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

bore respectively the names of East and West Butterfield. On June
13, 1798, it was separately incorporated under its present name in
honor of Governor Increase Sumner. The first settler in town was
Charles Bisbee, from Pembroke, Mass. The first settlement in the
south-east part was made in the same year by Increase Robinson and
Noah Bosworth. Most of the first settlers came from Plymouth
County, Mass., and were Revolutionary soldiers. Among the earliest
were Increase and Joseph Robinson, Simeon Barrett, Noah Bosworth,
Hezekiah Stetson, John Briggs, John Crockett, Benjamin Heald, Mesech
Keen, Barney Jackson and Oliver Cummings. These obtained the
titles to their lands from Massachusetts. Oliver Cummings, from
Dunstable, Mass., struck the first blow of the axe at what is now the
centre of the town. For some years the settlers were obliged to carry
their grist upon their backs ten miles to a mill in Turner, being guided
by a spotted line through the woods. The first grist as well as the
first saw-mill in the town was erected by Increase Robinson in 1783.

The churches in Sumner are a Congregationalist, First and Second
Baptist, Free Baptist and Universalist. The public schoolhouses num-
ber sixteen, and the entire school property has an estimated value of
$4,600. The population in 1870 was 1,170. In 1880 it was 1,014.
The valuation in 1870 was $382,463. In 1880 it was $310,985.

Surry is situated on the Avest bank of Union River bay, in
Hancock County. On the north-east it is bounded by Ellsworth, on
the south-Avest, by Blue Hill, on the Avest, by Orland and Penobscot.
The toAvn has an area of about 21,025 acres. Toddy Pond forms part
of tbe boundary between Surry and Penobscot, and on the line between
Surry and Ellsworth are the two Patten ponds Avhose outlet is Patten
Stream Fishways were constructed to these ponds in 1872, and the
ponds have since been stocked with alewives and salmon. The surface
of the toAvn is considerably broken. The land generally is valuable
for tillage. The most of the surface soil is so intermingled Avith com-
minuted quartz, or siliceous sand, that cranberries grow in the grass
fields. The cultivation of this crop is receiving increased attention.
A large deposit of nearly pure silica in the town may prove of much
value for glass and other Avare. Over miles of surface on the Toddy
Pond road lay, a feAV years ago, a bleak profusion of granite bowlders.
To-day those bowlders are seen in every stage of ruin. On every hand
they are smitten with decay, and here and there a patch of unworn
gravel is all that remains of a once great bowlder. A feAV miles beyond
these, is a field of immense bowlders, still uncrumbled, lying in wild
confusion bowlder on botvlder,—

“ The fragments of an earlier world.”

The manufactories of Surry are a lumber, shingle, spool and tAVO
stave mills. Formerly there was a large business done in building
small vessels, but it is noAv very much reduced. Surry has two mining
companies, the Blue Hill Bay and the East Surry Company.

Surry Avas ToAvnship No. 6, in the grant to Marsh and others. It
was first occupied by the French at Newbury Neck. The first English
settlers were Symonds, Weymouth and James Flye. The next settlers
were John Patten, a Mr. Hopkinson, Andrew Flood, Wilbrahirn
Swett, Matthew and James Ray, Samuel Joy, Isaac Lord, Hezekiah
Coggins and Leonard Jarvis. Mr. Jarvis represented the eastern dis-
trict in Congress from 1831 to 1837.