USA > Maine > Maine Public Lands 1781-1795 : claims, trespassers, and sales > Part 4
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The Committee appointed the previous March to sell land in York County had been bothered by the fact that no provision had been made allowing a majority of the members rather than the Committee as a whole to make binding agreements, and had reported to the General
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Court a fear that this would handicap it in carrying out its work. Accordingly a resolve was passed on the tenth of November making a 28
majority decision binding.
This resolve also provided that all sales made at anytime by the Committee were valid regardless of who had actual possession of the land - the Committee's report had stated that some squatters had not 29 agreed to terms that it, the Committee, considered reasonable. This clause and a similar one included in a resolve passed the next day indi- cated that the General Court intended to "get tough" with squatters, but in actual practice it continued to give them careful consideration.
NOVEMBER 11, 1784
The next day's resolve mentioned above made valid all sales consummated by the Lincoln County Committee regardless of actual 30 possession, also.
This resolve, proposed by a joint committee which had been appointed to explore ways and means of expediting sales and who had studied the Land Committee report, empowered the Committee to sell "strips or other pieces of [land] " in addition to that already
27. Committee report with Mass. Resolve, Nov. 10, 1784, Chap. 76.
28. Mass. Resolve, Nov. 10, 1784, Chap. 76.
29.
Committee report with Mass. Resolve, Nov. 10, 1784,
Chap.76.
30. Mass. Resolve, Nov. 11, 1784, Chap. 84.
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placed under its power of disposal -- the whole townships and the ocean islands. Furthermore, the Committee was to lay out townships "from time to time, and at such times and in such manner as they shall find most beneficial to this commonwealth, any resolve to the contrary notwithstanding."
All of the unappropriated land in Lincoln County with certain specific exceptions such as the public lots in the various townships and possible mast sites yet to be picked was now made free to be placed on the open market as soon as the Committee should think best.
SUMMARY
Land policy was now systematized, and the Committee proceeded to do the work assigned them in conformance with the directions con- tained in these initial resolves, with only a few changes, until 1788 when changed conditions and knowledge gained from experience produced a resolve that set forth a revised, more efficient, procedure.
PART III
PERSONNEL AND PROCEDURES
The people who did the work laid out by the General Court were mainly the men of the committees whom it appointed and the surveyors whom those committees hired. Part Two is the story of these men and a description in general of their jobs.
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CHAPTER III
COMMITTEES
The administration of the public lend was the responsibility of the General Court, but the bulk of the work involved was done by the committees created for the purpose -- the land committees and special joint committees of House and Senate appointed to do some particular task. This chapter will deal with those committees discussing the relationship between the General Court and the committees, the means of communication used, intra-committee cooperation, office work, expenses and sources of money, territorial jurisdiction, and finally biographical comments about the members of the October, 1783 Committee.
The Committee of 1781 became less and less active as time went on - it just sort of faded away - while the Committee of 1783 remained active and finally became responsible for the whole district. There- fore, unless otherwise stated, all future remarks about land committees will refer to the latter.
GENERAL COURT-COMMITTEE RELATIONSHIPS
Land problems were brought before the Legislature by the speeches of individual legislators and messages from the governor, as well as by the letters and petitions of people directly concerned with the land -- proprietors, would-be purchasers, and settlers, or the agents, secretaries, selectmen, and friends representing them.
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When these questions required study by a small group, the Court 1 gave them into the hands of either one of the Land Committees or a 2 specially chosen General Court committee. An interesting example of this is found in connection with a petition received in 1783 from some of the proprietors of the towns east of Penobscot, and placed before a special committee. This group was to consider the case and recommend a course of action. By June of the next year no action had been taken so again the Court presented it to a committee. This time it was the 3 Lincoln County Committee, which had been born during the delay. Al- though the General Court passed a resolve that supposedly solved the problem soon thereafter, it was still wrestling with it in 1786. 1 resolve aimed to settle the matter was drawn up in March but tabled. In June the House voted to send this unpassed resolve to the Land Com- mittee for study and recommendation, but the Senate changed it to a 4
special committee.
Sometimes the Court directed the joint committees to consider what steps might be taken to expedite and improve the land work of
1. e.g. Orders to Committee on Eastern Lands, no date, Eastern Lands, Box 9; Land Committee report with Mass. Resolve, July 6, 1787, Chap. 84.
2. e.g. Papers with Mass. Resolve, June 25, 1789, Chap. 106; joint committee report, Feb. 28, 1787, with Mass. Resolve, July 6, 1787, Chap. 84.
3. Petition of Bartlett et al. to General Court with Mass. Resolve, March 17, 1785, Chap. 158.
4. General Court Order, June 10, 1786, with Mass. Resolve, July 8, 1786, Chap. 130.
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the State. 5 On these occasions these committees either made special 6 suggestions for action, or drafted and submitted proposed. resolves 7 covering the matter.
In addition to making recommendations for action to the General Court, the Land Committees also did most of the work involved in exe- cuting the land program drawn up by the Court. In fact this work took up most of their time.
By and large it was the intention of the General Court that the decisions of a majority of the members of each of these committees should be binding. 8 In one particular instance a suggestion was made by a member that a simple majority was not adequate to handle the given matter -- a point in the negotiations with Jackson and Flint. This was a transaction in which the Committee moved with great caution even going
5. e.g. Senate Order, July 11, 1783, with Mass. Resolve, July 11, 1783, Chap. 99; papers with Mass. Resolve, Nov. 11, 1784, Chap. 84.
6. e.g. Eastern Lands, Deeds I, 272, June 3, 1785.
7. e.g. Papers with Mass. Resolve, July 11, 1783, Chap. 99; papers with Mass. Resolve, March 10, 1791, Chap. 136; papers with Mass. Resolve, March 5, 1792, Chap. 130.
8. Mass. Resolve, Nov. 5, 1784, Chap. 45; Mass. Resolve, March 26, 1788, Chap. 80. There were some deviations. The York County Committee could do business whenever a quorum of three was present (Mass. Resolve, May 1, 1781, Chap. 113). The Committee appointed to sell land in York County in 1784 was not empowered to act at first without the unanimous consent of all five members, but this was later changed to allow majority discussions. (Mass. Resolve, Nov. 10, 1784, Chap. 76). The Resolve of Nov. 1786, which added Putnam and Jarvis to the 1783 Committee, making them the fourth and the fifth members, authorized any two to make decisions (Mass. Resolve, Nov. 16, 1786, Chap. 110).
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to the extent of getting & General Court opinion on the advisability of selling the size parcel desired, and Phillips wrote Jarvis in answer to a request that he come down to Boston for a meeting that he would 9
want more than a bare majority at such a session. Customarily, though, such a majority was considered ample.
As has been seen the Land Committees were required to give the Legislature a report of their activities regularly. These reports were customarily submitted to a joint committee of the General Court for 10 examination and approval.
From time to time situations confronted the Committee which it had not been given authority to handle or that posed a problem concern- 11 ing which it needed advice. For instance on one occasion early in its history, it undertook to sell a township upon application made to it, but a part of the land proved to be in York County which was not 12 then in the Committee's jurisdiction. At other times it seemed wise to dispose of some piece of land before it had been inspected and
9. Phillips to Jarvis, Oct. 31, 1791, Eastern Lands, Box 17.
10. e.g. Eastern Lands, Deeds I, 272, June 3, 1785; order to joint committee to inspect accounts of Land Committee with Mass. Resolve, March 24, 1786, Chap. 200.
11. e.g. Statement of Committee with Mass. Resolve, Dec. 1, 1785, Chap. 149 (Question regarding bogs and ponds); report of Land Committee with Mass. Resolve, March 5, 1792, Chap. 130.
12. Phillips to Jarvis, March 28, 1788, Eastern Lands, Box 17; report of Committee, Nov. 24, 1787, Eastern Lands, Box 48.
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surveyed by a person appointed by the Committee, a step required by the General Court.
13 When such cases as these arose, the Committee brought the problem before the General Court for its decision and disposition.
Sometimes, perhaps too often, action dragged once a matter reached the General Court. On at least one such occasion the Committee took the initiative and tried to stir the Court out of its legislative lethargy. Land sales were lagging, apparently because of the failure of the Court to act on certain disputed claims, and the Committee wrote 14 it a letter bringing that fact to its attention.
Of course it must be remembered, too, that the Committee mem- bers themselves, were, as a rule, members of the General Court. As such they were able to participate in any action undertaken in that body. It will be seen that on at least two occasions some of the members did play an active role in the Court's consideration of land 15 matters.
COMMUNICATION
Communication was an important matter to the Committee in the
13. Phillips to Jarvis, Oct. 23, 1787, Eastern Lands, Box 17. 14. Jarvis, for Committee, to General Court (no date), Eastern Lands, Box 46, Miscellaneous.
15. Putnam to Knox, Dec. 11, 1787, vol LI, Henry Knox Papers, 1770, 1828, 67 vols. (Mass. Hist. Soc.); Jackson to Bingham, March 31, 1793, William Bingham's Maine Lands, ed. Allis, p. 260.
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discharge of the responsibilities placed upon it. The members lived at places far removed from each other; potential customers and surveyors resided over a wide area, and the latter worked in remote places. Under such circumstances long distance contacts sometimes had to be made.
Probably the most common way to get a message delivered at that time was to "thumb" a ride for it -- entrusting it to someone going in 16 the right direction. The notation, "Honored by · .. . " is common on
the letters still extant. 17 Frequently messages from one Committee member to another delivered in this way were carried by some land applicant who had a personal interest in the contents of the note, and who had instigated it in the first place in his efforts to quench his thirst for real estate. At other times people who had something to say to the Committee or to the General Court asked their General Court representative to carry a message -- petition or whatever it might be - to Boston when he went down, or perhaps to bring an answer 18 to them from someone there. Too, there were always vessels sailing up and down the coast. They followed no schedule but if one could 19 and was willing to wait, he could get one of them to carry a letter.
16. e.g. Phillips to Brooks, Aug. 7, 1786, Eastern Lands, Box 17; Wells to Phillips, Jan. 2, 1793, Eastern Lands, Box 18; Cony to Jarvis, July 10, 1793, Eastern Lands, Box 18, Letters, 1793-1802.
17. e.g. Putnam to Committee, May 14, 1785, Eastern Lands, Box 17.
18. e.g. Robert Page to Committee, Feb. 23, 1788, Eastern Lands, Box 17.
19. e.g. Stone to Committee, July 16, 1786, Eastern Lands, Box 14.
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One great danger that faced a letter sender was that his missive night never reach its destination, uncertain as were some of these means of communication. One writer told of sending duplicates to 20
guard against such a misfortune.
At this time there was some mail service. In Maine it had 21
reached Portland in 1775 and Wiscasset in 1790. However, it was not ideal; it was not regular and it was expensive. Once Wells urged 22
Jarvis not to use the mails unless it was absolutely necessary. A letter which he had recently received cost him four shillings six pence -- the addressee, of course, paid the postage -- and ready money was very scarce.
If no other opportunity offered itself and one had to get some information to another person, there did remain the possibility of 23 cending & special messenger.
24 Cony makes mention of hiring people for this purpose.
To choose a place to which to have one's mail sent was some-
20. Cony to Wells, May 3, 1793, Eastern Lands, Box 18.
21. Charles E. Waterman, "Some Knights of the Road," in Sprague's Journal of Maine History, VI, No. 1, p. 11.
22. Wells to Jarvis, Oct. 26, 1787, Eastern Lands, Box 17.
23. e.g. Stone to Committee, July 31, 1786, Eastern Lands, Box 14.
24. Cony's accounts, 1794, Eastern Lands, Box 1, Accounts, 1785-1794.
times a problem that had to be solved. People who wrote to the Committee sometimes sent their letters to Mrs. Margaret Phillips in Cornhill in Boston. The members then picked up this mail when they were in town. 25 Surveyors, laboring in the wilderness, had to choose the home of some person handy to their scene of operations as a temp- 26 orary message center.
To transmit news of sales, official decisions, and other information to the people as a whole, the Committee had at its disposal, of course, the medium of the newspaper. 27
Infrequently, notices on some 28
specific subject were printed as broadsides and sent out.
Many times people wanted to contact the Committee members personally.
The resolve of November 5, 1784 required at least one member of the Committee to be in the office to be established in the State House on the first and third Wednesdays and Thursdays of each month to receive
25. e.g. Putnam to Committee, May 14, 1785, Eastern Landa, Box 17; Stone to Committee, July 16, 1786, Eastern Lands, Box 14.
26. Phillips to Brooks, Aug. 7, 1786, Eastern Lands, Box 17; Putnam to Committee, June 29, 1785, Eastern Lands, Box 17.
27. e.g. Advertisement in Boston Gazette, March 29, April 5, and April 12, 1784; Advertisement in Independent Chronicle, June 19, 1788; in John L. Taylor, A Memoir of His Honor Samuel Phillips, LL.D. (Boston, 1802), pp. 368-370.
28. e.g. Committee Report, June 1, 1785, in Eastern Lands, Deeds, I, 58-61.
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proposals from and help anyone interested in making a purchase of land. The land advertisement made by the Committee in the winter session of 1785 stated that its members could be seen in free hours on any day during the session of the General Court and every Thursday thereafter 30 until further notice at the Committee office. In 1786 the members reported that most of their free time away from the sessions during the Court meetings had been spent on this and other Committee business -- from sunrise until court time, from thirty minutes to an hour before and after dinner, and up until nine or ten o'clock at night after the day's meeting was over. In March of 1786 they estimated that three hundred days had been spent in this way. In addition they generally stayed in Boston a day or two after the Court was over to finish their business. 31
At other times, the advertisement said, one could contact any of the members at their respective homes, which were named, on every Monday until the third Monday of the next May. Interested people took advantage of this offer and continued to do so after the May date mentioned. At first no one on the Committee lived in Boston, and as
29. Mass. Resolve, Nov. 5, 1784, Chap. 45. One special meeting was called for in 1792 during the time of a smallpox epidemic. Wells wrote that he had never had the disease and, therefore, could not come to Boston under any circumstances. However, if it were absolutely necessary he would go to Concord (Wells to Jarvis, Sept. 29, 1792, Eastern Lands, Box 17).
30. Eastern Lands, Deeds I, pp. 50-52, Feb. 10, 1785.
31. Committee Report, March 24, 1786, with Mass. Resolve, March 24, 1786, Chap. 200.
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time went on it appeared that this fact was losing sales. Therefore, Leonard Jarvis, a Boston Resident, was added to the Committee.
33 An advertisement made in 1788 also informed those interested that appli- cations could be made at the home of any of the following Committeemen - Phillips in Essex County, Wells in York, Jarvis in Suffolk, or Cony in 34 Lincoln. Prompt attention would be given all such requests. Much business was done at the members' homes, and people who came there took 35 as much as half a day at a time on occasion. It did sometimes happen, of course, that the member was not at home when a visitor arrived, and that led to a greater or lesser degree of inconvenience.
36 However, the system worked passably well.
OFFICE WORK
The Committee was faced with a small amount of office work. For one thing plans had to be drawn. At first the surveyors, notably Putnam and Stone, did much of this; later Osgood Carleton did a large part of
32. First draft of Mass. Resolve, Nov. 16, 1786, Chap. 110 with that resolve.
33. Mass. Resolve, Nov. 16, 1786, Chap. 110.
34. Advertisement in Cumberland Gazette, July 3, 10, 17, 1788.
35. Committee Report, March 24, 1786, with Mass. Resolve, March 24, 1786, Chap. 200.
36. e.g. E. Chaplin to Jarvis, Dec. 1, 1789, Eastern Lands, Box 17; Daniel Lunt to Wells, Jan. 10, 1791, Eastern Lands, Box 17.
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it. There was also some secretarial work. Deeds were drawn up, reports made, letters written, a journal maintained for a part of the roriod, and accounts and other necessary records kept. However, this part of the job was not very time-consuming. The members wrote their own letters and there is little now extant in the way of minutes of Committee meetings. Volume I of Eastern Lands, Deeds, has a diary of Committee activities which goes through the first Wednesday and Thursday of August 1785, but stops at that point. A notation in the books states that one of the Committee had been instructed to "methodize the journals and doings" of the Committee, and to write in a book an extract of these doings plus the relevant General Court resolves, and deeds issued by the Committee, the instructions given to the surveyors, and the contracts made with them. 38 A 1786 Committee report stated that a man had been 39
hired for about two weeks to help in entering its doings. There is also a memorandum of matters discussed at one time with the decisions reached regarding them, but it is not in the form of an official
secretary's report. 40 This memorandum speaks of hiring a man to help
37. Putnam's Account No. 3, 1785-1786, Eastern Lands, Box 1; Stones' account, June 5, 1789, Eastern Lands, Box 1; Osgood Carleton's account, Eastern Lands, Box 2, Accounts, 1795-1833.
38. Eastern Lands, Deeds I, 65, Summer 1785.
39. Committee Report, March 24, 1786, with Mass. Resolve, March 24, 1786, Chap. 200.
40. Committee Minutes, June, 1787, Eastern Lands, Box 46.
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Jarvis write up its records. Wells' account, exhibited in 1791, showed that he had paid Jarvis for recording deeds and for clerks for helping 41
to make out accounts and bringing the records up to date. Finally, 42 an individual member occasionally had some writing done for him.
EXPENSES
The Committee incurred certain expenses. Surveying took the largest share of the money spent, but the Committee members also got paid for their work, and there were some other incidental charges.
It has been mentioned that the Lincoln County Committee was granted a sum of not over one hundred fifty pounds for carrying on 43 the work it was directed to do by the resolve of March 22, 1784. The next March the General Court voted three hundred pounds for the com- 44 mittee's use. This three hundred pounds did not last until the next 45 March and in December six hundred pounds was granted after the Committee reported to the General Court that more money would have to be forthcoming if the surveyors and chainmen who had worked the past
41. Wells' Accounts, March 14, 1791, Eastern Lands, Box 1.
42. Cony's Accounts, 1794, Eastern Lands, Box 1.
43. Mass. Resolve, March 22, 1784, Chap. 169.
44. Mass. Resolve, March 18, 1785, Chap. 179.
45. Mass. Resolve, Dec. 1, 1785, Chap. 148.
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summer were to be paid. The following spring three hundred pounds was voted for the Committee's use, this time at the suggestion of a joint committee which had examined the work of the Land Committee and 47 found its work progressing satisfactorily. Difficulties arose in finding this three hundred pounds to give to the Committee, and in May of 1787 a General Court order was issued directing the treasurer to pay 48
the amounts needed out of Tax Number Five. Soon thereafter Phillips took advantage of this order by directing one Cooper to get an order for seventy pounds on William Foster and the remainder required on
Peter Carlton.
49 In its report in July 1787, the Committee stated some of the money that had been appropriated to its use was in the form of 50
drafts on taxes that were hard for the collectors to collect.
Proceeds from land sales were also used to meet the bills. In July, 1786, a resolve was passed as a result of a Committee's report 51 setting forth its financial plight. This resolve empowered the Committee to sell land up to the value of six hundred pounds for specie
46. Statement of Committee, Nov. 30, 1785, with Mass. Resolve, Dec. 1, 1785, Chap. 149.
47. Mass. Resolve, March 24, 1786, Chap. 200.
48. Mass. Senate Document 650, May 3, 1787.
49. Phillips to Margaret Phillips, May 26, 1787, Chamberlain Coll. (Boston Public Library).
50. Report of Committee, July 3, 1787, Eastern Landa, Box 48. 51. Report of Committee, June 10, 1786, with Mass. Resolve, July 6, 1786, Chap. 91.
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to finance its work. As the Committee considered this act it proposed to require partial payment in specie for land sold until six hundred pounds in specie had been received, unless a chance presented itself 53
to sell some for specie only to that amount. At another time the Committee authorized a surveyor to collect as payment for his services the five dollar payments the settlers in a certain area owed to the 54 State for their hundred acre plots.
Payments were sometimes made in land itself to those who were 55 56 willing to accept it, and several were -- Titcomb, Williams, and 57 John Lee, provider of supplies to Titcomb, to name three. If the man would not accept the land offered or the two parties could not agree on a price for it, the Committee sometimes promised to sell this land for 52. Mass. Resolve, July 6, 1786, Chap. 91.
53. Committee minutes, June 1787, Eastern Lands, Box 46; Instructions to Titcomb for laying out a tract adjoining Bakerstown, Eastern Lands, Box 10.
54. Instructions to Titcomb for laying out a tract adjoining Bakerstown, Eastern Lands, Box 10.
55. Titcomb to Jarvis, Dec. 10, 1787, Eastern Lands, Box 17 and Aug. 8, 1789, Eastern Lands, Box 52, Papers Relating to Lands in Sandy River Valley and Canada Road, 1786-1828; Papers Relating to Trespassers, 1794-1812.
56. Obadiah Williams to Committee, June 12, 1792, Eastern Lands, Box 8; "Report of Committee, June 16, 1795" Table 16, Eastern Lands, Box 49, p. 22.
57. Lee to Committee, April 10, 1787, Eastern Lands, Box 17; Lee's Bill to Committee, 1787, Eastern Lands, Box 1; "Report of Com- mittee, June 16, 1795" Table 15, p. 20, Eastern Lands, Box 49.
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cash and pay the man the proceeds from it.
It was not unknown for the Committee members to have to borrow money personally or advance their own to carry on their work. 59
Phillips once wrote about trying to get inexpensive private credit as 60 the best way to get some needed money and Cony suggested to Jarvis
when a payment was due Titcomb some years later, that if the Committee had no money it might be well for it to borrow some to be repaid from 61 land sales. The order of May 1787 authorized the Committee to 62
charge interest for money it had borrowed for its work.
From time to time the General Court instructed the Committee to lay its accounts before the General Court for inspection. At such times, a Court committee was named to carry out the examination. Favorable reports were returned in all cases, and the General Court itself dis- 63 charged the Committee of the sums it had received as State agents.
Included in the sums paid out for the work of the 1781 Committee were payments for their investigation of the Bakerstown Claim. Part
58. e.g. Jarvis to Titcomb, June 13, 1787, Eastern Lands, Box 17; Jarvis to Wells , Oct. 17, 1787, Eastern Lands, Box 17.
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