USA > Maine > Maine place names and the peopling of its towns > Part 46
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of wolves and bandits are still told as dangers faced by travelers at that time.
When the town was incorporated in 1833 it had received the name of Wesley in honor of John Wesley, the English religious re- former and founder of Methodism. Born at Epworth, in 1703, Wesley was brought up in the Church of England and educated at Charter- House and Christ Church, Oxford. It was at this latter institution in 1737 that he became the head of a society of young men, including his brother, Charles, which were called Methodists. He taught that no real Christianity was possible without conversion and his enthusiasm gained him followers in whom he kindled zeal equal to his own. He traveled on horseback and often preached several sermons a day. He published many religious tracts and books, as well as hymns.
Among the early settlers of Wesley, Maine, were many of the Day family. William Day, who was born in Phippsburg, Maine, April 20, 1780, was one of the first. At the time of his arrival, the planta- tion was called "Great Meadow Ridge" because of the large mead- ows along East River. He and others came with oxen through the woods, following a spotted trail. He located and built a log house, just across the road in front of where the schoolhouse on Day Hill now stands. He was engaged in logging and farming while in Wesley.
Three brothers, Jacob, Joel and Samuel, all of whom were born in Leeds, were other members of this family who settled in Day Valley in the town of Wesley before 1835.
After leaving Leeds, Jacob resided in Cooper before coming to Wesley; he was a farmer and a lumberman. Joel was one of the first mail carriers from Wesley to Machias; he made the trip once each week on horseback. He was a farmer by occupation, and a Bap- tist in religious belief. Samuel Blethen, the youngest of the three Day brothers, served as a private in the Aroostook War in 1838-39. A man of keen foresight, he seemed to have the power of anticipating events. Another member of the Day family, Lewis, was the best-known inn- keeper in this region.
Other early citizens of Wesley were McRae, Fenlason, Stinch- field, Guptill, Gray, Hayward and Getchell.
Benedicta, 1872
The town of Benedicta is situated on the western side of the southern portion of Aroostook County. It was named for Bishop Benedict Fenwick of the Catholic Church, who purchased the town- ship from Massachusetts in 1834, but did not receive his title until 1846, when it was deeded to him by George W. Coffin, Agent of the General Court of Massachusetts. It was settled in 1834 by David and Joseph Leavitt.
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It was the dream of the Right Reverend Fenwick, Catholic Bishop of Boston, to settle a Catholic colony upon the cheap lands of northern Maine, and also to erect and maintain a Catholic college in connection with the colony. The project of establishing the colony was carried out, but the idea of developing a college in northern Maine was abandoned and the proposed institution was located at Worcester, Massachusetts, now Holy Cross. The township had been surveyed by Joseph C. Morris and Andrew McMillan in 1825.
Benedicta was first named for Father Conway, a missionary. Soon after purchasing the half-township in 1834, Bishop Fenwick began to carry out his project of establishing a colony upon it. The township was in the midst of an almost trackless wilderness, but it consisted of good land, and large lumber operations were being car- ried on in its vicinity.
In the middle of the town from north to south, village lots were laid out, and soon a church was built and also a parsonage and near by a tract of land was set apart for a college farm. The erection of buildings for the proposed institution was begun and one large college building was nearly completed, when this part of the project was abandoned. This building remained unoccupied for a number of years and was finally taken down. The Bishop also built a mill on Molunkus Stream, near the east end of the town. This mill contained an up-and-down saw and shingle machine, but was afterward given up and allowed to decay.
The Bishop charged the settlers $2 per acre for land upon the line of the main road and $1.50 per acre for land farther back; he gave them all the necessary time to pay for their farms.
Whether the Leavitts, who were the first settlers, were a part of the Bishop's colony, or squatters who came before the purchase, is not known. Among the first of the Catholic colony to settle upon the town were Nicholas Broderick, Timothy Dorsey, Martin Qualey, Philip Finnegan and John Millmore, who came in 1834. Patrick Brade, Chris Keegan, John Byrne, Francis Smith and John Perry were also early settlers, as well as Henry Rivers and Martin Lawler. These settlers were all Irish emigrants who had worked for some time in the cities of Massachusetts. In 1838 and in 1840 quite a num- ber of the settlers came in. John D. Rush arrived in 1838 and settled opposite where the church now stands which was erected in 1843.
The many good farms and neat and comfortable homes in the town give ample evidence of what a colony of thrifty and indus- trious Irish emigrants can accomplish under even quite unfavorable circumstances at the beginning of their settlement, and the improve- ment here made bears witness to the wisdom and philanthropy of the good Bishop in planting this colony here in the wilderness.
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St. Agatha, 1899
Situated on the northwest shore of Long Lake in Aroostook County, St. Agatha bears the name of a Sicilian saint of the third century. The town was formerly a part of Frenchville and was set- tled by the Acadians. It was set off and organized as a town in 1899. A few saw mills remind one of the once active lumber industry.
I am indebted to Mr. Edw. L. McMonagle, Director of Schools in Unorganized Territory of Maine, for the following information:
The town of St. Agatha, incorporated in 1899 took the name from the parish church which had been established there in 1890, under the patronage of St. Agatha. Bishop Healy in separating the new parish from the parent, the parish of St. Luce or Lucy, gave it the name of St. Agatha because of the association of the two saints.
Saint Agatha, one of the most highly venerated virgin martyrs of Christian antiquity, was put to death for her steadfastness of faith, in Catania, Sicily, probably during the persecution of Decius. Some fifty years after her death, her relics attracted the attention of numer- ous visitors to Catania, and many miracles were wrought through her intercession.
Lucy, the daughter of a rich family of Syracuse, persuaded her mother, ill of an incurable disease, to make the pilgrimage to Catania which resulted in her cure and in Lucy's distributing a large part of her worldly goods among the poor. Being denounced by an unworthy youth during the fierce persecution of Diocletian, she also suffered martyrdom and was later sainted.
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CHAPTER XXI Maine Towns Whose Names Are Descriptive
Many towns in Maine bear descriptive words. The Indian names already discussed in Chapter I belong in that category, since they had a definite purpose in the everyday life of the Indian. Our English descriptive words as applied in place names did not grow out of necessity, but were a result of the thoughts of the people in trying to characterize a place. Some describe the natural features, some point out the geographical location, either in simple terms, or in more poetic form; others describe the natural resources of the area.
Among the towns whose names characterize their own natural beauty might be mentioned Fairfield, Prospect and Auburn.
Fairfield, 1788
Fairfield, the fifty-sixth town to be incorporated in the District of Maine, lies on the west bank of the Kennebec River, north of Augusta. It is the southernmost town of Somerset County and was first settled in 1774. It was incorporated in 1788, June 18, under the name it had previously borne as a plantation.
Mr. H. S. Whitney, in The Kennebec Valley, says:
As we pass from Taconnet Falls to the Falls at Skow- hegan, we find ourselves amid the verdant slopes and fertile vales of Fairfield and what was once the town of Bloomfield, names which originated from the blooming appearance of this section. The scenery is very beautiful.
He also noted that the early settlers along the banks of the Kennebec River, below Anson, secured their titles to the land which they settled upon from the proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase of the Colony at New Plymouth, to whom Bradford had assigned it in 1635; he having received it by grant of the Plymouth Council in 1629.
Fairfield is a town of many villages. For a long time the prin- cipal one was called Kendall's Mills after General Wm. Kendall who was the most prominent citizen of the town in the early years of the nineteenth century. In 1772 Kendall's Mills became the village of Fairfield. Here in 1774 a few hardy pioneers had settled in what was then a wilderness, paving the way for the busy industrial town of neat homes which long since have supplanted the first rude cabins.
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One half mile north of the business section on the river bank is a granite seat indicating the spot where Benedict Arnold and his men landed to repair his boats.
Other centers of settlement are Shawmut, formerly Somerset Mills, three miles up the river; Hinckley, until recently Pishon's Ferry, eight miles above Fairfield, where Hinckley Bridge leading to Pittsfield and Bangor has replaced the old ferry; and Fairfield Center, three miles west of Fairfield, which carried the title of Fairfield until this was assumed by the village on the river; North Fairfield, north- ward of the last named, and Larone (Winslow's Mills), in the north- west corner of the town.
The earliest residents, according to the Town Records, were Josiah Burges, Elihu Bowerman, Joseph Town, Lemuel Tobey, Dan- iel Wyman, John Nobel, Ebenezer Allen, Phillip Wing, Joshua Black- well and Jonathan Emery.
Among other esteemed citizens besides General Kendall were General Simonds and Seldon Conner, a Governor of Maine.
Prospect, 1794
The town of Prospect lies on the Penobscot River in the east- ern part of Waldo County. The first notable event in the history of this region was the construction of a small fortification in 1759, called Fort Pownal, on the spot known as Fort Point, now included in Stockton. The first inhabitants, some of whom had been soldiers in the French and Indian Wars, settled near the fort. The town was originally a part of Frankfort, but was taken from it and incorporated in 1794 as the eighty-sixth town in Maine. Its name was suggested by the beautiful prospect presented from an elevation near the center of the town in the vicinity of Fort Pownal.
Fort Pownal was garrisoned with a hundred men, but on the downfall of the French power in the north, the number was reduced to a mere guard. At the opening of the Revolution, the fort was in charge of Colonel Goldthwait who was superintendent of the valu- able traffic with the Indians of this place. In March, 1775, Captain Mowatt, notorious for his cruel bombardment and burning of Fal- mouth a few months later, sailed up the river and transferred to his vessel all the heavy guns and ammunition of the fort.
The first inhabitants settled near the fort. John Odom, who built the first mill on the Penobscot River, located at Sandy Point about three miles above the fort. Other early inhabitants were a Mr. Clifford, Mr. Treat, two or three men named Colson and Charles Curtis, for whom Curtis Point was given its name. Captain John Odom, a grandson of the pioneer of the same name, was a resident of this town. He was born in March, 1787, and followed the sea for
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forty-five years. He was impressed when a young man into British service and was present at the battle of Corunna in Spain, where Sir John Moore was killed. In this battle he was useful in carrying off the wounded and attending to their wants. He obtained his release from the British service soon after and returned home in 1811.
Whipple's Acadia says: "During the year 1756, Lieutenant Joshua Treat arrived at this fort [Pownal] in a ship from Boston loaded with government stores for the fort where he remained, and he was the first actual settler on the Penobscot River."
The truth undoubtedly is that he had been an officer in the fort at St. George, but when Fort Pownal was built, Fort George was dismantled and abandoned. Lieutenant Treat was a gunsmith by trade and soon came to this place, settled near the fort and con- tinued his trade, not only at the garrison, but in the village. He was also an interpreter with the Indians.
At the close of the Revolutionary War, there were twenty- three families in the territory afterward incorporated as the town of Prospect, and probably not more than one hundred people in all.
Auburn, 1842 (City, 1869)
The town of Auburn, when it was incorporated in 1842, may well have taken its name from Goldsmith's "Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain." A modern writer has expressed the same thought by saying that "in charm of nature and beauty and advantage of loca- tion for aboriginal life this place was unsurpassed." Here the fierce and warlike Anasagunticooks kept their capital of the valley region, and had their principal village. Another possible source of the name is Aubourn, a city in Lincolnshire, England.
Auburn was incorporated from "all that part of Minot lying easterly of the curved line [so called]." The early Minot settlers were Samuel Berry, William and Aranna Briggs, William Briggs, Jr., A. Devinall, Wm. Woodward, Elijah Record, John Todd, Squire Cas- well, Samuel Jackson, James Packard, Joel Simmons, Joseph and Cushing Daws, Job Caswell, Isaac Washburn, Nicholas Bray, Nathan Niles, John Staples, Simeon Caswell, David Read, James Willis, Ed- ยท ward Jacobs, Elnathan Packard and Elijah Fisher.
The first town meeting was held in West Auburn in 1842; the call was signed by Elisha Stetson, John Smith, William B. Merrill, Benjamin Given, Charles Little and Thomas B. Little. In 1867 Dan- ville was annexed to Auburn. The oldest settlement in this part of the town had been made on Merrill Hill in 1789 by Jacob Stevens, Benjamin True, Jabez Merrill, Levi Merrill and Daniel Merrill, all of Turner. Two years later, all but Mr. Stevens sold their betterments to Elias Merrill of New Gloucester, who here provided a home for his
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large family of sons. These two towns, Minot and Danville, con- tributed to the villages clustered around Goff's Corner. Here the first clearing was made in 1797 by one Marr, near the junction of the present Main and Court streets. He sold his claim to Joseph Welch, whose log house was the first permanent building. The second was a frame house built by Mr. Dillingham in 1798 near the falls on Found- ry Brook, where he erected a grist mill. The next house was a log one erected by Solomon Wood, nearly opposite the Edward Little house. The growth for twenty years was slow. By the coming of Edward Little in 1819, an element of prosperity was introduced.
In 1822 Jacob Reed moved a small building on the ice to the site of the Goff Block for the first store, and also opened the first pub- lic house. James Goff became Reed's partner in merchandizing and bought store and goods in 1823. During that year, the toll bridge across the Androscoggin was built, an accomplishment of great ad- vantage to "Pekin" as the village was called. The bridge superseded the ferry, which had done duty since 1812. The rates of toll on the new bridge are preserved: "Foot passengers, 2 cents; horse and wagon, 10 cts .; chaise, 16 cts .; four wheeled phaetons, 32 cts .; sheep, 1 cent ; oxen, 4 cents."
In addition to the store, already mentioned, there was a second store, a blacksmith shop, a law office and a millinery shop. Jacob Reed's tavern was a one and a half story building, when erected by Zabina Hunt before 1818, and used as a dwelling until purchased as a tavern by Jacob Reed in 1822. Hunt was the ferryman for many years. In this village the line between Minot and Danville started "at the highest rock in the Androscoggin at the Falls," passed diagonally across the present Court Street, just north of the Elm House, and bi- sected the residence of Ara Cushman. Elm House, built in 1830 as a residence by Josiah Little, was made a public house in 1845.
West Auburn is finely situated on an elevated ridge of land on the west side of Lake Auburn. James Parker, John Nason, John Downing, Israel Bray, Samuel Verrill and Benjamin Noyes were the first settlers locating here in 1789. In 1798 most of them gave prefer- ence to locations on Taylor Pond, and a colony from Bridgewater, Massachusetts, consisting of James Packard, Asaph Howard, John C. Crafts, James Perkins and Asahel Kingsley were in possession by 1800. Mr. Perkins was an iron worker, did blacksmithing and made implements and tools used by the early settlers. A flourishing village had grown up here by 1810; a Congregational church was formed and the East Meeting house built. Here the Reverend Jonathan Scott preached and prayed. The Minot Shoe Factory was also located here in 1835. Stevens' Mills were on Taylor Brook.
Pejepscot, later Danville, was incorporated in 1802. In 1819,
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when the name was changed, there were already five towns of that name in the United States; of these the shire town of Caledonia County, Vermont, was the largest and may have suggested the name to the people here. The distinctive Indian name, Pejepscot, meaning "a place where the river is split up into many rocky channels," precisely describes the tortuous channels of the Pejepscot.
Mention has already been made of saw and grist mills being early established on various brooks and streams in the several parts of the town, and the early establishment of the West Minot shoe fac- tory in 1835.
Some of the details of this last manufactory make interesting reading: Auburn is the shoe city of Maine and here was the first at- tempt made in the state to develop manufacturing as now conducted. A charter was granted by the Legislature to the Minot Shoe Com- pany, organized at West Auburn in 1835 with a capital of $5,000 to $10,000. Asaph Howard was president; Eliphalet Packard, clerk and treasurer; Charles Briggs and Nehemiah Packard, directors. Work was begun in the dwelling of Mr. Crafts in May, 1836, with Moses Craft helping out on the first case. Work was rather discouraging at first; everything was done by hand with no labor-saving machinery introduced until about 1850. The factory system was generally adopted by 1870, though some of the work was farmed out.
Sometimes, the addition of a prefix or suffix has been most useful in helping to describe an early town; the use of the word field, meaning "a large open space" or "extensive fields" may be given as an example. Among such a group of towns in Maine might be in- cluded: Newfield, Cherryfield, Greenfield, Enfield, Smithfield and Marshfield. Names with the suffix field began to come into use in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066, under the feudal or manorial system. Around the manor there would be open fields, usually three to six in number, sometimes only two, and they might be named in reference to the direction in which they were situated from the houses in the village, as in the case of West Field or North Field.
Newfield, 1794
Newfield, the eighty-sixth town to be incorporated in Maine, previously the plantation of Washington, was the first town in our present state to make use of this descriptive term. It was a part of a tract conveyed to Francis Small of Kittery, an Indian trader, by Cap- tain Sunday, a sagamore in the region, in 1668. Later, in 1846, the area was enlarged by the annexation of 600 to 800 acres from Shap- leigh in the southeastern part of the town.
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The first inhabitants came in 1777. Nathaniel Doe, the first settler, arrived in that year and occupied the only house in the south- west corner of the town for some years.
During that same year, Zebulon Libby and Paul McDonald cleared sufficient land to raise a crop of rye which they planted; built a log house for each, and returned to their homes in Scarborough to spend the winter. The following year, they returned with their fami- lies to their new fields. Hence the town's name.
Leander Nelson came from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1780 and settled in West Newfield. The same year the Reverend John Adams moved his family here from Durham. On his journey, which was made by ox cart, he preached in the more populous towns or set- tlements wherever he could obtain a stopping place or an audience of half a dozen settlers and their families. William and Eben Symms of Ipswich, Revolutionary soldiers, came about 1780 and settled at the north of Symms Pond on the old road leading from the village to West Newfield. Samuel Damm of Waterborough built a grist mill and saw mill at what is now Newfield Village, between 1780 and 1784. Among the other early settlers of the 1780's were George Thompson from Scarborough, Ephraim Moulton from Hampton, New Hampshire, with his four grown-up sons who settled near the northeast line of the town, Elijah Drew, Thomas Smith, Thomas Davis and James Crummett, all from Durham, New Hampshire.
Elisha Ayer, the chief proprietor, moved to Washington Plan- tation in 1790 and settled on a farm south of Symms' Pond. James McLellan, his wife's brother, came from Saco the next year and set- tled near Horne Pond. Valentine Davis of Durham settled near Mr. McLellan in 1792. Josiah Towle came from Epping, New Hampshire, to Hiram, thence to Limerick and in 1792 to Newfield, where he opened a store. He was the first Representative to the General Court of Massachusetts. Wm. Durgin came from Limerick with his father and brother about 1798. He built a saw and grist mill at the upper village and in 1801 built a store. Other Revolutionary soldiers who settled in Newfield were Robert Thompson, Wm. Libby, Nicholas Kennison, Stephen Wood, James Heard, Wm. Cammernell and Simeon Tibbets. Newfield furnished 96 men during the Civil War.
Other early settlers were Benjamin Lord, who came from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1797; Stephen Piper from Stratham, who located in the Asa Piper Place; John Mitchell and Joseph Towne from Kennebunk on the Mountain Road. The place where Jethro Smith located has since been known as "Old Rye Field." Hosea Lord was a licensed innkeeper, and Josiah Towle, Wm. Durgin, David Staple, Elijah Drew and James Ayer, merchants, in 1804. The first chaise in the town was owned by the Reverend John Dame.
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At a plantation meeting held at the house of Nathaniel Bart- lett Doe, Elijah Drew was moderator; Andrew Doe, clerk; and Elijah Drew, William Symms and Josiah Hobbs were assessors.
In 1792 a committee was appointed to hire a minister and lay out a churchyard. The work of building the church was forwarded in 1797 by making accurate surveys to find the center of the town. The Baptists were allowed their portion of the tax for supporting the gospel in 1798, and the Congregationalists, relieved of their dissent- ing influence, immediately erected their meeting house, the first in town, a quarter of a mile northwest of Adams Pond, on William Symms' farm. Elections were held at the meeting house until 1845 when the town fitted up a hall over the store.
Cherryfield, 1816
Cherryfield, on the southwestern border of Washington County, is situated on both sides of the Narraguagus River. This town was originally No. 11 of the "lottery Townships," fifty of which, situated between the Penobscot and St. Croix rivers, were included in the land lottery of 1786. The town was incorporated in 1816. Its first settlers had come in 1757. Milbridge Village is at the head of navigation on the Narraguagus, although Cherryfield is at the head of the tide five or six miles farther on.
The origin and development of the town of Cherryfield has been chiefly due to the Narraguagus River which divides the village into two nearly equal parts. It was for many years called Narraguagus. Vessels ascend to Milbridge within five and a half miles of Cherry- field Village, and lumber is floated to that point in scows and rafts.
Cherryfield was first settled in 1757 by Ichabod Willey and Samuel Colson. Willey, and probably Colson, came from New Hamp- shire; the former was English born, or born soon after his parents came to this country. His wife, Elizabeth Bumford, was born in Londonderry, Ireland. Mr. Willey was a millwright, a man of great strength and endurance, who built the first mill on the Narraguagus River. About 1760 two brothers, Thomas and Samuel Leighton, came from Falmouth to the Narraguagus; Joseph Bracy was a very early settler. John Bohannon, Samuel Colson and John Foster had arrived by 1763. John Lawrence came early from North Yarmouth, while Captain Josiah Tucker built a house and lived on the hill east of Samuel Ray's residence. Some of the oldest citizens remember having attended school in his house.
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