USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Prouts Neck > Old Prouts Neck > Part 4
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rendered without thought for his own per- sonal fortunes.
The principal leader in the attack upon the Norridgewock post was Lieutenant Jeremiah Moulton, of York, with his ranger band. Moulton was a boy of four years when York was surprised and destroyed by the French and Indian attack in 1692. He saw the gen- eral massacre there. His father was killed and he was himself taken a captive to Canada. The assault upon Norridgewock was much like that upon York. The approach to the Indian settlement found it unsuspecting and unprepared. Two accounts are given of the action of Father Rale in the contest. The French report, given some time after the event, says that the missionary ran to the foot of the cross and was there slain. The English version is that, fearless and self-con- tained amid the exterminating hail of ranger bullets, he attempted to rally his red children, who were disorganized and panic-stricken, and that he died like a hero, gun in hand, trying to save his flock. Whatever the de-
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tails about the destruction of Norridgewock may be, the fact remains that raids upon the settlements thereafterward grew rare, and hostilities in this place became more of a menace than actual danger.
Though the area of comparative safety was enlarged, the warfare in other places assumed a character of utter ferocity. The French paid bounties for English scalps and the English offered bonuses for those of Indians. For more than thirty years after Prout came to the Neck, and with little of intermission, the warfare went on, with the result that France was utterly defeated.
It is considered a matter of surprise that the numerous native tribes passed almost completely out of existence. This was due to the French quite as much as to the Eng- lish. They had no mercy for their red allies. The Indians could not make peace if they would. They saw their impending doom, but when they would make a treaty, as they sometimes did, a detachment of so-called "Christian" savages from the Quebec colony,
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under French leadership, would be sent to raid the border. Thus the natives got credit only for utter treachery and bad faith. They were hunted from place to place. Their corn fields were destroyed. They were kept away from the food supplies of the coast. Comparatively few were killed by bullets, but famine, exposure and disease wasted them by wholesale. When the French gave up the contest, practically all of the pitiful remnant went and joined the colony near Quebec, where their few descendants still remain.
Of events at Prouts Neck during these years there is little to be said. Captain Prout had a great landed estate, but the Neck itself seems to have been his home. The records show that he sold off many parcels from his outside land, enough to sug- gest that he may have lived upon his prin- cipal. He had some black servants or slaves and had many employees. He seems to have lived in dignified and well-to-do content and comfort. The conditions which had given
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to the Neck its prominence had changed. Lumber had become king, and mill saws and ox teams were active, but the Cammock tract did not excel in big pines and its effective locations for sawmill sites were few. The French surrender, too, had opened up the competitive fisheries on the Banks of Newfoundland, and some Scarborough ves- sels went there for their fares. The star of business empire, mast trade and all, tended towards Dunstan Landing. The Ferry be- came obsolete, and the wharf at the Flake Yards had few except local visitors.
Captain Timothy Prout died, as has been said, April 5, 1768, having spent about forty years of his long life upon his Neck prop- erty. He did not take much part in public affairs, but apparently lived something like an English country squire, a good church member and citizen, with most of his family grouped about him. The Neck proper had been cleared up for farming purposes on the easterly, northerly and southerly parts. The other portion was pasture land. Alexander
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Kirkwood and Mary Prout, his wife, lived on the southwesterly side of the Neck, at the southerly corner of the field toward the Checkley House. The Kirkwood cellar was the starting point on the present recorded division plan of the Neck. The son Joseph, as is indicated by references in deeds, lived with his father on the easterly side of the Neck.
Captain Prout made an exceedingly formal will, which was duly allowed. The original was destroyed in the fire which burned the Cumberland County Probate Court records. A copy of this, which has been preserved, shows that he gave to his son Joseph for his lifetime "the house we now live in with the furniture in his room and the kitchen" and several tracts of outside land, "Also my ne- gro men named Cæsar and Adam to be his servants, together with the stock of cattle, horses and swine with their breed." The family coat of arms went to the son, Timo- thy. The son, Ebenezer, got his mother's picture and the daughter, Elizabeth, had "the
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chest of drawers, table and looking glass that is in my room with her bed and bedding." Mary Kirkwood received "the best silver cann and silver spoon," also one-quarter part of his real estate in Scarborough. Abigail and Ebenezer were remembered with real estate. A tract of land was given to the church, for repairing the meeting house or to aid in building a new one. Various other bequests and devises were made, with condi- tions and limitations. The will was dated September 1, A. D. 1767, and "in the seventh year of the reign of our sovereign Lord, George the third." His sons, Timothy and Joseph Prout, with his son-in-law, Alexander Kirkwood, were made executors.
Evidently the formal provisions of the will were found to be unworkable, and the children, the next year after the decease of Mr. Scottow, united in a mutual deed of di- vision, declaring that there was dispute about certain parts thereof and an amicable settle- ment was desired. The outside beneficiaries did not join, and the rights of creditors and 7
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unborn children could not be determined. Almost a medley of suits, petitions and exe- cution sales appear upon the record, cover- ing a series of years. The large tract at Scarboro Beach went through various hands and came into possession of the Gunnisons and the Seaveys.
In the meantime the War of the Revolu- tion came on. While Prouts Neck, as a locality, had no part in the stirring events which followed, it held an exceedingly exposed position. The British warships dominated the coast, and any exhibition of business activity would have invited attack. Even the little fishing boats that ventured out were captured. Cattle and live stock were confiscated. Falmouth, which had expe- rienced rapid growth, was burned and made desolate by the bombardment of Mowatt. Dunstan Landing, far up the Scarborough River, took on importance, as no naval ves- sel would venture to go there, especially after the experience of the Margaretta at Machias. A large part of the townsmen
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were in the Continental Army. It was a period of hardship and poverty, particularly along the exposed coast. Consequently we find, during those years, little evidence of anything being done in the way of business.
When the war was over, there was almost an inrush of immigrants to Maine. The population of Scarborough at the time of the first census, in 1790, was almost precisely the same as that of Falmouth. The coasting trade revived. Prouts Neck emerged from its obscurity.
By the division agreement of 1769, Joseph Prout received, with other outside parcels, forty-three acres on the easterly side of the Neck, with the great barn and corn house, he having already seven acres and the home- stead dwelling, making fifty acres in all. Alexander Kirkwood and Mary, his wife, re- ceived fifty-one acres on the southwest side, they having also seven acres and a house there. The Neck had a division fence and stone wall, since removed for building pur- poses, marking the line between the two
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portions. The total acreage of the two parts does not, as named, amount to the old meas- urement of one hundred and twelve acres. It is quite useless to trace the details of law- suits, attachments and conveyances. Captain Alexander Kirkwood was a Scotchman, and one gets the impression that he had the national characteristic of thrift, combined with a good allowance of pugnacity. The references to other parties do not indicate to the investigator that they were greatly en- dowed with the Kirkwood quality of frugal- ity. Some of the conveyances manifestly were not recorded. It may be that they re- pose in some of the files of courts. There were, quite likely, some odd house lots.
The net result, as it appears, was that the whole Neck came, toward the close of the century, into the hands of Alexander and Mary Kirkwood, with some references to uses or trusts. Alexander and Mary then con- veyed the whole easterly end of the Neck, sixty-one acres, which they had obtained by court levy, to Timothy Prout Hicks. He
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had been given one hundred pounds ster- ling in his grandfather's will, to be paid him when he became of age, and perhaps received land in lieu of cash. This tract, which had the great barn and buildings upon it, Hicks sold, with considerable degree of promptness, to Robert Libby, of Scarborough. Joseph Prout had retained seventeen acres, adjoin- ing the same, and this he conveyed at about the same time, 1788, also to Robert Libby and Hannah, his wife.
Judge Robert Southgate, of Dunstan, ap- pears prominently in the transactions. He had undertaken to settle up the Timothy Prout estate, which had for many years been involved in court proceedings, Captain Alex- ander Kirkwood having died without com- pleting the business. Accordingly, we find that in 1808 he conveyed the Mary Kirk- wood fifty-one acres on the southwest side of the Neck to John Libby, Jr., and Thomas Libby, 3rd. The tradition is that Mary Kirkwood turned over to him this tract in payment for his legal services.
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The place had therefore become Libby's Neck, the easterly part being owned by Robert Libby and his wife and the west- erly part by John Libby, Jr., and Captain Thomas Libby, 3rd. It thus remained until 1830, when Thomas Libby purchased the entire interest and became sole owner of the Neck.
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PROUTS NECK HOUSE, 1870
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IN THE LIBBY OCCUPATION.
WE may reckon the date of the passing of
the Neck into the hands of the Libby family as being about 1800, although Cap- tain Thomas Libby did not acquire the sole proprietorship from Judge Southgate and the co-tenant Libbys until about thirty years after that time. The whole country had then outgrown its colonial days and had become a new and fast growing nation. In the beginning the coast was about all that was definitely known. Conveyance was almost wholly by water routes. When the natives told of the great waters of the lakes beyond, it was for a considerable time sup- posed that the Pacific Ocean was meant. In this region the Indians regarded the White Mountains, the Crystal Hills, as the abode of the Great Spirit, and themselves rarely ventured there. It was suggested by some
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early voyagers that from those mountain tops a view might be had of the great west- ern ocean. The seacoast lost its prominence when the interior country was becoming well developed. Prouts Neck was then little more than a valuable farm and a place of dim colonial recollections. Its attractive- ness was apparent, and the owners took spe- cial pride in the place. The Libby family always had for it a feeling of loyalty, though the primitive advantages and conditions had largely disappeared.
Clipper ships took the place of the slow- moving sloops and schooners, and then came the steamboats. The Napoleonic wars, when America did a large part of the world's com- merce, stimulated the building of ships, in which business the Neck had but little part. The establishment of stage coaches was a great innovation, and the demand for new and better roads became urgent. The over- land routes of travel were, curious to say, much promoted by the War of 1812, when
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the sea power of the English cruisers made coastwise communication by ships unsafe.
People of the olden time, like their de- scendants, wished to travel fast. The stage coaches attained such reckless rate of speed that the early schedule of four days from Portland to Boston became reduced, so that an express coach, with its four galloping horses and driver with his horn, could, by leaving at two o'clock in the morning, if all went well, arrive in Boston with its soundly shaken passengers at ten in the evening.
Maine, whose development had been ob- structed in various ways for more than a century, took on phenomenal growth. Peo- ple gathered more and more in cities. In 1820 it became an independent state. Prouts Neck, though stranded in the general cur- rent of progress, had specially valuable qualities. There is little now to suggest a reason for the early emphasis placed upon the importance of the fisheries in this vicin- ity, whose products it was said were worth
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more than those of the gold and silver mines of Spain. There were many varieties of fish. The alewives and the shad, to say nothing of salmon, came in the late spring- time in such quantities as to choke the streams. The Indians and first settlers de- pended upon these fish for their fertilizer. One or more alewives to each hill of maize would produce a bountiful crop. The salmon were so plentiful that one finds in the in- denture of an apprentice the provision that he should not be fed upon salmon too much of the time. The mackerel arrived later in schools literally of miles in extent. In the fall came vast shoals of herring and other varieties. One of special account, though not of utility for human food, was the men- haden or porgy. In summer these came in schools of incalculable numbers. They served as food for other fishes and their coming attracted the cod, haddock, hake and other species of "ground fish" of com- mercial value.
Captain Thomas Libby and his boys did
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not need to follow the sea with boats. He had a large weir or pound in front of the Neck, into which the fishes came of their own accord. It would sometimes be over- run to such extent that he would give away the surplus by the cart load to anyone who would carry them away, and was fain to open the exits of the pound and let the im- prisoned occupants go free. The product largely exceeded the demand, and the profits were not large. Before the time of railroads marketing was not easy. Large lobsters at five cents apiece, haddock at twenty-five cents a dozen and mackerel at a dollar a barrel did not produce much revenue.
The fishing by wholesale methods with trawls, and especially with the seines, some- times of a quarter of a mile in length, which would envelop great schools in a single drawing, destroyed and frightened away the migratory fish. They left as if by instinct of self-preservation. The porgies, the so-called bait fish, were taken for their oil, and many "pogy factories" were established along the
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coast. These fishes became almost as scarce as the wild pigeons, which in the earlier days would sometimes break the branches of trees with their weight. With the wasteful and almost wanton destruction of the migratory sea visitors the others diminished in num- bers, and the tales of the big fishing fares were added to the other traditions. Yet the sea still furnished abundance of fertilizer for agricultural purposes, the little harbor was a convenient shelter for the still numerous local vessels, and the Libbys held their Neck with pride of exclusive possession, so that Captain Thomas was, in limited fashion, something of a baron.
Along in the early fifties the modest and humble clam brought about a contest that enshrined its name in legal literature, besides causing great expense to the Libbys. As the fishermen were then going upon long voyages, commonly to the Banks of New- foundland, it was necessary to take with them a large amount of fish bait, and this made demand for clams, removed from the
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shell and preserved in salt. The curving shore in front of the Neck was prolific with clams, and ships would anchor off the shore and help themselves without asking permis- sion. The town was advised that this valu- able asset belonged to its inhabitants as their common privilege, and voted an ordinance to the effect that no one should take clams without paying a municipal license fee for a permit.
Captain Libby asserted that the land to low water mark was his own, and the sea prod- ucts of all kinds there were likewise his own by chartered rights, coming down by particu- lar grant from the King of England. Daniel Moulton, called "Hickory" by reason of his loyalty to the principles of General Andrew Jackson, was chosen town agent to make a test of the matter in the behalf of the inhab- itants. A suit was brought, which appears in the Reports of the Maine Supreme Court as Moulton versus Libby. Nathan Clifford, afterwards a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was counsel for the town,
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and William Pitt Fessenden, subsequently member of the United States Senate and national Secretary of the Treasury, appeared for Mr. Libby. It was a long and exhaustive contest, involving the scope of original royal prerogative and ownership, the King's first colonial grant, the feudal privilege of the sole right of fishing and fowling, contained in the Cammock Patent, and which had be- come vested in Mr. Libby by regular course of conveyance. The decision was rendered by Ether Shepley, the Chief Justice, and ratified by the Court. It denied the conten- tion of the defendant Libby. It is still cited as a noted and leading case in relation to the public interests in and over fisheries and defining the limitation of private ownership in beaches and the seashore. It has been widely quoted and approved by the Courts of other states and by the United States Courts.
It was held that the fisheries are and have been from time immemorial a great and hec- essary privilege belonging to the people at
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large; that the shell fish comes into the same category as the fish that swim and move; that upon the shore space between the ebb and flow of the tide the public have the same rights as upon the water; that the state has authority to regulate the fishing rights within the three-mile limit along the coast, and may delegate this authority to a town, as was done in this instance. Therefore the interests of the public in these matters were declared to be superior to those of the pro- prietor, even upon his own land, where the ocean tides ebb and flow. It was asserted, however, that the rule applies only to the premises between high and low water mark, as defined by Colony Ordinance, and does not include any privilege of approach over private adjacent land. The beach can law- fully be entered upon only from the water side or by means of a public landing, or highway established by statutory authority. This is now the recognized law applicable to such cases. The result was a great disap- pointment to the worthy Captain Libby and
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also brought upon him a serious financial burden of expense.
Even before the date of the lawsuit changes had begun which now largely dom- inate the character of the Neck. Thomas Libby, with his large family, occupied the mansion house on the western front, which had substantially the location of the Jocelyn or Scottow garrison. People began to appre- ciate and to visit the almost forgotten sea- coast for purposes of pleasure and recreation. It was near enough to Portland for a pleas- ant drive. The railroads brought people from a distance, urgent for accommodation. The proprietor yielded to the pressure and opened his house as a place for transient entertainment. He was a deeply religious man and kept in a conspicuous place the notice, "Positively no entertainment on the Sabbath." Visitors came more and more. The sea food was as popular as the sea air. A guest once wrote as a menu, "Here you will find the savory teal, the lordly lobster and the succulent Scarborough clam." Pres-
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ently he built an enlargement to the man- sion and welcomed applicants from afar as regular "summer boarders" in addition to his transient guests. Wild fowl were still abundant and the fishing was fine. The son, Veranus, was a mighty sportsman and a companionable guide. Scarborough Beach and Old Orchard began to enlarge, and the seashore for summer visitation grew fash- ionable.
A somewhat gleeful story is told of a bank cashier who was exceedingly fond of fishing off the rocks for cunners. The proprietor furnished an equipment of rods and lines and baskets. One day the gentleman be- came greatly interested and ventured farther and farther out in spite of the caution of his attendant, a bright Irish boy. Those who are experienced know that the waves come in with varying volume. At length a big breaker dashed upon the rock. The fisher- man scrambled back, and as he stood up, dripping and panting, exclaimed, "I wouldn't care if I hadn't lost that fine basket of fish."
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The boy replied, "Don't yer worry, sir, ye'll find the basket all right." Winship gazed upon it as the tide bore it steadily away, and exclaimed, in caustic tone, "Perhaps you can tell me where I shall find that basket!" "Ye may depind upon it," was the answer, "that ye'll find it in the bill when yez come to settle."
Prouts Neck-the resident family insisted always upon calling it Libby's Neck-con- tinued to expand. Captain Silas, the oldest son, was given a lot westerly of the mansion and built a small hotel of his own, which was the nucleus of the present Cammock House. Then Benaiah erected a house to the east- ward, which later became The Willows.
Captain Thomas Libby died in 1871, es- teemed and honored by all who knew him. He numbered his guests among his personal friends. By his will the Neck property came to the three children, Silas J., Benaiah and Minerva, and he attempted to have it held indefinitely without separation. A way was found to circumvent this purpose, and
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the three devisees made an apportionment of the western slope into individual homesteads. Minerva, the last of these goodly proprie- tors, died in 1879. A grandson had then built the West Point House, Mr. Kaler had erected the Southgate and the Foss family had established the Checkley.
A division became necessary and they had the wisdom to have a plan of the undivided portion made by S. L. Stephenson, a veteran railroad cartographer. Bar Harbor was then having its development, and loud complaint was being made because people there were excluding others from the sea by wire fences extending to the water. The Libbys, there- fore, incorporated into their division plan a broad marginal way around the whole, to be kept perpetually for the common use of the parties, their heirs, assigns and guests, with shore, beach and bathing privileges, so that the ocean frontage could never be closed to access. It is private property, but must be kept open for the general convenience and use of all the land owners.
الخامسة
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The division was consummated, and the inevitable time then arrived when all of the peninsula, so long jealously and carefully guarded, was thrown upon the general mar- ket. It fortunately passed, with little or no exception, into the hands of people of finest quality, who have displayed a spirit of pride and loyalty as if the old Neck had come to them as an inheritance. It has had splen- did benefactors among the living and among honored residents who have passed on. The Charles E. Thomas Library is a most val- uable institution. The Sanctuary Park, pre- sented by Charles S. Homer, Jr., is of very great advantage to the whole place. The Prouts Neck Country Club grounds, com- prising the Ethan Wiggin farm, which was once one of the busiest and most populous of the coastal marts of trade, has proved to be a particularly fine acquisition. That Club and the Prouts Neck Association are vol- unteer public-spirited organizations, whose members vie with each other in maintaining
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the fine, but never supercilious, quality of the community.
Black Point and Prouts Neck have an an- cient record, historical and traditional, which is quite unique and worth while to know. Here an attempt was made to plant a settle- ment upon the ancient lines of pure aristoc- racy and kingly authority, united with the religious ideals of the Church of England. All that, in the process of time, was over- thrown and outgrown. Its exclusive aspira- tions became numbered with forgotten things. Prominent still, it is expanding upon the best modern lines. Its past contains a fund of information, both interesting and valuable. That, at least, may be discerned. As to its future, when we inhale its summer air and gaze upon its beauties of earth and sea and sky, what better can we say than to quote the words of Webster: "There she stands, be- hold her and judge for yourselves."
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