RE 'NOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION

3 1833 01091 8198

1774- i874-

CENTENNIAL

CELEB RA TION ,

Dedication of Town Hall,

ORONOrSAINE,

March 3, 1874.

Forsan et hmc. olim meminisse juvabit.

PORTLAND :

BAILISY A= N-OYES.

1874.

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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014

https://archive.org/details/centennialcelebrOOunse

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PRESS OF B. THURSTON & CO., rOETLAN'D.

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1774.

1874.

Dear Sin:

It is proposed to celebrate the building of the new Town Hall (just completed) by exercises appropriate to the occa- sion, as well as to the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the town, which occurs the present year.

These exercises are to consist in part of an Address by ex-Gov- ernor "Washburn, a former resident, and a Poem and Song by Rev. Henry C. Leonard, also a former resident, and arc to take place iu the Hall, Tuesday Evening, March 3, 1874, at 7 1-2 o'clock.

You are cordially invited to be present.

A. G. PIXG, EBEN WEBSTER, JAMES WEBSTER, RICHARD LORD, CHARLES II. COLBURX.

Okoxo, Feb. 23, 1874.

MUSIC BY BANGOR CORNET BAND.

Fantasia— Recollections of the Opera E. Beyer.

Selections from Benedict's Opera— The Lily of Killaraey.

Hot Codlins— Serio Comic Fantasia E. Beyer.

Cornet Solo— Anna Folka J. Legendre.

INVOCATION.

Remarks of Welcome by the Committee. Organization of the Meeting.

MUSIC.

Potpourri from Martha— From V. Flotovv. .Arr. by Heinicke.

Centennial and Dedicatory Address,

by Hon. Israel Washburn, jr.

MUSIC.

Waltz— On the beautiful blue Danube Strauss.

Original Poem, written for the occasiou, by Rev. H. C. Leonard, entitled "Birthday Celebration."

Ode of Dedication, by Mrs. F>. II. Mace.

MUSIC.

Selections from II Piratee Bellini.

REMARKS. MUSIC.

Yankee Musical Joker— Serio Comic Fantasia, .by Ringhbcn. Song, " The Old Chiefs," by Rev. H. C. Leonard.

1774.

ORONO.

1874.

CELEBRATION AXD DEDICATION.

The following notice of the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the settlement of this town, and of the dedication of the Town Hall erected therein, is taken, substantially, from the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier of March 4, 1874.

This being the one hundredth year since the set- tlement of Orono, the citizens determined to cele- brate the event by fitting exercises ; and their new Town Hall having been completed, the occasion of its dedication was seized upon as the most appropri- ate time for the Centennial Celebration.

The matter was left in the hands of an efficient committee ; a great number of invitations were issued ; Hon. Israel Washburn, jr. (a citizen of the town from 1834 to 1 SG4 ), was engaged to deliver an address, Rev. II. C. Leonard, pastor of the Univcrsalist church in Orono from 1847 to 1855, was requested to write an original poem, and other arrangements were per-

8 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

fected ; and last night an immense throng gathered in the hall, to attend the celebration.

Before speaking farther of the exercises, however, it is well to give our readers an idea of the edifice in which they took place, and we therefore append the following

HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE BUILDING.

For a long time past it has been apparent to the citizens of Orono that a town hall was needed in that flourishing burgh, and within a few years various propositions have been considered looking toward its erection ; but it was not until the March meeting one year ago that the matter took definite form, and then, after due deliberation, it was fully decided to build a commodious hall for town and other purposes, and in the same edifice to have offices for the accom- modation of town officials and officers of the fire department, a room for the fire engines, etc. A committee was chosen, and to its members the matter was given in charge, they being invested with fall powers to act in behalf of the town. The building committee consisted of Messes. A. G. King, Eben Webster, James Webster, Richard Lord, and Charles H. Colburn.

G. W. OrfiJ Esq., of Bangor, was appointed archi- tect, and submitted plans which were adopted by the

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 9

building committee. Tenders for building were in- vited and contracts finally made with Mr. David McMillan, of Orono, for the entire mason-work, and with Messrs. C. 13. Brown, of Bangor, and D. Chase, of Upper Stillwater, for the wood-work, each party to furnish the necessary materials.

With commendable promptness work was begun on the foundations early in July, and rapidly pushed forward. Work on the superstructure was com- menced as soon as possible, and hurried on as fast as was consistent with thoroughness, a large force of the best workmen being employed, and the building was completed about a month ago. The building stands on a very fine and commanding site, being located on the westerly side of Main street, nearly opposite the Orono House. The lot falls off considerably as it recedes from the street, thus affording a good base- ment for heating apparatus and other necessary pur- poses. The building is fiftj'-two feet in width, on the street, and extends back eighty-seven feet. The walls are about forty feet in height, and are crowned by a roof of good pitch, which in turn, is surmount- ed by a cupola of graceful design and a tall llag-staff. The front has three entrances on the street level, above which are three lofty, well-proportioned win- dows, which open on a balcony. The gable is filled with ornamental wood- work, and altogether the front

10 OROXO CENTENNIAL.

presents an imposing appearance, well worthy the character of the building.

THE FIRE DEPARTMENT.

The middle entrance in front has two doors, is about ten feet wide, and leads direct to the engine room, which is thirty by thirty-nine feet, exclusive of a broad entry, and thirteen feet high. This room is to be occupied by the fire engines, hose carriages, and other apparatus of the fire department, and has a hose tower twenty-one feet high, extending into the basement. In the basement will be located a large cistern, so that in case of fire in the vicinity of the hall, the engines can be worked without being removed from their room.

In the rear of the engine room is the firemen's hall, twenty-one by thirty feet, and thirteen feet high, to be used for the meetings of the engine companies, and behind this is a kitchen, twelve by nineteen feet, with several spacious ante-rooms and closets, and a sink and range, for use at levees, suppers, etc., when cooking is necessary.

THE OFFICES

above alluded to, are located on the same floor with and north of the engine room, etc., and are reached from a passage-way or entry six and a half feet wide, extending the length of the building. The first, nearest the street, is the Selectmen's office, fourteen

ORONO CENTENNIAL.

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by twenty-four feet, fitted up with counter, case for books and papers, etc. Next back of this is a room for the Superintending School Committee, fourteen by sixteen feet, and behind this are two ante-rooms each fourteen by sixteen feet.

THE HALL

on the second floor, is reached from the street front by two entrances — one each side of the engine hall entrance — and two flights of stairs, eacli eight feet wide, which lead to a vestibule twelve and a half feet wide extending across the building. In this is loca- ted the ticket office, and from it two doors open into the hall, a handsome room seventy-two by fifty feet in size and twenty-five feet high. A commodious gallery extends along the sides and across the rear of the hall, and the ordinary seating capacity of hall and gallery is about nine hundred, though nearly fif- teen hundred persons can be accommodated by "packing" The hall is, like the exterior of the building, painted pure white, but it is intended to have the walls and ceiling frescoed in a year or two. Fl oin the spacious stage a stair-case leads down to an entrance in the rear of the building, where en- trance may also be gained to the hall and to the lower floor. The hall is warmed, as well as the rest of the building, by two wood furnaces in the base- ment, put in by Mr. Bond, of Orono. It is lighted by

12 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

gas supplied by an automatic gas machine, manu- factured and set up by the Gilbert & Barker Manu- facturing Co., of Springfield, Mass.

All the work about the building has been done in a thorough manner, and the contractors, as well as the building Committee and the citizens of the town, may well be proud of their new town hall.

The total cost of the completed structure will be not far from §17,000.

CENTENNIAL AND DEDICATORY EXERCISES.

The fine hall we have thus briefly described was packed to its utmost capacity last evening, and at an early hour every bit of standing room was occupied, and hundreds were unable to gain admission. Large delegations came in on the special trains from Old- town and Bangor; and from many other places, both within and without the county, there were many vis- itors. The townspeople did everthing in their power, even to giving up their seats in the hall, for their visitors' comfort and convenience.

A few minutes before eight o'clock, the Bangor Cornet Band, Harlow, leader, opened the exercises by playing in their best style Beyer's "Recollections of the Op°era," a potpourri from - The Lily of Kil- larney," and a Fantasia by Beyer.

Andrew G. Ring* K*l> chairman of the Building

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 13

Committee, which was, also, the committee of ar- rangements for this occasion, after a fervent prayer had been offered by Rev. C. F. Allen, D. 1)., President of the State College, made the following

ADDRESS.

Fellow Citizens and Invited Guests; Ladies and Gentlemen :

In behalf of the committee appointed by the town to superintend the erection of this building, I greet you, and bid you welcome here to-night.

We have met here to commemorate the settlement of our town one hundred years ago, and in connection therewith to dedicate this building, to all suitable public uses by ourselves, and, we trust, by our chil- dren's children.

For a number of years many of our citizens have had in mind the erection of some such building as this. Two years ago, after numerous schemes and repeated failures, a vote upon the question was taken by the town, and the result of that vote is before you.

To you, fellow-citizens, we wish to say, if the com- mittee have performed the duty you assigned them,

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ORONO CENTENNIAL.

to your satisfaction, it is ample reward for any anxie- ty they may have felt as to the final result.

It is with feelings of extreme gratification, and, I hope excusable, pride, that in behalf of the commit- tee, I now present you, as the fruit of their labors, this beautiful and commodious structure, and bid you all a cordial welcome on this interesting occasion.

I am directed to submit the following nominations for the officers of this meeting :

For President, Nathaniel Wilson, Esq.

For Yice-P residents, B. P. Oilman, Gideon Mayo, Jeremiah Colburn, Josiah S. Bcnnoch, Cony Foster, Samuel Page, Levi R. Weeks, George Ping, Freeman Rollins, Abraham Colburn, E. P. Butler, Andrew Smyth, John Libbey, Horace Banks, John IT. Gilman, Joseph Graves, Abiather Foss, Jesse Snow, W. W. Temple, Elijah Marsh, Edward .Mansfield, Nathan Frost, Paul D. Webster, Joseph McPheters, William Lunt, Charles Buffum, A. W. Weymouth, Stinson Peaslee, John W. Mayo, Levi Den- nett, David McMillan, Hugh Reed, Allen Frcc.se, Elijah W. Wyman, Benjamin Vinal, Matthew Oliver, Albeit If. White, William ITcald, FT. M. Codman, Joseph B. Chase, E. R, South- ard, Xiah Gould, Robert J. Hamilton, Joshua Johnson.

For Secretaries^ Col. John W. Atwell and Joseph C. Wilson, Esq.

And these gentlemen were elected to the offices to which they had been nominated.

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 15

The President then said — Fellow Citizens :

For the high honor conferred in selecting me to preside on an occasion of such deep and absorbing interest to this community, accept my most sincere and grateful acknowledgments, and trusting to your partiality and kindness, I shall endeavor to discharge the duties with such ability as I may possess. But, before proceeding to the regular exercises of the evening, so appropriately arranged by the very com- petent committee who have had this whole business in charge, I shall be pardoned for a brief allusion to some points of common interest immediately con- nected with this centennial celebration and dedica- tion of the Orono Town Hall.

This third of March, 1874, marks a new era in the history of Orono. This noble structure, under whose stately roof, you, my fellow-citizens, and these our numerous, kind, and sympathising friends from Ban- gor and neighboring towns, who have here gathered to unite with us in ceremonies at once suitable and eminently becoming so eventful a period, is truly a fitting monument to the early settlers — to those

16 OliONO CENTENNIAL.

bold, enterprising, true men, who have given Orono its good name, and laid broad and deep the founda- tions of its prosperity and success.

May a merciful Providence vouchsafe that this structure, in its artistic skill, its admirable propor- tions, its marked conveniences, its modest, simple, yet tasteful finish, may prove a pleasing and instruc- tive memento of the past, and, at the same time, an impressive incentive and stimulant for good to the present and all future residents of this goodly town.

One hundred years have elapsed since the first white man is known to have sought, here, upon the banks of the Penobscot and Stillwater rivers, to es- tablish for himself and his posterity a home. In this assembly and before me now, are many of the immediate descendants of the first white settlers.

One hundred years ! The human mind can, with difficulty, grasp this span of time. We cannot well command a perfect view of the long past — of the trials and sufferings — or of the sorrows and joys of these departed ancestors. But, their record is made up — their history is written, and we here and now solemnly pledge ourselves to cherish their memory

OEONO CENTENNIAL. 17

—to throw over their faults the mantle of charity, and resolve to become ourselves, wiser and better for the noble example they have left us.

Would time and the arrangements for this festival warrant the intrusion, most joyously to myself, at least, would I devote a full hour in rehearsing some- what of the past during my forty years' sojourn in Orono. But, cheerfully, I waive that pleasure in an- ticipation of the far greater pleasure you are about to experience, in listening to the Historic Oration, especially prepared for the occasion by a former dis- tinguished resident. Before, however, calling upon hira, I have deemed it not inappropriate to say a word, by way of commendation, of those who have been more immediately concerned in the building and completion of this structure.

First, in order, I propose special commendation of George W. OrfT, the architect and designer. lie has shown himself master of his profession and a genius in the art

Second, large credit is due to our own fellow-citi- zen, David McMillan, who has done this superb spec- 2

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imen of plastering and all the mason work ; who, also, prepared the ground and built the firm, solid, and secure foundation upon which the building stands.

Third, I take the responsibility to make this public mention of the names of the contractors — who have finished and completed the carpenter and joiner work — Charles B. Brown, of Bangor, and W. D. Chase, of Upper Stillwater.

Faithfully, skillfully, and most thoroughly have they performed their part of the contract. They have spared no effort and no reasonable expense. That which they engaged to do has been done well and satisfactorily. And here we are in the possession of a public building, which is not only an honor to the builders, but an honor and an ornament to the town.

Fourth; Our enterprising committee, having no deeds of darkness to conceal, and having heard of the fame of a firm doing business in Springfield, in the good old Commonwealth of Massachusetts, by the name of Gilbert & Barker, sent thither and made request that they come east and let their light shine.

OKOXO CENTENNIAL. 19

And here you behold a specimen — not only beau- tiful and brilliant, but economical.

In this connection, fellow-citizens, I had designed to make a passing allusion to our building committee, and make a kindly and deserved mention of their valuable and gratuitous services, but they have sealed my lips, and forbid even the mention of the two first letters of their names. Fortunately they are per- sonally known to most of you, and, through them, this building is now presented, complete in all its parts, and ready to be occupied.

May it stand a hundred years to come — a speaking monument of the past, and a perpetual reminder to the generations, yet unborn, who may be permitted to gather here to discourse of the olden times — of the good old times of 1874.

Fellow-citizens — I will now announce to you the orator of the evening, our former fellow-citizen, the Hon. Israel Washburn, Jr. His name announced, you need no other, or more formal introduction of him from me.

MR. WASHBURN'S ADDRESS.

When, in 1G05, Capt. George Weymouth, of the English ship Archangel, visited the gulf of Maine, planted a garden at Boothbay, and on the island of Monhegan set up a cross in testimony that he, then and there, under the auspices and in the name of the English crown, took possession of the territory now embraced within the limits of the State of Maine, that territory was occupied by two principal Indian nations, to wit : the Abcnaques, having four tribes, and the Etechmins,* who were divided into three tribes. The largest and strongest of all the tribes of Maine was that of the Tarratines or Penob- scots. They belonged to the nation of the Etech- mins. They were, says Judge Williamson, " a numer- ous, powerful, and warlike people, more hardy and brave than their western enemies, whom they often plundered and killed. . . After the conquests and

* The correct spelling of the names of these tribes, according to the Iiev Eugene Vetromile, is Abnaki and Etchimis.

On 0X0 CENTENNIAL. 21 glory achieved in their battles with the Bashaba and his allies, the}' were not like their enemies, wasted by disease and famine. They retained their valor, animated by success, and strengthened by an early use and supply of firearms, with which they were furnished by the French. Less disturbed than the western tribes in the enjoyment of their possessions, they were also more discreet ; they were always re- luctant to plunge into hostilities against the English." They inhabited the country upon the Penobscot river, and claimed dominion over the contiguous ter- ritory, from its sources to the sea. Their principal village or seat was probably never permanently es- tablished at any place, until it was fixed at Oldtown island, in the early part of the last century. Previ- ous to that date it was movable ; or perhaps the tribe occupied several villages at the same time, for it was a numerous people, and occupied a wide do- main. Even as late as the period of the Revolution, when it had been thinned and wasted, it possessed four hundred fighting men. But whatever the fact may have been in regard to the permanent or tem- porary character of their villages, or the number of

22 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

them existing contemporaneously, there is no doubt that they were almost invariably within the boundaries of the old town of Orono, or in its immediate neigh- borhood. Besides the seat at Oldtown, there were vil- lages at one time or another near the head of the tide in Bangor, one of which, Williamson thinks, was the ancient Negas, and which was known to the early settlers as Fort Hill There was also a village on the tongue of land that extends eastward from this hall to the Penobscot river, at Ayres' Falls, as they are now termed, bounded on the north by the Still- water river, and on the south by the basin. The Indians called the place Aramswnhungan. For many years after the settlement of the town by the white men, the vestiges of corn-fields and of habi- tations were plain and unmistakable, and until comparatively a recent period, stone weapons, and implements of agriculture, were occasionally turned up wherever the plough was driven, some of which I have seen in the possession of the late John Ben- noch, jr., Esq., and Col. Eben Webster, jr. I think it not improbable that this point of land at the conflu- ence of the Stillwater and Penobscot rivers, may

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 23

have been the site of the ancient "Lett" of the In- dians. When Major Livingston, in 1710, visited Canada in company with the younger Castine, with despatches for the French Governor, their journey was by way of the Penobscot river, and they tarried several days, detained by the Indians, at the 8 Island of Zett, where they met with fifty canoes, and twice as many Indians, besides women and children." As they went up the river from Castine in canoes, and were met by the Indians at an island, it seems, I think, more than probable, that the island referred to was the first at which they arrived above tide water, and that the place of the meeting was where there were falls and a carry.

There was, also, a village at Nicola's Island, near Passadumkeag, and I agree with Judge f Godfrey in the opinion expressed in his able and interesting address at the centennial celebration in Bangor, that the fort and village destroyed by Col. Y\restbrook in 1722 were on this island. After the destruction of this place, the Indians and French gathered at Fort Hill, before mentioned, and built a village, consisting of several cottages with chimneys and cellars, a

Z4 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

chapel, and forty or fifty wigwams. But no sooner had intelligence of the planting of this new village reached Fort Richmond, than Capt. Joseph Heath was despatched with a company of men to break it up. The Indians, having received news of the ap- proach of Capt. Heath, deserted their village, and nothing was left for him and his men to do but to commit the village to the flames. Having accom- plished this feat, they returned to Fort Richmond.

The Indians, after the retirement of Capt. Heath, returned to their old seat at Oldtown, and have occu- pied it uninterruptedly ever since.

Their numbers, it is understood, are about as they were forty years ago. Their village is improving in every way, and, as seen from other islands and the mainland, it forms, with its white chapel and cottages, a picture of no little beauty. The preservation of the tribe, under circumstances unprecedented on this continent, the increasing capacity of its members, their steady improvement in habits and education, while living in the immediate neighborhood of a large white population, arc facts which present their character and conduct in a most favorable light to

OliONO CENTENNIAL. 25

the attention and consideration of the student of civilization, the sociologist, and the historian.

These Penobscot Indians were, I think, a peculiar people among the aboriginal tribes of this portion of the continent. While sturdy and brave, they were not quarrelsome ; they seem never to have been in- clined to make war upon the English, except under the influence of strong provocation; and not unfre- quently gave examples of patience and submission, under fancied wrongs, that would have added a graceful charm to the character of their civilized neighbors. Of all the tribes, they had the least of the Philistine in them, and the most of that which, under better and fuller development, might stand for " sweetness and light."

Williamson, referring to the conduct of this tribe about 1757, remarks — "No other eastern tribe had treated the English with so much forbearance and honor; and the good man's heart must be touched with sympathy for their melancholy condition, when he reflects that, in the present war upon them, our own people were the first and principal aggressors."

1 do not remember to have heard or read that for

26 %ORONO CENTENNIAL.

a century and a quarter a single white had been wantonly killed by an Indian, or an Indian by a white man. It is undoubtedly true that at times they have been inconvenient and troublesome, and that at one period during the Revolution, some apprehension as to their purposes and good faith \vas indulged. That there was any real occasion for alarm, has generally been discredited in the light of all the facts that subsequently transpired.

They were quite too familiar occasionally in the houses of their white neighbors, and sometimes, when in drink especially, were uncomfortable and rude ; — often "their room was better than their company." But not seldom they were welcome, as they were always frequent, and usually uninvited guests, in the best families. Take from the homes of the Colburns, the Marshes, the Freeses, the Whites, the Websters, the Bennochs, all recollection of Orono" of "Mary Sissa," and of others who were in the habit of visiting their houses, remove all associations connected with them and their visits, and extinguish all recollection of their frequent acts of exceeding kindness and humanity, and you would destroy more that is pictur-

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 27

csque and beautiful in memory and tradition, than it is the fortune of most families or neighborhoods in this work-day age to possess.

There is nothing new under the sun, and so we find the question of woman's rights was raised and decided long ago, at Oldtown. It was on the occasion of the termination, in September, 181G, of a bitter contest for the election of a chief, which was finally settled through the influence of the Catholic priest, who induced the Indians to leave all the rival candi- dates, and elect John Aitteon, a reputed descendant of the Baron de Castine by an Indian wife. The convention was held in the great wigwam, and there, upon the platform, were Aitteon, Neptune, and other captains and delegates, brave in scarlet broadcloth, brooches, collars, and jewels, while the space in front was crowded by the people of the tribe and of other tribes. The interest of the "occasion drew many cit- izens to the village, and aware of their wishes to be spectators of the ceremonials, the Indian who acted as marshal was directed to admit them into the camp The admission of the female visitors was also re- quested; but he replied, as directed by the chiefs,

28 * OliONO CENTENNIAL.

u Never our squaws, nor yours, sit toiih us in council" The earliest chief of this tribe of whom there is much authentic history, was the great Madokawando, the adopted son of a chief of the Kanabis tribe, by the name of Assiminasqua. The time of his birth is not known, but he was active in the wars of King Philip, and was intimate with the elder Castine, to whom he gave his daughter Matilde for a wife, or as one of his wives, for this learned and pious French- man had ante-dated, as it would seem, the creed of whicli Brigham Young is the modern prophet. He had Mogg, an able, cunning, treacherous Indian, for Lieutenant, or assistant Sagamore, until the death of the latter, which occurred at Black, Point (Scarbo- rough) in 1G77. Whittier describes him in these lines :

Megone hath his knife, and hatchet, and gun, And his gaudy and tasselled blanket on: His knife hath a handle with gold inlaid, And magic words on its polished blade — 'Twas the gift of Castine to Mqgg Mcgone, For a scalp or twain from the Yengees torn; His gun was the gift of the Tarratine,

And Madokawando'6 wives had strung The brass and the beads which tinkle and shine On the polished breech, and broad bright line

Of beaded wampum around it hung.

OROXO CENTENNIAL. 29 Madokawando died in 1608. Drake, in his Book of the Indians, says, "He was not an enemy, nor do we learn that his people had committed any depre- dations until after some English spoiled his corn and otherwise did him damage." Hubbard called him a

sort of moralized savage." It is said that he always treated his prisoners well. Drake says he was suc- ceeded by his cousin, Wenamouet, or, as his name was sometimes spelt, Wennogonet; but in another place he states that 3/oxus seems the successor of Madokawando. I am inclined to think that Wena- mouet was the principal chief, and that Moxus, who was a Xorridgewock sachem, held a relation to him something like that which Mogg had held to Mad- okawando, or, perhaps, Wenamouet was the counsel- lor, and Moxus the fighting man. Both of them appear in the subsequent history of the tribe. Moxus was at the great assembly at Falmouth in 1703, where the Indians met Gov. Dudley; and at Casco, in 1713; and at Georgetown, in 1717, where he treated with the English.

But in 1727 it is said that Wenamouet, at the head of forty Sagamores, appeared at Casco Neck, where

30 - OXONO CENTENNIAL.

they met Gov. Dummer and a large number of coun- cillors, and held a conference -which lasted a full week, and a treaty of peace was entered into, signed by Gov. Dummer and others on behalf of the Eng- lish, and Wenamouet and twenty-five Sagamores for the Indians. It was, according to Mr. Yarney, in his well-prepared and useful " Young People's History of Maine," a great occasion, and the business ended with a public dinner.

Who succeeded Wenamouet or Moxus, I do not know, nor do I know when either of them died. But as Or olio was born in 168S, and so was thirty-nine years old in 1727/ and as Wenamouet may have lived several, perhaps many, years after 1727, it is not un- reasonable to suppose that Orono may have been his immediate successor — an inference the more easy from the facts that after this time there was little trouble with the Indians, and that Orono was always inclined to peace and good neighborhood.

Joseph Orono, according to a tradition that re- ceived general acceptance among the old settlers, was the child of white parents, and was stolen in infancy by the Tarratines, from the neighborhood of

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 31

Brunswick. I have heard it said that he had blue eyes, and perhaps the impression in regard to his ancestry may have had its origin in, or gained strength from, this fact. At any rate, all accounts agree that lie was an able, sagacious, and friendly chief. He could ever say with Logan, and truth- fully, that he was " the friend of the white man." S\ hen the Revolutionary war broke out, resisting all solicitations of other tribes, he extended his sympathy, and tendered his aid, to the Americans, and at a moment when Indians in other parts of the State were threatening to join the English, Orono, Jo. Pease, Poreris, and another captain, arrived at Fal- mouth (now Portland), on their way to the Provin- cial Congress. Mr. Oilman, their interpreter, repre- sented Orono as a ft man of good sense, and a hearty friend to the Americans." The people of Falmouth provided for them a carriage, horses, and money to help them in their journey to Portsmouth. What followed, is told by Drake in the following words:

"Only two days after the battle of Bunker Hill, there arrived at Cambridge, the headquarters of the Americans, a deputation of the Penobscot Indians,

32 _ OUONO CENTENNIAL.

of whom the celebrated Orono was chief. An order was passed for their entertainment while there, and for their return home. They came to tender their services in the war now begun, which was done by Orono in a speech to a committee of the Provincial Congress on the 21st of June, 1775. <Tn behalf of the whole Penobscot tribe,' the chief said, if the grievances under which his people labored were re- moved, they would aid, with their whole force, to defend the country. Those grievances were briefly stated, and consisted chiefly of trespasses by the whites upon their timber lands, cheating; them in trade, etc. The committee returned an affectionate address; and although the groans of the dying from the late terrible field of battle were sounding in their ears, they say nothing about engaging the Indians in the war, but assured them that 6 as soon as they could take breath from their present fight ' their complaints should receive attention. Some of the Pcnobscots did eventually engage in the war."*

* Referring to this visit of the Penobscot chiefs to the Provincial Congress, I am able to add the following extract from a letter written a few days af- ter the delivery of this address, by the Hon. William Goold, of Windham-

"The Provincial Congress was, in June, 177o, sitting in Watertown

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 33

The Provincial Congress at this session strictly forbade all trespasses on lands claimed by the Indians, six miles in width on each side of the Penobscot river, from the head of the tide, up the river, as far as they claimed. And in 1786, a treaty was made, in which the Indians released all claim to lands on the Penobscot, from the head of the tide to the month of Piscataquis river, on the western side, and to the Mattawamkeag on the e/istern side, reserving to themselves only Oldtown island, and all other islands in the river above it, to Mattawamkeag. The gov- ernment assured them the title in fee to these islands.

Mass., and Samuel Freeman, of Falmouth, was the sole delegate from that town, and was at the above date (and for three years) Secretary to that body. His father, Enoch Freeman who was deputy collector of customs in 1750 (the highest in otlice here), was, in 1775, the chairman of the ' Commit- tee of Safety and Inspection' for Falmouth. In a letter to his son at Watertorvn, tinted June 14, 1775, he says, 'Lane is returned here from Pen- obscot with four Indian chiefs, Orono, Joseph Pease, Pore; is, and one more, bound up to the Congress. Orono seems to be a sensible, serious man, and a hearty friend. 1 can't help thinking that they should he well treated, justice done them respecting their lands, etc , and care taken that they are properly supplied with such things as shall enable them to get their living in their own way, by which they may now and forever he se- cured to the interest of the country. We have had a conference with them, and they cho<e to reserve what they had to say till they got to the grand council of the Province. We have provided a chaise to carry them to Portsmouth, and money to Lane for their expenses. . . . One Mr. GiTman is their interpreter, who speaks their tongue freely, and seems to ho a clever young man. We wished them a pleasant journey and a happy agreement with the Council " 3

34 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

and to two others near Sedgwick, and that the lands above those granted should be kept open as hunting grounds, and not be occupied by settlers.

Controversies afterwards arose between the inhab- itants and the Indians, and a new treaty was made at Bangor, August 1, 170G, by which the Indians re- leased all their right to lands from Nichols' rock, in Eddington, thirty miles up the river, except Oldtown and the other islands above it The Indians had previously conveyed to John Marsh the island, con- taining about five thousand acres, since known as Marsh island. The deed was executed— Jeremiah Colburn being witness— July 8, 1703, by a committee of Indians, who represented that they had "good right, full power, and lawful authority," and conveyed "a certain tract or parcel of land situate in Penobscot river aforesaid, called Arumsunkliungan island, ad- joining Penobscot Great Falls, about five miles above the head of the tide." The consideration was a thirty bushels of good Indian com." The sale was ratified in the following October, at a council of chiefs, held at the house of Robert Treat, Esq., in Bangor. Orono was present, and, with four others, signed the arti-

1*70156

OliONO CENTENNIAL. 35

cles there entered into. The Commonwealth con- firmed this grant to Marsh by resolve of the General Court.

The last treaty with this tribe was made February 20, 1819, in pursuance of which, ten of the principal men executed, in the succeeding June, a deed of quitclaim to the Commonwealth, of all lands on both sides of the river, above the tracts that had been previously released, except four townships six miles square, viz. : one at the mouth of the Mattawamkcae another on the opposite, or west side of the Penob- scot river, and two to be surveyed contiguous to the ninth range of townships, all of which were to remain to the Indians forever. In return, the Commonwealth agreed to secure to the tribe the use of two acres of land in Brewer, opposite Kenduskeag Point, to em- ploy a man to aid and instruct them in farming, to repair their church, and to deliver at Oldtown, in October of each year, five hundred bushels of corn, fifteen barrels of flour, seven of pork, one hogshead of molasses, one hundred yards of broadcloth, half red and half blue, fifty Indian blankets, one hundred pounds of powder, four hundred pounds of shot, one

36 OBONO CENTENNIAL.

hundred pounds of tobacco, six boxes of chocolate, fifty silver dollars.

By a resolve passed January 22, 1819, an annual stipend of §350.00 for their religious teachers was granted.

Orono died February 5, 1801, aged 113 years.

The venerable Mrs. Hall, who is living in this vil- lage, in the 97th year of her age, has a distinct re- membrance of this chief, and was present at his funeral She describes him as tall, straight, well- built, and fine-looking, with blue eyes. Consider : the distance between us and the days of Addison, Dry- den, Pope; of Cotton Mather, and Gov. Dudley, is spanned by these two lives.

The following lines were written on the occasion of the death of Orono. They were attributed to Hon. Martin Kinsley, a prominent citizen of Hampden, and who represented, from 181 9 to 1821, this District in Congress, and are to be found in Vol. 1 of Alden's Epitaphs, published in 1812.

" Ah, brother Sanop, what bad news you speak! Wrhy steals the tear adown thy sombre check? Why heaves thy breast with such tremendous sighs? And why despair dart horror from thy eyes?

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 37

Has the Great Spirit from the world above

Called home your chief, the object of your love?

Ah, yes! too well I know his spirit's fled;

Too well I know your Orono is dead.

Each warrior Sanop now unbends his bow,

While grief and sorrow brood upon his brow;

Each manly youth reclines his head and cries,

1 In Orono our friend and chieftain dies.'

Each young pappoose to sympathy is bred,

And shrieking, whoops, ' your Orono is dead.'

Each sombre face in pallid hue appears,

And each his grief in death-like silence bears.

The great Penobscot rolls his current on,

And silently bemoans his oldest son.

A century past, the object of his care,

He fed and clothed him with his fish and fur;

But now, alas! he views his shores in vain,

To find another Orono in man.

For whiter Indians, to our shame we see,

Are not so virtuous nor humane as he.

Disdaining all the savage modes of life,

The tomahawk and bloody scalping-knife,

He sought to civilize his tawny race,

Till death, great Nimrod of the human race,

Hit on his track, and gave this hunter chase.

His belt and wampum now aside are fluug,

His pipe extinguished and his bow unstrung.

When countless moons their destined rounds shall cease,

He'll spend an endless calumet of peace.

EPITAPH.

Safe lodged within his blanket here below, Lie the last relics of old Orono; Worn down with toil and care, he in a trice, Exchanged his wigwam for a paradise."

38 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

These verses, if not remarkable for ease or grace, are worthy of being recalled on this occasion for the testimony they bear to the virtues and character of the good chief. What the grand and sonorous name which he bore signified, or whence it was derived, I have never heard. But I trust that it will be here

r

perpetuated and honored, alike for its own beauty and for the sake of him from whom it was taken, till

"Countless moons their destined rounds shall cease."

Ellis, speaking of the arrival of Capt. Cook at the Sandwich Islands in the last century, tells us in his Polynesian Researches, Vol. 4, p. 3 : "The news of such an event rapidly spread through the islands, and multitudes came to see the return of Orono, or the Motus (i. e. islands), as they called their ships."

If in the Tarratinc as in the Hawaiian language, " Orono " means an island or islands, the name was certainly not inappropriate for such a Lord of the Isles as our Orono was.

It is not strange that so fine a name has been ap- propriated by other communities. There arc post- offices, and I presume towns, of this name in Musca-

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 39

tine Co., Iowa, and Sherburne Co., Minnesota. In Durham County, Province of Ontario, is a quite im- portant town called Orono. A Methodist minister who had resided and preached in Maine many years since, whose name I do not now remember, wrote me more than thirty years ago, that he gave the name to the town in Canada in recollection of the strong resemblance of its natural features to those of this town.

The first settlement in this town by white men was made in 1774, by Jeremiah Colburn and Joshua Eayres, and as their story is very fully given by themselves in a petition to the General Court of Mass. in 1776, 1 will reproduce it.

PETITION OF JEREMIAH COLBURN AND JOSHUA

EAYRES.

To the honorable the Council and House of Repre- sentatives of (he State, the Colony Massachusetts Bay, in General Court assembled at Water toicn : The Petition of Jeremiah Colburn and Joshua

Eayres, of Penobscot River, humbly showeth :

That your petitioners

have been settlers on Penobscot River for a number

40 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

of years, and that your petitioners were obliged to quit their settlements, after making great improve- ments on their lands, by order of proprietors, or per- sons pretending to own or claim the land, to their great damage, and had no place to go to. Your pe- titioners went farther up the river and settled on wild and unimproved lands, five miles above any set- tlement, where they thought no person could claim to turn them off There built two dwelling-houses, one-half a saw-mill, cleared a road to a meadow six miles, cleared another road to the inhabitants five miles, and cleared and improved a considerable tract of land, and built the other half of the mill by be- ing assisted by other people. Your petitioners began to build said dwelling-houses and mill in July, 1774, and in October following, moved our families upon the land, and there continued until May following; in the mean time the Indians of the Penobscot tribe were continually at our houses, and we were always ready to assist them in anything they requested, and were always welcomed to any provisions they desired, which your petitioners have given them to the value of thirty pounds, lawful money, at least, and were

OHONO CENTENNIAL. 41

always kindly treated by us. And in May, 17 75, your petitioners, being apprehensive of some danger from reports that the Canadian Indians intended to assist the people of Great Britain that might come across the country and destroy us, thought it most safe to move in to the inhabitants. Your petitioners moved their families and effects, and remained from May to August following, and one of us from May, 1775, to June, 1776. All this while your petitioners were uro;ed bv the Indians to return to our settle- ments, and promked we should enjoy our possessions, and they would protect and support us in the same ; but since being acquainted that they had a promise of the lands from the Massachusetts Congress in June, 1775, we would not move again until they gave us their words that we should enjoy peaceably our pos- sessions. In dependence of the same, we moved our families up the time above mentioned, and since have heard they have resolved, in council amongst them- selves, that every family shall be removed above the line that was settled by the Congress in June, 1775. They say they have a promise when the General Court next sits, that there will be an order to turn

^z ORONO CENTENNIAL.

us off, in consequence of which they have told all the inhabitants "within their limits to get in readiness to move off when they gather their harvests. Your petitioners are always ready to comply with any rule, order, or regulation, as your Honours shall direot. Your petitioners would inform your Honours that we have spent all our substance in this settlement, and which renders us so poor, Ave are not able to move our families away. Your petitioners most humbly pray your Honours to take their difficult circum- stances into your wise consideration, and grant them such relief as you in your great wisdom shall see meet. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray.

Jeremiah Colburn, Joshua Eayres. Penobscot River, lGth Aug., 1776.

Sept. 5th, 1770. — The Committee to whom was referred the consideration of the above petition, have attended that service, and beg leave to report that tha petitioners have leave to withdraw the same.

Jkdediah Preble, per order.

01! 0X0 CENTENNIAL. 43

Messrs. Colburn and Eayres, however, were never disturbed in their possessions.

Two days after the foregoing report was made, viz., Sept. 7, 1776, the General Court passed the follow- ing resolve for the payment of wages and rations to Jeremiah Colburn and Samuel Low :

On the petition of Jeremiah Colburn and Samuel Low,

Resolved, That there be paid out of the Treasury of this State to the above petitioners, the same wages and rations as were allowed to the other soldiers of Capt. Lane's Company, viz. : six dollars per month, and seven pence half penny per day, each, for rations, amounting in the whole to sixteen pounds and eleven shillings each.

It wrould appear from this resolve that the services of Mr. Colburn were recognized and remunerated.

Mr. Colburn appears to have been in Watei town, where the General Court was in session, for, five days afterwards, he puts in another petition, a copy of which, with the resolve passed in answer thereto, I

44 OROXO CENTENNIAL.

will read, as they give us a view of matters on the Penobscot at that time, and show that Mr, Colburn enjoyed the confidence of the Legislature.

MEMORIAL OF JEREMIAH COLBURN. To the honourable Council and to the honourable House of Representatives, in General Court assem- bled at Water town , in the State of Massachusetts Bay, the 12th day of Sept., A. D. 1776:

The Memorial of Jeremiah Colburn, of Penobscot, humbly showetli :

That your memorialist would inform your Honours, upon your appointing twenty men, together with ten Indians, as a guard at Penobscot, under the command of Lieut. Oilman and myself, that your memorialist would be glad to know if your Honours would order some subsistance and ammuni- tion for the said thirty men, by your memorialist, as he is bound home on his duty. And your memorial- ist, as in duty bound, shall ever pray, &c.

Jeremiah Colburn.

Resolve for the delivery of gunpowder, &c, to Mr. Jeremiah Colburn, passed Sept. 17th, 1776,

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 45

On the petition of Mr. Jeremiah Colburn, Resolved, That the Commissary-General be, and he is hereby directed to deliver out of the stores be- longing to this State unto the petitioner, sixty flints and thirty pounds of gunpowder, and lead answera- ble thereto, for the use of the guard mentioned in the petition, and also provisions enough to supply the said guard for the space of three months, accord- ing to the established allowance in the army, he, the said petitioner, Jeremiah Colburn, to be accountable for the distribution and expenditure of the same.

These papers are copied from the American Arch- ives, Vol. 2, 5th series, a work prepared by Peter Force, and published by authority of Congress. We are fortunate to find a statement at once so full and so authentic of the time and circumstances of the settlement of this town.

Jeremiah Colburn and Joshua Eayres. Your ven- erable and respected fellow-citizen, Mr. George King, who was brought, in 1800, when he was five years old, to this town, where he has ever since resided, thinks that the first house in town was built in 1773

46 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

by Joshua Eayres, but I regard it as more probable that his informant was in error than that Messrs. Col- burn and Eayres should have made a mistake in their petition. Williamson, in his History of Maine, says they settled here in 1774, and that John Marsh was on the Island soon afterwards.

Jeremiah Colburn built his house, (as I was in- formed Nov. 15, 1858, by the late William Colburn, jr., his grandson), on what is now Mill street, near where Wyatt II. Folsom, Esq., lived at that time. Mr. Eayres, as Mr. Colburn, jr., told me, put up a house on what is now Middle street, a short distance from the Universal is t parsonage, and nearly in the rear of the Orono House. He owned the island in the Basin that bears his name. This island was a great place for taking salmon, shad, and alewives, three-quarters of a century ago.

The first mill in town — that referred to by Messrs. Colburn and Eayres in their petition — was built, ac- cording to my informant, on the south side of the Stillwater, near a small island, and not far from the match factory. Capt David Read afterwards built a mill on the same spot. Both were saw-mills.

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 47

The first white child born in Orono, was Esther, daughter of Joshua Eayres. She was born April 30, 1777. In 1795 she married Win. McPheters, and from that time to her death, Sept. 5, 1869, 74 years, she lived on the farm now owned and occupied by her son, Joseph McPheters.

Mr. Eayres moved to Passadumkeag in 1800, leav- ing his name attached to the island which has since became the seat of the most extensive lumber man- ufacture in the State, and to the falls which, as ap- pears by the deed of the Indians to John Marsh, had been previously known as Penobscot Great Falls; at a still earlier date, as we have seen, they were called Arumsumhungan Falls.

Mr. Colburn continued to reside in this town till his death. He was born — it is believed, in Dracut, Mass.— in 1726. The name of his wife was Fanny Hodgkins. They were living in Brewer as early as 1773, for in that year Mr. Colburn visited this imme- diate locality in search of an eligible place for settle- ment. He seems, as a sensible man, to have been satisfied with what he saw here, for the next year he moved with his family and made a home, as already

48 ORONO CEXTEXXIAL.

mentioned, on what is now Mill street. John Marsh, who was destined to become a member of his family, accompanied him on his visit in 1773.

When the families of Messrs. Colburn and Eayres left their homes in 1775, as mentioned in their peti- tion, it is said, that, having buried, or in some way concealed, their effects near Upper Stillwater, they passed up the Stillwater to Pushaw stream, and fol- lowing that to the lake, crossed to the waters of the Kenduskeag, thence to the pond in Newport, and descended the Sebasticook to Fort Halifax, in Wins- low. From Winslow Mr. Colburn went to Pittston. He was at Camden some time after this, and while there, in charge of ammunition and stores, was sur- prised by a party of British soldiers, taken prisoner, and carried to Bagaducc (Castine). On an exchange of prisoners he returned to this place, to find that his buildings had been entirely destroyed during his ab- sence. His household effects, however, which had been taken to another place, were uninjured. In a short time they were required for the furnishing of another house.

Mr. Colburn owned or occupied, it is believed,

OROXO CENTENNIAL. 49

nearly all the territory upon which the main land part of the village stands, extending up the Stillwater as far as the farm now owned by Elijah W. Wyman.

He died in 1S08, and was buried in the old ceme- tery near South Water street. His children were, William; Betsey, who became the wife of Capt. Daniel Jameson, whose house was first near Upper Stillwater, and afterwards where Cony Foster's place is ; Sarah, who married John Marsh ; Jeremiah, who died unmarried, at the age of 21 years; and Fanny, the wife of Samuel White, Esq.

William, the eldest son, was born in Dunstable, Mass, in 1760. He was in the Revolutionary war for a time, and drew a pension for several years be- fore his death. The gun which he carried in the service is still preserved in the family as a valued relic of the struggle for independence, and as evi- dence of the claim, by inheritance, of its descendants, to a share in the glory of that historic period. He died April C, 1847, at his residence on the Stillwater road, where his grandson, Charles II. Colburn, after- wards lived, until the house was destroyed by fire. His wife, whom he long survived, was Abigail Whitte-

60 OROXO CENTEyXIAL.

more, a twin sister of Mrs. Abram Freese. Mr. Col- bum's children were, William, who died in 18G2, a man of great industry and strong sense, and a good citizen ; Jeremiah, venerable and greatly respected, whose home is on the place where he and his broth- er, William, had lived together for almost half a cen- tury ; Edmund, who died in 1SGS ; Abram, who is now living in town ; and Abigail, who died in 1825. Six of his children died in infancy.

There is something refreshing and reassuring in these days, when ties, the strongest and most sacred, are so easily and rudely broken, and people are everywhere on the move, discontented with their homes, and uneasily anxious to go somewhere else, to find an old family remaining, generation after generation, upon the spot where it was planted, its members drawing from the soil beneath them, the atmosphere around, :md the sky above, the ele- ments of health, strength, fulness, and breadth — making themselves a power, a beneficence, and a history in the community of which they are a part, and which they have aided to shape and organize, and in which they are contented and happy

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 51

to live. Blessed is the town. that grows and strength- ens in the possession of these old families;, whose sons and daughters are willing to stand in the places of their ancestors, and are able to make them better, pleasanter, and more beautiful than they found them ! Of such families there are several in this town, but none whose entry upon the soil was at a date so early as that of Jeremiah Colburn. Possessing some of the best lands in the neighborhood, rich in soil and beautiful in situation, they have set an example to others by patient industry, intelligent interest in things around them, contentment with their lot, and blameless living, whose value can scarcely be esti- mated.

Jonx Marsh, the Interpreter, as he was called, was born in Mendon, Mass., in 1749, and came to Orono in 1774 with Jeremiah Colburn, whose daughter, Sarah, he afterwards married. Establishing himself in the immediate neighborhood of a large tribe of Indians, he, and his neighbors, Colburn and Eayres, lived as safely and tranquilly as if both parties had been of the same race and kin. While this fact

°- ORONO CENTENNIAL.

argues well for the natives, it gives testimony, too, to the good character, practical sense, and kindly qualities of the new settlers. Mr. Marsh took great pains to cultivate the friendship of the Indians; he was much with them, and succeeded in gaining their confidence and regard ; and, in return for his good offices, they rewarded him with a grant, princely in the extent of territory conveyed, and in the gener- osity that inspired the act— the specified considera- tion being merely nominal. The Commonwealth confirmed his title to the Indian grant of Marsh Is- land, and his possession was undisturbed. The vil- lages of Oldtown, Great Works, Pushaw, and portions of Lower and Upper Stillwater, containing altogether five thousand acres, and a population, at the present time, of near five thousand people, are included within this grant. No island within the State — not even Mt. Desert, with its three towns, and probably 50,000 acres— is so populous or wealthy as this. Mr. Marsh had obtained some knowledge of the place before coming here in 1774, from having visited it as hunter and guide, lie accompanied Messrs. Colburn and Kayres to the Kennebec in 3 775, and afterwards

0X0X0 CENTENNIAL. 53

piloted through a body of troops. He returned, and again piloted some soldiers from Hampden to Kennebec. lie settled on the island known by his name, and on the spot where Col. Ebenezer Webster afterwards resided. The orchard in front of the res- idence of Paul D. Webster was planted by Mr. Marsh. He died on the Vina] farm in 1814, and was buried in the village cemetery by the side of his father-in- law. His wife, Sarah Colburn, born Oct. 1, 1750, died May 26, 1841. He left numerous children, of whom the Rev. Jeremiah Marsh, of Exeter, .Me., born March 15, 1701, and Elijah, born Nov. 28,1801, and whose home has never been elsewhere than on Marsh Island, are now living, as are three daughters,

Mary, who married Oliver, Abigail, who married

Phineas Vina!, and Elizabeth, wife of Buzzell.

Samuel, the eldest son, died in 1810; Benjamin, whose well-known form was so familiar on these streets a quarter of a century ago, died in 1863, in the eighty-third year of his age; Ziba, whom many of you remember as living on the island, on the River road, died in 1843 ; John, in 1852 ; and William, a

64 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

Methodist clergyman, of good ability and much re- spected, in Canada, in 18G5, at the age of 76.

Capt. Abram Tourtellotte, who was born in 1744, moved from Rhode Island to Orono, and settled on the farm on the Bangor road, now owned by Samuel Page, in 1781. He made the first, clearing on this farm, and lived on it thirty-eight years, dying there in 1819. By his first wife, Hannah Coombs, he had two children, born in Rhode Island, Reuben and Abram ; by his second he had two daughters, also born in that State — Hannah, who married a man by the name of Carpenter, and Amy, whose husband's name was Andrews; by his third, Leah Mansfield, he had seven children, all born in Orono. Reuben, the eldest son, came here at the close of the war. He was born in 1705. He married Lucy Mansfield, at Bangor, by whom he had twelve children, all born in Orono. He afterwards moved to Passadumkeae' where he died in 182G. Abram came to Orono with his father.

Samuel White was born in Mendon, Mass., in 17G0,

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 55

and became an inhabitant of Orono in 1784, where he married Fanny, daughter of Jeremiah Colburn, by whom he had seven children. He settled first near Upper Stillwater, but moved in a short time to the farm on the island where his son Daniel lived so long. In the early years of the town he was a magistrate, whose services were frequently employed by his neighbors. He died January 19, 1S29 ; his wife died April 3, 1828.

Daniel White, his son — the second of the name, the first having died in infancy — for so many years the owner and occupant of the southerly farm, be- longing to the college, was a native of Orono, and was a man of excellent sense, and of uncompromising honesty. He was, perhaps, the only man on Penob- scot river, who, prior to 1850, had carried on, for a term often or more years, the business of lumbering, and always preserved his credit intact and unsus- pected. Previous to that time, the occupation of the lumberman was a very different thing from what it has been since. The demand for lumber was limited, the supply boundless; and if, one year, money was made, the business was so crowded the next that the market

56 OliONO CENTENNIAL.

was sure to be over-supplied, and the losses would exceed the gains of the previous season. There was no such thing as calculating upon the market before- hand ; and, besides, the risks and charges attending the driving and holding of logs were much greater than they are now. The lumber was of, perhaps, the very bast quality of pine ever grown upon this continent, and it was net distant. But system in conducting the business had not been introduced; everything was done on credit, and prices of goods and supplies were fabulously high. When, at one time, Maj, D., a slip-shod lumberman, desired to purchase of his old supplier. Gen. Trafton, of Bangor, five or six yards of cotton cloth, the General, not wishing exactly to deny the Major, yet hoping to close accounts with him, put upon his cloth the un- conscionable price of seven and sixpence a yard, thinking the Major would not pay it, But the latter, in no sense daunted or discouraged, simply said, "I like your conversation much, Gen. Trafton ; I'll take the whole piece."

But Mr. White always paid cash, hired the best men, paid them fair prices and promptly, provided

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 57

the best kinds of food and enough of it, and so got from his crews more good and profitable work than any other man in those days could. Col. Webster and John EL Pillsbury were often partners with him, and when they were, were pretty certain to make money. Besides this, he never took great risks, and having made one good operation and laid up money, he never risked it all the next year. And once having secured a capital, he could hold on to his lumber in dull times, when everybody else was obliged to sell, and the next year, when his neighbors could not get into the woods, his boards would be pretty sure to bring remunerative prices.

Firm and decided in his opinions, and not without prejudices, he was, nevertheless, a man who took pleasure in extending accommodation and relief whenever he could do so, and, though strict, was just in all his dealings. His word was better than his bond— for while he would pay the exact sum stipu- lated in the latter, he would pay the exact sum and a little more where he had only given his word, in order that there should be no question as to the in- tegrity with which his obligation had been kept. Mr.

&8 ORONO CENTEXXIAL.

White was born in Orono, June 19, 1796; died Feb. 22, 18G2.

Samuel White, a younger brother, was sometimes engaged in business with Daniel. He died in this town, June 1G, 1S5G. His health for many years had been feeble, and he was not able to be engaged in active business. He was a just man.

There were four daughters, two of whom — Hannah and Rebecca— died young ; one, Fanny, married Re- tire W. Freese. She was born January 28, 1793, and died July 14, 1870. Betsey, born February 15, 1800, is living in Orono.

Capt. Daniel Jameson, a shipmaster, was a native of Freeport, Me., who came to Orono about 1785, where he married Betsej'- Colburn. He was the father of Mrs. Win. Colburn, jr., and of Daniel Jame- son, so well known in your village for many years, and who died in 1872. He was cast away, and died at sea in November, 1798, on a passage from Boston to Bangor.

Joseph Page, a native of Rhode Island, settled in Orono soon after the Revolution, on the farm on the

OJWNO CENTENNIAL. 59

Bangor road now occupied by James Page. His children were Roger, Joseph, James, Isaac, Huldah, Phebe, Polly, and Stephen. During the Revolution he lived near Mt. Hope, in Bangor, whence he was driven by the British for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the crown. His house was burnt and his stock stolen and carried away. Ilis youngest son, Stephen, was born there in 1775, and when a small boy, was brought to this town, where he grew to manhood, married Annie, daughter of Joshua Eayres, and settled on the farm before occupied by his father. His second wife was Jane Orcutt, born in Eddington, 1780. He died Jan. 4, 1857, and his widow Dec. 1, 1S71. Of his eleven children, six, viz. : Stephen, Samuel, Elijah, Martha, Catherine, and Jackson, are now living.

Antoixe Laciiaxce was born in Quebec in 1750 or 1751. In his declaration made August 28, 1832, to obtain a pension, he says 1751, but in a deposition given in 1837, he says he was nine years old when Quebec was taken by Wolfe. He was thus twenty - four or twenty-five years of age when Montgomery

60 0110 NO CENTENNIAL.

made his attack upon that city. He also states that he enlisted at Quebec in the army of the United States in 1775, with Capt. Livingston's company, and served in Col. Livingston's regiment; that the troops were under the command of Gen. Arnold ; that he wras taken prisoner in June, 1770, escaped, and again enlisted under Capt. Page in 1778, and went with him to the Chaudicre as the pilot of a scouting par- ty, and was discharged on his return, which was* in about six weeks; that in June, 1779, he enlisted on board the Monmouth, Capt. Ross, at Castine, and was in the service three months, during which time the vessel was taken to Bangor, and burnt; that in 1781 he enlisted in Capt. Walker's company, in a regiment commanded by Maj. Ulmer, and was stationed at Cas- tine. Wm. Colburn, the elder, testifies that he served with Lachance in the same company at this time.

After the strife of battle came the sweets of peace, and at Window, in this State, in the month of No- vember, 17S2, our Canadian soldier exchanged the service of Mars for that of Venus, and became the husband of Sarah Buzze. They must soon after this time have moved to Orono. It is, perhaps, not im-

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 61

probable that he had been here before his marriage, for Elizabeth (or Betsey) Jameson, daughter of Jere- miah Colburn, testified, Oct. 9, 1845, that she had known Antoine Lachance for sixty years before his death, and she was at that time eighty-four years old.

Lachance, in a deposition given in 1837, says he had resided where he then lived (on the southwest corner of the upper College lot) forty odd years. He was probably there as early as 3 705, and re- mained till his death, which occurred August G. 1839. His wife survived him, drew a pension, and died a few years ago. They had numerous children, and, from the fact that the father was usually called by his Christian name, assumed that as their patron- ymic, so we no longer have Lachances, but Antoines. The last time I saw Antoine, the elder, was at the September election at Great Works in 1 838, at which, after a severe contest, Col. Ebenezer Webster was de- feated as candidate for Representative by Retire W. Freese. The contestants rallied their last man, and Antoine appeared upon the scene about noon, ready to die in the last ditch for Col. Webster. He was

1

1

°- OIZOXO CEXTEXNIAL.

very infirm, and in his primitive style of dress and sugar-loaf cap, made an exceedingly grotesque ap- pearance. When the word was spoken announcing the arrival of Antoine, there was a sensation that penetrated both ranks, and the proposition that in- stead of Antoine's coming to the ballot-box, the box should go to him, was accepted by general consent,

Antoine was a squatter upon the northerly farm now owned and occupied by the State College, but when he had been there nearly twenty years he con- veyed the lot to James Harrison; living there twen- ty odd years more, he testified that this deed was worthless, and that the land rightfully belonged, as indeed it did, to Seth Wright, of Northampton, Mass., who held it by deed from John Marsh. Antoine was a character, and many are the anecdotes told of him. lie was good-natured, but unreliable — plain, but not without craft — accommodating, but prejudiced against paying debts. He did a little at farming, more at shingle-weaving, and still more, perhaps, at fishing, living from hand to mouth, but yet always man- aging to get enough. If his principles touching the rights of property were easy and mixed, his "sang

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 63

forhead" as his neighbor Longfellow called it, was irresistible, and public opinion would never tolerate any oppression of Antoine. When he had been sup- plied for many weeks by Maj. Treat, with salt, meal, molasses, pork, tobacco, and rum, for the prosecution of the business of shad and salmon fishing, after long waiting and no fish brought by Antoine to the head of the tide, the Major came to Orono to see what he was doing. Antoine, discovering his ap- proach in the distance, began to give his dog a most unmerciful flogging; the dog yelled and Antoine swore, and such was the strength of the chorus that the Major could not be heard for several minutes. "What are you whipping that dog for?" demanded Treat Another cut, and "Blast the dog," only it was a tougher verb. "But what has the dog been doing ? " « The cussed thief has eat up all the fish ! " shrieked Antoine.

Park Holland, Esq., was the agent of Wright, and, as such, had the oversight of the lot on which Antoine lived. The latter went to hi m, one day, and told him there was an old pine stub on the land, of no sort of value to any one else, but he thought he

^ 01)0X0 CENTENNIAL.

could make a few shingles of it if he could be al- lowed to do so. Permission was given j hut Mr. Hol- land noticed that for some months shingles were being taken in large quantities to market by Antoine. Meeting him one day, he inquired if thai weren't a good stub. "Mighty good stub!" squealed the Frenchman, and that was the end of it, for who would think of prosecuting the " chartered libertine?"

It may interest our College friends to know that the ground where their buildings stand was cleared up, and occupied for half a century, by a French Canadian, who had seen the tight between Wolfe and Montcalm, and bad served before Quebec under Montgomery.

There came from Frankfort, in the present county of Waldo, Robert, Johx, Joshua, and Josn-ii Treat, before the year 1700, who made homes in Orono.' They were engaged chiefly in fishing and lumbering. There are no descendants of any of them now in town. John moved to Enfield, and died there a few years ago.

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 65

I doubt if the others had a permanent residence here. Robert was a prominent man in Bangor, doing business at the head of the tide for many years.

William Lunt moved into what is now Oldtown as early as 1785. He had numerous children, some of whom resided afterwards in this part of the town, where there are now living several grand-children. His son Abram is now a resident of Milford, and is 84 years old.

Abram Freese, with his sons John, Retire W.3 and Isaac, moved into town from Bangor in 1790. The former settled on the lot on the Stillwater road, after- wards owned and occupied, for half a century or more, by his son Retire W., and which is one of the best larrns in this part of the State, so far as soil and situation are concerned. The father put up on this lot the first frame building erected in Orono.

Mr. Freese was probably in Orono before he lived in Bangor, for it is known that he accompanied Mr. Colburn to Kennebec, on one occasion, with his wife and her infant son, John. He died in Orono

about the year 1800. 5

G6 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

Ketire W. Freese was born in Bangor in 1785. He died on the farm on which he had always lived, in 1860. His wife was Fanny, daughter of Samuel White, Esq. He had a large family of children, sev- eral of whom are now living in this town. He rep- resented the town in the State Legislature in 1839. His erect and noble form as he moved upon your streets will not be easily forgotten by those of you who were accustomed to see him in his frequent visits to the village.

Capt. David Read was an early settler ; he came from Topsham in 1793. He built, in 1S00, the second frame house in town, that which was afterwards owned and occupied by John Bennoch, Esq., a few rods north of this hall. It was for the time an unu- sually good house, with large rooms, and high cor- niced walls. The first tavern in town was kept in this house by Perez Graves. The first meeting for election of town officers was held at this house, April 7, 180G. He built the first mill where the stone mill now stands. This was in 178G.

John Read, who owned for so many years the very

I

RESIDENCES OF vol. EBENEZE& WEBSTER, MBS. MARTHA (WEBSTER) TREAT, AXIJ PAUL l>. WEBSTER, K.s<*.

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 67

excellent form on which B. P. Gilman, Esq., now lives, and George Read, who held the place, now owned by Mrs. William Rollins, were his sons.

Mr. John Read was one of the selectmen elected at the first meeting after the incorporation of the town. He lived to a good old age, and raised a large family of children, none of whom are now living in Orono. His brother George died here some thirty years ago, leaving a widow and several children. Among the latter is Hugh Read, the proprietor of the Orono Hotel.

Joseph Lnman first occupied the farm which was afterwards owned by John Read. There were sev- eral members of this family, and some of their de- scendants are in town at the present time.

Andrew Webster settled in Orono about 1795; he was a native of Salisbury, Mass., and was probably the son of Andrew Webster, born in that town Nov. 12, 1710, whose parents were John and Sarah Web- ster, and when quite young was brought by his father to New Meadows, in Brunswick, Me. He was after-

68 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

wards at Topsham, where lie married Martha Crane. When a young man, he moved to Castine, and, after a brief residence there, he came to Bangor, and pitched his tent near the intersection of Main and Water streets, in the year 1771.

His house in Orono was on the site now occupied by the residence of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Joseph Treat. The old house was taken down in 1835. He died in it November 1, 1807, from an injury occa- sioned by the falling of a mill timber. His widow died in 1823. During the Revolutionary war he was taken prisoner by the British, and carried to Baga- duce. He left a large family, of whom three — Eben- ezer, Elijah, and Martha, wife of Capt. Francis Wyman — settled in Orono. Richard lived in Glen- burn ; Andrew and James settled in Liverpool, N. S., and died there ; Andrew was a physician. Daniel's home was in Bangor, near the head of the tide ; Prudence married William Hasey, of Glenburn ; Margaret married Aaron Griffin, of Albion.

Col. Ebenezer Webster was a man of great enter- prise and public spirit, and for more than half a cen- tury was one of the mo^t active business men and

OROKO CENTENNIAL. 69

useful citizens of the town. His hand was never idle, and his heart was always open. He was a gen- tleman, not through artificial aids or studied accom- plishments, but by the patent of his creator. The late Judge Frederic H. Allen was accustomed to say that he was by nature the most perfect gentleman lie had ever known. Eminently a social man, his entertainment of neighbors and friends was so unaf- fected and cheery, that of the great number to whom his ample parlors had been opened, there probably was never one who was not made to feel, not merely that he was welcome, but that he had conferred a positive favor by his company.

Col. Webster was engaged in the business of lum- bering from an early age almost to the time of his death ; and at several periods was extensively inter- ested in the purchase of real estate, principally tim- ber lands. Many of his investments in this kind of property were fortunate, but some were not so. By one purchase he suffered great loss of property, and was, in consequence, much crippled in his affairs. But nil desperandum was his motto; and never was he down, but straightway he rose again, and went to

70 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

work as cheerfully and confidently as ever. He was a man who had seen many phases of life, and who had known many of its vicissitudes. But by none of these experiences was his faith in his fellow-men ever shaken, or his readiness to help them, when in need, abated.

Col. Webster was born in Bangor, October 3, 1780, and lie died in Orono, August 16, 1855. In an obit- uary notice of him published in the Bangor Wlrirj, it was said, " He will long be remembered by the com- munity in which he lived, for his enterprise and perseverance as a business man, and for his active interest in all that concerned their welfare, but longer and better for the rare and generous qualities devel- oped in his social and family relations, and which formed so prominent a part of his character, and stamped him one of nature's noblemen."

He married, Sept. 5, 1805, Lucy Dudley, daughter of Paul Dudley, Esq., of Milford. She was born April 15, 1783, and died in Orono, May 7, 1859. Of nine children born to them, six are now living in Orono.

Elijah Webster was born in Bangor in 1700, and

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 7l

settled in Orono on the farm now owned by Col. Eben Webster, his nephew, in 1821. He was some- times interested in lumbering, but his attention was given principally to his farm. He was a public-spir- ited citizen, an accommodating neighbor, and a faith- ful friend. He died at Orono, June 28, 1863. His wife, Lucinda Tyler, who was born in Bangor in 1800. followed him July 20, 1871. Mr. Webster was a member of the Board of County Commissioners in 1838 and 1841. He built the large house on the island, in which he lived for many years, in 1834.

Capt. Francis Wymax, a native of Phippsburg, Me., came to Orono in 1792 or 1703. He married Mar- tha, daughter of Andrew Webster, and settled on the Upper Stillwater road, on the farm now occupied by his son Elijah, and where he died February, 1857.

Archibald McPhetkes was of Scotch descent. He moved from Arrowsic, in the present County of Sag- adahoc, to Bangor, in 1771, and in 1705 settled in Orono, on the Bangor road. His sons were Archibald, Charles, Will iam, James, and John. Charles lived in

£2 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

Bangor, but the other sons were residents of this town. The name is sometimes spelled " McPheadris." There was a prominent merchant of this name in Portsmouth, N. H., in the last century, and I am in- clined to think that the Orono family were, not re- motely, connected with his *

Wm. Duggans was a very early settler in town, and had a house a little off from the Bangor road, below the farm of John Read. He moved from town a quarter of a century ago. He was here before 1800, and first lived on the place owned by David McPhe- tres, this side of the " Mac Brook."

There were Spexcers in town at a very early day,

* Mr. Aldrieh, in his paper in Harper's Magazine, entitled "An Old Town by the Sea," has the following notice of the Portsmouth merchant : " On the corner of Daniel and Chapel streets stands the oldest brick build- ing in Portsmouth — the Warner house. It was built in 1718 by Capt. Archibald Macpheadris, a Scotchman, as his name indicates, a wealthy merchant, and a member of the King's Council. He was the chief projector of the first iron works 'established in America.* Capt. Macpheadris mar- ried Sarah Weutwortb, one of the sixteen children of Gov. John Went- worth, and died in 1729, leaving a daughter, Mary, whose portrait, with that of her mother, painted by the ubiquitous Copley, still hangs in one of the parlors of this house, which, oddly enough, is not known by the name of Macpheadris, but by that of his son-in-law, Hon. Jonathan Warner, a member of the King's Council until the revolt of the colonies."

•James and Henry Leonard built iron works at Kaynham, Mass., in 10."2

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 73

of whom, however, I have been able to obtain but little authentic information ; but among them was one of the name of Nathaniel, and to distinguish him, as he was a very short, small man, from another Na- thaniel who lived on the east side of the main river, who was a very tall man, he was called « Little Thaniel." It is related that he was a teamster belonging to a logging crew up the river, one season, and that, un- fortunately, it happened that the crew got out of rum during the winter and went dry for several weeks ; but when they could stand it no longer, little Than iel was despatched to Bangor for a supply. Return- ing with a keg of the indispensable, he arrived at the camp at night. Thirsty as the men were, they set to and pulled at its contents till almost morning, when they fell asleep and slept the sleep that knew no waking until late in the afternoon. Little Than- iel woke first and went out to the hovel to look after his team. He thought it morning, but the sun was in the west and not half an hour hieh. Alarmed, and hurrying into the camp, he cried out, "Wake up, my high fellows, shake your blankets, clatter your hoofs, daylight is cracking round your heels, the sun

74 OEONO CENTENNIAL.

is rising in the west, and the day of judgment is come ! "

There were Spencers of still another family, some of whose descendants are in the town or vicin- ity, but I am not aware that there are any of the family of little Thaniel now living in your neighbor- hood.

Ard Godfrey came from Taunton, Mass., in 1798, and settled on the farm on the Stillwater road near- est to the Oldtown line. He was a millwright, whose labor was in great demand, and who, when he desired to retire from his trade, handed it down to his sons, John and Ard, jr., and his son-in-law, Temple Emery. For many years he was Town Treasurer, lie was respected for his pure and honest life, and thoroughly liked for his quiet and genial humor. He once shocked a good woman by making her believe that Col. Wrebster had stolen somebody's farm and hidden it in Capt. Wyman's cellar. Of his numerous family not one is living in this town. Rev. Alfred C. God- frey, an esteemed minister of the Methodist church, is his son. lie died in 1813. His wife, whose maiden

OROXO CENTENNIAL. 75

name was Catherine Gaubert, and who was a niece of Capt. David Read, died in 1854. They had thir- teen children. Mr. Godfrey was elected constable and collector at the first town meeting in 1800 ; and the April meeting in 1807 was held at his house.

The first mill at St. Anthony's Falls, Minn., was built by his son, Arcl Godfrey, jr., who is now a resi- dent of Minneapolis.

George Ring, senior, moved to Orono in 1800, and occupied the house built by Joshua Eayres, upon the removal of the latter to Passadumkeag. His son, George, who is now living in this town, says that when his father came here there were twelve houses in town which he remembers— two were on the hill where Abram Colburn lives ; one, called the Griffin house, where Elijah Wyman's house is ; one on the Freese farm ; one, occupied by Mr. Read, near Mrs. Wm. Rollins' ; one, occupied by Win. Duggans, this side of the "Mac Brook;" one, by James McPhctres, on the other side of the brook ; one, by Joseph ln- man; one, by Capt. David Read, on Marsh Point; one on Marsh hill ; one, by Antoine Lachance.

^ OROXO CEXTEXA'IAL.

But there must have been other houses at that time in town, among them those of Andrew Webster, Archibald McPhetres, Samuel White, Capt. Tourtel- lotle, and others. Mr. Ring, the elder, was born in Georgetown, Me., in 1759, married Margaret Foster, who was born in Bath, 1763, and died in 1813, having survived her husband one year. George, the younger, born March 2, 1795, married Polly Lancaster, June 29, 1820.

For some twenty years previous to 1806, the peo- ple lived under an organization called Stillwater Plantation.

It is said in Williamson's Annals of Bangor, of which a manuscript copy is among the collections of the Maine Historical Society, and which seems to have been examined by Judge Godfrey, that this "place was first called < Headwater;' but one Owen Madden, a discharged soldier from Burgoyne's army, who had been stationed at Stillwater, N. Y., changed the name from dead to still, as a better sound, lie was a school-master in Bangor and Orono. He was at times accustomed to drink intoxicating liquors to

OBONO CENTENNIAL. 77

excess, hut he was well educated, and possessed a good disposition."

The name was certainly an appropriate one, more particularly when applied to this village, as it soon came to be, to distinguish it from the village of Old- town. Since the division of the town in 1840, the name of the town has been sufficiently descriptive of the village — but the latter is sometimes called Lower Stillwater to distinguish it from the village, two miles up the river, known as Upper Stillwater.

1806—1820.

On the 12th of March, 1806, the plantation was made a town by an act of the Legislature of Massa- chusetts, entitled "An Act to incorporate the Planta- tion heretofore called Stillwater, in the County of Hancock, into a Town by the name of Orono?

Williamson, referring, about 1830, in his History of Maine, to the event, says: "It is the 162d town in the State of Maine : taking its name from a dis- tinguished chief of the Tarratine tribe, whose friend- ship to the cause of American liberties gave him an elevated place in the public estimation. 'It is an

OROKO CENTENNIAL.

excellent township of land-embracing Marsh Island, also Indian " Oldiown," the village of the Tarratine

natives It is peculiar for its mill-sites and water

privileges, which are extensively improved."

No census of the town had been taken previous to its incorporation, but it is supposed that its popu- lation at that time was not far from three hundred. The first meeting for choice of officers after the town was incorporated was called by Richard Window, Justice of the Pence, by a warrant dated March 27. 1806, directed to Andrew Webster, as constable. It was held at the dwelling-house of Capt. David Read April 7, 1800. At this meeting Aaron Bliss was' elected Town Clerk ; Richard Window, Moses Averill. and John Read, Selectmen ; Andrew Webster, Treas- urer; and Ard Godfrey, Constable and Collector. Mr. Winslow resided at Oldtown, Mr. Averill at Upper Stillwater, Messrs. Read, Webster, and Godfrey in the part of the town that is now Orono.

Allen Bliss, John Rend, William Colburn, and Ebenezer Webster were chosen hog-reeves, fence- viewers, and field-drivers. Seventy-five dollars were raised by the inhabitants to pay town charges j one

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 70

thousand dollars for highways, but nothing for schools. However, they voted to build three pounds, and fence the cemetery. Having made these provisions to prevent the straying of cattle and the dead, they seem to have thought it reasonable to let the children run at large.

State officers were voted for on this day, and James Sullivan, the Republican candidate for Gov- ernor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, received forty votes, to five for Caleb Strong, the candidate of the Federalists.

At the third meeting held in the town — Nov. o, 1806, at the dwelling-house of Andrew Webster — it was voted to petition the Court of Common Pleas to send a committee to lay out a road from Bangor to Mr. John Marsh's house — also, to pay Mr. Bennoch's bill of $5.62 for powder consumed at the general muster.

At the fourth meeting — April G, 1807, at the house of Mr. Ard Godfrey — on the question whether the District of Maine should be separated from Massa- chusetts, there were thirty-seven votes for, and one against, separation.

OJiONO CENTENNIAL.

This year of new departure was signalized by an accession to the material and social forces of the town, the influence of which upon its development,, and on the habits and manners of the people, is felt to the present time. It was in August, 1S0G, that the late John Bennoch came, with his family, to this town, with the purpose of making it his permanent residence.

Mr. Bennoch was born in the parish of Durrisdeer, in the shire of Dumfries, in Scotland, on the 24th of November, 1769. His father, Archibald Bennoch, occupied at the time when John was born, a farm called Wierhead, on the estate of Lord Ellioch. Not long afterwards lie kept a small shop in company with David Kennedy, where they bought woolen yarn, at that time spun in the country, and sent it to Kilmarnock, where they sold it to the carpet man- ufacturers. His father, when John was eight years old, took a farm of Lord Ellioch, called Nether Glen- gary, in the parish of Sanquhar, but in two years thereafter he died, leaving a widow, five children, and a considerable estate. The trade in yarn was continued by the widow, with the assistance of her

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 81

son, John ; but soon misfortunes came upon the fam- ily. The war with America had clone much to injure their trade, and the failure of the firm with which they did business, reduced Mrs. Bennoch from com- petency to comparative poverty. After this, young Bennoch engaged in the manufacture of carpets, but not succeeding as well as he expected in this business, he came to America, arriving in Boston July 14, 1793. Having become acquainted, through the old house of Saxon & Wainwright, with the crockery ware trade, he established himself in that line, and for several years transacted a large and profitable busi- ness, which from 170S to 1804 was conducted by the firm of Bennoch & Bedford, during which time Mr. Bennoch resided in Liverpool, where he had the charge of the purchases of the firm.

From an autobiographical sketch written in 1838, I have made an extract which I think you will be glad to hear read, on account of the facts which it contains, and from your interest in the writer.

Says Mr. Bennoch, " When I came to Orono I went

into a very small house on the southerly end of

Marsh Island, where Mr. Harrison (James Harrison, 6

82 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

of Charlestown, Mass.) and I had bought eighty-four acres of land with a double saw-mill, on the point of the island on the Stillwater branch of the Penobscot river; there were then but a very few houses in Orono, and, indeed, not more than ten on both sides of the Kenduskeag stream, where the dense part of the city of Bangor is now built, and the roads were such that it was difficult to go from Bangor to Old- town (in Orono), even on horse-back. In about -eleven months after I came to Orono I lost a fine boy of between three and four years of age, and in about four months more lost my dear wife by con- sumption, and was left with three children. . . .

"The object in coming to the eastward was to keep a store and have a saw-mill to saw the logs we might get" (Mr. Harrison was a partner) a in pay- ment for goods, and ship to Boston, the West Indies. &c. But, soon after, the war between England and France drew the United States gradually into the vortex, bringing about non-intercourse, embargo, and, at last, war with England. This made the price of lumber very low, and, although I sold a good many goods, they were all sold on credit, and those who

ORONO CENTENNIAL. g3

bought them depending on the lumber they cut and brought down the Penobscot to pay for them, could not pay, so that before the peace I lost a good many thousand dollars by bad debts.

"On the 26th of March, 1609, I married Miss Lu- cretia Holland. She was about twenty years younger than I; but she made me a most kind and affection- ate wife, and as good a step-mother to my first wife's children as it was possible they could have, and they loved her as well as they could have loved their own mother. My second wife was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, and was a daughter of Park Holland. Esquire, an officer in the Revolutionary war, and for a number of years employed by the Commonwealth in the care of Eastern lands before the separation of Maine from Massachusetts.

u In September, 1827, I was chosen a member of the State Legislature for the class composed of Ban- gor, Orono, Button (now Glenburn), and Sunkhaze (now Milford). And here 1 cannot omit a circum- stance which had a great influence on my future life, and which will also show how much good a wife can do when her Influence is properly directed.

84 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

" Drinking ardent spirits had been, prior to this time, very common, or even fashionable, with all classes of society.

"My wife, I knew, was much opposed to all spirit- drinking, although she scarcely ever said any- thing to me about it, and what little she said was in very gentle hints. And, although not a drunkard, I was still convinced that I took more than I ought, and felt the habit creeping on gradually, and that its force had gained such ascendency that the leaving it was a more difficult matter than I thought for.

" About the time I started for Portland I found myself very short of money, and told Mrs. B. that I did not know that I could get enough to go there, to which she made some common-place reply. There being no stage at this time that run from Orono to Bangor, I had to go down the night before, so as to take the stage in the morning. In the evening I had occasion to open my pocket book, and was sur- prised to find in it twenty dollnrs, with a billet from my wife, saying that she had been saving this a little at a time, and as I had been complaining that I was short of money she thought that it might be of as

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 85

much service to me now as at any other time. So she had enclosed it and taken this opportunity to say that if I would reform in one tiling, and what that was my own good sense would tell me, she should be the happiest woman in the world.

" I still kept taking a little where the stage stopped, and at Brunswick I took a glass of brandy and water, when I said to myself, 'I will not take another glass of spirits till I return home.' This was in December, 1827, and was the last that has gone into my mouth to this time— 1st July, 183S. . .

"After my return home the Rev. Mr. Edwards (1 think it was himj delivered a lecture upon Temper- ance, when I signed the pledge, and was President of the Society in Orono for several years.

"I lived happily with my wife till the 28th of August, 1832, when she was removed to a better world, after upwards of a year of the greatest suffer- ing."

Here the sketch ends. When I came to Orono at the close of the year 1834, Mr. Bennoch was a prom- inent and leading citizen, active in every good work,

00 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

whether it looked to the outward growth and progress of the village, to its educational facilities, or to its moral improvement. He was, and for many years had been, and for several years continued to be, a magistrate, and the postmaster of the town. He was an uncle of Francis Bennoch, of London, merchant, alderman, and poet, an intimate and esteemed friend of our great American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom Mr. Hawthorne's Memoirs were dedicated. Francis Bennoch visited his relatives in Orono some twenty-five years ago.

By his second wife Mr. Bennoch had a large family of children, all of whom, excepting Agnes, the youngest daughter, widow of the late E. Thomas Lobdell, Esq., of Hartford, Conn., as all but one by his first wife, — Josiah S., a resident of this town, and for several years a County Commissioner, and a Trial Justice, have passed away.

From what was told me by everybody, when I came to Orono, about Mrs. Bennoch, she must have been a most intelligent and cultivated lady, whose kindly nature, affable manners, and lively interest in

ORONO CENTENNIAL, 87

the happiness of others, assisted in making their home attractive to all of kindred tastes, and the seat of a generous and graceful hospitality.

Not long after Mr.Bennoch established his residence in Orono, he built the large house on the island which is still standing, and is known to the present day as the "old Bennoch house," where he laid out and maintained for many years what was probably the finest garden at the time in the county. Subsequently he sold this place, and, in 1823, moved to the house on this side of the river, now standing opposite the engine house, and where he died January 7, 1842. .

After the death of his second wife he was twice married ; his last wife, widow of the Hon. Reuben Bartlett, of Garland, survived him. A daughter, Lucretia Holland, who, it was said, greatly resembled -4*e-r mother in person and character, married the Hon. Joseph Cutting.

Mr. Bennoch's residence here attracted quite a number of his countrymen to this town, among whom I remember Dr. Daniel McRuer, the distinguished physician, recently deceased at Bangor — the brother- in-law of the latter, Peter Mclntyre, who had a store

88 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

near the foot of Mill street— William Irving and James McNerrin, fanners in the north part of the town— Charles Thompson Haley, who projected and built the aqueduct by which a part of the vilhige was supplied with water from Colburn's ridge — Thomas McMillan, the capable stone and brick mason and genial man — John Dean, who for many years had charge of the Stillwater canal— John McDonald, the surveyor— and Daniel Fox, the millwright Although he was not himself a native of Scotland, his father having come to this country before his birth, and although I have no reason for supposing that he was attracted to Orono by Mr. Bennoch, 1 am not willing to pass from this notice of Scotchmen without some allusion to a long-time resident, whose slight and agile form will rise before many of you as I mention the name of Moses Crombie.

Major Crombie, who was born in Londonderry, N. H., October 9, 1764, moved from Bath, Me., to Orono, in 1829. His wife was Julia F. Morse, of Phippsburg, Maj. Crombie died July 17, 1851. He was a well-

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 89

read and intelligent man, of decided opinions. The older members of the Penobscot bar have not forgot- ten his rape of the Revised Statutes while serving as foreman of the Grand Jury in the old Court of Com- mon Pleas at Bangor — an audacious act, that quite dumfoundered the presiding Judge, who, in response to the indignant protest of the State's Attorney, could only find breath and words to say, in a tone of mingled amazement and despair, as the Major, bow- ing his head and cocking his eye, passed from the court-room— f'ffe's gone ! " The dismay of the attor- ney, the despair of the Judge, and the archness of the Major, as described by an eminent member of the bar, afterwards, on different occasions, an hon- ored and beloved Chief Magistrate of the State, and, still later, for many years, an eminent Judge of its highest Court, who, as Thomas Hood said of Allan Cunningham, would "rise to a joke like a trout to a fly" — for his commanding talents and his unfeigned love of whatsoever was pure, and good, and true, were accompanied by a genial and most excellent humor — formed a picture which his brethren of the

^ ORONO CENTENNIAL.

bar were wont to enjoy with a glee that was in no sense "counterfeited;

nlP I EoWAf KEyT-TIli3 reference to Judge Kent revives old and pliant memories, and I am tempted to record some of then, in this note. >v hat a Bar the county of Penobscot could boast thirty or forty years ago! Some of its members are still in practice in the county; there are upon the bench of o«r highest court those referred to in the address, and the learned and accomplished Chief Justice Appleton, who, happier than Lord Brough- am, knows everything, including law. Of the older lawyers, who were about ready to retire from the courts when I came to this county, and who have sm< o passed away, I may venture to recall some impressions I re- member the manly form and pleasant features of Jacob McGaw the early fnend and correspondent of Daniel Webster, by whom he was visited in his Bangor home seventy years ago, a lawyer of the old school, patient faith- ful, persevering, strong: Allen Oilman, the first Mayor of Bangor, a man of smaller frame than McGaw, but of not less intellectual power; keen dear, incisive, and indomitable-if sharp of tongue on occasion, warm and generous in heart: William D. Williamson, lawyer, historian, and politi- cian—like the triune bear he has immortalized, three varieties in one char- acter: William Abbot, tall and angular in body, but of well-proportioned and symmetrical mind, and of incorrigible honesty: John Godfrey sensible diligent, and of unspotted integrity : Peleg Chandler, in immeose'top-boote and with cane in hand, the most noticeable form that walked the Bangor streets for many a year; his florid eloquence was especially dangerous**) defendents in actions for breach of promise to marry, and against towns for damages by reason of defective highways: while among those who were then in the bloom and strength of their years, but have since followed their seniors to the silent land, were Jonathan P. Rogers, whose mental endowments were perhaps never surpassed by those of any son of Maine; the master of principles and the consummate advocate, he was a born law- yer; with but slight aid from early education, no man that I ever heard speak possessed a style so close, so strong, and so pure; his addresses, whether to courtor jury, might be set in type w ithout the change of a single word: George B. Moody, who was ;t careful and well-educated lawyer, and no "prentice hand" at writing political-conventiou resolutions, and a'truo gentleman withal, did not possess the seuse ..i" humor that shone so brightly in his brother in the profession— Thornton McGaw, a gentleman whose memory is a benediction, in whom strong and saving common sense, cult- ure, and exquisite humor were so admirably mixed that one could only see that while all these qualities v. ere present in force, no one was crowded by the others: and there was another whom I cannot forget, whom it was al- ways good to see, and is now pleasant and profitable to remember, for his

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 91

From the incorporation of the town to 1820, its growth was slow and feeble. The population in the latter year was but four hundred and fifteen— only sixty-four more than it had been ten years before. While the population of the towns on the Kennebec and Androscoggin, and even of some in the western portion of this county, had largely increased, and while the best kind of farmers and mechanics were rapidly filling them, emigration came slowly down this way. There ^vas little to attract it. There was some cutting, hauling, and sawing of logs, considera- ble shingle-weaving, and for the rest hunting and fishing, during these slow and unprofitable years.

delightful companionship and his genuine manliness— Elijah Livermore Hamlin. But these brief reminiscences must not be left without some mention of the Judge in whose court these gentlemen of the green bag were wont to right their battles and crack their jokes, the Hon. David Perham, an industrious man of considerable reading and general information, slow of speech and impervious to humor; not free, perhaps, from the influence of prejudice, but thoroughly honest. The anecdotes and Stories connected with the Court of Common Pleas during the quarter of a century or more that Judge Perham was upon its bench, are innumerable. One in which the legal wag of Old town figured, is remembered as these lines are written. The "general issue" having been pleaded in an action pending in the Court, the plaintiff's counsel, who was no other than our Oldtowu friend, demurred to the plea. "On what ground? " inquired the Judge. "Du- plicity, your Honor," answered the counsel— a response which provoked an ejaculation from the lawyer on the other side, and an audible smile from tho gentlemen within the bar. " And may it please the Court," continued the counsel, " 1 beg to say that in this thing I am entirely serious;" to which the Judge—" R, r. Mr. SewaU, that will not do in this Court."

y^ ORONO CENTEX yiAL.

One thing that affected this section of the State un- favorably, and from which, owing to the size and ex- cellent navigation of its noble river, it suffered more than any other, was the war of 1812. The occupa- tion of Castine by the British, the consequent block- ade of business on the river above, and the constant danger of irruptions by the enemy, had a most dis- astrous effect upon the fortunes of this and neighbor- ing towns.

The British at one time, it will be remembered, were at Hampden and Bangor. At the former place there was a battle, in which Orono was represented by a company of militia, under the command of Capt. (afterwards Col.) Ebenezer Webster. It is said to have been the last company to leave the field, and that it received the order to do so with intense disgust.

During all this period the Stillwater river was crossed by a ferry, and it was not till several years later that a bridge was built over it. The roads were few and rough. The schools were of the most prim- itive kind, and religious meetings were held in school- rooms and dwelling-houses — chiefly by the Metho-

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 93

dists. There was neither lawyer nor doctor living in the town in all this time. The first school-house was built in 1815, and was near where the late Mr. Sam- uel White lived on Pleasant street. It was after- wards burnt. In 1810 the number of polls in town was one hundred — the valuation of estates was §24.- 690.30. In Bangor, the same year, the polls were 2G7, and the estates §132,998.50.

The first tavern in town was kept by Perez Graves, and was opened in 1812, in the house afterwards owned by Mr. Bennoch. The stone mill — now owned by Col. Eben Webster, jr., was rebuilt in 1817. A mill known as the Greeley mill, was built by John Gordon as early as 1804 or 5. It was not far from the site of the Union mills.

Jackson Davis was a delegate from this town to the Convention, held at Portland in 1819, to form a Constitution for the new State of Maine. He lived at Oldtown.

1S20— 1S30.

During this time better progress was made than had been at any earlier period. The census of the

OHOXO CEXTKXXIAL.

latter year gave a population of 1473-an encourag- ing increase. The town had certainly taken a new start. Good farms, here and there, were beginning to appear; new roads were opened, and old ones made better. The immediate neighborhood was rap- «Hy recovering from the effects of the war. Mr. White and others extended their lumbering opera- tions. New stores were opened. Cony Foster, from Augusta, strengthened by the capital of his father- in-law, Benjamin Brown, of Vassalboro', built a large store on Main street, and a handsome residence, in which, after a lapse of nearly half a ce„tury. he is now, at a ripe old age, living-] wish l coM gay jn the enjoyment of good health.

Asa YV. Babcock, also from Augusta, a brother- in-law of Mr. Foster, settled here in the same year; and the results of his enterprise, and of the capital which he controlled, were soon felt in the business of the town. Large saw-mills were erected on the Babcock and Benuoch dams. For a term of ten years, and until he was disabled by physical in- firmity, Mr. Babcock was more extensively engaged in the lumbering trade, and especially in its manu-

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 95

fact lire, than any other man in the town, and was scarcely rivalled in the county or State. He died in Bangor, 1872. lie built, and occupied for many years, the house on Main street, now owned and oc- cupied by James Webster, Esq.

Col. Ebenezer Webster built, in 1827, the large house on the island (lately remodeled and improved), in which he resided so long, where his son, Paul D. Webster, now lives. In the same year William and Jeremiah Colburn erected the commodious residence which was for so long a period their home.

In 1824 John Read built the tavern house on Main street, afterwards called the Stillwater Exchange. He was the first landlord. in the house, and was succeed- ed, in 1830, by John R. Greenough, who was followed, in 1833, by the late Thomas Whitney, a native of Lisbon, Me. Mr. Whitney owned the property, and was the keeper of the hotel for many years, lie died in Orono, June 5, 1858.

On the 13th of February, 1S2G, John Bennoch, of Orono, and Thomas A. Hill and Mark Trafton, of Bangor, were authorized by the Legislature to erect a bridge over the Stillwater branch of the Penobscot

yD OR 0X0 CENTENNIAL.

river. The bridge was built in that year. It was an uncovered structure, and was carried away by the ice April I, 1831, but was replaced the same year by the bridge that is now standing. Your fellow-citizen, Edward R. Southard, the well-known millwright, had the charge of the construction of the last-named bridge.

The Stillwater Canal Co. was chartered July 6, 1828. It was intended for the passage of rafts from Upper Stillwater, and above, to the Penobscot river below Ayres' Falls. It was not opened for the whole distance until 1835, though a part of it had been previously used. Ludo Thayer, of Portland, was one of the contractors, and moved to this town about 1832, and built the brick house now owned by John W. Mayo, Esq.

In 1826 Jonas Cutting, attorney at law, opened an office in the village. He was a native of Croydon, New Hampshire, and a graduate of Dartmouth Col- lege, where he had Rufus Choate for a tutor. Mr. Cutting was a careful and thorough lawyer, who, to the patience of detail, added a firm and intelligent grasp of principles, lie remained here five or six

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 97

years, and then removed to Bangor, where he took high rank in his profession, and became, in 1854, a Judge of the Supreme Judicial Court, a position which he now occupies.

Jeremiah Perley, author of the "Maine Justice." and other legal manuals, practiced law in this town for several years. He was a well-read attorney and a good citizen, but was destitute of some of those ele- ments of the successful lawyer which were destined to make his neighbor, Mr. Cutting, one of the fore- most counsellors in the State.

The first physician in town of whom I have re- ceived any information was Dr. Daniel J. Perley, who afterwards practiced in Oldtown. The next was Dr.

Stevens, who came from China, Kennebec Co.

He was here before 182G, but in a year or two died of consumption. There was in town, for a year or more, Dr. Varney Farnham, who came from Alfred, in the county of York.

New school-houses arose in different parts of the town. Religious interests were more attended to than they had been at any earlier date. Meetings were regularly held by the Methodists, who had be-

98 ORONO CENTEX X I AL.

come a pretty strong and well-compacted society, and by whom a Quarterly meeting was held in 1829, at the house of Mrs. Daniel Jameson. The Congre- gationalists were moving towards organization and consolidation, and had occasional preaching in school- houses and dwelling-houses by Rev. John Sawyer (who Jived to the great age of 104 years), and others.

Por this term Orono was classed with Bangor, Button (now Glenbum), and Sunkhaze (now Milford), for a Representative to the Legislature, and furnished the member for KS24 in the person of Col. Ebenezer Webster, and for 1S2S in that of John Rennoeh, Esq.

The most interesting and perhaps most important decade in the history of the town, was that to which I am now approaching, and which extended from

1830 to mo.

It was during this period that the great Land Speculation occurred. It commenced in 1S32-3, de- clined in 1834, rose again and culminated in 1835, and burst in 183G. The growth of Orono at this time was fabulous, the population, which, in 1830, was less than fifteen hundred, rose, according to a

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 99

census taken by the Selectmen in the spring of 1836, to about six thousand, of whom nearly nineteen hun- dred were in this village. Bonds, conditioned for the conveyance of timber lands, of lots in Bangor, and in the villages in Orono, were in great demand, for which liberal, and sometimes very large, bonuses were paid. Retired capitalists, merchants, manufac- turers, old sea captains, and others, from abroad, had heard of the vast wealth of the Penobscot forests, of the countless millions of timber they contained, and of its marvellous quality. To own the bond of a township was to have an independent fortune, but to possess the title was u wealth beyond the dreams of avarice." This village, of course, had its speculators and bond-brokers, but they flourished better in Oldtown. The fortunes secured daily by trans- actions of this kind in that enterprising village passed any marvels that we read of in the Arabian Nights Entertainments. About that time wolf skins lor sleigh robes came in fashion in this vicinity, and a man's fortune, or the number of bonds he held, was ordinarily gauged by the number and length of the wolves' tails that hung over the back of his sleigh.

100 OBONO CKXIEXXIAL.

Stillwater, as this village was then called, did well in this line, Bangor better, but Oldtown beat the world. When the fever was at its highest, one of her promi- nent citizens and speculators visited New York, put- ting up, of course, at the Astor House, then the great hotel of the country. On presentation to him, when he "was about to leave, of his hotel bill, which was $80, he passed to the cashier a hundred dollar note, and when the latter tendered back the excess, he was promptly informed that they did not "take change down east."

Of course, when the woods above contained such vast and exhaustless wealth, the points below, where the lumber would be manufactured and shipped, as- sumed great importance. Lots in this village rose to city prices, and the man who did not own or had not given a bond of village property was of very little account. Robert M. N. Smyth, otherwise called "The Roarer," a noted speculator, had formed a joint stock company, with Massachusetts capitalists as trustees and stock-holders, and purchased Eayres' Island and several hundred acres of land, embracing, with the exception of a few lots, all the territory east

OROXO CENTENNIAL. 101

of Main street, from Pine street to the farm of Stephen Page, as well as the Union Mills and the power at Eayres' Falls. The company, which was styled The Bangor Lower Stillwater Mill Company, sur- veyed this large tract and laid it out in city plots —house lots, store lots, factory lots, water lots, etc. ; and having reserved the best of them to itself, offered the rest at a public auction, held under an immense tent on Broadway, in June, 183G The sale was advertised in New York, Boston, Prov- idence, Portland, and Bangor, and many people from far and near came to attend it. It was a beautiful day, and while the auctioneer was knocking down lots (50 feet by 100) in Mr. Colbum's field, at from $500 to §1000 each, the caterer, imported from New York, was still more busy in passing out crack- ers, cheese, and other appetizing edibles, to the at- tendant multitude, and pouring champagne from the original bottles into huge wash tubs, from which each man helped himself at his own sweet will. These were the flush days of Orono. There were twentv- fiye retail shops in the village in ISoC. Thomas Whitney was proprietor of the old tavern ; James

102 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

Lord, successor of Aaron Holbrook, was landlord of the Stillwater Hotel, kept in the present Bank build- ing. He was, as one of his guests told him on a convivial occasion, a * very good landlord, but a con- founded homely man." He furnished the dinner on the occasion of the memorable celebration of the Fourth of July, 1S3C. Advardis Shaw was, about that time, keeping tavern in an old,, two-story, low, long, raking house on the south side of Mill street, near the foot. If those old walls could be restored and find a tongue, what '-'unco" tales they could tell! They might, perhaps, if in garrulous mood, rehearse the story of that midnight session, at which was taken down in clerkly hand the fatal testimony that led to the removal from office of a high official, whose too special attention to one of the witnesses sum- moned in the great conspiracy case of Rines, Bur- lingham, and others, brought to him grief and sbame, and loss of office.

The Stillwater Canal Bank was incorporated March 21, 1835. The corporation was organized and com- menced business in the summer or early fall of that year. Albert G. Brown was President, and E. P.

OliONO CENTENNIAL. 103

Butler, Cashier. It did but little business after 1837. Nathaniel Treat succeeded Mr. Brown as President. The Bank was wound up in 1841 or 1842 ; all its original issues were, if I remember correctly, re- deemed. The Stillwater Canal, incorporated in 1828, was opened for business in 1835.

The Bangor and Oldtown Railroad, for which a charter had been obtained March 8, 1832, was organ- ganized in 1835; and before a blow was struck, its stock was sold at a premium of ten per cent. Rufus Dwinel, Ira Wadleigh, and Asa W. Babcock, were its chief promoters. Work was commenced in June, and prosecuted for a few months, when, owing to a defect in the act of incorporation, through which land-owners were able to bring suits against every man who worked on the track, the road was aban- doned. Meanwhile, the charter of the Bangor and Piscataquis Canal and Railroad Company, incorporat- ed February 8, 1833, under which the corporators originally intended to build a line of canal and rail- road from Bangor to the slate quarries of Piscataquis county, was bought up by Edward and Samuel Smith

1U4 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

and, under it, the old railroad from Bangor via Upper Stillwater to Oldtown was built in the years 1835 and 1836, and opened in the latter year.

A charter for a Railroad from Bucksportto Milford, with a branch to Orono, was obtained in 1836. It was called the Penobscot River Railroad." Several meetings were held here and at Oldtown village in the autumn of 1836, to promote its construction. Books for stock subscriptions were opened, and sub- scriptions to the amount of thirty or forty thousand dollars were made in this town ; but, owing to the monetary stringency that commenced about that time, and perhaps other causes not now remembered, the scheme fell through. Col. Webster and Mr. Ben- noch were subscribers for stock to the amount of $5,000 each.

A village corporation, for school and police pur- poses, and protection against fire, authorized by Leg- islative act February 16, 1837, was organized and kept in operation till the division of the town, when, being no longer necessary, as this part of the town, after the separation, was represented and controlled

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 105

by the village, it was allowed to go down. The vil- lage has at all times since the separation contained more than four-fifths of the population of the town.

A joint stock organization, called the Stillwater Iron Foundry, was formed in 1835 or 1S3G, and built a foundry below the old Sleeper tavern, and not far from the Hammatt Mills. A Mr. Haley was the first manager, and was succeeded by Win. G. Bent. A charter was obtained for the company March 21, 1838. In consequence of losses incurred by the failure of parties for whom it had done work, the company was compelled to wind up its affairs, after going on for two or three years.

In the fall of 1837 there were changes in the Bangor Lower Stillwater Mill Co., and its property passed into the hands of a new company formed in New York, called the North American Lumber Co., of which the eminent Judge, Thomas J. Oakley, and the Hon. Stephen A. Ilalsey, were trustees. The Hon. Francis Baylies, of Taunton, Mass., was here for several weeks as legal adviser while the settlement and transfer were being effected; and when once they were accomplished, Moses Isaacs, an Englishman

1U0 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

from New York, perhaps the most accomplished ac- countant in America, was brought here and placed in charge as general agent.

But the fates were against the company, the times were hard, money scarce, and lumber dull of sale— and no trustees, however honorable, or agents, how- ever able, could avert the inevitable doom.

After the revolution and collapse of 1836-7, the population began to shrink, stores were wound up, goods attached and sold at auction, and a general prostration of business supervened. The lumber trade left those who were bold enough to engage in it to estimate their losses, rather than count their gains. In 1837 a " drive " of as fine logs as ever float- ed from the Baskahegan brought to the operators less than enough to pay the bills for manufacturing and running from the mills to Bangor. Money, during a part of the time between 1837 and 1840, was scarcer than it had ever been before or has been since; and to add to the inconvenience, and even suffering, ex- perienced by the people, provisions, and especially bread-stuffs, were scarce, and ruled at prices dear be- yond precedent. Indignation meetings, to protest

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 107

against the high price of flour, were held in Bangor. I cannot, even at this distance, look back upon these cruel years without extreme pain.

But, one good thing to Orono came out of this severe and protracted depression. While the people had little to do, Asa W. Babcock, Esq., and Capt. Samuel Moore, worked up a movement for a free bridge, and pushed it with such earnestness and en- thusiasm that the bridge was erected and made ready for travel in a few months. It extended from near the old foundry site on this side of the river to a point on the island not far from the terminus of the present railroad bridge. It was a great accommoda- tion to the people while it stood. It must be some twenty years since it fell.

The causes of education and religion were cared for more than they had ever been before. Previous to 1834 a brick school-house was built on the island, and a large wooden one was erected near Josiah S. Bennoch's, the same now standing on Main street, near the Universalist church.

The Methodist church, raised August 22, 1833, was built by David Balkan], and was dedicated in June,

108 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

1834. The Methodists had regular and constant preaching during this decade. Revs. Greenleaf Grecly and Caleb Fuller were among the preachers stationed here.

The Conorccrationalist church — Hugh Read and Israel Brown, builders — was erected in 1S33, and dedicated in the spring of 1834. The Rev. Josiah Fisher was the first settled minister of this church and society. lie was here as early as 1833, and con- tinued till 1835. After him the Rev. Wooster Park- er, now of Belfast, was the pastor. He came in 1836, and remained about two years. Bancroft ( Williams and John Perry, Esq., were the first deacons of the church. Dea. Williams moved here from Au- gusta, and Dea. Perry from Brunswick. The Univer- salists had preaching but occasionally during this period, and had no organization.

Prior to 1834 the lawyers in this village besides Messrs. Cutting and Perlcy, before mentioned, were John II. Ililliard, who came from Oldtown when Mr. Cutting left, and remained till December, 1833, Fred- erick A. Fuller, of Augusta, who resided in the town until about 1844, and then returned to Augusta after

ORONO CENTENNIAL, 109 a brief residence in Bradford, and Thomas J. Good- win, of Saco, who in a few months went to Passa- dumkeag.

Nathaniel Wilson, of New Hampshire, a graduate of Dartmouth College, and who had read law with Hon. George Evans, of Gardiner, commenced practice in this town January 12, 1834, and has remain- ed here in the practice of his profession to the present time. On the 12th of December of the same year, Israel Washburn, jr., a native of Liver- more, in this State, opened an office in this village for the practice of law. Henry E. Prentiss followed in the autumn of 183G, becoming a partner with Mr. Washburn — an association which continued two and a half years, when Mr. Prentiss moved to Bangor, where he accumulated a large fortune, and enjoyed in liberal measure the confidence and respect of the people, by whom he was elected Mayor of the city, and on several occasions one of its Representatives to the Legislature. He died in Bangor, very sud- denly, in June, 1873. Aaron Woodman and Samuel Belcher were here and in partnership as attorneys and counsellors at law in 183G-7. Nathan Weston,

»

11 V ORONO CENTENNIAL,

jr., of Augusta, eldest sou of the late Chief Justice Weston, came to Orono in 1S37, and was for a season a partner of Mr. Wilson's. Maj. Weston was a pay- master in the army during the Mexican war, and was with Gen. Taylor at the battle of Buena Vista. Some time after his return to Orono he was elected Clerk of the Courts, and in a year or two moved to Bangor. His present residence is Newton, Mass. Thomas J. Copeland, from Dexter, was for two or three years, towards the end of this decade, a partner with Fred- erick A. Fuller.

Dr. Daniel McRucr, a native of Scotland, who re- ceived his professional education in Edinburgh, estab- lished himself as a physician in this town in 1S30 : but in a few years he sought the broader field opened to him in the near and flourishing city of Bangor, where he remained in the possession of a large and successful practice until his death, a year or two ago. He was succeeded, during this decade, by Dr. Elihu Baxter, who had practiced in Gorham ; Dr. John Kicker, a native of Buckfield, but who had been in practice in Durham ; Dr. B. W. Wood, of Augusta, Dr. W. II. Allen, of Farmington, and Dr. Sumner

ORONO CENTENNIAL. Ill

Laughton. All of the foregoing, except Dr. McRuer. were in practice here in 1S35. Drs. Baxter, Ricker. and Allen have heen dead for several years. Dr. Wood resides in Honolulu, S. I, and Dr. Laughton in Bangor.

In 1835 the good people of Orono were shocked by the first murder that had ever been committed within its limits — that of Reuben McPhctres by Isaac Spencer. The crime was perpetrated at the house of James McPhetres, on the Bangor road, next below the "Mack brook." Spencer was tried and convicted within a few months.

From 1832 to 1841, inclusive, no other town was classed with Orono for Representative to the Legis- lature. Her Representatives were — 1832, Noah N;t- son ; 1833, Thomas Bartlett (Oldtown) ; 1834, Nathan- iel Treat; 1835, Samuel Cony (Oldtown); 183G and 1837, John Shaw; 1838, Ebenezer Webster ; 1839. Retire W. Frcese; 1810, Abiel W. Kennedy (Old- town); 1841, William RamsdelL

The mills on the island end of the Babcock dam were built in 1832, and were destroyed by fire in 1833, but were immediately rebuilt and extended.

H2 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

The Plammatt mills, Union block, Six-Saw block, adjoining the last named, the Perkins block, and Island block, and the first mills at the basin, were built between 1832 and 1S38, and most of them in 1834, 1835, and 1S3G.

The closing year of this decade will be remem- bered as that in which occurred the border troubles, known as the Aroostook war. From your proximity to the city of Bangor, where the expeditions were fitted out, and from which they moved, as well as from the fact that all the men and munitions passed through your village, and that it was on the line of the company of videttes (extending from Bangor to Masardis),— whose members, if they did not "witch M our eastern "world with noble horsemanship" afford- ed an exhibition at which it gazed, and wondered, and smiled, — the excitement in town during the con- tinuance of the "war" was, as will naturally be sup- posed, high-strung and unflagging.

Rumors of battles, of the approach of Mohawk Indians, and the bloody Blucnoses, were rife upon your streets, but yet were unable to stifle the sense of the ridiculous and quench the love of fun that

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 113 ruled the hour, breaking out now in disrespectful re- marks at the expense of the glorious company of videttes— and martyrs ; now in Otis Banks' offering a dollar for the head of Thomas Hill, a carpenter and Englishman, who was loyal to his native land ; and. again, in sending a crowd of anxious patriots and wonder-mongers from Whitney's bar-room to my office, to see Gen. Wool, and where they were soberly introduced, by the graceless wag who had sold them, to Artegus Lyon, the colored man. But the war ended, and a brace of your own poetasters celebrated the scare and flight in which it begun, in a parody on Hohenlinden, which, as it may serve to renew the events and haps of that stirring (but somewhat ridic- ulous) time, I will venture to present to you.

THE SCARE OF TITE RESTOOK.1 On Restook when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, Muffling the current, in its flow, Of Kestook, rolling rapidly.

But Rcstook saw another sight,

The Bakerebo'a8 on their flight,

And, following fast, with main and might,

The Posse,3 frightcn'd dreadfully.

•The Aroostook river la usually called M Restook" by the Provinciate. » A. company of Oldtown lumbermen commanded by Capt. Sto\ or Kiuea. * Posse Cmmitatua, from Penobscot county.

114

OBONO CENTENNIAL.

Then Jameson1 to old Ashbel2 said, u Come pile your carcass on my sled, Far better so than be abed With Cushman,3 in sweet reverie."

Then shook the ice so hard and even; Then rush'd the teams by Xumber 'Leven;4 And ere the clock had pointed seven, They left Masardis5 speedily.

But faster yet that band shall fly From Mohawk6 furies, drawing nigh, Blue-nose braves, with fire in the eye, And llcstook, rolling rapidly.

'Tis morn, but scarce a weary man Will stop to drink from jug or can: With tucker'd legs and faces wan, They push for the Cumberlassie.7

Now, Posse, all your blankets wave; You rush'd from glory and the grave; Your heels did well your bacon save, Your flint-locks and your toggery!

Few, few shall meet where many part! Of all that force no trembling heart Felt British shot or Savage dart, Or found a soldier's sepulchre.

» John G. Jameson, of Oldtown. 'Ashbel Ilathorn,of Bangor.

'Judge G. G. Cushman, legal adviser, who, while asleep with Thomas Bartlett, ai Fit?herbert'.«, near the New Brunswick line, was taken prisoner by the BJjMMBoees, and sent to Frederlcton.

♦ This is now the town of Dalton.

*The present town of Masardis — eleven rnilos trom Dalton.

*tba report was that the fugitives were pursued by live bundl ed Mohawk Indlto? and New Brunswickers, i x email river at Centre Lincoln.

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 115 1840—1850.

The first event of moment in this stage was the division of the town, and the erection of a new mu- nicipality by the name of Oldtown. After the rival villages of Stillwater and Oldtown had grown to im- portance in business and population, the inevitable jealousies and rivalries between communities situated as these were, broke out. They appeared especially at the town meetings in the spring, but were felt at all times.

The separation was amicably effected, and was in the interest of convenience, as well as of harmony and good neighborhood. The two divisions of the old town have been excellent friends ever since the causes of difference were removed.

The act of division and incorporation was passed March 16, 1840. At the census taken in the follow- ing June, the population of Orono was 1521, of Old- town, 2345 — or 38GG in both towns. In the division more than two-thirds of the territory was set off to Oldtown, leaving Orono one of the smallest towns in area in the State. The progress of Oldtown has been, as the enterprise and intelligence of its people

116 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

could not but make it, constant and gratifying. Its present population is between 4000 and 5000. By act of the Legislature of 1841, Orono and Glenburn were classed together for Representative, and Israel Washburn, jr., was elected in September, 1841, as Representative for 1842.

But the number of Representatives having been reduced by an amendment to the Constitution, a new apportionment became necessary in 1842, and under the latter, Orono, Bradley, Eddington, and Clifton were made a class or district for the residue of the decade. The Representatives elected from Orono during this period were, for 1843, Isaac Sanborn; 1845, iMartin McPhetres ; 1847, Asa W. Babcock ; 1849 and 1850, Nathan Weston, jr.

Soon after the Presidential election of 1840 com- menced a gradual but slow revival of business in the country. In this neighborhood it began to be felt, in 1843 and 1844, in increased demands for lumber, our great staple, and in a moderate appreciation of timber lands. The impulse, quickening from year to year, became an active, movement by 1847. The saw mills in this town were gradually coming into

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 117

the hands of residents, who, feeling a new interest in their work, labored with increased zeal and care to make their investments and labors profitable, and, in a large and most gratifying measure, they succeeded. The community, which for several years had been living under the burden of debt and discouragement, responded to the thrill of a new life. Debts were paid or compromised, mortgages discharged, and work and enterprises were engaged in, prudently, but with confidence. The business of the lawyers was well- nigh ruined, for, instead of seven or eight in the village, as there had been ten years before, there were now but four. But, while the lawyers decreas- ed the people increased ; so that when the time ap- proached for a new numbering, the population was well-nigh twice as large as it had been at the previ- ous census.

Under this renewal the people grew more and more impatient of their want of railroad facilities ; the more numerous and able they became the less did they enjoy the sound of the whistle on the "Back Road," and they considered whether or not it was possible to obtain for their trade and personal

118 ORONO CENTENNIAL,

convenience the accommodations which a railroad would furnish ; and so, in 1847, they petitioned the Legislature for a charter to build the Bangor & Orono Railroad. The charter was granted as asked for, August 7, of that year; but in a year or two it was amended, so as to permit a road to be built to Mil- ford, under the name of the Penobscot Railroad.

The movement encountered the active and per- sistent hostility of the back road, and, finding little support in Bangor, was unable for several years to do more than to keep alive and vigorous the purpose of the people to secure the building of the "shore road," as it was called, at the earliest moment practicable.

In February, 1843, an organization was effected for building a Universalist church, and on the 24th of the subsequent August u The First Universalist Society in Orono " was formed. An attempt in this direction, made by John Bennooh, P. A. Fuller, W. C. Fillebrown, Esqs., ('apt-*. Henry Sleeper, Ludo Thayer, and others, in 1830, was unsuccessful.

A church was built in 1843-4, and dedicated in August of the latter year; the Rev. L. P. Rand, who had been active in bringing the people up to the

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 119

work of organization and building, preached the ser- mon of dedication. Mr. Rand remained with the Society a year or two, but its first settled minister was the Rev. Henry C. Leonard, who came here in May, 1847. The Society has been since incorporated as u St. John's Parish."

The pastor of the Congregationalist church during a part of this decade was Rev. John A. Perry, son of Dea, John Perry. Mr. Perry's connection with his people here continued for several years. He was a faithful minister and good man, and was highly esteemed in the town, Mr. Perry has been dead for many years.

Rev. John 0. Fiske supplied the pulpit for a season about 1842. He afterwards settled in Bath. Rev. Messrs. Hoadley and Clapp were among the clergy- men who preached to this Society between 1847 and 1855. Among the Methodist ministers stationed here

were : Revs. Moses Springer, Charles Munger,

Iliggins, Curtis, and Charles Scammon.

The lawyers in town were Fred. A. Fuller, Nathan- iel Wilson, Israel Washburn, jr., and Nathan Weston, jr. The physicians were : Drs. John Richer and Wm.

1*jU orono centennial.

H. Allen. Dr. Niran Bates was in town for a few months.

1850 TO 1860.

Although the census returns disclosed a small de- crease of population in the ten years extending from 1850 to I860, the number of houses occupied in town and tlie unquestionable increase of business indicated an error in the numbering of the people at the one time or the other. The population in 1850 was 2785.

The Orono Bank was incorporated February 14, 1852, and was organized for business the next autumn. Nathan H. Allen was its first, and Benjamin P. Gilman its second President, and E. P. Butler its Cashier. It was succeeded by the Orono National Bank, of which Mr. Gilman was the first, and Col. Eben Webster is the present President.

The Penobscot Railroad, which had been organized in 1851, commenced work on its line in 1852. The town, under the authority of an act of the Legisla- ture, subscribed — in its corporate capacity — §25,000 to its capital stock, and something over §50,000 was subscribed by its citizens. By the death of the first

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 121

contractor, the Hon. Horatio C. Seymour, of New York, and by the failure of the second, the construc- tion of the road was delayed ; and it was not opened to Orono until 1868, when it had gone into the hands of the European & North American Railway Co. The stock in the road, including that of the town, was sunk—but the road itself was finally secured, and became part of the great trunk line from Bangor to St. John and Halifax. Without the stock sub- scriptions and the partial construction of the road therewith, there can be little doubt that what was known as the back road— the Bangor, Oldtown & Milford Railroad— would have been built from its line to the Red Bridge, and thence into Bangor. If this had been done, there would have been scarcely the hope of a road to this village during the century. So, I think, and especially since you have paid the railroad debt to the last dollar, that you may well regard that investment as the most fortunate the town ever made.

The High School house, a spacious and convenient structure, for the building of which the town was in a good measure prepared by two able and exhaustive

122 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

reports by the Rev. Mr. Leonard, as chairman of the School Committee, was erected in 1851, the building committee being Nathan H. Allen, Gideon Mayo, and Eben Webster, jr.

In the same year the Universalist church was en- larged, so as to receive sixteen additional pews, and a clock and bell were placed in its tower. A par- sonage was built the same year.

The Methodist church was renovated, and greatly beautified and improved, in 1859.

The clergymen of the several churches during this period, were, Congregationalist — Revs. L. J. Hoad- ley, Clapp, and S. L. Bowler.

Methodist — Revs. George Pratt, Charles Scam- man, A. Moore, S. W. Partridge, E. A. Ilelmcrshau- sen, John Atwcll, and William Bray.

Universalist — Rev. II. C. Leonard till 1855, Rev. B. B. Nicholas in 1S5G-7, and Rev. L. Barstow.

The Lawyers were, Nathaniel Wilson, Israel Wash- burn, jr., Nathan Weston, jr. (till 1S5G), and Matthias Weeks. The last-named died September, 1857.

The Physicians were, Dr. John Ricker, William H.

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 123

Allen, F. S. Holmes, Charles Alexander, and J. H. Thompson. Dr. Bicker moved from Orono in 1S59.

The town was classed with Glenburn for the elec- tion of a Representative to the Legislature, and the members chosen from Orono were— for 1853, Nathan H.Allen; 1854 and 1855, Gideon Mayo ; 1S5G, James Webster; 1858, Gideon Mayo; 1859, Hiram Joy; 1861, Samuel Libbey.

On the 16th of August, 1859, there died in this town a venerable and much-respected citizen, who, from his arrival in it in 1832, to the time of his death, was an active justice of the peace— as he had been for many years before in the county of Waldo— and for some twenty years its postmaster. I refer to Col. Samuel Buffum, of whom it was said in the "Bangor Whig/'— aA magistrate of forty years' standing, he had probably tried more cases, cognizable under our laws by a justice of the peace, than any man now living in the State, and so manifest always was his desire to do right that it is believed he never made an enemy by an official opinion or act."

Col. Buffiim was a native of Berwick, and was of Quaker parentage.

124 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

1800 TO 1874.

The history of this term reflects marked and last- ing honor upon the people of Orono, and describes events of encouragement and promise in respect alike to its material prosperity and growth, and its educational and moral upbuilding.

It commences with the town in the civil war. in which her citizens united with zeal, and with a strong and unfaltering purpose, to render all the aid they could, through their young men going to the battle, their old men staying at home, providing means, and guarding the rear, and their women working with willing hands and loving hearts for the comfort of the sick and the wounded — to uphold the flag of beauty and of empire under which they had lived in happiness and in pride so long, and whose folds they had determined should never be dragged in the dust and mire of dishonor and defeat. Her quotas of men were promptly and cheerfully filled at all times when called for, by the voluntary enlistment of men whose record in the war was in keeping with the uncalculating patriotism w hich prompted the offering of all they had and were in the defense of an im- perilled country.

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 125

From the opportunities which I had of judging during the first two years of the strife, I assume no risk in saying that no town in the State did better work at this period than your own.

Nor did she stop here. Feeling that the debt which she had so freely and generously incurred in the war, could be discharged most easily at a time when money was plenty and cheap, as was the case during, and immediately after, the struggle, owing to the enormous amount in circulation ; and that it ought not be left to weigh upon the material inter- ests of the people in the future, she took measures for paying the debt as soon after it accrued as pos- sible, so that within a few months after the fall of the rebellion, every dollar of her debt incurred in consequence of it was wiped out.

For this grand policy of wisdom and sagacity the people of this town deserve the highest honor.

It was during this time that the Corigregationalist and Universalist parishes repaired, remodelled, and improved their churches at very considerable ex- pense, making them more convenient and beautiful, and therefore better aids towards the upbuilding of

128 OnONO CENTENNIAL.

the Christian faith and the accomplishment of the Christian work to which they had been consecrated. The alterations and improvements on the Universal- ist church were in 1SG3 — on the Congregationalist in 1867. Besides these improvements, a handsome and convenient church was built by our Catholic fel- low-citizens, in the year 1867, at an expense of six or seven thousand dollars.

On the 25th of February, 1865, the Legislature passed "An Act to establish the State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts," and in the month of January, 1866, this town was selected as its seat, and two large and excellent farms, situated on Marsh Island, were purchased by the town, aided by a gen- erous contribution from Oldtown, and granted to the College.

Considering the locality of the College in its re- lation to the whole State — its proximity to the broad and fertile agricultural county of Aroostook, a county containing a larger number of acres of farming lands of the finest quality than any other live counties in New England — considering the different kinds of soil on the College farms, furnishing opportunities for

ORONO CEXTEXNIAL. 127

a great variety of experiments, and considering, finally, the surpassing beauty of its site, and its proximity to what I harve ever regarded as beyond question the most charming inland village in the State, so far as outward setting of landscape and scenery is concerned, I think it must be universally conceded that the location of the College was fortu- nate and wise. I rejoice and triumph in the success which this noble foundation, under the auspices of its accomplished President and able faculty, has achieved, and in contemplation of the greater suc- cess which I see in the future that lies before it.

May the utmost harmony and good neighborhood ever exist between it and the people of the town — for the help which in various ways each can render the other, if proper dispositions are cultivated, is in- calculable.

The Orono Savings Bank was incorporated Febru- ary 21, 1SG8, and went into operation soon after, and has been eminently and justly successful in obtaining the entire confidence of the community.

The population in 18G0 was 2551, and in 1S70 it reached 2888.

1Zb ORONO CENTENNIAL.

The roll of lawyers was changed between these dates by the removal of Israel Washburn, jr., to Portland, in 1864, and by the addition, in 1808, of the name of T. F. McFadden, who has since removed from town, and, in 1871, by that of Joseph C. Wilson.

The death of Dr. Win. H. Allen, which occurred January 29, 1863, deprived the town of an able physician and a much-respected citizen. lie had been in practice in town for about thirty years. Dr. J. EL Thompson was in partnership with Dr. Allen for some time previous to the decease of the latter, and remained a year or more afterwards. Drs. Paul M. and Preston Fisher came here in 1863. At a later period Dr. F. W. Chadbourne was in town for a short season, and Dr. Edward N. Mayo has been here for several years.

The Representatives from this town in the State Legislature since 1861 have been — 1862, Frank Hamblen; 1S64 and 1865, Gideon Mayo ; 1867, John II. Gilman; 1868, Charles Buffum; 1871 and 1S72, John W. Atwell; 1873, Ebcn Webster. Charles Buffum was a State Senator in 1870 and 1871, and the latter year was President of the Senate.

OROXO CENTENNIAL. 129

Since 1860 the clergymen settled over the several parishes have been —

Congregationalism Rev. S. L. Bowler, for six or seven years; Rev. Smith Baker, jr., Rev. J. G. Leav- ifct, and Rev. N. R. Cross, the present pastor.

The ministers supplying for the Methodists have been: Revs. Benjamin Arey, Albert Church, G. I). Strout, J. W. Day, and X P. Jewell.

The pastors of the Universalist church have been : Revs. L. Barstow, W. W« Lovejoy, and Henry Shep- herd.

For the Catholics the priests have been: Revs. James Durnin, John McFall, and the present pastor, Rev. John Buddy.

Not only were the war and college debts extin- guished, and extensive and costly alterations and improvements in churches made, and a new church erected within this period, but in 1S70 the last dollar of the debt for the railroad was paid, thus leaving no outstanding obligation against the town.

But 1 will not delay you further by reference to

matters of recent date;— with these you are more

familiar than 1 can be. But I will ask your indul- 9

130 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

gence, for a moment, while I recall a few incidents and occurrences illustrative of certain periods in your history, and of particular phases of character and humor which have given to that history a de- cided expression and flavor. There is no town so poor that it does not possess a life, manner, character, and humor of its own. If there is, it is not Orono.

For many years previous to 1825 the town had been inclined to the party of the Federalists, and after that time, till 1829, its majority was rather with those who supported Mr. Adams than with the friends of Gen. Jackson. From the later date, it was for several years with the Jackson or Democratic party.

But, in 1837, something like a Whig rennaissance seemed probable ; Edward Kent was elected Govern- or, and a "Whig Legislature was returned. The suc- cess, however, was but temporary, as it rested rather upon internecine troubles in the Democratic camp than upon any positive increase of Whig strength or prestige. But Orono felt the influence of the move- ment, such as it was, and nominating for Represent- ative a popular and highly esteemed gentleman, an

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 131

enterprising citizen, and an old settler, elected him by a majority of ninety-one, in something like eight hundred votes. This victory was so unexpected, and so great a surprise to the Democrats, that it need not be thought strange if the Whigs were thoroughly excited and happy over it ; and to those who can put themselves in their place, the story that .Major Henry Clay Wirt (a blind wood-sawyer, who had taken his name by act of the Legislature, in token of his intense WMggery) jumped at one leap half way from the toll bridge to the bank building, and gave a shout of "Glory!" that was heard as far as the " Corporation "—will not be rashly disputed ; and they will be as kind as their principles will permit, to the memory of the genial and excellent President of the Stillwater Temperance Society, who declared, in the ecstasy of the hour, that he should "hold no man as in good standing in the Society who did not, on that occasion, 'take a little something! ' "

To say that politics ran high in town in those days is no mere figure of speech. The excitement which had long been increasing would culminate on election day. And yet this is to be said, that in all the heat

132 OROXO CENTENNIAL*

of the times there was never enough of bitterness to extinguish the good nature and love of fun that characterized the people, and in which they seemed to live as in an atmosphere. There were many "Frenchmen" in town then as now; some from Can- ada and others from Madawaska — but on election day all were from Madawaska3 for only such could vote; and when the ballot of an undoubted Cannuck was received as that of a native of the State, born on the southerly side of the river St. John, the strategy often seemed to be enjoyed as much by the losing as by the winning side.

Artegus Lyon, a Congo negro, black as the day of judgment, brought here by John Lyon, who pur- chased him at Rio Janeiro fresh from his importation, was allowed to vote in 1840, and when the objection of the Democrats had been overruled on the ground that as the law provided that an alien, upon being naturalized, must renounce all allegiance to the prince of the country of his nativity, and as it was clearly impossible for " Teague " to renounce allegiance to a State that might have no existence, and of which he, at least, could have no certain

OUONO CENTENNIAL, 133 knowledge, and an a liberal construction, such as they were bound to give, in favor of suffrage, would re- quire that a condition which it was plain could never be complied with, should be waived or declared ille- gal, as the law did not require impossibilities — the Democrats, although at first dumfoundered by the decision, were so penetrated with the humor of its assumptions that I think they enjoyed it quite as much as the Whigs. At any rate, league's right to vote was never questioned afterwards.

From the division of the town in 1810, Orono uni- formly cast Whig majorities until the formation of the Republican party, to which its adhesion — contin- ued ever since — was promptly given.

As has been suggested, it was, in the "brave days of old," a town of infinite humor. Its facetiae, skil- fully reproduced, would make a most entertaining volume. The stories of its law suits would fill a portly chapter, for, like most rapidly growing places, and especially lumbering towns, it furnished a good deal of business for that useful but unappreciated class — the lawyers. There was, in 1S35, the great case of Veaxie vs. Wadleigh, in which was involved

134 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

the construction of the conveyance by Massachusetts to John Marsh of Marsh Island, and the title to nearly all the valuable mill property at Oldtown, a case in which Daniel Webster and Jeremiah Mason were engaged as counsel, and all the old settlers for miles around were summoned as witnesses to the United States Court at Wiscasset, where Park Hol- land discovered confirmation of the maxim that '•'like attracts like," as he witnessed the immense and continuous masses of pumpkin pie moving from the table in the direction of Esquire Johnson's head.

About this time a suit was pending in the Supreme Court of the State, in which the title to the farm of* Valentine Page, then occupied by Abram Reed, was involved. It was a suit in equity, John Bennoch, jr., pltffi; vs. Joseph Whipple, deft,, and, as Mr. Reed, whose testimon}- in the case was deemed important, was in failing health, his deposition in perpetuam was taken. The counsel employed were Judge Cutting and the late Hon. William Abbot, of Bansror : the Justices of the Peace and Quorum, by whom the de- position was taken, were Hon. Theophilus P. Chand- ler, then of Bangor, and now of Boston, and myself.

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 135

The place was the house of Reed. Opposite eacli other at the table were seated the lawyers and the magistrates, one upon a side, as if at whist ; Mr. Reed was partially reclining upon a bed, while Mrs. Reed, knitting-work in hand, with eyes and ears open, was sitting demurely in a corner of the room. Many of the questions asked were objected to as leading or otherwise improper, and the answers as illegal and inadmissible, and so earnest discussion of the points was carried on by the lawyers, when, upon one of the justices venturing to make a suggestion, the in- junction "No talking cicj'oss tJie boord ! n from a shrill, sharp, positive voice in the neighborhood of the knitting needles, brought the contest to a sudden close, and the parties to it to excellent humor. After this the caption proceeded quietly to the end.

It was in 1834 or 1835 that a trial was progressing at Bangor, in the Court of Common Pleas, before lion. David Perham, Judge, in which it became nec- essary to account for the disappearance of a flock of sheep, and an effort was made to identify them with a large number of carcasses that were found in a neighboring barn. An Orono man, who was on the

136 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

stand as a witness, was closely interrogated as to the number of bodies. He said there were "a good many." "But how many ? " asked the counsel. « 0, a big pile." "How big?" " 0, as big as the pen place that fellow sets in up yonder;' replied Dudley, pointing to the Judge.

It was in the same Court, and before the same Judge, that Henri Van Meter, who lived for many years in the Dudley neighborhood, was terribly badgered by the counsel while he was being exam- ined as a witness. lie had got so badly mixed up that the Judge thought he would help the poor Afri- can, out of his trouble. « K, r, Mr. Van Buren, was itr-r" — "Don't you say a word," expostulated Van Meter, turning to the Court with an expression mildly but earnestly deprecatory, " I have as much as I can attincl to with these gentlemen down here?

I remember the trial of some one whose name ]

am unable to recall, before a Justice of the Peace

Col. Buffum, probably — for stealing corn from the gristmill in this village, at which a witness, by the name of Smith, was examined by the counsel for the State. A light snow had fallen during the night of

OROXO CENTENNIAL. 137

the larceny, and the tracks of a man, leading from the mill, were seen in it Smith had carefully ex- amined the tracks to find out if they were made by the prisoner, whose shoes had also been examined, and he said they appeared to him as if they were made by a « man who had about two bushels of com on Jus back."

While the Bangor Lower Stillwater Mill Co. was in the full tide of life— In the summer of 1836— a son of a Boston merchant, and large stockholder in the company, a rather wild boy, was sent down to Orono to be kept out of harm. One day he came into my office, under extreme excitement. "I want to know," said he, "if there is any law in this State? 1 have been most shamefully abused, and I won't stand it. I was in a shoemaker's shop in Mill street, and they all set upon me, and old Johnson called me a (using an adjective of most dis-

tinct blasphemy) fool, and now 1 want to know if J cant make him prove his words!"

A settlement was commenced between fiRy and sixty years ago about a mile west of the Bangor road, of which the late James Dudley, who migrated

100 OliONO CESTEXN1AL.

from Pittston, Kennebec county, was facile jirinceps. It was when I first came to Orono, a hamlet more populous than tidy, and more picturesque than esthetic; and when I last saw it, it seemed to have held its own in these regards with remarkable success. It had not, at the earlier period, wholly sunk the name of New Guinea, to which the residence of Van Meter, the African, had given color of fitness, for the ruggeder appellation which it afterwards received. Dudley was proud to boast that his character had borne successfully the strain of judicial investigation — for when his truth and veracity were called in question before Judge Perham, only a minority of the witnesses examined were willing to dispute them. It was a triumph— not merely negative, but positive —and which added something to the man's happi- ness every day of his subsequent life. That this attack upon our west-side leader was without justifi- able grounds I have never doubted.

Dudley was an important man at elections, and he knew it, and bore himself upon these occasions like the oligarch he was. He carried so many voters with him that the saying became proverbial, " As

OliONO CENTENNIAL. 139

goes Dudley so goes Orono Upon which side his influence would be cast was at times an anxious question by both parties for weeks, the answer to which was not uncommonly first indicated by the color, cut, or material of the second-hand coat which on occasion he would don even before election day, and which had long been familiar in the village as a part of the wardrobe of one of our ardent politicians.

In social matters, too, our hero was a sort of head- center, and at his house the weddings of the neigh- borhood were wont to take place, and which were celebrated, if not entirely after " the Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders," yet in a style in which strength and a certain robustness of manner were not wanting. It is related that once upon a time a young lawyer from the village was summoned to Dudley's to solemnize a union between Cupid and Campaspe, and that after the service had been per- formed and some eminently practical advice had been given to the young married folks by pater famiiias, a bottle of brandy was placed upon the table, and a pail of water from the spring — a deep tin pail— was brought in, together with a tumbler,

140 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

the only one in the house, and probably borrowed for the occasion, which was carelessly allowed to drop into the pail, where it sunk to the bottom, and that in this dilemma the officiating magistrate was re- quested by the bridegroom to put his hand and arm into the pail and bring the goblet to the surface, which he did with a prompt and cheerful deftness that gave him unbounded credit in the company, and secured to him the neighborhood custom in the wedding line for a long time after.

But I must not trespass longer on your time with these reminiscences, and will now bring this too pro- tracted address to a close.

This record of industry, struggle, and achievement which we have been examining to-night, is one of which no son or daughter of Orono need be ashamed. Reviewing it in these days of well-earned fruition — delivered from the war and its financial burdens, from the debts incurred for the Railroad and the College, and having seen the accomplishment of your wishes in regard to all ; having repaired, beautified, and extended your churches and school-houses; having

OJtONO CENTENNIAL, 141 as a people been in these later days peculiarly blessed in basket and store ; grateful for so many favors, and rejoicing as you ought and do that your lines have " fallen in pleasant places, and that you have a goodly heritage;" having seen your town grow from a pop- ulation of 1521 in 1840, to more than twice that number in 1874, with a village numeration of not less than 2G00— you decided to celebrate the hun- dredth anniversary of its settlement by some token of grateful remembrance of the fathers and mothers who have lived and labored here before you and fur you, and by some expression of your good will towards those who shall occupy these homes of your care and affection when you, yourselves, shall have left them forever.

That pious duty to the past, that benign prayer for the future, you chose to embody in no mere form of words, but, rather and better, in this substantial edi- fice, which, with its adequate and admirable accom- modations for the municipal officers of the town

for its Fire Department— and for the people at 1 arere in this spacious and elegant hall (in which I hope to see at no distant day a fit representation in the best

149

OROSO CEXTZXXIAL. style of art of the great Chief in whose memory and honor their town was named), passes from the hands of the faithful committee under whose direction it has been constructed, to those of the constit- uency for whose convenience and by whose liberality its walls have been reared, and by whom it is now formally consecrated to grateful and affectionate memories and to confident and elevating hopes, while it is dedicated to those appropriate uses by which the municipal, political, moral, educational, and re- ligious interests of the town and of all its inhabit- ants, may be best upheld and promoted.

May it stand, the minister of good and not evil ; and when at some future day the prosperous town' shall have outgrown its then too narrow limits, and shall demand ampler and grander halls, may its affairs be held in charge by those who shall honor the memory of their predecessors by replacing their work by another as well adapted to the requirements of the future time, as this is to the needs of the present !

Thus, friends, I have performed, imperfectly I am aware, but as well as, in the limited time at my com-

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 143

mand, I have been able, the part you assigned me on this the greatest occasion, since its settlement, in the history of your town. It has been to me a labor of love and gratitude ; for — if you will excuse a word personal to myself which my feelings will not allow me to suppress — I cannot forget that for thirty years this was the place of my residence, or that from the time when I came here, just out of my minority, unknown save by a single family connection — that of the late Hon. Benjamin Brown, of Vassalboro', for whose kindly and unwearied interest and friendship I am happy at this time to make my heartfelt ac- knowledgments— to the day when my circumstances rather than my will carried me to another home — it was my good fortune to enjoy a measure of favor and consideration above any claim of deserving that I could make,— an earnestness and constancy of friend- ship that sustained, defended, and held me round, at all times and seasons — and most when most I needed — whether in the course of my professional life in your midst, or on that wider field of the public serv- ice to which, very largely through your favoring in- fluence, I was called for so many years.

144 OROXO CENTENNIAL.

For these manifold and unfailing kindnesses — deepened by their perpetual association with the memory of a gift the most precious my life has known or can know, — and for the honor you have done me in the invitation to address you on this occasion, I make not merely the return of the poor performance of this hour, but the tender of the pro- foundest thanks of a heart which warms in all its recesses to the prosperity, the honor, and the happi- ness of this beautiful town.

[Xote to p. 30.]

From an article prepared for the Massachusetts Historical collections (published in vol. 9,3d Serins, 1846), by rlie late Hon. Wm. I). Williamson, of Bangor, — to whose researches and investigations in reference to matters ol historical interest, the people of Maine are under great and lasting obliga- tion,— and which has come under the notice of the writer since the foregoing pages were printed, it appears that there was, many years ago, a tradition on the Penobscot to the effect that Orono was born in York, in this State, about the ye;»r 1688, that he was stolen by the Indians in li;!>_\ and that the name of his family was Donnell. Judge Williamson, however, does not give much credit to this report, and .assigns some pretty good reasons for thinking it not well founded. Abetter authenticated and more probable account makes him a grandson of the Baron de Castine and of his wit'.-. Matildc, daughter of Madokawando. A daughter of Castine and Matihh- married a Frenchman, and they were, it was supposed, the parents of Orono. But, if this be true, the birth of Orono has probably been ante- dated by Vv'iilianirs'.n i>\ x;veral years. He was horn pretty certainly prior to 1700.

The following extract is from the article above referred to: uBut whatever may have been the lineage or extraction of Orono, it is certain lie was white in part, a half-breed or more, such being apparent in his statiire, features, and compleetinn. He himself told ( 'apt. Munsell thai his father was a Frenchman, and his mother half French and half Indian: but. who they were by name he did not state. Orono had not the copper- colored countenance, the sparkling eyes, the high cheek-bones, or t iw n> features of a pristine native. On the contrary, his eyes were of a bright blue shade, penetrating, and full of intelligence and benignity. ... In his person he was tall, straight, and perfectly proportioned; and in his gait there was a gracefulness which of itself evinced his superiority. . . . lb- was a man of good sense and great discernment; in mood thoughtful, in conversation reserved, in feelings benign. . . . He was honest, chaste, temperate, and industrious, and a uniform and persevering advocate of peace. ... To a remarkable degree he retained his mental faculties ami erect attitude to the last years of his life. As he was always abstemious, and as his hair was in his last years of a milky whiteness, he resembled in appearance a cloistered saint His wife, who was a full-blooded native, died several years after him, and of his posterity it is only known that he had two children; one, a son who was accidentally shot about 1774, in a hunting party, aged probably 25; the other, a daughter, married old Captain Xieolar "

Aitteou, the successor of Orono, committed suicide in Boston in 1811. < )rono's immediate predecessor was ( >sson, and before Oss.ui was Tomassus or Tomer, who w as chief in l7ol.

onoyo CEXTEXXIAL.

145

When Mr. Washburn had concluded, the baud played Strauss' "On the Beautiful Blue Bam , : :' The chairman then introduced the Rev. Henry G. Leonard, from 1847 to 1855 pastor of the Universal- ist church in Orono, who read the following original poem : —

BIRTH-DAY CELEBRATION.

What makes the day so bright and fair?

No tempest could becloud its shine: What concord now so fills the air?

No music here was e'er so fine.

It is the joy of friends and kin In one dear home assembled all;—

The strain they play the house within While keeping birth-time festival.

Before was here ne'er heard such mirth!— 'Tis not for one once lost now found:

But for the long since humble birth

Of one through growth now safe and sound.

From childhood we our birth-days keep, WhercVr we dwell, whatever our lot, —

Or where our fathers sow and reap, Or strangers toil, who know us not.

10

OliONO CENTENNIAL.

For what we are, is our estate: The gain within of added years.

This, great or small,— we. celebrate Our natal hours with smiles and tears.

With smiles, because of battles won;

With tears, because of battles lost;— Through both we see the Future's sun —

The joy which comes by pain and cost.

Ourselves in one, behold the town!

A child one hundred years ago; J3ut now erect from foot to crown,

And growing as the oak-trees grow.

When settlers few with hardihood Here felled the pine, the forest's pride,

And seined Penobscot's roaring flood, And fair Stillwater's elm-fringed tide,

The dusky natives of the wild Oft met them in the forest path,

Or where in smoke charred-logs they piled, Or shared with them the cabin's hearth.

Where spread damp shade, now roses bloom, And waving grain and grasses grow;

In place of huts, fair mansions loom, O'erlooking far the river's flow.

The woodman's axe now distant rings;

Instead, is near the mill-wheel's hum,— The harsher strain the edger sings, —

The quick-step march the gang-saws drum.

And in like measure, stroke by stroke,

The locomotive skirts the vale, Drawing beneath its plume of smoke

The thundering train along the rail.

OROXO CKXTEXXIAL.

147

Above the plane of farm and mill,

And force and speed of noisy train, The school and college guide the will,

And tone the power of heart and brain.

And highest in the town's behoof, The church, uplifting tower and spire,

By truth, and love, and calm reproof, Calls doubt to faith and pure desire.

Long live the town by faithful toil;

By learning's aid and Christian light! Be here no room for feud and broil!

Long live the town in honor bright!

After another piece of music by the band, the following ode, written for the occasion by Mrs. B. H. Mace, of Bangor, a native of Orono, was read with fine effect by Rev. Dr. Allen :

ODE OF DEDICATION. The sounding Indian name itself unfolds A picture of the past: its utterance Rings with forgotten music. Savage scenes Before the mind, in shadowy vision, glance. Flame of the council fire — the warrior dance — Wild shout of victory, or wail of doom, Fill with weird sights and sounds the ancient forest gloom.

Noblest among the braves was Orono,— A king by nature, just, and wise, and true; To his dark brethren faithful, yet at heart The white man's friend. With clear, prophetic view, Our larger work and destiny he knew. Worthy of honor — well do we bestow On this, his dwelling-place, the name of Orono.

148 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

Down yonder river sped his swift canoe,— These sheltering trees beheld his thoughtful mood Looking afar to our familiar hills, Perhaps at eve within his door he stood, And heard the voices of the singing wood, Or watched the dying crimson of the sky, And read his people's fate— lost stars of History!

All this is past: the red man's shadow fades Before the sunrise of a mightier dawn. These homes of plenty and these fruitful fields, Yon spires that point to the eternal morn, Proclaim a race to nobler duties born; Prove that the century's plant has given fiower To a superior age of progress and of power.

New wants arise and aspirations new Enlarge the measure of our daily sphere. To higher ground we raise our longing view, Xew temples build and loftier structures rear For social needs, to social natures dear. And thus, to-day, within these walls we wait, The building, now complete, to bless and dedicate!

And first to Culture of the mind and heart, Here Eloquence shall build her altar fires Prom themes heroic. Science, History, Art, Learning, from every age shall yield their part To kindle high ambitions and desires. Wisdom and Wit with friendly converse cheer, And Song her offerings bring from a diviner sphere.

To Pleasure, too, we yield a welcome place; Here shall fair hands prepare the festival For scenes of beauty, gallantry, and grace; These columns wreaths of living green embrace, While mirth and music till the echoing hall. Memory, in future years, shall backward gaze On shining moments here, in youth's enchanted days.

ORONO CENTENNIAL.

149

To Charity we open wide the door; Enter, Beloved of Heaven, and be our guest! Teach us to (jice, and giving, evermore A larger gift — and full libations pour, Each worthy purpose winning purer zest. Here let the feast be spread, the offering given, Whose record Charity herself shall bear to Heaven. .

And last we dedicate to Loyalty, And consecrate the vow with heart and hand. Over our heads the banner of the Free Shall guard the legend of our liberty, And watch the sacred honor of our land. On patriot words and patriot deeds look down, 5 Flag of a glorious Past! A glorious Future crown!

Father of all! without whose guardian care The builders toil in vain, — the watchmen wait And count the hours in vain without the irate, — Let these fair walls Thy sheltering presence share, All to Thy higher will we dedicate: Building and builders shall return to dust, Our motto and our shield shall be — In God ice trust.

The Hon. John E. Godfrey, of Bangor, responding to a call by the President, spoke as follows :

Mr. President and Citizens of Orono :

I am under obligation to your orator for many facts, new to me, that he has presented this evening. And here let me say, that he may be assured that by his effort to-night lie will lose none of his well-

150 0X0X0 CEXTENNIAL.

earned reputation forindustry, ability, and eloquence Be ha.s requested us to take note of any mistakes lie may have made in his statements. I be<, leave to refer to one or two matters, in regard to which, •f there are any mistakes, they are those of his authorities, not his.

Ia my investigations I have been led to believe that what C^t. Weymouth called « the Bashebe - was a chief on the Penobscot bearing that name. ' The French, who were more intimate with the savages than the English were, and had far better opportuni- ty for becoming acquainted with their chiefs, and manners, and customs, invariably used it as a name not as a title. Champlain, Biard, L'Escarbot all motion Bessabes, or Betsabes. Biard writes of 'the " Sagamo of Kadesquit, called Betsabes." L'Escarbot wntes of Bessabes, who was killed by the English, inat it is among our traditions that Bashaba was the style of an office does not alter the fact that it was not. hut merely the name of a chief.1 I Can hardly agree with Mr. Williamson that the '-v. r. inst. srag.,20, soc. nr., us, 21a

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 151

island called "Lett," by Penhallow, was Oldtown.2 Nor do I think it was in this neighborhood. My opinion is that it was Orphan Island [Verona], below Bucksport. The hundred Indians, with their M\y canoes, that Livingston and Castine saw, were on their way from Winter Harbor, near Saco, to winter quarters, and had probably stopped there for rest.3 * I presume the speaker is correct in the orthography of the Indian name of this locality, or Ayres' Island — "Arumsumhungan." I think, however, it was not pronounced as spelled.

-Hist. Maine, IT., GO. PenhdUow's Indian Wars, A. D. 1710. *N. Y. Hist Mar/., 3d Sec, Vol. U.

* Notwithstanding this opinion of Judge Godfrey, I am inclined to believe that the island of " Lett " was Marsh Island, and that the meeting was at the village on what is now known in this town as Marsh Point. In the first place, I think the travelers would not make so much of a stop as they seem to have made at Lett, at a place so near Castine as Orphan Island. (2.) I think it probable the place of meeting was at the first break in the navigation, which was at Ayres (or Arumsumhungan) falls, for, before the corpora- tion dam was built at Veazie, boats passed easily over the rapids and came to this place. Penhallow says, p. G2, Ji There were two English prisoners taken a little before at Winter Harbor. Two days after, one of the prisoners made his escape from an islarid, where he was hunting with his master, carrying with him both his canoe and gun, and left him behind; which so exasperated his master, that when he got from thence, and came where Maj. Liv- ingston was, he took him by the throat, with his hatchet in his hand, ready to give him the fatal stroke, had not St. Casteen in-

ORONO CENTENNIAL.

Rev. Daniel Little, of Wells [that part now Ken- nebunk], was upon the Penobscot as a missionary in 1770, 1774, and 1786, and as an agent for Massachu- setts to complete a treaty with the Indians, in 1788. In 17SG lie was at Orono ; he kept a journal. With your permission I will read an extract, from which you will learn how the name of the placewas pro- nounced, and the object of his visit

i:[17SG, Aug.] 30. Set off from Capt. Brewers [at Segeundedunk, Brewer Village] to a village at Mr. Colburn's. Dined at Mr. Noble's [Rev'd, at Con- deskge]. Conversed with 4 Canadian Indians at Mr. Treat's [below Penjajawock stream, near Mt, Hope], who waited to have their guns mended. Conversed with a squaw who understood English, who was a Passamaquoddy Indian. Lodged at Mr. Bradley's [Levi, at Treat's Falls]. ? 31. Had Mr. Bradley's horse to ride to Mr. Col-

fcrfercd." The island from which the prisoner made his escape w:'; 1 *uS&st, Orson Island or OldtowD Island. (3) There were within my recollection, the mark, of an Indian village near Marsh Pomt. Here were not only the first rapids above Castine at which «jnoc navigation was interrupted, but here was also a village { tttltfdianswho met them were probably from their principal seat Qvc miles above, at Oldtown Island.

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 153

burn's, the uppermost settlement [towards the] In- dians. Hired a pilot, Mr. Lovejoy [the first settler on the 6 Plains']. The horse Is., Pilot 2s., lOd. Set off a little after sunrise ; rcach'd Mr. Colburn's at 9. On my way fell off my horse, and so bruised my right side as to be unable to stoop forward without pain. Unhappily found in the neighborhood of Mr. Colbum a young trader, Mr. Burley, who had been selling rum to the Indians as they returned from the Treaty, and rendered them unfit for conversation, which de- lays what the Indians reside here for. 7 families in this neighborhood, very poor and ignorant, I in- vited their children to attend the school to-morrow- prepare for an admission of the Indian children if they should send them." Now we have the name.

"Sept. 1. At a place called Rumfeekhungus. Formed a number of children this day into a school. Called in some Indians that passed by to see manners of the school and the mode of reading and writing who seemed to be pleased."

This was, doubtless, the first attempt ever made to establish a school in Orono. It was not a success. Where neither teacher nor scholar understood the

OBOXO CEXTESNIAL.

language of the other, the task of teaching may he supposed to have been difficult, Iu addition to this difficulty, a French priest, Ruthven, who controlled the Indians, interfered. It was not for the interest of the Roman Catholics to have the Indians taught by Protestants. On the fifth of September Wm. Lit- tle left the school at Rumfeekungus, and on the thirteenth, having been informed by the priest that the Indians had a grand council at <•' Passadunkce," on the eleventh, and "concluded not to have their children schooled by an English school-master; they were jealous that their children would be taught a different religion," he abandoned the idea of re- newing it.

Your orator has given you a sketch of the history of the great chief from whom your town derived its name, but he has said nothing about his hand-writing. Orono is not supposed to have been a great writer, or reader, even, but ho had a signature. Iu my ex- plorations among the archives of Massachusetts, in the Secretary of State's office, some years ago, I found a letter, signed by Orono and other Indians, asking for the removal of the truck-master, Jedediah

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 155

Preble, and the appointment of Jonathan Lowder. It is evidently in Loader's hand-writing. The truck- master was a government agent to furnish the Indians with supplies at their cost, and receive their furs in exchange. The "Forbes House;' a little south of the Penjajawock stream, now destroyed, was the truck-house. It was the first frame house in Bangor. The letter stated, as reasons for Preble's removal, that he delayed furnishing the Indians with supplies, and they got dnmk and did not carry the supplies to the Indians when they did get them ; that Preble lay abed until ten o'clock, and if they spoke to him to trade with them he went away a whole day at a time.

Orono subscribed his mark, which was a facsimile of the seal; Nextambawit's was that of a lynx; Jo- sephsus's, that of a large silver brooch ; Alsonsa's, of two stone implements crossed ; Nexteumet's, of a ter- rapin ; Pierre Sock's, of Pomola, perhaps [the spirit of Katahdin] ; Arexes's, of, it may be, Majahundi [the devil]. I have these facsimiles in my hand. I believe the letter was not effective to secure the change of truck-master.

100 ORONO CENTENNIAL.

Your orator has related some anecdotes of notable characters. He has one of Van Meter. Here is another of that sable citizen, which was told me re- cently by a former fellow-citizen of yours, now an eminent Judge of the Supreme Court.

Van Meter, as well as Antoine, had done service in the cause of his country against Great Britain, but in the war of 1812. He was taken in a privateer and thrown into Dartmoor prison. He was liberated, however, and several years after the war was over found his way to Penobscot. He first made his ap- pearance in Hampden, and being, or pretending to be, a good Baptist, made the acquaintance of the eminent Baptist clergyman and educator, Rev. Otis Briggs, and of him purchased a cow, for which lie gave him his note for some $40 or §50. With this acquisition he made his way to that romantic part of your town called "Hogtown," and settled in the neighborhood of the celebrated high old aromatic family of Dudley, with bright prospects of rural felicity.

Elder Briggs had lost sight of his debtor for years, but at length, being in charge of a school in Orono.

ORONO CENTENNIAL. 157

he learned that the circumstances of Van Meter were such that he could collect his debt. Unfortunately his note was outlawed. A new oral promise, how- ever, would at that time revive the note, and this the elder undertook to get. Meeting the old man in a tavern, one day, he called his attention to the note.

a What note, elder ?" he said, musingly. " You recollect ; the note you gave me for the cow." * Ah, yes, 'pears to me I did give you a note once." " Won't you pay it ? "

Van Meter reflected a moment, then arose and went to the window, from which, at a long distance, was visible a grave-yard.

" Elder," said he, * won't you step here?"

The elder stepped there.

"Elder, you see them grave-stones?"

"Yes."

<; Well, when they speak I will I »

James Dudley, the head of the distinguished house of that name, was the only one of the family, I be- lieve, who had a title of distinction. lie early acquired the prefix of u Jumping" — "Jumping Dud-

158 OltONO CEX TENNIA L .

ley," and he earned it. He was one of the "Kines of the Raft" in his younger days. At one time he had run a raft to Bangor, and, being the lucky owner of a four-pence ha'-penny, which he had found, he landed, and, without making his raft fast, ran into a shop to get « something wanning." While swallow- ing the beverage, he was told that his raft was adrift, and seeing it had made off about twenty feet, he gathered his strength, ran to the water and made a leap towards it, but finding on the way that he might not fetch, he made a new spring^ and, to the astonish, ment of everybody, planted his feet firmly upon the raft! That is the way he earned his title, and often and again, thereafter, his ears were regaled in the street by the boys with the refrain —

" Jumping up, O, Dudley. O, Found a fo'-pence ha'-penny, O,

Turn'd about

And spent it out, Jumping up, O, Dudley, O."

OROXO CEXTEXXIAL.

159

The exercises were then closed (at 11 : 50 P. M.), by the audience singing the following song, written for the occasion :

TIIK OLD CHIEFS.

BY BEY. HEN'RY C. LEONARD.

Tune—Aukl Lang Syne.

"\Vc sing the chh f» of auh] lane sync:

Madockawamln grave — Tlie Tarratiue In I'tulip*! time;

Megone, the u> nd mu\ knave: Wenamui It *it!i kindly f.irt ; —

All bravi i who ben! the bow In autumn*i bum or *inu*r*i chase:

Bui £rtv> Orono.

Madockawand *'* hand,

In nature* i leu | green, ilia M]uaw-chiM fare marriAge-band

TO 1' W * ' ! i ' Kj CaMinC,

Hut frotu iht i • .' » ru s» :)ir

Whfft g>«rnt K'rnuWot'l i!,>ir,

Bc*i prai* 1 '., i *! ra chief shall be, The bllM < w l < »r •. *

ORONO CENTENNIAL.

In modern days of Attcon,

Or Neptune's later reign, Xo tales are told of brave deeds done,

Or sung in noble strain. Our thoughts arc turned to other days,

The days of strife and woe, Relieved by calm, pacific ways

Of pale-faced Orono.

AVe sing the chief, the grand old chief,

The chief of auld lang syne, Vf'hosc years of rale on memory's leaf

Are years of bloodless line. We sing the chief, the grand old chief,

The chief of long ago, — The corn still sound in memory's sheaf,

The high-browed Orono.

APPENDIX. TOWN OFFICERS OF 0R0NO.

Moderator, Town Cierk, Selectmen, &c

Treasurer

180G.

Andrew Webster. Allen Bitot. , Richard Win slow. Moses AverilL John Head Andrew Webster.

Jso School Committee. 1807.

Moderator, Andrew Webster. Clerk, Allen Bliss.

Selectmen, &c, Daniel Greeley.

Samuel White.

Richard Webster. Treasurer, Andrew Webster. S. S. Committee, Richard Winslow.

John Bennocli.

Joshua Fall.

Moderator, Clerk,

Selectmen, &c.

Treasurer, S. S. Cum.,

Moderator, Clerk,

Selectmen, &c,

1808.

George Read.

Moses Averill/ , Daniel Greeley.

Samuel White.

Richard Webster.

Richard Winslow. John Beimoch. Daniel J. Odel.

1S09.

Kbenezer Webster. Moses Averill. Samuel White. Moses Averill. Abr'm Turtellottc.

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

John McPhetres. John Bennoch. Daniel J. Odel. Jackson Davis.

1810.

Moderator, John Frecse. Clerk, Moses Avcrill.

Selectmen, &c, Abr'm Turtellottc.

Moses Averill.

Jackson Davis. Treasurer, John Bennoch. I S. S. Com., John Bennoch.

Daniel J. Odel.

Jackson Davis.

j Moderator, , Clerk,

Selectmen, etc.

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

11

1811.

Omitted in record. Moses Averill. , Moses Averill. Jackson Davis. Retire W. Freesc. John Bennoch. Jackson Davis. John Bennoch. Moses Averill.

1812.

John Bennoch. Moses Averill. Moses Avcrill. Jackson Davis. Retire W. Freesc. John Bennoch. John Bennoch. Moses Averill. Jackson Davis.

162

APPENDIX.

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator, Clerk,

1813.

Jackson Davis. Moses Averill. Moses Averill. John Bennoch. Wm. Col burn, jr. John Bennoch. John Bennoch. Moses Averill. Wm. Colburn, jr. Ebenezer Webster.

1814.

Jackson Davis. Moses Averill.

Selectmen, &c.s Closes Averill."

Treasurer, S. S. Com.

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com..

Moderator, Clerk, Selectmen ,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

T'I;r. Bennoch. Wm. Colburn, jr. John Bennoch, John Bennoch. William Colburn. Samuel White.

1815.

Jackson Davis. Moses Averill. Moses Averill. John Bennoch. Samuel White. John Bennoch. Moses Averill. John Bennoch. Samuel White.

1816.

Jackson Davis. Wm. Colburn, jr. John Bennoch. Wm. Colburn, jr. Ebenezer Webster. John Bennoch. John Bennoch. Jackson Davis. Wm. Colburn, jr.

Moderator, Clerk,

1817.

Jackson Davis. Wra. Colburn, jr. Selectmen, <fcc, John Bennoch.

Wm. Colburn, jr. ... Ebenezer Webster.

Treasurer, John Bennoch. o. 5. Com., "The present selectmen."

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

I Treasurer, S. S. Com..

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen.

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

1818.

John Bennoch. Wm. Colburn, jr. Wm. Colburn, jr. Ebenezer Webster. Samuel White. John Bennoch. John Bennoch. Ebenezer Webster. Moses Averill.

1810.

Jackson Davis. Wm. Colburn, jr. Wm. Colburn, jr. Moses Averill. Ard Godfrey. John Bennoch. Jackson Davis. John Bennoch. Moses Averill.

1S20.

Jackson Davis. Wm. Colburn, jr. Wm. Colburn, jr. Moses Averill. Ard Godfrey. John Bennoch. John Bennoch. Moses Averill. Jackson Davis.

1S21.

John Bennoch. Wm. Colburn, jr. Wm. Colburn, jr. Moses Averill. Ard Godfrey. John Bennoch. Jackson Davis. John Bennoch. Moses Averill.

1822.

John Bennoch. Wm. Colburn, jr. Wm. Colburn, jr. Moses Averill. Samuel White. John Bennoch. John Bennoch. Moses Averill. Rich'dH. Bartlctt.

APrEXDIH.

1G3

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer,

1S23.

John Bennoch. Wm, Colburn, jr. Win. Colburn, jr. Moses Avcrill. Samuel White. John Bennoch. Moses Averill. John Bennoch. Edward French.

1824.

Budd Parsons. Wm. Colburn, jr. Samuel White. Daniel Davis. John Bennoch. Samuel White. John Bennoch. Ebenezer Webster. Samuel Silsby.

1825.

Samuel Silsby. Moses Averill. Thomas Bartlett Moses Averill. Elijah Webster. Ard Godfrey. Samuel Silsby. Thomas Bartlett John Bennoch.

1826. John Bead. Moses Averill. Thomas Bartlett Elijah Webster. William Xeal. Ard Godfrey. Rich'd H. Bartlett, John Bennoch, jr. Moses Averill.

S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

i Moderator, J Clerk, Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

, Treasurer, S. S. Coin-

Moderator,

Clerk.

Selectmen,

1527.

George Heed. j Treasurer,

John Bennoch, jr. S. S. Com. Thomas Bartlett. William Neal. Elijah Webster. Ard Godfrey.

David Agry. Jonas Cutting. John Stevens. Daniel J. Perley.

1*2S.

Jonas Cutting. John Bennoch, jr. Thomas Bartlett. Rev. Wm. Marsh. Moses Averill. Ard Godfrey. Jonas Cutting. David Agry. Geo. B. Moody.

1S29.

Wm. C. Fillebrown. John Bennoch, jr. Wm. Colburn, jr. Thomas Bartlett. Jonas Cutting. Ard Godfrey. Jonas Cutting. R. H. Bartlett. Geo. B. Moody. Samuel Kidder.

1S30. Geo. B. Moody. John Bennoch, jr. Wm. Colburn, jr. Thomas Bartlett. Jonas Cutting. Ard Godfrey." Jonas Cutting. Jeremiah Perley. Geo. B. Moody. Daniel McRuer.

1831.

Wm. C. Fillebrown. John Bennoch, jr. Wm. Colburn, jr. Thomas Bartlett. Jonas Cutting. Ard Godfn Jonas Cutting. Daniel McRuer. Nathaniel Treat Geo. 15. Moody. J. Perley.

164

APPEXDIX.

ifodcrator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com..

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.

■Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

1832.

Wm. C. Fillebrown. John L'ennoch, jr. Thomas Bartlctt. Nathaniel Treat. John Bennoch, jr. Ard Godfrey. Geo. B. Moody. Daniel McRuer. Josiah Fisher.

1833.

Jeremiah Perley. John Bennoch, jr. Nathaniel Treat. John Bennoch, jr. Moses AverilL Ard Godfrey. J. Fisher. Samuel Cony. Jeremiah Perley.

1834.

Nathaniel Treat. John Bennoch, jr. John Bennoch, jr. Henry Richardson. Hoses Averill. Wm. Colburn, jr. J. Fisher. Samuel Cony. Nathan H. Allen.

1833.

Ebenezer Webster. John Bennoch, jr. Ira Wadleigh. Levi Hamblen. Edward Kimball. Cony Foster. J. Fisher. J. C. Lovejoy. Nathaniel Wilson. Nathan H. Allen. Niran Bates.

1S3G.

Geo. W. Ingersoll. Wm. C. Fi He brown. Abial W. Kennedy, Henry Richardson, Benjamin Shaw.

I Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Cony Foster. J. C. Lovejoy. G. W. Ingersoll. Charles Currier. L Washburn, jr. Cony Foster.

1S37.

Geo. W. Ingersoll. Levi Hamblen. Wm. T. Billiard. T. J. "Washburn. John Hutchins, jr. James Stiuson. Geo. W. Ingersoll. Robert W. Wood. Beland Tinckham. Nathaniel Wilson. Samuel Cony, jr.

1S33.

Moderator, Ebenezcr Webster. Clerk, Wm.C. Fillebrown.

Selectmen, &c, Francis Carr.

Alex. Gordon.

John Hutchins, jr.

Jefferson Sinclair.

Geo. O. Braslow. Treasurer, John Bennoch, jr. S. S. Com., None appear on records.

Moderator, Clerk, Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com..

Moderator, Clerk, Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

1€39.

I. Washburn, jr. Fred. A. Fuller. Nathaniel Treat. Abial W. Kennedy. Timothy Mayo. Wm. Colburn, jr. Moses Springer. Wm. H. Allen. Abial W. Kennedy. Niran Bates.

1840.

Wm. C. Fillebrown. F. P. Butler. Nathaniel Treat Timothy Mayo. Cony Foster. Wm. Colburn. jr. I. Washburn, jr. Wm. H. Allen. Benj. M. Freese.

APPENDIX.

1G5

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Coin.

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

1841.

Wm. C. Fillebrown.

E. P. Butler. Cony Foster. Fred. A. Fuller. Winthrop Allen. Wm. Colburn, jr. Benj. M. Freese. Nathan "Weston, jr.

F. A. Fuller.

1842.

L "Washburn, jr. E. P. Butler. Cony Foster. Nathaniel "Wilson. A. W. Weymouth. Wm. Colburn, jr. Nathaniel Wilson. W. H. Folsom. Nathan Weston, jr.

I. Washburn, jr. Levi Pv. Weeks. Cony Foster. Nathaniel Wilson. A. W. Weymouth. Wm. Colburn. jr. Nathaniel Wilson. L. P. Band. J. F. Eveleth.

1844.

Nathan Weston, jr. Levi K. Weeks. John Bennoch. Daniel White. Timothy Mayo.

E. P. Butler. J, P. Band. W. H. Allen. Charles Buu'um.

1845.

Cony Foster. Levi' K. Weeks. William Marsh.

F. P. Butler. Joseph Graves.

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com..

Moderator,

Clerk,

.ScleUincn,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

William IT. Allen. L. P. Band. J. F. Eveleth. Nathan II. Allen.

1S4C.

Nathaniel Wilson. Levi B. Weeks. Joseph Graves. A'. W. Weymouth. Cony Foster. E. P. Butler. Nathan II. Allen. Jno. A. Perry. Bcnj. M. Freese.

1S4T.

Albert G. Brown. Levi K. Weeks. E. P. Butler. Eben'r Webster, jr. Israel Brown. E. P. Butler. Jno. A. Perry. N. II. Allen. Charles Buil'um.

1S4S.

I. Washburn, jr. Levi K. Weeks. John Libby. Joseph Graves. J. F. Eveleth. E. P. Butler. Henry C. Leonard. Nathaniel Wilson. I. Washburn, jr.

1S40.

Nathaniel Treat L. K. Weeks. Nathaniel Treat. Gideon Mavo. J. F. Eveleth. E. P. Butler.

I. Washburn, jr.

II. C. Leonard. Chas. Alexauder.

166

APPENDIX.

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S, S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer,

issa

John Libbcy. L. R. Weeks. Nathaniel Treat E. P. Butler. W. H. Folsom. E. P. Butler. H. C. Leonard. Nathan II. Allen. W. II. Folsom.

1831.

John Libbcy. L. R, Weeks. E. P. Butler. Charles Buffum. E. R. Southard E. P. Butler. Cony Foster. Chas. Alexander. Nathan Weston, jr.

1S52.

Nathan Weston, jr. L. R. Weeks. E. R. Southard. Eben'r Webster, jr. Wyatt II. Folsom. John Ricker. L. J. Hoadley. W. H. Allen. 'Wyatt H. Folsom.

1S53.

Cony Foster. L. R. Weeks. E. R. Southard. Thomas McMillan. Samuel Moor. E. P. Butler. Nathaniel Wilson. Cony Foster. N. II. Allen.

1S54.

Nathaniel Wilson. L. R. Weeks. Hiram Joy. Levi Dennett. Samuel \\\ Freeze E. P. Butler.

S. S. Com.

Moderator, | Clerk, Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator.

Clerk.

Selectmen.

Treasurer, S. S. Com.

Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Com.

Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Com..

Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Coin.,

Samuel Libbey. Chas. Alexander. H. C. Leonard.

1S05.

Nathan II. Allen. L. R. Weeks. Cony Foster. Nathaniel Treat. William Lunt. E.P. Butler. Nathan II. Allen. Wm. II. Allen. Charles Butfmn.

1856.

Nathaniel Wilson. Perez G. Colburn. Nathanfcl Treat. W. E. Jones. I. F. Spaulding. Perez G. Colburn. Nathaniel Wilson. E. A. Helmershausen. F. S. Holmes.

1857.

John Libbey. P. G. Colburn. E. P. Butler. J. B. Chase. J. S. Bennoch. Wm. M. Rollins. W.H. Folsom, 3 yrs. Wm.H. Allen, lyr.

1858.

Nathaniel Wilson. P. G. Colburn. E. P. Butler. J. B. Chase. Josiah .s. Bennoch. Wm. M. Rollins. Wm. H.Allen, 3 yrs.

1850.

Nathaniel Wilson. P. G. Colburn. E. P. Butler. J- S. Bennoch. William Lunt. Sherlock Parsons. Nathaniel Wilscn.

APPENDIX.

167

Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Cora.,

Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Com.

Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Com.,

Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Com.,

Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Com.

1S60.

Nathaniel Wilson P. G. Colburn. E. P. Butler. E. P. Butler. J. S. Hamilton. S. Parsons. Anson Allen

JTS.

1SC1.

Charles BufTum. P. 6. Colburn.

E. P. Butler. J. S. Bennoch. C. P. Ordway.

F. Hamblin.

J. H. Thompson.

1SG2.

Cony Foster. P. G. Colburn.

E. P. Butler. J. S. Bennoch.

F. Hamblin. X. Frost.

F. Hamblin, 3 yrs. W. JL Folsom, 2 yrs.

1863.

Cony Foster. P. (J. Colburn. E, P. Butler. J. S. Bennoch. Nathan Frost. Cony Foster. L. Bastow.

1804.

Coin- Foster. P. (;. Colburn. K. P. Butler. J. S. Bennoch. Cony Foster. Nathan Frost. Chan. BufTum, 3 yi>. Sam'l Libbey, 2 vrs. Sam'l White, l \*r.

Moderator, Clerk. Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Com.

Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Com.,

Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, Selectmen,

S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk.

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S.Com.,

1805.

John Libbey. P. G. Colburn. E. P. Butler. J. S. Bennoch. C. M. Gould. Jesse Snow. E. P. Butler, 3 yrs.

1866.

Samuel Libbey. P. G. Colburn. E. P. Butler. E. K. Southard. John Libbv. P. G. Colburn. Sam'l Libbey, 3 vrs.

1S67.

Samuel Libbey. P. G. Colburn. E. P. Butler. E. R Southard. John Libbev. P. G. Colburn. Nathaniel Wilson.

1S68.

Charles BufTum. X. G. Gould. John Libbey. E. F. Ring. P. M. Fisher. E. P. Butler. Charles Bufftim.

1869.

Charles Buffum. P. G. Colburn. P. G. Colburn. Cony Foster. James H. Emery. E. P. Butler. Samuel Libbey.

1GS

APPENDIX.

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator, Clerk,

1870.

Samuel Libbey. P. G. Colburn. J. S. Hamilton. P. G. Colburn. A. G. King. E. P. Butler. E. X. Mayo.

1571.

Samuel Libbey. Albert White. A. G. Ring. Jehial T. Holmes. Cony Foster. E. P. Butler. Chas. W. Snow.

1S72.

J. W. AtwelL Albert White.

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

Moderator,

Clerk,

Selectmen,

Treasurer, S. S. Com.,

A. G. Ring. J. T. Holmes. Albert White. E. P. Butler. A. G. King.

3S73.

J. W. Atwell. E. P. Butler. A. G. Ring. R. J. Hamilton. Nathan Frost E. P. Butler. Samuel Libbey.

1S7-1.

John W. Atwell.

E. P. Butler.

A. G. King.

R. J. Hamilton.

Nathan Frost.

E. P. Butler.

Elijah W. Wyman.

H066S