USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Gorham > History of Gorham, Me. > Part 27
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Toward the close of the last century a small settlement began to form around the falls on the Presumpscot, near what is now known as Winship's Corner. The name of Gambo was given to these falls, and to this neighborhood. Opinions differ as to the origin of this name. It has been believed by many to be an Indian name; but an authority on Indian language (Rev. M. C. O'Brien) finds no place-name corresponding to this. There is a word "Kamsku," meaning falls, which might possibly be corrupted into Gambo. There was an old negro, named Gambo, who lived in this region, and who gave great entertainment to parties of young people, who enjoyed the music of his fiddle, and his songs and jokes; and it was common to "go to Gambo's." It may be that the region took its name from this fact.
Among the early settlers in this locality were Eli Webb, John Morton and William Bolton. Mr. Webb owned a large tract of land adjoining the river on the Gorham side. The water power on this side also belonged to him. Jonathan Loveitt at one time kept a store on the Windham side, and leased a saw mill on these falls. He also had a grist mill here, and employed Peter Bolton to tend it. Peter Bolton lived on the Windham side, and it is said afterwards owned this mill. Loveitt, who was a Windham man, after some years purchased, farther up the river, the falls still known by his name, where he built mills and did an extensive lumbering business. A man by the name of Livy Buker came into this neighborhood, and in 1814 married Ann Webb, who was the daughter of Edward, and the granddaughter of Eli Webb. A few years later, probably in 1816, Buker built on the Webb property a mill for carding wool into rolls for spinning. His home was the old house which stands on the sand hill near the river.
In the year 1817 Edmund Fowler and Lester Laflin came here from Southwick, Mass., and bought twenty-five acres of land, which
274
HISTORY OF GORHAM.
had formerly belonged to Edward aad Seth Webb. This purchase was a part of the hundred acre lot No. 101, and included within its bounds all the mill-sites and privileges which belonged to 101. Fowler and Laflin immediately commenced the erection of mills for the manufacture of gunpowder, and put them in operation the following year. There is a law on the Statute Books of this State making the erection of any mill to grind or mix powder within eighty rods of any valuable building then standing, a nuisance, and making the owners liable to a prosecution. It seems that Fowler and Laflin built their mills within the proscribed distance from Buker's house. Seeing his chance, Buker made them pay him double for his land, and selling them the remainder of his property, moved away. Fowler and Laflin continued in business here until 1827, when on the 22d of June both men, together with their foreman, Walter McCully, were drowned in Sebago Pond, by the upsetting of their boat.
Oliver M. Whipple of Lowell, Mass., in 1833 purchased the plant, and also bought the privilege on the Windham side of the Presumpscot. He put Lucius Whipple, his brother, in charge of the works as foreman. Powder mills have a bad habit of exploding periodically, and the Gambo mills have proved no exception to the rule, some one or more of the buildings blowing up in 1828, 1835, 1847, 1849, 1850, 1851, 1855, 1859, 1863, 1865, 1870, 1871 and numerous other times down to the present. In the explosion which occurred on Oct. 12, 1855, one wheel-mill, press mill and a canal boat were destroyed. James Whipple and Oliver G. Whipple, who were respectively Oliver M. Whipple's brother and son, were killed, as well as Luther Robinson, Edwin Hardy, John Swett, Franklin Hawkes and Samuel Phinney ; five others were wounded. Previous to this the entire property had been sold by Mr. Whipple to G. G. Newhall & Co., of Boston.
In 1859 a new partnership was formed, by which the Oriental Powder Company came into being. In 1873 the superintendent, Mr. Jackson, resigned ; since which time Mr. Ezra F. Newhall, and Mr. Kaiser and also Mr. Smith, have filled that position. The mills are still controlled and operated by the Oriental Powder Mills.
On the 30th of May, 1733, the Great and General Court of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay made a grant to Joseph Mallison of Boston of two hundred acres of land, commencing on the west bank of the Presumpscot River, five miles above the Great Saccarappa Falls. This land, which is known as Mallison's Grant, was surveyed by Phineas Jones, Aug. 22, 1733, and a plan made of the same. It was in the shape of a rectangle; two hundred rods along the river,
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-
VIEW AT GAMBO.
.
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MALLISON'S FALLS.
and running west one hundred and sixty rods, having Little River flowing through its southwest quarter. Mallison sold this grant for the sum of fifty pounds to Gen. Samuel Waldo of Boston. It does not appear that either Mallison or Waldo built any mills here, although as early as 1743 there was a saw mill on these falls, which was probably situated on the Windham side.
The land coming into the possession of Enoch Ilsley of Falmouth, he sold it to John Waite of Gorham. Joseph Sanborn bought fifty acres of Waite, and on Sept. 1, 1778, Joseph Winslow of Falmouth purchased one hundred acres, with two saw mills, the iron work of another, and other buildings standing thereon. These are the first mills on the Gorham side at these falls of which we find any record. There was a grist mill built here sometime before 1779, for on Jan. 9th of that year Winslow leased to Joseph Libby of Gorham one-half of the grist mill standing on this land at Horse Beef Falls, below the saw mill. On Nov. 30, 1779, Winslow sold Libby a half acre of land joining the falls, together with one-half the falls and dam and the saw mill, likewise a road " trod" from the mill to the landing place : and on the 5th of December of the year following he sold him, for thirteen hundred and thirty-three Spanish milled dollars, the hundred acres of the grant which he had purchased of Waite. This hundred acres appears to have been the northerly part of the right, being an irregularly shaped triangle, with one side lying along the river, and extending westerly to the side line of said right. In 1787 Joseph Libby sold the half acre of land, just mentioned, and the mill privilege to John Libby and Matthias Murch, his son and son-in-law.
Capt. Joshua Swett was one of the early settlers here, and was quite largely interested in the mills. His son, Clark Swett, afterwards owned a saw mill on the Gorham side of the river. At the same time, on the Windham side, were another saw mill, a grist mill and a shop where wool was carded into rolls for spinning. Judge F. M. Ray of Westbrook, and John Stevens, in 1863 purchased the water power on both sides of the river of the heirs of Nathan Winslow of Portland. In 1871 they sold the privilege on the Gorham side to Thomas K. Law. The latter did nothing whatever with the power, which was afterwards bought by the Sebago Wood Board Co.
As to why this locality should receive the name of Horse Beef, which appellation it bore for many years, the old tradition is that when one of the earliest mill-men here opened a barrel of beef which he had purchased, he discovered, snugly packed away among the
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HISTORY OF GORHAM.
meat, a horse's shoe. Of late years, however, the falls have again been known as "Mallison's."
The need of a bridge across the Presumpscot River between the towns of Gorham and New Marblehead, now Windham, was felt for a number of years, but was not considered very important so long as the only necessity for crossing lay in the hauling out of logs, which could be brought across on the ice in the winter time. At last, how- ever, in July, 1762, the Proprietors of Gorham chose Moses Pearson, Solomon Lombard, Esq. and Jacob Hamblen as a committee to concur with the committee of Marblehead on the proposal to build a bridge over the Presumpscot River at Horse Beef Falls. The bridge was built in the following year, and was the first bridge uniting the towns. In April, 1795, the town of Gorham voted that a committee, consisting of Lothrop Lewis, Samuel Elder and Thomas Bangs, should let out Horse Beef bridge to be rebuilt, in the best and cheap- est manner that it could be done.
With the building of the mills settlers began to gather, and the place grew into quite a busy little hamlet. The first trader to locate here is said to have been Oliver Johnson. He was followed by Robert Wier, who also owned a paper mill on the Windham side, Edmund Griffin, Thomas Rea, John Webb, Josiah Elder, Jonathan Hanson and Thomas Brackett.
Among the houses which used to stand here, and which was by far the most of a house of any in this locality, was one occupied at one time by Dr. Henry Dupee, an Englishman, who was a physician and apothecary. He had a garden near the house, in which he used to raise herbs for medicinal purposes. It is not known when or by whom the old house was built. George Johnson, the father of Benjamin Johnson, lived in it previous to Dr. Dupee's occupying it.
With the cutting off of the timber hereabouts the business of the saw mills gradually ceased, and as the building of the cotton mill at Little Falls offered a chance of employment, the most of the people who were left moved there. Quite a number of houses were hauled from Horse Beef to Little Falls, and now form a part of that village. At present Robinson's woolen mill on the Windham side, with a few scattered houses on the Gorham side, are all that remain of the once thriving little village of Horse Beef.
On the 26th of November, 1741, the Proprietors of Narragansett No. 7, or Gorhamtown, passed the following votes :-
" Voted & Granted unto his Excellency William Shirley, Esq', Governor of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, his heirs &
LITTLE FALLS VILLAGE.
277
LITTLE FALLS.
assigns for Ever, Four Hundred Acres of the Common & undivided Lands within said Township,
"Voted, Mr. Moses Pearson, Jnº Gorham & Joshua Bangs, Be a Committee to Lay out the same, pursuant to said Grant."
This committee hired William Pote, Jr. to run out the grant, which was done in the following summer, and a plan made, which was accepted by the Proprietors on the 15th of November, 1742, when they voted to accept the committee's report and plan, "pro- vided said plan contains no more than the four hundred acres granted." They also voted to have the same recorded in the Pro- prietors' book, and we find in the old Proprietors' Records, under date of Dec. 20, 1743, the report of this committee : - " We, the Subscribers, being chosen by the Proprietors of Gorhamtown, as a Committee to lay out the four hundred acres of Land voted & granted to his Excellency, William Shirley, Esq', have, agreeable to the Vote, laid out the same as within described.
JOHN GORHAM
MOSES PEARSON
Proprietors'
JOSHUA BANGS Committee."
Upon the same page is also drawn the plan, on which is written the following description : -
" Decembr 20th, 1743.
Within these Bounds is contain'd four hundred acres of upland lying on Presumpscot River, & adjoining to the Land granted by the great & general Court to M' Joseph Mallison, as described in this Plan, which I, the Subscriber, have Survey'd by the Desire of the Committee of Gorhamtown, so called, appointed by the Proprietors of said Town, to lay out the said Premises to his Excellency, Wil- liam Shirley, Esqr.
WILLIAM POTE, Jun' Survey"."
This land was situated near Little Falls; the eastern end of it lying along the Presumpscot for about sixty rods each way from where the bridge now is, and running westerly five hundred and eight rods. At the west end it was one hundred and sixty rods wide, and the southern side, which was parallel to the northern side, ran easterly three hundred and one rods, till it struck the westerly side of the Mallison Grant.
Joseph Knight was taken prisoner by the Indians, Feb., 1756, on the hundred acre lot No. 2 in Windham, while he was engaged in cutting logs for the saw mill of his father, William Knight. This mill was on the Windham side of the river, and is the first on these falls of which we have any knowledge. About the year 1767 Capt. Joseph
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HISTORY OF GORHAM.
Knight purchased some ninety acres of the Shirley Grant, including the water power on the Gorham side, on which he erected and ran a saw mill, which was afterwards owned by his son Joseph. This mill and water power Joseph Knight, Jr. sold in 1823 to the Cumberland Cotton Manufacturing Company.
The Cumberland Cotton Manufacturing Company, which was chartered by the State, held its first meeting in Portland and elected its officers, Mar. 23, 1824. At the annual meeting, Apr. 1, 1825, when they elected their Directors and other officers, Jacob Coburn was re-elected as Agent and Superintendent of the Works. At this meeting the first assessment, two hundred dollars per share was voted to be called for by the treasurer, Thos. O. Bailey. The year following, another assessment of four hundred dollars per share was voted in order to meet the contracts made for machinery and other purposes. In 1827 it was voted that the capital stock be divided into eighty shares instead of the former number of twenty-four. This company, which was composed of Portland men, having purchased the water power on both sides of the river, proceeded to build a new dam. The mill was erected in 1825, the foundation being laid the year previous. Several large dwelling houses were also built by the company for the use of their operatives. The factory carried eighteen hundred spindles and ran eighty looms. It gave employment to about eighty persons, and manufactured some eight thousand yards of shirting and sheeting per week. This property afterwards passed into the hands of the Casco Company. In Nov., 1834, Mr. John R. Larrabee entered upon the duties of agent of the mills, succeeding Thos. J. Butler. Mr. Larrabee continued in charge of the mills until the autumn of 1855, when he resigned his position, and the following spring left town. The mill was destroyed by fire in November, 1856.
The Little Falls mill privilege was purchased in 1875 by C. A. Brown and Co., who built the present large brick mill for the purpose of manufacturing wood-board.
About 1846, Ichabod W. Leighton and Freeman Harding built a saw mill at Little Falls, on the spot where the pulp mill now stands. In 1861, Wm. Cloudman built at the lower falls on Little River the first dam ever placed there. He then purchased Leighton and Harding's mill, tore it down, and rebuilt it at the latter place. In 1868 Mr. Cloudman sold this property to Jos. Deguio, who in turn sold it to Theodore Sayward.
The present village of Little Falls owes its existence to the business which began to come here with the building of the cotton mill.
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LITTLE FALLS.
Jonathan Andrew, the father of Gov. John A. Andrew of Massachu- setts, kept a store near the Windham end of the present bridge, and was the first trader to locate here. When the post office of South Windham was established in 1828, he received the appointment of postmaster. Jacob Coburn, of whom we have spoken as the agent of the mills of the Cumberland Manufacturing Company, settled here about the same time as Mr. Andrew, which was about 1824, and built the large brick house, now owned by Geo. W. Heath. Mr. Coburn was the first man to open a store and go into trade on the Gorham side. After some five or six years Edwin Coburn, his son, took the business, which he, in 1838, sold to Ichabod W. Leighton, who took the store, which when owned by the Coburns stood on the spot now occupied by the Hill block, and moved it to the place where the block owned by Wm. H. Mclellan now stands. Mr. Leighton traded in this building for a number of years, after having moved and enlarged it, but finally left town. Elisha Guilford occu- pied the place for a year or two; when on Feb. 20, 1864, the building was consumed by fire. Among others who have followed Mr. Coburn in trade here are Benjamin Sturgis, Geo. Cole, Benjamin B. Mayberry, Edmund Libby, A. O. Hill, Josiah C. Shirley, A. L. Folsom, Freeman Harding, John F. Smith, Jonathan Loveitt and Fred Freeman.
There have been two Public Houses kept at Little Falls, one on each side of the river. That on the Windham side was opened about 1832 by Andrew Libby, in the old house still standing at the corner of Main and Depot Sts. The one on the Gorham side was kept by Ebenezer Hicks and after him by Justus Butler, who came here some fifteen years later.
There has been quite a business done here in days past in the manufacture of boots and shoes. It seems a little strange that the shop in which the first shoes were made in this village should be situated on the spot occupied by the store in which Coburn com- menced trading. Edmund Libby, who was a shoemaker by trade, engaged, in a small way at first, in the manufacture of boots in the shop just spoken of. His business increasing, he took a partner, John F. Smith. Walter Berry and Joseph M. Plummer, as well as Lendall Brown, were also connected with him in this business at vari- ous times. The firm is said to have employed somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred men. About 1855 Mr. Libby removed to Portland, and there went into the shoe business with C. J. Walker. A few years after Libby established himself in the business here,
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HISTORY OF GORHAM.
John Frink also opened a shop, employing quite a number of men. He sold out in 1860 to Clement Brackett, who in turn sold to Jacob Bragdon. John F. Smith, before going into trade in this village, manufactured ladies' shoes here about the time of the Civil War.
There was a Free Baptist Church and Society organized at Horse Beef in 1827, which built a house there on the Windham side, known as the " Old Oak Meeting House." In 1841 they decided to move, and in that year erected a meeting house on the Gorham side of the river at Little Falls. The first minister to preach in this building was Rev. James M. Buzzell, M. D. This church in January, 1864, took fire and was destroyed. About two years later, however, the Society built the present edifice, which stands upon the spot that was occupied by the burned building.
Before the abolishment by the town of the District System and the substitution of the Town System, this locality comprised what was known as District No. 16. In 1834 the schoolhouse belonging to this district was destroyed by fire. It was situated at Horse Beef, where the house of Perry Stevens now (1877) stands. A new one was built between the Gray and Portland roads, on the road running across from the Gray road to Mallison's Falls. In the Town Report for the year 1855, the School Committee, speaking of No. 16, say, " This district has the advantage of possessing a good schoolhouse, and more school apparatus than any other district in town." The town, believing that the growth of Little Falls demanded better school accommodations, in 1888 built a fine new schoolhouse on the Gray road at a cost of about three thousand dollars. Hon. Frederick Robie generously donated a bell to be hung in the cupola for the use of the school, and in his honor the building is known as the " Frederick Robie School."
CHAPTER XIV. .
PHYSICIANS AND LAWYERS.
For many years after the first settlement of the town there was no physician in Gorham. Nor was this lack often especially felt or noted. The women of the families were skillful in the compounding, from the barks, roots and herbs which grew around them, simple remedies which availed for all ordinary ailments. Their Indian neighbors also, in time of peace, taught them, the settlers, very many useful lessons in the arts of medicine and surgery. Occasionally, as in the case of young Phinney, when the injury demanded more scien- tific treatment than home could afford, the patient was carried through the woods to Falmouth, there to receive surgical aid.
At length with the growth of the town and the increase of the pop- ulation the opening came for a physician, and with it in 1770 came the man, Dr. Stephen Swett. He made his home near Fort Hill, and soon brought there his family, consisting of his wife and seven children. Seven other children were afterwards born in this town to him and his wife. Dr. Swett was an earnest patriot, and enlisted as surgeon in the war of the Revolution, May 7, 1775, in Col. Phin- ney's 31st Massachusetts regiment. He probably served until the regiment was discharged, Dec. 31, 1775, and doubtless saw other ser- vice, though there seems to be no official record thereof. After a successful practice of several years in Gorham he removed to Wind- ham and thence to Otisfield where he died in 1807.
The second physician to locate in town was Dr. Jeremiah Barker. He was a native of Scituate, Mass., and had studied medicine in Cambridge under the eminent Dr. Lincoln. He had practiced for some time in Barnstable, Mass., before coming to Gorham. He came here soon after the close of the Revolution, having become interested in the place through the influence of his brother-in-law, Hon. William Gorham. He lived east of the village, near the mouth of the Black Brook road. He was a noted man in his profession, and also took a prominent part in town affairs. After several years he moved to Portland, where he remained till about 1808, when he returned to Gorham and resided here until his death in 1834, at the age of 84 years.
282
HISTORY OF GORHAM.
Dr. Nathaniel Bowman, a graduate of Harvard in 1786, was the third physician to settle in Gorham. Shortly after coming he was married to Miss Johnson of Andover, Mass. He was a young man of much ability, and gave promise of taking a high rank in his pro- fession. It is said that while visiting a patient on the seventh of June, 1797, he remarked that none of his family had lived to pass their thirtieth birthday, but that he was going to break the record as he should be thirty on the following day. The next day, June 8th, he was killed by the fall of the church steeple, as is elsewhere related. His untimely death was greatly lamented. The tradition also says that his patient lost her life through the lack of medical attendance consequent upon his death.
About the time of Dr. Bowman's death Dr. Dudley Folsom came here. He took at once an active and a prominent part in town and educational matters, and was esteemed not only as a skillful physician, but as a wise and prudent counsellor in public matters. He was Surgeon of Col. Burbank's militia regiment which marched to Port- land for the protection of that place during the War of 1812. Dr. Folsom had a large and extensive practice, till his death in 1836.
About 1811, or 1812, Dr. Elihu Baxter commenced the practice of medicine in Gorham. He was educated for a physician in Hanover, N. H., and received his diploma at the age of twenty-one. He practiced at first in Lemington, Vt., going from that place to Alna, Me., and thence to Wayne, Me., in which latter town he remained for some years in good practice. From this place he removed to Gorham, where he resided for nearly twenty years; establishing a lasting reputation as a good citizen and a faithful and successful physician. He removed to Portland, where he died. (See Baxter.)
Dr. Seaver was a physician in town for a few years in the first quarter of this century. He lived in the house since owned by Col. Hugh D. Mclellan. Drs. Kittredge, Adams and Thorndike also practiced here.
Dr. Nelson H. Cary, a native of Bridgewater, Mass. and a graduate of Bowdoin Medical School, succeeded Dr. Baxter, and lived in the house on South St., formerly occupied by him. Here he continued for several years, when he removed to Livermore. About 1860-62 he returned to Gorham and again entered into practice here. After a few years he went to Westbrook. He died in Durham in 1877. Dr. Cary was the father of Mrs. Annie Louise (Cary) Raymond, of whose musical fame and talents Gorham is proud, though it cannot claim the honor of having been her birthplace.
ELIHU BAXTER, M. D.
DR. ALDEN T. KEEN.
283
PHYSICIANS.
Dr. John Pierce, a native of Monmouth, came here in 1835. He married Chloe, the daughter of Alexander McLellan, Esq. After practicing here for four years he removed to Edgartown, Mass., where he resided till his death in 1885.
Dr. S. W. Baker followed Dr. Pierce. He came to Gorham from Windham. He remained some years in practice here, when he moved to Saccarappa, but returned later to this place. Mrs. Mary A. Baker, his wife, died in Gorham in 1849. Dr. Baker with several of his children removed to Texas, where he was still living not many years since.
William H. Peabody, son of Ebenezer and Sally (Lewis) Peabody, was born in Gorham. He commenced practice here about 1825, and was a beloved physician. He identified himself with every good cause and work, till his death in 1843. His wife was Hannah, daughter of Col. James March, of Gorham.
Alden T. Keen, a native of Freedom, located first at West Gorham about 1840. He soon removed to the Village, where he had an extensive practice for many years. He was especially noted for his kindness to the poor and needy. He married Elizabeth W., daughter of Rev. Clark Perry. In 1878 he removed to Cambridge, Mass., where he and his wife died. Two daughters, Julia M. and Lillian B., and a son, Jarvis B. Keen, survive them.
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