Radio Script #1213

Little Talks on Common Things
October 21, 1979

Although, during the 31 years of this program, I have frequently referred to the Mathews family of Waterville pioneers, I have never given a comprehensive view of that prominent family, and I want to do so today.

The first to appear in Maine was John Mathews, who had already been a few years in the settlement called New Boston, now the town of Gray, when in 1760 the Massachusetts proprietors of the settlement authorized Mathews to erect and operate a grist mill and saw mill. In 1771 the proprietors appointed him to guard the grant’s timber from trespassers. So small were the settlements and so large were the tracts of unsettled land that it was easy for robbers to do such trespassing, and every proprietorial colony in Maine, including the important Kennebec Proprietors, were persistently being robbed of timber. Sometimes as much as 100,000 board feet would be cut from a wilderness tract before the proprietors learned of the trespasser. So every proprietary group usually appointed some resident as a watchman of their lands.

In December 1771, John Mathews received a letter from the proprietors in Boston. It said: “It is now many years since you have been appointed for our mills in New Boston, and you have given us to understand that a part of the income has been spent for repairs on the mills. Yet, from the account we have had of the quantity of boards sawed and grain ground for the people of New Gloucester as well as New Boston, we conclude there must be considerable due us. However, as this cannot be ascertained until we come to the settlement, if you have any business that brings you to Boston, you will bring with you an account of the part due us for the boards sawed and the corn ground, as well as all your expenses on the mills since you have cared for them. We desire that you give us as exact as possible an account. If you cannot come to Boston, send the account to us.”

Evidently the proprietors did not fully trust Mathews, for about the same time they sent a letter to Nathan Young, who had been associated with Mathews in being alert for trespassers. They said to Young: “As we are desirous of having an account of the quantity of boards sawed and corn ground at our mills in New Boston, so as to check on the account given us by Mr. Mathews, we ask that you furnish us with as particular an account as you can of what has been done at our mills.”

There is extant no record of how this came out, but we think John Mathews was able to satisfy the proprietors. When John Mathews came to New Boston in 1759, he brought with him a son, Jabez, who, in 1760, was already 18 years old. He became a major in the town militia, and all his life was known as Major Mathews. Even before he was 21, Jabez was acting as a messenger for the proprietors, regularly travelling between the New Boston Plantation that became the town of Gray, and the proprietors headquarters in Boston.

The town was incorporated as Gray in 1777. In 1775 Jabez Mathews was employed by the town of Falmouth (now Portland) to visit the Penobscot Indians and go on to Quebec to investigate rumors that the French were again stirring those Indians to attack Maine settlements. In Quebec, Mathews was arrested as a spy, but he managed to escape.

Returning to Gray, Mathews reported some of the French and Indians treated him and his companions roughly, but as a whole he found the Franco people kind and hospitable. He said he found no reason to believe Canadians planned to attack Maine settlements, and without such stimulation the Indians would not voluntarily attack. He assured the Falmouth authorities that the French had been so overwhelmed by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which ceded all of Canada to the English, that Maine had little to fear from them.

It was in 1794 that Jabez’ Mathews moved from Gray to Waterville. Coming with him were two sons, John and Simeon. In the summer and early fall of 1775, Jabez. Mathews had been a scout for Arnold’s army in their route up the Kennebec, and so was well acquainted with the little settlement that had already sprung up at Ticonic Falls. He was attached to Colonel Enes’s division of Arnold’s army that deserted and turned back near the Chain of Ponds, so Jabez did not endure the suffering of the army in the grueling crossing of the swamp at the heights of land before they reached the Chaudiere.

For a short time after he reached Waterville, Jabez kept a tavern on Silver Street near its junction with Main. The place was the first frame house in Waterville, and had been built by Obadiah Williams in 1795. Then Jabez builf his own home on the south side of Silver Street across from the present site of the Morning Sentinel.

Jabez Mathews kept in touch with Gray all the rest of his life. As late as 1828, when he was 85 years old, he made the following legal deposition for the selectmen of Gray: “I, Jabez Mathews of Waterville, depose that in March 1784, I ran out three sides of the town of Gray. I ran six miles between Gray and North Yarmouth, and seven between Gray and Windham. I ran another line called the Northwest line of Gray, six miles along the gore supposed to be a part of Raymond. About ten rods east of the end of that line I found a Norway pine standing alone quite apart from any other trees. It was marked with a certain number that convinced me it had been meant as a corner tree, because I think one marking was N.B. for New Boston. So I fixed that Norway pine in the northeast corner of the line between Gray and New Gloucester. I marked that tree with the year of my survey, 1784, and my own initials, J.M., with a marking iron, and I spotted the tree with an axe.”

Mathews was summoned to court about that survey. Asked if he had since seen the pine tree, he said: “Yes, four days ago. The tree had then blowm down, but my marking was still clear.” Asked how long the tree had been blown down, he said:” “Five or six years. The sap was gone but the heart was still sound.”

A few months after that testimony, Jabez. Mathews died in Waterville in 1828.

One of Jabez’ sons, John Mathews, was the ancestor of Norman Mathews who many of us knew well as Principal of Waterville High School. He was, of course, also an ancestor of Doris Mathews Taylor of the Waterville Country Club. Born in Gray in the late 18th century John was eleven years old when he came to Waterville with his father. He became a trader in West Waterville (now Oakland) in partnership with Samuel Kimball whose daughter he married in 1808. He bought and cultivated a large farm on the Messalonskee near where is now Cool Street. His oldest son John, carried on the farm, while another son, Charles, started the long continuing Mathews Insurance Agency.

Jabez Mathews’ other son, Simeon, was ten years younger than his brother John. He became a prosperous merchant, forming a lucrative partnership with Waterville’s wealthiest citizen, Nathaniel Gilman. They operated a large general store at the junction of Maine and Front Streets, arid also had a wholesale business with the towns surrounding Waterville. In the single year 1819 they bought locally and shipped out 6,000 bushels of wheat, 5,000 of corn, and 20,000 of oats.

In 1826 Simeon Mathews built the large frame house on Silver Street, afterward owned by George Fred Terry, and now the convent home of Catholic Sisters. Simeon set out the long row of elm trees that grew on both sides of Silver Street as a contribution to beautifying the town. He invested in local real estate and owned the land on which they erected the Universalist Church. Simeon Mathews was the father of Waterville’s first murder victim. His son, Edward, at the age of 25, was murdered by Dr. Valorus Coolidge in 1847, resulting in a sensational trial at Augusta and the conviction of Coolidge.

Another son:of Simeon Mathews’, William, gained fame as an author of inspirational books. Some of them were translated into as many as a dozen foreign languages. Before moving to Boston as a recognized author, William operated a book and stationery store in Waterville, and was the first provider of textbooks for the students of Colby College.

The New Boston from which the Mathews family came to Waterville was indeed an early Maine settlement, In 1635 it had 60 adult males, who petitioned the government of Massachusetts Bay for a township six miles square at the rear of the township of North Yarmouth on Casco Bay. They agreed to build a meetinghouse, settle a minister, provide for his support, and establish a school. Their petition was granted in 1737. A committee of the proprietors came with a surveyor and laid out a tract. It was part of those lines that John Mathews had resurveyed in 1784. In 1745 the settlement was completely destroyed in an Indian raid, but many of the settlers returned and rebuilt. By 1760 it was a thriving place, with saw mill, grist mill, and general store.

A profitable business at New Boston even before it became the town of Gray, was the mast trade. Many masts for the British Navy or merchant marine went down from Gray to Portland, where they were loaded on the next ship for England. Like the early timber, that business too had its trouble. In 1769, just a few years before the Revolution, the Proprietors recorded: “Whereas it was reported to us that a number of persons employed by the contractor with the crown for masts have cut down within our township and have carried off a considerable number of masts for which they have not paid, we have applied through Gov. Shirley to William Bolton of New Boston to inspect the contract and see that the contractor pays for the trees cut down.”

Gray played a patriotic part in the Revolution, keeping through the committee of safety, the government of Massachusetts informed of affairs in that part of Maine and sending supplies to the Continental army.

And that is the story of the Mathews family of Waterville and the colonial town of New Boston from which they came.

Year: 1979