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 25
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 25
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 25
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
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ROCKLAND AND SOUTH THOMASTON.
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Yet these failings were easily overlooked ; and, from aught that tradition has handed down, it does not appear that he was at all undeserving of the poetic eulogy bestowed upon him in his life-time by a cotemporary writer, who thus apos- trophized him :
"Raised by thy toils the brazen bulwark stands, Thy care creates it, and thy voice commands ; - Yet as the truly brave are truly kind, And mildest manners mark the noblest mind, So, while a country's wrong thy spirit fires And patriot ardor every deed inspires. Not more in arms revered than loved by fame For every worth the social virtues claim, - In war, the terror of the blazing line, In peace, the soul of gentleness is thine."
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CHAPTER XII.
EVENTS IN GENERAL FROM 1795 TO CLOSE OF THE CEN- TURY.
THE Baptist society, under the care of Mr. Snow, contin- ued to prosper ; and this season, 1795, something of a revival took place and many were added to the church. Thus en- couraged, the society set about providing a house of worship ; Wm. Rowell and Ephraim Snow gave land for its site, and in 1796 the present church edifice was erected. This has since, in 1847, been greatly improved by lowering the gallery, removing the entrance from the front side to the west end, adding at that end a belfry and steeple and remodeling the pews and pulpit to correspond, -still remaining the only house of worship in South Thomaston, and increasing the interest as well as beauty of its principal village. The orig- inal house was built on contract by H. Prince, then residing in that village, was raised June 23, 1796, and the lower part finished by Aug. 20, 1797 ; three days after which the Bap- tist Association was held in it. The adjacent burying-ground was used, as occasion offered, from the first settlement of the place ; but, though the town voted, April 6, 1818, to allow $50 for fencing, it lay unfenced till 1824 or later, when, at the suggestion of Asa Coombs, Esq., the citizens turned out July 5th, hauled rock, and walled it in. A claim having been made on the town for this service, and a deed procured from Mr. Snow, in accordance with the town's vote to allow the same whenever such deed should be given, some $40 or $50 were received from its treasury.
In May, 1795, Perez Tilson from Halifax, Mass., came to the place, and, a year or two after, married and settled on the farm which he long and successfully managed, and which still remains in the hands of his descendants. He was ac- companied, or soon followed, by Walter Hatch from the same neighborhood, and the two commenced trading in company ; but after a few years Hatch returned to his native place. Tilson was one of the founders of the first Congregational church in 1809, of which he became deacon and remained a worthy member and steady supporter till his death in his 88th year. His elder brother, William, as before noted, came earlier, and for many years kept a public house - the site of which is occupied by the dwelling of Wm. Thompson, in Rockland. About this time, also, Joshua Adams came to
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Owl's Head from Lincolnville, where he had worked for some years as a blacksmith, and now commenced the same business here. Industrious and frugal, with a quick eye for business and great promptness in seizing opportunities, he rapidly ac- cumulated property, went into trade, built vessels in dull times when wages and materials were low, and seldom failed of having them ready to take advantage of a favorable turn of the times. He is said to have built the first ship in the town.
Philip Hanson came from Dover, N. H., about this time, or not long after, and commenced the tanning and shoemak- ing business near the present Mill-river school-house, next adjoining which, on the same side of the way, was his dwell- inghouse. He was an active and popular man ; was for a time, it is believed, deputy sheriff ; opened a store of dry goods below the present residence of R. C. Counce, Esq., with a basement for heavy articles ; built two or more vessels; and carried on his several branches of business with success till his untimely death in 1804. Peter Stone, a tanner from Framingham, was employed in Hanson's yard, and after his death carried it on a few years for himself, but removed to Castine and there married for his second wife a daughter of Dr. Oliver Mann. Tanning was also commenced at an un- certain date, but probably in 1792 or 3, by Benjamin Wil- liams, in South Thomaston on the eighth lot above the St. George line, who carried it on to a moderate extent for some years. He came from Harpswell, and was followed by two . of his brothers in 1805 and 6, one of whom, Daniel, took the farm since occupied by Perley Graves, but at that time settled by Samuel Otis, who exchanged with Williams and removed to Harpswell. Dea. James Weed, also, in the same neighborhood, had done something at the same business, but, it is believed, to no great extent. Another new-comer to the Mill-river neighborhood, about 1791, was Asa Bennett, from Ashby, Mass., whose comic minstrelsy and doggerel rhymes contributed much to the merriment of the huskings, raisings, and other gatherings of the time. Besides his oc- cupation as a cooper, he seems, by some of his verses still extant, to have tried his hand at trade also, "down by the Mill Creek ;" but settled, or at least lived for a time, in the . Healey neighborhood west of the Meadows.
The impulse given to business about this time was not confined to the western part of the town. Ship-building at Wessaweskeag had been and was at this time carried on to a considerable extent, as we find the schooner Betsey & Jennie
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was built this and the following season by Coombs and Elder Snow .* The latter of these gentlemen was the first to begin the business there, and, in connection with his sons, most of whom were also ship masters and very enterprising men, car- ried it on successfully for many years. Coombs also began this business at an early period, having built the Experiment sometime before the close of the war, and, before the present year, the Little Sullie and the Arthur, in both of which the Fessendens of Boston took shares. At the Shore or future Rockland also, John Ulmer, this year, it is believed, built a small sloop, which subsequently, being loaded with lime, took fire and was consumed in Boston harbor. Not far from the same time too, I. Barrows built the sloop Olive, and John Crockett, the schooner Friendship.
The season of 1795 appears to have been a cold one; as it is remarked, by a traveller here in the autumn, that "the mercury in the thermometer has not, in the course of the present year, risen above 72º of Fahrenheit or 1710 of Reau- mur, in the vicinity of St. George's River. There has been much cold and rainy weather."t
1796. About this time, probably, a thrilling scene and mournful accident were witnessed at Wessaweskeag. As Oli- ver Keating and his sister Miriam were crossing the river on their way to school, upon a single plank or timber which formed the only bridge there had yet been in that place, the boy fell off into the water. His sister instantly plunged in after to save him; and Mr. Coombs perceiving the trouble jumped immediately from the flood-gates in order to rescue both, but succeeded only in saving the sister. To effect this, required the utmost exertion of all his strength, insomuch that he was unable to walk on reaching the shore; while she, from her concern for her brother, was so excited mentally that she experienced no ill effect from the plunge. A daughter of Mr. Stackpole had narrowly escaped drowning on a pre- vious occasion, but was saved by Sullivan, the school master, who kept her above water till Coombs came to their assist- ance in a boat.t These accidents acted as a spur to the slug- gish intentions that the citizens had before entertained of pro- viding a more commodious passage across the river there ; and the first Wessaweskeag bridge, supported by wooden piers,
* Notes and memoranda by H. Prince, Esq, who did the joiner work in 1796.
t Travels in North America by the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt, p. 423. vol. 1.
+ Messrs, R. Rowell and A. Coombs.
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was accordingly built by H. Prince the present year, and the expense defrayed, we believe, by voluntary subscriptions. Ten years later, in 1806, it was reconstructed by the same builder, with abutments of cob-work and earth, by order and at the expense of the town, which, Nov., 1811, voted $200 for its repair. It was again repaired in 1835.
Another exciting but less fatal incident, in the same neigh- borhood, was experienced in the summer of this year. Char- lotte, a little three-year old daughter of Robert Thorndike, went out to play, strayed into the woods, and, when missed, was nowhere to be found. An alarm was immediately given, the neighbors turned out, horns were sounded, and the search continued with the aid of dogs all through the night, without awakening the little sleeper. The following day she was found by her father about a half mile from the house, asleep and uninjured, on the declivity towards the shore.
At another time, the date of which has not come down to us, a similar but more nearly fatal. case happened also in what is now South Thomaston, on the George's river side. One of the many sons of Benjamin Williams, then about four years old, was told by his mother, who was busy in her baking operations, to go out and get her some oven-wood. This was the last she saw or thought of him till supper-time, when one seat at table was found vacant. Search was then made by the family and their neight ors through the night, and renewed all the next day, but without effect. The following day, almost every man and woman from the settlement of Wessaweskeag turned out to their aid ; but still, with all their shouting, blowing of horns, and the help of keen-scented dogs, no trace of the child could be found. On the third day, however, Tristram Jordan, who had felt at first that he could not afford to leave his work at shoemaking to join in the search, now, - in consequence of his labor not proceeding with its usual success, his wax crumbling, his thread snarling, with other petty annoyances, - began to entertain a convic- tion that he ought to be looking for that child. Accordingly, with a strong impression, amounting to full confidence that he was destined to find him, though perhaps in a starving con- dition, he took some bread and butter in his pocket, set off, and went directly to the spot where the poor child lay, ex- ' hausted and helpless. Though considerably bruised by falls and freble from want of food, the boy was carried home to his afflicted but now joyful family, and after much care and VOL. 1. 20
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nursing through the night, rapidly recovered, and is still, (1862) among the living .*
In 1796, Rev. Paul Coffin, D. D. of Buxton, was sent as a missionary and visited the frontier settlements on Sandy River, the upper Kennebec, and across the country to Belfast, returning by the sea-shore. The following extract from his journal, while passing this locality, may be of interest. " Aug. 14th. Duck-trap. Sabbath. [At] Squire Ulmer's. Preached from John 12: 46, to about ninety hearers. I was, I think, the first missionary who gave them a Sabbath. . . 15th. Cambden, formerly Meduncook. [Megunticook.] Squire McGlathry treated me with true and simple politeness and hospitality. This is a place beautiful for situation and promising for trade. . . . 15th. Cambden, Thomaston, and Warren. Rode this day about twenty miles to Warren, and put up with Rev. Jonathan Huse. This road was quite good, compared with what I passed through in most of the places of my mission. I passed through Clam Cove in Cambden; then through Thomaston, where the famous Georgetown Lime is burnt, now called Thomaston Lime. Here is a pretty meeting-house, hipt roofed. Mill River has a bridge over it, and some houses and a trader or two near it, as is also the meeting-house. Here saw several waggons which was a rare sight, as I saw few iron-bound wheels in my mission. This town and Warren look like old places. The latter [quære, former? ] is seventy years old and has had a Mr. Rutherford for its minister. Dined at Gen. Knox's. His house is ad- mirably situated, looking south, almost directly down George's River, which makes a kind of a bay, and salt water here. The river itself empties below his house, and I did not cross it till I arrived almost to Rev. Huse's, about six miles from the General's. Before this, between the General's and George's River, I crossed another, called Oyster River. The general has a garden fenced ovally. Indeed circles and semi- circles in his fences, &c., seem to be all the mode here. His house draws air beyond all the ventilators which I had before seen. I was almost frozen for three hours before we took dinner and a plenty of wine. The General being absent, gone East, in a Portland Packet with Mr. Bingham, t I dined
* Mrs. S Fuller. Capt. R. Thorndike.
+ Probably looking to the wild land of which he became an extensive purchaser. Bingham was accompanied to Thomaston by his wife. two daughters, wife's sister. Miss Willing, afterward engaged to Louis Phil- lippe, the Viscount de Troailles, brother-in-law of Lafayette, and one of the most polished nobles of the French Court, Mr. Richards of England,
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with Mrs. Knox and her daughters, and Mrs. Bingham and her sister and daughter. We had a merry dinner, the little misses talking French in a gay mood. Mrs. Bingham was sensible, had been in France, could talk of European politics, and give the history of the family of the late king of France, &c. The General's house with double piazzas round the whole of it, &c., exceeded all I had seen. In Warren and. Thomaston, you see lime-kilns, cooper's shops, and casks and wagons, which things as you come from the eastward seem new. 20th. Saturday. The weather is still very dry, and has been for three weeks."*
Notwithstanding the marks of improvement which Mr. Cof- fin seems to have discovered, the town must have presented at this time a very different aspect from that which it now wears, in its three municipalities. It was still a woody re- gion, interspersed with straggling clearings, dotted here and there with small, low, unpainted houses, many of them of logs and some few of hewn timber, distant from each other, along half-made or newly laid out highways scarcely fit for wheel vehicles of any kind. The Beech Woods then meant something; a heavy growth of that beautiful tree covered the place, with the exception of the Fales clearings; and the road from thence led through a dense forest, quite down to the present Main street, Thomaston. From Knox street between Main street and the St. George's, a forest, partially divested of its heaviest growth, extended nearly or quite down to Mill River. On the Warren road, beginning at Oyster River, were the houses of Nathaniel Woodcock ; Robert Porterfield, nearly opposite the present house of Mrs. Walker; Robert Shibles on the southern side of the road, and John Shibles on the northern side; John Dillaway on the same side, about where the Washingtonian liberty pole was erected in 1843; Abiathar Smith, in an old dilapidated log-house on the corner east of Wadsworth street; Drs. Dodge and Webb, or their successor Wm. Watson (2d), on the farm next to Dillaway's, at a little distance north of the road ; Thomas Stevens, next, on the same side; then David Jenks's public house, where Dr. Rose now lives; then Jonathan Lampson, where the Keegan store stands; and Mason Wheaton in his small, new, framed or plank house at the foot of Mill River hill. East of Mill River, a few clearings and dwellings were seen along
and Alex. Baring afterwards Lord Ashburton, who in 1798 married Mr. Bingham's daughter Ann Louise, -all of whom spent six weeks here, a gay and brilliant party in the wildy of Maine. Mrs. Thatcher. &c.
* Contin's Missionary Tour in Coll. of Me. Hist. Soc. Vol. IV. p. 326-7.
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the banks of the George's, its Bay, the Meadows, and the Camden road. Of the future divisions of the town, South Thomaston was, prior to the coming of Knox. considerably the most populous, and could boast of the busiest and most enterprising village. The Shore, as Rockland was then called, lay wholly out of the traveller's range of observation, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a village; being approached only by a private way leading from the Camden road at Blackington's Corner. There was, however, no want of places of entertainment, since three persons in that part of the town, were this year licensed as innholders, as will ap- pear by Table VII. The first two-story house, in the future city, had been erected by Jonathan Spear, Jr., on the west side of what is now Main street, Rockland, a few rods north of Pleasant street; and a second was this year added by Capt. John Ulmer on the site where Messrs. B. and H. Ulmer have since built a block of stores and Atlantic Hall. Ulmer was at the same time building a small sloop, to take the place of the one burnt in Boston." As to the good roads spoken of by Mr. Coffin, it must be remembered he passed on horse- back and in a dry season. Corduroy bridges and causeways were universal; by which every brook and springy place and long reaches of bog and quagmire, especially near Mill River and the Head of the Bay, were made passable, though in Spring scarcely so.
Duke Rochefoucault also made another visit at Knox's in September of this year -making the passage from and to Boston in the sloop of Capt. E. Kelleran, whom he charac- terizes as "a very civil, good-natured man." He remarks that " the General's settlement assumes considerable stability. A part of his useful projects begin to be realized. . His popularity, his gentle and frank mode of pro- ceeding with the unlicensed settlers on his lands, confirm all his prospects of success." Yet the Duke's keen discernment led him to remark, also, that " his works cost him more than, · with greater regularity and watchfulness, they ought to have cost him. He undertakes too many things at once, to be able each day to inspect them all with sufficient care." The Duke perceived symptoms of increasing wealth here, in the. augmented price of lands ; of timber; of fire-wood, which, from $1 at the landing last year, now sold at $1,50 ; of carpenter's wages, which, from $10, had risen to $11 a month ; of cattle, risen one seventh; and in the number of
* Mrs. Hannah Watson, and others.
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vessels now on the stocks, eleven in the several towns on St. George's river having been added since 1795. Lime, how- ever, in consequence of the increased number of kilns in op- eration, had fallen from 10s. 9d. to 8s. or 9s .; and " hay had risen one tenth, but merely on account of the drought of the season." *
D. Fales, Jr., Capt. Reed, and J. Bentley, were appointed a committee " to take care of the town Landing and see that it be not obstructed." The Legislature having passed an Act requiring towns to furnish a survey of their territory for a State map, the town voted that J. Coombs be appointed to make such survey and to allow him £31 for performing that service ; but, as he was no surveyor, it is probable that the task was not performed. The town, also, being called upon to collect the sense of its legal voters as to the expediency of revising or amending the State Constitution, conformable to a provision in that instrument; gave, May 6th, twenty-seven votes, the whole number cast, in favor of such revision. At the usual May meeting, the choice of representative resulted in the election of Capt. Reed; but, from some cause not as- certainable from the records, a subsequent meeting was called on the 18th of that month, when the former choice was re- considered and Dea. Brown elected.
The first regular-bred lawyer in the place was Samuel Jen- nison, a graduate of Harvard, who came here not far from this time, and resided for the rest of his days. But either from want of business, or the habits he had acquired as an officer in the army, he did little in his profession, except as a scrivener.
It was in January of this year that a meeting by appoint- ment took place at Frost's tavern in Warren, between Dr. Dodge of this town and Cornelius Turner of Waldoboro', which, as it throws some light upon the character of the times and of individuals, may be worth mentioning. The Doctor had, some time before this, contracted with Turner to build him a small sloop for carrying lime; but when the ves- sel was built according to contract, for some reason he refus- ed to take her. Turner sued for damages, and, after the ac- tion was continued 'one or two terms, the present meeting was held for the purpose of attempting a compromise. After talking the matter over and making muturl offers, they came within $100 of agreeing. Nearer than this they were unable to come and were on the point of parting, when Dodge offer-
.* Travels in North America, vol. 2, pp. 179, 180.
20*
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ed to split the difference. This being refused, he then pro- posed to decide by a game at cards whether he should pay the $100 or Turner accept the $50. To this Turner agreed. He won the game and Dodge gave his note for $100. paya- ble in thirty days with interest. When the note became due, the latter refused to pay, on the ground that it was a gam- bling debt and not recoverable by law. Turner sued ; and the case was continued from term to term and carried by the defendant, by appeal, to the Supreme Court, where, at the July term, in 1800, it was finally disposed of. At the trial, before Judge R. Treat Paine, who was distinguished for his stern severity, all the circumstances of the transaction were proved, the case was argued at length, and the Judge charg- ed the jury somewhat as follows : - " Gentlemen, we all know the evil of gambling; its pernicious tendency cannot be too deeply lamented. It is a vice which we all ought to set our faces against in the most determined manner. Magis- trates and juries are bound to discountenance it in every possible way. But, gentlemen, but-when two men have a difference which they attempt to settle, and come within $50 of effecting it, and then undertake by a game of cards to de- cide which party shall lose the remaining $50, -a-a-ah, gen- tlemen, you have the whole subject before you ; you will take everything into consideration and make up such a verdict, under all the circumstances, as you shall think just and rea- sonable." And, without any instruction as to what the law was, the jury retired and brought in a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $126,50. The cost amounted to $57,88.
Truth compels us to say that the practice of card-playing with its attendant vices of gambling, drinking, and late hours, received too much countenance at this time from those whose position enabled them to take the lead in social circles. It arose partly, perhaps, from the scarcity of books, newspapers, and other means of rational entertainment. Merchants, law- yers, physicians, and, in some instances even clergymen, were not free from the contagion, which gradually extended to other classes, insomuch that it was one great recommendation of a newly settled minister in a neighboring town that he was free from these immoralities. The Rev. Thurston Whiting, of Warren, frequently employed as a preacher in this and the neighboring towns, had been an intimate acquaintance of Dr. Dodge at college. The two differed from each other ; yet they had many traits in common, such as a lurking love of mischief at other people's expense, a keen sense of the ridiculous, the sublime, the passionate, and the daring. Both
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were equally fond of epic and dramatic poetry, loved the cre- ations of Shakspeare and Milton, and, with the aid of school- master Sullivan, delighted to personate Falstaff and Hamlet, Richard Third, and the fallen archangel. In the last of these characters, Dodge was pre-eminently successful. "Milton makes him a noble fellow !" he once exclaimed to the writer, after reading with glowing countenance and flashing eye the speech of the defeated Lucifer, closing with, " for me, I'd rather reign in hell, than serve in heaven." Sullivan de- lighted in Falstaff, and all kinds of humor; but his forte was in the character of Richard, the night before the battle at Bosworth field; when with a visage naturally wild enough, he would exclaim like one suddenly frightened from sleep, "a horse ! my kingdom for a horse !" With companions so con- genial in many respects, it is not to be wondered at that the amiable and too facile Whiting, in times when cards and spirituous liquors were deemed essential in the highest cir- cles, should be occasionally drawn into excesses unbecoming the clerical character. These, however, were not indulged in without compunction of conscience, and, in his later years especially, were looked upon with the deepest contrition and remorse. These three persons are here brought together on account of their literary taste alone, and not from any general resemblance of character or particular intimacy in other re- spects. Whiting seldom lost sight wholly of the proprieties of his calling ; Dodge, though a lover of good eating and drinking, did not allow either to interfere with his business habits ; whilst Sullivan, constitutionally subject to intervals of depressed spirits, would fly to intoxication for relief and make a mere beast of himself for weeks. Between these spells, returning to such employment as he could obtain either as teacher or shoemaker, he would apply himself to his business assiduously, soberly, and sometimes moodily, yet never willingly omitting an opportunity for a witty joke or sarcastic repartee. On one occasion, when he was employed at his trade by Whiting partly from pity, partly for profit, that clergyman was setting out, on Sunday morning, to preach in a neighboring town and inquired of his wife, who had been brushing his coaf, if there were any stains upon it. Thereupon Sullivan spoke up suddenly, "the stains are in your heart, Mr. Whiting." Though a firm adherent to the Catholic church, he was not insensible to some of its weaker points. He was wont to exclaim to his drinking companions " thanks to the council of Trent; they forbade us- to eat meat on Fridays, but let us drink as much rum as we please !"
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