USA > Maine > Maine place names and the peopling of its towns > Part 4
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When Sir Edmund Andros came in 1688, he had the town an- nexed to Saco. This lasted but a brief time. There is a record of a legal town meeting in 1689 when Lieutenant John Purinton, John Downing, John Miller, John Davis and Richard Randall were named as selectmen.
At the town meeting in 1719, while organized as Arundel, Ja- bez Dorman was chosen moderator, James Mussy, town clerk, Andrew Brown, Joseph Bailey and Humphrey Deerings, selectmen. The first garrison in town is said to have been built by Thomas Huff.
For many years fishing was the principal industry. About 1725 Thomas Wiswell built the first wharf at the village and engaged in fishing, lumbering and West Indian trade. At the close of the Revolu- tionary War there were but four houses in the village. As early as 1794 shipbuilding was begun at Cape Porpoise harbor. It became the chief shipbuilding center of York County.
Skowhegan, 1823
Originally a part of Canaan, Skowhegan was separated from that town in 1823 and incorporated under the name of Milburn. The word applied to the falls on the Kennebec at this place was Skowhegan,
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and in 1836 the Indian name was transferred to the present town. It is an ancient Indian name, for here was a noted locality where the Indians watched for and speared salmon. Its meaning is "the place of the watch." Hanson says: "It was formerly a famous place to catch salmon and other fish. The fish were accustomed to rest themselves behind the rocks and in the eddies to recruit their energies before making efforts to ascend the falls. It was a choice spot for the Ken- nebec Indians."
The historian of the town, the late Miss Louise Coburn, men- tions as early white travelers by Skowhegan Falls the French Jesuits who came down from the region of Quebec over the Indian route. Among the earliest was Father Drouillettes, who came in 1646 and established a mission at Narantsouac, now generally called Old Point in the present town of Madison.
Other friars passed this way, and in 1695 came Father Rasle to take charge of the Norridgewock mission and pass the falls on his semi-annual trip to the coast with his flock. Both English and French troops made their way by Skowhegan Falls in the years between 1675 and 1763 when strife was rampant during the French and Indian Wars, and white captives often passed this way.
It was not until 1771 that a little company of pioneers from Massachusetts made their way up the Kennebec River, to become the first permanent settlers of the present Skowhegan: Peter Heywood of Concord, probably the leader of the group, with his son Asa, and Isaac Smith, a boy who was living with him, and Joseph Weston of Concord, now Lincoln, and his son Eli. The two older men were brothers-in- law. According to a diary kept by Joseph Weston, he went from Con- cord to Lancaster, thence to Salem where he shipped for Seguin, and from the latter place to Dresden. Here he and his companions met the ice in the fall of 1771 and after they remained a few days, Captain Nathan Weston and others removed them to Vassalborough. From the latter place Zimri Heywood moved them to Fort Halifax where they bought a canoe called the "Rainbow," went up to Clinton, in the spring of 1772 and thence to the place to which they had been directed by John Jones.
Weston and Heywood were the first settlers north of Winslow, except for a few at Sebasticook. They carried twenty head of stock from Concord. Immediately on arrival they erected their camp, which was twenty feet square and contained one room. About fifteen acres were cleared on Great Island and a small spot on the mainland was devoted to potato and corn fields - the seed they brought from Vas- salborough with them.
After haying was over, Joseph Weston and John Heywood left for Massachusetts in September, 1772, leaving Peter Heywood, Eli and
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Isaac to finish sowing the winter rye and harvest the potatoes. One week afterward, Heywood became homesick and left the boys to finish the work. The two boys, Isaac and Eli, passed the winter in camp seventeen miles from any settlers. On April 30, 1772, Joseph Weston and his family of eleven, with their necessary supplies and clothing and a small stock of goods, arrived "to my House." This was the earliest family to settle in Skowhegan.
Peter Heywood brought his family in 1772. For years he was the local agent of the Plymouth Company and saw that settling duties were performed. He early had a saw and grist mill on Skowhegan Island, which belonged to him.
When Arnold passed up the river, Joseph Weston went to aid him in transporting his baggage across the great carrying place. On his return he took cold and died in a few days, leaving a family of nine children.
Jonathan Oaks was another early settler and probably came in 1772 with several sons, "to spy out the land." He received the first deed of land in what is now Skowhegan. Oakes Island was given him by the Heywoods and Westons. Oakes was in the French and Indian War and was engaged with Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham.
Joel Crosby came up from Sebasticook in 1773 to assist Weston, Heywood and Oakes in erecting a mill on Skowhegan Island. He after- ward went up to Starks for a similar purpose. He seems to have been the principal millwright in the vicinity.
In the year 1777 the house in which Mr. Peter Heywood lived was picketed as a fort. It was never found necessary to use it, as the' Indians were peaceable. On the occasion just referred to, all of the settlers were alarmed and retreated to Great Island, but the Indians of whom they stood in fear did not attempt to molest them.
The plantation of Canaan, beginning as early as 1783, kept a sort of record previous to its incorporation. The warrants were dated "Howard's Town," or Canaan, and the meetings were held in Peter Heywood's house.
The first regularly elected officers were chosen March 15, 1784, and were John White, moderator, Samuel Weston, clerk; Solomon Clark, Wm. Steward, Robert Hood, assessors; Seth Wyman, Peter Hey- wood, collectors; Joseph Weston, treasurer; Phineas Steward, Daniel Smith, William Steward and Samuel Emery to notify inhabitants in different parts of the town of their road work, and Solomon Steward and Solomon Clark, surveyors of lumber.
Sebago, 1826
This Cumberland County town, formerly a part of Baldwin, was settled in 1790 and became a town in 1826. The word Sebago,
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taken from the lake on which the town is situated, may be interpreted as "a great water" or "great lake." John Josselyn in An Account of Two Voyages to New England, written in 1673, wrote: "Twelve mile from Casco-bay, and passable for men and horses, is a lake called by the Indians Sebug . .. . "
Before settlement of the town, the area was covered by a vast forest of pine growth, and it was this, with the easy passage by way of the Northwest River and Sebago Lake to the mills on the Presump- scot, that first attracted the early purchasers.
The pioneer settlers in the town were Joseph Lakin and Jacob Howe, the former coming from Groton, Massachusetts, the latter carrying the mail from Bridgton to Portland once a week on horseback before any roads were available. Lakin built a cabin on the ridge and then brought his family. The last part of his journey was made by crossing Sebago Lake by boat and making his way to the newly built cabin on foot over a difficult path. Deacon Daniel Hill, who married Mr. Lakin's daughter in 1799, settled himself on the same land. Wm. Fitch also came from Groton, arriving in 1793. He played, as many of his descendants have done, an important part in the town. He built the first grist mill in the town in 1798 and also the first saw mill.
Captain James Babb came from Gorham in 1817 and with two workmen opened the first cooper's shop and the first store in Sebago Village. His goods were kept in a leanto at one end of the cooper's shop, where he sold West Indian goods, cotton for spinning and a few of the most needful articles of trade.
In 1808 Edward Dike moved with his family from Massachu- setts to the north side of Saddleback Mountain near the highest peak. From this point nearly the whole town can be seen with its many ponds and lakes. John B. Brown settled first near Brown's Pond, previously known as Sabbath Day Pond. Jonathan Sanborn settled on Tiger Hill at the north. To the east on Peaked Mountain was James Gray. Ben- iah Davis joined Captain Babb on the ridge. John Douglass settled near Northwest Lake in 1825. Robert McDonald was an early settler south of Sebago. Daniel and Josiah McKenney built a mill on the Northwest River above the pond in 1830 and started sawing the hem- lock which had previously been considered worthless. At the first town meeting in 1826 Wm. Fitch, Oliver M. Pike and Joseph Leavitt were elected as selectmen; the collector was Scully G. Usher, the town clerk and treasurer, Wm. Fitch.
The Free Will Baptist Church was organized in 1826 by the Reverends James Libby, Jeremiah Bullock and John Stevens, the latter becoming the first pastor. Sebago's first schoolteacher was Miss Re- becca Hale who taught previous to 1798 when Sebago was a part of Baldwin. Most of the classes were held in rooms in private houses.
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East Sebago was a terminus for logging during the lumbering days and a gathering place for lumbermen and teamsters. The first store was built by Elijah Fulton in 1829 for the accommodation of lum- bermen and drivers. The attractive old Fitch House, built in 1792, is the center of the village, while the second oldest house is the "Cook" house which dates from 1795. This section was originally settled by Wm. Fitch, already mentioned, who built the first saw mill on North- west River. The first grist mill was built at the outlet of the pond in 1798. North Sebago, of more recent origin, was settled about 1830, by Geo. Ward, who came about 1838 from Scarborough. Daniel Mc- Kenney moved to Peaked Mountain in 1830, built a log cabin and later cleared a farm, no slight task in this rocky soil. Other early ar- rivals were Bachelders, Burnells, Nason and McKenneys.
Passadumkeag, 1835
The village of Passadumkeag takes its name from an eastern branch of the Penobscot River, the word meaning "above the gravel bar," or "where the river runs over the gravelly bed." The town was incorporated in 1835.
These rips, some distance below the stream in the main river, from which the stream takes its name, were a signpost for the canoe- man. Passing over these rapids on the way upriver, he knew he was near the mouth of the stream which was one of the most important routes to the eastward - a place he must not fail to identify. By way of the Passadumkeag he could go to the headwaters of the Union River, the Narraguagus and branches of the Machias, and even to the headwaters of the St. Croix. Park Holland, when making a survey of the Bingham Purchase in 1797, wrote that "the communication be- tween Penobscot and Schoodic Rivers through the Passadumkeag is worthy of attention."
The original settlers of the town were Messrs. Enoch and Joshua Ayers, in 1813. Then came within the next few years Tristram F. Jor- dan, James Sanders, Isaac P. and Aaron Haynes, Joshua Hathaway, James Comings and his son Benjamin, Peter Sibley and sons, Elijah P. Evans, Elijah Tourtelott and Mrs. Ann Dennis, the last with a large family of boys. The Comings, the Ayres, Tourtelotts and Evans are said to have completed the entire roll of settlers in 1819. These all sub- sequently left, but their places were taken by others.
Chas. J. Hathaway, who was born in Sutton, Massachusetts, and came to Brewer in 1803, was the first settler where Passadumkeag Village now is. In the War of 1812 when the British were coming up the river, Mr. Hathaway rode all night through what is now Edding- ton and Bradley to call out all able-bodied men to repel the advance of the British.
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The first road in town followed the river closely. It was cut through the township in 1816. Although rough and rugged, it supplied all the needs of that early period.
The first trader was Ezra Richardson. About 1826 Squire Joshua Hathaway sold out at the point and moved up to Passadum- keag to the mouth of Cold Stream. Mr. Hathaway was the first mail carrier in this section of the country and many were the delicate and important commissions with which he was entrusted. His route was between Passadumkeag and Bangor.
The first tavern was built by James Sanders, Jr., in 1820, and shortly afterward Tristram F. Jordan built a second one; they both carried on a good business. All of the supplies for the garrison at Houl- ton were hauled by teams past here, besides all the business for the up- river country. About this time, the state began to improve the road running near the Penobscot as far as Lincoln, and the General Govern- ment continued the Military Road in the following years as far as Houlton. Messrs. Sanders and Jordan also went into trade, and Passa- dumkeag Point, as it was called, became the center of quite an extent of country.
Before 1830 Parson Lamson settled here and spent the re- mainder of his life in religious work. Dr. Marsh, coming about the same time, was the first physician.
Gould's Ridge was settled in 1822 and named for Zebediah Gould who built a timber house on the Greenbush end. Shortly there- after, Joseph Spiller and Nicholas Gilman moved onto the Ridge, felled trees and built houses.
When the town was incorporated in 1835 the first officers elected were Tristram F. Jordan, clerk; Tristram F. Jordan, Samuel Dam, Amos Dennis, selectmen; Aaron Haynes, treasurer and collector; Wm. T. Baker, Joshua Norton, Jr., John S. Patten, school committee; Joshua T. Haynes, constable. The old name by which the village at the Point had been known was retained for the entire town.
Masardis, 1839
This town in Aroostook County was settled in 1833 by emi- grants from Western Maine. Thomas Goss came from Danville at that date and settled with his family on a beautiful intervale on the west bank of the Aroostook, opposite the mouth of the St. Croix Stream. He had lived in the present town of Presque Isle, a short distance north of the Aroostook bridge, before coming to Masardis. He remained here for six or seven years, then moved to the mouth of the Little Machias River in Ashland, where he lived for some time and then took a home in the wilderness away out on the Fish River.
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He was followed to the present Masardis by John Knowlen, who came from Passadumkeag in 1835 and settled with his wife and three children near the St. Croix Stream about half a mile above its mouth. The snow was so deep and the road so narrow that he could not get in with his goods, so he piled them up, covered them with boughs and left them until the next winter. Crops were destroyed by frost for the first two years. Berries and fish helped out for the support of the family, and Mr. Knowlen worked at Patten in the winter.
In 1838, in addition to the two families already mentioned, there were at Masardis Samuel Leavitt, Benjamin Howe, George Fields, Sanford Noble, Wm. Cowperthwaite and a man named Dow. Mr. Joseph Pollard arrived from Old Town in 1837, having been ac- quainted with the Aroostook while looking for timber. He built a mill on St. Croix Stream, cleared a large farm and brought in his family in 1840. He built a frame house in 1843, where he kept a tavern, and built a large house in 1866 on the opposite side of the road. Meanwhile new settlers had come in 1839: Wm. Fitzgerald, Alexander Woodward and Samuel Fogg, Abel McAllister and Isiah Pishon. In February 1839 the "Commissary" was built and a fort or breastwork was put up on the point where the St. Croix empties into the Aroostook. There the artillery, consisting of four and six pounders for the Aroostook War, was stationed and here the troops encamped in tents. In a few days the advance was made to the mouth of the Little Madawaska above Fort Fairfield and immediately after that a hurried retreat was made to the breastworks. It was in the Aroostook War that disputes were settled without bloodshed.
After the departure of troops, came Wm. Ellis from Dexter in 1840 and Eben Trafton from Newfield in 1841. He taught the first school and was a prominent citizen and lumberman. Wm. Coperth- waite, son of the above, and Amasa Goding walked all the way from Corinna in 1842.
According to Dr. John P. Harrington of the Bureau of Ameri- can Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C., the word Masardis means a "large stream." This refers doubtless to the St. Croix, which enters the Aroostook at this place.
Old Town, 1841 (City, 1891)
While the name of this Maine city is English, its connotation is Indian, since it is the site of the "old town" of our aborigines dating back to the time of the Red Paint Indians.
From 1669, Indian Old Town Island seems to have been the principal settlement of the Penobscot Indians and the place of their greatest resort. The late Very Reverend M. C. O'Brien, former Vicar General of the Catholic Church of Maine, states that the founder of
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the mission of Old Town, called at that time Panawambske, was the Abbé Louis-Pierre Thury, a member of the Seminary for Foreign Missions from Quebec, missionary to the Penobscots from 1687 to 1689. It was he who built the first church in 1688 or 1689.
The earliest English settlers came in the period following the Revolutionary War, making use of the splendid water power of the Penobscot and the abundant lumber of the forests for their mills. The community was a part of Orono until 1840, and in 1891 it was char- tered as a city.
David Norton, the historian of the town, names John Marsh as the pioneer of permanent white settlers in this quarter in 1774, al- though his home was in that section of Marsh Island which now lies in the town of Orono.
Richard Winslow and Moses Brown were early pioneers, the former, the first settler on the site of Old Town village. Brown also built his home there. In 1798 the pioneer Winslow built a double saw mill to run by water on the privilege near the Old Town carry.
Some time before 1800 single saw mills were built in Upper Stillwater by General Joseph Treat and Joshua Fall. The former was a large land owner in that area. His mill was on the west side of the Stillwater. Mr. Fall built on the west side of Marsh Island on the front of original lot No. 12.
In 1806 Jackson Davis came and bought all the land and mill property of Richard Winslow at Old Town village. Mr. Davis was the first Justice of the Peace commissioned here and was one of the agents of the Penobscot Indians in 1821.
In 1816 Ira and Jesse Wadleigh, brothers, came. They remained in partnership in business until about 1855. Ira opened a hotel and later built a larger tavern. He became rich in lumbering and other forms of business. In 1825 Messrs. N. L. and L. Williams built the third double mill on the Winslow water privilege near the carry. For some unknown reason, it was called "the Tide Mill."
In 1825 a number of lumbermen obtained a charter and con- structed the Argyle Boom. Two years afterward, Rufus Dwinal bought the franchise, procured a new charter in 1832 and built a new boom.
Thoreau, in 1846, recorded: "Within a dozen miles of Bangor, I passed through the villages of Stillwater and Old Town built at the falls on the Penobscot which furnish the principal power by which the Maine woods are converted into lumber ... Through this riddle . . . is the arrowy Maine forest . . . relentlessly sifted till it comes out boards, clapboards, laths and shingles." Audubon, whose visit had oc- curred earlier in 1832, expressed his thoughts of the village as follows: . . when we first discovered Old Town, that village of saw mills . looked like an island covered with manufactories." E. H. Elwell, writ-
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ing in 1858, at the time of the visit of the Maine Press Association to the Aroostook, voiced the same impressions: "It is a great place for the consumption of logs ... we looked into Veazie's saw mills . . . Twenty single saws and three gangs of eighteen saws. Each were at work turning out the lumber with frightful velocity."
Arrowsic, 1841
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Among the nine towns of Sagadahoc County there is only one, Arrowsic, which continues to use its Indian name. Mrs. Eckstorm says that its meaning is doubtful, but suggests that it may mean "a large island which blocks the channel of the lower Kennebec River." Wm. Hubbard, in his Narrative of Indian Wars, states that it was the name of an Indian who formerly owned it.
The first white settler was John Richards from Weymouth, Massachusetts, who bought the island from Robinhood in 1649. In 1651 he sold one hundred acres of his land to John Parker. On August 5, 1654, John Richards, Planter of Kennebec River,
sells for forty pounds to Captain Thomas Clark of Boston Merchant and to Master Thos. Lake of Boston, Merchant his Island lying on the east side of Kennebec River called Arrowsick formerly, now called Richard's Island with dwell- ing houses, out houses, Barns, Buildings, Stables, Orchards, Gardens, Fences, Woods, Underwoods, Trees, Timber, Pastures, Meadows and Marshes, Feedings, Ponds, Swamps, Mines, Ways, Water Courses, Profits, Privileges and all commodities whatsoever . except one hundred acres formerly sold to John Parker thereon he hath erected a dwelling house and some buildings.
John Richards settled in Boston in 1653, was Lieutenant, Captain and Mayor, Representative to the General Court, Speaker, Counselor and Judge of the Supreme Court.
John Parker sold his lot to Clark and Lake in 1657. They started a settlement and erected a blockhouse: In 1660 Captain Nicho- las Reynal or Reynolds lived there. He was appointed Justice of the Peace by the King's Commissioners in 1665. Captain Sylvanus Davis, an agent of Clark and Lake, came before 1665; afterward he was Rep- resentative to the General Court from Arrowsic and Member of His Majesty's Council. He commanded at Fort Loyal in 1690. In an In- dian attack in 1676 Captain Lake was killed and Davis wounded.
In 1724 the General Court authorized the resettlement of the island. John Watts of Boston came and built trading and blockhouses and is said to have built a brick house. The island was swept nearly clean of inhabitants three times, in 1676, 1689 and 1722, respectively. Remains of cellars and dwellings are still to be seen, memorials of the pioneers and of Indian savagery.
In 1716 it was incorporated as a part of Georgetown; in 1728
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Samuel Denny, an English emigrant, settled here. He was magistrate and town clerk for many years. He built a fortified house and church, and the stocks in which he imprisoned offenders were often in use. In 1841 Arrowsic was set off from Georgetown and incorporated under its present name.
Casco, 1841
The word Casco is a part of a longer Indian word, Ancocisco, meaning "muddy bay," the Back Bay of Casco Bay. Casco is one of two towns, the other being Sebago, in Cumberland County, which con- tinues to use an Indian name.
The town was formerly a part of Raymond, but was incorpor- ated as the town of Casco in 1841. The town of Raymond was granted to Captain William Raymond and others in 1766 for their services in the French and Indian War.
Captain Joseph Dingley is reported to have been the first set- tler in what is now South Casco in 1771. It was here that the great novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne spent his boyhood days. He was about eight or nine years old when he came to South Casco in 1813. His mother's brother, Richard Manning, one of the proprietors of the land, had settled here about twelve years previously, opening a blacksmith shop and store near Dingley Brook. Here he built an imposing mansion in 1810, and near by, the gaunt, barren, barnlike building which was the home of the Hawthorne family for so many years.
An effort had been made as early as 1825 to divide the town of Raymond, and in 1838 Edw. Mayberry, Samuel Jordan and John Cook were designated a committee to define the division line.
Thos. Lewis and Wm. Dingley had selected lots in 1770, the same year as Joseph Dingley, the first settler. The first deed of land in the town was given by George Williams, Esq., John Gardner, Gentle- man, George Dodge, merchant, and Stephen Abbott, Esq., of Salem, Massachusetts, agents for Lewis Gay of Raymond for one hundred acres, in 1784, in consideration of five shillings lawful money. Mr. Gay came from Buxton in 1786. He lived to become a leading citizen, was deputy sheriff for many years and died in 1823.
The first town election of Casco was held in the Friends' Meet- ing house in 1841. Daniel Cook was moderator; Alpheus Holden, town clerk; Josiah Gould, Richard Cook and Frederick Nutting, selectmen, assessors and overseers of the poor.
The residence of Captain Joseph Dingley was at the north end of the bridge. The old house, which stood upon the first land occupied by a white man, was incorporated into the home of a later resident. Across the road was the headquarters of the land proprietors of Ray- mond in 1800. A few rods below stood the old mill where Nathaniel
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