Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892, Part 74

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 74

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STATISTICS .- At the time Gardiner was incorporated there were but one or two houses on Church hill, which was covered with a dense growth of pines. Water street had but one or two stores, and the Cobbosseecontee ran most of the way from its sources to the Kenne- bec, through unbroken forests. In 1820 the town of Gardiner raised 2,576 bushels of corn, 1,056 bushels of wheat, 910 bushels of oats and 239 bushels of peas and beans. There were 162 houses, 195 barns, 86 horses, 315 oxen, 441 cows and 337 swine; 1,485 acres of meadow yielded

* The money raised for preaching was by vote appropriated to the Episcopal church, but those attending other churches could control the amount of preach- ing tax paid by them. Ichabod Plaisted attended to the Methodist proportion, and James Lord and Abraham Cleves to the Baptist claims.

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1,500 tons of hay. The average wealth of each person in Gardiner that year was 60 per cent. above the average of each person in Maine. In 1830 it was voted to allow the town treasurer but twenty dollars for his services, and that $1,800 should be raised for town expenses and supporting the poor, $1,400 for schooling, and $2,500 for roads and bridges.

The population of Gardiner in 1850, before West Gardiner was set off, was 6,486. It contained 195 farms, that produced 124 bushels of wheat, 7,962 bushels of corn, 5,542 bushels of oats, 700 bushels of bar- ley, 3,900 tons of hay, 2,780 pounds of beeswax and honey, 8,340 pounds of cheese and 50,000 pounds of butter. There were 988 houses, 300 horses, 600 cows, 326 oxen, 940 sheep and 189 swine. There were sawed 15,000,000 feet of lumber, 3,500,000 of clapboards, and 12,000,000 shingles. The manufacture of cloth was: 5,000 yards of flannel, 8,000 yards of satinet, and 20,000 yards cassimere; 50,000 sheep skins and 45,600 sides of leather were handled. Some of the other productions were: 10,500 pairs of boots and shoes, 12,000 barrels of flour, and 350,- 000 brick. There were nine physicians, one dentist, ten lawyers, two printing offices, two book stores, three banks, three apothecaries, three hotels, two jewelers, two hat, cap and fur stores, six livery stables, four stove and tin stores, one bakery, one harness maker, two furniture manufactories, one sail loft, two crockery stores, one extensive pottery, one plaster mill, one grist mill, one woolen factory, two machine shops, one foundry, one tannery, one paper mill, three ship yards, seven ready made clothing stores, three eating houses, six boot and shoe stores, six millinery stores, two carriage factories, twenty-six groceries and five dry goods stores. There were fifteen up and down saws, three sash, door and blind makers, thirteen shingle machines, one last maker, three cabinet makers, nine blacksmiths and two commission mer- chants.

EARLY MILLS .- When the idle flow of the Cobbosseecontee was arrested by the hand of industry and the stout form of wooden dam No. 1 was stretched across its path, the first task assigned to the tur- bid rambler, undoubtedly, was to turn the crank of an old fashioned saw mill. The pioneer mill had so much work that a second one was added, and the two sawed the beams and boards for Cobbossee grist mill, which was built on the east end of the dam in 1761.

For the next fifty years it can probably be said with truth, of saw mills there was no end. Where there was a saw mill is not so much of a question as where there wasn't one; dam No. 1 had thirteen run- ning at one time. Two or three generations of saw mills were built, worn out and replaced with new ones, on ground back of where Bar- stow & Nickerson's store now stands. Three generations of saw mills have also flourished on the upper or reservoir dam. The first was built so early that its successor, built by General Dearborn and hired

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HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

by Joseph Bradstreet before 1790, gave that locality the name of New Mills, which it still retains.

This upper dam, where nothing stands now but the pump house of the water company, was a busy place for eighty or ninety years pre- ceding 1850. Besides the saw mills mentioned, one of which was run by Rivereus Hooker, there were a foundry (where John Stone made the first cast iron plows in this part of Maine), a machine shop and lead pipe works. Mr. Flagg, of Hallowell, had charge of the forge and made vessel anchors, also nails that sold at sixteen cents a pound. There was a long row of low buildings for the storage of charcoal to use in the different shops. There were lead pipe works, carriage shops and shingle factories, and a Mr. Wythe had an ashery near by. Later there was a match factory, in a part of which Reuben Hazleton had a carriage shop, and another building in which Buffum & Collins made sash, doors and blinds. These buildings, with a saw mill, were all destroyed by fire in 1849. The match factory at that time belonged to A. & C. H. Andrews.

The lower dam, now No. 1, and the first saw and grist mills, were probably built in 1760 and 1761, by Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, who estab- lished the policy that was followed for the next seventy-five years by his successors, of building and holding the title of all dams, mills, and of as much adjoining real estate as possible. These mills were rented to practical men, who accepted the best terms they could get, and did their best to live and thrive.

The memory of men now alive does not cover much that happened previous to 1820. In 1822 the present stone dam No. 1 was begun, and completed the third year after. Jolin Stone, a well remembered blacksmith who came from Kennebunk to Gardiner, took the job, and his son John, born in Gardiner in 1806 and still living here in the en- joyment of good health and a clear mind, worked with his father in building that dam. About the same time R. H. Gardiner built the stone mill on the corner of Water and Bridge streets, that is the first grist mill within the memory of what are now the older inhabitants. Mr. Stone is about the only person who remembers the old wooden grist mill, that stood on the opposite corner, on a part of the site now covered by the brick grist mill. This may have been, and probably was, the mill to which the first settlers came from so large a territory previous to 1800. The old wooden mill was run by Daniel Wood ward. He was also a plow maker; that is he made the wood work, and John Stone, who had machinery in his blacksmith shop, including a trip hammer run by water power, made the iron part. When the stone grist mill was ready for use Michael Woodward was the miller for many years. He was succeeded by Benjamin Johnson, who lost a leg and had to take up lighter business.

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After Johnson, Smith Maxcy, who made millers of four of his five boys, carried on the stone mill till it was succeeded by the brick mill in 1844. Hundreds of people are still living who remember him in both mills. No man had more friends, or better deserved them. A few will recollect that Benjamin Johnson kept a variety store in the old stone mill which stood some years after grinding in it was stopped. The old wooden grist mill was used for a plow factory by John Stone and Daniel Woodward after the stone mill began grinding. After that it was removed to where Holmes' works are. The old oakum mill on dam No. 2 was run by Master Sprague. That was the end of the street then; very large pines grew in that locality.

MANUFACTURES .- Henry Bowman in 1846 built on dam No. 2 a saw mill that was owned by the firm of Clay, Dinsmore & Co., composed of Bradbury T. Dinsmore, of Anson, Richard and William Clay, and Charles and George Moore. Joshua Gray came to Gardiner in 1844, and after clerking for this firm less than two years bought George Moore's interest in the saw mill. Richard Clay died in 1848, the firm dissolved and Henry T. Clay & Co. bought the business and carried it on. Mr. Gray soon purchased an interest in what was first an oakum mill, then a starch mill, and was converted by Frost & Sargent into a shingle and clapboard mill. Frost & Gray continued this kind of work five or six years, when John Frost sold his interest to Townsend, and Gray & Townsend lost the mill by fire. At the same time the firm of J. Gray & Co., composed of Joshua Gray, John Frost and Brad- bury T. Dinsmore, leased on the river below the railroad, a steam mill that was burned after four years' operation.

Before the civil war Gray & Dinsmore bought Mr. Gray's present mill of Clay & Co., and several years later Mr. Gray bought his part- ner's interest. In 1870 he also bought dam No. 2, for $22,000, and im- mediately rebuilt and enlarged the mill, and in 1876 made his son George a partner, as Joshua Gray & Son. This firm, long known as one of the leaders in the lumber manufacture, is cutting over five million feet a year, in which work thirty-five men are steadily em- ployed.

Mr. Gray has never been allowed to give all his energies to his private business. His fellow-citizens early perceived that the clear judgment and unswerving honor constantly apparent in the manage- ment of his own affairs would be invaluable in the public service. In 1867 they made him a member of the city council, an alderman in 1868, and to fill a vacancy he was the same year made mayor, and reelected in each of the three ensuing years. While mayor he was twice chosen to the state senate, serving in 1869 and 1870.

Private corporations, always alert for the best officials obtainable, have also asked and obtained the benefits of his experience and counsel. He was one of the original directors of the Oakland Bank

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HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

and has been president of the Oakland National Bank since 1871. He was for years a director of the Kennebec Log Driving Company, part of the time its president, and has been the only president of the Oak- land Manufacturing Company. To his long life in Gardiner the atten- tion of young men may most appropriately and profitably be called. Patient hard work, sound common sense, unswerving tenacity of pur- pose, unbending honesty of practice, a genial nature, a smiling face, a friendly hand, are some of the traits and characteristics of a man who has commanded the respect and won the kindest consideration of all whose good fortune it has been to know him. He has always been a pillar of strength in the republican party and in the Univer- salist church.

Mr. Gray is the son of George and Margaret (Dinsmore) Gray, and the grandson of George Gray, who came from England to Starks, Me., where he raised a family. George, born 1785, died 1868, and Mar- garet, born 1794, died 1869, were the parents of eleven children: Joshua, Calvin, William D., Rachael, Edwin, Betsey, Gardner, Re- becca, Benjamin D., Paulina D. and Albina. Five of these are living. Joshua, the eldest of the eleven, was born November 14, 1814. On the 25th of June, 1849, he married Ploma M., daughter of Ephraim Currier, of Norridgewock, Me., and settled in Gardiner, where Mr. Gray had already lived five years. Here their children were raised: George, born November 22, 1850, now in business with his father; Fred, born May 9, 1852, now living in Indianapolis, Ia .; Charles H., born October 4, 1858, at home, and Harriet C., now Mrs. Benjamin B. Clay, of Minneapolis, Minn.

Prior to 1834 the Gardiner system of saw mills on dam No. 1, nearest to the mouth of the Cobbosseecontee, embraced six complete mills under three separate roofs. James Jewett came here in 1834 and worked several years for R. H. Gardiner in connection with these mills and in the erection of new ones. Mr. Gardiner's house was burned in 1836 and subsequently he built four other complete mills under one roof, on dam No. 1. These ten mills were operated by tenants: 1 and 2 by N. O. Mitchell; 3, by Day & Preble; 4, Samuel Clay and Shaw & Cook: 5 and 6, John & Arthur Berry; 7 and 8, Hooker, Libby & Co., and 9 and 10 by William Sargent. These ten mills and surroundings were burned in 1844, at once rebuilt by Mr. Gardiner and occupied by his former tenants. A second fire in 1860 again destroyed these mills, which were immediately rebuilt by the occupants, who rented the sites and power of Mr. Gardiner.

In 1863 H. W. Jewett & Hanscom leased mills 9 and 10 of William Sargent and hired Hooker, Libby & Co. to saw lumber for them by the thousand. The next year Mr. Jewett bought the Sargent mill, and a few years later he bought the Hooker, Libby & Co. mill, and put in a modern gang of twenty-one saws. Then he traded this large

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mill with Mr. Gardiner for Nos. 1 and 2, then called the Mitchell mill, and standing on the site where his present lumber business is located. This he repaired at considerable expense and was doing a fine busi- ness when it was destroyed by fire August 7, 1882. On the spot occu- pied by the ruins Mr. Jewett immediately rebuilt at a cost of $30,000, and had his new mill ready and running in the early spring of 1883, and its size, equipments and adaptation to a large business placed it at once at the head of the lumber cutting establishments of Gardiner. The aggregate payments for the 832,793 logs used during the ten years ending with 1891 was $1,045,870.77, exclusive of collecting and hand- ling. Its annual output of long lumber has been 11,000,000 feet, giv- ing employment to an average force of more than ninety men. The logs for this immense business come from Moosehead lake and its tributaries. About twenty cargoes of 200,000 feet each of spruce are sent to New York city-one-third is sold at home and the balance finds market on the line of the railroads. This eleven million feet is exclusive of the average annual product of short lumber, including about 6,000,000 shingles, 4,000,000 laths, a half million clapboards and as many pickets and slats.

Lincoln Perry was born in Topsham, Me., July 25, 1815, and died in Gardiner, Me., August 28, 1890. His father, Joseph M. Perry, of Topsham, had four sons and four daughters. Joseph and Lincoln set- tled in Gardiner, John W. in Brunswick, Me., and Bradford settled first in Gardiner, afterward in Boston. One daughter, Eliza, married Henry Foy, of Gardiner, and resided in that place. Lincoln Perry came to Gardiner in 1831. In 1842 he purchased a mill on dam No. 3 and engaged in the lumber business, afterward owning and operating two mills on that dam for the manufacture of lumber. He continued in that business until 1867, when he retired. In the mill purchased in 1842 had been placed the first planing machine introduced into the county, which he operated for a while, and which up to that time and later was the only planing machine in the county. He married Mary Langdon Reed, of Dresden, Me. They had three children: Mary Adelia, Arthur L. and Sarah W. Perry. The two former are now liv- ing and reside in Gardiner. Lincoln Perry served in the city govern- ment in 1867, '68, '69 and '70. He was a prominent member of the Congregational church and throughout life one of its most earnest supporters.

The industry of broom making in Gardiner was started in a build- ing owned by John Moore and Joseph Perry, on Summer street, on wing of dam No. 2 in 1866, by Augustus W. McCausland, William H. Moore, and his brother, Gustavus Moore. The next year Mr. McCaus- land bought his partners both out, and in 1868 bought of Arthur Berry the broom handle business that was begun. by Thomas Ingalls Noyes two years before, and was thus enabled to make the brooms complete

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HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

in one shop. In 1869 A. W. McCausland and William H. Moore began cutting thin lumber for picture frame backs, and the next year received George H. Stone into the new firm of Moore, McCausland & Co., which abandoned the making of brooms, and made broom handles and bed slats its main products. This firm built the steam mill now used by the Oakland company, and otherwise enlarged their expenditures, till needing more capital, The Oakland Manufacturing Company was or- ganized in 1871, with $25,000 capital stock. In the spring of 1880 the Joseph Perry machine shop, standing only a few feet from the Oak- land shops, was burned, and the ground and water rights of the Perry shop were at once leased of Joshua Gray, and the planing mill now in use was added to the plant of the Oakland company. A force of twenty to twenty-five workmen turn out from six to eight million broom handles yearly, most of which are sent to foreign markets, and over two million pieces of spring bed and slat work. Joshua Gray is the president, Albion E. Wing is the treasurer, and Augustus W. McCausland superintendent of this company.

In 1868 John Kidder Foy and A. K. P. Buffum built a planing mill en Summer street and made doors, sash and blinds, under the firm name of Foy & Buffum. In 1870 Sanford N. Maxcy succeeded Mr. Foy, and the same line of business was carried on for the next fourteen years by the firm of A. K. P. Buffum & Co. A fire destroyed all of their works except the east building in 1884, when Mr. Maxcy pur- chased his partner's half, and operated two years as S. N. Maxcy & Co. In 1886 the present stock company was organized as The S. N. Maxcy Manufacturing Company. These mills have always been run by steam, using now a thirty-five horse power engine, and the steady services of twenty to twenty-five inen.

The manufacture of bed slats for the general market is an industry that originated here with William H. Moore. The initial experiment was made in 1868 in a building known as Moore's shop, on Summer street, and it prospered from the start. In 1880 Mr. Moore moved to dam No. 3, and bought his present location of Arthur Berry, on which was the old "Shadagee" saw mill, that was originally built back of the present post office on Water street, where it stood many years, and was moved to dam No. 3 by Mr. Gardiner, about 1820. John Moore, father of William H., was a millwright, and did the work. There was also a building now used for a mattress factory, that Mr. Berry built many years ago for a planing mill. In 1884 an automatic splitting saw, and in 1888 a machine for cutting excelsior, were invented and patented by Mr. Moore, each of which is of great utility and value.

In July, 1891, The W. H. Moore Mattress Manufacturing Company was organized to make a new mattress in which the tips of pine and fir boughs are used for their hygienic effects. Both branches of Mr.

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Moore's business are active, and together they furnish occupation for twenty-four people. .

Captain James Walker engaged in making boxes at dam No. 3 in 1869, where he remained eleven years and then moved to the lower dam and was burned out in 1882. He was also interested with S. N. Maxcy in the lumber business. The same year of the fire Captain Walker resumed box making and located at his present quarters in one of the Oakland Manufacturing Company's buildings on Summer street, where he employs from five to fifteen hands.

Some four or five years before the civil war Whitmore & Dorr built a saw mill on the " Shadagee " dam. Mr. Dorr soon sold his interest to William Sargent, who in 1863 sold to Robert T. Hayes. Whitmore & Hayes added a building with a rotary saw, and had just finished other improvements, when Mr. Whitmore died, in 1865, and his inter- ests were sold to Mr. Hayes. Joseph C. Atkins, of Farmingdale, sub- sequently purchased a half interest in this mill, and the firm of R. T. Hayes & Co. employ twenty men, and cut one million feet of long and two million feet of short lumber yearly.

On his return from the war in 1866 Melvin C. Wadsworth bought an interest in the house furniture manufacturing firm of Tibbetts & Morgan. Three years later he bought out his partners and conducted the business alone till 1873, when the present firm of Wadsworth Brothers was formed by the admission of Clarence E. Wadsworth. The fire of 1882 destroyed their factory, but they rebuilt the next year on the old site, which they still occupy, employing twelve men in their shops. This is the only concern of the kind in Gardiner.

Peleg S. Robinson opened in 1861 a general jobbing sash, door and blind shop. with John F. Merrill, whose interest he purchased in 1863, and has followed the business ever since, employing six men.

Immediately after the disastrous fire of 1882-which burned the sash, door and blind manufactories of Moore & Brown, and of Seabury & Towle-Granville W. Moore, Daniel B. Brown and Rufus B. Seabury formed the present firm of Moore, Brown & Co., contractors and build- ers, and proceeded at once to construct their buildings now in use on dam No. 1. The main building stands where Moore & Brown's shop stood, and the building which contains the office is on the spot where Seabury & Towle's factory was. This, the oldest concern of the kind in the city, dating from Mr. Seabury's beginning in 1852, furnished labor for fifteen to twenty-five men.

The history of the Holmes & Robbins' pioneer machine and iron working manufactory begins in 1830, when Philip C. Holmes and Charles A. Robbins began to build grain threshers on the lower dam, near the present Daily News building, for R. B. Dunn. In a few years they moved to dam No. 2, just above the old Gardiner woolen mill, where they built a wooden foundry on the site of their present old

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HISTORY OF KENNEBEC COUNTY.

foundry, and a store-house for patterns, and added mill work and steam engines to their line of manufactures. This entire establish- ment was burned in 1846. Within a single month a brick foundry was in complete running order on the site of the old one, and the next year they built the present brick store-house. In 1848 the firm built the machine shop now in use, and made castings for ship work. Their forge for making ship shapes stood on dam No. 3, where Foster's axe factory was and where now the Gardiner Tool Company is located.

This line of work was continued to 1858, when shipbuilding went down. The old firm was dissolved in 1860 and the new firm of P. C. Holmes & Co. was formed, by Philip C. and George M. Holmes and Thomas Wrenn. The latter died in 1866, and in 1873 Philip H. Holmes was admitted. Philip C. Holmes died in 1882 and the next year George H., son of George M. Holmes, became a member of the firm. In 1889 The P. C. Holmes Company was incorporated, with a capital of $300,000. The Holmes turbine water wheel, invented by Philip H. Holmes, is a specialty of manufacture; also the fibre graph- ite, another remarkable invention of Mr. Holmes, which obviates the use of all lubricants in the running of machinery. George M. Holmes is the inventor of machinery for placing accurately spaced and planed gears.

The firm of C. A. Robbins & Sons, iron founders and machinists, was formed in 1869, by Charles A. and his sons, E. Everett and Albert A. Robbins. They bought at that time the premises on the corner of Bridge and High streets, and put up buildings which they used till they were burned in 1882. The old shops were replaced by new ones the same year, and the name of the firm was not changed when Charles A. Robbins died April 9, 1884, nor when E. E. Robbins died in 1892. The number of employees is fifteen, manufacturing saw and grist mill machinery, iron and brass castings, shafting and pulleys; but the principal specialty of the factory is machinery for stowing and shipping ice.

The making of steel springs and axles in Gardiner is the result of one of the earliest attempts of its kind in the state of Maine. In 1830 James Williams made steel springs in Readfield, where he continued their manufacture for thirty-five years. Among his workmen was Hebron M. Wentworth, who left the shop and served his country through the civil war. On his return in 1865, he chose this city for his future home and brought Mr. Williams with him, and continued the steel spring and axle manufacture on dam No. 3, where it still re- mains. The next year the shop was burned, and immediately rebuilt, and David Wentworth became a partner, with firm name of Went- worth Brothers. Soon after George and Frank Plaisted were admitted to the new firm of H. Wentworth & Co., which ran several years, when the Plaisteds sold to John T. Richards and others. It 1877 a stock

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company was formed, and incorporated as The Wentworth Spring & Axle Company, which has had fourteen years of continued growth and prosperity. The annual output is 350 tons of steel springs and 15,000 sets of axles, in the production of which forty-five men are employed.

The manufacture of axes in Gardiner began in 1881, when Henry M. Foster came here from Skowhegan and bought of James Walker a box factory on dam No. 3, which he converted into an axe and ice tool factory. After running one year The Foster Edge Tool Com- pany was formed, which after two years was changed to the present Gardiner Tool Company, of which Fuller Dingley is president and Henry M. Foster agent. Six men are employed and 1,300 dozen axes are made annually.

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Illustrated history of Kennebec County, Maine; 1625-1892, Part 74

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