USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Portland > The history of Portland, from 1632 to 1864: with a notice of previous settlements, colonial grants, and changes of government in Maine > Part 36
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Moses Pearson, George Knight, Isaac Ilsley, Jacob Clefford, James Springer, Jeremiah Springer, Jeremiah Springer, Jr., Gamaliel Pote, Nathaniel Ingersoll, Samuel Graves, Ebenezer Gustin, James Gilkey, David Dowty, Benjamin Sweet- ser, Jeremiah Pote, Samuel Clark, Thomas Brackett, Elisha Pote, Samuel Lunt, Jr., Job Lunt, Samuel Hodgskins, John Clark, John Anderson, Moses Hodgs- kins, Joshua Brackett, Phillip Hodgskins, John Fowle, John Robison, Richard Temple, Stephen Clark, John Clark, Jacob True, Josiah Huniwel, Samuel Lowell, John Owen, Jr., Jacob Graffam, Joshua Moody, John Irish, William Reed, Abra- ham Sawyer, John Roberts, Penivel Berton, George Williams, William Pitman? John Ayer, Samuel Atwood.
WAR OF 1744-MOSES PEARSON. 421
proceeds of the sales of captured property. Capt. Pearson remained at Louisburg the remainder of the year 1745 and prrt of '46, superintending the construction of barracks and a hospital, and the repair of the fortifications ; and in the spring he was sent home by Gov. Shirley with a plan to pro- cure a frame for additional barracks, and lumber to complete the works.1 Several of our people died at Louisburg after the surrender, of the camp fever, and others were killed at Menas, in an attack on that place in January, 1747, by the French and Indians, among whom were Captain Jones and Moses Gilman. Ebenezer Hall and Mr. Roberts died at Annapolis about the same time, and in the May following a number of our inhabit- ants were killed and captured by Indians in an attack on the · fort at Pemaquid .?
1 Moses Pearson was born in Newbury in 1697, and was by trade a joiner. He moved here in 1728 or '29 ; and came at once into notice by the activity of his mind and the interest he took in the affairs of the town. Within the first ten years of his residence here, he filled the offices of a committee man to adjust the difficulties between the old and new proprietors, town clerk, selectman, and town treasurer. In 1737, '40, and '49, he represented the town in the General Court. In 1760 on the establishment of the county of Cumberland he was appointed the first sheriff and held the office until 1768: in 1770 he was appointed a justice of the Court of Common Pleas, the duties of which he continued to discharge until the revolution. About 1730, he purchased of Daniel Ingersoll the land op- posite the old Custom House, on Fore street, extending to Middle street, and built a house there in which he lived until it was destroyed in the fire of 1775; on his death, the property descended to his heirs, in whose possession fit remained until recently. It has since passed into the hands of strangers, and is now, 1864, occupied as a hotel under the name of the "Commercial House." He was a large proprietor in this town and Standish. He died in 1778, aged eighty-one. His children were Mary, Elizabeth, Saralı, Eunice, Anne, and Lois ; he left no son to perpetuate his name. These married Benjamin Titcomb, Joseph Wise, Tim- othy Pike, Dr. Deane, Daniel Dole, and Joshua Freeman. His wife was a sister of Col. Moses Titcomb, an officer at the seige of Louisburg, who was killed at Lake George, September, 1755. Her father was Moses Titcomb of Newbury. She was born 1693, died 1766.
2 Capt. Stephen Jones who was killed in this attack, was son of Nathaniel Jones of Worcester, Massachusetts ; he came to Falmouth with his brother Phin- eas about 1730. In 1735 he married Lydia Jones of Weston, Massachusetts,
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422
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
The pay of the troops in the expedition to Louisburg was, for a captain, in old tenor bills, eighteen pounds a month ; lieu- tenant, twelve pounds ; a soldier, five pounds ; the bounty for
his cousin, by whom he had two sons, Stephen and Micah, and two daughters, Lydia, the other name unknown to me. The ancestor of this family was Josiah, who came to Boston from England about 1665, and settled in Weston. By his wife Lydia Treadwell, he had six sons and four daughters. His great-grandson Nathan, son of Elisha, moved to Gouldsborough, Maine, and was the head of the family in the county of Washington. The brother of Nathan, Elisha, established himself in Nova Scotia and was the head of a large family in that Province. Nathaniel, the grandson of Josiah, the common ancestor, had by his first wife seven sons and four daughters, and by his second wife, Miss Flagg, whom he married in 1735, two sons, Moses and Jabez, and one daughter, Lydia. Nathan- iel, and most of his family moved to Falmouth in or about 1730. The father was here in May, 1731, when he was on a committee of the ancient proprietors. He was admitted to the church here in 1734, and died in 1745. His sons were Phine- as, Stephen, Noah, Ichabod, Isaac, and Jabez. Of Phineas, the most enterpris- ing of the family, we shall have something to say by and by. Jabez lived on a portion of the old Macworth farm near the mouth of Presumpscot river, and died at a very advanced age, about 1815. I remember seeing him in my boyhood, and was impressed by his venerable figure and vigorous frame.
Major Moses Titcomb of Newbury, who then commanded the troops posted in Falmouth preparatory to an expedition to Canada, makes the following note in his diary. "Falmo' May 26, 1747. I received the melancholy news from Pema- quid, that on the 22d inst., fifteen men being up the river after Alewives, the Indians fired on them, killed ten men, took three captives, and two got clear, one much wounded. Men killed, John Cox, Joseph Cox, Edward Bull, Jeremiah Howes, George Clark, John Smith, Josiah Wesson, Vincent Roberts, George Helwell, Jacob Pratt. Captivated, Robert Dyer, Benjamin Cox, Benjamin May- hew : escaped, Abner Lowell, much wounded, and Ezekiel Webb."
Abner Lowell was the son of Gideon Lowell of Amesbury, Massachusetts, who was the son of Percival, son of Richard, an emigrant from Bristol, England, to Newbury, in 1639. Gideon was born in 1672. His children were Mary, born March 1, 1693, John, February 1, 1696, Stephen, February 29, 1703, Abner, in Newbury, November 29, 1711, Jonathan, March 24, 1714. Abner married Lydia Purinton in 1737. He lived in a small house which then stood just above Clark's Point, where his son Abner was born January 3, 1741. The father died in 1761, and is the ancestor of those bearing the name now resident in Portland. His son Abner died in 1828, aged eighty-seven.
John Cox, who was among the killed, was admitted an inhabitant of the town in 1729, he was a mariner, and the ancestor of those bearing the name among
423
WAR OF 1744-EFFECTS OF THE WAR.
enlisting was four pounds, a month's wages in advance, and twenty shillings a week for subsistence. At the same time corn was thirty shillings a bushel, old tenor, or three shillings in silver, and flour ten pounds a hundred pounds, equal to about nine dollars a barrel in our money. The expense of this expedition to Massachusetts was one hundred and seventy-eight thousand pounds sterling, which was reimbursed by the Eng- lish government.
The war had been very prejudicial to our people, in the loss of many lives, the interruption of the lumbering business the principal source of the prosperity of our inhabitants, and the advance in price of the articles of living. Capt. Pearson in a letter to Governor Shirley, July 7, 1746, writes : "I find the Indian enemy very busy and bold, so as to put the greater part of our lumber men from their duty in lumbering, to their arms and scouting for the defense of their families, and others taken into the service for Canada." The suspension of hostilities in Europe extended its beneficial influence on this side of the At- lantic, although its full fruits were not gathered until after the peace was concluded in October, 1748. As soon as intelli-
us. His children were Josiah, Tabitha, John, James, Esther, Mercy, Thankful. Tabitha married Joseph Bailey, Esther, Joshua Brackett, Jr., Mercy, Joseph Bailey, Jr., Thankful, first to Samuel Hodgkins, second to one Pogue. Josiah, the eldest son, died previous to 1755, leaving four minor children, viz : Dorcas, who married Enoch Moody and died without issue, Josiah, who married Sarah Cox, 1765, Mary, married Joseph Hall, and Elizabeth, William Hall. John, the second son of Capt. John, married first Sarah, 1739, a daughter of Samuel Proc- tor, by whom he had nine children, one of whom, Keranhappuck, married Peter Thomas and was the mother of our aged fellow citizen Elias Thomas. His first wife died in 1761. By his second wife he also had nine children, and by a third wife, two, making twenty in all. On the commencement of the revolution he left the country and settled in Nova Scotia where he died in 1789, and where a portion of his family remain. His son, the late Josiah of Portland, was born in. 1756, married Sukey Greenleaf in 1785 ; he was an enterprising merchant and died in 1829, leaving a son John and numerous daughters respectably married, to Abel and Elisha Vinton, Joseph Harrod, and Enoch Ilsley; three were not married.
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424
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
gence of the ratification of the treaty reached Boston, Gov. Shirley took measures to communicate with the Indians, and finding them disposed to listen to an accommodation, commis- sioners were appointed to meet them in this town.1
The commissioners arived here on the 28th of September, 1749, but were not joined by the Indians until October 14 : the conference commenced the same day in the meeting-house upon the Neck, and was finished on the 16th, when a public dinner was given by the commissioners, and presents delivered to the Indians. The negotiation was conducted and closed upon the principles of Mr. Dummer's Treaty of 1726, and was signed by six chiefs of the Wawenock, eight of the Norridgewock, and five of the Penobscot tribes. The expectation of the treaty had drawn a large number of people into our village, but the long delay in the arrival of the Indians had wearied the pa- tience of the visitors and they had left it before the treaty com- menced.2 Although the forms of peace were regularly gone through, its spirit did not prevail in the country. Many peo- ple in this province and New Hampshire were smarting under the loss of friends and property, and they could not regard the authors of their sorrows with complacency. In less than two months after the treaty of Falmouth, an affray took place at Wiscassett between the English and Indians, in which one of the latter was killed and two wounded. This unhappy affair produced a strong sensation throughout the eastern country, and although the government did everything in its power by
1 They were Thomas Hutchinson, John Choate, Israel Williams, and James Otis from Massachusetts, and John Downing and Theodore Atkinson from N. H. The Rev. William Welsteed accompanied them as chaplain, and Col. Cotton as clerk. Sir William Pepperell had been appointed at the head of the commission but had sailed for England before the treaty took place.
2 This treaty, with the preliminary conference may be found in the fourth vol. Maine Historical Collections, with the treaties of 1735 and 1752. The earlier treaties of 1717, at Portsmouth, and 1726 and '27, at Falmouth, are preserved in vol iii. of the Maine Historical Collections.
425
HOSTILITIES RENEWED.
presents and kind treatment of the Indians, to appease their anger and to conciliate their friendship, they did not succeed in allaying the spirit of revenge that governed these people. Three white persons who were concerned in the affray were arrested and brought to this town and placed under guard, from which however they succeeded in making their escape.1 But they soon afterward surrendered themselves ; one of them, Albee, was tried at York, in June, 1750, and ac- quitted ;2 the others were removed to Middlesex for trial, and the friends of the deceased were invited to be present ; they were however not tried at the time appointed and were subse- quently remanded to York for trial, which does not appear ever to have taken place. The acquittal of Albee produced dis- satisfaction ; it was thought to have been an exercise of com- passion charged with deep cruelty to the inhabitants of the frontiers. But so strongly seated was the feeling'of resentment against the Indians in the hearts of the people who had long contended with them for their very existence, that a jury could hardly be found to convict a white person of murder for kill- ing one of them.
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The French fostered the uneasiness among the Indians which grew out of this state of things; in August, 1750, the Penob- scot tribe was in arms and the French were discovered furnish- ing them with supplies ; the next month they were joined by Indians from Canada, and a general alarm prevailed in all our towns at the threatening aspect of affairs. Within a few days parties of the enemy were seen in Gorham, Windham, and Falmouth ; one hundred men were raised here and in Scar- borough to scout from Saco to Georges, and Capt. Ilsley, ready to take the lead on occasions of this sort, marched the first company of scouts into the woods in September. These prompt measures had the effect of protecting our settlements
1 Their names were Obadiah Albee, and Richard and Benjamin Holbrook.
3 Albee was afterward convicted of a felonious assault.
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426
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
for that season, but early the next spring the enemy was found lurking again in our vicinity, which, accompanied by the sudden revolution in the circulating medium of the coun- try occasioned by calling in the paper, and a severe epidemic which was raging violently in this province, produced incalcu- lable distress among our people.1 The inhabitants of this town suffered but little from the Indians this season, although they appeared at different points of our territory during the spring and summer. One man only, Job Burnell, was killed at New Casco. The regiment commanded by Col. Ezekiel Cushing of Cape Elizabeth, furnished fifty men for the service, and in the course of the summer, the government having made arrangements to enter into negotiations with the Indians, a new draft of one hundred men was made from the same regi- ment to escort and protect the commissioners.2 The peace of 1749 was confirmed at St. Georges, August 3, 1751, by some of the tribes, and a temporary cessation of hostilities followed. Conferences were also held in 1752 and 1753,3 with the In- dians, who continued in a very unquiet state. The advancing settlements of the white men were found to restrict that un- bounded freedom with which they had roamed over the forests and frequented the waters. The French had perceived this restlessness, and had used every art to increase it and give it a sure and fatal direction against the English. At the confer- ence in 1752, at St Georges, the Indians admitted that they
1 Mr. Smith's Journal notices these facts as follows, "1751, April 24, It is a melancholly time as ever the country knew, 1st, on account of the great convul- sion and perplexities relating to a medium, some towns not having raised any money for public taxes, nor chosen officers. 2d, with respect to a war with the Indians. 3d, the epidemic fever. 4th, the coldness and wetness of the spring."
The fever prevailed throughout this town, and a number of persons, especially children, died of it in October and November, 1750.
2 Smith's Journal.
3 For the treaty of 1752 at : Fort George, see 4th Maine Historical Collections, p. 168 .- Smith's Journal, 2d Ed., p. 149.
427
FRENCH POLICY.
had received a letter from the French missionary stimulat- ing them to adopt some measures in defense of their rights and their territory.
After the peace of 1748, the two great European powers, who were struggling for supremacy in North America, having perceived the growing importance of the immense dominions they possessed on this side of the Atlantic, each turned its at- tention to secure its power and to prepare for future difficul- ties. Commissioners had been appointed in 1749 by France and England to adjust the boundaries between their respective possessions, who after numerous sessions and elaborate discus- sions at Paris, were unable to arrive at any satisfactory result. The French claimed the Kennebec river as the western bound- . ary of their province of Acadia, and erected forts in that prov- ince to secure a passage over land to Quebec. They also strengthened their position in the rear of the English Colonies. Their design was to connect their provinces of Louisiana and Canada by a chain of posts which might enable them to keep up a communication, and while they secured them from inva- sion to be ready to seize any favorable opportunity to pursue offensive operations against their ancient enemy. It may easily be imagined that these hostile manifestations could not be viewed with indifference by a nation so jealous as the Eng- lish, and loud complaints of these encroachments were made on both sides of the Atlantic. But the French although they amused the English a while, with the hope of giving them sat- isfaction, yet their object being solely to gain time, no repara- tion was made or intended. It was therefore evident that resort must be had to arms. To meet this emergency the British government recommended a convention of delegates from the several colonies with a view to produce unity of action and a more powerful combination of their forces. The meet- ing took place at Albany, June 19, 1754, and was one of the most respectable assemblies, and as the prototype of those of the revolution, the most important in its consequences, of any
428
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
which had been convened on this continent. It was one object of this meeting to conciliate the western Indians, on whom tlie French had long been practicing their seductions, but although large presents were distributed, the measure entirely failed ; the French had secured an influence over the wandering tribes which could not be dissolved by any art which the English were able to use.
While this course was being pursued to engage the alliance of the western Indians, Gov. Shirley was endeavoring to secure the favor of those in the east, and at the same time to take such steps as in case of failure would protect the frontier from their incursions. It had been rumored that the French had established a settlement between the Kennebec and Chaudiere rivers, with a view to secure the passes from Quebec to Maine, and to facilitate the march of their forces into New England. This report, although it afterward appeared to have been un- founded, created great alarm in Massachusetts and Maine, and the government immediately ordered a body of eight hundred men to be raised to break up the supposed settlement and by suitable fortifications in that part of the country to prevent the inroads of the enemy. Gov. Shirley took the immediate command of the expedition, and to avoid giving offense or alarm to the Indians he invited them to a conference to be held at Falmouth in June, and in the mean time vigorously prose- cuted his preparations for the ulterior purposes of the enter- prise.
On the 21st of June, 1754, forty-two Indians of the Norridge- wock tribe, punctual to their engagement, arrived here: the Governor with a quorum of the council and a number of the representatives arrived on the 26th, and were received with great attention.1 On the day after their arrival a public dinner
1 The Governor took lodgings at the house of Jabez Fox, Esq., who was a member of the council ; he lived on the west side of Exchange street in a house that had belonged to Phineas Jones. Among the gentlemen present were Messrs. Danforth, Oliver, Bourn, Hubbard, Lincoln, Wheelwright, Minot, and Hancock.
429
CONFERENCE. WITH THE INDIANS.
was given to them in the court-house : the town was filled with people. The transports with eight hundred troops had arrived a day or two before under the command of Gen. Winslow and had formed a camp on Bangs' Island, and it is probable that the soldiery contributed to swell the crowd and magnify the parade. The conference was held on the 28th of June; the Governor asked the consent of the Indians to build a fort at Ticonnet and another at Cushnoc Falls,' and proposed to them the ratification of former treaties. They took time to consider these propositions, and on the 1st day of July they gave their answer assenting to the peace, but refusing to grant permission to erect the forts. The treaty was notwithstanding signed on the second of July, and on the third it was ratified, when their usual dance took place. The Indians left town on the same day, three of their young men going to Boston, the remainder returning home .? On the 5th, twenty-five Indians of the Pe- nobscot tribe arrived and the Governor met them the same day in the meeting-house, and on the next closed a treaty in which they bound themselves to remain at peace should hostilities with the French take place. The Governor continued in this neighborhood until July 30, when he sailed for the Kennebec and proceeded to Ticonnet, where he marked out the site of a fort on a point formed by the junction of the Sebasticook with the Kennebec, which when completed was named Halifax. A part of the expedition proceeded up the river to the portage, and seeing no vestiges of French or Indians, they returned without having rendered services at all equivalent to the ex- penses of the expedition. The Governor revisited this town on the 3d of September, and departed for Boston on the 8th.
1 Ticonnet is at the junction of the Sebasticook and Kennebec rivers in the town of Winslow ; Cushnoc is now Augusta.
2 The canoes of the Indians were hauled up on the bank where the old Cus- tom house stands, the ledge being then entirely covered with earth. The place was subsequently used as a ship-yard which broke the ground, and the soil has since been all washed away.
430
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
This was one of the busiest seasons that our inhabitants had ever witnessed ; the town was kept in confusion the whole summer, and for many years after, it was common to refer to the occasion as a measure of time; and the expression "the year that Gov. Shirley's treaty was made," was as familiar before the revolution as "household words." Mr. Smith after notic- ing in his Journal the departure of the Governor, exclaims, "thus ended a summer's scene of as much bluster as a Cam- bridge commencement, and now comes on a vacation when our house and the town seem quite solitary." One can readily im- agine what an excitement must have been produced in town by a collection of the dignitaries of government and the repre- sentatives of two dreaded Indian tribes, when he reflects that the village on the Neck where all the parade was exhibited, contained but one hundred and forty or one hundred and fifty families, making a population of about one thousand, and that the high officers of government were then invested by public opinion with vastly more reverence and splendor than at pres- ent exists. There were few houses in town which could give suitable accommodations to such visitors and those must have been necessarily crowded. Mr. Smith says in anticipation of the event, "we have been painting and fitting up our house for the treaty which is approaching," and June 28, he says, "yes- terday and to-day we had a vast concourse dined with us at our expense."}
Notwithstanding the precautions of the previous year, the commencement of 1755 found all the colonies from Virginia to the St. Lawrence engaged in a war with the Indians, and with the French of the neighboring provinces. As early as April the Indians appeared in Gorham and killed several persons, and all the frontier towns were harrassed and sustained injury in the lives and property of their inhabitants. The
1 Mr. Smith was however compensated at the close of this scene, for he says July 28, "Capt. Osborne sailed for Boston, having paid me near one hundred pounds for my house."
431
WAR OF 1754.
whole country was alarmed by these attacks and by the appear- ance of a French fleet upon the coast. The government was making great exertions to prosecute the war with vigor; but these were spent rather for distant and brilliant operations than for securing the people from the marauding attacks of the savages. Two thousand New England troops sailed from Bos- ton in May, 1755, to subdue the French in Nova Scotia, and achieved a signal victory in June.
Our town had now ceased to be a frontier post and was free from the alarm and dangers to which it had formerly been ex- posed, it was not however overlooked in the scheme of general defense. The fort at the foot of India street, which had been repaired in 1742, and furnished with ten twelve-pounders, hav- ing been neglected, was again supplied by government in 1755, and placed in a condition for defense. Our people too, notwith- standing they were in a measure removed from the scene of danger, were not unmindful of the exposed situation of the re- mote towns , and on every occasion when the Indians visited the neighboring settlements, they moved with alacrity to resist their depredations. In May, 1756, a report having been brought to town that a body of one hundred and twenty In- dians were coming upon the frontier and were about spreading themselves from Brunswick to Saco, four companies of volun- teers were immediately raised from among our people and under the command of Captains Milk,' Ilsley, Skillings, and Berry,
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