USA > Maine > Aroostook County > Caribou > Early history of Caribou, Maine : 1843-1895 > Part 4
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Other Canadians that came early were the Hales. Arden Hale came from New Brunswick with his father Dennis Hale and family in the early fifties and in 1862
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they took up the lot on the east side of the Aroostook River, next south of that owned by Arthur Goud for many years.
Arden married Mary McDonald of Washburn and they had twelve children, John, Alice, Nellie, Myrtie, Dennis, Carrie, Fred, Myra, Ben, Thomas, Maria and Arden; the last-named, married and living in Caribou, all the other children now deceased.
(Arden and Mary Hale lived on this farm until the death of Mr. Hale in 1909; the two sons, Thomas and Arden, carrying on until 1918. Thomas then buy- ing Arden's interest and living there until his death in 1937. Thomas Hale had married Lettie Ginn (recently deceased) daughter of George and Rebecca Parsons Ginn. Mrs. (Carl C.) Nellie G. King, and Arthur A. Ginn are the other children of George and Rebecca Ginn, both living in Caribou. The Hale farm is now owned by Harold C. Clark.)
In her "Reminiscences of Other Days", written in 1895 Mrs. Ruth Whittier, daughter of Hazen Keech, tells in a very interesting way the story of her jour- ney to Aroostook. Some extracts are given here.
"In the spring of 1859 people in southern Maine learned of the wonderful farming lands up in Aroos- took County. These lands were being offered at a bar- gain to men who would take advantage of the oppor- tunity to secure a home by using a little pluck and perseverance until they could get established. A. M. York and his brother Edwin, who had been there, came home with glowing accounts. They said that it
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was the place for a poor man and that they were going to take their families there in the near future. Father and a number of other citizens of Oxford County - for they were informed that a large portion of the settlers of North Aroostook were from that county - decided to take the trip and see for themselves.
About the middle of May, 1859, seven men, name- ly, John Bradbury, his son-in-law, Joseph Goud, Eli Richardson, Nathan Reynolds, his son Otis, his son-in- law, Moses Coburn, and Hazen Keech started by single teams, two men in each of them, while the seventh man with a load of baggage such as the men would need, followed in the rear.
On their way (from Presque Isle to Caribou) they passed farms occupied by Oxford County people on every hand, many of them known to my parents. In Maysville (now a part of Presque Isle) they found Luke Smith, whose wife was a relative of my mother.
The Halls, Sampsons, Starbirds, Smalls, D. F. Adamses, and many others that had emigrated ahead of them were found along the road.
They were advised to try Green Ridge but found that nearly all the best farming land had been taken already. The Reynolds and Moses Coburn, did get lots there. The rest forded the river and taking the Mili- tary Road, came to the little settlement where Collins and Vaughan had built mills and started a village on the Caribou stream near its outlet into the river. This village, at that time, consisted of very few families.
But to return to the locating a farm question. Quite a number of men had preceded Father by a few days and had gone over what is now called the New Sweden and Perham roads - at that time an unsettled
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wilderness. They had secured all the available hard- wood land, and to get a good lot Father and the rest of the men must go a long ways from the mills. Mr. Bradbury and Joseph Goud found lots near James Smith (brother of Luke), and Alonzo Burgess on what is now called "the old Washburn road". Father kept his eye on a hardwood ridge in I Plantation. He was told that it was lacking in good water but he resolved to find out for himself. After a few days prospecting they decided they would commence clearing.
While looking for a chance to dig a well, Father found a nice spring of water quite a little nearer at the David Collins mill. It was at the mouth of Otter Brook, a stream that crossed the road we must take to get to the farm that Father had taken, yet the spring was on Father's land. So he cleared a small piece and then built his log house. This was the be- ginning of the farm now (1895) owned by the Powers' twins, the sons of my sister. She married Corydon Powers and remained on the place during the lifetime of my parents.
During the year that Father was here before we came, he built a sawmill for John L. Smith at Hard- wood Creek. He also built a bridge at the foot of (David) Collins hill. It was the first across Otter Brook, at that time a very dangerous place at certain times of year, a very steep turn in the road.
I think most of the party of which Father was a member spent their remaining years in Aroostook. Mrs. John Bradbury died a few years later. I think in the spring of 1864, and Mr. Bradbury soon returned to Oxford County to spend the rest of his life.
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1860
The last of June, 1860, we had word from Father to be ready to start whenever Mr. John L. Smith of Lyndon, Aroostook County, a former acquaintance of my parents, was ready to start back. Mr. Smith had arrived at his old home in Bethel, three or four miles from us and wanted to start back with his load in a very short time.
In a few days we were ready to start. The early morning of July tenth found us wending our way from Bethel down the Androscoggin River through Hanover, Rumford and Dixfield, then turning to Farmington we reached Bangor the afternoon of the thirteenth. On the afternoon of July 18th 1860 we passed through Presque Isle and about four o'clock we drove up to John L. Smith's house in the southern part of the township, a farm now owned by Libby and King."
This is a long and valuable extract from Mrs. Whittier's book - valuable because of the portrayal of the "land boom" in Caribou around 1860 by one of the participants herself - first hand testi- mony concerning the emigration of whole families from Oxford to Aroostook County. These were largely descendants of the Masshachusetts families who took
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part in "the great trek" to western Maine which be gan after the Peace Treaty at the close of the French and Indian War in 1763. This "trek" was encouraged by the General Court of Massachusetts (their Legisla- ture) from the beginning. During the Revolutionary War they offered the soldiers - and almost everybody who would accept - very liberal grants of land to re- ward them and incidentally to encourage settlement "on the eastern frontier" - which was Maine - and many took advantage of the offer. Oxford County, one of the first to be settled in this way, being practi- cally the nearest, is in the foothills of the White Mountains and is beautiful, especially in summer, with its many hills, vales and streams, but the land was no more fertile than regions in the vicinity of mountains usually are. Hence the exodus by many of the descend- ants of these first settlers of Oxford County when they "began hearing in 1859 of the wonderful farming lands up in Aroostook."
Shorter extracts from Mrs. Whittier's story now follow, telling the way these settlers - Mr. and Mrs. Keech and their three daughters, Lizzie, Abbie and Ruth - had to go to reach their new home after arriving at the little village. She goes on to say :
"We turned down Water Street, up the hill, to our left, took down a pair of bars, went through and followed an old grubbed road (now Pleasant Street) leading to the present corner of Pleasant and High streets, then down a side hill grubbed between the road where it now runs and the river, going about where the B. & A. R. R. roundhouse now stands. When
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we reached the home of David Collins we were told to alight as we could go no further with a team.
After unloading our stuff we managed to "tote" it home about a mile away - as the tote road ran at the time - we three girls, mother and father, each took a load of such things as we would need most and followed our leader across the bridge. A few rods fur- a ther on we pitched into the woods and followed
"spotted line", occasionally stopping to take breath, unhitch our dresses (no slacks or pants for the girls then) from the clinging brush that impeded our travels or get a better hold of our loads.
Father had got the walls of a log house ready but no roof on it as he had been very busy almost night and day clearing land and caring for the crops. For five weeks we endured camp life then willingly moved into the log cabin that had been made comfortable and ready to receive us."
This is a picture of real pioneering in those days. Most of the women arriving in this new country from sections of the state older by sixty years or more, were more advanced in their way of life, their pioneer- ing done. These women had seen their mothers drop- ping the old, primitive habits of living, washing and carding wool, spinning and dyeing yarn for the knit- ting of stockings and the weaving of rag carpets for the floors. They had adopted easier, time-saving ways in housekeeping, their homes had been comparatively warm and comfortable, the forests around their villages cleared, neighbors near. But these women of a younger generation arriving at this little pioneer
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settlement now took up the old Colonial ways of house- keeping quickly and cheerfully, making soft soap, dipping tallow candles, and fashioning caps of coon- skins for their men-folks.
Not a complaint was heard among the women - only laughter over their experiences in adapting them- selves to this "brave, new world" - like sawing a barrel of flour in two to share with a new-coming neighbor who had no flour. If they had tears to shed they did not shed them then. Of such stuff were these pioneer women made!
To go on with Mrs. Whittier's story :
"In October, 1860 my brother, Milo Keech, who had returned to Bethel from a three-year stay in Minnesota arrived in Caribou accompanied by our cousin, George F. Ellingwood. They were soon engaged to work for W. A. Vaughan, both being carpenters and Vaughan being very anxious to get his new house (the original Vaughan House) into shape that his family might occupy it that winter."
This is, perhaps, as fitting a time as any for the introduction of an essay written for a Grange meeting in Caribou in 1895 by Harriet (Mrs. Moses) Thomas, daughter of Robert Small, describing the "little ham- let" of Lyndon as she first saw it in 1860, the same year that Mrs. Whittier came to Aroostook; also written the same year as Mrs. Whittier's "Reminis- censes" were written. Mrs. Thomas' essay describes
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the village - as she was asked to do; Mrs. Whittier describes the actual coming of a pioneer family, two entirely different points of view of the same thing. These are as good word-pictures of the times as one could ask for, painted by actual pioneers - for may not the children accompanying their parents be called pioneers also ?
CARIBOU IN 1860 by Mrs. Harriet Small Thomas
"Imagine if you can a little hamlet of not over a dozen houses situated on the bank of a stream with hills on either side, with a road that ran up and down the hills, which, with one or two exceptions, was the only one in the place, and you have Caribou as I saw it for the first time in 1860. Now come with me and we will go over this road for a little way.
We will start at Brother Hardison's (Jacob's) farm. The house where he lives replaces the one burn- ed in the autumn of that year (1860). Going north, the first house was the one now owned by C. C. King, built by A. M. York; the next building was the old schoolhuse that stood in the yard of the present one; the next was the Blake Roberts house (built by Haskell Farnham) on the left; on the right was a part of what is now the Dr. Thomas house.
The next was a pretty little cottage known as the Sylvester Washburn house that stood on the top of the hills where the Caribou House was burned a num- ber of years ago, and was a part of the same.
JUDAH D. TEAGUE
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Here there was a road that turned to the right which led to the ferry across the river. Leaving that road we will keep on down the hill and here we come to the old Dr. Sawin house, which you all remember. It was then dignified by the name of tavern and was built by Mr. Bickford in 1857. The blacksmith shop of the place was in front of where the Universalist Church now stands.
Exactly where the road is now, stood the Adams store and the road wound out around on the bank to the east of it, and on down the hill. At the foot was the gristmill, the machine shop (built by Sylvester Washburn in 1859) and some other buildings down stream and the sawmill upstream.
On the place where the present Vaughan House stands was a house (Vaughan's) that was burned later. The store that is now occupied by Blethen, the jeweler, (the old Vaughan store) and the old Collin's store, with the little old vine-covered cottage on the right (Mrs. Henrietta Hall's) and Mr. Collins' resi- dence on the left comprised the village of Caribou.
There were no more houses till you had gone up over the hill (North Main Street). Sweden Street was not known then. It was Vaughan's pasture. The school- house was the only church in town, and there a large quarterly meeting could be held where the people came from many miles around.
When you consider that scholars in the out-dis- tricts had but a few weeks school each year and some had to go three or four miles to get to it and no wagon to ride in, you need not wonder that we who were children then cannot write an essay now."
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What person educated in the supposedly fine schools of the present day could bring a better picture of the past before the reader's eyes than this, No apologies are necessary for this "essay." It is price- less.
Both of these selections are very valuable as con- taining first-hand recollections of a bygone day.
In 1860 Nathan and Nathaniel Lufkin, cousins, came from Rumford. Nathaniel settled on the Wood- land road and Nathan chose what was later known for a long time as the Palmer farm on the Fort Fairfield road, about one and one-half miles from the village proper.
Nathan was a good surveyor and laid out many of the town lines of that time. He was made a Justice of the Peace and the lawyers who came later found Mr. Lufkin a capable and impartial judge. He was local Land Agent for the State for a period of ten years, re- ceiving his first appointment from State Land Agent Chapman in 1863.
Nathan brought his wife and family with him when he came; the children's names were Horace, John, Charles, Sewall, Nancy and Alice. The children, as they grew up, moved away to the West. Before Mr. Lufkin's death, he had made his farm one of the finest in Aroostook. (The west half of the farm is now owned by Henry Haines, the east half by Harold C. Clark.)
In 1860 Luther Merrill came from Turner with his family. He bought of Aleck Cochran for $100. the block of land on the east side of Main Street, running
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from Water Street to the present High Street line and back as far as the L. E. Tuttle house. Mr. Merrill first built a cooper shop or tub and pail factory as it was then called-on the road leading to the Collins saw mill just where the first Collins & Vaughan camp was pitched. There were rooms upstairs to accommodate his family until he got his new house built on a little eminence exactly opposite the entrance of Sweden Street into Main, in after years.
1861
In 1861, George Ross, father of Charles Ross-the well-known furniture dealer in later years-came from Hartland and settled on the Woodland road, but his companion, Charles Doe from Fairfield settled on the lot opposite George Sampson on the Presque Isle road, later called the Hitchings farm. Charles Doe had four children, Charles, George, Frank and Fannie.
Judah Dana Teague came from Turner in 1861 with his family. He first bought out Mr. Vaughan's stock, and continued business in the old store, also tak- ing over the postoffice. In 1864 Mr. Teague and J. S. Arnold bought the Aleck Cochran holdings on the east side of what is now called North Main Street, compris- ing all the land running to the Caribou stream and the Aroostook River, except the Merrill and Barrett lots which had previously been sold.
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Soon after this Mr. Teague built, near the top of the hill, a large house which has now been moved a short distance down hill then back on the present Park Street, now owned by George Harmon.
In 1865 Mr. Teague sold out his interest in the Vaughan store to the Dwinal brothers, sons of Captain Amos Dwinal (who kept the postoffice until 1873). Mr. Teague then moved into his new house, after which he gave more of his time to farming.
In 1860 the Legislature created the office of Trial Justice. Mr. Teague was appointed to this office in Lyndon soon after his arrival and he held it until the time of his death.
He was always one of the strong men of the com- munity and held in much respect, having held the po- sitions of Town Clerk, Treasurer, Selectman and Rep- resentative to the Legislature besides that of Trial Justice. He was married twice, his first wife, Evaline Morse was with him when he came to Caribou with five children: Milton, Eliza, Mary, Alletta and Clara. Two more children, Kate and Richard were born in Caribou. Their mother lived seven years after coming here, dying in 1868.
Mr. Teague's second wife was Ann E. Small who came from Fort Fairfield to teach in the village school. Incidentally it may be mentioned that she opened her heart and her dining room occasionally to teach young scholars after her marriage - though her domestic duties were heavy - so anxious was she to further the educational facilities of the little village. She had three children who lived to maturity, Dana, Electra and Donald, all of the latter children are married and living in California.
The Teague children : Milton, married Clara, eldest
ĐÃ
MILTON D. TEAGUE
EARLY HISTORY OF CARIBOU 61 daughter of S. W. Collins; Eliza, married Arthur, eld- st son of Joseph Goud; Mary, married Charles Smith of Bridgewater; Alletta, married John Wilson of Salina, Kansas; Clara, married R. A. Burch of Salina, Kansas; Kate, married Fuller Bradstreet of Bridge- water; Richard, married (1) Alice Long of Ellsworth, Kansas, (2) Hattie Lassen of Ventura, Cal .; Dana, married Pansy Brewster of Ventura, Cal. (who died recently) ; Donald, married Susie Lewis, daughter of Clayton Lewis of Caribou. Last three children living in California, the other seven deceased.
Mr. Teague was born in Turner in 1821, died in Caribou in 1896. Ann E. Teague, born in Livermore in 1842, died in 1926 at the home of her daughter, Electra, in Santa Paula, California.
If one likes genealogy they can find in the Cari- bou Library the genealogy of some of the early pion- eers of Caribou in the book "Your Folks and Our Folks" compiled by Mrs. Clara Teague Gries and Mrs. Florence Collins Pooler, grand daughters of Ivory Hardison, daughters of Samuel W. Collins, and one of them a daughter-in-law of Judah Teague, thus having close connection with three pioneer families. This book gives much information and pleasure, being written in an interesting way.
Another man coming in 1861 was Nathaniel Bartlett from the good old town of Hartford which had already given to Caribou so many valuable citi- zens. Mr. Bartlett first purchased the farm on the Van Buren road, now called the Hewett farm.
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Later, in 1863, his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Americus Bartlett came with another son, Osgood - half brother to Nathaniel - and leaving them in care of the farm, Nathaniel went to the village in 1864. He built a small store building-the third store in town- just below it, which enlarged, is standing to-day on the corner of Main and High streets; here he carried a general stock of goods.
In 1865, Nathaniel bought of S. W. Collins the house, so long known afterward as the Henrietta Hall house, and married Ruth Abigail, daughter of Winslow Hall. Mr. Bartlett was postmaster and express agent for many years, the postoffice being on the upper corner of the building facing Main Street.
Mrs. Bartlett was very well known in the com- munity as she opened the first millinery store in town - a long step in advance - a boon to the settler ladies. Her first venture was in a small shop on the corner of Main and (the present) Sweden streets, fac- ing Main Street. Mrs. Bartlett, later, moved to a store her husband had built on High Street, next to his first store on the corner. Mr. Bartlett carried on his ex- press business for many years in this new building, which contained also his wife's millinery store. Over- head were spacious and comfortable living rooms where Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett made their home. They had one son, Roy, who only lived long enough to grad- uate from Bowdoin College - an untimely ending of a life of brilliant promise.
In 1861 John Colby Whittier, whose wife, Rebecca, was the sister of Alonzo Burgess, moved from Rock-
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land to Aroostook and settled in the same region that Sidney Smiley and Alonzo Burgess had chosen, on the old Washburn road. This was no more than a logging road leading to the tiny settlement of Washburn, nine miles from Lyndon (first settled in 1829, fourteen years before Caribou).
Colby Whittier's son, Charles G., married Ruth Keech, - the author of "Reminiscences" - in 1864, and they bought, a little later, a farm next to her father's, the Keech farm - where they lived many years and had seven children, Milo, Mericos, Colon, Charles, Olive, Viora and Florence. '
This year of 1861 was the first year of the Civil War which early began to decimate the little settle- ment as there were more than fifty young men who left for the front. The call of patriotism was strong even in this little community in "far-off northern Maine".
List of those who left Caribou to serve in the War of the Rebellion.
Ansel G. Taylor
William Langley
Americus Bartlett
Lawrence Kelley
Rufus Teague
Patrick Kelley
Milo Keech
Joseph Gulliver
Joseph Vance
Roscoe Morse
Robert Vance
Josiah Morse
Richard Vance
Joseph Field
Mark Ellis
Lemuel Field
George Ellis
John Gallagher
Lewis Sturdevant
Walter Kelley
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Nicholas Somers
Albert J. Sharp
Elias Keech
Henry Sharp
Rodney Bickford
Artson K. Pratt
Howard P. Todd
Luther Parsons
Amos Kelley
B. P. Webb
Moses Langley
Edwin York
Weston Adams
A. S. Fields
Dana Brown
William Kelley
Daniel O. Todd
Oliver Bubar
Enoch Hall
George O. Field
John Gulliver
Frank Brown
Ezekiel Le Vasseur
Zadoc Forbes
Charles Small
William Bubar
Alva Small
Thomas Walton
Joseph Shaw
Pierce Thompson
Belanie Theriault
Horace Hall
The writer cannot vouch for the absolute correct- ness of this list and has no exact knowledge of how many of these returned.
Attention might be called to the number of Can- adian families settled along the Aroostook River be- tween Caribou and Fort Fairfield in the early days, who are represented by their young men in the fore- going list viz: the Langley, Kelley, Bubar, Gulliver Somers, Gallagher, Forbes, and Walton families.
1862
Frank Records came from Readfield in 1862 and engaged in what was then the important business of hauling freight or "teaming" - as it was then called-
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from Bangor to Lyndon. At that time it took four and six-horse teams to go to Bangor, a distance of one hundred and seventy five miles going and an equal number of miles coming back, the time taken depend- ing upon the season of year, about twice as long in the spring as at any other season. Mr. Records married Clara, a daughter of Daniel Manson of Houlton, and they had one daughter, Winifred, who married Elmer Arnold, second son of John S. Arnold. The Records lived in the first dwelling house built on Sweden Street, a small yellow house almost covered with vines (moved away now to make room for the post office.)
In 1862 John S. Arnold came from Bangor with his family, a wife and one boy, Ernest. Two more boys Elmer and Guy were born after their coming to Cari- bou. Mr. Arnold first rented the Adams store, then newly built, and went into business: then in 1865 he built for himself what is known as the Holmes block (much enlarged however in later years) on the upper corner of Main and Sweden streets where he "kept store" - the fourth in town - and had a hall above for the "shows" and other gatherings of the com- munity.
About 1870 Mr. Arnold took into partnership Warren S. Dwinal, a son of Captain Amos Dwinal, an- other Oxford County man, who had previously been keeping a furniture store in the building on the bridge first built for a tannery.
The firm of Arnold & Dwinal became an import- ant one for that day, dealing in most of the commodi-
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