USA > Maine > Sagadahoc County > Bath > History of Bath and environs, Sagadahoc County, Maine. 1607-1894 > Part 2
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HISTORY OF BATH.
in 1663, at which time he was about twenty-five years of age; and that the daughter Lydia married William Rogers; Magdalen, John Tilman; and Sarah, Thomas Elkins; the other daughters were Eliza, Deborah, and Patience
Mr. Gutch was evidently a thrifty man. He seems to have culti- vated a few acres of land and had a comfortable home. After his death his estate was administered upon, and as a part of the invent- ory of the property there were entered :- Six acres of land, dwelling house and out-buildings valued at thirty pounds sterling, four cows, one bull, two steers, two pigs, one chair, one table, two milk pans, and one kettle. These with many other articles were valued in total at £51. Mrs. Lydia Gutch administered upon the estate. Sept. 25, 1667, Mr. Gutch was authorized to administer oaths and sell whiskey. It is on record that he served on a jury at Casco in July, 1666.
Christopher Lawson .- The first settler of North Bath was this Lawson, who came from Boston and purchased of the natives one thousand acres of land bordering north on Merry Meeting Bay and known as the Lawson Plantation. He also purchased land on Swan Island (vide Thayer). His deed was from " Kennebis and Abbaga- dasset in 1667" (vide Mass. Archives) and Lawson to Humphrey Davis in 1668.
At the same time Thomas Purchas owned territory and lived west of Lawson's possessions at the head of New Meadows River. To- gether these men engaged in fisheries on the New Meadows and Androscoggin Rivers, which was a leading industry at their time; packing the fish for distant markets. He met with financial troubles, as is shown by the fact that on November 1, 1665, he was arrested for debt under the laws then existing in Sagadahoc County, which was under the jurisdiction of the Duke of York. He was placed under bonds of £120 for his personal appearance at a special court to be held at "Arrowsike before Nicholas Raynal, Justice Peace." His family relations were also unhappy, both himself and his wife being put under bonds to keep the peace. They had parted and he subsequently desired to come back to live with her, which she re-
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HISTORY OF BATH.
fused, saying she "hoped God would consume him." Finally he left for England in 1670, where he sued for divorce, with what result is not known. " He died in 1697 " (vide J. Sewall).
North Bath had the local name of Ireland in common parlance before the designation of North Bath was given it. The origin of the name has been a matter of doubt, but the best evidence goes to show that at an early day a settlement from Ireland inhabited that locality, and it is known that "one of the men had the name of Bean. As he belonged to the 'training band ' he would appear on parade with an enormously long barreled gun, which he was allowed to carry, for the militia law did not specify the style of gun every enrolled soldier was compelled to be armed with at his own cost " (vide Hayden). Cork, that years ago was spoken of as an appellation of North Bath, has since been ascertained to apply to territory on the east side of the Kennebec above the Chops, where Robert Temple established a colony from Ireland soon after 1717 (vide 'Thayer).
"Christopher Lawson was one, among others, who considered himself persecuted by the government of Massachusetts. There- fore he left Exeter, N. H., with John Wheelwright in 1643, and after a short stay at Wells, moved to Sagadahoc. On account of his con- tinued hostility and speaking disrespectful of Massachusetts as a persecutor and usurper, he was arrested and tried in 1669 for con- tempt and sentenced to sit an hour in the stocks " (vide Williamson).
Whizgig .- The locality is also called Whizgig for the reason that there is a stream there of that name. According to ancient accounts, whizz means rapidly running water and gigg a stream. In ancient documents the manner of spelling words greatly differed often in the same document, and some of the Indian deeds spell the word "geag "; hence the most accepted way of spelling the word at the present day is Whizgeag. From time immemorial there has been a saw mill on the Whizgig stream and is in operation to the present day.
The people early inhabiting this section were few and dwelt far apart. Edward Cammel (Campbell) lived it is stated at Whizgig in
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HISTORY OF BATH.
1679 (vide Lemont). Lawrence Dennis, one of the " New Town" corporators under Governor Andros, purchased of the Indians in August, 1685, a tract in Woolwich opposite Bath, and also a large tract at North Bath of Durumkin, the " Sagamore west of the Ken- nebec River " (vide Thayer). Lyndes Island derives its name from Simon or Joseph Lynde, a merchant of Boston, who purchased the island of Edward Camer, the title of the latter having been de- rived from Christopher Lawson in about 1661. Camer occupied it until 1676, when he was driven off by the Indians (vide Lemont).
South Bath .- From Lemont Street and Hospital Point, that portion of the city bordering upon Winnegance Creek is locally de- nominated Winnegance. In ancient documents the name is various- ly written Winnegansege in 1665, Winganssek, Winnigans, Winne- ganseek, Winegans in 1650, and Winnegance, the Indian meaning of which is a river boundary of lands, for which it was used in many ancient deeds, and has always been the boundary line between Bath and Phipsburg. This small stream was much used by the In- dians for a short route between the Sagadahoc River and Casco Bay, the distance between the two waters being about half a mile, and known as " the old Indian carrying place." There was also an- other Indian carrying place between the Whizgig Stream and the head of New Meadows River of longer distance than that at Win- negance. There is authority for the statement that when in May, 1690, a force of 500 Indians with French leaders met at Merry- meeting Bay to plan an attack upon the important Fort Loyal at Casco, which they took and massacred its defenders, the route they took to reach their destination with their canoes was by the way of the Winnegance carrying place.
Its Early Settlers .- The house of Alexander Thwaits stood near Winnegance. The accounts of his coming to this country are that a man of the same name, about twenty years of age, arrived in the ship Hopewell, commanded by a Captain Burdict from London in 1635. His first settlement was at or near North Bath, and in 1660 he purchased of Mox Dorumby, an Indian, a tract of land at Winnegance, having been a squatter on it since about 1656 (vide
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HISTORY OF BATH.
Sewall). This land comprised the territory from the south bounda- ry of the Gutch estate down to Winnegance Creek, including both sides of the stream. In different ancient documents this name is written Thwait, Thwayt, Thoyt, Thoit, Thwaits, Thwat.
He became involved in debt to Richard Patishall of the island of that name, now Lees Island, to the amount of £100. In Decem- ber, 1665, Patishall came up to Winnegance Creek in his sloop and attached all the property owned by Thwaits, who, in his anger at the summary proceedings, at once made over to his creditor his land, house, barn, two oxen, four cows, and one male animal. He then purchased a farm near Abagadasset Pond, making the deed run to his wife. His family comprised nine children. It is understood that the Indian deed to Thwaits has not been found.
From Mass. " Book of Claims " of 1718 :-
" Widow of Richd Patishall claims on behalf of herself Mrs Hum- phrey Davis and Robert Patishall, Land lying in Kennebeck the upper part of the bounds beginning at the cove wch is the lower Part of Robert Goods (Hood undoubtedly) bounds, to run down along the Water-side to the River called Winneganseek with Marsh and meadows, said Land bought of Alexander Thwaits, Deeds dated the 7 Dec 1665 & half the whole belonged to Humphrey Davis, the rest equally between said Rob't Patishall & Rich'd Patishall.
" Rich'd Patishall claims a Traet of Land in Kennebeck called Thwaites Plantation being in the Long Reach, and on both sides of Winnegansetts River, the Winnegans on the South & winslows Rocks to the North & from thence to extend six miles back into the country, and thence South & by west to the Winnegans, bought of Moses Didramby, Weeguinquiet & Wegenemit Deed. dated 3 Aug. 1685."
As Thwaits' purchase from the Indians is stated to be in 1660 by prior historians, and that of Gutch the same year, it is obvious that their titles overlapped each other more or less. This may be ac- counted for by the fact that Indian conveyances at that early day often duplicated the same territory, and it is well understood that the Indians in these deeds believed they were disposing of the right
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HISTORY OF BATH.
of occupancy only, in common with themselves, not intending to convey fee simple title to the land. Yet their deeds did convey the land.
The two deeds to Patishall, given at different dates by Thwaits, were based upon the title conveyed in the Indian deeds to him. It will be noticed that the deed of Thwaits to Patishall of 1685 cov- ered the identical tract that the Indians conveyed to Gutch. The deed of 1665 of Thwaits to Patishall evidently overlaps the south- ern portion of the Gutch estate. The writer has found no recorded dividing line between the Gutch and the Thwaits-Patishall claim. The destroying of records by the Indian raids during and after 1676 may account for this failure.
The question might arise why the chief part of Bath has been held under the title derived from the Indian deed to Gutch, and not under the Thwaits Indian deed, and may be solved in the believed fact that the Thwaits deeds have never been found, while the Gutch deed is in existence, and the property named in it claimed and title legally held by his heirs.
Nor has there been found any record of what became of the Pat- ishall titles derived from Thwaits, while those from Gutch were held valid. Some historical writer has said that " squatters " sub- sequently settled on the Thwaits-Patishall tract and held title by virtue of "possession and improvement." This version may, in part, be sustained by the fact that no deed to Edward Pettengill of the large farm he occupied-now the McHutchin-is found in the records of old York deeds (vide Register of Deeds, Dec., 1892). Patishall was killed at Pemaquid in battle with the Indians.
Relations With the Indians .- Until 1676 the white settlers and the natives lived in apparent harmony, excepting perhaps some isolated cases, and there was considerable trade between them, the Indians having abundance of fish and furs to exchange for goods furnished by the settlers.
When King Philip's war broke out the Norridgewock Indians in 1676 came down the river in a fleet of canoes and massacred in- mates of the Hammond and the Clark & Lake forts on Arrowsic
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HISTORY OF BATH.
Island. How much those living at Long Reach suffered at the period of these hostilities we have no specific account. The Rev- erend Gutch having died some years previously, his family, if still remaining at the homestead, may have been spared molestation; for, according to historian Penhallow: " It was remarkably observable that, among all the settlements and towns of figure and distinction, not one of them has been utterly destroyed wherever a church was gathered." Possibly all the other settlers were driven off and re- turned after apparent danger was past, after 1713.
After the first hostile attack of the savages upon the English set- tlements on the Sagadahoe in 1676, breaking them up, there were frequent attempts to inhabit the territory, relying upon various treat- ies with the Indians, which invariably proved worthless, the returned inhabitants finding neither peace nor safety in their habitations for many years.
A scrap of written history may indicate the thinness of inhabit- ants of Bath at the date named below. It is well known that the Plymouth Company claimed territory on the Kennebec that covered Bath, and (vide Me. His. Soc. Cols., Vol. 2) " from depositions pre- served in the company's records it appears that in 1728 there was only one family remaining at Long Reach, and in 1749 there were but two families above the Chops of Merry Meeting Bay; all the rest had been driven off by the Indians." Thomas Williams lived at Winnegance in 1729, and remaining there became the first per- manent settler of Bath (vide Thayer).
Ancient Georgetown .- The coming generations, if not the younger of the present day, may with good reason wonder what municipal connection Bath could ever have had with old George- town. Upon the " Re-settlement " on the lower Kennebec in 1714, the southwest extremity of Arrowsic Island was chosen as the chief point, which position it held for half a century. According to au- thorities, the name of this notable island was written Arroseag; according to Sullivan's History of the Province of Maine, it was written Arrowsicke; an ancient deed records it Arrozeek; also writ- ten Arroseg, Arrosic, Arrowsick, Rowsic, Rowsik, and Rowsick.
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HISTORY OF BATH.
This point on Arrowsic Island was, for that early day, well situ- ated for trade, as it was near the ocean and in close proximity to the best anchoring grounds on the lower Kennebec-that of Par- kers Flats and at Jones Eddy immediately above. It was believed that it would not be safe to attempt to sail vessels of sixty tons up through Fiddlers Reach. When Arnold's expedition to Quebec passed up the river in 1775, the conspicuousness and attractive- ness of this elevated location were remarked upon. From the time when a town was incorporated as "Georgetown on Arrowsic Island " to that when Long Reach was severed from the parent stem and became the town of Bath, the Kennebec side of that island was the center of population and business of the Sagadahoc. Hence there are given in these pages a brief relation of important public events and town-meeting proceedings in which the people of Long Reach participated, and which comport with the scope of this work.
Permanent Re-settlement of Georgetown .- From 1690 to 1814, the settlers on the section of Maine east of Portland had been either massacred or driven off by hostile natives, and the whole ter- ritory along the coast for one hundred miles was during that time in a state of desolation in the hands of the savages. Finally, at the close of Queen Anne's war in 1713, a treaty of peace was made with the Indians at Portsmouth. Then commenced the era of re- settlement of the deserted country. The General Court of Massa- chusetts enacted that settlements should be compact, a garrison house constructed for mutual safety, and a specified quantity of land allotted to each settler, according to his needs.
Under the auspices of the Pejepscot proprietors, who claimed a tract covering this section, John Watts, a member of the company, established in 1714 a settlement on the lower Kennebec at Arrow- sic Island, an important, central point for the valuable trade in fish and furs for which that river was notable at that day. He made a commencement with twenty families, which were rapidly augmented. It was here that the first permanent settlement on the Sagadahoc River was made. In 1717, the Indians having become troublesome, Governor Shute of Massachusetts came down to Arrowsic in the
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SAMUEL DENNY RESIDENCE.
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HISTORY OF BATH.
government ship Squirrel, and after many difficulties succeeded in renewing the Indian treaty of 1713. This ship got ashore on a point south of " Butlers Cove," which gave it the name of Squirrel Point.
When the Watts settlement became permanently established, by 1720, there was an accession of fifteen families to the settlers, prin- cipally of the Scotch Irish class. The ten-acre lots into which the land had been laid out for the distance of nearly two miles had a house upon them to the number of twenty-six. They were arranged on each side of the main road trending northerly. There was one man above all others who was identified with this locality, who for fifty years devoted himself to the interests of church and state, and inade " Butlers Cove" a center of interest to the surrounding towns. This was
Samuel Denny .- No one perhaps contributed more to the peace, prosperity, and safety of the lower Kennebec during the eighteenth century than Major Samuel Denny. He was descended from an English family that had figured conspicuously in cabinet and field. The original home of the Denny family was in Hunting- donshire, England, where the historian Fuller says: "I find the name very ancient and where the heir-general was long since mar- ried into the worshipful and ancient family of Bevils."
John Denny served in France under Henry V., and he and one son were slain at the battle of Agincourt and were buried in the chapel of St. Dionys. Fuller says: "Their interment in so noble a place speaks of their worthy performances."
Sir Anthony Denny, a grandson of John, was a friend and Privy Councillor to Henry VIII. and was a man of extraordinary learning and discretion; a valiant man and the only one of the courtiers who dared apprise the King of his approaching death. King Henry left him a legacy of £1,500 and made him one of the executors of his will and guardian of his son, Edward VI. Sir Edward Denny, his son, received the Castle Tralee, county of Kerry, Ireland, and 40,000 acres of land for a brave act in the reign of Elizabeth, while the Queen herself gave him a beautiful scarf embroidered with gold
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HISTORY OF BATH.
and pearls and a pair of gloves taken from her own hands. He founded the Irish branch of the family.
SAMUEL DENNY was descended from John Denny, who came from Huntingdonshire to Combs, Suffolk County, in 1495, where he built a manor house which still stands and is in possession of the English branch. Samuel was the third son of Thomas and Grace Denny and was born in this house in 1689. He and his sister Deborah came to this country in 1717, to Boston, with Rev. Thomas Prince, who had pursued his theological studies in England and preached some years in Combs. Samuel and Deborah went directly to Leices- ter, where their brother Daniel had settled two years previously, and had assigned land to Samuel as a homestead, but on the marriage of Deborah to Rev. Mr. Prince in 1719, Samuel came to Arrowsic, where Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, also from Combs, had already made a home at Newtown, opposite the present village of Phipsburg. They came over in the same vessel.
The tenacity and perseverance of these early settlers, who were continually undergoing deprivations and in constant danger from hostile Indians, are well illustrated in the case of Major Denny, who left a comfortable English home and who also rejected the ear- nest solicitations of his relations in Massachusetts to relinquish his hazardous life and come to live with them where he would be free from anxiety, but who turned a deaf ear to all their entreaties and preferred to throw in his lot with the hardy pioneers of this the ex- treme frontier.
Newtown, like all frontier settlements, had experienced many vicissitudes, and the first care of a new settler was to build for him- self a fortified house. Mr. Robinson and Samuel Denny entered into business partnership and built a block-house consisting of two stories, one projecting over the other and surmounted by a watch tower. While a man was shingling the roof, an Indian came up in the rear, shot him, and his body fell to the ground.
His house was of great usefulness in the attacks of the Indians which were frequent during the earliest years of the occupancy of land by Denny. Having completed this work of defence, they
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HISTORY OF BATH.
next built a wind grist mill, which was the first and only one of the kind in that section of the country, and people came from long dis- tances to avail themselves of its usefulness.
The principal business of the firm, like that of most of the set- tlers in those early days, was the salmon fisheries, which combined with trading in furs with the Indians they pursued with great suc- cess. After Mr. Robinson's early decease Mr. Denny married his widow, Sarah, and carried on the business alone. Mrs. Denny died in 1750, and in 1751 he married Mrs. Rachel Loring White at the house of her brother, the Rev. Nicholas Loring of North Yarmouth. She was born in Hull in 1717 and died in 1752, leaving an infant daughter, Major Denny's only child, who afterwards, in 1768, mar- ried Gen. Samuel McCobb of subsequent Revolutionary fame.
Though Major Denny married a third time, this child remained his only heir, and having no son to continue his name, he was large- ly known in after years through his daughter and her posterity. At the time of Major Denny's second marriage his wife had one son, John White, the eldest and only surviving of four by her former husband. This lad became a member of the Denny household, and here remained until his manhood.
Upon the marriage of his daughter Rachel to Samuel McCobb, he gave her a farm lying near Jones Eddy, upon which he built a house for her, and when she became a widow this John White came into possession of this farm in 1812, lived on it, his descendants occupy- ing it to the present day.
Rachel, the daughter of Major Denny, was a lady well educated and of some literary taste; sketches of the products of her pen may be found in the Panoplist and some other periodicals of her time. She had the misfortune of being a cripple during the latter portion of her life. She had dressed, of a Sabbath morning, to go to church. Very high-heeled shoes of English make were the style, and as she was coming down stairs she tripped and fell to the bot- tom of the stairs, breaking her hip-bone. Confined to her room the rest of her life, her big Bible was her constant companion. Besides reading it through time and again, she whiled away the monotony of
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HISTORY OF BATH.
her time by counting and noting the number of books, chapters, verses, words, and letters contained in it, computing the words in each chapter, and making other statistics .. There were no circulating libraries within her reach and books of all kinds were scarce. The last years of her life were passed at the house of her son-in-law, Deacon Andrew Reed, Phipsburg, in every possible comfort, dying in 1825. She was interred at Arrowsic by the side of her husband.
As was the custom of that day Major Denny owned a few slaves, which he treated with every kindness. Among these was a boy Richard whom he gave in 1752 to his brother Daniel in Leicester by written contract, carefully securing the right of the boy until thirty years of age, when he reverted back to Major Denny, speci- fying that he "deal kindly with the boy, to look upon him as an orphan, to bring him up in the fear of the Lord, as possessor of a soul as well as we." The young negro died before the expiration of the thirty years.
Sewall in his Ancient Dominions says: "Samuel Denny was an English immigrant distinguished for his remarkable decision of char- acter and the superiorty of his attainments. He was a magistrate and the stocks in which were executed many of his own sentences, perhaps by his own hand, were long remembered as a terror to evil- doers." Another historical writer describes Samuel Denny as "tall, straight, dignified, and a strong Calvinist "; that "education could not make nor unmake such a man " (vide Thayer).
His family had been non-conformists in England and he was im- bued with all the religious fervor of the period. His letters to rela- tives in England and Massachusetts abound not only in graphic de- scriptions of his life on the Kennebec and detailed accounts of pub- lic events, but a large space was given to religious exhortations which strike rather monotonously on the dulled ear of the present generation. In the absence of a regular minister, Major Denny wrote and delivered his own sermons at Sabbath meetings. His tombstone records that "he lived a pious and useful life," and his Bible, his greatest treasure, is still in existence with the Apocrypha tied up by his own hand.
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HISTORY OF BATH.
His name on the Kennebec died with him. The church which he helped to build, which was a prominent object on the river bank and remarked by Arnold's expedition for its beautiful situation, has left no trace behind. The garrisons, the timber houses and other dwellings have passed away, until two houses and rows of grave- stones are all that are left to mark a spot which was a center of in- terest to a wide-spreading district during the whole of the eight- eenth century.
He was in command of the militia. To be in the "training bands" at that feudal time was no " pride, pomp, and circumstance " of dress parade. It meant business. High and low, rich and poor, were in the ranks, and those worthy to be chiefs only were in com- mand. From the date of the legal organization of the town of Georgetown in 1738 to his extreme old age, to near his demise, Samuel Denny was town clerk and treasurer, and he often read legal notices at the head of his military company. A book is ex- tant in which his own hand recorded his own "intentions of mar- riage " to three different women whom he successively married, all widows.
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