USA > Maine > Maine place names and the peopling of its towns > Part 34
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Dr. Jesse Rice established himself in Minot in 1795 and was the first physician. Dr. Seth Chandler of Duxbury was an early phy- sician at the center and had a large practice.
Minot Corner was early a central point. Moses Emery built saw and grist mills here soon after the Revolution. The first were carried off by high water, soon rebuilt and followed by others, mostly lumber mills. A tannery was added and a saddler's shop and a store, the first
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in the town. West Minot had a grist mill about 1792 at Faunce's Mills, built by Captain John Bridgham, 2nd. Captain Joshua Parsons located at West Minot in 1817 and carried on carding and cloth dressing. He was a town official in many capacities.
Gardiner, 1803 (City, 1850)
The present city of Gardiner had as its founder, Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, and as the historians of Kennebec County properly esti- mate, it still perpetuates many of the physician's traits: "industry, economy, order, thrift, thoroughness, dispatch, education, morality." The territory from which the city of Gardiner was carved was the Kennebec Purchase, among whose proprietors was Dr. Gardiner. By birth an American, by training, a thorough Englishman, Dr. Gardiner displayed a clear active mind, keen and exact observation, a compre- hensive ambition and a high degree of energy and business talent. His associates among the proprietors recognized these talents, and he be- came manager and executive officer of the company. He became so efficient in finding and inducing new families to settle in this new re- gion that he was granted a large part of what is now the business por- tion of Gardiner, including the famous Cobbosseeconte Falls and water privileges, and the locality was named Gardinerstown. By 1770 he owned more than 1200 acres.
From Falmouth, Maine, he brought in 1760 Mr. Thomas, a builder of grist mills, Benj. Fitch, a millwright, Ezra Davis, James Winslow, a wheelwright, James and Henry McCausland and Wm. Philbrook. Four of the men brought their families. The next spring these men built the Cobbossee grist mill, long and widely known as the only place to get grinding done in all the Kennebec Valley. The same summer they built the Great House that for the next fifty years, as a tavern, was the most noted building in town. In the upper part was a hall where religious meetings were often held.
The building of other mills soon followed, saw mills, a fulling mill, then potash works, a brick kiln, stores and many dwellings. Sam- uel Oldham received 100 acres of land as an inducement to make and run a brick kiln. In 1762 Solomon Tibbets, with his family of nine children, was induced to settle on Plaisted Hill, and Ichabod Plaisted came in 1763. Samuel Berry was another early comer, and Captain Nathaniel Berry, a great hunter, was a permanent settler. Wm. Ever- son, the first schoolmaster, and Paul and Stephen Kenney came in 1766. Nathaniel Denbow, James Cox, Peter Hopkins, Wm. Law, Den- nis Jenkins and Abner Marson came in 1768. John North was one of the first Irish settlers. He represented this section in the provincial congress in 1774-75, and was an able worthy man.
Dr. Gardiner was a Tory and when the Revolutionary War
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broke out, his estates were confiscated, but were later restored to his heir and grandson, Robert Hallowell, to whom the doctor willed his Kennebec estate on condition that he take the name of Gardiner, which he did legally in 1802. He was born in England in 1782, but on becoming of age took possession of his estate in Maine.
General Henry Dearborn was delighted with the place when he passed through during the Revolutionary War. He purchased land and built here a home where he lived until he became Secretary of War in 1801. He established the ferry in 1786. He was the most dis- tinguished citizen Gardiner ever had. He brought the first wagon here and Mr. Robert Hallowell Gardiner had the first wheel chaise. Settlers began to come after the Revolutionary War.
In 1778 a petition was made to incorporate the plantation as Gardinerstown, which was not granted; but in 1779, an act was passed incorporating the plantation into Pittston; and in the year of 1803 all of the territory of the old town of Pittston, lying on the west side of the Kennebec, was incorporated into a distinct town by the name of Gardiner and the first town meeting was called in the old Episcopal meeting house. In 1849 the Legislature of Maine passed the act for the town of Gardiner to become a city and the town accepted its charter in 1850. Robert Hallowell Gardiner, in whose honor the city was named, became the first mayor.
The first church, Saint Ann's Episcopal, was erected by Dr. Sylvester Gardiner in 1771; it was a wooden building built on the site of the present parish house (Christ Church). The next summer the Reverend Jacob Bailey preached in the unfinished church. When Dr. Gardiner died in 1786, he left funds to finish the building, ten acres of land, and an annuity of twenty-seven pounds per year to the Episco- pal church. The society was incorporated in 1793. The pews were ar- ranged in three classes, those sitting in the first class paid four pence, the second, three pence, and the third, two pence a Sunday. The cornerstone of the present attractive Gothic church was laid in 1819. The church has a fine Paul Revere bell, used for many years to ring curfew.
West Gardiner, 1850
The territory which forms the town of West Gardiner formerly belonged to Gardiner and Litchfield. The larger portion of the town was within the old Gardinerstown plantation and thus became in 1779 a part of the original Pittston, and was also included in the town of Gardiner in 1803, and comprised the seventh ward of Gardiner City in 1850. The part belonging to Gardiner was set off and incorporated as West Gardiner on August 8, 1850; and in 1859 the northern part of Litchfield was annexed. This latter section is now known as the Neck
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Road. Preliminary to the sale of lands to settlers, the entire Cobbos- seecontee tract was surveyed and divided into lots, the numbers of which appear on the original deeds. A plan projected from Solomon Adams' survey of 1808 is still available.
Among the early settlers who came to what is now West Gard- iner were Nahum Merrill, Peter Clark, James Lord, Abel French and Aaron Wadsworth. Between 1790 and 1800 came Elias and Ben- jamin Howard from Massachusetts, Caleb Towle, Aaron Haskell and Daniel and John W. Herrick. Ezekiel Robinson came in 1802 from Gloucester, Massachusetts; he was a brother of the widely known almanac maker, Daniel R. Robinson. Captain Chapin Sampson, who came to West Gardiner from Boston, had some strange adventures about 1786, when he was captain of a big ship and was captured by an Algerian corsair on the Mediterranean. Job Sampson, a black- smith, came from Boston to Hallowell and thence to West Gardiner. Among other early settlers were the Rices, Neals, Hutchinsons, Branns, Austins and Edwards. Abraham Bachelor came from New Hampshire before 1815, and Ebeneezer Bailey settled in 1800, near where the Friends' Meeting House now stands. Moses Wadsworth, who came from Winthrop in 1809, was a carpenter and the Quaker minister. He lived west of the meeting house near the pond; Paul Hildreth, who was the first settler of Lewiston, came here and settled in early times near Horseshoe Pond, and had sons, Robert and Thaddeus. Hugh Potter was an old settler near Spear's Corner. The Marstons, Littlefields and Annis Spear, from whom the corner took its name, also settled there.
Collins' Mills was originally called Cram's Mills, for before 1795 Jacob Cram built the first mill on the valuable Cobbesseecontee water privilege which so long has borne Mr. Collins' name. John Collins pur- chased the place from Robert Hallowell Gardiner in 1854. About 1815 Daniel Winslow built the first tannery at Cram's Mills; since then a number of tanneries have been in operation - the tanning of sheep- skins is a specialty. Horn's Corner (behind High Street, behind Farring- ton's Garage) was named for Herbert Horn; Brown's Corner (at the white schoolhouse on Purgatory Road) was named for Sewell Brown. Merrill's Corner (at the intersection of the Pond Road and Lewiston Road) was named for Stephen Merrill and French's Corner (at the Grange Hall) was named for Enoch and Sarah (Libbey) French who came from Seabrook, New Hampshire, in 1811 and settled at the location which bears their names.
The brick building now known as Community Hall was form- erly a Free Baptist Church erected in 1841. Robert Hallowell Gard- iner gave the land to the Baptist group. Mrs. Melvin C. Wadsworth had the building improved and, with the consent of the remaining members of the Baptist Society, deeded the property to the High
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Street Community Club. One of the well-known former landmarks was the Brown Tavern on the old post road, kept by Sewell Brown.
Dixfield, 1803
Maine's one hundred and forty-eighth town, Dixfield, is in Ox- ford County. The township was granted by Massachusetts to Jonathan Holman and others. Ezra Newton, with his wife and sister, spent the winter of 1793 here, but they left in spring. John Marble came in during the same season, with a yoke of oxen; but no permanent set- tlement was made until 1795, when Marble, with Gardiner Brown, Amos Trask, Levi Newton, David Torrey and John Gould came, ac- companied by their families. At this time the township had become the property of Dr. Elijah Dix of Boston and for him at its incorpora- tion, June 21, 1803, the town was named.
Dr. Elijah Dix was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1747 and lived in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he married Dorothy, daughter of Joseph Lynde, Esq. In 1795 he moved to Boston where he opened the largest drugstore in the city. About 1800 he caught the fever for land speculation and began to buy townships in Maine. Among these were the areas now comprising the towns of Dixfield and Dixmont.
Strangers are greatly impressed with Dixfield's wooded hills. The early settlers were favored by fertile soil, abundant timber and water power for their saw mills and grist mills. They gradually cleared up the wilderness and made it habitable. Dixfield is located at the confluence of the Webb and Androscoggin rivers.
Freeman, 1803
Freeman is situated in the center of the eastern side of Frank- lin County. It is the more westerly of two townships granted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to the sufferers of Falmouth (now Portland) in the burning of that town by the British during the Revo- lution. The town was surveyed and settled under the agency of Reuben Hill about 1797. It was incorporated in 1803, taking the name of Samuel Freeman of Portland who was one of the principal owners at the time of settlement. It was disorganized in 1938. William Brackly, David Hooper, Alexander Fasset, Samuel Weymouth and Messrs. Burbank, Morton and Boston were among the first settlers.
The township was No. 3 in Range 2, and when first settled took the name of Little River Plantation. The surface is much broken by hills, but the soil is fertile though hard to cultivate. The middle and southern parts of the town are drained by a branch of the Sandy River and across the northern part flows Curvo Stream, the southern branch of Seven Mile Brook.
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Harrison, 1805
Harrison, the northernmost town in Cumberland County, was formed from the northwestern part of Otisfield and the eastern part of Bridgton. It lies between Crooked River and Long Pond. It was incorporated in 1805 and, like Otisfield, was named for Harrison Gray Otis of Boston who was a large proprietor in the township. James Otis, one of the original proprietors, was the eloquent advocate who made the speech in Boston against the enforcement of the British navigation acts and was set upon by British officers and nearly killed.
The Reverend G. T. Ridlon in his Early Settlers of Harrison, Maine, provides a fine background for modern writers concerning the pioneers of that town. Many of these first comers were from Gorham, Maine, and some were born in the fort there, where their parents had taken shelter from the attacks of the Indians.
John Carsley, the earliest comer to our present Harrison, set- tled a short distance to the north of the little church yard where he sleeps beneath a stone bearing the inscription "First Settler of Harri- son." In 1792 he and his brother, Nathan, opened up a clearing on the ridge where they built some rude "Sugar Camps" and then left for their home in Gorham. They returned in the spring of 1793, and be- came permanent settlers at that time. They hauled in their wives, camping necessities and household goods on hand-sleds. They im- mediately set about the making of maple sugar, for which their camps had been built among the maples. Wm. Carsley, son of Nathan, was born in April, 1793.
The story is told, although sometimes disputed, that Deacon Seth Carsley, then a lad of eleven years, drove a six-ox team through the rough paths and across Long Pond on the ice to Bridgton for lumber to build the first house.
Near the grave of John Carsley are other members of his family and many others of the pioneers. Here are Edw. Bray, Chas. Walker, James Chadbourne and Elijah Scribner, all deacons of the same church, and Colonel Haskell Pierce. In 1797 Major Jacob Emerson from Bridgton erected a house in the southern part of the town. James Watson, born in Gorham Fort and afterward a soldier in the Revolu- tion, married a sister of Nathan Carsley and came to Harrison the same year, 1797, and settled on the Pond Road a mile south of the present village, where he erected the first frame house in town. Ben- jamin Foster, another Bridgton boy, purchased land near him, erected a house and opened the first store in town. Simeon Caswell and Nicho- las Bray, both from Minot, came about 1797. Bray opened a clearing on the ridge north of John Carsley, and Caswell settled on a farm a mile north of Bolster's Mills.
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The first settler of Harrison Village itself was James Sampson who came there in 1800. He was an active pioneer and did much to encourage the settlement of the town; his grandson, Captain Christo- pher Sampson, captained the first steamer to run on the lakes. Captain Benjamin Foster is said to have kept the first store, which was at South Harrison, where his place also served as a tavern, the headquarters of loggers, boatmen and teamsters in the vicinity. Harrison Village at- tained increasing importance with the opening of the Cumberland and Oxford Canal in 1830 which made it a port for the surrounding towns, and connected it with the outside world. The head of the Canal was there and large warehouses were built, the first by George Pierce in 1832.
Barrel making was also an important industry; shooks were shipped to the West Indies where they were used for sugar and mo- lasses. Nephtali Harmon from York County purchased of Joseph Moffatt, a former temporary settler, a tract of land three miles east of the village in 1797, and soon became one of the most prominent of Harrison's public men. He built a blacksmith shop, near Summit Spring, and became lieutenant and captain of the militia.
Then came Scribners, Woodsums, Thomas and Howards. Levi Gilson settled in the northeast, near Crooked River in 1803. He and his brother, Peter Gilson, built a saw and grist mill soon afterward be- low Bolster's Mills. James Hobbs Chadbourne and Benjamin were early settlers of two separate families. Benjamin settled near Anonymous Pond in 1807, and James H., a prominent citizen, on the Howard place in 1811.
At Harrison Village manufacturing began with the first saw and grist mill, built by James Sampson in 1800, and the custom card- ing mill of Samuel Tyler at the outlet of Anonymous Pond. Joel Whit- more opened the first store in the village in 1810. Levi Burnham and Oliver Pierce soon afterward became merchants, Deacon James Chad- bourne was a tailor long before "ready-made" clothing was invented.
Bolster's Mills, lying on both sides of Crooked River, is a deep valley, where Isaac Bolster built a dam and saw mill in 1819 and a grist mill in 1820. Soon after the mills a post office was erected, of which Mr. Bolster became postmaster. His son, William, built a fulling and carding mill in 1826. A tannery was also constructed at this date.
The first town house was built in 1806 and the first election was held at the home of Napthali Harmon at Harmon's Corners, near which the town house was located. The officers elected at this first town meeting were: Samuel Willard, Benjamin Foster and Stephen Stiles, selectmen; Samuel Willard, town clerk; and Nathaniel Burn- ham, treasurer.
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Porter, 1807
The Oxford County town, Porter, was purchased of Massa- chusetts in 1790 by Dr. Aaron Porter of Biddeford, Caleb Emery of Sanford and Thomas Cutts of Pepperellborough (now Saco) and others, for the sum of five hundred sixty-four pounds lawful money. Similar provisions were made in this grant as in others of the eighteenth century: three lots, each of 320 acres, should be set apart for schools, for the first settled minister and for the support of the ministry. A further provision, however, was added in this case: 100 acres of land were to be given each man who should settle in the township before the first day of January, 1784. Four settlers met these conditions: Meshack and Stephen Libby from Rye, New Hampshire, John Libby and James Rankins. In 1787 Benj. Bickford, Jr., Samuel Bickford from Rochester, New Hampshire, and Benjamin Ellenwood from Groton also became settlers.
About 1791 David and Job Allord, Joseph Clark and Moses Drown from Rochester, New Hampshire, became permanent residents. Many of the early settlers were soldiers of the Revolution.
As a plantation it was called Porterfield, but when it was in- corporated as a town, it was named Porter for its principal proprietor, Aaron Porter, who owned 6/15 of the land. The plantation meetings were held at the dwelling houses of Wm. Broad, Daniel Brooks, John Wentworth, Abraham Cook and Josiah Bridges, Jr. The repairing and building of roads were the most important activities voted upon at the town meetings.
Other early settlers were Michael Floyd, David Moulton of Hampton, New Hampshire; Daniel Knowles, Gideon and John Mason of Pittsfield, New Hampshire; Henry Floyd, Wm. and John French of Farmington, New Hampshire; Charles Nutter, Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Joseph Pearl of Rochester, New Hampshire. Among those who joined later, but before 1792 were: Joseph Towle, Jesse Colcord of Newmarket, New Hampshire; James Coffin, Biddeford; John Fox, Gilmanton, New Hampshire; Tobias Libby, Rochester; Joseph Stanley, Shapleigh; John Stacy, Berwick; Samuel Taylor, Hampton, New Hampshire, and Wm. Towle.
One saw mill at least and probably two were built here as early as 1799 - one at Porter Village and another on the same stream not far from Stanley or Roberts Pond, called on the plantation map, "Deer Pond." The saw mill of Stephen Libby was located near the site of the mill which was later owned by John Weeks, and was in opera- tion as early as 1805. The first grist mill in town, as stated by the late David Colcord, was built in 1793 by Caleb Emery on the outlet of the
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Colcord Pond, known on the map as "Ellingwood Pond," because Mr. Ellingwood occupied the farm on the western border. This grist mill and one at Porter Village were built about the same time. From the best evidence obtainable, the first bridge across the Great Ossipee at Porter Village was constructed between 1795 and 1800; the second in 1808 and the covered bridge there in 1876. The first river bridge at Kezar Falls was built by subscription in 1833 and the covered bridge in 1869.
The first church organization, Congregational, was made by the people in the northern part of Porterfield and in the town of Brownfield, in 1804. Reverend Jacob Rice from Henniker, New Hampshire, a graduate of Harvard, was the pastor. His salary was one bushel of wheat each year from each member of the parish. The Bap- tist Church in the southern part of the plantation was established in 1806 or 1807. The Free Will Baptist was early formed by Elder John Buzzell of Parsonsfield.
Among the oldest of the religious groups peculiar to Maine are the Bullockites, a society of primitive Baptists who still worship, although infrequently, in their more than a century-old meeting house in Porter. The name of the group is derived from one of the early elders. The building was erected in 1828. It is always open the last Sunday in May. The original members hold to the rite of washing one another's feet as a mark of humility.
Dixmont, 1807
This township in the original survey was No. 3, Range 1, north of the Waldo Patent, in Penobscot County. Maine's one hundred and sixty-ninth town, Dixmont was incorporated in 1807. It had been a donation to Bowdoin College and was called Collegetown. Dr. John J. Blaisdell purchased of the trustees 3,000 acres at $1.00 per acre, but he failed to make the payment at the stipulated time, and the pur- chase reverted to the college, from which the settlers on this tract ob- tained titles to their land. Dr. Elijah Dix of Boston bought the residue of the township, after Blaisdell bought the 3,000 acres, and it was for him that the town was named. The suffix mont was added from the principal hill in the southern part of the township.
The first settlement was in 1799. Among the first permanent settlers were Friend Drake, Elihu Alden, John Bassford and Benj. Brown. An early pioneer settler and minister was the Reverend John Chadbourne who came to the place about 1799 with his sons. Not only was he a preacher, but worked as a carpenter and millwright. He and his sons, Daniel and John, built the first mill erected in the eastern part of the plantation. Daniel, a blacksmith, even hewed out the mill stones from a granite boulder.
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Besides buying land in Dixmont and Dixfield, Dr. Dix bought some in Hampden and Orono. No doubt he planned to make Hamp- den his headquarters or outlet of his Dixmont township. He sent his son, Joseph A. Dix, here as agent, but he was not a great success. The doctor often came by vessel. He was a man of great energy, will and integrity, but being imperious, he was unpopular.
He died at Dixmont Corner in 1809, while surveying his lands, and since there were no roads in the wilderness it was necessary to bury him there. A monument near the center of Dixmont Cemetery marks his resting place. The son lived in Hampden and rented a part of the house of Isaac Hopkins on the banks of the Penobscot. Here Dorothea Lynde Dix was born in 1802 and named for her grand- mother, an aristocratic lady of Boston who never accompanied her husband to the wilds. Miss Dix was unusually reticent in regard to her early life. At the age of ten, she left her Hampden home and went to live with her grandmother. She spent her life revolutionizing the treatment of the insane.
Jonesborough, 1809
Maine's one hundred and seventy-sixth town, Jonesborough, lies west of Machias at the head of Mason's Bay in Washington County. It was granted to John Coffin Jones and others by Massachusetts on January 1, 1789. Its name was given on incorporation in honor of the leading proprietor. Previous to that time, it had borne the name of Chandler's River, since the principal stream had taken the name of the first settler, Judah Chandler.
It is not clear what the circumstances were which induced Massachusetts to grant this territory to John Coffin Jones, but tradi- tion says it was because he lost a sloop which formed part of the fleet sent against Castine during the Revolution. If so, he was well paid for his vessel, for the grant included the districts of Buck's Harbor and Little Kennebec (the former now belonging to Machiasport and the latter to Machias) and also the whole of the present towns of Jones- port and Roque Bluffs, a total of 48,160 acres. Roque Bluffs was originally called Englishman's River.
The first settler was Judah Chandler who arrived in 1763 or 1764 and built a house or mill in the latter year; Wm. Bucknam also came from Falmouth at this time. Joel Whitney, father of Captain Ephraim Whitney, came from Portland about 1767. Captain Samuel Watts from Falmouth moved here in 1769, and Josiah Weston in 1772. The wife of the latter was Hannah Watts, whose name, with that of a younger sister, is still greatly honored, for they carried desper- tely needed powder and lead to the patriots of Machias for the capture of the "Margaretta." Hannah Weston was a descendant of Hannah
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Dustin who became famous in the Indian massacre at Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1697.
The mill which Judah Chandler built in 1764 on Chandler's River was partially sold to Wm. Bucknam in 1771, but he soon sold out and moved to Addison. Judah Chandler was a man of great energy, a fit pioneer in a new country. He sold part of his mill to Edmund Chandler and land to John Chandler, who may have been his sons.
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