USA > Maine > Somerset County > Embden > Embden town of yore : olden times and families there and in adjacent towns > Part 28
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He studied for the ministry and in 1850 returned to North Ber- wick, where he held a pastorate till his death. William and Anna Quint had another son, Silas H. (1821-1897). He was born in Embden and was a forty-niner by the overland route. He married Eliza Eckles of Philadelphia but made his home at Camden, N. J., and died there.
William Quint and his first wife, Betsey Grant, had a daugh- ter Sarah, born at North Berwick. She married Joseph Chick, a settler of 1831 near the foot of Embden pond. Their family comprised : William Q. (1824) who married Rubah Towne of Concord in 1847 and resided many years in a small house a mile above North Anson ; Joseph C. (1826) ; Nahum (1828) ; Charles (1831) ; Silas (1835), who married Loisa E. Foss in 1858 ; Joshua (1836), whose wife was Theresa A. Foss; Jane (1843) ; and Phil- ander H. (1840-1915), who was shot through one lung by a Con- federate minnie ball at Chancellorsville, Flora A. Hutchinson was his wife. He was an ardent fisherman and kept numbers of large togue, or trout that he caught in Embden pond, impounded in a pool of running water near his house. Passers-by often tar- ried to admire his finny prisoners. His son, Raymond Chick, was an expert marksman who could make good his boast of hit- ting a partridge in the head with a rifle shot. Joseph Chick's brother-in-law, Charles Quint, married Sarah Chandler of New Portland. They have many grandchildren there and in Anson.
Betsey Quint, another daughter of the senior William, mar- ried in 1844 Abraham Chick of Anson, brother of Joseph of Embden. They moved to Stark's in 1858, returned to North Berwick in 1871 and died there. Forest Chick, a son born to them in Starks, became a well-known preacher first in Balti- more county, Md., and then at Hopewell, N. J.
Mary Quint, sister of Mrs. Jeremiah Thompson and of Wil- liam and Nahum Quint, married Robert Quint of Anson, her cousin. This Robert Quint was on the present Wallace Barron farm in 1827 and sold it a year later to Isaac Ford. Robert and Mary had a son, William, and a spinster daughter, Daraxy, a delightful, old-fashioned character. The son William married Lydia Andrews of North Anson in 1847 and settled on Lot 102
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south of Alfred Holbrook, when Cyrus Cleveland's family left there. William and Lydia had a bachelor son, Robert, who died in 1825 and a daughter Mary, who married John A. Went- worth of Embden in 1847 and as his widow resides in Anson. William and Lydia Quint with their two children and "Aunt" Daraxy were a very kindly and much respected household
This large, congenial neighborhood of the Soule purchase and its environs has changed tremendously in fifty years. Few are left to remember "Philand" Chick driving his black nag at top speed down the village road, or the folks from "up by the Pond" who jogged sedately along to the same destination and back again, or the teamsters of vehicles heavily laden with lumber for shipment from the railroad depot. The neighborhood teems with as much activity, perhaps, as of yore although less populous but the old-time families that remain are represented by a new generation and the old days and the old-time people, with which this chapter has tried to deal, are in the main buried in the dead past.
CHAPTER XXII
HELMSMAN OF THE FRENCH FLEET
Some place in Embden history belongs to Capt. Nathan Dag- gett, a noted mariner of the Revolution and chief pilot of Count de Grasse's fleet. He was a friend of the Colbys and McFaddens of Revolutionary service and of the Grays all by the Kennebec. Two of his daughters were brides in that Embden neighborhood during early years of the last century when he resided at New Vineyard and, perhaps for a few years, in Embden. Catherine (1778-1857) married John Gray, Jr., in 1800 as mentioned in a previous chapter. Her sister Nancy Daggett was "of Embden lately of New Vineyard" in 1806, when her troth was plighted to John McFadden and their marriage intentions were published.
Why Nancy never went with him as far as the altar may re- main a mystery forever. Embden records show that in Septem- ber, 1808, she gave her heart and hand to Ebenezer Colby. son of Benjamin, Sr., on the island. Meanwhile John McFadden (1783-1864) wedded Lucy Dunlap of New Milford. before her family came north to a farm in middle Embden. If Nancy Dag- gett was accompanied to Embden by her family - as would seem likely - it was her father or her younger brother. Nathan Dag- gett, Jr., who had been living in 1819 some years on land adja- cent to Simeon Cragin in West Embden. It may also have been one of these Nathans who took up Lots 102 and 103. (the mill farm) bordering the outlet of Embden Pond and sold them in 1827 to Luther Cleveland. There was a Nathan Daggett of Embden in the town records as late as 1854. probably the young- est brother of Tristram. Capt. Nathan the pilot. born at Tis- bury. Mass., in 1750. died about 1838 and rests in an unmarked grave on the New Vineyard road out of West New Portland.
Tristram Daggett (1758-1848) also out of Tisbury, a son of Elijah and a distant cousin of Capt. Nathan, was a New Vine- yard pioneer, two at least of whose sons came to Embden and settled. Tristram like Capt. Nathan and the latter's brothers
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had an exceptional patriot record. Tristram's youngest brother Nathan born about 1770, rather than Capt. Nathan or Nathan, Jr., may have been the Embden settler. The fact that two of Tristram's sons, Henry and Matthew, married nieces of Luther Cleveland, the purchaser of the Mill stream lots, may be reason for believing their owner was this Nathan Daggett.
The Embden Daggetts (originally spelled Doggett) were an interesting group. Both branches of them had a common back- ground in this old colonial family of the vicinity of Martha's Vineyard that suggested the tang of ocean air and the booming of rugged shores. These Daggetts had been seafaring men, as well as farmers, for generations. When the colonies broke with the mother country, many Daggett men gave an excellent ac- count of themselves in the struggle for independence. Their activities in the war and their residence at the seaboard made them ready targets for British resentment after the war. This is said to have prompted the removal of Capt. Nathan in 1793 to New Vineyard. But Anson, Industry and Farmington, as well as Embden and New Vineyard, had considerable accessions from this clan and also from Butlers, Chases, Wests and Nortons with whom its members mated. Isaacs, Nathans, Samuels, Seths and Tristrams recurred with some confusion in nomenclature as the families multiplied. While the two daughters of Nathan, the pilot, and two sons of Tristram, the soldier, married with Colbys, Clevelands and Grays the family was never numerously present in the town. Bangor, Levant and like Penobscot towns that had quite an Embden aftermath became for them - as for many of their kin - a popular settler's alternative. Also, like many others of that time, some moved far westward.
The similar names to sons in different family branches have led to modern errors regarding Capt. Nathan Daggett. The services as pilot for Count de Grasse have been ascribed to Nathan, the brother of Tristram, by one historian. A petition to Congress, dated July 12, 1838, now in the Revolutionary files of the Pen- sion Office at Washington, however, establishes the identity be- yond question. The text is given verbatim :
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"To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled Humbly represent the undersigned children and heirs-at-law of Nathan Daggett for- merly of Tisbury, Dukes county, Marthas Vineyard, Massachu- setts, but late of New Vineyard, Somerset county and state of Maine Deceased; that the said Nathan Daggett was employed for a length of time in the land and Naval service, that he suf- fered much in his property and that during his life time he never received a pension or any remuneration from government or any source whatever and your petitioners believe conceding the important services performed and when taking into view that Lord Corn Wallis could not have been taken without the coop- eration of the French Fleet, your petitioners are willing to test their claim on the merits of the case as more fully set forth in the accompanying documents."
Signing themselves as "children of the late Nathan Daggett" in the order given were :
Nathan, the youngest child of Capt. Nathan and Anna Wil- kins. He married Feb. 5, 1815, Polly Elliott of New Portland.
Thomas Daggett, who married in 1819 Hannah Merrill of New Portland and resided at Madison.
West Daggett, the oldest son, whose wife was Mrs. Betsey (Thomas) Talcott (1789-1878) of Anson.
Jesse Daggett, married in 1821 to Sophia Lovejoy.
Catherine Gray of Embden, the wife of John Gray, Jr.
Elizabeth Pomeroy, who eventually went west with her hus- band, Richard.
Nancy Colby who had resided in southeast Embden with her husband, Ebenezer, several years before going west.
Lydia Wescott. Her first husband was John Elliott of New Portland, after whose death she married Moses Wescott and 1 accompanied her sisters Elizabeth and Nancy and their hus- bands.
Abigail Daggett and Peter Butler of New Vineyard certified by affidavit that the above were Nathan's children.
The chief obstacle Capt. Nathan met in trying for a pension arose from the claim that he had not been in the service of the
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United States. He had been pilot on many vessels. At first his Revolutionary service was as a pilot of craft belonging to Connecticut. Samuel Daggett of Tisbury made affidavit that Nathan volunteered at the time of the burning of Fairfield, being "very active in working a small piece." The same affidavit details that Nathan as coast pilot for the Defense steered her in a combat with an English ship and brig loaded with Scotch Highland troops and stores for the army at Boston. There was a severe engagement during which 39 Highlanders were killed and the ship was captured.
"Toward the close of the War of the Revolution," continues Samuel Daggett's affidavit, "the schooner President in the French service came into Holmes Hole and the aforesaid Nathan Daggett went on board and went to the West Indies, either in her or in a Frigate I am not certain which, to pilot the French Fleet to the siege of York Town and said Daggett was Pilot of the Ville de Paris, Admiral Count de Gresse, and was at the Capture of Cornwallis."
Capt. Nathan Daggett's own version of his experience with the French fleet may be assumed in the neighborhood account that used to be repeated in West New Portland and New Vine- yard long after he had passed to his reward. It was told by John Mitchell in July, 1891, as follows :
"When he (Nathan Daggett) went aboard to take the position, the French Admiral told him that he would have to conform to French rules which were that if he made a mistake and put the ' fleet on the rocks or sand banks it would cost him his life; that he would not live a minute. 'I will put this sword through you,' as the French officer expressed it. He took the position and con- veyed the fleet safely along. The sum paid him for his services was large.
"On one occasion when the British were coming to our shore, the signal gun had been fired. The French officer ordered his fleet to prepare for battle and told Daggett to go below where there would be no danger to him. Daggett, when he heard the firing, peeped out of the side of the vessel. 'Don't you do that again. If you do I will cut your head off,' said the officer, who
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had observed the act. 'We are in unknown waters and I am depending on you to pilot us safely out of this. If you are killed we are lost.' "
Two of Nathan's brothers - sons of Seth of Tisbury (1713- 1779) - came to Franklin county. Samuel (1745-1835) died in New Vineyard. His first wife was Sarah Butler; his second Abigail, daughter of Elijah Daggett and a sister of Tristram, the Revolutionary soldier. The other brother was Silas Daggett (1757) whose wife, Deborah Butler, was probably a sister of Samuel's first wife. Samuel, known as Capt. Samuel, probably had command in 1781 of the ship "Mars" of six guns and 20 men. He came to New Vineyard and settled in what is now the town of Industry in 1794, a year after Nathan's arrival. Capt. Silas, the third brother, arrived at Industry in 1806 and was town clerk and treasurer of Industry in 1809. The next year he declined election, making a quaint report that his books would not tell the truth. This was in effect that while he had entered all orders and bills and had paid all the bills "his book showed a considerable sum of money due him which he knew was not the case." He was a sailor and commander of vessels and also wrote poetry. The last years of his life were spent at Martha's Vineyard.
Christiana (1802), daughter of John and Catherine (Dag- gett) Gray, married in 1824 James Daggett, Jr. They were probably cousins. He owned 75 acres of Embden land the fol- lowing year and was living on Lot 60 in middle Embden. He bought of Ephraim Spaulding of Anson in 1830 a tract of 941/2 acres, east of the Jeremiah Chamberlain lot and immediately south of the present cross town road and three years later sold to Willard C. McFadden (1808-1885).
Capt. Nathan and his cousin Tristram were in a group from the locality of Martha's Vineyard that purchased the township of New Vineyard. Tristram was first of these purchasers to appear in the wake of the surveyors to establish his homestead. Thus he was two years in advance of his kinsman Nathan. He drew his 100 acres east of the New Vineyard mountains in the first range adjoining the Lowell strip not far from Clearwater
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Pond. Obtaining a backload of provisions at the settlement on Sandy River - where Farmington now is - he engaged a set- tler to guide him up the mountain to the town line, newly marked by spotted trees. Thence he traveled, axe in hand, identified his lot, made a camp by a spring and commenced felling trees. He soon brought his family to a log cabin. They remained at the place for three years till he sold his farm to Herbert Boardman. Tristram next moved to the Lowell strip but sold his farm there to David Luce and located finally at West Mills.
As a pioneer into New Vineyard, he had an unusual back- ground. While a young man at Tisbury he had made his liveli- hood on the sea. He endured much suffering as a soldier in the 7th Massachusetts regiment in which he served during most of the Revolutionary War period. When he was discharged June 8, 1783, he had a badge of merit for five years faithful service and his discharge papers were signed by "G. Washington." Two years later Jane Merry became his wife. They seem to have gone into the new country soon thereafter. Of their large fam- ily born at Industry were the two sons, who early came to Embden. These were :
Henry (1789-1857) who married at Industry July 16, 1815, Abigail B. Cleveland (1795-1877) daughter of Jonathan Cleve- land of Embden. They lived there for at least two years, moved to Bingham, where their two youngest children were born, were back at Embden in 1837 when Henry was one of the school agents, and then to Levant. Henry was a farmer there and be- came chairman of the board of selectmen before he went to Penn- sylvania. He died at Wellsville in that state, near the New York boundary in a region that had many emigrants from Maine. His widow in later years resided at Bangor, where she died. Their son, Jonathan C. Daggett, was on the Embden tax list in 1860.
Matthew (1797-1859) was married Dec. 6, 1818, by Ephraim Sawyer, justice of the peace, to Dorothy Cleveland (1797-1859) a sister of Abigail. They resided at Embden the remainder of their lives. When they were burned to death May 11, 1859, their farm was the old Timothy Cleveland homestead.
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Tristram Daggett at West Mills in the meantime married Nancy Norton at Industry in 1830 as his second wife. She died in 1846. His son, Timothy Daggett, who after the spirit of his ancestors at Martha's Vineyard had followed the sea for thir- teen years for a livelihood, eventually settled in 1845 at Park- man, Me., and became owner of several farms. Tristram soon joined him and died there. Tristrim drew a pension as a Rev- olutionary soldier under the acts of 1818, 1828 and 1832. He was afflicted with much sickness in his family and several chil- dren died in youth. Like misfortune attended the family of his son Matthew and of certain of Matthew's children. There was a tragedy in each of several generations after Tristram.
Other Embden Daggetts were nearly all Matthew's descend- ants. There was an Isaac Daggett on the Embden lists for a while about 1825. There was also a Samuel Daggett of Embden in the 1860's. He lived in 1870 on Lot 102, later the Robert Quint farm. Although the Matthew Daggetts lost four of their young children between 1823 and 1840, they were survived by sons and daughters who became well known in the town. One of these, Obed W. (1835), was a Civil War soldier in Co. F, 10th Maine Volunteers and was discharged for disability in 1862. He resided on Lot 120 in 1863, later owned by John Mullen, his nephew. James G. Daggett (1842-1862.) a brother of Obed enlisted in the 7th Maine and died at Washington. Annie E. (1838-1904) was Mrs. George B. Walker. Polly Cleveland (1824-1914) was Mrs. Abraham Mullen and resided many years on a farm above Hancock stream. John Mullen was one of her children. Rachel Jane Daggett, another daughter also of Matthew and Abigail Daggett, married (1) Anson Denicon of East Vassalboro in 1848 and Barzilla Ford in 1857. Isaac Dag- gett (1819-1902), who married Rebecca Walker (1819-1911) of a Freeman family, was the oldest of Matthew Daggett's children.
Isaac, Methodist deacon, had a long Embden residence first east of Black Hill, then on farm No. 129 and afterward on No. 103 and was a kindly character. He and his wife, who now lie in Sunset Cemetery, were widely respected. Sorrow, such as attended his grandfather Tristram, and tragedy such as marked
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the death of his father and mother, Matthew and Dorothy, at- tended Deacon Isaac. He had two children, Ellen (Mrs. Michael Berry) and Albert R. Daggett, born in 1855. This son lost his life at a neighborhood charivari (wedding serenade) in June, 1884. He was at that time a widower with three small children. Albert's wife was Frankie Cleveland (1856-1879), whose great uncle, Asher, was killed by a falling tree in 1867. Albert's son, Sherman Daggett (1876), was also killed by a falling tree Dec. 17, 1912. Albert had attractive twin daughters, Mae and Frankie. The latter (1879-1899) died shortly after her mar- riage. Mae (Mrs. J. T. Bigelow), the widow of George Cun- ningham, later dwelt at Norridgewock.
With the passing of Deacon Isaac, his son and grandson the family name became extinct in the town. On the distaff side there are still many descendants and many more from the Matthew Daggett family. Most of them reside afar. What holds in that regard of descendants of Tristram Daggett, the soldier, who came to Embden for homes and opportunity, applies in larger degree to like decendants of Nathan, the pilot, who kept the French frigates in a safe depth of ocean as they maneuvered for American independence.
CHAPTER XXIII
FOUR DAUGHTERS OF DAWES
One hardly finds the name of Dawes in residence lists and other records of Embden town but this eminent colonial family has hundreds of kinsmen among Embden people of the last century and a quarter. Four pioneer daughters of Ambrose and Deborah (Phillips) Dawes, of Duxbury, Mass., mothered this numerous progeny. They were Rhoda and Sally, who mar- ried Nathaniel Getchell and Francis Burns, early Embden set- tlers, and Nancy and Rispah. two older sisters, who were the wives of John Walker and Rev. Isaac Albee, in Anson. Except Nancy, whose household was on the Kennebec, all lived on prac- tically adjacent farms and close by Seven Mile Brook. Theirs is an unusual story.
Ambrose, the father, was born on July 21, 1740, lived near Vassalboro and Winslow for a while, and then became one of the earliest settlers at Barnardstown (Madison) not far from the present village. He was a second cousin of William Dawes, Jr., (1745-1799) who shared in stirring events at Boston just before the Revolutionary War. This is the William Dawes, who ac- cepted a charge from Gen. Warren to ride by way of Roxbury. Brighton Bridge and Cambridge when Paul Revere rode on a similar errand by way of Charlestown, as told in Longfellow's famous poem. Both reached Lexington to warn Hancock and Adams but Dawes, the second to reach Lexington, alone got through to Concord arriving at 2 o'clock in the morning of April 19, 1775.
It was an English family and William Dawes (1620-1703), the first to settle in America, came to Braintree in 1635 when a boy. He moved to Boston in 1652, prospered there and built a mansion house, known as The Parrot, where several generations after him resided. He was a member of the first church, but eventually withdrew to assist in organizing the third. or Old South church, where he was one of those who precipitated a
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successful but bitterly fought campaign that established a larger right to vote and to hold office.
His eldest son, Ambrose (1642-1705) - like his father a mason and builder by trade - was an active member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery and participated in Indian wars. Am- brose, in 1692 had a large part in rebuilding Fort Pemaquid, then the northernmost outpost in Maine. He lost one eye there in action with the Indians, for which the General Court allotted him ten pounds with the proviso "that he come not for any further satisfaction." His wife, Susannah Bumstead, was in terred in the family tomb at King's Chapel, now in the heart of the Boston business district.
Two of their sons were Ambrose, Jr., (1675-1724) and Thomas (1680-1750). Ambrose, Jr., departed from Boston prior to 1704, in which year he married Mehitable Gardner of Nantucket. She bore him a daughter, Priscilla. In 1714 Ambrose married Mary Chandler and in 1722 took her and the children to a small farm he had purchased at Duxbury. Their oldest son was Eben- ezer Dawes, born in 1715. He followed the trade of blacksmith, married Mary Goshen, who had a son, Ambrose on July 21, 1740. This Ambrose, choosing Deborah Phillips as his bride, left the considerable Dawes and Phillips neighborhood at Duxbury a few years later and in 1769 joined the Cape Cod colonists who were pioneering to the wilderness on the upper Kennebec. They wrote their name then and long afterward as "Dor" or "Dors."
As usually held with those seeking their fortunes in a newer country Ambrose and Deborah (Phillips) Dawes had less of worldly goods than his prosperous and influential kinsmen at Boston. But they had three Duxbury daughters - Nancy (1764- 1839), Huldah (1766) and Rispah (1767-1862) and a Duxbury born son, Reuel (1769). Two of the daughters, Nancy and Rispah, married in 1788. This was six years after John Walker, Nancy's husband, came up the river from Woolwich with his brother Stephen, and made his settler's location on 100 acres of rich intervale land across the river in Anson but not far from Ambrose Dawes.
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Tradition has it that Rispah, an attractive maiden, had been helping Jonathan'and Sarah Danforth Albee in their household of small children at a cabin in what is now North Anson village and Jonathan - a veteran of the Burgoyne campaign - asked her if she would take his son, Isaac Albee, for her pay. What- ever the consideration may have been, apart from love and af- fection, Isaac took Rispah to wife in October and she became his worthy helpmeet over a long period of years. He was converted in 1795 and baptized by Rev. Edward Locke in the Freewill Baptist faith. The next year he and others were organized into the Anson church, better known as the Old Brook meeting house, just south of the Embden line. Isaac was ordained a deacon there in 1812.
He and Rispah in the meantime had taken up a farm, a short distance from the church. His labors, apart from tilling the virgin soil, "were blessed to the conversion of many." He was a powerful exhorter, although his education, it was said, had been confined to one day's schooling. He died in the winter of 1861, almost 95 years of age. Rispah passed on a year later at 94.
It was to be told round the hearthstones through the Seven Mile Brook region that when the Dawes family was early in Maine and Rispah still a small girl, the Indians one day chased her, but that she escaped by running to near-by Fort Halifax, in the present town of Winslow. This was a garrison, with a building 20 feet high and having sufficient room to accommo- date 400 soldiers. It was established in 1754 by 500 troops sent up the Kennebec to explore the carrying place between that river and the Chaudiere.
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