THE STORY OF CRYSTAL

Chapter 13

The First Family Arrives

How wonderful it would be if by some strange magic we could visit the "Days of Long Ago" and make the acquaintance of the men and women and the boys and girls who took part in the settlement of Aroostook. How fascinating it would be, for instance, if we could visit our grandparents and our great grandparents in their simple pioneer homes and live and work and sleep and eat and dress and play just as they did in those far-off days when Aroostook was in the making.

Such an experience would impress us as nothing else could with the amazing progress which has taken place in the last one hundred years--in living conditions, in customs, in habits, in travel facilities, in educational advantages and in the comforts and conveniences of every day life.

But, since we possess no Alladin's Lamp to make our wishes come true or no Magic Carpet to transport us to the homes of our forefathers, we must be content to visit them in fancy and to make their acquaintance as best we can through the medium of the written word.

First of all, let us, in fancy, visit the cozy farmhouse of Captain Hemingway in the little town of Searsmont, not far from Belfast, on beautiful Penobscot Bay. The month is February, the year 1839, and the winter's snows lay deep over hills and meadow.

Despite the early hour of the morning, a group of neighbors, clad in a colorful array of capes, shawls, scarfs and caps of wool and fur, are gathered to bid goodbye and God-speed to William

Young and his comely wife Avis, who are making last minute preparations for their long journey to the Aroostook country to establish their home deep in the primeval forest.

The Youngs have many friends in Searsmont. William came here as an orphan boy, and, in the years he has lived here the townspeople have learned to admire him for his fine traits of character and his never-failing good humor.

His sprightly wife Avis, the daughter of Captain and Mother Hemenway, has been a favorite in the community since childhood, and their infant son Spencer, now almost twelve months old, is the idol of parents and grandparents. Searsmont will miss the Youngs. It will miss the inspiration of their buoyant spirits, their cheery outlook and their unfailing friendliness in times of sickness and adversity.

But these are restless times, and Aroostook, Maine's new land of promise, is calling. This call of the frontier is an instinctive urge, as irresistable as the tides of the sea. It cannot be stayed. It relentlessly tears families asunder and scatters their members as the wind scatters the pollen. Captain and Mother Hemenway fully realize what this parting is to mean in their lives. But they accept the situation with true Spartan fortitude.

"A wife's place is with her husband," they reason, "and if it is the will of God that our daughter shall go to the Aroostook, we must not stand in the way any more than our parents stood in our way when we came to settle in Searsmont."

Good cheer and pathos are blended in the parting scene, a scene that reaches its climax when mother and daughter, hitherto inseparable companions, smiling bravely through their tears, embrace

in an affectionate farewell.

A moment later the trio, tucked snugly into the one-horse sled that is to provide transportation for the long journey, are on their way. Turning to wave a last fond goodbye, they soon disappear around the bend--never to return--never to see home or kindred again!

Such is the lot of the pioneer families who settle Aroostook. In these olden times travel is slow and difficult, and the cares of the frontier homes are so constant that few indeed ever find the opportunity to return for even a brief visit to the homes and loved ones they have left behind.

William Young has chosen to make the trip to Aroostook over the winter snows and river ice in order to avoid the miserable corduroy roads through the swamps and the treacherous fords of spring and summer, and also for the purpose of clearing a "burn" in time for the spring planting.

Carefully packed and securely tied behind the seat with its three occupants, are bundles of blankets and quilts and a meagre assortment of utensils for the new home. Included also are a few thumb-worn books, or at least a Bible, and such necessary items of the pioneer household as needles, thread, yarn, candle sticks and candle wicks, as well as a crude kit of small tools, a small supply of provisions, vegetable seeds, and, last but not least, a trusty musket and a powder horn, so essential to the frontiersman.

A journey of a few miles brings the Youngs to the little town of Searsport, where they stop for a brief visit with their friends, John and Elizabeth Bell and James and Abiah Cunningham, who have also purchased lots, in Aroostook adjacent to Young's lot,

and who are preparing to join them later in the year.

Conversation does not lag during this brief visit. There are many things to talk about, many things to plan for. While the men discuss their problems incident to erecting their cabins, clearing their lands, preparing their crops and providing food and comfort for their families, Elizabeth and Abiah are plying Avis with questions about what she is taking with her, how she plans to care for the baby on the journey, and the three discuss the problems they will face with respect to cooking and housekeeping in their forest home. If they dread the prospects of life in the North Woods settlement, their eager conversation and their gay laughter give no hint of their forebodings. On the contrary, their animated conversation and merry faces evince the keen zest with which they look forward to the experience. Indeed, they regard it, in true pioneer spirit, as a great adventure in their lives. Finally, bidding their friends to speed up their preparations and join them in Aroostook as soon as possible, the Youngs resume their journey along the snow-paved trail leading to Winterport and Bangor.

The long trip from the downriver settlements to Molunkus and thence up the Aroostook Road to Number 4 is beset with all the perils and discomforts incident to wilderness travel. North of Oldtown travel thins out rapidly, the road becomes more difficult to follow, settlers are few and wolves are an ever present menace.

But nothing daunts these stout young hearts as they press on day after day upon their great adventure. Such is the spirit of the pioneers. It is the same indomitable spirit that is transform-

ing America and rolling back the frontiers. It is the spirit that led Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett to establish their homes in the remote regions of Kentucky and Tennessee, that led the Lincolns and the Hankses into Illinois. It is the same spirit that attends the covered wagons that are now pushing their laborious way across the uncharted prairies of Indiana, Illinois, and even distant Iowa.

Will Young, the self-reliant orphan boy, and his plucky wife are ideally suited for the roles they are destined to play as the founders and first settlers of a new community in the northern wilderness.

Arriving at Number 4 (Patten) after an arduous journey of several days, the family seeks board and lodging in one of the homes of the little settlement, perchance the home of Henry Blake, the first settler. Within a few days Will Young has beaten down a trail from the Aroostook Road due eastward two miles through the unbroken forest to the 162-acre lot which he has purchased from the State.

Bidding his wife and little Spencer adieu each morning, the hardy pioneer, armed with musket, ax and hunting knife, makes his toilsome way on foot, leading his horse, along this "spotted line" to the site on the crest of the ridge which he has selected for his future home. Late each afternoon, at the conclusion of several hours of strenuous labor, he returns by the same path to spend the evening and night in the bosom of his family.

One evening Will returns with a more buoyant step than usual. He brings good news. The log cabin is finished and ready to receive mother and son. There follows an evening of preparation. The meagre belongings they have brought from Searsmont are

again tied into bundles. Flour, salt and other provisions are purchased at the log store.

Bright and early the following morning the three Youngs, in high spirits, take leave of their newly-made friends in Number 4 and disappear along the forest trail, to become the first settlers of Crystal and to play a leading part in the future of the new town.

Chapter 14

The Beginning of Settlement

The log cabin of William Young, the first settler of Crystal, stood on the approximate site of the house which in later years was successively the home of Sumner Bradford, Rufus Bliss, Frank O. Hackett, Sylvester Main and others. It is now the home of Charles Anderson.

We may well imagine the feeling of isolation which this pioneer family experienced in their lonely wilderness home. Their nearest neighbor was at least two miles away, on the Aroostook Road, reached by the faintest of paths through the dense forest. It is doubtful if there was a physician nearer than Lincoln or Mattawamkeag. The nearest postoffice was at Mattawamkeag, fifty miles distant, and a letter to or from relatives in Waldo County, intrusted to some incoming or outgoing toter or traveler, was sometimes weeks old by the time it reached the destination.

But the tasks of making a home and of providing food, shelter and clothing were so urgent in those first weeks that the Youngs had little time to think of aught else. When Will was not felling trees or stalking wild game in the forest, he was busily occupied in erecting a log barn or in fashioning benches, tables and other crude furniture for his cabin. Avis found her time fully occupied in preparing meals for her husband and son and in knitting, sewing and attending to numerous other duties of the frontier home.

Before many months had passed two events occured which brought joy to the Young household. The first of these was the arrival of the Cunninghams and the Bells whom they had visited at

Searsport while enroute to Aroostook.

James Cunningham, who later became the State Land Agent for Crystal Plantation, and one of the foremost citizens, was, like Young, of old New England stock, whose ancestors had given good account of themselves in the American Revolution. A man of deep religious convictions, industrious, economical and scrupulously honest, he was a valued accretion to the new settlement. Cunningham was 29 years of age, and his wife Abiah was 27, when they came to the township and settled upon the lot now known as the Kenneth Anderson place, one quarter-mile east of Young's lot.

John Bell was a stalwart young man of Scotch-Irish extraction. Born in Castle Deig, County Tyrone, Ireland, on October 10, 1810, the son of Richard Bell, a Scotch soldier in the British Army, John and his brother James had migrated to America in 1830 or 1831. After living in Boston a few years, John moved to Belfast, Maine. There he met Miss Elizabeth Todd, daughter of Henry Todd, a sea captain, in the nearby town of Searsport. This acquaintance ripened into a romantic courtship, and in 1837, shortly after John's return from a sea voyage of several months, he and Elizabeth were united in marriage. A year later a son, Charles, was born.

In the spring of 1839, John Bell purchased from the State a 161-acre lot on the south side of the "Spotted Line." The northwest corner of his lot touched Young's southwest corner and the northeast corner touched Cunningham's southwest corner.

The Cunninghams and Bells had made the journey from Searsport by horse and ox teams in the spring or summer of 1839. From Number 4 they made their way on foot along Young's Trail or the "Spotted Line" to the sites of their future homes. More than

likely the new arrivals were welcomed into the Young household and made their homes there while the men cleared their "burns" and, with the neighborly assistance of William Young, erected cabins on their properties. The Youngs, the Cunninghams and the Bells were the best of neighbors and the closest of friends as long as they lived.

The second event that brought happiness to William and Avis Young in that memorable first year was the visit of the stork, bringing Spencer a little blue-eyed sister. While the mother was confined to her bed with illness, Elizabeth Bell and Abiah Cunningham spent many hours each day at the Young cabin acting in the triple capacities of doctor, nurse and housekeeper. Avis Young was Crystal's first mother, and little Sarah Young bore the proud distinction of being the first child born in Crystal township. Her cradle was probably like many another pioneer cradle, made by hollowing out the trunk of a large tree with not a nail or particle of metal entering into it.

Within a year from the time William Young, and James Cunningham, and John Bell settled in the township, five other settlers' cabins had been completed or were in process of erection. With one exception these early settlers located on the "Spotted Line" which in later years, with some straightening, became the "Upper Road," running due east and west along the south line of the north tier of lots, one mile south of the northern boundary of the township.

Among the first of these new arrivals was Isaac Webber and his wife Rebecca. Isaac was then 24; Rebecca was 22. The Webber family came from China, in Kennebec County and settled on the lot adjoining that of William Young on the west, now known as the Percy

Johnson place. A few years later the Webbers moved to the lot on the north side of the road just east of Crystal Stream. The Webbers were among the most prominent pioneer families in Crystal township. Isaac is described as a stern, unbending man, who ruled his family like the Patriarchs of old. Mrs. Webber, whose name was Rebecca, was a woman of sweet christian character, kind, sympathetic, always one of the first to reach the bedside of a sick neighbor.

Few of the pioneers of Crystal commands our interest more fully than does Bela H. Chesley, who as a youth of 20, purchased a lot on the south side of the "Spotted Line" just west of Isaac Webber's original lot (now owned by Abraham White) and settled there in 1839. Bela Chesley came of a distinguished Colonial family. His great grandfather Jonathan Chesley struck one of the first blows for liberty in the American Revolution by taking possession of the King's powder magazine at Portsmouth, N. H.

Bela Chesley was probably the best educated of the early settlers. Despite his youth, he had taught school at Lee, Maine, for five years before coming to Crystal township. He was instrumental in organizing the township into a Plantation. He served as one of the first Justices of the Peace for Aroostook County at large, and in later years he served one two year term in the State Legislature, the only resident of Crystal ever to serve in that capacity.

A year or two after settling in Crystal, Chesley married Mathilda Ann Haynes, daughter of David Haynes, of Patten, and from this union seven children were born, four in Crystal and three after the family had moved to Patten. Two of his sons, born in Crystal, were soldiers in the Civil War, and one was killed on the day and at the scene of the surrender at Appamatox Court House.

Chesley later moved to Kennedy, Illinois, and many of his descendants now live in Illinois and Minnesota.

The lot directly across the road from Chesley's was settled by a Joseph Scarlet, a bachelor, who lived the life of a hermit and seemed to have little in common with the other settlers. There is a strange silence, an air of mystery about this young man. Where he came from, why he lived so much to himself, intrigued the interest of his neighbors. He was one of the first to purchase land in the township, his deed from the state being dated July 11, 1838. He paid cash--seventy five cents an acre--for 164 acres. Sometime before 1850 he moved away.

On the western border of the township, two and one-half miles south of the "Spotted Line," on what later came to be known as the Cow Team Road, two settlers, Silas Coburn and William Lovejoy, erected log cabins and established their homes in the spring of 1840.

Silas Coburn was a young bachelor, who later married and lived on the Lower Road, east of the "Horseback." He was a devout Christian, active in furthering the religious movement in the settlement, and was widely known as "Deacon Coburn."

William Lovejoy was a grandson of Captain Abiel Lovejoy, a distinguished soldier of the American Revolution as well as a legislator and ship owner. William was a cousin to Rev. Elijah Lovejoy, the noted anti-slave agitator of St. Louis and Alton, whose assassination by a pro-slavery mob at Alton, Illinois, in 1837, created a national sensation and is referred to in many histories of the United States. Another cousin of William's was Congressman Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois, also an ardent abolitionist and a close

personal and political friend of Abraham Lincoln. William Lovejoy was the father of ten children when he moved to Crystal, and the arrival of this large family nearly doubled the population of the township.

The Lovejoy cabin was the scene of Crystal's first wedding. Here on April 18, 1840, Samuel Howard Chesley, a cousin of Bela Chesley, was united in marriage to Miss Lovina Lovejoy, the second daughter of William Lovejoy.

Shortly thereafter Samuel Howard Chesley and his bride moved to a cabin which he had erected on an adjoining lot, and this was their home for several years. In a letter to the author dated March 15, 1929, Mrs. J. Frank Trafton, of Fort Fairfield, a granddaughter of Samuel Howard Chesley, said that she had often heard her grandfather say that he felled the first trees for clearing in Crystal. While this might appear to conflict with the record of other settlers, it really does not. Until the spring of 1840 Samuel Howard Chesley was unmarried, and probably lived in Number 4 (Patten) not far distant from the lot upon which he subsequently settled. The census enumerator did not list him in that year because he was not the head of a family or a householder. But it is quite likely that he was engaged in clearing his lot in Crystal township some time before he took up his residence here.

Like many other Aroostook pioneers, the Lovejoys and Chesleys were lumbermen as well as farmers, and each winter they engaged in logging operations on their own and adjacent lots, hauling the logs to Fish Stream to be driven down river on the spring freshets or to Ira Fish's lumber mill in Number 4. In transporting

the logs from the cuttings to Fish's mill ox-teams of three or four yokes each were used, and in time the woods road over which these ox-teams were driven came to be known as the "Cow Team Road."

In the year of 1840 Thomas Bartlett, Jr., came to "East Number Four" (Crystal) to take the United States Census. Here he found eight log cabins in eight small "burns" or clearings. Bartlett must have been impressed by the youthfulness of the inhabitants. John Bell, just past thirty years of age, was the oldest settler on the "Spotted Line," and William Lovejoy, 42, was the oldest person in the township. The township then embraced some twenty-seven inhabitants, as follows:

The census returns, filed by Bartlett for 1840, bear the caption "No. 4, 5th Range, or Fish's Township," and they evidently embrace all persons living in the three townships now known as Patten, Crystal and Hersey. In this schedule the enumerator reported 294 persons--178 males and 116 females. Of these persons, 120 males and 48 females were over twenty years of age.

The 1840 census reveals the extent of settlement in other towns and plantations in Aroostook County. Houlton led in population, with 1,597 inhabitants. Second was the ancient French settlement of Madawaska, with 1,584.

The entire population of the Fifth and Sixth Range townships from Molunkus to Masardis inclusive, in the region reached by the Aroostook Road, was around 870, or about one-half the present population of Patten.

The territory east of Crystal, including Island Falls, Dyer Brook and Oakfield, was at this time a "howling wilderness," Smyrna, with a population of 184, being the nearest settlement in that direction.

In 1840 Crystal Lake was shown on a map for the first known time. The map was contained in "A New Universal Atlas," by Jeremiah Greenleaf. The lake, however, was not identified by name.

Chapter 15

Crystal Plantation Is Organized

Within two years from the time the Census of 1840 was taken the number of families in the township had practically doubled, and substantial progress was being made toward subduing the forests and establishing a well ordered community.

On October 19, 1840, the Maine legislature passed an act making "No. 4, Range 5," a plantation, at which time the name of Crystal was officially bestowed upon the township. However, the original designation clung for some years, and it was not until the Civil War period that the settlement came to be commonly known as Crystal or Crystal Plantation.

As early as 1840 the citizens of Township 4 Range 6 (Patten) took steps to petition the state legislature for the privilege of organizing a town government. That township had originally been known simply as "Number 4," but when settlers began coming into Number 4 of the Fifth Range (Crystal), the two townships were identified as "West Number 4" and "East Number 4," or as "Penobscot No. 4" and "Aroostook No. 4."

When the United States Government established a post office in West No. 4 on September 7, 1839, it was called "Fish's Mills," that name being applied locally to the small hamlet that had sprung up around Ira Fish's small sawmill at the crossing of the Aroostook Road and Fish Stream.

Finally, when the State legislature incorporated the town on April 16, 1841, it took the name of Patten, after Amos Patten, a prominent citizen of Bangor who had purchased considerable land in

the township from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name of the post office continued to be called "Fish's Mills," however, until August 16, 1842, when it was changed to Patten to conform to the name of the township. This postooffice served the people of Crystal Plantation for twenty-nine years, until the Crystal post office was established in 1868.

Among the first settlers to arrive in Crystal township after the Census of 1840 was John Conant, a well-educated young man twenty-six years of age, and a member of a prominent family of Franklin County, Me., where he was born. After teaching a few terms of school in Kenduskeag and Etna, near Bangor, Conant purchased a square mile of land in Crystal and moved here in 1840. The northwest corner of Conant's section was near where the Retreat Road now forks from the main road to Island Falls, and it embraced the land on either side of the Belvedere Road as far east as the road leading to the Noyes Mill, including the Humphrey Woods and the farms of Herman Brewer, Colin Campbell, William Rickard and most of that of William Tuker. At or near the site of the present Jarvis place on the corner then reached by an extension of the "Spotted Line" Conant erected a log cabin and proceeded to make a clearing. At that time Conant's nearest neighbor was James Cunningham, two miles west, and an unbroken forest separated the two.

After living on this place for a while, Conant moved to the site of the old Eugene Thorn place, just west of the present parsonage where he lived until he moved to Bangor sometime prior to the Civil War. He retained ownership of his square-mile tract, however, for several years and is believed to have lived upon it off and on for several years. Conant was probably the first Jus-

tice of the Peace in Crystal and took an active part in the promotion of education in the pioneer community. He was a captain of Infantry in the Civil War, and later moved to South Carolina where he was a United States Marshal and the Chairman of the Board of Registration in South Carolina during the reconstruction period. The Southerners no doubt called him a "Carpetbagger." Many of his descendants now live in the vicinity of Charleston, S. C.

Few families in Crystal's 100 years of history have played as prominent a part in the life of the town as the Hacketts. The first persons of that name to establish a residence in the township were George Washington Hackett and his wife Martha, who came from Vermont by ox-team in 1840 or 1841. Washington Hackett, as he was commonly known, settled on the lot on the south side of the "Spotted Line," just west of the approximate site of the present fork of the Upper and Lower roads. At the approximate site of the house now occupied by William Douglass, Hackett erected a log cabin, and later a frame dwelling, where he lived for many years. The original log cabin was not torn down until sometime in the 1890's. Washington Hackett's barn was the scene of many lively "huskin' bees" in the early days.

Hiram A. Hersey moved from Foxcroft, Maine, in 1840 or 1841, and purchased the farm originally owned by Bela H. Chesley, upon which he lived for many years. Chesley purchased the Isaac Webber farm, now known as the Percy Johnson place, and Webber moved to the lot on the north side of the Spotted Line just east of Crystal Stream, where he lived until his death.

Hersey later moved to the Cow Team Road, south of the old Coffin farm, and afterwards to Patten where he engaged in the lumber business for many years.

One of the youngest and yet one of the most energetic and enterprising of the pioneer settlers was John Hammond, a son of Joseph Hammond, of Paris, Maine. John Hammond was one of a family of sixteen children. At the age of seventeen he moved to Penobscot County, and in 1841, at the age of nineteen, he purchased from the State the lot on the north side of the "Spotted Line extension," now the farm of Mert Whelan, east of the Hackett School. After erecting a cabin and clearing a small "burn" in the spring and summer of 1841, young Hammond absented himself from the settlement for a visit to his boyhood home. When he returned a few weeks later he brought with him as charming and vivacious a young bride as had ever set foot in Crystal township. Her maiden name was Jeanette Cushman.

Among the pioneer families of Crystal Plantation, probably none deserves a more prominent place than the Bradfords. For three quarters of a century the Bradfords, their children and grandchildren were among the most progressive, public-spirited and enterprising members of the community. It was in the year 1841 that the three Bradford boys--Sumner, Lyman and Owen--sons of William and Emma Bradford, of Winslow, Maine, settled in Crystal Plantation.

Sumner P. Bradford was the original proprietor of the old Jimmy Gray farm on the Lower Road, where he and his brother Owen settled in 1841 and erected a log cabin and cleared a farm, when there were no neighbors nearer than the Aroostook Road and the "Spotted Line," and long before the Lower Road was opened.

Ten years later Sumner purchased the William Young Farm on the Upper Road, and lived there with the Youngs until after his marriage, when the Youngs moved to the lot just east of the Hackett

School, where John Hammond first settled. In 1867 Sumner moved from the old William Young farm to a farm on the Lower Road, and in 1885 he purchased the original Hammond farm from William Young, where he lived until his death. Sumner P. Bradford married Sarah Burnham, a sister of Deacon Reuben Burnham, and from that union were born several daughters, including Ida, who married (1st) Anson Young and (2nd) William Hackett; Myra, who married Anthony A. Emerson; and Clara (Cad) who married Anthony's brother Benjamin Emerson. Sumner Bradford was one of Crystal's most substantial and respected citizens. He was a veteran of the Civil War, and was noted as a bear hunter.

Lyman Bradford was the original proprietor of the old Isaac Webber place (now owned by Mrs. A. Anderson) on the north side of the road just east of Crystal stream, but shortly after his arrival in Crystal he settled on the farm on the Lower Road just east of the "Horseback," where he lived for many years with his wife Cordelia and her son by a former marriage.

Owen Bradford continued to live for several years on the old Jimmy Gray place which he and his brother Sumner settled in 1841. Later he moved to the old "Pink Place," now owned by Jean Stockford, east of the Webber Place.

One of the most prominent pioneer families of Crystal in the early days was the Scribners, some of whom later moved to Patten. In 1846 Daniel Scribner moved from Lincoln, Me., to Crystal with his wife and family of four children, Daniel Jr., Nathaniel, Jemima and Aaron. The family settled on the old Wheaton place on the Upper Road and lived there for a few years until the farm was purchased by Lorenzo Wadlin, who married Jemima Scribner. Daniel

Scribner, Sr., later settled on what is now known as the S. L. Johnson place, and Nathaniel (Nat) Scribner settled on the old Al Corliss place, now known as the Percy Johnson place, west of Sumner Bradford's. Nathaniel raised a large family. Daniel Scribner, Jr., moved to Patten, where he was one of the leading citizens for many years, and where his son Caleb now lives.

Daniel Scribner, Sr., bore the distinction of being the first born of all the residents of Crystal. The date of his birth was 1777, when the Revolutionary War was getting under way. He was a child of six when the conflict ended. In his boyhood he knew many of the soldiers of the Revolution, including members of his own family, and he clearly recalled the time when the great hero of the Revolution, George Washington, became President of the United States. Thus, three generations of the Scribners--Daniel Sr., Daniel Jr., and Caleb--encompass the entire history of the American Republic, from George Washington to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The list of early settlers would not be complete without mention of the Burnhams and Dwinels, although the exact dates of their arrival in the settlement cannot be definitely determined. According to my mother, Deacon Reuben Burnham "came very early," and was "one of the pillars of the church." He was the original proprietor of the farm on the lower road now occupied by Sylvester Main. His son Charles A. Burnham married Mary Ellen Bell, and from this union was born one daughter Hattie, who died in infancy. Charles Burnham died in the same year.

Nathan Dwinel, a brother-in-law of Deacon Burnham and Sarah Bradford, was the original proprietor of the Gus Willey place on the Lower Road. Nathan's widow Aunt Eliza Dwinel survived him

for many years and in her old age made her home with Anthony and Myra Emerson. She is still remembered by many residents of Crystal as a sweet little old lady who read a great deal, practised the Golden Rule, loved to have visitors come to see her. The tragic loss of her three children in the dyptheria epidemic of the '60's, and the death of her husband brought a sadness to her heart from which she never fully recovered.

Last, but by no means least, among the very early settlers was the man who built and operated the first manufacturing establishment in Crystal, and who played a leading role in the upbuilding of the community. That man was Jedediah Fairfield a brother of Ephraim Fairfield, Patten's first postmaster.

Jedediah Fairfield, his wife Anna, and their several children came from China, Maine, in 1842 or thereabouts and erected a home on the site of the present parsonage. Shortly thereafter, Fairfield erected a dam and water mill on Crystal Stream, a short distance below the site of the present bridge. At that time the roadway which was being cleared to replace the "Spotted Line" had not been completed and the few pieces of machinery which were used in outfitting the mill were brought in from Patten with the greatest difficulty in the winter months when the road was passable for teams. After operating the mill for several years, Fairfield sold it to Joseph Kimball and thereafter devoted his time to his former trade of carpenter, carriage maker and cabinet maker, and to farming. Jedediah and Anna Fairfield raised a large family and lived in Crystal until their deaths. A granddaughter, Mary Fairfield, now lives in Patten, and a grandson, Howard P. Fairfield, is an instructor in mechanical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic In-

stitute, Worcester, Mass. Another grandson, Charles Henry Benjamin, became one of the country's outstanding mechanical engineers and a noted author of mechanical engineering textbooks.

The Ward family, who settled opposite the Hammonds, consisted of William Ward and his wife Sally, who came from Franklin County in 1841. Ward was an enterprising citizen. In 1842 or thereabouts he erected the first frame dwelling in the township. Ward's daughter married a young farmer-preacher named Ephraim Fobes, who lived with the Ward's and subsequently acquired ownership of the farm.

The steepest hill in the township was located on the Hammond-Fobes farms, and for many years it was known as Fobes Hill. So much difficulty was experienced in driving loaded teams up and down this hill that the road was finally relocated to form a letter S so as to reduce the gradient. Thereafter the hill came to be known as the "Winding Hill."

Chapter 16

The Sale of Crystal Township

There are many farms in Crystal today that are worth more than the State of Maine received for the entire township when it was sold to the original settlers.

To the present generation it may seem astonishing that the total cash revenue derived by the State from the sale of wild lands in the township was only $3,396, and that the average price received for lands sold outright by the State was only 20½ cents an acre.

Fertile as these lands were, they were practically valueless without some means of transportation that would make them accessible and attractive to settlers.

Those who directed the affairs of the State at that time were more interested in encouraging the spread of permanent settlement than in swelling the State's coffers; consequently they fixed the prices of the lands so low and offered them to settlers on such liberal terms that a sizable lot was placed within the reach of nearly every person.

Moreover, the State offered acreage in each township to settlers with the privilege of paying for the lands in labor on the public roads, without any cash outlay whatever.

It was also the policy of the State to issue grants of land to soldiers or to other persons as rewards for valuable public service rendered the State.

Under these three methods, the State transferred approximately 22,888 of the 23,848 acres of land in Crystal to fifty-five

individuals, as follows:

The remaining lands in the township, comprising acres, were deeded to Crystal Plantation as a school grant.

The prices received by the State for the 16,766 acres of land disposed of by outright cash purchase or time payments ranged from 4-1/8 cents to 75 cents an acre, except one lot, sold in 1907, which brought $2.13 an acre.

The first deed issued by the State was dated June 21, 1838. This deed conveyed 166 acres of land, now known as the Beverly Anderson place on the Upper Road, to Benjamin Poor. The purchase price was $124.50, or 75 cents an acre.

The second deed was to Joseph Scarlet, transferring 164 acres on the Upper Road, now known as D. J. Seams place, for 75 cents an acre.

The farm now owned by Abraham White on the south side of the Upper Road was bought from the State by Bela H. Chesley for 12½ cents an acre.

Isaac Webber bought the Sidney Johnson place from the State for 19 cents an acre.

The two adjoining 80-acre lots owned by A. H. White and Sidney P. Johnson, on the Upper Road, were sold as one lot by the State to Isaac Webber for 19 cents an acre.

The farms now owned by S. L. Johnson and Edith Anderson were originally procured from the State by William Young, Crystal's first settler, for 19 cents an acre.

The H. L. Glidden farm on the south side of the Winding Hill was bought by Lorenzo Wadlin for 19 cents an acre.

The J. A. Anderson farm was purchased from the State by Bela H. Chesley for 12½ cents an acre.

The farm now owned by Abraham White was purchased by George Sweet in 1838 for 50 cents an acre.

The Kenneth Anderson place was purchased by James Cunningham for 19 cents an acre.

The farm now owned by Mrs. William Douglas just west of the church, was purchased from the State by James M. Tibbitts for 12½ cents an acre.

The old Eugene Thorn place, now owned by Charles Thorn, on the north side of the road was purchased by Samuel Dearborn for 50 cents an acre.

The lot on the north side of the road just east of Crystal Stream was bought by L B for 25¢ an acre.

The Mert J. Whelan farm, as well as the K. L. Grant and Cassie James properties opposite, near the fork of the road, were purchased by John B. Hammond for 13-1/3 cents an acre.

The J. P. Webber--Herman Brewer--Colin Campbell--Wm. Rickart--Bill Tucker properties on the Belvedere Road were purchased by John Conant for 9 cents an acre.

The square mile now comprising the prize potato farm of John C. Prescott, as well as those of W. H. Prescott, R. C. Prescott and Paul Gerow in the northeastern corner of the township was

purchased by Benjamin Wiggin, Patten's pioneer lumberman, for 4-1/3 cents an acre.

The William Douglas farm was purchased by George W. Hackett for 20½ cents an acre.

The C. L. Thorn place was purchased by George Sweet for 50 cents an acre.

The farms now owned by Almond Porter, J. A. Roberts, M. Roberts, C. L. Geary and P. Young in the southeast corner of the township were purchased by Isaac Lewis for 10 cents an acre.

The lowest price received by the State for any land in the township was three cents an acre for the properties now owned by R. B. Hatt and E. H. Ladd south of the Stanley Main, H. C. Rowe and H. Rogers farms.

The Coffin farm on the Lower Road was sold by the State to David N. B. Coffin for 12½ cents an acre.

Most of the land included in the Humphrey Woods and the old Humphrey and Willey farms in Belvedere, was purchased from the State by John Conant for 9 cents an acre, and the old William Hackett farm at the mouth of the Retreat Road was purchased by John Hammond for 13-1/3 cents an acre.

By far the largest individual proprietor among the original purchasers was Benjamin Wiggin, Patten lumberman, who purchased a total of 4,635 acres of State lands, mostly in the southern part of the township, for which he paid an average of 4-1/3 cents an acre.

Those who paid for State lands in road labor were: John Bell, Sumner Bradford, Abram Burnham, Charles Burnham, James Cunningham, Nathan Dwinel, Ira Fish, Phebe Hayden, Hiram Howard,

Bart Potter, Luther B. Rogers, John A. Rowe, William Rowe, Cyrus Walker, Anson Young, William Young and Hiram Hersey.

Certain of these persons, including Ira Fish and Luther B. Rogers, never resided in Crystal, so far as is known, and it is quite likely that the road labor which they performed was on the Aroostook Road. It is known that Fish was one of the contractors on the construction of the Aroostook Road.

Those who received State grants for military or other valuable services rendered the State were: Reuben Burnham, Bela H. Chesley, Silas Coburn, David N. B. Coffin, George Ladd, James McKeen, John Rowe, and Jacob Sanders.

George Ladd was a Congressman, residing in Bangor. It is doubtful if he ever lived in Crystal.

Life in the Pioneer Settlement

It is difficult for those of the present generation--living in comfortable, roomy homes, enjoying modern means of transportation and communication and innumerable other conveniences which were unknown in pioneer days--to picture the primitive conditions under which the early settlers lived.

Such modern labor-saving devices as the mowing machine, the threshing machine, the cream separator, the potato planter, the sprayer and the potato digger, were, of course, unknown. There were then no railroads in Maine, no telephones, no telegraph, no radios, no automobiles, no good roads as we know them today, no newspapers north of Bangor, no rural free delivery, no electric lights nor even kerosene lamps, and none of the early settlers of Crystal possessed wither piano-forte or melodeon.

Settlers who came prior to the opening of the road and before Jedediah Fairfield built his saw mill on Crystal Stream of necessity erected their homes of logs from the surrounding forests. Most of the log cabins measured about 18 by 20 feet and were built with only one room. There were at least two reasons for the extremely small size--first, the usual necessity of building them hurriedly, and, second, the expectation of the settler that the cabin would be replaced ere long by a frame structure. Moreover, some of the pioneer settlers were bachelors when they settled on the lands; others were but recently married and without children, while still others had but one or two children, and they did not feel the necessity of spacious quarters as they did later when the members of the families became more numerous.

Then, too, the lack of stoves and the necessity of heating the home from the fireplace, was also a factor that led to the erection of small cabins. Most of the cabins were erected of spruce logs, with the bark peeled off to prevent wood lice and other insects from gaining a foothold. The roofs were usually built of "shakes" or crude shingles made by splitting logs into strips two or three inches thick and then hewing or shaving them down to fairly uniform shapes.

The puncheon floor was a characteristic feature of the pioneer cabins. This was built by splitting logs in halves and fitting the flat sides facing upward, side by side, after being carefully hewed and shaved to remove all uneven surfaces and splinters. In the absence of bricks, the fireplaces and chimneys were built of rocks and a crude home-made plaster formed by a misture of clay or mud mixed with sand, gravel and animal hair.

Few if any of the early log cabins homes were originally fitted with glass windows, for glass was expensive and money was scarce. In their stead were openings over which were fastened sheets of greased paper or stretched rabbit skins from which the hair had been removed. In the winter months some of the openings were boarded up or fitted with hinged doors to protect against the severe cold.

Tables, benches and even bedsteads were home-made. The mattresses were ticks of gunny sack filled with cedar or spruce twigs or with dry leaves gathered in the forest. Later, when the crops were harvested, the ticks were filled with wheat or oat straw.

Few if any of the pioneer cabins were equipped with

stoves. Food was cooked in "bake kettles," frying pans and roasters suspended over the open fire. Homes were lighted by flickering tallow candles, which were also home made. Brooms were made of cedar boughs.

The task of keeping the cabins clean and free from annoying insects was a problem for the pioneer women of Aroostook. Despite their best effort insects worked their way into the numerous cracks and crevices of the logs and rafters. The remedy was boiling water, and on the first bright, warm day of spring all bedding and furniture was carried outside and was given a thorough sunning. The furniture was scrubbed; the bed ticks were emptied and washed; and the emptied house was given a thorough scalding and scrubbing. Then the furniture was restored to its place; the bed ticks were refilled with fresh twigs or straw and everything was tidied up spic and span. Late in the summer or fall the process was repeated in preparation for the long winter ahead.

How, one may ask, did the pioneer families manage for sleeping quarters in their little log cabins homes, especially where there were several children? Each cabin was fitted with a loft, reached by a step ladder, and fitted with crude bunks where boys and men could sleep if necessary. Some cabins were fitted with berths, or bunks, two or three tiers high, each capable of accomodating two persons, while other cabins were furnished more sumptuously, with a bedstead for father and mother, built with high legs to enable low "trundle beds" to be rolled under them, out of the way, when not in use. In the early evening, when the small children were ready for bed, the cozy little "trundle beds"

would be "trundled" out and prepared for the night. The children would be tucked in, with a bear skin or a sheep skin robe added if the night was especially cold, and a quilt or curtain would be stretched across the room to shut off the light of the log fire and the flickering candles while father sat up to read and mother quietly pursued her knitting or sewing. Once the children were sound asleep, conversation was resumed. Father would busy himself smoothing an axe handle or an ox-yoke or sharpening some tool with a whetstone or moulding bullets from the heat of the log fire. If the older children were still up they would assist their parents in their never ending duties or gather around the table near the candle light and join in a game of dominoes or charades or listen while one of them read a story.

Store-bought clothing was uncommon. The pioneer women were skillful in the art of making cloth, as well as in sewing, knitting and quilting. They spent long hours spinning flax and yarn and weaving cloth--homespun and linsey-woolsey--and fashioning these into garments for grownups as well as children. Bearskins, deerskins, beaverskins and sheep skins were made into caps and mittens, coats and robes, and the menfolks were adept in making boots and shoes, moccasins, snowshoes and harnesses from home-tanned leather. Leather also served as hinges for doors, windows, closets and chests.

One of the early shoemakers of Crystal was Freeman Wadlin, who lived with his parents on the old George Wheaton place on the Upper Road. This industrious young man, while in his early 'teens, became so proficient in the art that many of the townspeople, women as well as men and children, were proud to wear boots of his making.

Notwithstanding the multitudinous duties of the pioneer wives and mothers, they found time to tutor their children in the "three R's." (readin', 'rightin', and 'rithmetic) before the first school was organized in the community. Welcome, indeed, was the visitor or neighbor who was capable and willing to teach the children to read, write and cipher or who could entertain them by reading or recitations. Frequently the Bible was the only available textbook, and from its pages many a pioneer boy and girl made their first acquaintance with the alphabet. (This writer's grandmother, Elizabeth Bell, taught him his ABC's from the large chapter letters of the old family Testament, as she had taught his mother before him).

Crystal was especially fortunate in the high moral and spiritual character of its men and women. They were almost without exception of Colonial New England ancestry, reared in the wholesome atmosphere of Christian homes and taught to fear God and love their fellow men.

Much of the credit for the high moral tone of the early community is due to the pioneer mothers of Crystal. With stout hearts and self-sacrificing devotion, they followed their husbands into the wilderness, thick-set with perils, and with a devotion to duty probably unsurpassed in the history of the race, they performed the multitudinous duties of wife and mother and neighbor without murmur or complaint and welcomed every opportunity to contribute to the religious, moral and educational advancement of the community.

The pioneer mother was a rare combination of pluck, devotion and industry. The health, education, morals, social privileges and personal appearance of her children were all subjects for

her most assiduous attention and industry. All suffering was made her own, and she hastened to alleviate it if possible. She did with all her might for others and almost nothing for herself. Often in the absence of physicians she showed rare skill in the use of remedies, having inherited the gift of healing from the pioneer mother before her. Her life was full of good deeds, of looking after the welfare and comforts of others and of neighborly kindness. Privations called forth all her pluck and courage. With no physician within many miles, with illness an all too frequent visitor, and with wild animals lurking in the surrounding forest--all these called for indomitable courage. When the husband was away working in the woods or on a trip down river, she and the children slept with the door barricaded and with gun and axe beside the bed ready for any emergency.

Life in Crystal in those days was a hard and stern reality, with but little to soften its rugged features. It called for men of stern fibre and for women of undaunted courage. To those men and women we owe a debt which we can never repay, not only for the wholesome example of their upright self-sacrificing lives but also for the practical contributions which they made toward the upbuilding of the community. They were the trail-blazers. They chopped the timber and cleared the lands. They made the rock piles and the fences. They erected many of the farmhouse buildings still in use. They built the roads and bridges. They battled with stumps and roots and rocks. They dug the wells. They organized the first schools, the church, and they left the community not a great deal different than it is today.

Of course we have vastly better roads than they ever knew; we have better means of transportation and communication; we have better and more comfortable school houses; we have improved agricultural machinery with which to do our work; our homes are equipped with many conveniences of which they never dreamed, but it still remains that we have builded largely upon the foundation that our forebears laid down for us.

Neighborliness was an outstanding characteristic of the early settlers, and there was much visiting back and forth among the people of the community. When a new family arrived, the members were welcomed into the homes while the men folks joined in helping the newcomer erect his cabin. Not infrequently neighbors gave seeds, provisions, milk and even sheep, pigs and calves to the newcomer to help him get a start.

When illness visited any of the homes, friendly neighbors took turns "sitting up" with the patient during the nights, taking care of the children and keeping house. And if the hand of Death visited the community, the men built a coffin by hollowing out the trunk of a tree or by splitting logs into planks and hewing them into shapes which could be fashioned into a coffin, while others prepared the grave.

The women folks held quilting or sewing bees and frequently of a winter evening old and young would gather at some settlers cabin for an evening of games, riddles, story telling and singing.

The pioneer farmers depended upon the forests as well as upon the farms to supply the necessities of life. Most of them

were expert woodsmen, adept in the use of axe, knife and musket. Deer were plentiful, and if there were close seasons or other restrictions against killing them, the settlers knew nothing about them. Venison was a staple article of diet, and moose, caribou and bear meat were not uncommon. It was customary for the hunter to distribute generous portions of wild meat among his neighbors, especially if an animal was killed in warm weather when there was likelihood of it spoiling before it could be consumed.

Moreover, the frontiersman of northern Maine had to keep constantly alert to protect his herd of sheep, as well as his pigs and cattle, against the menace of wolves and bears. One never knew when a pack of hungry wolves might emerge from the timber and wreak swift havoc among the helpless animals. And bears were so plentiful in those days that sheep were never safe from their attacks. There are tales of women blowing the dinner horn for the men folks and receiving answers from the wolves in the deep forest.

Children, too, were in danger of attack from these wild beasts. The boy whose duty it was to fill the wood box inside the cabin was often warned to complete the task before dark lest the wolves might prowl. This writer's father often told how he and his brothers and sisters living in Smyrna were escorted to and from school by their father, Willard Corliss, to protect them against wolves and bears. Doubtless the same precautions were taken by the pioneer settlers of Crystal. The fact that Willard Corliss killed no fewer than 130 bears in his lifetime, all in Aroostook County, indicates how plentiful these animals were in this region in the early days.

The herculean task of reducing the forest and bringing farms into cultivation was not a weakling's job. It called for

courage, strength, stamina and determination of a high order. Long months and even years of arduous toil were required to fell the trees and prepare the ground for planting. For years farming was carried on on land so rough and strewn with stumps, roots and rocks than an ordinary plow--if available--would have been out of the question.

Potatoes and corn were planted by "spading," that is, by digging small pits or pockets in the ground with spades, hoes or axes, depositing the seeds and covering them with layers of earth. Wheat, oats, buckwheat and grass seeds were sown broadcast and then worked into the ground by means of brush or spike-tooth harrows drawn by teams of horses or yokes of oxen. These were about the only horse- or ox-drawn implements that could be used for tilling and planting in the burnt-lands before the stumps were removed.

The farmer threshed his grain with a hand-flail, and he carried a bushel at a time on his back to the grist mill in Patten to have it ground into flour. Potatoes were stored in deep cellars under the cabins. Both cellar and cabin were protected against the biting winter cold by bankings of earth erected around the outer walls each fall.

The problem of obtaining fresh milk for the children was one of the first to engage the attention of the pioneer family, and it was not uncommon for a settler, especially if he had children, to bring one or more cows with him from down river. Many brought lambs and pigs. Along the old Aroostook Road many a family came with wagon or sled, drawn by oxen, with one or more members trudging behind driving cows, sheep, pigs. Other arriving settlers came without livestock, taking the chance of obtaining such animals from

some farmer on the Aroostook Road or in the community.

One of John Bell's favorite stories related to a young shoat which he purchased from a farmer on the Aroostook Road. He brought the shoat to Crystal in a bag on his back. Shortly thereafter the shoat mysteriously disappeared. It was not thought possible that a bear or wolf had carried it away because no squealing had been heard. The mystery was finally cleared up when word was received from the farmer on the Aroostook Road that the shoat had turned up at his place, having made its way back home along the "Spotted Line" or through the woods, a distance of two or three miles!

One of the most pressing problems of the [paper slip obscures text] settler was that of securing a supply of good water. The task of digging a well, sometimes to a depth of forty or sixty feet, and lining it with stones, was both dangerous and laborious. Water was drawn from the well by means of a windlass.

In those far-off days the Aroostook farmer had no means of getting his farm products to distant markets, and his only means of obtaining cash with which to purchase salt, tea, thread, nails, tools and other necessities which could not be produced at home, was by the sale of skins or furs or by working in the lumber woods with his team during the winter months when lumbermen were operating in that region.

The opening of the Upper Road greatly facilitated travel to and from Patten village and among neighbors in the settlement, and when the road became passable for teams, whole families frequently went visiting in farm carts or sleds drawn by oxen or horses. Of

course, walking and horseback riding were common means of getting about.

During the first five or six years of settlement in Crystal there was neither church nor school in the township, but this did not prevent the people of the community from holding religious worship in the homes or from providing their children with a rudimentary instruction. The Sabbath was strictly observed as Lord's Day in nearly all the homes of the settlement, and only blinding winter storms or impassable roads prevented the families from gathering at one of the homes each Sabbath for prayer meeting and singing.

Occasionally a minister would come in from Patten to conduct the service and to perform baptismal rites, and the honor of entertaining the distinguished guest at dinner was eagerly sought after by the good housewives of the settlement. The Youngs were Baptists; the Bells were Methodists; the Fairfields had been raised Quakers; while others were Congregationalists. After a church of the latter denomination had been organized in Patten in 1841 and the Upper Road was opened, it was not uncommon for one or more families to drive to Patten on the Sabbath to attend preaching services. Religious worship, however, was not confined to the Sabbath or to community gatherings. Nearly every pioneer household began the day with the time-honored Puritan custom of Scripture reading and prayer.

Chapter 17

Early Days in Crystal and Island Falls

The opening of the Upper Road to Patten and the establishment of Jedediah Fairfield's water mill on Crystal Stream in the early 1840's signalized the beginning of the end of the "log cabin era" in Crystal.

With sawed lumber now available, most of the arriving settlers erected frame dwellings instead of log cabins, and the more forward looking pioneer settlers began preparations to replace their log cabins and barns with frame structures in keeping with the progressive spirit of the times.

The customary method was for the settler to cut his own logs and haul them, usually on the winter snows, to Fairfield's mill, where they were sawed into such sizes and shapes as were needed.

Jedediah Fairfield was a kind and obliging man. Being a carpenter by trade, he performed the services of both sawyer and architect, assisting the settlers in planning their homes and figuring out the exact quantity of each size and dimension of lumber that was necessary in the construction. If a settler could not pay for the lumber in cash (and few of them could) Mr. Fairfield would take his payment in logs, selling the lumber to incoming settlers who usually brought a little cash with them, but if they did not have the cash, he would trust them for his pay. In slack seasons Mr. Fairfield would close his mill and take charge of the construction of houses and barns or he would keep himself busily occupied making cabinets and furniture and sleds and other articles for those who were not sufficiently skilled to make such things themselves. He

also took time enough off from his mill to erect a frame dwelling of his own to replace his log cabin on the site of the present parsonage, lived for several years with the Washington Hacketts and the John Conants as his near neighbors.

The first frame dwelling erected in Crystal was built by William Ward, the original owner of the Winding Hill Farm, on the north side of the Upper Road. This structure was built in 1842 or 1843 and was occupied by the Wards and their son-in-law, the Rev. Ephraim Fobes until the latter's death in 1870. It was later the home of the Brad Kinneys and Mrs. Kinneys son, James (Jim) Scribner. The original structure, somewhat altered, was standing as late as 1935, and was then the oldest house in town.

The second oldest frame dwelling in Crystal in 1935 was the old George Wheaton house which was erected by a man named Morgan about 1844. The frame dwelling on the old John Bell place, still standing but in a dilapidated condition, was built in 1845, to replace the log cabin which Bell built in 1839.

In modern times Island Falls supplies Crystal with a large part of its sawed lumber and other requirements, but in the old days the reverse was true---Island Falls obtained its lumber from Jedediah Fairfield's mill in Crystal.

In 1842, three years after the first families settled in Crystal, two prospectors, Levi Sewall and Jesse Craig, from Farmington, Me., came up the Aroostook Road and turned into Crystal along the "Spotted Line" or the partly constructed road to Crystal Stream. There being no road beyond this point, they followed Crystal, Fish and Mattawamkeag streams to the falls of the Mattawamkeag in Township 4 Range 4, now known as Island Falls.

Levi Sewall was quick to perceive the possibilities of harnessing the water power of the falls for the operation of flour and saw mills, and he decided then and there to locate his home in the immediate vicinity, at that time an unbroken wilderness. Craig was likewise impressed with the location, and, without waiting to purchase their properties from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, they felled several acres of trees during the summer and then returned to their homes in Farmington. During the winter Sewall arranged for the purchase of 640 acres of land, which embraced the Falls. In the spring of 1843 he returned from Farmington, bringing his wife and six children. One of them, a red-headed lad of two years, burdened with the ponderous name of William Wingate Sewall, was to attain national fame many years later as "Bill" Sewall, friend, guide, ranchman and adviser of President Theodore Roosevelt.

On his first trip, Levi Sewall had made the acquaintance of Will and Avis Young in Crystal, possibly stopping at their home enroute to or from the Falls of the Mattawamkeag, and on his return with his family, he left his wife and the four youngest children, including William, with the Youngs, and he and his oldest sons, David and Samuel, made their way down the streams to the Falls, where they proceeded to erect a log cabin and prepare to burn the trees which had been felled the previous year. Late in June, Sewall and his sons returned to Crystal for the remaining members of their family. Mrs. Sewall and her youngest child were conveyed by boat down the streams, while the older children made their way through the thick forest, probably along the spotted lines left by the surveyors seven years before.

Late in 1843 or 1844 the Golden Ridge Road was cut through from Sherman Mills to Island Falls, but the trip between those points by sled or wagon was a trying experience because of the crudeness of the road and the steepness of the hills encountered; consequently the few settlers living in the vicinity of the Falls continued for some time to depend upon Crystal and Patten for mail, supplies and other necessities. Such lumber as the community needed was transported from Fairfield's mill down Crystal and Fish streams to the Falls, and the mail was carried in the same manner when the streams were navigable for small craft. Patten and Crystal were also the nearest points at which religious services were held, and it is not unlikely that the Sewalls and Craigs and other pioneers of Island Falls journeyed up Fish Stream to Patten by canoe or bateau to attend services.

Island Falls was without mail service of its own for the first twenty years of its existence as a settlement, until May 25, 1863, (during the Civil War) when a post office was established there with the pioneer settler, Levi Sewall, as the first postmaster.

Chapter 18

Crystal Builds A Meeting House

While the Sewalls and Craigs were struggling to put Island Falls on the map, the settlers of Crystal were making slow but steady progress in the improvement of their farms and the public road. With sawed lumber available, several of the settlers proceeded to erect large frame barns for the storage of hay and grain and for better care of their livestock during the winter months.

The construction of the huge framework was a herculean task, beyond the strength of any one man. It was customary, therefore, for all able bodied men in the community to join in the undertaking. In this way every sill and beam and rafter was swung into place and the framework was completed in a few hours' time.

But a "barn raising" was more than a mere neighborly gesture on the part of the men folks. It was a gala occasion, a "Roman Holiday," in which nearly every member of the frontier community--men, women and children--were eager participants.

Entire families came in ox-carts, in farm wagons, or on foot, bringing baskets brimming with good things to eat--pork and beans, ham, roast pig, pickles, preserves, johnny-cakes, pies, tarts, cookies, doughnuts and whatnot.

While the men bent to their task, with their lusty shouts, songs and good natured banter mingling with the incessant din of saws and hammers and mallets, the women folks busied themselves visiting and preparing a sumptuous picnic dinner beneath the refreshing shade of the maples. And the young people and children--how they romped and played and shouted in their efforts to keep up their

share of the noise.

As the day wore on and the last rafters were fitted into place, the women and the children assembled at a safe vantage point and waited with bated breath for the signal that proclaimed the completion of the task, and then workmen and spectators joined in a prolonged and tumultuous cheer in celebration of the accomplishment.

Barn raisings, like church gatherings and huskin' bees, served to bring the hard-working settler families together and to relieve the loneliness of pioneer life. They helped to promote that neighborliness, friendliness and good feeling that prevailed in such a marked degree among the settlers. Around such gatherings centered much of the social life of the young community. Hiram Hersey's barn raisin' or Sumner Bradford's huskin' bee, or Martha Haskett's quiltin' bee were long remembered events among the people of old Crystal.

Crystal had its sad as well as its happy moments in those early days. Two tragic deaths cast grim shadows over the little settlement in the early 1840s. One of those--perhaps the first death in Crystal--was the drowning of a young man named John Disbee, 23 years of age, in the mill pond at Crystal Stream, near the site of Jedediah Fairfield's mill, on June 26, 1843. The other was that of little Bennie Hersey, who perished in the flames which destroyed the Hersey cabin on the site of the present home of Charles Thorn.

At that time there was no cemetery in Crystal, and the body of the Hersey boy was placed by loving hands into a crude coffin, probably built by neighbor Fairfield, and laid to rest in a beautiful cluster of evergreen trees at the northeastern corner of the Hersey lot. Shortly thereafter, as a memorial to their mourned

son, Alonzo and Phoebe Hersey set apart an acre or two of land at that location as a public burying ground. Thus Crystal cemetery was established, and this was an influential factor in later years in determining the site for the Baptist Church on the opposite side of the road.

With the coming of new settlers and the rapidly increasing number of children of school age, the demand for a school building became more and more insistent. Equally urgent was the need for a house of worship large enough to accomodate the growing community. Still another need was for a building in which the citizens could gather for the transaction of public business and for the election of town officers.

In 1844 a group of public spirited citizens met to devise ways and means to meet these pressing needs. Although the names of those who attended this meeting have not been preserved, to the writer's knowledge, it is safe to assume that the group included such outstanding citizens as Jedediah Fairfield, William Young, Sumner Bradford, Lyman Bradford, Owen Bradford, John Bell, Isaac Webber, John Hammond, Bela Chesley, John Conant, James Cunningham, Washington Hackett, William Ward, Hiram Hersey, Alonzo Hersey, Nathan Deinel, Deacon Jacob Sanders, and Jonas Drury, the last named having only recently settled on the farm now owned by Charles Main, which then extended nearly to the fork of the road.

The discussion probably centered around six questions: First, whether two buildings should be erected, one for a school and one for a church; second, where the building or buildings should be located; third, the size of the structure or structures; fourth, the

denominational character of the church; fifth, the cost; sixth, the methods to be employed in raising the funds.

After some debate, all these questions were satisfactorily settled. It was decided to erect one building which would serve the three-fold purpose of school, church and town meeting house.

Jonas Drury was a man of vision. He had studiously chosen his land in the township along both banks of Crystal stream, south of the road, with the expectation that some day an important town, perhaps a city, would rise here. Drury envisioned Crystal Stream flowing from the city-to-be in the vicinity of Fairfield's Mill all the way to its confluence with Fish Stream between beautiful and prosperous farms. He predicted that some day a good road would extend from Crystal Center southward to the Golden Ridge Road and thence to a connection with the Aroostook Road in Hersey, thus providing a truly Aroostook Road directly through Crystal, as it should have been built in the first place. Nor was that all that the citizens of Crystal might expect, according to the visionary Drury. Already there was talk of building a great railroad extending from Bangor eastward into the Canadian provinces, and what was more logical than a branch line railroad leading from Mattawamkeag or vicinity northwest along the general route of the Aroostook Road to Masardis. One thing was certain, however,--if and when the railroad was built, it would not swing westward, as the Aroostook Road did, over the hills of Patten and Mount Chase, but would for economy's sake pursue a direct line with its more favorable topography due north through the 5th Range townships to Masardis. And where was there a more logical route for such a railroad than the natural embankment known as the Horseback, thence northwest into Hersey along the valley of Crystal Stream?

Having thus pictured the probable future development of Crystal, Jonas Drury urged his fellow citizens to select a central location for this public building which would not only serve the settlers east and west of Crystal Stream but also those who were located or would eventually locate south of the public road nearer the center of the township. Drury completed his eloquent plea with an offer to donate a site for the building.

The offer was accepted, and after further deliberation in which objection was raised to locating the school and church too close to the millpond, where John Bisbee was drowned, or too near the noisy sawmill, a site was chosen west of Crystal Stream a few hundred yards south of the public road.

During the following summer Crystal's first school and church was erected by a group of citizens under the expert direction of Jedediah Fairfield, and at practically no cash outlay. Some settlers cut and delivered logs to Fairfield's mill as their contribution. Fairfield donated the millwork and his services as master carpenter. Others donated their services in the construction of the building, the seats, the fireplace and other interior furnishings.

Indeed, so completely did the settlers cooperate in the undertaking that about the only cash expenditure necessary was for window glass and sash. Several years later a stove replaced or supplemented the fireplace.

This building, known for many years as the "Old Red School House," stood on the east side of the lower Road a short distance west of Crystal Stream, two or three rods north of the present north line of Charles Main's farm.

From 1845 until the erection of the Upper District school, in 1850, this was the only school building in the town, and it was the principal school in the town until the Hackett School was erected in 1892, a period of nearly half a century. The "Old Red School House" was the only house of worship in Crystal from 1845 until the Baptist Church, opposite the cemetery, was erected about 1870, a period of twenty-five years. It served as the town meeting house for nearly half a century.

Here Rufina Morgan, Rebecca Webber, Mary Bell and many others taught school, and here many of the boys and girls of old Crystal received their early education--Charles A. Burnham, Howard Fairfield, Hadley Fairfield, Hiram H. Chesley, James Cunningham, Jonas Hersey, Caroline Conant, Mary Fairfield, Kate Coffin, Augusta E. Conant, Sarah Burnham, Eliza Burnham, Anthony and Ben Emerson, George W. Hackett, Jr., Alden Hackett, Ida Bradford, Myra Bradford, Clara Bradford, Minnie, Charles, Martin and James Main, to mention a few. In later years many of their children attended the same school, sometimes called the "Thorn District School."

On the Sabbath Day for a quarter of a century this church was the gathering place of the faithful--parents and grandparents of many of the present residents of Crystal--who came for miles in quaint wagons and carts or sleds, on horseback and on foot, and later as the community prospered, in more fashionable equipages, to lift their voices in prayer, to sing the old anthems and to hear the word of God preached by the Elder Case, Rev. Ephraim Fobes, and other saints who have long since gone to their reward.

Once or twice each year the congregation would leave the

little church and repair in a body to the bank of Crystal Stream for the baptismal rites. The preacher would don the white robe of purity, and wade out to a depth of about 30 inches, with a fervent prayer of repentance interspersed by many an Amen from many of the congregation, and the chanting of a hymn, the Baptism Rites were impressively performed.

If the annals of this little church had been preserved they would have told of weddings and baptisms and of funerals and of soul-stirring revivals that shook the community and gathered many lost sheep into the fold.

Some day Crystal should erect a monument to mark the site and perpetuate the memory of this building which played so conspicuous a part in the early life of the community, and which meant so much to the men and women who labored to make Crystal a good place for their children to live.

The Census of 1850

On the thirtieth day of July in the year 1850 a lone horseman, equipped with a saddlebag and an important looking portfolio, might have been seen hurrying eastward along the Golden Ridge Road. Presently he emerged upon a stump strewn clearing, near the center of which stood a set of crude farm buildings surrounded by a cluster of maple and beech trees.

Drawing up before the farmhouse, the rider dismounted and was in the act of hitching his horse to a tree when a man of middle age, dressed in a blue shirt, homespun trousers and high boots, and carrying a yoke of water buckets approached from a nearby spring.

The stranger introduced himself as Humphrey Chadburn, a marshal of the United States Government, who had come on the important mission of taking the decennial census. Removing his yoke of buckets, the farmer invited the officer into the house and introduced him to his young spouse. As curious children looked on, the stranger unrolled his portfolio upon the crude home-made table, and, drawing a long bottle of writing fluid and a quill from his pockets, he proceeded to the business at hand.

"Now, sir, will you please state your name and age?"

"Moses Perry."

"Your wife's name and age?"

"Martha, twenty-two years of age."

"Now, will you give me the names and ages of each of your children?"

"This lass here is Mary, twelve years old; and this is Sarah, ten years old; and the baby is Edwin, age two."

"All of you were born in Maine, I presume."

"All except my wife, who was born in New Hampshire and moved to Maine in her childhood."

"One moment, please, Mr. Perry. You have given me your wife's age as twenty-two and your eldest daughter's age as twelve. Err--"

"Oh, yes; I neglected to say that these two girls are by my first marriage. Their mother died some years ago. The baby is the son of my present wife."

"I see, and do these include all members of your household, all persons living under your roof?"

"Well, there's a young man workin' out in the burntland, a hired hand, I s'pose you'd call him. His name is John Morse, and he's about twenty-five years old. He lives with us, but since he's been hearin' about the discovery of gold in Californy, he's been a gettin' mighty restless, and I calculate he'll be a headin' that way purty soon even if he has to hoof it all the way."

"Mr Perry, are all members of your household able to read and write?"

"Toler'ble, sir; we've all had a little schoolin'."

"And I take it, Mr. Perry, that no member of your household is a criminal or an idiot or deaf and dumb or a pauper?"

"Well, sir, if there's any scalawags or deaf and dumb folks or fools in my family, I aint aware of it," laughed the good natured Perry, "but, I must confess that we're all party nigh onto bein' paupers tryin' to wrench a livin' our o' these rocky acres with no market this side o' Bangor and Oldtown."

"Righto," agreed Chadburn with a chuckle, as he wiped his quill dry and carefully restored it to his pocket, "but I believe better days are ahead for this new country, Mr. Perry. Some day there will be good roads and even railroads, and then towns and cities and manufacturing plants will spring up all through the Aroostook country. You'll have markets far and near for your produce, and the value of your land will increase manyfold."

"If I didn't think so, sir, I'd pull up stakes and clear out of here tomorrow," said Perry. "Like as not I'd light out for the gold fields of Californy myself, where it seems like everybody that's footloose is headin' these days. Life is hard, sir, mighty hard in this country, 'specially for women and children, with no schools or neighbors or churches for miles, but I'm aimin' to stay right here and see it through. For one thing is sart'n, conditions can't get worse, and I believe as you do, sir, that they'll improve right along, and by the time these young ones are growed up, they'll find things easier than their parents are findin' 'em."

So probably ran the conversation between Pioneer Moses Perry and Humphrey Chadburn as the latter made ready for his departure. Of course, the stranger was invited to stop for dinner or for a cup of tea, for these pioneers were a hospitable folk, and every stranger was warmly welcomed and urged not to hurry away.

But Humphrey Chadburn had important business ahead, and there was no time to tarry on the way.

After a ride of two or three miles through the forest, the marshall reached the little settlement in Number 4 Range 4

(Island Falls) which then consisted of but four cabins--the homes of Levi Sewall, Jesse Craig, Charles Harden and Charles Hanson--twenty-two persons in all. Although there were a number of Indian families living for at least part of each year in the vicinity of Island Falls and Mattawamkeag Lake, none were reported by Chadburn in 1850.

It is an interesting fact that the four families at Island Falls were listed by the marshal as residing in Crystal Plantation, no separate enumeration being made for Township 4 Range 4. (The original census report, still preserved in the U. S. Census Bureau, in Washington, is headed "Free Inhabitants in Christal Plantation, in the County of Aroostia, State of Maine.")

After spending the Sabbath with one of these families, Humphrey Chadburn entered Crystal Plantation along a forest trail roughly paralleling the Bog Brook and Belvedere roads. Somewhere along this route he came upon the home of Lyman Bradford, the only settler then living in what is now known as the Belvedere district. Here the marshal found a family of three--Bradford, 41; his wife, Cordelia, 33; and a three year old boy, Columbus Sargeant, presumably Mrs. Bradford's son by a former marriage.

Continuing his way along the winding forest path the marshal next reached the cabin home of John Conant near the present Jarvis Place-on-the-Corner. The Conant family consisted of John Conant, 35; his wife, Alvira, 30; and their three children, Caroline, 14; Augustus, 6 and Lucy, 4.

Conant's nearest neighbor was John Pratt, the original settler upon what is now known as the Chamber Place. The Pratt

family consisted of John Pratt, 28; his wife Sarah, 29; an infant son Edwin, three months old; and Mrs. Pratt's 15 year old brother Charles Coburn.

The next settler family reached by Chadburn as he proceeded westward along the forest path was that of Charles Smith, the original proprietor of the present Lyals Willey place, known in grandfather's day as the "Old Smith Place." Here the census man found a family of six: Charles Smith, 35; his wife Hannah, 25; two sons, Charles, 8; William, 6; a 2 year old daughter Eliza, and Mrs. Smith's mother Charlotte Boothby, 66 years of age.

Nearly opposite Smith's, on what was known for many years as the "Old Pink Place," shaded by massive willow trees, was the home of Owen Bradford and his wife Rebecca, aged 39 and 27 respectively, and with them lived a lad of four, named Henry Wilton.

On the gravel knoll just east of Crystal Stream, Chadburn came to the home of Isaac Webber, then a man of 33; his wife Rebecca, 31; and their five children, Mary, 10; Rebecca B., 6; Celia and Susan, twins, 2, and infant Leroy, 7 months old.

These six families, totaling 29 persons, comprised the only settlers then living east of Crystal Stream. Although it had been eleven years since the first families settled in Crystal, the Crystal Stream was still unbridged; the improved portion of the Upper road terminated at the stream, and the few settlers east of that point were reached by the crudest kind of a woods road. John Conant's little cabin on what is now known as the Whelan Place, had been unoccupied for years and between that cabin and the Old Pink Place, the north side of the road was unbroken woods,

woods on the south side of the road all the way from Conant's to Smith's except for Pratt's small clearing.

Along what is now known as the Lower Road, Chadburn found four families, consisting of fifteen persons, as follows:

Jonas Drury, 42 years of age; his wife Levine, 38; and their two little daughters, Georgianna, 6 and Josephine, 4, living on the farm now owned by Charles Main.

Nathan Dwinel, 36; his wife Eliza Ann, 29; and their two children, Clare, 5, and Albert, 2, living on the Gus Willy farm.

Henry Buzzell, 61; his wife Comfort, 59; both born in New Hampshire; their son Andrew, 17; and daughter Eliza, 15, living on the farm now owned by Stanley Main.

Henry Barker, 38; his wife, Olive, 30; and a 6 year old boy named Charles E. Murphy, living on the farm now owned by Sylvester Main.

From the home of Henry Barker, the census enumerator retraced his steps to Fairfield's Corner, and, turning west into the Upper Road, he found fifteen families totaling eighty persons, between that point and the Patten line. They were:

George Washington Hackett; his wife Martha; both 39 years of age; and their seven children, Margaret, 14; Lydia, 12; George, 10; Mary, 9; Osborn, 7; Alden, 5; and Cordelia, 2. The Hacketts lived where William Douglas now lives.

Jedediah Fairfield, 57; his wife Anne, 51; and their four children, Adaline, 26; Ellen, 20; Josiah, 17; and James, 14. Both Jedediah and Josiah gave their occupations as carpenters. This family lived on the site of the present parsonage.

Alonzo C. Hersey, 29; his wife Phebe, 26; their son James, 1 year old; and Mr. Hersey's father Benjamin, 62 years old. The Herseys lived on what is now the Charles Thorn place.

Evan Hovey, a Vermonter, 36; his wife Irene, 40; and their son Daniel B., age 5, living on the Hammond place west of Thorn Hill.

James Cunningham, 40; his wife Mary, 28; and three sons, Edward, 10; Owen, 6; and James, 4. The Cunninghams were the original settlers of the Kenneth Anderson place.

John Bell, 40; his wife Elizabeth, 36; and their five children, Charles, 12; John, 9; Sarah, 7; George, 4; and Abbie, 2. This family lived on the Hall place now owned by Sylvester Main.

Lorenzo Wadlin, 35; his wife Jennie, 32; and their two sons, Ira Freeman, 7; and Laomi, 2. The Wadlins lived on the old Wheaton place now owned by Beverly Anderson.

William Young, the first settler of Crystal, then 43 years of age; his wife Lois, 32; and their four children, Spencer, 12; Sarah, 10; Sylvenas, 5; and Anson, 1.

Sumner Bradford, 25, single, then lived with the Youngs and owned the farm.

Daniel Scribner, Sr., the oldest inhabitant, then 73 years of age; his wife Hannah, 62; and two of their children, Diana, 36, and Daniel, 16; probably living on the farm now owned by S. L. Johnson.

Nathaniel ("Nat") Scribner, son of Daniel Sr., aged 37; his wife Mary, 41, and eight children, Ai, 15; George, 14; Mar-

tha, 12; Jemima, 11; Emeline, 9; William, 7; Patience, 5; and Clara, 1. "Nat" Scribner lived on the old Al Corliss farm, now owned by the Percy Johnsons.

Bela Chesley, 32; his wife Mathilda, 27; and four sons, Hiram H., 7; Jefferson, 5; John H., 2 and William, 1 month old. The Chesleys lived on the farm now owned by J. A. Anderson.

Ephraim W. Robbins, 31; and wife Hannah, 22; whose location unknown.

Samuel Smith, 48; and two sons, Isaac, 9; and Adaniram, 7; location unknown.

John R. Hammond, 28; his wife Jeanette, 25; an infant Susan, 1 month old; and a lad named Hezekiah Chase, 13 years old. Hammond lived on what is now known as the Glidden place on Winding Hill.

Rev. Ephraim Fobes, 45; his wife Abigail, 31, who lived on the farm now owned by Douglas Seams on Winding Hill. Living with Fobes at that time were: William Ward, Fobes' father-in-law, 66; his wife Sally, 69; and two minors, Mathilda Sargeant, 9; and George Barry, 18.

The marshal then made his way to Patten and thence to the settlement on the Cow Team Road, where he found four families, consisting of twenty-one persons, as follows:

William Lovejoy, 56; his wife Betsey, 55; William, 28; Albion, 23; Caroline, 21; Eldridge, 19; Sarah, 17; Nancy, 15; and a youth named John Fuller, 19.

Silas Coburn, 35; his wife Laura, 40; and their son Christopher C., 2 years of age.

Melzer Turner, 42; his wife Mariette, 42; and five children, Marietta, 14; Melzer, 12; Aiela, 7; Lucy, 5; and Laura, 2.

Samuel Berry, 25; and his wife Alvira, 21.

The last family visited by the census taker was that of David N. B. Coffin, just east of the county line and south of the present lower road to Patten, still known as the Coffin place. Here he found eight persons, namely: David N. B. Coffin, 55; his wife Hannah, 55; Alonzo B., 28; Betsy, 22; Susan H., 19; Sarah A., 27; Whitman H. (Whit') 16; and Edmund, 12.

In all, Humphrey Chadburn found thirty-one families, occupying thirty-one dwellings, and totaling 129 persons, in Crystal Plantation. Of these 63 were males and 70 were females. Forty-five had attended school in that year.

The Crystal of 1850 was made up largely of young people. Seventy persons, or nearly one-half of the total population, were under thirty years of age.

One hundred and forty-eight of the 129 inhabitants listed in the 1850 census were born in Maine, 4 were born in New Hampshire, 2 in Vermont, 2 in Massachusetts, 2 in Canada, and one in the British Isles.

The value of the twenty-eight farms in the township, as reported by Chadburn, was $15,500, or an average of $346 each. The three largest property owners residing in Crystal at that time were Jedediah Fairfield, millowner, carpenter and farmer, who gave the value of his property as $2,000; and David N. B. Coffin, and Rev. Ephraim Fobes, with properties valued at $1,000 each. Three others --John Conant, John R. Hammond and William Lovejoy--listed property valued at $900 each.

Chapter 19

Crystal Goes to War

Almost from the time the first settlers came to Crystal, the issue of slavery had engaged the attention of the American people above all other national issues. Political parties had made it an important issue in their campaigns; statesmen had debated it in many forums; preachers had denounced it or defended it from the pulpits; brother had been turned against brother and friend against friend because they could not agree on the question, and millions of American citizens were classed as either "pro-slavery" men or "anti-slavery" men.

As early as 1837--two years before the first families settled in Crystal--it will be recalled that Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, cousin of William Lovejoy, one of Crystal's pioneer settlers, was assassinated in Alton, Illinois, by a pro-slavery mob for daring to denounce slavery in his newspaper.

Crystal was in its twentieth year as an organized community when the slavery issue and its related issue of states' rights came to a head and the most stirring political campaign in the nation's history was waged over those momentous questions.

When the Republican Party was organized in the middle 1850's from remnants of the old Whig Party, the Free-Soilers, the "Know Nothings" and some Democrats opposed to the extension of slavery, most of the strong Whig element in Crystal transferred its allegiance to the new party under the leadership of Seward, Chase and Cameron.

In June, 1860, the great Republican National Convention,

held in the old "Wigwam" in Chicago, selected Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Hannibal Hamlin, of Bangor, Maine, as its standard bearers. In the November election the Republicans won by an overwhelming majority. Lincoln and Hamlin were elected. The news flashed to Bangor by telegraph, reached Patten three days later by mail stage and quickly filtered through the outlying settlements.

Then came the sensational news that South Carolina had withdrawn from the Union. In quick succession, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas followed suit. By the time Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, seven states had seceded.

These dramatic events were followed with absorbing interest by the settlers of Crystal. Some of the most affluent of the citizens subscribed for the Bangor Daily News, and doubtless someone from Crystal met every incoming mail stage at Patten.

Then came news that electrified the nation--the fall of Fort Sumter! There was no stopping it now--the die was cast--the war was on!

Two days after the fall of Sumter, President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand volunteers. Ninety-two thousand responded. Thenceforth, for the next four years, the call went forth time and time again for more and more men to save the Union, and each time the answer came back:

"We are coming, Father Abraham, a hundred thousand strong."

The spirit with which the young men of Crystal responded to the call is attested by the report of the Adjutant General of the State of Maine for the year 1862, which said in part:

"I take pleasure in making honorable mention of those cities and towns which not only responded promptly and cheerfully to the calls of July second and August fourth, but left the remainder of the State indebted to them for a surplus sent forth in addition to their quotas. . . In Aroostook County . . . the towns of Lyndon, Sherman, Washburne and Weston and Crystal, Fremont, Portage Lake . . . and Masardis plantations."

Never before in the history of the republic was the emergency equal to this; never was the call for men so urgent; never was the response so wholehearted and heroic. Before the great conflict was brought to a close nearly every able-bodied young man and boy in Crystal had entered military service. Out of a total population of about 250 at that time, no fewer than forty, or about one out of every six persons in the township, went to war!

There was scarcely a major battle in the conflict in which one or more of Crystal's gallant sons did not take part, and no fewer than nine of these noble lads were either killed on the field of battle or died of wounds or other causes growing out of the war.

Three Cunningham boys enlisted. Owen, but eighteen years of age, fell mortally wounded in the Battle of Fredericksburg. Edward, an orderly, died in Richmond, and Charles was killed in the Battle of Gettysburg. Joseph Lurvey, son of Job Lurvey, died in a Confederate prison. Alden T. Hackett and Abram S. Burnham died of diseases. Nathan Stackpole died in a hospital. Laomi Vadlin and John H. McKeen were killed in battle.

One of the last soldiers to die in action in the Civil War was young John R. Chesley, of Crystal, who was killed in a skirmish at Appomattox Court House a few moments after the surrender. His brother, Hiram N. Chesley, was wounded at Gettysburg. Another brother,

Jefferson Chesley, was furloughed on account of illness.

Sumner Bradford, Augustus Ordway, Moses Palmer and Lorenbern, enlisting from Bangor, died of wounds. Spencer Young, Winslow Merrill, Alonzo C. Hersey, Hadley Fairfield and Joseph Ordway were wounded in battle.

My father, John S. Corliss, who moved to Crystal from Smyrna after the war, received a wound that nearly cost his life at the Battle of Cedar Creek, in the Wilderness Campaign. Daniel Emerson, who later settled in Crystal, was wounded. George F. Robinson, formerly of Crystal, enlisting from Island Falls, was wounded on two occasions.

One Crystal boy came home to die. He was Freeman Vadlin, the shoemaker son of Lorenzo and Jemima Vadlin, who lived on the old George Wheaton place on the Upper Road. Freeman had joined the Second Cavalry in 1863, and after serving a short time he was captured and cast into a Confederate prison. When the war ended he was released, returning home in a pitifully weak and emaciated condition as a result of his harrowing experience. All the tender care of mother and friends could not restore Freeman to health, and, after lingering a few weeks, he expired in the loving arms of his mother.

"Freeman and Laomi Vadlin were fine boys," wrote Mary Ellen Corliss in her recollections.

No other unit in the entire Union Army was closer to the hearts or more frequently in the minds of the people of Crystal and its neighboring towns than Company B of the Eighth Maine Infantry. The company included nineteen boys from Sherman, eight from

Patten, four from Island Falls and nine from Crystal. The Captain of Company B was Charles C. Perry, of Crystal. Luther B. Rogers, of Patten, and Rodney C. Barker of Island Falls, were First and Second Lieutenants, respectively. Amarias Walton, of Patten, enlisted as a sargeant, and was later promoted to Captain. Spencer W. Young, of Crystal, was Adjutant of the regiment. To this company also belonged the following soldiers who lived or had lived in Crystal: Lorenzo W. Hackett, William C. Hackett, Alonzo C. Hersey, George F. Robinson, George W. Scribner, William Scribner and John H. Small. In Company K of the same regiment were Captain John Conant and his son Augustus A. Conant, formerly of Crystal, later of Bangor.

Comrades in the Sixteenth Maine Infantry included Owen B. Cunningham, Company A; Alden T. Hackett, Company A; John H. McKeen, Company A; John S. Corliss, Company D; Joseph H. Lurvey, Company B; Russell D. Royal, Company C; Alonzo Tripp; Winslow W. Merrill and Daniel Emerson.

The Thirty-First Infantry (the "Boys' Regiment") included Abram S. Burnham, George Lurvey, Nathan Stackpole, Stephen Thorn, Charles E. Ordway, Laomi Wadlin and Joseph Ordway, all of Crystal.

Civil War days were anxious days in Old Crystal--days in which every incoming mail was awaited with eagerness and apprehension. Days in which little else was discussed than the war and the boys at the front. Days in which fathers and mothers and little brothers and sisters and sweethearts knelt often in their homes and in the little school-house church on Crystal Stream to pray earnestly for the safe return of their loved ones.

No word of tongue or pen could pay adequate tribute to the fortitude and devotion of the noble mothers of Crystal in those trying times when the sons they had borne and nurtured with tender care through infancy, boyhood and youth were facing exposure and death in the far-away fields of Virginia.

Despite their numerous home duties, these mothers frequently sat up far into the night to pen loving and cheery letters to their boys. They spent long hours knitting wool socks and gloves and wristlets and caps not only for their own boys but also for their sons' unknown comrades.

Among the prized possessions of Caleb Scribner of Patten is a letter, now yellowed with age, written from Virginia by a soldier named John Troop, thanking Aunt Jemima Wadlin (Caleb's aunt) and "all the good women of Crystal" for the knitting and things which they sent him and his comrades.

The bodies of many of the soldiers who were killed or died in the War were buried by their comrades or by Confederate soldiers in unmarked and long-since-forgotten graves in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. (Nearly one-half of all the Civil War dead were buried without being identified by name).

A certain tombstone in Crystal Cemetery bears the following inscription in memory of a son of Jedediah and Anna Fairfield who perished while serving his country at sea:

J. MILTON FAIRFIELD, age 33 years, 3 months Lost at sea, but found in Heaven, Jan. 8, 1865.

The return of the surviving soldiers after the termination of the war was an occasion of great rejoicing and thanksgiving for

families whose numbers were spared. For families whose members would never return it was an occasion of sorrow unspeakable. Many of the returned veterans settled down in Crystal and lived here for the remainder of their lives.

To add to the afflictions of those tragic war days, Crystal was visited by a fatal dyptheria epidemic which turned nearly every home into a hospital and placed the entire community under quarantine. Death after death occured, and few homes escaped unscathed.

One of the victims of the dread pestilence was little Willie Bell, youngest son of John and Elizabeth Bell. Another was little Alice Bradford, daughter of Sumner and Sarah Bradford. Nathan and "Aunt" Eliza Dwinel lost all three of their children--Clara, Albert and Nathan.

Chapter 20

The Heroic Act of George F. Robinson

Few Americans have ever had the signal honor of saving the life of a high official of the United States Government. Still fewer Americans have ever had the distinction of saving the life of a cabinet officer.

Such a distinction, however, belongs to Sergeant George F. Robinson, the son of Isaac Robinson, who in the 1840's or 1850's lived on what is now the eastern part of the A. C. Willey farm west of the "Horseback" on the Lower Road in Crystal.

The high government official whose life Sergeant Robinson saved was no less a personage than William H. Seward, one of the foremost American statesmen, the favorite of many Republicans for the Presidency in 1860 and Secretary of State in the cabinet of President Abraham Lincoln.

Two years afterwards Secretary Seward, "in the face of keen ridicule and opposition," took the leadership in the movement and negotiations which culminated in the purchase of Alaska from Russia at a cost to the United States of $7,200,000. The city of Seward, Alaska, honors his name. Thus it was that a boy from Crystal, by saving the life of an American statesman, played an indirect but important part in the acquisition of Alaska. Indeed, it is not too much to say that had it not been for the heroic act of young Robinson, that great northern domain--16 times the size of Maine--might never have become United States territory.

Within a few brief moments of the assassination of President Lincoln in Ford's Theatre, in Washington, on the night of

April 14, 1865 (a tragedy that shocked the entire civilized world) a murderous ruffian appeared at Secretary Seward's home a few blocks from the theatre and gained admittance to the house by representing himself as one sent there with a prescription.

As the man approached the room in which Secretary Seward lay ill, he was met by the Secretary's son, Frederick W. Seward, who demanded who he was and what he wanted. The intruder made no reply, but, striking young Seward with the butt of a pistol and cutting him with a knife, he rushed to the door of the bed chamber, and as Sergeant Robinson opened the door, the desperado plunged at him and knocked him to the floor with a murderous blow with a knife and quickly made his way to the bedside of Secretary Seward inflicting two wounds, one in his cheek and one in his neck, before Robinson could jump to his feet and rush to the aid of his chief.

Though unarmed and a smaller man than the desperado, Robinson grappled with him, and the two engaged in a desperate struggle during which Robinson received several severe wounds, causing him to bleed profusely.

While the terrific struggle was in progress others entered the room, and the moment the assasin could free himself from Robinson's grip, he hastily made his escape, inflicting a dangerous wound upon another son of the Secretary, Augustus H. Seward, as he rushed away.

Within twenty-four hours the assassin was apprehended and placed under arrest, on of the first of the assassination conspirators to fall into the clutches of the law. The criminal conspirators to fall into the clutches of the law proved to be Lewis Payne, a confederate of John Wilkes Booth,

and it was largely through his arrest at the home of Mrs. Suratt that other conspirators were apprehended and the dastardly plot to murder President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State Seward, Secretary of War Stanton, General U. S. Grant and other high officers, was revealed in all its horrifying details.

Thanks to the brave and courageous action of Sergeant Robinson, Secretary Seward's life was saved, but to his dying day the Secretary carried the scars of the assassin's knife, as did also Sergeant Robinson.

Sergeant Robinson's wounds were so severe that for a time his life was in the balance. By the time the great trial of the conspirators took place, however, Robinson was sufficiently recovered to leave the hospital and appear in court to confront and identify Lewis Payne as the would-be-murderer of Secretary Seward.

In a book entitled "Conspiracy Trial for the Murder of the President," by Benjamin Perley Poore, published in Boston in 1865, it is related that at the trial the assassin Payne "sat motionless and impassive, defiantly returning each gaze at his remarkable face and person. He (Payne) was very tall, with an athletic, gladiatorial frame; the tight knit shirt which was his only upper garment disclosing the massive robustness of animal manhood in its most stalwart form. Neither intellect nor intelligence was discernible in his unflinching dark grey eyes, low forehead, massive jaws, compressed full lips, small mouth, with large nostrils, and stolid, remorseless expression."

".... Reports said he was a Kentuckian by birth and one of a family of notorious desperadoes, one of his brothers being such a depraved criminal that the Rebels hated him."

A verbal transcription of the testimony of Sergeant Robinson is as follows:

(Q) Will you state to the court whether or not on the night of the 14th of April last, you were at the residence of Mr. Seward, Secretary of State? (A) I was.

(Q) In what capacity were you there? What were you doing? (A) I was an attendant--nurse upon Mr. Seward.

(Q) Look upon the prisoners here and see whether you recognize either of them as having been in that house on that evening. (A) I see one that looks like him.

(Q) Which one? Do you mean Payne? (The prisoner named Lewis Payne stood up for identification) (A) He looks like him to me.

(Q) Will you state all the circumstances attending the encounter between the person of whom you speak and Mr. Seward that evening, beginning with his first appearance as you saw him. (A) The first that I saw of him, I heard a disturbance in the hall and opened the door to see what the trouble was; and, as I opened the door, he stood close up to it, and as soon as it opened he struck me with a knife, knocking me partly down, and pressed by me to the bed of Mr. Seward, and struck him, wounding him. As soon as I could get to my feet I endeavored to haul him off the bed, and then he turned upon me. In the scuffle there was a man came into the room, and between us we got him to the door, and he unclinching his hands from around my neck, struck me again,

knocking me down and then broke away from the other man and ran down stairs.

(Q) What did he strike you with at the door? (A) With a knife. When he struck me the last time it was with his fist.

(Q) Where did he stab you? (A) In the forehead.

(Q) Did he say anything when he struck you? (A) Not that I heard.

(Q) Did he pass immediately to the bedside of Mr. Seward? (A) He did.

(Q) Did you see him strike him? (A) I did.

(Q) With the same weapon? (A) Yes, sir.

(Q) How often? (A) I saw him cut him twice that I am sure of.

The testimony brought out that four persons witnessed the desperate encounter between Sergeant Robinson and the desperado Payne--Secretary Seward, Augustus H. Seward, Frederick Seward and Emerick N. Hansell--and they were agreed that Robinson's brave action saved the Secretary's life at the peril of his own.

Payne paid for his crime on the gallows, and his co-conspirator John Wilkes Booth was shot by Boston Corbett a few days later.

Sergeant Robinson was awarded a gold medal for his heroic action, and in later years he became major and paymaster in the United States Army, serving in this capacity until his retirement in 1896. In 1904 he was advanced to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army. He died at Pomona, California on August 16, 1907.

Robinson's father, Isaac Robinson, moved to Island Falls

sometime prior to the Civil War, and lived for several years on a farm about a mile east of Jesse Craig's. Thus Crystal shares with Island Falls the honor of having reared a young man who played a historic role in the service of his country.

Chapter 21

The Coming of Steam Transportation

Probably none of man's innumerable inventions has contributed more to human progress than the steam engine in its various forms. It revolutionized the processes of manufacture, enabling goods to be produced more cheaply than ever before in human history. It revolutionized transportation upon the seas, enabling persons to travel and goods to be shipped more expeditiously than ever before. It revolutionized transportation upon the land. It broke down the barriers of distance that had been a brake upon commerce and trade from the dawn of civilization. It contributed immeasurably to the development of agriculture.

The difference between life in Aroostook today and in grandfather's day is in great measure due to the introduction of steam transportation. It is due to transportation that the farmers of northern Maine are able to market their potatoes in distant consuming centers and also to supply their tables with fruits, nuts, vegetables and other foods from the far corners of the earth. In these and in numerous other ways the steam engine in its various forms enables us to enjoy comforts and luxuries which were unknown to our forebears who settled Aroostook a century ago. The difference between life in Aroostook today and in grandfather's day is in great measure due to the introduction of steam transportation. Therefore, it seems appropriate that we devote a few pages of this story of Crystal to the developments which finally brought steam transportation to this community.

Daniel Scribner, the oldest of all of Crystal's pioneers, was a man of 40 when the world's first railway train propelled by

steam was run in England. He was 51 years of age when the first steam locomotive arrived in America, and he was 53 years old when Peter Cooper, America's pioneer ironmaster, built the famous locomotive "Tom Thumb." That was in the year 1830.

Nine years later, when the first families came to Crystal, there were many railroads in America, mostly in southern New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the southern States; but with few exceptions, they were short, disjointed lines of the most primitive construction. Most of them were built of wooden rails, capped with thin strips of iron, and not a few were operating by horse, ox- or mule-power. The locomotives then in use were mere toys compared with the powerful giants of today. They burned wood for fuel, and were so light that they would have been helpless in bucking the snow drifts of northern Maine. Nevertheless, the prospect of a railroad extending into northern Maine was frequently discussed by the settlers as a hope which they, or at least their children, might yet see fulfilled.

John Bell, who had lived in Boston for several years before moving to Maine, was probably the only early settler of Crystal who was able to boast that he had actually seen a railroad or an "Iron Horse."

The nearest railroad operated by steam was then the Boston & Lowell Railroad in Massachusetts, opened in 1836. A railroad was under construction between Boston and Portsmouth, N. H. This road, now the Boston & Maine, was completed in 1840. Two years later the Portland extension was completed, and on November 21, 1842, the first locomotive ever to turn a wheel in the State of Maine entered the city of Portland.

In 1849 (the year of the great California Gold Rush) the Maine Central Railroad, between Portland and Waterville, was completed, and the "Iron Horse" was bringing in his train new capital to invest, new settlers, new industries, new wealth and prosperity.

Six years later--in August, 1855--the "golden spike" was driven in the Maine Central Railroad between Waterville and Bangor. The inauguration of regular train service between Boston and Bangor on September 1, 1855, was hailed as one of the greatest events in the history of Maine.

Thus the "Iron Horse" was creeping nearer and nearer Aroostook, and, although it was still a hundred miles away, its influence was already being felt in this part of the state. Bangor and other towns and cities along the route were experiencing a rapid industrial growth as a result of railway development, and these developments were increasing the demand for lumber, railway sleepers, telegraph poles and other forest products. New mills were established at Bangor and Oldtown and lumbering activities increased throughout northern Maine. The old Aroostook Road began to take on new life, with caravan after caravan of lumbering outfits and tote teams coming and going.

Patten became an important trading, supply and employment center for the lumbermen and camp outfitters. John Gardner and other merchants as well as the hotels and livery stables began doing a thriving business. For the first time many farmers of Crystal found a ready market for their logs as well as for cedar cross ties and telegraph poles, which were driven down river to Bangor.

Few were the persons living in Crystal at that time who had ever seen a locomotive or a train of cars. Any one who had been to

Bangor and actually seen these wonders was listened to with alacrity by the townspeople. When Abbie Bell, youngest daughter of John and Elizabeth Bell, made a trip to Lewiston in the 1860s she saw and rode upon a railway train for the first time and wrote home at some length telling about her thrilling experience. Unfortunately her letter was not preserved. Later when she became seriously ill in Lewiston, her sister Mary hastened to her bedside, traveling by stages to Bangor and thence by railroad, and the impression of that railway journey and her return trip with the remains of her sister were vividly graven upon her memory as long as she lived.

The first railroad in Aroostook County was the old St. Andrew and Quebec Railroad (now a branch of the Canadian Pacific) which was opened from St. Stephens to Debes, N.B., in 1861, and was extended to Houlton in 1862, during the Civil War period. It was a narrow-gauge railroad (3'6") until 1879, when the standard gauge (4'8½") was adopted. Although this little Canadian railroad contributed somewhat to the growth of Houlton, it did not play the important part that either the Maine Central or the Bangor and Aroostook subsequently played in the development of northern Maine.

Shortly after the Civil War an extension of the Maine Central Railroad from Bangor to St. John, N.B., by way of Mattawamkeag and Vanceboro was begun by the great European and North American Railroad Company. Eventually this route, as planned by its promoters, would extend all the way to Sydney or Louisburg, near the eastern tip of Nova Scotia, 600 miles east of Bangor, where a great port would be developed to accomodate transcontinental liners. Trains operated on fast schedules would whisk passengers, express and mails to and from Boston and New York and thus reduce from

24 to 48 hours the time required for the transatlantic crossing.

To encourage the construction of this great project, the State of Maine granted the European and North American Railroad Company 500,000 acres of wild lands, and the Canadian government granted its New Brunswick extension, the St. John & Maine Railway, subsidies amounting to $680,000. Newspapers in both the United States and Canada placed much significance upon this international railway project, which, they pointed out, would strengthen the commercial ties between two countries and would have the effect of bringing the people of Europe and North America closer together.

The people of Aroostook were intensely interested in the project because it would bring steam transportation, in the American System, to the very border of the county, at Stetpitiook and Bancroft, and would greatly facilitate travel, transport and communication to and from Bangor, Portland and Boston.

Patten, Crystal and other communities on the Aroostook Road hailed the railroad with enthusiasm because it would bring steam transportation to Mattawamkeag (only a day's journey by stage or two days by tote team) and would greatly reduce time to and from Bangor.

The last rail in the construction of this railroad between Bangor and St. John, N.B., was spiked into place in October, 1871, and on the 17th and 18th of that month the road was formally opened with a great railway celebration that many of the older residents of Maine still remember.

The President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, came by special train from Washington. The Governor General of Canada, Lord Lingard, came from Ottawa. Governors, senators con-

gressmen, mayors, judges and a great outpouring of citizens joined in the celebration. Special trains were run from Bangor to St. John, and at the international boundary speeches were made, hailing the railroad as another link in the great chain binding the two nations together in peace and friendship.

Not a few citizens of Patten and Crystal drove to Mattawamkeag with their families to see the railroad and a train of cars and perchance to obtain a glimpse of the President of the United States or some of the other notables who were taking part in the celebration.

The Maine division of the European & North American Railroad became a part of the Maine Central Railroad Company in 1882, and, although it never developed into the great route of travel and transportation between America and Europe that its sponsors had hoped it would become, it has long been the chief rail route between the great centers of the United States and the Maritime Provinces of Canada. From the time it was opened in 1871, until the opening of the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad, in 1894--a period of twenty-two years--it was the nearest trunkline railroad to Crystal, Patten and other towns on the Aroostook Road, and as such it played an important part in the transportation history of this community.

Chapter 22

The Bangor & Aroostook Comes

No single development in the history of northern Maine more profoundly affected agricultural, industrial and social conditions than the coming of the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad in 1893-94.

The transportation provided by this railroad enabled Aroostook to become the foremost potato-producing county in the United States and led to the establishment of the Great Northern Paper Company mill at Millinocket, the Hunt tannery at Island Falls and numerous lumber mills and other industrial in this part of the state.

The Bangor & Aroostook Railroad Company, as now constituted, had its origin in the old Bangor & Piscataquis Railroad, which was chartered by the Maine legislature on March 5, 1861 (the day after Abraham Lincoln took his oath as President of the United States) and thirty-three years before the railroad was opened through Crystal.

This pioneer railroad extended from the European and North American Railroad at Oldtown to the southern end of Moosehead Lake, at Greenville, a distance of seventy-six miles. It was built by a group of Bangor business men of whom Isaiah K. Stetson was the leading spirit.

The road was opened between Oldtown and Dover-Foxcroft in December, 1869, and was extended to Guilford in November, 1871; to Abbott in December, 1874; to Blanchard in 1877, and was completed into Greenville on July 14, 1884.

In the meantime the prospects of exploiting the deposits of iron ore in the region west of Schoodic and Sabeois lakes had

been arousing widespread interest. The first requisite in this development was railway transportation, and this led to the organization, in 1881, of the Bangor & Katahdin Iron Works Railway to extend from Milo station, on the Bangor & Piscataquis, to the site of the proposed iron works, nineteen miles distant. The first president of the Bangor & Katahdin Iron Works Railway was O.W. Davis, Jr., of Bangor. His able superintendent was Franklin F. Cram, of Bangor, who began his railway career as a newsboy in the Bangor station. Cram later became president of the Bangor & Aroostook.

The original plan of the promoters was to construct a narrow-gauge railroad (with rails set two feet apart) from Milo to Bangor, a distance of forty miles. The latter line was never built, but in the summer of 1882 the main project, of standard gauge, from Milo to the iron works, was completed and opened for operation.

It was at this stage of development that Albert A. Burleigh, an erstwhile Oakfield farmer, entered the picture. Mr. Burleigh was the son of Parker F. Burleigh, of Linneus, and a brother of Hon. Edwin C. Burleigh, then Governor of Maine. He was a veteran of the Civil War, having served in the old First Maine Cavalry, of which Sumner P. Bradford, of Crystal, was also a member. Mr. Burleigh was wounded and, like Bradford, imprisoned by the Confederates. Upon his release at the close of the conflict, he returned home, and soon afterwards he settled on a lot in the southwest part of Oakfield, near Pleasant Lake, where he cleared thirty acres of land. In 1873 he moved to Houlton, where he lived for the remainder of his life.

After engaging for several years as land surveyor, he became, in 1881, Collector of Customs for the Aroostook District.

While thus engaged he began to dream of a railroad that would provide Aroostook County with a direct route to Bangor and other cities in the southern part of the State.

There were two logical routes for an Aroostook railroad--one was from a junction with the European & North American Railroad at Danforth or Haynesville northward through Houlton to Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield and Caribou; the other was from a junction with the Bangor & Katahdin Iron Works Railroad, in the vicinity of Brownville, to Houlton and thence northward.

The latter road, though more costly to build, would tap the rich timber lands of the Schoodic-Millinocket-Brimstone region, and thus open up new territory having great possibilities for development; moreover, such a road would traverse two towns in which Mr. Burleigh had a sentimental interest--Oakfield, his former home, and Linneus, his birthplace.

Mr. Burleigh set his heart upon the latter plan, and for several years he devoted much of his time and energies to its consummation. Finally a company was organized with the backing of Bangor capitalists and their outside affiliates, and on February 13, 1891, it was incorporated by the Maine legislature as the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad Company, which company eventually took over the operation of the Bangor & Piscataquis and the Katahdin Iron Works railroads. Albert A. Burleigh became president and Franklin V. Cram became general manager of the new company. Surveyors were put in the field shortly thereafter, and by the following year the actual construction of the railroad that was ultimately to bring steam transportation to Crystal was under way.

It was during the fall of 1893 that the rails of the Bangor & Aroostook were laid through Crystal, and by December 28 of that year, the line was completed all the way from Brownville Junction to Houlton.

While the railroad was under construction it was the chief topic of conversation among the inhabitants of the communities along the route. Many of the people of Crystal whose curiosity was so great that they could not wait for the railroad to reach Belvedere, drove to Stacyville or Sherman to obtain their first glimpse of the twin ribbons of steel and the locomotive that was bringing up the rails and other building materials to the track-laying forces.

Others tramped through the woods, along the Horseback, to see the railroad as soon as it reached the vicinity of Crystal station, and returned to regale the less fortunate members of their families with glowing accounts of what they had seen. Finally, when the construction crews brought the railroad to Belvedere, scores of excited men, women and children were there to shout their welcome and to behold that wonder of wonders--the steam locomotive.

January 1, 1894, was a red-letter day in Crystal and other towns along the route. On that day the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad was formally opened to Houlton and passenger and freight train service was inaugurated to and from Bangor, bringing steam transportation for the first time to Sherman, Crystal, Island Falls and other towns along the route, and at the same time bringing to an end the long, tedious journeys by stages, wagons, sleds and sleighs to the railroad at Mattawamkeag.

At last Crystal was linked to the outside world by rail, and the rails of the Bangor & Aroostook were a part of that far-

flung network that then reached into every part of our great land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to the Gulf, into every state of the Union.

Moreover, the railroad brought with it the telegraph, that amazing invention of Samuel F. B. Morse, which enabled messages to be flashed from Crystal or Island Falls to Bangor, Portland, Boston, New York or even across the continent with miraculous speed. Is it any wonder that the people of Aroostook hailed the coming of the railroad and the telegraph as the Dawn of a New Era?

One year to a day after the railroad was opened to Houlton, the road was completed into Caribou and Fort Fairfield, and a year after that the Ashland Branch, from Ashland Junction (Oakfield) to Ashland, was opened (1896).

In those days Patten was an important outfitting center for lumbering operations in the Sebosis River country. Hundreds of lumber jacks were recruited at Patten each year for the scores of camps reached by the Shin Pond Road, and during the winter months scores of tote teams were kept busy hauling provisions and other supplies from Patten to the lumber camps. Patten was also an important recruiting and outfitting center for the river drivers each spring.

Before the Bangor & Aroostook was opened, Ira B. Gardner & Sons and other outfitters had their supplies shipped to Mattawamkeag by rail and hauled up the Aroostook Road to Patten by tote teams. With the opening of the Bangor & Aroostook, however, most of these supplies were delivered by rail to Crystal Station and hauled to Patten over the Cow Team Road.

The need of a branch line of railroad to Patten was recognized from the time the Bangor & Aroostook was opened. Patten did not have long to wait. On October 17, 1898, President Burleigh obtained a charter from the Maine legislature for the Patten & Sherman Railroad Company, with authority to construct and operate a railroad from the main line of the Bangor & Aroostook through Sherman and Crystal townships to Patten Village. The five directors of the P&S RR were: Albert A. Burleigh, president; Preston B. Burleigh, treasurer; Everett R. Burleigh; Parker P. Burleigh; and Harry R. Burleigh, all of Houlton.

Construction was commenced in the spring of 1896, and on September 1 of that year the road was opened for operation. The Patten Branch, as this railroad is called, is 5.84 miles in length, and its original cost was around $85,000. Thus two lines of railroad--the main line of the Bangor & Aroostook and the Patten Branch--now traverse Crystal township, bringing the total length of railroad in the township up to approximately seven miles.

At the crossing of the old Cow Team Road, extending from Patten to Golden Ridge, Crystal Station was established shortly after the railroad was opened in 1894. For 38 years, until 1932, the old station, with its incessant memories of the incessant memories of the ticking of the telegraph instrument, the old waiting room, arrivals and departures of trains, was finally abandoned.

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THE DIARY OF EDWIN CORLISS

On March 15, 1904, the newspapers of New York City carried headlines and details of a dreadful explosion in the laboratory of the Eagle Oxygen Company at 121 West 89th Street. In the explosion, a young chemist apprentice, Edwin B. Corliss, was killed instantly.

Those in authority were unable to ascertain immediately where the young man lived or where members of his family were located. But some of Edwin's friends who read accounts of the explosion in the newspapers contacted the laboratory and the coroner's office, and a day or two later the distressing news was telegraphed to his mother, Mrs. Mary E. Corliss, in Crystal.

Edwin Corliss was then 24 years of age, a picture of health. His sudden and dramatic death came as a terrible shock not only to members of his immediate family but also to many of his personal friends in Crystal and nearby towns where he was well known.

To the writer of these pages -- his younger brother -- Edwin's death brought profound sorrow. Our interests were much alike, and I admired him greatly. We were both dreamers, and our ambition at an early age was to visit the Far West and to travel in foreign lands, and we often talked about what we were going to do together when we had completed our schooling and were ready to make our own way in the world.

Edwin was the eldest son of John S. and Mary E. Corliss. He was the scholar as well as the athlete of our family. In his boyhood he was really interested in athletics and acrobatics, and could turn handsprings, walk a tightrope, walk on his hands, balance heavy weights on his chin, and I believe he could jump higher and further than any other boy of his age in Crystal.

He entertained his friends with sleight of hand tricks and other stunts, and after attending a circus he would rig up trapezes and tightropes in the barn and practice stunts which he had seen performed by the professionals.

Hackett School, Patten Academy and Island Falls High School. During the winter of 1896-97 he worked his board at the farmhouse of a Stimpson family two miles from Patten village and walked to and from Patten Academy each day. Another year he worked his board at the Hotel Exchange in Island Falls and attended Island Falls High School. During the summer he worked on the farm, and after Father's death (December 24, 1898) Mother leaned heavily on him to look after the farm and care for the livestock.

After Edwin's arrival at man's estate, he decided to see something of the world. Working on building construction in Brownville, Maine, a few weeks, he earned enough money to visit the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, where for the first time he was able to see many of the wonders of science as well as some of the great works of art. After working a while for the street railway company in Buffalo, he went to New York City, where he obtained employment as a chemist's assistant or apprentice in the oxygen laboratory of a Dr. Walton, moving a year or two later to the Eagle Oxygen laboratory, where he met his death.

* * * * * * * * * *

The foregoing is by way of introduction. Edwin Corliss was a diarist, and fortunately, one of his diaries -- written in 1897 and 1898, when he was 17 years of age -- has been preserved. From its pages, now yellowed with age, we are able to glean many sidelights on the life of a boy in Crystal in that period. Edwin's diary also presents an authentic record of customs, conditions and prices prevailing in that period, before the advent of good roads, automobiles, telephones, movies, radios and comic books. The diary points up the neighborliness and the frugality of the people, the problems of transportation and communication, and shows how common the barter system was among the people of Crystal in that period. Extracts from this interesting and intimate record are given below:

Huge Tannery

March 2, 1897: In the afternoon Burt and I took Crystal Boy and pung and went to Island Falls, went through the tannery buildings. We saw the whole process of tanning hides, from the stiff hides just as they are taken from the cattle, through the various stages until finished and ready to ship to shoe manufacturers for sole leather. The tannery is said to be the largest shoe leather tanning establishment on earth. We saw a vast number of hides and wondered how so great a number of cattle could be raised on the earth.

In the evening George Hackett brought over a very nice black overcoat which his son Charles bought in Boston for $20.00 shortly before his death. It is practically new. George offered it for $12.00. I took the offer and bought the coat, agreeing to pay for it in work at 50 cents a day myself, or $1.50 a day with team. [Subsequent entries in the diary shows the arrangement was carried out during the next few weeks.]

March 7, 1897 (Lord's Day): I attended preaching service in Hackett School House, Rev. C. E. Young officiating. He preached from St. Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled." In the evening, attended Christian Endeavor roll call meeting -- 62 present, 37 testimonies. Pearl Noyes led the meeting.

March 8, 1897: Worked for George Hackett all day, driving his horse, hauling cedar. We ate our dinner in the woods, in Hersey town. Ben Emmerson borrowed our pung in the afternoon. George Hackett borrowed our deck chain and small cant dog.

March 10, 1897: Frank Corliss came down at 9 o'clock and wanted me to take him down to Island Falls and back, so I harnessed Sagwa and went. He paid me 50 cents for same.

March 11, 1897: Our old (bunting) cow ate up the leg of one of my over-socks.

March 13, 1897: I worked for George Hackett in the forenoon driving his team hauling logs. I had hauled a load down to the Bliss field and unloaded, and was turning the horses then the mare stepped one of her sharp calks into the little gray one's right hind ankle, cutting a gash two inches long. I drove over to Wadsworth's and got some tar and bathed the wound full. Just after it was cut, the wound bled a stream, but the tar stopped it immediately.

March 17, 1897: Burt sold Garfink [peddler] 15 lbs. of old rubber boots and shoes; he received in return 15 lead pencils with rubbers.

March 18, 1897: Worked for George Hackett all day in the woods, driving his team, and hauling cedar logs. We ate our dinner by a friendly little fire. The moose birds are so tame that they lighted on our hands and ate bread crumbs. Burt worked for Anthony Emerson, sawing wood with him. The snow is now very deep, 4 feet in the woods, 8 or 10 feet in drifts in the fields.

March 20, 1897: Mother made out her bill for Father's services as Superintendent of Schools during his last year of life, which was $43.15; also her bill for recording Births, Marriages and Deaths, which was $8.60. She took them over to William Hackett and

March 20, 1897, continued: cashed them. She paid her taxes in full for last year, $16.28. For new squares with James Main (tax collector). In evening I attended Lodge. Teresa White, Abbie and Hattie Colpitts and Mabel Vernon were initiated.

March 22, 1897: Commenced hauling maple logs for Frank Corliss, from Bliss field to Belvedere Siding, using my team and bob-sleds, taking two logs each trip. Frank and Nathan Courier helped me load.

March 23, 1897: I harnessed our horses and hauled the load which was at the gate in the morning, then came back and Carl and I went up into the field and loaded on two logs and hauled them to our gate. I then ate my dinner and in afternoon I hauled not two more logs and hauled them also, to siding; then came home hiring for hire; he was then 8 [years old]. (First record of Carl in the diary. I owned Frank Corliss and he paid me $1.00 which he owed me and Carl for work on mare.)

March 27, 1897: Harnessed Sagwa into pung and went to Island Falls in afternoon. Bought for cash: 5 lbs. butter, 60¢; 10 lbs. cornmeal, $1.00; 5 apples, 22¢. Gil Moran gave me some handbills to distribute and said he would allow me 50¢ on the next pair of pants I bought of him. Attended Good Templars Lodge in evening, 43 members present. Alberta White and Jennie White were initiated. Programme: Recitations by Theresa White and Martha Hackett; song "Old Fashioned Persons" by Tom Prescott; reading, "Young America," by Pearl Noyes; "Leadville Jim" by Fannar Prescott; and I read "The Minister's Grievances."

March 30, 1897: Mother bought of a Jew peddler a nice black suit of clothes for Carl, for $2.00 cash; regular price, $4.00. Reduction was on account of coming spring.

Social Affair

March 31, 1897: Worked in shop building a handsled; got shoes ready and drilled them. In evening I took Sagwa and went to a social gathering at S. F. Huston's home at Crystal siding (Belvedere). Was a kind of "Kissing Party." We had an ice-cream supper at 10 o'clock, got home at 12:30.

April 3, 1897: In the morning I took Sagwa and pung and went to Patten via the "Lower Road." Bought for cash 1 pair storm slippers, 75¢; 1 lb. butter, 80¢. I went for purpose of finding a place to work my board and attend Patten Academy. I had asked 2 or 3 when I went into Rowe & Bradley's blacksmith shop. Mr. Bradley hired me to do chores at Azer Stimpson's three miles from the village. Went to Stimpson's through the deep snow and made the grade to come up tomorrow.

April 4, 1897 (Sabbath): Packed my valise with what things I would need in going to school and doing the chores, and at 2 pm. Burt and I harnessed Sagwa into the pung and I started away from my only home for the first time in my life, going to work my board and away from home. He took me up to Stimpson's and took Sagwa back home. The snow being quite deep and soft made it very hard traveling for a horse (via Upper Road and Winding Hill). [Entry was cut off at bottom of page.]

Enters Patten Academy

April 5, 1897 (Monday): Arose at 5:30, and got Robert Craig to coach me about the chores. By 7 o'clock I had finished work and started for school over the fine crust. Had got about half way to the village when it began to rain. In the village I borrowed an umbrella from Bradley's and went to Patten Academy. It was the first time I had ever attended high school. W. S. Bonney is principal; Mrs. Cornelia Martin is assistant teacher. Some of the scholars are: Simon Davis, Pearl Cunningham, Ralph Miles, Benjamin Woodbury, Fred A. Shean, Harry Ryder, Fred Coburn, Fred Bailey, Charles O. Hackett, Edna Merrill, Marshall Hall, Charles Dudley, Edna Purvis, Charles O. Hackett, Gertie Woodbury, Mabell Quincy, Delia Drew, Jessie Rowe, Hallett Elliott, Imabel Quincy. I began the study of: Botany for Young People, Harper's Fifth Reader, Metcalf's English Grammar and English Composition. Got dinner at Charles E. Bradley's table in Stephen Caro's house according to agreement with Mr. Bradley last Saturday, which was that I am to get my dinners there while going to school.

Potatoes -- Aroostook's New Crop

(With the coming of the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad, the production of potatoes increased by leaps and bounds.)

May 20, 1897: I took the team and went over to James A. Main's and got three barrels of Quinipiac Fertilizer of 250 lbs. each, with the agreement that we would bring him 16 barrels of White Elephant or Hebron Potatoes in the fall, right from the field, at 80 cents a barrel. The price of the fertilizer is $32.00 per ton. Burt, Bell, Carl and Ray went to school all day.

May 25, 1897: A week ago today Mother sent to Jordan, Marsh & Co., Boston for a jacket for Bell, $1.16. The jacket came in the mail today.

May 26, 1897: Will and Evie Miner recently moved from Bragville to Island Falls. Herbert Colpitts and I drove to the Falls to see Bailey the butcher about selling the Emerson heifer to him. Herb and I then went to Will and Evie's new home and got our dinner. I had some oats with me so I put the horse in the stable and you may guess the rest. Herb and I went all through the great steam lumber mill, which is run by a 300-horse power Corliss engine. The mill employs about 40 men. We went out to the end of the elevated track for wheeling waste away from the mill. Stanley McCormick was wheeling with 2 dump cars and we had a ride back on each. I weighed 126 pounds on the scales; I lifted 482 pounds on the scales.

May 27, 1897: In the afternoon, at the Mill Pond, I was running over the slippery hemlock logs which were afloat, and had gotten onto a very slippery one which was somewhat away from the rest. I had a pickpole and was trying to pull the log up to the others when I slipped and fell into the cold water, and was compelled to swim until I could reach the shore.

A Crowded Sabbath

May 30, 1897 (Sunday): I went to Sunday School at our church in the morning. After dinner I harnessed Crystal Boy in the single wagon and Charles O. Hackett and I went to Island Falls; put the horse up in Will Miner's stable, and we went to the Congregational Church for the first

May 30, 1897, continued: time in my life. Henry Noyes, the pastor, preached. The sermon was very good. This is a fine church. It was built in 1895. At 3:30 p.m., I attended a preaching service in Pettengill's Hall, by Palmer, a very eloquent preacher. Carrie Franklin and her husband also took part. In the evening I led the meeting of Young People's Society Christian Endeavor prayer meeting, at Hackett School House. Topic: "That Ye Bear Much Fruit."

Potato Planting Time

May 31, 1897: Howard took the team at 3:30 o'clock in the morning (!) and harrowed until noon on the potato and oat piece beyond the gate. In afternoon he hauled 4 barrels of Green Mountain potato seed into the field. I worked for George Hackett all forenoon dropping potato seed, the work to go on overcoat and rubber boots, 30 cents. In afternoon I finished harrowing our potato piece and marked out and planted 8 rows of potatoes. A ranged for Fred Wadsworth to come over with his horses and cover potatoes with the horsehoe, while I drove Evie to Island Falls in evening. I got my head shingled at the barbers - 25 cents. Burt worked for Harry Weeks dropping potatoes all day, on Charlie Main's place.

June 1, 1897: Burt, Howard and I worked all day planting potatoes on the piece beyond the gate. We took two barrels of fertilizer valued at $3.00 into the field. Howard and I hauled two loads of rocks off the potato piece, to the east line. (On June 3 the planting of this field 150 rows 105 feet in length was completed).

June 3, 1897: In the evening I attended a lecture on Mathematical Geography in the Upper District School House, where I learned my ABCs. Elder Bowye was the speaker and he made it interesting for all, and I think very profitable for the young folks. He explained the motions of the Earth, causes of the Seasons, the Gulf Stream, why it is warmer in England than in Maine, which is 11 degrees farther south.

A Beautiful Deer

June 10, 1897: Coming home from Al. Corliss's this evening I saw a handsome deer in the field near the old Thorn place. I stopped the horses and stood and looked at it and whistled and sung, but it seemed as unconcerned and independent as could be. It kept walking around and feeding, and once in a while it would look at me for a minute, but did not run, and finally I came away and left it there feeding.

A Beligerent Buck

June 22, 1897: This morning I met James Scribner on Weber Hill. He wanted me to help fix the line fence. While he went after Ben Emerson, I was on the fence waiting, looking down in the field when I beheld a monstrous buck deer with antlers walking across the field. I got behind a bush, but soon attracted his attention. He stood gazing at me. He then began to stomp his fore foot after the fashion of a sheep with her young. He stamped and lay his ears back and nod his head and was looking very savage, walking toward me. I began to think he meant business, so I turned and took leg bail for the fence, and he went into the woods.

June 3, 1898: Carl and Burt went to Glidden & Martz's Magic Lantern Show, in the evening. "Scenes of the Cuban War."

Edith Lane Drowned

August 8, 1898: Cousin Edith Lane was drowned, and this is how it happened: Burt Lane and Edith, with their three small children (Frank, Weldon and Ned) and Herbert Colpitts and Lucy Lane, had been down to Mattawamkeag Lake a few days and were returning home by canoe up the Mattawamkeag River. The river was very shallow in places and it was easier to pole the canoe along than to paddle it. Burt was standing up poling the canoe along when, coming suddenly over a deep hole in the river, he failed to reach bottom at the expectedly short depth. He drove the pole into the water, and this in some way overturned the canoe. Burt followed at this instant, feeling that they were all going in. Herb Colpitts and Burt tried to right the canoe again, but in vain. They all went into the river. Burt turned all his attention to his wife, while Herbert was trying to save the children and Lucy. He turned the canoe bottom up and got Lucy to hold onto it. He then got the two oldest children and put them onto the bottom of the overturned canoe. The baby when it came up threw its arm around a bamboo fishing pole, and so Herbert was enabled to save all the children. He then pushed the canoe ashore and looked around to see Burt swimming toward the shore almost entirely exhausted but without his dear wife. He had been taken under the water twice by Edith in her struggles; she fought like a madman, and it was impossible for him to save her. The body went to the bottom, and a big crowd of people was there all day with boats and grapples. She was drowned at 9 o'clock in the morning. John Fulso found the body at 7 o'clock that night not five feet from where it went down.

August 19, 1898: A large number of Crystal people went to the Sunday School Picnic on Parker Ridge at the spring in the grove near Harry Murchie's house. After the picnic dinner we went to Murchie's house and had a sing. Mr. Morris played the Mason organ. After that we had races. I beat in the bag race. Gus Young beat in the running broad jump -- he jumped 16 feet 3 inches. Chris. Humphrey and I tied in the potato race. At 3:30 we started home around by Crystal Station and Patten. It is 14 miles from Parker Farm to Patten, and we went that distance with Crystal Boy in 56 minutes, a record not easily beaten. Bernie White, Ray and Carl were with me, and Ardie Prescott could not get by with his bicycle the whole distance.

First Visit to Bangor

July 4, 1898: I went to Bangor on the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad Excursion train. Started from Island Falls at 5:50 o'clock; arrived in Bangor 9:40 a.m. It was the first ride I ever had between Island Falls and Bangor. I had my first ride on the electric cars. I was in the Bangor House. I saw 550 soldiers from Fort Knox march through the streets. I saw the first steamboat in my life. It was the "Fredrick." I saw the Fire Department races between Bangor and Orono, and I was in the fire department house. We started back from the Maine Central Depot at 5:00 p.m., and arrived in Island Falls at 10:00 p.m.

August 16, 1898: Burt went to Myras on the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad to work for Fletcher Cottle. It was the first ride Burt ever had on a railroad train.

September 7, 1898: Took some pine and basswood boards down to Alexander's mill and got them planed, 50 cents. Got 300 ft. of planed dimension hemlock boards at Island Falls Lumber Co., at $7 per 1000 ft., $2.10. Got 2 bunches shingles at $1.50 per 1000, 75 cents.

November 20, 1897: I began to go to school. Luvie Hackett is our teacher. In evening Burt and I went skating on Duck Pond.

November 22, 1897: Mother bought 1 lantern globe, 17 cents; 4 lbs. oatmeal, at 4 cents a pound; 1 pair pants for Ray, 50 cents; sent $7 to Jordan Marsh & Co., Boston, for a suit of clothes for Burt; a clock for Bell, and some underwear.

November 24, 1897: Burt bought for cash, at Tenney Store, Island Falls, 1 pair of shoes for Bell, 75 cents; at Pettengill's, 1 pair shoes for Carl, 50 cents; at Morses, 1 cap for Burt, 50 cents; at Wildie's, 1 [illegible] for [illegible], 50 cents; 4 releases, 40 cents; got Sagwa shod at Barry's, 50 cents. [illegible]; I finished reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

November 25, 1897: Thanksgiving Day. Took dinner with the Taylor's. Had stuffed chicken. After dinner Beverly and Wilford Taylor rode down with me as far as the Mill Pond and went skating. I came home, put the horse in, and took my skates and went over. But the crowd was going to Duck Pond, so we also went. Burt, Bell and Carl also skated all afternoon.

November 27, 1897: No snow to be seen, the rain yesterday having taken it all off. I took Crystal Boy and single wagon and went to Island Falls; bought for cash, at Moran's, 1 pair double rubbers for Ray, [illegible] cents. Got 1 print, 65 cents. Tom Prescott rode up with me to the post office to get his mail. Aunt Sarah Colpitts came up from Belvedere on the stage.

November 28, 1897: Worked all day sawing wood; at night Carl and Ray put it into shed. In evening, Burt, Bell, Carl and Ray went sliding on the pond in W. C. Hackett's pasture. Lanzue Prescott came out of the woods.

November 29, 1897: Paid Page Peters 5 cents for bringing an express bundle up from Island Falls.

December 4, 1897: Mother and Burt went to Patten with Sagwa and pung. They bought for cash at Gardner's store, 2 pair shoes 1 child, 50 cents each; 4 plates, 10 cents each; 1 quart dipper, 10 cents; at Clothing Store, 1 pr. pants for Burt, 1.40. I made a blackboard 33 x 28 inches, and painted it one coat of Silicate Black Diamond Slating. Repaired hay-cutter. Our clock stopped; we have no time.

December 5, 1897: Sunday. In evening I took the clock apart and got it working again.

December 10, 1897: Put bob-sleds together in forenoon. In afternoon Burt and I put flat body on bob-sleds and went up to Harwood Sarge and hauled two loads of wood down to the house. Gus Young borrowed our bob to go to Alton.

December 11, 1897: Fatema Theron borrowed our pung and went to Patten. Lanzue Prescott worked in our shop making shingles for a bird cage. Burt and I went to Island Falls with Sagwa and large pung. Bought for cash: 7 apples, 5 cents; 1 gal. kerosene, 15 cents; 5 lbs. molasses, 6 cents; 100 lbs. cornmeal, $1.10; got trace chain mended, 10 cents; got from W. Merritt & Sons, Houlton, 1 bbl. semon flour, mended, 10 cents; got from [illegible]; 10 lbs. raisins, 75 cents; 10 lbs. rice, 70 cents; 100 lbs. cornmeal, $1.70; 20 lbs. raisins, 70 cents; 10 lbs. rice, 70 cents; cap for Bell, 50 cents; 75 bars American Family soap, 75 cents.

December 18, 1897: Albert Corliss gave us a large piece of venison from a deer which he shot last week.

lowing were present: Levi Deming, Chesley A. Deming, Charles Thern, Mabel Emerson, Luvie Hackett and all members of our family. 10 below zero.

An Intellectual Treat

January 6, 1898: In the evening Arthur Corliss, Bell and I went to Island Falls to hear addresses of Hon. W. W. Stetson, State Superintendent of Schools and Miss Mary Snow, Superintendent of Schools, Bangor. We took Arthur's pung and Crystal Boy and put the horse in Bill Miner's shed. The lectures were in the Congregational Church. Mr. Stetson is a very large man and wears a large moustache. He is a fine speaker. He spoke of the need of turning more attention to the common schools, as well as school houses and school grounds. . . . He spoke of the large sums of money invested in jails and jail grounds. . . . He said Maine was going down in some ways in considering what should be invested. gaining ground, that our state was excelled in education and morals then it should be excelled by many in actual performance. He spoke of many questions of great importance which should have the thought of every sensible and loyal citizen of the Pine Tree State . . . . Miss Snow gave a rather length but excellent lecture. She is a fine speaker and one of the smartest women in the state. Her subject was "Loyalty" and she spoke principally to the teachers present. She spoke of the need of parents helping the teachers who have the care of their offspring, rather than trying to put them (the teachers) down in the presence of the children. For a child will not learn where he has no interest, and interest in his work has no room in his mind unless he respects his teacher. She spoke of the great need of more patience on the part of the teachers. It was on the whole a great lecture and should have a vast influence for good on all who heard it, as I am sure it did on me. . . . . Among the teachers present under whom I have studied were: Caroline Miles, Willie Finch, Winnie Bigelow (then Perry), Harold G. Jackson, Cornelia Wiggin, Jennie Powers and Luvie Hackett.

"I Knew Lincoln"

January 14, 1898: In the evening we had a school entertainment at the school house. All the scholars took part, and there were quite a number of townspeople present. We had a dialogue in poetry in honor of Abraham Lincoln. Every scholar took part. I was dressed as an old gentleman who had known Lincoln during the war. I was dressed with a large old-fashioned beaver hat, long overcoat, long white whiskers, glasses and with flour in my hair, and with a cane. I also spoke a piece of prose entitled "Nobility of Labor," by Dewey, from page 266 of Bronson's Elocution. It was the first time I ever used gestures in public. After the entertainment the teacher furnished a generous treat of peanuts and popcorn.

January 17, 1898: In forenoon I hauled two loads of cordwood and one load of logs down to the house (from the hardwood ridge). In afternoon I drew three loads of long logs to the house. Bought of Mrs. Hayes one gallon of kerosene oil to be paid for in potatoes.

January 18, 1898: I worked for George Hackett all day in the shop. Made a set of raves for his forward sled. Also made a tag-hook for him. Bought a fresh codfish weighing 2 pounds, 10 cents.

January 21, 1898: I have a chance to work my board at the Hotel Exchange, R. E. Morse, proprietor, Island Falls, and attend high school there. Bought 1 lantern globe, 7 cents; got haircut at Murchie's, 15 cents.

Attends High School

January 23, 1898: Snowed 17 inches. Packed my trunk and Burt drove me in blinding blizzard to Island Falls. We got to the hotel all right, but as nearly frozen as we ever were. I sat around in the bar room all day, and at supper we had oyster stew. Following are the people who run this hotel: E. E. Morse, proprietor and clerk; Cyrus Penny, hostler and hack driver; Mrs. McManus, cook; Blanche Williams, table girl; Peter McGlynn, chore boy.

January 24, 1898: I entered Island Falls High School, in the splendid new school building. Following are the scholars: Parker Craig, Carl Weeks, Lillian Walker, Alice Brown, Edith Craig, Oscar Porter, Stanley McCormick, Goff Bean, Clarence Bean, George Schneider, James Byers, Kitty Sewall, Mae Weeks, Lucy Lane, Ralph Kelly, Horace Kelly, Raymond Sanborn, Annie Clark, Nellie Staples, Althea Bassett, Joe Staples, Helen Walker, George Donham, Emily Record, Lillie Berry and Abbie Larrabee.

January 28, 1898: Worked around the hotel most of the day. Sawed wood with Fred Glass. In morning I went to the station with Cyrus Penny and we got some trunks for a drummer and took them to Mrs. McCormick's.

January 30, 1898: The Sabbath. Borrowed Cyrus Bailey's pung and E. E. Morse's horse and drove up home in afternoon. It was very cold. I wore Cyrus Penny's fur coat. In evening I attended a missionary service at the Free Baptist Church in Island Falls. Subject: "India Missions." I gave 5 cents.

February 3, 1898: C. A. Steelbrook of Bangor took a photograph of the students of the Grammar and High Schools on the steps of the new school building. I bought a gold plated Highland watch and chain from Fred Glass for $2.75. Bought two paper collars at Pettengill's for 5 cents.

Pork and Beans

February 6, 1898: Sunday. After doing my chores at the Hotel Exchange, I started with Charles A. Steelbrook, the photographer, for Joe Huntley's camp in Dyer Brook, to take a photograph of the camp and crew. I carried his camera all the way. We walked up to the station, then down the railroad toward Houlton 3-1/2 miles, then turned in to the left and after going 1/2 mile we came to the camp where they are getting out pulp-wood. We had for dinner at the camp, pork and beans, biscuit, molasses, gingerbread and tea.

February 11, 1898: Went to the Band Concert in the evening. Admission 10 cents. Programme consisted of music by the Island Falls Cornet Band. Songs 10 cents. Programme consisted of music by the Wonderful Gramophone. After the concert they had plays and music by the Wonderful Gramophone. Clara Crandalmire got first prize, a splendid gold watch, for collecting the most money for the band. I lent C.D. 10 cents.

February 12, 1898: I had a ride on a freight train on the Tannery Line.

February 13, 1898: After doing my chores at the hotel, I walked home, taking the railroad from Donham's Crossing to Belvedere Siding. Burt brought me back with Sagwa and the large pung.

February 20, 1898: Sunday. Went to Sabbath School at Whittier Congregational Church at 1 p.m. with Cassius Berry, Stanley McCormick, Fred McLaughlin, Ralph Kelly and James Howard.

March 5, 1898: I did a number of tricks in the stable with Frank Smith and Bailey Coleman. Walked on my hands, turned a handspring, balanced a sugar barrel and a cant dog on my chin, jumped into and out of a sugar barrel without touching the sides of it. Frank Smith is a great jumper. Last July 4 he jumped over a stick 5 feet 9 inches high without touching it. It was a running high jump. . . . I bought a fine black suit of clothes for $11 at J. B. Moran's -- $1 in cash, $10 on account.

Sees First Theatrical Performance

March 14, 1898: In evening I attended H. Price Webber's drama "Honeymoon" in Pettengill's Hall. Paid 25 cents admission. The actors played it charmingly. It was the first time I ever saw professional actors in a play.

March 15, 1898: In evening I attended H. Price Webber's show "Miraida, or The Man from Island Falls." Admission 25 cents. Burt came down on the crust this morning and brought me some clean clothes. I won two games of Checkers from Dennis Buckley and one game from John Argent.

March 20, 1898: Sunday. Ransford J. Shaw and Ira G. Hersey, two lawyers of Houlton, are stopping at the hotel. I attended a preaching service at the Free Baptist Church. S. M. Felch, principal of Ricker Classical Institute, spoke in the minister's place. In afternoon I attended preaching service and Sunday School at the Congo. Church. S. M. Felch spoke there also. In evening I attended prayer meeting at the F. B. Church. Eldridge Wilbur led the meeting.

March 27, 1898: Walked every step of the way home (4-1/2 miles) in a little more than an hour. Howard Brewster took Crystal Boy and small pung and brought me down to Belvedere Siding, and I walked down the railroad to Donham's Crossing.

March 31, 1898: In evening I went to Abbie Larrabee's birthday party. The following were there: Parker Craig, Stanley McCormick, Horace Kelly, Joe Staples, Fred Markey, Annie Clark, Mae Weeks, Nellie Staples, Kittie Sewall, Althea Bassett, and of course Abbie Larrabee.

April 4, 1898: Sunday. Stormy. Stayed at hotel all day. Read a 10-cent novel entitled "The Panhandle Mine Case."

April 8, 1898: I spoke "The Pilgrims and Their Destiny" at school. All town books were returned to the teacher. The teacher gave the scholars their ranks. I got "very good" in all my studies. Borrowed a book "Young's Lessons in Astronomy" from the town of Island Falls.

April 9, 1898: Borrowed 25 cents from E. E. Morse. Al. Byers paid me 25 cents for the jackknife he lost. Got my rubber boots heeled at Kelly's, 10 cents. Bought a photograph of High School scholars, 25 cents. Burt Stanley McCormick Bought a photograph of High School scholars, 25 cents. Burt came down with Sagwa and large pung for me and my trunk, pitching horseshoes.

April 11, 1898: Took a load of 11 barrels of Green Mountain Potatoes down to Belvedere Siding and put them into the potato house. Fred Claaseth helped me load and Herbert Colpitts helped me unload them. James Main also took three loads down. There was such a crust that I hauled the potatoes through the fields. Stopped at Aunt Sarah Colpitts' for dinner.

Aunt Sarah Colpitts and I put the double wagon together and hauled Albert Colpitts and I put the double wagon together and hauled 11 barrels of potatoes to Belvedere Siding. We got stuck in the woods below Hackett's, the wagon being to the hubs in a snowdrift and the load nearly tipped over. Joseph Downing happened along with his team and hauled us out.

April 14, 1898: [Entry continues from above.] over.

April 20, 1898: Howard Brewster, Albert Colpitts and I took Sagwa and wagon and went up to Aunt Mary Bell's and sawed wood for her all day. She and Alice are in Massachusetts. We took our dinners with us. I got Martha Hackett to steep our tea, and borrowed her teapot and two dippers. Howard borrowed Eugene Thorn's saw.

April 21, 1898: Howard, Burt and I split wood in forenoon. In afternoon I took our team and hauled a load of hay for George Hackett, from our barn to his. Howard, Carl and I then went down to Colpitts' and got a load of hay at $8 a ton. Borrowed hay scales from Anthony Emerson.

May 8, 1898: Finished hauling away banking. Stanley McCormick and George Donham came up from Island Falls on their wheels to see me. Went to Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor at Hackett School House in evening. Martha Humphrey led the meeting.

A Problem of Transportation

May 12, 1898: Aunt Mary Bell and Cousin Alice Bell arrived on the train at Island Falls. They went to Evie Miner's, and sent word to Albert Lane. He came and brought them up to our place with his team. I took our team and jigger and went to Island Falls railroad station and got their trunks and Alice's bicycle. In the evening Burt took single team and drove them home, and Howard drove the jigger up with their baggage.

May 13, 1898: Howard and I went over to Charlie Main's and got a load of hay on the jigger -- 461 pounds at $9 a ton -- in part payment for Burt's work.

May 21, 1898: Went to Island Falls with Crystal Boy and single wagon for Washburn's stump puller.

May 26, 1898: Al. Corliss came down and he and Howard rooted the newland with his white horse and Sagwa and the stump puller. I cleaned it off ready for plowing on the northside. In evening I took Washburn's stump puller home.

May 28, 1898: Burt, Carl and I went fishing in Noyes' Mill Pond. Caught some trout. In afternoon we hauled off two loads of rocks from the garden, and I sowed and harrowed the corn. Simon Proctor returned our sheep shears.

May 30, 1898: Hitched the team to the drag and hauled rocks off the buckwheat field, then I plowed it. Memorial Day: Burt put flags on soldiers' graves in cemetery.

May 31, 1898: Took team and finished plowing buckwheat field in morning. Herbert Colpitts came up and worked all day. He and I plowed small potato field; finished planting corn in garden, planted a few rows of peas. After dinner Herb, Burt and I took Crystal Boy and piled in the newland. I harrowed with Sagwa in newland until 3 and then helped Herbert and Burt pile.

June 1, 1898: Manzur Prescott returned our wagon. Herb and I piled on newland in forenoon. Anthony Emerson came and sowed oats and grass on large newland -- 7-1/2 bushels of oats at 50 cents a bushel. Burt went down and piece of newland. After dinner I harrowed in newland. Burt took borrowed Humphrey's toad harrow. After dinner I harrowed in newland. Burt took harrow home.

Page 164 contains a repeat of diary entries already appearing on pages 158-159: June 3, 1898 (Magic Lantern Show); August 8, 1898 (Edith Lane Drowned); August 19, 1898 (Sunday School Picnic on Parker Ridge); July 4, 1898 (First Visit to Bangor); August 16, 1898 (Burt's first railroad ride); September 7, 1898 (lumber and shingles). These entries are duplicated verbatim from the earlier pages.

September 8, 1898: I hauled gravel from Webber Hill and banked up under the piazza. Got horses shod at Ryder's shop, Patten. Went to David Montista's in Mount Chase and got 1000 clapboards for our house; did not get home until 10:45 p.m.

September 17, 1898: Have worked for Albert Colpitts digging potatoes 3-1/2 days, for which he is going to pay me by helping us dig. Worked horses 1/2 day, 50 cents, to be paid in oats. Dug potatoes; harvested our pumpkins; mowed all the corn. Went to Patten in evening. Bought on credit at Gardner's 25 lbs. white load at 6-1/2 cents per pound; potato digger, 45 cents; basket, 25 cents.

September 21, 1898: Carl and I dug potatoes in forenoon. We loaded ten barrels of potatoes and took them to Samuel Varney's, Island Falls, and sold them to him for 60 cents a barrel, 2/3 of which will pay him for clapboarding our house. Got credit at Pettengill's -- 22 lbs. clapboard nails at 4 cents a pound; at Walker's, 50 lbs. Snow Drift Flour, $1.50; 17 lbs. sugar, $1.00. Bought a 28-ft. pine plank of I.F. Mill Co., 45 cents. Got horse collar repaired at Kelly's, 15 cents on credit. Received 10 cents from George Thorm for taking trunk to station.

September 23, 1898: Herb Colpitts and I went to Patten with 10 barrels of potatoes to pay F. C. Hall our saw bill.

September 27, 1898: Went to Patten with 16 barrels of starch potatoes; got 30 cents per barrel; total $4.60. Paid I. B. Gardner & Sons for load and digger, $2.05. Got two new shoes put on Crystal Boy at Ryder's, 50 cents. Bought a whiffle-tree, $1.

September 28, 1898: Sold Stanley McCormick 6 fox traps at 35 cents each. Albert Colpitts worked all day digging, at $1 a day.

October 1, 1898: Mother and Carl took Sagwa and single wagon and started for Smyrna at 6:30 a.m. They plan to stop at Will Anderson's in Merrill Plantation for dinner and reach Fletcher Cottle's in Smyrna this evening.

October 3, 1898: Mother and Carl returned home. They stopped at Powers' in Dyer Brook for dinner. Nina Cottle came over with them. Cyrus Bailey bought 7 pounds of butter from us at 16 cents a pound, and paid 50 cents cash on same.

October 6, 1898: Carl and I finished digging potatoes, and in afternoon we went to starch factory in Patten with 8 barrels, for which we received 30 cents per barrel, $2.40. I paid James Main, the tax collector, $2 on our tax.

Parties after the Potato Harvest

November 11, 1898: In evening I attended a candy pull at the Hackett School House.

November 24, 1898: In evening I went to a domino party at Ben Emerson's. Christopher Humphrey and Miss Willett won the most games.

November 25, 1898: Went to a party at Hackett School House in evening. Admission 10 cents. Time was spent playing games. The treat consisted of pop corn, peanuts, molasses candy and apples.

November 29, 1898: Hauled what sawdust there was at the mill for packing ice and banking house. Made a snow shovel. Fitted out some horse blankets. Completed reading "Thaddeus of Warsaw."