606
REDLONS OF HOLLIS, MAINE.
-
-
of eleven hundred and forty acres.* Mr. Redlon settled on this land sev-
eral years before he with the other purchasers had a deed made out,
but I find by an old letter addressed to the Redlons of Little Falls Plan-
tation, that they were called upon for the taxes by Jeremiah Hill, of Bid-
deford. When Mr. Redlon settled on his land, it was covered with a
heavy growth of oak, ash, maple, elm, birch, pine, hemlock, hackmatack,
and other trees indigenous to the soil of New England. He built a snug
log-house, which, being well chinked with moss and mortar, and warmed
by a stone fire-place, made the family a comfortable abode. The first
clearings were opened on the high, sandy ground, because here, as soon
as the wood was cut and burned, corn could be planted without plowing,
and the ashes, constantly washed down to the roots, enriched the soil and
caused everything to grow rapidly and mature early; indeed the heaviest
harvests of corn and grain were grown on the newly burned and un-
ploughed ground. During the first few years after their settlement in
Little Falls Plantation, the Redlons procured much of the subsistence of
their families by hunting and fishing; their groceries were purchased with
pelts and shaved shingles at Saco Falls, which was the nearest trading-
post, by going on foot or by horse-back. The hay for their stock, before
they had cleared grass-fields, was principally drawn from the salt marshes
*THE DALTON RIGHT was in a section then known as "Little Falls Plantation,"
since called Phillipsburgh, -now Hollis, York County, Me., on the west bank of
Saco River; originally called the "Rope-walk," because a long and narrow township.
I have not learned whether the plantation comprehended the whole town, but think
it was only a narrow tract bordering on the river and reaching, perhaps, from the
old "Smith's Bridge" to Bonnie Eagle Falls. Dalton's Right, so called, was formerly
owned by Tristram Dalton, a wealthy English gentleman, and his two maiden-sisters,
and is described in the deed to the Ridlons as follows: "A parcel of land containing
one thousand one hundred and sixty-eight acres, being the same tract which was
assigned to the Devisees of Tristram Little, deceased, by Jeremiah Hill, Joseph
Bradbury, and Robert Southgate, a Committe appointed by the Supreme Judicial
Court the 16th of July, 1788, and in the return of s'd Committe the 1st day of De-
cember, 1778, is thus discribed: 'beginning at Saco River one mile and a half
from the upper bounds of Pattershall's Lot (so called) computed on a north-west
course; thence running south-east six hundred and fifty-three rods; thence north-
west two hundred and forty rods; thence north-east to Saco River; thence by s'd
river to the first-mentioned bounds, and which s'd moiety or half part, I purchased
of Tristram Dalton, as by his deed to me bearing date the second day of October,
1794, fully appears."" This land was deeded by Thomas Cutts, of Saco, Aug. 10,
1797, to James Redlon, Thomas Redlon, John Bryant, Ichabod Cozens, Thomas
Lewis, and Rufus Kimball, of the plantation of Little Falls, in the County of York.
A tract of land, known as the "College Right," bordered on the Saco River below
the "Dalton Right," and was separated from it by a "twenty-rod strip," the south-
east boundary being the present line between the land of Tristram Eaton and the
"Hobson Field," so called, which was the lot purchased by Daniel Field, who had
married Rachel Redlon, and settled at Little Falls at the same time as his brothers-
in-law. Mr. Field's original house stood on the elevation near the present line-
fence between the old Martin farm and Hobson's field. After the death of Mr. Field,
Joseph Decker, who had married his daughter Annie, lived in the house, and the
widow lived there with them until carried to Greenwood by Paul Wentworth. The
land of Daniel Field extended down the river to the present line between Amos
Hobson and Daniel Decker. Zachariah Field, a son of Daniel and Rachel, once
built a house on his father's land on the river bank, and near "Decker's Landing
(now in Mr. Hobson's pasture); he soon moved to Cornish, however, and some
family now unknown occupied his house. Zachariah came back to Phillipsburgh,
and built a house on the road-side near his father's, just back of the well-known
juniper-tree, and near the creek that crosses the road there. These primitive
dwellings of the early settlers have long since become obsolete, and every trace
(except the indention of the old cellars and some fragments of the chimney foun-
