Pownalborough Court House Cemetery Project

A small group of us have meeting to discuss the small cemetery at the PCH in Dresden, Maine. We want to bring the persons interred there to “life” again despite the majority being gone for almost 200 years. They lived lives that were rich in the history of Maine even though most do not know their names. Books have been written about them and their contributions to early Maine when it remained under the province of Massachusetts. Living in current times, in the bitter months of winter, with all of our conveniences, I can only imagine how their thoughts turned to Spring and warmer months, as mine do. There is nothing like Spring in Maine. On later afternoons when the smell of slightly wet earth that is spongey beneath one’s feet, rises with each step. The promise of small, delicate flowers that announce what is yet to unfold as warmer days slide into our consciousness ever so slowly as to cast away winter and make one forget it even came. These interred gentlefolks will once again be named, and their stories told in 21st century ways which they could have not imagined…Using signage and Quick Response codes, we intend to tell their stories, place them in a context of world, state and local history, and bring renewed interest to others to learn even more about them, about the historical significance their lives and the Courthouse itself which knew the likes of John Adams, Daniel Webster, Benedict Arnold, The Reverend Jacob Bailey, and the renowned Midwife, Martha Ballard. The courthouse housed prisoners of the British ship, the Margaretta, captured June 11, 1775 in Machias. They were marched to the PCH and held in the jail until they were moved to Boston. Martha Ballard’s children, Dolly and Ephraim watched from the Kennebec River that runs past the Courthouse, as Edmund Fortis, a black man was executed for the crime and rape and murder of Pamela Tilton. A 14 year old girl from Vassalboro in September 1794. Fortis had received two visitors while in the PCH Jail awaiting trial. They were, Elder Benjamin Randall who was the founder of the Freewill Baptists, and the Reverend John Buzzell who, alongside Dr. Moses Swett and Rev. Rufus McIntyre, founded the Old Parsonsfield Seminary. Reverend Buzzell also co-founded, and was the Editor of the Morning Star, a mostly religious paper, with an abolitionist perspective. Published in 1826 in Limerick, Maine long before such a political stance was widely considered to be respectable in America. After seven years, the paper moved to Dover, NH.

The small committee hopes to shed a larger light on the Pownalborough Court House and to reignite interest in the people and the times, as well as the highlight the many contributions to early America that were made by the people who lives touched the land and stayed a while or a lifetime…