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GENEALOGY COLLECHO
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Scituate Pond
SCITUATE
chases por
proy NOS>W
New town Road
NEWTOWN
Roa
Preble's Point
Scituate Read
Ridge
Road
YORK VILLAGE
Dr. Bulman
Town House
Mand SAM
South Berwick Road
SCOTLAND NOW
Boston
Road-
Bass Cove creek Garrison H:4
CIDER HILL Berwick Road
Main Street
Jefferds. Tavern -> : old School?"
Lane
YORK HARBOR
STAGE NECK
Bass. Cove
Swett's Point
York River
SEA BURY
Beech
Side Road
South
O
Cutt's Fort
RAYNESES NECK
Kittery
BRAVE
BOAY
HARBOR
Atlantic
Bell Marsh Road
NEW BOSTON
MAN
Proy wo750g MAN
BRUXHAM
Boulter Pond
Long Hill Road
Fivit Parish Church
Nov - wood
Wood bridge Road
Old Bury Ground
Eastern Point
Tham
MacIntive Garrison
CANUSAO
Lindsay
Road
Eliot
Birch Hill Road
BEECH RIDGE
Ridge Road
Scotland Bridge Road
U.s . Route *1
Wilcox Horse
Barrel
3
Road
YORK CORNER
LONG BEACH
Middle Pond
Long Hill
Wells
NORTH
VILLAGE
PINE
HILL
Shore Road
Bald Head Cliff
North Road
North Village Road
Maine turnpike
Clay Hill Road
U.S. Route #1
Pine Hill Road
Shore Road
1961
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 01092 2943
South Berwick
CLAY HILL
Mt. Agamenticus
old Mountain Road
Ground N.
GROUND NUT HILL
Back River
1
Cape neddick
Union Bluff
street
YORK BEACH
Main Street
Freeman SE
Prive
Short Sands
CAPE NEDDICK NECK
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Chase's Pond
Road
E-
BELL MARSH
Folly
Pond
road
Turnpike
cean
YORK, MAINE
L. E. WEEMAN
C.R. P. Airport
CAPE NEDDICK
Mountain Road
Hill Road
River
mt . Agamentieus Road
Chases Pond Road
U.S. Route # 1
cape Neddick Nubble
Clay Hill Road
NEW ENGLAND MINIATURE
A History of York, Maine
by GEORGE ERNST
The Bond Wheelwright Company Freeport Maine
Copyright 1961 by George Ernst All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address the publisher at Porter's Landing, Freeport, Maine. Printed in the U.S.A. by The Portland Lithograph Company Library of Congress catalog card number 61-14421 In Canada, Burns & MacEachern, Toronto 2B
1373683
To My Sister Miss Wilhelmine B. Ernst whose suggestions, criticisms and co-operation in research have made the compilation of this book possible and the writing of it enjoyable
6/1032
6000 SPEED
The temper of the air of New-England is one spe- ciall thing that commends this place. Experience doth mani- fest that there is hardly a more healthfull place to be found in the world that agrees better with our English bodyes. Many that have been weake and sickly in old England, by coming hither have been thoroughly healed and growne healthfull strong. For here is an extraordinarie cleare and dry aire that is of a most healing nature to all such as are of a cold, melancholy, flegmatick, rheumatick temper of body. None can more truly speake hereof by their own experience than my selfe .... since I came hither on this voyage, I thanke God, I have had perfect health, and freed from pain and vomiting, have a stomacke to digest the hardest and coarsest fare, who before could not eat finest meat; and whereas my stomacke could only digest and did require such drink as was both strong and stale, now I can and doe often times drink New-England water verie well. ... And there-
fore I thinke it is a wise course for al cold complections to come to take physick in New-England: for a sup of New Eng- land's aire is better then a whole draught of Old England's ale
- From "1629 Journal of a Voyage to New England", by REV. MR. HIGGINSON
(Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1st Series, I and II, 120).
PREFACE
The colonization of Maine was developed from a purpose that was at odds with the expressed ideals of those Englishmen who came over to settle around Massachusetts Bay. Matters of politics and religion were of slight concern to the people of Maine. They did not come to America to escape from the control of English government. If there was any one compelling desire which led them to break home ties and start life in a wild country, it was a yearning for the ownership in fee simple of land upon which to build homesteads. They wanted a pattern of life similar to that which was customary to landholders in England, and they intended to continue to be loyal subjects of their king. Be- fore the scope of their visions was enlarged, their future was regulated by the outcome of a civil war in England. As the settle- ment which finally became York was for the greater part of two hundred years the shire town of all that was Maine, its early history is largely that of the State.
In spite of the fact that one English nobleman dreamed of making this town the capital of all English possessions in America, and although the government of Massachusetts con- tinued, as a gesture of mitigation, to recognize it as the shire town of Maine, York has always remained a small town of less than five thousand population. There is no attempt made in this book to claim grandeur or pre-eminence for the town, either among other towns in the nation or over any other town in Maine, but the author is so bold as to fancy that because York history is unique it is interesting.
The first part of this work is intended to be a fairly chrono- logical account of events. The remaining chapters are meant to complete the picture of life and conditions by sketching certain lives and institutions, and by describing the various districts of the town for the pleasure of those who live in them or wish to know them better.
V
There are so many persons to whom I shall ever be grate- ful for the assistance they have given me that the listing of their names would somewhat resemble a copy of the voting list of York. Many, because of their interest in York history, have unwittingly aided me by questions which have set me on inspiring trails as I delved for the answers. For my knowledge of the Emerson family, I am indebted to Mr. and Mrs. Edward Emerson of York, Maine, and Greenwich, Connecticut, who allowed me to borrow from their admirable work on the generations of Emersons and close relatives who have figured in York history ever since one of them was one of York's first ministers. Their friendly co-operation and encouragement has been a source of great pleasure.
Nearly every feature in the history of other New England cities and towns (and York men have shared in most of them) has had a counterpart in the course of York history, though on a smaller scale, and the successes of the prominent men of the town, restricted though they were by lesser opportunities and vision, closely resembled those of men who are nationally famous.
A history of York may therefore be characterized as the story of New England in miniature.
York, Maine February 4, 1960
George A. Ernst
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
ix
Part I A HISTORY OF YORK, MAINE
1
Part II SKETCHES
EDWARD RISHWORTH 105
REVEREND SAMUEL MOODY
110
JEREMIAH MOULTON
118
AMERICA'S FIRST MINING STOCK PROMOTION
124
RELIGION IN YORK
128
SCHOOLS
135
THE OLD GAOL AND THE COURTHOUSE
150
EVOLUTION OF U.S. 1
166
NATHANIEL BARRELL
170
JUDGE DAVID SEWALL
178
YORK VILLAGE
183
BARRELL MILL POND AND ENVIRONS
192
SOUTH AND WEST OF YORK VILLAGE
202
YORK HARBOR
219
YORK RIVER
229
CAPE NEDDICK
236
NATHANIEL GRANT MARSHALL
(1812-1882)
249
JOHN CONANT STEWART (1850-1934)
251
LIFE IN YORK
254
A MODERN MIRACLE
275
Bibliography
277
Index
279
Maps by Lawrence E. Weeman
vii
1
PROLOGUE
The Maine coast and the islands offshore were generally known to Europeans for a century before Agamenticus was settled by white men. By 1555 Portuguese fishermen were making a practice of fishing in New England for at least one cargo a year, usually in the most easterly waters, between the islands of New- foundland and Monhegan. These fishermen apparently were not interested in the mainland; the islands served their purposes for whatever need they had for more room and dry land. In the late years of the sixteenth century several hundred vessels, English, French, Spanish, as well as Portuguese, were at work off the American coast each season at the same time.
The first English explorer who gave a particular mention of any part of what was later to be known as York, Bartholomew Gosnold, came over in 1602, with a staff of thirty-two technicians, of whom only eight were considered the crew of the ship. Be- cause he met and talked with Indians near what we know as The Nubble, he named that spot "Savage Rock".
In succeeding years several explorers enlarged the scope of Gosnold's research-Pring in 1603, Weymouth in 1605, and others. Henry IV of France sent men over with orders to conquer and colonize all the region around the St. Lawrence River, which was named Canada, with no limits to the boundaries that they claimed. English merchants, city officials, and leaders in affairs of the church planned trips, selected the best captains available, and financed expeditions; men of the English city of Bristol were untiring in their efforts and were little discouraged by early failures. Sir Ferdinando Gorges was the most enthusiastic and indefatigable of all the promoters of English expeditions and attempts at colonization, and few of the enterprises accredited to others were carried on without his support or his permission. The official procedure, before setting out, was to apply to the king for permission to carry on the undertaking and to ask for a royal patent to control, under certain conditions, the govern-
ix
ment and settlement of a special area of American soil. By 1606 the enthusiasm for colonizing America became so great that an association of English gentlemen was formed and incorporated by King James into two companies, one called the First Colony of Virginia, composed of men of London, and the other, the Second Colony of Virginia, made up of men of Plymouth, and commonly known as the Plymouth Company. As a whole, the body was known as the Virginia Council, and the territory granted to it, from the 34th to the 45th degree of north latitude, was called North and South Virginia. The First Colony could begin a planta- tion anywhere below the 41st degree and the Second Colony anywhere above the 38th parallel, but between 38° and 41° there should be no new settlement by one colony within a hun- dred miles of a plantation begun by the other. This is the gist of the basic charters for English colonization in America; but in actual practice the rules were changed so many times that it is well-nigh impossible for later generations to understand or re- concile them.
Captain John Smith, of Pocahontas fame, by his pub- lished account of his expedition of 1614 and by lectures given throughout England after his return, fired the imaginations of all his listeners with a vision of the Promised Land. He drew a map of the coast line and located the Indian settlements between Manhattan and Newfoundland. When he explained the map to Prince Charles the prince named the region New England, and gave English names to the various Indian villages. For "Agamenti- cus" he substituted "Boston".
There was, however, one dread which discouraged specu- lators from further investments in expeditions and checked the eagerness to become permanent settlers in America. Previous attempts at settling plantations had through inexperience and ignorance of conditions been poorly planned and organized. The first adventurers had sought quick fortunes and in their greed for gain had looted and pillaged rather than built and settled, and had antagonized rather than made friends of the Indians. When they returned to England after their endeavors met with failure, they declared that because of terribly cold winters America was a land in which Englishmen could not live.
Sir Ferdinando Gorges refused to accept this excuse for failure. Choosing Dr. Richard Vines as leader, he sent an expedi- tion whose express purpose was to live through an American winter under the same conditions that the Indians endured. In
X
1616 this party chose to live among the Indians at a place which Vines called Winter Harbor, now known as Biddeford Pool. That very winter a plague raged through the Indian settlements along the coast from Maine to Manhattan Island and killed nine out of every ten Indians, but of Dr. Vines's English party, going in and out of Indian huts and tents daily to give what aid they could to the sick, "not one of them ever felt their heads to ache". As a result of Dr. Vines's report, the Pilgrims in 1620 dared to found at Plymouth the first permanent settlement in New Eng- land. The settlement of plantations in Maine quickly followed: Biddeford in 1623; Piscataqua, now Kittery, in 1623; Black Point, now Scarboro, 1629; Lygonia, from Cape Porpoise to Casco, 1630; Saco and Old Orchard, 1630; Richmond's Island, 1631. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the overlord of all Maine enter- prises, had as an associate John Mason, until in 1624 the partners agreed to divide their patent-Mason taking as his share all of their land west of the Piscataqua River and Gorges taking all the land to the eastward. Piscataqua, now Kittery, which then in- cluded Eliot and the Berwicks, in a sense a suburb of Straw- berry Bank, now Portsmouth, New Hampshire, associated in commercial enterprises common to both plantations.
Colonel Walter Norton and his partners obtained from Gorges, on December 2, 1631, their charter for Agamenticus.
Agamenticus was founded at a favorable time. The coloni- zation and exploitation of New England was, after a quarter of a century of trials and errors, failures and discouragements, com- mencing to be understood. The fishing industry, the first to be pursued, proved to be the most reliable. All plans of bringing back immense fortunes in every vessel by acquiring goods of great value in compact parcels, as for example, furs, turned out to be idle dreams. Some merchants had imagined that all that was required was to open trading posts stocked with beads and cloth, and the Indians would come laden with valuable furs to trade for trinkets. But the Indians, for reasons of their own, did not come in numbers, whereupon so many traders went into the woods to the Indian villages that competition ruined trading values. The margin of profit from fishing was small in comparison but much less speculative.
The islands off the coast, principally Newfoundland and rocky Monhegan, would have been preferred for settlements be- cause they lay conveniently nearer the home ports in Europe and also nearer to the most favored fishing grounds, but on account
xi
of poor soil or cold climate they were not suitable for the fisher- men and planters, who independently would take care of the fishing stages over winter and would supply, at their own risk, food and other necessities for the European vessels as they came for cargoes in the fishing season. On the preferred islands, mer- chants had been obliged to hire families at great expense to live there and look out for the property, and they had to send over supplies for both the caretakers and the visiting fleet. The solu- tion was to assist in planting settlements conveniently near the shore, where the inhabitants chose to live and undertake to make a living by selling their products to customers from across the sea. Southern Maine was admirably suited for this purpose, especially since the area farther north was in the possession of the French.
The Association of Bristol Merchants was the first to rec- ognize the practical value of the fishing industry, and to realize the possibilities of benefit which might lie in the new venture of establishing Agamenticus Plantation. Moreover there was added attraction in the fact that the sponsors of Colonel Walter Nor- ton-Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason-were personal friends and most active members of their organization.
xii
Part I A History of York, Maine
1
THE NEW ENGLAND COAST must have appeared formid- able or impenetrable to the pioneers of the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Within a stone's throw of the shore line the rays of the sun rarely reached the forest floor. Where trees were small they grew in such dense thickets that branches intertwined to form a barrier tighter than any hedge fence. Where trees had acquired stature many were a yard or more in diameter. Where- ever one looked or walked he must have felt a sense of grandeur and of frustration, a sense of wealth so vast that the harvesting of it seemed beyond hope.
Forbidding darkness must have been the first impression. In the 1620's, in Massachusetts, trees were not to be welcomed for their pleasant shade; they sheltered unpredictable people who might be friendly one day in response to kind treatment, but who might another day thirst for revenge on any white settlement for real or fancied injuries inflicted by members of another planta- tion. A day of friendly happy visiting might be followed by another of treachery and ambush for no apparent reason.
But ten years later Agamenticus, now York, presented no such frightening aspect, for Colonel Walter Norton and Edward Godfrey chose the site of an abandoned Indian settlement which had been under cultivation for many generations. The very year of its abandonment is known; in the winter of 1616 some sort of plague had ravaged the Indian race along the Atlantic Coast and left only one living Indian where before there had been ten. Captain Christopher Levett, in the printed report of his voyage into New England (1623-24), had been the first to call attention specifically to Agamenticus :
About two leagues further to the East [from the Pis- cataqua River] is another great river called Agamenticus. There I think a good plantation may be settled for there is a good harbour for ships, good ground and much already cleared, fit for planting of corne and other fruits, having
1
2
NEW ENGLAND MINIATURE
heretofore been planted by the Salvages who are all dead. There is good timber, and likely to be good fishing, but as yet there hath been no tryall made that I can hear of.
Living conditions around Boston may be said to have been the reason for the settling of Agamenticus by white people. Be- fore the Puritans flocked to Massachusetts Bay and founded the town of Boston, that region had been sparsely settled by associates and relatives of Sir Ferdinando Gorges who had come as loyal English subjects with every intention of following the same pattern of life to which they had been accustomed in England. Unlike the Puritans they were not exiles intent on creating a new form of government; consequently Gorges's pioneers had little in common with the Puritans, fellow countrymen though they were, from the day they first met on Massachusetts soil. The Puritans had received permission from Gorges to settle in the Bay where his friends were already established. As guests on property of others they soon made life unbearable for their hosts by inaugurating new laws and new customs. One is reminded of the fable of the kindhearted traveler who allowed his camel to put its head inside of his tent. To the aggressive Puritans, determined to govern by laws of their own making as independent of the laws of England as they dared, the earlier planters were too comfortably lawless for the common good; to the Gorges men these Puritans were unwelcome intruders whose conduct seemed almost treason. When followers of these Puritans, arriving by shiploads, began to outnumber them, the Gorges men searched for favorable sites where they could start anew.
One of them, Colonel Walter Norton, an inquisitive ex- plorer by nature, took passage from Massachusetts Bay on a vessel bound for England, intending to debark at Great Island (now Newcastle, New Hampshire), visit with friends there, and then find return passage on some vessel bound for the Bay.
Great Island was the headquarters of the Laconia Com- pany, a Gorges enterprise, engaged in fur trading, fishing, logging, and allied business in the neighborhood of the Piscataqua River. To Edward Godfrey, the manager in charge of fisheries, Colonel Norton must have confided the problems and desires of the Massa- chusetts pre-Puritans, for Godfrey showed him the promised land that is now York, Maine, where he already had built a house in 1630. Fired with enthusiasm, Colonel Norton, instead of leaving his ship for another returning to Massachusetts, re-embarked and
3
A History of York, Maine
went on to England to confer with the proprietor. In the Brief Narration which Gorges in his old age wrote to explain his plans and to defend his endeavors to colonize New England, he ex- pressed affectionate amusement at the boyish enthusiasm of Nor- ton-then in his fifties-for this new venture, for Gorges himself by this time was discouraged by the turn of events which fore- shadowed trouble in America for the king. Walter Norton's eager- ness, however, won him over, at least to the extent of allowing Norton to carry on. For his part Gorges reserved five thousand acres on the south side of Agamenticus River in the name of his grandson Ferdinando, and he sent some livestock and tools as token of his interest. Colonel Norton took as partners several relatives and some Bristol merchants, and on Dec. 2, 1631, a patent of twenty-four thousand acres "by ye River called Aqua- mentiquos in New England" was granted to this group by the "President & Counsell of New England". One of the patentees, Dixie Bull, soon won mention in history as America's first English pirate.
By 1632, Norton and Godfrey had their plantation under way. Godfrey and the Bristol merchants kept the inhabitants- fewer than a hundred of them during the first decade-supplied with food and other necessities, which were charged to individual accounts or bartered for at the water's edge from the trading ships. The first settlers were obliged to bring with them all the clothing, tools, furniture, and supplies they expected to need for the first year and a half, and to acquire any additional goods by barter from vessels which came into Agamenticus River to trade for anything of value which could be accumulated in the settlement, principally fish in the earliest days, but possibly a few furs.
Colonel Norton was not destined to see his settlement grow. For some reason, maybe his urge for adventure and sightseeing, he went along in 1633 with a captain-trader from the West Indies who had peddled young livestock from settlement to settlement and had called in at the port of Agamenticus on his return voyage southward.
Bradford, in his Historie, tells the story:
I know not for what occasion they would needs goe up Connigtecutt River; and how they carried themselves I know not, but the Indians knockt him (the captain) in the head, as he lay in his cabine, and had thrown the covering over his face (whether out of fear or desperation is uncer- taine); this was his end. They likewise killed all the rest,
4
NEW ENGLAND MINIATURE
but Captaine Norton defended himself a long time against them all in the cooke room, till by accident the gunpowder took fire, which (for readyness ) he had sett in an open thing before him, which did soe burn and scald him and blind his eyes, as he could make no longer resistance, but was slaine also by them, though they much commended his vallour.
Up to the time when the news of Norton's death was re- ceived in Agamenticus, Edward Godfrey had served the plantation as instructor to Norton and as a protective supervisor for Gorges, but his principal position had been the management of the Laconia Company at its headquarters on Great Island. In his late forties Godfrey had become a New England agent for Sir Ferdinando Gorges after having served as a merchants' factor at Italian and Egyptian seaports on the Mediterranean, where he had won recognition as an expert in mercantile customs and maritime law, and also held municipal office. He had come over in 1629 as one of three "governors" to found the Laconia Company as a joint enterprise of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason. Captain Walter Neale was to manage the overall operations, Ed- ward Godfrey to be in charge of fisheries, and Ambrose Gibbins to set up and manage a station at Newichewannock (South Ber- wick). However a year later the Company invested heavily in an attempt to exploit the possibilities of a profitable fur business in the area between Lakes Winnepesaukee and Champlain. Captain Neale was placed in charge of the fur venture, and Edward Godfrey was promoted to full management at Great Island. With- in three years the fur speculation wrecked the whole Laconia Company. After the collapse, which coincided with the death of Norton, Godfrey was appointed by Gorges to be "governor" of Agamenticus, and young Thomas Bradbury was sent over to be steward of the knight's personal affairs.
Godfrey returned to England in 1634 to attend to personal and family matters, and it may well have been that he discussed the state of affairs and prospects of Maine directly with Gorges, with the result that the latter decided to make Agamenticus his favorite settlement. Certainly the aging proprietor forgot his dis- couragements from past failures, for fired with new zeal, in that same year he ordered the building of a manor on the banks of Agamenticus River, and sent over the materials for the construc- tion of two mills with two complements of mechanics to put them in operation, one for South Berwick, the other for Agamenticus.
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