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

224    GAZETTEER OF MAINE.

line by the former route. The distance on an air line is about 85 miles.
One of these passes through Flagstaff and Dead River Plantation, while
the other follows Carrabasset River.

Some time before Maine became a State, the southern -half of this
township was granted by Massachusetts to Bath Academy Associa-
tion. About 1,700 acres of this lying south of the Saddleback River
was purchased by Gilman and Redington, of Waterville. Caleb
Stevens, a native of New Hampshire, was the first settler. He brought
with him his wife and nine children, the eldest, a son being eighteen
years of age. Abram Reed, of Kingfield, was the second settler ; and
was soon followed by Capt. Isaac Proctor, Frank Keen, Nathaniel
Allen, and Reuben Bartlett, from Hartford, and Noah Staples, from
Dixfield. The balance of the Bath Academy Grant was purchased by
Captain Pettingill and Colonel Herrick, of Lewiston. From them it
went through various hands to Gibson, Fogg and Company, of Fair-
field. The north half of the township was purchased of the State about
the year 1881, by a Mr. Clark, of Massachusetts, and Charles L. Eustis,
of Lewiston, Me.; and a saw and grist mill was built by the latter at
the same date. From them it went through the hands of a New
Hampshire firm to ex-governor Coburn and his brothers.

In 1840 the township was organized as a plantation under the name
of Hanover. About 1850 the township together with all others ad-
joining in the county that contained inhabitants, were embodied in a
plantation under the name of Jackson. Soon after the act of Legisla-
ture passed in 1857, prohibiting the organization of more than one
township in one plantation, township No. 1, of the 4th Range was
organized independently of others, assuming the name of Eustis in
honor of the former proprietor of the north half of' said town. Eustis
furnished more than her quota of men and money in the war of the
Rebellion, and paid her war-debts while money was plenty. She was
subsequently reimbursed by the State. Eustis was incorporated as a
town in 1871, with a population of 342 inhabitants.

The Methodists and Free Baptists each have a church in the town.
The number of public schoolhouses is four; and these with the other
school property are valued at $600. The valuation of the town in
1870 was $57,558. In 1880 it was $64,880. The population in 18^0
w’as 342. In 1880 it was 302.

EXOtOl* is an excellent agricultural town in the south-western
part of Penobscot County. It is 20 miles north-west of Bangor, on
the stage-line from Bangor to Dexter, and is the terminus of the stage-
line from Etna station on the Maine Central Railroad. The town is
bounded on the east by Corinth, south by Stetson, north by Garland,
and west by Corinna. Its area is about 33 square miles. The surface
is uneven, but the soil in general is excellent, though it contains almost
all varieties. Hay and potatoes are the crops principally cultivated.
The rock is chiefly granitic. The prevailing forest trees are maple and
cedar. The Kenduskeag is the largest stream, rising in the north-
western part, arid flowing in a curve through the middle of the town.
It furnishes in its course eight distinct powers, all of which have been
improved and occupied by mills. Not many years ago, there were
upon the streams of Exeter, three saw-mills for long lumber, seven
shingle-mills, four grist-mills, a machine-shop, a carriage-shop and a