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CAPT. JAMES BUDGE, OF BANGOR.
Capt. James Budge was born in Medford, Mass. He was in Castine
in 1767, and from thence went to Orrington, now Brewer, just
below Eddington Bend, in 1772. The same year he began to build
a saw mill on the Mantawassuck Stream, now known as Eaton
Stream. This I believe to have been the first saw mill on the
Penobscot river. He commenced the manufacture of lumber in 1773
and continued there for ten or more years. He was a petitioner
to the General Court in 1783, for land where he had settled,
representing himself as a "settler and an inhabitant." He moved
to now what is Bangor the same year, 1783, and settled at
Budge's Point or City Point, on the Lot No. 11, which was
surveyed by Park Holland in 1801. Budge assigned his rights to
Robert Lopish and others and they received the deed from the
State. This lot included nearly the whole of Exchange street.
Capt. Budge built his house on the bank of the river, about
where Exchange street intersects with Washington street.
The first meeting of the town of Bangor was held at his
house, March 22,1792. He was the first citizen of Bangor for
a number of years. He held all of the official positions in
the town for some years. I do not know that he was a
merchant, but he "put up" travellers and sold rum, which
got the better of him at last. He was active, enterprising,
and engaged largely in bussiness. He was in fact the first
lumberman on Penobscot river who made a bussiness of it. He
run rafts of masts and hewn timber to Castine for a market.
He is described as a fluent and ready speaker, with much
influence in town affairs prior to 1800. He was a victim to
the inordinate use of rum. He died in Garland, May 13, 1824,
aged 76. His wife is said to have been Margaret Smart from
Brunswick. She died in Bangor, March 25,1841, aged 87.* They
have many descendants in Penobscot County.
Their children perhaps not in order and not all:
i. JAMES Jr., b. in what is now Brewer. 1777; lived in
Bangor (and Corinth.) but is said to have died in Bangor, Oct.
4, 1825. He mar. Nancy Nichols; she was b. in Boston and d. in
Corinth, 1833. Children: John Nichols, b. April 27, 1810,
drowned June 12, 1819; Asenath Jacob. S.b. Aug. 22, 1814. d.
Dec. 22, 1815; John Nichols, b. June 29, 1819; Nancy b. Jan 17,
1822. Widow, probably mar.Elijah Skinner, of Corinth, 1828.
ii. DANIEL, removed from Bangor to Corinth 1792, d. in
Levant, Jan 20, 1817, aged 55. His will, June19, 1816, proved
May 5, 1817, names Mother Margaret, Nephews Daniel Budge,
Frances Haynes Budge; Nieces Ruth Budge, Mary A. Budge, Julia
Ann S. Budge.
iii. MISS RUTHY BUDGE, b. April 1786 d. Bangor, March 2, 1846, Unmarried.
iv. ELIZABETH. mar. Dr. Isaac Jacobs of Bangor; she d. in
Bangor, March 18, 1871, aged 87 yrs., 7 mos., 15 days.
v. THOMAS S. Unmarried, Died at sea.
vi. FRANCIS H., lived in Garland, Levant, Glenburn,
Springfield, and No. 4, now Lakeville, where he died 1874. He
m. Abigail Smith, of Hermon. She died 1848. They had ten
children, the oldest being James T., b. July 24, 1824, now of
Lee.
vii. KATHERINE. Married Edward Fifield of Garland.
viii. MARGARET/MARY A.
ix. JULIA A. S. b. Jan. 1796, Bangor d. Dexter Dec. 15, 1871
A History of Bangor
Bangor was settled in 1769 with Jacob Bussell the first
settler. Prior to the occupation of Penobscot by the
British, the people of the river lived as they could, from
hand to mouth. The soil was not cultivated to any great
extent. Fish was abundant. In 1772, James Budge erected a
saw mill on the Mantawassuck Stream, at the bend of the
eastern side of the river, and the next manufactured boards
sufficient to supply the demand.
In 1783, John Brewer returned with his family to New
Worcester and completed his grist-mill, thereby relieving
the settlers above him of the great labor of either sending
their grain to Wheeler's mill, at Wheeleborough, or pounding
it in large wooden mortars, which were used in cases of
emergency. Soon afterwards, James Budge moved from the
Mantawassuck to Condeskge, and purchased of Thomas Smart,
his wife's brother, the City Point Lot, which he occupied for
several years. He was a man of much business ability, and
extended his lumbering operations. The pines within a few
miles of his residence were, many of them, converted by him
into masts and floated in rafts Babaduce, where he found a
market for them.
The following is an excerpt from "History of Penobscot County Maine",
1882, Cleveland:
Williams, Chase & Co., Pages 537-8
When Captain Budge removed to Bangor he occupied a log house near the
intersection of Oak and Washington streets, overlooking the Penobscot. He
afterwards built a one-story frame house on the northerly side of York
street, a few rods northerly of Oak street—now Stetson Square. The
Plantation and town meetings were held at his house for ten or twelve years
afterward.
On March 27, 1787, the people of Condeskge assembled there and chose him
Moderator, Andrew Webster Town Clerk, Jacob Dennet, Isaac Frees, and
Simon Crosby Committee, John Budge Treasurer, and the pioneer, Jacob
Bussell, “Tithenman,” and “voted Andrew Webster, Phillip Lovejoy, and
William Holt is hog Reafts, and that “hogs shall Run at Large Being well
yoked,” and that “every hog the hog Reaft yoak shall have 4 shillings; and
voted to Buld a meating house forty and thirty-six feet large,” and “that the
meating house Shall be Bult at Condeskge;” and “Mr. Budge and Mr. Smart
agreed to gave an acor of Land to the town to Set the meating house on;” and
“voted that the timber for the meating house is to be 12 shillings Per hundred
or tun Delivered at the spot where the house is to be Bult.”
It was in “Sunbury” that the inhabitants met on March 3, 1788, and elected a
part of their officers. Of course Andrew Webster was again elected Clerk.
Mr. Robert Treat was Moderator at this meeting, and Thomas Howard was
elected culler of hoops and staves, and Jeremiah Colburn and others
surveyors of roads. The meeting was adjourned to April 10, when Captain
James Budge, Silas Harthorn, and Archibald McPhetres were chosen
Selectmen, Levi Bradley Collector, and Daniel Campbell Fish Committee
and Church Warden, and it was “voted that hogs is to run at large being well
yoaked.”
Th inhabitants of “Penobscot River on the west side” met again on October 6,
1788, and chose Simeon Gorton (who lived nearer the Sowadabscook than
the Condeskeag), Thomas Howard, Abraham Tourtelott, and Archibald
McPhetres, Assessors, and John Crosby (who lived near the Sowadabscook)
and Robert Treat (who lived near the head of the tide), Collectors.
At the annual meeting, on March 2, 1789, the inhabitants, besides their action
in regard to “Mr. Noble’s Sallary,” elected Captain James Budge Surveyor of
Highways, and “voted four days to be worked on the hiway this year for every
man,” and that “every man that don’t work on the hiway is to Pay 6s.
PerDay.”
On June 30 it was voted to raise L10 to defray “Plantation Charges,” and to
raise “tax No. 7” this year.
Mr. Budge was a prominent man at this time in the Plantation, as may be
supposed from the positions he occupied. He was the owner of the lot where
he lived, --the City Point lot, --containing one hundred acres, with the point
which, during that generation, was familiarly known as Budge’s Point. As
has been said, he was a man of much business ability; and he was a ready and
fluent speaker. He succeeded Captain Edward Wilkins as captain of the
militia company organized after the Revolutionary War below the
Penjejawock Stream, Mansell being captain of that above. Physically he was
rather stout. Ten or twelve years after the war he became involved in debt,
and as the facilities for drowning trouble were everywhere at hand, he
resorted to them until he became a pitiable wanderer. He finally became
deranged and so continued until a few weeks before his death, when “his
reason was fully restored, and he expressed a willingness to resign a life
which, he said, had been as troublesome to himself as to his friends.” He
died at Garland, May 13, 1824, at the age of seventy-six.
While living his unfortunate street life in Bangor, he was famous for
rhyming, and for another habit which was sometimes inconvenient to people
having trifling articles of property lying carelessly exposed. But he was not
without wit, and his delinquencies were good-naturedly borne with. Mr.
Thomas Bartlett, a worthy and witty dealer, once made an effort to protect his
goods by presenting him with a goodly quantity of fine fish, on condition that
he should steal none. The captain took them and went away, apparently
delighted. But he soon returned and surprised and amused his compromising
friend by throwing down the fish and saying:--
“Here Bartlett, take your fish. I can do better!”
A building, the lower story of which was occupied by a trader who was a
Federal politician, and by the family of a lame citizen, and the upper story by
the fashionable tailor, John Reynolds, Esq., he made the subject of a piece of
his doggerel, which may be taken as a specimen of all his rhymes:--
Down by the shore
There is a store
Occupied by a Fed.
Prouty, the lame,
Lives in the same,
And Reynolds overhead.
Prouty was the same individual who afterwards resided in Hampden, just
below the Bangor line, and remonstrated against a proposition to set off that
part of Hampden to Bangor because of the unhealthiness of the latter place.
Rev. Lemuel Norton, in his autobiography, published in 1861, says that he
was an apprentice in 1800, with David Jones Waters, editor of the Castine
Gazette, and that Mr. Waters was appointed a deputy Sheriff and took charge
of the jail, and that he (Norton) had to convey to the prisoners their food; that
among the prisoners was “James Budge, a man forty-five years of age, who
was brought down the river from Bangor, who owned a large part of the land
on which the city now stands. This Major Budge, as he was called, was a
notorious drunkard and dangerous man, so much so that his wife swore her
life against him and had him put into prison.” The Rev. Mr. Norton states
that he detected the prisoner in an enterprise which indicated that he was
possessed of ingenuity and industry enough when himself. This was an
attempt to release himself from jail. When discovered his work was so far
advanced that he would have probably been out that night. With a knife and a
file he had removed the sheet iron from the door and made a hole almost
through, large enough for the passage of his body. He had been at work upon
it for weeks, and removed the wood in small pieces, which he founds means
to convey to the exterior of the building. Accidentally Norton got sight of
two or three pieces on the floor which awakened his suspicions, and he then
went outside of the jail and came upon a pile of “hacks or small chips, as
large as a winrow of hay, as much as ten or twelve feet long.” This led to
Budge’s being placed in more secure quarters. After some weeks “he having
greatly improved and become humble and penitent, his friends came and took
him out of prison and carried him home to Bangor.” Mr. Norton closes his
notice thus: “He was a man of strong intellectual powers, rather a good
scholar, and something of a poet; wrote a great deal, made some excellent
poetry—but rum, that demon rum, which destroys its thousands every year,
destroyed him, got the mastery over him, and probably ruined him for this
world and for that which is to come.”
History of Penobscot County Maine. Cleveland: Williams, Chase & Co.
1882. Pages 537-8.
IV. City Point in Bangor
The first settler on the lot at the junction of the Kenduskeag
and Penobscot, northerly side, was Thomas Smart from Brunswick,
1771. Smart died in 1776, and his brother John Smart, took the
lot, and April 13, 1784, sold it to James Budge from Orrington,
who moved on to it. Budge was an important man in the Plantation
and Town. He was a merchant and perhaps kept a kind of inn,
where he supplied the people on the river with rum.
Budge Deeds
I. James Budge sold Robert Hichborn of Boston lot of 100 acres;
beginning at a stake and a stone between land formerly John
Partridge, now in possession of John Smart, running N one mile W
50 rods; S one mile to Condeskeag stream; E 50 rods to first
mentioned bounds. Mortgage 43.2 lbs July 13,1792.
--Hancock Records, vol. 1,p. 501.
II. James Budge of Bangor to John Lee of Penobscot for 272 lbs
mortgages land in Bangor, on which I now live, situated on the
confluence of the Penobscot and the Conduskeag River, being the
point of land formed by the said Rivers, beginning at the S E
corner of land of Nath'l Harlow; thence by water down the
Conduskeag stream and heed the Point till it meets John Smart's
land, running back on N course one mile and bounded westerly on
Harlow and easterly on Smart being 50 rods across the Point in
front. April 12, 1794.
--Hancock Records, vol. 2, p. 411
III. James Budge of Bangor sold William McGlathery of Frankfort,
land on Conduskeag Point, beginning at a stake on W bank of
Penobscot River, running N 11 rods; thence (westerly) to corner;
thence S 9 rods to stake and stone on same bank; then on western
bank of river to the high water mark 16 rods to first mentioned
bounds. April 19, 1798.
--Hancock Records, vol 5, p. 354
IV. James Budge sold John Peck of Boston land on the Point known
as Budge's Farm; except one acre sold to William McGlathery
April 19, 1798, and subject to a mortgage to John Lee for 272
lbs, with dwelling, home, store and other buildings. Mar. 13,
1799. Wife Margaret signed the deed.
--Hancock Rec. vol. 6, p. 161.
This wound up Budge, who suffered by being "overcome with strong drink."
John Peck sold out to Daniel Wilde and others Mar.23,1799.
Budge Family
The following was copied from page 893 of the History of
Penobscot County Maine 1626-1882, published in Cleveland,
Ohio by Williams, Chase and Company. 1882.
One of the early settlers of this county was Captain James
Budge, who came from Massachusetts and settled in the
present town of Brewer or Eddington. He had four sons;
James, a sea captain; Thomas, Daniel and Frances H.. Frances
H. Budge, father of James T. married Abigail Smith of
Hermon. He lived in several towns of this county---
Garland, Levant, Glenburn (formerly called Dutton),
Springfield, No. 4 (now called Lakeville) where he died
in 1874. Mrs. Budge died in 1848. Francis and Abigail Budge
had ten children: James T., John S., now of Springfield,
Maine; George B., in Springfield; Daniel, also of
Springfield; Gibson S., now of Lakeville.; Charles L.,
deceased; Arthur P., now in Minneapolis, Minn. and
Harriett M. of Bangor.
James T. Budge, the oldest of the family, was born July 25,
1824 in Levant, Maine. He spent his early days on the farm,
and in early manhood learned the blacksmith trade. After
becoming of age, he worked at that bussiness about sixteen
years in this town. In 1863 he engaged in trade and
continued in that business for fifteen years, when he sold
out and again went into blacksmithing with his son, which
business he is now following. He married Nancy G. Clifford,
daughter of George C. and Mary P. Clifford of Dover, Maine.
They have seven children living having lost one. Their names
are; Julia A. now Mrs. George W. Goodwin; James L. now in
Sears, Michigan; Sophia E., now wife of George D. Stockwell
of East Eddington; Melvin E. now with his father in
business; Adella L.; George C., and Harriett S.. The name of
the one died was Mary E.. Mr. Budge has been Town Treasurer
of his town and Constable.