USA > Maine > Pioneers on Maine rivers, with lists to 1651 > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35
May 30, 1693, Great Island and part of the New Hampshire shore, situated between Sagamore Creek and the sea and extend- ing westward as far as Hampton, were invested with the priv- ileges of a town and called "New Castle." The royal charter em- anated from William and Mary of England.
In later times Fort William and Mary, which stood upon the site of Neal's original fortification, became the scene of the first overt act of the American Revolution, when the premises were raided on the night of December 24, 1774, by Langdon, Sullivan, Scammon and other local patriots, and all available war material was removed.
At Hotel Wentworth, on the southwest corner of the island and diagonally across from the enclosure of the ancient fort, the Russo-Japanese plenipotentiaries met in 1905, to formulate their national peace proposals.
DOVER (Hilton's Plantation) .
In 1654, a commission, consisting of John Allen, Thomas Lake and Nicholas Shapleigh, was chosen to investigate proprietary
f Mass. Col. Rec .. 4-2, 569. 635, 654. ¿ N. H. State Papers, 29-134.
§ N. H. Doc. in Eng. Arch., 38, 41.
74
PIONEERS ON MAINE RIVERS
claims to Wecanacohunt (Dover) and Squamscott (Bloody Point) .
Their report stated "That Mr. Edward Hilton was possessed of this land about the year 1628, which is about 26 years ago." At that time Hilton was a living proprietor from whom all others had derived their titles, and no doubt the information upon which the decision was based was furnished by him.
He had come thither from Massachusetts, and June 9, 1628, had contributed to the fund for the deportation of Thomas Mor- ton. May 17, 1629, both he and Thomas Wiggin, from Bristol, England, witnessed the execution of the Wheelwright treaty at Squamscott.
March 12, 1629-30, a patent of Hilton's Point and the opposite shore of Great Bay, now known as Newington, was issued to Hilton and his associates by the Council of Plymouth .*
The western boundary of the former tract, upon which the Hiltons had erected a dwelling, was afterwards fixed at Lamprey River, but the Squamscott tract, which was only three miles in width, extended to the falls at Exeter.
The report also stated, that "Mr. Hilton sold the land to some merchants of Bristol, who had it in possession for about 2 years." The record did not disclose the extent of development nor men- tion the names of the new English purchasers of the Dover tract. Some of these were John Hocking, John Wright and Thomas Wright, of Bristol, England.
The sale was negotiated by Thomas Wiggin, who had come to Saco in the Swift with Thomas Wright's colonists. They were to reside in the "House at Casco," which had been acquired from Christopher Levett the preceding year.
June 25, 1630, Wiggin and Captain John Wright, brother of the Casco proprietor, were present when Richard Vines took possession of his grant on the westerly side of Saco River. It may be assumed that the Swift had just arrived on the coast at that date, for Stephen Reekes, master of that vessel, also signed the certificate of seizin.
John Wright established his headquarters at Monhegan Is- land, the fishing plantation of the Bristol merchants, but he was engaged much of the time in sailing a shallop upon the coast of New England from New Plymouth to Penobscot. In September,
* N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg., 24-264.
75
PISCATAQUA RIVER
of this year, while on his way eastward from the former port, he discharged some passengers at Pullin Point.
Wiggin, who visited Massachusetts during the year 1630, be- came friendly to Winthrop and his interests. Other settlers at Pascataqua had been inclined to be critical in religious matters and had left Massachusetts Bay Colony because its constituents, unlike themselves, did not adhere to the discipline of the Church of England. Thomas Dudley commented upon the depletion of his colony by the withdrawal of some to Pascataqua, where they were better entertained by the inhabitants, or, in other words, found "men of their own disposition." He mentioned merely Christopher Gardiner, who had gone northward, "hoping to find some English there like to himself."+
Because there was little religious or political sympathy be- tween the colony and Hilton's plantation and on account of mu- tual jealously with respect to control of the eastern trade with the Indians, the Massachusetts magistrates were fearful lest Wiggin and the Bristol merchants, whom he represented in this country, should acquire, and dictate the affairs of, the Hilton set- tlement at Dover.
Accordingly, Winthrop forwarded to John Humphrey and Emanuel Downing, London members of his company, letters in which he commended Wiggin as a worthy man, but urged that his plan for the acquisition of Hilton's plantation should be dis- couraged. December 9, 1630, Humphrey, with this proposition in mind, advised Winthrop that his letter to Downing should be delivered at once, but added : "For Mr. Wiggin & your thoughts concerning him, & those who set him on worke, I thinke you will heare little more."}
Humphrey was mistaken. June 28, 1631, Hilton and Wiggin were present at East Saco when the premises were assigned to Thomas Lewis. Nine days later both arrived at Dover with the Hilton patent, which had been brought from England to Saco in the White Angel. At Dover Point Lewis delivered official pos- session to Hilton, in the presence of James Downs, William Hil- ton and Samuel Sharp, and the entire plantation was transferred to Wiggin and named Bristol, in honor of the English origin of its new owners. Although the name appeared on Wood's Map of
Young's Mass. Chron .. 315, 334.
# 3 Mass. Hist. Col .. 8-321; 4 Mass. Hist. Col., 6-3.
76
PIONEERS ON MAINE RIVERS
Southern New England in 1635, the information must have been secured by him at least two years earlier.
Thereafter, Wiggin professed to be a "neighbour" to Massa- chusetts and, while in England in the fall of 1632, was induced by Emanuel Downing, as attorney for that colony, to subscribe a statement directed to Sir John Coke, the King's Secretary, in opposition to Dixie Bull, Gardiner, Morton and Ratcliff in their combined efforts to repeal the Massachusetts charter.§
Edward Howes, who prepared Wiggin's statement, was an amanuensis in the office of Downing. November 28, 1632, Howes advised Winthrop that he had just met four English sailors in London, who had recently come "from Capt. Masons and the Bristoll plantation." These men-one of whom might have been Morton himself-described the hostile sentiment which prevailed at the latter plantation. They reported, among other criticisms of the "Bay" government, that one of the "Pascataweyans" had declared in their hearing "that fellowes which keepe hogges all the weeke, preach on the Saboth."
This claim resembled that made by Morton that "there is not any of these, though hee be but a Cow keeper, but is allowed to exercise his gifts in the publik assembly on the Lords day." While some of the antipathy between the settlements was due to religious intolerance and persecution on the part of Massachu- setts, some was due to provincialism. Ambrose Gibbons, alluding to an event that happened the same year, advised the Laconia proprietors that "A Londoner is not for fishing; neither is there any amity betwixt the West cuntrimen and them."
December 19, following, the petition for annulment of the Massachusetts charter was heard and Wiggin was an indispens- able witness for the colony before the Council of Plymouth. While his first impression upon Boston magistrates had not been. favorable, his testimony, more than anything else, influenced the committee to which it had been referred, to subsequently dismiss. the proceeding.
March 25, 1633, Howes again wrote Winthrop from London. that "There are honest men about to buye out the Bristoll mens plantation in Pascataque, and doe purpose to plant there 500 good people before Michelmas next. C. Wiggin is the chiefe Agent. therein." This transfer was effected that summer with Lords.
$ 3 Mass. Hist. Col., 8-320, 322.
77
PISCATAQUA RIVER
Say, Brook and their associates, known as the Shrewsbury Mer- chants, to the satisfaction of the magistrates of Massachusetts, who had encouraged them to purchase "the said lands of the Bristol men, in respect they feared some ill neighborhood from them."
Winthrop used an analogous expression a few years later with reference to the Wheelwright adherents at Exeter when he al- luded to "their dealing as against good neighborhood, religion and common honesty."
In the words of the report, "The lords and gentlemen engaged the said land (so purchased) about 9 years, and placed more in- habitants at Dover, some of which came over at their cost and charges."*
June 22, 1633, Howes, in England, advised Governor Win- throp's son, "I must not forgett to put you in minde of one that is cominge to you, whoe hath deserved exceedingly of your father & the plantation, many wayes; he discovered (under God) our enemies plotts, and helpt to prevent them ; he hath also dispossest our enemies of their hope, Pascataqua, and intends to plant him selfe and many gracious men there this sommer *
* You all have cause to blesse God that you have soe good a neighbour as Capt. Wiggen."¡
The enemies of Massachusetts Bay Colony to whom Howes alluded were Gorges and Mason and their adherents, who claimed title to Eastern Massachusetts under original patents, and settle- ments made in accord therewith upon premises near Cape Ann and Boston Harbor, before those of the Dorchester Merchants and London Company. Howes as confidant of Emanuel Downing, who was an attorney for the new colony in London, was fully conversant with its affairs.
Winthrop himself attributed the beginning of the contention with Gorges and Mason to disclosures contained in letters, writ- ten by some of his indiscreet colonists and opened at Bristol, Eng- land, after the death of Christopher Levett, who had them in his custody when he died at sea in 1630. By this accidental means Gorges and Mason had been apprised of the plans of the new administration to evict their tenants and assume exclusive control.
* V. H. State Papers, 1-147, 157.
+ 4 Mass. Hist. Col., 6-485, 489 : 3 Mass. Hist. Col .. 9-257.
78
PIONEERS ON MAINE RIVERS
From the statement of Howes it appeared that Wiggin, who was friendly to the magistrates of the new colony and jealous of the Laconia Company, must have opened the incoming mail of Gorges and Mason, which came by way of Pascataqua the fol- lowing spring. In letters to Gardiner and Morton, Winthrop claimed to have discovered a new plot of Gorges to recover, if possible, his contested rights in Massachusetts.
In the latter part of 1632, Bull, Gardiner, Morton and Rat- cliff, who had personal reasons to be inimical, had combined to institute proceedings in England to have the Massachusetts charter annulled. Through the influence of its promoters the new colony had won and absorbed the old planters by force of num- bers on the premises.
Under the new regime Wiggin, as agent of the proprietors, arrived at the plantation in a vessel which reached Salem Octo- ber 10, 1633. He was accompanied by about thirty colonists, in- cluding William Leverich as pastor and Thomas Brooks, alias Basil Parker, as overseer.
This clergyman did not remain long at Pascataqua. In 1638, possibly after some profound dogmatic controversy or sinister political upheaval among the communicants of the Dover parish, he had been superseded by George Burdett, who came from Salem and like Leverich had been engaged by the Shrewsbury Merchants to minister to the spiritual needs of the struggling hamlet. Suits were brought subsequently to recover from the patentees an unpaid balance of Burdett's salary.
Soon after the advent of the latter John Underhill, banished from Massachusetts, appeared on the scene and a series of po- litical conflicts ensued, in which Underhill gained the ascendency over his rival, and in his honor the name of the town was changed to Dover. However, two years of supremacy sufficed and, in 1640, the new dictator withdrew from Pascataqua, leav- ing Hansard Knowles and Thomas Larkham, who had become a patentee of Dover Point, to contend for future control. Both were English clergymen of divergent views, and an animated dogmatic controversy followed, in which Larkham was success- ful. The town was renamed Northam in recognition of the popu- larity of the latter, but with the return of Knowles to England the new name became obsolete.
Dover did not prove to be a source of profit to the Shrewsbury
79
PISCATAQUA RIVER
merchants and June 2, 1641, with their unanimous consent, con- trol was transferred to Massachusetts.
The early occupations at Dover were fur trading, raising maize and cleaving pipe staves and clapboards. While vessels were sent annually to the plantation by some of the proprietors during their period of tenure, these were employed in deep-sea. fishing off the coast. The salmon industry, on account of its sea- sonable character, was never an enterprise of commercial im- portance there, as claimed by some modern writers.
In 1642, a distribution of unappropriated land, situated on Back River in the rear of their original house lots, was made and the persons entitled represented the earliest settlers of Dover who had remained in the vicinity.
May 22, 1656, the Dover and Squamscott tracts were surveyed and the whole district was allotted to the joint owners on the basis of twenty-five shares. The third division which contained the original site of the Bristol plantation was described in the report and disclosed that the maximum development within it to that time consisted of only three fields, amounting to but sixteen acres of cleared land, with some dwellings upon the premises.}
EXETER (Squamscott Falls) .
A hiatus in the records of his English parish disclosed the fact that its pastor, John Wheelwright, was absent during the years 1628 and 1629. It may be inferred that he came to New England with Endicott in September of the former year, and lived with associates in Massachusetts during the succeeding winter.
Edward Johnson described the dispositions and subsequent. movements of these colonists in a clear and convincing way when he said that spring "being come, they addrest themselves to coste it as far as they durst for feare of loosing themselves, or falling into the hands of unknown Indians, being kept in awe by a report. of a cruell people, not far off, called the Tarratines."§
The local Indians were friendly with the English but feared the Tarratines. In 1615, Captain John Smith, influenced by the solicitation of the natives of Southern New England, said that he "had concluded to inhabit and defend them against the Taren- tines with a better power then the French did them; whose ty- Į Mass. Hist. Col .. 3-180.
§ Wonder Working Prov., 45.
80
PIONEERS ON MAINE RIVERS
rannie did inforce them to embrace my offer with no small devotion." William Dixy and Humphrey Woodbury, two settlers who lived at Salem in 1629, said that the Agawam Indians sought protection against this hostile eastern tribe from the English .*
The conditions were favorable for Wheelwright, or any other congenial foreigner, to obtain a right of settlement within the limits of New Hampshire. There were precedents for such action at New Plymouth, Salem and Wessaguscus, where the first col- onists had bought land of the Indians.
Early in 1629 an opportunity presented itself for Wheel- wright to lay the foundation for his preconceived plan of estab- lishing an English settlement in New England. He associated himself with John Oldham.
There must have been a common bond of interest and sym- pathy between these men which caused them to unite forces and "coast" towards the country of the hostile Tarratines, as an alternative to settling in Massachusetts, where Oldham previ- ously had been subjected to court discipline and the religious be- liefs of both are known to have been unpopular.
Furthermore, Oldham, according to the terms of his Saco grant, had already lived in the country six years and was fully conversant with the entire coast from Maine to Virginia.t
The principal result of Wheelwright's activities at this time appears to have been the execution of a settlement treaty or op- tion with the Indian sagamores of Southern New Hampshire, to which Oldham was a witness.
The validity of this document has been questioned on the ground that the English participants were not present in Amer- ica when it was dated.}
In the first place, reference to the document itself will show that it was an executory contract, possessing mutual advantages, that its orthography and phraseology were ancient, that its char- acters were real persons, that its considerations were reasonable and historically accurate, and that its execution was more sig- nificant than mere delivery.
Oldham was the first witness to the transaction. He had been in England for nearly a year. April 17, 1629, it was reported by the London Company that he with some others was "pvyding a
* Thornton's Cape Ann. 81.
+ Virginia Col. Rec., 121.
# Bell's Wheelwright, 79, 143.
81
PISCATAQUA RIVER
vessell, and is mynded, as soone as hee can despatch, to come for New England, ptending to settle himselfe in Mattachusetts Bay." It was reported further that Oldham claimed the right to trade for beaver with the Indians as an original planter, and that he was not "satisfyed to trade himselfe with his owne stock & meanes" which were known to be small, but had been able to "interest other men" who were "never likely to bee benefitiall to the planting of the country, their owne pticuler pfitts (though to the overthrowe of the genall plantacon) being their chiefe ayme and intent."
The letter from which the preceding extracts were taken sug- gested that trouble might arise from the same source in New England. The words were these: "Wee feare ' * * hee will psist and bee ready to drawe a partie to himselfe there, to the great hinderance of the comon quiett. Wee have therfore thought fitt to give yow notice * to settle an agreemt wth the old planters, soe as they may not harken to Mr Oldhams dangerous though vaine ppositions."§
Oldham may have arrived in the country before that letter or have crossed the Atlantic in the next month, which afforded am- ple time with favorable winds. At any rate, he was in New Eng- land in the spring of 1630, when his schedule of trading goods was made up and forwarded to Pascataqua in the Warwick by the secretary of the Laconia Company .*
Another witness who signed the Wheelwright deed was Sam- uel Sharp. There were two men of this name. One was a capital- ist who had loaned money to Plymouth Colony in 1626 and had later become associated with the London Company. The other was employed by the company March 3, 1628-9, at a salary of ten pounds a year. He was reported to have been ready to sail by March 25 "at ffurdest" and had sailed from England before the middle of April. The presence of his name with that of Oldham on the deed made at Squamscott indicated their early arrival in the same vessel .;
The "other men" whom Oldham had interested in his New England project were clearly indicated in the events of the next twelve months. They were members of the Laconia and Saco companies, whose objects were common and whose relations were
§ Mass. Col. Rec., 1-389.
N. H. State Papers, 1-62.
¡ Mass. Col. Rec., 1-5.
82
PIONEERS ON MAINE RIVERS
congenial. Both Saco companies must have been organized for some months before the issuance of their patents. This fact is evidenced in the language of both grants in the use of specific grantees and the additions "& Company."
Ambrose Gibbons, who was also a witness at this time, was alleged to have lived in Massachusetts before his advent at Pas- cataqua in 1630 .*
Richard Vines had visited the coast several years before. Late in 1628 he had accepted from Isaac Allerton, as agent for Ply- mouth Colony, over thirty pounds for his influence with the president, prominent members and eminent legal advisors, of the Council of Plymouth in the attempt to secure a patent at Cush- noc on the Kennebec River.§
Upon the authority of the Plymouth historian, over five hun- dred pounds were paid to Vines in all, of which "30 li. given at a clape, and 50 li. spent in a journey," were significant items .*
This voyage must have taken place in 1629 and it is reason- able that the payment of fifty pounds to Vines was Allerton's contribution to the fund for the expedition. This assumption is further strengthened by the claim of Bradford that the prelim- inary description for the Kennebec patent had been so uncertain in its original form that it became necessary to procure another the next year, to perfect the transaction. The very next year Vines and Oldham were made partners in the grant of Saco by the Council of Plymouth, and Allerton afterwards associated him- self with both in the coasting trade.
Richard Bonython, another witness, was also interested in the Vines voyage. His partner, Thomas Lewis, had been in New England before his plantation was selected, because no less an authority than the Council of Plymouth recited as a consideration for their grant, dated February 12, 1629-30, "That Thomas Lewis, Gentle: hath already been at the Charge to transport him selfe & others to take a vew of New England in America, aforesd, for the bettering of his experience in advanceing of a plantation."¡
John Wheelwright himself, afterwards confused in his recol- lection of the event, testified that Runacwitts executed some deed
Į N. H. State Papers, 17-534.
$ 3 Mass. Hist. Col., 1-199.
Bradford, 2-187.
+ York Deeds, 2-111.
83
PISCATAQUA RIVER
to himself and his adherents, and he must have had the convey- ance of 1629 in mind, since no other bore the sagamore's name.}
A collateral allusion to Wheelwright's purchase at Exeter was preserved in the files of the Laconia Company, dated August 13, 1633, and bearing a certificate of deposit at York one week later. One of the two extant copies of the document has been predated. It was subscribed with the names of Walter Neal and Thomas Wiggin as agents for their respective companies and has been presumed to have been forged because at the time of its execu- tion the latter was in England and the former was on the way thither.§
June 12, 1644, the inhabitants of Dover, when in controversy with Portsmouth over the ownership of marshes at Bloody Point, pleaded "that the land in question ought not to be taken from them by the Generall Cort, being theirs by purchase of the In- dians & possession wthout any interruption or opposition made against them, excepting onely what was done by Capt Neale, whose pceedings therein were illegall & injurious, as is affirmed by Capt Wiggens."*
Evidently, the document that purported to have been signed by Neal and Wiggin was drawn by the former before he left the country in 1633 and not sanctioned by Wiggin. While it may have been made with fraudulent intent, it contained an array of facts that were recognized, by all parties, as previously existent.
The commissioners on New Hampshire titles in 1679 reported that "Those lands also are all of them in the possession of partic- ular persons that did originally purchase the right of Natives" and that their assigns had "enjoyed them for the space of 50 yeares." The Wheelwright deed is the only extant basis for such a statement .;
Using the vessel which Oldham and his English associates had provided for exploratory purposes on the northern coast, Wheel- wright appears to have sailed with them up the Pascataqua River for about "two leagues," where he found the habitations of Ed- ward and William Hilton already established at Dover Point. Un- doubtedly, at this season they encountered there Rowles and Ru- nacwitts, the Indian sagamores who cultivated planting grounds
* Suffolk Court Files, 15-1372.
§ N. H. State Papers, 1-83: Mass. Col. Rec .. 2-55.
¡ N. H. State Papers, 17-531.
84
PIONEERS ON MAINE RIVERS
a few miles up the Newichawannock branch of the Pascataqua River, at Thompson's Point, in Maine.}
The deed to Wheelwright recited that a general meeting had been arranged with the natives across Great Bay from Hilton's Point, at Squamscott, a name that five years later was inscribed upon William Wood's map of the locality as "Quamscooke."
The sagamores who signed the treaty probably did so upon shipboard May 17, 1629, and their names were : Passaconway, of Penacook (Concord), Runacwitts, of Pentucket (Haverhill), Wahangnonawit, of Squamscott (Exeter) and Rowles, of Ne- wichawannock (Berwick). The ancient planting grounds were reserved by the grantors.
The grantees besides Wheelwright were Augustine Storer, Thomas Wight, William Wentworth and Thomas Levett, all de- scribed as resident in Massachusetts.
Besides those of the witnesses which have been mentioned, the additional names of Edward Hilton, Walter Neal, George Vaughan and Thomas Wiggin appeared on the instrument.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.