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.