The citizens of Garland ought to hold their fathers in grateful remembrance for giving to the town so sensible, so convenient and appropriate a name as that by which it is known. A name may be desirable for what it lacks as well as what it contains. Many towns are burdened with names through whose accentual windings, changing inflections, harsh sounding and unpronounceable syllables drag their slow length. What bottles of ink, boxes of pens, reams of paper, stores of vocal power, and crimes against the rules of orthography and pronuncciation are saved in a single decade by the use of the simple name given to this township when it took on a corporate existence. It is a model of convenience and simplicity. It is easily spoken and easily written. Its distinct utterances indicates its orthography and pronunciation. It is scarcely susceptible of being misspelled or mispronounced.
It is not so inconveniently long nor short as to suggest scantiness of material, nor does it deceive the traveller, who is dreamily passing through it, with the idea that he is travelling in Greece, France or Italy. It has a poetic and musical ring that is suggestive of pleasant things. It is also of importance because it is invested with historical significance. It perpetuates the memory of the heroic family, that of Joseph Garland, which left a snug little home in New Hampshire to encounter the hardships, privations and perils of pioneer life though a long cold winter, while yet there was not another family within the township.
The following incident will show that there was something of advantage in the name by which this town is known, on at least one occasion. In the year 1823, there was living in England a family of laborers, including the father, mother and two sons. They were hardworking and respectable people but could see no prospect of rising above the conditions which had been teh lot of their parents and of themselves thus far.
They had heard of America, of the people who lived in their own comfortable homes, of its cheap lands and its opportunities. A home of their own filled their thoughts by day and dreams by night until they reached the decision to emigrate to America. They had been compelled to practice a rigid economy in their previous lives, but to secure the funds to pay their passage to the country they sought, they must turn the screws still harder. By reducing their daily expense to the lowest possible figure, they saved money enough to emigrate to Belfast, Maine. One of the sons aptly, if not elegantly, characterized the money thus saved as "pinch-gut-money" because it was an abridgement of their daily food.
At Belfast, the father supported his family by work as a day laborer two years, but the purpose of their coming to America was to make a home of their own. Destitute of money, they sought land where it could be purchased cheap on credit.
The attention of the father had been called to the township afterwards known as Bowerbank in Piscataquis County. Accompanied by his eldest son, he started on a trip for that township. Reaching the town of Sebec, and finding that the road running north terminated at that place, he decided not to travel any farther in that direction. Having heard the town of Dexter favorably mentioned, he turned his steps towards that place. He had but just passed within the limits of Dexter when the name Garland upon a guide-board struck the fancy of the son. Pronouncing the name several times, and being enamored with it, he persuaded his father to visit the town with the attractive name before purchasing elsewhere.
As a result of the visit, he purchased a part of lot six, range six, felled a piece of trees, built a log cabin, into which he moved his family in 1825. The site of the cabin was at the center of the town on the south side of the center road running east and west, and nearly opposite the present residence of James M. Stone, formerly the home of Joseph True.
By virtue of the industry and economy to which they had been accustomed to the old country, they improved their condition from year to year. A few years later they were living in a comfortable house with such out buildings attached as characterize the home of a well-to-do farmer.
Allured by the thrift of this family, other English families emigrated to Garland from time to time, whose descendants have taken rank with our most industrious and prosperous citizens may be traced to the attractive name given the town by our fathers.
The family that emigrated to Belfast in 1823, and to Garland in 1825, was the family of Deacon James March. Deacon March often related to his new neighbors that, in England, after a hastily prepared breakfast, cooked over a fire of straw, he and his wife hastened to the harvest field, taking with them a small barley loaf, which served as food until darkness compelled a cessation from labor.