USA > Maine > Lincoln County > The Probate records of Lincoln County, Maine, 1760 to 1800 > Part 1
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THE
PROBATE RECORDS OF
LINCOLN COUNTY,
MAINE.
1760 TO 1800.
COMPILED AND EDITED
FOR THE MAINE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, BY WILLIAM D. PATTERSON, 1 WISCASSET, ME.
PORTLAND, ME. PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY. 1895. Copy 3.
F27 .L7 P2 Copy 3
513 433 .Ta-1, 37
Emerson, Printer, Wiscasset.
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CONTENTS.
PREFACE
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Pages 5 -- II
INTRODUCTION
Pages iii-xxi
- Page xxiii ERRATA
LINCOLN PROBATE RECORDS -
Pages 1-368
INDEX OF NAMES
- Pages 1-48
INDEX OF PLACES -
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Pages 49-53
PREFACE.
This book contains copies of the wills filed in the Probate Court for Lincoln County from the year 1760 to the year 1800 and brief abstracts of the records of the proceedings of that court during the same period.
Perhaps the earliest existing record of probate proceedings had in this section of Maine is that found in the record* made
At a court held at Pemaquid 22 July 1674 by Major Tho : clarke Humphry Dauie : Richd Collicut, and Left Thomas Gardner according to commission and order of the Generall Courte of the Massatusetts collony, Dated in Boston in N : E : 27 day of May 1674, which record is in the following words :
Administration to the estate of John Walter a fisherman somtymes Resident at Monheghen & sometymes at Damerells coue who dyed about four yeares since is granted to Geo : Burnett Resident at Mon- heghen who is to dispose of the same according to the cleerest testimony of, and to whome ye Estate doeth belong & to bring in an Inventory of the same to ye next comission Court, heere, & himselfe as principall & Richd Oliver as Suerty doe bind themselves in fifty pounds a peece that this Order shall bee attended & p'formed.
In this instance the General Court appears to have delegated its functions as a court of probate, a custom that was subsequently adopted by the Governor and Council who under the Province charter of 1691 had power to " doe execute or performe all that is necessary for the Probate of Wills, Granting of Administracons for, touching or concerning any Interest or Estate which any person or persons shall
*Printed entire in M. H. S. coll. "Baxter MSS.," pp. 343-348.
NOTE. This was probably the only County Court established under the Massa- chusetts Colony charter within the territory subsequently known as Lincoln County. At that court the region between the Sagadahoc and Georges rivers seems to have been first called and known as the County of Devon.
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PREFACE.
have within our said Province or Territory ". Soon, however, after the charter become operative judges of probate were commissioned, infe- rior probate tribunals were established and suitable persons were designated as registers thereof in the several counties ; and in probate matters the Governor and Council reserved to themselves and exercised only the powers of a Supreme Court of Probate to which appeals from the probate courts could be had. Finally, near the close of the administration of Governor Pownall, in 1760, they became duly organ- ized as the Supreme Court of Probate for the province and adopted a seal therefor.
The act of the General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay for erecting and establishing two new counties in the easterly part of the county of York provided that from and after the first of Novem- ber, 1760, the most eastern county, bounded on the west by the county of Cumberland, on the east by the province of Nova Scotia, on the south and southeast by the sea or western ocean, and on the north by the utmost northern limits of the province, should be called and known as the County of Lincoln. This act established the town of Pownalbo- rough, which then included the territory now embraced in the towns of Wiscasset, Dresden, Alna and Perkins, as the shire or county town. This town had been incorporated on the 13th of February, 1760, and named in honor of that able colonial statesman, Thomas Pownall, who was then governor of Massachusetts, and this town, the name of which was changed to Wiscasset in 1802, has ever since been the principal shire town of Lincoln County.
The Lincoln Probate Court was constituted by the appointment of William Cushing as judge and Jonathan Bowman as register. The earliest act of the court as found in its records granted letters of ad- ministration upon the estate of Humphry Purrington, late of George- town, under date of the 14th of November, 1760. The record does not disclose whether the court upon that occasion was held at George- town or Pownalborough : the letters were dated at Georgetown; the warrant to appraisers at Pownalborough; both bear the same date. At that date and for several years afterwards there seems to have been no regularly established time and place for holding the court and it was probably held at either Pownalborough or Georgetown, as was most for the convenience of parties having business before it, and but little formality observed. The wills of Nathaniel Donnell and Patrick Drummond, two old time residents of Georgetown, were probated at
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PREFACE.
that place. On two or three occasions the court appears to have sat at Richmond.
William Cushing, the first judge of the court, was of a distinguished Massachusetts family residing at Scituate, where he was born on the first day of March, 1732, third son of the Hon. John Cushing. He graduated from Harvard College in 175 1 and after studying for a time with Jeremy Gridley he established himself in the practice of the law. Upon receiving his appointment as judge of probate he removed to Pownalborough where, until the arrival of Timothy Langdon, in 1769, he was the only educated lawyer and as such he appeared as counsel in the most important cases brought before the common law courts of the county. If one can judge by documents drawn by him, now extant, it may safely be concluded that he was methodical in his affairs and careful in all his undertakings. In the work of transcribing these records it has been a pleasure to take in hand a will or other instru- ment in his beautiful handwriting and elegant arrangement of para- graphs. He filled the office of judge of this court until 1772 when he was appointed a justice of the Superior Court of Judicature. He then returned to Massachusetts where he ever after made his home. Judge Cushing continued as a justice of the Superior Court until several years after it came to be known as the Supreme Judicial Court, a title which it retains to this day. At Pownalborough, on the 11th of July, 1 786, Cushing, then chief justice, opened the first term of the Supreme Judicial Court that was held in this county. Associate Justices Sar- gent, Sewall and Sumner presided with him at that term of court. Upon the establishment of the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1789, Judge Cushing was selected by Washington as chief justice. Cushing declined the honor, but accepted a seat as associate justice and continued to occupy the same until his death, 7 September, 1810, ended a long and honorable career.
The name of Jonathan Bowman is found in the records of this court for a period of more than forty years : first as register and after- wards as judge. Born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, 8 December, 1735, he was graduated from Harvard College in 1755. When the first officers of this court were selected one William Bryant, whose appoint- ment appears to have been desired by certain of the proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, was a candidate for the office of register and it seems to have been understood by some of his friends that he would be appointed, but the influence in favor of Bowman carried the day. At
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PREFACE.
about the same time the governor of Massachusetts, agreeably to the act incorporating Lincoln County, appointed a register of deeds for the county for the term of five years from February, 1761. Bowman re- ceived that appointment. Upon the organization of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas and the Court of General Sessions of the Peace a few months later he was appointed clerk for those courts and con- tinued as such for upwards of thirty years and until he relinquished the offices to his son and successor, Jonathan Bowman, Jr. He appears to have entered upon the duties of register of probate at the time when Cushing became judge and he served in that capacity until he succeeded to the judgeship which position he filled during the Revolutionary period and under the government of the Commonwealth, having been recommissioned therein by his relative, Governor Hancock. The first instrument signed by him as judge found in these records bears date the tenth of June, 1772. In the Revolutionary days the records of the court were swollen by proceedings involving the care and disposition of the confiscated estates of absentee loyalists and at these "tory trials," as the hearings were commonly called, Judge Bowman presided. He continued in the performance of the duties of this responsible position during the remainder of the period covered by this book and until his decease, 4 September, 1804. The comfortable and spacious two-storied mansion in which Judge Bowman made his home still stands near the bank of the Kennebec river in Dresden. It is a well- preserved house having a broad, roomy hall and staircase and in each of its high-wainscoted rooms a capacious open fire-place. With its traditions of the Hancocks, of John Adams and Increase Sumner, and of Bowdoin and the Gardiners it is an interesting relic of the provincial days in the eastern country and one of the notable houses of the county.
Roland Cushing, the youngest brother of Judge Cushing and him- self a lawyer, succeeded Bowman as register of probate. Roland Cush- ing was born at Scituate, 26 February, 1750, and was educated at Harvard College which he left in 1768 and entered upon the study of law with his brother William at Pownalborough. He held the office of register of this court for fifteen years. His death occured in 1788 at Waldoborough where he was then a resident. The personal recollec- tions of those who knew him have been preserved and show that en- dowed by nature with a graceful and manly form, possessing brilliant
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PREFACE.
mental parts cultivated and enriched by study, eloquent and forceful in argument, he enjoyed a popularity that was long remembered. His untimely death and the indulgence of habits that led to it were much deplored by his friends and associates.
On the 29th of January, 1787, Judge Bowman designated Nathan- iel Thwing, of Woolwich, as register of the court pro tempore. Thwing's home was at Hutchinson's Point, now known as Thwing's Point, on the bank of the Kennebec and a few miles from the residence of Judge Bowman. Thwing was long time an upright magistrate and well-known office-holder in this county. He was an admirable recording officer and the records made by him are unequalled for legibility, neatness and precision. He appears to have discharged the duties of register of this court until 1792, a period of about five years. Portions of the second and third volumes, the whole of the fourth volume and the first fifty-eight folios of the fifth volume are in his handwriting. A portion of the records in volume III are attested by Thomas Tileston, register pro tempore, of whom nothing further is here known at this time.
The next regularly appointed register of the court after Roland Cushing was Jonathan Bowman, Jr., eldest son of Judge Bowman. At the date of his appointment, young Bowman was barely twenty-one years of age. He was born 17 April, 1771, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1791. He made records that are models of neat- ness and legibility. He held the office of register of probate for about ten years, and during a part of that time he was clerk of the common law courts for the county. He resided for some years at Wiscasset. His death occurred at the early age of thirty-seven years.
These short personal sketches may serve to revive in some degree the personnel of the court for the first forty years of its existence. The careful student of these records will not overlook their importance, but will find in them that which will suggest pictures of the economical and social life of this section of Maine during the last half of the eighteenth century in a manner that no other records now extant can revive. In them will be found evidences of the religious beliefs of the last century inhabitants of this anciently settled county, testimony of their patriotism, traces of their loves, their hates and their family feuds and strifes ; their standard of comparative wealth and station and their customs and modes of life. There is not room to particularize within the limits of this brief note. The pages of this book contain many of those details in which, to use the words of John Adams, posterity delights.
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PREFACE.
It has been seen that the earliest sittings of this court were at Pownalborough, Georgetown and Richmond. The records indicate that the court was most frequently held at Pownalborough, usually in the west precinct of the town and at Pownalborough court house which historic building, erected by the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase in accordance with a vote passed by them on the 13th of April, 1761, for the purpose of providing a suitable place for holding the courts, still stands within the limits of the former parade ground of old Fort Shirley in the town of Dresden. It is a substantial frame structure, three stories high. The court room, situate on the second floor over- looking the Kennebec, was an apartment forty-five feet long and nine- teen and a half feet wide. It is rich with memories of John Adams and the Cushings, the Sewalls and the Sullivans; of Robert Auchmuty, the younger, of Chipman and Wyer, Bradbury and Paine; and of Gardiner and Bridge, Lithgow and Langdon. It is not famous alone for having been the temple of justice. The service of the church of Eng- land was often held within its walls by the Rev. Jacob Bailey, rector of the ancient St. John's parish before his church structure was erected ; and there the preachers of other religious denominations from time to time gathered their hearers.
A few years after the Revolution the population of the county had increased to such an extent that the inhabitants of the eastern part, desirous of being no longer subject to the necessity of making the long and tiresome journey which was involved in attending to probate business and visiting the registry of deeds at Pownalborough, succeeded in procuring the passage on the 6th of November, 1784, of "An Act empowering the Inhabitants of the County of Lincoln Eastward of Union River to choose a Register of Deeds, and for the establishing of a Court of Probate to be holden within and for all that part of the said County which lies to the Eastward of said River." From and after the date when that act went into effect and until the incorporation of Hancock and Washington counties this court was known as that of the
"west district" of the county. The establishment of the eastern district foreshadowed the separation that soon followed. After the area of the county was reduced and as population multiplied and the business of the court increased it became customary to hold the several terms during the year in different towns, usually at the houses of innholders, when held outside of the shire town. In the year 1790, the court sat at Pownalborough court house in May, August, September
II
PREFACE.
and October ; at the house of Lazarus Goodwin, in Hallowell, and at the house of Joseph Lambard, in Bath, in May; at the house of Samuel Nickels, in Newcastle, and at the house of Cornelius Turner, in Waldoborough, in September ; and in the year 1791 : at Pownalborough court house in January, April, June and August ; at the house of Amos Pollard, in Hallowell, in January ; at Lambard's, Bath, in June ; at the house of Charles Samson and at Turner's, both in Waldoborough, in September, and at the house of Ebenezer Whittier, in Pownalborough, in December. For many years and until the establishment of the eastern district the jurisdiction of this court extended throughout all that part of Maine eastward of the then eastern boundary of Cumber- land county and in its records are found traces of those who lived as far east as"Bangor, Mount Desert and Machias and northward to Farmington and Norridgewock. Its territory was first reduced by the act creating the eastern district and that was rapidly followed by the incorporation of Hancock county, in 1789, and Kennebec, in 1799.
It is hoped that the scope of this volume and the arrangement of its contents will commend it to the student of genealogy. Full copies of the wills are given in the order in which they are found of record. The abstracts from the records of proceedings relating to the estates of intestates are given in like order and contain mention of every act of the court and of the representatives of the estates found of record, to- gether with reference to the volumes and folios where such are re- corded, thus forming in connection with the index of names an index to the first eight volumes of the probate records of Lincoln County.
The cordial thanks of the Society are hereby extended to that learned antiquary, Rufus K. Sewall, Esq., for the timely and compre- hensive sketch of the early history of English common law proceedings in Maine that is embodied in the introduction, so generously furnished by him for this book, the value of which is best attested in the following note here printed by the kind permission of the Hon. John A. Peters, chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine.
Wiscasset, May 6, 1895.
HON. R. K. SEWALL, Dear Sir:
I have read with exceeding interest the paper which you have pre- pared as an introduction to the book, to be published, of the Probate Records of the County of Lincoln (or Cornwall) up to the year inclu-
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PREFACE.
sive, of 1800. Your paper very finely illustrates, in brief form, the principles and practice of the Common Law of England, during that ancient period, to be found in the probate records to be published. There will be seen in them clear pictures of the civilization of that peri- od, which an American citizen will readily appreciate and much enjoy. Very sincerely yours,
JOHN A. PETERS.
The indices to this volume have been prepared by Joseph P. Thompson, Esq., who has thus rendered invaluable aid.
Wiscasset, I November, 1895.
WILLIAM D. PATTERSON.
INTRODUCTION.
These mortuary records of Lincoln County are matter of public in- terest and importance. In them we have an epitome of the thrift of the generations past of this ancient part of our state as a culmination of the English common law, where first applied in the beginnings of New England, to shape and develop the life forms of society and Christian civilization in its civil relations.
The record also discloses, in clear and precise features, the religious and Christian sentiments of the fathers of Lincoln County to have been eminently biblical in all phases of man's mortuary relations to the preg- nant future of human life. The facts of this record, in this respect, we deem quite remarkable.
As an outgrowth of pre-existing legal conditions of the history of this county, where first was applied in New England the forces of the English common law as a colonizing agency, I propose to make the facts of such application and the incidents of development a supple- ment to the legal records herein published ; which had origin in the charter of April 10, A. D., 1606 ; practically enforced on the peninsu- la of Sabino, now Sagadahoc, in seizen and possession, under the English theories of valid land title in A. D. 1607 ; and further devel- oped at Pemaquid and Sheepscot, when Lincoln County was an inte- grant part of Ducal Territory to 1689 ; and the organization of Lincoln Bar.
COLONIAL CHARTER. April Io, A. D., 1606.
Expansion and application of the English common law as a coloniz- ing force and antecedents.
UNDERLYING FACTS. A. D. 1492.
The fact of the existence of a continent in the west had been revived and certified to the nations of Europe by Columbus.
The next year, 1493, the newly discovered lands were partitioned to
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INTRODUCTION.
Spain and Portugal in virtue of alleged Divine vice-geral domination in a dotal act of Pope Alexander VI. These facts startled and excited Europe. The legal soundness of land title so acquired was questioned, as matter of international law. France wanted to find Adam's will and see the clause warranting its exclusion to a share of the new world.
England protested : appealed to natural right and justice : declared there was no good title in land without possession in newly discovered countries.
It was her common law doctrine of "seizen and possession," as ap- plied to her popular homestead holdings.
The international conflict raised grave questions of right. England pressed the issue with incisive diplomacy.
The British Lion shook his mane ; and bristling with resentment at the wrong of Papal presumption, roared,-"prescriptio sine posses- sione, haud valeat" and made preparation to force her common law postulate of homestead holdings into the international code and have it applied to trans-atlantic interests in defiance of the Pope's authority and in derogation of his assumed right in giving away the lands of the newly discovered world.
The English doctrine was novel. It was also revolutionary. The conflict deepened. Spain was supreme in prestige and power on sea and land, and also a petted child of the Church of that day. The issue of trans-atlantic titles had become national. England was reso- lute. The issue narrowed. Spain led off, the champion, not only of her dotal title, but also of Divine vice-geral authority in the Pope. More than a century* had passed the Papal grant, when the Eng- lish Parliament declared, that by law of nature and nations, seizen and possession were sole grounds of good title to newly discovered lands. In 1580,t this postulate of her common law was officially declared. The doctrine of possession, as the ground of perfected right in lands abroad, as well as at home, had become a battle ground of statesmanship and diplomacy in the legal arena.
CRISIS. A. D. 1588.
The argument was ended. Spain resolved to cut the Gordian knot with the sword. She marshalled an "Armada,"-arrogantly called, "the invincible",-entered the English Channel, with all the pomp and pride of a Divine mission, the 19th of July. England gathered her ships of
*Holmes' Annals, vol. I, p. I.
+Poor's Vindication, p. 9.
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INTRODUCTION.
war, and massed her guns to meet the issue. Battle was joined the 2 Ist day of July. Drake led the English manœuvres. Fifteen different* engagements were fought. The conflict continued to the 27th of July, and Spain lost five thousand men and seventeen ships of war. Eng- land burned and sunk, and storms scattered, the Armada of Spain ; and her naval supremacy went with it; and England became herself mis- tress of the sea.
Spain, to crush England in her presumption, had failed and fallen in the struggle. The Pope's dictum and dotal, heretofore regarded and respected as the end of all law, went down with the "Great Armada." The issue gave force and effect to the doctrine of English "seizen and possession," as a guarantee of title to an American foothold in the new world.
The ancient doctrine of Papal Divine right, as an element of inter- national law, was thus over-ruled. Possession now became the ground of right to valid title in North America.
Thereupon the maritime nations pushed for discovery of eligible sites for possession and the English common law of seizen and posses- sion became a great colonizing force.
RESULTS. 1602.
Maritime restlessness in the west of England took shape in a voyage of discovery, by a new and untried route, to the American shores, di- rect in course west, as the winds would allow. The vessel was the "Concord," Bartholomew Gosnold, master. The result was that he made and touched the new world in a land full of hillocks, an "out- point of tall grown trees ahead, a rock-bound coast and shores of white sand in Lat. 40° N."
It was a sunrise view. A Spanish sloop with mast and sail and iron grapnel came along-side ; and the Indian seamen, some clad in Europe- an costume, came on board and chalked a map of the country on deck which they called "Ma-voo-shan."
Its attractions were noted, and reported in England ; and the land- fall marked, for further examination.
In 1605, a "new survey" was projected, and executed, by Captain George Weymouth, and returned before autumn. This survey resulted in the discovery of a magnificient harbor, the little River of Pemaquid, and the Saga-da-hock, the notable river of the Ma-voo-shan land-fall of the Concord's voyage of 1602.
*Teig's Chronology.
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INTRODUCTION.
These rivers, of this land-fall, at once became coveted points of commercial value to England, for seizure and possession, where the forms and forces of English common law, should be applied, in planting homesteads of the English race, in New Englard.
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