Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892, Part 47

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 47

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HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

of his oration for publication, and it was printed by William H. Simpson in a pamphlet that is now very rare.

The great epochs in the history of Augusta after the building of the first Kennebec bridge, and which have immeasurably affected its business, social, and political life, were the making of it the seat of government by the new state of Maine, the establishing of the Ken- nebec Arsenal, and the founding and building of the insane hospital. The town has been supremely fortunate in the timely enterprise of its citizens and the abilities of its public men. Daniel Cony first rep- resented it in the legislature (1797). His son-in-law, Reuel Williams, took the lead in shaping the future of Augusta after the state of Maine was formed.

On the 24th day of February, 1827, the governor (Enoch Lincoln) approved the act of the legislature fixing the permanent seat of gov- ernment at Augusta on and after January 1, 1832. The corner-stone of the capitol was laid July 4, 1829, with Masonic ceremonies, the pro- ·cession being escorted by the Augusta Light Infantry, under Captain Rufus C. Vose. Governor Lincoln,* standing on the corner-stone, de- livered an address; later, an oration was given by Daniel Williams (brother of Reuel) in Doctor Tappan's meeting house. The granite used in the edifice was mostly from the quarries in Augusta, the larger portion being from the quarry now owned and operated by the Edwards Manufacturing Company, in Ward Four.t The legislature occupied the building for the first time January 4, 1832, when Samuel Smith was governor, and Robert P. Dunlap president of the senate.

The location of the arsenal at Augusta [see page 106] was a sequence to the earlier vote of the legislature locating the state gov- ernment. But the locating of the hospital for the insane was deter- mined solely by the munificent subscriptions of $10,000 each, by

* Governor Lincoln came to Augusta by invitation to deliver an address be- fore the students of the Cony Female Academy, on October 5th, following. He was interrupted during his address by illness. He rapidly grew worse, and died at the residence of General Samuel Cony, October 8th. He was given the honor of a state funeral, and his body was entombed in the state house lot, and his sepulchre is now familiarly known as the "Governor's grave."

t The first successful attempt to open a granite quarry in Augusta was at the old Thwing ledge, in 1825; this and the old Rowell ledge are connected with what was once called the Ballard ledge, but which is now the Edwards Manufacturing Company's. When the first bridge was built, the granite used in the pier was from boulders; the jail of 1808 was likewise built of granite split from boulders. When the first Kennebec dam was built (1835-7), the ledge on Main Top was operated for rough stone, and many blocks from that now long-abandoned quarry may still be seen in the northerly section of the canal wall adjacent to the main wheel-house. The blocks in the colonades of the state house came from the Melvin ledge in Hallowell. When Judge Bridge and Benjamin Whit- well built their houses in the early part of the century, they shipped the granite for the underpinning from Boston.

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Reuel Williams, of Augusta, and Benjamin Brown, of Vassalboro, made in the early part of 1835, toward the founding of such an insti- tution [see page 94].

In the train of these public enterprises came the first faint motions toward a city form of government. In 1835 (March 10) the Augusta village corporation was authorized by the legislature to raise money to maintain a fire department and to ring a bell for the public's benefit. The territorial limits of this corporation embraced the eleven front lots (according to the ancient Winslow plan) a mile deep, on both sides of the river, from the Hallowell line northward. The north line included Pettengill's Corner. The following composed the first board of officers: Russell Eaton, supervisor ; William A. Brooks, clerk ; Joseph W. Patterson, treasurer and collector ; Daniel Williams, audi- tor ; Reuel Williams, chief engineer ; William Pillsbury and William K. Kittredge, assistant engineers; Reuel Williams, Charles Keene, William Pillsbury, Thomas W. Smith, William K. Weston, Lot Myrick, William L. Wheeler, fire wardens. The first tax was assessed in 1836 and the last one in 1839 .*

It is a remembered saying of William Howard as early as 1785, that a dam could be built across the Kennebec at Cushnoc island (now disappeared), but nearly half a century was then to elapse before such an enterprise would be actually undertaken. The Kennebec Dam Company was incorporated March 7, 1834, with a capital of $300,000. At the meeting to accept the charter and organize, Luther Severance was chairman and Horatio Bridge, secretary; the officers elected were: Asa Redington, jun., president ; James L. Child, secretary and treas- urer ; Daniel Williams. Allen Lambard, James Bridge, Lot Myrick, directors ; William Dewey and Edmund T. Bridge, auditors. About a year later Edmund T. Bridge was made president, who, with James and Horatio Bridge, were made the directors; Daniel Williams, sec- retary and treasurer; James and Horatio Bridge, auditors. Soon after

*The following are the names of the members of the engine company ap- pointed by the selectmen, January 27, 1836: Russell Eaton, director ; Henry Winslow, William S. Haskell, sub-directors; Erastus Bartlett, clerk ; Russell Eaton, Sylvanus Caldwell, Charles H. Hamlen, Henry L. Carter, George W. Jones, L. O. Cowan, George G. Wilder, Charles Hamlen, E. D. Norcross, William S. Haskell, Daniel C. Stanwood, David Doe, jun., Henry Winslow, Lemnel S. Hubbard, William Caldwell, Simeon Keith, Cyril Hartwell, Arthur Blish, John H. Hartwell, Henry C. Hamlen, Samuel P. Plaisted, Henry Williams, James Clough, Alvan Fogg, Charles B. Fisher, E. Bartlett, Ansel Blanchard, Moses Noble, E. P. Norton, P. T. Gillpatrick, John C. Anthony, Micah Safford, Hiram Safford, George B. Smith, Joshna L. Heath, Ebenezer Packard, jun., Uriah Huntingdon, John Clifford, Elbridge G. Wyman, Lewis D. Moore, Henry Weeks, N. W. Wingate, James W. North, G. A. Blake, G. W. Snow, William Wyman, Henry M. Blunt, Stephen Mayo, Ebenezer H. Farnham, James S. Cate, William N. Dow, John M. Doe, Benjamin Rust, James F. Weeks, Lewis Wells, Charles Town, W. T. Johnson, Charles P. Dexter, John W. Morrison, E. G. Brown.

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Reuel Williams took the office of president. These were the men who boldly undertook the never-before tried experiment of damming the Kennebec. William Boardman* was the engineer, Allen Lam- bard was appointed agent, and men were set at work in 1835. The next year James Bridge was appointed agent, and the work continued. The name of the corporation was changed by an act of March 17, 1837, to the Kennebec Locks & Canals Company, with authority to increase its capital to $600,000. The dam was completed September 27, 1837 ; and the lock (substantially as it is at present) was finished on the 12th of the following October. The height of the dam was sixteen feet above ordinary high water. The completion of the enterprise was celebrated with great joy by a dinner at the Mansion House.

This triumph of engineering skill-great for that day-begins a new era in the business history of Augusta. It was the realization of William Howard's dream, and the original predecessor of the present stupendous plant of the Edwards Manufacturing Company. It was. not a financial success-but the reverse-to the chief builders. On the 30th of May, 1839, during an unusual freshet, the pressure of the water against it was so tremendous that it gave way at the western end, where the canal and unfinished mills were located. The torrent, deflected shoreward and quickened by the breach, swept away not only the unfinished mills, but also a cubic acre or more of land from a surface area of half a dozen acres. It undermined and bore off the homestead+ of Judge Bridge, and the house of his son, Edmund T.,

*Whom Nathaniel Hawthorne, when a guest of Horatio Bridge in 1837, de- scribes as " a plain country squire, with a good figure, but rather a ponderous brow; a rough complexion; a gait stiff, and a general rigidity of inanner, some- thing like that of a schoolmaster. He originated in a country town [belonged in Nashua, N. H.] and is a self-educated man," etc .- Note Book.

+This was the house at which Hawthorne had been the guest of his college classmate and chum, Horatio Bridge (now, 1892, a retired naval officer of high rank in Washington) from July 5 to August 5, 1837. His note-book during the four weeks of his visit to Augusta, is full of delightful interest to the local reader of to-day. He gives in prose a poet's description of a stroll up "a large trout brook " (Bond's brook) which he and his friend took one afternoon-" he [his friend] fishing for trout, and I [Hawthorne] looking on." They finally came to " where a dam had been built across the brook many years ago, and was now gone to ruin, so as to make the spot look more solitary and wilder than if man had never left vestiges of his work there." "B- [his friend] says that there was formerly a tradition that the Indians used to go up this brook and return, after a brief absence, with large masses of lead, which they sold to the trading station in Augusta ; whence there has always been an idea that there is a lead mine hereabouts." Hawthorne here met for the first time since graduation his " classmate and formerly intimate friend," Jonathan Cilley, who was afterward killed in a duel. The remains of the old dam which the romancer describes, were probably at the place that is now called Coombs' Mills, where Samuel Cum- mings had a saw and grist mill as early as 1797, and which forty years later had probably long been abandoned.

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near by. The Bridge mansion had stood more than thirty rods from the original shore, and about a hundred feet above it. So utterly had the land around and beneath the houses disappeared that their sites were lost and their true bounds on the new level below never deter- mined. If the Bridge mansion were to reoccupy its old place in space, it would be about one hundred feet in the air and some two hundred feet westerly of the present river bank in the latitude of the wheel- house at the northerly end of the new factory building.

The work of rebuilding the dam was begun in September, 1840, under the inspiration of Alfred Redington, by the cooperation of the old stockholders. It was finished in 1841, at a cost of about $10,000. In 1842 Samuel Homans built a double saw mill at the east end, and James Bridge a wood machine shop. In the spring of 1845 the build- ing of the first cotton factory-of a capacity of 10,000 spindles-was begun by the Locks & Canals Company, and finished in November of the next year. This was the era of the building of the old factory boarding houses-one of which is still standing as a tenement house on Northern avenue. Six saw mills were built, and Reuel Williams and Joseph D. Emery built a large flour mill. In 1846 (April 11), about 150 feet of the dam was again carried away by a freshet; but it was at once repaired by Samuel Kendall. In 1847 a machine shop and a kyanizing shop were built. In July, 1847, the Augusta Water Power Company was incorporated to take the place of the Locks & Canals Company. On the 2d of September, 1853, the saw mills, machine shops and flour mills were burned. They were rebuilt in 1855, but before they had been completed, a June freshet (the eleventh day) carried away one hundred feet of the dam. It cost $20,000 to repair this new disaster.

The property of the Water Power Company soon thereafter fell by legal execution to Henry Williams, who, while energetically en- gaged in improving it, fell sick, and died September 15, 1858. The property was sold by his administrator to a new corporation by the name of the Kennebec Company, by whom it was conveyed to the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company in March, 1867. The city of Augusta took part in this transaction by loaning its credit in aid of the purchase to the amount of $250,000. On the 2d of January, 1868, the machine shop and adjacent buildings were burned, making a loss of about $40,000. After a freshet that began February 17, 1870, it was found that 160 feet of the dam had been swept away. This was the fourth similar disaster to the structure since it was built in 1837.

The work of rebuilding the dam in a more elaborate and expen- sive manner than ever before, was begun in July, 1870, under the en- gineering supervision of Henry A. De Witt, and the general agency

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of Ira D. Sturgis. It was finished the same year, and still stands ap- parently as immovable as when first built .*

On the 23d of May, 1848, the boiler of the little steamer Halifax, that plied between Augusta and Waterville, exploded while the boat was passing through the lock at the east end of the dam, killing in- stantly six persons, including the captain, Charles F. Paine, of Wins- low, and fatally injuring another. There was at that time great com- petition by steamboats for business between Augusta and Waterville. The railroad had not been built, and at one time there were five boats running between the two towns in connection with the sea steamers for Boston and other ports.

The completion of the railroad from Portland to Augusta was aided by a loan of $200,000 by the town, at a meeting held August 27, 1850. The first locomotive steamed into the village December 15, 1851, and stopped at Court street, where it was looked upon by the curious as a wonderful creature. The first train of cars arrived on the 29th of the same month, and was greeted by thousands of people who had assembled to witness the event. Six years later (in 1857) a railroad bridge had been built across the river, and the track of iron continued to Waterville. This first bridge was carried away by the freshet of 1870, when an iron one was immediately put in its place. This first iron bridge in Augusta was replaced by the present stronger and better one.

For many years Mt. Vernon Cemetery continued to be the only public burial place in the village portion of the town. It was small in size and incapable of being adorned and made attractive by taste and art. On February 11, 1835, the Forest Grove Cemetery Associa- tion was incorporated, and was first composed of the following named citizens: John Eveleth, Benjamin Tappan, Henry W. Fuller, Thomas W. Smith, John Means, James L. Child, Bartholomew Nason, Frederick Wingate, Elias Craig, Jacob Hooper, Greenlief White, Charles Keene, Mark Nason, Benjamin Swan, William Hunt, John Hilton, William Norcross. The association bought of Bartholomew Nason three acres of land nearly opposite the Mt. Vernon Cemetery, and established the present beautiful cemetery, which is the last resting place of many of the honored men of the town. Ex-Secretary of State Lot M. Morrill, and General Seth Williams, the adjutant general of the Army of the

* The Spragues added about 15,000 spindles, and made other improvements, but in 1873 they failed, and the mills were operated under a board of trustees until 1882, when the property was sold to the Edwards Manufacturing Company. The directors are Jacob Edwards, Dexter N. Richards, Orlando H. Alford, Isaac Fenno, William Endicott, J. Manchester Haynes and Joseph H. Manley. Mr. Richards is president, Mr. Edwards, treasurer, Nathaniel W. Cole, agent, and Charles B. Johnson, clerk. The mills now run 98,000 spindles. The Spragues added one building, making two when the property passed out of their hands, and the Edwards Company have added three.

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Potomac, lie in lots almost adjoining. St. Mary's Cemetery, adjoining Forest Grove, easterly, was appropriated as the Catholic burial place of the town about ten years later. In 1858 the city purchased of the heirs of Charles Williams about five and three quarters acres on the east side of the river, for $575, and established the present River- side Cemetery. The dust of Reuel Williams reposes in a family tomb in the northwest corner, amid his loved tumult of the industries of the Kennebec dam, and where the vibrations of the traffic over the iron road which his strong aid helped to establish, reach almost hourly.

The old Mt. Vernon Cemetery having become almost filled with graves, the city in 1853, bought of Vassal D. Pinkham twelve acres of land westerly of and contiguous to Mt. Vernon Cemetery. The price paid was twelve hundred dollars. This was named Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, and has now in about forty years been nearly all lotted. The public suburban cemeteries are : Bolton Hill Cemetery, on the North Belfast road ; Brackett's Corner Cemetery, and the Cottle Cemetery, on the Belgrade road; the Townsend Cemetery, on the Townsend road ; the Mt. Vernon Avenue Cemetery ; the Reed Ceme- tery, on the Sidney river road. The insane hospital has a cemetery for the burial of such of its deceased patients as are interred under its supervision. Adjoining this lot, are two family burial lots-the Cony and Williams families-whose ancestors were the first settlers on the hospital and arsenal lands. The North Parish Cemetery,- called the Lawson yard-in Ward Seven, is under the supervision of the city. It is on the farm now owned by Horace Doe. In this yard lies the dust of John Gilley, one of the earliest settlers, who lived to a great age-reputably to 124 years. Gilley's point received its name from him.

There are several private burial places on the same road. Begin- ning with the Uriah Clark lot, referred to a preceding page, and pro- ceeding southerly, one next comes to a family lot on the farm owned by C. M. Daily; next is the family lot of the late James Gilley, on the farm now owned by Dennis Donovan. This lot, like the Uriah Clark lot, is unfenced and will soon be obliterated. Next is the Tolman yard, so-called, on land now owned by Frank Lessor. In this lot sleeps Samuel Tolman, another of the original settlers, together with some of his descendants. The lot is on the westerly side of the hill, near Mr. Lessor's house. Next is the Babcock burial place, unfenced, on land now owned by J. T. Harwood. Next is the original Riverside yard, so-named by Jarvis W. Lawson. It is on the farm now owned by J. W. Dana. Roland Smith and wife, Clark Smith and wife, and the Isaac Church family are buried here. Next is the Wall and Hewins yard, on the farm now owned by Luther I. Wall. On the ancient Uriah Clark farm, now owned by William Clark, was another burial

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HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

place near the present highway. In it were buried Jesse Clark and his wife, Debie. Jesse was buried in 1842 or 1843, and his wife a few years earlier. This burial place has been plowed over and ob- literated .*

Among the world's distinguished men who have honored Augusta by their presence, and been the guests of its people, may be named the Bourbons, Louis Phillippe and Tallyrand, who were guests for a day at the house of Joseph North (on the present site of Granite Bank) in 1794. The noisy dispute concerning the northeastern boundary line was the occasion of an official visit by Major General Winfield Scott to the capital of Maine. He arrived with his suite March 9, 1839, and lodged at the Augusta House. He remained about three weeks, engaged in composing between Governor Fairfield and Sir John Harvey, the questions that had led the state of Maine to marshal troops for the Aroostook border. William R. Smith, then editor of The Age, was sent for by the general several times, and met him in his parlor for interviews on the subject of the proof sheets of the protocol or document that was to announce to the world in the columns of The Age, the bloodless solution of the " Aroostook war " controversy.

President Polk visited Augusta in 1847, in response to an invitation of the legislature and the town to accept the hospitalities of both. He reached Hallowell in the steamer Huntress, July 3, 1847, and rode to Augusta in a coach driven by Ambrose Merrill, of Hallowell, who was an abolitionist of a swarthy complexion, and whom President Polk ludicrously mistook for a colored servant. Alfred Redington was marshal, assisted by Francis Davis, Daniel C. Weston, Thomas Lam- bard and W. J. Kilburn, as aids. In the president's suite was James Buchanan, as secretary of state. The president lodged at the house of Reuel Williams. President Grant visited Augusta, August 3, 1865, as the guest of the state, accompanied by his wife and children. A state dinner was given the party at the Augusta House. President Grant passed through the city in 1871 (on his way to the opening of the European & North American railway), and received the greetings of the people on a platform erected near the railroad, in Market Square. He again visited the city in 1872, as the guest of Mr. Blaine, accompanied by his son, Fred, and daughter, Nellie. On the 29th of October, 1867, General Sheridan visited Augusta as the guest of the state, and was given a hearty welcome by the citizens. Four hundred school children, stationed at the southeast junction of Winthrop and State streets, sang before him, under the direction of Josiah W. Bangs, the thrilling song (then new) Sheridan's ride. General William

*For the facts connected with this line of old burial places between the Vas- salboro line and Pettengill's Corner, the writer is indebted to Mr. John M. Cross, of Augusta.

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T. Sherman was at one time for a few hours the guest of Mr. Blaine at his Augusta residence.

The fact was stated in a preceding page that in 1797 the infant town was divided into eight school districts. These were subse- quently divided and subdivided as the growth of the town proceeded, until finally the number had increased to twenty-seven. Numbers 2, 4 and 8, of the original districts remained, though much reduced in size, until the abolition of all the suburban districts by the city, and the adoption of the town system for them in 1887. At the town meeting of 1797, three citizens were elected as a committee in each district, and seven more as a town committee "to visit schools." This action was twenty-seven years in advance of statute legislation, and nearly a quarter of a century before Maine became a state and re- quired it by law. This practice was continued until 1815, when the town elected an agent for each district, and fixed the number of the school committee at five .* In 1803 a new district was carved from the north side of No. 3, extending northerly from the Hallowell line, and numbered nine.

The first effort in town to establish a school above the primary grade was in 1803, when an association of citizens built a grammar school building of brick at the present corner of Bridge and State streets (Bridge street did not then extend westerly of State street). This building was first occupied in the spring of 1804, with a Mr. Cheney as preceptor. The ownership of a share entitled to the school- ing of one pupil ; shareholders sometimes let shares to non-owners. The dead languages were taught. The house was burned in 1807, which ended the school. It had no successor for twenty-eight years, and during that period-nearly a generation-the district schools oc- cupied alone the field of educational work within the town's limits ; but the Hallowell Academy, then in its full vigor, offered the youth of Augusta ample facilities for obtaining a good education, which many of them profitably accepted.

In 1835 another attempt was made to establish in town a school devoted to the higher branches of education, and to prepare students for college. The legislature, on the 19th of February of that year, incorporated a number of citizens under the name of the Augusta Classical School Association. Funds were raised by the sale of shares. The site of the original high school house was purchased, and a brick edifice erected thereon; its size was sixty-five by fifty feet, two stories, with pediment front, supported by four doric columns of wood-facing eastward. The building and furnishing cost $7,000. The board of management consisted of Reuel Williams, president; John Potter, James Hall, Cyrus Briggs, Allen Lambard, Elias Craig,

*An address delivered by Dr. John O. Webster, before Capital Grange, Augusta, March 26, 1887, printed in the Home Farm newspaper, April 7, 1887.

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jun., James L. Child, directors. The first term of school in this build- ing began April 18, 1836, under the preceptorship of William H. Al- len, afterward president of Girard College, and kinsman of the late Edward C. Allen, of Augusta. His assistants were Joseph Baker (father of Orville D. Baker), Miss Allen (the president's sister), and Miss Hannah Lambard (sister of Thomas). After Professor Allen left, the Misses Taylor-English ladies-taught for awhile, and then Mr. Woodbury took charge. Each scholar paid six dollars a term as a tuition fee. It was expected that the tuition fees would be sufficient to maintain the school, but after a few years of indifferent financial success, its worthy promoters suffered its doors to be finally closed.

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Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892, Part 47

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