Radio Script #1108

Little Talks on Common Things
January 9, 1977

[podcast]http://web.colby.edu/scimport/files/2011/05/LT1108.mp3[/podcast]

Amazingly revealing of the difficulties of early settlement of Kennebec

lands is the original record book of the six proprietors who secured from the

Plymouth Company in Boston the 18,000 acres of land on the east side of the

Kennebec that are now in the Town of Winslow. This old hand written volume

carries the title: ‘~ecord of the votes and Transactions of the Proprietors

of a Tract of Land around Fort Halifax on the Kennebec River, granted by the

Plymouth Company to Gamaliel Bradford and five others, by deed bearing date

of March 12, 1766, the five others being James Otis, John Winslow, William

Taylor, Daniel Howard, and James Warren.” All except one of the men lived

near Plymouth, Mass. The sole exception was a Boston merchant. We have no

record that any of the six ever settled on their Kennebec land, but some of

their relatives did, and some of the six made brief visits to the place.

The proprietors’ first meeting was held in the dwelling house of

Thomas Howland in Holden, Plymouth County, Mass. on October 7, 1766. Its

purpose was to organize, elect officers and, in the words of the record,

“to raise money to carry on necessary business of the proprietors, procure

settlers, clear highways, and build mills. The proprietor who bore the

venerable Pilgrim name of Bradford was chosen to head the company. He was

Gamaliel Bradford, and he was destined to playa leading part in developing

the settlement.

At that first meeting they voted to assess a levy of 12 shillings

on each share to raise development money. To encourage settlers, they would

offer to any man 50 acres of the choice lots that faced on the Kennebec or the

Sebasticook on which he must build a house 20 feet square and 7 foot stud, and

clear at least one acre for tillage within the first year~ and stay on the

place five years, with regular further clearing. At the end of that time he

would be given a warranty deed to his lot.

At the same time it was voted to survey a second tier of 100 acre

lots behind the river lots, to be shared equally by settlers and the pro-

. prietors themselves. By thus making every second one of those back lots a

proprietor’s lot, those six Massachusetts speculators saw prospective profit.

After a settler had cleared land, an adjoining lot became more attractive and

more valuable.

Already at the Fort Halifax location was a pioneer settler, Timothy

Heald. The proprietors gave him authority to mark out four lots on the northwest

side of the Sebasticook, each having a river frontage of 100 rods, and

extending back 160 rods. Heald was also told to layout four lots on the

opposite side of the Sebasticook, but be sure that none of them came within

100 rods of any power site suitable for a mill on Mile Brook. That brook is

now better known as Outlet Stream, entering the Sebasticook a short distance

above its confluence with the Kennebec.

If Heald could get a settler on each of those eight lots, including

two lads between 17 and 21 years of age, Heald would be given an equal share

with the proprietors in the township – that is each proprietor would release

enough of his own acreage to make Heald a full seventh proprietor.

All that took place in the fall of 1766. The next spring, in April

1767, Heald was granted the right to erect on Mile Brook “a good and sufficient

sawmill and have it ready for duty by December 25, 1767, and he must agree to

build on the same brook, within three years, a good gristmill to grind for the

inhabitants their grain.”

In June the proprietors meeting in Boston, voted that Heald must

open fishways on Mile Brook around any dam he might construct, and he must

make good any damage caused by overflow of lands from his dam.

Even earlier, before the Company was formed, Col. Lithgow had

secured a large lot directly from the Plymouth Company. That ownership was

recognized by the proprietors when they ordered a new survey of small lots,

carefully exempting the Lithgow land. Heald was employed to layout the new

lots and was voted compensation of one shilling for each mile surveyed.

At the same meeting they voted to layout a road 4 rods wide

through the whole township. Gamaliel Bradford was directed to see that Heald

carried out all the company’s instructions.

In the minutes for July 7, 1768, appears for the first time the

name of a man who was to playa leading part in developing the town of Winslow.

The record reads: “Voted that Ezekiel Pattee have liberty to take up two lots

of 50 acres each on the Kennebec and 100 acres of the second tier formerly

laid out by Heald, provided he does not include more than six acres of meadow,

on condition that he build a house 20 feet square and 7 foot stud on each lot

and settle on them two families, and clear five acres fit for mowing or tillage,

on each of the two lots within one year.”

That vote makes it clear that, like Timothy Heald, Ezekiel Pattee

was already in Winslow. Nothing is said about his own house. We must assume

he had already built one, and this grant was for additional land.

At the same meeting Heald and Pattee were made joint agents for the

absentee proprietors. The vote read: ”Timothy Heald and Ezekiel Pattee ·are

empowered to transact any matters relative to settlers’ taking up lots and perform

their duty on them. and to prevent trespass.”

Learning that the surveyed lots differed from one another considerably,

the Proprietors uoted: ‘~ereas some of the lots on the Kennebec and the

Sebasticook, especially on the Kennebec above the Falls, are not so convenient

for settlers as are some other lots, Heald and Pattee are authorized to lay

out in one contiguous group eight or ten 50 acre lots in some other part of the

tract, but not within 200 rods of any mill site on Mile Brook.”

In order that the local agents might know just how that order could

Qe carried out, Proprietor James Warren was intrusted to send Heald a plan of

the tract around Fort Halifax.

In the spring of 1769, it seems that Samuel Bradford, son of the

Proprietor Gamaliel, planned to take a trip down to Fort Halifax to view the

situation at first hand. The proprietors instructed their clerk to write to

Sam Bradford and ask him to ascertain the number of settlers who had taken lots

and what they had done to meet the requirements of clearing land and building

their houses, and to find out what were the chances of getting other settlers.

Bradford was not only to see Heald and Pattee, but to talk also with Mr. Flagg.

That refers to Gersham Flagg, Jr., son of the older Gersham Flagg who had been

one of the builders of Fort Halifax. Young Flagg was then in Winslow, but would

soon move up the river to become one of the pioneer settlers of Clinton.

Not satisfied with what they learned from young Bradford, in the fall

of 1769 the proprietors asked their president, Gamaliel Bradford, to make a

personal trip to Fort Halifax. They were becoming more and more concerned about

trespassers, not only people who built cabins on their land, but even more about

the timber thieves who stripped acreage of its valuable pines.

We do not know what Gamaliel Bradford learned, but he did make the

trip, for which the proprietors voted him 11 pounds, 5 shillings, and 11 pence

expense money.

Two years went by, and the company was still concerned. They voted

that one of their members, James Warren, be empowered to engaged a suitable

person to “go down to our tract around Fort Halifax, now part of the township

of Winslow, viewing the settlers’ improvements, ascertain what trespasses have

been committed, and ‘what appears necessary to be done by the proprietors, and

take an accurate survey of Mile Brook so that it may be laid out on a plan.”

Note in that vote the phrase, “now part of the Township of Winslow.”

Actually the place had become the Town of Winslow in April of that same year

of 1771, being then incorporated by the General Court in Boston as a Massachusetts

town.

In the minutes for April 30, 1772, we learn just what was the Lithgow

holding that had always been exempt from the six-man grant. The record says:

“Voted that 3,000 acres of land be laid out for the proprietors between the south

line of the township and the south line of the 600 acres reserved by the Plymouth

Company to Col. Lithgow.”

The next month, May 1772, saw James Warren engage a man to go to Fort

Halifax, as so many had done before, and see what was going on. This time the

record contains ‘that messenger’s report, and here it is.

“At the request of James Warren I have been down to Fort Halifax and

have laid out six 500 acre lots and 96 fifty acre lots. The six 500 acre lots

are adjoining each other, beginning on the south line of your grant, one mile

from the Kennebec to the south line of Col Lithgow’s grant of 600 acres •. This

tract of six lots contains 3,000 acres, and includes 100 additional acres

granted by you to Ezekiel Pattee. I have divided the said 3,000 acres into

six equal parts, one for each proprietor. The only trespass I could find of

any consequence was by cutting one spar, said to be done by some persons pretending

to have authority to cut masts for the king.”

In 1773 an attempt was made to induce some of those proprietors to settle

personally on the allotted 500 acres to each. The vote read: “Any proprietor,

who will perform the condition of a settler on his lot shall be entitled to

150 additional acres as a consideration for the same.” We have no record that

any proprietor personally took advantage of that vote.

Despite the Warren report that the only trespass was cutting one

tree, the proprietors kept worrying about trespassers. In April, 1774, they

voted: ”Major Pelham Winslow is appointed agent for the Proprietors, to

prosecute in their behalf all trespassers, and he had power to employ such

attorneys as he shall deem necessary_ Majo~ Winslow is to go to the town to

examine the general state of the land and transact with the settlers any

business proper to be done agreeable to our votes. John Jones of Hallowell is

to go to Winslow and report what state he finds our lands in and whether

conditions are being fulfilled.”

The reference to John Jones is to one of the best known persons in

the early settlements on the Kennebec. He was better known as “Black Jones , ”

and he surveyed more of the Plymouth Company lands than any other individual.

He laid out the lots in the original part of the town of China, all of Windsor,

and parts of many other towns. Evidently the Winslow proprietors thought he

was one man who could straighten out their difficulties.

Our time is now up, but next week we shall tell you more about this first

proprietorship of land in Winslow.