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

power. The manufacturers consist of lumber, spools, flour and meal,
leather, furniture, boots and shoes, carriages and harnesses, marble and
granite work, etc.

Bethel was originally granted to Josiah Richardson, of Sudbury,
Mass., and others, for services in the French war. Being well on to-
ward Canada, and being granted for services there, it gained the name
among its settlers and others of “ Sudbury-Canada.”

Nathaniel Segar, of Newton, Mass., in the spring of 1774, made the
first attempt to clear land for the purpose of making a settlement in
the region of Bethel. The revolution drew him away until 1779; when
he returned accompanied by Jonathan Bartlett and a boy named Aaron
Barton. Samuel Ingalls removed from Andover to this town in the
fall of 1796. His wife, who accompanied him, was the first white
woman in town. The last hostile incursion of the Indians into Maine
was made in August, 1781; when a party from St. Francis made an
attack upon the outer settlements, taking all the plunder they could,
and carrying away captive, Benjamin Clark and Nathaniel Segar,
whom they detained until the war closed, sixteen months later. Set-
tlers came in rapidly after the close of the Revolution. Among the
first were the six stalwart Bartlett brothers, from Newton, Mass. In
1789, Rev. Eliphaz Chapman came in with a large family of sons. The
town was incorporated under its present name in 1796, and the first
religious society was organized the same year. Rev. Daniel Gould,
the first pastor, was settled in 1799. Dr. John Brickett was the first
physician, coming in from Haverhill in 1796. He returned in a short
time, and was succeeded in 1799, by Dr. Timothy Carter, who prac-
ticed in this town forty-six years. William Frye was the first lawyer
in Bethel. Gould’s Academy was incorporated in 1836. Isaac Ran-
dal was the first prec-epter ; and under Dr. N.T. True, preceptor from
1848 to 1861, it attained to high rank. Some of our ablest men have
attended this school. In 1881, the old edifice gave place to anew one,
costing $4,000. Bethel has twenty-five public school-houses, valued,
with other school property, at $7,000. There is a library of 300
volumes. There are in the town two Congregational churches, one
Methodist, a Universalist, a Free Baptist and a Calvinist Baptist. The
valuation of estates in 1870, was $712,871. In 1880, it was 738,586,
The rate of taxation in the latter year was 21 mills on the dollar.
The population in 1870, was 2,286. In 1880, it was 2,077.

Biddeford, in York County, includes the site of the earliest
permanent settlement in Maine of which we have a conclusive record.
In furtherance of Sir Ferdinando Gorges’ plans of settlement, Richard
Vines, a physician, passed the winter of 1616-17 at a place at the
mouth of the Saco which he called Winter Harbor. Vines performed
several voyages for Gorges, and appears to have made this a place of
usual resort. The first dwellings were built on the north side of the
Pool. Old cellars covered with ancient shrubbery, and partly filled
well-cavities until a recent time, told of its early occupancy. Apple
trees decayed with age, and the English cherry, dispute the place with
oak and sumach. In describing the boundary of an estate here in 1642,
“Church Point” is one of the landmarks referred to,—from which in-
ference is made that it was then or had been the site of a church. Rev.

7