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

PITTSTON    449

Universalists, Methodists and Christians in the town, and the three
first have churches. The number of public schoolhouses is eleven,—
which are valued at $5,000. The population in 1870 w^ras 1,813. In
1880 it was 1,909. The valuation of estates in 1870 was $518,515. In
1880 it was $560,709. The rate of taxation in the latter year was 16
mills on the dollar.

PittstOll is the south-easterly town of Kennebec County, lying
on the eastern bank of the Kennebec River, 6 miles south by south-
east of Augusta. It is bounded on the north by Chelsea, east by
Whitefield and Aina, south by Dresden, and west by Gardiner. The
first settler is supposed to have been Alexander Brown ; who built his
house on an interval then known as “ Kerdoormeorp,” cleared up a lot
for tillage, and was employed for several years in procuring sturgeon
for the London market. In 1676 he was killed by the Indians and his
house burned. In 1716 Dr. Noyes, agent of the Kennebec proprietors,
built a fort near Nahumkeag Island, which was also destroyed by the
Indians. Captain John North, assisted by Abram Wyman, laid the
town out in lots in 1751. Soon after the conquest of Canada a number
of persons from Falmouth settled in Pittston. The town was in-
corporated in 1779, being named in honor of William Pitt, Earl
of Chatham, the friend of the American colonies. The corporation
included Gardiner and West Gardiner until 1804. General Henry
Dearborn was the first representative to the General Court, in 1799.
The first list of town officers extant is as follows: clerk, William
Wilkins; selectmen, Seth Saper, Samuel Berry, and Thomas Agry;
treasurer, Samuel Oakman ; constable, Henry Smith. Some of the
names of other prominent citizens in the modern period are Eliakim
Scammon, Stephen Young, John Jewett, George Williamson, Nicholas
Cooper, William Stephens, John Scott, and John Blanchard. The
town is somewhat remarkable for the longevity of its inhabitants,
there being twenty-two persons in town who are eighty years of age
and upwards, several being over ninety.

Pittston as at present constituted contains an area of 21,300 miles.
It is about seven miles long from north to south, and five miles from
east to west. The surface is well diversified with hills and valleys,
ponds and streams. Beech Hill, estimated from 500 to 600 feet above
tide water is tbe highest eminence. The “Pebble Hills” on the
“ Halev Farm ” in the south-western part of the town, consist entirely
of small pebbles drifted into eminences ; and although excavations have
been made to the depth of about 80 feet, nothing else has been found.
The usual forest trees flourish; but when the town was first settled, a
large proportion of the timber was of white oak. The soil is a clay
loam, and yields good crops of hay and potatoes. Nahumkeag Pond,
situated near the centre of the town, has an area of ahout 400 acres;
Joy’s Pond, at the north-eastern corner, has an area of about 100
acres. The Togus stream passes through thd north-western part of the
town to the Kennebec. On this stream, near the river, on a substantial
stone dam, is a saw-mill capable of turning out 500,000 feet of long
lumber, 1,000,000 shingles, and clapboards and laths in proportion. The
Eastern River, having its principal reservoir in Joy’s Pond, runs south-
ward through almost the entire eastern part of the town ; furnishing;
at East Pittston the pow'er for a saw-mill and a grist-mill.