USA > Maine > Washington County > Dennysville > Memorial of the 100th anniversary of the settlement of Dennysville, Maine, 1886 > Part 7
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The subscribers a committee appointed by the inhabitants of Plantation No 2 in the East Division of townships in the County of Washington, for the purpose of petitioning the Hon. Leg. of the Commonwealth for an Act of Incorporation for Said plantation, Humbly Shew, That the inhabitants of Said Plantation labor under considerable difficulty for want of such powers & privileges as incorporated towns are by law entitled to, they therefore pray your Honorable body to grant them an act of incorporation by the name of Dennysville, with such privileges as are usually granted to towns in like cases. They further beg leave to state to your Honors that the principal settlement & place of business in said plantation is on the West bank of Denny's River (the middle of which River is one of the original boundaries of said plantation) that the inhabitants of that part of Township No 10 which lies on the opposite side of said River, do now, & from their local situation ever will, find it much more convenient for them to unite in Meetings, Schools, or any other public concerns with the inhabitants of sd Plan. No 2. We therefore pray that if your Honors should see fit to grant an Act. of Inc. the boundaries may be so stated as to include the part of township No 10 above mentioned, that is to say Beginning at the Northerly Corner of Asa Smith's lot in township No 10 on the Shore of Cobscook North Branch & running S. 49° W. to the line of a certain tract of land containing about 3000 acres sold by Nathaniel Hobart to Phinchas Bruce, thence on the Southern and Western line of said tract to the Northern or head line of sd
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
township No 10, thence on said headline N. 80° E. to Denny's River -thence up sd River to the Southwestern corner of Township No 3, thence by the original boundary lines of Plan. No 2 aforesaid to a point or place in Cobscook North Branch aforesaid N. 45° E from said Asa Smith's North Corner thence S. 45° W. to the place of beginning. And as in duty bound will ever pray.
Signed, SOLO CUSHING
BENJAMIN R. JONES WM. KILBY Assessors
EBEN. C. WILDER of
ZENAS WILDER JR Plan No 2
Order of Notice on said Petition, in Senate Com. of Mass. June 13, 1817, requiring same to be published in the "Columbian Centinel " a paper printed in Boston, and "Eastern Argus " a paper printed in Portland, &c
Signed by JOHN PHILLIPS President.
" Read & concurred " in House of Reps. same date (June 13 1817) Signed, TIMOTHY BIGELOW Speaker. Attested by S. F. MCCLEARY, Clerk of Senate.
The Act of Incorporation was passed Feby 13 1818. And Approved same day by J. Brooks, the Governor.
A true copy of the act Attested by A. BRADFORD
Secy of Com'th.
And Plantation Number Two becomes the town of Dennysville, the two hundred and twenty-seventh of the two hundred and thirty-six towns incorporated in Maine before its separation from Massachusetts. But that portion of Township Number Ten, which the committee prayed might become a portion of the new town, was, for reasons unknown to me, not included in the Act of Incorporation.
On the eleventh day of March, 1818, the assessors of the late plantation applied to Benjamin R. Jones Esquire, a justice of the peace, to issue a warrant for the first town-meeting, to be holden March 21st, 1818. In pursuance of a warrant directed to William Kilby, a freehold inhabitant, the meeting was called to assemble at the school-house in said Dennysville, on the day before mentioned. At which meeting Theophilus Wilder senior was chosen moderator, and William Kilby clerk; chose Eben. C. Wilder, William Kilby,
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
Zenas Wilder jr., were elected the first board of selectmen and assessors; and Eben. C. Wilder, treasurer.
At the second town-meeting, held April 5th, 1819, it was " Voted that the thanks of the town be given to Theophilus Wilder sen., for his former services as moderator of all our former plantation & town meetings." At this meeting Theodore Lincoln was chosen moderator, and William Kilby clerk. Raised two hundred dollars for schools, and the report of the selectmen of 1818, as to the matter of laying out the school districts of the town, was accepted. During the existence of the town of Dennysville as originally incorporated, being the whole of Township Number Two, fourteen years, Theoph- ilus Wilder senior was chosen moderator one year, Theodore Lincoln ten years, John Kilby one year, Ebenezer C. Wilder, two years. William Kilby was clerk three years, Jonas Farnsworth six years, Ebenezer C. Wilder three years, and Heman Nickerson two years. The persons who served as selectmen were E. C. Wilder six years, William Kilby four years, Zenas Wilder Jr. three years, Bela Wilder five years, Dennison Haynes two years, John Clark one year, John Kilby six years, Jonas Farnsworth seven years, Theodore Lincoln Jr. one year, Jonathan Reynolds Jr. one year. The town treasurers were Ebenezer C. Wilder twelve years, Theo- dore Lincoln Jr. one year, Theophilus Wilder Jr. one year.
At several of the town-meetings the town voted to raise for schools the amount required by law. In the record of other town- meetings there is no mention of any action whatever taken to raise money for the support of the schools. It is presumed that, as the laws of the state required the expenditure of so much money for that purpose, the town did not think it necessary to take any action with reference thereto.
In those days the support of the poor was given to the lowest bidder therefor in open town meeting. The first person mentioned as supported by the town is Lucy Garnett in 1820, whom Abner Gardner agreed to support one year for forty-five dollars. Money was very valuable in those times, or the possession of the town poor very desirable, as the year following William Preston agreed to support the said Lucy one year, "with good wholesome food & clothing " for nineteen dollars. Persons were sometimes bid off as low as from twelve to fifteen cents a week. Wonderful people, some of the forefathers must have been.
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
There was no prohibitory law in existence then. Licenses were granted to sell or retail spirituous liquors in small measure. Such drinks were freely and generally used, both by good and bad, and the cost was cheap. In 1821, highly respectable Ebenezer C. Wilder, John Kilby, Jonas Farnsworth, and Bela Wilder were licensed for that purpose, and also during several years after, to which list were added Jonathan Reynolds and John Smith. However much evil these men may have been the means of doing to others, as liquor dealers, they all escaped a drunkard's end. It may be that the formation of the first temperance society in the town a few years later, of which Ebenezer C. Wilder Esquire, the first named on the license list, became the first president, had much to do with their safety. Two of these "rumsellers" were, at the time of being licensed, members of the Congregationalist Church, and afterward in temperance times, were elected deacons, and a third one, not then a church member, was for many years a deacon.
In 1824 the public lots were disposed of as follows: ministry lot bid off by Jonas Farnsworth for Dr. Micajah Hawkes, at three dollars per acre. The school lot was bid off by Ebenezer C. Wilder at one dollar and fifty cents per acre, and the timber sold on the "Minister's lot " to John Kilby for six years, for one hundred and three dollars.
In 1825 the town voted on the question of removing the county buildings - five yeas, seventy-four nays. In 1827 it voted to raise six hundred dollars to open a road from head of tide Pen- namaquan, to Charlotte.
In 1829 it voted to raise two thousand dollars to open a road from Robbinston to Wilson's Stream. In 1830 Ebenezer C. Wilder, having been treasurer of town twelve years, resigned and a vote of thanks to him was passed. It was found that the books of the town were in many respects erroneous, doubtless through ignorance of a correct method of keeping accounts. The board of selectmen for the year 1830 (John Kilby, Jonathan Reynolds Jr. and Adna Leighton) were chosen a committee to examine and correct the same, but finding very many errors they made out new accounts as between the select- men and the treasurer for several previous years. Then they sealed up the old pages, and that period is known in town as the "Dark Ages."
In 1830 the town voted "that the interest of the ministerial
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
fund be divided among the three denominations of Christians in this town."
In 1831 the treasurer paid thirteen dollars and sixty-eight cents for crow's heads.
The valuation of the town in 1820 was sixty-five thousand five hun- dred and eighty dollars. The wild lands, fourteen thousand seven hundred and ninety acres, were taxed to James Russell, heirs of Ben- jamin Lincoln, James O. Lincoln, Hodijah Baylies, Gridley Thaxter, and Abner Lincoln. The whole number of polls was one hundred and fifty-one, and the tax list was six hundred and twenty dollars and fifty-two cents. In 1831 the valuation was eighty-five thousand seven hundred and thirty-four dollars, and the number of polls one hundred and fifty-seven. Scholars in Dennysville May 1st, 1831, three hundred and eighty-two.
The town on some occasions very liberally filled some of its minor offices; for instance, seven field-drivers, seven fence-viewers, and seven tything-men.
Between 1818 when the town was incorporated, and 1832 (nearly fifteen years) when Pembroke was set off, the town clerk published one hundred and eighteen couples, two hundred and thirty-six per- sons in all, of whom one hundred and sixty-five were residents of Dennysville.
The area of Dennysville was extensive, its principal villages were several miles apart; the citizens, continually increasing in num- bers, had been for many years traveling back and forth at consider- able inconvenience and expense to attend the annual and other pub- lic meetings of the town, until they had probably become weary of it, so they desire and talk about a division of the town, and the or- ganization of a new one; this results in action of the town, to which there seems to have been no objection made. On January 16, 1832, a legal meeting was held " for the purpose of taking into considera- tion the subject of a division of said town of Dennysville." A peti- tion of Jonas Farnsworth and others to the legislature of this state, praying for a division of said town of Dennysville was read. It was then voted that the town be divided according to said petition. A committee of four persons was then chosen to make a division of the funds of the town, viz .: John Kilby, Jonas Farnsworth, Adna Leighton, and Theodore Lincoln Jr.
Voted, that said committee be instructed in case of non-agreement,
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
to report to the legislature of this state the number of ratable polls, amount of territory and amount of valuation in each part of the con- templated division of the town.
Voted, that the said report be officially certified by the selectmen of the town.
This action of the town resulted in the passage by the legislature of the act of division and incorporation, as follows:
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represen- tatives in legislature assembled, that all that part of the town of Den- nysville, in the County of Washington, which lies eastward of the following described line, viz .: Beginning at the Cobbissicook Bay at the mouth of Wilson's Stream, so called, thence running up the center of said stream to the southeast line of lot number eight in the sixth Range; thence north seven degrees east, to the southwest cor- ner of lot number seven, owned by Micajah Hawkes; thence north twenty degrees west, to the north, or back line of said town, with the inhabitants thereof, be and hereby is set off from said town of Den- nysville, and incorporated into a town by the name of Pembroke, with all the powers and rights which the towns of this state enjoy.
Section 2. Be it further enacted that the ministerial and school funds, together with the lot of land reserved for the first settled min- ister in said town of Dennysville shall be divided between said towns of Dennysville and Pembroke in proportion to the number of acres of land in said towns respectively.
Section 3. Be it further enacted, that the moneys which have been raised by said town of Dennysville for making and repairing county roads in said town, and which may be unexpended at the time of the passing of this act shall be paid to the town of Dennys- ville, to be expended within the liniits thereof.
Section 4. Be it further enacted, that all moneys in the treasury of the town of Dennysville, and all outstanding debts due to said town at the time of the passing of this act shall be divided equally between said towns, and all debts due from said Dennysville at the time aforesaid shall be paid equally by said towns. And the town records, weights and measures, and all other articles belonging to the town of Dennysville at the time aforesaid shall still be and remain the property of said Dennysville. (The weights and measures alluded to cost seventy dollars, and were purchased in 1819.)
Section 5. Be it further enacted, that all persons now being, or
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
hereafter becoming chargeable as paupers shall be considered as be- longing to that town on whose territory they may have gained their legal settlement and shall be supported by the same.
Section 6. Be it further enacted, that any Justice of the Peace for the county of Washington is hereby empowered to issue his warrant to some inhabitant of said town of Pembroke, directing him to notify the inhabitants thereof to meet at a time and place in said warrant specified, to choose such officers and transact such business as towns are empowered to choose and to do at their annual meetings.
In the House of Representatives, February 3, 1832, this bill hav- ing had three several readings, passed to be enacted.
BENJAMIN WHITE, Speaker.
In Senate February 4, 1832, this bill having had two several read- ings passed to be enacted.
ROBERT P. DUNLAP, President.
February 4, 1832, approved.
SAMUEL E. SMITH.
STATE OF MAINE:
Secretary of State's office, I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original, deposited in this office.
Attest, R. G. GREENE, Secretary of State.
The legislature, having omitted in the above act of incorporation to apportion and assess upon the town of Pembroke its proportion of the state and county taxes for the year 1832, by act passed February 15, 1833, authorized the said town to assess the ratable polls and estates in said town, a sum equal to said town's proportion of the state and county taxes assessed upon the town of Dennysville for the year 1832, and pay over the same to the treasurer of Dennysville, who was authorized to receive, demand and recover the same.
The whole number of acres of land in the two towns (as stated by the committee) in 1831, was twenty-five thousand four hundred and thirty, of which sixteen thousand five hundred and ninety-two were in Pembroke and eight thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight in Dennysville.
The deed of the township to Lincoln and others is a grant of twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and seventy-one acres of land, which doubtless includes all the water. While the town valuation in 1831 was upward of eighty-five thousand dollars the State valua-
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
tion at that time was forty-seven thousand nine hundred and seventy- eight dollars only, of which twenty-seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-five dollars and twenty cents was the proportion of Pembroke, and twenty thousand two hundred and two dollars and eighty cents that of Dennysville. The whole number of ratable polls in the two towns was one hundred and fifty-six, of which one hundred and four were in the town of Pembroke and fifty-two in Dennysville.
Dennysville now, April 2, 1832, deprived of two-thirds of its terri- tory and two-thirds of its inhabitants, enters upon the third period of its existence which continues until this day.
At the town meeting on the day above mentioned John Kilby was chosen moderator and Benjamin Foster clerk. John Kilby, Theodore Lincoln jr., and Zenas Wilder were chosen selectmen, assessors, and overseers of poor, and together they served the town in these offices from year to year until 1846. These men, always so efficient and useful, both in public and private life, all passed away in the year 1867 - Mr. Lincoln, April 16, aged sixty-seven; Mr. Wilder, August 16, aged eighty-six, and Mr. Kilby, November 20, aged seventy-four. Thomas Eastman was chosen treasurer.
At this meeting it was "voted to raise one thousand three hundred dollars, to be expended on county road newly laid out from line of Charlotte to old county road, near the McAnnally house; and from said road, near said house, to Wilson Stream bridge." In 1833, the town raised nine hundred dollars for the new county road to Charlotte.
In 1836, May 23, the selectmen of Dennysville and Edmunds agreed with John Kilby to build a bridge over Denny's River, near the saw- mill, to be completed before Sept. 1, of same year, for the sum of three hundred and sixty dollars.
At the annual meeting, in 1837, it was voted to accept of the Rev. Robert Crossett as the first settled minister of the town.
In 1840, certain privileges were granted to E. C. Wilder in the erec- tion of a mill dam at Wilson Stream bridge. In 1845, a vote was passed to enlarge the burying ground. A lot of land was purchased of Abner Gardner, containing one hundred and twenty rods, for one hundred and forty-one dollars and fifty cents. The deed is dated March 5, 1845. The burying ground was further enlarged in 1868 by the purchase of one-half an acre of land of Lydia K. Vose, for sixty dollars. The deed is dated Nov. 13, 1868.
In 1879, the town expended four hundred and fifty-five dollars and twenty-one cents in raising and rebuilding the Falls bridge.
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
The following persons have been elected to the several more im- portant offices in the town since 1832: -
MODERATOR.
John Kilby, 23 years.
Theo. Lincoln jr., 3
Daniel K. Hobart, 8
Stephen H. Jones, 8
Peter E. Vose, 5
A. R. Lincoln,
3
Thomas Eastman,
4 years.
Theo. Lincoln jr., 30
Peter E. Vose, 21 66
SELECTMEN.
John Kilby,
16 years.
Theophilus Kilby, E. C. Wilder jr.,
Theo. Lincoln,
24
Zenas Wilder,
14
66
Thomas Eastman jr.,
Samuel Eastman,
25 66 Edmund Lincoln,
Peter E. Vose, 27
Sol. M. Foster,
Daniel K. Hobart, 9
Geo. W. Wilder,
Geo. H. McLauchlan, 8
W. W. McLauchlin,
3
Stephen H. Jones,
Alfred Kilby,
3
Benjamin Lincoln,
Ed. B. Sheahan,
5
Wm. R. Allan,
Charles H. Kilby,
Thomas Robinson,
Samuel Eastman was an Assessor twenty-eight years, and Overseer of the Poor twenty-five years. Peter E. Vose has been an Assessor thirty years, and an Overseer of the Poor twenty-four years. The Selectmen have pretty generally been also the Overseers of the Poor. Population of the undivided town in 1830, 856.
Valuation, 1840, $64,720.
Polls, 70.
1S50, 89,243.
88. Population, 458.
1860, 145,220.
103.
485.
1870, 265,250.
66
99.
66 488.
1880, 176,574.
107.
523.
Benj. Foster, 35 years. W. W. McLauchlan, 2 66
Geo. H. McLauchlin, 18
TOWN TREASURER.
Aaron Hobart, - 1 or more yrs.
Wm. R. Allan,
Isaac S. Eastman, J
TOWN CLERK.
Isaac S. Eastman,
1 to 2 years each.
Richard H. Dudley,
Highest valuation, in 1875, $305,115; of which $32,158 was shipping. Valuation in 1886, $174,646.
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
The town during the past twenty years, at least, has provided lib- erally for the support of its schools. A new school-house, with a town hall (in the village), was completed in the early part of 1857, at a cost of three thousand two hundred and sixty-four dollars and seventeen cents. John Kilby, Theo. Lincoln jr., and Wm. Allan, were the build- ing committee. This house was somewhat enlarged and improved in 1878, at a cost of about six hundred and fifty dollars. A school- house for the lower part of the town was built in 1874, at a cost to the town of nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars - though it cost the contractor considerably more. The Ministerial and School Fund of the town amounts to eight hundred and twenty dollars, and pays about seventy dollars annually which is appropriated toward the sup- port of the high school. The town has no permanent debt, and has to its credit one thousand dollars in State securities, the interest of which also goes to the high school.
Up to 1825, the acre of land, more or less, on which the meeting- house and school-house now stand was owned by private individuals and divided into twenty shares, on which they had erected a building for "a school-house and place of worship." But in 1825, the lot and building thereon was transferred to the inhabitants of the school dis- trict. In 1833, the district conveyed all of the lot (being thirteen rods wide on its western side), excepting a strip five rods wide, for one hundred and thirty-six dollars, to the proprietors of the new meeting-house, and moved the school-house from its place where the meeting-house stands to the five rod strip, and on the spot where the present school-house is to be found.
While Dennysville has been the mother of many respectable, ac- tive, useful, and successful men (and women too), yet none of her sons have ever become famous in the nation, in the courts, or in the pulpit. Never a president, cabinet officer, governor, judge, or gen- eral -not even a Member of Congress among them all. It is not improbable that many might have worthily and honorably filled many of these important positions had they been called thereto. In yon- der cemetery
"Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood."
I think in our State Legislature we have been represented by only
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
one Senator, Hon. Daniel K. Hobart, elected in 1858. Our Repre- sentatives have been -
Eben'r C. Wilder, 1822, 1824. Theophilis W. Allan, 1864, 1868.
Jonas Farnsworth, 1826, '30, '31.
Daniel K. Hobart, 1871.
Benjamin Kilby, 1844. Albert R. Lincoln, 1873.
John Kilby 1853.
Isaac S. Eastman, 1881.
Stephen H. Jones, 1860.
.
Of County Commissioners we have had John Kilby, Esq., (during whose administration the jail at Machias was built) and Benjamin Lincoln, Esq. Isaac Wilder, Esq., was for several years High Sheriff of the county. Hon. Theodore Lincoln was in 1808 a Senator to the General Court of Massachusetts.
The post-office here was established in February, 1800, and William Kilby, Esq., was commissioned postmaster by Postmaster-General Joseph Habersham. He filled that office more than twenty-five years, when his son, John Kilby, became postmaster, retaining the office until 1853, when he resigned in favor of his son, Cyrus H. Kilby, who, after the possession of it for three or four years, resigned in favor of his uncle, Benjamin Kilby. He died in 1875, when his son, Howard H., was commissioned, and held the place until April 12, 1886, when, after an occupancy of over eighty-six years by him- self, his ancestors, and other members of his family, he vacated it, and gave possession to his successor of another name, and another political party.
It is true, that during all these eighty-six years until now, politics, so called, had nothing to do with the appointments of Dennysville post- masters. Though the settlement here, until the year 1818, was sim- ply Plantation No. 2, yet the post-office from its commencement was called the post-office at Dennysville. The receipts of this office dur- ing the years before the war of 1812, and for many years after, aver- aged less than thirty dollars per year, yet so wonderfully did busi- ness increase in this region immediately after the war, that during the two years of 1815 and 1816 the receipts footed up one thousand dollars. Then, however, there was no such thing as having a letter weighing a full ounce carried by mail more than a thousand miles beyond the farthest limit of the then United States for 2 cents, for every piece of written paper was subject to a postage charge of
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DENNYSVILLE CENTENNIAL.
12 cents, under
40
miles.
15
between
40 and 90
182
66
90 and 150
25そ 66
150 and 300
66
30
66
300 and 500
66
37}
66
over
500
66
The first postmaster's commission is dated February 24, 1800.
In the War of the Rebellion Dennysville was patriotic, sending into the field during the course of the war a number of men exceed- ing one-tenth part of its population. The number of men furnished from the commencement of the war, to July 2, 1862, was eight- een. The amount of money contributed by citizens at this time was not less than two hundred and fifty dollars. Between July 2, 1862, and October 17, 1863, five nine months' men enlisted, to whom the town paid six hundred and seventy-five dollars. One man was drafted and entered the service. Another was drafted and furnished a substitute. The whole number of men entering the service between July 2, 1862, and October 17, 1863, including the drafted man and the substitute, was nineteen, to whom the town paid in all, including the six hundred and seventy-five dollars mentioned, one thousand six hundred and thirty-five dollars. Under the call of Octo- ber 17, 1863, seven men enlisted, to whom the town paid fourteen hundred dollars. Under call of February, 1864, and subsequent calls, eleven men volunteered, to whom the town paid two thousand and fifty dollars. The whole number of men entering the army for account of Dennysville being fifty-five, at an expense to the town for bounties, interest, and for recruiting purposes, of six thousand twenty-five dollars and eighty-five cents. The State of Maine, in 1870, reimbursed the town to the amount of three thousand one hun- dred ninety-one dollars and sixty-seven cents. These are the names of the men who periled their lives in the service of their country: -
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