Migration of Our Woodstock Families: Poland and Paris, and finally Woodstock

Woodstock is a beautiful, rural Maine town, dotted with lakes and stunning in the fall with hillsides a kaleidoscope of color. Bryant's Pond lies in the northwest corner and feeds the Little Androscoggin River. The people of Bryant Pond were the last to give up hand-crank telephones with a human operator in 1983. The old Grange and Masonic Lodge buildings feature three-story attached outhouses - well, technically they are "inhouses."  The 2010 Census showed 1,277 people and 371 families living in Woodstock spread over 47 square miles.

Woodstock hills in the fall

Bryant Pond

Three story "privies" of the Masonic Lodge and Grange

The Woodstock Historical Society manned by a dedicated staff has its home on Main Street close to the Pond. I had the privilege of spending a day in the fall of 2016 with a staff member, Joyce Howe, who took me around to our family sites and cemeteries - and we had the best pizza for lunch at a little store in "town."

Woodstock Historical Society

Our family line on the Nute side converged on Woodstock, Maine, in the late 1700s-early 1800s, finally emerging from that wilderness-taming experience when 2nd GGF Orsamus Nute moved his family out of Woodstock to Boston in 1864. From there, the family has dispersed around the country, from Connecticut, South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Montana, Kentucky, Maryland, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan to California.

 

They came from the Watertown, Cambridge and Plymouth areas - the Brooks, Swan, Bryant, and Stephens families - Nutes from New Hampshire; Strouts and Davises from coastal Maine and Massachusetts. Even the New Hampshire Nute lived briefly in coastal Falmouth, Maine, before migration. By and large, the families followed a route progressively north and inland, along what is now Route 26 from the coast to Poland and Paris, and from there to Woodstock on a rugged road built in 1795 to connect the two settlements. The roads were all pretty rough in those days - no whizzing along freeways in air-conditioned and heated vehicles.

PARIS

The planning by proprietors for the “plantation” of this area of Maine took place in Watertown, MA, with Paris originally called Plantation Number Four, and incorporated as a town in 1795.

Paris roads were laid out in 1794, and the road to Woodstock in 1795. Even before the road to Woodstock opened, two Bryant brothers, Christopher and Solomon, were hard at work clearing land in Woodstock in preparation for their big move. Paris had 40 households in 1798, living in log and dirt cabins until sawmills were built. Solomon Bryant had 79 acres, William Swan 50 acres, and Samuel Stephens 100 acres. Samuel is listed as owning property, but didn’t move to Paris until a couple years later. 

The Bryants of Plympton migrated to Grey on coastal Maine after Solomon served in the Massachusetts militia in the Revolution, and inland to Plantation Number Four (Paris) by 1788. He was chosen surveyor of lumber, a task he continued over the next several years. In 1796, Solomon was named a hog reever for the town. Sons, Christopher and Solomon Jr., were first settlers in Woodstock and daughter Betsey eventually moved to Woodstock, but Solomon Sr. lived out his days in Paris.

Dr. Peter Brooks of Acton, Massachusetts, arrived in Paris with the families of Solomon Bryant and William Swan, Jr. and stayed about 4 years. He moved then to Poland, Maine, briefly to Woodstock in about 1798, and finished his years down the road in Mechanic Falls, Maine.

Cambridge born 5th GGF William Swan, a Revolution veteran of Bunker Hill, was appointed tithingman* at the first Paris town meeting in 1793. Two Swan daughters married the two Bryant boys, Emma married our Samuel Stephens, and most of the family relocated to Woodstock. 

Samuel Stephens of Plymouth bought a lot in Paris in 1798 and migrated there with his family by 1801.  Samuel signed a petition for division of the town in 1803 and was on a town committee in 1806. In 1812, Samuel is referred to as Captain and was paid $4.50 for casting balls.

*A parish officer elected to preserve good order in the church during divine service, to make complaint of any disorderly conduct, and to enforce the observance of the Sabbath.

POLAND

Poland was incorporated in 1795, but settled as early as 1769. Early settlers included the Bray, Fickett and Davis families who cleared land for farms and  “one named Cox who manufactured hair combs” may have been the father of Judith Sarah Cox, wife of Jonathan Fickett. These were followed in the 1790s by Davises, Strouts, and Dr. Peter Brooks.

Sixth GGF and sea captain Zebulon Davis was living in Poland, then called Bakerstown Plantation, as early as June 1776 when he signed the Bakerstown agreement setting up militia for the Revolution. He was a captain, taken prisoner by the British and confined for an extended time at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Wife, Mary Bray, and younger four children, including Aaron, moved from Gloucester to Poland with their dad.

4th GGFJonathan Fickett arrived in Poland from Falmouth, ME, soon after his marriage to Judith Sarah Cox in 1788. Judith Sarah died in 1800 and he married Solomon Bryant's daughter, Betsey, in 1804. 

The Strouts were seafaring families from the Gloucester, Massachusetts, and Falmouth and Cape Elizabeth, Maine areas. Our Strout is 5th GGM Thankful who married War of 1812 veteran Aaron Davis Sr.  Aaron Jr. married Lucinda Oraing Brooks, daughter of our Dr. Peter Brooks.

3rd GGF Samuel Nute moved to Poland bringing along his widowed mother, Rebecca Wentworth, sometime between 1810 when he is listed in the Falmouth census and 1816 when he married Betsey Fickett. 

WOODSTOCK

Fifth GGF Solomon Bryant’s sons, Solomon Jr and Christopher, first cleared land in spring of 1797 in what was called Number Three, later to become Woodstock. The brothers’ plan was to have ten town lots where the extended Bryant family could settle. Their sister, 4th GGM Betsey, married both 5th GGF Peter Brooks and 4th GGF Jonathan Fickett. Jonathan’s daughter by a different wife,  3rd GGM Betsey, was the mother of our Orsamus.  Gets complicated, huh? All these guys intended to take up residence in Woodstock from surrounding settlements. The Bryant brothers, got moved in by fall of 1798. Others followed the next year, including another Bryant brother, Samuel.

William Swan moved his family to Woodstock in 1802.  William’s daughter, Sally Swan married Solomon Jr.;  daughter Susanna married Christopher; and daughter Emma was the second wife of 4th GGF Samuel Stephens. William’s 17 year old daughter, Lucy, had an illegitimate son, Gideon, fathered by married, father of 9, Dr. Peter Brooks. Gideon was raised by William Swan and took the Swan name rather than Brooks.

While this preliminary settling was going on, the land which belonged to Massachusetts underwent various ownership/grant changes, finally incorporated into a town in 1815. An 1812 tax list shows those of our people living there were the William Swan family and the sons of 5th GGF Solomon Bryant - Christopher, Solomon, Jr. and Samuel. Peter Brooks and wife Betsey Bryant had come and gone.


The Aaron Davises, both Jr. and Sr., had moved in by 1815, Samuel Stephens by 1817, and Jonathan Fickett by 1818, settling on what was later the Nute farm.

Life was hard, everyone was poor, and the soil not conducive to farming. They had no stores or doctor, with the nearest "amenities" some distance over the hill in Paris. Fish was plentiful in the beautiful Bryant’s Pond, small game readily available in the forests, but winters were harsh, crops failed from drought, and fires burned through timber. Stories of privation are told that farm women dug up potatoes planted for next year’s crop in order to have something to eat.

Fickett - Nute farm, Woodstock

The Nute family moved to Woodstock by 1820, the same year son Orsamus was born. Samuel and Betsey were able to buy her father's hilltop farm with an amazing view.  They had 4 children, 3 daughters and Orsamus. When Orsamus left taking all his living family with him, no Nute descendants were left in Woodstock.

The tenacity, courage, and resilience DNA of all the above generations came together with the union of Orsamus Nute and Lovina Dunn Davis, the last of our Woodstock lines, and they left Woodstock for Boston with their infant son, our great-grandfather, Joseph Edson Nute, in 1864.

More stories to follow on these tough pioneers who rightfully deserve to be called our illustrious ancestors.