Radio Script #951

Little Talks on Common Things
December 10, 1972

Many times on this program I have mentioned the records kept by proprietors of large tracts of land in Maine, but until recently my information had come from second-hand sources. But last summer it was my privilege to see the original, hand-written records of a Maine proprietary.

The most important of such records, as concerning our own area of Central Maine, are those of the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, now carefully preserved in the library of the Maine Historical Society in Portland. I intend soon to examine those records, which have been acquired since I last visited that library on Portland’s Congress Street, on the property that was once the home of our Maine poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The records that I did see last summer are those of the “Proprietors of Land at the Head of Navigation on the Penobscot River”. The tract involved, acquired by a group of proprietors in 1785, was in what are now the city of Brewer and the town of Orrington. Those old records cast much light on the way Massachusetts investors speculated in Maine lands in the late 18th century, some time before Maine became a separate state.

Much of Maine land in 1780’s was in the domain known as the Massachusetts Public lands. Before Massachusetts became a state after the Revolution, many Maine acres had already been sold, notably the two separate tracts totaling two million acres known as the Bingham Purchase. Under statehood, Massachusetts appointed a land agent to whom prospective buyers had to apply.

The first item in the old record book concerns the plan of a group of men in certain Massachusetts towns near Brockton to secure Maine land for speculation and hoped-for profit. Here is what that first record says: “Walpole, June 28, 1784. At a meeting of a number of gentlemen, to wit: Col. Sabin Mann, Major Moses Knapp, Captain James Thresher, Captain David Holbrook, and six others, for the purpose of petitioning the land agent for a township on the Penobscot River, it was voted to choose a committee to see if there are any unappropriated lands to be disposed there by the Commonwealth of Mass.”

At the next meeting on July 1, the committee reported that three townships were available on the east side of the Penobscot River, and that the river is navigable upward of thirty miles from its mouth for vessels of 30 tons burden. It was then voted to petition for one of those townships at the head of navigation. Inserted in the record at this point is the wording of the petitioners.

“To the Land Agent of the Commonwealth of Mass. Your petitioners, being desirous of obtaining by purchase a township of unappropriated land on the east side of the Penobscot River at the head of navigation, consisting of six miles square, they humbly pray that the Commonwealth will sell them a township of public lands on such terms as shall be beneficial to the petitioners and to the Commonwealth.”

On July 14, the company of prospective proprietors passed the following vote: “It being thought proper that one or more of the company should view the land personally on the Penobscot, in order to obtain further information about its quality, situation and advantage, Major Knapp and Lt. Plymj>t;- were chosen to pursue this matter directly.”

When the committee finally reported in October, the company voted to offer two shillings an acre for the uppermost of the three available townships. The land agent wanted a better price and refused to sell. After more bickering, the company agreed to pay double their original offer, or four shillings an acre. It should be recalled that the New England shilling was valued at 6 shillings to a dollar as soon as U.S. Federal currency was established. So what those Massachusetts men paid for more than 22,000 acres of Maine land was 67 cents an acre. On March 2, 1785 the deal was finally consummated and every member of the company signed the obligation to pay for the land in two installments. By that time the number of proprietors had increased to thirty.

It was then decided to call the company “The Proprietors of Land at the Head of Navigation on the East Side of the Penobscot River”, and it was voted that any proprietor who himself wished to settle on the land should have the right to take immediately a lot of 100 acres if he would agree to clear five acres by the end of June in 1786.

Now the problem was to get settlers, because none of those speculating proprietors seemed disposed to give up their Massachusetts homes for the wilderness of Maine. They at once made a lotted survey of their township, and allowed for roads, both parallel to the river and at right angles to it, so that the township would be crossed by appropriate highways. The proprietors were bound by the usual terms of reserved lots found in most such township organizations in Maine between the Revolution and and the formation of the separate state in 1820. Those terms called for 200 acres to be reserved for the first settled minister, 200 for support of the ministry, and 200 for a grammar school. The whole township extended up the east side of the Penobscot from the northern border of what was then called Bucks Town, and now Bucksport.

Every such proprietorship had trouble with squatters and with timber thieves. So those Penobscot proprietors ordered their appointed committee to make a proclamation forbidding trespass on the land and, in the words of the order, “forbid any person to transport from the land, either by land or water, any lumber or hay that may be cut, stored or stacked on the property”.

A certain Capt. Fowler was made resident agent for the proprietors, and he had his hands full dealing with squatters and looters of timber. He asked the proprietors to dispatch a message to all similar agents in the area that it would be desirable for representatives of neighboring townships to get together and make agreement about trespass and looting, and especially to settle disputes about certain of the river lots just north of Bucks Town.

In September, 1785, the proprietors considered a complete report made by their committee to survey their township into suitable lots. They had laid out the land inland from the river lots, (those having been previously lotted and still in some dispute with proprietors of Bucks Town). Those back lots had now been divided among forty of the proprietors, and the area consisted of upland, meadow and cedar swamp.

They had also laid out a road parallel with the backline of the township and named it the Bragmadore Road. From this road, at right angles they had laid out four other roads to the river, the northernmost of which they named the Kenduskeag Road. The committee submitted a bill of several expenses amounting to 93 pounds, 2 shillings, and 2 pence. A month later the committee reported that they had allotted 400 acres to each proprietor, and there were still left unassigned ten rights, to each of which they had assigned a house lot, though no individual owner was yet apparent.

By the beginning of 1786 the proprietors had a new agent, Lewis Whitney. They urged him to give special attention to the still unsettled dispute with Bucks Town over the front lots and see that the proprietors got justice. That dispute was finally settled when the Penobscot Proprietors relinquished all claim to certain front lots adjoining Bucks Town, in exchange for which Bucks Town allowed roads to the proprietors back lands and control of certain river landings.

The tract still needed settlers, though agreements had been made with a few squatters who were allowed to stay. In April, 1786, the company drafted the following settlers’ agreement: “To give to settlers, not exceeding 30 in number, who shall go and settle on the lands of the Penobscot Proprietors, ten bushels of grain (five rye and five Indian) a year, for three years, provided they settle before December 31, 1787, and perform the following duties: Clear three acres and build a comfortable log house 18 feet square during the first year and during the second year clear five more acres, and in the third year seven more acres. If any settler has his family with him on his lot, he shall have ten additional bushels of grain.”

By the end of 1786 there were several settlers. The committee then reported: “He have reserved two lots in the first division, southwest of the Kenduskeag Road, for the future disposition of the Government, and two lots for the care of the ministry and for a grammar school.

On April 3, 1787, the proprietors voted to change their long unwieldy township name to the single word China. They did not, of course, know that another township far away near the Kennebec would eventually get that official name. At the same meeting it was voted “to give five pounds, five shillings in cash, grain, or other articles, to any number of settlers not exceeding six who will repair to China and settle on the back lands with their families before June 30, 1787, and remain there as settlers for at least three years.”

Then, as the year 1788 began, the proprietors voted to give to any man who would build a good gristmill on the back lands in their plantation of China, 100 acres of land and the best waterpower privileges he can find, and the same grant should be made to anyone who would build a sawmill. That was to take care of the two necessary improvements to assure any appreciable number of settlers: facilities to grind their grain and to turn their felled trees into lumber.

In July, 1789, there were still too many unsettled lots to suit the proprietors. So, in addition to other inducements, they agreed to give to each new settling family three shillings in cash. Then one of the original proprietors went bankrupt and the company had to dispose of his land as best they could.

The next year, the place became the township of Orrington from which later the northern section was set off to make the now city of Brewer.

In November, 1805 the proprietors voted to sell at public auction at the tavern of Moses Whiting in Wrentham, Mass. all their undivided lands in the township of Orrington, except the landings and the fishery. But the last lands were not sold until early in 1817. On September 1 of that year the Penobscot Proprietors held their last meeting and went out of business.

Year: 1972