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 43
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Industries
Large ropes are either cable-laid or hawser-laid. The former consist of three large strands, each of which is made up of three smaller strands. A cable-laid rope of eight inches circumference is made up of nine strands, each containing thirty-seven original yarns, or 333 yarns. A hawser-laid rope consists of only three strands, each containing a sufficient number of yarns to make it the required thickness.
The ship-owners, knowing the importance of staunch ropes and how lives and property depended upon them, were always careful and exacting in re- gard to their quality.
Brick Yards
The soil in this vicinity being composed of abundant quantities of argilla- ceous earth, or clay, is well adapted to the manufacture of bricks. Many persons, from time to time, have pursued the industry of brick making, and brick-kilns have flourished along the river banks and creeks in various parts of the township.
Birch Point took the lead in the manufacture of bricks. At one time in the "sixties," there were, on Brick Yard Brook, no less than seven yards all in operation. The men who ran them were James Grover, Benjamin Dickin- son, Abijah Dickinson, James Dickinson, Bartlett White, Peter Fredson and George Hilton. Ed Gould had one a little farther south in the Jewankee district, on land owned by his father, Tilden Gould.
When the Lincoln County court house was built in 1824, John Porter, whose brick yard was near Birch Point, furnished one-third of the bricks used in its construction. E. Lowe, also made bricks and furnished the great- est number from his yard.
The Dickinson family had many of its sons engaged in this business. Ben- jamin Dickinson had a yard located between the present state road and the railroad on the farm now occupied by L. Frank Metcalf. Bricks were made on the Oliver Dickinson farm at Birch Point which is the present home of Alex Grover. Bradford Dickinson, about the time of the Civil War, had a yard along the shore just north of Pottle's Cove, on land then owned by R. K. Sewall, Esq. The yard of Isaac Dickinson was near Ward's Brook on the way to the old stone farm of Abijah Dickinson.
James L. White had a brick yard on land inherited from his father, Jesse White, which was south of Cushman hill, and vessels in 1864 used to load bricks at his place. This land was later sold to Tilden Gould, who at that
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time was living in the house on the old Williamson place (now the property of Walter Leavitt). John Robinson succeeded Gould as the owner of his farm.
Another yard which furnished material for substantial buildings in this village was that run by Silas Porter in connection with his pottery at Birch Point.
In 1870 there was one belonging to Tucker & Savage. In 1871, Alpheus Dodge had a yard on the edge of Cod Cove on the Edgecomb shore. Wil- mot G. Shattuck had one on Marsh River. Richard H. T. Taylor once had a brick yard in the hollow just back of the Richard H. Tucker house, be- tween it and the wooden house occupied by Mrs. Tempe Lee after the death of Judge Lee. Another brick yard was operated by Daniel Rines in the field west of Hodge Street, on land now owned by the Beans.
The most productive of all was located at the foot of the hill where are now the public schools and near the tracks of the narrow gauge railroad. This was owned and operated in 1875 by Capt. Richard Holbrook Tucker, and was the largest brick yard in the county. The kiln house was capacious enough to hold a million bricks and the wood to complete the burning.
In 1883, one Lufkin from Boston operated the Wiscasset Brick & Pottery Company Works at Birch Point, which was the former brick yard of the Porters. He employed twenty-two men and had four brick machines run by steam with a daily output of 22,000 bricks. Like many another industry for- merly existing in Wiscasset these yards have all passed away and there is now no brick yard operating within the limits of this township.
Porter's Pottery
Ezra Porter, the first of the family in this town, came here when about twenty years of age, from Salem Village, since called Danvers, and his statement published in the Lincoln Intelligencer of August, 1826, runs thus:
I, Ezra Porter, potter by trade, have worked at the potters' business for about forty years, in Danvers and Watertown, Mass., in Newcastle and Wiscasset, in the County of Lincoln, in the State of Maine.
So far, however, his pottery14 in Wiscasset, if he had one, has not been lo- cated. Silas, the son of Ezra by his first marriage, and the father of George
14. The word "pottery," supposed to be derived from "Poterion," the drinking cup of the Greeks and transmitted by the French word, "poterie," is applied to all objects of baked clay.
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and Luther Porter, built the pottery which was located in the south part of the town, near Hilton's Cove at Birch Point, on the cross road which con- nects the State Road with the old road leading to Jewankee, the identical lot where the county poor house stood.
The way it happened was this: Boothbay considered Wiscasset unduly favored by having within its confines most of the county offices and institu- tions such as the courts, the county jail, the custom house and the county house, so Wiscasset, as a sop to Cerberus, magnanimously handed over to Boothbay the county poor house,15 at which time the lot, with the buildings standing thereon, was sold to Silas Porter16 who tore down the buildings and used much of the old material in the construction of his newly built dwell- ing-house which he placed quite near to the old foundation. It was in the process of construction that Silas Porter found on his land deposits of figu- line, which he, as a potter, recognized, and sent specimens of the potters' clay to Boston for analysis. It proved to be of a superior quality, conse- quently, he erected his pottery at that spot and his annual "burn" supplied the township with milk pans, dipping jars, butter coolers, baking dishes, pudding pans, pipkins, stove tubes, money jugs, cake moulds, snuff jars, flower pots, mugs, jugs and bowls of all shapes and sizes, together with various domestic containers of brown earthen ware
The accompanying illustration will show a few of the examples of pot- tery manufactured by him and now owned by Mrs. John Ed McKenney.
Further along on the land, Porter found clay suitable for the manufac- ture of bricks which he utilized in a kiln built by him for that purpose. In later years he sold this plant to the New England Brick Company. Many of the old houses in Wiscasset village are lined with the bricks made by Silas Porter in his brick-kiln.
The Foundry
The lot on which the old foundry stands has had a history as varied as any in town. In the first division of Wiscasset lands it belonged to Josiah Bradbury, and both the street and cove which bound it bear his name. It
15. It has been found in the pauper records that the inmates of the county house picked oakum for vessels in the harbor and sometimes worked on them. Here was also located an early town pound.
16. Silas Porter also owned a schooner by which he marketed his product quite successfully up and down the Kennebec River, but none of his family carried on the work in this line. (Statement of Mrs. G. M. Porter.)
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probably descended to his grandchildren, Wyman Bradbury Sevey and his sister who married Judge Jeremiah Bailey, and by them was sold to its sub- sequent owners. When the Bradbury ownership ceased is not clear, but April 2, 1799, Jeremiah Dalton, Jr., sold some of this land to Silas Lee.
During the first decade of the nineteenth century, many settlers' cabins, called hovels, were scattered over Windmill Hill, and at its foot near the location of the present foundry was the modest home of Capt. Jonathan Edwards Scott, who, for a time, taught in the south district school. He con- veyed the land to Jeremiah Dalton, who erected thereon the first iron foun- dry on the coast, and laid out the short street called Dalton Street.
The iron industry, during the colonial period, had been prohibited in this country in order to protect the mother country.
Alexander Johnston, Sr., was the first man to import English blot iron after the War of 1812, and the only importer of iron in this state from 1823-1830. He sold many tons at Portland, Bath, Gardiner, Pittston, Dam- ariscotta, and Bangor.
The first foundry of Dalton was a wooden building which burned along with his house, which stood a little to the southwest and up the hill from the foundry. Its site is now overgrown with a clump of trees.
Dr. Moses Shaw lived in the Lee house in 1825, and when the land at the foot of the hill was transferred from Jeremiah Dalton to John Brooks in 1830, exception was made of four small pieces, which belonged to differ- ent owners: James Hunnewell, Ruth Chase, Levi Young and Cleophas Black.
John Brooks conveyed it to Wilmot Wood who is said to have had a boat shop there. By a deed dated August 26, 1846, Wilmot Wood and his wife, Emmeline, conveyed this property to Ladowick Groves, who with his wife, Anna, transferred it later (October 11, 1850) to Franklin Clark. The latter lived in the house until his removal to Brooklyn in 1857, and ran a ship- building plant under the firm name of Harriman & Clark from which the ship Golden Horn was launched in 1854. The same day two other vessels were launched from Wiscasset shipyards.
From Franklin Clark it passed to the ownership of Swanton & Jameson of Bath, from whom Capt. Richard H. Tucker purchased it in 1859, and it is still in the possession of his heirs.
Captain Tucker built there his Air Propeller of 18 tons in 1878. Later the Tucker family used this building as a dairy.
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For some time Charles Lennox used the foundry as a shingle-mill and later for a short time Mr. Williamson used it for an excelsior factory. No- vember 3, 1900, when Henry D. Pendleton and Sons moved here from Camden, Maine, they established a boat-building plant at the old Tucker foundry. From 1917-1922 a canning factory for all kinds of vegetables was run by Black & Gay. Ellsworth Holbrook had a laundry there from August, 1927-April, 1930, since which date it has been idle.
The Tan Pits of Nymphas Stacy
Stacy's tan yard was located in the meadow at the southwest corner of Federal and Danforth Streets, on the stream known as Tan Yard Brook.17 Here, too, is the Danforth well, famous in days agone, and said to contain the purest water in town. This field is well remembered as the place where Nymphas Stacy spread his hides, and the old oaken vats which held the hemlock bark used for tanning the leather, can still be found just below the surface of the ground. Time has rotted off their tops, but when the field is ploughed, the lower part of these staunch old vats is often uncovered.18
Here on Federal Street are five houses known as the Stacy houses. They are: the house on the corner of Hooper Street, later known as the Barrett house; that on the opposite corner, called the Deering house; the house in which lived Eli Farnham; the Joshua Damon house; and the brick house of William Stacy, now altered and used as the Wiscasset Inn.
One of Stacy's by-products was the manufacture of candles, and the tal- low chandlery was run by John Stacy. A little more than a century ago, Stacy's dips, twelve to the pound, with the homemade variety which were usually run into tin moulds, were the illuminating power in this corner of the world. "Excommunication by inch of candle" appears to have been prac- ticed here in a social sense, for when a candle burned low in its socket it was regarded by both friend and swain as a signal to depart.
John Baker made candles in the little red house which stood, until recent years, on Tan Yard Brook east of Federal Street, but which was moved to the Sawyer property. It has always been called the "candle house," and may have been used in earlier days, by John Stacy for his chandlery.
Paul Nute, a Revolutionary soldier, when he came to Pownalborough
17. This property is now owned by Mrs. E. Fred Albee.
18. Statement of Freeman Southard.
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from Dover, New Hampshire, was a tanner of hides. Joseph Lowell ( 1803- 1886) was another tanner at Wiscasset. Azariah Pottle, who ran a tan yard at Pottle's Cove, had oak tan pits which are still in the ground on land now owned by Harry Lewis.
Spruce Gum Picking
One of the minor industries which flourished in this section half a century ago, before chewing gum could be shot out of slot-boxes on street corners, and long ere the chicle hunters of Central America became engrossed with the quest for that article (and its Mayan by-product) was the annual har- vest of spruce gum from the forests 'round about.
During the summer months the gum on the spruce trees is sticky, but with the advent of cold weather the hardening process takes place, so that the pickers would follow the woodsmen into the forest in the autumn and continue in the woods until springtime, nipping from the felled spruces all the sap they could find. Besides gathering it from the trees which were cut down for logging, they would also scrape it from the standing trees. The best gum came from the wounds left on the young spruce trees after cutting off limbs and waiting a year for the sap to coagulate. The clots thus formed were called the "nips." Pure gum is transparent, while that nearest to the bark is hard and crumbly, being altogether of inferior grade.
In collecting the lump of gum from the standing trees, the picker had an outfit which he had developed especially for this purpose. It consisted of a long pole on the top of which was a small sack with a capacity of two quarts of gum; back of this bag was a piece of steel or iron made like a hammer and working on a pivot, while a cord attached to the end extended the entire length of the pole. The picker placed this harvester along the gummy seam of the spruce tree, and, working the hammer by means of the cord, was en- abled to clip off the lumps of gum which fell into the bag.
The yield varied according to the size and age of the tree; occasionally a bushel of gum could be procured from one veteran spruce tree. Not infre- quently, a picker would find a gum tree with a seam so long that it would reach over half the length of the spruce, and exuding from each side of the vein, like beads of amber, would appear the prized nips of transparent gum. While on other trees would be found, clinging like a lichen to their trunks, great lumps of gum without any visible rift in the tree.
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The gum was graded by gatherers into three qualities: bright or trans- parent gum, which then (1894) brought fourteen cents a pound and at the present time sells for twenty-five cents per ounce, the second grade or bark gum, which was usually old gum; and the third or refuse gum which was sold at a low figure and made into patent gum.
In a number of places, a long tote through miles of wilderness was neces- sary in order to reach a place where this product could be shipped to buyers. Most of the gum in this locality came from Aroostook and Somerset Coun- ties. Canada and New York have likewise been prolific producers of this commodity.
In 1894, a firm in Augusta, Maine, handled more than 2,200 pounds of spruce gum during that year. In those days it was distributed by the apothe- cary along with candy, for the gentle art of chewing gum was then regarded as being good for dyspepsia.
Until the white men came the Indians had no pitch, and Nicholas Denys says that in order to make their craft waterproof, they used to fill the seams of the canoe with spruce gum which the women chewed until it was the right consistency. The French taught them how to "box" the pine trees in order to obtain the resin and how to boil it down with grease to make pitch.
The Ice Industry
The first ice house having a capacity of 1,500 tons was built by Rufus K. Page of Richmond with one Getchell of Augusta, in 1826. The ice was cut in Gardiner and sold to the Tudors of Boston, who shipped it to the south- ern states and the West Indies; but this undertaking was not a success. In 1860, the ice business for the first time became profitable; but it was not until the early years of the decade 1870-1880 that the ice boom began in the Kennebec Valley and along the Sheepscot River, as well as in other sec- tions of Maine. Large companies were formed and a rapid development in the ice-cutting industry ensued. Ice was shipped to Boston, New York, Phil- adelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans and Galveston. So flourishing was the ice business in Maine in 1890, that 3,000,- 000 tons were cut.
David G. Stinson, the owner of the Birch Point property, projected the ice works there, which were afterwards completed and operated by Hon. J. Manchester Haynes. When the Kennebec Land and Lumber Company en-
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tered this branch of labor, they erected ice houses having a capacity of 16,000 tons. Ice was shipped from there to Baltimore, Norfolk and New- port News, while some of the larger and more venturesome vessels took cargoes of ice to Demerara. Capt. Alpheus P. Boyd carried ice in a Bath ship to the distant port of Calcutta, which, in sailing mileage, was half way around the world.
In 1875, was formed the Walrus Ice Company of Wiscasset. It was com- posed of the following gentlemen: Joseph Tucker, Henry Ingalls, Alfred Lennox, Samuel E. Smith, Richard H. Tucker, Richard T. Rundlett of Wiscasset, with Stephen Hodgdon and John Reed of Boothbay. They stored over 3,000 tons of ice the first year, most of which was shipped to New York. The second year two cargoes were shipped to Newport, Rhode Island.
The ice was usually cut from the ponds in January, when it had reached a thickness of 16 or 18 inches, its depth being ascertained by boring a hole through the ice with an auger and the measurement taken. First came the snow scraper teams which took off all of the snow and surface débris, after which it was planed to a glassy smoothness, marked into squares like a check- erboard with an instrument called a groover; then grooves were made by an ice plow. It was sawed into cakes by an up-and-down saw, broken apart with a "busting-bar" and stored in sawdust-lined storehouses. After the grooves were made, the cakes not yet removed from the ice pond were "caulked" with snow, that is, the seams were tightly filled in with snow to prevent rain from seeping through the cracks and freezing the grooved blocks together.
Vessels were loaded with square cakes of ice each of which weighed about 400 pounds, at which time the ice was dunnaged to prevent it from shifting on the voyage or from melting when a warmer climate was reached.
The company at Birch Point always depended upon a crew from West- port to supplement their own men in the cutting of the ice, and the same men did this work year after year. For a time this was a thriving business, but the manufacture of artificial ice has since deprived Maine of this once lucrative industry.
In 1905 Foster Perkins dammed Rice's bridge in order to fill the ice pond now called Perkins' Pond, from which most of the town ice is at present supplied.
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Industries
Timepieces
Among the clock-makers and silversmiths of Wiscasset was Nathan Ad- ams who was born in Newbury, May 1, 1755. He married Elizabeth Poor the year prior to his removal to Maine in 1785. They had four daughters: Betsey, who married a Mr. Smith and lived in Pittston; Julia, who married James Stinson who was an early miller at Birch Point; Mary, who married Asa F. Hall of Wiscasset; and Lydia, who married Mr. Greenleaf and also lived in this town.
The Adams family, while here, lived in a wooden block on Fore Street, called Adams Block, which was burned in the fire of 1866. The timepieces of Nathan Adams were famous for their precision of workmanship and accu- racy in time keeping, and they were to be found in many a farmer's home as well as in the town. Each clock had a distinctly marked dial over which ap- peared the phases of the moon. Adams removed from here to Danvers and later he went to Boston, where he died in 1825. One of his tall clocks is now in Wiscasset in the Chase residence.
Benjamin Mead, as early as 1804, was here in the capacity of clock- maker. He worked in the shop of the silversmith, Daniel N. Dole. Mead's advertisement in the Eastern Repository of 1804 is as follows:
Eight day TIMEPIECES of the latest fashion showing the day of the month, age of the moon and time of day.
Asa Wilkins, also a clock-maker, was here in the early years of the nine- teenth century. He lived for many years in the John Stuart house at the corner of Washington and Union Streets, the house now occupied by George Blagdon. He was here in August, 1832, for the local newspaper records the death at that time of his little seven-year-old son. A tall clock made by him is in the possession of Mrs. Mary Sewall Metcalf. There are many spoons still extant bearing his hall-mark. Two of his tablespoons are owned by Miss Carolyn Sewall Knight.
William G. Langdon was born in Wiscasset in 1811. He went to Boston in 1826 to learn a silversmith's trade, but he gradually drifted into clock- making. He plied his trade for seventy-five years, being first at a shop on Court Street, but removing later to quarters on Hanover Street. When he entered the Home for Aged Men on West Springfield Street, and was asked where he was born, he replied: "In Wiscasset, Massachusetts." When
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someone attempted to correct him by saying, "You mean Wiscasset, Maine," Langdon's retort was: "There was no Maine when I was born." William G. Langdon died March 7, 1906, at the ripe old age of ninety-five years.
William Thaxter, a goldsmith of Wiscasset, was born in Hingham, Mass- achusetts, April 15, 1762. He was the son of Maj. Samuel Thaxter of Hingham, a survivor of the massacre of Fort William Henry. His shop is said to have been on the southeast corner of Main and Middle Streets, where at a later date lived Henry Robie, who was succeeded by Gardiner Walker. He was a brother of Marshall Thaxter who settled in Machias. William Thaxter came to this town after 1780. He married in Pownalbor- ough, April 4, 1786, Nancy, the daughter of Maj. John Huse and Eliza- beth Kingsbury, by whom he had three children.
Moses Davis in his diary records the following: "1789, May 20. After- noon went to Wiscasset and agreed with Mr. Thaxter for some Buckels, etc." Many of the silver spoons made by Thaxter can be found in Wiscasset and other pieces of his handicraft have survived in the shape of jewelry. A string of beads made by him for his wife now belongs to their great-great- great-granddaughter, Judith Thaxter Chase.
Moses Carlton, Sr., of Alna (then the north precinct of Pownalborough) owned a Spanish doubloon, a gold coin valued between fifteen and sixteen dollars. This he brought to Thaxter and of it had ten small brooches made, into each of which was set a device made of hair of himself and his wife in an artistic design. To each of their seven daughters they gave a breast-pin and the remaining three were for their sons' wives. One of these brooches is now owned by a descendant, Mrs. Fred E. Hilton of Head Tide.
William Thaxter was listed from Pownalborough in the census of 1790, but before 1800 he made a voyage to Demerara, from which he never re- turned. Family tradition is that he died of an epidemic in Georgetown, Brit- ish Guiana.
It is not generally known that Wiscasset had an establishment where sil- ver was manufactured by Daniel N. Dole. He was a conscientious silver- smith and all of his work was done by hand in a small work-shop on Water Street just south of where Silas Lee Young's store was located.19 The dis- tinctive feature of his spoons was their long graceful handles and the well- turned bowls tapering to an artistic point. Mr. Herbert W. Hawes has some
19. The site now occupied by the Wiscasset Lumber Company, H. S. Sherman, owner.
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Industries
Dole spoons and six teaspoons and two tablespoons are owned by the Chase family.
Sullivan Wright, who had a tide-mill on Mill Creek, was also a clock- maker. He was succeeded by his son-in-law, Solomon Holbrook. In our day Solomon Holbrook had a jewelry shop on Main Street. He, too, was a clock-maker of no mean repute, having learned the trade when working with the Waltham Watch Company.
Among the earlier silversmiths, cargo money, then paid in specie, was often transmuted into table silver. One man saved silver dollars (cart wheels), until he had a sufficient number to melt and mould a silver tea service, but it was not made in this town.
Among the gentler arts was that of the making of hair jewelry. Abigail Hill, the daughter of Joshua and Sarah Damon, and the wife of George Hill, was an artist of the first rank. Much of the hair jewelry still extant in this village can be traced to the deft fingers and artistic arrangement of Abigail Hill.
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