USA > Maine > Genealogical and family history of the state of Maine, Volume II > Part 6
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baggage had to be carried, I should have pre- ferred to walk, and would have beaten the stages under ordinary circumstances. Many times I did walk, but it was beside the stage, with a rail on my shoulder, ready to help pry the stage itself out of the mud." In those early days Chicago had but one railroad and nothing but wooden sidewalks, through the cracks of which when the ground was wet the water was projected upward in streams that copiously sprinkled the passer-by. While the son sold the manufactured article on the road, the father attended to its preparation at home. Men went into the spruce woods some time for only a day or two, more often for one or two or three weeks, and picked the gum from the trees, and then it was taken to the Bangor factory and cleansed and put up in boxes for market. The business prospered, and soon the fifteen-foot-square room was too small, and later the business was removed to Portland. When they first started, a few pounds of gum were enough for present purposes, but in later years the firm bought largely, even recklessly, some of their opponents thought, ten tons at once, and thought nothing of it. One day John B. Curtis gave his check for $35,000 worth of native gum. This was probably the largest transaction in that line ever made. The time finally came when Curtis & Son occupied all the space in a factory fifty-one by one hundred and forty-five feet in dimension, and three stories high, and gave employment to two hundred persons, who turned out eight- een hundred boxes of gum in a day. John Curtis died in 1869, but the firm name still remained Curtis & Son. He had seen the business, at first confined to the members of his own family, grow to great proportions, and he felt a just pride in what he had done, and desired the firm name to be retained, which was done. The business of putting up spruce gum not only originated with the firm of Curtis & Son, but the very process of manu- facture used by the firm from first to last, and practically all that is in use by gum factories anywhere, John B. Curtis invented. These in- ventions grew out of the necessity of the case. For some time after they went into the busi- ness of putting up gum, Curtis & Son had no machinery at all, but hard work was too slow for the son and he took some time, and used $50 in money, in experimenting on machinery, which his father thought were time and money thrown away. But by the use of the ma- chinery which he invented, a man, instead of forty boxes in the old way, put up one thou- sand eight hundred boxes by the new process,
and the head of the firm, in his astonishment, admitted that his son had solved the problem of making gum. Mr. Curtis never took out a patent on one of his numerous inventions, much to his regret in later life. Had he turned his attention to the science of invention, there can be no doubt that he would have been very successful. A few processes were kept secret with the firm of Curtis & Son. They were never patented, but always kept from the knowledge of others simply by the honesty of the men who were in the employ of the firm.
On the death of his father John B. Curtis was left with a great manufacturing business and scores of outside enterprises to manage alone. Apparently he had enough to do, but his most extensive operations were to come. In 1872 he went into the dredging business, perhaps the most unlikely thing he might have tried. He took jobs from $50,000 to $500,000 and made the business pay. He gave it his personal attention, and more than once changed apparent disaster into actual victory, by his mechanical ability and quickness of action. It is said that at one time he caused the bids for a piece of work to be reduced from thirty-two cents a yard to thirteen cents. Others thought they were bidding on "hard" ground, but Mr. Curtis was of the opinion that all he should find there was mud, and he was right, the job proving to be one of the best of a long series, for when he was in the business he was at the head. He removed the Minot Ledge rocks, when other contractors hesitated to bid on the proposition, and on the southern coast he made the ocean itself do much of the work of a big contract. He worked at both ends of the cut, and was assisted by the tides, which in due time swept the bar entirely away. He never failed to bid and sometimes won by a nar- row margin, one job of $500,000 being award- ed him by half a cent on a yard. He cleared the James river of obstructions to navigation, consisting in part of buried shells. He had personal charge of the work, and once a shell exploded practically in the center of a group of men of which Mr. Curtis was one, but did no injury. He ever afterward regarded this as a marvelous escape from instant death. One of his best contracts was taken after he had, as he thought, retired from business, and his bid written on the back of a card without his ever having read the specifications. As it proved, some persons had concocted a scheme to defraud the government. Mr. Curtis did the entire work in a few hours. and broke the scheme so carefully prepared by others. Following this he went into ship-building. Cap-
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tain B. J. Willard, who was for many years connected with Mr. Curtis in many enter- prises, notably a line of steamers, says that the first investment John B. Curtis made in a ship was in a vessel built by Captain Willard. He took one-sixteenth and his father the same, but later the father withdrew, saying, "John, you had better take it all." He did so, and, as Captain Willard since recalls, common- ly took an interest in all the vessels he built. Later on Mr. Curtis engaged in ship-building and opened the Curtis shipyard. He built ten large vessels and then sold out, retaining the ownership of the yard. While a builder of ships his reputation was very high. He in- sisted on having the best material and the best work and built every ship upon honor. He saw the possibilities of the islands in Casco Bay long before any one else did, and led the way in establishing a line of steamers. He added steamer to steamer, and at last had a good fleet at his command. He made no at- tempt to secure land on the islands, but while seeing their coming importance, preferred to leave to others an opportunity he had no time to embrace himself. He was quick to take advantage of an opening, however, and the present fine place of amusement at Peak's Island was one of his ideas and was largely carried through by him. He remained the owner of the controlling interest in the ferry between Portland and South Portland, and of his line of steamers until 1896, when he sold out his entire interests. During the many years he controlled the island steamer business he was prompt to accept every challenge given him by those who desired to become competi- tors, and fought more than one out of the business. He never attempted to injure any one in the same line of business unless that one tried to force him out, and then he met him and fought it out. No rival line made money in the business unless it fought fairly, and was ready to take its chance with him in an honest attempt to get the business of the public. During the later years of his owner- ship of a line of steamers he took a deep in- terest in getting up unique schemes to draw crowds to the islands. He was a generous contributor to the building fund of many of the organizations now having homes on the islands, and gave the plan of the regimental headquarters of the different regimental as- sociations his hearty co-operation. To Mr. Curtis more largely than to any other man or even to any other source is due the present importance of the islands of Casco Bay, and his great service to the public in that respect
will yet receive special and hearty recognition.
Mr. Curtis went into the Maine mining boom with a hope that something would develop of importance to the state. He thought it likely that Maine might have paying mineral de- posits within her borders, and he was willing to do his part in developing them. He sold no stocks. Whatever he invested was for de- velopment purposes and with no thought of making money out of others. If he made money that way it was because some mine proved a paying investment for its stockhold- ers. But he did something more. He bought land in connection with the boom, and while greatly increasing his holdings of real estate in Maine, in the end he won back by a legiti- mate advance in values all he lost by the fail- ure of Maine mines. Later he reached the conclusion that by the use of modern methods ,of mining, and of modern machinery, it -would be possible to make mining for silver pay in Maine. He devoted considerable time to an investigation of some of the best of the west- ern mines and concluded that the chance of making money is fully as good here as there. Perhaps that conclusion was less a compliment to Maine mines than a reflection on some of the "boomed" mines of the west. And so he went into the business of mining in Maine with the hope of developing an important local industry. So he put time and money into the search for coal at Small Point, and in the town of Perry, on the St. Croix river. In 1880 Mr. Curtis engaged in farming in the west on a grand scale, a few miles south of Gothenburg in Dawson county, western Nebraska. He bought fourteen thousand acres of ride land to which he later added two thousand more. He first tried sheep raising but failed to make it pay, and converted his sheep ranch into a farm and cattle range, where he raised great herds of white-faced Hereford cattle, the only fit cattle for that section, in his opinion. He usually kept three thousand five hundred cat- tle and one thousand two hundred and eleven hogs. In connection with his stock raising he cultivated a large area of land. In speaking of his farming he once said: "Last year I harvested 75.000 bushels of corn, 12,000 bush- els of wheat, 9.500 bushels of rye, 8,000 bush- els of oats and 2,000 bushels of barley."
A man of Mr. Curtis's strong opinions could not be neutral in politics. Before the war hie drifted south a little and made many friends. He saw a little of slavery, and openly ex- pressed his disgust with the institution. "But St. Paul approved of sending slaves back to their masters," said a minister, with whom
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he was talking. "I don't care if he did; I wouldn't," replied the young northern man, and later when a young fellow from the south, a runaway slave, claimed his protection, he was helped on his way. During the war Mr. Curtis was an active Republican, and remained a member of that party during his life, al- though for a time in 1896 his party loyalty was somewhat questioned. However, he at last supported the McKinley ticket, and talked for it east and west. He had a strong liking for ex-soldiers, and was a stated contributor to the funds of the local Grand Army of the Republic posts. Although a youth in the days when almost every one used liquor, and many were users to excess, Mr. Curtis all his long life was a strictly temperate man. In his early life breadwinning took so much of his time that he had little left for schooling or even for reading, but in his later days lie was a great reader, and a man of wide and varied information. During the last few months of his life his attention was turned to ancient Egypt, and to the pyramids, and he eagerly read everything he could find bearing on the subject.
In 1878 Mr. Curtis bought of the heirs of Thomas O'Brion the largest and most ex- pensively built dwelling house in Deering, lo- cated on what is now known as Steven's Plains avenue, Bradley's Corner district, where he ( when at home), his wife and Miss Clara L. Wilcox, a cousin to both Mr. Curtis and his wife, resided. This house is complete in- side with the finest furnishings. In the state are few more elegant homes than was his. His home life was very beautiful. The evi- dence of the refined taste of Mrs. Curtis is to be seen on every hand. In that home he lived an ideal life. To his wife and to his home he was devotion itself. There he passed his best and happiest hours. There he seldom allowed business to enter. To that home, by what must have been a supreme exertion of the will, he returned to die, and having reached it remained in supreme contentment, despite his suffering, until, it being fully time for him to go, death came to him as a benediction. And the grace and charm of that home he carried wherever he went. Out in the far west he was overtaken by a real western bliz- zard. He was far from well, and that morning had taken but little breakfast, and all day, from six in the morning until seven at night, he in company with others remained on the train without food. The train made but twelve miles during that whole day. One of the trainmen heard him say about two o'clock,
"I'd give five dollars for some coffee and almost any sort of food." The man saw that he was old, he had heard that he was rich, and so he took him at his word, and sold him his own dinner. The five dollars was gladly paid and then Mr. Curtis divided the food and coffee between two ladies. "I thought of my mother and my wife," he said. It was evi- dent lie regarded the five dollars as well in- vested. He died a week after his return home. "Mr. Curtis believed," said the preacli- er in the final tribute to him, "in a religion which is natural, human-a religion for this world. He believed in a religion which builds homes, a religion which turns the mill wheels of cities, a religion which sends the argosy of nations across the lonely seas, a religion which fills the heart with gladness, and all the world with light, a religion which puts dimples of joy on the cheeks of those he loved, and let the future take care of itself." His creed was this: "Do good." The life of Jolin B. Curtis cannot be spoken ; it can only be left. He touched life at many points and entered into the spirit of his time. He was loved and honored by his many friends. He was the friend of the outcast, the lonely and the op- pressed. He warmed himself by the fireside of human affection, and in his home he burnt the incense of love. On the night before he died, standing in the twilight, within the deep- ening gloom, knowing that for the last time the sun was sinking in the west and that he would never behold the dawning of another clay, he fully realized that night had come ; and yet his soul was filled with light, and turning to his wife he said, "If I go to-night it will find me as I have always been." Thus this man, loved and honored by thousands, passed away. John Bacon Curtis married, in Rock- ton, Illinois, August 13, 1878, Alice Charlotte Bacon, who was born in Rockton, Illinois.
BACON This name is found early in the records of New England, and was borne by a number of immi- grants who came to these shores in time to be reckoned among the "pioneers" of the colonies. Among these immigrants were: Andrew Ba- con, of Hartford: Daniel, of Charlestown ; George, of Hingham; Michael, of Dedham; Nathaniel, of Barnstable ; and William, of Sa- lem.
(1) Michael (1) (or Mighill) Bacon, born probably in county Suffolk, England, held, tra- dition says, the office of captain of a company of yeomanry in county Suffolk. He went from the north of England to the north of Ireland
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about 1633, and came to this country about seven years later, settling, about 1640, in Ded- ham, where he died April 18, 1648. "Dedham Records, Town and Selectmen," has the fol- lowing: "Agreed vpon that the Towne of Dedham shall enterteyne Mr Samuell Cooke together with his estate And also Mr Smith & Mr Bacon all from Ireland & afford to them such accomodacons of vpland & Medowe as their estates shall Requier." From a rec- ord made the following month it appears that the wife of Mr. Bacon preceded him to Ded- ham. He was one of the signers of the church covenant of Dedham. In 1644 he granted land to the town for one of the highways. His will, dated April 14, 1648, mentions all his children, except Alice, who died the previous month. His inventory, made April 20, 1649. amounted to £54 15s 4d. His wife Alice died April 2. 1648. His children, born probably in England, were: Michael, Daniel, John, Alice, Sarah.
(II) Michael (2), eldest son of Michael (I) and Alice Bacon, was born probably in Eng- land and came to Dedham in 1640 with his father. December 18, 1640, he was of Charles- town, where he subscribed to "Town Orders" for the then projected town of Woburn, of which he shortly after became one of the origi- nal inhabitants. There he was chosen surveyor of highways April 13, 1644. Frothingham, in the history of Charlestown, gives a list of the inhabitants of that town between 1630 and 1640, and as the name Bacon does not appear, it is probable that Michael settled in Charles- town late in 1640. Michael Bacon bought of Roger Shaw in 1648 a farm in the north- westerly part of Cambridge (now Bedford). including "all the meadow adjoining to the great swamp near the east corner of Concord bounds, that falls in Cambridge bounds." The Shawshin river runs from this "great swamp," on which Mr. Bacon is said to have erected before "King Philip's War," in 1675, a mill which was very recently, if it is not now, standing. In a mortgage received June 8, 1675, he is alluded to as a citizen of Billerica. In August, 1675, the town of Billerica, when providing defence against the Indians in King Philip's war, assigned Michael Bacon to gar- rison "No. 10," under command of Timothy Brooks. He died July 4, 1683. Mary, his first wife, died August 26, 1655. He mar- ried (second), October 26, 1655, Mary Rich- ardson, who died May 19, 1670; and (third) November 28, 1670, Mary Noyes. His chil- dren, all by his first wife, were: Michael, Elizabeth and Sarah.
(III) Michael (3), only son of Michael (2) and Mary Bacon, was born in 1640, prob- ably at Charlestown, before his father settled at Woburn, and died in Bedford, August 13. 1707. He is recognized by his father in a deed dated October 4. 1666, as his "loving son, Michael Bacon, Jun., of Billerica, shoemaker." He purchased the Rev. Mr. Mitchell's farm of five hundred acres for £200 in July, 1682. The farm was a grant by Cambridge to its min- ister, in 1652. It was situated on the Shaw- shin river, and included the mill, and was known for many years as the "Bacon home- stead." The families of Bacon, prominent in the history of Bedford, have almost all de- scended from Michael (3). The name has been prominent in the territory comprising the town for more than two hundred years. The "Bacon house," still standing, is thought to have been built by Michael in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Six later genera- tions of the family, in five of which the name Benjamin appears, have been born or lived in that house. Among other traits of that fam- ily, a notable one has been their musical talent. Of the twenty-six "Minute Men" from Bed- ford in the "Concord fight," six were Bacons, and there were two in the company of militia in that engagement. There were nine Bacons reported as liable to do military duty, May 15, I775. Michael married, March 22, 1660, Sarah, a daughter of Thomas Richardson. She died August 15, 1694. Their children were: Mary, Sarah, Abigail, Jonathan, Na- thaniel, Josiah. Ruth, Benjamin and Joseph.
(IV) Lieutenant Josiah (1), third son of Michael (3) and Sarah (Richardson) Bacon, was born in Billerica, October 20, 1678, and died October 14, 1724. He was a lieutenant in the Indian wars, with "Major Lane." The surname of his wife Mary is unknown. Their children, all born in Billerica, were: Josiah, Mary (died young), Mary (died young), Mary, Lydia and Samuel.
(V) Josiah (2), eldest child of Josiah (I) and Mary Bacon, was born in Billerica, April 27, 1702. He married, June 23, 1726, Sarah, daughter of Deacon Joseph and Rebecca ( Pat- ten ) Davis. She married (second) Captain Enoch Kidder. The eleven children of Josiah and Sarah were: Josiah, Solomon, David, Joshua, William, Ebenezer, James, Sarah, Mary, Joseph and Lydia.
(VI) Ebenezer, sixth son of Josiah (2) and Sarah (Davis) Bacon, was born September 15. 1736, and married before 1763, Abigail Farwell, by whom he had four children : Frances, born in Boston, June 21, 1763 ; Ebe-
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nezer, in Vassalboro, Maine, September 13, 1765; William, March 9, 1768; and Abigail, August 30, 1770.
(VII) William, second son of Ebenezer and Abigail (Farwell) Bacon, married, December I. 1794, Abigail Lovejoy, by whom he had ten children, Mary B., the second, being the mother of John B. Curtis. Mrs. Curtis was a remarkable woman, of unusual common sense and good judgment, and had a strong influence over her son even to the last. On one occasion he took her advice in a matter of great importance involving a large sum of money in preference to his attorney, the late Bion Bradbury, and never had occasion to re- gret that he did so.
One of the officers in the army POWERS of William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings whose
name is preserved on the roll of survivors in Battle Abbey is le Poer, and English history from that time gives an honorable place to the name. According to the Herald's College, Richard le Poer, high sheriff of Gloucester- shire, in 1187 "was killed while defending the Lord's day." As early as 1171 when King Henry II invaded Ireland he gave to Sir 4.Roger le Poer an "English knight" a chief command and for "distinguished services ren- dered" the crown bestowed on him large tracts of land. Henry reserved the cities in the coun- ty of Waterford for the crown, and the Brit- ish Parliament had many of the descendants of Sir Roger le Poer in that body, and as his descendants and descendants of native Celts who took the name of the estates, as was the custom of the day, the name Poer became very numerous in that county. In 1222, among those possessed of landed rights as given in the Domesday of St. Paul, William and Walter Poer (Power) appears frequently. Coming to the name in New England, "The Genealo- gies and Estate of Charlestown, 1629-1818, Boston, 1879," gives the name of John Power, hosier, who married Sarah and had issue : Peter, born 4 (9) 1643. John Power buys of W. Mirable ten acres and Sarah (wife) by power of attorney sells to G. James, house and five acres in 1645. As no further record of John, Peter or Sarah appears, it is reasonable to infer that John, the hosier, returned to Eng- land, and his wife, after selling the real es- tate, also returned with her son Peter and the name was not perpetuated in America. Thom- as Power, a blacksmith, is the next of the name to appear in Charlestown. He married Abigail Fosketh, February 17, 1714-15, and
had: Eliza, John, Thomas, Abigail and Bat- tery. He owned houses, lands and a slave, but the family in the male line does not appear after 1800. The name Walter Power appears in the Middlesex county record, of which the town of Charlestown was a part, in 1654 as a boy of fourteen years who on "ye eleventh daye of ye first month 1660" was married to Trial, daughter of Deacon Ralph and Thankes or Thankeslord Sheppard at Malden. Tradi- tion in the family preserved in manuscript re- cords that Walter landed at Salem, Massa- chusetts Bay Colony, in 1654, and that he mar- ried the daughter of a London goldsmith. Ralph Sheppard came from Stepney, London, July, 1635, aged twenty-nine, with his wife Thankes, aged twenty-three, and daughter, Sarah, aged two, and settled in Weymouth and later removed to Malden, Middlesex coun- ty, where he held office as deacon of the parish church and died aged ninety years, September TI, 1693, as gravesman in the cemetery at Malden attests. The fact that Stepney Par- ish is in London, Essex, and that both William and Walter Power appear among the family names of Essex, and that Lord Littleton, for whom Littleton, Middlesex county, Massachu- setts, was named, member of parliament for Essex, gives color to the claim of that section as his birthplace. We therefore assume as follows :
(I) Walter Power was born in 1639, prob- ably in Essex, England, was married March II, 1661, to Trial, daughter of Deacon Ralph and Thankes Sheppard, who was born Feb- ruary 10, 1641, and that Walter Power died February 22, 1708. He probably had few edu- cational advantages, but had strength and will to establish a home for himself and family. Trial (Sheppard) Power, his wife, was evi- dently the teacher of her sons, who took prom- inent place in the affairs of the town in which they lived. Walter and Trial Power, when they became man and wife, settled on a tract of land at Concord Village, Middlesex county, Massachusetts, which subsequently became known as Littleton. It adjoined the Indian town of Nashohe, which his father-in-law, Dea- con Ralph Sheppard, purchased of Lieutenant Joseph Wheeler, the ancestor of the general of that name, prominent in the civil war as an officer of the Confederate army, and in the Spanish-American war as a major-general in the United States army. Walter Power built a house on the north side of Quagany Hill, about half a mile from the garrison house and a little distance from Nazog Pond. In 1694 he added to his possessions "by purchasing of
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