ANDROSCOGGIN HISTORY February 1994 Newsletter of the
Androscoggin Historical Society #9; No. 11

Contributed by Androscoggin Historical Society
http://www.rootsweb.com/~meandrhs
Copyright. All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

Androscoggin Historical Society MEMBERSHIP MAILING
by A. B. (Bob) Palmer, Jr.

This year the Directors voted to explore ideas to
increase the income and reduce the expenses of the
Society in order to make ends meet to continue the
Society at its current level of service to the
members and the public. They authorized mailing of
meeting notices within house to reduce our mailing
expense.

Starting this year Bob (Vice President) and Alma
(Membership Secretary) Palmer print out the mailing
and meeting notices labels from their computer and
take them to Robert Taylor, our Executive Secretary.
Bob then, with any available volunteers, puts the
labels on post cards and mails them out. So far,
this procedure seems to be working well.

The "membership list," which is comprised of all
names in the Society's records for the past three
years, had 149 entries as of 13 Nov. 1993. Some of
the entries may have two members' names if they are
at the same address. For the 1993 November meeting
of the Society, the Palmers revised the "meeting
notice card" list to reduce the postage costs. All
entries out of state, long travel distances within
the state, and past members (folks whose dues for
1993-94 have not been received, were removed. This
list has 115 entries. This reduced the postage cost
(stamped cards) by $9.86 per meeting.

On each mailing label you will notice 2 or 4 small
letters above first names or after a name to
designate our three paying membership levels, namely
an = Annual ($5.00 yearly), conb = Contributing
($10.00 yearly), or life = Life ($50.00 once). If
there is a [past] on your label it means we have not
received any dues for the 1993-94 year.

Our financial and member years run from July 1 to
June 30 of the following calendar year.

If you note any errors or omissions, or wish to be
added or taken off the list, or have any questions
or comments, please contact Bob Taylor at the
Society, 207-784-0586, weekdays, 1:30-5:00 P.M., or
2 Turner Street, Auburn ME 04210; or Bob or Alma
Palmer, 207-783-2513 anytime (we have one of those
answering machines), or Minot, ME 04258-0067.

OUR COLLECTION OF LETTERS AND AUTOGRAPHS OF FAMOUS
AMERICANS by Robert Taylor

At the October 1993 meeting of the Society, Geneva
Kirk, one of our members, gave the Society a letter
written by Edwin Booth on October 11, 1872, in which
he states that he would be performing the play
"Hamlet" at Lewiston that month. Mr. Booth, besides
being the brother of the assassin of President
Lincoln, was a well-known actor of the time. He
appeared in Central Hall in Central Block at the
corner of Maine and Lisbon Streets, Lewiston.

The Booth letter adds to the Society's already large
collection of letters and autographs of famous
Americans, such as those of George Washington and
Abraham Lincoln. The oldest group of letters and
autographs are from many members of Congress in
1846, all addressed to James O. L. Foster, Esq., of
Lewiston, in compliance with his request for their
autographs for the Harper Library Association.
Foster pasted them in a ledger, along with some
autographs of some noted Maine figures like Hannibal
Hamlin, Judge Nathan Clifford, and Governors Enoch
Lincoln, Robert P. Dunlap, John Fairfield and Edward
Kavanagh.

The Society also has a more recent collection of
letters written to Alice Lord (1877-1966), the first
woman journalist in this state. She was a member of
the editorial department of the Lewiston Evening
Journal for more than 47 years before her retirement
in 1946. Among these letters written to Miss Lord
are those from Eleanor Roosevelt, Carl Sandburg,
Booth Tarkington, Joshua L. Chamberlain, Holman Day,
Luther Burbank, Percival P. Baxter, W. T. Grant,
Jane Adams, John Philip Sousa, Robert Tristram
Coffin, and many others.

Autograph of Hannibal Hamlin

J. W. PENNEY - LOCAL HISTORIAN by Robert Taylor

John Witham Penney was born in New Gloucester in
1831, and his education was received in the common
schools. He came to Mechanic Falls in 1860 where he
worked at his trade as a blacksmith. Five years
later he sold his shop and tools to the Denison
Paper company and entered the service of that
corporation where he remained until 1872.

In 1872 J. W. Penney established his own company and
began manufacturing steam engines, machinery and
foundry articles of all kinds. In 1886 he admitted
his two sons, A. R. and S. R. Penney to partnership
and from that time their business known as J. W.
Penney Sons company grew to become one of the
greatest machine shops in Maine and was a great
factor in the prosperity of Mechanic Falls.

J. W. Penney retired from business in 1892 and
devoted himself to his favorite occupation of
writing and collecting Indian relics. Of these he
had a fine collection which he presented to the
Maine Historical Society. A smaller portion of his
collection was later given to the Androscoggin
Historical Society and are on display there. Some
124 potsherds, listed as the "J. W. Penney
Collection," are found at our museum and were
catalogued in December of 1983 by the Maine Historic
Preservation Society. A copy of that work can be
found at our Society. The catalogue mentions that
Penney had gathered his Indian relics from Indian
village sites along Bog Brook in Minot and on Laurel
Hill in Auburn.

Mr. Penney was also a member of the Maine Society of
the Sons of the American Revolution and spent most
of his time in his later years locating and
recording a number of soldiers' graves in the local
area. In conjunction with this project he copied
numerous grave inscriptions found in cemeteries in
Minot and Poland. A transcript of his cemetery
listings can be found at the Maine Historical
Society, from which our copy was obtained. Mr.
Penney possessed considerable literary ability and
wrote several articles along historical lines for
various publications. He died November 2, 1909, aged
78 years, 5 months, in Mechanic Falls.

BRIEF HISTORY OF NORTH AUBURN

The following is a history reprinted from William F.
Stanwood, The Lewiston and Auburn Directory
(Lewiston: 1864), page 151.

This village is situated at the head of Wilson pond,
one mile north of West Auburn. It was first settled
by Simeon Caswell, from Plymouth County, Mass.,
about 1787. Mr. Caswell built the first mills upon
the stream, which he sold in a few years to Isaac
Brett, from Bridgewater. Mr. Brett remained in
possession of the mills until 1815, when he sold to
Timothy Bailey, the father of the Baileys now
prominent citizens of the village. During the first
18 years of the present century, five dwelling
houses were erected; one by Isaac Brett near the
present site of T. Bailey's mansion, one by Nathan
Warren on the site of F. H. Lander's cottage, one by
Artemus Warren on the site of Asa Holmes' house,
another where the town tavern now stands was
occupied by Artemus Brown and David Warren, both as
a dwelling and store, and the fifth near where P. H.
Keith now resides, by Chelsea Hatch.

In 1820, Nehemiah Packard and his son Stephen
Packard purchased the mills of Mr. Bailey, and
erected the house now occupied by Peter Noyes, Esq.
Mr. S. Packard sold one-third of the water privilege
to Messrs. Bradford Conant about the year 1848, who
erected a machine shop and furniture manufactory on
it.

Joseph S. Sargent, from Hallowell, Me., built a
tannery near the mills in 1825. In 1851, the mills,
machine shop, furniture manufactory, and tannery
were consumed by fire, which, except the tannery,
were immediately rebuilt, and are now in successful
operation.

ON OUR WISH LIST: A COMPUTER

As you upgrade your business or personal computing
capabilities, you may be faced with what to do with
the old computer, keyboard, and printer that still
have some life in them. Please think of a tax-
deductible contribution to the Historical Society,
not as an artifact for our museum, but as equipment
to enable us to operate in a more modern fashion.
This equipment also may be of great value to the
users of our library as an efficient way to take
notes from our books and documents. If you have
something that may be appropriate, please contact us
at 784-0586. Thanks.

THE DIARIES OF ANNE SUSAN JUMPER OF MINOT

Anne Susan Jumper (1824-1881) was the daughter and
only child of Nicholas and Huldah (Chandler) Jumper
of Minot, Maine. She married Oliver Hubbard Brown on
March 20, 1852, and they raised seven children. The
surviving diaries in our library are dated May,
1844, to May, 1846. For a master's degree, Mona
Ervin transcribed and annotated the diaries and
introduced them with an essay that provides some
history of Minot and of the Jumper family, along
with an analysis of the diaries. We have a copy of
this work, "The Diary of Anne Susan Jumper:
Revelations of a Rural Woman, 1844-1846." As Ervin
points out, the diaries contain substantial material
on Anne Susan's religious beliefs and on her
relationships with other women. Here we provide a
few samples of interest:

[May] 21. [1844] . . . marriage of M. [Merrill
Davis] and R. [Roxa Jane Prince] against the will of
her parents, she being only 15 years of age. The
affair excites considerable interest and is much
talked of. There are various opinions of course
concerning it. For my part I think her far "too
young to marry yet," and I hope she may not repent
in coming years of the step so rashly entered into.

[Oct.] 18.- On Monday last spite of the warning
clouds, we, i.e. besides Anne S., Elizabeth, Clara
and her father, sat out for the Conf. at Portland -
the great metropolis of our state, which C. and
myself had never visited and of course were
delighted with the idea tho' it was cold and cloudy.
We could not converse much, such were our several
positions, and thus enliven the dull monotony of
gray fields, tree and scattered houses, but that we
mattered not much - we were going to Portland. . . .

Well - we rode on and rode on, until nearly sunset I
should think when it began to rain. . . . The rain
began to pour at no very gentle rate, as we reached
Gery Corner and so much that we turned aside to Mr.
Sheldon's - where we spent the night - E, C, and I
occupying one bed as we had before wished. . . .

Well - the next morning in the rain we sat out again
for Portland. The roads were muddy, the wind
tolerable light, the rain heavy and the way almost
dreary, but Mr. J. [Rev. Elijah Jones, pastor of
Center Minot Cong. Church] enlivened the dreariness
in some degree singing fifty stanzas of The
Minstrel.

At length we arrived in Portland . . . For the
afternoon we went to meeting . . . . The meeting was
interesting when I could arouse my insupportably
dull senses enough to realize it, but I felt really
guilty that I could appreciate it no more.

[The next day after visiting and shopping:] We
listened for the remainder of the forenoon to Mr.
Freeman, pastor of the Abyssinia Church, his
discourse was good and had our eyes been closed we
could not have supposed him to be a Negro. . . .

[March] 15. [1845]- . . . Eve. Have just received
intelligence from my old friend, Jane Coburn, that
she has become bound in the wires of matrimony. Mrs.
Jane Clarke! Indeed! Well - all my friends will be
married before long I suppose - that is the way of
the world - however, I do not think my friends will
very soon find my friendship buried in the tomb of
matrimony. . . .

[April] 11. . . . I am distressed for poor cousin F.
That which I have long foreseen has at length come
to pass. He has learned that he is not particularly
loved by one whom he adores, and what pang could be
worse. . . .

17. "They tell me I am free!" Is it indeed possible
that I have seen 21 years? It must be a mere
imagining - an idea of the brain! 21 years! That age
which has seemed to me a kind of a gloomy spot in
youth; - I do not know why, but it does seem so -
that the twenty first year must be different from
those that went before or are to come after. . . .
Twenty one years! In all probability another twenty
one years, will have blotted my name from the
knowledge of all now in existence. The turf over my
resting place trodden in forgetfulness, none will
remember that I ever existed . . . . Brothers and
sisters, there are none to treasure up my name with
affection and when I am dead to cherish it as a
sacred remembrance. . . .

[June] 12. Yesterday heard of the death of Nathan
Downing - a young man from Auburn about 21. He was
at work in Cambridge, Mass. and on Sabbath morning
last, he went out to bathe. The water was deeper
than he supposed and being unable to swim he was
drowned. What an awful warning! On Monday night the
news was brought to his parents and to-day his body
has been brought home. His parents are agonized
almost to distraction. He was their eldest son - and
besides him they had only one.

[August] 28. . . . We have had quite a merry time
to-day. This morning James went to Brunswick for
Lewis and his moveables which have been ensconced
for five years in the walls of Bowd. Coll. . . .
[A]fter a merry time over L's chair, which we
thought must be very literary after having spent
five years in college, we went into the house where
again we found topics enough for merriment.

[Feb.] 15 [1846]. This has been a day of general
rejoicing - we have seen with our own eyes the
Intentions of Marriage between Kimball F. Verrill
and Olive H. Dinsmore. For eight or nine years they
have been - as the term is - "engaged" - but now
off, now on - until they have become a proverb and a
by-word throughout the town. . . 

AHS HISTORY - Part 8 by Harold Dutch

Part Seven of our history in Newsletter No. 8, took
us to the end of the '60s. We now pick up with the
year 1969-70. Officers elected were Harry Rowe,
president; John White, vice president; Clarence
March, executive secretary-curator; Edith Labbie,
recording secretary; Ruth Bishop, membership
secretary; Willis Trafton, general counsel; and Jane
Norris, treasurer, replacing Imelda Thibeault, who
retired after serving 24 years.

Clarence March reported at the annual meeting that
the Society had helped the Auburn Centennial
Committee and would hold open house during
Centennial Week. On the continuing search for a new
museum location, he had the last word. He said after
consulting with numerous museums, including the New
York Historical Society, his opinion was we should
not seek a home of our own until we have at least
$100,000 in the bank. We have not yet moved.

In September 1969, James Philoon was given a Life
Membership in recognition of his years of service,
more terms than any other as president, and for his
historical research, including a monograph on the
Washburns of Livermore.

The following year, all officers were reelected,
except Harriette Simpson replaced Edith Labbie as
recording secretary. The following changes in the
by-laws were proposed that year: increase yearly
dues from one dollar to two; increase the board of
directors from seven to ten. The membership accepted
the changes on September 28, 1971.

John White became president in 1971, with Leon
Norris elected vice president. All other officers
remained the same. In 1972, Betty Clifford became
recording secretary, and this slate served to 1975.
That year, titles changed. Leon Norris became vp-
associate curator; Merriam Irish was elected
executive secretary-curator, and Clarence March was
named executive secretary-curator emeritus. He died
before the year ended (See newsletter No. 6 for a
recount ing of March's service to the Society.) All
other officers were reelected. Clarence Penley and
Florence Gremley joined the board. All officers
served for two more years, with titles again
changing in 1977: Leon Norris, VP-curator; Merriam
Irish, executive secretary. Another change in titles
came in 1978. Leon Norris was VP-executive
secretary-curator. Merriam Irish was not listed, and
recording secretary reappeared, filled by Leslie
Wight. A special meeting in July considered the
County Commission's request for annual rent of
$1,000. The committee appointed to negotiate with
the commissioners did an excellent job, as we later
signed a year's lease in the amount of $1.00. Willis
Trafton was authorized to obtain tax exempt status
for the Society. He amended our Incorporation to a
C-3 Education Corp. Tax exemption was granted in
June 1979. The minutes also noted the museum was
open in summer on Tuesday and Thursdays from 1 to 4
p.m. For 1979-80, this was the line-up of officers:
president, John White; vice president, Gordon
Windle; executive secretary-curator, Leon Norris;
assistant curator, Robert Beliveau; recording
secretary, Geneva Kirk; membership secretary,
Ethelyn Penley, who held the office until 1993;
treasurer, Jane Norris; counsel, Willis Trafton. At
the annual meeting, Leon Norris announced that the
museum was now open 1:30 to 5 p.m. each weekday, the
hours we continue to keep.