USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Wiscasset > Wiscasset in Pownalborough; a history of the shire town and the salient historical features of the territory between the Sheepscot and Kennebec rivers > Part 21
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The trial was postponed by 'Squire Rice until the eleventh of February, and the whole gang were put under bonds to keep the peace and appear at the proper time.
The next day the Major was taken by the officers and prosecuted for selling rum. Bailey, his two sons, Kingsbury, Rollins Munsey, D. Smith, William Nute, John Thompson, Joseph Groves, and old Ben Albee have been tried and fined. .... The law is on top now and the rum-sellers have been floored flat. The "Relief Club" is over
26. The first prohibitory law was ineffective. The Maine law was passed in 1851.
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Roads and Taverns
here to night to help us. They came from Bath in a huge sleigh with six horses, posti- lions and banners. The old Major swore that he would not go to the meeting if any of the clergy were there, so they had to have two meetings-one Lincoln Hall for the Clergy, etc., and one in the Town Hall for Major Ben. ....
The Major had a famous collection of stuffed birds, and among his cronies "going to see the birds" was the cabalistic phrase for getting a drink.27
The house is now used as a private residence.
The Marston House
This old house which stands on the northwest corner of Main and Middle Streets was built in 1785. Its first occupant was Capt. Alexander Askins (Erskine), the son of Ninon Askins. Captain Askins was born in Bristol, Maine, in July, 1757. He married at Newcastle, Elizabeth Mc- Near, the daughter of Capt. John McNear and Mary Shirley. A strange fatality pursued this family for four of the McNear boys were lost at sea, all of them brothers to Mrs. Askins. John and James were lost on a passage to Boston. Later Joseph was drowned and Thomas was knocked overboard and though seen was not recovered.
Capt. Alexander Askins settled in Pownalborough, now Wiscasset, as early as 1785. He is listed as an inn-holder in 1798. Capt. Alexander Askins also built ships at Wiscasset in company with Abiel Wood, Jr., and he was lost at sea in 1803 while in command of one of the ships which he himself had built.
In front of the Askins house stood the old town pump, a popular gather- ing place for men and boys.
This house was later known as the Foote house by reason of its having been the home of Col. Erastus Foote, the first attorney-general of the state of Maine.
In the year 1890, it having previously passed out of the possession of the Foote family, an inn was opened by Mrs. Leonard Marston which contin-
27. Dr. Lapham of Augusta had a copy of the First Annual Report of the Maine Temperance Society in 1833, in which reports of the liquor traffic in some of the principal towns of the state are given. The following concerns Wiscasset: "Wiscasset (Population 2244) sales of liquor in 1827 were 18,729 gallons. 10 grog shops in 1833; 35 intemperate males; several cases of delirium tremens." Statement of Mrs. Alfred Lennox.
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ued to be a public house. It is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Mars- ton, the son and daughter-in-law of the former proprietress.
Webber Tavern
This hostelry is located on Middle Street not far from the post-office. It was opened April 19, 1922, by B. F. Webber, and it is the only tavern which is now open all the year around in Wiscasset.
This house was formerly the residence of one of the old-time village doctors, Daniel K. Kennedy.
Pownalborough Inn-holders of 176728
Retailers
Inn Holders
William Sevey
Fra Rittal
Will Foster
Orchard Cook
Tim. Parsons
Alex Askins
Fra Cook
John Sevey
Hannah Marr
Moses Carlton
Margaret Patterson
Eben Whittier
Abiel Wood
Wm Clear Baker
Thomas Fairservice
Sam Goodwin, Esq.
Henry Hodge
28. Lincoln Records, Vol. I, p. 250.
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X
Church History
The Protestant Churches
T HE District of Maine was ever free from the religious persecution, bigotry, and superstition which afflicted the mother colony, but the laws of Massachusetts, from the earliest period, had required that every incorporated town should maintain a minister of the gospel and a teacher of a public school. This is the reason why the ecclesiastical and civil history of the town in those days are united in a way which is almost incomprehensible to persons in these days.
The first sermon heard by the people of the Protestant faith in New England was that preached on August 19, 1607, by the Rev. Richard Sey- mour, chaplain of the Sagadahoc colony, when the members of that colony . landed from their ships on an island situated several leagues eastward of the Kennebec River.
History does not disclose to what extent religious services were conducted by English settlers in this vicinity before the government of the Duke of York-over the territory granted to him here in Maine by his brother, Charles the Second-provided that the ordinances of religion be established at Pemaquid.
The Sheepscot country, in common with all that had been known as the county of Cornwall, the Duke of York's territory, was laid waste by savage assaults of the French and Indians in the latter part of the seventeenth cen- tury. When the resettlement of Wiscasset was undertaken about the year I729, there was no settled preacher in any place in this section east of the Kennebec River; the very earliest one recorded being the Rev. Joseph Bax- ter, a Congregationalist, who came with Governor Shute to Arrowsic in 1717 to hold conference with the Canibas Indians. Here he preached at in- tervals for the next three years.
In 1729, Rev. Robert Rutherford, who came with Colonel Dunbar and his Scotch-Irish immigration to Pemaquid, preached in the fort and in the houses and barns of Harrington and neighboring towns until 1735. Then he settled in Brunswick, going later to St. George's Fort where he became chaplain.
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
In 1734, the Rev. William McClanethan, a Presbyterian, who had been ordained as an evangelist, was a preacher in Georgetown, where he lived for about ten years. At this time Congregationalists and Presbyterians were about equally divided in the country round about.
The Rev. Robert Dunlap, who was born in Antrim, Ireland, in 1715, and licensed to preach at the age of nineteen, set out for America, when just twenty-one, but the vessel was wrecked on the Isle of Sable, Nova Scotia. He and a few others made their way to the Isle of Canso, near Molasses Harbor, and thence to Cape Ann and Boston. A little later he went to Nobleboro and Townsend, Maine, where he, too, preached in the barns of that plantation. For a time he preached at Sheepscot and then went to Brunswick where he was ordained in 1746, as the first pastor at that place. He remained there for the next thirteen years.
It is possible that some of the early settlers may have attended services conducted by these pioneer preachers, who may have been called upon to administer the rites of baptism, marriage and burial to those who were with- out a leader.
The earliest record of a minister at Wiscasset is that relative to the Rev. Alexander Boyd, a Scotch Presbyterian being sent to Georgetown in the District of Maine with discretionary power to visit "Whichcasset and Sheep- scot if he judges it safe." The demand for preachers of the Presbyterian form of worship is explained by the fact that a large proportion of the settlers who came to Georgetown at that time, and those induced to settle the three townships projected by David Dunbar, and to be called Townsend, Wal- pole and Harrington, now comprising Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, South- port and Bristol, as well as a number of those from Newcastle, were of that persuasion.
Wiscasset settlers appear to have been inclined to the autonomy of the Congregational Church organization. In 1754 certain of the inhabitants here petitioned Governor Shirley and the Massachusetts legislature for the creation of a town or district, and in their petition, dated the seventeenth of October, they state:
The Memorial of us the Subscribers Inhabitants of Whiscasett & Mounsweg Bay at the Eastward part of the Province
Humbly Sheweth
That with great Labour and Expense we have subdued and Cultivated our Lands, have increased in Number, so as to stand it out against the Enemy in the Last warre; we
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Church History
have had a Minister Preaching with us for more than five Years last past, have assisted him According to our Ability, in building him an house ..... and Whiscaset hath at present upwards of Seventy famelys and lays as compleat as most places for either a Town or District. We have all along been desireous of haveing the Gospell settled among us and for that End have cherefully expended of our Substance for the Sup- port of it being perswaded that Religion lays the foundation of all other Happiness, we have for a considerable time had a Minister with us, who has Cherefully Submitted to the hardships of a place just beginning, in Common with ourselves in hopes that by and by he should fare better, for this end he hath joyned us once and again in Petationing the Grt. & Generall Court to be erected into a Town or District in Order to Preserve the Rules of Morality and Religion amongst us and More especially the due Observa- tion of the Lords days which for want there of is Shamefully Neglected but if we should after all be United with Frankfort all these good Purposes must be Defeated and Whiscasett ruined.
We therefore most earnestly intreat Your Excel. & Honours to take these our dis- tressed Circumstances into Your most wise Consideration and if it be agreeable to Your Wisdom and Goodness that you would be pleased to form us into a Town or District agreeable to our former Petition and Plan now lying before this Hon'ble Court, where- by we apprehend your best Purposes respecting ourselves as well as the Community will be Answered but the Contrary (we fear) will be our Ruin-and as in Duty bound shall ever pray
(Signed)
Jonan. Williamson
Joseph Young
Richard Greenlif
John Blagdon
Samuel Trask, Jr.
Jacob Metcalf
Lemuel Norton
John Gray
Ebenezer Gove
John Perce
John Alley
David Danford
Job Averell
Obediah Allbee
John Rowell
Joseph Taylor
Samll. Chapman
Richard Holbrook
Thomas Williamson
Francis Gray
William Cliford
Patrick Bryant
Timothy Dunton
Samuel Kincaid
Israel Honowell
Samuel Barto
William Boyinton
Robert Hooper
Thomas Murfey
Michall Sevey
Thomas McKenney
Israel Averell
Samuel Greenlif
Joshua Silvester
William Clark
Isaac Young
Henery Slooman
Elisha McKenney
John Kinnicon
Robert Lambert
By this documentary evidence it appears that the people of Wiscasset began to have preaching regularly at the middle of the eighteenth century. The minister referred to in their petition was the Rev. John Tufts. It is not known for how long a time he remained here. The prayer of the peti- tioners was not granted, and it was not until 1760 that the town of Pownal-
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borough was incorporated and made the shire town of the then new county of Lincoln.
From other records it is learned that Jonathan Williamson and Job Averell, a committee chosen in 1758 by the major part of the town to pro- vide a minister to supply the pulpit for one year, procured preaching by Joseph Wheeler for fifteen Sabbaths and by Elijah Packard for thirteen Sabbaths.
The Point constituted the east parish of Pownalborough, and its inhabi- tants were from England, Scotland and Ireland; some of them were Epis- copalians and others Presbyterians, but they all united with the rest of the townspeople to form a Congregational Society.1
At this time (1760) there was an Episcopal missionary in Dresden, Rev. Jacob Bailey, and a Presbyterian Church at the mouth of the Sheepscot River under Rev. John Murray, who lived at Boothbay, where his par- sonage was named by him, "Pisgah." He was called "Damnation Murray" to distinguish him from Rev. John Murray of Cape Ann, who was known as "Salvation Murray."" There was another Presbyterian Church without a minister at Bristol; one at Blue Hill beyond the Penobscot; and another at Deer Isle. From the Kennebec to the St. Croix these were the only Prot- estant churches.
At the first annual meeting held in 1761, and at several subsequent meet- ings of the town the inhabitants had before them the business of building a meeting-house and procuring preaching. On July 15, 1761, it was voted "that a committee be chosen to Hire a Minister till next March or any other term of time," and all three sections of the town were represented on the committee which consisted of John Baker, Matthew Hastings and James Stuart.
In many instances the men who provided the preaching were men who had not been ordained to preach. Elijah Packard was a land surveyor who was employed as such in this vicinity for a few years. He came to his death here by casualty.
In 1762, Thomas Rice, a physician from Westboro, Massachusetts, came to reside in this community. He was a graduate of Harvard College, and was, as far as is known, the first regular physician to practice his profession in Wiscasset. A manuscript sermon preached here by Dr. Rice on April 17,
1. Report of Rev. Alden Bradford.
2. J. W. Thornton of Boston.
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Picture of the Common taken about 1878, showing the First Parish Church built in 1840 and burned December 31, 1907. This was the second edifice on this site.
1
A foot stove used in the First Parish Church.
--
St. Philip's Church built in 1823 by the Baptists. The corner-stone was laid on June 3, 1822. It has been an Episcopal church since 1856.
The Methodist Church, built 1834-1835. The belfry was added in 1858 from design by Alexander Johnston and the clock was given by William Henry Clark in 1907.
Church History
1763, on the text, "If ye love me keep my commandments," has been pre- served by his descendants. It was one of the earliest sermons preached at the Point precinct and delivered before it had a parish organization or a meet- ing-house in its community.
The records of the Old South Presbyterian Church at Newburyport, Massachusetts, contain the record of Wiscasset baptisms in August and Sep- tember, 1763, in the families of Colby, Foster, Honeywell, Boynton, Met- calf, Silvester, Fairfield, Lambert, Leeman, Moor, Forester, Chapman, Averell, Preble, Gray, Hilton, Fowle, Kincaid, and Stewart; all of which probably took place during the visit here of its pastor, the Rev. Jonathan Parsons. The number of baptisms there recorded from Wiscasset is so large as to lead one to suppose that the opportunities for bringing children for- ward for that purpose had been very infrequent.3
The Sacrament Oath
The sacrament oath given below was copied verbatim from a local news- paper. It was in all probability printed between June II, 1727, and October 25, 1760. The oaths taken in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were various and varied. The copy here set forth was one of the oaths "appointed by Act of Parliament, made in the First Year of Their present Majesties Reign [i. e. from Feb. 13, 1688/9, to Feb. 13, 1689-1690]; To be Taken instead of the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and the Declaration ap- pointed to be made, Repeated and Subscribed." Those oaths were taken on May 16, 1692, by Phips and other officials. To them was added in May, 1699, what was called the Association, drawn up by reason of "a horrid and detestable Conspiracy formed and carried on by Papists and other wicked and traitorous persons for Assassinating His Majesties Royal Person," etc.
All of the oaths alluded to and some others, were published by Albert Matthews, Esq., in "Notes on the Massachusetts Royal Commissions 1681- 1775" in the Publications of the Colonial Society, XVII, 2-III.
The following exact copy of a curious sacrament oath, once in the posses- sion of Hon. Henry Ingalls, of Wiscasset but now lost, is believed to have been found among some old papers at Sheepscot Bridge. The blank bears no date, but, as it was used in the reign of King George the Second, it must have been printed prior to 1760.
3. The above account was taken from the writings of R. K. Sewall, Esq., and William D. Pat- terson.
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OATHS appointed to be taken instead of Oaths of Allegiance & Supremacy: and Declara- tion.
I A. B. Do sincerely Promise and Swear, That I will be faithful and bear true Al- legiance to His Majesty KING G E O R G E the Second.4
So Help me G O D.
I A. B. Do swear, That I do from my Heart, abhor detest and abjure as Impious and Heretical, that damnable Doctrine and Position, that Princes Excommunicated, or deprived by the POPE, or any Authority of the See of ROME, may be Deposed or Murthered by their Subjects, or any other whatsoever: And I do declare, That no Foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State or Potentate, hath or ought to have any Juris- diction, Power, Superiority, Pre-eminence or Authority, Ecclesiastical or Spiritual with- in the Realm of GREAT BRITAIN.
So Help me G O D.
I A. B. Do solemnly and sincerely in the Presence of G O D, Profess Testify and Declare, That I do believe that in the Sacrament of the LORD's SUPPER, there is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine, into the Body and Blood of CH R I S T, at or after the Consecration thereof by any person whatsoever :
And that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of ROME, are Superstitious and Idolatrous. And I do solemnly in the Presence of God, Profess, Testify and De- clare, That I do make this Declaration and every Part thereof, in the plain and ordinary Sense of the Words read unto me, as they are commonly understood by ENGLISH PROT- ESTANTS; without any Evasion, Equivocation, or Mental Reservation whatsoever; and without any Dispensation already granted me for this Purpose, by the Pope, or any Authority or Person whatsoever, or without any Hope of such Dispensation from any Authority or Person whatsoever, or without Thinking that I am or can be acquitted be- fore God or Man; or absolved of this Declaration or any Part thereof, although the POPE, or any other Person or Persons or Powers whatsoever, should dispense with or annul the same, or Declare that it was Nul and Void from the Beginning.
CHARLES CUSHING, JOHN NORTH, WM. CUSHING, JOHN STINSON, JONA. BOWMAN,
JOSEPH PATTEN,
SAMUEL DENNY,
AARON HINKLEY, WILLIAM LITHGOW, JAMES HOWARD.
Building the Meeting-house
Religious and educational interests claimed and received the first atten- tion of the inhabitants, and with few exceptions, sufficient sums were annu- ally raised for the support of the ministry and schools.
4. Erased and "Third" written in.
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Church History
On March 7, 1764, the sum of £50 was raised for the support of a min- ister and John Kingsbury, Esq., Josiah Bradbury, and John Decker were a committee to provide the town with one.
On the twenty-fourth of the next July the town voted "to Raise the sum of One Hundred Pounds L M (lawful money) to build a Town House or a House for the Publick worship of God & that a committee be Chosen for the Management of said sum & that Job Avrill, John Decker & John Kings- bury, Esq., be the Committee." It was also voted "to Sett the House on or near the foot of Sam1 Williamson's Lott." The land so designated is the same whereon stands the present Congregational Church.
The committee thus appointed appears to have proceeded with the ar- rangements and in so doing made a contract with one Samuel Long of New- bury, under which he labored for 291/2 days as head workman in framing the meeting-house, and who, not getting his pay promptly, brought suit against the town to recover therefor.
Meanwhile Colonel Kingsbury had been delegated to go to Boston to procure building materials for the construction of the church. He went in his own packet intending to buy and bring back the supplies for the meet- ing-house, but on the way thither he was stricken with lethargic encephalitis (sleeping sickness) and died in Boston harbor, August 22, 1764.
The town, to make available a larger sum for building purposes, held a special meeting on the tenth of September and reconsidered the votes ap- propriating £50 in March and £100 in July, and made a new appropriation of £1 50 "to be laid out on the House for the Publick Worship of God in s'd Town," and appointed as a committee Jonathan Williamson, John Gatchel, Job Averell, Thomas Rice, and Michal Sevey; and also voted to "Acsept of the Timber and Labour laid out thereon Designed for a House of Publick Worship allowing & Paying the Owners such sum or sums as shall be thought Reasonable by their Committe chose to have the care of Building s'd House."
Moody Spofford, Esq.5, of Haverhill was the architect and Moses Davis,
5. Moody Spofford, Esq., was born June 24, 1744. He was a prosperous farmer, a magistrate for many years, representative in 1801-1804, 1808-1809: a member of the Court of Sessions of the county, when it was composed of the justices of the peace, then few in number and invested with the powers and duties of the present county commissioners.
His shop as carried on by himself, his son and his apprentices, was furnished with improved ma- chinery, and in it was constructed the ingenious model of the first arch that ever crossed the Meri- mac below tidewater; also the first model on which the bridge on Deer Island was constructed. Mr. Spofford built the Haverhill, Rocks, and Andover bridges on the Merrimac; one across the Pisca-
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Esq., of Edgecomb and Stephen Merrill of Wiscasset finished the carpenter work on the church.
The meeting-house was not completed until 1767 and the bell tower and porch were not added until 1792. This structure was placed broad side to the street and measured 60 feet along the eastern or front side, and was 42 feet wide and 25 feet high from the underpinning to the top of plate. The door was set squarely in the center of the eastern façade. Unpainted, unplastered and unadorned it stood in style and finish not unlike the meeting-houses of Alna and Walpole, which are still in public use. According to the accounts of those who worshipped there, the outline and proportions were quite perfect, and in spite of the severity of its barn-like interior with great beams jutting out at the corners, it possessed a simple dignity.
The pulpit® was a truncated hexagonal cone split in two, inverted and ele- vated above the pews so that the minister could stand, in its box-like center, on a level with, and opposite to, his choir, the pulpit being framed into the center of the rear side (in the old meeting-house the west side) behind and above which, was a large ornamented window. The sounding-board above, and the elevated deacon's seat below and at the base of the pulpit, with its hemisphere of a communion table attached, were notable architectural fea- tures in the interior of the old meeting-house. This pulpit was entered at the sides by a narrow banistered stairway, so narrow that one preacher, over- endowed with embonpoint, being unable to ascend the steps was obliged to deliver his sermon from the foot of the pulpit. A square pew immediately above the deacon's seat directly under the desk and approached from its stairway was reserved for the aged and "those thick of hearing."
The broad angular aisles checked its floor into squares of high-backed "pues and pits" which in those God-fearing days were crowded with wor- shippers. It was regarded as reprehensible to absent one's self from the sanc- tuary unnecessarily and church-going villagers came from all parts of the town. Greenleafs, Lowells, Hunnewells, Youngs, Williamsons, Cushmans, and Albees assembled from the far-flung borders of the precinct. A few of the more prosperous families arrived in chaises, while others walked the entire distance from two to four miles to attend service. The horse with
taqua, near Portsmouth; and one across the Connecticut at Windsor, Vermont. He was the architect and builder of churches at South Andover, at Brentwood, New Hampshire and at Wiscasset, Maine. He also served in the War of the Revolution, being lieutenant in an expedition to Ticonderoga. (From the Haverhill Gazette.)
6. Called in old documents the "scaffold" or "preaching box."
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Church History
saddle and pillion was common, and riders alighted at the horse block which stood near the entrance of the church.
Upstairs in the meeting-house there were three galleries which ran from end to end, and were reached by porch and steeple stairs. They had a range of square pews under the windows, separated by an elevated alley between a lower tier of pews in front, on the northern and southern fronts. The sing- ing gallery was between them on the eastern side, with long benches in the wings for strangers, seamen, penniless worshippers, and unruly boys. Seats for negroes were open in the northeast corner of the gallery, occupied in their day by Judge Bailey's servant, Sam, and Joseph Wood's man, Cæsar, who were regular attendants.
The choir-master, first Henry Roby and then Joseph Kingsbury, beat time with a tuning-fork and gave the singers their proper pitch, their voices being sustained by a bass viol and a bassoon. Fugues were the favorite musi- cal compositions and the fugleman saw to it that their repetitions were timed with proper precision. The singers occupied the front seats in the gallery and when they rose to sing they turned their backs on both minister and congregation and faced east. Chief Justice Mellen once declared, that the leader, Joseph Kingsbury, in sweetness of melody and accuracy and compass of tone, had no superior in the District of Maine.
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