596
REDLONS OF YORK, MAINE.
a distinguished English family, now represented by Earl Edgecomb,
of Mount Edgecomb, and settled at Saco Ferry on a part of his father's
homestead, where he remained until the year 1761, when he removed to
Buxton, a distance of seven miles from his first home; his lands in the
latter town consisted of Lots 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28, in Range D, of the First
Division of Narraganset No. 1. His father, in his will of 1766, bequeaths
"unto my beloved son, Matthias Redlon, about fourteen acres of land
more or less, it being a part of my homestead farm in Pepperellborough
(Saco), beginning at the south-west end of what he has already improved,
and running back north-east the whole width of my land until it comes to
my new field, so called." He conveyed his lands in Buxton, March 16,
1786, to Samuel Scammon, Gent., of Pepperellborough, for the considera-
tion of £240, "it being the homestead farm I, the said Matthias Redlon,
now dwell on," and a four-rod way given by the Proprietors. In the dis-
position of this property he mentions "a house and barn thereon," and
"thirty acres of land previously conveyed to my son Matthias"; this lot
was "situated on the north-easterly side" of his father's land. The Old
Redlon Farm is on the road leading from the present homestead of Lewis
McKenney to Buxton Lower Corner, but I am not acquainted with the
boundaries. Mr. Redlon probably left Buxton soon after disposing of his
farm there, and followed his sons and sons-in-law to Little Falls Plantation,
now Hollis,* where they settled about that time; he was settled in this
plantation in 1787, as proved by charges made on his account-book there.
He purchased a large tract of land bounded by Saco River, and reaching
from Moderation Falls down to the homestead of the late Nathaniel Haley.
He built a small house a few rods north of the present buildings of Mr.
Amos Hobson, and carried on lumbering and shoe-making, keeping at the
same time a small grocery and groggery store. Mr. Redlon conveyed a
share of a double saw-mill situated on Moderation Falls, June 10, 1795,
to one William Walkinshaw, for twenty-one pounds, lawful money. He
made and shipped to Saco many shaved clapboards and "marchantable old
growth shingles," as is proved by charges on his account-book. About
the time Matthias Redlon sold his saw-mill at Moderation Falls he joined
with his sons and sons-in-law in building their mills on Young's Meadow
Brook, about a half mile up river; he worked in these mills for several years,
a son, married Rachel, daughter of James Gibbins and his wife Judith, daughter of
John Lewis, one of the original proprietors of the Saco patent. Robert Edgecomb
had several sons, among them Robert, Thomas, and James, and three or more
daughters, of whom Rachel, was the wife of Matthias Redlon; Mary, the wife of
David Young; and Judith, the wife of Abraham Townsend, who was brother of
Massie, the second wife of Magnus Redlon, father of Matthias. These marriages
prove the relationship so long existing between the Redlons, Edgecombs, Youngs,
and Townsends, and show from whence came the Christian names Abraham, Gib-
bins, James, Thomas, Jacob, Rachel, Judith, and others so common in the Redlon
family for several generations. Matthias Redlon and David Young were first cous-
ins, and their wives sisters. Descendants of Robert Edgecomb are still intermar-
ried with Ridlons at Saco, and both families live on land once owned by their an-
cestors.
* HOLLIS was a part of the tract of land purchased of Captain Sunday, the In-
dian Sagamore, by Francis Small and Nicholas Shapleigh in 1661. Small removed
to Cape Cod and died soon after, but the property was not divided till 1771. A
truck-house was early erected about ten miles above Saco Lower Falls. The planta-
tion name was Little Falls, which was changed at the incorporation Feb. 27, 1798,
to Phillipsburgh, and subsequently to Hollis. It was at one time called the " Rope-
walk."
