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

154    GAZETTEER OF MAINE.

Cambridge is the north-eastern town of Somerset County.
It is the northern half of a six miles square towuship, the southern half
being Ripley. Main Stream, a tributary of the Sebasticook River,
passing through the original township diagonally toward the south-
west, forms the dividing line between the two towns. It adjoins
Harmony on the west, Dexter, in Penobscot County, on the east, and
Parkinan, in Piscataquis County, on the north The surface of the town
is generally undulating, with few high elevations, Ham Hill having the
greatest altitude. The maple is the most numerous tree in the forests
The soil is loamy, and yields good crops of wheat, corn and potatoes.
Cambridge Pond, about midway of the western part of the town, is
the principal sheet of water. Ferguson Stream, rising in large bogs
at the north, runs southward across the southern part of the town,
furnishing at Cambridge Village a power sufficient to run a saw-mill
and a flour-mill. This village lies between Ferguson Stream and Cam-
bridge Pond, and is the principal centre of business. The place is 70
miles from Augusta, and 24 north-east of Skowhegan. It is on the
stage-line from Pittsfield to Harmony. The nearest railroad station is
at Dexter, 10 miles east.

There are Baptist, Free Baptist and Christian societies in the town,
and a Baptist and a Union church. Cambridge has five public school-
houses, valued with the other school property at $1,200. The valua-
tion of estates in 1870 was $109,182. In 1880 it was $117,312. The
rate of taxation in the latter year was 16 mills on th deollar. The pop-
ulation in 1870 was 472, and in 1880 it remained exactly the same.

Camden is situated on the west side of Penobscot Bay, and is
the north-eastern town of Knox County. Rockland bounds it on the
south, Hope on the north-west, Penobscot Bay on the east and Lin-
colnville, in Waldo County, on the north. The area is 26,880 acres.
The surface is broken and mountainous, and the Indian name of the
place (Megunticook) signifying great sea-swells, is properly descrip-
tive. There are grouped within the town five mountains, spoken of in
early times as Mathebestncks Hills. Mount Megunticook is 1,265 feet
in height; and of Mount Beatty, Bald Mountain, Ragged Mountain
and Mount Pleasant, no summit falls below 900 feet above the sea.
They range in general from north-east to south-west, and are more or
less clothed with forest trees quite to their tops. The summit of
Megunticook affords one of the noblest of marine prospects, embracing
Penobscot Bay with its islands, Mount Desert at the east, and a vast
sweep of the ocean on the south-east. These are possibly the moun-
tains mentioned by Captain Weymouth, as seen in his voyage in 1605,
and by Captain Smith in 1614. They are visible 20 leagues distant.
They are supposed to have been the boundary between the great
Bashaba’s dominions, situated on the west, and those of the Tarratines
on the east and north. Mount Beatty, 900 feet in height and three-
fourths of a mde from the village, was during the war of 1812 furnished
with a battery consisting of one 12 and one 18 pounder. Though there
were no gunners qualified to manage the battery, and few soldiers in
town, this appearance of readiness for defense kept the British in
check.

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