Trade Token, Fifty Cents, 1762-1962 Hallowell Maine Bicentennial.

It was on the third of May of this momentous year, 1762, that Deacon Pease Clark and his wife, with their son, Peter Clark, and his wife and one little child, landed upon the shore of the Kennebec and made a path for themselves to the spot where the old cotton factory now stands in Hallowell. No hearth fire burned for their welcome; no door opened at their coming; no home stood ready to receive them. And so the intrepid Pease Clark and his son Peter took the one rude cart which they had brought with them and turned it bottom upwards. Then, with their wives and the one little child, they crept under it and passed the night. In the morning they arose and began the settlement of Hallowell.

The first efforts of the Clarks were devoted to making a small clearing and to the creation of a temporary dwelling. They planted corn and rye on the burnt land. Before the snows of the following winter fell, these energetic first settlers had hewn timber, procured boards and planks from the mill at Cobbossee, and built a comfortable frame house of two stories in front and one at the rear, according to the fashion of the times; and ever after that, the hospitable doors of the Clark house stood open to welcome all newcomers to this locality.