USA > Maine > Aroostook County > History of Aroostook. vol. I > Part 8
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Mr. Reuben Ordway of Bangor was an early proprietor of the mail route from Houlton to Mattawamkeag and in 1840 Mr. Eben Woodbury came to Houlton and took charge of the line. In 1847, the firm of Woodbury and Bailey was formed and this firm owned the route until 1868, doing a large business, especial- ly dur'ng the years of the war. In 1868 the route was sold to Mr. Asa Smith of Mattawamkeag, who in 1870 sold to the East- ern Express Co. This company put on a fine line of coaches, each drawn by four fleet horses, frequent changes being made, and the running time being ten miles an hour. Upon the exten- sion of the railroad to Houlton in 1872, the mails were trans- ferred to the N. B. R. R. Co. Freight and passengers also sought the same route and the glory departed from the old Mili- tary road. Most of the hotels along the road have now been abandoned and a way mail is now carried with one horse from Haynesville to Kingman every other day. The road is now but comparatively little used and a generation has grown up, to which the busy scenes and immense traffic on this old highway are now but matters of history and tradition.
Mr. L. D. Wyatt took the hotel at the Forks many years ago and kept it for some time and afterwards built a new hotel on the corner near Mr. John H. Brown's. This house was after- wards burned. In 1853, Mr. Wyatt built the hotel now kept by Mr. L. H. Whittier, and after carrying on the business for a number of years sold to Mr. Gorham Rollins. This house af- terwards passed through a number of hands and in 1880 was
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purchased by Mr. Whittier, the present proprietor. Mr. Richard Smith took the hotel near the bridge after Mr. Wyatt left it and in 1865 sold to Wm. H. Chambers, who still owns the proper- ty, but does not now keep the house open to the public.
Mr. Isaac Bradbury was one of the early settlers of the town. He came from Saco and settled on the line of the Military road a mile north of the bridge. He cleared a farm and lived on it until his death some thirty years ago. Mr. J. C. Patchell now lives on a part of this farm and Mr. Simeon Irish has the remainder.
Mr. Samuel Tuck came to Haynesville from Norridgewock in the early days of the settlement. He first settled on the Military road some two miles north of the bridge, on the farm upon which Mr. Edwin Bedel now lives. He afterwards moved to a lot a mile and a half from the corner on the ferry road, where he lived until his death some twenty-five years ago. Judge Tuck was a prominent man here for many years and was well known throughout southern Aroostook. He was a land sur- veyor and also justice of the peace, and was for some time judge of probate of Aroostook County. Mr. Albert Mitchell now lives upon the old Tuck homestead.
Mr. Andrew Calkins was also an early settler who lived for some time on the ferry road north of Judge Tuck's, but moved away many years ago. Mr. Abner B. Hall was one of the pioneers of the town and first settled on the lot where Mr. John H. Brown now lives. He lived upon this farm until 1847, when he moved to a lot on the Military road, half a mile south of the corner, where he lived a number of years and then moved to a lot a mile and a half north of the bridge, where he lived until his death some twenty years ago.
Mr. John H. Brown, now one of the leading citizens of Haynesville, came when a boy with his father from China and lived in Linneus for a number of years. In 1847, he came to Haynesville, being employed by the firm of Woodbury and Bai- ley, of Houlton, proprietors of the stage line, to take charge of their horses at the Forks. In 1852 Mr. Brown purchased the Abner B. Hall farm, upon which he has since resided. When Mr. Brown bought the farm there was but little cleared upon it. He has since greatly extended the clearings and improved the buildings and now has a fine, smooth and well cultivated farm and a neat and convenient set of buildings. The soil is of an alluvial character, is free from stones and produces well. Mr.
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Brown has been town clerk and treasurer since 1858, and post- master since 1878.
Mr. Charles E. Gilman took the hotel at the Forks in 1847 and kept it for three years, when he moved to a farm on the ferry road. He remained there a few years and then removed to Houlton.
Mr. Watson D. Bean came from Bancroft in 1848 and built a store opposite the Chambers' Hotel and was engaged in trade a number of years. He afterwards moved to Passadumkeag, where he died. Mr. Levi Ricker of Bangor took the Bean store in 1853 and after trading there three or four years, returned to Bangor.
Mr. Levi B. Pollard came to Haynesville about 1855, hav- ing formerly kept the Ramsdell Hotel in Macwahoc. He after- wards bought of Mr. Asa Smith the Albion Haynes place at the Forks. Mr. Pollard was largely engaged in farming, trad- ing and lumbering and was a prominent business man for a number of years. He died at Haynesville some six years ago.
Mr. Samuel Hodgdon was at one time one of the leading business men of the town. He came from Brewer about 1860 and built a store near the hotel. He carried on a large business. in lumbering and trading for a number of years and afterwards returned to Brewer.
Mr. William H. Chambers came from Chester about 1865 and bought the hotel of Mr. Richard Smith. The house was burned in 1870 and Mr. Chambers at once rebuilt. He died four years ago and his son, Mr. Alfred G. Chambers, now has the property, but does not now keep a public house.
Haynesville formerly included Leavitt Plantation (No. 3, R. 2) which lies immediately north, but this township was set off in 1877 and now has no organization. The Military road en- ters Haynesville near its northwest corner and runs in a south- easterly direction parallel to and a short distance east of the east branch of the Mattawamkeag. A short distance below the Forks the road turns at a right angle to the southwest, and, crossing the Mattawamkeag, continues on in that direction across the town. Above the Forks are some very good farms along the Military road. In the northern part of the town the land is somewhat rough and broken and difficult of cultivation, but nearer the Forks it is much better adapted to agricultural purposes.
The village of Haynesville is a neat and pleasant village with a number of very handsome residences, and is very pret
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tily located near the bank of the Mattawamkeag. The transfer of the large carrying trade and extensive travel from the Mill- tary road to the railroad has very much interfered with the busi- ness of the town. The population of the town in 1890 was 280, and its valuation was $68,684.
FORT FAIRFIELD
Fort Fairfield is one of the historic towns of the County of Aroostook and its history dates away back to the stirring and exciting times of the Aroostook War. Indeed what may be called the "ancient history" of the town antedates that blood- less struggle by many years. The town as now organized in- cludes what was formerly Township D, Range 2, and also the township immediately north of it known in the ancient annals as Plymouth Grant. The earliest history of the present town of Fort Fairfield has to do with this last named township. In the year 1806 the good people of the town of Plymouth, Mass., wishing to build a breakwater to protect their harbor from the surging waves of old ocean, applied to the General Court of that good old Commonwealth for aid in their undertaking The State thereupon granted them a township of land to contain 36 square miles in the far-off wilderness of the District of Maine.
The resolve making this grant to the town of Plymouth was passed on March 4th, 1806, and the deed was executed by the authorized agents of the State of Massachusetts on December 19, 1807. In this deed the grant is described as "a certain tract of land lying in the County of Washington, equal to the contents of six miles square as the same was surveyed by Charles Tur- ner, Junior, Esquire, in the year eighteen hundred and seven. Bounded as follows, viz .:- Beginning at a beech tree marked S. E. C. P., standing on the eastern boundary of the District of Maine, fifty five miles north of the source of the Schoodic Wa- ters, and running north, thirteen degrees east, six miles to a fir tree marked sixty one miles, thence running west, thirteen de- grees north, six miles to a stake, thence running south thirteen degrees west six miles to a maple tree marked S. W. C. P., thence running east, thirteen degrees south, six miles to the beech tree first mentioned, together with all the islands in those parts of the Aroostook River which are included within the
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aforesaid bounds, together with all the privileges and appurten- ances thereto belonging, excepting and reserving for the use of the Commonwealth, and as a common highway forever, the main channel of the said River Aroostook, in its course through the said Township, the said Township containing twenty three thousand and forty acres, including the River Aroostook running through the same, as will more fully appear on a Plan of said Township, now lodged in the Office of the aforesaid Agents."
The deed conta.ned the usual conditions in favor of all set- tlers who might have settled on the tract previous to January 1, 1784, (This provision was made necessary by the treaty of 1783.) and provided for the setting apart of lots for the first settled minister and for the ministerial and school fund. It also bound the grantees to "settle in said tract twenty families within six years, including those now settled thereon." This deed is signed by John Read and Wm. Smith, as agents for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and witnessed by Geo. W. Coffin and Moses Greenleaf.
It will be seen that the deed describes the township as surveyed by Charles Turner, Jr. It appears, however, by well attested documents that Park Holland also surveyed the town- ship Nov. 6th, 1807, which was previous to the date of the deed. Why the two surveys were made in the same year does not ap- pear, but it is a fact well known to the older residents of the town that there were two well defined lines on the northern side of the town, each of which was afterwards claimed as the true line, and that important lawsuits grew out of this double line. The courts decided that the southernmost of the two was the true line.
When the boundary line between Maine and New Bruns- wick was run, after the Ashburton treaty, it cut off a slice about half a mile in width from the entire eastern side of Plymouth Grant, as surveyed by Holland and Turner. The western line of the Grant remains the same. Hence, when Township D., immediately south of Plymouth, was afterwards run out, measur- ing six miles wide from the boundary line, it extended some half mile farther to the west than Plymouth, which accounts for the "jog" in the town of Fort Fairfield, where the two townships join.
No authentic history that I can find places any white man on the town now Fort Fairfield previous to this survey of Hol- land's in 1807. The oldest settler on the town of whom we have any reliable record was Michael Russell, who came up the river
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from New Brunswick in 1823 and settled on the south side of the Aroostook River a short distance above the falls, on the Plymouth Grant. Other early settlers who came from New Brunswick and settled along the Aroostook River in Plymouth Grant, on the south side of the river, are the following :
Name
Date of Settlement
Anthony Kean
1829
Daniel Turner
1832
William Turner
1832
William White
1829
Bernard Mclaughlin
1829
William Bishop
1831
Amos Bishop
1831
Job Everett
1835
Thomas Bolier
1834
John Lovely
1837
Alfred Giberson
1837
John Twoddle
1838
Patrick Finlan
1839
George Murcheson
1840
David Ross
1841
William Everett
1841
North side of river .
Peter Fowler
1827
Margaret Doyle
1827
William Lovely
1827
Samuel Davenport
1829
Daniel Mclaughlin
1831
Thomas Whittaker
1832
James Rogers
1833
Thomas Rogers
1833
Charles Walton
1834
Robert Whittaker
1835
Richard McCarty
1836
Joseph Davenport
1836
Thomas Armsden
1836
Justin Gray
1837
Thomas Gibney
1838
Henry Heard
1838
Samuel Farley
1839
David Boober
1839
Charles Boober
1839
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HISTORY OF AROOSTOOK
William Houlton 1839
Brinard Guigey 1840
Edward Guiggey 1840
Very early in the settlement came James Fitzherbert, af- terwards famous in the history of the Aroostook War, and set- tled at the mouth of Fitzherbert Brook, now called the Haines Brook, in what is now the lowervillage. His home was in Township D, as the Aroostook River here bends to the south for a short distance, then turning northward again and entering the Plymouth Grant. Fitzherbert was followed by John Dorsey and Benj. Weeks, who also came from New Brunswick and settled on the south side of the Aroostook River. Dorsey's log house was near the river, a few rods below where the railroad station now stands. Weeks' house was near the mouth of what was then known as the Weeks Brook, on the spot where J. A. Fisher's dwelling now stands, near the middle of the village.
About 1830 also came David Burchell, J. W. White, an old English soldier, and John Rediker. These settlers all made homes at points near the river which was their only highway, as there were then no roads and the whole country was a track- less wilderness except where the logging roads of the lumber- men led in winter to the river.
They made small clearings and raised little in the way of crops at first, depending mainly for support upon cutting the shore timber and floating it to Fredericton, where they bought supplies and boated them back up the river to their homes in the forest. After a time they cleared sufficient land to enable them to raise a few oats and small quantities of hay to sell to the lumbermen who had operations in this vicinity. Up to this time the settlement was a provincial colony and the settlers acknowledged allegiance to the New Brunswick government. The land upon which they had settled was a part of the dis- puted territory, and New Brunswick claimed and exercised jur- isdiction over it. The time was near at hand, however, when this fair and fertile region was to become a part of Yankee land. and when the American Eagle could soar in triumph over the greenwood and perch undisturbed in the lofty forest trees.
In 1838, Gov. Fairfield sent an agent named Buckmore to this region to ascertain what operations provincial lumbermen were making on the territory claimed by Maine. As much tres- passing was found, Sheriff Strickland and Land Agent McIn- tyre started with a posse to arrest or disperse the trespassers.
In February, 1839, the posse came down the Aroostook Riv-
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er on the ice from Masardis, and camped at the mouth of the Little Madawaska River in the present town of Caribou. Mc- Intyre and a few companions came on down the river to Fitz- herbert's to pass the night. A large number of the trespassers had collected at Tobique (now Andover) and it is thought that Fitzherbert sent them isformation that the Maine officers were at his house, for during the night a squad of them came up the river and captured McIntyre and took him away to Fredericton. Strickland fortunately escaped and started in hot haste for Augusta, leaving the posse in command of Capt. Geo. W. Towle, with orders to proceed across "the Reach" on the Aroostook River in the present town of Presque Isle, near where Jacob Weeks now lives. There were some sixty two-horse teams loaded with men, arms and supplies. They went across the portage as ordered, but instead of stopping at the Reach, as soon as they struck the ice on the Arocstook they turned their horses' heads up river and dashed on in hot haste and made no stop of any length until they were back in their old camp at Masardis. A poet of the period thus describes this masterly "advance to the rear" of the posse :
"Then shook the ice so smooth and even, Fast rushed the teams past Number 'leven, And ere the clocks had pointed seven They halted at Masardis."
Col. McLaughlin, a provincial officer of high standing, and warden of the disputed territory, proceeded to Masardis and or- dered the posse off the territory, whereupon, in retaliation for the capture of McIntyre, our brave troops placed him under ar- rest and posted him off to Bangor. Fitzherbert was also arrest- ed soon after and taken to Bangor. A part of the posse under Capt. Towle soon afterwards returned down the river and estab- lished a military post which they named Fort Fairfield, in honor of Gov. John Fairfield. The detachment was under the com- mand of Capt. Wm. P. Parrott of Massachusetts, until Novem- ber, 1839, when Capt. Towle resumed command. They built two block houses, one on what is still known as Fort Hill, and the other on a knoll about a quarter of a mile distant, near where the covered bridge now is. They also stretched a boom across the Aroostook River opposite this last named block house, for the purpose of stopping and holding the timber cut by provin- cial operators, whom the State of Maine regarded as trespass- ers.
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HISTORY OF AROOSTOOK
The Maine posse remained at Fort Fairfield until relieved by United States troops in 1841, Capt. Towle having been in the meantime succeeded in the command by Capt. John B. Wing. In 1841, a company of United States Infantry came up from Hancock barracks at Houlton, under command of Capt. Van Ness, the second in command being Lieut. Ricketts, who after- wards as Major General Ricketts, won fame in the War of the Rebellion. General Ricketts now lies in an honored grave in the National Cemetery at Arlington Heights. The other officers were Lieut. Michaels, Lieut. McCall, Surgeon Coolidge and Major Graham, Paymaster.
These troops built a stockade around the block house on Fort Hill, within which they erected quarters for the soldiers, and outside the enclosure they built a spacious and substantial building for officers' quarters and several other buildings for the Commissary and Quartermaster's Department, allso black- smith, sutler's store, etc. Mr. W. Holman Cary was sutler of the post. The stockade was built by standing timbers twelve or fifteen feet long on end in the ground, and on the inside, square timbers were laid horizontally one upon the other to the height of four or five feet. Against these timbers, on the inside, a thick embankment of earth was thrown up. All remains of the block house and also of the stockade have since been re- moved with the exception of the embankment, or parapet, which still remains. It is six sided and is something more than one hundred feet in length on each side. The building erected for officers' quarters is still standing in a good state of preserva- tion. It is owned by Dr. Decker and occupied by himself and other families as dwellings, and contains three tenements.
The company of regulars remained until 1849, when they returned to Hancock barracks in Houlton. The attention of the people of Maine was thus called to this fertile region, and some of the original posse remained and took up land and made themselves homes.
Mr. Joseph Fisher, an old and well-known citizen of Fort Fairfield, who died on April 15, 1890, came with the company of regulars in the capacity of waiter for the officers' mess. When the troops left, Mr. Fisher remained, and lived at Fort Fairfield until his death. A
The clearings made immediately after the Aroostook War were all on Township D, which is now the south half of the town. In the meantime, the road from Presque Isle, or Fair- banks, as it was then called, to Fort Fairfield had been cut
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through by the State and settlers commenced to make clearings along the road. J. Tucker came from Orono and took up a lot near where the Union Meeting House now stands at the junction of the Presque Isle and Houlton roads, then called "the two mile tree," it being two miles from the river at Fort Fairfield.
George A. Nourse of Hallowell, now a lawyer in California, took up the lot which is now the Rollins farm. William Whit- ney and his two sons from Corinth made a clearing on what is now called Whitney Hill, about three miles from the village, taking up several lots. Levi Hoyt commenced a clearing about the same time on the west side of the hill. B. D. Eastman and his brother Otis settled on the lots next beyond, toward Presque Isle, and one Bragdon from Corinth, settled on the farm now occupied by Stephen Conant. D. G. Palmer and Jonathan Hop- kinson from Kennebec County, took lots next to the Presque Isle line, and Henry Currier commenced a clearing back in the woods north of the Presque Isle road. These men all came soon after the settlement of the boundary dispute and were the first Maine settlers on the town, the earliest settlers having, as we have said, all come up the river from New Brunswick. At about the same time a settlement was commenced at what is now called Maple Grove in the south part of the town, on what is now the road from Fort Fairfield to Baine.
Sanford Johnson settled on what is now the Judge Cum- mings farm, E. P. Whitney on the James Johnson farm, and Hiram Stevens, who came in with the posse, cleared up what is now the Thurlough farm. J. Wingate Haines came from Kenne- bec County and took up the fine large tract now included in the splendid farm occupied by his son, A. L. Haines, the present member of the board of agriculture from Aroostook.
Freeman Ellis first took this lot and made a clearing and Mr. Haines bought his improvement. Deacon Edward S. Fowler, Addison Powers, Isaac Ellis, Leonard Spooner and Freeman Ellis, all from Piscataquis County, took lots along south of Mr. Haines, away to the south line of the town. Deacon Fowler, Isaac F. Ellis, and Addison Powers moved their families to the town in 1843. They, with Freeman Ellis, made a chopping of forty-five acres in the adjoining corners of their four lots, eleven acres on each lot, but all in one clearing. They built a camp twenty feet square, in which the four families lived while sep- arate houses could be built, and in this camp the Congregational Church of Fort Fairfield was organized, in October, 1844.
Gen. Mark Trafton of Bangor was sent in by the U. S. Gov-
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HISTORY OF AROOSTOOK
ernment in 1843 and established a Customs House at Fort Fair- field, where he remained for about twelve years, and then re- turned to Bangor. His son, John B. Trafton, then a young law student, came in the spring of 1844, and opened a law office and also engaged in lumbering and farming. Mr. Trafton has for many years been one of the foremost citizens of the town and also a well known member of the Aroostook Bar, as well as a prominent man in the councils of the Democratic party. We are indebted to him for much valuable information in regard to the early settlement of the town. The settlement increased very slowly for a number of years and was subjected to all the hard- ships and privations incident to a pioneer settlement in the wil- derness.
During the time the troops were here the settlers did much of their trading at the sutler's store and after the dispute was settled traded down the river at Tobique and Fredericton. W. H. Cary, the sutler, remained and kept a few goods for a num- ber of years and was the first postmaster of Fort Fairfield. He afterwards sold out to R. & A. McBrien, who came from Houl- ton and traded on a somewhat larger scale. They failed about 1850, and John McClusky, afterwards Colonel of the 15th Maine Regiment, bought the store and employed A. L. Wellington to carry it on. Mr. McClusky afterwards sold the store to John Allen of Presque Isle. Mr. Allen sold to A. C. Cary who opened a large stock of goods in 1863 and has ever since been one of the principal merchants of Fort Fairfield.
Dudley F. Leavitt of Bangor, who accompanied the Maine posse in the capacity of storekeeper, secured the passage of a resolve in the Maine Legislature soon after the treaty, giving him some ten or twelve lots of 160 acres each in aid of building a sawmill. He afterwards sold out to Timothy Frisbee and S. B. Pattee, who built a sawmill on the Fitzherbert Brook. A. P. Heywaod of Houlton bought Frisbee out and continued in part- nership with Pattee for several years, when he retired, and the firm became Pattee- Hyde. Mr. Stephen B. Pattee was a prom- inent citizen of Fort Fairfield. He was three times elected to the Legislature and was local agent for State lands in Northern Aroostook. He was appointed Deputy Collector of Customs at Ft. Fairfield in 1849, and held the office four years. He was re- appointed in 1861 and resigned after two years' service. He died at his home in Fort Fairfield March 2, 1866, aged 52 years.
The first grist mill was built about 1858 by Randall and Foster from Montville. It was located on the east side of the
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HISTORY OF AROOSTOOK
brook opposite the Pattee sawmill. This was burned a few years ago and the privilege was sold to W. A. Haines, who built a new mill which he still occupies.
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