Frye, Joseph


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any
format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons.
Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain
the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative
of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof
of this consent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
File contributed and transcribed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Tina S. Vickery
April 10, 1999
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Poets of Maine
A Collection of Specimen Poems from over Four Hundred Verse-Makers of the Pine Tree State.
with 
Biographical Sketches
Compiled by George Bancroft Griffith
Portland, Maine
Elwell, Pickard & Company
Transcript Job Print; Edward Smill, Binder.
Copyright by Elwell, Pickard & Co.
1888

page 2

Joseph Frye.

Major General Joseph Frye, the hero of Fort William Henry, and the founder of Fryeburg, 
was born in 1711, and died at Fryeburg in 1794.  His nephew, Judge Simon Frye, who died 
in 1822, was the first representative in the General Court in 1781, and was many years 
a senator and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas.  The General, who was at the siege of 
Louisburg, from his earliest years was a soldier of the forest, and at the capitulation 
of Fort William Henry offered to go out with his single regiment and drive back the French 
and Indians.  But this privilege was denied him.  His sufferings and escape after having 
being stripped by the Indians, his three day run through the forests, till torn and haggard 
he reached Fort Edward on the Hudson, are more like romance than veritable history.  
For these sufferings, together with his imminent services, the General Court of 
Massachusetts was please to grant him, in 1762, the larger part of Fryeburg, and his guide 
to this region was Capt. Wm. Stark, brother of the afterwards hero of Bennington.  The great 
grandson of General Frye, Joseph Frye, of Bethel, has in his possession a tankard of solid 
silver, presented to the General by the 2d Battalion of General Shirley's Provincial 
Regiment, in 1757, on which is engraved the family coat of arms.  General Frye composed 
creditable poetry.  He was also a skilful surveyor and practical farmer.  One of his worthy 
descendants, William P. Frye, born in Lewiston, Sept. 2d, 1831, who was elected United 
States Senator from Maine for the term ending 1883, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the 
resignation of James G. Blaine, has been re-elected for the full term of six years.

CALM CONTENT.

No more the court or martial themes
Delight me like the verdant groves,
Whence I concert my rural schemes
'Midst singing birds and cooing doves.

These sylvan songsters' tuneful lays
In innocence and free from fear,
So smoothly chanted on green sprays,
Both soothe my mind and charm my ear.

I would not change these rural scenes
For what in court is to be found,
Nor quit these groves and purling streams
For highest rank on hostile ground.

But this retired I'll spend my days
In hymning praise to God on high,
Joining the bird's sweet warbling lays 
To honor Heavenly Majesty.

And when from hence I take my flight,
My sins, O God, through Christ forgive,
And bring me to the realms of light
In endless peace and bliss to live.