Gazetteer of the State of Maine With Numerous Illustrations, by Geo. J. Varney

BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY B. B. RUSSELL, 57 CORNHILL. 1882. Public domain image from

BUCKFIELD.    145

ments were resumed in 1713-14; and in 1715 a stone fortification
named Fort George was erected near the falls by the government.
There was also a block-house furnished with small cannon near Mare
(Sea) Point about this time. Yet in Lovewell’s w^Tar, in 1722, the dwell-
ings were a third time reduced to ashes. The town was again re-
peopled in 1727. In 1735 there were thirty or forty men in town. In
1790 the census was 1,387. The town was incorporated in 1737, taking
the name of one of the twelve States of the German Confederation. The
first minister of the town, Rev. Robert Rutherford, was settled at this
time. He was succeeded by Rev. Robert Dunlap, a graduate of the
University of Edinburgh, who was ordained to this pastorate in 1747 by
a presbytery in the French Protestant church of Boston. There are
now in the town churches of the Congregationalists, Methodists,
Baptists, Unitarians, Universalists, Ejnscopalians, Free Baptists, and
Roman Catholics. Brunswick village has excellent schools, graded
from primary to high. In the town are twenty-five public school-
houses, valued at $35,000. The valuation of estates in 1870 was $2,305,
806. In 1880 it was $2,684,374. The rate of taxation in the latter
year was 16^ mills on the dollar. The population in 1870 was 4,687.
In the census of 1880 it was 5,384.

Bryant’s Pond, a post-office and railroad station on the
Grand Trunk Railroad in Woodstock, Oxford County.

Buckfield is situated in the south-eastern part of Oxford
County, having Sumner and Hartford on the north, Paris on the west,
Hebron on the south, and Turner, in Androscoggin County, on the
east. Its dimensions are abou*t 8 miles east and west, and 5 north and
south. The area is 2,323 acres. The Nezinscot, or Twenty-Mile River,
is formed from the union of its east and west branches, at Buckfield
Village near the center of the town, and passes out in a south-easterly
course. North Buckfield, the other village, is on the west branch.
Falls Brook, a tributary from the western part of the town to the west
branch, has a picturesque fall not far from its mouth. The Buckfield
and rumford Railroad passes through the town in a nearly north and
south course, having a station at Buckfield Village. About one mile
south of Buckfield Village is South Pond, about three fourths of a
mile in length, and half a mile in width. Mud Pond and Jersey Bog
lie near together in the eastern part of the town. Between these aud
the village is Federal Corner. There are more than a dozen isolated
hills of considerable height in the town. The highest are Streaked
Mountain which stands at the south-west angle of the town ; South
^■*1    Hill,    in the south-east corner, North Hill, near South Pond ; Owl’s

Head Hill, south-west of the pond; and Dean’s Hill, on the north side
of the town. The surface, especially at the western part is quite
uneven. Along the streams there is some fine alluvial land. The soil
is generally deep and dark, good for grain and Indian corn. There
are in the town several beds of magnetic iron ore, and a mine of yellow
ochre has been opened. A limestone is also found yielding a fine quality
of quicklime.

Nezinscot, or Twenty-Mile River, and its branches have several
fine water-privileges, furnishing power for several saw, grist and other

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