USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Wiscasset > Wiscasset in Pownalborough; a history of the shire town and the salient historical features of the territory between the Sheepscot and Kennebec rivers > Part 5
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The Sheepscot records were sometimes called "Records of Eastern claims of lands." They were begun by Walter Phillips, September 5, 1665, and were continued until the breaking up of the settlement by the Indian wars. They contained a registry of grants under the Duke, also of Indian deeds and other conveyances. When Phillips went away he took the book with him and deposited it in the office of the Secretary in Boston. The book is lost and it is supposed to have perished by fire when the Boston court house burned in 1748.
The Resettlement
The Indian wars that began in 1676 raged with but slight intermission for more than eighty years, desolating and depopulating the country. We have seen that the peaceful relations existing between pioneers and the In- dians were severed at the time of King Philip's War, a cessation of which was followed by the Ten Years' War proceeding with the Revolution in favor of William III, Prince of Orange, 1688 to 1698, and sometimes called King William's War, during which this section of Maine was laid waste and so remained for a generation; while England suffered from the wars known as Governor Dudley's Indian War, 1703-1713, and Governor Dummer's Indian War, 1722-1725.
As far as the records show, there was no attempt to resettle Wiscasset during the period between the two last-mentioned wars. A few years after what appeared likely to be a permanent peace, the heirs of those who had possessed and improved the land here in the seventeenth century turned their attention to their inherited rights in such land.
Meanwhile, the Davie's possessions had passed into the hands of sundry wealthy men of Boston who were associated as the "Boston Company" and subsequently acted in disposing of the lands embraced in the Wiscasset Point precinct of Pownalborough, covering the site of the ancient Davie plantations, and transacted their business as the Wiscasset & Jeremy Squam Proprietors.3 Their titles are the existing boundary of the town. Those who
3. See conveyance between Plymouth Proprietors and said Company. (Lincoln County Deeds.) The account of the resettlement was written by William Davis Patterson.
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
by inheritance or purchase claimed these rights, met at Austin's Coffee House in Boston, and formed a company for the purpose of developing their land and bringing settlers to the territory specified in the deed given to George Davie by the three Indian sagamores, about sixty-five years previously.
This company, formed over two hundred years ago, maintained its legal existence for upward of ninety years.
Robert Hooper, with his family of four persons, was the first comer at the time of the resettlement. He arrived here from Massachusetts in 1729 and located at the headland which juts into the bay, known from early days as the Point. He built a log cabin by the side of a "great rock" on the west side of where Water Street now runs. This hut stood where was later the building occupied by William Smith as a blacksmith's shop in 1855. The Methodist Church is built on the great rock and it was on the top of the hill, Fort Hill, that the first "Garrison Fort," so called, was erected just after 1730 as a refuge for the settlers from the savage attacks of the natives. 4
Hooper brought with him cattle and fruit trees enough to plant an or- chard and entered seriously upon his duties as a settler, and for the next few years he and his family remained the sole residents of the Point. His lot is said to have been half a mile south of the original Davie plantation, and three rods from the water.
Hooper subsequently removed from the Point to the peninsula under Cushman Hill, chosen by him as a place of greater security from savage alarms. His name has been perpetuated in this vicinity by Hooper's Nar- rows-between Berry Island and Westport-thus named while he was in residence at Birch Point, and again in Hooper Street, a town way which was laid out at a much later date.
William Groves and Robert Lambert arrived here in 1731. Groves owned the land near the present railroad station including the island for- merly known as Groves' Island and later as Cow Island. His land extended back to the forest and his cabin stood where Henry Hodge later built the house still standing and now owned by Miss Alice Taylor.
Robert Lambert, who is believed to have come from Salem as one of his name was there recorded among the list of Puritan settlers, owned land
4. There were at this time, 1730-1731, between Muscongus and the Kennebec, about one hundred and fifty families, probably nine hundred or one thousand inhabitants.
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Early History of Wiscasset
which included that at the southwest corner of Fort Hill and Main (or State) Street which he afterward deeded to Spencer Bennet. It was doubt- less the lot contiguous to that of Robert Hooper.
At this time Robert Hodge, who came from Ireland, occupied the Patti- shall grant on the eastern or opposite shore of the Sheepscot River.
The earliest occupant of Birch Point was Jonathan Williamson, son of Christopher Williamson, born at Whitehaven,5 England, and one of the settlers under the Wiscasset Company. According to his testimony under oath many years later, he arrived here in 1734, at which time the only fam- ilies were those of Robert Hooper, William Groves, and Robert Lambert. - Williamson was then about twenty-two years old, and he had recently emi- grated from Old England with his wife and infant son, Thomas, who, as his father very carefully recorded in an old book of town records, was born at Horselydown Lane in London, March 22, 1733.
It is believed that Williamson, his wife and son, were the only English residents during the period of resettlement to come here, the other settlers having come from southwestern Maine, from New Hampshire, and from Massachusetts.
He was undoubtedly attracted to this locality by the fact that a kinsman, Samuel Denny, was then an inhabitant of Arrowsic Island, where he ever after made his home. Denny was born in Combs, county Suffolk, England, in 1689. He embarked with certain of his kindred in a vessel for Boston at which port they arrived July 20, 1717.
In 1734, Denny, in his capacity of surveyor, was employed by the Wis- casset Company to run the lines of forty one-hundred-acre-lots at and near Wiscasset. It was doubtless he who informed Jonathan Williamson of the desirability of the land and the inducements held out by the Proprietors to prospective settlers.
By the record of a deed of farm lot No. 16 from the Wiscasset Proprie- tors to Williamson, dated May 10, 1736, it is learned that he had entered upon a settler's duty, for in that deed it was set forth that he
hath performed part of the Conditions of settlement by building a dwelling House upon said Land, viz: on Lot Number sixteen & have inhabited the same for these eight months last past and also have begun to clear and improve the Land on said Lot.
5. Coleman, New England Captives carried to Canada, II, 234.
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
and that he had undertaken to complete the conditions of such settlement, by which it appears that the Proprietors
had agreed and concluded to give away forty hundred Acres of said Land unto forty Families that shall appear to take up the same upon the Conditions hereinafter men- tioned (as also one Quarter of an Acre more in the House or Home Lots unto those that will build an House upon the same) viz: that each and every Settler that shall be ad- mitted to take up a Lot and to settle on said Land shall be, and hereby are, obliged to build a suitable dwelling House upon the same, and to inhabit it for and during the full Term of seven years next after the building said House, and in case of being beat or driven off by any War or Rupture with an Enemy, then to return again as soon as such War or Rupture ceaseth, and perform the full Part of the Time above mentioned and also to clear an Acre of the Land at least, in each of the seven years until seven Acres be cleared fit for mowing or planting at or before the said seven years be expired, and also to inclose the same with a good and lawfull Fence, and to pay the charges of surveying their several and respective Lotts.
Lot 16 was then described as extending to Wiscasset Bay. It appears that the neck of land, where the Haynes ice-houses stood in recent times, was apportioned in some way to lots 15, 16 and 17, so that the occupants might have easy access to salt water frontage, and Williamson's original house appears to have stood on a lot of six acres on the neck. By that conveyance he took also eighty-four acres of upland, exclusive of meadow, plus ten acres adjoining to make up one hundred acres; and also an equal "propor- tion of all Meadow and Marsh that hereafter may be found lying within the bounds of the Township Lines intended to be settled on Wiscasset & Monswegue Bay."
Lot 16 became what was long known as the Old Williamson Farm, but when Captain Williamson, to use the military title by which Jonathan Wil- liamson was known, conveyed it to Thomas Williamson in 1784, he fixed the southern limit at the "brook which falls into Williamson's Cove," which cove, having been dammed, we have known as the big ice pond at Birch Point.
We have seen that his eldest child was born in London. The second child, Jonathan, was born at Georgetown, probably at Denny's garrison house on Arrowsic Island, March 15, 1735. He recorded the births of but three chil- dren. The third, Samuel, was born at Wiscasset, January 7, 1739, and all, as he was careful to note, in the old style of reckoning time.
The place of his own birth is as yet unknown, but Whitehaven-a port in a bay of the Irish Sea-in county Cumberland, England, was the home of a
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Early History of Wiscasset
branch of the Williamson family having commercial dealings with Jona- than of Wiscasset and others here; and that, together with the fact that Williamson called his Birch Point property "Whitehaven" and suggested that name for a municipality to be established here, is regarded as evidence that he came from Whitehaven in England.
In a survey and allotment of their lands the Wiscasset Proprietors did not include Birch Point in the "Farm Lots," but seem to have reserved it as a "Proprietors' Lot." That it was early coveted is shown by the applica- tion of Capt. John North of Pemaquid, to the Kennebec or Plymouth Pro- prietors for a grant of the Point at the time when he made a survey for them in 1750 and 1751.
It is not known when Williamson built his house at Birch Point. No house is there shown by the plan of North. One house, supposed to be Wil- liamson's, is shown on the neck. In 1757, during the controversy with the Plymouth Proprietors as to the land Captain Williamson wrote to Thomas Hubbard of Boston, one of the Wiscasset Proprietors, that
Capt. North a profest friend to the Plymouth Company ... hath given out word as I understand that I have built a mill for him ready to his hand on the stream at Birch Point which he is shour of having if the Plymouth Company holds the land.
The claims of the Plymouth Proprietors may not engage us now beyond saying that for some years much uneasiness was felt by some of the settlers here.
Williamson, according to his letter of June 30, 1762, written to James Halsey, the clerk of the Wiscasset Proprietors, entered upon Birch Point as early as 1736, fenced it and improved it by pasturing, and in that letter he further stated:
I have bestowed a great deal of Labour on that Point of Land & think it justly be- longs to me & I cannot but Perswade myself if you will but Seriously take it into Con- sideration that you will think as I do & therefore hope that you will Execute a Deed for me for it & the stream where my Mill stands.
But not until the fifth of June, 1792, after an occupancy of fifty-six years, did they comply with his request, thereby recognizing that a squatter's right is a pretty good sort of title, though a tardy recognition of the old man's claim.
At a comparatively early period in his life Williamson became a person of importance in the community where he was well known to the Indians
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
by whom he was twice seized and carried captive to the enemy. His first captivity dated from August 20, 1746 (one date is given as August ten of that year), when the savages, coming upon him as he was driving his cows from pasture, at sunset, seized and conveyed him to Canada. After several months he was permitted to return home. Again on April 13, 1747, he was seized and taken into captivity through the wilderness to Quebec, where he arrived and was imprisoned on the twenty-sixth, after a journey of thir- teen days-an average of twenty miles per day. It was stated by him that he was well treated by his captors, who allowed him a share of their scanty food, and also by the French, whose governor instigated his capture, hoping thereby to gain from him information regarding the movements of the British.
In the prison where Williamson was confined there was another man from Maine, Capt. William Pote, Jr., from whose journal, which has been printed, it is learned that Williamson brought
Sundry accounts Viz yt admiral Warren went to Europe last fall, and in consequence of that, he Dispatchd two pacquets, one to ye Governour of Boston, and ye other to ye Governour of New York, which paquets arrived fourteen days before he was taken, from whence we Learn he had Desired, ye Land forces might be in Readyness, for he was coming with Eighteen Sail of ye Line, and expected to arrive in America Some time in may, In order for ye Intire Reduction of all Canada.
2dly that ye pretender yt had made Such a Noise and Confusion in Scotland Disap- peared and was Vanished Intirely out of ye Land.
3dly that our affairs in Europe meet with Tollerable Suces, and ye admiral Martin had Drove all Before him on ye coast of France, In Bombarding Some place and Tak- ing others. . . .
4 thly That a Verey Large fleet of ye Line with Storeships &c, had arrived to Jebuctaus from old France Last fall under ye command of a General Officer whom he thinks was ye Marquis D'Aville with orders to take annapolis Royall and then reduce all N Eng- land But a Grievous Sickness raged in ye Fleet while in Jebuctaus, wether caught at Sea, or Contracted in ye wild Uncultivated Desert is Uncertain however it Raged to ye Degree, yt with ye Small Pox and an Inflametory Fever it Swept off upwards of 3000 of their Number and by yt means Intirely Disappointed ym in their Designs, ye General officer Dispairing of Carrying his Point, Ran upon his own Sword and put an End to his Days . . . .
5thly and yt ye affair yt happened a menes . .. was In truth this, that about 550 men under ye command of Collonel Noble, and Capt. John Gorham In order to Bring ye inhabitants to a more Just observance of ye Neutrellity, they billeted themselves at Some of their houses, where those Rascals Betrayd them Into ye hands of an Armey of Cana- dians and Indians, under ye Command of monsieur, De Ramsez, who came upon them,
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Early History of Wiscasset
and basly murthered them in their Bedds to ye Number of 73 amongst which was ye Brave Colonel Noble.
The Colonel Noble mentioned was Arthur Noble of Georgetown, Maine, in whose memory a beautiful shaft has been set up in the town which bears the name of Nobleboro.
Two days after Williamson arrived at prison the prison house was de- stroyed by fire, after which the prisoners were for some weeks sheltered in tents where they suffered severe cold until near the middle of May soon after which frames of houses were raised for them. Captain Pote noted many of the prison experiences of the captives coming under his observa- tion, and numerous entries in his journal testify to the varying hopes cher- ished by them from time to time for exchange and return to their homes. Finally, 171 prisoners, one of whom was Jonathan Williamson, were on July 27, 1747, embarked at Quebec on board the French ship, La Vierge-de- Grace, then employed as a flag of truce which, after a passage of twenty-one days, arrived at Boston on August 16, 1747.
James and Samuel Anderson and John McNear, all Sheepscot men, and John Lermond, of Damariscotta, also returned on the same ship, the latter to a terribly bereaved home, for Captain Pote recorded that on May 14, 1747,
Came into prison Jnº. Lermond who was taken at Sheapsquet on ye frontiers of New England by II Indians who killed his wife his son and Daughter-in-Law and Brought their scalps with them.
In 1750, Jonathan Williamson headed the first petition for a municipal incorporation here, which petition runs as follows:
To the Honorable Spencer Phipps, Esq., Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in- Chief of the Honorable His Majesty's Council and House of Representatives of ye Province of Massachusetts Bay, In General Court Assembled at Boston, by Proroga- tion to the 22nd day of March, 1749/50.
The humble patition of us the Subscribers, &c. A number of Inhabitants to the num- ber of about Fifty Famelys who have been for fourteen or Fifteen Years last Past Bring- ing forward a Settlement at a Place called Whiscasick to ye Eastward of Georgetown within the County of York and Whereas we finde by said Experience that we in the sircumstances that we are in for want of our Being Erected into a Township and being Invested with ye Powers & privaleges that Other of His Majesty's Good Subjects do Injoy Cannot Orderly Prosede to ye Calling Seteling & supporting a Gosple Minister Employing and Maintaining a School-master for ye Teaching of our children & many
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
Other Ill Conveniances not Nesasery to be Mentioned to your Honours you well know- ing what People meet with where Order and Government is wanting. This therefore waits on your Honours to Pray you to take ye Premises into your wise consideration & If it maybe agreable to your Pleasures that you would be pleased to erect us into a Town or Otherways as you shall think fitt & Invest us with the Powers & Privaleges as Others of his Majesty's Good Subjects do Injoy in the like case. May it Please your Honours Whereas we settled under a number of Proprietors whereof S' William Pepperrill, Baronite is one known by the name of ye Whiscasick Proprietors & in Order to Include their Claim within ye said Town or Presinct which we pray may be Called by ye Name of Whitehaven this we would Humbly Propose that ye bounds thereof be stated and de- scribed After ye following manner viz: Beginning at a Place known as Sheepscutt Nar- rows thence Running Northwest 5 milds, then Running three milds & a half southwest, then running by Georgetown Eastern line Untill it comes to ye Sea, Then begining at Sheepscutt Narrows aforesd & runing South East 2 milds, then South three milds from thence South West Untill it comes to ye Sea, takeing in Jaremy Squam or Long Island with all Other Small Islands that may fall within ye sd bounds, So May it Please Your Honours we have taken leave to Propose & Wait Your Pleasure & as in Duty Bound shall ever Pray &c.
Jonathan Williamson
Michall Sevey
Joseph Young Ju
Robert Lambert
Isaac Young
Sherebiah Lambert
Elisha Kenny
Abraham Preble
Robert Huper
Nathaniel Runelet
Jacob Metcalf
James Say
Thomas Young
Frances Gray
Richard Holbrook
David Danford
Obadiah Allbee
John Baker
Joshua Silvester
Sam" Trask
Moses Gray
Ebenezer Gove
George Gray
Henery Slooman
Joseph Taylor
Joseph Welch
Jonathan Howard
William Hilton
William Boyinton
Jonathan Blackledge
Joseph Young Sĩ
Aron Abott
Ambros Colby
James Pierce
Andrew Bowman
Benjamin Colby
Caleb Boynton
Ruglas Colby
John Rowell
Timothy Dunton
James Nelson
John Gray
Robert Foy
That petition was read in the House of Representatives April 9, 1750, where it was ordered that the same be granted and Colonel Storer was given leave to bring in a bill accordingly; but the matter proceeded no further. A similar petition dated March 13, 1754, was signed by Williamson and thirty-one other residents here, but no action resulted. It may be surmised that the influence of the Kennebec Proprietors may have been against such an incorporation, a surmise which may well appear strengthened upon con- sideration of the following petition under date of October 17, 1754,
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Early History of Wiscasset
PROV. OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
To His Excellency Wm Shirley Esq' Capt General in chief &c.
To the Honble Council & House of Representatives in general Court assemb
The Memorial of us the Subscribers Inhabitants of Whiscasett & Mounswege Bay at the East- ward part of the Province
Humbly Sheweth
That with great Labour & Expence we have subdued & cultivated our Lands, have increased in number, so as to stand it out against the Enemy the last ware; we have had a Minister Preaching with us for more than five years last past, have assisted him ac- cording to our Ability in building him an house & Should have settled him among us, but that of Late a number of Gentlemen calling themselves by the name of Proprietors of the Plymouth Purchase, have claimed our lands & by their agent Samuel Goodwin Partly by Promises & Partly by Thretnings, have Prevailed on a considerable Number of the Inhabitants (without the least Pretence of Right as we Conceive) to take up un- der them, so that, we are thrown into great Confusion & Disorder & notwithstanding the Proprietors we hold under, have assigned Three Publick Rights in the town one of which was for a Meeting House to be set upon & by their help and assistance we should before now have proceeded to build one but we are prevented by the sd Goodwin's per- suations on a number not to go forward with it, but to join with Frankfort in making one town which flatters them, with the Notion of its being the Shire Town, upon the dividing the County & hath prevailed on sundry of the Inhabitants to sign a Petation to the Great & General Court for this purpose which should it be Granted will entirely destroy this settlement (perhaps the best below Casco Bay to the Eastward) as it will expose us much even to our Indian Enemys & we be altogether without a Minister : Be- sides this there can be no reason for it as there is Land Enough to make Two Large handsome Townships & Whiscaset hath at present upwards of seventy families & lays as complete as most places for either a Town or a District. We have all along been de- sirous of haveing the Gospell setled among us for that End have cheerfully expended our substance, for the support of it, being perswaded that Religion lays the Foundation of all Other Happiness, we have for a Considerable time had a Minister with us, who has Cherefully submitted to the hardships of a place just beginning, in Common with ourselves, in hopes that by & by, he should fare better; for this and he hath joined us once & again in Petationing the Grt & General Court to be erected into a Town or District in Order to Preserve the Rules of Morality & Religion amongst us & more especialy the due Observation of the Lord's Day which for want thereof is Shamefully neglected but if we should after all be United with Frankfort all these good purposes must be Defeted & Whiscasett ruined.
We therefore most earnestly intreat Your Exce.1 & Honours to take these our dis- tressed circumstances into Your most wise Consideration & if it be agreeable to Your Wisdom & Goodness that You should be pleased to form us into a Town or District agreable to a former Petition & Plan now lying before this Honble Court, whereby we
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Wiscasset in Pownalborough
apprehend the best Purposes respecting ourselves as well as the community will be an- swered but the contrary (we fear ) will be our Ruin-and in Duty bound shall ever pray
Jona Williamson Robert Huper
Thomas Murfey
Richard Greenlife
Timothy Dunton
John Perce
Lemuel Norton
Thomas McKenney
Michall Sevey
Ebenezer Gove
Jacob Metcalf
Israel Averell
Job Averell David Danford
Frances Gay
Thomas Williamson
John Blagdon
Joshua Silvester
Richard Holbrook
William Cliford
Joseph Young
Samuel Trask
Isaac Young
Samuel Trask Jr.
Sam" Kincaid
Henery Slooman
John Gray
Israel Honowell
Joseph Tayler
Elisha Kenney
Samuel Greenlife
John Alley
John Rowell
Samuell Barto
Patrick Bryant
John Kinnicom
William Clark
We whose names are underwritten being over Perswaded by the Insenuations of Sam11 Goodwin to sighn a Petation may not be granted.
ROBERT LAMBERT SAMLL CHAPMAN
WILLIAM BOYINTON
OBADIAH ALLBEE
During the pendency of these petitions he persistently urged upon the Proprietors the importance of securing the incorporation of a town, reciting in letters to the Hon. Thomas Hubbard, of Boston, the needs of the com- munity in that respect, which letters indicate that he had their interest truly at heart, for he appears to have served them long and faithfully as an agent and a correspondent. All these petitions were drafted by him and may still be seen in his handwriting. The allusions to Goodwin's activities in behalf of an incorporation of Frankfort as a town, and the Plymouth Company's influence, brought forth from the former a long memorial to the governor in which he took issue with some of the statements in the Wiscasset petition. Soon after that the sixth and last French and Indian War came on, and it was not until after peace, consequent upon the fall of Quebec, that the town, then embracing the present towns of Wiscasset, Dresden, including Swan Island, and a part of Alna, was incorporated in 1760 under the name of Pownalborough.
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