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 42
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
[ 410 ]
Industries
upper reaches of the Sheepscot River, and masts were exported directly to Europe in Wiscasset vessels. These ships brought a return cargo of salt, thereby establishing the salt and spar trade so often mentioned in the early maritime history of this town. Vessels were put together with treenails5 made of larch; jolly-boats were made of the cedar of Edgecomb; oars and blocks were made of ash, always plentiful in this vicinity, though the sheaves were constructed of lignum vitæ which was imported from the West Indies; white pine was used to finish the decks; and native birch and maple, with walnut brought from Maryland and Virginia were required to finish the cabins. Bowsprits were made of chestnut and also of pine.
Lumber manufactured for export here at Wiscasset was made into deals, planks, barrel staves, box shooks, barrel heads and shingles,6 which were shipped directly to the West Indies and to Liverpool, England. Timber, masts and spars, with fuel for the coast towns of Massachusetts, were shipped in large quantities from Maine. The earliest demand was for oak and pine. Spruce was not used in any considerable quantity until the latter half of the nineteenth century, and, excepting for its bark, there was but scant market for hemlock until the time of the Civil War.
Timber from the valley of the Sheepscot was put to various uses in Euro- pean ports. Messrs. Cox and Thompson returned from Londonderry, Ire- land, whither they had gone in the spring of 1789 to inspect the river Foyle and having informed the authorities of that place that a wooden bridge could span the river there, they purchased the ship which brought them over and loading her with timber in the Sheepscot River, proceeded to carry their plan into execution.7
During the years 1820 and 1821, Wiscasset shipped to the West Indies long lumber, headings, hoop poles for cooperage, and also dried fish, pork and beef. Among the return cargoes were raisins, oranges, lemons and other fruits which grew in the West Indies, rum, molasses, sugar and salt.
5. Iron rods for forging were made in 1716. Cut nails date from 1786. Slitting mills were un- known in these parts and the nails had to be imported, for the nail-makers of the mother country were unwilling to allow the colonies the privilege of making their own nails, so that they con- tinued to be an article of import until the political separation. Connecticut first proposed to establish a slitting mill to draw iron into rods for nails, and in 1716 an exclusive right was granted to Ebenezer Fitch to build a mill at Stony Brook. The first slitting mill in the Bay Colony was at Milton. Farmers made nails at the kitchen fire from rods, and early blacksmiths furnished them in small quantities.
6. The value of lumber here at the time of the Revolution, at the mills was: boards, $6 per M ; planks, $12; and shingles, 18 x 4 inches, $1.50 per M.
7. Boston Gazette, June 29, 1789.
[ 4II ]
Wiscasset in Pownalborough
Notwithstanding the fact that lumbering is still one of Maine's leading industries, so devastating has been the work of the portable mill in reducing the magnificent forests to a saw-dust trail that local mills have vanished and the timber now cut here is only enough to supply fuel to the limited market of this township.
Sheep Raising
Flocks and herds were brought to the frontier villages at the beginning of their settlement, not so much for their hides, wool and flesh, necessary as these products were in themselves, as for the tallow from the sheep, of which each housewife made candles to light her household through the dark nights of winter, when a pitch pine knot or a rushlight was the only illumi- nation®.
There were few felmongers in those days, as each settler had his own small flock of sheep, and knew the difference between a shorling and a morling.
The first mention we have of sheep raising near Wiscasset was that of William Phips tending sheep in the wilderness, at Phip's Point.
During the Indian Wars, all of the flocks and herds were slaughtered by the savages and later colonists were obliged to bring with them a new stock.
There is still some sheep raising carried on in this county, but it can scarcely be said to be an important industry of Wiscasset.
Agriculture
In the early days when the settlers were entirely occupied with clearing the land, hewing their timber, grinding their corn, and preparing their wool and flax for clothing, there was little time for the march of intellect, so it has been said, and no doubt justly, that where there is agriculture there is no room for culture.
The soil was sterile and rocky in this region, which was one of the reasons why the youth of Maine took to the sea for a livelihood. Short seasons gave scant crops, which consisted mostly of fodder corn, spring wheat, oats, bar- ley, buckwheat, potatoes, hay-both tame and wild-apples, pears, sweet
8. Mrs. Sumner Bailey (Sis McKenney) remembers being admonished by her father for light- ing two candles in order to read a book of very fine print. Coming unexpectedly upon the scene of such extravagance, he said: "What, Sis, two candles burning and no ship at sea!"
[ 4[2 ]
Industries
corn and beans. Corn was planted soon after fast day-five golden grains to each hill:
One for the cut-worm, One for the crow, One to rot, And two to grow.
Cut-worms were not the only marauders, for large bears were frequently caught in the corn patch. In the year 1758 upwards of fifty bears were killed in Pownalborough and its immediate vicinity, and a man heard rus- tling among the corn stalks, being mistaken for a bear, was shot and killed.
The hay crop found a ready market in the southern seaports of Charles- ton, Savannah, and New Orleans, whither our ships carried such cargoes, and in places where pasture lands were unproductive and cattle underfed.
During the War of 1812, illicit whiskey was made of potatoes in Wiscas- set, which in quality was said to be inferior even to the home brew of a sub- sequent era.
Early Mills
Nearly a century and a half ago there stood at the southern end of High Street a windmill, about in the center of what was called in an early deed the "Calf Pasture." The hill has been known successively as Windmill Hill, Lee's, Shaw's, and Tucker's Hill; and High Street was known in early times as the ridge.
The windmill was situated about half-way between the present Tucker mansion and the foundry. A bridle path led by the mill toward the south and across the flats where the line of rocks, covered with seaweed, formerly discernible, but now difficult to trace, formed one of the approaches. The other was a cart path from Flagg's Corner to the mill over which the corn- wains rattled across the stepping stones with their loads of corn to be ground. Sometime before the Lee mansion was built, there were a number of small houses, called hovels, strung over this hill. Later they were hauled away to other locations.
Some of the older mills in the northern part of the town were on Mill Creek or Polly Clark Brook, which forms a boundary to the extensive hold- ings of Jesse White.º The first one of which we have a record was owned
9. From his land which extends to the Gardiner road James White, the father of Jesse, gave the lot on which was built the grange at Huntoon Hill.
[ 413 ]
Wiscasset in Pownalborough
by China Smith, and later by Reuben Kincaide and Ebenezer Whittier. Far- ther down the creek at the mouth of Polly Clark Brook, where until recent years its picturesque ruins could still be seen, was a tide-mill, called the "plaster mill," not because Sullivan Wright, who owned and operated it, manufactured plaster, but because plaster was ground in it for lime for the fields. This mill was also a grist-mill and was first owned by Mr. Nute. John Harris, in 1832, moved a barn, a saw-mill and a shingle machine, but the location of this set of buildings was not mentioned.
The mills above Wiscasset on the Sheepscot River are elsewhere described.
In 1766 Sherebiah Lambert sold to John Groves "one quarter Part of a Saw Mill now standing on Ward's Brook" belonging to his father in Pow- nalborough.1º
It is said that many of the early mill sites found on lesser branches of the Sheepscot River were located on former beaver dams along the watercourse, for these industrious little rodents, who were master builders of watertight walls, chose to construct their dams across streams bordered by thickly wood- ed banks and the water-power from cascades thus formed was appropriated and utilized by millwrights for mill privileges when their first builders fled before the march of man.
The Seven Mills of Montsweag Stream
These seven mills, all of which were operated by water-powers along Montsweag Brook, were owned and run by the following men:
Col. Joshua Baker had a shingle-mill located on this brook north of An- thony Nason's and near to Lowelltown.
Alexander McKenney, on the old stage road to Day's Ferry, had a saw- and grist-mill.
Anthony Nason had a saw- and grist-mill on the old stage road to Bath.
Moses Hilton had a saw- and grist-mill, a shingle machine, and a so- called up-and-down saw. This mill was, at a later date, run by Mr. Hedge, who was succeeded by Benjamin Blagdon. All that now remains of it is the beautiful cascade which makes a hairpin curve at the site of the old mill dam.
Ezekiel Walker, son of Ezekiel Walker, had a mill half a mile below the Hilton mill. This, also, was a saw- and grist-mill and it was located 10. Lincoln County Registry of Deeds, Book 5, P. 57.
[ 414 ]
Industries
opposite the John Young house, which is on the present state road, near to the entrance of the Jeremy Squam road.
Nathaniel Gould, in 1832 had a fulling mill on Montsweag Stream at the falls, just east of the bridge where the present state road crosses the brook. The first mill ever built at Montsweag falls was a double saw-mill erected there in 1734-1735.11 The lodgings belonging to the men at that time, were on the east bank or Wiscasset side of the stream, and the mill was operated in the interest of those holding under an old Indian grant. This mill privilege was the same that was used by Rev. Christopher Toppan of Newbury and later by Ebenezer Hilton from Dover, New Hampshire, and afterwards by Col. Jotham S. Chase when he settled on the Wiscasset side of Montsweag Stream in 1816. Colonel Chase built and operated a fulling mill at the falls and in 1825 built the house now owned and occupied by Hon. Charles Henry Butler of Washington, D. C.
The Gould mill was probably the largest of them all and the fall of water there is certainly of greater volume than that of any cascade on Montsweag Stream. There Gould wove cloth, pounded it in the fulling stocks and tea- zelled it with thistles, after which the fabric was dyed and then spread out on a sward called a tenter-field to dry. The tenter-bars used for drying the cloth after the dyeing process was completed were placed on the identical foundation of the ancient Hilton garrison at Montsweag.12
Woolen stuffs in those days were not always fulled; instead they were often woven of hand-combed wool.
The mill of Nathaniel Gould was totally consumed by fire in May, 1874. Mr. Gould was in a field not far away when he saw the flames bursting from the building, and in less than half an hour his mill lay in ashes. The fire is supposed to have originated from a spark thrown from the wood under the kettle of the dye stuff, which, igniting the loose nap, spread with great rapidity.
Levi Shattuck had a saw- and grist-mill on Montsweag Stream, which was afterward run by Charles Hunnewell. It was a tide-mill. Fishing schooners were built there, the last of which was the Forest Oak. Shattuck removed to Newcastle, where his son Wilmot G. Shattuck made bricks.
Other mills in this vicinity were those of the Baileys. James Bailey had a
II. Thaddeus Trafton stated in a deposition made in May, 1790, that fifty-four years ago (i.e. 1735) he went east (from Boston or vicinity) to Pownalborough and lumbered on Great Mont- sweag Stream. This was probably in connection with the Toppan affairs
12. Statement of Bert Gould, son of Nathaniel Gould.
[ 415 ]
Wiscasset in Pownalborough
shingle-mill on a stream which ran from Wolf Pond into Montsweag Stream. He was succeeded by David Bailey.
But the seven mills have vanished and only the butts and brows show the marks of devastation wrought by anchor ice and time, and, at a not distant day, the ever advancing forest will veil even their sites in obscurity.
The Mill on Holbrook's Island
This island long bore the name of its original owner, Richard Holbrook, whose land extended from the shore, including this island, to Montsweag Brook. In the summer of 1834, mills were built there, running two saws with box and shingle machines. Laths were made and grist was ground. The mills were then owned by James Stinson of Birch Point and their trade was direct with Cuba. These mills were entirely destroyed by fire on Sunday afternoon, December 28, 1843, but were rebuilt in ninety days.
There appears to have been a partnership including Henry Clark, Frank- lin Clark and James Stinson, as the firm was known as Clark & Co.'s Steam Mills until 1847. The Mariners' Bank sold to Henry Clark and Franklin Clark a certain island situated near Wiscasset, called Holbrook's island, with booms, boom ground, bridge and water-power, purchased of Warren Rice and other privileges appertaining thereto in 1841.
James Stinson and his wife, Julia, sold their interest in the mill and the island to Henry Clark and Franklin Clark. When, in 1856, the latter re- moved to Brooklyn, New York, he sold his holdings in this property to John C. Harriman, who lived in the old Langdon house on the southwest corner of Main and Fort Hill Streets. For the next decade the firm was known as Harriman & Clark.
Isaac Townsend Hobson came from Moderation Village to Wiscasset in 1857 and purchased the steam saw-mill on the island owned by John C. Harriman and Henry Clark, and there for the next twenty years he carried on a thriving business. Some of the time the mills ran day and night, and lumber was shipped on sailing vessels at all seasons of the year. Here he manufactured long lumber, box shooks and heads, shingles, laths, staves and broom handles. Most of the headings for molasses barrels were shipped to Portland where they were put with staves and sent to the West Indies. The greater part of the box shooks were shipped to Gloucester, Massachu- setts. Sugar and fish boxes were made in smaller numbers. Eventually,
[ 416 ]
Sturgis Mill and Ice Houses, the Narrows and Goose Island from Birch Point.
-
.......
---
1.4.1.1
Sturgis Mill. The boat is Della.
TTTTTTT
Richard III loading deals at Hobson's Mill in 1875. The Richard III was built in 1859, and launched at Portsmouth October 29, 1859.
Products of Porter's Pottery, owned by Mrs. John Ed. McKenny. Photograph by Labbie.
Industries
when the shipment of sugar was changed from barrels and boxes to bags, this branch of the industry perished
During its prosperous years, about eighty-five men were employed in Hobson's Mill, but when man pushed back the wilderness and the woods were cut down farther and farther away from the rivers, this coast indus- try of Maine was slowly but surely undermined, and portable mills sup- planted the coast mills as they moved nearer and nearer the base of supply.
Work here was abandoned and the mills fell into disuse. Little by little the buildings fell to ruin until only the chimney remained, a monument to a departed industry. The chimney was 75 feet high, 10 feet square and con- tained 60,000 bricks. It was an exceptional piece of masonry and was built by George F. Reed and S. H. Rogers, both Bath men. When it was nearly finished, John Nute burned some of the bricks black and several of the em- ployees gave their noon hour to make a letter "H" on the four sides of the stack in order to surprise Mr. Hobson.
The bridge connecting the island with the mainland was built at the time the first mill was erected.
Three steamers were built by Isaac T. Hobson on this island. They were the Henry D. Hobson and the George F. P. Hobson-so named for his two sons -and the Lincoln. This last one was an original vessel built with a gristmill aboard, and she was shipped down east wherever any corn was to be found.
Hobson's Mill shut down in 1887.
Erastus Foote, Esq., in 1910, bought the island, renting a part of it to Fred F. Pendleton for a boat-house, and in this boat shop were built every year some of the finest yachts in the state of Maine.
Trees have been planted and much has been done to beautify this little islet. There is here a private landing for boats and the Wiscasset Swimming Club has erected bath-houses on its eastern shore.
The Sturgis Mill
Toward the close of the year 1872, Ira D. Sturgis, of Augusta, Maine, one of the most extensive lumber dealers and manufacturers in this state, came here as an agent of the Spragues of Rhode Island, woolen manufac- turers, to make arrangements for the construction of a steam saw-mill at Birch Point, in this township, for the production of long and short lumber.
The property thus conveyed for the use of the mill was the Birch Point
[ 417 ]
Wiscasset in Pownalborough
Mill and farm of about 120 acres of upland, the Hilton Mill, and the ad- jacent water and flats. It was found that at a very slight expense a boom could be made of sufficient size to contain 20,000,000 feet of lumber, also there would be ample room for wharfage for deep draught vessels in water always free from ice. Transportation facilities by railroad were likewise available.
The location was also adapted to shipbuilding and the manufacture of bricks. Near the mill was later located a steam brick machine capable of making 40,000 bricks a day. The wood of the mill was used in burning them. Ice houses were built on a fresh water pond near by, and ice was shipped to southern ports.
The town built the Birch Point bridge in 1873 so as to connect this in- dustrial plant directly with the village, and the town abated the taxes on the Sturgis property. This was by no means the first instance of manufacturers being induced by grants of land to settle within the limits of our town13 for we find that in April, 1760, the Plymouth Company made thirty-two grants of land to settlers in Pownalborough and vicinity, one of which was 100 acres to Elijah Phipps, on the sole condition that "He work at his trade of a Potter for three years."
Some years later these mills were taken over by Josiah Manchester Haynes, the son-in-law of Mr. Sturgis, who purchased them for the Ken- nebec Land and Lumber Company and who wrote of them as follows:
Our Wiscasset mill was built in 1873 and first started in April, 1874. Its machinery for sawing logs consists of one double iron sweep gang and one circular saw mill driven by a Corliss horizontal engine of twenty-six inches diameter of cylinder and four foot stroke. There has been for a long time a rivalry between the gang and rotary men as to which machine could saw the most, and on June 29th, it was decided to make a trial of their respective abilities. I placed my bookkeeper and a competent surveyor in the mill (one on each side) to keep a correct account of the long lumber sawed, and at the usual time the work commenced. The engine ran 111/4 hours as usual. The gang was shut off forty minutes for oiling, etc., and the rotary fifty minutes to lace a feed belt, making the actual running time of both the saws 1012 hours. We had no men in the mill beside our usual crew, which includes eighteen men and two boys beside the slab and edging cutters. We hauled into the mill 460 spruce logs from 10 to 45 feet long, over two thirds of which were cut in two by the drag saw before they went to either gang or circular. The lumber was well sawed, edged, trimmed and marked and our foreman says that with a new set of gang saws, ten inches wide, ours are now worn down to five, the gang could easily saw 10,000 feet more in the same time.
13. See North's History of Augusta.
[ 418 ]
Industries
The Kennebec Land & Lumber Company's mill at Wiscasset sawed in ten and one-half hours, with the regular crew of men, 122,477 feet of spruce boards and plank.
When the demand for barrel staves and heads lessened and the difficulty of obtaining timber increased, and the advent of portable mills rendered these mills profitless, they were shut down. In 1913, the Birch Point prop- erty was sold to Hon. Charles Henry Butler of Washington, D. C. There is now no mill operating at Birch Point.
The Ropewalk
There were but few houses on Federal Street south of Tan-Yard Brook in the early days of the nineteenth century, while beyond it lay one dwell- ing-house, the ropewalk of Robert Elwell and possibly Silvester's old brew house.
There were in all, three ropewalks in town. That of Elwell already men- tioned was on Federal Street near the Tucker brick yard of later date, or about the location of the present public school buildings. Of this ropewalk "Thomas Trundy, tything-man" was foreman and he lived in the Joshua Damon house which had originally belonged to Elwell. It is now owned by the heirs of Isaac B. Dickinson.
A second ropewalk, owned at first by Abiel Wood and afterward run by John Baker Mange, was at the Point. Two of Jerry Dalton's sons, Jerry, Jr., and George Dalton, were employed there. This building lay directly north of the old wooden custom house, and was among those burned in the fire of 1866. It ran east and west along the shore of Bradbury's Cove, where is now the house of Mr. Norris Miller. The upper story was used by Taggart & Topham for a sail loft, and a bowling alley supplanted the rope- walk on the ground floor. Below in the basement, corn was stored for the stage-coach horses.
The third ropewalk was that of the Wigglesworths. David Silvester, on August 1, 1797, leased two acres of land for ten years to Edward and Mi- chael Wigglesworth of Newburyport, rope-makers, for the erection of a ropewalk. The price agreed upon for the first year was "one pepper-corn"; for the next four years, $20; and for the remaining five years, a sum to be agreed upon.
Edward and Michael Wigglesworth were the sons of Col. Edward and
[ 419 ]
Wiscasset in Pownalborough
Bridget (Cogswell) Wigglesworth of Newbury. Colonel Wigglesworth was at first, master of vessels for the Tracys and Jacksons. He served with distinc- tion through the Revolutionary War. He was a colleague of David Silvester in the legislature of 1785 and was collector of customs at Newburyport.
These ropewalks were long rectangular wooden buildings where ropes and hawsers for the vessels were manufactured from hemp and plantain fibre. Ropes consist of many thicknesses of yarn which is spun by hand. The spinner has a large bundle of fibres and attaches them to a hook in the turn- ing wheel or whirl, which is stationary and worked by an assistant. Experi- ence teaches him what number of fibres to draw out and how to twist them so as to hold firmly on to the hook. He then walks slowly backward down the rope-ground, gradually drawing out or regulating the pulling out of the fibres so as to make an equal yarn, which receives the necessary twist from the whirl. When he has reached the end of the walk, another spinner takes the yarn from the hook of the whirl, and fixes it to a reel, which is then set in motion; and he attaches a second portion of hemp from his own supply to the hook, and proceeds down the walk, just as the first man had done. Then the first spinner gradually walks up the ground, carefully guiding his length of yarn as it is wound on the reel. When he reaches the reel it stops, and he waits until the second spinner's length is completed. He then in his turn takes it off the hook, and twists it on to his own; and the reel being again started, receives the additional length from the second man, and so on, until the full length required is made up.
Then comes the warping, which consists in stretching out the number of yarns required for a rope. These are all slightly twisted again separately and stretched to equal length. Then these ropes being intended for the rig- ging of the vessels were tarred, the yarn being drawn separately or else in a hank, through a kettle of hot tar, after which it was drawn through oakum to remove the extra tar. Next came the laying when two or more strands were attached to the whirl and twisted in the opposite way from the first spinning. When this is done it is called a strand. As many of these strands as are needed for the rope are stretched at full length and attached at each end to whirls. One of these whirls has just one hook, while that at the oppo- site end of the ropewalk has as many hooks as there are strands, one always being central, with a strand attached to each. The whirls are then set in motion, moving in opposite directions. This process causes the outer strands to be laid smoothly and strongly around the central one.
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.