Maine Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

English common law inherited through Massachusetts

Maine's law is English common law — law made by judges and handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature. It reached Maine through Massachusetts.

English settlement began at the mouth of the Kennebec in 1607, and lasting settlement followed along the coast in the 1620s. In the early 1650s the Massachusetts General Court took in the country beyond the Piscataqua as a county called Yorkshire, and gave its inhabitants the same protection and justice as those south of the river. The province charter of 1691 made the territory part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. From the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 until 15 March 1820 it was the District of Maine, governed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts¹.

For any question before 1820, then, the law that governed in Maine was Massachusetts law, and this guide gives the Massachusetts rule as the Maine rule for those years.

The four bodies of law and where each applies

Four bodies of law follow one another. Knowing which one covers your year is the first step in any Maine question.

The colony code settled several ages that Maine still used three centuries later. The Body of Liberties of 1641 fixed the age of discretion for passing away land, for giving votes, and for giving verdicts in a civil court at twenty-one years, and the printed code carried that rule forward under the heading of ability and age². So the age of majority, the age to convey land, and the age to sit on a jury were all twenty-one from the colony period onward.

What separation changed

The Constitution of 1820 carried the whole existing body of law forward. All laws then in force in the State, and not repugnant to the constitution, remained in force until the Legislature altered or repealed them³. A Maine rule of the 1820s is therefore usually a Massachusetts rule, and the first Maine statute on a subject often restates what was already being done. Where the new State did change a Massachusetts rule — the age at which a man became taxable, the property test for jurors — this guide says so at that point.

What shapes a Maine record

Three features run through almost everything.

One set of intestacy rules covers land and goods together. Where an administrator had personal property left over after debts, the judge distributed it by the same rules that governed the descent of real estate⁴. A Maine estate file carries a single distribution covering both.

Dower — a widow's life interest in her husband's land — reached every parcel he held during the marriage. That is why wives appear on Maine deeds.

The work is split between county and town. Probate — the court business of proving a will and settling an estate — is county work, as is the registry of deeds. Marriage intentions and returns, and births and deaths, sat with the town clerk.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Majority at twenty-one

Full legal age was 21, for women and men alike, through 1950. The rule comes from the common law. The colony fixed it in writing in 1641², and the statutes on both sides of 1820 simply assume it. The Massachusetts wills act of 1783 gave the power to devise land — to leave it by will — to a person of the age of twenty-one years and upwards⁵. Maine's own statutes speak of a person under twenty-one years of age and of arriving at full age.

What a minor could and could not do

A minor could own property. What the law restrained was the minor's power to bind himself. A contract made by a minor could be enforced against him only if he ratified it in writing after turning 21. There were two exceptions: necessaries, and real estate to which he had received the title and kept the benefit⁶.

A deed given by a minor worked on the same principle. It was voidable, meaning it stood until the minor chose to undo it. So a minor's land was ordinarily sold for him by a guardian under a license from the probate court rather than by his own deed.

Marriage

Age and parental consent

A boy could marry at 14 and a girl at 12. These are the common-law ages, and they governed in Maine through 1950. What the statutes regulated was consent.

The colony required that an intended marriage be published beforehand, that it be solemnized only by a person authorized to do it, and that a fatherless minor marry only with the consent of the selectmen or a magistrate⁷. Under the province act of 1692–93 a justice of the peace or settled minister could marry only persons having the consent of those whose immediate care and government they were under⁸. No ages were named, so the requirement reached any party still under a parent's or master's government.

The Massachusetts act of 1786 put figures on it. Where a male under 21 or a female under 18 was to be married, the consent of the parent, guardian, or other person whose immediate care and government that party was under had first to be obtained — if that person was within the Commonwealth⁹. Maine's first marriage act, in 1821, carried the same two ages forward¹⁰, and they were still being printed in the same words more than a century later¹¹.

Two consequences follow, and they hold from 1786 to 1950. A bride of 19 needed nobody's permission; a groom of 19 did. And a consent filed with the intentions brackets an age — it tells you the man was under 21, or the woman under 18. The requirement reached only a parent or guardian living in the state, so an underage marriage with no consent on file can still be perfectly regular.

From 1929 a marriage under 16 took an extra step. The clerk could issue the certificate only with the written consent of parents or guardians living in the state, and only after notifying the judge of probate for the county in writing. The judge could order that no certificate issue¹².

Common-law marriage was never valid in Maine

Maine has never recognized common-law marriage — the idea that a couple who live together and hold themselves out as married are married in law. A valid marriage always required a ceremony before an authorized officiant, meaning a justice of the peace or a settled minister. That requirement runs unbroken from the colony code through the province act of 1692–93, Maine's own act of 1821, and every revision after it¹³. When the question finally reached the Supreme Judicial Court, the court traced the statutory method of entering marriage back beyond statehood and held that the private agreement of the parties does not make a marriage¹⁴.

For research this means two things. A couple who simply lived together remained single in the eyes of the law, and their children were born out of wedlock and inherited on that footing (see Inheritance). And there should be a record: an intention, a return, or both. If a couple appears as husband and wife with no marriage record anywhere, the explanation is an unrecorded ceremony, a marriage in another state, or a relationship the law did not treat as a marriage at all — not a common-law marriage recognized by Maine.

One qualification. A marriage solemnized before a person who was a known inhabitant professing to be a justice of the peace or an ordained or licensed minister stood despite any want of authority in that person, and despite any omission or informality in entering the intention, if it was otherwise lawful and either party believed in good faith that they were lawfully married¹⁵. So an irregular Maine marriage is still a real marriage and its children are legitimate.

How a marriage was recorded

A couple published their intention before the ceremony, and the officiant then made a return. The place that return was filed changed twice, and it decides where to look. Under the province act the return went quarterly to the clerk of the sessions of the peace for the county. The act of 1786 moved it to the town clerk once a year in April, and Maine kept the annual town return¹⁶. So a marriage before 1786 is looked for in county sessions records and one after it in the town book.

Statewide registration began on 1 January 1892, and Maine marriage records from that date are markedly fuller¹⁷. A couple who married out of state and came home to live had to file a certificate with the town clerk within seven days of their return¹⁸.

Who could not marry

Marriage within the prohibited degrees of kindred — the list of relatives too close to marry — was incestuous and void, and Maine's 1821 act set out the full list for each sex¹⁹. A marriage contracted while either party had a husband or wife still living and undivorced was void²⁰. A person who was insane or an idiot could not contract marriage²¹, and from 1917 the same rule reached the feeble minded²².

Maine residents who went to another state to marry in order to evade these rules, and then came back to live, found the marriage void here²³.

The ban on interracial marriage from 1705 to 1883

The ban is a Massachusetts rule that Maine inherited, and it is older than the State by more than a century. The province act of 1705–6 forbade any of the Queen's English or Scottish subjects, or of any other Christian nation in the province, to contract matrimony with a Black or mixed-race person, and forbade anyone authorized to solemnize marriages to join such a couple, on a penalty of fifty pounds. The same act protected one right on the other side of the line: no enslaver was to unreasonably deny marriage to an enslaved man he held with a woman of the same nation²⁴. Such a marriage was solemnized and returned like any other, so it belongs in the same town and county records as the rest.

The Commonwealth re-enacted the prohibition in 1786, with the same penalty, and declared all such marriages absolutely null and void²⁵. Maine's first marriage act, in 1821, re-enacted it again²⁶, and it was carried into every revision for sixty years more²⁷.

Because the marriage was void rather than merely voidable, the children of such a couple were illegitimate and could not inherit from their father. That is what the Supreme Judicial Court held in 1852, in an estate dispute over a man who had died without a will after fifty-nine years of marriage. The marriage was treated as never having existed, and the children took nothing through him. The same case decided who counted as white by a fractional test, holding that a woman with one-sixteenth Native ancestry was a white woman and that her husband, a man of mixed race, was not a white man²⁸. Racial descriptions in Maine records of this period are legal conclusions drawn that way, not self-descriptions.

Where an interracial couple's estate was settled before 1883, expect the property to have passed to collateral kin, and expect the children to appear in the record as heirs of their mother alone (see Inheritance). Because the ban named Indians, it reached marriages between white people and Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Micmac people for the whole of that time.

It ended on 12 March 1883, when the Legislature struck the words out of the statute and left the section reading only that no insane person or idiot was capable of contracting marriage²⁹.

Property Ownership

Men and land

A man could own land at any age, taking it by descent, gift, devise, or purchase. The age that mattered was 21, when he could deal in it himself. The colony had already required a written deed for any conveyance of houses or land, and had already fixed twenty-one as the age for passing land away³⁰. Maine's rule was the same: a person owning real estate and having a right of entry could convey it by a deed acknowledged and recorded³¹.

Marriage changed nothing about a man's own land. He bought, sold, and devised it in his own name, and his signature alone carried the deed, subject to his wife's dower (below).

A foreign-born man held land on the same terms as anyone else. An alien could take, hold, convey, and leave by will any interest in real estate³². A Maine deed to an unnaturalized immigrant is good, and no naturalization record stands behind it.

Enslaved people and free people of color

Slavery was lawful in Maine through most of the province period, and an enslaved person was property rather than an owner of it. The province tax acts had the assessors rate enslaved people as personal estate alongside the cattle and horses, at a fixed value for each man and woman³³. An enslaver who wanted to free someone had first to give the town treasurer security of at least £50 against the freed person ever needing relief. Without that security the manumission did not take, the person stayed the enslaver's charge, and the selectmen could put him out to service³⁴. For these years, look for enslaved people in estate inventories, tax valuations, and bills of sale rather than in the deed books.

Slavery ended under the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, whose Declaration of Rights opens by saying that all men are born free and equal³⁵. The Supreme Judicial Court read that clause as leaving no room for slavery in the Quock Walker cases, decided between 1781 and 1783³⁶. The change came from the courts rather than the Legislature, so there is no repealing act to look for in the session laws.

Free people of color held, conveyed, inherited, and devised land on the same terms as anyone else, and appear in the land and probate records accordingly. Maine entered the Union in 1820 as a free state, and its constitution made every male citizen of the United States aged 21 and upwards an elector without reference to race³⁷. The one race-based restriction that touched a Maine title was the marriage ban above, and it worked through inheritance rather than through the deed.

Women and land from 1844 to 1857

Through the Massachusetts period and the first quarter-century of statehood, a married woman lived under coverture — the common-law rule that merged a wife's legal identity into her husband's. A single woman or widow could buy, own, sell, sue, and be sued freely. A married woman held her land subject to her husband's management, and he took its rents and profits.

Maine dismantled coverture in six statutes over thirteen years, and each one changes what to expect in the records. In the language these acts use, to be seized of property is to own and hold it.

The date to remember is 22 March 1844. A woman marrying after it kept her property, and a husband marrying after it acquired no right to any property of his wife⁴⁴. Rights a husband had acquired by an earlier marriage were untouched, so for couples married before 1844 the old law kept running.

By 1857 the position was this. A married woman of any age could own real and personal estate in her own right. She could manage, sell, convey, and devise it by will as if single, without her husband's joinder or assent — except for land that had come from him⁴⁵. Note the words of any age: a married woman under 21 could convey, so never assume a signing wife had reached majority.

When a wife signed a deed

The driver is dower.

Dower is a widow's life interest in her husband's land: the use of one-third of it for the rest of her life, with ownership passing to the heirs. It attached to every parcel the husband held at any time during the marriage, so a buyer needed the wife to give up her claim.

The colony already gave the widow the use of a third of the houses and lands her husband held during the marriage, to be assigned within one month⁴⁶. The Massachusetts act of 1783 called it her just third part. The heir had one month after her demand to set it out, and she could sue if he did not. Three disinterested freeholders of the county — men who owned land outright — laid it off under oath, and where the land would not divide she took a third of the rents and profits instead⁴⁷. Maine carried that common-law dower forward without change⁴⁸.

A wife gave up dower by joining in her husband's deed, or in a later one⁴⁹. Her signature and the ordinary acknowledgment before an official were all that was needed.

The husband's counterpart right was curtesy — a widower's life interest in his late wife's land. Where the land came to her before 22 March 1844, was under improvement, and a child was born alive of her body who could inherit it, he held it for his life as tenant by the curtesy. Where a wife died without a will leaving a solvent estate, he had the use for life of one-third of her real estate if she left children, and one-half if she left none⁵⁰.

Two words in the table below carry a lot of weight. Issue means children and their descendants. To hold land in fee is to own it outright, as against holding only the use of it for life.

The 1895 act, approved 26 March 1895, put that inheritable share in the place of dower and curtesy⁵³. The share still reached land the deceased had owned during the marriage unless it had been barred or released, so the spouse's joinder in a deed remained necessary. What the survivor ended up holding was now ownership rather than a life interest. The couple's marriage date decides which rules apply: a widow whose husband died in 1896 took dower if they had married in 1880, and the new share if they had married in 1896.

Dower reached a wood lot or other land used with the farm or dwelling house though never cleared, and stopped short of wild lands⁵⁴. It was set out by three discreet and disinterested persons on the judge of probate's warrant, by metes and bounds — measured boundary lines⁵⁵. That return is filed in the probate court, and it often describes the homestead field by field and names the heirs it is carved out of.

Children and land

A child could own land at any age. Conveying it went through the probate court. A minor's real estate was sold under a license of court, on petition, with a bond, and the deed was executed by the guardian⁵⁶. A Maine deed conveying a child's land has a probate file standing behind it, and that file names the family.

Deed formalities and witnesses

A Maine deed was signed by the grantor — the person making the deed — acknowledged before an official, and recorded in the registry of deeds for the district where the land lay⁵⁷.

A witness to a deed could be of any age, provided he understood an oath and could relate what he had seen. Competency was the only test the statute set. What the statute did do was make a subscribing witness — one who signs the deed — useful. Where a grantor died or left the state without acknowledging his deed, its execution could be proved by such a witness before a court of record⁵⁸. In practice witnesses were adults and often neighbors or kin, which makes the names at the foot of a Maine deed worth collecting.

The Penobscot and Passamaquoddy

Land on the tribal reservations was held under a certificate rather than a deed. The State's agent for each tribe gave each person a certificate of the lot laid out to him for cultivation. The lot could not be sold or leased, nor its growth carried off faster than clearing required, without the agent's permission⁵⁹. Contracts made with a member of either tribe for trees, timber, or grass on the tribal lands were void unless examined and allowed by the agent⁶⁰. Where a transaction in tribal land or timber turns up, the operative document is the agent's allowance, and it is filed with the agent's accounts rather than in the registry of deeds.

Inheritance

The eldest son's double share before 1790

A person who died without a will died intestate. For the first century and a half of Maine's recorded settlement the estate was not divided equally, and this is an important thing to know about an early Maine estate.

The rule is as old as the colony. The Body of Liberties of 1641 provided that when parents died intestate the eldest son should have a double portion of the whole estate, real and personal, unless the General Court judged otherwise, and that where there were no heirs male the daughters should inherit as coparceners, meaning together in equal shares⁶¹. The colony's county courts divided and assigned the estate, and set out the widow's third⁶².

Under the province act of 1692–93 the judge of probate divided what was left after debts and funeral charges. The wife took one-third of the personal estate outright, on top of her dower in the houses and lands for life. Everything else, real and personal, went in equal portions to the children and to those standing in a dead child's place — except the eldest surviving son, who took two shares. Where there were no sons the daughters inherited together in equal shares, and a child already provided for during the parent's life had that provision counted against his share⁶³.

The Commonwealth restated the same scheme in 1783. Land went in equal shares to the children and those standing in a dead child's place, except the eldest surviving son, who had two shares. Personal estate was divided the same way, after the widow had taken her one-third of it outright — one-half where there were no children⁶⁴.

The double share ended on 1 January 1790. The act of 1789 provided that from that day real and personal estate should descend and be distributed in equal shares among the children and their representatives⁶⁵. An estate division in Maine before that date should give the eldest son twice what each of his brothers and sisters received; one after it should give them all the same. A division that does not fit the year is a signal to check the dates again.

What the widow and children took

The ladder Maine used from 1805 through 1950 was settled by the Massachusetts act of that year. Land went first to the children and to the issue of a dead child. Failing them it went to the father, then to the mother together with the brothers and sisters, then to the mother alone, then to the next of kin. For want of any kindred it escheated, meaning it fell to the State. Curtesy and dower were saved out of it in every case. Personal estate went to the same people in the same proportions, except that a surviving husband took the whole residue and a widow took one-third where there were children and one-half where there were none⁶⁶. Maine re-enacted both the ladder⁶⁷ and the fractions⁶⁸.

One phrase recurs in the tables below. To take by right of representation is for the children of someone who died first to divide between them the share their parent would have taken.

The surviving spouse's share of the personal estate was a fixed fraction, and it held whatever the number of children.

Anything left in an administrator's hands after debts and expenses, and not left to a named person by the will, was distributed by these same rules⁶⁹. Before 1895 the widow's interest in the land itself was dower, a life estate in one-third. The 1895 act extended these same fractions to real estate⁷⁰, which is why one-third, one-half, and the whole reappear there.

The widow's allowance

On top of her share a widow received an allowance out of the personal estate. The judge set the amount, over and above her wearing apparel, according to her husband's degree and estate and the state of the family under her care⁷¹. It was available in any estate where there was no will, and in one with a will that was insolvent, meaning the debts exceeded the assets, or that made no provision for her. It is a separate probate record, and it usually names the family.

Where a will made a specific provision for the widow, she had six months after the will was proved to choose between taking it and claiming her dower. She could not have both unless the will plainly so intended⁷². Her choice, or her silence, is in the probate file.

Minors and guardians

A guardian was appointed chiefly because a minor owned property. A minor inherited immediately, and managing the inheritance is what the guardian was for. Where a child inherited nothing there was often no guardianship record at all. In Maine the appointment was made by the judge of probate for the county where the minor lived, or where the minor's estate lay if he lived out of state. No executor or administrator of an estate could be guardian to a minor interested in it⁷³.

At fourteen the child chose, and this rule is as old as the province. The Massachusetts act of 1783 let the judge of probate approve a guardian chosen by a minor of fourteen, and appoint one for a child under that age. The judge took security from every guardian and made him account when the minor reached twenty-one⁷⁴. A minor over fourteen who lived more than ten miles from the judge could have his choice certified by a justice of the peace, or by the town clerk where no justice lived in the town. Maine carried the rule, the ten-mile proviso and all, into its own statutes⁷⁵. A father could also appoint a guardian for his minor children by will, and that appointment likewise ran only to 14⁷⁶.

The value of this to a researcher is high. A guardianship record in which the child does the choosing is evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year. A new guardian replacing an existing one at about the same time points the same way.

Guardians gave bond and settled their accounts with the judge of probate at least once in three years, and oftener if cited⁷⁷. Guardianship ended at 21, with one exception worth knowing: on the marriage of a female minor under 21, her guardian's authority ceased⁷⁸. Where a girl's guardianship stops short of her majority, look for a marriage.

Children born outside marriage

Maine settled the inheritance rights of a child born outside marriage by statute, and the rule as it stood by the twentieth century ran in three parts⁷⁹.

• From the mother. Such a child, born at any time, was the heir of his or her mother.
• From the father, by the parents' marriage. A child born after 24 March 1864 was the heir of parents who afterwards intermarried.
• From the father, by his act. Where the father adopted the child into his family, or acknowledged in writing before a justice of the peace or notary public that he was the father, the child was his heir too.

In each case the child and its issue inherited from the parents and from their lineal and collateral kindred, and those kindred from the child, exactly as if the child were legitimate. So a later marriage, or a single acknowledgment filed with a justice of the peace, can turn a child born years earlier into a full heir. When an inheritance runs to such a child, that marriage or acknowledgment is the record to look for.

Paternity and support were fixed in a separate proceeding before a justice of the peace, on the mother's accusation and examination under oath. On a finding that the man was the father he was charged with the child's maintenance and gave bond⁸⁰. The file names the mother, the man, and usually the time and place, so it is worth ordering whenever it exists.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

The age to make a will was 21, for land and goods alike, and three witnesses were required. That is a Massachusetts rule of 1783 that Maine kept without alteration⁵. Maine's own section states it in one sentence: a person of sound mind and of the age of twenty-one years could dispose of real and personal estate by a will in writing, signed by him or by someone else at his request and in his presence, and subscribed in his presence by three disinterested and credible attesting witnesses⁸¹.

One exception arrived in 1917, and it is easy to miss. From that year a married woman or widow of any age could make a will. The three-witness requirement was untouched, and both the age and the exception were still printed in the revision in force in 1950⁸².

A witness to a will could be of any age. What the statute demanded was that the witness be credible and disinterested, meaning having nothing to gain under the will. A beneficiary among the three is therefore a problem, and that is why Maine will-drafters used neighbors rather than legatees. Witnesses competent when they attested stayed good even if they later became incompetent⁸³.

A child left out of the will still took a share as an heir, unless the omission was plainly intentional or that child had already had a fair portion during the testator's life⁸⁴. Property a will did not dispose of was distributed as though there had been no will.

The age to serve as executor or executrix was 21, and a woman named as executrix served on the same terms as a man. Where an executor named in a will was under 21 when the will was proved, the court granted administration to someone else for the duration of his minority. When the minor came of age he could be admitted as joint executor on giving bond⁸⁵. A change of administrator about twenty-one years after a testator's death often has exactly this explanation, and it dates a birth.

Taxation

The valuation list

Everything turns on the annual assessment. Each town's assessors took a list of the taxable polls — a poll being a person taxed by the head rather than on what he owned — and a valuation of the inhabitants' estates. The poll tax was assessed on each taxable person in the place where he was an inhabitant on the first day of May each year, and from 1853 on the first day of April⁸⁶. The list names every taxable man in the town, every year, and is the closest thing Maine has to an annual census.

Beyond the poll tax, individuals met a property tax on real and personal estate⁸⁷, a highway tax workable on the roads, and, in the twentieth century, an inheritance and succession tax that generated a return in the probate file, usually naming every beneficiary and their relationship to the deceased.

Who was a poll and at what age

The taxable age changed at statehood, and this is the fact most likely to mislead someone reading an early list.

The colony laid its rates on persons and estates together, and a child or servant living in a household was answerable through the head of that household⁸⁸. Under the province a male became a poll at 16, and he was one for the whole time Maine was governed from Boston. The first province tax act, of 1692–93, had the selectmen list every male person in the town from sixteen years old and upwards and taxed each one by the head, and the same age runs through the province tax acts of the following decade and through the District years. The valuation act of 1784 required the assessors of every town, district, and plantation to lodge a list of all male polls of sixteen and upwards, whether at home or abroad, marking those the law exempted⁸⁹. A colonial or District of Maine list therefore counts boys from their sixteenth year, five years earlier than a Maine list of the same town would.

One qualification belongs with those early lists. While slavery lasted, an enslaved person was rated as part of the owner's personal estate rather than counted as a poll, so an enslaved man of 16 appears in the valuation column and not the poll column³³. Free men of color were polls on the same footing as anyone else.

Maine set the age at 21. A poll tax was assessed on every male inhabitant above the age of twenty-one, citizen or alien, unless exempted⁹⁰. That standing rule dates from 1845. For the first quarter-century of statehood the age is not printed in the assessment chapter at all; it appears in the periodic valuation acts, the earliest of which to state it plainly is the act of 1840. For 1821 to 1840, then, twenty-one is an inference from valuation practice rather than a figure you can point to in an act of those years⁹¹.

Only men were polls in either period. Liability began at 16, or at 21 after 1820, and then ran for the rest of a man's life. The statutes set a starting age and left it at that.

Exemptions and why a man leaves the list

A man could drop off the poll list while alive and still living in town. The exempt classes were:

The polls and estates of all Indians, and the polls of persons under guardianship⁹² — later extended to the blind⁹³. Because tribal members were exempt, they are absent from the valuation lists that serve as a census substitute for everyone else.

The polls and estates of persons whom age, infirmity, and poverty together left, in the judgment of the assessors, unable to contribute toward the public charges. From the 1930 revision any one of the three sufficed⁹⁴.

By the twentieth century, veterans of the Civil War, the war with Spain, and the world war, together with pensioned soldiers and sailors. Their widows aged 62 and over had an estate exemption as well⁹⁵.

When a man vanishes from a poll list but appears elsewhere in the record, an assessors' exemption is usually the explanation — and after 1865, so is military service. Because no birthday ended the tax, an old man dropping off a list marks the year the assessors judged him unable to pay, not an age set by law.

Courts

Jury service before 1820

The colony fixed the age for giving a verdict in a civil court at twenty-one², and that age held through 1950.

Under Massachusetts the town chose its own jurors, and a juror had to own property. Thirty days before the sitting of the Supreme Judicial Court the clerk sent his warrant to the constables, who assembled the freeholders and other inhabitants qualified by law to vote for representatives. Those voters elected by ballot so many good and lawful men of their town, of like qualification and of good moral character, as the warrant directed⁹⁶. The qualification the voters and the jurors shared was the property test in the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780: a freehold within the town of the annual income of three pounds, or any estate of the value of sixty pounds⁹⁷.

So a Maine man serving on a jury before 1820 held property, and his name on a jury list is evidence of it.

Jury service after 1820

Maine dropped the property test and drew its jurors from its voters. Once every three years the town's municipal officers, treasurer, and clerk prepared a list of jurors and laid it before the town, which could strike names but not add any⁹⁸. The list was to be made up of persons of good moral character, qualified as the constitution directs to vote for representatives, and under the age of seventy years⁹⁹. The constitution made an elector of every male citizen of the United States aged 21 and upwards, resident three months, excepting paupers, persons under guardianship, and Indians not taxed³⁷.

The working test was therefore an adult man aged 21 to 70 who was a qualified voter of good moral character. Because Maine's elector clause set no property qualification, a Maine juror after 1820 needed no land. And because that clause drew no racial line, Black men in Maine were eligible for jury service from statehood. Tribal members, exempt from taxation and so within the exception for Indians not taxed, were outside the voter lists and therefore the jury lists.

A long list of public officers and professional men was exempt, and their names were kept off the lists altogether — state and federal officers, judges, court clerks, registers of probate and of deeds, settled ministers, teachers, doctors, bank cashiers, sheriffs, coroners, lawyers, constables, and ferrymen¹⁰⁰. Approved names were written on tickets and kept in the jury box at the town clerk's office, and a man was liable to be drawn once in three years and no oftener¹⁰¹.

Women became eligible in 1921, when the Legislature inserted ten words into the jury statute: but no person shall be disqualified by reason of sex¹⁰². The rest of the test was already in place by then. From 1935 the selection moved to county jury commissioners, who kept a list of persons male and female deposited with the clerk of courts and open to public inspection¹⁰³.

Criminal responsibility

The common law governed, and it went on governing. A child under 7 could not commit a crime at all. Between 7 and 14 the law presumed he could not, and the State had to overcome that presumption. From 14 he bore full responsibility. Maine never put those ages into a statute of its own, so they held through 1950.

What the Legislature built instead was a separate way of handling young offenders. From 1919 a boy between 8 and 16 convicted of an offense punishable in the state prison, the county jail, or the house of correction could be committed to the state school for boys instead of being sentenced. The record of conviction was to read that he was convicted of juvenile delinquency, and the court could close the hearing and keep the papers from general inspection¹⁰⁴. In 1921 that range moved to 11 to 17¹⁰⁵. In 1931 municipal court judges were given exclusive original jurisdiction over offenses by children under 15¹⁰⁶, and in 1933 that jurisdiction rose to 17¹⁰⁷. Under the 1931 act an adjudication was not a conviction for crime, and a delinquent child was not a criminal¹⁰⁸.

For research this means that from 1919 the record of a young offender reads juvenile delinquency rather than naming the offense, and that the papers may be closed from that year on. From 1931 they sit with a municipal court.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify, if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could give a rational account of what happened. Competency was the test, and the judge applied it witness by witness. Children did testify. The colony had already worked this way, setting no fixed age and requiring two or more witnesses to prove a will¹⁰⁹.

Two other rules shaped who took the stand, and both explain what a case file looks like. A person was competent whatever his religious belief, and one who did not believe in a Supreme Being testified under solemn affirmation instead of an oath¹¹⁰. And from 1856 the parties to a civil suit could testify, their interest going to credibility rather than competency¹¹¹. That is why a Maine lawsuit file from the 1830s and 1840s is full of depositions from neighbors and silent from the two people actually arguing.

A person convicted and sentenced in Maine for an infamous crime — treason, a felony, or an offense involving falsehood such as perjury or forgery — could not testify unless his competency was restored by a pardon¹¹².

These grounds — understanding of the oath, religious belief until it was made a question of credibility, interest until 1856, and conviction of an infamous crime — are the ones the statutes named, and they applied to everyone alike whatever their race or sex. Women were competent witnesses throughout the period, and so were Black and tribal witnesses.

Sources and Where to Verify

Constitutions

• Maine. Constitution of 1820. Original 1820 printing; art. II, § 1 (electors), art. X, § 3 (laws continued in force). Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1820/Laws1820_f0007-0036_MeConst.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Massachusetts. Constitution of 1780. Declaration of Rights, art. I (all men born free and equal); pt. 2, ch. 1, § 3, art. 4 (property qualification of a voter for representative). Printed in the front matter of The General Laws of Massachusetts, 1823. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass (accessed 4 August 2026).

Codes and Compilations

• The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1672. Containing also, the Body of Liberties of 1641. Edited by William H. Whitmore. Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, city printers, 1889. The colony law that governed in Maine from about 1652 to 1692. The Body of Liberties occupies pp. 29–68 (no. 53, age of discretion at twenty-one, p. 45; nos. 79, 81, 82, widow's portion and children's shares, p. 51); the code of 1660 follows at pp. 119–208, with the supplements to 1672 at pp. 217–262. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsofma1660mass (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. Edited by Nathaniel B. Shurtleff. 5 vols. in 6. Boston: William White, printer to the Commonwealth, 1853–54. The colony period; vol. 4, pt. 1, pp. 124–25, erects the country beyond the Piscataqua into the county of Yorkshire. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/recordsofgoverno41mass (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay. 21 vols. Boston: Wright & Potter, printers to the state, 1869–1922. The province acts in full, with the charters prefixed; vol. 1 covers 1692–1714, including ch. 4 (assessment; taxable polls from sixteen), ch. 14 (distribution of intestate estates), and ch. 25 (consummating of marriages) of 1692–93; ch. 23 of 1697 and ch. 7 of 1707 (assessors to rate enslaved people as personal estate); ch. 1 of 1703–4 (security required before manumission); and ch. 10 of 1705–6 (the ban on interracial marriage). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespubl_d01mass (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Vol. for 1784. Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Company, state printers, 1890. One volume of the thirteen-volume reprint of the session laws of 1781–1804, originally printed by Adams & Nourse and B. Edes and Sons. This volume carries 1784, ch. 23 (valuation; male polls from sixteen) and ch. 26 (tax). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/actsandlawscomm00massgoog (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The General Laws of Massachusetts, from the Adoption of the Constitution, to February, 1822. 2 vols. Boston: Wells & Lilly and Cummings & Hilliard, 1823. The essential volume for the District of Maine years (wills, descent, dower, guardians, marriage, jurors, valuation), each section printed with its colonial and province ancestry in the margin. Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass; vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas02mass (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Laws of the State of Maine. 2 vols. Brunswick: J. Griffin, 1821. The first Maine compilation, carrying forward the Massachusetts law in force in the District; ch. 40 (dower), ch. 70 (marriage), ch. 116 (assessment). Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1821/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine. Augusta: William R. Smith & Co., 1841. The first revision (passed 22 October 1840), cited throughout as the Revised Statutes of 1840. Individual chapters are posted as separate files in the form RS1840_c095.pdf. Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine. Bangor: Wheeler & Lynde, 1857. The essential nineteenth-century Maine volume (marriage, married women, dower, descent, distribution, guardians, wills, conveyances, jurors, evidence, taxation, Indians). Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine. Portland: Bailey & Noyes, 1871. The third revision. Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1871/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine. Portland: Loring, Short & Harmon, 1884. The fourth revision (passed 29 August 1883), cited throughout as the Revised Statutes of 1883. Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1883/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine. Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1904. The fifth revision (passed 1 September 1903), cited throughout as the Revised Statutes of 1903. Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1903/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine. Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1916. The sixth revision. Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1916/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine. Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1930. The seventh revision. Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine. Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1945. 2 vols. The eighth revision (passed 20 September 1944, taking effect 30 December 1944), cited throughout as the Revised Statutes of 1944. This is the code in force at the close of the period. Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1944/ (accessed 4 August 2026).

A note on the revision dates. Each revision is known by the year the Legislature passed it, but the printed volume usually carries the following year on its title page. The 1840 revision was printed in 1841, the 1883 revision in 1884, the 1903 revision in 1904, and the 1944 revision in 1945. This guide cites each one by the year of passage.

Session Laws

• Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Boston: state printers, 1780–1820. The acts governing the District of Maine, cited by year and chapter and reprinted in the General Laws of 1823: 1783, ch. 24 (devising lands); 1783, ch. 36 (descent of intestate estates); 1783, ch. 38 (guardians); 1783, ch. 40 (assignment of dower); 1784, ch. 4 (grand jurors); 1784, ch. 23 and ch. 26 (valuation and tax); 1786, ch. 3 (solemnization of marriages); 1789, ch. 2 (equal distribution of intestate estates); 1805, ch. 90 (descent and distribution).
• Public Laws of the State of Maine. 1820–1950. Every year is online, and each volume carries its own imprint on its title page. Acts cited in the notes, by year and chapter: 1844, ch. 117; 1845, ch. 159 and ch. 166; 1848, ch. 73; 1851, ch. 34; 1852, ch. 227, ch. 282, and ch. 295; 1853, ch. 33 and ch. 42; 1854, ch. 64; 1855, ch. 120; 1856, ch. 250 and ch. 266; 1857, ch. 8, ch. 59, and ch. 84; 1883, ch. 203; 1887, ch. 14; 1891, ch. 118; 1895, ch. 157; 1897, ch. 196; 1903, ch. 159; 1917, ch. 17 and ch. 40; 1919, ch. 58; 1921, ch. 129 and ch. 180; 1929, ch. 268; 1931, ch. 241; 1933, ch. 18 and ch. 118; 1935, ch. 90; 1940, ch. 71. Individual chapters are posted as separate files in the form 1895_PL_c157.pdf. Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Public Laws of the State of Maine. 1840, ch. 71 (the State Valuation, counting taxable polls as males twenty-one and upwards). Digital images. Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library. http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1840/1840_LAW_c071.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).

Court Cases

• Bailey v. Fiske. 34 Me. 77 (1852). The opinion is reprinted in full, with commentary, at “Facing Maine's Legal History: Bailey v. Fiske, a Case to Remember.” University of Maine School of Law. https://mainelaw.maine.edu/faculty/facing-maines-legal-history-bailey-v-fiske1-a-case-to-remember/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Commonwealth v. Jennison. Mass. Sup. Jud. Ct., 1783. The last of the Quock Walker cases; never reported. Read it in the presiding judge's notes: Cushing, William. “Legal notes about the Quock Walker case.” [1783]. William Cushing Papers. Digital images. Massachusetts Historical Society. https://www.masshist.org/database/630 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Morton v. Hayden. 142 A.2d 37 (Me. 1958). https://law.justia.com/cases/maine/supreme-court/1958/142-a-2d-37-0.html (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Pierce v. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. 254 A.2d 46 (Me. 1969). The leading statement that Maine does not recognize common-law marriage. https://law.justia.com/cases/maine/supreme-court/1969/254-a-2d-46-0.html (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Wade v. Warden. 145 Me. 120, 73 A.2d 128 (1950). https://law.justia.com/cases/maine/supreme-court/1950/73-a-2d-128-0.html (accessed 4 August 2026).

Secondary and Reference Works

• Cushing, John D. “The Cushing Court and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts: More Notes on the ‘Quock Walker Case.’” American Journal of Legal History 5, no. 2 (April 1961): 118–44. The documentary history of the cases that ended slavery in Massachusetts and so in the District of Maine.
• Library of Congress. Maine Local History and Genealogy research guide. https://guides.loc.gov/maine-local-history-genealogy (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Maine Center for Disease Control. Data, Research and Vital Statistics (vital records from 1923). https://www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/vital-records (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Maine State Archives. Genealogy research guide (pre-1892 town records; 1892–1922 vital records; probate, deed, and Indian agents' records). The guide to consult before relying on any statement here about what a record contains or where it was filed. https://www.maine.gov/sos/archives/archives-services/genealogy-research (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Maine State Law and Legislative Reference Library. Statutory history tables, showing which revision carries which act. Maine reissued its statutes in 1840, 1857, 1871, 1883, 1903, 1916, 1930, and 1944, and each revision prints a source line beside every section. https://legislature.maine.gov/legis/lawlib/lldl/stathist.htm (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Maine State Museum. Slavery and Maine. Education materials, grades 6–12. Background on slavery in the District of Maine and its end under Massachusetts law. https://mainestatemuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Introduction_Slavery-and-Maine-6-12.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Maine. Bulletin No. 157-18. Digital images. FRASER. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/legal-status-women-united-states-america-5430 (accessed 4 August 2026).

Citations

1. Province Charter of 1691, printed in The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1869), 1:1–20; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespubl_d01mass : accessed 4 August 2026). For the colony period, the General Court erected the country beyond the Piscataqua, with the Isle of Shoals, into a county called Yorkshire, its inhabitants to enjoy protection and justice equal with those south of the river: Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, ed. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff (Boston: William White, printer to the Commonwealth, 1854), 4(pt. 1):124–25; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/recordsofgoverno41mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
2. Body of Liberties of 1641, no. 53, printed in The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1672. Containing also, the Body of Liberties of 1641, ed. William H. Whitmore (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, city printers, 1889), 45: “The age of discretion for passing away of lands or such kinde of herediments, or for giveing of votes, verdicts or Sentence in any Civill Courts or causes, shall be one and twentie yeares.” The compiler’s concordance carries the same rule into the printed code as the law titled “Ability, Age”: ibid., 21, 121; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsofma1660mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩ ↩ ↩
3. Me. Const. of 1820, art. X, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1820/Laws1820_f0007-0036_MeConst.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
4. The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine (Bangor: Wheeler & Lynde, 1857), ch. 65, § 17, distributing the surplus personal estate according to the provisions of chapter seventy-five; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c065.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); the rule carried from The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine (Augusta: William R. Smith & Co., 1841), ch. 108, § 21; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c108.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
5. General Laws of Massachusetts (1823), the act of 1783, ch. 24, §§ 1–2, “An Act prescribing the Manner of devising Lands, Tenements, and Hereditaments”; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩ ↩
6. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 111, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c111.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 136, and Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1845, ch. 166; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1845/1845_PL_c166.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
7. The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1672. Containing also, the Body of Liberties of 1641, ed. William H. Whitmore (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, city printers, 1889): the intention of marriage to be published beforehand, 171; marriage to be solemnized only by persons authorized, and courtship of a maid without her parents’ consent forbidden, 172; the marriage of a fatherless minor to have the consent of the selectmen or a magistrate, 137; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsofma1660mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
8. Province act of 1692–93, ch. 25, “An Act for the Orderly Consummating of Marriages,” §§ 1–4, in Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1:61; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespubl_d01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
9. General Laws of Massachusetts (1823), the act of 1786, ch. 3, § 3, “An Act for the orderly Solemnization of Marriages” (passed 22 June 1786, in force from the last day of December 1786); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
10. Laws of the State of Maine (Brunswick: J. Griffin, 1821), ch. 70, § 5; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1821/1821_PL_c070.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
11. The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine (Augusta: Kennebec Journal Print, 1930), ch. 72, § 5; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c072.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Laws of Maine, 1821, ch. 70, § 5, through Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 87, § 7, Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, § 6; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) and Revised Statutes of 1903, ch. 61, § 5; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1903/RS1903_c061.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
12. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1929, ch. 268, “An Act Relating to Marriage”; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1929/1929_PL_c268.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); amending Revised Statutes of 1916, ch. 64, § 5; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1916/RS1916_c064.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried as Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 72, § 5. The section as amended withholds the certificate from a male under twenty-one or a female under eighteen, and from either party under sixteen, only where a parent or guardian is living in the state ↩
13. Laws of Maine, 1821, ch. 70, §§ 6–8, naming the justices of the peace and ordained ministers who alone might solemnize a marriage; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1821/1821_PL_c070.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried through Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, §§ 12, 14–16; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) and Revised Statutes of 1944, ch. 153, §§ 12–15; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1944/RS1944_c153.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
14. Pierce v. Secretary of the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 254 A.2d 46, 47–49 (Me. 1969), tracing the statutory method of entering marriage in Maine back beyond statehood and holding that the private agreement of the parties does not make a marriage; opinion, Justia (https://law.justia.com/cases/maine/supreme-court/1969/254-a-2d-46-0.html : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
15. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, § 17; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 87, § 18; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c087.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
16. Province act of 1692–93, ch. 25, § 3, in Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1:61 (quarterly return to the clerk of the sessions of the peace); General Laws of Massachusetts (1823), the act of 1786, ch. 3, §§ 5–6 (annual return each April to the town clerk); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026); and Laws of Maine, 1821, ch. 70, §§ 3–4; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1821/1821_PL_c070.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
17. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1891, ch. 118, §§ 1, 18; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1891/1891_PL_c118.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried as Revised Statutes of 1903, ch. 61, § 18; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1903/RS1903_c061.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
18. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, § 7; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) headed “Residents going out of state for purpose of marriage, to file certificate with town clerk on return”; the revisers’ marginal note gives its source as the act of 1852, ch. 282, § 3, which sets the seven days and the ten-dollar penalty; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1852/1852_PL_c282.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026). Now Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 72, § 7 ↩
19. Laws of Maine, 1821, ch. 70, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1821/1821_PL_c070.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried through Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 87, §§ 1–2, and Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, §§ 1–2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) now Revised Statutes of 1944, ch. 153, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1944/RS1944_c153.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
20. Laws of Maine, 1821, ch. 70, § 2; Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, § 4; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) Revised Statutes of 1944, ch. 153, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1944/RS1944_c153.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
21. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine (Portland: Loring, Short & Harmon, 1884), ch. 59, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1883/RS1883_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
22. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1917, ch. 40; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1917/1917_PL_c040.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried as Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 72, § 2, and Revised Statutes of 1944, ch. 153, § 2 ↩
23. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, § 10; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 87, § 10; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c087.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
24. Province act of 1705–6, ch. 10, §§ 4–5, “An Act for the Better Preventing of a Spurious and Mixt Issue,” in Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1:578–79; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespubl_d01mass : accessed 4 August 2026). Section 4 forbids any Christian subject to contract matrimony with a person described in the act as a negro or molatto, and forbids any person authorized to solemnize marriages to join them, on a penalty of fifty pounds; section 5 provides that no master shall unreasonably deny marriage to an enslaved man he holds with a woman of the same nation ↩
25. General Laws of Massachusetts (1823), the act of 1786, ch. 3, § 7, re-enacting the prohibition with the same fifty-pound penalty and declaring all such marriages absolutely null and void; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
26. Laws of Maine, 1821, ch. 70, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1821/1821_PL_c070.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
27. Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 87, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c087.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) The Revised Statutes of the State of Maine (Portland: Bailey & Noyes, 1871), ch. 59, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1871/RS1871_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
28. Bailey v. Fiske, 34 Me. 77, 80–82 (1852), cited in the margin of Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) the full opinion is reprinted, with commentary, in “Facing Maine’s Legal History: Bailey v. Fiske, a Case to Remember,” University of Maine School of Law (https://mainelaw.maine.edu/faculty/facing-maines-legal-history-bailey-v-fiske1-a-case-to-remember/ : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
29. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1883, ch. 203 (approved 12 March 1883); digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1883/1883_PL_c203.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); the result is printed at Revised Statutes of 1883, ch. 59, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1883/RS1883_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
30. The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1672. Containing also, the Body of Liberties of 1641, ed. William H. Whitmore (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, city printers, 1889): no conveyance of houses or lands good without a deed in writing, acknowledged and recorded, 140; the age of discretion for passing away lands fixed at twenty-one by Body of Liberties no. 53, 45; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsofma1660mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
31. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 73, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c073.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 91, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c091.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); now Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 87, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c087.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
32. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 73, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c073.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 91, §§ 2–3, and the act of 1854, ch. 64; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c091.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
33. Province act of 1707, ch. 7, § 6, “An Act for Better Inquiry into the Ratable Estate of the Province,” in Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1:614–15, directing the commissioner and trustees to estimate enslaved people proportionably as other personal estate, each man above fourteen at twenty pounds value and each woman of fourteen and upwards at fifteen pounds, in the same list as the cattle, horses, swine and sheep, while Native and mixed-race male servants are numbered and rated as other polls and not as personal estate; the earlier tax act of 1697, ch. 23, likewise rates enslaved people as other personal estate, 1:301–02; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespubl_d01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩ ↩
34. Province act of 1703–4, ch. 1, §§ 1–2, in Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1:519 (security of not less than fifty pounds to the town treasurer before manumission; without it the person is not accounted free, remains the charge of the master or mistress, and is liable to be put forth to service by the selectmen); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespubl_d01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
35. Mass. Const. of 1780, Declaration of Rights, art. I; printed in the front matter of General Laws of Massachusetts (1823); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
36. The Quock Walker cases, 1781–83, ending in Commonwealth v. Jennison (Mass. Sup. Jud. Ct. 1783). The case was never reported, so it has no reporter citation; the holding survives in the presiding judge’s own hand. William Cushing, “Legal notes about the Quock Walker case,” [1783], William Cushing Papers; digital images, Massachusetts Historical Society (https://www.masshist.org/database/630 : accessed 4 August 2026), where the chief justice records that the idea of slavery is inconsistent with the conduct and constitution of the Commonwealth. For the documentary history of the three cases see John D. Cushing, “The Cushing Court and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts: More Notes on the ‘Quock Walker Case,’” American Journal of Legal History 5, no. 2 (April 1961): 118–44 ↩
37. Me. Const. of 1820, art. II, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1820/Laws1820_f0007-0036_MeConst.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩ ↩
38. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1844, ch. 117, §§ 1–2, “An Act to secure to married women their rights in property” (approved 22 March 1844); digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1844/1844_PL_c117.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
39. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1848, ch. 73, §§ 1–2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1848/1848_PL_c073.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
40. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1852, ch. 227, § 1 (approved 23 February 1852); digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1852/1852_PL_c227.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
41. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1855, ch. 120, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1855/1855_PL_c120.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
42. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1856, ch. 250, § 1 (approved 4 April 1856); digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1856/1856_PL_c250.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
43. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1857, ch. 59 (approved 17 April 1857); digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1857/1857_PL_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
44. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 61, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c061.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Public Laws of Maine, 1844, ch. 117, §§ 2–3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1844/1844_PL_c117.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
45. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 61, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c061.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Public Laws of Maine, 1848, ch. 73, § 3, and 1856, ch. 250; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1856/1856_PL_c250.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
46. The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1672. Containing also, the Body of Liberties of 1641, ed. William H. Whitmore (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, city printers, 1889): the printed law titled “Dowries” gives the widow the use of one-third of the houses and lands her husband held during the marriage, to be assigned within one month, 146; Body of Liberties no. 79 provided that a widow left without a competent portion might have relief from the General Court, 51; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsofma1660mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
47. General Laws of Massachusetts (1823), the act of 1783, ch. 40, §§ 1–3, “An Act for the speedy Assignment of Dower, and for the preventing of Strip and Waste by tenants therein”; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
48. Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 95, § 1, carrying forward the common-law dower of the act of 1821, ch. 40, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c095.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); continued at Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 103, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c103.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩ ↩
49. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 103, § 8; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c103.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 95, § 9, and the act of 1853, ch. 33; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c095.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
50. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 103, § 17; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c103.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 95, § 18, and the act of 1857, ch. 8; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c095.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
51. Public Laws of Maine, 1895, ch. 157, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1895/1895_PL_c157.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried as Revised Statutes of 1903, ch. 77, § 8; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1903/RS1903_c077.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
52. Public Laws of Maine, 1895, ch. 157, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1895/1895_PL_c157.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); Revised Statutes of 1903, ch. 77, § 9; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1903/RS1903_c077.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
53. Public Laws of Maine, 1895, ch. 157, § 13; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1895/1895_PL_c157.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
54. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 103, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c103.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 95, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c095.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
55. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 103, §§ 3–4, 6; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c103.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 95, §§ 3–4, 6; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c095.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
56. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 71, ch. 71 entire; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c071.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 112; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c112.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
57. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 73, §§ 23, 25; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c073.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 91, §§ 24–25; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c091.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
58. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 73, § 18; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c073.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 91, § 18; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c091.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); now Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 87, §§ 29–31; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c087.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
59. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 9, §§ 14–15; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c009.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
60. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 9, §§ 5–6; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c009.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 15, §§ 5–6; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c015.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
61. Body of Liberties of 1641, no. 81, printed in The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1672. Containing also, the Body of Liberties of 1641, ed. William H. Whitmore (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, city printers, 1889), 51: “When parents dye intestate, the Elder sonne shall have a doble portion of his whole estate reall and personall, unlesse the Generall Court upon just cause alleadged shall Judge otherwise.” No. 82, on the same page, provides that where there are no heirs male the daughters shall inherit as coparceners; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsofma1660mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
62. The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1672. Containing also, the Body of Liberties of 1641, ed. William H. Whitmore (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, city printers, 1889): the county court to divide and assign the estate of an intestate, and the shares of sons and daughters, 201; the widow’s third assigned as dower, 146; probate of a will at the next county court, on the oath of two or more witnesses, 200–201; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsofma1660mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
63. Province act of 1692–93, ch. 14, “An Act for the Setling and Distribution of the Estates of Intestates,” in Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1:43–44; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespubl_d01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
64. General Laws of Massachusetts (1823), the act of 1783, ch. 36, §§ 1–4, “An Act directing the Descent of intestate Estates, and for empowering the Judge of Probate to make Partition in certain cases” (passed 9 March 1784); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
65. General Laws of Massachusetts (1823), the act of 1789, ch. 2, “An Act directing an equal Distribution of the Estates of Intestates” (passed 8 June 1789, taking effect the first day of January next following); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
66. General Laws of Massachusetts (1823), the act of 1805, ch. 90, §§ 1–2, “An Act regulating the Descent and Distribution of Intestate Estates”; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas02mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
67. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 75, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c075.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 93, § 1 (with the act of 1852, ch. 295); digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c093.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); recast by Public Laws of Maine, 1895, ch. 157, § 1, now Revised Statutes of 1903, ch. 77, § 1, and Revised Statutes of 1944, ch. 156, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1944/RS1944_c156.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
68. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 75, § 9; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c075.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 93, §§ 17–19, and the act of 1857, ch. 84; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c093.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
69. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 65, § 17; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c065.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
70. Public Laws of the State of Maine (Augusta: Burleigh & Flynt, 1895), ch. 157, § 1, rewriting chapter 75, section 1, of the Revised Statutes; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1895/1895_PL_c157.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried as Revised Statutes of 1903, ch. 77, § 1 (with the acts of 1897, ch. 196, and 1903, ch. 159); digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1903/RS1903_c077.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
71. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 65, § 13; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c065.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 108, §§ 18–19; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c108.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
72. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 103, § 12; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c103.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 95, § 13; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c095.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
73. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 67, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c067.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 110, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c110.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
74. General Laws of Massachusetts (1823), the act of 1783, ch. 38, § 1, “An Act empowering the Judges of Probate to appoint Guardians to minors and others”; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
75. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 67, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c067.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 110, §§ 2–4; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c110.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
76. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 59, § 24; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c059.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 88, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c088.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
77. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 67, §§ 10, 18; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c067.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
78. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 67, § 17; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c067.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 110, §§ 25–26; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c110.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
79. Revised Statutes of 1903, ch. 77, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1903/RS1903_c077.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); the earlier rule stood at Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 75, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c075.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) until Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1887, ch. 14, “An Act to provide for the descent of intestate estates of and to Illegitimates,” repealed sections three and four of that chapter and put the present rule in their place; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1887/1887_PL_c014.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
80. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 97, §§ 1–3, 6–7; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c097.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 131, §§ 1, 9–10; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c131.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
81. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 74, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c074.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) in that form from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 92, §§ 1–2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c092.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); through Revised Statutes of 1871, ch. 74, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1871/RS1871_c074.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); and Revised Statutes of 1883, ch. 74, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1883/RS1883_c074.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
82. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1917, ch. 17, inserting the words ‘and a married woman or widow of any age’ into Revised Statutes of 1916, ch. 79, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1917/1917_PL_c017.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried as Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 88, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c088.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); and Revised Statutes of 1944, ch. 155, § 1, which keeps the age of twenty-one, the married woman’s exception, and the three credible attesting witnesses not beneficially interested; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1944/RS1944_c155.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
83. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 74, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c074.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
84. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 74, §§ 8–9; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c074.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 92, § 17; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c092.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
85. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 64, § 15; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c064.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 106, §§ 11–12; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c106.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
86. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 6, § 7; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c006.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Public Laws of Maine, 1845, ch. 159, § 6; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1845/1845_PL_c159.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); and the act of 1853, ch. 42, § 2 ↩
87. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 6, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c006.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Public Laws of Maine, 1845, ch. 159, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1845/1845_PL_c159.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
88. The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1672. Containing also, the Body of Liberties of 1641, ed. William H. Whitmore (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, city printers, 1889): the rates laid on persons and estates, with parents and masters answerable for the poll of a child or servant living with them, 134–35; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsofma1660mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
89. Province act of 1692–93, ch. 4, § 1, in Acts and Resolves of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1:29, requiring the commissioner and selectmen to make a true list of all the male persons in the town from sixteen years old and upwards, and taxing every such person by the poll; the same age recurs in the province tax acts of 1692–93, ch. 41, 1696, ch. 3 and ch. 16, 1697, ch. 23, 1698, ch. 15, and 1700–1, ch. 13; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespubl_d01mass : accessed 4 August 2026). For the District years, the Commonwealth act of 1784, ch. 23, “An Act for Inquiring into the Rateable Property of this Commonwealth,” requires the assessors of each town, district, and plantation to lodge a list of all male polls sixteen years old and upwards, whether at home or abroad, distinguishing such as by law are exempted from rates; and the tax act of 1784, ch. 26, assesses the male polls above the age of sixteen years at eleven shillings and eight pence each, those under a master or mistress being taxed to the master or mistress: Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, vol. for 1784 (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1890), reprinting the acts of that year; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/actsandlawscomm00massgoog : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
90. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 6, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c006.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Public Laws of Maine, 1845, ch. 159, § 1, “A poll tax shall be assessed upon every male inhabitant of this state above the age of twenty-one years, whether a citizen of the United States or an alien, in the manner provided by law unless he is exempted therefrom by the provisions of this act”; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1845/1845_PL_c159.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); now Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 13, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c013.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
91. Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 14, § 17, the listing provision, carried from the act of 1821, ch. 116, § 11; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c014.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026). Neither the act of 1821 nor the revision of 1840 states the taxable age in the assessment chapter itself; it is the periodic valuation acts that supply it, and the earliest of them to do so in terms is the act of 1840, ch. 71, the State Valuation, which required assessors to return a list of all the male polls of twenty-one years of age and upwards liable to be taxed; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1840/1840_LAW_c071.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026). For 1821 to 1840 the age of twenty-one is therefore an inference from the valuation practice and from the standing rule of 1845, not a figure printed in an act of those years ↩
92. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 6, § 6, Sixth; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c006.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Public Laws of Maine, 1845, ch. 159, § 5; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1845/1845_PL_c159.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
93. Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 13, § 6, VIII; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c013.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
94. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 6, § 6, Seventh; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c006.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) reading “age, infirmity and poverty,” as does its source, Public Laws of Maine, 1845, ch. 159, § 5; the conjunction is “or” by Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 13, § 6, IX; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c013.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026). Neither chapter sets an age at which liability to the poll tax ended ↩
95. Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 13, § 6, IX; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c013.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
96. General Laws of Massachusetts (1823), the act of 1784, ch. 4, § 1, “An Act regulating the Appointment and Services of Grand Jurors”; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
97. Mass. Const. of 1780, pt. 2, ch. 1, § 3, art. 4, requiring of a voter for representative a freehold within the town of the annual income of three pounds, or any estate of the value of sixty pounds; printed in the front matter of General Laws of Massachusetts (1823); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/generallawsofmas01mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
98. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 106, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c106.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 135, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c135.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
99. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 106, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c106.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 135, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c135.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); now Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 120, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c120.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
100. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 106, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c106.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 135, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c135.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); now Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 120, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c120.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
101. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 106, §§ 4–5; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c106.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 135, §§ 4–6; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c135.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
102. Public Laws of the State of Maine (Lewiston: Lewiston Journal Printshop, 1921), ch. 180, § 1; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1921/1921_PL_c180.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); amending Revised Statutes of 1916, ch. 111, § 2, by inserting the words “but no person shall be disqualified by reason of sex”; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1916/RS1916_c111.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); § 2 of the same act adds nurses to the exempt occupations in ch. 111, § 3. The remaining qualifications — good moral character, approved integrity, sound judgment, well informed, and qualified to vote for representatives — are printed as already standing in the section the act amends. Carried as Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 120, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1930/RS1930_c120.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
103. Revised Statutes of 1944, ch. 103, § 2; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1944/RS1944_c103.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried from Revised Statutes of 1930, ch. 120, through the act of 1935, ch. 90 ↩
104. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1919, ch. 58; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1919/1919_PL_c058.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); amending Revised Statutes of 1916, ch. 144, § 3; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1916/RS1916_c144.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); quoted in Morton v. Hayden, 142 A.2d 37, 38–39 (Me. 1958); opinion, Justia (https://law.justia.com/cases/maine/supreme-court/1958/142-a-2d-37-0.html : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
105. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1921, ch. 129, striking the words “eight and sixteen” from Revised Statutes of 1916, ch. 144, § 3, and inserting “eleven and seventeen”; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1921/1921_PL_c129.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); and see Morton v. Hayden, 142 A.2d at 39 ↩
106. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1931, ch. 241, §§ 1, 4; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1931/1931_PL_c241.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); Morton v. Hayden, 142 A.2d at 40, 47–48 ↩
107. Public Laws of the State of Maine, 1933, ch. 18; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/Laws/1933/1933_PL_c018.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); and see ch. 118, § 5-B ↩
108. Wade v. Warden, 145 Me. 120, 125, 128, 73 A.2d 128 (1950); opinion, Justia (https://law.justia.com/cases/maine/supreme-court/1950/73-a-2d-128-0.html : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
109. The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts. Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, with the Supplements to 1672. Containing also, the Body of Liberties of 1641, ed. William H. Whitmore (Boston: Rockwell and Churchill, city printers, 1889): the age at which testimony might be given in criminal or civil causes, 201; two or more witnesses required to prove a will, 201; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/coloniallawsofma1660mass : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
110. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 82, § 77; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c082.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 115, § 72, and the act of 1851, ch. 34; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c115.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
111. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 82, §§ 78–80; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c082.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) from the act of 1856, ch. 266 ↩
112. Revised Statutes of 1857, ch. 82, § 89; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1857/RS1857_c082.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) carried from Revised Statutes of 1840, ch. 133, § 54, which admits no person convicted of an infamous crime and sentenced in this state as a competent witness in any civil or criminal cause unless his competency has been restored by a pardon; digital images, Maine Law and Legislative Digital Library (http://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/RS/RS1840/RS1840_c133.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩

Note: This law guide was created with assistance from multiple AI tools. Though a diligent effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, there may be unintentional errors. It's important to check the primary sources as needed to ensure accuracy.