Maine
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MEGenWeb is a free genealogical site about the history of the State of Maine.
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The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620. The history of Maine antedates that
memorable event. Martin Pring, an English explorer, was on the coast of Maine in
1603. De Monts, a Frenchman, landed with colonists on the island of St. Croix,
below Calais, in 1604. Waymouth, with a band of English explorers, was at St.
George's Island Harbor and ascended the St. George's river in 1605. Pring was
here again in 1606. The Popham colonists established themselves at the mouth of
the Kennebec in 1607. There were Jesuit colonists on the Penobscot in 1611 and
at Mount Desert in 1613. English fishermen and traders were then on the coast
from year to year. Capt. John Smith was at Monhegan in 1614. Long after the
landing of the Pilgrims, Maine held an independent position. The grant of the
Province of Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason, by the Great
Council of New England, was made in 1622. Christopher Levett secured from the
same source in 1623 a grant of six thousand acres in Casco Bay.
In 1629,
the Pilgrims at Plymouth secured a grant of land on both sides of the Kennebec,
which enabled them to control the Indian trade of the river, and which later,
having been sold by them, was known as the "Kennebec Purchase." A grant of land
on the north side of the Saco river, including the site of the present city of
Saco, was made by the Great Council in 1630 to Thomas Lewis and Richard
Bonighton. Also, in the same year, land on the south side of the Saco, including
the site of the present city of Biddeford, was granted to John Oldham and
Richard Vines. That also was the date of the Muscongus Patent, granting lands at
Muscongus to John Beauchamp and Thomas Leverett, a grant later known as the
Waldo Patent. The Lygonia Patent, covering a tract of land forty miles square,
extending from Cape Porpoise to the Androscoggin River, bears the same date. The
Black Point Grant to Thomas Cammock, a nephew of the Earl of Warwick, was made
in 1631. So also in the same year a grant of land on the Pejepscot river was
made to Richard Bradshaw; another of land on Cape Elizabeth to Robert Trelawny
and Moses Goodyear; another on the east side of the Agamenticus river to
Ferdinando Gorges, a grandson of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Walter Norton and
others; also two thousand acres at Cape Porpoise to John Stratton; also land at
Pemaquid to Robert Aldworth and Gyles Elbridge. In 1632, grants of land on the
Pejepscot river were made to George Way and Thomas Purchase.
In 1634, in
the final division of the Patent for New England by the great Council, number
seven, including the territory between the Piscataqua, and the Kennebec, was
assigned to Sir Ferdinando Gorges. In 1636, Gorges leased to George Cleeve and
Richard Tucker "a neck of land called Machegonne," now Portland. The royal
charter of the Province of Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges by Charles II,
designed to confirm the allotment made to Gorges in the division of the Patent
for New England, was granted in 1639. During the decade and more that followed,
affairs were in a disturbed state in the province because of the conflict
between the King and Parliament. As the power of the royalist party in England
weakened, George Cleeve in 1643, in opposition to the Gorges interest, enlisted
the aid of Colonel Alexander Rigby in resuscitating the Lygonia Patent of 1630,
and received a commission as Deputy President of the Province of Lygonia. Other
interests were pressing. In this unsettled state of affairs civil government of
necessity languished, and in 1651 the General Court of the Province of Maine
appealed to Parliament for protection.
Thus far, in these beginnings of
colonization, Maine had maintained an independent position. But at this juncture
of affairs the colonists of Massachusetts Bay saw an opportunity to extend their
dominion in this direction. The charter of the Bay colony established its
northern boundary three miles north of the Merrimac river. This was now
interpreted to mean three miles north of the source of the river, and a line
drawn east from this point to the sea brought the land covered by the Gorges and
Cleeve interests within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. In 1652, the General
Court appointed Commissioners to determine the line, but not without protest and
opposition on the part of the colonists of Maine who were in sympathy with the
above interests. Gradually the Government of Massachusetts was extended
northward. Kittery and Gorgeana yielded submission in 1652; Wells, Cape Porpoise
and Saco in 1653; and Black Point, Blue Point, Spurwink and Casco in 1658..."
To this newly acquired territory, Massachusetts gave the name Yorkshire, or
County of York. Subsequently, after the overthrow of the Protectorate and the
restoration of Charles II, the colonists in the former Province of Maine
requested to be placed again under the authority of the King, or of the heir of
Sir Ferdinando Gorges. But the General Court of Massachusetts also sent a
petition to the King, and matters were allowed to rest until 1664, when the
grandson of Gorges obtained an order from the King requiring Massachusetts to
restore the Province of Maine to Gorges or his Commissioners. After various
efforts on both sides, the territory meanwhile being brought under the
jurisdiction of a provincial government independent of Massachusetts and the
Gorges interests, the General Court of Massachusetts, March 15, 1678, purchased
of Ferdinando Gorges, grandson of Sir Ferdinando, all his interest in the
Province of Maine for twelve hundred and fifty pounds sterling. This purchase
strengthened the hold of Massachusetts upon its former eastward possessions, and
in 1680 the General Court proceeded to reorganize civil administration in Maine
with Thomas Danforth as President of the Province. But the charter of
Massachusetts was annulled in 1684, and the government of the colony reverted to
the crown. Charles 11 died in 1685, and James II appointed Andros Governor of
New England. His career was cut short by a revolution in England, which drove
James from the throne; and William and Mary, who succeeded James, issued October
7, 1691, a charter, which incorporated, under the title of the "Province of
Massachusetts Bay," the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, the Colony of Plymouth, the
Province of Maine and the territory of Nova Scotia. In this way the title of
Massachusetts to the territory east of the Piscataqua was confirmed, though on
account of its remoteness and the distracted state of the country Nova, Scotia
was separated from the Province of Massachusetts Bay by the Lords of Trade in
1696, and it was made a royal province in 1713. Maine remained a part of
Massachusetts until the separation in 1820.
--Extracted from The Maine
Book by Henry E. Dunnack, 1920, pages 42-44.
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This page was last updated
03/06/2025