The first summer school in the township, taught by Miss Nancy Gordon, in Joseph Garland's barn, has been noticed. The following winter William Mitchell, then residing in Elkinstown (Dexter), taught school in Joseph GarlandÕs house, which occupied the site of the present residence of David Dearborn. The school embraced 88 scholars of all ages from all parts of the township. Several persons who had passed the limit of school age attended it. It was a school of respectable numbers. Mr. Mitchell had been a student in the old academy at Gilmantown, N. H. He was a man of more than ordinary intelligence for the times. He was original in methods, abrupt in manners and stern in discipline. Many of his scholars carried very distinct recollection of his words and ways through life. Our late venerable citizen, James J. Chandler, was one of his scholars. As Mr. Mitchell was, in later years, a resident of Garland and was laid to rest in one of its cemeteries, some of his early experiences illustrative of pioneer life in eastern Maine at the beginning of the present century may appropriately be noticed. He early emigrated from Sanborntown, N. H., to Athen, Maine. In the autumn of 1802, he selected a piece of land in Elkinstown (Dexter) and built a small cabin if logs thereon. The site of the little cabin was a short distance east of the present residence of A. I. Barton and near the westerly limit of Lincolntown. The brook, upon the margin of which the cabin stood, is still known as the Mitchell brook. Early in March, 1803, he employed a neighbor with a two-horse team to move his family and such household goods as would be needed for immediate use to his cabin in Elkstown, a distance of about eighteen miles. Up to the morning of their departure from Athens the weather had been cold and the deep snow had been hard enough to bear up a two-horse team. Unfortunately, the weather had become much warmer and the horses slumped badly. Articles of furniture were thrown off by the wayside from time to time to lighten the load. They pressed from resolutely onward until they reached the site of the present town of Ripley where night overtook them 89 Too much fatigued to continue the unequal struggle they determined to cease future efforts until strength and courage should be renewed by a nightÕs rest. There was no attractive hotel to offer them entertainment nor even a settlerÕs cabin to invite them to its friendly shelter. A little shelter of poles and evergreen boughs was hastily built. A bed of boughs covered with blankets they had with them afforded a comfortable resting place for the night. The following morning opened brightly but bore with it unmistakable indications of continued warm weather. A frugal breakfast was hastily prepared and eaten. The family was making preparations to continue its journey, when , to their utter dismay, the teamster informed them that it was useless to attempt farther progress with the team, and that he should turn it around toward home. Neither entreaty nor expostulation availed to change his determination. throwing off what remained of the load he abruptly left them in a limitless sea of snow. The family embraced the father, mother, an infant son in his motherÕs arms and five daughters ranging from four to fourteen years of age. This was not promising material for a forward movement, but Mr. Mitchell was a man of resolute courage, and in this respect Mrs. Mitchell was not a whit inferior to her husband. A forward movement was promptly began. The three older girls were strong and resolute, needing but little assistance save occasionally to rescue a shoe imbedded in the damp snow, from which the foot had been drawn in the attempt to regain the surface. Mrs. Mitchell was fully equal to the task of bearing forward her infant son. The transportation of the two younger girls remained to be provided for, Mr. Mitchell must carry them, but could not carry them both through the deep snow at once. He was a man of expedients as well as courage and quickly solved the difficulty. The 90 family was ready for a forward movement which was executed as follows: Leaving Mrs. Mitchell, the baby and the youngest daughter upon the bed of boughs, which had been their resting place during the night, he took the next youngest girl in his arms and accompanied by the older girls, he moved forward a half mile, where he left them as the first installment of the party. Returning to the starting point, he conducted Mrs. Mitchell with the baby in her arms to the place where the first installment had been left, carrying the youngest girl in his arms. The regularity and success of the first advance inspired something akin to military enthusiasm. Subsequent movements of the same character brought them to the residence of John Tucker in Elkstown which was on a hill a little west of the present village of Dexter. In getting his family forward five miles Mr. Mitchell had traveled fifteen miles in marching and counter marching. It was near night when the tired family reached the residence of Mr. Tucker, where they remained three days and were treated with he hospitality characteristic of the times. During this time the weather became colder, and a hard crust forming on the surface of the snow, Mr. Mitchell collected the goods which had been thrown from the load on the first day and hauled them to Ripley on a hand sled. On the fourth day they moved into their new log-pole cabin by the brook which had been built the preceding autumn. Our former much esteemed resident, the late Mrs. N. P. Smith, was one of the girls that participated in the hardship of that remarkable journey from Athens to Elkstown in 1803. The robust personality of the late Mordecai Mitchell, as esteemed and prominent citizen of Dover, was evolved from babe that Mrs. Mitchell carried in her arms from Ripley to Dexter. Mrs. Smith kindly communicated to 91 The writer various particulars relating to their life in the wilds of Elkstown. Her fatherÕs family was the fifth to take up residence in that township. They lived in a log cabin within which was the traditional warming and cooking. Their nearest neighbors were the families of Seba French of Elkstown, who moved into the township a little later than her father, and Joseph garland of Lincolntown. These families were bound together by the closest ties of friendship--a loneliness and similarity of disposition and religious faith. The Mitchell and garland families lived four miles apart, but this was no obstacle to a frequent interchange of visits by Mrs. Mitchell and Mrs. Garland. A horseback ride, guided by spotted lines, brought them often together, and in the absence of a horse the distance was made on foot. Mrs. Smith furnished and interesting account of their mode of living while at Elkstown and of the privations and hardships they endured. Mr. Mitchell spent his winters in teaching, during which Mrs. Mitchell was left in the lonely cabin with the care of her large family of young children. On these occasions she exhibited a degree of courage and fortitude seldom surpassed. If her husband could useful by giving instructions to the children of the scattered settlement and at the same time, earn something for the support of the family in its straitened circumstance, she was not a woman to interpose objections. Teachers were then paid for their services in corn, wheat and rye at prices fixed by customs. The food supply of the family was of the most simple character. They, in common with their neighbors, kept a cow, a pig and a few fowls. For a year or two they procured their bread 92 supply from Cornville. When they began to raise crops they got their milling done at Cornville, eighteen miles away. Their cooking was done by an open fire. Among their luxuries were roasted potatoes in milk, hominy (a coarse meal from new corn) with a maple syrup accompaniment-samp (corn in the milk cut from the cob and eaten in milk). Their everyday bill of fare was-for breakfast-corn and rye bread, or milk porridge and hasty pudding. Their suppers were much like their breakfasts. Their dinners were of pork and potatoes, the latter being the largest factor of the meal. Wheat bread was seldom seen. At barn raisings a few years later, pork and potatoes, pork and beans, brown bread, Indian puddings and pumpkin pies were the appropriate articles of food. Their beverages were water, milk, crust coffee and a drink made of a root found in the forest. They very seldom had the satisfaction of inhaling the odor of the real tea which women so highly praised. The substitutes for tea were sage, balm ad raspberry leaves. It was customary for the women to assist in the lighter farm work. They cultivated the flax plant, which entered largely into the clothing of both men and women. They sowed the seed, and cared for the plant until it came into maturity. Mrs. Mitchell was accustomed to spin and weave its long strong fibers into shirting and send it to Bangor for sale. She also purchased cotton in Bangor, spun and wove it into cloth and returned it to the same place where it was sold at 50 cents per yard. The travel to Bangor was on horseback. The amusement of the children was simple and healthful. They basked in the sunlight that straggled through the tree tops. They watched with never tiring interest the nimble movements of the squirrels, now running with surprising celerity through the tree tops-now disap- 93 pearing in the foliage and directly chattering defiance from some distant point. They listened to the Òjoyous musicÓ of the little brook as it ran past their humble cabin over stones and shallows. The little brook trout were a great attraction to them as they darted from one hiding place to another, and if perchance they caught one with a pin hook it was a brilliant achievement. for hath not the poet said, ÒOh, what are the honors men perish to win To the first little shiner I caught with a pin.Ó In autumn, like their squirrel neighbors, they gathered beechnut to store for the winter. They Òlived close to NatureÕs heartÓ and their days and weeks were replete with health and contentment. Mrs. Mitchell was a woman of strong religious proclivities. Upon the advent of the family of Seba French she found a kindred nature in the person of Mrs. French. After a brief acquaintance, the two women selected a spot midway between the two houses where they met at stated times for conference and prayer. This way, perhaps, the first prayer-meeting instituted in the present town of Dexter. In the year 1809 Mr. Mitchell removed his family to township number three in the sixth range of township north of the Waldo Patent, now Dover. He settled upon the lot which afterward became the homestead of his son, Mordecial Mitchell. He felled and burned over ten acres of trees the previous summer. His first work after reaching the new township was the building of a cabin for shelter of his family. This accomplished he commenced clearing the burned piece for the crops of the season. During his first dayÕs work he inflicted a wound upon one of his feet with his axe which incapacitated him fro further labor through the 94 spring. But his wife and daughters with characteristic resolution, aided by a hired man, prosecuted the work that had so suddenly arrested and raised sixty bushels of wheat and other crops that entered into the food supply of the family. When the Mitchell family had become established in Dover Mrs. Mitchell. at the solicitation of a prominent citizen of the vicinity, held religious services on the Sabbath. Mr. Mitchell, not being professionally a religious man, his wife conducted the devotional exercises and he led the singing and read a sermon or religious literature. These were the fist religious meetings held in what are now the villages of Dover and Foxcroft. Mrs. N. P. Smith, the daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Mitchell, to whom allusion has been made,. married a Mr. Bradbury, a businessman of Picscataquis County, who died early, leaving his wife with the care of a daughter and two sons. A few years later Mrs. Bradbury married Deacon Stephen Smith of Garland, where she immediately took up her residence. The children of this marriage were four daughters-Matilda, Caroline, Henrietta, and Hannah, who died in early childhood. Mrs. SmithÕs earlier years in Garland were not entirely devoid of privation. Lewis Bradbury, the younger son of her first husband, went to the Pacific coast about 1850, where in course he became very wealthy, and to his credit it may be said, he remembered his mother and supplied her abundantly with money. From this time onward she had no occasion for anxiety about the future support of herself or her family. Her daughter Caroline went to California in 1859 with a lady friend to seek employment as a teacher. A few years later she married and became a mistress of a home of her own. Deacon Smith died in Garland, 95 July 15, 1866. In 1873 Mrs. Smith, with her daughters, Mitilda and Henrietta, moved to California where they enjoyed the comforts of a modern home provided by her son, Lewis Bradbury. Here in the neighborhood of her older children, and blessed by the constant presence and tender care of her younger daughters, her ;later years were of ease and comfort. She has also satisfaction of knowing that her daughters were passing lives of much usefulness. While living in Garland, Mrs. Smith was an active member of the Congregational church. On a beautiful Sabbath morning, near the close of her residence in Garland, the churchgoers were surprised and delighted at the presence upon the table in service, her parting gift to the people she loved so well. She also left a sum of money in the hands of her revered pastor, Rev. P. B. Thayer, to be distributed to the poorer members of the church in case of sickness or want. Mrs. SmithÕs father, William Mitchell, GarlandÕs first schoolmaster, died in Garland, May 23, 1842, at the age of 72 years. Her mother died in Garland December 19m 1853, at age of 84.