USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Memorials of the bar of Lincoln County, maine, 1760-1900 > Part 2
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Lord George Popham, the first president of a civil magistracy (shall we say within the United States ?) and first chief justice of a court of law within the ancient jurisdiction of Lincoln County, is described as having been an aged, God-fearing man," stout built, honest, dis- creet and careful, somewhat timid and conciliatory ; but he was the life of the colony, made up of London men and West of England rural life.
Rawley Gilbert, second in command, representative of the London city element of the colonial adventure, is said to have been a very different man from his chief. He is described to have been a "sensual, jealous and ambirious man, of loose habits, small experience, poor judgment, little religious zeal, but valiant," and a mis- chievous factor in colonial affairs.
The prudent Popham, nevertheless, reconciled differences and soothed friction during his administration, which ended with his life in February, 1608. The last of January, fearful thunder, lightning, mingled rain and snow, hail and frost, for seven hours in awful succession overwhelmed with cyclonic winter rigors the colonial
1 Brown's Genesis of the United States.
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hamlet at Sagadahoc. It survived the climatic rigors, but encountered, the death of its godly chief on February 5, 1608, further to experience catastrophe in the selfishness, irresolution and caprice of the Gilbert succession to the management of the life issues of the new beginnings. Popham was no doubt a victim to the climatic convul- sion of the January storm.
The spring brought timely supplies from England. Capt. Davis reported "he found all things at Sagadahoc in good condition :- many furs stored, and the "Virginia," a prettty, thirty-ton vessel, built, launched, ready for service."
Nevertheless Admiral Gilbert planned a return to London ; and having the sympathy of the London faction of the colonists, set sail in the London ship "Mary and John," with the pretty "Virginia" and her master-builder, Digby of London, laden with colonists in sympathy at least with Gilbert,-abandoning the colonial Sagadahoc river site. "The colonial president was dead, and Admiral Gilbert had sailed away on or about the eighth of October, 1608, with all but 'forty-five' of the colonists,"' is the story of Captain John Smith. So it is not certain there was entire consent to the return of all the colonists on the official abandonment. It is certain the Popham flagship, the "Gift of God." and her fly-boat or tender, are not mentioned in the return.
But the Lord Chief Justice of England, Sir John Popham, had died, and his son Francis had succeeded to his father's estate ; and by him it seems this abandonment was protested. It is certain the Popham interest in the colonial adventure did not concur in the Gilbert move-
1 Smith, Mass. Hist. Soc. vol. IS, p. 115.
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ment. Sir Francis, withdrew his father's ships and interest from the corporation, and put them in service on the same coast in the fur trade and fisheries, out of which a "Port" was created and opened at Pemaquid ; and of such influence, importance and extent, that the great historian of our colonial life in New England, Strachy, recorded "that to the north in the height of (lat.) 44 degrees lyeth the country of Pemaquid :- A kingdom wherein our western colony upon the Sagadahoc was some time settled."
History so connects Pemaquid and Sagadahoc in the Popham colonial planting of English life, law and civiliza- tion here and within the ancient jurisdictional limits of Lincoln Bar.
The settlements were of the same colonial parentage ; and we must now turn to Pemaquid in further search of colonial court procedure.
Prior to 1625, the Popham interest at Pemaquid had grown to an expansion as well as a concentration of commercial industries, absorbing the entire trade of Indian peltries on the main ; and population had increased at and about Popham's "Port," described on John Smith's great map of New England, and sketched at the head of John's Bay named "St. Johnstown," so that land had become valuable for speculative purchase.
In 1614, when Smith made his surveys from Mon- hegan Island, for the great map of New England, he found the Popham "Port" and describes and sketches it at the head of John's Bay, and gave it the name of "St. John's Town. Here one John Brown, a mason, had settled, and began the purchase of large bodies of land,
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under Indian titles, "Sa-ma-a-set"' the "Lord of Pema- quid," favored Brown's greed for land. Popham's port of "St. Johnstown," had now become "New Harbor," in the annals of the day.
Robert Aldworth, mayor of the city of Bristol, Eng- land, had established a trade plantation at the mouth of Pemaquid River, and transferred a branch of the mer- cantile firm of Aldworth & Elbridge, of that city, to the west shore of Pemaquid Point, to utilize the harbor trade. Abraham Shurt was the resident agent of the firm, and an English magistrate of the plantation.
Brown, Sa-ma-a-set, Ungoit (probably Samosset's wife), and Shurt here executed the first deed of a great land deal, with the neat, compact formulary of acknowl- edgement still used in New England, of which Abraham Shurt was the author, and probably used a formulary of the common law of England, as follows, viz : "July 24, 1626, Captain John Samoset and Ungoit, Indian Saga- mores, presonally appeared, and acknowledged this instrument to be their act and deed at Pemaquid, before me, Abraham Shurt." This is the only record of a formal legal transaction, with the implied existence of a magis- trates' court and record, earliest in the Pemaquid section of the Sagadahoc colonial settlement.
In 1631, the Aldworth and Elbridge Plantation had grown to the importance of an emigrant depot, with a ship of 240 tons, sixteen guns, in current trade with Bristol, England, called the "Angel Gabriel," unfortu- nately driven ashore and wrecked in the harbor of Pemaquid in an August gale, 1635. The business
1 M Historical Collection, vol. 5. pp. 168, 185, Samosset of Plymouth History.
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expansion of this harbor site had reached the sea-island dependencies of Monhegan and Damariscove and a proprietor's court was organized and held there, of which Thomas Elbridge was the judge, to which the inhabitants of these islands (and no doubt the neighbor- ing mainland communities) resorted for redress of legal grievances. We have yet found no records of this court extant. Its charter privileges and scope of civil rights are found in the Pemaquid patent, granted Feb. 29, 1631. A census of the year preceding shows eighty-four families, besides fishermen, appurtenant to this planta- tion.' Indeed this Pemaquid settlement was larger and more important than the capital of Canada.2 The bill of civil rights to the people of Pemaquid recites that its issue was made with a view to "replenish the desert with a people governed by law and magistrates !" It author- ized a democracy in scope and practice as perfect as that of this day, of which our existing concessions of civil rights, we think, are offshoots.
The principle of a majority rule was set in the machinery of civil power at Pemaquid. "From time to time, (it was declared), the people may establish such laws and ordinances for government, and by such officer and officers as most voices shall elect and choose."3 Such were the principles of civil right and law, laid as the basis of legal enforcement and adjudication of the proprietors' court at Pemaquid till Sept. 5. 1665.
On the twelfth of March, 1664, the great fishing plantation of Aldworth and Elbridge, and Popham's
1 5th vol. Mass. Hist. Soc. Col .. p. 197.
2 5th vol. Mass. Hist. Soc. Col., p. 195. Thornton.
3 See Pemaquid Patent.
2kg Gorham 1895.
JAMESTOWN OF PEMAQUID WITH FORT CHARLES IN 1677 AS DESCRIBED. A Village; B Fort; C Harbor; D Point called Barbican; E Subterranean passage.
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estate on the east side possessions, were acquired by the Crown of Great Britain, and converted into a ducal province for the Duke of York, under the style of "Pemaquid and Dependencies." A new civil organiza- tion was created Sept. 5, 1665, by a royal commission at "Sheepscot Falls," which held its sessions at the house of John Mason.
Pemaquid and its dependencies were erected into a county, called Cornwall, and two towns as centers of administration of civil affairs were created. The chief or capital embraced the Pemaquid Harbor Plantation, Islands and "New Harbor," the old Popham Port, and named "James Town" of Pemaquid, probably in honor of James, Duke of York, the royal proprietor of the Province.
The "Sheepscot Farms," were created a shire town, called "New Dartmouth," probably, from the fact that most of the population were immigrants from Devonshire, and its river "Dart."
A new legal tribunal was organized, called "Court of General Sessions," and made a court of record. Its sittings were held on the last Wednesday of June and the first Wednesday of November. The November session was at Jamestown, where the chief justice resided. The circuit was held at New Dartmouth.
Sullivan says this court had jurisdiction of ecclesias- tical affairs. In disagreements of opinion, Chief Justice Jocelyn decided. William Short' was clerk of court at its Jamestown sessions ; and Walter Philips, at the New Dartmouth sessions, who resided in Newcastle, near the bridge.
I M. Hist. Col., vol. 5, P. 57.
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The records were described "Rolls and acts and orders, passed at sessions. holden in the territories of the Duke of York." John Allen of Sheepscot was high sheriff. This important record has not yet been found. May it not yet exist among the title papers in the royal family or archives of York in England ?
The precepts of this court, with a declaration of claim, authorized a capias against a respondent. We have notes of one trial for murder at Pemaquid, in November, 1680. Two parties were arraigned, Israel Dymond and John Rashley, for the murder of Samuel Collins, master of a vessel called the Cumberland, by drowning him. Of final results, we have no record.
But we have record of this court of the trial of John Seleman of Damariscove in the New Dartmouth shire, Nov. 16, 1686, for assault on the sheriff, and threats of murder of his wife. On plea of not guilty issue was found for the king ; Seleman was fined and placed under bonds for future good behavior.
CHIEF JUDGES OF COURT OF GENERAL SESSIONS.
Henry Jocelyn, a magistrate of the Province of Maine, under Gorges, moved to Jamestown, Pemaquid, and in 1677 we find him holding court as chief justice of the session and head of the judiciary of the ducal state. At Jamestown, he lived and died prior to 1683. Eminent for loyalty to the crown, peace and good order, fidelity to his public duties and uprightness of life, Chief Justice Henry Jocelyn died in his judicial robes, unsullied, and was buried at Jamestown, Pemaquid, between the 24th of August, 1682, and the 10th of May, 1683, his remains still laying within the confines of the Old Fort cemetery.
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Public necessity required the vacant chief's seat at the head of the court of general sessions to be filled and on the 28th of April, 1684, Thomas Giles was commissioned chief justice of the same court.
Judge Thomas Giles was a land owner and of agricultural habits, residing near the Fort, with outlaying farms near Pemaquid Falls above. He was a strict observer of the Sabbath, and otherwise seems to have been a conscientious and God-fearing man, and exerted himself, not without difficulty, in correcting abuses of military authority. During his administration the revo- lution of William and Mary occurred. The English throne, under the Stuart dynasty, tottered and fell, ending the Duke of York's jurisdiction at Pemaquid in 1689.
The French were alert to suppress English suprem- acy in New England, and stirred up Indian allies to improve the opportunity of public confusion and anarchy incident to a change of dynasty. The combined forces planned invasion and overthrow of British rule and to seize the English Fort Charles of the ducal province, and subdue the old county of Cornwall. It was the 12th of August, 1689. Judge Giles had gone to his farms at the Falls with his little sons to superintend harvesting of crops and the care of his corn field. It was noon. Dinner had been served to his workmen. Giles and his sons were still at the farm-house and workmen dispersed to their labor. Suddenly the guns of Fort Charles sounded an alarm. All were startled. The Judge said he hoped it heralded good news of reinforcements arrived at the Fort, with soldiers returned who had been drawn off. The next moment a savage yell and the war-hoop with crash of volleys of musketry from a hill in the rear
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shocked the ear. This din of war brought the Judge to his feet, crying, "What now? What now ?" It is the story of his boy, a child, his youngest, an eye-witness. His father seemed handling a gun. Moxus, sachem of the Kennebec Indians, led the fray. The child fled. A painted savage with a gun and cutlass, the glitter of which dazed the child, who, falling to the earth, was seized and pinioned. Led back to his father he saw him walking slowly, pale and bloody. The men at harvest in the field were shot down where they stood or as they fled to the flats, and others were tomahawed, crying, "O, Lord ; O, Lord." Those taken captive were made to sit down till the slaughter ended and then led towards the Fort, a mile and a half distant, on the east side of the river. Smoke and crash of fire-arms were seen and heard on all sides. The old Fort Charles was in a blaze which with the roar and flash of cannon added to the din and dismay.
The Judge was brought in, Mosus expressing his personal regrets, saying, "Strange Indians did the mischief." The Judge replied : "I am a dying man ; and ask no favor but a chance to pray with my boys !" Then earnestly commending them to the care and favor of God, with the calmness of assuring faith, took leave of his children with a blessing, encouaging them with the hope of a meeting hereafter in the better land. Pale and faint with the loss of blood now gushing from his shoes with tottering steps he was led aside. "We heard the blow of the hatchet, but neither sigh nor groan," is the story of the child. Seven bullets had pierced the body, which was buried in a brush heap where he fell. It was in view of the Fort where the smoke and thunder of battle raged
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till surrender of the Fort and town was achieved, and some twenty houses of Jamestown were burned to the ground. This catastrophe ended the civil, religious and industrial existence of old Cornwall County with its Pemaquid dependencies of Popham's Fort, Smith's St. Johnstown, the Aldworth and Elbridge Plantation of Jamestown, and the new Dartmouth municpality of "Sheepscot Farms" of near three-quarters of a century's standing and growth. With the death of Chief Justice Giles, the ancient aristocratic organization, social, civil and religious, with old Cornwall County passed away.
REVIVAL OF CIVIL, ORGANIZATION.
The result of the fall of Fort Charles made the ducal province subject to Massachusetts Bay jurisdiction under Governor William Phipps, a native of Pemaquid, who erected the famous stone fort, William Henry, in 1692.
The civil existence of the county of Cornwall was. however, ended in the catastrophes of French and Indian assault, upon the capture of Jamestown and the fall of Fort Charles of Pemaquid. 1689 ; collapse of the Stuart dynasty, involving the tragic death of Chief Justice Thomas Giles at Pemaquid Falls, and the capture of his wife and children.
Town and court records, title deeds, and public papers were all scattered and destroyed ; the country made desolate and waste. The ancient plantations of the ducal province became solitudes, and so remained till 1716, when Georgetown, embodying the Arrowsic Island re-settlements of 1714, was incorporated by Massachu- setts and made the shire of a new county called Yorkshire.
Anno Domini, 1728, Samuel Denny became a citizen of the New Town and had his Garrison House near the
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Watts Fort, head of Butler's Cove, where a meeting house stood in a hamlet of some twenty or thirty home- steads. Denny was an educated Englishman, industrious and thriftful, and also a civil magistrate. There he held a court and, it is said, acted as his own bailiff. John Stinson, also, was a Yorkshire magistrate, whose jurisdic- tion covered Wiscasset ; and Jonathan Williamson of Wiscasset was a deputy sheriff. But no court of record existed till the organization of Lincoln County, June 19, 1760.
The interest and influence of the old Plymouth land company fostered the new county developement, caused to be incorporated a new town on its lands, called Pownalboro, as the shire town of the new county of Lin- coln, and erected a court house and jail on the east bank of the Kennebec, built of hewn timber.
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Lincoln succeeded to the jurisdictional territory of old Cornwall, the province of 1664, embrac- ing the kingdom of Pema- quid, of the colonial trans- actions of 1607.
The organization of a court of record for Lincoln in 1762, laid the founda- tions of Lincoln bar. The court retained the style of the old Cornwall courts, court of sessions, with sit- tings on the second Tues- days of June and Septem- ber.
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SAMUEL DENNY FORT.
The Homestead of the first Judge of Lincoln Bar, Samuel Denny. near Butler's Cove, Arrowsic Island. 1728-30
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١١٠
الغيرة
WISCASSET IN 1858.
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Samuel Denny, William Lithgow, Aaron Hinckley and John North were its judges. Its first session opened as follows, viz :
"Lincoln SS.
Anno Regni Regis tirtii, Magnae Britainiae, Franciac et Hiberniae primo": and the first order declared Jona- than Bowman clerk ; and the next the establisment of a seal, thus : "At his Majesty's court of general sessions of the peace at Pownalboro, within and for the county of Lincoln, on the first Tuesday of June, being the first day of the month, 1762, it was further ordered, that a seal presented by Samuel Denny, Esq., the motto whereof being a cup and three mullets (being the lawful coat of arms of the said Denny's family) with said Denny's name at large in the verge thereof, be accepted, and that it be established to be the common seal of this court."
In 1786, the supreme court of Massachusetts began sessions in the okl Pownalboro court house.
In 1794, court holdings were changed from the Kennebec to the Sheepscot Precinct of Pownalboro, at Wiscasset Point, with alternate sittings at Hallowell. Cushing, Sewall, Sargent and Sumner were justices presiding. The first session after this change had a
formal and dignified opening. Three sheriffs in cocked hats, armed with swords and bearing long white staves. marched in procession before the judges, the bar follow ing to the beat of a drum. From then till now, Lincoln bar has worked out the issues of law and justice here, at Wiscasset Point, a site of one of the old Sheepscot Farms, granted by Governor Dougan, a governor of Pemaquid and dependencies of the old ducal province of 1664.
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THE CLIMAX.
CLOSE OF THE ACORN TERM .- THE FAREWELL.
The planting a baby oak on the court-house lawn at Wiscasset, and an evening banquet, in honor of Chief Justice Peters, were the concluding exercises of the occasion. A thrifty five-foot sprout from the Penobscot Oak had been carefully selected, prepared and nursed for the occassion by the Lincoln bar, to be set out and fostered as the "Peters Oak."
During the court recess of Friday, the third of November, 1899; the bar gathered at the place of plant- ing. Headed and led by the Wiscasset Cornet Band, the youth from the Wiscasset academy, the children from the grammar schools and primary depatments of the village, and their teachers, two hundred strong, marched in procession to the planting ground, and formed a hollow square about the bar members and the little tree. Geo. B. Sawyer, Esq., set the sprout with a new spade, cheered by cadences of appropiate strains of soft music from the band. He also explained the novel scene. William H. Hilton, Esq., formally dedicated the little tree as the "Peters Oak," as the president and in behalf of the Lincoln bar ; whereupon R. K. Sewall, Esq., moved that the transaction be entered of record on the bar registry, which was adopted. R. S. Partrdge, Esq., made a spirited address of thanks to the school children for their sympathy and aid, and in eulogy of the honored chief justice ; and the whole closed with the song of "America," and three cheers for the Chief. At 9 o'clock, P. M., the banquet at the Hilton House was opened. There were a dozen courses. "The brains and fame of
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COURT HOUSE, LINCOLN BAR.
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the State of Maine were there," to participate in the quiet, heartfelt farewell of Lincoln bar to the justice. Most of the associate justices of the Supreme Court of Maine added to the eminence of the occasion, with the United States senator, Eugene Hale. The post prandial exercises were opened by President Hilton in a brief, appropritate address of welcome, as follows :-
BRETHREN AND FRIENDS :- In behalf of Lincoln bar it affords me great pleasure to extend to you a cordial greeting. We are glad to find you within our borders ; we are happy to meet you around this board. It is well that we should occasionally lay aside the cares and per- plexities incident to our profession and cultivate the so- cial side of life. While your neighborly, brotherly and social qualities are universally recognized, yet it is well known and understood that a special purpose prompts us to gather here this evening. We have assembled to do honor to our worthy Chief. We wish to demonstrate and emphasize our profound respect and affection for him.
I have always believed and have often declared that, in my judgment, the highest attainment to which a man may aspire is, that after a long, useful and successful business career, with a mind richly stored with knowledge. and a heart full of kindness, and personally radiating warm sunshine, he shall in the afternoon of life become a living magnet, drawing to and around him not only men, but children, who will delight in his companionship and in his entertaining and instructive conversation. Very like such a man is our distinguished guest, Chief Justice Peters.
Brethren : Salute your Chief. I propose the health of Chief Justice John A. Peters, with the hope that many
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years of usefulness, content and happiness may be added to the years already so well spent.
His honor was greeted by a standing recognition of the propriety of the toast, and rising said in reply :-
"I thank you for this dinner and this assemblage of friends. As you all know, I am about to retire from the bench of Maine. I am proud to say, I am doing it while I have mind and sense enough to know what I am doing. I have always been facinated by old Lincoln, and held more terms of court here than in any other county in the State, except, possibly, Penobscot. Lamb has said on a like testimonial it 'was like passing from life into eter- nity.' Well, I am not ready for eternity ; and I do not believe that eternity is ready for me. But I have a sort of indescribable feeling of being buried alive, in thus taking leave of my duties on the bench. Yet I tell you, gentlemen, if I am to be buried alive, I would rather be buried in old Lincoln county than anywhere else in the world.
An eastern monarch offered a reward for a new pleasure. Were he alive today, that sought for pleasure would be his, were he to come to old Wiscasset . . . stroll to the quiet old court house . .. ramble across the long bridge to the island . .. and bring up under the old oak ' Penobscot.'
The toast master for the occasion was R. S. Partridge, Esq., who introduced the bar speeches by proposing "Lincoln County, the Mother of Counties," and called for R. K. Sewall, Esq., who responded as follows :-
May it please the court, members of the bar and gentlemen of the jurisprudence of Maine: As I rise to answer this call, I am deeply impressed, almost startled, with the fact, that we are standing on this occasion among
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the centuries, making history, at work on the capstone of a new niche, as a climax in the life of Lincoln bar, if not in the jurisprudence of our State !
I am given the motherhood of Lincoln as a theme. "Mother!" Who does not appreciate its import? The word itself is an epitome of all that is true and tender in affection, faithful in nurture, enduring in sympathy, in humanity! It suggests a look into the cradle, at the in- fancy of law within the ancient jurisdictional territory of Lincoln Bar.
On the twentieth of August, 1607, was organized the first court of record, with a seal and marshal, in New England, and within the jurisdictional precints of Lincoln bar of old, under royal charter dated April 10, 1606, drawn up by the chief justice of the bar of England, to plant the soil of New England with the privileges and principles of the common law of England, as a colonizing factor. The proceedure of the administration whereof Lincoln bar was representative, has reached a climax this term of court. Having brought forward the skeleton of legal proceedure and principles of colonial antecedents of the jurisdictional territory of Lincoln bar, to be crowned with memorial symbols ; shall it be with oak ?
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