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 59
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Last Pine of Sweet Auburn, I sit in thy shade, And mourn for the mates that around thee are laid ; Tall spires of the forest, majestic and grand, And noble in beauty, profane was the hand That swept from the mountain its pride and its crown,
And the boast of Sweet Auburn brought ruthlessly down.
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Last Pine of Sweet Auburn, Oh hadst thou a tongue, And couldst thou remember the time thou wert young, Entranced I could linger for hours at thy feet, And list to the tales thou wouldst surely repeat. Thou wouldst tell of the time when this mountain looked down On no ship-traversed bay, on no beautiful town,- When the red men and maidens roved dark through the trees, Where now nods the grain to the soft summer breeze.
Of the time when the white man's adventurous feet First crushed the sweet ferns of this sylvan retreat; His first lodge was builded, his first tree was felled; And how the white tide from the red sunset swelled. Thou wouldst tell of the struggle twixt red man and white; How bloody, how fierce, how protracted the fight! But the doom of the red man was written and sealed, From his hunting ground driven, he was scattered and peeled, And the earth that was fat with his graves and his blood, Yielded up to the white man its treasures of food.
Thou wouldst tell of the time when the wealthy and gay Their fair mansions reared by Wiscasset's broad bay- The proudest not then might Wiscasset disdain, For Maine was the fashion, and all flocked to Maine. The army and navy its gallant sons sent, And beautiful women their potent charms lent; The red wine flowed free, and rare jewels shone bright, And wassail and revelry rang through the night.
Ah! many a soul from yon tree shadowed town Into anguish and blackness and darkness went down. What profit in pleasure and riches to roll, If the purchase is made by the loss of the soul? How many were there who in holy ways trod, And now they are resting in peace with their God.
Last Pine of Sweet Auburn, when homesick and worn, The wanderer at last on his happy return, Looking eagerly out for thy fellows and thee, Rejoiced when the evergreen tops he could see. "Come home child, come home," those tall forms seem to say, "Thy place at the table awaits thee today ;
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Thy father and mother thy coming await; Thy brothers and sisters are thronging the gate. Oh! why from Sweet Auburn so far didst thou roam, From the bay and the mountain? come home child, come home."
Alas! O Sweet Auburn, how sad the surprise That now must look forth from the home-comers' eyes; It will fill them with wonder, with anger, and pain, To search for their friends of the mountain in vain.
Thou sacred old tree! the dear home of my birth, And the home of my mother, long since passed from earth, Thou art watching o'er yet with the still faith of yore; But ah! 'tis the home of my kindred no more. By tears, lonely Pine, I respond to thy sigh, As the sad winds of eve wander murmuring by, I feel a deep truth in thy desolate tone, It whispers, "My fate but foreshadows thine own." Thy green arms seem tenderly over me spread, As seeking to shelter the wanderer's head, A bird in thy branches why may I not dwell, Bidding life and its tumults and sorrows farewell?
"Wiscasset"
Dethroned! discrowned! forsaken by the sea, Sitting in dust with ashes on thy head, Still thou art beautiful! and still will be Fair as a dream though all my hopes are dead; Thine empty palaces to silence given ; Thy children scattered to the winds of heaven.
Beloved! beautiful! not we alone- Thy children, praise thee, ruined as thou art, Thy peerless graces all who see thee own: And we-we bear forever on our heart The sacred picture of our home of yore, Framed in its pleasant hills, its matchless shore.
October 1882
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Alpheus Spring Packard
Alpheus Spring Packard, the eldest son of Rev. Hezekiah Packard, was born at Chelmsford, Massachusetts, December 23, 1798, just four years before his father settled in Wiscasset where he became the third pastor of the east parish church in this town.
The Packard family lived in a house located very close to that now owned and occupied by Mrs. Mary Sewall Metcalf, and where, in colonial days, stood the blockhouse known as Williamson's garrison. For thirty years they were identified with the life of this town and their descendants still manifest an interest in its welfare.
After completing his course at the common schools of Wiscasset, schools whose standards his father had given his best years to raise and maintain, Alpheus Packard entered Bowdoin College, at which institution he was des- tined to play so important a rôle for seventy years, first as student, then instructor, professor and for sometime before his death, as acting president. He received his A. M. from Bowdoin in 1816 and for a short time there- after he was assistant teacher in Gorham Academy, and on December twen- tieth of that year he returned to Wiscasset where he opened the Latin Grammar School.
From 1819 to 1824 he was a tutor at Bowdoin College; and from the latter date until 1865, he was professor of the Latin and Greek languages. For three years (1842-1845) he had charge of rhetoric and oratory; and for twelve years he held the department of natural and revealed religion. He received the degree of D. D. from Bowdoin in 1869.
Alpheus Spring Packard was chosen to deliver the address on the occasion of the centennial celebration of the Congregational Church at Wiscasset, August 6, 1873, on the spot where the founders met a hundred years before and perfected its organization. It was published in book form by Joseph Wood of Wiscasset.
In 1839 Mr. Packard edited an issue of the Memorabilia Xenophontis, and a second edition in 1841. He also edited the works of Dr. Appleton in two volumes, and wrote the memoir prefixed. He contributed two articles to the North American Review and one to the Bibliotheca Sacra.
In 1827 he married Frances E. Appleton,4 the daughter of President Appleton of Bowdoin College. She died in 1839, leaving five children: 4. Frances E. Appleton was a sister of Jane Means Appleton who married Franklin Pierce, the fourteenth President of the United States.
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Charles A. Packard who was at one time a practising physician in Waldo- boro and later in Bath; William A. Packard, professor of modern lan- guages, and then of Greek and literature at Dartmouth and afterward pro- fessor of Latin at the College of New Jersey at Princeton; George L. Pack- ard, and Alpheus S. Packard, lecturer on comparative anatomy and zoology in Bowdoin and later professor of zoology and geology at Brown Univer- sity; and one daughter Frances Appleton Packard.
In 1844, he married Mrs. C. W. Mclellan of Portland. They had one son, Robert L. Packard, who was instructor in French and assistant profes- sor of chemistry in Bowdoin College, and later first examiner in the United States Patent Office.
Alpheus Spring Packard died July 13, 1884.
William Davis Patterson
William Davis Patterson, the son of Seth and Laura J. (Call) Patterson, was born in Dresden, Maine, March 5, 1858. In 1869, the family moved to Wiscasset, where he attended the local schools. At the age of thirteen he left school and went to work for Alfred Lennox, a broker and dealer in hay. From that time whatever he received in the way of education was by a self- taught course in reading and research, a natural inclination to which led him to become interested in historical matters, and for many years before his death, in 1931, he was considered one of the foremost historians in Maine.
While working for Mr. Lennox, he took up book-keeping and in 1871, when the Knox and Lincoln Railroad was opened, he began to work at the local station as agent in Wiscasset.
At the age of twenty, William D. Patterson was chosen from among twelve applicants for the treasurership of the Wiscasset Savings Bank, which position he held until 1917, a few months before it was merged with the First National Bank of Wiscasset, when he retired as treasurer of the Savings Bank and became cashier of the National Bank, carrying through the details of the merger. In 1902, while still holding office in the Savings Bank, he became president of the National Bank, which position he held until 1917. At the time when the Savings Bank combined with the National Bank, under the name of the Lincoln County Trust Company, Mr. Patter- son became vice-president of the new institution, retaining that office until it closed in 1923.
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When the narrow gauge railroad was begun in 1893, he became treasurer of the Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway Company and served until 1925.
William Davis Patterson became a Mason in December, 1879, and joined the local chapter, Lincoln Lodge, No. 3, F. & A. M. He served as secretary for this Lodge for forty-five terms, refusing re-election only when failing health forced him to curtail his numerous activities, in Decem- ber, 1929. His service as secretary was interrupted for one year when he became Worshipful Master. He also served as secretary of the New Jeru- salem Royal Arch Chapter No. 3, for forty years.
All of this time Mr. Patterson was gathering material pertaining to his- torical and genealogical matters and he became a recognized authority on Lincoln County history. In 1895 he compiled and edited for the Maine Genealogical Society, a valuable work entitled: The Probate Records of Lincoln County, Maine, 1760-1800.
Many interesting and valuable papers on historical, biographical and antiquarian topics relating to Wiscasset or its neighborhood, the fruit of his researches among the local records, were read by Mr. Patterson at the meet- ings of the Wiscasset Fire Society, of which, at the time of his death, he had been a member for fifty-two years and clerk for forty years.
He delivered a scholarly address on the history of the court and court house at the centennial celebration of the Lincoln County court house held at Wiscasset, under the auspices of the Lincoln County Bar Association, July 23, 1924. Wiscasset in the Early Days is an excellent, but all too brief account of the old town on the Sheepscot. Probably his greatest service to the history of Maine was undertaken during the later years of his life when he revised and reviewed the History of Dresden, Maine, by the late Charles Edward Allen, who died in 1911. This book was brought out by Bertram E. Packard, the state commissioner of education. This history is another tes- timonial to the painstaking research and conscientious labor of Mr. Patter- son, whose writings were meticulously correct. Mr. Allen had stipulated in his will that Mr. Patterson should be given all of the manuscripts and data collected by him and, after careful revision, he should, if possible, publish it. Owing to the increased cost of printing at that time, the small fund left by Mr. Allen was insufficient, so it was not possible to publish the work until a special appropriation was made by the Maine legislature and added to the donation of private funds.
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Mr. Patterson served on the commission appointed by Gov. William T. Cobb of Maine to supervise the building of the memorial tower on the site of Fort William Henry at Pemaquid and for fifteen years continued a member of the commission charged with the care of the completed work.
Among the historical societies in which he held membership were the New England Historic Genealogical Society, of which he was for eight years vice-president for Maine; the Maine Historical Society, of which he was first corresponding secretary and then vice-president; the Colonial Society of Massachusetts; the American Antiquarian Society; and the So- ciety for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Mr. Patterson served as president of the Wiscasset Cemetery Association from the time of its incorporation in 1909 until his death.
William Davis Patterson married June 6, 1914, at Westport, Maine, Louise Marguerite Dayton who was born at Stamford, Connecticut. She died at Wiscasset, March 16, 1925. They had one daughter, Janet Dayton Patterson, now Mrs. Daniel Horne, who has survived her parents. Mr. Patterson died in Bath, July 16, 1931. He was buried at Woodlawn Ceme- tery at Birch Point.
Edith Sawyer
Edith A. Sawyer, the second daughter of Hon. George B. and Annie A. (Lord) Sawyer, was born and educated in Wiscasset, and, after taking a high school course here, entered Wellesley College as a special student, where she followed all the courses in English training and constructive writing afforded by that institution.
While at Wellesley Miss Sawyer wrote brief histories pertaining to local subjects for journals and magazines, also occasionally contributed to the New York Times and the Boston Evening Transcript. Her first literary venture bears the title For Student Days and Birthdays and contains appropriate selec- tions from the best writers of ancient and modern times, with notes and memoranda concerning literary people and events. But Mary Cameron, a romance of Fisherman's Island, is regarded as her first book. The story centers around a bleak, desolate strip of rocky shore lying off Linekin Neck on the edge of the ocean, with few trees to break its barrenness and with the bell on the government buoy tolling incessantly close to its shore. Here Miss Sawyer often made sojourns in order to absorb the local color before attempting to portray it. This book was published in 1899, by B. H. San-
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born & Co. of Boston. She next wrote four books for children, The Christ- makers' Club; Elsa's Gift Home; José, our little Portugese Cousin; and Denise of the Three Pines, the last a story, located in Denmark, Maine, of a little Belgian refugee.
At Wellesley, Miss Sawyer became special tutor to a student sent to the college by the Japanese government for the study of English. This student was the pleasantly remembered Miss Mitsu Okada who spent a summer in the Sawyer home in Wiscasset, and through whom Miss Sawyer became in- spired with an interest in things Japanese. Later she made two visits to the Land of the Rising Sun, where she had exceptional opportunities to study the people of that island empire. From her books on Japan it is evident that she went not only inside the bamboo fences and paper shoji but beyond these, and over the spotless mattings to the heart of the country. Her writ- ings show, for a foreigner, an exceptional appreciation of the Yamato Damashi," "Spirit of Old Japan."
As an outcome of these visits Miss Sawyer wrote The Way of Umé, which has an introduction by the late historian, William Elliot Griffis, and the Abiding of Umé, with an introduction by Viscount Saito.6 Both of these books have been transcribed into Braille by the Red Cross Society in America. They are used by many schools for the study of Japan, and do much to further international good understanding.
Miss Sawyer continues her literary work, living, during the summer, in Fryeburg, Maine, and spending the winter months usually in New York City.
Rufus King Sewall
Rufus King Sewall, the historian of Wiscasset, was the son of Rufus and Phebe (Merrill) Sewall. He was born at Edgecomb, Maine, January 22, 1814. The Sewalls are the direct descendants of a notable English family from Warwickshire.
After first attending the local schools, Rufus King Sewall went to the old Lyceum at Gardiner, but prepared for his collegiate course at the Farming- ton Academy under preceptor Green. Entering Bowdoin College in 1833, he received the A. B. degree in 1837. He studied for the ministry at the Bangor Theological Seminary; and, after his first marriage, to a southern
5. Yamato Damashi is the old name for Japan before the Japanese adopted the name Nippon.
6. Viscount Saito was assassinated in the political outbreak February 26, 1936.
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woman, served as minister in St. Augustine, Florida, for several years. He returned to Maine a few years before the outbreak of the Civil War, ac- cepting a call to the Congregational Church at Newcastle, where he preached for one or two years before settling permanently in Wiscasset.
Mr. Sewall purchased the house on the Bath road from Warren Rice, Esq., and there he lived for the remainder of his life.
During his sojourn in St. Augustine, he studied law with his uncle, Kiah B. Sewall, and was admitted to the Lincoln County Bar in 1859. He began practice in Wiscasset, where much of his business was in the United States courts in which he contested and won some very important suits. In admiral- ty was settled the right of fishermen to three-eighths of the United States bounty, in the case of the Lucy Ann before Judge Ware; divested all right to royalty under the Isaac Winslow Jones patents on canned green corn packing, cancelling four patents in the United States Circuit and Supreme Court; and successfully contested title to a tax sale of his Florida pineapple lands, in the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, in the January term, 1896. He also recovered heavy awards in the Alabama Com- missioners' Court of Claims at Washington, in favor of the owners of the schooner Restless of Boothbay, destroyed with her cargo by the Confederate steamer Tallahassee; and in favor of the widow of Captain Kallock, for a third of the bark M. J. Kallock, burned by the Confederate steamer Alabama at sea. He likewise had charge of large demands for French spoliation claims.
The best-known published works of Rufus King Sewall which are a valu- able contribution to history are: Sketches of St. Augustine, The Ancient Domin- ions of Maine, Ancient Voyages to the Western Continent; Three Phases of History on the Coast of Maine, Pemaquid: Its Genesis, Discovery, Name, and Colonial Re- lations to New England (printed by the Lincoln Historical Society), Lincoln Lodge, a description of the local association by that name, Popham's Town Fort St. George, and various brochures on Wiscasset, among them Wiscasset Point, which gives a description of the old meeting-house and interesting in- cidents connected with its history. As a scholar and historian he was a recog- nized authority in matters pertaining to the early history and growth of the state.
Rufus King Sewall died in Wiscasset, April 16, 1903.7
7. The above information was supplied by Charles Summers Sewall, the son of R. K. Sewall, and the Biographical Review, page 300.
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Joseph Emerson Smith
Joseph Emerson Smith, the son of Samuel Emerson and Louisa Sophia (Fuller) Smith, was born in Augusta, Maine, March 19, 1835. Judge Smith, his father, whose term of office as governor of the state of Maine had expired, soon after moved to Wiscasset, where his five sons received their first schooling.
Joseph Emerson Smith, like his father, chose the law for his profession, and after graduating from Bowdoin College in 1854, studied law in the office of Henry Ingalls, Esq., was admitted to the Bar, and became partner with Mr. Ingalls until 1869, when he removed to Chicago, Illinois, where he ever afterward resided.
In 1875 Mr. Smith's novel entitled Oakridge was published by James R. Osgood & Company of Boston. It is an old-time story located in the environs of Wiscasset, principally at Birch Point, where a tract of land was, at one time, in the possession of his uncle whose name he bore. Mr. Smith died very suddenly in Chicago, June 16, 1881.
He was brought to Wiscasset for burial in the Smith family lot in Ever- green Cemetery.
Susan Smith
Susan Abigail Cowles Grant, the daughter of John Cowles and Susan (Henry) Grant was born in Chicago, November 1, 1882. She was educated in that city, where she entered the University of Chicago, September 23, 1899. Throughout the course her scholarship was consistently above the average. She received the A. B. degree on June 17, 1902, and then trans- ferred to the graduate school where she remained in residence during the two subsequent quarters after receiving the Bachelor's degree.
Susan Grant was married in Chicago, May 17, 1905, to Harold Emerson Smith, the grandson of Governor Smith, and son of Benjamin F. Smith of Wiscasset. After her marriage much of her time, when not traveling, was spent in this town and several of her books were written in the same house where, in 1874, Blanche Willis Howard (the maternal aunt of her hus- band) wrote her first novel, One Summer.
Susan Smith's best-known books are: Made in America, Made in France, Made in Mexico, Made in Germany and Austria, Made in England, Made in
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Sweden (her last book), The Glories of Venus, Tranquilina's Paradise, the Christmas Tree in the Woods, which describes a tree growing in the forest on the estate of Mr. and Mrs. W. Seaver Warland around which the people of Wiscasset gather every Christmas Eve to sing carols and receive presents, an illuminated crêche being in the background. This book has been accepted for the White House Library by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Susan Grant Smith died at St. Luke's Hospital, New York, September 19, 1934. She is survived by her husband Harold E. Smith; a daughter, Marion (Mrs. Lloyd Lowndes) ; and a son, Emerson Smith, all of whom reside in New York City.
Patience Stapleton
Martha Armstrong Tucker, the daughter of Richard Holbrook and Mary (Armstrong) Tucker, was born at Wiscasset, March 9, 1861. The first school she attended outside of her native village was a convent in Whitefield, Maine, after which she spent two years at Farmington, also in this state. Her education was completed at a Moravian Seminary at Bethle- hem, Pennsylvania, from which she graduated in 1877 and afterwards taught for one year in the public schools of this village.
"Patty Tucker," as she was known to her intimate friends, was a brilliant and gifted writer, who chose for her life work the field of American fiction. In August, 1879, her first published story was printed in The Youth's Com- panion. In 1882 she went to Denver, Colorado, where she became a writer on the daily staff of the Tribune at which time she used the nom de plume of "Patience Thornton." A year later, August 28, 1883, at her old home in Wiscasset, she married William Stapleton, who was the managing editor of the Rocky Mountain News of Denver and later of the Denver Republican.
Patience Stapleton was a contributor to several periodicals before publish- ing her books, among which were: "The Major's Christmas and Other Sto- ries," published in 1885. Kady, the first Colorado novel, published in 1888, was so successful that it was to have been dramatized and used as a play for Minnie Madden Fiske, and she was working on it when the author died, so the plan to put it on the stage was abandoned. Another work of Patience Stapleton was My Sister's Husband, published in 1890; and Babe Murphy followed the same year. "Trailing Yew," a story of Monhegan Island, first came out in the Cosmopolitan in 1891. It was not published in book form
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until 1921. Rose Geranium, which appeared in 1892; My Jean, in 1893; and Jean McClure complete the list of her publications.
Patience Stapleton died in New York City, November 25, 1894. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Wiscasset.
Her strong personality never failed to impress those who met her. Car- ing little for society in general, her warm, impulsive nature responded read- ily to children, and, although she had none of her own, they instinctively loved and trusted her. She had an unfailing appreciation of the virtue of self-abnegation and the humble heroism of the daily toiler, who carried on uncomplainingly, bravely performing his duty to the end.
Epigrammatic though her style was, she would have been the last to barb a thought or a phrase or intentionally offend a sensitive person. Although reticent and quiet with strangers, her conversation among friends sparkled with wit and repartee. She held fast to the soundness of fundamentals, re- garding with innate scorn useless shams and conventions
Mrs. Stapleton valiantly took up the cudgels of her sex, and was the first to advance women's suffrage in Colorado; and so whole-heartedly did she advocate enfranchisement for the women of that state, that her death was regarded as a distinct loss, not only to Western literature, but also to West- ern progress.
Joseph Wood
The date of his birth is found in a memorandum which runs as follows: "December 9, 1842-Friday, between 2 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon, born to Abiel and Catherine Jane (Felker) Wood, at house on Fort Hill Street, Wiscasset, a son-Joseph Wood-named for Joseph A. Wood of Ellsworth (cousin of Abiel Wood, then P. M. at Ells. which office he had held since 1826 and to 1844)."
He was the fourth generation of his family to reside in Wiscasset, his great-grandfather, Gen. Abiel Wood, having come to this town from Mid- dleborough, Massachusetts. Joseph's father was Rev. Abiel Wood, a Bap- tist minister, and his mother Catherine Jane Felker, a woman of fine sensi- bilities and more than average intellectual ability, was the minister's second wife.
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