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 30
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
433
OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
business interests until about ten days before his death. He was for many years president of the First National Bank of Bath, and was also a director in the Bath Trust Company.
Died, December 18, 1903.
Married, June 6, 1847 ; in Greenville, Eunice Spinney, born in Industry, Maine, January 6, 1824, daughter of Josiah and Nancy (Williams) Hinckley of Industry.
Issue :
1. Mellen Shaw, born May 27, 1849; married September 19, 1875, M. Ella Mitchell; he died March 4, 1880.
2. Ellen Shaw, born February 1, 1851, died April 20, 1863.
3. Charles D. Shaw, born April 5, 1852, married October 25, 1875, Clara F. Norcross.
Twins. ----- ! 4. Frank Shaw, born June 27, 1855, died May 16, 1867.
5. Fred Shaw, born June 27, 1855, died January 27, 1856.
6. Albert H. Shaw, born April 21, 1857, married August 19, 1879, Martha E. Mansell, and resided in Bath; he was engaged in lumbering and mercantile business with his father.
William M. Shaw, born March 3, 1861, married October 24, 1865, Ida J. Man- sell, and was a member of the firm of M. G. Shaw & Sons.
8. George M. Shaw, born February 20, 1863, died the following August.
9. Mary Emma Shaw, born September 6, 1865, married October 19, 1892, Frederick H. Kimball, and resides in Bath.
William Bingham and the Million Acre Tract
By John Francis Sprague
I 'N OLD deeds of land in Eastern Maine, in early records of titles in some parts of Western Piscata- quis, and in old files of newspapers reference is often made to the "million acres" or "the million acre tract."
Three quarters of a century ago and until within the past twenty years, the people living in Blanchard, Kings- bury and Shirley were often called "the million acre folks," and there are many records of marriages in the first records of the town of Monson where the magis- trate or minister has certified that one of the contract- ing parties "resided on the million acres."
Therefore it has seemed to me that a brief history of the Million Acre Tract and of its original purchaser, the Honorable William Bingham, should find place in the archives of our society.
Samuel Phillips, Jr., Leonard Jarvis and John Read, on July 1st, 1791, contracted in writing for the Com- monwealth of Massachusetts, to sell to Colonel Henry Jackson of Boston and Royal Flint of New York, two million acres of land in the district of Maine for ten cents per acre. (Col. Jackson commanded a regiment of Massachusetts soldiers during the Revolutionary War. ) On July 25 of the same month, 1791, Jackson and Flint assigned their contract to William Duer of New
435
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
York and Henry Knox, secretary to the department of war of the United States of America.
In December, 1792, Duer and Knox assigned the con- tract to William Bingham of Philadelphia, and on January 28, 1793, the above named Phillips, Jarvis and Read conveyed to him by sixteen deeds the above named two million acres of land.
One million acres of this land is within the outlines of Hancock and Washington Counties, excepting three townships in Penobscot County, and were called "Bing- ham's Penobscot Purchase." (B. P. P.) The other million acres were on both sides of the Kennebec River and are all in Somerset County except six townships in what is now Piscataquis County and four and a half townships in Franklin, and were called "Bingham's Kennebec Purchase." (B. K. P.) The towns of Well- ington, Kingsbury (now a plantation), Blanchard, the original town of Shirley before a part of Wilson was annexed, and two townships called Squaw Mountain, are the Bingham towns in Piscataquis County.
A brief history of this land sale as I have gleaned it from the files of the Bangor Historical Magazine; Williamson's History of Maine; Massachusetts Records, and other sources, is that at the close of the Revolu- tionary War Massachusetts was indebted about $5,000,000 and her proportion of the National debt was supposed to be about as much.
There was no revenue but a direct tax, which was oppressive, unpopular and not easily collected. Governor Hancock called the attention of the General Court to the Eastern lands in the District of Maine, and although there was great confusion regarding titles to land in that section of the District, the Commonwealth of Massachu- setts did possess a good title to a large portion of its area.
436
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Many Massachusetts soldiers who had been discharged, not "without honor," save that they were paid off in paper money worth about ten cents on a dollar, had emi- grated to Maine and become settlers or "squatters" on any of these wild lands, wherever their fancy led them, regardless of title or ownership.
Although land was offered at $1.50 per acre to actual settlers, not enough was paid to replenish the treasury. A land lottery was then proposed, and after much dis- cussion the General Court passed an act, November 9, 1786, entitled "An Act to Bring into the Public Treasury £163,200 in Public Securities, by sale of a part of the Eastern Lands and to Establish a Lottery for that Purpose." This act provided for the selling of fifty townships of land, six miles square each, containing in all 1,107,396 acres, the most of which was situated in what is now Hancock and Washington Counties, between the Penobscot and St. Croix Rivers.
There were in the lottery 1939 tickets, which were to be sold for $60.00 each, for which soldiers' notes, and all other public securities of the State would be received in payment.
The above named Samuel Phillips, Jr., Leonard Jarvis and Rufus Putman were sworn by Justice Samuel Bar- rett, October 11, 1787, to "the faithful performance of their trust as managers of the lottery."
Up to the time of the drawing, October 12, 1787, 437 tickets had been sold, to about one hundred different purchasers. Among them were Harvard College, Rev. John Murray of Newburyport, and Rev. John Homer of Newton.
But the lottery scheme did not prove as successful as its promoters anticipated, and it was determined to make another effort to sell the Eastern lands. A new com- mittee was appointed, consisting of Messrs. Jarvis,
437
OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
Phillips and John Read, who through Col. Jackson and Royal Flint sold two million acres as before stated to William Bingham of Philadelphia, for ten cents per acre, this sale including the lottery lands. Mr. Bingham's agent subsequently bought up many, if not all, of the lottery titles.
One million acres of these lands were to be at or near the head of the Kennebec River and as before stated have ever since been known as the Bingham Kennebec Purchase.
Some very distinguished Maine men have at various times acted as agents and attorneys for the owners and their descendants in the management of this vast pur- chase. Among these have been Gen. David Cobb of Taunton, Mass., who removed to Gouldsboro, Me., in 1796, (General Cobb lived in Maine for nearly thirty years, though the Massachusetts historians have generally ignored this fact); John Richards, Esq. ; Col. John Black and his son, George N. Black; and later Hon. Eugene Hale, now one of our United States Senators; Hon. Lucilius A. Emery, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, and Hannibal E. Hamlin, the present Attorney General of Maine.
Thus the name of William Bingham has become inter- woven with the early history of Eastern Maine, its records and land titles.
Much of this vast domain is yet forest, where Maine lumbermen carry on extensive operations and upon some of it are busy villages and farming communities.
The ownership to the most of it long since passed from the Bingham estate to numerous individuals and cor- porations.
William Bingham was born in Philadelphia in 1751 and died in Bath, England, February 7, 1804. He came from a long line of distinguished ancestors. His great grandfather, who was James Bingham, died in Phila-
438
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
delphia. William Bingham was one of the wealthiest men of his day in America, a factor in the political affairs of the colonies and later of the Union, and was known abroad as an eminent American citizen.
Mr. Bingham was graduated from the College of Philadelphia in 1768 and received a diplomatic appoint- ment under the British government at St. Pierre, Myzene, in the West Indies, where he was consul in 1771-2.
During the Revolutionary War he remained there as agent for the Continental Congress and performed patri- otic service in furnishing money and supplies for the army of the colonies.
He married Ann Willing, a brilliant and beautiful society girl of his native city, October 26, 1780, and in 1784 he visited Europe with his wife, and with her was presented at the Court of Louis XVI. In 1786 he was elected a member of the Congress of the Confederation, and served until 1789. He was captain of a troop of dragoons, and did escort duty with his company for Mrs. Washington from Chester to Philadelphia, she being on her journey to New York to join her husband, who had been elected President of the United States.
In 1790 he was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, serving as speaker in his first term, which was an unusual honor, and was reelected in 1791. In 1795 he was elected to the United States Senate, and was a member until 1801. In 1797 he was elected president of the Senate, protempore, and administered the oath of office to Vice President Thomas Jefferson, March 4th, 1797.
He was a Federalist and a strong supporter of James Adams. While he was in the Senate Aaron Burr and Rufus King were the senators from New York. His votes upon political questions are generally recorded in
439
OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
opposition to Burr in the proceedings of Congress during all the time that both belonged to this body.
He was a liberal patron of the drama and in 1794 his name appears with that of Robert Morris in a long list of stockholders, who subscribed stock for a new theater which was the means of giving players and playing con- siderable note in the pious Quaker City, much to the consternation of many good people.
In 1792, he presented to the Library Company of Philadelphia a costly marble statue of Franklin.
Alexander Baring, son of Sir Francis Baring, founder of the great banking concern, once of such importance and fame throughout the world of finance, was sent to the United States, when he had attained the age of man- hood, to acquire a knowledge of the commercial rela- tions of Great Britain and America.
While in Philadelphia he moved in the best of society and became acquainted with Mr. Bingham's daughter, Ann Louise Bingham, who, as her mother had been, was a society belle of that city. His acquaintance ripened into love, and marriage. While he was residing in Philadelphia, their son, William Bingham Baring, was born. Another one of their daughters, Maria Matilda, married (August 23, 1798) James Alexander Compte de Tilly ; for her second husband, Henry Baring, brother of Lord Ashburton, and for her third husband, the Marquis de Blaisel. She died in the year 1848.
Alexander Baring afterwards became in England, banker for the United States, and was subsequently made Lord Ashburton, and in 1842 he came once more to this country, as special ambassador from Great Britain to the government at Washington. During this time the famous Ashburton-Webster treaty was made, which ended a prolonged territorial struggle between the two govern- ments, which had caused the bloodless and somewhat
440
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
farcical "Aroostook War," the treaty resulting in the State of Maine losing what it is believed was by right a part of her domain, and being a strip of land that is now a rich and populous portion of the Province of New Brunswick.
For many years the Binghams maintained at Lans- down, near Philadelphia, a magnificent country seat. When Joseph Bonaparte, (ex-King of Spain) came to the United States he leased Lansdown and had a per- manent residence there for a year.
Mr. Bingham's residence in Philadelphia, known as the "Mansion House," was an elegant structure, and considered the most magnificent and elaborate private dwelling in America.
It was enclosed in a close line of Lombardy - poplars, which he had imported and from which it has been said have sprung all the ornamental poplar shade trees now in this country. In Watson's Annals of Philadelphia it is stated that "the Mansion House built and lived in by William Bingham, Esquire, was the admiration of that day for its ornaments and magnificence. * The grounds generally he had laid out in beautiful style, and filled the whole with curious and rare clumps and shades of trees."
He was believed to be the richest man of his time, in the colonies, for in addition to the fortune which he inherited, he accumulated large wealth in the West Indies as agent for American privateers.
It was alleged by some that his methods there had been dishonest and corrupt, but none of his critics at- tempted to bring direct charge against him.
Their accusations were merely innuendoes and hints of something mysterious, and appear to have been more the malicious carpings of the envious than the utterance of any one who possessed knowledge against his char-
441
OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
acter. He was censured and villified and abused by the newspapers in a manner that would have done credit to some of the so called "yellow" journalistic performances of the present day.
Peter Marcoe, a writer of that period, in a poem published in the "Times" in 1788 had this doggerel about Mr. Bingham and his enterprise in the West Indies :
"Rapax, the Muse had slightly touched by crimes, And dares awake thee from thy golden dreams; In peculations various thee sits supreme, Though to thy 'Mansion' wits and fops repair, To game, to feast, to flatter, and to stare: But say, from what bright deeds dost thou derive That wealth that bids thee rival British Clive? Wrung from the hardy sons of toil and war, By arts which petty scoundrels would abhor."
And yet notwithstanding this tempest of calumny which he was for a time subject to, there is no evidence that he was other than a person of the highest honor and integrity in all of his public and private affairs of life.
William Bingham was a financier of ability, a patriotic citizen, a leader in social and political circles, and a cultured gentleman.
The Blanchard Family of Blanchard
By Edward P. Blanchard
T HE grandfather of Thomas Blanchard, who first came from England in 1639, was one of the French Huguenots who fled from France to Eng- land in 1572.
We know nothing more of their history prior to their coming to this country in 1639.
1. Thomas Blanchard, with his four sons by a first wife, and his second wife, widow Agnes Barnes, came from London, England, and landed in New England June 23, 1639. His wife died on the passage, also an infant child, and he again married for his third wife Mary -- , who died June 2, 1676. Thomas Blanch- ard lived in Braintree, Mass., until February, 1651, when he bought a farm of 200 acres on the Mystick side, then a part of Charlestown, now the town of Malden. He died on this farm May 21, 1654.
2. Nathaniel, son of Thomas, was born in 1636, probably in Andover, England; he died August 27, 1676, in Weymouth, Mass., where he had resided most of his life. He was married December 16, 1658, to Susanna Bates. His children were John, Mary, Nathaniel, Edward, Mercy and Susanna.
3. John, eldest son of Nathaniel and Susanna (Bates), was born March 27, 1660, in Weymouth and is supposed to have passed his life in that town. He was married
443
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
there in 1685 to Abigail Phillips. He died March 10, 1733. They had nine children.
4. Nathaniel, sixth son of John and Abigail Blanch- ard, was born May 19, 1701, in Weymouth, Mass., and removed to North Yarmouth, Maine, in 1743. In 1745 he was admitted by letter from the Weymouth church to that at North Yarmouth; he died in that town August 15, 1773. He was married to Hannah Shaw in 1726 ; she died about 1770. They had eleven children.
5. Ozias, third son and ninth child of Nathaniel and Hannah (Shaw) Blanchard, was born at Weymouth, Mass., July 31, 1742. He was a resident of North Yarmouth, Maine, and served as a soldier in the Revolu- tionary army. He was a sergeant in Captain George Rogers' company, in the Second Cumberland Regiment, and served six days in November, 1775. This company was detached by order of Colonel Jonathan Mitchell to work on the fort at Falmouth. He was a second lieu- tenant in Captain John Winthrop's North Yarmouth company of Colonel Fogg's Cumberland County Regi- ment, as shown by the list May 9, 1776. He was also a second lieutenant in Captain John Gray's company of North Yarmouth, commissioned January 14, 1777. He again enlisted for service July 7, 1779, under Captain Gray and Col. Jonathan Richards, and was discharged September 12, 1779.
He also served two months and six days in the expedi- tion to the Penobscot. He was married in January, 1769, to Mercy Soule, who was born November 27, 1749, in North Yarmouth, daughter of Barnabas Soule and Jane Bradbury. They were the parents of Samuel, Jeremiah, David, Reuben, Daniel, Olive, Jacob, Dorcas, John and Rufus.
Their offspring are entitled to membership in The Society of Mayflower Descendants, and the Sons or
444
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Daughters of the Revolution ; Mercy Soule having been a direct descendant on the one side, of George Soule, and on the other side, of John and Priscilla Alden, and the father and mother of the latter, Mr. and Mrs. Mullins, all of whom were passengers on the Mayflower.
6. Jeremiah, second son of Ozias and Mercy (Soule) Blanchard, was baptized May 16, 1771, in North Yar- mouth, and was one of the original members of the Second Church of that town, now the Cumberland Church, of which he was the third deacon. He was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature when the state was divided and Maine became an independent state, and worked and voted for that measure.
He was married to Dorcas Bucknam; their children were Dorcas, Ozias, William and Ann Aurora ..
7. Ozias, son of Jeremiah and Dorcas (Bucknam) Blanchard, was born May 24, 1804, in North Yar- mouth, Maine. He was married November 13, 1828, at Cumberland, to Martha Sweetser, who was born Jan- uary 17, 1809, in Cumberland, Maine. After his mar- riage he moved to Blanchard, Maine, where he bought a farm, held many local offices, was a member of the House of Representatives and the Senate, where he was largely instrumental in the election of Hon. Hannibal Hamlin to the United States Senate. He was too old to enter the Civil War in the usual way, but on February 28, 1864, on the recommendation of Vice President Hamlin, was commissioned by President Lincoln, captain and A. Q. M., U. S. Vols., and served until August 10, 1865, after which he returned to Maine and lived in Dexter until 1870, when he moved to Herndon, Virginia.
In 1876 he was a delegate from Virginia to the Re- publican National Convention in Cincinnati, where he voted for the nomination of James G. Blaine.
445
OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
8. Howard W., son of Ozias, was born January 18, 1852, in Blanchard, Maine, where his boyhood was passed on a farm. He attended the public schools at Blanchard and Dexter, Maine, and Lockhaven, Pennsyl- vania, and graduated at George Washington University, D. C., with the degree of LL. B. in 1889. In the same year he was admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia and also in Virginia. He was twelve years old when he left the State of Maine for Kentucky, where his father was in the military service, and returned there in 1866, locating at Dexter, where he continued until 1869. In 1870 he located at Herndon, Virginia, and has ever since made his home in that town.
He is a principal examiner in the U. S. Pension office at Washington, where he was appointed in 1880, and is a member of the Congregational church, and a Republi- can in politics. He is a member of the D. C. Society, of Mayflower Descendants.
6. Jacob Blanchard, sixth son of Ozias Blanchard and Mercy Soule, was born July 2, 1784. He married Abigal Pratt in 1808.
He lived in Cumberland, Maine; was drowned while on a fishing trip July 5, 1815.
7. Jacob Blanchard, 2nd son of Jacob and Abigal Pratt, was born at Cumberland, Maine, January 28, 1812. He lived in Cumberland until 1833, when he moved to Blanchard, Maine. He married, March 8, 1836, Rachel C. Packard of Hebron. Jacob Blanchard was a carpenter, and lived in Blanchard all his life and died there January 30, 1899.
Edward P. Blanchard, son of Jacob Blanchard and Rachel Cole Packard, was born at Blanchard, September 8, 1857.
Resolutions
PRESENTED ON THE DEATH OF DR. WILLIAM BUCK BEFORE
PISCATAQUIS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY JANUARY 7, 1909.
Mr. President :
Since the meeting of this society at Sebec Village last July, one of its prominent members, then present and today missed from this gathering, has been called to a higher life.
Dr. William Buck, a member of this society and one of the most prominent physicians and surgeons in this section of Maine, died at his residence in Foxcroft on the ninth day of August, 1908. William Buck was born in Hodgdon, in this State, in 1833, son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Quail) Buck. His father was a well known lumber manufacturer in Miramichi for many years, where the Doctor attended the schools, later finishing his education in the public schools of Maine and in Foxcroft Academy. He studied medicine with Dr. Josiah Jordan and Dr. Holmes of Foxcroft and graduated from the Maine Medical School in Brunswick in the class of 1859. After graduating, he located for practice in Harmony, Somerset County, remaining two years.
In 1861 he entered the service as assistant surgeon of the 6th Maine Regiment, being promoted to surgeon in 1863. He was at Bellevue Hospital, New York, in 1865. He then settled in Foxcroft, where he resided to the time of his death, leading a life of usefulness and
447
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF PISCATAQUIS COUNTY
probity, which won from his townsmen a degree of esteem and confidence which seldom falls to the lot of man.
Dr. Buck occupied many positions of trust, always discharging his duties with fidelity and care. He was for many years on the school board of Foxcroft, and to the time of his death was one of the trustees of Foxcroft Academy. For several years he was chairman of the selectmen of Foxcroft. He represented his class in the lower branch of the Legislature of 1878, and was county treasurer in 1873-74-79-82-89 and 90. For more than a third of a century he had been on the Pension Examin- ing Board. He was at the time of his death a member of the Maine Medical Society, Maine Pharmaceutical Association, and was also prominent in Masonic circles, having been Worshipful Master of Mosaic Lodge and High Priest of Piscataquis Royal Arch Chapter of Foxcroft.
He was the senior member of the firm of William Buck & Co., which for so many years has conducted a drug business in Foxcroft, and was the trusted physician of many families in this county, and few men could be taken from any community who would be more missed or whose loss would be more keenly felt.
I have given this brief and incomplete sketch of his life as a preamble to the resolutions which I now offer:
Whereas, this society is profoundly sensible of the great loss which the county and State have sustained in the death of Dr. William Buck,
And whereas, we desire to express our appreciation of his high character as well as our regard for his great personal worth, be it
Resolved, That in the death of Dr. William Buck this community has lost one of its most highly esteemed and best beloved members, and the State a most valua- ble citizen.
448
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
Resolved, That in his death this county has lost one of its ablest medical advisers, a physician and surgeon eminent in his profession, and always conscientious and painstaking in the treatment of those under his care; and that in his death one has gone from our midst whose noble qualities of heart and generous disposition endeared him to all, whose kindly impulses and cheerful presence will to his friends ever remain a pleasant memory.
Resolved, That these resolutions be entered upon the records of this society, and a copy of the same be sent to the family of the deceased.
WILLIS E. PARSONS, - Committee E. A. THOMPSON, on Resolutions.
C. W. HAYES,
Resolutions
UPON THE DEATH OF COLUMBUS W. ELLIS OF GUILFORD.
BORN JANUARY 31, 1837. DIED JANUARY 3, 1909.
Presented April 6, 1909.
Whereas, in the death of Columbus W. Ellis of Guil- ford, The Piscataquis County Historical Society has been called upon to part with one of its first and most esteemed members, it is hereby
Resolved; That in the death of Mr. Ellis we feel that the town of Guilford and the County of Piscataquis loses one of the noblest citizens, and the association a highly respected and valuable member.
Resolved; That in the life of Columbus Ellis we feel that there was reflected those sturdy traits of honesty and integrity in business relations; those principles of true manhood in his home life and social relations that will hold him in our memories as a man who was an example of a true Christian. Such a character as makes its influence felt in the record left of good things accom- plished.
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.