USA > Maine > Hancock County > Mount Desert > Mount Desert : a history > Part 8
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THE BERNARD GRANT
excellent qualities he had proved too wanting in tact and too hot-tempered to deal with a critical political situation. He should be remembered as · a liberal benefactor of Harvard College, as the friend of many endeavors for public improvement, and as a courtly gentleman who regarded uncom- promising loyalty to his king as his first duty. It is recorded that he attended divine service in Brookline because the sermons were shorter than at Roxbury. He was made a baronet in April, 1769, and died on June 16, 1779. In his will, dated September 23, 1778, he devised the island of Mount Desert to trustees for his son John Bernard.
But all Sir Francis's American estates had meanwhile been confiscated, and his heir had a weary time of it in securing his rights.1 He seems to have remained in America and to have fallen upon evil fortunes. He appears for a moment in a journal of General Rufus Putnam, who made a journey to Passamaquoddy Bay in 1784.2 In this
1 The Act of the State of Massachusetts Bay to confiscate the estates of " certain notorious conspirators against the government and Liberties of the inhabitants of the late Province, now State of Massachusetts Bay," is dated April 30, 1779.
2 This journal is in the Autobiography of General Putnam now in possession of Marietta College, Ohio. General Putnam records : " I left Boston, August 2, 1784, to engage in the survey of lands bordering on the Passamaquoddy Bay, and returned to Boston, Nov. 8, 1784. . . .
" In 1785, the General Court being so well pleased with my ser- vices the year before, I was appointed one of the Committee for
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journal General Putnam relates that he met at Pleasant Point, on Passamaquoddy Bay, a son of Governor Bernard. He found him in a small hut of his own building with only a little dog for his companion. " He told us he intended making his home there. He had chosen a pleasant spot and cut a few trees, but it did not look as if it would ever be a farm under his care. Poor fellow! We pitied him, he had probably never done a day's work in his life. He stayed there but a short time. I met him afterwards in Boston. It is said that he supposed his father's grant extended to St. Croix and that he went there to retain or hold possession."
In that same year (1784) this John Bernard, calling himself a citizen of Bath in the Province of Maine, sent a petition to the General Court of Massachusetts praying for permission to take possession of the island of Mount Desert. This petition was accompanied by a certificate signed by many respectable persons of Bath, stating that Bernard " had conducted himself unexceptionally in his political and moral conduct during the late war and had been a great sufferer by the
the sale of Eastern Lands, and Superintendent of Surveys. Our party sailed from Beverly, June 14th, and arrived at Blue Hill Bay the 20th ; there we deposited some stores. We arrived at Machias Bay the 25th, and at Leighton's Point, Cobscock Bay, on the 29th. We spent the season surveying the coast, islands and towns westward to Penobscot Bay and returned to Boston about Dec. 20, 1785."
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forfeiture of his father's estate." The General Court, on June 23, 1785, accordingly passed a resolution as follows : -
" The Committee upon the petition of John Bernard submits the following Resolve :
" Whereas, John Bernard of Bath, in the County of Lincoln, hath produced to this Court ample testimony of the uniform consistence and propriety of his political conduct previous to, during and since the late war, and whereas the estate of his father Sir Francis Bernard, deceased, has been confiscated, to wit, the Island of Mt. Desart which was by the last will and testament of said deceased made previous to said confisca- tion, devised to said John, . . . and this Court viewing the conduct of said John as meretorious and commiserating his peculiar situation, and he having petitioned for a grant of the island afore- said, which this court considers in a degree rea- sonable, therefore resolved, that one moiety, or half part of the island of Mont Desart be and hereby is granted, and from the passing of this resolve shall enure to the said John Bernard his heirs and assigns forever, to hold in fee simple, provided that said John shall convey to each per- son now in possession of lands, which may be a division of the aforesaid island, assigns to said John, such quantity thereof and upon such terms as the committee appointed by a resolve of the General Court passed Oct. 28, 1783, shall direct
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within eighteen months from the passing of the resolve."
Approved June 23, 1785, James Bowdoin, Governor.
On July 6, 1785, John Bernard mortgaged this grant of half part of the island and at once went to England. He became Sir John Bernard, baronet, held office under the Crown in the Bar- badoes and St. Vincent, and died in 1809.
Now another claimant for a grant of Mount Desert appeared. In 1786, the year after the resolution in favor of John Bernard, Monsieur Bartolemy de Gregoire and his wife, Maria Theresa, presented to the General Court of Massachusetts a petition laying claim to Mount Desert on account of the old French grant to Mme. de Gregoire's grandfather, Cadillac.1 The petitioners brought letters from Lafayette and, owing to these and the general sentiment in America at that time favorable to France, found an unexpected welcome. Of course their claim had not the slightest legal force, but the eastern lands were not held at a high value, and so, "without nice scrutiny," as the historian Sullivan says, but in a gush of sentiment, the legislature on July 6, 1787, passed a resolution granting to the De Gregoires all the lands on Mount Desert
1 In this petition Cadillac is called Condillac. His own signa- ture, however, is plainly Cadillac.
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that remained the property of the Commonwealth.1 De Gregoire, with his wife and three children,
1 COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS :
In Senate June 29, 1787. Whereas it appears to this court, that the land, claimed by Monsieur and Madame De. Gregoire, as described in their petition, were in April, 1691, granted to Monsieur De. La. Motte Cadillac, by his late most Christian ma- jesty Louis 14th, to hold to him as an estate of inheritance, and that said Madame De Gregoire, his granddaughter and direct heir at law of said De. La. Motte Cadillac, but whereas by long paper of possession, the legal title to the said lands under the said grant is lost to the heirs at law of the said Monsieur De. La. Motte Cadillac, and the Monsieur and Madame De. Gregoire have not any interest or estate now remaining therein but through the liberality and generosity of this court which are not hereafter to be drawn into precedent, and whereas it is the dis- position of the court to cultivate a mutual confidence and union between the subjects of his most Christian Majesty and the citi- zens of this state and to cement that confidence and union by every act of the most liberal justice not repugnant to the rights of their own citizens. It is therefore resolved that there be and hereby is granted to the said Monsieur and Madame De. Gre- goire, all such parts and parcels of Island of Mount Desert and the other Islands and tracts of land particularly described in the grant or patent of his late most Christian Majesty Louis 14, to said Monsieur De. La. Motte Cadillac, which now remains the property of this commonwealth, whether by original right, ces- sion, confiscation or forfeiture, to hold all the aforesaid parts and parcels of the said lands and Islands to them, the said Mon- sieur and Madame De Gregoire, their heirs and assigns forever, provided however that the committee for the sale of eastern lands be and they hereby are authorized and fully empowered to quiet to all or any possessors or claimers to the title of any parts of the lands herein described, all such parts and parcels thereof as they the said committee shall think necessary and expedient, and on such considerations and conditions as they the said committee shall judge equitable and just under all circum- stances, conformable to the precedents heretofore established with regard to settlers.
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Pierre, Nicholas, and Marie, were naturalized on November 2, 1787,1 and soon after settled at Hull's Cove, where they built a rude house and a mill and went to farming.
At first under the terms of the two grants the island was owned in common and undivided. At the term of the Supreme Court held in Boston the third Tuesday of June, 1788, De Gregoire and his wife presented a petition to have " their part or moiety of the Island called Mount Desert set off from John Bernard." At this time Ber- nard had been in England for several years, and " his attorney James Sullivan, Barrister at law," answered to the petition. The court appointed William Lithgow, Jr., of Georgetown, Nathaniel Thwing of Woolwich, and Stephen Jones 2 of
And this grant is not to take effect and it shall not be lawful for the said Monsieur and Madame De. Gregoire to take or hold possession of the lands hereby granted until an act or bill of naturalization has been passed in their favor.
Sent down for concurrence,
SAMUEL ADAMS, President.
In the House of Representatives, July 6, 1787; Read and concurred.
JAMES WARREN, Speaker. Approved, JOHN HANCOCK.
True Copy,
Attest, JOHN AVERY, JUNIOR, Secretary.
1 The Enabling Act of the General Court and the oath are recorded in Hancock County Registry of Deeds, vol. iii, folios 199, 200.
2 Stephen Jones was born at Falmouth, now Portland, in 1739. He served in the French wars and was engaged in the campaigns of Ticonderoga and Fort Edward. In 1766 he settled
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THE DE GREGOIRE GRANT
Machias, to make partition. Messrs. Lithgow and Thwing declined to act, and July 4 the court appointed Nathan Jones of Gouldsboro' and Thomas Richardson of Mount Desert to fill the vacancies.
After much delay the committee made their report : -
We, Stephen Jones, Nathan Jones, and Thomas Richardson, in pursuance to the aforesaid war- rant, to us directed, have set off to De Gre- goire and wife the moiety of said Island, which is bounded as follows: Beginning above Mr. James Richardson's at a stake and stone at the head of the tide, at the northern extremity of Mount Desert Sound, and from thence running north 38 degrees west, to a stake and stone upon the edge of the bank of high water mark upon the northern side of said Island ; thence easterly along the high water mark to and around said island ; thence westerly by the shore to said Mount Desert Sound ; thence northerly by the shore up said Sound to the first mentioned bounds; and that the whole of that part of said Island to the westward of said Sound, and of said northerly
at Machias and for forty years was the most eminent citizen of what became Washington County. In 1769 he was commissioned captain and became the military leader of the patriots. He was the first justice of the peace east of the Penobscot River, and the first justice of the Court of Common Pleas in Washington County. He died in Boston in 1826.
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line from the head of said Sound to the northerly shore to be the moiety or share of John Bernard, Esq.
STEPHEN JONES, NATHAN JONES, THOMAS RICHARDSON.
The report was entered at February term of court in Boston, and finally accepted at a term of the court, June 14, 1794. By strange and dramatic fortune, therefore, the most picturesque and romantic island on the Atlantic coast was owned at the end of the eighteenth century, ex- cept for the clearings of the hardy settlers, half by the son of a Tory provincial governor and half by the granddaughter of a French adven- turer.
Both owners were poor and were obliged to raise money by mortgaging their estates 1 and making such sales as were possible to settlers.
1 The history of these mortgages is long and complicated.
John Bernard mortgaged his undivided half on July 6, 1786, to Thomas Russell of Boston, acting apparently for the London firm of Lane, Son & Fraser. There is no record in Lincoln or Hancock County of any assignment, foreclosure, or discharge of this mortgage.
September 18, 1803, John L. Sullivan, administrator de bonis non of the estate of Thomas Russell of Boston, deceased, by virtue of a Resolve of the General Court, passed February 26, 1803, sold for one dollar "one undivided moiety of the Island of Mount Desert, which was granted to Sir John Bernard, June
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THE DE GREGOIRE GRANT
There are forty-four deeds on record from De Gregoire to settlers, for which he received, ac-
14, 1785," to George W. Irving of Boston, but resident of Lon- don, England.
March 26, 1822, George W. Irving sold to Ward Nicholas Boylston, " That part of the Island of Mount Desert, originally granted John Bernard, and by him conveyed to Thomas Russell, deceased, and by his administrator to me, excepting hereunto all lands heretofore conveyed by Thomas W. Winthrop, my attor- ney, the estate having been originally conveyed by mortgage to said Thomas Russell, to secure a debt in part due to the house of Lane, Son and Fraser, of London, who were in consequence, equitably entitled to receive the proceeds of said estate, and said estate was afterwards taken possession of under said mortgage and the equity of redemption foreclosed by long possession: the said Ward N. Boylston, as Administrator of the estate of his uncle, Thomas Boylston, deceased, is now equitably entitled to said estate as representative of the house of Lane, Son and Fraser, of which Boylston was declared a partner, and to whom all the estate was to go after the payments of the debts of said firm."
On August 4, 1792, De Gregoire and wife conveyed to Henry Jackson for £1247 16s. "a tract of land on the main ... and also our divided moiety of the Mount Desert Island, (except settlers' grants and lots contracted for prior to June 1, 1791; and our farm of 100 acres, as the same is now improved and possessed by us; and another lot at the south west corner of Nicholas Thomas' lot, running south 54 degrees west, 64 rods, then north, 48 west to the shore, and up the creek to the first bounds and also one square acre at end of mill dam, and also the mill erected there; also town lot of 450 acres.) Bartlett's Is- land 1414 acres, Great Cranberry Island 490 acres, Little Cran- berry Island 73 acres, Sutton Island 174 acres, Baker's Island 123 acres, Bear Island 9 acres, Thomas' Island 64 acres, Green Is- land west side of narrows, two small islands near Bartlett's, Great Duck Island 182 acres, excepting thereat 100 acres for Col. Jones as a settler, and Little Duck Island 59 acres." Four years later, July 9, 1796, Henry Jackson conveyed the lands re- maining unsold for £100 to William Bingham of Philadelphia,
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cording to the terms of his grant, five " Spanish milled dollars " each. There were probably a few
from whose heirs most of the present summer residents on the eastern half of the island derive their titles.
William Bingham died in England in 1804, and by his will, probated in Philadelphia, September 19, 1805, and in Maine (Hancock County), February 27, 1810, devised his entire estate to certain trustees to hold two fifths in trust for his son, William Bingham the younger, until his majority, when the son should take free of the trust, and to hold three fifths in trust for his two daughters, Anne, wife of Alexander Baring of London, afterward Lord Ashburton, and Maria Matilda, wife of Henry Baring of London, an equal part to each, until the death of each daughter, when the children of each daughter should take that daughter's share, free of the trust.
The son attained his majority, and both daughters died prior to January 1, 1850, so that all the trusts under the will terini- nated, and the estate was held, two fifths by the son and three fifths by the children of the two daughters.
Anne B. Baring (at the time of her decease the Dowager Lady Ashburton) left surviving her seven children: William (second Lord Ashburton), Francis, Frederick, Anne (married Mildmay), Harriet (Marchioness of Bath), Louisa, and Lydia, and no other child.
Francis, Frederick, Louise, Lydia, Harriet (of Bath), and Francis and Henry Mildmay (heirs of Anne B. Mildmay), con- veyed all their interest to William, Lord Ashburton, who thus acquired one half of the three fifths by deed dated December 17, 1851.
Maria Matilda, after the death of Henry Baring, married the Marquis du Blaisel, and at her death left surviving five children: Henry B., Frances (married to Henry B. Simpson), Ann Maria (married to William Gordon Coesvelt), James Drummond, and William Frederick Baring. Ann Maria Coesvelt afterward died, leaving one child only, Ann Maria, married to Antonio, Comte de Noailles.
James Drummond Baring conveyed his interest to his brother, Henry B. Baring, by deed dated June 21, 1849.
For the more convenient management of the property in the
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THE DE GREGOIRE GRANT
others who recorded their deeds later, while some have never been recorded. The De Gre- goires were evidently not suited to a pioneer life and did not prosper. Their house at Hull's Cove stood on the place now owned by Mr. C. H. Car- penter. They gradually saw their property slip away from them. In 1796 their property was valued for taxation at $1845. The next year they were assessed on property valued at $663, and in 1805, which was the last year in which the name appears on the assessors' books, the valua- tion was only $301. On February 7, 1806, the De Gregoires deeded the house at Hull's Cove and all the lands belonging to them to Royal Gurley, who moved into the house and supported
United States, William (Lord Ashburton), owning one half of three fifths, Henry B. Baring, Francis Baring, Ann Maria (Count- ess de Noailles), and William Frederick Baring, owning the other half of the three fifths, conveyed the American property to Joseph Reed Ingersoll, then United States Minister to Great Britain, and to John Craig Miller of Philadelphia, as trustees, with power of succession and appointment. Deed dated July 18, 1853, and recorded Hancock County Registry of Deeds, vol. xcviii, folio 150.
William Bingham, the younger, by his will probated in Phila- delphia, June 16, 1856, devised all his estate to his widow, Marie Charlotte Chartier de Lothbiniere Bingham. She conveyed the estate to her son, William B. de L. Bingham, by deed dated April 11, 1861. He conveyed, by deed dated August 12, 1862, his two fifths to Joseph Reed Ingersoll and John Craig Miller, upon the same trusts, and with the same powers, as in the deed from the owners of the three fifths. Messrs. Reed and Ingersoll thus became trustees for the entire estate, a trust which has de- scended through a number of trustees and agents to the pre- sent day.
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the De Gregoires there until the death of M. de Gregoire on January 18, 1810. Then Mr. Gurley moved into Captain Samuel Hull's house but continued to care for Mme. De Gregoire until her death a year later. There appears to be no foundation whatever for the statement often made, " that the inhabitants of Hull's Cove would not permit the De Gregoires to be buried within the inclosed burying-ground because they were Catholics." The fact is that the day on which M. De Gregoire's grave was dug was bitterly cold and windy and the snow was deep, so the grave was dug in the lee of some spruce-trees a little outside the burying-ground. The De Gre- goires' children appear to have returned to France before the death of their parents, and are lost to sight.
V MOUNT DESERT PLANTATION
Come, my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready, Have you your pistols ? have you your sharp-edged axes ? Pioneers ! O pioneers !
Have the elder races halted ? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas ? We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, Pioneers ! O pioneers !
All the past we leave behind, We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers ! O pioneers !
We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways, Pioneers ! O pioneers !
WALT WHITMAN.
MOUNT DESERT PLANTATION. 1776
THE first settlers of Mount Desert were a plain and frugal folk following humble callings and pulling in homespun harness. The home life was bleak and bare, the children got along without toys and story-books, and all went to work very young. It was, however, an out-of-door life, in the fresh air, close to nature, telling time by the sun, acquainted with animals in the barn or the woods or the air and sea. There was very little of grace and refinement, but the life was a good school of character. The boys learned to use their faculties, to bear burdens, to take responsibili- ties on young shoulders. It was a life free from the artificiality and the sharp competition of the city. The struggle for livelihood was a struggle with nature and not with one's fellowmen.
The first comers built their cabins along the shores where a stream furnished water and power, or where a bit of grass or marshland gave a chance to get fodder for the stock. Others set-
NOTE. - For the genealogical tables in this chapter and for much valuable information, Dr. Street was indebted by Mr. Eben M. Hamor of Town Hill. Interesting facts were also derived from the reminiscences of the late Rev. Oliver Fernald and from a manuscript kindly furnished by the Rev. Edwin H. Hadlock of San Francisco.
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tled on the outlying islands, which were as a rule less densely forested, where abundant driftwood provided fuel with little labor, and where fishing industries could be readily undertaken. None of the people had any legal title to their little clear- ings until the majority acquired deeds from the De Gregoire or Bernard estates. The reports of the surveyors who laid off these lots contain our most authentic information about the location of the families that settled on the island before 1800. At first the Bernard or western side at- tracted the majority of the settlers. It was first approached by those coming from the settlements to the westward and it lay nearest the open sea and the track of passing vessels. Later, owing perhaps to the comparative ease of getting a title on the De Gregoire side, the trend of popula- tion was to the northeastern shores fronting on Frenchman's Bay. For the most part the habita- tions built were of a very temporary character, and the people moved on if they found a better location in some sheltered cove or by another bit of marshland.
The names of the earliest settlers appear upon a quaint petition sent to Governor Bernard in 1768 and preserved in the Bernard papers. It seems that people living on the neighboring mainland made a practice of coming on to the is- land and cutting timber and hay and carrying it off for their own use; and in some years they
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brought their cattle over for pasturage, regardless of the protests of the settlers. The Mount Desert people therefore appealed to Governor Bernard. The petition 1 is as follows : -
To his Exelency Governor Bernard.
We the inhabitants of mount desart Humbly Craves Your Exelencys Protection against the InCrosins of the Naboring inhabents made upon us Consarning hay for we cannot git hay on ye island to Keep our Stoks as the People Cut the hay before it gits its Groth So that they Spoil the marsh & if we Cut hay and Stack it for Sleding it is Stole so that we cannot have ye Provilige of the marsh that we have Cleared Rodes too, therefor we bege that your Exelency will Consider us and Put a stop to this InCros- sins, other ways we Shall Not be Abel to Keepe our Stocks and the marsh be totterly Spiled Last Summer the People came from the Town- shep of No. Six and Cut Part of the North East marsh where we have had a Rode this five yeare before we knew thereof & carred off some hay after we Raked & Staked it, also other hay which we Cut and Staked was Stole. The pretence is they have as good a right to it as the settlers. Last hay Season it happened very Luky for us that Col. Goldthwait Came here just about the
1 Sparks Collection, vol. xi, p. 271. Also in Bangor Hist. Mag. ii, 218.
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time of cutting the marsh & we are of opin- ion that if he had Not Come hear most of the Settlers on this island must have Lost or Kild their Stoks for want of hay. The Settlers of No. four & No five & No Six west of mount dessert River & No 5 and No 2 east of mount desart River Chefly Depend on this island for hay ; we would further inform your Excelency that vessel hands & others make a Practis of Coming to this island and Cutting Lumber Such as Staves Shingles and Clapboards and other Lumber which will much Discoureg future Settlers so no more but we make bold to subscribe ourSelves your Exclencys most humble Petitioners.
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