USA > Maine > Piscataquis County > Sangerville > Sangerville, Maine, 1814-1914; proceedings of the centennial celebration, June 13, 1914 > Part 2
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Attest. Isaac Macomber, Clerk.
Thus it seems that Daniel Bartlett was the first settled minis- ter in the town.
In the early days of Maine our pauper laws were so lax that it was possible for towns to set up paupers at auction in open town meeting and bid them off to the lowest bidder. That is, the one who would agree to support the person who was a town charge the cheapest was given the job, and whatever work such person could perform belonged to the one who bid off such person. Sometimes the bids were merely nominal, only one or two dollars for a year, the labor of the pauper evidently being the principal object in the transaction. And as it is typical of a custom that prevailed in that day not only in Sangerville but probably in nearly all other Maine towns, I copy the following which occurred at a special town meeting held November 19, 1823:
Voted to put up to the highest bidder Mrs. D's. three children separately for one year & the persons that bid them off are to board & clothe them & if they should be sick the town to pay the Doctor's bill, only Rachael the oldest was bid off by Mr. Oliver M. Brown for thirteen dollars and seventy-five cents for one year. Hiram was bid off by Mr. William Cleaves for eleven dollars & seventy-five cents for one year. Voted that Mrs. D. be set up at the same as the others & that she & the youngest be put up to- gether. Mrs. D. and the youngest was bid off by Mr. Oliver M. Brown for eight dollars per year.
This method of caring for the town's poor was cruel and un- just, being no less than one form of human slavery. The privilege under the law to proceed in this way was so flagrantly abused, and
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it became such a state wide disgrace, that the Legislature of Maine by Chapter 12 of the Public Laws of 1847, passed the following act :
"It shall not be lawful for the inhabitants of any town in this State, by its overseers or otherwise, to permit any poor and indigent persons, chargeable to such town, to be set up and bid off by way of auction, either for support or service. " And this has ever since been the law of Maine upon this subject. This is one of the statu- tory changes and one of many events which mark the evolution of the final absolute dissolution of the united interests of church and state in Maine.
The history of races, of nations, of states and of towns dem- onstrates the steady advancement and the unfaltering progress of man ; and we behold it right here in our study of these old Sanger- ville town records, not only regarding this matter and the abandon- ment of tithing-men as town officers, but in other things which they disclose. The poets and the philosophers of all the ages have seen and understood this great truth. We see with the eyes of Whit- tier :
And step by step, since time began, I see the steady gain of man.
Or with Tennyson :
Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.
Somehow the human race has always desired the use of stimu- lants in the form of strong drink and in later years it has been deemed wise to regulate and restrict such use as far as it may be possible so to do. The Legislature of Maine by Chapter 133 of the Public Laws of 1821, approved March 20, 1821, enacted "that no person shall presume to be a common victualler, innholder, or seller of wine, beer, ale, cider, brandy, rum or any strong liquors by retail, . except such persons be duly licensed as
is hereinafter provided, on pain of forfeiting the sum of fifty dol- lars," etc. The licensing board consisted of the selectmen. treas- urer and town clerk of towns, and the assessors. treasurer and clerk of each plantation ; such persons to meet on the second Monday of September of each year for the purpose of acting on applications for licenses. The law instructed this board to license for one year
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as retailers of strong drink, "as many persons of sober life and con- versation, and suitably qualified for the employment, for which they may severally apply to be licensed, as they may deem necessary."
These licenses paid into the town treasury the sum of six dol- lars for this privilege and the town clerk received twenty-five cents for recording each license. The first record of the doings of the licensing board in Sangerville was on Monday, the ninth day of September, 1822, at the dwelling house of Isaac Macomber, when a license was granted to Isaac Macomber "as a retailer agreeable to law." It seemed, however, that Mr. Macomber was unable to sat- isfy all of the demands of this nature, for on January 28, 1823, "Mr. Edward Mitchell was licensed as a retailer until the next annual meeting in September." In 1825 the business of retailing strong drink and grog had increased so that five persons were li- censed, namely : Edward Mitchell, Moses Ayer, Isaac Macomber, Thomas Mansfield and Thomas Fuller, an innholder.
For the first several years the town meetings were usually held in dwelling houses, but about 1823 they began to hold them in "the schoolhouse near Carleton's Mills." The first list of jurors pre- sented to the town by the selectmen and accepted as such by the voters was on April 17, 1823, and were as follows: William Par- sons, Guy Carleton, Thomas Fuller, Robert. Carleton, Wing Spooner and Abel Brockway.
It would have been both a physical and mental impossibility for any one to have prepared an accurate outline even of the early history of Sangerville in the short time allotted to me by your com- mittee. I could only take the old records available, and what they reminded me of, and the meager information of a few older persons which were attainable and make an attempt to give you an indis- tinct and what is simply a bird's-eye view of the life and labors of these first settlers in the town of Sangerville. There were four dis- tinct points of settlement in the town ; East Sangerville or Lane's Corner ; Carleton's Mills or Sangerville Village; South Sangerville, (which later included Brockway's Mills), and Gilman's Corner, and French's Mills in the southwesterly part of the town. The settlers in East Sangerville came largely from Sherborn, Massachusetts, and the Gilmans and their neighbors from New Hampshire, while the sources of the Carleton Mills settlement were more mixed, coming
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not only from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, but from other towns in Maine and from other portions of New England as well.
Benjamin Lane at Lane's Corner and Stephen Lowell at Carle- ton's Mills were among the first storekeepers in town. The Gil- mans of Gilman's Corner became famous for the making and selling of winnowing mills to the farmers for many miles around, and for a while Moses Gilman kept a small store at Gilman's Corner.
I recall Lucian French of French's Mills as a man, for his day and generation, of more than ordinary intelligence and of rather superior intellectual attainments. He was a mechanic and quite studious along these and mathematical lines, but I remember him more as an enthusiastic follower of William Miller in his religious belief or what is now known as a Second Adventist.
The Baileys, Lougees, Parsonses, Brockways, Bishops, Maxims, Folsoms, Spragues and Fowlers were among the first settlers of South Sangerville. Rufus Brockway was from the Province of New Brunswick. His son, Cyrus Broekway, was quite prominent in town affairs and was at different times one of the selectmen. His daugh- ter Helen married the late Colonel Charles A. Clark of Cedar Rap- ids, Iowa, a prominent lawyer of the Middle West,ª and a native of Sangerville. Among other men of note who are natives of this town the name of Colonel Stanley Plummer of Dexter should not be overlooked.
Samuel Maxim was a prosperous farmer whose farm adjoined that of Heirey Bishop. He was a brother of Isaac Maxim, who lived for a time in the Nickerson house opposite the home of Cyrus Brockway at Brockway's Mills. Isaac was the father of Sir Hiram Maxim and it was in this Nickerson house that Sir Hiram was born. In my boyhood days it was called the "Young Cyrus Brockway house" as Cyrus Brockway 2d, a nephew of Cyrus, son of Rufus, resided there for several years after the Maxims moved out. It was the sons and daughters of the first settlers that I knew in my childhood days, and they were sturdy, frugal and industrious people. The old time musters with their annual jollifications, cider, rum and long sheets of gingerbread were then only a memory to be related to the younger generation by the old gray haired Colonels, Majors
(a) Colonel Clark died at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, December 22, 1913.
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and Captains who had survived from the glorious days of the old Maine Militia.
I can recall the flocks of sheep being driven down the Bishop Hill by the Farnhams, Andersons, Damons, and others to be washed at the falls at Brockway's Mills which were on the outlet of Center Pond. All of the neighbors thereabouts washed their sheep at these falls and a jug of good old cider usually accompanied the sheep washing process.
I can see the pedlers with their carts top heavy with great sacks of paper rags, which they bought in exchange for their wares at three cents per pound ; drovers, who went through the country buy- ing large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep for the Brighton mar- ket. I can see the "old stragglers" that made periodical visits and who were of a similar type to our present wandering Willies, for the latter day "tramp, " had not then been evolved.
I remember perhaps more distinctly than any of them "Old Straggler French" whom David Barker has immortalized in his poem "To Leather French."
Then the scanning of these old records brings vividly to mind the days when tallow candles and the blaze from the pine knots in the fire-places furnished the evening lights.
I remember Sangerville in those days as a type of the country places in Maine as they existed a half a century ago or more. It had several large common school districts and there were saw, shingle and grist-mills at the village, at Knowlton's, Brockway's Mills and French's Mills, but these grist-mills could only grind corn and grain into meal and could not bolt wheat, barley and rye into flour, so when that was to be done, we around Brockway's Mills, hauled our grists either to Dexter or Guilford, and those around East Sanger- ville I think generally went to Dover for this purpose.
As the best description that I can write of the old neighbor- hood 1 quote the following from "Cy Strong's Neighborhood" in Backwoods Sketches :ª
Those were good old days, never to return, for the conditions can never again be the same. Although they lived far apart in many instances, they were very social and enjoyed life. Besides
(a) Backwoods Sketches, John Francis Sprague, (Augusta, 1912) p. 147.
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meeting each other every Sunday at the schoolhouses to attend re- ligious meetings, they would also meet together to do considerable of their farm and household work.
Not a quilt was ever made in the Strong neighborhood except at a quilting-bee, when the women and older girls would all assem- ble at the home where the quilt was to be made, and when it was finished the affair would wind up with all the men and boys being present at a generous supper of baked beans, pies and twisted doughnuts sweetened with molasses. Then the visiting women would all inquire of the hostess how she made such nice mince and pumpkin pies, and while riding home on the oxsleds would turn up their noses to each other and say that they were about the mean- · est pies they had seen this year.
All of the apples were prepared for drying at paring-bees, all' of the corn was husked out and made ready for the shed chamber at huskings, and from time immemorial the finding of a red ear of corn by a blushing maiden was the signal for a diversion in kissing; all of the houses and barns were raised at raisings and the men and women all attended to assist the good woman of the house in pre- paring a big supper. Not least in the round of gaieties was the piling-bee. When any of the neighbors had a ten or twenty acre lot of trees which had been cut down in long wind-rows and which they called "a fell piece," they would set it on fire and get a good or a poor burn as the case might be, but after the fire many huge charred trees remained, which had to be junked up and rolled into piles to season for a second burning. When ready for the first pil- ing, the farmer would send invitations to all of the neighbors to come to his piling-bee and the same festivities would follow the pil- ing of the burnt piece that followed the making of the quilt, the paring of the apples, the husking of the corn and the raising of the barn. Then the young folks had their spelling, singing and writing schools in the long winter evenings in the schoolhouse when all were merry and gay.
Each month of May was also a jolly time for the boys and girls, and more than one courtship was the result of the annual hanging of May baskets to each other's doors. An unwritten law governed the custom that the hanger must make a loud knock at the door when he or she left the basket, which was always made from some bright colored paper, and the recipient, if present, must give chase and catch the hanger, if possible. When thus caught, hugging and kissing followed, as a matter of course. When Mary Farnham hung a May basket for Martin Osgood she enclosed a neat little note upon which was written:
A Martin is a pretty bird, The sweetest songster I ever heard; And I have come a rod or more To hang a basket at his door.
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Martina caught Mary, and as others had a hand in it the cat was out of the bag, for several saw the billet. But Martin and Mary didn't care much, as they were quite sweet on each other. If poor Martin hadn't died with consumption there might have been a wed- ding some day. The lights and shadows of life in the old neighborhood are now only fading memories. Cy Strong and his sturdy neighbors long since passed into the mysterious be- yond. Some of the sons and daughters have taken the same dark journey, others are now wrinkled men and grayhaired women in other climes and places. The cows graze the hillside as then, the fields of waving grain are as golden, the clover is as fragrant, the flowers bloom as beautiful, the birds sing as sweetly and the sun shines as brightly as in the good old days when drovers, peddlers, . travelers and old stragglers would inquire how far it was to Cy Strong's neighborhood.
About the year 1784 Samuel Maxim and his brother Ephraim moved from Wareham, Massachusetts, to New Sandwich in the Province of Maine, afterwards (1798) incorporated as the town of Wayne. Subsequently their father, Nathan Maxim, moved from Wareham to Wayne and resided with them until his death. Isaac Maxim, the son of Samuel, was born in the town of Strong in the District of Maine, October 16, 1814, and died in Wayne April 29. 1883. He moved into what is now Piscataquis County before the county was incorporated. He married Harriett Boston Stevens in Blanchard, Maine, October 14, 1838. His son, Hiram Stevens Maxim, now known throughout the civilized world as Sir Hiram Maxim, was born in that part of Sangerville known as Brockway's Mills, in what was formerly called the Nickerson house, February 5, 1840.
Isaac Maxim resided with his family for many years in several different towns in Piscataquis County before his departure for Wayne. My own recollection of him is that of a man of full height, well proportioned, with keen black eyes, a massive forehead, with hair and a lengthy beard whitened by the frosts of many winters, giving him a truly patriarchal appearance. Although never har- ing had but a limited education he was during his life a profound student of such subjects as engaged his attention. His favorite themes of thought were of matters that pertained to the mechan-
(a) Martin Maxim is the one referred to. IIe was a promising young man who died in early manhood, and was the son of Samuel Maxim and a cousin of Sir Hiram, and the young lady was a daughter of Deacon Joseph Fowler.
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ical arts and inventions and also scientific and theological subjeets. As his son Hiram said of him in after years in an interview pub- lished in the Pall-Mall Gazette: "He was a philosopher if there ever was one, " yet he was a dreamer more than he was a practical man of affairs. It was from him that Sir Hiram received the first impression of the principle in mechanism upon which is founded the famous Maxim Machine Gun, that has made the name of Hiram Stevens Maxim world renowned and has placed him in the ranks of the world's greatest and most eminent inventors. But while the germ came from the father, it was the son's genius that developed and perfected it and made it of practical use to the armies of the world.
Someone has said that the people of this world are divided into two classes, viz. : "The men who have seen visions and the herd that has laughed at the visions and the visionary."
Isaac Maxim saw visions and dreamed dreams, but I will always remember him with reverence and respect for he was not only a man of great intelleet but thoroughly honest and upright and gave in- spiration to a family of inventors who are not dreamers but pre- eminently men of affairs.
Sir Hiram Maxim is a resident of the world and not of any one commonwealth, nation or kingdom, and deals, makes contracts and does things with great governments, and with sovereigns and potentates that represent millions of the world's inhabitants. He is one of the world's great inventors, the peer of a Newton, a Morse and a Franklin, and a compeer of the great Edison.
William G. Clark was for many years a lawyer in Sangerville. He was for a time town clerk and held other town offices. He reared a large family, his sons becoming leading and influential men. Colonel Charles A. Clark of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was one of them.
Moses Carr, fated to become an important factor in the indus- trial expansion of the town, and who lived to the remarkable age of one hundred and one years, was born in Vienna, Maine, April 22, 1810. He married Sally Ladd of the same town. As a farm laborer in his native town he had earned and saved about three hundred dollars, and with this money in his pocket, and his wife and father accompanying him on a sled drawn by a pair of oxen,
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in the winter of 1831, he moved to Sangerville and purchased a farm then having been but little improved by a few acres of cleared land and a log cabin. Here he developed a fertile farm which was his home during his lifetime. In his day there were no railroads in this part of Maine, and not only all of the travel here from other parts came over the highways in stage coaches, but all of the merchandise supplied to these inhabitants had to be hauled from Bangor on what were called "tote" teams. Mr. Carr early became a toter to and from Bangor. Then he extended his toting or teaming to the lumber camps in the woods at the north of us and would purchase products of the farmers and haul them to the lum- ber camps and sell them at a profit. One of the products that he handled with great success was called "cider apple sauce." Then the farmers' wives were skilled in an art that at sometime during the past fifty years, was, apparently, suddenly and simultaneously lost by the farmer folk all over the State of Maine. In my opin- ion this was the richest and most delicious table sauce ever known of or used by any people in this world. It was to me like Brutus' idea, "a dish fit for the gods." While few if any today appear to have the least conception of how it should be made the process was then a matter of common knowledge. Farmers with large orchards in the neighborhood where I lived when a boy, farmers like Samuel Maxim, Heircy Bishop, Josiah S. Folsom and Joseph Fowler, would each make several barrels of it every fall. Moses Carr soon founded a successful business in purchasing barrels of apple sauce of them and selling it to the lumbermen. As a farmer, teamster and dealer in farm produce he amassed a fortune which in later years he successfully used in enlarging and develop- ing the woolen industry in this town.
The later prosperity of Sangerville is largely indebted to Moses Carr and his sons and to the late David R. Campbell and his sons, for their activities in establishing here the business of manufactur- ing woolen cloth.
Another early Sangerville family that made its mark in town descended from Elder William Oakes or as the family name is some- times spelled in the old records, Oak. He moved here from Skow- hegan, Maine, and was a descendant of Nathaniel Oak, born in England in about 1645 and who emigrated to Marlboro, (now
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Northboro, Massachusetts), about 1660-5. His son, William Oaks, Jr., was a colonel in the Maine Militia and active in the affairs of the new town. He was born in Canaan, Maine, November 8, 1795. He married Mary Weymouth, May 3, 1819. In the "Family reg- ister of Nathaniel Oak of Marlboro, Mass., and his descendants" by Henry Lebbeus Oak, published in 1906, I take the following relating to him :
"8 children ; Abner, James, William, Albion, Valentine, Wil- liam, Mary, Augustus. Colonel William Oaks was a very promi- nent citizen, Colonel of Militia holding town, county and state af- fairs. It is regretted that a more detailed account of his life has not been furnished. Many of his descendants are in the professions -lawyers, teachers, engineers and artists." The late William P. Oakes of Foxcroft was one of his sons, a graduate of Colby College, a member of the bar, but better known throughout eastern Maine as a civil engineer and land surveyor. While he resided in Sanger- ville he was for many years chairman of the board of selectmen and held the same position a part of the time while he resided in Fox- croft.
The first marriage in Sangerville after its legal organization was that of Joseph Morgridge to Miss Olive Oakes, who were united in marriage May 15, 1815, by Samuel McClanathan, justice of the peace. He appears to have been the only justice of the peace here for several years and until 1821 when the name of Benjamin C. Goss appears in this capacity. Then followed Guy Carleton, Isaac Macomber and Samuel C. Clark.
Among others of the leading men of Sangerville whom I can recall and who were either of the earliest settlers, then venerable, or their hardy sons and daughters, were Enoch Adams, Enos A. Flanders, Benjamin Lane, John S. Cleaves, Phileoman C. Parsons, Leonard Dearth and John Parsons; the Jacksons, the Farnhams, the Ponds, the Ordways, the Weymouths and the Carsleys.
John Parsons, who was my grandfather on my mother's side and also the grandfather of the Honorable Willis E. Parsons, your orator today, was the son of Kendall and Elizia (Bryant) Parsons and was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 15, 1781. His first home in Maine was in the town of Canton and it is not known just when he moved to Sangerville, but I believe it to have
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been prior to 1830. He died in Easton, Maine, March 26, 1871. I can remember well of listening to his stories of the privation, the cold seasons, the severe winters and the toil and suffering of his early life in this town.
About 1820 Jeremiah Abbott of Andover, Massachusetts, settled in the adjoining town of Dexter and soon built a little card- ing mill which was the beginning of the woolen industry in that town. My Grandfather Parsons has often told me of shearing his sheep, taking the fleeces of wool on his back and carrying them down through the woods to Abbott's Mill, or as he expressed it "to Mr. Abbets" to be carded into rolls and later to be by the good wife spun into yarn and finally woven into cloth for family use.
'The Jacksons of Sangerville have always been numbered among the worthy and substantial citizens of the town. They descended from William Jackson who moved here from Litchfield, Maine, in March, 1812. One of his sons, Myrick S. Jackson, went from San- gerville to Bangor when a young man and resided there during the remainder of his life. He was long engaged in a successful mer- cantile business in that city. Alden D. Jackson still lives on the old homestead farm.
It would require much time and tedious research, as much as it ought, in justice to their memory, to be done, to assemble ma- terial facts relative to these rugged pioneers who first came into this wilderness and in a fierce battle for existence laid the foundations for the beautiful, comfortable and luxurious homes which we see to- day throughout this prosperous town. And they accomplished more even than the building of homes; they were founders of a town and co-workers with other dauntless spirits who carved out a County and erected a State.
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