The Politician: Robert Pinckney Dunlap

In Robert Pinckney Dunlap, Brunswick could hardly have asked for a more devoted native son. Born in a house on Lincoln Street on August 17, 1794, Dunlap would go on to be the first governor to hail from Brunswick. Dunlap remained involved with his hometown for life, devoting himself to its college, church, fraternal organizations and government.

The second youngest of 9 children, Dunlap came from a prominent Brunswick family--his father John was a town representative at the Massachusetts General Court (Maine was not yet a separate state), and his grandfather--Rev. Robert Dunlap--was the first minister to settle in town. Dunlap was prepared for college by a private tutor in Topsham, and later graduated from Bowdoin College in the class of 1815. He studied law for three years under Benjamin Orr in Brunswick and Ebenezer Morely in Newburyport, Massachusetts before being admitted to the bar in 1818. He returned to Brunswick to practice law.

Portrait of R.P. Dunlap by George Swift (husband of Matilda Dennison Swift), 1895. From the Pejepscot Historical Society, acc# OH 84.

Judging from his resume, Dunlap preferred being a politician to practicing law. Described as "an old-school Democrat", his first elected position was as a member of the Maine House of Representatives in 1821, where he stayed until 1823 (Wheeler & Wheeler, 732). Next, he switched to the Maine Senate, serving from 1824 to 1832, during which time Dunlap served as its president for 4 years. Dunlap was elected in 1833 to serve as Maine's eleventh governor, a position he held for four terms (incidentally, this was the same number of terms Joshua L. Chamberlain served), longer than any other governor besides Albion K. Parris. After he left office in 1838 he took a brief respite from politics, before returning to serve in the United States House of Representatives for 4 years, from 1843 to 1847. Like Joshua L. Chamberlain, he served as Collector of Customs at Portland from 1848-1849. In total, Dunlap served 32 years in public office.

Despite a political career which took him from Augusta to Washington, D.C., Dunlap remained involved with Brunswick. In 1825 he married Lydia Chapman (1793-1868), with whom he had 3 sons and a daughter. The family lived in an impressive house at 27 Federal Street, which was probably built by Samuel Melcher III around 1825 or 1826. After serving as Collector of Customs, Dunlap was Brunswick's postmaster from 1853 to 1857. Dunlap was also involved in Bowdoin College, where he served as an Overseer from 1821 until his death--he spent the last 16 years of his life as the President of the Board.

27 Federal Street, the home of Robert P. Dunlap, circa 1860. This was the only 3-story Federal style home on the street until it burned on June 17, 1999. The site is now a vacant lot. From the Pejepscot Historical Society, acc# 1989.24.1.

Besides Bowdoin College, Dunlap could also claim involvement in another great Brunswick institution, the First Parish Church. He converted to Congregationalism during the Second Great Awakening, joining the church in July, 1834. There, his family sat in pew #27, a pew which would doubly earn its title as "The Governor's Pew" when the family of Joshua L. Chamberlain later sat there. Near the end of his life, Dunlap served as a church deacon. Dunlap was also a leader of the Freemasons and a member of the American Bible Society. Like many of his fellow Mainers, he supported the temperance movement.

Monument to Robert P. Dunlap, which sits over his grave at the front of the 3rd row from the right. The white panel pictured here is dedicated to his role as a member of the Masonic Fraternity.

Wheeler and Wheeler report that when Robert P. Dunlap died after a week-long illness of typhoid on October 20, 1859, "His burial was accompanied with more ceremony and was more fully attended than that of any other which has ever occurred in town." (733) Four years later, a monument to Dunlap's life was under development. The April 3, 1863 issue of the Brunswick Telegraph reported that famed Portland sculptor Franklin Simmons was in Brunswick "to obtain portraits, photographs, &c., of the late Governor, to aid him in executing the bust, which is to surmount the monument". Below this bust, the monument contains three panels: one about his role with the Masons, one about his political career, and one about his family. Respectively, these panels were paid for by the state's Masons, the state legislature and Dunlap's wife and children. In the end, Dunlap's grave cost $1,000 (about $17,000 today) for the bust alone and about $100 (about $1,700 today) for each panel. Local cemetery expert Barbara Desmarais reports that, ironically, Robert P. Dunlap never wanted a monument, preferring instead a simple gravestone.

Sources:
Ashby, Thompson Eldridge. A History of the First Parish Church in Brunswick, Maine. Brunswick: J.H. French and Son, 1969.
"Dunlap, Robert Pinckney, (1794-1859)." Biographical Directory of the United States Congress website.
General Catalogue of Bowdoin College and the Medical School of Maine, 1794-1912.
Brunswick: Bowdoin College, 1912.
"Maine Governor Robert Pinckney Dunlap." National Governor's Association website.
Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder, vol. 4. Portland, Maine: S.M. Watson, 1887.
Shipman, William D. The Early Architecture of Bowdoin College and Brunswick, Maine. J.H. French & Son: 1985.
Tenney, A.G. "Monument to Hon. R.P. Dunlap." Brunswick Telegraph. 3 April 1863.
Tenney, A.G. "The Dunlap Monument." Brunswick Telegraph. 7 August 1863.
Wheeler, George Augustus & Henry Warren. History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, Including the Ancient Territory Known as Pejepscot. Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1878.

The Businesswoman: Narcissa Stone

Narcissa Stone, one of the most influential women ever to live in Brunswick, was born there in August 1801. The eldest of the ten children (3 boys and 7 girls) of Nancy Hinkley (1785-1828) and Captain Daniel Stone (1772-1825), Narcissa was very much her father's daughter.

Captain Daniel Stone, as his title would imply, was once a sailor, but eventually gave up the life on the sea and opened a store in Brunswick. He became a prominent businessman and local figure and bought up much land in the area. When Narcissa was 4, her father moved the family from the house when she had been born (on the corner of Maine and Mason Streets) to the home where Narcissa would spend the rest of her life on Water Street--now the Captain Daniel Stone Inn. Appropriately enough, the Water Street home stood near the site where the town's first settler, Thomas Purchase, had built his own home in 1628.

Narcissa Stone's home at 10 Water Street, pictured here circa 1920. Narcissa lived here from the age of 4 until her death. The house is now part of the Captain Daniel Stone Inn. From Pejepscot Historical Society, acc# OH.1898.a.

Narcissa spend her youth helping her father in his store, learning the "basics of business" that became key to her later success (Kanes, 199). She was also formally educated, unlike the vast majority of women of her day. Capt. Daniel died in 1825, followed by his wife Nancy in 1828, leaving Narcissa not only in charge of her father's store and real estate, but also of all her younger siblings--the youngest of whom was just 6 when they became orphans. She ran the store for several years until the estate was settled, and branched out into many other business ventures. As her obituary puts it, Narcissa's business acumen "would have led one to believe that she was brought up in the counting-house of some extensive merchant or banker instead of the family circle."

While still in her twenties, Narcissa became a real estate developer, buying and--after as one contemporary of hers put it "considerably improv[ing]" it--selling much property in Brunswick and the surrounding areas. In 1851, for example, she sold the town a plot of land at the corner of Federal and Green streets for $1,000, on which the town built the first Brunswick high school. She later branched out to manufacturing. In 1834 Narcissa, along with a group of prominent men in town (Robert Pinckney Dunlap, John C. Humphreys, David Dunlap, Joseph McKeen, James McKeen and Dr. Isaac Lincoln) founded the Brunswick Company which manufactured cotton, wool, iron and steel. She converted a horse stable into a steam mill to produce lumber and grind grain and built many dams to provide power to her manufacturing interests.

The first Brunswick High School, which stood at the corner of Green and Federal Streets. The town purchased the land from Narcissa Stone in 1851 for $1,000. From the Pejepscot Historical Society, acc# 2119.c.

Narcissa was no miser, however. Her considerable wealth--at the time of her death she was reportedly worth $60,000 (approximately $1.1 million today)--allowed her to donate money to many local churches. Though she was a Baptist, she also donated money to St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Narcissa's obituary even reports that she helped fund the education of an African-American man in Raleigh, North Carolina. Narcissa--"a persistent reader"--was renown for her intelligence and took a particular interest in natural history, collecting interesting specimens and displaying them in a cabinet in her home. Professor Parker Cleaveland was a friend of hers, as was Prof. Alpheus Spring Packard, who had known when she was young.

The Stone family monument in Pine Grove Cemetery, where Narcissa, her parents and siblings are buried.

Six days after what was probably a stroke paralyzed here, Narcissa Stone died on November 18, 1877. Never having married, the only member of Narcissa's family to outlive her was her younger brother, Daniel H. At the time of her death at age 76 she was one of the oldest people in Brunswick and her obituary reported that hers "was one of the largest private funerals we ever attended in this village." "[A] more intelligent and clear-headed woman" Narcissa's obituary reads, "never lived."

Footstone marking Narcissa's grave in the Stone family plot. Narcissa is buried in the fourth row from the right--see this map from the Brunswick Women's History Trail website.

Click here to see the only known photograph of Narcissa Stone, from the collection of the Portland Museum of Art. Narcissa was a relative of the McLellan (sometimes spelled McClellan) family, whose home became part of the museum.

Sources:
Furbish, John. Facts About Brunswick, Maine. Curtis Memorial Library website.
Greenspan, Ezra. George Palmer Putnam: Representative American Publisher. State College: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.
Kanes, Candace A. "Revisiting Main Street: Uncovering Women Entrepreneurs." Her Past Around Us: Interpreting Sites of Women's History. Polly Welts Kaufman & Katharine T. Corbett, eds. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company, 2003.
Tenney, A.G. "Paralysis." Brunswick Telegraph. 16 November 1877.
Tenney, A.G. "Miss Narcissa Stone." Brunswick Telegraph. 23 November 1877.
Property deeds relating to land at the corner of Federal & Green Streets, Brunswick. Pejepscot Historical Society, acc# 2008.276, 2008.291 & 2008.292.
Wheeler, George Augustus & Henry Warren. History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, Including the Ancient Territory Known as Pejepscot. Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1878.

Phebe Ann Jacobs, Freed Slave

Phebe Ann Jacobs was born a slave on the Beverwyck plantation in 1785. She wasn't born in Virginia, in Georgia, or one of the Carolinas. Phebe wasn't born in the South at all, but Morris County, New Jersey. Phebe was probably the daughter* of the farm workers and domestic slaves who were brought from the Danish West Indies to America by the plantation's owner, General Lucas von Beverhoudt. While she was still a young girl, Phebe became the servant of Maria Malleville Wheelock.

First page of Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs, by Phebe Lord Upham. From the Pejepscot Historical Society, pamphlet 227.

By 1817, Phebe had joined a church in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, beginning her life-long devotion to Christianity. Maria, the granddaughter of Dartmouth College founder Eleazar Wheelock, married William Allen and, in 1820, Jacobs and the Allen family moved to Brunswick. There, William Allen became the third president of Bowdoin College. In 1823, Phebe and Maria joined the First Parish Church. Just five years later, Maria Allen died, drastically changing Phebe's future. It seems she may have stayed on in the Allen household until William Allen resigned the presidency and moved in 1839, when Phebe became independent.

Though it is unclear exactly when she became free--one source says the Wheelocks paid for her freedom when they first bought her--they may have felt pressure to free her once they moved her to New England, where abolitionist sentiments were more popular. Either way, when the Allens left Brunswick, Phebe bought a small house of her own, earning money as a laundress and seamstress for Bowdoin College students and faculty.

Phebe is remembered best for her pious nature. She studied her Bible religiously and and was a staple at prayer meetings and church services. Phebe's religious devotion was commemorated after her death in Phebe Lord Upham's pamphlet Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs, published by the American Tract Society.

The grave of Phebe Ann Jacobs, which reads: "Born a slave. For about 40 years a faithful friend in the families of Pres. Wheelock and Pres. Allen. An eminent Christian beloved and honored. Died, Feb. 27, 1850, Aet. 64."
Phebe is buried in the Allen family plot near the front of the second row from the right.

Phebe Ann Jacobs died on February 28, 1850, and is described in Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs:

"The next morning Phebe's body was found in her bed, cold and lifeless; her eyes calmly closed, the mouth shut, her hands placed by her side, her candle burnt out, her Testament and spectacles by the bedside, the door of her house unbolted; no smoke ascended from her cottage, and Phebe was not--God took her." (page 7)

"The wife of [Rev. George E. Adams] died the same night with Phebe, and perhaps at the same hour of the night...To die with Phebe was a privilege; and the pastor remarked on this occasion, that if his wife had been permitted to choose a companion to accompany her through the 'dark valley,' and into the open portals of heaven, she would have chosen Phebe." (page 8, emphasis in original)

Phebe's funeral was attended by Brunswick's most prominent citizens, and the Allen family even traveled from 200 miles away to pay their respects to their former servent. Her service was held in the First Parish Church, the church she held so close to her heart. Professor Alpheus Spring Packard, Dr. Lincoln, and former governor Robert Pinckney Dunlap helped carry her coffin to Pine Grove Cemetery, where she lays today.

*Phebe had a brother and sister, Peggy and John.

Learn more about the Beverwyck plantation here.

Sources:
Price, H.H. & Gerald E. Talbot, eds. Maine's Visible Black History: The First Chronicle of Its People. Gardiner, Maine: Tilbury Publishers, 2006.
"Story of Phebe Jacobs." The Lewiston Daily Sun. 2 May 1923.
Upham, Phebe Lord. Narrative of Phebe Ann Jacobs. American Tract Society, no. 536. Pejepscot Historical Society, pamphlet 227.

Many thanks to the indispensable Barbara Desmarais for sharing her Phebe expertise with me!

Bowdoin's First President: Rev. Joseph McKeen

Most people who visit the Pine Grove Cemetery do so to see the grave of Civil War hero Joshua L. Chamberlain, and they end up walking right by the grave of Rev. Joseph McKeen. McKeen’s grave, which is inscribed entirely in Latin, is certainly a tougher read than Chamberlain’s. But both men were veterans, and both were presidents of Bowdoin College—and both have interesting stories to be told.

Engraving of Rev. Joseph McKeen, from Wheeler & Wheeler's History of Brunswick

Reverend Joseph McKeen was born in Londonderry, New Hampshire on October 15, 1757. He earned three degrees from Dartmouth College over a period of 30 years—a Bachelor of Arts in 1774, a Master of Arts in 1777 and a (honorary) Doctor of Divinity in 1804. McKeen opened a school in his hometown at which he taught for eight years before studying divinity, after which he then returned to teaching at Philips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. In August of 1778 he served 25 days in Gale’s New Hampshire Regiment as a sergeant during the Revolutionary War, and probably participated in the events leading up to the Battle of Rhode Island.

Transcription of the agreement signed by members of Gale's Regiment when they enlisted

McKeen’s longest term of employment, however, was as a Congregational preacher in Beverly, Massachusetts. Ordained on May 11, 1785, McKeen spent the next 17 years of his life in Beverly, marrying Alice Anderson and together raising their family of three sons and two daughters (several of his children will be featured in posts of their own on this blog later on). McKeen was passionate about his Congregational roots—he once referred to Maine’s itinerant Baptist and Methodist preachers “illiterate vagrants who understood neither what they say nor whereof they affirm” (quoted in Kirkland, 32).

In 1802, the young college in Brunswick, Maine was able to lure McKeen north, and he was inducted as the college’s first president on September 2. Bowdoin College was then a very small school—there were but eight students and one professor. There was also only one building, Massachusetts Hall, where McKeen and his family lived with the students. To call the students together, McKeen would simply tap his cane on the banister.

According to college historian Louis C. Hatch, McKeen’s early Bowdoin students were certainly no less rambunctious than they are today. McKeen and the professors would act as “detective-policemen” (Hatch, 25) and punish students caught doing everything from unnecessarily riding on a Sunday (for a fine of $1), to playing cards, to stealing & butchering a Brunswick resident’s geese, owning and using firearms & fireworks and lighting bonfires. Even future Maine governor Robert P. Dunlap (who is also buried in Pine Grove) was punished for skipping chapel. McKeen, who also taught mathematics at the college, conferred the first six Bowdoin graduates with their degrees.

McKeen's grave as it appears today. An English translation of the Latin transcription can be read here (this source mistakenly translated his birth year as 1742).

But a long presidency was not in the cards for McKeen. Afflicted with what was then called “dropsy”, which was probably edema due to congestive heart failure, McKeen died in Brunswick on July 15, 1807, after serving the college nearly 5 years. Bowdoin College contributed $300 (approximately $4,500 today) to McKeen’s family to help cover his burial and $100 to pay for a “table tombstone of white and Egyptian marble” (Flanagan, 14). The college also paid for the monument’s repairs in 1829 and 1842.

Sources:
Bowdoin College. "Agency History/Biographical Note". George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives website.
Calhoun, Charles C. A Small College in Maine: Two Hundred Years of Bowdoin. Brunswick: Bowdoin College, 1993.
Chapman, George T. Sketches of the Alumni of Dartmouth College, From the First graduation in 1771 to the Present Time, with a Brief History of the Institution. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1867.
Flanagan, Teresa M. Mourning on the Pejepscot. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1992.
Hatch, Louis C. The History of Bowdoin College. Portland, Maine: Loring, Short & Harmon, 1927.
Kirkland, Edward Chase. Brunswick’s Golden Age. Lewiston, Maine: C. Parker Loring, 1941.
Wheeler, George Augustus & Henry Warren. History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, Including the Ancient Territory Known as Pejepscot. Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 1878.