Up and Down the Kennebec Valley: China town reports – Part 4

by Mary Grow

Just one more article from those old China town reports before your writer forwards them toward a permanent home. It’s about time other towns had a few paragraphs, don’t you think?

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The warrant for the March 19, 1900, China town meeting, printed at the end of the 1899-1900 town report, had 27 articles. The first 14 were elections of town officials (done in a single article in March 1897, readers may remember from last week). Selectmen, town clerk, treasurer and others were unquestioned, but voters decided whether to elect a superintendent of schools or a road commissioner before choosing someone for either position. One or both of these positions remained optional for a few more years.

Another half-dozen articles began “To see what sum of money” voters would raise and appropriate for town functions, like road and bridge maintenance, support of the poor and schools. (This wording, in 2025, gives voters total freedom to raise any amount a majority agrees on.)

In a copy of the town report for the year ending Feb. 20, 1906, someone had penciled in amounts raised under appropriations articles. He wrote: $2,500, for road repairs and “breaking down of snow”; another $400 for state roads, with the state to refund half; $500 to support the poor; $700 for miscellaneous expenses.

There is no amount written for support of schools. In four subsequent articles, the anonymous recorder said voters approved $250 for “maintaining a free High School” (same amount as in the just-ended 1905-1906 year, when the state matched it); $150 to buy textbooks (in 1905-1906, a $200 appropriation was overdrawn by $126.02); $150 to repair school buildings (1905-1906’s $50 had not covered either that year’s expenditures or a prior deficit, and the account was overdrawn by $159.06, or more than the appropriation); and $25 for “writing books and other necessary school supplies” (1905-1906’s $25 was overspent by $14.87).

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Back to the March 19, 1900, warrant: the last article asked if voters would accept a $500 gift from Thomas Dinsmore, “the interest of said fund to be used yearly for the benefit of deserving poor.” There is no evidence of the fund in the town report for the 1900-1901 fiscal year.

However, in the report for the year ending Feb. 27, 1911, China’s resources include $500 in the Dinsmore Fund for Indigent Persons. This fund, at $500 or more, appears in reports your writer has through 1941.

(Thomas Dinsmore [1824 – 1916] was a leading citizen of Branch Mills [the village divided between eastern China and western Palermo], a noted philanthropist, founder of Palermo’s Dinsmore Library, donor of small bank accounts to local babies. See below for another gift.)

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By March 17, 1902, voters were presented with 30 articles. The first 14 let them choose town officers, starting with the meeting moderator; others asked for money for town functions.

Art. 25 asked if voters would give each of China’s G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) posts $10, “to help pay memorial expenses.” The China bicentennial history says the posts were James P. Jones, No. 106, in South China, and Amos J. Billings, No. 112, in China Village.

The China town report for the 1905-1906 year has two new headings in the financial section. The first is labeled “G.A.R.,” and represents a town appropriation of $25 (an amount that remained unchanged into at least the 1920s), divided equally between the two posts.

The second new 1905-06 financial account is for the Dinsmore Norton Cemetery Fund, showing a $91 bank deposit, to which was added $1.59 in interest on Jan. 6, 1906, and from which was subtracted a $1.50 payment to E. W. Haskell (no reason given).

The selectmen’s report for the previous year, ending March 10, 1905, said, “The Thomas Dinsmore ‘Norton Cemetery Fund’ has been received by the town and a small percent. expended, the remainder placed on interest.”

This fund started with voters’ approval at the March 14, 1904, annual town meeting of an article asking them to accept $100 from Dinsmore; for the selectmen to spend half of it “in repairing the burying ground on the margin of China Lake at Norton’s Corner, so-called, the coming season”; and for the rest to remain in a fund to be used to repair the cemetery “at the end of each succeeding decade.”

No Norton Cemetery is listed in the China bicentennial history index, or in either China or Palermo on relevant websites. Gregory Parker, of Albion-based Set in Stone, maintains many of Palermo’s cemeteries, and Palermo Historical Society President Will Armstrong asked him about it.

Parker found early 1800s Norton headstones in China’s Lakeshore Cemetery, which is between Lakeview Drive and the east shore of China Lake, almost opposite the west end of Alder Park Road. Moreover, he found a reference to the Alder Park Road intersection with Lakeview Drive being called Norton’s Corner.

The China bicentennial history lists Norton family members in Lakeshore Cemetery and confirms Dinsmore’s connection, without mentioning a name change or explaining why Dinsmore was interested. It adds: “Years ago cows grazed among the graves and kept the bushes down, but people thought this was disrespectful and the cemetery was fenced.”

The cemetery fund stood at $186.17 on Feb. 14, 1931, and was down to $57.81 by Feb. 16, 1932, after the decennial maintenance work was done.

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For years, town reports’ highway accounts listed by name people paid for work, supplies or both. For example, in 1883-84 the selectmen named 22 men paid for road work and/or supplies, some for building bridges and causeways, one for “blasting powder,” one for “breaking snow winter 1882-83” ($49.42).

The 31 men named in the 1886-1887 list each had his contribution described: “labor with road machine,” “rebuilding bridge,” “bridge plank,” “snow scraper” (three men earned a total of $6.86) and, most commonly, “labor on road.”

The report for the year ending March 7, 1901, had a total bill of $1,950.34 for road work and supplies in the summer of 1900, distributed among nine pages of payees’ names, totaling about 300 (with duplicates).

The names are not in alphabetical order; some seem to be grouped together in families. The lowest payments were 50 cents, and at least three-quarters were under $10. The highest was $81.30 to E. A. Dudley, for an unspecified contribution.

Frank Sproul got $22.98 for “plank and material” and another $30, unspecified; Leon Herbert received $52.62 for “plank.” Two men provided a “watering place”; A. R. Ward’s cost the town $1.50, H. L. Pinkham’s $3.

By the summer of 1903, the number of names was down to seven pages, around 235 names. The 1905-1906 report listed only about 85 names, covering three pages. The lowest payments were 35 cents to W. F. Hawes, for freight, and 60 cents to Arnold Small, reason unspecified.

In 1910-1911, the list was again seven pages, and the smallest payments were still under a dollar.

Some of the people paid for road work were women. None of their contributions was described. In 1899-1900, Lora E. Kellar was paid $1.55 and Mrs. Farnsworth $3.50; in 1900-1901, Eula Worthing got two separate payments of 50 cents each and Sarah Cotton was paid $2.00; in 1904-1905, Mrs. F. D. Robbins earned $1.25 and Mrs. E. M. Dowe $10.12.

A $400 state contribution to road work was mentioned for the first time in the report for the year ending March 4, 1904. The selectmen used it for “permanent roads,” apparently for short major reconstruction projects. The work needed to be approved by the county commissioners.

In 1903-1904 the selectmen described four projects in detail, starting with “The hill at Reed Farris’ on the Lake road was opened and filled with rock, a distance of thirty rods [less than one-tenth of a mile] long with a broad stone culvert at the foot….” By Feb. 20, 1906, the report was more summary: 55 rods [less than two-tenths of a mile] in northern China and 80 rods [a quarter-mile] in southern China had been treated similarly.

For a couple years early in the 20th century, weather was hard on roads, and on the road budget.

In March, 1903, the selectmen said a freshet in December, 1901, damaged hills and bridges, including destroying the Weeks Mills bridge; it had been rebuilt the summer of 1902. Other bridges needed work that the selectmen couldn’t order done “owing to our appropriation.”

The selectmen’s report for the year ending March 4, 1904, explained that the road appropriation was overspent because of “high water in the spring” (presumably the spring of 1903). “The bridge at China village was rebuilt new; the two bridges at Branch Mills replanked and railed, and the bridge at Sproul’s Mill repaired.”

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A question not explored last week was who funded China’s town government. Local taxpayers, of course; and state contributions to schools appear in the 1860s town reports and thereafter. There are occasionally interesting other contributors, mostly minor.

In the 1860-61 report, the list of resources includes “Cash of J. McCorrison,” in the amount of $198.40. The selectmen noted they had filed suit against him and his bondsmen.

The China bicentennial history expands on the story, starting with the selectmen’s concern about unpaid bills, some dating back a decade; and unpaid taxes; and especially about former tax collector Joseph McCorrison, who owed $2,792.41 in taxes collected and not turned over to the town.

Hence the lawsuit. By the spring of 1862, the amount was down to $2,594.01; March 1862 town meeting voters agreed to accept $1,200, plus interest, to be paid by September, 1863.

The 1863-1864 report says McCorrison had paid $250 in cash and he and his bondsmen owed $1,130. By March 10, 1865, he had paid another $617, and owed $333. The March 8, 1866, list of resources includes “Cash in hand of J. McCorrison, 333.00.”

Also on the list of China’s 1860-1861 resources was $70 from “Profits on Liquor.” A similar item in the 1862-1863 accounts read $47 from “Profits on liquors sold by Agent.” Liquor sales provided $40 in 1863-1864; after that, they are not listed in the town’s resources.

China collected fees for dog licenses, in the incomplete series of reports your writer has, in 1877-1878: $69.00, with no record of what the fee was or how many dogs were licensed. The item disappeared for some years; in the 1899-1900 report, however, “Refunded dog licenses” brought in $43.44, again without explanation. Dog license refunds continued to be recorded as income in future reports.

The selectmen’s report for 1882 lists $2 from John Taylor “for license,” unspecified. In 1884, D. (Dana) C. Hanson (a selectman in 1881 and 1882) paid the same amount for another “license.”

A “Telegraph tax” is listed in 1887’s resources. It brought in $3.65 that year; in 1890, $2.48.

Selectmen sometimes sold old schoolhouses. In 1900 or early 1901, Levi Hallowell bought one for $8, and D. (David?) LeMere bought another for $12.

In School Superintendent Gustavus J. Nelson’s March 6, 1901, report, he called for school consolidation in response to a steady decline in the number of students. (The topic of China’s 18th and early 19th century schools deserves further exploration.)

In 1904-1905, the town got $25 for the Dutton schoolhouse and $30 for the Chadwick Hill building.

The first recorded payment from the State of Maine for “damage to sheep” is in the 1901-1902 report – the town got $20. The next year, it was $74; in 1903-1904, $91; in 1904-1905, only $20; no record for the year that ended Feb. 20, 1906. The item reappears in the 1911 report, $5 from 1909.

The state porcupine bounty brought in $14 in 1904 (recorded in the 1905-1906 report).

Neither sheep nor porcupines appear in the lists of town resources in the next few years. But the report for 1907-1908 records $31 from the state for “damage by dogs” and the next year shows $252.60 “Received from State dog damage” – before that item disappears.

John Libbey

In the Dec. 18, 2025, article in this series, your writer noted that three China selectmen elected in March, 1864, did not list their names in the town report for the year 1864-1865. She found information elsewhere on Ambrose Abbott and Nathan Redlon, but none on John Libbey or Libby, and so reported.

Fortunately, Joyce and Maurice Anderson, from Oakland, saw the incomplete story and realized they, as descendants of the Libby/Libbey family, had records that helped fill the gap. In their collection is an 1882 book by Charles T. Libby, titled “The Libby Family In America (1602 – 1881)”; and from it, they copied:

“John Libby, born in Albion, 17 Sept. 1806; married 26 Nov. 1835 Hannah Libby…. He was a farmer and lumberman. Immediately after his marriage he moved to Houlton, where he lived until March 1849, when he moved back to Albion and after seven years settled in China Me. In March 1865 he sold his farm there and bought the Capt. John Winslow farm, in Albion, where he now resides.”

The Andersons concluded that this John Libby lived on a China farm from 1856 to 1865, and could plausibly have been elected a selectman in 1864.

The Find a Grave website provides additional information about the John Libbey (this source shows grave markers with the Libbey spelling, in Albion’s Maple Grove cemetery) who was born in 1806 in Albion. It says he was the son of Ebenezer Libby Libbey (1779 – 1857) and Hannah Stevens Smiley Libby (1784 – 1863); names his five brothers and three sisters, born between 1805 and 1830 (the youngest sister was named Hannah); lists the three sons and three daughters he and his wife Hannah had between 1838 and 1849; and says he died March 10, 1883, and his widow, who was born Dec. 26, 1817, died July 7, 1889.

Main sources

China town reports
Grow, Mary M., China Maine Bicentennial History including 1984 revisions (1984)

Websites, miscellaneous.