Waterville morning sentinel classifieds series#

On March 11, 1799, North wrote, two years after Augusta separated from Hallowell, town meeting voters appointed six fire wardens (Elias Craig was one of them).

They were oblong with leather handles, “very durable and convenient to pass water.” Association members put their names on their buckets. The buckets, North explained, had been in use in the American colonies since the 1600s. The “principal citizens” who started the company wrote a charter requiring each to have on hand “two leathern fire buckets, and a canvas bag for the removal of goods at fire.” An on-line fire department history says insurance companies formed such associations to protect their members’ property. North recorded the earliest fire department in the central Kennebec Valley, a “private fire company” formed in the 1790s in Augusta (then still Hallowell). He moved to Fayette before his death on May 6 or May 7, 1837. In 1806 he was the local coroner, according to Nash’s history. North wrote that he served a total of seven years in the three successive towns. The request was approved in February 1797, and a town named Harrington was organized in June of the year, its name became Augusta.Ĭriag was elected selectman again at the first meeting in Harrington, in April 1797, and later was an Augusta selectman. He was among the 161 residents petitioning the Massachusetts legislature to create the separate town of Augusta in May 1791. 25, 1848) they had three or four children.Ĭraig was a selectman in Hallowell, first elected in March 1795. On November 28, 1793, Craig married again, to Olive Hamlin or Hamlen (Nov. They were married in December 1788, and had a daughter, also named Hannah. 28, 1766 – April 12, 1790), daughter of an early settler, Dr. Apparently both survived.Ĭraig’s first wife was Hannah McKecknie (Sept. They were brought to Craig’s house, where midwife Martha Ballard attended to them. On May 31, he and his brother Samuel were firing celebratory cannons “probably on account of some recent news from France,” and one cannon exploded, injuring the two men. In 1792 one of his house guests was James Johnson. North wrote that Craig “possessed the confidence of the settlers, many of whom were welcomed to his house upon their arrival” before they moved to their new homes. When that corner was rebuilt as a commercial block, the house was moved to Jefferson Street. Craig’s was one of five shops, and his stock in trade was valued at 50 pounds.Ĭraig rebuilt the shop after the fire, and enlarged the house at intervals.

The 1784 assessors’ report listed 21 varied commercial holdings. Realizing the disparity, they explained that many families still lived in the “log cabins or camps which they first built,” which weren’t worth listing as taxable. Indeed, he said, they counted only 38 “dwelling houses” for a population of 682 white people and 10 black people. The house was of so little value that the assessors did not count it in 1784, North wrote. The majority were at Fort Western in 17 and in the town meeting house after 1783 in between, voters assembled in three different inns, a barn and several houses, including in 1782 three times in Elias Craig’s house. Charles Nash, in his 1904 history of Augusta, listed the places Hallowell town meetings were held between 17.

His house and shop were on the west side of the Kennebec at the intersection of Bridge and Water streets. North called him “the first hatter in this region of country.” 27, 1756 – May 6, 1837) had been an army private during the Revolution he was 23 years old when he moved from Massachusetts to Fort Western in 1779. The first he knew of was in 1785 (when Augusta was still the northern part of Hallowell): “Elias Craig’s Hatter’s shop” burned on Dec. James North’s year by year history of Augusta, published in 1870, records several fires before the 1865 disaster. 4, 2021, for Augusta’s great fire of September 1865. 27, 2020, where fires in China, Fairfield and Palermo were described and the issue of Feb.

Waterville morning sentinel classifieds series#

The next three articles in this series will talk about fires and the development of fire-fighting in Augusta. by Mary GrowĪ consequence of building buildings, like those described in Augusta’s downtown historic district (see the February 2021 issues of The Town Line) and the ones described recently in Waterville’s downtown historic district (see the August and September 2022 issues, ignoring the two irrelevant articles) is that they catch fire. The 9-ton steam powered fire engine was a revolution in its day, they were built by the Amoskeag Steam Fire Engine Company, of New Hampshire, late 18th century, and cost $7,000.