The Ancient Dominions of Maine

The roots of the Davistown Museum lie in the conjunction of the exploration of old barns, cellars, and workshops beginning in 1970 during the search for old (useful) woodworking tools by the Jonesport Wood Co. (West Jonesport, Maine 1970 – 83), and the subsequent purchase of the Parmenter General Store, now the Liberty Tool Co., in Liberty Village (1976). Historical questions immediately arose: who were the artisans who left their tools in that ancient Columbia Falls barn (1971), one of our first early tool location stashes, and what was the context of their use (shipbuilding on the Pleasant River in the late 18th and first half of the 19th century). Later, from 1976 to the present, the many visits to Waldo, Knox, and Lincoln County 19th century (or earlier) farm or boat workshops, and soon many more along the coast of New England, reinforced our quest for more information about Maine and New England maritime and industrial history. Who were the people who lived in these old houses? What did they do? How did they survive the long cold Maine winters before global climate change?  What did they manufacture at their water mills or downstream (from Liberty and Montville) boat shops and ship yards?  What vessels did they build, when and where did they sail? What cargoes did they carry? What forest products were milled in the villages of the Norumbega back country? Most importantly, what were the tools they used to successfully settle the New England wilderness, and how and where were they made? And always the intrusion of a compelling unanswered question: who were those First Nation indigenous inhabitants of Maine’s central coast hill country, called Wawenocs by 19th century historians; and where did they go?

It soon became evident that the modest selection and content of the local town histories of Liberty, Montville, Jonesport, Beals Island, Columbia Falls, or the larger communities of Thomaston, Rockland, Camden, Union, Boothbay, and Wiscasset were only a starting point for a more detailed exploration of the local and regional history of coastal Maine. The search for answers to our many questions soon led to two realizations: that local history could not be understood without an understanding of the prior history of not only First Nation indigenous peoples and the first European visitors and settlers of ancient Pemaquid, but also of the interrelationship of the history of the Davistown Plantation settlers with the broader scope of the maritime and industrial history of Maine and New England. Secondly, our interests immediately focused on hand tools as the most interesting and useful of material cultural artifacts (accidental durable remnants) for the exploration of the palimpsests (layers) of local, regional, and New England history – The Phenomenology of Tools as it were. The first two volumes recounting our journey through the labyrinths of local and regional history are these modest chapters on the local history of the Davistown Plantation (The Davistown History Project) and ancient Pemaquid. The major focus of our attention, aside from our inquiry into Native American history (Volume 4 of the website), has been the phenomenology of hand tools and what they tell us about our cultural history (Volumes 6 - 11 of our website). Following our detailed examination of the origins and roles of hand tools in New England history, Volume 12 is our catalog of art on loan or in the permanent collection; Volume 13 is our Museum educational programs. The later volumes of this website on environmental history (Changes in the Land) explore the impact of our pyrotechnical society on the environment. The chapters that follow this section in the website series, Radnet Nuclear Information on the Internet, are the ancient archives of the predecessor to the Davistown Museum, the Center for Biological Monitoring.

History of the Davistown Plantation (Volume 2)

Table of Contents

Introduction
Davistown History Project Questions
History as a Palimpsest
Historical chronology for the Davistown Plantation, Liberty and Montville
Historical Context of The Settlement of Davistown
Origin of the Davistown Plantation
Early history of the Davistown Plantation

One of the founding missions of The Davistown Museum is preserving and enlarging community awareness of the history of the Davistown Plantation, later the hill country towns of Liberty and Montville.  An understanding of this community history begins with town histories and other writings noted below devoted to this subject.  The written and oral traditions of families, villages and their artisans and tradesmen form the core and are the basis of community awareness and continued recording of this history.  Liberty and Montville's local historical societies, historians, raconteurs and senior citizens have a collective remembrance that is essential to the reconstruction of this history.  In so far as The Davistown Museum is successful in this mission, it is dependent on community support and participation.  Those who best understand the roots of local history are the members of the families who have lived this history.  The history of the Davistown Plantation can only emerge from a collective effort of recording and perpetuating this oral and written tradition.

The essence of the Davistown History Project is the process of trying to answer a series of questions.  Expanding awareness of local history means these questions are never fully answered.  History does not have the stasis of a mathematical equation.  Whatever history is constructed can be deconstructed or altered when new information becomes available.

The early roads used by the first settlers to bring cordwood, sawn lumber, staves and lime casks to the market port of Belfast follow ancient trails and pathways used by others who preceded European settlement in the Davistown Plantation.  Exploring the palimpsest that is the Davistown Plantation means peeling back layers of history and peering back in time to the ancient dominions of Maine.  The maritime culture of the first wave of settlers in Davistown was, in fact, a third wave of colonial settlers moving inland from the immediate coast of Maine.  This third wave succeeded a second wave of settlement along the edges of the Maine coast from 1710 - 1765, which was kept in check by the Indian Wars and the dangers of settling at inland locations.  The first wave of European settlement in Maine began with the 1607 settlement of Fort Popham at the mouth of the Kennebec River.  This flourishing first colonial dominion of Maine was terminated by the Indian Wars, which swept New England after 1675.  The Indian Wars of 1676 - 1759 ended this first dominion of colonial Maine and restricted the second wave of resettlement to Maine's immediate coast until the defeat of the French at Quebec in 1759, and the ensuing treaty of 1763, finally opened up the state of Maine to the great migration of the post-Revolutionary War era.

The startling presence of another culture, which flourished in coastal Maine just prior to European settlement of New England, is the most compelling of all palimpsests in the history of the Davistown Plantation.  Is it some historical coincidence that the domain of the Native American confederacy of Mawooshen, which stretched from Schoodic Point in Frenchman's Bay, west and south to Massachusetts Bay, exactly matches the cartography of the region of Norumbega on European maps? Rosier, the chronicler of George Waymouth's 1605 voyage to Pemaquid and the St. Georges River, recounted the knowledge of captive natives of this confederacy, the story of which was later published by Samuel Purchas in his Purchas, his Pilgrimage of 1613.

The ancient dominions of those who first lived in coastal Maine prior to first European settlements give rise to a whole other set of questions.  Who lived in this region before the English established the first settlements at Pemaquid, Monhegan, Newagen, Fort Popham, Sheepscot and elsewhere?  Where and how did they live?  Did they practice any form of horticulture?  If so, what were the inland locations of their gardens?  What factors led to their sudden departure?  What archaeological sites attest to their presence on the Maine coast?  How long did they live here, and who preceded them?  What were the natural resources that were most important to these earlier inhabitants of the Maine shoreline?  Where were they located; How were they utilized?  How did they differ in language and lifestyle from the Native Americans living in the eastern sections of the maritime peninsula?  Where was this cultural dividing line?  Did this invisible barrier disappear along with the native communities who lived here?  Did Native Americans from the eastern maritime peninsula  migrate to this area when the original inhabitants of the central Maine coast dispersed?

The history of the Davistown Plantation is a palimpsest of artifacts and events in time.  Its presence beacons us to go back, not just to the boomtown years before the Civil War or to the milieu of the first settlers, but to a prior era when before 1760, Davistown was Indian country.  It took European explorers and settlers two centuries to clear the land of the Native American communities who were its original inhabitants.  What happened in these two centuries is equally important and as intriguing as what happened in Davistown in the two centuries that followed.

• 2500 B.C. - 2000 B.C.  The archaic maritime cultures of coastal northern New England and the Maritime provinces of Canada are suddenly replaced by the Susquehanna tradition and its entirely different tool assemblage.
• 2000 B.C. - 1000 B.C.  The Susquehanna tradition marks the end of the archaic period and gives way to an interregnum that is followed by the appearance of the Eastern Woodland (Abenaki) Indians.
• 1000 B.C. - 1500 A.D.  Increasingly sedentary village centered Abenaki tribes utilizing ceramic implements and possibly with some degree of horticulture dominate coastal Maine east of Schoodic Point until contact with European fishermen, traders and explorers.
• 1500 A.D.  First European contact of the historic period brings disease, dislocation and rapid cultural change. Expansion of the fur trade marks the beginning of the  European exploitation of the resources of Norumbega (the area between the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers including the backcountry of what will later be the Davistown Plantation).
• 1600-1620.  Period of Native American dislocation.
• 1600.  The beginning of 160 years of extermination, warfare and migration of Native Americans in the Norumbega region as well as of the tribes to the west and south.
• 1607 - 1608.  Popham's expedition to the mouth of the Kennebec River establishes the first documented English settlement in Maine.  After a hard winter with disease, fire and conflict with the Native Americans, most, if not all? settlers returned to England.  Overwintering fishermen establish a second Maine settlement on Monhegan Island.
• 1607 - 1615.  Intertribal Indian warfare breaks out as a result of pressures created by the European market for furs.
• 1617-1619.  A great pandemic wipes out most coastal New England Native American tribes as far south as Narragansett Bay (except on Martha’s Vineyard).  Spread of contaminated trade goods (rum, cloth, metal pots) and careening (cleansing the ballast) of European ships utilizing captured Native Americans provide a key pathway for transference of European infectious diseases.
• 1617-1619.  The period of Wawenoc dislocation and scattering.  Small surviving bands of Wawenoc, Kennebec, Androscoggins and other tribes move up the Kennebec River to Swan Island, Cushnoc, Teconnet?
• 1620.  Use of the Muskingum by the Wawenoc Indians as a winter hunting grounds ends as the influx of European settlers to coastal Maine settle at the former tidewater village locations of the dispersed Wawenocs.  Any future Native American hunting and trapping in the Muskingum would be by Etchemins who migrated from eastern Maine to fill the void left by the Wawenoc diaspora.
• 1630-1675.  The great migration of English Puritans to New England commences and continues prior to the outbreak of the religious wars in England (1645); rapid settlement of Maine coastal regions west of Penobscot Bay (1620 - 1675) by the English is accompanied by French settlements in Maine east of the Penobscot Bay.
• 1675-1676.  Outbreak of the King Philip's War, the first of six French and Indian Wars (French vs. English) completely depopulates the English settlements on the coast of Maine west of Wells; in effect, a second colonial diaspora (scattering) occurs, which ended the first colonial dominion of Maine.
• 1713.  Gradual resettlement of coastal Maine resumes as a second wave of English settlers begin to trickle in.
• 1724.  Slaughter of the remnants of the coastal tribes of Norumbega (Wawenocs) and those formerly living west of Norumbega (Kennebecs, Sacos and Androscoggins) at the great massacre of Norridgewock.
• 1759.  Fall of Quebec and the end of the French and Indian Wars.  Rapid resettlement of the Norumbega coast and back country by southern New Englanders.
• 1775 - 1785.  The war for Independence further exacerbates the demand for free land.
• 1780.  First English settlers move into the Davistown Plantation.
• 1790.  The first road built out of Belfast is the Davistown Rd., which appears to have two branches, the first going north of Quantabacook Lake (where Bartlett's mill was) to the Kingdom.  The second branch goes first to Searsmont Center and then to Liberty Village via South Montville and was built later.
• 1798.  The first saw mill was built in the Kingdom section of Montville.
• 1807.  The Davistown Plantation is incorporated as the town of Montville.
• 1810-1840.  The boomtown years of what was the Davistown Plantation.
• 1815.  White Indians attack Joseph Pierce, a Proprietor's agent of the Twenty Associates, at Marshall Spring's White Horse Hotel, just west of Muskingum on the Cushnoc Trail.  (This site can be found just east of Maritime Energy on Route 3 in Liberty.)
• The Davistown area is rapidly cleared of forest and planted with crops.
• Numerous resource based industries established in Davistown Plantation especially at the Muskingum (The Kingdom), Liberty Village, South Liberty and other smaller crossroad villages in the Plantation area.
• The mills and shops of Liberty and Montville help supply wooden components for shipbuilding activities in Waldoboro, Warren and Thomaston, which reached their peak production during this time.
• 1827.  The town of Liberty separates from Montville.  Coopering becomes the dominant trade in Liberty and Montville as coopers supply wooden containers for the downeast cod fisheries, lime casks for the lime coasters and lumber for the West Indies trades.  Many other wood products are milled for local and regional needs.
• 1840.  The beginning of the Industrial Revolution coincides with the decline of population and mercantile activities in  Liberty and Montville.
• The fertile soils of Ohio attract residents from Liberty and Montville as the soils and resources of the area are depleted.
• 1850-1865.  The shipbuilding era in Waldoboro, Warren and Thomaston declines.  The Civil War marks the demise of the cod fishery in Maine and the dominance of an Industrial Revolution that impacts the Liberty/Montville area only in the form of several post Civil War tanneries and a turn of the century cannery.  Mercantile activities that continue in Liberty and Montville after the Civil War represent vestiges of the historic maritime culture that flourished here at the beginning of the 19th century.

When the first European settlers arrived at Plymouth in 1620 they were a prelude to a great migration of Puritan dissenters who came to settle the Massachusetts Bay Colony beginning in 1630.  Both before and immediately after 1620 the Maine coast became a destination of English fishermen and French traders, some of whom already resided in isolated coastal communities in the Penobscot region (English) and east of the Penobscot River (French.)  Puritans seeking trade opportunities also flocked to Maine after 1620, establishing colonial trading posts.  What was a trickle of settlers to Maine in the early 17th century became a flood after 1630 and by 1675 the population of coastal Maine during the first colonial dominion was in excess of 10,000 people.  (Map of European migrations.)

During this first colonial dominion of 1620 - 1675, there were no documented European settlers in the Norumbega backcountry, including Davistown.  Undoubtedly, some of the early coastal residents followed the Sheepscot, Medomak and St. George rivers up to their watersheds in the Davistown Plantation to hunt and to trap following the great pandemic that eliminated most of the Wawenoc Indians from the coastal regions between the Kennebec and the Penobscot rivers.  To what extent surviving bands of Wawenocs or newly arrived bands of Etchemins served to deter hunting and trapping in Davistown is not known and probably will never be known.

The end of the first colonial dominion (1620 -1676) marks the beginning of a second great diaspora.  The advent of King Philip's War and the violence which followed dispersed all of the colonial settlers in Maine west of Wells with the possible exception of the island dwellers on Monhegan.  What ensued was an interregnum in Maine history.  Only after 1710 did small numbers of European settlers begin moving back into the coastal areas.  By 1714, small communities had been reestablished in many locations along the central Maine coast; the nearest one to the Davistown Plantation was Warren, downstream at the head of the tide on St. George River.  During the mid-18th century, Warren, Waldoboro, Thomaston, Wiscasset, Boothbay and Damariscotta became important shipbuilding centers.  These communities first exploited the timber immediately along the shore, which was rapidly depleted.  The shipbuilding industry then became dependent on more inland timber resources.  One of the first reports of timber being harvested from the Davistown Plantation involved the cutting of masts for the King's ships in Montville circa 1720(?).  These huge masts were then transported from Montville to Waldoboro by oxen, following the Indian trail from the outlet of Lake St. George in Liberty to the head of the harbor in Waldoboro.  Today's route 220 from Liberty to Waldoboro follows what appears to be this same route to the sea.  The Indian wars, which continued until the 1750s, prevented the systematic harvesting of the rich timber resources of inland areas until after 1760.

The history of the Davistown Plantation originates with the proprietary claims issued by the Council for New England under Charles I (1629 - 1632).  Brigadier General Samuel Waldo and his partners eventually obtained the English Letters of Patent for the Waldo Patent, which included the Davistown Plantation, one of the three major proprietary patents issued for what is now coastal Maine.  Competing land claims and the uncertainty of clear title combined with the post-Revolutionary War land rush to encourage the first English settlers to begin reclaiming the backcountry of the Waldo patent once occupied by the Wawenoc Indians of Norumbega.  The first English settlers started coming to the Davistown Plantation in 1780.  In 1785, the Massachusetts General Court reaffirmed the proprietary entitlements of the Plymouth Patent and of General Henry Knox and his associates.  This created a conflict between settlers moving into the Davistown and other backcountry communities hoping for free land, and the proprietors wishing to extract as much money from the sale of their titles as they could.  The three decades which followed the resettlement of the Davistown Plantation by coastal Maine and southern New England residents constitute a period of unrest and conflict over the proprietor's land patents culminating in the White Indian attack at the Marshall Springs Hotel in Montville in 1815.  During this time, the Davistown Plantation evolved into the boomtowns of Montville and Liberty.

The essence of the turmoil and conflicts which were a component of the early settlement of the Davistown Plantation are explored in detail in Alan Taylor's Liberty Men and the Great Proprietors: The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820.  Taylor succinctly summarizes the issue of land claims that in the years after the Revolutionary War provided the context of the rush to settle the Maine frontier by land hungry residents of southern New England.  "Three major proprietary claims, based on letters patent issued between 1629 and 1632 by the Council for New England of Charles I, covered almost all of mid-Maine.  On the west the Pejepscot Proprietors claimed the Pejepscot Patent: the land four miles back on both sides of the Androscoggin River from its mouth to its 'uppermost falls.'  In the center the Kennebeck Proprietors (also known as the Plymouth Company) laid claim to the Plymouth Patent: about three million acres located fifteen miles deep on each side of the Kennebec, Maine's central and most important river.  To the east, Brigadier General Samuel Waldo and two companies of his partners, the Ten Proprietors and the Twenty Associates, claimed the Waldo Patent: about one million acres located between the Medomac and Penobscot rivers.  The Great Proprietors did not possess clear legal title to the lands they claimed.  Drafted in England by lawyers who had never seen the Eastern Country, the three major patents were vague and overlapping.  Worse still, the three major patents were also in conflict with ten smaller proprietary claims: the royal Pemaquid Patent and nine claims based on Indian deeds."  (pg. 12-13).

Taylor's historical survey is the most important introduction to the history of Davistown; it provides essential background for understanding the context of the later histories of Liberty and Montville.  The other histories containing information about the early days of Liberty and Montville are: A brief history of the town of Liberty, Celebration of Centennial Anniversary, Aug. 25, 1927,Hurwitz, 1975, History of Liberty, Maine 1827 - 1975 and Tom Donahue, 1996, The Kingdom in Montville, Maine: A Technological Diary 1789 - 1994.

Taylor cites a Henry Knox comment to illustrate the unspoken tradition of a search for economic gain which stretches back to hopes and motivations of the first English (and Spanish, French and Basque) merchant adventurers who visited the Maine coast in the 16th century: "No part of the United States affords such solid grounds of profit to capitalists, as the District of Maine. -- General Henry Knox, November 11, 1795." (pg. 11).  Needless to say, settlers coming to Maine from southern New England also shared Knox's hope for the opportunity of economic enrichment.

Taylor uses the reminiscences of Benjamin Tibbetts of Liberty, Maine, printed in the Belfast Republican on November 20, 1885, when he was 100 years old, as an introduction to his study of the unrest and backcountry resistance that characterized the rapid settlement of the mid-Maine coast, including backcountry towns like Liberty and Montville.  Taylor summarizes the themes in his historical survey of the settlement of the Maine frontier: "This study examines four phenomena that converged in Benjamin Tibbetts' life: migration to the frontier, labor applied to wilderness land to create property, a spiritual search for divine meaning, and organized resistance to the Great Proprietors.  Widespread in mid-Maine, the settlers' resistance began in the 1760s, lapsed when the Revolution seemed to sweep away the proprietary claims, and revived in the 1790s, after the proprietors reasserted their demands for payment.  Initially the insurgents called themselves Liberty Men or Sons of Liberty: defenders of a Revolution betrayed by America's great men.  But their foes called them White Indians, on account of their disguises and their supposed savagery." (pg. 3).

Tibbetts was one of the last survivors of the initial wave of settlers that had moved into the Davistown Plantation; he moved to Liberty in 1815, had 12 children, 50 grandchildren and was famous for his prowess as an ax man and a farmer.  Tibbetts participated in the famous White Indian raid of September 5, 1815 at the Marshall Springs Hotel in Montville against the proprietor Joseph H. Pierce, Jr.  "The surge of settlers into the backcountry occurred at the same time that the American Revolution encouraged heightened aspirations among the common folk.  The Revolution did not cease in 1783 when the Treaty of Paris ended the war with Great Britain; during the 1780s and 1790s the diverse people who had united against British rule fell out over the social and political implications of their Revolution. ... Benjamin Tibbetts was but one among thousands throughout the American backcountry who combined frontier migration, hard labor, evangelical seeking, and property contention."  (pg. 5).

Taylor continues "Wild Yankees, Anti-Renters, Whiskey Rebels, Regulators, and Liberty Men believed in a different American Revolution, one meant to protect small producers from the moneyed men who did not live by their own labor, but instead, preyed on the many who did."  (pg. 6).

Taylor then summarizes the objectives of the Great Proprietors whose interests are symbolized by Henry Knox's quote above.  "The Great Proprietors, in contrast, insisted that America's commercial development required the emergence of a more efficient, complex, and hierarchical social order where property would become concentrated in the hands of the capitalists who best understood how to employ it to create more property."  (pg. 8).

The summary of Taylor's introduction puts the origins of the Davistown Plantation in the proper national historic context. "In Maine, the process of frontier settlement intersected with America's Revolutionary settlement: the resolution of whose values and whose property interests would be legitimated by the Revolution.  In the immediate wake of the war, thousands migrated from southern New England to mid-Maine in pursuit of autonomy as small farmers.  In their new settlements they gradually acquired improved property in the land, and they developed evangelical meetings hostile to the commonwealth's Congregational establishment.  When, in the 1780s and 1790s, the proprietors revived their dormant land claims, the settlers exploited their distance from political and religious authority to organize a resistance that safeguarded their new property.  But the Great Proprietors were committed to a more hierarchical and paternalistic world view.  They worried that the combination of frontier migration, evangelical religion, and the recent Revolution had produced a centrifugal force that would tear social order apart.  As was the case throughout the American backcountry between 1790 and 1820, the conflict between agrarian and elite ways of defining the Revolution produced a deadlock that became an opportunity for a new breed of political leaders to gain power; Jeffersonian politicians reframed political ideology in a manner that permitted compromise legislation and defused the confrontation.  The conflict between Great Proprietors and Liberty Men and the ultimate triumph of the Jeffersonians were symptomatic of a more widespread social and political transformation: the making of a liberal social order."  (pg. 9-10).

Taylor's maps are an important component of his text along with his many footnotes and extensive bibliography; the one on page 27 differentiates the backcountry communities such as Davistown from the communities along the shore that were settled prior to the Revolutionary War.  The focus of Taylor's history centers on the Norumbega region, especially the communities west of the Kennebec River as well as eastward to the Penobscot and ranging as far north as Frankfort, Clinton, Norridgewock and Industry and as far west as the Androscoggin River in Lewiston.  Of historical interest, and also potentially confusing is the fact that many communities, including Liberty and Montville, had different names in 1800 than they have now.  The following is a selection of some of the more important towns in the Revolutionary period of the Maine frontier, with the current name being followed by the 1800 designation:  Albion (Freetown), Brooks (Bryant Ridge), China (Harlem), Freedom (Beaver Hill/Smithtown), Jefferson (Balltown), Liberty/Montville (Davistown), Lincolnville (Ducktrap), Morrill (Great Meadow Settlement), Mount Vernon (Washington Plantation), Northport (New Canaan), Palermo (Sheepscot Great Pond Settlement, Claytown), Wiscasset (Pownalborough), Searsmont (Quantabacook), Sommerville (Patricktown), Swanville (Lee Plantation), Troy (Bridgestown), Unity (Twenty Five Mile Pond Settlement), Whitefield (Balltown/ Hunts Meadow) and Windsor (Malta, New Waterford, and Pinhook).  Morrill, Searsmont and Belmont were all part of a large plantation called Green Plantation.

In the History of Liberty, published in 1975 by the Liberty Historical Society, the early history of Liberty, its grants and the Waldo indenture and agreement between the heirs of General Samuel Waldo are briefly summarized.  Alfred Hurwitz, the author of this history, notes that James Davis from Massachusetts was one of the first settlers of Montville, arriving in 1780.  He settled with his wife and 12-year-old son, William, in Davistown, probably near the current location of the Maritime Energy facility on Route 3.  Davis was a Presbyterian Elder, a Liberty Man and a rebel.  He wrote with Samuel Ely in 1796 The Davistown Resolves, a pamphlet calling for unified resistance against Henry Knox and the Great Proprietors.  He is referred to in the Henry Knox Papers as "Old Davis".  His son Elias was the first child born in the settlement, in December, 1781.

The History of Liberty contains little additional information about the early settlers, it focuses on the formation of Montville in 1807, and the incorporation of Liberty in 1827.  Donahue's The Kingdom in Montville, Maine provides additional information about Montville, which constituted the northern half of the Davistown Plantation.  Donahue notes that Montville was settled in 1778, had 6 families by 1790 and 50 families by 1800.  Smith Cram, one of the first settlers in the village known as the Kingdom, built his mill in 1798-99.  Ezechial Knowlton and others may have had mills running by 1797.

The rapid settlement of Davistown resulted in the establishment of numerous villages possibly beginning with the Kingdom and then soon including Center Montville, South Montville, Liberty Village, McFarland's Corner, Sherman's Corner, Peavytown and South Liberty.  The flood of settlers into Davistown and other backcountry coastal towns came as a result of a lack of land in southern New England and a timber shortage, which had reached critical proportions before and during the Revolutionary War.  The wealth of timber resources and the hope for free land (an illusion) in Maine, provided the impetus for rapid population increase in the late 18th and first three decades of the 19th century.

The result was a booming economy, with rapid construction of coastal ports and towns.  Liberty and Montville appeared to play a key role in the construction of the many brick buildings in Portland and Boston by being the center of production for the wooden lime casks necessary to carry lime from the lime kilns of Thomaston to be used for the production of mortar.  This lime was transported south to the coastal cities of southern New England and the midAtlantic states by a specially designed variation of the ubiquitous "coasters" built in the many shipyards of coastal Maine.  The lime cask production utilized the south branch of the Davistown Rd. to Searsmont Center.  Other products of Liberty and Montville's thriving community of coopers were shipped to Belfast by the north branch of the Davistown Rd.  These commercial activities help explain why in Joseph Williamson'sHistory of the City of Belfast, the first road leading out of town in 1790 was called the Davistown Road.  The organization of The Davistown History Project is in part an attempt to answer the question: why would such a road be constructed at such an early date?  What was in Davistown in 1790 that required a road to Belfast, or roads to Waldoboro, Union or Thomaston?  Clearly the booming economy of coastal Maine depended on the vast timber resources of areas such as Davistown.  The rapidity of road construction is a testament of the importance of timber in the early days of Davistown.  Less than 100 years after the first settlers came to Davistown, the land was cleared of forest and the local economy was in rapid decline.

Mike Beaudry
 

In Come Spring, the romantic novel about the settlement of Union, Ben Ames Williams describes an odd eccentric, hermit from the area of Davistown (Montville) that Williams calls "I'm Davis."He has a long white beard and hair, dresses in animal skins, hunts and traps from the Kennebec to Penobscot Bay.His home is a hovel dug out of the stream bank at the headwaters of the Georges River, beyond Quantabacook and Ruffingham Meadow.
 

The question is often asked, " Did such a character actually exist, or was this merely the whimsical creation of Williams?"
 

The answer is that the "I'm Davis" character is rooted in historical fact, but that the character was based not upon a single person, but the merging of two very peculiar people that lived in the early settlement of Davistown.
 

The first was a person that went by the name "Davis".Cyrus Eaton, in the Annals of Warren, describes him as follows:
 

1784. About this time, began to appear in the woods, and occasionally visit the settlement, a man by the name of Davis, one of those singular characters that sometimes vary the picture of life; a sort of "Leatherstocking" of the wilderness, hovering on the borders between civilized and savage society.He lived a solitary life in the woods, clad in skins, and subsisting on the products of the chase, which formed his sole occupation.He had no intercourse with the settlers, except an occasional visit for the purpose of exchanging furs for ammunition and other necessities; but his path was frequently crossed by the hunter, who was oftentimes entertained by him with such refreshments as his camp afforded.On these occasions, he was hospitable and social, talked of his dangers and accidents by "flood and field, he hair-breadth 'scapes," and causeless frights, with apparent satisfaction; but it was evident his heart was not with his guests - he sighed not at their departure, and returned with pleasure to the society of his own feelings.His grotesque appearance, his hairy costume, his beard descending to his breast, and his white locks streaming to the wind, excited the curiosity of children, and rendered his coming a memorable event.Nor was his behaviour more free from whimsical peculiarities, than his dress.One of these was that of bowing, with great reverence, when favored with the sight of bread.Whether this proceeded from religious, or other motives, his distant and taciturn manners rendered it difficult to determine.He shifted his quarters to various places, as convenience required, and followed hunting and trapping from the Kennebec to the Penobscot.From his long residence in the present town of Montville, that place, before its incorporation was called Davistown.Of his early history, and the time of his coming hither, nothing is known.Rumor ascribed his eccentricity to disappointment in love, and it was said that he had one daughter in the western country to whom he contrived to remit the proceeds of his hunting.On one occasion, after a hunting tour of some days, he returned to his camp, kindled a fire, and sat down to his lonely musings; when suddenly startled by the most piercing cries proceeding from his fire.At first he could ascribe it to nothing but the foul fiend himself; but a huge tortoise, crawling out from the ashes in which he had made his bed, soon relieved his apprehensions, and afforded him a delicious repast.At another time, he was confined to his camp near starving.In this time, his traps were found by a hunting party from Warren, and, from their neglected appearance, being supposed to be abandoned, were carried off.The owner, however, recovering in season to observe the tracks of the party, pursued them, and recovered his property.He continued this kind of life for a long period, when, his hunting range being gradually curtailed by the settlement of the country, and his natural powers abating, he was at last compelled to receive support from his fellowmen, and is said to have died a pauper, in one of the towns that had sprung up beneath his eyes on the borders of the Penobscot.

Eaton, however, introduces us to a second character that filled the eccentric void left by Davis; and who Williams merged with Davis to create his character "I'm Davis."
 

But the majestic groves and lofty peaks of Montville, were not slow to attracting another kindred spirit, to enjoy its primeval society, before it should all be transformed by the sturdy hand of advancing industry.Toward the close of the [18^th] century, a man equally eccentric, but more communicative and intelligent, by the name of Barrett, wandered hither from New Hampshire, and for more than 40 years, passed a life of solitude in the woods of that town.

Timothy Barrett, at the age of 30, came to Davistown in 1793.He lived a hermit's life.His home was a cave dug into a clay bank ledge up above Ruffingham Meadow, on a stream that now bears his name.The Montville Comprehensive Plan says he dug a canal between Center Stream and Thompson Brook to furnish power for the old mill below [ Barrett's mill].In 1807, Barrett sold his 62 acres to Samuel Campbell for $100 and moved to the shore of True's pond.His manner of living did not change with his move.The following was recorded in the Rockland Opinion:

Sixty years ago the coming summer four of us visited Timothy Barrett.He was dressed shabbily and his habitation was decidedly primitive.It was made of poles stood apart at the bottom and drawn together at the top.He had a small stone fireplace on one side, and on the other a nest - it could not be called a bed.He had a piece of white cloth about his head and his feet were bare.We told him we should not think his food would be good.He said it was not.His bread was not half baked.His hut was near a mill pond on which he had a floating garden, a raft of logs with soil enough on them to grow vegetables.The way into his habitation was through a grove of young wild trees interspersed with bearing apple trees, of which, by his leave, we partook - not the trees but the apples.

Timothy Barrett died in 1847.

Sources:

Eaton, Cyrus.Annals of Warren.Masters & Livermore : Hallowell.1877.

Goodwin Papers.Special Collections.Fogler Library.University of Maine, Orono.

"History." Montville Comprehensive Plan.1991. 

(THE DAVISTOWN RESOLVES)

THE

MOUNT OF DISTRESS;
TO THE GENERAL COURT,
OR
TO ALL THE WORLD

PORTSMOUTH, N. H.

Printed by CHARLES PEIRCE, Proprietor of the Work.

Written by Samuel Ely and Elder James Davis

1796

(The Revolutionary Document that called for a unified and militant backcountry in defiance to Major-General Henry Knox and his claim to the Waldo Patent – Knox, Lincoln and Waldo counties.)

The united cry and heart affecting voice of the two counties of Lincoln and Hancock, is that of the Prophet of Amos, where fays the poor are fold for filver, and the needy for a pair of fhoes, but the author advifes both Counties to choofe a landed Committee of three men to fuperintend the prudentials of their landed intereft – under the jurisdiction of their good Conftitution in each town and plantation, and then to authorife their feveral commitees to meet in one or the other Counties in a peaceable manner to confult the general intereft of the whole, and to adopt the anticipated refolves herein recommended, or fuch others as prudence fhall dictate when convened, which doutlefs will be to forward thofe refolves either by their agents or reprefentatives to the General Court, toplead for an equitous committee to execute deeds in behalf of the State on the fpot, and if this recommendary gift to the two Counties is worthy of acceptance, doubtlefs each town and plantation will publifh their intentions relative to the premifes and each town fay when and where their committees fhall affemble, which plan is confonant to the plan in London, where they convened to numbers of 200,000.

In a folemn manner we refolve to defend the conftitution of the ftate with all its civil officers, at the expence [sic] of life and fortune, unlefs tis where are rights are unjuftly invaded by the unjuft influence of land jobbers to excite civil officers to deftroy and ruin our families, in which cafe our virtuous conftitution does not operate.

The votes and refolves of the County of Hancock or the proceedings of the feveral towns and plantations in faid County relative to the unjuft and illegal title of K[nox] to his fpurious patent, in which we fhall
 

1ft.State the peoples’ Bill of Rights.

2d.Give a list of their former and prefent gievances.

3d.The equitious neceffity of their occafional resolves.

4^th.Shew the wifdom of the united affociation of the people.

5^th.Clofe with an addrefs to all the world.

2d.We fay our emigration on to this land, cant include by no means the fhadow of forfeiture, but muft by the immutable law of reafon and equity give juft and pofitive poffeffion of thefe land as a reward for war services.Thefe are the united fentiments of the firft Congrefs that ever met in America.

3d.Give a lift of the firft as well as the prefent grievances of the people – Their grievances begun as foon as they were landed at Broad-Bay.Waldo first promifed them their paffage free to America, but he ftripped them and robbed them of their houfhold goods and money. – Then inftead of fulfilling his folemn repeated promiffary engagements to the poor Germans, in giving them two hundred acres of land a piece, he fettled the whole of them off of his patent, and they have had all their lands to buy of other proprietors, then inftead of fupplying them with a years provifion, as he promifed them many of them ftarved to death, and many others furvived by boiling nothin but lentile herbs and clams; then inftead of peace they waded through Indian war of feven years, and numbers of them were flain; then their prefent children have confronted Britifh terror and have fought to blood and flaughter to defend their lands and lives; and now though Waldo do forfeited his patent twice under the crown, now comes a K[nox], and claims the whole, who fays he ftands in Waldo’s fhoes, and his whole cry is pay me from two to four dollars per acre, or he will drive all the people from their poffeffions, and this demand has put it out of the peoples power ever to have any more fchools or a preached gospel;In the name of wonder where do we live?Not in a land of freedom, but in Algiers, for we are clogged, fhackled and fettered with a loaded demand, which three quarters of the people can never pay no more than they can create a world.Now after fuch a fyftem of crueltiies, invafions and violations of all the principles of the rights and properties of us poor people, we proceed to agree in the following refoves.

1ft.We refolve that we will not pay K[nox] nor his agents, nor nobody elfe one penny for our lands, but the State only.
 

2d.We refolve K[nox] nor his agents nor no furveyor whatever, fhall be allowed to put a chain or compafs on no land from the North Eaft corner of Ducktrap, to a line running north weft by north till it ftrikes Penobfcot road, which runs to Fort Halifax on Kennebeck river, tho’ no State furveyor fhall be included in this refolve.
 

3d.We refolve in our judgment we fhall leave him a garden fpot above the line, we have drawn, about 140 thoufand acres of land which is almoft feven townfhips, fix miles fquare, and if that will not fatisfy his voracious appetite, a world placed in his heart would ftill make him cry like the horfe leach, give, give.
 

4^th.We refolve that no furveyor nor agent under K[nox] fhall efcape the refentment of the people under the direction of their committees, in cafe they do attmpt to furvey the premifes, or to cheat the people any longer by felling land under K[nox] on this unlawful granted patent.

5^th.We refolve that no civil officer or fheriff fhall be allowed to take or apprehend any man for oppofing or refcuing any man out of his hands when taken.
 

6^th.We refolve that no civil officer fhall be indulged to ferve any writ of ejectment on any inhabitant for taking up or improving any lands on this patent, provided faid writ is iffued by any proprietor or his attorney, till decided by the General Court.

7^th.We refolve that one inhabitant fhall not break in upon the furvey of another where they have done it, they fhall quit the premifes, or we will drive them off by force, that the people may have peace among themfelves.

8^th.We refolve that they ought in juftice to the poor people on this fpurious patent, to have their feveral committees take up and furvey in each of their towns about fix hundred acres of land to fupport the gofpel and fchools.

9^th.We refolve to join all the towns and plantations on this patent as one united body, together with the County of Lincoln, againft all fets of proprietors, who are harraffing the people in law, and to afford them our perfonal affiftance to defend their landed intereft whenever they fhall apply for the fame at the commands of faid committees.

10^th.We refolve that whenever any man in any town or plantation; or any ftranger fhall want to take up or furvey any land for themfelves, they muft make application to the landed committee and furrender their application to their judgement and direction.

11^th.We refolve that there is on this land claimed by K[nox] above feven hundred children, in our judgement, which never had a fhoe or ftocking to wear from the womb to nine years of age, but their extreme poverty is no defence againft an abufive cruel nabob who is continually crying pay me for my land or I will drive you from your bark huts.

12^th.We refolve that in our judgement the General Court will prove as eager and willing to vacate and nullify K[nox]’s oppreffive grant, when they maturely confider the time the grant was made, the few members then in the houfe, the oppreffive effects attending the people, the impolicy of the grant in a free ftate, as King Ahaffurus was to vacate and revoke his bloody edict in favour of Haman againft the poor Jews.

13^th.We refolve that no man can deceive a people more, or cheat them worfe than K[nox], when he knows he can’t warrant nor defend a fingle foot of land, called Waldo’s patent, on account of the numerous train of heirs which are as much proprietors of the fame as he is.

14^th.We refolve that the people on this land and in this country have as undoubted a right to the foil they now poffefs, as Vermont had to theirs, who never was called upon to pay neither State nor Continent for their lands, though above half of Vermont was patent land, granted to York land jobbers; why then are we not as much the owners of this foil by conqueft, as Vermont?If fo, why fhould the people yield up their property to the arbitrary difpofal of any man on earth? Yet left we are called refractory, we are free to pay the ftate for our lands.4 Shew the wisdom of the united affociations of the people; the wifdom, the importance and abfsolute juftice of this affociation of all people in Hancock and Lincoln counties, will abundantly appear for thefe reafons, as

1ft.Becaufe the people have been harraffed and embaraffed by law, with a fet and fets’ of proprietors for near forty years, and are ftill in the bowels of the law.Now,

2d.Becaufe the damages the people have fuftained, and the great cofts in law they have paid, would have purchafed all their lands thirty times over, in its original ftate.

3d.Becaufe we defy according to the prefent different fets of proprietors claiming the fame land, to difcover a fingle circumftance, promifing from any quarter the faintest hopes of obtaining any refpit in law, but muft as thing now are, ftill fuffer the oppreffive feverities of law in the hands of craving land jobbers to the end of time.

4^th.Becaufe the efficatious means of your deliverance from final poverty, from infamous oppreffion, from entailed miferies to pofterity, now depends upon the union of the people; and iffelf-prefervation, if a long ceres of violent abufes, if an accumlation of artful intrigues, if ftrenuous efforts to provoke innocency itfelf, can ftimulate human being to affociate for to refcue themfellves from ruin and tame fubmiffion.Then we as part of yourfelves, are united to call upon you all as one man to adopt our refolves, and defend them in fuch a manner, as we have fincerely recommended, Which brings us

5^th.To clofe with the whole with and Addrefs to all the World.

We are forry to fay, yea we feel reluctant to exprefs our being compelled to difapprove the General Court in giving away fuch immenfe tracts of land, when each individual in the State had an intereft in all public property, and whenever they do on any principle whatever, they injured the State, and fubvert the promotion of republican government, why then is this degrading deftiantion made, or, what can entitle on man to five hundred thoufand acres of land, and another to one hundred, when both have merited in the fervice of their country an equal award for their heroifm and fidelity?Indeed idiotcy itfelf cannot believe in piling up property in fuch a manner on one man, to the robbing of thoufands, which in fact is the very cafe, heaven frobid fuch injuftice, heaven awake your attention, heaven confolidate all your hearts like David and Jonathan into a living band of brothers to arife and ftand forth like herces in defence of your invaded rights and; lands fear not the terrors of thirfty land-jobbers, but remember the intention and purity of our conftitution was made to defend the poor from the rich, the weak from the powerful, the induftrious from the rapacious, the peaceable from the violent, the tenants from the lords, and all from their fuperiors.Motives thus cogent arifinng from the emergency of your unhappy condition muft excite your utmoft diligence and zeal to give all poffible energy to have our refolves fupported, as we firmly believed they are calculated for your relief, and will put a ftoppage to the ruin of your families, yes, you know that the tranfcendent nature of freedom, and an equitable enjoyment of the rights of men, will always elevate thofe who unite in the caufe of justice; but if the Court will be deaf to our cries, and afford us no relief, let us adopt Vermont plan, by voting ourfelves into a feparate State, from as they did, an affembly of our own, nulify and vacate patents as they did, then peace will reign triumphant, and there will be none in the Province of Maine to make them afraid.

1. Query.Was ever any people on earth fo abufed in law, as the counties of Lincoln and Hancock.No, no, no.
 

2. Query.Was ever there fo much money, time and pains loft by a poor people in America.No, no, no.

3. Query.Was there ever a people before harraffed in law, for thirty-five years, that ever bore it with more patience or perfeverance.No, no, no.

4. Query.Was there ever before three or four diftinct fets of proprietors making equal claims to the fame lands.No, no, no.

5. Query.Will there not be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and to a thoufand different fets of claimants, heirs and proprietors to the fame patent which K[nox] owns.Yes, yes, yes.

6. Query.Then who on earth is fafe or fecure to purchafe a fingle foot of land of K[nox].Anfwer, Nobody.

7. Query.Then what Fool will ever buy of him.Anfwer, there is no fuch fools.

FINIS.

The Freedom of the PRESS is effencial to the fecurity of OUR RIGHTS.

The high point in both population and commercial productivity of Liberty and Montville appears to be around 1835-45.

The baseline data for the historical register for Liberty and Montville has been obtained from the following sources: A Brief History of the Town of Liberty:  Celebration of Centennial Anniversary:  August 25, 1927,  History of Liberty (Hurwitz, 1975) and The Kingdom in Montville, Maine: A Technological Diary 1789-1984 (Donahue).  The Davistown Plantation became the town of Montville in 1807; Liberty was split off from Montville in 1827. The location of early settlers, mills and other historical information given below is the name of the location at the time it was established.  To avoid confusion we do not use the word Davistown in the listings below.

This registry will be perused by the residents of Liberty and Montville.  Hopefully, they will enrich our knowledge of the earliest residents of the Davistown Plantation, the location of surviving early homes and other buildings and the mercantile history of both the Davistown Plantation and the many villages that comprised Liberty and Montville.  Visitors to this website with additional information, please contact the Museum by email, snail mail or fax.

In 1990 the Early American Industries Association brought out a second edition of the Directory of American Toolmakers (DATM) edited by Robert E. Nelson.  In this directory six Liberty and Montville toolmakers are listed (see below).  In addition to the toolmakers listed here, Kenneth L. Cope's American Wrench Makers 1830 - 1915 lists Danvers Cram as a wrench maker living in Liberty Maine circa 1890 (also see below).  The Davistown Museum is seeking both information on these and any other toolmakers living and working in Davistown, Montville, or Liberty, as well as any surviving specimens of the tools that they produced. Please contact the Museum if you have information on these toolmakers, or for that matter, any of the other of the hundreds of Maine toolmakers which are listed in the 1990 or 1999 edition of DATM.  As funding permits a complete listing of Maine toolmakers will be collated from DATM and other sources (see the Registry of Maine Toolmakers.)

In the brief listing of Liberty and Montville toolmakers compiled below, its particularly noteworthy that only one toolmaker, Dunton, Copp and Co. is documented as working prior to the Civil War.  The peak of population growth of Liberty and Montville was reached in the middle of the 4th decade of the 19th century.  At this time there must have been a proliferation of blacksmith shops producing tools for the local trades and industries throughout the communities of Maine.  The names of most of these smiths and small tool factories with their water driven trip hammers have been lost.  The later toolmakers listed below at least produced enough tools to be remembered, or at least to have signed specimens survive into the late 20th century.  As of this date (Jan. 2001), The Davistown Museum has not been able to locate any signed Liberty or Montville made hand tools.  Of particular interest is the large number of coopers working in Liberty at the time of the Civil War, as noted by Beaudry below.  1860 would mark the end of the florescence of the cooper's trade in Liberty and Montville for items other than the lime casks that were in demand until the late-19th century.  The many kinds of wooden tubs, buckets, barrels, boxes and other wooden paraphernalia produced for the booming coasting trade was being quickly supplanted by factory made storage containers.  Somebody had to produce tools for the coopers, as well as for the shoemakers, joiners, carriage makers, brick masons, wheelwrights and other artisans who were active well before the Industrial Revolution so dramatically changed the lives of Liberty and Montville's artisans and craftsmen.

Who	When	Where	What	Reference
Abbott, Ebenezer G.	-1850-1860-	Montville	Blacksmith	1850 and 1860 census
Abbott, Joel	-1860-	Montville	Blacksmith	1860 census
Allen, I.F.	-1870-	Liberty	Machinist	1880 census
Ayer, William	1879	Liberty	Axes	1879 Maine Business Directory pg. 130
Baker, Daniel	1880	Liberty	Blacksmith	1880 census
Batchelder, Edward S. (or Bachelder)	1869-1871	Montville	Blacksmith, Edge tools	DATM pg. 66 1850, 1860, 1870 census
Bean, Jonathan	1855-1860	Montville	Farm tools, Machinist	DATM, 1860 census
Bennet, Frank P.		Montville	Improved model of the Cram wheel, stave chamfer and crozing machine, tongue and groove stave machine, hand water pump	Donahue
Bryant, Alonzo	1879-1880	Montville	Farm tools (winnowing mills)	DATM pg. 126
Butler, Daniel W.	1860	Liberty	Blacksmith	1860 census
Chaplin, Charles c.	1870	Liberty	Machinist	1870 census
Clement, Albion	1870-1880	Montville	Blacksmith	1870 and 1880 census
Clement, William	1850-1860	Montville	Blacksmith	1850 and 1860 census
Collins, J. W. & Co.	1881	Montville	Axes	1881 Maine Business Directory
Collins, W.	1881-1884	Liberty & Montville	Axes	Yeaton
Copp, Dunton	1856	Liberty	Axes	Yeaton
Cram, Danvers	pat. 1/27/1891	Liberty	Adjustable axle nut wrench	Cope pg. 92
Cram, Smith	1762-1857	Montville (Kingdom)	Sawmill	Donahue
Cram, Elijah	1850	Montville	Cram water wheel	Donahue
Creasey, Isaiah	1880	Montville	Machinist	1880 census
Creasey, Isaiah E.	1880	Montville	Machinist	1880 census
Davis, Dexter	1880	Montville	Blacksmith	1880 census
Dennis, Hazen	1870-1880	Liberty	Blacksmith	1870 and 1880 census
Dunton, Copp & Co.	1856	Liberty	Axes	DATM pg. 243
Dunton, Isaac L.	1862	Liberty	Axes and edge tools	DATM pg. 243
Enos, Emery	1880	Montville	Blacksmith	1880 census
Gilman, Ellis A.	1860-1870	Liberty	Blacksmith	1860, 1870 census
Gilman, Hollis M.	1850	Liberty	Blacksmith	1850 census
Gilman, John N.	1880	Liberty	Machinist	1880 cenus
Gilman, Richard H.	1871-1885	Liberty	Farm and household tools, plows, harrows, cider presses	DATM pg. 315
Gilman, Roscoe	1860	Liberty	Blacksmith	1860 census
Glidden, Joseph	1879-1880	Liberty	Farm tools, cultivators	DATM pg. 317
Hatch, Jonathan	1860	Montville	Blacksmith	1860 census
Hunt, W. H.	1874	Liberty	Axes	Yeaton
Hurd, William	1862-1896	Liberty	Axes and edge tools	DATM pg. 412
Peavey, Andrew	1850	Liberty	Blacksmith	1850 census
Peavey, Thomas J.	1850-1870	Liberty and Montville	Blacksmith	1850, 1860 and 1870 census
Peavey, William	1850	Liberty	Blacksmith	1850 census
Pickett, Joseph	1850	Montville	Blacksmith	1850 census
Poland, John	1880	Montville	Machinist apprentice	1880 census
Randel, Charles	1860	Montville	Blacksmith	1860 census
Sherman, Bridges Curtis	1850-1880	Liberty	Blacksmith	1850 - 1880 census
Sherman, Walter H.	1880	Liberty	Blacksmith	1880 census
Smith, Reuben	1850	Montville	Blacksmith	1850 census
Swift, Chauncey	1870-1880	Montville	Blacksmith	1870, 1880 census
Sylvester, Bela P.	1850	Montville	Blacksmith	1850 census
Temple, Levi	1850	Montville	Blacksmith	1850 census
Thompson, Granville	1880	Montville	Blacksmith	1880 census
Whitten, Samuel	1860	Montville	Blacksmith	1860 census
Wood, Phineas	1855	Liberty	Edge tools	1855 Maine Business Directory, pg. 345
Young, Andrew	1860-1870	Montville	Blacksmith	1860, 1870 census
Young, Dunbar	1870	Montville	Blacksmith	1870 census
Young, George W.	1880	Montville	Blacksmith	1880 census

Advertisements from brochures promoting Frank Bennett's machinery. (Reprinted from Tom Donahue's 1996, The Kingdom in Montville, Maine: A technological diary 1789 - 1994.)

Michael Beaudry in his unpublished paper "Montville/Liberty and the Civil War" lists the following occupations as extrapolated from the 1860 census (the number of individual in each occupation is listed in parentheses after the occupation).  In 1860, Beaudry notes Montville and Liberty had 234 farmers.  The following trades are noted, with the numbers for Montville first, Liberty second. This listing does not include non-tool related professions such as teachers, clergymen, sea captains (1), traders, clerks, postmasters and other professions which Beaudry includes in his paper.

Trade (# Montville / # Liberty)
Farmers (88/146)
Coopers (10/19)
Carpenters (15/3)
Blacksmiths (8/4)
Shoemakers (5/5)
Joiners (0/5)
Carriage makers (4/0)
Lumbermen (0/4)
Brick masons (3/0)
Mill men (1/3)
Ax maker (0/2)
Wheelwrights (0/2)
Cabinetmakers (2/0)
Bootmakers (2/0)
Dressmakers (2/2)
Machinists (2/1)
Tailors (2/0)
Millwrights (1/1)
Harnessmakers (1/0)
Stone cutters (0/1)
Caulker (0/1)
Carver (1/0)
Tinplate maker (0/1)

A year ago right now, much ado was made over the four-hundred-year anniversary of the George Waymouth / James Rosier voyage to the mid-coast area. However, an argument could well be made that a more important voyage occurred the following year, and that the foundation for an English presence in Maine was truly established then.

When Waymouth and Rosier returned to England in 1605 with their glowing account of a new land, nobody was listening more keenly than Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Lord Chief Justice John Popham. Popham actually envisioned America as a vast penal colony where the worst riff-raff would be sent to labor for the crown, and conveniently removed from England in the process. King James was all for keeping the new land's wealth out of private pockets and in his own, and with His Majesty's aid Popham and Gorges quickly maneuvered themselves into the lead role of sponsoring trips to America.

Several incidents hint at Popham's role as the spider in a web of political influence. The "ownership" of America had only reverted to King James because its former owner, Walter Raleigh, had been sent to the Tower of London on dubious charges of plotting to kill the King. The presiding judge is his "trial", of course, was John Popham. Once Waymouth had returned and been debriefed (and probably relieved of his charts) he was on the outside looking in, and his scribe Rosier was compelled to publish only as much information as Popham and Gorges deemed necessary to help them secure investors.

Thus the little-known voyage of 1606 was captained by Thomas Hanham, Popham¹s son-in-law, and piloted by young Martin Pring, who had previously been to New England in 1603. However, the most important person on the ship may have been an Indian who Waymouth had kidnapped the previous year, and whose name Rosier rendered as "Dehanada". One of five such captives, he stayed at the home of Ferdinando Gorges and learned English while Gorges and Popham prepared to send out two  more exploratory voyages in 1606. These Indians, incidentally, may have been exhibited in London and an influence to Shakespeare, whose play "The Tempest" was published c.1610. From all accounts Gorges treated his guests well, as indeed he considered their guidance and friendship to be essential to his future colonies.

Dehanada was sent back to America as a guide with Hanham and Pring, and presumably led them to the Pemaquid -Sagadahoc area. In addition to assisting Hanham and Pring, he also sailed as a guide with John Smith in 1614, who called him "Donnida" and had high praise for the assistance he rendered. We last see Dehanada as late as 1648, testifying in a dispute over competing English deeds to land along the Kennebec. Naming himself as the rightful heir to Old Natawormet, a Kennebec sagamore who Champlain met near Wiscasset in 1605, he asserts that the land was rightly his to sell.

With an English-speaking native prince as both guide and pawn, and perhaps even friend, Hanham and Pring were apparently able to make a lot of hay in the summer of 1606. No account of their voyage was ever published, though the famous naval chronicler Samuel Purchas apparently had it in his possession at one time. We know of their work at least indirectly from Gorges, who called their map of the Maine coast the best that had ever come to his possession. Armed with the information brought back by Hanham and Pring, Popham and Gorges were able to secure a charter from King James, granting the Plymouth Company the right to develop colonies in America. Their inside knowledge also enabled them to attract all the investment partners they needed for their formal attempt at colonization in 1607--  the ill-fated Popham Colony, called Sabino, at the mouth of the Kennebec.

A marvelous account of that colony's founding in 1607 can be found in the anonymously-authored "Relation of a Voyage to Sagadahoc", which contains more information about Dehanada and a few intriguing hints about Waymouth¹s tracks across the mid-coast. However, the "phantom voyage" of 1606 remains almost invisible in the mists of time. There just aren't enough scraps of information from it for historians to even have good arguments about, so it remains largely ignored.

Hanham, Pring, and Dehanada. If we could only know what these three knew, many riddles that remain from the Contact Era could be resolved. At the very least, their trip to Maine in 1606 deserves a four-century anniversary of its own; for without it the English adventure in America would have played out very differently, or perhaps not at all.

Many of the primary sources from which this material was drawn may be seen at the Davistown Museum website's new publication, "Norumbega Reconsidered", written by curator H.G. Brack.

SPINNING WHEELS. -- The old spinning-wheel, turned by hand and doling out its single thread, was in use from the first settlement of the town.  It was considered indispensable to every household.  The spindle was made to revolve by means of a band connecting it with a large wheel.  Notwithstanding the facilities for manufacturing yarn at the present day, it is still occasionally used in many families.  The only improvement in it is the 'patent head,' which is merely the addition of an intervening wheel between the large one and the spindle.

LOOMS. -- The old-fashioned loom, more costly than the spinning-wheel, was not so common.  The shuttle was thrown through the warp with the hand.  The fly-shuttle, introduced about the year 1812 or 1815, was considered a great improvement.

HOME-MADE CLOTHING. -- By means of the spinning-wheel and the loom, the inhabitants were able to provide themselves with woollen garments.  The fleece was made into rolls by the tedious process of carding by hand.  By the industrious housewife the rolls were spun on the large wheel, which in winter was brought up before the kitchen fire, -- the only fire in the house, except when there was company.  The yarn was then woven, and the cloth taken to the clothier, dressed and returned, having been dyed Holland-brown or smoke-color.  Cloth for striped frocks, and for some other purposes, was made and worn without being sent to the fulling-mill.  A tailoress was commonly employed to cut and sometimes to baste the garments, which were subsequently made by the wife and daughters.

The foot-wheel converted into linen the flax which was raised on the farm.  Winter evenings, when there were not more pressing duties, were spent by the females around a rousing wood-fire, in knitting stockings, mittens, and leggins, from home-made yarn.  Thus was every family practically in favor of domestic manufactures.

FULLING MILLS. -- The first fulling-mill was built on Crawford's River in 1799, by Micajah Gleason, from Framingham, Mass.  There have been four since, though there are none now.

CARDING MACHINES. -- The first machine for carding wool was built by Ebenezer Alden in 1806.  There have been four since, though there are none now.

FACTORIES. -- In 1809, a cotton-factory was built on the west side of St. George's River, just below the Middle Bridge.  Its operations were never very extensive.  The building was carried away by a freshet in 1832.  The Farmers' Woollen Factory was built near the Upper Bridge in 1814, and owned in shares of ten dollars each.  Wool was carded there as recently as 1843, though no cloth was dressed during the two or three previous years.  In 1843, William Gleason converted into a woollen-factory the building which had been used for a paper-mill at South Union.

PAPER MILLS. -- Several years ago, the manufacture of paper was carried on extensively.  The water in Crawford's River is peculiarly good for the purpose.  On this river, in 1810, was erected a paper-mill, which was burnt in 1818.  Another building was put up in 1819; but no paper was made there after 1837.  Immediately above the Middle Bridge was another paper-mill, which was burnt early on the morning of June 11, 1843.  The machinery, said to have cost $3,000, and unwrought stock valued at more than $2,000, were destroyed.  The paper was saved.  Insured at Worcester, Mass.

TANNERIES. -- Richard Cummings was the first person who tanned hides.  He abandoned the business after a few years, and the people traded for leather at Warren.  In 1826, there were three tanneries; one owned by Joseph Beckett, south-south-west of the Methodist Meeting-house; another by Susman Abrams, a Jew, a few rods below the Middle Bridge; and another on the east side of the St. George's above the Upper Bridge.  In 1840, there were four in town.

POTASH. -- Soon after the incorporation of he town, Edward Jones made potash, in small quantities, near the Lower Bridge.  For several years in the early part of the nineteenth century, Ebenezer Alden manufactured five or six tons annually in a building which he erected for the purpose, on a rivulet at the brow of the hill east of Seven Brook, on the south side of the road.

FOSSETTS' MILLS. -- The most extensive mill establishment was the Fossetts', at North Union.  It was completed in December, 1848, at an expense of about $10,000.  Under one roof were a saw-mill, a grist-mill with 'three run of stones,' besides a corn-cracker, stave-machine, shingle-machine, lath-machine, threshing-machine, cleanser, and bolt, -- all carried by steam.  They were destroyed by fire, June 21, 1850.

LIME-CASKS. -- The first person who gave his attention particularly to the manufacture of lime-casks was John Little.  This was early in the nineteenth century.  Within twenty-five years afterward, there was a cooper-shop at almost every man's door.  From August 15, 1794, the casks were to contain 100 gallons each, and to be made of well-seasoned oak or ash staves, with ten hoops on each cask, well driven, and sufficiently secured with nails or pins.  Afterward they were reduced to 75, and in 1810 to 50 gallons.  Now they will hold about 28 gallons.  At first they were made of rift staves, and the price for putting them together was twenty cents each.  The highest sum for which they were sold at Thomaston was sixty cents.  Now they are sold for about thirteen cents; sixteen and seventeen cents being considered high, though they can hardly be afforded at that price.  About the year 1818, when the price was thirty-two or thirty-three cents, the coopers, who could make twelve in a day, were dissatisfied because their wages were reduced to twelve and a half cents.  Not many years after the commencement of the business, the demand was so great that casks were put together hastily; and there was seldom a load from any part of the country carried to Thomaston, in which some were not crushed on the way.  Legislation has been resorted to frequently; but the laws are often willingly evaded both by makers and purchasers, and there is difficulty in enforcing them.

The introduction of stave-machines within twenty-five or thirty years -- of which there are now nine or more in the town -- enables the inhabitants to work up almost every kind of lumber, which would otherwise be worthless.  The facilities for putting together the materials, which are now bevelled by machinery, save a great amount of labor.  The number made cannot be ascertained.  In 1826 it was estimated at 30,000.  Considerable inquiry has been made of coopers and carters; and it is not unreasonable to say that at the present time there are not less than one hundred thousand, and it is not improbable that there are one hundred and fifty thousand made annually in Union alone.

...When hogsheads were first made, the number carried to Thomaston in a load was comparatively small.  About the year 1817, it had increased to sixty.  The roads were so bad that this was as large a load as four oxen could draw.  Now the casks are smaller, the roads better, and four oxen will carry two hundred; and a load of one hundred and sixty is common.

...The manufacturers or carters go when it is most convenient or advantageous; and, instead of being limited to Thomaston, as they were thirty years ago, they now dispose of the greater part of their hogsheads at East Thomaston, or Rockland, which has grown up since that time, and to which is a road through the Camden Hills by Mount Pleasant.

If no more were carried to Thomaston annually than the one hundred or one hundred and fifty thousand from Union, it would be an item of value in trade.  But on some mornings, thirty, forty, or perhaps fifty loads of various sizes, containing from twenty to one hundred and sixty lime-casks each, are seen at the market.  They are brought from the country nearly fifty miles back; from Hope, Appleton, Searsmont, Montville, Liberty, Palermo, Washington, Jefferson, &c.  The farmer, on rainy days, goes into his cooper-shop, and, in the course of a summer, has time to manufacture one or more loads.  The hired laborer, easily taught, thus makes his rainy days and leisure hours profitable to his employer.

One of the first questions the Davistown Museum had about the Katahdin Iron Works was, what role did it play in the florescence of Maine's many ax makers in the 19th century?  Where was Katahdin's raw pig iron reprocessed into wrought iron, low carbon steel or steel?  What industries utilized the pig iron that Katahdin produced.  What was the extent of the market area that Katahdin Iron Works served?  Perhaps the most important question, where did Maine blacksmiths, including its edge and other toolmakers, obtain the wrought iron and steel they utilized prior to 1843, as well as during the years after Katahdin Iron Works began operation?  In a previous memo posted on this site in the Katahdin Iron Works file, we raised the question of what role did the Katahdin Iron Works play in supplying the raw material for Maine's ax and edge tool makers.  Recent research conducted by Davistown Museum staff member, Mike Beaudry, indicates that Katahdin Iron Works played no role whatsoever in supplying the raw materials for Maine's edge tool makers.  The principal products produced from iron made at Katahdin Iron Works were: rail car wheels and wire, both made in states outside of Maine.  There is no evidence that any of the iron produced at Katahdin Iron Works was ever refined into the high quality wrought iron that then would have been utilized to make steel edge tools.  For more information on the history of the iron works as developed by Mike, see his essay {TO BE ADDED SOON} following the quotations from Victor Schlich's article below.

It is interesting to note in the following web information sources on Katahdin no mention is made of any lime kilns at Katahdin Iron Works.  East of Katahdin on the Maine coast are the vast lime pits of Thomaston and Knox county.  The lime produced from these unique coastal geological formations was an important industry beginning with the very first settlers in the Thomaston area.  General Henry Knox's mansion in Thomaston was, in fact, built in part with funds obtained from his profitable lime business.  While the predominant use of lime is for mortar and plaster in the building trades, lime is also a flux used to remove the impurities from pig iron in the blast furnace.  Roger K. Smith, the Massachusetts tool historian, has provided the Davistown Museum a very interesting photo of a lime kiln.  The fact that lime was apparently readily available in conjunction with the iron ore deposits at Katahdin may have played a key role in the longevity of pig iron production there.

Lime kiln  photo complements of Roger K. Smith

Note the similarity of appearance between the lime kiln and the blast furnace at Katahdin Iron Works (see photo below.)  These both have similar functions, they mix wood or other fuel with rock to get the final product.  A lime kiln uses limestone as the raw material.  Wood is added and burned with the limestone.  The heat causes the carbon portion of the limestone to also burn, resulting in lime, which is removed from the hole in the bottom.

In Maine's Back Woods: Historic Iron Works Restored
by Victor A. Schlich
(excerpts)

Thirty miles southwest of the main gateway to giant Baxter State Park, in the heart of Maine's tall timber country, lies a vivid reminder of the ravages of strip mining. Katahdin Iron Works is buried deep in the woods, yet it remains easily accessible by car or 4-wheel vehicle.  A century and more ago miners peeled layer after layer, of iron and sulphur-rich earth which was reduced to pig iron in KIW smelters. Even today the scars left by miners remain ugly and exposed. Only here and there does a blade of grass try vainly to hide the angry red earth. Part of Katahdin Iron Works has been carefully restored by the Maine Bureau of Parks and Recreation. Each year thousands drive six miles into the woods over a well maintained gravel roads in search of this fascinating bit of Maine history. Despite odious clouds of sulphurous smoke that hung low over the area in its heyday, this certainly ranks as one of the world's most beautifully located iron works. The air today is crisp, clean and clear, heavy with the scent of pine.

The restored blast furnace at Katahdin Iron Works in Maine

The iron works is off Maine Route 11, six miles north of Brownville Junction a stop on the Canadian Pacific Railroad branch that provides the only passenger rail service left in Maine.  [This is no longer correct, the passenger train has been discontinued.  There is passenger rail service now Boston to Portland.]  Millinocket, southern gateway to Baxter State Park, is 30 miles to the northeast along Route 11.

Once Thriving Settlement

Despite its wilderness location, Katahdin Iron Works was a thriving settlement in its peak years. It boasted its own post office, and there even was a photographer's salon.  A hotel offered accommodations for up to 100 guests at a time. The settlement printed its own scrip to pay miners and retail stores as far away as Bangor honored it in lieu of money.

Despite its industrial character, Katahdin Iron Works once was a resort area, too. Then as now, fishing and hunting were excellent.  The hotel advertised and got guests from as far away as Chicago. Bangor residents were frequent summer weekend visitors, especially after completion of a narrow gauge rail line linking the two sites.

All that remains of this past glory is an open field with a faithfully restored blast furnace and one of the many beehive kilns that consumed 10,000 cords of hardwood a year to produce the charcoal so essential in the smelting process.

Interpretive panels briefly retell the story of Katahdin Iron Works and its glory days.  Technical processes are explained in simple language.

Picnic by the River

The West Branch of the Penobscot River gurgles along one edge of the historic site.  Several birch-shaded spots invite visitors to enjoy picnic lunches along the river bank.

But there are some things the panels do not tell.

Even a brief walk through the wooded [Ed. note: we are missing a section of this article, starting here.]

...was done here, followed by a trip to the blast furnaces at Katahdin Iron Works where the ore was mixed with a limestone-silica flux to produce pig iron.

For almost half a century an average of 2,000 tons of raw pig iron was produced annually in ingots of 50 to 150 pounds. At first teams of oxen hauled the ingots out of the woods. Later, mule teams took over. Finally, the rail link to Bangor provided the transportation.

The iron works' location on the Penobscot's West Branch offers anyone willing to barter time and energy for adventure an opportunity to visit two unusual spots deep into the woods. But these trips must be made on foot or by 4-wheel vehicle.

About five miles away is The Hermitage, a 35-acre grove of tall white pine maintained by the Nature Conservancy. Another four miles beyond that is Gulf Hagas, a remote and spectacular canyon carved through slate by the passage of water for thousands of years.

Both The Hermitage and Gulf Hagas were deeded to Bowdoin College in 1813 by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a land grant for educational purposes. They long since have passed into private hands.

"One of the town's oldest industries and, certainly the most unique, was the forge and foundry where bog iron was turned into bar iron.  It appears that Jonathan B. Cobb built the iron forge and furnace on the bank of the Fifteen Mile Stream.  The forge was not there when he bought the land from Isaiah Crooker, but when he sold a half interest in the business on October 1808 to Samuel Peavey of Vienna, the forge was in operation.  The factory was located on the south side of the stream a mile and one-half up the stream from the Kennebec River. ...Along with the property Cobb sold, went the privilege of plowing lands of Benjamin Dow and John Burrell.  the authority to plow land, presumably, was for the purpose of taking he bog iron from their land for processing at the forge." (Fisher, History of Clinton, Maine, pg. 183).

"In 1880 the editor of the Clinton Advertiser printed a letter from J.T., believed to have been John Totman, trader and long time resident at Pishon Ferry.

The following is excerpts from the Pembroke Sesquicentennial Committee's Pembroke Sesquicentennial, pg. 7-9.

...The power potential of the falls was soon recognized as worthy of something more important than a saw mill, for in 1828 the first effort was made to establish an iron works. A Philadelphia firm set up machinery, but the project was soon abandoned. Jonathan Bartlett of Eastport attempted a revival of manufacturing but without success until 1831, when he was joined by General Ezekiel Foster. That same year Theodore Lincoln sold to Foster for $20,000 some 1550 acres along both banks of the river including the falls. Three years later this effort also failed. In 1844 the company was purchased by Horace Gray of Boston, but again came failure three years later.

Finally, in 1849 William E. Coffin and Company of Boston became the owners with Lewis L. Wadsworth as the local agent. Under their able direction the Pembroke Iron Company prospered for more than thirty years. It employed at times as many as 300 workers. Many were skilled artisans from England who lived in a company compound of fifteen houses known as the "English Village" located near the Iron Works Church.

This is not the place to detail the complexities of the manufacturing operation which became so important to the economy of the newly-established town. Suffice it to note that in its prime the Iron Works operated night and day in three shifts and produced annually about 5,000 tons of iron in the form of manufactured products. Among them were cut nails, spikes, hinges, horseshoe iron, gas piping, shaft iron, anchor chain iron, and boiler rivets. An eye-witness account speaks of the rumbling noise of the rolling mill and at night of the furnaces glowing brilliantly from the tall stacks and lighting up the sky for miles around.

The Pembroke Iron Company owned a fleet of coastal vessels for the transport of its products.

These and other vessels loaded and unloaded their cargo at the Coal Wharf located on the east bank of Pennamaquan Bay. An ice-free winter wharf was located on the Garnett's Point road just south of Coggins' Head near the site of Isaiah Hersey's first cabin.

Soft coal from the Provinces was usually carried in foreign vessels which, since they returned empty, required temporary ballast for the voyage. To provide this, Jared Putnam Hersey built a wharf a little south of the Coal Wharf, and here the vessels were ballasted with gravel from a nearby pit.

Teams of horses transported the coal, pig iron, ore, and other supplies from the wharves to the mill and returned with finished products to be shipped to distant markets. John M. Morgan had the contract for the haulage and used eighteen to twenty-four draft horses and a large force of men. The stables were on the island above the dam.

On February 14, 1883, the residence of the company agent was destroyed by fire, a harbinger of the approaching end of the Iron Works. From the beginning the company had faced serious obstacles. Except for the water power, part of the labor force, and the charcoal which was first used for fuel, virtually nothing needed for operation was indigenous to the region; even much of the skilled labor was imported from England, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. The finished products had to be shipped at considerable expense to faraway markets.

Finally in the 1880's these adverse circumstances became intolerable, especially the high cost of transportation. Increasing competition from iron manufacturers nearer the source of raw materials and profitable markets spelled the doom of the local company and in 1884 it ceased operations.

"William E Coffin & Co. became the owners, in 1849. For some 30 years this company carried on  the Iron Works with more or less success. As many as 300 persons were employed at times, and the annual production did not vary much from 5,000 tons. Various products came from the works, but one of the largest was nails. Everything was made from the smallest tack to 9 1-2 inch spikes. The output was about 300 kegs each day. Hundreds of tons of 9-16 in., square Iron was made for shipping, to be made elsewhere into railroad spikes.  Round bars from 1-4 in. to 4 in. in diameter were produced in quantity. There was anchor chain iron, 2 1-2 in. in diameter, and cut to length for the links, for the Charlestown Navy Yard. There was 20 gauge flat iron, 1 in. wide for baling cotton; and iron 3 in. wide and 1 1-8 in. thick for manufacturing into axes. All of the nail machines were made in the machine shops on the spot." (pg. 21).

Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands: Katahdin Iron Works website

Southern Piscataquis County Chamber of Commerce description of Katahdin Iron Works including a nice photo of the charcoal kiln.

BBC animated description of a blast furnace using coke.

Description of a modern-day experiment in traditional ways of making charcoal and smelting.

Griggsville Landing lime kiln: this website describes various types of lime kilns.

Taylor's lime kiln: A nice description with photographs of a Texas lime kiln.

The lumber industry has been important to the state of Maine from when the first Europeans arrived until present day.  The following excerpts about the history of lumbering in Maine are from Richard G. Wood's 1935 text, A history of lumbering in Maine, 1820-1861.

The following categories of information wanted illustrate the parameters of the Davistown History Project.  If you have any information, letters, documents, photographs, maps, artifacts, tools or stories pertaining to the early history of the Davistown History Project, please contact the Museum.

The Davistown History Project (DHP) welcomes contributions pertaining to the following.