USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Harpswell > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 14
USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Brunswick > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 14
USA > Maine > Sagadahoc County > Topsham > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 14
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" 6th. Resolved, That we despair of obtaining relief from our distress and our fears by any further application to the President or the Congress ; and that we will therefore present a respectful petition to the legislature of this Commonwealth praying that they would specially pursue such measures as they in their wisdom may judge most conducive to the redress of individual wrongs and best adapted to the portentous crisis of our public affairs.
"7th. Resolved, That we are ready to make any sacrifice. of prop- erty and life for the preservation of the honor, the peace, and the liberty of our country.
" 8th. Resolved, That whereas several merchants in this town have loaded their vessels by permission of the President of the United States, we do highly approve of their determination to refuse compli- ance with the law requiring them to unload their vessels or give heavy and unreasonable bonds."
The following Memorial was at the same time sent to the General Court of Massachusetts : -
"TO THE HONORABLE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
"THE MEMORIAL OF INHABITANTS OF THE TOWN OF BRUNS- WICK IN THE COUNTY OF CUMBERLAND,
HUMBLY SHEWS:
" That, possessing the right to express their sentiments on the meas- ures of government, and the state of public affairs, they are impelled by a strong sense of duty to themselves and to their posterity to exercise that privilege of freemen in the present distressed and alarm-
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ing situation of the United States ; considering silence at such a crisis as has now arrived as approbation of those measures which have pro- duced it and an indication of stupid insensibility to the aggravated evils resulting from their operation.
" Your memorialists presume not to point out to your enlightened and honorable body the grievous sufferings inflicted, or the essential rights violated by the Acts of Congress laying a permanent embargo, and especially by the Act for enforcing the several embargo laws ; but deeply impressed with an awful sense of the dangers in which their liberties are involved, they address you as their deputed guardians praying protection from that ruin in which those Acts, if not speedily revoked, must overwhelm them.
" Your memorialists see in those Acts no equivocal proofs of a sub- servient attachment to one of the belligerents and an inveterate enmity to the other, alike inconsistent with the dignity and injurious to the interests of an independent nation. That the embargo was the result of a necessity imposed by the decrees of France or by the orders in council of Great Britain we can never admit ; since it was laid thir- teen months after the decree of Berlin and a considerable time before the knowledge of orders in council reached the administration, and it has been acknowledged by Mr. Pinckney, Minister of the United States at London, that these orders made no part of the motives to that measure.
" Your memorialists are persuaded that had the administration been animated by that spirit and guided by that wisdom which per- vaded the councils of the nation in 1794 and 1798 in respect to our foreign relations, the same happy result would have followed; but unhappily the reverse has been realized and our government have dis- covered a fixed determination to reject every proposal of accommoda- tion with one of the belligerents and disposition to submit with astonishing [alacrity ?] to gross and wanton violations of a solemn treaty and [to] unceasing insults from the other [belligerent. ]
" Your memorialists disdain to be the apologists for the aggressions or insults of any nation, but justice compels them to declare what they fully believe that Great Britain has manifested a disposition to adjust in an amicable manner our differences with that nation, while France has not only disregarded the obligations of a treaty, but has declared her determination to compel the United States to take part in the war either as friends or allies.
" Your memorialists see with extreme [solicitude?] the organiza- tion of an extraordinary military force in a time of peace, the object of
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HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
which is concealed from the people ; and we declare our utter detesta- tion of the Act of the sixth instant, designed to enforce an embargo, which even its advocates on the floor of Congress acknowledged to have produced no effect as a measure of coercion against the belliger- ents, while the evils affecting the people of the United States have been incalculably severe and are still increasing ; and we do consider the provisions of that Act as unconstitutional, tyrannical, and oppres- sive in the highest degree, and are bound by the strongest obligations to resist them in every legal and constitutional way.
" We pray your Honorable Body to adopt such measures as you shall deem wise and expedient in this singularly awful crisis of public affairs."
It was also voted that the foregoing memorial should be signed by the moderator and town clerk, be. presented to the legislature of the Commonwealth by the representative of the town, and that he be instructed to use his best endeavors to promote the object contained in said memorial.
A proposition was made this year to purchase the old meeting-house for a town-house, but it was defeated.
A committee was chosen to ascertain the limits of the 1,000 acres of town Commons, in order that the overplus, if any, which was given to the First Parish, might be determined.
[1811.] In 1811, the town elected Isaac Gates, Esquire, and Peter O. Alden, Esquire, as special agents to petition the legislature, in behalf of the town, for permission and authority to divide, set off, and convey to the President and Trustees of Bowdoin College the two hundred acres of land which was granted to them by a vote of the town passed May 2, 1791, and afterwards approved or confirmed by a vote of the Pejepscot proprietors.
[1812.] At a meeting held on the seventeenth of August, 1812, Jacob Abbot, Henry Putnam, Isaac Gates, Robert D. Dunning, and Jacob Anderson were chosen a committee to draft, and submit to the town, resolutions concerning " the present alarming state of national affairs." The committee reported the following, which were adopted, and the moderator and clerk instructed to sign and forward a copy of them to the President of the United States, and also one to the Portland Gazette for publication : -
" The people at all times, under an elective government, have the right of peaceably assembling to consult for the public good. When doomed to experience the most awful calamities that can afflict a nation, the right is not only unquestionable, but essential to the exist-
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ence of liberty and expressly sanctioned by the Constitution. The freedom of speech and the liberty of the press and the undisturbed privileges of an individual, or united expression of sentiment, are the vital principles of a pure republic. The electors of rulers have a right to examine their conduct, and when measures are adopted bringing poverty and ruin in their train, and death and wretchedness in their consequences, under a pretext that the people demand them, it is the duty of every citizen to raise his voice to convince the deceived of their error and arrest the progress of destruction.
' Therefore, Resolved, That we view the union of the States as an inestimable blessing while the government is administered agreeably to the original compact, but we fear that a cruel and oppressive course of measures, and admission of new States into the Union whose inhabi- tants in habits and education are adverse to republican principles, will tend to disaffect the people and eventually dissolve the compact which has heretofore been a source of so much wealth and happiness to these States.
" Resolved, That we consider the declaration of war as premature, unjustifiable, and groundless. That it was produced by an undue attachment for the greatest tyrant and most sanguinary monster that ever disgraced the civilized world. That we consider it as directed by the finger of the same hand which has not ceased for years past to impose restrictive measures upon the commerce of the United States ; in short, that we consider the declaration of war as merely the promul- gation and approbation of an edict of the Court of St. Cloud.
" Resolved, That a treasury without money, an exposed commerce without naval protection, an army without soldiers, and a war without adequate and just cause, show the weakness or wickedne s of our rulers, and tend to a direct sacrifice of everything dear to free men.
" Reso'ved, That William Widgery, member of Congress from this district, in voting for war contrary to the known wishes of his constit- uents and to the destruction of great maritime interests of New Eng- land, has added shame and disgrace to the good people of this district, without injury to his own moral or political reputation.
" Resolved, That we fully approve of the minority in Congress upon the question of war, and we pride ourselves upon having one representative from Maine who preferred the interests of his constitu- ents to the mandates of the executive.
" Resolved, That we view with abhorrence and detestation the late during and sanguinary attack upon the liberty of the press at Balti-
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HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
more by a lawless and cannibal mob, and the assassination of the veterans of the Revolution and the voluntary defenders of liberty.
" Resolved, That we cordially approve of the sentiments expressed by our brethren in Boston, at their late town meeting, upon the same subject, and of the measures by them adopted, for the purpose of aid- ing the civil authority in the prevention and suppression of similar outrages.
" Resolved, That the liberty of speech and of the press is the bul- wark of freedom, and the most glorious prerogative of free men, and that we will never relinquish this liberty but with our lives.
" Resolved, That we cordially approve of the moderate, firm, and dignified conduct of our excellent governor, whose measures have always tended to promote the interests of the State and individual happiness, and we rejoice in again having a chief magistrate who will not sell himself to a party, who holds the scale of equal justice and is above the reach of venalty.
" Resolved, That the districting of the Commonwealth for the choice of State senators and representatives to Congress under the administra- tion of Elbridge Gerry, so that twenty-nine senators are chosen by a less number of votes than were necessary to choose the other eleven, is a most tyrannical and wicked exertion of power, a violation of the spirit of the Constitution, and a prostitution of the rights of the people, and must have originated in a desire to deprive them of their constitutional privileges.
" Resolved, That the senators so chosen, by refusing the various equitable modes for the choice of electors proposed by the House of Representatives, have evinced their approbation of this iniquitous sys- tem and have rendered themselves totally unworthy of the confidence of a free people.
" Resolved, That we will hold ourselves in readiness to obey the orders of our commander-in-chief in repelling any invasion of our shores or to aid the civil authority in executing the laws.
" Resolved, That we will exert ourselves by every constitutional and honorable measure to effect a change of our national rulers, that peace, commerce, and free trade may be enjoyed with all liberal and civilized nations, and all possible means be used to secure and preserve the union of the States.
" Resolved, That from the foregoing considerations, and from a belief that only when life or liberty are jeopardized the rulers of a nation are completely justified in declaring war, and as the great ostensible causes of the present one are removed by Britain herself, and as
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amicable adjustment of the only remaining difficulty is now offered, it is the imperious duty of our government to suspend hostilities without delay, and restore the blessings of peace to a brave but abused and suffering people.
" PETER O. ALDEN, Moderator. DAN'L GIVEN, Town Cierk."
The following address was also adopted : -
" To the Hon. Eleazer W. Ripley, Jonathan Page and Ebenezer Poor, senators of the district of Cumberland and Oxford.
" After having seen the various modes offered by the committee of conference from the House of Representatives to the Senate through their committee for the choice of electors of President and Vice-Presi- dent of the United States, we are alarmed at the pertinacious adher- ence of the Senate to a partial and unequal mode of choosing electors, whereby a majority of the people are liable to be overruled by the minority, contrary to the spirit and letter of the Constitution and the principles of republican liberty.
" That this Commonwealth may have a voice in the next election of President and Vice-President a manly and just concurrence of the Senate with the House of Representatives is wanting, and this town hereby calls upon you to co-operate with them by your best exertions and procure a concurrence of the Senate with the House in some one of their propositions.
" In this day of peril and difficulty for the public good your best services are required. To stiffe the voice of the people and deprive them of their elective rights would be a stride at usurpation too alarming for us to behold in silence and too flagrant to be borne.
". We consider the proposition made by the House fair, honorable, and constitutional, and we are sorry to assert that the Resolves of the Senate do not appear to us to be of that character.
" If our liberties, so dearly purchased by the blood and treasure of our fathers, must be lost, we most sincerely hope and fervently pray that they may never be destroyed under the forms of judicial nor legis- lative proceedings."
The town voted that four attested copies of the above address be made out by the town clerk, and that one be forwarded to each of the above-named senators, and one to the president of the Senate, to be laid before that body.
[1814.] Nothing especially worthy of record occurred in 1813, but at a meeting held in February, 1814, the town appointed a committee to write an address, setting forth " the present most unjust and iniq-
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HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
uitous restrictions upon our trade." It was also voted to have this address published in the Portland Gazette. No copy of it appears on the records of the town, and the number of the Gazette supposed to contain it has not been found by the compilers of this work.
An article in the warrant, "to see if the town will accept of the Engine belonging to individuals of this town," was dismissed.
Some of the town officers elected at the annual meeting, not pre- senting themselves to take the oath of office, a warrant was issued to John Owen, constable, to notify them to appear at a specified time and take the oath, as required by law. Owen, on his return, certified that he had notified all " except Roger Toothaker [one of the fence- viewers ] who ran off and would not hear me notify him, and Abraham Locke, whom I missed by mistaking his place of residence, and Silas Goddard."
At a meeting held in August, the selectmen were authorized to hire money, "to meet the expense occasioned by the military movements."
It was voted to dismiss the article in the warrant "to see if the town will afford any assistance to the unfortunate sufferers by the freshet," which occurred that spring and did a great deal of damage.
[1815.] In 1815 the selectmen were directed to collect the resolves, maps, etc., belonging to the town, and to deposit them in their office.
[1816.] The town, at its annual meeting, in 1816, gave Russell Stoddard and others permission to place some hay-scales1 between the road that went by Mrs. Robson's and that going by John Pollard's.
At a meeting held May 20, a majority of twenty-two votes was cast by the town against a separation of the District of Maine from the State of Massachusetts. At this meeting a committee was also appointed to provide a code of by-laws for the town.
At a meeting held September 2, the town again voted against the formation of a new State by a majority of fifty-one votes. The town also at this meeting chose Robert Dunning, Doctor Jonathan Page, and Joseph McKeen, delegates to a convention to be held in Bruns- wick on the last Monday in September following, to count the votes cast in the District upon this question, and if a majority of the votes cast were favorable, to form the draft of a constitution for a new State.
[1818.] The town, at its annual meeting in 1818, authorized the selectmen to purchase a hearse at a cost not exceeding one hundred dollars.
1 The scales were located in what is now the mall, opposite Green Street.
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK.
At this meeting it was voted inexpedient to build a poorhouse. The one built in 1807 was sold by the town in 1812.
An article in the warrant of this meeting, in regard to a separation of the east and west parts of the town, was dismissed. Its insertion in the warrant was probably owing to some slight disaffection in one of these sections.
[1819.] At a meeting held May 3, the representative from the town was instructed to use all fair and honorable means towards effecting the separation of the District of Maine from the State. This act shows an evident change on the part of the citizens of Brunswick in regard to this question. The representative was also instructed to use all fair and honorable means to oppose the passage of a law allowing Wingate and others the exclusive right of navigating the Kennebec River with steamboats. Apart from all questions of propriety or of constitu- tional right, Brunswick and Topsham both had a special interest in opposing a law which would affect the navigation of their own river.
At a special meeting on July 26, the town voted, by a majority of one hundred and thirty-three votes, in favor of a new State, and at a subsequent meeting, held September 20, Robert D. Dunning, Doctor Jonathan Page, and Reverend Benjamin Titcomb were chosen dele- gates to the convention to be held in Portland on the second Monday in October, for the purpose of forming a Constitution for the new State.
At a meeting held December 6, the town voted its approval of the Constitution framed by that convention.
UNDER STATE OF MAINE.
[1820.] On March 15, 1820, the State of Maine was, by act of Congress, admitted into the Union.
At the annual town meeting this year, the selectmen were author- ized to provide a place for the hearse, which they had been authorized to purchase two years before. Whether the hearse had been kept out of doors or in somebody's barn, or whether it was not purchased until this year, does not appear. At this meeting Doctor Jonathan Page bid off the care of the town's poor for six hundred dollars.
At the first election for governor of Maine, held this year, the vote of Brunswick stood : for Honorable William King, 195 ; for Stephen Longfellow, Esquire. 23; scattering, 9.
At a meeting in May, the selectmen were directed to petition the legislature to incorporate the town of Brunswick, together with a number of other towns in the counties of Cumberland and Lincoln, into a new county.
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HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
The selectmen were also, at a meeting held in November, directed to petition the legislature to make a deduction from the valuation of the town, as taken by the selectmen in August, in consequence of the loss of property occasioned by the great freshet of October previous.
[1821.] At the annual meeting in 1821 the town passed a resolve that the public good required the formation of a new county, to be composed of the towns of Brunswick, Bath, Phipsburg, Durham, Harpswell, Freeport, Pownal, Danville, Topsham, Bowdoinham, Bow- doin, Litchfield, Lisbon, Lewiston, and Wales ; and the representative from Brunswick was instructed to endeavor to effect the object at that session of the legislature. This attempt was, however, unsuccessful.
The town this year, instead of building a poorhouse, instructed the overseers of the poor to hire suitable houses and land to accommodate the poor of the town and to appoint a person to take charge of them. This was for the purpose of making available, for the benefit of the town, the labor of the paupers.
[1822.] At a meeting of the town, held September 9, 1822, the representative to the legislature was directed to endeavor to obtain the passage of a law granting compensation from the State treasury to the soldiers of the militia.
[1823.] At a town meeting held January 20, 1823, it was voted to be inexpedient to make any offer to the legislature to induce that body to fix the seat of government in Brunswick. What effect a dif- ferent vote might have had upon the prosperity of the town is a matter of some doubt, though had such an offer been accepted, there is no doubt but that it would greatly have benefited the community. The town, also, at this meeting, directed its representative to oppose in the legislature the erection of any new county which should include Brunswick within its limits.
The annual meeting in March was adjourned to the first Monday in April, "in consequence of the severity of the cold and the small number present."
[1824.] At a meeting held the fifth of April, 1824, the selectmen were authorized to receive all money or other property that may have been raised by subscription for the sufferers by the great fire in Bruns- wick, which occurred the previous year, and to divide the same among them according to their necessities. The selectmen were also author- ized to pay twenty cents to each soldier of the militia, in lieu of rations, if the application for the same was made as the law prescribed.
At a meeting held September 6th, the town passed resolutions inviting General Lafayette to visit Brunswick while on his tour
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK.
through New England, and a committee of eleven gentlemen, in addi- tion to the selectmen, were appointed as a committee of arrangements for his reception, if he accepted. He was also invited by the authori- ties of the college, but was obliged to decline both invitations.
[1825.] At a meeting held January 1, 1825, the town voted an appropriation of one hundred and fifty dollars towards defraying the expense of exchanging the bell then hanging in the steeple of the new meeting-house for a larger one. A committee was appointed to pur- chase a fire-engine, and eight hundred dollars was appropriated for the purpose. $1.500 was appropriated this year for schools.
The selectmen were authorized to settle with Joseph Storer for damages suffered by him in crossing the bridge on Federal Street 1 with a horse and chaise.
A committee of fifteen was chosen to solicit aid for the relief of the sufferers at the late fire.
[1826.] The town, in 1826, voted to purchase the house, barn, out-buildings, and farm, near the lower landing, then owned by Roger Merrill,2 and which contained about forty acres of land, at a price not exceeding $1,500. The town also voted to raise six hundred dollars per year, for three years, to meet the above expense.
The selectmen were authorized, this year, to furnish blank car- tridges for the use of the militia of the town, when at reviews.
[1827.] At a meeting of the town, held January 4, 1827, the rep- resentative was instructed to use all fair and honorable means to pre- vent the passage of any legislative act which would deprive the town of Brunswick of any of its territory or in any way disturb the line estab- lished between the counties of Cumberland and Lincoln. This action was taken upon an article in the warrant to see if the town would consent that the islands below the falls should be set off, with their improvements, to Topsham, agreeably to a petition to the legislature of George F. Richardson and others.
The town voted, November 3, that the bills incurred in consequence of depredations on the Indians, the previous August, by Jere O'Brien and John McKeen, should be accepted to the amount of seven dol- lars and twenty cents. It seems that this year a party of Indians had encamped near " the landing," in Brunswick, and that a number of evil-disposed young men made a raid upon them, tore down their tents, and drove them off. O'Brien and McKeen entered a complaint
1 This was a small pole-bridge at the foot of the hill, across a brook leading from the swamp west of Maine Street.
2 The present poor-farm.
10
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HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
against the rioters, and the above vote was intended to compensate them for their legal expenses.
[1828.] In the year 1828, five gentlemen were chosen as agents of the town to oppose any division of the town that might be urged upon the legislature, which was then in session at Portland. One hundred dollars was appropriated for keeping in repair the two fire-engines, for ringing the bell, and for such other purposes as might tend to the security of the town against fire.
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