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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 03687 5521
GC 974.1 B759m Bridgham, Lawrence Donald, 1919- Maine Public Lands 1781-1795
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BOSTON UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL
Dissertation MAINE PUBLIC LANDS 1781 - 1795 CLAIMS, TRESPASSERS, and SALES by
Lawrence Donald Bridgham (B.S., Gorham, Maine, State Teachers College, 1942) (Ed.M., Boston University, 1947) (A.M., "oston University, 1948)
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1959
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
Approved by
First Reader
Professor of History
Second Reader Tirmath A. B.man
Professor of History
TABLE CP XANTALITS
TANT I
The Froblem 1
Chapter 1 The Froblem 2
PART II
Foundation Legislation 27
Chapter II Foundation Legislation 28
-
May 1, 1781 28
July 11, 1793 31
October 28, 1782 34
Karch 20, 1784 38
March 22, 1784
39
June 23, 1784
43
July 9, 1784 43
November 5, 1784 47
November 10, 1784 49
November 11, 1784 50
Summary
51
PART III
Personnel and Procedures 52
Chapter III Committee Relationships 53
General Court -- Committee Relationships 53
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ii
Communication
57
Office Work
62
Expenses
Jurisdiction 71
Intra-Committee Cooperation 72
Personnel
73
PART IV
Execution of the Land Program
79
Chapter IV Surveying
82
Policy
83
Procuring Surveyors 94
Supplies and Services
99
The Surveyor's Daily Work
110
Expenses
123
Summary
132
Chapter V Clarification of Land Claims
133
Factors Motivating State Action
133
Steps Taken to Clear up Confusion
135
Summary
189
Chapter VI Trespassers
191
Extent of the Squatting Problem
191
Results of Squatting
193
Treatment of Squatters
194
i11
Reasons for Benign Attitude of State
219
Prevention . 222
Despoilers of the Land 223
Summary
229
Chapter VII Sales 231
Preparation for Sales
231
Sales Promotion
256
Closing the Sale
261
Post-Sale Problems
273
Sales of Note
297
Summary of Sales
308
Evaluation
323
Chapter VIII Miscellaneous Land Program Activities
331
Free Grants
331
Encouraging Buyers and New Settlers
341
Maats
357
The St. Croix Boundary 361
Penobscot Indians
363
Conclusion 365
iv
TABLES
Table 3 Account of Land Sold by the Committee for Selling Eastern Lands
311
Table 9 Account of Land Sold since the 10th of March, 1791 314
Table 10
An Account of Lanas Contracted to be
sold since the 10th day of March, 1791
315
Table 16
Account of Lands sold since the 26th
February, 1794
316
Table 17
An Account of Land Contracted to be
sold since the 26th February, 1794
317
Map
368
PART I THE PROBLEM
Much of the land in the District of Maine was unappropriated when Massachusetts adopted the Constitution of 1780. This public possession was soon seen as a valuable asset that should be developed without delay. It was not, however, an unmixed blessing. The hopes of the State and the problems it faced are outlined in Part One.
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CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
When peace came to the American Colonies at the end of the Revolution, it brought with it to every colony, Massachusetts among them, the opportunity to do its best to grow and develop without any hindering outside interference. Many people saw in this new order alluring opportunities for personal gain in a brisk and vigorous economy spurred on by the removal of unnecessary restraints; the public spirited citizens foresaw a future of unparalled prosperity for the rising young nation. Sober second thoughts called attention to the fact that peace also brought with it the immediate need of finding the means to pay the staggering public debt that had come about largely through the efforts of the people to finance the struggle for freedom.
Massachusetts in 1781 was a land of contrasts. Boston, a century and a half old, was a town of considerable wealth and culture. Salem and Newburyport, two other thriving seaports, were not far behind in the race for mercantile success. The hinterlands for fifty miles and more away knew a thriving agriculture, the arable lands which had long since been cleared for farming and grazing. Further westward, in the generation before the Revolution others were clearing the wilderness, no longer impeded by Indian warfare. Even that detached part of the state down east known as the District of Maine had its flourishing villages, mostly within sight of the sea. But in the
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interior and particularly eastward of Portland even along the coast, vast tracts of land were yet unsettled, still unacquainted with axe and plow.
Many Massachusetts people, in some cases even those who had investments in land there, had only a vague idea of the activities and conditions of the people in Maine and of the geographical features of the District. Indeed, no one had ever penetrated the interior of vast tracts; even the Indians were unacquainted with a large part of 1 the area, wrote one surveyor. Nor did anyone have an accurate idea of its size. 2
1. "Holland Autobiography, Part III" in William Bingham'a Maine Lands 1790-1820, ed. Frederick S. Allis, Jr., Colonial Soc. of Mass., Publications, Vols. 36, 37, 1954, p. 217.
2. Henry Knox was so little acquainted with over three million acres of this land that he bought in the early 1790's that he remarked upon reading an observer's report on some of it, "The chain of moun- tains which he describes as running through the tract, on the west side of the river, either cannot be justly described, or it does not exist." (Knox to Bingham, Jan. 8, 1793, in William Bingham's Maine Lands, ed. Allis, p. 217.) The committee which had been concerned with the supervision of this land since 1783 hired surveyors in 1794 to run line to the highlands that separated the waters that ran into the St. Lawrence from those that emptied into the Atlantic Ocean south of that barrier saying that these highlands were not more than fifty or sixty miles from the starting point; actually the distance proved to be one hundred fifty two. ("Holland Autobiography, Part III" in William Bingham's Maine Landa, ed. Allis, p. 217) In the early 1760's the General Court of the Province had granted several towns east of the Penobscot River to & group of proprietors, In 1785, the validity of the claim based on this grant had been affirmed by legislative resolve. Not long afterward the committee representing these proprietors wrote that the only thing it knew about the settlers and their circumstances in these towns that they owned at the time of the passing of this resolve was what the settlers themselves had reported. (Petition of James Duncan, Bailey Bartlett, and Dudley Carlton to the General Court with Mass. Resolve, July 8, 1786, Chap. 130.)
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Nevertheless the majority of those people who considered the matter at all gave free reign to their enthusiasm and optimism and became convinced that the Maine lands constituted an extraordinarily valuable possession with limitless possibilities for development. We do not know how awere people were of the bad features of the District - the untillable mountains, the difficulty of getting to navigable waters from some quarters, the black flies that in summer were a torment to all who ventured into the woods. But in any case, their enthusiasm was not dampened by either knowledge or reflection. Surely in these wild lands lay untold economic wealth; and in them was to be found part of the urgently needed answer to the problem of the public debt! If the lands were sold, the State would get a handsome revenue in payments; and those who bought them would develop to the full the resources there, making themselves rich and increasing the commercial strength of the Commonwealth.
The Constitution of 1780 declared that all land that had not been granted to some private individual was the property of the State. Consequently, since the title to the wild land rested in the State, the responsibility for directing its development lay with the Governor and General Court. Of course, the administration of unappropriated lands by public officials was nothing new. The Charter of 1629 had vested in the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay the title to the land and ever since they and their successors had granted lands to individuals and groups as part of their corporate rights. The Charter
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of 1692 had added other territories to the original grant including the so-called "Province of Maine."
In the course of time Massachusetts had developed a very fine system of land surveys. In fact, nearly all of the civilized countries of the world have based their policies in this field on principles set forth in the Ordinance of 1785, a document which it is generally 3 agreed "reflects a predominant New England influence."
In Colonial times the grants which Massachusetts commonly made were of townships approximately thirty-six square miles in size. The General Court had, at times, insisted on Government supervision of the surveys of these grants -- either the work was to be done by an appointed 4 agent or it was to be checked by one. 5 However, in the years just 6 prior to the Revolution this requirement had been relaxed. In the seventeenth century land was granted to actual settlers in accordance with population pressure, but in the eighteenth century much land was conveyed to speculators who hoped to get rich by selling it to people who settled in the future. And even in the speculative grants of the
3. Roy M. Robbins, Our Landed Heritage: The Public Domain, 1776-1936 (Princeton, 1942), p. 8.
4. o.g. Report of joint committee, Jan. 15, 1735, with Mass. Resolve, Jan. 31, 1792, Chap. 50.
5. e.g. Mass. Resolve, March 3, 1762, Chap 401, regarding towns east of Penobscot River with Mass. Resolve, July 4, 1785, Chap. 136A.
6. o.g. Memorial of Sargent and Little, Feb. 27, 1788, with Mass. Resolve, Jan. 15, 1789, Chap. 28.
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eighte utn century the Government seldom exacted payment from its 7 grantees.
The land situation in Maine came before the General Court of the new State in February of 1781. Apparently the heirs of William and Bridget Phillips with a claim to lands in York County asked that some action be taken to clear their title which was based on an ancient grant. From that time on these Maine lands were the object of considerable attention from the legislators and the next three years saw the passing of several General Court resolves dealing with them. By the end of that time, three main fields of state action had been established: clarification of claims, dealing with trespassers, and actual sale of land.
In the first place since land claims existed that needed clarification two basic questions had to be answered. Were the claims valid? What were the correct boundary lines of those claims that were valid?
As the land committees did their work they came face to face with the fact that the validity of some of the claims of property holders was questionable, the exact bounds of claims were often a subject of debate, the grants claimed were sometimes larger than the original grants justified, and the location and extent of the land that was still owned by the state was often a matter of conjecture. Accordingly,
7. Roy Hidemichi Akagi, The Town Proprietors of the New England Colonies (Philadelphia, 1924), p. 11.
neither state officials or residents were certain of their rights, and 8 frequently there were rival claimants to the same soil.
This was not a new situation. In 1753 the then lieutenant- governor of Massachusetts wrote that development of the province was being delayed by conflicting land claims, and the situation in 1781 9 was still virtually as bad. This was particularly true in the Kennebec Valley. Three companies claimed the land that one group of settlers occupied. Each of these companies had offered to sell the settlers their plots but threatened to sue if they bought from one of the other 10
two.
It was obvious that some were mistaken in their claims; the job was to determine who or in more complicated cases to work out a com- promise. Several factors were responsible for this confusion.
Many grants were poorly made.
In some cases they were poorly worded. In at least two important instances the grants were made by the New England Council under its grant of 1620. With little reliable knowledge of the country the grantors described the boundaries in terms that were hard to apply to
8. e.g. See discussion of following claims: Brown and Drowne, and Buxton and Scarborough. These are found on pp. 163-164.
1802
9. William D. Williamson, The History of the State of Maine 1820, 2 vols. (Hallowell, 1832) II, p. 289.
10. Petition of number of inhabitants of Pownalborough with Mass. Resolve, Nov. 17, 1788, Chap. 37.
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the actual situation. In other cases the New England Council made 12 grants which proved to be overlapping.
In the discussion of the Plymouth claim a question arose as to the intent of an Indian grant. Did the grantors mean to sell the land 13 or just let the grantees use it?
In Massachusetts the purchase of lands from the Indians by private individuals was made illegal at an early date. In Maine no such prohibition applied. Consequently numerous claims based upon 14 Indian deeds complicated the problem of the new State.
Even when legal, grants had often been laid out in a fashion that made it hard for later authorities to confidently say what was still state land and what was not. The provisions of some grants allowed those receiving them to pick out a specified amount in a certain general area, no specific bounds being described. For instance, the township of Fryeburg was to be laid out in a six mile square tract on either side of the Saco River in some place between Great Ossipee River and the
11. James Sullivan, The History of Land Titles in Massachusetts (Boston, 1801), p. 36; see also discussion of Waldo and Kennebec Claims, pp. 140-149, respectively.
12. See section on Waldo claim, pp. 146-149 ..
13. Mass. House Document 1757 (1785-86), Mass. House of Representative Documents, 1775 to date (Mass. Archives).
14. e.g. See Brown Claim, p. 163.
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White Mountains that did not interfere with any previous grants. Arthur Lee was given a six thousand acre plot to be located "lying 16
eastward of Saco River." The Bakerstown grant was to join some other grant but could be anywhere east of the Saco River that the settlers 17 chose, as long as this single requirement was satisfied. Furthermore, the proprietors were often allowed to have the survey made on their own 178 account, later recording the boundaries. Naturally these men took what they thought was the best land, leaving unclaimed gores scattered 18 between the lines of neighboring holdings. Because records were not well kept this method of land granting caused great difficulty in determining the ownership of the land.
Another mistake that resulted in a grantee's obtaining more land than the authorities realized occurred when a tract entirely surrounded by grants was granted with its boundaries designated as those of the lines it had in common with its neighbors. The lengths of these lines were given in the deed but they were wrong, perhaps because no actual survey had been made and the lines had been projected incorrectly 1
15. G. T. Ridlon, Sr., Saco Valley Settlements and Families, (Portland, Maine, 1895), p. 153.
16. Charles F. Whitman, A History of Norway, Maine, (Lewiston, Maine, 1924), p. 49; Mass. Resolve, April 24, 1782, Chap. 596.
17. Mass. Resolve, June 25, 1765, Chap. 91.
17a. e.g. Mass. Resolve, June 11, 1771, Chap. 13; Mass. Resolve, June 25, 1765, Chap. 91.
18. e.g. William B. Lapham, History of Bethel ... 1768-1890, (Augusta, Maine, 1891), p. 447.
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from other plans. As a result the grantee had a different amount than 19
was supposed.
Further confusion was caused by errors and lack of efficient action by both land owners and public officials after the grant was --...: made.
Proprietors in some cases had either never run their boundary 20 lines or had not maintained them. In any case marked lines did not exist in these cases which the land committees might use. Since the description of the boundary lines in the grants sometimes mentioned places well known at the time but which by 1780 no one could positively identify, there was added confusion. There was also a tendency to fail to register deeds either because of inaccessability of a registry office, 21 or lack of necessary funds, or pure negligence.
Furthermore, the official records were very incomplete. No comprehensive record of the surveys to which people could refer had been 22 kept of the surveys, nor were they entered on a master plan. In
19. William Samuel Spurr, A History of Otisfield, p. 131.
20. e.g. Titcomb to Jarvis, Dec. 10, 1787, Mase. Archives Eastern Lands, Box 17, Letters, 1723-1792. This is one of fifty-three boxes in the Mass. State Archives dealing with Eastern Lands from 1763 to 1868. Hereafter this group of manuscripts will be referred as "Eastern Lands." Also, see sections on Waldo and Plymouth Claims, and claima of heirs of William Phillips and of Francis Small, pp. 140-155, and 157-139, respectively.
21. William B. Lapham, History of Bethel ... 1768-1890, p. 391. 22. Eastern Lands, Deeds etc., 1, 30, 7 vols (Mass. Archives, these are bound notebooks), Jan. 1784.
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addition some records that had apparently been made were no longer to be 23 found. It appears, it is true, that the Government had made some effort to get a clear picture of the situation in the past. In 1764 it ordered all claimants of land outside a township to present a report of 24
their bounds to the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. Alexander Sheppard had been granted a town for making a map of the dis- trict that showed all boundaries of public and private land plus county lines and the location of the rivers, mountains, and other prominent features,
25 However, the 1783 Committee reported that it had to do much 26
research of its own.
Authorities were inclined to make an insufficient check of the doings of the grantees. In some cases these grantees laid out much more territory than their grants called for. One local historian has written 27 that this was a common thing to do. An example of this, he said was the town of Bethel where the line along the river was fifteen miles long rather than the six and three quarters as authorized. River inter- vales were good land and were often covered with white pine, thus
23. Report of 1781 Committee, March 12, 1784, in Mass. General Court Records, 73 vols. (Mass. Archives).
24. Report of Committee, Mass. House Document 1757 (1785-86).
25. Spurr, A History of Otiafield, p.127.
26. Eastern Lands, Deeds, I, 30, Jan. 1784.
27. Lapham, History of Bethel ... 1768 to 1890. p. 112. He stated that the authorities were generally lenient if the excess was not more than one quarter or one third of the proper amount.
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the covetous eye of those measuring off the township. One of the letters of instruction received by Titcomb directed him to run all or most all of the out lines of a certain tract he was about to survey as the reliability of the already existing lines was open to question. For instance, one of the towns involved, East Andover, was "returned eight 28
miles" but Cony guessed it might be considerably larger. The Baker- stown grant is a classic example of a group of proprietors taking more than they were entitled to. 29
Shortly before the Revolution certain towns, notably those east of the Penobscot, had been granted by the Province Court under condition that the grantees do certain things such as erect houses, clear land, build a meeting house, and settle a minister. Nobody had ever made a systematic check to see whether these conditions had been met. In order to know for sure that these grants should be confirmed, this check would 30 have to be made, or the requirement waived.
The fallibility of the surveyors was also a cause of confusion. Paris was supposed to be laid out against some other town but in due course of time it was discovered that it was not -- the surveyors bad taken a hunter's line to be this neighbor's boundary and used that as
28. Cony to Titcomb, July 1, 1793, Eastern Lands, Box 13, Instructions to Surveyors, 1784-1820.
29. Mass. Resolve, March 10, 1791, Chap. 139.
30. e.g. See discussion on towns east of Penobscot, p. 170-188.
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a point of reference. On one occasion a group of proprietors sent a George Pearce to lay out their town. In his work he had to use the northeast corner of Raymondtown, and this corner was not clearly delineated. Therefore, he guessed at it, apparently -- and guessed 32 wrong. In 1793, the Livermore proprietors met for the purpose of deciding what they would do with regard to recompensing those proprietors who had lost part of their share after a line had been 33
changed.
The second field of State action concerned the trespassers, those who had gone onto state owned land and cut timber, and, more conspicuously, those who had gone on and settled without any legal right.
The years from 1760 to 1790 were a period of marked population expansion in Maine. Great numbers of people were leaving the older established settlements of New England, and many of these were moving into the District -- the sections along the northeastern coastline in particular. 34 In the early 1790's Talleyrand, the French diplomat, made a trip on horseback along this stretch of coast and was told by
31. William B. Lapham, and Silas P. Maxim, History of Paris, Maine ,to 1880, (Paris, Maine, 1884), p. 33.
32. Spurr, A History of Otisfield, p. 5. 33. The Boston Gazette, Aug. 5, 1793, and the County Journal (1783-1795).
34. Maine: A History, ed. Louis Clinton Hatch, 3 vols, (New York, 1919), III, p. 722.
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the old people he met that they had come there since 1760. State- ments made by many of the settlers with whom the committee came into contact in its investigation indicated that they had moved to this 36 region after that date. These people had a tendency to settle in a scattered manner throughout the countryside, the reasons for which may be surmised. The removal of any considerable Indian danger by the French and Indian War made it no longer necessary for people to live in communities for purposes of protection. The very geography of the District itself with its long coastline fed by numerous rivers allowing easy access to great stretches of shore and riverbank was an invitation to this kind of development. In the course of their investigations the committees found that many of these people had moved onto land to which they had no legal right.
Why did these people go into the land and settle there without permission from the owners? Different reasons were offered.
Conspicuous among them was the claim that it was the custom of the 37
country and had not been forbidden by the Government when they did it.
35. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Periogord, Talleyrand in America as a Financial Reporter 1794-96, American Historical Association, Annual Report, 1941, II, 71.
36. e.g. Representation to Committee by inhabitants of Buck's Harbor, May 12, 1784, Eastern Lands, Box 14, Papers relating to Islands on the Coast of Maine and Lands East of Penobscot River, 1763-1853.
37. e.g. Representation to Committee by inhabitants of Buck's Harbor, May 12, 1784, Eastern Lands, Box 14; La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, Travels Through the United States of North America ... in the years 1795, 1796, and 1797, 2 vols, (London, 1799), I, 422; James Lyons to Committee Oct. 15, 1785, Eastern Lands, Box 14.
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One group of people stated that they had to go where there was land for which they did not have to pay because the conflict between the Colonies and the Motherland had reduced them to a desparate state and they were left with no money with which to buy land on which they could 38 support themselves. One man wrote that his principles, in other words his allegiance to the Colonial cause, had forced him to flee from Nova Scotia during the war, and he was compelled to settle on somebody else's property here in the thirteen colonies because he had no other way to 39
support himself.
In other cases the people offered no reason for their going onto the land without permission in the first place, but they did say that they had not tried to get a title to the land because the boundaries of the various claims were so confused and uncertain that no one really knew who owned the land, and therefore they did not know to whom they 40 should apply. Furthermore, pointed out some of the trespassers, since the grants were not confirmed, the proprietors could only give 41 quit claim deeds, which, they intimated, were not worth buying.
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