USA > Maine > Maine place names and the peopling of its towns > Part 42
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The names of the Hatch and Tallman families should be mentioned in connection with the island. It is claimed that Paul Hatch and Holder Tallman came to Swan Island in 1800, Tallman from New Hampshire and Hatch from Dresden, where his father, a Paul Hatch of Falmouth, had settled. The grandfather, also Paul, was a goldsmith in Boston and is said to have been a member of the famous Tea Party. In 1772 the Barkers came to Swan Island. The name Swan is said to be a shortening of the Indian word Swango. Others have interpreted the word as descriptive of the large num- ber of swans on the island.
In 1847 the island became the town of Perkins, named for Colonel Thomas H. Perkins of Boston, whose wife was the daughter of James Dumaresque of the island. Perkins became the patron of the Perkins Institute of the Blind in Boston.
The organization of the town was given up in 1917.
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Kingman, 1873
Kingman was originally No. 6 of Range 4, north of the Bing- ham Purchase. About 900 acres in the northern and eastern part be- longed to the Waterson and Pray Purchase. The remainder was granted to Camden in Knox County, in aid of a bridge across Duck Trap Stream. It was organized as McCrillis Plantation on July 4, 1859, and reorganized as Independence Plantation on March 28, 1866. The Mattawamkeag River runs through the midst of the town from east to west where it receives the Molunkus Stream from the north. The settlements are along the Molunkus Road and at the village on the Mattawamkeag near the center of the town. These settlements came in very slowly, and date back to 1864. The tract was still a dense and comparatively unbroken forest in 1859, when it was first organized as McCrillis Plantation.
One of the first settlers at this date was Wm. Horton, who was born in 1838 at Halifax, Nova Scotia. His father was a seafaring man and the boy was reared on a farm, until he was ten years old, when his father died and the farm was sold. He went to sea with his uncle and followed it until he was fifteen, then left the sea, came to New Brunswick and worked in the saw mills and logging camps. He came to the states in 1859, and settled in Kingman. It was a wilder- ness with but two settlers in town. He built a log house and cleared up a farm. He then built a good set of farm buildings. He had three sons: David, John and Wm. The names of the two other settlers at this time seem to have been lost.
In the year of 1870, Independence Plantation had 185 people. In 1871 the European and North American Railway was completed to Vanceboro, and passed through the plantation. Then followed the building of an extensive sole-leather tannery by Shaw & Kingman, predecessors of the firm of F. Shaw & Brothers. It was for the junior member of the original firm, Mr. R. S. Kingman, that the town took its name on its incorporation in 1873.
The Industrial and Labor Statistics of Maine for 1873 states that "One establishment in the town of Kingman in that county (Penobscot) tanned 1000 tons or 150,000 sides of leather, value $550,000." The same source gives the following description :
Kingman: F. Shaw & Bro., cap $120,000; water power, 200 h. p. total valuation $415,000. wages during the year $35,000; average weekly wages, $9; 12 mos in operation, market Boston. Having a capacity of five hundred sides or three and one half tons of leather daily and employing a large number of people.
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There was also a saw mill for long and short lumber, one for shingles, and a steam mill making short lumber. Captain James H. Boyd arrived in Kingman about 1873 and built the steam mill which manufactured short lumber. Previous to this he had followed the sea and had spent much time in steamboating on the Columbia River and in mining and tanning. Another settler, F. W. Campbell, was reared on a farm in New Brunswick, where he engaged in milling. He moved to Frankfort, Maine, and came to Kingman in 1870.
Luther Scott came to this region in 1878. He too was original- ly from New Brunswick, but had lived in Chester before finally set- tling in this town.
With the passing of the tannery and with no other industrial ventures coming in to take its place, the burden of town government finally became too great a load for the remaining inhabitants, so on April 2, 1935, the following appeared in the Bangor Daily News:
Kingman, April 2, 1935: At the town meeting on Satur- day the town voted to accept the emergency act passed by the Legislature, entitled 'An Act to provide for the surrender of the town of Kingman of its organization.' The only officer elected by the moderator was the clerk. Kingman is now an unorganized plantation.
Haynesville, 1876
Haynesville is situated in the southeastern part of Aroostook County on the old Military Road. This town was formed from Haynesville Plantation (No. 2, Range 2), Leavitt Plantation (No. 3, Range 2) and Greenwood Plantation (west half of No. 9). It was incorporated in 1876 and took its name from the plantation which had been named in honor of an early settler, Mr. Alvin Haynes, who lived a short distance below the Forks of the Mattawamkeag River, where he kept a store for a number of years. The place had once been called Forkstown. In company with James Thomas, Haynes had built a hotel at the Forks of the Mattawamkeag about 1835.
About that time, he moved to Bangor, first became agent for Colonel James Thomas, who owned the stage route between Houlton and Augusta, and later the partner of Thomas, then the United States Mail Agent in the Secret Service of that department. He traveled quite widely in this country. He was a member of the City Council and Board of Aldermen in Bangor, and from 1845 to 1850 was United States Deputy Marshall. He moved to Mattawamkeag, and became a County Commissioner; about 1863 he moved to Winn. He was a member of the Legislature and earlier was a surveyor, employed by English surveyors on the monument line about 1820. Later he helped to lay out many of the towns adjacent to Winn.
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The establishment of the military post at Houlton in 1828 and the constant transportation of large quantities of supplies for the garrison at Houlton Barracks attracted settlers to the line of the route over which these supplies traveled. The Forks, or, as it was spoken of by Major Clark, the officer in command at Houlton, "the crotch of the Mattawamkeag" was an important point along the route.
The first permanent settler at the Forks was doubtless Wm. Wilson, who came from Somerset County in 1828, and settled a short distance east of the Forks. His father, Jonathan Wilson, came soon after his son and they cleared a farm and built a house. They opened a house of entertainment, or wayside stopping place. No road had been built at this time, but it was at once started with a view of cutting a road through to Houlton. It was at first carried on by the soldiers. This was a military road, completed in the winter of 1832. The road induced other settlers to come.
In 1832 Messrs. Hall and Leighton built a hotel on the hill two miles below the Forks; and later one, near where the Military Road crosses the Mattawamkeag River.
Alvin Haynes, already mentioned, was one of the earliest set- tlers who came to the Forks. Asa Smith afterward kept the hotel and subsequently moved to Mattawamkeag. In 1840 Daniel Cummings came from Cape Elizabeth and took the hotel below the Forks which he kept for many years. In 1853 R. B. Campbell arrived from Boston and took the Cummings hotel; Mr. Campbell carried on a large farm. He was a man of much force of character and strong Union sentiments. Before the era of the railroads, the old Military Road was the principal route of communication with the Aroostook, and nearly all the supplies for the upper country were hauled over it. Large lumbering operations were carried on in its vicinity, and great quanti- ties of supplies were hauled from Bangor. The road was also the mail route from Houlton to Bangor and passenger coaches, always well loaded, ran along this line. This large amount of travel gave business to many hotels along the way; and for many years no better houses of entertainment could be found in the state, than were kept along the old Military Road.
Mr. Isaac Bradbury was another earlier settler of the town. He came from Saco and located on the line of the Military Road, a mile north of the bridge, where he cleared a farm. Samuel Tuck from Norridgewock was here in the early days of the settlement. Judge Tuck was a prominent man in the town for many years and was well known throughout southern Aroostook. Andrew Calkins and Ab- ner Hall were pioneer settlers, and John H. Brown, who became a leading citizen came, when only a boy, with his father from China.
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He was town clerk, treasurer and postmaster for many years. Leavitt Plantation, formerly included in Haynesville, was set off in 1877. The transfer of the large carrying trade and extensive travel from the Military Road to the railroad has decreased the business of the town very much.
Beals, 1925
Beals was set off from the town of Jonesport and incorporated as a town in 1925. It is an island about six miles long and two miles wide. Its earliest settler was Manwaring Beal who came by sloop from Old York, Maine, about 1773 with his family and all his possessions, and located upon Wass Island near Jonesport. It is for this first set- tler that the town was named. About a year after he arrived, Cap- tain John Alley also settled upon the island and descendants from these two families make up a large part of the citizens today. Other settlers were Lenfestys, Carvers, Kelleys, Peabodys and Faulkinghams.
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CHAPTER XVIII Maine Towns Bearing Women's Names
Among the more than 425 towns and cities in Maine, only six seem to have received their names in compliment to women.
Cape Elizabeth, 1765
The first town in our present state on which that honor was bestowed is Cape Elizabeth, Maine's twenty-third town, which was set off from ancient Falmouth and incorporated in 1765, taking the name of the cape which was included within the area.
The cape had received its name in the early seventeenth cen- tury when Captain John Smith, after writing his Description of New England, visited the English Court and presented to his "Highness Prince Charles the description in a map," with the Indian names of places thereon, and requested that "he would please to change their barbarous names for such English as posterity may say Prince Charles was their Godfather."
The young prince obligingly complied with the request, and attached the names of members of his family to various outstanding places. That of his sister, Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of King James I and his Queen, Anne of Denmark, he selected for the cape at the southern shore of our present Portland Harbor.
Princess Elizabeth, noted for her beauty, grace and vivacity, became the consort of Frederick, Elector Palatine, and King of Bo- hemia. She was the ancestress, through the Hanoverian line, of the reigning sovereign of Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth II.
The following statement is from the History of Cumberland County:
It is said that people of Cape Elizabeth intended to give to their town the name of Portland, that being the earliest English name by which Bang's Island now Cushing and the mainland were known, but at the time the district was set off, the government, which usually determined on the name, ap- plied the title of the cape to the whole territory.
The first attempted settlements were made on Richmond's Island, called by Champlain the Isle of Bacchus, in 1605. A trading station was located here by John Burgess, Sr., as early as 1627.
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He was succeeded by Walter Bagnall about 1628, who was killed by the Indians. Meanwhile the island had assumed its present name. Baxter thinks that it may have come from a George Richmond who evidently was at the head of a large enterprise here, which em- ployed many men. A grant of the island was given to Walter Bagnall in 1631, which he did not live to receive. That same year, the grant to Robert Trelawny and Moses Goodyear, merchants of Plymouth, England, upon the mainland also included fishing and trading privi- leges on the island. With Bagnall's death, nothing prevented Tre- lawny and Goodyear from developing a great business center under their agent, John Winter.
The Trelawny Papers present a vivid picture of life on the island from 1632 to 1645. Vessels were built here, large ships took cargoes consisting of pipe-staves, beaver, fish, oil and other commodi- ties to Europe; while as many as sixty men were employed in fisheries. However, after Winter died, about 1645, the business declined.
The Reverend Richard Gibson, an Episcopal minister, had arrived there in 1637 and had carried on the Anglican form of wor- ship. He was followed by the Reverend Robert Jordan who married Winter's daughter and succeeded to the estate.
Willis states that in 1630 Richard Tucker had established himself at the mouth of the Spurwink River in Cape Elizabeth, where he had been joined the same year by George Cleeve, and that they had carried on business there together for between two and three years. In 1632 they were ejected by John Winter, Trelawny's agent, and sought refuge on the north side of Casco or Fore River, where they laid the foundation of Portland.
After the business at Richmond's Island came to an end, not only that location, but the mouth of the Spurwink was entirely de- serted. But by 1675 some of the early settlers along the northern shore were Joseph Phippen, Sampson Penley, Robert and Thomas Staniford, John Wallis, John Skillings, Joel Madifer, Isaac Davis, Ralph Turner and Nicholas White. At Spurwink were the Rever- end Robert Jordan, Walter Glendell, and a servant, John Guy. These settlers were driven off in the first Indian War but a few families ap- pear to have resettled the place in 1699.
In the spring of 1703 a number of persons returned to Pur- pooduck and erected houses there: Michael Webber, Benjamin and Joseph Wallis, Joseph Morgan, Thomas Lovitt, Nathaniel White and Joel Madeford. The latter had been an inhabitant before the last war. They were unprotected by any fortification, and again the settlement was destroyed.
After Queen Anne's War, Dr. Gilbert Winslow built the first house at Purpooduck in 1716-17, and Samuel Cobb, a ship's car-
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penter, soon built the second house. Willis says that in 1718 there were thirteen families beside Cobb's living on the Neck. It was that winter that a vessel carrying Scotch immigrants anchored at Purpoo- duck Point. When they sailed for Londonderry the following spring, several families remained and became valuable citizens. In 1715 Dominicus Jordan, grandson of the Reverend Mr. Jordan, had returned to the estate at Spurwink.
By 1725 the number of families at Spurwink and Purpoo- duck had increased to seventeen, and in 1733 the two locations were set off as the Second Parish of Falmouth. The five members, John Armstrong, William Jenison, Robert Means, Robert Thorndike and Jonathan Cobb were dismissed from the First Church for that pur- pose. By 1749 the Second Parish numbered 150 families or 900 in- habitants. The Parish became Cape Elizabeth on November 1, 1765, a town in every respect except that they sent no Representative to the General Court.
Augusta, 1797 (City, 1849)
Doubtless the second town in our state to be honored by the name of a woman is our capital city, Augusta. The word has been variously interpreted: as the name of a Roman matron, or as the name of a small fishing village at the head of the tide at Small Point Harbor, which was settled about 1716 and later destroyed by the In- dians. The most favored explanation, however, is that the name was bestowed in honor of Pamela Augusta Dearborn, a daughter of Gen- eral Henry Dearborn, the prominent Revolutionary soldier. General Dearborn served at Lexington in 1775, at Bunker Hill and with Arnold on his expedition through the Maine woods to Quebec. He was a major under General Gates, distinguished himself at the Battle of Monmouth and was with the army at Yorktown. Twice a member of Congress, he was Secretary of War under Jefferson.
The history of Augusta begins with the Pilgrim Fathers and their trading post at ancient Koussinock (Cushnoc). This Indian word means "there is current above."
In 1675 there were reckoned to be one hundred inhabitants on the Kennebec, many of whom must have been at Cushnoc. In the Second Indian War (1689-1697) all the improvements on the river were laid waste.
After the peace of 1713 a stone fort, said to be the strongest in the country, was built, but the succeeding wars again laid waste, and so little was left of the fort that Fort Western was built in 1754 entirely of wood. It was crected by the Plymouth proprietors and named in honor of Thomas Western of Sussex, England, a friend of Governor Shirley.
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Fort Western was an important post, long under the command of Captain James Howard. It was a haven for trappers, travelers and hunters, and permanent settlements soon began in this territory.
The place was so desolate during many wars previous to 1754 that Captain Howard is considered by local historians as the first set- tler. Others of these early inhabitants were James Page, Moses Greely, Ephraim Cowan and Daniel Hilton. Williams, Hamlin, Sewell, Titcomb, Bridge, Fuller, Robinson, Flagg, Cony, Stone, Ingraham, Dillingham, Smith, North, Savage, Church, Rice, Gage, Chandler, Emery and Dorr are names of other early settlers.
It is said that there were in 1770 only three families in what became the village of Augusta. The original settlement was usually known as "the Fort," until separated from Hallowell, "the Hook."
The place was incorporated as a part of Hallowell in 1771, but was set off and incorporated as Harrington in 1797. This name, that of an eminent British nobleman, had been introduced into the coun- try as the name of a part of the present town of Bristol. This was changed during the same year to the present name of Augusta. In 1849 the town became a city.
Corinna, 1816
This town is located in the southwestern part of Penobscot County. The first individual proprietor of the township was Dr. John Warren of Boston, to whom the land was sold by Massachusetts in 1804. Dr. Warren was a brother of General Joseph Warren of Revo- lutionary fame. The territory was described as "the Township num- bered four in the Fourth Range of townships north of the Waldo Patent." Soon after the purchase was made, cuttings began and set- tlers came in.
Dr. Warren gave to Samuel Lancey, Esq., 170 acres of land near the center of the township, for brushing out a road east and west across the township, and building a house and barn upon the land. Squire Lancey cut the bushes for the proposed road and erected hewed frames for the house and barn. He partly covered the frame of the latter. The barn was afterward used for religious meetings.
Along the road brushed out by Lancey, settled Thomas Bar- ton, James Smith, Joseph Pease and Ebeneezer Nutter. Barton was formerly a Revolutionary soldier, one of the four living in town in 1840. Dr. Warren induced families to come by hiring Captain Joseph Ireland and his nephew from Bloomfield (Skowhegan) to erect a mill, where the pioneer farmers brought their grist to be ground. There was only one run of stones, so the meal was carried home unbolted on the backs of the horses. The other end of the mill was used for sawing lumber.
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When the town was incorporated in 1816, it was named Cor- inna in compliment to the daughter of Dr. Warren, although the peti- tion of the inhabitants had asked for the name North Wood. At the first town meeting in 1817, William Elder was elected town clerk, and he, Joseph Pease and Constant Southard, selectmen.
The pioneers traveling to their homes in the future town of Corinna in the early part of the nineteenth century made their way by different means. John Briggs, coming from Augusta in 1819, strapped a feather bed on the horse's back upon which Mrs. Briggs and the two youngest children rode. In some families a cow was used as a beast of burden. Some came in rude oxcarts or with poles dragging from the saddle, Indian fashion, with household goods fastened to them. Some of the more affluent drove two or three hogs or sheep.
Many of the settlers of Corinna had come from Bloomfield. Some came from Gray, as did Jeremiah Titcomb and James Young. The Knowles family were from Truro, Massachusetts; the Haydens were from New Gloucester. The first postmaster was James Hawes, in 1826. Robert Moore was the first storekeeper, and Jotham Pratt erected the old Corinna House and was its first proprietor.
Palmyra, 1807
The town of Palmyra lies in the southwestern part of Somer- set County. This township was purchased from a Mr. Barnard of New Hampshire for twelve and a half cents per acre. He conveyed it to Dr. John Warren of Boston, the purchaser of the town of Corinna. He appointed one Shepherd of Bloomfield as his agent, from whom it was first called Sheperdstown. Samuel Weston made the first sur- vey in 1798.
The first settler was Daniel Gale who moved his family here in 1800. The town was incorporated in 1807. Dr. Warren's son came to Palmyra and built a house on Warren Hill. He practiced law in Penobscot and Somerset counties. According to one writer, it was he who named the two towns, Corinna and Palmyra, in compliment to his two sisters. Another version of the giving of the name Palmyra is that it was given by the wife of Dr. Warren in memory of the city of Palmyra, the Queen of the East, built by King Solomon.
Dr. John Warren was a brother of General Joseph Warren, the hero of Bunker Hill. He was graduated from Harvard in 1771 and began his practice at Salem two years later. He too was an earnest patriot and threw his whole energy into the American cause. He was very helpful in caring for the sick and the wounded. For two years he followed the American army and had charge of the hospitals in and around Boston. He was the founder and first professor of the medical department in connection with Harvard University. He in-
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troduced many innovations in the practice of surgery and wrote many articles on medical progress. It is said that the land which he re- served in Maine was in payment for service rendered to his country.
Daniel Gale, already mentioned as the first settler of Palmyra, was followed shortly by others, so by the end of the next year, 1801, there were eight or nine families within the limits of the town, among which may be mentioned Elkins, Jewett, Lang, Robinson, Johonnet, Folsom and Marston.
The stagecoach line from Norridgewock to Bangor passed through the town, and travelers stopped at the tavern for dinner and a change of horses; Palmyra was the halfway point of the day's jour- ney. Among the tavernkeepers were Mr. Furber, Mr. Lancey and the Widow Robinson. The Lanceys were the most prominent of the fami- lies. Samuel was born in France and came here to fight under La- fayette; the French form of his name is DeLancey. He married Eliza Pierce, a cousin of Benjamin Franklin. His son, Thomas, kept a tavern; another member of the family was the first trader in town.
The first selectmen chosen in 1807 were Samuel Lancey, Joseph Fulsom and Samuel McCluer. The first meetings in Palmyra were held in the schoolhouse and dwelling houses. After some time, a church was erected in the Parkman neighborhood. The present church building was erected in 1838.
Charlotte, 1825
The first settlement of this town in the eastern section of Wash- ington County was about 1807-10 by the Fishers, Bridges, Damons and Truesdales. It was incorporated on January 19, 1825, and ac- cording to Harriet Prescott Spofford, whose grandfather was one of the pioneers of the town, was named by William Vance for his wife.
Sometime before 1800 John Locke owned some land in Char- lotte, and about 1805, a speculator by the name of Coates secured the greater part of the land in the township. Just how the news of virgin land at a cheap price reached the ears of David Fisher and his family in Francistown, New Hampshire, we do not know; but cer- tain it is that in 1809 his two sons, David, Jr., and Ebeneezer, de- cided to go to Plantation No. 3. They probably sailed from Boston along the coast of Maine, arrived at Eastport and laid in supplies, then went up the tidal Cobscook River to what is now Pembroke and either walked or went by canoe to Pennamaquon. They built a log shack, and the following year built the first frame house in town, hauling the hewed boards for the frame from Denny's River.
The Bridges family came about the same time; Jacob, Thomas and John from Ox Cove, Pembroke. Harriet Prescott Spofford, the writer, was the granddaughter of John Bridges. Another pioneer,
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Abijah Damon, from Hingham, Massachusetts, came in 1809 and gave the name to Damon Ridge, and cleared the land where his des- cendants lived for many years. They helped build the first saw mill which later they owned entirely. This was always called the Damon Mill. Mr. Greenlaw and his family were also early pioneers. The Gardiners filled a large place in the old town. Warren Gardiner came about 1809. Hosea Smith arrived from Dennysville in 1811.
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