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LISBON A great place to live and do business. Lisbon, as it is known today, was settled in 1628. Some of our early records indicate Lisbon started manufacturing right away. On March 4, the year unknown, Oliver Moses, John Tebbets, Edward Plummer and Galen Moses, organized a stock company with a capital of twenty-four thousand dollars divided into 240 one hundred dollar shares each for manufacturing purposes at Little River Village. They purchased from the present proprietors mill privileges at the Upper Falls, and such other real estate they currently had an interest in for the sum of seven-thousand dollars. Then they agreed to buy the Thompson property. They built a dam and mill and began manufacturing cloth. On June 29, 1798, the two branches of the Massachusetts Legislature approved a document appointing three commissioners to oversee the sale of undivided land to settlers. This sum of money had to be paid by the end of 1805. These settlers were given for the most part, 100-acre parcels. Bowdoin's Town Clerk Samuel Smith recorded in April of 1798 a vote to divide Bowdoin into two equal parts and two distinct towns. Samuel Tebbets, Thomas Ham, and Joseph Killgore submitted the application for Incorporation in June of 1798. The reason being the center of said town was broken and wasteland so the inhabitants were obligated to meet on the north side or south side of the town. The document pleaded the inhabitants had to travel near ten miles to get to town meeting for which reason, many did not attend. They petitioned to incorporate the western part of Bowdoin by itself beginning at the north west corner of Topsham. On June 22, 1799 Lisbon became incorporated under the name of Thompsonborough in the County of Lincoln under the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. On March 17, 1800 the first town meeting was called to order in the house of Samuel Tebbets to elect officers. In April of 1800 Lisbon voted to have the assessors go through the town to take the valuation, to collect twenty cents on a pound, and to have the Selectmen be the committee to settle accounts between Lisbon and Bowdoin. At the adjournment of the annual town meeting in May of 1800 the first eight member school committee was chosen. On December 21, 1801 Thompsonborough voters agreed to alter the name of the town, and voted to petition the General Court to change its name to Lisbon. Noah Jordan submitted the petition to the General Court and cited "the inconveniency in the length of the name" as the reason for changing it, and on February 20, 1802 the Town of Thompsonborough was officially changed to the Town of Lisbon. Today, Lisbon is the third largest of fourteen communities in Androscoggin County, and is centrally located within a 20-mile radius of more than 100,000 people. According to the 1990 census records, Lisbon's population is 9,457. State Route 196 passes through the entire length of Lisbon connecting to the Lewiston/Auburn area and Interstate 495 and to the Topsham/Brunswick area and Interstate 95. Twila Lycette, Lisbon Town Clerk Historical Events: On December 21, 1801 Thompsonborough voted to send a remonstrance to petition the General Court that Wales not be given three miles of its north end of town. In 1803 Lisbon voted to build the Sabattus River Bridge, and in 1806 they voted to raise money to build a bridge over the Sabattus stream. On December 18, 1805 Lisbon voted to send a remonstrance to the General Court against the petition of the Inhabitants of the Plantation of Little River to annex. In 1806 our records show that Lisbon voted 25 for and 56 against the separation of the District of Maine from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Maine was admitted to the Union as a State in 1820. On July 27, 1811 Lisbon gave Bowdoin seventy-nine dollars in consideration whereof Solomon Eaton for Bowdoin quitclaimed to Lisbon all suites or causes of suites that Bowdoin have or could have against Lisbon and all demands of every kind from the beginning of the world to that date. A Brief History of Present-Day Lisbon The area we now know as Lisbon was part of York County until 1760 when Lincoln County was formed. Lisbon was part of the Town of Bowdoin until 1799. If you consult a map of the Town of Lisbon and, with a ruler, using Edgecomb Road as the approximate dividing line, draw a line to the Town line of Lewiston, the area north of this line was the approximate dimensions of the Town of Lisbon in 1799 when it was incorporated as the Town of Thompsonborough. Lisbon was much larger then, extending to Sabattus Pond, its northern boundary on a line with Bowdoin's north boundary. In 1802 the name was changed to Lisbon.

In 1808 the Town of Lisbon annexed the area south of this line, on both sides of the Sabattus River. This area extended to Lewiston on the west, and Little River on the east and the Androscoggin River on the south. The annexed area was all called Little River Plantation, although the area between the Sabattus River and the Lewiston line for a period of time was called merely "The Gore" and was controlled only by Lincoln County. The annexed area between the Sabattus River and Little River was called the Town of Little River, originally termed the Little River Plantation. In 1845 the Town of Webster was formed and took the north half of Lisbon. Webster is now called Sabattus.

When Lisbon was established is more difficult to determine, depending on what a person considers "established". The Town of Lisbon for many years has proclaimed that it was settled in 1628; however, I believe that they are stretching the known fact that the Thomas Purchase had a fishing camp below the present power dam at Lisbon Falls. This was only seasonal and really cannot be termed a settlement. The fishing camp existed for many years.

What brought the settlers were the abundance of water power and timber. Many had small farms and raised corn and grain as well as working with timber, and, of course, raised a variety of farm animals.

Actual settlement did not begin until at least after 1750 and probably not until 1766 when Benjamin Whitney and his family moved from the New Meadows area near Brunswick to near the junction of Little River and the Androscoggin River where he was the miller and half-owner of a grist mill. Between 1766 and 1800, several small water-powered sawmills were in operation at the present Worumbo Falls and the smaller falls near the mouth of Little River. Sawmills were in operation on Little River itself, plus a grist mill.

On the west side of the Sabattus River, James White, in 1781, was the first purchaser of land from James Bowdoin, although he may have been living on the property prior to that date. Bowdoin usually required the purchaser to live on the property for 12 years before he could purchase the land, which would place the year of first occupancy as 1769.

Sawmills were established, at present-day Lisbon Village and further upstream, between 1780 and 1800. Shortly after 1800 a wooden woolen mill was operating where Farwell Mill Apartments now stand. In addition, over 100 homes in the general area had looms that made basic fabric from wool and cotton and sold to the mills for further processing.

A variety of small mills associated with the wood industry, and industries associated with wool and imported cotton were in operation until the very large expansion in the 1860s when the large brick Worumbo, Farwell and Farnsworth mills were erected, employing hundreds of workers. As many of you know, Farwell Mill is now Farwell Apartments, and the Farnsworth Mill was recently torn down. Worumbo employs only a few, compared to the number once working there. A stable but smaller industry has been the large mill near Little River bridge, where they process wood. A mill has been in operation at that site for nearly 200 years, although its size and ownership has changed many times, as well as the finished product.

Lisbon now has a smaller but a much more diversified industrial base and does not depend on one or two industries for employment in our town.

Lisbon has a wide range of nationalities represented by its citizenry - English, French, Slovak, and German being the major ones; however, there has been a great mixing of the population over the years. The large mills were responsible for bringing the French, Slovak and German families to our area, and they each brought interesting customs and food selections. They were referred to as "ethnic groups" and for decades tended to keep to themselves.

An old joke is that a marriage between someone from the Lisbon Village area and the Lisbon Falls area was called a "mixed marriage" because of the rivalry between the two areas. The rivalry is nearly non-existent now, although there are still some diehards.

Before the advent of television, local people had to provide their own entertainment and there were several buildings, both in the Lisbon Village area and in the Lisbon Falls area that had dance floors. Most also had a stage where they put on plays and musicals. The ethnic groups also had bands that put on recitals or marched in various parades. The groups also put on large suppers, primarily for their own members. The Grange was prominent both in Lisbon Village and Lisbon Falls, and was originally formed by farm families for both educational and family entertainment purposes.

Schools evolved over the years from many one-room schools that housed several grades, to the present consolidated schools with each grade in its own room, or in a specific classroom for study. Many of you are aware of the yellow Ridge School, the last one room school to be used in Lisbon.

Lisbon was a hotbed of baseball for many years, even more so than today. A local American Legion sponsored baseball team composed of Lisbon area high school students won the New England championship in 1929 and went to the semi-finals in Washington D.C. where they were eliminated. Lisbon also had a semi-pro baseball team, the Worumbo Indians, who went to the national finals in Kansas. Eddie Waitkus, who played for the Chicago White Sox for years, first played for the Worumbo Indians. Their ball field, complete with a covered grandstand, was near the present white Worumbo Mill and the river. This is only a brief history of Lisbon.