USA > Maine > Maine place names and the peopling of its towns > Part 48
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The historic Mullin House is the famous Havens Inn which General Grant and his party visited in 1873 and Franklin D. Roose- velt in 1893. In the early life of North Haven, it was mainly a farm- ing and fishing town. There were villages at Bartlett's Harbor, Pul- pit Harbor, Little Thoroughfare and Thoroughfare. The Band fish- ing industry was carried on by the Thomases at Bartlett's Harbor, the Frye's at Pulpit Harbor, the Cooper's at Little Thoroughfare and Lewis McDonald at the Thoroughfare.
Religious work in North Haven dates from 1794. In 1804 a church edifice with box pews was built at Pulpit Harbor. Enlarged and repaired many times, it now serves the island people in the sum- mer months and on special occasions. In 1860 the population of the island was 450. A new church built at the Thoroughfare was finished in 1923. In 1940 the population of the island was still 450.
Library service began at the old church between 1842 and 1857 and continued down to 1918 through the kindness of David Wooster, who had quite a library of his own which he loaned to the church for circulation. Sometime later books appeared on the shelves of the "Salt Store," Freeman Smith's and C. S. Staples' store. The Salt
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Store, where the Casino now is, seems to have had bookshelves much used and remembered. From these shelves many of the classics could be borrowed, and, of course, tales of the sea and of western adven- ture. In the 1890's the summer visitors added much valuable reading matter; in 1898 Mullen's Hall was rented as a library and the North Haven Library Association was formed.
East port, 1798 (City, 1873)
Our present city of Eastport is situated on the southeastern part of Moose Island in Passamaquoddy Bay, and was formerly known by that name. When the petition for incorporation of the town was presented to the General Court in 1797, it asked that the new town might be called Free Town. The petition for incorporation was granted, but the committee (Samuel Tuttle, John Burgin and John Allen) asked for the name of East Port. This name is said to have been suggested by Captain Hopley Yeaton who at that time com- manded the United States Revenue Cutter on the Station. The name is most appropriate as describing the location of the town. At that date the town included in addition to Moose Island, Dudley's (Allen's) and Frederic's (Rice's) Islands as well as the territory of the present town of Lubec. The two islands and Lubec were set off in 1811.
The early settlers, of whom the first was James Cochrane in 1772, a native of Ireland, were fishermen from Newburyport, Lynn, Marblehead and Cape Ann, Massachusetts, who located themselves on Moose Island for convenience in taking and curing fish.
In 1784 Samuel Tuttle, John Shackford and probably Wm. Crowe and Wm. and Joseph Clark were living here, and it is be- lieved there were still fewer at the present Lubec. Rufus Putnam sur- veyed the township in 1785.
By 1789 there were twenty-three or four families on Moose Island. Among them, in addition to the names already mentioned, were Robert Ball, Caleb Boynton from Newburyport, John McQuire of Scotland, William Gowdy from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Henry Bowen, William Ricker of Steuben, Maine, Stephen Fountain, a loyalist from New Brunswick, William Hammond from Marble- head, a fisherman on the Grand Banks, Paul Johnson of Rowley, Derney, a native of Ireland, Joseph Beaman and Solomon Mabee, Tories from New Brunswick, and Alexander Hackett, a Scotchman at Bowen's Cove - all with families. Nearly all of them received lots after the survey of 1791 made by Solomon Cushing.
Township No. 8, now Eastport and Lubec, had never been disposed of by the state, and the settlers for the first ten or twelve years were what were usually called squatters, that is, people enter- ing upon and occupying the land without title or agreement. After
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the survey of 1791 titles were made directly from the state to individ- uals. The first road laid out in Eastport was in 1799, nearly twenty years after the first settlement, and it was done in such an indefinite manner that it would be impossible to say where it was. Names of people mentioned in the return of the road who were living there at the time were James Cochrane, Captain Prince, Henry Waid, Samuel Tuttle, Mr. Shackford, Henry Poor, Wm. Clark and Mr. Todd. At this time there were in No. 8 only 244 inhabitants.
At the first town meeting in Eastport, Jonathan Leavitt was moderator; Jacob Lincoln, town clerk; Paul Johnson, Wm. Clark, Sr., of Soward's Neck and John Burgin, selectmen.
The first merchant to establish himself in town was a Mr. Warren from Boston who came previous to 1789, at which date Na- thaniel Goddard also entered the business. The first Representative from the town was Colonel Oliver Shead who came as a confidential clerk to Mr. Goddard.
The first school was between 1784 and 1788 and the teacher was a Mrs. Bell from Newmarket, New Hampshire. In 1794 a house for worship was erected by a few individuals at the bend in the road a little north of the burying ground, and religious instruction was given there until 1814 by missionary and itinerant preachers.
Reverend Ephraim Abbot, missionary for the Congregational Church engaged by the people of that faith to preach at Eastport while here in September, 1811, made his home with J. D. Weston, Esq., who, like Abbot, was a graduate of Harvard College. These notes are from Abbot's Diary:
Apr. 7, 1812 at Eastport, rec'd $20.00 worth of books from my friends for distribution - exchanged sleigh for sad- dle. May 4, Went to Eastport and bought 2 doz. spelling books at Mr. Hayden's Went to Dudley's Id, dined at Mr. Allen's and left the books which I had directed to Johnson's Cove and the light house.
The chief office of the Passamaquoddy United States Customs District has been located at Eastport almost ever since the incorpora- tion of the town. During the embargo of 1809 a fortification named Fort Sullivan was built. In 1814 Major Perley Putnam was placed in command of this region, with a force of one hundred militia, thirty of whom were stationed at Robbinston. The British claimed the island as being on the British side of the boundary line as settled in 1783, and ordered the inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance in 1814, when a large British force of upwards of a thousand men under Commander Sir Thomas Hardy arrived before Eastport on July 11. While some complied with the requirements, others evaded them and many re- moved to points westward.
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The place was held under eight hundred troops for three years after the war closed, on the plea that the island was included in the original limits of New Brunswick. Under the fourth article of the Treaty of Ghent, of December 14, 1814, the titles of Moose Island, Dudley Island and Frederick Island were declared as belonging to the United States, and on June 30, 1818, a formal surrender of these islands was received from the British. In 1820, two years after the British force was removed, the town contained one hundred twenty-five dwell- ing houses, seventy-five stores, sixty wharves and three meeting houses. In 1839 the larger part of the business quarter was burned, but soon rebuilt.
Eastbrook, 1837
The writer of the Eastbrook Centennial History, Mrs. Joseph- ine Butler, states that "the name of the town derives from the fact that the drainage of the southern half of the township flows into the east branch of the Union River"; or as Varney puts it: "The name is derived from the Eastbrook branch of the Union River."
The first permanent settlers came about 1800, and the town was incorporated in 1837. These first settlers were Joseph Parsons, Robert Dyer, Samuel Bragdon and John E. Smith. The first mill and the first frame house were built by Joseph Parsons. Francis Usher Parsons was the first child born in the town.
The pattern of the growth of the early township follows that of many others in Maine. First came the building of a camp by the Indians. Then the white hunter and trapper, whose name, Mills, re- mains in the section of his hunting camp, built a log cabin, doubtless the first to be built in the present town.
Among the early settlers listed above, Bragdon, himself a hunt- er and trapper, became the first permanent settler; Robert Dyer was the first to bring his family, in 1811.
As the settlers came, saw mills were needed to transform logs into boards for homes. The logs were taken from the clearings where fields were needed to raise corn for food. A grist mill was also needed, to grind the corn into meal. Joseph Parsons built the first saw and grist mills at the mouth of Scammon Pond. Thus lumbering and farming became the first industries. The Union River offered a way also for driving the logs from the northern part of the township to Ellsworth for manufacture. A second mill built at the foot of Molasses Pond, the Macomber Mill, manufactured many soft-wood products: long lumber, staves, shingles and laths, and offered employment for the citizens. Later hardwood products were produced.
Among the familiar names of those who followed the first comers and had a large part in the development of the town were
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Abbott, Billings, Bowden, Bunker, Butler, Ashe, Crimmins, Curtis, French, Googins, Jellerson, Kingman, Lowrie, Merchant, Piper, Potter, Springer, Scammon and Wentworth.
There is an abundance of sugar maples in certain sections of the town, which has resulted in the making of maple sugar becoming an industry.
A church was not built until 1859-60.
Easton, 1864
Lying on both the eastern line of Aroostook County and of Maine, Easton so derives its name. It was incorporated in 1864. Previous to that date, it was called Fremont Plantation in honor of Major General John Charles Fremont, the pathfinder and explorer. He was the standard bearer of the young Republican Party of the nation in 1856, when the plantation assumed his name.
The beautiful St. John's River flows for many miles parallel with, and only a few miles distant from, the eastern boundary of the County of Aroostook. The tier of townships lying along the boundary lines comprises many fine agricultural towns, but none is more ex- cellent than the fertile town of Easton. Nowhere in the county do the maples tower to so great a height or make a more thrifty growth than in this town.
Though lying upon the border, it was unsettled at the time of the boundary dispute, and its most ancient archives contain no account of the Aroostook War.
Easton was originally a Massachusetts township, but about 1854, like all the other towns in Maine still remaining in the hands of Massachusetts, it was purchased by the State of Maine. In 1855-56 it was lotted by Noah Barker into 160-acre lots, and was opened by the state for settlement. Previous to that time, however, a few settlers had started clearings in the town. The earliest of whom there is any authentic account is Mr. Henry Wilson who first came to Presque Isle and taught school there in a log house about 1847. In 1851 he went into the wilderness and started a clearing near what is now Easton Center. There was at this time a logging road from Presque Isle across the present town of Easton to the St. John's River, a road passable only for teams in the winter season. Mr. Wilson was assisted in build- ing his log house by a number of young men from Presque Isle. Here he and his wife lived for a number of years before any other settlers came. About the time that the town was lotted, in 1855 or 1856, he sold his improvements to W. H. Rackliffe, Josiah Foster and Theophilus Smith and moved to Mars Hill.
In 1854 Albert Whitcomb began a clearing about a mile south of what is now Easton Center, and moved to this new farm from
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Presque Isle the following year, having by then twenty acres cleared and a log house and a frame barn built. The early settlers paid for their land by grubbing out and building the road from Fort Fairfield to Blaine, which in 1856 had been run out but was only a spotted line in the woods. It was not passable for wagons until 1859.
In 1854 Wm. Kimball also started a clearing north of Mr. Wilson's and was one of the most prominent of the early settlers of the town. In the same year came Solomon Bolster, Dennis Hoyt, Em- mons A. Whitcomb and A. A. Rackliffe. Mr. Hoyt soon sold his im- provements to Wm. D. Parsons. Jacob Dockendorff also began a clearing in 1854 in the western part of the town which became Sprague's Mills; he himself came to live there in 1857. In the spring of 1856 Josiah and George Foster settled near the center of the town; John L. Pierce took the lot adjoining Albert Whitcomb's, and John C. Cumming settled near the Fort Fairfield line. In the fall of 1856 Ephraim Winship and Israel Lovell took up lots next to Presque Isle in the northwest corner of the town.
In 1862 the records show that taxes could be paid in grain or shingles at the market price at Fort Fairfield. Buckwheat and cedar shingles were at that time legal currency in Aroostook and were about all the resources the settlers had for payment of their debts. In 1860 D. Russell Marston built the mill at the village of Sprague's Mills and later put in a shingle machine, which was said to have been the first in Aroostook County. In 1870 Mr. Marston sold to the Spragues who gave the place its name. They in turn sold in 1878. Although the first growth of the town seemed to indicate that the principal business would cluster around the center of the town, the fine water power at Sprague's Mills has made that the main business center, and a hand- some and thriving village has grown up there.
There are three remaining towns in Maine whose names have direct reference to the east: Levant, Aurora and Orient.
Levant, 1813
The name of this agricultural town, situated in Penobscot County, is best defined as the East, or the Orient. It was settled some- what prior to 1800 and the titles to the lands were from William Wet- more who had purchased a tract here from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1792. He was an early lawyer at Castine, may have come as early as 1789, and was the only lawyer in Hancock County who was ever called to the degree of barrister, an honor which re- quired the recipient to appear in court in gown and wig.
The first settler in Levant, Maine, was Joseph Clark, one of
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the refugees who had come from Nova Scotia. He began to fell trees in 1789. William and George Tebbets and Messrs. Bubar and Knowl- ton all came some time prior to 1800. In 1801 Major Moses Hodson settled at what is now Kenduskeag Village but was then a part of Levant, where he erected a saw and grist mill, three dwelling houses, a store and a blacksmith shop which were the first framed buildings in the town. Major Hodson was largely engaged in surveying and gave much impetus to business.
By 1813 the number of settlers gave warrant to the erection of the tract as a town. It had originally been a section of the large Kenduskeag Plantation of which Bangor was a part, and when that town was carved out of it in 1791 the name seems to have passed westward, at least as soon as the population upon the parent soil of Levant justified organization as Kenduskeag Plantation, under which name it existed until 1813.
Sewell Stanley, born in Winthrop, came to Levant in 1823 and purchased his farm from New Hampshire owners for about two dol- lars per acre. He was an energetic citizen, interested in religion and temperance as well as agriculture. He was a justice of the peace and a selectman of the town many times. Colonel Harrison Waugh came from Readfield in 1824. One of the first settlers in South Levant, he was a man greatly interested in town affairs and a long-time holder of the office of selectman.
The Little Kenduskeag, or Black Stream, widely winding its way from west to east through the town, offered a number of mill sites necessary to the early development of the town. Among them were Weston's Mills at South Levant, Wiggin's Mill at Levant Vil- lage and White's Mills at West Levant.
Aurora, 1831
Another town in Maine bears a name which refers to the east and in a measure locates the town geographically. Aurora in Hancock County takes its name from the goddess of dawn who, ac- cording to Greek mythology, opened, with her rosy-tipped fingers, the gates of day, so that Apollo might start the chariot of the sun god upon its daily round. Aurora was one of the "Lottery Townships" and was organized as Plantation No. 27 in 1822. For a brief time it was called Hampton. It was incorporated as the town of Aurora in 1831.
Its first settlers were four brothers, Samuel, Benjamin, David and Roswell Silsby, who took up their abode in the township about 1805. During the winter of that year Samuel, with his brother Wen- dell, left Ackworth, New Hampshire, for Portland with a load of pro- duce. From there the journey was made on foot through Bath, Rock- land, Camden and Bucksport. From this last point the way was made
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on snowshoes to the present town of Amherst, where his brother, Captain Goodell Silsby, awaited him. From this plantation he pro- ceeded to the township, now Aurora, cleared land and built a log cabin into which he moved in 1812. Jesse Giles was the next comer.
Aurora is situated on a branch of the Union River, on the "Air Line" road, twenty-four miles from Ellsworth and twenty-five from Bangor. The roads run over the hardwood hills which were principally occupied by the first settlers, and afford pleasant views. The woods are generally of pine, spruce and hemlock. The present village inn was formerly a stagecoach stop. Just beyond Aurora, the Air Line passes over the whaleback, an alluvial ridge with an eleva- tion of from two hundred to three hundred feet. Vast tracts of wood- land stretch along either side. Some fifteen miles beyond Aurora and about three miles from the Air Line are the beaver colonies and dams on the Narraguagus.
Orient, 1856
On the southeastern border of Aroostook County, Orient is at the head of Grand Lake which forms part of the eastern boundary of Maine, hence the fitness of the name of the town Orient, meaning "the east." The town was incorporated and so named in 1856.
The first settlers who made a clearing in the present town were Wm. Trask, Wm. Deering and James Lambert. These pioneers came in 1830. Wm. Trask was from Kennebec County and made his first clearing near the head of Grand Lake a short distance below the thoroughfare; Mr. Trask settled on the lake shore and lived there un- til about 1856, when he moved to Minnesota, accompanied by James Lambert who had located on the lot next west. Wm. Deering moved from Hodgdon to Orient in 1830 and settled near the shore of the lake; Wm. Philbrook had made a small chopping on this lot, but did not settle on it. Mr. Deering cleared a farm and lived there until his death in 1842.
Mr. Abram Longley from Dover was one of the pioneer set- tlers of Orient. He arrived not long after the settlers already men- tioned. His farm was on the line of the Calais road in the southern part of the town. He was a well-known resident for many years and his house was a well-known stopping place for travelers and team- sters after the Calais road was built. Thomas and Robert Colyer were early settlers near the head of the lake where they cleared up farms, but they moved to Wisconsin in 1856. Marcus Peters came from New Brunswick about 1837 and settled on the lot south of the "Horseback" near where the road turns from the Calais road toward the head of the lake, where a small clearing had already been made. He was a leading citizen of the town, a man of sterling character, well and fa-
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vorably known throughout southern Aroostook. He served as deputy collector of customs.
Jeremiah Sprague, who came from Houlton in 1845, was a prominent man in the town and held the office of postmaster for many years. Thomas Maxell was also one of the early settlers who came from Gray about 1831 or '32. He cleared a farm on which he lived until his death, when the farm went into the possession of his son. In the southwest corner of the town are a few settlers and some quite good farms.
Southport, 1842
Southport is an island at the mouth of the Sheepscot River in Lincoln County and was formerly a part of Boothbay, from which it was set off and incorporated under the name of Townsend in 1842. In 1850 this was changed to its present name, which defines its posi- tion in the town of Boothbay, of which it was a part, as well as in Lincoln County. The island is about five miles long and two and one- half wide in its broadest part. At the southern extremity is the ancient and well-known Cape Newagen with a small harbor and village. Mouse, Capital, Squirrel and Burnt Islands on the east side are parts of the town. The island is bridged to the mainland of Booth- bay Harbor across Townsend Gut about two miles west of the village. When that part of Boothbay which had always been referred to as Cape Newagen Island made application for a separate township incorporation, it was quite evident that a general desire for incorpora- tion prevailed over the island, and no remonstrance appeared from their brethren on the mainland.
The name given to the new town was Townsend, a most fitting selection, which revived the old plantation name and would have been given instead of Boothbay in 1764, had it not been for the fact that a town by that name already existed in Massachusetts. On March 4, 1850, the town voted to petition the Legislature to change the name from Townsend to Southport. The reason for this change was that the harbor of Boothbay, in particular, and even the village it- self had become known as Townsend, from long and persistent usage on the part of the seafaring public, and now that the name had an actual and legal existence, Townsend matter, both mail and freight, came to Boothbay and vice versa.
Williamson says that at Cape Newagen there were ancient settlements, begun perhaps by fishermen. When a re-survey of the Massachusetts Patent was made in 1671 and it was found that the extent eastward was five leagues farther north, the General Court pro- ceeded to erect the easternmost section beyond Sagadahoc into a new county. Commissioners were appointed who opened their court in
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May, 1674, at Pemaquid, which was attended by a considerable num- ber of people and at which the section from Sagadahoc to Georges' River, inclusive, was erected into the county of Devonshire in remem- brance of one of that name in England. The oath of allegiance was given to eighty-four inhabitants present. Among the constables ap- pointed was Robert Gammon of Cape Newagen. The court formed five trainbands of militia, one of which was at Cape Newagen, and at the July term Cape Newagen was taxed three pounds ten shillings as its share of "court charges" and cost of "law books, constables' staves and other public expenses."
According to Mr. Jason C. Thompson, town clerk of South- port, Maine, these were some of the earliest settlers in the town: Amos Gray settled at Squirrel Island in 1772. He was from Massa- chusetts, bought Squirrel Island and sold the same to William Green- leaf in 1825. Samuel and Katherine Harris came from Exeter, New Hampshire, to Cape Newagen Island, now known as Southport, in 1774. Samuel Pierce, the date of whose birth and arrival is unknown, came from Marblehead, Massachusetts, settled at Cameron's Cove and was the founder of that family in Southport; Joseph Thompson, born in Ipswich, Massachusetts, arrived in Southport in 1777.
Among settlers in the nineteenth century were Freeman Grov- er, born in Jefferson, Maine, in 1807, who came to Southport in 1828, a successful businessman who served this town many years on the board of selectmen, and Thomas Marr, Jr., from Georgetown, Maine. He located at Marr's Harbor, West Southport, and was the founder of that family in Southport.
Westport, 1828
Westport is an island situated in the Sheepscot River, between Woolwich and Boothbay in Lincoln County. It was once the western part of Edgecomb, but was separated from it and incorporated in 1828 under its present name, which defines it as the "west port." It was formerly called Jeremisquam, a name said to be half-English and half-Indian. The late Mrs. Fannie Hardy Eckstorm says: "We know that the 'misquam' meant 'a great neck' which leaves the first two sylla- bles unaccounted for; thus far we have found nothing that explains them."
One Robinhood, a sagamore, sold Jeremisquam to John Rich- ards, a resident, in 1649, and George Davis in 1663 received the deeds of large tracts of land in this quarter from the Sheepscot sagamores. He settled at Wiscasset Plantation.
It seems that the present town of Wiscasset and the island of Jeremisquam embraced by some of these deeds came by inheritance and transfer into the possession of several Boston gentlemen of wealth
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who associated in 1734, first under the name of the Boston Company, but later as the Jeremisquam and Wiscasset proprietors. To the island of Jeremisquam they supported their claim and compelled the settlers to purchase from them.
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