USA > Maine > Oxford County > Waterford > The history of Waterford, Oxford County, Maine, comprising Historical address, by Henry P. Warren; record of families, by Rev. William Warren, D.D.; centennial proceedings, by Samuel Warren, esq > Part 5
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Bear and Moose ponds are said to have received their names because early in the history of the town a bear was killed in one and a moose in the other. Crooked river was so called on account of its crooked course in the town, its whole length in Waterford being eighteen miles and fourteen rods. Another and the proper name for this river is Songo, as it drains Songo pond in Albany and was so called by the Indians.
But to return to the early days of our town his- tory. On the 7th of March, 'Squire Frye, as directed by the General Court of Massachusetts, instructed Eleazar Hamlin to summon the people of Waterford to assemble at the new dwelling-house of Dr. Stephen Cummings to choose the town officers re- quired by law.
I give the summons and the proceedings of the first and second town meetings in full, excepting an
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FIRST TOWN MEETINGS.
item concerning the building of some roads in the western part of the town.
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
YORK SS. To Eleazar Hamlin of Waterford in said county, greeting.
In the name of the Commonwealth aforesaid you are hereby re- quired and directed to notify and warn all the freeholders and other inhabitants of the town of Waterford, in due coars of law, who are qualified as the law directs to vote in town meetings, to assemble and meet at the new dwelling-house of Stephen Cum- mings in said Waterford, on Thursday the twenty-seventh day of April next, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, and when so assembled to proceed and choose a moderator to govern said meeting and all such officers as towns are by law required to choose in the month of March or April annually.
Given under my hand and seal at Fryeburg in said county of York, the twenty-seventh day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, and twenty-first year of the independence of the United States of America.
SIMON FRYE, Justice Peace.
By virtue of a warrant directed to me by the Hon. Simon Frye, Esq., I hereby notify and warn all the freeholders and other in- habitants of the town of Waterford, qualified as the law directs to vote in town meetings, to assemble and meet at the new dwelling- house of Doct. Stephen Cummings in said Waterford, Thursday the twenty-seventh day of the present month, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, and when so assembled to proceed
1st. To choose a moderator to govern said meeting.
2ly. To choose all such officers as towns are by law required to choose in the month of March or April annually.
WATERFORD, April 6, 1797.
ELEAZAR HAMLIN, 3 of Waterford. 5 Inhabitant
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
WATERFORD, April 27, 1797.
I hereby certify that I have notified and warned the inhabitants of the town of Waterford to meet at the time and place and for the purpose within mentioned, in compliance with a warrant to me directed by the Hon. Simon Frye, Esq.
ELEAZAR HAMLIN.
On the first artical choose Africa Hamlin, moderator.
2ly. Choose Africa Hamlin, town clerk.
3ly. Choose Lt. Molbory Kingman, moderator.
4ly. Choose Africa Hamlin, first selectman.
Choose Daniel Chaplin, second selectman.
Choose Solomon Stone, third selectman.
5ly. Choose Africa Hamlin, Daniel Chaplin, and Solomon Stone, assessors.
6ly.
7ly. Choose David Whitcomb, constable and collector.
Sly. Choose David Whitcomb, Doct. Stephen Cummings, John Atherton, Edward Baker, Joel Stone, Daniel Barker, Isaac Smith, Abijah Warren, and Molbory Kingman, surveyors of the highways.
9ly. Choose Eleazar Hamlin, John Nurse, Daniel Barker, tith- ingmen.
10ly. Choose Daniel Green, deer reaf.
11ly. Choose Ebenezer Jewett, Samuel Plummer, Oliver Hap- good, Molbory Kingman, Elijah Swan, and Israel Hale, hog con- stables.
12ly. Choose Phineas Sampson, pound keeper. >
13ly. Choose Benjaman Killgore, Eliphalet Watson, Nathaniel Jewett, and Asa Jonson, field drivers.
14ly. Choose Silas Brown, leather sealer.
15ly. Choose Doct. Stephen Cummings, sealer of waits and measures.
16ly. Choose Colman Watson, surveyor of lumber.
17ly. Choose Josiah Shaw and Benjaman Sampson, fence viewers.
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FIRST TOWN MEETINGS.
The report of a town meeting held June 7, 1797, at Dr. Stephen Cummings', runs as follows :
The inhabitants being meet, proseded to business.
2ly artical. Voted one hundred dollars for the purpose of hiring preaching in said town the present seson.
3ly artical. Voted to rais one hundred dollars for schooling and appropriated by the selectmen.
4ly. Voted to rais five hundred dollars to make and mend roads.
5ly. Voted six shillings a day shall be allowd for a man till the last of September by working ten hours, after that fore shillings. Voted three shillings for a yoak of oxon.
6ly. Voted to rais one hundred dollars to defray town charges.
7ly. Voted the selectmen be a committee to procure a preacher in the best method in their power.
8ly. Choose Eli Longley, treasuror.
Choose Daniel Barker, highway surveyor. 1
9ly. Voted that the warrants for town meetings shall be posted up at Mr. Eli Longley's.
Voted to reconsider the 9th article.
10ly. Voted that the town meeting shall be warned by being posted at the corn mill (Ezra Jewell's) and Doct. Stephen Cum- mings', and that each adjournment shall be posted by the town clerk at each place above mentioned.
At a town meeting held at Eli Longley's Aug. 21, 1797, the following items of business among others were transacted :
2ly. Voted that town of Waterford petition the General Cort at their next session for to let the town be joined to the county of Cumberland.
5ly. Voted that a committee of five should be chosen to district out the town into school districts. Voted Eli Longley, America
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Hamlin, Eber Rice, Eliphlet Watson, Samuel Warren be a com- mittee for the purpose.
6ly. Voted that the sum of eighty dollars be granted to build each scholhous.
7ly. Voted that the town meetings shall be held at Mr. Eli Longley's for the future.
8ly. Voted to except the Constitution of the State of mane. Voted to not send a deligate. Voted to wright to the convention at Hallowell.
9ly. Voted that the selectmen be a committee to petition the General Cort for to let the town of Waterford to the county of Cumberland.
The proceedings of the first town meeting are sig- nificant; for after choosing town officers, the first vote that the town took was to appropriate out of their poverty $100 for preaching; the second vote appropriated $100 for schooling; then the town turned its attention to roads. We will, if you please, preserve this order, so characteristic of the God- fearing, intelligent, and business-like fathers of our town.
During the summers 1797 and 1798 the town hired Rev. Lincoln Ripley of Concord, Mass., to preach to them, paying him thirty dollars each year for his services besides boarding him and his horse. His trips to Waterford were probably missionary tours, undertaken while pursuing theological studies with Dr. Ezra Ripley of Concord, Mass., his brother.
ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS: CONGREGATIONALISTS. 81
July 1, 1798, the town voted,1 fifty-two to seven- teen, to call Mr. Ripley. Messrs. John Nurse, Joel Stone, Daniel Barker, Hezekiah Hapgood, and Africa Hamlin were appointed a committee to present the invitation. The salary offered was this, two hun- dred pounds 2 as a settlement. This included the use of the ministerial lands, valued at one hundred and fifty pounds, seventy pounds salary for the first year, and five pounds additional each year until it should amount to a hundred pounds,-this to con- tinue during his active ministerial life. Should he become incapacitated for work he was to receive a pension of fifty pounds a year during his natural life. This salary was payable in produce at its market rates, with ten per cent deducted for prompt quar- terly payment. For ten years or more the town sold at public auction at town meeting the supply- ing of ten cords of wood to Rev. Mr. Ripley; the average price was $1.00 a cord.
Mr. Ripley accepted the call and returned to Waterford, preaching most of the time until his installation, Oct. 1, 1799. The council to ordain
1 Appropriations for support of minister, supplying him with wood, and hiring a janitor were articles in the warrant, and were as freely and warmly discussed in town meetings as road, school, or other gen- eral appropriation.
2 The pound was equivalent to three dollars and thirty-three cents in decimal currency; the shilling to sixteen and two-thirds cents.
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
and install him met at the house of Dr. Stephen Cummings, where Rev. John A. Douglass now lives. There were present at this council Rev. Dr. Ezra Ripley of Concord, Mass., Rev. Nathan Church of Bridgton, Rev. William Fessenden of Fryeburg, Rev. Mr. Robie of Otisfield, Rev. John Simkins of Harwich, Mass., Rev. Samuel Hidden of Tamworth, N. H., Rev. Mr. Marrett of Standish, Hon. Simon Frye, Esq. of Fryeburg, and Deacon Peabody of Bridgton.
Naturally the clergymen in this council came from a distance, for at this time there was but one Congregational minister within the limits of Oxford county, Rev. William Fessenden of Fryeburg; there were two Baptist ministers at that time in the coun- ty, one at Fryeburg the other at Paris. The growth of Congregationalism in Oxford county was slow, for in 1813 there were but thirteen Congregational churches in this county, although there were four- teen Calvinist Baptist churches; most of the latter have become extinct.
To return to the council. Rev. William Fessen- den was chosen moderator, Rev. Mr. Marrett, scribe. The pastor elect passed a satisfactory examination. The council then organized the church. It was com- posed of the following members :
1
1.
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INSTALLATION OF MR. RIPLEY.
Edward Baker,
David Chaplin, Daniel Chaplin, Ephraim Chamberlain,
Eber Rice, Joel Stone, Solomon Stone,
Ezekiel Sanders,
Thomas Green,
Samuel Sanders,
Stephen Jewett,
Stephen Sanderson,
Nathan Jewett,
Samuel Warren,
Eben Jewett,
David Whitcomb,
Samuel Plummer,
James Wright.
The deacons chosen were John Nurse, Stephen Jewett, and Ephraim Chamberlain.
It is noticeable that in the early records of the old Congregational and Baptist churches no mention is made of female membership, although the majori- ty of the church then as now were women.
The order of exercises at the ordination and in- stallation was as follows :
Introductory prayer by Rev. Nathan Church.
Sermon by Rev. Ezra Ripley, D.D.
Ordaining prayer, Rev. Samuel Hidden. Charge to the pastor, Rev. William Fessenden. Right hand of fellowship, Rev. Mr. Robie. Concluding prayer by the pastor.
The exercises took place upon a huge boulder which stands between the house now occupied by Mr. Ripley and the spot where the church was soon after built. The sacrament of the Lord's supper was ad- ministered for the first time to this church October,
2
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
1798. Rev. Lincoln Ripley preached from the text, "What mean ye by this service ?" Meetings were held in Mr. Ripley's house or barn, as the season allowed, until the building of the meeting-house, four years later.
The meeting-house was not located without fur- ther struggle. We have seen that its location de- layed the incorporation of the town nearly two years, and caused the setting off of three tiers of lots to Norway.
After the incorporation of the town the north and north-west parts insisted upon building on Daven- port hill, where Samuel Plummer now resides; the south and south-west parts insisted on locating it where Mr. Porter's house now stands. The location on Kingman hill was a compromise. McWain in particular was greatly angered by this location, and made an oath that he would never enter the house and he never did, neither attending church or town meeting (the town meetings for thirty years were held in the old meeting-house) during the rest of his life. Mr. Ripley remonstrated with him for absent- ing himself from church. "I vum," said the old man, "Jeptha kept his vow and I will mine." The story runs that the two factions were equally di- vided until Dea. Nurse made the majority. He was remonstrated with by the people in the south part of the town. "Blessed are the peace makers," said
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THE TOWN CHURCH.
the good deacon. Forty years later the battle was fought over again, and this time the south part suc- ceeded.
In 1800 the town decided to build at once. Waterford, never niggardly, makes under date of Aug. 23d of that year the following liberal provision of rum and sugar for the crowd that was to do the grading of the land. "One barrel of good West India rum to be to the acceptance of the committee on grading, struck off to John Chamberlain at $1.56 a gallon. One hundred pounds of West India sugar of the best kind, struck off to the same at 182 cents a pound." The allowance certainly was liberal, about a quart to a man. Capt. Ephraim Hapgood had charge of the rum. Tradition has preserved another vote passed by the crowd that assembled on that September morning. "Whoever gets drunk to-day must come to-morrow and dig a stump," runs the resolution. Tradition in a postscript adds that four or five came the next morning.
In 1801 the frame was erected and the walls were covered. At the March meeting of that year I find the following vote was passed : "Voted to choose a committee of three to seat the meeting-house. Voted that the meeting-house be seated by age."
The care of the meeting-house was bid off to Jo- siah Proctor for six dollars. The town specified his duties as follows : "To open the doors on all public
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
days and shut them after the people had withdrawn ; to keep the steps clear of snow; to sweep the house seven times in a year-after March meeting, April meeting, in the months of May, July, September, November, and January; to provide water when there shall be any children to be christened." Sure- ly this laborer was worthy of his hire.
The cost of the meeting-house was about $3,000; the pews sold at auction for a little more than $2,000. It was a heavier burden than the war debt incurred by Waterford in the late Rebellion, for the valuation of Waterford in 1802 was only $30,130. The cost of the meeting-house therefore represented one-tenth of the valuation of the town. The same year the town raised $1,000 for general expenses, and finished its payment for school-houses just built, about $600. The men who made a pleasure jaunt of carrying a bushel of corn ten miles to mill, who often felled an acre of hard wood growth in a day, laughed at burdens like these.
For those days the old church was a handsome structure. I have before me as I write a plan of it. It stood north and south, and consisted of main house and porch. The main house was forty by fifty, the posts were twenty feet high; the porch was sixteen feet square, the posts being a little lower than in the main house. Around it ran two rows of windows; the upper tier in the main house contin-
C
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THE TOWN CHURCH.
ued around the porch. There were three entrances, all at the porch, one at the front and one on either side.
To the main house there was but a single en- trance, and this at the center. Square pews com- menced on either side of this entrance, and continued around the walls of the house within perhaps ten feet of the pulpit. This intervening space on either side was filled with slips like the pews in a modern meeting-house. The slips on the right hand of the pulpit were called the men's seats, on the left the women's seats. These were in early times seats of - honor, occupied by the old men and women; later they fell into partial disuse, except as they were oc- cupied by the deacons at communion service. The body of the house was divided by a broad aisle, on either side of which were two rows of small square pews, irreverently called " sheep-pens."
The pulpit was a box or close pulpit, with doors on either side. The top of it was in the general shape of the letter V, though the stiffness of the legs of the angle was relieved by curves and breaks. Its top was covered with an elegant cushion, pre- sented to the church by Rev. Dr. Channing's society, of Boston. Fastened in a socket and attached to the base of the pulpit was a baptismal font, the frame of iron not unlike in shape the skeleton of a bracket lamp.
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Around three sides of the church ran a gallery, reached by stairs in the porch, and by a single door directly over the entrance to the lower floor. Square wall pews ran around the gallery on either side. In front of these was an aisle. Three short aisles led from this, at right angles, to the front of the gallery, one in front of the entrance door and one on either side. The spaces between these short aisles were filled with a double row of benches. The slips on the right side were called the men's seats, those on the left the women's seats. They were free, and were generally occupied by irregular attendants on church services and the old people, save those di- rectly opposite the pulpit around to each side aisle, which were occupied by the full choir, headed by the responsible chorister with his wooden pitch-pipe.
The pews throughout the church were five feet by six and were entered by a door, the whole sur- mounted by a balustrade perhaps six inches high. " These tempted little eyes to look through in search of other eyes, and little fingers to play with their pillars, to the great annoyance of staid mothers." A seat ran across the back of this pew. At the end of it, next the door, invariably sat the head of the fam- ily ; a custom borrowed perhaps from the days of Indian surprises, when the men must be ready at an instant's warning to hurry with their guns to the de- fense of their families. Diagonally across the pew
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THE TOWN CHURCH.
sat the wife, where the choir and the minister alike were in full view. A short seat, long enough for two children, was fastened to the front of the pew. All these seats were hinged to cleats fastened to the sides of the pew. During prayer they were raised ; at the close of the exercise they dropped with a rat- tling not unlike the fire of an awkward militia squad at muster.
The house was finished and ceiled with "clear stuff," and handsomely painted except the pews ; the outside of the house was painted yellow. For twenty years foot-stoves, soapstones, and hot bricks were the only means of supplying artificial heat to the worshipers, although many a service was held when the thermometer marked twenty and thirty degrees below zero at the door. When degener- ate children suggested stoves the fathers stout- ly opposed; but yielding to the inevitable, they placed the hated thing in the main passage and kept it fiercely hot. It filled the aisle with its glowing presence. Those who sat in the pews near often crowded away from the red-hot fury. The pew doors of sapless pumpkin pine tried in vain to sweat a protesting drop of pitch; they only grew black in the face-they were slowly carbonized. To crown all, the stove committee instead of carrying the fun- nel straight to the ceiling, thence through the roof by a short chimney, carried it out through the lower
7
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
side windows in the rear of the house. Some of you remember the result. Our prevailing wind in the winter is north-west. These black eyes looked into this wind. Every adverse gust drove the smoke back into the house; pyroligneous acid dropped from every joint of the horizontal funnel, staining the clean pine pews. The blinding smoke often made all eyes weep within, while the black orbs sticking from either window wept grimy tears on the clean, white snow without. The sorrowing at- tendants often longed for the clean cold of other days.
For twenty-five years the church expenses were met by general taxation. The ministerial tax list was made out by the town assessors and handed to the town constable for collection. The form in which it was made out and the manner in which it was collected were in all respects the same as in the case of the town tax for general purposes. There lies before me as I write the ministerial tax of 1802. The poll tax was seventy-five cents. Real and per- sonal estate were taxed six mills on a dollar. The amount raised was $270.06,5. I extract from the list the names of the ten persons who paid the high- est taxes and the amount assessed against them.
David McWain, poll .75, R. E. $5.98,2, P. E. $1.66,2, total $8.39,4. Oliver Hale, poll .75, R. E. $3.36, P. E. . 84, total $4.95.
Hannibal Hamlin, polls $2.25, R. E. $1.35, P. E. . 69, total $4.29.
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SUPPORT OF PREACHING.
Jona. Robbins, polls $1.50, R. E. $1.71, P. E. $1.06,8, total $4.27,8. Samuel Plummer, poll .75, R. E. $2.14,8, P. E. . 68,2, total $3.58. Lt. Thos. Green, polls $1.50, R. E. $1.42,8, P. E. . 78, total $3.70,8. Josiah Dudley, poll .75, R. E. $2.62,2, P. E. $1.05, total $4.42,2. Capt. Stephen Jewett, poll.75, R. E. $2.41,8, P. E. . 76,2, total $3.93. Samuel Warren, polls $1.50, R. E. $1.22,4, P. E. . 68,4, total $3.40,8.
The remainder of the taxes vary in amount from seventy-five cents to three dollars and a quarter. The number of taxes assessed was one hundred and nine.
The assessors in their warning to Mr. Brigham, the town constable, say : "If any person shall re- fuse or neglect to pay the sum that he is assessed in said list, you are to distrain the goods and chattels of such persons to the value thereof, and the distress so taken keep for the space of four days at the cost of the owner; and if he shall not pay the sum so assessed to him within four days, then you are to sell at public vendue the distress so taken for pay- ment thereof with charges, first giving forty-eight hours' notice of such sale by putting up advertise- ments thereof in some public place in the town, and the overplus arising from such sale, if any there be, besides the sum assessed and the necessary charges of taking and keeping the distress, you are immedi- ately to restore to the owner. And for want of goods and chattels whereon to make distress,-be- sides tools necessary for his trade or occupation, beasts and plow necessary for the cultivation of his
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
improved lands, any utensils of household keeping for the purpose of upholding life, bedding and ap- parel necessary for himself and family for the space of twelve days,-you are to take the body of such person so refusing or neglecting, and him commit into the common jail of said county, there to remain until he pay the same, or such part thereof as shall not be abated by the assessors for the time being, or by the Court of the General Sessions of the Peace for the said county." This was law in 1802, and though some were restive under it, no one at that time thought of attempting its evasion. Another law was frequently evaded. It required every man, under penalty of a fine, to attend church once in three months.
From this statement we see that the parish and town were the same. All owned or were assigned pews in the meeting-house, all paid some tax to sup- port preaching. So long as the people were united, the arrangement was as perfect as any that could be devised. The tax that each paid was but a trifle; it was the people's church and all had rights in it. Then church attendance was very general. Every respectable family was represented at divine service. The minister, was he faithful, reached every home by his Sunday services or by pastoral visitation.
Although in all outward respects the church was prosperous there were signs of trouble within. Bap-
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ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS: BAPTISTS.
tist and Methodist missionaries-always with zeal sometimes without discretion-throughout the new part of Maine were taking advantage of the disor- ganization of church relations, incident to a new country, to build up societies. The great bulk of church members who had moved from Massachusetts to Maine were connected with the Congregational church, then the State church in all New England.
Mr. Ripley most earnestly opposed these mission- aries, and perhaps unwisely. Naturally a timid man, in the confusion which this strife of sect cre- ated, he thought he foresaw the fall of the church and the reign of Anti-Christ. We who look back upon the strife since the smoke has cleared away, must allow that his fears were not wholly ground- less, for the Christians in our State are to-day sadly divided by sectarian lines.
As early as 1803 I find mention made of the Bap- tists in Waterford. Mr. Ripley, in his historical sketch published in 1803, says: "There are some Baptists in town, and the serious among them, so far from trying to cause divisions among their fellow Christians, seem disposed to attend constantly on the public institutions of religion with the Congre- gationalists." Subsequently Mr. Ripley modified this kindly opinion. Rev. Arthur Drinkwater and Rev. Reuben Ball, the former settled at Bethel the
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
latter at Bridgton Center, were active in organizing a church. Mr. Ball was a popular man, and by his instrumentality a society with twenty-five male members was formed in 1814. It was organized in the old meeting-house. The members lived in the Plummer neighborhood or contiguous to it. During the winter meetings were held in the Plummer district school-house and at Mr. John Kimball's (south of Mr. Samuel Plummer's). In summer at Mr. Eben Cross' (Mr. Samuel Plummer's). Elder Josiah Hough- ton and Mighill Jewett preached for them a portion of the time for several years. They preached in the summer and kept school in the winter. The mem- bers were for the most part elderly people. “Master Chaplin," the learned blacksmith, was their deacon.
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