Home Maine Moses Davis, The Maine Cabinetmaker Who Built a Fort

Moses Davis, The Maine Cabinetmaker Who Built a Fort

by
4 comments

A wooden blockhouse that still stands by the Sheepscot River is the unlikely legacy of a cabinetmaker named Moses Davis who strongly disagreed with the purpose of the fort he helped build.

Davis was not just a cabinetmaker. He was a farmer, a lawmaker and a respected leader of the Town of Edgecomb, Maine. He also happened to own a piece of land that was perfect for a coastal fort.

Fort Edgecomb blockhouse

Fort Edgecomb blockhouse, 1936. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

He was a pious and hardworking 27-year-old when he and his wife Sarah moved from Newburyport, Mass., in 1770 to a settlement across from Wiscasset. After Edgecomb was incorporated in 1774, Moses Davis was selected to represent the town in the General Court. The state selected him to serve as a delegate to the Massachusetts conventions that led to the Articles of Confederation in 1781 and that ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1788 (he voted yes).

Moses Davis: Farmer

In between conventions, Moses Davis worked his farm, reared six children and made furniture. He was a town selectmen and justice of the peace who married 183 couples over his lifetime.

On Sept. 11, 1783, he wrote in his diary that he ‘workt in shop on Capt. Dunton chest.’ He also worked on making a ‘Great plow,’ finished a chest for John Place, built a ‘standing stool’ for Mrs. Decket and helped build a kitchen in Wiscasset.

Fast forward 25 years. Wiscasset grew to a busy port second only to Portland. Ships had carried timber from Wiscasset to Europe and the West Indies, while a fishing fleet and merchant vessels had sailed in and out of the harbor. But President Thomas Jefferson’s wildly unpopular Embargo of 1807 had strangled commerce along the Sheepscot River.

Five Moseses

War with Britain was looming on May 21, 1808. On that spring day, 65-year-old Moses Davis received two visitors, Maj. Moses Porter and Moses Carlton. Porter, an engineer, had served under Henry Knox and was charged with building batteries from Castine Harbor to the mouth of the Kennebec River. Carlton was a local ship owner and businessman hired to handle the project.

Porter wanted to buy land from Moses Davis to build a fort that would defend Wiscasset and enforce the hated embargo. Davis’ farm – on Davis Island – was right across from Wiscasset.

Fort Edgecomb

On June 13, 1808, Moses Davis formally deeded over three acres on Davis Island for $300.00 to the United States government. The next day, Moses Porter moved in with the Davis family and set out boundary stakes for the fort.

For the next six months, he supervised the work while Moses Davis helped build the fort along with still two other Moseses: his son, Moses Davis, Jr., and his hired hand, Moses Dodge. Ironically, Moses Davis was just then petitioning the General Court for help in redressing the Embargo Law.

The two younger Moseses and other workers did most of the heavy lifting: hauling planks for the gun platforms and rocks, brick, timber and sod for the battery.

Race to the Finish

Workers finished the fort in time to celebrate James Madison’s inauguration as president. On Feb. 23, 1809, Moses Dodge had a team of oxen haul cannons to the fort. It was said the only time the cannons at Fort Edgecomb were fired was in salute of James Madison – that is, the end of the embargo.

Thomas Jefferson actually lifted the embargo three days before leaving office. Moses Davis happily recorded in his diary that seven or eight vessels went downriver to European and other ports.

The octagonal, 34-foot-high blockhouse still stands. Fort Edgecomb is now a historic site with guided tours in the summer. It represents America’s best-preserved blockhouse of the period and has a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

This story was updated in 2022.

Images: Fort Edgecomb (color) By Kenneth C. Zirkel – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28677991.

4 comments

Let Them Eat Lobster – Marie Antoinette and Maine - New England Historical Society February 8, 2015 - 2:48 pm

[…] Swan household in Boston (now in the Museum of Fine Arts). Others went with Clough to Wiscasset, Edgecomb, Westport and some wound up in Henry Knox’s Thomaston mansion, probably via his son-in-law who […]

James Healy, Portland’s African-American Bishop Who Passed for White - New England Historical Society May 27, 2018 - 7:41 am

[…] Healy was born in County Roscommon, Ireland. He served in the British Army in Canada during the War of 1812 until he deserted. He then moved to rural Georgia near Macon and won a substantial plot of acreage […]

Six Revolutionary Forts - New England Historical Society November 3, 2018 - 7:45 am

[…] a single blockhouse survives, but it is the oldest blockhouse in the United States. The fort was gradually dismantled to build the Town of Winslow, Maine, which […]

Let Them Eat Lobster – Marie Antoinette Plans To Move to Maine - New England Historical Society July 12, 2019 - 6:56 pm

[…] Swan household in Boston (now in the Museum of Fine Arts). Others went with Clough to Wiscasset, Edgecomb and Westport. Some wound up in Henry Knox’s Thomaston mansion, probably via his son-in-law who was […]

Comments are closed.

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Join our mailing list to receive the latest artciles from the New England Historical Society

Thanks for Signing Up!

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Join Now and Get The Latest Articles. 

It's Free!

You have Successfully Subscribed!