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 62
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The result of this new effort was alike unsuccessful, and it was found that a majority of the people were not ripe for the measure.
After the unfortunate termination of this renewed experi- ment, the subject was permitted to repose until 1806, when a still small voice was lifted in its favor, which was hushed almost as soon as uttered. In this town an article was inserted in a warrant for calling a meeting of the inhabitants, to see what steps the town would take in the case. The article was debated in the meeting, and the further consideration of it dismissed. Little was said in the papers on the subject at that time, but its introduction was probably a prelude to measures adopted the following winter at Boston, by a number of senators, repre- sentatives, and citizens of Maine, who assembled together in the senate chamber, and passed a resolve to apply to the legisla- ture for an order to take the sense of the people again on the
! The answer of Portland on this question was yea thirty-eight, nay seventy ._
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SEPARATION.
subject. In pursuance of this application, a resolve was passed appointing the first Monday in April, 1807, as the time for the people to give in their votes on the measure.
The question was agitated at an unfortunate time for the advocates of the separation ; political excitement was then raging violently, and absorbed every other subject of a pub- lic nature. Very little discussion took place in the papers, and the vote was almost silently taken. In this town, the bal- lot stood seventy-three yeas, and three hundred and ninety-two nays, while at the same meeting the votes for governor stood, for Strong, four hundred and ninety-two, Sullivan, four hund- red and twenty-eight, making an aggregate of four hundred and fifty-five votes more than were given on the question of separation. In the one hundred and fifty towns, from which returns were made, the vote was three thousand three hundred and seventy for separation, and nine thousand four hundred and four against it.1
This decisive expression of public sentiment put the question, which had been before the public with little intermission for twenty-two years, at rest for some time, during which, the sus- pension of foreign intercourse and the war, became more engrossing topics of consideration. But soon after the con- clusion of peace in 1815, the subject was again revived, and a more organized effort was made to accomplish the object; societies were formed in different places, public meetings were held, and leading gentlemen in the District made great exer- tions to arouse the people to a favorable consideration of the subject.2 They succeeded in procuring a number of petitions to the legislature for a separation ; these were referred to a committee who reported favorably to the petitioners, and a day
1 The votes of Portland are not in the official returns.
2 The Union Society established in June, 1815, for this District, in a circular sent to every town, remark-"In our exertions for the general good of our country, we must keep an eye to the separation of Maine from Massachusetts. This subject will soon be spread before the people."
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
was appointed for the people to give their votes in favor or against the measure. The whole number of votes returned on this occasion was sixteen thousand eight hundred and ninety- four, of which ten thousand three hundred and ninety-three were in favor, and six thousand five hundred and one opposed to separation.1
On this state of things, the legislature passed an act regula- ting the principles on which a separation might take place, the detail of which it is not necessary here to give, and authorized the inhabitants to assemble in their respective towns on the first Monday in September, 1816, to choose delegates to a con- vention to meet at Brunswick on the last Monday in September. They were also required to give their votes on the question whether it is expedient to form the District into an indepen- dent State, which votes were to be returned to said convention; and if it appeared that a majority of five to four of the votes so returned were in favor of separation, the convention was to proceed and form a constitution and not otherwise.
Under this act the people proceeded to vote and to elect delegates to the convention. The whole number of votes re- turned was twenty-two thousand four hundred and sixty-six, of which number eleven thousand nine hundred and twenty- seven were in favor and ten thousand five hundred and thirty- nine against separation ; a majority of five to four of the votes returned was twelve thousand four hundred and eighty-one and one-ninth, so that there was a deficiency of the number required of five hundred and fifty-four and one-ninth votes. The committee of the convention, however, to whom the sub- ject was referred, by a peculiar mode of reasoning, arrived at a different conclusion.2 They construed the act to mean not
1 The whole number of legal voters in the District of Maine at that time was thirty-seven thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight.
2 John Holmes was chairman of the committee, Judge Preble, one of the mem- bers, and drew the report, in which a majority of the committee were with diffi- culty induced to concur. Mr. Holmes at first demurred.
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BRUNSWICK CONVENTION.
an aggregate majority of five to four of all the votes returned, but this ratio of the majorities of the several towns and plan- tations. Their own language will perhaps make their meaning more clear : "As the delegates must be apportioned according to the respective majorities of their towns, so on the question of separation, the majorities of yeas in the towns and planta- tions in favor must be, to the majority of nays in those opposed as five to four of the votes returned. The corporate majoritie of yeas must be placed in one column, and those of nays in the other, and each added, then as five is to four, so is the aggre- gate majority of yeas in the towns and plantations in favor, to the aggregate majority of nays in those opposed." The result of this calculation gave six thousand and thirty-one yeas and four thousand eight hundred and twenty-five nays, exceeding the legislative majority by four hundred and sixteen votes. This report was accepted in the convention by a vote of one hundred and three to eighty-four ; the minority entered their protest upon its journals. The convention proceeded to raise commit- tees to draft a constitution in the recess, and to apply to Mas- sachusetts and to Congress for the requisite sanctions ; but all measures were suspended until the result of the application to the legislature of Massachusetts was known, which being un- favorable to the construction of the act given by the majority of the convention, no further proceedings were had on the sub- ject.1 The protest earnestly contended against the construc-
1 Of this convention William King was chosen president, and Samuel K. Whiting of Portland, secretary; the votes of Portland were yeas four hundred and seventy-five, nays two hundred and one. The convention consisted of one hund- red and eighty-eight members. Those from Portland were Ezekiel Whitman, Nicholas Emery, Isaac Adams, Mathew Cobb, William Widgery, and John H. Hall. Mr Whitman received the opposition votes for president.
An anecdote was related to me in 1825, by a democratic member of the con- vention, which I have never disclosed and which was never made public. At a caucus, he said, of the leading friends of the separation, previous to organization, much uneasiness was felt that the requisite majority had not been obtained. The town of Elliot was strongly opposed to separation, and choosing no delegate, she
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
tion given to the word majority by the committee, and against adjournment or the appointment of committees with reference to a future meeting of the convention, declaring that the ma- jority required by the legislature not having been obtained, the duty of the convention then terminated, and "the exercise of further powers" by it was "usurpation."
The legislature of Massachusetts sustained the views of the minority and resolved "that the powers of the Brunswick con- vention have ceased," and that it was inexpedient for the pres- ent General Court to adopt any measures in regard to the separation of the District of Maine.
Thus terminated at this time the struggle in which the most strenuous and persevering exertions had been used, and in
sent her votes by the delegate of a neighboring town. The votes of that town were not counted nor reported ; if they had been, even the ingenious evasion of the plain language of the statute in regard to the majority, would not have availed. It is to the fate of the Elliot vote that my anecdote relates. The package of votes was handed to a prominent member of the caucus, who threw it out of the window of Dr. Page's house where the caucus was held, he then went out and picking it up, handed it to my informant, saying, "See that that packet does not go into the house." The person who thus received it, gave it to another member and he to another, until all trace of it was lost. The convention instituted an inquiry for the lost votes, and several members were examined in regard to them, but all knowledge was denied, and they accordingly found no place on the journal or in the count, and the gross fraud proved partially successful. All the parties to the transaction are dead, and I give no names. The vote of Elliot on the next trial in 1819, was twenty in favor of separation and one hundred and twenty-two against it.
A committee of the legislature of Massachusetts, to whom the subject was committed, use the following language in their report relative to the construc- tion of the convention, they "have no hesitation in saying that the committee have misconstrued the act by which their powers were defined : that the word 'majority' refers to the majority of votes returned, and not to the aggregate of local and municipal majorities : that this is a self-evident position, resulting from the perusal of the act and not susceptible of illustration or contravention by any argument. That of consequence the contingency provided by the act as pre- requisite to the formation of a constitution, and as a condition of the consent of this legislature, to the separation of Maine, has not occurred, and the powers of said convention are at an end."
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SEPARATION.
which for the first time a majority in favor of separation had been obtained.
The proceedings and unfavorable result of the Brunswick convention, for a time rendered the cause of separation unpopu- lar, and chilled the ardor of its friends. The first attempt made to revive it was in December, 1817, by a committee, of which Gen. Chandler of Monmouth was chairman, which ad- dressed letters to gentlemen in various parts of the District, with a view to sound them and ascertain the expediency of again acting on the subject. A meeting of a number of mem- bers of the legislature, of which Gen. King was chairman, was held in Boston early in February following, before which the doings of this committee were laid, and which proceeded lan- guidly at first to resuscitate the favorite measure. Nothing material was done until the session of the legislature in Jan- uary, 1819, when another meeting was held in Boston of per- sons friendly to separation, which appointed a committee of fifteen gentlemen, under instructions to make preparatory arrangements for carrying into effect a separation from Massa- chusetts, and the establishment of an independent State gov- ernment."1
This committee published a circular in April, urging the people to active exertions in the cause, and the several towns to send a full representation to the legislature, and to forward petitions to the next session, "soliciting the passage of a law authorizing the sense of the inhabitants of the District to be again taken." This appeal set the ball once more in full mo- tion, and the question was discussed with much animation.
The subject came early before the legislature in June, 1819, and was committed to a large joint committee,2 who entered
1 CIRCULAR. It is a noticeable fact that in most of the later attempts at sepa- ration, the first movements proceeded from meetings held in Boston.
2 There were about one hundred petitions from incorporated towns and plan- tations, and others from individuals in favor of separation, and a number of remonstrances against it. The representatives from Maine were one hundred and twenty-five for, and twenty-five against separation.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
immediately on the duty assigned them. In a few days they reported a bill containing the conditions of separation, the ma- jority necessary for securing the measure, the time for taking the vote, and in case of success the ulterior' course to be pur- sued, which after slight amendments passed into a law. The act provided for taking the vote on the 4th Monday in July, and that a majority being obtained of fifteen hundred in favor of separation, that delegates should be chosen to meet in con- vention at Portland, on the second Monday in October, 1819, to frame a constitution for the new State. Some opposition to the passage of the law was made in both branches of the legis- lature of Massachusetts, but it passed by a large majority, the nine senators and one hundred. and twelve of the one hundred and thirty-two members of the house present from Maine voting in the affirmative.
As the period for testing public sentiment on the question approached, a warm and brilliant discussion of the subject took place, in which the arguments on both sides were presented in every point of view, and although former divisions of party were not allowed openly to mingle in the discussion, yet they un- doubtedly had some influence on the final question ; the polit- ical papers admitted communications on both sides. Ashur Ware, now the distinguished judge of the United States Dis- trict Court, a very forcible writer as well as elegant scholar, was invited from Boston to conduct the controversy in the Argus, in favor of separation, and ably performed the task. On the day of trial the vote was strong and decisive, giving a ma- jority in favor of separation of nine thousand nine hundred and fifty nine.1 Other proceedings were subsequently had pursu-
1 The vote of Portland was six hundred and thirty-seven yeas, one hundred and eighty-eight nays; the official list of returns from the District was yeas seventeen thousand and ninety-one, nays seven thousand one hundred and thirty- two. The delegates from Portland were Ezekiel Whitman, Henry Smith, Nicho- las Emery, Asa Clapp, William P. Preble, Albion K. Parris, and Isaac Ilsley. These, except Messrs. Preble and Parris, declined signing the constitution, with
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SEPARATION-CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
ant to the act of the legislature, and the convention met at Portland, October 11, 1819, by which our present constitution was formed. The State was admitted an independent member of the Union by Congress, March 4, 1820, and became an inde- pendent State the 16th of the same month. The first election of State officers under the new constitution, took place April 3, 1820, and the first legislature convened at Portland, on Wednesday. May 31st, of the same year.
several others, on account of the inequality of representation allowed to the large towns. William King was elected president of the convention. It was composed of the most able and prominent men in the State. Such as Judge Thatcher, Judge Cony, Judge Parris, Messrs. Whitman, Emery, Holmes, Preble, Greene, Judge Bridge, Messrs. Dane, Rose, Judge Dana, Messrs. Jarvis, Shepley, Wallingford, Kingsbury, etc. Mr. Holmes was chairman of the committee to frame a constitution, Judge Greene on application to Con- gress, and Judge Preble on the name and title of the State. The constitution was adopted and sigued October 29, 1819. Thirty members declined to sign it.
1
CHAPTER XXV.
MISCELLANIES-CUMBERLAND AND OXFORD CANAL-BRIDGES-PROMENADES-SHADE TREES-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES- ACADEMY AND SCHOOLS-LIBRARY-ATHENEUM-CHARITABLE SOCIETIES - EPIDEMICS- CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT TO CITY FORM-POPULATION AND CHARACTER OF THE INHABITANTS-CUS- TOMS OF THE PEOPLE AT DIFFERENT PERIODS-AMUSEMENTS-THEATER.
After the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, and the political affairs of the country had become settled on firm and stable foundations, which were productive of general prosperity, our people began to look around them to increase the facilities of trade and to make improvements in their local condition. As early as 1791 a committee was chosen by several towns in this county to ascertain the practicability of opening a canal from Sebago pond to the lower part of Presumpscot river. A report was made in September of that year very favorable to the design, in which it is said that lumber, produce, etc., might be brought, if the canal should be opened, a dis- tance of sixty or seventy miles to the falls at Saccarappa. The plan was prosecuted with considerable zeal by Woodbury Storer and some others, who, in 1795, obtained an act of incorporation under the name of the Cumberland Canal, to open a canal from the Sebago to the Presumpscot river at Saccarappa. Another company was incorporated at the same time, by the name of the Proprietors of the Falmouth Canal for the purpose of uniting the waters of the Presumpscot river above Sacca- rappa with those of Fore river.1
1 The leading persons in these projects were Woodbury Storer, Joseph Noyes, Nathaniel Deering, and Joseph Jewett.
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CUMBERLAND AND OXFORD CANAL.
But the limited capital of our people was not equal to their enterprising spirit, and subscriptions to the stock could not be obtained within the ten years fixed by the charter for the com- pletion of the undertaking. As the time of its expiration drew near, an extension of five years was obtained, which also passed away without witnessing even a commencement of the work. The undertaking was evidently more expensive than was con- templated by its projectors and much beyond the means and resources of the country at that period. We may judge of the under estimate of the proprietors by the fact that the amount of property they were allowed by the first charter to hold was only twenty thousand dollars, which in 1804 was enlarged to one hundred and twenty thousand. Mr. Storer, whose heart was bent on carrying this improvement into execution, though frustrated in his first attempts, did not permit the subject to pass from his mind. During the period of commercial restric- tions and war, all projects of improvement were of course suspended ; but immediately after the separation of the State, when new life was sent into all the channels of industry and enterprise, the project was again revived, and in 1821 a char- ter was procured to construct a canal from Waterford, in the county of Oxford, to the navigable waters of Fore river, under the name of the Cumberland and Oxford Canal. To aid the projectors in this more extensive scheme, a lottery was granted to them in 1823, by which they were authorized to raise the sum of fifty thousand dollars to enable them to accomplish the laudable undertaking.1 In 1825, as a further measure to pro- mote the design, the enterprising projectors procured the Canal Bank to be incorporated with a capital of three hundred thou- sand dollars, of which it was one of the conditions that a quar- ter part of its capital should be invested in the stock of the Cumberland and Oxford Canal.2
1 From the drawings of the lottery and the sale of the grant, they raised twen- ty-seven thousand dollars.
2 As a consideration for this condition, the Bank was exempted from the pay- ment of the usual tax to the State.
*
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
Under these advantages and by the aid of individual sub- scriptions the work was commenced in 1828. In 1823 the engineer had estimated the whole expense of the work from. Sebago pond to Fore river at Stroudwater at one hundred and thirty-seven thousand three hundred and forty-three dollars; it was eventually extended to the harbor in this town and com- pleted in 1830 at an expense of two hundred and six thousand dollars, and is now in successful operation.1
To complete the work the Canal Bank advanced a large sum of money in addition to its stock subscription, for which a mortgage was given. This debt not being paid, the property was forfeited to the bank with its franchise, and in 1857 was sold to Francis O. J. Smith, Thomas S. Abbott, and others for forty thousand dollars and is now operated by them.
Among other improvements contemplated by our inhabi- tants at the same time, was opening new avenues to the town. The Neck was nearly surrounded by water, and the only en- trances to it were by the two roads over Bramhall's hill, one leading from Stroudwater and the west, the other from the east by Back Cove. In 1791 the inhabitants held a meeting on the subject of making an avenue at the easterly end of the town to cross Back Cove between Seacomb's and Sandy Points. A committee was appointed to apply to the court of sessions to have a road laid out in that direction, and another to petition the General Court to assist the town by lottery or otherwise
1 Mr. Storer, its early projector and faithful friend, did not live to witness the success of the undertaking ; he died in 1825, aged sixty-live. Mr. Storer was son of John Storer and came here very young from Wells before the revolution ; in 1780 he married a daughter of Deacon Benjamin Titcomb for his first wife, and for his second, a daughter of James Boyd of Boston. He was for many years a respectable merchant and an active and influential citizen; he repre- sented the town repeatedly in the house of representatives, and the county in the senate of Massachusetts, and brought up a large and interesting family of children, who revere his memory. His sons were the late Woodbury Storer, Rev. John P. B. of Syracuse, Robert B. and Dr. David Humphrey of Boston, and Judge Bellamy of Cincinnati. The three last and one daughter, survive.
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BRIDGES.
in building a dam across the cove and erecting grist-mills upon it.1
The application for aid from government being unsuccessful, certain spirited individuals owning property in the easterly part of the town, and a few at Back Cove, united in 1793 and obtained an act of incorporation to build a bridge across the cove at their own expense. The charter was procured in Feb- ruary, 1794, under the name of the proprietors of Back Cove Bridge, and in September, 1796, they had pushed on their un- dertaking with so much expedition that the bridge was passa- ble for teams.
At the west end of the town the owners of property assisted by persons in Cape Elizabeth were not less enterprising : at the same session of the legislature, they procured an act of incorporation to erect a bridge across Fore river from Bram- hall's Point, to be called the Portland Bridge. The work however was not completed until 1800, when its corporate name was changed to Vaughan's Bridge, in honor of the principal instigator of the undertaking and its chief proprietor. Its length is twenty-six hundred feet. These two bridges were supported by tolls until they have been recently made free, and are the most frequented avenues into town for the eastern and western travel ; they were built originally of cobb work in the manner of a wharf and filled in with earth, but have since un- dergone several thorough repairs and alterations.
Two other bridges were afterward erected, one in 1806, across the western extremity of Back Cove called Deering's Bridge, built by the inhabitants of Portland and Falmouth and made free ; the other the Portland Bridge, constructed on piles across Fore river at an expense of about seven thousand dollars, under an act of incorporation granted in February,
! Lotteries were then popular, and an easy mode of granting favors by govern- ment which was often adopted; our people in 1803 applied, but without success, for one to enable them to pave the streets of the town.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
1823, which is also free. There are six avenues on the land side into town all of which are over bridges, except the old road from Stroudwater ; all the bridges were at first supported by tolls, but now they are free.
In 1835 a period of extraordinary prosperity through the whole country, caused by the inflation of currency, and suc- cessful speculations stimulated by it, in which Portland was a large participant, a plan was proposed to the city government by certain enterprising and successful persons to construct spa- cious and ornamental highways around the hills at the extrem- ities of the town. The proposal was received with general approbation, and the work entered upon with spirit under the administration of Levi Cutter as Mayor. These avenues were laid out, and grading commenced in 1836; the one on Mun- joy's hill began at the eastern end of Fore street and extended around the hill a little easterly of the crest, six thousand sixty-four feet to Washington street, and is at first five rods wide, widening to nine rods, and called the "Eastern Prome- nade." The other is on the brow of Bramhall's hill, a broad way from Arsenal street to Danforth street, three thousand seven hundred feet in length. They are both ornamented with trees, and afford varied and beautiful prospects, embracing the ocean, Casco Bay, and its islands, the White Mountains, and the range of elevated land from those lofty summits to Agamenti- cus hills by the ocean in York ; while beneath the eye are charming landscapes of hill and plain and river, all forming a rare combination of scenery rarely to be found in any coun- try.
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