USA > Maine > York County > York > New England miniature; a history of York, Maine > Part 4
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For the next three years the Province of Maine governed itself by laws emanating directly from the king, and paid rent to young Ferdinando Gorges. The Province militia repulsed the entrance of magistrates sent by the General Court to hold sessions; the officials, as servants of the king, ignored demands from the Bay Colony; and hardly any town in Maine sent representatives to the Court in Boston. But Massachusetts, still persistent, al- though it dared not openly oppose the king's commands, sent agitators to stir up discontent and to circulate petitions expressing dissatisfaction with government under the royal justices and urg- ing Massachusetts to come in and rule again.
Steadily the agitators gained a following and found addi- tional signers to their petitions. In May 1668 the climax came when Peter Weare, the principal Massachusetts agent, was thrown into prison after copies of petitions were found in his possession. From jail he sent letters to the General Court appealing for assist- ance, and enclosing petitions signed by as many York citizens as he had been able to convert. When these papers were read in the Court, legislation was passed to authorize another invasion into Maine. A delegation, with Court authority, and "attended with about twelve armed men on horseback, with a retinue of as many more of their friends with Swords, most being Captains and men of worth accompted among them" rode into York on the second Tuesday of July, and again by show of superior force of arms brought Maine under the control of Massachusetts. There was no reprisal, for England, beset with troubles of its own-the plague of 1665, the London fire of 1666, and another war with Hol- land-was unable to send troops to the support of the royal commissioners.
A study of the names of the York signers of petitions from 1652 to 1668 in order to determine who were for Gorges and who were for Massachusetts will not easily distinguish the follow- ers from the opponents. Most consistently for Massachusetts were
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Peter Weare and Captain Francis Raynes. Among those who signed Peter Weare's letters to help him get out of jail were Row- land Young, Henry Sayward, Arthur Bragdon, Jr., Dodevah Hull, Samuel Bragdon, Thomas Moulton, Nathaniel Masterson. But Captain Francis Raynes had held high office under both authori- ties, and others also changed their allegiance back and forth during several crises, so that their signatures reveal only considera- tion for the possible effect of their vote on their private interests. Some would sign almost any petition in order to curry favor: Edward Rishworth, in particular, has been characterized as a trimmer who sought to keep on a winning side lest he lose his political offices. But it must be borne in mind that he was also agent, first for the mills in York, later for all the operations along the Piscataqua River, for the Hutchinson family and John Becx and Company (the two were practically synonymous), whose policy was to keep members in political offices in as many places as possible, from small New England towns to the headquarters of colonial affairs, for the purpose of gaining influence and of acquiring advance information.
John Leverett of Boston, as agent for Massachusetts in London to forestall any court actions which the Gorges faction might take, reported to the General Court in 1660: "The com- playnants against you to the King's Majesty as I am informed are Mr. Godfrey and that company, Mr. Becx ... and company of iron workes, some of the sometymes fyned and imprisoned peti- tioners who thought first to have made theyr complaynts severally, after resolved in joint by petition". The mast-timber trade was peculiarly sensitive to political change, and highly speculative in that only the English navy could be the customer, with politicians of most uncertain stability in office as the purchasing agents. No doubt there were other York citizens who subordinated their principles to their connections with business interests.
Roger Plaisted, the progenitor of the fine old family of that surname in York and elsewhere in New England, a heavy investor in John Becx and Company, had come to America to look after his interests. His responsibility became the management of the companies' properties, to which he held title in his own name, in the Narragansett area in Rhode Island, where horses and cattle were raised for shipment to the West Indies. He main- tained residence in Kittery, but his son James moved to York after he married Edward Rishworth's daughter Mary, the widow of John Sayward.
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The affairs of John Becx and Company also were indirectly connected with the coming of several Scotsmen to settle in York. In September 1650, after Cromwell won the Battle of Dunbar in Scotland and had the responsibility of caring for some five thousand prisoners, Parliament voted to send about a thousand of them to America, of which a hundred and fifty were to be sent to New England at the request of the company. Some of them were sent to the iron works at Saugus and others to the Piscataqua River area. The company advanced the full amount of the fees for transportation and received bonds for seven or eight years' services from each man. Alexander Maxwell, the first to come to York when he had served out his time, encouraged others to come and live near him as soon as they were freed. So many came that their neighborhood was called Scotland, and so it is known to this day. Thus were founded in York the families of James Grant "The Drummer", who came in 1660; another James Grant, known as "The Scotchman", in 1662; Micum McIntire in 1670; Robert Junkins, whose name first appears in 1678.
Before 1670 there arrived other settlers whose descendants have carried on their names in York annals down to modern times. Among them were William Moore, who settled at Seabury in 1651; William Freethy, at York River above Bass Cove in 1652; Matthew Austin, who bought land. at Cider Hill in 1653 which was later bought by James Grant, the Drummer; Lewis Bane, who came to what is now York Corner in 1669; Arthur Came, who bought land on Cider Hill in the same year.
In 1669 Henry Sayward's mills were destroyed by fire, but he rebuilt, and added other mills, one at Cape Neddick River on the grant which Edward Rishworth had acquired in 1651. Sayward also operated mills on Mousam River in Wells, and in towns farther down east as far away as North Yarmouth. Most of his grants had been given to him in contracts for erecting buildings, under terms similar to his York contract to build the second church. Being thus obliged to saw his pay out of his timberlands, necessitating the operation of a new mill for each contract, he became overextended, and with his properties heavily mortgaged, he died a poor man in 1679.
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During this decade the people of York lived under a cloud of uncertainty. Although Massachusetts, in power until 1664,
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controlled the official courts and the jail, some men still considered themselves subjects of the king who had commanded that "the government of Sir Ferdinando Gorges shall remain". When the king's commissioners took charge in 1665, they ordered that neither Massachusetts nor Gorges laws should prevail, but that the people should be subjects directly of the king, till further notice. Though Massachusetts regained power in 1668, the un- certainties still continued. Timid citizens discreetly held their tongues for fear of attracting attention to themselves, and what they thought and did is therefore not in the records. The brash and talkative who, probably in their cups, expressed themselves freely, were sometimes taken into custody by officials of the ruling faction. In some instances, as when Peter Weare was jailed in 1668, there was a demonstration, and the prisoner was forcibly released from the jail or its keeper.
The old "Chapell or Oratory" which had served its purpose since some time before 1636, when it was first mentioned, was replaced by the second church built by Henry Sayward in 1667, during the three years when the Province of Maine was ruled by the royal justices. As the population was increasing so that a larger hall was needed for religious services, the church was planned for service as the county courthouse as well as for the use of the military forces. The first church had been located between Sentry Hill and York River; the second was built beside the path which about seventy-five years later became part of the King's Highway, and which in 1900 was named Lindsay Road. The stream in the valley below was first given a name when the church was erected, being called, appropriately enough, Meeting House Creek. It was in this new building that the Massachusetts commissioners met in 1668 and overthrew the government of the royal justices.
Though Massachusetts gained control over Maine for the second time, Ferdinando Gorges continued to press his case for his inheritance of the Province of Maine, and his ally, Robert Mason, sought to regain his inheritance of New Hampshire. Their main accomplishment was to bring to the attention of King Charles II the flagrant disregard of royal commands which the Bay Colony showed.
The king had given a patent to his brother James, Duke of York, to all the land in Maine from the Sagadahoc to the Georges River. Taking advantage of the fact that England was again at war with Holland in 1673, Massachusetts seized the
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A History of York, Maine
duke's province and named it Devonshire. After peace was re- stored in 1674, the king renewed the patent to James, just as it had been first granted in 1664. The duke at once sent Sir Edmund Andros over to be governor of New York and Sagadahoc. Massa- chusetts had gone too far; it was to rue that day for nearly twenty years to come. Duke, later king, James was to show himself an implacable enemy.
In 1670 probably few citizens in York knew about the difficulties the General Court was experiencing with Duke James and with Gorges and Mason. The Province was governed by Justice Danforth from Boston; York County, by Francis Raynes, one of the five justices of the county. The selectmen elected for York were Edward Rishworth, Edward Johnson, John Alcock, John Davis, and Matthew Austin. Peter Weare represented York in the General Court. There were six trainbands or companies of militia in the county; the troops of York were under the command of Job Alcock, Lieutenant, and Arthur Bragdon, Ensign. Edward Rishworth's apology to the General Court for ever having been so misguided as to espouse the cause of Gorges and Mason having been accepted, he was returned to favor. Major Phillips, com- mander of the militia by appointment of the royal commissioners, brought to book when he attempted to countermand the orders of the leader appointed by Massachusetts, was held under five hundred pounds bond until he apologized. The administration of affairs in York County appeared orderly if not serene.
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But trouble, brewing between the English and the Indians, broke out in Massachusetts in 1675 in what is known as King Philip's War. Animosity between the two races had begun far back in the days of the first explorers. There had been treachery and enslavement, trickery and cheating, attack from ambush, torture of prisoners, and slaughter of innocents, with guilty parties among both races. No records have been found to show that York was ever molested before 1670. All evidence points rather to the conclusion that York, as a habitation, had been shunned by In- dians after the Indian settlement of Agamenticus had been virtual- ly wiped out by the plague of 1616. There are records of Indians living close by white men's homes in Wells during frequent in- tervals. Not so in York, and the choice seemed to be as much that of the red man as of the white. When, after war broke out, Indians
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were reported to be in York, it was fully understood that they were there with hostile intent. In the other plantations there had been cases of marauding in the earliest days, and in the first provincial court, held in Saco in 1636, this legislation had been passed :
It is ordered that every planter or inhabitant shall doe his best indevor to apprehend, execut or kill any Indian that hath binne known to murder any English, kill their Cattell or any waie spoyle the goods or doe them violence & will not mack satisfaction. Iff it shall be proved by tow witnesses that any planter or inhabitant hath bine necligent therin, he shall be fined at the discression of the bench.
To the Indians it must have been plain that they, as a race, were doomed unless the English were exterminated. Year after year the English, ever more numerous and possessive, crowded them out of their favored haunts, increasing the tension, until only an incident was needed to start an uprising.
When word of the outbreak in southern New England reached York on July 11, 1675, Henry Sayward sent a messenger to spread the news throughout the county. Various Indian tribes went on the warpath almost simultaneously, raiding settlements distant from each other in a generally similar pattern of treacher- ous show of peaceful intent in order to gain entrance, followed up with murderous attack. Such treachery could be successful only once, after which sudden attack would be made on isolated dwellings, and then the forces would scatter in a quick disappear- ance into thick woods. If such an attack failed, Indians would lie in ambush, sometimes for days, to pick off those who tended cattle, gathered wood, or fetched water. The constant tension, the frustration caused by the enemy's skill in vanishing, the suffer- ings of hunger, thirst, cold, and loss of rest, bade fair to touch the sanity of the settlers. At home, the nearly helpless were huddled in garrisons with few defenders, while abroad, the ablest scouted the thick woods to wear themselves out in vain pursuit or to fall in ambush. The Indians had the advantages in this war, and they pressed them until their supplies were spent. As it was stated in a letter from the Council of the General Court to the Secretary of State in England: "ffor such is the maner of or Ene- myes fighting flying retreating & incursions wth many othr ad- vantages that wee judge it much easyer for the people of this Country to defend themselves agst many thousands of a forraigne nation then agst 2 or 3000 of theis barbarous heathen".
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Dover, in New Hampshire, and Wells and Berwick suf- fered heavy losses, and on September 25, 1675, Cape Neddick was nearly wiped out, with the loss of forty persons killed or captured and most of the houses destroyed. The story of the slaughter of the James Jackson family has been often told in gruesome detail as an example of fiendish cruelty. Probably there were others murdered in ambush or in night attacks, but names of such victims were not reported. A truce under solemn oath was made in the winter of 1675, but both sides prepared for a return of hostilities in the near future. There was fighting again in other parts of Maine in 1676, but apparently York was not molested and the settlers became overconfident.
On April 7, 1677, seven York men were slain while clear- ing ground for spring planting in the Brixham section: John Frost, Andrew Rankin, John Carmichael, Lewis Bane, John Palmer, William Roans, and Isaac Smith. A few days later there was an attack nearer town, at Ferry Neck, in which a woman and four children were slain and Rowland Young's house was burned. York suffered no further depredation in this war, which was brought to an end by treaty in April 1678, and the next twelve years were times of peace in which to prepare for war.
As a result of the first and second wars with the Indians, York acquired several new families when planters along the Kennebec abandoned their settlements and fled for safety. Samuel Webber, leaving a settlement on the southwest bank of the Kenne- bec River opposite Arrowsic Island became, in 1679, a millwright at Cape Neddick; John Main and Richard and William Bray came to York in 1676 from North Yarmouth. Many of their descendants have been citizens of York or neighboring towns to the present day.
During the time when Maine was ravaged by war and Massachusetts was piling up debts in an attempt to pay the sol- diery, to maintain supplies of food and ammunition, and to fur- nish funds for restoration of homes and care of the afflicted, the General Court was also troubled with the pressure brought upon the Bay Colony by the claims of Gorges and Robert Mason for possession of the old Province of Maine and of New Hampshire. Massachusetts maintained a legal staff in London to forestall all attempts to rescind its charter, and further instructed this staff to take advantages of any opportunity to buy the Gorges patent out- right. In 1677, a Massachusetts agent, John Usher, negotiated the sale for twelve hundred and fifty pounds sterling. The king
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- was infuriated by this purchase, for he had been planning to give the Province of Maine as it had been granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges in 1639 to his son, the Duke of Monmouth, even as he had given Sagadahoc and New York to his brother, the Duke of York.
In the face of his wrath, the General Court made no con- spicuous changes in its government of Maine. With its treasury depleted by the outlay of the purchase money, and worried lest the king might yet seize the property, the Court first offered Maine, all or piecemeal, for sale on open market in 1678, but withdrew the offer in 1679. The king declared that a royal patent was inalienable; therefore, though Massachusetts had bought the title, it could not buy the right to govern. As a veiled threat, he re- minded the General Court that acts of trade and navigation, passed in 1672, were still in force, and for good measure, he added that he could not understand why no Anglicans were among the appointed officials. But no interference having been made by the king, the General Court, in 1680, devoted particular atten- tion to the government of Maine, and voted to place in control the governor and a Board of Colony Assistants who were to choose annually a president of Maine and to create two legislative branches, the upper house to be the Standing Council composed of deputies chosen by the Board, and the lower to be composed of deputies chosen by towns.
The first president appointed, Thomas Danforth, who had been the presiding judge in Yorkshire for several terms, came to York in 1680 with Samuel Nowell as a special commissioner, and established his government. Brian Pendleton of Saco, the first appointed deputy president, died during his first year in office, and Major John Davis, York's first merchant, succeeded him in 1681. To the extent that deputies or representatives were sent to the General Court, the government was according to that of Massachusetts, but in Maine the people were told that the form of government was patterned after that which Sir Ferdinando Gorges had established, and to give it that appearance the Pro- vincial Council was set up, with John Davis to represent York, and with Edward Rishworth to act as secretary and recorder for the province.
For six years, 1680-86, President Danforth and his council administered satisfactory government over Maine, but all the while, the heirs of the original proprietors of Maine and New Hampshire, continually pressing their claims, were winning favor
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at court. In 1683, the king demanded that Massachusetts show cause why its charter and other titles should not be revoked. In 1684, the king annulled all Massachusetts rights and took over direct government of the colonies. On February 16, 1685, King Charles II died, and James, Duke of York, became King James II of England. For five months, Joseph Dudley, a native of Massa- chusetts and one of its magistrates, had been governor of Massa- chusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island; then in 1687, King James appointed Sir Edmund Andros, formerly his governor of New York and Sagadahoc, to be governor of New England. In 1688, as the climax of a political overturn in Eng- land, King James abdicated the throne, and his son-in-law and daughter, William of Orange and Mary, succeeded him. By 1689 New England, too, was in revolt; Andros and his associates were imprisoned, and Massachusetts, resuming its former government, returned Thomas Danforth to his post as President of Maine. On October 7, 1691, the crown granted a new provincial charter by which Massachusetts was made ruler of all of New England except the Province of New Hampshire, and in addition given the control of Nova Scotia, which had been captured from the French by Sir William Phips, and was now called The Royal Province of Massachusetts Bay. New Hampshire was not included because Robert Mason had sold his claim to Samuel Allen of London. Thus at long last came orderly and undisputed government to New England.
Not peace, however, for by 1688 open warfare with the Indians was resumed. Reports had been coming since 1684 that the Indians had been sullen, uttering threats to individual settlers, and complaining because a fort had been erected in the new town of North Yarmouth, east of Falmouth. Baron Castine, allied with the Indians, had been insulted by Governor Andros, and the French in Canada were ever inciting hatred against the English. The military command in Massachusetts warned the people of Maine to be on their guard and to make preparations for defense. The Province Court ordered, "on suspition of Indian uprising", that all garrisons be stocked and supplied with arms and ammu- nition; "every master of a family provide one pound of powder and one pound good swann shot to be ready at all tymes for the Country's security"; "not any person or persons whatsoever shall desert Towns or garrisons". Lieutenant Job Alcock, the command- er of the York forces, built a garrison at the waterfront in 1680.
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Soldiers were recruited in Massachusetts, and volunteers from the friendly Pequot and Mohawk Indians were sought.
However, the soldiers on scout duty and in the garrisons were not amenable to discipline; some tactlessly irritated Indians encountered in the woods; some defied the orders of superior officers; some deserted. Townspeople resented having disorderly soldiers stationed among them. The uncertainties of unsettled government were reflected in the lack of morale; when the people of Boston rose up against Governor Andros and threw him into prison, the soldiers at some forts in Maine mutinied against their commanders if they had been appointed by Andros. In short, in every way the settlers were poorly prepared for Indian onslaught; they still had not learned how to fight the wily men of the forest.
The war became a reality to the people of the towns of southern Maine when reports came in of the disastrous attack of June 7, 1689, on Piscataqua settlements, particularly at Dover where a garrison, five houses, and several sawmills were destroyed; some twenty-five inhabitants killed, and about thirty more taken captive. The extent of the area covered, indicating attack in large force, struck terror and foreboding. In addition, Indians in small bands ranged through the woods at Brixham, at Scotland, at Cape Neddick; "the enymie constantly remayne about and are seen every day; and are constantly killinge and destroying both fat and lean cattell ... ". Sometimes they wiped out whole families and the homesteads built by the love and labor of more than one generation. Berwick was nearly destroyed in a heavy attack on March 18, 1690; Wells, Berwick, and Spruce Creek suffered in three attacks in July. In June 1690, two hundred Indians, re- pulsed at Berwick on the 11th, at Wells on the 14th, fell upon Cape Neddick on June 21, where Stover's stone garrison, on the bank near the mouth of the river, had been within the week abandoned for lack of defenders. Reverend Shubael Dummer, pastor at York, on June 22 wrote to his brother-in-law: "This last night ye sad news of nine of our Principall men sorely wounded by ye Indians & one man killa at Cape Neddocke .. . y' were about 40 Indians we are in hourely Jeopardy. . . ". Stover's garrison was gutted by fire in that raid.
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In all of Maine, from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec, every town was abandoned except Kittery, Wells, and York. Only well-
A History of York, Maine
35 1373683 populated York, where county affairs were transacted, had so far escaped assault-and the Indians- marked it for a special project on some future expedition.
On November 17, 1691, Major Vaughan at Portsmouth reported to the General Court that supplies were so low and so many cattle had already been killed to feed the soldiers, that the people were starving, and the soldiers, many of them in need of clothing, and sick, not being attended by the citizens, were unfit for service. The military command being hard pressed to find recruits and supplies in Massachusetts, the governor applied to Rhode Island and Connecticut for assistance, but was rebuffed. Available troops were dispatched in answer to every report from Maine, usually after the damage had been done, and then with- drawn to some other point in response to newer appeals, while the enemy were aware of every change in strength.
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