the first summer in the small house built by Collins and Vaughan (spoken of previously as being probably the first frame house in the village) The following Christ- mas, Jacob and his wife moved into the house built that summer on the farm that he had begun to clear.
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