Yesterday

Surry was the sixth township laid out in 1762, west of the Union River. Blue Hill, to the south, was Township No. 5, and Trenton, No. 7, was the first township to the east of the Union River.

This view of Surry village from the 18th century is included in “Surry, Maine,” an informal history written by Osmond Bonsey for next year’s bicentennial celebration.

DEER IS

Surry once boarded the Union River at the foot of Bridge Hill in what is now Ellsworth. The boundary line, between Ellsworth and Surry, became the personal football yard line of the Jarvis and Black families and was not resolved until 1829. The line moved back and forth, on numerous occasions, between 1807-1829.

At a meeting held at East Surry in the home of Isaac Lord on Jan. 10, 1803, the citizens of Plantation No. 6 voted to petition for incorporation. The petition was sent to the General Court, in Massachusetts, and the town was incorporated. The name of Peru was the first choice, but was quickly abandoned for the name of the English town of Surry.

Matthew Patten is thought to be Surry’s first settler, arriving in 1767. Patten’s Bay bears his family name. Leonard Jarvis II purchased large tracts of land in Hancock County and would eventually move his family to Surry Village. Various Jarvis family members would be involved in farming, navigating, sawmills and politics. Other important families included the Curtis, Clark, Haskell, Coggins and Morgan families of Newbury Neck; and the Flood, Hammond, Lord, Mann, Milliken, Smith, Treworgy and Young families scattered throughout the community.

Patten’s Stream formed the industrial heart of the community. In 1855, the town had a gristmill and sawmill between the bridge and the Bay, and a shingle mill and gristmill above the bridge. Located on the stream at North Bend were sawmills. Flood’s Stream was also important with a tannery on the north bank and a sawmill on the south bank between the highway and Patten’s Bay. The principal shipyards and three wharves were located at a site that is now the town landing.

Surry was an important shipbuilding community with 45 schooners, 24 brigs, seven barks and one sloop, all being built between 1806 and 1873. The community ranked seventh among the shipbuilding communities in Hancock County.

In 1854, the shipbuilders of Surry built vessels with an aggregate of 1,364 tons. Samuel Merrill, Jacob Dodge and Hezekiah Means were active in shipbuilding at Patten’s Bay in 1854.

Col. William Coggins also had a shipyard in 1854 at Newbury Neck. His yard, on the Morgan’s Bay side of the Neck, employed shipbuilders from Trenton, Long Island and East Blue Hill. Coggins had the propensity to name his vessels after famous Americans—George Washington, Martha Washington and Martin Van Buren, names that were also shared by his children.

Native son Abraham Lord who worked at the Patten’s Bay yards, Paul Curtis and Issac M. Grant who came from the Kennebec to Long Island and worked at the Coggins yard, went on to Ellsworth where they establish themselves as among that city’s finest shipbuilders.

The Surry community maintained a fleet of small boats in the 1830s, which were employed in the fisheries. Other vessels were used to carry freight or lumber from local mills. The lumber trade out of Ellsworth employed many Surry vessels and crews, and a number of Surry sea captains eventually moved to Ellsworth.

One of Surry’s forgotten pleasures was the annual smelt run on Patten’s Bay. Smelt tents of every size and description were erected on the ice, creating a city filled with men and small boys of every size and description. By 1903, it was said that a man could catch between 25 and 175 pounds of smelts per day. An average crowd of 75 men would catch a ton of fish each day. Some of these smelts were consumed locally, while others were sold to the Boston market. The annual alewive run on Patten Stream was also important. A smoke house was built by the stream, providing the citizens with the local delicacy of smoked bloaters. The delicacy is now rapidly fading from public memory.