Radio Script #1184

Little Talks on Common Things
December 31, 1978

A family prominent in this part of Maine from its pioneer days was the Haydens. There recently came to my attention a little book written in 1877 by Rev. William Hayden of Portland. At first it seems strange to note that the book was published in London by Printer James Speirs at 35 Bloombury Street, but the contents quickly reveal that the Portland clergyman who wrote the book spent much time in England tracing the origins of the Hayden family.

He was able to learn that William Hayden was a justice in Devonshire as early as 1260, and by 1300 his descendants were in high favor at the royal court. That was nearly 200 years before Columbus discovered America. By the time of the eleventh generation, in the reign of Henry VIII, John Hayden, sheriff and alderman of London, was a member of the select group of Lincoln Inn attorneys. His wealth enabled him to give 3000 pounds for relief of the poor, and he obtained from the crown the manor parish of St. Mary’s Ottery, when Henry’s break with the Roman church confiscated the monastery lands. He also founded a grammar school at St. Mary’s at a. time when those schools were first being established in England. Before he died in 1587, John Hayden had provided two huge ornate doors for the parish church. It is thus clear that, when 13th generation Gideon Hayden came to America with the Winthrop colony in 1630, he belonged to a highly respected and affluent family of Englishmen.

Soon after arrival in the- New World, the Haydens settled at Braintree, Mass, actually nearer the Plymouth colony of 1620 then to the Massachusetts Bay colony of Boston. It was the immigrant Gideon’s son John who was made a freeman of Braintree in 1634. His son Nehemiah was called the wealthiest and most influential man in the town, and was a selectman from 1706 to 17~6, and a grandson Josiah bore the title of gentleman as well as lieutenant of militia. Benjamin Hayden was a younger son of Josiah and as such saw an older brother inherit the largest share of the estate. But he was able to accumulate some wealth himself and in 1750 he became interested in Kennebec lands. It was his son Josiah who founded the line of Winslow and Waterville Haydens.

Before we turn to this story, however, it may be well to note what Rev. William Hayden discovered about that prolific family in England. From the time of Henry VIII and the manor at St. Mary’s Ottery, the Haydens spread to other countries besides the American colonies. They were found in France, Germany and the Scandinavian nations. The favorite family occupation was the law. They were judges, sheriffs, magistrates, barristers, solicitors and administrators of estates. Frequently they were also military commanders. In England they were staunchly loyal to the king, on the side of the Lancasters in the War of the Roses,supporting Charles I against the Commonwealth, and playing a conspicuous part in the restoration of Charles II. They were court favorites not only of Henry VIII but also of his successors Elizabeth I, James and both Charleses.

As we have said, the first Hayden to appear at Ticonic Falls was Josiah, born in Braintree in 1734, dying in Winslow in 1818.
Josiah was already nearly fifty years old when he came to this region in 1783. He had married a Braintree girl, Silence Howard,one of whose relatives had been one of the six persons to receive from the 1749 proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase the land that is now the Town of Winslow. In fact it was the proprietor Howard who had been one of the few owners actually to come to the acquired land and make his home in the area. His house stood on what is now the river road from Winslow to Vassalboro and Augusta, and in that ancient remodeled homestead recently lived the late Dr. Douglas, Waterville podiatrist.

When Josiah and Silence Hayden came to Winslow with several of their children, they built a house just north of the Howard place, and there for several years Josiah kept a tavern. It is interesting to note the specific situation that brought Josiah Hayden to Winslow. The American Revolution broke out so soon after the proprietors secured their Winslow grant that settlement came to a standstill. The owners made several futile attempts to ascertain what was happening – who of the residents were legitimate settlers and who were squatters, and what were the prospects of putting other people on the vacant lots.

In 1783, at a meeting in Plymouth, the Winslow proprietors voted to send Josiah Hayden to the settlement at Ticonic Falls, and ordered him to straighten out the confusing details of their proprietorship, banish the squatters and see that legitimate settlers got their promised deeds of land. When Josiah arrived in Winslow, he found another man not only in active control of the settlement, but possessed of written orders long before issued by the proprietors to be their resident representative. That man was Winslow’s prominent pioneer, Ezekiel Pattee.

So, in 1783, the record of a proprietors’ meeting reads: “Upon the representation of Josiah Hayden that he consider Ezekiel Pattee, by being already an inhabitant of Winslow and already under orders from the proprietors, well able to perform the services entrusted to Hayden more advantageously than they could be performed by Hayden himself, it was voted that Josiah Hayden and James Warren be a committee to treat with Pattee and assure him that he has full power to render the services entrusted to Hayden and to enjoin him to guard the proprietors’ lands against trespassers.”

Josiah Hayden liked what he saw so well that he decided to spend the rest of life in Winslow. In 1787 he was moderator of the town meeting that decided on a lottery to distribute the remaining 54 lots of the grant not already reserved as proprietors’ lots. When in 1803, it appeared that a majority of the proprietors were then actually residents of Winslow,
the proprietors’ meetings were transferred there from the Cape Cod area, and Josiah Hayden became both clerk and treasurer of the corporation until its dissolution in 1806.

The Hayden home in Winslow seems to have been a center of community activity. In the winter of 1796 a singing school met regularly in that house. By that time Josiah had become a more prominent militiaman than his lieutenant ancestor, for all the rest of his life he was known as Col. Hayden. During his life in Winslow, Josiah was at various times selectman, clerk, treasurer and justice of the peace. He built a sawmill on Outlet Stream, to which his son added a large gristmill. Several of· his descendants carried on the mills and took prominent parts in Winslow community life. One of his grandsons, also named Josiah, died in Winslow at the young age of 28. It was his son, Josiah D. who in 1869 moved across the river to Waterville and, started the Waterville branch of the family. From him were descended the later Waterville.Haydens, including Harold P. Hayden of the Waterville Cleaners and Dyers. For the wife of Winslow’s origanal Josiah Hayden was named the Silence Howard Hayden Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Now for a different subject. It is instructive to note the difference in population that certain Maine towns had in 1820 compared with their numbers today. We select 1820 because that was the year when Maine became a separate state and it was also the year of the fourth national census. Even then Portland was Maine’s largest community, but it had only 7,000 people, about the size of the town of Fairfield today. No other place in the state had as many as 5,000 residents. The nearest to it was Wells, whose population was 4,489. Berwick pressed Wells closely with 4,455. In fact three of Maine’s four largest places were then in York County. The other, besides Wells and Berwick, was York. In fact those four places – Portland, Berwick, Wells and York – were the only communities in Maine that in 1820 had as many as 3,000 people.

At that time many Maine towns which have now dwindled to small rural places were, in comparison with other towns in the state, relatively large. The fourth largest town in York County was then Shapleigh, and Buxton had only 38 fewer people. Buxton was indeed larger than either Saco or Biddeford. When our state was founded out of the old eastern district of Massachusetts, there were only nine counties Cumberland, York, Oxford, Lincoln, Kennebec, Somerset, Penobscot, Hancock, and Washington. Penobscot’s largest town was not Bangor, which then had only 850 people. It was Orrington with 1350. The largest Kennebec community was neither Augusta nor Waterville. It was Hallowell, with Vassalboro running a close second. In fact Vassalboro then had 200 more people than Augusta and 500 more than Waterville. Indeed Vassalboro, Sidney, Winthrop and Readfield all had more inhabitants than Waterville, and the now little town of Wayne exceeded them all. Machias, an ancient town and seaport from colonial times, was Washington County’s largest place, but only a count of 300 behind fast growing Eastport. However, nearby Calais, now one of Maine’s 22 cities, had only 392 people in 1820.

Some place names now conspicuous on the Maine map would not be found on a state map of 1820. Among them were South Portland, Auburn, Mechanic Falls, Dover, Monson, Greenville and all the towns in Aroostook County. Places whose names have been changed since 1820 include Smithfield, then Dearborn, China, then Harlem; Windsor, then Malta; Pittsfield , then Warsaw, Albion, then Joy; Skowhegan, then Bloomfield and Milburn.

How small were most Maine towns in 1820 is shown by the fact that Thomaston’s 2,100 residents then made it the 12th largest town in the entire state, and that no place in all Maine except Portland had as many as 5,000 people.

Year: 1978