USA > Maine > Waldo County > Brooks > Sketches of Brooks history > Part 29
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On the place that Charles Bessey had of Dr. A. W. Rich, Seth Brown used to keep store and farm it too some years before Brooks. He sold out his store to a man by the name of Potter. After he came here, he undertook to go into the potash business but failed up and left town, and a few nights later the store was burned. It set across the road front of the house. Mr. Brown left town about 1839.
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Then Jacob Havener lived there. 1845 Erastus Stephenson lived there. That was the time James Morse came to Brooks. He worked for Mr. Stephenson. Mr. Stephenson worked in the shipyard in Bel- fast and sold the place to William Collier and his father. His father was a Methodist preacher. They came from what is now the Town of Washington, and two years later, William made a trade with his brother, Joel T. Collier. Gave him the farm and a number of hundred dollars to take care of his father and mother. He went back to Washington. Later Joel sold a part to Bennett Pilley. That is what George Roberts had. The remainder he sold to Dr. A W. Rich.
The George Roberts place, Daniel Roberts lived there when I was a small boy. He sold to Libbeus Jones when he came to West Brooks, then later Parson Wiswell lived there twelve years, then Bennett Pilley and he sold to Alonzo Roberts. There was only one acre in the place north of the road until Bennett Pilley had it.
The place where Albert Rose lived, when I was a small boy and went to the village to school, Benjamin Farris lived there. He had a lot. of boys. He sold to a Dr. Gilman that came to Brooks about 182 -. When he sold he bought where the Lot Jones house is. When Dr. Gilman left town Jacob Havener lived there. Had a blacksmith shop across the street, almost opposite the church. When he left town he went to Belfast and Loren Rose went there.
Where William C. Rowe lives, Joseph Scribner lived. He was an old man when I was a young man. They used to say you would have to stick up a stick to see if he moved. After his wife died, their grandson Wesley Scribner had the place and sold to William C. Rowe.
John McArthur lived there before Mr. Rowe and traded where M. Chase used to trade, and he was in Brooks in 1847 to 1848 and went from Brooks to Augusta where he died.
Where Isaac Leathers lived, Joseph Havener lived. He was a blacksmith and had a shop where the building stands that Daniel Barnes kept store. He lived there when I used to go to school at the village when 6 or 7 years old. I used to work for him when I was a boy. He said he wanted me because I was a good boy to work. After he died, James Havener married his widow and lived there. He lived there in 1845. When he left town, Ebenezer Prescott lived and died there. Later Joel T. Collier lived there and the house was burned and another one built. Ebenezer Prescott was a nephew of Elmer Page and brother of Page Prescott who used to live where
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Alonzo Davis, now lives in Jackson. Then, a Mrs. Andrews lived there. She was a sister of Shadrach Hall. Then John Brown lived there, then Daniel Jones.
Where George Miller lives, Silas Jones, W. S. Jones' grandfather, lived. He lived there when I was a small boy and tended the grist mill until . Mr. Page bought it and got Mr. Solomon Bolton to tend the mill. Mr. Bolton bought of Mr. Jones and Mr. Jones bought of Daniel Roberts where George Roberts lives, after Mr. Bolton. A Mr. William Rich tended the mill, later Calvin Fogg, and later the house was burned and Mrs. Kate Leathers built the house that stands there now.
Where F. W. Brown, Jr. lives, Jothan Roberts lived, when I used to go to school at the village in 1825 and 1826. After he left town, there was a Mr. Kelley lived there in 1843, and 1844 a Mr. Bennett lived there and traded in the Winchester building. In 1845 I lived there, 1846 Rufus Roberts lived there, later Orrin Prescott lived there, and he sold out to Timothy Thorndike, Jr.
Nicholas Varney had a blacksmith's shop and worked blacksmith- ing where Mr. Brown's store was, in front of the Dr. Rich house. He lived there when his wife died by getting her clothes afire and being burned so that she lived but a short time. Later John Gordon lived there.
The Lot Jones house, Libbeus Jones built. I worked on it for him when he built it. The Ira Bowden blacksmith shop is the building that was the house that used to be there.
The place where Frank Ames lived, Phineas Ashman used to live. He came there soon after the town was first settled and was land agent for Mr. Sears, Prescott and Thorndike, who owned a large tract of land in Brooks, Waldo, Monroe, Jackson, Dixmont, Thorn- dike and Knox. He did not pay for the farm and it was sold to Emery Hanson, who used to live in Thorndike. After he died, Mr. Page lived there until he exchanged the grist mill with Nathan Hill for a farm in Northport. He sold to Joel T. Collier and Joel ex- changed it with F. Ames for the place at South Brooks, where he died. Then Mr. Ashman left the place. He came to the village where H. H. Pilley lives and was postmaster quite a number of years and at last died a town charge.
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WILLIS EVERETT MORSE
WILLIS EVERETT MORSE, son of James Gilmore and Susan Wilson Morse, born at Brooks, Maine, January 11, 1857, died at Lowell, Mass., December 17, 1928. Married first, Mrs. Emily S. Hanson at Lawrence, Mass., July 30, 1879, who died October 22, 1920. Mar- ried second, Mrs. Maude F. Black of Lowell, Mass., February 1, 1928. No children by either marriage. A step-daughter, Gertrude
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Willis Everett Morse, Gertrude B. Hanson, Emily S. Morse
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B. Hanson, now Mrs. Gertrude B. Merrill of Syracuse, New York. The daughter of Emily Hanson Morse, for some time made her home with Mr. Morse.
Mr. Morse was a regular attendant of the Congregational Church of the city of Lowell, a member of the Central Lodge of Odd Fel- lows, and the Pilgrim Encampment, of Lowell, and was a Past chief Patriarch of Odd Fellows. Served as Councilman for the city of Lowell. He was chief electrician for the Biglow Carpet Company for over thirty-five years, retiring in March, 1910. Political preference, Republican.
JAMES GILMORE MORSE
JAMES GILMORE MORSE, the father of Willis Everett Morse, was born in Troy, Maine, April 26, 1819, died February 20, 1897. Married SUSAN WILSON, who was born in Troy, Maine, June 14, 1824, died October 1, 1871.
HARVEY MORSE
HARVEY MORSE, the grandfather of Willis Everett Morse lived in Troy, Maine, many years, or that section of the state. His wife, SARAH GIL- MORE, was born November 11, 1787 and died May 6, 1829.
The Morses were very religious James G. Morse people and enjoyed the respect of the Communities in which they resided. They lived for a time in Troy, Dixmont and Brooks, Maine. The last known residence of James G. Morse in Brooks, was on the right side of the road leading from Brooks Corner to Monroe, and for a time occupied by William Rolfe, Superintendent of the Portland Packing Company and later owned by the late Ezra A. Carpenter. Mr. Morse also owned for several years a lot of land and building which was used for a Car- riage Shop; on this lot was later built the Lane Post Office Block.
A reprint of two newspaper articles, one appearing in the Lowell Sunday Telegram, October 2, 1904 and the other in the Lowell Courier Citizen of March 7, 1910 in regard to Willis Everett Morse, having been furnished by Mrs. Maud Black Morse.
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LOWELL'S FIRST ELECTRIC LIGHT
Plant Set up in Carpet Mills by Willis E. Morse
(News Item as printed in the Lowell Sunday Telegram, October 2, 1904.) Willis E. Morse, who has charge of the electrical plant of the Lowell branch of the Bigelow Carpet Company, enjoys the proud distinction of having put in the first successful electrical plant ever installed in Lowell. Mr. Morse has been in the employ of the Carpet for more than a quarter of a century, and in the passing years has seen the plant more than doubled. In buildings, ma- chinery, equipment and methods the Carpet is the most modern and up-to- date of all the great corporations in Lowell, and the result is satisfactory dividends for stock-holders and good wages for operatives.
"It was on the eleventh day of September, 1881, that the first arc-light dynamo, run successfully in Lowell, was set in operation," said Mr. Morse to a Telegram reporter yesterday. "I set it up and started it going on the ground floor of the old cotton mill of the Carpet, right opposite the door of the counting room. It was a ten-light Weston machine, and it worked. like a charm. From it we supplied six arc lights in the ingrain finishing room and four arc lights in the Brussels finishing room.
"About the first of October in the same year we started the first incandes- cent machine that was ever run in Lowell. It was a 200-light United States dynamo. From this machine eighty-eight 24-candle power incandescents were supplied in the ingrain weave room and forty in the little brussels mill which has just been completed.
"When we had got our plants to running smoothly, Andrew Swapp, who was then superintendent of the Carpet, thought it would be a good thing, to in- vite the public to come in and see how they worked. Mr. Swapp, by the way, was the father of Andrew G. Swapp, so long a member of the school com- mittee. So one evening the gates were thrown open until nine o'clock so that the people might come in and see the dynanios running and the lights burn- ing. And they came by thousands and thousands, for electric lights, as you may imagine, were a novelty in Lowell at that time. The people had never seen the like before, and it was entertaining to listen to their exclamations and comments.
"Among the visitors were Mr. Bradbury and others who soon afterward joined themselves in a stock company and became incorporated as the Middle- sex Electric Light Company. The formation of this company was a direct re- sult of their inspection of the Carpet's little plant, and from it has grown the Lowell Electric Light corporation of today, which furnishes electrical light, heat and power for Lowell and vicinity. The use of electricity has become familiar to everybody, and it is a simple matter to have lights installed in your house or a motor in your place of business, and in summertime you don't feel at ease unless you have an electric fan at your elbow to keep the flies off; but it was a different story twenty-three years ago to the thousands who came to inspect our plant.
"In passing I might say that the Middlesex Electric Light Company began operations about the first of January, 1882 in the basement of the Davis & . - Sargent Building in Middlesex street, with six Weston machines. The company soon outgrew these quarters and removed to the old, blue building in Jackson street where the famous Colwell motor was quartered. One of the Colwell motors was used for generating power by the Electric Light Company, but it was not a
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howling success, as many Lowell people who invested in the Colwell stock found to their sorrow. The Middlesex Company put in about sixty arc lights in drugstores and other stores. About the first one installed was in the drug- store of Crowell & Harrison at the corner of Central and Middlesex streets. I remember what a lot of wonder and admiration there was for the splendid manner in which these arc lights illuminated their surroundings.
"In 1883 the board of Aldermen ordered the first electric street lights, and they were put in by the Middlesex Company. There was a good deal of crit- icism of the action of the aldermen at the time, but it died out as soon as people saw the lights in operation and realized that a new and better era in street lighting had dawned. The man who would advocate doing away with electric street lights now would be considered a fit subject for the crazy-house. The electric light station went from Jackson street to Middle street, where the Institute building now stands, and later was installed in a new building .in Belvidere, the company having in the meantime passed through several reorgan- izations and become the Lowell Electric Light corporation.
"About the first of November. 1881, the firm of Putnam & Son installed an electric lighting plant in their store, they being the first private concern in Lowell to light by electricity. They had an engine and boiler in the basement, and ran an eight-light Brush machine. I used to go over there often to tinker with the plant, as some of the lights did not work just right. The plant was abandoned when it became evident that light could be secured from the Electric Light company cheaper than it could be manufactured on such a small scale."
Returning to a consideration of the Carpet's electrical outfit, Mr. Morse said it had grown mightily since the first machines were put in. "In the beginning we had eighty-eight incandescents; now we have four thousand incandescents in operation, and a plant that will furnish juice for five thousand lights. Practi- cally the whole Carpet plant is lighted by electricity. We use gas in some places, but in most of the mills, including the new structures, there is no piping for gas-we depend entirely on electricity for artificial light.
"We have three 1000-light generators and two 1500-light generators, making a total capacity of five thousand lights. Then we have several motors for run- ning shafting where it is difficult to place driving belts. It is an easy matter to run a wire and set a motor in a place you couldn't conveniently reach with a belt. Our dynamos are driven by steam power, but for use in case of emergency one of our 1000-light machines is connected with a turbine water wheel, so that by throwing in a clutch we can start it running when there is no steam power."
In the dynamo room proper of the Carpet plant the three 1000-light and one of the 1500-light machines are located. The other 1500-light machine is in the boiler house, and is operated separately from the others. This machine will furnish light for the Brussels mills when needed. When it is not running the light comes from the dynamo room. By means of a double switch-board the lights can be connected with either system as desired.
Mr. Morse showed the Telegram man about all there was to be seen in connection with the electrical system of the Carpet, and took a justifiable pride in pointing out its many good features, especially the accuracy and neatness of the wiring, which would be an ornament to a business office or a mercantile establishment. He has some interesting relics of the early days of electric lighting and of the days that have intervened, which show the tremendous
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progress that has been made in the system and its equipment during the last twenty years. There is a wide gap between the clumsy wooden socket with which the first incandescent was equipped and the handsome and handy metal socket of today.
Mr. Morse is wiring a thermostat system for the Carpet's new coal shed whereby the breaking out of fire in any part of it will be quickly commun- icated to an. enunciator on which there are fifty numbers, thus giving notice of the blaze and its location in time for prompt measures to be taken to ex- tinguish it. Fifty thermostats connected with a corresponding number of elec- tric bells are scattered through the mammoth coal shed, and the melting of one . of these is promptly followed by the ringing of a bell whose number shows the exact location of the blaze.
WILLIS E. MORSE LEAVES THE BIGELOW COMPANY
(News item as printed in the Lowell Courier Citizen, Monday, March 7, 1910.)
Mr. Willis E. Morse, for 35 years a valued employee of the Bigelow Carpet Company-and the corporation that preceded it-has retired from the position of superintendent of the electrical department, to devote all of his time to his own interests, and incidently enjoy the fruits of his labors.
Mr. Morse, who has an attractive home at 70 Third Street, is the owner of considerable real estate and buildings in the city, the care of which has been a growing task with his regular business. "I have been trying for two years to get up courage to resign, but I found it very hard to do so," he said to the Courier-Citizen last night. "I have served under three agents, Andrew Swapp, Alvin S. Lyon and the present agent, William Kendall Fairbanks. My rela- tions with all of them have been most friendly, and I was loth to retire, though I was ready to do so and had no excuse for further delaying it. Mr. Fairbanks has expressed the appreciation of the company for my service in a very friendly letter.
Mr. Morse entered the employ of the old "carpet mills" as office boy when he was. 16 years old, and he says that he has enjoyed his work ever since. He gradually rose to the position of having charge of the lighting of the mills, and thus it came about that he was the first man to install an elec- trical lighting plant in Lowell.
"I knew very little about electricity at the time," he said. as a member of the Courier-Citizen staff pressed him for a reminiscence. "I had seen my first electric lights in Philadelphia at the time of the exposition-an occasion when the telephone and so many other great inventions were first presented to the public. That was in '76, and I began to read all the books on electricity that I could find.
"Agent Swapp. the father of Andrew G. Swapp, who recently retired from the school board, wanted to introduce the new light into the carpet mills. On Sept. 11, 1SS1, we got the first arc-light dynamo in operation. We had a man named Wescott, now living somewhere on the Cape, to assist us, but I found that he knew about as much as I did on electricity at the time. However, we set up the dynamo on the ground floor of the old cotton mill right opposite the door of the counting room.
It was a 10-light Weston machine, and from it we supplied six lights to the ingrain finishing room and four in the Brussels finishing room. By the first
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of October we had 200-light United States dynamo running from which we supplied 88 24-candle power incandescents to the ingrain weave room and 40 in a new Brussels mill that had just been completed.
"We had all kinds of trouble in installing the plant. The fuse metals would melt out, and our switches were of the crudest kind. We had no particular system in stringing our wires, and ran them anywhere. In the new mill of the Bigelow company we recently installed 1000 lights, and the wiring is probably the. best of its kind in the country, if not in the world, and we did it all with our own help; but our work at that time, back in 1SS1, was a funny job as I look back at it now.
"However, we were all greatly pleased with the result. We had the new lights, and there was nothing in Lowell like them. Mr. Swapp wanted to invite the public in to see theni, and so we threw open the mill gates one evening until 9 o'clock, and had all the lights turned on. Thousands of cit- izens came to see the display, and were very much impressed. Indeed, from that exhibition originated the idea of an electrical company in Lowell, and the Middlesex Electric Light Co., was formed a few months later. It began operations in the basement of the Davis and Sargent building in Middlesex Street, with six Weston machines. The company soon outgrew these quarters and removed to the old blue building in Jackson street, where the famous Colwell motor was installed. One of the Colwell motors was used to generate power for the Middesex company; but it was not a great success. The Mid- dlesex company put 60 lights into downtown stores, and the public began to sit up and predict a great future for Lowell.
"In 1883 the board of Aldermen authorized the first electric lights, which met with considerable criticism until they were in operation, when everybody wanted them on the streets. The electric light company was removed to Middle street as its business increased, and later had a building of it own, and after a re- organization finally passed into the hands of the present Lowell Electric Light corporation, which has developed electrical power in Lowell with great success.
"Putnam and Son were the first firm to light a store in Lowell, and were ahead of the Middlesex company, installing an engine and boiler in their base- ment and running an eight-light Brush machine. I have tinkered with it many a time, for it did not always work just right.
"Of course the Bigelow company now has an electrical plant of large size. Electricity has entirely replaced the gas, and there are 4500 incandescents in operation. At the present time new steam turbines are being installed and eventually the corporation will be able to make all the electricity that it needs."
One of the last jobs done under Mr. Morse's supervision was the installing of motors for power in the big cotton department of the Bigelow company. He will be succeeded by Chief Engineer Jolinson, who is superintendent of power.
Mr. Morse has built a picturesque summer cottage in Tyngsboro, is about to launch a new power boat on the river and will spend his summers here- after on the banks of the upper Merrimack.
MORSE MEMORIAL BUILDING
On the 24th day of January, 1928, Willis Everett Morse executed a will. Paragraph 10 and 12 of the will reads as follows;
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Paragraph Tenth: I give and bequeath to the Trustees of the Public Bur- ial Grounds, of said Brooks, Maine, and their successors in said office, the sum of One Thousand Dollars, but in trust, nevertheless. for the following pur- poses, to wit; the income from said sum to be annually expended for the care and beautifying of the cemetery and the care of the lot owned by me in said cemetery. It is my wish and desire that the grass be cut and that a wreath of flowers be placed each year on Memorial Day on said lot."
·Twelfth: "The rest, residue and remainder of my property of whatever nature, whether real, personal or mixed, wherever situated and however bounded and described, of which I may die possessed or to which I may have any right, title or interest, I give, devise and bequeath to the said Town of Brooks, and its successors and assigns, for the following purposes and subject to the following conditions, namely. that within three years from the date of my decease the said Town shall, by necessary and proper votes, accept the provisions of this will and shall make arrangements for and proceed with the erection of. either a school house, a public library or a community house of either stone or brick and of fire- proof construction. the kind of building and also the constuction to be left to their discretion, the same to be known as a memorial to my late father. James G. Morse, and my deceased wife, Emily S. Morse, and myself. Willis E. Morse.
"I further authorize, direct and empower the persons hereinbefore named as executors to retain said rest and remainder in their hands and receive the in- come therefrom until such time as they are satisfied that my intention and wishes under this provision are being carried out, and upon their being sat- isfied that said Town of Brooks intends to accept the provisions of this sec- tion and to proceed with the erection of said building, to pay over said rest and remainder, to said Town of Brooks, Maine."
At the annual town meeting held in March, 1930, it was voted to accept the provisions of the last will and testament of the late Willis Everett Morse, in regard to the Morse Memorial Building; and the following committee was elected: Charles O. Varney, Albert B. Pay- son, Fred H. Brown, Percy H. Grant and George B. Roberts. This committee was to act in conjunction with the trustees, Maud Black Morse, executrix, and Leon D. Abbott, executor of the last will and testament, of the late Willis Everett Morse. At a later date it was voted to purchase the Charles W. Ryder lot, which adjoins the pre- sent high school lot on the south.
Among the citizens of the town there was a difference of opinion as to the best location for the new building. In addition to the Ry- der lot there was the Chase lot, south of the railroad track and the Mill lot so-called sloping toward Marsh River, on the Main Street West, a most desirable location.
On August 23, 1930, a special town meeting was held, at which time certain votes were passed in reference to the Morse Memorial and the location of the same, which recinded some of the votes pre- viously passed.
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UNDER ARTICLE II.
Upon motion voted :- That we decide the matter of having a High or Com- bination School House by written ballot.
The vote as counted was:
80 for High School Building 63 for Combination School Building
UNDER ARTICLE III.
Upon motion voted :- That we change location of New. High School from present lot to Mill Lot.
The vote as counted by written ballot was:
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