USA > Maine > Hancock County > Mount Desert > Mount Desert : a history > Part 13
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AT NORWOOD'S COVE
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Meanwhile two young men from Great Cran- berry rowed over to Southwest Harbor and trav- eled all night up through the farms and hills to the other side of the mountains, sounding the alarm. All night long men were hurrying singly or in squads to the scene of action. How many came cannot be learned, probably about seventy, as the settlers at that date were few and scattered. Jacob Lurvey, a veteran soldier of the Revolution, lived in the old house recently burned in the field as one turns to the left on the Somesville road to climb Beech Hill. He had one musket, and that his son Isaac, eighteen years old, had marched away with in the night. Toward morning the father himself, who had long been sick in bed, grew restless and finally got up and began to dress. " What are you thinking of, Jacob ?" cried his wife. "You, sick man, and going down to the fight !" And then, to head him off utterly, "What could you do without your musket? Isaac 's got that." " Yes, I'm going. By this time some of our men have been wounded, and there 'll be a musket for me." Old John Richardson, another soldier of the Revolution, lived up on Beech Hill. He was deaf as a post, yet heard the summons, but did not seem to hear where the rendezvous was to be, and so came down the slope on the north side of the cove, in full view of the British in their barge. His neighbors called to him not to
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expose himself but to come around where they were. He heard nothing and apparently feared nothing, for singly there behind a rock he loaded and aimed at the enemy, who finally thought to annihilate him with a charge from a shotted gun, which threw up the earth in a mass of turf and stones and dust, in which brave old John disappeared, to reappear again after a while load- ing and firing as if nothing had happened.
The battle proved to be short in duration and at very short range. In the early dawn of Tues- day, August 9, a twelve-oared launch, full of men, with a swivel-gun in the bows, left the war- ship and drew in toward Clark's Point. Another smaller barge followed. The combatants were near enough to converse, to chaff with and chal- lenge each other before the skirmish began. The militia were in the dense thicket along the shore, but every now and then one of them would run out on the rocks, or warn the invaders that the woods were full of men and they would be routed. Especially when the form of the brave Captain Spurling was seen in the barge, an effort was made to save his life by urging the British to give up their undertaking. One of his sons, Robert, rushed out on the high rocks below the present Downs cottage. His plea was most earnest to have his father spared. The officer bade his oarsmen lay to their oars, and ordered the old captain to be crowded down in
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the bottom of the barge. There the soldiers walked over him, or on him, as best suited their mood, until he raised himself up, said he might as well die in one way as another, and cried back to his son and the men on the shore, "Never mind me, Rob, I am an old man ; but give it to these dashed Britishers as hard as you can." Through an opening in the thicket the British caught sight of a man coming up from the Point with a bag over his shoulders laden with bullets. It was Captain Nathan Clark. They fired at him, but missed the mark. " Better grease your dashed old muzzles and try again," was his retort. The militia fired from behind some natural breast- works covered with a thicket above. This en- abled them to rest their guns, pick their men, at the same time to be themselves unseen. The reply from the barge's pivot-gun, though meant to be most sweeping and devastating, went wild, high overhead, breaking branches, hitting rocks, but wounding no one. Even the British musket fire, aimed at men behind trees on the south side of the cove, filled the trees with bullets, but hit nobody. Isaac Lurvey for years afterward showed the tree he stood behind, riddled with seventeen bullets above his head.
It soon became evident to the British com- mander, who had not yet really entered the cove, that his men were simply targets for the marks- men who, were invisible if not invulnerable, and
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that he had wholly underrated their capacity for defense, so he ordered his barges to draw off, with their killed and wounded. It was noticed that five instead of twelve were at the oars as they rowed away. As to the losses of the British, the only data we have is the testimony of two boys, who, like boys of to-day, were apt to be around when not wanted, using their eyes. These boys, sons of William Moore, living near the present site of the Burnham cottage on Sutton's Island, had gone aboard the Tenedos to sell raspberries. They were on board when the de- feated barge came back with its dead. They saw seven lifeless bodies raised by tackles and slowly let down into the hold of the ship. On the American side the only damage was that Captain Samuel Hadlock of Little Cranberry had two fin- gers grazed by a bullet.1
1 Dr. Street wrote the story of this skirmish for the annual meeting of the Southwest Harbor Village Improvement Society in 1902, and it was printed in the Northeast Harbor and Seal Harbor Herald of September 19, 1902. He derived his information from the descendants of the men who participated, particularly from Rev. O. H. Fernald, - whose grandmother watched the fight from the window of the house on Fernald's Point, - Levi Lurvey, William Herrick, W. H. A. Heath, Jacob Mayo, and Mrs. J. A. Holden. The story of the Moore boys was told by them to Miss Mary Carroll, who told it to Dr. Street. Mr. E. A. Dodge, who had talked with survivors of the skirmish, recorded the story in his little history in 1871, and Chisholm's Guide Book had a version of the same tale. Colonel William E. Had- lock of Islesford, whose great uncle was wounded, has written out still another version as he had the story from his family.
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It remains only to record here the further and final subdivision of the original town of Mount Desert.
On March 16, 1830, by act of the Maine legis- lature, the two Cranberry Islands, Sutton's, and Baker's and Bear Islands were set off from Mount Desert, and incorporated into a town by the name of Cranberry Isles. Samuel Hadlock, Enoch Spur- ling, and Joseph Moore were chosen the first Board of Selectmen.
The earliest settlers on the Cranberry Isles had made no permanent stay. They spent a year or two fishing and cutting staves, and then moved on. The Bunker, Spurling, and Stanley fami- lies were the first to establish themselves per- manently. Benjamin Spurling, who came from Portsmouth, N. H., in 1768, was, as we have seen, the founder of a large and prosperous family that has for four generations flourished on Great Cranberry. The lot of Aaron Bunker, containing one hundred acres, was laid out by John Peters in 1790. His descendants still occupy the land and are numerous in the community. John Stan- ley, who died on Great Cranberry in 1790, was the ancestor of many families of the Stanley name on the islands and in Hancock County. His widow's lot of sixty-two acres was at the entrance
The Eden town records show that the Eden militia were called out in 1814 to go to Southwest Harbor to protect vessels from the British.
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of the Pool, which is the characteristic feature of Great Cranberry Island.
Sutton's Island, or Lancaster's Island, as it was originally called, was first settled by Joseph Lan- caster, who came from Sullivan, and by Isaac Rich- ardson, son of James Richardson, town clerk of Mount Desert. William and Joseph Moore were also early settlers. Sutton, from whom the island takes its present name, was apparently a squatter, who, it is said, was a sympathizer with the British in the War of 1812 and " moved on " to the Pro- vinces. William Moore kept sheep on Bear Island, and later moved there and was the first keeper of the Bear Island lighthouse. William Gilley settled on Baker's Island in 1812, and he too be- came the keeper of the lighthouse built in 1828. His descendants still live on the island. The first inhabitants of Little Cranberry were John Stanley, son of the John Stanley who died on the greater island in 1790, and Samuel Hadlock, who, as we have already seen, moved from Hadlock's Pond to Little Cranberry. Samuel Hadlock the younger cleared a large tract and engaged suc- cessfully in farming, but his first money was gained by a fishing-trip on the Labrador coast. There he dried his fish and then proceeded with them to Spain in a schooner of forty-eight tons, making a successful voyage and very profitable sale of his cargo. He then built a store on the west side of the island at Hadlock's Cove, where
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he did a good business in general merchandise. He died on the island at the age of eighty-four years in 1854, and his wife Sarah (Manchester) died in 1861 at the advanced age of ninety. Ed- win, the youngest son of Samuel Hadlock, suc- ceeded his father in business. He also built and commanded vessels, as had his father before him. The last vessel built at the island was named the Samuel Hadlock and commanded by Edwin for several years. She was a brigantine of 120 tons, and was finally wrecked off Cape Hatteras. The other sons of Samuel Hadlock were also seafar- ing men, and died or were lost at sea in distant parts of the world. His daughters married and moved away, excepting Abigail, who married Cap- tain Samuel Spurling of Great Cranberry Island. Edwin died on the island in 1875, and his sons William Edwin and Gilbert Theodore then con- ducted the business on a larger scale. They greatly improved the wharves and buildings, and sent vessels to Labrador, Grand Banks, and other distant fishing grounds. They also engaged in mackerel and herring fishing nearer home.
Colonel William Edwin Hadlock, the oldest son of Edwin Hadlock, was born at Little Cran- berry Island in 1834, and was educated in the Winthrop School of Boston and the Classical Institute of Yarmouth, Me. After some years of business life in Portland he returned to the island to engage with his father in the ship stores
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and fishing business established by his grand- father. He was elected to the legislature of Maine in 1861, and served as a member of the House in the session of 1862, and was then commis- sioned lieutenant-colonel of the 28th Regiment of Maine Infantry. After a year's service at the front, in which Colonel Hadlock distinguished himself for ability and personal bravery, he was obliged to retire from the army because of im- paired health, and again resumed his business at Cranberry Isles. He was twice elected senator from Hancock County, and was chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in the sessions of 1872 and 1873. In 1876 he was again elected to the House of Representatives. Colonel Hadlock has for many years maintained an influential posi- tion in the affairs of his native town, and to his enterprise is largely due the development of the island and village of Islesford.
Gilbert T. Hadlock, another son of Edwin, was one of the builders of the Life Saving Station established at Islesford in 1879, and served as the first keeper. Captain Hadlock held this posi- tion for several years, and then resigned to estab- lish a steamboat route among the islands. He holds a medal from the government for heroic service in the saving of life. Captain Franklin Stanley succeeded Captain Hadlock as com- mander of the Life Saving Station, and with his efficient crew of hardy surfmen has prevented
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many wrecks and brought much credit to the service. Harvey Deming, the youngest son of Edwin Hadlock, chose the legal profession, and was employed in important cases in Bucksport and Portland, and later in Boston, New York, and Washington. He was a man of marked per- sonality, who died suddenly in Boston, in the height of his power, on the 13th of April, 1897.
In 1838 a third division of the town of Mount Desert set off Bartlett's, Hardwood, and Rob- inson's or Tinker's Islands, and incorporated them into a town named Seaville, but twenty-one years afterwards, February 24, 1859, this act was repealed and Bartlett's Island was returned to Mount Desert, and Hardwood and Tinker's Is- lands annexed to Tremont.
The last division of the original town took place on June 3, 1848, when an act of the legis- lature of Maine set off "All that part of the Town of Mount Desert, in the County of Han- cock, lying South of a line commencing at An- drew Fernald's North line of Somes' Sound ; thence across the mountain to the head of Dem- ing's Pond ; thence continuing the same course to Great pond; thence across said pond to the Southeast corner of lot number one hundred and fourteen, on a plan of said town by John S. Dodge; thence Westerly on the South line of said lot number one hundred and fourteen to
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Seal Cove Pond, and continuing the same course to the middle of said pond ; thence Northerly up the middle of Upper Seal Cove Pond to the head thereof, and continuing the same course to the South line of lot marked 'Reuben Noble,' on said plan ; thence Westerly on the South line of said last named lot to the sea shore, together with Moose Island, Gott's Island, and Langley's Island, with the inhabitants thereon," and incor- porated the separate town of Mansel.
The name of the new town, which reproduced the original English name of the island, Mount Mansell, was not acceptable to the people, and so it was changed by act of the legislature dated August 8, 1848, to Tremont. The name Mansell, altered, for some unknown reason, to Manset, is preserved in the name of the post-office on the southern shore of Southwest Harbor.
In 1905 the town of Tremont was itself divided and its eastern and northeastern sec- tion was incorporated as the town of Southwest Harbor.
VII SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS
Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, Nor the march of the encroaching city, Drives an exile From the hearth of his ancestral homestead.
We may build more splendid habitations, Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, But we cannot Buy with gold the old associations. LONGFELLOW.
New friendships may bind us, New loves lay their claim, New homes may enshrine us, They 're never the same ! But the home we first knew on this beautiful earth, The friends of our childhood, the place of our birth, In the heart's inner chamber sung always will be, As the shell ever sings of its home in the sea ! FRANCES DANA GAGE.
The riches of the Commonwealth Are free, strong minds and hearts of health. WHITTIER.
SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS
THE social conditions of a community can best be illustrated by certain typical careers.
In the summer of 1808, John Clement came to Little Cranberry to make barrels for Captain Hadlock, who had a large fish business. Clement was a cooper of Scotch descent who, in 1795, had moved with his wife, Deborah Burns, from Haverhill, Mass., to the Penobscot, living first at Oldtown and later at Bucksport. From Little Cranberry he could see opposite on the main island of Mount Desert a sheltered cove with a little stream running down into it and with a good sand beach at the head. When he went back to Bucksport he told his wife about it and it was agreed to move thither. Clement spent the winter building a large open boat and in the spring loaded it with his family and household goods, and without mishap reached Seal Harbor in June, 1809, and landed on the beach on the western side. Going into the woods he cut two crotched stakes, drove them into the ground, laid a ridgepole on them, and then with spruce bark made a V-shaped shelter in which the family spent the summer while the log house was building.
For his house Clement chose a site at the other
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end of the beach, about where R. E. Campbell's house now stands, and there he built a log cabin and a large cooper shop in which he and his boys, James, Jacob, and Amos, carried on the trade. The hoops were made from the yellow birch sprouts which sprung up quickly wherever the original growth of forest trees was cut away. Sometimes the father and one or another of the boys would make trips alongshore in the boat collecting the sprouts, going as far as the head of Frenchman's Bay. The eldest son, James Clement, could tell afterwards of the time when the Tenedos anchored off the shore in 1814, and how he went off to her with his father to sell a pig. One autumn night the log house caught fire and burned to the ground. With it went all the provisions stored for the winter and wellnigh all the household goods. The family pulled through the winter somehow, living in the big cooper shop, and in the spring built a frame house.
The Clements had, of course, no legal title to their claim. They simply established " squatters' rights." All the land was owned by the Bingham heirs, whose agent at that time was Colonel Black at Ellsworth. As other squatters settled on the shore some confusion arose. John Bracy had settled at Bracy's Cove, next to the westward, and he had secured a title to the two hundred- acre lots between Seal Harbor and Long Pond. It was rumored that he also wanted a title to the
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lands on which the Clements were living. James Clement rowed to Somesville, got a horse, fol- lowed the trail to the Narrows, was ferried over, and pushing on reached Ellsworth early in the morning. He entered his claim, and as he came down the steps of Colonel Black's office met his neighbor Bracy coming up. James reserved for himself the western lot at the head of the harbor and his brothers took the eastern lot where Jacob Clement later built the house in which his daughter Mrs. Lynam now lives. James built a comfortable farmhouse on the present site of the Seaside Inn.
After the father's death the Clements aban- doned coopering for fishing. James went with Captain Thomas Stanley to the Magdalen Islands for herring. Jacob followed in another vessel, and Amos had charge of smoking and curing the catch on the beach at home. To this later was added a porgy oil business which was temporarily successful. James Clement's skill as a cooper and his inventive talent proved helpful in the fishing fleet. As the herring fleet lay at Canso waiting good weather, he went into a swamp, cut an ash, and made a big dip-net, whose use shortened and lightened the work of baling the fish from the seines into the boats.
Amos Clement in 1849 went to California in the ship Gold Hunter, and later tried farming in Wisconsin, and a sorghum sugar business in
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Kansas. Jacob Clement went fishing out of Seal Harbor till his death, and James lived to a ripe old age, seeing the beginnings of Seal Harbor as a prosperous summer resort. Their children and grandchildren are leading and active citizens of Mount Desert,1 dwelling mostly at or about Seal Harbor.
About the year 1806 William Gilley and Hannah Lurvey, his wife, decided to move from Norwood's Cove on to Baker's Island with their three little children. Up to that time Gilley had got his living chiefly on fishing or coasting ves- sels ; but, like most young men of the region, he was also something of a wood-cutter and farmer. He and his wife had already accumulated a little store of household goods and implements, and tools for fishing and farming. They needed no money wherewith to buy Baker's Island. There it lay in the sea, unoccupied and unclaimed; and they simply took possession of it.
William Gilley was a large, strong man, six feet tall, and weighing over two hundred pounds. His father is said to have come from Great Brit- ain at fourteen years of age. Hannah Gilley was a robust woman, who had lived in Newburyport and Byfield, Mass., until she was thirteen years
1 Mr. Charles H. Clement of Seal Harbor has kindly fur- nished a manuscript from which these family reminiscences are chiefly derived.
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old, and had there had much better schooling than was to be had on the island of Mount De- sert. She was able to teach all her children to read, write, and cipher ; and all her life she valued good reading, and encouraged it in her family. Her father, Jacob Lurvey, was born in Gloucester, Mass., and married Hannah Boynton of Byfield. He served in the Revolutionary army as a boy. He lived to the age of ninety-two, and had ten children and seventy-seven grandchildren. The Lurveys are therefore still numerous at South- west Harbor and the vicinity.
For William Gilley the enterprise of taking possession of Baker's Island involved much heavy labor, but few unaccustomed risks. For Hannah, his wife, it was different. She already had three little children, and she was going to face for her- self and her family a formidable isolation, which was absolute for considerable periods in the year. Moreover, she was going to take her share in the severe labors of a pioneering family. Even to get a footing on this wooded island -to land lumber, livestock, provisions, and the implements of labor, and to build the first shelter - was no easy task. A small, rough beach of large stones was the only landing-place, and just above the bare rocks of the shore was the forest. How- ever, health, strength, and fortitude were theirs ; and in a few years they had established them- selves on the island in considerable comfort. Nine
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more children were born to them there; so that they ultimately had a family of twelve children, of whom six were sons and six daughters. All these children grew to maturity. Fortunately, the eldest child was a girl, for it was the mother that most needed help. Nine of the twelve chil- dren married, and to them were born fifty-eight children.
After the family had been ten years on the island, it had been transformed into a tolerable farm. William Gilley was keeping about six cows, a yoke of oxen, two or three young cattle, about fifty sheep, and three or four hogs. Several of the children were already contributing by their labor to the support of the family. The girls tended the poultry, made butter, and spun wool. The boys naturally helped in the work of the father. He, unaided except by his boys, had cleared a considerable portion of the island, burn- ing up in so doing a fine growth of trees - spruce, fir, birch, and beech. With his oxen he had broken up the cleared land, hauled off part of the stones and piled them on the protruding ledges, and gradually made fields for grass and other crops. In the earlier years, before flour be- gan to be cheap at the Mount Desert " stores," he had even raised a little wheat on the island ; but the main crops, beside hay, were potatoes and other vegetables for the use of the family and cattle.
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The wheat was carried in a boat to Somesville, ground and sifted into three grades, and carried back to the island for winter use.
Food at the island was habitually abundant. It was no trouble to get lobsters. No traps were needed ; they could be picked up in the shallow water along the rocky shore. Fresh fish were always to be easily procured, except in stormy weather and in cold and windy February and March. A lamb could be killed at any time in the summer. In the fall, in sorting the flock of sheep, the family killed from ten to fifteen sheep ; and what they could not use as fresh mutton they salted. Later in the season, when the weather turned cold, they killed a " beef-critter," and sometimes two when the family grew large. Part of this beef was salted, but part was kept frozen throughout the winter to be used fresh. Sea-birds added to their store of food. Shoot- ing them made sport for the boys. Ducks and other sea-fowl were so abundant in the fall that the gunners had to throw away the bodies of the birds, after picking off all the feathers. The family never bought any salt pork, but every winter made a year's supply. Although codfish were easily accessible, the family made no use of salt cod. They preferred mackerel, which were to be taken in the near waters in some month of every year. They had a few nets, but they also caught mackerel on the hook. During the sum-
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mer and early autumn the family had plenty of fresh vegetables.
For clothing the family depended mostly on wool from their own sheep. They used very little cotton. There were spinning-wheels and looms in the house, and the mother both spun and wove. Flax they raised on the island, and from it made a coarse kind of linen, chiefly for towels. They did, however, buy a cotton warp, and filled it with wool, thus making a comfortable sort of sheet for winter use or light blanket for summer. The wool of at least fifty sheep was used every year in the household, when the family had grown large. The children all went barefoot the greater part of the year ; but in the winter they wore shoes or boots, the eldest brother having learned enough of the shoemaker's art to keep the family supplied with footwear in winter. At that time there were no such things as rubber boots, and the family did not expect to have dry feet.
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