USA > Maine > Somerset County > Embden > Embden town of yore : olden times and families there and in adjacent towns > Part 14
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I Quite as early as Jonathan was Ebenezer Stevens of Solon. But Ebenezer was of Embden interest because of his marriage with: Mary Cleveland (1772-1845), a sister of the pioneer brothers on Seven Mile Brook. Ebenezer and Mary and their children helped substantially toward peopling the new country at Solon and thereabouts. Their oldest daughter, Sarah (1798), married Samuel York. From the York residence at Brighton were children who lived at Athens and Madison. There were marriages also between the Yorks and Samuel Walkers from Embden. Other Stevens children of the Solon family were Esther, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Anna, the latter Mrs. Alvin Small whose husband went to Illinois. Ebenezer and Mary Stevens died at Solon.
Jonathan and Sarah Stevens had fifteen children between 1789 and 1815. Thankful and Mary, wives of the Rowe brothers, and Rachel (1792) were the three oldest. Rachel's husband was James Adams. He was born at Gorham in 1788 and, after residence on Seven Mile Brook, took up a farm just north of his father-in-law where David Whitney resided about 1890 and then Mrs. Ruth Cross, the present town clerk. He was a captain of militia in 1830 and, after holding several other town offices was town clerk and first selectman in 1842. James' children were Elvira (1812), Isaac W. (1814), Lucy J. (1816) and Rachel S. (1818-1842). Isaac Adams was second selectman in 1857 and
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1859 and in 1841 Captain of D Company, Third Regiment Maine militia.
The other Jonathan Stevens daughters were Lucinda, Mrs. John Bachellor; Sibyl W. (1807) Mrs. Amos Y. Jones of Madison; and Sarah Y. (1816).
The Jonathan Stevens sons were eight as follows: Jonathan. Jr. (1795-1863) who married Fanny Thompson and in 1819 paid $182 for 91 acres of land west of Moses Thompson, north of John Rowe and south of his father, Jonathan Stevens, and erected thereon a brick house; David (1797-1874) who married Sarah Cleveland (1803-1826) and as his second wife in 1828 Nancy Bois of Madison; John (1790) ; Elisha (1802) who in 1834 lived north of the tavern farm; Ebenezer F. (1809-1893) who married (1) in 1837 Harriet Ann Danforth and (2) Philena Ward both of Madison; Elijah G. (1812) who married Loisa, daughter of Capt .. Cyrus Boothby, in 1837 and ten years later Mary T. Rice of Solon; Truman A. (1814) and William H. twin brother of Truman. William's wife was Abigail Williams.
Jonathan, Jr., and his brother Deacon David became sub- stantial men in Embden and had a numerous posterity. But the other brothers were up and doing in the years of their residence in Embden. Ebenezer and Elisha figured in many farm transfers between 1827 and 1835. Elisha at one time owned the Dunbar and Atkinson farms on the Canada Trail. Ebenezer in 1831 got his brother Jonathan's share in the mill lot, the Joseph Young farm, and also the Jeremiah Chamberlain share of that lot that passed through the hands of John and Christopher Thompson and later of their brother Nathan. The best market for these local properties ever seemed to be within family circles. Individual advantage there may have been from the trading but an outstanding consideration probably was satisfaction in ownership of the native soil for which these neighbors had an ardent attachment. Elijah Stevens, while still a young man, went west. He was not on the tax list after 1850. John and Ebenezer ceased to pay taxes at Embden about the same time but William H. Stevens resided in the town through the 1860's. William H., known as Harrison, lived down the road from the ferry on the Donley farm of later years. He had a
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son William, who was in hotel work and a daughter, Coris Ann, who met a tragic death by drowning.
Ebenezer Stevens was living at Madison in 1849 and a few years later went to Norridgewock. His oldest daughter, Marcia, married John Welch. They went to Minnesota where she died in 1898. There was a son Everett A. Stevens (1843-1895) a soldier in the Civil War. When he returned from the army he was employed as a railroad man in Massachusetts, was eventually made a railroad commissioner there and served in the office for 14 years but died at Norridgewock. There was one daughter, Ellen Augusta, by Ebenezer's second marriage. She has a daughter, Ethel M. Frost of Peaks Island.
Jonathan Stevens, Jr., and his wife had a family almost as large as his father's. Their children were: Jotham (1819) who wedded Mary Jane Houston of Westbrook; David 2nd (1820) whose wife was Naomi (1825) daughter of Joseph Gray ; Alden, (1822) ; Elam (1825-1889) whose wife was Polly Hilton (1827- 1911) ; Philena (1826) ; Marshall (1829); Bradford (1830), who in 1850 married Cornelia, daughter of Zachariah Williams ; Mary (1832); Laurinda (1833); Ashman T. (1836) who married Harriet A. Healey of Concord; and Fanny T. (1838) Mrs. Charles Crymble.
Bradford Stevens, like most of his brothers, resided for some years at Embden. Later he lived at Lewiston, where his sister, Laurinda (Mrs. M. S. Skillings) was. Besides his son, Marshall of Bath, Bradford had a daughter Medora who married George Johnson of Portland and another daughter Lizzie the wife of Henry C. Bulser by whom she had eight children in Hartland. Alden Stevens made his home in California; Jotham lived at Portland. Ashman T. Stevens having married Julia A. Ricker as his second wife, moved to Dakota and then to Alberta, Canada. where his children now reside.
The Stevens men by 1860 had purchased farms north and south of the older Jonathan homestead and were living along the Kennebec all the way from the Anson line to Concord. Net long after the death of Jonathan, Jr., his farm and its brick house passed out of the family. Elam Stevens resided at the fork of the roads near the Embden railroad station and David
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2nd. his brother, lived near him. Elam's family included well known sons and daughters: Ansel, Fred, Vassal, Naomi, (Mrs. Freeman Williams) of Haverhill, Mass .; Jotham who lives down the hill near the Ferry site ; Benjamin and Esther. David 2nd. had no children. Elam and David 2nd figured much in the country gatherings of their day and were devoted to the game of High-Low-Jack. David 2nd was postmaster.
Deacon David Stevens, son of Jonathan, Sr., and his second wife, Nancy Bois resided above the ferry. They were a splendid old fashioned couple. By his first wife David had but one child Orlando Stevens; by his second wife there were Fuller (1828) ; Sanford Bois (1830) who married Caroline Thompson ; Augustus C. (1832) ; Sidney (1834) ; Vesta A. who in 1858 married Charles Lewis of Fairfield and Sarah A. (1841). Sanford Stevens was a resident of Embden and married Mary Spaulding of Anson in 1850. Their three sons, all born in Embden but now deceased, were Edward Payson Stevens, of Skowhegan; John S. of Madison and Sanford W. of West Baldwin. The elder Sanford moved to Madison in 1864 and later went with his son and namesake. He was a man of exemplary life and for 60 years was a member of the Congregationalist church.
Deacon David Stevens and his wife rest in the Solon cemetery. Mrs. Carrie McFadden Hutchins of Waterville recently wrote : "I knew well Deacon David and Aunt Nancy. She was always 'so thankful' for everything. As a child I used to envy her that propensity. When dear old Uncle David died my father and mother were there and came home in the morning. I told my mother I guessed she (Aunt Nancy) couldn't find anything to be thankful about that morning."
"My mother replied : ' Oh, yes. Their son arrived home in the night before Uncle David was unconscious and Aunt Nancy said : "Oh I am so thankful our dear boy got home before his father went." ' Bless her dear old heart."
No other Embden family than the Stevenses has been more permanently represented in the town. Jonathan, Sr., and Jonathan. Jr., were among those assessed in 1817 and 1820 and up to 1835 by which date the names of Deacon David, Elisha, Ebenezer F. and John, all brothers, had been added and by
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1845 there was William H., another brother. Another generation of the family was represented on the tax lists by 1861 through David 2nd., Sanford B., Elam, Ashman T. and Gorham but many of the grandsons and granddaughters of Jonathan Sr., had then gone elsewhere. Ansel, son of Elam, is now the most prominent representative of the family left in Embden. He married in 1871 Sarah F. Hall of Embden. His present wife is Cora, her sister.
The Stevenses held many town offices. The elder Jonathan was a selectman in 1807. Jonathan, Jr., was constable and collector of taxes in 1827 for the first of several terms. He was chosen repeatedly as town moderator between 1839 and 1859 and was chosen as town agent in 1847. Ebenezer Stevens was collector of taxes and constable in 1839. David 2nd. was much favored as moderator and presided at many town meetings in the 1860's and 1870's.
This in outline is the Queenstown neighbors, who were probably a hundred men, women and children in 1800. Today their descendants within the old town's boundaries are fewer than that. But through the intervening century and a quarter their issue has proceeded to many parts of Maine and to other states and cities, carrying on with characteristic industry and commendable example.
CHAPTER XI
GLAD HAND FOR GRAY'S GIRLS
Time was when most of Embden - once a week at least - drove "to the village" to purchase of "the traders" for household needs. This done, they tramped along the high side- walk. skirting Elm street from the Bodfish corner to Clum Beal's brick store, and turned in under the weather-beaten sign of "T. Gray & Son."
Who of that day - two score years ago - forgets the sash door slamming springless to its jamb? Or the glass faced boxes. topping the southeast counter, where all comers - save lock box owners - peered through the port-hole and asked for mail ? Or the unique letter wheel, shaped like a barrel, strung around with tape, but having verticle flat surfaces. or staves. each under its part of the alphabet, where transient missives were pinioned for the public view ?
Who of the community, in an idle moment. could forbear thrusting a hand through the nicely cut hole and whirling the letter barrel on its axis? How delightful to view the addresses on those envelopes that waited to be called for !
Ah. but what a busy scene it was, at least once a day following the hoot of the locomotive from down toward Madison. after the gently puffing train rolled up to the terminal by the Mark Emery store a mile away and the stage coaches, making a mad run from across the tottering old wooden bridge, pulled up smartly for the sorting of letters.
And then. when this task was completed, burly drivers burst from within. bearing. or half dragging. mail bags that were slammed under the front seats. Whips flourished over the restless spans and away the wagons rumbled -one toward North Village, another to Solon and still another, a little less spectacularly, to middle Embden and Concord. Now the doors of the small porthole over the southeast counter of T. Gray & Son were being opened and the day's grist of letters was passing to eager hands.
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STICKNEY GRAY North Anson Postmaster
Quickly again in order came the routine of daily trade. Jugs were filled out of hogs-heads of West India molasses, bulking large in the back store. Calico and other dry goods were supplied to rural customers from shelves behind the west side counter. Present everywhere, soft footed, kindly, never failing in courtesy was Proprietor Stickney Gray (1837-1917). He kept the store. He was Postmaster for North Anson and for more than half of Embden. His father, Thomas Gray (1801-1888), had served in the same dual capacity as postmaster and store keeper for twelve years through the 60's and on. Stickney
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followed his father for a similar tenure. As the years of his service multiplied he endeared himself to at least two generations of patrons. With the years, also, he looked more and more like Uncle Sam.
No rural delivery wagons in that picture! Pullman cars unknown! No trains twice or thrice daily rattling past the trotting park, through ancestral Embden acres - where Stickney Gray's forbears settled - and whistling on to Kineo.
Thomas Gray was of Anson on the south side of Seven Mile brook. His wife was Sarah Cragin of Temple, N. H., a niece of Simeon Cragin, who dwelt at the top of the long hill on the Brook road in Embden; a sister of Ephraim Cragin, who also lived in Embden on what was later known as the Purington or George B. Walker farm. The family line is notable locally, for the parents of Sarah and Ephraim were Capt. John (Captain in 1812 War) and Ruth (Heald) Cragin. The latter was a daughter of Maj. Ephraim and Sarah (Conant) Heald and mother Sarah was a direct descendant of Roger Conant. early governor of Massachusetts.
Stickney Gray of this distinguished lineage resided at North Anson village from early manhood. He attended school at Philadelphia, where his sister Eleanor (1826-1907), wife of Joseph Caldwell Hawes once of Embden, was living. His grandfather was Rev. George Gray, the farmer-preacher. who brought his bride, Rebecca McFadden, to his wilderness home in Anson on an ox-sled.
While the son, Rev. George (1766-1819), was establishing a domicile for himself and later generations in that town, his father, Capt. John Gray (1743-1825), and his mother, Elizabeth Boyington (1746-1829) from the pioneer Boyington family at Wiscasset, located their home on a fertile tract by the Kennebec in Embden. Perhaps George and his bride lived with them there for a while. The foundations of the good sized house and ell that Capt. John subsequently erected can still be seen. These were close to the first road, along the river bank and consider- ably east of the present highway.
Therefore it was that the Gray family had its chief seat for many years within the jurisdiction of this history. Capt. John,
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whose home had been in Georgetown near Woolwich, soon became an influential man in Embden and adjacent river towns. In 1792, he was one of the committee, with Esquire Tobey of Fairfield and John Burnell of Hancock, to select the site for a meeting house at Norridgewock.
Notable men, too, in Embden were Capt. John Gray's sons - Joshua (1768-1847) and John, Jr. (1778-1851). Joshua as early as 1790 occupied the farm just south of his father. The three lived all their mature lives in Embden with numerous sons and daughters of a third generation, and lie in the graveyard on the old homestead, of which Henry Treat in recent years has been owner.
The Embden grandsons of Capt. John carried on for another generation or so before the family name began to disappear from the local tax lists. There were Wesley (1801-1855), Aaron (1805-1848), John, 3rd - generally called Squire John - (1809-1875), Obed W. (1812) and Hartley (1821), all sons of John Gray, Jr. and of his wife, Catherine Daggett (1778-1857). She was a daughter of that Nathan Daggett of West New Portland, who in the Revolution was a pilot for Count de Grasse's French fleet and had hair raising experiences. There were also two grandsons of Capt. John through Joshua Gray and his wife, Hannah McFadden - daughter of neighbor Thomas McFadden. These were Joseph (1798-1832) and Joshua, Jr. (1803-1876). Only two of the sons of John, Jr. - Aaron and John, 3rd - and the two sons of Joshua Gray remained permanently in the town.
But even though Capt. John, the pioneer, had sturdy sons - John, Jr. and Joshua of Embden and Rev. George of Anson -- and these sons in turn had some exceptional sons, the Gray family was famous through quite as many generations for its attractive and capable daughters. Returning again to his ox- sled creaking over the frosty snow on the way up the Kennebec, one beholds a bevy of maidens destined to a series of interesting marriages and to the motherhood of splendid children. Before the start northward, two of the oldest Gray daughters had married. Rachel (1762-1850), the first born, became the wife of John Hilton of Woolwich in 1782, the year after he had
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returned as a commissioned officer in the Revolution. They had settled on the intervale near North Anson and by 1788 had a family of three children. Hannah Gray (1764-1840), the next oldest daughter, had married Jacob Savage, mariner of the Revolution and by 1788 had a fine household on Savage Island at the mouth of Seven Mile brook.
Capt. John's six remaining maidens were rapidly mated. Betsey (1771-1862) became Mrs. Henry McKenney but married Goff Moore as her second husband and lived at Anson. Martha Gray (1773-1856) became Mrs. Stephen Weston; Susannah (1776-1835) married Luther Pierce of Solon. Christiana (1782- 1834) was the wife of Rev. Obed Wilson of Starks and Bingham, whose name was given several kinsmen of succeeding genera- tions. Twin daughters, Sally and Polly, born Jan. 13, 1785, married respectively Moses Ayer and Capt. John Burns of Madison. Moses Ayer lived on a high hill overlooking Embden Pond and had grandsons who were captains of industry. Capt Burns came from Bedford, N. H., in 1811, having commanded a company in the Revolution, and was the ancestor of many Somerset people. One is Mrs. Lizzie B. Lombard of Madison. Sally Ayer died Nov. 25, 1841, nineteen days after her twin sister, Polly.
The marriage of Rachel Gray and John Hilton was but one of several such unions between the Grays and Hiltons at Berwick, Woolwich and on the upper Kennebec during the period of pioneering. Capt. John Gray's sister, Anna (1746), married Joseph Hilton, a soldier under Wolfe at Quebec, who for a while had a farm in Embden, near Capt. John and bordering the Anson line. Joseph's father, Ebenezer Hilton, ancestor of the several Hilton pioneers in Embden, Solon and Anson, was known in his youth as Ebenezer Gray, because he had lived quite as much with Gray relatives as with the Hiltons. Following Alexander Gray and Samuel Gould, who had moved from Berwick to Woolwich as early as 1738 and taken up land on Montsweag stream, Ebenezer came with his family, built a garrison and set up a mill at the falls nearest the present day highway bridge, about two miles west of Wiscasset on the road to Woolwich. His farm, including the hill where the fort stood,
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is part of the extensive holdings of Charles Henry Butler of Washington, D. C., whose pretentious farm buildings are on the other side of the highway and near the bridge.
There were Gray and Hilton marriages occasionally for many years in both the Anson and Embden branches. Hannah and Betsey, the two oldest daughters of Rev. George, wedded Jesse and David Hilton, sons of William, the Solon pioneer. David (1782-1838) and Betsey (1793-1885) were married in 1811; Jesse (1788-1862) and Hannah (1791) in 1813. All went to Ohio in August 1817 by ox-sled. David settled ultimately in Cuba, Fulton County, Ill., and died there in 1838. He has descendants in Illinois, Kansas, California and Colorado. Wesley Hilton of this family, was a practicing physician at St. Augustine, Fla., not long ago.
Capt. John Gray's grand-daughters by his son, Joshua, were three, all of whom married into the best families of Embden and became highly beloved in old time neighborhood circles of their day. Particularly was this so of Anna, the eldest (1795-1893), the wife of Col. Christopher Thompson, a prominent man in the county. Hannah (1808-1885) in 1825 married Joseph Boyington and Martha, youngest of Joshua Gray's children, married in 1829 Fletcher Thompson of Madison, Embden and North Anson and had a very interesting family.
Granddaughters through the Captain's son, John, Jr., married mostly away from Embden. Christiana (1802) married in 1824 James Daggett and resided some years on the Middle road. Permelia C. (1804-1847) married in 1834 James Adams of Waterville. Elizabeth B. (1811-1905) in 1831 married John Nutting of Norridgewock. Sally (1819) became in 1839 the wife of Eleazer Carver of Leeds.
Thus the Gray family neighborhood till about 1830 was represented chiefly by Joshua, his two sons Joseph and Joshua, Jr., and his three daughters in the Christopher Thompson, Joseph Boyington and Fletcher households; by John, Jr. and his sons Aaron and John, 3rd. - and for several years by son Wesley - and by the James Daggett household. The Grays of this group owned and tilled some of the best farms in the south- east quarter of the town and upward along the Kennebec. Their
d d.
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holdings hardly exceeded a half dozen tracts but represented relatively large values. As property was measured in his day, Capt. John Gray became a wealthy man. He is said to have received also some income from England.
Noteworthy in the list of his Embden properties was the so- called Mill Lot of 400 acres, some two miles north of his homestead. It touched the Kennebec River on the east, extending on the west far across Concord stream. The southern boundary of the Mill lot was the northern boundary of the farm Nathaniel Stevens took up before 1790. The stream traversed both lots diagonally and entered the Kennebec at a point below, from the adjoining farm of Nathaniel Martin, of which Moses Thompson became owner.
This property was labelled by Surveyor Samuel Titcomb on his 1790 map : "Mill Lot laid out for John Gray and others," but Capt. John appears to have been the moving spirit in the Mill Lot transactions. Probably the mill there was the first in Embden but in later years the Edward Savage Mills, farther up Concord stream with saws for lumber and a stone for grinding grain served the community. Across the Kennebec River in Solon was Buswell's mill upon Fall brook, for which quite a population gave hearty thanks. When Buswell's mill was established, neighbors celebrated the event with a dinner and a local parson who lived twelve miles away, announced triumphantly after he had returned with a bag of meal :
"We've got a mill in our own door-yard."
Eventually the 400 acres of land in the Gray mill lot was divided among relatives and neighbors. Old Moses Thompson. with his sons Christopher and John Thompson, in 1824, acquired the north third of this lot. Christopher, as already stated, was a son-in-law of Joshua Gray. Capt. John, however, seems to have owned the remainder of the Mill lot well up to the time of his death in 1825.
As the years rolled on and sons and grandsons grew to man .. hood there were subdivisions of farms and other family deals. These had to do in part with the John Gray homestead, known as Lot 18, just south of the McFadden place which Capt. Joshua Gray, Jr., acquired by deeds from the heirs of his grandfather;
(Top Left). SQUIRE JOHN GRAY. HARTLEY GRAY, HIS BROTHER. WARREN GRAY, THEIR NEPHEW. ENOS GRAY, SON OF CAPT. JOSHUA GRAY.
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with the Joshua Gray homestead which lay south of John, (his father) and with an interior farm, comprising the west half of Benjamin Colby's 200 acre lot farther down the road, known as Settler's Lot No. 17, and 44 acres west of it.
Eventually when John Gray 3rd (Squire John, as he himself insisted on being called, son of John, Jr., and grandson of Capt. John) became old enough to manage a farm and in 1839 had taken Caroline M. Chaney (1822-1903), of Solon, as his wife, he became owner of part of the Thompson or Hamilton settler's lot in 1790, south of his uncle Joshua Gray. Moreover Squire John's brother, Wesley, just before he married in 1823 Malinda Colby, a daughter of Benjamin Colby, Jr., had bought the west half of 200 acres that Benjamin Colby, Jr., had taken up as a settler's lot in southeast Embden. Prior to Wesley's day that acreage had been owned by David Young. Wesley resided on it for several years.
So it was that various Grays- during their heyday in Embden - owned a farm frontage of two miles extent on the Kennebec. This was about one-third of all such land between the Anson and Concord boundaries. Their holdings were in large part within the area between the Kennebec River and the east shore of Fahi Pond.
The restless spirit of a century ago which possessed so many families in New England gripped also several descendants of Capt. John Gray. They began to migrate to adjacent towns ; some moved into the distant West and even to the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
Wesley Gray - as well as Obed W. and Hartley, other brothers of Squire John - was an example in that regard. This oldest son and his wife, Malinda, raised thirteen robust children but, before her death, had established a home in Concord. None of these children remain in Embden. Warren Gray was their oldest son. Christiana C., one of their daughters, was the first wife of Paul B. Rowe of Concord. They were married in 1854. The youngest son of Wesley was W. N. Gray, who, went from Concord to Stoneham, Mass., where he had a long business career.
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