USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Freeport > Three centuries of Freeport, Maine > Part 4
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IX
FREEPORT IN THE REVOLUTION
S INCE the greater part of the present Freeport was but a newly settled portion of the older and well-established town of North Yarmouth, whose religious, political and business interests were centered about the present Yarmouth village, few of Freeport's inhabitants took a recorded part in activities which culminated in the Revolution. When the Third Provincial Congress directed that companies of fifty men be raised to guard the coast one was furnished by Free- port, with William McGraw as captain, Benjamin Chase, first lieutenant and George Bartol, second lieutenant.
We find the same George Bartol (who now lies in the bury- ing ground of the old First Church), heading a committee of five to take a collection for the poor of Boston. This took the sub- stantial form of thirty-five cords of wood, which was delivered in Boston for distribution. Benjamin Chase, already men- tioned, was lieutenant in a company of minute men formed before the battle of Concord and Lexington, for which com- pany and other defenders the town voted to buy ammunition and appropriated £200 for that purpose.
When the news of that first encounter arrived it was evident that the coast must be guarded against raids on live stock by the British, who were feeling the effects of an embargo laid upon the Port of Boston by the Americans. To eliminate surprises four men in pairs patrolled from Harraseeket to Pearson's Point and from Flying Point to Bunganuc. These patrols were continued for some months.
When on April 23, 1775, the Provincial Congress voted to enlist men for the force which later besieged the British in Bos- ton, there was an enthusiastic response. Freeport men were in the North Yarmouth Company of Captain John Worthly, which on the sixth of July, 1775, started for Boston and after seven days of unaccustomed marching reached their destina- tion in Cambridge, and were assigned to General William Heath's brigade. When the Continental Army came into exist- ence, January 1, 1776, Captain Worthly's company was dis- charged but many individuals reenlisted and served in the Eighteenth Regiment, whose year of existence was spent in
40
Three Centuries of Freeport, Maine
service in and about Boston and around Fort Ticonderoga.
By the latter part of 1775 the Third North Yarmouth Com- pany had as its commander Captain George Rogers, a resident of the Flying Point section of Freeport, and was detailed for building fortifications in Portland. With many of the young men in the service and the constant fear of British raids (of which that resulting in the burning of Portland served as a warning), we can imagine that life was none too undisturbed in exposed Freeport during the first few years of the Revolu- tion.
The abject failure of the expedition against Castine in July and August, 1779, together with the difficulty experienced in ousting the British from this rather nearby port, revealed the weakness of loosely knit military bodies, in which discipline was at a low ebb. This realization could hardly soothe the home folks, whose men had gone so confidently and returned so crestfallen, no doubt bitterly condemning their commanders, whose bickerings and dilatoriness had ruined what should have been a brilliant success. Curiously enough many of our men were guided during this expedition by Penobscot Indians, formerly their deadly enemies but now their friends.
The redeeming feature of the Bagaduce campaign (as it is sometimes called), was the initial attack of four hundred men upon the British force occupying the heights. The latter, of course, were regulars, holding a commanding position while those making the attack were in most cases volunteers.
On the beach, where the Americans landed, is a huge boul- der known as Trask's Rock, named for a fifer boy who took shelter under its side and did not miss a note until his company had gained the summit of the heights. The attack is said to have been as brilliant and successful as any made during the Revolution. The loss of the Americans was one hundred, or one-fourth of those engaged, but they gained a position near the fort. The British had decided to surrender and if an as- sault had been made immediately the expedition would have been as much of a success as it afterwards became a dismal fail- ure.
If we could recall to life some of the men lying in Freeport's cemeteries what stories we could write of the journey back from Castine, necessarily on foot since the enemy had sunk
41
Freeport in the Revolution
their transports. But they arrived eventually and doubtless spun many a yarn of the brief but eventful campaign.
Among Freeport men who participated were probably Na- thaniel Aldrich, James Anderson, Jacob Anderson, George Bartol, James Bartol, Joseph Brewer, Daniel Carter, Josiah Dill, Barnabas Soule, Thomas Sylvester, Samuel Talbot and Zebulon Tuttle. This list is not only incomplete but because of lack of a definite division in the records between North Yar- mouth and the future town we may have included some and left out some who belonged therein. Eight of the fifty names on petitions dated 1774, 1785 and 1787, regarding matters in the Flying Point district were those of Revolutionary soldiers.
The career of Thomas Means is perhaps a cross section of the life of Revolutionary forefathers, which because of his ancestry and his own deeds is worthy of being recorded here.
He first saw the light of day in the garrison house on Flying Point, where his wounded mother had been taken after the In- dian attack which robbed her of her son, Robert, and her hus- band, the first Thomas Means. We know nothing of his boy- hood but at the age of eighteen he was a private in Captain George Rogers' company (Third North Yarmouth) which company was detached from the Second Cumberland County Regiment to work on the fort at Portland. The following year he was a matross in Captain Abner Lowell's company of mat- rosses, serving until the last of December, 1776. On December 26, he enlisted for three years in the company of Captain George White, Eleventh Regiment Massachusetts Line under Colonel Ebenezer Francis.
This regiment was posted at Ticonderoga and retreated be- fore Burgoyne to Hubbardstown, twenty-two miles, July 6, 1777, losing all their baggage and stores. The next day the regi- ment fought in the battle at Hubbardstown and lost their colonel, who was killed leading a charge. After the battle the soldiers retreated through the mountains to Stillwater, suffer- ing severe losses and took part in the battle at that place Sep- tember 19, 1777, where General Lincoln opposed twenty-five hundred men to Burgoyne's six thousand, inflicting upon the latter a loss of six hundred men and winning a victory for the Continentals. A month later at Saratoga Thomas Means saw the surrender of the remnants of Burgoyne's force, doubtless a
42
Three Centuries of Freeport, Maine
sweet revenge for the humiliation of the retreat, where a thou- sand Americans at Ticonderoga were driven by eighty-four hundred British who inflicted a loss of five hundred upon them.
That winter Corporal Means passed at Valley Forge, endur- ing privations which made this the lowest ebb in the fortunes of the Revolutionary War. Here he was but one of the one thousand and eight men said to have been there from Maine.
Monmouth was Means' next battle. Here Washington de- feated Clinton and forced him back to New York. This was the occasion on which Washington lost his temper and verbally blistered General Lee for ordering a retreat, afterward per- sonally leading his discredited general's troops to victory.
At Stony Point Corporal Means was one of the twelve hun- dred picked men with whom "Mad" Anthony Wayne made the winning assault.
December, 1779, saw the end of Corporal Means' term of en- listment and on the twenty-sixth he received his discharge. During these three years he had been in active service with Washington, Wayne, Gates, Arnold and Lincoln. At Saratoga he had participated in one of the decisive battles of the world, comparable with Gettysburg of the Civil War. Now at the age of twenty-two he returned to Freeport, to make his way in civil life. The farm, which had been the scene of the massacre, re- mained in the possession of the Meanses for about fifty years and no doubt this is the home to which he came back. In 1790, at the age of thirty-three, Means was a member of the second board of selectmen of the new town of Freeport.
Still standing in the Square is the old tavern, now occupied by stores and a dwelling. In its early days Major Means, as he was called, was the tavern keeper and it was here that he en- tertained an Indian guest one night, which tale is related else- where.
X INCORPORATION OF FREEPORT
T HE town of Freeport was formed from old North Yar- mouth, being set off and incorporated in 1789, as the sixty-fourth town in Maine. There was also included in the town, by the Act of Incorporation "a tract of Land called Prout's Gore," lying between North Yarmouth and Brunswick. The Act of Incorporation passed the Massachusetts House of Representatives February 13, 1789, and the Senate the follow- ing day. It bears the well-known bold signature of John Han- cock, then Governor of Massachusetts and the first man to sign the Declaration of Independence.
As originally incorporated this town extended to the New Gloucester line but is now bounded on the east by Brunswick, on the south by Casco Bay, on the west by Cousins River and Yarmouth, following the line between the one hundred- and one hundred twenty-acre divisions and on the north by Pownal and a small portion of Durham. Originally Freeport extended to the mouth of the Bunganuc River but since 1789 three farms have been set off to Brunswick, so that at present the line be- tween the two towns is nearly a half mile south of the original location for the distance of about a mile and then turns sharply in a northeasterly direction to meet the original line. The first farm was set off in 1790, the second in 1833 and the third in 1850.
The town includes all islands formerly belonging to North Yarmouth and Prout's Gore, lying northeast of a line extend- ing east southeast from Lane's Point, which are not intersected thereby. The town was to pay its share of the Revolutionary War debt, pay two-fifths of all assessed taxes and receive its share of the town military stores on hand.
In 1808 the northwestern part of the area was separated and incorporated as the town of Pownal, leaving Freeport about fifty square miles of territory. Pownal received the part north of lots numbered 13, 12, 22, 23, 20, 21, 18, 19, 16 and 17 in ranges A, B, C, D and E.
Various causes led to the separation of Freeport. Already two portions of North Yarmouth had been allowed to secede be- cause of the difficulty of Sabbath attendance at the Meeting
44
Three Centuries of Freeport, Maine
House Under the Ledge. Mare Point, as far as it was included in the boundaries of North Yarmouth, joined itself to Bruns- wick and its nearby First Church and Harpswell became an independent town and parish. In 1763 a movement was on foot to make Flying Point a separate parish, as the adverse petition of George Rogers and others found elsewhere, shows. Before Freeport became independent it had its own meetinghouse, located in front of the old cemetery, at the corner of Hunter Road and Main Street but the settled minister at North Yar- mouth was grudgingly allowed by the town meeting to give only infrequent service at that outlying region.
In her turn the part of Freeport, now Pownal, became dis- satisfied because of action on articles in the warrants of town meetings.
In 1798 these three items were placed upon the records of a meeting held May 7:
"Voted, that £100 be raised for Mr. Alfred Johnson's salary the ensuing year
Voted, that Mr. Alfred Johnson preach four Sabbaths at Bradbury's Mountain the present year
Voted, that one Sabbath be added to the above."
The next year Mr. Johnson received the same salary and was directed to preach five Sabbaths but it was voted that the town would not add one Sabbath to the above. In 1800 six Sabbaths were allowed but that was not enough to appease the future Pownalites and to offer a solution of the difficulty we have the following:
"The committee chosen by the town of Freeport to es- tablish a line for division of Ministerial taxes, have at- tended to that business and consulted a number of the in- habitants in the west part of the town, now report that in their opinion that it will be most conducive to peace and union in that part of the town, to begin at Thomas Worth- ley's and follow that road to Haskell's Mill, then follow the course of the Western branch mill stream to Durham line, the above division they recommend for one year and no more.
JOSIAH REED JABEZ TRUE JNO. A. HYDE."
Freeport, May 5, 1806.
--
Freeport Square and Holbrook Tavern in the Sixties
Mast Landing, 1902
46
Three Centuries of Freeport, Maine
which left a "no man's land" between two towns. These were mapped and named in many cases for the adjoining town. In the case in question Timothy Prout and others, for services in the resettlement of 1722-1739 were granted land which could include Prout's Gore. A family of that name has for many years lived there and from either of these the name could have been derived.
Durham desired a portion of the Gore and North Yarmouth wished to annex the whole before allowing Freeport her free- dom. Eventually the Gore went to Freeport because the inhabi- tants preferred that it should, but in so doing a corner was taken out of Durham and a jog made in the county line.
Before the General Court made the division the name of Greene had gone to a town further inland and Freeport was accepted in its stead. Long ago it was forgotten just why that name was chosen. A free port is one where taxes or duties are not levied and is consequently open to all. Also it is said locally that any open accessible harbor is a free port. Then again Sir Anthony Freeport, for whom some say the town is named, is a character in one of Addison's plays. Lord Timothy Dexter once published a book without punctuation but in which the author caused to be inserted several pages of periods, commas, etc., with a note instructing the reader to put them wherever he chose. It may be safer to permit the reader to select his source of Freeport's name from the above statements than to suggest one. There are other Freeports in the country, one of these in Illi- nois, the place of one of Abraham Lincoln's famous debates with Douglas, is not even a seaport. Fourteen others at least in as many states bear the name.
Doubtless there was rejoicing in Freeport when the news arrived of separation, for now they could have their own minis- ter and hold meetings in their own meetinghouse. We have found no picture or description of the meetinghouse but it may be possible that North Yarmouth's Meeting House Under the Ledge was used as a pattern. Built to serve the outlying parish- ioners, the Freeport edifice probably had no steeple and lacked many refinements even of those times. There is one such still standing in Harpswell, built in the 1750's and another in Alna, built in the 1780's, which are not unlike and may be fairly sim- ilar to that built in 1774, in front of the old burying ground,
47
Incorporation of Freeport
just south of the railroad overpass, where the Hunter Road enters Main Street, which latter is also United States Route One. The meetinghouses of this time were rectangular two- story structures, with a pitch roof and porch in which was the main entrance. Within, the ground floor was occupied by box pews, each with its door, facing a high pulpit above which was a sounding board. On the three sides not reserved for the pulpit, were galleries which greatly increased the seating capacity of the auditorium. There was a lack of heating in these old build- ings which compelled those susceptible to cold to bring along their foot stoves on particularly frosty days.
It was in this same fifteen-year-old meetinghouse that Free- port voters met on March 23, 1789, for their first town meeting. The warrant was issued by Samuel Merrill, Esquire, who served as moderator. Prayer was offered by "Rev. Abraham Cummings, a graduate of Brown University, class of 1776, an open communion Baptist," * who never had a settled pastorate but was well known from Rhode Island to Passamaquoddy. Nathan Wesson or Weston was appointed Town Clerk. Joseph Staple, James Curtis and Colonel George Rogers were elected Selectmen and Assessors and John Mann, Treasurer. The list of minor officers elected varies from a corresponding list of to- day, for there is now no call for cullers of hoops and staves or hog reeves. In some towns this latter office was retained for many years and awarded to the newly married voters, as an early form of joke. Cornelious Soule, George Bartoll were elected Collectors and Constables; William Todd, Constable; Bartholomew Reed and John Dunning, Wardens; Jeremiah Nason, Samuel Winslow, Josiah Cummings, William Brown, Samuel Griffin, Abner Sylvester, Mark Rogers, Daniel Curtis and Robert Anderson, Surveyors of Highways, Ezra Curtis and Ambrose Talbot, Tithing Men; James Buxton, Culler of Hoops and Staves; Seward Porter and Thomas Means, Sur- veyors of Boards; James Crocker, Ambrose Talbot and Joseph Mitchell, Fence Viewers; Abraham Reed, Calvin Carver, Ben- jamin Parker, Jr., James Soule, Silas Wentworth and Noah Pratt, Hog Reeves and Field Drivers; Thomas Bicknell, Sealer of Leather.
* Rowe, Ancient North Yarmouth and Yarmouth, Maine, 1636-1936, page 264.
48
Three Centuries of Freeport, Maine
At a later meeting, held May 4, Colonel Rogers withdrew as selectman and William Brown was elected in his place. The tax rate was fixed at eight pence on the pound and sixty pounds was raised for schools and thirty for preaching.
Rev. Alfred Johnson was given a call to the ministry of the parish and an offer of ninety pounds' salary and one hundred and eighty pounds' settlement tendered. Funds for the support of preaching were administered by Daniel Dennison, Amos Syl- vester and George Bartol, as a committee on ministerial and school lands.
The ministerial lot must have been about or near where the Maine Central tracks cross Main Street, for the cattle pound forty feet square and seven feet high, built of logs, stood near where the Arcade Filling Station is now and is said to have been on that lot. Reverend Johnson made several attempts to ac- quire this lot but was unsuccessful. For a time at least he lived in what is now the old Holbrook Block in the Square. The site of the meetinghouse which served also as town hall was abandoned about 1818, when it was decided to tear it down and rebuild at the Square. This ended town ownership of the building but its successor was used for meetings until 1831, when a hall over the store of Samuel Holbrook was acquired and so used until destroyed by fire in 1845.
In 1873 Samuel A. Holbrook, son of Samuel Holbrook, laid out the Square on which are the Soldiers' Monument and park and the town hall was moved to the present location on this plot of land.
XI DEATH AND TAXES
W HILE it has been thought by some that in the hard drinking days of our ancestors liquor flowed freely, there were some restrictions, for we find that those handling spirits were required to have licenses as early as 1806. The list for that year is headed by Samuel Jameson, Innholder. The others who were licensed - Symonds Baker, John Stack- pole, Jr., Elijah Macumber, William Dingley and Barnabas Strout - were retailers. Nearly every store bill which has come to our notice has plenty of rum charged upon it.
In 1816, on the daybook of a Porter's Landing store for March 14 are found the following:
To 1/2 gallon N. E. rum $0.50
1 pint brandy .38
1 pint gin .50
These are purchases by different customers whose names are still found in Freeport. Their descendants, perhaps, would be shocked to know how often the family jug was filled, so we shall mention no names.
One legal requirement of early times serves both to tantalize and please lovers of antiques. When a man died some of his neighbors were appointed to list and value all of his posses- sions. With characteristic Yankee thrift nothing was omitted, so that we are enabled to learn the names and worth of many of the articles which are eagerly sought after today. Many a col- lector upon reading one of these lists decides that he was born too late and vainly wishes that for his benefit alone prices were back where they were when the inventory was made.
One of these documents, that of Joseph Anderson, who lived in the Flying Point section of Freeport and died in 1812, follows:
"An inventory of the esate of Joseph Anderson of the rale and persenel estae
To 24 akers out land at $9 40 per aker $237 50
one half of williamss island so called in our opening is worth 75 00 one Shaes at 75 00
50
Three Centuries of Freeport, Maine
one Lakingglass
09 00
one watch - a timepeice
18 00
one gun
6 00
one Bade and Badeing and Badsted
20 00
one Lume and Swift
6 00
one small wheel
1 00
one Bade in the Backrume
25 00
One Bade in the Baderoom
23 00
6 Sheets at $o 74 per pecs
4 50
three pelercases $ o 17 per pecs
0 50
one Blanket
1 25
one Coverled
3 00
one old quilt
1 75
6 chears
8 00
6 Bowback Chares
4 00
3 Chares
2 00
one Dineing Tabel
4 33
one tea tabel
1 00
one Stand tabel
0 75
one pine tabel
1 00
one Dask in the Back room
9 00
one old Dask
2 00
one Bibel
2 00
one Large Kittil
2 50
one Small Kettile
1 24
one Large pot
1 00
one Small pot
0 75
one tea littll
0 75
one Cheese tub
0 85
one pare flatirons
1 00
one pare fire Dogs
1 50
one pare Small Dogs Deto
0 60
two puter platters
1 50
12 puter plates
2 00
one arthen plater
0 40
one large puter Basen
0 45
2 Small puter Basens
0 40
2 old puter Basens
0 40
one Small Sarver
0 40
one Tin pann
01.3
one Tin Bason
0 08
one tin Saspann
0 25
one Culender
0 50
one tin littel
0 25
one tea Canester
1 00
two pepperboxes
01.2
8 arthen plates
0 50
Death and Taxes
51
2 pinte Decanters
08.3
2 wine glasses
0 17
2 tumblers 0 12
5 Silver Spuns
1 25
1 tin tea Bot
0 12
old Crockeware
0 7.5
2 milkpanns one wooding Bale
0 30
05.0
one grate wheel
1 00 71 41
one half of a pew in the meeting in Freeport
9 00
(Signed)
JACOB ANDERSON
GEORGE ROGERS
REUBEN BREWER"
XII
FREEPORT 1789-1812
P ARSON JOHNSON, who also served as schoolmaster, in 1806 severed his connection and went to Belfast.
The year 1790 saw the Mast Landing road laid out and a road from Mast Landing to the Brunswick line accepted. Also accepted was the road from Mast Landing to John Bartol's.
Smallpox appeared in 1792 and although every attempt was made to check it by quarantine many deaths occurred. This disease was one of the scourges of our ancestors and appeared from time to time, unchecked by anything as potent as vaccina- tion.
Freeporters built ships, sailed them, prepared lumber for cargoes, shipped firewood to the cities, caught fish and raised nearly all of their food, were neither poor nor rich, according to the standards of the day and in fact lived comfortably enough although some of the houses were the original log cabins.
With people of other maritime states they joined in pro- testing the embargo on shipping, due to the Napoleonic wars and bitterly resented the claims of the British regarding im- pressment of seamen. We have no doubt that whenever possi- ble they disregarded the embargo and were in the proper fight- ing spirit when war was declared in 1812. As far as Maine was concerned this was in the greater part a naval war and she furnished her share of the navy in the form of privateers. Free- port built vessels which were swift and her men were daring, a good combination. The story of the most famous of the local privateers, the Dash, is told elsewhere in this book.
Some of the privateers which had Freeport men among their crews were captured by the British and the crews imprisoned. Accounts of Dartmoor Prison, where many of them were sent, make it appear but little better than the later and terrible Andersonville of Civil War times. Probably James Mann of the privateer Lucy, who was killed in the Dartmoor Massacre, was a Freeport citizen. With others, massed by the gates of the prison after the close of the war, he was the victim of a drunken governor, who ordered his guards to fire upon the helpless prisoners. There would have been vastly more victims if many
53
Freeport 1789-1812
of the guards had not disobeyed orders and fired over the prisoners' heads.
Captain Enos Soule was also captured with others and con- fined in a hulk in the Thames River. These men cut a hole in the vessel's side and one by one escaped at night, until a slip by an escaping prisoner in passing through the hole created a splash which caused an investigation. This ended the jail de- livery and resulted in removal of the remaining sailors to Dart- moor. No doubt this was termed a Yankee trick by the English but it was a good one while it worked. Enos Soule later became a shipbuilder and shipowner at South Freeport.
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