USA > Maine > Maine place names and the peopling of its towns > Part 40
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55
The first town meeting was held at Wm. Whittier's house in 1791; the second at Joshua Bean's in 1792.
375
Bucksport, 1792
Incorporated as the seventy-ninth town in 1792, Bucksport, in Hancock County, was called Buckstown, in honor of its leading citizen, Colonel Jonathan Buck. In 1817 the name was changed to Bucksport. It was township No. 1 which had been conditionally granted with five others by the sovereigns William and Mary in 1762 to David Marsh of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and his associates. It was confirmed by the General Court in 1764.
The first settlement was started that year, where the village now is, by Colonel Buck, an emigrant from Haverhill, and his as- sociates who moved thither with their families and built a saw mill and two dwelling houses. The place was called by the Indians "Alama- sook." James Sullivan, the historian, speaks of Jonathan Buck as a very worthy man in whom the people of Penobscot had great con- fidence; he never deceived nor defrauded anyone and was popular with the Indians as a trader. He died in 1795. In personal appearance he was a thin, spare man about 5 feet 10 inches in height with a countenance very expressive of his thought, a Roman nose, large black arching eyebrows, and dark penetrating eyes. He was a man of iron temperament and will. He would not turn from what he thought right; an ardent patriot, he freely sacrificed all his property and barely escaped with his life from the hands of the British soldiers when Cas- tine was taken in 1779. Jonathan Buck, Jr., was one of the most prominent men for many years in the management of the affairs of the town. As Justice of the Peace, he acted as judge in all petty cases of law in this and adjoining plantations. He was the first Representa- tive to the General Court, and Deacon of the First Congregational Church under the Reverend Mighill Blood.
In August of 1762 Colonel Buck, James and Wm. Duncan, Richard Emerson and Wm. Chamberlain had begun the survey of the town. Laughlin McDonald and his son, Roderick, from Greenock, Scotland, arrived and took up lots the next year. In 1766-67 Asabel Harriman, Jonathan Frye, Benjamin Page, Phineas Ames and others settled according to the condition of the grant which gave to each actual settler 100 acres of land.
The story of the settlement of Bucksport is the story of the settlement of the whole Penobscot Valley. Fort Pownal had been built below it in 1759 and was a protection to settlers. Its truck house became a trading house for dealing in fur with the Indians. As soon as the fort was garrisoned, the English settlements crept slowly up the river. The occupations of the first families at Bucksport were fishing, hunting, trapping and trading.
Many of the soldiers employed in the building of the fort had
376
returned to Massachusetts, and the report they gave of this goodly land excited at once a spirit of immigration. Already there were sev- eral settlers on the Penobscot River, and townships were granted on certain conditions upon application. The first white inhabitant was Joseph Gross, who had been a soldier at Fort Pownal and afterward made a permanent settlement at Orland. After Colonel Jonathan Buck bulit his mill in 1764, he built a house and a small building near the water for a trading house. Asabel Harriman, of whom mention has already been made, was from Plaistow, New Hampshire. Like many of the first settlers, he was a mighty hunter and a bold, adventurous man. In 1775 there were twenty-one families in Bucksport, No. 1, and twelve in Orland, No. 2 The spring was dry and cold, there was little corn and grain of any kind grown on the Penobscot River and little or no sale of wood or lumber. The General Court recommended two or three bushels of grain be sent and sold for a moderate price in wood and lumber. Colonel Buck was appointed almoner. He was also in charge of Fort Pownal. He had built the first saw mill and the first ship on the river, and in 1776 organized a military company of fourteen soldiers as there were only fourteen in town liable to mili- tary duty. This "army" marched to the Castine peninsula during the Revolution and joined the Penobscot Expedition in its unsuccessful attack on the British at Castine.
After the American retreat from the siege of Castine in 1779, the British ship of war, "Nautilus," anchored in Bucksport Harbor and, landing a crew of men, burned the town. The inhabitants fled through the woods to the Kennebec and to Massachusetts.
Colonel Buck's family was conveyed to Major Treat's, two miles above Bangor, and later joined him in Haverhill. In 1784, when the settlement was renewed, he returned and rebuilt the house and saw mill. The first preacher was Reverend John Kenney, who came in 1795. In 1796 it was "voted to build a meeting house on the parson- age lot 28 by 32 feet, one story," but this was dismissed at the next meeting. In 1803 the town raised $300 for the support of preaching, the first since 1797; the Reverend Mighill Blood (Dartmouth) became the first settled minister.
A post office was first established in 1799. The town grew raipdly; The Gazette, one of the first newspapers in Maine, was suc- cessfully printed there for six years. In 1801 Buckstown was one of the largest towns in the eastern section of the state. In 1804 Jonathan Buck was the first Representative to General Court. The first bank in the Penobscot Valley was established here in 1806. In 1814 the inhabitants suffered in common with many others the loss of their ves- sels and the mortification of being under British power for eight months.
377
Buckfield, 1793
The eighty-first town in the District of Maine, incorporated in 1793, was previously called No. 5, or Buckstown. It is located in Oxford County. In 1776 some forest trees were felled by Benjamin Spaulding, and the following spring Abijah Buck, who came from New Gloucester, and Thomas Allen moved with their families into the township and began the first permanent settlement. Others joined them, until in 1785 they procured a survey of the town and pur- chased it soon after from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They paid at the rate of five shillings per acre. The deed bears the date of November 13, 1788. Buck was the agent of the proprietors in making the purchase of the township, and this, together with the fact that he and his brothers were large owners, led to the adoption of the name Buckstown for the plantation, later changed to Buckfield.
The first preacher in Buckfield was probably the Reverend Nathaniel Chase who, having served until mustered out in the Army of the Revolution, made his way on foot in search of a place to locate. He traveled and preached among the early settlers of Paris, Woodstock and Greenwood as well as in other places. He was of the Baptist faith, and a society of that religious group was formed here as early as 1821.
This town was the birthplace of John D. Long, the statesman, Governor of Massachusetts, Congressman and Secretary of the Navy. That the town of his birth was always dear to him is shown by the fact that in the heart of Buckfield Village is the Zadoc Long Free Library, a gift made by him in memory of his father.
The town's first Representative to the General Court was Enoch Hall. Mr. Chase, the first minister, took up a farm which has since re- mained in the family. He left a large posterity, among whom are the well-known firm of Chase Brothers, nursery men of Rochester, New York. Seba Smith, author of the famous Jack Downing letters, was born in this town in 1782. Virgil D. Parris, a prominent politician in his day, a member of Congress for two terms, was also a native.
Orland, 1800
While Orland, Hancock County, is not named for its earliest settler, it is said by tradition to have been named from an experience of the first settler, Joseph Gross. On his arrival in 1764 he found on the shore of the river an oar, from which the name Oarland (Orland) is derived. This township was No. 2 of the grant given to David Marsh and his associates in 1762. For a considerable period of time, the place was called Alamasook, and then Eastern River. It was incorporated in 1800. It is at the head of Eastern River, fifteen miles west of Ells- worth.
378
Ebeenezer Gross came in 1765 and Joseph Viles in 1766; the latter erected the first frame house which was used for plantation meetings until 1800, when a schoolhouse was built. The first road was laid out in 1771 by John Hancock and Samuel Craig. The first saw and grist mills were built at Lower Falls by Calvin Turner in 1773.
A large number of settlers came from Boston between 1767 and 1780, among whom were John Hancock (the most noted), Samuel Keyes, Samuel Soper, Calvin Turner, Asa Turner, Humphrey Holt and Samuel Craig. Robert Treat was appointed an agent by the pro- prietors to run out lots, which he did at Upper Falls in 1774. He started to build the first saw mill at Upper Falls that year. In 1781 Ezekiel Harriman and Peter and Asa Harriman moved from Plantation No. 1, now Bucksport, and each took up a settler's lot. James Ginn came from Brewer and took over the mill of Robert Treat and carried it on until 1797. He also built a brig and two schooners at Upper Falls. In 1797 Robert Treat sold his mill and lot to John Lee of Castine, who built a large saw mill and did a flourishing business in the lum- ber line.
In 1773 an old hunter named Michael Davis had come from Concord, Massachusetts, and taken up a lot three miles from any settler. He had built a log house on a ridge of land and hunted for a living, as there was a great quantity of game. He had lived alone until James Smith, Nathan Hancock, John and Joshua Gross and Andrew Craig moved in and took settlers' lots that were run out in 1780. This land, with the exception of that of James Smith, was owned by the sons of the first settlers and was considered the best land in the plantation at this time. Jacob Sherburne took up a lot at what is now Sherburne Point. He was hired by the proprietors to lot the plantation in 1791-1793. At this latter date the first county road was built and the first bridge across Eastern River; the county fur- nished sixty pounds and the plantation fifty pounds.
In 1800, the year the town was incorporated as Orland, the first schoolhouse was built. It was also used as a meeting house and town house. Joseph Lee was the first town clerk in 1801. In 1811 John Lee of Castine brought the first chaise to town. Joseph Harri- man, born in 1790, says: "When I was a boy, it was a dense wilder- ness and the greatest town in the county for all kinds of lumber, but by 1870 it had about all been marketed. The first settlers, especially the children, must have suffered for want of bread. Salmon, shad and alewives in the rivers furnished much of the diet." He also states that Plantation No. 2 was granted to the proprietors Wm. Dall, Na- than Snelling, Robert Treat and others, then living in Boston, on con- dition that they should have so many settlers in so long a time, when the grant would be given by the General Court.
379
Garland, 1811
Garland, in Penobscot County, was one of the townships selected by Massachusetts and granted to Williams College in 1796. The ex- terior lines had been run in 1792 by Ephraim Ballard and Samuel Weston. In 1798 the trustees of the college conveyed the grant to Levi Lincoln and his five associates, Seth Hastings, Samuel and Cal- vin Sanger, Samuel Sanger, Jr., and Elias Grout. The township took the name of Lincolntown from the above named proprietor, who in 1808 was Governor of Massachusetts.
Joseph Garland from Salisbury, New Hampshire, with his wife and three children, was the first family here in 1802. There- fore at its incorporation in 1811 his name was bestowed upon the town. There were at this time about fifty legal voters within its limits.
In 1800 Moses Hodsdon, assisted by Daniel Wilkins, David A. Gove and a Mr. Shores had run the lines between a large number of lots. Again in 1805, A. Strong surveyed an additional number. Messrs. Gove and Wheeler were the first who selected their lots. Notwith- standing this selection, they did not settle at once upon their tracts. The primeval forests of Garland were not broken, except to the slight extent made necessary by the movement of the surveyors, until two years afterward. Then the ground was prospected, lots selected and openings made by sixteen or eighteen persons from the western part of Maine and from New Hampshire, most of whom became permanent settlers. Isaac Wheeler and Josiah Bartlett were also among the earli- est settlers. In 1802 a saw mill was built by the proprietors of the township and in 1803 several frame buildings were erected. The first school was held in the house of Wm. Garland in 1806, and taught by Wm. Mitchell. A post office was established in 1818.
By the year 1805, there were twelve families in the plantation. A Congregational Society known by the name of Garland Church, but including members from Foxcroft, Sangerville and Dexter was gathered on March 1, 1810, by the Reverend Messrs. John Sawyer (Dartmouth, 1785), Mighill Blood and Hezekiah May. The Rever- end John Sawyer, an active and useful agent in the employ of the Maine Missionary Society, made his home chiefly in this town.
David Fogg, who was born in Deerfield, New Hampshire, in the year 1804, moved to Garland when he was seventeen. John Jack- man was born in Massachusetts in 1784 and in 1806 moved to Gar- land, where he passed the rest of his life. Wm. Sloan Haskell was born in Garland in 1814 and always lived there. Moses Gordon was born in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, and came to Garland when he was about twenty-five years of age. Lynden Oak was born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, and came to Penobscot County at the age of ten.
330
Brewer, 1812
The one hundred and ninety-first town in the District, Brewer, in Penobscot County, was incorporated in 1812. It was taken from the northern part of Orrington. The name it received at the time of its incorporation was in compliment to Colonel John Brewer, Esq., one of the first settlers, from Worcester, Massachusetts. He made the first settlement at what is now Brewer Village. It was first called New Worcester in honor of his home.
The next year after the pioneer, Buswell, built his cabin on the hillside at Kedesquit (Bangor), Colonel Brewer planted his stakes on the opposite side of the river in what is now Brewer, attracted not only by the beauty of the location, but by the admirable waterpower afforded there by the Segeunkedunk Stream. This was in the summer of 1770. He began to build his mill at the mouth of the stream and made the first improvements attempted in town. He was a stouthearted veteran of the wilderness and rendered important service to the cause of independence during the Revolution, especially in July, 1779, during the movement of Saltonstall and Lovell against the British works on the summit of the Castine peninsula.
Brewer was an unusually tall man, straight and well formed. His countenance was sedate, rather than brilliant, and his mind, well balanced and sound rather than astonishing or aspiring.
Other settlers of the same period with Colonel John Brewer were Isaac Robinson, Elisha Skinner, Lot Rider, Deodat Brastow and Benjamin Snow, and the Holyoke, Farrington and Burr families. At the time of the Revolution, there were already 160 families here. In 1780, when the post office was opened, twenty years before Bangor had one, the mail was carried on horseback, and only one vessel was owned in the town.
When John Brewer started his settlement in 1770, having ob- tained the consent of the General Court to settle there on condition of getting a confirmation from the Crown within three years, he and his associates caused the exterior lines of a tract large enough to be a township to be surveyed. They then sent a petition addressed to the King for a grant, which was heard and a tract promised; but this was prevented by the news of Lexington, received at the English court. The settlers were threatened by the British and some of them dis- turbed in the Revolutionary War; therefore Brewer and several others found it most convenient for their safety to retire until peace. In 1785 the state granted to Brewer and Simon Fowler the front or water lots lying on the Penobscot River, for three thousand pounds, and to Knapp and associates, the residue of Brewer and Orrington.
Samuel Knapp had come from Mansfield, Massachusetts, to
381
that part of Orrington, now upper Brewer, earlier in 1785. He later moved to what is now Bradley. John Rider of Wellfleet, Massachu- setts, was in Brewer about 1782. A petitioner for land in 1783, he was a grantee in 1786. His lot was just below the dam. Emerson Orcutt from Scituate, Massachusetts, was in Brewer in 1780. He made a petition for land in 1783, was a grantee in 1786 and lived about one mile above the dam. Deacon Isaac Robinson came about 1800, and lived about one mile below the ferry. He was one of the first deacons of the First Congregational Church. Colonel Brewer became the first postmaster in 1800, an office which he held for thirty years.
Greenwood, 1816
Greenwood is a pleasant farming and manufacturing town in Oxford County, formerly known as No. 4 Township, of which 11,520 acres were granted to Phillips Academy in 1800. While some authori- ties suggest that the corporate name describes its main product as well as its forest-clad hills, it is probable that it was given in compli- ment to Alexander Greenwood, a surveyor of this section.
Thomas Greenwood, the great-grandfather of Alexander, had settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1667. He was an Englishman, a weaver. His grandson, John Greenwood, moved into the Province of Maine and settled on Alexander Sheppherd's land, now the town of Hebron. John's son, Alexander, represented the town of Hebron in the General Court in the years 1809, '11, '12, and '14 and was also a member of the Maine Constitutional Convention. He moved to Monson about 1822 and lotted out other towns in Piscataquis County. Greenwood Pond and Greenwood Mountain in picturesque Elliots- ville were both named for him. His name is a prominent one on the early records of Monson. He was killed in 1827 when a tree fell on him in Willimantic, and he was buried in the old village churchyard, where no stone marks his resting place.
The settlement of the township was begun by Wm. Yates, who was soon followed by others. Wm. Yates or Yeats was born in Scot- land in 1772 and came to Boston, thence to New Gloucester where he married Martha Morgan, and then to Norway, Maine. His first house, on Patch Mountain, was a rude log cabin which served as a home for the family until a frame house was erected a few years later. This was the first frame house in Greenwood. Mr. Yates was a farmer and a Methodist preacher. He was soon followed in the settlement of Greenwood by Thomas Furlong and Timothy Patch. The latter, from whom the mountain received its name, was probably the next comer after Yates to make a clearing and bring his family to the place. Doubtless Simeon Sanborn, who built the first mills at what became known as Greenwood City, was here by 1805, and his mills became
382
early the center of business and social life. Thomas Furlong's clear- ing was north of the mills and was probably made before the mills were built. Amos Richardson settled between Furlong and the mills, but Patch Mountain became the first center and here was built the first schoolhouse in town.
Frederick Coburn, Israel Herrick, Dustin Patch, Isaac Patch and others were located here early. Paul Wentworth settled in the western part of the town and Noah Tobey near by. John Small, an educated man, was an early resident on the Haskell Grant; Captain Isaac Flint lived near Greenwood City; Jonas Stevens soon came and Christopher and Solomon Bryant, Jr., moved from Woodstock to the vicinity later known as the Bryant neighborhood. Eleazer Cole and his sons, Calvin and Cyprian, were among the earliest settlers. This family has contributed largely to the prosperity of the town.
Others of the early settlers were James Nutting, Jonathan Gurney, Stephen Sanborn, Consider Cole, (near Bryant's Pond) Charles Young, (on Young's Hill) James U. French, Wm. Cordwell, Jeremiah Noble, Luther Cole, Captain John Noyes (on Haskell Grant), Isaac Howe (on Howe Hill), Bela Noyes, Jesse Cross, George Berry, John Small, James Packard, Israel B. Fifield, Hateevil Hall, Amos Young, Wm. Noyes and Francis Beckley.
The residents of No. 4 met at the house of Simeon Sanborn in 1813 to organize a plantation government. Mr. Sanborn was made moderator; Paul Wentworth was elected clerk; Noah Tobey, Simeon Sanborn and John Small, assessors; Dustin Patch, collector, and Isaac Flint, treasurer. Four new roads were laid out by the assessors and $50 was raised for schools.
Each season brought in new settlers. The town was incorpor- ated in 1816. The first elected town officers were moderator, Noah Taber; clerk, Paul Wentworth; John Small, Captain Isaac Flint and Jere Noble, selectmen; Frederick Coburn, treasurer; and James French, collector and constable. The chief industry was the manu- facture of lumber and spools. Most of the lumber for the early homes in Greenwood must have been sawed at Sanborn's Mills.
Swanville, 1818
William D. Williamson in The History of the State of Maine records the incorporation of the town of Swanville, the two hundred twenty-eighth town in the District, on February 19, 1818, "called 'Swan's tract' a part of the Waldo patent: - a small town lying both sides of Goose River." The name of the tract doubtless was derived from a number of people by that name who lived there. Swan Lake is in the northeastern part of the town and appears on the early state maps as Goose Pond. It is about three miles long and a quarter mile
383
wide. Mrs. Hatch, the present librarian of the town, was told by her grandfather that when he was a boy, before the dam was built and a saw mill erected, it was a pond with a small island in the middle on which the geese made their nesting place. The Indian name of the pond meant goose. After the pond became lake-size the name of the tract or town was naturally transferred to this body of water, hence Swan Lake.
Although there appears to be evidence of a very early settle- ment on the tract, the authentic record begins with the coming of Joseph Smart from New Hampshire and Aaron Nickerson from Cape Cod. The first log house was built by the latter. Other Nickersons came, Reuben and Seth, following the turn of the century. Two saw mills were built, one at the foot of the pond, the other at what was known as Nickerson's Mill. Brickyards were also owned by some of these early settlers.
John Leach, Solomon Cunningham and Tully Nickerson opened stores for the sale of merchandise.
James Leach and thirty-seven others petitioned in 1816 for the incorporation of the town. Some of the statements made in the peti- tion were that the plantation had 100 ratable polls, 56 legal voters and 58 soldiers enrolled in the militia; the settlement was growing rapidly, many purchases had recently been made and the proprietor had ap- pointed an agent to make conveyance to settlers.
The petition was granted and the name of the plantation was continued with addition of the French word ville, meaning town. Such names as Smart, Staples, Miller, Greeley and many others re- call the early builders of the town.
The plantation and early town meetings were held first at private homes and then at the schoolhouses. The town house at the Corner was built in 1842.
Burnham, 1824
Burnham is the northwesternmost town of Waldo County, thirty miles distant from Belfast. Twenty-Five Mile, or Unity, Pond in the southeast part of the town is about four miles in length and three in its greatest width. Its outlet discharges into the Sebasticook River at Burnham Village. Burnham was originally called the Twenty-Five Mile Pond Plantation, and took its name from the pond or lake. It was incorporated in 1824 under its present name. According to the historian of the town of Unity, James R. Tabor, the town of Burn- ham was named for Rufus Burnham, M. D., who moved to the town of Unity between 1792 and 1810. As a physician he was greatly be- loved, not only in his home town, but in this near-by town which re- ceived his name. He was not only active as a physician, but also as
384
a citizen in state and local affairs. The following quotation is from the History of Unity: "May 11, 1818 Rufus Burnham was elected Representative to the General Court: Sept. 20, 1819 Rufus Burn- ham M. D., was chosen to attend the Convention at Portland which met to draft a Constitution for the State." After 1820 he was a Rep- resentative to the State Legislature. In 1827 he erected a large house in Unity and in 1840-41 the Union Church was built by him for the Universalist Society; he also owned the first stove in Unity.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.