USA > Maine > York County > York > New England miniature; a history of York, Maine > Part 10
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For so long as Boston had been a busy port, the demand for York products had been brisk. Lumber, fish, livestock, and leather were needed for export while England and France were actively at war, and the busy Bostonians preferred to buy food and fuel for their own use from the remote towns. But when Boston lost its good times and could no longer afford to buy from its former sources of supply, the income of York was cut off abruptly. Kittery Navy Yard, opened by the Government shortly after 1800, ab- sorbed but little of all the available labor. After the War of 1812, Boston, having recovered as a manufacturing center, bought in nearer markets the products which the towns as far away as York had formerly supplied. A long period of hard times was in prospect for York, and its citizens were to experience poverty, privation, and a drab and meagre existence.
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15
In the years between the two wars, improvements had been made in York, the most important of these being the change in the route of the Post Road. After Sewall's Bridge had been opened for traffic in 1761, the Post Road, at that time known as the King's Highway, was diverted from Scituate Men's Row, Ferry Lane, and Trafton's Ferry (where Rice's Bridge now crosses York River ) to what is now Lindsay Road, and after crossing Sewall's Bridge, through Joseph Holt's land, and along the South Side Road to Main's Hill.
After 1800 a movement was started in the country to shorten this route by building a bridge across the river at the site of the former Trafton's Ferry and a short piece of new road from it to the present York Corner. There was intense opposition in York to this plan, but the road was started in 1803 and Rice's Bridge was built in 1805.
From the first discussion of the project until several years after the road was in use, it was voted annually in town meeting to send agents to appeal to the County Commissioners to demand that this new highway be abandoned and Rice's Bridge be closed or even taken down. Finally it was voted at one town meeting that no agents be sent to continue the protest. At this late date it is difficult to understand why any opposition to progress should have been so intense, but perhaps the subscribers to Sewall's Bridge may have feared the competition presented by the new route and the possible loss in tolls.
In 1812 the lighthouse on Boon Island was completed, and has been in operation ever since.
The War of 1812 had been just as unpopular in York as it was in all the northeastern states of the Union. The District of Maine fared badly in spite of several brilliant victories at sea. During the year 1814, from July until the signing of the Treaty of Peace at Ghent on December 24, the British were in undisputed possession of Maine, from Passamoquoddy Bay to the Penobscot and inland as far as Bangor. Westward of Penobscot Bay, how- ever, attacks by the enemy were repulsed. In York, cannon em- placements and breastworks were established at "Fort Hill" on Stage Neck, and presumably an observation post on Sentry Hill, but no record has been found of any engagements with the enemy.
After the war was ended, in 1815, a direct tax was levied upon all the citizens of the United States. The amount of the tax
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apportioned to Massachusetts was $633,541.96, and for York County, "the Eighth Collection District of Massachusetts", the amount was $28,388.17. The taxes, therefore, levied on many individual property owners in the town of York were small. Never- theless, certain rugged individualists refused to pay even trifling assessments. In 1818 the federal tax collector for York County foreclosed upon property-real estate, household furniture, gold or silver watches, and "every object of taxation"-sold it at auc- tion, and imposed a twenty per cent addition to the tax.
To quote from a deed given at the auction of one farm in
York: "- altogether refused and for the space of more than twenty days thereafter, having neglected to pay such tax, and no goods chattels or effects sufficient to satisfy such tax .. . said collector ... did hold the sale in South Berwick ... with a 20% addition to said $3.56 tax". As nobody appeared to pay the tax, the whole property was struck off to the owner's son for $4.20, "he being the highest bidder". It would appear that the man's "principles" must have been shared by many, for in this and in other cases there is no indication that there were any competitive bids made above the amount of the tax plus twenty per cent, and the buyers were usually relatives.
Over a period of years a controversy had arisen and gained in strength to move the county seat away from York. Groups in places north of York sought the honor for their towns. Wells, Kennebunk, Waterboro, Biddeford, Saco, and Alfred were among the aspirants at one time or another. The arguments advanced were that the shire town should be located nearer the center of the county because of distance and the condition of the roads; that it should be located nearest to the majority of the people; that the records should be kept nearer the center of population, and that the place where the records were to be kept should be- come the shire town.
After several courts had been convened in Biddeford be- tween 1800 and 1809 because the Courthouse was declared un- suitable, York took action and voted in town meeting to raise money by appropriation and by subscription for a new building. Money was also subscribed by the towns of Kittery and Berwick. This (the town hall now in use) was started in 1811 and finished a year or so later.
The agitation to locate the county seat in some town other than York did not cease with the return of the courts to York in the new building. As the years passed York County business was
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conducted with increasing frequency in towns other than the official county seat. Later, the offices and records of the county treasurer and the county clerk were moved to Kennebunk. Then Alfred was made a second shire town, and a fireproof vault for the safekeeping of records was built there, rather than in York. For a time the records of the Probate Court were kept in Kittery. Finally in 1832 it was voted that Alfred should be the county seat, and all of the records and court offices were moved to that town.
Thus York was stripped of all its peculiar eminence; from then on it was just another town in Maine with nothing to set it above its neighbors except a history of leadership forever past.
While the County of York was in bitter debate over the proper location of its shire town, the whole District of Maine was concerned with the question of separation from Massachusetts in order to assume independent statehood in the Union. Even before the Revolution ended the large towns farther down east had begun to agitate for such separation. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts appears to have had no objection; apparently all that was needed was a favorable majority vote of the citizens of Maine. In York County the vote was overwhelmingly against separation in 1783, but decreasingly so in future years, while from the first the counties north of York voted heavily in the affirmative. Finally in 1819 the entire District of Maine voted in favor of severing all ties with Massachusetts, and in 1820 Maine joined the Union of States.
In the convention for drafting a constitution a motion was made and seconded to name the state "Columbus" because the first meeting was held on the anniversary of the discovery of America, but after some debate it was voted down. When the Constitution was presented to the town meeting of 1819 for ratifi- cation by the delegates from York-David Wilcox and Elihu Bragdon-the vote to accept was unanimous.
From that time on, for more than half a century, the Town of York, stripped of its connection with Massachusetts and de- prived of its eminence as a shire town in the State of Maine, became, as did the whole state for that matter, more "provincial" than it had been as a province. Attention was centered on state and town politics, even though news of national affairs was more rapidly attainable through the public prints and steadily improv- ing means of transportation. Except for the election of federal and state officers, national political affairs were of little concern.
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Those with ambitions in politics or business deserted Maine to live in large cities in other states. Thus began the era when the only source of pride which those in the northeast corner of the United States could claim was the great men who had come from Maine.
It is for this reason that most writers carry their histories down only to 1820, when Maine achieved statehood. After that the State of Maine was just "ordinary"; neither large nor small, not wicked nor exceptionally good, but though not great, not to be ignored. It followed the lead of Massachusetts in legislation and in culture. Any attempt to introduce new ideas caused a re- study of life in Massachusetts. If the new ideas had not been tried there, they would not be inaugurated here; if they had proved successful and desirable, they might be tried here. As went Massachusetts, so went Maine.
In the November 1823 term of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, Daniel Granger of Portland and others presented a petition to have the main road from Portsmouth Bridge to Port- land widened and straightened, representing that the road was "circuitous and hilly and that distances might be shortened". In the April 1825 term the Court approved "as far as York County was concerned". The road was to be widened to four rods at all points, and "straightened, turned and altered". One result of the work, begun in York in 1827, was a new stretch of road built from York Corner to the end of the present Nason or Post Road.
Meanwhile the town and the majority of the inhabitants were in a struggle for bare existence, when, as a result of the War of 1812, there came the monetary crisis of 1819, during which the whole new nation suffered, and the financial status of the town of York was at a low ebb. In other states, the so-called Machine Age was progressing rapidly wherever there were more ample sources of water supply to turn the wheels of factories or where deeper sea ports were available for larger vessels than those which could load at the wharves of York. There were better op- portunities for labor at such places, and in time workmen became skilled in ways which reduced manufacturing and distribution costs to the further disadvantage of business in less-favored towns. Many young men and women left York to seek employment and to learn trades in distant cities, thus depleting the homesteads of the necessary active workers. Some young couples left to settle virgin land on the Western Reserve in Ohio.
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Those who stayed at home continued in the way of life of their ancestors, and were soon regarded as somewhat foreign to the progressive city dwellers. The people on the Outer Commons, "up on the Mountain", seemed particularly strange. Lower Town and the banks of York River, with shipping reduced to lowly coastal trade, and the Village, steadily losing legal business to other towns in the county, must have been dull places to old- timers who had seen the good old days of West Indies trade, of bold privateersmen, or of colorful court sessions and lively town meetings.
The plight of York is plainly discernible in the study of records of the town meetings during those years. Committees were appointed each year to study town property and "privileges" (landing places on the river and ways leading to them) which might be found to be owned by the town, to discover realty that might be leased or sold for the benefit of the public treasury. The offices of selectmen and tax collector were auctioned off in open town meeting to the lowest bidders in the hope that a small cut in operating expenses might be made. An article in the warrant for 1821 serves as open confession of dire straits :
To take fully into consideration the embarassed state of the financial concerns of the town of York and to vote and determine how much the town will give to the Selectmen, Town Treasurer and Town Clerk for their services in their respective offices the year ensuing their elections and that this clause may be acted upon immediately after the organi- zation of the said meeting.
The cost for the care of the poor and the disabled was a subject of almost annual discussion in town meetings, and in these days more than a hundred years later, the drastic action taken will come as a shock. Few farmers or laborers could lay by a competence for their old age, and when they could no longer work, they fell in need of assistance from the town. The care of unfortunates who were born defective in any way or who had been
crippled by accident was sometimes more of an expense than could be borne by families of low income, and the town was called upon to help. Sometimes these unfortunates would be taken into the homes of neighbors or perhaps even strangers by people almost as poor but still active; sometimes children of the aged, with grow- ing families of their own, would care for their parents and levy some sort of charge on the town. The annual apppropriation for
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poor relief was sometimes greater than that for education of the young.
In the town meeting held on March 18, 1817, it was voted "to choose a committee of five to consider the expediency of adopt- ing some method for supporting the poor of the town different from that now in practice", and that committee recommended "the purchase or hire of a small farm and the erection of a long one story building for the accommodation of fifty persons at least". An attempt was made to purchase or lease such a small farm, but it was decided that such a plan would not work to advantage after all.
Then in the town meeting of April 11, 1820, this shame- ful vote was passed:
Voted : that the Selectmen shall put up and have bid off to the lowest bidder all persons who have heretofore had any support from the town, either partially or wholly, on the 13th day of April instant, and that all persons that shall hereafter apply to the Selectmen for supplies or assist- ance from the town shall be advertised by the Selectmen and let out to the lowest bidder within ten days after such appli- cation and that no assistance shall be afforded them by the Selectmen after ten days, and it shall be the duty of the persons so bidding off such paupers to take the said to his home or some suitable place for support at the option of the bidder to be supported by him, otherwise the bidder shall receive no pay, and whoever shall bid off any pauper shall for the sum at which he is bid off, indemnify the town from all further expenses during the year, and the Selectmen shall allow no more than six dollars for the funeral charges of any pauper in town.
Naturally the more able-bodied were "bid off" at lower cost to the town in the expectation of making a profit from their labor. Some of these unfortunates were bid off for as little as a dollar a year, and tales of the abuses they suffered as virtual "slave labor" have come down through several generations.
The suggestion of establishing a "work house" appears in the records but it was vigorously opposed.
In the town meeting of December 3, 1821, a new com- mittee recommended :
1. That $1000 be raised annually.
2. That the town shall pay all expenses for removing paupers from other towns when legal notice has been given. 3. That a committee of five should contract with some agent or contractor for the support of the poor for $1000
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annually or for less if possible, said agent to obligate himself to supply all things necessary except for their removal as abovesaid.
4. That unless a suitable and responsible agent can be found it is not advisable to deviate from the course pursued the last year.
No such "suitable and responsible agent" was found. Even- tually an almshouse was established on Long Sands Road and over the years the acreage of the original farm was increased and a larger and more modern house (the present one) was built. While it may still not be considered the perfect answer to the problem, it has worked acceptably for over a hundred years with changes innovated throughout the years as succeeding genera- tions learned to be more sympathetic.
There were so many storekeepers who vied for what little trade there was to be had that competition stifled the prospect of success for all but a few outstandingly shrewd merchants. The business of bill collecting seems to have been as profitable as any.
Homestead farms on the Commons, where generations of large families had been raised, were sold to the lumbermen for the value of just the timber in the woodlot with no allowance for the worth of the buildings, and after the woodlots were stripped the buildings were abandoned to the elements.
Selling intoxicating drink for cash was a dependable way for citizens without talents or skills to derive incomes. Rights to sell liquor were more freely granted by town authorities after Maine became a state, and by legislation passed in 1821, the issuing of licenses became another duty of the selectmen. In in- creasing numbers, storekeepers and owners of private homes re- ceived permits and retailed alcoholic beverages. Whether from constant temptation on every side or from idleness and despair in the hard times, drunkenness and immorality increased to such an extent that in 1833 the Temperance Society was formed. Reverend Eber Carpenter instituted the Temperance Pledge as a requirement for membership in the church. Through the efforts of the Society a vote was passed in town meeting in 1843 that "a Committee of Vigilance to consist of seven persons" be ap- pointed "to see that no Ardent Spirits be sold in town during the year". Charles O. Emerson was a member of that committee and of a similar committee empowered to prosecute, in 1845. In his address in that year before the Temperance Society, he gave an insight into conditions existing at that time. Drunkenness
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was on the increase, he stated. In York, a village of 570 ratable polls, there were "260 intemperate drinkers" and of this number were "150 sots or low drunkards or those who will make them- selves brutes as often as time and opportunity may allow". Many young men in York "obstinately and shamefully persist in their downward course to destruction. . . . Like brutes you live, like brutes you die! . . . Our fathers were frugal, industrious, tem- perate, virtuous, feared God, and eschewed evil; is such the character of their sons?"
As might be expected, the raising of funds for religious purposes became increasingly difficult. During the first two cen- turies, attendance at Sabbath meetings was compulsory, and a tax for money to support the church was as binding as that for the support of the town. The First Parish Church, and later the Second Parish, were the official religious organizations, and no other society was recognized. In the earliest days there were laws forbidding the holding of religious services in any building other than the established churches. Gradually actual ostracism was softened to tolerant criticism, until in 1808 the Baptist Society was established and Peter Young was ordained as its first pastor. Other church societies were formed as itinerant elders attracted followings.
The parish assessors or tax collectors were authorized to seize personal property and sell it at auction if the head of a household could not or would not pay his church taxes. In order to cut the tie with the official parishes a member would serve written notice, which would be duly entered into the church records, that he had associated with some other church organiza- tion and that after the given date he would no longer be subject to any further parish dues or taxes. There are pages full of copies of such withdrawals in the records of the parish. In consequence, the funds available for religious purposes during the hard times, though hardly sufficient to maintain one church, were divided among several societies, and all of them suffered.
Competition for election or appointment to town office as a source of additional revenue for family support was keen, and electioneering and local politics dominated the conversation and the daily activities to the exclusion of state and national affairs. Sectional disputes as to which part of town was more successful in being voted the largest sums for improvements seemed im- portant. In 1828 matters came to a temporary climax when Joseph Thompson and eighty others petitioned the State Legislature to
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divide the town according to a proposed definition of the geo- graphical limits of the First Parish and the Second Parish. It was solemnly proposed that the First Parish be named "East York" and that the Second Parish become a separate town to be called "New York". Fortunately that effort was unsuccessful.
Conditions improved slowly after 1837, the year when a surplus in the National Treasury was distributed among all the states.
Then came the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, and small towns like York, their resources spent, faced an economic future far more dubious than that which loomed before the city dwellers. The men of York favored the cause of the North to the extent that fully a quarter of them took up arms. Although the battles were waged far from the town, the citizens accepted their tax burdens with good grace, and somehow adjusted their economy to the conditions, with some financial relief received by the town from the State.
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If it is to be accepted as an axiom that all wars create poverty and desolation, if Maine history had repeated itself, then the Civil War of 1861-65 should have ruined York completely. There was the same ruinous disruption of business and the same burdensome taxation which followed every war. The young veter- ans were just as restless and eager to seek greener fields. The opportunities for profit in the cities had so outdistanced the chances in the rural districts that the prospect of spending a life- time on a farm held little appeal. There was no market for what York had to sell. The land which the Puritans of Massachusetts had coveted for its natural resources could no longer compete in the industrial world, which was constantly inventing new ma- chinery and labor-saving devices.
However, even before the Civil War came to a close, a new era began, at first almost unnoted, like a modern miracle. Summer visitors came to town to board at farmhouses. A "back to the land movement" had started which was to revolutionize the New England economy. Perhaps it could be traced to the natural instincts of man, to nostalgia for the scenes of one's child- hood, or the sentimentality bred in the hearts of children by the reminiscences of their elders. Many city dwellers who had gained a competence had gone to the metropolis from small farms where life had seemed hard, dull, and unrewarding, but had left the
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homestead with full intention of returning to buy back the "old place" after they had won fortunes in the city.
Poets, landscape artists, and song writers kindled the long- ing to return. Currier and Ives prints everywhere brought back memories of the old homestead. Authors like Elijah Kellogg spe- cialized in descriptions of life along the Maine coast. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, descendant of the Stephen Longfellow who had taught school in Brixham and had married a York Bragdon, John Greenleaf Whittier, who met "Maude Muller" on a summer's day at a spring just beyond the Four Corners-both extolled the charms of rural life and the beauties of the rustic scene.
Massachusetts again found Maine's resources irresistible, but this time they were resources which must be cherished at the source of supply and could not be carried away.
The first hardy visitors were artists, authors, college pro- fessors, and professional men who could contrive long vacations in a day when extended holidays were luxuries to be enjoyed by only a favored few. Their problem was transportation; as their numbers increased, those who provided means for getting from one place to another saw profit in establishing scheduled services. Better accommodations encouraged less adventurous vacationists, and so the spiral rose sharply in perhaps the most rapid growth of any new business.
Within a decade private homes were not large enough to accommodate all those who came to spend the summer; hotels were built and were filled, in season, profitably and acceptably. Better accommodations stimulated an increase in demand; the peak seemed unattainable.
By the nineties the means of transportation had been im- proved from buckboard and stagecoach to steam railroad and electric car line. During a few summers, around 1887, steamers made daily stops at York Harbor and York Beach on a scheduled run which also included calls at Newburyport, New Castle, and Portsmouth.
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