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 14
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 14
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 14
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Among other doings of the Committee, was the assignment of a part of Capt. Gregg's men as guards in different places ; of which two were at Geo. Young's, and 5 at Hanse Robin- son's, in what was afterwards Cushing, 2 at S. Creighton's in what is now Warren, 2 at Wm. Watson's, and a party at Wessaweskeag, which on the 10th Sept. was ordered to be stationed at Tenant's Harbor, in what is now St. George, to double the guard there. These were probably employed mostly in the enforcement of regulations respecting coasters ; the Committee in the exercise of its ill-defined functions or- dering one Capt. Atwood, bound for Boston as they suspected with a load of cordwood, to be detained till he should give bonds to stop and enter at Salem, and warning Capt. Wm. Pendleton not to contract any trade with the King's troops contrary to the orders of the Provincial Congress. It also, at a meeting at Wheaton's, Sept. 19th, of which Mr. Snow was chairman, gave permission for Capt. Samuel Hathorn in sloop Sally, and Capt. James Watson, probably then in the sloop Three Friends, to sail to Ipswich; Capt. Wheaton's schooner to sail to Portsmouth ; Lieut. B. Burton to take Capt. Phillips's schooner to go a fishing, said Burton to return the fourth part of his earnings to the committee or to said owner; and that said schooner together with Capt. Wm. Hutchings's sloop re- main in custody till further orders. The schooner, it seems by a later entry, was lost; and the committee in 1777 paid the owners £37, 10s. lawful money as indemnity.
Whilst some vessels were thus occasionally licensed by the newly created authorities here, similar favors were granted to others by the British authorities in Boston, either to supply their own necessities or to favor some of their own adherents. . The following, to one of this vicinity, is a specimen. "By Samuel Graves, Esq., Vice Admiral of the White, &c.
" Permit Nehemiah Eastman of the Sloop Advance with the
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ROCKLAND AND SOUTH THOMASTON.
three men named in the margin (John Annis, Robt. McIntire, and Wm. Hilton) to pass as a Coaster with fuel for the use of the King's Fleet at Boston, this Pass to remain till the Vessel returns to Boston. Given under my hand on board His Majesty's Ship Preston at Boston the 4th day of October, 1775. Samuel Graves. To the Respective Captains and Commanders of His Majesty's Ships and Vessels in North America."*
This Capt. Eastman came from Gilmanton, N. H., mar- ried a daughter of Capt. Benj. Burton, senior, but afterwards, we believe, abandoned her, left this part of the country, and is supposed to have been a tory and refugee in the British provinces.
Other duties, less agreeable, were performed by this com- mittee. Capt. Gregg was ordered, "Sept. 19th, to bring Linnekent to justice on Friday next;" and, Aug. 28th, one Teal of George's Islands was ordered to receive ten stripes well laid on, at a post prepared for the same, for stealing a piece of tow cloth from Archibald Gamble on the 25th of July; which last sentence, if not the former, appears to have been duly executed. This Mr. Teal, according to tradition, was on some other occasion taken up by a posse of citizens on a charge of abducting Mr. Watson's salt-kettle from his wharf or shore near the present lower toll-bridge. John Shibles was selected by them to act as magistrate, who, after hearing all the evidence and finding it conclusive, sentenced him to be tied up to a tree, his back stripped bare and each man present to cut a rod from the neighboring bushes, march round the tree, and in passing give the culprit one stroke with the same. As the process began, David Creighton (2d, ) a son of one of the first settlers of the Upper town, perceiving that the castigation was likely to be bloodless and mild to what he had been accustomed to witness on board of a man- of-war, cut a branch from a thorn-bush, and, when his turn came, gave such a bloody stroke as excited compassion in the crowd and turned their indignation from the prisoner and against the unfeeling executioner.#
Creighton at this time was settled on the farm at Oyster River, since that of the late Hon. J. Patterson in Warren, but after the Revolution removed to the Meadows in Thomaston. He had in early life been pressed into the service of the
* Preserved among the Watson papers, and now in possession of Messrs. A. W. & E. Brown.
t One of the tories of the Lower Town.
+ Capt. S. M. Shibles, &c.
-----
-
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HISTORY OF THOMASTON,
British navy, in which he served seven years without ever setting his foot on shore, but once. In this time, he acquired if he did not inherit much of a man-of-war's man's habits, bluntness, rude humor, and love of hilarity. In reference to his impressment and the war of the Revolution, he used to say that of all nations he had ever heard of, the English was the worst nation, except damnation.
In consequence of representations of great scarcity of pro- visions as well as arms and ammunition on this eastern coast and islands, the Provincial Congress, which had now taken the place of the Royal government, directed the Newburyport committee of safety to exchange 100 or 200 bushels of corn for fuel and lumber at moderate prices; and a part of one of the regiments which had been enlisted in Maine was put un- der the command of Col. Freeman of Falmouth, to be sta- tioned " on the seaboard in the counties of Cumberland and Lincoln, as he and Gen. Preble of the same place, and Major Mason Wheaton of St. George's River should appoint." How many of these, if any, were assigned to this river we are un- able to state. Capt. James Watson credits the sloop Sally, Jan. 15th, 1776, with £115, 10s. cash for carrying soldiers; and, as he seems to have made a trip to Falmouth about that time, it is not improbable that this credit was for soldiers transported to or from that place. This, however, is uncer- tain; as, though Lincoln county in consequence of her ex- posed situation was exempted from the levy of 5000 men imposed on the rest of Massachusetts, yet recruits were en- listing here, some for the army in Cambridge, and some in a company raised on this river and Broad Bay, under Capt. Jacob Ludwig, Lieut. Joseph Copeland, and Sergt. Samuel Counce, that went down in November and did garrison duty at Machias through the winter. .
1776. One of the first measures adopted in 1776 was the re-organization of the militia. That of each county in Maine was placed under the command of a Brigadier Gen- eral. Charles Cushing of Pownalborough was appointed to that office for the county of Lincoln. The regiment which included St. George's, extended to Newcastle. It had been recently under the command of Col. James Cargill, but how long he retained his office is uncertain. The regimental of- ficers in commission during this war were, as near as can be ascertained, Col. Farnsworth of Waldoboro': Major, after- wards Colonel Mason Wheaton; and Major Hanse Robinson of St. George's, now Cushing. The two last had previously commanded companies. The settlers of this town above
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ROCKLAND AND SOUTH THOMASTON.
Mill River, being included in the Upper Town settlement, did military duty under Capt. Starrett, of what is now Warren; the remaining settlers were probably included with the com- pany of the Lower Town, in which, it is supposed, Jolin Mathews at Wessaweskeag had a lieutenant's commission.
Notwithstanding the thickening gloom of the war, Wessa- weskeag in 1776 began to assume the appearance of a rising settlement. Joseph Coombs, a young man who three years before had come with no property but his axe and worked for Snow till now, this year married and became a permanent settler on a lot which he took up on the S. W. side of the river, opposite Snow's. Thomas Ham, also, from Brunswick, took up an adjoining lot, which after some time he sold out to Coombs and removed. Coombs, now in possession of 371 acres of land. built a saw-mill in close proximity with Snow's, and, aided by this, soon went vigorously into the lumber, lime, ship-building, and salt business, and became one of the leading men in the place. As a specimen of courtship under difficulties, we give some particulars of that of Mr. Coombs. Miss Elizabeth Gamble had received the addresses and was supposed by some to be engaged to a Mr. Norwood; but, at a ball or rather rude gathering of young men and maidens col- lected from the whole region between Warren and Wessa- weskeag at Mr. Shibles's, for a hearty untaught trial of skill on the not "light" though "fantastic toe," she became ac- quainted with Coombs and gave him the preference, which he sedulously cultivated by further visits. To make these, it was necessary to travel miles in unworn foot-paths through the woods, and cross George's River to her log-mansion in Warren in such floats or wherries as most of the settlers kept at hand. When one of these could be found at the shore he used to cross over, and, when his visit was ended, re-cross, leaving his canoe where he found it. But when, as it often happened, the boat was on the other side, he used to swim across, Leander like, let the weather be what it would, return with the boat, dress himself, and then cross again in proper style, -singing, perhaps, to the winds and waters, like his ancient prototype,
" Make me a wreck as I come back, But spare me as I go !"
Several of Mr. Show's connections were also now settled, or about settling, in the same quarter of the town. Besides his brother Joseph Snow, his brother-in-law Robert Jordan came from Cape Elizabeth and settled on the West side of the
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HISTORY OF THOMASTON,
river, on the lot now owned by Dea. Hanse Kelloch. David Crouch married Jordan's sister and settled on the same side, lower down. Capt. Israel Jordan, a cousin, it is believed, of Robert, married another sister and settled about this time at Ash Point. Richard Keating, before mentioned, was now at the head of a family, located on the lot next above Crouch's. Being a warm patriot, he enlisted and served six months in the army, and, with the time spent in preparing and returning, together with coast-guard and other service on several occa- sions nearer home, gave about one year more to his country's cause. This was rendered in a time of poverty and hard- ship, when it could ill be afforded; but when in later years pensions were provided for such services, he could never be persuaded to apply for or indeed accept one, on any account. After the war, going into the lumber business and ship-build- ing, he became a man of substance and influence, and was for many years a worthy deacon of the Baptist Church."
1777. The Upper plantation of St. George's having been incorporated as the town of Warren, Nov. 7, 1776, and having included that part of what was afterwards Thomaston as far as the old saw-mill at Mill River, the settlers here, be- ing reluctant to be separated from their neighbors the other side of that river and not altogether pleased with the new town above and the minister it had now adopted, immediately got up a petition for another new town. Their petition was granted; and, on the 20th of March, 1777, an Act was passed "for disannexing the Easterly part of the town of Warren in the County of Lincoln from said town and incorporating the same with the Easterly part of a plantation called St. George's in said County, into a Town by the name of THOMASTON." The tract set off from Warren, about six thousand acres, was bounded on the N. W. by a line "beginning on the Easterly side of St. George's River at the Westerly corner of John Alexander's lot, from thence running N. 32º E. about seven miles to the line of the township called Camden;" and this constitutest the present line between Warren on the one side, and Thomaston and Rockland on the other. The other boundaries were as follows, viz .: beginning at the same western corner of John Alexander's lot, "thence running South Westerly and Southerly by St. George's River to a line
. Hon. G. Thorndike, &c.
+ The line between Thomaston and Warren has recently, 1864, on neti- tion of Erastus Lermond and others, been altered, so far as to make Uvs- ter River the boundary from its junction with the George's up to Elder Point at the head of its tide waters.
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ROCKLAND AND SOUTH THOMASTON.
at a spruce tree marked No. 23 and 24 on the Neck on the Eastern side of said river, thence running E. S. E. about three miles between the Lots No. 23 and 24 across the Neck to the sea shore; thence Southeasterly by Muscle Ridge Bay so called, Easterly and Northeasterly by Owl's Head Bay; thence Northwesterly about five miles by Camden line afore- said to where it intersects the first mentioned line, together with all the Islands that lay within three miles of the main land and within the direction of the lines that run to the Sea."
It does not appear from the records by whom the name of the town was selected, nor whose memory it was intended to honor. Major Wheaton seems to have been most actively concerned in getting up and carrying the measure through, - judging from his account of services and expenses in procuring the incorporation, which, as allowed by the town in July fol- lowing, amounted to £39, 8s. 8d. D. Fales's account allowed at the same time, probably for a description of boundaries and other writings, was £5, 14s. The name, according to Williamson's Maine on the authority of H. Prince, Esq., was given in honor of John Thomas, a Major General in the United States Army. This officer was born at Marshfield, then called Green Harbor, in 1724. He studied medicine at Medford and commenced practice at his native place, but soon re- moved to Kingston, where he practiced successfully, except when connected with the army, till his decease. In 1746, he accompanied the troops to Annapolis, N. S., in the capacity of Second Surgeon. In 1755, he joined Shirley's regiment, as Surgeon's Mate, but was soon appointed Lieutenant. In 1759, he received a Colonel's commission, and commanded the Massachusetts and New Hampshire troops at the capture of Montreal. In 1775, he was chosen Lieut. General by the Provincial Congress; but the Continental Congress, in making appointments for the army, overlooked him, and he left his command at Roxbury. At the earnest solicitation, however, of Washington, Lec, and others, he was induced to resume it, and, in March, 1776, was sent by Washington to fortify Dorchester Heights. While commanding there, Congress ap- pointed him Major General and sent him to take command of the ariny . which had been led into Canada by Montgomery and Arnold. After a fatiguing journey through the wilder- ness, he reached the camp before Quebec, only to find the army to which he had been appointed, dying with small-pox : not more than nine hundred men being fit for service. He raised the siege and retreated to the mouth of the Sorel River.
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HISTORY OF THOMASTON,
While there, he was himself attacked by small-pox, and died June 2, 1776. "The remains of this beloved son of Green Harbor and of Liberty, are resting on the frontiers of our country, in an unrecorded grave.
He midst the forests of our land By a dark stream was laid : The Indian knew his place of rest Far in the cedar shade."*
A marble cenotaph, in the old grave-yard of Kingston, bears the following inscription : "Erected to the memory of John Thomas, Major General: Commander-in-Chief of the Army in Canada in the Revolutionary War; who died at Chamblee, June 2, 1776."+
The honor of giving name to Thomaston has also been claimed for Waterman Thomas of Waldoboro', a nephew of the General, who had come from Marshfield some half dozen years before, and was now doing business at the former place as a merchant. As he was at that time a man of great popu- larity, doing an extensive business, and also a zealous politi- cian on the whig side, as well as intimately allied by friend- ship and marriage to Mr. Wheaton, it is not improbable that a compliment to him, together with his deceased uncle, was intended. But when, in later times, this gentleman's fortune departed, and he, as collector of the customs, proved to be a defaulter, his popularity and reputation having declined with his fortune, it was natural that the people here should not be over sedulous to keep up the connection between his name and that of the town. It probably, therefore, gradually dropped from the memory of the first inhabitants, and was wholly unknown to their successors; so that when it was un- derstood here that he had been represented to be the godfather of Thomaston, by one of his sons in a distant State, the mat- ter created surprise and was treated with ridicule as an idle assumption.
The suggestion that the name might have been adopted from Thomaston in Ireland, by the original emigrants, is of recent date, and, as few or none of those were living when it was first named, and none of them that we are aware of came from that place, we think it undeserving of credit. A friend of the compiler, Wm. Stowe, Esq., of Boston, who in the midst of an active business life has found time for much topographical and antiquarian research, informs me that the
* Memorials of Marshfield, by Marcia A. Thomas. , + G. S. Newcomb, Esq , of Kingston.
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ROCKLAND AND SOUTH THOMASTON.
name Thomaston in the Saxon language of our ancestors is compounded of Tho, signifying a village; Mas, fenny or marshy; and Ton a hill; - making the very appropriate de- scription of the place, a hill town, with marshes or meadows. But still, this must have been a mere coincidence, wholly un =. known to its sponsors.
At the time of its incorporation, Thomaston contained 47 persons (including one female, Mary, widow of the late John Shibles) possessing ratable estates ; and ten others paying only a poll-tax. Besides such as have been already mentioned, these were James Weed, Samuel and James Brown, and Israel Lovett, all of whom, together with James'Stackpole on his farm purchased of James Fales, came, it is believed, from New Meadows or Harpswell, in 1774 or earlier, and settled below the Robbins lots, along the Bay of George's River toward Simonton's Point. Being from the same region and mostly connected by marriage or otherwise, they formed a friendly and congenial neighborhood. Taler, Joseph, and David Smallee, probably brothers, were residing at the Southern part of the town, but removed we believe at an early period to St. George. Michael Long was residing cn the farm since called the Phinley Kelloch lot, adjoining the town line of St. George. Wm. Thompson, who was soon joined by his brother John, settled east of the Meadows; though the latter afterwards removed to the southern part of the town on the St. George road, and his place at the Mead- ows was probably taken by his brother Ebenezer. Hugh
Killsa settled not far distant, " at a place called Madam- betticks," according to the deed of his brother James Killsa, who, Nov. 5, 1776, purchased of David Robbins the adjoin- ing lot, since somewhat celebrated as " the Killsa farm," and on which he resided till his death. To the Shore settlement had been added Constant Rankin, who, in 1775, came from York in York County, took up land on or near the mountain, but subsequently exchanged with Tolman and removed nearer the shore ; and perhaps John Bowler, of whom, however, nothing has been handed down. At the Wessaweskeag, also, had arrived Hezekiah Bachelder, probably from New Meadows, who had married the widow and succeeded to the farm of John Ross, an earlier settler from the same place ; also Thomas Clark who died not long after. David Welch and Joseph Smith we have been unable to locate; and, among those who paid only a poll-tax, were John Adams and Henry Fling. To these, were added, this year, 1777, Benja- min Blackington, who settled west of the Meadows, and, one
VOL. I. 11
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HISTORY OF THOMASTON,
year later, Comfort Barrows in the same neighborhood, now Rockland.
The petition for incorporation seems to have been intrusted to Benjamin Burton; for we find in his memorandum-book an account of getting a town on the St. George's incorporated ; from which it appears that he set off on horseback, Nov. 26th preceding, and, Dec. 1st, crossed Winnesimmet ferry into Boston, - thus making a journey in six days which is now performed in about twelve hours. This prompt and versatile man was left, near the close of the last French and Indian war, an orphan at the age of thirteen, at his father's residence in the old stone block-house in Cushing. Under the influence probably of a good mother and especially of a fond and influ- ential aunt, he early imbibed many excellent principles, among others an utter aversion to the use of ardent spirits which he retained through life. He showed a good me- . chanical genius, commencing the use of tools when quite a boy, eventually with little or no instruction became a skill- ful house, mill, and shipcarpenter, and seems to have under- taken this journey almost at the moment of closing his sum- mer's work in the present town of Union, where he had been employed, with B. Packard and Nat. Fales, on the buildings of Dr. Taylor. Whilst there, in September, 1776, probably through the influence of Taylor, he was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Continental army, and, in April following the town's incorporation, was promoted to a Captaincy in Col. Thorburn's regiment on Rhode Island. In person he was a very tall, large, straight man, though in age somewhat bent and stooping; quick and animated in motion and conversa- tion; his complexion light, with expressive features and strongly marked and prominent nose. He was probably on his way to join the army when the petition was intrusted to him by Col. Wheaton, who was the principal agent in getting it up, and who is represented in some of the floating tradi- tions to have himself made such a journey on horseback for that purpose. If this were so, he must have returned imme- diately after the passage of the act of incorporation, as, in eleven days thereafter, Waterinan Thomas before alluded to, by virtue of authority conferred upon him by said Act, issued a warrant to Mason Wheaton, requiring him to notify and " warn the freeholders and other male inhabitants above the age of twenty-one within the town of Thomaston to assemble on Monday the 21st day of April next at ten of the clock in the forenoon at the Dwelling House of Oliver Robbins in said town, to choose all Town officers as the law directs."
T
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ROCKLAND AND SOUTH THOMASTON.
Accordingly, fourteen days' notice having been given, the cit- izens met and held their first town meeting at the place and time appointed; and, having chosen David Fales moderator, immediately voted to adjourn the meeting to his house. . The reason of the last vote does not appear from the records; but may with great probability be inferred from the fact that he was then an innholder skilled in the manufacture of flip, punch, and other alcoholic mixtures; and the custom of treating the company with such on being honored with a town office, probably prevailed then as it certainly did for a long period afterwards. After the adjournment, the meeting made choice of Dr. Fales as town clerk, an office seemingly incompatible with that of moderator already conferred ; but he appears to have had no difficulty in the simultaneous dis- charge of both; as the meeting seems to have been properly conducted and the record made up with correctness in his well-known clear and beautiful hand-writing. For the first four years the records were kept on loose sheets; but in March, 1781, the town voted "to accept and pay for the Town Book that is now offered; and pay for entering on record such matters as have been transacted in the town, proper for recording."
The meeting then proceeded to choose the usual town of- ficers, as follows: "Col. Mason Wheaton, Lieut. John Mathews, and David Fales, Eso., selectinen; the same gen- tlemen, assessors ; Col. Wheator , town treasurer; Capt. Jona- than Spear, Lieut. Mathews, and Jonathan Crockett, com- mittee of correspondence, inspection, and safety; Elisha Snow, constable; Oliver Robbins, Capt. Spear, and David Smallee, wardens ; Isaiah Tolman, James Stackpole and Taler Smallee, surveyors of highways; O. Robbins, tythingman ; WVm. Thomson and Wm. Heard, fence viewers; Joseph Smallee, informer of deer; Lieut. Mathews and Constant Rankin, hog-reeves; Lieut. Mathews, surveyor of boards; Daniel Morse, culler of staves; Wm. Thomson, hayward; Col. Wheaton, sealer of weights and measures; Samuel Bartlett, sealer of leather; and Messrs. Stackpole, Mathews, and Tolman, a committee for examining the accounts of those persons that have demands upon the town for Services and Expenses in procuring the Incorporation."
Thus, having been duly named and launched upon the political waters, the new town was now fully manned, and ready to spread her sails to the breeze and commence her voyage into the as yet unknown ocean of years. The Select- men, thus chosen, being duly sworn to the faithful discharge
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