<\/p>\n
Two years ago this program had several broadcasts on Maine in the 17th century, gleaned largely from the Province and Court records of that time nearly 350 years ago. Today I want to give you some more information about those early days in Maine.<\/p>\n
At a session of the court in Saco in 1645, John Billings claimed that Francis Raynes had sold him a sow and three young pigs, and later Billings learned that Raynes had never owned the swine. The court awarded Billings four pounds damages.<\/p>\n
That same court session ordered all Maine settlements to observe a public fast on November 20, 1645. It also decreed that the inhabitants of Wells must build a bridge over the Webhannet River and they gave every constable in the province authority to collect taxes.<\/p>\n
In 1647 a court session in York tried Charles Frost for killing William Heard. Frost said he was standing in his father’s doorway looking into the marsh when he saw three geese alight. Taking a gun, he ran down to get a shot at them, creeping toward them on his stomach. Heard, also seeing the geese alight, crept into the long grass, but Frost said he did not know Heard was there. Heard was on his knees preparing to fire when the wind blew aloft the skirts of his jacket. Frost, thinking it to be a rising goose, fired and hit Heard. The jury declared it all an accident and acquitted Frost.<\/p>\n
In 1649 the Court recognized some confusion over the government of Maine. It declared: “The inhabitants of Piscataqua, Georgiana and Wells, in the Province of Maine, did formerly, by power derived from Sir Ferdinanda Gorges, regulate the affairs of the county as nearly as they could according to the laws of England. Now, since Sir Ferdinando is dead, our county, by sending letters to his heirs in England, demanded to know what orders from the new Parliament might be. The inhabitants are in confusion about regulating their affairs until further orders come from England. Meanwhile the inhabitants have bound themselves in a body politic to see the Province regulated according to the former laws, they themselves choosing such magistrates as a majority of the inhabitants shall deem best.”<\/p>\n
In 1649, at a court session in Agamenticus, Robert Xarden was convicted of selling liquor without permission, and of letting several fishermen get drunk in his house. At the same session a Mrs. Hilton was fined for abusing a neighbor with her tongue, and her husband was fined for breaking the Sabbath day by carrying a gun in the woods. Gordy Madden was fined for calling Hugh Gillum and John Davis devils.<\/p>\n
When Charles II was restored to the throne of England in 1660, the grandson of Sir Ferdinando Gorges secured a renewed charter to his grandfather’s Maine lands. The grandson took active charge, and it was his appointed magistrates who conducted court in various Maine settlements at that time. To each of his Maine commissioners young Gorges issued orders that the “Maine inhabitants were to be subject to them, and that all laws previously in vogue in the Province should prevail until new laws affecting them should be received from England.<\/p>\n
Young Gorges, like his grandfather, refused to recognize any authority of the Province of Massachusetts Bay within the borders of Maine. He warned his Maine people that any laws that Massachusetts sought to apply to them were void and should receive no attention. Especially were the land titles obtained from the first Ferdinando Gorges fully validated, and no Massachusetts court had any right to take them away. Gorges’ commissioners were given complete authority to grant lands to new settlers, and to pay no attention to titles alleged to have been purchased from the Indians.<\/p>\n
Maine courts in the 1660s heard the same kind of cases that had troubled them in the Commonwealth days of the 1640s and the 1650s, before the royal restoration in England. A Casco court decree in 1666 concerned horses. “All persons living in the western division of the Province who keep unruly horses unshackled so that they break into any man’s corn, garden or orchard, and do them spoil, may be summoned before the nearest Justice of the Peace, who is then empowered to inspect the damage, and shall level treble charges by way of distress.”<\/p>\n
That same court declared, “Trading of liquor with the Indians is forbidden.”<\/p>\n
Travel conditions were frequent cause of courrt action. A session in York in 1669 ordered: “For the convenience of travelers over the mouth of the Piscataqua, from one side to the other, it is ordered that Abraham Corbett keep a ferry for carrying horses as occasion shall require, and he shall provide a sufficient boat for the transportation of men and horses as occasion serves. In this service he shall charge for each person six pence and for each horse 12 pence.”<\/p>\n
In colonial Maine in the 17th century there was much trouble over money and prices. The New England colonies were all forbidden to coin money, and British currency was so scarce that all sorts of substitutes were used by an ingenious people. In addition to barter of commodities, exchange of labor for goods and services, and other devices, there were such substitutes for money as wampum beads. The crossing of a ferry was priced in so many pence of British coin, but was also set at price and a half if paid in wampum, and at double price if paid in labor. People were then badly cheated by lack of sufficient legal medium of exchange.<\/p>\n
For a time, beaver bought from the Indians with wampum secured from Southern Indians in exchange for cheap trinkets, was in such ready demand in England that enterprising colonialists not only made huge profits in beaver, but were able to make it an accepted medium of exchange, so that other articles were often priced in number of beaver pelts.<\/p>\n
In King Philips War money was so scarce that the Massachusetts Bay government demanded half of any tax paid in coins. Massachusetts was driven to the use of paper money, even in small denominations of a few pence. That paper money naturally depreciated as its circulation increased. In 1690 a New England pound note was worth only one-fifth its face value fr. coin.<\/p>\n
One of the urgent needs of Maine settlers was more and better roads. In 1653 a court session in Kittery passed the following order: “The inhabitants of York and Kittery shall, before September 20 next, appoint certain persons who shall set out the most convenient ways and make such bridges as shall be useful between them, and shall make good roads through the swamps to be fit for travelers with ease and safety. If either town shall fail to do this, it shall be fined ten pounds.”<\/p>\n
In 1653 the court at York decided a case that involved permanent injury. The decree said: “Whereas Stephen Lord, by a sore providence through a violent storm .at sea eighteen months since, had his hands and feet so frozen that he lost a great part of them, making him incapable of getting his subsistence and whereas the inhabitants of the Isle of Shoals, out of their charitable inclinations, have contributed the sum of 56 pounds toward his subsistence, this court, being unwilling that a person so suffering should be neglected or his estate misspent, accepts the obligation of the said 56 pounds, and do order Captain Nicholas Shapleigh and Edward Rushworth to henceforth maintain the said Stephen Lord with necessary food and raiment, and if this sum be not sufficient, the county is enjoined to supply such sum as shall be needed for his comfort. ”<\/p>\n
In colonial times the authorities were much concerned about religion. Finding in 1659 that the town of Falmouth (now the City of Portland) had held no services of worship for some time, the court decided that such a situation gave great advantage to the Devil and must be corrected. So it ordered: “The inhabitants of Falmouth shall meet in some common place on the Lord’s Day to hear the reading of God’s word and the instruction of an orthodox minister when which is available, and in the singing of psalms and in praying together, or in such other ways as the Lord shall enable them, until the favor of God shall give them better and more public means of edification.”<\/p>\n
Here are some of the grand jury indictments in 1661: for telling a lie in a public town meeting; for being drunk too much; for bidding the Devil take l’Ir. Thorpe; for fighting while drunk; against a minister for performing a marriage before publication of the bans; for putting a fence across a marked road; for saying that Mr. Colton has gone to Hell with a pack of lies in his mouth. Common punishment was to put convicted persons in the stocks. Once the town of Kittery was fined for not putting stocks in each division of the town. In 1671 Thomas Pomeroy was placed in the stocks for sending his boat from Isle of Shoals to Kittery on the Sabbath Day.<\/p>\n
After all Maine came under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts in 1678, a serious problem was created by Massachusetts’ failure to increase its own taxes to provide defence of the eastern settlements against the Indians, and Maine people suffered greatly from the long series of Indian wars. Even when the red men were peaceful, trade with the Indians created problems. All traders had to hold licenses issued in Boston and they were forbidden to sell liquor to Indians. The law was difficult to enforce, and the consequences became a public scandal.<\/p>\n
In 1692 Massachusetts got as Royal Governor the first Maine native to hold that office. He was Sir William Pitts, who had been born in Woolwich near the mouth of the Kennebec. He proceeded to take strong action against Indian raids and he issued this order: “The Commanders of militia of York and Wells are empowered to impress any fat cattle to supply food for the county’s soldiers from any persons whatever and especially from such persons as desert the Province.”<\/p>\n
And with that salute to Maine in the 17th century, we close this broadcast.<\/p>\n
Year: 1978<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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