Person:Joseph Mansell (1)

http://www.archive.org/stream/mainehistoricalm18941895bang#page/n35/mode/2up/search/mansell

Wrote an interesting account of events in the Revolution and recounts his maternal grandfather "Isaac"!

The following facts were taken from the mouth of Capt. Joseph Man sell, in writing, June 0, 1831, with additions and revisions care- fully made, on this 5th of March, 1838.

Joseph Mansell was born at Scituate, Mass., Dec. 20, 1750, and consequently was eighty-seven years of age last December. His father, John Mansell, came from London, and married at Scituate. He had four sons, and eight daughters. He lived in Scituate, until he was eighteen years old. When a school-boy, he recollects his only school-book was the Psalter. Each scholar read severally and alone in succession, and spelled from the lesson. A punishment of wrong doers was for one boy to hold another on his back, while the master stripped up the outer boy r s jacket, and applied the rod in a very feeling manner. As to dress, (he says) the men and boys, when he was young, wore " Kilts ," \ viz : trousers very wide, which came down only to the knees, to which the stockings extended — buckled or gartered above the calf. The knees were very apt to be cold. He says there was a whole regiment of Scotch Highlanders at Biguyduce, with kilts not so low, nor stockings so high as the knees ; the latter being bare.

Capt. Mansell says he came to Biguyduce in April, 1768,§ and went up the river Penobscot in 1771, and found in what is now Bangor, Jacob and Stephen Buzzeil, Simon Crosby, the Smarts and Jacob Den- net. James Budge first resided at Eddington-bend, or rather at the mouth of the Muntawassuck stream, below the bend, removing there about 1774, and to Kenduskeag, some five or six years afterwards. He thinks James Dunning came in 1772. He, Mansell, built for Solomon and Silas Harthorn,* a saw-mill not many rods from the mouth of Pen- jejewalk stream, and assisted in constructing the stone bridge and dam over the river, which was afterwards the county road. About fifteen years afterwards, he built a grist-mill at the same place ; the first in the Plantation. In 1773, he married Elizabeth Harthorn, Silas Harthorn's daughter: they never had but one child, who died when three months old. After marriage, they removed over the river, and began to keep house at a place nearly opposite to the mouth of Penjejewalk stream.

The events of 1775, such as the battle of Bunker Hill, the burning of Falmouth, and the dismantling of Fort Pownall, awakened the people on the Penobscot to a sense of their exposure, and to measures for their defence. That year. Orono and other chiefs or captains of the Penobscot Indians, with one Andrew Oilman, who had, years previously, joined himself to the tribe, went to the Massachusetts Government, and offered their services, professing to be staunch Whigs. After their return home to Penobscot, a company was raised by order from Government, which consisted of twenty white men and ten Indians, organized thus: the aforesaid Gilmanf was commissioned lieutenant commandant: Joseph Alansell was orderly sergeant, William Patten was also a sergeant, and Ebenezer McKenney and Samuel Low were the two corporals. These were all the officers of the company, which was probably the first military band ever formed in the vicinity of Kenduskeag. Their head-quarters, or place of lodgement, was in the angle between the road to Orono and that on the margin of the river, two hundred rods above Penjejewalk stream, below where William Lowder now resides. Here was a kind of rugged fort or shelter. The company continued together, acting as rangers, until the British took possession of Bagaduce neck.

After this, most of the settlers took, as required, the oath of allegiance to the Crown, and went down and worked on the Fort ; but some refused to do either. Hence, all the obstinate were threatened, and the houses of several were burnt to ashes. For instance, old Jos. Page's house at Penjejewalk, and James Nichol's house at the Bend, in Eddington, were committed to the flames. To the laborers, who went down and worked, were delivered rations. The carpenters received a dollar by the day, and others at first a pistareeu : afterwards, about 4s. 6d. Gen. McLaiu commanded at first: a cool deliberate man. He was succeeded by Col. Campbell, a violent hot-headed fellow. One Harcup, the chief engineer, commanded when Cornwallis was taken. Mowett, who burnt Falmouth, commanded the naval force at Bagaduce. He was of middle size, forty or forty-five years old — good appearance — fresh countenance — wore a blue coat, with lighter blue facings, and had his hair powdered. The troops stationed at Bagaduce were English, and Scotch Highlanders who talked pretty good English. The latter were in kilts, their military costume. At one time, the settlers being required by fresh command to work on the fort, and determining not to go, sent a message to the American officer at Thomaston, to hinder and keep them from that service. In return, a whale-boat, with twelve brave Yankees, starting off up the river, was discovered and pursued by a British schooner of ten guns, and a party of forty Highlanders and twenty Tory rangers, commanded by '•Black Jones," a Kennebec tory, and came near being taken : being prevented by Mansell.

Capt. Mansell says, after the British took Penobscot, he went to Machias. He had a Lieutenant's commission, and did duty there, six months. Machias Fort was between the West Branch and Middle River, where the west village now is. John Allan,* a Lieutenant Colonel, commanded there. He was a hot-headed whig from Nova Scotia, where he had been a Judge of the Common Pleas : a man of good learning, of superior abilities, and of great activity. Displeased with some act of the Provincial Legislature, he left that country, and joined the American cause. He had studied the Indian character, and had the faculty to render himself exceedingly agreeable to them. His command over them was complete, especially at Passamaquoddy and

St. John river. By firing two nine-pounders, in quick succession, he could raise an alarm that would reverberate, by means of the Indian relays, and reach even to Halifax. Major George Stillman was second in command. The whole force consisted of one Infantry company, officered by Capt. Thomas Robbius, Lieut. Dyer, and Lieut. Joseph Man- sell : a small artillery company commanded by Lieut. Albee, and an Indian company commanded by Capt. John Preble, son of Brig. Gen. Preble. His Lieutenant was Lewis Delesdernier.* Tue whole number of Indians there and elsewhere under pay, was perhaps sixty in all.

After his return to Penobscot, and before the close of the war, there was a militia company formed, embracing all the able bodied men on each side of the river, from Sowadabscook stream upwards, — the first one established up the Penobscot: of which Capt. James Ginn, (of the present Orrington) was the Commandant, and himself, Joseph Mansell, was the Lieutenant. After the war closed, there was a new arrange- ment of the militia. Capt. Edward Wilkinsf had command of the company below Peujejewalk stream, — and he, Mansell, had the command of the one which embraced all the soldiers above on that side of the river, and also all on the other, on the eastern side. J When Wilkins resigned, he was succeeded by Capt. James Budge, § who had been an adjutant. Ultimately, the soldiers of Bangor and Orono were classed together, and for many years formed one company. Of the upper company, Capt. Mansell resigned about 1799, and was succeeded by Capt. William Colburn, of Stillwater, who had been Mansell's lieutenant. Emerson Orcutt was ensign. Some years, or a year before, Mansell had removed over on the west side of Penobscot. The first settler at Stillwater was Joshua Eayres, his house being on the flat, eastwardly of the present village. Next, was Jeremiah Colburn. The plantation was first called "Deadwater." But one Owen Madden, a schoolmaster, a discharged soldier from Burgoyne's army, who had been stationed at Stillwater, New York, changed the name from Dead to Still- water, as a better sound. He was a schoolmaster in Bangor and Orono. He would occasionally drink to excess, but possessed a good disposition, and was well educated. Philip Lovejoy was the first settler on the plains; his house being near where Ashhel Harthorn now lives. He married Polly McPheters.

This is a tree constructed from a variety of sources; some original work on New England, otherwise using NEHGS and other "respectable" sources. Medieval is from genealogics.org, (used as a check on) ancestry.com, and a few amendments from medieval genealogy -- soc.genealogy.medieval