A tiny
portion of Pope Road at the Pleasant River bridge was once a thriving
commercial district
By Walter
Lunt
A casual drive on Pope Road between Windham Hill and the
intersection with Gray Road (Route 202) holds nary a clue of what once was.
Two-hundred years ago the area was teeming with mills, stores
and other businesses that made it the most important commercial district in
Windham.
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| Isaiah Allen (1832-1914) was the grandson of Ebenezer Allen and Charity Pope. COURTESY OF LEE ALLENAdd caption |
Today, there are no visible signs, and no physical testimony of the
once bustling industrial site between the intersection with Swett Road and the
Pleasant River bridge. Tucked between these two points, on both sides of the
road and on the river, were several mills and businesses that served the needs
of merchants and farmers for decades in the early to mid-1800s from Portland
and points north.
As noted in many of our earlier columns, public buildings,
roads and famous homesteads were often named after the families who lived
there. Such is case for Pope Road and the neighborhood (just described) of
Popeville.
Elijah Pope came to Windham from Falmouth (Portland) in about
1769. He was a blacksmith and purchased property near Pleasant River, where
built a shop. Many townspeople did not welcome his presence. Pope was a Quaker
and followed the ‘peculiar’ tenets of drab clothing, conversation sprinkled
with ‘thee and thou’ and conducting religious services in silence. Alarmed at
the arrival of Pope and others of the Friends Society persuasion,
congregationalist minister Peter T. Smith wrote in his journal, “…kept a day of
fasting and Prayer on account of…Many strange Quakers in town.”
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| A bustling Popeville Center is shown on a 19th century map of the Town of Windham. COURTESY OF WINDHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY |
It is a proud testament of the town of Windham and its people
that Elijah Pope soon became an accepted and highly respected member of the
community. History records that he was master workman with a large number of
customers.
Pope married Phebe Winslow of Falmouth in 1768. They had 12
children, none of whom died young (as did many children in those times). Their
third child, Charity, married Ebenezer Allen, also a Quaker (The Windham Eagle
– June 26, 2020). Fifth child Nathan was born in 1775 and married Ebenezer’s
sister, Phebe. Nathan is well-known in Windham history for his famous
walk.
Determined and entrepreneurial,
the 18-year old walked from Popeville to Beverly, Massachusetts where he apprenticed
himself to a clothier for five years. Returning to Windham, he started a
clothing operation at Great Falls (North Gorham) and later purchased the water
rights near his home on Pleasant River where he built a small woolen mill, the
first of its kind in Windham. Machinery for the operation was hauled from
Andover,
Massachusetts by teams of horses. By 1804, at age 29, Nathan Pope was
in the wool manufacturing business and was already a successful businessman.
Nathan and Phebe had nine children (the fifth child, Elijah,
lived only six months). The sixth, who was also named Elijah, studied at
Vermont Medical College and later distinguished himself when he and a colleague
became the first dentists to perform a pain-free tooth extraction by
administering ether to a patient; the first use of anesthesia in dentistry. Dr.
Elijah Pope returned to Windham and opened a practice during the latter years
of his career. But we digress.
By 1841, three of Nathan’s sons, Isaiah, Oliver and Joseph
took over and expanded the family business at Popeville. Soon the tiny
neighborhood was a thriving commercial district with no fewer than 12 mills and
businesses. Known as Isaiah Pope & Co., there was a blacksmith shop, fulling mill (for making
felt), grist mill (for grinding corn and wheat), cotton mill, dye house,
warehouse, office, store, carpentry shop, coopers shop (for making barrels),
sawmill and a boarding house (for workers), all located between Swett Road and the
river. One business was a custom-made clothing facility. One could only marvel
at the open field near the river where row after row of tender-bars displayed
colorful cloth hanging in the open air to dry. Daily, teams of horses carried
orders for table and piano covers, horse blankets, felt skirts and boot linings
to Portland, returning with supplies and raw materials for the busy company.
To
say the least, business was booming in the 1840s and 50s in Popeville.
Next time, a decision to further expand Isaiah
Pope & Co. to North Windham proves disastrous. <
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