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powers, privileges, and immunities, which towns within this Commonwealth are entitled to, or by law enjoy.

"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That Waterman Thomas, Esq. be, and he hereby is, empowered to issue his warrant to some principal inhabitant of the said town, requiring him to warn the inhabitants thereof to meet at such time and place as he shall therein set forth, to choose all such officers as towns are required and empowered by law to choose in the month of March or April annually.1

"This act passed Oct. 20, 1786."

At the time of the incorporation, the town contained the following families; the figures denoting the number of members:

Willard Robbins and others perambulated the line between Union and Appleton; Jan. 13 and 14, 1841, between Union and Warren; and Jan. 25 and 26, between Union and Hope. In April, 1841, the town "voted that suitable stone-monuments be put up between said towns, provided the adjoining towns will be at their proportion of the expense." Sept. 12, 1844, Ebenezer Blunt, selectman of Union, and George Pease, selectman of Appleton, perambulated the line between the towns, and "set up stone-monuments at the corners, and where the line crossed the highways, and near the banks of all the ponds and rivers which said line crossed." The same was done Nov. 9, 1844, on the line between Union and Hope by Ebenezer Blunt, and by Josiah Hobbs, one of the selectmen of Hope. June 10, 1843, the town "voted that the selectmen be a Committee to petition to the Supreme Court to have the line run between the county of Lincoln and Waldo." This is of importance, as Union is a border town.

1 At the end of the manuscript Act of Incorporation, in the State House at Boston, is the following memorandum: -"In the House of Representatives, Oct. 12, 1786. This bill, having had three several readings, passed to be engrossed. — Sent up for concurrence.

"ARTEMAS WARD, Speaker."

On the back of the bill is the following:—“In Senate, Oct. 18, 1786. This bill, having had two several readings, passed a concurrence to be engrossed with an amendment at A.-Sent down for "SAMUEL PHILLIPS, jun. President."

concurrence.

"A, dele from A to B, and insert thereof that the Plantation called Sterlington, in the county of Lincoln." "In the House of Representatives, Oct. 19, 1786.- Read and con"ARTEMAS WARD, Speaker."

curred.

-

The words to be erased in the first paragraph were, "A of said plantation that the same B."

2 N. P. Hawes's MS.

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1787-1793.

1787, Levi Morse; Oliver Leland; William Hart. 1788, The Maxcys. 1789, The Daggetts; Seth Luce; Christopher Butler; Ichabod Irish; Barnabas Webb.-1793, Casualty to the Maxcy Family. Remarks on the Early Settlers.

1787.

AMONG the settlers who came soon after the incorporation was Levi Morse. He was hired "for forty shillings a month, and found," by Dr. Jennison, then of Brookfield, to chop for him three or six months, as Morse should choose. Having received one dollar to pay his passage by water, he left Sherburne for Boston, April 23, 1787. "April 26, sailed for St. George's River; arrived there, 29th.... 1788, May 5, came [from Sherburne] to Boston; sailed Wednesday morning; arrived [at] St. George's River, May 8th; went up to Union the 9th." From other memoranda left by him, it appears that he returned from Sherburne to Union every spring for several years; spending the winters, as many of the early settlers did, in Massachusetts. In 1789, he brought with him John Locke, son of a former President of Harvard University. The agreement with Locke was to pay him, for six months,

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"six pounds twelve shillings in good rye at the market price in" Sherburne, besides furnishing him with a passage, provisions, washing, and mending, from the time of his sailing from Boston. For a considerable part of the time before his marriage, Morse cooked his own food, occasionally employing Mrs. Josiah Robbins to bake his bread. He settled on the farm now owned by his sons, Levi Morse and George B. Morse.

With Morse also came Oliver Leland from Sherburne. He began to clear the farm next to Morse's, on the south. After a year or two, he lost his thumb by the bursting of a gun while hunting near Crawford's Pond, and went back to Sherburne.

William Hart, from Sherburne, came with Morse. Both of them seem to have been under the patronage of Mr. Amory, who, being desirous of introducing settlers, offered to give Hart either of the lots of land which did not border on the pond. He selected the one north of the mill-lot. It differed but little in value from what were then considered the best; for its western boundary was but a few rods from the water. The farm is now owned by his son, John Fisher Hart. At one time, Morse, Hart, and Gillmor boarded with Josiah Robbins, for which they worked two days in each week.

1788.

The Maxcys came from Attleborough, Mass. Joseph Maxcy came first in 1788, settled on the farm since known as the Gay Farm, on the west side of the brook, more than a mile east of the Common; and he built a frame-house, the second in town. With Joseph Maxcy came Joseph Guild. At one time, either alone or in company with Joseph Maxcy, he owned the Gay Place. Josiah Maxcy came with his father, Lieutenant Benjamin Maxcy, and his father's family, in 1791. They lived in the Taylor House. Mrs. Daggett says that her father brought two cows, a yoke of oxen, and an ox-wagon. This wagon was the first in town. He loaded his goods upon it, and drove

it up. It was an object of such interest, that the people, as he passed, came out to look at it. In about six weeks the lieutenant died. Joseph Maxcy then moved to South Union, and his mother and her children to the Gay Place. Joseph Maxcy built another small frame-house, the third in town; and then the family, with Josiah, moved back to the Taylor House.

1789.

The Daggetts, says Brotherton Daggett, being strongly inclined to move from Martha's Vineyard, sent Thomas Daggett, jun. to Albany and the vicinity, in New York, to look up a farm. He was not a judge of land, and returned without finding one to suit him. Thomas Daggett, sen. came along the coast, went back from Camden into the woods, and with some others was about to purchase the whole of Appleton Ridge, except the proprietors' reserved lots. On going to the rear of the Ridge, and seeing the Cedar Swamp, his courage failed him, and he went home without concluding a bargain. A year or two afterwards, Thomas Daggett, jun. and Aaron Daggett came to Union. They purchased the place since owned by Olney Titus, cleared a piece, and sowed rye. In the fall, they took, as a specimen, a box of soil from the land now owned by Nahum Thurston, returned to Martha's Vineyard, and spent the winter. Their father, Thomas Daggett, sen. was prevailed on to accompany them to Union in the following May. He bought 700 acres of land of Col. Wheaton, divided it into lots of about 100 acres each, sold some, and gave the others to his sons. He returned to Martha's Vineyard, and came with his family in August. He landed at Warren. Every thing seemed different from what it was in May. He was a nervous man; and, finding himself here for life, he exclaimed, "I am completely undone." The forests looked formidable: "it was too woody for him." This was probably in 1789. The family came up from Warren in boats, as Josiah Robbins's had done three years before, and as William Hart did

when he moved his wife and furniture in October, 1793.

About the same time with the Daggetts came Seth Luce and family, also from the Vineyard, and settled in the west part of the town.

Christopher Butler, with his family, also from Martha's Vineyard, came in 1789. He bought the place on which Oliver Leland had made a beginning. It is on the north side of the road which runs east from the Common, and at the intersection of it with the road to Warren on the east side of the Pond.

Ichabod Irish, a cooper of wooden ware, came to Union, from Little Compton, R.I. Sept. 17, 1789. The good Quaker resided first on the west side of the river, near the Middle Bridge. The small stock of provisions which he brought was soon exhausted; and, in the great scarcity of the following winter, his family experienced much suffering. They killed their fowls, because they had not the means to keep them alive. They made an effort, however, to winter their geese, because feathers were very valuable. But, before spring, the starving geese were observed to peck the under bark of the white birch firewood at the door. After this, the family shaved and broke the bark into small pieces for them, and thus kept them from dying.

One morning, Mr. Irish, being at the house of Capt. Adams, was invited to sit down to breakfast. He declined; he could not eat while his children were without food at home. Mrs. Adams immediately gave him half the loaf she had baked from meal procured from her brother, Jessa Robbins; enjoined on him the strictest secresy, lest she should be censured for giving away her brother's gift; and sent him home to his wife and children rejoicing, and shedding tears. another time, Mrs. Matthias Hawes gave him a portion of dough which she was kneading, and he carried it home in a towel. The children, "hungry all the time," were constantly gnawing the under bark of the white birch, and eating it, till it brought on constipation and disease.

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