Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892, Part 43

Author: Kingsbury, Henry D; Deyo, Simeon L., ed
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York, Blake
Number of Pages: 1790

USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892 > Part 43

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).

Warren A. Wright, born in 1837 in Palmyra, Me., attended school in his native town and at several academies, and began the study of medicine at Norridgewock with Dr. John Robbins. He graduated from Harvard in 1862, and in July of that year began practice in Readfield.

Other physicians who are, or who have been, in practice in Ken- nebec county, of whom the place, or place and time of practice, or name only, can be given, are: William Albee, Clinton; Sewall W. Allen, Oakland; James Bachelder Bell, Augusta, 1879; Dr. Babb, Wa- terville, early; C. F. Brock, Clinton, 1891; Charles H. Barker, Wayne; Dr. Bennett, China; James H. Brainard, China, 1822; Dr. Brown, Sid- ney; Dr. Bowman, Benton, prior to 1816; James Bates, Hiram Bates and Joseph Bacheller, Fayette; E. E. Brown, Clinton; Dr. Curtis, Mt. Vernon, who hung himself in 1821: Benjamin Clement, Oakland, 1834; Samuel Chase, Mt. Vernon; Joshua Cushman, Winslow, 1823; Dr. Cook, Waterville, early; Dr. Caswell, James B. Cochrane and George B. Crane, Fayette; Dr. Chase, V. P. Coolidge, Waterville; Dr. Dow, Litchfield Corner; Moses Frost, Sidney, 1853; Dr. Fuller, Albert G. French and Lincoln French, Fayette; A. L. French, Wayne; A. R. Fellows, Winthrop; Dr. Goodspeed, China; Dr. Goodwin, Litchfield Corner; William Guptill, Clinton, about 1850; Seward Garcelon, Ben- ton, prior to 1865; Timothy F. Hanscom, 1819, Dr. Hatch, prior to 1864, A. J. Hunt, 1860, and F. C. Hall, China, 1886; F. F. Hascony; Dr. Hale, Albion, about 1825; John Hartwell, Winthrop, 1848 to 1854; Ambrose Howard, one of the earliest physicians in Sidney; Samuel Louis; Dr. Lambright, Fayette; George W. Merrill, 1867, A. M. Moore and G. A. Martin, China, 1879; Elijah Morse, Mt. Vernon; Dr. Mit- chell, Branch Mills; Byron McIntire, Clinton, 1891; Bryant Morton; Dr. Manter, Winthrop, 1857; Joseph H. North, Oakland; Dr. Noyes,

380

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

Waterville, early; James Parker, Farmingdale, 1801; Alva Plummer, Mt. Vernon; D. C. Perkins, Clinton, 1881; Isaac Palmer, Fayette; Dr. Pierce, Albion, 1859; Lewis M. Palmer (page 703); Lemuel Russell, Fayette; Willis A. Russell; A. H. Richardson, Benton, since 1868; Charles Rowell, Clinton, 1867; A. T. Stinson, China; Dr. Safford, Litchfield; Dr. Smith, Fayette; E. Small, Winthrop, 1844; Dr. Tarbell, Branch Mills; Dr. Thorndike, Clinton, about 1850; Silas C. Thomas, Mt. Vernon; I. P. Tash, Clinton, 1881; Darius Walker, Mt. Vernon; Dr. Williams, Branch Mills; Noah Watson, Lewis Watson and Charles H. Wing, Fayette; Dr. Waterman; and A. C. Wright, at Pittston.

CHAPTER XVI.

AUGUSTA.

BY CAPT. CHARLES E. NASH.

The Ancient Plymouth Trading House .- The Pilgrims who conducted it .- The first Local Magistrate .- Sale of the Plymouth Patent .- Its Abandonment and Revival .- Building of Fort Western .- The first Settler at Augusta .- Lotting of the Land .- Settlement begun .- The first Mills .- Incorporation of Township of Hallowell .- The first Roads .- The first Preaching .- Effects of the War of the Revolution .- John Jones, the Tory .- Arnold's Army en route to Quebec .- Effects of National Independence .- Arrival of new Settlers .- The first Meeting House and settled Minister .- Division of the Town into eight School Districts and three Parishes .- The earliest Burial Places .- The Hallowell Academy .- Rivalry of the Hook and Fort Western Settlements .- Building of the Kennebec Bridge .- Division of the Old Town into the New Towns of Hallowell and Harrington.

T HE beginning of the city of Augusta was on the plateau that is now centrally occupied by the remains of Fort Western at the eastern end of the Kennebec bridge. There, eight years after the landing from the Mayflower, the Pilgrim fathers built a trading house for traffic with the Indians. Previously the spot had been the site of a wigwam village, where the fires had burned a niche in the forest and laid bare a few roods of the mellow soil which every spring the squaws, with their rude hoes, worked into productive corn-hills, and where the young braves found room to practice their rollicking games of wrestling, running and dancing. The illustrious men who founded the Plymouth colony came to this place every year for about a third & # century, bringing in their shallops a variety of commodi- ties for the Indian market, and enjoying great profit so long as the supply of beaver skins continued good.

Among these traders we first discern the conspicuous presence of Edward Winslow, the colony's resolute business leader, who opened the traffic in 1625, and who appears to have been the projector of the monopoly that was called the Kennebec patent; his associates in the trade were some of his noted fellow-pilgrims. Governor Bradford is recorded to have been on the river in 1634, and so are John Alden and John Howland. Captain Miles Standish was often here-not in his military trappings, for the Indians were then petted rather than

382

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

pestered. John Winslow (the brother of Edward) was a familiar per- sonage at the trading house, and had charge of it for a series of years -sometimes as agent for the colony and at others as manager for the lessees. The second Governor Winslow (Josiah, son of Edward) was at one time a partner in farming the patent. Governor Prince was also one of those early Kennebeckers; he was commissioned by the colony in 1654 to organize a local government for the pioneers whom the industries of fishing and trading had drawn to the shores of an- cient Sagadahoc and Merrymeeting bay; he promulgated a series of ordinances devised for the good order of the little heterogeneous community. Captain Constant Southworth was appointed a magis- trate at Cusenage, as the place of the Plymouth trading house was then called. His jurisdiction was throughout the patent. His func- tions were mainly to be a terror to trespassing stranger traders and to check the sale of demoralizing liquors to the Indians. He was the first resident officer of the civil law in the territory of the present Kennebec county. He received his authority from the magistrates of Plymouth, who had themselves just obtained from Oliver Crom- well a confirmation of their patent, with permission to take political possession of the whole river.

There is no spot anywhere along the banks of the Kennebec that is more interesting in its historical associations than the site of the ancient Cushnoc trading house. It turns our thoughts back to the crucial years of the first successful English colony in America, and to the men that set in motion the forces that were destined to transform the gloomy wilderness into the mighty New England of to-day. The ground of Bowman and William streets and of the adjacent lots was trod many times by the same feet that consecrated Plymouth Rock. There, was the mutual meeting place of the business men of Plym- outh and the fur-hunting natives; the latter flocked hither from their farthest haunts to be tempted by the enticing productions of civilization. Father Druillettes sometimes accompanied them, and was occasionally the guest of the hospitable traders.

Of the trading house itself we have no description. It must have been a log structure, roofed with scantling or bark, and 'ichted by windows of oiled paper-for glass was then rare and costly. It was hedged by a tall and close fence of pickets for retiracy and security. The workmen seem to have wrought with a view to some permanency, for we are told by the ex-Indian captive, Captain Bane (now Beane), that in 1692-more than thirty years after the withdrawal of the traders-the remains of the establishment were still visible among the new-grown trees and shrubbery.

The magistracy of Captain Southworth continued for a few years only. We read that in 1655 he went before the governor of Plymouth and took the oath of office for his distant bailiwick. After this the

383

AUGUSTA.

records are silent on the subject. The commerce with the natives, which had long been languishing, was now growing profitless. Soon after (in 1661), the colony sold the patent to four enterprising business men (Thomas Brattle, Antipas Boies, Edward Tyng, John Winslow), who tried to revive the trade, but finally abandoned it-leaving the river (about 1665) to the repossession of the impoverished natives, and the wild beasts, their companions.

Thus, for nearly forty years was the intervale plain at the eastern end of the modern highway bridge, a familiar resort and trading em- porium of the fur gatherers. They were the forerunners of civiliza- tion on the Kennebec and remotely the pioneers of Augusta. They first lifted the axe against the great forest and started the earliest echoes of human industry that broke the primeval silence of the sav- age region. Their work was permanent and pervasive in its results. Their patent-which they prized and operated only for immediate traffic-invested them with the ownership of the soil, and it duly be- came the foundation of the present land titles in Kennebec county and elsewhere. Every valid real estate deed in Augusta to-day has a tap-root running back to it. The history of Augusta, therefore, be- gins with the Pilgrim fathers and their trading plant at the ancient Indian fishing place of Kouissinok (Cushnoc).

After fifty years of contact with the traders, the Kennebec Indians joined their fellow-tribes in raising the hatchet against the English. Then began a war of races that lasted with occasional truces for a period of eighty-five years. This ruined most of the Maine settle- ments, and delayed the march of civilization up the Kennebec for three-quarters of a century.

In 1749 some enterprising heirs of the long deceased purchasers of the Kennebec patent materialized as claimants of the Kennebec valley, through the deed of 1661 to their ancestors. A good part of their claim was legally confirmed. They took possession of their heritage under a long name which for brevity was called the Plym- outh Company. It was the agency of these proprietors that led directly to the peopling of the lands of the ancient patent. They threw open the once guarded door of the fur traders, and started cos- mically the present family of towns and cities between Topsham and Madison. A few vengeful Indians still haunted the river on whose banks the flower of their tribe lay buried. To awe these forest wanderers and shield the settlers from the perils of their enmity, the Plymouth Company, as its first act of occupation, built a defensive house in its township of Frankfort, near the garrison of Fort Rich- mond. The province authorities generally favored the company. In the summer of 1754, Governor Shirley-for whom the new fort had been named -- came to the Kennebec with a military escort of eight hundred men and laid the corner-stone of Fort Halifax at the month

384

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

of the Sebasticook .* This fortification was to face the wilderness that stretched unbroken to Quebec, where the French and Indians still held their councils of hate against New England.

To complete the armament of its territory, the land company itself proceeded to build a fort at Cushnoc, as auxiliary to Fort Halifax and for the storage of supplies destined for the upper garrison, as they were unloaded from the vessels at the head of navigation. The little army which the governor led to the Kennebec was deployed to scout and patrol for possible enemies, and to guard the workmen on the forts, and to swamp a road through the woods from Fort Halifax down to Cushnoc. A detachment was assigned to the service of the Plymouth Company for picket duty. Fear of the Indians impelled to great cantion.

Cushnoc was then but a landing place in the midst of a wilderness, among noisy brooks and cavernous ravines, suited to the stealthy methods of the dreaded foe, so the land company lodged its employees at Fort Shirley, while they prepared from the adjacent forest the materials for the Cushnoc fort. Trees that grew on the land of the present town of Dresden were cut down and hewn into timbers and wrought with tenon and mortise under the protecting cannon of Fort Shirley and the muskets of province soldiers. Then the finished timbers were launched into the river and towed in rafts up to Cush- noc, where they were given their allotted places in the walls and sentry towers of Fort Western. This " strong, defensible magazine"+ consisted of a principal building, one hundred feet long by thirty-two wide, and two citadel-like blockhouses with projecting upper stories, and two other buildings of smaller size. There was a court or parade ground formed jointly by these structures and a line of pickets en- closing an area of 160 feet by 62. Encompassing all on three sides, thirty feet distant and opening on the rugged bank of the river, was another and stouter palisade that frowned imposingly toward the outer world. The walls of the main house were built of timber twelve inches square, laid close together in courses. The doors and windows were of solid plank. The blockhouses (one at the northeast and the other at the southwest angles of the inner court) were built also of squared and closely matched timbers. Their summits were loopholed sentry boxes of hard wood plank.

No sooner was Fort Western erected than the governor armed it with soldiers and cannon, and constituted it the middle link in the chain of defenses. By early autumn (1754) the army had accomplished

*This fortification was designed by General John Winslow, a descendant of Edward, the Pilgrim, and a namesake of Edward's brother, who had kept the trading house at Cushnoc a century before.

+Letter of Governor Shirley. See Maine Historical Society's Collection, Vol. VIII, p. 217.

385

AUGUSTA.

its errand. Then it returned bloodless to Boston-leaving the Plym- outh Company in fortified possession of the ancient patent. This was the final conquest of the Kennebec valley. The raising of Fort Western was the second colonial occupation of Cushnoc. The brist- ling fort was the direct successor of the rustic trading house, among whose debris and mould its foundations were laid.

The company had selected Fort Shirley as its first settlement and the nucleus of its projected metropolis; it had surveyed the territory that is now called Dresden Neck, divided it into lots and attracted thither a few scores of families, principally Germans and French Huguenots. This was the colony of Frankfort, and it being well begun, the Plymouth company sought the improvement of its lands further up the river, and looked upon Fort Western as a good center for another settlement. It tried to induce worthy yeomen who were in quest of homes to accept almost gratuitously some of its best lands: but to its disappointment the popular dread of the dangers of the wilderness was too great for the immediate success of its scheme. Then broke out a bloody war between England and France, in which the Indians, stimulated by their French allies in Canada, resumed their raids from the Chaudière down the Kennebec, slaying by assas- sination both soldiers and settlers, arousing the garrisons and terror- izing everybody. This stopped all immigration to the wilds of Maine, and paralyzed the operations of the Plymouth Company

For several years the condition of the few settlers on the river was dismal and the prospect uncertain. Only when the gates of Quebec opened to the army of the immortal Wolfe did the valley of the Ken- nebec become disenthralled from the fatal influences that had for a century delayed its development. France was now driven from America. After that momentous event the border forts were not needed any more. Fort Western, like the others, was dismantled and its soldiers sent away.

Captain James Howard, the original and only commander of Fort Western, remained as its keeper, and thereby became the first perma- nent settler above Frankfort. The principal building of the fort was utilized as a dwelling. The palisades were soon removed as useless obstructions, and the block houses were finally torn down as cumber- ers of the ground, although one of them-the southwestern-was spared until about the year 1834, and is still remembered in its archi- tectural grotesqueness by a few aged persons.

On the first glimmering of peace, and, indeed, three years before the signing of the treaty that confirmed to England the prize which valor had won at Louisbourg and Quebec, the Plymouth proprietors, perceiving the prospectively enhanced value of their property, took courage and resolutely went to work to make it marketable. Their

386

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

first act was to perambulate and parcel the most eligible and fertile portion of their territory into lots for farms and homesteads. By 1761 surveying parties with compass and chains, having begun at the present south line of Chelsea, had reached Fort Western and passed northward beyond the present line of Augusta. All of the land within three miles of the river had been measured off into lots and marked by stakes and stones or other monuments, and a copious record, called the Nathan Winslow plan, was made of the same." This was the first artificial division of these lands since the beginning of the world. Many of the bounds then established are perpetuated to-day in party fences between estates and in town lines and highways.

It was the liberal policy of the proprietors that any worthy man should have two lots in fee simple, provided he would become a bona fide settler and build within five years a comfortable house for him- self and family. Under these conditions the lots next to the river were speedily taken. By 1762 seven log huts had sprung up, patches of ground were being cleared, and tillage was begun among the charred and smoking stumps. Two years later (1764) thirty-seven lots had been taken within the limits of ancient Hallowell and ten more occupied.

Captain Howard, the ex-commander of the outpost, was the fore- most promoter of the settlement. He early accepted three of the conditional lots for himself and sons, and in 1767 he bought the " fort tract " of nine hundred acres and became the private owner of the fort itself. He opened a domestic store for the convenience of his fellow-settlers, and in partnership with two sons (Samuel and William) he engaged in mercantile business with the outside world, receiving goods for the local trade and sending off the garnered products of the region by the firm's own vessels, like the pilgrim predecessors long before. He became a public benefactor by erecting a saw mill about a mile northward from the fort, on the then considerable stream which thereupon took the name of Howard's (now Riggs') brook. A year later (1770) he built near the mill a stately dwelling which was for many years the manor house of the hamlet. He was the next resident magistrate after Southworth (in 1655), and perhaps his best remembered act as such was his solemnization (in 1763) of the mar- riage of his daughter, Margaret, with Captain Samuel Patterson (grandparents of ex-Mayor Joseph W. Patterson, born July 2, 1809). This was the first wedding at Cushnoc. Captain Howard's long, busy and useful life was rounded out by three years of service as a judge of the court of common pleas, which (since his coming to Fort West- ern) had been established (in 1760) at Fort Shirley, in Pownalborough

* The part of this plan that refers to the present territory of Augusta is shown on the following page. Other parts of the Winslow plan are shown at pages 750, 1,035 and 1,096.

Eben Baom Oct. J2 1763

Eben Baron

50 P Vassall

Asa Fak Apr 28 1762

James Bacau 0(612 1763

James Bacon

32 Tyng & Lowell

Urinde Blank

Florentus Vagnall P

48 Umah Clark Ort. 12 1762

Morris Wheeler Det. 12 1763

31 Morris Wheeler

47 James Putts

Isaac Clarke

Apt 28 1762

John Ward Ott- 9 1755

30 John Ward 10 Isaac Clarke

James Pulls P

Jonas Clark

45 Apr 28 1762

Moses Smith April 28 1762

C W Apthorp P

Moses Smith

James Bowdoin

ww Bacon

June 13 2764

Jaber Cowon Jr May H[ 1774

27 Jader Cowon Jr

43 WP Bach

James Bowdoin

26 Dana Jeffries

12 Sanı Tollman

SamI Tollman App 28 1762

Abrahar Cow May 121774

25 Abtahar Cowven

Saun! Babcock

Oct. 15 1769

Jaber Cowen April 24 1752

24 Jaber Cowen

20 Samt Babcock

Sylvester Gardiner

Adam Carmm Oct. 9 1765

22 Adam Carton

37 James Howard Oct 12 1763

Elias Taylor Apr 28 1742

30 Tyng & Lowell

30 James Howard

"Wm Blake Nov 14 1774

Tyng & Lowell P

19 11 Blake

James Howard Od 12 1763

Daniel Townsend Νοv 14 1764

18 Damel Townsend

James Howard

Realt & Velaan P

James Howard, Det. 12 1763

John Nowland June 14 1709

15 David Clark

Daniel Savage

Paschal Nelson

W7 Howard Oct 12 1703

Benj & Hallowed P

13 Tym Howard

29 Thos Hancock

28 Maurice Fung Apr 28 1752

Jeune 13 2764

11 Wi Tavlor

28 Maurice Plang

Thomas Hancock

Jou& Bowman Apr 25 1762

Win Taylor P

10 Jon? Bawinay.

27 J Tileston

27 John Tulestón Oct. 10 1770

Sylvester Gardener 9

Syl Gardiner

20 James Howard

Fort Lot

Gershon Flagg

៛ Our hony Plagg

Fort Lot

Fort Western

85 Beth Greely

Moses Greely Oct. 0 1765

15 tom Varall

23 Jas Bayard

James Bayard P

22 Beithen Colburn Nov 9 1763.

Eph Butterfield Ore 12 1763

John Hancock

2 John Hancock

Whit more & Stone.

Samuel Howard T Bee 14 1768

1 Samuel Howard

10 Excluei Page Jr

Exekuel Page Jr. Now & 1769

AUGUSTA.

David Clark April, 28 1762

Junz 17. 176%.

30 Bantel Hilton

30 Daniel Hilton Oot. 12 1763

Thương & Tuđ P

17 Juinny & Walu

33 Junies Howard

16 John. Nowland

32 Paschal Nelson

Daniel Savages June 1+ 1769 .

Survey by

John Hancock

ES John Hancock

Edward Savage

99 Edward Savage Dec 14 1768

38 Byl Gardner

Klas Taylor

37. Jamen Howard Sylvester Gardiner P

so Jantes Howard. May 14 1766

Nathan Winslow

95 Read & Nelson

Syl Gardiner

Cushinoc from

David Jeffree

29 CW Apthorp

+5 Jonas Clark

Plan of

387

James Howard 1280 Acres

Ephraune Cowewy Tane & 1763

+ Eph Cowen

22 R. Colbie

3 Eph. Butterfield

21 Buehnet Hige

.20

Erchiel Pago Jiene 8 1783

6 Josiah French

2+ Mores Greety

JostaA French Dec 12 1754

7 P Haseltine.

Seth Green

Peter Haseltine Oct 2 1763

12 I'm Braukt

Tyng & Lowell P

388

HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

(formerly Frankfort), for the new county of Lincoln. He died May 14, 1787, at the age of eighty five years. Captain Howard may prop- erly be called the forefather of Augusta. A part of the fort which he commanded still remains as a monument to his memory, and is a lin- gering relic of the transition era when Cushnoc passed from its state of nature under the red men to the higher sovereignty of the subdu- ing settlers with their axes and ploughshares.

The event of next greater local consequence after the fall of Que- bec was the incorporation of the settlement of Fort Western into a town. The land company, ever diligent in the promotion of its in- terests, solicited the act, which was passed by the " governor [Thomas Hutchinson], council and house of representatives," April 26, 1771. The name of Hallowell was adopted in compliment to a merchant of Boston, Benjamin Hallowell, a member of the Plymouth Company and the owner of a 3,200 acre tract about three miles southerly from the fort, on the west side of the river (now the southerly part of Hal- lowell).

The bounds of the new town included the present territory of Au- gusta, Hallowell, Chelsea, and most of Manchester and Farmingdale. This great tract (65,715 acres) was in its original wildness except at a spot near the center, where the group of settlers' clearings extended along the river in the vicinity of Fort Western. Captain Howard was given the honor of calling the first town meeting, which was held on the fort premises May 22 (1771), when the voters-about thirty in number-chose a full board of town officers, among whom were Pease Clark, James Howard and Jonathan Davenport as selectmen. Among the first appropriations were " £36 for clearing roads " and " £16 for schooling."

Until that time the river had been the great and only avenue for travel. Excepting the little used military road to Fort Halifax, the sole avenues for land travel were forest paths that perhaps had been Indian trails in former times. The first work therefore of the infant town was to open roads across the lots from house to house. The earliest town way was little more than a lane cut through the woods in continuation of the Fort Halifax road southerly. The prompt pro- vision for schools attests the loyalty of the settlers to the policy of the Puritan forefathers, who ordained (in 1647) that every town of fifty houses should provide for the instruction of its youth.

The next year (1772) both "schooling and preaching " were classed as necessities and received an appropriation of £15. Of the ninety- six persons who were assessed for taxes in 1772 (to the aggregate sum of £13 19s. ¿ d.), seventy-five lived along the river within the present limits of Augusta. The largest individual tax (11 shillings and 34 pence) was paid by Captain Howard on his stock of goods in the fort store and vessel. Ezekiel Page was the next wealthiest citizen, as in-

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Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892, Part 43

Author: Kingsbury, Henry D; Deyo, Simeon L., ed Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York, Blake Number of Pages: 1790

Author: Kingsbury, Henry D; Deyo, Simeon L., ed
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York, Blake
Number of Pages: 1790