USA > Maine > Somerset County > Embden > Embden town of yore : olden times and families there and in adjacent towns > Part 22
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Mr. Eames' list is representative of the town's noble women of that day. It testifies to a survival of the neighborly pioneer spirit - to an attitude of sympathy and helpfulness toward the entire community.
Political campaigners now and then nailed announcements on the town's only front door and the town house, as the only hall in Embden, served occasionally as a forum for a rally. The intellectual importance of the hill, upon which, a short distance away, Barzilla Ford resided was also accentuated by a grove of small maples south of the road and a few rods west of the town house. With rather a lofty outlook toward the mill stream and Henry Hanson's house of many gables the town house grove
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was altogether an appropriate spot for public gatherings in the interest of mental uplift. Even so, of ancient days, many another people journeyed unto the high places.
The entrance road into the little maple grove can possibly still be marked through the enbankment of the Solon-New Port- land highway. The open-air place was recognized for several years as a sort of annex to the town house. It was an inviting site for picnics and speeches, for diversions of the milder sort and, with a little stretch of the imagination, was in these regards something of a town university.
The hill is now well in the heart of a district of abandoned farms. The land is growing into spruce and fir and varieties of hardwood timber. The trees, that make good hitching posts at March meetings when automobiles are out of season, encroach a little more each year upon the shingled walls of 1848. Window shutters are opened occasionally as townsmen assemble to transact business. Otherwise the intellectual glories of Ford Hill have long departed.
CHAPTER XVIII
"GOD'S BARN" OF AFTER YEARS
Well nigh twenty years before there was an Embden town - long in advance of Somerset County as a sub-division of Kennebec and Lincoln - there dawned on Seven Mile Brook an eventful community morning. It was the day of a "Raising Bee" for the new church. Later by a decade surveyors ap- peared with rod and chain to run the line that placed the site of the Freewill Baptist tabernacle slightly outside of Embden. But when the pioneers raised this church in 1788, it was as much of Embden as of Anson. And such it - and its successor, the second church - continued to be in the matter of financial support and of worshippers till the end of an epoch of almost a century.
Perhaps to those who made up the "Raising Bee" the structure was to be in no small part a blockhouse. It had no glass. There were portholes in place of windows. A broad overhang made battle from above a terror to red marauders. Tradition says it was used at times for a schoolhouse. It stood on the very brink of Seven Mile Brook - an ideal location for baptizing converts. Thus it had been designed for three fold service to struggling humanity.
In this automobile age, travelers on the road to the New Port- lands pass, on the right, a watering trough about two miles above North Anson village. On the left, directly opposite, there is a glimpse of water, rippling in the sunshine. One's eye spans there the spot of clearing, where axe-men and builders bent to felling and hewing on the morn of the "Raising Bee."
At the task were full thirty vigorous woodsmen, skilled in aggression upon the primeval forest. They had discussed the enterprise for months and there was now no faltering. Word had circulated north and south of the Brook and from one end to the other of the settlement. Those who came were resolved to carry on - far more than the mere energy of erecting a rude structure.
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From down the trail, a mile or more, came George Gray (1766-1819), who had recently married one of the Thomas McFadden maidens. He was the son of that intrepid Capt. John, of Embden, by the Kennebec. Posterity was to know him as Rev. George and the ancestor of two long-time postmasters at North Anson. He may have crossed to the north of the Brook to join John Paine (1740-1790), who had been builder of a mill at Norridgewock and was then contemplating a homestead where several generations of Paines were to dwell - on the modern Daniel Record place.
Other Anson settlers in groups were on the scene - Grays, Paines and Savages of those whose farms abutted on the Brook and not improbably men, like old John Walker (1759-1831), veteran of Valley Forge, and James Burns (1740), whose farms fronted the Kennebec well down toward the present lower village. All were shedding their jerkins to bear a sturdy hand.
From the immediate neighborhood of the clearing was James McKenney. He owned a cabin and charcoal pit nearby. There were also young Isaac Albee, due to become a preacher of unusual power, and his patriotic father, Jonathan. They could hear fair young Rispah's call to dinner from her cabin door.
Of those who lived along the upper trail and came to join the workers were Jonathan Cleveland, Simeon Cragin, farmer and craftsman, and Asamuel Hutchins, a lad of twelve who had helped his mother build one of the first log cabins in Embden. This was the same Asamuel, who, one dark night, helped his determined mother dispatch a hungry wolf on the roof of the cow shed. Zephaniah Williams, Samuel Gould (1768-1844), Solomon Walker, 3rd. (1766-1827), Capt. Josiah Parker (1764- - after 1857), and David W. Hutchins, earliest settlers on New Portland Hill were likewise in the picture.
There was a bee on the second day and on subsequent days till the blockhouse, school, and church, was closed to the weather. It was builded well and loomed as a landmark, where up and down from the Kennebec outlet to the unbroken wilderness there were only log habitations.
It stood the stress of passing years. From its front of squared tree-trunks issued stentorian words of fervent exhorters. Capt.
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Parker and Betsey Walker - the first bride in New Portland - worshipped there after the captain experienced religion at the age of forty. A long roster of penitent settlers crossed its threshold for the solemn rite of waters, which stood as a symbol that sins were washed away.
Through the vicissitudes of one generation the log church remained till its walls looked weather-beaten and sacrile- gious jackknives of many urchins had covered smooth spaces with inscriptions. It stood till plaster in the chinks between timbers fell out and the roof leaked profusely. Then there was another bee -a "Razing Bee" - and CAPT. JOSIAH PARKER fort, school and church were leveled to the ground. By that time Indian dangers had passed. The interior was severely warm on summer Sundays. The days of usefulness were over. family cabins were preferable for school and for religious services.
There were no settled ministers at this church, the first erected in the present area of Somerset County. But there were nearby farmer-preachers and elders, who guided the church councils and, on occasion, expounded the Sacred Word. Not infrequently preachers of note came from Farmington, Wilton, Starks and from down the river towns. At intervals readers occupied the pulpit. It is recorded that in 1796 "the reading of sermons at Seven Mile Brook in the absence of a minister had caused divi- sion. The subject was considered and all agreed to drop the reading of authors and wait upon the Lord."
The first Freewill Baptist preacher who came to the church was Elder Edward Locke (1744-1826), born at Rye, N. H., and ordained in 1780. He came to Seven Mile Brook as early as 1792, perhaps a little earlier. Before that date, for three
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(TOP) ACROSS THE ROAD FROM THE MEETING HOUSE SITE DEACON JOSEPH WALKER HUMPHREY PURINGTON THE MEETING HOUSE AS IT LOOKS TODAY
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or four years, the meeting-house had been an informal society. Most of the settlers had come from Woolwich and from adjacent Georgetown, of which Woolwich was at one time a part. In 1781, Benjamin Randall "the founder of the Freewill Baptist connection " was at Woolwich, conducting a great revival. Not a few of the Seven Mile Brookites had been there, heard the great revivalist and knew well how the same year Randall had established a church at Woolwich with Eben Brookings, Jr., as the ruling elder. It was one of the very first Freewill churches in Maine but was speedily followed by societies at Georgetown, Westpoint and Gorham.
It was not till 1804 that Randall went up the Kennebec River as far as Embden and participated in the beginning of an ex- tensive revival. Perhaps it was then that "at protracted revival meetings in the old log church," as the chronicle runs, "one family had so many visitors a two year old heifer had to be killed and was entirely eaten by the company. The housewife had to remain home and prepare the meals. Her husband scolded her because she did not attend the meetings."
Elder Locke was the stormy petrel of the Brook church. Al- though he roamed far and had many schemes he "parked" at Embden. And after many years he died there. In younger days he joined the Shakers near Gilmantown, N. H., but sub- sequently left them and removed to the region of the Sandy River. Establishing at Farmington in 1793, the first Freewill Baptist church north of Woolwich and Edgecomb, he brought in the Embden-Anson log church, as a branch. All was well with Locke and Seven Mile Brook people for a while and the church flourished. Relations with the Farmington brethren were sat- isfactory and pleasant.
But by February, 1800, when the quarterly meeting was held, Locke had become the center of an agitation "of painful inter- est." He had been promoting a plan "for forming a commun- ity of Christians, who were to have all things in common, their property to be thrown into one common stock with himself to control, if not possess the whole." After a committee had labored with him in vain, he was suspended from the church and for six years was disfellowshipped and disowned. He eventually
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regained some favor in Seven Mile Brook. His second wife was Olive Hutchins. One son, Ward Locke, was a preacher, and served actively in the Seven Mile Brook church. He was there probably quite as early as his father.
It was written of Elder Edward long ago that "he was pos- sessed of more than ordinary mind and talent and was appar- ently zealous in the cause of truth, but, never, perhaps, did he possess that disinterested devotedness to the Redeemer, necessary in a minister of the Gospel." A parson of a rival faith wrote bluntly of him that he "loved money."
Rev. William Paine (1760-1846), a soldier of the Revolution and a remarkable man in his day, officiated much at the log church. He lived for a time with his father, John, also a soldier of the Revolution, on the Daniel Record place, which was the principal Paine family homestead. Rev. William enlisted at Woolwich when 17 years of age. As he was not tall enough, he put wooden taps on his boots. That did not pass him with the mustering officer of Colonel Michael Jackson's Massachusetts Line Regiment. But he was so eager to serve that he went as a fifer, not knowing one tune from another. He speedily got pos- session of a musket and served three years and through many hard battles. He lived at Norridgewock for a while before he went to North Anson.
Rev. William has been described as "a man of strong sym- pathies, loving, tender-hearted, beloved by all who knew him and familiar with the scriptures." His pathos and aptness of illustration, though sometimes fanciful, rendered his preaching highly interesting. He preached many years without fee or reward, depending upon his farm for support. His wife was Permelia Parker (1769-1847), born at Groton, Mass., and a sister of Captain Josiah Parker.
Long years after Rev. William had passed to his reward his family of fifteen sons and daughters and their sons and daugh- ters was numerously represented in the services of the old Brook meeting-house. Nearly all these Paines were men and women of exceptional character and highly respected. They dwelt on both sides of Seven Mile Brook. Among Rev. William's children were Rev. John (1788-1847) ; Josiah Parker Paine (1789-1856) ;
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Susan (1791), who became Mrs. William Quint; Sally (1793- 1870) ; Betsey (1794-1817), Mrs. John Savage; William (1796- 1813), who died in a hospital at Burlington as a soldier in the
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SIMEON PAINE AND LYDIA FROST PAINE, HIS WIFE War of 1812; Samuel S. Paine (1798-1855) ; Capt. Asa (1801- 1871) ; Simeon (1804-1882), whose wife was Lydia Frost (1800- 1890) ; - their children and grandchildren making a very in- teresting group - James (1806) ; Parker (1808), a banker in St. Paul and William S. Paine (1810), a colonel of militia in Alabama.
Thus with Edward Locke, William Paine, Isaac Albee and several others the first church persisted. Its teachings were not altogether popular, even on the upper reaches of the Kennebec. "While the pious were engaged in prayer and praise," one au- thority wrote, "the reckless were drinking and carousing, trad- ing and horseracing or dancing at some home in the vicinity." Scoffers there were with disrespectful comments and there were unkind observations from the cloth. Rev. Paul Coffin, a well- educated Congregationalist, whose journal about a missionary tour of upper towns on the Kennebec and Sandy Rivers in Au-
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gust and September, 1797, is a vivid and most valuable chroni- cle, wrote when at Starks :
"Capt. Waugh at whose home we kept the Sabbath is a sensi- ble man and much opposed to wild, ignorant, itinerate preachers. The people are divided here as elsewhere generally, yet many wish for more true preaching, peace and order."
One need not mistake the reference. Starks in early times was no mean Freewill Baptist stronghold.
It was twenty-five years from the day, when the old log church was torn down in 1808 to the erection of a new frame meeting house in its place in 1832-33. The settlers began by calling this the "second church of Anson" but they soon fell into the habit of styling it "the first church." In the interim, there had been no lagging in the worship. Services were held at private resi- dences and at schoolhouses. New and eloquent exhorters grew up at Anson, Embden and New Portland. There were quarterly meetings - first established in 1795 - and yearly meetings and, at intervals, great revivals. One of the most notable revival periods was in 1809, after the log church had been pulled down. There was also another in 1819. These, apart from religious significance in a region and at a day when there were none too many diversions from back-breaking toil on the farms, were great social occurrences. They were forums where elders and deacons vied in speaking power and were judged as to profes- sions and performances.
Staunch, unwavering preachers stood forth. Dr. Edward Savage was there while the log church was new and undoubtedly preached even before his ordination in 1801. Rev. William Paine was not granted a certificate to preach till seven years later, and the ceremony of his ordination may have been the last one there. The array of home preachers as well as those from afar was an imposing one. It included the two Hutchins preach- ers, Rev. Elias and Rev. Samuel from New Portland, Zachariah Leach, Benjamin Randall, Ebenezer Scales (1766-1855), emin- ently useful as a revivalist and in planting churches who was ordained at the log church in 1805, Hubbard Chandler, Cyrus Stillson, Daniel Young of Anson, Leonard Hathaway and many more. A Freewill Baptist church was organized at Starks in
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February, 1803, with Rev. James Elliott as first preacher. Ben- jamin Holbrook, whose son Alfred settled in Embden, was one of the principal laymen. The Starks preachers were well known to the Embden Freewillers from associations at quarterly meet- ings. They were Rev. Ezekiel Elliott, who succeeded his father James and, like him, died during the prevalent epidemic of "cold fever" in 1811; Rev. Daniel Young, mentioned above, who went to Lewiston about 1831; Rev. Stephen Williamson ; Rev. Abel Turner ; Rev. Thomas Oliver; Rev. John Spinney and "Old Elder" Storer. These and others were welcomed as shin- ing lights at Anson.
Church records are meager for the log cabin period and for the interim immediately thereafter. Even as late as 1840, at least, Elisha Purington sold accumulated records of the Free- will Baptist society to Whiting H. Hinkley, for paper rags. This was quite in keeping with church policy. Along in 1810, there arose a desire among the Free Baptist churches at large, to keep no records, more than a list of the names of people bap- tized. It was long advocated with a zeal which seemed irresist- able. But this attitude of the church may have abated as the years rolled by.
Joshua Hilton, son of pioneer William of Solon, moved in 1820 to Embden-Anson and for thirty-seven years lived on the Brook's north shore. "Uncle Josh" served long as church clerk and treasurer, before he swapped farms with his brother, Helon, and returned to Solon. With him went a little chest, beauti- fully armored, in which were treasured many documents of the period. The armored chest passed to a son, Joshua Nelson, whose widow, Helen Knowlton Hilton, in turn gave it to a grandson, Lester A. Hilton of the ancestral farm in Solon.
And among these old time Hilton records in the armored chest at Solon is the original deed of Nov. 15, 1833, by which Samuel Walker (1800-1883), for $5 conveyed a half acre of land to "the proprietors of Anson Second Free Meeting House" during the time for which said proprietors may wish to occupy the same for the purpose of "convening" a meeting house. The half acre was described by metes and bounds - just north of the road and across from the present Walter C. Mc-
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Kenney residence. The land was out of the farm that Samuel, the youngest son, had acquired from his father, pioneer Joseph Walker (1761-1818). The deed. was not recorded till June 2, 1834. By that time the new meeting house had been completed.
Mrs. Sarah J. Hilton Paine, of Chicago, Ill., granddaughter of Joshua and alike of Timothy Cleveland, says that Rev. Isaac Albee and her grandfather Hilton built this church. She taught school in that district, knew Rev. Isaac and Rispah Albee, at- tended quarterly meetings then and at other times when visiting relatives, heard Ben Gould, Jr., (1801), preach, saw him at the house of her father, Mckinney Hilton, where he was exultant over the victories of the Union armies in the war, and remem- bers seeing many people, notable in church and other local affairs of the three adjacent towns.
The original subscribers and proprietors of the white frame meeting-house were fifteen, one of whom was Joshua Hilton. Rev. Isaac was not one of them, but his son, Samuel Albee was, along with Robert Gray, John Paine, Benjamin Gould, Jr., Joseph Walker (1792-1878), Simeon Paine, Asahel Hutchins, John S. Paine (1812-1878), Jeremiah Thompson, Ichabod Bun- ker, Samuel Walker, John Pierce, Jr., Timothy Cleveland and James Wentworth (1787-1847).
Each signed his name to the five articles, but the paper bears no date.
The subscribers and proprietors were about equally divided between the two towns. There were several brothers and first cousins among them. Rev. John Paine lived down the road, as already stated, and his son, John Stinson Paine, lived with him. Simeon was a brother of Rev. John, both sons of Preacher Wil- liam. "Deacon" Joseph Walker and Samuel were brothers and both these brothers, through their sister, Betsey (Walker) Albee, were brothers-in-law of Samuel Albee on the Walker side. The "Deacon's" wife was a sister of Samuel Albee, and Samuel
Walker's wife was a niece of Timothy Cleveland. The "Dea- con" and brother Samuel were alike first cousins of Benjamin Gould; Samuel Albee's wife, Betsey, was sister of the two Walk- ers, as already stated, and also first cousin of Benjamin. Robert Gray was son of Rev. George and Robert's wife was Nancy
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Bunker. He and Ichabod Bunker were ancestors of present day people at North Anson. Capt. Asahel Hutchins and John Pierce, Jr., were the farthest west and James Wentworth farth- est north of the proprietors from Embden. It was a substantial directorate of the Seven Mile Brook community.
The five articles, to which the fifteen subscribed, held them blameless "for any expense on said house except repairs." There were provisions about possession of pews, entrance to the building and legal meetings. Each proprietor was to have "access to the key of said house at any time by calling for the same." There was written in subsequently in heavier ink this saving clause : "but shall be beholden to return the same im- mediately to the keeper."
Others were elected as is shown by a paper of "undersigned proprietors" to furnish a stove for the new meeting-house. Olive (Hutchins) Locke, wife of Rev. Edward, subscribed $20; her son, Capt. Asahel Hutchins and three other proprietors, $1 each ; Humphrey Purington, $0.50.
The ruling price for pews was less than $30. Joshua Hilton, as treasurer, on Sept. 28, 1835, for $27 deeded pew No. 33, to his father, William, the Solon pioneer. The deed was executed before Josiah Paine, justice of the peace, of Anson. In 1846, William transferred this pew back to "Uncle Josh," "for love and affection" as consideration. Timothy Cleveland, whose daughter, Sarah, sang in the choir, bought a pew (number not given in the deed) for $25 about the same time that William Hilton purchased. Humphrey Purington purchased pew No. 7 on Oct. 2, 1835, for $26. His deed thereto was from "the pro- prietors of the second free meeting-house in Anson." It was made by Joshua Hilton, treasurer, and acknowledged before Josiah Paine.
The meeting-house was 50 feet long, 40 feet wide and 16 feet from sills to roof. For many years it was a favorite place of worship for four or five towns. Lawyer William Haskell, prom- inent at North Anson, his name as notary appearing on many farm deeds; Hon. Dennis Moore and brother, Asa, attended from that village. Residents from New Portland Hill, young and old, many of them akin to Anson and Embden members, walked
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a mile and more down the south side of Seven Mile Brook. At a point opposite the church they poled themselves across the shallows in a large flatboat that belonged to Samuel and Joseph Walker. At one time a foot bridge was built across the Brook for the greater con- venience of New Portland. A ring and staple fastened into the ledge as a mooring for this bridge were still in place a few years ago.
The meeting house was a special point of interest when famous ministers came to hold big revivals. The late Harriet Palmer (Mrs. Albert H. Ware), was converted at a Seven Mile Brook revival meeting. Her father, Dr. Isaac Palmer (1807-1880) of North Anson, a noted sur- MRS. SARAH J. HILTON PAINE geon of his day, drove his daughter and a girl friend, the present Mrs. Aurelia Bunker Steward, up there evenings in his buggy.
Mrs. Sarah Paine, mentioned above, wrote recently some recollections of quarterly meetings. "Rev. John Spinney, Rev. Williamson of Starks, Rev. Mark Merrill and James Langley," she says, "were leading ministers at these gatherings. William- son was a brilliant man. I remember Rev. Samuel and Isaac Savage; the Hinckleys and Thomas Paine, my uncle, who lived on the cross road out to the Barron corner ; Amendus, Danville, Ellen and Celestia Campbell; Uncle Isaac and Aunt Rispah Albee and many others. I saw them at the qurterly meetings. Uncle Isaac and his wife were very old and did not work or talk much. I remember Ben Gould coming to my father's (Mc- Kenney Hilton's) to tell them with much sadness that Uncle Isaac had passed away.
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Mrs. Ella Purington Lowell, of Pendleton, Oregon, recently resurrected from family papers she took west with her from Embden the resolutions adopted at the Old Brook meeting-house for "our venerated and beloved Father in the Gospel Eldr Isaac Albee" declaring that "in the death of Father Albee the Q. M. (quarterly meeting) has lost its oldest and one of its most honl and useful ministers; the church one of its main pil- lars, a faithful councellor, an active, watchful and true friend." Among Mrs. Lowell's papers also was the original certificate "to all whom it may consern that Br. Isaac Allbee was ordained a Deacon of Anson Church Oct. 19th., 1812 and to administer the ordinances of the Gospel Where Ever God in his providence Shall call him to." The certificate is signed by Francis Tufts, William Pain and Samuel Hutchins.
The church was long headquarters of several associated activities. One of these was "The Anson and Embden Aboli- tionist Society." The secretary's memorandum, also from Mrs. Lowell's papers, shows that at an annual meeting July 5, 1847, Asa Paine was elected president; Humphrey Purington, vice president; Elisha Purington, secretary and Benjamin Gould, Isaac Albee, Joseph Walker, Samuel Jordan and James F. Luce, committee on arrangements. The society, or at least the sup- porting sentiment, endured many years, for among the papers also is a receipt, dated March 16, 1861, at No. 3 Winter Street, Boston, from Thomas H. Webb, treasurer of the Kansas Relief Committee, acknowledging payment of $26 from the Anson Freewill Baptist quarterly meeting, H. Purington, Embden, secretary.
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