Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-03-24
"reminiscences OF Fifty Years Ago.
Interesting Narrative OF Early Days
In Northern Aroostook County.

. ABOUT by the older people.
had cause to remember 1t well for
on that cold Friday / chopped wood
all day in front of the log house to
keep the family from freezing.
John Goddard came here in the for
ties from Portland, Me, to cut the
big. tall timbers left after the famous
ana bloodless Aroostook war He
early acquired numerous parcels and
pieces Of land with some whole town.
ships and rapidly became one of the
foremost and largest lumber operators
in this section, cutting in Maine and
New Brunswick where he built a large
sawmill. He had several farms in the
Wilderness where his hired men lfad
cleared land in summer, then sowed
oats, and grew grass for the winters
hay for teams in the woods.
The largest oxen were used in those
days of early numbering, and but few
horses were seen on the big loads OF
logs and pine timber, so the goad stick
ana not the reins was the guide of the
noble teams that hauled many of the
giant pines from their birthplace to
the shipping place on lake or river
or creek t. be run in the great floods
of melted snow in the early spring
freshets down to the great sea where
ships were built of them to go to every
part of the earth. Goddard was "a
good selector of timber land with rare
judgment and no scruples only to get
the best two ends of every trade or
transaction he could. BY some he was
dreaded and feared, for he went about
like lion, with a bluff wherever he
hIlt
with his crews i'm the camps and had
q rough and tumble land pirate way
on the drives.
Several brooks in this northern will
dcrness were named for him and
though not printed in letters will ever
go as long as time lasts as Goddard
brook, which will perpetuate his
works in wood cutting and his name
will ever be remembered as one of the
captains and first lumber kings where
the remains of his camps are now
haunted by moose, birds and lumber
mans ghosts. His characteristics were
strong and ways were harsh. He did
Il huge business too, which extended
into two nations over large terri
tory. He went as a Colonel in the
Civil War but had no military expert
ence 50 resigned, came home, took up
| his lumber business again, was injured
| in st. John, died near 1870. SO passed
a man of rare and peculiar rough
ways.
The first railroad to Aroostook was
started from Milford in 1852 along the
| Penobscot river below Lincoln and
! Winn by f. D. Jcwett & Co. They
| ,ft ar3c hoo
| the f & n. A. Co. by agreement for SO
| much land for as many miles as were
! built i'm Aroostook county, but they
| only built seven miles then went off to
| Washington county receiving quite an
| amount of lands which was called q
steal. but now after nearly or over half
| a century Good judges who were or
| that time say the people here we're
! ooor financially and that the State did
| the best they could for those times the
Aroostook river and on good building
| land too.
| But when Dennis Fairbanks came
| and built a better mill with a better
water privilege and higher dam 1t
changed the future location of what
promises to be large town. Tho
first old overshot wheel was out Of
proportion to the mill or machinery.
| David and Chas. Bubar who we're
brothers. were both large men, and
very early settlers here. David who
carried the first mail from Fort Fair
field to Houton seventy years ago
| went part of the time on foot for there
were no good roads then only spotted
lines and grubbed out ways to them.
David. Chas. and Nat Bubar were
among our best earliest pioneers here
and though their ways were plain,
| they filled their places.
! Philo Bean took tie job to build the
first piece of road running from Coch-
rams grstnill to the Aroostook river.
made sixty years ago.
Jctcr Bull who was the son OF Cap
| tain Bun. a loyaIist who settled five
miles below the then village of Wood
stock in 1888, after coming to Bulls
Eddy he made chopping near
| the mouth of the Pressure Isle creek.
] He built the first sawmill with an old
| fashioned overshot wheel for saving
| long lumber and big pine timber. He
| built that mill several years before
| Dennis Fairbanks built his mills three
| fourths of a mile up the creek. Peter
| Bull received a patent from the New
| Brunswick government giving him 600
acres of land. for this was before the
| famous and bloodless Aroostook war
and before the boundry line was run
| too.
/, It's q wonder the village of Pressure
Isle wasn't begun and started farther
down Ut this mill too, being nearer
| g. G. NJ