USA > Maine > Somerset County > Embden > Embden town of yore : olden times and families there and in adjacent towns > Part 18
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place for a while on the east side of the trail and bordering Anson, probably the same acres that Elijah Wilson and finally Elijah's brother, Rev. Jesse Lee Wilson, occupied. But the minister also had land at one time over in Anson and erected a set of buildings there.
Other families of early days fought for a livelihood up and down this section of the town and in the township ranges back of the trail. Only some of the principal ones have been men- tioned in a considerable percentage of the town's population. The journey down from the cross road also passed near the thresholds of wonderful housewives. Mrs. William Thompson was Betsey Ayer (1788), a sister of Moses and Stephen, from Ayer Island below Solon ferry. She was married in 1807. Mrs. Benjamin Thompson was Lydia McFadden and Mrs. Benjamin Young was her sister, Lucy. Mrs. John Wilson was Catherine Law (1762) of an excellent old colonial family. Mrs. James Young Cleveland was Edith Cragin and Mrs. John Hilton was Lucinda Williams, while Mrs. Benjamin Colby, Jr., it will be remembered, was a daughter of Aaron Thompson over on the River road in Anson.
The picture of the Fahi section, even though more than a century has passed, could easily be visualized in more detail. Settlers came thither with high hopes of winning homesteads. They fell to vigorously with their axes and the open spaces were rapidly enlarged. Sons, fast growing to manhood, soon took up the task of carrying on. But "betterments" had not long been developed. before agents of the Rhode Island proprietors were on the scene. Payments were indispensable to title and, even if the terms offered were easy, money was hard to get. The discouragements that came to the second if not the first generation are evident in the frequent deeds of transfer, often to traders at North Anson, who resold if they could. An occasional sheriff sale carried its own tragic story. The struggle endured into the 1840's, which was the day of tidings about good lands and better fortune far westward.
Thereupon the exodus of sons and daughters was hastened and voyages by prairie schooners were arranged. Owners of the least attractive acres naturally yielded early. With the
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abandonment of farms came relapse to pasturage and the appearance of young fir trees. Before many years the new forest was growing for Maine's long-time prominent industry. Much land like this in Embden, as in numerous other Maine towns, never should have been settled for farming. Much of it probably never would have been settled had the opening of the middle western states come a half century earlier.
A considerable portion of quite three ranges of Embden down through the Fahi section belonged more or less to this category. Many homesteads, located immediately back of the farms that bordered the Canada Trail on either side, were first in the recession. By 1890 the highway from the Phin Eames corner on the Kennebec by the road past the town house supplied an evidential cross section of what had been happening then for 50 years. Now all the open spaces, which then had not been covered in, are solidly wooded awaiting the day when lumber cutters can profitably enter.
Prior to the complete abandonment for tillage of extensive tracts in this section - as much was true of some other parts of the town - there was quite a population of families trying anew to win a livelihood from the soil. This was along in the 70's and 80's. John Skillings (1793-1879) and his wife Betsey Spear (1809-1882), married in 1828, had a typical family life, perhaps in this regard. He was a veteran of the War of 1812, having enlisted at Anson May 14, 1813, and served till May 4, 1814. He participated in the battles of Stone Mills and Chateaugay and was discharged at Plattsburg, N. Y. His service was in Capt. Benjamin Adams' Company, 33rd. U. S. Infantry, in which were Richard Nutter, Hartley Colby and Nathaniel Martin, Jr., all of Embden. John Skillings received a warrant for 150 acres of land and in 1871 was also pensioned.
Some time after the Civil War he settled in the Black Hill region of Embden, which farmers then were beginning to abandon. In his family were two strong young sons. One of these, Obed W. Skillings, eventually took over the Amos Copp farm on the west side of Embden Pond, when that region, too, was becoming a disappointment. Obed married Mary Russell, of Madison, whose first husband had been Thomas Jefferson
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Mullen. He knew his Bible from lid to lid and was the cham- pion woodchopper of Embden. His top record was six cords of wood. which he cut and laid up, from sun to sun. It was a day's work for Samuel Bunker, or possibly T. Gray & Son, at North Anson.
John Skillings, Jr., Obed's brother, lived many years over in the Fahi section on Lots 39 and 68. the latter where Elisha Young and others had resided. At the time John, Jr., occupied it. this property was known as the Lyman Rowe farm. He married Eunice Bickford, a sister of Moses, and their children were John. 3rd., Henry. Frank. Fred. Angier and Estelle. John 3rd's wife was Ellen Town; Fred's wife was Edith Blagden ; Frank's. Eveline Rowe. Several grandchildren of John Skillings' still live in Embden or vicinity.
There were others who sought to reclaim the Fahi section. One of them was Joshua G. Andrews, who kept a blacksmith shop and also cultivated the Joanna Spencer farm above the long causeway. Another was Sawyer Lane, who had a farm eastward but south of the cross road. In his stable was always to be found a horse that he considered a trotter, although it is not told that Sawyer ever entered his horse in a race. Never- theless he was always racing on the road with his neighbors. In his younger days he had been a cattle grower. Sawyer was a familiar sight to the villagers at North Anson driving his trotter down Main street at top speed. Owen Eames of Boston, a son of Phineas and an enthusiast with the camera, took a series of pictures while at Embden in the 1880's. His pictures of the brothers, John and Obed Skillings. of Joshua Andrews and Sawyer Lane were awarded a prize for excellence by the Boston Camera Club.
These men and other neighbors like them finally gave up the unequal struggle and were the last to try the conquest of that region. The area of abandoned farms there increased year by year and is now of large dimensions. After a century these places where the battle against the primeval forests was begun by pioneers have become wild lands again. The human story there is to be had chiefly from firesides distantly removed or from old official records. Out of that community from the
(Top Left) JOHN SKILLINGS SAWYER LANE
OBED W. SKILLINGS JOSHUA G. ANDREWS
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cross road down to the Anson line went many early emigrants to the West.
The story here is rather more impressive because this neigh- borhood hard by the shores of Fahi Pond was long the civic center of the town. It comprised the sixth school district and its house with two chimneys. This schoolhouse was burned in 1838 so that the next town meeting convened at the Dunbar school- house, two miles further up the trail. But the meetings soon returned to the residence of Benjamin Colby, Jr., and continued there for a time after his death. The accommodations were so inadequate that the annual meeting of March 7, 1842, voted to adjourn to Widow Rebecca Colby's barn. The town apparently paid something for rental on these occasions. In one of the old books kept by the town treasurer there is this entry: "Order to Widow Colby for trouble of town meetings up to March 8, 1842, $10.00."
Therefore much of Embden's official business during the 1830's and 1840's was transacted in the now well nigh abandoned Fahi neighborhood. Funds for making and mending highways, provisions for the schools, arrangements for systematic care of the indigent poor, who early became a considerable local burden, were debated here and final decision made. There were also elections for federal, state and county officials. For all concerned this was the most convenient meeting point till the day when the cross road from Solon ferry was ready for travel. There was a good thoroughfare from the Seven Mile Brook region to North Anson a couple of miles away. The Canada Trail, bisecting the town north and south, provided an easy route up from the village and also accommodated the population from the upper part of the town. Eastern Embden by horseback or wagon could make a comfortable journey to town meeting by the way of the Kennebec River road and a short cut across.
The local interests that converged here were represented in 1835 by 182 taxpayers. At that date the town had 141 land owners with 97 horses, 130 yokes of oxen, 93 houses, 99 barns and 273 cows. By 1845 there were 222 taxpayers. The annual tax bill amounted to $1,467.01, making quite a budget to dispose
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of at a day's sitting. The total was distributed in 1845 as follows: state tax, $238.40; county tax, $133.91; school tax, $393.20; town tax, $700; "overlaying," $1.50. The valuation of the town was something like $100,000; the population was well towards 1,000, twice what it is today. There was an average of about five persons in each household.
John Wilson (1761-1842), like his Thompson neighbors, was in Embden prior to its incorporation. His house and his mill seem to have been more widely known through the town, than any other places in that section, even than the schoolhouse. When the sixth district schoolhouse after quite a long period became an accepted meeting place for the townsmen, constables to make certain of the location, added in their warrants: "at the Sixth District schoolhouse, near John Wilson's." John Wilson from the beginning of his residence interested himself in the town's business. He was the first constable and tax collector and after that frequently held town office. He worked industriously on his farm at the foot of the Fahi. His saw mill manufactured beams and boards for frames within a consider- able range. It supplied materials for many houses and barns over on the Kennebec river road. This mill in 1818 was valued at $160, by which time Benjamin Colby, Jr., and John Gray, Jr., each owned a quarter interest. It was one of the earliest saw mills in the town. The Collinses from North Anson after- ward brought the mill seat and much of the land. Like many another such establishment, however, its days of usefulness gradually passed. Building and machinery disappeared, but traces of the old cellar where John Wilson built his house are still discernable.
The Wilson family was a very old one with an authentic record back to 1822 in England. It had successive generations at Roxbury, Cambridge, Malden and Townsend, Mass. From the last named town John, son of Benjamin Wilson, made three enlistments in Revolutionary companies between June, 1778, and July, 1780. When he applied in 1820 at Washington for a pension, he referred to his wife, Catherine (Law) Wilson (1762) and to his three youngest children: Susannah, (1802) who in
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1860, was living on her father's farm; Elijah (1805-1884) ; and to Jesse Lee Wilson.
At that time his other children had grown to manhood and womanhood and gone their respective ways. These were John, Jr. (1783) ; Polly (1794) who on March 21, 1805, became Mrs. Joseph Thompson ; Benjamin (1792) ; Reuben (1794), who was called Lieut. Reuben and paid taxes in Embden from 1820 till after 1860 and Sally (1797), Mrs. John Mullen. Polly 's husband, Joseph, was a son of Aaron Thompson. Aaron in March, 1779, "took up a lot" No. 11 in Anson, on the Kennebec River, for Joseph, who by 1791 had a house and a clearing of 30 acres there. After his marriage Joseph Thompson kept a store at North Anson on Kennebec avenue and made shoes. He took a cargo of these to New Orleans, where he died and was buried. Joseph Thompson was probably a half-brother of Rebecca Thompson, the wife of Benjamin Colby, Jr., of Embden. Aaron was twice married and his first wife was Elizabeth Rundlett. She lived but a short time after her marriage, May 9, 1772, at Pownalboro. The church there has preserved a record that Aaron purchased a pew in the Wiscasset meeting house for 44 lbs. 10s a month after his marriage. Tilson Salley at Madison is a grandson of Joseph and Polly (Wilson) Thompson.
Elijah Wilson did not live as steadily in Embden as his brother, Lieut. Reuben. It has been already described how he became a large land holder in southeast Embden in the 1830's, soon after his marriage with Sarah Butterfield (1806-1875). Most, if not all of their children were born, while the parents were prosperous residents of the town. These children were : Cordelia (1832) who married Enoch Young in 1854; Emily S. (1833) who became Mrs. Frederick Rowell in 1858; Flavilla T. (1836) the wife of James Beal; Joseph H. (1840) who fell at the battle of Winchester; Justus Butterfield (1843-1911) who married Emma J. Sherburne (1842) of Corinna and like his brother, Joseph, was a Union soldier; John Lee (1846-1925) who married Martha Hunnewell; Jackman (1850-1918) ; and Augustus Hamblett Wilson (1848) whose wife was Anna Wells.
Elijah changed the name of Colby island in the Kennebec to Butterfield island after he purchased it of Benjamin Colby, Jr.
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Late in life he went to Solon, where his wife's people resided but she died at Lowell, Mass., where her son, Justus, had his family. Both are buried in Solon Cemetery. They have a son, Alfred E., who has dwelt at Bridgeport and Hartford, Conn. John Lee, son of Elijah Wilson and a cavalryman from Solon in the Civil War, had a son, Harry C. Wilson, of Madison and two daughters, Carrie B. (Mrs. John J. McCray), and Alice G. (1880-1905) whose husband was Roy L. Hayden.
The Butterfields of Mrs. Elijah Wilson's family had a few other representatives in Embden. John Butterfield lived in the southeast part of the town in 1880. Mrs. Wilson's father, Philip Butterfield, Jr. (1779-1868), married Sarah Dakin, a kinswoman of Levi Dakin and Levi H. Dakin who were Embden townsmen in the 1850's. E. B. Butterfield in 1860 had the first farm on the River road in Anson below the Embden boundary.
Living in the Fahi neighborhood and its vicinity were four Thompson half brothers. Capt. Benjamin (1773-1857), Capt. William (1784-1848), Jedidiah (perhaps older than William) and Fletcher (1807-1881). William, Jedidiah and Samuel were sons of the same mother. Samuel lived down the river. Their father, thrice married, was Benjamin Thompson (1751) of Woolwich or Wiscasset who settled in northwest Madison, op- posite his brother Aaron of Anson. Echoing down the years from this Benjamin Thompson's journal have come the follow- ing lines :
Benjamin Thompson is my name And English is my nation Seven Mile Brook my dwelling place And Christ is my salvation
Benjamin Thompson is said to have come up the Kennebec as early as 1776, but, like Lieut. John Hilton and Morris Fling of Anson, probably returned when he heard the news of Lexington and Concord. Capt. Benjamin, his first born, was a native of the Montsweag neighborhood by his first wife, Sarah Eastman, whom he married Nov. 21, 1771. Capt. William and Jedidiah, with a daughter, Molly, who married Ebenezer Danforth and resided near her father in Madison, were children of Molly Fletcher whom the elder Benjamin wedded Feb. 10, 1775. The
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third wife was Widow Fannie (Williamson) Witham, after- wards the second wife of Pioneer William Hilton of Solon. Fletcher Thompson, born in Madison; Eastman who lived and died at Solon; John Williamson Thompson, who married Lydia, daughter of Samuel Fling, of Embden; and Clymena (Mrs. Cyrus Snell) who died at Pittsfield as the widow of one of the Anson Rogers, were the children of this third union.
Capt. Benjamin Thompson, the first son of the elder Benjamin of northwest Madison, was identified with the new town of Embden in the earlier years of its incorporation. His wife was Lydia McFadden. He, as well as his brother Jedidiah, and their respective wives Lydia and Thankful, were written down in the list of incorporators. Capt. Benjamin in 1804 was a member of the first board of selectmen. Several town meetings were held at his home on Lot 38, midway the west side of Fahi Pond, including that of 1809 when he was made town clerk and chair- man of the board, offices he held again in 1812. He resided in Embden as late as 1818 when he bought land of his half-brother, William, but in 1832 when he sold this same property back to William, he subscribed himself as "of Madison." In the mean- time he had moved thither, presumably to take up residence on the paternal acres. Capt. Benjamin and Lydia Thompson had no children but in 1850, two years after her death, he married Nancy Nemo.
Capt. Benjamin's mantle as an Embden official fell upon Capt. William, who was 13 years his junior and a minor when Embden was first a town. From Spauldingtown (Solon) where he lived in 1805, probably near Ayer Island, when he married Betsey Ayer, he went to Embden farm No. 22, which extended more than half way around the shores of Little Fahi or Mud Pond. When Capt. William was 26 years old, in 1811, the town designated him as collector of taxes and constable. The town meeting in 1816 was held at Capt. William's house, but by this time he seems to have been living on Lot 38, where Capt. Benjamin had been residing. That year, also, he was elected third selectman and he had had command of a company of militia. Several other town meetings were held there and for two or three years he was chosen as selectman, till 1823, when
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for three successive years he was town treasurer, an office his brother-in-law, Moses Ayer, held some 20 years later.
Many Embden Thompsons since that day are of Capt. William's family. His children were : Mary (1808) ; Benjamin, 2nd (1809); William, Jr., (1813) who married Orra Wood Thompson (1817) daughter of Reuben, the tanner; Albert (1814) whose wife was Arminda D. Ayer (1829) his cousin and a daughter of Stephen Ayer; Sarah (1816), Mrs. Nathaniel W. Morse of Brighton; Alden (1818) ; Celia (1821), Mrs. Cephas Young; Manly (1823) ; and Zeruah (1828), Mrs. Jonathan Smith of Brighton.
Capt. William extended his acreage by the Fahi to include Lot 69, immediately west where Manoah Delling was long after- ward. To his son, Benjamin, 2nd, by deeds in 1832 and '36, Capt. William transferred all his holdings by the Fahi. This Benjamin, 2nd, remained there as late as 1850, growing into prominence among his neighbors. The two younger sons, William, Jr., and Albert, acquired a farm on the Kennebec, north of Stephen Ayer. William, Jr., and Orra Thompson had four daughters and one son, all but two, Sophia E. (1836) and Mary E. (1849-1870), dying in youth. Mary in 1868 married Oliver W. Hilton, of Solon, after his return from California.
Jedidiah Thompson, full brother of Capt. William, like their sister, Molly, married into the neighboring family of David and Mary (Young) Danforth of Solon. The town accounts of the olden days have items regarding payments to Jedidiah for services as a public health guard. One of these, dated July, 1832, reads : "Jediah Thompson's order for services performed on the Canada Road to prevent the colury from being brought through the woods - $3.20," while another, dated March 1833 reads: "order to Jedadiah Thompson on the heith of the land under command of E. Cobb in the year 1832 - $12."
Samuel F. Thompson (1801-1876), a son of Jedidiah, was a shoemaker at North Anson in 1867. He married Almira Chadbourne (1809-1875). Their daughter, Catharina (1833) married Asa Parlin. Their son, Irving Thompson (1837-1903) married Ann Gahan and died at Onalaska, Wis. Another son of Jedidiah and Thankful Thompson was Elihu, who married Ruth
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Jones. From Elihu by his son Albion Thompson and wife Phoebe Norton came Clara Thompson (Mrs. Edgar D. Clark) of Twelve Corners in Madison and also Lelia Clark (Mrs. Harold Reed) of North Anson and Emma (Mrs. Harold Dan- forth) of Skowhegan, grand- daughters.
Fletcher Thompson, young- est of the sons in Embden of the elder Benjamin, was 23 years in the junior of his half-brother, Capt. Benja- min. He married in 1829 Martha Gray (1812-1857), daughter of the elder Joshua. They soon made their home on a farm where the present railroad station is. This was near Joshua Gray but later on Fletcher Thompson and his wife Martha went to FLETCHER THOMPSON North Anson and occupied the house just north of the Academy. Most of their large family of capable children, however, were born in Embden. The farm buildings there were burned many years ago. Fletcher, in 1839, was one of a committee of seven that reported at the town meeting in favor of a division of Embden and in 1842 and 1845 he was town agent. He owned in 1877 a mill on Hancock stream, not far from the foot of Hancock Pond, probably the same mill that in earlier years be- longed to Timothy Williams.
The Fletcher Thompson sons and daughters were highly regarded by a large circle of old-time people in Embden and Anson. There were eleven of them, most of whom married in Embden and, for a time, resided there. These children were :
De Lafayette (1829-1876), whose wife was Amanda Moore. She died at Newburyport, Mass., in 1910.
Philena Narcissa (1831-1917), who married Phineas Eames Dec. 6, 1849, and was the mother of an exceptional Embden family.
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Fanny (1835-1880). She married in 1854 Theophilus Hilton, the ferryman.
Ada (1838-1915), wife of John Merry and by her second marriage of Dr. Daniel D. Mann. He was a physician at North Anson. The Mann home on the south side of Seven Mile Brook was part of a circle of delightful village people. A daughter, Mrs. Edith (Mann) Heath lives at Waterville.
Alureda (1840) married George Eames of Embden, brother of Phineas, and resides now at North Anson.
Fletcher, Jr. (1843-1884) married Mary Hafford, daughter of an Embden neighbor and was a resident of the town in the 1880's.
Tryphena Loantha (1845) was Mrs. George A. Mann of Foxboro, Mass., and lived at Taunton. Her husband was not related to Dr. Mann.
Celestia (1847-1926) was Mrs. Roscoe L. Chaney, of Wilton. Mr. Chaney served as a soldier in the Civil War. There were three children, Ernest L., Esther F., and Grace. Ernest studied at Colby College and is in the Navy Department at Washington.
Sarepta (1850-1893) who wedded B. Franklin Moulton of Embden in 1869. They resided many years on a farm near the head of Embden Pond. Mr. Moulton and their daughter, Josephine A., are now at North Anson.
Emma Eulalie (1853-1886), the wife of John C. Gray of Boston.
Ella May (1856-1884). She taught school in Embden, attended Coburn Classical Institute, making her home, after the death of her parents, with Mrs. Mann at North Anson. While a student at Waterville she secretly married Oliver L. Beverage, who graduated at Colby College. The union was not made public till after her death at Cape Elizabeth. Mrs. Beverage's plucky struggle to educate herself and help her husband was much commended.
The story of the Thompson family, of which these Embden groups, as well as the allied Moses Thompson branch already mentioned, were a part, extends far back in the annals of Maine. They came to America more than 200 years ago. Their routes of migration extended through Berwick, York, Arundel, Wool-
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wich and Georgetown. They were long one of the most numerous family names in Embden. Few other old American names of Embden and the upper Kennebec were honored with more enterprising citizens or contributed more to the upbuilding of the new towns in that valley.
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CHAPTER XV
UP AND AWAY IN THE DAWN
Some notable names of the Embden frontier appeared in the early records for a relatively brief period. Such were the Nimrod Hindses and the Rutherford Drummonds by Seven Mile Brook; the Samuel Flings and a few of the Flings' immediate neighbors on the Kennebec. John Chamberlain and his sons, Jeremiah and Stephen Chamberlain - probably also Joshua Chamberlain - were in the latter category. John Chamberlain owned the Waterman Hilton farm as early as 1785 and Jeremiah Chamberlain lived on the farm north of it till nearly 1800, which establishes the Chamberlains as at least fifteen year residents of the township.
Daniel Salley, south of Seven Mile Brook, did not tarry there many years but after a period his brother, Isaac Salley, came and was one of the first settlers on the Canada Trail. Isaac founded there a large and capable family, whose members were a credit to that neighborhood. Amos Taylor, was west of Daniel Salley, but north of the Brook and John Taylor, probably his brother, lived in New Portland.
Some of these very old timers at Embden made their sortie against its forest barriers from Norridgewock. Hinds, Fling, Martin and the Chamberlains had been residents there. Prior to the Revolution Norridgewock was one of the few settlements on the Upper Kennebec. Morris Fling, whose Samuel staked out a homestead in Embden, was at Old Point in 1773 and applied himself vigorously to penetrating the wilderness. In 1775 he erected a log cabin on the intervale of the Charles Moore farm below North Anson village but Indian warriors made it so uncomfortable that Fling departed. He called his place "The Seven Mile Brook Farm." It was seven miles from Old Point. Fling is thus supposed to have originated the name by which this tributary was called by older people, although others have attributed this name to the seven miles distance from its first to
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