USA > Maine > Genealogical and family history of the state of Maine, Volume IV > Part 120
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In February, 1864, on his second leave of absence home, Colonel Plaisted raised three hundred more recruits for his regiment and secured town bounties for his re-enlisted men. His recruiting fees he turned over to his vet- erans, the sum of $1,810, "to which," said the Portland Press, "Colonel Plaisted was clearly entitled."
In April, 1864, Colonel Plaisted was trans- ferred with his brigade to Virginia, and com- manded it in Grant's great campaign of 1864-65 against Richmond and Petersburg. He was warmly commended by all his su- perior officers, and General Terry, his corps commander, hero of Fort Fisher, wrote, rec- ommending his promotion: "Colonel Plaisted is a brave, patriotic and loyal man, and has faithfully served the country since early in the war. His regiment is not only one of the best in the Tenth Army Corps, but one of the best which I have ever seen. He is more than or- dinarily attentive and zealous in the perform- ance of his duty, and equally careful for the comfort and welfare of his men. In the bat- tle of the 7th instant (New Market Road) he handled his brigade with marked skill and ability, and it was as much due to his efforts as to the efforts of any one that our flank was not turned and the battle not lost." In simi- lar vein wrote Major General Foster, division commander, and Major General Adelbert Ames, commanding the Second Division, Tenth Corps. In his brigade were the Elev- enth Maine, the Twenty-fourth Massachu- setts, the Tenth Connecticut, the One Hun- dredth New York, the First Maryland, dis- mounted cavalry, and Two Hundred and Sixth Pennsylvania, constituting the Third Brigade, Terry's Division, Tenth Army Corps, which was reorganized in Virginia as the Twenty- fourth Corps. Besides the siege of Richmond and Petersburg, his brigade was engaged in fifteen other engagements, losing in three bat-
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tles 944 men, and having men killed and wounded on fifty-nine different days between May 7 and October 29, 1864. General Plais- ted said to his brigade at the close of the war : "The army cannot boast of your superiors."
In November, 1864, General Plaisted again recruited the depleted ranks of his regiment. In the siege of Petersburg, General Plaisted was appointed by General Birney chief engi- neer of the corps, on account of the excellence of the field works constructed by his com- mand. After declining the honor in vain, he was allowed also to retain command of his brigade and go with it when it moved. One of the reasons that placed the Eleventh Maine among the model regiments of the army was the total abstinence of officers as well as en- listed men. General Plaisted refused to ap- prove the requisitions for whiskey. General Plaisted took a personal interest in getting the soldiers to send home their pay. A spirit of rivalry between companies was encouraged, and on one pay day the regiment sent $30,300 out of a total of $40,000, one company send- ing $4,100.
Though broken in health as he was in the spring of 1865 by fever and ague, his purpose to see the end of the struggle was never shaken until General Grant, at the review of the division, March 17, remarked: "The hard fighting is. over." General Plaisted, now major-general by brevet, having been twice promoted for gallant and meritorious conduct in the field, applied to be mustered out, March 25, 1865. In his farewell address to his com- mand he stated the loss as 1,385 out of 2,693 men, and commended the magnificent record of his brigade. "Your conduct," he said, "has afforded me the keenest pleasure of my life, and while life shall last, memory will con- stantly recur to the conduct of the 'Iron Bri- gade' with as much pride and gratitude as the heart is capable of." General Plaisted saw the end of the Confederacy. On April 3 he saw Richmond smoking from the ground, and boys in blue thronging the streets and capitol grounds, and Libby prison crowded with pris- oners guarded by his own regiment. He was in the hospital in April spending his time, when able, in the wards, reading to wounded comrades and writing letters home for them. He left the hospital the first of May, but did not reach Bangor until the last of the month, being detained by illness at Washington, Bal- timore, Portland and Waterville.
As soon as health permitted he resumed the practice of law at Bangor. He was twice a representative to the state legislature, in 1867
and in 1868, and delegate at large to the Re- publican national convention at Chicago in 1868. In 1873 he was elected attorney gen- eral of Maine, after a notable contest against such candidates as Hon. Thomas B. Reed, Hon. A. A. Strout, of Portland, and Hon. Charles P. Stetson, of Bangor, was elected again in 1874 and 1875, and made a record for faithfulness and efficiency. In twenty- two months he was in court a hundred days, engaged in the trial of fourteen capital cases, with but two acquittals, one on the ground of insanity, the other on account of sympathy for the defendant, a woman said to have mur- dered a faithless betrayer.
General Plaisted was elected to congress, and took his seat December 1, 1875,. resign- ing the office of attorney general. During the Forty-fourth Congress he served on the committee on public buildings and grounds ; expenditures of the treasury department ; en- rolled bills; special committee on ventilation of the House, in conjunction with a scientific commission, at the head of which was Pro- fessor Henry of the Smithsonian Institute, and also on Proctor Knott's special committee on the "Whiskey Frauds," a long and labori- ous task. This Whiskey Ring was a con- spiracy of distillers and government officers. to defraud the government, and it was sought to implicate President Grant himself in the frauds. General Plaisted was the only Re- publican on the sub-committee. Bristow, sec- retary of the treasury under Grant, himself a. presidential candidate, brought all the evi- dence that he could discover or invent to im- plicate General Grant, and all was admitted without objection from General Plaisted. The hearing dragged through winter, spring and summer months. In two weeks General Plaisted proved that the first move to unearth the frauds and bring the guilty to justice was made by Grant; that the letter written by his friend Filley at St. Louis, alleging Colonel Babcock's complicity in the frauds, General Grant turned over to Bristow with the en- dorsement : "Let no guilty man escape." Babcock was his own private secretary. Grant's vindication was complete, and the President appreciated the good judgment and loyalty of General Plaisted. He offered him the chief justiceships of Washington and Wy- oming and associate justiceship of Dakota, all of which he declined, being unwilling to leave Maine.
Governor Plaisted left the Republican party in 1879, and in 1880 was unanimously nomi- nated for governor of Maine by the Demo-
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crats. He was elected for two years, receiv- ing 73,770 votes to 73,544 for Daniel F. Davis, the largest vote ever cast in the state. He was Democratic candidate for United States senator in 1883 and 1889. From June, 1883, until his death in 1898, he was the editor of the New Age, Augusta, Maine, but only nominally after 1891, his health requiring him to spend the winters in the south. Gen- eral Plaisted published a "Digest of the Maine Reports" (Plaisted & Appleton's), a work of 1,400 pages, upon which he was engaged for three years; "The Trial of Wagner" and "The Lowell Trial"; and prepared for publication the "Genealogy of the Plaisted Family"; his "War Diary" and the "True Story of Seven Pines, or Fair Oaks." Among his public ad- dresses may be mentioned his oration at Wa- terville in 1867, at the laying of the corner stone of Memorial Hall, Colby University ; his address at the dedication of Memorial
Hall, Bowdoin College, in 1881 ; his address of welcome to the war veterans of Maine at their reunion in Deering's Grove, Portland, in 1882, and his Fort Sumter address, April 14, 1895, the thirtieth anniversary of the restora- tion of the flag there. The most finished of these addresses was perhaps that at Water- ville. It was highly commended by no less a critic than Senator George F. Hoar, who said of it to Senator Frye: "If it were bound up in Webster's speeches it would not be deemed out of place." His address at Sum- ter was published in full by the Charleston News and Courier, which said of it editori- ally: "We heartily agree with General Plais- ted that so long as the blessings of the pre- served Union shall be enjoyed equally by all, the Union defenders will be honored equally by all as the saviors of their country."
General Plaisted married, September 21, 1858, Sarah J. Mason, daughter of Chase P. Mason, of Waterville, Maine. She died Oc- tober 25, 1875, at the age of forty years. He married (second) September 22, 1881, Mabel True, daughter of Hon. Francis W. Hill, of Exeter. Children: I. Harold Mason, born March 12, 1861; graduate of Maine State College, 1881 ; of Stevens Institute of Tech- nology, 1883; now a patent lawyer in Gran- ite City, Illinois. 2. Frederick William, born July 26, 1865; mentioned below. 3. Ralph Parker, born March 17, 1871; graduate of Bowdoin College, 1894; Albany Law School, 1897; public administrator for Penobscot county ; city clerk of Bangor, 1905 to 1907, and now a practising attorney in that city.
Child of second wife: 4. Gertrude Hill, born June 29, 1890.
Frederick William Plaisted, son of General Harris Merrill Plaisted, was born in Bangor, July 26, 1865. He was educated in the public schools of Bangor and at St. Johnsbury Acad- emy, Vermont, where he was graduated in 1884. He began his work as a newspaper man in 1885, as editor of the North Star, at Presque Isle, Maine. When he came of age he went to Augusta and became business man- ager of The New Age. Three years later he bought the interest of his father's partner. The New Age was established in 1867, edited first by Eben F. Pillsbury, and later by Dan- iel T. Pike, who had been editor of The Age, established in 1831, of which Melville W. Fuller, present chief justice of the supreme court of the United States, was editor in 1856. In July, 1883, Governor Plaisted bought the plant, and in 1898 was succeeded as editor and proprietor by his son, Frederick William, who has continued the newspaper to the pres- ent time.
Mr. Plaisted is one of the best known men in the state. He was the candidate of the Democratic party for congress in the Third District in 1897 and 1898, but was defeated. He was elected mayor of Augusta in 1906. His administration was very successful, and he was re-elected in 1907 and again in 1908, in each election carrying six of the eight wards. He is the first Democratic mayor, with a single exception, to be elected in that city in a period of forty years. Under the administration of Mayor Plaisted a great deal of permanent work has been done. Miles of concrete and granolithic sidewalks have been built, sewers laid, and streets macadamized. While he has not neglected any other branch of municipal improvement, Mayor Plaisted has urged upon his fellow citizens the need of good country roads. As the result of his efforts all the principal highways leading into the city on both sides of the Kennebec river have been graded and macadamized under his personal supervision.
Mayor Plaisted was elected sheriff of Ken- nebec county for two years in September, 1906, the first Democratic sheriff since the county was established in 1799. He served ten years on the village district school board, and was chairman the last three years. Dur- ing his term of office the Lincoln street school house, a substantial modern brick building, was erected. He was delegate-at-large to the Democratic national conventions in 1896 and
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1900 at Chicago and Kansas City. He was for four years a member of the National con- gressional committee of his party, and was chairman of the Democratic state convention in 1906.
Mr. Plaisted is prominent in Free Masonry. He took an active part in the erection of the Augusta Masonic Temple in 1894. He was grand high priest of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter in 1901, and grand commander of the Grand Commandery of Maine in '1902. He is a member of Bethlehem Lodge; Cush- noc Chapter; Alpha Council, Trinity Com- mandery, Knights Templar. He is a 32d de- gree Mason in the Scottish Rite. He is a trustee of the Augusta Masonic Building Company; trustee of the Lithgow Public Li- brary; an incorporator of the Augusta Sav- ings Bank; director of the Augusta City Hos- pital; member of the B. P. O. Elks; also of the Sons of Veterans, and of the Abnaki Club and Cobbosseecontee and Augusta Yacht clubs.
He married, February 10, 1907, Frances Gullifer, daughter of the late Captain Henry Gullifer, of Milbridge.
MUNSON The name is apparently a cor- ruption of the Scotch Manson, and was introduced in New England by Captain Richard Manson, a Scotch sea captain, who claimed descent from a titled Scotch. family. We are able to learn that this Scotch ship-master first appeared in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, about 1661, and settled at this seaport, married, and had children. We therefore place him in the first generation of the family, which in the fourth generation adopted the spelling of the name, "Munson."
(II) John, son of Captain Richard Man- son, was probably born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, after 1661.
(III) John (2), probably eldest son of John (1) Manson, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, about 1700. He married and had a family of children, naming one Richard in honor of the progenitor of the family in America.
(IV) Richard, son of John (2) Manson, was probably born in Portsmouth, about 1730. He adopted the calling of his Scottish progeni- tor, and became a master mariner, sailing from Portsmouth. He changed the spelling of the family name to Munson.
(V) Joseph, apparently son of Captain Richard Munson, was a seafarer. He removed early in life to Machias, Maine, with which
port he had acquaintance in his professional life as captain of a coaster. He married Sarah Morse and had four sons: I. Stephen, mar- ried Sarah Foster, and had ten children. 2. Joseph, married Ann Woodruff, eight chil- dren. 3. John (q. v.). 4. Robert, married Ruth Elliot; seven children.
(VI) John, third son of Joseph and Sarah (Morse) Munson, was born in Machias, Maine, where he married Sally Niles. Chil- dren : I. Sally, married Isaac Huntly. 2. Su- san. 3. Jeremiah. 4. Daniel. 5. Betsey. 6. Jonathan. 7. Salome. 8. Emma, married John M. Foster. 9. Jotham S. (q. v.). 10. Hannah.
(VII) Jotham S., fourth son and ninth child of John and Sally (Niles) Munson, was born in Machias, Maine. He was a seafaring man, sailing from Machias, and with his brother Jonathan removed to Wesley, Washington county, Maine, a town about twenty miles northwest of Machias. They were among the early settlers of the town, which was incor- porated January 24, 1833. Here Jotham married Mary and became the father of sixteen children. Of this large family we have a record only of Charles E., Henry, Frederick, Edwin Longfellow and Releif ; but have no information as to the dates of their birth except as to Edwin Longfellow (q. v.), and none of the order of their births. (VIII) Edwin Longfellow, son of Jotham S. and Mary Munson, was born in Wesley, Maine, January 21, 1857. He married Olive Orissa, daughter of Israel and Jane Andrews. Her mother was a native of Cooper, Maine, and had besides Olive fifteen other children, among whom were: Minnie, Clara, Thomas, Israel, Augustus and Charles. Israel An- drews was a seafaring man, and was sta- tioned at Eastport, Maine, in the service of the United States navy during the civil war. He was a war Democrat, and a man of excellent repute. Edwin Longfellow Munson was a farmer and lumberman. He was a Repub- lican, and a member of the Methodist church.
(IX) Daniel Gilbert, only child of Edwin Longfellow and Olive Orissa (Andrews) Munson, was born in Wesley, Washington county, Maine, August 8, 1870. He attended the public grammar and high school of Calais, Maine, graduating from the latter in 1888, and from Colby University A. B. 1892; he was a member of Delta Kappa .Ep- silon college fraternity, Psi Chapter, and was initiated in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, through Knox Lodge, No. 29. He was a member of the Maine Society of
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New York, and of the Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church of Brooklyn, New York. He taught school in Brooklyn, Maine, 1893; Rockland, Maine, 1893-95; Medfield, Massachusetts, 1895-97; and in the Boys' High School, Brooklyn, New York, since 1898. He was married, December 27, 1899, in Portland, Maine, to Cornelia Emma, daugh- ter of Cornelius and Alice (Haskell) Doherty, of Rockland, Maine, born February II, 1877. Her father was a lime manufacturer, and they had children besides Cornelia : Mary and Cor- nelius F. Doherty. The children of Daniel Gilbert and Cornelia (Doherty) Munson are : Ruth Elizabeth, born in Brooklyn, New York, March 1, 1903; Alice Haskell, September 25, 1906; Olive Orissa, born April 10, 1908. Their home is at 1052 Lincoln Place, Brooklyn, New York.
CLARY John Clary, progenitor of the family of which this treats settled in Georgetown, Maine. Being among the early settlers in this state, then a province of Massachusetts, he came to George- town from Newcastle, province of New Hampshire, and married Jane Mahenny, widow, prior to 1750. About the year 1760 he suddenly disappeared, probably meeting his death by drowning, while crossing the Back river.
It was customary for those owning farms on what was known as "Parkers Island" to go to the block house over night, which was in Arrowsic, about opposite his home. Tradi- tion has it that he had gone for a physician for his family. He may have been killed by the Indians, who were very troublesome about that time. His wife Jane died in 1810. Chil- dren: I. Jane, born October 7, 1750. ' 2. John, June 10, 1753. 3. Allen, June 8, 1756. 4. Robert, April 10, 1759. Jane was married to John Gurrel, of Georgetown, December 15, 1774. There is no further record of John Clary (2d). Allen Clary married Mary Rair- den, of Georgetown, December 23, 1777. Their children, all born in Georgetown, were: I. John, born September 12, 1780. 2. Nancy, February 20, 1783. 3. Allen, April 2, 1786. 4. David, December 8, 1789. 5. James, July 21, 1791. 6. Edward, February II, 1794. 7. Robert, August 14, 1796. 8. Mary, Septem- ber 15, 1800. Descendants of this family are now residing in Georgetown. Jacob C. Clarey, of Riggsville, is a son of Edward, born No- vember 15, 1833.
(II) Robert, son of John and Jane Clary, was a pioneer in the settlement of the town of
Jefferson. At the age of nineteen, with his pack on his back, he wended his way through the forest, going by way of the Wiscasset Settlement, to that place, which was then called Ballstown, his course being guided by blazed trees. He there took up a large tract of land on the east side of a beautiful sheet of water now known as Pleasant Pond, where he at once set to work erecting his log cabin and clearing for what has become one of the best farms in that section of the state. A good house was later built by him near the top of the hill overlooking his fertile fields with southern slope and flanked on either side by a beautiful pond, the view extending across the valley of forests and farms to the next range of hills more than two miles away, and where, near the top, as if to complete the pastoral picture, the substantial country church was later erected. He became a respected and prosperous citizen of Jefferson, and his name is one of those of the twelve citizens inscribed on a monument erected in honor of the earliest settlers of the town, at the centennial celebra- tion of its incorporation held there in 1907. In the government records of the first census (1790) his name is spelled McClary.
He was twice married, his first wife being Susanna Rairden, born in Georgetown, Au- gust 8, 1758, a sister of his brother Allen's wife. Their children were : I. Elizabeth, born January 20, 1782. 2. Timothy, October 9, 1783. 3. Catharine, August 27, 1785. 4. Robert, December 22, 1787. 5. Susanna, May 15, 1790. 6. Richard, June 10, 1793. 7. John, October 6, 1795. 8. Rosanna, March 14, 1798. There is no record of the death of his wife, Susanna Clary, which occurred soon after or about 1800. His second wife was Mrs. Hannah Currier, widow, maiden name, Clark, whom he married in 1813. Their chil- dren were: Miles, born September 21, 1814; Harrison, August 24, 1816; Hannah, August 13, 1818.
Descendants of Richard are living in Maine and in Massachusetts. John raised a large family, all of whom are now deceased except one daughter, Mrs. Cole, now living in California, and one son, L. H. Clary, a retired policeman from the city of Boston, now living in Farmingdale, Maine. A descendant of Miles, Henry W. Clary, now owns and occu- pies the fine home and farm of this family in Jefferson. Robert Clary died May 13, 1848. (III) Robert (2), son of Robert (I) and Susanna Clary, lived and died in Jefferson. He was a farmer, and like his father pursued that calling through life. He occupied a farm
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of one hundred acres which was originally a part of the large tract of his father's land. He served in the war of 1812, his company being stationed at Wiscassett. His first wife was Nancy Moody, born in Nobleboro, December 18, 1790, whom he married in August, 1813. Children : John M., born February 5, 1814; Edward R., June 12, 1816; Corddea, Novem- ber 22, 1818; William, May 18, 1821 ; Austin, September 26, 1823; George W., August 5, 1826; Robert W., August 25, 1829; David B., March 17, 1832; Nancy Jane, September 5, 1834. John M. lived in Ellsworth, where he raised a family; one of his sons, Leander, served in the civil war, and a younger son, Wilford M., lives in California. Edward R. married Nancy Hills, and lived in Union; he served in the civil war, and died in a United States hospital in Rhode Island, July 11, 1864 ; his two sons, Silas and Edward H., are mar- ried; Silas lives in Washington, Maine, while Edward H. lives on the home farm in Union, a beautiful place surmounting a high hill.
Mrs. Nancy Clary, wife of Robert (2) died March 14, 1836. In March, 1839, Mr. Clary married Abigail Harriman, whose father, Joab Harriman, was a revolutionary soldier. She was born in Moultonboro, New Hamp- shire, September 22, 1799, and died in Hallo- well, Maine, June 17, 1870, leaving only one son, Charles H., born February 2, 1840. Rob- ert (2) Clary died in Jefferson, August 11, 1850.
(IV) Charles Henry, son of Robert (2) and Abigail (Harriman) Clary, was educated at the public schools, at Lincoln Academy and Oak Grove Seminary ; he also took a course at a business college in Springfield, Massachu- setts. He was variously employed for several years, including teaching in district schools. In 1869 he was employed by the granite com- pany of Bodwell & Wilson as bookkeeper and draftsman. Two years later Joseph R. Bod- well, of this firm, afterward governor of Maine, organized the Hallowell Granite Com- pany. Mr. Clary took án active part in the organization of this company, and was elected one of its directors, as well as its secretary, and was also chosen superintendent of the granite cutting department of the works, which positions he successfully filled until he withdrew from the business in 1880. During these years this company laid the foundation for a very extensive business, and successfully completed some very large building and monu- mental contracts. Mr. Clary later purchased Mr. Coughlin's interest in the meat and gro- cery business of Coughlin & Quinn, which
then became known as the Hallowell Market, Clary & Quinn, proprietors. The new firm considerably improved and extended this busi- ness, which proved very successful. Since the death of his partner, Mr. William H. Quinn, in 1900, he has conducted the business alone, becoming sole proprietor in 1902. He has now (1909) sold out the business, and is plan- ning for less active pursuits.
Mr. Clary married, September 19, 1870, Lusanna E. Young, who was born in Jackson, January 27, 1839. Children : Edith A., born September 1, 1871 ; Justin R., May 26, 1873; Lusanna M., November 29, 1874; Mary P., April 3, 1880; Henry C., February 2, 1882. Mary P. died in infancy. Edith was gradu- ated from the Maine Wesleyan Seminary, musical department, in 1892 ; she was married to Prof. Percy A. R. Dow, and lived first in San Francisco, where their home was wrecked and then burned by the great earthquake of 1906; since then living in Oakland, California ; they have children: Ruth Dorothy, Rodliff Clary and Muriel. Justin R. was graduated from the University of Maine, class of 1897, and married Mabel Coombs, in 1901 ; they first resided in Worcester, Massachusetts, and later in White Plains, New York. They have chil- dren : Robert S., born April 10, 1903; Philip H., July 31, 1904; Feraline Foster, October 21, 1907. Of the other two children of C. H. and Lusanna E. Clary, Lulie M. graduated from Mt. Holyoke College in 1897, and H. C. graduated from Dartmouth, class of 1904. Neither of these two have married.
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