History: GREENVILLE, PISCATAQUIS COUNTY, MAINE
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Greenville Chapter 23 transcribed from:

Loring, Amasa. History of Piscataquis County, Maine. From its Earliest
     Settlement to 1880. Portland, Me., Hoyt, Fogg and Donham, 1880, 201- 205. 
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[ON TITLE PAGE]
		"The hills are dearest, which our childish feet
		Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet
		Are ever those at which our young lips drank-
		Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank." WHITTIER
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[Pages 201-205]
                                     
                                      CHAPTER XXIII.
                                       GREENVILLE.

      GREENVILLE, Number Nine, Range Tenth, is situated at the southern 
extremity of Moosehead Lake, called usually Foot of the Lake, and in a business 
point of view is nearly identical with the lake itself. It has ever been the 
base of supplies for the lumbering operations on the lake and its tributaries,
it is the starting point of explorers, fishing parties, hunters and tourists, 
and this, too, is the chief place of its steamboat navigation. The commencement
of lumbering on the margin of the lake and of the settlement of Greenville was 
nearly coeval, and aided each other in opening roads.
	This township was a public grant, the south half to Thornton Academy in
Saco, previous to 1820, the north half, afterward, to Saco Free Bridge.
	Nathaniel Haskell of Westbrook purchased the Academy Grant, and commenced 
its settlement. On this there was some very good farming land. 
	Wilson Pond is included in it. Wilson Stream, its outlet, has some very 
beautiful cascades, and some very good mill privileges also. The northern part
has been valued more for its timber than for agricultural pursuits. When this 
past was lotted out by H. K. Stanton, in April, 1830, it was found that the lake 
covered a few of its ranges on the west side.  The State gave Saco Free Bridge 
Company 4,000 acres, to be selected from any unappropriated wild land, to offset 
this deficiency. Strange to say, they selected that amount in the Elliotsville 
township. A. Greenwood Esq. lotted the south half into two hundred acre lots, in 
April, 1825.

FIRST SETTLEMENT. In the summer of 1824, Nathaniel Haskell and Oliver Young cut
down ten acres of trees, and John Smith, Mr. Haskell's son-in-law, six acres on 
an adjoining lot. The next summer, Mr. Haskell cleared his first opening, and 
felled seven acres more. He also cut out a part of the road leading from Nelson
Savage's mill to the lake. By this time, Cowan, Littlefield and others began to 
lumber on the lake, and to have supplies hauled in by sledding over this road. 
In 1826, Haskell and Young raised the first crop in town, and put up a house, 
and the next summer, cut the first hay.  In the spring of 1827, he moved Mrs. 
Waldron, a widowed daughter, and two children, the first family that settled in 
the township. A sister of Mrs. Waldron, spent the summer with her, but left in 
the fall. For more than a year afterward, she did not see the face of another 
woman. She eventually married Oliver Young, and still resides in Greenville,
now, 1880, eighty-four years of age. Mr. Young settled on a lot adjoining Mr. 
Haskell's and Mr. John Smith sold out his possession, and gave up moving there.
Mr. Carling eventually settled on it, and died there recently. William Cummings 
was the next to move in a family, and Isaac Sawyer, Mr. Shaw, and Mr. Tufts were 
the next comers. A few years later, Samuel Cole came, in 1831 Edmund Scammon 
moved in, and John Gerrish soon after.
     In 1829, Messrs. Varney, two brothers from Windham, built a saw-mill on the 
Wilson Stream, so that boards and sawed lumber became obtainable, and in 1830, 
Mr. Haskell also put in a small grist-mill.
	Mr. Haskell had not made full payment to the Trustees of the Academy, and 
some questioned the safety of his titles. But he effected a compromise with the 
Trustees, by relinquishing the unsold land to them, and this bar to the sale of 
land was removed. Mr. Phineas Pratt, for many years preceptor of Thornton 
Academy, and Samuel Cole then purchased this wild land, but it run Pratt into
bankruptcy. Mr. Haskell continued to reside in town until his death, except a 
short absence with one of his children. The State granted him six hundred acres
of wild land, to reward him for breaking in to that remote township, in his old
age, for which, he received $600, and he would have accepted Sugar Island also, 
if the Legislature had been generous enough to bestow it upon him. He returned
to Greenville, only a short time before his death, and there expired, Nov. 29,
1843,aged eighty-four, and was buried in the soil he so earnestly adopted.
	In 1832, Samuel Cole and Isaac Whitcomb built a sawmill on Eagle Stream, a 
branch of Wilson Stream, and this passed to Oliver Young. At a later date, 
Samuel Cole put up a saw-mill on Bog Stream, near West Cove, which was
eventually burnt. But now all these mills have been abandoned.
	All the earlier settlements were on the East Ridge, from one to three
miles distant from the lake. Up to 1832, only six or eight families had settled 
in town, though the lake business had steadily increased. In 1830, Mr. John 
Gerrish began to clear an opening on the South Ridge, and the next year moved 
his family there. A new road was then cut from the foot of the Lake, by Mr. 
Gerrish's, to the settlement on the Whitney tract, from which one already 
extended to Monson. This opened a new line of travel to the lake. It was less
hilly than he old route by Savage's mill, and the teaming turning this way. Mr.
Gerrish soon had neighbors. New settlers came in. Mr. Hogan put a small
steamboat for towing rafted logs, upon the lake, in 1836, and large sail boats
also came into use. This boat made a pleasure excursion to Mt. Kineo, on the 4th
of July, 1836. Rev. John Baker, J. Stockbridge Esq., and many others from Monson 
and vicinity were in the joyful party. An impromptu celebration was resolved on,
Rev. Mr. Baker giving an extempore oration, which Stockbridge and others 
supplemented with spicy toasts, speeches and outbursting cheers. To the lake,
the mountains, steamboating and Greenville settlement, this was a "red letter 
day," and the company separated at its close, feeling that it was indeed a great
occasions.
	Up to 1835, the site of Greenville village was covered with its primeval 
forest, except what had been cleared for roads, camps and piling places. In the
spring of that year, Henry Gower cleared a spot, and erected a two storied 
hotel, where the Lake House now stands.
	The drift of land speculators, the following summer, gave it an extensive 
patronage. Mr. Gower felled a large opening that summer, and cleared up the site 
of the village. He opened the first store there, in 1836, which his brother 
Charles continued to occupy for several years.
	In a few years a larger and more powerful steamboat was built, and 
launched upon the lake, which the increasing lumbering all around the lake 
required.
	In 1831, the township was organized as Haskell's Plantation. In 1836, Feb. 
6, it was incorporated as the town of Greenville. In population and capital it 
has been steadily increasing ever since. The first birth in town was a son in 
the Tufts family, and the first death, Mr. Edmund Scammon's, Feb. 4, 1837.
	In 1846, the increase of travel and business called for more hotels. That 
year, Eveleth and Whitcomb built the Eveleth House. It ahs been once burnt and 
rebuilt upon the same spot. In 1847, these men opened another store in the 
place, and, in 1848, J. H. Eveleth left Monson and joined his father here. This 
store was burnt, May 1869, but soon rebuilt, and has been continued to the 
present year, and now a third large general store has been added.
	In 1858, another good step was taken. The people united in erecting a 
meeting-house. The next summer, it was finished in a neat, tasteful style, and
dedicated Dec. 1, 1869, Rev. E. B. Webb D. D. going from Augusta to preach the 
dedication sermon. In Jan. 1, 1874, largely through the efforts of Rev. Mr. 
Cameron, it was surmounted with a bell, whose pleasant peals, first rung out on 
that day, call the church-goer, be he resident or stranger, to the worship of 
the Most High.
	In 1848, five ranges of lots from the north side of Wilson were annexed to 
Greenville. There are now four school districts in town, one having a graded 
school at the village, with a neat two-storied school-house. The public school
fund now amounts to $800, with a lot of wild land still to be sold. Within a few 
years, a steam-saw- and grist-mill have been running at the foot of the lake
and I. R. Gerrish has a saw-mill on an inlet of Wilson pond.
	The prospect now is, that a railroad from Canada, passing by Megantic 
Lake, will be put through to West Cove, about two miles from the foot of 
Moosehead Lake, and thence to Blanchard, opening a new line to St. John. A 
telegraph line from Oldtown to Greenville and the Kineo House, along the line of 
the railroad, is under contract, and its construction is now in progress.
	Sadly we record that Mellen Shaw, a highly esteemed business man of 
Greenville, in a temporary estrangement of reason, terminated his life on March 
4, 1880.
	Greenville has several mechanics, but neither lawyer nor doctor has 
located there.
	In 1870, the population of this town was 369; its valuation $66,707.

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Contributed by Deborah (Pelletier) Tajmajer Dallagash@AOL.com
	GREENVILLE, MAINE GENEALOGY - MOOSEHEAD LAKE REGION
	http://www.rootsweb.com/~mecgreen/ 
	
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