USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 1 > Part 19
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The object of this chapter of the Commonwealth His- tory is to bring out the creation, growth and relation to
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THE GORGES GRANT
what was essentially the parent colony of Massachusetts, of these various communities; four of which, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut, have now for a century and a quarter been separate organized colonies or states.
THE GORGES GRANT (1620-1625)
Sir Ferdinando Gorges, soldier of Elizabeth, born about 1565 and much alive till 1647 was an able man. A favor- ite of Essex, he fell into disgrace after the latter's fall, later to be restored to favor. His interest in the coloniza- tion of the North American coast began with the arrival, landing on the site of the later Plymouth, of George Way- mouth, sent out in the summer of 1605, by a company, at whose head was Lord Arundel of Wardour, to explore the North American coast about Plymouth harbor. Way- mouth brought five Indians, kidnapped on the coast of Maine. Three fell to Gorges, and through them he be- came interested in their country, and thereafter was active in fitting out voyages of exploration, among which may be mentioned the expedition of Richard Vines, who in 1616 landed at the mouth of the Saco and spent the win- ter.
The next great step was what has been called the "Great Patent of New England" of November 3, 1621, mentioned above. It was issued by James the First to forty patentees, including prominent members of the nobil- ity, who were empowered to hold territory extending from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of North latitude and westward from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The patentees were not only authorized to settle this territory, but also to govern it; and no one could enter, visit or trade in any of the ports within the limits of the patent unless he had previously obtained a license from the council then established "at Plymouth in the County of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing of New Eng- land in America." Like the London Company this Council received a monopoly of fishing and trading within the grant.
The Council for New England drew up a "platform of the Government" to cover a proposed county on the Ken-
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nebec forty miles square, with a city at the junction of the Kennebec and the Androscoggin. The plan was based on the feudal system then fast decaying in England. The proposal was a total failure in New England, as was the similar plan of John Locke for the Carolinas, half a cen- tury later.
In 1623, Robert Gorges, a younger son of Sir Ferdi- nando, was sent out to New England as governor and lieutenant-general of the territory covered by this patent. With him came Francis West, Admiral of New England, bearing a commission, says Bradford, "to restraine inter- lopers, and such fishing ships as came to fish and trade without a license from ye counsell of New England. He could do no good of them, for they were to stronge for him, and he found ye fisherman to be stuberne fellows." With him came also Reverend William Morrell, a clergy- man of the establishment, to superintend the foundation of Episcopal churches in New England.
No evidence has been produced that up to 1622 English settlers obtained a permanent foothold on any part of what is now the coast of Maine. The outcry against the mon- opoly of fishing and trading, and the lack of persons will- ing to invest money in an enterprise so unpopular ham- pered the Council for New England in the efforts to im- prove its grant.
Nevertheless, August 10, 1622, the Council granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason, a stir- ring soldier-adventurer, "All that part of the mainland in New England lying upon the sea-coast betwixt the rivers of Merrimack and Sagadahock, and to the furtherst heads of the said rivers and forward up into the new land westward until three score miles be finished from the first entrance of the aforesaid rivers and half way over, that is to say, to the midst of the said two rivers." This was to be called the "Province of Maine," the first use of that designation. The grantees were also authorized to estab- lish such government "as shall be agreeable as near as may be to the laws and customs of the realm of England."
AMERICA Painted to the Life. A Truc Hiftory of the originall undertakings of the advancement of Plantations into thofe parts, with a perfect relation of our ENGLISH Difcoveries, thewing their beginning, progrefs, and continuance, from the year, 1628. to 1658. declaring the forms of their Government, Policies, Religione, Manners, Cuftomes, Military Difcipline, Warres with the INDIANS, the Commodities of their Countries, a Defcription of their Townes, and Havens, the increafe of their trading with the names of their Governours and Magiftrates.
More Efpecially an abfolute Narrative of the North parts of AMERICA, and of the difcoveries and plantations of our Englifb in NEW-ENGLAND.
Written by Sir FERDINANDO GORGES Knight and Governour of the Fort and Ifland of Plimouth in DEVONSHIRE, one ofthe firft and cheifeft pro- moters of thofe Plantations.
Publitht fince his deceafe, by his Grand-child Ferdinando Gorges Efquire, who hath much enlarged it and added feverall accurate Defcripti- ons of his ownc.
A work now at laft expofed for the publick good, to flir up the heroick and active fpirits of thefe times, to benefit their Country, and Eternize their names by fuch honouratle attempts.
For the Readers clearer underftanding of the Country's they are lively defcribed in a complcat and exqu fie Mip. Vivit pot funera virtus.
LONDON ; Printed by E. Brudenel, for Nathaniel Brook dwelling at the Angel in Corn-bill. 1658.
From the Harvard University Library
COLONIZATION PROPAGANDA BY GORGES
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LEVETT'S GRANT
LEVETT'S GRANT IN MAINE (1632-1639)
On May 5, 1623, within the limits of this very patent, the Council granted six thousand acres of land to Christopher Levett, a member of the Council for New England, and also of the Council to assist Robert Gorges in administer- ing the government of New England. His purpose was to found a city of York on the Maine coast.
Levett and his companions arrived at Odiorne's Point, "the first place I set my foot upon in New England" in the fall of 1623, where he met Gorges and West. With them at Pannaway, at the mouth of the Piscataqua river, the so called government of New England was organized.
Levett then proceeded to explore the Maine coast from York Harbor or "Aquamenticus" up to Portland Bay, in- cluding other places, of which he gave a picturesque ac- count, including an account of "Crystal Hill," or Mount Washington, obtained from the Indians.
Levett settled at York and erected a house and defenses there; when he returned to England in the summer of 1624, he left ten men in charge of his interests at Casco Bay. Besides the regular settlements, there were probably many fishing vessels on the coast; and their crews may well have set up fishing stages on land for caring for their cargoes. In 1625 the inhabitants of New Plymouth made a trip to the Kennebec and exchanged for "A shallop's load of corn-seven hundred pounds of good beaver and some other furs." The trade with the fishermen on the coast of Maine proved profitable, and in 1628 the Ply- mouth men obtained from the Council for New England a grant of land extending from Gardiner to the falls on the Kennebec. There they set up a trading post at Augusta, and later acquired one at Penobscot. Though Levett returned to England (February 11, 1628), a proclama- tion was issued by the Crown styling him "our well-be- loved subject" and appointing him governor for "those parts."
When John Endecott and his company, sent out by the Massachusetts Company, reached Salem, June 19, 1630, Levett was one of those to welcome them. Soon after
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he died at sea. He had previously disposed of his inter- ests in and about Casco Bay.
LACONIA, LYGONIA AND OTHER GRANTS (1629-1636)
November 7, 1629, Gorges divided with Captain Mason the land they had received from the Council in 1622; and, ten days later, the Council granted them additional land known as the "Laconia Patent." The result of all these transactions was that the territory between the Pisca- taqua and the Kennebec, extending from the sea-coast up into the land as given in Mason's patent, was still the property of Gorges and remained the Province of Maine. Settlements and trading stations now began to be made on the Maine coast, including the present Saco and Bidde- ford. By 1630, no less than 84 families had located at Pemaquid, on the St. George's river, and at Sheepscott.
July 6, 1631, Winthrop in his Journal records the arrival of the ship Plough carrying ten passengers who came "with a patent for Sagadahoc, but not liking the place came hither." This was the Lygonia or Plough Patent granted by the Council, June 26, 1629. These voyagers seem to have belonged to the religious sect called "Fam- ilists" and shortly "vanished away" from the Massachus- etts theocratic rule.
This patent is an example of the duplication of grants on the coast, north of acknowledged Massachusetts, for it included land already granted to Levett in 1623, as well as land granted to Lewis, Bonighton and others in 1630. It purported to cover a tract forty miles in length and breadth upon the "south side of the river Sagadahock," which was covered by the grant of 1622 to Mason and Gorges and by the confirmatory grant of the Council in 1629, ratifying the division between Gorges and Mason.
Thirteen years later (April 7, 1643) the survivors of these patentees sold their interest to Alexander Rigby ; and from that purchase flowed much trouble to Gorges and his heirs. In 1631 the Council granted 1,500 acres on the east side of the Nonesuch river to Thomas Cammack, a nephew of the Earl of Warwick, now President of the
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Council for New England, who seems to have lived in Neal's New Hampshire settlement previously. They also granted to Richard Bradshaw 1,500 acres above the head of Pejepscot Bay and "on the north side" thereof. Brad- shaw settled on the south shore of Cape Elizabeth, east of the Spurwink. The Council also made other grants to Robert Trelawny and Moses Goodyear up to the "bay and river of Casco," and to Walter Bagnall, Richmond's Island.
Other considerable grants were made in 1631 by the Council to Ferdinando Gorges, grandson and heir of Sir Ferdinando, and to others of the Agamenticus river. Within these limits rose the town of Agamenticus.
The Council also granted on February 29, 1631, to Robert Aldworth and Giles Elbridge, 12,000 acres near the Pemaquid river, with special inducements if permanent colonists were settled there. Notwithstanding these lordly disposals of virgin territory, the Council for New Eng- land by 1635 was nearly at the end of its service.
The Council, therefore, determined to surrender its char- ter, and to divide the territory it covered amongst the members. Gorges received the territory assigned to him in 1622, and also 10,000 acres on the east part of the Sag- adahoc river. The formal surrender of the charter took place on June 17, 1635.
GORGES IN MAINE (1635-1649)
In the meantime, difficulties between the Crown and the Massachusetts Bay Company had developed. The Crown in April or May, 1634, placed the administration of colonial affairs in the hands of eleven commissioners, one of whom was the active and eventually discredited Archbishop Laud. Gorges wrote to the King on May 12, 1634, suggesting that New England be divided into several provinces, with one governor-general, and other high officers, civil and ecclesiastical; he seems to have supposed that he was sure of appointment as governor of New England.
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The attack on the Bay Company in 1635 and its avoid- ance of the action of the King's Bench in 1635, declaring its charter null and void, are elsewhere discussed. Never- theless, Gorges in 1640 signed a letter to Governor Winthrop, "Your very loving friend," and prays for "an union or conformity of all parties." In answer to complaints about the attitude of Massachusetts, he wrote "Seldom doth any prince abandon people or leave the possession of Kingdoms for those causes." In fact, the Massachus- etts was in far better order than the Maine settlements, founded for the purpose of trading. "Here lacks good government in the land, for a great many men deal very ill here for want of government."
March 21, 1636, William Gorges appears to have held at Saco, where he settled, the first court in Maine, com- posed of seven men including the governor. Sir Ferdi- nando Gorges continued to enjoy favor from the Crown. April 3, 1639, he was confirmed by the King in his allot- ment on the division of the Great Patent (1635). The new grant restored the name of "Maine" and forbade any other to be used. In this charter, vice-regal powers were granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges. He received also a law-making power well nigh absolute, with the concur- rent power to establish courts and appoint magistrates.
Under this government an elaborate organization was placed on paper. It included a council consisting of a deputy-governor, and six councillors with legislative, exec- utive, and judicial powers. The territory was divided into bailwicks or counties, subdivided into hundreds, and the hundreds into parishes and tithings. Courts were set up and councils met during the rule of Deputy-Governor Thomas Gorges, a trained lawyer, from 1640-1643.
Agamenticus, a small fishing borough was erected into a city of Gorgeana (March 1, 1642), with an elaborate paper scheme of government: a mayor, 12 aldermen and 24 councilmen and local courts with appeals to himself or to his deputy; but this city vanished in the changes which rapidly followed. A dispute between John Winter and George Cleeve, two Maine settlers, moved the latter to go to England, where he induced Alexander Rigby to
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purchase, as we have seen, the Lygonia patent. Rigby appointed Cleeve deputy-governor, and, upon charges made by the latter against Sir Ferdinando, a royalist, to the House of Commons, that body appointed a commis- sion of four persons in New England, including Governor Winthrop, to hear the matter. Winthrop, and his ad- visors would not interfere. The time for Massachusetts to extend her boundary was not yet ripe. A sensible diplo- matic note was sent to Richard Vines, then Gorges' dep- uty-governor at Saco, expressing the hope of a peaceable adjustment. Finally, the general court of Massachusetts heard the controversy and "could find for neither," ex- horting the disputants to live peaceably until the matter could be determined in England.
The Earl of Warwick and the Commissioner for For- eign Plantations heard the dispute (March 27, 1647) and decided that Rigby was the lawful owner of the Province of Lygonia; it assigned to Gorges and his heirs only the tract between the Kennebunk and the Piscataqua rivers. Sir Ferdinando died in 1647. In this territory left to Gorges were three settlements, Piscataqua (Kittery), Gorgeana and Wells. In 1649 Edmund Godfrey, at a meeting of the inhabitants of the three places, was chosen governor-presumably the "first governor elected by the people in what is now the State of Maine."
In the year 1650, therefore, the present state of Maine was divided into three parts.
(1) The land between the Piscataqua and Kennebunk rivers belonged to the heirs of Sir Ferdinando Gorges;
(2) The land between the Kennebunk and Kennebec rivers comprised the Lygonia or Plough patent, over which George Cleeve ruled as deputy-governor.
(3) The Sagadahoc territory, east of the Kennebec, lying as far as the Penobscot river.
Colonel Rigby died on April 18, 1650, leaving confusion in Lygonia. In 1652 Edward Rigby, his heir, with the heirs of Gorges and other patentees of Maine and New Hamp- shire joined in a petition against the encroachments of Massa- chusetts on their respective territories. It was too late.
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MAINE IN RELATION TO MASSACHUSETTS (1652-1659)
Throughout these controversies the leaders in Massa- chusetts looked on with watchful eyes. The fur trade and fishing of Maine were valuable and Massachusetts men were constantly risking their ships, property and lives on the coast. The long controversy over La Tour and D'Aulnay-elsewhere described-turned on supposed rights of France to grant monopolies of trade in that region.
It was not surprising, therefore, that the General Court of Massachusetts (May 31, 1652) voted that the extent of their boundary line "is to be from the northernmost part of the river Merrimack and three miles more north, where it is to be found, be it an hundred miles more or less from the sea," and "thence upon a straight line east and west to each sea, and this is to be the true interpre- tation of the limit northward granted in the patent." A committee a few months later (Oct. 19, 1652) brought in a report of a survey of the "most northern part of Merri- mack river, respecting the lyne of our pattent."
The interpretation of the General Court meant that the northern boundary was a straight line east and west from a point three miles north of the source of the Merrimack river. This claim was not sustained. Massachusetts ob- tained from the Council in England only "the lands which lie and be within the space of three English miles to the northward of the said river called Monomach, alias Merri- mack on to the northward of any or every part thereof." This meant that the boundary began on the Atlantic Ocean, three miles north of the mouth of the Merrimack and followed the upper river to the source or within three miles of the source.
The reasons for this claim of Massachusetts, are to be found in a wish to draw the scattering and isolated settle- ments together, and also to obtain the profit that would accrue from a control of the fur trade in the north. To carry out this claim, three commissioners conferred at Kittery (July 9, 1652), with Godfrey and others repre- senting the Province of Maine, and at last the inhabitants
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signed a "submission" on November 20, 1652. October 23, 1652, Simon Bradsteet and others were appointed com- missioners "to settle the civil government amongst the in- habitants of Kittery, the Ile of Shoales, Accomenticus, and so to the most northerly extent of our patent."
MASSACHUSETTS IN CONTROL IN MAINE (1653-1658)
The submission of the various settlements to the control of Massachusetts was a long and tedious affair-Gorge- ana, Wells, Saco, Cape Porpoise requiring tact to con- quer. When Cleeve landed in the Bay in September, 1653, he was informed of the new claim which brought a part of Lygonia within Massachusetts. The only answer to his protest was that Massachusetts' "general claim hath been constantly from the first to three miles northward of the most northern part of the said (Merrimac) river in length and longitude, through the mainland, from the eastern sea, to the sea on the west."
Some months later (Oct. 19, 1654) it was reported to the General Court that the colony's northern line crossed the northern-most point of Upper Clapboard Island about "a quar- ter of a mile from the main in Casco Bay." At last, (July 13, 1658), the controversy with George Cleeve was ended, and the inhabitants of Black Point, Blue Point, Spurwink and Casco Bay to the number of twenty-nine signed the "form of submission."
The Commissioners' instructions allowed them to grant the people equal protection and privileges with those of Massachusetts. They were empowered to establish courts and to appoint officers to preserve the peace, and had large discretionary power. Kittery was to remain a town and to have a deputy to the general court, even two, "if they think good." All the then inhabitants were to be regarded as freemen, and to have the right of suffrage. The wisest concession was that allowing the men of the new county of York not to be drawn outside their territory for any gen- eral military training without their consent.
Thus ended Sir Ferdinando Gorges' Province of Maine. To one examining his letters, his Brief Narration and
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the account of his life, his career seems a great one. His moto "Constans et fidelis" was well chosen. It was po- etic justice that Massachusetts was in the last extremity compelled to pay a large sum to his heir for the release of his rights, as will be related in a later chapter.
FOUNDATIONS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE (1621-1640)
With Sir Ferdinando Gorges was associated Captain John Mason, formerly Governor of Newfoundland, who, at the age of thirty-six was favorably known to the poet and active "adventurer," Sir William Alexander. Hence March 9, 1621-2, the New England Council granted to him land lying between the Naumkeag and Merrimac rivers, ex- tending back from the shore to the heads of these rivers with all islands within three miles of the shore. This tract was called "Mariana," and is now within Massachusetts.
By a second patent of August 10, 1622, the Council granted to Mason and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, also a friend of Alexander, land between the Merrimac and Kennebec rivers extending sixty miles into the mainland, including all islands within five leagues of the premises. A third grant was made November 15, 1622, to David Thomson, who had previously been in New England. It included 6,000 acres and one island in New England. Nothing ex- tant shows where in New England the land was located; but evidence exists of an earlier patent to Thomson and others "for a pt. of Piscattowa river in New England." With him were associated three merchants of Plymouth on a basis of sharing of profits and expenses.
In the winter of 1622-3, Thomson sailed in the ship Jonathan and established his settlement at Little Harbor or Pannaway on the south side of the mouth of the Pisca- taqua River, perhaps the first settlement by Englishmen within the bounds of the present state of New Hampshire. It was here in 1623 Robert Gorges, Francis West and Christopher Levett organized their government. Thom- son removed (1626) to the island in Boston Harbor which still bears his name.
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THE MASON COLONY
Edward Hilton with other associates received a patent (March 12, 1629-30) covering land about eight miles from the mouth of the river. From Hilton and associates a large interest in this tract passed to Lord Say and Sele and others favoring the Puritan party in England, in 1632. The name "New Hampshire" appears among the last grants made by the New England Council before its disso- lution. November 7, 1629, the Council granted to Mason part of the same territory included in the Gorges and Mason patent of August 10, 1622, "namely from the middle of the Merrimac to the Pascataqua rivers, which said por- tions of lands with the appurtenances, the said Captain John Mason, with the consent of the President and Coun- cil, intends to name New Hampshire."
Ten days later the Council, by the so-called Laconia patent, granted to Gorges, Mason and "such as they shall allow of and take into adventure and joyn with them in their plantations and discoveries, a tract of land (west and northwest of the New Hampshire grant) bordering upon the great lake or lakes commonly called or known by the name of the river and lake of the Iroquois, a nation of savage people."
By a timely act the Council granted and confirmed to Gorges, Mason and seven associates, a tract called the Pescataway Grant, in consideration of "divers special serv- ices by them already done for the advancement of the said plantacion by makeing of clapboards and pipestaves- makeing of salt panns and salt, transporting of vines for makeing of wines, searching for iron oare, being all busi- ness of very great consequence." Mason became a mem- ber of the New England Council in 1632. Upon the divi- sion of the lands amongst the members of the Council, on the cessation of the Council (April 22, 1635), Mason was confirmed in his possession of New Hampshire and Ma- sonia, which latter tract was 10,000 acres on the south- east part of the river Sagadahoc at "ye mouth or entrance thereof."
THE MASON COLONY (1631-1640)
The divisions and locations of these three patents, par- ticularly the Piscataqua patents, can hardly be stated with
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accuracy or accorded with other grants. They were in controversy from their inception, and to this day it is im- possible to reconcile them entirely. The Hilton patent, the claims of the Laconia Company, formed by the Council November 3, 1631, are hard to bring into accord. The Laconia Company was formed to engage in trade with the Indians, to sell them goods and trinkets and to receive furs in return. They expected to unload their goods at the mouth of the Piscataqua river, and to transport them by water up the river to Lake Champlain. They also at- tempted to carry on the manufacture of clapboards and pipe-staves, and to refine salt from sea-water. They set up a fishing place at the Isles of Shoals.
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