John DAY

"The earliest record of a Maine potter thus far discovered is one of John Day, who owned a pottery during the early eighteenth century in that part of York County that was later to be included in Cumberland County. Day’s pottery, located at Pownal, is known from a jar said to have been turned for his wife and passed along to a daughter in each generation for more than two hundred years." --Early Potters of Maine by M. Lelyn Branin, 1978, page 18


Some Short Biographies

For forty-five years Nathan Nye conducted a general store in Freeport centre, either alone or in partnership. He came to this town from Massachusetts in 1803 and died here in 1870, at the age of ninety. For a number of years he was town treasurer and at one time represented the town in the state legislature. After 1825 the firm name was Nye & Harrington and finally N. & J. A. Nye.

Mr. Nye’s sister, Deborah, married Joseph Porter, of Porter’s Landing, one of the eleven brothers whose activities in shipping and merchandising made them well known throughout the country.



Samuel Holbrook was a graduate of Yale and came to Freeport from Connecticut in 1808, as partner in the firm of Holbrook & Fowler. Remaining here but four years he returned in 1830 and was senior partner of Holbrook 8c Gore until 1836, when he retired in favor of his son, Samuel Appleton Holbrook.

The latter combined his business interests with those of local and state politics, serving as treasurer of the town and member of the state House of Representatives and Senate. He laid out the park where the soldiers’ monument and town hall are now. He also gave liberally for the new High School when it was instituted. Mr. Holbrook lived in the large old house beside Willis Libby’s filling station on Main Street.




The genius of one of Freeport’s sons revolutionized the watchmaking industry and made it possible for rich and poor alike to own accurate timepieces. Before his time foreign and American watches, made by hand, were costly and difficult to repair. To Aaron L. Dennison, who died in England around 1895, is given the credit of beginning the mass production of watches in what has since become the Waltham Watch Factory.

Mr. Dennison was a native of Freeport and a member of that family whose ancestor was an early settler at Mast Landing. One authority gives it that he was born March 12, 1845, while another sets the year of his birth as being 1814. This latter date must be the correct one, for he was in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1856. In early years the Waltham factory produced eight watches daily, the total product of its seventy-five employees, while in 1904 eight thousand timepieces were made every day.




Among the older people of Freeport few of the departed citizens are as well remembered as Edwin C. Townsend. Born here in 1 834 his mentality and physique so developed that he became in his young manhood that individual whom all school committees sought, often unsuccessfully: A school teacher who could outrough the burly farm boys who attended winter terms of school and make them learn the subjects which he taught. It is said that Mr. Townsend taught sixty terms of school in various parts of Cumberland County, but that was a small part of what he did, for he was town clerk, selectman, county commissioner, trial justice and civil engineer. His professions and offices brought him into close contact with the people of the county and town, with whom his originality and kindness made for popularity.

Mr. Townsend’s home was in the old village of Mast Landing, but his active duties of later life were in the Square where he maintained his office as surveyor and justice.




One of the best known merchants of post civil war days was William A. Davis. His partnership with William Gore links him with the older days when the firm name was Holbrook & Gore. When Edmund B. Mallet bought the business Mr. Davis remained as one of the managers. After Mr. Mallet closed out Mr. Davis formed a partnership with Stephen Mitchell, under the name of W. A. Davis & Co.

A tale has come down to us of the time when Mr. Davis was town treasurer. In those days the state paid a bounty of $1.00 on each seal’s nose and this payment was made through the town treasurer. One day two Indians came to Mr. Davis with two hundred and five of these noses, which they said had come from the vicinity of islands not belonging to Freeport. When payment was refused, the Indians changed their story and said that the seals had been killed about French’s and Bustin’s Islands. This change of story appeared suspicious to Mr. Davis and he at once consulted experts on the matter. The latter decided that the noses in question were not as nature had made them but had been manufactured from those parts of the seals’ bodies whereon bristles grew. The making of artificial seal noses must have been quite a paying industry for the Indians about that time, for it is said that other towns paid heavy bounties that year, probably because their treasurers were not so keen as Mr. Davis.




Henry Lyman Koopman was born in Freeport, July 1, i860, in the first house on the right-hand side of the Ward Town road after leaving United States Highway 1. This house, built in 1799, has been remodeled inside and is now owned by Harry Noble.




Mr. Koopman was one of three to graduate in the first class of Freeport High School, 1876, and entered Colby University, now Colby College, that fall, graduating in the class of 1880. From 1880 to 1891 he was connected with the libraries of Cornell, Columbia, Rutgers and the University of Vermont. In 1892 and 1893 he was at Harvard University, earning his Master’s degree and then for thirty-seven years was librarian of Brown University. Upon retirement he became editorial writer for The Providence Journal until his death, December 27, 1938. Mr. Koopman left a number of published volumes of prose and poetry. Some of his poems were written for and read at public happenings in Freeport, two of which are quoted in this book.




Of William H. Stockbridge, who was killed by a train at Freeport Station in February, 1903, it was said by W. R. Chapman, of the Maine Musical Festivals, that he was one of the very best musicians that Maine has ever produced. Mr. Stockbridge was soloist, conductor and teacher, in which capacity he is said to have excelled and maintained a studio in Portland.




Edward Clarence Plummer, a native of Freeport, at his death in 1932 left a $5,000 Educational Trust Fund to Freeport High School for the encouragement of scholarship. Mr. Plummer was born here November 23, 1863, and although he lived only a few years in Freeport, he never lost his interest in the town where four generations of his family had lived. Like the men of many of Freeport’s families, his father and grandfather were ship carpenters and during his boyhood in Yarmouth he saw the last of wooden shipbuilding in this vicinity. Quite naturally then as a man he was interested in shipping and became Vice-Chairman of the Shipping Board, in which capacity he did his utmost to revive our moribund commerce.

The first of the Freeport Plummers, Jeremiah, came from Portland. His son, also Jeremiah, built among others the brig Shamrock, just where is not known. Mr. Plummer says of this second Jeremiah (his grandfather), that he was like some of those men pictured by Elijah Kellogg, a natural mechanic and a workman skilled in the use of all kinds of tools. When in the 185o’s he had acquired a competence and had seen his sons settled on their portions of the large farm which had come to the family as a section of the Brown family grant, he began to enjoy himself according to his own ideas. He built a large joiner’s shop where he made carts, wheels and pungs, at times varying this with finer cabinetwork which he did for himself and his neighbors. In his blacksmith shop where he shod oxen and did the ordinary jobs of ironwork, he also had a turning lathe on which he made four poster beds. There was a small stream flowing through his pasture and upon it he built a little mill and equipped it with an up and down saw. With this outfit he sawed boards and material for picket and rail fences as well as carts and sleds.

When death caused Jeremiah Plummer to lay aside his tools his son, Solomon H. Plummer who was also the father of E. C. Plummer, went to live in the homestead and remained there until the problem of educating his six children arose. As the schools were better in Yarmouth than in Ward Town and the shipyards offered an opportunity for employment, Mr. Plummer moved his family to that place. While the rest of Edward C. Plummer’s life was spent away from Freeport, he never lost interest in his native town.




Fifty or more years ago Rev. Daniel Lane was a prominent figure in the religious life of the town. A former pastor of the Congregational denomination and educator, the field of his life work was Iowa to which he and his wife went from Freeport when he was graduated from theological school. At the close of his active life he returned to Freeport and here made his home until the year of his death.

Keosauqua, Iowa, was the scene of his first pastorate which began in 1844 with a membership of five. Out of his salary of $400 he contributed $120 towards a church building and so inspired his parishioners that the building was erected and dedicated without debt.

In Freeport Rev. and Mrs. Lane are still remembered by the older people and especially by former neighbors at Porter’s Landing where they lived. Mr. Lane died in 1889 and his wife a few years later.

Contributed 2024 Aug 11 by Norma Hass, extracted from 1940 Three Centuries of Freeport, Maine by Florence G.Thurston, pages 199-203.