The Republican journal., 1913-10-23
Annals of Belfast tor Halt a
Century.
BY AN OLD SETTLER
(Hon. VIM. G. Crosby.)

CHAPTER XXXVII. tlS4o.)
The winter of this year is memorable
for it's extreme cold weather and the
quantity of snow which fell. The ''old-
est inhab1tant" spoke of it AS the coolest
winter we had experienced and the one
in which more snow had fallen than for
thirty years previous. According to
memorandum kept by gentleman in
this vicinity there were forty snow-falls
between the oath of November and the
7th of April; the depth of the snow
which fell being twelve feet and seven
inches. The snow in the woods was
three feet deep on level on the first
day of April. Quite number of deer
were seen in the immediate vicinity of
our village, driven from the forests IN
search of food by the depth of snow or
by the wolves, who were reported as
being plenty in the forests of Penobscot
and Washington counties. One of them
"a deer, not wolf-was captured in
March while swimming from the east
ern side of the river in the direction of
the steamboat wharf.
There was quite an excitement in our
village early in January occasoned by
the arrest of one of our business men on
a charge of passing counterfeit bank
bills and the sudden departure between
two days of two others who were sus-
pected of being his accomplices, or,
rather, of being wholesale dealers in the
commodity which he disposed of only at
retail. h was taken to Boston, tried,
convicted and sent to the House of Cor
rection. The parties in whose hands he
was mere tool escaped well merlted
punishment; but both found before they
passed beyond the reach of earthly trl-
bunals that the way of the transgressor
is hard. The business had been carried
on in this county to considerable extent,
and very successfully, as the counter
feits were so we'll executed as not to be
distinguishable from the genuine, except
by the practised and skillfu eye. The
crime was regarded, and very properly,
as one of the deepest dye, the counter
felts being of the smallest denomina
tions, such as were most in circulation
among the poorer classes, who were the
least qualified to distinguish between the
genuine and the counterfeit.
In the same month and the month fol-
lowing there was an extensive religious
revival prevailing here. 1t commenced
in the Methodist Society, then under the
charge of Rev. Theodore Hill, very
earnest and effective preacher, and ex-
tended to all the religious societies in the
place. Prayer and Conference meetings
were held in all of them. and universal
soemnity pervaded all classes in the
community. No one, not even the most
faithless or obdurate, manifested the
slightest disposition to ridicule or cast
any obstruction in the path of the move
ment The boisterous and ribald songs
with which our streets had resounded
nightly gave place to the equally eniiven-
any pul lilclS pm lludl ClltS VI w oiloll
see light appear" and when the Lord
OF Glory cometh.' Large additions of
membership to the several churches were
m ade as the fruit of the seed soWn dur
ing the revival. On the first Sunday in
May, ffty-one united with the North
church, then under the pastoral care of
Rev. Mr.. Cutler; more in number than
curing the whole six years next preced-
ing.
cured the first fire of the season. A
house owned by Mr.. Benjamin Brown, at
tie corner of Market and Pleasant street
occupied by three families, was discov-
cred to be on fire. The fire was eNtin-
gllished but not until after considerable
damage had been done to the building
and Its contents. A one story house on
Miller street, beyond what was then
called Jail Hill,' occupied by Abiathar
Smith, was burned in the night of the
twelfth of July. On the night of July
2Sth an extensive tannery at the Head of
TIE Tide, conducted by Mr.. Amos Peas
lee, owned by Mr.. Southwick of Dan
vers, Mass, was entirely destroyed by
fire with large quantity of hides and
leather; the estimated loss was about
eight thousand dollars. The fire was
supposed to have originated from friction
of the machinery in grinding bark. A
barn owned by Col. Watson Berry, faith
er of our fellow-c citizen Mr. Franklin w.
Berry, at the Upper Bridge settlement,
with its contents, about sixteen tons of
hay, was burned on the evening of the
second of December. His dwelling
house was barely saved by tearing away
a shed which nearly connected it with
the barn. The zeal of our people so far
outstripped their discretion in saving the
furniture in the house that it might have
beer about as we'll for the Colonel had
the whole been left to the tender mercies
of the flames.
While on the subject of fires it will
not be amiss to mention that at town
meeting held on the eleventh of Deem