History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 7

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 7

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ing summit, and the two ends are of nearly the same elevation above the ocean. With this general statement, we proceed to specify their localities so far as they are known to us.

The horsebacks are not common in the western counties.

In Charleston there is a horseback running north 15 degrees west, cor- responding with the course of the drift striæ in the neighborhood, which is four miles long. On each side of the ridge are peaty swamps of great extent. A branch strikes off from this ridge in a curvilinear direction.

Mr. Houghton gives the following account of a horseback in the south part of Plymouth: "The horseback that runs through Plymouth pond, over which the road passes, is interrupted just south of the pond by several gravelly knolls, presenting an interesting field for investiga- tion. One has an abrupt hollow in the top of it, extending, I should think, to near the level of the pond, in the bottom of which is a clayey puddle. To the south of these the horseback is continued with greater height and steeper sides, and is said to extend uninterruptedly to near the centre of Troy. It is interrupted in the north part of Plymouth pond, and its place as a road is supplied by a floating bridge. It is hardly discernible to the north again till we arrive on the north side of Plymouth hill, which has cut across it. From this hill it extends to Newport pond. Its general direction is north and south. It runs a few degrees west of north in Plymouth pond. Its total length, so far as examined, is ten miles. In North Dixmont there is a large meadow on the west side, and a mill stream on the east side of the ridge. Upon the east side of the ridge there is an unfailing mineral spring eight feet above the mill stream. It appeared to me that this spring could not have come from the meadow upon the west side of the ridge, because it is higher up. What, then, is its origin?"

The writer was informed of a very long horseback on the west side of Penobscot river, commencing at Orono, and extending through Oldtow, nAlton, Argyle, Edinburg, Howland, Maxfield, and two No. 3 townships to the West branch of the Penobscot. This would make ·the horseback fifty miles long. Part of its course would lie along Se- boois stream.

One of the scientific reporters says :

We rode over a large horseback in Enfield for an eighth of a mile, and the ridge extended further. A smaller one runs from Lincoln into Enfield. Rev. Mr. Keep informs us that there is a horseback extend- ing from the Indian township at Mattawamkeag Point to Bradley, on the other side of the Penobscot; another in Nos. 2 and 4 of Penob- scot county west of Sisladobsis Lake, and a third in Levant and Corinth.

The stage road passes over an interesting horseback between Ken- duskeag and Corinth. The road first strikes in the west part of the village of Kenduskeag, and continues upon it for three miles to a cem- etery in South Corinth, It appears to extend somewhat further in both directions. Its general direction is northwesterly; but there are changes and curves in it, whose precise nature may be ascertained by noticing upon the map of Penobscot county the course of the stage road. This ridge is wide and not so high in proportion to its width as is most com- mon. It is of the whaleback type, like the example in Aurora, Hancock county. Its attitude is estimated at from twenty to fifty feet, and its width from six to fifteen rods. It starts from the lee side of a large but low hill, and the northwest end is higher than the southeastern. A cut through it reveals a section of gravel precisely like the ideal sketch of a horseback.

MARBLE AND LIMESTONES.

The marbles to be found in Maine occur chiefly upon the belt of Hel- derberg limestone running from Matagamon (East Branch Penobscot) river northeasterly. Other localities of good limestones were visited during the geological survey. That at Carroll, says Professor Hitch- cock, surpassed anticipation; and similar beds can be found in the vicinity and in adjoining towns. Here lime was manufactured exten- sively, three to five hundred barrels being then produced annually upon the farm of Mr. Gates. The State Geologist also found on the east branch of the Penobscot boulders of a very fine statuary marble, speci- mens of which may be seen at the State House. It is, he said, one of the most promising specimens of marble we have seen anywhere in the State. Without doubt these boulders were derived from a strip of Lower Helderberg limestone, running through the whole of the north- ern part of the State, and very possibly in two or three different belts. It may belong to the same belt with that discovered by Dr. Jackson in No. 7, R. 7.

Beds of azoic limestone occur in Dexter, Hampden, Oldtown, Carroll, and in boulders upon the Penobscot river. Those in Dexter and Car-

roll are of great value. In Dexter the beds are numerous. One upon Mr. Crowell's land is blue, very extensive, with only 10 per cent. of im- purities. It runs nearly east and west, and dips 80 degrees southerly. Mr. Fish's limestone is similar to the preceding, but contains veins of calcite; 89.1 per cent. of it is carbonate of lime. Another blue com- pact of limestone, containing 78.1 per cent. of carbonate of lime, is found upon L. Pullen's farm. That on John Puffer's farm contains 84 per cent. of carbonate of lime. A few calciferous slates are interstrati- fied with these beds, but the prevailing rock is clay slate. The explorers found boulders of a beautiful azoic marble on the Penobscot river, be- tween Winn and No. 3. Their source cannot be far distant.

There are seven patches of the Lower Helderberg group, mostly lime- stones, in the north part of the State. One is at the base of Squaw Mountain at the southwest end of Moosehead Lake, adjacent to mica schist, and not unlikely of the same age. It is a calciferous slate, nearly vertical, containing the Favosites Gothlandica. The character of Squaw Mountain is not known. Another locality of the Lower Helderberg is on an island at the lower end of Ripogenus Lake. The rock consists of beds of gray limestone in slats, and appears both at the lower end of the island and on the opposite shores. The limestone contains the same coral as before. Some of the rock is brecciated. This locality is adjacent to novaculite slate and to granite. The report did not say whether these two localities are isolated parts of one belt, but presumed that careful exploration would connect them together, as well as trace the rock a great distance northeasterly beyond the Pe- nobscot.

The other localities exhibit a limestone as the characteristic rock of the group. Probably some of the slates and sandstones adjacent are of the same age. One locality was discovered by Dr. Holmes, at Horse Shoe pond, in No. 5, R. 8. It contains the characteristic coral in abundance, and there is a great cave in the limestone. Another limestone, probably of this age, is in No. 7, R. 7, near the mouth of the Seboois river. It is 90 feet thick, and has been partially altered by a trap dike. It may produce a marble when the demands of the county shall require its use. This bed probably extends down the East Branch of the Penobscot river, as boulders of the rock were found as far down as Winn, which did not appear to have been transported very far.

MANUFACTURE OF LIME.

A table of localities where lime is made, with the percentage of quicklime in the stone quarried there, was prepared for the geological report. The finest limestone, it was stated, can afford but little more than fifty per cent of lime. From this statement the relative values of the different beds of stone may be easily ascertained. Dexter is the only Penobscot county town named in this table. From the stone at E. Crowell's quarry, 50.6 per cent of quicklime was manufactured; from the Fish quarry, 50. 1 per cent ; from John Puffer's, 47.2. Hamp- den is enumerated among many places where a lime of poorer quality, but still suitable for agricultural purposes, may be obtained.

Observations had also been made of a belt of very excellent lime-making limestone at the following points: On Moosehead lake, at Ripogenus Falls on the West branch of the Penobscot, in boulders on the East branch of the Penobscot all the way from Winn to the Grand Falls, on Horseshoe pond in No. 5, R. 8, in No. 4, R. 7, in No. 6, R. 7, in No. 7, R. 7, in No. 7, R. 6, in Ash- land, in No. 13, R. 5, in No. 13, R. 7, and on the west side of Square Lake.

TRAP ROCK.

We quote :

On the Aroostook river, trap appears near Ashland and at the falls, where it joins the St. John River. Another mass of trap appears between the Pond Pitch and the Upper Falls on the East branch of the Penobscot. It appears to correspond in its general character and posi- tion with the trap in Perry, which underlies the Devonian sandstone, for the rock at the Upper Falls; overlying the bedded trap, is a coarse conglomerate of the same age as that in Perry.

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

Boulders of a fine amygdaloidal trap are common all along the East branch, the Seboois, and the Upper Aroostook rivers. East of Mount Katahdin, upon the East branch of the Penobscot, and upon the Se- boois river, there are immense masses of trap, forming mountains and perhaps ranges. Lunksoos mountain, on the Penobscot, and Peaked mountain, on the Seboois, are examples.

Trap dikes were noticed in the following localities: In Hampden, on the west side of Penobscot river, and in Hancock and Ellsworth.

Most of the granite in Maine is found in its western and southeastern counties, yet is by no means wanting in the more northern portions. The region of Mt. Katahdin shows an immense development of it, from the unexplored region east of Moosehead Lake to the East branch of the Penobscot. The Katahdin mountains, rising suddenly out of a rolling country to a great height, illustrate the topographical mode of the development of this rock very finely.

There appears to be a range of granite and syenite from Island Falls, No. 4. R. 4, on the Mattawamkeag river, to Linneus and New Limer- ick. Boulders of granite are exceedingly numerous at the north end of Churchill Lake, and the ledges cannot be far distant. The general absence of granitic boulders in Northern Maine shows, as well as the nature of the rocks in place, the great difference in the geological and agricultural character of the two districts. The absence of granite is generally partial evidence in favor of a good soil, which evidence is strengthened by other considerations in the case.

We venture to assert that there is not a mountain in Maine, frag- ments of which will not be found scattered over the country to the south or southeast. The granite of the Katahdin region is scattered over the southern part of Penobscot county, and the rocks of Mt. Abraham and Mt. Blue may be recognized among the boulders of Kennebec county.

SUNDRY GEOLOGICAL NOTES.

From various parts of the later State Geological Re- ports, are selected remarks concerning Penobscot county, which have not been used hitherto in this chapter.

Terraces are not very abundant in Maine, although they are sufficiently common to excite attention. They are often chosen for the sites of villages or of tasteful private dwellings. All the large streams of the State are lined by them more or less-as the Piscataquis, the Saco, Pre- sumpscot, Androscoggin, Kennebec, Penobscot, St. John, and St. Francis rivers. They are well developed in Ber- wick, Brunswick, Waterville, Lewiston, between Bangor and Lincoln on the Penobscot, and on the east branch of the same river between Medway and No. 4.

There is doubtless a large amount of talcose schist in the immense clay slate formation in the central part of the State. Over much of this area the two rocks are in- terstratified, the latter predominating. The rock between Mattawamkeag Point and Lincoln, on the Penobscot river, is really more like the schist than the slate. There is talcose schist also in Charleston and Dixmont.

The fossils from the loosely consolidated red sand- stones of the Washington county group are scattered along the east branch of the Penobscot river. But we do not find them in place until we arrive at the Grand Falls in No. 5, R. 8.

Argyle is named as one of several points where occur extensive deposits of bog-ore, often of sufficient extent for the manufacture of iron.

In Dixmont are found sulphated chalybeate springs, containing carbonate acid in solution.

TRAVELLERS' NOTICES-STEELE.

Some of the most vivid sketches of scenery and civili- zation along the Penobscot and its branches are com- prised in the narratives of the tourists. They are often

men of culture, who see things with the eye of the artist or scientist; and their relations are replete with pictur- esque character and information. One of the best of these is one of the most recent-Mr. Thomas Sedgwick Steele, writer, artist, and active business man, of Hart- ford, Connecticut, whose little book on Canoe and Camera: A 200-mile Tour through the Maine Forests, is one of the most entertaining sketches of travel in the language. He entered the wilderness by way of Moose- head lake and the west branch of the Penobscot, passing across Chesuncook and Chamberlin lakes to the chain of small lakes and rivers that brought him to the borders of Penobscot county at Lake Matagamon. Between this and the Matagamonsis water, upon a site just west of the Penobscot line, Mr. Steele claims the discovery of a small lake, about two miles in extent, not yet upon any other map than his, and which fitly, from him, takes the name of Steele lake. The tourist makes pleasant notice of the fine farm on the Trout Brook stream, owned by Mr. E. S. Coe, of Bangor, who has extensive lumber interests in this region. His narrative thenceforth lies altogether in Penobscot county. We make enough extracts from it to convey a good idea of the character of the East Branch of Penobscot and the adjacent scenery :

After dinner at the house, our party bade our new-found friends adieu and paddled down the Thoroughfare into Grand or Matagamon lake, which is about one-third longer than Lake Matagamonsis, and went into camp at its foot, on the right bank, near another old dam.

The eastern shore of this lake (the largest body of water on our course since leaving Chamberlin lake) is not especially attractive to the artist, being low and covered with meadow grass. But, the western is decidedly picturesque, being bold and rocky, which, climbing from ele- vation to elevation, finally culminates in the precipitous and rugged peak of Matagamon moutain, towering above one's head to the height of 600 feet, and is almost divested of foliage. We halted but one night on this lake, but were well rewarded by the number and size of the fine trout captured, adding also to our creel a small salmon.

From Grand lake to the junction of the East with the West branch of the Penobscot it is 60 to 75 miles, the river being shut in on all sides by lofty mountains, or heavy belts of grand old forests, through which the swift river tumbles, with only an occasional suggestion of the lumber- man's axe.

There are eleven conspicuous falls in this interval, varying from 20 to 60 feet in height, while the charming cascades are too numerous to mention. The abrupt descents bear the names of Stair, Haskell Rock, Grand, Pond Pitch, Hulling Machine, Bowling, Spring Brook Gravel Bed, Whetstone, Grindstone, Crowfoot, and Ledge Falls, their names, in many cases, suggesting their wild and rugged formation.

The water swept so swiftly through this section that, with the excep- tion of the last 20 miles, it was hardly necessary to use our paddles, but, keeping an eye to the rocks in our path, we could silently enjoy the many lovely changes constantly opening in the landscape.

But this also was decidedly the hardest part of the entire excursion. At most of these falls, our whole camp equipage, provisions, and canoes had to be "packed " around the falls from one to two miles, and in many cases there was hard climbing along the steep, rocky sides of the mountains which followed the river's course, while each one of us car- ried his portion of the load. Along the river's bank to the west, for many miles, are the lovely Traveller mountains, whose rambling appearance and daily companionship are fully represented by their name.

Stair Falls the Quartermaster and myself ran in our canvas canoes, but the guides, tending their birches as if they were glass, dropped them from step to step by means of ropes. After passing Spring Brook Gravel Bed Falls, we paddled through a mile or two of heavy "rips " and entered some two miles of " dead water."

On turning a beautiful bend in the river, what was our surprise to ob- serve the rugged growth of pines gradually disappear, and the landscape immediately softened by the introduction of a dense forest of maple, elm, ash, and noble oak trees, whose gnarled trunks pushed themselves

HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

far into the stream, the branches overlocking above our heads and forming a canopy that darkened the water.

Exclamations of surprise rang from our lips as all the canoes, in "Indian file," drifted through the enchanting bower. and we thought to ourselves, if in the quiet dress of summer this is so lovely, what must it be when clothed in autumnal foliage?

THOREAU.

One of the most remarkable tourists who ever made an excursion up or down the Penobscot valley was Henry D. Thoreau, the self-taught naturalist and hermit- philosopher of Concord, and author of several books- Excursions, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden, and The Maine Woods-which are re- markable for their descriptive power, and the minuteness and clearness of observation they display. Thoreau was here in 1846, on his way to the ascent of Mt. Katahdin. He left Bangor in a buggy September Ist, with one companion, for Mattawamkeag Point. His narrative proceeds :

Within a dozen miles of Bangor we passed through the villages of Stillwater and Oldtown, built at the falls of the Penobscot, which fur- nish the principal power by which the Maine woods are converted into lumber. The mills are built directly over and across the river. Here is a close jam, a hard rub, at all seasons; and there the once-green tree, long since white, I need not say as the driven snow, but as a driven log, becomes lumber merely. Here your inch, your two- and your three-inch stuff begins to be, and Mr. Sawyer marks off those spaces steel which decide the destiny of so many prostrate forests. Through this riddle, more or less coarse, is the arrowy Maine forest, from Ktaadn and Chesuncork, and the headwaters of the St. John, relentlessly sifted, till it comes out boards, clapboards, laths, and shingles such as the wind can take, still perchance to be slit and slit again, till men get a size that will suit. Think how stood the white-pine tree on the shore of Chesuncook, its branches soughing with the four winds, and every individual needle trembling in the sunlight; think how it stands with it now,-sold, perchance, to the New England Friction-Match Co .! There were in 1837, as I read, 250 saw-mills on the Penobscot and its tribu- tories above Bangor, the greater part of them in this immediate neighborhood, and they sawed 200,000,000 of feet of boards annually. To this is to be added the lumber of the Kennebeck, Androscoggin, Saco, Passamaquoddy, and other streams. No wonder that we hear so often of vessels which are becalmed off our coast, being surrounded a week at a time by floating lumber from the Maine woods. The mis- sion of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country, from every solitary beaver-swamp and mountain side, as soon as possible.

At Oldtown we walked into a batteau-manufactory. The making of batteaux is quite a business here for the supply of the Penobscot River. We examined some on the stocks. They are light and shapely vessels, calculated for rapid and rocky streams, and to be carried over long portages on men's shoulders; from twenty to thirty feet long, and only four or four and a half feet wide, sharp at both ends like a canoe, though broadest forward on the bottom. There was something refreshing and wildly musical in my ears in the very name of the white man's canoe, reminding me of Charlevoix and Cana- dian voyagers. The batteau is a sort of mongrel between the canoe and the boat, a fur-trader's boat.

The ferry here took us past the Indian island. As we left the shore I observed a short, shabby, washerwoman-looking Indian-they com- monly have the woe-begone look of the girl that cried for spilt milk --- just from "up river," land on the Oldtown side near a grocery, and, drawing up his canoe, take out a bundle of skins in one hand and an empty keg or half-barrel in the other, and scramble up the bank with them. This picture will do to put before the Indian's history-that is, the history of his extinction. In 1837 there were 362 souls left of this tribe. The island seemed deserted to-day, yet I observed some new houses among the weather-stained ones, as if the tribe had still a design upon life; but generally they have a very shabby, forlorn, and cheerless look, being all backside and woodshed, not homesteads, even Indian homesteads; but, instead of home or abroad-steads, for their life is domi aut militia, at home or at war, or now rather venatus-that is, a hunting, and most of the latter. The church Is the only trim-looking building; but that is not Abenaki, that was Rome's doings. Good

Canadian it may be, but it is poor Indian. These were once a power- ful tribe. Politics are all the rage with them now. I even thought that a row of wigwams, with a dance of powwows and a prisoner tortured at the stake, would be more respectable than this.

We landed in Milford, and coasted along on the east side of the Penobscot, having a more or less constant view of the river and the islands in it; for they retain all the islands as far up as Nicatou, at the mouth of the East Branch. They are generally well-timbered, and are said to be better soil than the neighboring shores. The river seemed shallow and rocky, and interrupted by rapids, rippling and gleaming in the sun.

It was the Houlton road on which we were now travelling, over which some troops were marched once toward Mars' Hill, though not to Mars' field, as it proved. It is the main, almost the only road in these parts, as straight and well-made, and kept in as good repair, as almost any you will find anywhere. Everywhere we saw signs of the great freshet, -- this house standing awry, and that where it was not founded, but where it was found, at any rate, the next day; and that other with a water-logged look, as if it were still airing and drying its basement, and logs with everybody's marks upon them, and sometimes the marks of their having served as bridges, strewn along the road. We crossed the Sunkhaze, a summery Indian name, the Olemon, Passadumkeag, and other streams, which make a greater show on the map than they now did on the road.

At sundown, leaving the river-road awhile for shortness, we went by way of Enfield, where we stopped for the night. This, like most of the localities bearing names on this road, was a place to name, which, in the midst of the unnamed and incorporated wildness, was to make a distinction without a difference, it seemed to me. Here, however, I noticed quite an orchard of healthy and well-grown apple-trees, in a bearing state, it being the oldest settler's house in this region; but all natural fruit, and comparatively worthless for want of a grafter-and so it is generally lower down the river. It would be a good specula- tion, as well as a favor conferred on the settlers, for a Massachusetts boy to go down there with a trunk-full of choice-scions, and his graft- ing apparatus, in the spring.

The next morning we drove along through a high and hilly country, in view of Coldstream Pond, a beautiful lake four or five miles long, and came into the Houlton road again, here called the military road, at Lincoln, 45 miles from Bangor, where there is quite a village for this country-the principal one above Oldtown. Learning that there were several wigwams here, on one of the Indian islands, we left our horse and wagon, and walked through the forest half a mile to the river, to procure a guide to the mountain. It was not till after considerable search that we discovered their habitations-small huts, in a retired place, where the scenery was unusually soft and beautiful, and the shore skirted with pleasant meadows and graceful elms.

There were very few houses along the road, yet they did not alto- gether fail, as if the law by which men are dispersed over the globe were a very stringent one, and not to be resisted with impunity or for slight reasons. There were even the germs of one or two villages just beginning to expand. The beauty of the road itself was remarkable. The various evergreens, many of which are rare with us-delicate and beautiful specimens of the larch, arbor-vitæ, ball-spruce and fir-balsam, from a few inches to many feet in height-lined its sides, in some places like a long front yard, springing up from the smooth grass-plats which uninterruptedly border it, and are made fertile by its wash; while it was but a step on either hand to the grim, untrodden wilder- ness, whose tangled labyrinth of living, fallen, and decaying trees only the deer and moose, the bear and wolf, can easily penetrate. More perfect specimens than any front-yard plot can show, grow there to grace the passage of the Houlton teams.

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 7

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