USA > Maine > York County > Province and court records of Maine > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31
-
M. L.
Gc 974.1 M28p v.6 1967906
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
1
= ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01083 6853
Province and Court Records of Maine
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/provincecourtrec06unse
MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Province and Court Records of Maine
VOL. VI
THE COURT RECORDS OF YORK COUNTY, MAINE Province of Massachusetts Bay
THE RECORDS OF THE COURT OF GENERAL SESSIONS OF THE PEACE January, 1718/19-October, 1727
Edited by NEAL W. ALLEN, JR.
With an Introduction by ROBERT E. MOODY
Portland MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1975
Copyright @ 1975 by Maine Historical Society Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 28-13951 ISBN 0-915592-03-7
The Maine Historical Society acknowledges with gratitude the substantial financial assis- tance of The York County Tercentenary Commission: Joseph G. Deering, Ralph W. Hawkes, and George J. Wentworth in the publication of this volume.
The Anthoensen Press, Portland, Maine
1967906
This volume is dedicated to Walter Goodwin Davis (1885- 1966) President of the Maine Historical Society for twenty-four years and tireless benefactor for fifty-seven years.
It was Walter Davis who rekindled in the Society a sense of responsibility for the important task of publishing source ma- terials essential to the study of Maine history. One result was the Maine Province and Court Records series which began under his knowledgeable guidance in 1928.
Without Mr. Davis's perseverance through the years, and his absolute insistence upon proper editorial standards, this re- markably reliable series of early Maine documents would never have been published.
Rica Sujeto 8-1911
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
xi
The Expansion of Maine and Indian Relations
xiv
A Case of Murder xix
Complaints Against Officials
XX
Contempt of Authority
xxii
The Clergy in Court
xxiv
Strong Drink
xxvi
Morals
xxvii
Theft
XXix
A Traveling Salesman
xxix
Witchcraft
XXX
The Gaol
XXX1
COURT RECORDS OF YORK COUNTY: RECORDS OF THE COURT OF GENERAL SESSIONS OF THE PEACE, JANUARY, 1718/19- OCTOBER, 1727; FROM YORK COUNTY COURT RECORDS, VOL. VII, PAGES 1-142 1
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 6 January 1718/19 4
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 7 April 1719 8
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 7 July 1719 17
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 6 October 1719 25
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 5 January 1719/20 30
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 5 April 1720 34
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 5 July 1720 37
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 5 October 1720 40
vii
viii
CONTENTS
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 2 January
1720/21 42
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 4 April 1721 46
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 4 July 1721 52
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 3 October 1721 58
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 2 January 1721/22 69
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 3 April 1722 82
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 3 July 1722 93
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 2 October 1722 110
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 1 January 1722/23 118
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 2 April 1723 120
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 2 July 1723 130
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 1 October 1723 135
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 7 January 1723/24 139
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 7 April 1724 144
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 14 May 1724 158
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 7 July 1724 159
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 6 October 1724 165
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 5 January 1724/25 168
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 6 April 1725 171
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 6 July 1725 186
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 5 October 1725 204
ix
CONTENTS
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 4 January
1725/26 208
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 5 April 1726 220
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 5 July 1726 226
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 4 October 1726 231
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 3 January 1726/27 238
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 4 April 1727 246
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 8 August 1727 255
Court of General Sessions of the Peace, York, 3 October 1727 270
INDEX OF NAMES 277
INDEX OF SUBJECT AND PLACE 290
Introduction
THIS sixth volume of the Province and Court Records of Maine was prepared for publication by Professor Neal W. Allen of Union Col- lege, Schenectady, New York, with the same skill and care which char- acterized his procedures in volumes IV and V of the series. It includes the records, 1718-1727, of the Court of General Sessions of York County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, with additional documents from the York Files in the Court House in Alfred, Maine, and from the Early Files of the Superior Court of Massachusetts in the custody of the clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court in Boston. The records used in the preparation of volume VI were described by Professor Allen in volume V, pages xviii-xix, and comprise about one-half of volume 7 of the manuscript records1 of the York County Courts; the remainder of the manuscript volume contains the proceedings of the Court of Common Pleas for the same period.
Professor Allen's discussion of the York Files and the Early Files of the Superior Court in volume IV, pages xxviii-xxxi, and in volume V, page xxi, makes it unnecessary to explain further his use of them in the preparation of volume VI. His editorial practices are described in volume IV, pages Ixvi-lxvii, and volume V, pages lvii-lviii. One major change has been introduced in volume VI: superscribed letters have been brought down to line, the omitted letter or letters being indicated by an apostrophe, thus: Esq'r, entertainm't. In previous volumes, con- tractions, with some exceptions, were expanded.2
The Court of General Sessions had jurisdiction over a broad range of criminal cases arising in the county-Sabbath-breaking, sex of- fenses, cursing, assault, larceny, fighting, etc. In its civil capacity, the Court had charge of the prudential affairs of the county, such as fi- nances, the collection of taxes, the establishment and supervision of highways and ferries, the issuance of licenses to innholders and retailers of strong drink, and the maintenance of a house of correction-the York Gaol. It had appellate jurisdiction in those cases tried by a single
1 The original volumes of court records have arabic numbers, the roman numbers having been assigned to the manuscript deeds.
2 See Province and Court Records of Maine, III, Ivii; IV, lxxvi. Hereafter MPCR.
xi
xii
INTRODUCTION
justice, and might on occasion remand a case for trial by two justices.3 Cases might be appealed from the Court of General Sessions to the Superior Court of the Province acting as a Court of Assize and General Gaol Delivery.
All of the justices of peace of the province were entitled to sit on the Court of General Sessions. In practice, only the justices resident in the County participated in the proceedings of the York Court.4 By contrast, the justices of the Court of Common Pleas, four in number, were com- missioned directly to this court; any three of them constituted a quorum.5
Continuity in the judiciary of Maine assured the stability of the social relations of the people according to the standards expressed in the legal code enacted by the legislature, preached by the clergy, and generally accepted by the people, with the frequent lapses from the ideal revealed in the court records. Professor Allen has provided an illuminating account6 of the small group of judges in Maine whose family relationships and business interests gave them a solidarity quite similar to that found in the larger society in Boston. When replace- ments and additions of justices were made in the period 1718-1727, men from the same families as before or from families of equivalent status were appointed to office. The increase in the number of justices is explained by the increase in the number of towns resulting from the resettlement of the frontier.7
Except for three justices-John Hill of Saco, who died on 2 June 1713,8 Ichabod Plaisted of Kittery, who died on 15 November 1715,9 and the latter's brother, John Plaisted, whose service was brief, his one appearance on the bench being on 16 November 1714,10 the members of the first court the records of which open this volume, were the familiar figures of the previous courts: John Wheelwright of Wells, William Pepperrell of Kittery, Charles Frost of Kittery, Abraham
3 Below, pp. 204, 228, 244. In each of these cases, the woman defendant pled illness or danger from the Indians as her excuse for non-appearance. For other cases, see pp. 45, 51.
4 For a more detailed description of the courts, see MPCR, IV, xv-xxvii; V, xii-xvi.
5 See, for example, the commission to William Pepperrell, Jr., dated 11 April 1729. Ms., Mass. Hist. Soc.
6 See MPCR, IV, xliii, and V, xxi-xxv.
7 The largest number of justices on the bench at one time was ten. See below, 239 (3 Jan. 1736/7).
8 MPCR, V, xxvi.
9 Ibid., V, xxvii.
10 Ibid., V, 147.
xiii
INTRODUCTION
Preble of York, Joseph Hammond of Kittery, and Lewis Bean of York.11 When Frost, a justice since 13 December 1715, died on 17 De- cember 1724, he was succeeded by William Pepperrell, Jr. of Kittery, whose commission bears date of 18 February 1724/5.12 Abraham Preble, II, who succeeded his uncle of the same name in 1715, died on 14 March 1733/4. Samuel Moody of Falmouth replaced him by com- mission dated 23 June 1724.13 Major Moody had been commissioned justice of the peace for Falmouth in 1713 as the principal figure in the resettlement of that town which had been abandoned in the Indian wars,14 but he appeared on the bench of the Court of Sessions only on 1 July and 7 October 1718.15 Under his second commission, his first court was that of 5 January 1724/5.16 Lewis Bean of York died on 25 June 1721; his last court was on 5 January 1719/20. John Gray, captain of Fort Mary at Winter Harbor, was commissioned on 26 No- vember 1719,17 and was on the bench for the first time on 5 January 1719/20,18 Joseph Hill's commission was dated 3 March 1721/2;19 his first court was that of 3 April 1722.20 John Penhallow of the new town of Georgetown, a justice of the peace in 1718, first sat in the Court of Sessions on 5 January 1724/5;21 at an earlier date he and Samuel Came were appointed justices of the Court of Common Pleas to act in the place of Justices Wheelwright, Hammond, and Pepperrell in cases in which these justices' close relationship to the litigants disqualified them from sitting.22 Came was present at the Court of General Sessions on 5 April 1726,23 and with some regularity thereafter. There were several other cases of the appointment of special justices in common
11 Hammond and Bean were added in October 1717. See ibid., V, xxxii.
12 Whitmore, Civil List, p. 108.
13 Council Records (Mass. Archives), viii, 51. Moody had also been previously a special justice in the Court of Common Pleas in cases relating to trespass on the com- mon lands in Kittery. Same, vii, 340.
14 MPCR, V, xiii, note 15.
15 Ibid., V, 208, 210.
16 Below, p. 168.
17 Council Records, vii, 87.
18 Below, p. 30.
19 Council Records, vi, 340.
20 Below, p. 82.
21 Below, p. 168.
22 Council Records, vii, 281-282 (25 Sept. 1723).
23 Below, pp. 208, 210. Came was appointed to the Court of Common Pleas on a permanent basis on 11 April 1729 as successor to Samuel Moody who died on 5 April 1729.
xiv
INTRODUCTION
pleas cases where a conflict of interest existed, which accounts for a larger number of justices participating in the Sessions Court than had previously been the case.24 There were also three new justices, Samuel Plaisted,25 Joseph Heath, captain of the fort at Richmond, and Na- thaniel Gerrish.26
As one might expect in a society which made careful provision for keeping the people aware of their responsibility to serve the common good by being reasonably subservient to governmental discipline, the connection between the law-making body-the General Court (espe- cially the Council)-and the judiciary was very close. Justices Wheel- wright and Hammond were members of the province council for the entire period, 1718-1727, Charles Frost from 1719 to 1724, and Wil- liam Pepperrell, Jr. in 1727 and 1728. In 1718 the third of the three councillors allotted to York County by the province charter was Adam Winthrop, and in 1725 and 1726 Edward Hutchinson; their election is explained by their activity in the settlement of the frontier about Casco Bay. Lewis Bean and Joseph Hill were deputies in 1718, Abraham Preble, Joseph Hill and Samuel Plaisted in 1719, Samuel Plaisted and Samuel Moody in 1720, Samuel Came and Joseph Hill in 1721, Samuel Came in 1722, Elijah Plaisted and Joseph Hill in 1723, William Pep- perrell and Joseph Hill in 1724, Samuel Came in 1725, William Pep- perrell, Jr. and Samuel Moody in 1726, Joseph Hill in 1727.27 The same group of men served frequently in town offices, and some of them commanded military units.
THE EXPANSION OF MAINE AND INDIAN RELATIONS
The Treaty of Portsmouth,28 concluded by Gov. Joseph Dudley in 1713, technically ended the war with the Eastern Indians in New En- gland, and the Treaty of Utrecht in the same year brought to a close the hostilities between England and France. The Committee on Eastern Claims29 continued with different personnel the work of registering land claims in areas abandoned during the wars, and a committee on
24 Council Records, vii, 373, 522; viii, 505, 556, 621, 624.
25 Below, p. 171 (6 April 1725).
26 Both commissioned on 3 Jan. 1726/7.
27 Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, Boston, 1919- , II- VII, passim. Hereafter House Journals.
28 Thomas Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts-Bay, edited by Lawrence Shaw Mayo, 3 vols., Cambridge, 1936, II, 150.
29 Mass. Acts and Resolves, XXI, 833-834. The Book of Eastern Claims has been printed in Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder, vols. IV-VIII.
XV
INTRODUCTION
Settlements (1715)30 began to supervise the return of settlers and the recruitment of new settlers, conflicting claims having become the chief obstacles to the systematic restoration of the frontier. Before 1689, the settled towns of Maine were those set up by the government of Massa- chusetts after its usurpation of the Province of Maine, and confirmed by President Danforth's trusteeship grants of 1684.31 In addition to Kittery, York and Wells, which had not been abandoned during the wars, these were Cape Porpus (presently called Arundel), Saco (re- named Biddeford), Scarborough (Black Point and Blue Point), Fal- mouth (incorporated 1718), and North Yarmouth.
The principal problem in the resettlement of the latter group of townships was the adjustment of the claims of new settlers to share in the ownership of the common lands. The old settlers, some of whom remained absentee owners, organized themselves as proprietors and bitterly disputed the claims of newcomers. The process of compromis- ing the issues in these controversies loomed large in the history of the subsequent quarter of a century.32
In the area north of Casco Bay, the land was claimed by a number of private interests, some of which now emerged as proprietary land com- panies. Chief of these were the Pejepscot Company, the Clark and Lake claim, the Muscongus Company, and the Kennebeck Company. Fur- ther east, several smaller claims were held by the heirs of the original grantees. All these claims may be traced to the ancient grants made by the Council for New England before the establishment of Sir Ferdi- nando Gorges' Province of Maine in 1639. To them had been added a considerable number of Indian deeds. The descendants of the original grantees, many of them prominent Boston business men, traded in shares, bought additional claims, raised new capital and proceeded with plans to settle the lands they claimed east of North Yarmouth.
The close connection between settlement and defense, including Indian policy, in which the building of forts and truck houses and the management of trade played the greatest part, and the close identifica- tion of the proprietors of the land with the government of the province, produced not only open recognition of the need to give public support to private enterprise but also, when the interests of the various com- panies clashed, as in the case of boundaries, opportunities for intrigue
30 House Journals, I, 20.
31 MPCR, III, xxxi, and note.
32 Roy H. Akagi, The Town Proprietors of the New England Colonies, Philadelphia, 1924, ch. V. gives a good account of the controversies in Massachusetts and New Hamp- shire, but neglects those in Maine.
xvi
INTRODUCTION
in politics and legal entanglements in the courts. Soon after the end of the war, the individual enterprises of the Pejepscot Company, Lake and Clark, and the Muscongus Company settled Brunswick and Topsham, protected by Fort George, with shadowy communities nearby ("Cork" and a fishing village at Small Point called "Augusta"), of Arrowsic and Parker's Islands, incorporated as the town of Georgetown in 1716, and of St. Georges, where St. Georges Fort was built in 1720/1.
The province government discouraged the migration to these new places of residents from the established towns of Maine. The new settlers were therefore to a considerable extent soldiers of the militia originally stationed at the forts and garrisons to whom were promised special inducements to stay, and adventurers from the more crowded towns of Massachusetts. In addition, Col. Robert Temple33 brought from Ireland in 1718 in five ships, it is said, fifteen hundred immigrants. Soon, the majority of these, finding conditions unbearably hard, and alarmed by Indian threats, went off to Londonderry, New Hampshire or Pennsylvania. The projected settlement, "Cork," did not materialize but a number of families made the best of the situation and were soon scattered among the wilderness settlements of Maine.
In a preceding volume of this series the recruiting of labor in En- gland for the new Maine settlements was mentioned.34 The same Thomas Newman appears again in this volume both as litigant and of- fender.35 These items, though they add to our knowledge of conditions in Georgetown, scarcely touch the surface of his activities there. From records of litigation in Middlesex County courts and the Superior Court of the Province,36 it appears that Newman made at least two voyages to England to recruit indentured servants with the encouragement and sup- port of Edward Hutchinson, one of the chief promoters in Georgetown. The conditions under which these servants worked in the woods as described in the depositions of witnesses in cases involving the "owner- ship" of some of these "white slaves" are part of the still unwritten story of the Maine frontier.
The activity in these new settlements so excited the Kennebec In- dians that the peace precariously achieved by Gov. Joseph Dudley in
33 William Willis, "Scotch-Irish Immigration to Maine, and Presbyterianism in New England," Maine Historical Society, Collections, VI, 14-16. For the Scotch-Irish in Falmouth, see ibid., 11-12.
34 MPCR, V, xxxiv, xliv, xlv, 89, 90.
35 Below, pp. 48, 49, 57, 63, 79, 83-85, 92, 103-109, 163.
36 Mass. Archives, viii, 236. Early Files of the Superior Court, nos. 13275, 17183, 18130.
xvii
INTRODUCTION
1713 was endangered. Dudley's successor, Samuel Shute, anxious to further the progress of the new settlements and to protect the resettle- ment of Scarborough, Falmouth and North Yarmouth, met with the Indians at Arrowsic Island on 11 August 1717. After considerable de- bate, the Governor forced a reaffirmation37 of Dudley's treaty which allowed the English to repossess the lands which they had claimed be- fore the wars began.
This treaty was not binding on all Indians however. In August the Micmacs attacked and plundered the English fishing establishment on Cape Breton. This attack encouraged the Indians further west to threaten the settlements, killing cattle, and arousing fears of a general uprising. The unrest among the Indians was blamed by the English to the activities of Sébastien Rale, the Jesuit priest who since 1694 had maintained a mission at the Indian village of Norridgewock on the Kennebec. Father Rale had counseled the Indians from a distance at the negotiations at Georgetown and was known to be angry at the result.
Governor Vaudreuil at Quebec, insisting that French jurisdiction extended as far as the Kennebec River, also constantly encouraged the Indians to rise against the English. Even with the backing of Rale and Vaudreuil, the Indians actually had little negotiating power in their meetings with the English governors of Massachusetts who were ada- mant in their claims, scornful in their diplomacy, and niggardly with their gifts. The alternatives to the Indians were: to fight, hoping for French help,38 or to surrender, trusting that in self-interest the English would provide for them the trading posts which they desperately needed in an economy in which the Indians had come to depend on the white man for the sale of furs and the purchase of supplies. Still influenced by Father Rale, the Indians continued to harass the whites.
That Father Rale must be forcibly removed seemed obvious to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, less patient than Governor Shute, with whom that legislative body was engaged in violent con- troversy over the prerogatives of his office which the Governor was trying to maintain. Determined to take the Governor's war powers into
37 Maine Historical Society Collections, III, 359-375. Samuel Sewall's "Voyage to Arrowsick in Kennebeck River," in "A Journal of Judge Samuel Sewall, from Aug. 1, 1717 to July 26, 1726" (Ms. Mass. Hist. Soc.) is a remarkably vivid account. He was a member of the Province Council who attended the Governor.
38 A dubious hope since the French government in Versailles, not wishing to jeopardize the Franco-British alliance, prevented Vaudrueil from giving the Indians military assistance.
xviii
INTRODUCTION
their own hands, the Representatives finally forced Shute to declare war on the Eastern Indians on 25 July 1722.39 Since Lt. Gov. William Dum- mer was in charge during the war while Shute was in England defend- ing his administration, the war is sometimes called "Dummer's War."
As in previous Indian wars, the story was one of many isolated depredations, killings and captures of prisoners, with the settlers in their garrisons defending and counterattacking as best they could. The advantages of mobility and surprise were with the Indians, but every warrior killed decreased their advantage, the disparity in numbers be- ing great. Their failure to dislodge the English from their key positions, Fort George, Fort Richmond and St. George's Fort, was not compen- sated by their success in burning Brunswick and Georgetown, dis- couraging though these disasters were to the settlers. The necessity of removing Father Rale seemed more pressing than ever.
This aim was achieved when Father Rale was killed in a raid on Norridgewock in August 1724, led by Captains Johnson Harmon and Jeremiah Moulton, both Maine men. The Indian raids continued after this but with gradually decreasing force. Long remembered was the legendary account of Capt. John Lovewell40 and his exploit at Pig- wacket. After he and his men had made two successful scalp-hunting expeditions and collected considerable scalp money, fate caught up with him when he and thirty-three companions were ambushed on 8 May 172541 at what is now Lovewell's Pond near Fryeburg, Maine. The shattered remnant of seventeen men after incredible hardship reached the settlements several days later. Contemporaries reported that the Indians lost at least forty, possibly fifty, of their warriors.
Early in November 1725, four sagamores representing some of the tribes of the Eastern Indians arrived in Boston to negotiate. A treaty was signed on 15 December. The following year on 6 August, forty chiefs joined at Falmouth meetinghouse in the ratification of this treaty. Lieutenant Governor Dummer and an impressive array of members of the General Court attended with a considerable military guard. It was at this ceremony that Richard Jacques, famous for being the slayer of
39 Boston Gazette, 30 July 1722. Twice previously, the House had planned expedi- tions for the capture of Rale; one under Col. Thomas Westbrook was actually des- patched. It found Rale absent, but seized his correspondence with Gov. Vaudreuil which convinced the Representatives that he was deeply implicated in stirring up the Indians.
40 The war is sometimes also called "Lovewell's War."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.