When One Pioneer Home Gets Confused With Another

“The Woodards were the first to settle this farm,” Forest Spear told me. His face, weathered by years spent outside in the wind and sun, peered down at me kindly. “After them was the Rich family, and the Kinneys, and one other that I can’t remember.”

We were standing between the old farm kitchen and dining room. Uncle was heading into the front room where his wife and other relatives were already chatting. I was pretty young, not even a teen in the 1960s, but I felt that if I didn’t ask him who the first settlers were, I might never find out from anyone else.

Forest owned the Fort Fairfield farm from 1912 until 1947 when my dad bought the place. A doctor had ordered Forest to retire. After my parents died in the 1980s, the farm changed hands several more times and was featured in the final chapter of The Pioneer Homes of Fort Fairfield, Maine, published in 2008.

As I anxiously read that chapter, I felt a sickening sensation. Something was wrong. Was it the book or my uncle? The newer photographs were clearly of our old farm. But the historical information was foreign to me.

The book described in beautiful details and photos a farm first cleared and built by the David Weston family in the 1860s. But that’s not the family Uncle Forest had related to me.

I had to find out who was right, if only for the sake of any future researchers who might be curious.

I studied the 1877 atlas of Fort Fairfield included in the 2008 book and a copy of the original atlas elsewhere. A red star was added by the editor to mark the spot on the left side of Lot 41 where the Weston homestead was built. Directly below that lot was Benjamin J. Woodard’s farm with his house, shown by a black dot, on the lower southwest corner of Lot 42. Between the lots was a squiggly line depicting what we now call Hacker Brook.

I knew that brook well. It crossed under the Center Limestone Road in a hollow between my parents’ farm and the farm up the next hill heading north, owned by Cecil and Aletha Emery in the mid-1900s. They called it Western Hill Farm.

Karen and Gilda Emery, Western Hill Farm on Lot 41, mid-1900s.

Not a far stretch to conclude that what originally was called Weston Hill became known as Western Hill. The Pioneer book clearly stated that Weston’s land was Lot 41, but the buildings photographed in the book were located on Lot 42— Woodard’s lot. The book incorrectly attributed those buildings to Lot 41, a piece of land which no longer contains any pre-1900s buildings.

Below is a 1900 photograph of the Lot 42 farm with members of the Calvin S. Rich family. They bought the place from the Woodards in 1894:

And here is the partial view of the same farm as I remembered it from 1957-1980s:

Although sympathetic, the Pioneer publisher told me that he couldn't do a correction unless another edition was printed. That never happened. Last time I checked, the company was no longer in business.

So here is the corrected story:

A broken lumberman’s peavey, also called cant dog, once used on the Woodard property

The US 1870 census recorded New Brunswick natives Benjamin James and Clarissa Wilmot Woodard and their seven children, plus a servant, living near or on Lot 42. Benjamin called himself a shingle weaver, a common profession before shingle mills grew more efficient and took over that industry. He and members of his family cut down the best cedars and made hand-shaved shingles. Northern Maine cedar shingles brought a high price in urban markets like Boston and New York because Aroostook cedar was more flexible to use on buildings than cedar from other regions. In the mid-1800s, Aroostook shingles were even used as currency. The Woodards had plenty of currency.

How Benjamin Woodard would have shaved shingles by hand

By the 1880 census, Benjamin was operating a middle-class farm. The town of Fort Fairfield was booming with cheap land for crops and plenty of trees for lumber. Many new families were settling there.

The deed records at Houlton District Court showed that Benjamin was issued a land certificate from the state in 1872 that gave him permission to move onto Lot 42, chop down wood for his use, pay about $73, clear so many acres, work on the road and, in a few years, build “a comfortable dwelling place.” After those duties were finished, Benjamin would be granted the state deed.

But in 1875 Benjamin's name was not found on the state deed after settling duties were finished. Instead, I found this:

Clarissa and her heirs were granted the farm. Benjamin’s name was never mentioned except as the one who had been issued the land certificate. Although he was still alive as the farm owner on the 1877 atlas map and in the 1880 census, Clarissa continued to signed her name on subsequent deeds when she sold small portions of the original lot to neighbors.

She eventually sold the remaining land and buildings to her neighbor, Calvin Rich, in 1894, when she and her family moved south to Corinna. She called it her “homestead farm.”

Only Benjamin’s name was on the Corinna deed, which already had buildings and crops, and the property soon was mortgaged. Benjamin died a few years later, leaving the place to Clarissa. She in turn left the farm to their youngest son, Joseph.

Most early homestead properties in Maine were owned solely by men. A few were jointly owned by husbands and their wives, while a few others were held by widows. A woman owning a homestead farm while her husband was still alive and considered the manager was unusual.

Why Clarissa owned the Fort place is still a mystery. But what I came away from this information is this: Forest Spear was right. The Woodards settled the farm featured in the pioneer homes book. The family worked hard and deserved credit for what parts of their farm were still evident. 

Original Woodard staircase in the Lot 42 farmhouse, 1980.

Clarissa was entrusted with the deed to property that she and Benjamin designed in a pleasing manner, maintained, and kept in good condition. Benjamin apparently was not put out by her being the owner--perhaps a rarity in Victorian days.

He probably loved her. And she probably loved him. And together they created a place that—after they left— several more families enjoyed as a happy, working farm for well over a century.

The former Woodard farm