USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 59
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The development of these circumstances led in the 70's and 80's to a wild scramble for land that did not end until practically every foot of free land in the town was covered by a claim of some sort or other. Participating were men in the old settled por- tions of the town, who sold their farms and squat on new claims, improved the land and built homes; young men of the second generation who staked their claims in favored spots and there founded new families; and lastly the local capitalists or land specu- lators who staked large acreages to hold against the day when land values would rise and net them handsome profits. The pro- cedure followed was in general to stake out a claim and then hire a surveyor to survey its bounds. These latter, very frequently with a diagram of the plot, would be recorded in Wiscasset as the claim of Mr. X. There are literally scores of these on record in the Lincoln County Registry of Deeds, many with maps of the claims and a few even with a crude little sketch of the claimant's cabin. The only value of such recorded claims was that it gave to the original squatter certain priority rights, which would be recognized locally and perhaps also by squatters coming from the westward. This was the start of the populating of the back-districts of the town.1
1An indication of the extent to which these baek-districts filled up is furnished by the erossroad now known as Weaver Town. Mr. Frank Weaver in his 83rd year (1941) related to me of having been frequently told by his mother that in her younger days there were 100 people living along this road.
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Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
THE LAST OF THE MUSCONGUS PROPRIETORS Major General Henry Knox (1750-1806)
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AN OLD WALDOBORO KITCHEN (Home of Jasper J. Stahl)
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The first phase of this scramble to absorb the "vacant" land in the town had been carried on by the more enterprising of the local people with, of course, mutual moral approval. Following the forfeiture of the Proprietors' rights in 1778 someone had quite justly inserted the following article in the town warrant of March 1, 1779: "To see what the town would do concerning the vacant land in the town." This was certainly a pertinent inquiry, but by this time there were so many who had been both seeing and doing, that the cryptic record of the action taken on March 16: "Clause on vacant land laid on table," is not lacking in a certain element of humor.
Within a couple of years the Revolutionary soldiers were filtering in from the westward with their pockets filled with a currency so worthless that it would buy no land. They began to settle wherever the land seemed good. This was a somewhat dif- ferent matter, for it was in some cases a question of the squatter being squatted on, and as a consequence, on December 24, 1781, the following article appeared in the warrant: "To see what meas- ures the town will take concerning strangers defrauding the town of their vacant land." (Italics mine.) Thereon it was voted that "no stranger shall encroach on any man's land or meadow in said town." Obviously it was the intent of the majority that in the main such squatting as was going to be done, would be done by local citizens.
It is obviously impossible to trace in detail this unlawful occupation of the vacant lands of the town, but a sufficient num- ber of specific cases will be cited here to indicate the nature and scope of the scramble by these land-hungry Germans, in order to give the basis for a concrete understanding of its aftermath of consequences. The following surveys are simply a few typical cases of the general movement of land absorption in these years. April 13, 1774: "Then surveyed this lot for Mr. Henry Walk at a place called Back Cove near Goose River, ... containing 88 acres and 20 poles on the Back side of Broad Cove." Near by Mr. John Varner (Werner) took up a lot "containing 73 acres and 135 poles"; February 29, 1775, Jacob Ludwig and Jacob Winch- enbach, "a lot containing 156 acres and 65 poles extending from Broad Cove to Goose River," surveyed by Nath. Meservy; May 10, 1777, Charles Brotmann (Boardman) a tract at Medomak Pond, "containing 364 acres"; July 23, 1776, Philip Schuman, "a lot up in the country," on the east side of the river, "containing 157 acres, 8 poles," surveyed by John Martin; July 10, 1781, Frank Miller, "a lot containing 445 acres on the west side of Triangle Meadow Brook," surveyed by John Martin; December 1, 1781, Charles Benner, "a lot two and one half miles from
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Broad Bay in Waldoborough, containing 140 acres," surveyed by Nathaniel Meservy.2
These cases of Waldoborough squatters are few but typical of the illegal land absorption during the seventh and eighth decades of this century. Even while this grab was merrily going on, dis- turbing rumors began to reach Waldoborough around 1784 con- cerning readjustments in the title to the Waldo Patent. Unfor- tunately for the usurpers of the vacant lands, there was one mem- ber of the Waldo family who had remained loyal to the Amer- ican cause. This was Lucy Flucker, daughter of Hannah Waldo Flucker and granddaughter of General Samuel Waldo. It was also unfortunate that she was the wife of one of the ablest and most highly respected soldiers of the Revolution, Major General Henry Knox.
In right of her mother Lucy Knox was seized of one-fifth part of the Waldo Patent as well as the two fifths belonging to her father, Thomas Flucker, which had been purchased in 1773 of the widow of Colonel Samuel Waldo. This part of the Patent, having become confiscate under the Act of 1778, remained to be disposed of by an agent or administrator appointed by the Judge of Probate of Suffolk County, "the laste residence of said Flucker." Joseph Pierce, the agent first appointed, had confined his doings largely to the settlement of Flucker's property in the present State of Massachusetts, and having then resigned his office, was succeeded by General Knox in accordance with a resolve of the General Court of June 28, 1784. Knox's bond was given to Oliver Wendell, Judge of Probate of Suffolk County, for £20,000, with Benjamin Hitchborn and Henry Jackson, Esq., as sureties, at which time Flucker was styled "an absentee lately deceased."3
As agent empowered to liquidate for the state the lands held by the Waldo heirs under the Muscongus Patent, the first act of General Knox was to secure a definition of the bounds of this grant. It has been pointed out in an earlier chapter that the lines of the original Beauchamp-Leverett grant were drawn by gentle- men in England who had never been in America and who had as their only guide a few of the very earliest maps, crude and in- accurate. In consequence their efforts to define the bounds in terms of exact geographic realities were vague. Accordingly in 1785 a committee of the General Court at the request of the new agent, General Knox, began a study to determine the exact limits of the Patent. It, too, found the original document a geographical puzzle and reported as follows: "A description, the true intent and meaning whereof your committee finds it extremely difficult
"Recorded under dates given, Lincoln County Registry of Deeds (Wiseasset, Me.). 3These papers were in 1865 in the possession of John Bulfinch of Waldoboro.
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to determine." It did ascertain, however, that on February 3, 1762, a committee of the General Court reported it "expedient for the Province to release and convey to the heirs of Brig. Gen- eral Waldo a tract six miles in breadth reaching to the eastward." This was the grant made to compensate the Waldo heirs for re- linquishing their claim in that year to the west bank of the Medo- mak. But even this extension the committee found vaguely de- fined, and on its recommendation the General Court gave to the Patent its first exact bounds. Briefly, they were the following:
beginning at a point of land east of the mouth of the river Muscongus, then extending up said river according to the general course thereof unto the country; then from said point around the coast to the Penob- scot river, then up that river to a point from which a line run from the Penobscot to the Muscongus will complete thirty square miles.
The confirmation of this added territory on the east was made by the General Court on provision that the heirs execute a release and quitclaim of all other lands except those contained in this tract, and that any person "who may now be in possession of any lands within the limits of said Patent and who had been in possession of the same from any time before the 19th of April, shall be quieted in such possession, upon such terms as hereafter shall be determined upon by the General Court." It was this last pro- vision, all other means failing, under which the settlers of Waldo- borough were ultimately compelled to seek relief. In this clause the term "April 19th," was by a resolve of November 1, 1788, declared to mean the 19th of April, 1775. The Act of July 4th, 1785, legalizing the bounds of the Patent affected the entire grant comprising 600,000 acres, of which at this time the Lincolnshire Company held 100,000 and the Ten Proprietors about 50,000 acres, and the balance was covered by the claims of the Waldo heirs.
In the meantime the people of Waldoborough, stirred by reports involving the possible loss of their lands, began prepar- ing their defense. In the Town Meeting of April 4, 1785, it was voted "to choose a committee to examine and inform themselves into the several Proclimations and other Engagements of all kinds relative to Brigadier Waldo's or others settling of Broad Bay, now Waldoborough, and make a return of their doings thereon to the town as soon as they can conveniently accomplish the same." This committee, made up mainly of original settlers, included Captain Jacob Ludwig, Waterman Thomas, Esq., Mr. George Demuth, Peter Cramer, Joseph Ludwig, Frank Miller, and Cap- tain Matthias Remilly. What this committee reported back to the town will probably never be known, since the loose records of the town were all nonchalantly and stupidly destroyed in 1938.
It is historically fortunate in this clash of the people with
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
the last of the Proprietors that the records of the Massachusetts Archives provide some of the data that make it possible to piece together and to follow the details of the struggle. These records show that on May 15, 1785, the selectmen of the town, John Mar- tin Schaeffer, Waterman Thomas, Peter Cranmer, Cornelius Tur- ner, and Jacob Ludwig, submitted to the General Court a petition, apparently based on the report of the citizens' committee of April 4th, setting forth the position of the landholders in the town as follows:
In 1751, 1752 and 1753 General Waldo through proclamations in Germany promised 100 acres of land to each head of a family settling at Broad Bay, 200 acres of land for ministerial lots, 200 for school lots, and 200 acres to the first settled minister to 120 families. By reason of these offers 185 heads of families, and others upwards of twenty-one years of age, left their native lands. ... In fifteen months came the French and Indian war, in which several of the settlers starved to death and several were murdered and scalped by the Indians while trying to provide sustenance. ... After the war many were compelled to pur- chase their farms of the Pemaquid Proprietors. Brigadier Waldo has not made us any consideration for the lands promised us in Germany nor returned us the money we paid for our lands. Many of your peti- tioners have settled here since the French war, which we pray your Honours would confirm upon the lands we are settled upon, as our lots in general contain but 100 acres, which we have defended against the unlawful encroachments of Britain. Therefore we now hope that your Honours will not leave the widows and orphans of such as fell in that glorious contest, to the merciless prey of any set of men or their heirs who attempted to enslave us.
They then prayed that the Waldo claim might not be con- ferred; that the Court would give heed to the Proclamation of Brigadier General Waldo and a letter of his heirs attached to their petition; and that "so great a priveledge as the lime rock might be free."4
It cannot be said that this petition was a model of historical accuracy, nor that it was free from cant, hypocrisy, or avarice, but the settlers, including many of the squatters, did have a case of rather impressive justice. In outline it stood about as follows: the Germans on the west bank of the Medomak River, from the falls to the tip end of Dutch Neck, had been settled there by Gen- eral Waldo and allotted a hundred acres per family. Actually these lands were not his and in consequence the settlers had been compelled in 1763 to purchase them of the Pemaquid Proprietors; hence it followed that none of these westside settlers had ever received the lands originally promised by Waldo. Consequently the Waldo heirs were legally and morally obligated to assign to such one hundred acres in the settlement or to give warranty deeds to those having such lands already in their possession, having
"Submission of Settlers, Waldo Claim (Mass. Archives).
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settled on and improved such within the bounds of the Patent, which would mean the recognition of many of the squatter claims on the east side of the river.
Furthermore, among the original settlers on the eastern bank were some holding lands under assignment by Waldo, to whom deeds had never been issued. Such claims would clearly have to be honored by the heirs to the Patent; and lastly, the General had promised certain public lots within his Patent for religious and educational purposes, and here, too, the heirs were ethically bound to redeem such a promise. Those in possession of land not falling in these categories were the numerous squatters without a case except to petition the Court to declare the unoccupied por- tions of the Patent to be public lands. In fact, there were those who held that Flucker's lands, having reverted to the state under the Act of 1778, had become public property, and that the same terms should be extended to those who were settled on such land without title, as to families settling on wild lands. This case to a degree seems to have swayed the General Court, for even though it recognized and confirmed the bounds of the Patent under its Act of July 4, 1785, it reserved to itself the right to quiet those settled on all lands within the grant prior to April 19, 1775.
Before General Knox had acquired the Waldo rights within the Patent, and while still acting as agent for the state, he had made two efforts to quiet the settlers on rather liberal terms. In 1786 he proposed in writing the naming of three impartial judges, one to be chosen by the Proprietors, one by the settlers, and a third by a vote of the other two. This board was to fix the price on disputed lots, and this price was to be paid in three installments in the second, fourth and sixth years, without interest. This pro- posal was not accepted. So deeply did the settlers feel the justice of their claims that no settlement save on their own terms would have been to their satisfaction.
Again, in 1788 other terms were offered whereby title would be given to the land on payment of four shillings an acre. This sum could be paid in installments, without interest, either in money or marketable produce. On all early payments an interest of six per cent would be allowed. These terms applied, of course, to settlers anywhere within the Patent, and under this arrange- ment about three hundred persons settled their disputes with the agent. Since Henry Knox did not secure for himself claim to the Patent until 1791, matters tended to drift in the interim or re- mained in statu quo until the new proprietor, early in the 1790's, assumed active management of his estate.
Henry Knox was known to the people of Lincoln County largely through his reputation as an able and gallant soldier of the Revolution. Of his personal traits and business philosophy, or
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of his possible attitude toward the quasi-tenants on his lands there could be only speculation. In fact, the new proprietor was not to appear personally on his estates for a number of years, and since the settlers were not disturbed in their holdings as the weeks and months passed, agitation died down. The reason for Knox's quiescence was his acceptance of the appointment of Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Washington. That he did not look forward to a political career as a thing of permanence, and that his thoughts were on ultimate retirement to his estate, is evi- denced by a reference in his letter to Washington accepting the appointment. Under date of March 24, 1785, he wrote: "I have dependence on an unwieldy estate of Mrs. Knox's family, and upon the public certificate given for my services; but neither of these is productive, and require a course of years to render them SO."
The people on the Waldo Patent awaited with some misgiv- ings the coming of the new proprietor. Henry Knox was not to the manner born, as were so many of the Virginia gentlemen whom he knew and whose way of life he visualized for himself in the Maine wilderness. He had come up the hard way and had risen and succeeded on personal merit. He was born in Boston, on July 25, 1750, the seventh of ten sons and hence, due to the potency of this magic number, possessed of more than normal power by birthright. His father died in 1762 and Henry, becoming the sole stay of his mother, left school and secured a position in a bookstore in Cornhill. He continued to educate himself in his- tory, the classics, and military strategy, and at the age of twenty- one opened his own bookshop which became a marked success. A frequent customer was Miss Lucy Flucker of Tory circles, daughter of Thomas Flucker, royal secretary of the Common- wealth, and "a high-toned loyalist of great family pretentions." When the storm broke, Knox joined an artillery company in Boston and directed the movement of the heavy guns overland from Ticonderoga which eventually forced the evacuation of Bos- ton. When Lord Howe's army departed by sea in March 1776 all the Fluckers went with it; only Lucy in the face of strenuous family opposition had remained behind, as Mrs. Knox.5
Knox rose to the rank of major general and throughout the war was one of Washington's most valued counsellors and friends. The close of the struggle brought him a post in the President's cabinet, but it did not provide monetarily for his future, for the salary was only $3000.00, and Knox's establishment was always costly. In New York he kept five servants and the average expense
"The data on Henry Knox is drawn from Noah Brooks, Henry Knox, a Soldier of the Revolution (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900).
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of his ménage was £1314 16s. per annum, partly by reason of the fact that Mrs. Washington, shrinking from the discharge of large social duties, had Mrs. Knox take the lead. The two ladies had always been the closest friends, and Mrs. Knox was at Mount Vernon with Martha Washington at the time of the surrender at Yorktown. In New York the General and his lady were conspicu- ous personages, she being very large and of lofty manners, and the General weighing two hundred and eighty pounds and stand- ing a trifle over six feet. An observer of life in the capital city has left the following characterization of the couple:
She and her husband were, perhaps, the largest couple in the city, and both were favorites, he for really brilliant conversation and unfail- ing good humor, and she as a lively and meddlesome but amiable leader of society, without whose cooperation it was believed by many beside herself that nothing could be properly done in the drawing room or in the ball-room or any other place indeed where fashionable men and women sought enjoyment.6
In New York as everywhere else the Knoxes could not dis- pense with the grand manner of living. His hospitality was re- nowned for its elegance and generosity. Doctor Manesseh Cutler in his Diary notes that he dined at Knox's table with forty-four other gentlemen, and that the entertainment "was in the style of a Prince," Baron von Steuben being present and every one of the guests at the table being of the Order of the Cincinnati.7
Amid such a life the General's salary was not even meeting the demands of the present, and he strongly felt the need to pro- vide for his family's future and wished to develop the large landed estate to which he had a certain claim through his wife's family. The death of his beloved friend, General Nathaniel Greene, who left a family scantily provided for at the end of a career of dis- tinguished and unselfish service, had made a deep impression on Knox and, even as he was organizing the defense of the new state, he was working toward the liquidation of the old Waldo estate in "eastern parts," in order to have everything settled and ready against the day of his retirement.
In his capacity as agent of the State of Massachusetts for settling the Flucker estate, he obtained permission of the Supreme Judicial Court in October 1790 to sell all the real estate of Thomas Flucker, and on May 27, 1791, gave bond to account faithfully for the same to the State Treasurer. He had caused advertisements under date of March 21, 1791, to be posted in Boston, Charlestown, and Roxbury, and also at Pownalborough, Newcastle, Noblebor- ough, Waldoborough, Warren, Cushing, Megunticook, Thomas-
6Rufus W. Griswold, The Republican Court, cited by Brooks, opus cit., p. 219. "Cited by Brooks, p. 220.
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ton, Medumcook, Duck Trap, Frankfort, Belfast, Penobscot, Union, and Hope. Following these notices, on July 2, 1791, at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in State Street, Boston, he made sale to Oliver Smith of that city, of the two fifths of the Waldo Patent belonging to the Flucker estate. This tract was estimated to in- clude 65,000 or 70,000 acres, excepting the land which had been sold prior to April 19, 1775, and that subject to the conditions of the legislative resolves of 1785 and 1788. This purchase was con- veyed by Smith to Henry Jackson of Boston, who on October 1, 1792, transferred it to Henry Knox of Philadelphia in consideration of the sum of $5200.00. The following year Knox bought in all other titles to the Patent. Thus it was in his own right and that inherited by his wife that General Henry Knox became the sole proprietor of the Waldo estate, excepting of course those por- tions previously alienated by transfer of title to the settlers.
In the spring of 1793 workmen from Boston reached Thomas- ton and started work on the new mansion house under the super- vision of the architect, Ebenezer Dunton. The new home was named Montpelier by Mrs. Knox. In the autumn of this year General Knox set his attorneys at work asserting his proprietary rights throughout the Patent. Since the quitclaim deeds that Knox had taken from the heirs of Francis Waldo and Lucy Waldo Winslow could legally transfer only such lands as were actually in their possession, and since large portions of them had been pre-empted by those who had squat upon them during and after the Revolution, it was necessary to put the grantee in possession by actual entry on those lots by "livery and seizin made by sod and twig." This ancient legal rite was administered by Ebenezer Vesey, attorney to the said heirs, and John Steele Tyler, attorney to General Knox, in the late autumn of 1793. Throughout the grant possession was taken in this manner of the land of four hundred and fifty-eight illegal possessors, one hundred and one of which were located in the town of Waldoborough. All these cases were those of citizens holding lands on the east side of the river in the easterly part of the town, from its northern to its southern limits. Some were clearly squatters, while others included those to whom Waldo had never given a written title, and those with titles who had pushed their claims farther east than their bounds warranted.
The writ of dispossession in so far as it affected Waldobor- ough people read as follows:
To All People Who Shall See These Presents be it known that Ebenezer Vesey, Attorney to the legal heirs of the Muscongus or Waldo Patent so called, did at several periods hereafter mentioned deliver pos- session of certain parts or Lots comprehended in the said Patent, and
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that were unlawfully occupied or usurped by sundry persons, to John Steele Tyler Esquire, Attorney to Henry Knox Esquire, who is the purchaser of all the rights of the said heirs in and to the Patent afore- said, the following are the names of the several persons who so unlaw- fully occupied or usurped the said parts and Lots with the dates at which possession was taken. . .
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