by Mary Grow

Last week’s article was about ponds in Windsor that were named after people who settled or lived near them. According to Henry Kingsbury’s 1892 Kennebec County history and Linwood Lowden’s 1993 Windsor history, several streams or brooks were also named in recognition of early residents.

Dearborn Brook is the newer name of what Lowden said was the Moody Pond outlet, called in an 1800 deed “Grover’s upper meadow brook on the east side of Oak Hill.”

Dearborn Brook has its origin in southwestern Windsor, near the Windsor-Whitefield town line. It wanders north and east most of the length of the town, with Moody Pond and two other widenings in southern Windsor.

The brook passes west of Windsor’s four corners (the intersection of north-south Route 32 and east-west Route 105); passes under Route 32; and joins the West Branch of the Sheepscot River in northern Windsor.

Besides Grover’s Brook, Lowden said this stream was also called Oak Hill Stream, Meadow Stream, Chases Brook and Colburn Stream or Colburn Brook.

Grover referred to Ebenezer Grover. Lowden identified him as the first man to settle in Windsor, choosing a piece of meadowland in the southeastern area called Pinhook (because of a U-shaped bend in the west branch of the Sheepscot).

Lowden found that Grover was born in York in 1724. He married Martha Grant of Berwick in August 1745; they lived in Georgetown and then in Whitefield on the way to what became Windsor.

Grover “laid claim to, and began to improve” the meadowland in 1781 (when he was 57, Lowden pointed out). He probably moved to Windsor permanently before 1786.

In 1797, Grover, his son Thomas, son-in-law Thomas Day and a neighbor named Abijah Grant had the area surveyed, trying to establish a claim that would compete with the British-based proprietors. Lowden devoted several pages of his history to accounts of Grover’s land dealings.

The historian wrote that Grover’s first home was evidently a house rather than a log cabin. He referenced a Sept. 2, 1797, plan by surveyor Josiah Jones showing “a small building with a glazed window.” It was on the west side of the Sheepscot and a little north of what is now Route 17, Lowden said.

The Grovers probably had three sons and four daughters. Lowden found evidence suggesting Martha Grover died before 1785, and Ebenezer lived with a son-in-law named Joseph Trask, Jr.

Lowden called Grover a man overlooked by historians, who should have credit for his role in Windsor’s early development. Specifically, he deserved recognition for the “first serious mapping” of the town, and for “his significant influence in attracting settlers to this area through his many land transactions.”

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Lowden’s lists of early Windsor settlers include no Dearborns, but the name appears in his history. Your writer has found no evidence explicitly linking the Dearborn family to Dearborn Brook, and no explanation for the stream’s name.

Henry Dearborn, of Pittston, bought half a grist mill at what became Maxcy’s Mills, southeast of the four corners, on May 6, 1823.

In or a bit before 1834, two Dearborns, Henry W. and Dudley T., were among Windsor residents signing a petition to the Maine legislature to dam the Kennebec River at Augusta.

In April 1847, after more than 30 years of declining to build a town house, Windsor voters decided they needed one. They appointed a three-man committee to draft plans and find a site, and on May 15, 1845, they bought William Haskell’s lot for $30.

The deed was signed July 10, 1845; and a second committee, consisting of Haskell, William Hilton and Henry Dearborn, was directed to hire a contractor, plan the building, oversee construction and “accept…the building on completion.”

The voters said work should be done by March 1, 1846, except the plastering – that deadline was June 1, 1846. The first town meeting in the new building started at 1 p.m. May 21, 1846, Lowden wrote.

Lowden quoted an additional provision that allowed “individuals” to add a second floor, providing they paid for it. Evidently they did, because he said this “upper story was used as a school” at first and later as a meeting room for town organizations.

In March 1921, Lowden said, voters decided to replace rather than try to repair the 1846 building.

The on-line site FamilySearch says Henry Wood Dearborn was born in Monmouth Aug. 2, 1798, older son of Dudley (1770-1848) and Keziah (Wood) (1765-1834) Dearborn. The younger son, Columbus, lived only from Sept. 13, 1802, to April 7, 1810. Two daughters lived to adulthood.

On Oct. 20, 1836, Henry married Judith Batchelder (1799-1888); they had “at least one son,” William H.

William H. Dearborn, according to FamilySearch, was born Oct. 13, 1840, in Windsor. In 1862, he enlisted for Civil War service, becoming a member of the 21st Maine Infantry regiment.

This regiment spent two months, from March 21 to May 21, 1863, encamped outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There must have been skirmishes with the Confederates, because on May 8, 1863, Lowden said, Dearborn was killed in action – one of at least five Windsor men from the regiment killed in that area that spring.

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Choate Brook was mentioned in the Feb. 15 article as the connection between Savade Pond, in northeastern Windsor, and the west branch of the Sheepscot River. This brook goes southwest under Greeley and Sampson roads and enters the Sheepscot a little west of Sampson Road and north of Route 105.

Lowden named two Choate brothers who were early settlers in Windsor Neck, the northeastern part of the town. They were Aaron Choate and Rufus Lathrop Choate, sons of Abraham Choate, Sr. (March 14 or 24, 1732-April 23, 1800), and his wife, Sarah (Potter) (died in 1811).

Abraham and Sarah were from Ipswich, Massachusetts. Lowden said Abraham came to Whitefield by way of Wiscasset, and owned an interest in a large sawmill at Kings Mills, on the Great Falls in the Sheepscot. An on-line history of Kings Mills says Choate acquired part of the mill and associated rights in 1779.

The genealogy lists Abraham and Sarah’s 14 children: Nehemiah (1757-1775, died on a privateer during the Revolution); Abraham, Jr. (1759-1837); Sally (1761-1837); John (1763-1800); Francis (1764-1799); Aaron (Feb. 7, 1766-March 18, 1853); Moses (1767-1851); the first Rufus Lathrop (1769-1769; lived for less than four months); the second Rufus Lathrop (1770-1771, lived about eight months); Rufus Lathrop (Feb. 28, 1772-Oct. 17, 1836); the first Hannah ( 1774-1774; lived three months); Hannah (1777-1873); Polly (1779-1859); and Ebenezer (1783-1876)

Abraham, Jr., was born in Ipswich in 1759; married Abigail Norris, of Whitefield; and died April 12, 1837. Lowden called him “a prominent citizen of Whitefield.”

According to the on-line genealogy, Aaron was born in Ipswich. On Dec. 20, 1788, in Pownal, he married Elizabeth Acorn of Waldoborough (born about 1770, died in 1844). Before moving to Windsor, they lived in Whitefield, where Lowden said Choate ran the mill his father bought into.

They must have moved while Windsor was still Waterford Plantation, because Aaron Choate is one of those who petitioned to have it incorporated as a town in January 1808.

(Lowden pointed out that the petitioners clearly asked the Massachusetts legislature to name their town Alpha, but the legislation that was approved called it Malta. He explained the change as “the slip of a clerk’s pen.”)

Aaron and Elizabeth had five sons and five daughters, born between 1789 and 1807 (or later), the genealogy says. According to both the genealogy (whose writer used the phrase “It is said”) and Lowden, it was Aaron Choate’s land that Paul Chadwick was surveying when he was murdered by settlers on Sept. 8, 1809, and Choate witnessed the murder.

Elizabeth reportedly died in Windsor, Aaron, in China.

Lowden listed their second son, Aaron, Jr. (May 17, 1792- June 21, 1874), among 13 men who bought pews when the Congregationalists and the Freewill Baptists built the Union Church (aka the North Meetinghouse) in 1827 on Windsor Neck.

Abraham, Jr., and Aaron’s younger brother, Rufus Lathrop, spent “part of his youth” with his uncle in Norwich, Connecticut, Lowden wrote. Kingsbury said he moved to Windsor Neck about 1812.

In Connecticut, he married Elizabeth “Betsey” Maynard. Find a Grave shows their double headstone in the Hallowell Village cemetery; the website says she was born in 1785 and died March 18, 1863, and gives his birthdate as Feb. 18, not Feb. 28, 1772.

Lowden’s list of Windsor men who served briefly in the War of 1812 (mentioned last week) includes private Rufus Choate.

In the mid-1830s, Washington Choate and Thomas Choate (Lowden did not explain where they fit into the family – Aaron’s nephews, perhaps?) were briefly part-owners of a mill on a dam across the west branch of the Sheepscot near the confluence with Dearborn Brook. The dam caused the river and brook to back up onto land owned by 20 people Lowden listed, including Aaron Choate.

Lowden called the Choates one of Windsor’s “five basic families” (the others were the Hallowells, Merrills, Pierces and Sprouls), who were the ancestors of “almost all native residents” when he wrote his history in 1993. In addition to the family members mentioned above, readers may remember from previous articles in this series that he often cited the diary of Orren Choate (June 20, 1868-1948).

Sheepscot River

A 2018 article on the history of the Sheepscot River by Arlene Cole, Newcastle historian and weather recorder, includes a description of its course to the Atlantic Ocean.

Cole wrote that the western branch begins in a swamp in southern Albion and goes through Palermo, where the dam at Branch Mills backs up its flow to form Branch Pond; China, including Weeks Mills Village; Windsor; and Whitefield.

The eastern branch, which Cole called Turner Brook, starts in Palermo, she wrote; the deLorme atlas shows branches from Palermo and Liberty joining, detouring into Montville and returning to Palermo. Trending southwest through Sheepscot Pond, this stream passes through Somerville and joins the west branch south of the village of Coopers Mills in Whitefield.

Cole said this junction marks the beginning of the true Sheepscot River. Above, she wrote, the west branch is 21 miles long and the east branch 14.5 miles long. Below, the river runs another 34 miles to the Atlantic.

Your writer found on line three explanations for the name that has become “Sheepscot.”

One was proposed in 1869 by Rev. Edward Ballard, of Brunswick (then secretary of the Maine Historical Society), as part of a list of Geographical Names on the Maine Coast reprinted in the appendix to an undated national coast survey.

Ballard divided the name into three parts from the Etchemnin (or Etchemin, a subdivision of Algonquian) language: “seep,” which he said means a bird; “sis,” meaning little; and “cot,” meaning place or location. He combined them to mean “Little-bird-place,” and wrote that each year “at the proper season” Maine Natives harvested young ducks on the river.

Cole said the name was Abnaki (Abenaki), another branch of Algonquian. Originally it was Pahsheapsakook, she wrote. She quoted Fanny Hardy Eckstorm’s division – “pahshe” means divided; “apak” means rocks; “ook” means water place or channels – and concluded the name means the place where “the river is split up into many rocky channels.”

A third source, Alfred L. Meister, in the introduction to an undated report on Atlantic salmon in the river, said James Davis of the Popham Colony (1607-1608 in what is now Phippsburg) called the river the Pashipakokee, and other early historians (whom Meister did not name) called it the Aponey or Aponeag. Meister said early fisheries included alewives, salmon and shad.

Main sources

Kingsbury Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Lowden, Linwood H., good Land & fine Contrey but Poor roads a history of Windsor, Maine (1993).

Websites, miscellaneous.

by Mary Grow

A suggestion to readers: this story will be easier to follow if you have a map of Windsor, Maine. Do not believe everything you see, however; your writer noted discrepancies between on-line maps and official tax maps of Windsor and its neighboring towns. Two Kennebec County atlases, published in 1856 and 1879, offer other variations.

Windsor is the southeasternmost of the dozen municipalities this series has included in the central Kennebec Valley. Henry Kingsbury called its shape unique in Kennebec County, with “four equal sides and four right angles.”

Windsor covers 36 square miles, Kingsbury wrote. Starting as New Waterford Plantation, it was incorporated as Malta in 1809, became Gerry in 1820 and Windsor in 1822.

It is bordered by Vassalboro and China on the north, Augusta on the west, Somerville on the east and Whitefield on the south. Only Vassalboro and Augusta have frontage on the Kennebec River.

Kingsbury counted “seven distinct bodies of water” partly or wholly in Windsor. Windsor’s tax maps show five named ponds (plus others that are nameless, and numerous wetland/swamp areas) entirely within town boundaries. Four more ponds – Wellman and Given in the south, Threemile (or Three-mile, to Kingsbury) in the northwest, Long in the northeast – are shared with neighbors.

Some of these ponds derived their names from early settlers, according to Kingsbury and Windsor historian Linwood Lowden.

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Starting, arbitrarily, in the southwestern corner of Windsor, on the border with the City of Augusta, the Windsor tax map shows that Windsor includes a small part of the east shore of Wellman Pond. (An on-line map shows this pond entirely in Augusta.) This pond might well have been named after a Wellman family, but your writer was unable to find evidence.

The Lakes of Maine website says this pond has an area of 12 acres. It gives no depth.

The Windsor tax map shows the State of Maine owning the land around the Windsor end of the pond, and a large surrounding area that includes Baker Bog a short distance northeast.

East of Wellman Pond and a short distance south of Route 17, Windsor tax maps show the northern tip of Given (or Given’s; formerly, as on the 1856 and 1879 maps, Longfellow) Pond inside the Windsor town line. Three-fourths of the pond is in Whitefield, Kingsbury said.

The Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IF&W) website says this pond covers 20 acres; Lakes of Maine says 23 acres. Both give its maximum depth as 20 feet.

Kingsbury wrote that Longfellow Pond “probably” took that name “from an early settler,” and was definitely renamed Given’s Pond to honor “another family living on contiguous land.”

Lowden said David Given, born in Newcastle Sept. 4, 1779, and married to Mary Marson there on Dec. 1, 1803, came to Windsor in or after the spring of 1808. He “settled to the east of Given Pond.”

In Kingsbury’s version, David Given arrived in 1810 with his son James (1792-1881). The 1856 and 1879 maps both show J. Given living northeast of Given Pond.

James and his wife, Elizabeth “Betsey” (Johnson) Given (Feb. 27, 1797-March 6, 1888), had three sons (one named David, who was, in 1892, living on what had been his grandfather’s farm, Kingsbury said).

They also had a daughter named Annie (1821-September 1822), who was the first or one of the first people to be buried in the Oak Hill (or Colburn or Coburn) cemetery. The Find a Grave website shows a gravestone Annie shares with Elizabeth J. Given, born in 1830 and died June 17, 1888, at the age of 58.

Family members listed on the Given monument, also pictured on Find a Grave, include an earlier David, born in 1745 and died Jan. 8, 1825, and his wife, Ann, born in 1749 and died Oct. 5, 1832; James’ widow, Betsey (whose birth year is listed as 1795); and David (probably James and Betsey’s son), born in 1837, married Sylvia Le Ballister (1848-1930), and died in 1921.

The youngest David was a teacher as well as a farmer, and served the town as a selectman for eight years and supervisor of schools for three years, Kingsbury said.

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East and north of Wellman and Given ponds, close enough to Wellman so the State of Maine owns its western shore, is long, narrow Moody Pond, the southernmost widening of Dearborn Brook.

According to Kingsbury, Moody’s Pond, near Given’s Pond, “received its designation in a similar manner” to Given’s. Lowden found that Windsor attracted several families named Moody, one (or more) of whom might have lived close to Moody’s Pond.

Deacon Clement Moody, Lowden wrote, was born in Nobleboro c. 1746; an on-line source corrects the date to 1776, which fits better with his history. He died May 5, 1863.

Lowden said Clement and Mary (Moody) filed marriage intentions April 4, 1796, in Nobleboro; presumably they married soon afterward. Mary Moody Moody was born Dec. 10, 1772. She died Dec. 10, 1856, according to an on-line genealogy, or Dec. 10, 1865, according to Lowden.

Lowden wrote that the Moodys came to Windsor in the summer of 1801. Clement served as deacon of the Whitefield Baptist Church, and in 1820 helped organize the North Windsor Baptist Church.

Clement’s land was on the Windsor-Whitefield line in southern Windsor. Lowden wrote that he sold his property to his nephew, Clement Moody II, Richard’s son.

Your writer worked hard to unscramble the Moody genealogy. She concluded that Richard Moody, another early settler Kingsbury named, was Deacon Clement’s brother.

An on-line source says Richard was born in Nobleboro in 1762 and died in Windsor in 1839. This source lists only one (the oldest?) son in each succeeding generation.

Richard, if your writer interpreted different incomplete sources correctly, had (at least) three sons.

John was born Dec. 4, 1789. Lowden’s list of early Windsor residents says he owned land on Windsor Neck in the northern part of town.

Richard II was born in 1793 in Nobleboro and died in 1876 in Windsor. The on-line source lists the younger Richard’s son as Clement F., born in 1823 in Windsor and died there in 1888; and Clement F.’s son as John H. (1868-1952).

Richard I’s son Clement was born in 1800 and died in 1858. Clement’s son Miles was living when Kingsbury finished his history; Kingsbury said he had moved in 1888 from “the old homestead where his father died” to South Windsor to take care of his in-laws.

Lowden’s list of Windsor men who served briefly in the War of 1812 (they spent less than three weeks in Belfast after the British had occupied it, he wrote) includes Sergeant Clement Moody and private John Moody (uncle, in his mid-30s, and nephew, aged 22, if your writer’s genealogical conclusions are correct).

The 1866 Windsor school committee report included in Lowden’s history lists Miles Moody as District 2 school agent and yet another Clement Moody as District 7 agent.

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Less than a mile south of Windsor’s four corners (the intersection of Route 32 and Route 105), on the east side of Route 32, is a small round pond ignored by IF&W and Lakes of Maine, but mentioned by Lowden and Kingsbury. It is nameless on contemporary tax maps; the historians said its names have included Dorr’s Pond, Donnell Pond (on the 1856 and 1879 maps) and Grant Pond (to Kingsbury in 1892).

This “aqueous lilliputian” covers a little more of an acre, but is worth notice because, Kingsbury wrote, “it has no perceptible outlet, and, as near as can be ascertained by soundings, no bottom.”

Your writer found no relevant Dorrs or Grants. The name Donnell Pond recognizes Methodist preacher, Rev. Moses Donnell, Jr.

Donnell was born in Wiscasset Aug. 25, 1789, and came to Windsor in March, 1818. He kept detailed records, from which Lowden took information about his strenuous life and how much – or little – money he earned. Lowden listed different houses Donnell probably owned at different times and wrote that he preached in Windsor in 1822 and again from 1832 until his death.

After 1838, he was appointed to different circuits, preaching in multiple towns and traveling thousands of miles. His home base was Windsor; Lowden said he moved back for good on Dec. 3, 1839, taking over the “circuit house” that stood between Donnell Pond and the road that is now Route 32.

The Find a Grave website says in 1817, Donnell married Martha Cunningham, born in 1793. The couple named their children Mary (1819-1876), Jeremiah (1821-1906), John Wesley (1826-1869) and Moses (1833-1904).

Rev. Donnell died on October 2, 1861, and Martha sometime in 1868. Find a Grave has a photo of the family monument in Windsor’s Resthaven Cemetery, which is on Route 32 a short distance south of his former house.

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Other ponds in or partly in Windsor are not named for people.

Going back west to the Augusta line, north of Route 105, is Mud Pond (and on the tax map another unnamed pond north of it). It covers either 52 acres (IF&W) or 65 acres (Lakes of Maine) and has a maximum depth of 12 feet. Located below Porcupine Hill, Mud Pond is accessible by “an old woods road and trail,” the state says.

Barton Brook connects Mud Pond with the south end of Threemile Pond, which is mostly in Windsor’s northern neighbors, China and Vassalboro.

Threemile Pond is the largest of the named lakes – 1,162 acres, according to IF&W, or 1,174 acres according to Lakes of Maine. Its maximum depth is 37 feet; it has shore frontage in Vassal­boro on the northwest and China on the northeast. Public access is via the state-owned boat landing on Route 3, in Vassal­boro.

The on-line Google map shows town lines following the shoreline to leave the pond entirely in China & Vassalboro. All three towns’ tax maps show straight lines, putting the triangular southern end of the pond, and one of its four small islands, in Windsor.

To Kingsbury, this pond’s name “requires no elucidation.” Wikipedia relates the name to its size, saying that “Despite the name,” the pond is 2.71 miles long.

Jumping to northeastern Windsor, near the Somerville town line, on-line maps show four more ponds; the tax map shows two and some swampland. The smaller northeastern pond is named Fox Pond. The tax map shows a brook – one-eighth of a mile long, Kingsbury wrote — connecting it with larger Savade Pond.

Savade Pond’s outlet flows a short distance west into the intersection of Bull Brook and Choate Brook. Choate Brook flows into the west branch of the Sheepscot River. The State of Maine has a Savade Pond boat landing on a 14.1-acre parcel on Greeley Road.

Kingsbury said Fox Pond was “a favorite resort” of wild foxes. Savade he equated with “surveyed.”

South of Route 105 on Windsor’s eastern boundary, Long Pond is a wide place in the west branch of the Sheepscot River, on the Somerville town line. This pond covers 523 acres (IF&W) or 504 acres (Lakes of Maine), and is only 16 feet deep at its deepest.

Main sources

Kingsbury Henry D., ed., Illustrated History of Kennebec County Maine 1625-1892 (1892).
Lowden Lowden, Linwood H., good Land & fine Contrey but Poor roads a history of Windsor, Maine (1993).

Websites, miscellaneous.