USA > Maine > Androscoggin County > Leeds > History of the town of Leeds, Androscoggin County, Maine, from its settlement June 10, 1780 > Part 3
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Their children were all born in Gloucester, Mass., to wit: John2, born October 23, 1738; William2, b. January 9, 1741 ; Eliz-
2
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abeth2, b. May 18, 1743; James2, b. July 13, 1745; Thomas2, b. December 29, 1747 ; and Rogers2 M. W., b. October 13, 1752.
John2 married Mehitable Windship. This was the first mar- riage solemnized in New Gloucester. They resided and died in Danville. William2 married Mary Bodge, of Windham, and lived and died in New Gloucester. Elizabeth2 married Deacon John Walker, of Gray, and settled there. James2 married Sarah Par- sons, and resided on the old homestead. Thomas2 married Sarah Paul, nee True, a daughter of Deacon Benjamin True, one of the very early settlers of the town of Turner, who went there from New Gloucester. She was a widow and the mother of one son (Marshfield Paul), at the age of twenty-one years. Thomas2 and Sarah were married in New Gloucester December 17, 1765. Rogers2 M. W. married Sarah Babson, in New Gloucester, in 1773.
If not from choice, necessity required the people of those times to devote much of their time to the use of the gun in the exter- mination of the ferocious wild beasts of the forest ; and to provide their families with meat, moose, deer, caribou, and other favorite animals were pursued and taken. Thus led on, fur-bearing ani- mals were sought for their money value, and all, combined with a natural fondness of adventure, brought out many a full-fledged hunter and trapper who, under other circumstances, with dif- ferent surroundings, would have acquired a like prominenece in the higher pursuits of life. To them we owe much for what we are and what we enjoy. None but the bravest, intelligent, inde- pendent, ambitious, hardy, and strong, could have come out to a new, wild country of such magnitude, with a fixed purpose of sub- duing and civilizing it, and effected the establishment of a gov- ernment, the equal of which the sun has never warmed and lighted.
May it be remembered that the children of the early settlers of this country were reared under Scriptural teachings, Christian influences, and moral training. Education was by no means neg- lected, schools for the youth being a close second to churches, where the parents assembled for mutual instruction. Neither was physical culture omitted. The gun, the axe, the spade, and hoe, the scythe, rake, and fork, and the ever-remaining walls of stone are all evidence of their efficiency in that important branch of education.
As a boy, Thomas2, with others whose parents composed the little colony of New Gloucester and did their field work in com- mon, was often posted beside a rock or stump, to watch and give warning of the approach of Indians ; while the parents and elder boys, with their guns stacked a few rods in advance of them, did the planting, hoeing, and harvesting. This became distasteful to him, and as he grew in years, he often remonstrated with his
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people, presenting his earnest, honest conviction that man, whether civilized or savage, could best be conquered and won by kindness, but never by the prevailing and practiced belief that "there are no good Indians but dead ones." So firmly was he established in his faith of Indian manhood, that honesty and kindness would be met with reciprocity, not wanting in courage or bravery, with gun in hand and hunting-knife in his belt as a defense against the forest animals, tinder-box and flints in his pockets, he frequently was absent from home for days in the trackless woods. His first meeting with Indians was on the west bank of the Androscoggin River, at the mouth of the "Twenty- Mile Stream." He approached the little encampment unobserved until he stepped into the small open with the muzzle of his gun pointing downward, an indication of peace. His youth, too, may have been an element in his unmolested admission to their wig- wams. The piercing eye of Sabattis, the chief, detected no pur- pose in the youthful Thomas but an open and honest one, and a friendship was there created that in future years extended to all the Indian tribes in the northern part of Maine. Probably no other white man every enjoyed the full confidence, which he never betrayed, of so many Indians as he. To him they gave the name of "Father Thomas," and his name was known to them through- out the whole land. His services were sought in all disputes or quarrels of theirs, and his decisions were invariably received as the highest order of unwritten law. Exceptions were never taken nor appeals made, but silent submission as of right. To this friendship is the town of Leeds indebted for its first settlers. Easterly from the railroad crossing, near where the railroad bridge spans Dead River, distant about twenty-five rods, formerly the wigwams of Pocasset and his clan were spread. To this clear- ing were they moved from the north-easterly shore of Pocasset Lake, northerly of where Jennings stream empties its waters. How long that land had been under Indian cultivation is unknown, but the fact that it was a permanent, fixed village, might indicate that many crops had been there harvested. It was a favorite place of the red men but as an inducement to Thomas2 to settle in their midst, Sabattis presented it to him and removed his village to a spot about twenty rods north of that now occu- pied by the Francis George house, owned by D. P. True.
In the spring of 1779 Thomas2 and his younger brother, Rogers2, came up the Androscoggin and Dead Rivers in a dug- out loaded with farm implements, camp utensils and stores to found homes with none but Indian friends and neighbors. After spading the ground and planting the seeds their attention and labor was given to the building of a log or block house, which they located where the wigwam of Sabattis had stood and many times been shared by Thomas while on hunting expeditions.
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This was the first permanent structure planted on the forest lands now included within the boundary lines of the town of Leeds. On the opposite bank of Dead River, westerly from the county road, they then built a second block-house, for Rogers2. This completed they returned, as they had come, to their families in New Gloucester. In the time of harvest they came again, erected hovels, secured their crops, buried their potatoes in the ground and were gone. Another visit was made on the March crust, and this time a goat was led in, followed by three others, and constituted the primitive domestic animals of the town. The stock of camp utensils was also replenished by means of loaded sleds drawn by these men, whose strength and endurance were unbounded. A goodly amount of venison was secured and dried, and quantities of maple sugar and molasses made and stored for future consumption. These homes prepared-humble and unpre- tentious though they were-early in June, these brothers returned to New Gloucester for their wives and children. On the tenth day of that month, one of warmth and sunshine, a party com- posed of two ladies, five men, two young men, and nine children, with five horses on which were packed the ladies, five children, and their belongings, started out from New Gloucester. They followed a narrow, bushed-out path to the Androscoggin River. Here their course turned to the north along its west bank to the Little Androscoggin, which they forded. On a small plat of grass, the only cleared spot that marked their pathway, just below Lewiston Falls, long since utilized for building lots in the city of Auburn, they halted to lunch. On the opposite side of the river three or four houses were seen, probably those of Paul Hildreth, David Pettengill, Lawrence J. Harris, Asa Varnum, or others of the early settlers of Lewiston. Remounted, they proceeded up the river, on a trail made by families who had recently settled in Turner, to the mouth of the Twenty-Mile Stream, where they arrived at mid-afternoon. Here Thomas2 and Rogers2 had each left a dug-out canoe while en route to New Gloucester.
From the backs of the horses the ladies and children were transferred to the canoes and landed on the opposite bank of the river. Under the care and guidance of Rogers2 they made the. remainder of the distance, about four forest miles, on foot ; arriv- ing at the log-house on the south bank of Dead River ere the sun- set. The three men and five horses, whose services were of great aid in making the journey of the ladies and children less fatiguing, returned to New Gloucester that night. The baggage was trans- ferred to the canoes, one manned by Thomas2 and Thomas3, Jr., a lad of twelve years, and the other by his step-son, Marshfield Paul, and the other young man, and conveyed up the Androscog- gin and down Dead River to their destination, where they arrived the following day. Thus runs the narrative of the primitive set-
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tlement of Leeds. These homes were hospitable resting places for other pioneer settlers in this section of the District of Maine, and without regard to color or race, none went away hungry or cold.
For the convenience of the Indians, who were then very numerous, and subsequently for the early settlers, Thomas2 estab- lished a trading post and did a large business in the fur trade. From the lake regions, even to the head waters of the Androscog- gin, the Indians made semi-annual excursions to the coast and always brought their season's catch of fur to "Father Thomas." His was the first store in town. Only necessary articles were kept on sale, and those were purchased in Portland, packed on horses, brought to Turner and boated down Dead River; or, by winter roads, crossing the Androscoggin on ice. In the fall of 1780, with the assistance of settlers in Lewiston and New Gloucester, a winter road was bushed out through Greene to Lewiston, and in December three cows were gotten through to Leeds. From the natural grass meadows by the lake, that specie known as blue- joint, then growing there in abundance, had been gathered and garnered for winter food for the goats then on the premises and the cows that were to be.
On account of navigation of the river, settlements were made earlier in the Kennebec valley than in the Androscoggin. Win- throp (Pond Town) was first settled in 1765, by Timothy Foster. The fourth family to settle in that town was that of John Chandler, who came there from New Ipswich, N. H., in 1767. He was a man of means and in 1768 erected a saw- and grist-mill on the site where the mills now stand in Winthrop village. This was a great convenience to the early settlers, not only of Win- throp, but the neighboring towns as well. In 1774, the proprie- tors of Livermore Township induced the people of Winthrop to open a cart-road from the mills to the westerly line of Winthrop, near the dwelling of Job Fuller, the first settler of Wayne, and to erect a bridge across the stream connecting the two small bodies of water, now known as Berry and Dexter Ponds. The bridge was built by Mr. James Craig and still bears the name of Craig Bridge. In 1775 Job Fuller, Reuben Besse, Ebenezer Handy, and William Raymond, representing the only families then in Wayne, assisted by Ichabod Howe and son, of Winthrop, opened the road as formerly surveyed from Winthrop line, near Craig Bridge, through Wayne village to Livermore line, at the extreme northern boundary of the Androscoggin Great Pond, Bear Brook. In the fall of 1780 Thomas2 and Rogers2 bushed out a foot-path from the east shore of the Great Pond, intersecting this road near the house of Job Fuller. This completed, their way lay across the pond on ice, or in boats, a distance of three miles ; thence over land to the mills twice that distance, where they obtained their first meal ground from corn grown on Leeds soil.
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This path was utilized by other early settlers along the banks- of Dead River, until 1786, when Thomas Wing built a grist-mill on the Thirty-Mile River, in Wayne, on a dam built by Jonathan Howe, of Winthrop, in 1783, and on which the same year he had erected a saw-mill. With the building of this mill the tow-path was forever abandoned for that purpose for which it was made and that mill received the patronage of Leeds farmers.
In the spring of 1781 two pairs of steers, three years old, and a bull, two years old, were driven and led from New Gloucester over the route the families came the year previous, and swim- ming the Androscoggin at West Leeds, were installed in their homes in the forest, where later they became important factors in clearing and subduing it. A crooked yoke was made for the bull and he did such work as was subsequently done by horses. In winter, hitched to a sled in like manner as horses are, loaded with boys and bags of corn, he was a frequent visitor at the mill; and of evenings, in like manner harnessed, made merry the boys and girls in their neighborly calls on the young people of the other early families, who settled in the vicinity.
The seasons of 1781 were busy ones for these pioneers. A communication was opened with settlers in Turner, on True's hill, westerly from Turner Center Bridge which spans the Andro- scoggin River. This path lay from near the house of Rogers2 across Dead Hole, over the southerly end of Otis Hill near the churches at Leeds Center, to the river, nearly opposite the mouth of Twenty-Mile Stream, closely following that spotted out by which the families were piloted in. By a preconcerted agreement, the Turner settlers cut a path to the west branch of the river,. which, together with a dug-out furnished by each little colony, completed the connection of the neighboring settlements.
In the year 1790, Thomas2 built the first frame house in Leeds. It was located on the same site now occupied by the dwelling- house of Isaac S. Carver.
The carpenter work was done by Robert Erskine, who later settled on Beech Hill in Wayne. The bricks used in the cellar and in the construction of the chimney were made by hand on the south bank of Dead River, between the county road and the railroad and burned in a kiln near by. These were the first bricks made in Leeds.
Of the family of Roger2 Stinchfield, three children were born in New Gloucester, viz .: Betsey3, b. April 14, 1774; Abigail3, b. March 18, 1776; Susanna3, b. Sept. 2, 1778; and eight born in Leeds, viz .: Rogers3, b. Feb. 9, 1781, the first white male child born in the town; Zebulon3, b. July 2, 1783; Sarah3, b. May 27, 1785 ; William3, b. Nov. 14, 1787; Ezra3, b. Feb. 22, 1790 ; Solo- mon3, b. March 13, 1792; Ezekiel3, b. April 17, 1795; and Benja- min3, b. June 29, 1798.
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Betsey3 married Oliver Otis and settled on that part of her father's original farm in Leeds known afterward as the Otis Hill. She died where she had lived, and was buried in Leeds.
Abigail3 married Shubel Davis, located on Stinchfield ridge, in the town of Milo, and died there March 27, 1852.
Susanna3 married Stephen Freeman and settled in Greene.
Capt. Rogers3 married Mary Lindsey and settled in Wayne. He later moved to Milo ; thence to Robbinston ; thence to Marion, Iowa, where his wife died. He subsequently married Fannie Allen. He returned to Robbinston, Me., and there died May 31, I862.
Zebulon3 married Sarah Stewart and settled in Milo. His second wife was Keziah Freeman. Zebulon died in Milo, March 25, 1836.
Sarah3 married John Rowe and settled in Danville.
William3 married Sarah Canwell, of Fayette. They settled in Milo, but subsequently moved to Minnesota, where he died Octo- ber 25, 1850, and his widow July 1, 1868.
Ezekiel3 married Tamson Eldridge, of Bucksport; settled in Wesley, Me., and died there June 17, 1851.
Solomon3 married Jerusha Keene, of Turner ; settled in Milo, where his wife died September 20, 1867 ; and he August 14, 1869.
Ezekiel3 married Tamson Eldridge, of Bucksport; settled in Milo ; subsequently moved to Lawrence, Mass., where he died in 1852.
Benjamin3 married Mary A. Herrick, settled in Milo, and sub- sequently moved to the Province of New Brunswick and further of him not known.
Rogers2, Sen., continued his residence in Leeds until his wife's death, February 10, 1822, and burial in the cemetery near Lothrop's Corner, and soon followed his children to Milo, where most of them settled, dying in that town May 2, 1827. Of his eleven children and ninety-one grandchildren, none of his descendants are remaining in Leeds.
Nothing is more commendable in a historian than accuracy. In the Atlas of Androscoggin County, published in the year 1873, among the items of history of the town of Leeds, mention is made of two young men who accompanied the families of Thomas and Rogers Stinchfield from New Gloucester to their primitive homes in Littleborough (Leeds). Who were they? While Thomas and his son, Thomas, Jr., came in one canoe, the two young men came in the other. One of them was Marshfield Paul, a son of the wife of Thomas, by a former husband. Of the other, we come in conflict with the above named publication. It is due the public and of sufficient moment to one of the prominent families of the town to justify the writer in using sufficient space in this work to present the facts and correct a long standing error. We refer
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to the account given in that work of the life of Rev. Thomas Davis Francis-a man who did more in shaping the early course of the town and is nearer the hearts of the people, perhaps, than any one who has ever lived within its borders. The substance of that narrative, as there given, is: * "He came to America and landed here in May, 1778; in the succeeding fall was at Bangor, went to New Gloucester, fell in with a man by the name of Stinch- field, who, having sons in Leeds, hither he came to teach school. But four families were then residing in the town, to wit: Thomas and Rogers Stinchfield, Jirah Fish, and Daniel Lane." These events are all therein said to have transpired in the year 1778. These facts follow in contrast with the above. There is no question with that part of the narrative relating to the place and date of his birth, his early boyhood, the manner and date of his arrival in America, his subsequent service at Castine, his journey through the wilderness and the hardships he encountered; or the time and manner of his arrival in New Gloucester; but from that date impossibilities mark its course. Thomas and Rogers Stinchfield were the pioneer settlers of Littleborough and the date on which their families came to the plantation was June 10, 1780. Did Thomas Davis Francis come here in the fall of 1778, to teach the children? The order of settlement by families was : Thomas and Rogers Stinchfield in June, 1780; Jirah Fish, in the fall of 1780; Thomas Millett, in the fall of 1781; Daniel Lane, in the fall of 1782; Zadock Bishop, in the spring of 1783, etc. Were the Stinchfields, Fishes, and Lanes the only families living here in 1778? In speaking further of the early settlers the account says : "In 1783, or the year following, William Gilbert and Daniel Lothrop, Jr., came in. About the time they came, or soon after, perhaps about 1785, Daniel Lane and Thomas Millett came. Then came Increase Leadbetter and many Revolutionary soldiers fol- lowed, some of whose names were: James and William Lindsey, William and Obadiah Pettingill, William and Josiah Turner, Morgan Brewster, Francis George, Andrew Cushman, and Daniel Robbins. Then there were young men who came in from 1783 to 1790, who soon married and had families, to wit : Thomas Francis, Uriah and Phineas Foss, John, Samuel, and Nathaniel Jennings, and others whose surnames were: Collier, Bailey, Otis, Dun- ham, Sampson, Berry, Caswell, Carver, Knapp, Paul, Drake, Woodman, Whiting, Gould, Pratt, Daily, and subsequently Lamb, Herrick, Howard, and others." If Thomas Millett came about 1785, and Thomas D. Francis from 1783 to 1790, how is the fact that Thomas D. Francis married in July, 1784, Eunice, the eldest daughter of Thomas Millett, and was obliged to go from Little-
*Correct narrative given in the account of the Francis family in this work.
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borough to New Gloucester to have the marriage service per- formed, to be explained? If Marshfield Paul came to Little- borough from 1783 to 1790, it could not have been he who came with his mother in 1780. If Thomas D. Francis went to New Gloucester in the fall of 1778, as borne out in the historical account of the engagement at Castine in which he participated, where was he from that time until he came to Leeds? The facts are that when he and his comrades, one of whom was Francis George, went to New Gloucester, in 1778, after that memorable journey from Bangor, he was taken into the family of Thomas Stinchfield, with whom he continued to live, and when the family of which Marshfield Paul was a member came to Littleborough, they came as members of it and were the two young men men- tioned in the foregoing narrative. He lived in the family of Thomas Stinchfield until his marriage in July, 1784, when he lived in the family of his wife's father until the spring of 1785. at which time he and his wife and son moved into his log house on the farm where he spent the remaining years of his useful life.
The foregoing in relation to Thomas D. Francis and Thomas Millett is here inserted for the purpose of correcting the error that crept into the narrative by S. L. Howard, Esq., through the faulty memory of his informant.
The children of Thomas2 Stinchfield and his wife, Sarah Paul, nee True, were, all but one, born in New Gloucester, viz .: Thomas3, Jr., b. Sept. 8, 1768, who remained single and died at his father's house in 1798, and buried in the family lot on his father's farm; Sarah3, called Sally, b. July 10, 1770, married in 1789 Zephaniah Hicks and settled in Leeds. She had a family of twelve children, viz .: Abigail+, b. Feb. 3. 1790; Sarah4, b. Aug. 19, 1793 : Thomas4 S., b. July 19, 1795 ; Abraham4, b. July 6, 1798; Sullivan4 and Franklin4, b. March 17, 1799; Samuel4, born Aug. 20, 1801 ; Hannah+, b. Feb. 19, 1804; Zephaniah4, b. Aug. 19, 1806; Elbridge+, b. Dec. 6, 1807 (died young) ; Annie4, b. March 14, 1809, and Elbridge4, b. Nov. 15, 18II.
Zephaniah Hicks, Sen., died in Leeds, Oct. 6, 1812. Sarah Stinchfield3, his widow, died in Greene, in 1848, was buried in Leeds.
James3, the third child of Thomas2 Stinchfield, born Aug. 10, 1773, came to Leeds with his parents; married by Rev. Thomas D. Francis June 29, 1802, Hannah, a daughter of William Pettin- gill and his wife, Lydia Cobb, who came to Leeds from Bridge- water, Mass., in 1790, and settled on the farm now occupied by William R. Pettingill, a grandson. James3 settled on that part of his father's original claim bordering on the most western portion of Androscoggin Lake, then bearing the name of "Androscoggin Great Pond" ( in some documents and records "Stinchfield Pond") which included within its limits nearly all that portion called
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Hedgehog Hill. On a small, level plat of ground on the easterly side of that hill and near its southern extremity, at an altitude of fifty feet above the lake, in the year 1801, co-existent with the incorporation of the town, he erected a large frame house and. barn. There his children were born and reared, viz .: John4, b. Dec. 6, 1802; Isaac4, b. May 5, 1804; Mary4 (called Polly), b. Dec. 9, 1805 ; James4, b. Sept. 9, 1807; Elvira4, b. June 29, 1809 ;. Joel4, b. March 4, 18II; Thomas4, b. Dec. 6, 1812; Hannah4, b. Dec. 25, 1814 ; Abigail4, b. Oct. 16, 1817; Aramantha P.4 (called Armenta ), b. Aug. 24, 1819; Sewall4, b. March 29, 1822; Allen4, b. April 8, 1825 ; Eliza4, b. Nov. 24, 1830.
James3 Stinchfield, Sen., died July 28, 1857, and his widow, Hannah Pettingill, who was born in Bridgewater, Mass., Feb. 14, 1786, died June 19, 1874. They were buried in a cemetery about two miles northerly of their former home, on the road to. Beech Hill, in the town of Wayne.
Martha3 (called Patty), the fourth child of Thomas, b. Nov. 28, 1774, married Isaac Freeman Aug. 7, 1794, and settled in Leeds,. on the farm which he cleared, that now owned and occupied by Truman Deane. Their children were: Allen4, b. March 1, 1795; Isaac4, b. Oct. 9, 1796; Martha4, b. Aug. 13, 1799; Elizabeth4, b. Aug. 20, 1801 ; Keziah4, b. May 24, 1803 ; Fannie4, b. Jan. 9, 1805 ;: Isaac4, b. May 2, 1807; Ezra4, b. Sept. 13, 1809; Lydia4, b. Oct. 7, 18II ; Lois L.4, b. Nov. 1, 1813; Sarah True4, b. July 12, 1816 ;. Samuel4, b. Sept. 24, 1818; Barzilla4, b. Sept. 24, 1820; and Rosilla4, b. Aug. 22, 1822. Martha3 Freeman, nee Stinchfield, died in Greene in 1850, and was buried in Leeds. Her husband, Isaac Freeman, was born June 7, 1771. (The date of death unknown to writer.)
Capt. Samuel3 Stinchfield, the fifth child of Thomas2, was- born Nov. 6, 1777. He built the house in which Davis P. True now lives, in the year 1805, and in the same year married, in New York City, Mary King, who was born there Dec. 9, 1780. His early life was devoted to the study of navigation and at the early age of twenty-four, he was master of a vessel. At the age of twenty-eight he married, and the year following brought his wife and son from New York and occupied his new house in Leeds. There his other children were born : George K.4, b. in New York, April 2, 1806; James K.4, born in Leeds, July 9, 1808; Mary Ann4, b. May 15, 1810; Samuel4, b. Feb. 1, 1812; Thomas B.4, b. Jan. 19, 1814; Adelia+, b. Jan. 6, 1816; John K.+, b. July 6, 1818; Stephen D.4, b. May 15, 1820, and Anson G.4, b. Sept. 7, 1822.
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