In preparing this paper I read first a history of Dexter written by Lucy Foss as a school composition in 1858. At that time there were many people yet living who had watched the growth and development of Dexter from its earliest beginning. To these people she went for her materials, so her history is interesting and authentic.

In 1876, when the whole country was celebrating the centennial of American Independence, Volney Sprague wrote a History of Dexter, which he delivered as our 4th of July address. Mr. Sprague was a lawyer, and a native of Dexter, his father having been one of our early settlers so of course he had a fund of interesting material for his history.

In 1901 when Dexter was celebrating its centennial, Stanley Plummer, who was at that time writing an exhaustive history of the town, read a portion of what he had written as our centennial address. For his facts he had searched the town records, county records at Bangor, state records at Augusta and Massachusetts state records at Boston.

Besides these three histories I had access to three scrapbooks. One of these was compiled by my mother (Sarah Parker [Lane] Winslow), one by Volney Sprague and one by Miss Alice Copeland. These scrapbooks were made up of newspaper items concerning Dexter and especially old Dexter, of published letters from former residents, reminiscences of "The Boys", discussions about the location of roads, water privileges and buildings.

Now, when I had read these three histories and the three scrapbooks and had talked with some of the older residents I had more interesting material than I could possibly use. I couldn't take the time to write it down. It is hard to know where to begin in telling you about it, and equally hard to know when to stop.

Most of us are familiar with the coming of Ebenezer Small, our first settler, to the little brush camp on the hillside. On Armistice Day 1920, as members of Rebecca Weston Chapter, DAR stood near the location of this camp to unveil the tablet which we had erected in memory of this first settler and his habitation, we all tried to imagine what Dexter looked like 120 years before, without houses or roads. Two densely wooded hills, a valley between which was mostly a swamp, a stream running down through this valley as an outlet to the beautiful pond beyond the hills, and that was all.

As Ebenezer Small stood in the doorway of his camp and looked out on this scene he could truly say:

He had come here the year before from his home in Alton, N.H. and after clearing a patch of ground and building the brush camp, had gone back to Athens where his wife was waiting for him. He then brought her here on a hand sled which he hauled himself through the woods where there was no road, and this side of Harmony not even a winter road, finding his way by a blazed trail.

On the sled were all their earthly possessions, their furniture (if they had any) dishes, bedding, wearing apparel and provisions to last for some time to come. In this camp on February 4, 1802 there was born to Mr. and Mrs. Small a baby girl whom they named Joanna. Imagine the privations and yet they were happy and probably did not think it a hardship. Where did Mrs. Small get the baby clothes and other necessities for the little stranger? She must have brought everything on the sled for there was no baby shop or bargain counter for this mother.

The next year Mr. Small built a comfortable log house [on Zions Hill] and set out a large orchard surrounding it. This orchard was in existence for many years and was always referred to as the "old orchard". I distinctly remember climbing some of those old trees when I was a girl. The Smalls lived here for about 30 years, then the daughter Joanna having married a man by the name of Blanchard and gone to Springfield, Me. to live, Mr. and Mrs. Small went to Springfield to be near her and began pioneering again, that town having just been settled. Joanna had a family of children whom she brought up in Springfield.

Our second settler was John Tucker who settled on a farm on the Ripley Road. [Now outer Zions Hill Rd.] He was a soldier of the Revolution and was a much older man than Mr. Small, being already a grandfather, and so having a large family of grown up sons and daughters, was able to clear a large farm in a short space of time.

Our third settler was Seba French. He came in from the west, as the others had done, and after staying overnight at John Tucker's, went on the next day to the farm he was to occupy in the east part of town. He was agent for the proprietors of the township in the selling of land. When anyone came to town to buy land, he made it a point to keep them at his house overnight. By morning, if they pleased his fancy and he thought they would make good citizens, then he had land to sell them and did everything in his power to get them settled. But if on the other hand, they didn't "pass muster" then he showed them why it wouldn't be best for them to settle in this town and how it would be to their distinct advantage to go and settle in some other town. He was always very polite and affable yet he managed to get rid of all undesirables.

The next man of whom I shall speak is John Bates and I take him, not because he is more important than some of the others, but because I know more about him. He came from Greene, Maine in 1814. Previous to coming here, he was engaged to marry my father's aunt, Abigail Adams. I don't know what happened; a lovers quarrel, or perhaps he found the Dexter girl more attractive. At any rate, he married the girl from this vicinity and went to housekeeping in a house which he built next to his blacksmith shop on Grove St. Mrs. Bates is described as a very amiable woman. Wm Jumper, in writing for the paper about Dexter, spoke of a term of school which he attended, kept by Mrs. Bates in her own home and he called her a pattern woman. But her health soon failed and she died soon after moving into the new house which Mr. Bates built on Main St., where the little park is.

Some time after this, Mrs. Bates father came to see him. He found him very blue and melancholy and, as he expressed it, afraid of his own shadow! He told him he must not live alone and if there was a woman on the face of the earth who would marry him to go and get married. Then John Bates thought of the girl he had jilted back in Greene. He went to see her. They were married and went to housekeeping in the Bates house on Main St. where they kept tavern for many years. The second Mrs. Bates, Abigail Adams, was a sister to my grandmother Winslow, who was Polly Adams, and they were the daughters of Sam'l Adams, a soldier of the Revolution.

John Bates was a blacksmith and also carried on many other businesses in town. When the town was incorporated in 1816, John Bates was the first town clerk and during that first year the men held six town meetings. The records of the last meeting, in John Bates handwriting, ended with these words: "this meeting died by annihilation." John Bates was also the first treasurer and held this office most every year up to 1838. Perhaps you would like to know how John Bates looked. I have his picture made by the best artist of the time and also a picture of Mrs. Bates and two of their children. These pictures were made 95 years ago. [These are silhouettes and are in the Millers House now.]

I also have four deeds which I think are interesting. The first is one in which Tabitha Philbrick, of Elkinstown, County of Hancock, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for the sum of twenty dollars conveys to John Bates of Greene a lot of land, on which he built his blacksmith shop, on the bank of the stream on Grove St. The date is 1814.

The next deed is dated 1816. This is the year the town was incorporated and the name changed from Elkinstown to Dexter. But that event took place in August and this deed is dated the previous March, so the name is still Elkinstown. But on the 15th of February of this year, what is now Penobscot Co. was set apart from Hancock Co., to take effect on April 1. This deed was dated March 26th, but they got ahead of time and called it Penobscot Co. in the Commonwealth of Mass. This deed was given by Andrew Morse and was for land adjoining John Bates' shop, on which he built his house when he married Diadami Heald.

The third deed was two years later in 1818 and is dated Dexter, Penob. Co., State of Mass. This was was for a piece of land on the westerly side of Grove St. and was for quite a good sized piece as the consideration was $300. This deed was acknowledged before G.M. Burleigh, Justice of the Peace.

The fourth deed was in 1820. This was the year Maine was set off from Mass. and became a state. That took place on the 15th of March 1820 and this deed was dated August 18, so it is headed Dexter, Penobscot Co., State of Maine. These last two deeds were for land conveyed by Jonathan Farrar.

Jonathan Farrar came to town in 1816 and bought the mill. Perhaps I should go back a little and speak of the mill. About the time our first settler arrived, Samuel Elkins came with a contract, from the proprietors of the town, to build a sawmill where the Abbott's Mill is now. He partly built the mill and then his health failed and he was obliged to give it up. Afterwards his brother, John Elkins, took up the contract and finished the mill. Being Elkins mill, the place came to be called Elkinstown. After running the mill a short time, Elkins sold it to Jonathan Snow. Snow built the first frame house in town on Grove St. just beyond the railroad crossing. This house was afterward occupied by the miller, Mr. Stocking, and so the house was known by the older residents as the Stocking house.

But Jonathan Snow proved an unpopular man in the little settlement. Seba French was evidently wrong in his diagnosis. Or, what is more likely, Snow bought the mill before coming to town so French had no chance to pass judgement. Unpleasant things kept happening in the settlement. At last, a barn belonging to Samuel Copeland, on the road to Spooner's Mills, was burned and suspicion pointed to Jonathan Snow as the incendiary. The place became too hot for him and he left town and sold out to Wiggins Hill. Snow went to Boston and was afterwards arrested on the charge of having burned a building. Seba French, on a visit to Boston, went to the jail to see him and he confessed to French that he did burn the Copeland barn.

Wiggins Hill ran the mill for a few years and sold to Andrew Morse and went himself to Bangor where he became one of its wealthy businessmen. Andrew Morse bought more land and built a house [on Main Street Hill, now the telephone office.] One of the early owners, probably Snow, started a gristmill in the same building as the sawmill and one of the owners, either Hill or Morse, built the carding mill on the same dam. The sawmill was on the west end, or the Grove St. end of the dam and the carding mill was on the east, or Church St end and a little below the dam, taking water from a flume, while the saw and grist mills were run from the bulkhead. Years afterward this carding mill was moved up the bank and onto Pleasant St. where it was made over into a house.

On the next water privilege below, there was a small mill on the west end of the dam, called the fulling mill, and the dam in the old records, was called the fulling mill dam. This mill was owned by Capt. J.C. Hill. All settlers for many miles around Dexter kept sheep and they would bring in their wool and take it to the carding mill where it would be carded into rolls. They would then take it home and the housewives would spin the rolls into yarn on an old fashioned spinning wheel and then they would weave the yarn into cloth on an old hand loom which everyone owned. They would then bring the cloth back to the fulling mill where it would be dressed, dyed (except some which was dyed in the dye pot at home) and pressed, ready to be made up into garments, the old fashioned homespun which you have all heard of if not actually seen.

When Jonathan Farrar came to town he bought everything owned by Morse, saw and grist mill, carding mill and house. He then bought more land till he owned about everything from the Brick mill, [now the old Dexter Shoe] way up to the station [now the redemption center] and up over the hill to Greene's Inn, [corner of the Charleston Rd]. Mr. Farrar also bought the fulling mill and about all the land on the west side of Grove St. from the fulling mill to the bridge. He was a rich man, for the times, when he came being worth about $10,000.

In the southeast corner of his house, Farrar opened a store, the first one in town. In it he kept a general stock of goods, such as would be found in any country store of the times. He was honest and upright in all of his dealings so he enjoyed a large patronage from the surrounding country. He went to Boston once a year to buy his goods, had them shipped by boat to Bangor and hauled by ox teams from Bangor to Dexter.

After he got his store running in good shape, he found the grist mill had outgrown its present quarters in the saw mill building, so he conceived the idea of building a grist mill where Sam Small's mill is today. [our Grist Mill Museum] To do this he had to dig the canal and the reservoir to furnish it with water. The canal branches off from the stream just below the [fulling mill] dam, but to the right of the road running into Middlesex between Edes and Smith's stores. [now Rent a Center] It runs under Smith's store, under the street, under Kerby's store [Fossa building] and into the reservoir which is behind the business blocks on Main St. For many years after this canal was dug it was uncovered except that in the center of the street it was spanned by a narrow bridge. When the reservoir was dug it was very deep and would hold water enough to run the mill for an hour after the upper gates were shut. It has since been filled with sawdust and debris till it is only a shallow mill pond. [Now part of the parking lot.]

The digging of this canal and reservoir would be no fool of a job even today, but at that time when there were only about forty families in the whole township, the task was tremendous. Sheer grit and N.E. rum did the trick. Farrar would hold a "bee" and invite all the men in the township and surrounding townships to come and dig and give them all the rum they wanted to drink.

This method of accomplishing a large amount of work was a common one. Even people who objected to the use of liquor (and they were few in those days) used it because they thought they had to. The first person to go without the rum was Mr. Sam Keene, or rather, it was Mrs. Sam Keene. (They were the parents of Mrs. Lizzie Tibbetts, the first president of this Woman's Club.) The Sam Keenes had a barn to raise and Mr. Keene began to talk about how much rum he would need to get, but Mrs. Keene had witnessed so many events of this kind where men had so degraded themselves, that she said they wouldn't have any rum. Mr. Keene said the men wouldn't come without it. "Then" said Mrs. Keene, "we will go without the barn." But she told Mr. Keene to go around and invite the men and tell the she would get them as good a dinner as she knew how to cook, but there would be no rum. Mr. Keene was skeptical, but he gave out the invitations and awaited results. The day arrived and the men all came. True to her word, Mrs. Keene had a splendid dinner for them and she kept cold jugs of ginger water for them to drink, but nothing stronger.

Years after this, when the temperance movement had taken such a hold of Dexter, and a temperance meeting of a Sunday afternoon or evening would fill town hall to overflowing, with Owen Bridges at one end of the stage and Doc Nason at the other, shouting for the people to come up, come up and sign the pledge, Mrs. Keene, then an old, old lady, told the story of the barnraising at one of these meetings and she said, "they came like men in answer to their neighbor's need, and they went home like men."

As soon as Farrar got the grist mill to running in good shape, he put James Jumper in charge and turned his attention to the saw mill. This was sadly in need of repair so he built it over at great expense and installed new and up to date machinery. In 1820 he sold the saw mill and the carding mill to Amos and Jeremiah Abbott who had come here from Andover, Mass.

In 1826 Jonathan Farrar built the tannery. Previous to this there had been a tannery which had been running for some years. It was in a building which sat about where Tillson's store is and the bark sheds were below. In 1875 when the Bank block was built, in excavating for the foundation, workmen found, about six feet underground, layers of tanbark showing where the sheds had been. The tannery which Mr. Farrar built was the one which afterward became the property of Chas. Shaw, on Center St.

At this time everything below the old Bates house was woods and mostly swamp at that. Right in the middle was a mound shaped like a sugar loaf. With many men and more rum he leveled off this mound, using the soil for building the dam and filling in the swampy places. Where the mound stood he put the tan vats. As soon as the tannery was running he put it in charge of Moses Chase.

In 1830 Farrar sold the grist mill to Jonathan Weatherbee. In that same year, in company with Ozam McCrillis, he built the building where John Dyer's store is [now the police station] and moved his stock in trade to this store. In 1834, in company with Lysander Cutler, he built a woolen mill where the Dumbarton Mill [now Chaia Apartments] is today, the dam having been previously built by John Bates. At this time an inventory was made of his estate and it was found he was worth $200,000. He died in 1838 and his business was carried on by his son, Samuel Farrar.

Lysander Cutler, unlike Mr. Farrar who was a rich man when he came here, arrived with two dollars in his pocket. He came intending to work for the Amos Abbott Co. but when he arrived they were having trouble in the school.

The first school house in town was built in 1811 on the Simeon Safford farm. Farms in the east part of the town were all taken up by this time and this was a central location for the scholars. It was school house, church and town hall till 1821 although a few terms of school were taught in private houses down on the flat and in 1820 town meeting was held in Greene's Inn on the hill. In 1821 a school house was built where Crosby's office is now [now across from Wayside Park] and by 1830 when Mr. Cutler arrived it held a good-sized school. For some time the big boys had been playing the old but interesting game of putting out the school master. Every teacher hired by the school agent was promptly put out by the boys. Although a young man, Mr. Cutler had had some experience in teaching hard schools up in the Berkshire Hills. So he applied for the position. They told him if he would finish the term they would pay him $16 a month, but if he left before it was done or allowed himself to be put out by the boys they wouldn't pay him anything. He accepted the position under those terms.

The first day was devoted to settling the all important question as to who should govern the school. When night came the question was answered. All the big bullies had been soundly thrashed and Lysander Cutler was master.

When school closed he went to work for the Amos Abbott Co. and in two years he built a house and got married, his wife being a Bassett girl from Corinna, a sister to Hiram Bassett of this town. Lysander Cutler was an important man. All historians of the town agree that he was one of the four biggest men the town ever had, the others being Jonathan Farrar and the two Abbotts. In 1834 Cutler organized the Dexter Fire Co. and from that day to this there has never been a time when Dexter was not justly proud of its Fire Department.

In 1836 Cutler organized the Dexter Rifle Co. He had had some experience in military matters before coming to Dexter, as had many of the men of the company. My grandfather, a member of the company, had previous to coming to Dexter been a member of the famous Mechanics Blues of Portland. Mr. Cutler was made Captain and the company was so well trained and made such a good showing at the state muster, which they attended the following summer, that they became the crack company of the state and Capt. Cutler was made Lieut Col. of the state militia.

In 1839 occurred that flurry which so many people have laughed about, the bloodless Aroostock War. Two of the company went to Bangor and enlisted with a company from the queen city. Very soon Gov. Fairfield called for a draft and then the Dexter Rifle Co. enlisted in a body and marched to Fort Fairfield, up over the military road where so many of you have driven in your cars the past few years. Perhaps people had occasion to laugh but these man when they left their homes to go up into the wilderness had no way of knowing but that it might be the bloodiest war in history.

The Dexter Rifle Co. was the most elaborately uniformed Co. on the field and were the admiration of the country through which they passed Their uniforms were of drab cloth, faced and trimmed with black in true military style. There was an inch wide stripe of black velvet down the outside seams of the trousers. On the shoulders were elaborate epaulettes. The knapsacks were of drab, bordered with black with the letters D.R.C. in black on the sides. They all carried muskets. But the crowning glory was the bonnet or cap. This was of black velvet with 5 black ostrich plumes overlapping each other over the crown.

Lysander Cutler was the acting Col. of the Division of which the Dexter Rifle Co. formed a part. Gen Isaac Hodsden had charge of the Brigade. Arrived on the ground, when he wanted to visit any part of his command he always called on the Dexter Rifle Co. for an escort. He liked the pomp and splendor of their uniforms. It became something of a joke with the other officers. On the way home the company stopped one day in Bangor where they were dined and feted and made much of.

Lysander Cutler was always the friend of education, and due a great deal to his influence, Dexter had a high school as far back as 1844. It was also due to his influence that a high school building was built up on the hill in 1855 to relieve the congested conditions of the rooms under the town hall. The next year, when on town meeting day the floor gave way precipitating the voters down through two floors to the cellar, Lysander Cutler was moderator and was on the stage which remained intact. They said he called for an adjournment and carried it before they struck bottom.

The next day at the reopened meeting, when the question came up as to whether they should build a new hall or repair the old one, Mr. Cutler said "build and build for the future". So they built our present hall which was far in advance of the times and now, after 68 years, is not too bad a hall for a town of this size to own.

It was due to him that our schools were graded at a very early date and perhaps due to his influence (although it wasn't done till after he left) that this town was the third town in the state to furnish free textbooks, at least ten years before it became state law.

There was one thing which Mr. Cutler was instrumental in obtaining for the town, which as far as I can see brought no material benefit; the sundial. This was bought by popular subscription and cost $100. It was set up in a central place at the junction of two paths, one leading into the livery stable and the other down by the gristmill. It consisted of a rectangular granite base surmounted by the metal disc with its intricate divisions and subdivisions for telling time. Mr. Moses Bliss, from Eau Claire, Wisc., came to set it up and he was assisted by Chas. Curtis. It required a clear still night for the work, using the north star for one of the dimensions and a candle, fastened on the side of the gristmill casting its shadow, gave the other dimension. When it was set up, no one but an expert could tell time by it. A few became so proficient they could tell if it was nearer 11 than 12, but they had to go home and consult the family clock to get the correct time. After awhile, because of the action of the frost, or more likely, because of the action of a woodpile which was thrown off near it, it got out of alignment and no one was interested enough to have (it fixed). [It is now on display at the Grist Mill Museum.]