History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 205

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 205

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Alexander H. Chase, of Bangor, is a son of Peter and Susanna (Royal) Chase. Peter Chase was a native of

Newburyport, Massachusetts, and came to Bangor in 1820. He was born in 1772, and died in 1863. Mrs. Chase was born in 1788, and died in_1862. Mr. Chase followed farming and lumbering for a business. Alexan- der H. Chase, their son, married Jane C. Farrar, Octo- ber 18, 1838. She died September 21, 1844, and Mr. Chase married again, in 1846, Lavina Baston. Mr. Chase has three sons and three daughters, viz: Susie J., in Bangor; Marietta, now Mrs. Leavitt, of Newburg ; Alexander K., of Texarkana, Arkansas ; Edward M., of Boston; Annie L., now Mrs. Gilman, of Bangor ; and J. Colby, of Bangor. Mr. Chase is engaged in farming and manufacturing.

W. F. Shaw, dealer in boots, shoes, hats, caps, etc., at No. 20 Main street, Bangor, is a son of Thomas H. and Temperance Shaw, of Portland, who had four children, viz: Adelaide B., now Mrs. Walter Emerson, of Bangor; William F .; Estelle A .; and Elizabeth F., deceased. William F. Shaw was born December 29, 1840, in Bangor. After finishing his school life he went to Boston and lived ten years, where he was employed as book-keeper for C. & M. Cox, wholesale dealers. He was with R. Hoe & Company also two years before engaging with C. & M. Cox. He has always been engaged in the boot and shoe business, either here or elsewhere. He commenced business for himself in Bangor, in 1873. Mr. Shaw married Lizzie A. Wright, daughter of Elbridge G. Wright, of Boston. They have one child-Bertha W. Walter K. Shaw, son of Elisha Shaw, was born in New- port, Maine, August 29, 1857. He came to Bangor in 1879, and engaged in the wholesale boot and shoe and leather business with Mr. D. Dudley, and his father as silent partner, under the firm name of Dudley, Shaw & Company. They have a large store on Main street, and are doing a successful business. Mr. Shaw is not married.

TOWNSHIP BIOGRAPHIES.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Hon. Daniel Sargent, Brewer-Major Hiram Ruggles, Carmel-Lieu- tenant G. H. Ruggles, Carmel-Governor D. F. Davis, Corinth- Hon. John Morison, Corinth-Hon. John Thissell, Corinth-Josiah Crosby, Dexter-V. A. Sprague, Dexter-Hon. Charles Shaw, Dex- ter -- Dr. George A. Haines, Dexter-Reuben Flanders, Dexter- Hon F. W. Hill, Exeter-Hon. William Plaisted, Lincoln-Horatio S. Ayer, Lincoln-Hon. Asa Smith, Mattawamkeag-E. W. Shaw, Newport-Jesse R. Wadleigh, Oldtown-Moses P. Wadleigh, Old- town-Hon. Joseph L. Smith, Oldtown -- Dr. Albion P. Folsom, Oldtown-Major Melville Mark Folsom, Oldtown-Eben Webster, Orono-President M. C. Fernald, Orono-John R. Hammond, Pat- ten-Hon. John Gardner, Patten-Edward Jordon, Stetson-Nicho- las R. Huston, Winn-George H. Haines, Winn-General Isaac Hodsdon, Corinth-Jonathan Eddy, Bangor.

HON. DANIEL SARGENT.

This gentleman, for forty-three years, was a resident of Brewer Village, and long one of the most prominent and successful lumbermen in the Penobscot Valley, is of old Massachusetts stock, his great-great-grandfather, William Sargent, coming from England in 1642, to Amesbury, where many of his descendents have continued to reside. Daniel himself was born at Amesbury, February 3, 1811, youngest of a family of five sons and three daughters, children of Ichabod B. and Ruth (Patten) Sargent, who occupied a farm in that town. He assisted in the work of the farm in his boyhood and young manhood, attend- ing the common schools about three months in a year until he was sixteen years old, when he was a pupil at the Amesbury Academy for two short terms. At eighteen years of age he began to teach school in his native town, and for five successive winters wielded the birch. He remained with his father and labored diligently the re- mainder of the time until his father's death, and then till 1838, when he emigrated to Maine. Meanwhile, how- ever, he had filled some positions of public trust, as a member of the Board of Superintending School Commit- tee of Amesbury, and as Treasurer and Collector of the town. He was there married, February 19, 1835, to Susan Hopkins Patten, daughter of Robert and Rhoda (Sargent) Patten. Mrs. Sargent is still living, in good health of mind and body for her years. They have had four children-one daughter and three sons, viz: Susan Patten Sargent, born at Amesbury, January 12, 1836, and still residing with her parents; Harlan Page Sargent, also born at Amesbury, June 22, 1838; Daniel Allston Sargent, born in Brewer November 9, 1843; and Albert Paine Sargent, also born in Brewer, July 12, 1850. All the children are now living.

The father of Mr. Sargent died in 1836. Daniel car- ried on the farm for two years, when, in November, 1838,

he removed to Brewer Village, where he has since con- tinuously resided. He here opened a general grocery store at once, although he had intended to recommence farming, and soon, with others, engaged in vessel build- ing. He remained in the business until 1846 alone, and then accepted George O. Goodwin as a partner, under the firm name and style of Sargent & Goodwin. This copartnership existed until 1854. Meanwhile, in 1848, Mr. Sargent had bought an interest in the saw-mill of Mr. Charles G. Sterns, and a new firm was formed called Sargent, Sterns & Co., for the grocery and milling busi- ness. In 1853 the partners purchased the " Bruce Mills" at the Cove, thus increasing their operations very largely. The next year Mr. Goodwin's interests were bought out by his partners, and Messrs. Sargent & Sterns remained together in the manufacture of lumber and in storekeep- ing for fifteen years. In 1862 they purchased the steam saw-mill in Hampden, now owned and managed exclu- sively by Mr. Sterns. Two years thereafter the firm of Sargent & Sterns was dissolved, and a division of the mill property made, Mr. Sargent taking the mills and premises at Brewer, and Mr. Sterns the Hampden property, which he still owns. During many years of their partnership they added to their business ship-building, in company with Master Simon Moulton, Captain Daniel Shedd, George V. Goodwin, and others.

After the dissolution of Sargent & Sterns, Mr. Sargent continued in the business alone for several years. In 1867 he bought the saw-mill and water-privilege at East Orrington, and in 1871 added the steam saw-mill on the river at Orrington. He now manufactured about nine million feet of lumber a year. The latter mill and the extended adjacent shore property were sold in 1880 to the Arctic Ice Company of Bangor. Upon the same stream as supplies the East Orrington mill (the Segeunke- dunk), at the Cove in Brewer Village, Mr. Sargent's mill is situated near the identical spot where Colonel John Brewer, one of the original settlers and for whom the town was named, in 1783 built the first saw-mill in what is now Penobscot county. The property consists of a dam at the outlet of the Brewer's Pond in Orrington about four miles distant, which dam is 850 feet long, and in- cluding one hundred acres of the adjoining land; this dam is one hundred and five feet above high-water mark in the Penobscot River; also the dam at the foot of the meadow at East Orrington, with the perpetual right of flowage of 850 acres of meadow; the saw-mill at East Or- rington, with a fall of sixteen feet; the privilege in Brewer, on the old Stern dam, upon which a grist-mill was erected

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

in 1875, with a fall of fourteen feet; and the two saw-mills at the Cove, where there is a further fall of seventeen feet. Some interesting details are furnished by Mr. Walker Wells in his Report on the Water Power of Maine, in which he notes of the powers on the Segeunkedunk: "Freshets harmless; stream very constant; in full work- ing condition even when the mills on the Penobscot are stopped for want of water."

In 1872 Deacon Sargent admitted to the business, as partners, his two sons, Harlan and Daniel, who had for a number of years been assisting in its management. The new firm name was D. Sargent & Sons. At the begin- ning of 1881 the father retired from the firm and from his more active business life, and the other two members now carry on the business under the name of D. Sar- gent's Sons. In 1876 the late firm became pioneers in the now somewhat extensive business of putting up and shipping ice on the Penobscot. They erected temporary ice-houses, and that year housed about six thousand tons. In 1879-80 they erected other buildings with a total ca- pacity of sixteen thousand tons. The firm of D. Sar- gent's Sons still carry on the ice and lumber business with profit and success.

It is an interesting fact that Deacon Sargent, although now quite advanced in years and otherwise retired from business, still continues the grocery business, and retains his interest in the old store, his youngest son, Albert P., being associated with him and attending to the details of the concern.

Mr. Sargent was one of the original members of the Congregational church formed at Brewer Village in 1843; was chosen a Deacon of the church the same year, and has remained continuously in that office, having long been Senior Deacon. He has always contributed liber- ally for the support of the Gospel, and donated the lot on which the parsonage is built. When the church edi- fice and parsonage were erected he was Chairman of the Building Committee in each instance. In 1847 he bought what was then known as the "Judge Perham place," from which the old mansion was removed, and put up in its stead the spacious and elegant home in which he has since resided, occupying one of the most commanding and beautiful sites on the Penobscot, from which the city of Bangor and a reach of the noble river for three miles are plainly in view.

Deacon Sargent was originally a Whig, but has been a Republican since the organization of that party. He has not aimed, however, to be a political manager, much less an office-seeker, but in 1873 served the people of the Brewer and Orrington district acceptably as Representa- tive in the State Legislature. He has also repeatedly served on the Board of Selectmen and the Superintend- ing School Committee of the town.

MAJOR HIRAM RUGGLES.

This venerable gentleman, now a retired farmer and lumberman in comfortable circumstances at Carmel vil- lage, is of an old Massachusetts family, his parents and

their ancestors residing the last century in Hardwick, Worcester county, in that State. The Rev. Paul Rug- gles, his father, a Baptist minister, was born there in 1772, and at the age of twenty-four, in 1796, was mar- ried to Miss Mercy Dexter, of the same place. They came to Maine two years afterwards, an ox-sled bearing to the wilderness their little stock of furniture. They had then but one child, their first born, John D. Rug- gles. They came to Hampden, in this county, but shortly pushed up into Hermon, where they staid some time with a family named Garland. About the Ist of May, 1798, finding no road yet cut into the tract now called Carmel, Mr. Ruggles made a "dug-out," and with his wife and their effects paddled up the Sowadabs- cook to a point near the mouth of the beautiful stream still called from him Ruggles's Brook. They were the first white settlers in the town. Here in the wilderness they built their rude cabin, and here the rest of their family was born, in the locality now known far and wide as the Ruggles place. They had in all ten children who grew to maturity-six sons and four daughters, and a son who died in childhood. The father was the first preacher of the Baptist faith in this region. In 1806 he organized from the people of Carmel and vicinity a church of that order, and was very active in preaching in it and elsewhere throughout a wide tract of Eastern Maine. He was the first Baptist minister to deliver a sermon in Bangor, and in about nine years he preached no less than 1,200 discourses, and was also mainly in- strumental in gathering the Newport, Stetson, Exeter, Hermon, (now Second Hampden), and Charleston Baptist churches. He died in the prime of his years, at home, May 21, 1820, leaving a blessed memory.

The mother was a faithful and true helpmate of her husband, and remained in widowhood for more than fifty years, dying at last June 8, 1870, in the house of her son, Major Ruggles, at the great age of ninety-three.

Hiram was born in Carmel October 14, 1813, the sixth son and ninth child of Paul and Mercy (Dexter) Ruggles. His early education was received altogether in the schools of his native town, where his formal train- ing began and ended in the plain, simple, " college of the people." He has always had an ambition for learning, however, and by diligent reading and study has so im- proved his later opportunities as to become a well-in- formed and thoroughly intelligent man. At an early age the family came to depend in some measure upon him, and he was called to much hard labor upon the farm in his boyhood and youth. He remained steadily at home with his widowed mother, being the main business manager of the household after he was seventeen, and making no change in his relations with it when he became of age. He never lost thê hope of further education in the schools until he was about twenty-five years old, when he married and finally settled down upon the old place as its proprietor, his mother residing with him then and to the day of her death. He remained a farmer here, except as he was summoned from time to time into more public life, until 1853, when he decided to remove to the village. He disposed of his farm, and engaged as a lumber operator,

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

cutting and manufacturing, with a general store at the village in connection with his business. He became quite largely employed thus, finally coming to own an in- terest, entire or partial, in almost every mill in the town. He pursued his various operations very successfully, winning by industry and integrity a moderate fortune, upon which he at length retired in 1877.

The abilities and popularity of Mr. Ruggles early prompted his fellow-citizens to call upon him for public service. He was not much more than of age when he became an official participant in the affairs of his native town. He was Chairman of the Carmel Board of Select- men when but twenty-three years of age, and has ever since been more or less occupied with the management of the town's business. In 1839, when he was but twenty- six years old, he was appointed by Governor Fairfield a Justice of the Peace and of the Quorum, for a term of seven years; and in 1860 he was made a Trial Justice. For three years, 1850-53, inclusive, he served as one of the County Commissioners of Penobscot county. In 1846 he was elected a member of the State Legislature as a Representative from Carmel and Hampden; and seven years thereafter, in 1853, he was chosen State Senator from the Ninth District, which returned him in 1854 to the same body. In 1863 he was elected by the Legislature a member of the Executive Council, and en- joyed the unprecedented and since not repeated honor of four successive re-elections to that distinguished post. He thus served one year with Governor Coburn, three years with Governor Cony, and his last year with Gov- ernor Chamberlain. During this service, October 10, 1865, he received the unsolicited appointment as Post- master at Carmel village, and served the people thus for two or three years. In 1867 he was appointed a mem- ber of the very important commission on the Assumption by the State of the Municipal War Debts. Upon the or- ganization, in 1862, of the Fourth Internal Revenue Dis- trict, which included Penobscot county, he was appointed Deputy Assessor of the District. He resigned this upon election to the Executive Council, but in 1869, April 7th, he was recalled to more responsible duties in the same office by appointment as Assessor. March 25, 1873, he was promoted to the Collectorship, and upon the con- solidation of his District with another he was made Col- lector of the new one, with his office in each instance in the Government Building at Bangor. Upon a further consolidation of districts he was legislated out of office, and upon his retirement received the following handsome compliment from the Bangor Whig and Courier of July 3, 1877:

It is safe to say that the Government of the United States retains in its service no officer who stands higher in personal character, integrity, and public respect than the gentleman whose official relations were ter- minated on Saturday last.

This closed Major Ruggles's official life of nearly forty years. Besides the positions named, he had often been nominated by his fellow-partisans to similar or other pub- lic places. He was a Democrat down to the Adminis- tration of President Pierce ; but was among the earliest in Maine to break with his party on the slavery question, and he aided to organize the Republican party in the

State, with which he has since steadily and consistently acted. His return to the Senate in 1854 was upon an independent ticket, as a pronounced anti-slavery man; and he there carried out his principles in casting the one decisive vote which finally made the Hon. W. P. Fessen- den United States Senator.

It may here be mentioned that Major Ruggles's mil- itary title is due to his faithful service with the old-time militia, in which he was made Ensign in 1837, subse- quently Adjutant, a Captain in 1841, and finally Major the next year.

Major Ruggles has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal church since 1838, has been in its official boards almost the whole time, and when the system of lay representation was introduced, he was made a dele- gate to the Baltimore Quadrennial Conference in 1876. He has taken a very cordial interest in denominational education, and is a Trustee of and the Treasurer of the East Maine Conference Seminary at Bucksport, to which he has been a liberal benefactor. He also gave a large sum in one amount to the Wesleyan University at Mid- dletown, Connecticut, and has otherwise, and in many ways, been generous in his benevolence. He is also a Free and Accepted Mason, a member of the Lodge at Carmel and of the Chapter in Bangor.

Major Ruggles was united in marriage on the 12th day of December, 1838, in his twenty-sixth year, to Miss Lydia H., third daughter of Eben C. and Delia (Hoxie) Hinckley, of old Maine and Massachusetts families, the father being lineally descended from Governor Hinckley, of colonial fame. They have had two children-Gar- diner H., the subject of a sketch below; and Annie E., deceased, aged twenty-seven years, wife of Edward S. Rich, of an importing firm in Boston. Major and Mrs. Ruggles have no children surviving.

LIEUTENANT G. H. RUGGLES.

This noble young man, one of the most valuable and heroic sacrifices made by the Penobscot Valley, or indeed the whole State of Maine, in the cause of the Union, was born at the old homestead in Carmel, December 5, 1840. He attended the common schools of the town and labored on the farm until about eighteen years of age, when he went to Waterville to enter a preparatory school in that city, with a view to a collegiate course. He was never very strong, however, and did not physically bear well the confinement and burdens of study, and so deter- mined not to undertake the more arduous scholastic career. After a period of rest he became a student at the seminary at Bucksport and remained there several terms. He taught school for two terms in Bucksport and Orland, respectively; but had not undertaken the special studies of any profession as yet when the country called her sons to arms. He was not twenty-two years old and not a very stalwart man in health and strength when he enlisted in Company F., of the Eighteenth Maine Regiment, afterwards the First Maine Heavy Artillery. The position and personal influence of his

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

father would easily have secured him a commission from the beginning ; but he declared his fixed purpose to com- mence in the ranks. He was soon made a Sergeant, however; on the 28th of February, 1863, promoted to be First or Orderly Sergeant; and on the 18th day of Janu- ary, 1864, he received from Governor Cony a commis- sion as Second Lieutenant of his Company. In this capacity he was with it in the terrible charge of the Fed- eral troops upon the Confederate breast-works in front of Petersburg, June 18, 1864, a short, sharp, and awfully fatal action, which left but thirteen men of the company fit for duty. Lieutenant Ruggles had already, in the heavy battle at Spottsylvania, been slightly wounded in the neck, but was not long delayed from the frequent skirmishes and greater actions in which the army was engaged in that bloody campaign. He was often under fire but escaped without serious harm until this day of doom. Then, says the report of General John L. Hods- don, Adjutant-General of the State in which his memory is commemorated, "while nobly cheering his men in the charge upon the fortifications at Petersburg, he fell dead at the head of his company, pierced by an enemy's bul- let." The command with which he charged was re- pulsed, and the dead and seriously wounded by necessity were left behind. The enemy refused to recognize flags of truce for their recovery, and it was impossible to bring in his remains. His body lies where many of the bravest and best of fallen soldiers have desired to lie --- where he fell, at the post of duty. His death caused a most profound sensation of grief at his old home and wherever he had become known. Mr. John H. Lynde, then editor of the Bangor Whig and Courier, who knew him intimately and had formed a very high esteem for him, inserted this feeling and appreciative notice in his paper :

Young Ruggles enlisted as a private in Company F, from the purest motives of patriotism, and received promotion entirely without solicita- tion. An only son, surrounded by all the comforts of life-with influ- ential friends to secure advancement-seemed to be strong reasons why he should remain quietly at home. But he felt that duty called him to the field-that the country needed his services-and was willing, if necessary, to lay down his life to perpetuate the free institutions for which our forefathers fought and bled. He was a soldier and a gentle- man in its broadest sense. He was about twenty-four years of age. His loss will be deeply felt in the home circle and in the community where he formerly lived.

The Adjutant-General of the State commemorated his deeds and his memory more permanently in his re- port, in a notice of some length, from which we extract the following :

During all the weary months that his regiment was stationed in the fortifications around Washington, his activity for the welfare of his men knew no abatement, and when the order was issued for the com- mand to advance to the front, he with his comrades most gladly re- sponded, that they might thus enter upon active service.

Lieutenant Ruggles was a good scholar, a true gentleman, and a brave soldier. Gallant, cool, and reliable, he enjoyed the confidence of his superior officers and the love of his men. Although buried in an unknown grave, his deeds and character are embalmed in the mem- ories of mourning relatives and a grateful people.

The young lieutenant had given unusual promise. Al- though of a quiet and retiring disposition, he possessed an acute mind and a rare facility of expression, which occasionally surprised even his friends with the wit and

wisdom of his sayings. Like his father, he had a marked native aptitude for affairs, was exceedingly well in- formed in history and public questions, and would, un- doubtedly, had he lived, have done eminent service in civil life to his State and country. From boyhood he had kept a diary, which is unusually interesting for its record of current events and of opinion. He was thor- oughly companionable and genial, and of eminent purity of speech and character, so that his friends had no fear of the evil influences upon him of the customary demor- alizations of the camp. He died as he had lived, a typical young American citizen, enduring all hardships, and encountering all dangers for the sake of his country and of humanity.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest ! When spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck the hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that's o'er their clay; And Freedom shall awhile repair, To dwell a weeping hermit there.

GOVERNOR D. F. DAVIS.

The Hon. Daniel Franklin Davis, late Governor of the State of Maine, is a native of the Commonwealth which has so honored him. He was born at Freedom, Waldo county, Maine, on the 12th day of September, 1843, the second child and oldest son of the Rev. Moses Franklin and Mary (French) Davis. Mr. Davis was a minister of the Christian Church, and had charge of several small societies of that faith and order at and near Freedom. He had been a preacher from the age of nineteen, and remained such to the day of his death in March, 1874. He was one of the pioneers and leaders in the Christian Church in Eastern Maine. He was of English descent, the progenitor in America, Colonel James Davis, immigrating to New Hampshire some time in the seventeenth century. His descendants settled largely in that State and in Massachusetts. The mother was related to the Brewsters and the Frenches of the old Colony of Massachusetts Bay. She is still living with her relatives in Corinth.

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 205

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