USA > Maine > Androscoggin County > Wales > History of Monmouth and Wales, V. 1 > Part 29
USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Monmouth > History of Monmouth and Wales, V. 1 > Part 29
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Atkinson in the same state. After teaching about a year in the latter place, he enlisted in the Union army . "He was mustered into the volunteer service as cap- tain of Co. H., 49th Reg. Wis. Inft. Vols., Mar., 1865. His regiment was ordered to Missouri, where it re- mained doing guard and provost duty until the sol- diers were mustered out in November of the same year. He remained at Fort Atkinson until 1868, when he returned to Monmouth. His father dying in 1871, he succeeded to the estate."
As a citizen, Capt. Pierce has, to a remarkable ex- tent, enjoyed the confidence and esteem of his towns- men. He has been honored with many terms of service on the board of selectmen and local school board, and has once been called to represent his district in the legislature. He is prominently connected with the .G. A. R., and in 1893 was elected Junior Vice Command- er of the state department.
Capt. Pierce married Martha E. Storm, of Wautoma, Wisconsin. They have six children, all of whom re- side in Monmouth.
Of the other sons of Hon. Nehemiah Pierce only
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four, Bela, Jesse, John and Daniel reared families. Bela settled on the farm adjacent to that of his brother Oliver; that of the latter being in Monmouth, and that of the former, in Wales. As a citizen of the latter town he, was several times honored with a position on the board of selectmen. He married Elizabeth Wilcox and reared a large family of children, none of whom settled in Monmouth. Jesse married and settled in North Andover, Mass. John studied medicine and es- tablished himself in a successful and lucrative practice at Edgartown, Mass. He had three children, of whom one is a physician at Marston's Mills, and another an attorney at New Bedford, Mass. Daniel married Caro- line Shorey and remained on the homestead. Of him may be said what is true of the posterity of Nehemiah Pierce as a family-that he was an honorable, respect- ed, God-fearing man. He was the father of seven chil- dren, the youngest of whom, Ella A. died at the age of twenty-three.
The other daughters are Frances C., Maria A. and Mary J. The latter married Moses B. Sylvester, son of Rev. Bradbury Sylvester of Wayne; Maria married Capt. A. C. Sherman, and cied in Monmouth in 1892, and Frances married Dr. Henry M. Blake and resides in her native town. Of the sons Daniel O. is the youngest. He married Ida N. Williams and settled on a farm in Monmouth; George Boardman, the oldest son, married Mary A., daughter of John Kingsbury, of Monmouth, and resides on the Kingsbury homestead.
Although, in the main, his life has been the quiet uneventful one of a farmer, he is not lacking in those attributes which have made his family one of the most
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highly esteemed of the town. He served for a term of · years as steward of the Maine Wesleyan Seminary, and has devoted a portion of his time to teaching.
Rev. John Edwin Pierce, the third in order of the children of Dea. Daniel Pierce, was born Sep. 22, 1838.
After a preparatory course at Monmouth Academy, he entered Bowdoin College, at the age of ninetecn years, and was graduated from that institution in 1862. On leaving college, he spent a year as teach- er in the public schools of Wisconsin.
In 1864, he enlisted in the 39th Reg. Wis. Vols. and served during the year as orderly sergeant of Co. B. The following year found him in Co. K. of the First Wis. Heavy Artillery, as clerk at headquarters. In 1865 he entered Bangor Theological Seminary, and was graduated at the end of a three years' course. On leaving the seminary, he was married to Miss Lizzie A. Grey, of Exeter, Me., and, a few days later, sailed from New York as an ordained missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions.
The field to which he was appointed was rich in his- torical and religious associations. Lying immediately west of the mountain on which the ark of Noah rested after the deluge, it stretched off through the ancient do- minions of Pontus, Cappadocia, Galatia and Bithynia, where the gospel was preached nearly two thousand years ago by men who were converted under Peter's in- spired oratory at Pentecost. His missionary journeys carried him over the route of Xenophon's celebrated re- treat, and the emotion he experienced on reaching the terminus of their wanderings was not unlike that of
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the weary Greeks, when, with tears streaming down their sunburned cheeks, they shouted, "The sea! The sea!"
After nine years of labor in this interesting field, Mr. Pierce returned to his old home for a year's rest. In 1878 he again sailed for Turkey. Leaving Erzroom, the principal station of his first term of missionary life, several hundred miles to the east, he located at Barde- zag, about sixty miles north-east of Constantinople, as the general superintendent of the work in the Nicome- dia field and principal of a boarding high school of one hundred and twenty-five pupils.
He again returned to America in 1890, and was pre- vented front sailing a third time for his missionary field by a severe casualty which befell his wife. He is now living on the old homestead in Monmouth.
Mr. Pierce is the father of three children, Arthur, Bessie and George. The oldest of these is a graduate of the Boston Institute of Technology, and Bessie is a student in Wellesley College.
Joseph B. Allen, or "Deacon Joseph Allen", as he was generally called, to distinguish him from the two oth- er citizens of Monmouth bearing the same name, was the youngest child of Joseph Allen the pioneer, and was born May 27, 1784. He had six brothers and sis- ters, among whom were Patty, who married John Gil- man; Olive, who married Reuben Basford and inherit- ed the original Allen farm, and Philena, who married John Sawyer. Joseph B. Allen was married, in 1808, to Susannah Roberts and started in life on the farm on Monmouth Ridge now owned by his grandson, Al- more J. Chick, where he built the brick house in
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH.
which the latter resides. A portion of this farm was probably taken from his father's land, which ran back toward the Ridge, and the rest was purchased of Es- quire Pierce.
Deacon Allen was a man of true christian mold. As a boy he had sat long winter evenings and listened to his father and his neighbor, Philip Jenkins, while they discussed election and free grace, and, although he did not cling to the Arminian tenets of his parent, he received in the good soil of his heart the seed of grace which bore the beautiful fruitage of a life hidden with Christ in God. He had several children, none of whom settled in Monmouth except Cordelia, who mar- ried Levi J. Chick and settled on the farm on Oak Hill now owned by Mrs. Catherine Pincin. Mr. Chick was the son of Levi Chick, who came from Ber- wick, Me., and took up the above mentioned farm on Oak Hill early in this century. The latter had twelve children, only one of whom, William H. Chick, of South Monmouth, is now living in town. Levi J. Chick
was a house carpenter and joiner. He remained on his father's farm until 1845, when he removed to the home of his wife's father, where his son Almore J. Chick now resides. He had one son and three daugh- ters. Two of his daughters, Augusta D. and Orra D., were the first and second wives, respectively, of O. W. Andrews, Esq., and Sarah E., who for many years was a teacher in our district schools, married W. A. Palm- er, of North Monmouth.
John Plummer was born in New Hampshire (wheth- er in Hampstead or Warner I am unable to decide, as there is a slight discrepancy in the statements of his
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descendants), April 1, 1777. His father was killed while fighting for his country on one of the battle-fields of the Revolution. At an early age, he was bound out to an uncle, for whom he does not appear to have developed a remarkable fondness; for, at the age of sixteen, he quietly slipped away from all "scenes to memory dear" and came to reside in Litchfield. Here he met Rebecca Johnson, whom he married some time near 1800. Eight years later he moved to Monmouth, and purchased of the Sawyers, in a wild state, the farm on Pease Hill which his son, Joseph H. Plummer, has recently sold to Mr. LeClair. Here Mr. Plummer spent the residue of his days, and here he died. He was the father of nine children, the first three of whom, John J., Judith, and Jabez, were born in Litchfield. Of this trio, the first married Matilda Parks, of Litchfield, and removed to Skowhegan, in the vicinity of which town a maj- ority of his posterity now reside; Judith died at the age of twenty-six unmarried, and Jabez, who was the father of our citizens, Sanford K., Warren W. and John Plummer, married Abigail Powers, of White- field, and settled on the farm on which his son, Jabez. M. Plummer, resides.
This farm he purchased, in a partially cleared 'state, of Maj. James Campbell, a drum-major of the Continental army, who had it of Nehemiah Hutchinson, the first settler on the lot. Hutchinson was a Revolutionary soldier. He came from Massachusetts, and was here as early as 1800. After his decease, his family removed to Litchfield. One of his daughters married James H. Cunningham, of Monmouth.
Joseph H. Plummer, the fourth of John, the pioneer's
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children, was the first child born on the Plummer farnı. When he began to inhale the exhilarating ozone of Pease Hill his father's family was living in the log cab- in. At the age of twenty-five he married Hannah Hil- dreth, of Gardiner, a granddaughter of Paul Hildreth, the first white settler of Lewiston, Me., and settled on the home place, where he resided until 1891, when he sold it and took up a residence with his son, William E. Plummer. The other children of John Plummer were Mary, William J., Diana, Jedediah P. and Alden. The first of these married Aaron Spear, Esq., who, in company with Mr. Billings, established the shovel and hoe manufactory at North Monmouth. William was a blacksmith. He learned the trade of manufacturing farm-tools at Plimpton's, and later, added tothis a knowl- edge of horse shoeing. He removed to Skowhegan, but returned to North Monmouth in 1848, and purchas- ed of Benj. Richardson the farm now owned by Mr. Bent, where he died in 1867. During the exciting times following the discovery of gold in California, he spent a year in that state repairing miners' tools. Although he was rapidly accumulating wealth, he was compelled, on account of the sickness of his brother Jedediah, who accompanied him, to return to the eastern states, but not until he had received a sunstroke from the effects of which he afterward died. His wife was Hannah
Partridge of Augusta. Their two children, Augusta A. and George M., reside at North Monmouth. Diana Plummer married Shepard Pease; Jedediah P. married Sophia Spear and removed to Medway, Mass., where he now resides; and Alden, Mary Hill. This last member of the family followed the sea, and became the mate of
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a vessel. He died in Boston not far from 1890.
Martin Cushing, who settled this year on the place where Mr. Tillson now lives, was a joiner and master of his trade. He framed the Old South church at Win- throp, and was working on it when the frame which was being raised fell, killing six men. Mr. Cushing was a good citizen. He sold his place to Jonathan Fol- som and removed to Winthrop where he died.
'The Blossom house at Monmouth Center was built this year by Ansel Blossom, son of Capt. James Blos- som. It is one of the old landmarks that time has spared us, and, rude in architecture as it is, may its warped frame stand long against the merciless calls of village improvement advocates." Mr. Blossom, the builder, removed to the West.
In 1807 or 1808, Daniel and Moses Boynton remov- ed from Buxton and settled on the Moses Waterhouse farm. They lived together about three years, when Moses purchased, and settled on, the Charles Hyde Potter farm. Moses Boynton was born Feb. 6, 1877. At about the age of twenty-six he was married to Ruth Eden of Saco. He was appointed captain of Co. B., Monmouth militia, and held that position when the company was called into service in the last war with England. As a hereditament, or a coincidence, this office has fallen to one of each generation of his de- scendants. Father, son and grandson, all have been captain of Co. B. He died June 12, 1828.
*Since the above was written, the appearance of this ancient domicile has been greatly changed. The addition of a two-storied structure has trans- formed it into a commodious hotel. But thanks to the Fates and good judg- ment, the old frame, though now playing the inferior role of an ell, is un- changed.
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Of his ten children John E., Ruth E., the wife of Daniel Sampson, who at one time was, with Ebenezer Blake, engaged in the manufacture of table clothis at Baileyville, Me., and James Madison all moved to St. Albans, Me., where John F. Boynton, a son of the lat- ter, now resides. Nathaniel married Polly Judkins, a daughter of Capt. Jonathan Judkins, and removed to the eastern part of the state, while Moses ( who fatally shot himself by the accidental discharge of his gun while hunting for a squirrel in his corn-barn on the third day of March, 1860), Eliza, who married Hen- drick W. Judkins, and William H. settled in Monmouth.
William H. Boynton was born Apr. 7, 1809. At the age of twenty-four he married Martha Plumer, the daughter of David Plumer, one of the early settlers and leading citizens of Wales. He started in life as the junior partner of the firm of Perkins & Boynton, oc- cupying a store erected by his wife's father inside the angle of the two roads at Wales Corner. This build- ing was removed to Monmouth Ridge, and now serves as a stable to the Baptist parsonage.
Mr. Boynton was appointed ensign in Co. A. Third Regiment, Second Brigade of the Maine militia, in 1837. In 1840 he was commissioned lieutenant in the same company, and in 1841 was promoted to the captaincy. His commissions bear the respective signatures of gov- ernors Dunlap, Fairfield and Kent. Although urged to retain his command, he' resigned, aud was honorably discharged Apr. 10, 1843, in the face of a pledge of pro- motion to the rank of major.
Capt. Boynton was a man of quiet manners and dig- nified bearing. He always enjoyed the confidence and
Mm Sb. Boynton.
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respect of his townsmen and was often selected by them to discharge the duties responsible stations. In 1846 he was placed on the board of selectmen. Three years later, he began another term of six consecutive years' service in the same capacity, and in 1856 was re- elected to the first of a term of two years as chairman of the board. He died July 25, 1877.
Capt. Boynton was the father of two children. The younger, Mary Luella, born Apr. 5. 1842, married, in 1860, George F. Rowell. She died Feb. 16, 1865, leav- ing one child, Luella B.
Diniel P. Boynton wasborn Jan. 16, 1838, and married, Jan. 19, 1864, Lovina J. McFarland, of Wales. Mr. Boynton is an expert cabinet-maker, and has followed this vocation in several of the large cities of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, including Dover, Marl- boro', Charlestown, Dedham and Worcester. He takes a deep interest in history, owns a large and well-se- lected collection of historical works, and is one of the few whose encouraging words and apparent confidence in the project have prevented the abandonment of this history in times of utter discouragement. Like his father and grandfather, he has been captain of Com- pany B .; and again following the footprints of the for- mier, has served on the board of selectmen.
Mr. Boynton joined the Monmouth Lodge of Free Masons in 1892, and was raised by successive degrees to membership in the Lewiston Commandery of Knights Templar, and Maine Consistory 32° Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, of Portland. He was elected Master of Monmouth Lodge in 1882 and 1883, District Deputy Grand Master of the 11th district in 1888 and 1889, and
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Senior Grand Warden of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge in 1890.
The Boynton family dates from the invasion of Ire- land by the Norsemen in the seventh century. A chief- tain of the race obtained a victory on the river Boyne, and from that historic stream took the name Boynton. The family appears to have been one of the leading ones among the nobility of England both before and after the Conquest. There were, at least, twenty baronets among their number.
In 1738, Rev. Ezekiel Rogers, of Yorkshire, Eng., emigrated to America, taking with him a large 1111111- ber of respectable families from the same district, for the purpose of founding a colony in the new country. These people are described as "godly men, most of them of good estate." They settled in, and founded, the town of Rowley, Mass., giving their new home the name of the one they had left across the water. Among these colonists were William and John Boynton. Wil- liam was a tailor. He was born in 1606, and lived with his wife, Elizabeth, in Rowley until 1657, when he re- moved to Ipswich, where he died, Dec. S, 1686. From one of these brothers, descended John, who was born July 3, 1729, and as early as 1754 removed from Haverhill, where he had worked, to Narragansett No. 1, the territory now included in the town of Buxton, Me. John was a blacksmith. He figured conspicuously in the records of Narragansett No. I. In 1767, he con- veyed to William Boynton Lot II of Range D, 2nd divi- sion, on which William settled and built a house which is still standing, and is occupied by one of his descend- ants. This William, it is supposed, was John's son.
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John's wife was Mary, daughter of William Hancock. He died, while serving in the Continental army, in a barn used by the soldiers as a barrack. He had six children, of whom William, the third child, was the fa- ther of Daniel and Moses Boynton, the first of the name in Monmouth.
Daniel Boynton, who was six years older than his brother Moses, married Mary Moore, of Buxton, Me., daughter of Hugh Moore, and sister of Sarah, who married Rev. Asa Heath, and of Jane, the wife of Dr. James Cochrane, sen., both of whom subsequently set- tled in Monmouth. Daniel was a mason. He died in 1837, at the age of sixty-six, leaving four sons and two daughters. The latter were Mary, the wife of Cyrus Stebbins Hillman, and Margaret, who married Dr. Asa Heath. The sons were Hugh M., Ebenezer Ayer, Daniel and James Cochrane. Hugh married Polly, daughter of Daniel Prescott, and sister of Dr. E. K. Prescott, and removed to Brooks, Me. He had three children, only one of whom (Cyrus, who married Delia, daughter of James Cochrane, sen.) lived to adult age.
James Cochrane Boynton studied medicine with his namesake, and established himself in the practice of his profession at Richmond, Me., where he amassed a handsome property and died, in 1865, leaving one child, the mother of James A. Proctor, the Richmond drug- gist. The latter married a daughter of Dr. David Rich- ards, another descendant of a Monmouth family. Dr. Boynton's political affiliations were Democratic and his religious tenets, Swedenborgian in cast.
Daniel Boynton, jun., married Eliza, daughter of Capt.
Benj. Kimball. Mr. Boynton was a man of more
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than ordinary activity and business tact. He built sev- eral houses in town, and the store that was occupied by W. W. Woodbury prior to the great fire of 1888. Like many other enterprising men, he contracted the gold fever, and died while crossing the isthmus on his way to California, in 1855. His widow and three children, Harriet, Benjamin and Clara, purchased a farm in Rumford, Me., to which they removed about twenty- five years ago. The latter married Rev. Henry Libby, and died in early womanhood. Harriet died unmarried. Benjamin struggled manfully against adverse fortunes many years; until, at last, his nervous system collapsed, and he was forced to an untimely end by his own delir- ious volition.
Ebenezer Ayer Boynton, born Aug. 8, 1797, married Ann M., daughter of Rev. Asa Heath, and removed to Brooks, Me. His four children were Charles W., Sa- rah A., Mary S. and Henry. The first of these died in Detroit, Me., Oct. 12, 1891, in his sixty-fourth year. Sarah A. resides in Lynn, Mass; Mary S., in Detroit, and Henry, in Augusta, Me.
Notwithstanding the fact that he claims to have no biography, Henry Boynton's life has been far from uneventful. After leaving school he bent his youth- ful steps toward that El Dorado of the North, Califor- nia. Journeying by way of the present route of De Lessep's Panama Canal, he reached his destination, spent two years in the mines with a result concerning which he is reticent, and returned through Central America, over the present route of the Nicaragua Ca- nal. His next move was toward Kansas, where he took an active part in the struggle to make that state a
D. P. Bonneton.
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free state, serving in the capacity of captain of the "e- lection guards, and was wounded in one of the sharp fights that were called battles before the great battles of the civil war dwarfed them to skirmishes." He studied law, and was admitted to the bar of the U. S. court in Kansas in 1860, but has never practiced his profession, for the reason, as he states it, that he has always been able to get an honest living He return- ed from Kansas to Maine just in time to enlist in the volunteer army as a Maine soldier. £ Five days after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, he began to raise a company of volunteers. On the second day of May, 1861, only eighteen days after the first rebel gun waked the echoes of the Potomac, he organized a full company at Newport. Immediately after the disas- trous battle of Bull Run, he organized another company, and, in all, raised (chiefly at his own expense), more than two hundred and fifty men who actually went in- to service in 1861. He was commissioned captain in the 8th Me. Vols., and was promoted, successively, Major, Lt. Colonel, and brevet Brigadier General. He took his share of the battles of the war, one of which was the nearest to Richmond of any battle of the four years' campaign-the attack of October, 27, 1864, when the troops he commanded penetrated to within four miles of the heart of the rebel capitol. On that day he commanded the artillery (18th army corps) and the skirmishers and sharpshooters, notwithstanding the fact that he was still suffering from severe wounds received at the battle of Drewry's Bluff, near Rich- mond, only a little more than five months before.
After the war closed, he returned to his home, at the
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end of nearly four years of service; but was, for a year and a half, disabled from business by his wounds. He then served two years in the state senate, and subse- quently held the position of U. S. Pension Agent, at Augusta, for a term of five years.
Gen. Boynton has travelled extensively. He has made several sea voyages, and has visited about twen- ty-five different countries. He is the author of three books-"The World's Greatest Conflict", a history of the French Revolution, and of the struggles to get the United States' Constitution and a new government into successful and full operation ; covering the critical pe- riod fron 1789 to 1804; "Thirteen Thousand Miles of Sight Seeing", which covers a rapid tour of a party from New York to Turkey through all central Eu-
rope, and thence back to New York-a race of thirty days for a prize-and "A History of the Nineteenth Century in the United States and Europe", which dwells upon the events of the years between the acces- sion of Napoleon in France and of Thos. Jefferson in the United States, to the climax of the former's suc- cesses in 181I. In preparing to write this history, Gen. Boynton devoted about eight years' time to dili- gent research, "and twice visited Europe for the pur- pose of study, examination of libraries and national ar- chives, to obtain material from records, state papers, and other original sources not accessible in this coun- try, and also that he might make an actual examina- tion of battle-fields, sites of important historic events, etc."* The original manner in which he has treated the historical events and characters portrayed by his *Kennebec Journal.
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pen has called forth favorable notices from the press. His last work is extended to the space of four volumes.
The only child of Gen. Boynton, and the only grand- child of his father, was Clara E., who was born April 14, 1856, and died Feb. 20, 1875:
Joseph Merrill removed from Lewiston to Monmouth in 1808. He was the son of John Merrill, sen., of Lew- iston, and one of twelve children. His father was an early settler in Lewiston, whither he removed from Freeport, or Yarmouth, Me., and was proprietor of the estate now owned by his grandson, Isræl Merrill.
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