SMITH, Comfort Carpenter, Rev. 1790 US Census Winthrop 1-1-2-0-0

Rev. Comfort Carpenter Smith was born 1761 in Edgartown, MA, the second son of Capt. Matthias and Comfort (Carpenter) Smith. His father Mathias earned the title of Captain in the French and Indian War, and he also served in the Revolutionary War. The Smith family came to Readfield (then still part of Winthrop) before 1770 and settled on a 200 acre lot that ran east to west, running a distance of one mile long and 100 rods wide. Mathias began a long line of Smith descendants in this area – all seven of his children settled in Readfield or Wayne, Maine.

Carpenter Smith’s calling was to the ministry. He was a Methodist Circuit Rider and served the area that stretched from Gardiner to Skowhegan. The Methodists were among the fastest growing churches in post-Revolutionary America - between 1770 and 1820 membership rose from fewer than 1,000 to more than 250,000 [i]. Success of the Methodists was because of their dedicated force of itinerant preachers, also known as circuit riders. During this era, most people lived on widely scattered farms or in tiny remote villages - 95% of northern New Englanders lived in scarcely populated areas. Circuit Riders provided preaching, the sacraments, and church structure to communities that would not otherwise have been able to attract or afford a minister. Rev. Carpenter Smith was one. He traveled at his own expense and was characterized in Stevens Memorials of Methodism as a "useful preacher". In 1800 - the same year his uncle Joseph Baker was assigned the Bethel Circuit - Rev. Carpenter Smith was the first to preach Methodism in Gardiner and he also preached to Monmouth residents for the first time in 1800. His word reached Augusta, which was part of the Readfield Circuit, and Pittston - where he married his wife, Sarah Norcross, in 1786. Rev. Carpenter Smith was assigned to the following circuits: 1799 and 1801 Bath and Union, ME; 1800 Readfield; 1802 Hallowell; 1803 Bristol. He attended the New England Methodist Conferences 1800-1804 and was given appointments every year except for 1804-05 when none was recorded. In 1805 he withdrew from the Methodist Conference. A year later his wife also withdrew. According to History of Wayne Maine[ii], Rev. Smith disagreed with the Methodist doctrine and discipline. One must wonder, however, if he simply could not afford to be so gratuitous to the Methodist Church - though he did continue to give to his community and church throughout his life. Rev. Carpenter Smith and his wife became Universalists and are recorded among the earliest of that religion in Winthrop and Readfield. When the Readfield Union Meeting House was built in 1827 Rev. Carpenter Smith was among the 43 petitioners.[iii] Stained glass windows were given in his name and in memory of his step daughter and husband – Hiram and Mary Jane Nickerson[iv].

 Photo by Marius Peladeau, UMH President

The Rev. Comfort Carpenter Smith memorial window at the
Union Meeting House (UMH) on Church Road, Readfield.

Photo by Ruth Hertz

Rev. Comfort Carpenter Smith house

Old North Wayne Road, Wayne.

 

Rev. Smith bought an extensive tract of land in North Wayne[v] in 1812 and built an impressive set of farm buildings – said to be one of the oldest surviving homes in the vicinity. Tradition says that he cut the pine for his barn on land adjacent to Androscoggin Pond and rafted it in[vi]. He carried on the cultivation of a large farm on this property and also operated his sawmill which he bought from Jonathan Norcross[vii] – no doubt a relative of his wife Sally. He also planned and laid out the road that still leads from his house to North Wayne Village. Sometime before 1820 he also built a grist mill on the west side of the stream at the village in North Wayne.

 

In 1898 his nephew’s wife, Sarah Cresey Smith, recounted the look of the local countryside as it appeared in the years of North Wayne’s early settlement. She was 91years old at that time: “(There were) a few scattered buildings standing in the midst of stumps of the gigantic pines which had been felled for lumber, thickly overgrown with bushes, where even then the lurking bear startled unwary travelers. The banks of the stream were dense with alders except for the openings cut for the erection of some mills, which were built at an early date.”[viii] When Carpenter Smith sold his mills many years later he made a stipulation in the deed “that through all future time both grist mill and saw mill should be maintained on this stream.” This was typical of his benevolent nature and concern for his family and neighbors welfare[ix].

Rev. Carpenter Smith married twice, the first time in 1786 to Sarah Norcross of Pittston, ME. She was the daughter of Samuel and Mary Wiswell Norcross, who were originally of Newton, MA.  “Sally” died in 1825 and Rev. Smith remarried in 1826 to Jane Stratton in Winslow, ME. He had no biological children but Jane had a daughter Mary Jane[x]. She married Hiram S. Nickerson and their family was the next generation to live on the Carpenter Smith Homestead, where they raised 3 sons and 4 daughters. H.O. Nickerson was their eldest son and he settled not far away on what we know (2012) as the Capt. Dudley Haines property on Nickerson Hill Road, Readfield.   

Carpenter Smith died on his farm in North Wayne June 29, 1849 at age 87 years. Until the end of his life he remained active in sustaining religious worship and faithfully preached in North Wayne Village as well as in other nearby communities[xi]. The house is still standing (2013) on the Old North Wayne Road leading to the Macdonald Woods owned by the Kennebec Land Trust.

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i. History of Wayne, Maine from its Settlement until 1898. Pub.1898 by Maine Farmer Press, Augusta, ME. Pg 180

ii. Ibid page 39

iii. Ibid page 39
iv. Ibid p 40

v. Kennebec Registry of Deeds, Book 20 Page 415

vi. History of Wayne, Maine from its Settlement until 1898.Pub.1898 by Maine Farmer Press, Augusta, ME. Pg 178

vii. Kennebec Registry of Deeds Book 23 Page 395 and Book 24 Page 476
viii. Keeping the Faith, the story of the Readfield Union Meetinghouse. Self-published by Ernest L. Bracy 1990. Pg. 6

ix. ibid page v.

x. History of Wayne, Maine from its Settlement until 1898. Pub. 1898 by Maine Farmer Press, Augusta, ME. Pg 178
xi. http://www.christianhistorymagazine.org/index.php/past-pages/45frontier/ accessed 12/30/2012