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Down
East Tales V
This is another transcription of a tape recording of a meeting of the
Alexander-Crawford Historical Society. [Transcribed by Alta, altaf@world-net.net.]
This was the December 16, 1980 Christmas Coffee. Members present whom have been identified were Jane
Dudley, Jack Dudley, Pliney Frost, Ruth (Ferguson) Dwelley, Hazel ?, Cleta ?, Ellen ?, and Ellie ?. Ellen and Ellie may have been the same
woman. Jane Dudley said in the introduction to the tape that the society was concluding its charter membership December 31, 1980. They
taped this meeting differently than the others I have transcribed. With the previous tapes, people spoke directly into the recorder and the
words were clear and reasonably easy to understand. For this meeting, they set the recorder somewhere in the room. Everyone sat around and
talked - sometimes two or three at once, and frequently so far away from the recorder that the person can't be understood. This is the longest
tape so far - both sides of the tape were filled. There is a lot of information about the early days of the Alexander - Crawford area. As
with the other condensations, names and other words that could not be transcribed exactly are in italics.
Comments, explanations, and additional names are in parentheses. Due to the nature of this meeting
and there apparently being no planned agenda, the information is in a confusing order. I've copied and pasted to put like things together as
much as possible. If anyone has questions or would like the complete transcription to read, please e-mail me privately and I will send a
transcription and do my best to answer questions. I'm breaking this condensation into three parts.
Pliney Frost had brought a scrapbook or collection of newspaper clippings and photographs to the meeting. He said that the collecting
had begun with his great-grandmother in the 1870s and that his
grandmother, mother, and now he continued the collection. Most of the discussions of the evening began with something in this collection.
Pliney Frost said during the evening that he and a relative, Pliney Gray, had been named for the Latin poet. This led to a discussion of
names such as Alegra Longfellow Brown who was named after the "Alegra with the laughing face" that was in "The Children's Hour," and her
middle name for the poet, and not a family name. (The poem actually calls her "laughing
Alegra.")
The first picture discussed was one of Frank Frost taken about the time he graduated from high school. Frank was born in Alexander but moved
into Calais when he started high school and never did move back to Alexander. His father, Stephen Wilson Frost, was born in Manchester,
New Hampshire. He was called Wilsey or Wilksey. (This name is hard to
understand.) Wilsey Frost's mother died when he was very young and "his father and the children came back to Alexander and stayed out there
where John Weeks is living now with Harry Frost. Frankie's grandfather and Harry were brothers, you know." The first member of the Frost
family born in Alexander was born on the same land where John Weeks lived, but in a log house "almost to the back end of the lot." There is
a cellar hole there now but it's about the same distance back from that cellar hole to where the log cabin was as it is from the cellar hole to
where the house is now. Pliney said he thought the original plans were for the road to go by the log cabin because the old Strout house is "way
back, too," but for some unknown reason when the road was built, it went further north.
The discussion continued with questions about why people settled on Breakneck Hill. Pliney Frost said that Annaniah Bohanon settled up
there. One clipping from the Calais Advertiser without a date, but probably the 1930s, was an obituary for Abbie Ella Bohanon. She was
Annaniah Bohanon's granddaughter. (I think the same woman is called Addie Bohannon in another part of the tape.) There was a clipping from a
1935 Calais Advertiser that was a reprint of an article from 1870. Ellen ? read, "The first trees felled and the first clearing made in Township
Number 16, now Alexander, was in the summer of 1810 by William Connie and Solomon Perkins on the farm now occupied by John Gooch. During the
year 1811 Annaniah Bohanon, William D. Crockett, Eliab, Eee-lee-ab, Spring - is that the way you pronounce that, or E-lye-ab?" (The name really was Elias. There was a misprint in the newspaper
article.) "And others settled in different parts of the township.
That's where we get Spring Hill from."
The first white woman who came into Alexander was Mrs. Samuel Cottle in
the year 1813, the same year four families came from Machias and settled on Breakneck Hill." "The first schools were taught in 1822. One in a
log house built for the purpose near Mr. Scribner's. Mr. Barstow being
teacher. The other in a log house on Burnt Barn Hill." There is a road going up to Burnt Barn Hill near where L. B. Carter lived at the time of
this tape. The woman continued reading, "The first child born was Freeman T. Fenlason. And, the first death was Mrs. Mary Young in
1814." Another woman said, "Freeman Putnam Fenlason born on June 14, 1814. That's copied from Mrs.
Fenlason's records." Pliney Frost said that Annaniah Bohanon was buried on his land which later became the
McPheters place. Then he read from one of the clippings "The foregoing was communicated to the writer by Mr. Annaniah Bohanon now about 85
years old who commenced on the farm where he now lives in 1811."
Jane Dudley said that the first settlers of Alexander settled up around the Four Corner area. Pliney Frost continued reading the newspaper
clipping and said that the town was then called Township Number 16 and was settled in the summer of 1810 by William Conney and Solomon Perkins
on the farm now occupied by John Gooch.
Pliney Frost read a paragraph from "History of Early Baileyville," by Bailey. "In Calais after he came from St. Andrews, New Brunswick in
1786, Nathaniel Bailey apparently lived as a squatter about one mile south of town center in Calais. Nearby were the farms of Daniel
Bohanon, William Hill, and the Nobles. Daniel Hill, a former member of Rogers Rangers, was the first white settler in Calais in 1779. He had
come from Machias where he was among the first group of 15 settlers to arrive in Captain Buck's boat in 1763. John Bohanon, a brother of
Daniel Bohanon, had settled in the center of Calais and he later was to become the first settler in nearby Alexander." Pliney thought that John
Bohanon was Annaniah's father.
Jane Dudley commented that perhaps Harold Bohanon was the last male with that name who lived in Alexander. Pliney Frost said that he had a
brother, Asher Bohanon, who lived in woodland. There was another brother who was killed in Belgium during World War Two.
The first preacher's name was Fogg. He came in 1816. Candidates for
baptism by emergence were Mr and Mrs. Samuel Brown, Jacob Stevens, and Miss Ann Lilly. The first marriage in town was between Thomas Bean and
Mary Bailey, who later became Mrs. R. K. Thistlewood according to the newspaper clipping. There still is a small house that is referred to as
the Thistlewood house. Pliney Frost said that he had pictures of three generations of the Thistlewood family. He also said, "By way of
identification, Mary Bailey and Thomas Bean were the parents of Mary Ann Frost who was Steve Frost's wife, mother of Thomas B. and Augustus
W.,Steven D., Horace E., Harry E." Augustus W. was Augustus Wellington Frost.
Other early settlers on Breakneck Hill were the McNally family. Some more recent McNally family members in the area were George McNally whom
Pliney Frost said was a police officer in Calais at one time. Jane Dudley said he was a judge in Calais. He was born on Breakneck Hill.
Another McNally was May, wife of George Brown. Ralph Brown who worked in the A&P store for years was her son. Jane Dudley asked if he were
the manager, and Pliney said, "No, he always worked behind the coffee counter. I don't know, they - when he first went to work for the A&P
Company, they had four stores in Calais. . . . But, he worked in the one that was on Washington Street and he could have been the manager there,
I don't know. Then when they combined them in a super market - why they took the employees they could use, or wanted to use, and took them down
there. He, well as long as they ground their own coffee right there in the A&P, that's where he worked, behind the coffee counter."
The discussion continued about the old cellar holes on Breakneck Hill and whether one was a school house. Pliney Frost said that Annaniah
Bohanon had said the school house was on Burnt Barn Hill. "According to Harold Dwelley Burnt Barn Hill is that hill that you go up after you go
by Elbridge's - you go up through and go up over the hill and then you dip down over and come to that bog that is on your left there, you
know. If I understood Harold correctly to say that the foundation of where the school house was - was in on - in on the side of the road
there where Everett (Dwelley) owns - on Everett's property."
Pliney Frost suggested that they might find the McNally place on the 1887 Atlas. They all looked at the map and mentioned the various
families who owned property on Breakneck Hill in 1887: J. Granger, Brown, Carter, Berry, and McLean. Jane Dudley said that the map in the
Atlas matched the map she had made when they explored the old foundations on Breakneck Hill. What was later the Foley place was once
part of the Granger Estate.
The group looked at the 1895 Alexander Directory. Pliney Frost said, "Here's a list of the people that lived on Breakneck in 1895. Carlow,
Aaron, Ellen, Mary, and Maud. The next one is Carter, James, Amie, William, Lawrence, and Sarah. Keene, Robert, Ella and Clara." An
unknown woman said the Keenes would be related to Edith Hatfield, because she was a Keene before she was married. Pliney Frost then said
that Edith Hatfield was related to him, and then continued listing
people who lived on Breakneck Hill in 1895. "Vining, Frederick, Edith, Bertha, Flora. Now, Flora was Vernon Cousin's wife. You remember
Vernon." The unknown woman said, "Flora Perkins and Edith were own cousins." Pliney Frost said, "Luke and Martha Stephenson lived where
the house burnt." Where the Hatfield place used to be was originally Stephenson's according to Pliney Frost. One of the women said the
property had also belonged to a Dwelley family, and that Luke Stephenson's place used to be where Doris Flood in now, but this is a
new house because the old house burned. Pliney Frost said that Luke Stephenson was married June 29, 1850. The ceremony was performed by
William Spring. This information came from Pliney Frost's collection of newspaper clippings. Jedediah Dwelly married a Stephenson. (This was
Jedediah Dwelly, born in 1800 and son of another Jedediah Dwelly, and Caroline C. Stephenson, daughter of Jesse Stephenson and Elizabeth
Lilley.) The Stephenson farm was settled in 1816. There was a grist
mill in 1820. The mill burned about 1960. A woman said that it had been a saw mill first, and later a grist mill, and that at one time it
had employed 16 people with a day crew and a night crew. The original saw mill was built in 1816, nine years before Alexander was
incorporated.
In 1900 Alexander had a population of about 500 people, a larger population than Baileyville.
They discussed Spring Hill. Pliney Frost said, "I'm not absolutely certain of it, but I believe that William Spring lived about where
Landry's house is now. There's an old cellar there. It might be when he built his new house he built right on the old cellar. I'm not sure,
but I remember when I was quite young that there was an old house attached to George Berry's barn and I assume that was the old Spring
house, but I'm not sure. I'm just assuming it."
Pliney Frost had an old picture of the Alexander Methodist Episcopal Church which was built in 1866 and completed January 11, 1869. They
raised money to pay for the church by selling pews. You could buy your own pew together with the ground on which it stood. Thomas Frost bought
one of the pews. (They were looking at an original deed for one of the pews that Pliney Frost had. It was not clear but may have been for the
pew bought by Thomas Frost.) One of Donald Frost's grandfathers was a minister of the church. Mr. Townsend donated the land for the church.
The Townsend house is the two story house across from the Grange Hall.
Ruth (Ferguson) Dwelley looked at the picture and said, "This is the way it looked when I came here. I taught Sunday School there in 1931. I
taught Elbridge MacArthur. (This is likely to have been Elbridge M., brother of Ethel M. Wallace.) Someone asked Pliney Frost about
attending Sunday School, and he replied, "I attended church, but I never went to Sunday School if I could get away with it. I hated school with
a passion." Children who attended Sunday School in Alexander in the 1930s included Noland Perkins' sons, Francis and
Maurice. Ellwood ?, who had been a member of the Sunday School visited one of the women at the
meeting a short time before.
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