Daily Kennebec journal., 1914-01-13
One City and Seven Towns
Will Be 100 Years Old.
Early History Of Several Con.
tains Interesting Facts.
Westbrook, Suburb Of Portland, City
To Have Tooth Birthday.


the Massachusetts Legislature OF 1919
set it's great seal upon the papers OF
INCORPORATION, it is the usual custom
to celebrate some time In the "arih
weather and combine something OF an
Old Home Week, with Fourth or July
features and Thanksgiving dlnners' IN
late July or August when the summer
visitors can participate.
Stock features of these celebrations
incluoe historical and literary exer-
cises in the old church, parade with
historical floats representing the an
cient and modern in the towns his
tory: a floral division with all the
pretty girls in it; baseball game with
the bitterest rivals, sports, hreWorkS
and music by the village cornet band.
This program is more or less varied
and may be a matter of a single day
or extend over a week.
Westbrook is the centennial city and
Belmont, Hermon, Hiram, Sangerville'
South Berwick, Newport and Phipps-
burg the towns which pass their Tooth
birthday in 1914
Belmont is a little farming town in
Waldo county a suburb of Belfast.
Many good farms, including several
owned by city people, are conducted on
a large scale. Tilden Pond is a pretty
sheet of water and a favorite resort
for Belfast people, especially in the
winter, where a fleet of iceboats fur
nish fine sport.
The town was settled in 1890 and is
a part of the Waldo patent lands,
granted by the Plymouth Council in
1880 to John Beauchamp of London
and Thomas Leverett of Boston, Eng.
extending from the Museongus to the
Penobscot rivers. What is now the
town of Belmont was originally known
as Green Plantation and incorporated
as the 202d town Feb. 5, 1914.
In 1850 there were nearly 1900 peo-
pie in the town, which was reduced
by the division setting off the town of
Morrill,, and the last census gave only
335 population.
LongfeIlows Birthplace.
Hermon is a farming town seven
miles west of Bangor on the Maine
Central, a prosperous and thriving
community with many fine farms and
ready markets for all the products in
Bangor and rail shipping points. Her
mon Pond is large Sheet of water
with fine fishing and a1cottage colony.
Numerous streams furnish small water
powers, the roads are We'll kept up and
the people take pride in fine farm
buildings. There are settlements at
Hermon Center, Hermon Pond, Shows
Corner and North Hermon. The peo
Pile are already talking of a celebra-
ton.
Hiram is in the southeastern corner
of oxford county, 80 miles from Port
land on the Mountain Division of the
Maine Central, with the meeting of the
Ossipee and Saco rivers near its
southern boundary. 1t is essentially
a farming town, having canneries and
creamery for it's products. OF late
it has become something of summer
resort, abounding in ponds and hills
and picturesque scenery with several
summer hotels. The population
shows a falling off from 1852 in 1880
to 945 in 1910.
The first settlers arrived in 1888 and
the town, when Incorporated, Feb. 81.
1914, was named by Timothy Cutler,
an old settler and enthusiastic Free
mason, for Hiram, King of Tyre. Gen.
Peleg Wadsworth, a Revolutionary
patriot, bought large section of the
township and moved there, after living
for time in Portland. He had built
the house in that city where his
grandson, the poet Longfellow, was
born.
The descendants of Gen. Wadsworth
still live in Hiram. Liewellyn A.
Wadsworth is a trial justice. Wallace
Wadsworth runs sawmill and E. C.
Wadsworth keeps a summer hotel, and
the Wadsworth mansion is a summer
hotel, although not conducted by a
Wadsworth. There are villages at
South Hiram and East Hiram and
Bridgton Junction, where the narrow
guage Bridgton & Saco River Rail-
road joins the Maine Central within
the town limits.
Sangerville is a snug, lively and
progressive little town In Piscataquis
county and, unlike the great majority
of Maine country towns, showed more
inhabitants in the count-up of 1910
than at any other time in its history,
numbering 1919 people.
The principal industry is the wooden
manufacturing of two mills and the
town has many fine farms. The out
lets of several ponds furnish water
power. AS 1t is on the apex of a
watershed, some of the streams flow
into the Kennebec and others into the
Penobscot river.
Phineas Ames was the first settler,
clearing for farm and building a
sawmill and grist mill as early as
1902. The township was owned by
Col. Calvin Sanger of Sherborn, Mass,
for whom 1t was named when incor-
porated in 1914, having previously
been known as Amestown, for the
first settler.
Early families were the Weymouths,
Brockways, Carletons. Dudleys, Ponds,
Browns and Woodwards. Guy Carle-
| ton started a carding machine in 1915,
the first in that part of Maine, and it
is said the woolen industry has been
kept up ever since. Sangerville will
have an elaborate celebration of it's
| Tooth anniversary.
Fine Fishing at Newport.
South Berwick really Is much more
| than 100 years old, but has the op-
portunity to celebrate it's separate ex-
fcfa 1IJ