EARLY PATENTS IN MAINE courtesy of David Colby Young This was a college paper for Gy 1776 sumitted to Prof Mr. Damron at UMF (c) 1998 by David C. Young The paper will deal with the early patents prior to the 1700's and some of the people, how they lived, and how some of the disputes were handled. I will deal first with the Thomas Purchase and Way Patent. This grant was not extensively defined, but it is said to be a certain tract of land that is around the Bishopscotte, and "all that bounds and limits the main land adjoining river to the extent of the main land adjoining the river to the extent of two miles only." 1 The Purchase and Way Patent "covered a tract of land known as Pejepscot Claim. In the patent were part of Great Island, the portion of Harpswell Neck between the two carrying places as well as most of the present towns of Brunswick, Topsham, Durham, Danville, Lisbon, Lewiston, a part of Bowdoin, a part of Minot and a part of Poland." 2 Pejepseot was the Indian word for "crooked like a diving snake".3 Pejepscot was made up of the present towns called Danville, Lewiston, Greene, a part of Lisbon, a part of Leeds, a part of Poland, and Minot, Durham, Bowdoin, Topsham, Brunswick and Harpswell. 4 It is said that Thomas Purchase "was the first individual to settle in the region of Androscoggin about 1628 as he was there before the issue of the patent. .."15 He resided within the town presently-known as Brunswick. 6 In his deed of 1639, Governor Winthrop & Company of Mass. granted Thomas Purches (sic) "the right of jurisdiction only and not the right to the soil. The 'four miles square towards the sea...direction towards Casco Bay, which is only about four miles distant'...probably at that time the only settler In Brunswick, Topsham and Harpswell."7 Purchase was said to have lived in three areas (1) Stevens' Carrying Place, (2) Pejepscot Falls, and (3) Ten Mile Falls (Little River). He lived as a trader with the Indians; to monopolize the trade as much as possible, it was said that he re-moved a few times. He caught and cured sturgeon and salmon at Brunswick Falls. 8 When he was an old man, it is thought that he -took a farm at New Meadows.9 I would like to mention now some of the other early settlers and visitors to this part, The people who came across were as follows: Christopher Dawson, Christopher Gardiner and May Gove. Dawson had been banished from Massachusetts Colony "for being an outlaw". 10 "Gardiner was banished from Massachusetts on the dual charge of being a Roman Catholic and an immoral man ... Gardiner brought his mistress, May Gove, with him....and she later became the wife of Thomas Purchase in 1631." 11 By the time of the 1700's, the grant had slowly been turned over to the group of people who would be known as the Pejepscot Proprietors. The name of the man who seems to have had control of a good part of the land was Wharton and the tract was called the Pejepscot Claim, later called Pejepscot Purchase. 12 In 1639, Thomas Purchase was said to have taken a step that made history. He "signed off to Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay Colony jurisdiction to all the tract of land at Pejepscot.....this event paved the way for the 1652 attempt by Massachusetts Commonwealth to take over the entire Province of Maine." 13 The Thomas Purchase Patent had very few disputes that I could find, but it was also settled later than the next two grants that I will mention. The Pemaquid Patent and Pentagoet Patent were of the same time period but of different countries. There are mentioned a few disputes. I will try to keep them separate, but their historical geography is interrelated. The Pemaquid Patent, or Purchase, which we will deal with in this paper will be the Brown Deed. Capt. John Somerset and Unongoit, Chief of the Sagamore Indians, sold the tract of land "beginning at Pemaquid Falls and so running a direct course to the head of New-Harbour, from thence to the south end of Muscongus Island, taking in the island and so running five and twenty miles into the northwest by west to Pemaquid where first begun ... to John Brown on the date of July 24, 1626." 14 One of the early people of the Pemaquid area was Thomas Gyles. He was said to have purchased some land on the north side of the Pejepscot river a few miles below Topsham village in 1669. He had his share of bad luck as one of his sons was "tortured to death at the stake by a slow fire" at a young age. The other son, at an approximate age of 6. was captured by the Indians and used as a slave, never to be seen by his mother again, This boy was sold to a French gentleman on the Penobscot and treated with kindness, but he escaped in 1698, at about 20 years of age.15 "Palmer & West, agents of Duke of York at Pemaquid, laid claim to the country as far east as St. Croix, the limit of Duke's patent. A shipmaster of Piscataqua, hot knowing of their claim, landed a cargo of wines consigned to Castine at Pentagoet 'a I mile from Castine's house:.. 4 Palmer and West sent a ship to seize the cargo because ... duties had not been paid at Pemaquid." 16 In 1688, Sir Edmund Andros disarmed Castine's fort. "He left a message...if...he desired goods.....go to Pemaquid and acknowledge allegiance -4- to the King of England. The Massachusetts government later disavowed all responsibility for the ill-timed desent upon Castine occurred when France and England were at peace. The English were soon to hear from their doughty neighbor.'.17 Acadia, as a conquered province, was made a part of the territory of Massachusetts under the new charter of 1692. In 1693, Castine took the allegiance to the English King* 18 Pemaquid and other settlements built Indian Forts for the unexpected attacks of the Indian wars. I will mention some of these by listing: Frederick, erected 1729 in Pemaquid; George, erected 1715 in Brunswick; George, erected in 1779 in Castine; LaTour and Alexander, erected 1630 on the St. John River; Pemaquid, erected 1667; Penobscot 16-- built by LaTour; St. George, erected 1707 in Popham Colony; Shirley, erected 1754 in Frankfort; and Western, in 1754 in Augusta. 19 Some of the above forts have French names but they are listed as defense forts. I will mention why that might have come about later in the paper under the Pentagoet Patent. The complete destruction of the fort and settlement at Pemaquid did come. This was "a great achievement by the Indians". 20 They were recorded to have said" with two hundred French men ... ready to follow their lead they would not hesitate to march upon Boston' ... the feelings of the French in Nova Scotia and Canada were to exclude the English from the continent at least as far south as New York and New Jersey." 21 This last part of the paper will deal with the French. The French started trading with the Indians in this area about 1605. The History of Stockton Springs said that in 1630, the English established a trading house at Pentagoet which was the peninsula where Castine stands today. It also stated that there was no French Settlement in this area prior to 1759. 22 The French were in this area; however, their settlement would not have left any traces as they lived with the Indians as a rule and were traders by occupation. The patent of Acadia was granted by Henry IV of France to DeMonds on November 8, 1603, "...lying between 40 and 46 degrees of latitude...."23 DeMonts colonized the island of St. Croix below Calais in 1604 and Jesuit colonists were on the Penobscot in 1611 and at the Mount Desert in 1613. 24 The fort at Castine, on the other hand, was just the out post of a very few people. Castine's house was a "long, low irregular building, constituted partly of wood and partly of stone and rather a grotesque appearance. The windows were small and located high up so no one could look in from outside." 25 The surrounding fort contained twelve guns, a well, and a chapel with a bell. The chapel was built of timber and mud walls on which was a small steeple with a metallic bell. 26 The French settlements and forts were simple, but the English are recorded to go as far as importing bricks for England to build some of their churches in these early years. Castine Is said to have married Madockawando, daughter of the chief, after living with her and some of her other sisters also. M. Perrot, governor of Acadia, put him in jail because of "a little weakness of his for some Indian women." 27 "I see plainly what is the matter with him," wrote Castine to Gov. Denonville at Quebec. "'He wants to be the only merchant in Acadia'". The two last statements could well be true. If this is true, it gives -6- some reasons for the fall of New France. ".*.La Hontan...predicted the English will be masters of Acadia some time or other because the French government enriches itself by Indian trade to the neglect of fortification." 28 It is said that the sons of Mathilde (Castine's Indian wife) married French women and were soldiers in the cause of New France, and his daughters married French nobles.29 Castine must have agreed with La Hontan as he is recorded to have asked deMenneval, the governor of Acadia, for "thirty soldiers to aid him in maintaining himself" at Pentagoet fort as a posture of defense. It was given a seal of approval, but no troops were sent.30 The Bay Colony, as I have mentioned before, had not liked the idea of the French in Maine. There was a try to attack the French right out of Castine, but Plymouth and the Bay Colony could not get together so "for many years the French dominated a considerable portion of the Coast of Maine."31 King Charles II of England, who was engaged In liquidating the British empire for what he could personally get out of it, handed over to his first cousin, Louis XIV of France, Acadia, in 1667, but it did not change hands until 1670.32 The Dutch, in 1673, tried to capture the French fortifications at Penobscot but the hopes of conquering this territory were lost completely as they were driven out by the English.33 After the British seized the St. John River, the French and Indians had no outlet to the sea except down the Penobscot. After raids were made upon the settlements, the British thought there was need for a fort on the Penobscot River.34 The French influence in Maine had declined greatly by 1730. The -7- Indians had no regular priests. In 1763, France surrendered Canada. The last of the Maine missions had disappeared by the Revolutionary period.35 Not all the Indians however, were friendly to the French* The Iroquois nation was always hostile to the Catholic Church.36 Another group that was not for the French was the Mohawks. They felt that the French had badly treated them on an earlier occasion and they refused the requests of the French. Moreover, they also refused the Colonial request.37 The forts that were built for protection from Indian attacks might have been both French and English, or French forts that had been taken by England. All these grants that I have mentioned showed the money-hungry white man. The deeds, as a rule, didn't mean anything unless you had a good army to back up the claim. I have become a little more knowledgeable of land grants in early Maine, but still know very little on the subject. -8- F 0 0 T N 0 T E S 1 Wheeler, George Augustus. History of Brunswick, Topsham and H , 1878 p. 9. 2 Alexander, William T., Harpswell on Casco Bay, printed by Print Shop Inc. Portland, Me. about 1974 p.6. 3 0ur Town Brunswick, Maine by Louise R. Helmreich Ph.D. 1976, p. 3- 4 Ibid., p. 699 5 Wheeler, George Augustus, op. cit., p. 8 6 Wheeler, p. 89 7 Wheeler, p. 10. 8 Alexander, p. 6. 9 Wheeler, p. 8. 10 Alexander, p. 7. 11 Alexander, P. 7 12 Alexander, p. 12. 13 Alexander, p. 6. 14 Farnham, Mary Frances, History of Maine by Maine Historical Society, 1901, p. 81. 15 Cartland, J. Henry, History of Pemaquid, 1914, p. 173. 16 Parker, Arlita Dodge, History of Pemaquid., Monhegan. Popham, and Castine,(Boston, Mass, 1925), p. 125 17 Ibid., p. 126. 17 Ibid., p126 18 Ibid., p. 126. 19 Dunnack, Henry Ernest, The Maine Book (Augusta, Maine, 1920), p. 46. 20Cartland, p. 174. 21 Ibid., p. 173 22 Ellis, Alice V., Story of Stockton Springs, 1855, P- 1. 23 Farnham, p. 1. -9- 24 Dunnack, p. 42. 25 Parker, p. 121. 26 Ibid . 0 p. 122. 27 Ibid., p. 122. 28 Ibid., p. 122. 29 Ibid., p. 123 30 Ibid., p. 125 3l Sawtelle, William Otis, Historic Trails and Waterways of Maine (Maine Development Commission, c.1832). 32 Hale, Richard Walden Jr., History of Bar Harbor, (Ives Washburn, Inc. , 1949) , p . 40 . 33 Federal Writers' Project, Maine 1937, P- 34 Ellis, p. 2. 35 Ellis, op. cit, p. 33. 36 Federal Writers' Project, p. 33, 37 Alexander, p. 4, LIST OF WORKS CITED Alexander, William T., Harpswell on Casco Bay, printed by Print Shop, Inc., Portland, Me. 1974. Cartland, J. Henry, Pemaquid, 1914. Dunnack, Henry Ernest, The Maine Book, Augusta, Me., 1920. Ellis, Alice V., The Story of Stockton Springs, Maine, 1855- Farnham, Mary Frances, History of Maine, Maine Historical Society, 1901. Federal Writers' Project, Maine 1937- Hale, Richard Walden, Jr., History of Bar Harbor, Ives Washburn Inc., 1949. Helmreich, Louise R., Our Town Brunswick, Maine, 1976. Parker, Arlita Dodge, History of Pemaquid, Monhegan, Popham, and Castine,, Boston, Mass., 1925. Sawtelle, William Otis, Historic Trails and Waterways of Maine, Maine Development Commission, c.1832. Wheeler, George Augustus, History of Brunswick, Topsham and Harpswell, 1878. ********************** Courtesy of David Colby Young ************************************************* * * * * NOTICE: Printing the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. 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