USA > Maine > York County > Witch trot land; being a bit about the mother of Maine, York county, or Yorkshire, or New Somersetshire, from which all Maine counties came. Of her hopes and dreams and heart-breaks, and of the first incorporated English city in America > Part 3
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).
KENNEBUNK
Kennebunk in Indian means "the place where he thanked him". As early as 1670 mills were built on the Mousam river but it was part of Wells until 1820.
The dignified First Parish Congregational church, in the Sir Christo- pher Wren style, built 1773, boasts a Revere bell and the stately elms were set out the day of the battle of Lexington. Under one Lafayette, Storer House guest in 1825, stood during a reception in his honor and ever since it has been known as his trec. Pres. Munroe was a guest at the Mousam House in July 1817. There are also the Geo. Walling- ford home of 1804, the Barry house of 1800 (the Barrys origi- nated to preserve the relics of Maine), and the Lyman-Kings- bury house of 1784, so fine in its day that people came from miles around to see it.
Cape Porpoise, discovered by Martin Pring in 1603 but named by Capt. John Smith in 1614, is one of the few really safe harbors for small craft hereabouts. Here once all the coal for the mills at Sanford was landed and taken across on the electric railroad but now the coal goes by truck and the wharf is only used by fishermen. .
Congregational Church, 1773-Kennebunk
In 1690 Indians attacked Cape Porpoise, only a few escaping to the garrison on Stage Island where they put up a desperate fight until their last morsel of food had been eaten, the last bullet fired and they had re- treated to the end of the island to face death, but unknown to them, crip- pled Nicholas Morey had escaped in a leaky boat the night before, met a vessel that now appeared and saved them.
During the Revolutionary War two British boats entered Cape Por- poise harbor and captured two merchantmen. The village half-wit rowed out and demanded their immediate release. As he rowed back the British
WITCH TROT LAND
31
THE KENNEBUNKS
fired on and wounded him, which so enraged the populace they went to Trott's Island intent on making the short crossing to Goat Island from where they hoped to be able to annoy the British. Their intent was ovi-
Wharf at Cape Porpoise
dent and the crossing shelled continuously but they made it, overpowered the few British there, even chasing them into their ship, killing 15, losing only one of their own, Capt. Burnham.
KENNEBUNKPORT
Was first known to fisherfolk in 1602 when Gosnold came, and Pring in 1603, but Richard Vines settled it permanently in 1629 and called it Arundel. In 1820 it petitioned to change its name to Kennebunk but as that name had already been taken it compromised on Kennebunkport. It has been an important port and shipping center until well along in the last century but now is just a typical Maine seacoast town with many old houses, unchanged, on its elm-shaded streets. This is said to be the best air in America-probably why there are so many artistie and literary people who proverbially live on atmosphere.
In earlier days "poor" Arundel couldn't afford to have regular church services, was often presented to the General Court for neglect until finally Massachusetts helped such needy towns, but even then there must have been church differences and some one induced two small boys to fire the church when they got one.
One of the few remaining tidewater grist mills is here and a couple of nature freaks, Blowing Cave, entered safely at low tide but the rising
WITCH TROT LAND
32
THE KENNEBUNKS
water is blown as high as 40 feet; and Spouting Rock, an opening in the rock through which the water is dashed high.
Turbot's Creek or the Wildes District (because so many families of Wildes live hereabouts) is now a rambling lot of wharves and fish houses but once it was a prosperous village with numerous concerns handling quantities of both fresh and salt fish. Now used mostly by lobster men.
Right off Ken- nebunkport is Rich- mond's Island, the Isle de Bacchus of Champlain, first set- tled by John Bur- gess, followed by Walter Bagnall in 1627 who cheated the Indians and got rich but, outraged, they killed him and his family and burned his build- ings, which incensed the other Whites and they sent a par- ty of avengers but they failed to find the real culprits and hanged poor, half- witted Black Will in 1631. Winters, a superlatively good business man, came next, with a wife of the same pattern who beat her maids and complained be- cause they would Church and Custom House-Kennebunkport not feed the hogs nor milk the goats unless she accompanied them. Rev. Richard Gibson was the preacher but he lost favor because he wouldn't marry Sarah Winters and was replaced by Rev. Robt. Jordan who would.
Ninety-odd years ago the bark Isadore set sail on her maiden voyage at 10 o'clock of a Friday morning. There had been trouble about her
WITCH TROT LAND
33
THE KENNEBUNKS
building and she stuck on the ways when they launched her. The captain was enthusiastic but none of the men were and Thos. King, although he had received a month's pay in advance, hid out. Three nights before he had dreamed he stood on the Isadore's deck, her sails were blown from ber yards and on the beach were seven coffins, side by side, a voice say- ing: "for the Isadore's crew". He didn't even show up for four days ing: "for the Isadore's erew". Others, too, had had dreams and premoni- tions, dogs howling for three nights in succession, coffins under their windows.
All day long there were watchers from the cupolas of the sea cap- tains' houses, from the piers and from the beaches. The skies were dull when she sailed, there was rain and sleet, later snow began to fall, theu a northeast wind blew a gale. It was one of the wildest nights the Kennebunks had ever known.
In the morning a pedlar drove into Kennebunk from York to relate that a boat had been wrecked at Wells during the night. It proved to be the Isadore. The bark had been blown up on the ledges between Ogunquit and Bald Head Cliff, less than ten miles from her sailing port and there the tide had left her, firmly wedged, her whole upper part in splinters, the rigging twisted into big balls and jammed among the rocks. What was left of the sails showed that the crew had made hurried and desperate efforts to save her, three reefs having been taken, but the gale had torn the sails from the reefs. . Of the 15 who sailed only seven could be found and buried in Kennebunkport, as the tablet records. Thos. King didn't even show up for four days after the wreck, then offered to return his month's pay but the owners refused it.
ALFRED
Alfred, in the center of York county, its shire town, was named for Alfred the Great. Settled first by Simeon Coffin in 1764, who, for years lived in a wigwam with no other Whites for miles around, it was not incorporated until 1794, at first called North Parish of Sanford. It became a "half-shire" town in 1806, a "full-shire" in 1832, and the "principal-shire" in 1260. The first court house, built in 1807, had new wings added in 1896. In Feb., 1933 the old part burned but the wings ZSUM三 didn't, so a new middle was built and ded- icated in October 1934. Here are the old- est continuous court records in the land, including the patent given to Sir Ferdi- nando Gorges by King Charles and signed by Lord Woolsley, the most valuable mounted on silk for protection, crosses County Court House- Oldest Con- tinuous Records in Country -Alfred often taking the place of signatures. March 25, 1636 the first court in Maine was held in Saco by Wm. Gorges, deputy of Sir Ferdinando, when it was forbidden to sell "strong liquor to Injuns."
Apparently profiteering was ever frowned upon for a reprimand ap- pears to John Winter of Richmond's Island for "putting down the price of beaver". He had paid the smallest possible amount, charged top price, been haled before the court. To this hall of justice came a man com- plaining his wife had hurled a pot of beans at him-what the judge de- cided deponent knoweth not.
This was the home town of John Holmes, York's first senator, leader in making Maine a separate state, chairman of the committee of 33 to draft its constitution. Five years before Pres. Madison had appointed him commissioner to determine the eastern boundary line, dividing Passa- maquoddy Bay's islands. He was in the General Court, Massachusetts senate, U. S. congress and senate, established the supreme judicial courts and brought the railroad here. He was U. S. District Attorney for the state at the time of his death in Portland, but when he came in 1799 he was still in debt for his education, was thought to be part Indian. Due to him was the Revere bell in 1834 in the Congregational church, built on the site of an earlier one of 1782, its burying ground dating back to Major Morgan Lewis, 1784.
WITCH TROT LAND
35
ALFRED
Justice Daniel E. Goodenow of the Supreme Judicial Court married his daughter who must have been a good housekeeper for the wall papers
John Holmes House, 1802, Bows and Arrows in Upper Railing-Alfred
put on their new home in 1820 are still fresh. Bowdoin conferred an LL. D. on him and he was a trustee for 25 years.
Next to the Holmes house once stood the old log county jail of 1806, where now is a dwelling, board floors covering the old log ones.
2000315
Paul Webber Tavern, 1795, where John Holmes had his first law office in N. W. Chamber in 1799-Alfred
The Daniel Giles house on the west side of Shaker Pond, 1770, was Alfred's first two-story frame house and son Stephen was the first white child born here, 1766.
WITCH TROT LAND
36
ALFRED
Nearby the Capt. Ebenezer Hall house, 1790, on the site of his previ- ous home of 1770, was once a tavern and the huge elm by its side was planted in 1781 when there was only an Indian trail into Alfred.
The Paul Webber tavern was built in 1795, its northwest chamber John Holmes' first law office.
The Berry tavern, built before 1810, on the site of the John Holmes pottery of 1805, is where Ulysses S. Grant dined June 19, 1869, after his inauguration in March. Holmes' seem- ed to be a moving pot- tery for soon Wm. Parsons wanted to build where it was and it had to move again. Shaker Village on the hill, founded by John Cotton in 1788, was once a thriving colony but after 143 Berry Tavern where Pres. Grant Dined June 19, 1869 -Alfred years most of them moved to society head- quarters at Sabbathday Lake, their cemetery alone remaining with its Shaker dead from 1788-1931.
They built their first meeting house the year they came, now used as a blacksmith's shop. Their second one, 1800, became an antique shop. Their third, 1913, together with their other buildings, now houses Notre Dame Academy and in the "brothers' workshop" are exhibited home-grown peanuts, cherry-like crab apples, apples, pears, butternuts and walnuts from trees the Shakers set out, cranberries from Shaker Pond bog, purple and green grapes, celeriac, leeks, salsify, Chinese cabbage, kohl rabi, ground almond, spaghetti, squashes, melons, gourds, citron, cucumbers, tomatoes and such, while in the long gray barn of 1834, where once the Shakers threshed their grain, the Brothers now thresh buckwheat.
As renowned as Hamelin for its rats is Alfred for its white-footed mice, and orders pour in from far and near. These are the kangaroo or meadow jumping mouse, not a marsupial, with longer hind than fore legs, long-tailed, fawn- colored, black-eyed, small and pretty, with erect ears. One woman will never be the same again for she killed 40-odd in her kitchen before she knew there was a demand for them.
Here they raise 420 bushels to the acre of certified seed potatoes and have underground storage plants with facilities for heating.
- 0
BERWICK
The Indians called this Newichawannock, "my place of wigwams", and it was once an important lumber port. A few white settlers were here as early as 1623-4 when Ambrose Gibbons built his palisaded house and his mill with 18 saws, but in 1643 Sagamore Bowles, chief of the section, sold to Humphrey Chadbourne the land where the town now stands. In 16344 he built a house between his saw mill at Great Works and his ship yard at the Landing, his present one in 1670. There were some 200 people at Great Works, when, in 1634, Gorges sent Chadbourne's son over in the Pied Cow to erect "one saw mill and one stampinge mill for corne", and these, the Ashbenbedick Falls of the Indians, home of the Burleigh Blanket Mill, have furnished power continuously to White people for over 300 years. In 1650 one mill was equipped with gang saws.
The elm trees that John Hancock planted on Boston Common came from the estate of Judge Chadbourne here, who also gave ten acres and some money for the site of Berwick Academy at South Berwick in 1791,
Berwick Academy, 1791-South Berwick
oldest literary incorporation in the state, and chartered by none other than John Hancock himself, for which Parson Tompson made two trips to Bos- ton on his old white horse. At first a boys' school, but co-educational since 1828, its motto is: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom", and one of its first trustees, John Lord, gave a fund by which each stu- dent receives a Bible.
Gen. Ichabod Goodwin, detailed to guard prisoners at the surrender of Burgoyne in 1780, was Colonel of the Second York Regiment, superin- tendent of troops, and after the war First Major General of the militia for the county, his first commission as lieutenant having been signed by King George III. He was a member of the provincial Congress of 1775,
WITCH TROT LAND
38
THE BERWICKS
later Governor of New Hampshire, and he built his house in 1797 on the site of the old Spencer Garrison, largest fortified dwelling in the country at the time of the second Indian war, accommodating over 100 people.
At first the Indians were friendly, glad to have the Whites as protection against the Tarratines, but in 1675 Indian uprisings began that lasted until France ceded Can- ada to Great Britain in 1763, largely because this was the settlement nearest the Canad- ian border. Before that so peaceful and unified had it been that it was incorporated as the Parish of Unity in 1675. By 1713 it had grown so it had to be divided and one was named Berwick for the Berwick in England from which so many of them had come. In old récords it is called Barvick, also Quamp- hegan.
The Witch Trot Road. through Wells, past Stephen Goodwin's and the old Wad- leigh farm to Jewett, thence to Lower Landing at the Hamilton House, is the town's oldest thoroughfare. In 1670 Congregationalist Parson Burroughs came to preach at different places in Maine, fin- ally to Wells. He was sandy- haired, short and stocky and very strong, could put his fin- ger in the muzzle of a 16-1b. flint lock and lift it at arm's length, or raise a barrel full Witch Trot Elm-South Berwick of cider so he could drink out of the bung hole, and the people here, plus those of Danvers whence he had come, deciding he was a wizard, came to take him for trial. He suggested a short cut through the woods. It was lonely and spooky and a storm brewing. Thunder crashed, lightning
WITCH TROT LAND
39
THE BERWICKS
flashed and the hoofs of the terrified horses seemed not to touch the ground until they got to Dover and the storm had passed, but the two sheriff's thought he had cast a spell over them. It was alleged he tormented Mary Wolcott until she became "consumed, pinched, wasted", and Susannah Sheldon said he took her up into a high mountain and there showed and offered her all the kingdoms of the earth if she would write in his book. otherwise he'd pitch her over the cliff and break her neck. Another averred that two of his former wives appeared to her in their winding sheets-and Salem condemned him to the gallows on Witches Hill.
One of the early ministers, graduate of Harvard, kept a well-worn musket handy to allay troublesome witches whenever they bothered his parishioners.
Mary Hurtado, Portuguese housewife, near Salmon Falls in 1682, asked what she was doing, seeing no one, didn't reply, and was promptly struck a blow which nearly ruined her eyesight. Then a huge stone rat- tled along the side of the house but couldn't be found. A frying pan in the chimney rang so loud it could be heard a quarter mile away. Her head was swollen and sore, there were contusions of her breast and arms where unseen missiles had maimed her, and even her husband was not immune for when he was crossing the river he saw a man's head sailing along, the disjointed tail of a cat in close pursuit, and five or six rods of his cornfield fence were overthrown and his crop invaded by neat cattle that did no damage.
Long, long after Cotton Mather's day belief in witchcraft still per- sisted. Merea, little daughter of a negro laborer at Jos. Ricker's tannery at Beaver Dam in the 1740's seemed peculiar and the neighbors said sho was a witch. Grown, she lived alone in a hut on the edge of a farmer's
land. Another farmer's flock of roving geese annoyed her by living off her garden until just before Thanksgiving they all appeared with their necks twisted around so they had to travel backward and couldn't pick up grain, in fact, the only way to fatten them was to put food on their backs, and the farmer accused Merea.
Someone advise him to overcome her by burning the fresh blood of a goose and he captured and beheaded one at sunset, took it into his kitchen, fastened the doors, built up a roaring fire, was in the act of hang- ing the dripping head over the flames when unseen hands burst asunder the doubly-barred outer door and Merea stood before him!
And there was Patrick, son of Patrick and Mary Manning, who, the neighbors said, bewitched their animals, mildewed their erops, and if any-
WITCH TROT LAND
40
THE BERWICKS
one stuck the point of a knife blade into the center of one of his foot- prints he would have to turn around and go back. His old cellar is all that is left of the place where he once lived alone at Patrick's Cove on Little River. Patrick's pines are just across the road.
They thought he had bewitched Neighbor Hersom's stallion when it got away and the whole neighborhood had to help. Then they couldn't find Hersom and tongues wagged in earnest-Patrick had ridden him about in a witch bridle day and night, like a horse! When they d'd dis- cover him he was between the husk and feather mattresses of his own bed but he didn't know anything about any horse. They dragged him into the kitchen, opened up an artery in his arm near the elbow, drew blood into a kettle, threw in a handful of rusty pins and needles and boiled it over a hot fire. Hersom recovered but he always had a stiff elbow.
That very same night Patrick was afflicted with incurable ulcers and the neighbors heard him pitifully calling but no one would go for they thought whoever approached a wizard would fall under a similar spell, leaving him free to recover. He died, alone, in agony, and when a few hardy souls went to bury him they found his entire skin covered with minute pin prieks! They put him in a rocky hollow on the hill behind his house and every man, woman and child that passed threw a stone to pre- vent him escaping. Nearly a century later a man looking for the grave, after weeks of fruitless search was directed by a dream to the place and Patrick was removed to the cemetery by the side of the other Man- nings.
Capt. Jewett, grandfather of Sarah, kept store and built ships. It was on his "Pietolus" that Hon. John Burleigh sailed around the world. In 1774 John Haggens "raised his house" of three stories, two chimneys, a captain's walk along the ridgepole, where, later Sarah Orne Jewett was born. Little Sarah often accompanied her country-doctor-father as he drove about, later wrote The Country Doctor and The Country of the Pointed Firs, commemorating the Wallingford Farm where rest the heroes of Tozer battle, 1675, when 15 women, barricaded at John Tozer's, were attacked by Indians and one girl held the door until the rest had escaped. Then the Indians hacked, cut and scalped her but, most miraculously, she recovered and lived to be an old lady. Hamilton House on the river, scene of The Tory Lover, was the home of Col. Jonathan Hamilton, born at Pine Hill, also a ship master and store keeper. He built close to the water so his West Indian boats could dock at his front door and here John Paul Jones dined Oct. 31, 1777 before sailing on the Ranger next morning.
The Judge Hill garrison house on the hill was built in 1670 and Leigh's mill house in 1726.
The corn fields of the Indians were growing on both sides of Chad- bourne's when he built his first home but Mr. Jocelyn bought them that
WITCH TROT LAND
41
THE BERWICKS
same year, part being used as a cemetery, the Old Fields Burying Ground, with dates back to 1728.
When Marquis de Lafayette visited in 1824 he ate breakfast at Mrs. Sarah Frost's Inn in her old home with its beautiful landscaped wall
Sarah Orne Jewett Home -South Berwick
paper, in South Berwick, for ten years before the town had grown so South Berwick had had to be set off, and in 1831 North Berwick was formed from what had been Kittery Commons. Pres. Munroe had been entertained here in 1814.
After Mason and Gorges divided their territory, Quamphegan joined the Kittery church but it was a long ways to go and so they had preaching in houses until 1669 when they voted 150 acres on the south side of the Great Works river, "Tom Tinker's lot", to the ministry. Rev. John Wade came and in 1702 the Congregational church was built, Capt. . Icabod Plais- ted giving its silver cups. This church tried not to mix up in the witch and Quaker troubles of other churches.
The second Baptist church in the state was organized at Great Hill in 1768 with 17 members, their meeting house lated moved to North Bor- wick, their second church afterwards used for town meetings.
Berwick's first school was in 1714 taught by Mr. Rooks at 10 pound .. salary. In 1749 school was kept in six different places, the master teach-
WITCH TROT LAND
42
THE BERWICKS
ing two weeks in each, but 1758 boasted a whole school year, in the upper parish. Later Miss Olive Raynes kept school in her home for 60 years.
John Sullivan, born 1740, was a general in Washington's army, Governor of New Hampshire and U. S. District Court Judge there. Ilis younger brother James, lawyer, patriot, orator, attorney general for Maine a .. d governor of Massachusetts, wrote the first history of Maine. Berwick sent more men to the Revolution than any place else, two full companies under Capt. Philip Hubbard and Capt. Daniel Wood.
At Great Works Deacon Foote had a mill for custom cloth, only one in the country then, and Timothy Ferguson had a cotton mill at Upper Landing. The Lowe house was built in 1786, the Currier house, once a tavern, and the Harrity house across the street, nearly as soon. The Hobbs house was built by Mme. Wallingford for her daughter who was one of the many who entertained Lafay- ette. There's a house at Vine and Liberty streets with carved woodwork, paneling and Indian shutters that dates from 1670 and then included the house next door. Later they were separated and an ell built on each, but when built the next house to the north was in Canada.
In other days wide, flat-bottomcd gundalows, patterned after Nile boats, at first without sails, later with, plied slowly up and down the busy river.
Gone are the 40 noblemen, knights and gentlemen, that formed the 1620 Council for New England at Plymouth, England. Gone is Sir Ferdinando Gorges with his Gundalow-Berwick wealthy, educated, landed gentry, his am- bitions and dreams and his cherished Gorgeana. The Mother County of all Maine which bore names of Yorkshire and New Somersetshire, finally dwindled down to the present York. A royal mast agent came and marked the best trees with his broad arrow for the king's ships, currency depreci- ated, there were land banks, old tenor and new tenor. York's city was taken from her, her county seat moved. Broad Arrow of the King's Mast Agent She has known the privations and hardships of pio- neering, the ease of boom days, the horrors of wars, massacres and witches, but through it all Old York has done her bit and come through unharmed, with only the mellowing effect that adversities, rightly met, give. Possibly this is better than the other way would have been, and now Maine's only witches are witch tapers to light the way.
WITCH TROT LAND
43
THE BERWICKS
"Out of the monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of books and the like, we doe save and recover somewhat from the deluge of Time".
-(Lord Bacon, "Advancement of Learning") .
Witch Taper-Only Kind of Witches in Maine Now
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.