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 6
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Given under our hands and seals."]
§ [Arthur Brown, in a declaration before the court in Saco, Sept. 1640, said, "that he was bred a merchant from his youth up, and having lived in the coun- try these seven years or thereabout in good reputation and credit."] 5
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
for refering all their controversies : "Sacoe, June 28, 1641. Whereas divers differences have heretofore been between Mr. George Cleeves and Mr. John Winter, the parties have now agreed to refer themselves to the arbitration of Mr. Robert Jordan, Mr. Arthur Macworth, Mr. Arthur Brown, and Rich- ard Ormesby, for the final ending of all controversies, and bind ourselves each to the other, in an assumpsit of one thousand pounds sterling, to stand to the award of these arbitrators, and if these arbitrators shall not fully agree, Mr. Batchelder chosen to be an umpire for a final ending of the same." The same day the following award was made: "June 28, '41. An award made between George Cleeves, Gent., and John Winter, made by the arbitrators within named. Whereas the jury have found eighty pounds sterling, damage, with four acres of ground, and the house at Spurwink for the plf .- hereunto granted on both parties, that the house and land shall be due unto Mr. Winter, and sixty pounds sterling to the plf. presently to be made good. Whereas, there hath been found by the jury in an action of in- terruption of a title of land for the plf. the same I ratify : whereas also, there is a scandal objected by Mr. Winter against Mr. Cleeves from words of defamation, it is ordered of said Mr. Cleeves, shall christainly acknowledge his failing therein against Mr. Winter his wife for present before the arbitrators, and afterwards to Mrs. Winter. Stephen Batchelder. Agi- tated by us, Robert Jordan, Richard Ormesby, Arthur Mac- worth, Arthur Brown."!
This award probably had the effect of suspending hostilities ; but after Winter's death, the controversy for the title on the north of Fore river, was revived and strenuously maintained by Robert Jordan. At the same court, Edward Godfrey of Agamenticus, had an action against George Cleeves for twenty pounds, "which said Godfrey demands by virtue of an order
1 York Records. Stephen Batchelder, the umpire, is probably the same per- son who had been minister at Lynn, and afterward at Hampton, of whom an account may be found in Lewis's history of Lynn.
1
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FIRST OCCUPATION OF THE TOWN.
from the High Court of Star Chamber, for costs in that court by a special writ."1
The foregoing records present us the names of two persons who then appear for the first time in our history, Thomas Wise and George Lewis. When they came here or where from, we cannot ascertain. George Lewis, of Scituate, in Massachu- setts, had a son George, who is conjectured to be the person here mentioned. Lewis, previous to 1640, had received a grant of fifty acres of land at Back Cove, from Cleeves and Tucker, upon which he lived ; in 1657, he received an additional grant of fifty acres, and his son John one of one hundred acres ad- joining; this land of the father was near the point where Tukey's bridge ends. Here George Lewis lived and died. On the 29th of Sept. 1640, Cleeves and Tucker conveyed to Thom- as Wise and Hugh Mosier, two hundred acres of land, "begin- ning at a little plot of marsh, west side, to the north-east of their now dwelling house, and next adjoining land of widow Hatwell, thence along the water side until they come to the western side of the marsh, and so far as the well in the creek by George Lewis's, and thence to run north-west into the woods." We have no previous notice of widow Hatwell or Atwell, but from subsequent facts, we learn that her land was upon Martin's point, and that she afterward married Richard Martin, whose name the point still bears. The grants here referred to, were probably the earliest made at Back Cove, at least we find none earlier, and the whole margin of the cove is subsequently covered by later conveyances from the two first proprietors. Wise and Mosier continued a few years upon their grant; Mosier? left it first and went further down the
1 York Records. Stephen Batchelder, the umpire, is probably the same per- son who had been minister at Lynn, and afterward at Hampton, of whom an account may be found in Lewis's history of Lynn.
2 Hugh Mosier is conjectured to be the first of the name who came to this country, and the ancestor of all of that name in this State, They subsequently settled in Gorham, and were among the first settlers of that town.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
bay where he died, leaving two sons, James and John. James administered upon the estate in 1666. The two brothers oc- cupied two islands, now in Freeport, called great and little Mosier's, but since, by corruption, the Moges. Wise was an carly inhabitant of Saco, from which he came to this place ; he also moved lower down the bay, and sold his, land to Na- thaniel Wallis, in 1658.
We are thus able to show upon indisputable authority, that as early as 1640, there were at least nine families in Falmouth, viz : Atwell, Cleeves, Lewis, Macworth, Mitton, Mosier, Tucker, Winter, and Wise, of whom four were settled at Back Cove, three upon the Neck, one east of Presumpscot river, and the other on Richmond's Island ; in addition to which, were Mr. Jordan, who, we suppose, was not yet married to Winter's daughter, and the numerous persons employed by Winter in his business, beside the persons employed by the other settlers. The whole population at that time cannot be precisely ascer- tained.
Before quitting this period, we may be permitted to intro- duce an anecdote from Jocelyn, whose book is now rarely to be found, to illustrate the manners of the early settlers. "At this time," he says, June 26, 1639, "we had some neighboring gentlemen in our house,' who came to welcome me into the country, where, amongst variety of discourse, they told me of a young lion not long before killed at Piscataqua, by an Indian; of a sea serpent or snake,? that lay coiled up like a cable upon a rock at Cape Ann; a boat passing by, with English aboard and two Indians, they would have shot the serpent, but the In- dians dissuaded them, saying, that if he were not killed out
1 Ilis brother Henry's at Black Point. Jocelyn left England in April, 1638. and returned in Sept. 1639. He was at Black Point with his brother from July 14, 1638 to Sept. 23, 1639. He commenced his second voyage in 1663.
2 This story of the snake will give courage to the believers in the sea serpent, he was probably the ancestor of the late visitor, or perhaps the same ancient inhabitant.
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FIRST OCCUPATION OF THE TOWN.
right, they would all be in danger of their lives. One Mr. Mitton related of a triton or mereman, which he saw in Casco bay; the gentleman was a great fowler, and used to go out with a small boat or canoe, and fetching a compass about a small island, there being many islands in the bay, for the advantage of a shot, he encountered with a triton, who laying his hands upon the side of the canoe, had one of them chopt off with a hatchett by Mr. Mitton, which was in all respects like the hand of a man ; the triton presently sunk, dyeing the water with his purple blood, and was no more seen."1 He adds, "Sept. 23, I left Black Point and came to Richmond Island, about three leagues to the eastward, where Mr. Trelane kept a fish- ing; Mr. John Winter, a grave and discreet man was his agent, and employed sixty men upon that design. Monday 24, I went aboard the Fellowship, of one hundred and seventy tons, a Flemish bottom ; several of my friends came to bid me fare- well, among the rest, Capt Thomas Wannerton,2 who drank to me a pint of kill-devil alias rhum, at a draught; at six o'clock in the morning, we set sail for Massachusetts."
1 Jocelyn's voyages, p. 23.
2 Wannerton was one of the agents of the Laconia company at Piscataqua ; he was killed in an attack upon D'Aulney's fort at Penobscot, in 1644. Win- throp, vol. 2. p. 177.
CHAPTER II.
THE POLITICAL AFFAIRS OF THE PROVINCE FROM THE GREAT PATENT IN 1620, TO THE SUBMISSION TO THE JURISDICTION OF MASSACHUSETTS IN 1658.
The patent granted by James I. to the "council for the af- fairs of New England," Nov. 3, 1620, was the civil basis of the subsequent patents which divided the country. This patent contained powers of government to the council and their suc- cessors ; but it soon became a question whether the council could, with a conveyance of any portion of territory within their limits, transfer a right of government.1 This point, it is be- lieved, was never directly decided, although it may be inferred from the practice of some of the patentees, that the general impression was adverse to this power. The Massachusetts patentees2 and Sir Ferdinando Gorges,3 each procured a con- firmation of their grants from the king, with power to govern their respective provinces. With regard to Mason's grant of New Hampshire, which was not confirmed by the king, the two chief justices of England agreed, that it conveyed no right of sovereignty ; "the great council of Plymouth under whom he claimed, having no power to transfer government to any."
The council of Plymouth continued their operations until June 7, 1635, when they surrendered their charter to the king.
1 Hazard, vol. i. p. 103.
2 Hazard, vol. i. p. 239.
3 Hazard, vol. i. p. 442.
4 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 286.
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POLITICAL AFFAIRS OF THE PROVINCE.
During their existence as a corporation, a period of fourteen years and seven months, they were not inactive. In 1621, they relinquished a large proportion of their patent in favor of Sir Wm. Alexander,* and assented to a conveyance by the king to him of all the territory lying east of the river St Croix and south of the St. Lawrence, embracing the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The other grants made by the council within the present limits of Maine, were as follows :
1st. 1622, Aug. 10. To Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Capt. John Mason, from Merrimac to the Kennebec river.1
2. 1626, Nov. 6. To the Plymouth adventurers a tract on Kennebec river ; which was enlarged in 1628.2
3. 1630, Jan. 13. To Wm. Bradford and his associates, fif- teen miles on each side of the Kennebec river, extending up to Cobbisecontee ; this grant Bradford transferred to the Plymouth adventurers.3
4. 1630, Feb. 12. To John Oldham and Richard Vines, four miles by eight miles on the west side of Saco rivert at itsmouth.
5. 1630, Feb. 12. To Thomas Lewis and Richard Bonighton, four miles by eight, on the east side of Saco river at the moutlı.
6. 1630. March 13, To John Beauchamp and Thomas Lev- erett, ten leagues square on the west side of Penobscot river, called the Lincoln or Waldo patent.5
*[April 22, 1635, the council granted to Sir Wm. Alexander, all that part of the main land from St. Croix along the sea-coast to Pemaquid and so up the Kinnebequi, to be called the county of Canada.]
1 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 286.
2 Prince, vol. i. pp. 170, 172.
3 Prince, vol. i. p. 196.
4 Ante and York Records.
5 Prince, vol. i. p. 203. Hazard, vol i. p. 318.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
7. 1630. To John Dy and others the province of Ligonia, or the Plough patent,1 lying between Cape Porpus and Cape Elizabeth, and extending forty miles from the coast.
8. 1631, Nov. 1. To Thomas Cammock, Black Point, fifteen hundred acres.2
9. 1631, Dec. 1. To Robert Trelawny and Moses Goodyeare, a tract between Spurwink river and Casco Bay.
10. 1632. To Robert Aldsworth and Gyles Elbridge, a tract on Pemaquid point.3
11. 1634. To Edward Godfrey and others, twelve thousand acres on the river Agamenticus .*
12. 1634. To Ferdinando Gorges, twelve thousand acres on west side of the river Agamenticus.4§
1 Sullivan, vol i. pp. 114, 304. 2 York Records. 3 Hazard, vol. i. p. 315. * [A grant was made by the council to Godfrey, Dec. 2, 1631 .- Sainsbury.]
4 Beside the foregoing, a grant was made to George Way and Thomas Pur- chase, between the Kennebec and Androscoggin rivers and Casco bay, but its date is not known; the original having been long since lost, and no record re- maining. It is referred to in very ancient deeds. This tract became the sub- ject of long and bitter controversy between the Pejepscot proprietors and other claimants, which was not finally settled until about 1814. In 1753, several pamphlets were published by the opposing parties, containing the arguments on the question. Eleazer Way, in a deed to Richard Wharton, of his right as son and heir to George Way, 1683, alleged that Way and Purchase had a grant of the territory from the council of Plymouth.
§ [Sainsbury in his Colonial Calendar furnishes the date of the grant to Way and Purchase, " June 16, 1632."
Sainsbury's Calendar also notes a grant to Walter Bagnall, of Richmond Island, and fifteen hundred acres of land, Dec. 2, 1631.
And the same day, two thousand acres on the south side of Cape Porpus river, to John Stratton and his associates ; from him, the islands lying off Black Point river, were probably named, and have uniformly borne that name to the present day. Stratton was from Shotley, in the county of Suffolk, England.
The grant to Richard Bradshaw of fifteen hundred acres, claimed to be at Spurwink, and before noticed, was dated Nov. 1, 1631.
There may have been other grants, which did not find their way into the rec- ords. or were never improved.]
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POLITICAL AFFAIRS OF THE PROVINCE.
These are all the grants which this company made in Maine, that we have met with previous to their final division in 1635. In that division, the territory now called Maine, was distribu- ted to three of the patentees. Gorges' share extended from the Piscataqua to Kennebec or Sagadahoc. Another portion was between Sagadahoc and Pemaquid, estimated to be ten thou- sand acres, granted to Mason, and called Masonia. The third from Pemaquid to the St. Croix,1 was given to Sir William Alexander. We have no evidence that any occupation was had by Mason or Alexander under these titles.
On the 25th of April 1635, a short time previous to the sur- render of their charter, the council had a meeting at Whitehall, in London, at which they prepared a declaration of the rea- sons which induced them to take this important step, as follows :2 "Forasmuch as we have found by a long experience, that the faithful endeavors of some of us, that have sought the planta- tion of New England, have not been without frequent and in- evitable troubles as companions to our undertakings from our first discovery of that coast to this present, by great charges and necessary expenses ; but also depriving us of divers of our near friends and faithful servants employed in that work abroad, whilst ourselves at home were assaulted with sharp litigious questions" both before the privy council and the parliament, having been presented "as a grievance to the Com- monwealth;" "the affections of the multitude were thereby disheartened;" "and so much the more by how much it pleased God, about that time to bereave us of the most noble and prin- cipal props thereof, as the Duke of Lennox, Marquis of Ham- ilton, and many other strong stayes to this weak building;" "then followed the claim of the French Ambassador, taking advantage of the divisions of the sea-coast between ourselves, to whom we made a just and satisfactory answer." "Never-
1 Gorges Narrative.
2 Gorges' Narrative, and Hazard, vol. i. p. 390.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
theless," they add, "these crosses did not draw upon us such a disheartened weakness, as there only remained a carcass, in a manner breathless, till the end of the last parliament," when the Massachusetts' company obtained their charter, and after- ward thrust out the undertakers and tenants of some of the council, "withal riding over the heads of those lords and others that had their portions assigned unto them in their late majes- ty's presence." After a further enumeration of grievances, too grievous to be borne, they say they found matters "in so desperate a case" by reason of the complaints made against them, and the procedure in Massachusetts, that they saw no remedy for "what was brought to ruin," but for his majesty to take the whole business into his own hands. "After all these troubles, and upon these considerations, it is now resolved that the patent shall be surrendered unto his majesty."
In the same instrument, they provided for all existing titles made by them, and prayed the king to confirm the grants which they had divided among themselves. These were recorded in a book which accompanied the surrender.
In addition to the reasons set forth in the public declaration of the council, Ferdinando Gorges, grandson of Sir F. Gorges, in "America painted to the life," has the following: "the coun- try proving a receptacle for divers sorts of sects, the establish- ment in England complained of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and he was taxed as the author of it, which brought him into some discredit, whereupon he moved those lords to resign their grand patent to the king, and pass particular patents to themselves of such parts along the sea-coast as might be sufficient for them."
The division of the territory among the patentees was made by lot on the 3d of February 1635,1 the grants were executed April 22d,2 and on the 7th of June following, the president and council made full surrender of their charter to the king.
1 Hazard, vol. i. p. 383.
2 Hazard, vol. i. p. 383. Douglas, vol. i. p. 387.
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POLITICAL AFFAIRS OF THE PROVINCE.
They did however urge upon the king the necessity of taking away the charter of Massachusetts, and of appointing a general governor for the whole territory, to be taken from among the lord's proprietors.1 The king assented to this plan, but the earnest opposition of the friends of Massachusetts and the oth- er New England colonies, and the breaking out of the civil war, which by its immediate and pressing danger, engrossed the whole thoughts of the king and his government, prevented its being carried into execution. Sir F. Gorges was appointed General Governor of New England 1637, but never came over.
Capt. John Mason, to whom New Hampshire had been as- signed, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, seem to have been the only proprietors who pursued their separate grants with any zeal. But Mason was not long permitted to enjoy the fruit of his enterprise ; he died Nov 26, 1635, and his private interest in his remote province, for the want of proper superintendence, and owing to the unfaithfulness of agents immediately de- clined.2
Gorges lost no time to improve his acquisition. He gave to his province the name of New Somersetshire, from the county in England, in which his estates were situated, and the same year sent over as governor, his nephew, Capt. Wm. Gorges.3 The proprietor could establish no civil government without authority from the king, and Gorges thereføre was indefatiga- ble in procuring the necessary requisite for perfecting his title to the sovereignty as well as the soil of the province.4 His la- bors for this object were not crowned with success until April 3, 1639. In the mean time, however, William Gorges arrived in this country, and held at Saco, March 21, 1636, the first court in this State, of which we have any record. The mem-
1 Hazard, vol. i. p. 381. Winthrop, vol i. p. 161.
2 Belknap, N. H., vol i. p. 27. Annals of Portsmouth.
3 Jocelyn, 1 Chron. Chalmers, Annals. p. 473.
4 Geo. Vaughn's letter, Hazard, vol. i. p. 403. Belknap, Appendix.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
bers of the court are styled commissioners, and the record commences as follows: "At a meeting of the commissioners in the house of Capt. Richard Bonighton, in Saco, this 21st day of March, 1636, present Capt Richard Bonighton, Capt. Wm. Gorges, Capt. Thomas Cammock, Mr. Henry Jocelyn, Gent., Mr. Thomas Purchase,1 Mr. Edward Godfrey,2 Mr. Thomas Lewis,3 Gent."
At this court, four persons were fined five shillings each for getting drunk. George Cleeves was fined five shillings for rash speeches, and "Mr. John Bonighton4 for incontinency with Ann, his father's servant, is fined forty shillings, and said Ann twenty shillings, and he to keep the child." The jurisdiction of this court seems to have been coextensive with the limits of the province, the commissioners present being from each ex- tremity, and from the center. It does not appear that it was held by virtue of any commission, although that fact may be reasonably inferred. We have been able to find no record of this court later than 1637; but the few memoranda that have been preserved, prove to us that the early settlers, notwith- standing the smallness of their number, were influenced by the same litigious spirit and the same passions, which characterize a denser population, and a more refined state of society. Ac- tions of trespass and slander occur frequently on the record.
In 1636, the court passed an order, "That every planter or inhabitant shall do his best endeavor to apprehend or kill any Indian that hath been known to murder any English; kill their cattle or in any way spoil their goods, or do them violence, and
1 Cammock and Jocelyn had probably now moved to Black Point. Purchase lived in what is now Brunswick.
2 Godfrey lived at Agamenticus.
3 Lewis lived at Winter Harbor .- York Records. Of Wm. Gorges, Chalmers says, "he ruled for some years a few traders and fishers with a good sense, equal to the importance of the trust."
4 John Bonighton was the son of Richard: he was notorious for turbulence and insubordination during his life.
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*
POLITICAL AFFAIRS OF THE PROVINCE.
will not make them satisfaction." While they were thus en- deavoring to protect their own rights from the aggression of the natives, they were not unmindful of the duties they owed that race ; and the next year the same court ordered that Ar- thur Brown and Mr. Arthur Macworth make John Cousins1 give full satisfaction to an Indian for a wrong done him.
What sort of government or civil regulation existed, previ- ous to the establishment of this court, we have no means of determining. Probably each plantation regulated its own af- fairs and managed its own police without aid from or commu- nication with the others. The usual mode in the other colonies in absence of higher authority, was by agreement among the settlers in writing, called a combination. Such was the course adopted at Plymouth, at Piscataqua, and in the western part of Maine in 1649 : and it is believed from the following record, that this was done at Winter harbor: "Feb. 7, 1636. It is ordered that Mr. Thomas Lewis shall appear the next court-day at the now dwelling house of Thomas Williams, there to answer his contempt and to shew cause why he will not deliver up the combination belonging to us, and to answer such actions as are commenced against him." In the settlement upon the Neck, and at the mouth of Presumpscot river, the number of inhabitants was so small, that connected as the persons in each were to its head, there was probably no call for the exercise of civil authority before the existence of courts here. And in regard to the plantation on Richmond's Island, we may sup- pose that Winter, under his general authority controlled all its affairs.
It appears by the records of the earliest court, that the forms of the trial by jury were observed, which have ever since con- tinued, although in the early stages of our history, more power
1 Cousins was born 1596; he lived on an island near the mouth of Royall's river, in North Yarmouth, which he bought of Richard Vines 1645, and which still bears his name, until he was driven off in the war of 1675. He moved to York, where he died at a very advanced age after 1683.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
over issues of fact was assumed and exercised by the court than is consistent with modern practice.
In the confirmation of Gorges' title by the king, in 1639, powers of government were conferred almost absolute.1 In this charter,* the name it now bears was first bestowed, from a province of the same name in France, in honor of the king's wife, a daughter of the king of France. It is described as extend- ing from the Piscataqua river to the Kennebec, and up those rivers to their furthest heads, or until one hundred and twenty miles were completed, with all the islands within five leagues of the coast. The religion of the church of England was established as the religion of the province. The charter conferred upon Gorges an unlimited power of appointment to office; to make laws with the assent of the majority of the freeholders ; to establish courts from which an appeal laid to himself; to raise troops, build cities, raise a rev- enue from customs, establish a navy, exercise admiralty juris- diction, erect manors, and exclude whom he chose from the province. Such powers were never before granted by any gov- ernment to any individual, and he succeeded in procuring them by the most untiring efforts, all the other members of the council having failed to accomplish a similar object. His grandson Ferdinando in his account of America,2 says, "he no sooner had this province settled upon him, but he gave public notice that if any would undertake by himself and his associ- ates, to transport a competent number of inhabitants to plant in any of his limits, he would assign unto him or them such a proportion of land as should in reason satisfy them, reserving only to himself a small high rent as two shillings, or two shil- lings six pence for a hundred acres per annum."
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