USA > Maine > York County > York > New England miniature; a history of York, Maine > Part 13
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By 1722, when Colonel Thomas Westbrook was setting up his headquarters in York and organizing his Maine Regiment for the conquest of Norridgewock, Jeremiah, then thirty-four years old and a sergeant under Colonel Wheelwright, was transferred
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to Westbrook's command and promoted to captain. In the winter of 1723 he led an attack on Norridgewock, intent on capturing alive Father Ralle, the spiritual leader of the Indians in that lead- ing settlement of the red men, and the foremost inciter of Indian hatred and savagery. On this expedition Father Ralle was not found, but Captain Moulton brought back correspondence between the French governor in Canada and the priest which proved that the Indian attacks on English settlements in Maine were the result of a deliberate plot to arouse Indians to destroy the English with- out letting. it appear that the French had had any part in the conflict. The following August another expedition was undertaken, and this time Norridgewock was destroyed and Father Ralle slain. Of the four companies sent in 1724, Captain Johnson Harmon was the superior officer, but Captain Jeremiah Moulton and his company had the most prominent action in carrying out the princi- pal objective. The one disappointment was that Father Ralle was not brought back to stand trial that would produce evidence to convince the Indians that the French were inciting hostility against the English.
As there was little but sentry duty and scouting for the armed forces of York after 1725, Captain Jeremiah turned his attention to surveying and serving as sheriff of York County. There were also farming operations which required management; for by now he owned other properties besides the homestead farm which, originally John Twisden's (a Scituate man) first fifty acres, had been extended for half a mile beyond the westernmost boundaries whereby it was enlarged to at least one hundred and twenty acres.
All through his life Jeremiah was associated with the im- portant events of his period of Maine history. Of his days as an Indian scout until the 1724 raid on Norridgewock, his reports from the woods showed that his expeditions extended to all parts of Maine which were then in the possession of the English. After Norridgewock he traveled extensively as sheriff. From 1726 to 1728 he was the town's representative to the General Court in Boston, a position which he held at various other times in his busy life.
In 1729 negotiations for establishing the new town of Phillipstown, or Sanford, were resumed, and Jeremiah Moulton was the most active worker. He was on a first committee to find settlers for the project, but this group failed in their efforts. Then he undertook to find settlers on his own responsibility, and in twenty months he disposed of almost all of the lots. He laid out
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lots for town buildings, for the church and the minister, and roads and boundary lines in relation to surrounding towns. In 1731 he began his many years as recorder of the Parish and in 1732 he was appointed the first recorder of the York Proprietors who were organized into a committee to distribute the common lands of the town. This position entailed an enormous amount of work as a surveyor. From 1734 to 1744 he was also town clerk. In 1734 he was the coroner for the Province. In all these years he was traveling back and forth to Sanford, locating settlers, super- vising the erection of the church and other public buildings, get- ting the Moulton mills into operation, and overseeing all the details connected with the founding of so large an enterprise.
In 1737 he was referred to as judge and a lieutenant- colonel. In 1741 he was appointed co-chairman of a committee of the General Court to hear petitioners and give opinion as to whether certain settlements and islands should be annexed to Brunswick or to Georgetown. In 1742 he was chairman of a committee of the General Court to decide whether the town of Berwick should be divided into two parishes.
Then in 1745 came the turmoil of preparing for the siege of Louisburg under Sir William Pepperrell. Jeremiah was ap- pointed colonel of the Third Massachusetts Regiment, and from March 24, when thirteen transports left Boston, until June 17 when Louisburg was surrendered, he was in the forefront of a campaign fraught with hardships and beset with frustrations. In December 1745 he returned from Louisburg to accept the appoint- ment of Judge of Probate, a position which he held for the next fifteen years of his life.
Judge Moulton turned much of his work over to his sons as soon as they were old enough and were qualified. To his son Daniel, by now trained in the duties of a secretary and a public official, fell the duties of keeping the books of the town proprietors, the parish, and the town. The other son, Jeremiah, became a jus- tice, and also took up the work of advancing the development of Sanford and its industries, and the operation of mills as far away as Brunswick.
In 1760 his wife Hannah Ballard died, and in 1762 he took for a second wife Mrs. Mary Lord. Colonel Jeremiah Moulton died in 1765 and was buried in the old cemetery across the street from the Town House and the church.
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Surveyor, Indian scout, sheriff, member of the General Court, recorder and trustee of the affairs of church and town, builder of a new town, colonel of a regiment, Judge of Probate, and progenitor of a family which served well its town and its state, Jeremiah Moulton was a mainstay of York during the stormy period of Indian and French warfare. Resourceful as a soldier and officer, respected as a leader in civic as well as in military affairs, of sound judgment and good common sense, he was hon- ored and respected among the leaders of the Province of Maine.
In the middle of the twentieth century there are no descend- ants of his among the many Moultons in York. The son of his eldest son, Jeremiah, moved to Sanford, and Daniel's sons moved to Ogunquit. But through granddaughters there are many de- scendants in York with different family names. His son Jeremiah's daughter, Abigail, married Dr. Job Lyman; another daughter, Hannah, married Samuel Sewall, and daughter Lucy married Storer Sewall. Daniel's daughter Hannah married Timothy Good- win. In later generations there are families of Emersons, Freemans, Bowdens, Talpeys, Putnams, Bragdons, and others who can proud- ly claim descent from this illustrious ancestor.
AMERICA'S FIRST MINING STOCK PROMOTION
IN THE YEARS OF PEACE after Queen Anne's War, while Father Moody and his men of good intent were directing their energies toward beneficial enterprises, there came to town a man who planned to deceive. By his acts, York became the site of the first exploited silver mine in America.
Late in 1718, Caleb Spurrier, self-styled in varied spelling a chemister, began buying rights to explore on private land in Cape Neddick, and found ready acceptance of his offers among the owners. For ten shillings per ton he was allowed to carry off all the minerals he could find during the next twenty years, but if he should uncover any ore so valuable that the King of England would become entitled to his royal share then the ten-shilling fee was to be waived. Note that in his dealings in New England Spurrier was careful not to mention silver.
The late Matt B. Jones discovered how Spurrier tried to capitalize on his York "mines" in England, and in a paper read before the Massachusetts Historical Society, he wrote:
In the summer of 1721 there appeared in London a promoter's circular : "Copy of a Letter from Mr. Caleb Spur- rier to his correspondent in Cornwall, offering for sale, at ten guineas each, a majority of the shares in a company which was to develop and operate a silver mine in the town- ship of York, in the District of Maine." It was as well calcu- lated to attract the adventurous investor of that day and his unwary guinea as are similar productions of present-day promoters. But Mr. Spurrier had brought his project to Lon- don at an unpropitious time. ... During the previous year, John Lewis's Mississippi Bubble had burst in France, with disasterous effects. In August 1720, the speculation in se- curities of the British South Sea Company had reached its climax, and by February 1721, its stock was selling at about a tenth of the high price. . . . Hundreds of satellite bubbles rose and fell with these two, including "A Company for carry- ing on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to
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know what it is." These speculations of 1719-1720 in the securities of companies holding government concessions for trading in both the Americas had been as wild, their puta- tive values as fictitious, their collapse as sudden and abys- mal, .. . as in 1928-1929. .
The general state of mind is well described in a bit of contemporary doggerel:
"He that is rich and wants to fool away
A good round sum in North America
Let him subscribe himself a headlong sharer
And asses ears shall honor him or bearer."
Doubtless it was with this situation in mind that Mr. Spurrier began the letter to his correspondent in Cornwall with a reminder that some time had elapsed since the writer had advised him of the discovery of "several large Royal mines in New England" and that he had obtained legal grants of mining rights from the "Proprietors in whose Lands they are"; also that 350 tons of silver ore had been mined, transported to London and lay at the Great Wet Dock near Deptford. "Now," says the promoter, I "further inform you, That many Assays of this Ore have been made by several noted Refiners, namely Messrs Granmer and Hambleton of London and Messrs Roberts and Palmer of Flintshire, Wales, who are allowed to be Persons of great Judgement in these affairs. . . . "
Mr. Granmer and Mr. Hambleton had reported a silver content per pound of ore valued at 31/2 pence which, as the hopeful promoter truthfully states, amounts to 32 £, 13/and 4 a ton, provided we take a long ton. . . .
"There are Seven large veins of Silver Ore from One to Four Foot wide; and good reason (as all allow who are concerned in Mining) to expect that the lower we dig the richer the Ore will be." ... The cost of raising, transporting, and smelting the ore was estimated at not more than 5£ a ton, and it was thought that two thousand tons a year could be produced and worked with "great Profit to the Persons concerned in Interest" and with "very considerable advan- tage if the value should be less than that indicated" . .
[Spurrier had been] induced to divide his whole Interest into 600 shares or equal parts, 400 of which are to be disposed of at Ten Guineas per share.
It appears that under a deed of trust dated June 22, 1721, Spurrier's "Estate and Interests in the Mines" had been vested in a third person (unnamed) with power to con- vey the shares to purchasers. . . .
Furthermore, says Mr. Spurrier, the shares in the new company were to include not only ". . . my present Interest, but also to One Half of all Interest that I shall here- after obtain in any Mine or Mines upon the continent of
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America, of which I have a very good prospect, and this at the Rate only of 10£ per Cent out of the Neat Produce of any such ore ... . "
To distinguish his project from the ruinous Bubbles, Spur- rier added a postcript to his letter. Again quoting Mr. Jones:
Four points of difference are noted :
"Here is a good Title to the Mines ... Here are 350 Tons of the Ore on the Spot, brought from New England from those Mines . . . Here are the Certificates of several Persons of great Skill, What Proportion of Silver that Ore produces ... There has been such Care taken in framing the Deed of Copartnership in the said Mines and Ore, that either the Undertaking will be carried on, or every Man will be entitled to have his Money repaid him . . .
"N. B. The several certificates of the Refiners are to be seen at North's Coffeehouse, in King Street, near Guild- hall, and the Produce of Silver, where the Office for deliver- ing out the Shares is Kept, and Attendance given every Tues- day and Thursday, from Ten to One ... . "
So much for the sales promotion in London in 1721. Spurrier was still in York, Maine, and still acquiring leases. Abra- ham Preble sold him a grant he had been given by the town "where it could be found free and clear of other claims". In March 1722, the town voted to lease to Caleb Spurrier the right to mine on all common land for twenty-one years at the rate of five shillings per ton for iron ore and 10 shillings per ton for "Oare, Mines, Miner- als and Metals ... (the King's Part of Ryall Oare not to be paid for ) ... ".
In the same month Spurrier sold twenty acres of land in York to Joseph Favor, and his address was already Newbury, Massachusetts. He was preparing for flight. By June, Caleb Spur- rier was "of Dunster in the County of Somerset" and he was now a "plumber" (Plumbo means lead, and lead was one of three basic materials used by doctors of the time to cure the sick. So a plumber was a druggist). On June 22, 1722, Spurrier did "by Indenture Tripartite" sell to Ambrose Mason of London "of the second part" and some twelve others "of the Third Part" his "Rights and Privilidges of in and to divers Mines and Quarries or priviledges of Mining & getting Oar in divers lands and Places in the Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England". The docu- ment goes on to show that on July 21 "last past", Ambrose Mason had given Spurrier "by a certain Deed poll ... One hundred and fifty full and equal six hundreth Parts (the whole into six Hun-
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dred equal parts to be divided) of the sd severall Deeds poll". The deed then shows that Spurrier sold to one Captain George Fendall "late of Portsmouth, New England now in London" for 105 pounds "Ten full and equal Six Hundredth Parts (parts of the sd One Hundred and fifty) six Hundredth Part ... for and during the rest and residue of the several terms". (Deeds Bk XII, Part II, Folio 354.)
Perhaps Captain Fendall took this deed in lieu of Spurrier's passage fare back to London. On November 13, 1728, Captain Fendall of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, satisfied a judgment against him awarded to John Emerson of Portsmouth, Clerk, by deeding "Two Thirds Parts of Ten Parts of Six Hundred Shares of my interest in the Oar Affair in New England".
Mr. Jones gives this clue to the location of the "buried treasure": "As one follows the shore northerly or northeasterly from Bald Head Cliff one finds at a distance of about half a mile, and just before one reaches the upward slope of. . .. High Pas- ture, a small cove with a gravel beach . . . known to [old-timers] as Pirates' Cove, the only landing place for a small boat between the cliffs in either direction". Back a ways from the shore there are signs of diggings.
Thus did one man seek to exploit the riches of York.
RELIGION IN YORK
THE MOST STRIKING DIFFERENCE between the people of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the settlers of the Province of Maine was in their manner of religious worship. The pioneers who came to Maine wished to continue as loyal subjects of the king and therefore to remain followers of the Church of England; the Puritans came to Massachusetts Bay to develop a simpler form of worship. In Maine, therefore, religion was second in importance to the struggle for a living because they took for granted the form of worship taught them in childhood and were willing to let others follow their own course. Their church was the chapel or oratory, built some time before 1636, for the upkeep of which all dwellers in Agamenticus were assessed. There was complete understanding of the direct instructions given in the Charter of 1639 by the king to Gorges "that the religion now professed in the Church of England and Ecclesiastical government now used in the same shall be ever hereafter professed". In 1649 by order of the Pro- vincial Court, the people of Maine invited all those who were "out of a Church way" to "gather themselves in to a Church estate" in Maine "provided they do it in a Christian way". Though the Church of England was established in York, orderly Christians could settle here and worship as they pleased. When Massachu- setts took possession, the Church of York became Puritan, but the inhabitants continued to allow others to follow different faiths.
Shubael Dummer, born in Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1636 and a graduate of Harvard with Increase Mather in the Class of 1656, the seventh minister in York, was the first pastor to devote the greater part of his life to the town. He was first called to the ministry in Amesbury, Massachusetts, in 1660; soon afterwards was pastor at Berwick, and in 1665 began service in York. Though several churches in Massachusetts invited him to preach in towns that were better able and willing to pay a salary, he chose "with a paternal affection to stay amongst those who had been so many of them Converted and Edified by his ministry"
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(Mather, Magnalia). His pulpit was in the chapel at the Harbor until in 1667 the second church was built near Meeting House Creek. In 1664-68 the government was in control of the king's commissioners, after which time Dummer served under the rule of Massachusetts. Having married in York, Lydia, daughter of John Alcock, he bought of his father-in-law's estate in 1678 forty-seven and a half acres of Alcock's Neck, beginning at Roar- ing Rock and extending towards the river, and built a house. No further details of his pastorate are known, but twenty-seven years of self-sacrifice in a poor and isolated town suggest congenial surroundings and mutual affection. In 1692 he was slain by In- dians in the Massacre; his death must have added greatly to the sorrow and despair of his congregation.
Of the Reverend John Hancock of Cambridge, Massachu- setts, his successor from 1694 to 1696, little is known except that he was grandfather of the John Hancock who became gov- ernor of Massachusetts nearly a hundred years later.
When the Reverend Samuel Moody succeeded him, there began a period of fifty years during which the control of one minister was supreme, but that he was tolerant of the religious views of others is evident in his hearty welcome to the Reverend George Whitefield, the great English revivalist, to his pulpit in October 1744. "Sir," he said, "you are first welcome to America; secondly, to New England; thirdly, to all the faithful ministers of New England; fourthly, to all the good people of New England; fifthly, to all the good people of York; and sixthly and lastly, to me, dear sir, less than the least of them all".
During his pastorate the inhabitants of the western part of town wanted to have a church of their own. Required by law to attend services every Sunday, they found it often irksome and sometimes impossible to travel three to five miles to the Village through snow or mud over crude trails, at times in fear of attack by Indians. In 1719 the town "Voted that the Inhabitance above the Mill Creek have Liberty to build a Meeting house if they will build it upon there on Cost and Charge". By 1722 this Sec- ond Church was in process of erection on land which Alexander Maxwell had given by will to the First Church in 1707. The first service was held in the new building, not yet completed, on February 29, 1724. In 1727 the town voted forty pounds to complete the building, provided that it would be used as a school- house as well as a church. In 1731 it voted permission to the in- habitants to "set off" a distinct parish, to which was given one
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hundred acres in the Stated Commons on condition that all claims to property of the First Parish be renounced. The bounds of the new parish-afterwards known as "the Second Parish"-included nearly the northern half of town from Kittery to Wells. On No- vember 29, 1732, the Reverend Joseph Moody was ordained as the first regular minister of the Second Church. Out of land which he had received by will from Alexander Maxwell the Reverend Samuel Moody sold, on May 18, 1733, to his son Joseph two acres whereon the latter had already built a house and barn.
The Reverend Joseph Moody, born in 1700 and graduated from Harvard in the Class of 1718, showed promise of valuable service in town and county affairs. Town clerk in 1723 as well as Register of Deeds for the County, he was appointed Judge of the Court of Sessions in 1730 and continued to hold offices for a few years after he became a minister. In 1722 he married Lucy, daughter of the Reverend John White of Gloucester; when she died in 1736 she left to the young minister the care and upbring- ing of three small sons and a daughter. Perhaps the combined responsibilities of a public official, a minister, and a widowed father brought on within two years a mental breakdown which lasted until 1745. Evidence of his troubled condition appeared when he began to hide his face behind a black veil. In modern times he has been referred to as "Handkerchief Moody". Nathaniel Hawthorne told his version of the story in "The Minister's Black Veil", contained in his book Twice Told Tales. Though his duties as a pastor were ended in 1741 because of his condition, Joseph seems to have recovered by 1745, for while his father Samuel was with the troops at Louisburg, Joseph was accepted as preacher in his place in the First Parish Church. In 1753 Joseph Moody died and was buried in the Second Parish Cemetery, opposite the Bragdon homestead in Scotland, where his slate gravestone may be found.
In the First Parish, Samuel Moody was succeeded by the Reverend Isaac Lyman of North Hampton, Massachusetts, a grad- uate of Yale, who continued in this pastorate for sixty years until his death in 1810 at the age of eighty-five. Study of the records gives the impression that he was a quiet, scholarly man, not an aggressive fighter for causes as Mr. Moody had been. However, it may have been that times were changing and that followers of other denominations had become numerous and more competitive. In 1781 Jonathan Sayward wrote in his diary: "Distraction is
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become Common, new Secteries in religion Various oppinions Yea I do not know but there may be new heavens and new earth before all these things shall be finished".
The unstable conditions during and after the Revolution seem the most probable reason why new denominations found acceptance. A desire to break away from the control of the Con- gregational Church was increasingly shown, especially by inhabi- tants who lived at some distance from their accustomed meeting- houses. The Baptist Society, the first of the new sects to build a church in York, was organized in 1808, many years after similar societies were formed elsewhere in New England. An Act of the General Court in 1800, allowing people to choose to which ministry they wanted to pay their church taxes, had a serious effect upon the Congregational societies. From very early times townsmen had been required to pay a tax for the support of the church, the collection of which was enforced by law as rigidly as that for the town. The tax gatherer for the church had equal authority with the constable to seize and sell property to meet the amount of the taxes. Before 1800 all church tax revenue had been paid to the Congregational societies, and voluntary subscrip- tions to another organization were extra payments in excess of the levied tax. With the enactment of this law a citizen was allowed to give due notice to the Congregational society that because he had joined another church he would no longer pay assessments to his parish.
An example of a York man attempting to pay his church tax to the Baptist Society of Berwick, shown in a case before the Court of Common Pleas in 1804 (Bk 25, p. 476), illustrates the common procedure. Dummer Blaisdell of York, husbandman, brought in a plea of trespass against Jeremiah McIntire, Joseph Thompson, and Samuel Parsons, assessors for the Second Parish, stating that he had joined the Baptist Church of Berwick and had given due notice thereof in good season to the Second Parish. "Yet these lads, knowing the premises but contriving to vex, in- jure and defraud the Plaintiff by colour of their rights . . . on the first of May, 1800 did assess the Plaintiff in his poll and estate to the ministerial tax in the sum of two dollars and five cents". He further stated that the collector for the Second Parish, Abraham Shaw, on November 11, 1802, "distrained a piece of cloth containing [10 3/4 ] yards, the property of the Plaintiff of the value of $16.12 and sold it at public vendue. Whereby the
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Plaintiff is greatly wronged and injured and otherwise damnified in the sum of $100". The plaintiff lost and was ordered to pay the costs of each of the defendants.
Peter Young of York, the first Baptist minister when the York Society was formed in 1808, was ordained in the orchard of John Tenney. He baptized the first converts where Little River crosses the Ridge Road. The first church, located at the junction of U.S. 1 and the South Berwick Road, was built on land sold by Charles Bane "to the Babtist Assoceates for a meeting house for the public worship of God for the use of all denominations of Christians without reserve or hindrance". Used later as a school- house, it was moved and used as a planing mill, and is now a dwelling. A new meetinghouse, built at the corner of Organug Road and U.S. 1-A, was dedicated in 1891. The first Baptist Church Society of Cape Neddick was formed in 1829. Another Baptist church was built in 1866 at Beech Ridge.
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