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From the Whitesville News, April 10, 1895.

Transcribed by Suzette Pondillo.


 

SEVENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO

To-day The First Town Meeting Was Held in The Town of Independence.

Seventy-four years ago to-day the first town meeting in the town of Independence was opened at the inn kept by Luther Strong, who lived near where the village of Andover now is, by Thaddeus Baker, J.P. The following officers were elected: Luther Strong, supervisor; Joseph Clarke, town clerk; Simon Adams, Luther Green and Nathaniel Covel, assessors; Isaac Stanbro, Timothy Younglove and Samuel S. White, highway commissioners; Alvin Holmes, collector; Thaddeus Baker and Shubert Spicer, overseers of the poor, Alvin Holmes, Roswell Adams and Joseph Pixly, constables; Wm. W. Reynolds; Isaiah Green and Amherst Kingsbury, inspector of schools.

At that meeting it was voted to raise by a tax upon people and property, the following: For highway purposes, $250.00; schools, $100.00, and support of poor, $100.00.

The number of votes cast at the first regular election, held on the last Tuesday in April, 1821, were seventy-one.

The following verbatim entry is found on the town clerk’s records of December 10, 1821: “Entered the enclosure of Joel Norton, two cosset piggs sometime last spring. One spotted with its ears and tail cut off; the other, white, with ears and tail cut off. Entered by order of Joel Norton.”

The town of Whitesville derives its name from Samuel S. White, who settled here in 1819 and built the first hotel in the summer of 1826. He also built the first frame building in the village. Settlement was begun in Independence in 1798 by John Cryder, who built a barn, saw mill, etc., but soon left the country. The first permanent settler was Oliver Babcock. The second settler was David Wilson, who built a barn in the summer of 1821, which was the first frame building erected in the town.

The number of children in the town between the age of five and fifteen, was fifty-eight. On April 1, 1822 the following entry appears: “School Dist. No. 6, children taught is 36, children between five and fifteen is 22. School kept three months by a teacher duly inspected according to law.”

The town of Independence was formed from Alfred in March 1821. Andover was taken off in 1824, and a part of Willing in 1851.