Radio Script #591

Little Talks on Common Things

December 1, 1963

We have already learned, in a previous broadcast, that Obadiah Williams’ oldest son was named Obadiah Cleaveland Williams, and that to this son the older man had deeded his interest in a new grist mill at Ticonic Falls. That had happened in 1790, and other papers show us that the younger Williams was already a mature man of considerable business acumen. On July 20, 1790 he received from John Davis of Vassalboro a deed granting all right and title “to the land that ought to fall to me from the Congress of the United States for having served during the war in the light company of the First Massachusetts Regiment, of which Col. Mor$e was commander, said land coming to me by virtue of a resolution of Congress, and is expected to be laid out according to the direction of General Henry Knox.”

Now that is interesting information. It tells us that not only was Dr. Obadiah Williams engaged in the Revolution as a surgeon, but that his son also served in the war as a soldier in a regiment of infantry.

Young Williams was also active in buying up the claims to land of other Revolutionary soldiers. On March 10, 1791 he received from John Rankin of West Pond a deed for “what is owed me from the Continental Congress in land, I having served eight years in the army of the United States as a sergeant.” For that claim young Williams paid Rankin three pounds.

By 1797 the health of Dr. Obadiah Williams was not good and in April of that year he gave to his son Obadiah Cleaveland a deed that read as follows: “In consideration of the love and good will I bear to Obadiah Cleaveland Williams, my son, and six pounds paid to me by him, I do hereby convey to him the several parcels of land hereinafter mentioned, all situated in Winslow on the west side of the Kennebec River on lot marked No. 104 on a plan of the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, made by John McKechnie; viz: one tract beginning at the north line of Lot 104 at the northwest corner of land that I sold to Elnathan Sherwin, westward of what is now called the swamp, it being near the place we bring our water in pipes to water Ticonic Village, from thence west in a strip 22 rods wide and east as far as shall complete the exact number of four acres. One other tract, bounded on the north line of the Mile and a Half Stream, extending southwest along said stream 20 rods wide, thence west so far as to contain six acres; also one other tract beginning at my northwest corner of said lot, thence south on my west line, thence east to contain 50 acres.”

That deed shows us that already, as early as 1797, the big lots of the McKechnie survey had been broken up. Before that year Williams had sold in small portions many acres of Lot 104, which originally extended 100 rods on the river and back a full mile to the old line called at the time of the survey, and still called, the First Rangeway.

After he came to Waterville, Dr. Obadiah Williams began to acquire land in the area where he had earlier surveyed the line for the Plymouth Company. In 1795 the Committee on the Eastern Lands of the General Court of Massachusetts deeded to Williams half a township of land, that is 18 square miles in the first range of lots north of the Waldo Patent, between the Kennebec and the Penobscot, described as beginning at the northwest corner of 1,000 acres laid out for Israel Hutchinson, and extending four miles west to the Plymouth line. This was no free grant such as had been made years earlier in parts of Maine, but a sale for which Williams paid a sum noticeably large for those days — t 698/6/9. Despite the fact that Williams paid for the land, his title to it carried the same reservations as did the earlier free grants. He must set aside four lots of 160 acres each: one for the use of schools, one for the first settled minister, one for the support of the ministry, and one for appropriations by the General Court. Williams further agreed to settle seven families on the township within four years and bring the total to twenty families in eight years.

Obadiah Williams also became interested in land far away from Maine. From Valentine Prentice of Vassalboro, for six pounds, he received Prentice’s right to 100 acres of land to be laid out for Prentice as a Revolutionary grant near the Ohio, Muskingum or Mississippi Rivers.

All this makes it clear that land was the most common kind of speculation in the years when our nation was being formed, and that one form of land speculation was the buying of land rights from soldiers of the Revolution. Sometimes those lands were handled by agents. One such instance was the appointment of Samuel Cushing as agent or attorney to receive a warrant of lands due to Cushing from the Continental Congress, and Grant’s conveyance on behalf of Cushing of those rights to Obadiah Williams.

When Obadiah Williams died in 1799, joint executors of his estate were his son, Obadiah Cleaveland Williams and his son-in-law, Abijah Smith. We have no knowledge of what became of Obadiah Cleaveland Williams, whether he left Waterville or whether he soon died. All we know is that within a few years most of Dr. Williams’ extensive Kennebec lands were the property of the doctor’s daughter Clymena and her husband, Abijah Smith.

After Obadiah Williams’ death, disputes constantly arose about the true boundary lines of the lots of the old Kennebec survey, especially of the more valuable lots, 103, 104 and 105, that included mill sites on the Kennebec. That is why in 1806 Abijah Smith, as co-executor of Williams’ estate, secured a legal deposition from Thomas McKechnie, son of the old surveyor. That statement said: “I do testify that in the year 1781 I went in company with my father, who was surveyor for the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, to the banks of the Kennebec River, on the west side, to the corner bound between Lots 103 and 104, thence up the river to the corner bounds of Lots 104 and 105, which said corner was an oak tree marked and numbered. My father then informed me that said oak tree was the corner bound between Lots 104 and 105. He also told me that Lot 104 belonged to Pitt and Lot 105 to Jeffers (they being two of the proprietors). The said oak tree stood about six rods above what was then and still is called the Indian Landing, a few feet above the place where Samuel Titcomb established the line in 1805. I have frequently seen said oak tree marked and numbered as aforesaid since the time when my father showed it to me. I was also present with Titcomb when he ran and established the line.”

We have long known that in the 1870’s there was a bitter quarrel over the line between Lots 104 and 105. At that time 104 belonged to the heirs of Nathaniel Gilman and 105 to those of Timothy Boutelle. The issue went to court time and again, and workmen moving the fence for the owners of one side were fired upon with a shotgun held by a member of the other side. Fifteen years elapsed before the boundary was settled, and it is interesting to note that the line reached the river at about the point where Thomas McKechnie said the marked oak tree had formerly stood.

What we did not previously realize was that the boundar’y dispute did not start in the 1870’s. Sixty-four years earlier, in 1806, Abijah Smith had found it necessary to present to the court the deposition of Thomas McKechnie concerning that same boundary line.

Smith and his co-executor Obadiah Cleaveland Williams had to sell off parts of Lot 104 to pay the doctor’s debts. Dr. Williams, like so many wealthy men of his time, was land poor. When he died. he owed substantial amounts, secured by mortgages on various pieces of land. This is explained by a deed granted by Smith and young Williams to Ebenezer Bacon in 1810. It reads: “Whereas Abijah Smith and Obadiah Cleaveland Williams, Administrators of the estate of Obadiah Williams, were licensed to make sale of the real estate of said deceased. for the payment of just debts, we do quitclaim to Ebenezer Bacon a tract in Lot 104, beginning on the east side or northeast corner of a road laid out through Ticonic Village and accepted on May 2, 1808, and at the northwest corner of the meeting house common, thence south eight rods. thence east 22 degrees south 18 rods, to another road leading to the dwelling house of Abijah Smith, containing 140 square rods. Previous to the intended sale we gave public notice of it, and Ebenezer Bacon offered most for the premises and the same was thereupon struck off to him at a public auction held at the house of Captain Ebenezer Bacon, innholder, on the 19th day of August, 1810.”

As early as 1806, Abijah Smith had personally begun to buy back pieces of Lot 104 that Williams had sold, and later he bought several pieces that he and young Williams had sold to pay the doctor’s debts. Among those pieces was the valuable section near the common that Bacon had bought at auction in 1810. Smith purchased from James Burgess, tailor, a piece that adjoined the lot of Isaac Temple, for whom Temple Street was named. From Bacon & Gilman,Smith got a piece that abutted the road leading by the meeting house common to Temple’s landing.

In 1820 Abijah Smith represented Waterville in the Massachusetts legislature, the last time anyone would go to Boston for such a post, because later in that same year Maine became a separate state. From Boston Smith wrote to his wife Clymena in Waterville: “Tell the boys they must do the best they can to take care of the cattle and particularly the sheep. You know what ought to be done with the swine.”

Abijah Smith had been born in 1773 and had come to Winslow from Alna in 1794, about four years after the arrival of Obadiah Williams. He died here in 1841. Just a year before his death Smith presented to the town the land known as the meeting house common and now the city common adjoining Castonguay Square.

Two of Abijah Smith’s sons became prominent Waterville citizens. One was General Franklin Smith, born in 1802 in the old Abijah Smith house on Front Street near the corner of Common Street. He became a successful lumber dealer, a state senator and member of the Governor’s Council. His brother, Harrison A. Smith, became a Waterville attorney and manager of the family’s substantial real estate in this region. Among the Gettens papers are several documents related directly to Harrison Smith. In 1839, the year before his father’s death, Harrison paid $300 to Lucius Allen for a piece of land beginning on the county road leading from Waterville Village to Fairfield Meeting House, and extending to land owned by Waterville College. In 1848 Harrison Smith sold to Adrastus B. Branch seven acres of land belonging to the estate of Abijah Smith.

And that brings us to the end of our broadcasts on the Gettens papers. Next week we shall return to the diaries of George Flood to see what those diaries can tell us about business methods, politics and social affairs in Waterville nearly a hundred years ago.

Year: 1963