USA > Maine > Aroostook County > Caribou > Early history of Caribou, Maine : 1843-1895 > Part 5
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ties people really needed-the first time this could be said of a Caribou store. Living became easier in the community from then on. Better dress goods appeared on the shelves and the settler ladies had better dress- es - as well as better hats.
Mr. Arnold bought the house opposite the Holmes block, originally built by Luther Merrill for himself. Luther, deciding later to buy a farm instead, he sold the house in 1872 to Rev. W. T. Sleeper who sold it in about two years (1874) to Mr. Arnold as hereinbefore mentioned.
Mr. Arnold was elected to the State Senate in 1874 and was one of the leading men in politics and town affairs. In later years Mr. and Mrs. Arnold moved to Minneapolis to be near their eldest son, Ernest, and they died there.
Mr. Dwinal had built in 1860 on North Main Street, the house afterward occupied for many years by George H. Howe, step-son of Albe Holmes. The era of log cabins and even plain frame houses was now passing away and these houses just spoken of were really attractive in their architecture though not large.
1863
In 1863, James Page of Harmony, a son-in-law of Elder James Withee, came to Lyndon with his family and built the house opposite Dr. Sincock's house on South Main Street; afterwards in 1867, selling it to Joseph Gary and moving to a farm on the New Sweden
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road, now owned by Samuel Wilcox. Later, he moved back to the village, building himself a home on Sweden Street now occupied by John Somers. The Pages had six children; Alice, Marion (who married Samuel Little)., Schuyler, Ora, Vesta and Charles. All were married and all but two are deceased. Ora is living, in California, Charles in Caribou.
1864
In 1864 John L. Smith exchanged his farm on the Presque Isle road for Sylvester Washburn's sash and blind factory in the village, and the next year, in 1865, Mr. Smith also bought of Mr. Washburn the house at the top of the hill, just above the Bickford house, that Mr. Washburn had built for himself in 1859.
Salmon Jones, wife and young son and his brother- in-law, Lloyd Briggs and wife came together from Turner in February 1864. They took up three lots of land on the Van Buren road, about three miles from the village, Mr. Jones taking the farm afterwards known as the Fred Roberts farm, now owned by John Bouchard; Mr. Briggs took the farm now owned by Scanlon Barrett. These farms were among the first in those early days to attain a high state of cultiva- tion.
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Mr. and Mrs. Jones had one son, Horace, who be- came very well known to the Caribou public because of his jewelry store on Sweden Street, which he carried on for twenty years or more, the store afterwards owned by Howard Spencer for many years. Horace married Eliza Gardner of Dennysville and their home was on High Street, (now occupied by Mrs. E. F. Shaw). Later, Mr. Briggs sold his farm and came down to the village to live, buying the house Abram Sawin built at the top of North Main Street hill, where Charles Bishop's new house stands today. Mr. Briggs had two daughters, Gertrude, the elder, marrying A. G. Danforth, a dentist, died not long after, leaving an infant daughter Gertrude; and Faustina, marrying Willis L. Oak, brother of Charles and Fred,
1865
In 1865 Luke Smith moved to the village, build- ing himself a home on York Street and buying the planing mill from his brother, John L. who had bought it only the year before of Sylvester Washburn by giv- ing his farm in exchange for the mill. Luke had sons, Orlando, Will and Clinton to help him run the mill (which Orlando did for many years) while John had only girls, two of them, Inez and Sophia. Perhaps that made the difference.
John L. ran the Washburn house he had bought as a small hotel - the Caribou House - assisted for a time by his son-in-law, Joseph Gary. This lasted a
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year or two, then Mr. Smith sold the little hotel to Harry Small, son of Cyrus, who, enlarging it some- what, conducted it until it was burned in the late seventies.
In 1865 Captain Dwinal sold his farm and moved to the village, buying a house built the year before by John B. Hayes who had come with the idea of remain- ing, evidently, as he had bought a desirable building lot and built a nice looking house but had, just as evi- dently, decided not to stay, which was to the advan- tage of Captain Dwinal in securing a really desirable house, now for some time known as the Elmer Powers house. Captain Dwinal's son, Warren, had built in 1860 the house now occupied by Reginald Doyle. These two houses were built on adjoining lots, a pleasant ar- rangement doubtless for father and son. (The houses on these lots have been so modernized as to be un- recognizable as old landmarks.)
The county road - the Sweden Street and road of the present day - was located in 1865, running west from the main road which led to Van Buren. The county road was just "grubbed out," a rough corduroy road over a cedar swamp, which was Mr. Vaughan's pasture with bars protecting his cattle from the Main Street traffic!
We learn from a sketch of Caribou published in the "Loyal Sunrise" of Presque Isle in 1865, that the little "village comprised three stores, a sash and blind
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factory, a tannery, a blacksmith shop, a gristmill, a tub and pail factory, one tavern and seventeen private dwellings", a true picture of the time. The Vaughan House built in 1860 was burned July, 1863 but was im- mediately rebuilt on a larger scale with a good hall in the second story of the ell. This was the "one tavern" alluded to.
The ending of the Civil War, which had drawn rather heavily upon the young men of this sparsely settled community brought in - as if in partial com- pensation - quite a number of newcomers, unsettled by the war, looking for new fields of endeavor, new opportunities, new homes.
Lauriston R. King, a native of Dixfield, the first lawyer to settle in Caribou, came that year (1865) with a general education gained at Bethel Academy and Lewiston Seminary (now Bates College). His legal education was acquired by study and later, partner- ship, with Judge William Wirt Virgin of Norway, a Supreme Court Justice of that period. Mr. King was one of those returning from two years service in the army who was fired with the idea of going to some new field, finally deciding upon Aroostook.
He, his wife and young son, Carl, four years old started from Dixfield, April 10, 1865, taking the Farmington branch train for Houlton. The first night they spent in Bangor, the second in Mattawamkeag, the third night they landed in Richmond, N. B., six
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miles from Houlton, from whence "hacks" took pass- engers to Houlton where they spent the night at a ho- tel. The journey thus far had been taken by rail but the next morning the Kings took the stage, a vehicle on wheels, for Presque Isle where they spent the fourth night. The road, though it had been built by the State twenty-two years before, was nothing like the State roads of today. This one was in miserable condi- tion at that time of year, mostly of corduroy (log) construction alternating with swamps, going "through hell and high water", the horses slumping at every step in the soft, deep snow. Resuming the stage jour- ney the next morning the King family, finding much more snow than bare ground, left the stage at Mays- ville to hire a man with horse and "pung" - a cross between a sleigh and a sled - to take them the rest of the way to Caribou which they reached the night of April 14, 1865. This was the night of Abraham Lincoln's assassination in the Ford Theatre at Wash- ington, as it happened, but the town of Lyndon did not get the news for a week or two. (Think of the radio flashes today that would carry the news of such im- portance as a President's assassination clear around the world from Washington to London, Berlin, Mos- cow, Chungking and to all the small towns between, in five minutes.)
This journey took five days by railroad, stage- coach and pung, but compared with the journeys of the first settlers with their families - taking from sixteen to thirty days according to the season, it was a great improvement - to speak mildly.
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When Mr. King arrived in the little settlement of Letter H Plantation the population of the whole town- ship could not have been more than 250 as the census of 1870 showed a population of 297. The tiny village had only seventeen dwelling houses and Mr. King was fortunate to find almost at once a house for sale. This was the house Mr. York had built in 1859 for his fam- ily on the lot now occupied by the Merrithew house, the old house having been moved back on the present Sincock Street. The Yorks were desirous of returning to Bethel on account of Mrs. York's continued ill health.
The next winter, to eke out the scanty income from his law practice, not large enough to support his family, though only three in number, Mr. King taught the village school in the little one-room school house next door. This had thirty or forty scholars of all ages, from four to twenty one, all of whom were Mr. King's firm friends through the succeeding years. (Teaching school pays - sometimes.)
In the summer of 1865 Corydon Powers of Han- over (near Bethel) came with his cousin, Edwin Brown, Mr. Powers having served with honor through the Civil War. He naturally looked up the Oxford County people, among the first being Hazen Keech on the Limestone road. Here he stayed awhile and before the year was out he had married Abigail, one of Mr. Keech's daughters. Mr. Powers after his marriage helped Mr. Keech in carrying on the farm, a farm of over four hundred acres but only a comparatively few that were cleared. Later, he took over the care of it
:
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altogether as his father-in-law's health declined, un- til his twin sons, Elmer and Delmer were old enough to assume some, and later all, of the care. (The other members of the family who lived to mature years were: Leila who married George Washburn but who died not long after, leaving one daughter, Eva; Bird- ina who married Olof Pierson; and Bertha who mar- ried Atwood Spaulding now deceased, a son of W. C. Spaulding.
Elmer married Harriet Colburn of Orono, and Delmer married Ella Scott of Caribou. Later, they bought houses in town for winter residences; Elmer, the home of Capt. Dwinal, in later years occupied by Eugene Holmes and his family; Delmer bought the J. A. Clark house, a large and handsome home on High Street. Corydon Powers, himself, bought in 1908 a house on North Main Street - built by S. L. White- for an all-year-round home; since his decease, occupied by his daughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Olaf Pierson. The sons are both deceased, the daughters are both living. The farm, now about eighty five years old, is still in the possession of the Powers fam- ily. Corydon Powers died in Caribou, June 18, 1911, Mrs. Powers, April 5, 1916.
Edwin Brown, the cousin who came with Corydon Powers, purchased a farm on the New Sweden road, next south of the farm of George F. Ellingwood, his brother-in-law. The Ellingwood farm - taken up five years before --- is now owned by George Brown. Ed- win's farm is still in the possession of the Brown fami- ly.
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The Ellingwood men, had much skill in building, and after some years of farming, they decided to move into the village. This they did and the boys, Ferdinand and Warren, united with their father in establishing the firm of G. F. Ellingwood and Sons
They secured a very central location on the pres- ent site of the Hutchinson Steam Laundry. The first building they used was leased from Orlando Smith, supposably the one built by Sylvester Washburn in the very early days, then sold by him in 1864 to Luke Smith, Orlando's father. This building was used only two years and then was burned, to be rebuilt in 1868 by Ellingwood and Sons who used it as a planing mill to May 1910 when they sold the property to M. S. Hutchinson of Houlton, whose son, Lawrence, is now operating the laundry set up by his father.
George F. Ellingwood married in Bethel, Jane Bradbury, a daughter of John Bradbury who with his son-in-law, Joseph Goud, helped make up the group of seven men who came to Aroostook in 1859. The Elling- woods had five sons and one daughter; Jane married Jefferson McIntyre of Woodland; Ferdinand, married Gertrude McIntyre of Woodland. Warren married Fannie Doe, daughter of Charles Doe. They had three daughters, all married. Warrena Waalewyn, Edith McNeal and Mildred Bradford; the first two still living, Mrs. Waalewyn in Houlton, Mrs. McNeal in Caribou. William S., George H. and Eugene are the Ellingwood sons not surviving.
Another returned soldier coming in 1865 was Jo- seph Gary of Bradford, brother of Mrs. John Arnold.
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He soon found a bride in the person of Inez, elder daughter of John L. Smith; assisted his father-in-law for a time in the management of the cottage hotel called the Caribou House but bought in 1867 the house opposite the Dr. Sincock house and occupied it with his family for some years. In company with John Arnold and Warren Dwinal, he bought a mill on the Madawas- ka stream, Mr. Gary afterwards acquiring full poss- ession and operating it for a time alone until it burned. For many years, Mr. Gary was postmaster in Caribou village, which made him very well known to old and young. In those days the postmasters of the towns re- quired little help so the face of the postmaster himself was almost always the one seen in the delivery win- dow.
Levi Gary, younger brother of Joseph, and of Mrs. Arnold, did not come until several years later. He mar- ried Sophia, younger daughter of John L. Smith; he had two daughters, Lillian, who married Eugene Holmes, and Lestina, unmarried. Later in life, Levi Gary was Sheriff of Aroostook County becoming well known throughout the county. (He died in 1929 at Pomona, California where he and his family had been living for some time previously. His wife and both daughters survive him.)
Another man coming in 1865 was Abram Sawin from Livermore, whose wife Nancy, was a half-sister of S. W. Collins. In July 1869 Abram bought the house
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built by Bickford in 1847, and lived there until he sold to his brother, Lysander in December 1874. Mr. Sawin went in business with Milton D. Teague, eldest son of J. D. Teague, in the new store just built by W. A. Vaughan on the corner just below his old store, both store lots being occupied by the Bouchard block of to-day. The new store of Sawin and Teague carried a large general stock and they had a good business.
In the second story of the new building occupied by Sawin and Teague there was a very good hall for those times. All the entertainments and dances were held here for the next ten years, a dining room being located under the roof - which might be called the third story - where beautiful (canned) oyster stews were provided at the intermissions of the dances or adult spelling-bees. (A community must have amuse- ments !) Just before this the hall had been over John Arnold's store (Holmes block) a little farther up the street.
When Abram Sawin sold the Bickford house to Lysander in 1874 he built himself a new house on North Main Street; Around 1880 he decided to go away and sold his house to Lloyd Briggs who, with his family lived in it many years thereafter.
Another brother of Abram Sawin was Charles, who came to Aroostook to visit Abraham and later married Ellen Dwinal, only daughter of Capt. Amos and Sally (Small) Dwinal; had one daughter, Sherbie. This family moved away with Abram's family to the middle West.
Alden Green came from Houlton in 1865 and clerk-
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ed in Adams' store. The next year, 1866, he "married the boss' daughter" - Mr. Adams' eldest daughter, Maria - and in 1870 Mr. Green built the house - now standing behind the Cary Hospital - where he resided a few years, then sold to Dr. Jefferson Cary, as he, Mr. Green, was leaving town.
1866
A. M. York who had returned to Bethel in 1865 stayed there only one year. He then came back and built himself another house on the next lot south of his first house sold to L. R. King and brought his fam ily back. His second house is the one now known as the Universalist Parsonage. Mr. York lived here many years with his wife and children, Frank, Fred, Lilla and Nellie, all now deceased, the last only recently. Nellie married George O. Smith who came to Caribou from Bethel about 1879. Lilla, married Frank Roberts, (son of Elder J. P. Roberts) who became a lawyer; Fred married Letitia Gallagher of Presque Isle; Frank married Leontine Cayouette of Caribou.
The first brass band was organized about this time by Salmon Jones and led by Lloyd Briggs, true lovers of music. The other members were Charles Harmon, Warren Dwinal, John Brown, George F. Ellingwood, Nathaniel Brown, Frank Smiley, Sylvester Washburn,
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Abram Sawin, Alden Green, Luke Smith, Frank Goud and Watson Starbird, nearly the whole male popula- tion of the town at that time, it would seem. This group just named furnished a nucleus for a band for some years; at times increasing in number and at times decreasing as members came and went, older ones going out and younger ones coming in as the years went by:
1867
In 1867 Frank Records built for himself a little house where the present Postoffice stands on Sweden Street. This house was the only dwelling house be- tween Main Street and Haskell Farnham's farm at Farnham Brook - named for him - nearly a mile from the village proper. (Not until 1879 was another house, the James Page house, built between the Re- cords house and Farnham Brook. The Page house is now occupied by John Somers and was the beginning of the building up of Sweden Street as a residential section.)
In the summer of 1867 the first church edifice was erected. Up to this time the religious meetings had been held in barns in different portions of the township and in the little one-room schoolhouse for those who lived in the small village or on the more centrally lo- cated farms, all denominations uniting. But the people
AN-
Universalist Church as first built in 1867
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had felt for some time that they ought to have a real church dedicated to the worship of God, exclusively, so that summer the Union Meeting House was built.
Sylvester Washburn and George F. Ellingwood built this church, and the money to build it was raised in large part by the sale of pews at prices varying from $50. to $100. each. On July 20, 1867 occurred the Meeting House Raising, which meant in olden times, a gathering of all the able-bodied men in a community to raise the frame of a barn or any large building. The dedication of this church took place the next winter.
It is told that the large Bible presented to the church by Charles H. Doe at its dedication, cost $16 .- a goodly sum for those days. The different denomina- tions continued to worship together for a time, being supplied with preaching by missionaries sent by the Maine Baptist Society for any denomination. One of the best remembered of the early preachers in this church is Rev. Charles W. Porter, a Congregational minister who came in 1872 and who married Florence, second daughter of S. W. Collins.
This realistic description is taken from a booklet entitled "History of the First Universalist Church of Caribou", written in 1935 by Mrs. Lora King Sincock. "The church had a raised platform at the back for the choir and when they sang, the audience turned around back to the minister facing the singers, turn- ing again when the hymn had been sung. The way the church. was heated was by having holes cut in the floor of each pew about four by eight inches, covered by a piece of tin. This tin was held down by a piece of wood nailed across it so the occupants could regu- late the heat by turning the tin around as much or as
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little as was necessary to let the heat come up. The furnace was a large box stove located in a hole dug under the church, there being no real cellar."
Mrs. Sincock goes on to say :
"It is impossible to get the exact date but it must have been about 1875 that a Universalist Parish was organized as there is an old, yellowed paper signed by L. R. King, Secretary, which records the organization of a Universalist Parish with the following officers: President, Benjamin L. Briggs; Vice Presidents, Joel Ireland and E. D. Stiles; Trustees, Benjamin Briggs, Theodocius Merrill, Jacob Hardison, Jackson Philbrick, Mrs. S. W. Collins, Mrs. Luther Merrill, Mrs. Jacob Hardison; Treasurer, Jacob Hardison. In 1885 the Methodists had withdrawn, leaving the Congregation- alists and Universalists undisputed possessor of the Union Meeting House pulpit.
Here is a stray record of a meeting held January 21, 1895 when the following officers were elected : Arthur V. Goud, moderator ; Mrs. J. D. Teague, treas- urer; Trustees, W. C. Spaulding, Haines Hardison, Horace E. Jones, Florence C. Porter and William Mclellan.
The Baptists were the first to withdraw from this Union Meeting House under the leadership of Rev. I. E. Bill, holding their meetings in Vaughan's hall (over Sawin and Teague's store) at first, later build- ing themselves the church on High Street about 1878, but which they did not complete until 1880."
(In passing, it may be mentioned that this was
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the first building on High Street which up to this time was but little more than a path through the woods connecting Main Street with the road running from Water Street up over the hill by the E. J. Fen- derson house (built by John Arnold) to the David Collins, Hazen Keech and Charles Whittier farms. Samuel Taylor's house at the end of High Street, built in 1879 was the first dwelling house on the street.)
The selectmen of the town of Lyndon in 1865 were: Cephas Sampson, Sylvester Washburn, Charles Doe. In the four following years they were: 1866- Nathaniel Bartlett, Cephas Sampson, J. D. Teague. 1867-S. W. Collins, J. B. Hayes, L. R. King. 1868- Nathaniel Bartlett, John Arnold, Grinfill Hall. 1869- J. D. Teague, Nathan Lufkin, Salmon Jones. Warren Dwinal was Town Clerk most of the time from 1861 to 1876. All "good men and true".
1868
In 1868 Lysander W. Sawin, brother of Abram, both from Livermore, came to Lyndon and having had two years of study at Harvard Medical School, he prac- ticed medicine quite extensively for a time. He had also taken a course in dentistry and for years served the country round about as the only dentist, and only druggist as well. It would seem almost as if he had specially prepared himself for usefulness in a pioneer
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community though he had no degree in anything as demanded at the present day. When he opened a drug store with a knowledge of medicine and a dental chair it seemed that there was nothing more needed in the town which, hitherto, had been somewhat lacking in professional services.
In 1870 Dr. Sawin - as he was always called - married Martha, younger daughter of David Adams. In December, 1874 he bought of his brother, Abram for a home, the house built by Joseph Bickford in 1847, the second house built in Caribou village. It was a landmark in the village for more than sixty years as a relic of old times and for this reason seems to rate a little historical sketch even if no longer standing on the old corner lot.
Though it always had been called the Bickford house (or tavern) it was owned by W. A. Vaughan but occupied by Mr. Bickford, Vaughan's father-in- law, who, most of the time, ran it for Mr. Vaughan as a tavern, and also operated the grist mill belonging to Mr. Vaughan, just below his house. In 1869 Mr. Vaughan - possibly at Mr. Bickford's death - sold the house to Abram Sawin who in turn sold it to his brother, Lysander, in 1874 - as before mentioned.
In 1880 Dr. Sawin built himself a house on the upper corner of the lot by the side of the Caribou House which was on the site now occupied by the Ford Motor Company. The house that Sawin had built was sold in 1888 to Billy Theriault who sold it two days later to Mitchell Trusty. The Trustys lived there the rest of their lives and the house is now occupied by George Trusty, their adopted son. In 1890 Dr. Sawin sold the old house on the corner, together with one he
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had started to build between that and the Trusty house to Mrs. Otis Gardner, the sale including the strip of land along Grove Street. Mrs. Gardner finish- ed the building of the house that Dr. Sawin had be- gun, afterwards selling in 1909 the whole property to O. A. Atherton who lives in the house next to the Trusty house
In 1910 Mr. Atherton sold the old corner house to Frank Hughes who tore it down and moved it to his farm on the Madawaska road. Mr. Atherton then built a new house on the site of the old Sawin house - as it was then called - and Mrs. Martha Maher now lives there. Thus endeth the story of the old Bickford (or Sawin) house.
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