In Search of the Lincoln Sparrow

For years Casey Clark has mentioned the Lincoln Sparrow, named in some manner, after one of her relatives on the Lincoln side of her family. As Max, or more formally, Lincoln Maxwell Butcher, carries the name with him I concluded that I needed to learn more.

My search for the Lincoln Sparrow starts with a picture of the Lincoln House that I see on the internet. Viewed from the roadside the two-story home with a single, centered chimney, mustard yellow clapboards and black shingles is a presence. The home sits on a rise with a commanding view of an inlet where the Dennys River flows into Cobscook Bay in eastern Maine.

Photo credit S Butcher

Dennysville is situated in what most would call Down East Maine. Not the Down East of Bar Harbor or Castine, the oft-photographed harbors with their lobster boats, motor yachts and sailing sloops that grace the pages of magazines. No, Dennysville is real Down East Maine. Look at a map of Maine and Dennysville is about as far east as you can go, less than ten miles as the crow flies from the Canadian border. Dennysville is located on the western shore of Denny’s Bay, which itself, is on the western side of Cobscook Bay, a tangle of islands and still smaller bays. Though relatively shallow it has a tremendous tidal range which makes this area less popular with recreational boaters due to the challenges of navigating among the many islands and the strong currents, the fact that much of the bay turns to mud twice a day, and the overall remoteness of the area.

The town center, if it can be called that, is between Machias, to the west, and Eastport, to the east. Go east from Eastport and you are in Canada. Those are the nearest towns of any size though neither has a population over 3,000 and both are about 20 miles away. Closer to Dennysville are Charlotte, to the north, Pembroke to the east, Edmunds to the south and Marion to the west. None of those towns have a population over 1,000, Charlotte and Dennysville both fall below 500. Dennysville is remote.

Prior to the late 1700s several groups inhabited the area around Cobscook Bay. Indigenous people lived in the area for centuries taking advantage of the abundant game on land as well as fish and shellfish in the bay. The French and English both established trading outposts in the area. Settlers from the expanding thirteen colonies arrived in the late 1700s supported by their proprieters Benjamin Lincoln, of Revolutionary War fame, John Lowell, a wealthy industrialist from Massachusetts and Thomas Russell in the late 1700s. Lincoln toured the area shortly after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, officially ending the Revolutionary War, and convinced Lowell and Russell that with plentiful timber and an abundance of tidal power the area would be a profitable base for industry. Benjamin was too old to move to the area himself so he sent his son, Theodore, to go in his stead. There, Theodore met, and later married, Hannah Mayhew and together they started a family. Dennysville was incorporated in the 1818 and thrived for many years until a hurricane, several forest fires, and a reduced demand for the regions timber lead to the area’s industrial decline.

As the story goes in 1833, John James Audubon was making his way up the coast of Maine on his way to Labrador. The expedition was part of his huge project, painting every bird known in North America. On his way he visited his friend Theodore Lincoln and, after some discussion, agreed to take Theodore’s 21-year-old son, Thomas, on the expedition with him.

In Labrador the group discovered what would be called the Lincoln Sparrow in a beautiful valley at Natashquan. Audubon wrote about the discovery of the sparrow in his Birds of America:

“But if the view of this favoured spot was pleasing to my eye, how much more to my ear were the sweet notes of this bird as they came thrilling on the sense, surpassing in vigour those of any American Finch with which I was acquainted, and forming a song which seemed a compound of those of the Canary and Wood-lark of Europe. I immediately shouted to my companions, who were not far distant. They came, and we all followed the songster as it flitted from one bush to another to evade our pursuit. No sooner would it alight than it renewed its song, but we found more wildness in this species than in any other inhabiting the same country, and it was with difficulty that we at last procured it. Chance placed my young companion, Thomas Lincoln, in a situation where he saw it alight within shot, and with his usually unerring aim, he cut short its career. On seizing it, I found it to be a species which I had not previously seen; and, supposing it to be new, I named it Tom’s Finch, in honour of our friend Lincoln, who was a great favourite among us. Three cheers were given him, when, proud of the prize, I returned to the vessel to draw it, while my son and his companions continued to search for other specimens. Many were procured during our stay in that country.”

And so Casey is right. The Lincoln Sparrow is named after her third great uncle, Max’s fifth great uncle.

As an aside, I find it somewhat ironic, or maybe telling, that Audubon’s practice, upon hearing a bird whose “sweet notes” were “thrilling on the sense” was to have it shot, to “cut its career short” so that he could catalogue it, but I suppose that is what was done.

Photo credit - Becky Matsubara

“Tom’s Finch,” later renamed the Lincoln Sparrow, is a small bird, no more than six inches long and weighing less than half a pound. It has a slender beak, crisp dark streaks on its back, a broad gray eyebrow and a grayish tail. Those with a discerning ornithologist’s eye could be forgiven for confusing the Lincoln Sparrow with the chattier and more common Song Sparrow. The two birds are strikingly similar but, according to The Sibley Guide to Birds, the Lincoln Sparrow has a smaller beak; “also note more grayish color and crisp dark streaking on the buffy breast.” The Lincoln Sparrow is more reclusive and there are also slight variations in their song. Those with a less discerning eye, like myself, confuse the Lincoln Sparrow not only with the Song Sparrow but also with the Swamp Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Harris’s Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow and countless other sparrows, finches, and wrens belonging to an informally named group my father calls Little Brown Jobbies, or LBJs for short.

My search for the Lincoln Sparrow takes me to a rail trail and the “dense brushy areas near water” that are supposed to be prime habitat where I hope to get a glimpse or at least hear its call. The hard-pack gravel path is lined with apples trees and oak just starting their autumnal turn to oranges and reds. The day is sunny and chickadees and junkos abound. I’ve seen these two small songbirds thousands of times and quickly determine that these birds are not what I am looking for. Their calls, chickadee-dee-dee or simple stip, are not what I am after. Then I hear a call I am not used to and, telling myself it is the “jumble of husky trills jew-jew-jew-jew-je-eeeeeeeeedo-je-e-e-e-to” of the Lincoln Sparrow, I turn only to see some small bird flutter away before I can get a good look at it. I stand and wait, listening for the call and scanning the brush but it is gone. After a while I give up my search concluding that a sunny afternoon is not the best time to search for an uncommon bird that I could probably not distinguish from its relatives if it landed on my shoulder. I decide to turn my attention to finding the Lincoln House and the Dennysville Cemetery where I presume Theodore and his wife Hannah are buried.

At the end of the trail and near where I have parked the car. I see a woman on the trail walking toward me. As she passes I stop and ask “Excuse me, are you from around here?”

“Yes”

“I’m looking for the Lincoln House.”

“Yes, it is in town, on Main Street.”

I wait for a possible gesture or hint as to where Main Street is. She stares at me revealing nothing.

“I think we are on King Street now. I am not familiar with the streets. Is Main Street near?”

“It’s on Main Street, near the post office.”

I pause wondering if she will tell me where Main Street is in relation to where we stand or at least Main Street’s relationship to King Street. She continues to stare. I try a different approach.

“Thank you. Is the post office near?”

“Yes, it is right next to the Lincoln House. Are they expecting you?”

“No, I just wanted to see it from the outside. So it is this way?” I ask pointing down the road.

“Yes, next to the post office.”

Recognizing that more questions are unlikely to yield any sort of helpful information I thank her and try to find the Lincoln House as if I had never asked for help.

I drive a half-mile along King Street passing a grand mustard-yellow home with a commanding view of the river. It has to be the place. I drive a hundred yards further where it is safe to pull off the road in a small patch of dirt that serves as a parking lot for the municipal offices. I walk back up the road, admire the stately home, take a few pictures and return to the car. Fearful this might not be the Lincoln House and seeing no post office, I turn around and reverse course determined to find the post office my trail friend told me about. I leave King Street turning onto a much smaller road. A tiny street sign, tilted into the roadside brush, tells me I am on Main Street. I drive for another mile or so and find a tiny post office set in a nondescript, decidedly non-government, building. I pull over and look around and there, sitting high on hill, with a commanding view not of the bay, or the river, but of the post office is a large, stately, but somewhat run-down, yellowish home. Confused and feeling a little guilty for doubting the woman on the rail trial I approach another woman who is tending to her yard nearby.

Pointing to the large home I say “Excuse me, I am sorry to bother you but is that the Lincoln House?”

“Oh no” she says laughing and pointing to where I had just come from. “The Lincoln House is back that way overlooking the bay.” And then, looking at my car with its out-of-state plates adds “GPS doesn’t work too good out here.” To which I almost reply “The GPS is fine, it’s the locals who are confused.”

With the sun headed toward the horizon I decide to call it a day to go back to my campsite on the shore of the bay. I am disappointed, but not surprised, that I did not see the Lincoln Sparrow, the bird watching was not a total bust as I did see a kingfisher, several species of gull and a magnificent bald eagle. Sitting at the picnic table next to a campfire as the moon rises over the bay it is easy to see what drew Theodore Lincoln and those before and after him to the area.

Addendum

Julie Hotchkiss Knobil (Karen's aunt and Casey's sister) read the information above and provided some clarification and correction which I have included below. Of course this adds more dimension and helps the whole picture. Thank you Julie. For clarity, Hannah Mayhew was Thomas Lincoln's mother.

Theodore Lincoln married Hannah Mayhew but she came from Machias, not Dennysville. He met her because a storm isolated the ship they were sailing to Maine on and had to put in at Machias. She was the 14-yr old daughter of the innkeeper and reportedly offered Theodore some of her spruce gum to chew. Later on, when she was in her 20’s maybe, and Theodore was looking for a housekeeper to replace the person in Dennysville who died? quit?… he wrote to her and offered her the job. And she came and insisted that she was to join him at the dining room table for dinner. They married a little later on, and had many children, but she is the one who was the first Hannah in a long series (still going today). Hannah Lincoln, their daughter, married Ichabod Rollins Chadbourne, a distinguished lawyer, of Eastport, Maine. He had built a house there for his first wife who apparently died in childbirth. They too had lots of children and that is where the name of Chadbourne in the Denton family got started. 

The Eastport Chadbourne house was turned into a B and B where Anne, Casey and I stayed in our “family roots trip” to Dennysville mentioned before. That B and B did not survive - after all, not many people go to Eastport, ME. Eastport was once known for its vibrant sardine industry, and while that no longer exists, the mustard factory (that makes Raye’s mustard, good for sardines) is still there making stone ground mustard. One later Raye (Harvard Medical School graduate) was a friend of Dick Clark’s and was a member of their wedding in 1961 (I hope I have the right year).

References:

- Cornell University website All About Birds

- History of Dennysville, Maine from A Gazetteer of the State of Maine

By Geo. J. Varney

- Maineencyclopedia.com