\nI have more than once on this program referred to the Pilgrim trading post established by the Plymouth Colony on the Kennebec only six and a half years after their landing in Massachusetts. But I think I have never given you the exact, contemporary account as published in Governor William Bradford’s book “Relations of New Plymouth”.<\/p>\n
Bradford’s first reference to our region was recorded in 1626. He wrote: “After the harvest this year, we sent out a boat load of corn 40 to 50 leagues to the eastward up a river called Kennebec. They laid a little deck over the midship to keep the corn dry. God preserved them and gave them good success, for they brought home 700 of beaver and other furs.”<\/p>\n
In 1627 Bradford wrote: “We sent Mr. Allerton to England with orders to procure a patent for a trading place on the Kennebec. When he returned, he brought a patent. Having procured that document, we erected a house up above on the river and furnished it with commodities for sale to the savages for their furs. We stored there not only corn, but also coats, shirts, blankets, biscuit, peas and prunes. What we did not get from England directly we brought from the fishing ship.”<\/p>\n
That trading post was set up near the head of tide at Augusta, then called by its Indian name Cushnoc.<\/p>\n
In 1628, Bradford recorded an incident of Pilgrim business on the Kennebec. He wrote: “Mr. Winslow, coming from the Kennebec in a bark, met Mr. Allerton, who had just bought a large quantity of salt at a fishing place called Pemaquid, when the fishing season ended. Together Mr. Winslow and Mr. Allerton arranged to hire a ship to fish for them on shares. With salt now on hand and a fishing stage built, they could load the ship with goods instead of salt and thus procure a supply of trading goods without paying freight to the owners of some other vessel.”<\/p>\n
In 1629, the Pilgrim traders ventured farther into Maine. Bradford tells us: “Mr. Hatherly desired a boat to visit the trading houses on the Kennebec and start one on the Penobscot. So he sent Mr. Ashley to the Penobscot, only to have Ashley arrested for selling powder and shot to the Indians.”<\/p>\n
The next year, 1630, saw trouble descend upon the Pilgrim trade. Bradford said: “Mr. Allerton has now wholly deserted our plantation. He sold for his own profit trading goods to any who would buy, to the great prejudice of the plantation. He set up trading posts in the French territory even beyond the Penobscot. After some time he returned to Plymouth and the church called him to account. He confessed his fault and promised better walking.”<\/p>\n
When the Plymouth Colony secured that Kennebec patent in 1627, exactly what did it say? Here is the original text.<\/p>\n
“The Council of Plymouth hath given to William Bradford, his heirs, associates and assigns, all that tract of land or part of New England in America which lyeth between the utmost limits of Cobossecontee, which adjoineth the river Kennebec towards the western ocean, and a place called the falls of Nequamick, and the space of fifteen miles each side of the river Kennebec; and authorizes said Bradford to take and seize all such persons, their ships and goods, as shall attempt to inhabit or trade with the savage people of that country within the limits of his several plantations.”<\/p>\n
Concerning the end of the Pilgrim venture on the Kennebec, Bradford recorded in 1636: “As other trading began to be neglected, we broke off our trade at Kennebec and would follow it no longer.”<\/p>\n
As everybody knows, the romantic name connected with the Pilgrims is John Alden, to whom Priscilla Mullins is supposed to have said, when he asked her to marry Miles Standish, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” What is not so well known is the fact that John Alden once got into trouble at the Pilgrim trading post at Cushnoc on the Kennebec. The year was 1634, when one John Howland was in command of that post. John Alden came there with supplies for the post in its trade with the Indians. About the same time there arrived at the same place a man named Hoskins from the settlement at the mouth of the Piscataqua near modern Kittery. Hoskins brought the claim of his masters, Lord Say and Lord Brook, who later gave their names to the town of Saybrook, Conn., to rights over the same Indian trade on the Kezmebec that the Pilgrims had been enjoying for the seven years since 1627. Hoskins didn’t try to oust the Pilgrim traders. He merely claimed a right to share in the trade. Howland, the Pilgrim in charge of the Cusbnoc post, ordered Hoskins to depart. Hoskins refused, and defiantly anchored his boat in the river a short distance above the Pilgrim post. Howland, assisted by four other men, put out in a row boat to settle the matter, because it was obvious that Hoskins intended to intercept Indian canoes as they came down the river and get first chance at the furs. When Hoskins refused a second time to get out, Howland ordered his men to cut the anchor cables of Hoskins ship. Just as one of the men took an axe to a Hoskins cable, Hoskins fired his gun and the man was instantly killed. Then Howland’s men retaliated, shooting Hoskins in the head.<\/p>\n
John Alden, although not a participant in the skirmish, did certainly witness it. Not surprisingly, Alden was accused of egging on Howland to use force to eject Hoskin from the vicinity. When the news reached both Plymouth and the Piscataqua, intense feelings were aroused. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, sponsors of the settlement on the Piscataqua, had long been at odds with the colony at Plymouth. Boston at once came to the defense of the Hoskins faction. So when John Alden went to Boston on business, he was arrested and held for trial on the charge of complicity to homicide. Miles Standish rushed to Boston to get Alden released, but the Boston magistrates insisted they would hold Alden for trial. When the case came up, the Piscataqua folks didn’t even bother to appear, leaving everything to their Boston friends. Governor Bradford and Edward Winslow appeared for Plymouth, while Governor Winthrop and Edward. Dudley represented Massachusetts Bay. The magistrates held that the Pilgrim patent was valid and must be honored. Since that patent gave the Pilgrims exclusive trade rights on that part of the Kennebec, the judges decreed that Hoskins was trespassing. The magistrates also upheld the Plymouth contention that Hoskins was unfortunately killed when the Howland party acted in self-defense, after, not before, Hoskins had killed one of Howland’s men. So the Boston authorites had to release John Alden, whose only discomfort had been two weeks in a dirty Boston jail.<\/p>\n
Several years ago I discussed on this program and put into an article in Down East Magazine information about the so-called Federal Surplus of 1831. Incredible as it seems today, in that eventful year, 135 years ago, the U. S. Treasury had so much unappropriated money that Congress decided to distribute a large part of the surplus to the several states. In most cases, including Maine, the surplus was distributed per capita, every legal householder receiving $2.00 a head for every member of his family. A t the time I wrote the article, I did not know the amount actually received by separate towns. Thanks to the assembling of state records concerning that surplus in our newly organized State Archive, we now know how much certain towns received.<\/p>\n
The whole affair turned out badly for the Federal Government. No sooner had two of the three promised installments been paid, then the notorious panic of 1831 hit the nation. Bank after bank that held federal deposits failed. Money became exceedingly scarce. As a result the third installment was never paid. That explains why each town finally got less than it had a right to expect after Congress passed the distribution act. Waterville then had a population of 2905 and was thus, at $2.00 each, entitled to $5810. All it got was $3850. Fairfield then had about as many people as Waterville, 2203, and thus expected $4406. It got only $3099. Winslow had 1551 people, entitling the town to $3114, but all it got was $2300. Augusta was then the largest place in Kennebec County, though it had been the State Capital for only four years. Its population was 5409, and it should have had $10818. It got $6950.<\/p>\n
In 1831, Maine had ten counties instead of the present sixteen. The towns in those counties received in the two installments, $631,000, with $301,000 still due. In other words the State of Maine, under that federal give-away, was supposed to get nearly a million dollars, actually $ 944,000. The money came to the State Treasury, not in two big checks from Washington, one for each of the two installments, but trickled in a little at a time from the banks where the federal government had deposits. Quite naturally the banks on which Washington issued drafts payable to Maine were all in New England. The payments began on Feb. 25, 1837, when the State Treasurer received $50,000 from the Maine Bank in Portland and $23,000 from the Granite Bank in Augusta. Three days later, on Feb. 28, there came in $35,000 from the Bank of Cumberland in Portland, $12,000 from the York Bank at Saco, and $2,000 from the Peoples Bank in Hallowell. Then on March 4, Boston Banks entered the picture: $75,000 from the Merchants Bank there, $28,000 from the Commonwealth Bank, $32,000 from the Fulton Bank, $10,000 from the Franklin Bank, augmented by $ 10,000 from the Phoenix Bank in Salem.<\/p>\n
Maine still planned distribution at $2 per capita, by limiting the recipients to those over 4 years of age, but not every inhabitant of Maine got $2 from that federal surplus. Some of the towns had at first decided to put the money in a fund to be let out on loans of not more than $ 100 each to inhabitants willing to pay interest of 6%. When, a few months later, the legislature agreed to allow all towns to make per capita distribution, some of those loans turned sour and could not be collected. Hence the inhabitants of those towns got less than $ 2 a piece. It was all quite a fiasco, that notorious federal surplus of 1837. It did the nation harm, and it did no American person any substantial good.<\/p>\n
Year: 1972<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #920, Broadcast on February 13, 1972<\/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":[42945,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9226"}],"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=9226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}