USA > Maine > Somerset County > Embden > Embden town of yore : olden times and families there and in adjacent towns > Part 30
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THE STONE HOUSE. LIEUT. JOHN PIERCE. SEVEN MILE BROOK ROAD WITH OLD PIERCE-PURINGTON GRAVEYARD UNDER EVER- GREEN TREES AT LEFT.
of the marriage of Sarah Pierce, as stated, with Timothy Cleveland, Jr., and because Edith Cragin, a half-sister of Anna and a sister of Hannah, married in 1817 James Young Cleveland, a cousin of Timothy, Jr.
These marriages indicate only in part how local family groups were knit together in the early history of Embden when the
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old-time social convention of marriage within the clan was still rather rigorously observed. The Pierces within a few years were identified with families across the town. The ramifications of their kinship by marriage extended to Savage, Dinsmore, Lowell, Danforth, Moore, Young and other families.
Benjamin Pierce's monument in Embden - like his brother John's - was his sons and daughters of fine ability and exemplary character. This was conspicuously true of Benjamin's youngest son, John Bartlett Pierce (1843-1917), who became the organizer and chief executive of the American Radiator Company and was even more widely known as a million- aire philanthropist.
This outstanding native of the rural town belongs to a note- worthy group of Embden farmer lads who became business geniuses and captains of industry. Contemporary with John B. Pierce, or nearly so, were the brothers Marcellus Ayer (1839- 1921) and George A. Ayer (1841-1923) of Boston and their kinsman Joel Gray (1830-1874) who also made his career and his considerable fortune in the same city. Nathan W. Spaulding (1829-1903) and. John P. Spaulding (1832-1896), the Boston Sugar King, although born respectively in Anson and Madison, belonged in part to Embden, because Nathan's mother, Lydia, and John's grandfather, Jonathan Spaulding, were Embden residents. It is equally noteworthy that most, if not all, these Embden born business leaders were famous likewise for their arge benefactions.
Following the death of his father John Bartlett Pierce from Gordon hill went to Norridgewock. He studied at Westbrook Seminary, was graduated and in 1868 became a clerk in a hard- vare store in New Hampshire. Then he went to Massachusetts, where, at Ware, he had a hardware store of his own, till he was 0 years old. He migrated to Buffalo, N. Y., in 1873 where he vas eight years in the hardware business. During that time his ctivities included contracts for the installation of steam and hot ater heating plants, out of which he gained a vision of the ossibilities of scientific development in radiating and ventilat-
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ing apparatus. He built a small factory at Buffalo in 1880 for making steel boilers and two years later acquired a factory for the manufacture of cast iron radiators at Westfield, Mass.
His manufacturing grew by leaps and bounds and by 1892 The Pierce Steam Heating Company, established in 1884, was
JOHN BARTLETT PIERCE
consolidated with other interests to become the American Radiator Company. He was the first vice-president of the larger corporation. His residence with its estate of 800 acres and its 300,000 trees - the planting of which he had personally superintended - became a show place at Lynnfield, Mass. It surrounded Lake Suntaug, a beautiful sheet of water.
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His will is cited by persons interested in educational, philan- thropic and industrial problems as a document of unusual ability. It distributed $1,000,000 in the common stock of the Radiator Company to a list of over 400 of his "business associates who have demonstrated keen ability, combined with a fine sense of honor, a high quality of integrity, and a conscientious and loyal devotion to the performance of duty." These older employees were also given, with certain limitations, 60 per cent of the in- come from the residue of the estate, while all surplus from the several millions that he left, was devoted to the creation of the "John B. Pierce Foundation." The object of this was to promote educational, technical and scientific research in the general field of heating, ventilation and sanitation "to the end that the general hygiene and comfort of human beings and their habitations may be advanced."
The gross value of Mr. Pierce's estate on June 23, 1917 - the date of his death - was $6,500,000 as reported by the executors and trustees and, after payment of specific legacies and other charges, including inheritance taxes and probate expenses in Massachusetts, New York, Washington and British Columbia, was in excess of $3,300,000. The Federal inheritance taxes alone amounted to $726,653.34. Among associates and employees of the Radiator Company, who became beneficiaries under his will were residents of England, France and Italy, Germany and Austria. The total net income of his estate for the first six months after his death was over $260,000.
He was the only child of his father's second marriage. His widow, Adelaide Leonard, survived him, but they had no issue. His half-brothers and half-sisters and their descendants were generously remembered in his will.
This older family by Benjamin Pierce's first marriage com- prised a major part of the men and women of that name at Embden in later years. They were a vigorous group in local affairs even after several of them moved from town. In the order of their ages Benjamin's children were:
Edith (1818-1884) who married in 1848 Ozias H. McFadden by the Kennebec.
:
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David W. (1820-1870) who married Olive Albee (1824-1888) Jan. 30, 1847. They lived in West Embden and their children and grandchildren included many exceptional individuals.
Simeon C. (1822) who married Mary H. Osborne and became a resident of Selma, Ala.
Eleanor C. (1824-1850) who married Llewellyn E. Crommett of Waterville.
Mary (1827-1857) and Sarah (1827-1844) were twins. Mary, who became Mrs. John Locke, had a daughter, Bella (1855-1876) who joined the Harvard family of Shakers in 1870. The only surviving descendant of these four daughters of Benjamin Pierce is Mrs. Carrie McFadden Hutchins of Waterville with whom their line becomes extinct.
Benjamin F. (1829-1856) who was a locomotive engineer and lost his life when a train he was driving fell through a bridge.
Henry C. (1834-1884) who owned and operated the Embden Pond mills.
George W. (1837-1920), unmarried, whose residence was at Baraboo, Wis.
John Pierce, Jr., had an interesting but less numerous family than his younger brother Benjamin. Of his five children all except Sarah (1815-1870) were by his second wife. Sarah Pierce, called Sally in the neighborhood, was a brilliant young woman but became a victim of religious mania from which she never recovered. She resided alone in a small house close to her father's. The family of John Pierce, Jr., by his second mar- riage with Sarah Spaulding consisted of :
John, 3rd, (1823-1885) who in 1851 wedded Sophronia Good- rich (1822-1875) of Bingham and succeeded his father as a prominent Embden townsman and also as owner of the farm with the stone house. Izetta Nichols of Starks was his second wife. He left his farm late in life to reside at Skowhegan. He had two children. The older, Harriet Elizabeth (1852) taught the Cragin school in 1869, the Barron school in 1870 and in 1873 married Frank B. Ward of Skowhegan, the former regis- ter of deeds for Somerset county. Percy Ward was their son. Mrs. Ward was quite successful as a portrait painter. Stephan-
!
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us Pierce (1854), a real estate operator in St. Paul, was Mrs. Ward's brother.
Merari Spaulding Pierce (1826-1869), named for his maternal grandfather at Bingham, married in 1865 Sarah J. Salley, a popular Embden teacher.
This marriage, following Merari's sojourn of a few years in California, was a romantic topic. He was con- siderably the older of the two. After his death at Anson she married George Mantor of Madison and was the mother of Mrs. Emma French of Solon, Mrs. Bertha Burns of Brunswick, Walon Mantor of Madison and Malon Mantor who lived in the SARAH J. SALLEY AND MERARI S. West. Isaac Pierce, of Skow- PIERCE
hegan, was the only son of
her first marriage. Isaac's son, Dr. Walter Merton Pierce, dentist of Farmington was a captain in the medical corps in the World War and saw service at Verdun.
Anna Elizabeth (1828-1850) a teacher of 1868 in the Barron school.
Walter (1833) went to California. His son George W. Pierce was a student at Bellevue Hospital and is now a practicing physician at Eureka.
David Pierce, of the third generation from Lieut. John, and his wife Olive Albee had seven children. The sons were George A. (1848-1921) of North New Portland and Los Angeles, whose vidcw Emma, daughter of Solomon Walker of Embden, now re- sides in the California city; Fred B. (1850-1908), whose first vife was Sarah (1852-1891) a daughter of Samuel A. Walker of Embden and whose second wife was Eva Chick; and Frank A. 1855-1915) who married Ella M. Green. Frank's daughter, Fostena, as Mrs. Harry Dickey has a big family born between
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1908 and 1922. The girls of David and Olive Pierce's Embden fold were Clara M. (1853-1915) who was Mrs. James Weeks and died childless; Flora E. (1859-1903) who was Mrs. Llewellyn Berry; Edith M. (1861-1910) who married H. Foster Elder, resided in New Hampshire and had a daughter, Hallie (Mrs. John W. Morrison), and Emma F. (1863-1915) who married Austin Berry in 1882 an eventually went to live in the stone house on the John Pierce farm.
The two brothers, John Jr., and Benjamin - sons of Lieut. John - frequently held town office. John was second selectman in 1823; first selectman and town clerk in 1824 and '25; town treasurer from 1830 to 1836. Benjamin was town agent for three years (1834, '35 and '36). John Pierce, 3rd, also held many town offices. He was treasurer from March, 1850 till 1862.
Two ancient burying grounds of the notable Pierce-Cragin- Jackson-Burns-Cleveland-Purington neighborhood flank the An- son-New Portland high road of this day. In one or the other of these most of the older Pierces of Embden are interred for their last long sleep. Benjamin Pierce and his wife Hannah lie in the north, or Jackson burying ground along with Simeon and John Cragin, Capt. Benjamin Cleveland, Matthew W. Daggett, Francis Burns and their wives. Lieut. John and Mary Pierce, John and Anna Pierce, John 3rd and Sophronia Pierce with Humphrey and Elisha Purington and others of the Purington stock lie in the south ground.
Nearly a mile further on up Seven Mile Brook was the home- stead of two other notable families. It is known now as Lot 183, the Lisherness place. At the beginning of the last century Ephraim Sawyer of fine colonial stock resided there. His house overlooked the lengthy little island in the brook; southward was the Nimrod Hinds farm. Sawyer came thither about 1810. He dwelt there about a decade, selling his farm in April, 1824, to Capt. Joseph Knowlton, "gentleman of Freeman." But he also owned an hundred acre tract eastward, No. 182, whose eastern boundary was the Black hill road, near where Benjamin Pierce was living.
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Ephraim Sawyer was the first resident of Embden to have the names and dates of birth of his children entered in the records. The entry stood : William, Sept. 3, 1803; Sophronia, Jan. 1, 1806; Emeline, Jan. 23, 1810; Anna, Oct. 9, 1812; Albina, Feb. 5, 1815; Viola, April 5, 1817. He moved to New Portland. His son, William Sawyer of that town in 1835 pur- chased Lot 191 in Embden of Warren Hutchins. Ephraim Saw- yer was associated with Capt. Josiah Parker of the Falls in at least one land deal. The Levi Sawyer, who was at Anson in 1781, was presumably his father. As justice of the peace in that early day he performed marriage ceremonies for several Embden couples.
Capt. Joseph W. Knowlton (1780-1862) who came to the Saw- yer farm in 1824 belonged to a colonial family at Ipswich, Mass. He had three wives who bore him 13 children. The wives were Nancy (1780-1819) ; Betsey (1795-1828) ; and Lydia Chatman of Noble- borough (1792-1847) whom he married in 1829. Nine
children born to Nancy, were: Alice (1802) ; William (1804) ; Joseph, Jr., (1806) who in 1829 married Han- nah Sanborn of New Port- land; Isaac (1808) ; Martha (1810), Mrs. George Howes of Lexington; Mary Ann (1812) who in 1839 became Mrs. Mark A. Lisherness and dwelt with her husband on CAPT. JOSEPH W. KNOWLTON the home farm; Sally (1814-1905) who in 1842 wedded David G. McKenney of Embden and lived for 31 years of her long widow- hood with her son, William H. of that town; Nancy (1816- 1820) ; and John (1819) who married in 1842 Caroline Church- ill of New Portland. The John Knowltons lived near the Falls.
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Their son, John, Jr., was a successful school teacher of forty years ago. By his second wife Capt. Joseph had three more daughters - Priscilla (1822-1843) ; Nancy (1824) who became in 1844 the wife of Harper B. McKean of Strong; and Betsey (1826) who the same year became the wife of John McKean of Strong. He came from Freeman where all except his last two children were born, got his military title there for service in the militia but had a considerable part in Embden town affairs.
Long after Ephraim Sawyer and Capt. Joseph Knowlton had passed on, Mark A. Lisherness and his wife, Mary Ann, con- tinued with their family of children at the big house up in the field from the brook. There were six of these Lisherness chil- dren; Granville (1842) ; Charles (1844) ; Eudora (1846) who married Almond Jackson of New Portland in 1866; Mark, Jr., (1850) ; Cornelia (1855) and Henry W. (1860).
In the immediate neighborhood with Benjamin Pierce and his son David but eastward were the Wentworth brothers, James and Andrew. Both were from Canton, Mass., only sons of Ben- jamin (1761-1805) and Rachel Lewis (1757-1842) Wentworth of that town. Their sister, Martha, was Mrs. Josiah Richardson of Roxbury. Benjamin Wentworth was a soldier of the Revo- lution. His father Moses and mother Susanna Warren Went- worth were in that part of Stoughton before it became Canton, as was Moses' parents John and Elizabeth Bailey Wentworth. And John's father, John Wentworth, leased land of the Indians in Stoughton as early as 1704. This older John was the second son of Elder William Wentworth, founder of the family in America, and came from Dover, N. H. He was a brother of Samuel Wentworth, the father of the first of the famous Went- worth colonial governors of New Hampshire.
James Lewis Hawks Wentworth (1787-1847) located on Lot 143 about 1810. He purchased this of the John Innis Clark executors at Providence, not far from his native town of Canton. James married in 1815 Hannah Blackman (1795-1827) of Augusta and in 1828 Deborah Burns (1806-1888) of Embden. There were eighteen children by these marriages. The oldest was Jarvis Wentworth (1816-1863) whose life story was out of the ordinary.
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Like other young farmers in that neighborhood Jarvis was a carpenter. He went to Tunbridge, Vt., where he became expert in constructing the covered bridges of that day. Jarvis married Nancy Fifield and had a son, James Junius, and a daugh- ter Mary A., when the war began and he rode away as sergeant in Company E, First Vermont Cavalry. He fell at Fredericksburg with wounds from which he died a few days later at Frederick, Md. There are several grand- children. One of them is George C. Wentworth, son of James Junius and a resident of Norfolk, Conn. He is an expert in farm management. The cavalryman's daughter, Mary, married Horace A. SERGEANT JARVIS WENTWORTH Washburn. Their son is Dr. Clarence Junius Washburn a dentist of Concord, N. H., who has been a member of the city government.
The other James Wentworth children by Hannah Blackman were : Harriet (1817), Mrs. Rufus Burns ; Fanny (1819) ; Louisa (1820-1842) ; Octavia (1822), Mrs. Benjamin Cleveland of Iowa; and twins John and Jane who died in infancy. Jesse (1829- 1906), father of John Wentworth the only descendant of the Wentworth name now in Embden, was the oldest of James's children by Deborah Burns. John's interesting family includes Emily G. Wentworth, a successful school teacher. Of this fam- ily who survived to mature years were: Ruth (1831-1905) who never married ; Hannah (1832-1917) who was Mrs. Peter Hegen- botham at Lawrence, Mass .; Jefferson (1838-1915) who died at Madison after many years at Lawrence; Nancy (1840-1911) wife of Elisha Brown of Solon, one of whose granddaughters is Mrs. Leforest Estes of Auburn; James L. (1842-1905) who lived on
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the old homestead; Martha R. (1843-1913) who was the wife of Stillman A. Walker of Embden; Jerry (1845) who mar- ried Sarah M. Cleveland and lived at Madison; and John A. (1847-1917), who married May L. Quint of Embden in 1874 and resided at South Anson. Mark Wentworth of Newport and Mrs. Elmer Brackett are their children.
There are many descendants in Maine and Massachusetts from these Wentworths but comparatively few bear the Wentworth name. The homestead with its ancient house, one of the oldest remaining in town, was long ago abandoned but is the annual meeting place of the Wentworth association.
Andrew Wentworth (1789-1852) purchased a farm (Lot 142) adjoining his brother's in 1815. He, too, was twice married, first to Sally Howard (1788-1835) of Augusta in 1817 and in 1837 to Rosilla Thompson of Embden. His first wife died in 1835; his second in 1872 at China, Me., whither his children removed after his death. Andrew had eleven sons and daughters by his two marriages. The first was Susan (1818) who married Daniel Hilton and resided in Wisconsin; then Lois (1820-1897) the wife of William R. Jackson; Seth (1820) who married Sarah Abbott of Winslow; Lewis (1823-1900) a Methodist preacher who married Mary S. Hawes and lived at Clinton; Mary (1828- 1864) who was Mrs. William H. Hodges of Winslow, where her son, Alton A. Hodges now resides ; and Nathan (1830-1891) who married Didama R. Abbott and lived at Albion. Mrs. Ella Web- ber of Waterville is Nathan's daughter. Andrew's children in his second family were: Sarah (1839), a much beloved Embden teacher who married Bateman Conforth of China ; Daniel (1839- 1908) who married Eliza Mitchell and lived at China, where their children Elmer E. Wentworth of North Vassalboro, Mrs. Julia E. Patterson of Waterville, George W. and Bateman C. Wentworth were born; Ellen (1840-1896) who married Alonzo M. Kitchen of China and lived at Lawrence, Kan .; Amos J. Wentworth (1842-1863) and Mark A. Wentworth (1844-1864). The last two sons lost their lives in the Civil War. Mark, a physical giant, fell at Cold Harbor. Daniel Wentworth carried on the home farm for a few years and sold it to his cousin. Jesse
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Burns. Afterward it became the property of Fred B. Pierce. Most of Andrew's family settled in Kennebec county. Near the head of the Wentworth lane up from the Embden cross road is an ancient burying ground where several of the older Went- worths of both the James and Andrew families are interred.
The Jackson families belong with the Pierces and Wentworths in the Seven Mile Brook community. The date when Abel, head of the Jackson branch in Embden, came there is uncertain. His wife was Rachel Burns (1783), a daughter of James and Abi- gail Spencer Burns of Anson. The Jacksons were from Wiscas- set and Abel may have been the son of Benjamin Jackson and Molly ( Walker) Jackson who were there in 1790. Some Jack- sons were at Vassalboro and Fairfield in pioneer times and eventually went northward to Concord and beyond.
Abel and Rachel Jackson had three sons - William R., Bart- lett and Amos. Bartlett Jackson was an early immigrant into Wisconsin and after that lived in Iowa. Amos Jackson married Sarah Burns, daugh- ter of Francis. William R. Jackson (1810-1897) married in 1839 Lois Wentworth. That was four years after he and Amos had purchased a near- by farm (Lot 163) in the Black Hill region, not far from Andrew Wentworth's farm. But before the mar- riage the brothers had bought of their uncle, Jonathan Cleveland, half of his home- stead. The brothers traded their interests so that Amos remained on the Black Hill WILLIAM R. JACKSON place and William soon came into full ownership of the Cleveland farm. In the course of years Amos and his family came to the Francis Burns place. He lived on a New Portland farm before
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he and his wife and daughters went to Massachusetts. Mrs. N. A. Heseltine of Haverhill, Mass., was the last survivor of Amos Jackson whose line is now extinct.
William and Lois Jackson had a fine family on the Jonathan Cleveland farm. It had two sets of buildings for a while and about 1860 William lived in buildings south of the highway. Josiah Parker about that time owned the half of the Cleveland farm north of the road. He died in 1861 and William Jackson acquired this from Parker's administrators. The children of William and Lois were:
Eliza (1840), who married Joseph Gordon. Mrs. Laura Strickland of New Portland is their oldest child.
Allen (1842) after service in the Union army moved to Wis- consin. Mrs. Daniel Hashie of Phillips, Wis., is his daughter.
Andrew W. (1844), one of whose children is Mrs. Wilfred Phelps of North Vassalboro.
William Bartlett (1846) whose son Frank W. Jackson is a resident of Madison, N. H.
Sylvester (1849-1923) married (1) Elizabeth M. McKenney (1855-1882) and (2) Emma J. Berry (1856-1919). Sylvester resided in Embden on the Cleveland-Jackson homestead. Myrtle Berry of North Anson is one of his several grandchildren.
Olive Jackson (1852) who married J. Frank Barron (1852- 1923) and was the mother of six Embden children.
Frederic A. Jackson (1854) who lives at North New Portland.
Jacksons as well as Wentworths in Embden were religiously minded and alert for the education of their children. They made the most of home facilities and then sent their scholars to Anson Academy and elsewhere for further instruction. So it was that these families supplied several good teachers. Home schools for the Wentworths were held at first alternately in the houses of Andrew and James but later a simple, unfinished frame house, was erected at the corner of the Wentworth lane and the cross road. This accommodated also the Amos Jacksons, many of the Clevelands and the David Pierces. The Methodist Bible class was hardly second to the school in this neighborhood. It began its meetings at Andrew Wentworth's.
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Living conditions were especially hard in this part of the town. The settlers by no means knew of the character of the land. When James Wentworth came north to start his buildings he wrote back to his brother Andrew that he thought the loca- tion would be all right if they could find stones enough to build their cellar walls. Yet the ground was full of rocks as the many stone heaps and stone walls now the most conspicuous feature of the abandoned acres fully demonstrate. How these farmers managed to raise their large families and feed them modern people find it difficult to understand.
Lois (Wentworth) Jackson used to recall anecdotes from her parents about their lives in the early days. One was about the hazards from fire, when clearings were being burned. Her mother, Mrs. Andrew Wentworth, was wont on these occasions to draw water from the well and fill whatever vessels she had. Thus, when the men were away, she had water ready in case of fire. Black Hill was very near. It received that name because blackened so many times by forest fires.
Embden of 1815-1820 was still sparsely settled. While there were 100 polls on the tax books, hardly half that number of farms (or lots) out of about 200 were under tillage. The select- men were wrestling vigorously with road problems and spend- ing $600 in 1815 and $800 in 1816 toward meeting demands for betterment of the old trails and for opening new thoroughfares. An important item at annual town meetings was to fix the com- pensation for highway work. The vote in 1816 was: "Men to have 121/2 cents per hour; oxen to have 121/2 cents per hour ; ploughs to have 121/2 cents per hour; carts to have 6 cents per hour" and Benjamin Colby, Jr., the town clerk, so entered it in the records.
-- The second generation of Pierces, Wentworth and Jacksons saw a material improvement in living conditions throughout their neighborhood. There were better houses, more enjoyable social relations. But while the town had been filling up during two or three decades, the urge to explore beyond the horizon and to have experience of the wide world was very strong. Emb- den could by no means contain some of these venturesome spirits.
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CHAPTER XXV ARGONAUTS AND LUMBERMEN
Venturesome Embden youths, questing near and far for for- tune, scored their fair quota of successes. Some brought "the bacon" back to their old firesides, investing anew in local enter- prises. There was quite a roster of these: George L. Eames (1835-1898), son of Jonathan D. (1805), was a rancher during an active era of mining and railroad building in Nevada. After over 20 years there he returned to become the progressive owner of the Asahel Hutchins acres on Seven Mile Brook. Isaac Albee (1833-1902) who had the adjacent intervale farm where the pioneer family of Cragins flourished and departed, was a sur- vivor of thrilling frontier episodes in the far west. Hamden T. Williams (1828) with his miner brother, Adaniram (1833) - sons of Timothy Williams - after encountering Indian perils in the Black Hills endured vicissitudes of floods on the upper Miss- issippi where he was operating as a lumberman. Cephas R Walker (1820-1901) (Black Ceph), an argonaut to Australia in the early 50's, after a few years at the mines near Melbourne, came back with a golden fleece that he placed largely in home mortgages.
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