USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Pioneers of the Magalloway from 1820 to 1904 > Part 2
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CHAPTER X
T HE next "upper township" settler, after the Fickett brothers, was Joshua Lom- bard of Oxford, Me., and from this period we can almost say, with the Scripture, that "there were giants in those days." Mr. Lombard was six feet or more in height, two hundred and fifty pounds or more in weight, had two sons of nearly his own size, and one even larger. If our Joshua had not the great mission of his Scripture namesake to perform, he certainly was endowed with a fair share of his heroic spirit and personal prowess. Though he never commanded the sun to stand still, he once caused a wild moose to do so, without harming the creature in the least. On another occasion, when attacked by a vicious bull, he is said to have thrown the animal upon its back, driven its horns into the sod, and left him to his own reflections.
If all the traditions and representations of the pioneer Methodist of the Peter Cart- wright type were lost to the world, they might largely be restored from reminiscences of this Boanerges of the Magalloway, whose moral vigor was in keeping with his physical and whose courage was entirely commensurate with both. He had been, according to his
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own numerous testimonies in "social meetin'," a most degraded drunkard, but having (as he expressed it) "speerenced religion" and "jined the Methodists," his hatred of rum was ever afterward as ardent as his love of it had been before. For a long time after his conversion he is said to have kept a well-filled bottle in his cupboard at home, and when sorely tempted, by his former "b'sett'n sin," to take a drink, would go to the shelf, seize the bottle, and giving it a defiant shake, exclaim in the thunder tones of which he was well known to be capable, "I'll conquer ye! I'll master ye!" And master it he did, with a heroism worthy of the name of Israel's ancient deliverer.
Mr. Lombard was, as may be supposed, a great patron and supporter of the Gospel ministry, and sometimes officiated at religious meetings himself. On such occasions, with his never-failing Methodist "hembook" at hand, he frequently led the singing, and no church organ or other musical machinery was necessary when the choice of hymns happened to fall on his favorite, old Turner. The bass of this glorious old melody, as he rendered it, would have been a caution to Myron Whitney. He would almost have imagined that seven thunders uttered their voices. It would have done one's soul good, whether he joined in the spirit of the meeting or not, to be present at so hearty, so spontaneous, so tremendous a performance.
In the winter of 1854, when the old Christian
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JOSHUA LOMBARD
soldier was well advanced in years, he fell into a lingering illness, and at a revival meeting in the neighborhood, told his hearers that he had "no idee" that he would be with them a year from then; but, about that time, as he afterwards stated, he "told the Lord" that if He would let him live fifteen years longer, as he did King Hezekiah, after his sickness (spoken of in II. Kings : 20), he would then be willing to go. He died in 1869, just fifteen years from the date of his promise. Is the age of miracles past?
Mr. Lombard built, with his own hands, the first grist mill in the settlement, and caused to be built the first mill for the manufacture of shingles and clapboards, which he trans- ported down the river and across the Umbagog to market, in a huge boat built by himself and called by his neighbors the Great Eastern. He was engaged in the lumber business as well as farming during all the years of his residence on the Magalloway, and drove his own team in winter, drawing timber from the woods, after his recovery from the sickness before mentioned, when he was more than eighty years old.
His oldest son, Thomas, who was larger than his father, and the strongest man on the river, never, as far as his neighbors knew, employed his great strength to any important purpose. After commencing life for himself, with a farm, a house and an industrious wife, he suddenly disappeared from the country,
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and, as far as the writer of this ever knew, never was heard of afterward. No memorial of him now remains on the river, save the walled excavation, now in the midst of the forest, which was once the cellar of his humble abode. His mysterious absence dates from about the year 1846.
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CHAPTER XI
TN striking contrast with the athletic pio- neers last noticed, another of the heroic number now claims our attention, who in weight and in stature hardly exceeded the ordinary boy of twelve years, his greatest height during life being hardly five feet; but what he lacked in physical proportions was more than made up in a certain quality commonly called "grit," which was nothing less than phenomenal and wonderful. This was Alvan Wilson of Westbrook, Me. He had formerly been a cabin-boy, or sailor before the mast, on a coasting vessel, and no amount of old-time sailor ruffianism could intimidate or subdue the desperate temper, when aroused, of this puny grandson and greatgrandson of two who served in the great struggle for American Independence.
Arriving on the Magalloway in 1831, he applied himself vigorously to clearing up a farm on its western shore, some three miles below the falls, built a log house, married one of the fair daughters of the patriarch Richard Lombard, and commenced a career of industry, prosperity and usefulness, which terminated only with his well-extended life. He was a man of extensive reading and compass of
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intellect - a citizen of the world, rather than of the obscure hamlet where his lot was cast and to the upbuilding of which he faithfully contributed. He was chiefly instrumental in the erection of the first covered bridge, across the river, connecting the Maine and New Hampshire settlements, and was successively clerk, assessor and treasurer of the plantation for many years. The writer of this, has the statement from his own lips, that it was at his suggestion that the article was written and sent to the Portland Advertiser, which led to the building of the Atlantic & St. Lawrence (now Grand Trunk) Railroad.
Mr. Wilson was an instance of great dis- parity between body and mind. His intellect and manly dignity towered above his diminu- tive person, like Charles the Great over his dwarf parent, Pepin le Bref. His soul was not circumscribed by the circuit of mountains around his rural home, or by the ocean bounds of his dear native country. The loss of the beloved wife of his early days, and afterward of his only and promising son, who fell valiantly in the great Civil War, were bereavements from which he never recovered. He died, in 1883, at the age of seventy-five, being succeeded in his estate by a married daughter, the sole solace and comforter of his declining years.
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CHAPTER XII
C APTAIN JOHN M. WILSON, uncle of the preceding and native of the same town, commenced business on the Magal- loway near the year 1829, but made no perma- nent settlement there until five years later. Attracted thither by the prevailing timberland speculation of the times, he engaged arduously therein, and soon having the entire township at his disposal, immediately commenced opera- tions for the manufacture of the valuable pine timber with which the territory then abounded. Having located a farm and residence on the west shore of the river, near the foot of the falls, he straightway began the erection of a saw mill and stone dam, which last being carried away before completion, by a sudden freshet, was replaced by a dam of logs which proved a permanent barrier and conserver of the tremendous waterpower at that point.
In 1842 he erected a grist mill on the opposite shore, and the following year, his saw mill having been burned by the gross carelessness of a neighbor who had been entrusted therewith, he immediately rebuilt the same, from which he supplied for many years the increasing demand for building material in all the surrounding region.
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At about this time, by an article published in the Portland Weekly Advertiser, he aroused public attention to the project of a railroad from the Atlantic to the St. Lawrence, and Mr. John A. Poor of Portland, being a repre- sentative that year, seized and embodied the idea in a bill which was presented to, and passed by, the General Court of Maine, granting a charter for a railroad from Portland to Canada line, which action being recip- rocated on the part of the Canadian Parlia- ment, preparations for building immediately commenced.
Captain Wilson himself piloted through the vast wilderness between his home and Canada, late in the autumn of 1844, the first expedition for the survey of a route for said railroad, intending, if possible, to have the valley of the Magalloway adopted as the great inter- national thoroughfare. This experience at that season of the year, of traversing, through a foot of crusted snow, an unknown and track- less wilderness more than fifty miles in extent, with only such provisions as they could carry on their backs, and the crew meanwhile on the verge of mutiny, fearing they were lost and would starve to death, - this, Mr. Wilson considered one of the most trying experiences of his pioneer life.
The next year he piloted a similar expedi- tion, but with less hardship, through the valley of the Connecticut, but in these, as in many subsequent efforts toward opening up
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CAPT. JOHN M. WILSON At 83 years of age
his adopted wilderness country, he was doomed to grievous disappointment.
His next enterprise for home improvement was the location of a carriage road thence, east of Umbagog Lake, to the nearest town beyond, and the building, on its route, of the first and only bridge ever built over the inlet of said lake. This project also, as far as related to the road, failed through the opposi- tion of local tax-payers, and to this day the only exit for the isolated Magalloway com- munity is by water, or down the west shore of the river, to Errol, N. H.
In 1848 Captain Wilson was commissioned, in company with Honorable Isaac N. Stanley and Colonel Samuel Morrill of Dixfield, Me., to survey and set off wild lands in the town- ships bordering on the head waters of the Androscoggin, for the support of schools and the Gospel ministry, a work which occupied some four months' time and furnished much harmless adventure, and no little of enjoyable recreation, to mutual friends and kindred spirits in that line of business.
In 1850 he procured the establishment of a United States mail-route to "Wilson's Mills," and was himself appointed postmaster, which office he held fourteen years, the first mail carrier on the route being Luther D., eldest son of Lemuel Fickett, the second settler of the township. Mr. Wilson was also, the same year, appointed a deputy for taking the United States Census in the surrounding
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district, and was soon afterward appointed, by the state executive, to fill a vacancy on the board of County Commissioners.
In 1856 he procured and superintended the erection, near his mills, of the first bridge of any kind ever built over the Magalloway River. In 1858 he was appointed commis- sioner for Maine, in company with Commis- sioner Henry O. Kent of New Hampshire, to survey and re-establish the dividing line of the two contiguous States. Also the same year he personally superintended the location of a county road from his neighborhood, by way of Parmachene Lake, to meet another located from Newport, Canada, to the national boundary. This enterprise also failed for want of patronage, and the location was dis- continued.
During the summers of 1863 and 1864, Captain Wilson was employed by the State in the survey of wild lands in the county of Aroostook. In 1874, when more than seventy- five years of age, he was employed late in autumn to re-trace and re-mark the 45th parallel of north latitude from its junction with the national boundary at Hall Stream, Vt., eastward through the wilderness of northern New Hampshire to Maine; and here again he was destined, at his advanced age, to contend with a disaffection, akin to mutiny, in his crew. Having subsisted for two weeks on the provisions they took on their backs with them from Canaan, Vt.,
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and having nearly exhausted the same, their purpose was to obtain more (when they should arrive there) of a crew of men who were building a dam on the Diamond River at a point which lay directly on their course. Day after day they watched and listened for the longed-for stream, but only to be dis- appointed.
A lurking suspicion now seized certain of the crew that they had been led off the course by variations of the compass. At length, one fine afternoon, they came to the brink of a very deep valley, and one of the men climbed a tree to take observations. He had been engaged in lumbering on the Diamond, only the winter before, and was expected to recognize the locality.
"Well! what do ye think?" called out one of the men from below, to him.
"I am satisfied," said he, "that this is not the valley of the Diamond."
"What the devil is it, then?" excitedly asked the man below.
"Well, you've asked me too much. What's your opinion, Cap'n?" he asked, addressing the compass man, who was setting his instru- ment for another object.
"I don't know," was the careless reply; "I never was here before."
At this the two line men stared with alarm. Their long-pent-up fears broke forth. "We've gone on in this way long enough!" said one of them. "We'd better use what little provi-
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sions we've got, in getting where there's more, instead of running till it's all gone and then finding ourselves up at Parmachene Lake or the Lord knows where! Let's go back on the line!"
At this point the "Cap'n," who had hitherto taken no notice of the crew's fears or com- plaints, broke in sternly, with: "Never! I have begun this job, and I shall finish it! This is the valley of the Diamond! We have provisions enough yet for another day, and shall reach more in that time! Spot that tree! - further-r to the right! - further-r -! "
No more was said. The line men sprang to their places, plying their axes with the energy of desperation, and before sunset, had struck last winter's cuttings on the Diamond, and a last winter's logging camp, with a stove, fuel and lamps all ready for use in it, where they made themselves welcome and comfortable for the night, and the next day, at noon, reached the works of the dam- builders, from whence another day's survey brought them to the State of Maine (about two miles north of the upper Magalloway settlement) and to the completion of the operation.
Captain Wilson's last public service, in the line of his life-long profession, was the survey and remarking, in the summer of 1877, of the boundaries of the Dartmouth College Grant, on the Diamond Rivers, the labor of which (involving two weeks of tracing lines over
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WILLIAM H. - SON OF CAPT. JOHN M. WILSON who cleared the most northerly farm in Oxford County, Maine, and built the first bridge over the Little Diamond River
steep mountains and through swamps of tangling underbrush wet all the time with dew or rain) he was persuaded to relinquish to his two sons, while he himself remained at the nearest settlement to look after the work. He, however, afterwards spent one winter scaling timber in the woods of the Nulhegan River, Vermont, boarding and lodging at the lumbermen's camp, when he was in his eighty-second year.
In the days of the old Whig party, Mr. Wilson had mingled somewhat in the turmoil of politics, and in the autumn of 1843, in spite of the almost solid Democracy of his district, was chosen the first and only representative ever sent from the Magalloway to the Maine General Court, although at different times the New Hampshire portion of the settlements has been represented at Concord by Leonard York (greatgrandson of the fourth settler), Peter Bennett (grandson of the third settler) and Ziba F. Durkee, successor to Nathaniel Bean on the Isaac York estate, and formerly of Lebanon, N. H.
In 1866 Captain Wilson abandoned the Magalloway country and, together with his youngest son, purchased a farm, and built a new residence, on the shore of the Connecti- cut, about five miles north of the Grand Trunk Railroad, at North Stratford, N. H. Little apparent cause had he for regret, at thus bidding adieu to the scene of his mani- fold disappointments, trials and afflictions.
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He had, while there, buried three dearly beloved grown-up sons, and his aged mother; his mills had been swept away by fire and flood; his neat stock killed by lightning; and of all the fond hopes that had inspired him in early manhood to exchange his native home and cultured environment for a life of priva- tion and hardship, in a far-off wilderness country, not one had been realized. After residing for a few years on the shore of the Connecticut, where he buried the ever-devoted companion of his life, he removed, with his son, to Old Orchard Beach, where on the 18th of September, 1884, he died of paralysis, worn out by incessant toil, anxiety and disappoint- ment, at the age of eighty-five years and eight months. He was buried in the old family lot at Westbrook (now Deering), beside his hero father, the interment being witnessed from the very house where he first saw the light, - the worn and weary pilgrim had at last returned home.
Captain Wilson was the youngest son of Major Nathaniel Wilson of Westbrook, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and of Anna M. Wilson, daughter of Colonel Samuel March of Scarboro, Me., who raised and drilled in his own dooryard a regiment, which he afterwards led on many a bloody field of the great struggle for American Liberty. The son and grandson inherited many of the military proclivities of his heroic ancestors, and was wont to remark that no amusement,
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diversion or recreation ever equalled to him the enjoyment of a good militia training, in which exercises he was an acknowledged expert, and attained to the captaincy of his company at an early age.
Though small in stature, being hardly more than five feet seven in height, and though in his daily walk one of the most unassuming of men, yet when aroused in any matter of busi- ness, or by any casual emergency, his bearing was vigorous and commanding, as that of a general on the field of battle. But in what- ever circumstances, or on whatever occasion, his manner was natural, unstudied and spontaneous, as that of a child; and this rare spontaneity and ingenuousness of demeanor and character lent a charm to his personality, which ensured him friendly relations and companionship wherever he went, and endeared his memory, not only to his sur- viving relatives, but to the many, afar and near, with whom he had been associated in various relations of business. Although a man of unswerving moral principle, integrity and soundness of Christian belief, he made no pretentions as a religionist; he never sought religion as an accomplishment, as a personal asset, or worldly passport, and he considered ambition for a religious reputation, as of all worldly ambitions the most contemptible; but when it came to the "wisdom from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, - full of mercy and
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good fruits, - without partiality, and without hypocrisy," - when it came to that, I say, his record on high would yield to that of but few, since the earthly days of Him who said: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them."
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FTR 19 1942
GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF UTAH 24550
CHAPTER XIII
J
OSEPH STURTEVANT of Oxford, Me., settled, in 1831, on the summit of the hill occupied in part by Messrs. Linnell and Lom- bard, and cleared up, with much labor, a large and very productive farm, which has ever re- mained entirely surrounded by forest. He was a man of cheerful and convivial temperament, and with a large family of sons and daughters, all more or less inclined to look on the bright side of life, his home was long the center of rural gayety for many miles around. Two gifted violinists in the family furnished not only their home, but the whole surrounding region, with the required melody for any festive occasion, and as the sons were leaders in music, so were the daughters in the graceful art of keeping time thereto, with their nimble feet, on the dancing floor.
Mr. Sturtevant, and all but one of his five sons (the eldest never having resided at their mountain home), confined their lives quite exclusively to the severe labor of their rugged farm and prospered thereon for many years. All were of sound constitution, vigorous and energetic, but George, the fourth son, was a prodigy of vivacity and sprightliness, and his equal for frolic mirthfulness has never
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0093527
been known to the writer of this memorial. But grief came at length to that joyous house- hold, when the third son (one of the violinists), and afterwards the almost idolized mother, were consigned to the grave. The halcyon days of mirth and song in that happy home were o'er. The family scattered to widely separate localities, until hardly one, save the father, of all that loving circle remained. The lonely parent eventually married a second time, but survived the dear companion of his better days but eleven years. He died in 1860, at the age of seventy-two, and was buried near his own sumptuous "house in the wilderness."
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CHAPTER XIV
A LTHOUGH no mention of any but the first generation of Magalloway pioneers was contemplated at the commencement of these sketches, it would be injustice, both to the subject and to the parties concerned, not to mention certain of the sons of the path- finders whose records for adventure and enter- prise were not inferior to those of their heroic predecessors.
Among these we may mention Lorenzo D., eldest son of Richard Lombard, and partner with him in all the hardships and labors of his pioneer experience. Lorenzo was a typical country boy, in the fullest sense of the phrase, six feet high, straight, large framed, and no Indian of the forest could surpass him in pioneer sagacity, hardihood, or the amount of labor he could perform in a given time, were it a day, a year, or a quarter of a century. He was said to be the most expert performer with an axe on the Magalloway waters. He was one of the most successful hunters and trappers, and his record as an industrious and prosperous farmer was unquestioned and unimpeachable. The first frame house at the upper settlement was built by him, which house is standing today, and forms an impor-
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tant part of the Aziscoos Hotel, kept by Mr. F. A. Flint, the present proprietor of the broad and beautiful estate where the subject of this sketch lived, died and was buried. Mr. Lombard's untimely death in 1853, at the age of forty-five, was apparently hastened by extreme exposure in the early spring, during a hunting and trapping excursion, which resulted in pneumonia, causing death in a few days therefrom. Of his family only a granddaughter now survives, and the name of Lombard has long since disappeared from the roll of Magalloway settlers.
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ASISCOOS HOUSE, WILSON'S MILLS ME. 47.
CHAPTER XV
N ELSON FICKETT, eldest son of William Fickett, the third of the upper Magal- loway settlers, though a young man at the time of his father's migration thither, properly claims place among the original pioneers. Though never a man of heroic or adventurous temperament, he ever maintained the charac- ter of an honorable, useful and prosperous citi- zen. Being a man of education and scholarly inclinations, he early became one of the most prominent in municipal or plantation affairs, and was seldom or never without official position in the community. At a little past forty years of age, being left the sole survivor of his father's family, he succeeded to the whole valuable estate, to which, constantly adding by prudent investments and per- severing industry, he soon attained to a competency which he enjoyed to the last. His death, at the age of fifty-six, was caused by falling under a loaded team which he was guiding, in the winter time, down a slippery hillside, which accident he survived only a few days. His remains now lie beside his father's on the beautiful estate where all the mature years of his life were passed, and which still continues in the possession of a descendant of the family. He was the second postmaster at Wilson's Mills, which position he occupied from 1864 until near, if not quite, to the time of his death.
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CHAPTER XVI
L ORENZO D., eldest son of Israel T. Lin- nell, who at seventy-nine years of age is still an expert in the use of the rifle, has been from his childhood inured to all the vicissi- tudes of pioneer life, and from boyhood one of the most reliable in all the various exigencies thereof ever known in the Magalloway region. Late in the autumn of 1845, when a mere youth, he joined the Connecticut Valley expedition for the survey of a route for the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railroad, and on its return homeward was persuaded, against his better judgment, by a young lawyer of Andover, Me., named Talbot, to leave the main body of the company and attempt the shortest route to his home by floating down the Diamond River on a raft of logs. The plan might, perhaps, have been a success, but on arriving at the forks of the river, where the Swift Diamond empties into the main stream, they were overtaken by the darkness of night, and being too near the falls for safety, they concluded to leave their raft and proceed by land. They had gone but a few rods, however, when they unexpectedly found themselves on an island, from which they found it impossible to wade to the main-
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