Read at the Entertainment and Loan Exhibition given In Town Hall, Gray, Oct. 1, 1909.
About a century before the first of our name left England, the Mother Country, to make for themselves homes in this new, and uncivilized land, various men named Libby or Libbye were living in different parts of Cornwall, while In Devon the name Lybb or Libbe is traced as far back as 1371. But we cannot yet with certainty trace the Libby name. It is not easy for us to look back over the centuries and picture our forefather in his English home, little dreaming that his name would be on our lips more than three hundred years later. It is harder still for us to look down the years and imagine what will be the future of our own posterity.
The first Libby to come to America was one John Libby, who sailed from Plymouth, England, on the Hercules, Chapples master, ship’s letters dated Nov. 30, 1636, and arrived at Richmond’s Island, off Cape Elizabeth, Feb. 13. A few years later he sent tor his wife and young son, and lived some forty years in Scarboro.
This man was the great, great Grandfather of the Daniel Libby in whose memory we meet tonight.
Daniel Libby was born ln Falmouth Me., In 1742. He married Sarah Doughty, also of Falmouth. At the age of twenty-two years, he came to to settle in Gray, and be built a log cabin on the old Portland road on the knoll where the “Queen Ann” house now stands. At the time of his death, he occupied a house which stood on the site of Mrs. Snow’s residence.
They tell us yet of his fame in those good old days, how he owned all the land on the westerly side of the road from Dry Mills to Gray Corner, how it was through his beneficence, that the land now occupied by the cemetery, the town hall, the old pound, the first Congregational church and the school house was given to the towns people.
This was a wild and untamed country then, as expressed by Daniel Libby’s wife, who said, there was “not a piece of mowing-field big enough to spread an apron on,” The fields were yet to be cleared; the Indians to be subjugated; homes to be built. The woods were full of wild things awaiting the pioneer’s musket.
That was before the days when the Colonies rose up and threw off the fetters of the old country, and Daniel Libby, sturdy old pioneer, helped to carve out for us the highway we travel today.
We know but little of the man himself; we cannot say much of his form or feature, but we know that for years he was the first selectman and the Court was held in his house.
A few stories have come down to us which illustrate the life he lived.
Before the first church was built, when the only church services were held at long intervals In the pioneers’ cabins, an itinerant preacher came to another part of the town and held a meeting. It was arranged for him to go to Daniel Libby’s and have services there.
The duty of making the journey through the woods, along the trails, and leading home this old minister, who was blind, devolved upon William, the oldest son of Daniel Libby. William was then only a child of five or six years, but his sturdy little legs had often traversed the trails to the neighboring farmhouses, and it was not long before he might have been seen on the homeward way, leading by the hand the sightless old man whose services were much in demanf in those days.
The road was rough and long and the child tried to hasten the steps of his tottering companion, for the clouds were gathering and distant rumble of thunder warned him of approaching rain. The rain, however, did not wait for these two wayfarers to reach home, but descended in torrents drenching the man and boy to the skin. At last, wet and tired, they arrived at the farmhouse and were bidden to draw up before the blazing fire, that the heat might dry their dripping garments.
Meanwhile, Mistress Libby bustled about the living room, preparing the evening meal.
She swung back the pot-hook on which had hung the steaming kettle of pea porridge and set the porridge pot down on the hearth to cool; but the heat from the fire-place felt good to the old minister. After the long, wet walk through the woods he could ask for nothing better than this ingle nook, and he hitched his straight backed chair nearer and nearer the welcome blaze, the kettle of pea-porridge still reposed on the hearth. But the hearth-stones were uncertain things, one more hitch of the chair the leg caught, the chair tilted back, off slid the old man’s wig right Into the waiting porridge-pot. Then there was commotion in the kitchen! Was the wig saved?
Mistress Libby was equal to the occasion, she caught up the wig and dashed it into the water, and so having washed off the porridge in a thrice, she returned the wig to its sightless owner, and he never knew what a hasty shampoo it received; but I have often wondered whether or not the porridge was eaten.
We know that Daniel Libby raised up stalwart sons and some of these offered themselves to their country in her great extremity when it, at length, came forth from the sway of England. When every man, able to bear arms, was needed at the front, to fight back the British armies, the Libbys were not found wanting then, nor, in that hour when Civil War threatened to overwhelm the country, for we know of many of our blood who were enrolled in the Union armies, and of some who died that the country might exist.
Daniel Libby had two sons who entered the Continental Army, Daniel, who was made Captain and William, who was taken prisoner in Canada, but when peace was declared, he came home and settled down to farming. The cellar of his house may yet be seen situated well back from the road in the field now owned by W. H. Dow.
The lilacs still bloom around the place where the old house stood, and his great white birch still stands by the roadside, but in that day when the house was built only spotted trees marked the way to his home.
Once, they say, the provisions ran low in the farm house, there was nothing left for the family to eat, and early in the morning, William Libby hanging his powder horn at his side and shouldering his old fashioned musket, went out in search or game. After a discouraging tramp he returned home with only four partridges as a reward tor his search. But these were not to be eaten. He strapped on his great snowshoes and set out across the winter snows for Portland town, eighteen miles away, where he could sell his game, or, swap it for corn, which was the chief article of diet in those times.
We talk about the good old days, but we forget that to those struggling settlers there came hours from which all the poetry of life was lacking. This was one or them.
How many men of today are equal to such a tramp over winter snows–eighteen miles to Portland, and then, eighteen miles home, with a bag of meal slung across his shoulders? He swapped his partridges for corn in Portland and coming home by the way of Falmouth had his com ground at the mill there.
It was a frugal meal they ate before the blazing backlogs In the great fire-place that evening-a frugal meal to which William and Jane Libby with their eleven children sat down that night.
One day, this same William Libby, and his son James were in the woods cutting timber for a vessel. Their load was just completed and they were about to start for home, when William casually remarked “I’d like to see a good fat bear about now.”
The words had hardly passed his lips when the bushes crackled and a black bear stalked into the clearing before their very eyes. The two fell upon the animal with their axes and when they had killed it, they threw it across their load and hauled it home. That night for supper they had doughnuts fried In bear fat.
Thus, we can picture the good old settler and his sons, as they paved the way to our own present day prosperity, for we must remember that many sturdy pioneers tolled and died to build up for us the civilization we enjoy today.
Grace w Ramsdell, a descendant.