USA > Maine > Hancock County > Traditions and records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert island, Maine > Part 12
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
128
TRADITIONS AND RECORDS
came to hand and "going to the ice" for the seal fisheries every season. In 1820, hearing that there was much work to be done in rebuilding the city of Washington, D. C., which had been burned by the British in 1814, he and a friend, Michael Bulger, took passage on a sailing vessel hoping to work their way to Washington. Bulger was a carpenter and Carroll a mason and they judged that men of their trades would not be at a loss to find employment.
The vessels in which the young men took passage came as far as Mount Desert and before an opportunity came for them to advance further on their way, they had been charmed by the young ladies of the place and both married the following year. John Carroll's wife was Rachel Lurvey, daughter of Jacob and Hannah Boynton Lurvey. He purchased the lot of land adjoin- ing the Lurvey property on the east and there he built his modest home.
The deed of the place bears the signature of John Quincy Adams, who was one of the executors of the will of Ward Nicho- las Boylston of Boston, who owned the property at the time of his death.
The land was surveyed and allotted by Salem Towne, Jr., and the price paid for one hundred acres was "forty Spanish milled dollars." Mr. and Mrs. John Carroll and their two little girls moved into their new home on Thanksgiving Day, 1825. A holiday dinner was cooked in the new brick oven and over the open fire, and a number of relatives gathered to "celebrate the hanging of the crane." Roast goose and plum pudding were the chief dishes served that day, and a pedler, wandering with his pack into the settlement came to the house and was invited to partake of the dinner with the family.
One hundred years later, on Thanksgiving Day, 1925, de- scendants of John and Rachel Carroll gathered at the old home and in the same old kitchen and from the same blue earthern platter, served a similar dinner of roast goose and plum pudding, to which many relatives were invited and many more came later in the day when a recital of family history was given and refreshments served.
A few years later the old brick oven was fired after being
129
SOUTHWEST HARBOR
idle for sixty-three years, and a meal of old-time viands cooked and served to a large number of Carroll descendants.
The timbers in the house are hand-hewn and the frame put together with wooden pins. When the rooms were plastered, as hand-made laths were slow of manufacture, boards were nailed to the walls and then split in many places with an axe as a foun- dation for the plaster. Sheets of birch bark were nailed or pegged to the outer walls and roof before the hand-made clap- boards and shingles were nailed on. The plaster originally put on is in all the rooms today.
James Brown and his wife, Susan Lurvey Brown, had a house a little to the northeast of Vondell Stanley's house. Traces of the cellar may still be seen, although the house has been gone for many years.
The first house in the village to the right on entering South- west Harbor was built about 1839 by Jonah Corson and his wife Martha. After the foundation was built and the timbers pre- pared for the building, there was a "raising" and friends and neighbors came to help. So many willing helpers came that the frame was raised and the boarding done in one day. After the day's work was done and the bounteous supper eaten and, doubtless many healths drank, one of the men climbed to the ridgepole and saying,
"Here's to Jonah's industry and Martha's delight,
Framed in a day and raised before night,"
he smashed a bottle of rum on the roof and thus the house was christened in true sailor fashion.
William Herrick, who was a fourteen-year-old boy at the time, used to say that he "did his first piece of man's work" in helping to dig the cellar. During the digging one of the men broke his leg and the cellar was never quite completed according to the original plan. The bricks used for chimney and hearth were from the Fernald brickyard at Fernald Point.
Mr. and Mrs. Corson lived in their house for some time and then sold to Capt. Samuel Rumill and moved to Northeast Har- bor where they had a home on the eastern shore of Somes Sound during their lifetime. Mr. and Mrs. Rumill and their large family lived in the house for some years and then sold to Lyman
130
TRADITIONS AND RECORDS
Harper and moved to Boothbay. Mr. and Mrs. Harper lived their lives there and their oldest son, Leslie Harper, now owns it.
The house across the road was built first at Northeast Harbor by Nathan Stanley, who later took it down and brought it to its present location where it is now occupied by the family of his son, Vondell Stanley. The small cottage to the north of this house was built on the Milan place for a member of the family and later moved to this location by Clinton Hamblen.
The second house on the right, entering the village, was built on the Gilley Field near Long Pond by Edward Gilley, who later moved it to its present situation and when he moved to Massa- chusetts to make his home the house was sold to Gilbert L. Lurvey, whose daughter, Mrs. Maud Lurvey Stanley of Port- land, sold it to Mrs. John Bunker in 1936.
Henry Mayo built the house opposite this one. He built only the ell where he lived for some time before selling it to Capt. Thomas Milan in whose family it has remained ever since ; being now owned and occupied by Clinton Hamblen, son-in-law of Capt. Milan.
Jonathan Manchester built a house on the north corner of the road leading to Fernald Point. After living there for some time he sold the place to be used as a parsonage. Later the church sold it to Frank and Priscilla Lurvey, whose home it was for a while. Then the Methodist church purchased it as a home for the minister of their church. Rev. B. F. Stinson was preaching in the village and living in the house when it burned. The present house was built by the community in the late sixties and for years was a home for the Methodist preachers and later sold to D. L. Mayo, who lived there for some years and sold to Mrs. John F. Young, who still owns and occupies it.
The house on the corner below the hill was built by Enoch Lurvey as a home for his son Cyrus, who moved in when he was married and lived his life there. His heirs sold to Mrs. Hattie Milan Hamblen, she sold to Mrs. Agnes Delaney Jackson and it is now owned by members of the Southwest Harbor Country Club. It was built about 1857.
The first schoolhouse in what is now the town of Southwest Harbor stood at the top of the hill across from Mrs. Young's
131
SOUTHWEST HARBOR
house. It was a rough structure with crude wooden benches and a floor which slanted toward the front so if anything was dropped by a pupil it would roll to the teacher's desk. Here in winter the "big boys" studied navigation and in summer the little girls had instruction in knitting and sewing as well as in reading and writing. Religious services were also held in the building. Able teachers taught there and there were many sentimental regrets among the older people when the new schoolhouse was built and this old building sold to Cyrus Lurvey to be used for years as a barn.
The house now used as a Country Club house was the home of the Gilley family. William Gilley was the first permanent settler in Southwest Harbor and his first house was a log cabin near the shore. Later he built a house just north of the Gilley Burying Ground. Then John, William's grandson, the eldest son of Benjamin Gilley, built the house that is now the Country Club for his parents. He was under age and for his work on the house his father "gave him his time." The place passed from father to son in the Gilley family until Pedrick D. Gilley, fourth generation to own it, sold it to the present owners. The graves of the three generations preceding him are in the Gilley Burying Ground nearby.
The next house on the Fernald Road was built by Henry Edmund Day with lumber that he picked up at sea after a ship- wreck. Mr. Day owned or was part owner of a small vessel called "The Waterloo" and later of a craft known as the "Roscoe G." in which he used to go "coasting" between Maine ports and Boston. It was during one of these trips that he found the lumber, rafted it and brought it home to build his house. This was about 1852. Mr. and Mrs. Day spent their lives there and it was afterward owned by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Norris, who cared for the Days in their last years and who finally sold the place to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Young. John Carter bought it of Mrs. Young and sold to Allston Sargent of New York, who has remodelled and improved it and it is used as a summer cottage. Mr. Sargent gave it to his sister, Mrs. Ralph P. Plaisted, in 1936, and it is her summer home.
Mr. and Mrs. James Edwin Robinson built their house in 1883-4, and Mr. and Mrs. Sylvester Dorr built their home which
132
TRADITIONS AND RECORDS
they now occupy. The house south of these buildings was built by Elias Ginn about 1890. Mr. Ginn's daughter sold it to Allston Sargent of New York, who in 1933 sold to Kenneth Usher of Cambridge, who uses it as a summer home.
South of this place is a house that was built by Bion Rey- nolds about 1897. It is now owned by A. C. Yates of Washing- ton, D. C., and is rented during the summer season. The small club house near the Country Club landing was built in 1933 for the convenience of those using the swimming pool and the tennis courts which are near by.
The first owner of the land where the William J. Miller place is was one Joseph Bunker, who took up a large tract of land in the earliest days of settlement of this vicinity. He sold it to Jacob Lurvey, soldier of the Revolution, for nine pounds English money. The first log house of the Lurvey family was near the present Tyssowski cottage and they spent several years there before moving to another site on the high ridge of land to the north. Mr. Lurvey gave a piece of land to his son, Isaac, who built a house where the Miller house now stands. Then he sold to Leonard Holmes, who had a store and a mill at the Mill Dam. Mr. Holmes sawed the old house in two after living there for some time. He used one half as a workshop and the other half was moved over to the southern boundary of the Gilley Ceme- tery where it was owned and occupied by Reuben Higgins until it was blown down by a great storm. Aaron Gross rebuilt it (his wife was the daughter of Reuben Higgins) and lived there for some years when the house burned. Stephen Manchester had a house near the cemetery and two houses, one near the shore and the other not far from the first Gilley house, were owned by men by the name of Grow. A part of the old Man- chester house was used to build the Gross house.
Mr. Holmes built the house now owned by Mr. Miller and it was his home for many years, then inherited by his daughter, Mrs. Emeline Holmes Hamor, whose heirs sold it to the Miller family.
The schoolhouse lot was purchased of William Thomas Holmes on March 27, 1860, and the building erected that year to take the place of the old one which stood opposite Mrs. John F. Young's house.
133
SOUTHWEST HARBOR
In 1913 the school at Norwood's Cove was abolished and since that time the pupils have attended the schools at the vil- lage. Throughout the years this school district maintained a high rank of scholarship and many earnest and gifted teachers have taught in the little building, which was painted yellow with white trimmings and for equipment had a large desk for the teacher, a chair, one or two maps and part of the time a water pail and tin dipper.
Later in its career an organ was added through the Good Templars' lodge and they kindly allowed the school to use it. Rev. Charles F. Dole, whose summer home was close by, used to hold Sunday afternoon services in the schoolhouse and at dif- ferent times a Sunday School was held there. Concerts and plays have been given in the schoolroom, funeral services have been conducted there, Christmas trees have yielded their bounti- ful fruit to an excited assembly and altogether, the little school- house had a large share in the social and educational life of the community. It was purchased from the town by Allston Sargent and was taken down in 1937 by Lawrence Robinson, who used the lumber to build an addition to his house.
The cottage now owned by Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Meade of Weston, Mass., was built by Lewis Holmes, who sold it to his brother, William Thomas Holmes. On September 26, 1865, Mr. Holmes sold the place to Enoch Lurvey, Jr., for $470. Two years later Mr. Lurvey was lost at sea and his widow sold the house to David Robbins. William Herrick was the next owner and he sold to Mr. Meade, who remodelled the house.
Rev. Charles F. Dole built his cottage about 1887; the first in this part of the town and one of the first on the western part of Mount Desert Island. For more than fifty years the Dole family spent their summers in Southwest Harbor and Mr. and Mrs. Dole had a marked influence for good in the community. Their daughter, Mrs. Horace Mann, now owns and occupies the cottage each season with her family.
Prof. E. B. Homer built his cottage near the shore not long after Mr. Dole's was built. Members of the family still own it and spend a part of every summer there. In 1936 another cot- tage was built on this property by the Homer family.
134
TRADITIONS AND RECORDS
Mrs. Martha Brown Fincke built her cottage in 1916-17. The E. A. Lawler cottage on the side of the Lawler hill was built about 1896 to rent to summer visitors.
During the winter of 1936-7 Sylvester Dorr built for Mr. and Mrs. William L. Newton of South Carolina the house of Colonial design on the shore just east of the Causeway Club swimming pool and in 1937-8 Mr. Dorr built the house close by the Cause- way Club boat landing for Mr. and Mrs. Thurlow Gordon of New York.
The Tyssowski cottage was built in 1922-3 and Charles Morris Young of Philadelphia built a studio on his land near the Mill Dam in 1924.
Thomas Somers and his wife, Elsie Slowly Somers, built the first house on the Lawler place. They came from Connecticut, bringing with them apple trees, currant bushes, bulbs and seeds of flowers, many of which are still growing where they planted them about 1787. Mrs. Somers was born about 1767 and her eldest son, Elisha Mansfield, was born about 1786. She married in her native town Thomas Somers, a young mulatto, probably about 1786 and they at once moved to Mount Desert. Mrs. Somers had some knowledge of the medicinal qualities of herbs and roots and some skill in caring for the sick and she minis- tered to her neighbors in time of need. Both were industrious and intelligent but "addicted to strong drink and hard language" as one of their neighbors expressed it. Their first child, Sally, was born April 24, 1791, and their second child, Thomas, Jr., was born October 22, 1793.
Somers took part in the Revolutionary War and is recorded as teamster in a Massachusetts regiment.
The daughter Sally married John Clark, a white man, and they had one son, John M. Clark, born about 1820-21. He is described as being a short, thick-set young man with a negro cast of countenance. He shipped in a vessel bound to sea about 1840 and was never heard from again.
Sally's husband was unwilling to live with the Somers family and as his wife refused to leave her parents, he disappeared and was never heard from. Some years later Sally married Jonathan Gardiner and when she died, in 1832 he married again and moved
135
SOUTHWEST HARBOR
to Salem, Mass. Thomas Somers, Jr., borrowed a boat of a neighbor and started for Bar Harbor. His boat was found on the rocks off Otter Creek and in it was a bottle partly full of rum.
Mrs. Somers died about 1839 and her husband the following year. They and their daughter Sally are buried in the Gilley Burying Ground in unmarked graves.
Mrs. Somers was suspected by some of her neighbors of having supernatural powers and many tales were told of her knowledge of witchcraft and her skill in practising it. The ves- sels bound up Somes Sound had a way of bringing Mrs. Somers a pound of tea, a round of pork or a bottle of rum for a guaran- tee of a safe passage up the Sound. If they failed to do this she would pronounce a curse against them and tradition says that they often came to grief. One story is told of a captain who scorned her offers and sailed toward his destination only to ground his vessel on one of the points at the mouth of the Sound. She offered to float his craft for a round of pork. He refused her demands until he had worked in vain for a day or two and failed to float; than he gave the required gift and at the next high tide he found his vessel floating free of the rocks.
Sally was also supposed to have witch-like qualities. She had a black cat of which she was very fond and the neighbors claimed that the cat partook of the qualities of her mistress. It was said that the cat could enter any barn or cellar no matter how closely it was closed and many were the depredations that were said to be caused by it. Several attempts had been made to dispose of the cat but none availed and at last one of the neighbors remembered that witches could only be killed by a silver bullet. So he made a silver bullet from a coin and loaded his gun. When the cat appeared he shot at it and killed it. Tradition relates that Sally was standing at a table in her home ironing when the deed was done; that she cried out "They have killed my cat", took to her bed and passed away in a few days. It was Sally who gave the name of Dog to the mountain to the north of her home. She had two dogs that began to worry not only the sheep belonging to the neighbors, but also her own. She had no way of disposing of the creatures so she coaxed them
136
TRADITIONS AND RECORDS
to the top of the mountain and to the edge of the cliffs over- looking the Sound and there she pushed them off. It is unfor- tunate that the memory of such a cruel deed should have been perpetuated so many years by the name, and St. Sauveur seems a much more appropriate name for this rugged eminence.
The Somers family first lived in a log cabin on the present site of A. P. Butler's cottage. Then they built a small house just east of the present Lawler house where they lived the rest of their lives. After the death of Mrs. Somers in 1839, the place was given to Ezra Robinson for the care of Mr. Somers. He lived but one year after the death of his wife and the place was sold to Robert Gott, who built the present house about 1843, bringing the frame from Little Gott Island. Later he traded the place back to Ezra Robinson for a lot of land at the head of the harbor. William Lawler purchased the place of Ezra Robinson in 1848, lived there and brought up his large family. In 1937 it was sold to Mrs. John H. Longmaid. The house has been remodelled but the lines of the old dwelling have been re- tained.
Allen J. Lawler's cottage was built in 1888. He lived there for a few years and then built a house in the village and this one has since been rented as a summer home. A small house once stood on this same site which was built by a man by the name of Fitzgibbons from the timbers of an old smoke house which stood on Connors Point. He sold it to Lewis Holmes who lived in it and about 1880 it was hauled by oxen to a spot near the Dole cottage where it was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Holmes during their lives. Then it was rented to various fam- ilies and in 1926 it was hauled to a lot on the Sam Lurvey place by Harvey Gilley where it still stands.
Miss Elizabeth Packard built her cottage on the little point in 1932, also the small house which is a home for her assistants. Mr. and Mrs. A. P. Butler built their house in 1925-6 for a sum- mer home but have found it very convenient and comfortable as a winter residence.
A house long stood on Connors Point in which Major Man- chester lived for some time. Later it was occupied by a Murphy family and after that by a family named Kenniston. One of the
137
SOUTHWEST HARBOR
daughters of the Kennistons married a man named Starling and they lived there. Mrs. Starling took passage on a sailing vessel for Boston taking with her her infant son and leaving three little girls at home. On the return trip the vessel was carrying too much sail and capsized. All on board were drowned and but few of the bodies recovered. Mrs. Starling was in the ship's cabin and the rescuers cut a hole through the bottom of the over- turned vessel to remove her body. She and her child were buried on the shores of Barnstable Bay. The house on the point was sold to John Connors, who, with his wife and family had come from Ireland. In late years the land has been sold in lots to summer residents who have built cottages here. Among these are A. C. Yates of Washington, D. C., Joseph Brown of Prince- ton, N. J., who built his cottage in 1923, and during the winter of 1936-7 R. M. Norwood built for the Brown family a small cot- tage on their property and also a log cabin on "the shanty lot" which they purchased from the Connors heirs.
Rev. Henry Wilder Foote of Belmont, Mass., bought the house at the very end of the point which was built by Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Meade before they bought the house on the Fernald Road. John Conners and his family lived a number of years in the house on the point and later built a larger and better house on the north side of the Fernald Point Road. This was burned years after the old people had died and a new house to the south of this one, built by Patrick Connors, and occupied for some years was also burned. The parents of John Connors came over from Ireland to live with their son and he built a small house for them on the west side of Fernald Cove. They spoke of it as "the shanty" and the lot has always been called "the shanty lot."
"Jimmie Welch" lived for many years in a camp on the shores of Connors Cove. Part of his shelter was made by an old boat overturned to make a roof for his hen house and also his own habitation. Sometimes his hens lived in the same room with their owner. One pet was called "Gubby" and children who often called on "Jimmie" were delighted to see this favorite bird eating from the same plate as her master. It was not known where "Jimmie Welch" came from but it was said that he
138
TRADITIONS AND RECORDS
had broken some law in his native land and fled from justice. He kneaded his bread on his knee and always made his callers welcome. His last days were spent at West Tremont with a family by the name of Murphy who cared for him during his final illness. Probably his real name was never known.
The land at Fernald Point was taken up by Andrew Tarr, who had come from Gloucester, Mass., and first settled at the head of the Sound to be near his former neighbors, the Richard- sons. The Report of the Commissioners of 1808 shows that he took up Fernald Point before 1785. His daughter, Comfort Tarr Fernald, inherited the property and her husband, Tobias Fernald, built the house which stands near the end of the Point. The site first selected was to the north of the present location and the building was partly completed when the change was decided upon and made. This was in the early eighteen hun- dreds. In 1842 the house was remodeled and made into a two- family dwelling for Eben and Daniel Fernald, sons of Tobias. The old chimney was taken down and two chimneys built and the two apartments made exactly alike. The wide front stairs are an interesting feature of the old house.
The two brothers lived there and worked the farm for many years and when they were no longer able to carry on the labor Eben Fernald deeded his part of the farm to his son, Prof. Charles H. Fernald of Amherst College, Mass., and Daniel who never married, gave his portion to his nephew, Rev. Oliver H. Fernald, with whom he spent his last years. Rev. Oliver Fer- nald built the other house on the point and in 1926 his daughter sold it to Miss Mary E. Dreier of New York, who made many changes and additions to fit it for a summer home and she named it Valour House in memory of the courage of that little band of men who attempted to make their settlement under Father Biard on this site in 1613 and planned to establish a mission for the conversion of the Indians.
The spring of cold fresh water, called The Jesuit Spring, which is below high water mark is still a place of interest and the shell heaps along the shore show that Fernald Point was an Indian resort for many, many years. Valuable Indian relics have been found in these shell heaps. Miss Louise Fernald (now
139
SOUTHWEST HARBOR
Mrs. Lynn M. Goulding) after selling the large house to Miss Dreier, built the cottage near the bridge which she uses as a summer home.
The Fernald property included Flying Hill and Valley Cove, the southern part of Dog Mt. (now Mt. Sauveur) and a number of acres of woodland at Canada Hollow. Valley Cove is one of the great beauty spots of Mount Desert Island and the short and easy climb to the top of Flying Hill well repays the effort of getting there.
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.