The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1897-11-04
Some of Names Noted Men.

While Dr. G. V. Porter was visiting his
old home in Maine the past summer he
wrote an interesting letter to the Viroqua,
| Wis.,, Republican, which we give in full:
Mr.. Editor:-I have been wondering
why it is that Maine has turned out so
many men and women who have distin-
guished themselves, and conclude that
there is something in the ancestry which
was puritanic, and something in the en-
vironment, which required the exercise of
all one faculties to exc out living.
In 1895 the Poland Spring Co. removed
the Maine State Columbian building to
Poland, and Senator Frye was orator of
the day. He said, standing where l do
to- day, l can look back over old Oxford
county, billy, rocky, sterile, bleak. |
can say to you that there six governors of
this State have been born, six governors
of other and different States, four United
States senators, twenty members of the
national house of representatives judges,
superintendent of schools, major gener-
ais, cabinet officers, vice president of
the United States, and SO on" In Rum
ford VIM. w. Kimball, the Chicago piano
maker, was born, also in Rumford, S. S.
Hall, author of the "Alphabet of Geolo-
gy," invented the blackboard, and was
the first to use 1t IN schools.
Across the mountains, twenty miles
away, is Pennington where Ben Butler
taught the academy, and where the noted
Abbott family was reared. There John
5. c. Abbott preached IN the Congrega-
tional church and wrote history; there
Jacob Abbott lived and wrote scientific
articles; Lyman Abbott, who occupies
Beecher's Plymouth pulpit, studied for
the ministry under his uncle, and was
called to preach before he was ordained,
in the little church in Temple. The church
was without pastor, and would be closed
for the winter unless Lyman would take
charge OF it. He hesitated, accepted,
worked hard for a year. and laid the foun-
dation of Il useful life amid the hills of
! Temple Old Squire Abbott, the father
of the older Abbotts, lived in plain lit
/ tie house and WAS highly respected. An
/ other noted parsonage lived in Farming
ton in 1865, when | attended normal
school there. 1t was Camp Meeting J ohm
| Allen the hero of 367 camp meetings.
! John was a wonderful man to move an
audience. He sung with the spirit and
understanding also" John had grand
daughter born here who inherited his
| ability to sing. Lillian Norton was her
name. and have read that she was poor
shop clerk in Boston, when some one heard
her sing and sent her to study music She
married an Englishman, Cover, who went
up in a balloon and was never heard from.
| Nordica will visit her old home this Octo-
| Der.
Not far from Pennington, Gen. O. @.
Howard. the Christian soldier. was rear
ed. and his brother preached to us at
Pennington. Another brother met there
| C. H. Howard, is editor of "Farm, Field
and Firesiden at Chicago. General
Howard was educated at Kent's Hill, a
Methodist Seminary. presided over for
some two years past by Rev. Dr. G. w.
Gallagher who preached to us at Virooua
camp meeting. and who was formerly
president OF Lawrence University.
A days walk from here brings one to
the 'Norlands, the home OF the Wash
burn family, at Livermore. This family
furnished governor for Illinois, one for
our own State and for Minnesota. The
same town OF Livermore gave Timothy o.
| Howe, postmaster general OF the United
States. A little further away is Augusta
where Melville w. Fuller, chief justice of
the United States supreme court was born,
/ and where Blaine resided. Nearby is
the home of Annie Louise Carey, and still
nearer Lewiston, where Nelson Dingley
has so long edited the journal, which has
! so vigorously championed prohibition
and cleanliness in politics.