USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Bristol > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. II > Part 21
USA > Maine > York County > York > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. II > Part 21
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Solemn as were these Judges on the Bench in full- bottomed wigs, they were ordinary human beings in their hours of relaxation. They dined informally at the taverns and were amply supplied from the tap-room to aid their enjoyment and enliven the conversation. Nor had they altogether forgotten that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Judge Sewall relates a story of one of their dinners at the close of the term, showing something of the early manners of the Bench and Bar. It was anciently the custom when the business of the Court was finished for the Judges and members of the Bar to assemble at the tavern for a social meeting. On this particular occasion they would constitute a court among themselves, appoint- ing one of their number "Chief Justice" for the trial of all breaches of good fellowship which had occurred during
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COURT HOUSE, GAOL, AND PUNISHMENTS
the term. At one of these meetings a member of the Bar from Kittery was accused of calling the High Sheriff a fool. The fact being proved or admitted, the moot court taking into consideration the time, manner and occasion of the offense ordered the accused to pay a fine of one pipe of tobacco to each member. They also ordered the High Sheriff, who is said to have been Samuel Wheelwright, to pay one mug of flip for deserving the appellation.
GAOL
If the early Puritan writers of Massachusetts on social conditions in the Province of Maine and their modern reverberators are to be accepted as authorities, there would not have been stones enough to construct prison walls to confine the alleged lawless element. Neither is it to be presumed that conditions were so ideal here that nothing of the kind was needed, and yet for twenty years after the settlement of York there was not a prison in the town or its next neighbor to the west. Apparently the remedy for this jail-less condition was required and at a General Court of the Province held December 30, 1651, it was ordered "that the towns of Gorgeana and Kittery are to build each of them a prison." As this was just shortly before the invasion of Massachusetts, and the consequent change of government, there is no evidence that this order became effective. The year 1653 has been locally accepted as the actual date of erection and publicly announced at the old gaol in this town, now used for exhibition purposes. It is not believed that this is the cor- rect date. In answer to a petition from the inhabitants of Saco, Cape Porpus and Wells, the General Court of Massachusetts in November 1654 appointed residents of Kittery, York, Wells, Cape Porpus and Saco to make a "just and equall levy on each of the towns named and that they shall also take an account of the late Treasurer about the rate of the two late Courts and rectify the same, chargeing to each toune theire due proportion, according to the custome of the countrie rates" (Mass. Col. Rec. iv, 214). It appears that there had been disagreement among the various towns about the due proportion of costs chargeable to each, and in May 1655 four commissioners made their report, "notwithstanding the person appointed for Kittery in this busines refused to apply himself to the
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HISTORY OF YORK
honnored Courts order, and hath not brought in the valu- ation of theire estates" (Ibid. iv, 233). In absence of the representative from Kittery the other members acted, as stated "fairely & favorably for them as for ourselves"' with the following proportionate assessment:
Kittery
45: 15:00
York
17: 17:00
Wells
13: 10:00
Cape Porpus
04: 08: 00
Saco
10: 05:00
91: 15:00
From subsequent records it would seem that these amounts were for the estimated cost of a prison, not yet built, certainly not completed. It will appear from the following record of the Court proceedings in 1667 that the gaol was far from satisfactory at that date:
In regard of the Couldness of the present season & the Inconveniency & unfitness of the pryson to Intertayne prysoners this winter tyme: It is therefore ordered that untill a more convenient pryson bee erected or the season bee more moderate, it shall be lawfull for John Parker, his Majestys Goaler at Yorke to remove his prysoners to his house, which untill the Court take further order shall bee allowed & computed as the lawfull pryson, provided the said prysoners do not exceed goeing out of the lymitts of tenn pooles from any part of the said Goalers house, which whosoever presumes to doe without lycence from the Goale keeper shall bee accompted as a breaker of pryson & lyable to suffer as such an offender.
It is further ordered that prysoners shall have their lybarty to come to the meeteing on the Lords days with the keeper of the Goale.
The new (second) Meeting House had just been completed, and as Parker the Gaoler lived close by, just across the Creek, the walk to meeting was not a long one. Acting upon this report the Provincial Court in October 1666 made the following order:
"Itt is ordered that this Western devision of the Province of Mayn shall build a sufficient pryson at Yorke before the last of September next, 1667."
In April 1669 John Bray of Kittery was committed to York Gaol by a Kittery Constable, from which it is pos- sible to deduce that Kittery had no jail, and that the one here had been made "more convenient," for the new one had not yet been completed (Essex Court Rec. iv, 130). At the same session the towns in the western part of the Province in arrears for their share of expenses in erecting
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COURT HOUSE, GAOL, AND PUNISHMENTS
the new jail were directed to fulfill their obligations so that the committee could "take speedie & effectual Course for the building of a new Jayle att Yorke, or maintaine that which is there." In 1671 another resident of Kittery was committed to the gaol at Falmouth, presumably because the one here was not completed or insecure, and in 1673 the Overseers of the Prison, Capt. John Wincoll, Richard Banks and Edward Rishworth were fined five
THE OLD GAOL
Pounds apiece, "for not finishing it" as ordered by the Court. This fine was remitted the next year. It would thus appear that, twenty years after the original order, the gaol at York had not been completed. It was, however, in use, but owing to the "defectiveness" a prisoner in 1673 made his escape and the county was obliged to pay the creditor the amount of his bill against this escaped debtor. Either the responsible officials were continually amiss in this particular, or did not know how to build a structure that would hold its inmates, as in 1695 it was again reported as "much out of repair," and the Sheriff was authorized to designate any house convenient for a "common county Goale for the present." The next year Samuel Donnell, Abraham Preble and James Plaisted were directed to "forthwith view the Prison at York & see whats amiss in it, and cause it to be repaired." In April 1707 the Court ordered the county to build a small prison
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HISTORY OF YORK
in York as "the Gaol in Kittery is out of repair" and in October of that year Peter Nowell and Francis Raynes were employed to build it. The dimensions were specified as 24 x 16 and 7 feet between the floors, indicating a struc- ture of two stories. As the dimensions of this "small prison" are not those of the foundations of the present one it is probable that this was the "House of Correction" referred to in the records of the next year when the prison- keeper was also designated as "Master of the House of Correction." It may be assumed that the "olde gaol" was completed at some time, but that it was never proof against the designs of ingenious prisoners is a matter of tradition as well as legal record. In 1750 a case of such gaol delivery was the basis of a long suit against the Sheriff for damages in allowing a debtor, through negligence, to escape. The verdict was in favor of the creditor and the case was finally taken to the General Court of Massachu- setts on appeal. The prisoner was a shoemaker and allowed to work at his trade in the prison, having "his Tools and Billets of Wood for his fire by which he cut away the wood and wrenched out the Grates in the win- dow of the Room in which he was confined at which Win- dow he made his Escape." In 1762 the condition of the old gaol was such that it was deemed necessary to build a new one which was completed the following year at a cost of £305-06-00 lawful money. Jonathan Sayward was one of the committee (Diary).
HOUSE OF CORRECTION
This introduces a secondary place of detention in the system of penology in the Massachusetts government. As stated in their plans adopted before emigration, in 1629, these buildings were stated to be for
"such as shalbe negligent and remiss in pformance of their dutyes or otherwise exorbitant our desire is that a house of correccon bee erected and set upp both for the punishment of such offendors and to deterr others by their example from such irregular courses."
(Mass. Col. Rec. i, 401)
In 1632 a "House of Correction" was built in Boston.
In this connection it is well to understand that prisons in the modern acceptation of the word were not built so much for felons as for the detention of debtors. In 1654 the General Court passed a law authorizing the imprison-
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COURT HOUSE, GAOL, AND PUNISHMENTS
ment of debtors until their creditors were satisfied as to payment. It was not intended that they should be fashion- able boarding houses for murderers and highwaymen where coddling them as heroes was permitted by the officers executing the law. As so many crimes were punishable by death under the Massachusetts laws and execution of the death penalty was prompt there was no occasion to afford means for interminable delays of justice such as modern legal contrivances to defeat justice permit. These prisons were almost exclusively used for the indefinite confine- ment of poor debtors as well as for the temporary deten- tion of persons accused of crimes against life and property pending trial. In 1659 the County Court added to the existing complications by directing that another penal institution be erected in this town, without delay, in these terms:
"Whereas the court hath considered the necessary use of an house of correction to be built in this county, as law hath provided to be in others, for the more constant & condigne punishment of obstinate offenders, as occasion from time to time shall require
"It is therefore ordered that Maj. Nicholas Shapleigh, Edward Rishworth, Re: Cor: & and Mr. Abra : Preble shall take an affectual course for building of an house of correction for the town of York, according to such dimensions as they shall see meet for that use, & to order the finishing thereof before the next County Court, who are also impowered for defraying the charges thereof, to make a rate & levy it upon the whole county." (Provincial Court Records, 1659.)
John Parker was appointed "to keep the house of correc- tion when it is built."
The difference between a jail and a house of correction is not clearly apparent, especially in a sparsely settled country, but whatever it was the County Court wanted another one, and in July 1666, it was ordered that there should be "sett up a Pryson" at Falmouth immediately. This prison would, as a matter of space available, relieve the strain on the gaol here, if the pressure was too great, but the trouble seems to have been of a different character.
According to the newspapers of Boston there was a House of Corection here in 1765, and in April the News Letter prints a story of six women who were convicted of fornication and upon their confession were fined fifty shillings or ten stripes at the whipping post. Not being able to pay the fine they received the lash. They were called "veterans." Two of them were committed to the
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HISTORY OF YORK
"House of Correction" and there they underwent the "Discipline of the House, which by way of Entrance was ten Stripes more each."
Escapes from either one of these places of confinement were common. Rewards for their apprehension were inserted in the New Hampshire Gazette as the nearest means of publicity. An example is here inserted :
BROKE out of his Majestys Gaol in York on the Night of the 5th Instant, Samuel Richards and Benair Doore, imprisoned on Suspi- cion of making and passing Counterfeit Dollars; each of them of a midling stature and of about Thirty Years of Age. WHOEVER takes up said Prisoners and secures them, so that they may be brought to Justice, shall have TEN DOLLARS Reward and all the necessary Charges Paid by me.
JEREMIAH MOULTON, Jr. Sheriff
York, March 6th, 1762.
At that time counterfeiting was punishable by death and the Sheriff was personally responsible for the safe-keeping of his prisoners.
In 1812 the use of the jail was granted to the County for one hundred years, or longer, if required.
The first keeper of the prison was John Parker who held the position until 1678 when he resigned. Richard Carter succeeded in 1679 and was followed by William Bray (1683), Thomas Harris (1685), William Bray again in 1690. In 1708 Thomas Moore held the office as well as that of Master of the House of Correction. In subsequent years the sheriff of the county became the responsible official with a resident assistant called a Turnkey. The salary of the Sheriff was fio annually and the Turnkey had as his recompense 2 shillings and 6 pence for turning the key and was allowed 3 shillings and 9 pence per week for feeding the prisoners.
PUNISHMENTS
This formidable structure was not the only method of impressing evil doers or the evil-minded with the majesty of the law. There were other visible means of putting the fear of the law in their hearts. York had in its punitive equipment a pillory which consisted of two posts between which was a hinged board, or divisible in two parts with a hole in which the head was set fast, and two like openings for the hands. The prisoner stood locked in this on a
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COURT HOUSE, GAOL, AND PUNISHMENTS
raised platform looking down on passers-by. Usually a paper was affixed to this device stating the occasion for the punishment. It would be impracticable to enumerate the offenses for which the pillory was used. In 1671 Thomas Withers stood in our pillory for two hours for "putting in several votes for himself as an officer at a town meeting" and shortly afterwards for putting money into the contribution box and then "surriptisiously taking it out again." One of the first of these supplementary agencies was the whipping post. This was erected in the gaol grounds and probably had been in use even before the gaol was built. This method of punishment was reserved for the more serious offenses against morals, although violation of the Seventh Commandment was punishable by death. Small thievery received this form of punishment. In 1666 Mary Brawn of this town was sentenced to be whipped at the post "in publique meet- ing" with ten stripes for stealing sixteen pieces of pork from Sampson Angier. Young married persons, whose courtship had been carried on under the convenient and comfortable New England "bundling" device, and had anticipated events unwisely, found themselves in the hands of the law, when their first child appeared in advance of the physiological period of gestation. After labor was safely over both of them were haled into Court and ordered to the whipping post to receive a dozen stripes each at the hands of the public executioner. It is probable that many cases of premature delivery were unjustly punished. How long the whipping post was in operation is uncertain. In January 1768 the Boston Chronicle stated that "a young man who had been in York gaol received 20 lashes at the whipping post for theft." The publication of this item as news would indicate that flogging had ceased to be a general practice by that time.
STOCKS AND BILBOES
Stocks were erected after 1665 at the York Gaol and were of the kind in which the unfortunate victim of the sentence sat with his feet and hands locked in the form for several hours where passing citizens could entertain themselves by jibes and possibly harmless missiles at the helpless man. This kind of punishment was meted out for small offenses like slander, cursing, etc.
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HISTORY OF YORK
In 1696 the Provincial Court ordered that the "Sheriff forthwith provide a payr of Iron Bilbows for the Prison." (Deeds v, pt. 2, p. 77.) Bilboes were a kind of stocks generally used at sea. This was a simple but effective restraint consisting of a heavy bolt or bar of iron having two sliding shackles something like handcuffs. The legs of offenders were thrust into these shackles and locked there. Lying with his back on the floor, the culprit's legs were
THE PUBLIC STOCKS
attached to a post and in that position ample time was given him for considering the enormity of his offense. "Laying by the heels in the bilboes" was not a pleasant method of expiating misdemeanors.
There is no evidence that a cucking stool existed in connection with the gaol. York was fined in 1665 for hav- ing no "coucking stool." This was a device invented for the punishment of scolding or gossiping women by duck- ing them in the water when placed in a stool or chair fixed at the end of a long pole operated like a well-sweep. The origin of the word is involved in remote obscurity
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COURT HOUSE, GAOL, AND PUNISHMENTS
and it was later called the ducking stool. Whether the lack of it indicates that York had no such women is left for others to decide.
THE SCARLET LETTER
Hawthorne's immortal story of this title has no actual foundation as far as the color scheme is involved, but it is presumed that letters of a conspicuous color or in marked contrast to the clothing of the convicted persons were selected. It is a fact that persons convicted of various crimes were required to wear in public certain letters or words which described their offenses "cut in cloth and sewed on their uppermost garment on the arm and Back." The letter "A" for adultery; "B" for blasphemy; "D" for drunkard are examples. In other cases the words were spelled out in full or a longer sentence written on paper in capital letters specified the crime more fully.
In 1651 the fourth wife of the famous Rev. Stephen Bachiler was convicted in a trial at York of adultery and the sentence of the Court was that she be branded on the cheek with the letter "A," and this sentence was carried out undoubtedly in York, by which she carried a permanent red scar for the rest of her days. This is the only known instance of the use of this permanent disfigurement in Maine. In fact, the records of the Province are singularly free from those awful cruelties inflicted by the Puritans of Massachusetts on those who happened to differ from them in matters of religion or politics. Cutting off the ears, pressing to death and endless floggings of Quakers at the cart's tail "from town to town" are some of the inhuman tortures which cannot be laid to the courts of justice in this town or Province.
"BENEFIT OF CLERGY"
One of the oldest customs in legal practice in England, sanctioned by law, is that of pleading the "benefit of clergy." It was in use as early as 1200 and was devised for the protection of the clergy when accused of crime, as it was claimed that they should be tried by Ecclesiastical Courts and not by the civil authorities. Thus arose the plea of "Benefit of Clergy" and the accused was turned over to the church authorities for trial and punishment if he could satisfy the judges that he could read the Holy
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HISTORY OF YORK
Scripture. "The Book" as it was called was given to him to read in open court, and it came to be a custom to require the prisoner to read the first verse of the fifty-first chapter of the Psalms. From this circumstance that particular passage has been known for ages as "the Neck verse" as it has saved so many necks from the gallows. This verse reads: "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness : according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." Every clever crimi- nal who could read invoked the "benefit of clergy" and if he could read this verse, or any other, the Ordinary or his Deputy said "legit ut clericus" (he reads like a clerk), and he was then branded or flogged. It seems incredible, but it was a legal plea in England until 1824 when the statute was abolished. This plea was made by John Adams on behalf of the British soldiers tried in Boston for par- ticipation in the "Boston Massacre" and was allowed by the Court. It seems strange that this legal fiction was used here in York in 1736 at a trial for counterfeiting, which at that time was punishable by death. William Patten of Wells was charged with "counseling, advising and assisting in forging and counterfeiting 25 shilling bills of New Hampshire and £5 and ten shilling bills of Con- necticut Colony." John MacDonald of Wells had pro- cured the engraving done in Dublin, Ireland, and some York people were involved in the transaction. Patten only was tried and, being found guilty, "prayed the Benefit of the Clergy which was granted him and Sentence was that he should be burnt in the Hand, suffer six Months Imprisonment and pay Costs." The Judges were Samuel Came, Jeremiah Moulton and Samuel Moody.
EXECUTION OF JOSEPH QUASSON FOR MURDER IN 1726
One of the Indians employed in the warfare against the Eastern tribes in 1725 killed another Indian, also a soldier named John Peters at Wells, and in due course he was tried here, found guilty and sentenced to death. The occasion was "improved," as contemporary phraseology would express it, by Mr. Moody to draw the usual moral lesson from the crime, and he printed his story of the affair detailing the conversion of the unfortunate man with a biography in the form of questions and answers between
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COURT HOUSE, GAOL, AND PUNISHMENTS
the "visitor" and "prisoner." He relates the visits of religious women to give him consolation and affords some interesting information regarding the execution itself which took place on June 29. He states that most of the ministers in the county and several others accompanied the prisoner from the gaol to the place of execution. He states that "the mile's Walk was improved in directing, encouraging & cautioning the Prisoner to Hope." When they came in sight of the gallows he was asked if he were not terrified, to which he replied: "Not at all." Again, this conversation ensued when they beheld "the first sight of the Sea, on the Shore of which was the Place of Execution" one of his escort asked him if he were not afraid to embark on the "Ocean of Eternity," to which he expressed entire readiness to take the journey. In this manner the time was occupied by these lugubrious sug- gestions of his approaching doom. "The Gallows was fixed in a Valley with Hills on the one Side and on the other so that the numerous Spectators (they were by Con- jecture about Three Thousand - there having been no such Example in the country for more than Seventy Years), had an advantageous Prospect." When all was ready for the final act he ascended the ladder and made a short address, after which he offered a prayer of some length, and out of this scene Parson Moody has made an instructive picture of the way criminals were executed in his day. In June 1704 Mr. Moody attended the execution of six pirates in Boston, in company of his cousin, Judge Samuel Sewall. He relates that there were in the river carrying spectators about one hundred and fifty boats and canoes. Evidently hangings had a fascination for the parson.
EXECUTION OF PATIENCE BOSTON, INDIAN, 1735
An unfortunate Indian woman, named Patience Bos- ton, gave birth to an illegitimate child, of which she alleged one Trott to be the father, and she killed it at birth. She was tried and convicted in June of the above year and sentenced to death by hanging. As usual she underwent "conversion" which is related in a pamphlet by Parson Moody and his son Joseph, and went to her doom on Stage Neck, very cheerfully, according to these witnesses.
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HISTORY OF YORK
"EXECUTION" OF WILLIAM DEERING, 1749
Under date of February 16, 1749, Parson Smith of Falmouth wrote in his Diary: "Yesterday one Mrs. Deering of Bluepoint (Scarboro), was found barbarously murdered; it is supposed by her husband." She was Grace Pine before marriage. The suspicion proved correct and he was tried for the crime and convicted in June fol- lowing the deed. He was to be executed here August 3, 1749, but when the fatal day arrived the prisoner's cell was empty. He was of a good family and had influential friends in and out of court. He was son of Joseph and Mary (Bray) Deering of Kittery. Among them was Sir William Pepperrell, who was related to him by marriage, his mother being a Bray, and it was generally supposed that the Baronet found means to save his relative from the gallows through connivance with the authorities here and in Boston. The prestige of Pepperrell prevented any public scandal arising and the affair was allowed to drop. It is supposed that he was taken to England in a mast ship belonging to Pepperrell.
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