USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 8
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This movement of settlers up the sound continued until checked by King Philip's War early in the last quarter of the cen- tury. As this struggle was extended into Maine, the settlements as well as the more isolated farms were abandoned and the people took refuge on the islands. At the time of the first Indian onslaught in this area as many as 300 people were gathered on Damariscove. After a week's stay many moved to Monhegan. From these two places they migrated back to the older settlements to the south and west, and many enlisted for service against the Indians. At this time Pemaquid was a sizable colony, and there were about twelve houses at New Harbor.12 Even as those at Pemaquid were leaving their homes, they could see the smoke rising from the burn- ing dwellings at New Harbor. This was merely the prelude to what was to come. In their absence all property was either de- stroyed or burned.
In order to conserve to the settlers their rights during this enforced absence, the General Court in 1700 appointed a commis- sion to receive and register all claims to the lands in the region from which the owners had been driven during the Indian wars. From 1700 to 1720 many entries were made both by bona fide settlers and by land speculators in a book entitled Eastern Claims. The whereabouts of this book is no longer known; but it showed, according to John Johnston, who was able to consult it, many claims at Long Cove, New Harbor, Muscongus, and Greenland.13 There is one of these entries which registers a claim in the very heart of present-day Waldoboro. Under it one, "Morrice Chalmes," claimed land as follows:
11Colonial Maine, p. 198.
12John Johnston, History of Bristol, Bremen and Pemaquid, p. 228. 13Ibid., p. 231.
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Uplands and meadows lying on the western side of Musconcos River butted and bounded viz. beginning on the North-east side of a marsh in the Broad Bay called by the name of Humphrey Farrell's marsh two miles into the woods upon a west line this being the Southeast bounds, and from the aforesaid marsh, or Farrell's marsh round the great Bay and so up along Muskoncos River side to a falls or fresh River commonly called and known by the name of Madahomack Falls, from said Falls two miles upon a west line into the woods, this being the Northward bounds, Muscongus River and the Broad Bay being the East Bounds, with all meadows ... Deed by Indian Sagamore Arrowagonett Dated 9th January 1673. Possession given in presence of Sylvanus Davis and John Pearce.14
It will be noted that this claim embraced the whole west bank of the Medomak from Farrell's Marsh to the First Falls.
The implications of this document are both interesting and suggestive, since it points to clearings and cabins on the Medomak in the second half of the seventeenth century. Johnston, discussing the expansion of settled areas up the sound in the first half century of Pemaquid history, states that "the houses of the settlers were considerably scattered" from Pemaquid up to Broad Cove in Bre- men.15 With settlers occupying lands so close to the boundary of present-day Waldoboro, the conclusion is inescapable that the push had carried on for the remaining three or four miles to the coveted mill sites at the head of the Medomak. In fact, we have already seen that one of these sites was the subject of a claim as early as 1673. Still more convincing is the existence of place names such as "Humphrey Farrell's Marsh." Such names as Kaler's Hill, Cole's Hill, the Gay Brook, and a host of others are not derived from mere claims to untenanted land, but rather do they take their names from the family which lived on the hill or beside the brook. Hence the supposition is a strong one that the marsh in question was a part of the claim on which Humphrey Farrell had been liv- ing for some time prior to 1673. Such settlement as there may have been at this early date was, however, at best evanescent; for as King Philip's War spread into Maine, circa 1675, these outlying units were the first to be liquidated by the Indians; and their occu- pants were either slaughtered or fled to the islands, or to the more heavily settled areas, for protection.
After King Philip's War, with the return to more settled con- ditions, some of the settlers returned to their lands; and the move- ment toward the headwaters of the Medomak was again resumed, here again on the part of the descendants of John Brown of New Harbor. Margaret, a daughter of Sander Gould and granddaughter of Brown, had married James Stilson of New Harbor; and the couple had moved up to Muscongus or possibly Broad Cove. In
14Ibid., p. 235.
15Ibid., p. 98.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
1688 or 1689 Stilson was killed by the Indians, and his wife and daughter, Margaret, were taken as prisoners to Canada and sold to the French. In 1700 or 1701 they were ransomed and restored to their friends. At this time the Hiltons in the person of William Hilton, the elder, were located at Muscongus. He married Margaret Stilson shortly after her return from captivity and lived first at Muscongus and later at Broad Cove until 1718, when they were driven out by the Indians. They withdrew to Massachusetts where William died in 1723.16 This couple had nine children, one of whom, a son, William, married - Lee, and moved back to this district and occupied the old homestead of his father, William, Sr. This may have been around 1729 when Fort Frederick was rebuilt at Pemaquid by Colonel Dunbar. This William had four sons: James, Richard, John, and William. He carried on farming opera- tions at Broad Cove and gave his sons land there, which they were improving. Here he also built himself a small cabin in which he apparently lived. During the French and Indian War, for greater security, he made his headquarters at the old home at Muscongus and worked the farms at Broad Cove by commuting back and forth with his sons by boat. In doing so it was their wont to take their dogs with them; and while the boat laid off the beach, the animals would swim ashore and nose around for Indians.
On one occasion with his sons William, Richard, and John, this precaution was neglected and as they landed they were fired on from ambush. The son, William, was killed and the father badly wounded in the knee by another Indian who had dashed forward and gotten possession of the dead boy's gun. One of the savages in turn received the contents of Richard's fowling piece in the leg. The elder Hilton and his two sons regained the boat and made their way back to Muscongus, where in a few days the father died of his wounds. A rescue party of Germans went over from Dutch Neck, where the sounds of the combat had been clearly heard. They arrived too late, however, to punish the Indians. They wrapped the remains of the dead son in some bedding from the Hilton homestead and buried them on the shore bank of the old Hilton farm at Broad Cove. Years afterward erosion of the shore bank revealed the presence of the bones. They were taken up on the death of Richard Hilton; and the remains of both brothers were buried in a common grave.17
It was remarkable that William Hilton, Sr., had been able to remain at Broad Cove unmolested by the Indians until driven out in 1718; for the destruction at Pemaquid of Fort William Henry in
16"Deposition of Hannah Teuxbury of Manchester, Mass., taken Sept. 9, 1807," printed in Johnston's History of Bristol . , p. 244.
ITAs related by a grand-nephew, Chas. V. Hilton, to John Johnston, op. cit., pp. 248-249.
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1696 had put an end to all English influence in this region; and there was not a single stronghold left anywhere in the area to which families could flee in case of need. In fact, it is highly prob- able that there were no white families in the whole district other than the Hiltons; for Patrick Rogers, who was for a time a lieuten- ant in the garrison at Pemaquid, testified in 1773 that at about 1720 or 1721, when he was living at Georgetown (Bath), there was not a house that he knew of standing between Georgetown and Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia, except a single fish house on Damariscove Island.18
In the interim that Hilton was at Broad Cove the settlers had fled westward to the Massachusetts Bay region where they were living and biding an opportune time to return and claim their possessions in the Muscongus Bay area. But the outlook was not good. There was no stockade to provide them refuge; the French were in possession on the Penobscot; and the Indians remained uncertain and treacherous. In fact, since Philip's time the Indian wars were so frequent that the peaces between them were mere breathing spells. In 1702 had come Queen Anne's War with the French which was the third Indian war since 1676. Again every straggling Englishman in Maine and every unprotected settlement became legitimate prey for the savages. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 brought another brief breathing space during which con- ditions existing in "eastern parts" made it clear to the government in Boston that if the Province of Maine was to be settled at all, a change in program affecting the savages would be necessary. Ac- cordingly it was decided to embark on a more conciliatory policy with reference to the eastern Indians.
In 1717 Governor Shute inaugurated the new program of conciliation by holding a conference on Arrowsic Island in the Kennebec with the chiefs of the neighboring tribes, at which a peace of a sort was agreed to. Following this peace the proprietors of the Beauchamp-Leverett grant (later known as the Waldo Pat- ent) made their second attempt at systematic colonization in their territory. At or near the site of the present Knox mansion on the St. Georges River, in 1719 a fort was built which was to serve as the nucleus of a new settlement. This time it was destined to stand until the Indians were quieted forever. For the time being, how- ever, it merely remained a stronghold. A settlement proved impos- sible; for the peace was being constantly violated by small bands of roving Indians; and the whites, on their part, were not slow in reciprocating in kind. Certainly there was a reason for this acute unrest on the part of the savages, since the continued expansion of the English settlers meant the levelling of the forest, the departure
18 Lincoln Report (1811), p. 60.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
of game, and the consequent limiting of Indian hunting grounds. It also meant the loss of the food supplies derived during the sum- mer season from the shores and coastal waters. In a word, it meant the break-up of their agelong economy as outlined in the second chapter. From hard reality they realized the full consequences to themselves of the spread of English civilization. Hence the Fourth Indian War in the immediate wake of the third was inevitable. In this struggle the savages were urged on by Father Râle, the Jesuit missionary among the Abnaki, on the Kennebec. At his instigation notice was served on the garrison at Arrowsic that "if the settlers did not remove in three weeks, the Indians would come and kill them all, destroy their cattle, burn their houses .. . " and repossess themselves of the lands "which the Great God had given their fathers and themselves." In this manner the struggle was again pre- cipitated, but this time the Indians were on their own not having as usual the open support of the French.
The coast shipping seems to have been an especial object of their attack; and in the course of the struggle, over twenty schoon- ers were seized and many of the crews killed or captured. Murder- ous attacks were also sustained by the English settlements, and there was bloody and ruinous retaliation on the Indians. Their power to resist was materially weakened in two major battles of this war. There was Lovewell's terrific battle at Lovewell's Pond in the present town of Fryeburg, at which the power of the Pe- quawket tribe under its chief, Pangres, was broken forever and his remaining followers dispersed to the westward, and the destruc- tion of the Abnaki stronghold at Norridgewock which took place in 1724. In this struggle Father Râle was killed, his church burned, and the second most powerful tribe in Maine scattered and forced to seek refuge in Canada. These were the two decisive blows of the war.
All in all conditions were too exhausting and too horrible to be long endured by either side. As the Penobscots were less active in this war than the Indians to the westward, Lieutenant Governor Dummer took steps in the early summer of 1725 to sound them out in order to learn if anything could be done in the way of a restoration of peace. Commissioners sent to the Georges River found the Penobscots favorably disposed; and in the autumn of the same year four distinguished chiefs of the east- ern tribes gathered in Boston to discuss with the authorities the terms of a permanent settlement. An agreement was difficult to reach, since the Indians demanded the demolition of Fort Rich- mond on the Kennebec, and of Waldo's blockhouse on the Georges. To such terms the English were hardly willing to accede.
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The best the conference could do after a long parley was to reach a tentative compromise subject to the approval of the various tribes. For this purpose a conference was arranged to meet at Fal- mouth in May of the following year. Due to misunderstandings the conference did not convene until July 10th. Present were about forty Indians representing all eastern tribes except the Norridge- wocks, and Governor Dummer of Massachusetts, Governor Went- worth of New Hampshire, and Colonel Paul Mascarene of Nova Scotia. Dummer was chief spokesman for the English and Sagua- rum of the Penobscot tribe for the Indians. The latter stoutly defended the main Indian objective which was to the effect that "no houses or settlements be made eastward of Pemaquid or above Arrowsic." He was also loath to concede to the English the right to establish any settlements above tidewater on the coastal rivers. This, however, was a position on which no agreement could be reached, and one which remained an unsettled point and the root of future controversies.
The conference ended with a rather mournful speech on the part of the Indian spokesman, giving expression to the hope that the white men would obtrude themselves no further upon their neighbors the Indians. The English on their part agreed to main- tain at public expense truck houses or trading posts at Fort Rich- mond on the Kennebec and on the St. Georges, where supplies of goods suitable for the Indians' needs would be kept and exchanged at a fair price for furs. All the goods trafficked in under this agree- ment, however, were not suited to the red man's needs; for only a little later Saguarum had occasion to register the following sol- emn admonition: "Never let the trading houses deal in much rum. It wastes the health of our young men; it unfits them to attend prayers. It makes them carry ill both to your people and their own brethren. This is the mind of our chief men."
Since this treaty was not ratified by the Norridgewocks, who for some unknown reason had absented themselves, another con- ference was appointed to meet at Falmouth in the summer of 1727. This was attended by about one hundred Indians representing all the eastern tribes, and the treaty of the preceding year was ratified in apparent good faith, with the added proviso that the English and Indians would join forces to restrain any refractory Indians who might presume to disturb the peace. This settlement, called the Peace of Governor Dummer's Treaty, was the most enduring one negotiated during the period of the Indian wars. It concluded the Fourth Indian War in Maine and preserved the peace until 1744, when France joined Spain in the war against England, known abroad as the War of the Austrian Succession, and locally as King
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George's or the Fifth Indian War. It was in this comparatively long lull of peace that the final and successful effort was made to settle the Waldoborough area. In this colonizing movement Shem Drowne, representing the Pemaquid Patent, and Samuel Waldo, the old Beauchamp-Leverett Grant, were the major figures.
Samuel Waldo (1695-1759) was a Boston merchant, aristo- crat, capitalist, and politician. He was a grandson of Cornelius Waldo who was living in Ipswich, Massachusetts, as early as 1647.19 Samuel was the eldest surviving child born to Jonathan and Hannah (Mason) Waldo of Boston. On December 22, 1695, he was bap- tized in the First Church of that city, and according to tradition received his education at the Boston Latin School which was later attended by his sons. He began business as a merchant in partner- ship with his cousin, Cornelius, and on capital advanced by his father. Apparently the Waldos were at first specialists in delicat- essen, for in the Boston News Letter of September 5, 1734, we find them advertising the following: "Best London Market Madiera wine lately Imported hither via St. Kitts, to be sold by the Pipe, hogshead or quarter cask by Messrs. Samuel and Cornelius Waldo." Later the partnership was dissolved and Samuel seems to have ex- panded his business, for in 1738 we find him advertising new lines of wares as follows: "To be sold by Samuel Waldo Good Florence Wine in chests, good Irish Butter by the Firkin at two shillings per pound and a Likely Young Negro Fellow." These articles were dealt in from his home on Queen Street. Thus it was, con- sonant with the practices of the times, that the foundation of Samuel Waldo's fortune was laid in trade.
In 1722 Samuel had married Lucy, daughter of Major Francis and Sarah (Whipple) Wainwright of Ipswich. To this union were born Samuel Jr., Lucy, Hannah, Francis, Sarah, and Ralph. As Waldo's mercantile interests expanded he finally came to an exclu- sive trade in rum, fish, wood, and lumber. For a period of years he was the official mast-agent for the Royal Navy and collabo- rated with Thomas Westbrook of Falmouth in getting out white pine spars for the British fleet. It was while in this line of activity that Waldo · became involved in the famous colonial lawsuit of Frost vs. Leighton.20 This case is here touched upon because the circumstances are so characteristic of the man. Waldo employed Leighton to cut timber on Frost's woodland, and had his lawyer defend him against Frost's suit for trespass, and won the case for his employee.
It was, however, land speculation on a large scale which be- came the chief interest of the last thirty years of Samuel Waldo's
1ºThe Dictionary of American Biography, XIX, 333.
20 American Historical Review, Jan., 1897.
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life; and his career is mainly significant by reason of his unwearied efforts to develop the area on the coast of Maine lying in general between the Penobscot and the Medomak rivers, which was the territory loosely embraced by the old Beauchamp-Leverett Grant. We have already seen that John Leverett, the sole owner of this patent, had long been interested in developing his claim. Since it was too large a project for him to exploit unaided, he had admitted to proprietorship eight other gentlemen; and again in 1729 these eight had admitted the Twenty Associates, among whom was Jon- athan Waldo, the father of Samuel. This was the basis of Waldo's original interest in the project.
In the peace which followed the Third Indian War, plans were formulated by the proprietors for settling and developing this area; and the initial move toward this end had been taken with the construction of a blockhouse in 1719 on the Georges River. The plans, however, did not proceed with entire speed and smooth- ness; for the Fourth Indian War broke out in 1722; and for a num- ber of years the fort was little more than a garrison on the defensive. The Indians were firmly set against any settlement east of Pemaquid. In consequence this garrison was their pet aversion; and it was attacked with unexampled ferocity on June 15th, August 24th, and December 25th, of 1723, and once again in 1724. In the face of this hostile attitude, there could be no question of the development of a settlement.
Following the peace the proprietors encountered another major obstacle to their plans when, in the spring of 1729, Colonel David Dunbar appeared at Pemaquid with a royal commission as Governor of the whole territory of Sagadahock. To this commis- sion a little later was added the office of Surveyor General of the King's Woods, whose function it was to protect in these regions the timber deemed suitable for masts and other purposes in the Royal Navy. It was also proposed by Dunbar's backers in England to set aside 200,000 acres for mast trees in Nova Scotia, and to settle a colony of Irish and Germans in the tract between the Ken- nebec and St. Croix rivers, forming a new colony which was to bear the name of Georgia.21
There was in Great Britain a party which held that in all this territory ownership of the soil was legally vested in the Crown as against all other claimants, including the heirs of the original proprietors. This position was taken on the ground that the capture and destruction of the fort at Pemaquid in 1696 by the French was really a conquest by that nation, and that the territory became legally its property, thereby extinguishing all prior claims. By the
21"Reports of Lords of Trade, May 14, 1729," C.O. 5, No. 4, Acts, Privy Council, III, 152, 183ff. Also: Robert E. Moody in The New England Quarterly, March, 1941, pp. 113-120.
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same token when England reconquered the territory in 1710, the ownership of the soil was thereafter vested in the Crown, especially since the French by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 formally retro- ceded this area to Great Britain. It was on this principle that Dun- bar proceeded. He was a man of great executive force, and im- mediately outlined elaborate plans for the settling of the area, invit- ing settlers from any part of the country and offering them lands on easy terms. In so doing he disregarded alike the jurisdiction of Massachusetts and the claims of the great proprietors whether held under royal grants or Indian deeds, as well as those of the poorest settlers holding farms under grant of such proprietors.
This policy of Dunbar's stirred up immediate opposition and especially did it subject the plans of the Muscongus Proprietors to a severe check; for so long as this theory of soil ownership pre- vailed, they could issue no valid titles to settlers taking up lands under their claims. This condition served to array against Dunbar a united front of all persons representing the older grants. This included Shem Drowne, who represented the heirs to the Pema- quid Patent, the proprietors of the Muscongus Patent, and others, including Governor Belcher who upheld the jurisdiction of Massa- chusetts and in his choice language described Dunbar as "the bull- frog from the Hibernian Fens." Petitions and remonstrances fol- lowed one another in rapid order to the General Court. The ques- tion was at once referred by that legislative body to a committee which after due study printed a report setting forth the facts in the case and denouncing the procedure of Dunbar. In the face of his royal commission, however, the Court could not act in any other way than to bring the case to the attention of the British authorities. Shem Drowne, for the Pemaquid heirs, petitioned the Crown for Dunbar's removal; and Samuel Waldo was sent to Eng- land by the claimants under the Muscongus Grant, probably some- time in 1730. Waldo was at his best in undercover work, and labored untiringly against Dunbar, both secretly and openly in collaboration with English friends. The whole question finally reached the Board of Trade, which requested Francis Wilkes, the Province agent, to prepare all the data in the case. This material was then referred to the Attorney and Solicitor General for an opinion. The report made by these officers fully sustained the jurisdiction of Massachusetts and the claims of the proprietors and held in consequence that the Crown had no right to appoint a governor with the extraordinary powers of Dunbar, or to make assignments of the land. 22 This opinion was submitted in August 1731, and was accepted by the government. One year later Dun-
22William D. Williamson, History of Maine, 11, 174.
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bar's dismissal took place, and he retained only the office of Sur- veyor of the King's Woods.
Samuel Waldo was a dogged fighter, somewhat unscrupulous as to means and relentlessly persevering until his ends had been attained. His was a clear-cut victory over Dunbar. It validated all the proprietary claims east of the Kennebec and left the door open for the first time since the Dummer peace for the legal admission of settlers to lands held under proprietary grants. The Indians too were now quiescent, and the enterprise involving the Muscongus Grant was soon to be in strong and interested hands.
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