USA > Maine > Somerset County > Embden > Embden town of yore : olden times and families there and in adjacent towns > Part 38
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Emeline's next oldest sister, Christiana, married in 1833 Dominicus Mitchell, Jr., of Norridgewock and they had one son. After Christiana was Francis B. Dunlap (1814-1841) the Universalist minister who never married. He was first of the family born in Embden.
Asher B. Dunlap (1816) the fourth child of Archa and Nancy Dunlap, married Katherine Greene and settled in the West. He is buried at Howard, Kan. His son, Frank Dunlap wedded Mattie Batchelor of Yankton, S. Dak.
Ruhama Dunlap (1818) married Parker L. Hilton down by the Fahi in 1840 and when a married woman taught school in 1848 and '49 near where her husband lived. These Hiltons in 1851 left Embden for Farmers Grove, Wis. She was the mother of several children, one a son who died young. There were two daughters, Arvilla and Addie (Mrs. Lew Wallace).
Lucy Dunlap (1820-1843) married George W. Berry of Emb- den and lies in the Hodgdon graveyard. She was the namesake of her aunt, Lucy (Dunlap) McFadden.
Samuel E. Dunlap (1822) is said to have been educated partly abroad, probably in Scotland, during the time his father was engaged upon a settlement with the British as alluded to above. He was master of the Berry school (No. 4) in 1845. The town in 1842 allowed him a drawback of $1.52 for poll tax, probably because he had not at that time reached his majority. Samuel Dunlap taught several years at the University of Ken- tucky before the Civil War and was twice married but none of
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his children grew to maturity. He is buried at Frankfort, Ky.
Caroline Dunlap (1824) married in 1846 Amos A. Mann of Mercer and had one son. Her second husband was Dr. Duffy and at her death, which occurred in Colorado, she was survived by two small children. She taught the summer school in her home district (No. 5) in 1841 for $13.33.
Jerome B. Dunlap (1826) served in the Civil War, dying at Beloit, Wis. His children included Frank, Omar, Adda and Susie Dunlap. Adda Dunlap is still a resident of Beloit.
John McFadden Dunlap (1828-1909) married Nancy Fletcher (1841-1921), native of Galena, Ill. It was he who told his chil- dren in the distant west of Archa Dunlap's services in England while a resident on the Embden hilltop. The eight children of John McF. and Nancy Dunlap made their home in widely sepa- rated western states. Eldest of the eight is Reinzi M. Dunlap (1859) a native of Galena who made his homestead at Sandwich in northern Illinois after marrying Retta Morris by whom he had three children. After Reinzi Dunlap came Omar H. (1861) of Ionia, who married Sarah Oder at Redfield, S. Dak., and has also three children - Edith (Mrs. Joseph J. Stevens) of Ionia; Pearl of Ionia ; and Henry Lee Dunlap of Fordson, Mich.
Lucian C. Dunlap (1863) the next of John's progeny lives at Ramona, Calif. His wife was Alice Wooley of Mississippi and they, too, have three children. Lucian's brother, Frank (1865) is unmarried and resides at Ionia.
Their sister, Laura L. (1868) married Irwin L. Sweet at Ionia in 1886. The Sweets now dwell at Eureka, Mont. They have a daughter, Clara M. (Mrs. Curtis Saxon), whose two children, Jacqueline and Carlyle, reside in California; also they have a son, Hollis Sweet, who married Lily Phelps of Chatham, Eng- land, and with their children, Hugh, Irwin, Laura and Hollis, Jr., have their home in California. A second son or Irwin L. and Laura Sweet, Marsten Sweet, married Gertrude Huffman of Nashua, Iowa. They, too, live in California, while Lafayette I. Sweet, a third son, unmarried is a resident of Montana.
Other children of John McF. Dunlap are Jessie D. (1871) who is Mrs. Albert A. Mowatt of Bachus, Minn., and has a
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married daughter, Vivian (Mrs. George F. Matthews) of Pop- lar, Minn .; Milton (1876) of Charles City, Iowa, who has a son Paul Dunlap, and Lafayette (1879-1901).
Archa Dunlap's youngest born was Omar H. (1831). He studied law, married and settled in Minnesota where he died when a young man.
The brief and incomplete summary of the migration of Archa's eleven children from their parent hive shows them and their issue in California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Ken- tucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, almost a fourth of the states of the Union. A complete roster up to the present would probably show that Archa's descendants are in nearly as many more states. The record for such a widely di- versified movement into the west is probably not surpassed by any other Embden household of the olden days.
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CHAPTER XXXI
ONWARD TO FINE CAREERS
Two neighboring hills along the Canada Trail of Embden identify two of the town's exceptional families. Atop of one William Atkinson (1813-1896) "statesman of the woolen shirt and paper collar" farmer, philosopher, literateur and railroad promoter had his abiding place in succession to his father, Chris- topher, and to Archa Dunlap of the previous chapter. Atkin- son hill designates that community in general and, indeed, rath- er commemorates the activities of his varied career. Ayer hill, nearby - topographically, perhaps, a part of the Atkinson em- inence, long the high and sightly seat of Pioneer Moses Ayer (1781-1849) from Solon - has an equally interesting history. Vicissitudes of years have marred the home-like aspects of these elevations but not the chronicle of manly endeavor to which they are the background.
William Atkinson was born at New Vineyard where were sev- eral settler families that in due time journeyed on to Embden. Thus it was with Christopher Atkinson (1777-1875) William's father, an emigrant from Virginia. Son of a slaveholder at Fredericksburg, Christopher did not approve of the slavery system. Seeing a negro under chastisement, he took the whip from the owner's hand and gave the chastiser such a lashing that it cost Christopher's father $300 to settle. It was a heavy pen- alty for those days. Perhaps Christopher thought it was worth the price, for soon afterward the slave was granted freedom. Before long, however, Christopher went north to New Vineyard and the 1830's saw him with his wife Betsey (Johnson) Atkin- son (1793-1881) and eleven children settled in Embden.
Christopher Atkinson eventually acquired about 300 acres of Embden land on the west of the Trail (Lots 59, 60, 61 and probably 84 west of 59). Quite a good part of this he seems to have purchased of Archa Dunlap, or of Dunlap's estate. But the Atkinsons were at Embden as early as 1835 and the old
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Scotchman was not borne across the Trail to the Hodgdon grave- yard till 1846. Probably Christopher brought the idea of exten- sive holdings of land from his native Virginia. When his large family had grown up, he revisited Fredericksburg, where he told how he had eight sons voting the Freesoil ticket and wished he had eight more to vote the same way. Christopher's brothers remained in the south. Their descendants included a governor of North Carolina, a governor of South Carolina and other men of distinction. The family came originally from England. One branch of it included settlers at Mount Desert and Winthrop.
When Ellen, the last of his children, was born in 1835 the town records show that Christopher Atkinson had seven scholars in Embden. That was apparently the year of his arrival from New Vineyard. His household included sons already grown to man's estate. William, the oldest, was then of age but did not marry Sylvia P. Dennis (1826-1888) till 1852 when he was 39 years old. Charles (1815) the next oldest, who was on the Embden tax list in 1848 with three of his brothers, married Re- becca Collins Barton (1825-1904) in 1846. The first of their six children was William P. Atkinson (1848-1884). He lived in North Dakota. Emma J. Eddy as the widow of this William married his youngest brother, Fred B. Atkinson (1863).
But Christopher's family of sturdy sons likewise includ- ed : John (1818), Elbridge (1820), Timothy (1822), Joseph (1828-1917), all of whom were on the Embden lists for several years well up to 1855, and Lafayette (1829) and George (1831). There were also three daughters - Marinda J. (1824-1882), Elizabeth (1833) and Ellen (1835). Marinda in 1843 wedded Cyrus Cleveland (1814-1869) son of Abel. Both died at Fair- field, near Baraboo, Wis. They had a son Charles Cleveland (1845). Elizabeth was a very successful school teacher. Ellen in 1852 married Albert Williams and they resided down the Trail on farm No. 43.
William Atkinson attended a boys' school at Farmington but was largely self-educated. During the winter and spring of 1840 he taught the old fifth district school (his home district) and there resulted a dispute about the wages, as to which he
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probably was in the right. The town meeting of March, 1841, authorized the selectmen "to settle a suit now pending between William Atkinson and said town by drawing orders on the
WILLIAM ATKINSON
treasurer for the amount of his wages out of money belonging to said district No. 5, unless the inhabitants of said district shall within reasonable time produce to the selectmen aforesaid a good and sufficient bond to pay all costs that may arise." The fol- lowing June 26 a town order for $27 was drawn for him on account of this term of teaching and an order for $10.25 was drawn for Paulinus M. Foster, the North Anson attorney "for cost in the suit of Atkinson vs. Embden."
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When the stirring town meetings of Civil War years were held William Atkinson alternated with Elisha Purington as mod- erator. His brother, Joseph, also had distinctive qualities as a presiding officer which Anson town meetings often recognized. The late Senator William P. Frye once said that "Bill" Atkin- son was the best versed man in history he had ever known. However, he is best remembered for his long and earnest advo- cacy of the Wiscasset and Quebec railroad scheme. He was one of the earliest -- perhaps the earliest -to urge it. The great dream of his life was the construction of a line from Quebec to the seaboard through the Maine wilderness. In furtherance of the project his gaunt figure and piping voice became familiar to every Maine city and to provincial capitals of Canada. He addressed legislatures and boards of trade in Maine and Canada and sought to interest business men as well as financiers.
One of his letters, dated from North Anson in 1888, said re- garding the Carrabasset and Canadian Railway, as he was then terming it: "We believe the construction of the cantilever bridge at Quebec (now completed several years) will greatly enhance the prospects and the value of the international highway from Wiscasset, Maine, to Quebec. * Our desire is to connect the beautiful Kennebec Valley and all its thriving towns and manu- facturing villages, the capital of the state, Augusta, and the unsurpassed deep-sea harbor of Wiscasset, Maine, with the Quebec Central Railway and the City of Quebec and with the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the northwest, by the shortest, cheapest and most feasible line of railway that can be found for that purpose."
Mr. Atkinson considered two different routes through Maine and was instrumental in having both carefully examined. One would have led from North Anson to the Forks of the Kennebec, by Moose River bridge and to the boundary. The other route which he came to favor, was from North Anson up the Carra- basset and Dead River Valleys to the boundary of Megantic Lake and the tracks of the Canadian Pacific. He compiled statis- tics and other information in great array. The distance between Quebec and tidewater at Wiscasset, by this route, was
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250 miles while the distance from Quebec to tidewater at Halifax was 700 miles.
Financially and economically the project was probably sound. It would have restored Wiscasset to her ancient glories as a port for ocean going commerce and have greatly aided the develop- ment of central Maine. Indeed a railroad was built from that town northward for a part of the distance, but the great trans- portation lines of Canada preferred a winter harbor in their own country and the Embden man's great dream failed of fruition.
William Atkinson was otherwise a versatile man. He de- lighted in applying his mind to abtruse algebraic problems. He could reel off poetry by the page and was full of original and quaint comments on Biblical and historical subjects. He once distinguished himself by arguing his own case for four hours before the Maine State Supreme Court. An apothem frequently used by him ran: "St. Paul was the Daniel Webster of anti- quity." It was he who made the famous reply to the British officer on the ramparts of Quebec. This officer in showing him the sights, remarked banteringly :
"That gun there we took at Bunker Hill."
"Yes," retorted the Embdenite, "you took the gun, but, thank God, you didn't take the hill."
William Atkinson's children have traveled far from their Embden hilltop, in that regard emulating the example of uncles and aunts of the family of the pioneer Christopher. Mary E. Atkinson (1853) a twin sister of John, married Cyrus D. Hol- brook of Madison in 1881. Following in the order of their ages were: Helen (1855), Clarence (1856-1894), Florence (1858) who lives at Berkeley, Calif .; Edgar (1860) who like his younger brother Arthur (1861-1900) went to Boston long ago; Carrie (1864), who is Mrs. C. A. Browne residing at Altadena, Calif., and Christopher (1866) who is a business man in San Francisco, with his residence at Palo Alto.
Joseph Atkinson, native of New Vineyard, 30 years a resi- dent of Embden where he had a considerable career before he went to North Anson in 1864, was quite as prominently known
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as his brother William. The sisters, Statira and Achsa Wells, who became his first wife and second wife, were Embden women. His oldest daughter, Flora (1852-1917) - as well as four broth- ers and sisters - was a native of Embden. Flora married Cephas M. Hilton, who was proprietor of the Hotel Braeburn at Guil- ford and previously had owned the Hotel Weston and the Hilton at Madison. She is remembered as a gifted woman and loyal friend. Her children were two daughters - Mrs. Etta Boadway of Guilford and Mrs. Nellie Hensel of Buffalo. Joseph Atkin- son's other children included Charles who went to Wisconsin in 1876 and died there 20 years later ; Joseph T. Atkinson of Bath ; Nellie B. (1859-1886) who died at Watertown, S. Dak .; Lena M., who married Irving W. Barber of Deering, and Timothy of Bismark, N. Dak., and for six years state engineer. He graduated at Anson Academy and studied at the University of Maine three years. He specialized in municipal engineering and has had charge of extensive enterprises in the two Dakotas and Montana.
In Embden as in North Anson, Joseph Atkinson's work for the most part was farming and lumbering, the latter occupa- tion having been followed by him in the woods of Maine for more than thirty winters. During the spring he was engaged on the river along with his farm work. He kept himself in- formed on topics of the day and was always interested in politics. His first vote was for a Democratic president, Franklin Pierce, but his second presidential vote was cast for John C. Fremont. He helped organize the Republican party in Somerset county and was a delegate from Embden to the first Republican County Convention at Skowhegan in 1856. Away back in the 1870's, in the old "Iron Clad" days he took part as a speaker at temper- ance meetings and freely expressed himself in forceful debate.
Christopher Atkinson, first of his name in Embden, died at Baraboo, Wis., where there was quite a colony of Embden people. As already indicated his children and grandchildren moved numerously to the Mississippi valley and to California. While he led his robust family to the hilltop which Atkinson sons and daughters peopled for quite a half century, William Atkinson "statesman of the woolen shirt and paper collar" was the last
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to depart. The Atkinson name after 1890 was no longer on the town rolls.
Straight west from the vicinity of the Dunbar schoolhouse used to be a lane that led to Ayer hill high over the west shore of Embden Pond and Mullen cove somewhat below. Here was the seat of Pioneer Moses Ayer, Jr. (1781-1849) and his wife Sally Gray (1785-1841) and after them of their son Seth (1807- 1889) and his wife, Mary Nutting (1812-1887) and of other sons and of grandsons. It is one of the town's most interesting hill- tops.
The first Moses Ayer (1747-1823) was from England, settled in Maine, located at Winthrop, where a son William was born, and later came up the Kennebec to Solon where he lived till his death. He served several enlistments in the Revolutionary War and in 1791 obtained Island H on the Solon side of the Kenne- bec, this being a tract of 88 acres a little below the village. Shortly afterward he got a small island adjacent and the two made an admirable farm. His son William was drowned in the Kennebec, almost as soon as Moses had builded his cabin on the island. Of his ten children only two sons survived to man- hood and both of these soon came to Embden. Besides Moses, Jr., was Stephen Ayer (1783) two years his junior, who mar- ried Zilpha Eames of Madison in 1807. Of six daughters were Abigail Ayer (1779) who married Charles Pierce ; Martha Ayer (1786) who became Mrs. Aaron Rice of Caratunk in 1807; Eliza- beth (1788) who that same year of 1807 was the bride of Wil- liam Thompson of Spauldingtown but later of the Fahi section of Embden; and Mary Ayer (1792).
Moses Ayer and Sally Gray were married Dec. 9, 1805 and by 1807 they had moved to the high hill by the pond. One of the earliest records bearing on this is the town meeting of 1809 which indicated that his brother Stephen that year was a resi- dent in "north district ward." There was also a vote that year "that there should be a road layed out from the middle road on Stephen Ayer's south line to Moses Ayer's line." There, how- ever, the town stopped and Moses was trying as late as 1821 to get the road made. Presumably both brothers went to the mid-
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dle Embden neighborhood together. Stephen's residence was ap- parently. on Lot 61, which was close to Moses Ayer's place. Within ten years, as has already been stated, Stephen was a con- siderable land owner in the old Queenstown neighborhood by the Kennebec and near his brother-in-law Jonathan Eames. He had but two sons - Jonathan Eames Ayer and Stephen, Jr., - both of whom were on the town lists in 1840 but not in 1850. Stephen's daughters were: Sarah M. (1812), Maria (1814) who in 1834 became Mrs. Warren Thompson; Elsie (1816), Eveline (1820), Priscilla (1822) who married in 1846 Samuel H. Hinds of Kingfield ; Phidelia (1824), Flavilla (1827), and Arminda D. (1826) who married one of Embden's Albert Thompsons.
Moses Ayer's land included Lot 97 close to the pond and Lot 82 immediately east. The last he bought in 1814 for $300. The large family he raised there was headed by a daughter Polly (1806), probably born at Solon. She became the wife of Silas Hilton (1797) a son of Lieut. John of Anson. Seth, the oldest son, was born in Embden and on Nov. 15, 1833, married Mary Nutting. His brother, Jonas (1809) married her sister, Leah Nutting. These girls were daughters of Josiah and Abiah (Varnum) Nutting of Madison. The Varnums were a distin- guished family. Abiah was the daughter of Samuel Varnum - a soldier of the Revolution - and a niece of James Mitchell Varnum brigadier general in the patriot army. James Varnum was also a member of the Continental Congress for two terms and became Supreme Court judge in the Northwest Territory. Abiah was likewise a niece of Joseph Bradley Varnum (1750- 1821) member of Congress from Massachusetts for 16 years speaker of the National House in the 10th and 11th Congresses and United States Senator from 1811 to 1817.
The line of children from Seth and Jonas Ayer continued with John (1811) who dwelt at Skowhegan; with Samuel Ayer (1814) who married a daughter of the Crosby neighbors and died at Boston ; with Joshua (1815) and with Moses Ayer, Jr., (1817-1880) whose wife was Deidamia Batchelder, daughter of Ezekiel and Jane (McKenney) Batchelder. Ezekiel in 1833 had come to live in Embden, probably from Solon. He seems to
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have been a brother of John Batchelder (or Bachellor), who in 1823 managed Moses Thompson's tannery by Embden ferry. It was John Batchelder's daughter, Viola, that Dr. David S. Hun- newell of Solon wedded as the first of his three wives. Moses and Deidamia were on the Ayer homestead of Embden in 1845 but he died at North Anson and his widow married David Norton, as his third wife. Their children included George O. Ayer (1844) a one time carpenter and photographer at North Anson; Ella Jane Ayer (1850-1905) who was Mrs. Henry T. Jones of North Anson and then Mrs. Gardner S. Benson of Skowhegan; Emma Leah (1853-1903) who married Harris Williams of North Anson ; Willis P. Ayer (1855-1900) and Charles F. Ayer (1860- 1922) who settled at Marshaltown, Iowa, but died in San Fran- cisco.
The younger children of Moses Ayer, and Sally Gray, the pioneers, were George (1818), William (1820), Daniel (1822) whose wife was Emily Gifford; Dennis Moor Ayer (1823) and Obed Wilson Ayer (1826).
The elder Moses Ayer lived out his allotted years on his Emb- den acres with one or more of his sons and their families always part of his household. He had a conspicuous career in the town. As a young man he went to sea, was captured by a British ship in the troublous period of the impressment of American seamen and taken to Nova Scotia. He finally escaped from his captors. In Embden he held three town offices - treasurer, constable and collector of taxes at a commission of 11/2 per cent in 1848 - and was re-elected to them in 1849 but died in mid-December of that year. He and his wife are interred in Sunset cemetery. Their Jonas was living with them till long after his majority and their Seth raised his remarkable family of eight sons, five of whom became capable business men of Massachusetts, under the Ayer roof tree. In those two broodful decades from 1830 on, the hilltop farm supported a patriarchal group of the Ayer and Nutting blood. Warren Nutting, a cousin, was a near neighbor, just south. Seth Ayer, however, like several of his kinsmen, died at North Anson and his wife, Mary, at Madison the home of her people.
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(TOP LEFT) SETH AYER AND (RIGHT) MOSES AYER, BROTHERS, GEORGE A. AYER AND (BOTTOM) MARCELLUS S. AYER, SONS OF SETH.
Three sons who died as young men were Seth, Jr. (1834- 1855), Josiah N. (1844-1864) and Charles E. (1856-1857). There were no daughters. Joseph N. (1836) and Elmore C. (1851) married sisters - Cordelia P. and Jeanette Paine. They
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were daughters of Capt. Asa and Almira (Leete) Paine of North Anson. Mrs. Paine was of remarkable ancestry from Gov. William Leete of Dedington, Eng., where in 1638 he married a daughter of Rev. John Paine of Southold. Joseph Ayer died at Charlestown, Mass. His daughter, Florence, and two grand- daughters resided at Needham, Mass. His son, Frank P. Ayer died in 1902, leaving a son, William H., of Shirley, Mass. El- more C. Ayer was formerly a superintendent of the United States Leather Company at Dorchester, Mass., but now resides at Rochester, N. H., with his oldest daughter, Mrs. Bertha Mor- rell. Another of Elmore's daughters, Eugenia, is Mrs. Oliver Cutts of Lewiston. He has a son, Elmore, Jr. (1890). Eugene G. Ayer (1847) another of Seth's sons, had a wholesale grocery business in Boston. He married (1) Ella Maynard of that city and (2) on Nov. 25, 1891, Josephine Gallagher of Ireland. They resided at Kingston, where four daughters were born to his second wife.
Marcellus S. Ayer (1839-1921) went to Boston before the Civil War and worked in the market earning money to start business for himself. He had a fairly good education and in 1858 had taught the school in No. 12 district, where Alfred Holbrook (1799-1871) the agent paid him $55 for the winter term. Marcellus boarded with Alfred, at the corner where the cross road turns by the schoolhouse. In later years he liked to tell how he earned money also working for Samuel Bunker (1824-1902) at North Anson and at driving cattle for Isaac Libby a drover from Burnham. He and Joseph Atkinson, bare- foot boys together, often tramped over the hills of the neighbor- hood.
In Boston, Marcellus soon opened a wholesale grocery store on State street and out of it made a fortune. He used to tell an Embden friend of his determination, when young, to work till he had $10,000 and then retire. But when he had that amount his ideas had changed so much that he felt almost poverty stricken and he then said he would work in all just 30 years. He did this from about thirty years of age and at 60 he had many times his $10,000.
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