USA > Maine > Piscataquis County > Historical collections of Piscataquis County, Maine, consisting of papers read at meetings of Piscataquis County Historical Society, also The north eastern boundary controversy and the Aroostook War, V. I > Part 10
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poet's appreciation of the lake and the boat, and beauties of the lake. I think the first stanza was something as follows :
"Over the lake, the Lake Sebec, On the breezy deck, Of the Rippling Wave, Staunch little steamer True and brave."
I have searched the pages of her book of poems, "Birch Stream and Other Poems," and regret that I fail to find the poem there.
In 1876, the charter for the exclusive right of steam- navigation on Sebec Lake was renewed to Capt. Crockett. He operated the steamer till 1878, when he sold out his boat to John Morrison of Corinth, who built her over, and ran it for two or three years, and finally abandoned her and allowed his monopoly to become lapsed.
The navigation of the lake since that time is within the memory of most men now living here, and I pur- posely close the history at this point. It can be readily seen that the history of navigation on Sebec Lake could not have been written without the aid of Capt. Crockett, and the writer acknowledges the great assistance which he derived in an interview with him in the fall of 1908, when I found the Captain confined to his bed by rheu- matism.
Capt. Crockett told the writer that he lost by drown- ing accident only one person while he was engaged in the steamboat business: Daniel W. Hayes, in 1870. He told me the story and it so closely accords with the account given in the Observer, August 18, 1870, that I am inserting it.
"SAD CASE OF DROWNING. A young man named Daniel Hayes, about twenty years of age, and employed on the steamer Rippling Wave, was drowned
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in Sebec Lake on Friday afternoon last. A passenger on losing his hat overboard, the engine reversed steam, and young Hayes jumped into a small boat attached to the steamer, secured the hat and on approaching the steamer ran his boat too near and was knocked overboard by the guards of the boat. He arose, and under excitement it is thought, or by being strangled, commenced swimming towards the shore, and away from the steamer and small boat, but was noticed soon to falter, and before assistance could be rendered he sank for the last time, within a few rods of the steamer. Grapples were soon procured and parties commenced dragging the pond until Saturday afternoon, when his body was found near where he sank in about thirty feet of water. His body was brought to Foxcroft, where funeral services were held on Sunday, attended largely by the people."
In the early days of navigation on the lake, there was no hotel at the head of the lake, there were no cottages along its shores, no industry at Willimantic, but it was almost as it was when first formed by the hand of Nature, unimproved and unmarred by the hand of man. The surface of the lake was as left by Nature, the charter for the Sebec dam being granted in 1866. Mr. Crockett remembers the great benefit to steamboating occasioned by the raising of the waters of the lake by that dam. In more modern times, the management of that same dam has caused more or less annoyance to owners of boats and cottages on the lake.
Wm. D. Blethen and Geo. W. Gilman built the Lake House in 1865. Capt. Crockett said that the house took $2,000 the first eight weeks after it was opened. It was thereafter run by different individuals, Nelson Thompson having it in charge at one time. Crockett took a lease of it for $10 a year for fifteen years, and
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later bought it. From this history of the house, it would appear that its first glories fast faded, and from some chance remarks dropped by the Captain, it might be inferred that the strict enforcement of the prohibitory law had something to do with the reduction of its revenues.
Of the cottages now standing on the shores of Sebec Lake, the first was built by Hon. A. G. Lebroke, on Wilson Stream, part way up Granite Mountain. Hon. Ephraim Flint had built and occupied a cottage on the stream near Greeley's Falls, some ten or twelve years before the Lebroke cottage was built. Now cottages line nearly all the shores of the lake, an enumeration of which would appear almost like a city directory.
Thinking of these changes, Captain Crockett told this story :
Sometime not far from 1850, William Davis, the father of H. S. Davis and B. H. Davis, was standing, with Mr. Crockett on Dundee, the highest point of land in Foxcroft, from which point a great part of the lake can be seen. Mr. Davis, speaking to Mr. Crockett, and pointing towards the lake, said: "Mr. Crockett, that is going to be a great resort. There will be steamboats running on the lake, and there will be hundreds and hundreds of people go there, but I shall be gone before this happens."
When we remember that at that remote period summer resorting was almost unknown, and Maine had not then been discovered as the playground of the United States, this prophecy and its accurate fulfillment seems truly remarkable, and reflects great credit on the foresight of Mr. Davis.
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Peter Brawn and His Celebrated Bear- Fight on Sebec Lake
By Edgar Crosby Smith
N TO history of the settlements about the shores of Sebec Lake, and of the characters who contributed to make that history, would be complete without an account of Peter Brawn.
But little is known of his ancestry. He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, about 1770, and moved to what is now the town of Madison, probably in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
He first came to Piscataquis County about 180,5, when he came to Dover and took up a tract of land on Lot 2, Range 12, which was afterwards known as the Spaulding place. After making something of a clearing and erecting a log cabin, in the spring of 1806 he brought his family to Dover. During the next year he lost his wife, and in 1808 he sold out his possessions in Dover and moved to Moorstown, now Abbot. He was the second or third settler of that town. Here he lived until the memorable cold seasons of 1815-16, and becom- ing discouraged with the prospects of farming in that locality, he again sold out and removed to Foxcroft. Just where he lived or what his occupation was while in Foxcroft is not known. He remained there until 1826, when the first clearing was made at the head of Sebec Lake. He took up a lot of land on the shore of the
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lake and Wilson Stream, and in company with John Greeley, who erected the first mills there the same year, moved his family thither.
I do not find that he paid so much attention to farm- ing while living at the lake, as he did to the occupation of a shingle shaver. It was during his residence here and his connection with the mill, that one incident occurred which will preserve his memory to future gener- ations, even if all other things about him should be for- gotten. I refer to his celebrated bear-fight on Sebec Lake, of which I give an account below.
Mr. Brawn lived at the head of the lake for twenty years or more, until Mr. Greeley sold out the mills, and they were abandoned. He then moved to Guilford, in that locality now known as the Brawn neighborhood, and there passed his declining years.
In personal appearance Mr. Brawn was tall and erect. His first wife was Catherine Becky, a woman of Scotch descent, whom he probably married during his residence in Madison. As above stated, she died in Dover in 1808, and was buried in Foxcroft. His second wife was Betsey Kincaid, whom he married during his residence in Abbot.
Mr. Brawn died in 1855, about eighty-five years of age, and his remains rest in the Brawn cemetery, or what was then known as the Poplar Hill yard, in an unmarked grave.
I have been fortunate enough to secure an account of the celebrated bear-fight above referred to, the account being written just about the time the event occurred, and one which I believe to be fully authentic.
Every one who has read Seba Smith's "Way Down East Stories" remembers the story of "Uncle Pete and the Bear." It is said that Peter Brawn was the character
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upon whom this story was founded. Whether or not this is correct, I am unable to state.
The story as recorded, is as follows :
"A few days since as Brawn and a Mr. Ayer were coming down the Sebec Lake with a load of shingles, in a batteau, they discovered a bear swimming in the water, and they gave chase to him. As they approached him the bear turned upon them and showed belligerent symptoms, displaying a set of formidable teeth, and per- forming his evolutions with an activity that convinced them that they had no insignificant enemy to contend with. Being, however, armed with a small axe, they were not disposed to retreat. The moment they reached him he raised his fore feet and placed them on the side of the boat. Ayer struck at him with the axe, but it glanced down his cheek cutting off a slice of it. Before he could strike another blow, Bruin was on board the boat and seizing Ayer by the wrist with his teeth, he struck him a blow with his paw that tore the flesh from his side to the ribs, and they both fell overboard together. The bear relinquished his hold, and Ayer sank in the water. 'And now,' said Uncle Peter as he told his story, 'I begun to think it was time for me to be stir- rin' myself. The bear had canted the boat and let a couple of barrels of water in, and had like to tumblus all into the puddle together, and the shingles were piled so there want much gittin' about, but as I seed the old feller swimmin' round waitin' for Ayer to come up so as to make another grab at him, I swung the boat round a little, and showed myself.
"'At that the bear come grinnin' towards me as lovin' as a meat axe. I had nothin' but a paddle to defend myself with, but I gin' him a wipe with it over the nose, an' he shook his head and snuffled a little, and kinder turned broad side to me; so I hit him a nudge in
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the ribs-it didn't set easy, and he made off. I'd jest time to give him a friendly lick on the hinder by the way of a partin' salute, and the varmint was out of my reach makin' his way across the pond. Well, Ayer had been comin' up and going down two or three times, and was about sinkin' for the last time, when I made a grab at him and ketched him by the hair and hauled him in. He'd got to be good for nothin' by this time, for he couldn't help me nor help himself. There he lay a drip- pin' as wet as a drownded rat and as bloody as a stuck pig. He had lost his hatchet in his grapple with the bear, and we had nothin' to fight with. I couldn't make much headway along with the boat and the shingles and two barrels of water, so we lost the bear. I tacked about and run ashore-got Ayer up to Stearns' and left him to have his scratches dressed, and hired Clark to help me down with the shingles.' 'And now,' said Uncle Peter, raising his arms and placing himself in the atti- tude of taking aim, 'if ever that bear crosses my track agin on the Sebec Pond he'll find me ready to give him a blue pill from the barrel of my old fusee.'"
J. L.
Sketch of Hunter John Ellis
By Sarah A. Martin
H UNTER John Ellis is one of the familiar figures which stands out as a remarkably original char- acter in my remembrance of earlier days in my native town, Guilford.
John Ellis was born in Smithfield, Me., in 1784, resided for a time in Mercer and came to Guilford in August, 1844, and from that time until his death in 1867, spent most of his time as hunter and guide in the forests about Moosehead Lake.
He was a hunter before coming to Guilford, even in his youth.
As a boy he had a cat which he had trained to accom- pany him in his quest for squirrels and other small game, and who was as sagacious and helpful as a dog. The delight he took with this intelligent companion in these early days may have been largely influential in making him a lover of life in the woods.
Yet he was no hermit. He enjoyed his fellows, was a genuine wit, and his return from the woods was an occasion for rejoicing in the village; while the circle in the loafing places had to be enlarged when Hunter Ellis returned, that all might listen to his stories and adventures.
Could these stories but be collected, they would make a valuable asset to the literature of the county ; and yet
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they would lack the inimitable setting of his magnetic telling.
When planning for one of his long trips he began for at least a month to place together articles he might need.
This characteristic care saved him from leaving the needed or being burdened with unneeded articles.
When trapping or hunting by himself, his camp was made where suited best his purpose, but hospitably open to the chance sportsman. The floor was the trodden earth. On one occasion he made use of an Indian mound as a pillow for his head. "How can you sleep with your head on that mound?" said a visitor: "Why," said Hunter, "I fear no live Indian; why a dead one?"
In trapping, hunting and fishing his skill was unsur- passed. Spare of figure, lithe as an Indian, no white man was his equal in his chosen craft.
From his trips he ever returned laden with furs, often most valuable; frequently with four or five hundred muskrat skins and in the earlier days with wolfskins. Frequently he was alone for weeks and perhaps months, seeing no white face. As a guide, his services were eagerly sought by sportsmen who rarely failed to render him due courtesy.
However on one occasion, one of a party of New York men failed to show him the respect to which Hunter was accustomed. Ellis bided his time. One day "New York" complained that his watch, an elegant gold one, had stopped. Hunter said he was used to watches and could take it apart all right and see what ailed it. He did so and told the sportsman it was but a bit of dirt which had got in and he had removed it. "Well put it together now." "O!" says old Hunter, "I can't put watches together; I can only take them apart." "New York" took his valuable watch home
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tied up in a handkerchief-but he didn't chaff old Hunter any more.
There are stories of wonderful adventures, the partic- ulars of which are hard to get at this late date when they are rarely obtainable from those who listened to them, but from a later generation as told them by their fathers. There is the story of the struggle with the two bears; the second putting in an active appearance while Hunter was busy with the first. For a time it was a question who would win out. Old Hunter, how- ever, came into camp with two bearskins.
Another is an exploit with a moose who took him on his antlers and carried him across a brook. An account of this was published in the Somerset Journal in 1824 to the files of which I have not had access.
Old John had a quiet way of overcapping the big fish stories as often told by sportsmen. The following story to that effect is as told in The Piscataquis Observer of November 15, 1860: "Around the fireside at the Kineo House a party of sportsmen were recounting the wonders which they had at various times accomplished in the way of trout-catching. Hunter John listened for a while in silence. At length with a contemptuous whiff from the pipe which he was smoking, he broke in: "Call that fishing do you boys? Let me tell you: I get trout on this lake anywhere, day or night any time or any season of the year. Let me tell you : I was crossing the North Bend last winter; ice three feet thick; I happened to have with me a one-inch auger which I was going to use for some purpose or other. The thought struck me: wonder if trout could be found here this time of year ! No sooner said than done. I had a bit of twine and a pointed nail in my pocket. I just took the auger, bored a hole in the ice, and in less than five minutes had a sixteen-pound laker on the ice before me. What do
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you think of that?' The crowd was dumb with astonish- ment, while the hunter smoked his pipe in triumph. Presently one of the number, turning suddenly, exclaimed : 'Uncle John, how came that sixteen-pound trout through that one-inch auger hole?' 'Goodness gracious !' exclaimed the old man, starting to his feet and clapping his hands together, 'I never thought of that.' Laughter went round at once, but no more big fish stories were told that night."
I have spoken of him as ever companionable, but he did not believe in new-fangled notions. The late Dwight Maxfield in an article published in the Dexter Gazette in 1882 tells this story: "Once some sort of a reformer lectured in the old schoolhouse against eating animal food. Hunter was there and was terribly disgusted and interrupted the man by asking him, 'What can we fry our doughnuts in if we can't use lard?' and other pertinent questions which the lecturer found hard to answer. Finally old Hunter was too disgusted to remain any longer, whereupon he arose, pointed his finger at the speaker and said: 'Mister your talk is all mune-shine. You'd better go to a woman's skule awhile and then maybe you'll know sunthin.' He then went out of the room followed by the whole assembly, for the meeting was essentially done for."
Your historian herself recalls an episode in which Hunter Ellis figured in that same old schoolhouse. The lyceum was a feature of Guilford life then, where ques- tions serious or otherwise were wisely discussed by the village men-folk. I remember as a little girl once listen- ing to a discussion by the dignitaries on this question : "Resolved; that women are less intelligent than men." The subject was discussed with much vigor, and my girlish heart swelled with anguish as the affirmative seemed to clinch the argument by asserting and appar-
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ently proving by figures that women's brains are smaller than men's. Old Hunter Ellis was sitting quietly in the corner but he rose angrily and exclaimed as he stalked vigorously from the house, "Calves have large brains." The negative won out, and your histo- rian ever after loved Hunter Ellis.
But the days of the old Guilford lyceum are past, and the huntsman hunts no more. His last venture was in the fall of 1866. Camping alone far beyond Spencer Bay, he was taken seriously ill, and crawled ten miles on hands and knees to reach human aid. Word was sent to his family at Guilford. It was late in November and the lake was not frozen over. Mr. Joseph Cousins, the husband of his step-daughter, to whom I am indebted for reliable data, went with a logging sled, the long dis- tance around the lake and brought the worn hunter home.
It was in February of 1867 they laid him away in beautiful Elmwood Cemetery, and the sparkling waters of the lovely Piscataquis come murmuring by, whisper- ing softly of the woods and streams he loved. He rests with the many who with him had dwelt happily together in the dear old town "in the old days."
"There bide the true friends- The first and the best; There clings the green grass Close where they rest; Would they were here ? No ;- Would we were there ! The old days-the lost days- How lovely they were !"
Edgar Wilson Nye
By John Francis Sprague
P ISCATAQUIS County has produced men who have become famous in the professional, industrial and military life of the country.
Two of her sons have acquired international renown, although in widely different spheres. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, the great inventor and the inventor of the origi- nal machine gun, was born in the town of Sangerville; and Edgar Wilson Nye, known in the world of letters as Bill Nye, the prolific humorous writer and lecturer, was born in the town of Shirley, Maine, February 26th, 1850, and died in Asheville, North Carolina, February 22, 1896.
He was the son of Franklin Nye, who was a direct descendant of Benjamin Nye, who came to this country from England in 1637. He married Elizabeth Loring of Shirley, November 5th, 1846; the marriage ceremony having been performed by Stephen Brown, Esquire, a justice of the peace.
Elizabeth Loring was one of the well-known family of Lorings in Piscataquis County, who were prominent in its early history. The Rev. Amasa Loring, a clergyman of the Congregational denomination, and the author of Loring's History of Piscataquis County, was of this family.
When Edgar Wilson Nye was about three years of age his parents emigrated to Wisconsin. The territory
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of Wisconsin had then been a state less than two years, and its early settlers were subject to all of the hard- ships, sacrifices and sufferings which are the fate of all pioneers in a new country.
The Nyes had but little except their own hands for capital with which to start in life, hence his boyhood days were spent in the dark shadows of a family struggle with poverty.
He was what is popularly known as a self-made man, never having obtained from schools any education except what he was able to acquire when a youth from the crude system of district schools, which the poor and struggling Wisconsin pioneers were able to maintain in those days.
His son, Frank Nye of New York, at a reunion of the Nye family in Sandwich, Massachusetts, in an address delivered at that meeting, is authority for the statement that his father never attended a high school.
Apropos to this may be cited an anecdote of him related in this same address. Once he was sitting at the breakfast table of a Sunday morning with James Whitcomb Riley. Riley said to him : "Bill did it ever strike you that all of this praise and adoration offered God has never spoiled him?" And Mr. Nye's quick retort was: "Yes, Jim, and I sometimes think he is self- made. "
Bill Nye failed as a farmer, a miller, a teacher, a book- agent and a lawyer. At the age of twenty-four he went to Toring, Wyoming, where he did his first literary work as a correspondent for a small weekly newspaper published in a new mining town, for which he received as compensation the sum of one dollar a column. Years afterwards he quaintly describes this event by saying, "The column was short, the type was large and I needed the dollar."
He became postmaster and it was his letters to the
BILL NYE'S BIRTHPLACE, SHIRLEY. MAINE
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officials in Washington, written in a humorous vein, which first brought him into the public view.
Later he moved to Laramie, where he first met Miss Clara T. Smith, who was destined to become his wife.
Of this Frank Nye has said: "He went to the station one night in search of any news he could find there and saw Miss Clara T. Smith alight from the train. She saw Mr. Nye; Mr. Nye saw her, and imme- diately the sensation of love at first sight thrilled two hearts. Anyway, they finally visited the parson and she became the wife of Mr. Nye."
His own humorous version of the affair was that he "had two reasons for marrying ; the first was to get rid of one more Smith; the second was that Miss Smith being an orphan there would be no mother-in-law sequel to the wedding."
He subsequently became a citizen of New York, where he resided several years. It is most often the fate of genius to influence mankind in the serious and tragic aspects of life, to lead the race in the gloom of human passion, avarice, and the cruelty of one to another.
It was Bill Nye's mission to make the children of earth laugh and to cheer the hearts of the weary, the sorrowing and the despondent.
Who can say that his mission was not as noble as that of the warrior, the preacher or the statesman? His tarry in this life was brief but it cast a broad ray of sunshine athwart the path of men while it endured.
During his life he visited Shirley and the following is from his account of that visit as published in Wit and Humor :
"A man ought not to criticise his birthplace, I presume, and yet, if I were to do it all over again, I do not know whether I would select that particular spot or not. Sometimes I think I would not. And yet, what
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memories cluster about that old house! There was the place where I first met my parents. It was at that time that an acquaintance sprang up which has ripened in later years into mutual respect and esteem.
"It was there that what might be termed a casual meeting took place, that has, under the alchemy of resist- less years, turned to golden links, forming a pleasant but powerful bond of union between my parents and myself. For that reason, I hope that I may be spared to my parents for many years to come.
"Many memories now cluster about that old home, as I have said. There is, also, other bric-a-brac which has accumulated since I was born there. I took a small stone from the front yard as a kind of memento of the occa- sion and the place. I do not think it has been detected yet.
"There was another stone in the yard, so it may be weeks before any one finds out that I took one of them.
"How humble the home, and yet what a lesson it should teach the boys of America! Here, amid the barren and inhospitable waste of rocks and cold, the last place in the world that a great man would naturally select to be born in, began the life of one, who, by his own unaided effort, in after years rose to the proud height of postmaster at Laramie City, Wy. T., and with an estimate of the future that seemed almost prophetic, resigned before he could be characterized as an offensive partisan.
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