commissioners for the year ensuing, invested with full power, or any three of them, for the trial of all causes without a jury within the liberties of Scarborough and Falmouth, not exceeding the value of fifty pounds, and every one of said commissioners have granted them magistratical power to hear and determine small causes, as other magistrates and assistants, whether they be of a civil or of a criminal nature." Any of said commissioners were authorized to grant warrants, examine offenders, commit to prison, administer oaths, and to solemnize marriages, and any three of them were empowered to commission "military officers under the degree of a captain." Jocelyn, Jordan, Capt. Nicholas Shapleigh, Mr. Edward Rishworth, and Mr. Abraham Preble, were invested with "magistratical power, throughout the whole county of York." Five associates were authorized to be chosen yearly for the county courts, instead of three, and a court was appointed to be held in September of every year at Saco or Scarborough, as well as at York.'

These and some other regulations, not important to be noticed, having been adopted, and the commissioners having declared that "the change of the government hath made no change in any man's former right, whether in respect of lands, chattels, goods, or any other estate whatsoever," they adjourned on the 16th of July, 1658. Thus the government of Massachusetts came into possession of the ancient province of Maine, as far cast as the eastern bounds of Falmouth, which she held, with the exception of about three years, until the final separation which took place in 1820.

Although the inhabitants had now generally submitted to her jurisdiction, there were many who carried in their bosoms a spirit of determined hostility to the power of Massachusetts. We believe it to have been founded chiefly in difference of religious sentiments. Massachusetts at that time could hardly allow a neutrality on this subject; none but church members

1 York Records.

could be freemen, and those who did not, "after the most straitest sect of our religion," live puritans, were not tolerated. Many of our early settlers were episcopalians; Jordan was a priest of that persuasion, and had been the minister to the people here for many years, and although new settlers crowded into our plantations from Massachusetts, bringing the religious doctrines and feelings which prevailed there, still the attachment of many to the mode of worship under which they had been educated, was not and could not be eradicated. On this subject, Massachusetts exercised her power with no little severity, and notwithstanding her guaranty in the sixth article before mentioned, "that civil privileges should not be forfeited for religious differences," she did proceed to enforce her own doctrines, regardless of the religious principles which prevailed here. Robert Jordan was frequently censured for exercising his ministerial office in marriages, baptisms, &c.; in 1660, he was summoned by the general court to appear before them to answer for his irregular practices, in baptising the children of Nathaniel Wallis, "after the exercise was ended upon the Lord's day, in the house of Mrs Macworth in the town of Falmouth," and was required "to desist from any such practises for the future."

It is not therefore to be wondered at that this party should seek the first favorable opportunity to throw off what they deemed to be the yoke of oppression. This opportunity was in a few years afforded as will be hereafter seen.

1 Massachusetts Records.

* [We cannot dismiss this portion of our history that closes the useful connection which the worthy and most honored Sir Ferdinando Gorges had with this ancient territory, without presenting a few prominent particulars of his honorable and active life. His connection with our history sufficiently appears in our pages. Sir Ferdinando Gorges "was the son and heir of John Gorges, of London," (Sainsbury,) and is said to have been born in Somersetshire, at a place or manor, called Ashton-Phillips, in 1573. We do not know upon what authority the last two facts are stated, but the period of his birth is not improbable; and it is certain that he had estates and resided in Somersetshire. From cir

cumstances connected with his life, such as his being governor of Plymouth as early as 1600, I should suppose that he was born prior to 1573. He served under the Earl of Essex in the Spanish expedition when Cadiz was taken in 1596, as sergeant-major, corresponding to colonel. He was afterward appointed gov. ernor of Plymouth by Queen Elizabeth. He was removed from this office and committed to prison for complicity in the conspiracy of the Earl of Essex in 1601. But James 1, in 1604, restored him to the office. It is probable that this position, Plymouth being the port of early voyagers, introduced him to persons who were engaged in voyages of discovery to the American coast; and his interest was greatly excited and increased by the return of Weymouth in 1605, with five natives from the Pemaquid country. The glowing descriptions given by the voyagers, who had visited in June the most beautiful part of our coast, and of the savages, gave particular force and direction to the adventurous spirit of this enterprising man, and he engaged with energy, and pursued with perseverance, for forty years, the work of discovery and colonization of the eastern shores of New England. In July, 1637 he was appointed governor-general of New England, but he did not enter upon its practical duties; in 1639, he obtained his ample charter of the "province of Maine;" but the call for his services to aid the king in the great rebellion, diverted his thoughts and his exertions from his new province, to the strife of arms, in the midst of which, after doing valiant deeds for his sovereign, he perished in 1647, at about the age of seventy-five. He had at least two sons. Robert, the eldest, married a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln; received a grant of a portion of Massachusetts in 1622, with the appointment of governor of New England, to which he came and spent about two years. He returned in 1624 and soon after died. The other son was John, who succeeded to the Massachusetts grant, which he sold to Sir William Brereton in 1629.

Gorges had also three nephews, Thomas, William, and Henry, to whom he gave appointments and made grants in his American province. His grandson Ferdinando, inherited this province, which he was only too glad to sell in 1677, at twelve hundred and fifty pounds sterling, in consequence of the constant contention which the authorities of Massachusetts kept up for its title and jurisdiction.

Mr Folsom, in his discourse on Gorges, second Maine Historical Collections, says "The Family of Gorges had an ancient seat at Wraxhall, in Somersetshire, six and a half miles from Bristol. (They resided at Wraxhall as early as 1200.) In the church at that place is a large altar tomb with figures of Sir Edward Gorges, K. B., and Annie, his wife, a daughter of John Howard, Duke of Norfolk. In the same neighborhood, in the parish of Long Ashton, was the manor of Ashton Phillips belonging to Sir Ferdinando. The village of Long Ashton lies on the south-east slope of an eminence, called Ashton Hill, about five miles from Bristol.

In Camden's Britaunia, it is stated that from the time of Ralph de Gorges, 1260,

to about 1700, the family had been continued in Wraxhall, "and is lately reduced to an issue-female." The name still exists in Somersetshire, probably by the marriage, in 1850, of one of the Russells of Gloucestershire "with an heir ess of the honorable family of Gorges," who assumed the name of Gorges. This Russell was of the family afterward raised to the peerage, and is now a prominent constituent of the aristocracy of England.]-ED.

CHAPTER III.

1640 to 1660.

BOUNDARIES AND NAME OF THE TOWN-INHABITANTS IN 1658, AND PLACES OF RESIDENCE EARLY CON VEYANCES-FIRST MILLS-Settlers at BACK COVE JORDAN'S CLAIM AND QUARREL WITH CLEEVES.

The limits of Falmouth were described in general terms in the compact with Massachusetts of 1658; they were afterward to be particularly marked out by the inhabitants themselves, or, in case of their neglect, the next county court was to appoint commissioners for that purpose. This duty not having been performed, the general court at their session in May, 1659, appointed "Capt. Nicholas Shapleigh, Mr. Abraham Preble,' Mr. Edward Rishworth, and Lt. John Saunders, to run the dividing lines," not only of Falmouth, but of Saco and Scarborough. This committee attended to the service and reported "that the dividing line between Scarborough and Falmouth, shall be the first dividing branches of Spurwink river, from thence to run up into the country upon a due north-west line, until eight miles be extended; and that the easterly bounds of Falmouth shall extend to the Clapboard islands, and from thence shall run upon a west line into the country, till eight miles be expired." These boundaries are the same as at the present time, with the exception of the eastern line, which now runs north-west from the white rock, opposite Clapboard island, referred to in the survey of the eastern line of the province by

1 Return of the Committee.