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 67
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"Expenses for James' wig £9. Same, 9.
Mending my own thick wig,
.10
Shaving my three sons at times, 5.14
I This form of the nether garment was worn by boys as well as men univer- sally until about 1790, when Capt. Joseph Titcomb returning from the south, .
50
778
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
These three sons were Samuel, aged eleven years, James, nine and a half, William, seven years ; the shaving was of the head to receive the wig.
Under February 12, 1755, in the same book, is the following memorandum, "Expenses Dr. to Samuel Waldo, Esq., for my scarlet cloak, and a scarlet riding-hood for my wife, as per his account on a letter dated London, October 18, 1754, with trim- mings, etc., eleven pounds. One crimson riding-hood four pounds nine shillings nine pence, being fifteen pounds nine shillings and nine pence sterling, which is twenty pounds thir- teen shillings lawful money, and one hundred and fifty-four pounds seventeen shillings and six pence old tenor."
"March 16, Nath'l Coffin Dr. one pair of leather breeches twenty-four shillings, one Skin Shammy two shillings eight pence."
In 1759, Mr. Freeman has several charges for red coats sold, price two pounds eight shillings, red breeches eight shillings, laced hat five shillings, brass buckles three shillings four pence, hose one shilling. Before the revolution, the silversmiths, Paul Little, John Butler, and Joseph H. Ingraham, found much employment in the manufacture of brass and silver knee, shoe, and sleeve buttons. Capt. Daniel Tucker in an interest- ing manuscript autobiography says, that in 1771, when he was eleven years old, he was put an apprentice to Paul Little, who had a shop on the corner of Middle and King streets, and was first put to work on brass sleeve buttons and marking them, and then promoted to making silver ones.
There were many other expensive customs in that day to which the spirit of the age required implicit obedience; these demanded costly presents to be made, and large expenses to be
was the first that wore pantaloons here, and introduced the fashion. The dress of the ante-revolution ladies would appear to us at least as grotesque as that of the gentlemen ; their long waists, towering head dresses, and high-heeled shoes would give them an equal title to our admiration.
779
MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND DRESS.
incurred at the three most important events in the history of man, his birth, marriage, and death. In the latter, it became particularly onerous and extended the influence of its example to the poorest classes of people, who in their show of grief imitated, though at an immeasurable distance, the customs of the rich. The following memorandum of the charges at the funeral of the son of a respectable inhabitant in 1771, was found among his papers, viz., "eight pair of colored gloves six- teen shillings, five pair of women's white gloves nine shillings four pence, one pair of women's colored gloves two shillings, one pair of men's colored gloves two shillings, two dozen lem- ons, four bottles of wine, and shoe buckles ten shillings, knee buckles eight pence."'
The leaders of the people in the early part of the revolution, with a view to check importations from Britain, aimed a blow at these expensive customs, from which they never recovered. The example commenced in the highest places, of an entire abandonment of all the outward trappings of grief which had been wont to be displayed, and of all luxury in dress, which extended over the whole community. In the later stages of the revolution however, an extravagant and luxurious style of living and dress was revived, encouraged by a large amount both of specie and paper money in circulation, and the great quantity of foreign articles of luxury brought into the country by numerous captures.
The leading men in Massachusetts saw with alarm the habits of expense and extravagance again taking root among the peo- ple, which threatened a renewed subjugation to, and depend- ance upon, foreign powers, and they strove earnestly against it. In 1786 the subject was brought before the General Court and a committee of that body made a report in which they recognized the existence of a luxurious style of living, bore
1 The funeral of James, son of Enoch Freeman, who died February 5, 1771, aged twenty-six.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
their decided testimony against it, and recommended that "the General Court should make a serious and determined exertion by example and advice to inspire a due regard to our own manufactures," "and at the same time discourage the impor- tation and use of all foraigu superfluities." In November a circular was published, signed by Gov. Bowdoin, Lt. Gov. Cushing, and the principal members of the legislature, in which they entered "into a solemn agreement and association to re- frain from, and as far as in their power to prevent, the exces- sive use and consumption of articles of foreign manufacture, especially articles of luxury and extravagance." Such efforts and from such a quarter had a most salutary influence on the public mind, and tended to establishi a judicious economy and republican simplicity in all ranks of the community. In our part of the country, Judge Thatcher of Biddeford, and other gentlemen of influence, aided the cause by their example and by publications in the newspaper. 1
The evils here noticed did not exist in this part of the coun- try in any considerable degree, especially after the revolution ; the people were too poor to indulge in an expensive style of living. They were literally a working people, property had not descended upon them from a rich ancestry, but whatever they had accumulated had been the result of their own industry and economy. Our ladies too at that period had not forgotten the use of the distaff, and occasionally employed that antiqua- ted instrument of domestic labor for the benefit of others as well as of themselves. The following notice of a spinning bee at Mrs. Deane's on the first of May, 1788, is a flattering me- morial of the industry and skill of the females of our town at that period.
"On the first instant, assembled at the house of the Rev. Samuel Deane of this town, more than one hundred of the
1 Judge Thatcher wrote a number of communications over the signature of Hermit on this subject, characterized by his usual humor and wit : he was Wait's best correspondent.
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MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
fair sex, married and single ladies, most of whom were skilled in the important art of spinning. An emulous industry was never more apparent than in this beautiful assembly. The majority of fair hands gave motion to not less than sixty wheels. Many were occupied in preparing the materials, beside those who attended to the entertainment of the rest, provision for which was mostly presented by the guests themselves, or sent in by other generous promoters of the exhibition, as were also the materials for the work. Near the close of the day, Mrs. Deane was presented by the company with two hundred and thirty-six seven knotted skeins of excellent cotton and linen yarn, the work of the day, excepting about a dozen skeins which some of the company brought in ready spun. Some had spun six, and many not less than five skeins apiece. To con- clude and crown the day, a numerous band of the best singers attended in the evening, and performed an agreeable variety of excellent pieces in psalmody."1
Some of the ante-revolutionary customs "more honored in the breach than in the observance"-have been continued quite to our day, although not precisely in the same manner nor in equal degree. One was the practice of helping forward every undertaking by a deluge of ardent spirit in some of its multi- farious mystifications. Nothing could be done from the burial of a friend or the quiet sessions of a town committee, to the raising of the frame of a barn or a meeting-house, but the men must be goaded on by the stimulus of rum. The following extracts from the papers of one of our ancient inhabitants will furnish some illustrations : "1745, March 20, about town rates; town Dr. to six mugs of flip, twelve shillings." "1753, county for ye gaol Dr. August 20, to three quarts of rum made into punch, five shillings four pence." The same entry is made for four successive days, and "November 14, one pail of flip given, and one to be paid for at five shillings four pence." Flip
1Cumberland Gazette.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
and punch were then the indispensable accompaniment of every social meeting and of every enterprise. In Enoch Freeman's accounts is the following entry. "April 14, 1755, committee for building school-house Dr. to two tankards of flip at eight pence, two quarts of rum at one shilling-three shillings nine pence."
It is not a great while since similar customs have extensively prevailed, not perhaps in precisely the instances or degree above mentioned, but in junketings and other meetings which have substituted whisky punch, toddy, etc., for the soothing but pernicious compounds of our fathers. Thanks, however, to the genius of temperance, a redeeming spirit is abroad, which it is hoped will save the country from the destruction that seemed to threaten it from this source.
The amusements of our people in early days had nothing particular to distinguish them. The winter was generally a merry season, and the snow was always improved for sleighing parties out of town. Mr. Smith frequently mentions sleigh- riding as an amusement of the people.1 In summer the badness of the roads prevented all riding for pleasure; in that season the inhabitants indulged themselves in water parties, fishing, and visiting the islands, a recreation that has lost none of its relish at this day.
Dancing does not seem to have met with much favor, for we find upon record in 1766, that Theophilus Bradbury and wife, Nathaniel Deering and wife, John Waite and wife, and several other of the most respectable people in town, were in- dicted for dancing at Joshua Freeman's tavern in December,
1 These parties were sometimes attended with inconveniences. Mr. Smith says under February 4, 1763, "Wednesday morning Brigadier Preble, Col. Wal- do, Capt. Ross, Dr. Coffin, Nathaniel Moody, Mr. Webb, and their wives and . Tate, set out on a frolic to Ring's and are not yet got back, nor like to be, the road not being passable." "February 11, our frolikers returned from Black Point, having been gone just ten days."
783
AMUSEMENTS.
1765.1 Mr. Bradbury brought himself and friends off by pleading that the room in which the dance took place, having been hired by private individuals for the season, was no longer to be considered as a public place of resort, but a private apartment, and that the persons there assembled had a right to meet in their own room and to dance there. The court sus- tained the plea. David Wyer was king's attorney at this time.
It was common for clubs and social. parties to meet at the tavern in those days, and Mrs. Greele's in Congress street was a place of most fashionable resort both for old and young wags, before as well as after the revolution. It was the Eastcheap of Portland, and was as famous for baked beans as the "Boar's Head" was for sack, although we would by no means compare honest Dame Greele, with the more celebrated, though less deserving, hostess of Falstaff and Poins. Some persons are now living on whose heads the frosts of age have extinguished the fires of youth, who love to recur to the amusing scenes and incidents associated with that house. The house was moved to Washington street about 1846.
Theatrical entertainments were wholly unknown here, and even in New England, before the revolution. The first exhibi- tion of the kind which ever took place in this town was on Tuesday evening, October 7, 1794. The plays performed on this occasion were the comedy of the Lyar, and a farce called Modern Antiques, or the Merry Mourners. The principal characters were sustained by Mr. Powell, Mr. Jones, Mr. Ken- ny, Mrs. Powell, and Mrs. Jones. The performances were three times a week at a hall called the Assembly Room in India street ; the price of admission was three shillings.
The company, which was a branch of the dramatic corps of Boston, continued here but two or three weeks at this time,
1 This house stood on the corner of Exchange and Middle streets ; it was sub- sequently owned and occupied by John Fox, Nathaniel Deering, and James Deering, and was moved a few years ago to Washington street where it was de stroyed by fire.
784
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
but repeated their visits in the summer season of future years, and held their exhibitions sometimes in India street, at others in Mechanics' hall in Fore street, but after 1800 at Union Hall in Free street. The company was so much encour- aged at the commencement of the present century, when our commercial prosperity was at a very high if not its highest point, and the people proportionably lavish of their money in amusements and the gratification of their tastes, that the inan- ager, Mr. Powell, proposed to erect a suitable building for a theater in the west part of the town, and made arrangements to carry the project into immediate effect. But in 1805, a strong and united effort was made by those who disapproved of these entertainments to defeat the undertaking. A meeting of the inhabitants was held on the subject, and after a very animated discussion, a majority was obtained in opposition to the erection of the theater. They procured the passage of a law in March, 1806, by which persons were prohibited under a heavy penalty, building any house for theatrical exhibitions or acting or, assisting in the performance of any stage plays, without a license first obtained for that purpose from the Court of Sessions of the county.'
This measure, with the commercial embarrassments which soon followed, put an end not only to the scheme of erecting a theater, but also to theatrical exhibitions for many years, and they were not revived until about 1820. They recommenced in Union hall, which was fitted up for a summer theater. The law of 1806 was attempted to be enforced against the company, but it was evaded by the current of public opinion, notwith- standing a large and respectable portion of our inhabitants looked upon the performances as fraught with great evil to the rising generation.
The success which attended these latter exhibitions induced
A town meeting was held on the subject, at which were animated discus- sions. Deacons Woodbury Storer and Samuel Freeman were strenuous oppo- nents, and Thomas B. Wait and others were ardent advocates.
785
THEATER-CONCLUSION.
a number of persons to unite in 1829 for the purpose of fur- nishing more spacious accommodations ; the result of the effort was the erection in 1830 of a neat and convenient theater in Free street, at an expense including the land of about ten thousand dollars. Since that time, however, the interest in that species of amusement has very much diminished, and it was only when actors of brilliant reputation were procured that the receipts of the house paid any profit to the managers.
So unremunerating had the measure become that in 1836 the proprietors sold the building to the Second Baptist Society, who transformed it into a neat and commodious church, in which they now worship.
Theatrical performances are now occasionally given by ir- regular, straggling companies from Boston and other places, but they have not much respectability, nor do they receive much patronage from the better classes of society. There are also occasional amateur performances of select plays, by ladies and gentlemen of the city, which are very respectable both in their character and attendance. There are numerous other amusements of various kinds by jugglers, minstrels, and other like exhibitions, which attract particularly the young, and receive sufficient encouragement to keep up a constant stream of itinerant performers in the numerous arts of mak- ing money. I think few places of the size are more free in expenditure for these amusements than Portland. But be- side these there are during every winter courses of lectures from eminent men and scholars, which deeply interest and in- struct the large audiences which attend them.
We have now passed through, in rather a desultory man- ner, the principal incidents which form the history of our community. What we have gathered may be useful hereafter to those who toil in the same field. When we look back a space of just two hundred and thirty years, and compare our present situation, surrounded by all the beauty of civilization and intelligence, with the cheerless prospect which awaited the
1
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
European settler, whose voice first startled the stillness of the forest ; or if we look back but one hundred and fifty years to the humble beginnings of the second race of settlers, who un- dertook the task of reviving the waste places of this wilderness, and suffered all the privations and hardships which the pioneers in the march of civilization are called upon to endure ; or if we take a nearer point for comparison and view the blackened ruin of our village at the close of the revolutionary war, and estimate the proud pre-eminence over all those periods which we now enjoy, in our civil relations and in the means of social happiness, our hearts should swell with gratitude to the Author of all good that these high privileges are granted to us ; and we should resolve that we will individually and as a community sustain the vigor, the purity, and moral tone of our institutions, and leave them unimpaired to posterity.
CHAPTER XXVI.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
We have in the preceding pages given brief notices as occa- sion offered, of some of our inhabitants in the second period of our history ; we propose now to give a very short account of some others whose names have occurred in the progress of the work, or who have not been particularly noticed.
Adams, Jacob, was admitted an inhabitant February 22, 1728, and died March 5, 1734, in the thirty-third year of his age. He had a son John born in 1729, a daughter Elizabeth born in 1730, and Mary in 1732. His widow the same year married David Stickney, by whom she had two children, Sarah and Jacob, whose descendants still live here. He had a grant of an acre lot near Center street.
Adams, Isaac, was long a very useful and honored citizen of Portland. He was a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1796, came to Portland in 1797, and took charge of the town school on the corner of Middle and India streets. He was born in Byfield, Mass. In 1802 he opened a bookstore in Jones Row, and July 12, 1805, he and William Jenks, Jr., bought the Portland Gazette establishment of Eleazer A. Jenks, and carried it on for several years, Mr. Adams conducting the editorial de- partment with vigor and intelligence. He represented the town in the General Court of Massachusetts ten years, of which eight of them from 1808 to 1815 were consecutive, and again in 1817 and 1818, and seven years in the legislature of Maine,
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
making a longer term of service in the legislature than any citizen of the town ever enjoyed. He was also one of the selectmen of the town thirteen years, up to the time of the adoption of the city charter in 1832, during most of which period he was chairman of the Board and principal executive officer of the town. In 1825 he was appointed the first presi- dent of the Merchants Bank in this city, and continued in that office until his death, which took place July 5, 1834, at the age of sixty years. He never was married. Mr. Adams was a man of fine talents, quick perceptions, calm judgment, and great energy of character. He was tall, of large frame, and imposing appearance.
Allen, Dr. Ebenezer, was surgeon in the army, and was sta- tioned on this coast in 1721 and 1722. He was accepted by the town as an inhabitant in 1727, and had an acre lot granted him in 1728 on the west side of Clay Cove ; a house lot was also granted him at Purpooduck point the same year.
Armstrong, James, came here from Ireland in 1718, with his family, and was part of the cargo of emigrants which spent the winter of that year in our harbor. He had a son Thomas born in Ireland, December 25, 1717 ; his sons, John and James, were born in Falmouth, the former March 9, 1720, the latter April 25, 1721. He remained here with his brothers, while his companions continued their voyage. John, Simeon, and Thomas Armstrong, together with James, received grants of land here previous to 1721. His daughter married Robert Means, who with his family maintained a respectable standing for many years ; some of his descendants still live at Cape Elizabeth.
Barbour, John and Joseph Bean. We have spoken in the preceding pages of these persons who were ancestors of all of the name among us. Their families were united in 1736 by the marriage of Hugh Barbour with Mary Bean. Barbour and Bean were both of Scotch descent. They both came here from York and were of the Scotch-Irish emigration. The first Bar-
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
bour that came here was John in 1716. His father, an old man, came with him, and was drowned in 1719. He had sev- eral children, the eldest, Hugh, was born before the family mov- ed here ; the others were Adam, Mary, Ann, and Hannah, born from 1719 to 1728. Joseph Bean Barbour, son of Hugh and Mary Bean Barbour, lived on the lot granted to his grandfather John in 1721, on Middle street, where the large block of brick stores occupied by Marrett and Poor, and others, now stands, and died in 1795, aged fifty-eight, by falling from a building on which he was at work. He left one son, long our estima- ble fellow-citizen, Joseph Barbour, and three daughters, two of whom, Anne [and Hannah, married Mark Walton, and the third Capt. Andrew Scott; their mother, Mary Bean Barbour, died in Falmouth in 1802, aged ninety-two. Joseph, the last survivor of the family, died in 1853, aged seventy-seven.
Joseph Bean and his wife Joanna came from York ; his first three children were born in York 1704 to 1708, the next five in Falmouth, Mary who married Barbour in 1710, and the last, James, in 1719. He was taken prisoner by the Indians in 1692, when he was sixteen years old, and kept by them seven years and ten months, during which time he traveled much with them and learned their language. This rendered him very useful as an interpreter between the English and Indians on many occasions. He was a captain in the service in 1724. He was a son of Captain Bean, or Bane, as he was often called, well known in Indian warfare, who died in York in 1721.
Brackett, Zachariah, died in Ipswich after 1751, having sold his farm at Back Cove, now occupied by James Deering's heirs, to Josiah Noyes, and moved there about 1740. He was twice married ; by the first wife he had all his children born as fol- lows, viz., Saralı, March 1, 1709, married first Sawyer of Back Cove, second Jonathan Morse, 1754-Jane born January 13, 1711, married Daniel Moshier of Gorham-Anthony, August 25, 1712, married first wife,Abigail Chapman, 1751, second Abi- gail, a daughter of Joshua Brackett, he died in 1775-Abra-
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
ham, July 3, 1714, married Joanna Springer in 1743, and died in 1806, these were born in Hampton, N. H .; the following were born in Falmouth-Zachariah, November 30, 1716, mar- ried Judith Sawyer, 1742, and died 1776-Thomas, married to Mary Snow, 1744-Susannah, February 13, 1720, married to John Baker, 1740-Joshua, June 7, 1723, married Esther Cox, 1744, and died 1810-Abigail, the youngest, August 21, 1727, married James Merrill, 3d., of Falmouth, 1753.
Zachariah Brackett was son of Anthony Brackett (who was killed by Indians on his farm at Back Cove, in 1689), by his second wife, Susannah Drake, who was a daughter of Abraham Drake of Hampton. After the death of his first wife, he mar- ried an Irish woman named Mary Ross in 1741, who caused much trouble in the family and probably drove him back to Hampton. He had got to be an old man.
Bangs, Joshua, came here from Plymouth, Cape Cod, where he was born in 1685, and settled on the point east of Clay Cove. His parents were Jonathan Bangs and Mary Mayo. His grand- father, Edward, born at Chichester, England, came to Ply- mouth in 1628. He was master of a vessel, subsequently a merchant; he represented the town in 1741; and died May 23, 1762, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. He had two sons, Joshua and Thomas, and daughters, Thankful, Sarah, Mary, Mehitable, and Susannah. Joshua died July 6, 1755, aged thirty-two-Thomas married Mehitable Stone of Harwich in 1751-Thankful married Samuel Cobb in 1740-Mehitable born 1728, first married John Roberts, Jr., in 1752, and for her second husband, Jedediah Preble in 1754, by whom she had Martha, Ebenezer, Joshua, Commodore Edward, Enoch, Statira, and Henry ; they are all dead. Capt. Enoch was the last survivor. Sarah married Gershom Rogers in 1756. Mary married Nathaniel Gordon in 1754, and Susannah, Elijah Weare in 1761.
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