The Portland daily press., 1888-04-18
THE OLD TOWN OF BRUNSWICK
Getting Ready to Celebrate its Hun
dred and Fiftieth Birthday.
Eventfui History of the Eleventh Cor
porate Town of Maine.
Old Settlers who were Pious In Peace,
Brave in War and Persistent In
Love.
rspecial to the Press.1

lOpOSidi w eiAO 1901
BRUNSWICK, April 17.-In the selectmen's
Office this evening meeting was held to ar
range for celebration which will undoubt-
edly be one of the most interesting that has
ever occurred in a Maine town. The old
town of Brunswick, the eleventh corporate
town of Maine, is approaching the hundred
and fiftieth anniversary of the day when
Governor Becher of Massachusetts approved
the act of the General Court establishing a
Township to be called Brunswick" in the
Province of Maine. Why the town did not
celebrate the centennial anniversary in 1889,
seems strange in these days when hun
dredth birthday of any sort is not allowed to
go unnoticed. Very likely in those days eel
ebrations were not so fashionable. But the
time was certainly most opportune, If the
people of Brunswick had really set their
hearts upon celebration. The great sur
plus that piled up in the Treasury at Wash
ington had been distributed among the States
not long before. In 1887 that portion due to
the towns had been distributed and Bruns-
wick had received her share. which the
town voted to divide so that all the fathers
and mothers, the daughters, the sons under
the age of twenty-one years, and the regular
apprentices and each male above twenty
one years, without family, was entitled to
receive one share. This money was distrib-
uted on condition that it should be repaid
without interest, when the town should call
for it but in 1888 another vote was passed
relieving the people from all obligation to
return it. 1t would seem that the people
from all obligation to return it. 1t would
L.. I'll
ana happy enough to have arranged for a
grand centennial celebration. But they did
not. Perhaps many of the citizens felt that
they had celebrated enough on their own
private accounts, and realized that plenty of
money does not always mean the plenty and
prosperity that makes men glad. But 1t is
certain that Brunswick was then large and
prosperous village, with a population of
about 92C0, which was increasing rapidly.
The date of the passage of the act incor-
porating the town of Brunswick is January
26th, 1873, (Old Style.) Two years before
this the population had been between thirty
and forty, and two years afteEit is estimated
to have been as large as one hundred and
sixty. At the time their petition for incor-
poration was presented they. were evidently
Increasing in numbers very fast. The rea-
son which they urged was all sufficient in
that day, but would seem odd enough now.
There were ''competenJ number" of in
habitants, they said. and they wanted a
raise money by taxation Ito provide suita-
Bile maintenance for the minister settled
among them" The minister from the first
seems to have been the great man of the
town, the frequent subject of legislation in
the town meeting. The very first year it
was voted THAT the Minister Shuld Preach
att We Southeast end of sd. Town (att place
cald New'meadowes) according to what
Rates and Taxes they shall Pay towards the
Support OF the Ministry it being agreed up
m hxy 10 WI N xuac
voted to raise settlement of a2OO as a set
tlement for Mr. Rutherford ssif he lives and
dies minister of Brunswick" In 1912 they
raised e150 for the support of the minister
considerable solicitude to the town fathers;
but in salary and consideration seems to
have stood behind the minister.
If there is no town in Maine that claims a
more edifying and favorable start on its way
of municipal progress, there also are certain
ly few that can claim a more interesting and
diversified history Brunswick was harassed
by Indian wars; it was the chosen seat of
the oldest educational institution of high
standing in Maine; it was early the home of
culture, of considerable stately fashion, of
manufacturers nor did the pious public
spirit of its incorporators always save their
descendants from the interesting episodes
that used to be SO frequent in the
teresting field win lie before the orators and
historians who shall on the day of the cele-
bration recall the deeds of the days of the past
The Indians were numerous and troublesome,
and the adventures of old Lieutenant Wood
side, of the Alexanders, of Thomas Wilson,
the famous hunter, and John Dunlap,
the minister's son, also famous for
his exploits in the woods, are interest
ing chapters in the towns history. There
are also sadder tales of miseries, of fami-
lies living for days in block houses of re-
lentless savages lping in wait even for the
funeral procession Of their victims But
through all these trials the sturdy citizens Of
the town preserved the character for forti-
tude and energy which has not been lost in
this generation.
Small difficulties did not deter them. An |
illustration of this, possessing considerable |
romantic interest, is told by Wheeler, the his |
toran of Brunswick, Of the Rev. John Mil |
leT who in the last day days Of the Revolution
Falmouth, William Walker by name, had |
long paid his addresses to Miss Sybil Sta |
pies, of Topsham. The engagement had |
been prolonged beyond the time usual in the
day was fixed at last for the wedding the
people of Topsham prepared to attend with
all the anticipatiOns usually lavished upon
long expected events. In those days no
bridge spanned the Androscoggin, and un-
fortunately an unusual freshet came on the
night before the appointed time, while
Father Miller was still on the Brunswick
side of the flood and the expectant couple on
the other. Any attempt to cross was out OF
the question. But neither the clergymen or
the lovers of those days were to be deferred
by stream like the Androsc0ggin river By
some means the minister was brought to the
ferry landing on the Brunswick side, while
the bride and groom Joined hands on the
Topsham side. Then, with vocal cords
trained in the three-hour sermons of those
days, Parson Miller lifted up his voice and in
tones which, tradition has handed down the
tale, were heard plainly across the roaring
waters, pronounced the two man and wife.
After the Indian wars, the people of
Brunswick began to prosper, but they ihad not
become so fOrehanded thai the wa of the
Revolution did not find them pracJlcing the
severest frugality. In 1880 not one man in
ten in Brunswick had pair Of boots. and
Parson Miller went to church with pair OF
blue buskins hauled up over his breeches'
knees. Cotton and wooden cloth were made
laborously by hand, and cotton cloth was
worth fifty cents yard. James Curtis, who
kept journal in 1850, records that Bruins
wick man had to work half month in the
best of the season, on pair of shirts made
of this coarse cloth. Today the mills Of
Brunswick turn out thousands of yards
every month
Rum was cheap and plenty. Brunswick
got a reputation for poor rum very early.
The Indians complained that it was half
spring water and the feeling that they had
got only half the spirits to which they were
entitled so worked upon the savages that
tutN were very Itduy W uIdW buc hnlIc
against the Brunswick settlement in the
troubles of 1865. In the year 1928, when
the Indians had departed and customers
were presumably able to look out for them
selves, the amount of spirits sold was aston
ishing if we may credit statement pre-
pared at the instance of the Brunswick,
Topsham and Harpswell Society for the Pre-
yention of lntemperance. They found that
in the year 1S12-13 about six thousand and
six hundred gallons of rum were sold, and
enough gin, wine, brandy, etc, to bring the
total up to S,593 gallons, valued at ST., sS9; TO-
1t was estimated that about one-third of this
was carried out of town. Brunswick was
probably no worse than other towns of that
time, as she is undoubtedly at this day on
mar with other Maine towns of her size in
the yigor of her suppression of the sale OF
the article The change is in the times;
Back of the incorporation Oh bIqnswick Sict aS
of its its settlement, from the days when Thos.
Purchase took UP his home as tfn TRACER Peen on
scot Company was formed and began to oiter
inducements to settlers to come in. After