USA > Maine > Knox County > South Thomaston > History of Thomaston, Rockland, and South Thomaston, Maine, from their first exploration, A. D. 1605; with family genealogies, Vol. I > Part 11
USA > Maine > Knox County > Rockland > History of Thomaston, Rockland, and South Thomaston, Maine, from their first exploration, A. D. 1605; with family genealogies, Vol. I > Part 11
USA > Maine > Knox County > South Thomaston > History of Thomaston, Rockland, and South Thomaston, Maine, from their first exploration, A. D. 1605; with family genealogies, Vol. I > Part 11
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
1763. This year was distinguished by the death of two eminent actors in the affairs of this vicinity. Capt. Benjamin Burton, senior, on the 20th of March, perished in his float on George's River. He had been up from his stone garrison house before mentioned to the Fort here; but in the evening
* Mr. Locke in his History of Camden, p. 31, says, " Robert Thorndike was the first white male child born in town." He was probably the first in the Goose River settlement, but, according to the same excellent au- thority, he was not born till Sept. 17, 1773.
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having some dispute with Capt. North, he rejected his invita- tion to stay, and set off for home in a very cold windy night. The recently formed ice is supposed to have prevented his landing; he was seen next morning opposite McCarter's, and people wont to his assistance, but found Him frozen to death. He was brought up and buried at the fort burying- ground here, where his grave-stone remained among the kindred fragments till after the sale of the Knox estate, when it was brought by Mrs. E. Miller, his grand-daughter, to Warren, and placed in the burying-ground near the Baptist church. Capt. Burton had been a brave and zealous officer , during two wars; through the last of which his house was frequently attacked and his life endangered. At times in the absence of a garrison his daughters would mount guard on the roof of his stronghold, whilst he was laboring. in the potato field or the clam-bank. On one occasion, but in which war we are not informed, being at some distance out with his wife and four children, when an alarm was given by the dogs, he took one child on his back, one under each arm, while his wife took the other; and all escaped safely into his fortress .*
The other death was that of Capt. or, as styled in his will, Hon. John North, himself; then in charge of the fort which was not yet entirely dismantled. This gentleman, though none of his posterity remain here, may be considered one of the fathers of the town; and his memory, as a magistrate and military officer, is fair and unblemished. His faculties had become impaired by age or disease in his last days, and his brain so far affected at times as to cause him to see unreal shapes and frequently strike with his cane at some imaginary dog, wolf, or other phantasm which none but he could dis- cern. He probably was not long in following his old ac- quaintance Capt. Burton, as the inventory of his estate is dated June, 1763. His will had been made previously, May 26, 1760; in which his personal property was devised, one- half to his wife Elizabeth; one-quarter part to his eldest son, Joseph; the other quarter part to his youngest son, William ; and to his daughter, "Mary McKechnie, 10 pounds and no more," on account of " undutifulness in contracting marriage with a man who is not to my good liking." This object of his disfavor was the Doctor and Lieutenant under him in the garrison, before mentioned, a Scottish adventurer, who was also a surveyor. and, as tradition says, his mathematical cal- culations, sometimes conflicting with those of North, gave
* Col. Burton's MS. narrative.
VOL. I. 8
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rise to controversies which the long practice of the one and the science of the other rendered it difficult to reconcile. The dislike, however, seems not to have been shared by the family, as both McKechnie and Joseph North obtained situa- tions ac Fort Halifax, and afterwards, with the rest of the family, settled in what is now Augusta. Capt. North, both from his personal characteristics and material acquisitions, as well as offices held, seems to have been entitled to be con- sidered one of the magnates with whom in these early times every settlement of importance on this eastern coast was gen- erally favored. Among the many articles of value contained in the long inventory of his estate, are the following: 104 oz. . plate at 6s. 11d. per oz .; 92 lbs. pewter; 16 lbs. old pewter ; one pair gold buttons, weighing 5 pwt. 16 grs; 1 snit broad- cloth clothes, £8; 1 blue coat; I red jacket; 1 black ditto; 1 suit duroy clothes; 1 Beaver cotton coat; 1 great coat; beaver hat, 16s. ; 2 pairs breeches, (1 of leather and 1 cloth) ; 5 ruffled shirts, 17s. 4d. ; tobacco tongs ; 3 two-hour glasses ; 1 set surveying instruments ; 1 doctor's box; 1 barrel of powder, £10; 1 drum, 6s .; bullets and shot, 14s .; small skins, £1, 1s. 4d .; 5 lbs. beaver, poor, at 5s .; 151 lbs. feathers at Is. 4d. per pound; 98 gallons of rum at 2s .; 3 barrels at 3s. each; 3 cows, £12; 1 cow at £3, 12s .; and one Negro man named Esdram, with bedding and clothes, £40. This last item of property may seem somewhat start- ling to modern ears and in this latitude, but the doctrine of popular rights and human equality was not publicly avowed till the commencement of the Revolution, some years later ; and nothing was more common, among the more pretending or aristocratic families, than the purchase of a negro man or woman, as the most unequivocal mark of rank and distinc- tion. Capt. North is said to have been buried at the Fort cemetery, and his grave marked by a horizontal slab of stone in which was inlaid a heart-shaped plate of lead containing the name and inscription. This, after the desecration of the place, was appropriated by some one, and, it is said, melted and run into musket balls ; so that, but for the memory of one# who in childhood and youth often saw and noted the stone, the resting-place of the honored master might have re- mained equally unknown with that of his humble slave, Esdram.
This winter of 1762-3 was remarkable for severe storms and a great depth of snow, which, being badly crusted,
* Mrs. Mary Hyler of Thomaston.
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greatly impeded the flight of the moose and rendered them an easy prey to the hunters. No less than 70 were this year taken on the Middle Neck alone; and these animals were never after found in so great abundance as formerly. The snow remained, and, late as the 21st of March, was four feet deep, with "a crust sufficiently solid and hard to bear a loaded team."*
The place this year made an evident advance. Mason Wheaton came from Providence, R. I. in 1763, and, under a lease from the Proprietors of a large part of the Fort farm (which extended from the present Shibles lot to Mill River) commenced and for many years carried on the manufacture of lime from Lime-stone Hill, the present Prison quarry. Associated with him as partners in this business, as also in a store of goods kept first in the Fort and then where Wm. Vose now resides, were Simon Whipple and Samuel Briggs ; the last of whom was, the following year, 1764, licensed as an innholder and opened the first tavern in the place, proba- bly in the buildings within the old Fort. "Of Whipple little is known, but from sundry charges in W'm. Watson's account book against Captain Whipple made in 1764, and onward, it is not improbable that he was or had been engaged in the coasting business. Mr. Watson's book contains accounts with each of these three persons, separately, as though ao partnership existed between them ; and it is uncertain when the firm commenced or ended. "Le charges Mr. Briggs, May, 1764, with part of four days hauling wharf timber, also with 115 sticks of ditto, besides boards, gondola loads of wood, mending and making shoes, and in May, " one Bushell and half of patotes Delivered Willm Gregory, £1, 10s.," &c. We may infer therefore that the small wharf, afterwards greatly enlarged by Knox, and now owned by Hon. E. O'Brien, and which was in being through the late war, was this year re-constructed or enlarged. As specimens of prices, articles of trade, and the currency, of that day, we give the following from Mr "'atson's book. April 16, 1765, Mr. Wheaton, Credit, 6 bushels corn, £9 ; May 8, 33 yds. Linen Cloth, £7; five yds. cotton and linen, £4; sixteen yds. osnabergs, £11, 2s .; seven lbs. coffce, £3; handkerchief, £2, 10s. 8d .; one pair of garters, 5d. ; one quart rum, 7s .; four lbs. sugar, 18s .; eleven yds. ticklenbergs, at 15s., £8, 5s .; half quintal fish, £3, 15s .; half lb. tea, £1, 10s. ; four oz. indigo, 16s. ; half Ib. soap, 33. 6d .; June 28th, one yd. broad
* Col. Burton's narrative, &c.
.
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cloth, £10, 10s .; two scythes, £4, 10s .; three pair heels,* 5s .; five lbs. flax, £1, 12s .; Aug. 10th, one hat, £11, 5s .; 2 felt hats, £3 ; one gallon molasses, 18s. ; quire of paper, 10s .; and one lb. powder, 15s. Mr. Wheaton, debtor, April 18, 1765. to 3 days at the kiln. £3: David one day driving oxen, 10s .; one day of man and four oxen, hauling rock, £3; six feet wood, £1, 2s. 6d .; one day at the sloop, loading, £1 ; June, 1000 boards delivered Capt. Nutting, £12; one day at the P. Kiln,t £1; Dec. 3. 1768, 2 bush. salt, £1, 2s .; mak- ing I pr. shoes for Mr. Wheaton, £l ; ditto, for the boy, 17s., &c. These were probably in the old tenor currency, in which 45s. were equal to one Spanish dollar, or 6s. of the lawful money established in 1749.
The lime quarries having been reserved by the Proprietors for their exclusive use, this firm, Wheaton, Briggs & Whipple, in their name, monopolized the whole business. Wheaton lived at first in a log-house, back or east of what is now Wadsworth Street, Thomaston, near the well known spring sometimes called the Knox spring ; and here his only son, the late James D. Wheaton, was born. He subsequently built, a little further west, a small, one-story, framed or planked house, in which he resided some years, and which, after hav- ing been transformed by enlargement and the addition of a second story, is still standing on Wadsworth Street, in a dilap- idated condition and known by the name of the Wadsworth House, or the Old Castle. With the increase of business, Wheaton seems to have risen in popular favor, as, in 1775, he held a Major's commission in the militia, as he had done that of Captain before. He was followed, though probably a few years later, by Daniel Morse, a wheelwright, born in Attie- boro', but who married, in Rhode Island, a sister of Mrs. Wheaton. He went on to one of the Meadow farins, where many of his descendants still remain, and proved a useful ac- quisition to the place, - making and repairing carts, ploughs, wheelbarrows, and other articles of the kind, then scarce and in great request. Thomas Stevens, another settler at the Meadows, came to this place about the same time. He was a shoemaker of Falmouth, and his wife a native of one of the Islands, the Great or Little Gebeag, in that harbor. After working at his trade, some time, near Mr. Wheaton's, and above or west of Dr. Rose's present house, he finally settled in near neighborhood with Mr. Morse; where he long lived,
* Of wood, for women's high heeled shoes.
t The " P. kiln " probably stood for the " Proprietor's kiln."
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his humble dwelling surrounded with a dense spruce thicket, upon which his axe made little or no impression.
Another acquisition was made to the place in the person of Dr. David Fales, who came here about this time as surveyor and agent of the Waldo Proprietors, to take care of their rights and superintend the sale and location of lands to ·set- tlers. When invited to do so, he, with his newly married wife, was residing in Dedham, where, and in the State of New York, he had practised surveying, and, having received a . medical education, was now well qualified to engage in either of these professions ; - though ultimately becoming more ex- tensively known by the title of Esquire rather than Doctor. He took up his abode at first in the fort, where two of his children were born, and where he taught school and followed, as occasion required, his other vocations. In all these he was careful and cautious; as the settlement increased, acquired property ; in 1767, received a justice's commission; and, at the close of that year, removed to and opened a tavern in his own log-house which he built on his lot above Robbins's, and where, in different houses of his erection, one of which was consumed by fire, he lived the remainder of his days.
Many emigrants also came about this time to the territory of Warren above and Cushing below, but the whole popula- tion of all the settlements on the George's River is said to have numbered only 175 .*
1764. It is handed down that the first militia muster of the regiment in this quarter, which included half the settled portion of the. State, was held here on Lime-stone Hill in the autumn of this year, under command of the old Indian-killer, Col. Jas Cargill of Newcastle, who wore on this occasion a drab pea-jacket and comarney cap. But, as this seems to be the only incident that has come down to us concerning this and the two succeeding years, we can only infer that they were seasons of peaceful, healthy, and monotonous prosperity. In the course of them, agriculture received a new impulse. It had hitherto been chiefly confined to the raising of potatoes, peas, beans, and barley, with some wheat and rye, and a few cabbages. About this time, however, Indian corn began to be cultivated, probably brought here by some of the recent emigrants mentioned above, and, notwithstanding its liability to injury from early frosts, soon, from its abundant increase, came into general favor. It was first made, known to our German neighbors in Waldoboro' by Daniel Filhorn, a resident
* Family traditions. Writer in Thomaston Recorder, &c.
8 *
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of Loud's Island, whose memory still pleasantly lingers in the traditions of that place. The knowledge of Indian corn was not the only benefit received from this somewhat eccentric and waggish personage. On one occasion he had drawn to- gether a crowd by announcing his ability to make mice- living mice, and offered to exhibit his skill before their eyes on the payment of a four-pence-half-penny bit, by each. Having received the money, he scraped up a little dust upon the bridge and, after wetting and manipulating the paste, he shaped it into the proper forms, and called upon the specta- tors to watch and observe their first efforts at motion before they should have time to run away. The animals did not stir .. After looking anxiously for a while, he announced to the au- dience that his experiment had failed; he found he was not able to do what he had promised; " but," said he, "I have made a far more valuable discovery. I have found that, though I cannot make mice, I can make confounded fools."*
1767. At Wessaweskeag few or no attempts to settle had been made prior to 1767. In that year, Elisha Snow of Harpswell, whilst seeking a good chance for lumbering, vis- ited the place, and, being struck with its singular water priv- ileges, fine growth, and other advantages, immediately, with his natural keen discernment and prompt action, tock mea- sures for commencing a settlement there. In connection with John Mathews of Plainfield, Ct., whom he induced to join him, he purchased a possessory claim of a Lieutenant in the British army then in Boston, but whose name has passed out of memory, to 300 acres of land, on which they erected a saw-mill and went to work at the lumber on the ground for the means of making payment. Succeeding in this, Snow went to Boston for the purpose of completing the contract and procuring a deed. There, so favorable an offer was made, that he was induced to purchase the entire tract of 1750 acres; and, Mathews not being present, took the deed of the whole in his own name and arranged the matter with his associate afterwards. Paying what money he had, and giving notes together with a mortgage of the whole tract for the remainder, he returned, well pleased with his bargain. Fortune, however, had not yet exhausted her favors; for, it is said, the mortgagee, having sailed for England in a ship that was never afterwards heard from; was supposed to have been lost with the notes and unrecorded mortgage with him, and.no payment was ever made or demanded; though the right of
t Dr. M. R. Ludwig.
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ROCKLAND AND SOUTH THOMASTON.
soil was, Nov. 18, 1773, purchased of Mr. Fluker for £664, 10s .* This, to them, fortunate commencement gave such an impetus to the business of Snow and Mathews, that it soon attracted other settlers to this the future South Thomaston. A Mr. Tenant, who had married Mathews's sister, came early to the place, built a small house, and, after the rupture with the mother country, joined the American army and died at Plainfield, Ct., leaving a widow and one son, Joshua Tenant. He was followed in 1773 by Joseph Coombs and Richard Keating from New Meadows, John Bridges a native of York, . Thomas and Jonathan Orbeton, all of whom came either as hired men sent down by Snow, or as emigrants in pursuit of an advantageous place for settlement. 'The first dwelling- house built in the settlement was that of Snow, who did not move his family hither till after 1771; - the next that of Mathews; - both small, low, framed houses, containing two rooms only and a bed-room. Mr. Snow hired his brother Samuel to come down and superintend the erection of his buildings. To these, at a later period, he added a grist-mill, which ran successfully for many years till it was accidentally consumed by fire. He also commenced ship-building at an early period.
This large tract, purchased by Mr. Snow, was wholly situ- ated on the N. or N. E. side of the Wessaweskeag River, and was laid out by him into convenient lots for farms, mostly sold, or eventually given away to his own children, including seven sons who all became active and enterprising men of business and most of them masters of vessels. The north-westernmost of these lots, on the extreme boundary of the tract, called the Ephraim Snow lot, now constitutes the farm of S. Brinton Butler, and was first settled upon by Wm. Rowell in 1801. The next, or adjoining lot below, called the Elisha Snow lot, became that of Franklin Ferrand. The third, called the Israel Snow lot, became that of Barzillai Pierce; the fourth, called the Larkin Snow lot, passed into the hands of Briggs and Brackett Butler, as did, also, the fifth, called the Isaac Snow lot. The sixth was transferred to Leonard Wade, which, on his removal to Union, was bought by the Butlers. The seventh was taken by the purchaser's brother, Joseph Snow ; the eighth by Jonas Dean; the ninth by John Bridges; the tenth by Elisha Snow (2d), transferred to Wm. MeLoon; the eleventh by Israel Snow, now occupied by Jesse Sleeper; the
. R. Rowell; Capt. A. C. Spalding ; Deed in Register's Office, Wis- casset; &c.
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twelfth reserved to the original purchaser and occupied by himself and his son-in-law Capt. James Spalding, whose son, Capt. Henry Spalding, and Robert Snow (3d,) with their families are the only descendants of the first owner, Mr. Show, remaining on the original tract. The 13th was taken by Capt. Ephraim Snow, and is now occupied by Jas. Sweet- land; the 14th by John Mathews, lately that of Rice Rowell, deceased, whose house, where he was born and died, was built in 1788, raised Christmas day. The 15th was taken by James Stackpole, who commenced making brick there, but, getting discouraged and removing over to George's River, sold the lot to Hezekiah Bachelder. It was afterwards sold to Luther Hayden, with whose son William it now remains. The 16th was shared by Robert and Ambrose Snow, who transferred their respective portions, the former to Anthony Mathews, and the latter to Benjamin Snow.
The Wessaweskeag stream was at this time, as it had been in earlier periods, much frequented by the Penobscot and other eastern Indians, who, in their passage down the Penob- scot bay to their fishing and fowling stations among the islands and more western shores, often made it a part of their trail, to save passing around Owl's Head. Landing at the Head of the Bay, a short portage would carry them to this stream, from which the Lower trail probably extended to Cutler's Cove in St. George, as a branch of it did to the Bay in Thomaston. Their power was indeed broken, but they were still numerous, and continued to visit the Wessaweskeag in great numbers for many years, but exciting less and less alarm among the settlers. The banks of this stream and much of the adja- cent region were at this time covered with a magnificent growth of pines, whose age, judging from the younger speci- mens left and more recently examined, must have ranged from 300 years downwards. In the first lumbering operations the rule was to cut no trunks so small that two men standing on opposite sides and extending their arms could completely encircle; and most of these, when sawed into boards, were perfectly free from knots larger than a man's thumb would cover. When the lands became divested of these larger trees, the rule was to cut none smaller than what would fill the arms of one man only. This pine growth, ancient and noble as it was, had however, been preceded, it was thought, by one of a different kind; for the ground was strewn with huge trunks of poplars, 3 or 4 feet in diameter, covered with moss, but still undecayed and partly imbedded in mould. It is not known whether these shorter-lived trees had been simultan-
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ously prostrated by some tempest, or, intermingled at first with the pines, had successively died and given room to a race more aspiring and of greater longevity.
This magnificent forest, though of different and varying kinds of timber, extended along the shore of Owl's Head Bay and inland as far as the mountains. It entirely covered the present city of Rockland, except a few insignificant in- roads made by lumbering parties from George's River. These occasionally came over when that river was frozen, and got out a sloop-load of wood, staves, or timber, on the sea-borders, to be sent to Boston for early supplies of provisions before the rivers broke up. Among these, John Lermond of the Upper Town, now Warren, came over to the Cove between Jameson's and Ulmer's Points, built a camp, and, with the occasional aid of his two brothers, got out a cargo of oak staves and pine lumber there. Not intending to settle, he .put up no buildings; but the harbor was long afterwards known as " Lermond's Cove," rather than by that of its Indian name of Catawamteag.
Stephen Peabody, from Middleton, Mass., came to Owl's Head at the same time Snow did to the "Gig,"-a name into which Wessaweskeag was. soon abbreviated. He pur- chased from some former squatter a possessory title to 600 acres of land, and attempted to get a living partly by his trade and partly by farming. He was a blacksmith, the first in the place, other than the armorers or gunsmiths at the Fort. But lacking energy and perseverance, he got in debt, was harassed with lawsuits, became discouraged, removed, and set up his trade near Oyster River in Warren.
1768. This year, died the elder William Watson; a man of enterprise and property. His last will and testament, dated Dec. 21, 1761, devises as follows: "I give and be- queath unto my dutiful son, William Watson, two-third parts of my real estate on Ye West side of St. George's River, to have the same, his heirs, &c., forever. Item -I give, &c., to my second son, James, one-third part of my real estate in St. George's aforesaid, the Division line or bounds between him and his elder brother William to begin at a brook empty- ing nearly opposite to the Block-house or lime . . . in St. George's ; Provided, nevertheless, that he, my son James, shall not have liberty to sell or dispose of said one-third part of ye sd'estate to any one whatsoever, only to occupy it for his . . . or the lawful heirs of his body, forever. Item. I will and devise out of the aforesaid Bequeathed Estate that my sons, William and James, Do and sha . . . and instruct
N
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HISTORY OF THOMASTON,
my younger sons, David and Mathew, in reading, writing, and shoemaking, and William give to David a yoak of oxen and a Cow, and James give to Mathew a yoak of oxen and a Cow ; and, in case of non-performance of the above directions, that my sons, David and Mathew, shall have sixty acres of Land laid out to them out of the above bequeathed land at the head of the Narrows on St. George's River. And further I desire that my sons, William and James, do Equally give and put out to interest the sum of six pounds, four years ensuing the date hereof, for the use and benefit of my Grandson, John Watson, in case he survives to ye age of twenty-one years, and if not, to be divided between David and Mathew. Item. I give to my daughters Jean, Mary, and Margaret, Each of them a new Bible to be purchased by my sons, William and James, and Likewise a Cow to my daughter Elizabeth. Lastly, I do hereby constitute my Loving friend, John North, Esq., the sole Executor of this my last Will and Testament."", The instrument is in Mr. North's handwriting, and witnessed by him, Boice Cooper, and Andrew Malcom. The testator, however, outlived the executor. John, the grandson here mentioned, was probably the son of Capt. John Watson, killed by the Indians as before related.
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