USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Portland > The history of Portland, from 1632 to 1864: with a notice of previous settlements, colonial grants, and changes of government in Maine > Part 32
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81
6.13.4 for grammar school.
1774
300.0.0
1761
50.0.0
1775
320.0.0
1762
100.00
1776
50.0.0
1763
20.0.0 all for gram. school.
1777
200.0.0
1764
250.0.0
1778.
400.0.0
1765
100.0.0
1779
1000.0.0
1766
200.0.0
1781
80.0.0 "hard money."
375
SCHOOLS AND THEIR TEACHERS.
to recommend him either to keep a public or private school as one who will be useful to the town as having a very good no- tion of teaching children."
He commenced his school June 25, 1770, and kept it to September 8, 1773. He received for salary five pounds six shil- lings and eight pence per month, equal to twenty-one dollars and ten cents. Capt. Daniel Tucker went to him, and says in his diary, that "he kept the north school in the old building near the court-house and next below the dwelling of Samuel Mount- fort (corner of India and Middle streets). He adds, "Such were the ways of this extraordinary man, that he governed a large school with the most perfect ease and kept us all in awe of him by the purest principles of love and fear ; and such was his good conduct toward us that his name is held in ven- eration till this day, among the few of his pupils that remain alive." (1825.)
While keeping this school he pursued the study of law under direction of Theophilus Bradbury and was admitted to the Cumberland Bar in July, 1774.1
He kept in a school-house which stood in India street near where Middle street joins it, which was removed in 1774 to Congress street, where it formed a part of the house of the late Jonathan Bryant. The late Judge Frothingham also kept a school here before as well as after the revolution ; he gradu- ated at Harvard College in 1771, and about two years after ward entered the office of Mr. Bradbury as a fellow-student with Parsons. It was very much the custom of that day for
1 Mr. Parsons boarded three years with Deacon Codman and the remainder of the time with Dr. Deane; Mr. Codman's son, who went to school to him, told me that Mr. Parsons was constantly studying when out of school- that he was al- ways in his chamber. It is well known that this great man, in addition to his vast attainments in the science of law, was a profound classical scholar and deeply skilled in mathematics. Judge Parsons was born in Byfield, February 24, 1750, was appointed Chief Justice in 1806, and died in Boston, October 30, 1813. An interesting biography of him has been published by his son, Prof. Parsons of H. C.
376
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
young men on their leaving college to sustain themselves while studying their professions by keeping school. The men of our country who became most distinguished in the eighteenth century achieved their own fortunes and fame from such hum- ble beginnings, many of them working even while at college for the very means to get them through. By struggling with narrow circumstances, their minds were formed and nerved in a severe school. They were not accustomed to the ease and the enervation which have been produced in our days by the general diffusion of wealth over the land, and the im- mensely increased facilities of education. Ministers who were barely able to assist one or more of their sons through college, were obliged for the most part to leave them at the gate, to win their way in the world by their own exertions. Hence many were brought to the necessity of keeping school as a tem- porary expedient, while they were preparing themselves to sustain higher characters on a more extended theater. We have seen in this town these facts illustrated by some eminent examples.
It cannot escape observation that notwithstanding the ability of the persons who at different times taught in our schools, that the cause of education was quite low. The amount ap- propriated for the important object of instruction from the limited means of the inhabitants, was not sufficient to com- mand or reward the undivided attention of any person qualified for the task ; the business must therefore have been necessarily neglected or have fallen into the hands of those who took it up as a secondary object, for their own convenience.
But two natives of the town had received a public education previous to the revolution ; these were John and Peter T. Smith, sons of our minister. They were graduated at Harvard College, the former in 1745, the latter in 1753; John became a physician, the other followed the profession of his father and was settled in Windham, where he died in 1827, aged ninety- six. John died in 1773. At the commencement of the revo-
-
377
EDUCATED MEN.
lution, there were upon the Neck but thirteen persons who had received a liberal education,' only six of these were en- gaged in professional pursuits,' and not one was a native of the town ; we had then to import our literature as well as the necessary supplies of life ; the activity and energy of the peo- ple were employed in procuring means of support and in the accumulation of wealth, rather than in cultivating the sources of intellectual improvement.3
There were several physicians in town, but not one had re- ceived a public education.4 The younger Dr. Coffin, a few
1 These were Rev. Thomas Smith, who graduated 1720, Enoch Freeman, 1729, Stephen Longfellow, 1742, Francis Waldo, 1747, John Wiswell, 1749, Jonathan Webb, 1754, Theophilus Bradbury, 1757, David Wyer, 1758, Samuel Deane, 1760, Stephen Hall, 1765, Edward Oxnard, 1767, Theophilus Parsons, 1769, John Frothingham, 1771.
2 Messrs. Smith, Deane, and Wiswell in the ministry, and Messrs. Bradbury, Wyer, and Parsons in the law. Mr. Frothingham was not admitted to the Bar until 1779.
3 In other parts of the town there were at the time of the revolution, but two liberally educated men, and those were Thomas Browne, minister of the Stroud- water parish, and Ebenezer Williams, minister at New Casco, the former gradu- ated at Harvard College in 1752, the latter in 1760.
4 These were the elder Dr. Nathaniel Coffin, Dr. John Lowther, and Dr. Ed- ward Watts, who all lived on the Neck ; Nathaniel Jones lived at Cape Elizabeth ; he was a physician and a man of much promise; he came from Ipswich, Massa- chusetts, and was in full practice when the war broke out. He entered zealously into the measures of the whigs, enlisted as a surgeon in the Bagaduce expedition, where he sickened, and died soon after his return. Dr. Watts married Polly Oxnard of Boston, May, 1765, and came here about that time.
Dr. John Lowther came here from Tuxford, county of Nottingham, England, in 1765. He had served seven years in a hospital in England, during a part of which the younger Dr. Coffin was pursuing his studies at Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospitals, London. At that time the elder Dr. Coffin was the only physician in the village. The next year Dr. Coffin died and his place was amply supplied by his son, Dr. Edward Watts, and Dr. Lowther. Lowther connected with his prac- tice an apothecary's shop which stood on the corner of Middle and India streets. He was a skillful physician and surgeon. In August, 1765, he married Rebecca, a daughter of Wymond Bradbury of York, and a relative of Theophilus Brad- bury. By her he had seven children, of whom the youngest, Henrietta, only 25
378
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
years before the revolution had been sent to England by his father to complete his medical studies, which he pursued a short time in London. On the death of his father in 1766, he succeeded to his business and continued a very large and successful practice for more than fifty years. The Rev. Mr. Smith, for many years in the early settlement of the town, performed the responsible part of physician to the body as well as the soul, and he was no less beloved in his temporal than in his spiritual employment. It was very common for minis- ters in thinly peopled towns to discharge this two-fold duty. The other publicly educated men who resided here previous to the revolution, were Samuel Moody, his two sons, Joshua and Samuel,1 Jabez Fox, who graduated at Harvard College in 1727, and studied divinity, but whose health did not permit him to preach,2 and Samuel Waldo, eldest son of Brigadier Waldo, who graduated in 1743, at Harvard College. These all died some years previous to the revolution.
1 Dr. Samuel Moody had been a surgeon in the army in the war of 1722, he afterward received a military appointment, and died at Brunswick in 1758, com- manding officer of Fort George. He was born October 29, 1699, and graduated at Harvard College, 1718. He had by wife Mary, Nathaniel Green, 1726, Wil- liam, 1728, Samuel, 1730, Joshua, 1733, all born in Falmouth, Mary, 1735. Joshua Moody was born October 31, 1697, graduated at Harvard College, 1716, and established himself in this town ; he did not study a profession, but was an acting magistrate, sustained many public employments and was a large land- holder. He married Tabitha Cox in 1736, by whom he had three sons, Houtchin , William, and James. He died February 20, 1748.
2 Mr. Fox was the second son of John Fox, minister of Woburn, and was born in that place in 1705. He was a descendant of John Fox, the author of the
survives. She was born in 1781, married Ebenezer Sumner in 1801, and had seven children. One of her daughters, now dead, married our fellow-citizen Hall J. Little, but left no children. Dr. Lowther was tall and thin, of ardent temperament and a social disposition, liberal and careless of money, and often embarrassed in his affairs. He built the house which stood on the corner of Lime and Middle streets, which was moved in 1860 to give place to the brick block now standing on the premises ; the lot he bought of the heirs of Samuel Proctor. He died in 1794 at the age of about fifty-four.
379
EDUCATED MEN-JABEZ FOX, SAMUEL WALDO.
Mr. Waldo came here immediately after he graduated, and the. next year was chosen representative of the town, his family having long exercised great influence on account of a large estate here. While a member of the house this year, he received from Governor Shirley a commission as Colonel on the commencement of the war of 1744. In 1753 he went to Europe with authority from his father to procure emigrants to settle the Waldo patent, and by flattering representations and liberal offers he induced a number of Germans to follow him to his possessions in this State, many of whose descendants still occupy part of that territory. In August, 1760, he was married to Olive Grizzel of Boston, who died the next February, and in March, 1762, he married Sarah Erving by whom he had four sons, Samuel, John Erving, Francis, and Ralph, and two daughters, Sarah and Lucy. In 1760 he was appointed the the first Judge of Probate for the county of Cumberland,
"Book of Martyrs," first printed in London in 1563. The first of the name who came to this country was Thomas, who was admitted a freeman in 1638, and lived in Cambridge, where Jabez his son, the grandfather of the Jabez who came here, was born, 1646. The precise time that Mr. Fox came to this town we cannot determine, we find him here in 1743, when he was married to Ann, daughter of Wymond Bradbury of York, and aunt of Judge Theophilus of Falmouth. On her decease which happened not long after, he married the widow of Phineas Jones, by whom he had William, who died young, John, for many years a respecta- ble merchant in Portland, and Mary, who married Edward Oxnard. Mr. Fox filled several important offices in town, was justice of the Peace, was repeatedly chosen representative to the General Court, and for the three years preceding his death was one of the Governor's council, the first ever chosen from the territory now forming the County of Cumberland. He died respected and lamented April 7, 1755, aged fifty. The mother of Mr. Fox was Mary Tyng, a grand- daughter of Thaddeus Clark, who lived on the Neck and was killed by the In- dians in 1690. Clark's wife being granddaughter of George Cleeves, the Fox family therefore inherit the blood of our first settler. The descent from Cleeves is thus, his daughter Elizabeth married Mitton, whose daughter Elizabeth mar- ried Clark, whose eldest daughter Elizabeth married Capt. Edward Tyng, a distinguished officer and statesman in Massachusetts ; his daughter Mary mar- ried Rev. John Fox of Woburn, the father of our honored citizen Jabez. Anoth- er daughter of Capt. Tyng, Elizabeth, married a brother of Dr. Franklin.
380
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
which office he held until his death, April 16, 1770, in the forty-ninth year of his age.
The state of literature in town previous to the revolution, was not, it will be perceived, of a very elevated character ; nor in- deed from the situation of the people, could much have been expected. Yet when the small population of the Neck is con- sidered, not exceeding nineteen hundred, at the very eve of the war, perhaps it contained as large a proportion of educated men as any other place in that day. In 1763 several gentle- men upon the Neck, desirous of promoting the diffusion of useful knowledge, and extending the means of information, made some attempts to establish a library. In 1765 twenty- six persons had associated together for this purpose, all but two or three of whom lived upon the Neck.1 The progress of their laudable undertaking was extremely slow, and at the opening of the library in 1766, it contained but ninety-three volumes, of which ancient and modern universal history com- prised sixty-two volumes, being just two-thirds of the whole number.2 Only part of this work was first put in, but in 1765 a subscription was raised among the members to complete the
1 The names of the first associates were Enoch Freeman, Be njamin Titcomb Stephen Longfellow, Richard Codman, Edward Watts, Thomas 'Scales, Paul Prince, John Waite, Benjamin Waite, Enoch Ilsley, Jonathan Webb, Francis Waldo, Thomas Smith, Moses Pearson, James Gooding, Josiah Noyes, John Cox, Jeremiah Pote, Alexander Ross, Ebenezer Mayo, John Wiswell, Richard King, Jedediah Preble, Ephraim Jones, Stephen Waite, and John Waite, Jr. Mr. King, lived in Scarborough. William Tyng and some others were admitted previous to the war.
2 The catalogue of the books is so small, we may be excused for publishing it entire. Ancient and modern universal history from No. 1 to No. 62 inclusive. The Reflector, 1 vol; Leland's view of the Deistical writers, 3 vols. ; Prospects of Mankind, etc., 1 vol .; Lardner's history of the writers of the New Testament, 3 vols .; London Magazine from No. 71 to No. 79 inclusive, 1755 to 1763 ; Phy- sico Theology, 1 vol .; Ray's Wisdom of God, 1 vol. ; Propagation of Christian- ity, 2 vols .; Rapin's History of England, 7 vols., from 85 to 91 inclusive; History of Peter, Czar of Muscovy , 2d and 3d vols., volume 1 not put in. Total, ninety- three.
381
LIBRARY.
set, and thirty-nine pounds fifteen shillings were contributed on this occasion.1 Books at that period were not thrown from the press with the rapidity and in the quantity they are at this time ; book-shops were rare, and all works of standard value were imported from England. It will be seen that among those which constituted the first library here, not one was printed in this country. Even the newspapers and almanacs which issued from our presses were very small and of mean quality. The formation of a library therefore under such circumstances, was a very serious undertaking, the difficulty of which cannot be felt now, when works in every department of literature and science are scattered, like the leaves of the Sibyl, from a thousand presses. We believe this to have been the first es- tablishment of the kind in Maine. Not much addition was made to the books previous to the revolution, and in the de- struction of the town, the little collection was widely dispersed and a number of the books lost : during the war its operations were entirely suspended until 1780, when an attempt was made to collect the fragments and restore them to use.2
We shall resume the consideration of this subject in a future stage of our work and must now dismiss it to make room for matters which it has already anticipated.3
1 In this subscription Benjamin Titcomb gare a guinea, the"other [members a silver dollar each.
2 All the books which survived the destruction of the town are now preserved and form a part of the Portland Atheneum.
3 The following memorandum found among Enoch Freeman's papers shows that the members of the society while catering for the mind did not forget the more humble concernments of the body. "Capt. Benjamin Waite has laid a wager with Mr. Richard Codman, of a turkey and trimmings for ye good of the members of the library, that the ferry ways from the brow above Proctor's wharf, must be built three hundred yards further off or longer than the ways at or from the rocks above Captain Bangs' wharf, in order that the ferry boat may lay afloat at low water." Though the subject of the wager is not kindred to the destination of the turkey, it indicates that the library was occupying a place in people's thoughts.
.
CHAPTER XV.
ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS-PURPOODUCK' PARISH SET OFF-PRESBYTERIANS-PURPOODUCK PARISH- FIRST PARISH, NEW MEETING-HOUSE-REVIVAL-GEORGE WHITEFIELD-NEW CASCO PARISH-EPISCO- PAL SOCIETY-SETTLEMENT OF MR. DEANE-QUAKERS.
The whole town notwithstanding its large extent of territory and the remote situation of many of its inhabitants, continued united in one parish until 1733, when by mutual consent the people residing on the south side of Fore river were incorpo- rated by the General Court as a distinct parish.1 The dividing line of the parishes passed up Fore river to a point half a mile south of Stroudwater river, and thence extended due west to the line of Scarborough.2 On the 18th of September of the same year, the new parish held a meeting, at which they voted to build a meeting-house, and chose the Rev. Benjamin Allen to be their minister; he accepted the invitation and was in- stalled November 10, 1734.3
1 The members of the first church dismissed to form the second, were John Armstrong, William Jameson, Robert Means, Robert Thorndike, and Jonathan Cobb. Joshua Woodbury, Dominicus Jordan, and Joseph White were afterward dismissed to join that church.
2 This is the present boundary line of Cape Elizabeth.
3 Mr. Allen was born at Tisbury, on Martha's Vineyard ; he graduated at Yale College in 1708, and was settled at South Bridgewater in 1718; after preaching there about ten years he was dismissed by an ecclesiastical council. He died May 6, 1754, aged seventy-two-Mitchell's History of Bridgewater. He had sev- eral daughters; . one married Rev. Mr. Upham of Barnstable county ; another, Rev. Mr. Emery ; a third, Clement Jordan, Esq., of Cape Elizabeth ; a fourth,
383
PURPOODUCK PARISH-PRESBYTERIANISM.
The meeting-house which stands upon the hill opposite Port- land, was erected in pursuance of the vote, the frame being constructed of white oak timber cut upon the spot where the house stands.1 A month previous to the settlement of Mr. Allen and the organization of the church, the number of com- municants in Mr. Smith's church, including both parishes, at the sacrament, October 6, 1734, was seventy, which shows a rapid increase in the number in the period of seven years. After this separation, the records of the parish, which was no longer co-extensive with the town, were kept distinct and the first parish was regularly organized in pursuance of the stat- ute in 1734. Dr. Samuel Moody was chosen the first clerk and annually re-elected until 1744, and again in 1746 ; Joshua Moody, his brother, was chosen the intervening years ; Moses Pearson 1746 to 1750, and was succeeded by Stephen Long- fellow, who was annually re-chosen twenty-three years.
In the church and parish at Purpooduck there was a strong element of Presbyterianism. The Scotch-Irish emigrants were all of this sect, and they could not easily lay aside the convictions in which they were educated and severely disciplined. Several of them had formed a substantial part of Mr. Smith's church until the Purpooduck parish was separated from it. Of the ten male members who subscribed the church covenant on the organization of the church in March, 1727, four were of that denomination, viz., Armstrong, Means, Jeals or Gyles, and Jameson. Beside these, there were in Cape Elizabeth three other Armstrongs, McDonald, two Simontons, and others,
1 This meeting-house was afterward enlarged by adding a piece of about fifteen feet to its width. This alteration left the pulpit in the middle of the floor, with galleries and pews behind it, and was allowed to remain so until 1801.
Tristram Jordan, Esq., of Saco ; and a fifth died unmarried at Cape Elizabeth. He lost five of his family by the throat distemper, a prevailing epidemic, in one week in September, 1738. He was the seventh son of James Allen of Martha's Vineyard, and was born in 1682. His wife was Abiah Mayhew of the same Island.
384
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
in whom the fires of the old faith and discipline of Knox still freshly burned. They seemed to have concurred in the settle- ment of Mr. Allen, probably because they were not able to support public worship after their accustomed mode, and were too religiously disposed to dispense with the ordinances of re- gion. They had occasionally a minister of their own per- suasion visit them. Mr. Henry and Mr. Rutherford were among these. This class of religionists was quite common at that early day in this state, especially between the Penobscot and Kennebec rivers. In 1734 the Rev. Wm. McClanathan, or as he is elsewhere called Macclanaghan, was invited to preach at Georgetown by thirty-nine male Presbyterian church mem- bers, being a majority of that church, and he officiated there, though not without much opposition for several years. Rev. Alexander Boyd, a young Scotch minister, afterward preached there, and in 1754 was ordained over a church of the same denomination in Newcastle. General Waldo, in 1735, pro- cured a considerable colony from the north of Ireland of per- sons of Scotch descent, who joining others previously settled in that country, occupied the town of Warren and adjacent territory. Among these were prominent men, whose descend- ants have contributed largely to improve and adorn our state : North, Patterson, Howard, McLean, Killpatrick, Spear, Morri- son, Starrett, are some of the names familiar in our history. These with the emigrants whom Gov. Dunbar of Pemaquid invited in 1730 to occupy vacant land in his government, the McCobbs, McClintocks, Campbell, Montgomery, Huston, Cald- well, McFarland, and others, formed a majority of the settlers in that region, and gave a strict sectarian character to that mode of church government. Rev. Robert Rutherford was long their minister, and so was Alexander McLean, sent to them by Dr. Witherspoon of Princeton College. Rev. Robert Dun- lap from Antrim, settled in Brunswick. Rev. John Urquhart from North Britain, settled at Warren, afterward at Ellsworth. Thomas Pierce in 1762 at Scarborough. The distinguished
385
PRESBYTERIANISM IN PURPOODUCK PARISH.
and eloquent John Murray at Boothbay, afterward at New- buryport, and the eccentric Nathaniel Whittaker, at Canaan. Samuel Perley at Gray, and Mr. Strickland at Turner, and then in Andover, show a Presbyterian force and influence in this State which must surprise the present generation that looks in vain for a single parish of the disciples of Knox now within our territory.
This sectarian feeling manifested itself in the Purpooduck parish at times with great violence. We have not all the par- ticulars which are necessary to a clear understanding of the periods and force of its manifestation, for there are no records of that parish for the first twenty years of its existence, and but imperfect ones afterward. We gather something from the Rev. Mr. Smith's Journal, but an unfortunate error in dates leaves us perplexed. He says under date of May 29, 1739, "I went over to Mr. Allen's : met the ministers on the affairs of the Irish :" again, November 15, 1739, "Mr. McClan- athan installed : I had a clash with him." Mr. Macclana- ghan was from the north of Ireland ; he was a man of great ardor of temperament, which occasionally involved him in trouble. He seems to have been unstable and unreliable. His ministry was short in Georgetown, and still shorter in Cape Elizabeth. In 1742 we find him again in Georgetown, and in 1746 he was chaplain to Brigadier Waldo's regiment in the expedition to the Bay of Fundy, from which he re- turned to Boston in February, 1747. The next year he was preaching at Chelsea, and was invited to settle there, to which there was considerable opposition. One of the dissen- tients wrote to Rev. Mr. Smith in August, 1748, for some ac- count of him, saying, "that after all my inquiries into his character, to me it still appears bad." About 1754 he became a convert to the church of England, and was sent by the society for propagating the gospel, a missionary to Georgetown, Dresden, and neighboring places on the eastern frontier. He arrived in Kennebec in May, 1756, and established himself at
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.