History of Cumberland Co., Maine, Part 106

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 780

USA > Maine > Cumberland County > History of Cumberland Co., Maine > Part 106

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).

8. Rev. John W. Shepard, ordained Aug. 3, 1836; dis- missed July 19, 1839.

9. Rev. William Warren,* ordained February, 1840 ; dis- missed November, 1849.

10. Rev. John Perham, ordained Jan. 21, 1851 ; dis- missed Sept. 19, 1854.

11. Rev. Luther Wiswall, installed Sept. 20, 1854 ; and is the present pastor of the ehnreh.

Besides the meeting-house already spoken of, ereeted in 1740, two other meeting-house framnes were erceted in the south part of the town prior to 1795, but neither of them was ever finished, and both were subsequently taken down. The fourth Congregational meeting-house was erected in 1795, and stood opposite Thomas L. Smith's dwelling-house. It was taken down in 1861. The first Congregational meet- ing-house at Windham Hill was built in 1834, and is the one now occupied by the society. It is a convenient, well- finished church, with steeple and bell, being the first bell in any church in Windham.

The proceeds of the ministerial right in the town-grant have been converted into a fund, tbe income of which is about 8225 a year, for the benefit of the church.

FRIENDS' SOCIETY.

The Friends' society is next to the oldest religious organ- ization in the town of Windham. At a town-meeting held October 13, 1774, it was voted to exense eight persons of this society from paying the ministerial taxes,-a decidedly just and liberal act on the part of the people of the town. The Friends built their first meeting-house in 1779, estab-

Mr. Warren was educated at Bowdoin College, and prepared for the ministry at Bangor Theological Seminary. Ite received the de- gree of D.D. frem Bowdoin College. During his residence in Wind- ham he was also engaged in teaching, and was the author of a geog- raphy which was extensively used in the schools of Maine.

402

HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE.

lished a " preparative" meeting in 1793, a quarterly meet- ing in 1801, and a monthly meeting in 1802. Their present house of worship-a large and commodious one, near the centre of the town-was erected in 1849. They are the only society in town that has sustained a regular meeting from the first to the present without a suspension of publie worship. They provide for the needs of the less favored among them, none of their society being allowed, on account of poverty or misfortune, to become chargeable to the town for assistance or support. They had at an early time an academy for the instruction of youth, which was the only one ever established in the town.

METHODIST CHURCH.

The first Methodist sermon preached in Maine was at Saco, Sept. 10, 1793, by Elder Jesse Lee, of Virginia. He had been principally instrumental in forming societies of this order in the New England States, which he com- meneed in Connecticut in 1789. At a conference held in Lynn, in 1793, this zealous disciple of Wesley was ap- pointed to travel through Maine. In a tour of several months through the State he went as far east as Castine. A circuit was formed on the Kennebec called " Readfield's Circuit," and Elder Wager was appointed preacher. He was no doubt the first Methodist circuit preacher in Maine. The Portland cireuit was established in 1794, and a elass formed there in 1795, in December of which year the first quarterly meeting ever held in this State assembled at Port- land. It was probably about this time, or soon after, that the Methodists built a church edifice at Windham, that being included in Portland circuit, although we find it stated by Mr. Smith, in his history of Windham, that it was built in 1792. Probably Elder Wager, when he was on the Portland eircuit in 1795-96, was the first preacher of Methodism in Windham. Rev. Joshua Taylor, very likely, preached here also after he came upon the circuit in 1804. At all events the early meetings here did not prosper. The church was abandoned, and taken down many years ago. They also subsequently built a meeting-house in the south part of the town, which was removed and used for a school-house. At present they have no denominational house of worship, but hold services in the free meeting- house at Windham Upper Corner.

BAPTISTS.

The Baptists of this town are all of the Free-Will order. A large society was gathered, and a meeting-house erected on the Little farm, near Mallison Falls, in 1822, mainly under the ministry of Elder Clement Phinney, an able and popular preacher. For some time the congregations were large and enthusiastie, but they ultimately dwindled away, worship was suspended, and the meeting-house, after re- maining nnoccupied for several years, was taken down. A free meeting-house was erected in the south part of the town in 1870, and is occupied by the General Baptists and Second Adventists.

UNIVERSALISTS.

" Fifty years ago there was searcely a Universalist in the town. At present they are more numerous than any other society." A Universalist society was first organized June

8, 1840. On the 15th of that month it was voted to build a meeting-house forty-eight feet long, thirty-eight wide, with posts seventeen feet high. to have a suitable bel- fry, dome, and spire. The building was accordingly erected that fall, and dedicated May 12, 1841. Rev. George Bates preached the dedicatory sermon. Rev. Leander Hussey was the first settled pastor. For several years after the church was built they had large congregations and constant meetings. But in process of time the meetings were sus- pended, and the church remained unoccupied for several years. In 1871 the society was revived under the preach- ing of Rev. S. S. Fletcher.

There is a free meeting-house at Windham Centre, erected in 1846.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

IION. WILLIAM GOOLD,

of Windham, whose portrait accompanies this sketch, is emphatically a Maine man. The ancestors of both of his grandfathers were early settled at Kittery, in that part now Elliott. Only the width of the road separates the two farms, which are yet owned and occupied by the descendants of the two families. Family tradition says that two brothers came from England, and both settled in the vicinity of the Piscataqua. One of them was named Benjamin Goold. He was the great-great-grandfather of him whose name stands at the head of this sketch. He purchased his farm in 1717. His will names five sons and two married daugh- ters. The homestead he bequeathed to his son Benjamin, who died in 1806. He had four sons and three (married) daughters. Alexander, the second son, had the home farm, and cared for his parents. He was a soldier at the battle of Bunker Hill, and was on board the ship which carried Dr. Benjamin Franklin to France, in 1776. He was a military pensioner, and died about 1850, at the age of ninety-two; at which time he had in the house, separate from all other money, all of his pension which he had drawn, amounting to sixteen hundred dollars. With all his American ancestors, he is buried in a private inelosure on the old farm, which is now owned by his son James. lle was the grandunele of the present William Goold.

Benjamin, the youngest son of the second Benjamin, and brother to Alexander, was born at Kittery, in 1749. At the age of nineteen he went to Falmouth, Me., and worked six years for Daniel Hall, a farmer ; after which, in 1774, he went to Windham, and built a log house on a lot of wild land, which he purchased with his six years' earnings and his scanty patrimony, and the same year he married Phoebe, the daughter of Nathan Noble, of New Boston, now Gray, who was the son of John Noble, the founder of the beau- tiful town of New Milford, Conn., where he was born Feb. 4, 1722. Nathan Noble served in the French war; was at the siege and surrender of Louisbourg, in 1745. He after- wards enlisted for three years in the army of the Revolu- tion, in 1775, leaving his family at Gray. He was in the battles of Stillwater, Hubbardston, and Saratoga, where Gen. Burgoyne surrendered his army, Oct. 17, 1777. In

403

TOWN OF WINDHAM.

this memorable battle Mr. Noble was killed by a musket- ball while entering the enemy's works. He was William Goold's paternal great-grandfather.

Benjamin Goold, the third of the name of successive generations, and Phobe Noble, his wife, from their lot of wild land made a fruitful farm, and a frame house, yet standing, took the place of the one of logs. In these houses, within the space of seventeen years, were born to them five sons and two daughters, of whom none are now living.

Nathan Goold, the second son of the third Benjamin, and his wife, Phoebe Noble, was born at their homestead in Windham, April 10, 1778. In 1800, being then twenty-two, he purchased the farm nearly opposite his father's, on which he spent the remainder of his busy life. His second wife,

He died of consumption, in 1823, aged forty-five. His widow died in 1866, aged eighty-five.

Nathan and Betsey (Gowen) Goold were the parents of William Goold, whose name and portrait heads this sketch. He was born at the family residence in Windham, April 13, 1809. He was fourteen years old at the death of his father, with only what education he acquired at the brief terms of the district school, which has been his only school- ing. The same year, at the age of fourteen, he commeneed as an apprentice in a cloth- and clothing-store in Portland, where, during the six succeeding years, he acquired the mc- chanical and mercantile skill requisite for the management of the business, in which he became a partner with his employer in 1830, who finally left the business to him two years after. In 1834, Mr. Goold married the only daugh-

LITTLE

Photo, by Conant.

whom he married in 1807, was Betsey, the oldest child of James Gowen, of Westbrook, to which town he came from Kittery, where he was born, in 1754. His father, William Gowen, died in the Provincial army in Canada in 1760, and he was reared by his unele and godfather, the Hon. James Gowen, of Kittery, who was one of the three Massa- chusetts Councilors from Maine from 1770 to 1774. He was the grandson of William Gowen, who was a freeholder in Kittery in 1675. Nathan Goold and his wife, Betsey Gowen, had two sons and one daughter; ouly the sons are now living. He was a farmer and trader. He was elected chairman of the board of selectmen in 1812, and re- elected to that office eight successive years. ITe repre- sented his native town in the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1815. He was a justiee of the peace, and was a captain in the militia, called for the defense of Portland, in 1814.

ter of his first employer, Mr. Seth Clark. He continued in business until 1837, when his health became impaired, and he left the business and removed to the home farm, which he had always retained. After spending seven years on the farm, and having regained his health, he returned to the clothing business, with his brother, in Portland, to whom he sold out two years after, and went into the manufacture and sale of fur goods. At the commencement of the war, in 1861, Mr. Goold again removed to the old homestead,-to the same house in which he was born, built in 1775. I 1867 he represented the district composed of Windham and Scarborough in the Legislature, and was elected to the State Senate in 1874, and re-elected the next year. He has always been interested in historical research, especially in the history of his native State, and has written several lengthy papers on that subject. Some of them have been pub-

404

HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE.

lished in the " New England Historic Genealogical Register," and others are in the " Archives of the Maine Historical Society," before which they have been read, and of which he is a member, elected in 1873. Ile is an enthusiastie and industrious historical student, and his initials are familiar to the readers of the Portland newspapers.

Mr. Goold has four sous and three daughters, one of whom, Mrs. Abba Goold Woolson, the wife of Mr. Moses Woolson, a teacher of Concord, N. H., is well known by her lectures on English literature and other subjects, and from her published works, the best known of which is " Women in American Society," published by Roberts Brothers, of Boston, in 1873. She was one year employed as essayist on the Boston Journal. One daughter is the wife of Mr. George Il. Harding, of Windham, and the youngest has been five years a teacher in the public schools of Port- land. Of the sons, the two oldest are watchmakers in Bos- ton and Portland ; the third is a book-keeper at the Portland Locomotive Works, in whose employ, as machinist and book- keeper, he has been fifteen years. The youngest is a sales- man in a Portland elothing-store. During the second year of the Rebellion the oldest son left his watch-making, and enlisted on board the steam sloop-of-war " Ilousatonic" with- out bounty, and served fifteen months on the Charleston blockade, where he was often under fire on shipboard and in armed boat service. After his discharge he volunteered in the disastrous night boat attack on Fort Sumter. At the expiration of his term of service he resumed the watch business. The family are Episcopalians.

The Arius of Goold are thus recorded in the Herald's Office, London : " Per Saltire or and az a Lion Rampt., Counterchanged. Crest on a Mount vert an Ermine pas- sant proper." Motto, " Dum Spiro Spero."

THOMAS LAURENS SMITH

was born in Windham, Cumberland Co., Me., Nov. 3, 1797. He descends (the fourth generation) from the Rev. Thomas Smith, who was the first regularly ordained minis- ter in Falmouth (now Portland), and who was born in Boston, March 10, 1702, a memoir of whose life was pub- lished in Portland, by William Willis, in 1849. Hle mar- ried, Sept. 12, 1728, Sarah Tyng, by whom he had eight children. The Rev. Peter Thacher Smith (grandfather to Thomas L.) was their second child. He was born in Port- land, June 14, 1731; graduated from Harvard College 1753, and settled as pastor of the Congregational Church at Windham, Sept. 22, 1762, their seeoud pastor, the Rev. John Wight being the first. He was twice married. His first wife, by whom he had all his children, eleven in number, was Elizabeth Wendell, of Boston, to whom he was married Oct. 8, 1765.

Thomas Smith, their fourth child, and father to Thomas L., was born in Windham, Oet. 2, 1770. Married Mary Barker, by whom he had four children, viz., Tyng, Eliza Wendell, Thomas L., and Mary Ann, all deceased except Thomas L. His father died Feb. 27, 1802; his mother, Jan. 12, 1846. After the death of his father, Mr. Smith went to live with his unele, John Tyng Smith, in Gorham,

where he remained eight years. He subsequently learned of his brother, Tyng, the clothier's trade, and followed it for seven years in the town of Westbrook. His education was limited to the common sehools of Gorham and Wind- ham. With the exception of three years in which, from 1832 to 1835, he was engaged in the lumber trade in the

LITILE

Photo. by Lamson.

Thomas & Smith.

town of Standish, Mr. Smith, since his marriage, has lived and carried on a farm in the town of Windham, and since 1835 on the same place where he still lives. He married, March 18, 1821, Eliza Chamberlain, daughter of Joseph and Abigail Chamberlain. Mrs. Smith was born Aug. 3, 1801. They have had five children, viz., Mary Ann, born Dec. 10, 1823, died in Natick, Mass., Oct. 26, 1867 ; Edward Tyng, born Feb. 26, 1826, married Eliza Marston, of North Yarmouth; is a carriage mannfacturer at Little Falls, South Windham ; Wendell Thomas, born July 17, 1835, a private in Company F, 1st Maine Cavalry, died on David's Island, N. Y., while in service, July 21, 1864; Frances Elizabeth, born Ang. 23, 1837, living at home ; Eliza Wendell, born May 26, 1842, wife of G. C. Hathaway, of Natick, Mass.

In politics, Mr. Smith has been identified with the Whig and Republican parties. In religion he has entertained Universalist views. He has filled the office of justice of the peace, in Windham, from 1823 to 1874. A longer continued term of office will be hard to find. He has filled at different times the offices of town treasurer, town agent, selectman, and superintendent of the town school committee. In 1829 he was elected county coroner; in 1830, deputy sheriff. He was president of the first tem- peranee society in Windham. In 1861 he was elected representative for Windham and Searborough. In 1874 he was elected trial justice, which position he still holds. In 1873 he published a history of Windham. Having been a resident of the town twenty-three years, while it was a

Photo, by himball, Augusta.

RICHARD MAYBERRY.

Photo, by Lamson, Portland.

Ginge 4. Pra'

Photo, by Lamson, l'ortland.

Photo, by Conant, Portland,

405

TOWN OF WINDHAM.

part of the province of Massachusetts, and for more than a half-century after the province had become the State of Maioc, and having filled nearly every office within the gift of its people, Mr. Smith could fittingly appropriate to him- self the language of Eneas of old: ". . . quaque ipse . . . vidi, et quorum pars magna fui."

RICHARD MAYBERRY

was born in Windham, Cumberland Co., Me., May 19, 1814. William Mayberry, the second settler in the town of Windham, had three sons,-Thomas, Richard, and John. William Mayberry, the only son of the latter, was Richard's grandfather. Josiah Mayberry, his father, was the youngest of six sons, and the youngest but one in a family of nine children. Ile married Eunice Miller for his first wife, by whom he had five children, of whom Richard was the youngest, and the only one now living. In 1820 the family moved from the old homestead, in South Windham, and settled on the Presumpscot River road, in that part of Windham known as the Mayberry neighborhood, in which locality Mr. Mayberry has ever since lived. Farming has been his life-long occupation. His education was received in the common schools of Windham. He was married, March 30, 1842, to Mary Jane Mayberry, daughter of Thomas and Mary Mayberry, of Windham. Mrs. May- berry was born Jan. 9, 1821. They have had four children, viz. : Almeda Ellen, born Dec. 14, 1848. Mary Abby, born Ang. 30, 1852; married, Jan. 1, 1874, to John C. Mayberry ; they have two children, -Mabel May, and Richard Leroy. Francis Newhall, born Oct. 22, 1857. Fred. Eugene, born April 27, 1865.

In politics, Mr. Mayberry was a Democrat until the for- mation of the Republican party, since which time he has been identified with that party. He was elected represen- tative for the town of Windham in 1872, serving in the Legislature of 1873.

A thorough farmer, a good citizen, of a genial, social dis- position, Mr. Mayberry well deserves the esteem in which he is held by the community in which he has always lived.

D. P. B. PRIDE.

This gentleman was born in Windham, April 22, 1852, the second child of Edmund B. and Hannah M. ( Baker) Pride. His father was born in the town of Cumberland, and was a sca-captain for twelve years. After his marriage he settled on a farm in Cumberland. In 1850 he moved to North Windham, where he has since carried on farming. Their children are Frank O., D. P. B., and Lizzie M. The eldest was born in Cumberland, married Abbie Hunt, and has one child, Leoniel Hersey. He is superintendent of the North Windham Manufacturing Company. D. P. B. Pride received his education in the common schools of Windham, with two years and a half at Westbrook Sen- inary, from which he graduated in 1869. Ile subsequently pursued a classical course, under the instruction of Professor James Furbish, of Portland, for two and a half years. Studied law for the same period in the office of Howard & Cleaves, Portland ; was admitted to the bar Dec. 12, 1873;

opened a law-office at North Windham, in 1874, and has practiced his profession there since. Mr. Pride is a Re- publican in politics, and takes an active part in political campaigns. In religion he is a Universalist in sentiment.

lle is a prominent member of the order of Good Tem- plars, and is at the head of that organization of the Cumber- land district.

In June, 1873, he was elected first lieutenant of Com- pany A, Ist Regiment Maine Volunteer Militia.

GEORGE T. PRATT

was born in the town of Yarmouth, Cumberland Co., Me., July 23, 1847, the fourth child of Thomas and Mary (Bucknam) Pratt. His father followed lumbering and farming, and lived and died in Yarmouth. Ilis mother is still living at the old homestead there. George T. lived at home until he was twenty-one years of age. He received bis education in the common schools of his native town. Though brought up on a farm, he early showed a prefer- ence for mechanical pursuits, possessing almost au intuitive knowledge of machinery. Following this natural bent of his mind, when of age he left the farm and engaged in the paper-mill of Dennison & Brown at Yarmouth, where he remained till the mill burned in 1871. He was next em- ployed in the paper-mill of L. L. Brown & Co., at South Adams, Mass. In 1875 he was employed in setting up and running the paper-board mill of Pollard & Gray, at East Dover, Me. He also started a mill of the same kind at South Paris. Hle next took charge of a wood-pulp mill on the Presumpscot River, in North Gorham. In the fall of 1876 he was employed as superintendent of the Sehago Wood Board Company's works, situated at Little Falls, on the Presumpscot River, in South Windham, which position he still holds.

Mr. Pratt io whatever position he has occupied has shown himself a thorough master of the situation. Of strictly temperate habits, using neither tobacco nor ardent spirits in any form, thoroughly self-reliant, he has always enjoyed in the fullest measure the confidence of his employers and the respect of all who have known him.

J. M. WHITE.

His grandfather, Peter, born in Dedham, Mass., in 1748, removed from Buckfield to Standish, in 1788. Married Alice Wescott, of Westbrook. She was born in 1752, and died Oct. 7, 1812. He died June 2, 1804. Their children were Peter. Mary W., wife of John Trickey, born Nov. 11, 1776; died June, 1817. Aunie W., wife of Abraham Nabery. Elder Joseph White. Captain John White, born 1784; died April 4, 1838. Captain Mark White, born January, 1781 ; died December, 1832. Solomon White, born January, 1792; died 1817. Nathaniel White, born March, 1798; died Jan. 31, 1853.

His father, Capt. John White, married, in 1819, Huldah, daughter of Eben and Sarah 11. Morrill, of Windham. She was the daughter of Elijah Hanson, one of the first settlers in Windham, and was born Dec. 19, 1790, and died Jan. 15, 1879. Their children are Ann W., born

406

HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY, MAINE.

Aug. 5, 1820. John M., born May 19, 1828. Ellen, born Sept. 29, 1830. These children were born at Great Falls, Windham, in the same house, now the residence of and owned by J. M. White. This homestead was purchased by Capt. John White from the heirs of John Trickey, in 1832, and had been deeded to John Trickey by Zebulon Trickey, in 1800, and deeded to him by Samuel Sewell, of Marblehead.

ALLEY HAWKES

was born in Windham, Cumberland Co., Me., Dec. 3, 1809. The first progenitor of the family in this country was Adam Hawkes, who, at the age of twenty-two, with seventeen hundred emigrants, under Governor John Winthrop, in a fleet of eleven vessels, landed at Salem, Mass., June 12, 1630.

Ile built a log house in the town of Saugus, on the Saugus River, on an eminence which has always borne the name of "Close ITill." This house was subsequently burned in midwinter, the family barely eseaping with their lives. One of the bricks brought from England and used in the construction of the chimney was shown the writer by a son of Mr. Hawkes.

The line of descent is as follows: (1) Adam Hawkes, (2) John Hawkes, (3) Ebenezer Hawkes, Sr., (4) Ebenezer Hawkes, Jr., (5) James Hawkes, (6) James Ilawkes, (7) Alley Hawkes.

In 1712, Ebenezer Hawkes, Sr., moved to Marblehead, Mass., and was one of the committee appointed to locate and survey the town of New Marblehead (now Windham), and though he never moved there, he was one of its most active proprietors. IIe was on the committee to build a bridge over the Presumpseot River, at Ilorse-beef (now Mallison ) Falls, in 1735, and in company with three others built a saw-mill there. Ile died in 1766.

His son, Ebenezer, Jr., had four sous: Amos, Ebenezer, Nathaniel, and James. The latter (grandfather of Alley Hawkes) was twice married. By his first wife he had one son and two daughters. James Hawkes, the son, married Rebecca Robinson, by whom he had seven children, viz .: Samuel, Solomon, Betsey, Daniel, Lydia, James, and Alley ; all deceased, except Betsey, James, and Alley. The father built and carried on a carding-mill at Duck Pond, and also dealt in ship-timber. He was for a number of years en- gaged in the grocery trade, at Windham Hill, in company with his eldest son.

Alley Hawkes lived at home until twenty years of age. His education was limited to the common schools of Wind- ham. Ile learned the shoemaker's trade of Joshua L. Brown, of Great Falls. Working for other parties for about three years, in 1833 he bought out his employers, Messrs. Reed & Hawkes, and carried on the shoemaking business until 1845. In the same year he purchased of William Goold the store at the corner of Windham Centre, which he still occupies as a grocery store. Mr. Ilawkes married, Feb. 28, 1838, Charlotte, daughter of Abraham Mayberry, of Standish. His wife died Oet. 28, 1842. He again married, Oct. 18, 1843, Ann Louisa, daughter of James H.

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.

History of Cumberland Co., Maine, Part 106

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford) Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 780

Author: Clayton, W. W. (W. Woodford)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 780