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 Bashabas 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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