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 26
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64
1873-1876
Rev. Herbert C. Miller
1877-1889
Rev. Henry R. Pyne
1890-1893
Rev. Theodore L. Allen
1894-1896
Rev. A. S. H. Winsor
1898-1902
Rev. John Gregson
1903
Three Cowley Fathers came from St. John the Evangelist in Boston. They were Father Powell, Father Field and Father Osborne, later Bishop Osborne
1904
Henry van Bergen Nash
1904-19II
1911-1921
Rev. Charles T. Ogden (Canon Ogden) Visited the Parish once a Rev. Culbert McGay month to administer the Rev. Charles Myron Tubbs Holy Communion
1921-1932
Henry van Bergen Nash, lay reader, took charge in 1904, when this church had no rector, and devoted twenty-nine years to unsurpassed Christian work in this town-labor which ceased only with his death. He started Trinity Mission in the North End of the village in 1905, where afternoon services on Sunday are still maintained.
1933-1934 Rev. Henry George Raps
1935-1937 Robert E. Merry, who was ordained in St. Philip's Church by the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Brewster, June 19, 1936.
Rev. Pelham Williams
Rev. Pelham Williams was born in Fort Hill section of Boston in 1834. He attended the Boston Latin School and later went to Harvard College, graduating in the class of 1853 with President Eliot, John Quincy Adams, Arthur T. Lyman, Charles J. Paine, Sylvester Waterhouse, Justin Winsor, Dr. James C. White, John D. Washburn, David Henshaw Ward, Albert Gallantin Brown, Henry S. Nourse and John C. Palfrey.
Mr. Williams was the first rector of St. Philip's Protestant Episcopal Church in Wiscasset. He came here in 1857 and remained for four years. He came to Wiscasset at the age of twenty-three and the society here pros- pered under his leadership. That the devotion which his parishioners gave him was requited was shown by his many subsequent visits to this town.
[ 252 ]
Church History
He returned for the last time when St. Philip's Church celebrated its fifti- eth anniversary.
He received the degree of A. M. from Trinity in 1861, and that of S. T. D. from Columbia in 1871. Mr. Williams filled many important ecclesiastical positions both in the United States and England. In Boston he was in charge of the Church of the Messiah in the South End.
He died at his home in Greenbush, Scituate, May 12, 1908, aged seventy- four years. He was survived by his widow, a daughter, Miss Grace P. Wil- liams, and a son, Herbert Pelham Williams, a newspaper writer.
In former days it was not the Yuletide season which was chosen for the rites and celebration of Advent, but rather the proper observance of the Pil- grim Thanksgiving on which great stress was laid. No particular notice was taken of Christmas until Mr. Williams came to town, when one of his parishioners, Morrill Hilton, Jr., sent some of his men from his shipyard into the woods to cut down and bring home a large spruce tree which was set up in the Hilton home at the Point and lighted with candles. This was the first Christmas tree ever known in Wiscasset.37
Bishop Niles
William Woodruff Niles, the son of Daniel Swit and Delia (Woodruff) Niles was born at Hatley, Lower Canada, May 24, 1832. He graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, 1857, and from Berkeley Divinity School at Middletown, in 1861. He received from Trinity College the degree of D. D. and LL D., also D. D. from Dartmouth College, and from Bishop's College, Lennoxville, Canada, the degree of D.C. L. in 1898. Mr. Niles was ordained Deacon of the Episcopal Church by Bishop Williams at Middletown, May 2, 1861, and soon after his ordination came to Wiscasset, where he received priest's orders from the hands of Bishop Burgess of Maine. During the four years of the Civil War, 1861-1864, Mr. Niles was rector of St. Philip's Church, his first charge. At the end of that time he was elected professor of the Latin language and literature at Trinity College, 1864-1870.
At the seventieth convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of New Hampshire, held at Dover in 1870, Rev. William Woodruff Niles was elected Bishop of the Diocese in the place of the Rt. Rev. Carleton Chase, recently deceased.
37. Statement of Mrs. Alfred H. Lennox.
[ 253 ]
1
Wiscasset in Pownalborough
Bishop Niles was one of the early editors of The Churchman, and was for many years a member of the commission for revising the marginal readings in the English Bible and also a member of the commission for revising the Book of Common Prayer. He was for several years one of the managers of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church; president of the trustees of St. Paul's School at Concord; of the Holderness School for boys at Plymouth, New Hampshire; of St. Mary's School for girls, formerly at Concord but now at Littleton; and a senior member of the Corporation of Trinity College.
Mr. Niles married at Hartford, Connecticut, June 5, 1862, Bertha Olm- stead, a sister of Frederick Law Olmstead, America's foremost landscape ar- chitect, whose first notable work, begun in his early twenties, was Central Park in the city of New York. His sister helped him by putting the trees in his plan.
Mrs. Niles, who was in Rome when Nathaniel Hawthorne was there be- fore he wrote The Marble Faun, is said to have been the original of Hilda, but of this there is no proof. She was a woman famous for her beauty both of character and person.
Mr. and Mrs. Niles had six children, four of whom grew to maturity; Edward C. Niles, a lawyer, and Mary Niles, both of whom are now de- ceased; Bertha Niles, who married Thomas Hodgson of Concord, New Hampshire; and Rev. William Porter Niles, who was ordained to the priesthood by his father in 1900, and has been for thirty-six years rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd at Nashua, New Hampshire. Another son, John Olmstead Niles, who was born in Wiscasset during his father's residence here, died at Concord, May 3, 1873, at the age of ten years. On the first day of August that same year, their youngest child, Daniel S. Niles, aged one year, three months, died at Herbert, in the Province of Quebec.
Bishop Niles died at Concord, March 31, 1914, in the eighty-second year of his age, after a residence of forty-four years in that city.
Rev. Edward Augustus Bradley
Edward Augustus Bradley, the son of Edward A. Bradley, was born in Troy, New York, in 1841. He graduated from the College of the City of New York and from the General Theological Seminary in 1864. He was made a deacon in 1865 and priest in 1867. His first charge was that of assis-
[ 254 ]
Church History
tant in Calvary Church in the city of New York; thence he came to take charge of St. Philip's Church in Wiscasset from 1865 to 1869.
St. Philip's School was organized by him in 1868, but it lasted only two terms, for sectarian jealousy was aroused which resulted in the establish- ment of a public, graded school system.
Rev. Edward Bradley then went to the West and in 1872 he had charge of St. Mark's in Minneapolis. Two years later he was at St. Matthew's, Kenosha, Wisconsin, and in 1876, at Christ Church, Indianapolis, of which parish he was rector until 1886, when a call to St. Luke's Church, Brooklyn, brought him back to the East. His success in relieving St. Luke's from a state of depression, and raising it to great prosperity attracted general attention.
Upon the completion of St. Agnes' Chapel in Trinity Parish in 1892, he was called to take charge of it, as first incumbent. His six years of service at St. Agnes' Chapel left a noble record of good work. Dr. Bradley was on a vacation but came back to the city on Saturday, August 20, 1898. He was standing on Riverside Drive watching the return of the warships from Cuba, when he dropped dead of a heart attack.
It is interesting to note that Rev. Edward Augustus Bradley presented his father, Edward A. Bradley (1819-1897) to the bishop for ordination and preached the sermon on that occasion. This took place in 1870, when his father was in charge of the parish at Franklin, Tennessee.38
Rev. Edward Goodridge
The Rev. Edward Goodridge was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1839, and graduated from Trinity College in 1860. He studied in Leipzig, Germany, and was graduated at the Berkeley (Connecticut) Divinity School in 1864. Among the pastorates held by Dr. Goodridge were those in Glas- tonbury and Warehouse Point in Connecticut; the American Church in Geneva, Switzerland, and Christ Church, Exeter, New Hampshire. He suc- ceeded Mr. Bradley as rector of St. Philip's Church at Wiscasset, 1869- 1871.
Dr. Goodridge was a member of the New Hampshire Society of the Cin- cinnati. He died in Exeter, January 7, 1906.
In 1874 afternoon services on Sunday were started in Newcastle by the 38. Biography supplied by Thomas R. Brown, Jr., Trinity Parish, New York.
[ 255 ]
1
Wiscasset in Pownalborough
rector of St. Philip's Church, Rev. Herbert C. Miller. The services were held upstairs over the fire engine house in Tamiscot Hall. In order to con- tinue this work Rev. Henry R. Pyne used to ride to Newcastle on a hand-car in all kinds of weather.
Rev. Henry Rogers Pyne
Henry Rogers Pyne was born in Middletown, Connecticut, July 3, 1834. His mother was Emma F. Rogers and his father, Dr. Smith Pyne, was born at Bloomfield Lodge, Ireland, January 8, 1803, and died in New York City, December 7, 1875. He was the son of John Pyne who was born in Ireland in 1766, and died in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1813.
Dr. Smith Pyne, whose first name was his mother's maiden name, was rector of old St. John's Church, Washington, D. C., for nearly twenty years, his son Henry Rogers Pyne being only nine years of age when the family moved to the capital. The latter was educated at St. James College, Maryland, which was wiped out during the Civil War. He was ordained December 19, 1858, at Grace Church, Baltimore. During that war Mr. Pyne was chaplain of the first New Jersey Cavalry.
In early childhood he had met in Washington Miss Elizabeth Ann Frailey, and that long friendship was consummated in marriage, August 8, 1865. Mr. and Mrs. Pyne settled first at Holland Patent, New York, where their two elder children were born; John, born December 1I, 1867; and Caroline F., July 31, 1869. After residing there for three years they moved to Nebraska City for two years. Their third child, Charles L., was born at Washington, D. C., May 28, 1871. Their next place of residence was Hamilton, New York, and there their youngest child, Henry Rogers Pyne, Jr., was born April 3, 1873.
Rev. Henry Adams Neely was a close friend of Mr. Pyne, and a few years after the former became Bishop of the Diocese of Maine, he induced Mr. Pyne to come to this state and take charge of Christ Church at East- port, where he remained for four years.
Mr. Pyne came to Wiscasset as rector of St. Philip's Church in 1877 and was here for the next twelve years. He was an erudite scholar and an excep- tional linguist. During his sojourn in this town he ministered to congrega- tions in Dresden, Newcastle, and Damariscotta where in the last town, be- fore the church was built, Sabbath services were held in the hall above the
[ 256 ]
Rev. Alden Bradford. From a miniature owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Rev. Hezekiah Packard.
1
1
-
Henry Van Bergen Nash, lay reader at St. Philip's Episco- pal Church for nearly thirty years.
Powder House, 1813. Photograph by Brayton.
Church History
Tamescot fire engine house. While here he went unflinchingly through more than one epidemic, the most virulent of which was the pestilence of small- pox in the autumn of 1872, baptizing and burying the victims or those afflicted with the contagious disease, whenever his services were required.
In 1889 Mr. Pyne left Wiscasset and went to Washington, in which city he died April 12, 1892. Mrs. Pyne survived him for thirteen years and died November 15, 1905.39
Henry van Bergen Nash
Henry van Bergen Nash, the son of Henry and Annie van Bergen Nash, and grandson of Peter Nash who was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, was born in Liverpool, England, November 12, 1859. During the residence of his parents in that city his father was associated in business with Alfred Baldwin, the father of the Prime Minister of England, Stanley Baldwin, whose son Oliver was the godson of Mr. Nash.
Harry Nash, as he was known to his friends, entered Uppingham School, Rutlandshire, in February, 1873, and remained there until December, 1875. His headmaster was the Rev. Edward Thring, M. A., who was the master who made Uppingham School into one of the great Public Schools of England. After leaving Uppingham, Mr. Nash went to Hanover, Ger- many, where for four years he studied chemistry with the famous Karl Remigius Fresenius (1818-1897) and became an expert chemist.
He came to America in 188 1 and settled in New York. He married Jan- uary 4, 1893, Florence Walton Ryder, daughter of Col. S. Oscar Ryder, who through nearly thirty years of work in this community has been his constant companion and helpmate. In 1900 they removed to North New- castle where they lived for the next twelve years and then purchased an old house in Wiscasset, on Main Street (long known as the Joshua Hilton house) and there they have since resided, taking a prominent part in the affairs of this town.
Two years after the departure of Rev. John Gregson from St. Philip's Church, Mr. Nash, finding the church without a rector and the congrega- tion scattering, volunteered to become a lay reader and conduct the weekly Sunday services in the sanctuary. Although he never took orders, Mr. Nash from that time until his death faithfully ministered to his little flock, giving
39. This biography was supplied by their daughter, Miss Caroline F. Pyne, now living in Washington, District of Columbia.
[ 257 ]
1
Wiscasset in Pownalborough
freely of his time and private fortune for the benefit, not only of his parish- ioners, but to all who were in need or distress. Although a devout Episco- palian, he exemplified both by precept and example that righteousness was more than ritual, and deeds were more than creeds; and his labor was re- warded in the building up of parish and congregation.40
He died on St. Andrews Day, that year Thanksgiving day, November 30, 1933. The two children of Henry van Bergen and Florence Walton (Ryder) Nash, both of whom were born in New York City, are: Henry, born July 16, 1895. He married Henrietta Kempton Dunn of Philadelphia. Rebecca, born August 14, 1896; married September 13, 1930, A. Williams Lienau of New York. They have two children: Elizabeth Anne, born Jan- uary 7, 1932; and Henry Nash Williams Lienau, born April 3, 1934.
Other Sects
We have seen that the Congregational proclivities of the Sheepscot plant- ers were followed for half a century at Wiscasset to the exclusion of nearly all other creeds. A few persons of religious persuasion differing radically from the sects already noticed have, from time to time, appeared in the vil- lage, but they have never been numerous and after failing to make any appreciable progress have almost invariably finished by identifying them- selves with one of the three existing churches.
The Society of Friends, called Quakers, votaries of the Inner Light, with their fundamental principle of Divine guidance, which is today the domi- nant thought among many of the progressive leaders of Protestant denomi- nations, established a place of worship in Pownalborough, now Dresden, in 1798, but they were never strong and had but few adherents.
A Quaker meeting-house was built at Broad Cove in 1795. The first Quakers to visit Maine were Ann Coleman, Mary Tompkins, and Alice Ambrose, who came to Berwick in 1662.
Although they were at first a reviled and misunderstood body-dubbed by Cotton Mather in his famous (or infamous) letter "the heretics and malignants called Quakers"-they were never persecuted in the Province of Maine, and a marriage between two Quakers was allowed to be solem- nized according to the usages of their own sect.
40. See the Fifty-sixth Annual Report of the Woman's Auxiliary to the National Council of the Episcopal Church for further details.
[ 258 ]
Church History
In 1869, a meeting conducted by Mr. and Mrs. Pinkham of the Society of Friends at the Methodist vestry on the last day of May, was attended by a large and attentive audience. There has, however, never been a Quaker meeting-house in that part of Pownalborough which is now Wiscasset.
The Lincoln Intelligencer of March 31, 1826, notifies the Universalists of this town to meet in the chamber over the store of Messrs. Owen & Carle- ton, the third of April at precisely seven o'clock. Very few, if any, of this creed exist here today.
The number of Unitarians has likewise been negligible.
In 1848 a wave of Millerism broke here with most unfortunate results. One fanatic, in a dementia of religious frenzy, murdered his entire family, and in the height of hysteria, killed himself.
A fearful tragedy resulting from religious excitement occurred at Booth- bay, March 4, 1872. It appeared that a Methodist preacher of the class known as "perfectionists" had been holding revival meetings there for some time past and the wife of Mr. Alonzo Chapman had attended these meet- ings. She became highly excited, and, as she thought, perfect.
Mrs. Chapman returned home and when her husband went out about sundown, she strangled their infant child as a sacrifice to God for the sins of the world.
On the day before the murder of her child, Sunday, the clergyman had enlarged upon the subject of Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac in obedience to God's command. He dwelt upon this act of faith and vividly pictured it to his excited audience. Mrs. Chapman who had never before shown any symptoms of insanity became a hopeless victim of religious mania.41
The Pownalborough Church of Christ was organized January 31, 1893, under Rev. Arthur Patten. This is in Dresden.
During the twenty years from 1880-1900 Spiritualistic meetings were held here in private houses, but they were esoteric and the knowledge of them kept secret from all save those who were immediately concerned, hence it is impossible to estimate the number of votaries. Dunkers and Doukabors, Lollards and Latter Day Saints have been conspicuous only by their absence, but we have had a limited number of Holy Rollers.
In 1900, miracle cures were performed by Daniel A. Burnham of East 41. Seaside Oracle, March 23, 1872.
[ 259 ]
Wiscasset in Pownalborough
Edgecomb, by the laying on of hands. Notwithstanding the fact that he had no church affiliations, this healer was a serious-minded man of deep relig- ious convictions, and several of his cures were of a remarkable character. Among the twenty-seven recorded recoveries42 were those of paralyzed per- sons being made to walk; the deaf to hear and the partially blind to regain their sight. He certainly possessed some strange power, whether its nature was that of hypnotism or hysteria is not known. He described it as a power entirely outside of himself, which caused him to feel emotions so intense that he wanted to cry. When cure warnings of that mysterious power took possession of him, it was then that he cured the suffering ones. To God he reverently gave the glory, and in no instance did this healer ever solicit an opportunity of treating the sick. He was never known to accept payment for services rendered.
Burnham further stated that "All my previous experience and all that I have gained from books is entirely at war with this thing. It is with me a conflict between admitted facts and theories."
42. It has been impossible to ascertain whether or not these cures were permanent. Several of the contemporaries of Daniel Burnham remember seeing him hypnotize animals very successfully.
[ 260 ]
XI Schools
E NGLISH settlers in New England fully comprehending the importance of education in the development and welfare of their country, lost no time in taking proper measures to establish schools in their villages, in equip- ping them after the manner of the time, and procuring teachers for their children.
In 1647, the Massachusetts legislature had passed a law that every town of fifty families must provide instruction for its children and that each town hav- ing a hundred families must support a school which would today rank as a high school, to fit the youth for the Cambridge College.1 That law provides that every child between seven and fifteen years of age, and every child between fifteen and seventeen who cannot read or write English, must attend school for the entire period of its sessions. Wiscasset at the time of its resettlement be- longed to Massachusetts. It is therefore obvious that some means of education must have been provided soon after the settlers arrived, but where the first school at the Point was located, or when it was begun, is not now known.
At the first annual town meeting of Pownalborough, held at the house of Josiah Bradbury, June 15, 1761, the most important matters which came be- fore the inhabitants were the questions of the advisability of building two meeting-houses, one for the east side of Pownalborough and the other for the west side, and the procuring of a schoolmaster.
Town files mention that "school was held in the Meeting House while it was still unfinished," but no records have been found regarding the provision made for the support of this school, nor the conditions governing it.
The first schoolmasters were itinerant instructors who "lived around and taught around," having schools on a circuit. A family living near by the school- house would board the teacher and send the bill to the town, or, when the dis- tricts were formed, to the Agent, by whom it was defrayed. Often the local teacher was the local preacher, and sometimes the doctor or lawyer. Afterward came the female teachers called school dames, school marms, instructresses and preceptresses, who were engaged "to teach the youth the art of cyphering cor- rectly."
I. Harvard College which had been founded in 1636 and named three years later for John Harvard who left half of his fortune and 300 books to the Wilderness Seminary.
[ 261 ]
Wiscasset in Pownalborough
The first record of a teacher2 which has been found among the town papers is a board bill to "Fra. Rittal, Dr.," for boarding the schoolmaster, Mr. Wil- liam Wilkins, in 1772-1773. He is believed to have taught a town school. The next record is a certificate sent to the "Gentlemen Selectmen of Wiscasset" by Rev. Josiah Winship, the first settled pastor of Woolwich, and runs thus:
this as arts that Michael Ryan hath kept school in this town for Several Years tought Reading Writing & Arethmatick and also in other places, nothing appearing but his Con- versation hath been sober & his Life regular being thus Qualified to teach Children he is recommended by
October 1783
JOSIAH WINSHIP.
How long he remained in Wiscasset is not stated, but he appears to have been a resident of Woolwich when the census of 1790 was prepared, for it is there set forth that his household consisted of two free white males under six- teen years, and three white females.
Orchard Cook was teaching here about 1786. He was one of the early out- of-town masters who came to Wiscasset from Head of the Tide.
The inauguration of district schools is first mentioned at the town meeting of Pownalborough, March 16, 1789, when there was an article in the warrant
to see if the Town will divide the Town into Districts for the more convenient estab- lishment of the schools, and what money they will raise for that purpose. . . .
and at the next meeting which was held in April, it was
Voted. - To divide the Town agreeable to the warrant. . to chuse a committee to di- vide said Town. . that the Selectmen be the Committee. . and to raise one hundred pounds for the purpose of schooling.
At a meeting held in May of that year, it was voted to
Accept the Gift of John Gardiner, Esqr of three hundred Acres of land and to Com- ply with the conditions mentioned in his proposals which are as follows one hundred acres to Wiscasset for the Support of a Public Grammar, or, for want thereof, other Schools in that part of Pownalborough to be laid out as early as may be, and to include some part of the bog on said Gardiner's Eastern River Mill farm ....
The report of the school committee was not received until the town meeting of January, 1791, when we find that "It was then moved that the report of the committee be read" which was as follows:
2. It is believed, however, that Faithful Singer who taught on a circuit which included both Boothbay and Sheepscot also instructed the youth of Wiscasset when the school was held in the meeting-house. But of this documentary proof is lacking.
[ 2,62 ]
Schools
We the subscribers appointed a Committee to lay out the Districts in the Town of Pownalborough for the purpose of establishing Schools - Report the following divisions of the said Town into Districts for said purpose, Viz:
That the West Parish of the said Town be one District - That the North Parish be two Districts, and that the dividing Line be at China Smith's Mill & to run on a north- ward course to the West Parish Line -
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.