Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-05-22

standing upon the tops of carriages, stretch
ing out into the green fields and crowded
highways, were throngs of men and women
and children
The exercises at the stand commenced at
quarter past eleven o'clock by music by the
Portland Band. The Marshal then introduce
ed Henry Woodward, Esq, President of the
day, who remarked that we meet to spend
this day in an appropriate manner so as to
mark it an epoch in the history of the good
old town. We would call to mind the depri
vations the virtues and the foresight of our
earlier settlers we would realize that where
we stand o-day, one hundred years ago the
forest rose, and that hither came the noble
band, who planted homes for their children
and the institutions which bless us to-day.
Winthrop now calls home her absent sons
and daughters, and extends her friends a cor
dial welcome to the celebration of her one
hundredth birthday.
Prayer was then offered by Rev. f. 2. Ba-
ker, Chaplain of the day.
The Centenary Hymn was read by Rev.
MIR. Bosserman, and sang with great beauty
by choir selected from the several church
choirs in the town, led by Mr.. Samuel Thurs
ton. Tune: "America."
The present town clerk. Mr.. l.. =. Moody
read the act for the incorporation of the town,
the town boundaries, and the call for the first
town meeting.
company of forty young misses, ranging
from 8 to II years of age, and lead by Rev
Mr.. Bryant of East Winthrop, sang with
great sweetness the hymn commencing
Marching along, we are marching along"
After a short piece by the Band, the Presi-
dent introduced Hon. S. p Benson, who
read
The HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Mr.. Benson began his address by saving:
One hundred years ago to-day at o'clock
in the morning, a little band of pioneers who
had made their home in an almost unbroken
wilderness, assembled at the house of Squier
Bishop, inn holder, to hold their first annual
town-meetingin Winthrop. We meet to-day,
in this prosperous, beautiful village, on this
bright, spring morning, in the same town of
our birth or adoption, to trace the history and
to recall the virtues the tolls, the suerings
and the triumphs of our ancestors. l greet
you all, fathers and mothers, young men and
maidens, aye, and the children too, with a
warm and hearty welcome to the pleasures
and festivities of this joyous day. For am
sure we are all of one heart and one mind in
celebrating our first centennial celebration.
He then proceeded to description of Pond
town plantation, with its eleven ponds and
lakes, within and upon its margin. Pond town
plantation was the original territory, compris-
ing Winthrop, Readtield and part of Wayne.
Mr.. Boardman in his sketches of the county
OF kennebec says, there are 40 ponds within its
limits, none of which are worthy to be called
lakes, and | add three of these are our own in
Winthrop or upon its margin Why not
lakes! They are larger than some of the
lakes or lochs of Scotland, so celebrated in
story and song. Cobbosseecontee is twelve
miles long and two wide, with many islands of
wh 10 l,I-
Massachusetts, so small that you might drop
one of them bodily into Cobbosseecentee and
1t would hardly make ripple upon its shores.
This beautiful chain of ponds and lakes in
Winthrop and the adjacent towns was the
great water road to the Indians from the Ken
nebec to the Androscoggin river and the in
terror of the State. Cobbossee stream which
empties into the kennebec at Gardiner is the
outlet of them, 20 in number. The Indian
names Cobbosseecontee, Annabescook and
Maronocook. as applied to the lake at East
Winthrop, the south pond and the north pord,
were explained and their derivation given.
The Indians evidently had their camping
grounds and villages on the shores of these
waters. On the south shore of Annabescook
at East Monmouth several skeletons have
been disinterred, and numerous stone imple-
ments discovered. The foundations of their
wigwams are said to be visible at that place.
The great thoroughfare of the Indians was
through the winthrop to the Monmouth wa
tiers and by short carry to the great Andres
coggin pond in Wayne, where the historian
Williamson says 'there is an island upon
which there is burying ground of the ma
tives," and so easily down Dead river into the
Androscoggin. While by way of Maronocook
lake, they could pass along the chain of ponds
through Readfield and Mt Vernon to the
Sandy river at Pennington Falls called by
them Amasaguntcook.
The whole white population of the Province
of Maine in 1850 did not exceed II 200. The
war-whoop and the scalping knife in some por-
tions, and the unsettled state of the land titles
in others had signally retarded its growth,
But the cessation of hostilties at the close of
that year between the New England Provin-
Gals and the French and Indians, which had
oyer-spread The land with blood and desola-
ton for nearly ninety years gave new i'm
pulse to the settlement of the eastern portion
of the Province.
The boundaries of the Kennebec or Ply
mouth purchase were also adjusted, with
Clark and Lake and the Pejepscot proprietors
in 1903, the Wiscasset company in 1862, and
the Pemequid proprietors in 1903. A liberal
policy was also adopted by the company to-
wards settlers and Pond Town plantation, EN-
braced within their established limits, was
laid out agreeably to their plan. No large
tracts were sold to spectators. Every other lot
was marked Settler and Proprietor. with mill
privileges, and larger grants to those who
would erect mills. Settlers were thus attract
ed from Massachusetts and New Hampshire,
most of them young men, the sons of sub
stantial farmers, established themselves in
this territory and gave it an agricultural SUI
periority which it still retains.
The first settler was Timothy Foster. He
came from Attleboro, Mass, sometime in
1894, brought his wife and ten children in
1853, and June IL, 1906 had granted to him
his lot OF land one mile long and 100 poles
wide containing 200 acres,
Squier Bishop with his wife and six chill
dren came from Rehobeth, Mass, in l766,
and was the first inn-holder in town, at whose
house the town meetings were held for many
years.
To encourage John Chandler, another
settler, to build mills, n conditional grant of
land was made on the following terms, viz:
''We the subscribers, the committee of the
De- .hap. l-a, H.. q