• This John Bridgham was a Captain in the Revolutionary War, so all of his (female) descendants are eligible for membership in the DAR. This John Bridgham is sited a number of times in the DAR publications.3030

• Excerpted from Genealogical History of Maine by George Thomas Little:
John was a man of some prominence at Plympton, Massachusetts, and was a member of the committee sent to Boston before the war, to consider the position of the colonists; he was captain in the Revolutionary war, his son John being corporal and his son Samuel fifer in the same company. He was a selectman, and in 1777 was representative to the general court. About 1781 he removed with his wife and children from Plympton to Shepardsfield, now Hebron, Maine, now in Oxford county, and became progenitor of a large number of descendants in that state. In 1788 he and his associates were granted by the legislature of Massachusetts eighteen thousand acres of land in Poland, Maine; Poland then included the present town of Minot, the city of Auburn, and part of Mechanic Falls.

Elmer G. Bridgham adds:
I don’t know what his business was, I suppose he was a farmer. He signed his name ‘John Bridgham, Gentleman.’ At the age of fifty-two (1781) he removed with his family from Plympton to Shepardsfield, now Hebron, Maine and now in Oxford County. There was a good deal of speculation in land in Maine at that time and I suppose they all expected to get rich at it. A man as old as he with a family of sons coming into a town as wild as Hebron was at that time must have caused some stir. He became the progenitor of a large number of descendants in Maine. They are scattered all the way across the southern part of the state. Within the past fifty years or so many of their children have come back to Massachusetts to live. But I find but few of them who know anything about their ancestors. Many do not know the name of their grandfather.
In 1789 John, with his associates, bought some twenty thousand acres of land from Massachusetts. This land was situated in the town of Poland, Maine. Poland then included the present town of Minot, the city of Auburn, and a part of Mechanic Falls. In those days a man who built a mill in those sparsely settled towns was considered a benefactor. John Jr. built a grist mill in Hebron just above what is now West Minot. This mill was burned and later rebuilt as a saw mill. Logs were sawed here each winter until about 1940. They also built a grist mill in what is now West Minot. It stood at the left after you cross the bridge as you leave the village going west. It was torn down about 1920. It served its purpose many years grinding corn, wheat and rye for the settlers. When I was a boy the corn and wheat that we grew on our farm was ground into flour there. One of John’s sons had a tannery. For many years the place was known as Bridgham’s Mills. The two mills were about a mile apart on a stream called Bog Brook. As the family was settling about the place they discovered that the land which they had bought from Massachusetts, had already been granted to the proprietors of Bakerstown. After a lot of litigation and after appealing to the Legislature of Massachusetts, they were granted another tract of land. “Laws and Resolves of Massachusetts of the year 1788-9, page 305, describes the land they thought they were buying. The agreement reads as follows: ‘Paying to the Committee on Unappropriated lands 2s per acre in consolidated notes of the Commonwealth and 3d in specie etc.’ The matter was adjusted by the legislature in the session of 1796-7. See ‘Laws & Resolves of Massachusetts 1796-1797.’
Just east of the railroad station in West Minot is a large rock that my father said was used as one side of a lean-to which they built for a camp the first night when they came into Minot. The hillside on which the rock is located was covered with spruce trees the last time I was there. I suppose they traveled by horse and wagon from Plympton to Maine. There is no record of his death. He was living at West Minot in 1815. He and his wife are buried in an ancient burying ground just above West Minot.3027