Saco Valley settlements and families. Historical, biographical, genealogical, traditional, and legendary, Part 22

Author: Ridlon, Gideon Tibbetts, 1841- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Portland, Me., The author
Number of Pages: 1424

USA > Maine > Saco Valley settlements and families. Historical, biographical, genealogical, traditional, and legendary > Part 22
USA > New Hampshire > Saco Valley settlements and families. Historical, biographical, genealogical, traditional, and legendary > Part 22

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).

The oft-repeated question, "Why all this change?" must now be answered. The highway upon which this plantation and village were begun was discon- tinued in consequence of the long, hard-to-climb Killick hill, and a new road built near the bank of the Saco. The tavern was taken down and removed to South Limington to intercept the diverted flow of travel, the mill was soon dismantled and its more valuable parts carried to Bonnie Eagle, and for want of employment the inhabitants scattered into other localities. For several years the fields were more or less cultivated and the grass harvested, but in time, for want of attention, they became unproductive and were allowed to revert to the empire of nature where they have since been held in undisputed possession.

Even the names of nearly every family that once lived here have been lost in the unrecorded volume of the past century, and but two persons, now passing the white winter of enfeebled age, who were born there, are known to be living; these are Mrs. Sarah, wife of James Garland, and her sister, Rox- anna, widow of the late Isaac Libby, daughters of David Towle.

The Dalton Right Settlement .- An extensive tract of valuable land, covered with a heavy growth of timber wherein the axe had made no mark, on the west side of Saco river, was early known as the Dalton Right, a name that appears in many conveyances. It was formerly owned by Tristram Dal- ton, an Englishman, and is described in an old joint deed in my possession as follows : "A parcel of land containing one thousand, one hundred and sixty- eight acres, being the same tract which was assigned to the Devisees of Tristram Little, deceased, by Jeremiah Hill, Joseph Bradbury, and Robert Southgate, a committee appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court the 16th of July 1788, and in return of s'd Committee the Ist day of December, 1788, is thus described : 'beginning at Saco river one mile and a half from the upper bounds of Pattershall's Lot, so-called, computed on a northwest course; thence running southeast six hundred and fifty-three rods; thence northwest two hundred and forty rods; thence northeast to Saco river; thence by s'd river to the first-mentioned bounds, and which s'd moiety or half part, I pur- chased of Tristram Dalton, as by his deed to me bearing date the second day of October, 1794, fully appears."" This land was deeded by Thomas Cutts, of Saco, Aug. 10, 1797, to James Redlon, Thomas Redlon, John Bryant, Ichabod Cousins, Thomas Lewis, and Rufus Kimball, of the Little Falls plan- tation, in the county of York. A tract of land between the Pattershall Lot and the Dalton Right, known as the College Right, bordered on the Saco river, and was purchased about the same time by Daniel Field, Jr., brother-in-law of the Redlons, and he built his house close to his northern boundary on the knoll just below the brick house built by Uncle David Martin, now in the

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well-known "Hobson Field." This was a beautiful site for a homestead. Mr. Field had served with his father, Lieut. Daniel Field, in the Revolution, and lived for several years near his father-in-law, Matthias Redion, in the south part of Buxton. When they moved into the wilderness on the Dalton Right, Mr. Field built his log-house, which was approached by a lane leading from the present highway, then only a bridle-path. After the death of " Uncle Daniel," Joseph Decker, who had married Annie Field, lived in a great, wide, weather-boarded dwelling there, which Mr. Field had built after the Redlon mills,* in which he was an owner, were put up on the brook above. Old Mrs. Field lived here with the Deckers until she secured a pension for her husband's army service ; then Paul Wentworth, whose wife was her daugh- ter, carried her to Greenwood, Me., where he had the use of her money many years. The land of Mr. Field extended down river to the present line between the Daniel Decker farm and the land of the late Amos Hobson. It was at the home of Daniel Field, on the beautiful elevation on the river side of the road, where Parson Coffin made his headquarters at the time his pudding was stolen, as elsewhere noticed in this volume. Zachary Field, a son of Daniel and Rachel (Redlon) Field, once built a house on his father's land at the river-bank above "Decker's Landing," now in Hobson's pasture, and where an old apple tree marked the spot for many years. Zachary moved to Cornish, and lived near his brother-in-law, Edmund Pendexter, some years, but came back to Phillipsburgh, and removed his house to the road-side nearer that of his father, just back of the well-known, old hackmatack tree, above the creek that flows from the cold spring which afforded what Uncle Daniel Decker called "howley water." Here, upon the Field Lot, were three "deserted hearth-stones " where once gathered the pioneer families. In these homes were heard the cry of infancy and the sigh of enfeebled age ; the drone of the busy spinning-wheel and the crashing loom. Every trace of these early homes, with the exception of some fragments of bricks occasionally turned up by the plow, has long since disappeared, and few now living know that a human habi- tation ever stood there. North of the College Right there was a "twenty-rod strip" that had been sold for taxes; this was purchased by John Redlon of Elliot G. Vaughan, and he built a log-house and cleared a small field where the brick house now stands. Here his eldest son, William, was burned to death by falling from a basket into the fireplace in the momentary absence of his mother. When John Redlon removed to Vermont, this "twenty-rod strip," with the buildings thereon, was sold to his brother Thomas, who lived by the brook-side above, and he conveyed the same to his son, Thomas, Jr., and David Martin, who married his daughter Eunice, who recently deceased within a few rods of where she was born, at the great age of ninety-eight. Uncle

* It will be observed that the names Redlon and Ridlon are used interchangeably ; such were the forms of spelling used by the persons above mentioned.

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David built his house where the present brick dwelling, which he also built, stands, and his brother-in-law, Thomas Ridlon, Jr., built the wide farm-house, where he spent his days, on the hill in the " Ridlon Neighborhood," so-called. The lower boundary of the Dalton Right was the northwest line of this "twenty-rod strip," and it extended to the line between the old John Lane mansion, above Bonnie Eagle, and the farm of Orrin Davis, I suppose. At any rate, Abram Redlon, another brother of Thomas, James, and John, moved up from Deerwander, where he settled at the date of his marriage, and built a house in what has since been the Lane pasture, and an old well there could be seen not many years ago. I have the original agreement to build a school- house near Abram Redlon's, on the old road that led from near the well-known "Gulf Bridge," over the hill back of the Joseph Ridlon farm-steading, and behind the Lane and Usher oaks; indications of this road were plainly visible a few years ago in the pasture. To this school-house the children of the early settlers on the Dalton Right acquired what little knowledge of books they possessed. Here, then, was another deserted hearth-stone near which it is said Abe Redlon used to keep a quarter of beef under the family couch on a truckle-bed, and when meat was wanted for dinner Aunt Patience pulled the bedstead out and cut her slices; then returned it with its burden to its seclu- sion. He removed to Ohio in 1800, and died in Indiana. Thomas Lewis, the man of song and prayer, another of the purchasers of the Dalton Right, settled on the spot where "Uncle Joe Ridlon," who bought him out when he removed to the " Kinnybeck," built his pleasant homestead. Uncle Thomas Lewis had a Boston woman for a wife, who was never in Boston in " all o' her born days." He was called " Elder Lewis" by some, as he was an exhorter who sometimes "tuck a text." The line between Thomas and James Redlon was where the fence now runs between Thomas C. Sawyer and Jacob Town- send. This great tract extended from the Saco river southwest beyond "Young's Meadow pond," since known as the Whale's pond, from which issued Redlon's brook, on which the Redlon mills were built, near where it flows into the main stream. The log-house of James Redlon was a little way back of the Robert Ridlon farm-house, now owned by Mrs. Whitehouse, and on the same site he built his framed dwelling after the mills were built. James Ridlon, Jr., who had settled at Salmon Falls, moved an old school- house to the corner by the road-side near the present house of Townsend ; he also built a house back in the field where the old orchard was, so we here find where two hearth-stones were deserted. Ichabod Cousins began to clear a farm on his part of the Dalton Right on the back end of the lot near where Caleb Kimball, another purchaser, hung his crane, and there built a barn, the foundation of which, in the bushes, I have seen. He "changed his mind," and finally settled near his brother-in-law, James Redlon. His hearth-stone was long ago removed and no vestige of his house has been seen for nearly

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half a century. Nicholas Ridlon, son of James, Ist, whose wife was Hannah Hancock, once lived on the high table-land where Joseph H. Ridlon now lives; but he allowed his hearth-stone to grow cold and vacated it for a tem- porary home at Steep Falls.

We will now call attention to the " Back Settlement," as it was early called, where Medeford Phillips, Caleb Kimball, John Bryant, and a Mr. Temple built houses. These dwellings, built of logs, were on the line of an ancient Indian trail that led from Saco river, over the ridge where the " Decker Lane" was opened, to the Little Ossipee river at South Limington, and we fancy that many a moccasin track has been made in the soft earth around the cool spring as the copper-skinned Sokokis came there on his journeys to drink and saw his dusky likeness reflected upon the clear water. On the knoll near this never failing fountain Mr. Temple- whence he came or whither went none can tell-built his cabin and dwelt in peace and poverty many years, and from the pure, abounding spring near his door Mrs. Temple filled her wooden bucket. Passing across the level land near where the "Flat Gully bars " used to be, we may see the site of John Bryant's humble home. To this spot he came from Scarborough with the Kimballs, and as their neighbors, he and his sons, John and Robert, both with families, cleared a small field. The land had not been paid for, and when the war of 1812 came on John Bryant, Jr., enlisted with the hope of obtaining money to clear the property from debt. He was killed by an Indian; his widow was married to a Bradbury and went to Ohio. Robert removed to the eastern part of the state, and the old folks went over to Limerick and spent their last days with their maiden daughters.

The Kimball house was upon the high land still farther northwest, and there was produced a family of sons and daughters whose swarthy tissue and big feet could not be duplicated in the plantation; as for height, we can only say, "There were giants in those days." Mr. Kimball cleared a good farm here and some said -- probably Uncle Dan Decker -that the dark com- plexion of the children was a result of eating smut when working on burnt ground. The house was burnt down, as will elsewhere appear, and was not rebuilt. On the old road that traversed these early clearings in the " Back Settlement " four long-used hearth-stones were abandoned, and those who once gathered around them at the evening time, as they roasted shenangoes in the ashes and green corn before the coals, have all gone out of human sight on that gloomy thoroughfare whose last gate-way opens into the silent putting- up-place named the grave.

The Dalton Right has been divided and sub-divided many times, and much of the land has passed out of possession of the descendants of the orig- inal owners. Here was established a considerable settlement as early as 1781, and the two neighborhoods were known as the "River Settlement " and " Back Settlement" for many years. From early days I have known every acre of

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this land purchased by my ancestors and their kindred. With my father and venerable grandfather I followed the mossy paths and winding wood-roads that passed through the noble pine forest around the old farms, when, with gun in hand, they went during the cool hours of the autumn day to hunt for partridges and pigeons. I have crept around the greenwood borders of the old, neglected clearings and bush-grown fields, where the pioneers followed the plow and gathered their harvests soon after the war-clouds of the Revo- lution had drifted away; and in more mature years I have followed along the cool banks of "Aunt Judy's brook " with fishing-rod and trap, until every nook and corner was familiar as the acreage of the cultivated farm. Within a few years, notwithstanding the changes in the face of the country, I have traced the old paths, and found the pellucid springs that bubble from the grassy mar- gins of the woodlands, to which my forefathers went from their fields to slake their thirst, and saw again the very places pointed out to me in childhood's ruddy morn, where bears, wild cats, and coons were caught or killed by the first settlers.

I well remember the crumbling foundations of the two Bryant houses and some decayed logs, locked at the corners, that had once been part of the small cow-hovel. A few scrubby apple trees were struggling for existence among the great overshadowing pines, and the path leading to the spring could still be seen winding down the hill-side. The grass-plot, where once the door-yard had afforded a play-ground for the Bryant children, was for many years cov- ered with thick verdure, and with each returning spring-time dotted with golden dandelions. The road that passed these dwellings, once worn by the rum- bling wheels of traffic, was overgrown and discontinued; everything savored of seclusion and abandonment. This was a favorite feeding-place for my grandfather's sheep, and while sitting upon the pasture bars, assuming the office of shepherd-boy, I spent many quiet, happy hours there, watching the sportive lambs as they chased each other around the bush-grown cellars. But my imagination was crowded with pictures of the past, and my vision of local objects dissolved into a mental survey of the long ago. All these hints of the abodes of human life were guiding hands to pensive meditation, and, beguiled by the subtle power of fancy, I rebuilt the dismantled dwellings and repeopled the silent solitudes. So deep was the spell that bound my mind that I seemed again to hear the merry voice of childhood, accompanied by the playful patter of children's busy feet. The melody of the happy mother's voice mingled with the hum of swift-revolving wheel, as nimble fingers deftly spun the fluffy flax. Again my inward ear caught the cheering clatter of dishes, as the frugal housewife spread her table for the noonday meal, and the resounding blast of the horn that summoned the toiling husbandmen from the virgin furrow or gilded harvest field. Once more the drone of pastoral bees was heard, and the bleating of lambs came down from the honeysuckle meadows to mingle

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with the muffled drum-beat of the partridge on the mossy log by the brook- side. As the deep shadows fell across the clearing and enveloped the quiet, rural scene, the shrill challenge of the mousing fox was heard on the field borders, the whip-poor-will repeated her plaintive note upon the deserted door_ stone, while the sound of tinkling sheep-bells from the vale below alternated .with those of the home-coming cattle in the pasture lane. In fancy I saw the weary men sitting about the open door while they discussed the latest news of the plantation and conjured wierd images in the spiral wreaths of smoke ascending from their pipes of clay. Within, the weary child was transported to the regions of repose by a mother's evening hymn, while the venerable sire sighed audibly as he pillowed his snowy head for his nightly slumber. When aroused from the romantic reverie by some startling sound I would break the silken threads of the net that had been woven about me, and find that all these pleasing pictures which had passed across my mental vision were like phantoms of a singularly realistic dream. Those who had once composed the happy domestic circle around these cold hearth-stones had long ago departed to the world of silence. The bewitching charms of those secluded nooks haunt my memory still, and as I vainly try to delineate some features of their matchless beauty, I mentally revisit the familiar locality and am, in spirit, a child once more. The march of improvement, the spoiler's hand, and unheed- ing plowshare have obliterated the last indication of the foundation of the homes of the pioneers, and but for this memorial the present generation would not know that the place had been the seat of a human habitation.

Deserted Homes in Hiram .- On a pleasant June morning, guided by one who had spent all his years in the neighborhood, we made our way to an extensive tract of land embosomed among rugged mountains to view a locality where some of the early pioneers of the broken country laid their first hearth- stones. Our first objective point was the deserted farm where John Clemons built his first cabin and opened a clearing; and where Capt. Artemas Richard- son, a retired seaman, for many years carried on very extensive farming opera- tions. Here, upon a high plateau of nearly level land, we found great fields stretching away on all sides; fields well laid out and enclosed with miles of heavy-built stone-wall, which of itself represented years of laborious toil. These expansive enclosures of good soil were once covered by enormous burdens of grass, or adorned by many acres of waving grain and luxuriant maize. Here, almost in the centre of the original plantation, once stood the great house with its capacious, annexed wings, along with barns and farm offices of dimensions commensurate with the abundant products of the estate. Now all these buildings lie in a confused heap; not one standing. We care- fully climbed over the fallen timbers whose size indicated their strength when filling their appointed places in the standing structures, and peered into the enormous cellars where once great store of milk, cream, and butter was kept;

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where numerous bins filled with Shenangoes, Mohawks, and Bluenoses were arranged along the wall-side. Here from ten to fifteen sleek cows came nightly from their dew-laden pastures bringing treasures of rich milk ; and the almost daily swash of the churn was prophetic of the butter-spanking that followed through every week of the year. Here great preparations were made for the Portland market, where the family supplies were procured in exchange for produce from the fields and products of the dairy. Once every week, for months together, the proprietor drove down to the city loaded with his harvest bounty, until he became well known among the merchants as a sagacious and successful farmer. He was by his neighbors and the inhabitants round-about considered to be "fore-handed " and "independent."

Great flocks of sheep grazed upon the sweet verdure of the mountain sides, and the daughters of Captain Richardson became expert wool-workers. The hum of spinning-wheels here kept time to the crash of the loom and clatter of flax-brake and swingle. Stockings and mittens grew rapidly upon the snapping needles at the evening fire-side and were "narrowed off" before the weary hands found rest. At each returning season the bumble-bee drone of the flax-spinney was heard as the nimble-fingered operator drew the fibrous thread. From the wool of the flocks and flax from the field-side all the clothing for the large family was home-made.

But now ruin and decay are everywhere seen. The extensive, dilapidated remains of the once well-appointed homestead buildings; the neglected fields with tumble-down walls; the dying orchard trees and bush-grown pasture lane; the unused well, from which the moss-covered bucket once brought cooling refreshment to the thirsty field-hands; the silence, and lonely grave in the field, all join in the sad story of change. The owner of this vast and once valuable rural estate came to a sad end. We saw the oaken beam among the debris of the barn frame where he closed his earthly career by self-strangulation. He seems to have been a man of violent temper, who demanded unquestioning obedience to all his wishes. Being habituated to command while upon the quarter-deck, when a mariner, he carried the same rigid discipline into his family. It has been related that for some disregard of an unreasonable command by one of his daughters he tied her up and whipped her until her flesh was cut into furrows, and to intensify her agony he washed her lacerated body in brine. For this inhuman act he was prose- cuted, and the report reached far and wide until he could scarcely go abroad from his home without being shunned and reproached. It was supposed that his remorse for such cruelty to his child and the embarrassment caused by the public denunciation drove him to a self-made gallows. His body rests alone in a corner of his now forsaken farm, neglected and unvisited.

From the spot where these melancholy events occurred we crossed the wide door-yard lawn and made our way down the farm-side on the line of an

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obsolete town road, through a tangled wood, to the spot where another hope- ful pioneer had laid the foundation of his home. Upon a knoll, surrounded by old fields long encroached upon by the extending forest, we saw the usual evidences indicating that once a human habitation had stood near; there were moss-grown and scrubby apple trees, the crumbling foundation of the chimney, the well-worn door-stone, and covered well. To this lonely spot came James Eastman, from service in the French and Indian war, and built his cabin in the great basin between the encircling mountains. Where once his fields extended upon the gradnal elevations of the hill-sides a dense forest is now flourishing, from which, where once the plow turned the steaming furrow, the lumbermen draw supplies for their insatiate mills. Under the wide-spreading trees, among the interlacing undergrowth, we saw the weather-stained walls and conical stone heaps long ago laid up by the calloused hands of the indus- trious farmer. Where rest the dusty remnants of the one who wrought among these templed hills? Upon a little hillock in the overshadowing forest we found the isolated grave of the old soldier, at whose head and feet rude stones had been set to mark the spot. Where once had been a well-turfed mound there is now a deep depression in the earth that tells the sad story of decay below. Yes, his grave is alone; no kindred dust was deposited here. His widow and children long ago deserted the lonely locality. Old men remember the aged couple as they went from farm to farm to dress flax and spin the "lint" for neighboring families. But this grave has not been entirely for- gotten, and every year finds the national flag that we plant at the soldier's resting-place, drooping under the sheltering pine trees here.

These were only two of the dozen or more farms seen and visited within this remote and hill-bordered amphitheatre, where, in the early years of the township's history, the sturdy and stout-hearted pioneers built a scattered, primitive hamlet. Farm joined farm here across the sunken valleys and up on the mountain slopes. Roads had been laid out and made passable for the robust wagons of those days; these old highways, winding sinuously under the shoulders and around the spurs of the mountains, spanned the moderate elevations and traversed the secluded valleys to the bank of the Saco, where they formed a junction with the river-road, built along the line of the old Pequawket trail. By such wood-shaded thoroughfares the isolated farmers who domiciled in the new plantation carried their grain to mill and visited the trading-post for supplies.

Following the well-defined track of a long-abandoned road we climbed a steep ascent, crept down through a sequestered valley, penetrated among the forbidding ledges, and reached a beautiful spot where, from a pure spring under the bank, a sparkling rill crossed the path. Close at hand, overgrown by stunted pines, we saw the base tiers of logs and the stones of the chimney where a son of the sea-girt town of old York made his early home; his name

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was Boston, but he was not a " Boston man." Passing up the brae we found the decayed stumps of an old orchard, the corner-stones where a barn once stood, and fields of considerable extent. All was as silent as the halls of Valhalla. No curling smoke to mark the habitation of human beings can be seen here; no monotonous bell of kine or sheep breaks the impressive still- ness. Here nature has pushed her conquest and reclaimed the lands once wrested from her primeval estates by the forest-killing pioneer, and is fast rehabilitating the onee denuded aeres with spontaneous evergreens.

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Saco Valley settlements and families. Historical, biographical, genealogical, traditional, and legendary, Part 22

Author: Ridlon, Gideon Tibbetts, 1841- [from old catalog] Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Portland, Me., The author Number of Pages: 1424

Author: Ridlon, Gideon Tibbetts, 1841- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Portland, Me., The author
Number of Pages: 1424