USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Boothbay Harbor > History of Boothbay, Southport and Boothbay Harbor, Maine. 1623-1905. With family genealogies > Part 13
USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Southport > History of Boothbay, Southport and Boothbay Harbor, Maine. 1623-1905. With family genealogies > Part 13
USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Boothbay > History of Boothbay, Southport and Boothbay Harbor, Maine. 1623-1905. With family genealogies > Part 13
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PETITION TO LEGALIZE TOWN PROCEEDINGS.
Mass. Archives, Vol. 118, p. 154.
Province of the To His Excellency Francis Barnard Massachusetts Esqr Governer in Cheif, the Honble
Bay in New England the Councill & House of Representa- tives in Generall Court Assembled,
The petition of the Select Men of the Town of Boothbay in the County of Lincoln Humbly Sheweth,
1. The particulars of this conveyance of Brown and the murder of Bryant are given in another chapter,
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HISTORY OF BOOTHBAY.
That the Inhabitants of said Town soon after Their Incor- poration by Virtue of a Special Order of this Court Assembled, & chose Town Officers In February last. that they Imagined the Officers so Chosen might serve a Year Insuring & so neg- lected to Chuse Officers in March following. That the Officers so Chosen have Acted in their several Capacities. Rates have been made a meeting House is Contracted for, & in Building, and all this before Your Petetioners & the Other Inhabitants were sensible of their mistake & that they Had not compleyed with the Letter of the Law. so that without the Aid of Your Excellency & Honours the Town must be Greatly Distressed thereby & all Publick Business Cease.
Your Petetioners Therefore Humbly pray that the Town Officers so Chosen in the Month of February may be Declared to be the Officers of said Town untill new ones shall be Chose in March 1766 & that all the Doings of the Officers so chosen in February shall be as Valid and Effectual as if they had been Chosen in March, or that Your Petitioners may be Other wise Releaved as you in your Wisdom shall seem Meet. & as in Duty bound shall ever pray &c
Ephraim mcfarland /
Boothbay 3ª September 1765 John Beath Select Men
Jnº Alley
We the Subscribers being Inhabitants of the Said Town of Boothbay, do Acquise in the Petition of the Within Mentioned Select men of Said Town
Dauid Reed Thomas Boyd John Willey
Paul Reed
Thomas Reed Ebenezer Smeth
Joseph Beath Willem mcCoob Joseph Sloos
Joseph Reed Joseph Crosby Samuel Berto
Andrew Reed Samuel mcCoob James Montgomry
Samuel Adams Willem Mour John Reed
In the house of Representatives Oct 24 A. D. 1765 Resolved that the Prayer of the foregoing Petition be So far Granted that the Several Town officers Chosen in February last as mentioned in Said Petition, and their Proceedings in Consequence of their Respective offices for the time Past be held good and vallid to all Intents & Purposes as much as tho they had been Chosen in the month of march last & that Said officers retain their respective offices and excersice the same in Said Town untill others shall be Chosen in their room to ye respective town offices in ye month of march next any thing in ye Law to ye Contray notwithstanding
Sent up for concurrence S. White Spkr
1
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY.
In Council Oct 25. 1765- Read and Concurred. A Oliver Sec Consented to
Fra Bernard
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Office of the Secretary. Boston, Sept. 10, 1902.
A true copy. S SEAL
Witness the Seal of the Commonwealth.
WM. M. OLIN, Secretary.
The annual meeting of 1766, which was their second, con- sumed two days, March 6th and 7th, yet, outside of election of officers, little of importance is recorded. One hundred and twenty pounds lawful money was voted the Rev. John Murray as a yearly salary ; and John Beath, Israel Davis and Thomas Kenney were chosen a committee to run the town line from Oven's Mouth to the Damariscotta River. The following year one hundred pounds was raised to pay for outlays on the new church and other town expenses. One hundred acres of land was voted as a school lot. The selectmen were directed to employ a schoolmaster for that year. Wild animals were extremely troublesome and injurious to live stock and crops, as well as dangerous to the safety of children or lone persons traveling from point to point through the forests, then practi- cally unbroken in the interior of the town. Six shillings was voted as a bounty for the heads of wolves, and three shillings each for bears and "wild-cattes." The committee for building the church, having completed its duties, was discharged. A pound was built for strays and located at Boothbay Center. The selectmen, as a school committee, employed a teacher, and, as it was the second year after organization and the first provision for a school mentioned in the records, it is believed that the school of 1767 was the first ever taught in this locality. The teacher's name was Faithful Singer, a resident of the town, who married Susanna Knight the following year. He received for his year's teaching, which was fifty-two full weeks of work, £18 13s. 4d. and board. The conditions were such that the town was divided into four districts : the Harbor; the west side of the town, in the locality of where district No. 8 has in
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HISTORY OF BOOTHBAY.
more recent times been located; at Oven's Mouth, and the fourth at Pleasant Cove. In each instance the school was taught in a private house as there were no school buildings yet provided for. The exact house at which the school was kept is given in only one instance, that at the Harbor. There it was held in the old house of William Fullerton, on the ground where the house of the late Benjamin Blair now stands, on Oak Street.1 The terms were of equal length, commencing at the Fullerton house and running seven weeks, then seven more at each of the other three places ; at the end of these twenty- eight weeks another start was made at Fullerton's, this time six weeks, and again the rounds were made, filling out in good measure the year. It might not be amiss in comprehending the situation at that time to think of the scarcity of holidays. Teachers' conventions were not existing, for lack of material ; Washington's birthday was an important event to no one but himself ; Thanksgiving was not a regularly established annual festival, though in some years a day was thus observed ; the fourth of July had acquired no special significance ; and many years were destined to elapse before there would be Ivy, Arbor, Labor and Memorial days. The districting of the town in the manner recorded is suggestive of where the prin- cipal settlements existed.
In 1768 a committee was chosen which had as duties the selection of a school lot, also a burying yard and a "menestarel lott," the latter probably meaning a location for a parsonage, for up to that date the Rev. John Murray had been boarding with his cousin, Andrew Reed. The selection of the yard known as the Old Congregational Cemetery followed. The "menestarel lott" was the selection of Pisgah, where the par- sonage was built and Mr. Murray continued to live during his pastorate in Boothbay. This was the lot left by Edmond Brown for the purpose on that August morning in 1739 when he disposed of his property, while calmly awaiting the coming of the officers to remove him forever from the scenes of his home and his crime. The bounty on wolves was doubled that year. A committee was selected that brought in a report
1. It is a tradition in the Reed family that the first school in West Boothbay and for some years thereafter was kept in the house of David Reed, which of late years has been the home of his lineal descendant, Albert N. Reed, This is probable.
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY.
which was largely a recital of the wrongs the colonists were subjected to by the unjust taxation of the Mother Country. It closed with a declaration and enumeration of what articles should not be purchased by the citizens of the town, except they be manufactured at home or in some of the American Colonies. This was unanimously adopted and the prohibitive list follows :
"Gold, silver or thread lace of any sort, wrought plate, diamond stone or plate ware, clocks, watches or any silver- smith's or jeweler's ware, sole-leather, sheathing or deck nails, snuff, mustard, broadcloths that cost above ten shillings per yard, muffs, furrs or tippets or any sort of millinery goods, starch, women's or children's stays, fire-engines, china-ware, silk or cotton velvets, gauze, pewterer's ware, linseed oil, glue, lawns, cambrics, silks, malt-liquors, spices or teas."
An appropriation of fifty-five pounds was voted "to pay up the behindments of last year and other abeatments if any appear." Fifty pounds was appropriated for a schoolmaster in 1769, and it was voted to petition the General Court to establish an academy here. A vote was also passed
" That the road leading from the meeting-house to Samuel Adams shall go round the head of the meadow along the ledg so far as the committee thinks proper toward the Oven's Mouth."
Another road was voted from near Samuel Adams' house running southerly along the westerly side of "Adams' fresh meadow to a tree on Joseph Erwin's lot," on the road leading from the church to the house of Samuel Adams.
Only thirty pounds was appropriated for the total expenses for 1770. A vote was passed establishing a width of two rods for all highways that might be built in town,1 that they should be repaired by rate,2 and that the surveyor's warrant should be sufficient notice to the inhabitants to labor on the highways. The galleries of the church were voted to be "pewed all round the front." In 1771 only thirty pounds was appropriated for public charges, and schools were reduced to three months' teaching by one teacher. The first record of any town debt occurred that year in a vote to keep one hundred pounds at interest for another year. The gallery pews, provided for the
1. No repeal of this vote appears, and continuous compliance with it furnishes a strong precedent for all road building in the three towns.
2. A term formerly used to mean tax.
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HISTORY OF BOOTHBAY.
previous year, were voted to be sold at "publick Vendue or at privet sail as they shall think most beneficial to the town." But little was transacted in 1772, only ten pounds being raised for all public charges.
The appropriation at each annual meeting in those days was made in a lump or gross sum. There were no special appropriations, nor specified amounts for the several regular annual outlays. Everything points to poverty general in the community at about these years. The ten pounds raised would do nothing of consequence. Roads could not have been improved, and it would appear as though schools may have been for the time discontinued.1 The only outlay that year, specified by vote, was that two horse blocks should be erected front of the church. Twopence was offered for each crow's head. Several town histories make mention of the alarming prevalence of this pest at about the same period.
In considering the cause for the extreme general poverty existing at that time, the reader will bear in mind that it was little more than two years previous to the breaking out of the Revolution, the very time when England was pinching the Colonies to the last extremity. There was also another reason, which sentiment might almost forbid one to mention, but it doubtless had its effect. This little handful of people, distant from markets, with practically no salable productions, living as best they could in an isolated locality, with soil, climate, aborigines, distance, everything against them, had built an expensive church and taken upon themselves to support by far the ablest minister at that time in Maine.
In 1773 a vote was taken that "the sexton lift a contribu- tion each Saboth day accepting on saccrement Sunday for the present year and any of the inhabitants that Contributes to the value of £1 old tenor & mark his money shal be alowed for it in their rate and the remander after told by two of the Deacons to be delvd to the Treas of sd Town for the use of sd Town."
Paul Twombly was voted five pounds for "being at the Truble of Collecting the whole of the Town and County rates";
1. Mr. Murray's services were going on at this time. Later, by record. the town appears considerably indebted to him, which debt he failed to collect during his life- time, and the town settled with the administrator of his estate by a committee chosen for the purpose. This debt was probably contracted during these years that the appropriation fails to appear.
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY.
and this has the appearance of being the remuneration for sev- eral and not for a single year's service. A sample vote as to the disposition of a poor child in those days appears in that year's proceedings :
"That Mary Whiting is to be bound by the Selectmen to William McCobb till she is eighteen years of age, said McCobb is to find hir meet and Drink washing and loging and Cloathe for such a printice."
The meeting of 1774 simply elected the regular town officers and engaged Joseph Beath to teach three months at ten dollars per month. It seems a veritable calm before the storm which broke with such terrible force over the Colonies the succeeding year. The meetings of 1775, some six in all, are in many respects the most remarkable ever held in town. The occasion demanded of the inhabitants the best there was in them, and well did they respond. The action taken in both 1775 and 1776 finds a more appropriate place in the chapter on the Revolution.
Regular business affairs claimed part of the town's attention in 1777. One hundred pounds was raised for roads and, for the first time, they voted that the roads should be freed from the obstructions of bars and gates. Forty-three pounds and four shillings was raised for teaching. Thirty-six dollars of this was to be applied for a master for three months' service, and the balance to be used to employ "school dames," who might be distributed to the several parts of the town as the selectmen might see fit and direct. Highway rates were first made at this meeting and were fixed at four shillings per day for a man, two shillings and sixpence for a "yoak of oxen and chain," one shilling and sixpence for a plow or cart. A thoughtful vote was taken at that meeting, and if it was ever carried out it is a lamentable fact that care was not taken of the result. It follows :
" Voted the depositions of the old Inhabitants of this town respecting the first settlement be taken in perpetum."
This was nearly five years after McCobb, Fullerton, Beath and Moore had spread their depositions on the Lincoln County records, papers which, by their plain, unvarnished recitals of what occurred in the early days, give us facts in the history of
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HISTORY OF BOOTHBAY.
the Colony that have never been obtained elsewhere. The school lot of one hundred acres was directed to be sold to John Holton, and a committee was authorized to execute a deed to him. A road from Oven's Mouth to the meeting house, on the east side of Adams Pond, was voted. The committees of inspection and correspondence met and established a scale of prices for labor and town productions, as well as all articles carried in town places of trade, either sale or exchange. The list is long and the articles are rated in English sterling.
In 1778 a bounty of twelve pounds was offered any man who would enlist and "turn out against George and emesaries." The Rev. John Murray was to have his salary increased "if the value of money does not increase." Collectors and treas- urers were to be indemnified in case counterfeit money was passed upon them. A log fence, the first of any kind, was voted for the cemetery at the Center. In 1779 the two com- mittecs were called together and very materially raised the schedule of prices for labor and all merchandise previously rated on account of a further depreciation in the currency. This, however, followed a meeting of delegates from Massa- chusetts towns held at Concord July 10th. The continued depreciation of the currency made it necessary in 1780 to raise six hundred pounds lawful money for the gross expenses. A schoolmaster was hired for a year and the town was divided into five districts.
On May 3, 1781, a meeting was held, when the first ballots, other than for town officers, were thrown. The war was not finished, nor was the end in sight. The surrender of Corn- wallis did not occur until October 19th following. But it had been seven years since the first Continental Congress had assembled, the seat of hostilities was removed largely to the southern part of the Colonies, and the northern part was expe- riencing a partial relief at that time from British aggression. The extremities of the country were now voting for State officers. The record appears as follows :
"Voted John Hancock Esqr. to he Governor and Com- mander in Chefe of the State of Massachusetts Bay, Votes, Twelve for Governor."
No opposition appears. Major William Lithgow received
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY.
thirteen, all that were thrown, for senator. It was voted to waive the right and send no representative to the General Court. Joseph Langdon, one of the board of selectmen, was directed by vote to take a valuation of the town, real and per- sonal, and an enumeration of the inhabitants. This is the first record of a regular valuation being taken. Enumerations of a different character, as a military measure, were taken in 1775. The demoralization of the currency and almost universal pov- erty brought people to a keener realization of their expendi- tures, and necessity drove them to a business-like method of applying their burdens equitably. The appropriation for the year was one thousand "hard dollars," or paper money "a quiflent to 75 for one hard dollar."
Ichabod Pinkham, John Daws and William Reed were a committee in 1782 to look after the quantity of ammunition furnished by the General Court, also to inspect the condition of the cannon and small arms. It was voted not to send a representative to the General Court. John Hancock again received the total vote for Governor. It had been an occur- rence in nearly every meeting sinee 1777 to ask permission of the town to creet either bars or gates across the highways at places to convene the inhabitants. By this date nearly every road must have been again obstructed, if they had been cleared by enforcement of the earlier vote to that effect, which is doubt- ful.1 One prominent citizen living not far from the church, on one of the principal roads, had an article in the annual town warrant to grant him the privilege to "erect a hansum Swingin gate" across the highway. This was the best proposition ever made the town according to the record.
In 1783 it was voted that the board of selectmen should thereafter constitute the committecs of correspondence and inspection and safety. A road was accepted from southwest to the northeast of Barter's Island, in the manner that would best convene the inhabitants. Joseph Barter and Samuel Kenney were chosen a committee to lay out the road. For the first time since the assurance of self-government, the town sent a representative to the General Court in the person of Captain
1. It was told the author a few years ago that when action was taken by the town officers under the vote of 1777, a citizen living at Back River, belonging to one of our oldest and most numerous familios, prepared to defend his gate with his trusty old flintlock.
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HISTORY OF BOOTHBAY.
Paul Reed. He held the distinction of being the town's first representative, though the Rev. John Murray and Capt. Andrew McFarland had performed similar duties before the attainment of independence. For Governor the town cast twenty-nine votes for General Lincoln to four for John Hancock. The public thanksgiving for peace occurred December 11th. The town contracted with Samuel Adams for a set of stocks to be built and set up at the church, for which he received two dol- lars, "he finding the stuff himself." The iron work was done by Benjamin Sawyer for one dollar. A stringent vote was passed as follows :
"That no absentees or refugees shall have any liberty to return to this town, neither shall they have any lot or portion with us."
For the better enforcement of this act there were now added to the board of selectmen Capt. Paul Reed, Thomas Boyd, Jr., John Murray and Leighton Colbath, to make up the old committee of inspection and safety, with special instructions. Now that independence was attained, the honest, patriotic res- idents, who had endured every privation, had an opportunity for a retrospective view. It can hardly be supposed that kindly feelings existed toward that class denominated "absentees and refugees," and it does not take a great stretch of the imagina- tion to discover a relation between the expression of the meet- ing against them and the addition of a set of stocks to the town furniture.
The year of 1784 saw but little of importance transacted. The stocks were removed from the church to the residence of William McCobb. Capt. Paul Reed was again chosen repre- sentative to the General Court, and also delegated with a com- missioner's authority to inquire into disputed titles of land in town. William McCobb and John Murray were a committee to procure preaching for the summer, and the town raised "thirty pounds for the youse of the Gospel." The following ycar a road was built from Jeremiah Beath's to intersect the road " leading from Boyd's to the meeting house." Two hundred pounds was appropriated for roads, half to be assessed on the polls and the other half on the real estate. Six shillings was fixed as road wages for a man and three shillings for a pair of oxen. In 1786 a road was laid out from Capt. John Borland's
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY.
to the Back River road ; also another from Captain Harris' to Nelson Mills' residence on Cape Newagen. A pound for strays was authorized near Col. Edward Emerson's, he to be the keeper. A town workhouse was voted to be built and a task- master appointed to oversee those who should be put into it. A committee of three was appointed to employ a grammar school teacher, the first time in the record that this term appears.
In 1788 the town tripped again in the proceedings of their annual meeting, as they had done twenty-three years before, and were obliged to petition the General Court for a legalizing act. This was accorded June 9th, and the regular annual meeting was held July 14th, at which meeting it was voted to build a road from the northern end of Cape Newagen Island to Chaples' Harbor. The balance of salary account due the Rev. John Murray was voted to be put in the general assessment. Thirty pounds for summer preaching and one hundred pounds for highways was raised. A road from Pleasant Cove to James Kennedy's residence was accepted. The church common and cemetery lot, which at that time were not divided by streets, were ordered to be surveyed by Robert Randall and staked out. A plan was drawn by the surveyor and appears on page 230, first book of records.
The first prohibitive fish law ever passed in town, and the author has been unable to find one of so early a date at any other place in Maine, was passed in 1789. John Murray and William Reed were a committee
" To see that the fish called alewives and shad may have a free passage up Campbell's brook, so called, and not to suffer any fish to be taken or interrupted in going up said stream on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays."
The town was that year divided into two collection districts and a collector chosen for each one. William McCobb was directed to draft a petition for the removal of the court from Frankfort1 to Wiscasset. A road was laid out on Linekin Neck, from Samuel Montgomery's to John Rackliff's; and another from Pleasant Cove to Capt. John Borland's. A spe- cial provision of the Linekin road was that the inhabitants be permitted to hang gates along for their convenience.
1. This was the plantation name of Pownalboro, now Dresden.
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HISTORY OF BOOTHBAY.
In 1790 William McCobb was chosen town agent, the first appearance of this position in the records. Dr. Edward Creamer was mentioned in the records that year. No physi- cian had previously appeared in them. The custom in vogue in town affairs at this period was to elect town officers at the annual March meeting for the year ensuing, and in addition to them choose a committee of three to investigate the town's finances, review the work of the retiring board of officers, per- form an auditor's duties, adjust any unsettled business hanging over from the previous year, investigate the needs of the ensu- ing year, and, at an adjourned mecting, make a report. Then, having only attended to the election of officers at the earlier meeting, at the adjourned one the appropriations were made and other business attended to.
A vote was passed in 1791 as follows :
" That all the money raised be appropriated for the very uses they are allowed for and no other use, and assessed in separate bills."
For the first time, a single school committee-man was selected, in the person of Samuel Bryer, and exclusive man- agement of the schools was given him. Better methods of business were beginning to be practiced in all town affairs.
The system of special appropriations naturally followed the above vote, and in 1792 we find a designated sum for the first time raised for the several usual expenditures. A vote was taken that year to see if Maine desired statehood, by being set off from Massachusetts, and resulted twelve in favor and thir- teen against separation. The General Sessions of the Court met at Hallowell in 1793 and fined the town of Boothbay nine- teen pounds for failure to send a representative to the General Court in 1788.1 By 1794 there was such an increase of schol- ars as to require re-districting the town, which was done as follows : No. 1 was composed of Cape Newagen Island ; No. 2, from Capt. Andrew Reed, Jr.'s, to the house of Ruggles Cunningham, with Barter's and Sawyer's Islands ; No. 3, from Oven's Mouth, on both sides, to the meeting house ; No. 4, from the Widow Wheeler's to Deacon Auld's; No. 5, from the
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