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 3
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Shipbuilding was carried on to a limited extent at the Eddy, on Deacon's Point and on Folly or Davis Island. The town records show that about 1828 the schooner Mystic was built near the public town landing. This would be near Clifford's wharf. The ship Chicago, 1854, was built on the southern shore of Folly Island (near the house now owned by Miss Mary Amory) and the builder was Master Haggett. The owner was Walter Chadbourne and the master Capt. John Chase of Edgecomb. At the launching a drunken sailor jumped overboard and drowned just as the Chicago was getting under weigh. When that ship was afterwards burned in mid-ocean, this incident was cited as an evil omen foretelling the doom of the vessel.
The San Souci was also built at Folly Island, in the cove west of the fort.
The Collector, a schooner, was built at Edgecomb in 1857.
During the late eighties there arrived one afternoon at the Eddy a stran- ger, clearly a German, who came on foot from Wiscasset, and inquired of Mr. Charles Curtis the way to Quarry Hill, a river farm owned by Capt. Thomas Chase, master of the coaster Matilda. As it was three miles or more distant, Mr. Curtis offered to drive him there, which offer was gratefully accepted by the stranger who carried only a violin case and a bundle contain- ing some clothing.
When they reached the entrance to the driveway, the German alighted and told Mr. Curtis that he preferred to walk up the path and surprise his sister, Mrs. Chase. Gustave Luders, for it was he, drew out his violin and approaching the house slowly played some old familiar German airs, melo- dies which his sister immediately recognized.
She rushed out to meet him, saying "Gustave, Gustave, come to my arms," and after embracing in whole-souled Teuton fashion, she led him into her modest home.
Here he remained for some time and played at various local functions to the delight of all who heard his music. Captain Chase was away on short voyages and it was a solace to his wife to have her brother with her during his absence.
Later, when Gustave Luders produced in New York the Prince of Pilsen,
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he became famous in the world of music; but the neighbors at the farm were wont to say that the brother of Mrs. Chase was a ne'er-do-well who could do nothing but fiddle, being only a musician.
Jeremy Squam or Westport Island
The island called Jeremy Squam, a name said to be partly English and partly Indian, is situated between Montsweag Bay and the main channel of the Sheepscot River. It appears in some old documents under the name of Long Island and earlier still as Boren Island. It is a spoon-shaped body of land whose handle points toward the northeast and its bowl toward the southwest. It is eleven miles in length, and averages over a mile in width and contains 15,460 acres. At one time it formed one-third of the town of Edgecomb to which it belonged until February 5, 1828, when it was incor- porated under the name of Westport.
Robinhood, a sagamore of the lower Sheepscot, in 1649 sold the island of Jeremy Squam to John Richards, a resident. John King, who was a wit- ness, appeared before Governor Bellingham and made oath that he saw Robinhood execute the deed. Jack Pudding, a sachem, also claimed this island and sold it in 1666 to John Brown who was then living there.
Although ten of its hills exceed 100 feet in altitude the highest of them all is but 160 feet and is situated in the bowl of the spoon on the southern part of the island. It is called Tarbox Hill. The surface of Jeremy Squam is generally uneven and the pursuits of the inhabitants have always been lumbering and fishing. The cove where Westbrook and Wilmot Greenleaf lived, formerly the site of the home and mill of Josiah Parsons, is locally known as Green Mountain Cove and considerable weir fishing for herring has been done there. It is west of Fowles' Point, where during the War of 1812 earthworks were thrown up whose outline can still be traced although they are now almost completely overgrown with trees and underbrush.
Fort McDonough, erected near the northern end of the island to ward off any attempted approach by the enemy through Back River, has been elsewhere described.
In 1840 the island had about 109 families numbering 655 persons. There were 100 dwelling-houses; six schools; one meeting-house, 15 smoke- houses; 26 fish-houses; 73 barns; three saw-mills with four saws and one shingle machine; and four grist-mills. In 1849 Westport had 124 dwelling-
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houses and 140 families. In 1870 a local newspapers printed the following information:
The town of Westport contains 1200 inhabitants. It has neither grog-shop, lawyer, minister nor doctor, and as a natural consequence its people are an industrious, tem- perate, law-abiding and God-fearing community.
In 1860 Westport had between seven and eight hundred inhabitants. Three saw-mills and four grist-mills were run by water power. There were six school districts with the same number of schools and one church edifice occupied by Methodists and Freewill Baptists, and one post-office.
A little more than two miles below the northern end of the island on its eastern shore is Colby's Cove where, in years gone by, the cutting and ship- ping of ice was extensively carried on.
The records of the Lincoln County court house show that in 1762 the Kennebec Proprietors, through their clerk David Jeffries quitclaimed to Wiscasset proprietors all of Jeremy Squam and other lands including Wis- casset. On May 6, 1762, the proprietors of Jeremy Squam or Long Island in Sheepscot River quitclaimed to Wiscasset Proprietors land received from the Kennebec Proprietors obtained by purchase from the late Colony of Plymouth. These boundaries do not include Westport.
Halsey to the Kennebeck Proprietors, May 6, 1762.6
At a Meeting of the Proprietors of the Island called Jeremy Squam or long Island in the Sheepscutt River, in the County of Lincoln and of the Lands on each side of the River aforesaid, near said Island formerly the land of George Davie, held by adjt Whereas the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase from the late Colony of New Plymouth, have voted granted, released, and forever quit claimed to the Wiscasset Proprietors, Certain Tracts of Land agreeable to their Vote proposed at their meeting the fifteenth day of April, 1762, therefore Voted that there be and hereby is Granted released and forever quit Claimed unto them the said Proprietors of the Kennebeck purchase from the late colony of New Plymouth the following described tracts of Land lying and being in the County of Lincoln in the Province of Massachusetts Bay butted and bounded as follows: vizt: beginning at the Upper Narrows of Sheepscutt River at the Northernmost part of a Point of Land on the easterly side of said Sheepscutt river called flying Point from there to run across said River a Northwest Course without variation of compass half way over to Kennebeck river, from thence to run Southerly keeping an equal distance between said Sheepscutt River and said Kennebeck River until it meets with the Northern boundary line of a tract of Land claimed by the Company
5. Seaside Oracle, Vol. II, No. 12.
6. Lincoln County Records, I, 222.
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under Clarke and Lake and the Andover Proprietors; from thence to run East South East on said Northerly Line until it meets with Mountsweag Brook and river, to the Mouth thereof where it empties itself into Mountsweag Bay, then turning Easterly round a point of Land (a little to the Southward of which point of land is an island lying in said Bay) and to run Northerly up said Bay and Sheepscutt River on the West side of Jeremy Squam Island to said flying Point the first mentioned boundary line ex- cepting the following twelve lotts lying on the west side of Sheepscutt River as deline- ated on a plan bearing date 15th April 1762 and signed by David Jeffries Clerk to said Kennebeck Proprietors, and by James Halsey, Clerk to the said Wittscasset purchase which Lotts are marked and numbered on sd plan as follows: viz Six lotts lettered A, B, C, D, E and F and lotts numbered one, five, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and seven- teen, of which lotts such as shall fall short of one hundred Acres are to have such addi- tion as to compleat 100 Acres excepting also of twelve quarter Acre lotts, and to the end that the foregoing Grant may be perpetuated, it is further voted that the said James Halsey, Clerk to this Company be and hereby is authorized and directed in behalf of this Company by Deed to Grant release and quit claim forever the lands voted by us to be Granted and quit claimed as aforesaid to the said Proprietors of the Kennebec Pur- chase from the late colony of New-Plymouth their heirs Successors and Assigns forever and that the said James Halsey sign his name thereto Seal Deliver and acknowledge the same and the said Deed so Executed shall be good and vallid to all Intents and pur- poses as the Act and Deed of this Company-
Voted that this Company will be at the Cost of Defending any lawsuit that may arsie respecting any lands voted to be granted released and quit claimed to the Proprietors of the Kennebeck purchase from the late colony of New Plymouth this Day which lands are particularly described in the Grant made as reference thereto being had will more fully appear and in case said lands or any part of them should be finally lost to the said Kennebeck Proprietors or to any Person or Persons holding from by or under them the said Kennebeck Proprietors that then there shall be granted by this Company to the said Kennebeck Proprietors an equivalent of Lands elsewhere if demanded within one year after the Recovery of such lands in a due course of Law provided said Kennebeck Pro- prietors of the Person or Persons holding under them seasonably acquaint this Com- pany with the Law Suit commenced against them or him as aforesaid and impower any one person or More whom this Company shall appoint (to defend the Action or Ac- tions that may be brought for the Recovery aforesaid to final Judgment cum Facultate Substituendi) and also afford said Person or Persons thus impowered all such assistance as he or they can in Defence of the same, and provided also the Actions are brought at any time while the said Kennebeck Proprietors continue to be and remain Propriettee, if it does not exceed twenty-one years but at the expiration of Twenty-one years or whensoever the said Kennebeck Proprietors cease to be a Propriety then in either of these cases which shall happen this Vote is to be Null & Void and of None effect.
Coppy examined by James Halsey Proprietors Clerk Lincoln Ss July 10, 1762 Re- ceived and accordingly entered and examined-
7. Lincoln County Records, I, 224.
JONA BOWMAN.7
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The same day, the Wiscasset proprietors quitclaimed the same lands, not including Westport, to the Kennebec Proprietors.
From these facts it would seem that Westport became property of the Wiscasset Proprietors in 1762 and that the Kennebec Proprietors held claim to the Wiscasset section by deeds from the Jeremy Squam Proprietors and Wiscasset Proprietors made out at the same time excepting in both cases twelve lots on the west side of the Sheepscot marked A, B, C, D, E, F and 1, 5, 14, 15, 16, 17 as delineated on a plan dated April 15, 1762. These appear to be above Wiscasset on the river.
The committee of the Wiscasset Company, Thomas Flucker, Samuel Grant, Esq., Thomas Gray and Nicholas Boylston all of Boston, were a committee chosen and impowered on the twenty-sixth day of April and the twenty-fourth of May, 1769, by the Proprietors of Wiscasset Company holding lands at and near Wiscasset and on Jeremy Squam Island.
Land on Jeremy Squam was surveyed by Nathaniel Donnell in the year 1744 and divided into thirty-four lots containing about one hundred acres each and numbered by his plan of that date from one to thirty-four begin- ning at the southerly end of the island. In a deed dated 1764 Benjamin Donald's (Donnell) survey is mentioned. Elijah Packard made a map of the island on November 2, 1755, and another survey was made by Lewis (?) Thorpe of Boothbay in 1799. When on December 6, 1815, the State gave title to the lands the map used was that of Stephen Parsons, Esq.
The fostering hand of Boston capital made the timber lands here desir- able as an investment on account of the export of mast pines from the forests of red pine of a century's growth, which attracted population, as a center of commercial profit.
There is recorded evidence that the ownership of the Boston Company, later known as the Wiscasset and Jeremy Squam Proprietors, in the land called: "George Davis's Rights in Sheepscot River Lands" reference being had to the several Indians from whom Davie received it, began with the resettlement of Robert Hooper. From the Record Book in the possession of Hon. Samuel Bradlee Doggett of Boston the following is copied:
Boston New England July 29, 1728 (Date of Record Book) Under date of Feb'y 1730 at a meeting of the proprietors of Sheepigot at ye Royal Exchange Voted-
Mr. Samuel Doggit Twenty five Acres of Land in the Second Division for every family that he shall Settel on our land at Shepsgot within the term of Twenty Four Months from this time, to the Number of Fourty Families, which Settlement Shall be
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Agreable to our Articles of Agreament ye above Twenty-Five Acres of land is given as a Grattuity for all the Charge and Trouble the Sd Doggit is or shall be at in Settling the same.
June 18, 1731 at a Meeting of the Comitte of the proprioters of Sheepigot, Voted
to lay out a Township in Sheepigot Six Miles on the water side N. E & S. W. Five Miles N. W. in the woods. Notwithstanding all former votes to the Contrary, Voted Mr. Samuel Doggit to git a good Surveiour to lay out the above Township Directly at the Charge of the Proprioters.
Voted that a Family is to be understood though he be a Single man, builds a house breaks up 4 Acres of Land puts Stock Suffitiant according to our Former Articles of Agrement if he be upon his own Act.
This Samuel Doggett was a shipmaster engaged in the coasting trade from Boston. He was born at Marshfield, Massachusetts, April 7, 1685, and died in Boston September 28, 1745. He commanded the coasting sloop Dolphin.
The above item in the Boston Company's deal and ownership of Wiscas- set Point explains the legend of a Sheepscot shore bluff below, known as "Doggett's Castle," the trade station of Captain Doggett with the Indians, where Nature had painted on the granite face in the cracks of the rocky steep, in a growth of fungus vegetation, an Indian with a drawn bow, now effaced by artificial tampering, but once a feature of the river.
Hon. Stephen Parsons gave this description of the palisades:
A precipitous cliff of Westport Island on the western banks of the Sheepscot river still bears the name of Doggett Castle, marking the point where an Indian trader or sea-rover was accustomed to moor his sloop Dolphin, and beat up truck with the savages.
Doggett Castle is a wall of granite gneiss, nearly perpendicular, the face of which rises more than a hundred feet above the surface of the water, about whose base the channel of the river winds and curls in eddying tides.
Moored in one of these deep tide pools, to this lofty steep, the Indians could only ap- proach on one side in their fragile birchen canoes; and from their craft with unsteady foot-hold on the capricious bottom, swayed to and fro by the sweeping currents, carry on trade. Thus protected in his sloop by the towering cliff side, Doggett called it his castle; and at the bottom of his sloop's mast is said to have painted his hand as a sign on the face of the rock. From the summit of this precipice, it is also said, that spars and mast tim- ber have been cut; and in the fall of mighty trees, as they broke from the stumps on the brow of this lofty steep, they were wont to make a clean leap from the height into the watery depths below, where, until a recent day, submerged and fastened in the oozy bottom of the river by their tops, their butts have appeared swaying in the rising and falling tides.
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Twelve years after John Richards had purchased Jeremy Squam from Robinhood, Thomas Ashley and Thomas Joy of Boston settled there. Other pioneers were Jonas Shattuck, David Heal, and Charles Stockbridge Brooks, while the names of Josiah Parsons who came from York, Maine, Benjamin Harrington, James McCarty, Samuel and Ezekiel Tarbox, and John and Joseph Hodgdon, have been perpetuated in coves which indent the eastern shore of that island.
So far as we can learn the first permanent settler on Westport was Tim- othy Dunton who with his wife Elizabeth came in 1735 and remained until 1795, when he moved to Back River and became a resident of Boothbay. Timothy Dunton's name appears on a petition in Boothbay from the Baptist Society dated March 4, 1800, asking to be discharged from the minister's rates of the Congregational Church
Stephen Greenleaf, who married Mary Knight, bought land on that island in 1743. Elisha Nevers bought land in 1756 and sold land to Brad- bury in 1765. This land was near Clam Shell Cove, probably about Fowles' Point and Cove. In the deed Nevers called it "Land which has been in my possession for nine years."
Joseph Whittam sold land in 1765, and Joshua Fowles bought land on Jeremy Squam that same year. Thomas Hodgdon bought land in 1767. James Jewett bought land from Nathaniel Mayhew December 4, 1767. Charles Stockbridge Brooks bought land in 1768.
Other early settlers were Levi Shattuck, probably a brother of Jonas, from Pepperell, Massachusetts, who removed to Maine in 1766. Cornelius Tarbox, who was born in Saco about 1760, Samuel Tyler who was born in 1762, and John Knight, who married Sarah Dunton in 1767, were the lead- ing men on Jeremy Squam after the time that Pownalborough was incor- porated.
The name of Decker appears on Jeremy Squam in 1771, when William and Molly Decker of that island were published in the Boothbay records. The following year one Joseph Decker of Freetown (Edgecomb), a descen- dant of the Delano family, whose trading post was on the northern end of Jeremy Squam, married Sarah Davis. This was the Decker family whose vessels were employed by Col. James Swan in his salt and spar trade with France.
From the journal of Rev. Paul Coffin we learn that a destructive fire
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raged on Jeremy Squam in 1796 which, from his diary, appears to have lasted for several days.
The most disastrous fire in the island's history occurred in 1917, when three hundred acres of forest land and twenty houses, including summer cottages, residences and other buildings, were destroyed.
The third bad conflagration began on June 7, 1921, and burned over about one hundred and fifty acres in the vicinity of Parsons' Mountain near Rum Cove, from which point it jumped across the Sheepscot River to Edge- comb where it was beaten out by volunteers.
During the Revolutionary War, when, to the great embarrassment of the fisheries, no salt could be imported from abroad, salt works were started at many places in the colonies. One of these salt-pits was begun at Hodgdon's Cove on the eastern side of Jeremy Squam where, tradition asserts, a Frenchman, Benoît Claude de St. Pry, who came from Lyons to Wiscasset in 1789, engaged for a short time in that industry.
Near the southern end of Westport across the Five Islands is a perpen- dicular fissure or fault which is visible in sailing past the shore. It runs southwesterly and through it the tide ebbs and flows to the other side. It is but a few feet wide and very deep and there is a legend among the islanders that a young girl, agile as a mountain gazelle, once leaped across this narrow gulf.8 This rift in the rocks seems to be a chasm formed by some antedilu- vian convulsion of nature such as a great earthquake, for these islands are not only split asunder but divided by a narrow and fearful channel running down to the very bottom of the bay. This chasm is near Jewett's Cove on the southeastern side of the island.
Tradition has linked three contemporaneous women, whose paths in life were widely separated by circumstance if not by time, with the legends of Jeremy Squam. They are the unfortunate French Queen, Marie Antoi- nette, Molly Molasses, a Penobscot Indian of old Etchemin stock, and the Widow Jewett of Jewett's Cove.
Molly Molasses was the consort of John Neptune by whom she had four children. She was believed to possess the power of a shaman or witch doctor and her prophecies are said to have come true. Molly Molasses ranged the country at will and on one of her pilgrimages is said to have visited the northern end of Jeremy Squam when a party of merry-makers were there having a clam bake. It was she who told them how the Indians did it, and
8. John H. Sheppard, Seaside Oracle, Vol. VI, No. 18.
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the directions for a real Indian clam bake are still preserved. In honor of this visit the extreme tip of the island has since been known as Camp Molly. Molly Molasses died in 1868 at a very advanced age, the number of her years being unknown.
The Widow Ellis Jewett (Alice Cothran), a famous giantess about whom innumerable stories still survive, along with the traditions of her prowess, seemed to be indigenous to Squam Island, where she was "Aunt Nellie" to all of the neighbors. Her actual birthplace is not known, but she died on the island, October 13, 1828, aged sixty-three years. She was the wife of James Jewett, who was born at Rowley, Massachusetts, September 14, 1739, and her senior by twenty-six years. James Jewett of Gloucester bought land on Jeremy Squam, which was lot No. 8 where Mayhew lived, from Nathaniel Mayhew, December 24, 1767. When, in 1815, the Commonwealth of Mass- achusetts settled the land disputes "the Widow Ellis Jewett" was given title to lot No. 17 of Squam Island.
She was over six feet in height and of immense weight and rotundity. She was said to be amphibious for, besides being able to swim like a fish, she could handle a coble or a wherry-with sail or with paddle-with masculine skill; she could catch a cod in the water or cook it on the land with equal facility; but it was her physical strength which made her famous. She could raise a barrel of cider to her mouth, and then refresh herself, as she held it poised upon her knees, by a draught from the bung-hole.
Jewett's Cove, the snug little harbor where she lived, took its name from the Jewett family, of which she became the greatest member of the clan. Her house where she kept a seamen's inn, though of but one story, was of great length. The large kitchen, with its huge fire-place containing crane and pot hooks, its brick oven built after the ancient fashion of massive ma- sonry, was the rendezvous alike for the weather-beaten wayfarer and the storm-bound mariner. The other rooms built around it were small and not unlike the cosy cabins of a ship. Her wide dressers were adorned "with trencher treen and pewter bright," snow-white plates, pewter platters, ket- tles, cups, and utensils, all of which were scrupulously clean and in perfect order. This cheerful hostelry, without a sign and without a bar, was amply provisioned for a storm as became a country tavern on an island where few cattle grazed and no shambles could be found for miles.9 At the Widow
9. Ebenezer Tarbox who had fishing vessels, kept a country store which was the nearest base of supplies. He was licensed to sell rum but charged it to "red flannel" on his books.
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
Jewett's there was pork in the barrel and potatoes in the bin, a hogshead of molasses, a puncheon of Jamaica rum and a locker of choice liquors. Even though the coffee was an unpalatable decoction of a West India berry with beans and rye, scorched-not roasted, and sweetened with molasses, the steaming hot draught revived many a wave-soaked sailor who sought ref- uge within the hospitable house of "Aunt Nellie."
To the weather-bound mariner, when the cove was filled with by-land- ers and bankers, this spot was the sailor's joy and a refuge as long as he conducted himself with propriety, for none ever dared either by look or word to treat the Widow Jewett with aught save respect, behavior which she commanded both by her own deportment and her pugilistic powers. She was known to have knocked down a husky aggressor with one blow from her megasthenic fist when he failed to treat her with due deference.
She was in all things generous, a worthy benevolent woman noted for her philanthropy. She kept herb tea always brewing on the stove and possessed a disposition as cheerful as the sunshine which gladdened her fields and flowers. Many a wanderer on the sea as well as her island neighbors felt a deep pang of personal loss when it was learned that her kindly voice was forever silent.
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