Canaan: Items of Interest
The East Somerset County Register
1911-12
Compiled and Published by Chatto & Turner
Auburn, Maine
Clarence I. Chatto; Clair E. Turner
pages 66-68
ITEMS OF INTEREST.
The Town Library in Canaan is located on Main street in
the village. The money for its maintenance is supplied by ap-
propriation of the town and the gifts of friends. At the pres-
ent time the number of volumes is about 875.
One of the interesting characters of Canaan has been Job n
Butts, who holds the remarkable record of having been clerk
of the town from 1853 to 1859 and again from 1861 to 1907, a
total period of about 53 years. Mr. Butts was a very well in-
formed man, and the tradition runs that when he was a young
man he took one of the few papers which came into the town,
and used to make it his custom to read it from the town hall
steps to the crowd which gathered to listen.
Canaan at one time maintained a crack company of militia,
which formed a part of the Somerset Battalion of the State of
Maine Militia. Companies were organized also by Palmyra,
Hartland, Skowhegan, Athens and Harmony, Cambridge and
Wellington. Fifield Mitchell, captain of the Canaan company
was commissioned as the colonel of the battalion.
The old tavern of stage coach days in Canaan stood on the
present site of the grange hall. It was a three story building,
built after the plan of the public houses of the time. Moses
Furber was for a time the keeper of the tavern.
A very interesting and remarkable family is that of Charles
Dickey, who lives in the southern part of the town on a farm.
'There are twenty-two children in the family, eight of whom
were born in Clinton, and the rest in Canaan. When the chil-
ren numbered twenty, Air. Dickey wrote to President Roose-
velt and received a letter of congratulation in reply.
Mr. Perley Emery, a veteran of the Spanish-American War,
has among other interesting relies of the war, a rifle which
belonged to a Cuban major in the cavalry, and which saw
service thruout the entire conflict, being given to Mr. Emery
at the close of the war. He has also a piece of the plank from
the floor of Moro Castle and a handkerchief made of Phillipine
silk and very beautifully embroidered.
Benjamin Priest, the oldest inhabitant of Canaan, was
born in the town of Clinton about 1812. In 1860 he moved to
Canaan, where he built the house where he lives at present.
In 1810 he received the gold headed cane presented by the
Boston Post to the oldest citizen of the town. Mr. Priest is a
veteran of the Civil War. Among the other remarkable old
people of the town are two sisters, Mrs. Clarissa Goodrich,
who was 95 years old June 3, 1911, and Mrs. Amy Hubbard,
who was 93 on the 15 of July, 1911. Mrs. Hubbard remembers
the first singing school in the town, which was taught by her
father, Tristam Ricker, one of the early settlers. Mr. Ricker
himself lived to be 96 years old.
(c) 1998
Courtesy of Tina Vickery of Somerset Co, Maine USGenWeb Project
&
The Androscoggin Historical Society
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