BIOGRAPHY OF THE REVEREND JOSEPH DYAR, JR. (1774-1859) - Joseph Dyar Jr. conveyed land in Charlestown in 1796. In 1806 he emigrated to the province of Maine and settled at Phillips where he "was a leading Baptist elder of that section until he died" (Dyar Gen., p. 15). The 1820 census of Phillips township shows Joseph's household with one male aged 16-18 (James), two aged 16-25 (Joseph 3rd and an unknown), and one aged over 45 (Joseph Jr.), and females: one aged 10-15 (Eliza), and one over 45 (Sally). Three of these people were involved in agriculture.
As mentioned above Joseph Jr. was very involved in the religious life of his town. Until 1818, when the church went under, and some years after it was revived Joseph (and two other ministers) did most of the preaching at the church in Phillips -- these efforts were without any compensation from the church members. As the Farmington Chronicle stated in a series of sketches of Phillips in 1869, "The devotion and sacrifices of those early ministers who were faithfully engaged in their work challenges our admiration. Their privations and suffering excite our commiseration, but are to be attributed to errors taught by the ministers themselves and too faithfully sanctioned by the membership."
Despite the occasional decline of membership to a point approaching zero, Joseph Dyar continued preaching. When Elder Samuel HUTCHINS visited Phillips in 1827 he noted the poor attendance and was instrumental in starting the church again on her course. From this time, improvement in the manner of conducting affairs became apparent. Elder Joseph Dyar was constituted pastor of the Phillips church and the preaching became more regular. In 1830 the members who lived in Madrid, Maine, were organized into a church by themselves and Elder Dyar was dismissed from his pastorate in Phillips.
After this he bestowed most of his labor on the church in Madrid. Ironically, after the departure of Joseph Dyar from Phillips, the congregation there began to employ a paid preacher under contract.
The 1830 census of Phillips township shows Joseph's household with one male aged 10-14 (?), and one aged 50-59 (Joseph Jr.), and females: one aged 5-9 (?), and one aged 50-59 (Sally). Their farm appears to have been contiguous with that of their son Joseph 3rd. The Rev. Joseph Dyar Jr. died at AE 85, and was buried at the Riverside Methodist Church, Phillips, Franklin Co., ME. This cemetery (behind the Methodist Church, the town's first which opened in 1840), was destroyed on 4 OCT 1869 after two days of torrential rains washed out all the bridges over the Sandy River but one, took out five dams above the town and killed one resident.
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