USA > Maine > Maine place names and the peopling of its towns > Part 51
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Up to 1846 the part of the town which contains Hartland Village was within the limits of St. Albans. The house built here by Stephen Hartwell was a log house of cedar logs hewn on two sides and put together after the fashion of a boy's cob house. The follow- ing year, he built a frame house. James Fuller, the first permanent settler of the town of Hartland, came from Exeter, New Hampshire, about 1802, and was prominent in the early affairs of the settlement. He ran the tavern at Fuller's Corner on the old country road between Norridgewock and Bangor, one of the few prohibition houses in Maine at that time. Ambrose Finson arrived from Danville about 1808 and built a log house which served as town hall; his cleared fields also served as a place for muster. He was justice of the peace, county commissioner and Representative to the Legislature. He was often called upon to settle disputes, and was known as "Squire" Finson. John Butterfield from Goffstown, New Hampshire, came in 1814, cleared land and built a log house; Isaac Elliot was from Bowdoin- ham. He located first in Wellington and in 1831 came to Hartland; Peleg Haskell, one of the early traders in town, came from New Gloucester; Wm. Larrabee and his wife were from Danville and set- tled in what is now West Hartland; Calvin Blake, the second doctor in town, came from Turner about 1818.
Wm. Hopkins emigrated from England to Manchester, Maine. His son, Richard, moved to Hartland and Benjamin Magoon settled on so-called Burrill's Island and there cleared a farm; Solomon Rick- er and his wife were from Alfred, New Hampshire; James Hinton was the first of that family from Bloomfield or Skowhegan to arrive, and cleared a farm at North Hartland and built a log house. Daniel Ham, among the first settlers in town, came from New Hampshire by way of Lewiston and first built a log house and later a frame house which at that time was considered the finest in the town.
Another very early settler, Charles Littlefield from Kennebunk, cleared only six acres at first and built a frame house boarded with wide pine boards; the roof was also battened in the same manner. It had a chimney and a fireplace made of stones; Hobbs Perkins, an early settler on Huffs Hills, built a log house and cleared a farm there. Sewell Prescott, Jr., came to Hartland from Monmouth in the fall of 1827 and lived on what is now Commercial Street, where he traded for some time, was postmaster, county commissioner and Representa- tive to the Legislature. John Starbird and his wife came to North Hartland from New Hampshire and settled near a pond which now bears his name. He bought his farm of Mr. Bryant Williams. Of the Withee family, Captain Uziel Withee was the first member to come. He had served in the Revolution under Washington; Imlah Withee ran a grist mill and also owned a farm in the north part of the town.
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Ezra Withee, brother of Imlah, settled at North Hartland and built a saw mill and shingle mill, so the place was called Withee's Mills.
The Baptist Church was organized in 1825; and in 1829 the church known as St. Albans Baptist Church, with about fifteen mem- bers, was built, and the Reverend Benjamin Bisbee became pastor. The grounds of the Baptist Church lot were among the first to be cleared from the forest on that side of the river. It was purchased from Henry Warren in 1841 by the proprietors of the Baptist Meeting House, and the present church erected in 1842. The first mills already noted had a dam of poles, then saw mills were built for lumber of all kinds. Shingle, sash and blind mills, as well as tanneries were built. The woolen mills begun in 1862 by Archibald Linn made blue material for soldiers' uniforms.
Rockland, 1848 (City, 1853)
Rockland is situated on the west side of Penobscot Bay. Its harbor is enclosed by two headlands: Jameson's Point on the north and the projection of Thomaston terminating in Owl's Head on the south. The surface of the town is rough and broken, low near the shore, but in the western part of the town rising in a chain of hills extending northward from Thomaston and ending in the Camden Mountains. Limestone is the prevailing rock.
In 1850 a vote was passed to change the name of the town of East Thomaston to Rockland and the selectmen were instructed to so petition the Legislature, which complied with the petition, July 17, 1850 "since when the town, now city has rejoiced in its chosen name which when it is considered that its quarries of lime rock are the foundation on which the prosperity of the place rests all must acknowledge to be an appropriate one." So writes Cyrus Eaton, the historian. Its lime, heretofore known as Thomaston, now took the name of Rockland in the market, and the place is considered the principal manufactory and depot of lime in the United States.
The place was first visited by John Lermond and his two brothers from Upper St. George, now Warren, who in 1767 built a camp and got out a cargo of staves of oak and pine lumber. From them the place obtained the name of Lermond's Cove. Its Indian name was Catawamteak, signifying "great landing place." Lermond did not stay and the town was not permanently settled until about 1769, when the following persons with their families took up their abode in the locality: Isaiah Tolman, of Stoughton, Massachusetts, who came with his family and took up five hundred acres around the pond, long called Tolman's, but now Chikawauka Lake; Captain Jonathan Spear from Braintree, Massachusetts; David Watson whose father, William, had come from Ireland and at this time was residing
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in Thomaston; James Fales and John Lindsay who had removed at the close of the French and Indian War to the Fox Islands and thence to Rockland; Captain Constant Rankin, born at Old York, who came to Rockland from Nova Scotia about 1775; Jonathan Smith from Smithfield, Rhode Island, and John Godding who, although born in Mansfield, Massachusetts, had come from the Fox Islands to the present Rockland during the Revolution. These settlers all erected log huts and began clearing and cultivating their lots.
John Ulmer of Waldoborough moved here in 1795 and began manufacturing lime, in which business he was the pioneer. The growth of the place was slow and in 1795 the dwelling of John Lindsay was the only house where the city now stands. The territory was included in Thomaston and after that town was incorporated, the settlement on Lermond's Cove was known as Shore Village. On the establishment of a post office here about 1820, it took the name of East Thomaston; and on the division of the parent town in 1848, it was incorporated under that name. This was changed to Rockland in 1850, and in 1853 the town obtained a city charter.
Fishing, shipbuilding and limestone quarrying have been the chief industries in the past. Mention has already been made of Cap- tain John Ulmer, a native of Germany, who came from Waldobor- ough. He had previously bought a large tract of land, and his sons, John, Jr., and George, had been engaged in lime burning for about seven years when the father moved his family to the town. George was also a small trader at Lermond's Cove. The father continued lime burning and the work done by the sons was probably the first burning of lime in the present city of Rockland. The Ulmer kilns were the first to be opened. John Ulmer also loaded lumber on vessels which he owned, and sometimes navigated and built others at his own shore, perhaps the first ever launched in Rockland.
Many of the Ulmers' children settled here. The sons located themselves in different places at the shore, the quarries and the meadows. They continued to build mills, burn lime, build vessels, and helped much in the growth and development of Rockland.
Jonathan Spear, Jr., built the first two-story frame house in the present city of Rockland; John Ulmer, Sr., erected the second, and at the time was also building a small sloop. Here at the North Parish, the Reverend John Lord, Dartmouth, 1799, had supplied the pulpit, and a church was organized with him as pastor.
Oakland, 1873
Oakland was a part of Waterville until 1873, when it was set off and incorporated as West Waterville. Ten years later, the name was changed to Oakland on account of the large number of oak
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trees in the vicinity. The land which is now included in the town of Oakland has been designated by six different names, first by the In- dian name Taconet. The white immigrants of the section aspired to the name of Kingsfield; in 1771 it became a part of the corporate town of Winslow; after thirty-one years, in 1802, the people of the area of Winslow west of the Kennebec River became citizens of the town of Waterville, whose territory was enlarged about 1840 by the addition of several square miles from Dearborn, when that town ceased to exist. When the settlement on the river grew to be more im- portant and the manufacturing created another center of activity and trade, questions of taxation brought about the incorporation of West Waterville in 1873. In 1883 the name of the town was changed to Oakland.
It is very well established that a company of hunters, some of them from Canada, were the first comers. Among them were some by the name of Emerson who liked this section so well that they stayed here; the outlet of the lake took and still retains their family name. Here is a list of names of men who lived in 1791 in that part of old Winslow that is now Oakland: Ensign Thomas Bates, David Moody, Live and Manoah Crowell from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Lemuel Crowell, Asa Emerson, the surveyor and mill builder, Solo- mon and Elisha Hallet, Elijah Smith, Jonathan Coombs and John Farrin.
According to a survey and map made by John Crosby in 1802, the following persons lived on lots designated by number in that part of Waterville now Oakland: Samuel and Moody Crowell on Lot No. 1; Elisha Hallett, No. 2; Solomon Heald, No. 3; Baxter Cro- well, No. 4; Joshua Morey, No. 5; Samuel Morey, No. 6; Jabez Hall, No. 7; Peltiah Penny, No. 11; Samuel Avery, No. 12; Aaron Fall, No. 13; Nehemiah Penny, No. 14; John Penny, No. 15; Wm. Ellis, No. 16; Joel Richardson, No. 17; Henry Kinney also on lot No. 17; Nathaniel Blake, No. 18; Daniel Branch, No. 19; Pearly Merrill, No. 20; Robert Damon, No. 22; Isaac Page, No. 23; Ezekiel Crowell, No. 24; Henry and Otis Richardson, No. 25; Joel Richardson, No. 26 and Henry Richardson, Jr., No. 27.
The greatest gift in Oakland's possession is its water power. Situated at the gateway of Messalonskee Lake, this outlet, long known as Emerson's Stream, is remarkable for its volume, constancy and temperature. No equal area in Maine furnishes so much surplus water at the dry season, yet its flood tide raises the stream but three feet.
Jonathan Coombs built a dam, a saw mill and a grist mill and compelled the stream to saw logs and grind corn for the early Winslow settlers before 1800. When the grist mill was worn out, Burnham
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Thomas built another in 1836 and ran it for twenty years. Then a freshet undermined it and carried it away bodily. It was again re- placed in 1856. The old saw mill was kept in operation for over half a century and run by sons of the pioneers, Jonathan and David Coombs; a carding and fulling mill was also built by their father. Al- fred Winslow came to Oakland in 1836 and built, on the Coombs dam, a tannery which he operated for twenty-eight years, making upper leather as a specialty. It was later converted into a shingle and grist mill. Other dams and mills were built here and axes, scythes and hoes, grain threshers, tools, wagons and shovel handles have been turned out in great numbers.
Probably the first trader in Oakland was Leonard Conforth who kept a store in a building near his mills. Israel Washburn, after- ward governor, was a clerk in this store for a time. The post office of West Waterville was established in 1827. The oldest tavern now re- membered was kept by Richard Dorr in 1832 at the junction of the Belgrade and Smithfield roads and was called the Montgomery House. The Free Baptists, the oldest religious organization in Oakland, date from 1832, when thirteen people organized in the town meeting house and contined to meet there until the union meeting house was built the next year.
Woodland, 1880
Woodland is located in Aroostook County. It was settled in the northern part by Swedes in 1872. Choppings had been made by men from Caribou and Buckfield as early as 1858 and 1859. The first settler came from Ware, Massachusetts, in 1860 and others came from that state in that same year. It was organized as a plantation in 1861 and incorporated in 1880, the name being descriptive of a land abounding in wood.
The first to make an opening in the new town was Frederic E. Lufkin of Caribou who, as early as 1858, before the town had been lotted, made a chopping of six acres in the north part of the town. In 1859 Enoch Philbrick came from Buckfield in Oxford County and felled trees near Mr. Lufkin's. Both these choppings were burnt on the same day in the summer of 1859; fire was set to Mr. Philbrick's first. In the same year, Charles E. Washburn, B. F. Thomas and Moses Thomas came from Oxford County and took lots in the north part of the town, and T. L. Jennison, Carlton Morse and Charles Carlton came from North Dixmont and settled near the center. None of these men brought their families that year. After building their log houses and making small clearings, they went out and returned with their families the next year.
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The first settler mentioned above who brought his family to the town and remained was Mr. Ephraim Barnum, who came from Ware, Massachusetts, in 1860 and took a lot in the southeast part of the town. Other settlers who came that year were Jonathan Sawin from Westminster, Massachusetts, John G. Thayer and Luther Rob- bins. E. A. Cunningham had arrived the previous year. In 1861 L. B. McIntire came and settled near the center of the town, but a few years later sold his lot to R. A. Sanders. In the same year came George E. Ross from Kennebec County; Willard Glidden from Etna in Pen- obscot County and John Eddy from Ware, Massachusetts, who set- tled on the lot adjoining Ephraim Barnum's.
The township was organized as a plantation in 1861. At the first legal meeting, John G. Thayer was elected moderator; E. A. Cunningham, clerk and T. L. Jennison, Luther Robbins and Charles Carlton, assessors. In 1872 all the unoccupied portion of the north part of the town was re-surveyed and lotted into one-hundred acre lots and granted to the Swedes who could not be provided for in New Sweden, and they now form the larger portion of the citizens of this part of town. The names of the heads of the Swedish families were Per Petersson, Solomon Johansson, Jonas Boden, Jonas Boden, Jr., Frans R. W. Plank, Jacob Johansson and Anders Wesbergren. Soon after their settlement the Swedes built a mill on a small brook running into the east branch of Caribou Stream. This was not profit- able and was abandoned. The steam mill built by York and Merrill in 1878 forms the nucleus of the village of Woodland. Reverend Andrew Wiren, the Swedish pastor, settled among the people in this part of the town. As an agricultural town, Woodland ranks among the best of the many good towns in northern Aroostook.
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CHAPTER XXIII Maine Towns Whose Names Denote Their Characteristics
Some descriptive names of towns attest to the fertility of the soil, the occupation of farming and the resultant crops; some em- phasize the outstanding industry; others bear the names of trees, natural features or animals which are characteristic of the· town.
Farmington, 1794
Maine's eighty-third town, Farmington was incorporated in Franklin County in 1794. It was a most excellent township, located in the bend of the Sandy River. The goodness of its soil for agriculture gave it the name Farmington by the common consent of its inhabi- tants. Here were the Indian corn fields of the Canibas tribe of Indians. The town was earlier called Sandy River Plantation or Tyng's Town since it was granted to Wm. Tyng and his company in 1703. The first exploration of the town was made in 1776.
The village is situated on a beautiful undulating plain on the eastern bank of Sandy River, named from the soil which is a sandy loam, near the center of the town. Most impressive views may be seen from the top of Powder House Hill. This town was first explored with a view to settlement by Stephen Titcomb, Robert Gower, James Henry, Robert Alexander and James McDonald who were guided by Thomas Wilson in the summer of 1776. He had previously ex- plored the region as a hunter. This company was from Topsham and made the trip as far as Hallowell in canoes. At what is now Farm- ington Falls, they found two Indian camps and an extensive clearing. Proceeding about a mile above the falls, they made a chain of bass- wood bark with which they measured the land off into farms, then returned to Topsham to obtain their implements and a stock of pro- visions. In two weeks they were again at the scene of the proposed new settlement and from this period until 1784 this company, known first as the Proprietors of the Sandy River Settlement, continued to make improvements in various parts of the town. After the securing of titles and the surveying of the township by Colonel Joseph North in 1780, new families immediately came in.
Many of the first settlers were from Hallowell, among them Jeriah Blake, Garret Burns, Enoch Craig, Calvin Edson and Robert
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Kannady. From this same town in 1791 came Supply Belcher and John Church, both of whom were outstanding citizens in the develop- ment of the new town. The former was a musician of note and pub- lished a book of anthems, entitled The Harmony of Maine.
About 1794 Nathan Cutler came from Milford, Massachu- setts, and took up a lot in the northern part of the township. He cleared away the forest, built a home and reared a large family. Af- ter the Revolutionary War men arrived from Dunstable and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and that part of Hallowell now Augusta. Coming to the Sandy River Valley, they bought lots of land, felled the forest trees, built log houses, tilled the soil and with their wives and children lived the pioneer life. The first Farmington Falls' settlers of the 1770's were joined by others who started clearings in various places along Sandy River; in 1782 eight families passed the winter in rough snowbound log cabins in the vicinity. The settlers were for the most part people of considerable culture and education. The first school of the settlement was opened in 1788 in the log cabin of Lemuel Perham, Jr. By 1790 there were 404 inhabitants. Under a Resolve of 1790 the lots were confirmed to the settlers and their as- sociates, agreeable to drafts made at proprietors' meetings held in Hallowell.
Corn and grain were the principal crops in these early days; these were exchanged for other necessities of the settlers. A post office was established in 1797, and the following year the town was repre- sented in the General Court by Supply Belcher.
Cornville, 1798
The town of Cornville is located in the southern part of Som- erset County. It was first called Bernardstown, No. 3. The original township was purchased of Massachusetts and others by Moses Ber- nard, from whom the settlement received its early name. When it was incorporated in 1798, it was given the name of Cornville on ac- count of the productivity of the soil for orchards, tillage and grain, especially Indian corn.
The first clearings were made about 1790, but no families be- came resident here until 1794. Among those who settled in the town before 1800 were Stephen and David Hilton, James Elkins, Ithiel Smith, David Perkins, Daniel Woodman, Josiah Woodman, Joseph Parsons, Richard French, Edward York, David Dollof, Nathaniel Whittier, Samuel Fogg and Jedediah Flanders. The first male child born in the town was Sanborn Elkins in 1795. Five acres of land were given him. This lot has always been called the "Five Acre Opening."
The first town meeting was in 1798. One of the earliest set- tlers was Joseph Barker, who came with only his axe to fight his battle
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in the wilderness. He bought six hundred acres of land surrounding what is now known as Barker Pond. Josiah Baine was another of the early settlers. Flanders is one of the most important names in the history of Cornville; Jedediah Flanders came to Cornville from Little Salisbury, New Hampshire, about 1795, at which time only seven families had preceded him. He bought a thousand acres in the center of the town and settled upon it with his boys, built a saw mill and a grist mill and later a tannery and a fulling mill on the Wesserunset River. There were scenes of industry for a time, but hardly a trace is left; his son, Thomas, came from Salisbury to Cornville prior to 1800.
Joseph Kinsman, son of Colonel Jonathan Kinsman, one of the proprietors at Athens, was a member of the Legislature, Brigadier- General of Militia, an extensive landowner, lumber dealer and farmer in Cornville; Samuel Folsom was blacksmith, storekeeper and land surveyor about 1811, and was well educated at Londonderry Acade- my; Daniel Tilton was another early settler. John Robinson came from Exeter about 1811 and took up a vast tract of land on the west ridge. He divided his land later into three farms for three sons. Eph- raim Currier from Amesbury, Massachusetts, also came about 1811; Samuel Elkins, 3rd, from New Hampshire was here before 1800 and had settled on the West Ridge Road. John French came from Epping. Moses Carr, a captain in the Revolutionary Army, came with his family of eight children in 1800; Samuel Fogg came from Raymond to East Ridge; Josiah, his eldest son, settled on an east ridge farm.
Jeremiah Flanders came from South Hampton, New Hamp- shire, with a team before 1821, and first built a log house, then a framed one. Nathaniel Flanders arrived from the same town in 1822 and settled in the east part of the town. He came alone that year, and brought his wife the following year, up the river to Waterville by boat and the remaining distance by team, a three-week journey.
Jacob Gardner was a native of Germany and had been taken prisoner by the English, while serving under Napoleon. He re-enlisted under them, and escaped while his ship was at Newport, came to Athens and then to Cornville. Colonel Joseph Hilton was a large landowner in Cornville and settled some of his children here. His son, Daniel, came about 1816, and located on the West Ridge Road; his wife rode in on horseback with her child in her arms. Jacob Kinsman, already mentioned, was of German parentage; he came to Cornville from Brighton. Previously he had been pressed into French service, made prisoner by the English soon after the Battle of Water- loo and later escaped and come from St. Johns to Maine. Allen Free- man took up wild land in the town; he came from Leeds.
Other early settlers were Samuel Longfellow, Darius McCril- lis, Daniel Moody and his wife from Newburyport, who brought an
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ox and a bag of coffee, Andrew Neal, Joseph Parsons, one of the very earliest, Captain Enoch Page, Thomas Page from Durham, Maine, and Enoch Rowell from Epping, New Hampshire. Nathaniel Whit- tier from Stratton, New Hampshire, came about 1780. A Revolu- tionary soldier, he cleared land and built a large two-story house for which it is said he hired a blacksmith to make nails.
Farmingdale, 1852
Farmingdale in Kennebec County bears witness to its chief in- dustry in the first part of its name, while the suffix, dale, helps further to characterize the town as a valley suitable for farming. Indeed, the fine farms on all sides and its proximity to good markets still makes farming and gardening profitable. In 1852 the little town was made up of parts of Gardiner, Hallowell and West Gardiner. The first set- tlers came in 1787 and had obtained their titles from Dr. Sylvester Gardiner.
In 1760 the proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase granted to Dr. Sylvester Gardiner great Lot No. 20, and the next northerly lots No. 21 to James Pitts and No. 22 to Benjamin Hallowell. These grants were on the condition that the grantees should each "settle a family on his lot within one year unless prevented by a war." Upon these lots were the settlements made which were later to form the town of Farmingdale. Jonathan Philbrook settled on Lot No. 20 with the usual condition that he should clear land and build a house; Mr. Pitts, to comply with the terms of his grant, settled Job Philbrook on a similar adjoining lot in the southeast corner of Lot 21; and thus Jonathan and Job Philbrook became the first settlers of Farmingdale. The Philbrooks' nearest neighbors were Pease and Peter Clark, father and son, two miles away on the north at the "Hook," and the settlers below the Cobbossee on the south. Job Philbrook made some improve- ments on his lot and in 1765 conveyed it to Jonathan Church of Barrington, New Hampshire, on the condition that "the grantee shall clear not less than five acres of land within three years and shall build a house on same and shall occupy said house by himself or some other person for seven years," thus showing that the improvements made by the Philbrooks were not extensive. Ebenezer Church, son of Jonathan, settled on this lot and became its owner. He erected a large two- story house and in a gully just south of this built a tannery and for years carried on business as a tanner. He was the first permanent settler in the town and became a prominent and influential citizen in his own town as well as in the affairs of Hallowell and Gardiner.
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