USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Bristol > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. I > Part 9
USA > Maine > York County > York > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. I > Part 9
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42
1 Coppin was nephew of Colonel Norton (son of Sir George Coppin, husband of Colonel Norton's sister Anne), and George Norton was another nephew. As Coppin was called "of New England" it is probable that he came over with his uncle.
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SETTLEMENT BY PATENTEES
EDWARD JOHNSON
Edward Johnfun.
It is likewise pos- sible to record with certainty the advent in 163 1 of another set- tler who established his homestead on land adjoining God- frey on the north side of the Lindsay Road, and remained a faithful neighbor and friend throughout their careers. The exact date of his coming cannot be fixed, but as he was one of the "Old Planters" of Massachusetts Bay, crowded out by the Winthrop colonists like Norton, it is probable that they came together. The new settler was Edward Johnson, a gentleman by birth, and his story is an in- teresting one, never before related in detail as connected with this town.
Of his English origin nothing is definitely known but he was one of the earliest settlers in Weymouth, Mass. (1622), probably as one of Weston's company, and there became participator in a famous incident at Morton's Colony of Merry Mount where a culprit was hanged for "stealing a capp filld of corne" from an Indian storehouse. Morton stated that "Edward Johnson was a spetiall judge of this businesse" (New England's Canaan, 74). A tradi- tion circulated in England was to the effect that the actual thief was not identified but that a substitute was taken and executed to satisfy the Indians' complaint. Samuel Butler paraphrases this incident in his satirical poem "Hudibras" (Part 2, Canto II, lines 429-436) :
But they maturely having weigh'd They had no more but him o' th' trade (A man that served them in a double Capacity to teach and cobble), Resolved to spare him; yet to do The Indian Hogan Moghan too Impartial justice, in his stead did Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid.
It is not advised that this story be taken seriously.
Johnson was still living there in 1630 as one of the "Old Planters" when the Winthrop party arrived, and in October 1630 was the second name on the list of persons said to be desirous of becoming freemen of the Massa- chusetts Bay Company. It is well understood that the Old Planters had the alternative of becoming freemen or
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HISTORY OF YORK
being expelled from their settlements within the Massa- chusetts Patent, and it is known that both Johnson and Norton left immediately and came to York after the for- mality of their election as freemen. That Johnson enjoyed a high reputation among the people of Massachusetts with whom he differed in politics and religion is shown by the fact that in 1632 Governor Winthrop licensed him to engage in trading to the eastward, for which he was ques- tioned by the magistrates (Journal i, 84). An interesting confirmation of the esteem in which he was held, even by the Puritan clergy, is found in the narrative of "New England's Deliverances" (Pub. 1677 by Rev. Thomas Cobbett of Lynn). His story is as follows:
Sure there were some godly souls among the rest of a loose spirit, which were looking to the Hills whence alone theyr help must come: when about the year 1622 about 20 English came and were sent over by well-minded merchants, and most of them settled about that place which fals in our patent, now called Weimouth: when the treacherous Indians who had been wont to trade with the English had plotted to cut them all off, designing the way they would take to do it: when a few should come first to draw them together to truck, and then the rest should suddenly surround them armed and fall upon them and kill them; only God seasonably discovering of it, by theyr dying Sagamore to Mr. Johnson (now living at York, eastward, and the relation of it to myself) who had bestowed sundry good things upon that sick Saggamore (which lived up further towards Plimouth Patent) and by a squaw, which came the evening before to them at Weimouth and told the same to them. So that, according to the Sag- gamore's advice, they upon the first sign of the five or six which came first, discharging theyr guns at them, breake theyr leaders rib bone, so that they run waving back to theyr mates, and durst not come on upon them; but some years after did confess that if they had not shot when they did, they had come and cramb them all.
It is supposed that he may have been a brother of Francis Johnson, gentleman, who was made a freeman of Massachusetts at the same time as Edward Johnson; was engaged in trading on the Maine coast in 1632 and had business dealings in York in later years.
THE DEATH OF COLONEL NORTON
In the summer of 1633 a visitor arrived at the little settlement of Bristol from Virginia. He had sailed to the northern settlements of New England in his bark on a trading expedition and had stirred up trouble for himself at Plymouth and Boston where he suffered at the hands
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of the authorities in those places for alleged misbehavior. What brought this visitor, Capt. John Stone, to Maine is not known but his visit was fated to become a tragedy. On his return voyage he took as passengers Col. Walter Norton, young John Godfrey "and some others." The dramatic story of the terrible fate that befell all on this ship is thus related by Bradford:
I know not for what occasion they would needs goe up Connigte- cutt River; and how they carried themselves I know not, but the Indians Knockt him (Captain Stone) in the head, as he lay in his cabine, and had thrown the covering over his face (whether out of fear or desperation is uncertaine); this was his end. They likewise killed all the rest, but Captaine Norton defended himself a long time against them all in the cooke-room, till by accident the gunpowder tooke fire, which (for readyness) he had sett in an open thing before him, which did soe burn and scald him and blind his eyes, as he could make no longer resistance, but was slaine also by them, though they much commended his vallour. (Bradford, Historie, 203.)
Thus died, heroically fighting, the veteran of many battles on European fields and the little settlement lost its chief patentee almost in the beginning of his new work of colonization in America. With him perished young Godfrey, probably an easy and early victim of this treach- ery of the savages, the details of which were only available through the later tales of the event related by some of the Indian participants. That this was the fate of the fifteen- year-old boy is established by an entry in the "Heralds' Visitation" where is written against his name "slaine in fight in America 1633," and confirmed by Edward Godfrey himself when he speaks of "my nearest Relation in the discovery slain by the Indians" (P. R. O. Col. Papers xx, 19). Tidings of this tragedy did not reach Boston until January 21, 1634 and probably were conveyed to this town shortly after. It aroused the responsible authorities of all the New England Colonies to action and a punitive expe- dition was sent to the scene of the murders the following summer. Two of the alleged murderers were executed as a reprisal and warning to the Indians (Mason, Brief His- tory of the Pequot War ix; comp .; Underhill Newes from America 8; Winthrop Journal i, 122-3).
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HISTORY OF YORK
WILLIAM HOOKE
. 00. This scion of the patron with Hooke of the American Bristol had come here as the representa- tive of his father's interests in the new settlement, which had come to be known as "Bristol," and evidently was destined by the parent for a colonial life. Although an undeveloped youth, scarcely beyond his majority, he was intrusted by Alderman Hooke with the management of this enterprise. Doubtless this plan was approved by Gorges, and but for his unfortunate desertion, later, from the church of his fathers and his office here, he might have acquired political distinction in this part of New England. The Hookes were Royalists, adherents of the Established Church and close associates of Gorges. They lived as neighbors of his in Bristol and, with the latter's influence at Court and the great wealth of the most famous merchant of the West Country to support him, his prospects of success as a colonial official were un- limited. His early years here, however, gave little evidence of his serious activities. He was fined thirty shillings at the first court of Governor William Gorges "for an uprore committed 25th prox, (1637), in shouting of divers peeces in the night." Whatever the explanation of this "spree, " he evidently reformed as no further record appears of like outbreaks.1 He married, shortly after his arrival here, Mrs. Eleanor, widow of Lieut-Col. Walter Norton, and was thus settled in domestic matters satisfactorily. He was appointed "Governour of Accamenticus" in 1638 (Deeds vi, 74, 150), a post which he held for two years to the apparent acceptance of the patentees and the people. Godfrey wrote of him to Winthrop, that the residents, "whose hartes are soe set in reall affections on him," desired his continuance in this position (Felt, Ecclesiastical History of New England i, 145). But he had listened to the emissaries of the Bay, probably the fanatical Hugh Peter, who was a visitor to "Bristol" preaching Puritan doc- trines, and he had become a convert to their practices; or perhaps he had been disaffected with the performances of that hypocritical fraud, George Burdett, who was then
1 He had a son born in 1637 and his step-daughter Jane Norton was married about this time to Henry Simpson. Either of these occasions might have been the reason for celebrating the new addition to his family, or saluting the bride.
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preaching in the town, but soon to be ejected from his place. He was planning not only to disown his church, but to desert his duty to his father and the company and settle among the "godly" people of Massachusetts. "I have fead myselfe a longe time with vaine hopes"; he wrote to his advisor there, "there is noe possebility here with us for the geathering of a church except God, in his mercy open there eyes, and let them see there supersticious wayes which they desire to goe" (4 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. vii, 197).1 Godfrey tried to reach him through his friend Winthrop, whom he asked to advise Hooke not to leave them before his term expired. The town of Newbury, as had been surmised, was offering him "large accommoda- tions," and they were desired to "forebeare theire soelisa- tations" and Winthrop, as his friend, was told that "if our Governor in the time of his government should leave us distracted, and before going home to his parents, whose presence they much desyre, it may eclipse all this light, and this place fall to factions" (Ibid.). But his apostacy was complete and his unfaithfulness to the trust given him by his father established. Godfrey wrote the facts to Alderman Hooke explaining his voluntary abandonment of the plantation and his office. That his father was aston- ished and angry needs no further statement, and brought reprimand from a disappointed father and sponsor. Young Hooke endeavored to divert the wrath of his father by counter accusations of misrepresentations against him by Godfrey and other friends of the plantation, and he ap- pealed to Winthrop to aid him in the trouble. Under date of July 15, 1640 he wrote the latter that "Mr. Godfree haeth informed my father of many false thinges by letter against me in my removeing from Accomenticus. Nowe Ser, you knowe uppon what grounds my removeing was & what ends I propunded unto myselfe, in regeard of the unsettellnesse of the Church & State: praye Sir, if you shall thinke it fitt, send a letter by Mr. Dexter, that I may send it to my father with my letters. . .. These things make my father soe unwilling of my removeing, " (Ibid. 198). Hooke removed to Salisbury about the summer of 1640 and was
1 The phrase "geathering of a church" was a part of the jargon of the New England Separatists and signified the establishment of a congregation of Puritans into a church body. The members of the Established Church needed no "geathering" as every baptized person was already a member of it. Hooke, having been baptized, was automatically a member of a Christian church.
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HISTORY OF YORK.
made a freeman in October following. Doubtless he had failed to satisfy his father of his actions as he returned the next year for a personal explanation of the "unsettellnesse of the Church & State." Prior to his departure he pro- cured a "certificate of character," written for him by Lechford, the Notary, to help reestablish his credit at home (Note Book, 222). What he accomplished is unknown. He returned to New England before 1643. The rest of his biography is uneventful. His activities in Salisbury were limited to two elections to the General Court and he sank into oblivion, the remaining years of his life being devoted to selling his patrimony in Gorgeana. He died, before his father, in the latter part of 1653, as his widow was appointed administratrix of his estate in October of that year. She was ordered to bring in the inventory of the property, which she did on April 11, 1654.
By his marriage with Mrs. Norton he had three chil- dren:
i. Humphrey, b. about 1635; according to testimony he was the eldest of the two sons born in York, (Deeds viii, 261). This son died young.
ii. William, b. about April 1637.
iii. Jacob, b. September 15, 1640; died young, but was living in 1653, (Norfolk Co. Deeds i, 31).
Descendants of the son William are now found in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
THOMAS BRADBURY
Thomas Bradbury In 1634 there arrived in Aga- menticus, Mr. Thomas Bradbury from London, with authority from Sir Ferdinando Gorges to act as his steward and personal representative in the new settlement. This young gentleman, then about twenty-three years of age, was highly connected in England with families of the landed gentry and the ecclesiastical nobility His father was descended from a gentle family long seated at Wicken Bonhunt, Essex, of which he was lord of the manor, and his mother was Elizabeth, daughter of William Whitgift, and niece of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, Right Reverend John Whitgift, D.D., of Croydon, Surrey. He was also a kinsman of Sir Thomas Josselyn, Knight, who was later sent over by Gorges, as governor of the Province
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of Maine. At the time of his emigration he was living in the parish of S. Mary Matfellon, Whitechapel, then a fine residential district outside Aldgate on the high road to the east coast, London to Essex. Bradbury was also a kins- man of Anne Bell, the first wife of Sir Ferdinando Gorges.
As far as known he owned no land in the town and probably lived on Gorges Neck at Point Christian, occupy- ing the Lord Proprietor's manor property there. It is probable that he built a temporary home for his occupancy which enlarged later became the Manor House and head- quarters of the representatives of Gorges for his successors in office. His stay did not continue long as in 1636 he removed to Salisbury, where he spent the remainder of his life. He married Mary, daughter of John and Judith (Gater) Perkins of Ipswich, who was baptized September 3, 1615, at Hilmorton, county Warwick, from which parish her parents emigrated in 1630, sailing in the Lion from Bristol. Thomas Bradbury held high offices in Salisbury and Norfolk County, Representative to the General Court, 1651-1666, Recorder, Associate Justice, and died March 16, 1694-5, aged eighty-four years. His aged wife, Mary, was caught in the miserable witchcraft disgrace of Salem in 1692, and condemned to death, but the interces- sion of powerful friends and a touching appeal from her husband saved her from the clutches of the bloodthirsty pack of executioners led by the unspeakable Mather. She died a respectable death December 20, 1700 in her own home.
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CHAPTER X THE PIONEERS OF YORK 1630-1640
Having considered the various activities in their proper order resulting in the settlement of this town and the developments for the following decade, it will be interest- ing to know something of the persons and personalities who took part in the beginnings of its history. Already the life histories of the earliest settlers - Edward Godfrey, Edward Johnson, Col. Walter Norton, William Hooke and Thomas Bradbury - have been portrayed, and in dealing with those who blazed the trail it will be less invidious to take them up chronologically in the order of their coming, rather than to give precedence to particular persons accord- ing to the supposed value of their accomplishments. Those heretofore named began their residence here before 1634 and those arriving after that date will now be taken up in chronological order.
GEORGE NEWMAN
PEU: MENmange He was undoubtedly a resident of Bristol before his emigration and probably a merchant of that city of whom frequent mention is found 1619-1631 in the records of that city (Bristol Apprentice Books, loc. cit.). He was a witness February 29, 1631-2 to the signing of the Pemaquid Patent in Bristol (Suffolk Deeds iii, 56), and in 1633 acquired the house and lot known as the William Dixon lot on the harbor front. Whether he took up residence here is uncertain, but he was undoubtedly engaged in trading activities along the coast of Maine for the next twenty years. Traces of his presence at Richmond Island, Scarborough and Pemaquid exist to show his varied activities in that period. He sold this property in York to Samuel Maverick, October 31, 1634 and this may have been the end of the short con- nection with the town.
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THE PIONEERS OF YORK
HENRY LYNN
He was an early settler in Boston where he seemed to have been disaffected with the "Govermt & execucon of justice" in that Colony. Winthrop states that "for writ- ing letters into England full of slanders against our gov- ernment and orders of our churches" he was whipped and banished (Mass. Col. Rec. 19I; comp. Winthrop Journal 167). Because of his natural objections to the kind of autocratic theocracy set up under the guise of freedom of conscience we are indebted for his appearance here. Of his English origin nothing is known and from his early clashing with the Boston magistrates in 1630 it is sus- pected that he was not originally of the Massachusetts Company but an earlier settler in the Bay. He married Sarah, daughter of William Tilley of Boston, by whom he had four children whose baptisms are recorded there, viz .:
i. Sarah, b. 20 Aug. 1636.
ii. Elizabeth, b. 27 March 1638.
iii. Ephraim, b. 16 Jan. 1640/I.
iv. Rebecca, b. 15 Feb. 1646.
His son Ephraim in 1670 referred to his uncle, Richard Bickham, a merchant of Bristol, which relationship could be either paternal or maternal. As William Tilley was certified as a resident of London it is probable that the relationship was on his father's side by marriage. Henry Lynn was engaged in coasting and died about 1646 in Virginia. He left property in the latter colony, in tobacco, 5,281 pounds, but reported to be mortgaged beyond its value. The Provincial Court here noted that "his wife & foure young children" were left in a very "meane condi- tion & hardly able to subsist." On August 12 that year the Court ordered the sale of his house and lot in Gorgeana and that his other goods, amounting to £4-18-10, "shall goe towards the bringing up of the children." The widow married Hugh Gunnison of Kittery, formerly of Boston, in 1646, and after his death added two more to her record: Capt. John Mitchell and lastly Dr. Francis Morgan. He lived on Ferry Neck where Rice's Bridge crosses the river.
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HISTORY OF YORK
ROWLAND YOUNG
Rowland young He is the ancestor of one of the families in York which has maintained a continuous residence in the town for three centuries. The only occurrence of the very rare name of Rowland in combination with Young, known to the author, is in Buckinghamshire, in the parish of High or Chipping Wycombe where a Rowland Young was married in 1616 and again in 1618. He could have been the father of our early settler who came to York about 1636 and followed the occupation of fisherman (Massachusetts Archives x, 161; cxxviii, 243). If he were the son of this marriage he was a minor when arriving in York, and probably came as an apprentice or with some relative whose identity is not determined. His home was in Godfrey's first division of the Grand Patent extending northeast from Meeting House Creek.
He signed the Submission, 1652; signed a petition against the sale of Maine, 1679; signed petition to the king, 1680; will proved November 6, 1685; inventory of estate £224-06-0. He was probably married twice (1) ; (2) Joan Knight, daughter of Robert, before 1668. Her will was proved June 20, 1698. They had the following children:
i. Rowland, b. 1649.
ii. Mary, b. (1653); married Jeremiah Moulton.
iii. Robert, b. (1658).
iv. Samuel, b. (1662).
v. Job, b. 1664.
vi. Lydia, b. 1672; m. (1) Thomas Haynes; (2) Samuel Bragdon.
RALPH BLAISDELL
Concerted efforts by the author while in England in conjunction with a direct descendant of this pioneer failed to accomplish more than to stake out a somewhat definite region from whence Ralph Blaisdell undoubtedly emi- grated. The family name is derived from a section in northern Lancashire known as the Bleasdale Moors on the Yorkshire border about twenty miles north of the city of Preston in that county. Some years ago the writer found in the household accounts of the Shuttleworth family of Lancashire the name of Rafe Bleasdale men-
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THE PIONEERS OF YORK
tioned in 1582 in connection with the pasturage of cattle on the Shuttleworth estate and this, the only occurrence of the rare name, led to Lancashire as the undoubted English origin of this York pioneer. In addition to this, the name of "Henrie Simsonne" was found in the same accounts in 1591 (Chetham Soc. Vol. xlvi, 96). This com- bination of names which is found in this town a gen- eration later living as neighbors must be more than a co- incidence. Unquestionably it indicates that Ralph Blais- dell at least, because of the unusual name, must belong to this Lancashire family whose record will be found in that section of the county. The Lancashire dialect which he spoke, almost a brogue, undoubtedly gave rise to a tradi- tion which prevails among the New England descendants that Ralph Blaisdell was of Scotch origin, owing to the similarity of the two dialects. The eldest son of Ralph Blaisdell was named Henry and this name has been found in the parish of Goosenargh (the residence of Col. Alexan- der Rigby, owner of the province of Lygonia) as the head of a family. The name of Henry Simpson is also found in the Goosenargh register.
Lancashire furnished a considerable number of early emigrants to New England chiefly through the influence of Rev. Richard Mather who was suspended for non- conformity from his parish at Toxteth near Liverpool, and a family tradition has been furnished which places the emigration of Ralph Blaisdell as in the same company which went under Mather's leadership. According to this account he took passage in the Angel Gabriel in 1635 sail- ing from Bristol. As is well known, this ship was wrecked on the Maine coast near Pemaquid but with no loss of life (Wallace Hist. Canaan, N. H. p. 504). This account agrees with the first appearance of Ralph Blaisdell in York that year and may be regarded as credible. The land of Ralph Blaisdell abutted on Meeting House Creek and this he sold in 1642 to Robert Knight (Deeds iii, 142). He repre- sented the town of York at the Provincial Court held at Saco June 19, 1640, and removed the next year to Salis- bury and later to Lynn where he died ten years later. A great grandson, Ebenezer Blaisdell, came to the old home of his ancestors, and descendants still reside in the town.
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HISTORY OF YORK
WILLIAM DAVIS
He came over with Thomas Gorges 1640, as his serv- ant, and received from him a grant of one hundred acres, which he sold in 1643 to Richard Collicott of Boston (Deeds ii, 103, 180; vii, 72). He probably returned to Eng- land with Gorges in 1643, as nothing more is heard of him here.
GEORGE PUDDINGTON
He was the son of Robert Puddington, a clothier of Tiverton, Devon, and Jane his wife, probably born 1600 or thereabouts. The father was an owner of mills which were burned, bringing him into financial difficulties shortly before his death. Law suits were part of the inheritance of his sons, and this may have been the reason for the emi- gration of the brothers George to Agamenticus and Robert to Portsmouth, some time before 1640, the year when both are first found on the records. Robert, the father, made his will February 10, 1630-1 (nuncupative), and administration of estate was granted to the widow, Anne, his second wife, May 16, 1631. The house on Brampton Street, Tiverton, was left to George, who was probably the eldest son. It is probable that George Puddington came to Maine some years before 1640, but the first time his name appears is in the list of aldermen of Agamenticus, and as deputy from the borough to the Provincial Court. Evidently impressed with the importance of this honor he was charged by Parson Burdett with saying that "the power of the combination at Agamenticus was greater than the power of the King," but the jury ignored the complaint. As he was fined for being tipsy at the same Court, the source of his boasting may be inferred. He brought with him to Maine a wife and young family of children. She was Mary Pooke, whom he had married at S. Peter's church in Tiverton, February 5, 1630, whose parentage has not been ascertained. Like Puddington it was a common name in Devon and there is a small parish called Puddington in that county. The home lot where Puddington settled was purchased of Henry Simpson in 1640, and his house stood at the mouth of Meeting House Creek. It is probable that he carried on the business of an innkeeper there, as after his death, his widow continued
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