Cumberland & North Yarmouth

Setting the Scene
On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina’s harbor. In response, President Abraham Lincoln sent out a call for a volunteer army from every state in the Union. The Civil War had begun.

Maine responded vigorously by supplying the U.S. Army and Navy with more men proportionately than any other state.

Citizens from towns all over the state continued to answer the call throughout the next four years.

By the end of the war on April 9, 1865 approximately 97 men and one woman from North Yarmouth and 62 men from Cumberland had left their hometowns and traveled south to serve in the US military at some point during the war.

Farming: All Hands Needed
At the time, most towns in Cumberland County were very small. The 1860 Census showed North Yarmouth to have only 209 families; Cumberland’s count was 329. Many of these families depended on farming for their livelihood. This was especially true for North Yarmouth, since it had lost its primary commercial center when the village of Yarmouth seceded from North Yarmouth in August 1849.

Every family member was needed to keep the farm running, and young men, whether they belonged to the family or worked as hired hands, were especially important. Enough farm workers left our communities to cause a great strain on those left behind during the war. Some families requested aid from the State, from funds that had been set aside for this purpose. This did help in some cases, but difficulties caused by the war were long term since not every soldier returned home. In addition many former soldiers left our communities to settle elsewhere, including lands in the western United States. The population in North Yarmouth decreased significantly. In fact, only a very few new houses were built in the town between 1870 and 1950!

The Lawrence Brothers
In our neighboring town of Gray, 109 men answered the call to arms, including brothers from the same family: James Lawrence, Luther Lawrence and Charles Lawrence. James Lawrence eventually came to live in North Yarmouth and he and his descendents were involved citizens of the town.

James survived the Civil War and returned home to Maine, although for the rest of his life he suffered from malaria that he probably contracted during the war. Charles came home, too. But their brother Luther did not return. He was mortally wounded at age 24 at the Second Battle of Deep Bottom outside of Richmond, Virginia on August 16, 1864. He died of his wounds at Chesapeake Hospital, Fort Monroe, Virginia on September 3, 1864.

Luther Lawrence
Luther Lawrence wrote many letters home. Before the war he had been a teacher in Gray, and it shows in his letters; his handwriting was clear and he was a good speller with excellent vocabulary. His observations were intelligent and thoughtful.

Luther was born in Gray on January 26, 1840, the third of six children and the second son born to Nathaniel Sawtelle Lawrence and Mary Ann Harris Lawrence.

Luther was passionate about serving the Union’s cause. The Maine Legislature put out the call for troops on April 28, 1861, and on May 3 Luther joined the volunteers of the 1st Maine Volunteer Regiment. These 779 men signed up to serve for three months.

The soldiers trained at Camp Washburn (named for Maine Gov. Israel Washburn), a temporary assembly and camp area in Portland’s East Deering, across the cove from the Marine Hospital (now Martin's Point).

Although the men were eager for action, they were at first set back; they were quarantined for measles, and had to wait for close to a month before they could leave the camp. Finally, on May 31, the Eastern Argus newspaper reported that the troops were readying to leave. They were visited by Gov. Washburn himself, who “alluded to the disappointment experienced by them in being detained so long from the active field, and said the time had been well spent in improvement in military tactics.”

At 6 AM on June 1, Luther and the rest of his company assembled into columns and marched from their camp down Washington Street in Portland. As they turned the corner onto Congress Street, they were met by “a cavalcade of mounted citizens, a detachment of the Police and a battalion of the 5th Regiment.” The Portland Brass Band accompanied them and crowds cheered as they marched along. At the Portland, Saco & Portsmouth Railway depot on Commercial Street, there was a “dense mass of human beings, so much so that it was next to impossible for the Regiment to get through it to the cars.”

Luther himself remembered the journey from Maine and down into New York in a letter to his father back home.

Once in Washington, the 1st Maine performed guard duty in Washington, and received more training. At this time the capitol was in great danger from attack and no doubt Luther and his fellow soldiers were well aware of Washington's close proximity to the Confederate lands and the uncertainty and fear felt by many.

After this initial "hitch," Luther arrived back home again in early August. in November he mustered into the new 11th Maine Volunteer Regiment, where he would stay for the remainder of his service. The war took him to Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.

Private Luther Lawrence was a member of Company H and he served with distinction. He eventually rose to the rank of Captain.

Luther's Death
Luther Lawrence was well regarded for his performance and bravery in action. A history of the 11th Maine written after the Civil War tells the story of Luther’s last moments. During the battle at Deep Bottom, in hot, humid weather of more than 90 degrees, Confederate forces attacked the 11th Maine at an earthworks that the Union men had captured only an hour before. The scene was chaotic. “We were short of officers, our remaining line officers barely sufficing to furnish each company with a commander, some lieutenants commanding by detail other companies than their own; and now Captain Lawrence, of H, was mortally wounded. His fierce bound into the air, as the bullet struck his muscular body, will never be forgotten by those who saw it. Many of us loved this gallant officer for his personal qualities. The bullet that removed him from the world took from it a frank, brave, and noble-minded gentleman.”

Back in Gray, Maine, the sorrowful news was heard by many friends and neighbors. On Monday, September 12, 1864 a diary kept by Emma Foster of Gray read:
“Caleb came in the stage and found me tonight, he told me that Luther Lawrence is dead and was buried yesterday with military & Masonic honors. Sarri Humphrey was engaged to him and went as a mourner to the grave.”

Luther Lawrence is buried next to his parents Nathaniel and Mary and his sister Mary in Gray’s cemetery.

Charles Lawrence
The youngest of the three brothers, Charles entered the war late and did not see battle action, although he served in South after the war had ended. He returned home safely but tragically drowned in the Royal River in 1868. His death was noted in a diary kept by Ellen Marston, the fiancée of his brother James Lawrence.

James Lawrence
Luther’s younger brother James joined the 11th Maine and served under him. He, too, was wounded in the battle of Deep Bottom but recovered. Family members relate that James sent Luther’s body home along with his sword, which was treasured by the Lawrence family.

James continued to serve even after the end of the Civil War. In July 1865 he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant of Company C, Sixth United States Colored Troops. He served for three months and was then honorably discharged.

He returned home and worked in various enterprises, managing a clothing store for a time in Boston. In 1869 he married Ellen Maria Marston, daughter of the sea captain Levi Marston. The couple lived in Massachusetts for a time, but James's ill health—probably the effects of malaria—brought them back to Maine and to North Yarmouth, where they lived with Ellen's parents at the Marston family's Riverside Farm.

In 1874, James and Ellen took over the Marston farm, where they raised five children.

Riverside Farm
The Marston-Lawrence homestead still stands on North Road in North Yarmouth overlooking a small oxbow on the Royal River. It is a typical connected farmhouse.

The house’s ell, built c. 1863, was of the most modern and efficient designs of that time. There were separate areas for grain and corn storage, a room for weaving and living quarters for hired hands; a milk room for butter making, a pig house and a space for manure and root crop storage. There was a separate icehouse for cooling milk and a cistern.

The Lawrence farm produced crops and food for the household and also sold to local and distant markets. The family likely brought milk and butter daily to the East North Yarmouth train depot for the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railway at Dunn’s Corner, just up the road. Their farm products would be sold in Portland.

James Lawrence served six years on North Yarmouth’s Board of Selectmen and was elected to represent North Yarmouth in the Maine State Legislature in 1895 and 1896.

James died on June 7, 1939. Ellen had died two years before him, in 1937.

James and Ellen's son Herbert Marston Lawrence was a farmer and East North Yarmouth's first mail carrier at the turn of the century. His daughter Charlotte became a schoolteacher and taught for a time at the Dunn School, not far from Riverside Farm. Charlotte left a collection of her family's papers to North Yarmouth Historical Society.

—Text by Katie Murphy with contributions from Holly Hurd and Linc Merrill

Sources used for this History:
Portland. 1972, Greater Portland Landmarks
History of Cumberland County, Maine. 1880
US Census Data
North Yarmouth Timeline by Elizabeth Singer Maule
The Story of One Regiment: The Eleventh Maine Infantry Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion. 1896
The Diaries of Sarah Jane and Emma Ann Foster: A Year in Maine During the Civil War. Wayne E. Reilly, ed. 2002: Picton Press, Rockport, ME
Luther Lawrence’s US military record
"Nothing But a Miracle Could Save Us" by Bryce A. Suderow. North and South, January 2001, vol. 4 no. 2
James Lawrence obituary, Maine Sunday Telegram, Sunday June 11, 1939
Big House Little House Back House Barn. Thomas C. Hubka, University Press of New England, 1984
Eastern Argus, May 31-June 3, 1861