Class 
 
 Rnnl( M f ^ \a / n 
 
 10 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
Granville P. WiLsor 
 
PIONEERS OF THE 
 MAGALLOWAY 
 
 FROM 
 
 1820 TO 1904 
 
 BY 
 
 GRANVILLE P. WILSON 
 
 Published by the Author 
 Old Orchard, Maine 
 
 1918 
 
Copyright, 1918 
 
 BY 
 
 Granville P. Wilson 
 
 -JUL 121918 
 
 ©CI.A4996f>5 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The following brief and incomplete biographies of 
 certain early settlers of the Magalloway region, in Maine 
 and New Hampshire, are here undertaken by probably 
 the last individual now living whose memory can recall 
 with any distinctness the data and chronology of that 
 region's early history, and the personalities identified 
 with the same. An ardent filial regard for his birth- 
 place and childhood home, now prompts the writer of 
 these sketches to seize the apparently last opportunity 
 to save from threatened oblivion the records of all 
 that was once dear to him on earth, and to transmit 
 to posterity what may yet be of value as a connecting 
 link between the present, and the sacred — the inestima- 
 ble — and the ever-instructive and venerated past. 
 
 I count them faithless evermore whose human hearts are led astray 
 From the dear world we loved of yore, by that which is, today. 
 I count them false who cherish less than all on time's uncertain shore. 
 Our friends, our home, our happiness, of years that are no more. 
 
 I count them good and true alone to whom the toils, the loves, the tears, 
 And friendships, long aforetime known, are sacred as in former years. 
 I count them blest to whom appears the recompense for all in store — 
 The sweetness that all life endears by that which was of yore. 
 
 GRANVILLE P. WILSON. 
 Old Orchard Beach, June 18, 1918. 
 

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter 
 
 I. 
 
 Introduction 
 
 . 13-15 
 
 Chapter 
 
 II. 
 
 Jonathan Leavit 
 
 . 16-18 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 John Bennett . 
 
 . 19-20 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IV. 
 
 Isaac York 
 
 . 21-22 
 
 Chapter 
 
 V. 
 
 Richard Lombard 
 
 . 23-24 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VI. 
 
 Lemuel Fickett 
 
 . 25-27 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VII. 
 
 John Lombard . 
 
 . 28-29 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Israel T. Linnell 
 
 . 30-31 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IX. 
 
 David Robbins 
 
 . 32-34 
 
 Chapter 
 
 X. 
 
 Joshua Lombard 
 
 . 35-38 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XI. 
 
 Alvan Wilson . 
 
 . 39-40 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XII. 
 
 Captain John M. Wilson 
 
 . 41-50 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Joseph Sturtevant 
 
 . 51-52 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Lorenzo D. Lombard 
 
 . 53-54 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XV. 
 
 Nelson Fickett 
 
 . 55 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Lorenzo D. Linnell . 
 
 . 56-57 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XVII. 
 
 David M. Sturtevant 
 
 . 58-60 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XVIII 
 
 . Conclusion 
 
 . 61 
 
 Supplement 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 . 62-64 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 GRANVILLE P. WILSON Frontispiece 
 
 PETER BENNETT FacingpagelS 
 
 OILMAN BENNETT '« 20 
 
 ELDER RICHARD LOMBARD ..." 22 
 
 RICHARD FRANKLIN LOMBARD . . " 24 
 
 LEMUEL FICKETT " 26 
 
 AZISCOOS MOUNTAIN, FROM WILSON'S 
 
 MILLS, ME «♦ 32 
 
 JOSHUA LOMBARD «« 36 
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN M. WILSON . . . . " 42 
 
 WILLIAM H. — SON OF CAPTAIN JOHN M. 
 
 WILSON " 46 
 
 AZISCOOS HOUSE, WILSON'S MILLS, ME. . " 54 
 
 LORENZO DOW LINNELL . . . . " 56 
 
 DAVID M. STURTEVANT ....'« 58 
 AZISCOOS DAM - FALLS OF THE MAGAL- 
 
 LOWAY «« 62 
 
PIONEERS OF THE 
 MAGALLOWAY 
 
PIONEERS OF THE 
 MAGALLOWAY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ''Beneath those rugged elms — that yew-tree's shade, 
 Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, 
 Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 
 
 The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 
 
 "The breezy call of incense-breathing morn — 
 
 The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 
 The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn. 
 No more shall 'rouse them from their lowly bed. 
 
 ''Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield. 
 
 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe hath broke. 
 How jocund did they drive their team a-field! 
 
 How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!" 
 
 IN commemorating the pioneers of the 
 Magalloway, I have no heroic feats of arms 
 to chronicle, — no scholars — orators — eccle- 
 siastics or statesmen to memorize, — no tri- 
 umphs of art — science — greed or tyranny 
 to celebrate, but 
 
 "Let not ambition mark their useful toil. 
 Their homely joys and destiny, obscure. 
 Or grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
 The short and simple annals of the poor." 
 
 13 
 
Far away in the northwestern extremity of 
 the State of Maine, and northeastern of New 
 Hampshire, on the shores of the largest 
 tributary of the Androscoggin River, and 
 about a hundred and fifty miles from any sea- 
 port, may be found a few straggling settle- 
 ments, extending some ten miles along the 
 stream — bounded on the north by the 45th 
 parallel of north latitude, and south by Lake 
 Umbagog. These are the settlements of the 
 Magalloway, which, though commenced more 
 than eighty years since, have not yet attained 
 to the prominence of a Chicago or a Minne- 
 apolis, notwithstanding their advantage over 
 the latter, in honorable and ripening age. 
 No railroad yet affords them communication 
 with the great mass of mankind, save at the 
 preliminary expense of a fifty-mile, and ten- 
 hour, ride by stage, over a rugged and most 
 uninviting road, and exposure, in the winter 
 season, to such a sweep of north winds as 
 hardly to be matched this side of the polar 
 regions. 
 
 Within the settlements, however, the roads 
 are good, the currents of the air normal, the 
 hotel accommodations ample and the inhabi- 
 tants hospitable and intelligent. Two post- 
 offices, two churches, two hotels (each two 
 some five miles apart), two stores of general 
 merchandise and three school-houses, now 
 minister to the mental, spiritual and physical 
 needs of the little community, while spread 
 out in a gorgeous panorama of green, during 
 
 14 
 
the summer months, He the luxuriant meadows 
 and upland fields, dotted here and there with 
 the neat white cottages of the owners, and, 
 towering over all, on either hand rise the 
 majestic mountains, covered to their summits 
 with verdure and adding to the scene a pictur- 
 esqueness unsurpassed among the romantic 
 sporting resorts of the Rangeley Lake region. 
 The initial step in these settlements was 
 made at some indefinitely known date, but 
 not far from the year 1820, on the westerly 
 side of the Magalloway, near the confluence 
 of the Diamond River therewith, some eight 
 miles north of the outlet of Umbagog Lake 
 and on territory granted by the State of New 
 Hampshire to Dartmouth College, which 
 still holds possession of the same. 
 
 15 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ANOTHER location, also on the Dart- 
 mouth College Grant, was made in the 
 year 1823, on land already partially cleared 
 by fire which had been set by the first set- 
 tler and which devoured the forest eastward 
 for many miles. 
 
 This second location was by Jonathan 
 Leavit of Gilead, Me., who obtained abun- 
 dant crops of wheat and other produce from 
 the soil enriched by the ashes of the late fire, 
 and was soon on the high road to prosperity. 
 His oldest son (Elihu), now eighty years of 
 age and a prosperous and wealthy farmer, 
 still resides about a mile from the home of his 
 youth, surrounded by his offspring of the 
 third generation. 
 
 This Mr. Leavit (Elihu), in a recent conver- 
 sation with the writer of these sketches, 
 related the following experience, quite charac- 
 teristic of the settlement's early history. 
 ^^One winter day," said he, ^Vhen I had got 
 to be quite a good-sized boy, I was at work 
 with my father at our barn, which was some 
 considerable distance from the river, and late 
 in the afternoon he sent me out to put up the 
 cattle. As soon as I got outside the barn I 
 heard a cry of distress from the direction of 
 
 16 
 
the river, and went back, telling father, 'There 
 is somebody in trouble at the river, I guess, by 
 the sound.' Father grabbed a logging chain 
 that lay in the yard, and we ran for the river. 
 There we found Captain Wilson, who had 
 broken through the ice with his horse and 
 sleigh, trying to get ashore and to drag with 
 him an old gentleman who had been riding 
 with him and was a much heavier man than 
 himself. Father threw the chain to them, 
 and the old gentleman grabbed it, but his 
 hands were so numb with cold he couldn't 
 hold on, till one of his fingers got caught in a 
 link of the chain, and we drew him out by 
 that. Captain Wilson's turn came next, and 
 then that of the horse, which stood shivering 
 in the water. 'Now !' said father, 'you men ' 'line 
 it" for John Hibbard's (the nearest house) 
 as quick as you can go! Elihu! you take that 
 horse to our barn and rub him down, as quick 
 as possible!' I mounted the horse's back, 
 and found him fully as ready to go as I was to 
 have him. All were soon safely under cover, 
 but the old gentleman was badly chilled, as 
 well as frightened, and Captain Wilson 
 declared he could have kept his hold on him 
 in the current but a few moments longer." 
 
 Mr. Leavit continued his farming operations 
 on the Magalloway for many years. Two of 
 his young daughters were drowned at once, 
 during the time, while endeavoring to guide 
 their own canoe across the stream. Mr. 
 Leavit himself dragged the river for their 
 
 17 
 
bodies, and on bringing the first to the surface, 
 fainted, it is said, and fell senseless in his boat. 
 It was a terrible and overwhelming blow to 
 the family. In later years, ^Vhen the wearied 
 heart and the failing head,'^ as Irving says, 
 began to warn Mr. Leavit that the evening of 
 his life was drawing near, he turned ^^as 
 naturally as the infant to it^s mother^s arms'' 
 toward his native town, to '^sink to sleep in 
 the bosom of the scene of his childhood." 
 
 18 
 
^^ 0>m 
 
 Peter Bennett 
 
 Fourth son of the first Bennett family 
 
 on the Magalloway 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE third settler on the Magalloway, and 
 the first north of Umbagog Lake, in 
 Oxford County, Maine, was John Bennett of 
 Gilead, the father-in-law of Jonathan Leavit. 
 This was at about the year 1824. Together 
 with his six stalwart sons — Frederick, John, 
 David, Peter, Gilman and Ransom — he cleared 
 up a fine farm on either side of the state line, 
 some seven miles above the mouth of the 
 river, which farm is now divided into several 
 different estates and occupied by a growing 
 country hamlet. 
 
 Mr. Bennett and his sons were known as 
 mighty hunters, and skilled woodsmen in 
 whatever department thereof such skill was 
 necessary. A detailed account of their various 
 adventures, hardships and hair-breadth 
 escapes, would fill volumes. The father of 
 the family was especially famous as a trapper 
 of bears, with which the region then abounded. 
 Peter, the fourth son, on one occasion, it is 
 said, after having, with a party of hunters, 
 tramped all day through a winter storm, 
 prepared (weary, wet and cold), to camp for 
 the night, but found, on attempting to light 
 their fire, that every match they had was too 
 wet to ignite by friction. They tried one 
 
 19 
 
after another, but with no success. A serious 
 dilemma here confronted the party, but Peter 
 was equal to the emergency. Seizing his axe, 
 he began striking it, with all his two-hundred- 
 pound might, into a tree, every blow in the 
 same scarf, until the axe was heated sufficiently 
 to enable them to light their damp matches 
 on it, by which means a fire was kindled and 
 the party saved from freezing to death. 
 
 John, the elder brother of Peter, who lived 
 on a farm of his own, some distance down the 
 river from his father's place, was killed in the 
 lumbering woods, in 1845, by a falling tree. 
 His eldest son Nahum, who claims to have 
 been the first white child born on the Magallo- 
 way waters, is now seventy-five years old, and 
 not only superintends all, but performs a large 
 share of the labor of his large and fertile farm, 
 about a mile from the former Bennett home- 
 stead. 
 
 Of the six sons of John, Sr., only three — 
 Frederick, Peter and Oilman — lived to old 
 age. The father, like the majority of the 
 Magalloway's first settlers, returned to his 
 native place to die, after age and infirmity 
 had disqualified him for pioneer life. 
 
 20 
 
Oilman Bennett 
 
 Fifth son of John (senior), the first settler 
 
 who ever went from the Magalloway 
 
 to fight for his country 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ISAAC YORK of Bethel, Me., a veteran of 
 the Revolutionary War, numbers fourth on 
 the roll of Magalloway pioneers. He settled 
 on the east side of the river, near the great 
 bend, where the stream runs in exactly oppo- 
 site directions within the space of a few rods, 
 and about six miles from its confluence with 
 the Androscoggin. Mr. York had, years before, 
 traversed the region in trade with the Indians 
 for furs, bringing on his back, it is said, at 
 each trip from Bethel, a ten-gallon keg of 
 New England rum, which he exchanged with 
 the ^^simple natives'' for the valuable furs with 
 which the wilderness then abounded. It may 
 be well to remark here that the traffic in 
 spirituous liquors was not then, as now, looked 
 upon as a crime and disgrace to humanity; 
 but however public opinion may regard this 
 action of our old soldier-pioneer, we should 
 remember that this same lucrative traffic was 
 one of the first fruits of the so-called Christian 
 civilization introduced, by United States bayo- 
 nets and firebrands, into the Philippine Islands 
 in 1899, and whereas the judgment of the 
 United States Court was invoked to decide 
 whether or not the constitution should follow 
 the flag to the aforesaid Islands, the liquor 
 
 21 
 
traffic found no trouble (as it never does) in 
 rushing in where angels and constitutions 
 fear to tread. 
 
 Mr. York selected for his new abiding place 
 what proved to be the most valuable farm on 
 the river. Its broad and level meadows have 
 been for many years the field of extensive 
 farming operations, the Berlin Mills Lumber 
 Company now using it as a base of supplies for 
 the hundreds of horses employed by them in 
 that section. The old hero died on his own 
 fine estate, in 1844, at the ripe age of ninety- 
 five years. His son-in-law, Nathaniel Bean, 
 succeeded him in the cultivation of his many 
 and beautiful acres. His posterity to the fifth 
 generation now reside near the scene of his 
 herculean toil. 
 
 22 
 
Elder Richard Lombard 
 
 Founder of the northern-most settlement 
 
 of Oxford County, Maine 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE founder of the upper settlement on the 
 Magalloway, the extreme northwesterly 
 settlement of Oxford County, Maine, now 
 known as Lincoln Plantation (post-ofhce,Wil- 
 son's Mills), was Richard Lombard of Portland, 
 Me., who commenced there in 1825. With his 
 five athletic sons — Lorenzo, Samuel, David, 
 Richard and Henry — he cleared up what are 
 now three of the best farms in the township, 
 built the first two-story house on the river, 
 and after some years of prosperous culture of 
 the soil, sold out half of his estate to William 
 Fickett and sons of Cape Elizabeth, gave up 
 the management of the remainder to his three 
 eldest sons and devoted the balance of his 
 days mostly to evangelistic work. 
 
 Richard was not a traditional hero^ of the 
 border, — not a typical pioneer of civilization, 
 — save in spiritual affairs, but in these he was 
 an enthusiast. Without education or special 
 gifts therefor, in any notable degree, the 
 absorbing ambition of his life seemed to be 
 the Gospel ministry and the propagation of 
 the faith of the Methodist church. His home 
 was the rallying point and rendezvous of 
 religious effort for the whole community while 
 he remained within it, not only for the white 
 
 23 
 
residents, but for th^ 
 
 aborigines, many of whom'cl'^'"f ^ '"^''"^d 
 attend his ministrations of th^/r^? ^^^' ^o 
 share the kindly and Inf. ^^ ^""^ ^nd to 
 h's hospitable abode ^ ™"' atmosphere of 
 
 -■-'"t-"-«-^ic aooae. -"t-.i^ic <ji 
 
 . -^ he first school in the qet-tl^ 
 
 J^^ a portion of his dwellfnVan^T"i ^^' ^^P^ 
 house erected on land don ..A^^''* ^^J^ool- 
 
 -"' ,'n which school-tef'th^J ^'^ ^''^^^^ 
 elders last Gospel serv.vl l , venerable 
 
 ;^as performed "^^n 1853 r/^' ^^g^Howay 
 Chebeague Island, near PorVl J^t""^ ^reat 
 age of eighty-two years T' ^Z- ^' ^^^ 
 (one m New York one ; d , daughters 
 ^ «o? (Richard 2nd) in Wil^- ^^"'^'id) and 
 survive him, all at verv i?'"^'°",' ^^'^ «till 
 nameis commemo ated^bv J'"'"'^ "?^^'- ^^' 
 '^ow m the first church Zi"^ memorial win- 
 
 °n the Magalloway waters '' ''''' ^^^«ed 
 
 24 
 
Richard Franklin Lombard 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 LEMUEL FICKETT, the second of the 
 ''upper township'^ settlers, came from 
 Cape Ehzabeth, Me., in 1831, and located 
 on the west side of the river, about a mile 
 below the great falls. His brother William, 
 also of Cape Elizabeth, located soon after- 
 ward directly opposite, on the east side, on 
 land purchased of Richard Lombard, as be- 
 fore stated. The two brothers had been 
 reared ''after the most straightest sect" of 
 the Friends or Quaker religion, but William, 
 the elder of the two, had departed from 
 the counsel and creed of his youth and be- 
 come a believer and exhorter of the Meth- 
 odist persuasion. Both were exemplary, in- 
 dustrious and thrifty citizens. William was 
 conspicuous for his eccentricity, his egotism 
 and his Quaker "plainness of speech," which 
 procured him enemies, especially when indulged 
 in on funeral occasions, at which he was some- 
 times called to officiate. He was especially 
 severe on the church in which he had been 
 reared, for its "silent worship," which ill 
 accorded with the lively demonstrativeness of 
 his newly-adopted faith and his own active 
 temperament. Not even his reverence for 
 Sunday could always keep his business-like 
 
 25 
 
spirit in subjection. ^^I have," said he, one 
 fine Sunday in July, ^^done the chores this 
 morning, read fifteen chapters in the Bible 
 and opened forty tumbles of hay." This he 
 related to a neighbor as a pretty-fair fore- 
 noon's work for ^'a, boy sixty-one years of 
 age," as none but a most punctilious Sun- 
 day keeper will dispute. 
 
 As his age and accompanying ill health 
 increased, so did his ambition, enterprise and 
 plans for larger farming operations, and quite 
 unpleasant he was wont to make it for anyone 
 who expressed a doubt as to his ever realizing 
 his fond worldly hopes. When brought, how- 
 ever, to death's door, he submitted meekly to 
 his lot, acknowledged that his work on earth 
 was done and, after kindly bidding adieu to 
 his family and neighbors, yielded up, without 
 a struggle, his hopeful and energetic spirit to 
 the all-compassionate God who gave it. 
 
 Lemuel, the brother, was almost as dif- 
 ferent from William as though born of another 
 race. As free from the suspicion of demon- 
 strativeness as his brother was of reticence, 
 his life was one unvaried career of devotion 
 to the stern realities of existence, apparently 
 without a thought, or aspiration, for anything 
 but the winning of an honest livelihood and 
 the discharge of his .duty as the head of a 
 family and as a citizen of the civilized world. 
 He had been an experienced sailor to the 
 West Indies, and first mate of the vessel on 
 which he made his last voyage before being 
 
 26 
 
Lemuel Fickett 
 
 Second settler of upper Magalloway, 
 
 or Lincoln Plantation 
 
I 
 
obliged to abandon the sea on account of ill 
 health. With a large family to maintain and 
 a constant struggle with disease, together 
 with the hardships of pioneer life, he now 
 found ample exercise for all the heroic requi- 
 sites of his former occupation; but perseverance 
 will zain, and the brothers both lived to see 
 their fields broaden, their flocks and other 
 possessions to increase, and finally to rejoice 
 in an ample return for their indefatigable 
 labors. Both died in peace, in the comfort- 
 able homes built by their own hands, the 
 elder in 1852, at the age of sixty-seven; the 
 younger in 1864, at the age of sixty-three. 
 Their posterity now prosper on the beautiful 
 estates left by their grandsires. 
 
 27 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 JOHN LOMBARD of Otisfield, Me., settled, 
 J in 1828, on a hill about half a mile east of 
 the Magalloway, and east of the state line, 
 also the farthest south of any location yet 
 made on the river. He had a large and profit- 
 able farm; kept a small store, from which he 
 supplied the neighboring settlers with dry 
 goods and groceries, and soon became an 
 influential man in the community. With an 
 intelligent and prepossessing family of sons 
 and daughters, his home was a favorite resort 
 for the rising pioneer generation, and many 
 are the pleasant memories to be recalled, by 
 now aged people, of festive scenes and enjoy- 
 able occasions at his comfortable and ample 
 abode, none favoring or appreciating such 
 occasions more than the ever-genial host 
 himself. 
 
 But alas for the changes of all-devouring 
 time! After burying his aged father, his wife, 
 his eldest son, and one or two young daughters, 
 beneath the soil of his hillside home, and 
 becoming himself enfeebled by sickness and 
 the infirmities of age, he sold out his posses- 
 sions, abandoned the Magalloway, and passed 
 the remaining few years of his life near the 
 
 28 
 
scene of his early manhood, his return thither 
 being some twelve years prior to the great 
 Civil War, in which one of his younger sons, 
 John C, fell nobly for the Union at the bloody 
 battle of the Wilderness. 
 
 29 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ISRAEL T. LINNELL of Bethel, Me., in the 
 year 1830, located on the same hill where Mr. 
 Lombard resided, on a lot which his brother, 
 Luther Linnell, had partially cleared, but 
 abandoned. Israel was an experienced sailor 
 and soldier, having, as he claimed, fought in 
 the wars of our country, on both land and sea. 
 Of small stature, but indomitable will and 
 resolution, he was not a man to flinch at 
 danger or difficulties. He soon had his hill 
 farm in a good state of productiveness, but 
 finding a locality more to his liking farther 
 up the river, and nearer the same, which was 
 then their only highway, he moved thither, 
 where he carried on farming successfully for 
 many years. His residence, being about mid- 
 way the two extremities of the State-of-Maine 
 settlements, was afterwards used as a meeting 
 place for the transaction of plantation busi- 
 ness and the polling of votes at the annual 
 elections. The second two-story house on 
 the river was built by Mr. Linnell, as also the 
 first rod of good carriage road. 
 
 In his declining years, his wife having died 
 and family all departed, he went to reside 
 with his youngest daughter, at Manchester, 
 N. H., where he not long after died, at the 
 
 30 
 
age of ninety-two years. His eldest son, 
 Lorenzo D., and descendants to the fifth 
 generation, still reside within a mile of his 
 former abode. His youngest and only other 
 son, George W., fell nobly in the cause of the 
 Union, at Port Hudson, in 1863, which was 
 some years prior to his father's death. 
 
 31 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 I HAVE hitherto refrained (perhaps unjustly) 
 from especial notice of the first Magalloway 
 settler, fearing the objections which their 
 posterity might raise against having his name 
 associated with those of the worthies already 
 mentioned. David Robbins (for that was 
 the first settler's name) has ever been held 
 in abhorrence as a robber and murderer, but 
 judged by the identical standard by which 
 our so-called ^'Christian government" is 
 judged and approved by both pulpit and 
 populace, we shall find Mr. Robbins to have 
 been not only a patriot of the first order, but 
 also an eminent philanthropist and most useful 
 citizen. This much is certain, — he was a 
 pioneer of progress and of commerce (fur 
 trade) in that wilderness. He was, more- 
 over (to use the reported language of Dr. 
 Lyman Abbott), an ^^Anglo-Saxon Ox," and, 
 as a consequence, no native '^barbaric dog" 
 had '^any right to the crib where he wanted 
 to feed," or, we might say, to the furs that he 
 coveted, by whomsoever caught or claimed. 
 True, his achievements for expansion, and 
 the open door in the northeast, were diminu- 
 tive and inglorious, compared with those of 
 our ^^Christian world-power" in the Philippine 
 Islands. He never, as far as known, robbed 
 
 32 
 
but three men, or murdered but two, In the 
 interest of civilization, commerce and ^'good 
 government;" but, so far, his operations were 
 equally patriotic and praiseworthy, and his 
 final excuse just the same, which excuse, 
 divested of all its bombast and unparalleled 
 hypocrisy, is just this: both Mr. Robbins and 
 the United States government coveted that 
 which was in the possession of others. They 
 could not obtain the same without killing 
 those possessors; and being able, they did so, 
 and took possession of the property. This 
 is the ^'long and short'' of the whole matter. 
 If the whole moral law of God, since the time 
 of the Naboth and Jezebel episode, has been 
 reversed or annulled, to promote the money- 
 getting ambitions of the ^ ^Christian United 
 States," as is the logical and unavoidable 
 inference from the recent teachings of our 
 most prominent and popular Doctors of 
 Divinity, and if all the acts of the United 
 States government during the last six years 
 are to become examples and standards of 
 statesmanship and righteousness, as now 
 seems to be the popular demand, then I here- 
 with propose the immediate erection of a 
 monument, higher than Mount Aziscoos,* 
 to the memory of David Robbins, for the 
 murders and robberies he committed in the 
 cause of expansion, civilization and the 
 
 *A lofty and picturesque mountain, more than three thousand feet high, ris- 
 ing from, and extending for three miles along, the shore of the Magalloway, 
 and from the summit of which a view of surpassing interest and grandeur is 
 obtained. 
 
extension of United States commerce, glory 
 and world-power, in the ^^unassimilated'^ 
 region of the Androscoggin Lakes. 
 
 As to the precise date of Mr. Robbins' 
 advent on the Magalloway, or of his departure 
 therefrom, the writer of this can give no 
 information. He went thither, as is supposed, 
 to escape justice, and it is certain he left 
 Lancaster, N. H., jail, a few years later, for 
 the same purpose, in both of w^hich migrations 
 he appears to have been eminently successful. 
 He resided on the Magalloway several years 
 contemporarily with the Bennett, Leavit 
 and Lombard families, and Mr. Nahum 
 Bennett now distinctly remembers seeing him 
 when brought down the river, in irons, by 
 the old hero, Lewis Loomis (of Colebrook), on 
 the way to Lancaster jail. This must have 
 been near the year 1835. His career in the 
 Lake region has long been the theme of both 
 history and romance, but of his final fate 
 nothing authentic is, or perhaps ever will be, 
 known. The only mitigating traits of his 
 infamous character seem to have been that 
 he was energetic, industrious and thrifty. 
 His wife, it is said, never could be persuaded 
 or convinced of his guilt, the evidence of 
 which was unquestionable, though never 
 brought before a jury. Tradition makes him 
 out to have been finally hung in Canada, for 
 a crime committed after his escape from 
 Lancaster jail, but this has never been sub- 
 stantiated. 
 
 34 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE next ^^upper township" settler, after 
 the Fickett brothers, was Joshua Lom- 
 bard of Oxford, Me., and from this period we 
 can almost say, with the Scripture, that ^'there 
 were giants in those days.'' Mr. Lombard 
 was six feet or more in height, two hundred 
 and fifty pounds or more in weight, had two 
 sons of nearly his own size, and one even 
 larger. If our Joshua had not the great 
 mission of his Scripture namesake to perform, 
 he certainly was endowed with a fair share 
 of his heroic spirit and personal prowess. 
 Though he never commanded the sun to 
 stand still, he once caused a wild moose to do 
 so, without harming the creature in the least. 
 On another occasion, when attacked by a 
 vicious bull, he is said to have thrown the 
 animal upon its back, driven its horns into 
 the sod, and left him to his own reflections. 
 
 If all the traditions and representations 
 of the pioneer Methodist of the Peter Cart- 
 wright type were lost to the world, they might 
 largely be restored from reminiscences of this 
 Boanerges of the Magalloway, whose moral 
 vigor was in keeping with his physical and 
 whose courage was entirely commensurate 
 with both. He had been, according to his 
 
 35 
 
own numerous testimonies in ^^social meeting" 
 a most degraded drunkard, but having (as he 
 expressed it) ^'speerenced reHgion" and ^^jined 
 the Methodists/' his hatred of rum was ever 
 afterward as ardent as his love of it had been 
 before. For a long time after his conversion 
 he is said to have kept a well-filled bottle in 
 his cupboard at home, and when sorely 
 tempted, by his former ^^b'sett'n sin," to take 
 a drink, would go to the shelf, seize the bottle, 
 and giving it a defiant shake, exclaim in the 
 thunder tones of which he was well known to 
 be capable, '^V\\ conquer ye! FU master ye!" 
 And master it he did, with a heroism worthy 
 of the name of Israel's ancient deliverer. 
 
 Mr. Lombard was, as may be supposed, a 
 great patron and supporter of the Gospel 
 ministry, and sometimes officiated at religious 
 meetings himself. On such occasions, with 
 his never-failing Methodist ^'hembook" at 
 hand, he frequently led the singing, and no 
 church organ or other musical machinery was 
 necessary when the choice of hymns happened 
 to fall on his favorite, old Turner. The bass 
 of this glorious old melody, as he rendered it, 
 would have been a caution to Myron Whitney. 
 He would almost have imagined that seven 
 thunders uttered their voices. It would have 
 done one's soul good, whether he ioined in 
 the spirit of the meeting or not, to be present 
 at so hearty, so spontaneous, so tremendous a 
 performance. 
 
 In the winter of 1854, when the old Christian 
 
 36 
 
Joshua Lombard 
 
soldier was well advanced in years, he fell into 
 a lingering illness, and at a revival meeting 
 in the neighborhood, told his hearers that he 
 had ^^no idee" that he would be with them a 
 year from then; but, about that time, as he 
 afterwards stated, he ^^told the Lord" that if 
 He would let him live fifteen years longer, as 
 he did King Hezekiah, after his sickness 
 (spoken of in II. Kings: 20), he would then be 
 willing to go. He died in 1869, just fifteen 
 years from the date of his promise. Is the 
 age of miracles past? 
 
 Mr. Lombard built, with his own hands, 
 the first grist mill in the settlement, and caused 
 to be built the first mill for the manufacture 
 of shingles and clapboards, which he trans- 
 ported down the river and across the Umbagog 
 to market, in a huge boat built by himself 
 and called by his neighbors the Great Eastern. 
 He was engaged in the lumber business as well 
 as farming during all the years of his residence 
 on the Magalloway, and drove his own team 
 in winter, drawing timber from the woods, 
 after his recovery from the sickness before 
 mentioned, when he was more than eighty 
 years old. 
 
 His oldest son, Thomas, who was larger 
 than his father, and the strongest man on the 
 river, never, as far as his neighbors knew, 
 employed his great strength to any important 
 purpose. After commencing life for himself, 
 with a farm, a house and an industrious wife, 
 he suddenly disappeared from the country, 
 
 37 
 
and, as far as the writer of this ever knew, 
 never was heard of afterward. No memorial 
 of him now remains on the river, save the 
 walled excavation, now in the midst of the 
 forest, which was once the cellar of his humble 
 abode. His mysterious absence dates from 
 about the year 1846. 
 
 38 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN striking contrast with the athletic pio- 
 neers last noticed, another of the heroic 
 number now claims our attention, who in 
 weight and in stature hardly exceeded the 
 ordinary boy of twelve years, his greatest 
 height during life being hardly iive feet; but 
 what he lacked in physical proportions was 
 more than made up in a certain quality 
 commonly called ''grit,'' which was nothing 
 less than phenomenal and wonderful. This 
 was Alvan Wilson of Westbrook, Me. He had 
 formerly been a cabin-boy, or sailor before 
 the mast, on a coasting vessel, and no amount 
 of old-time sailor ruffianism could intimidate 
 or subdue the desperate temper, when aroused, 
 of this puny grandson and greatgrandson of 
 two who served in the great struggle for 
 American Independence. 
 
 Arriving on the Magalloway in 1831, he 
 applied himself vigorously to clearing up a 
 farm on its western shore, some three miles 
 below the falls, built a log house, married one 
 of the fair daughters of the patriarch Richard 
 Lombard, and commenced a career of industry, 
 prosperity and usefulness, which terminated 
 only with his well-extended life. He was a 
 man of extensive reading and compass of 
 
 39 
 
intellect — a citizen of the world, rather than 
 of the obscure hamlet where his lot was cast 
 and to the upbuilding of which he faithfully 
 contributed. He was chiefly instrumental in 
 the erection of the first covered bridge, across 
 the river, connecting the Maine and New 
 Hampshire settlements, and was successively 
 clerk, assessor and treasurer of the plantation 
 for many years. The writer of this, has the 
 statement from his own lips, that it was at his 
 suggestion that the article was written and 
 sent to the Portland Advertiser, which led to 
 the building of the Atlantic & St. Lawrence 
 (now Grand Trunk) Railroad. 
 
 Mr. Wilson was an instance of great dis- 
 parity between body and mind. His intellect 
 and manly dignity towered above his diminu- 
 tive person, like Charles the Great over his 
 dwarf parent, Pepin le Bref. His soul was 
 not circumscribed by the circuit of mountains 
 around his rural home, or by the ocean 
 bounds of his dear native country. The loss 
 of the beloved wife of his early days, and 
 afterward of his only and promising son, who 
 fell valiantly in the great Civil War, were 
 bereavements from which he never recovered. 
 He died, in 1883, at the age of seventy-five, 
 being succeeded in his estate by a married 
 daughter, the sole solace and comforter of 
 his declining years. 
 
 40 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN M. WILSON, uncle of 
 the preceding and native of the same 
 town, commenced business on the Magal- 
 loway near the year 1829, but made no perma- 
 nent settlement there until five years later. 
 Attracted thither by the prevailing timberland 
 speculation of the times, he engaged arduously 
 therein, and soon having the entire township 
 at his disposal, immediately commenced opera- 
 tions for the manufacture of the valuable pine 
 timber with which the territory then abounded. 
 Having located a farm and residence on the 
 west shore of the river, near the foot of the 
 falls, he straightway began the erection of a 
 saw mill and stone dam, which last being 
 carried away before completion, by a sudden 
 freshet, was replaced by a dam of logs which 
 proved a permanent barrier and conserver of 
 the tremendous waterpower at that point. 
 
 In 1842 he erected a grist mill on the 
 opposite shore, and the following year, his 
 saw mill having been burned by the gross 
 carelessness of a neighbor who had been 
 entrusted therewith, he immediately rebuilt 
 the same, from which he supplied for many 
 years the increasing demand for building 
 material in all the surrounding region. 
 
 41 
 
At about this time, by an article published 
 in the Portland Weekly Advertiser, he aroused 
 public attention to the project of a railroad 
 from the Atlantic to the St. Lawrence, and 
 Mr. John A. Poor of Portland, being a repre- 
 sentative that year, seized and embodied the 
 idea in a bill which was presented to, and 
 passed by, the General Court of Maine, 
 granting a charter for a railroad from Portland 
 to Canada line, which action being recip- 
 rocated on the part of the Canadian Parlia- 
 ment, preparations for building immediately 
 commenced. 
 
 Captain Wilson himself piloted through the 
 vast wilderness between his home and Canada, 
 late in the autumn of 1844, the first expedition 
 for the survey of a route for said railroad, 
 intending, if possible, to have the valley of the 
 Magalloway adopted as the great inter- 
 national thoroughfare. This experience at 
 that season of the year, of traversing, through 
 a foot of crusted snow, an unknown and track- 
 less wilderness more than fifty miles in extent, 
 with only such provisions as they could carry 
 on their backs, and the crew meanwhile on 
 the verge of mutiny, fearing they were lost 
 and would starve to death, — this, Mr. Wilson 
 considered one of the most trying experiences 
 of his pioneer life. 
 
 The next year he piloted a similar expedi- 
 tion, but with less hardship, through the 
 valley of the Connecticut, but in these, as in 
 many subsequent efforts toward opening up 
 
 42 
 
Capt. John M. Wilson 
 At 83 years of age 
 
his adopted wilderness country, he was doomed 
 to grievous disappointment. 
 
 His next enterprise for home improvement 
 was the location of a carriage road thence, 
 east of Umbagog Lake, to the nearest town 
 beyond, and the building, on its route, of the 
 first and only bridge ever built over the inlet 
 of said lake. This project also, as far as 
 related to the road, failed through the opposi- 
 tion of local tax-payers, and to this day the 
 only exit for the isolated Magalloway com- 
 munity is by water, or down the west shore 
 of the river, to Errol, N. H. 
 
 In 1848 Captain Wilson was commissioned, 
 in company with Honorable Isaac N. Stanley 
 and Colonel Samuel Morrill of Dixiield, Me., 
 to survey and set off wild lands in the town- 
 ships bordering on the head waters of the 
 Androscoggin, for the support of schools and 
 the Gospel ministry, a work which occupied 
 some four months' time and furnished much 
 harmless adventure, and no little of enjoyable 
 recreation, to mutual friends and kindred 
 spirits in that line of business. 
 
 In 1850 he procured the establishment of 
 a United States mail-route to ^Wilson's Mills,'' 
 and was himself appointed postmaster, which 
 office he held fourteen years, the first mail 
 carrier on the route being Luther D., eldest 
 son of Lemuel Fickett, the second settler of 
 the township. Mr. Wilson was also, the 
 same year, appointed a deputy for taking 
 the United States Census in the surrounding 
 
 43 
 
district, and was soon afterward appointed, 
 by the state executive, to fill a vacancy on the 
 board of County Commissioners. 
 
 In 1856 he procured and superintended the 
 erection, near his mills, of the first bridge of 
 any kind ever built over the Magalloway 
 River. In 1858 he was appointed commis- 
 sioner for Maine, in company with Commis- 
 sioner Henry O. Kent of New Hampshire, to 
 survey and re-establish the dividing line of 
 the two contiguous States. Also the same 
 year he personally superintended the location 
 of a county road from his neighborhood, by 
 way of Parmachene Lake, to meet another 
 located from Newport, Canada, to the national 
 boundary. This enterprise also failed for 
 want of patronage, and the location was dis- 
 continued. 
 
 During the summers of 1863 and 1864, 
 Captain Wilson was employed by the State 
 in the survey of wild lands in the county of 
 Aroostook. In 1874, when more than seventy- 
 five years of age, he was employed late in 
 autumn to re-trace and re-mark the 45th 
 parallel of north latitude from its junction 
 with the national boundaiy at Hall Stream, 
 Vt., eastward through the wilderness of 
 northern New Hampshire to Maine; and 
 here again he was destined, at his advanced 
 age, to contend with a disaffection, akin to 
 mutiny, in his crew. Having subsisted for 
 two weeks on the provisions they took 
 on their backs with them from Canaan, Vt., 
 
 44 
 
and having nearly exhausted the same, their 
 purpose was to obtain more (when they 
 should arrive there) of a crew of men who 
 were building a dam on the Diamond River 
 at a point which lay directly on their course. 
 Day after day they watched and listened for 
 the longed-for stream, but only to be dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 A lurking suspicion now seized certain of 
 the crew that they had been led off the course 
 by variations of the compass. At length, 
 one fine afternoon, they came to the brink of 
 a very deep valley, and one of the men 
 climbed a tree to take observations. He had 
 been engaged in lumbering on the Diamond, 
 only the winter before, and was expected to 
 recognize the locality. 
 
 ^'Well! what do ye think. ^'^ called out one 
 of the men from below, to him. 
 
 ^^I am satisfied,^' said he, ^^that this is not 
 the valley of the Diamond.'^ 
 
 ^What the devil is it, then?^^ excitedly 
 asked the man below. 
 
 ^Well, youVe asked me too much. What's 
 your opinion, Cap'n?" he asked, addressing 
 the compass man, who was setting his instru- 
 ment for another object. 
 
 '^I don't know," was the careless reply; ^^I 
 never was here before." 
 
 At this the two line men stared with alarm. 
 Their long-pent-up fears broke forth. 'We've 
 gone on in this way long enough!" said one of 
 them. 'We'd better use what little provi- 
 
 45 
 
slons we've got, In getting where there's 
 more, instead of running till It's all gone and 
 then finding ourselves up at Parmachene Lake 
 or the Lord knows where! Let's go back on 
 the line!" 
 
 At this point the ^^Cap'n," who had hitherto 
 taken no notice of the crew's fears or com- 
 plaints, broke in sternly, with: ^^Never! I 
 have begun this job, and I shall finish it! 
 This is the valley of the Diamond! We have 
 provisions enough yet for another day, and 
 shall reach more in that time! Spot that 
 tree! — further-r to the right! — further-r-!" 
 
 No more was said. The line men sprang 
 to their places, plying their axes with the 
 energy of desperation, and before sunset, had 
 struck last winter's cuttings on the Diamond, 
 and a last winter's logging camp, with a 
 stove, fuel and lamps all ready for use in it, 
 where they made themselves welcome and 
 comfortable for the night, and the next day, 
 at noon, reached the works of the dam- 
 builders, from whence another day's survey 
 brought them to the State of Maine (about 
 two miles north of the upper Magalloway 
 settlement) and to the completion of the 
 operation. 
 
 Captain Wilson's last public service, in the 
 line of his life-long profession, was the survey 
 and remarking, In the summer of 1877, of the 
 boundaries of the Dartmouth College Grant, 
 on the Diamond Rivers, the labor of which 
 (involving two weeks of tracing lines over 
 
 46 
 
William H. — Son ofCapt. John M. Wilson 
 
 who cleared the most northerly farm in Oxford 
 
 County, Maine, and built the first bridge 
 
 over the Little Diamond River 
 
steep mountains and through swamps of 
 tangling underbrush wet all the time with 
 dew or rain) he was persuaded to relinquish 
 to his two sons, while he himself remained 
 at the nearest settlement to look after the 
 work. He, however, afterwards spent one 
 winter scaling timber in the woods of the 
 Nulhegan River, Vermont, boarding and 
 lodging at the lumbermen's camp, when he 
 was in his eighty-second year. 
 
 In the days of the old Whig party, Mr. 
 Wilson had mingled somewhat in the turmoil 
 of politics, and in the autumn of 1843, in spite 
 of the almost solid Democracy of his district, 
 was chosen the first and only representative 
 ever sent from the Magalloway to the Maine 
 General Court, although at different times 
 the New Hampshire portion of the settlements 
 has been represented at Concord by Leonard 
 York (greatgrandson of the fourth settler), 
 Peter Bennett (grandson of the third settler) 
 and Ziba F. Durkee, successor to Nathaniel 
 Bean on the Isaac York estate, and formerly 
 of Lebanon, N. H. 
 
 In 1866 Captain Wilson abandoned the 
 Magalloway country and, together with his 
 youngest son, purchased a farm, and built a 
 new residence, on the shore of the Connecti- 
 cut, about five miles north of the Grand 
 Trunk Railroad, at North Stratford, N. H. 
 Little apparent cause had he for regret, at 
 thus bidding adieu to the scene of his mani- 
 fold disappointments, trials and afflictions. 
 
 47 
 
He had, while there, buried three dearly 
 beloved grown-up sons, and his aged mother; 
 his mills had been swept away by fire and 
 flood; his neat stock killed by lightning; and 
 of all the fond hopes that had inspired him 
 in early manhood to exchange his native home 
 and cultured environment for a life of priva- 
 tion and hardship, in a far-off wilderness 
 country, not one had been realized. After 
 residing for a few years on the shore of the 
 Connecticut, where he buried the ever-devoted 
 companion of his life, he removed, with his 
 son, to Old Orchard Beach, where on the 18th 
 of September, 1884, he died of paralysis, worn 
 out by incessant toil, anxiety and disappoint- 
 ment, at the age of eighty-five years and 
 eight months. He was buried in the old 
 family lot at Westbrook (now Deering), 
 beside his hero father, the interment being 
 witnessed from the very house where he first 
 saw the light, — the worn and weary pilgrim 
 had at last returned home. 
 
 Captain Wilson was the youngest son of 
 Major Nathaniel Wilson of Westbrook, a 
 veteran of the Revolutionary War, and of 
 Anna M. Wilson, daughter of Colonel Samuel 
 March of Scarboro, Me., who raised and 
 drilled in his own dooryard a regiment, which 
 he afterwards led on many a bloody field of 
 the great struggle for American Liberty. The 
 son and grandson inherited many of the 
 military proclivities of his heroic ancestors, 
 and was wont to remark that no amusement, 
 
 48 
 
diversion or recreation ever equalled to him 
 the enjoyment of a good militia training, in 
 which exercises he was an acknowledged 
 expert, and attained to the captaincy of his 
 company at an early age. 
 
 Though small in stature, being hardly more 
 than five feet seven in height, and though in 
 his daily walk one of the most unassuming of 
 men, yet when aroused in any matter of busi- 
 ness, or by any casual emergency, his bearing 
 was vigorous and commanding, as that of a 
 general on the field of battle. But in what- 
 ever circumstances, or on whatever occasion, 
 his manner was natural, unstudied and 
 spontaneous, as that of a child; and this rare 
 spontaneity and ingenuousness of demeanor 
 and character lent a charm to his personality, 
 which ensured him friendly relations and 
 companionship wherever he went, and 
 endeared his memory, not only to his sur- 
 viving relatives, but to the many, afar and 
 near, with whom he had been associated in 
 various relations of business. Although a 
 man of unswerving moral principle, integrity 
 and soundness of Christian belief, he made 
 no pretentions as a religionist; he never sought 
 religion as an accomplishment, as a personal 
 asset, or worldly passport, and he considered 
 ambition for a religious reputation, as of all 
 worldly ambitions the most contemptible; 
 but when it came to the ^ Visdom from above, 
 which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, 
 and easy to be entreated, — full of mercy and 
 
 49 
 
good fruits, — without partiality, and without 
 hypocrisy, ^^ — when it came to that, I say, 
 his record on high would yield to that of but 
 few, since the earthly days of Him who said: 
 ^^All things whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do unto you, do ye even so to them/' 
 
 50 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 JOSEPH STURTEVANT of Oxford, Me., 
 J settled, in 1831, on the summit of the hill 
 occupied in part by Messrs. Linnell and Lom- 
 bard, and cleared up, with much labor, a large 
 and very productive farm, which has ever re- 
 mained entirely surrounded by forest. He was 
 a man of cheerful and convivial temperament, 
 and with a large family of sons and daughters, 
 all more or less inclined to look on the bright 
 side of life, his home was long the center of 
 rural gayety for many miles around. Two 
 gifted violinists in the family furnished not 
 only their home, but the whole surrounding 
 region, with the required melody for any 
 festive occasion, and as the sons were leaders 
 in music, so were the daughters in the graceful 
 art of keeping time thereto, with their nimble 
 feet, on the dancing floor. 
 
 Mr. Sturtevant, and all but one of his five 
 sons (the eldest never having resided at their 
 mountain home), confined their lives quite 
 exclusively to the severe labor of their rugged 
 farm and prospered thereon for many years. 
 All were of sound constitution, vigorous and 
 energetic, but George, the fourth son, was a 
 prodigy of vivacity and sprightliness, and 
 his equal for frolic mirthfulness has never 
 
 51 
 
been known to the writer of this memorial. 
 But grief came at length to that joyous house- 
 hold, when the third son (one of the violinists), 
 and afterwards the almost idolized mother, 
 were consigned to the grave. The halcyon 
 days of mirth and song in that happy home 
 were o'er. The family scattered to widely 
 separate localities, until hardly one, save 
 the father, of all that loving circle remained. 
 The lonely parent eventually married a second 
 time, but survived the dear companion of his 
 better days but eleven years. He died in 
 1860, at the age of seventy-two, and was 
 buried near his own sumptuous ''house in the 
 wilderness." 
 
 52 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ALTHOUGH no mention of any but the 
 first generation of Magalloway pioneers 
 was contemplated at the commencement of 
 these sketches, it would be injustice, both to 
 the subject and to the parties concerned, not 
 to mention certain of the sons of the path- 
 finders whose records for adventure and enter- 
 prise were not inferior to those of their heroic 
 predecessors. 
 
 Among these we may mention Lorenzo D., 
 eldest son of Richard Lombard, and partner 
 with him in all the hardships and labors of his 
 pioneer experience. Lorenzo was a typical 
 country boy, in the fullest sense of the phrase, 
 six feet high, straight, large framed, and no 
 Indian of the forest could surpass him in 
 pioneer sagacity, hardihood, or the amount 
 of labor he could perform in a given time, 
 were it a day, a year, or a quarter of a century. 
 He was said to be the most expert performer 
 with an axe on the Magalloway waters. He 
 was one of the most successful hunters and 
 trappers, and his record as an industrious and 
 prosperous farmer was unquestioned and 
 unimpeachable. The first frame house at 
 the upper settlement was built by him, which 
 house is standing today, and forms an impor- 
 
 53 
 
tant part of the Aziscoos Hotel, kept by Mr. 
 F. A. Flint, the present proprietor of the 
 broad and beautiful estate where the subject 
 of this sketch lived, died and was buried. 
 Mr. Lombard^s untimely death in 1853, at the 
 age of forty-five, was apparently hastened 
 by extreme exposure in the early spring, 
 during a hunting and trapping excursion, 
 which resulted in pneumonia, causing death 
 in a few days therefrom. Of his family only 
 a granddaughter now survives, and the name 
 of Lombard has long since disappeared from 
 the roll of Magalloway settlers. 
 
 54 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 NELSON FICKETT, eldest son of William 
 Fickett, the third of the upper Magal- 
 loway settlers, though a young man at the 
 time of his father^s migration thither, properly 
 claims place among the original pioneers. 
 Though never a man of heroic or adventurous 
 temperament, he ever maintained the charac- 
 ter of an honorable, useful and prosperous citi- 
 zen. Being a man of education and scholarly 
 inclinations, he early became one of the most 
 prominent in municipal or plantation affairs, 
 and was seldom or never without official 
 position in the community. At a little past 
 forty years of age, being left the sole survivor 
 of his father's family, he succeeded to the 
 whole valuable estate, to which, constantly 
 adding by prudent investments and per- 
 severing industry, he soon attained to a 
 competency which he enjoyed to the last. 
 His death, at the age of fifty-six, was caused 
 by falling under a loaded team which he was 
 guiding, in the winter time, down a slippery 
 hillside, which accident he survived only a 
 few days. His remains now lie beside his 
 father's on the beautiful estate where all the 
 mature years of his life were passed, and 
 which still continues in the possession of a 
 descendant of the family. He was the second 
 postmaster at Wilson's Mills, which position 
 he occupied from 1864 until near, if not 
 quite, to the time of his death. 
 
 55 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 LORENZO D., eldest son of Israel T. Lin- 
 nell, who at seventy-nine years of age is 
 still an expert in the use of the rifle, has been 
 from his childhood inured to all the vicissi- 
 tudes of pioneer life, and from boyhood one of 
 the most reliable in all the various exigencies 
 thereof ever known in the Magalloway region. 
 Late in the autumn of 1845, when a mere 
 youth, he joined the Connecticut Valley 
 expedition for the survey of a route for the 
 Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railroad, and on 
 its return homeward was persuaded, against 
 his better judgment, by a young lawyer of 
 Andover, Me., named Talbot, to leave the 
 main body of the company and attempt the 
 shortest route to his home by floating down 
 the Diamond River on a raft of logs. The 
 plan might, perhaps, have been a success, 
 but on arriving at the forks of the river, 
 where the Swift Diamond empties into the 
 main stream, they were overtaken by the 
 darkness of night, and being too near the falls 
 for safety, they concluded to leave their raft 
 and proceed by land. They had gone but a 
 few rods, however, when they unexpectedly 
 found themselves on an island, from which 
 they found it impossible to wade to the main- 
 
 56 
 
Lorenzo Dow Linnell 
 At 86 year^ of age 
 
land on account of the depth and strength of 
 the current. 
 
 There was now no alternative but for them 
 to pass the night on the island, and an imme- 
 diate fire was necessary to keep them, wet as 
 they were, from freezing to death; but how 
 was a fire to be obtained? By desperate 
 search young Linnell discovered, beneath the 
 arm, in his cotton undergarment, a small dry 
 spot which he was not long in cutting out, and 
 on this, from a water-tight flask, they poured 
 powder, which they ignited by flint and steel, 
 and with the help of birch bark picked up in 
 the darkness, soon had a roaring fire, and 
 were out of immediate danger. 
 
 At morning^s dawn the channel of the river 
 which they had attempted to ford was frozen 
 over to a thickness sufficient to bear their 
 weight, and thus they escaped from an island 
 experience which had bidden fair to be more 
 tragic than that of Robinson Crusoe. The 
 episode is since commemorated by the name 
 of Talbot's Island, which the scene of their 
 perilous night adventure still retains. 
 
 57 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE life of David M., second son of Joseph 
 Sturtevant, furnishes an example of in- 
 dustry, of fortitude, and of perseverance In 
 the midst of misfortune, unparalleled in the 
 history of the Magalloway, and rarely sur- 
 passed in the annals of mankind. In the win- 
 ter of 1845, soon after attaining his majority, 
 he commenced lumbering near Errol, N. H., 
 and never within the memory of the oldest 
 Inhabitants has there been another so dis- 
 astrous a lumbering operation as that. Hardly 
 a man who entered the woods on that ill-fated 
 job came out well and whole. One man, 
 John Bennett, Jr., as before mentioned, was 
 instantly killed by a falling tree; another who 
 stood by his side was injured and narrowly 
 escaped death by the same stroke; a teamster 
 was afterwards jammed between his sled 
 and a wayside stump; and finally Mr. Sturte- 
 vant himself was struck above the knee by 
 the whole blade of an axe, and saved from 
 death only by the most vigorous efforts of the 
 crew, who conveyed him to his home as soon 
 as possible, dashing snow in his face continually 
 to keep the breath of life in his body. Many 
 months elapsed before he was again on his 
 feet, but with all the surgical skill they could 
 obtain, he never recovered the use of his 
 knee-joint, and the amount of labor since 
 performed by him, on that straight and rigid 
 
 58 
 
David M. Sturtevant 
 
leg, has never been surpassed by any neighbor, 
 however nimble, healthy or sound. 
 
 In 1847 the young hero commenced the 
 erection of a saw mill and dam, on the outlet 
 of what has since been known as Sturtevant's 
 Pond, where the loose nature of the shores 
 rendered the success of the project somewhat 
 doubtful. He had hardly got the dam com- 
 pleted and the mill in operation when the 
 treacherous bottom gave way, and the labor 
 and hopes of many months were apparently 
 annihilated, but not so in the mind of the 
 indefatigable proprietor. He immediately 
 repaired the damage and resumed business, 
 when away went the water supply again, 
 and away went the hopes of everyone but 
 himself in the ultimate success of the enter- 
 prise. Again was the dam repaired, and 
 again swept away, by which time Mr. Sturte- 
 vant, concluding he had lost enough by 
 building on so uncertain a foundation, aban- 
 doned the project and his expensive saw mill 
 to oblivion and decay. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Sturtevant had been lum- 
 bering to some extent in winter, and farming 
 in summer. Not long after the events just 
 narrated, and soon after harvest, his barn 
 took fire and was consumed, with the year's 
 crops, together with a valuable young horse. 
 The barn was immediately replaced, but 
 Mr. Sturtevant soon after took up a larger 
 farm, engaged in agriculture on a heavier scale, 
 took to himself a wife, and rapidly advanced, 
 both in prosperity and posterity. 
 
 In 1861 the dreadful scourge of diphtheria 
 
 59 
 
broke out in his infant family, and swept away 
 his young wife and five children, leaving only 
 the youngest, a boy babe of one year, as an 
 inducement for the half-distracted father 
 longer to live. But employment of the hands 
 is a great regulator of the mind, and Mr. 
 Sturtevant, by plunging desperately into the 
 cares and duties of his several farms, avoided 
 what under no worse circumstances has been 
 the sad fate of thousands. He thenceforth 
 recovered rapidly from his financial embar- 
 rassments, came into possession of more real 
 estate than any four other men on the river, 
 and was virtually landlord and banker of the 
 whole settlement. But misfortune had not 
 yet lost sight of her favorite victim. In the 
 autumn of 1879, again his well-filled barn and 
 all his other buildings were burned to the 
 ground, and not a cent of insurance was there 
 to atone for the loss. 
 
 The calamity, however, bore not as heavily 
 on him as those of previous years. His son 
 had now become a substantial help in his 
 business, and together they soon had a new 
 and elegant set of buildings, including a barn 
 one hundred feet long, and a small store 
 building, now well filled with the great variety 
 of goods indispensable to back-country trade. 
 Mr. Sturtevant is now in his eighty-sixth 
 year, hale and hearty, weighs as usual some- 
 thing like two hundred and twenty-five 
 pounds, drives his own team in summer or 
 winter as occasion requires, attends church as 
 often as opportunity offers, and is favorably 
 known throughout a wide extent of country. 
 
 60 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THIS hasty and incomplete glance at the 
 pioneer experience of the more prominent 
 and best known of the Magalloway's early set- 
 tlers is now nearly concluded, and ^ Vhat shall 
 I say more/' for the time (and information) 
 would fail me to tell of Jacob York, the son of 
 Isaac, and of Joseph, the son of Jacob; of 
 Richard Caldwell, George Tucker, Abel Heath, 
 Simeon Shurtleff, Benjamin Knight, of David 
 Lombard also, and of Samuel, and the Sawyers 
 and Hibbards, who through faithfulness sub- 
 dued forests, stopped the mouths of bears and 
 wolves, quenched the violence of forest fires, 
 escaped the edge of the tomahawk, and who 
 wandered in deserts and mountains, being 
 destitute, afflicted, and tormented by black 
 flies and mosquitoes. And these all having 
 obtained a good report through faithfulness, 
 received not the promise, but having seen it 
 afar off, were persuaded of, and embraced it, 
 and declared plainly that they looked there 
 for a better country. 
 
 Boston, Mass., March, 1904. 
 
 61 
 
SUPPLEMENT 
 
 A PERIOD of eleven years since the conclu- 
 sion of the foregoing, has wrought some 
 changes in the personnel of the community in 
 question, some notice of which the subject 
 seems properly to demand. The name of Stur- 
 tevant, like those of Lombard, Sawyer and 
 Hibbard, has now disappeared from the time- 
 honored roll, and with only two exceptions, 
 the name of Fickett also. 
 
 As to the family of John M. Wilson, the 
 township, county and state, where for fifty 
 years his name was familiar as household 
 words, have now, for nearly a like period, 
 known the same no more. 
 
 The family of the Linnells has now extended 
 to its sixth generation, the first two in the 
 settlement having lately become extinct by 
 the death, at the age of eighty-six, of Lorenzo, 
 the eldest son of the nonagenarian Israel T. 
 
 The redoubtable David M. Sturtevant 
 departed in peace, on April 26, 1906, at his 
 own sumptuous home, at the age of eighty- 
 eight years. His only son and heir, a promi- 
 nent lumber merchant and all 'round business 
 man, now resides in Colebrook, N. H., where 
 he took up his residence some three years 
 since. 
 
 62 
 
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 too 
 
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The oldest continuous resident on the 
 river, Mr. Elihu Leavit, departed this life 
 December 1, 1907, eighty-four years from the 
 time of his arrival there with his parents when 
 but one year old. 
 
 The last surviving member of the first 
 family in Lincoln Plantation, Mrs. Catherine 
 I. Emmet, second daughter of Elder Richard 
 Lombard, died in New York, no longer ago 
 than October 31, 1912, at the age of ninety- 
 eight years, — a lady whose period of existence 
 more than spanned the entire age of the A/[agal- 
 loway settlements. Of her five robust pioneer 
 brothers, it is worthy of remark, that the old- 
 est and ablest one of the number died in 1853, 
 at the early age of forty-five, after only a few 
 days^ sickness with pneumonia. The second 
 in years, Samuel, was instantly killed in 1842, 
 while assisting in erecting one of his own farm 
 buildings. The next younger, David S., died 
 at a mature age while sitting at his writing 
 desk in his home at Brewer, Me. The fourth 
 of the brotherhood, Richard Franklin Lom- 
 bard, formerly a veteran of the New Bedford 
 whaling expeditions, is said to have dropped 
 dead in a street near his home in Wilmington, 
 Del., at near the age of eighty years; while 
 Henry, the youngest of the family, was fatally 
 shot, by an accident, near his residence in 
 Des Moines, Iowa. Hardly, if one, bearing 
 the name of Lombard, now remains of the 
 beloved family of the patriarch Richard, to 
 perpetuate his respected and venerated name. 
 
 63 
 
Automobiles and motorcycles have super- 
 seded on the now unexceptionable Magalloway 
 highways, the original ox-cart and one-horse 
 wagon, and the traditional neighborhood 
 gossip of the lady-settlers, as well as the busi- 
 ness conferences of the sterner sex, is now 
 carried on by telephone, from Parmachene 
 Lake to Berlin Falls, and any required extent 
 beyond. Not a vestige of dam, mill or 
 bridge now remains where once '^the rushing 
 and the roar'' of Wilson's Mills varied the 
 monotonous murmur 
 
 *'0f that stream whose sunny gleam cheered the little 
 rural town." 
 
 The rushing and roar are now supplied in 
 that immediate locality by the incessant 
 activities of the present proprietor of the 
 former mill-site, Mr. Walter Bucknam, who 
 during the last thirty years has caused that 
 rocky southern shore to rejoice and blossom 
 as the rose, and who now rivals the former 
 reputation of the heroic David Sturtevant, as 
 the most indefatigable money-getter on the 
 Magalloway River. 
 
 FINIS 
 
 64