History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 178

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 178

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At that moment the anxiety and suspense were fearful whether the jam would force its way through the narrows, or there stop and pour back a flood of waters upon the city, for it was from the rise of the water consequent upon such a jam that the great destruction was to be apprehended. But the suspense was soon over. A cry was heard from the dense mass of citizens who crowded the streets on the flat, "The river is flowing back !" and so sudden was the revulsion that it required the utmost speed to escape the rising waters. It seemed but a moment before the entire flat was deluged; and many men did not es- cape from their stores before the water was up to their waists.

But the ruinous consequences were, providentially, the loss of prop- erty rather than life. The whole business portion of the city was inun- dated; and so entirely beyond all reasonable estimate was the rise of the waters, that a very large proportion of the stocks of goods in the stores were flooded. Precautions had been taken in the lower part of the city to remove goods from the first to the second story, and yet many who did so had the floors of the second story burst up and their goods let down into the water below; while in the higher portions, where the goods were piled upon and about the counters, the waters rose above them and involved them in a common destruction. Others, who did not remove their goods, suffered a total loss of them.

Thus far, however, the devastation was confined to the least valuable part of the wealth of the city. The lumber on the wharves constitutes the larger portiou of the available property of the city; and here a kind Providence has spared the devoted city, and by one of those singular methods by which a present evil, which seems to be the greatest that could be inflicted, is the means of averting a greater one; for it was the occurrence of the jam which, while it inundated the stores, appeared to be the means of saving the lumber. The pressure of the ice against the wharves and lumber was so great as to wedge it in with immense strength and formed a sort of wall outside the wharves, from which the jam, when it started, separated and passed out, leaving the lumber safe, though injured.

After the ice stopped, things remained in this situation during the next day, which was Sunday-the saddest and most serious Sunday, proba- bly, ever passed in Bangor, Few, however, could spend the day in worship. All that could labor were employed, while the flood kept ris- ing, in rescuing what property could be saved from the waters, and in taking poor families from their windows in boats.

The closing scene of this dreadful disaster occurred on Sunday even- ing, beginning at about 7 o'clock. The alarm was again rung through the streets that the jam had given way. The citizens again rushed abroad to witness what they knew must be one of the most sublime and awful scenes of nature, and also to learn the full extent of the calamity. Few, however, were able to catch a sight of the breaking up of the jam, which, for magnitude, it is certain, has not occurred on this river for more than one hundred years. The whole river was like a boiling cauldron, with masses of ice upheaved as by a volcano. But soon the darkness shrouded the scenein part. The ear, however, could hear the roaring of the waters and the crash of buildings, bridges, and lumber, and the eye could trace the mammoth ice jam of four miles long, which passed on majestic illy, but with lightning rapidity, bearing the contents of both rivers on its bosom. The noble covered bridge of the Penobscot, two bridges of the Kenduskeag, and the two long

ranges of saw-mills, besides other mills, houses, shops, logs, and Jum- ber enough to build up a considerable village. The new market floated over the lower bridge across the Kenduskeag, a part of which remains, and, most happily, landed at a point of the wharves, where it sunk, and formed the nucleus of a sort of boom, which stopped the masses of floating lumber in the Kenduskeag, and protected thousands of dollars' worth of lumber on the wharves below.

So suddenly and so rapidly was all this enacted, that it seems impos- sible to believe it to have occurred without loss of life. Yet such appears to be the happy result.

The individual losses are very great. Some have lost their all, and many from five to fifty thousand dollars each ; yet the aggregate will be swelled. by a first estimate far beyond its real amount. From what I have already seen, I think there is no reason whatever for the friends of Bangor abroad to entertain any distrust respecting its recovery and pro- gressive prosperity.

Very truly, your friend and brother, JOHN WEST.

Bangor, Maine, March 30, 1849.

The Bangor Courier of a contemporaneous date has in its columns a recital of various interesting incidents, from which we cite the following :

We could not bring ourselves to believe that the market-house, in which we had our office, would be removed. We were induced to move our materials at the earnest solicitation of friends, and under their strong advice. We felt all the while as though the alarm would soon be over, and labor resumed in the old premises, and therefore a clumsy article here and another there were left, until the value of the aggregate was about $200, the removal of which we thought we had wisely avoided. The market moved off majestically, but with gentle dalliance, until it plunged forward from the bridge into the fast receding current of the stream, when it righted with a ship-like propriety, bear- ing aloft a beautiful flag-staff-emblem of Liberty, erected in honor of Henry Clay, the beloved and whole-hearted patriot and orator, who in private station receives the highest attentions and sincerest regards of the American people-and sped its way onward to the ocean, until, happily bethinking how many little articles it contained which would be so missed and mourned, it settled down with a determination to proceed no further. We visited the wreck in the evening, and, fear- ing it might prove our last, we bore away several pamphlets and doc- uments as prizes. At an early hour yesterday morning we paid it another visit, when, in company with our office hands, and the kind help and timely suggestions of personal friends and a few strangers, we succeeded in securing every article of value. There happened to be one case of type left in one of the racks which had ridden out the perils and roughness of the voyage without spilling a type.

One of our citizens-a Kennebecker, by the way- was particularly zealous in saving the Whig flag-staff, declaring it should long remain to bear aloft the flag of freemen.

The whole river seems to have ben an entire mass of ice, partly solid and partly porous. The sudden rise of the river excited alarm, and its sudden subsidence, at the rate of about two feet a minute, caused astonishment.

There is in the upper side, and near the middle of Exchange street, a large cake of ice more than five feet thick. On Broad street there are ice-balls twenty-five feet in diameter, and scattered about in every di- rection are thousands of smaller masses.

It will be difficult for people who did not witness it to realize that all the business part of the city was a pool in which large vessels might sail -- that Exchange street and Main street, and others lower down, were deep canals for half their length, and that Central street was a running river. But such things were, and hundreds of stores were under water ! Boats were in requisition, and various contrivances were resorted to in the effort to turn an honest penny. Among them we noticed one fellow had taken the Wall street sign and fastened it upon the stern of his boat, in order to popularize his boat and route. The scene in the vicinity of the steamboat wharf or at the Rose Place is truly astonishing -such heaps of ice thrown in wild confusion, furnishing a capital idea of icebergs from the Northern Ocean.

It is quite wonderful, considering the suddenness and extent of the rise of the water, that no more lives were lost in this vicinity. There were some families in great peril. A family living at the Point, between Brewer Village and the river, were alarmed by the approach of the flood, and started, several women in the number, for higher land in the vicinity, but, before reaching it, the water was up to their armpits. They reached what was then an island, and were compelled to remain

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during the night. A family living near Crosby's ship-yard could not escape, and were taken off in a boat by one of the neighbors.

Twenty women and children, as the water flowed over the plain at Brewer, fled to a school-house, but could not return, and were obliged to go back upon the hills and remain until the water subsided.

General Miller, at the post-office, with his clerks, had a cool time of it. They were all at work when the flood suddenly came upon them, and filled the office to the depth of four feet. The General started and held the door for the clerks to dodge out and escape up stairs; but Cal- vin lingered behind for some minutes, when the General called loudly to know what detained him.

"Oh," said he, wading along with the water up to his armpits, " I stopped for the purpose of stamping these paid letters," at the same time holding up a bundle.

The actual amount of property lost in the city by this flood is esti- mated by pretty good judges at between two and three hundrerl thou- sand dollars. This falls severely upon some of our citizens, but the heaviest losses come upon those able to ride out the storm.

1847. Following the good example of their elders of both sexes, the Sons and Daughters of Temperance, the juvenile "Cadets " were organized in Bangor this year. Dirigo Section No. 4 was instituted in October; and in May of the succeeding year Quincy Section No. 6 was opened in North Bangor.

The great structure across the Penobscot, owned by the Bangor Bridge Company, which had been swept away by the freshet of 1846, was rebuilt this year, upon Howe's improved patent (truss plan), at a cost of $31,- 000. The original bridge had been constructed in 1832, upon Town's patent lattice-bridge plan, by Messrs. Damen & Godfrey, for $40,000.

Bangor was this year made a port of entry by the Federal authorities. Mr. William C. Hammatt was the first Collector.

The Mercantile and Eastern Banks were re-incorpor- ated, and the Kenduskeag Bank of Bangor, with a capital of $100,000, was incorporated this year.

The Union Street Methodist Episcopal church was formed this year, from the Summer Street Mission Society, and was known for several years as the Summer Street church.

The Central Congregational church is also a child of this year, dating from April I.

A brick residence for the Superintendent was built this year at the Almshouse, costing about $2,500, and the artifical pond in front was excavated.

1848. The Penobscot Musical Association was or- ganized this year. The Musical Directors of the So- ciety, from its formation to 1864, were Professors B. F. Baker, G. W. Pratt, L. Marshall, and L. A. Emerson, of Boston; I. B. Woodbury and B. F. Bradbury, of New York; and G. F. Root, of North Reading, Massachu- setts. Associate Directors-N. D. Gould and E. H. Frost, Boston ; S. Wilder, Bangor. The twenty-first yearly session was held in Bangor September 29 to Oc- tober 2, 1868, and was an occasion of considerable in- terest.

Four new public school-houses were built by the city- a rather large one at Mount Hope, the others com- paratively small.

A special census of the city, taken by the School Board, showed 2,288 people, including 873 children of school age in the First Ward : 1,843 and 592 in the Second ; 2, 113 and 840 in the Third ; 1,731 and 615 in

the Fourth ; 2,428 and 1, 133 in the Fifth ; 1,964 and 724 in the Sixth; and 1,013 and 437 in the Seventh. There were also in the city 748 cows, 605 horses, and 235 swine.

1849. This year steamers of moderate size began to run on the Upper Penobscot, from Oldtown to Winn. In the Brief History of Bangor, prefixed to the City Di- rectory for 1851, the following comments upon this fact are made:

The beautiful and picturesque river and forest scenery in that region, the pleasures of a summer trip to the woods and mountains of the in- terior, and the fresh air of the country, draw many visitors from abroad to the vicinity of Bangor during the warm season. A voyage up the Penobscot and a tramp to Katahdin make a most healthful and pleas- ing summer excursion. Travelers visiting Moosehead Lake and the ponds and forests in its vicinity, on hunting or fishing excursions, pass Bangor. The number of hunters who wend their steps thitherward in- creases each year.

This branch of the steam navigation of the Penobscot was suspended some years ago.

This was a cholera year in Bangor. Mayor William H. Mills, in his address to the City Council in the spring of 1850, thus commented upon its events :

This loathsome disease fell upon us suddenly, filling the public mind with much of alarm ; and well it might. When the alr we breathe is charged with death, and it is altogether problematic whether he that went out in the morning would not be brought back ere night a corpse -- such is the time, if any, when men walk softly.

At this distressing period the City Council was called upon for ex- traordinary services and sacrifices-calls that were met with great promptness and disinterested devotion. And, where all acted nobly, I hope I shall not be charged with partiality should I name Messrs. Bowman, P. B. Mills, and Wingate, of the Board of Aldermen, and Mr. Emerson of the Common Council, to whom any encomiums that I could give would fall short of their just due.

There were others, not connected with the city government, who threw themselves into the breach, to alleviate the distresses of suffer- ing humanity. But to Mr. Farnham, the City Marshal, who was also Health Officer, the palm must belong. On him, in personal detail, the whole of this onerous duty devolved; which was done calmly, but with great promptitude, in season and out of season, by day and by night-services which money could not have purchased, and all done with a readiness and disinterested straightforwardness, that were really surprising. Such services will not soon be forgotten by the citizens of Bangor.

And our physicians-who, if common report spoke the truth, were not, all of them, knit together, as were the hearts of David and Jona- than-now united ; men of all parties and ranks seemed to fraternize, and the only strife among them was to see who would fly into death's presence first. Ready at all times to rush to the bedside of the dying- and that, too, in almost every case without the slightest hope of a pecuniary reward-conduct so magnanimous could not fail to bring upon them, too, the spontaneous encomiums of their fellow-citizens.

There were 161 deaths by the dread destroyer in this city in a very short time-most of them of persons from abroad. The venerable William Abbot, Mayor of the city, died in office, and was succeeded by Mr. Mills.

A spacious and elegant building was put upon the Bruce lot this year for the Select School for Girls.

The building for the Free-will Baptist Society at North Bangor, was erected this year.

1850. The Market-house foundation, near the Ken- duskeag Bridge, was sold by the city to the United States Government for $10,000, which was nearly its cost.

The City Hall, otherwise the old Court-house, was re- moved to its present site and enlarged and repaired. The basement was fitted up for the use of the police, and

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with a police-court room, and a large safe was put in for the Clerk and the Treasurer. The present hall was formed in the upper story.

The statistics of sawed lumber surveyed at Bangor for the nineteen years from 1832 to this year, inclusive, are as follow: 1832, 37,987,052 feet; 1833, 45,442,566; 1834, 25,624,718; 1835, 73,416,065; 1836, 46,619,921; 1837, 64,720,008; 1838, 85,392,177; 1839, 89,806,630; 1840, 71,726,622; 1841, 77,091,793; 1842, 111,317,201; 1843, 113,798,619; 1844, 121, 130,974; 1845, 171,688,- 737; 1846, 140,085,012; 1847, 191, 136,292; 1848, 212,- 932,499; 1849, 160,418,808; 1850, 203,754,201; total, 2,044,089,895. In six years it had nearly doubled; in eleven years it had trebled ; in fourteen years it had more than quadrupled; in sixteen years quintupled, and in the next year it had increased over 560 per cent., as against the measurement of 1832.

St. John's Commandery, No. 3, Knights Templars, of Bangor, was chartered September 17, of this year.

1851. The brick church, occupied by the Unitarian society, on the corner of Main and Union streets, oppo- site the Bangor House, was burned November 30, with a loss of about $18,000.

The Merchants' Mutual Marine Insurance Company was incorporated this year.

1852. Gas was introduced.

The city debt was now about $120,000, having been reduced $40,000 in ten years. The municipal expenses were about $70,000 a year. The local taxes the year be- fore, including what was necessary to pay $14,000 in temporary loans, was $85,078.30-the largest the city had ever had.

A fire occurred this year in Drew's Block, at the east end of Kenduskeag Bridge, involving a loss of $3,500. 1853. The Custom-house and Post-office building, constructed of granite, were in course of construction this year. It was hardly finished before 1855.

The ground for Pine Grove Cemetery was purchased in March for $1,000. It included about thirty acres. The city spent $1,200 more this year for surveying, building stone fences, and making roads and other improvements. The next year a neat fence of paling was put up on the front, at the Carmel road, at a cost of $250.50.

1854. A few cholera cases occurred the last of Sep- tember on Front street, mostly among the Irish residents. There were seventeen deaths.

The first Superintendent of Schools for the city was appointed, under an ordinance of Council creating the office. The Rev. Philip Weaver, a member of the School Board, was appointed, and served for two years at a moderate pay, but with excellent results, especially in securing larger attendance upon the schools. There were now in the city 5,510 children of school age, of whom 3,560 attended the summer schools, and 4,170 were pupils in winter.

1855. Norombega Hall was built. The corner-stone or St. John's Roman Catholic Church, on York street, was laid August 15, by the Right Rev. David W. Bacon, D. D., Bishop of Portland.

The same year, November 15, the church edifice

erected by the Methodist Episcopal Society, on Union street, was dedicated, with sermon by the Rev. William F. Farrington. The building cost $15,000. The lady members of the church raised money for the purchase of the organ by their own exertions.

The Bangor Council, Royal and Select Masters, in the Masonic order, was chartered May 3.

1856. The Penobscot & Kennebec Railroad, now a link of the Maine Central lines, went into operation.

The charter of St. Andrew's Lodge, No. 83, Free and Accepted Masons, dates from February 6 of this year.

1858. The Bangor Mutual Fire Insurance Company was incorporated.

1859. The Bangor Cornet Band was chartered in June.

The valuation of the city for taxation was now $6,015,- 601, against $3,899,218 in 1850, showing an increase in nine years of $2, 116,383. At least $2,000,000 worth of timbered land in this State and the Provinces was also owned in Bangor.

1861 .. The first steam fire-engine used in the city was built by the Portland Company, and received in Oc- tober ; cost $2,700. It was manned by seventeen men. The Chief Engineer was now paid a salary of $500. Many incendiary fires and attempts at conflagration oc- curred this year.

1862. The Universalist church building, which had been commenced in June, 1860, was finished late this year, and dedicated December 16. It was erected at a total cost, including organ, of $20,000. The building is of brick, in the Romanesque style, ninety by sixty- four feet, with two towers ninety-six and one hundred and forty feet high respectively, each surmounted by a spire. The vestry, or lower audience room, is sixty by forty-three feet in dimensions, and has sittings for three hundred and fifty persons. Above this is the main audience room, handsomely frescoed, with one hundred and twenty pews and sittings for about six hundred people. The church occupies a commanding position on Park street, near Centre, at the head of East Market Square, looking down Exchange street.

The Union Insurance Company of Bangor was incor- porated this year, with a capital of $200,000.

1863. The First National Bank of Bangor was or- ganized September 15 of this year-the pioneer institu- tion here under the new law. The Second National Bank followed the next year, as also the reorganization as a National bank of the old Kenduskeag Bank of 1832. The Traders' Bank was similarly reorganized in 1865, and the Merchants' National Bank was also formed. The Farmers' Bank, which had been operating as a State bank since 1853, became the Farmers' National Bank in 1868.

The demands created by the war and other causes compelled the city this year to make a loan of $64,000. It was taken mostly by the citizens, at six per cent. Much of it was appropriated to the payment of bounties to soldiers, and to extinguish a temporary loan of $13,000.

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

A census was taken in 1863, by a gentleman of this city, of the shade-trees in Bangor. He found more than 4,000 within the corporation limits and outside of fences.

1864. The Bangor Historical Society was incor- porated in March, and organized in May, with the Hon. Elijah Hamlin, President; the Rev. Charles C. Everett, Vice-President; the Rev. Samuel Harris, D.D., Corres- ponding Secretary; Elnathan F. Duren, Recording Secretary; and Judge John E. Godfrey, and Drs. John Mason and James C. Weston, Executive Committee.

June 17 the Soldiers' Monument was dedicated in Mount Hope Cemetery.

The valuation of the city was: Real estate, $4,349,- 247; personal, $2,726,686; total, $7,075,930. Tax 2.4 per cent. Number of polls, 2,726.

The Boys' and the Girls' High Schools were united this year. Professor Robert P. Bucknam, Principal of the school, died, much lamented by his pupils and friends.

The school-house in the Central District was destroyed by fire, through ill feeling caused by its removal from the east to the west side of the Kenduskeag.

July 14 a great fire occurred in Tewksbury's shipyard in Brewer, destroying $8,000 worth of property, largely owned by citizens of Bangor. The Fire Department of the city was in prompt attendance, and rendered such assistance as it could.

1866. The spacious engine-house on Harlow street, accommodating two steamers, with hose-cart and other apparatus, was built by the city this year, at a cost, in- cluding lot, of $18,500. A large reservoir, with a ca- pacity of 65,000 gallons, occupies one-third of the base- ment.

The dam at Treat's Falls was surveyed by the holders of the old charter of 1828, under which the dam had been built, but not in a manner that brought it within the charter. No important change was at once made in it, however.

An addition of three acres was made to the cemetery on the Pushaw Road, at a cost of $199.68. The tract was thereafter known as Maple Grove Cemetery.

An ordinance was passed by the Council authorizing the appointment of a truant officer, who should arrest children growing up without education and place them in the public schools.

On the 13th of May Merrill's mill and other property on Broad street was burned, with a loss of $10,000.

1867. About 8 o'clock one evening in January, Mrs. Ann McDonald, wife of Hugh McDonald, was murdered on one of the public streets, the assassin escaping with- out discovery. She was. not known to have an enemy, and the cause of the crime was a mystery.

September 9 a disastrous fire occurred on the Franklin Street Bridge, which burned the planing- and grist-mills of Messrs. Grover & Stevens, a sash and blind factory, and a carriage factory, the property of B. M. Thomas, with a total loss of $39,200, and no insurance. The fire losses of the year amounted to $50,950, with insurance only $5,950.

May 20 the City Council resolved to accept a trust

fund of $6,500 for the Bangor Mechanics' Association, which was invested by the city in Bangor & Piscataquis railroad bonds. In 1874 $8,000 more were received for the same purpose, together with a legacy to the associa- tion of $4,000, by the late Franklin Muzzy, which was similarly invested.

The Hibernian Mutual Benevolent Association was or- ganized February 24. By 1871 its membership amount- ed to 160, and two years thereafter it numbered 250.

1868. A society of the Grand Army of the Republic, B. H. Beale Post, No. 12, was organized January 1, 1868. The office of the Associate Inspector-General for the Department of Maine was also here for a time; and, at another period, the office of the Commander of the De- partment was here.

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 178

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