USA > Maine > Oxford County > Paris > History of Paris, Maine, from its settlement to 1880, with a history of the grants of 1736 & 1771, together with personal sketches, a copious genealogical register and an appendix > Part 2
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12
HISTORY OF PARIS.
ships were originally laid out in New Hampshire, upon territory then claimed by Massachusetts ; five of them were held by the grantees under a subsequent arrangement with the Masonian proprietors, and the proprietors of three of them, after many years, took new grants in Maine, in lieu of them. These three grants are now the towns of Bridgton, Waterford and Turner. So in Maine, we had five original Canada townships and three by substitution. Livermore was granted for services in the reduction of Port Royal, and Port Royal was the plantation name of the town.
Individuals were equally successful in obtaining grants of land, if there was the least foundation for their claim. Samuel Jordan of Biddeford and Christopher Baker, who had been captives to the Indians in Canada ; Richard Cutts of Kittery, who was shot ten years before and lay sick of his wounds ; Ruth Lee who had lost her husband in the attack upon Port Royal ; the children of Major Con- verse who had lost their father in the Indian wars; and Richard Tozier of Berwick who had suffered much from the savages ; all of these and many others obtained grants of land varying from one to two hundred acres, which they had a right to select from any of the- unappropriated lands in Maine. Any person severely wounded, bereaved of husband or father, made captive or cripple, was, upon request, sure of receiving the legislative bounty .* The Canada grants were all made through the Committee of Lands, whose report at this period and subsequently, was considered a sufficient reason for a legislative grant, and was passed upon without question or- delay. There was always a condition attached to each grant of a township, that a certain number of actual settlers should be upon the territory within a specified time, that a house of worship should be erected and a regularly ordained minister settled.
About the year 1735, numerous petitions were presented to the General Court for grants of land, some of them from old and thickly settled Massachusetts towns which wanted room to expand or colonize, but in most instances from persons or their descendants, who had done service in the Indian wars. Some were for specific service as in the invasion of Canada or at the reduction of Port Royal, while others were for general service in the colonial army. As the lands in Massachusetts proper had nearly all been granted, and as the continued hostilities of the Indians prevented settlements in the interior of Maine, the grants of this period were mostly made from
*Williamson's Maine.
13
HISTORY OF PARIS.
lands which are now in the State of New Hampshire, and for further reasons which will be treated of more at length hereafter. Town- ships granted for settlement were proprieties or proprietaries, being corporate tenancies in common, and several acts were passed pro- viding for calling proprietor's meetings, regulating their officers, enforcing their votes, making assessment and collecting taxes. The Massachusetts Bay Government was interested in the settlement of new towns, because it enlarged her borders, increased her wealth and population. and erected additional barriers against the attacks of hostile Indians. The Crown on the other hand, was opposed because the extension of new settlements opened up more conven- ient avenues to the King's forests of oak and pine, and other ship timber reserved in the grant to the Province.
CHAPTER III.
LAND GRANTS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
The Boundary Contest .- Massachusetts Defeated and her Grants declared Void.
The controversy between the proprietors of New Hampshire and the Massachusetts Bay government, respecting the northern boundary of the latter, was very similar to the one between Massachusetts and Maine, which has already been referred to. When the early grants were made, the country, except along the seacoast, was very little known. Some of the principal rivers had been examined so far as they were navigable, but beyond their navigable points, their direction was unknown, and the lands bordering upon them a terra incognita. It is no wonder, then, that grants bounded by rivers whose general direction was unknown, and extending to seas or oceans whose very existence was in dispute, should be subjects of dis- pute and of almost interminable litigation. The Hon. Rufus Choate, who was employed in a case growing out of a question of the boundary line between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, said, "I would as soon think of setting forth the boundaries between sover- eign states as beginning at a blue-jay on the bough of a pine tree, thence easterly to a dandelion gone to seed, thence due south to three hundred foxes with fire-brands tied between their tails." The terms of the Massachusetts charter granted in 1629 and confirmed
14
HISTORY OF PARIS.
in 1691, established the northern boundary three miles north of the Merrimac river and each and every part of it, meaning of course, three miles beyond the river. It was then supposed as already stated, that the general course of the Merrimac was from west to east, whereas at a point about thirty miles from the sea, it makes a right angle and from that point stretches almost due north. There was no mistake as to the meaning and intent of the grant in fixing this northern boundary, but when Massachusetts wished to find a pretext for taking possession of a large proportion of the grants to Gorges and Mason, a new interpretation was given to the language describing the boundary, and instead of a line three miles across the river at its mouth, a point was taken three miles north of its headwaters, and from that a line easterly to the sea. If this interpretation had been sustained, nearly the whole territory of New Hampshire would have gone to Massachusetts. The Masonian pro- prietors stoutly resisted this encroachment, and in the settled towns on the disputed territory, there was constant trouble. Governor Belcher in a letter to the Lords of Trade in London, said: "the borderers on the lines, (if your Lordships will allow me so vulgar an expression), live like toads under a harrow, being run into jails, on the one side and the other, as often as they please to quarrel, such is the sad condition of his Majesty's subjects that live near the lines. They pull down one another's houses, often wound each other, and I fear it will end in bloodshed, unless his Majesty, in his goodness, gives some effectual order to have the bounds fixt." While this controversy was going on, the Massachusetts Bay govern- ment was annually making grants within the limits of the contested territory until no less than thirty-seven townships were granted. As stated elsewhere, some of these grants were for services in the invasion of Canada in 1690, some for services in the reduction of Port Royal, some for general military service without specification, and others for no military services at all. A large number of grants was made in 1735-6, partly doubtless with the view of occupying the disputed territory and with the hope of thereby influencing the decision of the boundary question, and partly for the purpose of encouraging the settlement of several northern towns to operate as a barrier against the incursions of hostile Indians from Canada. Among other townships ordered laid out in 1735, were two tiers of six each, extending from the Merrimac to the Connecticut rivers. Number four of this survey was granted to Samuel Jackson, and
15
HISTORY OF PARIS.
fifty-nine others of Newton, Watertown, Waltham and neighboring towns. Number one of this survey, between Merrimac and Connec- ticut rivers, was granted to Salisbury and Amesbury, and is the present town of Warner. In a History of the town recently pub- lished, by Gen. Walter Harriman, it is stated that it was not known that its grantees had rendered any particular service to the King. "They gave nothing for their township, but at the time this, and many other grants were made, the boundary was in controversy, and, to gain ground in the contest, Massachusetts used every effort to induce men to accept grants of land." This statement is corrobo- rated by records contemporaneous with the grants. Meanwhile, the contest was sharply carried on, and after commissioners appointed for the purpose, had failed to come to a decision, the matter was referred directly to King George the second, whose royal decision promulgated on the 5th of March, 1740, was far better for New Hampshire than ever the Masonian proprietors claimed. It estab- lished a curved line, "following the course of the river Merrimac at the distance of three miles on the north side, beginning at the Atlantic ocean and ending at Pawtucket Falls (now Lowell), thence due west to His Majesty's other governments." This is the present line between the two States. By this decision, all the grants made north of this line by Massachusetts, were rendered null and void, including the grant to "Samuel Jackson and others." Some of the grantees made terms with the Masonian proprietors and retained their lands, but in most cases and the case of Samuel Jackson and others among them, the grants were abandoned.
16
HISTORY OF PARIS.
CHAPTER IV.
LAND GRANTS CONTINUED.
The Greed, for Land .- Grants of 1735-6 .- Action of the Governor and Council.
Our New England ancestors were not only lovers of liberty, but they also early developed a passion for land, and soon after the first settlements in Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay colonies, and the organization of colonial governments, the people begun to clamor for grants of land, and that clamor did not cease until all the public lands had passed from government to private control. The town of Duxbury was settled from Plymouth about the year 1632, or twelve years after the landing, and in 1644, on the petition of Duxbury men, the court ordered a survey of territory, and in the following year granted the petitioners that large tract of land which was called Bridgewater, and from which several good sized towns have since been formed. Other territorial grants were made, and settlements began in Marshfield, Middleboro, Rochester, and at various other places, and in a few years the whole of Plymouth Colony was dotted over with settlements, though no town had any- thing like the population which its soil, if well cultivated, was capable of supporting. The same is equally true of the early settlers of the Massachusetts Bay. Salem was settled in 1628, Charlestown in 1629, Dorchester in 1630, and Boston and Water- town the same year, and hardly had a beginning been made in these towns, before the settlers were seized with a desire to colonize still farther, and ontlying tracts were quickly taken up and occupied. So anxions were they to possess all the land that joined them, that they did not even wait for the extinguishment of the Indian titles by the government, but individuals often purchased lands of the Indian sachems for a mere trifle, and made no little troublesome litigation for themselves and their posterity, thereby. This mania for landed property was doubtless due to the fact that most of the first New England settlers were men of moderate means, had never owned real estate, but had been tenants upon the large estates of the landed gentry of Old England. Hence, to become possessed of land, and lords of the soil, was to them a novel and most interesting change, and not satisfied with the small areas allotted to them in the first settled towns, they wished to go where they could spread out
17
HISTORY OF PARIS.
and extend their boundaries in imitation of their landlords in the country from which they came. The complaint of being "straitened for want of more land," was put forth by the first settlers, and was repeated by their descendants for more than a century and a half. Rev. Thomas Hooker with his company, came to Dorchester in 1633, and because towns had been begun so near Cambridge as Charles- town, Roxbury and Watertown, he went through the wilderness and commenced a settlement at Hartford. Connecticut, in order that he might not be crowded. After the extinguishment of the Indian titles, or the most of them, by the government of the Massachusetts colony, they very freely made grants of farms and townships to individuals and to companies on certain prescribed conditions to be complied with. For the grant of a township, the usual conditions were, that the number of grantees should not be less than sixty, that sixty families should be settled upon the grant within seven years, and an orthodox minister be settled. Reservations were made of lands for ministerial purposes and for schools. It by no means followed that a person who applied for a grant, intended ever to settle upon it himself, and it was often the case that only a small per cent of the grantees ever saw the territory granted them, or any part of it. It was frequently a matter of speculation, and became a passion which pervaded all classes of the community. Profes- sional men, doctors, lawyers and ministers of the gospel, govern- ment officers from the chief magistrate down, as well as the merchants, mechanics, farmers and common laborers were more or less affected with this mania for wild lands, nor has it by any means died out even in our own times. The lands of the Massachusetts Bay and of the Plymouth Colony had all or nearly all been granted prior to 1691, when by the royal charter of William and Mary, the two colonies were consolidated and with the Province of Maine, placed under the government of the Massachusetts Bay. There were still extensive tracts of land embracing the entire interior of Maine, which had not been granted nor settled on account of con- tinued Indian hostilities.
In 1735, quite a number of petitions for grants of land had accumulated, and at a meeting of the Great and General Court. holden in Boston on the 15th day of January, 1735 (O. S.), Edmund Quincy, Esq., from the committee on Petitions for town- ships of land, etc., reported in substance as follows: "That there be a careful view and survey of the lands between Merrimac and
2
18
HISTORY OF PARIS.
Connecticut rivers from the northwest corner of Rumford (now Concord, N. H.) on Merrimac river to the Great Falls on the Con- necticut, of twelve miles at least in breadth, or north and south, by a committee of eleven able and suitable persons to be appointed by this court, who shall, after a due knowledge of the nature and the circumstances thereof, lay out the same into as many townships of the contents of six miles square as the land in width as aforesaid will allow of; no township to be more than six miles east and west, and also lay out the land on the east side of Connecticut river from said Falls to the township laid out to Josiah Williard and others, into as many townships of the contents of six miles square, as the same will allow of; and also the land on the west side of the river Connecticut from said Falls to the equivalent land, into one or two townships of the contents of six miles square, if the same will allow thereof; and that the said committe make report of their doings to the Court at their session in May next, or as soon as they conven- iently can, that so the persons whose names are contained in the several petitions hereafter mentioned, viz. : In the Petition of Hop- kinton ; in that of Salisbury and Amesbury ; in that of Cambridge ; in that of Bradford and Wenham ; in that of Haverhill ; in that of Milton and Brookline ; in that of Samuel Chamberlain and Jonathan Jewett ; in that of Nathaniel Harris et als. ; in that of Stephens, Goulder et als ; in that of Jonathan Wells et als ; in that of Lyscom and Johnson et als ; in that of Isaac Little et als ; in that of Jonathan Powers et als ; in that of John Whitman, Esq., et als ; in that of Samuel Haywood et als ; in that of Josiah Fossett et als ; in that of John Flynt et als ; in that of John Harward and others of Bridgewater, that have not heretofore been admitted grantees or settlers within the space of seven years last past, of or in any former or other grant of a township or particular grant on condition of settling ; and that shall appear and give security to the value of forty pounds to perform the conditions that shall be enjoined by the court, may by the major part of the committee, be admitted grantees into one of the said townships ; the committee to give public notice of the time and place of their meeting to admit the grantees ; which committee shall be empowered to employ surveyors and chainmen to assist them in surveying and laying out said township ; the Province to bear the charge, and be repaid by the grantees who may be admitted, the whole charge they shall advance ; which committee we apprehend, ought to be directed and empowered to admit sixty
19
HISTORY OF PARIS.
settlers in each township, and take their bonds payable to the com- mittee and their successors in the said trust, to the use of the Province for the performance of the conditions of their grant, viz. : that each grant build a dwelling house of eighteen feet square and seven feet stud at the least, on their respective home-lots ; and fence in and break up for plowing, or clear and stock with English grass, five acres of land within three years next after their admit- tance, and cause their respective lots to be inhabited ; and that the grantees do within the space of three years from the time of their being admitted, build and finish a convenient meeting house for the public worship of God, and settle a learned Orthodox Minister ; and in case any of the grantees shall fail or neglect to perform what is enjoined as above, the committee shall be obliged to put tlie bond in suit and take possession of the lands and rights that shall become forfeit, and proceed to grant them to other persons that will appear to fulfil the conditions within one year next after the said last men- tioned grant. And if sufficient number of petitioners that have had no grant within seven years as aforesaid, viz. : sixty to each town- ship, do not appear, others may be admitted, provided they have fulfilled the conditions of their former grant ; the committee to take care that there be sixty-three houselots laid out in as regular, com- pact and defensible a manner as the land will allow of, one of which lots shall be for the first settled minister, one for the second settled minister, and one for the schools ; to each of which an equal propor- tion of lands shall accrue in all future divisions.
The report of the committee received favorable consideration and on the day following, the Court ordered : "That Joseph Gerrish, Benjamin Prescott, Josiah Willard, Job Almy, Esquires, Mr. Moses Pierson and Capt. Joseph Gould, with such as the Honorable Board shall join, be a committee to all intents and purposes to effect the business projected by the report of the committee of both Houses, to consider the petitions for townships which passed this day, viz. : on the proposed line between Merrimac and Connecticut rivers, and on both sides of the Connecticut river, and that there be granted and allowed to be paid out of the public treasury after the rate of fifteen shillings per diem for every day he is in the service in the woods, and subsistence, and ten shillings per diem for every day to each one of the said committee while in the service, in admitting settlers into the said townships, and subsistence, to be paid as aforesaid."
20
HISTORY OF PARIS.
"In Council, Read and concurred, and Wm. Dudley, Samuel Welles, Thomas Berry, Joseph Wilder, and John Chandler, Jr., Esquires, are joined with the committee of the House, for the line between Merrimac and Connecticut rivers, &c."
CHAPTER V.
TITLES TO THE SOIL.
Original Land Titles in Maine .- Land Titles in Oxford County, with Areas of Territory Granted and Sold prior to 1820.
A brief sketch of the land titles in Maine upon which all our rights in real estate are based, though not belonging especially to the history of Paris, may not be without interest in this connection. These titles are of four kinds, viz. : Crown grants and grants from Lords proprietors, Indian grants or titles, Province grants and Province sales. The titles in York, Cumberland and Lincoln coun- ties with a considerable portion of Kennebec, are almost wholly of the two former classes ; those in Oxford county are entirely of the two latter. The following are the Province grants in this county, as originally organized, made either for military service in the French and Indian wars, or in lieu of grants made of what proved to be New Hampshire lands, either for military or other service, or to insure their settlement :
TOWN. ACRES.
GRANTEES, &C.
Bethel,
24,278
Canada Township.
Gilead,
14,345
Peabody's Patent.
Fryeburg, 26,549
grant to Gen. Joseph Frye for military services.
Hebron & Oxford, 36,221
to Alex Shepard, Jr., for surveying pub. lands.
Jay & Canton, 20,905
Phipps Canada ; in lieu of a former grant.
Livermore, 27,430 military service at Port Royal.
Lovell & Sweden, 37,430
Capt. Lovewell and company.
Paris,
23,971
Joshua Fuller et als., in lieu of former grant.
Turner,
31,359
Sylvester Canada ; in lieu of former grant.
Rumford,
19,170 grant to citizens of Concord, N. H.
Waterford,
21,192
Canada township, in lieu of former grant.
The following are the Province sales of townships and parts of townships in Oxford county, and the grants to academies which soon came into proprietors hands :
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HISTORY OF PARIS.
TOWN.
ACRES.
GRANTEES, &C.
Andover,
29,433
Albany,
14,153
Brownfield,
28,866
T. Cutler and others.
Buckfield,
15,959
Abijah Buck and others.
Berlin,
27,650
S. Wetmore and J. Abbott.
Carthage,
23.250
B. Ames.
Denmark.
27,623
Fryeburg Academy, &c.
Greenwood,
22,574
Phillips Academy, &c.
Hiram.
13 612
Peleg Wadsworth and others. Joel Parkhurst and others.
Hartford.
19,821
Sumner,
15,713
Dixfield,
19,130
Mexico,
12,712
Norway,
25,022
Newry,
32,775
Peru,
21,499
Porter,
15,693
Woodstock,
24,192
Weld,
32,775
Howard's Gore,
2,012
Fryeburg Addition,
1,199
Bradley & Eastman's,
2,800
Fryeburg Academy Grant,
4,147
No. 7.
23,937
No. 8,
25,412
Hamlin's Grant,
1,270
Cyrus Hamlin.
Andover No. Surplus, 66
15,960
John Richards.
West Surplus,
11,696
S. Johnson and others.
A. No. 1, A. No. 2,
28,507
J. J. Holmes. Hounsfield & Davis.
66
C,
21,074
Ann S. Davis.
D,
E,
20,600
J. Cummings.
No. 1, R 1,
22,552
Moses Abbott.
" 2, " 6:
22,080
Thomas Sewise.
" 3, "
29,440
" 2, R 2,
23,040
John Peck.
6 : 3, “
30,720
W. & G. Gilbert.
66 2, R 3,
66
21,000
John Peck.
3, "
66
21,000
E. Blake, Jr.
66
4, “
21,000
Dunlap and Grant.
5, R 4,
23,040
Josiah Quincy.
66
23,436
Samuel Watkinson.
*Rust and Cummings purchased of the Province.
J. Holman and others.
Lee, Rust and Cummings .* Sarah Bostwick. J. Thompson and others.
J. Hill and others. Dummer and Gorham Academies. T. Russell, Jr. Phineas Howard.
John Derby. Sarah Waldo.
Township B. (Upton),
25,600
Phebe Ketchum.
26,165
66 20,500
J. Gardner.
S. W. Johnson and others. Joseph Holt and others.
22
HISTORY OF PARIS.
TOWN.
ACRES.
GRANTEES, &C.
¿ No. 1, R 3, (Upton),
11,520
Canaan Academy.
No. 5, R 2, 4,
11,520
Bath Academy.
" 5, R 3,
66
22,717
Abel Cutler.
66
5,760
Hallowell Academy.
Surplus C,
12,206
John Peck.
Bachelder's Grant,
28,822
Josiah Bachelder.
Tract between Hartford and Livermore, 1,286
Monmouth Free School.
Nine Islands in the Andros- coggin river,
214
Sundry small grants,
8,200
Monmouth Academy. Various Persons.
The areas of towns in acres as here given, are taken from the returns of surveys, in the office of the Secretary of State in Boston, for all the transfers here mentioned were made prior to the separa- tion of Maine from Massachusetts in 1820. In many cases, the actual number of acres is considerably greater than these returns show. In the case of Paris, for instance, the area in acres as returned, was 23,971, while the town as originally laid out contained more than 30,000 acres. An important allowance was always made in surveying for ponds and rivers, often for poor land, and for the "swag" of the four rod chain. A township of six miles square, the usually limited size of early grants, would contain 23,040 acres, but grantees were always greedy and sometimes unscrupulous, while the government was generally lenient where the prescribed limits were not exceeded by more than one-fourth or one-third. The grant of Sudbury, Canada (Bethel) was for a township six and one-half miles square, but to take in as much of the Androscoggin as possible with its choice bottom lands, the length of the town was made twelve or more miles.
the
20,904
Huntington and Pitkin.
5, R 5,
11,520
Farmington Academy.
23
HISTORY OF PARIS.
CHAPTER VI.
GRANT OF 1736.
Samuel Jackson and others .- No. 4 Surveyed and Lotted, and Pro- prietors Draw their Rights .- Preparations for settlement briskly going on .- A sudden suspension .- No. 4 Proves to be in New Hampshire and the Grant is Void.
At a Great and General Court held in Boston on the 24th day of November, 1736, the following vote passed the two Houses and was consented to by the Governor :
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