Massachusetts. A west line corresponded precisely with the exterior line of the province, as then claimed by that government. The two side lines of the tract, are now parallel, both running north forty-five degrees west, a distance of over eight miles from the sea; the rear line is a few rods over ten miles long. The name which was given to this town, was borrowed from that of an ancient town in England, standing at the mouth of the river Fal, in Cornwall, and hence called Falmouth. This river, after passing through a part of Cornwall, discharges itself into the British channel, forming at its mouth a spacious harbor. Several of our early settlers came from that neighborhood, and adopted the name in compliance with a natural and prevailing custom in the first age of our history of applying the names which were familiar to them in the mother country to places which they occupied in this. Previous to this time, the plantation upon the Neck, and indeed all others in the bay, were called by the general name of Casco, or Casco bay, no boundaries were defined; but when a particular spot was intended to be designated, the local terms borrowed principally from the Indians were used, as Machegonne, Purpooduck,' Capisic, Westcustogo, Spurwink, etc. These names continued to prevail many years, and some of them remain in familiar use at the present day. Besides the thirteen persons who subscribed the submission to Massachusetts, the following were inhabitants of the town in 1658: James Andrews, Thomas Greenly or Greensledge, George Ingersoll, John Lewis, Jane Macworth, Joseph Phippen, Sampson Penley, Robert and Thomas Sanford or Stanford, and Nathaniel Wharff. James Andrews was the son of Jane Macworth, by her former husband, Samuel Andrews, and was born in 1635, probably at Saco. Greensledge, in 1666, is called a servant of George Cleeves, we know nothing more of him than that he 1 Purpooduck was the aboriginal name for Spring Point, but it afterward was extended over the whole northern shore of Cape Elizabeth. was an inhabitant, June, 1658. We find George Ingersoll here as early as 1657, but are not able to determine the period of his arrival; he was born in 1618, and was probably the son of Richard Ingersoll, a Bedfordshire man, who with his family was sent to Capt. Endicott, in Salem, by the Massachusetts Company in 1629.1 John Lewis was the son of George; he received a grant of 100 acres of land at Back Cove from George Cleeves, June 26, 1657; his father had lived here at that time at least seventeen years, and had several children born previous to that period. Joseph Phippen was an inhabitant of Falmouth as early as 1650; he probably came from Boston, where several of that name were then living; a David Phippen was admitted freeman of Massachusetts in 1636, and one by the name of Joseph in 1644. He purchased one hundred acres at Purpooduck, of Cleeves, September 30, 1650. Sampson Penley was here as early as June, 1658, we do not know where he came from, he lived many years in Falmouth, and raised a family here. We know nothing of the origin of the Stanfords, they were residing at Purpooduck in 1687, when in a petition to Andross, they stated that they had possessed land on the south side of Casco river thirty-five years. Nathaniel Wharff was 1 See the company's letter in Hazard, vol. i. p. 279. 2 George Lewis, who I have supposed was the father of our George, was a clothier. He came from Kent county, England, to Plymouth, before 1630, and moved to Scituate in 1634. He had a brother John, who took the freeman's oath in Scituate in 1637. Our conjecture receives some countenance from the similarity of names. *[The name of Phippen was originally Fitzpen and still exists in Cornwall, England. Joseph's father, David, was one of the thirty who with Rev. Peter Hobart settled Hingham, Mass. He was admitted an inhabitant of Boston in 1641, and died before 1653. Joseph had a house lot in Hingham granted him 1637; he lived in Boston in 1644. He married Dorcas Wood and had issue, Joseph, 1642, Mary, Sarah, Elizabeth, David, 1647, and Samuel. He died in Salem about 1687. In England, the Jordans intermarried with this family. Robert Jordan, a merchant in Melcomb, is supposed to have married a Fitzpen or Phippen.]—ED. married to Rebecca, eldest daughter of Jane Macworth, as early as March 28, 1658, at which time he received from Mrs. Macworth a conveyance of land near the mouth of Presumpscot river, where he afterward lived.' In addition to these persons there then lived in the bay, John Cousins, near the mouth of Royall's river; Thomas Hains, at Marquoit; James Lane, on the east side of Cousins' river; Richard Bray, on Mains' point in North Yarmouth; John Maine, at the same place; James Parker, on the Kennebec river or its neighborhood; William Royall, on the east side of Royall's river, near its mouth; John Sears, probably on one of the islands. Besides thesc, there were Hugh Mosier, Thomas Morris, and Thomas Wise, who lived some where in the bay at this time, but at what particular place, we are unable to determine; probably in North Yarmouth. The distribution of the inhabitants of Falmouth, in the scveral parts of the town is as follows: On the east side of Presumpscot river, lived James Andrews, Jane Macworth, Francis Neale, and Nathaniel Wharff; on the west side of that river, Robert Corbin, John Phillips, Richard Martin, the settler at Martin's Point, opposide Macworth's Point; at Back Cove, George Ingersoll, George Lewis, John Lewis, and Nathaniel Wallis; on the Neck, lived George Cleeves, Michael Mitton, and Richard Tucker; at Purpooduck, Joseph Phippen, Sampson Penley, Thomas Staniford, Nicholas White, and probably John Wallis; Robert Jordan is the only name we meet with from Spurwink; Francis Small lived at Capisic, on a tract of land he purchased of the Indians. The several parcels of land conveyed by Cleeves and Tucker, were invariably situated upon the margin of one of the rivers, or of the Back Cove. The earliest grants from them we meet with, were to Atwell, at Martin's Point, and to George Lewis, 1 York Records. 2 Martin married widow Atwell, and afterward occupied her farm. at the entrance into Back Cove; these were made before 1640, and probably after June 8, 1637, the date of their possession under Gorges' deed. The next conveyance we have discovered, was of two hundred acres at Back Cove, to Wise and Mosier, in 1640, between the land of Atwell and Lewis. We find no trace of any other conveyances from those persons until 1646, when they granted to John Moses, "now of Piscataqua river," "one hundred acres of land in Casco bay, adjoining unto land formerly granted unto George Lewis," in consideration of seven years service as an apprentice to them.1 Between the date of the two last mentioned conveyances, Cleeves went to England and procured his commission from Rigby, and also May 23, 1643, a title to the same tract which had been granted to him by Gorges. . For a number of years after this period, Cleeves was engaged in a controversy with the agents of Gorges for the maintenance of his power as the deputy of Rigby; and after he was quietly established in his government, he soon became occupied in resisting the claim of Massachusetts. These employments, together with the continual opposition by which his administration was harrassed by discontented subjects, must have left him but little opportunity for the improvement of the large tract conveyed to himself and partner. In 1650, May 1, he confirmed Peaks' Island to Michael Mitton, his son-in-law, under authority from Rigby, and January 1, 1651, by the same authority, he conveyed to him one hundred acres at Clark's Point, adjoining his dwelling-house, which Mitton "had possessed for ten years." February 24, 1651, he transferred to him all that tract lying in Casco bay, granted to him by Alexander Rigby, which he describes as being "now in the possession of me the said Cleeves and other of my tenants," also all the utensils, household stuff in and about the house and buildings, with all his houses, buildings, "cattle as well as cows 1 York Records. and calves and steers and swine, young and old, as also all other cattle and goods," and mentions as the consideration a sum of money, and also "that he the said Michael Mitton, shall at all time and times hereafter maintain and provide for me, the said George Cleeves, and for Joan, my now wife, good and sufficient meat and drink, apparel and lodging and physick and all other necessaries for the relief of this frail life for both of us, and the longest liver of both of us, as well as for other considerations me hereunto moving as well the marriage of my daughter as otherways." Although this deed appears to have been regularly executed, yet it probably never took effect, as we find Cleeves afterward, even the same year, making conveyances of parcels of the same land; the deed was not recorded until 1717. December 26, 1651, Cleeves conveyed to Nicholas Bartlett,* of Cape Porpus, "one hundred acres lying together in Casco bay, near unto the house of me, the said George Cleeves, to begin at the south-west side of the corn field, now employed for tillage and corn, by me the said Cleeves; the bounds to begin at the small water lake, which runneth into the cove, near the said corn field, and is to run eightscore poles into the woods, and from the cove south-west by the water side toward the house of Michael Mitton, one hundred poles, together with so much marsh ground as is to be appointed to every other tenant for every hundred acres." This description points out the situation of the grant; it extended from Clay Cove to about where Union street now is, and included the whole width of the Neck. * [Bartlett lived sometime in Scarborough.] 1 In the time of Gov. Andross, 1687, Bartlett petitioned for confirmation of this title, and represented that he bore arms for King Charles eight years, for most of which time he had no pay, especially the last three years he served in the Princes guard, and at last was forced to fly out of England for his life, poor and destitute; and in order to settle himself here, purchased land of Cleeves. That Danforth disposed of the land to other men who built upon it. He was then living in Salem.-York Records. |