Settler’s dream results in Raymond’s first inn

Eli Longley was an innkeeper and businessman
and one of the leading residents of the Town of
Raymond who hosted annual town meetings in his
barn for years. He died in 1839 and is buried in
the Raymond Village Cemetery.
SUBMITTED {PHOTO  

By Ernest H. Knight

While he was not one of the earliest settlers of Raymond, having first settled in Waterford, Eli Longley played an important role in the early development of the town when it was still part of the State of Massachusetts.

Eli was born in Bolton, Massachusetts in 1762 and though he was too young to take part in the stirring events in nearby Lexington and Concord that started the Revolutionary War, along with others of his family, he did serve during the later part of the war. He was active in the post-war militia until he migrated to Waterford as a proprietary settler.

Even in his first dwelling there, a log cabin, Longley gave shelter to travelers who were dependent upon the hospitality of the widely scattered settlers but before 1800 he had built a substantial inn as a business along with his farming. He also started the first store in the town and was the postmaster and served in several town offices and in the militia.

But during the cold years of 1815 to 1817 which were so devastating to the farmers of Maine, Longley decided to sell his holdings and migrate to the west where he had heard the land was lush and the climate more agreeable. Yet when he had found a spot in Pennsylvania which seemed to fill his expectations and was about to make the purchase, Longley got up one morning to find frost on the ground and the crops ruined.

Deciding that he was no better off there than in Waterford, he returned to reestablish his roots there. Unable to regain any of his prior property free from its new owner, Longley took the road back to Raymond and there, in 1817, found his new home.

With his experience as an inn keeper and town official in Waterford, it did not take him long to build a hotel on the busy route of trade and travel between Portland and the many new towns to the west, on the site where the Raymond Post Office once stood.

His hotel was appropriately named the Lafayette House and as Marquis de Lafayette was touring the United States for the 50^th anniversary of independence.

Longley’s patriotic pride as a veteran of the Revolutionary War had also prompted him to name one of his sons George Washington Longley, thus honoring two of his heroes. George Washington Longley’s dwelling still stands on Meadow Road, Route 121 a half-mile from the old Lafayette House site.

Besides managing his inn and serving in town offices, Longley continued to host meetings, as he had in Waterford, and for many years the Raymond Town Meetings were held in his barn up the road from his hotel.

The Lafayette House burned down about 1898. At the time it was called Smith’s Hotel and was still operated by a descendant of Eli Longley. The barn burned in 1950.

After one of Eli’s daughters married John Sawyer, he relinquished some of his inn and civic duties to his son-in-law.

When the new State of Maine separated from Massachusetts and one of the first acts of the legislature was to provide for the Cumberland & Oxford Canal, a committee was formed to plan for its construction and Eli Longley served on that committee.

This was a challenge and an honor for a non-professional citizen as transportation was vital to the growing commerce of the growing state, and he was one of the signers of the report of the engineers they had engaged from the recently completed Erie Canal in New York State.

While the committee was specifically for the purpose of providing a waterway from tidewater in Portland into Oxford County, its recommended terminus was Thomas Pond, now Lake Keoka in Waterford, which just happened to be Eli Longley’s earlier hometown.

Another indication of his interest and influence was that at the end of the report was an added paragraph which said, “The committee would beg leave to submit, though it does not strictly speaking come to within the sphere of their present duties, that one of its members had taken the trouble to view the route for a Branch Canal leading from Sebago to Painter’s Road (Sebago Lake to Panther’s Pond) and from that to Great Rattlesnake Pond (Crescent Lake) and thence to Thompson’s Pond.” Of course, the unnamed member would have been Eli Longley.

The Cumberland & Oxford Canal was a great success for 40 years and had the recommendation of the committee been followed, the canal boat traffic through town as well as landings on the Raymond shores of Sebago Lake would have been substantial. 

Eli Longley died in 1839 at the age of 77 and is buried in the Raymond Village Cemetery. His hotel and barn are gone, as well as his canal.

This article was written by the late Ernest H. Knight, one of the founders of the Raymond-Casco Historical Society and contained in his book “Historical Gems of Raymond and Casco.” It was submitted by the Raymond-Casco Historical Society and articles about Raymond history from the historical society will appear regularly in The Windham Eagle newspaper. To find out more about the Raymond-Casco Historical Society, call Frank McDermott at 207-655-4646. <