USA > Maine > Cumberland County > New Gloucester > New Gloucester, Maine, centennial, September 7, 1874 > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
This is the last recorded act of the town concerning relig- ious matters. Here political and religious interests bade adieu, and started down the nineteenth century by separate and distinct roads. To-day three-fourths of that century has gone, and experience tells us, to that parting we owe the religious liberty in which we live, and which we should bequeath to those after us as unsullied as we found it.
In 1802, the meeting house had been conveyed to the First Parish, and Rev. ELISHA MOSELY was "ordained as pastor of that people," who died in the pastoral office in 1826, after a long and useful service.
"In his duty prompt at every call, He watched, and wept, he prayed and felt for all, And as a bird, each fond endeavor tries To tempt its new fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds and led the way."
Since then there have been installed as pastors over that parish, the Rev. BENJ. RICE, October, 1828 ; the Rev. SAM'L H. SHEPLEY, Oct. 30, 1838 ; the Rev. NEWALL A. PRINCE, October 17, 1848 ; the Rev. CHAS. PACKARD, November 2, 1854; the Rev. WELLINGTON R. CROSS, September 7, 1865, who resigned in 1873, and the pastoral office is now vacant.
39
THE OLD CHURCHYARD.
In 1797, the road from Bald Hill to Poland was built, and in 1801, from the mills to Sabbath Day Pond.
In 1787, the town voted unanimously, to adopt the Federal Constitution without amendment, and instructed its Repre- sentative to the General Court, the Hon. WILLIAM WIDG- ERY to use his influence to have the District of Maine erected into a separate and independent State, and for the emission of paper money, and general amnesty for the Tories. That year the block house was sold at auction for seven bushels of corn.
In 1806, NATHANIEL COIT ALLEN and others, conceived the idea of a canal from the Little Androscoggin to Royal's River, but on account of opposition from the town for fear of an increased volume of water along the intervales, the project was abandoned.
JOHN STINCHFIELD and NICHOLAS CHESLEY were mighty hunters, and in 1779 the town paid the latter 6£ a head for wolves killed in town. In 1785 PETER GRAFFAM shot a bear from the big elm by Woodman's Bridge.
Early were the settlers of this town reminded-
"There is a reaper whose name is Death, And with his sickle keen, Hle reaps the bearded grain at a breath, And the flowers that grow between."
They selected yonder burying place, near the first clear- ing, upon a warm slope beside the brook, above the mill, where they might safely visit the spot under cover of the block house, and there sorrowfully laid the first of their number that died. In 1793 that lot was conveyed to the
40
A HALF SHIRE TOWN, 1792.
town, although a common had been reserved about the block house for a meeting house lot and churchyard, which was then relinquished to the adjoining owners.
Around that place entwine the affections of us all ; there repose our ancestors; there is all that remains of many who began this life by our side, and early faltered and fell beside the way, or whose footsteps kept along with ours well down the journey of life. Fathers and mothers are there ; wives and children are there ; more of us will soon be there. Let this spot be garnished and adorned ; let it be turned into a garden that the fragrance of its flowers may soften the air, and their purity typify the spirits that were, that the place may not seem a cold graveyard, but rather a cheerful home.
""Tis sweet, as year by year we lose Friends out of sight, in faith to muse" How grows in Paradise our store."
In 1792, this town became a half shire town with Port- land, and the Courts of General Sessions of the Peace, and of Common Pleas sat regularly here once each year till 1805, when Oxford County was formed and they returned to Portland.
These Courts sat each winter at the Court House standing at the center of the town just above the present Pound. The Sessions Judges always had rooms at Mr. JOHN WOOD- MAN'S and the Jurors had rooms at the " Bell Tavern," kept by PELEG CHANDLER. The Common Pleas Judges fre- quently were the guests of Col. ISAAC PARSONS, and in extreme cold days sometimes held their courts beside his , blazing fire. In this Court as many as four hundred and fifty new cases were entered at a term. The Judges that sat here in this Court were the Hons. DANIEL MITCHELL,
41
WAR OF 1812.
JOHN LEWIS, JOSIAH THATCHER, WILLIAM GORHAM, STEPHEN LONGFELLOW, ROBERT SOUTHGATE and JOHN FROTHINGHAM ; the Clerk was ENOCH FREEMAN, and Sheriff JOHN WAITE, ESQ. The Hon. WILLIAM WIDGERY, after- wards a Judge of this Court, then was a Judge in the General Sessions of the Peace.
The old pound by the meeting house had a whipping post in the middle, and stocks beside it, where offenders received their deserts. Noisy people were confined in the stocks on Sundays, town meeting and training days when they became troublesome.
Court time filled the village with strangers, jurors, suitors and witnesses. All the principal lawyers in the county attended here upon Court, and here most of the cases from the back country were tried.
Political excitement never was more intense than in 1812. Navigation had been restricted by an embargo; our vessels were rotting at the wharves and our commerce had been swept from the ocean. Articles of foreign manufacture and all imported goods were scarce, and their prices high. This town in 1809 had voted a petition* to have the embargo removed, and being opposed to the war, when the President called for one hundred thousand militia from the several States, a town meeting was held on the 24th of July, 1812, and the town voted by a large majority, that-
[A part of the preamble is omitted.]
" Whereas our country, from the highest of national grandeur, prosperity and felicity, to which it attained during the adminis- trations of Washington and Adams, is now sunk to the lowest ebb of degradation, contempt and misery, and this calamity and
* See Appendix.
4
42
INDICTED FOR WANT OF MILITARY STORES.
distress have been the necessary results of the systems and measures conceived and pursued by Jefferson and Madison, of crooked and deceitful policy, which could only originate in sorrow and wickedness, and has a direct tendency to dismember the Union, to which the inhabitants of this town have been strongly attached, and to which they will still cling as the ark of their political safety, and inasmuch as they are anxious to maintain the union of the States, and would discountenance all rebellious opposition to government, and rely only on constitutional reme- dies for correcting the manifold and aggravated evils endured, and as our rulers, by their wayward policy, have beggared the nation and made it unable to afford an adequate support to those citizens who may be called upon to defend it from invasion, and as we are willing to share the burdens with our townsmen, be whose lot it may, to be dragged out in support of this war- therefore voted to make the pay of soldiers equal to ten dollars a month."
At the same meeting a Committee of Safety was chosen.
In 1814, the town was indicted for not being provided with military stores, as required by law.
In 1815, the people had become so demoralized in conse- quence of the deplorable state of affairs, that many neglected attendance upon divine worship, thereby giving an example tending to corrupt the religious principles of the youth ; and therefore the town chose that year twenty-eight tything- men, seventeen of whom qualified for the office, and so effectually did they correct the evil habits of the people, that but two such officers were needed and chosen the next year.
At the annual meeting, 1816, Capt. NATHANIEL EVELETH voluntarily declined the office of Town Clerk, which he had held for forty-two consecutive years, accurately recording
43
SLAVERY DENOUNCED.
with his own hand all the doings of the town in that period, for which he received a unanimous vote of thanks from the town .*
In 1819 the town voted to adopt the Constitutions of Maine, and also-
" That the town do consider slavery, in all its forms, as opposed to the dictates of humanity and the Christian religion, and re- pugnant to the principles of our Republican Constitutions, and subversive of the rights and liberties of man, and that Congress has the right to require a prohibition of slavery in any State admitted into the Union."
And also voted, unanimously,-
"To memorialize Congress against the admission of any new State into the Union, by the Constitution of which slavery shall not be prohibited."
These principles are realized to-day, but at what fearful cost ! Who can estimate it? The vacant places in fam- ilies of this people show how dearly was purchased the rights, which were asserted here more than a half century ago.
From the Revolution till within the memory of many present, two companies of Infantry were enrolled in this town, and beside these, one company of Riflemen, one company of Cavalry and one of Artillery have been recruited here. All these troops, after the erection of Maine, were attached to the fifth Division, first Brigade, and the Infantry to the first Regiment. Their training field was on the
* Maj. NATHANIEL EVELETH, an aged and honored citizen, and a son of the veteran Town Clerk, kindly furnished me with a private book of records, from which I gathered much of the early history of the town, and to whom I wish thus publicly to return thanks for his kindness.
44
MILITIA-SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS.
common about the old meeting house, and there, amid the applause of the entire populace, many deeds of valor were performed, which are recounted even to this day.
The rank and file of these troops furnished officers for the Massachusetts and Maine Militia of the highest rank, and could I call them to pass in review, you would see emerge from the dim vista of the past the commanding forms of Generals ALLEN, FESSENDEN, MEGQUIER, WEBBER and GROSS ; Cols. PARSONS, FOXCROFT, JORDAN and CUSH- MAN; Majs. EVELETH, CHANDLER, CUSHMAN, NELSON, HAMMOND, STEVENS, ALLEN, WEBSTER, LATHAM, TOBIE, WINSLOW and WHITE, followed by Maj. JAMES EVELETH with his corps of musicians, drowning all with their noise. Then would come a host of Captains and subalterns and other officers, dimly seen through the veil of oblivion ; but you would recognize the stentorian voices of Capts. WM. HASKELL and PELETIAH LYON echoing in the distance as the train disappears from sight.
Spirituous liquors were openly retailed in this town until the year 1832, when the town voted not to use them at town's cost while at work on the roads, and not to grant licenses to sell the same, and to prosecute those who do ; but as the chilly frosts of Autumn came, the people were reminded by the pinching cold how necessary it was to provide warmth within as well as clothing without, and re- considered that vote, and nine licenses were immediately issued to meet the emergency of the case.
Here was the first recorded skirmish with intemperance, and those men, who then made a stand for temperance and morality, can with pride and joy point to the fact, that to-day not a glass of spirituous liquor can be purchased for a bev-
45
THE OLD CHURCH.
erage in this town, and for the past decade not a single grog shop has existed within its borders.
The year 1832 also brought reform, in care for the poor, who had previously been sold at auction, and the town voted-
" That the practice of setting up at auction those of our fellow creatures who, through misfortune and adversity, have become unable to support and maintain themselves, is revolting to a civ- ilized and Christian community."
That year and the next they were properly cared for, but in 1834 the majority again voted for the old method, and they were again sold ; but soon after a town farm was pur- chased, and now the poor of the town have a comfortable home in their adversity.
The roads in this town have always been repaired and maintained by a labor tax, except that, in the year 1837, a money tax was raised for the purpose, and expended by the Selectmen as surveyors of highways.
The Old Church stood with its front to the road, and had a tall square tower upon the south-west end, lighted with long, narrow windows and covered with a concave roof, above which extended upward an iron rod supporting two brass balls, with a vane at its top. A porch was at the op- posite end. One entrance was through the base of the tower, another from the porch, and a third was in the center of the front side. Stair-cases led to the galleries within, from the tower and porch at each end. The outside was once painted white, but from long exposure at last assumed a shady hue. Twenty-six windows, in two rows, encircled it, with twenty- four panes of glass, eight by ten inches in size, in each. The pulpit was on the back side, opposite the front door,
46
THE OLD CHURCH.
and so high that the preacher could view the galleries which surrounded the other three sides upon a level with his eyes. A huge sounding board overhung the sacred desk, and in small closets within it, opening on each side, the town's store of powder was kept. A rail encircled the communion table and the deacon's seats beside it. Upon either hand of the pulpit, from the galleries, projected small balconies with seats for the colored brethren, while directly below these, near the pulpit, sat the wardens, with long poles to wake the sleepers. A broad aisle led from the front door to the communion table with seats upon each side in front, for those whose hearing was impaired. Another crossed this at right angles, extending from the doors at each end, while a third encircled the house a pew's length from the walls. The pews were inclosed with paneled walls and doors, mounted with a "rail and banisters." The seats within turned upward on hinges that the occupants might stand erect. Small holes through the floor served the chewers of tobacco for spittoons. The audience room was fifty- six by forty-five feet in size, nearly square, with twenty-four feet between ceiling and floor, which was scoured to snowy whiteness. No paint was anywhere to be seen.
Within those walls was many an exciting scene in politi- cal affairs. There many a tilt in town matters. There all elections were held, until in 1838 the present town house, formerly the old Baptist meeting-house, was purchased for the sum of three hundred dollars.
There too the people attended divine worship without any fire or place for building one; there all intentions of marriage were publicly cried from the galleries at church time for three consecutive Sundays. The singers sat oppo- site the pulpit, and sang the old songs of Zion to music from
A
47
THE SCHOOLS.
fiddles, flutes, bass-viols and divers other instruments of the olden time. At last the old edifice, in 1838, gave place to the present Congregational church standing on the same spot. There for more than a hundred years the same gospel has been preached and the same psalms sung :
" For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little."
Imbued with the belief that universal education was the foundation of all free institutions, the General Court of the Province reserved one sixty-third part of this township for the support of free schools, which created a fund of over four thousand dollars.
In 1764, one public school was established at the center of the township, and there maintained until the town was incorporated, when a school-master was employed, and the school was then kept in different parts of the town by turns until 1777, when the school money was divided into four parts, and each of four districts drew its part according to the number of its scholars, but agents to employ the teachers were chosen by the town. In 1790, one new district was formed. In 1805, a committee of five was chosen to inspect the schools. In 1803, three new districts were formed, and not till 1823 did the several districts select their own agents to employ teachers and provide for the schools. From that time to near the present, the school money has been expend- ed in that way, the town always having a superintending school committee selected from its best citizens.
In 1792, a few zealous Shakers held meetings in this town near the present Shaker Village, and by their persuasive rea- soning and pious example, a sufficient number were converted
48
THE SHAKERS.
to their belief to form a church and society. In 1794, their society was organized and a meeting-house built, from which time the growth of their settlement has been steady and permanent. To-day a thousand acres of the best land in town yields its harvest under their skillful care. Seeds from their garden, and the product of their manufactures, are to be seen in the market, living witnesses to their in- dustry and skill; while their beautiful village, filled with trees bending with ripening fruit, as it lies sloping towards the glassy surface of Sabbath Day Pond, at once arrests the. attention of the traveler, and persuades him to partake within their hospitable home.
For a century following the first settlement of this town- ship, lumbering was a profitable industry for this people. Between Royal's River and the Little Androscoggin, was the best tract of pine timber lands ever known in Maine. From these, pines were drawn past the center of the town to the public landing below the "great bridge," on Royal's River, before the Revolution, two cargoes of masts for the Royal Navy of the King of England. These masts were floated down that stream to the anchorage of the British transports, below Yarmouth (being hauled around the Falls ).
In 1824, a hundred ox teams loaded with lumber were frequently seen in a day, to pass the center of the town down the Yarmouth road. Then all the travel from the North passed there. Mail coaches and private carriages of all descriptions were continually going, and the village was lively and gay. But in 1833, the road was opened from the Upper Corner to Harris Hill. This turned a large por- tion of the travel to Gray Corner, and the upper village became the principal center of travel.
Until 1841 this town steadily increased in population,
49
WESTWARD BOUND, 1841.
drawn hither for employment in the thriving local trade and business of the place, but from that day the tide turned in other directions. The diligent hand of the pioneer had stripped the noble pine from its native soil ; the local lum- bering trade had substantially ceased; new fields for em- ployment were opened; Massachusetts, with her thriving manufactures, called for operatives; the West began to attract the attention of the young men ; California opened her golden mines, and the glittering ore called some thither. The current began to set westward ; the open prairie and fertile bottom lands, towards the setting sun, were already waiting for the seed to cover their surface with golden grain. The iron horse, propelled by steam, soon made these hills resound with his shrill alarm, and tamed the soft bosom of the intervale to his continued tread. At his heels were drawn palatial coaches to carry our people from home, or a long train of wagons loaded with produce, hastening on to feed the hungry throngs at commercial centers. The mail coach ceased its lumbering roll; no more did the weary traveler take his rest within your hospitable taverns, and soon their doors were closed. The young men no longer made this their abiding place, still here was their home, and here would they again return as the waning sun of life approached the horizon, that where they were. born, there would be their peaceful resting place.
This change may have startled those of this generation who still linger among us, and their faces may be furrowed with sadness as they look backward to the bright days of their manhood. But is there nothing cheerful in the out- look? As they review the better part of a century, can they not feel a satisfaction in what has been accomplished ? Can they not see the rapid strides of progress ? Can they
50
A CHEERFUL OUTLOOK.
not feel that the times are moving forward, and not back- ward? Let such look out on these broad, smooth fields, green again, having been shorn by the even clipping scythe of the mowing machine. Let them view the long eared corn and heavy headed grain as it sweeps in the wind, and see the fruit trees loaded with blushing fruit. Let them not forget the old thoroughbrace wagon, (a wonder in its day), and the rough, unwrought roads, and old tote paths with the saddle and pillion, as they now glide smoothly upon fine broad roads through all parts of the town in carriages, for ease and elegance undreamed of forty years since. As they go let them inspect the snug white farmhouses and capacious barns, filled with produce and cattle, and find the people no longer wearing homespun, but rather clad with fabrics from abroad, with goods of fine texture manufactured in our own State ; find them fed with flour from the West, with fruit from the Tropics, and supplied with tea, coffee and spices from the East; and then let them say whether the toil of a century has been fruitless.
No longer do a privileged class exclusively enjoy the comforts of life, but now labor receives its reward, and the laborer finds dollars in his pocket, where a half century ago cents would have been wanting. Intolerance has ceased to be " the head-stone of the corner." The silvery tones of church bells each Sabbath morning now call the people to worship in places of their own choice, or leave them to the solitude of their own homes, secure from official intrusion. Each neighborhood has its own school, and a high school affords its privileges to all alike. Loafing places and grog shops, where the news was passed from hand to hand, have given place to the post-office, at which the daily and weekly papers, both religious and secular, are distributed, to be perused by
51
HONORED SONS AND CITIZENS.
all members of the several families in town. In every house can now be read the entire news of the world. The railroad and telegraph annihilate both space and time, and much that a few years ago was unknown, is now reported in every home. Colleges, seminaries and other institutions of learn- ing are within the reach of every student, books are at his command, and the youth are at school, instead of toil- ing in the father's field till the end of their twenty-first year.
From the onset till now, this town has had a steady growth, and to-day its valuation is higher than ever before ; its people are better educated, better clad, and enjoy more of the comforts of life than at any time past.
Its sons have gone out through this wide land to utilize those principles instilled into their youthful minds by the political, moral and religious atmosphere of the place. Among them are the names of GREENLEAF, CHANDLER, FESSENDEN, WOODMAN, WEBBER, INGERSOLL, HILL, MER- RILL, PENNEY and ROWE.
Here have resided the Hons. NATHAN WESTON, EZEKIEL WHITMAN, SAMUEL FESSENDEN, and WM. WIDGERY; Col. ISAAC PARSONS, and PELEG CHANDLER, the Father and Son; the Hons. WM. BRADBURY and SEWALL N. GROSS ; Dr. TIMOTHY LITTLE; and the Rev. FRANKLIN YEATON. beloved by all, besides scores of other honored names.
From here, too, have gone those patriots who rallied about their country's flag when assailed by the vile hands of traitors, in the last war. They are known to you all, and the memories of those who did not return are bright in your affections to-day. They need no eulogy, but their names should be engraved upon some imperishable stone, that generations who follow us may adorn it with gar-
52
AMERICA.
lands, in gratitude for the liberties they purchased with their lives for us and our posterity for all coming time.
MY FRIENDS :- With pride I have reviewed with you the history of our native town for a hundred years, and as I stand, protected from the scorching rays of a noonday sun by this vast canopy, a device of modern genius, beside these planks, relics from the old blockhouse, and bid adieu to the century that has gone, replete with noble deeds of our ancestors, it is fitting I should demand, in their names, as we enter upon the century that now begins, that those prin- ciples of liberty and eternal justice, which they maintained at such fearful cost, shall be kept inviolate, that they who celebrate this event at the end of another hundred years can say of us as we truly say of these ancestors of ours-
NOBLE MEN, IMMORTAL NAMES, NEVER BORN TO DIE.
The oration closed at quarter past twelve, and after the band played " Hail Columbia " the entire audience rose and joined with the choir in singing
" AMERICA."
"My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing ; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From every mountain side Let freedom ring.
53
THE BANQUET.
My native country, thee- Land of the noble, free- Thy name-I love; I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills, My heart with rapture thrills Like that above.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.