USA > Maine > Maine place names and the peopling of its towns > Part 54
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Gilcad is on the northern line of the White Mountain National Forest. Behind it are tumbling mountain streams and below it the sweeping Androscoggin which cuts its way through the forests of fragrant cedar and pine. The waters mirror the beauty of the forest. Silvery birches spread a fragile web of loveliness over the highway.
Etna, 1820
This Penobscot County town is named for a mountain, but not one which is a natural feature of its own landscape. Etna was the last town to be incorporated in the District of Maine. It was settled
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in 1807 by Phineas and Benjamin Friend, the Hardings, Dennets, Sylvesters and others. At that date General John Crosby of Hampden owned the township and it was known as Crosbytown, until the time of incorporation in 1820 when it assumed its present name, that of the volcanic mountain in Sicily. It is believed that the word was Benjamin Friend's choice, selected from Webster's Blue Backed Spell- ing Book, which was a great favorite of that day.
The township was granted by the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1794 to Bowdoin College with five other townships, and was sold by the trustees of the college soon after, for ten cents per acre. It was lotted out in 1806 by Herrick & Brother into eighty-acre lots under the direction of John Crosby of Hampden, who had already become owner of the township. He afterward sold it to Wm. Gray of Boston, reserving what he had sold to settlers and one-sixth part which he had previously sold to Ruel Williams; lots were also reserved as re- quired for schools, for the support of the gospel and for the first set- tled minister.
When the two Friend families, the first settlers, came in 1807, they moved into one large house in the unbroken wilderness, with just trees enough felled to make room upon which to locate the build- ing. A second was built in the same manner as the first, with no nails or glass, with holes cut in the logs to let in light. With the houses built, the two families began to subdue the forest, and in the fall of that season most of the land was cleared. In the spring of 1808, it was all sown to wheat, and in the fall about three hundred bushels of wheat were harvested.
In June, 1807, Samuel Parker, a mighty hunter, had arrived and made havoc with the wild animals which had been destroying the corn and the wheat. In 1808 three more families came, those of Bela Sylvester, James Harden and John Jackson. Along with them came six young men without wives: three Dennets (Reuben, Dennis and John) ; two Sylvesters (Asa and Calvin) and David Hooper. That year, 1808, Benjamin Friend erected the first frame barn and Phineas Friend, a log barn. Each man imported a cow.
In 1809 the inhabitants began to make maple sugar. Reuben Dennet built the first frame house and the first school was taught during the summer. Among the newcomers of that year were John and Jesse Benjamin, Mrs. Emerson, a young widow with three young. children, and Solomon Harden and wife.
In 1810 corn and wheat were raised in abundance. In 1811 the first sermon on the plantation was preached by the Reverend Paul Ruggles. There were no taxes in the settlement until 1814, when the inhabitants were called upon to support a direct tax in the War of 1812. In 1815 there was a great scarcity of crops; in 1820 Mr.
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Phineas Friend began to build a grist mill on a small stream on his farm. There was no very good water power in Etna. The road from Carmel to Newport was made passable in 1821. The people were taxed for the road, but could work it out. A mail route was estab- lished between Bangor and Milburn, now Skowhegan, and the trip was made each way once a week. A post office was established at Carmel. Two years later, in 1823, a post office was located at Etna. The Baptists built a church in 1834-35.
Clifton, 1848
The town of Clifton forms the southeastern corner of Penob- scot County. The first clearings were made in 1812 by Benjamin and Israel Barns. The settlement of the town began about 1815; Benja- min Penny, Eben Davis and a Mr. Parks were among the first comers. The surface of the town is very irregular, showing several high hills of which Peaked Mountain on the east is the most extensive. The town was incorporated in 1848 and given the name of Maine, which did not prove satisfactory. This was changed to the present one, Clifton, descriptive of an outstanding feature of the town.
Professor Hamlin writes in his diary under the date of Janu- ary 17, 1865, of a trip through Brewer, Eddington, Clifton and Otis: "Passed the cliff in Clifton at about a mile distant. It seems quite as high as that on the east face of Sugar Loaf in South Deerfield, Massa- chusetts and, like it, is a sheer precipice."
Clifton is a town where the hills are composed of "puddle rocks" or pudding stone, a conglomerate of stones of many colors and shapes. Chemo Lake is a wide sheet of water which in summer re- flects forest-clad hills and blue skies. Clifton was formerly known as Jarvis Gore from a former owner, and is described in the act of the General Court of Massachusetts creating the County of Penobscot as "The Gore east of Brewer."
In 1810 Jarvis Gore had fifty inhabitants and must have in- cluded more than the present Clifton which was not yet settled. It had nearly tripled in number by 1820, when it had one hundred and thirty- nine. The father of Benjamin Penney was born in Wells, Maine, then went to Shapleigh, where he lived until his marriage, when he moved to Amherst, then Eddington, then Jarvis Gore. He was by occupation a farmer and lumberman. His descendants continue to live in the town. The Eddy family came from Worcester; Rufus Rooks, born at Bucksport in 1802, located at Jarvis Gore when he became of age. Ebenezer Davis was born in Oxford, Massachusetts, in 1787. When he was twelve, he removed to Eddington and then to Clifton. He became a merchant, lumberman and farmer. Elisha Chick, born in Shapleigh in 1806, came to Aurora and then to Clifton.
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Caribou, 1859
Few towns in Maine have borrowed their names from those of animals. Caribou, Aroostook County, however, has a name which derived from a variety of reindeer which were once plentiful in Maine. The town comprises two contiguous townships; the northern was once Forestville Plantation, while the southern comprised Lyndon on the west and the Eaton Grant, lying in the northwestern bend of the Aroostook. The town was incorporated in 1859.
In 1829 the first settler, Alexander Cochrane from New Bruns- wick, came up the St. John River to the mouth of the Aroostook, and up this some twenty miles to the mouth of a stream, where he built a rude mill. Soon one of his boys went out and shot a caribou, even at that time a rare animal.
The town is at the junction of the Madawaska and Aroostook rivers. The soil is a dark loam yielding excellent crops of wheat, oats and potatoes. Maple, birch, cedar and spruce form the bulk of the forest trees. There are many streams of considerable size forming a remarkable confluence of water courses, several of which afford some available water power.
There were no other settlers until 1843, when Ivory Hardison came from China, Maine. During the Aroostook War in 1839, he had brought a wagonload of soldiers here, and had been so favorably im- pressed that he came back in 1843 with his family. Very soon other set- tlers followed, and in 1848, Township Letter H was organized. Eleven years later it was incorporated as the town of Lyndon, but in 1877 the name was changed to Caribou from the stream that ran through the town and had received its name from the incident recorded above.
In 1872 the first starch factory in the state was built on the site of the old Cochrane grist mill on the Caribou Stream, some forty rods from its mouth, with a dam to furnish power. The factory in- duced the farmers of Caribou to raise more potatoes, and they found their soil wonderfully adapted to that purpose. Caribou shipped more potatoes in 1929 than any other town in Aroostook County.
Mount Chase, 1864
Previously called Mount Chase Plantation, Mount Chase, a town in the northern part of Penobscot County, was incorporated in 1864 with the name of the mountain in the northern part of it.
The first settlement was made in 1838 by Thomas Myrick, who was presently followed by his relative, Ezra Myrick, and by Fran- cis Weeks, John Crommett, John Fish and David Bumpus. The town was restored to plantation status in 1936; it is the northernmost town or plantation in Penobscot County.
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Mount Chase is nearly a mile and a half in length and of con- siderable height. It is said that a man by the name of Chase who was probably an agent of the state, was engaged in driving off some lumber thieves from the public lands and burning some hay which they had cut when the great fire of the north woods came upon him. He had to flee with the utmost dispatch to save his life. Fortunately the mountain, until then unnamed, at least by the whites, was within his reach, and he found safety upon its slopes and heights before the flames could overtake him. It has since been known as Mount Chase and is one of the most notable physical features in the northern part of the county, especially remarkable perhaps among its mountains and waters as bearing an English name.
Most of the settlements in Mount Chase are on the main roads, but there is no village. The people are mainly dependent on Patten for mail facilities. The lakes of Mount Chase are upper Shin Pond and lower Shin Pond; the latter is about twice as large as the former. The only hotel is the Shin Pond House. These ponds, to- gether with Duck Pond, are discharged into the Sebois River. Crystal Brook flows through the southern part of the town east and west, re- ceiving three small tributaries from the north. The town is well wooded with the usual hard and soft woods.
In 1860 the population was two hundred and sixty, their principal occupations manufacturing lumber, and farming.
Oxbow Plantation, 1870
In the south central part of Aroostook County, where the Aroostook River winds among beautiful intervales and makes an abrupt bend, lies the plantation of Oxbow. It is from the similarity of these windings to an oxbow that the plantation takes its name.
Although the first permanent settlers arrived in 1842, and the township was organized as No. 9 Range 6 Plantation in 1848, it was not until 1870 that it became Oxbow Plantation.
As early as 1839, Elias H. and Samuel Hayden from Madison Center, Somerset County, arrived here in their search for a new home. They had come by way of Patten to Masardis, where they took a boat and went down the river to Presque Isle. After exploring there for a brief time, they poled their boat up the river to the oxbow. Here they selected lots on the south side of the river. At this time the township was being lotted by surveyor Henry W. Cunningham.
The Haydens then returned to their homes, but came again the following June and began felling trees.
In 1842 Samuel Hayden moved his family in, the first per- manent settlers. They cleared up a good farm, built comfortable buildings and remained until 1860, when they moved to Minnesota.
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Elias Hayden, then unmarried, built a log camp and cleared a farm. His barn, the first framed building in the township, was built from planks and boards which he secured from Pollard's Mill on the St. Croix. He ran them down the stream to Masardis, then poled them up to Oxbow in a boat. He married the following year; and in 1849 built a frame house in which he began keeping a hotel.
After the Haydens John Winslow came from Freedom in 1842 and, like his neighbors, farmed and lumbered. He became the first clerk of the plantation. In 1843 Ira Fish & Co., of Patten, built a saw mill on Umcolcus Stream, a short distance above the present bridge. For this service, the state gave the company a block of land near the mill, which later was converted into productive farms. Meanwhile other settlers had arrived: Thos. Goss, Jr., of Masardis, who remained only a few years, Aaron Scribner and his family from Lincoln and Wm. Bottin from Madison, who cleared up a fine farm.
In the fifties, Shephard Boody of Oldtown purchased the mill property and carried on extensive lumber operations, but unfortun- ately he lacked business ability, and his attempts resulted in failure. George Sawyer of Masardis succeeded him in the sixties and later C. C. Libby from Newfield became the owner. During this decade, Abram Currier arrived from Maysville, Samuel Willard from Old- town, Thomas Fleming from Nova Scotia and Robert Purvis from New Brunswick.
James Anderson of New Brunswick bought the Samuel Hayden farm in 1860, and John McLean came from Nova Scotia in 1861. Great crops of grain and hay were raised on the Winslow farm in the 1870's. Farming and lumbering continued as the occupations of the greater number of the inhabitants in the 1870's, when Plantation No. 9 Range 6 became Oxbow Plantation.
Island Falls, 1872
There is no more picturesque town in all Aroostook County than Island Falls. The west branch of the Mattawamkeag enters the town near the northwest corner and, after flowing south for nearly two miles and being enlarged by the confluence of Fish Stream, sweeps madly through a rocky gorge and dashes over precipitous ledges, forming one of the finest falls in the country. In the middle of the falls is a small island, its rocky sides rising abruptly from the water and dividing the swift current. This little wooded island in the midst of the falls gives the name to the town of Island Falls. After con- tinuing its course for about three miles, the river empties into Matta- wamkeag Lake, a beautiful body of water which covers a large por- tion of the eastern part of the town.
The first white settlers, Levi Sewell and Jesse Craig, came from
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Farmington in 1842. The Indians, both Penobscots and Passama- quoddies, spent a part of the year hunting and fishing here and had their camps near the falls, even after the whites came. Sewell and Craig came to Patten, then to Crystal, and followed the streams down to the falls, where the water power so impressed them that they de- cided to remain.
Sewell at once went to work and felled five acres of trees near the falls and then returned to Farmington. The town was then the property of Massachusetts, and Sewell bought a tract one mile square, including the falls. In March, 1843, he returned to Aroostook with two two-horse teams and one single sleigh, and brought with him his wife and six children. Leaving his wife and younger children at Crystal, Mr. Sewell and his two sons, David and Samuel, came down the stream to the falls, cleared up the five-acre chopping, built a log house, and on July 1, 1843, brought the rest of the family to their new home, Mrs. Sewell by way of Fish Stream and the West Branch and the girls through the woods by spotted trail. Frost killed their first summer crop, but fish and game were abundant and the boys found work at Crystal and Patten. The next year was better.
Jesse Craig came back in 1843 and cleared up his five-acre chopping. He lived with the Sewells that summer and returned to Farmington in the fall. His family came in 1844 on a sled, drawn by oxen. Mr. Craig cleared up a large farm on the north side of the west branch and kept a hotel there for many years; he was justice of the peace, town treasurer and town clerk continuously, a man of strictest honor and integrity.
In 1843 David Lurvey came from Woodstock, Oxford County, Maine, and settled next below Mr. Craig; he built a frame house and barn and then moved to Patten and later to the head of the Aroos- took road, where he kept hotel for a number of years. Charles W. Harding came from Windham in the spring of 1844 and settled on the south side of the stream opposite Mr. Sewell. With him was Charles Hanson, who did not remain long. These were all the settlers in town by 1844, and of these only the Sewells and the Craigs re- mained permanently. No other settlers came to join them for eight years, during which Mr. Sewell and his sons continued to enlarge their clearing and lumbered in the winter.
Isaac Robinson came next from Oxford County, in 1852, and in 1853 Stephen Thorn from Freedom settled near Robinson. A num- ber of other settlers came about this time, but very few remained. Jacob Manuel was one exception. In 1853 Cyrus Barker and family including two sons, from Kennebec County, made fine farms, lum- bered and traded. Captain Rodney Barker developed his farm as one of the finest in the county. He served in the Union Army and
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built the first steamer on Mattawamkeag Lake, which was used for towing logs and for excursion parties.
In 1854 the township became the property of Maine and was lotted by Daniel Cummings and opened by the state for settlement. Settlers began to come in, but the state afterward unwisely sold to proprietors by whom the settlement was retarded. Dr. Isaac Don- ham came from Readfield in 1858 and became a very prominent citizen. Captain Daniel Randall came from Portland in 1859. A re- tired sea captain, he built a large farm, took an active part in busi- ness and politics and served two terms in the Legislature.
The sons of Levi Sewell were David, a lumberman for many years, who became county commissioner and a town officer; Samuel who attended to the business of the farm, and the youngest son, Wil- liam, who used the large homestead built by Levi.
The township was organized as a plantation in 1858, and in- corporated as a town in 1872.
Mapleton, 1880
The name of Mapleton in Aroostook County honors the most numerous of the trees in its forests. The town was incorporated in 1880. It is situated on the south bank of the Aroostook River, in Aroostook County. The surface is uneven, but without high hills. Sprague Hill is the highest elevation. The Aroostook, in passing, cuts off the northeastern angle of the town and runs in a circuitous course through the southern part. The principal business center is in the southwestern part of the town, at the junction of Libby Brook with Presque Isle Stream. Here were located saw mills, shingle machines and a potash factory.
The earliest settlers came to this region about 1836 when lots in the northeast corner of the town bordering on the Aroostook River were granted to Joshua Christie, Edward Erskine, James Erskine, Abigail Churchill, wife of Winslow Churchill, and Peter Bull. Some of these grants were located in what is now the town of Washburn. The last named, Peter Bull, may have arrived earlier than the date indicated above. These early settlers were all from New Brunswick.
In 1842 Shepard Packard came from Foxcroft and settled on the State Road four miles west of Presque Isle. The Bull family came up this road which had been cut through from Presque Isle to Ash- land and settled on farms shortly after Mr. Packard. George L. Em- erson from Stow, Oxford County, located in the southwest corner of the town in 1858. Freeman A. Ball and Reuben A. Huse came the following year and built a mill at what was then called Ball's Mills, now Mapleton; they had come from Hallowell.
That same year, Charles M. Spooner, Benjamin Chandler,
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Benjamin Gray, Josiah McGlauflin, A. H. Thompson, B. G. Hughes, Garner Wilcox and others settled north and west of the mill. The McGlauflins came from Washington County.
Brooklin, 1849
This town lies in the southernmost part of the mainland of Hancock County. It was formerly a part of Sedgwick but was set off from that town in 1849 and incorporated under the name of Port Watson. One month later, its name was changed to Brooklin. I am indebted to Mr. Windsor Bridges for the origin of the name: The two towns, Brooklin and Sedgwick, are divided by Salt Pond and Benjamin River, a tidal river, which are connected by a brook. It was because the line of separation follows this brook that the name Brooklin was given to the town.
The names commonly connected with the first settlement of the town are Black, Reed, Goodwin, Watson and perhaps Freethy who located at Naskeag Point. Shadrach Watson sold merchandize at Naskeag in 1762.
Naskeag Point is the far outer tip of the neck that is included in the township of Brooklin. This point is frequently mentioned in documentary history and may have been occupied at a time and by people now unknown. Revolutionary history narrates the courage and irregular methods of fighting of William Reed and his neighbors when, in 1778, the British sloop, "Gage," prepared to land men here.
The first officers of the town in 1849 were David Hooper, moderator; David Carlton, clerk; Azor Cole, treasurer; Humphrey Wells, Andrew Seavey, and Stephen Cousins, selectmen.
Dyer Brook, 1891
The first settlement in this town was made in 1844, when Mr. Orrin Laughton came from Smyrna and took a lot near the north- east corner of the town, where he made a clearing and built a log house. After living on it for a number of years, he sold it to a Mr. McMonagal, who died a few years after his purchase. Oliver Dow then lived there, but after a few years abandoned it, and the lot re- verted to the proprietors of the town. In 1857 J. E. Tarbell became the owner and cleared up a large farm and built a fine set of buildings.
Benjamin Gerry, the second settler in the town, came from Smyrna soon after Laughton and took the lot in the extreme north- eastern part of the town adjoining. Here he cleared up a fine farm. Moses Leavitt, also of Smyrna, was the next man who made a set- tlement on the township, near the north line of the town. In 1860 Jonathan Sleeper took the lot south of the Tarbell farm on the Island Falls road.
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The township was first organized as a plantation in 1863, but afterward lost its organization and was reorganized in 1880, at which time there were forty-one voters. It was incorporated as a town in 1891, taking the name of the brook which flows into the Mattawam- keag River.
The State road was cut through in 1850, but was not made passable for carriages until several years later. The road from the east branch through Dyer Brook to Island Falls, now a part of the route from Houlton to Patten, was opened in 1860. Jonathan Sleeper, who came that year, took the lot south of the Tarbell farm on the Island Falls road. He made the clearing, built a house and barn and after a few years moved to Sherman. John Heald then took the farm and extended the clearing, but after living upon it a few years, sold it to Seward Clough. Asa Hall and John Gerrish bought in company a wild tract of one hundred and seventy acres to which they after- ward added eighty-four acres, from which they cleared a large farm for meadow, pasture and tillage. Eben Townsend came from Limerick and bought a lot from Messrs. Baldwin and Thompson of Bangor, who were at that time the proprietors of the town. Eight acres were cleared and a log house and barn were built, when Mr. Townsend volunteered in the Civil War. Later he returned and built a framed house and barn. Other settlers were W. G. Drew and S. C. Philpot from Smyrna, James Meserve from Limington, F. M. Stevens, O. A. Lougee, James Clark, A. Keith and Wm. C. Alward.
Crystal, 1901
The town of Crystal is situated on the southwestern side of Aroostook County. On the north, it is joined by Hersey, in the south- ern part of which lies Crystal Lake, so named for the clearness of its water. Crystal Stream is the outlet of the lake and flows through the town of Crystal. The principal village of Crystal is located upon a fall of about fifteen feet on this stream, about three miles below the lake. It is from this lake and stream that the town took its name when it was incorporated in 1901. It was formerly Township No. 4, Range 5 and was first organized in 1840. Seven bogs constitute a large por- tion of the town. Caribou Bog, lying in the southern part, contains about four square miles. Through the township from west to east flows Fish Stream in an irregular course toward Mattawamkeag Lake, in Island Falls township, adjoining on the east. In the western part of the town the power of this stream has been used for mills.
William Young from Searsmont, who came in 1839, was the first settler who brought his family to the township. He settled on a state lot a mile and a half east of the Patten line. The whole country east of Patten was at this time an unbroken wilderness. Mr. Young
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cleared up a large farm and built a good stand of buildings and lived upon the farm until 1851. In 1839 Isaac Webber came from the town of China and settled on the lot west of Mr. Young. The same year John Bell arrived from Belfast and settled on the lot east of Mr. Young's, where he lived until his death. George W. Hackett from Vermont also came in 1839, and took a lot on the south side of Crystal Stream. He cleared up a large farm, where he spent his life. Another settler in 1839 was James Cunningham, who settled on the lot east of Mr. Bell's.
In 1841 Hiram Hersey came from Foxcroft and took a lot west of Mr. Young's, where he lived for many years, then moved to the western part of the town, and later went to Patten. Wm. Ward, John Conant from Franklin County and Bela Chesley from Lincoln, also came to the present Crystal in 1841. S. P. Bradbury from the town of Windsor, worked for a number of years on woods and river, and then settled down to farming and was a prominent citizen of the town. In 1842 Jedediah Fairfield of China built a mill on Crystal Stream; this had an up-and-down saw, run by water, and furnished lumber for the citizens of Crystal and Island Falls. In 1843 David Coffin came from Waterville and bought a block of one thousand acres of land in the western part of Crystal next to the Patten line.
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