Cemetery

** Please note: This page is a work in progress. Fact-checking and research are ongoing, and bios may contain inaccuracies, typos, formatting issues, or incomplete information. Updates will be made regularly.**

Thanks to the following people for their countless hours of research and writing on those interred at the Pownalborough Court House Cemetery: Gregory Edward, Jackie P. Fournier, Cara Kent, William Stuart, and Dave Probert. A sign on site provides a map of the cemetery layout, and the numbered bios below correspond to that map, spotlighting many of those buried here. This project is ongoing, and additional bios may become available over time.

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3.  Captain Edward Holmes Hall.  Captain Hall was born in 1804 in Pittston to Nathaniel Hall and Sarah Bailey. He married Mary Houdlette Goodwin at the age of 28 years. They had two children, a son, George Edward Hall, a captain in the Captain Ben Goodwin Company, and a daughter, Mary Goodwin Hall.  Captain Hall was a mariner, entrepreneur, and landowner who sailed his ships and owned shares in the vessels Moloka, Sea Lion, and Richmond. He also served as Master of the Casilda. He owned 80 acres of land as well as horses, milking cows, oxen, and swine. Hall was involved in the creation of the Centre Bridge Company to be built across the Eastern River at the narrows and the Dresden Steam Mill Company. His Death Notice, printed in the Portland Press Herald on 3 July 1858, reports that he died in late June/early July of 1858 while aboard the British steamer Arabia. He was noted as being the captain of the Moloka at the time of his death.  Hall’s stone reads, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.” One of Captain Hall’s brothers, Wesley Hall, 1812-1888, is also buried in the cemetery. 

7.  Capt. Stephen Nymphos Twycross, aka Twycrop, aka Twycrost, was born on December 8, 1773 in Pownalborough, and one of four sons born to Lydia Goodwin Twycross and minister Robert Twycross.

Captain Twycross was married to Lydia Johnson from 1799 until her death on January 9, 1812. He married his second wife, Mary Bailey, on September 13, 1812.  Her father was Nathaniel Bailey, who lived in Pittston and is known to have done a lot of work at the Pownalborough Court House.

Twycross lived in Cedar Grove, Dresden, just north of the Pownalborough Court House along the Kennebec River.  He did not spend much time at home, as he was a mariner busy on the seas, where he commanded the Schooner Nancy, shipping cargos of salt, rice, rum, tobacco, and wood all over the world. He sailed to ports including Martinique in the West Indies, Guadeloupe, England, Jamaica, and Turks Islands, as well as Rhode Island, Boston, and South Carolina. 

He died on May 11, 1841, at the age of 67.  According to the Lincoln Telegram, he was involved in an accident, and “while discharging a cargo of lumber, a timber fell upon his leg and crushed it,” leading to his death shortly afterwards.  

9.  Rebecca Goodwin Johnson was born Oct 9, 1755 to Samuel and Elizabeth (Willard) Goodwin. Rebecca was the youngest child of Captain (later Major) Samuel Goodwin. She was likely born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, during a time when her father commanded the marching company that operated out of Fort Shirley and was tasked with the defense of the community and the resupply of forts Western and Halifax upriver. Rebecca was a young girl when she and her family joined their father at the fort before the court house was built in 1761. She married Captain John Johnson and they had nine children: John, Jr., Samuel Goodwin, Lydia, Rowland, Elizabeth, William Goodwin, James, and Rebecca. Rebecca Goodwin Johnson was 75 years old when she died, on July 19, 1831. She is buried with her husband, John, in the PCH Cemetery. 

9. John Johnson was born in July 1741. John Johnson was born in July 1741 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His military experience included the following service: Captain, 2nd Company, 2nd Regiment, Lincoln County Militia, 23 August 1776, Private  & Corporal, 11th Massachusetts. Capt. White’s Co., Col Francis’ Regt.  Capt. Clark’s Co. Col Benjamin Tupper’s Regt.  He was in battles at Saratoga, Bemis Heights, and Monmouth.  Johnson married Rebecca Goodwin and nine children. By 1806, he was postmaster at the courthouse with Rebecca helping. Their eldest son Thomas succeeded him as Postmaster, with youngest Daughter Rebecca Johnson Prescott assisting her brother. (It’s not fair but it seems that only men were postmasters in those days!) He was 72 when he died in Dresden on June 11th 1813. (Commission in the Lincoln County militia is located in parlor of courthouse)

12. David Speare Goodwin born on December 31, 1794 in Dresden, the son of first cousins Samuel Twycross Goodwin and Elizabeth Holland. He married Lydia Twycross, who was his second cousin and the daughter of Stephen Nymphus Twycross and Lydia Johnson. He was a veteran of the War of 1812 and died on April 19, 1879.

19. Ann Goodman Bowman was born in 1765. She married Judge Jonathan Bowman (1735- 1804) in 1798. Historic New England Records show that Jonathan married “33- year-old Nancy Goodwin of the neighboring courthouse family. A condolence letter from 63-year-old Bowman to Nancy on the death of her brother, Charles in 1790 shows a friendship before marriage.” And died in1856.

25.   Thomas Jefferson Goodwin was born on July 1, 1803 in Dresden, the son of George Goodwin and Sally Houdlette. He married Angelina E. (maiden name unconfirmed) and they had two daughters, Matilda Coolidge Goodwin and Emeline Curtis Goodwin. He died on May 28, 1838.

29.  Lydia Twycross Johnson was born on July 4, 1822. Lydia suffered from tuberculosis, a very common illness in the 19th century. She was often sick as a child and died on May 16, 1837, at the tender age of 14. Her grave was moved from Philadelphia to join her parents at the Pownalborough Court House cemetery. She and her mother are commemorated in a painting on display in the Southeast Bedroom of the Court House. 

30.  Captain Rowland Johnson, born 1785, was the son of Captain John Johnson and Rebecca Goodwin Johnson, and grandson of Major Samuel Goodwin. He was a merchant and a ship’ captain who married Nancy Goodwin Johnson. Like Captain Twycross, Johnson’s ship was boarded and robbed of its cargo in the war of 1812.  Captain Johnson died in October of 1871.

32.  Caroline Louise/a Prescott Canby born1829 – died 1919.  She was taken in by her Uncle Rowland and Aunt Nancy and lived in Philadelphia with them after their daughters had died, returning to Pownalborough Court House in the summers and during epidemics. She married William Jackson Canby (The grandson of Betsy Ross) and had five children: William Warren, Henry, Louise “Lula”, Augusta, Oliver. William died in 1890 and is buried in the Northwood Cemetery in Philadelphia.  (photograph located in welcome center of courthouse)

33.  Rebecca “Eliza Goodwin Johnson Prescott born 1827-died1906.  She periodically lived with her Uncle Rowland and Aunt Nancy in Philadelphia. She completed her schooling in Philadelphia and stayed with her mother at PCH for the remainder of the year(s). In 1850 Rebecca was recorded in the census to be living with Rowland and Nancy in Philadelphia. In 1857, Rebecca was courted by David or Daniel Reed, a mariner. There is some evidence he died while on a voyage. She never married and became a schoolteacher. In the 1860 census she resided in Dresden. In 1865 she was living in Philadelphia with her brother-in-law, William Canby at his home. In the 1870 and 1880 censuses, Rebecca was living in Philadelphia with her sister, Caroline Louise in the Canby household. She died April 9, 1906, in Dresden, Maine and is buried at the PCH Cemetery.