CHAPTER XVI

NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MAINE

(1653-1658)

After the charter granted to the Council for New England in 1620, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason procured, August 10, 1622, a patent for "all that part of y^e maine land in New England lying vpon y^e Sea Coast betwixt y^e rivers of Merrimack & Sagadahock and to y^e furthest heads of y^e said Rivers and soe forwards up into the land westward untill threescore miles be finished from y^e first entrance of the aforesaid rivers and half way over that is to say to the midst of the said two rivers w^ch bounds and limitts the lands aforesaid togeather w^th all Islands and Isletts w^th in five leagues distance of y^e premisses and abutting vpon y^e same or any part or parcell thereoff."[1 ]

Mason was a London merchant who had seen service as governor of Newfoundland, and was, like Gorges, "a man of action." His experience made him interested in America, and his interest in America caused him to be elected a member of the Council for New England, and ultimately its vice-president.[2 ] The two leaders persuaded various merchants in. England to join them in their colonial projects; and in the spring of 1623 they set up two settlements within the limits of the present state of New Hampshire, and some small stations at Saco Bay, Casco Bay, and Monhegan Island, in the present state of Maine.

Of the settlements in New Hampshire, one called Piscataqua, at the mouth of the river of that name, was formed by three Plymouth merchants, Colmer, Sherwell, and Pomeroy, who chose a Scotchman named David Thompson as their manager. They obtained a grant, October 16, 1622, for an island, and six thousand acres on the main, near the mouth of Piscataqua; and here Thompson located in the spring of 1623. He remained about three years, and in 1626 removed thence to an island in Boston harbor, where he lived as an independent settler.[3 ] The other plantation, called Cocheco, was established by two brothers, Edward and William Hilton, fish-mongers of London, and some Bristol merchants, and was situated on the south side of the Piscataqua about eight miles from the mouth of the river.[4 ]

November 7, 1629, Captain Mason obtained a patent[5 ] from the Council for New England for a tract extending sixty miles inland and lying between the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, being a part of the territory granted to Gorges and himself in 1622. He called it New Hampshire in honor of Hampshire, in England, where he had an estate. Seven days later the same grantors gave to a company of whom Mason and Gorges were the most prominent merchants, a patent for the province of Laconia, describing it as "bordering on the great lake or lakes or rivers called Iroquois, a nation of savage people inhabiting into the landward between the rivers Merrimac and Sagadahoc, lying near about forty-four or forty-five degrees." And in 1631 Gorges, Mason, and others obtained another grant for twenty thousand acres, which included the settlement at the mouth of the Piscataqua.

Under these grants Gorges and Mason spent upward of £3000[6 ] in making discoveries and establishing factories for salting fish and fur trading; but as very little attention was paid to husbandry at either of the settlements on the Piscataqua, they dragged out for years a feeble and precarious existence. At Piscataqua, Walter Neal was governor from 1630 to 1633 and Francis Williams from 1634 to 1642, and the people were distinctly favorable to the Anglican church. At Cocheco, Captain Thomas Wiggin was governor in 1631; and when, in 1633, the British merchants sold their share in the plantation to Lord Say and Sele, Lord Brooke, and two other partners, Wiggin remained governor, and the transfer was followed by the influx of Puritan settlers.[7 ]

After the Antinomian persecution in Massachusetts some of Mrs. Hutchinson's followers took refuge at Cocheco, and prominent among them were Captain John Underhill and Rev. John Wheelwright. Underhill became governor of the town in 1638, and his year of rule is noted for dissensions occasioned by the ambitious actions of several contentious, immoral ministers. Underhill was the central figure in the disturbances, but at the next election, in 1639, he was defeated and Roberts was elected governor of Cocheco. Dissensions continued, however, till in 1640 Francis Williams, governor of Piscataqua, interfered with an armed force. Underhill returned to Boston, and by humbly professing repentance for his conduct he was again received into the church there.[8 ] He then joined the Dutch, but when Connecticut and New Haven were clamorous for war with the Dutch in 1653 he plotted against his new master, was imprisoned, and escaped to Rhode Island,[9 ] where he received a commission to prey on Dutch commerce.

Meanwhile, Mr. Wheelwright left Cocheco, and in 1638 established southeast of it, at Squamscott Falls, a small settlement which he and his fellow-colonists called Exeter.[10 ] In October, 1639, after the manner of the Rhode Island towns, the inhabitants, thirty-five in number, entered a civil contract to "submit themselves to such godly and Christian lawes as are established in the realm of England to our best knowledge, and to all other such lawes which shall, upon good ground, be made and enacted among us according to God." This action was followed in 1641 by their neighbors at Cocheco, where the contract was subscribed by forty-one settlers; and about the same time, it is supposed, Piscataqua adopted the same system.[11 ]

This change of fishing and trading stations into regular townships was a marked political advance, but as yet each town was separate and independent. The next great step was their union under one government, which was hastened by the action of Massachusetts. In the assertion of her claim that her northern boundary was a due east and west line three miles north of the most northerly part of the Merrimac, Massachusetts as early as 1636 built a house upon certain salt marshes midway between the Merrimac and Piscataqua. Subsequently, when Mr. Wheelwright, in 1638, proposed to extend the township of Exeter in that direction, he was warned off by Governor Winthrop, and in 1641 Massachusetts settled at the place a colony of emigrants from Norfolk, in England, and called the town Hampton.

Massachusetts in a few years took an even more decided step. At Cocheco, or Dover, as it was now called, where the majority of the people were Nonconformists, the desire of support from Massachusetts caused the policy of submission to receive the approval of both contending parties in town; and in 1639 the settlers made overtures to Massachusetts for incorporation.[12 ] The settlers at Piscataqua, or Strawberry Bank (Portsmouth), being Anglicans, were opposed to incorporation, but submitted from stress of circumstances. After the death of Captain Mason, in 1635, his widow declined to keep up the industries established by him, and sent word to his servants at Strawberry Bank to shift for themselves.[13 ]

Several years later Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke, who were the chief owners of Dover, obtained from Mason's merchant partners in England the title to Strawberry Bank, and being in sympathy with Massachusetts they offered, in 1641, to resign to her the jurisdiction of both places. The proposal was promptly accepted, and two commissioners, Symonds and Bradstreet, went from Massachusetts to arrange with the inhabitants the terms of incorporation. The towns were guaranteed their liberties, allowed representation in the Massachusetts general court, and exempted from the requirements of the Massachusetts constitution that all voters and officers must be members of the Congregational church.[14 ]

In 1643 Exeter followed the example of Dover and Strawberry Bank by accepting the protection of Massachusetts, but it thereby lost its founder. Being under sentence of banishment, Mr. Wheelwright withdrew to the territory of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, where, having obtained a patent, he founded the city of Welles. In 1644 he applied to Winthrop, and was permitted on a slight submission to take charge of the church at Hampton.[15 ] After several years he visited England, where he was a favorite of Cromwell. At the Restoration he returned and settled at Salisbury, in Massachusetts, where he died in 1679. He is perhaps the single bright light in the ecclesiastical history of early New Hampshire.[16 ]

The four towns—Dover, Strawberry Bank, Exeter, and Hampton, with Salisbury and Haverhill on the northern banks of the Merrimac—were, in 1643, made to constitute the county of Norfolk, one of the four counties into which Massachusetts was then divided.[17 ]

A similar fortune at a later date overtook the townships to the north of the Piscataqua. The origin of the name "Maine," applied to the regions of these settlements, has never been satisfactorily explained. Possibly it was a compliment to Henrietta Maria, the French wife of Charles I.; more probably the fishermen used it to distinguish the continent from the islands. The term "Maine" first occurs in the grant to Gorges and Mason, August 22, 1622, which embraced all the land between the Merrimac and the Sagadahoc, or Kennebec. By Mason's patent in 1629 the country west of the Piscataqua was called New Hampshire, and after that Maine was a name applied to the region between the Piscataqua and Kennebec. In more modern times it was extended to the country beyond, as far as the St. Croix River.

Under Gorges' influence Christopher Levett made a settlement in 1623 on an island in Saco Bay which has been called "the first regular settlement in Maine."[18 ] The same year some Plymouth merchants planted a colony upon Monhegan Island, which had been long a place of general resort for fishermen.[19 ] And about the same time Gorges made a settlement on the "maine" at Saco,[20 ] under the management of Richard Vines. By two patents, both dated February 12, 1630, this settlement was divided into two parts—one to Vines and Oldham, one to Lewis and Bonighton—each extending four miles along by the sea-shore and eight miles along the river-banks. These two tracts formed the township of Saco, a part of which now bears the name of Biddeford. In 1625 the settlement of Pemaquid is known to have occurred, but it was not patented till February 14, 1631, by the Bristol merchants Aldsworth and Elbridge. Next in order of settlement was probably the trading-post of the Plymouth colony at Kennebec, for which a patent was obtained in 1628.

Many other patents were issued by the Council for New England. Thus, March 13, 1630, John Beauchamp and Thomas Leverett obtained a grant of ten leagues square, between Muscongus and Penobscot Bay upon which they set up a factory for trading with the Indians; while the modern city of Scarboro, on Casco Bay, occupies a tract which was made the subject of two conflicting grants, one to Richard Bradshaw, November 4, and the other to Robert Trelawney and Moses Goodyear, December 1, 1631.[21 ]

Three other patents issued by the Council for New England, and having an important connection with subsequent history, remain to be mentioned. The first, December, 1631, granted twenty-four thousand acres ten miles distant from Piscataqua to Ferdinando Gorges (son and heir of John Gorges), Samuel Maverick, and several others. Many settlers came over, and the first manager was Colonel Norton, but in a short time he appeared to have been superseded by William Gorges, nephew of Sir Ferdinando Gorges.[22 ]

After the division in 1635, by which his title between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec was affirmed, Sir Ferdinando Gorges erected the coast from Cape Elizabeth, a few miles north of Saco, as far as Kennebec, into a district called New Somersetshire.[23 ] Two years later Gorges obtained from King Charles a royal charter constituting him proprietor of the "province or county of Maine," with all the rights of a count palatine.[24 ] The provisions of this charter are more curious than important. The territory granted, which included Agamenticus, was embraced between the Piscataqua and Kennebec, and extended inland one hundred and twenty miles. The lord proprietor had the right to divide his province into counties, appoint all officers, and to execute martial law. But while his rights were thus extensive, the liberties of the people were preserved by a provision for a popular assembly to join with him in making laws.

The charter certainly was out of keeping with the conditions of a distant empire inhabited only by red savages and a few white fishermen; but Gorges' elaborate plan for regulating the government seemed even more far-fetched. He proposed to have not only a lieutenant-governor, but a chancellor, a marshal, a treasurer, an admiral, a master of ordnance, and a secretary, and they were to act as a council of state.[25 ]

To this wild realm in Norumbega, Thomas Gorges, "a sober and well-disposed young man," nephew of the lord proprietor, was commissioned in 1640 to be the first governor, and stayed three years in the colony.[26 ] Agamenticus (now York) was only a small hamlet, but the lord proprietor honored it in March, 1652, by naming it Gorgeana, after himself, and incorporating it as a city. The charter of this first city of the United States is a historical curiosity, since for a population of about two hundred and fifty inhabitants it provided a territory covering twenty-one square miles and a body of nearly forty officials.[27 ]

The second of the three important patents led to the absorption of Maine by the government of Massachusetts. The claim of Massachusetts to jurisdiction over the settlements in New Hampshire as readily applied to Maine; and, in addition, the patent granted in June, 1632, by the Council for New England, to George Way and Thomas Purchas, gave a tract of land along the river "Bishopscot" or "Pejepscot," better known as the Androscoggin.[28 ] In 1639 Massachusetts, by buying this property, secured her first hold on the land within Gorges' patent.[29 ] The revival in 1643 of another patent, believed to have been abandoned, but with rights conflicting with the patent of Gorges, both prompted and excused the interference of Massachusetts.

The third great patent was a grant made by the Council for New England, in June, 1630, for a tract extending from Cape Porpoise to Cape Elizabeth, and hence taking in Gorges' settlement at Saco.[30 ] This patent was known as the Lygonian, or "Plough patent," the latter commemorating the name of the vessel which brought over the first settlers, who after a short time gave up the settlement and went to Boston in July, 1631. For twelve years the patent was neglected, but in 1643 the rights of the original patentees were purchased by Alexander Rigby, a prominent member of Parliament.[31 ] He sent over as his agent George Cleves, but when he arrived in America in 1644 his assumption of authority under the Plough patent was naturally resisted by the government of Sir Ferdinando Gorges.

Cleves set up his government at Casco, and Vines, his rival, organized his at Saco. When Cleves sent his friend Tucker to Vines with a proposal to settle the controversy, Vines arrested the envoy and threw him into prison. Both parties appealed to the government of Massachusetts, who gave them advice to remain quiet. The contention continued, however, and at last the Massachusetts court of assistants, in June, 1646, consented to refer the case to a jury. Then it appeared that there were six or eight patentees in the original Plough patent, and Mr. Rigby's agent could only show an assignment from two. On the other hand, Vines could not produce the royal patent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, which was in England, and had only a copy attested by witnesses. On account of these defects the jury declined to bring in a verdict.

Cleves had better fortune with the parliamentary commissioners for foreign plantations, to whom he carried the dispute, since before this tribunal the veteran Gorges, who had taken the king's side, had little chance to be heard. In March, 1646, they decided in favor of Rigby, and made the Kennebunk River the boundary-line between the two rival proprietors, thus reducing Gorges' dominions in Maine to only three towns—Gorgeana, Welles, and Kittery, which had grown up at the mouth of the Piscataqua opposite to Strawberry Bank.[32 ]

The year following this decision Gorges died, and the province of Maine was left practically without a head. The settlers wrote to his heirs for instruction, but owing to the confusion of the times received no reply.[33 ] In this state of doubt and suspense the general court was, in 1649, convoked at Welles, when Edward Godfrey was elected governor. Then another address was prepared and transmitted to England, but it met with no better fortune than the first. Accordingly, in July, 1649, the settlers of the three townships met at Gorgeana and declared themselves a body politic. Edward Godfrey was re-elected governor, and a council of five members were chosen to assist him in the discharge of his duties.[34 ]

In this state of affairs, deserted by their friends in England, the Maine settlements looked an inviting prey to Massachusetts. In October, 1651, three commissioners were appointed to proceed to Kittery to convey the warning of Massachusetts "against any further proceeding by virtue of their combination or any other interest whatsoever."[35 ] Godfrey declined to submit, and in behalf of the general court of the colony addressed a letter, December 5, 1651, to the Council of State of Great Britain praying a confirmation of the government which the settlers had erected. Cleves, at the head of the Rigby colony, made common cause with Godfrey and carried the petition to England, but he met with no success. The death of Rigby rendered Cleves's influence of no avail against the Massachusetts agent, Edward Winslow, who showed that Cleves's mission had originated among American royalists.[36 ]

This opposition, in fact, served only to hasten the action of Massachusetts. In May, 1652, surveyors were appointed by the general court who traced the stream of the Merrimac as far north as the parallel of 43° 40' 12".[37 ] Then, despite the protests of Godfrey, commissioners were again sent to Kittery, where they opened a court, November 15, and shortly after received the submission of the inhabitants.[38 ] They next proceeded to Gorgeana, where the like result followed, Governor Godfrey reluctantly submitting with the rest. Gorgeana was made a town under the Massachusetts jurisdiction, by the name of York, and all the country claimed by Massachusetts beyond the Piscataqua was made into a county of the same name.[39 ]

Next year, 1653, commissioners were sent to Welles, the remaining town in the Gorges jurisdiction, to summon to obedience the inhabitants there and at Saco and Cape Porpoise, in the Lygonian patent, and the conditions made resistance unlikely. Disregarding the Rigby claims,[40 ] the settlers in southern Maine accepted the overture of the Massachusetts commissioners. Accordingly, Welles, Saco, and Cape Porpoise followed the example of Kittery and Gorgeana, and came under the government of Massachusetts.

The inhabitants north of Saco about Casco Bay remained independent for several years after. Cleves and other leading inhabitants would not submit, and they tried to secure the interference of Cromwell. When they failed in this attempt, the people of Casco Bay, in 1658, recognized the authority of Massachusetts. It was at this time that the plantations at Black Point, at Spurwink, and Blue Point were united and received the name of Scarboro and those at Casco Bay received that of Falmouth.[41 ]

Whatever judgment we may pass on the motives of Massachusetts in thus enlarging her borders to the farthest limits of settled territory north of Plymouth, it must be acknowledged that her course inured to the benefit of all parties concerned. The unruly settlements of the north received in time an orderly government, while each successive addition of territory weakened the power of the religious aristocracy in Massachusetts by welcoming into the body politic a new factor of population.