USA > Maine > Kennebec County > Waterville > The centennial history of Waterville, Kennebec County, Maine, including the oration, the historical address and the poem presented at the celebration of the centennial anniversary of the incorporation of the town, June 23d, 1902 > Part 5
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Immediately the troops began their march for Teconnet. There Gen. Winslow laid out the Fort and detailed 300 men for its construction while he with 500 troops ascended (August 8) the Kennebec in search of the French fortification which had been reported. Gen. Winslow was taken ill at Norridgewock and returned to Teconnet, the command of the expedition devolv- ing upon Col. Preble, who ascended to the head waters of the Kennebec but found no French.
In a very short time five buildings were erected at Fort Hali- fax,2 a stockade 800 feet long erected, the cannon and arms brought up in scows from Cushnoc and mounted and a road for wheel carriages cut through from Fort Western to Fort Halifax.
1. "July 1st Norridgewock Indians gave their answer and refused the fort being built at Ticonnet. July 2, treaty signed." Parson Smith's Journal.
2. While at Falmouth Gen. Shirley contracted with Capt. Isaac Ilsley as head carpenter, who was to take with him twelve others for the building of the fort at Ticonnet. Their wages were to include "the Province's ordinary allowance of provisions and drink." The bill of Capt. Ilsley was filed Sept. 28, for 82 days labor of himself and men, amounting to £1660, 10s. Goold's account of Fort Halifax. Me. Hist. Soc. Coll. Vol. 8, p. 229.
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Gov. Shirley who had personally inspected the work was greatly gratified and highly commended Gen. Winslow and hismen. Capt. William Lithgow, who had been commander of Fort Richmond, was assigned to Fort Halifax and a garrison of 801 men left in charge. A whale boat express was arranged running from Fort Halifax to Portland in twenty hours. The route was down the Kennebec to Merrymeeting Bay, thence by the Androscoggin and across to New Meadows river and Casco Bay.
Gov. Shirley returned in great state to Boston in September. For two months Falmouth had been very gay. Parson Smith writes in his diary : "Thus ends a summer scene of as much blus- ter as a Cambridge commencement and now comes on a vacation when our house and the town seem quite solitary."
Capt. Lithgow assumed a heavy task. The fort was unfin- ished. About the first of November a party of six men from the fort, who were cutting timber, were attacked by the Indians. One was killed and scalped, four were carried away captive, only one, wounded, succeeded in reaching the fort. Some rein- forcements were sent and Capt. Lithgow received authority to impress men as needed. The winter of 1755 was a sad time at Fort Halifax.2 As Capt. Lithgow wrote "The fort was the most extraordinary one for ordinariness I ever saw." The soldiers lacked shoes, clothing and blankets. The exposure and hard- ships of the men in hauling their fuel by hand through the deep snow soon prostrated them with sickness. Of the eighty men only thirty were left who were fit for duty.3 Five died during the winter. Supplies ran short and the distressed captain started down the Kennebec to secure aid. The journey was both hard and dangerous. Supplies had already been sent by the Gov- ernor which were landed at Arrowsic and gundalowed to Merry- meeting bay. By the aid of Capt. Hunter of Topsham and Capt. Dunning of Brunswick and their men, the supplies were brought to Fort Halifax. Despite all their hardships the garrison had hauled by hand to the hill 200 tons hewn timber also 100 tons board logs and bolts for shingles. The fortification including
. Rept. Commanding Gen. Dec. 21, 1754.
2. Letter of Capt. Lithgow to Gen. Shirley. See Chapter of Historical Documents.
3. Williamson, Vol. 2, p. 302, states that 100 men with five cohorn mortars were sent as reinforcements in the fall of 1754. The Lithgow correspondence proves that this was not done, and the Council Records of Mass. under date of Dec. 21 1754, give as reason that there were not sufficient provisions at the fort and at tha time of year it would be difficult to forward more.
FORT HALIFAX.
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the great house for the officers' quarters and stores, was com- pleted by Capt. Lithgow in 1755. Early in the spring of that year two men from the garrison who were fishing were mortally wounded by the Indians. June II, the Provincial Government declared war with the Indians and offered $200 for each Indian scalp and $250 for each captive. Col. Lithgow had now the strongest and most important fortification in Maine, but found it difficult to secure men and supplies. He complains that his men are lonely, being about fifty miles from inhabitants, and are over-worked in guarding night and day the main fort, store house and two redoubts upon the hill.1 Col. Lithgow removed his family from Fort Richmond to Fort Halifax in 1755.
May 18, 1757 occurred the last skirmish with the Indians. Col. Lithgow noticed a few days before, some rafts drifting by the fort.2 Concluding that the Indians had used them to cross the river and that they were intending to attack the settlement, he sent a boat containing an ensign and nine men down the river to give warning. On their return, about ten miles below the fort, they were fired upon by seventeen Indians. Two of the boat's crew were wounded but they kept up the fight with great gallantry. One Indian was killed and at last his comrades retreated bearing the dead body and another of their number who was wounded. It was the final shot and retreat of the Indians, almost on the same spot where Capt. Gilbert of the Pop- ham Colony had first met the Indians and erected the cross exactly one hundred and fifty years before.
The garrison at Fort Halifax, though much reduced, was con- tinued for several years. In 1759 sixteen soldiers petitioned the Governor for a discharge, affirming that they had been impressed into the service and already had served far beyond their time. The request was granted and Col. Lithgow was authorized to offer "a bounty of five dollars to each of three men who would enlist. If they cannot be enlisted to be impressed." After the Peace of Paris in 1763, the fort was dismantled. At the time of Arnold's expedition in 1775, the large house within the fort was used as a tavern, "Fort House." Afterward it was used as a dwelling-house, meeting-house, town hall, where all the
1. Letter to Gov. Shirley Oct. 22, 1755.
2. Me. Hist. Soc. Coll. Vol. 8, p. 269-70.
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earlier town meetings of Winslow were held, a hall for public dancing parties, finally a home for poor families until it was taken down by Mr. Thomas and some of its material used in the construction of the Halifax House in 1797. Col. Lithgow was engaged in trade at the fort for several years. In 1760 he was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Lincoln county, the first magistrate on the Kennebec above Pownalboro, and was continued by the American government. Before 1772 he retired to Georgetown to the Noble farm which was his wife's inheritance and died there in 1798 at the age of eighty-three.
Abbott states that eleven families settled in Winslow in 1754 but if so they have left neither trace nor name. Among the earliest settlers were Ensign Ezekiel Pattee, who lived in the fort house on the hill and kept store. He afterward removed the block house to his farm below the present village. March 12, 1766 the Plymouth Company granted to Gamaliel Bradford, John Winslow, Daniel Howard, James Warren and William Taylor a tract of land covering the present Winslow, of 18,600 acres, on condition that within four years they should have fifty settlers on the premises, twenty-five of them to have families, and to build fifty houses not less than twenty feet square and seven feet studd each. Said fifty settlers were each to clear and pre- pare for mowing, not less than five acres of land adjoining each house."1 This arrangement was carried out and was the only one to succeed of many similar propositions. (For records con- cerning the Plymouth Grant see chapter of Historical Docu- ments). Within a few years the names which have remained prominent through all the history of Winslow appeared upon the records, viz. Pattee, Howard, Haywood, Crosby, Heald, Getchell, Drummond, Hayden, Redington, Stackpole, Blackwell, Phillips, Runnels, Simpson, Town and others.
Up to the year 1771 the plantation was called Kingfield. By act of the General Court of Massachusetts, April 26, 1771, it was incorporated as a town, the fourth in the State and named in honor of General John Winslow of a family which had been prominent in Kennebec history since 1525. By warrant of James Howard, a justice of the peace in and for the county of Lincoln, directed to Mr. Ezekiel Pattee, the Freeholders and
1. History of Kennebec Co. Vol. I, p. 542.
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other inhabitants of Winslow qualified to vote in town affairs met at Fort Halifax May 23, 1771, at 8 o'clock A. M. They chose Lieut. Timothy Heald, moderator : Ezekiel Pattee, town clerk and treasurer ; Ezekiel Pattee, Timothy Heald and John Tozer, selectmen ; Robert Crosby, John Peter Cool and Nathaniel Carter, wardens : Francis Dudley, Joel Crosby and John Ayer, surveyors of highways ; Jonah Crosby, fence viewer. At a sub- sequent meeting summoned "in His Majesty's name" the "clear- ing the banks of the river for the purposes of navigation, and the hireing of preaching," were considered but no action taken. March 2, 1772, Dr. McKechnie was "employed to apply to Dr. Sylvester Gardiner for a tract of land for a burying ground and for a road leading through his Improvement." This secured the old cemetery on Fort Hill. In May, 1772, it was voted "to hire one month's preaching this summer." The road which is now Main street and College avenue was accepted. Early in 1773 the authorities of Hallowell (Augusta) sent five men in a boat to Boothbay to carry to the town the Rev. John Murray who was the first minister to be hired by that town. He proceeded to Winslow and Waterville and July 3. 1773. baptised three child- ren of Dr. John McKechnie. This is the first baptism in town of which we have record.
In the autumn of 1775 the ill-fated Arnold expedition with 1, 100 men passed through Winslow and Waterville on its way through the wilderness to Quebec where it arrived at last with men half starved, worn out with incredible hardships and fit only for the hospital rather than the battlefield. Of the exploring expedition sent in advance Nehemiah Getchell and John Horn were guides. For the expedition itself a "guide by the name of Jackins was obtained, living north of Teconnet Falls."
That the Revolution meant more than the mere passing of armed expeditions became apparent in 1776 when the town appointed a "Committee of Safety" consisting of Timothy Heald, John Tozer and Zimri Haywood. July 8, 1776, the town meet- ing was for the first time called in the name of "The Government and People of Massachusetts Bay." The general law required that each town should provide itself with a stock of ammunition, but there was no money in the Winslow treasury. The town therefore voted, "To borrow of Esquire Pattee, 100,000 of
4
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HISTORY OF WATERVILLE.
shingles ; of Deacon Tozer, 80,000 ditto; of Timo. Heald, Jr., 4,000 ditto ; of Ambrose Davis, 3,000 ditto; of Lawrence Costa- gan, 1,000 clapboards, and of Nathaniel Carter, 5,000 of shingles ; to purchase a town stock of ammunition and that the produce of the same or what the same shall clear in the market shall be assessed upon this town some time in the month of October next." (Winslow Record). It also voted to hire three men to go up the river on scout duty to see whether any British force was approaching, and petitioned the General Court for defence against the Canadians. Those who served on the Com- mittees of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety during the Revolution were: Timothy Heald, John Tozer, Zimri Haywood, Ezekiel Pattee. Robert Crosby, Manuel Smith, Ephraim Osborne, Nathaniel Low, Hezekiah Stratton, William Richardson and Benjamin Runnels. The town had not a little trouble with the roving Indians who came into it without means of support and called upon the selectmen to feed them. This was done by Squire Pattee until the town voted to pay him for 1,000 pounds beef found the Indians at the rate of five dollars per pound, which price would indicate either a depreciated currency or that some primordial beef trust already had taken possession of the country. Under such conditions it became difficult to secure the clothing and beef required by the Court for the Continental Army. The quota of soldiers also fell short and the town voted to hire "tow" men for the town of Winslow to serve for three years or during the war. It is no wonder that the articles con- cerning preaching and schooling at the town's expense were so often passed over or voted down.
May 21, 1782, Zimri Haywood was elected as the town's repre- sentative in the Massachusetts Court. The next year Ezekiel Pattee was chosen and Zimri Haywood, Solomon Parker and Benjamin Runnels were made a committee "to give their repre- sentative instructions."
In 1784 it was voted not to hire preaching, not to hire school- ing and not to raise any money for town expenses. The next year it was voted to raise £ 20 for preaching, £ 60 for schooling and £ 100 for work on the roads which liberality was afterward reconsidered and recalled. In December, 1785, Capt. Haywood attended the Falmouth Conference with reference to the separa- tion of Maine from Massachusetts.
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HISTORY OF WATERVILLE.
In 1786 on petition to the governor, the plantations of Han- cock (Clinton) and Canaan were relieved of the taxes assessed upon them by Winslow on account of their "greate povertie and inabilitie." December 3, 1787, Jonah Crosby was chosen to attend the convention at Boston "to see whether the people will accept the constitution set forth at Philadelphia, September 17, 1787."
The town was slowly becoming prosperous. The farms were productive, several grist and saw mills were in operation, the river afforded means for conveying the lumber to market, while its fisheries supplied both food and an important article of trade. In 1791 there were eighty-one polls in town and George Warren, Winslow's first lawyer, had begun business. In the same year he petitioned the General Court for authority to conduct a lottery for the building of a bridge across the Sebasticook. He was representative to the General Court for that year. An article in the warrant to set off the territory of Winslow on the west side . of the Kennebec, was at last approved by a vote of thirteen to seven. The smallness of the vote probably prevented any further action. In 1793, however, perhaps to remove the griev- ance which had caused the desire for separation two collectors were appointed of whom one, Asa Emerson, was to serve for the west side of the river. It was also voted that the preaching in the future should be half on the east and half on the west side of the river and that the town meetings were to be held alternately. Several times action had been brought against the town under the general statute for not having a "Gospel Teacher." Feb- ruary 10, 1794, at a town meeting held at John McKechnie's it was voted "to erect a meeting house on the east side of the river on land to be given by Arthur Lithgow, Esq. One hundred pounds were to be raised by a tax on polls and estates for the purpose of building said meeting house." Jonah Crosby, Capt. Timo. Heald, Capt. Josiah Hayden, David Pattee, Jonathan Soule, Nathaniel Low and Ezekiel Pattee, Esq., were appointed to carry this vote into effect. A fish committee of nineteen mem- bers was to regulate the fisheries for the year. The same year two names appear in the town records which were to hold large place there for many years; Rev. Joshua Cushman and Elnathan Sherwin. At a meeting held at the house of Elnathan
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HISTORY OF WATERVILLE.
Sherwin on the site of the Silas Redington place, Sherwin street, Rev. Joshua Cushman was invited to settle in the town as a religious instructor. His salary was to be one hundred and ten pounds annually so long as he should remain their minister. A committee of ten, headed by Col. Hayden, was appointed to wait upon Mr. Cushman and receive his answer.
Mr. Cushman already had seen much of life. Born in 1759 at Halifax, he served with distinction in the Revolutionary army and endured the hardships of Valley Forge. He was graduated from Harvard in the class of 1788 with John Quincy Adams. At the age of thirty-six he was now to enter the ministry. He proved himself a man of high character, great ability as a preacher and a politician of no mean degree. In addition to twenty years service as pastor in Winslow, he served in both branches of the Legislature of Massachusetts, was then a mem- ber of Congress for three terms where he made a decided impres- sion, and was a member of the Legislature of Maine when he died. The constitution and agreement for a religious society under which he began work, which was supposed to come from his pen was very liberal so that his society has been termed the first Unitarian church in America.1
The ecclesiastical council for the ordination of Mr. Cushman to which the Church of Christ in Canaan, in Pownalboro, in Woolwich, in Brunswick, in Topsham, Second Church in Wells, First Church in Kittery, First Church in Pembroke and two others were called, was received in great state. Twenty of the leading citizens of the town were made a committee to conduct the council to the large booth of evergreen erected on the plains where the meeting was to be held.
March 7, 1796, the town voted to build a meeting house on the hill near or in Ticonic village. The next day it was voted to build another on the Lithgow lot in Winslow, the previous vote concerning it having been reconsidered.
The committee for the west side was: Nehemiah Getchell, James Stackpole, Jr., John Pierce, Obadiah Williams, Reuben Kidder. The committees reported March 16 that the meeting houses should be erected, the pews valued and the choice sold at
1. For the "Constitution and Agreement" under which Mr. Cushman became town minister of Winslow, with the report of the Committee. See chapter of his- torical documents.
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auction, the highest bidder to have two minutes to make his choice, payment for pews and premium was to be made in four quarterly installments in cash, corn, grain, any building materials or merchantable lumber. Such was the beginning of the meet- ing house which is now a part of the old city hall. Difficulty arose as to the location. Dr. Obadiah Williams generously offered to the town the present city hall park as a location for the meeting house and an academy or school house1, court house, etc. Then Asa Emerson and David Pattee who lived by the Messalonskee or Emerson stream as it was then called petitioned that the house be placed at a more central point. Their petition was not granted. The house was not completed for many years. The pews were sold, forfeited, resold, forfeited again. About sixty pages of the first volume of Waterville records are taken up with pew deeds and many more with meeting house business. The first town meeting was held in the new meeting house June 25, 1798, and Elnathan Sherwin was paid $30 for the use of his house for previous town meetings and religious services. Mean- while questions of division had been constantly before the public. For years the matter of the separation of Maine from Massa- chusetts had been agitated and vote after vote taken in its favor. The division of Lincoln county and the erection of Kennebec county took place February 20, 1799. The dividing of the town usually with the river as line though once a line one mile west of the river was proposed, had been discussed and voted on again and again. The expedient of holding town meetings alternately on the east and on the west side of the river was not satisfactory. Two collectors and a double set of town officials did not conduce to harmony. Mr. Cushman preached at the meeting houses in turn, even going to West Waterville one-fourth of the time. There was no bridge across the Kennebec and when the inhab- itants set forth in petition their grievances what wonder that the General Court listened to their prayer and divided the town.2
The population now amounted to 1,250 of which 800 were on the west side of the river.
December 28, 1801 the town voted "To petition the General Court to set off that part of the town which lieth on the westerly side of the Kennebec river and to incorporate it into a separate
1. See copy of deed, chapter of historical documents.
2. Petition for division. Page 54, note.
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town," and chose Reuben Kidder, Thomas Rice, Josiah Hayden, Nehemiah G. Parker and Asa Soule a committee for the purpose. Considering the circumstances the development of the town had been worthy even remarkable and when the time of separation came, the mother and daughter parted without a quarrel.
PETITION FOR DIVISION.
Note. To the Honourable the Senate and House of Representatives of the Com- monwealth of Massachusetts in General Court assembled :
The Petition of the Subscribers, Inhabitants of the town of Winslow, in the county of Kennebeck, being a committee chosen by said Town in Town meeting assembled, humbly Report to your Honours that it is the wish of the Inhabitants of the said Town that the territory lying on the Westerly side of said River, in said town, as it is now bounded, should be set off from said Town by the name of Waterville. Your Petitioners would in behalf of said Town, beg leave to offer to your Honours the following reasons :
That the value of the property now owned in said Town is nearly equally divided on each side of said river;
That the Town and religious meetings in said town are held alternately at the meeting houses now erected on each side of said River, and that in several parts of the year it is very difficult and almost impossible to cross said River to attend said meetings;
That in the spring season, at the annual meetings held in said Town, the Inhab- itants thereof living on the opposite side from where the said meeting is to be held, are frequently prevented by the particular situation of said River from crossing the same to attend said meeting;
That said River near by divides said Town of Winslow in equal halves;
Wherefore your Petitioners in behalf of said Town humbly pray that said terri- tory may be set off and as in duty bound will ever pray.
(Signed.)
ASA SOULE, THOMAS RICE, NEHEMIAH A. PARKER, > Com. of Town of Winslow.
JOSIAH HAYDEN, REUBEN KIDDER,
That the now Town of Winslow shall be divided through the middle of the River Kennebeck as the River usually runs across the width of said Town;
That that part of said Town which lay on the Eastern side of the Kennebeck shall retain the name of Winslow and the part which lay on the Western side be erected into a town by the name of Waterville;
That all debts except such as concern meeting houses that shall be due from the Town when divided, or Damages the Town may be liable to pay, shall be appor- tioned and paid by each Town according to the present valuation;
That Josiah Hayden, Esq., being the only selectman of the present Town of Winslow residing on the east side of the Kennebeck River, shall, after a Division, have power to call the first meeting without consulting his colleagues.
The above are articles agreed on by us in a Division of the now Town of Wins- low, in behalf of said Town.
(Signed.)
JOSIAH HAYDEN, REUBEN KIDDER, ASA SOULE, > Com.
NEHEMIAH A. PARKER, | THOMAS RICE,
CHAPTER III.
WATERVILLE 1802-1902.
By REV. EDWIN CAREY WHITTEMORE.
By act of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Waterville was incorporated June 23d, 1802.1 July 13, 1802 Asa Redington,2 Justice of the Peace, issued to Moses Appleton,2 physician, his warrant to call the first town meeting to be held on July 26, at the East meeting house. These were men long prominent in the life of the town as their character, ability and public spirit deserved. Justice Redington, the old "soldier of Washington's body guard"? was ever faithful to his trust. Dr. Appleton is still remembered by aged men who say "He was kind to the poor."
Of the first town meeting, Elnathan Sherwin, long a prom- inent citizen of the place, who already had served three years as representative in the Massachusetts Legislature and who was to serve thirteen years longer, was chosen moderator, and Abijah Smith, to whom every one who consults the Waterville records covering the long period of his clerkship, is under obligation, was elected town clerk. The selectmen were Elnathan Sherwin, Asa Soule and Ebenezer Bacon; David Pattee was elected town treasurer, and the long official list of surveyors, cullers, meas- urers, scalers, agents, tythingmen, fish wardens, fence viewers, field drivers, saxons (sextons), pound keepers, ended with the names of eighteen good men and true who were elected hog reeves. Evidently the new town was to be sufficiently governed. At the second town meeting, August 9, 1802, held at the West
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