USA > Maine > Somerset County > Embden > Embden town of yore : olden times and families there and in adjacent towns > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59
Meanwhile Helon Hilton (1802-1883), a younger brother of Joshua, had been on the ancestral farm in Solon. His wife was Mary Ann Pollard (1808-1886). Their children included Helon, Jr., (1839-1917), the poet of Somerville, Mass .; Edith (Mrs. Frank Heald) ; Dumont (1841-1872) who was drowned; Chester (1842-1888), whose wife was Susan Nutting, of Embden; and George E. (1844-1884), unmarried. Helon, in 1857, exchanged farms with Joshua, and with his family went to Seven Mile Brook.
94
EMBDEN TOWN OF YORE
Joshua stayed on the Solon farm the remainder of his life but his children and grandchildren were much in Embden. The oldest, McKenney Hilton, (1814-1895), married in 1840 Sarah Cleveland, daughter of Timothy of Embden, lived in Anson Val- ley and twenty years or so afterward settled at Earlville, Ill., where both lived out their days. Their oldest child, Sarah J. Hilton, born in 1843, has been a notable woman. She married Fayette M. Paine, of New Vineyard but of the Seven Mile Brook family, Nov. 24, 1867. Her home is in Chicago. Catherine (1816-1875) was Mrs. Seth Robinson, of Bingham; Sarah (1821- 1901) was Mrs. Henry Fassett Campbell of Anson.
Amos Hilton (1823-1885), son of Joshua, was a prominent Embden man. He married Havillah Berry July 4, 1849, and lived on the William W. Gould farm (Lot 131) on the cross town road. He was several times elected selectman and in 1880 rep- resented Embden and other towns of the class in the legislature. His children were Olestine, born in 1851, who resided at Van- couver, Wash .; Eldwin (1858-1921), town treasurer, whose wife was Alice Joudry ; and four attractive girls. The first of these was Carrie (1861-1899), the wife of Edwin W. Hodgdon, whose daughter, Ina M. is Mrs. Otis Razee of Ashton, R. I .; the others Etta B. (1868-1899), Hattie (Mrs. Chester E. Allen of Elm- wood, Mass.), and Jennie V. (Mrs. Chester Bailey of North An- son).
Joshua Nelson Hilton (1835-1914), usually called Nelson Hil- ton, married Helen N. Knowlton (1836-1916), of New Portland, and accompanied his father Joshua, to Solon. He and his wife died there. Almon Hilton was their oldest son. Their three daughters were Laurette (Mrs. John J. Newell of New Portland), Hannah M. (Mrs. Eugene Lawrence of Madison) and Winifred (Mrs. Charles D. Norton) .
Pioneer William Hilton of Solon was greatly respected in all that region. His record of war service and of citizenship was highly creditable. He enlisted for three years in April, 1777, in Capt. Wiley's Company, Col. Michael Jackson's regiment of the Massachusetts line and was honorably discharged at West Point in April, 1780. He first came to Solon in 1781, took up 500 acres of land, cleared several acres on the Kennebec shore and fitted
95
SAW LAND FOR HIS SONS
the land for a crop the next season. Returning to Wiscasset he married Katherine McKenney (1764-1816) daughter of David McKenney and the following spring of 1782 was back at Solon. His wife resided at John Hilton's while William worked the farm and erected a log cabin. There in the spring of 1783, Mrs. Hilton and their first born, David (1782-1838), were installed. A pretentious brick house, still standing, was one of William's later enterprises. He was buried on his farm, south of the build- ings, near the place where he cut the first tree ever felled in Solon. W. M. E. Brown, Esq., pronounced a funeral oration over him. His grave overlooks a long stretch of the Kennebec valley. In this yard Helon Hilton of Somerville is buried. The farm is now owned by Lester Hilton a great-great grandson of William.
The younger Joseph Hilton, settler in Embden, was Pioneer William's half-brother. Their first wives were sisters. Joseph married on June 19, 1787, Sarah McKenney. Abigail Hilton, second wife of Foster S. Palmer, was their daughter. Joseph's second wife was Betsey, widow of Richard Nutter, a soldier of 1812, who died Nov. 15, 1813. She brought him a family of seven Nutter children. There was a son, Samuel Hilton (1816-1881) by this second marriage. Samuel's wife was Tamson Walker (1821- 1888), daughter of Alfred of New Portland and Anson and a granddaughter of Pioneer Stephen Walker, of Madison. There were five children in Samuel Hilton's family - Ella Tamson (1852), wife of Silas Brown; Nahum Quint (1845-1918) : Polena May (1861-1909), who was Mrs. Orion F. Luce; Emma S. (1857), who married (1) Ai Hilton and (2) John Morrow of Norridgewock; and Frank (1859-1879). Samuel Hilton, the father of these children, was left an orphan when very young. Nahum and Judith Quint adopted him. Samuel was a farmer in Anson.
Waterman Hilton (1815-1887) came to Embden before 1840 und dwelt on the Stephen Chamberlain farm. He came from Wiscasset and belonged to one of several Hilton families there hat did not come north with the sons of William, the son of Ebenezer. Waterman Hilton was twice married - in 1848 to Diadama Clark, daughter of Joseph Clark, the lumberman, of
96
EMBDEN TOWN OF YORE
Bingham; and in 1871 to Mrs. Parmelia Carver, of Solon. His oldest son, Homer Hilton, married Fannie Lishon of Anson, in 1878. Two other children were Edwin and Roxanna. Water- man and his two wives lie in the village cemetery at Solon.
The Hiltons in Somerset county comprised many early fam- ilies. There were 27 households of that name in Maine when the 1790 census was taken. Those above mentioned were from set- tlers in three towns, but they had kinsmen in adjacent towns, particularly Starks with whom for many years they were close- ly associated. The Starks branch was founded by Benjamin (1740-1802), a younger brother of the elder Joseph, of Embden. He had land at Montsweag stream, near his father Ebenezer, in 1779, which was 13 years after he married Susannah Harnden, but he came up the Kennebec in 1782 as far as Norridgewock and located in Starks on a small tributary of the Sandy river, about a mile from the present road. Edna E. Hilton, of Anson, one of his descendants thus described the location: "There is an iron bridge across this stream where the old dam was located. Near the stream, a short distance from the road are buried Ben- jamin Hilton and his wife, Susannah; also two sons, Richard Hilton and wife and Samuel Hilton and wife. This land has always been in the Hilton name. It is now owned by my uncle W. B. Hilton and the heirs of Bert Hilton."
The Hilton families in Embden supplied many emigrants, but the older people clung to their homesteads. It was the younger people who moved on and often moved very far. Their mar- riages were with the oldest and most respected families of the pioneers. And while Hiltons, even as many others of the old American stock, have followed the star of empire in numbers, their sons and daughters are still substantial people of the com- munity.
Back in England Hiltons were serving in high places during the Scottish wars and Hilton castle became "the memorable resi- dence of a long and brilliant line of war-like Barons." Two centuries and more ago their scions were at Portsmouth, Exeter and Kittery, having prominent part in colonial affairs. One of these was Col. Winthrop Hilton, hero of many exploits, whom the Indians got while he was at work on his "masting business"
97
SAW LAND FOR HIS SONS
in the New Hampshire forest and "left a lance in his heart."
Dudley Hilton, his brother named for a maternal grandfather, the second governor of the Massachusetts colony, was killed by Indians the same day. Half a century later, in 1760, Martha Hilton daughter of a judge of the Superior court, became the second wife of Governor Benning Wentworth, famous in New Hampshire annals. Their romance "caused much excitement at the time" and had decidedly dramatic features. Longfellow im- mortalized her memory in his poetic fiction, "Lady Went- worth." She presided for a long period at the old Wentworth mansion by the edge of Little Harbor, just outside of Ports- mouth, one of the great historic residences of colonial New Eng- land.
CHAPTER VII
PREACHERS AND WARRIORS, TOO
The Ebenezer Hilton hill and blockhouse by Montsweag stream looked over from Wiscasset into a teaming Woolwich neighborhood. Up and down the farther bank dwelt Goulds, Williamses and Walkers, while seaward were ancient commu- nities like Arrowsic and Phippsburg where dwelt the Grays and McFaddens. In that direction by Nequasset creek as early as 1734 with a homestead of 300 acres was James Savage from Coleraine, Ireland, by way of Londonderry.
This family was part of the great migration of Scotch-Irish at that time to America. A son, James, Jr. (1715-1805), met Mary Hilton (1723-1825) daughter of Ebenezer, perhaps at Berwick as the Savage and Hilton families were moving toward the Ken- nebec. They were married in 1742 and at least seven of their seventeen children were represented among the settlers of Emb- den. Their father, James, Jr., although his name had been placed on a list of Royalists, served in the autumn of 1779 on the Penobscot Expedition. Their mother, Mary, was a familiar fig- ure at Woolwich, even after she had reached the age of 100 years, as she walked the roads, knitting as she went along.
Sons predominated largely in this Savage family and only one of the six daughters went to the upper Kennebec wilderness. This was Hannah, wife of Thomas McFadden and mother of an early group in Embden. Her sister Lydia (Mrs. Daniel Ring) raised eleven children at Litchfield and her sister Mary, who was blind, married John Card of an old colonial line. There were six of the Savage sons who settled in Anson and Embden as fol- lows :
Isaac Savage who married Deborah Soule in 1767. She was from Woolwich, before that from Duxbury, Mass., and a May- flower descendant. They lived at first in Embden, probably on the Ai Moulton farm (Lot 53) near the Concord line. Their daughter, Nancy, was "of Embden" in 1809, when she became the bride of Joshua Felker, of Caratunk. Isaac subsequently
99
PREACHERS AND WARRIORS, TOO
moved to the Cutts (Eugene B. Paine) farm, near the old Meth- odist Camp Ground. This was then within a tract of 463 acres, which his brother, Charles Savage, obtained by deed from Sam- uel Titcomb. The Savage family of Concord are from Isaac, through his son, Jacob 2nd. Ephraim Savage, some time resident of Embden, may have been Isaac's son, also.
Charles Savage - He was a settler at Anson in 1782. His first wife was Mary Corillard, whom he married in 1784 and Margaret Rose, his second, to whom he was married the follow- ing year. Only the daughters of Charles appear of Embden in- terest. Mary (Polly) was the wife of Capt. Asahel Hutchins and the mother of his brilliant family. Seth Tozier, whom Han- nah Savage married in 1808, was at that time a resident of Emb- den. Olive, said to have been a younger daughter, married in 1832 Joseph Burns Cleveland, a son of Jonathan of Embden, and lived at Flagstaff. Margaret Savage married in 1826 Ezra Getchell. Their home was in Chicopee, Mass.
Charles Savage's land in Anson was 590 rods on its southern boundary. The northeast corner was at a point south of Seven Mile Brook, very near the present railroad bridge. Its northern line followed the Brook but a short distance westerly to David Metcalf's lot. The Charles Savage tract was one of the largest in that vicinity and relatively valuable.
James Savage (1750-1838) - He married in 1774 Annah Young of Pownalboro, and in 1780 was at Anson, probably the first of the family that far north. James and Annah Savage and their several children were a highly respected household. A son, James, Jr. (1775-1884), married Esther Moore (1780-1835) and resided on Savage Island with his Uncle Jacob. James, Jr., whose daughter, Tamson, was Mrs. Joseph Gray of Embden, died on a business trip to Wisconsin. Betsy Savage, sister of James, Jr., was the wife of Amos Taylor, some time owner of the southeast Embden farm, north of Seven Mile Brook. Their brother, Joseph Savage born in 1781, married Lucy Rogers, daughter of Capt. Robert Rogers, and lived on a parcel of the Charles Savage tract. He also owned Lot 96 on the east shore of Embden Pond, which he sold in 1832 to Ichabod Dunlap.
100
EMBDEN TOWN OF YORE
The children of James and Annah Young Savage were a con- siderable clan in the middle Embden neighborhood. Abigail Savage, born in 1783, was the wife of Col. Lemuel Witham. Their home farm was Lot 81 in the earlier years. This was near her brother, Reuben, and her sister Loviniah (1792-1825) who was Mrs. Thomas McFadden, Jr.
Jacob Savage (1751-1826) - In 1784, three years after his marriage to Hannah Gray, they were settled on Island B, at the confluence of the Kennebec and Seven Mile Brook and had made improvements. Nearly all the other Savage pioneers into Anson and Embden at one time resided there or within Charles Sav- age's tract westward. Jacob built the first dam on Seven Mile Brook, from the Charles Savage land across to the present site of the Augustine Simmons house. He had a grist mill there in 1807 which was carried out by a freshet five years later. He also ventured with a mill privilege further up the Brook, near the Hutchins' holdings, comprising acreage on both banks. Herbert Savage, husband of Jacob's oldest daughter, Polly (1783-1850), afterwards Mrs. Randall Waugh, and Jacob Sav- age, Jr., were associated with him in that enterprise. Jacob served in the American Revolution as mariner on the "Han- cock" and Feb. 1, 1819 was on the pension roll for Somerset county.
Jacob Savage's offspring, like those of his brother James, fig- ured much in settling the middle Embden neighborhood. These cousins may properly be regarded as founders there. Jacob's daughter, Sally, was Mrs. Isaac Salley, of Lots 44 and 45. John Gray Savage (1785-1863) his oldest son, married as his second wife in 1813 Fanny Colby. Five years previously he had bought Lot 62. Whether it was Herbert Savage, just mentioned in con- nection with the Seven Mile Brook mill, who paid $170 on June 9, 1829, for 85 acres off the north end of Lot 81 (exclusive of 15 sold the same day to Moses Ayer) where Colonel Lemuel Witham had been living or his son, another Herbert, is quite uncertain. The deed to this property, north of the tip end of Mullen Cove, was given by James Y. Cleveland, then treasurer of the trustees for the ministerial and school fund. This property may have been occupied a few years by Herbert Savage
101
PREACHERS AND WARRIORS, TOO
and his family and then by John Matthews, after Herbert had moved back to Anson but he was owner again in 1836 and on March 25, 1837, deeded it to Capt. Seth Ayer.
Abram Savage - He married in 1783 Patience Young, per- haps a sister of Mrs. Charles Savage. One of his sons, Joseph Lambert (1794-1884), went to Norridgewock in 1833 and was the father of Rev. Minot J. Savage and Rev. William H. Savage, famous preachers. Abram Savage married a second wife, Wid- ow Susannah Phillips, of Pownalboro in 1801. It is doubtful if Abram lived on the upper Kennebec but Susan (1802-1887), a daughter by his second wife, married in 1829, Jonas Cleveland, of Embden, and died at North Anson. The elder Herbert Savage's children called Joseph their uncle but if Woolwich records of Abram's sons are accurate the kinship must have been through a marriage of one of Abram's older daughters.
Dr. Edward Savage (1766-1856) - He was one of the earliest Free Will Baptist preachers in Embden, where he had settled by Oct. 12, 1798, when he acquired the John Getchell lot on Seven Mile Brook. He became one of the town's most permanent and respected residents and had much influence in public affairs. The names of his children by a marriage in 1790 with Sarah Smith were entered on the Embden town books. The family had first lived in Anson. His daughters were: Sally (1794-1870) who was Mrs. Joseph Young, of Embden ; Molly (1802) married in 1818 to Thomas Cleveland, of Embden, son of Timothy; Par- melia (1804) married in 1822 Jacob Williams, Jr., of Embden ; Betsey (1806) married in 1833 Hiram Witham who ran the saw- mill on Witham Brook, west of Concord Corner; Joanna (1810) married in 1829 Sewall Williams, of Embden; and Martha (1818) who became Mrs. David Spaulding of Solon.
Of Dr. Edward's eight sons, six, with their wives, were: Wil- liam (1791), married in 1816, Lucy Smith of Hope, Lincoln County, probably his cousin; Israel (1792) in 1813 married his cousin, Martha - daughter of Jacob - and (mirabile dictu) was running a distillery in 1823 with Harry White at North Anson; Daniel (1798) who had a farm in northeast Embden close by his brother-in-law, Joseph Young; James (1800) mar- ried in 1819 Betsey Lawry, of Anson; Elbridge Geary (1812) in
102
EMBDEN TOWN OF YORE
1838 married Dolly W. Spaulding, daughter of Joseph, of Cara- tunk, formerly of Embden, and in 1843 Almeda Smith, of Madi- son ; and Thomas Jefferson Savage (1814-1888) married in 1835 to Sabrina Green, of Embden.
This was the personnel of the first and second generations of the Savage family, that shared in early Embden development. It was a stock of hardy people, like their Hilton kinsmen. The Hiltons were conspicuously farmers and warriors, helping alike to subdue the forests and the Indians. The war-path activities of the latter greatly retarded the development of the region. The men of the Savage family were farmers and warriors, too. But they were conspicuous as preachers of the Word. Dr. Edward, ordained in 1801, while he resided near the Old Brook Meeting House, was a notable example. He preached the mil- itant faith to many Maine congregations. With his father, he was a soldier in the Penobscot Expedition of 1779. His uncle Edward Savage, who lived at Augusta, was serving elsewhere as a soldier on the Maine coast at the same period. After Dr. Edward was Rev. Samuel Savage (1820-1897) of Concord, many years the owner of a fine farm on the River road in Embden and a widely known preacher who died at North Anson.
Most eminent of all in the sacred calling was Rev. Minot J. Savage. And there was a brother, Rev. William H. Savage, of distinguished career. The Somerset county people of that day usually called him Henry. Both were sons of Joseph L. and Ann Stinson Savage of Norridgewock. This Joseph was a nephew of the great exhorter from Embden. Minot J. Savage's name was a household word in New England. A visit to Boston was not complete unless one had gone on Sunday morning to the Church of the Unity, where his modulated delivery and calm analysis were delightful pulpit features. He also wrote excellent poetry.
The brother William was a graduate of Bowdoin, became a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Delaware College and, after brilliant service in the Civil War as an officer of a company he organized at Portland, Maine, graduated in theology at Andover Seminary and preached for nine years as a Congregationalist at Holliston, Mass., Jacksonville, Ill., and
103
PREACHERS AND WARRIORS, TOO
Hannibal, Mo. As a. Unitarian he preached many years longer at Leominster, Watertown and Hyde Park, Mass.
Dr. Edward Savage's place on the Brook road to New Port- land was an important center. He had a fertile farm, which included quite an acreage also in Anson. He bought in 1806 some land from Rev. Isaac Albee. Beginning as a member of the first board of selectmen, he held town office repeatedly. An occasional town meeting convened at his residence to ballot for a member of the legislature and for other purposes. His nu- merous children were born there. They had grown up and some of them were married considerably before 1820, when he sold his farm.
By that time the town had been through a bitter wrangle between residents of the eastern and western parts, a trouble that was carried unsuccessfully to the General Court at Boston. His next neighbor, James Adams, had sold his land and pur- chased anew close to the Kennebec, near where Dr. Edward's son and son-in-law had also located. With a mortgage of $1350 and $400 given him by Captain Cragin for his farm Dr. Edward also went to northeast Embden and acquired an extensive prop- erty at the junction of Martin stream and of the Mill stream out of Concord. Much of this, including a sawmill, was bought of Benjamin Atwood for $215 on Aug. 4, 1821. It was land that Caleb Williams and John Williams formerly owned. A grist mill was also established there and Dr. Edward's property be- came an important one to that corner of the town. He was then about 55 years of age and had with him his youngest sons, Elbridge and Thomas.
The mills were of great usefulness under his management. The site, a mile and more above the Gray mill lot and the Cham- berlain mill, had been utilized by two or more owners, first of whom was Jacob Williams in 1810 and in 1816 by Benjamin Atwood, his son-in-law. In Dr. Savage's time or not long after- wards there was competition. Isaac Temple then or a little later had a sawmill, probably on the site of the old Chamber- lain mill and lived in the house where Walter Thompson now resides. Part of this Thompson house is made of lumber sawed at the Temple mill.
104
EMBDEN TOWN OF YORE
After a few years the preacher tired of his tasks at the mills. His son Daniel on a nearby farm, had sold out to an uncle, Charles, at Madison, and Dr. Edward began to dispose of his holdings. He first conveyed to his youngest son, Thomas, in 1834, the farm with the grist mill, with provision that he and his wife, Sally, were to be cared for the remainder of their lives. Another farm of 100 acres and the sawmill were deeded to Elbridge. A little later Elbridge sold the sawmill to Capt. John Walker, his neighbor. Elbridge sold the farm in 1835 for $500 to Joseph Spaulding, of Caratunk, his wife's father. Two dec- ades and more after that Dr. Edward closed his earthly career at 90 years of age and was buried at Solon village.
Following their ownership of Embden lands in the neighbor- hood their father had built up, during which both served as local magistrates, these brothers Elbridge Geary and Thomas Jefferson Savage had active careers elsewhere. Elbridge moved to Solon. He was interested in the militia and attained a com- mission therein as brigadier general. At the beginning of the Civil War, he went out as captain of a company he had organ- ized. They marched through Baltimore with uncovered heads, out of respect to their Massachusetts comrades whom the mob had assailed the previous day with brickbats. Captain Elbridge suffered a sunstroke that incapacitated him for further service. Upon his return home he studied law, was admitted to the Som- erset County bar and practiced at Solon till his health failed. His only surviving child is Mrs. Dolly Savage Jagger of Sterling, Mass.
Thomas Jefferson sold the old Preacher Edward homestead, soon after his father's death. He resided at North Anson a few years and also for a while at Madison. He died at Mount Ver- non, Maine - near where there was quite a colony of former Embden families. Jefferson's son, Danville L. (1839), was a lawyer at Foxcroft, Maine, for 17 years, after which he migrated to Minneapolis. Mortimer (1851), who was Jefferson's youngest son, kept a clothing store at Dexter, Maine, but later engaged in mining in California and resided at San Francisco. Jefferson, Jr., (1838-1916) another son, was one of the first volunteers from Maine in the Civil War and participated in its hardest
105
PREACHERS AND WARRIORS, TOO
battles. He was severely wounded and never fully recovered. He studied law but, because of his impaired health, was not admitted to practice. For a time he was justice of the peace and carried on a small real estate business. He was a school teacher, also, and worked for some years as a printer in the Union Advocate office at North Anson. He resided for 22 years at Skowhegan and died there. Two sons, Anson, who married Lydia Bussey, and Harold, who married Bessie Wentworth, also made Skowhegan their home.
Over in the middle Embden neighborhood of several Savage cousins, Reuben, son of James, persisted till 1824 on the Bosworth place, when he swapped it and the adjoining "Lunis Lot" with Joseph Felker, a veteran of the Revolution in Captain Place's company, Colonel Reed's New Hampshire regiment. Felker with son David had been living on Lot 62, the John G. Savage farm of that day, but now went to Lot 47, where in 1828 he was joined by his son-in-law Elder Job Hodgdon. A deed in connection with this transaction shows that Lot 47 where Reuben Savage was living in 1825 had Col. Lemuel Witham for a neighbor on the west while in 1816 Joseph Rowe was on the north (Lot 61) suc- ceeded in a few years by Ludowich Grover.
Reuben Savage eventually moved to Lexington but he had children and grandchildren in Embden. His son, Reuben, Jr., married Abigail Stevens of New Portland. Another son, Jesse, was murdered in New Hampshire. There were several daugh- ters, including Livonia (Mrs. Samuel Smith of Lexington) ; Martha (Mrs. Clifford Albee of Lexington) and Mercy, who lived at Eureka, Calif., after her marriage.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.