USA > Maine > Washington County > Dennysville > Memorial of the 100th anniversary of the settlement of Dennysville, Maine, 1886 > Part 4
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For more than a year this relation continued, and when the gifts bestowed upon the comely young housekeeper, and the pillion jour- neys she was required to make with him to visit his friends, seemed to her delicate sense to place her in an embarrassing position, she frankly told him she must return to her mother, a purpose to which he only gave his consent after her promise to return again in the character of mistress and wife.
Her wedding journey, that is, her journey to be married, was less auspicious than his, which we have described. Coming up over the Cobscook Falls from Machias to Dennysville, the vessel which brought the bride, her mother and brother, was wrecked, and all her personal effects, her books, her very apparel, were lost, and a poor cow belonging to the brother was drowned.
Attached by strong affection, reverence and romantic feeling to such a woman, the charm of Mr. Lincoln's rural life was greatly enhanced by this marriage. Mrs. Lincoln brought into his home refinement and the love of order and beauty, as well as thrift and economy, together with the culture of those ideas and sentiments, which out-of-door employments and excessive cares from the details of domestic drudgery are apt to repress. Naturally the family in Hingham, especially his mother, felt some alarm lest her son had taken a step down in seeking a wife among the people of the land. Colonel Thomas Russell, one of the proprietors, returned to Boston, having shared the hospitality of the newly wedded pair. He was in- terrogated by the family, as to what kind of a wife Theodore had obtained. " One," said Colonel Russell, " that would grace a court;" and upon this assurance, confirmed by personal acquaintance, the young wife's high regard in the family estimation was ever after- ward maintained.
I have spoken of Mr. Lincoln's cheerfulness. Everybody remem- bers it. He was familiar and friendly with all. He loved anecdotes and told them well. He had a keen sense of the ludicrous. He liked nicknames and used them freely. He called his acquaint- ances by their Christian names, and shortened William into Bill. He had a word for everybody, and always a cheering word. His think- ing was of practical things, his interests in the world of nature, in the crops and the cattle, the freshets, the cedar swamps, the rock- weed, the head of water, the dry hard wood, the meadow hay. His activity was irrepressible and after a severe fall in his old age had
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disabled him, he had a low carriage built, and kept a horse that knew his infirmities, and with these he traveled not only the highways, but the fields, the pastures, and the woods, overseeing his farming and milling to the last.
Mrs. Lincoln was of a sadder temperament, and with the cares of her large housekeeping, reserved in her mind a place for reading and culture, for devout feeling and for speculative thought. There was contrast enough of temperament to make their union a happy one and to give a great charm to their long domestic life. Now that time has mellowed and softened all the retrospect and soothed the sorrows made by deaths that cut off the noble promise of gifted children, the lives of these fortunate ones in the virgin land, where they built their home and reared their large family, seems like an idyl of domestic happiness, - a leaf plucked out of the history of an auspicious time - like glimpses of that large and sensuous good fortune, which in old Biblical story make the lives of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so fascinating to read.
In the early granting and locating of lots, measurements were liberal. Land was cheap. The mile and a quarter first settlers' lots under the chain were a mile and a half to their spotted head lines, with corres- ponding generosity of width. But as we have seen, distances, when they did not represent lengths of one's own possession, were always very great. Then, too, after lots had been largely cleared and tilled and fenced at much expense, after new-comers found all the sites by the streams and shores and contiguous to the schoolhouses appro- priated, each settler guarded his possessions with jealous care and prompt redress of every trespass. It is evident that the surveyor is in request. Accordingly he appeared in the person of Benjamin R. Jones, immediately from Robbinston in 1805, but originally from Milton, Massachusetts. He became so useful for his accurate knowl- edge, his clerical expertness, his skill in making plans, maps and models, his ingenuity in all kinds of nice carpentry and mechanism, as to be in request not only throughout the town, but more or less throughout the county. Few of the great land lawsuits were tried in court, in which he did not appear as a surveyor and expert, and his careful survey, his sketch and plan of the locus in quo, neat as a steel engraving, generally decided the controversy. He was always a zealous promoter of popular and academic education, was himself fond of reading, with a great store of historical learning, and of the
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annals of families all over the country, together with a fair acquisi- tion of science as science was developed for his day. He collected the young people together, and opened an evening school with no compensation but his own love of teaching. With the same salary, he taught singing school and writing school, setting the copies in a clear, round and finished hand. He could draw and engrave maps, make or mend a clock, and tell what was the matter with a watch that refused to go, and remedy it. He would stop little boys on the road and tell them some practical rule which they never found in any book, but never forgot. In my childish fancy I remember I mixed him up with Benjamin Franklin, whom in looks and character he resembled. He was always ready to communicate what he knew, and an inveterate talker, if furnished with an auditor, perhaps even without one. All your elder people remember him, as I do, well, as one of the notabilities of the place, as one of the marked characters that are so apt to grow to vigorous and eccentric growth, in the bracing atmosphere and under the strong intellectual stimulus of an isolated New England village.
The three sons of Mark Allan, son of Colonel John Allan, born here among you, found themselves in their childhood in circum- stances of great privation and hardship. But they had inherited an indomitable will, and the capacity for coping with the most adverse fortunes. Happily health and temperance was their birthright, and with these they set themselves at work, and beginning at the bottom of their vocation, they worked themselves to a proprietorship in the soil quite equal to all that their grandfather had sought to secure from a too poor, or too ungrateful country. Beginning as laborers for others, fabulous stories are still told of the long days of skillful work they were accustomed to render for a day's pay, not studying like the toiler of today to see how small an equivalent he can render for a maximum of wages, they fulfilled in their fortunes the Script- ural declaration: " Thou hast been faithful over a few things : I will make thee ruler over many things."
Without doubt the man whose reputation and ability has conferred the greatest distinction upon the town where he was born, was Doc- tor Benjamin Lincoln, second son of Theodore Lincoln, senior, born in 1802. From his father he had inherited a love of nature, a zest of life, and a buoyant spirit that made him a favorite in every circle of companions into which he was received. From his mother he derived
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a sensitive spirit, an unselfish and philanthropic sentiment, and the capacity for speculative and abstract thought. He died at the early age of thirty-two, a time when most young men now give up the pur- suit of pleasure, and begin to settle down to some just appreciation of the demands and duties of life. We get some idea of his enthusi- asm, and of the indomitable ardor of his spirit, when we are told that from his twentieth year till his death, he was a martyr to rheu- matism and neuralgia, and scarcely knew what it was to be without pain, not unfrequently excruciating. What he was able to achieve in only twelve years of manhood, carrying with him this terrible burden of suffering, can but excite our admiration.
He had graduated at Bowdoin College in his twentieth year; he spent five years in the study of medicine, and commenced practice in the city of Boston in the autumn of 1827. The next year, having accepted an invitation to deliver a course of lectures at the University in Burlington, Vermont, on anatomy and physiology, he was elected to the professorship there of those branches of science, and took up his residence in that town, acquiring at once a high reputation also as a practising physician. He took the place of Doctor Weeks as lecturer on anatomy in Bowdoin College in 1830, and also in the University of Maryland, in Baltimore. The following year a pro- fessorship was offered him in the latter place, which he declined. His lectures were without written preparation, the lucid explanation in plain and striking language of his com prehensive and methodized knowledge of the subjects he undertook to teach. This method gave his instructions great value and helpfulness to his pupils, who admired him, not only as a teacher, but as a man. His prominent characteristic was an intense intellectual activity that kept him occu- pied with investigation and generalization,- an occupation so absorb- ing, that it buoyed him up under bodily ailments that depress ordi- nary men, and so congenial that it gave him the solace of cheerful- ness, and so made him, instead of a complaining and dejected invalid, a delightful companion.
The late Doctor Ray, of Philadelphia, formerly of Eastport, his intimate friend, published in the New England Magazine, in the summer of 1835, a memorial sketch of Doctor Lincoln's career and character, which but few who listen to me have ever seen. It is a noble tribute to a noble man, whose splendid genius gives luster to the place of his birth. Doctor Ray says of his friend: -
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" An idle moment was a thing unknown to the last eight years of his life; every minute had its duties, and he was never happier than when he was engaged in the severest labor of body or mind. Even while visiting his friends, which was ostensibly for the purpose of relaxation, his industry never ceased; and no sooner were the greet- ings of his acquaintance over, than his head and his hands found something to do. During one of these visits of a few weeks, he delivered to popular audiences two courses of lectures on anatomy and physiology, the preparation for each of which, in making draw- ings, occupied one or more hours, besides engaging in some anatomi- cal labors, and expending considerable time in reading and writing.
" The distinguishing trait of Doctor Lincoln's character "-I still follow the pen of Doctor Ray -" that which endeared him to as large a circle of warm personal friends as a man of his age could leave behind him, was active benevolence. Its spirit was manifested in every thought and action; it pervaded and animated his whole being."
This trait of character mentioned by Doctor Ray was exhibited in the sympathy that impelled him to break off from his favorite studies to go on a long sea voyage with a consumptive fellow-student to New Orleans. A lady, the wife of the captain with whom the voyage was made, who came once to this place to visit his family, and the grave where his remains repose, said, that for three-fourths of the time Doctor Lincoln stood over his feeble and querulous friend, minister- ing to his capricious wants, and cheering him to bear with patience the inevitable issue of his hopeless disease. Like so many others, who have met Doctor Lincoln as physician, nurse, or teacher, or in casual intercourse, where he was always delightful, she had brought from the memory an impression of veneration and affection never to be effaced. Let me help out this meagre sketch by one more extract from Doctor Ray's faultless picture : -
"Every one much acquainted with Doctor Lincoln must have been struck with a certain purity and elevation of character, and a strict and unwavering conscientiousness displayed in all his dealings with men. Perfectly upright and honorable himself, he was little inclined to look with indulgence on the absence of these qualities in others. With him right and wrong were positive terms, the force and significance of which never varied with changing circum- . stancesor persons. He was unable to gloss over the slightest devia-
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tion from the straightforward path of fair and honorable conduct with any of those palliative excuses and forms of phraseology, that pass current with the professors of an easier virtue. He called things by their right names, and was determined, wherever he was concerned, they should go by no others. This integrity of principle, and purpose was admirably supported by an unflinching, unaffected independence of character that added tenfold to the force and prom- inence of his example. He made no compromise with vice; for in whatever guise it appeared, it incurred his thorough disapprobation, and no human power could deter him from the faithful expression of his opinions. There was a moral atmosphere about him, the salutary effect of which was clearly perceptible on those who came within his influence. Even in his younger years, he was never guilty of that confusion of moral distinctions, which looks on the perpetration of mischief for the sake of amusement as a species of merely innocent recreation."
Doctor Lincoln had a mind superior to fortune. Doctor Ray says of him, that "all who were intimately acquainted with him must have observed the buoyancy of his spirits, the unclouded happiness which he seemed to enjoy, and that contentment of disposition, which neither pain nor disappointment could disturb." This cheer- fulness bore him up to the last of the long and painful malady to which he at last succumbed, and about the fatal issue of which he never deceived himself, so that he said repeatedly to Doctor Ray, " You have no idea how many happy hours I enjoy."
But I must not dwell longer on the grand picture of his grand and symmetrical character. More than usual pathos hallows the story of his early death, cutting short a career so full of promise of fame and happiness for himself, of pride and gratulation for his family, and of good for the community in which he lived, and the country of which he was a benefactor.
As early as 1787, came from Hingham, William Kilby, father of all the Washington County Kilbys, and was a valuable acquisition to the new settlement. I find a letter of General Lincoln to his son Theodore at Dennysville, dated February 9th, 1800, in which he says:
" When in Philadelphia, I spoke to Mr. Habersham, the Postmas- ter General, respecting a post-office by your house. I mentioned Kil- by as postmaster. The matter will be so arranged. It will not give Bill much trouble."
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There has lately gone the rounds an article by the would-be-funny man of the New York Sun, in which the long service of the Kilby family in this capacity of postmaster of Dennysville is spoken of as creating an enormous obligation to the government. I apprehend the difficulty has always been in this busy village, to find a man whose place of business was so centrally situated, and at the same time who had so little to do, that he could be at hand to receive, sort, and deliver the letters and papers that came to this reading community. The blacksmith shop of the original Kilby, and then the shop and store of his son happened to meet the conditions. General Lincoln seems to think that it was a favor granted, and not received, for a man to accept a small compensation for so useful a service,* and that " Bill " would not much mind the trouble. Perhaps not only grand- father, but father and grandson, who have since held the office under the same name, but by no means with the same politics, have like- wise conferred, rather than received, a favor upon the people they have so faithfully served.
It was an auspicious migration for the Kilbys, and in the second generation the family was greatly prospered by the sagacious enter- prise of one of the sons, who acquired title to timber lands in adjoin- ing plantations and, by the business and trade he created, added to his own wealth and the resources of the town. I remember when three Johns, John Balch, John Brewer, and John Kilby, were reckoned the three rich men of Washington County, of whom in the precarious fortunes of trade, only the last preserved and transmitted his estate.
I cannot better close this brief summary of history, than by dwell- ing for a moment upon the character of this man it was my good fortune to have known. Whether we consider his energy, capacity and good judgment that won for him the prominent place he so long held in the town and in the county, his personal integrity, his active benevolence, or the zeal with which he exemplified and promoted the interests of morality and religion, he is well worthy of especial mention among the men who have given a reputation to the place in which he lived.
A town, a village, like an old house, soon comes to put on and express the character of the persons that inhabit it. We associate
* The salary, as shown by the returns of the office, was at the first a little over one dollar per quarter, or five dollars per annum.
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with the very grounds and fences, the crops and the cattle, the orderly mind of the proprietor that arranges and takes care of them. Many a traveler, who has only driven over your graveled roads and noted the better culture of your smooth and well-drained meadows, the well-kept, commodious buildings, the general neatness and thrift that marks your village, when seeking for the human care that had presided over all this quiet beauty, has bethought him of the name of Kilby, as one of the best and widest known of those whose taste and intelligence had thus expressed themselves in the very landscape.
Mr. Kilby was always a man well liked of his neighbors. He was strong-willed and liked to control other men; but he did this by his tact and good nature, by his wit, and the faculty of approaching everybody on their amiable, and so most accessible, side. His good judgment and executive talents were not only available for fortune for himself and his family; they became available for the town and for the county, for both of which he was for many years a faithful and effi- cient public officer. He had a high appreciation of education. He spared no expense in giving his own sons and daughters the best edu- cation the institutions of the country could afford. He was a liberal patron of Washington Academy, the old county seminary, and one of the chief supporters of Dennysville Academy, until the reorganization of the public schools rendered its ministrations less necessary. In the church of which he was for many years a most esteemed member, he was always at hand to assist in conducting its devotional services, he was always active and generous in contributing to the support of its organized charities and benevolences. As a citizen and a neigh- bor, he was sympathetic and public spirited, visiting the sick and the bereaved, the promptest and the most liberal to supply the loss which a poor man or woman had suffered by a fire, by accident, or by sickness. There qualified the devout gravity of his ordinary feeling, a playful wit, a keen sense of the ludicrous, an irrepressible sportiveness, which made him a good narrator of local stories, an agreeable traveling companion, and a most genial host for the large circle of friends to whom his house was always open. Every village, at least in New England, has its flavor of local humor, its playful as well as its practical or sentimental side. Much of the local humor of Dennysville will be found to be made up of anecdotes, of
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which Mr. Kilby was the author, or practical jests in which, in early or later manhood,he was the prime actor.
I have not told the whole story. The life of a community for a hundred years is full of pathos and poetry. It is mostly hidden in the private memories of persons who never become famous. It is as sacred, as well worth the telling, as all that gets into history. Let us believe that it all gets written in that voluminous book, whose leaves eternity will unfold, and see to it, that, as far as our deeds are recorded, they shall not be read to our shame.
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..
A CENTURY PLANT.
MRS. IDA S. WOODBURY.
The far off land of the Sun, we are told, Is the home of a wondrous tree; But so strong the ties that bind it down That ere the bud expands on its crown, The days and months into years have grown, The years to a century.
Then raising itself from the stock, the bud Soars ever after the light; Above all the other plants it towers, Then, bursting into a thousand flowers, This floral queen of the tropic bowers Is decked in glory bright.
But its mission here is a sacrifice, It gives at its own life's cost The blossoms to gladden the weary sight, The wonderful blossoms, gay and bright, For soon as in dazzling splendor dight The life of the tree is lost.
But as every beautiful, tiny flower Breaks off from the parent tree, It becomes a plant, in the earth so deep It strikes its root, and after its sleep, The green leaves open, and upward creep, For another century.
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By giving itself for those to come, This generous Aloes tree, Assures in truth, to this realm so fair, A wealth of radiance, wondrous, rare, Filling with beauty the sun-lit air, Till the end of time shall be.
In this land of the north so long ago, A new, strange seed was sown, It fell on unyielding, rocky soil, But patiently tilled, by faithful toil, The leaves were lifted above the moil, Till the stalwart trees were grown.
They battled with storm of the wind and rain, They bore with the scorching sun, They murmured not, though the way was long, They nerved their hearts, and their arms were strong, They yielded never to shame or wrong, Nor to rest till work was done.
The current of blood which warmed their veins With strength of the hills was rife, Their sinews were tough, from the bracing sea, Their hearts and minds, from oppression free, Reached out for God, and for those to be,- Their purpose and crown of life.
They bloomed, they faded, they passed away, Their life for us was given, The blossoms we on that grand old tree That by constant growth of a century Lifted its head in the air so free, 'Till it passed the gate of heaven.
And we are gathering all the time From the wind, the rain and sun, New strength and firmness for flower and fruit, New heights of vision, new depths of root, New strivings, longings with every shoot, And so till our life is done.
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The lessons we've learned, the good we have wrought, The battles we've fought and won Will give strength and patience to those to come When we, ourselves, shall be gathered home, Will give new life for our dying bloom,- New vigor the race to run.
The trees that grew in the century gone Are dead to the mortal view, But as seed, that hidden in dark earth lies In life and beauty again shall rise, So live their spirits beyond the skies,- Their deeds in the world anew.
Their manhood, courage, their noble lives, In us by the world are sought. Would we prove ourselves to be worth the trust They left, when the dust returned to dust, Our armor must ever be kept from rust, Our honor from stain or spot.
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DENNYSVILLE'S FIRST CENTURY.
AS RELATED TO EDUCATION, MORALS AND RELIGION.
BY REV. CHARLES WHITTIER.
IT is greatly to be regretted that the community that was formed here one hundred years ago, did not leave a more complete record of their doings. We know only in general, of the early efforts of the settlers to establish here the institutions of a typical New England town. They left no minute record of the story of their hardships, and deprivations, and achievements. They were so much interested in doing well the great work that they had undertaken, that they did not think of the importance of recording their doings.
At first only the men came here, sixteen strong, brave, resolute men. Those who had families prepared log houses as soon as prac- ticable, and their families began to come before the end of the year. So there were children here in the early years of the settlement. These settlers brought their books with them. They had the New England Primer. The First Edition of Webster's Spelling Book was published in 1783; probably they brought that. Morse's Geography came out in 1784,-they would bring that with them.
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