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Maces, Jordans Have Roots in Osborn
By Mark E. Honey
Special to
The Ellsworth American
Osborn, Plantation
21, is one of three small communities that exist along Route 179.
East Mariaville
borders on Osborn, to the southwest, sharing close family and
economic ties.
Emery Jordan stands between his
mother, Ada Moore Jordan (left), and his sister, Ethel Jordan.
They are near the family home in Osborn in 1915. Emery’s
daughter, Sylvia Sawyer, still lives in the house her father
grew up in. |
Further south lies
the community of Fletcher’s Landing, Plantation 8. The name is
borrowed from the family of William C. Fletcher who settled there in
1767.
A Mr. Bloxton also
is listed as an early landowner in 1774. Bloxton Meadow is named
after him.
An early settler of
Osborn, George Mace, married Hannah Harper from Tremont. Mace family
members would eventually be found in Great Pond, Aurora, East
Mariaville and Osborn.
William Mace, son
of George and Hannah, married Hannah Harper, his first cousin. Their
daughter Augusta married Oliver Cranney and lived in Osborn in 1860
and 1870.
Ansel J. Mace,
another son of George and Hannah, married his first cousin Dorenda
Mace, daughter of William Harper Jr. and Elizabeth Appleton.
The principal
occupations of most men and boys in Osborn was farming and
lumbering.
Residents drove
their cuts down through the East and Middle Branches of the Union
River.
Generations of men
from this community and
East Mariaville worked those waters, creating a significant part of
the story of lumbering on the
Union River.
Another significant
family bore the name of Jordan. This family beginning with Nahum
Jordan, 1845-1925, produced three generations of lumbermen and river
rats.
Osborn was also
celebrated in a song written by Larry Gorman. He was an Irish
Catholic lumberman from
Prince Edward Island
who worked the Union River in the late 1800s.
He was known more
for his poetry than for his work ethic, writing a number of ballads
about lumbering life, often making fun of certain individuals.
One of the most
famous ballads was the “Champion of Moose Hill,” perhaps written by
Mose Estey.
As the story goes,
a dance was held in a home of Fred Jordan, with various friends and
neighbors contributing to the festivities.
Emery “Muck” Mace,
a huge man renowned as a scrapper, arrived at the dance in a drunken
state.
Mace made an
advance on Annie Giles, seeking her hand at the next dance. She
refused, choosing to dance with Nahum Jordan.
“Muck” got enraged,
but before he could do serious damage, Nahum’s daughter, Helen
Giles, clobbered the brut on the head with a stick, knocking him
cold.
As the song,
written from “Muck’s” point of view states: “But with just one welt,
I lost the belt to a woman on Moose Hill…” and finally, “that Helen
bold and the belt shall hold, the champion of Moose Hill.”
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