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

350    GAZETTEER    of    MAINE,

feet in height, with an inscription recording the massacre. It marks
the spot where stood the church in which he ministered. Whittier has
well described the scenes which occurred here in the poem entitled
“ Mogg Megone.”

“Well might the traveller stop to see
Tlie tall, dark forms that take their way
From the birch canoe on the river shore,

And the forest paths, to that chapel door ;

And marvel to mark the naked knees
And the dusky foreheads bending there,

While in coarse white vesture over these
In blessing or in prayer,

Stretching abroad his thin pale hands,

Like a shrouded ghost the Jesuit stands.”

This town was incorporated March 7,1804, and named for President
Madison. A small tract was taken from Norridgewock and annexed

to Madison a few years since ; which will seem to strangers as chiefly
important in bringing Norridgewock Falls and the site of the Indian
village of Norridgewock into the south-western part of the town of
Madison.

The town has churches of the Congregationalists, Methodists, and
Free Baptists—two of the last. The number of public schoolhouses
is eighteen, valued at $3,800. The valuation of estates in 1870 was
$510,437. In 1880 it was $546,077 The rate of taxation in the latter
year was 13 miils on the dollar. The population in 1870 was 1,401. In
1880 it was 1,315.