Notes, Historical, Descriptive, and Personal, of Livermore, In
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OENEALOGY COLLECTION ALLtzN UUUN I T KUDLIU LIBMAMT 3 1833 01088 2865 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/noteshistoricaldOOwash_0 NOTES, HISTORICAL, DESCRIPTIVE , AND PERSONAL, OF LI VERMORE. IN ANDROSCOGGIN (FORMERLY IN OXFORD) COUNTY, MAINE. Morals and happiness will always be nearest to perfection in small communities, where functionaries are appointed by as numerous a 'body as can be brought together of the in- dustrious and intelligent. —Walter Savage Landor. PORTLAND: PUBLISHED BY BAILEY & NOYES. 1874. THtlBSTON & COMPANY, PRINTERS, PORTLAND. 1462226 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Early History, ........ 5 CHAPTER II. Topography, Soil, and Products, ..... 13 CHAPTER III. Early Settlers aub their Families, .... 15 CHAPTER IV. Industrial Interests—Business— Course of Population, . 43 CHAPTER V. Affairs Political, Municipal, and Military, ... 57 CHAPTER VI. Matters Religious and Ecclesiastical, .... 64 CHAPTER VII. Concerning Lawyers and Doctors, . , 76 CHAPTER VIII. Notes Miscellaneous, ...... 86 CHAPTER IX. — Contributions Reminiscences, ...... CHAPTER X. The Story of Thomas Fish-1782—by Elizabeth Akers Allen, 118 Appendix, ....... iok CHAPTER I. EARLY HISTORY. The town of Liverrnore is in Androscoggin County, twenty miles north of Lewiston, fifty from Portland, and twenty-five west of Augusta. Before the incorporation of Androscoggin it was in Ox- ford County. The township previous to, and for some time after, its settlement was generally known as Port Royal, from the fict that it was granted for services rendered in the reduction of Port Royal, Nova Scotia, in the early part of the eighteenth century. Previous to January 15, 1735, many petitions were presented to the Great and General Court in Assembly for His Majesty's Prov- ince of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, by towns and individu- als for grants of land for services and losses in the French and Indian wars. Grants were made on certain conditions in response to these petitions. There were to be sixty proprietors, to each of whom, as well as to the first and second settled ministers and the schools, a lot was to be assigned. Among the petitions was that of Nathaniel Harris, Esq., to whom, with others, was granted township No. "on the east 2, side and next adjoining Connecticut River," as a gratuity for services in reducing Port Royal. The names of the original sixty proprietors are given, together with the number of the lot assigned to each, three lots being left for ministers and schools. November 24, 1736, the Great and General Court authorized Nathaniel Harris to call the proprietors together, and he notified them to meet at the house of Isaac Baldwin, innholder, Friday, Jan- uary 28, 1737. A regular record of the proceedings of the proprietors was kept till November 1, 1743, when a meeting held at Weston was adjourned to the succeeding May on account of the " rumor of war with France, and the winter season approaching." There is no record of a later meeting till 1750, in which year there were three meetings, the last being held at the house of Mrs. Mary Leonard, innholder, Watertown, September 26th. No further entry is made till May 23,' 1770, when a meeting was held at Mr. Samuel Harrington's, in' Waltham. At this meeting the question was put " to know the 2 g HISTOBY OF LIVEBMOEB. would pursue their claim on the minds of the proprietors if they chose was carried. The same meeting equity of Port Royal," and it Leonard consisting of Maj. Livermore, Dr. a committee of three, petition the General Court to ob- Williams, and George Babcock, to tain another grant. October 29, 1770, was peti- The General Court, which assembled setting out the facts in regard to tioned accordingly, the petitioners No. by reason of its havmg been the loss of title to township 2, Hampshire by a survey which had thrown into the State of New original grant. June 11, 17 a, the been made subsequent to the granting the prayer of the petition- General Court passed a resolve representa- grantees, their assigns or legal ers, and to the original and a township of tl.e contents of six tives, their heirs and assigns, of the unappropriated lands i„ three-quarters square miles, in some Kiver, Bay, to the eastward of Saco the Province of Massachusetts on the condition that the proprie- and adjoining some former grant, a house said town in seven years, build tors settle sixty families in minister settle a learned Protestant for the public worship of God, the first settled minister, one and lay out one sixty-fourth part for one sixty-fourth part for the use of sixty-fourth part for the ministry, College. part for the use of Harvard schools, and one sixty-fourth Livermore and Leonard Williams, by virtue August 9, 1771, Samuel Har- sent Elijah Livermore and Elisha of the powers of the -rant, to select the land, instructing rington on an exploring expedition Brunswick Falls and proceed up them "to take a boat and pilot at township of land lying on both the river as far as Rocky-Mico." A adjoining Sylvester township (now sides of the Androscoggin River 30,-220 acres, the southeasteriy Turner) was selected. It contained off to the towns of Leeds and portion of which was afterwards set Wayne. thereafter held regularly. At a Meetin<^s of the proprietors were Livermore, in Waltham, June 17, meeting Tt the house of Samuel Caj.t. Ebenezer Learned, and Mr. 1772, Lieut. Elijah Livermore, committee to run the lines around Richard Woodward were chosen a river intervale on tlie west side of the the township and divide the out sixty-one one hundred acre lots on into sixty-one shares and lay and one for w\v.., one for each pioprietor, the west side of the river, a meeting held at the house of Samuel the first settled minister. At the above committee Livcrmore, in Waltham, November 11, 1772, the hitervale, it not being suffi- made their report, but did not divide HISTORY OF LIVERMOEE. 7 ciently extensive to be divided in conformity to instructions. They had, however, run out lines of the town, and of sixty lots, being in their opinion the best in the town, lot No. 37 was allotted for public use. They reported that there was a failure in the quantity of land, and a committee was appointed to present a petition for a further grant. It was voted to open a horse-way to Sylvestertown and a cart-way to Pondtown (now Winthrop) ; but February 24, 1773, it was voted to make the former a cart-way also, and Elijah Livermore, Ebenezer Learned, and Tliomas Fish were appointed to perform this service, and were instructed to have the above roads cleared by the last of October of that year. At a meeting held November 3, 1773, it being stated that Samuel Livermore, the moderator and a member of the prudential committee, was dead, and that Nathaniel Liver- more had resigned as a member of the prudential committee, Leon- ard Williams, Esq., Dea. Elijah Livermore (heretofore mentioned as Lieut. Livermore), and Mr. Elisha Harrington were chosen a com- mittee to "manage the prudentials of said proprietary." The ac- counts of Dea. Elijah Livermore and Thomas Fish for clearing roads to the town were presented and allowed. That of the former was £40 10s. lid., of the latter £31 2s. 7d. Thomas Fish was appointed to prosecute trespassers, and a committee was appointed to lay out the remainder of the town. June 29, 1774, Leonard Williams, Elijah Livermore, and Elisha Harrington were made a committee to cause a saw and grist-mill to be erected in the township. meeting A was held October 12, 1774, and adjourned to May, 1775, concerning which the following entry appears on the records : "The distressing war with Great Britain breaking out April 19, 1775, and all being obliged to resist the enemy, the place to which the meeting was adjourned being so near the theatre of action pre- vented any meeting whatever." No meeting was held till January 17, 1779. It was in this year that Dea. Livermore came to Livermore and established his home therein. Mrs. Carver, Josiah Wyer, and Elisha Smith came about the same time. Josiah Norcross joined them soon afterwards. This first year was disturbed by the unfriendly attitude of the Indians at Roccomeco, but no actual harm was done by them, and the appre- hensions of the new settlers may have been occasioned by the do- mestic strifes that were raging among the natives, rather than by 8 HISTOEY OF LIYEEMORE. afterwards the Indians were and hostility to the whites; for soon with the settlers, and were ever continued to be in amicable relations Livermore. frequent visitors at the house of Dea. affairs that an Indian judgment, It was during this condition of recorded. An Indian at combining justice and punishment, was who left a squaw Roccomeco had killed another of the same tribe, murderer was arrested, tried by of infirm health and a cripple. The to support and care for and his tribe, found guilty, and sentenced long as she should hve. wait upon the widow of the slain Indian so daughter of Vice-President Hamhn has often heard his mother—a seen the Indian car- Dea. Livermore—say that she had many a time on a hand sled. The rying the woman on his back or hauling her in this section was Pierpole, last of the Roccomeco Indians known half a century ago. who died at Lake Umbagog more than Dea. Livermore Major Thomas Fish, before referred to, followed two. He was an officer in to the new settlement within a year or representative of one of the origi- the Revolutionary war, and was a the Connecticut River.