USA > Maine > Somerset County > Embden > Embden town of yore : olden times and families there and in adjacent towns > Part 16
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Thomas McFadden, too, had relatives and kinfolk on the way. Daniel McFadden, a cousin, and several others of the family were settlers at Vassalboro. His mother was Rebecca Pierce, as has been stated, and her people had already plodded with ox-sleds along the winter road. David, Calvin and Luther Pierce, her young nephews, of whom only Luther was married, were then at Titcombtown, the modern Anson. Surely the McFadden relatives would not pass till they had learned how these lads were faring.
Thus there were relatives galore and family reunions compen- sated for the privations of a long ox-sled journey. The Hiltons and the Savages, as well as Thomas McFadden were Revolu- tionary veterans. From the struggle at arms, all had sprung to the subjugation of the wilderness. By the light of roaring backlogs as family visited with family, there were evenings when these weather bronzed men fought once more on the fields where Independence was won. They were also all grandsons of the trans-Atlantic emigrants. The Savage family came from the same Londonderry as the McFaddens. The Hiltons were from a nearby English county. Items of the migration into the new country were still fairly well remembered and still supplied interesting themes for conversation.
Their week's eventful journey done, the Thomas McFaddens passed to their new domain at Embden and settled down. The twelve children became thirteen of whom nine were daughters. Attractive and capable girls they were and suitors thronged from both the Embden settlements for the hands of these Mc- Fadden maidens.
Mary (1770) was twice married. Her first husband was John Dinsmore; her second John Heald. She became the mother of three sons.
Abigail (1772-1863), the third oldest, became the helpmeet of Samuel Fling, a son of Morris Fling of Anson. Samuel's farm was only a little way up the Kennebec from her father's. Abigail bore her husband in the course of years a family of ten fine children in New Portland.
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Hannah (1774-1857), named for her mother, married Joshua Gray, also their immediate neighbor. It was the same Gray family her oldest sister, Rebecca, had married into and the sis- ters thus became also sisters-in-law. She had five children who grew to be notable men and women.
Timothy Cleveland from West Embden accompanied his father Joseph, in 1790, on a prospecting trip up to Caratunk and by that time was acquainted with Jane McFadden (1775- 1823), whom he married three years later. They reared an exceptional family of nine Clevelands over by Seven Mile Brook.
The next daughter, Lydia (1780-1848), wedded Benjamin Thompson who had a farm for a few years near Fahi Pond and then moved to Madison. She died childless. Lucy (1786-1864), a twin sister of Grace, who survived her by twenty years, was the wife of Benjamin Young, one of the first of several brothers and sisters to come from Madison to Embden. Their eight chil- dren - Andrew, David, Almeda, Mary, Lucinda, Cephas, Mar- cellus and Lafayette - were part of the second generation of that creditable name in the town's early annals. They lived on farm No. 71, southwest of the Fahi. Their youngest son, Lafay- ette, born February 16, 1823, was the last living grandchild of Thomas McFadden. He died in Los Angeles, when twenty days beyond his 100th milestone. Two of his Embden cousins, although strangers, recognized the old man, then blind, while he was grop- ing his way there along the street, and a pathetic reunion fol- lowed.
Grace McFadden (1786-1854), the twin sister married Jacob Lowell (1743-1843) in 1806, and they had nine children - Wil- liam, Lucy, Jacob, Lydia, Jotham, Albert, Jane, John and Martha. It was a notable family in Concord and Solon. Lucy Lowell married John Dinsmore, Jr., of Concord, and John Low- ell married Anna Dinsmore of Solon, John Dinsmore's sister. Jane married Heman Whipple, one of Solon's highly respected business men. Martha Lowell married William Tibbetts of Solon. Jacob Lowell, Jr., married Climenia Thompson of Embden.
The youngest McFadden daughter, Martha (1791-1836), in 1810 married Reuben Savage, a son of James at North Anson.
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Meanwhile as he became a prosperous farmer of pioneer days, little wonder that Thomas McFadden, then well into his sixties, dominated the new Embden when its first town meeting was held on August 16, 1804. With brothers, uncles, cousins and in-laws - Hiltons, Savages, Clevelands, Pierces, Thompsons, Youngs, Grays, McKenneys and Flings - he held a voting majority in the hollow of his hand. But he had also been a public spirited settler and his election as the first town clerk and chairman of the first board of selectmen - with Dr. Edward Savage, his brother-in-law, then of West Embden and Capt. Benjamin Thompson, his son-in-law as the other two members of the board - apparently gave general satisfaction.
Thomas McFadden married a second wife, Ruth Spinner, in 1808. He outlived her by a quarter of a century and more and died on his pioneer farm in Embden. He was a man of ex- emplary character, industrious and frugal - an outstanding figure in the town's early history. Until fifty-five years old he was a Calvinist but then became a Universalist. He spent much of his last twenty years on earth studying the Bible and became a great controversialist. He could quote chapter and verse and page and column and position on page and in column.
Indians were living on Lot 18 when Thomas and Hannah McFadden went there to reside. Chief of these was Nicholas, who became very friendly with Andrew McFadden, their son. Andrew used to relate many anecdotes about these Indians and insisted that the spirit of Nicholas, after the old chief passed on, was always with him and gave him power in relieving pain which Andrew was credited with having in wonderful degree.
Although men and women of McFadden blood were numerous in early Embden, and are even to the present day, it is note- worthy that the McFadden name there has entirely disappeared.
The history of his four sons, all of whom figured more or less in the local affairs of the day, with one exception led to other communities. James (1778), the oldest married Betsey Churchill but lived at Ripley and then at Bangor. Their oldest child was Lucinda. Of three sons, Thomas J. went to New Orleans in boyhood and was never heard from. Andrew (1813-1891) lived at Woburn, Mass.
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Son John (1783-1864) was constable and tax collector of Embden in 1812, migrated from the town but returned and made several purchases of unsettled lands. One of these tracts had 99 acres in the reservation, set aside "for the first settled minister." John resided in northeast Embden and was a member of the state legislature in 1822. His wife was Lucy Dunlap of New Milford, some of whose brothers pioneered into the middle Embden neighborhood. They had one son, Willard Crockett McFadden (1808-1885), who married his first cousin, Lucinda ; and one daughter Sarah A., whose husband was Zachariah Williams of Embden. Willard in 1833 bought of James Daggett a farm of 94 acres near the cross road, -it being south of Nathaniel Walker's and north of John Colby - but died in California.
Son Thomas, Jr., (1784-1834), married Lovinah Savage (1794- 1825) a sister of Reuben, his brother-in-law. He resided a while in Starks, but for a time lived on farm No. 61 in middle Embden. After the death of his wife he kept a store at Oldtown. His daughter, Martha S. (1811-1892), was Mrs. David Danforth of Solon, and another daughter, Annah Young, married Daniel McKenney of Madison. Two sons of Thomas, Jr., were Barzilla S. (1818), who went into the Mexican war but did not return, and Sebastian S. (1827), who married in Kentucky.
The other of the pioneer's four sons and the youngest was An- drew (1788-1873) who inherited strongly from his father and, like him, was much identified with the town. Andrew married Elizabeth Reirdon (1786-1879), daughter of a Georgetown family, and, for a while, was in Starks with his brother Thomas, but returned to the Embden homestead. He was an exceptional townsman, widely known for his honest philosophy but modest and retiring. His children and grandchildren adored him but he and his wife were also "Uncle" Andrew and "Aunt" Betsey to all the neighborhood. Andrew was a member of the first legislature of Maine. That legislature adjourned, when its first winter was over, till the next autumn and was said to have been the first body of its kind ever to re-elect itself. He was a charter member of Northern Star Lodge of Free Masons at North Anson, served as its first secretary and was master of the Lodge
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in 1824. He was town clerk and first selectman in 1835 and a member of the legislature from Embden again in 1851 and '52.
Andrew and Elizabeth McFadden had eight children, all born in Embden. One of their sons, Elhanan Winchester (1816- 1893) married Zilpha Baker (1817-1878) of Bingham and then Mrs. Lucy (Howard) Weeks of North Anson. In later life he resided at Fairfield. Achsa Jane (1818-1859) married John Cragin. Angelina (1823-1918) was Mrs. David Whipple of Bingham, whose son, Hosea B. Whipple, became a well known resident of San Diego, California. Minerva L. (1826) married Samuel Haines of Saco, who, over a long period, was active in the cotton mill business there. The youngest daughter of Andrew was Mary (1830), who married Edward P. Weston of Skowhegan.
But Andrew had one son - even as his father, Thomas, had had - who clung to the Embden farm and made his career there. This was Ozias Henry McFadden (1818-1888), whose white hair and kindly bearing are remembered by many people in Embden today. He was liberal in religion, as his grand- father had been, but a staunch partisan, steadfast as a Republican and a worthy descendant of the long line of New England McFaddens. He lent a helping hand to many of the country people and won their lasting affection. He was a Free Mason and Knight Templar. For a number of years, covering the Civil War period, he served the town of Embden as treasurer and agent and in 1862 as a member of the legislature.
Ozias made an interesting marriage with Edith C. Pierce, of an influential West Embden family - daughter of Benjamin and Hannah (Cragin) Pierce on Gordon Hill. As Hannah (Cragin) Pierce was a daughter of old Simeon Cragin, the Seven Mile Brook pioneer, this marriage cemented ties of long standing between the Cragin and McFadden families. Old Thomas McFadden, with all his interests by the Kennebec, owned some land in west Embden near his son-in-law, Timothy Cleveland. The mother of Thomas, it will be remembered, was Rebecca Pierce. The marriage of his grandson, Ozias, with Edith Pierce was thus also an additional alliance between those families after three generations.
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The Embden farm was the home of Ozias McFadden till his health failed, when he went to North Anson to reside with Mrs. Carrie E. Hutchins, his daughter and only child. She is a woman of unusual refinement and personal charm, beloved by a wide circle of people. Her husband, Dr. George W. Hutchins died several years ago. Her home is now at Waterville.
Thomas, Andrew and Ozi- as, as shown, headed in hon- orable succession the Embden homestead. The memorable ox-sled journey of 1790 pref- aced more than a century of devoted service to their fam- ilies and to their fellow towns- men. Not a few of their off- spring with the adventurous ancestral spirit traveled far ANDREW J. LIBBY in establishing homes and fashioning their own careers. They shared in the conquest of the western states, as did so many others of early Embden. A kinsman from Georgetown lived in South America and died there.
Few Embden families have had as large part as the McFaddens in the history of this old country town or contributed more to the long, hard task of its transformation from an unbroken wilderness. Their men and women were exemplary among all the hardy Embden people who were their contemporaries.
Following the McFaddens of three generations on their fertile intervale place came the late Andrew J. Libby, another public- spirited owner who served the town exceptionally for a decade. He purchased in 1886 the McFadden farm of 540 acres, in- cluding the Hafford and Rowe lots of 140 acres and the John Carl farm of 100 more - all assessed on the town books that year at $4,480. Later he bought other land in Embden till it
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amounted to nearly 1,100 acres. On this farm he raised blooded Hereford stock and ponies. He was widely known as a cattle man.
Mr. Libby in 1891 represented Embden and other towns of that district in the State legislature. From the time he purchased this farm until his death he identified himself actively with town affairs. He worked indefatigably to help re-finance the town's Somerset Railway bond debt and with persistent faith which events fully justified. By his purchase of town orders, issued in settlement of the bonds and interest, he was a dominant factor in preserving the town's credit. At the time he was president of the National Bank at Oakland. He was one of the directors of the Somerset Railway, exerted his influence for the extension of the road to comply with original stipulations and gave the land on which stands the present depot in Embden.
At the time of his death Mr. Libby was president of the Maine State Fair at Lewiston. One of his last transactions was the importation of a famous Hereford bull from England. Complications ensued because of Federal restrictions. He was planning to cross the Atlantic to perfect the papers of his registered bull when in 1899 the end came.
He was born at West Waterville (now Oakland) Nov. 7, 1834, the son of John M. and Louisa W. Libby. He married in 1885 Abbie W. Morrison of Sidney, who survived her husband by a decade. Four children were born to them; Morrison, who now conducts the hardware and grocery business in the store at Oakland once occupied by his father; Andrew D., who has the Libby farm near Oakland village; Gertrude A., (Mrs. Lowell E. Ward), deceased; and Bert J., a supervisor of roads under the Main Highway Commission, who makes his home at Oakland.
Mr. Libby and his wife are buried at Oakland and from the windows of trains passing there travellers may see a life-size statue towering over the headstones in a near-by cemetery. It is a granite likeness of Andrew J. Libby, one of Embden's notable benefactors.
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CHAPTER XIII
SCEPTER OF A SMITHY'S SON
Good old colonial families crowded every fertile acre in Emb- den's southeast corner. The area was roughly between the foot of Fahi Pond and the big river. First on the east was the elder Benjamin Colby (1750-1843) out of Wiscasset, his oldest son Benjamin Jr. (1772-1840) for many years a chief helmsman in town affairs, and several other children. Their original seat was on Colby Island later called Butterfield Island and then Moore's Island - submerged entirely since the power dam was constructed at Madison. But the Colbys had large holdings on the mainland.
A few years after the Colbys came Jonathan Spaulding and his wife, Taomis Young, to a farm close by the river. It was the east half of land that Benjamin Colby, Jr., owned in 1790, when 18 years of age, presumably by assignment from his father. Jonathan, born at Merrimack, N. H., in 1771, married Taomis in 1796 and resided a while at Farmington where some of their interesting children were born, including Benjamin Spaulding (1803-1839) extensive merchant and lumber dealer of Madison, whose widow married Goff Moore, Jr., and was the step-mother of Albert Moore, one of Anson's most respected citizens. Benjamin's son, John Perrin Spaulding (1832-1896), left that town in 1855 to engage in the grocery business. This John P. Spaulding became the Boston Sugar King and millionaire philanthropist with a remarkable record of achievements. He financed the Hoosac tunnel, was the patron of Helen Keller, gave large sums to Bates college, and was known as a commercial pillar of New England.
Capt. John Gray and Joshua Gray were neighbor settlers of the Colbys and the Spauldings on the north. A little west were John Wilson and his enterprising family. Just beyond was Benjamin Young, (1782-1843), a younger brother of Taomis Spaulding, while south of Young was Luther Cleveland, (1774- 1858), a brother-in-law by his marriage with Abihail Young
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(1776-1849). Benjamin, Taomis and Abihail, as well as Lydia (1785-1835), who married Capt. Benjamin Cleveland (1781- 1852), and Elisha, David, Jr., and Joseph, all of Embden, were children of David Young, of Wiscasset or Woolwich - an early settler at Madison. But the Youngs, Wilsons, and Luther Cleveland, with his prominent son, James Young Cleveland, - and after some years Benjamin Colby, Jr., - were in middle Embden hard by the Canada Trail. These were exceptional communities of old American stock. Nearly all the older men had seen service in the Revolution. All these families had children and grandchildren who gave a good account of them- selves in ensuing years.
The elder Benjamin Colby was a blacksmith by trade as was his grandfather, Ambrose Colby, with whom he made his home at Wiscasset Point till 1789. This was 19 years after he had married Elizabeth Foye. In that year he sold most of his Wiscasset property and with his wife and seven children was located by 1790 on Colby Island of 53 1-2 acres, in the Kennebec, and his son, Benjamin Jr., had a 200 acre lot a little north- westward. By 1799 both his grandfather Ambrose, at Wiscasset, and his grandmother were dead. Their farm, where for several years, Benjamin had lived and cared for them, was first willed to the latter and at her death, descended to him.
Benjamin had several enlistments during the Revolution. He was drafted for some of these enlistments and during much of his service was a sergeant, according to an affidavit before Justice Nathan Weston of the Maine Supreme Court dated August 7, 1832, when he was 82 years old, and filed with the Pension Office at Washington. He was on duty one month in 1775 with Capt. John Groves Company, Col. Samuel Harnden's Mas- sachusetts Regiment; one month in 1777 with Capt. Roger Smith's Massachusetts Company ; two months, beginning July 1, 1779, in Capt. Hinckley's Company, of Col. McCobb's Mas- sachusetts Regiment on the Bagaduce Expedition and three months during the autumn of 1780 in Capt. Solomon Walker's Company, Col. Prime's Massachusetts Regiment.
Sergeant Colby pre-empted his Embden homestead in a neighborhood of army comrades. Aaron Thompson, just south in
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Anson, and his brother, Benjamin, just across the river in Madi- son, were from Pownalboro and the near vicinity of Montsweag stream. There were other Revolutionary veterans - Wilsons, Youngs, Spauldings, Hiltons, McFaddens and Danforths - near by. Benjamin Colby and the Thompson brothers, on Sept. 10, 1777, were in the patriot company that Capt. Solomon Walker, ancestor of this writer and of most of the Somerset county Walkers, hastily assembled and led four miles up the Sheepscot River from Pownalboro, to retake a valuable mastship from the British.
That was a brilliant incident of the war along the Maine coast. Sir George Collier, commander of the frigate Rainbow, sailed her up to Pownalboro (called "Witchcastle" in his journal) from which point he sent out a detachment of two lieutenants and 100 men in boats to capture the mastship. This craft, loaded with masts and other naval supplies, was destined - as the British thought - for France. The Rainbow's detach- ment captured her without difficulty, but found her aground at low tide. Once in possession on the deck they barricaded them- selves with heavy planks from her cargo.
Meanwhile the alarm had been sounded and on the morning of Sept. 10, Capt. Solomon Walker with his son, Solomon, Jr., as sergeant, and William Holman as corporal, and fifteen privates, began a march to their objective. It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon, according to Sir George Collier, when they opened fire on the barricade with a four-pounder cannon taken from Pownalboro and served by Benjamin Colby, according to a state- ment in his pension affidavit. Under cover of darkness that night the detachment of two lieutenants and 100 British sailors, evacuated to their boats and made their way back to the Rain- bow as best they could. Other troops under Col. McCobb had gathered along the banks of the Sheepscot and harassed the retreating force with musketry fire.
Th company was "in actual service" but one day as Capt. Walker certified in his muster roll, filed at Pownalboro a month later. In his company, other than Benjamin Colby and the two Thompson brothers, were David McKenney and William, John and Ebenzer Hilton. This McKenney family had several early
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settlers in Anson and in Embden. The three Hiltons were also of families that settled in Solon, Anson and Embden within short distance of Sergeant Colby's homestead.
Colby Island, where its owner erected his house and barn, and the smaller Long Island, were midway between Jacob Savage's island at the mouth of Seven Mile Brook and Moses Ayer's island below the old Solon ferry. In early days these three big
RESIDENCE OF BENJAMIN COLBY, JR. Where town meetings were held.
islands were paradise holdings of the Upper Kennebec and the seats of successful families.
Benjamin Colby, Sr., married Elizabeth Foye Nov. 8, 1770. They had several children when they came to their island set- tlement in 1790 and at least one more son was born after that date. Most of them, following marriage, were residents of the town and long comprised quite a colony in its southeast corner. The names of five sons and one daughter are given in the order of their weddings. If there were others they probably did not live to maturity. The six were :
Benjamin, Jr., who became a foremost farmer in Embden, married Rebecca Thompson (1775-1857), Sept. 7, 1793, a daugh- ter of Aaron, residing just over the line in Anson on the Will Caswell farm of later days and sometimes mentioned as a resident of Embden. They made their home for a few years on
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the island but about 1830 had moved to Lot 72 and Lot 35 the present Minor Tingley farm, where their two-story house, fronted by a row of great maples, still stands. They raised a big family, from whom are many descendants, now widely scattered throughout Maine and other states.
Sally, probably the oldest daughter, married Morrill Green of Madison in 1805.
Ebenezer, who married Nancy Daggett Jan. 12, 1809, a sister of Catherine, wife of John Gray a little above the Colby farm, and a daughter of Capt. Nathan Daggett, who served as chief pilot of the French fleet during the Revolution. The sisters had been with their parents in New Vineyard but seem to have come to Embden prior to their marriage. Ebenezer and Nancy in 1817 were on Lot 32, east of and adjacent to John Wilson and extending to the Kennebec. It was all or part of the William Hamlin Settler's lot. Ebenezer purchased this of his brother Ambrose and when he sold it moved to a 351/2 acre tract on Jackins brook, by Colby Island. This was part of the settler's tract that his brother, Benjamin, Jr., owned before some of it was transferred to the Spauldings and Youngs and is probably within the boundaries of the present day Delling farm. Ebenezer was an Embden taxpayer in 1825 but by 1835 had probably gone to New Vineyard. Ebenezer finally went west with Richard Pomeroy and Moses Wescott, who also married daughters of Capt. Nathan Daggett. Ebenezer's children · included Nathan (1812), Ebenezer, Jr., (1814), Lydia (1816), and Harry (1819).
William Colby, who married Lucy Dennis, of New Portland Jan. 21, 1813, did not remain long in Embden but took up Lot 42 at the Salley four corners, where Cyrus Salley resided after- wards for a time.
Ambrose Colby (1781-1836) had been owner of Lot 32, just mentioned. He seems to have been married twice - first to Anna McPhearson (1790-1822) of Madison, by whom there were children Betsey, John, Ambrose, Sumner and Mary. It was probably this Betsey and not a daughter of Benjamin Colby, Sr., who married Daniel Spaulding April 23, 1823, Justice of the Peace Joshua Gray officiating, and resided several years on a
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part of the Benjamin Colby, Jr., tract. John Colby on Feb. 24, 1831, published his marriage intentions with Esther Getchell of Anson, and in 1833 owned a farm near the Jeremiah Chamber- lain place. It was presumably the elder Ambrose, rather than his son, who on Dec. 10, 1822, married Almira Holden, daughter of the old Moose River family. Both father and son probably lived on the farm southwest of the Waterman Hilton place, known subsequently as the Elam Stevens farm. Ambrose Colby, Jr., got a deed to those acres in 1834 from Joseph N. Greene, but Ambrose, Sr., and his son may have been residing there ten or fifteen years previously and after Ambrose had vacated Lot 32 in favor of his brother, Ebenezer. This was a common practice with the settlers. Often a farmer of the early days paid first for the improvements, if there had been a previous settler, and later recompensed the proprietors.
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