USA > Maine > Androscoggin County > Durham > History of Durham, Maine, with genealogical notes > Part 8
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With the growth of population modifications and subdivisions of the above inentioned seven districts were necessary. In 1802 Jacob Sawyer, Joseph Sawyer and Ebenezer Bragdon were set off to Joshua Miller's School class. The same year the school district on the County Road was divided by the Selectmen as follows: "Beginning at Freeport Line on the County Road in said Town as follows viz. Saml. Goodwin, Heirs of Capt. John Scott, Josiah Burnham, Nathaniel Osgood, John Saddleman, Nehemiah Hooper, John Eaton, Aaron Osgood, Elisha Stetson, John Lincoln, Benjamin Roberts, Aaron Allen, George Gerrislı, Reuben Dyer, John Richards." This was called District No. one. It shows who were the residents on the lower County Road in 1802 and the order of their houses. The school-house cost $175, and was built by Joseph Osgood. $3.84 were paid for "andiorns and fier Shovel." The table cost $1.50; a chair ȘI. ; and a "pale," 33 cents. It is seen that there were no stoves for school-houses. The big fire-place filled with logs and chips together with a liberal use of the ferule, kept the pupils warm.
April 13, 1802, William Mitchell, Jr. sold for one dollar to Abel True, School Com. land 24 ft by 22 ft on the "County Road leading from Gloucester to Brunswick" for a school-house. This was west of the Church at Methodist Corner.
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SCHOOL-HOUSE AT SOUTH WEST BEND.
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SCHOOLS
At a legal town meeting held 1810 the following persons were constituted school district No. 2: John Collins, Abraham Fisher, Nicholas Varney, Cornelius Douglas, Caleb Estes, Nicholas Varney Jr., Samuel Collins, Abijah Collins, Joshua Clough, Bachelder Ring, O. Israel Fifield, Elisha Tuttle, Reuben Tuttle Jr., Joseph Estes, Nathan Hawkes, James Welch, Joseph Ward, Samuel Welch, Nicholas Pinkham, Samuel Field, Sarah Clough, and Katherine Bailey. These lived in the vicinity of the Friends' Meeting House.
In 1819 there was a redivision of the town into thirteen school districts. The numbering was changed so that the district along the River road in the northern part of the town was called number one and has remained so ever since. Old school district number one on the lower County Road to Freeport is now number eight. Number two has been since 1819 the middle district of the three across the northern part of the town, while the old number two of the Friends' neighborhood is now number ten.
Up to 1809 the inhabitants near S. W. Bend attended School at the House on Vining's land, the first one built, on the County Road nearly a mile from the river. In 1809 an assessment of $259.14 was made on the Bend District for the building of a new School Ilouse. It was built on the road that leads from the Bend to Gerrish's Mill on the hill before crossing Dyer's Brook. The following persons were assessed : Andrew Adams, Symonds Baker, M. D., Simeon Blethen, John Converse, M. D., John Cushing, Micah Dyer, Heirs of David Dyer, Dennis George Dyer, Richard Dyer, John Field, William Gerrish, James Gerrish, Wm. Gerrish, Jr., Benj. Gerrish, Nath'l Gerrish, David McFarland, John McIntosh, Samuel Merrill, Joshua Merrill, John Merrill, John Nichols, Ebenezer Newell, Samuel Nichols, William Nichols, Joseph Proctor, Meshack Purington, Peter Parker, Barnabas Strout, Ebenezer Strout, Oliver Stoddard, Daniel Tivombly, Benjamin Vining, Josiah Vining, Bela Vining, John Vining, Benjamin Vining, Jr., Joseph Weeman, Joseph Weeman, Jr., Luke Woodward.
These were in 1809 the inhabitants of S. W. Bend and down as far as Gerrish's Mill.
The Schools in those days were ungraded. There was a summer and a winter term of about ten weeks each. There were
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HISTORY OF DURHAM
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few text-books. Each pupil made a manuscript arithmetic. Those of James Booker and Waitstill Webber I have seen, and they indicate such labor as must have made their owners good mathematicians. Grammar was one of the higher branches and was very little studied. In teaching penmanship the master wrote a "copy" which the pupils endeavored to imitate with a quill. Spelling-matches awakened great interest. They were often held in the evening and the whole community were "spelled down." The grown-up boys were sometimes more muscular thian intellectual, and if they did not like the master, he was in danger of being carried out into a snow-drift. The switch and ferule were always in evidence, and the mischievous girls fared no better than the boys. Indeed tradition says that Master Rourk sometimes took the naughty big girls across his knee, after the manner in vogue with small members of the home circle. Nevertheless the boys and girls made progress, and the ungraded country school often produced better scholarship than the graded school of forty weeks or more in the cities. The pupils were required to take their books home and study every evening, and discipline was as strict at home as in the school- house.
The names of a few old school teachers appear on the town records. The Rev. Eliphaz Chapman was paid twelve pounds and eight shillings for teaching in 1794. Parson Herrick also taught school. "Leucenday" Curtis taught three months in 1795 for four pounds and one shilling. Elizabeth Barker taught a term in 1800 for $10.50. Nancy Eaton taught in 1801; Mary Douglas in 1799. Between 1800 and 1804 the following teachers were employed : Beniah Hanson, Isaac Green, John Martin, Isaac Davis, Willianı Bartlett, John Staples, James Gerrish, Jr., and Joseph Gerrish. The school-master, par excellence, of those days was Martin Rourk. Teaching was his profession. He must have been a good teacher, or he would not have been so many times employed in several districts.
The regular terms of school were felt to be insufficient to satisfy the thirst for education. These were supplemented from time to time by "Private Schools" or High Schools. The earliest of such schools recorded was kept by Joseph Hill in the autumn of 1836. He was then a student in Bowdoin College, where he graduated in 1838. He taught for a time at Blue Hill
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SCHOOLS
and died in 1842. Hill's school at S. W. Bend was well attended. Some students came from Lisbon and from Freeport. In 1837 the school was moved to West Durham and was held in the galleries of the old Methodist church. Eleven of the twenty-one males who attended that school in 1837 became school-teachers the following winter. So writes Benjamin F. Nason who was one of the eleven. The only survivors of that company of academicians are Dr. David B. Sawyer and Albert H. Gerrish of Berlin, N. H.
Some of the teachers of High Schools back in the sixties were Frank Morrill, who afterwards began the practice of law at S. W. Bend, Ira A. Shurtleff, whose brilliant career as a teacher in the West was cut short by early death, Frank E. Sleeper, now a successful physician at Sabattus, and Elbridge Y. Turner, who always had order and got an unusual amount of hard study from his pupils. One of the first teachers I can remember at the little Red School House on the River Road was Edward T. Little, a scholarly gentleman, whose early death was so much lamented. Horace P. Roberts of Lisbon was another good teacher in that school, as Alfred Jordan had been some years before. I well remember George S. Wedgwood of Litchfield as one of the best teachers I had in early days, now a prominent lawyer in Omaha, Neb. In those days few districts had less than twenty- five pupils, and some had three times that number. What sport we had at noon and recess, skating and sliding down hill ! What mighty preparations for School Exhibitions in the old Universalist Church! I seem now to hear the dialogue of Saladin and Malek Addel as given by the beloved and lamented Lt. Sumner Strout and Fred Eveleth, now the honored Doctor of Divinity and head of a Mission School in distant Burma. Voices long hushed are still saying, "Ye call me chief, " and are still reciting how "Old Ironsides at anchor lay." The tableaux were quite theatrical, yet the most pious people seemed to enjoy them. Other schools have not made so deep and lasting impressions, nor do they awaken so many memories of unalloyed happiness.
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HISTORY OF DURHAM
VII. INDUSTRIES AND TRADES
Lumber was the chief article of trade during the first years of the settlement. Ship-building was a great industry in Freeport and Yarmouth, and Durham supplied much of the ship- timber. Many a tall pine has been hauled over the County Road to serve as the mast of a vessel. Deck plank, ribs and knees were prepared in saw-pits that might be seen at short intervals along the roads. These saw-pits were made at convenient places where the land inclined to the road. A suitable amount was excavated for the pit. This was decked over a sufficient length for the longest timber. The timber was first sided with the broad axe, then rolled on and lined. Then two men went to work with a saw, one standing on the stick of timber and the other in the pit, pushing and pulling the saw. This was the only way of sawing curved timber. Many of the early settlers found employment in the ship-yards and on coasting vessels.
Cord wood for fuel found a poor market in the early days. In clearing the land for agricultural purposes great quantities of fine hard wood were cut, rolled into huge piles and burned. Sometimes neighbors gathered to assist in clearing the land. Such gatherings were called "rolling-bees." In similar spirit of helpfulness and sociability the women had their "quilting-bees." These were succeeded by "paring-bees " after orchards were grown, and by "husking-bees " in time of harvest.
The first saw-mill was, doubtless, that built on Chandler's Stream by Judah Chandler in 1766. The second mill on the same site was built in 1777 by Judah Chandler, O. Israel Bagley, Daniel Bagley, John Randall, Stephen Randall, and John Cushing. The third was a grist-mill built about 1810 by Edward Thompson and Benjamin Sawyer. The present stone mill was built by Richardson of Brunswick.
Gerrish's mill is mentioned on Royalsborough Records, Feb.
THE STONE MILL.
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INDUSTRIES AND TRADES
16, 1775. How long it had been in existence is not known. March 1, 1778, George Gerrish sold to William Gerrish "one quarter part of a Saw mill and one quarter part of a Corn mill standing on Wire's Brook so cald and all the utensils to my part of said mill." This is the earliest mention of a grist mill, though O. Israel Bagley is said to have had a wind-mill for grinding corn earlier than this. Gerrish's mill afterwards passed into the hands of Sewall of Bath, and May 7, 1823 James Sewall, tallow-chandler, and Lucy his wife sold to John Vining, Benjamin Gerrish, James Gerrish and Andrew Adams, Jr. for $550 "two acres including Gerrish's mill." "Wyer's Brook formerly so called " is mentioned in this deed. This mill passed into the ownership of Henry Plummer in 1835 and has been known for half a century as Plummer's Mill.
Samuel Tracy's mill at the mouth of Meadow Brook, in the southern part of the town, is mentioned in 1795. It was a grist mill and long ago disappeared. Only traces of the dam can be seen.
The first mill built near S. W. Bend was on Dyer's Brook, by Luke Woodward and Jacob Herrick in 1810. It was a carding inill and grist mill combined. About 1820 it was owned by John Mayall and operated as a woolen mill till he transferred his business to Lisbon Factory. A saw and grist mill succeeded that of Mayall. This also has vanished away, and only the deserted buildings erected for the canning of corn mark the site of the old mills.
The South West Bend Dam Company was chartered in 1836. It proposed to build a dam between Green's Rips and the mouth of Gerrish's (Wyer's) Brook. Nothing came of it. March 15, 1837 the Durham Steam Company was chartered, consisting of Joshua Miller Jr., Orlando Merrill, Ezekiel Hoole, Ivory Warren, James Strout and Jonathan C. Merrill, " for the purpose of grinding grain and plaster of Paris, of sawing all kinds of lumber, and of manufacturing Iron, Steel, Cotton or Wools." The proposed capital was $50,000 in shares of $100. Stock was sold to the value of $8,400. Then assessments duly began. Three were made in 1838, amounting to $8,150. Seven more assessments followed in 1841-2 amounting to $5,697. The stock holders were selling out at big discounts. The enthusiasm had subsided. Some thought that South West Bend was to become
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HISTORY OF DURHAM
a great city, and all the hill about the Union Church was laid out into houselots. The mill was built on the bank of the river in the rear of Union Church. It discontinued in 1842, and was removed to East Brunswick or Bath and there long known as Humphrey's Mill.
It would be easy to suggest a bigger scheme than this. It is readily seen that the broad level farms stretching three miles north of South West Bend on both sides of the river were once the bottom of a lake. The river has worn a notch through at the Ferry and so drained the lake. Now let some capitalists buy up the farms mentioned and build a dam twenty feet high at the Ferry. Then with a reservoir three to four miles in diameter they will have one of the largest water powers in Maine. This of course would bring the railroad in due time and hasten the Electric Road which must soon be built from Auburn to Yarmouth, to connect with Portland. Then those houselots staked out in 1837 will sell with a rush, and Durham, like Truth crushed to earth, will rise again.
Or it may be thought more feasible to cut a canal from the Androscoggin to the Old Stone Mill. It need be not much more than twenty feet deep and three miles long. This would turn the Androscoggin into Royal's River and boom West Durham, Pownal and Yarmouth at the expense, perhaps, of Lisbon Falls and Brunswick. The dam at the Ferry would also help this enterprise.
In the early days the shoemaker took his kit and went from house to house, as also did the tailor. Such an itinerant was O. Israel Bagley. Others of his craft were John Graffam, Micajah Meader, Joseph Douglas, Ebenezer Stimpson, and Benjamin Lemont. The first to do shop shoemaking at the Bend were Winslow A. Eveleth, Jacob A. Roak (who lived in the house now occupied by George Nichols) and Moses Atkinson.
April 20, 1820, John Rogers of Lynn, Mass., commenced the manufacture of Morocco shoes at Waitstill Webber's, in So. Durham. A score of small shoe-shops soon were built in that neighborhood, each employing five or six workmen. Many took work at their homes. In the height of the industry one hundred and fifty men were employed and as many women. The industry continued till 1855. There were three firms;
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INDUSTRIES AND TRADES
Lemuel Jones and John H. Buffer; Lorenzo Day; and Isaac Hopkins. After 1855 work was taken from Lynn, Mass., and so it continued to be till about 1870. This part of Durham was called Shoe-Town. Almost every house was a shoe-shop.
In 1834 Daniel Holland established a shoe-manufactory at South West Bend, and continued in the business two years. He employed eight or ten men, among them being James H. Eveletli, Robert Goddard, Amos Atkins, and G. F. Flemington. Washington Golder was associated with him in the making of harnesses. Holland married Mary A. Field of Lewiston in 1835. She is still living and remembers getting breakfast for ten boarders the morning after her marriage. Holland was succeeded by James H. Eveleth who carried on shoe-making at the Bend for fifty years.
Joseph Estes had a tannery and harness-shop near the Friends' Meeting House as early as 1776. He was succeeded in the business by Nathan Hawkes who carried it on for many years. Near by was an old grist mill run by wind. It was octagonal, built of huge timbers, and was moved about with crow-bars to suit the direction of the wind. Tradition says that there was once a tannery owned by Samuel Field in the gully south of Dr. Converse's house, close to the river, a little north of the Bend. A tannery, managed by William Wagg, within the memory of many stood in the rear of R. M. Strout's store.
The first store-keeper was O. Israel Bagley, whose store was on the County Road, just below the residence of Charles H. Bliss. Here he did business from 1770 till 1789. John Randall had a store between Methodist Corner and Chandler's Mill at a very early date. On the river road, about 1800, stores were kept by Secomb Jordan, near Everett Macomber's, by Elijah Macomber, just above George Miller's, by Samuel Merrill and several others. Barnabas Strout kept store and hotel where Wesley Day now lives. Later Horace Corbett was in trade at the Bend. In fact there were four large stores, some of them doing wholesale business. Besides Corbett there were James Strout Jr. and Rufus Jordan in partnership, Ivory Warren (who was succeeded by his son Emery and his grandson George) and John Higgins. People came from Auburn, Lewiston, Turner, Buckfield and regions beyond to do their trading at S. W. Bend. John Macomber was a clerk in Rufus Jordan's store about 1840.
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HISTORY OF DURHAM
I remember to have heard him say that he had counted at one time as many as forty teams hitched about the stores, and at Jordan's five clerks were kept busy selling goods. It must have been about this time that a milliner's shop was moved from Auburn to Durham. A bakery was run by David Bowie, a little north of Eunice's (Fitz's) brook about ninety years ago. Near by Foster Waterman had the first lawyer's office. He was taxed 1804-7. Samuel Gooch, Esq., was, in 1819, the town's agent "to collect the taxes due from these people who have been run into the town of Pejepscot." Between 1840 and 1850 Esquire Simmons had an office at S. W. Bend, and Judge Nahum Mor- rill, now of Auburn, practiced law here, 1844-6.
The first trader at So. Durham was Amos F. Lunt who begun in 1844 and is still in trade. No man has ever charged him with dishonesty. Later George Tuttle and Nathan Hawkes each had a store at So. Durham. Before Lunt's time the people traded in Brunswick.
Frances A. B. Hussey kept store and So. Durham Post Office on lot 12 before 1850.
The first itinerant tailor remembered by "the oldest inhabitant " was John Demerit. The shop-tailors of the early part of this century were Bradley, Frost, Samuel Shehan, and William Wording.
The first wagon and sleigh maker was Francis Harmon, on the " County Road. " He was succeeded by his sons Francis, Jr., and Lora. The latter had his shop at the Bend and was succeeded by Sidney Bailey.
The first harness-makers were Joseph Estes in So. Durhanı and Joshua Barstow at the Bend, near where Marcus Eveleth lives. George W. Tukey came from Portland and made harnesses and trunks, near where R. M. Strout's store now is.
The first and only saddle-tree maker was Matthew Estes, whose shop was near the Bend on the County Road.
The only dentist Durham ever had was David B. Strout, who afterward became so well known in Lewiston and Auburn, and who handed down in writing many of the above historical items.
The earliest inn-keeper was O. Israel Bagley. William McGray is mentioned on Town Records as " Inholder " in 1797. Still earlier John Hoyt kept an inn near Methodist Corner.
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SOUTH WEST BEND.
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INDUSTRIES AND TRADES
Joseph Proctor had a tavern a little north of Eunice's brook as early as 1795, and William Stoddard had one, about 1800, in the house now occupied by Everett Macomber, on the River Road. About 1812 Nathaniel Gerrish, who a little later moved to Lisbon, built the house where Prescott J. Strout now lives, at the Bend, and kept hotel, being succeeded by Samuel McGray. Here Dr. Ricker1 afterward lived, and 1859-65, Dr. M. C. Wedgwood, now of Lewiston, lived here.
Near the beginning of the century Dr. Symonds Baker built a one-story house at the Bend. It is mentioned in 1805. Here he had an apothecary's shop. The house was afterward enlarged and became Durham's principal hotel, kept by Jonathan C. Merrill, Joshua Miller, Samuel Miller, John Miller and Abner Merrill in succession.
The old tavern is shown in the accompanying cut, with the long-unused band-stand in front, around which lingers the shade of Joseph Tyler. The house on the opposite corner was built as a store by Winslow Hayward in the early part of the century. By enlargement it became a dwelling-house and has been suc- cessively occupied by Job Sylvester, Daniel Holland, Lora Har- mon, Dr. Wm. L. Harmon, Mr. Mason, J. Cushing. Merrill, Simon W. Miller, James H. Eveleth and Wm. E. Greely.
Much has been jocosely said by the political speakers about the Durham ship-yards. They do not know, perhaps, that in 1823 Joshua Miller and sons built a fishing schooner on lot 97 and hauled it to Maquoit Bay, Brunswick, where it was launched. Theophilus Thomas was the skipper. History does not mention any other ship-yard in Durham, though it once supplied a great quantity of ship-timber.
'Dr. John Ricker was born in Buckfield, 17 Feb. 1787. He graduated at the Medical School in Brunswick in 1822 and practiced medicine in Durham many years. His intentions of marriage with Charlotte Hay- ward of Fairfax were recorded in Durham 18 Aug. 1816. He moved to Orono. Died at Waterville 25 Jan. 1867.
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HISTORY OF DURHAM
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VIII. MILITARY RECORD
The beginning of the struggle for American independence found Royalsborough with only a few scattered families. There was, however, a quick response to the patriotic call and one at least joined Col. Phinney's Regiment that marched in 1775 to the relief of Boston. Besides others who enlisted for shorter terms of service, a petition shows that seventeen men from Royals- borough had enlisted, in 1778, for three years in the Continental army, and this, too, when there were but forty-six men in town capable of bearing arms. Many Revolutionary soldiers from other towns settled in Durham after the War.
The first town action was Sept. 15, 1777 when Josiah Dunn, Benjamin Vining, Ebenezer Roberts and Charles Hill, Esq., were chosen a Committee of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety, and also to " purchase some corn for to supply the women whose husbands are gon in the army." This reveals something of the privations and sacrifices endured. The following petition shows still more clearly what our ancestors paid for Independence.
At a town meeting held 12 Jan. 1778 the following action was taken :
"Voted to send a pertision to the General Court to see whither they will take of the Tax laid on us by Brunswick for the two years last past 1776 and 1777.
Voted fifteen pounds Lawful money to git our pertision writ and to carry it and Present it to the Court.
Voted Mr. Benjamin Vining to git Said Pertision and Carry it to Court, likewise Voted to defray all additional Cost of Said Pertision."
The Petition was as follows :-
State Massachusetts Bay.
To the honorable the Council and hon'l. house of Representatives in General Court assembled.
The petition of the Inhabitants of a new plantation or settle-
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MILITARY RECORD
ment called Royalsbourg, in the County of Cumberland humbly showeth :-
That the inhabitants of Brunswick did in the year 1776 assess the polls of the inhabitants of said Royalsbourg towards the public tax land on said Brunswick that year and have required the inhabitants of said Royalsbourg to give a list of their polls and estates in order to assess them towards said Brunswick's part of the tax for the year 1777, which the said Inhabitants of Brunswick suppose they have a right to do by virtue of the tax acts of those years respectively.
Your petitioners beg leave to represent to your honors that by far the greater part of the families in said Royalsbourg (not being now more than 49 in all) have been settled no more than four or five years, that they entered on wild uncultivated lands, had a wilderness to subdue and buildings to erect for shelter with great difficulty labour & expense and are yet struggling for life, that an early frost the last year 1777 in a great measure cut off their indian Corn Crops so that not half enough was raised there for the necessary use & support of the Inhabitants, that they have nothing else to dispose of nor any business or trade by which to procure a supply of so necessary and at present dear as well as scarce an article, much less to obtain money to pay in taxes-that they have but 46 men on the training band list, of whom seven- teen are enlisted for three years in the continental army-many of whom have left families whom they must supply agreeable to a late Resolve of the General Court, which is, in the present scarcity & dearness of provisions, a heavy burden upon them, notwithstanding the provision made in said Resolve for their reimbursement of that expense.
That their being taxed in Brunswick towards their proportion of the public tax (and which is no more than their proportion if Royalsbourg was not in being) is a benefit and relief to Bruns- wick only, and is not of the least advantage to the State, and there appears to your petitioners no good reason why they should help Brunswick pay its public tax rather than any other town in the State.
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