USA > Maine > The beginnings of colonial Maine, 1602-1658 > Part 28
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1 Trelawny Papers, 274.
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GORGES RECEIVES A ROYAL CHARTER.
flict with Parliament, and was brought to an agreement that that body should not be dissolved without its own consent. Thick and fast fell the blows that were shattering Charles' claim to supremacy. "One after another the instruments by which the king had been enabled to defy the nation were snatched from his hands. Ship-money was declared to be illegal, and tonnage and poundage were no more to be levied without parliamentary con- sent. An end was put to the star chamber and the high commis- sion".1 All of these great changes in matters of high concern in England at that time were accomplished before July, 1641; and it is difficult to discover any warrant whatever for the confidence Trelawny expressed in his letter to Winter. Not days, but years, must elapse before religion in England would be settled in peace, and the subject restored to his ancient liberty.
1 S. R. Gardiner, The Puritan Revolution, 118, 119.
CHAPTER XVII. SOME UNRELATED MATTERS.
R EV. RICHARD GIBSON remained at Richmond's island until his contract with Robert Trelawny for three years' service expired. Concerning him Winter wrote to Tre- lawny soon after Mr. Gibson's arrival : "Our minister is a very fair condition man and one that doth keep himself in very good order, and instructs our people well, if please God to give us the grace to follow his instruction."1 Sometime later, however, Winter's attitude toward Mr. Gibson changed, and his ministry at the island and vicinity henceforth was by no means a happy one. Ill and even slanderous reports concerning him at length reached Plymouth, England. Mr. Gibson alludes to them in a letter to Robert Trelawny dated June 11, 1638. Their source is not stated, but without difficulty it may be inferred. Having mentioned the willingness of the people of Richmond's island and vicinity to increase out of their wages his allowance from Tre- lawny by twenty-five pounds a year-one-half of the amount he received from Trelawny-Mr. Gibson says Winter opposed it, "because he was not so sought unto", that is, consulted or solic- ited, as he expected.2 It is in this connection that Mr. Gibson refers to these defamatory reports. There were no such reports at the island, he affirms, "and have not been" ; and he continues, "It is not in my power what other men think or speak of me, yet it is in my power by God's grace so to live as an honest man and a minister and so as no man shall speak evil of me but by slander- ing, nor think amiss but by too much credulity, nor yet aggrieve me much by any abuse". Trelawny even, to whom Mr. Gibson
1 Trelawny Papers, 86, 87.
2 Ib., 127.
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SOME UNRELATED MATTERS.
had written concerning these reports, seems to have been influ- enced by them; and Mr. Gibson appeals to him to seek other tes- timony than that he had furnished, adding, "You may, if you please, hear of them that have been here or come from hence, if they have known or heard of any such drinking as you talk of. I had rather be under ground than discredit1 either your people or plantation, as you, believing idle people, suppose I do. If you have any jealousy 2 this way (so doubtfully you write), I think it best you hold off and proceed no further with me either in land or service".3
It is altogether probable that Mr. Gibson's marriage to a daugh- ter of Thomas Lewis of Saco was not regarded with favor at Richmond's island, where Winter had a daughter, who subse- quently became the wife of Rev. Robert Jordan. Gibson makes mention of his marriage in a letter to Governor Winthrop dated January 14, 1639, in which he designates it "as a fit means for closing of differences and setting in order both for religion and government in these plantations". But it did not have that effect. At length the way opened for Mr. Gibson to go to Piscataqua, whither, in the summer of 1636, some of the men in the employ of Winter, so dissatisfied with him that they "fell into a mutiny", had made their way purposing "to fish for themselves".ยช One of these men, mentioned at the time by Winter as "the leader of them all", was one of the parishioners, who "founded and built" at Piscataqua the parsonage house, chapel, with the appurtenances, at their own proper costs and charges", and "made choice of Mr. Richard Gibson to be the first parson of the said parsonage".5
Mention of Mr. Gibson's approaching removal is made in a let- ter written at Richmond's island, July 8, 1639, by Stephen Sar-
1 Disgrace.
2 Doubt or question.
3 Trelawny Papers, 129.
4 Ib., 93.
5 In a note (Trelawny Papers, 93) Mr. Baxter has an interesting account of these men after they left Winter's service. He says they all probably went to Piscataqua (Portsmouth) and became citizens of good repute.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
gent, in Trelawny's employ under Winter, and addressed to Tre- lawny. Mr. Gibson, he wrote, "is going to Piscataqua to live, the which we are all sorry, and should be glad if that we might enjoy his company longer".1 In any such expression of appreci- ation Winter had no share. All that he said to Trelawny con- cerning the matter is in a letter written two days later: "Mr. Gibson is going from us; he is to go to Piscataway to be their minister, and they give him sixty pounds per year, and build him a house and clear him some ground and prepare it for him against he come".2 Mr. Gibson himself, writing on the same day as Mr. Sargent, and also to Mr. Trelawny, used these words: "For the continuance of my service at the island, it is that which I have much desired, and upon your consent thereunto I have settled myself into the country, and expended my estate in dependence thereupon ; and now I see Mr. Winter doth not desire it, nor hath not ever desired it, but hath entertained me very coarsely and with much discourtesy, so that I am forced to remove to Piscataway for maintenance to my great hindrance I shall not go from these parts till Michaelmas, till which time I have offered my service to Mr. Winter as formerly, if he please, which whether he will accept or no I know not ; he maketh diffi- culty and suspendeth his consent thereunto as yet".8 Folsom places the date of Mr. Gibson's removal to Piscataqua "at the close of 1640, or early in the following year". Inasmuch, how-
1 Trelawny Papers, 158.
2 Ib., 170.
3 Ib., 160. Mr. Gibson remained at Piscataqua holding church services there, and at the Isles of Shoals, until 1642, when "being wholly addicted to the hierarchy and discipline of England", he was brought before the court at Boston on a charge of marrying and baptizing at the Isles of Shoals, the southern half of the islands being at that time under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. He was also charged with disrespect to the authority of the Bay colony, and committed to jail. Having "made a full acknowledgment of all he was charged with and the evil thereof, as he was a stranger and was to depart the country in a few days, he was discharged without any fine or other punishment". Winthrop, Journal, 2, 66.
4 History of Saco.
303
SOME UNRELATED MATTERS.
ever, as he was paid by Winter "for six weeks' service after his three years expired",1 and he came to this country with Winter, reaching Richmond's island May 24, 1636, as is supposed, it would seem as if his departure from that place is likely to have occurred in the latter part of the summer of 1639. Between that time and Michaelmas he may have tarried with friends at Saco, the home of his father-in-law.
Concerning the settlements between the Presumpscot and the Kennebec immediately after Thomas Purchase established his fishing interests at Pejepscot, there is little information. Unques- tionably a proprietor so capable and energetic as Purchase drew to the banks of the Androscoggin other settlers, who were con- nected in one way or another with his varied business operations. Doubtless others, too, there were, who at different points in this part of the Province of Maine established homes for themselves and commenced the task of subduing the wilderness in the effort to obtain such a living as the country at that time afforded. But the lack of a firm, settled government in the territory was easily discoverable. The brief administration of provincial affairs at Saco by Governor William Gorges extended but a little way, and soon came to an end. As settlers in larger numbers, however, came hither from England, and especially as the Massachusetts bay colonies in a little while developed prosperous communities under governmental regulations that were effectual in securing law and order, there was naturally in the Province of Maine an increasingly wider recognition of the value and necessity of such regulations, and a growing demand for their speedy establishment.
One of those who recognized the need of like regulations, because of existing conditions in the Province of Maine, was Thomas Purchase of Pejepscot. For aid in improving these con- ditions in so far as his own proprietary interests extended, he now turned toward the Province of Massachusetts Bay ; and in the negotiations that followed, Massachusetts through him acquired her first right of jurisdiction within the limits of Sir Ferdinando
1 Trelawny Papers, 299 ..
304
THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
Gorges' original grant. Doubtless from an early period after his arrival in the country, Purchase was recognized as a man of importance not only within the limits of his own domain, but throughout the province. As has already been mentioned, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in 1636, made him a member of his court of commissioners under Governor William Gorges. He may also have been one of the commissioners including Winthrop, Cleeve and others whose names are not now known, whom Sir Ferdinando Gorges, after the return of Governor William Gorges to England early in 1637, appointed to govern his colony of New Somerset- shire in accordance with a scheme of Gorges which, Winthrop says "was passed in silence" and which he designates "as a mat- ter of no good discretion".1 At all events, in the failure of Gorges to establish within his jurisdiction such an administration of civil government as was necessary for the proper protection of life and property, Purchase deemed it imperative to make an effort in some direction, and he made his appeal to the governor of the colony of Massachusetts bay. Winthrop evidently listened sym- pathetically to a description of conditions among the settlers along the Androscoggin river, and as a result of the interview, by an indenture executed August 22, 1639, Purchase conveyed "to John Winthrop and his successors, the governor and company of the Massachusetts forever, all that tract of land at Pejepscot upon both sides of the river of Androscoggin, being four miles square towards the sea, with all liberties and privileges thereunto belonging". The right to plant there "an English colony" was included in the rights conveyed, as also "full power forever to exercise jurisdiction there as they have in the Massachusetts"; while Purchase, his heirs and assignees, together with all other inhabitants within the limits of the Pejepscot grant, were to be given that "due protection of the said governor and company" as was enjoyed by the inhabitants of the Bay colony.2 .
1 Journal, 1, 276.
2 Farnham Papers, I, 243, 244. The original deed in connection with this transaction was entered in the "Records of the Governor and Company of
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305
SOME UNRELATED MATTERS.
Massachusetts, however, made no effort to assume the obliga- tions set forth in this agreement. Sir Ferdinando Gorges' com- mission to Sir Thomas Josselyn and his councilors "for the gov- ernment of the Province of Maine according to his ordinances", issued September 2, 16391-only eleven days after this convey- ance of land at Pejepscot, -indicated a purpose on the part of Sir Ferdinando to meet within his territorial limits the need Purchase and others so strongly felt ; and the colony of Massachusetts bay wisely determined to hold matters in abeyance awhile and await the development of movements already in progress.
Rev. Richard Gibson's place at Richmond's island was filled by the coming thither of Rev. Robert Jordan, a kinsman of Thomas Purchase, with whom Mr. Jordan had lived at Pejepscot about two years. Winter made mention of him in a letter to Trelawny dated August 2, 1641.2 "Here is one Mr. Robert Jordan, a min- ister, which hath been with us this three months, which is a very honest religious man by anything as yet I can find in him. I have not yet agreed with him for staying here, but did refer it till I did hear some word from you. We were long without a minis- ter, and were in but a bad way, and so we shall be still if we have not the word of God taught unto us sometimes". In these last words there is doubtless a reference to the fact mentioned by Win- ter that negotiations had already been commenced with settlers at Pemaquid indicating a desire on the part at least of some of them to secure Mr. Jordan's services one-half of the year, Richmond's island to have them the other half. "I know not how we shall accord upon it as yet", adds Winter; but an agreement was not reached, and Mr. Jordan remained at Richmond's island, identify- ing himself prominently with matters there and in the vicinity. A student at Baliol College, Oxford, and a graduate of the Uni-
the Massachusetts Bay in New England", and is found in the printed "Rec- ords", I, 272, 273. There is an early manuscript copy in the possession of the Maine Historical Society, Pejepscot Papers, VII, 489.
1 Farnham Papers, I, 245.
2 Ib., 288.
20
306
THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
versity of Oxford,1 he became a clergyman of the Church of Eng- land and doubtless had held religious services at Pejepscot during his residence there. Not long after his removal to Richmond's island he married John Winter's daughter Sarah, and by his endowments, education and wide interest in provincial matters long occupied a place of large influence.2
The above reference to negotiations having in view the estab- lishment of religious services at Pemaquid, under the direction of Rev. Robert Jordan, is the only recorded fact concerning such services in English settlements east of the Kennebec throughout the whole period under review in this volume, except in connec- tion with the Popham colonists at St. George's harbor at the time of their arrival on the coast. Such services undoubtedly were held in private and probably in public assemblies increasingly as the settlements enlarged ; but there was no ordained minister in those parts, and none came hither for a long time afterward.
On the death of Robert Aldworth of Bristol, England, which occurred in 1634, Giles Elbridge, Aldworth's co-partner in the Pemaquid patent, became his heir and the executor of his will. His, now, were the large business interests at Pemaquid, where Abraham Shurt had his residence and acted as his agent. With Giles Elbridge's death, which occurred February 4, 1644, the Pemaquid patent came into the possession of his oldest son John, who by his last will and testament, dated September 11, 1646, bequeathed the patent to his brother, Thomas Elbridge,8 second son of Giles, who not long after, probably having settled his
1 Farnham Papers, I, 269.
2 Mr. Baxter (Trelawny Papers, 270) says concerning Robert Jordan : "He was a man of ability and under other conditions might have perhaps ranked among the leading divines of the New World; but at this time the church for which he labored found an unkindly soil in New England, and would not take root toiled the husbandman never so faithfully. Hence discouraged by opposition, and the word within him perhaps becoming choked by the deceit- fulness of riches, he finally gave up the ministry and devoted himself to his private affairs."
3 Johnston, History of Bristol and Bremen, 77, 78, 96, 112, 465, has inter- esting references to Thomas Elbridge.
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SOME UNRELATED MATTERS.
affairs in England, and perhaps on account of the continued dis- turbed state of the country, made his way to Pemaquid and took possession of his inheritance. The time of his arrival is not known. Johnston considers it probable that he came about 1647 ; but as he was appointed executor to the will of his brother, it could not have been earlier and probably it was somewhat later. He was here certainly in 1650, for November 5, in that year, he mortgaged the islands of Monhegan and Damariscove to Richard Russell of Charlestown, Mass., by a deed in which he described himself as "Thomas Elbridge of Pemaquid in New England, mer- chant".1 He is represented as a man of small stature and insig- nificant appearance",2 and it is evident that he possessed little, if any, ability for the management of his Pemaquid estate. Appar- ently he made no attempt whatever to improve conditions, moral or religious, among the settlers at Pemaquid, or in any part of his large land possessions. . Although he "called a court, unto which divers of the then inhabitants"3 repaired, it was not an institution of civil government, but merely a proprietary office for the collec- tion of rents and the conveyance of rights and privileges. His business transactions evidently were not large. While his oppor- tunities for exerting helpful, beneficent influences in all parts of his domain were wide, he seems to have been lacking in those qualities that would have enabled him to grasp and use them ; and easily and speedily he allowed his extensive inherited lands to pass into other hands,4 and himself at length to drop out of sight. In 1659, he was either plaintiff or defendant in several cases at a
1 Water's Genealogical Gleanings in England, I, 635, says the deed was to Shurt.
2 Johnston, History of Bristol and Bremen, 78.
3 Ib., 465.
4 February 5, 1652, Thomas Elbridge sold one-half of the patent to Paul White, who in May, 1653, conveyed it to Richard Russell and Nicholas Davison of Charlestown, Mass. Still another change in the ownership of the patent occurred in July, 1657, when Russell sold his quarter to Davison; while Elbridge, about two months later, sold the half he had retained to Davison, who now became the sole possessor of the Pemaquid patent. Johnston, History of Bristol and Bremen, 465.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
court held at York,1 and in 1672, his name appears with other residents at Pemaquid on a petition to the general court in Boston to be taken under its government and protection.2 With this record he passes from our view. The names of other children of Giles Elbridge are found on the elaborate Elbridge monument in St. Peter's church in Bristol, England, but the name of Thomas Elbridge is not there, and the time and place of his death are unknown.
Fishing and traffic with the Indians continued to be the chief business of the colonists on the Maine coast. But as the political troubles in England affected more and more all industrial and commercial affairs, the supplies which the settlers had been accus- tomed to receive from that source began to fail. Winter, writing July 19, 1642, not only records a scarcity of money at Richmond's island, but adds, "cloth of all sorts very scarce; both linen and woolen are dear".3 It is significant with reference to this scarcity of money in the province that at this time Deputy Governor Thomas Gorges and Richard Vines made their way to the White Mountains,4 passing through Pegwackit, in search of "precious metalic substances", a lure that had exploited the coast regions from the first arrival of explorers and colonists, but which now led Gorges and Vines into the distant recesses of the White Moun- tain range, glimpses of whose fair outlines are afforded here and there from places along the coast in the vicinity of Saco. Thither they made their way safely, but their prospecting for gold and silver was without success. Their toil, however, could not have failed of rich reward in the experiences of the journey connected with what they saw of the beauty of the valley of the Saco as they traveled toward the river's source, and of the glory of the White Mountain scenery that still, with each recurring season, irresist- ably attracts visitors from near and far.
1 Baxter, George Cleeve of Casco Bay, 176-179.
2 Johnston, History of Bristol and Bremen, 112.
8 Trelawny Papers, 321.
4 Winthrop, Journal, 266.
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SOME UNRELATED MATTERS.
The settlement at Wells, which occurred during the deputy governorship of Thomas Gorges, is traceable to the action of the Massachusetts authorities with reference to theological differences. Rev. John Wheelwright, a brother-in-law of the celebrated Anne Hutchinson, had made his way from England to New England in the great emigration that followed the establishment of the Bay colony. Williamson refers to him1 as a "pious and learned" preacher ; but apparently he was in sympathy with Mrs. Hutchin- son's peculiar theological views, at least to some extent. Among other opinions he is said to have held that "the Holy Spirit dwells personally in a justified convert, and that sanctification can in no wise evince to believers their justifications". It was a period of theological speculation as well as of Bible study, and uniformity in religious matters was regarded by the general court of Massa- chusetts as desirable as it was by Archbishop Laud and the eccle- siastical courts in England. But Mr. Wheelwright, in making his way across the sea because of oppressive, intolerable condi- tions in religious matters, expected to find at least toleration if not liberty. He soon learned, however, that he was mistaken ; and having been called to account by the general court for his theological opinions, and being "extremely pertinacious" of them, he was sentenced by the court November 2, 1637, to banishment from the colony.2
Mr. Wheelwright accordingly removed to Exeter, in the Prov- ince of New Hampshire, where he established a church to which he ministered until by the political union of New Hampshire with the Province of Massachusetts Bay, he found that again he was within the reach of the Bay authorities. Then, in search of another refuge, he turned his footsteps toward the Province of Maine ; and April 17, 1642, Deputy Governor Thomas Gorges, out of the grant he had received from his uncle, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, conveyed to him "a tract of land lying at Wells in the county of Somerset", in all about four or five hundred acres of land on or
1 History of Maine, I, 293.
2 Records of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, I, 207.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF COLONIAL MAINE.
near the Ogunquit river, and along the seashore. Another tract of land, also conveyed by Gorges and in the same year, was secured by John Wheelwright, Henry Bond and others, greatly enlarging the territory of which Mr. Wheelwright had obtained possession, and constituting the township of Wells.1
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