£{)C .farmer's iltontljlii Visitor. 



107 



mid Hermon, the Souadabscook stream, in the 

 main is the valley leading to the wharves upon 

 tin- Penobscot at Bangor, twenty-five and one- 

 fourlh miles. The maximum of inclination on 

 this route no where exceeds forty feet to the 

 mile: of the distance, as surveyed, four-fifths 

 consists of straight lines — the longest continuous 

 ascent directly out of Bangor is three, miles. 

 The whole expense of the distance, including 

 land damages, depots, engines, Pars, &C. accu- 

 rately estimated by an experienced engineer, will 

 be short of a million of dollars. Within five 

 years from its completion, u railroad in this dis- 

 tance would of itself create a cash capital at 

 least equal to its entire cost, in the sale of pro- 

 perty now lying dormant : its effect on the pro- 

 perty that will remain, bringing its immensity 

 of timber and fuel in near contiguity to the 

 ships ready to receive litem, will be beyond all 

 calculation. 



The Atlantic and St. Lawrence railroad from 

 Portland takes this direction as far as Danville, 

 the outside town of Cumberland county, at a 

 point six miles from the Androscoggin : this part 

 •of the road is nearly if not quite completed. 

 From Danville to Walerville by the great falls of 

 Lewiston and through the rich interior of Ken- 

 nebeek county, the Androscoggin and Kenne- 

 beck railroad leads to Waterville : this road is 

 now building and will he completed the present 

 year. It is remarkable that as proprietors of this 

 road there are about six hundred farmers on the 

 way, the most of whom have paid for their stock 

 in work ; and that of all the stock on both the 

 St. Lawrence and Kennebeck roads there are 

 only two Boston stockholders. With such sub- 

 stantial foundation as the long line of railroad 

 all the way from its east line far up north to 

 New Hampshire through the whole interior to 

 Bangor presents in its stockholders at home, 

 there can he no mistake as to the accumulation 

 of business and capital which will be brought 

 along as Cast as any portion of them is comple- 

 ted. The gauge of all the Maine railways has 

 been fixed by a law of the State at five and a 

 ball' feet: the common gauge of the New Eng- 

 land roads is but four feet eight inches. The 

 discrepancy may make some inconvenience at 

 the points of connection. The wider gauge ad- 

 mitting of a larger engine enables the passage 

 of long trains and heavy weight at a more rapid 

 rate. The New York and Erie railroad has a 

 gauge of six feet: the Great Western in Eng- 

 land is seven feet, and over this has been hauled 

 a load of one hundred tons at the rate of fifty- 

 two miles the hour. 



All the time of our tarry in Penobscot the 

 weather was damp atld chilly : the season up to 

 Jul v bad partaken of the same uniform charac- 

 ter. Vet there seemed to be a stimulant in the 

 soil which supplied the want of sunshine in pro- 

 moting the vegetable growth ; a capital kitchen 

 garden, with larger cabbages, lettuce, beets 

 and onions than we had seen two hundred miles 

 south-west, was attached to the Bangor house, a 

 noble brick structure erected by a company ten 

 years ago in its compart part. Bangor, situated 

 onjboth sides at the mouth of the Kenduskeag 

 branch of the Penobscot, is united on both sides 

 of the former by three bridges. lis appearance 

 from some points is very beautiful : the new 

 brick structures for stores along the valley near 

 the bridges are substantial and permanent. The 

 dwelling houses of wood, of belter quality in 

 the material than is usual in villages suddenly 

 erected on the springing up of new business, are 



handsome and many elegant: a princely brick 

 mansion that might distinguish the millionaire 

 of an older and wealthier city, is the properly 

 of Mr. Farrar, who emigrated to Maine, as 

 did thousands from the interior of the Granite 

 State. 



The activity of the wharves and lumber-yards 

 along the shores- of the larger river at Bangor — 

 the arrival of rafts from above and the lading of 

 ships below — all comes from the "tall evergreen 

 pine," the excellence of whose rift and grain 

 makes for it a market, as the best material of 

 wood for building, in towns and countries far 

 distant. The preparation of this timber in win- 

 ter and its conveyance down in summer employs 

 many bands: the red shirts of the river mix in 

 with the whole active population. What is done 

 very far back in the woods may be indicated by 

 the fact that a single dam in the upper south- 

 west branch of the St. John's river, turning the 

 navigation of timber up stream into the bead 

 waters of one of the branches of the Penobscot, 

 brings the logs up the first to be floated over the 

 last river, far down which they are sawed out 

 and manufactured : the dam cost its proprietor 

 fifteen thousand dollars. 



The newly opened cleared lands in all this re- 

 gion are said to be first rate, of which, from our 

 observation of those nearer the sea, we cannot 

 doubt. A red-shirt coming down eighty miles 

 to see the fourth of July at Bangor and make his 

 last payment for land to the State agent, intro- 

 duced bimself'to the editor of the Visitor as 

 from New Hampshire at the Hatch house kept 

 by Mr. Varney, who knows how to entertain and 

 minister to the convenience of an invalid, as 

 well as to enlighten him with every species of 

 information interesting to the stranger delightin 

 in the development of new facts having relation 

 to the growth and prosperity of the country. He 

 (the red shirt) understood that we came from 

 Concord, and having heard the speakers the day 

 before, he thought he had a right to make him- 

 self known to one from his native State wdio 

 was here no stranger. My grandfather (said he) 

 kept the somewhat noted Osgood tavern in Con- 

 cord "long, long ago" [the old house fronting 

 the railroad depot still standing.] Benjamin 

 Osgood is my name, and I was born in Conway. 

 I live up there on the Mattawamkeag, where I 

 can tell you the whigs are as far apart as mile- 

 stones. I was a poor man eight years ago, but 

 now have enough to support me without hard 

 work the rest of my life. 1 live in No. 7, third 

 range, north of Springfield. My purchase was 

 two hundred acres at the price of a dollar and a 

 half an acre : our warranty for the title comes 

 at the time of the last payment 1 am now to 

 make. 1 went upon this land eight years ago, 

 anil have cleared sixty acres. The growth of 

 the land in heavy trees is mainly rock maple 

 and birch : the soil is a little ledgy in some 

 places: it is gently rolling, and the soil is good 

 for corn, and spring wheat, as high as twenty and 

 twenty-five bushels to the acre : one field of my 

 land three years ago of twelve acres gave a crop 

 of wheat of three hundred bushels. I clear 

 from ten to fifteen acres every year— burn up 

 every thing except the large girdled Standing 

 trees at the clearing. The firm is too new to 

 make much ploughing yet necessary. I keep 

 twenty-two head of cattle, of which are two 

 yoke of oxen — forty-four sheep, and but one 

 horse. My family, two sons and four daughters, 

 are all married in that country excepting the 

 youngest hoy sixteen years old. Before any body 



settled on this land, pine timber if it was now 

 standing enough to buy Bangor was taken from 

 the township, some of which was wasted, and 

 the rest, of little value to the owners of the land, 

 was floated down here over the Mattawamkeag 

 and Penobscot." 



This township 7 is in that part of Penobscot 

 county eastward of the river coming in as a 

 block northerly of a similar block of townships 

 of Hancock county, westwatdly of the north end 

 of Washington, and southerly of the yet amaz- 

 ingly extensive county of Aroostook : it is fifty 

 miles westerly of Calais, a lumbering town with 

 extensive saw-mills of six thousand inhabitants 

 upon the St. Croix on the line of New Bruns- 

 wick discharging itself into the Bay of Ftllldy. 

 This Air. Osgood's land taken as the specimen 

 emigrant fanners from New England may he 

 able to decide the question why it may not be as 

 well to turn their faces east as west. 



An extra trip of the splendid steamer Slate of 

 Maine, which came up to Bangor from New 

 York while we remained, down the bay as far as 

 Tliomaston, left us an opportunity to take a new 

 way home through the counties of Waldo and 

 Lincoln by Augusta on the Kennebeck. Our 

 landing was at the busy town of Belfast, some 

 thirty miles below Bangor, at which place no 

 less than thirty-three ships, barks and schooners 

 from 250 to 500 tons each, are this year building : 

 these are disposed of to merchants and others 

 on sale at from $28 to $30 per Km for the hull 

 without the masts and rigging. The price paid 

 to ship carpenters and mechanics is two dollars 

 to two and a half dollars per day. Belfast is but 

 a sample of the ship building at the present 

 time in the towns all along the coast and up the 

 bays and rivers of the State of Maine. 



Belfast, a beautiful town rising from a widened 

 bay of the Penobscot river formed from the 

 north ending of Isleborough, lies over against 

 Castine at the distance of about fifteen miles. 

 Overlooking the water at two and three points, 

 the prospect from the higher residences back of 

 the more compact parts of the village is very 

 beautiful : of these elegant white dwellings 

 viewed from the bay below, that of Mr. White, 

 whose uncle the Hon. James White, late treasurer 

 of the State of Maine, and now president of the 

 bank and financier for the company of the new 

 steamer Slate of Maine, until this day a stranger, 

 kindly proferred to us his horse and tig in a 

 drive all over and around the village. Recollect- 

 ing the father of this family, the Hon. William 

 White of Chester, a senator and representative 

 in New Hampshire nearly half a century ago, 

 the information derived from the new acquain- 

 tance was interesting to us as it may be to others 

 of the Granite State. The father of the family 

 of Whiles came to this country at tiie time of 

 the Londonderry settlement of Scotch Irish 

 nearly a century ago. The settlement was form- 

 ed in this manner: the farm lots approach the 

 meeting-house or kirk, widening as the circle 

 extended outward: Mr. White, being a young 

 man without family, was thrown in his lot so far 

 out of the Londonderry centre as to bring him 

 within the limits of Chester on the east. His 

 farm was all extensive one down somh of old 

 Chester village : part of it is noV the residence 

 and farm of the Hon. Samuel Bell, whose ances- 

 tors were of the first Londonderry Scotch settlers 

 The elder Mr. White, marrying the daughter of 

 John Mitchell, reared a large family of sous and 

 daughters, of whom an elder son moved to Bel- 

 fast soon after the settlement revived there after 



