The Portland daily press., 1874-04-30

Wonder what you'll be taken Tor when you're
twenty-fvep "For better for worse, Ihope p
lMr. Lillybrow looks pensive.-
The History of LivermOre,
THE following intere,ting extracts are from
advance sheets of the history of the town of
Livermore, to be published in May by Bailey
& Noyes. 1t is understood that the work is
edited by Hon. Israel Washburn Jr.
SOME OLD SETTLERS.
Abijah Monroe was the first innkeeDer in
town, and his house was near what was known
as Sanders Corner. He died in 1923. He
kept an excellent tavern, which travellers (of
whom there wers many in those days upon
what was the great highway leading from
Portland to Farmington), feeling sure of good
fare, would lay their plans to reach whenever
they could do so without too great an effort.
For years it was quite an exchange for the
townspeople. The first four lawyers who sue
cessively practiced in the town lived with Mr..
Monroe and had their office in his house.
The neighbors and tewnsfolk would repair
there TO see one another, learn the news, re-
late what had happened, renew the past, re-
vive the scenes and recall the events and say
ings of the war-in which many of them had
been actors
While jokes much stronger than their flip went
round
though the flip was by no means intended for
weak heads. Owing to failure in health Mr..
Monroe lost the power of easy locomotion,
and so was accustomed to sit in his large arm
chair in the public room frOm morning till
night. reading when there was no company
some book, generally the Bible, with which
he became SO familiar as to be able to quote
from any part of it with an accuracy that was
scarcely less than marvellous. He delighted
in,,theologlcal discussion and allowed no oppor-
tunity for it to escape unimproved. He had
tilt with the Rev. Jabez Woodmau' A. M,
Baptist clergyman of New Gloucester,
which lasted from dinner to the small hours
of the next day, and ended in the conversion
of Mr.. Woodman to Mr.. Honroe's way of
thinking He had not equal success with
the Rev. DIR. Payson, by whom discussion,
which had sprung up between them, was
rather abruptly terminated, leaving the good
doctor minus dinner, and the publican's
money-till unreplenished by the coin of tie
great preacher.
Meier Daley (son of Daniel) settled on the
west side of the river below the Falls. He
owned, at one time, the mills built by Dea.
Livermore at Brettun's; ; sold them and moved
onto a farm above North Turner Bridge. His
son, Warren, lived in the same neighbOrhood,
and had a stammering speech which, while 1t
obstructed, gave peculiar effect to his recitals
of the successes and disasters associated with
the "crow hunts" to which he gave much of
his time. His father had second wife who,
for some reason, failed to enjoy the devotion
al exercises of her husband, which were often
tedious and always loud, but which she and
her step-son, Warren, were enjoined to at
tend. AS soon after Mr.. Daley had COM
menced his morning prayer as was safe his
wife would quietly leave the room. When
this practice was discovered, the husband, to
prevent her going out, locked the door; but
the precautiOn was unavailing, for the wife
escaped through the window. When the
husband perceived how completely the old
lady had fanked him, his expressions of an
noyance and vexation were scarcely in har-
mony with those which had so lately fallen
from his lips, nor were they softened by the
advice which his son took occasion to give
him: '.D-daddy," said Warren, .'you should
w-w-waIch as well as pray"
Richard Merritt was native OF London,
and an employee in large mercantile firm
engaged in the American trade. He had seen
Boston merchants in London and became in
terested in their country, and when he de-
cided to emigrate to America brought from
the London house letter of commendation
saying that he could be trusted with ''untold
sister of Joseph Coolidge, who settled in Jay
in 1890, and followed Mr.. c. to that town in
q few years; but he soon removed to Liver
more, where he lived until his death in 1926.
His widow died in 1910, aged eighty-six. He
was in person small man and of quaint
manners. He had known IN England, he
said, men "who heard in their ears, under
stood in their elbows, and carried their brains
in their Shoes"
Daniel Briggs had a productive farm on
Butter Hill, the same once owned by Capt.
Samuel Pnmpelly. Pumpelly, or Pilley, as
he was familiarly called, was a man of strong
mind and great mother wit; but he suffered
from feeling, which prevailed to some ex-
tent among his acquaintances, that his prin-
ciples were upon a lower plane than his nat
ural gifts. When boy, living in Turner
from which town he moved to Livermore
and to which he afterwards returned) DR..
Dix and party, proprietors of the present
town of Dix6eld, arrived at Major Leavitts
inn, en- route TO their township. They had
travelled so far in carriages, but from the con-
dition OF the roads were here obliged to take
saddles, and several were wanted. Purpelly,
then a lad of a dozen years, passed the en-
tire night in hunting for saddles and bringing
them to the tavern, and his services were
recognized by the doctor, as lie was about to
depart in the morning, by his placing in the
boys hand silver coin known in those days
as fourpence ha'penny, worth six and a
quarter cents. Pilley eyed it sharply as the
doctor moved away, when he called to him in
a loud voice to "come back and get his
change"
For Many years after the organization of
the new county the sessions OF the courts at
Paris were largely attended, the custom being
for everybody who could spare the time and
afford the expense, to visit Paris court week.
Pilley, who was a sort of petifogger, was
always in attendance. The throng OF people
was so great that the boarding houses were
crowded with guests who, as rule, were
lodged two in bed. But Pilley, who was of
most exaggerated obesity, obstructed this
practice, so far as he was concerned himself,
by sleeping without his shirt. Three hun
dred pounds avoirdupois, in this form, was
not apt to attract a bedfellow.
Henry Grevy, a Hessian, after the close OF
the Revolutionary war, in which he had been
a soldier in the British army, came to Liver
more and settled on farm east OF Lieut..
Beniamin's, about mile from the river, and
where he lived until his decease. He had
two daughters who are now living in Bangor.
He was prudent, saving man and instructed
his family to "eat their bread and smell O
their cheese"
AN OLD-TIME COUNTRY NEIGHBORHo0D.
The old social library, which for many year:
furnished excellent reading to the families o
the subscribers, was kept at DR.. Bradfords
There were in it goodly number OF yyalua
BILE books, largely histories and travels-a
Hume, Robertson, Marshall, Gordon, Bruce
Brydone, and Lady Mary Wortley Montague
There were also on its shelves Goldsmith
works, including "The Earth and Animate'
! Nsture;'' The Spectator, in eight volumes
l Ln,,L he IF tho host E,nda
modern novel had no place there, but til
works of Cervantes and LIE Sage were on il
| catalogue, and not seldom in the hands of il
patrons; and the doctor had a private librar
to which his neighbors had access nc
large, but much read. A man of quiet BIT
excellent humor, he had no books which b
read oftener or enjoyed more than the worh
of Laurence Sterne, Dean Swift's Tale of
Tub, Knickerbocker's History of New Yori
and the poems of Peter Pindar and GeorS
Colman. Tristram Shandy furnished an III II