USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Pioneers of the Magalloway from 1820 to 1904 > Part 1
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GRANVILLE P. WILSON
FEB 13 1942 G. S. U. PIONEERS OF THE MAGALLOWAY
FROM 1820 TO 1904
GRANVILLE P. WILSON BY
GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF UTAH 24550
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR OLD ORCHARD, MAINE 1918
Me. M5
COPYRIGHT, 1918 BY GRANVILLE P. WILSON
PREFACE
The following brief and incomplete biographies of certain early settlers of the Magalloway region, in Maine and New Hampshire, are here undertaken by probably the last individual now living whose memory can recall with any distinctness the data and chronology of that region's early history, and the personalities identified with the same. An ardent filial regard for his birth- place and childhood home, now prompts the writer of these sketches to seize the apparently last opportunity to save from threatened oblivion the records of all that was once dear to him on earth, and to transmit to posterity what may yet be of value as a connecting link between the present, and the sacred-the inestima- ble-and the ever-instructive and venerated past.
I count them faithless evermore whose human hearts are led astray From the dear world we loved of yore, by that which is, today. I count them false who cherish less than all on time's uncertain shore, Our friends, our home, our happiness, of years that are no more.
I count them good and true alone to whom the toils, the loves, the tears, And friendships, long aforetime known, are sacred as in former years. I count them blest to whom appears the recompense for all in store -- The sweetness that all life endears by that which was of yore.
GRANVILLE P. WILSON.
Old Orchard Beach, June 18, 1918.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Chapter I.
Introduction
. 13-15
Chapter II.
Jonathan Leavit
. 16-18
Chapter III.
John Bennett
. . 19-20
Chapter IV.
Isaac York
· . 21-22
Chapter V.
Richard Lombard
. 23-24
Chapter VI.
Lemuel Fickett
. 25-27
Chapter VII. John Lombard .
. 28-29
Chapter VIII.
Israel T. Linnell
. 30-31
Chapter IX.
David Robbins
. 32-34
Chapter X.
Joshua Lombard
. 35-38
Chapter XI.
Alvan Wilson
. 39-40
Chapter XII.
Captain John M. Wilson .
. 41-50
Chapter XIII.
Joseph Sturtevant
.
. 51-52
Chapter XIV.
Lorenzo D. Lombard
.
. 53-54
Chapter XV.
Nelson Fickett
55
Chapter XVI.
Lorenzo D. Linnell .
.
. 56-57
Chapter XVII. David M. Sturtevant
. 58-60
Chapter XVIII. Conclusion
.
·
61
Supplement
· . 62-64
.
ILLUSTRATIONS
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GRANVILLE P. WILSON
PETER BENNETT
. Frontispiece Facing page 18
GILMAN BENNETT . ELDER RICHARD LOMBARD
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22
RICHARD FRANKLIN LOMBARD
24
LEMUEL FICKETT · .
26
AZISCOOS MOUNTAIN, FROM WILSON'S MILLS, ME. . 32
JOSHUA LOMBARD
36
CAPTAIN JOHN M. WILSON .
42
WILLIAM H. - SON OF CAPTAIN JOHN M. WILSON . 46
AZISCOOS HOUSE, WILSON'S MILLS, ME. . LORENZO DOW LINNELL
54
56
DAVID M. STURTEVANT
58
AZISCOOS DAM - FALLS OF THE MAGAL- LOWAY . .
· 62
PIONEERS OF THE MAGALLOWAY
PIONEERS OF THE MAGALLOWAY
CHAPTER I
"Beneath those rugged elms - that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
"The breezy call of incense-breathing morn - The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall 'rouse them from their lowly bed.
"Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe hath broke. How jocund did they drive their team a-field!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!"
TN commemorating the pioneers of the Magalloway, I have no heroic feats of arms to chronicle,- no scholars - orators - eccle- siastics or statesmen to memorize, - no tri- umphs of art - science - greed or tyranny to celebrate, but
"Let not ambition mark their useful toil, Their homely joys and destiny, obscure. Or grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor."
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Far away in the northwestern extremity of the State of Maine, and northeastern of New Hampshire, on the shores of the largest tributary of the Androscoggin River, and about a hundred and fifty miles from any sea- port, may be found a few straggling settle- ments, extending some ten miles along the stream - bounded on the north by the 45th parallel of north latitude, and south by Lake Umbagog. These are the settlements of the Magalloway, which, though commenced more than eighty years since, have not yet attained to the prominence of a Chicago or a Minne- apolis, notwithstanding their advantage over the latter, in honorable and ripening age. No railroad yet affords them communication with the great mass of mankind, save at the preliminary expense of a fifty-mile, and ten- hour, ride by stage, over a rugged and most uninviting road, and exposure, in the winter season, to such a sweep of north winds as hardly to be matched this side of the polar regions.
Within the settlements, however, the roads are good, the currents of the air normal, the hotel accommodations ample and the inhabi- tants hospitable and intelligent. Two post- offices, two churches, two hotels (each two some five miles apart), two stores of general merchandise and three school-houses, now minister to the mental, spiritual and physical needs of the little community, while spread out in a gorgeous panorama of green, during
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the summer months, lie the luxuriant meadows and upland fields, dotted here and there with the neat white cottages of the owners, and, towering over all, on either hand rise the majestic mountains, covered to their summits with verdure and adding to the scene a pictur- esqueness unsurpassed among the romantic sporting resorts of the Rangeley Lake region.
The initial step in these settlements was made at some indefinitely known date, but not far from the year 1820, on the westerly side of the Magalloway, near the confluence of the Diamond River therewith, some eight miles north of the outlet of Umbagog Lake and on territory granted by the State of New Hampshire to Dartmouth College, which still holds possession of the same.
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CHAPTER II
A NOTHER location, also on the Dart- mouth College Grant, was made in the year 1823, on land already partially cleared by fire which had been set by the first set- tler and which devoured the forest eastward for many miles.
This second location was by Jonathan Leavit of Gilead, Me., who obtained abun- dant crops of wheat and other produce from the soil enriched by the ashes of the late fire, and was soon on the high road to prosperity. His oldest son (Elihu), now eighty years of age and a prosperous and wealthy farmer, still resides about a mile from the home of his youth, surrounded by his offspring of the third generation.
This Mr. Leavit (Elihu), in a recent conver- sation with the writer of these sketches, related the following experience, quite charac- teristic of the settlement's early history. "One winter day," said he, "when I had got to be quite a good-sized boy, I was at work with my father at our barn, which was some considerable distance from the river, and late in the afternoon he sent me out to put up the cattle. As soon as I got outside the barn I heard a cry of distress from the direction of
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the river, and went back, telling father, 'There is somebody in trouble at the river, I guess, by the sound.' Father grabbed a logging chain that lay in the yard, and we ran for the river. There we found Captain Wilson, who had broken through the ice with his horse and sleigh, trying to get ashore and to drag with him an old gentleman who had been riding with him and was a much heavier man than himself. Father threw the chain to them, and the old gentleman grabbed it, but his hands were so numb with cold he couldn't hold on, till one of his fingers got caught in a link of the chain, and we drew him out by that. Captain Wilson's turn came next, and then that of the horse, which stood shivering in the water. 'Now!' said father, 'you men "line it" for John Hibbard's (the nearest house) as quick as you can go! Elihu! you take that horse to our barn and rub him down, as quick as possible!' I mounted the horse's back, and found him fully as ready to go as I was to have him. All were soon safely under cover, but the old gentleman was badly chilled, as well as frightened, and Captain Wilson declared he could have kept his hold on him in the current but a few moments longer."
Mr. Leavit continued his farming operations on the Magalloway for many years. Two of his young daughters were drowned at once, during the time, while endeavoring to guide their own canoe across the stream. Mr. Leavit himself dragged the river for their
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bodies, and on bringing the first to the surface, fainted, it is said, and fell senseless in his boat. It was a terrible and overwhelming blow to the family. In later years, "when the wearied heart and the failing head," as Irving says, began to warn Mr. Leavit that the evening of his life was drawing near, he turned "as naturally as the infant to it's mother's arms" toward his native town, to "sink to sleep in the bosom of the scene of his childhood."
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2
PETER BENNETT Fourth son of the first Bennett family on the Magalloway
CHAPTER III
T HE third settler on the Magalloway, and the first north of Umbagog Lake, in Oxford County, Maine, was John Bennett of Gilead, the father-in-law of Jonathan Leavit. This was at about the year 1824. Together with his six stalwart sons - Frederick, John, David, Peter, Gilman and Ransom-he cleared up a fine farm on either side of the state line, some seven miles above the mouth of the river, which farm is now divided into several different estates and occupied by a growing country hamlet.
Mr. Bennett and his sons were known as mighty hunters, and skilled woodsmen in whatever department thereof such skill was necessary. A detailed account of their various adventures, hardships and hair-breadth escapes, would fill volumes. The father of the family was especially famous as a trapper of bears, with which the region then abounded. Peter, the fourth son, on one occasion, it is said, after having, with a party of hunters, tramped all day through a winter storm, prepared (weary, wet and cold), to camp for the night, but found, on attempting to light their fire, that every match they had was too wet to ignite by friction. They tried one
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after another, but with no success. A serious dilemma here confronted the party, but Peter was equal to the emergency. Seizing his axe, he began striking it, with all his two-hundred- pound might, into a tree, every blow in the same scarf, until the axe was heated sufficiently to enable them to light their damp matches on it, by which means a fire was kindled and the party saved from freezing to death.
John, the elder brother of Peter, who lived on a farm of his own, some distance down the river from his father's place, was killed in the lumbering woods, in 1845, by a falling tree. His eldest son, Nahum, who claims to have been the first white child born on the Magallo- way waters, is now seventy-five years old, and not only superintends all, but performs a large share of the labor of his large and fertile farm, about a mile from the former Bennett home- stead.
Of the six sons of John, Sr., only three - Frederick, Peter and Gilman - lived to old age. The father, like the majority of the Magalloway's first settlers, returned to his native place to die, after age and infirmity had disqualified him for pioneer life.
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GILMAN BENNETT Fifth son of John (senior), the first settler who ever went from the Magalloway to fight for his country
CHAPTER IV
I ISAAC YORK of Bethel, Me., a veteran of the Revolutionary War, numbers fourth on the roll of Magalloway pioneers. He settled on the east side of the river, near the great bend, where the stream runs in exactly oppo- site directions within the space of a few rods, and about six miles from its confluence with the Androscoggin. Mr. York had, years before, traversed the region in trade with the Indians for furs, bringing on his back, it is said, at each trip from Bethel, a ten-gallon keg of New England rum, which he exchanged with the "simple natives" for the valuable furs with which the wilderness then abounded. It may be well to remark here that the traffic in spirituous liquors was not then, as now, looked upon as a crime and disgrace to humanity; but however public opinion may regard this action of our old soldier-pioneer, we should remember that this same lucrative traffic was one of the first fruits of the so-called Christian civilization introduced, by United States bayo- nets and firebrands, into the Philippine Islands in 1899, and whereas the judgment of the United States Court was invoked to decide whether or not the constitution should follow the flag to the aforesaid Islands, the liquor
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traffic found no trouble (as it never does) in rushing in where angels and constitutions fear to tread.
Mr. York selected for his new abiding place what proved to be the most valuable farm on the river. Its broad and level meadows have been for many years the field of extensive farming operations, the Berlin Mills Lumber Company now using it as a base of supplies for the hundreds of horses employed by them in that section. The old hero died on his own fine estate, in 1844, at the ripe age of ninety- five years. His son-in-law, Nathaniel Bean, succeeded him in the cultivation of his many and beautiful acres. His posterity to the fifth generation now reside near the scene of his herculean toil.
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ELDER RICHARD LOMBARD Founder of the northern-most settlement of Oxford County, Maine
CHAPTER V
T HE founder of the upper settlement on the Magalloway, the extreme northwesterly settlement of Oxford County, Maine, now known as Lincoln Plantation (post-office, Wil- son's Mills), was Richard Lombard of Portland, Me., who commenced there in 1825. With his five athletic sons - Lorenzo, Samuel, David, Richard and Henry - he cleared up what are now three of the best farms in the township, built the first two-story house on the river, and after some years of prosperous culture of the soil, sold out half of his estate to William Fickett and sons of Cape Elizabeth, gave up the management of the remainder to his three eldest sons and devoted the balance of his days mostly to evangelistic work.
Richard was not a traditional hero of the border, - not a typical pioneer of civilization, - save in spiritual affairs, but in these he was an enthusiast. Without education or special gifts therefor, in any notable degree, the absorbing ambition of his life seemed to be the Gospel ministry and the propagation of the faith of the Methodist church. His home was the rallying point and rendezvous of religious effort for the whole community while he remained within it, not only for the white
23
residents, but for the spiritually inclined aborigines, many of whom came from afar to attend his ministrations of the Word and to share the kindly and generous atmosphere of his hospitable abode.
The first school in the settlement was kept in a portion of his dwelling, and the first school- house erected on land donated by his eldest son, in which school-house the venerable elder's last Gospel service on the Magalloway was performed in 1853. He died at Great Chebeague Island, near Portland, Me., at the age of eighty-two years. Two daughters (one in New York, one in Portland) and a son (Richard 2nd) in Wilmington, Del., still survive him, all at very advanced ages; his name is commemorated by a memorial win- dow in the first church edifice ever erected on the Magalloway waters.
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--
RICHARD FRANKLIN LOMBARD
CHAPTER VI
L EMUEL FICKETT, the second of the "upper township" settlers, came from Cape Elizabeth, Me., in 1831, and located on the west side of the river, about a mile below the great falls. His brother William, also of Cape Elizabeth, located soon after- ward directly opposite, on the east side, on land purchased of Richard Lombard, as be- fore stated. The two brothers had been reared "after the most straightest sect" of the Friends or Quaker religion, but William, the elder of the two, had departed from the counsel and creed of his youth and be- come a believer and exhorter of the Meth- odist persuasion. Both were exemplary, in- dustrious and thrifty citizens. William was conspicuous for his eccentricity, his egotism and his Quaker "plainness of speech," which procured him enemies, especially when indulged in on funeral occasions, at which he was some- times called to officiate. He was especially severe on the church in which he had been reared, for its "silent worship," which ill accorded with the lively demonstrativeness of his newly-adopted faith and his own active temperament. Not even his reverence for Sunday could always keep his business-like
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spirit in subjection. "I have," said he, one fine Sunday in July, "done the chores this morning, read fifteen chapters in the Bible and opened forty tumbles of hay." This he related to a neighbor as a pretty-fair fore- noon's work for "a boy sixty-one years of age," as none but a most punctilious Sun- day keeper will dispute.
As his age and accompanying ill health increased, so did his ambition, enterprise and plans for larger farming operations, and quite unpleasant he was wont to make it for anyone who expressed a doubt as to his ever realizing his fond worldly hopes. When brought, how- ever, to death's door, he submitted meekly to his lot, acknowledged that his work on earth was done and, after kindly bidding adieu to his family and neighbors, yielded up, without a struggle, his hopeful and energetic spirit to the all-compassionate God who gave it.
Lemuel, the brother, was almost as dif- ferent from William as though born of another race. As free from the suspicion of demon- strativeness as his brother was of reticence, his life was one unvaried career of devotion to the stern realities of existence, apparently without a thought, or aspiration, for anything but the winning of an honest livelihood and the discharge of his duty as the head of a family and as a citizen of the civilized world. He had been an experienced sailor to the West Indies, and first mate of the vessel on which he made his last voyage before being
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LEMUEL FICKETT Second settler of upper Magalloway, or Lincoln Plantation
obliged to abandon the sea on account of ill health. With a large family to maintain and a constant struggle with disease, together with the hardships of pioneer life, he now found ample exercise for all the heroic requi- sites of his former occupation; but perseverance will win, and the brothers both lived to see their fields broaden, their flocks and other possessions to increase, and finally to rejoice in an ample return for their indefatigable labors. Both died in peace, in the comfort- able homes built by their own hands, the elder in 1852, at the age of sixty-seven; the younger in 1864, at the age of sixty-three. Their posterity now prosper on the beautiful estates left by their grandsires.
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CHAPTER VII
J
JOHN LOMBARD of Otisfield, Me., settled,
in 1828, on a hill about half a mile east of the Magalloway, and east of the state line, also the farthest south of any location yet made on the river. He had a large and profit- able farm; kept a small store, from which he supplied the neighboring settlers with dry goods and groceries, and soon became an influential man in the community. With an intelligent and prepossessing family of sons and daughters, his home was a favorite resort for the rising pioneer generation, and many are the pleasant memories to be recalled, by now aged people, of festive scenes and enjoy- able occasions at his comfortable and ample abode, none favoring or appreciating such occasions more than the ever-genial host himself.
But alas for the changes of all-devouring time! After burying his aged father, his wife, his eldest son, and one or two young daughters, beneath the soil of his hillside home, and becoming himself enfeebled by sickness and the infirmities of age, he sold out his posses- sions, abandoned the Magalloway, and passed the remaining few years of his life near the
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scene of his early manhood, his return thither being some twelve years prior to the great Civil War, in which one of his younger sons, John C., fell nobly for the Union at the bloody battle of the Wilderness.
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CHAPTER VIII
I
ISRAEL T. LINNELL of Bethel, Me., in the year 1830, located on the same hill where Mr. Lombard resided, on a lot which his brother, Luther Linnell, had partially cleared, but abandoned. Israel was an experienced sailor and soldier, having, as he claimed, fought in the wars of our country, on both land and sea. Of small stature, but indomitable will and resolution, he was not a man to flinch at danger or difficulties. He soon had his hill farm in a good state of productiveness, but finding a locality more to his liking farther up the river, and nearer the same, which was then their only highway, he moved thither, where he carried on farming successfully for many years. His residence, being about mid- way the two extremities of the State-of-Maine settlements, was afterwards used as a meeting place for the transaction of plantation busi- ness and the polling of votes at the annual elections. The second two-story house on the river was built by Mr. Linnell, as also the first rod of good carriage road.
In his declining years, his wife having died and family all departed, he went to reside with his youngest daughter, at Manchester, N. H., where he not long after died, at the
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age of ninety-two years. His eldest son, Lorenzo D., and descendants to the fifth generation, still reside within a mile of his former abode. His youngest and only other son, George W., fell nobly in the cause of the Union, at Port Hudson, in 1863, which was some years prior to his father's death.
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:
CHAPTER IX
THAVE hitherto refrained (perhaps unjustly) from especial notice of the first Magalloway settler, fearing the objections which their posterity might raise against having his name associated with those of the worthies already mentioned. David Robbins (for that was the first settler's name) has ever been held in abhorrence as a robber and murderer, but judged by the identical standard by which our so-called "Christian government" is judged and approved by both pulpit and populace, we shall find Mr. Robbins to have been not only a patriot of the first order, but also an eminent philanthropist and most useful citizen. This much is certain, - he was a pioneer of progress and of commerce (fur trade) in that wilderness. He was, more- over (to use the reported language of Dr. Lyman Abbott), an "Anglo-Saxon Ox," and, as a consequence, no native "barbaric dog" had "any right to the crib where he wanted to feed," or, we might say, to the furs that he coveted, by whomsoever caught or claimed. True, his achievements for expansion, and the open door in the northeast, were diminu- tive and inglorious, compared with those of our "Christian world-power" in the Philippine Islands. He never, as far as known, robbed
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ASISCOOS MT. FROM WILSONS MILLS. ME. 46, @ 1915, BY R.H. GASSENS,
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but three men, or murdered but two, in the interest of civilization, commerce and "good government;" but, so far, his operations were equally patriotic and praiseworthy, and his final excuse just the same, which excuse, divested of all its bombast and unparalleled hypocrisy, is just this: both Mr. Robbins and the United States government coveted that which was in the possession of others. They could not obtain the same, without killing those possessors; and being able, they did so, and took possession of the property. This is the "long and short" of the whole matter. If the whole moral law of God, since the time of the Naboth and Jezebel episode, has been reversed or annulled, to promote the money- getting ambitions of the "Christian United States," as is the logical and unavoidable inference from the recent teachings of our most prominent and popular Doctors of Divinity, and if all the acts of the United States government during the last six years are to become examples and standards of statesmanship and righteousness, as now seems to be the popular demand, then I here- with propose the immediate erection of a monument, higher than Mount Aziscoos,* to the memory of David Robbins, for the murders and robberies he committed in the cause of expansion, civilization and the
*A lofty and picturesque mountain, more than three thousand feet high, ris- ing from, and extending for three miles along, the shore of the Magalloway, and from the summit of which a view of surpassing interest and grandeur is obtained.
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extension of United States commerce, glory and world-power, in the "unassimilated" region of the Androscoggin Lakes.
As to the precise date of Mr. Robbins' advent on the Magalloway, or of his departure therefrom, the writer of this can give no information. He went thither, as is supposed, to escape justice, and it is certain he left Lancaster, N. H., jail, a few years later, for the same purpose, in both of which migrations he appears to have been eminently successful. He resided on the Magalloway several years contemporarily with the Bennett, Leavit and Lombard families, and Mr. Nahum Bennett now distinctly remembers seeing him when brought down the river, in irons, by the old hero, Lewis Loomis (of Colebrook), on the way to Lancaster jail. This must have been near the year 1835. His career in the Lake region has long been the theme of both history and romance, but of his final fate nothing authentic is, or perhaps ever will be, known. The only mitigating traits of his infamous character seem to have been that he was energetic, industrious and thrifty. His wife, it is said, never could be persuaded or convinced of his guilt, the evidence of which was unquestionable, though never brought before a jury. Tradition makes him out to have been finally hung in Canada, for a crime committed after his escape from Lancaster jail, but this has never been sub- stantiated.
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