<\/p>\n
It is time that we gave attention to Pittsfield, the second largest town in Somerset County. After the grant of Kennebec land to the Plymouth Colony in 1629, what later became the Town of Pittsfield was called Plymouth Gore, because it was a piece of leftover tract situated in the northeast corner of the Plymouth grant. When four men bought the whole grant from the Colony in 1661, Plymouth Gore was included in the purchase.<\/p>\n
As I have pointed out on previous broadcasts, it was the long succession of Indian wars, stimulated by French influence from Canada, that delayed settlement for more than a century. A major obstacle was that the French Jesuit missions won many tribes over to support of the French. That was especially true of the Norridgewocks, whose central village was at Old Point between Norridgewock and Madison. Not until the destruction of that village by a colonial raid in 1724 was the region safe for English settlers. Actually until after the Revolution few white men, except itinerant fur traders, entered the area that is now the Town of Pittsfield. The first settler arrived the very year that the Revolution started, 1775. He was Lov’ell Fairbrother, who built a cabin at the falls of the Sebasticook in what is now Pittsfield Village. When a surveyor employed by the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase came into the region in 1776, he was surprised to find an inhabited cabin so far from any other settlement, the nearest being at Fort Halifax in Winslow. Considering Fairbrother’s cabin a significant accomplishment, the surveyor took from his pack a bottle of rum and toasted Fairbrother as Governor of the Sebasticook.<\/p>\n
But Fairbrother stayed only two years, moving to Norridgewock in 1777. He sold his land to Moses Martin, who made no immediate attempt to settle it. Not until 1790 did he build on Fairbrother’s land, and in 1818 he replaced the crude cabin with a frame house. In that house he and his descendants lived for more than 100 years.<\/p>\n
Unlike most of his hard-shelled, religious neighbors, Martin was a Universalist, and until his death in 1850 was a staunch supporter of Maine’s Universalist leader, William Drew of Augusta. When Martin came to Pittsfield, there was no road, only a path that had been what was called “bushed out”. After Martin, other settlers moved in. One was John Brown, who served several terms as a Pittsfield Selectman. The Bradford and Wyman families came from Vassalboro and set up Pittsfield’s first mills for lumber and grain. During the first twenty years of the 19th century the population of Plymouth Gore increased rapidly. Settlers tended to cluster in the western part of the town, so as to be near the stage line from Augusta to Bangor, which ran through Canaan and Palmyra. While the earlier settlers had come from other nearby settlements, the new influx was from Hallowell and Richmond, and points even farther away. Two families came from Mt. Desert Island. By 1820 there were more than 50 families living on old Plymouth Gore. Canaan had been incorporated in 1788, palmyra in 1807, Newport in 1814. The people of Plymouth Gore thought the time had come for them to be made into a town. They so petitioned in 1816, but the best they could then get was plantation government. Three years later they were more successful, and on June 19, 1819 Governor Phillips of Massachusetts signed the act creating the town of Warsaw, formed from parts of Canaan, Clinton and Palmyra. It came fairly late among Maine towns, being the 234th to get incorporation. It was nearly the last to be granted by Massachusetts before Maine became a separate state. In the final year before that, Massachusetts set up two other Maine towns: Hartland and Etna.<\/p>\n
Town organization of Warsaw in 1819 was held at the home of John Webb. Composing the first Board of Selectmen were Timothy McIntyre, John Brown and Stephen Kingfield. The town raised $1,000 for roads and $150 for schools. Benjamin Eaton became Warsaw’s first representative to the Legislature.<\/p>\n
In 1825 the town name was changed to Pittsfield, though the name Warsaw was used again to name the district junior high school in the 1950’s. The new town name is said to have been in honor of William Pitts of Belgrade, the largest landowner in the Warsaw area. By the time that the Penobscot and Kennebec Railroad reached town in 1855 Pittsfield had two sawmills, a grist mill, four blacksmith shops, three general stores, a tannery and a fulling mill.<\/p>\n
It was the railroad that made Pittsfield one of Maine’s largest towns. Though it had only one passenger train a day in <\/em>each direction until just before the Civil War, a lot of freight was going over the road, some of it into and out of Pittsfield. When the P & K became part of the Maine Central system in 1870 it brought new economic life to Pittsfield putting in spur tracks to budding industries changed Pittsfield from a sleepy agricultural town to a bustling center of industry. Building boomed, land prices tripled and retail trade thrived. In 1865 the east side of Main Street had comparatively few buildings.<\/p>\n From the Universalist Church to the railroad track was a big vacant space, which was soon filled up after the opening of the town’s well-known hotel, the Lancey House. Between the railroad track and the campus of MCI there was no cross street, only the road leading to Burnham, Clinton and Waterville. There were in all only 17 buildings within the town south of the railroad track. By 1885 the same area had 85 buildings. Between 1865 and 1885 their number had increased in the village from 70 to 250.<\/p>\n In 1865 Pittsfield industries consisted of a saw mill, a grist mill, a bedstead factory and a carriage shop. During the following 20 years the town had built a granite dam, permitting erection of the Pioneer Woolen Mill at a cost of $100,000, and the Maple Grove Mill for $40,000. A community building, Union Hall, cost $25,000. The small Lancey House was enlarged into an excellent, modern hotel. More than 200 new dwelling houses went up. The local grange built a new hall, and the Grand Army erected its own building. A large printing office, operated by steam, was opened. The village installed a water system. A harness shop was turning out 200 harnesses a day. The brickyard was producing a million bricks a year.<\/p>\n A significant event was the opening of Maine Central Institute in 1866. During the 1850’s the leader of Maine’s Free Will Baptists, Oren B. Cheney, proposed to locate a denominational seminary in Pittsfield. Decision was made, however, to locate in Lewiston; the institution became Bates College. But Bates needed its own preparatory school, just as Bowdoin had Monmouth and Fryeburg Academies, and Colby had Coburn Classical Institute and was soon to add Hebron, Ricker and Higgins. So, under Cheney’s guidance, the Free Baptists opened Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield. So strong did that school become, that when the School Administrative District of Pittsfield and neighboring towns was created, MCI was chosen to be the high school for the district. It is interesting to note that the law authorizing school districts was named for Pittsfield’s representative to the legislature and author of the bill, Sinclair.<\/p>\n By 1860 the dining room of the Lancey House had become a favorite eating place for Central Maine patrons, especially on Sunday. For one dollar a person could get a full meal that began with oysters on the halfshell, soup and baked fish. For entrees there was a choice of roast lamb, sirloin roast of beef, loin of veal, and baked ham with champagne sauce. With it came several vegetables, hot rolls, salad and a big plate of relishes. Dessert included three kinds of ice cream, sherbet, four kinds of pie and angel cake; all with plenty of coffee, tea or hot chocolate to wash it down.<\/p>\n Cianbro, one of New England’s largest construction firms, grew up in Pittsfield. Beginning in a small way through the efforts of Ralph Cianchette,it was greatly expanded by his sons and other relatives into the giant it has become today. In the century between 1860 and 1960 Pittsfield’s population had expanded from 1,500 to 4,000, and the value of its property from $270,000 to $2,625,000.<\/p>\n In 1966 Sanger Cook closed his excellent history of Pittsfield with these words: “We are especially blessed with able and civic-minded young men and women who have their sights lifted high. We may not be prosperous and happy forever after, but at least we will be so for another generation.”<\/p>\n Year: 1983<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #1336, Broadcast on January 16, 1983<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35322,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}