Radio Script #1264

Little Talks on Common Things
February 22, 1981

My recent investigation into the life of Maine’s first governor, William King, led to an interest in Scarborough, the town where King was born in 1768. I have already known a little about that town’s history through my acquaintance with Charles Libby of the Scarborough Historical Society. Mr. Libby and I served together as trustees of the Maine League of Historical Societies.

Libby is in fact one of the oldest Scarborough family names. John Libby, the first of that name to come to the area, arrived early in the 17th century, 350 years ago.

Scarborough is one of Maine’s oldest towns. After Kittery was incorporated as the first town in 1652, only four other towns were established before Scarborough became the sixth town. The other five, all in what is now York County, were Kittery, York, Wells, Saco and Cape Porpoise. In the same year with Scarborough’s incorporation, 1658, its nearest neighbor to the east, Falmouth, was also incorporated. That original Falmouth was much larger than the present town of that name. It encompassed the present cities of Portland, South Portland and Westbrook, as well as the towns of Cape Elizabeth
and Falmouth.

That old town of Falmouth had, before its incorporation, three previous names: Casco Bay, New Casco and Spurwink. It was known as Spurwink at the time of its incorporation into Falmouth. The area of incorporated Scarborough extended west from Old Falmouth to the eastern border of Saco; and inland some distance beyond the present hamlet of Dunstan.

The entire coastline of Scarborough, as well as that along all Casco Bay, had been sites of fishing stages, where British fishing fleets dried their fish on their annual catches off the Maine coast. Before the area saw any permanent settlement, a few small fleets had spent the entire year in the area, wintering in one of the many snug harbors.

In November 1631, a few months after the Winthrop colony settled at Boston, Thomas Crannock received from the Council of Plymouth in England a grant of land in Maine between Black Point and Spurwink River. It was that area, afterwards enlarged that became the town of Scarborough. Crannock settled at what has ever since been called Black Point, a peninsula in the eastern part of the town.

In England Crannock had been an associate of Henry Jocelyn, who came to this country as an agent of Ferdinanda. Gorges at Piscataqua. Crannock persuaded Jocelyn to join him at Black Point. Thus Thomas Crannock and Henry Jocelyn were the two earliest settlers of the town. When Crannock died in 1643, his widow married Jocelyn, so that the Crannock estate passed largely into the Jocelyn family.

In 1636 another settlement was started at Blue Point, a short distance inland from Black Point. As time went on Black Point came to mean a wider area than the cluster of houses on the peninsula, and was long used to refer to the whole area from the original Black Point inland to Dunstan. As a result, at the time of incorporation the area included in Scarborough was known as Black Point, just as its newly incorporated neighbor, Falmouth, was known as Spurwink.

The leading settler at Blue Point was Richard Foxwell, who lived there until his death in 1676. He owned the largest acreage and the best house in the area. His wealth and his important connection in England made him able to be of strong political influence in the whole Province of Maine.

An associate of Foxwell was Henry Watts, who came to Blue Point in 1636, and set up what he called a plantation next to Foxwell. Apparently he was not so strictly religious as were his Puritan neighbors, for in 1640 he was haled into
the Saco court for transporting boards on the Sabbath Day.

There was a difference in principal occupations at Black and Blue Points. Black Point, directly on the ocean, saw its people engage chiefly in fishing, while those at Blue Point were predominantly farmers.

A third settlement was made at Dunstan in 1651, so that in the middle of the 17th century, what is now Scarborough had three small communities – Black Point, Blue Point and Dunstan. Of the three, Black Point grew most rapidly. By 1670 it had fifty dwelling houses. Considering the many children most families then had, the total population must have been well above 300.

For 40 years, Henry Jocelyn of Black Point was the town’s leading citizen. He was the son of a British knight, Sir Thomas Jocelyn, who had served as head of the royal commission to organize a government for Gorges’ Province of Maine. His son Henry arrived in New England in 1634, as Gorges’ agent at Piscataqua. The next year he came to Scarborough. In 1635 he was made one of the commissioners, and after Gorges got his royal charter in 1639, Jocelyn became one of the province’s councilors, who had authority to hold court on all civil and criminal cases. Their first court was held at Saco in 1640.

The next 30 years saw bitter contention between the Gorges interests and those of Massachusetts Bay for control of Maine. By July, 1653, Wells, Cape Porpoise and Saco had submitted to Mass, but east of Saco the towns remained loyal to Gorges. Leading the opposition to Mass. was Henry Jocelyn of Black Point and Robert Jordan of Spurwink, founder of the prolific Jordan family still prominent at Cape Elizabeth. They held out for five years. When in 1658 neighbor Falmouth had to submit, Scarborough was forced to follow so that the Boston government at last controlled the entire Province of Maine.

John Libby, ancestor of my acquaintance Charles Libby, came to Scarborough in 1660. He took up 200 acres of land and built a dwelling house at Black Point. For many years he was one of the towns principal farmers and traders. Through his seven sons and their numerous descendants, Libby became one of the most common Scarborough names.

Henry Jocelyn wrote a still preserved description of the Indians in the Scarborough area in the 17th century. He said: “The Indians who are young are very comely, with plump faces and well developed bodies. Among their lasses are many pretty brunettes. But the old women are lean and ugly. Their wigwams of poles bound at the top, have a hole to let out the smoke. The rest is covered with bark. The inside is lined with mats made from rushes. There is a notched stick on which is hung a kettle. Because the stick itself is often set on fire, it must be frequently replaced. On the floor they spread mats and skins on which they sleep.

“The savages have no towns, but move from place to place for food. They live near the seaside in summer, then move inland for the winter hunting. Of cattle they have none, but they do have wild dogs, only slightly tamed.

“Each Indian man has two or three wives. They are long-lived, some reaching 100 years. Recently many have died of small pox.

“Their religion is not much, but they do acknowledge a God and a devil, and they seem to have some inkling of immortality.

“Their learning is little. They cannot write their own tongue. They reckon days by sleeps, months by moons.”

Jocelyn tells us that the Indian name for Scarborough was Owaskeg – “place of much grass.”

Scarborough suffered greatly in King Philip’s War that broke out in 1676. Like all settlers east of the Piscataqua, the people at Black Point were highly vulnerable to Indian attacks. Every settlement and every small garrison was easily outnumbered by raiders, and all were too far from Boston to expect help from Mass. Bay.

Henry Jocelyn converted his house into a garrison where at one time he sheltered 20 adults and numerous children. But in 1678 Jocelyn’s and other garrisons were forced to surrender. Some of the inhabitants were killed, others made captives, and the survivors fled, at first to Saco, then to Wells, and finally to Piscataqua and Boston.

When King Philip’s War ended, there was a small and brief resettlement, soon destroyed by the Second Indian War in 1689. That was not conducted solely by Indians as had been King Philip’s War, but was instigated and led by the French
from Canada and their settlements in what is now Northern Maine. In that second war all English settlements from the Piscataqua to Casco Bay were laid in ruins.

Scarborough was wholly deserted for a dozen years. Then in 1702 resettlement began. The reconstruction was so slow that no attempt was made to reorganize a government until 1720. The last Indian uprising came in 1723. To protect the Maine settlements, the government in Boston, provided support of militia companies. The result was the Battle of Lovewell’s Pond near Fryeburg. This saw dispersal of the Saco tribe. Soon afterward, a company of militia from Falmouth attacked the Indian village at Old Point, killing many natives and their French priest Father Rasle, and most of the Norridgewock tribe fled to Canada. The year 1724 saw the last of the Indian raids in Scarborough.

Religion came early to the town. In 1671 the people had put up a meetinghouse, in which itinerant preachers held services. It was destroyed, with all other buildings in King Philip’s War. In was 1720 before the town got its first settled minister, Rev. Hugh Campbell. Two years later he was succeeded by Rev. Hugh Henry, whom the town hired for 60 pounds a year. When he demanded 70 pounds, the town fired him. But by 1728 they were paying Rev. William Thompson 100 pounds a year. In 1729 they built another meetinghouse to replace the one burned in King Philip’s War. It was a small structure, 40 by 35 feet, and 20 feet high. In 1762 the town hired a Presbyterian preacher, Harvard graduate Rev. Thomas Pierce. and adopted the Presbyterian form of worship. But when Pierce died in 1765, they reverted to the Congregational faith of Mass Bay.

While early occupations at Scarborough were fishing and farming, the lumber industry soon became important. The town’s many sawmills turned out boards, shingles and lathes for a rapidly growing Boston market. Lumber became so important that for a time it served as a monetary medium. In 1737 the schoolmaster at Black Point was paid 32 pounds in boards for keeping school for six months.

The first census of Scarborough was made by the selectmen in 1761. It showed 1032 persons, 310 taxable polls, 190 houses, 17 mills, 9 slaves, 297 tons of shipping, 199 horses, 448 oxen, 633 cows, 1867 sheep, 287 swine, 6613 bushels of grain, 967 tons of English hay and 1467 tons of salt marsh hay. In that year the town’s sawmills produced more than a million board feet of lumber.

That completes our account of colonial Scarborough. The antiquity of the town can be somewhat comprehended when we note that it was already 117 years old as an incorporated town when the American Revolution began.

And with that we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1981