REDLONS OF HOLLIS, MAINE.
607
""
in Scarborough on sleds in winter; at times during summer, nearly all
the men and boys in the plantation were absent cutting marsh hay and
stacking it for winter, while the brave, faithful wives and daughters were
at home, watching the cows and growing crops, and keeping the bears
away. There were no mills near, and their corn was pounded into "samp
by hand. Almost as soon as their houses were up, Thomas built a "samp-
mill" by cutting down a large beech tree, in the stump of which he burned
out a cavity that would hold about a bushel; over this he erected a
sweep and pounder, which had a long cross-bar running through it, so ad-
justed that a man could stand on each side and the two work the sweep
in reducing the corn to the coarse meal, then called "corn-samp"; this
was a laborious process, and but little was pounded at one time. Mr.
Redlon's sweep and mortar was the best in the neighborhood and could
be heard from morning to night, as the neighbors gathered to dress their
corn and took their turns at the sweep-handles. But Mr. Redlon was gain-
ing ground, and as soon as his farm produced sufficient hay, and food for
his family, this rude instrument gave place to the wheel and water power.
All the Redlons were natural mechanics, and with a few tools and plenty
of lumber could construct almost anything, from a boot-jack to a saw-mill;
and they determined to make the water that was daily running across
their lands grind their grain. "Uncle Thomas" was always the leader in
every pioneer enterprise, and he called his neighbors together one winter
""
dations) has long ago been removed. The "twenty-rod strip" of land between the
Dalton and College Rights was "sold for taxes to Elliot G. Vaughan, who con-
veyed it thence to John Redlon, another brother of Rachel Fields, who built a log-
house near where the present brick house stands, and commenced to clear a farm
there; he sold to Thomas Ridlon, who lived above, and removed to the State of
Vermont. (See Ridlons of Ohio, in this book). Thomas Ridlon conveyed the "twen-
ty-rod strip" to his son Thomas, and David Martin, who married his daughter Eunice
(she was living, in 1882, aged 95, and as active as a girl), and these young men built
their houses on that land; the former, on the hill in the "Ridlon neighborhood,"
so called (now standing and occupied by John Sawyer), the latter, on the same site
where he subsequently built the brick house now owned by Tristram Eaton. Thomas
Ridlon's part of the Dalton Right commenced on the northwest side of the "twenty-
rod strip," and extended up river to the land of his brother, James Redlon, the
present line between the farms of Thomas C. Sawyer and Jacob Townsend. This
land reached backward from Saco River southwest beyond "Young's Meadow
Pond (now known as Wales Pond), from whence issued "Ridlon's Brook," on
which "Ridlon's mills" were built. Thomas built a log-cabin on the bank of the
brook, near the present carding-mill. James Redlon's division of the Dalton Right
extended from the northwest line of his brother's land (last mentioned) to the Coz-
ens farm, the northwestern boundary being the present line between the farms of
Col. Nicholas Ridlon and the brothers, Joseph H. Ridlon and Greenleaf Ridlon, - all
descendants of the original possessor, who built his first house near where his son
Robert Ridlon since lived. The Cozens portion of the Dalton Right extended
from the northwestern boundary of the land of James Redlon (who had mar-
ried Hannah Cozens) to the southwestern line of Thomas Lewis, who owned the
farm since known as the "Uncle Joe Ridlon'place," and now owned by his eldest sur-
viving son, Dea. Joseph Ridlon, of Gorham, Me. The lot of Thomas Lewis seems
to have been larger than the other divisions of the Dalton Right; at any rate, it
extended northwest as far as the land now owned by Abijah Usher, and possibly as
far as the farm of Orrin Davis and Yates Rogers. Abraham Redlon, a younger
brother of Thomas, James, and John, who first settled at "Deerwander," in the
south part of Phillipsburgh, purchased the land between the Lewis farm and the
present southeast line of Orrin Davis, and lived there some years before his emi-
gration to Ohio in 1800; but I do not know the original owner of this lot. I
think John Bryant and Caleb Kimball had their lots on the southwest ends of
the Cozens and James Redlon lots, and they cleared farms and built houses
