History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 171

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100

USA > Maine > Penobscot County > History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 171

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In the Lyceum the resolve "that judges, like all other servants of the people, should be appointed only for short periods," was debated. The disputants were A. G. Jewett, Frederick H. Allen, and John Appleton. The two latter were afterward judges, Allen of the District Court, and Appleton Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

News reached Bangor that on February 16 Massachu- setts Hall of Bowdoin College was burnt to the ground, with much of the furniture of the students and the whole of the Athenian Library, of three thousand volumes belonging to them.

The Universalist society in February contemplated building a meeting-house; and the Unitarians contem- plated building a second house of worship on Broadway, to be called "Granite Church."

The temperance societies throughout the United States held simultaneous temperance meetings on February 23. Mr. Cyrus Hamlin delivered an address in Bangor in the First Baptist meeting-house.

The eastern and western Penobscot Bays were frozen over February 22.

On February 27 the Democrats nominated Amos M. Roberts as their candidate for Mayor. The Whig re- marked that it noticed the meeting "to show our friends that however much they may desire to canvass the elec- tion of Mayor without distinction of party, it is now im- practicable."

The Whig was jubilant over the discomfiture of the vender of "a downright and abominable cheat." He had sold a "skim-milk or white oak cheese, which had been made and pressed until it was about the consistency and heft of lead; it had then been beautified and dis- guised with a thin covering of curd made of new milk and then re-pressed," so that it had the appearance of a first-rate article. He was up as a "common swindler" at once, and was glad to get off with taking back his com- modities and paying costs.

In March Mrs. Mary Crawford, relict of Dr. William Crawford, who was Surgeon and Chaplain in the army of General Wolfe, and attached to his staff at the time he was killed at Quebec, and was for a number of years sta- tioned at Fort Pownall (Fort Point) where he died-died at Castine, at the age of one hundred years and five months. She was the sister of Colonel John Brewer, the original proprietor at Brewer Village.

On March 5 the Whigs nominated Edward Kent for Mayor.

On the evening of the 8th of March the brick build- ing on Hammond street, corner of Patten Court, hav- ing an elegant exterior of pressed brick, and in pro- cess of repair, was burned out. It belonged to Cyrus S. Clark, and was built by Dexter E. Wadleigh. The walls were left, and the house was rebuilt.

The canvass for Mayor was somewhat exciting. There was opposition to Mr. Kent among the Whigs. At a meeting at the Franklin House, where Ransom Clark presided and John S. Kimball was Secretary, Elisha H. Allen was nominated "in opposition to Edward Kent." Mr. Allen declined to be a candidate.

Peter Edes, the oldest printer then in the United States, and Allen Gilman, Mayor of Bangor, were made honorary members of the Mechanic Association in March.

Mr. Kent was elected Mayor by 232 majority in a vote of 1,308. He received 770; Mr. Roberts, 493; scatter- ing, 45. Whereupon the Whig and Courier shouted : "Van Buren 'buried heels upward' in Bangor!" Ward 7, then called the Bear Ward, gave a Whig majority, and was said to have redeemed itself.

A fair was held March 16, for the benefit of the "Fe- male Orphan Asylum."

The People's Press, a Van Buren paper, first appeared March 14.

The "small bill law," prohibiting the circulation of bills of a smaller denomination than $5, sustained by the Administration party, was very unpopular and very much criticised.

The receipts of the city of Bangor in 1835-36 were $62,552.74; expenditures, $62,592.30. The amount

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raised for schools was $3,400 ; High School, $800; for streets and highway, $5,000 ; poor, $1,500 ; Fire Depart- ment, $1,500. The amount expended for the High School was only $677.30.

The City Government this year was composed of :

Mayor: Edward Kent.

Aldermen: Ward I, Henry Call ; Ward 2, Cyrus Goss; Ward 3, William Abbot ; Ward 4, Ezra Patten ; Ward 5, Nathan B. Wiggin ; Ward 6, Samuel J. Foster ; Ward 7, Preserved B. Mills.

Councilmen : Ward 1, Charles Ramsdell, Hollis Bow- man, Charles Hayes ; Ward 2, Willis Patten, John Me- servey, Abner Taylor ; Ward 3, Moses L. Appleton, James Perkins, Camillus Kidder ; Ward 4, Samuel Wiley, Newell Bean, Stevens Davis ; Ward 5, Hayward Peirce, Abner R. Hallowell, John Brown; Ward 6, Bradford Harlow, Nathan Perry, Ebenezer French; Ward 7, Si- mon Nowell, Charles H. Shepard, William Lowder.

John S. Sayward was made City Clerk ; William Ab- bot, A. G. Wakefield, S. L. Valentine, R. K. Cushing, J. P. Dickinson, Bradford Harlow, and Franklin Muzzy, Superintending School Committee ; William Abbot, City Solicitor ; R. K. Cushing, Physician ; William Emerson, second, Marshal.

East Market Place was laid out this year.

The expediency of establishing a "first-rate permanent library" was suggested.

About the Ist of April some individuals, being disgusted with the obstinacy of the ice in the river, attempted to blow it out with gunpowder. They blew and blew ; the ice went up, but it would not go down. A little more sun was required.

The veteran John Holmes, at the close of the Legisla- ture, prepared seven stanzas of a song, which were re- ported to the members for service. The last stanza was:

And when the lass shall fill her glass, We'll gratefully incline To kiss the lip that takes a sip For "auld lang syne."

The theological students proposed to the City Council that they would form themselves into an "Engine Com- pany," provided the city would furnish them with a first- rate engine.

On April 7th the proprietors of the Temperance Hotel organized by electing John Ham, Henry Little, George Starrett, Charles A. Stackpole, and Joseph W. Mason, Directors. The Directors elected George Starrett Presi- dent and Charles A. Stackpole Secretary.

The Lafayette Bank was established this year.

A charter having been granted for the Penobscot River Railroad, J. Prescott, civil engineer, made a recon- noissance of a route from Bucksport to Milford, about twenty-eight miles. The excavations and embankments were to be obviated by "timber framework." He esti- mated the expense of constructing the road, including cars and storehouses, $7,932.17 per mile. He did not consider his estimate exact, but was "satisfied from pre- vious experience that it would not deviate essentially from the truth."

Fine-looking radishes and cucumbers were produced

from the garden of Eben French before the middle of April this year.

Mr. John Brown, Street Commissioner, laid plank sidewalks on the principal streets.

A long and interesting report of the Bangor Temper- ance Association was made by Asa Walker, in which the evils of intemperance were portrayed and commented upon with great ability.

Mr. J. E. Littlefield still continued his "Bangor Fe- male High School." Ancient and modern languages, painting, and drawing were taught, with or without the common studies, at $5, $6, and $7 per week.

The Small Bill law became so obnoxious that towns even *determined not to regard it, and authorized their Collectors to receive them on payment of taxes. Ells- worth voted to indemnify in case of prosecution.

The scarcity of money was a subject of "deep and painful anxiety." It was attributed by the opposition to the " unaccountable and unjustifiable war upon the cur- rency of the nation " by the Administration rather than to over-speculation.

An organization, at the head of which was Rufus Dwinel, was established for the purpose of building a shore railroad between Bangor and Oldtown. Work was commenced upon the road, but it was abandoned.

The steamer Moosehead was launched into Moose- head Lake on the 23d of April. It had an engine of forty horse-power, was ninety-six feet long and drew about two feet of water. The first steamer upon that lake.

On May 12 there were lying in the harbor of Bangor seventy vessels-brigs, schooners, and sloops. This was thought worthy of notice.

The Globe Bank was organized May 18. Solomon Parsons, Calvin Dwinel, Samuel Smith, Otis Small, and John Appleton were chosen Directors. The Directors elected Samuel Smith President, and Sidney K. Howard Cashier.

The Penobscot Mutual Insurance Company was or- ganized this year.

Mr. Anson Herrick, publisher of the Daily Advertiser, left Bangor on May 13 for New York. The Whig said that a warrant was out against him. Mr. Herrick after- wards became an Alderman of New York and a mem- ber of Congress.

Public military trainings were becoming unpopular. In Brunswick the annual May training was taken ad- vantage of by the students of Bowdoin College, to ridi- cule the whole thing by a military travesty which was very laughable. The Whig and Courier of May 21, pub- lished a long account of it.

In May the Whig said: "The times are evidently growing worse and worse, and those who flatter themselves that the pressure will be transient we very much fear reckon without their host."

On the 21st of May Congress, in the appropriation bill, provided for the expenditure of $75,000 annually for two years upon Fort Knox, opposite Bucksport.

The streets were at this time receiving much attention from the city authorities, and the people were calling for

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

sidewalks. They were disappointed at the tardiness of the Street Commissioners in relieving them "from the necessity of wallowing in the mud." It is not too much to say that the walking for many years, owing to the mud and dirt, was simply horrible. But the Commissioner was doing all in his power to remedy the evil by laying plank sidewalks on the principal thoroughfares.

The mud in the streets was a great obstacle to locomJ- tion, and a source of universal complaint. There being few sidewalks, it was impossible to pass next to the stores and shops, or into them, without being besmeared and burthened with the filth at the lower extremities.

The steamer Independence, a very long steamboat, which had been for some time upon the. route from Bangor, was the subject of much controversy, in reference to her speed and strength.

The small bill law went into operation June Ist. It was one of those partisan measures which, while utterly obnoxious to the members of the party in power, showed the utter subserviency of the party itself to its leaders. It was one of the laws which was evaded and treated with contempt by almost every person in Maine.

The celebrated "Helen Jewett," the wife of James Bickford, once of this city, was murdered in New York; and the trial of Robinson, her paramour, created a great excitement throughout the country. The crowd was so great on the second day that the court could not be opened until 12 o'clock. Thirty additional policemen were sworn in to control the crowd. Ogden Hoff- man and Hugh Maxwell were counsel for the defense. The testimony was circumstantial, but strong against the prisoner; nevertheless he was acquitted, after an ab- sence of fifteen minutes, by the jury. The verdict was re- ceived with long-continued cheers.

The St. John Episcopal Church completed its organi- zation June 14. Its church structure was built from plans by Upjohn. Colonel Benjamin S. Deane finished the outside and Pond & Baker the inside. It is a hand- some wood structure in the Gothic style.

A street-sprinkler for laying the dust was introduced this year by subscription of citizens.

A slate quarry was opened in Foxcroft by Mr. Leavitt, and the slate was pronounced worth from $25 to $28 per ton; transportation to Bangor from $6 to $7 per ton. Some specimens of ciphering slates were sent from the quarry to Bangor, and considered the best that had been used here.

Court street was established this year, and a contract authorized to be made with Richard Condon to build it at an expense of not exceeding $1,000.

The building of a market-house was provided for by the city government, provided a loan of money could be obtained at not exceeding six per cent. interest.

The store of A. M. Dunning, of Charleston, was robbed of goods and notes in April. The theft was advertised. In May Mr. Dunning received a letter informing him that the papers would be returned if he would send a sum of money to William Williams through the Bangor post-office. The money was sent. An officer watched and had the satisfaction of arresting Williams when he called

for the letter-who, however, proved not to be the thief.

Complaint was made that "during religious services on Sunday afternoon the steamboat arrived at this port with the roar of cannon." This was the steamer Portland, Captain Howes. The person complaining thought the feelings of those who regarded the Sabbath should be re- spected even by steamboat captains, and asked why the vessel could not have come quietly in "without the un- necessary and frequent discharge of cannon, which served as a signal to the idle and the violators of the Sabbath to rush to her landing-place, to the annoyance of all who prefer the services of religion to the noise of the multi- tude."

Rum was constantly adding to its victims. William Kern, a shingle-weaver at Pushaw Lake, inspired by liquor bought in Bangor by his son William and son-in-law Thaddeus Trafton, boasted that there was not a man in the State who could throw him. His son William ac- cepted the challenge and threw the old man, and held him while he struggled. A younger son attempted to inter- fere, but was prevented by Trafton, who struck him on the head with a shingle mallet. He then started to go for assistance, but seeing William beating his father with a club, he went to him and found him breathing his last. Trafton and Kern were tried and convicted for man- slaughter, and sentenced by Judge Emery to three years in State prison.

The steamboat fare now between Bangor and Portland was $4. The "Bangor" made the passage to Boston, by way of Portland, in twenty-four hours. Complaint was made of the high fares. It was replied that they were low, compared with fares in other parts of the country. The experiment of a boat was tried with reference to ac- commodation rather than gain, and that the fare would probably be reduced when the business would warrant it.

The salary of the City Marshal this year was $500.

The news reached here on the 9th that on the Sun- day previous much excitement was occasioned in Dr. Channing's church, Boston, by the reading during his absence of an invitation to attend a meeting of the Anti- slavery Society.

Six hundred dollars were appropriated for laying out Mt. Hope Cemetery (public), of ten acres, to be enclosed by fences, and a resolve was passed authorizing a loan of $25,000 at not exceeding six per cent. interest.

The Whig of June 15 contained this announcement :

Died, in this city very suddenly, of apoplexy, Mis. Sophia, wife of John Godfrey, Esq., aged 49; a woman eminently distinguished for piety and active benevolence.

She was the daughter of Colonel Samuel E. Dutton, who removed from Hallowell to Bangor early in the century.

Owing to difficulties between the proprietors of the Bangor House and the landlord, Martin S. Wood, the house was stripped of its elegant furniture, and ceased temporarily to be a hotel. Mr. Wood converted it into a boarding-house. There was, consequently, insufficient accommodation for the traveling public. Mr. John Frost, however, finding the Franklin House closed, pro- ceeded to put it in condition for the public patronage, and in a measure to supply the wants of travelers.

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

Moosehead Lake was growing in the public estimation. The "Bangor and Moosehead Lake Stage Company," recently inaugurated, was running a stage three times a week to Munson, within fifteen miles of the lake. A steamer, the Moosehead, had been placed upon the lake for the towing of rafts in the first instance, and then for the accommodation of "pleasure parties, land explorers, and mineralogists and geologists." The lake is forty miles long. A route for a road from the North Bay was being surveyed, and it was contemplated to establish a "a route by stage between Bangor and Quebec." It was predicted that the Moosehead would prove a success. The timber from sixty townships, it was said, would come into the lake, and it was thought the boat would do a large busi- ness in conveying lumbering supplies, towing logs, and carrying passengers.

A railroad car for the Bangor & Piscataquis Railroad (which was in process of rapid construction), arrived in the city. It was pronounced "a splendid piece of work, indeed, and comprised elegance, neatness, and, more than all, comfort in its internal arrangements."

The "Independent Volunteers" made a fine appear- ance in the streets on the 18th June, under the command of Captain Charles G. Bryant.

The business of the city was gratifying. Three hun- dred buildings were in process of erection. Lumber was sold daily at profitable prices. About one hundred schooners were at the wharves receiving cargoes; it was said that "nothing was done in the way of speculation."

Log-stealing had become so common that it was made by statute a State prison offense; but up to this time the juries could not make up their minds to convict those indicted for it. Public sentiment, however, was "march- ing on."

Mary Perkins, Clarissa Williamson, Dionisia Hill, Susan Patten, and P. V. McGaw, called a meeting of the members of the "Bangor Female Orphan Asylum" to be held on July 5, to organize under an act of the Legis- lature enacted April 1, 1836.

The Board of Health was ordered to effect a general vaccination of the city. They assigned the several wards in their order to Drs. R. K. Cushing, S. C. Clark, John Abbott, J. P. Dickinson, J. G. Brown, R. D. Bartlett, and Josiah Deane.

The Rifle Corps, under. Captain Wing, appeared in the streets, and was complimented for the evidence it gave of a "high state of discipline and a thorough ac- quaintance with military tactics."

John Brastow gave notice that the lots in Mount Hope Cemetery (private) were now for sale at $20 a lot.

The Bangor Female Moral Society organized on June 9, having for its primary object "the prevention of licentiousness, by showing in every proper way its fear- fully immoral and soul-destroying influence." Other ob- jects were to prevent Sabbath-breaking, profanity, and intemperance.

On June 22, on petition of Ford Whitman and others, an order of the City Council directed the street engineers to "run the lines and place monuments at the angles" of the road running from Broadway Park to Six-mile

Falls. An order was also passed for the erection of a high school-house.

This year Ira O. Glover, a genial landlord, took the new and elegant house lately erected at the corner of Harlow and Franklin streets ("New England House," afterward "National House"). It was larger than the Franklin House that he had recently left, he said, and he should endeavor to make it "equal to any in the city." Alas, poor Ira! Time afterward found him keep- ing a restaurant afterward a bowling alley, and after- ward, boarding at the city mansion, where he died. But he was always genial.

John A. Poor, Rufus Parks, John B. Hill, Charles C. Cushman, Samuel H. Blake, and Jonathan C. Everett, Esqs., were admitted to practice in the Supreme Judicial Court at the June Term.

There had been in Bangor for several years a gentle- man of great ingenuity and artistic merit, whose modesty had prevented his work with the pencil being properly appreciated. This was J. P. Hardy. From his youth he had applied himself to art; but he had never had an opportunity to derive benefit from association with foreign masters or from studying the works of the more cele- brated, abroad. Yet he had accomplished some work which should have given him, and eventually will give him, a high place in the roll of American artists. One of these is a Boy Blowing a Soap Bubble; another, a Lady in a Window, which are wholly original. Another is the Poor Man's Fireside. This year some who had an ap- preciation of his work, called the attention of the public to his atelier, and awakened some interest; but Bangor was not sufficiently advanced in such matters to render him due credit.

On the 27th of June the City Council passed an ordi- nance defining the limits within which no wooden build- ing over ten feet high should be erected. The limits extended westerly to Union street ; northerly to Colum- bia street, county land, north line of Franklin House lot, and Penobscot street ; easterly to Stetson Square, and southerly to the centre of Penobscot River.

The Mayor, Allen Gilman, treated a building as a nuisance which Dexter E. Wadleigh had removed from one place to another within these limits. Whereupon Mr. Wadleigh, feeling aggrieved, brought his suit against Mr. Gilman for damages, on the ground that the City Council had no authority to pass such an ordinance; and if they had, it was no infringement to remove a building from one place to another. But the court decided ad- versely to Mr. Wadleigh on both points. Mr. Wadleigh was a bricklayer, and Mr. Gilman a lawyer, who believed " ne sutor ultra crepidam."

The Franklin House having been renovated, was opened by John Frost as a temperance house, on the last day of June. A gentleman who was at the opening said, "Although a temperance house, I never partook of better fare or purer liquor than that produced on the oc- casion." The house would then accommodate about fifty persons.

Mr. Hill was teaching a private high school in the city this season.

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The Fire Department celebrated the Fourth of July by a procession, an " appropriate oration by Asa Walker, Esq., in Hammond Street church," which was listened to with attention, and a pleasure made manifest by fre- quent applause, and a sumptuous dinner at the railroad station, "provided by Mr. W. H. Vinton in his very best style, and whose good cheer warmed the hearts of about three hundred individuals who sat down."

The sentiments were sensible, and this, a regular, was one of the best:

"The Fair: The only incendiaries that vanquish fire- men-a policy of mutual insurance is our sole protec- tion."

Mr. Emerson, the City Marshal, had only sixteen of the outsiders most "ripe for fun " on that day in the watch-house.

News of the death of ex-President Madison on the 28th of June, reached Bangor on the Fourth of July.

Nathan B. Wiggin advertised for proposals to build a brick building for a high school-house.

Mason G. Palmer was appointed Register of Probate, in place of Alexander Savage, who had held the position for about sixteen years.

Captain William A. Howard, who was in command of the boys' company from Hampden that gave so much in- terest to the celebration of the Fourth in Bangor in 1820, then a boy, now of the United States revenue service, was appointed to the command of the cutter Mc- Lane.

A not unusual circumstance in trade occurred about this time. A lot of leather was consigned from Bangor to a merchant in Boston. On the arrival of the leather, the merchant had an order from Bangor for a similar lot of leather. Whereupon, without removing the leather from the vessel, the consignee sent it to his correspond- ent in the same vessel which brought it from Bangor. Perhaps advertising would have benefited somebody, had the first leather dealer given notice that he had it to sell.

The burning over of six or eight townships of timber- lands belonging to Benjamin Brown, Esq., in the neigh- borhood of the Wassataquoik, so loaded the atmosphere with smoke as to cause one day to be called the " dark day."

Nahum H. Wood taught a private high school this season in Bangor.

The receipts of the Bangor post-office in 1835 were $5,985 ; Portland, $6,074.

Samuel Call died on July 9, aged fifty-eight. Mr. Call had been long a resident of Bangor. He was an attract- ive and incisive speaker, and wielded the editorial pen occasionally and acceptably to his party-the National Republican, afterwards Whig.

Hon. William D. Williamson, who was faithful to his party, survived Mr. Call, and at a celebration in Hamp- den gave the following toast, which afforded his opponents an opportunity to criticise him :-

" Maine, the Marine State: May her Democratic poli- tics be perpetuated, its rulers ever the people's servants, its safety their virtues, and its treasury their pockets."

His critics thought that, as he had admitted that the 87

treasury was the pockets of the office-holders, he 'ought to be the Secretary of the Treasury.

Rufus Parks, brother of Gorham Parks, member of Congress, and a member of the Penobscot Bar, was ap- pointed Receiver of the Public Moneys for Wisconsin Territory, it was said with a salary of about $3,000.

Chancellor Kent arrived in Bangor on July 13, and took lodgings at the Franklin House.

Leonard Jarvis declined being again a candidate for Congress.

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 171

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co. Number of Pages: 1100

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100