History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. I, Part 13

Author: Banks, Charles Edward, 1854-1931
Publication date: 1931
Publisher: Boston, Mass. [Calkins Press]
Number of Pages: 556

USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Bristol > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. I > Part 13
USA > Maine > York County > York > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. I > Part 13

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In 1699 the town took its first action towards creating a proprietary of the common land in York as expressed in the following vote:

Land to Lye Comon vol. I, P. II9

5. It is voted and confirmed By us the freeholders and other prinsubble Inhabitance Belonging to this Abovesd town of York: that all the Land Lying and Being and is Bounded as followeth: which is not already Granted and Layd out within the Space of one year after this date: shall Be reserved, cept and Confirmed as and for commonage for the uses of sd town: upon the Southwest sid Bounded upon the heads of the Lotts Setteld; upon the Northeast Side of York river, and to Beginn upon the Southwest Corner of the rockey Ground, and then to run upon a Northeast Line to Cape Nedick river : and from thence as the river runs up to the head of said pond of it, runs upon the Southwest Side, and from thence North West to Bell Marsh Brook: and so as the Brook runs down to the head of the North East Branch of York River &c/

Abram Preble Junr Town Cleark

This problem, which had to be settled some time, lingered unsolved for a generation and the old procrasti- nating methods of transacting town business, where per- sonal interests were involved, held sway in the meantime. Lots continued to be granted every year at each town meeting. Actual division remained in suspension, although in 1710 the town voted that the land on the northwest side of the southwest branch of the river should "remain Commons for ever." Doubtless two parties developed over this question, those inheritors of the " Ancient Grants" and the recent comers to town since the beginning of the

137

HISTORY OF YORK

new century. In 1728 the freeholders took preliminary nibbles at the question. The method of apportioning lots to "Young Men" born in the town, arose and a committee was appointed to arrange their shares on land "outside the Stated Commons."

At last the first of the final steps was taken that same year, when a committee was appointed "to lay out the Stated Town Commons." The fight was on. Capt. Peter Nowell, a large and wealthy landholder, dissented and demanded that a committee be appointed to consider the "Ancient Grants," evidently a complicated subject, as it took four years to reach a conclusion. On March 14, 1732 Jeremiah Moulton, Peter Nowell, Samuel Came, Samuel Clarke, Joseph Holt, John Stone, Richard Milberry, Ralph Farnham, Samuel Sewall, John Harmon, Arthur Bragdon, Abiel Goodwin, Alexander Junkins, Joseph Kingsbury and Joseph Preble were appointed a committee to present a plan for dividing the commons. They acted promptly and on June 20, after two meetings of the townsmen, their report was accepted, following "long debates" (T. R. ii, 55). Briefly stated the land was to be divided into shares and the maximum number of shares per person was set at eight, and "each mans name men- tioned by the Moderator & that it be Severally put to vote." Three men were chosen as "Monitors," Peter Nowell, Jonathan Bane, and John Sayward, "to propose how many shares each man shall have," in both common land and stated town commons. The list of persons assigned shares is printed in the appendix to this volume, alphabetically arranged, for convenience of examination, with the number of shares allowed. It will be noted that the "monitors" fared well as each received the full number of eight.

Two shares were voted to "such young men as were born in this Town, are more than Twenty one Years of age, now live in the Town & have paid Rates in the Town and have had no share granted to them before." After all this march up to the cannon's mouth they immediately retreated and solemnly voted that the "Stated Town Commons be not divided till after the Term of Twenty Years." Hezekiah Adams and Thomas Adams, Jr., entered their dissent against all votes passed except this last one!

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The Proprietors did not delay the full twenty years, however. In 1746 they held a meeting and unanimously voted

The com'tee chosen and Impowered to Divide the said Commons having taken a plan of the Stated Commons, so-called, presented the same to the Proprietors for Advice how large Lots to Divide the same into.

That the said Com'tee make two Divisions of the said Stated Com- mons so-called to be separated by a Line to run as near the Middle as conveniently as may be from the Sea Ward towards Berwick and Divide the said Two Divisions into Eight Share Lots equally both for Quantity and Quality according to their best Skill and Judgment That the said Com'tee Lay out such Roads or Ways as may be neces- sary to accomodate the said Lots.

The last major division made by the Proprietors was made by them four years later. In 1750 they voted to allot the Outer Commons, so-called, being the area in the extreme northerly corner of the town, exclusive of grants already made to residents who had built homes in that region.

The extent is shown in the accompanying map which delineates the Stated and Outer Commons. The latter was divided into nine "ranges" beginning at Baker's Spring and extending southwest along the Berwick bounds, the lots varying in size from one hundred to two hundred and sixty acres according to the character of the terrain. These lots were further subdivided into shares varying from eight to thirty-six. "Only tis to be remem- bred," said the Committee, "That the Lot Number Four in the Ninth Range on the Letter H we have assign'd no share to, But recommend that Lot, (containing One Hun- dred Acres) to be reserved for the Use of the Ministry, or such other use or uses as shall hereafter be Ordered & appointed, in Satisfaction for a Grant of that Quantity made by said Town March 18, 1671." Thomas Bragdon, Samuel Milberry, Alexander McIntire, Abraham Nowell and Jonathan Sayward constituted the membership of this Committee. This lot, assigned to the town, was in the extreme northeast part of the Outer Commons about two hundred rods from the Wells line, near Josias River.

Certificates of these shares were issued and were soon marketed by the holders at a uniform price of one pound a share, and became an investment for those with ready money and willing to await the actual division into sur- veyed lots. The shareholders named in the preceding list

139

HISTORY OF YORK

became incorporated as the Proprietors of the Common Lands, January 13, 1732-3, and continued to hold meet- ings and function as such until 1820, by which time all of the original territory embraced in the patent of the Council for New England had become divided in severalty by metes and bounds. The last record of a meeting of the Proprietors is dated August 15, 1820. Jeremiah Moulton was the first Proprietor's Clerk.

STAGE NECK

This tongue of land is easily the most interesting and romantic heritage of the Colonial past. It has ever been the focus of public interest either as the gateway to the town or the last embarkation point of criminals. It began its civilized career as a "stage" for fishermen when the first settlers arrived, and for this purpose it was admi- rably suited. In the early years of this occupancy it was an island, the sandy bar connecting it with the shore being submerged at high tide, and the first reference to it as "Stage Island" in 1648 shows that it was owned by Ed- ward Godfrey. He sold it to his son Oliver with two "houses & edifices" thereon, but reserved to himself "the use of the place for fishing if he have occasion & do require the same" (i, 4). Later it came into the possession of Henry Donnell who lived on the main shore adjacent to the Neck and he used it for a fishing stage many years.

Doubtless the patentees gave the town certain rights in the Island for public purposes and the first and most mportant of these was its use as a ferry terminal. By the narrowing of the river at this point Stage Island became the natural landing place for the travel that came east and west over the shore highway from Maine and Massachu- setts. The first record of this use is in 1652 when the town licensed the ferry privileges to William Hilton, who was required to "attend sd ferry with Cannoes sufficient for the safe transportation, both of Strangers & Townsmen" as will be related at length in the chapter on Ferries. Here for over a century successive ferrymen transported man and beast on their journeys through the town, eastward and westward, until the completion of Sewall's Bridge gave a safer and quicker method of crossing this tidal river.

But if Stage Island had its uses to welcome the coming guest it also was made the scene of speeding the parting

140

DIVISION OF THE GRAND PATENT

guests for here was erected the town and provincial muniments of authority for the punishment of the con- demned criminals and the lesser infractors of the law. Hence we find it called in 1795 "Gallows Neck," because on its southern end was erected the gallows whence swung by the neck until they were "dead, dead, dead" the con- victed murderers of colonial and provincial Maine.

In the division of the Grand Patent in 1641 "the yland at the Harbours Mouth" was to "remain in coman amongst all the pattentees," and it is probable that there were houses for the use of fishermen who had "stages" on the island. Being "common" land the privileges of occu- pancy were leased at first and, as is usual in such cases, long use grew into claims of easement acquired, and in 1727 the town appointed a committee "to prosecute in the Law such as have or shall trespass on the Neck or Point of Land commonly called the Stage Neck or Point; so as to recover the same to the Towns use, or to demand such Quit Rents of them." As there is no further record of the results of this effort to reclaim the town's rights it may be assumed that trespassing continued as usual. In 1739 the town voted to sell the Stage Neck, "except half an Acre where Allen's House Stands," (Proprietors Records, 14), a vote that was repeated in 1748, which indicated that this land was a drug in the market. Again in 1750 there seemed a prospect of a settlement. The proprietors voted:

That upon Capt. Thoms. Donnell giving up to the Proprietors Clerk the Deed he has of Stage Neck so called, & paying all the Costs that has arose to the Proprietors in measuring & giving sd Deed He shall be acquitted of that Bargain and be repaid the Money he has advanced to the Proprietors for sd Neck. (Ibid. 39.)

Evidently Donnell had bought it at public auction at a low figure in 1748 and the transaction was not satisfactory or the conditions unfulfilled. A new method of sale was adopted "without public vendue." In 1767 nothing had occurred to change the status as in that year the Pro- prietors considered "whats proper to be done as to the Improvement or disposal of Stage Neck" (Ibid. 41).

141

CHAPTER XIII NEW SETTLERS OF THE SECOND DECADE 1641-1650

At the end of the first ten years from the time when Godfrey built his house on Meeting House Creek there were about thirty men living here and it may be estimated that there were about one hundred fifty souls resident in the plantation. Colonel Norton had died, Bradbury, Blaisdell and Hooke had removed to Salisbury; Barnard to Boston; and nothing more is heard of Newman. There of the new arrivals, Young, Bragdon and Simpson, were to become the founders of families which exist to this day in the town. Those who joined these permanent settlers during the next decade will be taken up in order of appearance.

JOSEPH JENKS

The exact date of the coming of this settler to Aga- menticus is not known, but he was here in the latter part of 1641 as a smith, and he is undoubtedly our first worker in metals, and a man of unusual ability in that occupation. His lot was adjoining the ministerial land on the north- west side, and doubtless there he had his shop and house. Whence he came is not in evidence, but he may be identi- cal with Joseph Jenks who married Mary Tervy, Septem- ber 30, 1630, at All Hallows, London Wall. The tradition is that he came from or near London. He removed hence about 1642 or 1643 to Piscataqua and thence to Lynn about 1645, where he lived the remainder of his life. He was born about 1600 and died in March, 1683. His wife's name was Anne (Suffolk Deeds i, 58), and he had issue: Joseph, Sarah, Deborah, John and Daniel.

HENRY DONNELL

BomanRID of 82 oming Dunnoff As early as 1641 this pioneer was in town as a fisher- man. Diligent and extended search has failed to produce any direct evidence of his origin, but

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NEW SETTLERS OF THE SECOND DECADE

there is some interesting circumstantial testimony which affords satisfactory clues to his probable English home. Whether the connection is good remains to be tested. He has left very little information about himself, beyond an affidavit, which places his birth in 1602 (Deeds v, 4), but there seems to be some reason to associate him with an early settler on this coast, one George Jewell, who had a fishing stage on what is still known as Jewell's Island, Casco Bay. Jewell was operating there in 1632 (Trelawny Papers 17), and appears as plaintiff and defendant in Court in 1636 and 1637, when he is called "marriner." As master of a vessel the next year he was drowned in Bos- ton Harbor under circumstances set forth by Winthrop in detail (Journal i, 281). In some way, not of record, the island bearing his name came into the possession of Henry Donnell a few years after Jewell's death, perhaps by inheritance, through marriage. No sale is recorded to him. The names of Henry Donnell and George Jewell occur in the church and borough records of Barnstaple, Devon- shire, the former in 1631-4 as a litigant in the Court of Sessions, and Jewell during the same years. There is also a record in the parish of the baptisms of children of George Jewell beginning 1610. A Samuel Jewell settled in Gor- geana in 1649, of whom a sketch will be given, but there is no further connection known between them, nor is it established that the Barnstaple Donnell and Jewell are identical with the Maine emigrants. It is the region and the place whence many Maine settlers came, and the association seems more than an accidental one, as Jewell and Donnell are rather rare names.

With town affairs Henry Donnell had but little associ- ation, being Selectman 1661, 1667, 1677 and 1678. All his interests were in his fisheries, which he carried on at Stage Island at first, later on Bragdon's Island, and in the latter years of his life at Jewell's Island. It appears that he lived there instead of York, for in 1672, when "stricken in years, and not capeable of manageing my fishing and my Island," he sold it to his son Joseph on condition that he should have maintenance there "So long as I please to continue with him there." (Deeds vii, 86.) In his early residence he kept an inn at his house on the road from Cape Neddick to the Ferry at Stage Island. The date of death is not known, but probably not long after June,

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HISTORY OF YORK

1686, the last date when his name appears in the records

His wife's name was Frances, but her relationship to any family here is uncertain. The court records show that they were living apart prior to 1667 and she was authorized to retain for her own use what she had made by her own industry. She had a tavern license in 1669 and was living in 1673, which is the last record of her available. They are the ancestors of one of the permanent families of York, and left issue as follows:

i. Thomas, b. (1630); m. Elizabeth Weare.

ii. Sarah, b. (1632).

iii. Margaret, b. (1634); d. 1685.

iv. Benjamin, b. (1636).

v. Joseph, b. (1638).

vi. John, b. (1640); d.s.p. 1663, by falling into an open pit at the end of Robert Wadleigh's house in Wells.

vii. Nathaniel, b. (1642).

viii. Mary, b. (1644); see Deeds iii, 112.

ix. Samuel, b. 1646; m. Alice Chadbourne; she m. (2) Jeremiah Moulton.

The genealogy of this family will be found in Volume III of this work.

THOMAS CHAMBERS

This planter is to be credited with being the source of a special body of immigrants who came here and settled what is known as Scituate Row. When he arrived in Agamenticus is not known, but in 1642 he was the owner of a lot of ten acres where the old Hutchin's house stood, to the northwest of the library, but it is doubtful whether he actually occupied it. His residence was Scituate where he first appeared with his wife Richardene, widow of one Thomas Curtis of Ash-juxta-Sandwich, Kent, England, whom he had married May 25, 1632, and had brought over with him all the Curtis children, four sons and one daughter. Chambers either sold or gave this lot in equal parts to his stepson Thomas Curtis, and Richard Bankes who had married the only daughter, Elizabeth Curtis, as they shared it ever after and Chambers is heard of no more in this town. It is probable that he was induced to come to York, by Godfrey, who visited England in 1637, and as they belonged in the same county the suggestion seems well taken. He emigrated the following year.

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NEW SETTLERS OF THE SECOND DECADE

Shortly after arrival in Scituate he was charged on Decem- ber 4, 1638 with receiving "strangers" into his house without permission of the authorities. Perhaps these strangers were Abraham Preble and John Twisden, his countrymen who soon followed him hither. On March 5, 1638-9 he was propounded to be a freeman, and on December 3, 1639 was accepted and admitted to the franchise, on both occasions John Twisden being one of the number listed. He was a grand juror 1640, surveyor of highways 1641, juror 1642, and is found on the records in these capacities from time to time until the last record of him July 5, 1666, when he was rated as a taxpayer. He was a "planter." Doubtless he died not long after and the estate of his widow Richardene was administered October 29, 1673, by her son John Curtis. It is evident therefore that Chambers was only a landholder here, not a resident. He may be considered the founder of "Scitu- ate" in Old York as the first proprietor in the "Row."

ABRAHAM PREBLE

Mora: Pweb

The ancestor of the most distinguished family in York came from humble origin in Kent, where the family had been residents for nearly four centuries before his emigration. In fact it may be said that the name is not found in any other county in England. It is essen- tially a Kentish family from its earliest beginnings, but it never rose above the ranks of the yeomanry. The family is not and never was armigerous, never had a coat of arms granted to it, and the one given in the genealogy prepared by the late Rear Admiral Preble, as granted to one George Preble of York, England in 1587, is apocryphal. There was no such person and the arms therein given belong to another family.

Having cleared the field of the things that do not belong to this fine old yeoman family it will be shown that it has an unusually long record for one of its social class in England. Few of them can be traced back so many generations, although it has not been possible to carry back the emigrant's line beyond his grandfather, with certainty. Extensive searching in all kinds of docu- mentary sources in Kent and in the national archives of

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HISTORY OF YORK

England makes it certain that the first recorded Preble was a William Prebbel, living in Strood near Rochester, Kent in 1332, with his wife Joanna. He then bought a house and land in that parish "in the octave of St. John the Baptist" 6 Edw. III (Kent Fines), and this fact estab-

ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, WOOTTON, COUNTY KENT Where Abraham Preble was baptized

lishes that he was born, probably, as early as 1300, in the reign of Edward the First.

The origin of the name is obscure. The Oxford Dic- tionary gives the word as meaning gravel, and uses as illustrations early instances of it in 1541, "a certain barre of prebill driven in at Dover." and in 1577 "claye, preble or carbuncle" is mentioned in Googe's Husbandry (i, 17). Another theory derives it from a French town named Preville. The spelling of the name from the earliest times has been singularly consistent, varying only in doubling the consonants b and I in lessening frequency to the present time. It is found as Prebbil, Prebyll, Prebell, Pribble and Prybell, but for three centuries past it has not changed from the form in which the emigrant wrote it. There is one singular fact that in Kent, even in parishes where

I46

NEW SETTLERS OF THE SECOND DECADE

Prebles lived, occurrences of the family name of Treble is found, apparently a distinct family.

No further references to the name in Strood is found there or elsewhere for a century, when it reappears in East Farleigh, a parish about ten miles to the south of Strood. Walter Preble of that parish appears in a list of "Rebels" pardoned in one of the uprisings against Henry VI, in the year 1450, and from that date this family resided there for the next two centuries, and in the adjoining parishes of West Farleigh and East Barming. In the last named place one Robert Preble, a greatgrandson of a Stephen Preble, lived and died, and by his wife Joan Casynghyrste had a son Abraham, baptized in 1554, the first occurrence of this biblical name in the family. This Abraham was a "servant" of one James Clarke of East Farleigh, and died unmarried in 1625 (P. C. C. 37 Clarke). Doubtless the emigrant belonged to this line, but his own ancestors had removed to Wootton, in East Kent, many years before this Abraham, who lived contemporary with the emigrant for twenty years. They were cousins of some undetermined degree. Abraham of Barming was baptized as son of Robert Preble "the Younger," and this presupposes an "elder" Robert belonging to the same line in the parish, or perhaps in an adjoining one. Wateringbury, the next parish west, furnishes the necessary Robert, but it is not possible to establish his relationship to the Barming family.

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History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. I, Part 13

Author: Banks, Charles Edward, 1854-1931 Publication date: 1931 Publisher: Boston, Mass. [Calkins Press] Number of Pages: 556

Author: Banks, Charles Edward, 1854-1931
Publication date: 1931
Publisher: Boston, Mass. [Calkins Press]
Number of Pages: 556