History of the city of Belfast in the state of Maine, Volume II, 1875-1900, Part 3

Author: Williamson, Joseph, 1828-1902; Johnson, Alfred, b. 1871; Williamson, William Cross, 1831-1903
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Portland, Loring, Short and Harmon
Number of Pages: 854


USA > Maine > Waldo County > Belfast > History of the city of Belfast in the state of Maine, Volume II, 1875-1900 > Part 3


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 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69


STEAMER CITY OF ROCKLAND. BUILT IN 1901. LEAVING BELFAST WHARF . 204


SHIP NORTHERN CHIEF OF 1136 TONS. BUILT AT BELFAST, IN 1852 204


Commanded by Captain William G. Veazie, this ship made a voyage round Cape Horn in 1859, with the captain's daughter, Abigail Jane, and Edward Johnson, of Belfast, as passengers.


BELFAST NATIONAL BANK AFTER CONSTRUCTION OF ODD FELLOWS' BUILDING IN 1888 212


The Odd Fellows' Building occupies the site of the American House, burned in 1885. Howes Block, built in 1885, and the Masonic Temple, built in 1878, may be seen in left background. View taken 1890.


xxxii


ILLUSTRATIONS


BELFAST NATIONAL BANK IN 1886 OR 1887, BEFORE CONSTRUC- TION OF ODD FELLOWS' BLOCK, AND AFTER ERECTION OF HOWES BLOCK . . 212


THE WHITE PAPER MILL, GOOSE RIVER, EAST BELFAST. BUILT IN 1852 . 220


This was the first paper mill on Goose River, East Belfast. It was established in 1852, with a capital of $50,000, by George T. White & Co., and was later purchased and operated by William A. Russell & Co., of Lawrence, Massachusetts. It became subsequently the pro- perty of Sherman and Co., who devoted it to the manufacture of leather-board.


SHERMAN LEATHER-BOARD MILL, EAST BELFAST, 1912 . 220 CRITCHETT AND SIBLEY SHOE FACTORY. ORIGINAL BUILDING ERECTED IN 1872. (VIEW TAKEN IN 1907) . . 222


DANA'S SARSAPARILLA BUILDING. LATER USED BY THE DUPLEX ROLLER BUSHING COMPANY 224


MATHEWS BROTHERS' SASH, BLIND, AND DOOR FACTORY. BUILT IN 1873 . . 224


LAUNCHING OF BARKENTINE JOSEPHINE, 1892. McDONALD AND BROWN'S SHIP-YARD 226


Built for Morton Stewart & Co., of Baltimore.


FOUR-MASTED BARKENTINE JOSEPHINE. BUILT IN 1892. (AN OLD PINKY MAY BE SEEN IN THE FOREGROUND) . . 228


SCHOONER POLLY, OLDEST AMERICAN VESSEL NOW IN COMMISSION. BUILT IN 1805 . 232 THE POLLY IN NEW YORK HARBOR.


THE POLLY AT HOME IN BELFAST HARBOR - 1904.


She was built at Amesbury, Massachusetts, and has plied the New England coast for over a century, She bears a bronze tablet, stating that she was a privateer in the War of 1812.


RUINS OF PHOENIX ROW FIRE, 1887 . 242


RUINS OF AMERICAN HOUSE FIRE, 1885 . 242


MASONIC TEMPLE. ERECTED IN 1878 . . 254


DRUM MAJORS, WILLIAM HENRY SANBORN AND DONALD ORMAN ROBBINS . 266 .


At the time of the picture (1898), Messrs. Sanborn and Robbins were acting as Drum Majors for the Belfast Military Band. Mr. Sanborn, weighing two hundred and sixty-one pounds, was the largest man doing military duty in Maine, and Mr. Robbins was the smallest man in the State. It was said at the time that he was forty years old, was forty inches high, and weighed just forty pounds.


MAIN STREET, LOOKING TOWARD THE HARBOR FROM HIGH STREET. WINTER, 1911 . 270


THE COOT CLUB ON THE STEAMER CASTINE 270


xxxiii


ILLUSTRATIONS


THE ACADEMY. PRESENT BUILDING ERECTED 1846. LATER SOUTH PRIMARY SCHOOL . 280


Here many of the descendants of the founders of the town received their education and it was here that the early college students were pre- pared.


THE GIRLS' HOME. OPENED IN 1895 280


OLD PINKY MAINE. BUILT IN 1845. . 306


FOUR-MASTED BARKENTINE DORIS. LAUNCHED IN 1894 . 306


Built for Morton Stewart & Co., of Baltimore, by McDonald and Brown, of Belfast.


LOWER BRIDGE AND UPPER HARBOR AT LOW TIDE 312


This bridge is also referred to as the East Bridge. The buildings in the centre are the house and shops of Samuel Batson Holt, the boat- builder: beyond was his landing, a spot dear to the boys of his time.


OLD SCHOONER HENRY AND UPPER HARBOR FROM END OF THE 312 BRIDGE


MAJOR TIMOTHY CHASE, 1793-1875 384


STEPHENSON TAVERN. BUILT IN 1800, BY JEROME STEPHENSON 394


This was one of the first "public-houses" opened in Belfast, and is one of the three still standing of the many which existed during the first part of the last century. The original signboard, with a black horse painted upon it, is still in existence, as shown hanging upon the well sweep.


OLDEST HOUSE NOW STANDING IN THE CITY PROPER. BUILT IN 1792, BY ROBERT MILLER . 394


When the Public Library was erected, in 1887, the house was removed to Bridge Street, where it stands in 1913. View taken before removal.


GEORGE BROOKS FERGUSON, 1832-1893 . 462


PASSAGASSAWAKEAG RIVER FROM FIELD HOMESTEAD, PRIMROSE


HILL . 502


PASSAGASSAWAKEAG RIVER, BELFAST HARBOR AND BAY, LOOKING EAST, FROM UPPER HIGH STREET 502


ALFRED JOHNSON HOMESTEAD. BUILT IN 1801 514


RALPH CROSS JOHNSON HOMESTEAD. BUILT IN 1812 . 514 HIGH STREET LOOKING TOWARD PRIMROSE HILL. WINTER, 1887 514 The six stores of Phoenix Row may be seen on the right as they were before the fire of June 12, 1887. This block was among the oldest busi- ness buildings in Belfast, having been erected in 1824.


JOHN HARADEN QUIMBY, 1829-1899 522


PHINEAS PARKHURST QUIMBY, 1802-1866 522


ASA FAUNCE, 1813-1889 . 522


COLUMBIA PERKINS CARTER, 1813-1876 . 522


XXXIV


ILLUSTRATIONS


MAPS AND PLANS


MAP OF BELFAST IN 1855 . 178


The original map, from which the above was made, is 44 inches by 50 inches square, divided into two parts; the upper half showing the entire five wards of the city, and the lower half, which is reproduced in part here, giving the streets in the city proper on a scale of about 12 rods to the inch. The old map contains along its right, left, and upper borders, twenty-four lithographs showing the public buildings, places of busi- ness, and principal residences of Belfast. Along its streets the names of the owners were printed with the buildings throughout the map. Ow- ing to the smallness of the scale of our reproduction, it has been neces- sary to use numbers in place of the names and buildings which were on the original. The latter was inscribed in the lower left-hand corner as follows: Map | of the City of | Belfast | Waldo Co. | Maine | From actual survey by D. S. Osborne | published by | E. M. Woodford | Philadelphia | 1855. |


For key to reproduction see back of Map.


PLAN OF HIGH STREET, AS WIDENED IN 1879 179


MAP OF BELFAST IN 1913 . 180


The plan was copied and revised to date in 1913, by Augustus Daniel Hayes, city engineer, from the map made for the Belfast Water Com- pany, in 1890. Note Water Street built in 1912, and the extensions of Front, Court, and Charles streets made since 1890, the two former being mentioned in the text, chapter xxv, on Streets and Roads.


MAP OF NORTHPORT AVENUE AND VICINITY IN THE EARLY PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 184 For description see page 184.


PLAN OF CUSTOM-HOUSE SQUARE, ABOUT 1840 . 189


PLAN OF BURNED DISTRICT, AMERICAN HOUSE FIRE, 1885 . . 243


HISTORY OF BELFAST


HISTORY OF BELFAST


CHAPTER I


PHYSICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE HISTORY


Latitude and Longitude - Maps - Engravings - Descriptive Poem by Mrs. Rebecca Palfrey Utter - Directories - Harbor Improvements - Monu- ment - Miscellaneous.


LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE


TN 1882, a standard meridian line for Waldo County was established on the county land, in Belfast, in the rear of the jail. Mr. Hiram Pitcher Farrow, civil engineer, by an astronom- ical observation ascertained that the variation of the compass in the vicinity was 15 degrees and 58 minutes. The exact location of the jail lot is longitude 69° 0' 40" west, and latitude 44° 25' 18" north.


MAPS


The last separately printed map of Belfast is that by Sanford and Leggett, which appeared in 1874.


A chart of Belfast and Penobscot bays, the work of the United States Coast Survey, was published in 1881.


Colby's Atlas of Maine, printed in 1888, contains an inaccu- rate plan of the city within a circuit of one mile from the post- office, on a scale of one hundred feet to an inch.


ENGRAVINGS


Cuts of a section of Church Street, and the interior of the store of Hiram Chase & Son, are given in "The Keystone," a Phila- delphia publication, for November, 1891.


Half-tone pictures, entitled "Belfast and its Harbor," "At the Corner of Church and High Streets," and "A Glimpse of the Residential Quarter" (junction of Church and High streets), are contained in the "New England Magazine " for July, 1896, as illustrative of an article upon Penobscot Bay, by Edwin A. Start.


2


HISTORY OF BELFAST


DESCRIPTIVE


A poem entitled "Our Old Home," written by Mrs. Rebecca Palfrey Utter, and read before the Denver New England Society, December, 1896, contains the following allusion to Belfast, where the early days of the author were passcd : -


A vision fair the words have brought to me; A "dear old town that's seated by the sea"; A quiet, grassy-bordered village street O'er which the drooping elm trees bend and meet. I tread the narrow wooden walk once more;


I enter at each once familiar door;


I hear the words of welcome they would speak And press a kiss on many a well-known cheek; I see dear faces framed in locks of white


I should not see if I were there to-night. An old brown house before me stands once more, With lilac bushes growing by the door; Along a narrow footpath as I pass,


I brush against a bunch of stripèd grass.


Four plum trees, under which I used to play, An old board fence, half fallen to decay, The Balm of Gilead, - fragrant now as then, I seem to smell its varnished buds again, - Tangled rosebushes in a ragged row, Cinnamon roses - out of fashion now; A narrow brooklet runs along beside, And paper boats adown its current glide.


The meeting-house, such as you all must know, Barn-like and bare, windows in double row; Save as we look at it through memory's haze Little it wears of comeliness or grace. Its steps the sexton mounted thrice each day, Punctual as the sun, old, bent, and gray, With both hands pulled the heavy bell-rope down, Rang out the hour to all the listening town. Each night at nine o'clock the warning sped, And then our day was done; we went to bed.


There is the shipyard that I loved so well, With each familiar sight, and sound, and smell. Fragrance of oak, and pine, and boiling tar, And wet brown seaweed; while from near and far Strokes of the adze and mallet mingle still With the loud purring of the busy mill, And liquid voices of the rising tide Singing in undertone on every side.


The weather-beaten schooners, old and gray, That took our chowder parties down the bay -


FOOT OF SQUARE AND WHITE HOMESTEAD


HIGH STREET AND NORTH CHURCH, FROM PRIMROSE HILL, ABOUT 1880


3


PHYSICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE HISTORY


The Yankee Adams and the Morning Star, These were their names - I wonder where they are? Gone where the spirits of good schooners dwell. Green be their memory! We loved them well. One playmate I should find unchanged to-day, The never-resting waters of the bay.


"Time writes no wrinkles on its azure brow," In the cold moonlight it is sparkling now.


Frank H. Colley, of Portland, read a poem before a meeting of the Maine Press Association, in 1899, entitled "The Messenger from Home." It contains pleasant reminiscences of his native city, Belfast.


DIRECTORIES


The Rockland, Belfast, and Camden Directory, with a busi- ness directory of Thomaston, was published by W. S. Adams & Co., Boston, in January, 1875. It contained two hundred and eight octavo pages, of which about one quarter were devoted to Belfast. The price of the work was two dollars.


Greenough's Directory of Rockland, Belfast, and Camden, for 1877-78, published in Boston, an octavo containing two hundred and seventy-two pages, and sold for two dollars, appeared in October, 1877. The number of Belfast names given was 1732. Of those there were thirty-eight Pattersons and nine Smiths.


Directory No. 3, Rockland, Belfast, and Camden for 1882-83, was issued by W. A. Greenough & Co., of Boston, in July, 1882. The Belfast names numbered 1841. The price was two dollars.


In 1890, the Belfast and Camden Directory, made by A. B. Sparrow, E. B. Butterfield, Ayer, Massachusetts, publisher, ap- peared. It was an octavo volume of two hundred and sixteen pages, exclusive of advertising pages.


Messrs. Pool & Yeaton published a business directory of Waldo County in 1891, which included Belfast names.


The Belfast City Directory for 1894-95, an octavo of one hundred and twenty pages, compiled and published by A. B. Sparrow, Shirley Village, Massachusetts, was printed in July, 1894.


Belfast Resident and Business Directory for 1899-1900, com- piled by Henry O. Archibald, of Belfast, was given to the public in June, 1899. It was an octavo volume of one hundred pages, and sold at one dollar.


4


HISTORY OF BELFAST


HARBOR IMPROVEMENTS


In September, 1877, an appropriation of $5000 having been made by Congress for improving Belfast Harbor, work was com- menced on the ledge off Lane's Wharf, which divers reputed to be a conical-shaped rock, small at the apex, and about one hundred feet square at the base. The obstruction was blown up by dualin, and the fragments hoisted out of the channel.


In 1878, the expenditure of $12,000 for improving the harbor was authorized. Lieutenant Both, a U.S. engineer, surveyed and made a plan of the harbor, preliminary to dredging it. Opera- tions commenced in October, by the Atlantic Dredging Com- pany, at thirty-eight cents per cubic yard of mud removed. The survey called for a channel ten feet deep at low water, and three hundred feet wide, and the sum appropriated contemplated such an excavation from Lewis's Wharf to near the steamboat wharf. Towing the dredging scows was done by the steamer May Queen. When one was filled, it was towed down the bay and dumped.


In 1878, a report of the Engineer Corps contained the follow- ing: "Under an act of Congress, approved March 3, 1875, a care- ful hydrographic survey of the whole harbor, from Steele's Ledge up to the bridge, covering an area of two square miles, was made under the direction of General Thom, who reported that the harbor itself is well protected from all winds except those from the southeast; that to render it safe from these requires two breakwaters; and he recommended the construction of one fifteen hundred feet long, from McGilvery's Wharf, running nearly northeast, and a second from Patterson's Point, on the easterly side of the harbor, nearly south-southwest, leaving an entrance eight hundred feet wide between the two; also the removal, to the depth of twelve feet at mean low water, of a shoal which extended from McGilvery's Wharf up to the ledge in front of Lanc's Wharf, a distance of five-eighths of a mile, on the shoalest part of which there was but six feet of water at low tide; and the removal of a sunken ledge in front of Lane's Wharf which projected one hundred and sixty feet into the harbor and on which there was a depth of less than four feet at low water. The estimate cost of all these improvements was $347,000. The appropriations up to 1881 amount to $25,000, which was ex- pended in the excavations described. The harbor has now a depth


WATERFRONT AND HARBOR FROM FIELD HOMESTEAD, PRIMROSE HILL, 1869


-


WATERFRONT AND HARBOR FROM FIELD HOMESTEAD, PRIMROSE HILL, 1912


5


PHYSICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE HISTORY


of twelve feet at low water and about twenty-one and a half feet at high water; but to make the new improvement permanent it may become necessary to construct a jetty on the north side of the harbor (as suggested by General Thom) at a cost of $18,000, so as to divert the direction and force of the ebb-tidal current upon the dredged area, and by its scouring efforts pre- vent a reformation of the shoal."


In 1882, Hiram Emery Peirce was licensed by the city to extend his wharf, at the mouth of Goose River, one hundred feet southwesterly into tide waters.


Renewed government operations in 1891 and 1893 were con- fined to the vicinity of the wharf last mentioned, extending towards the channel for five hundred feet, and thence eastward eighteen hundred feet, sufficient to give a mean depth of eight fcet at low water. The contractors were Hamilton & Sawyer, of Portland, with the steam dredger Plymouth Rock.


In 1895, the same firm removed fifty thousand cubic yards from the bottom of the harbor. The space dredged was in two sections, one on the north side of the channel 1800 by 130 feet, to a depth of fifteen feet at mean low water, and on the south- west side 1800 by 280 feet to a depth of thirteen feet. These sec- tions were on both sides of the channel dredged in 1893, making a channel seven hundred feet wide below the steamboat wharf and two hundred and fifty feet off the marine railway, and hav- ing a depth of from thirteen to fifteen feet at mean low water, which gave a good ship-channel from the deep water off Goose River to that in the upper harbor.


This is mentioned in the April issue of "Notices to Mariners," published by the Coast and Geodetic Survey Office, as follows:


"5. Belfast Harbor. - Dredging. - Improvements by the U.S. Engineers have resulted in a channel into the harbor, from deep water outside, fifteen feet deep and from one hundred and twenty-five to two hundred and twenty-five feet wide. A large area, eight feet deep, has been dredged off Peirce's Wharf, and an area thirteen feet deep off the Boston Steamboat Wharf. These changes will be noted on the next edition of the charts." (Report of U.S. Engineers, 1895. - Charts affected: 319, 311, and 104.)


The last work was done in May and June, 1897, in dredging a large section to a depth of thirteen feet at mean low water, and


6


HISTORY OF BELFAST


.


in digging a channel north of the Boston and Bangor Steamship Company's Wharf, to accommodate small steamers.


MONUMENT


The granite monument, otherwise called a beacon, on Steele's Ledge, destroyed by ice during the winter of 1888, was rebuilt the following summer, the contract being awarded to Louis E. Lunt, of Portland, at $1660. It differs a little from the old one. The sides are more sloping, and the bracing irons are heavier.


MISCELLANEOUS


In 1884, when digging a well at Poor's Mills, Mr. Joseph Banks unearthed at twenty-five feet below the surface a large number of cobble-stones such as are found to-day on any sea- shore. The stones plainly show the wash and wear of the waves, which indicates that at one time the place was the sea bottom.


CAPTAIN CHARLES BAKER


ISAAC MILLER BOARDMAN 1831-1898 1821-1900


DR. JOHN MURRAY FLETCHER 1846-1899


CHAPTER II


MUNICIPAL HISTORY


Officers in 1875 - Seizure of City Agency Liquors - Abolition of Liquor Ageney - Damages recovered for Defective Road - Night Police - Ordinance concerning Gunpowder - Damages of $10,000 recovered against City by L. J. Hatch - City Debt refunded - Standard Time adopted - Limits for erecting Wooden Buildings - Taxpayers Controversy - New Code of Ordinances - Nine o'Clock Evening Bell discontinued - Licenses for Dogs required - Memorial Hall first occupied - City Ordinances revised - Railroad Debt refunded - Biographical Sketches of Mayors - Auditor established - Curfew Bell - Ex-Mayors: - James Patterson White, Sherburn Sleeper, William Pitcher, and Axel Hayford.


TN 1875, the Mayor of Belfast was Dr. John George Brooks, who, as the Republican candidate had 405 votes against 291 for Israel Cox, Democrat. (For a biographical sketch of Dr. Brooks, see chapter on Physicians.)


The other principal city officers this year were Isaac Miller Boardman, Clerk; Harrison Mahoney, William Pitcher, Marl- boro Packard Woodcock, George Brooks Ferguson, and Ben- jamin Kelley, Aldermen; Horatio Palmer Thompson, John B. Wadlin, Thomas Whittier Pitcher, Joseph Curtis Townsend, George Edmund Wallace, Allen Drinkwater French, Edwin Brier, Wales Lewis Miller, William Davis, Timothy L. Mace, Councilmen; Daniel Haraden, Treasurer; Daniel Lewis Pitcher, Collector; John Murray Fletcher, City Physician; Joseph Wil- liamson, City Solicitor; Cyrus Patterson, City Marshal; Charles Baker, Chief Engineer; George Tobin Osborne, Harbor Master; Oakes Angier, George Woods, Isaac Miller Boardman, Assessors.


The city rooms were in the third story of the store on Main Street adjoining the city building.


A night watch was established in this year.


In September, a large assortment of intoxicating liquors in the store of Andrew Derby Bean, liquor agent of the city, was seized, and such portions as had not been purchased of the state commissioner, or were not contained in vessels marked with the name of the city and its agent, were declared forfeited. Upon appeal, the Supreme Court ordered their destruction. In the stock was a quantity of pure brandy which did not escape the


8


HISTORY OF BELFAST


fate of its adulterated company. The case may be found in volume 68, of Maine Reports.


1876. Nathan Foster Houston, Republican, was chosen Mayor, by a majority of 8 over Israel Cox, Democrat, the whole number of votes being 1144.


Nathan Foster Houston, son of Joseph Houston, 2d, and his wife, Susan (Foster) Houston, was born in Belfast, 20 October, 1829, and has an interesting ancestry, being descended from the original settlers of the town. He was educated in the common schools; in early life engaged in the wool business, and has held the following public offices: Vice-president of the Belfast Savings Bank at the time of its organization in 1868, and president of that institution from 1888 till 1903; Representative to the State Legislaturc, 1883-87; on the State Valuation Committee for 1880; treasurer of the Belfast Manufacturing Company from the date of its charter until its property was purchased by the Critchett Sibley Company; City Treasurer from 1883 to 1894; and Mayor of Belfast in 1876-77 and 1877-78.


The accounts of the liquor agency showed a balance against the city of $1283, and that department was abolished.


1877. Mr. Houston was again elected Mayor, by a vote of 609 to 515 east for John B. Wadlin, the Democratic candi- date.


The watchmen were paid $1.25 for each night.


1878. Isaac Miller Boardman, Republican, was chosen Mayor, having a majority of 181 over three other candidates.


Captain Isaac Miller Boardman was born in Islesboro, 24 May, 1821; a son of Captain Isaac C. and Esther (Farrar) Board- man. He followed the sea in early and middle life, and com- manded many fine vessels, including the brig, Martha Rogers, and the ships, Ocean Traveler and Western Chief. He was Representative to the Legislature from Belfast in 1873-74 and State Senator in 1887. He served on the Board of Assessors, was City Treasurer in 1887, and Mayor in 1878. When the Masonic Temple was erected, he was elected treasurer, and served until February, 1900. He married Keziah Emery, by whom he had one son, Judge Emery Boardman. Captain Boardman died of apoplexy 4 July, 1900.


Mrs. Isa M. Patterson recovered $6473 against the city for damages sustained the previous September by a defective road


9


MUNICIPAL HISTORY


near Poor's Mills. This sum was reduced by the law court to $3500.


A night police station was established at No. 10, Phoenix Row.


By an ordinance, the quantity of gunpowder which could be kept for sale in any place outside of the powder-house was restricted to twenty-five pounds.


1879. William Bachelder Swan, Republican, received 616 votes for Mayor, and William Maxfield Rust, National Green- back, received 524.


Mr. Swan, a son of the late Captain Nathan Swan, was born in Belfast in 1825. In 1843, he entered the store of Paul Richard Hazeltine, and afterwards was a partner with Colonel Thomas Henry Marshall. Subsequently, he became associated with Edward and Ami Cutter Sibley, and since 1891 has conducted business with the former, under the name of the Swan and Sibley Company. He was president of the Belfast Gas Company for over twenty years, and since 1882 has been a director in the Belfast National Bank.


The city government rooms were removed to those in the Johnson Block, High Street, recently occupied by the Belfast National Bank.


This year, for the first time, no appropriation for ringing one of the church bells thrice daily was made. The Methodist bell was rung by private subscription.


Leander J. Hatch recovered $10,000 damages sustained by a defect in a road near Poor's Mills.


1880. Mayor William Bachelder Swan was reelected by a majority of 158 over Henry Leonard Kilgore, the Fusion candi- date.


1881. Marlboro Packard Woodcock, Republican, was chosen Mayor, without opposition.


Marlboro Packard Woodcock, one of the nine children of Theodore and Rebecca (Packard) Woodcock, was born in Sears- mont, Maine, 11 September, 1823. He was educated in the pub- lic schools and completed his studies at Kent's Hill Seminary. After leaving school, he taught for a time, and then learned the trade of ship-carpenter with his brother. He built vessels at Cov- ington, Kentucky, and at Thomaston, Waldoboro, and Brewer, Maine. In 1851, he married Lucy Anna Howard, of Searsmont, Maine, and came to Belfast, where he engaged in ship-building.


10


HISTORY OF BELFAST


He was a skillful workman, and good draughtsman; and designed and made the moulds for the greater part of the vessels he built. Some of these were noted as fast sailers. He was alderman for three years, and was elected mayor in 1881. He served the city as school agent and overseer of the poor, and was deputy col- lector of customs for this port from 1867 to 1871. He later bought the bookstore, stationery, newspaper and wall paper business of H. G. O. Washburn at 29 Main Street. This business, comprising the second bookstore to be established in Belfast, was founded by John Dorr, in 1833. Mr. Woodcock carried it on until his death in 1911, under the firm name of M. P. Woodcock & Son, and is succeeded by his son, Frank Ross Woodcock, who, with another son, Hartwell Leon Woodcock, the artist, survives him.




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