USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Harpswell > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 19
USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Brunswick > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 19
USA > Maine > Sagadahoc County > Topsham > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 19
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY OF TOPSHAM.
in the Massachusetts archives, the number of votes for him is recorded as seventy-seven.
[1793.] In 1793 Samnel Thompson was chosen a delegate to the convention, to be held at Portland in December, to consider the expe- diency of forming a new State.
[1794.] At the annual meeting in 1794, the town voted to purchase a stock of ammunition. At a meeting, held September 18, William King, afterwards governor, being moderator, the town voted " that those men who shall this day enlist, agreeably to the Act of Congress of the 10th of May last,1 shall receive a bounty of four dollars per man, whether called for or not." The town, moreover, voted that those who should enlist should have their wages made equal. by the town, to ten dollars a month, from the time they should march to actual service until their discharge from the service, allowing them a reason- able time to return home ; and that they should have one month's wages advanced on their march. Also, that one dollar of the aforesaid bounty should be paid on enlistment, and the remaining three dollars on pro- ducing a certificate of having passed muster. Colonel John Read, Jr., Captain Actor Patten, and Doctor Benjamin Jones Porter were chosen a committee to draw up the enlistment orders and to wait on the men and see that their names were enrolled. In November it was voted that a survey of the town be taken, agreeably to a resolve of the General Court. This year, for the first time, several persons were warned to leave the town, not having its consent to reside therein.
[1795.] At the meeting, this year, the selectmen were authorized to take measures to secure the lot of land called the school lot, which was said to belong to the town.
Samuel Thompson was chosen a delegate to a convention, held at Portland, for the same purpose as the previous conventions, and Wil- liam King was chosen representative to the General Court.
[1797.] The question in regard to a separation of the District from the Commonwealth again came before the people in May, 1797, and the town voted forty-six in favor to one against a separation.
[1798.] This year William King was chosen delegate to a conven- tion to be held at Hallowell, on the fourth Tuesday of the October following, to consider the expediency of dividing Lincoln County, and if judged expedient, to agree on the dividing line.
[1799.] At a meeting held May 6, 1799, the town voted to peti- tion the General Court to have a Court of Common Pleas and General
1 For the improvement of the militia, Williamson, 2, p. 570.
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HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
Sessions of the Peace held in Topsham thereafter. Reverend Jona- than Ellis, Doctor Benjamin Jones Porter, and James Purington were chosen a committee to draft and present the petition.
[1801.] In 1801 Captain Robert Patten was exempted from pay- ing taxes for that year " by reason of his house being burnt."
[1802.] At its March meeting in 1802, the town voted to hold its meetings in future in the Court House, and the meeting in the May following was held there.1 At this same meeting it was voted not to send any representative to the General Court that year. A motion was made to reconsider this vote, but it was not carried. " After the moderator (Reverend Jonathan Ellis) had declared the meeting dis- solved, some person (not one of the selectmen) called for the people to bring in their votes for a representative. One of the selectmen protested against the disorderly manner of introducing the business, and declined having anything to do in receiving the votes. Two of the selectmen, however, with the town clerk, received and counted the votes, receiving, however, a number of unqualified votes and refusing some qualified votes which were offered while the votes were being assorted. The moderator then declared that the town had chosen Jonathan Ellis their representative." The town, at a meeting held on the last day of the same month, had a statement to the above effect prepared for presentation to the legislature, containing a remonstrance against Reverend Jonathan Ellis holding a seat as their represent- ative. He was allowed, however, to take his seat.
[1804.] In 1804 a premium of twenty-five cents per head was offered for crows.
[1806.] A Mrs. Drybury became a town charge in 1806. She was the first pauper the town ever had. She lived in a little cot near the First Parish meeting-house. Her house was sold this year by the town for a small sum.
At the meeting for choice of governor this year, considerable feel- ing was manifested at what was considered the unfair management of the polls, and a protest was sent to the General Court.
The protest was signed by : -
ROGER MERRILL. GIDEON WALKER. DAVID PATTERSON. SAMUEL EMERY.
JONATHAN BLAISDELL. LUTHER KIMBALL.
JAMES PURINTON, JR. JAMES COOK.
1 The town meetings had previously been held in the old meeting-house east of the village. Sometimes, in extreme cold weather, the meetings were adjourned to Mrs. Hunter's inn.
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY OF TOPSHAM.
PETER HI. GREEN.
DAVID FOSTER.
GIDEON LARRABEE.
MOSES WAYMOUTH.
NATHANIEL GREEN.
WILLIAM FROST.
SAMUEL TOWNS. JOHN ROGERS.
NATHANIEL WALKER.
JOHN HALEY, JR.
[1807.] In 1807 the town instructed its senator and repre- sentative to make application to the legislature for its consent to a separation of the District of Maine from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
[1808.] The EMBARGO which Congress had, December 22, 1807, declared, was a source of great vexation and suffering to all the New England towns, especially to those on or near the seaboard. Tops- ham suffered from this cause equally with Brunswick or Harpswell, and accordingly, at a meeting held August 20, 1808, the town resolved that it " unanimously approves of the doings of the town of Boston," respecting the petitioning for the repeal of the embargo laws, and the selectmen were directed to communicate this action to the selectmen of Boston. The town also voted to present to the President of the United States a memorial requesting him to suspend the embargo, in whole or in part, and Benjamin Orr, Esquire, William Wilson, and Henry Wilson were chosen a committee to draft the address. It was at once prepared and unanimously accepted by the town. The address, probably for the most part the production of Mr. Orr, was as follows : -
" TO THOS. JEFFERSON,
President of the United States : -
" The inhabitants of the town of Topsham in the State of Massa- chusetts, legally assembled in town meeting on the twentieth day of August, 1808, respectfully represent :
"That having always been influenced by a regard for the general interests and welfare of their country, sincerely attached to its Con- stitution and duly impressed with the necessity of conforming to the laws of their government, they have hitherto submitted to the priva- tions and losses occasioned by the embargo laws, without opposition or complaint, at the same time indulging an anxious hope, that when experience should ascertain the extent and degree of their sufferings, in common with their fellow-citizens, and events in Europe should render it safe and expedient, a speedy relief would be afforded them, through the existing provisions of Congress for that purpose.
" And could your memorialists entertain a belief that the further
.
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HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
suspension of all foreign commerce and the existing restrictions on domestics were necessary to the essential interests of their country, or consistent with the original views and policy of the government in passing the embargo laws, they would still wait the pleasure of gov- ermment, without an expression of their wishes for relief.
" But concurring in opinion with numerous other sections of citi- zens assembled to express their sentiments on this subject, your me- morialists are impressed with a conviction that the late attempt to subjugate the people of Spain to a foreign yoke, and their consequent declaration of independence, and of war against the power attempting to impose it, have materially altered the relations of the United States to some of the powers of Europe ; and also believing that the avenues of a safe and lucrative commerce to the people of this country are by these events laid open, which the wisdom of the legislature has ren- dered available by placing the power to suspend the laws restricting it, in your hands :
" They therefore pray that the embargo laws may be suspended, in whole or in part, as your wisdom may direct, agreeably to the powers vested in you by Congress for that purpose."
A reply was received from President Jefferson to this memorial, which is entered in full on the records of the town. As it is identi- cally the same answer that was given to similar memorials from the majority of the New England towns, and as it has often been published in documents of State and other works, it is not judged necessary to give it in this connection.
[1809.] At a meeting held February 4, 1809, the following reso- lutions and memorial were adopted, - the resolutions to be printed in the Portland Gazette, and the memorial signed by the selectmen and clerk, to be sent to the representative, to be by him presented to the General Court : -
" Resolved, That it becomes us not to despair of the safety of our Republic, while we enjoy the constitutional right and liberty of assem- bling peaceably to consult upon the common good and to petition the legislature to devise and promote the redress of the wrongs and griev- ances we suffer.
" That as it is our privilege 'in prosperity to rejoice,' it is our duty 'in adversity to consider,' to investigate, to ascertain the causes of the calamities we experience and the most effectual means to remove them.
" That we are convinced the people in many instances have not been sufficiently cautious in the exercise of their electoral rights, but
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY OF TOPSHAM.
have permitted themselves to be deceived by crafty and unprincipled men and have frequently conferred their suffrages on seekers of popu- lar favor, without making the important inquiries, ' Are they capable ?' ' Are they honest?' ' Are they attached to the Constitution?'
" Hence it has happened that many, destitute of requisite talents and integrity, have been promoted to offices of the highest trust and importance ; and that we now feel the extensive mischief naturally arising from this want of caution and inquiry in the people ; for power obtained by fraud will always resort to violence for support.
" That the principles and public conduct of our rulers are the fair objects of a manly and public-spirited scrutiny, for the purposes of merited censure or approbation, their continuance or removal from office, in the prescribed forms.
" That, when we take into view the great prosperity generally dif- fused through our once happy land, under the arduous administration of the revered Washington and his immediate successor, we are com- pelled to believe, that the numerous and heavy evils since fallen and daily accumulating upon us have been principally occasioned by the departure of our rulers from that wise, firm, liberal, and impartial policy which regulated the conduct of those distinguished patriots.
" That, with sorrow, we must confess that the present executive of the United States has appeared to ns, in the course of his adminis- tration, more like the dependant and humble friend of a foreign despot than the brave and generous chief of a great spirited and free people, -- inore devoted to the nefarious schemes of the republic-destroying, King-making Napoleon, than to the security, peace, and happiness of his own country, or to the rights and privileges of those nations, who, having made a noble stand, are now contending from the pure spirit of patriotism against that rapacious tyrant of boundless ambition.
" That the people have a right to require of their lawgivers and magistrates, who are at all times accountable to them, an exact and constant observance of constitutional principles in the formation and execution of the laws.
" That our national legislature, apparently from the impulse of executive influence, have enacted a system of embargo laws, in our decided opinion, unconstitutional in principle and ruinous in operation, that must subject us abroad to contempt, at home to want and wretcli- edness.
" That we consider the act entitled ' An Act to enforce the several Embargo Laws of the United States,' a most flagrant violation of many articles in our federal and State Constitution and the measures pre-
13
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HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
scribed to carry it into effect to be utterly subversive of our dearest rights and privileges ; that it is a law which the people are not bound to obey and which we believe, from their strong attachment to the liberties of their country, they will not obey.
" That we most cordially approve the patriotic conduct of those officers of the revenue department who, disdaining to be the instru- ments of arbitrary power, and having a more tender concern for the rights of their fellow-citizen than for the emoluments of office, have lately retired to the post of honor, - a private station. That we sin- cerely hope these patriotic examples will excite a general emulation, and should deeply lament that any from a penurious, calculating spirit, from a mere regard to private property, should submit to or aid the execution of laws destructive of our civil liberties."
" MEMORIAL.
" TO THE HONORABLE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN GENERAL COURT ASSEMBLED.
" The inhabitants of the town of Topsham in legal town meeting as- sembled on the fourth day of February, A. D. 1809, respectfully rep- resent,
"That in the late recess of Congress, they petitioned the President of the United States to relieve them from the sufferings occasioned by the embargo, and, finding no hope of relief, they have made a similar application to Congress, by whom their petition has also been neglected.
"To your honorable body, therefore, your memorialists are induced to resort for relief, not only from the evils and sufferings of which they had reason to complain to the President and to Congress, but also from others of more serious moment emanating from those high authorities.
" At the time of the passing of the first embargo law, the respect due to the constituted authorities induced your memorialists to hope that it would not be continued in force beyond the ability of the people to endure it ; but in the Act recently passed, not only to enforce that law and its supplementary appendages, but to extort additional sacri- fices the most exorbitant, they recognize a policy equally ruinous and oppressive.
" Had this law been wholly original it would have been less dread- ful in its aspects ; but in the French decree of April, 1808, it has both an example and guarantee, by which all vessels of citizens of the United States found at sea after that time are declared forfeited to France for breach of the embargo.
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195
MUNICIPAL HISTORY OF TOPSHAM.
" When such is the concurrence of laws, your memorialists can entertain no hope of relief or of safety from the constituted guardians of their national rights and privileges.
" To enumerate the losses, privations, and sufferings resulting from the embargo system would be but a recapitulation of circum- stances familiar to every mind.
" The protection they afford to seamen brings with it want and misery; the benefits they confer on merchants are waste and bank- ruptcy, and to the hand of charity they consign the necessitous laborer and his dependants. As to their effects abroad, none are perceptible to your memorialists, except the approbation of the nation to whom alone they are beneficial and the disregard of that which they were manifestly intended to restrain and humble.
" The act to enforce the embargo, in its relation to the Constitution, cannot escape the notice of your honorable body. By this act the property of your memorialists, as well as their fellow-citizens, is ren- dered liable to seizure by military force, without evidence, without process or trial, and on the suspicion alone of an accuser, and neither their possessions nor buildings remain a secure depository against the combination of jealousy and force to assail them; these, with the exaction of exorbitant bonds for acts in themselves lawful at the time of doing them. appear to your memorialists calculated to deprive them of their most essential constitutional rights.
" In recurring to the transactions of the last session of your hon- orable body, your memorialists derive the highest satisfaction from the consideration that the opposing voice of a free people was distinctly expressed to an administration that had been offering up an essential part of their national rights a sacrifice to the boundless ambition of a foreign despot, rights that were obtained by the toils of the illustrious Washington and his companions and fellow-sufferers, and seeured by a Constitution that will never be abandoned by free men, to the merci- less hands that opposed it in its origin and still seek to destroy it. In the wisdom and firmness of your honorable body to restore to your memorialists and their fellow-citizens of the State the full enjoyment of those rights by rescuing them from the destructive grasp of the tyrant of Europe and his minions, they repose the most implicit confi- dence, and they pledge themselves by all the lawful means in their power to support the measures that your honors may adopt for the general safety and relief, against the various acts of violence and oppression with which they have been assailed by foreign and domes- tic usurpers. They therefore pray your honors to take the subject of
1
196
HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSIIAM, AND HARPSWELL.
their grievances into consideration and adopt such measures of redress as you, in your wisdom, shall deem proper and expedient."
[1810.] In the year 1810 a committee was chosen to superintend the inoeulation with the kine-pox of all such persons as had not had the small-pox, and one hundred dollars was appropriated for the vac- cination of those unable to bear the expense themselves.
[1811.] In 1811 a committee was chosen to discover what method should be taken to keep the highways from being encumbered with mill logs, timber, etc., especially on the island, and in the village near Granny's Hole. This committee reported at a subsequent meeting to the effeet that inereased diligence should be required on the part of surveyors, etc. The committee on' vaccination reported that Doctor Isaac Lincoln had vaceinated four hundred and three persons, of which number three hundred and ninety-one eases had been successful and twelve were doubtful. The committee complimented Doctor Lincoln for the zeal and attention which he had shown in the matter.
[1812.] In 1812 Benjamin Hasey, Esquire, and Thomas G. Sand- ford were chosen delegates to a county convention, to be held at Wiscasset on August the third, " to take into consideration the alarm- ing state of public affairs, to ascertain and express by memorial, or otherwise, the voice of the people relative to the WAR in which we are now involved, and to devise and recommend the most speedy means of relief from its awful calamities." On August the first, the follow- ing resolutions were adopted as the sentiments of the people of Tops- ham, and a copy of them was sent to the Portland Gazette for publication : -
" Resolved, That 'in the present season of calamity and war' it behooves the people to exercise their essential and unalienable right of consulting and seeking their safety and happiness; that, at all times, it is their duty to approve and support, with zeal and alaerity, laws for the vindication of their rights and the advancement of their welfare, and their right and privilege to expose and control, by the powers of reason and argument, all public measures endangering their security, their prosperity and peace.
" Resolved, That we cannot cease to cherish our fond attachment to the union of the States and the federal Constitution, endeared to us by the upright, wise, and liberal administration of Washington ; that we cannot cease to hope that the innumerable evils already inflicted by the partial, degrading, and destructive 'exercise of restrictive energies,' .commenced by the last administration and consummated
--
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MUNICIPAL HISTORY OF TOPSHAM.
by the present, will awaken in ourselves and our fellow-citizens a lively sense of our common dangers, and unite us, as the surest means of relief, in a firm resolution to intrust with power those only who are true to the example and faithful to the precepts of the departed Father of our Country.
" Resolved, . That we cannot insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they are less able to defend their rights, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors ; that we will not insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment " to regain their lost liberties " by a blind and tame submission to a long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.' 1
" Resolved, 'That a state of war does not destroy or diminish the rights of citizens to examine the conduct of public men and the ten- dency of public measures'; 2 that all attempts to impair the liberty of opinion and inquiry, the freedom of speech and of the press, are infringements upon our most invaluable constitutional rights and privi- leges, meriting the pointed disapprobation of all except Napoleon and his humble worshippers.
" Resolved, That we deeply lament the numerous facts which loudly proclaim that, in too many instances, the spirit of faction has mis- guided the deliberations of our State and national legislature. That by faction we understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or interest adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the whole.
" Resolved, That to a factious spirit only can we attribute the con- trivance of our senatorial districts by which nearly three fourths of the present Senate have been elected by a minority of votes of the whole State. That to intemperate party zeal in the Senate so chosen we must ascribe their obstinate refusal to adopt any one of the various propositions made to them by the House of Representatives, at their last session, for dividing the Commonwealth into electoral districts, and especially their refusing to concur in the resolve providing for the choice of electors by the people at large. That we consider these proceedings as disgraceful to the Commonwealth as grievances of the most alarming magnitude, demanding redress without delay ; that we have full confidence that our representative in the General Court will
1 Madison.
2 De Witt Clinton.
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HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
not be wanting in his endeavors to correct procedures so reproachful and oppressive.
" Resolved, That to a spirit adverse to the rights of the maritime States we must impute the long neglect and repeated refusals of our Congressional legislature to provide a navy in some degree compe- tent to protect our commerce and guard our extensive and almost defenceless coasts ; that our surprise at this neglect is greatly aggra- vated when we call to mind the solemn truths long since announced by the present chief magistrate of the Union, truths the more impor- tant and interesting now we are placed in 'an attitude' if not in 'an armor' of war. 'Naval batteries, the most capable of repelling for- eign enterprises upon our safety, are happily such as can never be turned by a perfidi us government against our liberties. The inhab- itants of the Atlantic frontier are all of them deeply interested in this provision for naval protection ; and if they have hitherto been suffered to sleep quietly in their beds ; if their property has remained safe against the predatory spirit of licentious adventurers ; if their maritime towns have not been compelled to ransom themselves from the terrors of a conflagration by yielding to the exaction of daring and sudden invaders, these instances of good fortune are not to be attrib- uted to the protection of the existing government that claims their allegiance, but to causes that are fugitive and fallacious.' 1
" Resolved, That the closest examination we have been able to make of the long train of our foreign negotiations compels us to believe that the unnecessary and ruinous war, into which we are now plunged, is to be attributed more to the impulse of faction, combined with the intriguing, flattering, menacing, confiscating, plundering, and burning policy of the modern Attila, operating upon our own govern- ment with magic influence, than to the 'injustice of a foreign power,' declared to be our enemy.
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