USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Harpswell > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 68
USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Brunswick > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 68
USA > Maine > Sagadahoc County > Topsham > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 68
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Professor Parker Cleaveland inherited the powerful intellect and the active and cheerful temperament of his father, and also somewhat of the physical and psychological infirmities of his mother, especially the electrical excitability of the latter, whom he is said to have resembled in the general cast of his features.
During his childhood he gave many indications of that clearness and vigor of mind for which he was afterwards distinguished. On one occasion, when only four years old, having answered a question which had been put to him with a wisdom above his years, and being asked who told him that, he replied, I told myself. He was remark- able, even at that age, for a certain constitutional timidity and for
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great reserve in the expression of his feelings. Though he was known to have strong affections. he never showed them in the ordi- mary way. On account of his studious tastes and peculiar temper- ament. his father decided to give him an education, and therefore sent him to prepare for college to the famous Dummer Academy, which was situated in his native parish, on the Newbury side, about two and one half miles from his home. The preceptor of the academy at this time was Reverend Isaac Smith. He entered Harvard College in 1795, before he was sixteen years old, and became at once a gen- eral favorite. Though he was led by his high spirits and social nature to mingle freely in scenes of pleasure, there is ample evidence that he was never seduced into any neglect of his college duties, into any conflict with the college authorities, or any abandonment of the moral and religious principles in which he had been educated. If during the day and evening he indulged himself in the society of his boon com- panions, he would retire at night to his chamber, darken his window, and while supposed to be asleep, would push his studies far into the morning.
The natural sciences had so little place at this time in the college course that he did not then lay the foundation of his future success in this department. He was, however, a proficient in Greek.
He was graduated in due course in 1799, enjoying the reputation among his fellow-students of being the best general scholar and the man of most talent and promise, though not hearing off the highest honors of his class. In his Junior year he had taught school in vacation, in Boxford, and in his Senior year in Wilmington. After he left college, he taught for a few months in Haverhill. From thence, in March, 1800, he went to York in this State, where he taught the central town school for three years. As a school-master, he exhibited the same skill in teaching, the same strictness of disci- pline, the same power to attach his pupils to himself and to awaken their enthusiasm, which he displayed afterwards in the higher spheres to which he was called. Notwithstanding his eminent success as a teacher, he did not at this time think of taking teaching as a vocation.
On his leaving college, it was his purpose to study law ; and accord -. ingly, when he went to Haverhill to teach, he at the same time entered his name in the law office of Ichabod Tucker, Esquire. When he moved to York, he engaged himself as assistant to Daniel Sewall, Esquire, who was at that time Clerk of the Courts and Register of Probate, and also village postmaster; and during his vacations and at the intervals of his school hours, gave his aid in those several
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offices. As Mr. Sewall's assistant, he sometimes attended the courts, and was also occasionally engaged in justice business. Although thus engaged while at York, his intention of devoting himself to the profession of law was shaken by his own distaste for the business, though not of the study itself, and still more by the earnest desire of his parents that he should study divinity. For several years his mind was agitated about the matter, but he finally determined in favor of the ministry, and placing himself under the direction of his uncle, Reverend John Cleaveland, of North Wrentham, he pursued his studies at his home in Byfield.
While he was thus engaged, he received, near the elose of October, 1803, information through President Willard that "he was chosen tutor of Harvard College, to succeed Mr. Emerson, in the department of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy." He promptly accepted the appointment, and commenced, November 23, with the instruction of the Senior class in Enfield.
About 1804 he made a public profession of religion in the church in which he had been baptized. In 1805 he determined to discontinue his tutorship and to enter upon a professional life. Although his religious views had not changed, he found the question of his future profession again unsettled, owing to his conscientious scruples abont entering upon one to which he felt that he had no certain and unmis- takable call. He therefore again determined to enter the profession of law, and had some thought of settling in the then new town of Bangor.
At a meeting of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, August 30, 1804, he was appointed, with Dr. Kirkland and others, to superintend the pub- lication of the " Literary Miscellany." To this he contributed two arti- cles from his own pen, viz., a review of Morse's " Gazetteer," and of Darwin's " Temple of Nature." The " Miscellany " did not continue its existence long after his connection with it ceased.
May 15, 1805, by the unanimous vote of both boards, he was chosen Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, in Bowdoin Col- lege. He at first declined it on the ground " that it would involve the sacrifice of the profession which he had chosen, and the time which he had spent in preparing for it." He was, however, prevailed upon to accept the appointment, though he took out certificates of qualification as far as he had proceeded in the law, and kept them for future use should occasion require.
He was inducted into office October 23, 1805, being scarcely twenty- five years of age. He entered at once upon the duties of his profes-
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sorship, which he continued to discharge without intermission to the day of his death, a period of fifty-three years.
During the early period of his professorship he paid some attention to the ancient classics, read the standard authors in English and French literature, and even indulged his poetic faculty. He is reported, on good authority, to have written, soon after coming to Brunswick, an ode on some public occasion, which was set to music and sung.
There being no instruction at that time in Bowdoin College in any of the branches of natural science except those of mathematics and natural philosophy, Professor Cleaveland set to work to prepare himself to supply the deficiency, and in 1808 gave his first course of lectures on chemistry and mineralogy. For this voluntary service he was after- wards paid by the Boards two hundred dollars, and this sum was con- tinued to him thereafter. From that time he bore, in addition, the title of Lecturer in Chemistry and Mineralogy until 1828, when it was changed to Professor in these branches. During this early period he wrote several papers recording certain meteorological, geological, and astronomical observations made by him, which were published in the third and fourth volumes of the Memoirs of the American Academy.
The finding by the workmen in the Topsham sluiceway excavation, in 1807, of substances entirely new to them, attracted his attention and led him to the study of mineralogy, which he pursued so assidu- ously that in 1816 he published his "Elementary Treatise on Mineral- ogy and Geology." This work, making its appearance at just the time when such a treatise was imperatively demanded, was a perfect suc- cess, and placed the author at once in the front rank of living miner- alogists. The work, the first of its kind in America, was immediately noticed in terms of high commendation by the leading literary and sci- entific journals at home and abroad, among others by Silliman's " Jour- nal of Science and Arts" and by the " North American " and " Edin- burgh Review." It was used as a text-book in Cambridge University (England). In 1822 a second and enlarged edition was issued. In rec- ognition of Professor Cleaveland's services, his name was given to a species of feldspar before known as albite, and to a compartment in the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. He was noticed by the most emi- nent sarans of Europe, including Goethe. He received letters of respect and congratulation from Sir David Brewster, Sir Humphrey Davy, and Dr. McCulloch, in England ; from Berzelius of Stockholm, Germar of Halle, Brouguiert, Baron Cuvier, and the Abbé Haug, of Paris. He received visits of regard from Colonel Gibbs, Godon, Maclure, and many others devoted to this department of science. He
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received diplomas of membership from sixteen or more literary and scientific societies, including those established in the principal capitals of Europe. He received offers of professorships - some of them with offers of salary double his own - from Harvard College in Massachu- setts, from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, from the Univer- sity of William and Mary in Virginia, from Princeton College in New Jersey, from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, and from the University of Pennsylvania. He was later appointed one of the commissioners for the survey of the New England bound- ary by President Van Buren, and Regent of the Smithsonian Institute by President Pierce.
His reputation as a lecturer on chemistry extended far beyond the college walls. He was often urged to deliver his course of chemical lectures in several of the principal towns in Maine and the adjoining States. In the winter vacations of 1818, 1819, and 1820, he did deliver the courses in Hallowell, Portland, and Portsmouth, but always after refused to deliver them away from his own laboratory. Upon the establishment of the Maine Medical School in 1820, he was ap- pointed Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica, and at the first meeting of the Medical Faculty he was appointed secretary.
From this time forward his first thoughts and best endeavors were given to his chemical lectures. There was no confusion in his thoughts, and none in his discourse. By his calm and simple style, and its easy and uninterrupted flow, by his lucid order, by the earnestness of his manner, by the interest with which he seemed to regard the smallest and most common things pertaining to his theme, by his happy illus- trations and never-failing experiments, and by his occasional sallies of wit and good-humor, he carried along the delighted attention of his hearers without weariness to the end of his hour, making plain to them what had been obscure, investing even trivial things, by a sal- utary illusion, with an air of importance, and in short, accomplishing, in a manner which has never been surpassed, the great object of con- veying to the mind of the learner definite notions and useful knowl- edge on the subject under consideration.
Such was Professor Cleaveland as a lecturer on chemistry. It is in this capacity, more perhaps than in any other, that he has been thoughit to have distanced all competition. It is in this capacity, certainly, that all his peculiar excellences appeared to the best advantage ; and it is, accordingly, as a lecturer on chemistry that he has been for many years principally distinguished, and that he will be most distinctly and gratefully remembered by his thousand admiring pupils.
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In his external appearance and to a casual observer, Professor Cleaveland was stern and austere, and on a sudden provocation or any obtrusive impertinence was sometimes passionate and violent. But underlying these rugged austerities on the surface of his character and constantly cropping out from beneath them, to use a term of his own, there was a large-hearted nature, an exhaustless vein of kindly and generous feelings. This essential goodness of heart was often repressed and concealed by his constitutional reserve of manner, but not seldom did it break through the outward crust, and diffuse over his features a benignant expression, and give to the tones of his voice and to his manners a winning gentleness. It was manifested in his domestic relations, especially in the gentle courtesy with which he always bore himself toward the worthy partner of his life. It was manifested to his classes, in his friendly interest for them, in his earnest desire for their improvement, and in his frank and familiar intercourse with them out of the lecture-room.
Though retired in his habits, he felt a lively interest in the. general welfare, and, until overburdened with official engagements, took an active part in all measures for promoting the public good. In 1814 he delivered an address before The Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, which was published by their request. In 1825, after the occurrence of the fire in which the factory and a large part of the adjoining district were consumed, he interested himself in organizing a fire company, and was chosen its first commander. Though he was then in the zenith of his fame, and had declined the most distinguished offices to which he was called from abroad, he gladly accepted this village appointment, and held it, to universal acceptance, for twenty years. It is hardly necessary to say that whenever a fire broke out, by night or by day, he was always first on the ground, always managed the hose-pipe, and always stood, when duty required, in the place of the greatest exposure.
His general and excessive timidity cannot be passed over in silence. The stories which have been current for the last fifty years in regard to his fear of lightning, however apparently incredible, are yet sub- stantially correct. It is related by persons who were inmates of his house in the carly period of his residence in Brunswick that during a thunder-storm it was his wont to lie on a feather-bed, taking care that the bedstead should be removed to a good distance from the wall ; and that a rising cloud, which gave signs of being charged with electricity, had, in some cases, kept him from his recitation-room, in others, driven him home from college or from church in the midst of the services, and
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that it was not until his house was well protected by two lightning- rols that he was able, on such occasions, to maintain any tolerable tranquillity. But it was not in regard to lightning only that he was a timid man. It was this extremity of caution which prevented him from travelling, and finally circumscribed his motions within a few miles from his own door. Long before the stage-coach was supplanted by the railway car. it had become too dangerous a vehicle for him. His last journey to Boston, now some twenty years back, was made in a one-horse chaise. It is no wonder that he never repeated the experiment, obliged as he was, on that occasion, to make a tedious detour through the upper counties, to avoid the long and dangerous bridges on the lower route. This infirmity was undoubtedly inherited from his mother, and had its seat in his physical rather than in his moral nature. He could be brave enough when he thought his duty required him to be.
Another marked characteristic of Professor Cleavelan 1, which de- serves a passing notice, was his aversion to change, his attachment to a settled routine, his tenacity of the ways to which he had become wonted, in short, his intense conservatism of character. Each duty of the day, from his rising up in the morning to his lying down at night, had its allotted time and place.
But no proper estimate can be formed of Professor Cleaveland's character without taking into view its moral and religious elements. There are few men in whom the sense of duty has been higher or more active. or whose lives have been more strictly governed by it. It was his great endeavor in every condition of life, and especially in his official relations, to be found faithful. His habitual and cheerful Self-denial, his constant sacrifice of personal ease and comfort, his careful husbandry of time in which even the fragments were gathered up, his stern disallowance of all light reading and unnecessary recre- ation, his midnight toils, his careful preparation for his recitations and lectures, his punctual and never-failing attendance upon them, and the earnestness which he carried into them, were all inspired and ennobled by his sense of official duty. This, perhaps, more than any other principle, was the deepest spring and the crowning excellence of his character.
COBURN, JOHN.
The subject of this sketch was one of a family of eleven children. Ilis parents, Captain Peter and Mrs. Elizabeth Coburn, resided in the town of Dracut, Massachusetts, where John was born, June 1, 1785. He was married in 1815 to Rachel, daughter of John Dunning,
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of Brunswick. She died March 30, 1816, aged twenty-eight years, leaving an infant, John Dunning Coburn. Mr. Coburn married for his second wife Rebecca Dunning, a sister of Rachel, March 11, 1823. She died in Topsham, January 3, 1850, aged nearly seventy years. He died in Topsham, December 1, 1865.
The first fifteen years of Mr. Coburn's life were passed with his parents, assisting his father in the labors of the farm. But having a delicate constitution, and not being thought to possess sufficient bodily vigor to prosecute with success the business of agriculture, he then left home in order to qualify himself for mercantile pursuits. For some time he was a student in Phillips Academy, Andover. Leaving Andover, he spent some time in teaching, after which he went into the store of Mr. Philemon Chandler, in Dover, New Hampshire, where he remained until he was. twenty-one. The next year he was in Mr. Joshua Bradley's store in Dracut, Massachusetts, and the next (1808) we find him at Brunswick.
On his first coming to Brunswick he was concerned in business with his uncle, Nathaniel Poor. After that he went into business by himself. Then, for. a time, he was connected with Ilon. David Dun- lap, and still later with his brother, General Richard T. Dunlap, the term of his agreement with the latter expiring June 2, 1832.
In the year 1834, on the organization of the Androscoggin Bank in Topsham, he was appointed cashier, and removed his residence to that side of the river. He continued to hold the same office in the bank until the expiration of its charter, in 1854.
Mr. Coburn was always ready to do his full share in promoting the welfare of the community in which he lived, and enjoyed the entire confidence of his fellow-citizens. While a resident of Brunswick, he interested himself in schools, in societies for mutual improvement, and was for many years an active member of the Washington Fire Club. For some ten years he was town treasurer, and for several years assisted the late John Abbott as treasurer of Bowdoin College He held the office of justice of the peace for the county of Lincoln, and of notary-public, was often arbitrator in the settlement of vexed questions. and executor and administrator of estates, in whom the widow and orphan found a wise counsellor and a kind friend. Once during the illness of the State treasurer, he performed the duties of his office. Indeed, that office was tendered to him by prominent. members of the party in power, on condition that he would go over to their side, but he declined the offer, though he was at the time out of business.
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" Mr. Coburn was a man of an amiable disposition, strong in his attachments, thoughtful of others, fond of children, firm in his adher- ence to what he deemed to be right and strict in the observance of the Sabbath. He had a sound judgment and a benevolent heart. He was an honest man and one who would rather overpay than underpay one in his employ. A few days before his death he said what many men of colossal fortunes cannot say, and what others of equal integ- rity with himself have been prevented by misfortune from saying, ' I believe no man ever lost a dollar by me.'"
In his religious views Mr. Coburn was a Unitarian. When the church of that denomination was formed in Topsham, he was the first to record his name, and when the society in Brunswick was consti- tuted he enrolled his name there. He always contributed according to his ability for the support of public worship, and for fifteen years he was never absent from a single communion service.
CURTIS, CAPTAIN NEHEMIAH.
Captain Curtis was born in Hanover, Massachusetts, in 1733, and died December 26, 1816. He was a selectman, a member of the Committee of Safety, etc., and commanded the militia before and during the Revolutionary war. He was an active patriot during that war, and did good service in defending the town of Harpswell from marauding bands of Tories who were not British soldiers. It is said that he killed and captured some of the leaders. His force consisted of volunteers from the citizens of the town. Captain Curtis led a company in the unfortunate " Bagaduce Expedition." He discharged with honor and fidelity the several offices he held.
CUSHING, CALEB.
Caleb Cushing was born in Cohasset, Massachusetts, April 2, 1777. When quite young he went to Boston and served apprenticeship in the tailoring establishment of Samuel Beals. He afterwards worked at his trade in Portland, then in Georgetown (now Phipsburg). and in September, 1797, he came to Brunswick, where he located himself permanently. About 1800 he built a two-story frame shop on the west side of Maine Street, and a two-story frame dwelling-house on the opposite side of the street, next north of the Tontine Hotel, which he occupied till his death. About 1825 he built a large frame building on the corner of Maine and Pleasant Streets, where Lemont Block now stands, which was occupied by himself and sons in trade for many years, and until within a few years the locality was known as "Cushings' Corner." He married, in 1801, Mary Dunning,
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daughter of the late John Dunning. She died November 13, 1808, aged thirty-one years. He married again December 5, 1814, Dolly Owen, daughter of the late Philip Owen. She died in Augusta, April 29, 1865, aged seventy-eight years. Mr. Cushing was in 1817 elected chairman of the Board of Selectmen of Brunswick, and served for seven successive years. He was a genial man, possessing the confi- dence and respect of the community, maintaining the strictest honor and honesty in his intercourse and dealings with all. He died quite suddenly April 14, 1838.
DENNISON, COLONEL ANDREW.
Andrew Dennison was born in Freeport, in 1786, came to Topsham in 1818, and to Brunswick in 1824.
In his early days he was an active and energetic politician, but always fair and above-board. He possessed a most curious and inquiring mind, and was an ingenious mechanic. For some time he acted as deputy sheriff of the county. During the war of 1812 he was orderly sergeant of a company in garrison at Fort Preble. Such was the strength of his memory, as he informed his sons, he could call every man upon that roll without once referring to his manuscript. He was afterwards a colonel of militia. He was mainly instrumental in procuring the town clock and bell on the Mason Street Church, and he was greatly inter- ested in having accurate time kept in the village, frequently visiting the college sundial for that purpose, so long as it remained in order.
Mr. Dennison was a man devoted to all matters of public concern and to the causes of temperance and antislavery. He was always courteous and gentlemanly, was a man of Christian character, of strict integrity, and was held in high esteem by all. Ile died in Brunswick, July 3, 1869.
DUNCAN, DOCTOR SAMUEL.
Doctor Duncan, or Dunkan, as he himself spelled the word, was set- tled for a short time as a physician in Bath, on High Street. He next lived in Topsham for a little while, and moved to Brunswick in 1770, and practised his profession there until his death. He lived in the old Gideon Hinkley house, now owned by Chapin Weston, near Harding's Station. The north room of this house he used as his office, in one corner of which stood a skeleton which was the terror of all the chil- dren of the neighborhood as well as of many of the older persons. He was said to be very skilful in his profession, and had quite an extensive practice in West Bath and in Harpswell as well as in Brunswick. He received pay in 1770 from the town of Harpswell for attendance on
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some of the poor of that town. He was a representative to the Gen- eral Court in 1781. He died in 1784, in the prime of life, and was buried in the old burying-ground in West Bath.
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