<\/p>\n
About two months ago, on July 10, I had the privilege of attending the reopening of the old Pownalborough Court House at Dresden. It is the oldest public building on the Kennebec, erected in 1760, almost two hundred years ago.<\/p>\n
Its reconstruction and its present opening to the public is the work of the Lincoln County Cultural and Historical Association, of which the energetic and persevering head is Miss Mildred Burrage of Wiscasset. Before the task of restoring the old court house could be completed, Miss Burrage had attained another noteworthy objective — the opening of an historical museum at the venerable stone jail in Wiscasset.<\/p>\n
Miss Burrage comes naturally by her interest in Maine history, because her father was the eminent Maine historian, Henry S. Burrage, author of such books as “The Beginnings of Colonial Maine” and “History of the Baptists in Maine”.<\/p>\n
Waterville has an interest in this reconstruction at Dresden because Dr. Burrage was once the pastor of the Waterville Baptist Church and for many years was a trustee of Colby College. He was indeed the Baptist pastor with whom the shirt maker, Charles Hathaway, had a bitter controversy in the public press a story that I have told in Remembered Maine.<\/p>\n
The impressive exercises of reopening were held on the spacious lawn in front of the old court house, which stands on the east bank of the Kennebec just above the north end of Swan Island. Miss Burrage presided. Invocation was offered by Rev. Michael Dugan, curate of First Episcopal Church in Gardiner.<\/p>\n
Because Dresden is now a part of Father Dugan’s parish, he is the spiritual descendant of Rev. Jacob Bailey, the first settled minister on the Kennebec above Merrymeeting Bay, who came to Pownalborough a few years before the court house was built in 1760 and who held meetings in the court room until his church was built near by.<\/p>\n
Governor Clinton Clauson brought the greetings of the State of Maine. Because Maine was a part of Massachusetts when the court house was built and as it never served as a court house after 1794, greetings of the mother commonwealth were brought by her present Chief Justice, Raymond Wilkins. The principal address, a thrilling historical account with its lessons for our own day was delivered by Maine’s chief justice, Robert B. Williamson. It was most appropriate that Judge Williamson should be the speaker because he is the great grandson of Maine’s famous historian of a century ago. Judge William D. Williamson, whose history of Maine, published in 1832, is still the definitive historic work about early Maine.<\/p>\n
Where the old court house now stands originally stood Fort Shirley, one of the three forts built by order of Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, as a result of the importunity of the proprietors of the New Plymouth Company, more correctly called the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, of whom the leading figure in the development of the lands along old Pownalborough was Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, for whom the present city of Gardiner was named.<\/p>\n
That revived Plymouth Company was formed in 1749 by the heirs and assigns of the four men who had purchased the Kennebec Patent from the Old Plymouth Colony in 1661 — Antipas Boies, Edward Tyng, Thomas Brattle and John Winslow. Letting a number of other men purchase interests in the plan to settle the Kennebec region. the proprietors formed a new company and prevailed upon the Massachusetts governor to provide the necessary defenses against the French and Indians.<\/p>\n
Old Fort Richmond. which had been built in 1723, at a point on the west side of the Kennebec, a short distance above what is now the northern limit of Richmond Village, was falling into disrepair. Furthermore. the larger settlement was on the east side of the river where a number of venturesome pioneers, led by a group of Germans, had given the place the German name of Frankfort. So, on the spot now occupied by the old court house, was erected Fort Frankfort, almost immediately renamed in honor of the Governor, Fort Shirley. And only a few months later were built Fort Western at Augusta and Fort Halifax at Winslow. The settlement of Frankfort became the town of Pownalborough, a huge tract of land which extended from the Kennebec to the Sheepscot and included what is now the town of Wiscasset. Court was regularly held in the old Pownalborough Court House from 1760 to 1794, when the seat of Lincoln County was moved from Pownalborough to Wiscasset. A few years later new towns were formed out of the old town of Pownalborough, and even its name was given up. The town in which the court house stood became the town of Dresden.<\/p>\n
The most famous lawyer who ever pleaded a case in the Pownalborough Court was the man who became the second President of the United States, John Adams. In the spring of 1765 Adams was commissioned by a client to try a case in that court that stood on the very edge of civilization in the Maine wilderness. After encountering all sorts of obstacles, the worst possible weather, and illness on the way, Adams finally came on horseback over a blazed trail to the settlement at Pownalborough. He won his case and started his road to fame there on the Kennebec River in Maine.<\/p>\n
To the early settlers north of Merrymeeting Bay, who before 1750 lived in crudest cabins, the Pownalborough Court House must have been an imposing structure indeed. Now carefully restored, it appears to the present-day visitor almost exactly as it must have looked to Pownalborough inhabitants fifteen years before the Revolution.<\/p>\n
The main house is a building of nearly square dimensions, 45 by 44 feet, and three stories high. It had eleven rooms and its windows required 858 lights of glass. The court room was the largest room on the second floor, in the northwest corner, and adjoining it were rooms for judge and jury. The rest of the house was turned into a sort of tavern, where lawyers, contestants, and others could stay during the term of the court. On the first floor, soon after the building’s original opening, there took residence Samuel Goodwin, and it was his family that secured ownership of the building after court was moved to Wiscasset in 1794. From that date the place remained in private hands until it was purchased a few years ago by the Lincoln County Cultural and Historical Association, to be made a permanent shrine. During the summer months of each year the building will be open to the public. There is a competent caretaker in charge, who will explain to visitors many interesting facts about the old court house.<\/p>\n
The records of cases tried in the Pownalborough Court House during the last forty years of the 18th century are filled with interesting and curious details.<\/p>\n
In 1787 one Stephen Way of Georgetown was convicted of assault upon Lucy Sally with his fists and a saddle. He was sentenced to be set on the gallows for one hour with a halter round his neck, then to be publicly whipped 25 stripes on the bare back. When Stephen struck the lady with a saddle, he was not using something usually put on the back of a horse. Stephen’s saddle was a piece of wood used in rigging a boat.<\/p>\n
At the same term of court John Brown was convicted of stealing salt pork. He was sentenced to 25 stripes, to restore the stolen pork, and pay six pounds, sixteen shillings, three times the worth of the stolen goods. The judge further decreed if Brown were unable to pay. he could be sold as an indentured servant to the highest bidder.<\/p>\n
In 1788 the old court house saw a murder trial. John O’Neil of Bristol was accused of killing Michael Cleary by striking him over the head with a bar of iron. Both men lived in that part of Bristol called Pemaquid Falls. Both were hot-tempered Irishmen. The crime involved money found in O’Neil’s possession, which had been previously known to belong to Cleary. O’Neil claimed that Cleary had given him the money. He said Cleary suffered his fatal injury in an accidental fall. O’Neil admitted he was present when the fall occurred, and had actually reported the accident to a constable.<\/p>\n
Compared with modern trials, those old cases were quickly disposed of. even when they concerned murder. Between nine in the morning and four in the afternoon, a jury had been impaneled. all witnesses heard. attorneys’ pleas made. and the case had been given to the jury after the judge’s charge. After being out an hour, the jury reported that they could not agree. But when the judge berated them properly. they withdrew again, and in fifteen minutes brought in a verdict of guilty. O’Neil was hanged at Pownalborough on October 1, 1788. The gallows on which O’Neil was hanged stood near the court house, and beside it stood the pillory and whipping post.<\/p>\n
One of the most notorious cases was that of a Negro. Edmund Fortis of Vassalboro in 1794. He was charged with the murder of a young woman, Pamela Tilton. Fortis pleaded guilty, despite the judge’s warning that he was thus forfeiting his life. The trial was soon over and the judge sentenced Fortis to death on the gallows. The execution took place on September 25, 1794, with a large crowd assembled from the Kennebec towns. Mrs. Hannah Ballard, who lived on the east side of the river at Augusta. recorded in her diary: “Dolly and Ephraim went to Dresden to see Edmund Fortis executed for the murder of Pamela Tilton of Vassalboro.”<\/p>\n
The judge who sentenced Fortis was a man of national reputation. Robert Treat Paine. He was one of the four Massachusetts delegates to the Constitutional Convention who signed the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776.<\/p>\n
In 1794 he came from Boston as one of four judges for that term of the Pownalborough court. With him were Nathan Cushing, best known of the many judges who presided at Pownalborough, and later an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and Increase Sumner, afterwards Governor of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
More than a hundred years after the Negro Fortis was hanged, there arose a curious aftermath of the case. There had been two conflicting stories told down through the years. One had it that Fortis’ body was sunk in the Kennebec. The other said that it had been handed over to a Boston medical group for anatomical study. In 1900 Dr.W. N. Price of Richmond showed a skull and a portion of skeleton which he claimed were parts of the body of the executed Fortis. In his History of Dresden, Charles E. Allen says: “I know of no reason for questioning the doctor’s claim.”<\/p>\n
How many people lived in the immediate area of the old court house during its early years? In the west part of the town of Pownalborough, the parts now encompassed by the towns of Dresden and Swan Island, there then resided 380 persons in 69 families. In 1765 the Massachusetts General Court had ordered a census of the Province. It showed only 21,478 people in the whole District of Maine, only 3,647 of whom were in Lincoln County, which then comprised all of Maine east of the Androscoggin River. The largest Lincoln County town was Georgetown, near the mouth of the Kennebec, with 1,319 inhabitants. Pownalborough was next with 899. Woolwich had 415 and Bowdoinham 220. That 1765 census included information about houses as well as persons. For Dresden’s 69 families there were only 17 framed houses and 45 log houses. Only eight of the framed houses were of more than one story. There were only 34 brick chimneys and only 19 stoned cellars. The census even included the number of squares of glass. There were 3,852 such squares in the town, but more than 1,500 of those were in two houses, 858 in the court house, where lived Samuel Goodwin. and 660 in the home of Jonathan Boman.<\/p>\n
If you are interested in truly old landmarks of Maine history, take a ride some day down to the old Pownalborough Court House.<\/p>\n
Year: 1959<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #427, Broadcast on September 20, 1959<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[800,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7995"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}