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MAINE:
HER PLACE IN HISTORf.

GEN'L CHAMBERLAIN'S
CENTENNIAL ADDR

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Gift of
Constance Grosvenor Alexander
1917

MAINE:
HEE PLACE IN HISTOEY.

ADDRESS

BELITEHED AT THE

Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia, 2Tov* 4, 1876,

AND IN CONVENTION 'OP THE

Legislature of Maine, February 6„ 1877,
BY JOSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN".;
WITH A
COMMUNICATION FROM THE GOVERNOR,
AND THE
Eeport of the Centennial Commission.

Published Jay order of the Legislature of Maine, of February 7, 1877.

AUGUSTA?
SPKAGUE, OWEN & "NASH, PRINTERS TO THE STATE.
1877.

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STATE OF MAINE.

Executive Department,
Augusta, February 6, 1877.
To the Senate and House of Representatives :
I have the honor to transmit herewith the report of
the United States Centennial Commissioners for this
State, who, in conjunction with the Directors appointed
by the Covernor, constituted the State Board of Cen
tennial Managers;
rthe success of the International Exhibition in cele
bration of the one hundredth anniversary of the
Independence of the United States, is universally
conceded, and amply justifies the pride and gratifica
tion with which the whole country regards its grand
commemorative holiday season.
"Viewed as a National Celebration, the Exhibition
tended to strengthen the bonds of ainity by which our
country seeks to be connected with;all the nations of the
earth* to revive and confirm the sentiment of nationality
among our own people, and to mitigate the effects of
recent estrangement. As a display of the samples of
their material wealth and of the best results of their

iy GOVERNOR CONNOR'S COMMUNICATION.
labor and art presented by the various countries of the
world, it was a rare means of instruction and a prolific
source of the highest enjoyment to the multitudes that
thronged to it from all parts of the land. The stimu
lating and suggestive influence which it exercised upon
the business and industrial energies of the country, is
already plainly felt and cannot fail to lead to the most
beneficial results to its material prosperity. ISTew mar
kets were disclosed which before were thought to be
out of the reach of our competition, and the attention
of American ingenuity and enterprise was called to new
industries applicable to our circumstances and capable
of prosecution on our own soil.
The detailed statement of exhibits and awards con
tained in the Commissioners' Report, shows that the
contributions made by this State were many and im
portant, and served to indicate the natural resources
of the State, the variety and extent of its industries,
and the character of its public schools.
Creditable as the part taken by the State in the
Exhibition manifestly was, it is evident that, had the
importance of the Exhibition and the advantages to
be derived from a participation in it been more gener
ally comprehended, and foreseen, there would have
been a far more liberal response to the appeals and
efforts of the Board of Managers, and the products of
our soil and manufactories would have had a greatly
enlarged representation.,

CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. y
Acting upon the request of the Centennial Commis
sion that some person be designated by me to deliver
an Historical and Descriptive Address upon the sub
ject of the State of Maine, at some time during the
Exhibition, I invited Ex-Governor J. L. Chamberlain
to perform that office, and an address was accordingly
delivered by him in November, near the close of the
Exhibition. I respectfully recommend that the address be re
quested of the author, and that provision be made for
giving it the wide distribution deserved by its interest
and value. SELDEN CONNDE.

STATE OF MAINE.

In Senate, February 7, 1877.
Read and sent down. S. W. LANE, Secretary.

In House of Representatives,!
February 7, 1877. J
Read in concurrence. ORAMANDAL SMITH, Clerk.

MAINE:
HEE PLACE IN HISTOET.

Address Delivered at the Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia,
November 4, 1876, and in Convention op the Legislature
op Maine, February 6, 1877,
BY JOSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN.

MAINE.

Two conspicuous headlands strike the attention of the
European voyager approaching the North Atlantic coast.
Reaching out boldly seaward they serve to mark the general
direction of the shore, yet between them a vast expanse of
water stretches to the north a day's sail beyond sight. These
headlands are Cape Sable and Cape Cod,1 whose outer lights
range with each other about east-north-east and west-south
west, and are distant in a right line about 250 miles. Facing
this line, at an average distance of 125 miles, lies the coast of
Maine; fronted right and left by these two capes — great
salients lying out like couchant lions guarding its broad
approach. For, on their range a perpendicular from Cape
Sable passes very near Eastport, the easternmost town of
Maine ; while a perpendicular from Nauset light, passing
between Cape Ann and the Isles of Shoals, strikes not
far from the city of Portsmouth on the Piscataqua river,.
which forms part of the western boundary of Maine.2 These
lines would enclose an almost regular rectangular parallelo
gram,3 with a breadth one-half its length, but the figure-
is extended by two deep pockets, the Bay of Fundy on one
'One can hardly help regretting that this name given by Gosnold
(1602) has survived the more fitting designation given by Champlain and
De Monts (1605), — Cap Blanc, White Cape, — a striking contrast with
Cape Sable opposite. The Dutch also called it Witte Hoeck, White Hook.
The Northmen had named it, six hundred years before, Kialarness, Ship-
nose. (Thorwald, Erik's son, 1002).
2U. S. Coast Survey charts. Atlantic, sheet No. 1.
3It was not this, but the Gulf of St. Lawrence probably, which Gomara
(Hist, de las Indias) calls Golfo Quadrado, the Square Gulf. On the early
charts this Gulf is represented as semi-circular, or the flat segment of an
ellipse.

4 Maine : Hee Place in History.
side, and Cape Cod Bay on the other, — at the bottom of one,
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and opposite, New Hamp
shire and Massachusetts. This considerable body of water,
well deserving to be called a gulf, has in recent times received
an appropriate name from the land whose limits lie so exactly
opposite its great entrance capes, and is called the Gulf of
Maine.1 This shoreland is also remarkable, being so battered and
frayed by sea and storm, and worn perhaps by arctic currents
and glacier beds,2 that its natural front of some 250 miles is
multiplied to an extent of not less than 2,500 miles of salt
water line ; while at an average distance of about three miles
from the main land, stretches a chain of outposts consisting
of more than three hundred islands3 — fragments of the main —
striking in their diversity, — on the west, low, wooded and
and grassy to the water's edge, and rising eastward through
bolder types to the crowns and cliffs of Mt. Desert and
Quoddy Head, — an advancing series from beauty to sub
limity ;4 and behind all these are deep basins and broad river-
mouths, affording convenient and spacious harbors, in many
of which the navies of nations might safely ride at anchor.8
There is no doubt that the adventurous spirits of the
'Edinburg Encyc, 1832, vol. XVIII. The name was first applied by
Prof. J. E. Hilgard, of the U. S. Coast Survey oflice, and through his
efforts it is likely to become permanent.
sFiord valleys. Dana's Geology, 533.
3 This portion of the coast may always be known on the rudest early
charts by the dash of islands with which the explorers somewhat careless
ly record their observations.
* "Advancing " only in the effect on human emotions ; for in true rank I
suppose the beautiful must be higher than the sublime, being the perfec
tion and peace, where all the parts are obedient to the central law or soul
of a thing ; while the sublime overweighs the law and limit of perfection,
and shows a power ready to pass out from the peace of its own beino- and
to threaten and destroy. Peace is higher than war.
5Somes's Sound is probably the most commodious and strategically
advantageous position for a Naval Station for the United States on the
whole Atlantic Coast. An effort was made to draw the attention of the
Government to this in 1869.

Centennial Address. 5
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were greatly drawn to these
waters and shores, all the natural products of which offered
themselves with primeval prodigality. One needs only to
glance at the early charts,1 or the wonderful stories of the
voyagers of the times to perceive the romantic interest that
centered here, and be prepared to understand why the great
minds of that period attached such importance to the posses
sion of this gulf, as if they foresaw that it must become the
key to the Continent. Especially attractive was the region
between the Piscataqua and Penobscot, in its marvellous beauty
of shore and sea, of island and inlet, of bay and river and
harbor, surpassing any other equally extensive portion of the
Atlantic coast, and compared by travellers earliest and latest,
with the famed archipelago of the iEgean.2
This was the objective point, not only of poetic fancy and
dreams of Empire, but of the earliest actual colonies and
settlements upon which more than one kingdom of the Old
World based its title to the New.
'A very valuable collection appears in the interesting work of Dr. J.
G. Kohl of Germany, "Discovery of the East Coast of America," Doc.
Hist, of Me., VOL I.
2Thevet gave a- glowing account of the Penobscot region visited by
him in 1556.
Rosier, historian of Weymouth's voyage (1605), has among other lavish
expressions of delight, the following comments upon a river explored by
Weymouth, formerly supposed to be the Penobscot, but now thought to
be the Sagadahoc. (John McKeen, Me. Hist. Coll. Vol. V) : "As we passed
with a gentle wind up with our ship in this river, any man may conceive
with what admiration we all consented in joy. Many of our company
who had been travellers in sundry countries, and in most famous rivers,
yet affirmed them not comparable to this they now beheld. Some that
were with Sir Walter Kaleigh in his voyage to Guiana, in the discovery of
the river Orenoque, which echoed fame to the world's ears, gave reasons
why it was not to be compared with this, which wanteth the dangers of
many shoals, and broken ground, wherewith that was incumbered. Others
before that notable river in the West Indies called Rio Grande; some
before the river of Loire, the river Seine and of Bourdeaux in France ;
which although they be great and goodly rivers, yet it is no detraction
from them to be accounted inferior to this." — Mass. Hist. Coll. 3d Series,
Vol. 8.

6 Maine : Her Place in History.
Here, in the region about Pemaquid and Monhegan, were
wont to rendezvous the ships of many nations1 — English,
French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Italian — and made a
strange company for the astonished senses of the too trustful
aborigines.2 The objects of these visits varied with national
temper and habit, and also with the growing ambition of the
times. First, a way to the Indies was sought ; then gold ;
then fish and furs ; then higher motives than trade prevailed,
and noble minds conceived the great enterprise of bringing
this fair land under the hand of civilization, and dedicating it
to the good of man and glory of God. Here at length when
the rivalry had narrowed down to two champions, the French
and English made a bloody battle for empire.
Yet, this land, at first deemed so commanding in position,
seems to have been at times strangely neglected. England, for
nearly a hundred years, allowed it to pass from her thoughts.
Even then, when stimulated by the enterprise of the French,
her interest was fitful, and manifested chiefly by individual
minds. As a nation she exhibited no strong policy towards
We must cite also a passage in De Peyster's Dutch in Maine, p. 44,
"How few are alive to the glorious and varied beauty of that zone of
islands which commencing with the perfection of Casco Bay, terminates
with the precipitous seal — frequented shores of Grand Menan. Of all the
archipelagoes sung by the poet, described by the historian, and depicted
by the painter, there jis none which can exceed in its union of charms those
two hundred miles of intermingling land and ocean, where lost in each
other's embrace, the sea seems in love with the land and the shore with
the foam crested waves."
The beauty of this description is heightened for the lover of German
romance, by the association which calls up the passage at the opening of
Fouque's Undine, " Und es schien eben so wohl die Erdzunge habe sich
aus Liebe zu der blaulich klaren wunderhellen Fluth, in diese hinein
gedrangt, als auch das Wasser habe mit verliebten Armen nach der
schonen Aue gegriffen, nach ihren hoch schwankenden Griisern und
Blumen, und nach dem erquicklichen Schatten ihrer Biiume."
1 Winslow of Plymouth Colony, found thirty ships at Monhegan and
Damariscove in his visit in 1622. (Purchas Pilgrims, Edition of 1625,
Vol. IV.)
8 It was a common practice of the early European ship-masters to kid
nap the natives and sell them into slavery.

Centennial Address. 7
these colonies. And when at length the settled institutions
of civilization took shape and name here, this early favored
region was unnaturally passed by. And it is only slowly, and
even now but imperfectly, regaining its ancient and well
grounded prestige.
The obscuration of its more recent career, the absolute and
almost abject surrender of its name in history, is something
singular. The minds of its own people seem to acquiesce in
its loss of birthright with strange humility. Few know that
it was the early settlements in this territory which confirmed
the title of old England to the new ; — that years before the
Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth sands, there were established
English settlements at various points on the shores of Maine ;
— that Pemaquid was a seat of trade and of government, and
at one time the metropolis of all the region east of New York.1
Popular history does not care to tell us that the Samoset who
startled the Pilgrims with the greeting, "Much welcome
Englishmen !" was Lord of Pemaquid, and had learned the
language from long familiar intercourse with the colonists
and visitants at that joint capital. Nor are we told that when
the heroic little band at Plymouth in that bitter winter, beset
by enemies from all the elements and all the kingdoms of
Nature, were driven out in search of food, it was hitherward
the little shallop made its way, and found English hearts and
hands, that helped to their utmost ability and would take no
pay. Few are aware of the more important fact, that the
colony at Plymouth owed its title and tenure, if not its origin,
to those whose chief interest was here. It is not even a school
boy's tale that the first incorporated city in America was
within these limits — the city of Georgiana founded in 1641
on the site of the present town of York. It interests none
1 The petition of the inhabitants of New Harbor, sometime before 1689,
to the Governor and Council of New York concludes " And that Pemaquid
may still remain the metropolitan of these parts, because it ever have been
so before Boston was settled." See Pemaquid Papers, prepared by Dr.
Hough, Maine Hist. Soc. Coll. V. 137.

8 Maine : Her Place in History.
but the antiquary to know that the Province of Maine was
once a County Palatine, and is the only portion of American
soil which was ever under a purely feudal tenure. How easily
it is forgotten what men were William Phipps and those
who manned the fleet that took Port Royal, or William
Pepperell, and 'almost the entire armament which conducted
the brilliant seige of Louisburg, — actions for which both these
commanders were knighted by the sovereign. In truth, many
of the issues in which this territory played -an important part,
have lost their vital relations with the interests that now
absorb us. "French or English America," is now a dream
of the past. "Royalty or Republic" no longer summons men
to stake life and fortune on their choice. Churchmen and dis
senter have sheathed the sword and laid aside the pen. The
lines of loyalty are drawn by other tests.1
But even when the power of this province entered into the
great struggle for independence, its service, its loyalty, its
sacrifice, all were offered up in a name not its own, and are
dead and gone out of mind, or live to swell the glory of
others. Whose pride is now quickened to know that the
first governor of Massachusetts was born in this Province,
and more than one other since ;2 that the first Secretary of
War had his home by the Penobscot, and another resided on
the bank of the Kennebec ;3 and that many of the best minds
in the Congress and army of the Revolution were from this
'It is when free institutions are in process of formation that personal
sacrifice ennobles history ; afterwards these institutions are seized upon
and made to minister to personal aggrandizement. Early ages are called
heroic because of great deeds done to serve others ; later times seem to
reverse the process, and call men great who make others serve them.
2 Sir William Phipps, born at Woolwich, 1651 ; James Sullivan, born in
Berwick, 1744, distinguished also as a statesman and jurist ; and John A.
Andrew, born in Windham, 1818, whose character and services require no
eulogy. 3 Knox and Dearborn.

Centennial Address. 9
land without a name ! 1 Where is the record of the story
once thrilling our youthful pulse, that when Washington rode
down the lines to thank the troops whose valor had turned
the tide of a desperate battle, and exclaimed with uncovered
head ' ' God bless the Massachusetts line ! " he spoke to the
Third Division — men from the counties of York and Cum
berland ?
It is indeed by a fatality of successive misadventures that
Maine has been kept back in both her natural advance in
wealth and population, and her credit for noble work in his
tory, and that the earnest purposes which first broke ground
here, have passed to bear fruit in remoter and even less re
munerative soils. This rebound, or rather, if I may use the
expression, this ricochet of ciyilization, cannot be readily
accounted for unless we give to mere accident a place in deter
mining human events, which neither the intellectual pride nor
the religious faith of man is accustomed to admit.
It would certainly be natural that the shores along the Gulf
of Maine which first seemed to foretell such glories to the
minds of Europeans and attracted so many noble enterprises,
should have been the theatre of the first and greatest exploits
of civilization, and left lasting and wide and acknowledged
results. Here, where the land stretches out its hands a hun
dred miles seaward, and holds them open by twice that extent
to welcome the civilization of Europe to harbors and fields
and powers so capacious, we should have looked for the
1 Among others may be named John Sullivan, member of the 1st Conti
nental Congress, 1774, and Major General in the Revolution, who after
wards saved New Hampshire from anarchy, and secured the adoption of
the Constitution of the United States; Rufus King, orator, statesman
and diplomatist; the Sewalls of York, — David, Stephen and Henry, —
jurist, scholar and soldier — patriots all; the Prebles, father and son,
Jedediah the general and Edward the commodore; the O'Briens, five
brothers, famous and feared on the seas: — these names are a pride to
Maine. George Thacher, jurist and statesman ; Samuel Tucker, a com.
modore of no small renown ; Peleg Wadsworth and Henry Dearborn, also
generals in the army and members of Congress, though not born in Maine
resided here, and their services are part of our history.
2

10 Maine : Her Place in History.
emporiums of American industry and commerce, and the seats
of influence and power upon the Continent. There would
seem to be no reason in the nature of things why the sterile
soils around Massachusettss Bay should have been taken up,
while the rich lands of the east were left neglected, or why
the meagre natural forces of southern New England should
be overtasked with manufactures while the abounding and
more available powers in the earlier discovered land should
run wild and waste.
But after all it must be confessed that Maine has no history
the dignity of which is conceded ; and hardly a place among
the recognized factors of the Nation's destiny. Those that
are acquainted with her know full well that her inhabitants
are behind none others either in physical or mental endow
ments, in character, intelligence, and independence, and
thrifty and well to do style of living. But still the fact can
not be suppressed, that she is popularly spoken of as if she
were a neighbor to the western savage,1 rather than as she is,
in time and place, and to no small degree in the arts of life,
next neighbor to the culture of the Old World.
It is proper briefly to consider these two points, and if
possible discover the reasons for this depression from her
early promise, and this obscuration of her entire history.
1. First then a discouraging effect followed from the
rigors of the climate, which the early European colonists had
not learned to cope with. Such reports as that borne by the
survivors of some winter-stricken settlement, whose people
had been spending all the warm season in random excursions
or trading expeditions, that " the country is intolerably cold
and sterile, unhealthy, and not habitable by our English
nation,"2 must have had the effect to turn aside many, the ¦
ardor of whose enterprise was not equalled by the hardihood
of their bodies or the thoughtfulness of their preparations.

1 One would suppose from the cuts in some of our popular geographies,
that Maine was as yet almost an unbroken wilderness, the saw-mill and the
sco w being set forth as characteristic emblems of her advance in civilization.
2 People who returned from the Popham Settlement, 1608.

Centennial Address. 11
2. A second untoward influence is found in the strange
accidents, the interruption of the elements and the opposition
of human enemies,1 which so often brought to nought the
purposes of ship-loads and fleets of colonists, who had em
barked for these shores.2 The caprices of enthusiasm, super
stition, ignorance, civil and religious dissensions — nay, more
than once, and more than thrice, the death of a single man,
changed the entire complexion and drift of those early affairs.3
3. A third source of discouragement was in the unsettled
political condition, if that epithet can be applied to a state of
things where there is no organized^civil polity, — and the con
flicts of jurisdiction4 which from the earliest until almost the
latest times of the provincial history of the territory, kept
the colonists in constant anxiety, and held back many of those
who hoped above all to bring to these shores the peaceful and
civilizing influence of home.
4. Another and most effective disturbing force was the
extraordinary severity of hostile attacks by the Indians, who
took fearful vengeance upon the colonists for the outrages of
roving ship masters. Their savage nature was also inflamed to
unwonted zeal by the belief inculcated by the French Jesuits,
that the English were not only their foes, but heretics and
1 " So that one must not wonder if the time be long in establishing of
Colonies, specially in lands so remote, whose nature, and temperature of
aire is not knowne, and where one must fell and cut downe Forrests, and
be constrained to take heed, not from the people we call sauages, but from
them that tearme themselues Christians, and yet haue but the name of it,
cursed and abhominable people, worse than Wolues, enemies to God and
human nature." Lescarbot (1609) Voyage of De Monts. Purchas, IV.
p. 1627.
2 The capture by the Spaniards of the first expeditions sent out by
Popham and Georges, and the strange misadventures of storms and
pirates and mutinies that befell Capt. John Smith's attempt to colonize
New England in 1615 may be instanced.
3 The revocation of the French grant to the Huguenot De Monts: The
struggle between De Aulnay and La Tour in Castine for the mastery over
Acadia': The death of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, of George Popham, of Chief
Justice Popham, of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and even of Father Rales,
are examples. 4See farther on.

12 Maine : Her Place in History.
enemies of God. Then, again, from an imperfect under
standing of the import and effect of title-deeds1 under which
they had sold their lands, a bitter feeling arose that they
were cheated and abused. For almost a hundred years such
bloody scenes were enacted here, it is a wonder that there
were any colonists left at all.
5. It must be confessed, that one great cause of the slow
progress of colonization in this region, is to be found in the
ruling ideas and motives of the times. This is true of the
colonists. They were not men lifted up and held together
by the thought that they were sufferers in a noble cause, and
that their humble work took hold on higher things. They
had not the austere virtues which are the foundation of States ;
they did not regard even the first truths of Political Economy,
that wealth is only built up by labor, by bringing steady toil
to bear upon nature, and that the means of commanding sat
isfactions are only to be attained through sacrifice and self-
denial. Nor did the benevolent and noble minds in England,
who had devoted themselves to these enterprizes realize the
necessity of personal supervision and of actual contact with the
raw materials and wild forces which were to be made servants
to these great ends. You cannot build up a civilization with
laws made three thousand miles away. Laws without per
sonal, practical efforts, can no more construct society, than
they can save it.
6. But even when something like order was established,
and the powerful Colony of Massachusetts took this under its
protection, no causes were set free to work any great changes
for the better. It was natural and inevitable that the stronger
should absorb the weaker. It could not be expected that
Massachusetts would cherish the growth of Portland as a sea
port, or make large investments to promote wealth and popu
lation in a territory which was not even adjacent, and which
1 Ownership to them conveyed no clearer notion than that of a right to
hunt. There was no absurdity in granting this right to different parties,
and this in their view would. not exclude them from any rights they had
before. They were slow to regard themselves as dispossessed.

Centennial Address. 13
she could not but foresee, must in the natural course of events
soon pass out of her hands.
7. The early colonists here were not of the creed and
party which ultimately prevailed in the country, and this fact
has had no small influence in obscuring this early history.
The Huguenots, who were of the same faith as the English,
were driven off because they were Frenchmen, and afterwards
the English of the same blood were driven off because they
were churchmen. The early colonies here held to the faith
and forms of their founders. There was no reason why Mas
sachusetts should embalm the memory of these men ; nor were
the subsequent inhabitants of Maine in any great number their
descendants. Hence there has arisen no champion to vindi
cate their claims, and no bard to sing their story.
8. The title to honorable remembrance which thus went
by default, was still more effectually sunk by the fictions of
eloquence, and the poetry of history. It seems a law of the
mind, that whatever in human affairs is most impressive to
the senses, — especially if it also appears decisive of results, —
usurps the situation, and throws all subsidiary efforts, whether
barren or fruitful, into a common obscurity. It is here the
idealized picture of the landing of the Pilgrims, which, so
true to character if not to fact, seizing upon men's minds has
dwarfed our earlier history. It was Webster1 first in his great
speech at Plymouth in 1820, in commemoration of the landing
of the Pilgrims, who with the imagination, the passion and the
touch of genius, created a history which like a new epic poem
went to the heart of the world. This was perpetuated and
confirmed by the finished oratory of Everett, and afterwards
in the sober histories of Bancroft and Story. The gentle
spirit of Mrs. Hemans caught the strain and echoed it back
in divine song. No one was rude enough to break the charm
— even if the rushing, hero-worshipping imagination of our
people would have tolerated sober evidence. Our loyalty
'This consideration is the suggestion of Mr. Poor in his Eulogy on
Gorges, which is in many places too strong in its bearing.

14 Maine : Her Place in History.
to the spirit of New England, our filial reverence for the
Pilgrims, the constancy of the faith which was theirs and ours,
our pride in the eloquence and our sympathy with the tender
ness with which genius had lifted the story so high, made us
unwilling to interrupt this lofty unity of effect with humble,
homely truth. So, often does one's modesty make another's
history. Doubtless in a high and noble figure Plymouth Rock
is the foundation of New England ; but still it is not true that
New England was first settled in 1620, by the Pilgrims on the
" stern and rock-bound coast" of Cape Cod Bay I1
I hold back no praise from the Pilgrims. No colors could*
be too strong, no eloquence or song too high to set forth the
picture of them which lives and beats in our hearts. It is
power and inspiration ; not only for this country, but for all
mankind. Nor am I by any means pretending that the in
fluence of the Maine Colonies upon New England character
was comparable to that of Plymouth. But their influence on
New England history has been of greatest moment. What is
first in interest has absorbed what is first in time and in the
logic of events, and so reduced the early history of Maine to
absolute zero.
But lest it be thought from this review of evils that our
early history has no worth, it is my purpose to present some
aspects of it which could not be shown while enumerating
the causes of depression. I shall no longer complain of neg
lect or injustice, but shall maintain positively the claims which
Maine may justly hold to an important and honorable part in
the fortunes of this country.
The subject naturally groups itself in two general divisions.
I. Maine as a Province : that is, controlled by powers out
side of herself.
II. Maine as independent : making her own history, and
in her own name.
The first of these divisions I shall discuss under three prop
ositions :

'The Pilgrims themselves never claimed this exclusive honor. See
Winslow's journal and Bradford's letter to Gorges, elsewhere cited.

Centennial Address. 15
1. Maine was instrumental in holding America for Eng
land as against France.
2. Maine was the historical beginning of New England,
and not the daughter of any other colony.
3. New England, and especially Massachusetts, afterwards
preserved Maine to the American Union.
Some of these statements may appear to have the merit of
novelty. The task before me is to bring out their truth.
I am aware that history traces the acts of men rather than
the fate of lands. But still, the land has much to do with
man. It sustains a moral as well as a physical relation to
him. 1st. It affects him through the power of association —
memory and tradition. Whether life's toils and loves conse
crate it, or whether it asserts its own claim as the theater on
which we work out character and destiny, the land is dear,
and remains so even when those who shared it with us have
passed away. It is true, the great deeds wrought here in the
heroic times were wrought by men whose descendants we are
not. If we should seek to follow their footsteps, I know not
what far off histories we should trace. But the land has a
deeper interest and worth for the human hopes once fixed
here, and the earthly missions here wrought. It is mightier
for the men that have passed away. Then, 2d, the physical
features of the earth affect men, by a certain law of nature.
Land and sea, and river and mountain abide. Nor do human
hearts and needs change more. Here are elements of history
which survive the shocks of arms and change of dynasties.
Hence there is a certain continuity of life unconsciously passed
down from age to age, even when not from father to son.1
I do not propose an epitome of historic facts. That were
a tedious task. Nor does it suit the purpose to select critical
situations to stir the imagination and emotions. We are to

* 'Buckle, Hist, of Civilization, ascribes too much efficacy to this as con
trolling the destiny of nations. But sound thinkers and scholars, like
Montesquieu and Sir Henry Maine, find in the land a powerful influence,
as well as mstrument, in determining man's advancement. The whole
question is well handled in Mulford's Nation, chapter V.

16 Maine : Her Place in History.
use the facts of this early period as related to their large con
sequences, and not as spectacles of human passion or endur
ance. But yet we cannot disregard the fact that the early
history of this region is to a remarkable degree a history of
men who have failed — a history nevertheless full of broadest
purposes and noblest endeavor, and so not lost in the chain
of human causes and effects.
A thousand years ago the eyes of Europeans were set upon
these shores. Tradition has many a strange story of vessels
storm-driven each way across the Atlantic in these latitudes— ¦
of strangers borne thus to the coasts of Europe, and of Euro
peans carried in turn to unknown shores, whence some one
escaped to tell the marvellous story.1 But some traces are
verified in history. The two races which have been among
the last though not now the least to mingle with us, were
earliest of discoverers. To the Celts and the Scandanavians
belongs this pre-eminence. Certainly, when the Northmen
first took possession of Iceland, in 860, they found the Irish
chieftains settled there. And it appears an unquestionable
fact, that Madoc, Prince of Wales in 1170, had large dealings
with these Western shores.2
But the Northmen mean time had turned their ships hither-
ward. Their story is no longer a myth, but strong and stir-
1 A Frisland fishing vessel was driven by a storm to a far western country
named Estotiland, whose king had Latin books he could not understand,
and who spoke no language resembling European tongues. He told the
sailors of another country far to the south called Drogeo, a large country,
" like another world," whose people were in eternal warfare ; while farther
yet southward were other nations more civilized, who built towns and
temples. On the old charts this Estotiland (East-out-land) corresponds
with Nova Scotia, while Drogeo is exactly in the locality of the State of
Maine. See the sea chart of the Venetian brothers Zeni, made A. D. 1400 ;
also, Dr. Kohl's note on Lelewel's map, p. 106.
The far famed Norumbega is first mentioned by a French captain in 1537
as including the territory now Maine. Quoted by Ramusio, Tom. III.
fol. 423.
These wild names, full of weird associations, did not escape the ear of
John Milton in his marvellous marshalling Qf sonorous names. See Para
dise Lost, Bk. x. 686, 696.
^See Hakluyt's Voiages, London, 1589, p. 506.

Centennial Address. 17
ring history. The attempt of Erik's sons1 to fix their homes
and found a new Northland here, belongs to the romance of
Rhode Island history. Leif's buldir — Leif's block-house, or
bower — lives at least in song, and the "old windmill" still
stands to tell of thoughts and deeds that have gone. But it
was even within this Gulf of Maine2 that Thorwald, also
Erik's son, who had landed to seek a dwelling place, fought
like a Viking and died like a Christian. After the hard fight
he asked his comrades if any of them were hurt. When they
answered No, he continued, "But I have an arrow under my
arm. I was a true prophet. I shall indeed abide here and not
depart. But bury me on the promontory, and plant there two
crosses, at my head and feet." So they laid him, and named
the place Krossaness — Cross-nose — Mount of the crosses.3
This endeared the land still more, and there came after
wards an earnest company, men and women, the latter leaders
in spirit and purpose and courage, — with cattle and utensils
and all things for goodly homes, — a hundred and sixty souls,
in three ships, "keeping the shore close on the starboard
hand," searching with loving, earnest eyes for the beacon of
their hearts — Thorwald's Headland of the Crosses. What a
romance might be written on ' ' Thorwald's Cross ! "
But all this passed. The land relapsed into the shadow,
and for five hundred years was as an "undiscovered country."
The voyage of that great spirit, Columbus, was indeed to an
unknown world. But he did more than to bring new things
to light. He joined the new to the old and half-forgotten.
With prophetic gaze he saw the past and future in blending
'See Rafh's Antiquitates Americans, Copenhagen, 1837.
2In the year 1004. Probably at Cape Ann, or possibly still east of that.
The fight was brought on by an unprovoked assault on the natives by
some of the company.
3The new volume of the Prince Society, edited by Rev. E. F. Slafter,
Voyages of the Northmen to America, containing the Iclandic Sagas of
the same, comes to hand just as this passes to the press. The beautiful
map of Vinland has Krossaness at Gurnet Point, the entrance to Plymouth
harbor. 3

18 Maine : Her Place in History.
lines, and by the strong sequences of thought restored the
continuity of history and the unity of human endeavor.
The English appear to have been slow to comprehend the
great opportunities afforded by the discovery of America.
The Spanish and Portuguese sovereigns proposed at first to
share these benefits under the dispensation of the Pope.1 But
Fraacis I. of France had no notion of being left out in the
distribution. ' ' He would like to see the clause in Adam's
will," he said, "which made this continent the exclusive pos
session of his brothers of Spain and Portugal." From that
time France laid claim to the country north of Florida, for
nearly a hundred years before England had pretended to any
substantial claim. It is true the Cabots from 1496 to 1498
had discovered the mainland more than a year before Colum
bus saw it, and had explored the coast from Florida to Lab
rador ; but so far was England from basing upon this any
claim to jurisdiction, that we find the government nearly a
hundred years after, laying down the broad and true doctrine
that discovery without occupation does not confer title.2 Far
different were the thoughts of France. In 1524 Francis sent
out Verrazzano, who explored the entire coast from the 30th
to the 50th degree of latitude, and named the whole region
New France. This substantiated a claim which France main
tained, and Carolina was named after Charles IX. In pursu
ance of his plans of colonization the French Monarch sent out
ten years later, Jacques Cartier, whose successive voyages,
within the six years following, laid open the whole region of
the St. Lawrence, stimulated the spirit of enterprise, and laid
the foundation for those splendid dreams of empire which years
afterwards the gallant King Henry of Navarre conceived, and
the noble Champlain so nearly realized.
The high-minded Emanuel of Portugal had indeed commis
sioned the Cortereals, whose voyages in 1500 to 1502 ranged
along our northern coast, and left at least many names on the

'Bull of Pope Alexander VI., 1493.
2Prescriptio sine possessione haud valeat. Camden Eliz. Annales, 1580.

Centennial Address. 19
charts of those waters. But no actual claim to possession
followed. The Spanish claim amounted to no more. Ponce de Leon
seeking the fountains of immortal youth roamed among the
voluptuous islands of the Lucayos, and along the luxuriant
coasts of Florida. But the longed-for fountains were still far
away, and like others who seek for the joy of life, he lost life
itself.1 But it was Estevan Gomez, in 1525, who brought
the Spanish flag into these northern waters. Tokens of his
long sojourn and wide explorations are the Spanish names
he left at so many points, and his own name long given to
the Penobscot, whose glories he doubtless had rapturously
described.2 From his time the waters swarmed with Biscayan
fishermen, but no real claim to jurisdiction was set up.
There was now a lull in these larger activities. For fifty
years the spirit of adventure only prompted the French and
English to take fish and furs along these coasts, and nobler
enterprises seem to have passed from the minds of the gov
ernments of both these countries.
*But there were some earnest minds at work meanwhile.
Both reality and romance found plenty of material. In, 1556
a French gentleman', Andre Thevet, gave an enthusiastic ac
count of a visit to the Penobscot region, which is remarkable
for its statements and suggestions. It thus begins :a "Here
we entered a river which is one of the finest in the whole
world. We call it Norumbega. It is marked on some charts
as the Grand River. The natives call it Agoncy. Several
beautiful rivers flow into it. Upon its banks the French for-
'A curious interpretation of this wondrous fountain is given in Park-
man's Pioneers of France in the New World, p. 6, note.
2Dr. Kohl. Discovery of the East coast, 164, 276. On old Spanish maps
this territory is called Tierra de Gomez, and the Penobscot, Rio de Gomez.
3 See Andr6 Thevet " La Cosmographie Universelle," torn. 2, fol. 1008,
Paris, 1575. I have not seen this rare book, but rely upon the citations in
Abbott's History of Maine, p. 29, credited to Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. VII, p.
243. The story is more fully told in Dr. Kohl's Disc. E. Coast, p. 415. It
would seem that the French occupied the Penobscot long before Thevet's
visit, three hundred and twenty years ago.

20 Maine : Her Place in History.
merly erected a small fort about ten leagues from its mouth.
It was called the Fort of Norumbega, and was surrounded by
fresh water."
John Rut and other travellers, English and French, visited
the coast of Maine the latter half of the 16th century, but with
out important results. In 1562 the great Coligny, Protestant
admiral of France, had obtained a charter for his oppressed
Huguenots, and attempted to establish them in the Carolinas
under the leadership of Ribault and Laudonniere.1 In 1598
the Marquis of La Roche attempted to found a Catholic and
feudal empire on this northeastern coast of New France. His
undertaking had other elements of failure. He landed at the
dismal Isle of Sable. His colonists were convicts, worn out
in heart and hope, and without even manly resolution. This
is not the stuff of which even Church and State can build up
a civilization. Coligny's enterprises were crushed by the in
human cruelty of religious foes ; La Roche's perished through
lack of moral purpose. So disaster seemed to have followed
all alike, and Huguenot and Catholic shared the despair.
It is a remarkable fact, however, that in 1574 a petition had '
been presented to Queen Elizabeth to allow of the discovery
of lands in America ' ' fatally reserved to England and for the
honor of Her Majesty."2 In 1578 Elizabeth gave a roving
commission to Sir Humphrey Gilbert "for planting," she
says, "our people in America ;" and in 1584 a sort of general
charter to Sir Walter Raleigh :3 — two of the most accomplished
men in England, and half-brothers in relation. Of Raleigh's
heroic efforts and their failure in Virginia,4 his noble bearing
afterwards, and melancholy fate in England we know too well.
'Seethe interesting account of Ribault's new sailing course "to the
honor of the French name" which led the way for Gosnold in 1602. Kohl.
Disc. E. Coast, p. 425.
2 Calendar of Colonial State Papers, Sainsbury, vol. I.
3 See these charters, Hakluyt Papers, Folio Edit, of 1589, pp. 677, 725.
4 The whole North coast was so named in honor of Elizabeth. It might
be some compensation to the proud Queen, who was yet so thoroughly
human, thus to emphasize and perpetuate that incident of her life which
was doubtless her one great sorrow.

Centennial Address. 21
Gilbert before him had established a little colony at St.
Johns, Newfoundland, but its disaster soon followed his own.
Returning from an exploration of these milder regions he
encountered a terrific storm, — as some say, not far off Mon
hegan. Remaining resolutely in his little shallop often tons,
that he might have no advantage of the very least of his com
panions, he buffeted the tempest with calm mind and skillful
hand. For a time those in the larger ship saw his little light
tossed on the midnight seas. Suddenly it was swallowed up
from sight, and nought was left of that great heart above the
face of earth or ocean, but a sublime voice of manly cheer
borne across the roaring storm, — "We are as near Heaven
by sea as by land !" Heroic and pure soul : we doubt not he
was very near.1
And so it all had ended. At the close of the sixteenth cen
tury these shores remained an unbroken wilderness, without a
single European family from Florida to the frozen ocean. As
for England, she had not a colonial possession on the globe.
But there now appear upon the scene two men of resolute
character and commanding genius, unconscious rivals, full of
mighty thoughts of empire, but lacking fit followers ; both
destined to fail of their immediate design, but both to live in
the works that follow them.
To Samuel Champlain and Ferdinando Gorges belongs the
glory of setting in motion the great powers that were to con
tend for the mastery of the New World.
Prompted by the brilliant operations of Champlain (under
the auspices of a company of Rouen merchants) , King Henry
of Navarre in 1603 granted to De Monts, a Protestant gentle
man and member of the king's household, a charter conferring
the possession and sovereignty of the country from latitude
40° to 46° — that is from the latitude of Philadelphia to a par-
'"Then as he was refined and made nearer drawing unto the image of
God ; so it pleased the Devine Will to resume him unto himselfe, whither
both his, and every other high and noble minde have alwaise aspired."
Edward Haies' account of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's last voyage. Hakluyt,
p. 697.

22 Maine: Her Place in History.
allel a little above Mount Katahdin and the city of Montreal.
Champlain accompanied him on his voyage. His company
was strangely mixed — ' ' the best and the meanest of France"
—noblemen and gentlemen, vagabonds and ruffians ; Catholic
priest and Huguenot minister, who, as Champlain says, "fell
to with their fists on questions of faith ;" — not a promising com
pany surely for the hope of a new world. They established
their first colony and spent their first winter on an island in
the St. Croix river, now on the borders of the State of Maine.1
Thus it was a French Protestant who first broke the vast
and dreary solitudes of the Atlantic shores. This settlement
was soon abandoned and another begun at Port Royal, which
afterwards became permanent, now known as Annapolis, Nova
Scotia ; and a name was given to the whole region around,
now consecrated in human sympathy and song by Longfel
low's Evangeline — Acadia.2
It is impossible to trace within the limits of this discourse
the various and energetic efforts by which the French settle
ments were pushed along our coast ; although no chapter of
exploration is more interesting than the voyages of De Monts
and Champlain in 1604-5-6, and their careful study of prom
inent points, especially at Casco Bay and Saco ;3 or the settle-
1 Neutral Island : the identification of which determined the vexed ques
tion of our eastern boundary ; " so this little spot (says Gen. Brown, paper
on Champlain, Hist. Soc. Coll. vol. VII.) has acquired a National impor
tance." See a vivid description of the search and discovery, Parkman's
"Pioneers of France in the New World," p. 227.
2 The suggestion of Abbott, History of Maine, that this name is from
the Greek Arcadia is not good, historically or etymologically. R is too
strong a letter to be so ignored. The art of suppressing it in speech is
late and local, and it is to he hoped destined to be a lost art. The most
reasonable conjecture as to the name is that it is connected with Quoddy.
It first appears in De Monts' charter, and in the form, La Cadie. On the
map of English and French claims in 1755, Passamaquoddy is spelled Pas-
samacadie. Quebec also was spelled Kebec.
3Aucocisco and Chouaquoet. These written words are efforts to repre
sent the sound of the Indian names. We cannot tell how to pronounce
them until we know what was the language of the writer. This French
spelling Chouaquoet shows that bur word Saco was, from the first, pro
nounced Saw-co.

Centennial Address. 23
ments at Mt. Desert, and in the Pentagoet or lower Penobscot
region, of which the headquarters were at Castine, a penin
sular and promontory well befitting, in its picturesque and
wonderful beauty, a history doubtless the most romantic of
any in Maine ; or even the subsequent forays upon the Eng
lish at Pemaquid to maintain a show of claim, and the more
effectual expedient of the missions on the Kennebec ; — the
French thus by actual occupation seeking to make the Ken
nebec the western limit of Acadia.1 Nor does the occasion
permit me to follow even on wing the romantic career of
Champlain, after the father of the great Conde as Viceroy2 had
brought his powerful aid to the cause, or that heroic and won
derful missionary work along the great interior water courses
— a work which more powerful than the might of arms,
brought four-fifths of this entire country under the flag of
France. For the matter now in hand it is enough to say, that
for reasons then accounted valid, France had good pretence
of claim to two-thirds of the present State of Maine.
I must balance the chief figures of the picture by setting
over against, this French charter of De Monts, 1603, the great
English charter given by James the First, April 10th, 1606.
This celebrated charter deserves a few words of introduction.
In 1602, Bartholomew Gosnold, full of noble enterprise, set
forth for the New World. Avoiding the old Circuitous route
by the Azores, and profiting by the experiment of the bold
Huguenot Ribault, he stood straight across from Falmouth,
England, very nearly to what is now Falmouth, Maine.
Thence he passed on southward and made an earnest though
unsuccessful attempt to plant a colony on the islands south of
'"The Court of France adjudged that they had the right to extend the
limits of Acadie as far as the river Kinnibeque." French Commissioners,
Treaty of Utrecht.
2Henry II. De Bourbon. He commissioned Champlain two days after
his own appointment. Prof. Ridpath is in error, when in his excellent
history he says this is the "great Conde." See Charlevoix, Hist, de la
Nouvelle France. A splendid edition has been lately published by the
distinguished historical scholar, John G. Shea.

24 Maine : Her Place in History.
Massachusetts. The subsequent career of this able man
belongs to the history of Virginia.1
The next year Martin Pring, under instructions of Richard
Hakluyt, with the "Speedwell" and "Discoverer'' followed
Gosnold's track. He made the islands in Penobscot Bay,
which he named the Fox Islands, and revelling in the grand
scenery of those waters he passed on to the Kennebec, then
amidst the beautiful islands of CascoBay and up the Saco river
to the falls. We may be very sure that glowing accounts of
these explorations warmed a new interest in England.
In 1605, Capt. Waymouth, with the countenance and sup
port of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and the Earls of Southhamp
ton and Arundel, pursued the same course and object. In
his superb ship the ' ' Archangel," he came to anchor under
Monhegan, whence he visited the mainland and explored
what Strachey calls ' ' the excellent and beneficial river of the
Sagadahoc," and afterwards it would seem the regions of the
Penobscot.2 The enthusiastic story of these explorations told
by Rosier, the hfstorian of the voyage, — whose name still rests
on the bold headland south of Castine, — was the spring of new
enterprises.3 Even the wrongs Waymouth did were over
ruled for good. It was a base act, doubtless, to kidnap the
natives ; but he did it not for the infamous purpose — as so
'The land-fall of Gosnold has been a matter of controversy. Strachey,
who was a contemporary, says they made the "land about Sagadahoc."
Brereton, a companion and historian of the voyage, says they named this
the Northland, and stood off southerly into the sea, making land the next
day, — which must have been Cape Cod. Archer, journalist of the voyage,
confirms this, and adds the remarkable incident that when they anchored
under this Northland, eight Indians in a Biscay shallop, with mast and sail,
came boldly aboard, some of whom were dressed in European clothing.
This was in Casco Bay, May 14th, 1602. The evidence is well summed up
in Poor's Vindication of Gorges, p. 30, note.
2The exact route of Waymouth's explorations, and the locality of his
" Pentecost Harbor," have also been subjects of investigation. His base
of operations, however, appears to be the region about Pemaquid and
Sagadahoc. 3 This voyage was perhaps the immediate occasion of the formation of
the famous Plymouth Company in England.

Centennial Address. 25
many others had done — of selling them into slavery, but that
they might testify and illustrate the wonders of these new
lands. Three of these were sent, rather as guests than gifts,
to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, governor of Plymouth, who kept
them for three years, both teaching and studying them, and
thus making himself familiar with many things concerning the
people and country. "This accident," says Gorges, "must
be acknowledged the means under God of putting on foot and
giving life to all our plantations."
Gorges now enlisted the sympathy of many of the most
eminent men in England, among whom was Lord Chief Justice
Popham, in the enterprise of establishing actual English set
tlements on these shores. The noble efforts of Raleigh had
not passed out of thought, and the new project took a wide
scope and double objective. The great charter of Virginia
provided for two colonies, one under the' London Company,
to be between the 34° and 38° of latitude ; the other under the
Plymouth Company, between the 41° and 45° — or to speak
more plainly, between the latitude of New York City and that
of Passamaquoddy Bay, and the city of Bangor. As this
latter territory lay wholly within the limits of the Frenoh
grant and- claim, it is easy to foresee what conflicts of juris
diction, and what bitter struggles for mastery, when each
party feels assured it is right, must vex and harrow this fair
land. Preparations were immediately made by both companies
under this ample charter. Strange mishaps befel the ships
first sent out to found the northern colony. And so it chanced
that the first settlement was made by the southern colony at
Jamestown, South Virginia, May 13, 1607. But on the 31st
of the same month of the same year, set sail from Plymouth,
• England, two ships, "The gift of God," and "The Mary and
John," with 120 persons, to plant a colony on these much
sought shores. They were commanded by George Popham,
brother of the Lord Chief Justice, and Raleigh Gilbert, son
of Sir Humphrey and nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh — two as
4

26 Maine : Her Place in History.
noble and gallant commanders as ever faced the dangers of
the elements, or of man. "These frail barks were freighted
with the best hopes, and anxious doubts of wise and earnest
and noble men, who through the mists of coming times beheld
a new world rising out of the dense forests behind these
rocky ramparts." On the 17th of August, the little fleet
having barely escaped destruction in a terrible storm on that
dangerous lee shore, lay moored beneath the crests of Seguin
"which pile their sheltering rocks seaward."1 After careful
exploration they debarked on the peninsula of Sagadahoc, at
the mouth of the Kennebec, on the spot now commemorated
by Fort Popham. They had brought their good minister with
them, Richard Seymour ; and with solemn ceremonies of
prayer and sermon they dedicated the spot to civilization and
themselves to God's service, and inaugurated their govern
ment. They worked right earnestly. . First, they fortified
the ground, and built a fort mounting twelve guns. Soon
fifty houses and a church sprung up under their busy hands,
and a keel was laid for -a thirty-ton vessel, which was after
ward named the "Virginia of Sagadahoc," the first vessel
built on this continent by European hands.2 It seemed as if
this were an auspicious beginning for English homes. But
troubles came down upon them. The winter was one of ex
traordinary severity. The death of their governor, George
Popham, and the necessary return of Gilbert to England, left
the colony without a head, and the members became dis
heartened and soon dispersed. Some of them returned to
England, some went to Virginia, and some, there is every
reason to believe, made their .way to the neighboring regions
of Monhegan and Pemaquid.3 And so passed, — perished,
shall we say? — the first organized English colony on these
New England shores.4

'Mr. Sewall's paper, Me. Hist. Soc. Col. VII, p. 299.
2The yacht "Restless," built near New York by Adrian Block, was built
in 1614, seven years later.
3 There is French tradition to this effect. There were English at Pema
quid in 1608-9. Relations des Jesuites, Vol. I.
4Strachey's account. Me. Hist. Coll. Vol. iii. p. 308.

Centennial Address. 27
The Maine Historical Society has of late brought this colony
into much prominence,1 and it is possible that local pride, to
gether with the great respect still paid here to the English
church, and possibly that generosity which accompanies the
restitution of justice long withheld, may have pushed these
claims to an importance which seems to disparage that of
Plymouth as a political event. For my own part, I do not
attach any great importance to the Popham colony as a fact
seen only in itself. This colony indeed, as much as any other
of that time, was full of the purpose and potency of civiliza
tion. It was deliberately intended and planned for men in their
largest capacity and widest relations, with ideas of society and
government and law and morality and religion. It was to be
followed up by reinforcements as rapidly as they could be
cared for. Not enthusiasts nor martyrs were our colonists,
but they were prompted by some of the best blood that stirred
in English hearts. Still, something was lacking of the elements
out of which States are built. Certainly it was not high pur
pose nor devout feeling. Perhaps, as has been suggested, it
was the absence of woman's brave and heroic spirit which
made mens' hearts succumb to sufferings and danger. Then,
too, it is only the sacrifice of even the highest things in self
for the sake of things greater than self, that builds any last
ing institutions or wins any worthy rewards, even in this
world. That lesson the colonist had not learned.
But there is another light in which to view this colony — a
light that shines from across the sea, and is reflected back.
It is the fact seen in its reasons and relations— its causes and
'It is difficult to understand the animus which this claim has provoked
in the minds of our good cousins of Massachusetts. Mr. Haven (Lowell
Inst. Lectures, "Mass. and its early Hist." p. 141) calls this public meet
ing of the Historical Society at Fort Popham a farce, and speaks of the
company as a band of outlaws ; and afterwards repeats the charge, com
paring them to the French felon company of La Roche at the Isle of Sable.
The "farce" may be matter of judgment, but the "felon" charge is a
question of fact. And it appears to be a distinguishing characteristic of
this Sagadahoc colony above all others, that it contained no persons of
this description.

28 Maine : Her Place in History.
effects — that makes it a power in history. As a political
event its importance does not wholly depend on the perma
nence and fixity of the colony. Even the unsuccessful at
tempts of Raleigh and Gilbert and Gosnold, were not with
out influence. But the Sagadahoc settlement subserved a far
higher office in the history of New England colonization. It
established the title of England, as against France, in the
whole New England territory. In this regard the Govern
ment of England lifted this little colony into great impor
tance. It is referred to in almost every instance of contro
versy as furnishing the very element which was essential to
valid title, and which was hitherto lacking, — that is, actual
occupation by settlement. The English claim was no longer
barred by their own maxim, "Prescription without possession
does not give title."
Nor must the critics of Maine's pretence to consideration
among the forces that gave America to Englishmen, forget
that this was by no means the only English settlement in this
region on which good title to priority could be set up. It
appears to me that our friends of the Historical Society have
not availed themselves of all the strength of the case, in not
making more account of the evidences of the substantial con
tinuity of settlement in these regions, at an earlier date than
that of any other portion of New England. This appears by
testimony scattered through the records of that period. It is
freely granted that after the disaster of the Popham colony
there was no organized attempt at colonization for some time.
But when other hearts were failing them, Gorges held firmly
to the grand thought and purpose of his life. He never ceased
to stir others to new efforts, and he kept up his own commu
nications with this intractable new world. When nothing else
would do, he hired people to live here. Moreover, the im
portance the English government constantly attached to the
Maine settlements would seem to argue that they were some
thing more than a single dispersed and abandoned colony. It
would seem that the whole region between Pemaquid and
Sagadahoc was a scene of busy enterprise, too shifting in

Centennial Address. 29
personnel to be called in strictness settlement, — still, never
wholly relinquished nor even languishing, but such as it was,
a bold and substantial beginning of settled life and home.
Prince (Annals, 117) says, two ships sailed from Sagadahoc
December 15, 1607, with all their company except forty-five,
for England. The statement isnot precisely accurate, but still
contains valuable evidence. Qnly one ship sailed at that date,
which returned with supplies, and then "two ships" sailed
for England, as said above, — one of them the "Virginia." If
the colonists left in such numbers the first winter, President
Popham would have mentioned it in his letters surely, and it
would have been remarked upon at home. The statement that
when the two ships left they took all but forty-five, is doubtless
correct, but the two ships were the "Mary and John" of Lon
don, and the "Virginia" of Sagadahoc. What then became
of the "Gift of God," and the forty-five men? Is there not
a reasonable presumption that they betook themselves to the
stronger position at Pemaquid, and formed the nucleus of these
.' ' scattered beginnings " so often, though obscurely hinted at
in many records of that period, and which grew into the set
tlements known at the time of the arrival of the Puritans, as
at least comparatively well established and flourishing?1
Hubbard (in his narrative, p. 280) says, "after the attempt
to settle Sagadahoc, other places adjoining were soon seized
and improved for trading and fishing." He also says (Hist.
New England, p. 40) that Dermer was employed by Gorges
in 1619 "to settle the affairs of the -Plantation now a third
time revived again about Kennebec."
Prince (Annals, 209, 215) mentions the island of Monhe^
gan in 1623 as a plantation of Sir F. Gorges, and afterwards
the " scattering beginning made at Monhegan, and at some
other places by sundry others."
Captain Levett made a voyage along the coast of Maine in
1623, to find a place for a plantation. He found Pemaquid
already a mart of trade, and as he says this place," Cape
'The case is well presented in a paper of R. K. Sewall, Esq. Popham
Mem. Vol., p. 140.

30 Maine : Her Place in History.
Newagen, and Monhegan were granted to others, he went to
a place called Quack, which he re-riamed York, where be built
a house and fortified it in reasonable good fashion.1
And how was it that Samoset, Lord of Pemaquid,2 who sur
prised the Plymouth pilgrims with his " Welcome," was so
master of the language as to be the interpreter of the colo
nists, unless he had familiar intercourse with Englishmen at
his home?
I refer once more to the supply of food for the suffering
Pilgrims in 1622, which Winslow found at Monhegan, by
which voyage, he says, "we not only got a present supply, but
also learned the way to those parts for our future benefit."3
Prince (p. 236) quoting Bradford as authority, says of the
year 1626, "This spring a French ship is cast away at Saga-
dahock; whereby many Biscay rugs and other commodities
fall into the hands of the people at Monhiggen and other fish-
men at Damarin's cove."
It is well known that Vines, the agent of Gorges, spent the
winter of 1617 at the mouth of the Saco. In 1623 he was
"living there" with his companions. In the patent to Old
ham and Vines, 1629, it is recited that Oldham had for the
six years past lived in New England, and had at his own ex
pense transported divers persons there for the advantage of
the general plantation of that country. " Tradition has as
signed to Vines the honor of holding Pemaquid, Monhegan
and Sagadahock from 1609, when he removed to Saco."4 Sir
Ferdinando Gorges says plainly that the settlement of Vines
was before the voyage of Hobson, who came over in 1611.
There were settlements, or trading posts, still farther inland.
There is not much doubt that it was as early as 1626 that
Thomas Purchas was established with his family at Pejypscot
(now Brunswick. )
These are but the briefest hints, and not a thorough showing
'Levett's Voyage. Me. H. S. Coll. II, S8. This York has no connection
with our present town of that name ; it was probably on Casco Bay.
2 Wrongly called a Wampenoag in some modern histories.
3Prince, 203. 4Poor, Vindication of Gorges. -*

Centennial Address. 31
of the merits of the case. Observe, I am not claiming for
these settlements municipal organization, nor intrinsic worth
and dignity, but only their mere existence and its actual
recognition by England.1
Capt. John Smith, in 1614, had come, to hold possession
if need were, at Monhegan. But he concluded rather to build
seven boats here, in which his company made a great fishing
voyage, while he with eight men ranged the adjacent coasts.
" On this voyage," he says, " I tooke the description of the
coast as well by map as writing, and called it New England ;
but malicious minds amongst Sailors and others, drowned
that name with the echo of Nusconcus, Canaday, and Pema
quid ; till at my humble sute our most gracious King Charles,
then Prince of Wales, was pleased to confirme it by that title,
and did change the barbarous names of their principall
Harbours and habitations for such English, that posterity
may say, King Charles was their Godfather."
This map was published in 1616, with the "writing "as
well ; a and it is curious to see these names written at im
portant points, marked also by figures of English-built
houses, as if there were some respectable beginnings to war
rant it. Pemaquid is called "St. John's town : " a village
near where Brunswick now stands is ' ' Cambridge : " Casco
(Yarmouth and Cumberland) is called " The Base : " Saco
is ' ' Ipswich : " York is ' ' Boston : " and strange to say, the
'Capt. John Smith, a man who certainly does not mince matters of
speech, intimates' no sporadic and short-lived attempt when he speaks of
the Sagadahoc as that river " where was planted the Western Colony by
that Honourable Patrone of vertue Sir Iohn Popham, Lord Chief Iustice
of England." Description of N. England in 1614, p. 22. Another passage
may be cited from Virginias Verger : a learned and curious Discourse on
the rights and benefits of English occupation in America. It has no date,
but was written before 1620. "Mawoosheen and other parts were many
years visited by our men, and An. 1607 a Plantation settled at Sagadahock
by two ships sent by that wise and seuere Iustice Sir Iohn Popham and
others : the successe whereof hath been such that from the North Planta
tion it hath been dignified with the Title of New England." Purchas' Pil
grims. Bk. 9, ch. 20, vol. IV, p. 1812.
2 John Smith's' Description of New England, London, 1616.

32 Maine : Her Place in History.
name " Plimouth " marks the spot where six years afterwards
the Pilgrims landed.
It has been claimed l that this map of Smith's is conclusive
of the question. I do not, however, press the argument so
far. There is danger of the fallacy of " proving too much,"
as English names are given also to various spots in Massa
chusetts Bay known not to have been then occupied by Eng
lishmen. The map certainly implies that there were, settle
ments of some kind at these points on our coast, and if
other evidence shows that there were English people there,
both lines of argument together make a strong case.
But however it may be with John Smith's testimony, there
is no doubt of the existence of such occupation, settled or
unsettled, as furnished England with her argument against
the claims of France. I cite two cases to show on what
ground the English based their title.
The Spanish Secretary of State, 1612, complaining to the
English King that he has planted his subjects in a country
given by the Pope to Spain, Sir Dudley Carleton replies in
behalf of his King, that "the possessions north of Florida
belonged to England by the right of discovery and actual
possession by the two English Colonies 'thither deducted,
whereof the latter is yet there remaining."
Again, in 1624, M. Tillieres the French Ambassador,
claimed the territory of New England as a portion of New
France, ( as he might very justly do ) and agreed to yield
every thing else down to the gulf of Mexico. French plans
of empire looked northward, and rested their base on the
great inland sea where for a hundred years they had held
almost undivided empire. The position was truly one of
imperial importance, and it was felt to be so both by the
French and English King. James I. called on Gorges to
answer the French Ambassador's demand. He tells us he
made so full a reply that there was no more heard of the
French claim. By the abstract of this reply it appears that
he based no argument whatever on the Plymouth Colony, but
1 Popham Memorial, p. 346.

Centennial Address. 33
rested the case wholly on the settlements about the Kennebec
in 1607, and following years, under the Great Charter of 1606.1
It has been claimed by some that the attempt of Gosnold
on the Massachusetts coast in 1602 should have equal con
sideration. I do not disparage the noble enterprise of that
leader whose followers so unworthily forsook him. But that
attempt was solitary and isolated, and utterly abandoned, and
forms no part of the early argument. Moreover, this was
prior to the date of the Royal charter, and hence of no legal
effect in establishing title.
Nor does the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, come
within our consideration ; because this lay below any of the
territory covered by the French, charter, and so outside the
French claim. The country in dispute, the coveted land,
was that which is our New England, — especially the shores
of this gulf of Maine.
What even if no one of these hamlets preserved an abso
lute identity of place or persons, or continuity in time?2 It
nevertheless remains true that these early settlements, broken,,
scattered, insignificant pictures as they appear in themselves,
were yet so permanent in their ensemble and constituted such
persistent occupancy, that they stood forth like a bold head
land or outer bastion of defence, by which England main
tained her position against the assaults of France.
Had there been no English settlement or occupancy north
of the'40th parallel of latitude prior to 1610, when Poutrin-
court obtained a new grant of Acadia, the whole country north.
of that line must have fallen into the hands of the French,
and there is no reason to doubt that at the first clash of arms
France would have swept the British from the continent.3
1 But Mr. Haven, (Massachusetts and its early History, p. 138,) says it was
Gilbert's proceedings at Newfoundland which substantiated the English
title to the whole country !
2 The scattered settlers appear to have been in the habit of deserting
their homes when threatened by the French or Indians, and gathering in
the forts at Pemaquid and elsewhere.
3Poor's Vindication of Gorges.
5

34 Maine : Her Place in History.
The French claim was founded: 1st, on the voyage of
Verrazzano, 1524, who first discovered the Gulf of Maine,
and named the adjacent country New France : 2d, on the dis
covery and occupation of Canada by Cartier, 1535, and fol
lowing years : 3d, the grant of Henry IV, 1603, to De Monts :
4th, the voyage and occupation of the country under De Monts
and Champlain, and others who claimed under this charter.
The English title was defended on the following grounds : 1st,
the discovery of Cabot, 1497 : 2d, the possession of New
foundland by Gilbert, 1583 : 3d, the voyages and landings by
Gosnold, Pring, Waymouth, and others : 4th, the charter of
1606, and consequent occupation by Popham and Gorges.1
We may well doubt if either of these sovereigns in thus
assuming to bestow this country, had any rights which were
founded on the principles of justice or the laws of nations.
As simply representatives of their subjects the sovereigns
could not grant what the subjects had not first acquired. A
nation can acquire territorial rights by pre-occupancy, by con
quest, or by treaty and purchase.2 By neither of these titles
was any power in Europe authorized to grant away this con
tinent. The right of discovery might indeed give rise to
questions of priority among the Europeans themselves, and
it might be applicable in the case of desert, or uninhabited
lands ; but it constituted no right as against the right of
nativity, or original possession of the soil. The right by con
quest accrues only as the issue of a just cause ; and as for the
right by purchase, there was very little of that as the founda
tion of land titles in this country. Pretended purchases there
have been, but after the act of occupancy, and even then on
'The English expressly disclaimed rights of prescription without pos
session. They never denied the French title to Canada, but claimed to
restrict it to what they had first discovered and actually occupied-. The
French never had any possession of the coast west of the Kennebec.
(Willis' Speech at Popham.)
2The foundation and nature of man's right to property in the land is one
of the most interesting questions in political philosophy, and needs to be
more thoroughly discussed than I have yet seen it.

Centennial Address. 35
no clear and fair terms of exchange. The savage mind may
have seemed content with the bargain ; but satisfaction for
satisfaction is not the same thing as value for value.
The real ground upon which Europeans hold America is in
the maxim that "Might makes right." The justification is
sought in the doctrine that those have the best right to .things
who can make the best use of them, — the argument also of
gentlemen of the road.
But the foundation of land titles in the original States of
this Union, and in the adjacent provinces, is in these early
royal grants and charters ; the principle of which is purely
that of the feudal theory.1 The doctrine that the sovereign
is such by Divine right, — that is, holding his powers im
mediately from God, and not deriving them through the peo
ple, — regards the people and the land alike as his property.
This is the language of court and form in England to-day.
This theory and this alone is at the bottom of these grants.
Priority of seizure was the issue between the rival sovereigns
themselves.2 The great question between the English and French, as to
the right of possession, turned on the occupancy of the country
under charter. And as the French based their claim largely
on the settlements under the charter of De Monts in 1603, so
the English based theirs upon this settlement in 1607 under
the Great Charter of Virginia, 1606. But as the charter of
De Monts had been revoked in 1607, and its rights conveyed
'So we hold our lands, most of us, on the basis of a feudal title, and we
cannot do otherwise. That sentiment, uttered I believe by Pericles, that
"What is obtained by wrong it cannot become right to hold," though it
would seem sound in morals, is not an admitted maxim, nor even a practi
cable rule in the affairs of nations.
2The Privy Council of England in 1666, in a question that arose under
the grant to the Duke of York, decided that " By the law of nations if any
people make discovery of any country of barbarians, the prince of that
people who make the discovery, hath the right of soil and government of
that place; and no people can plant there without the consent of the
prince, or the persons to whom his right is conveyed." So much had the
theory "Prescriptio sine possessione haud valeat" been modified from the
time of the Tudors to that of the Stuarts.

36 Maine : Her Place in History.
by a new charter to Madame de Guercheville, a strong advan
tage in the French case was lost ; for the English claimed with
great force that the English settlement under the English char
ter now gave them absolute priority and indisputable right.
But the French did not so easily abandon their title. On
the contrary, they pushed their settlements and arms and
missions 1 to the very western verge of their claim. When
the Sagadahoc colony broke up, 1608, it is said-2 the French
began to settle in their limits. The struggle was long and
bitter, for both parties were impelled by self-interest and
pride, and sustained by an assumed consciousness of right.
France and England in the field ! Flags that have wrought
high history ere now. How shall it be for the new world ?
It must be admitted that the French had as good a claim here
as the English, and that they defended it with more chivalrous
methods, and especially that their dealings with the aborigines
evinced a better civilization, a finer humanity, or at least a
gentler Christianity. The old Viking blood was still too un
mixed in English veins, and a strange and earnest softness,
and a terrible grace seemed to rule the spirits where Gaul and
Roman and Frank and Northman — and who knows what strain
of Goth or Hun, or even stranger name ? — had mingled to
make one blood. Shall it be France or England ? England !
— comes the firm response. Whether for better or for worse
is not for us to answer,— nor to question. Providence has
settled that.
But imagination may picture what this vast continent would

'Father Dreuillettes had a mission on the Kennebec, 1646-52, and Father
Rales in 1722. I can find no confirmation of Father Vetromile's statement
that Madame de Guercheville had chosen the Kennebec as the favored spot
for the Jesuit Mission. Biencourt and Father Biard had indeed visited this
river in the autumn of 1611, and appear to have gone up the Androscoggin.
But the objective point of the intended Jesuit Mission was somewhere near
the famed Norumbega— that is, at Kedeskit (Kenduskeag) on the Penta-
goet (Penobscot). It was a thick fog which stopped them at Mt. Desert.
They named their station St. Saviour, out of gratitude for deliverance
from the breakers. See the account, Relations des Jesuites, Vol. I, chapt.
XXIII ; also notes to Poor's Vindication of Gorges.
2Prince's Annals, p. 119. President and Council's Relation, 1622.

Centennial Address. 37
have been to-day, had the grand constructive purpose, the
noble human sympathies, the gallant and chivalrous spirit of
the great Coligny and Conde been permitted to pass into last
ing deed. How different might the lines of history lie, had
the pure faith and tolerant spirit of Protestant France been
planted here ! And even as it was, — under Champlain and
Richelieu, and in Jesuit hands, — what a different fate would
have befallen the native races, had their country become the
possession of that people who made themselves masters of
all Acadia even to the very heart of Maine ; of the shores of
the St. Lawrence and the region of the great lakes, and down
that vast valley of the Mississippi, — broad as the ocean itself,
— without a single act of treachery or violence, and scarcely
making an enemy, — though punishing many; — in all that vast
extent ; and who in spite of all that Churchman or Puritan
could do, — in spite of England — in spite of Holland — in spite
of Spain — held for more than a hundred and fifty years, twenty
times the amount of territory possessed by all the rest, until
Wolfe on the heights of Abraham in a single hour changed
the destinies of a world !
That fight could not have been fought had not our scattered
settlements clung to their little strongholds along these rocky
shores, and held the thought and purpose of Englishmen high
as the cross that floated above their heads. Deny not then all
merit to men whose work though incomplete was needful to
later success ; grant the good deeds of those, — adventurers
or royalists or churchmen, — whose stout manhood and un
conquerable hope held the ground for England, though
unknowing the high deeds which Englishmen of another
faith should work in the broader name of man !
I have allowed myself so much time on this point because
these earliest facts of our history, and the importance in which
this portion of the country was held, are at the present time
either unknown or studiously ignored. Nor is this merely an
old story, or collection of dead facts that have no part in the
life that is to be . For let it be remembered that this early strug
gle had a deep foundation ; and rested back on great physical

38 Maine : Her Place in History.
facts, enduring as time, that may yet again in the world's
history have mighty parts to play.
My second proposition is, that Maine was the offspring of
no other colony : or, stated positively, that Maine was herself
in some sense the beginning of New England, and came hon
estly by her motto Dirigo, which so few seem to understand ;
and that the persistent promoters of these early settlements —
I mean the Pophams, the Gilberts and the Gorges — deserve
to be known as they were, — the fathers of New England
colonization. Observe, now, I am not undertaking to say
that our present institutions were founded by these men, or
that their blood runs in the veins of those who now inherit
their place and name. Nor do I intend to assume anything
. that may still remain to be proved upon the question whether
it was, creed or Christianity that was most truly the core and
germ of our peculiar New England character and institutions
— whether the life and spirit which constitute this character
is the legitimate outgrowth — single and simple — of the con
scientious, constrained and austere Puritan, or the law-abiding,
liberty-loving, self-asserting Englishman ; or upon the other
question, whether the accident of the whole territory lying
along the Gulf of Maine being called in a royal charter after
the name of a body of water which is but an inlet in compar
ison, shall be taken as evidence that all the territory so named
the Province of Massachusetts Bay, was thereby made an off
spring, dependency or fief of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay.
But I shall claim for Maine an independent and co-original
part in the settlement of New England, and maintain that
whatever may be the religious and ethical base of our char
acter, the physical and strategic base of our political history
lies here on the shores of Maine.
This can be presented under two points of view : I. Maine
as a pioneer. II. Maine as a frontier.
Something of what belongs under this first head has already
of necessity been anticipated. The topic may on that account
be all the more briefly presented here.

Centennial Address.
The thought of building up an empire, pr at least a civ
ilization in the new world, was a creation of noble brain.
Beneath the far-seeing eye of genius a vision arose of great
and worthy ends ; of a broad theatre where man could expand
to his largest ideals, — of fresh and varied resources which
should be the instruments of his noblest satisfactions. This
vast conception must needs be slow of realization. It was a
work not to be done at a blow. No man could "force the
situation." Like all enduring achievement, the work was
to be wrought out by slow and painful degrees, through toil
and trial and perplexity and failures — with courage and forti
tude and patience — appealing, to all high motives and great
endeavor. In this grand aim and with this broad charity did
these men, noble by name and by nature, embark in this
enterprise. They were not — as some have ignorantly and
even ungratefully charged — stimulated by the paltry greed of
gain, nor fettered by political or religious creed. They haz
arded their entire fortunes with no hope of reward in kind.
They were noblemen, and yet they cared for the lowly ; they
were royalists, and yet they held up those that stood for the
rights of man as man ; they were churchmen, and they gave
the right hand of fellowship to Separatist and Puritan.
Among these pre-eminent in influence and in honor, is Sir
Ferdinando Gorges. Amidst all the political discords and dis
tractions at home, he never swerved from his great thought of
building up a christian .civilization on the shores of the Gulf
of Maine. He kept up, in fact, as we have seen, a legal oc
cupancy. Nor were these agents representatives of his title
merely, but of his purpose and plan as well. The successful
visit of Captain John Smith to Monhegan in 1614, and his
favorable account of the adjacent region, kindled a new in
terest in England and revived the hopes of Gorges. He im
mediately took the lead in organizing another colony to be
conducted by the resolute and dauntless Smith, who, as all
believed would be able to give a substantial body to the dim
but fair visions that had so long hovered in their sunset skies.
In March, 1615, the little fleet set sail. But it seemed as

40 Maine : Her Place in History.
if this were the signal for all the furies to be let loose. A few
days out, a terrible storm swept all the masts of his largest
ship by the board, and he was forced to put back to Plymouth.
On the 24th of June, in another ship of only sixty tons, he
renewed his voyage. Overhauled by an English pirate of
vastly superior force, his own bold attitude overcame at once
the demands of the pirates and the cowardly entreaties of his
officers to surrender, and he effected his escape. Soon he was
fallen upon by two French pirates. But nothing daunted,
when his officers refused to fight, Smith threatened to blow
up the ship under their feet, and opening his four guns on the
pirates, he beat them off and held on his way. He next en
countered a squadron of French men of war — eight or nine
sail. This was an odds too great for his four guns, and he
tried his skill at diplomacy. When by this he managed to
effect a release, a mutiny arose among his own officers and
men, who refused to proceed on their voyage. This brought
him on board the French admiral once more, who immediately
gave chase to a strange sail which now hove in sight. His own
ship's company thus deprived of their commander, yielded to
mutiny or despair, and made their way back to Plymouth.
Smith was kept two months a prisoner on board the French
fleet, and compelled to take part in fighting the Spaniards.
At length on the coast near Rochelle, he took advantage of a
midnight storm to escape in a small boat. The storm and
current drove him out to sea ; but the boat drifted on a small
island, "where he was found in the morning by some fowlers
nearly drowned, and half dead with cold and hunger." ' It
was a narrow escape ; for the French ship had foundered in
the night. He succeeded in getting back to England, where
he spent almost a year in distributing his books and map of
New England, and vainly endeavoring to induce others to
form another colony. Had Smith succeeded in reaching this
coast as the head of a colony, we cannot doubt what his ex
perienced mind, his practical skill and indomitable resolution
'Mr. Folsom's Discourse, Me. Hist. Col. II. 238.

Centennial Address. 41
would have achieved. But as it was, the hopes of Gorges
and his friends were well nigh frustrated. Nothing that could
be called a colony had as yet gained a footing on these shores.
A few scattered beginnings dotted the coast between the
Piscataqua and the Penobscot.
We have now to notice that Gorges unselfishly lent his
best aid to every enterprise that might promote that dearest
thought of his heart, the settlement of New England by
English christians. It deserves to be known that the Pilgrim
colony at Plymouth, was an object of his special care.
Previous to March 1617, Gorges had been foremost among
those who advised and persuaded the Brownists at Leyden to
come to these shores. At this time, he says,1 it was his desire
and study "that means might be used to draw into those
enterprises some of those families that had retired themselves
into Holland for scruple of conscience, giving them such free
dom and liberty as might stand with their likings. This
advice being hearkened unto, there were that undertook the
putting it in practice, and accordingly brought it to effect
(such as their weak fortunes were able to provide) and with
great difficulty recovered the coast of New England." 2
It was Gorges also who obtained for them their final charter
— given June 1st, 1621, enlarged in 1630 — on which all the
legal titles of the "Old Colony" are based. He says, "when
they found they had no authority which could warrant their
abode in that place, they hastened away with their ship, with
order to their Solicitor to deal with me, to be a means they
might have a grant from the Council of New England's affairs
to settle in the place ; which was accordingly performed to
their satisfaction and the good content of them all."3
'Brief Narration, chapt. 21.
2They came, it seems, with Captain John Smith's chart of New England
in their hands, whereon, as we have seen, was already marked the site
and name, New Plymouth. He says they thought it cheaper to take his
chart, than himself as pilot. He speaks a little severely of their not taking
more advice from him. Advertisements for Unexperienced Planters.
(London, 1631) pp. 31-38.
3 Brief Narration, p. 48.
6

42 Maine : Her Place in History.
Before the Puritans set foot upon the shores of Massachu
setts Bay, the Pilgrims had been made welcome to establish
themselves, — or rather their settlements and trading posts, —
at two of the most advantageous positions in Maine : the first
in 1626 at Pentagoet (Castine),1 from which they derived
good revenue, and where the encroachments of the French
gave Miles Standish occasion for his stout sword ; the second
in 1628, on the Kennebec,2 where, on their petition, they had
a large and most valuable grant comprising at least a million
and a half acres, — where also the famous John Alden figured
as chief, and where conflicting claims afterwards led to long
strife and to bloodshed. The Pilgrims did not hesitate to
acknowledge their obligations to Gorges, in terms which
showed the warmth of friendship between the churchman
and the separatists. Thus, in a letter to him from Governor
Bradford and others, in 1628, they say, "Honorable Sir:
As you have ever been, not only a favorer, but also a most
special beginner and furtherer of the good of this country, to
your great cost and no less honor, we whose names are under
written, being some of every plantation in the land, deputed
for the rest, do humbly crave your Worship's help and best
assistance." 3
'Bradford's History Mass. Hist. Coll. Vol. IH, p. 332. Also Judge
Godfrey's article, The Pilgrims at Penobscot, Me. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol.
VII. 2This grant conveyed " all that tract of land lying in and between and
extending itself from the utmost limits of the Cobbosee Contee, which
adjoineth the River Kennebec, towards the Western Ocean and a place
called the falls of Nequamkike, and the space of fifteen miles on each side
of the said River Kennebec." It is not known to this day what place is
meant by the falls of Nequamkike. But this grant holds a prominent
place in the history of land-title litigation. The Pilgrims sold their inter
est in 1661, for £400 sterling, to four persons whose heirs held it for nearly
a century, without efficiently organizing the settlement of the country.
In 1753 the lands passed to a company, and were thenceforward known
as the Kennebec Purchase. The company had to contend with powerful
neighbors, east and west — the Pemaquid and the Pejepscot Proprietors —
but it maintained its regular meetings until 1816. See the valuable History
of the Kennebec Purchase, by Robert II. Gardiner, Esq., Me. H. S. Coll.
Vol. II. Bradford's Letter Book, p. 63.

Centennial Address. 43
Moreover, it was the influence of Gorges and his associates,
strengthened by their actual operations in settling the country,
which procured the charter of 1620 — while the Pilgrims were
on their passage, and nine years before the Massachusetts
Puritans landed — which is known as the Great Charter of
New England. The charter itself declares, "We have been
humbly petitioned unto, by our trusty and well beloved ser
vant, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Knight, Captain of our Fort
and Island by Plymouth, and by certain the principal Knights
and Gentlemen Adventurers of the Second Colonye, divers of
which have been at great and extraordinary charge, and sus
tained many losses in seeking and discovering a Place fitt and
convenient to lay the Foundation of a hopeful plantation, and
have years past, by God's assistance, and their own Endeavors,
taken actual Possession of the Continent hereafter mentioned
in our name and to our use as Sovereign Lord thereof, and
have settled already some of our people in places agreeable
to their Desires in those places."
This charter of 1620 granted the territory, from the for
tieth to the forty-eighth degree of north latitude, — that is,
from the latitude of Philadelphia to the Bay of Chaleur, — and
through the mainland from ocean to ocfean, to be known by
the name of New England in America. The corporation was
called the "Council of Plymouth" in the County of Devon,
and the chief managers were Sir Ferdinando Gorges j Captain
John Mason, and the Earl of Warwick. The breadth as well
as the centre of their intended operations may be seen in the
project early started of laying out a county forty miles square
for general account, on the Kennebec river, and building a
great city for a metropolis of New England on Merrymeeting
Bay, at the junction of the Kennebec and Androscoggin.
These grand schemes were thwarted by the complications
which arose at home and abroad, if indeed they would have
been practicable in themselves. I only mention them for the
purpose of showing that there were plans and purposes for
New England, and even for Maine as its centre, before Massa
chusetts was settled at all.

44 Maine : Her Place in History.
I have already spoken of the patent granted the Pilgrims,
June 1st, 1621, which was the very first grant of the Council
of New England, and of the large grant of the Kennebec lands
to the Pilgrims also, in 1628 and 1629. August 10, 1622, a
patent was given to Gorges and Mason, conveying to them
the country between the Merrimac and Kennebec to the far
thest head of said rivers, and sixty miles inland, together
with all the islands and islets within five leagues of the shore,
which the indenture states "they intend to call the Province
of Maine."1
But it was Gorges, also, who, with the Earl of Warwick,
was instrumental in procuring the patent for the Puritans of
Massachusetts Bay. Their views of church service were not
the same ; but the view of a new world to be built up by
Englishmen for the glory of God's name, left no room for
petty, partisan thoughts in his large mind. This patent was
given March 19, 1628, covered and confirmed also by a Royal
charter, September 29, 1629, which gave more security and
definiteness to the political rights conveyed.2
'This has been erroneously termed the Laconia grant by Dr. Belknap
(Hist, of New Hampshire) and by historians generally, misled perhaps
by the account of F. Gorges the younger in his "America Painted to the
Life," (London, 1658) who says the Province is "landward," and takes its
name from the great lakes lying therein, but goes on to describe it as
having the Sagadahoc and Merrimac south of it and as included in the
Province of Maine. Bancroft, even in his Centenary Edition, Vol. I, 275,
is still wrong as to this matter. Abbott also follows, calling Maine and
New Hampshire, Laconia. The true Laconia grant was in 1629 and em
braces the river and lake of the Iroquois (Lake Champlain) and the lauds
bordering on these waters ten miles on the south and east, and still farther
west and north towards Canada. This grant was never effectual. The
agents of Gorges searched three years for Laconia and returned the report
" non est inventa Provincia." Mr. Dean, Report of Council American
Antiquarian Society, 1868. Hubbard Hist. New Eng., chapt. XXXI.
Haven, Grants under great Council of N. England, p. 156. Prof. Rid-
path's map of English grants has the still different error of giving the
name Laconia to the Lygonia grant between Kennebunk and Casco.
2 The Council of New England have no authority to convey powers of
government. (Opinion of the Chief Justices of England on Mason's New
Hampshire grant.)

Centennial Address. 45
In this patent, Gorges says it was expressly conditioned,
that the grant should contain nothing to the prejudice of his
son Robert's interest, who in 1622 had a patent under the
great'New England Charter, of a tract extending ten miles on
Massachusetts Bay. But the Massachusetts agents shrewdly
found a way to pretend that this grant was "void in law," and
the colony were advised ' ' to take possession of the chief part
thereof." This was forthwith done, and the former grantees
driven off.1
In 1629, Gorges and Mason divided their territory. Mason
took the western portion between the Merrimac and the Pis-
cataqua, which he named New Hampshire, he being at that
time Governor of Portsmouth in Hampshire, England ; and
Gorges the rest, from the Piscataqua to the Sagadahoc, — the
region where his heart had always been, — and which ten years
afterwards received the name of Maine.
Thus it appears that not only were these New Hampshire
and Massachusetts settlements subsequent to those in Maine,
but that they were each and all of them, indebted to the pat
ronage of Gorges — younger members of his family of colonies
- — more favored brothers, who afterwards took the birthright.
Still more than this ; Gorges suffered in the estimation of
the high church party for his friendship to the Pilgrims and
Puritans. Amidst the multitude of other vexations set forth
by the Council of Plymouth, as reasons which drove them to
give up their charter, we are told "the country proving a re
ceptacle for divers sorts of sects, the establishment in Eng
land complained of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and he was taxed
as the author of it, which brought him into some discredit,
whereupon he moved those lords to resign their grand patent
to the king." 2
'When the Council of New England resigned their charter, 1635, they
say that the Massachusetts Company " presenting the names of honest
and religious men, easily obtained their first desires; but those being
once gotten, they used other means to advance themselves a step beyond
their first proportions to a second grant surreptitiously gotten, of other
lands also, justly passed unto Captain Robert Gorges long before."
2F. Gorges, (grandson of Sir Ferdinando) "America Painted to the Life."

46 Maine : Her Place in History.
The encroaching disposition of the vigorous Massachusetts
men had already added the sting of ingratitude to the afflic
tions which embittered Gorges' contemplations of his toils,
and we cannot wonder — little as we may have wished his
success — that he advised the king to revoke the Massachu
setts charter.
We often have our attention called to what are thought to
be the retributions of history* but the unrepaired injustices
of history appear no less strildng. After all the unselfish
kindnesses and efficient aid the early Massachusetts settlers
had received from Gorges, it does not suit our notion of the
' ' fitness of things " that they should not only have succeeded
in obtaining possession of his entire territory, but also in con
signing his name to obscurity, obloquy or ridicule. However,
we may appease our sense of justice by the charity of his own
words: "But if there be any otherwise affected, as better
delighted to reap what they have not sown, or to possess the
fruit another hath labored for, let such be assured, so great
injustice will never want a woful attendance to follow close at
the heels j if not stayed behind to bring after a more terrible
revenge. But my trust is, such impiety will not be suddenly
harbored where the whole work is, I hope, still continued for
the enlargement of the Christian faith, the supportation of
justice, and love of peace. In assurance whereof, I will con
clude, and tell you, as I have lived long, so I have done what
I could. Let those that come after me do for their parts what
they may, and I doubt not but the God that governs all, will
reward their labors that continue in his service."
In thus claiming the independent and earlier settlement of
Maine, it may be expected that I should be exact and definite.
Precisely at what time and place the first permanent settle
ment of Maine was made is a difficult matter to determine.
This is so for the very reason that the planting of Maine was
by settlement rather than by colonies — "scattered begin
nings," shifting homes and shifting occupants, which literally
" settled" into shape and name. It has been quite the fashion
to say that Maine was first settled near York in 1630 by

Centennial Address. 47
colonists or immigrants from Massachusetts. Bancroft, no
over-willing witness, admits 1 settlements gathering strength
about Saco, Monhegan and Pemaquid, between 1616 and 1626.
If Governor Sullivan is correct in Ms statement,2 that there
were in 1630 eighty-four families, besides fishermen, about
Merrymeeting Bay, Sheepscot, Pemaquid and St. Gorges,
and as many more "within land," there must have been at
least 1,500 white people between the Piscataqua and the
Penobscot at that time. Williamson3 gives a table, I know
not on what authority, evidently no mere estimate, (although
even if it we're, it would prove some considerable settlements)
in which the population at that time of the several plantations
is as follows : Isles of Shoals and other places, 200 ; Piscata
qua settlement, 200 ; Agamenticus (York) 150 ; Saco, in
cluding Black Point, 175 ; Casco and Pojepscot, 75 ; Kenne
bec Patent (Pilgrim grant) 100 ; Sagadahoc, Sheepscott,
Pemaquid, St. Georges and Islands, 500.
If these statements are correct, the implication is almost
beyond the possibility of doubt (especially considering that
these were slow settlements and not colonies) that these peo
ple must have been at least ten or fifteen years in arriving at
that degree of establishment.
I have already shown the probability that there was a prac
tically continuous settlement about Pemaquid and Monhegan,
ever since the Popham colony dispersed. This appears to be
well corroborated by the testimony now adduced, and my
'Vol. I, page 259, marginal notes.
2History of Maine, pp. 167 and 191. He gives the authority of Silvanus
Davis, Councillor, 1702, from the council files, and so. probably official
and authentic.
3Hist. Vol. I, p. 267. Possibly he means 1635, the year when Gorges
organized a government at Saco.
Additional evidence may be given. A deed 6f lands on the Pemaquid
was executed to John Brown by two Sagamores, July 15, 1625.
The deed of Warumbo and five other Sagamores, July 7, 1684, says :
" Thomas Purchase came into their country nearly sixty years before and
took possession of lands from the falls to Maquoit." This shows the
"settlement" of Brunswick as early as 1625.

48 Maine : Her Place in History.
answer to the main question would be that the permanent
settlement of Maine begun in 1607 and 1608, and in the region
of the Sagadahoc.1
With this I rest my first point, that these early plantations
were pioneers in the settlement of New England, and that
Maine was not settled by colonization, nor the offspring of
any other colony.
But 'Maine is the daughter of Massachusetts,' is the early
lesson instilled into our minds ; and hence it remains for us
to understand this paradox — to find the manner and measure
and reason of that dependence on Massachusetts' which made
it possible for such an aphorism to obtain currency. Certainly
it is far from being a self-evident proposition.
The old and simple reason is enough, namely, that Massa
chusetts was the stronger party, and that is the exact story
here : — not necessarily, it will be readily seen, that she used
that superior strength with malice, or ungenerously, but still
that she used it, right or wrong, sagaciously and successfully.
This introduces our second point, which was to present Maine
as a frontier. This implies, of course, relation to a superior
neighbor. The idea of a frontier is one of much importance, and is
illustrated in the relation of Acadia2 (Nova Scotia) to New Eng
land. Gorges, who was thoroughly English and thoroughly

1 Observe that the eastern or Sheepscot mouth is also included, which
was often in the earlier times spoken of as the Sagadahoc.
2 The importance of this territory as a vantage ground may be seen in
the frequency with which it changed hands :
1632, ceded to the French, treaty of St. Germains ;
1655, repossessed by the English by conquest ;
1667, ceded to French by treaty of Breda ;
1690, conquered by English under Phipps ;
1691, united to Province of Massachusetts Bay, charter of William and
Mary ;
1696, repossessed virtually by French ;
1696, surrendered back to Crown of England ;
1697, reverts to France by treaty of Ryswick ;
1713, ceded to England by treaty of Utrecht;
1755, expulsion of Acadians, who maintained allegiance to France;
1759, confirmed to England by capitulation of Louisburg and Quebec.

Centennial Address. 49
Protestant, saw with the quickness, foresight and comprehen
sion of a born commander, the designs of Catholic France
upon our northeastern territory, and resolved on measures
to push them from the New England borders. He interested
himself in placing the Scotch in Acadia, and to this end pro
cured a grant1 from the Council of Plymouth for Sir William
Alexander, Earl of Stirling, which was confirmed by a Royal
charter from James I. in 1621, naming the country Nova
Scotia, and conveying ample and extraordinary jurisdiction.
Gorges hoped he had thus opposed an effectual barrier against
the French by placing New Scotland on the flank of New
England. But his bold tactics were not vigorously carried
out by the Scotchmen. They had not even abililty enough
to prevent the king, a few years after, from resigning to the
French (as a bonus in a marriage intrigue) "all places occu
pied by British subjects in New France, Acadia and Canada."
This involved consequences which soon led all New England
to see the wise policy of Gorges, and which for more than a
century affected the life of Maine in every pulse, to her very
heart. The Great Council for New England did not find it easy to
carry out their grand schemes of building up cities and coun
ties and States without first developing the natural resources
of the country. Work must not only be energetic but patient
True civilization must rest upon natural industries, and they
develop but slowly. The Council were impatient for results.
In their laudable eagerness to invite settlements, they became
lavish and reckless in their grants, — -overlaying patents, ignor
ing previous boundaries and titles even when granted by them
selves, outraging geography and mathematics, and sowing the
seeds of complications and controversies which vexed the
domestic history of this province for oVer two centuries.
Some of these grants have already been spoken of ; but it
may be worth while to notice such others as were within the
limits of Maine, in order to understand the good occasion
'Gorges* Brief Narration, 48.

50 Maine : Her Place in History.
which Massachusetts had to sieze upon this province and hold
and defend it as her own frontier of defence.
This is a dull chapter ; but I shall receive something more
than the forgiveness of those who having occasion to use these
facts, find themselves spared the labyrinthine toil of explicat
ing, ascertaining and arranging them. Besides those already
mentioned, the Council issued the following patents in Maine :
1630. A deed to Thomas Lewis and Richard Bonythan of
a tract on the noirth. side of the Saco river, four miles along
the coast and eight miles into the mainland. Also a deed of
the same description to John Oldham and Richard Vines, on
the south side of that river. The whole tract eight miles
square. The foundations of the towns of Saco and Bidde-
ford.1 Vines and Bonythan appear to have had already a well
ordered settlement. The memorandum of a deed May 17,
1629, calls Vines governor, and Bonythan assistant of the
Plantation of Saco.2
1630. The Muscongus grant, afterwards known as the
Waldo patent. This was issued to Beauchamp and Leverett
of England, and extended on the seaboard between the Mus
congus and Penobscot rivers, and as far north as would em
brace a territory equal to thirty miles square.3
1630. Lygonia, or the Plough Patent, extending from Ken-
nebunk to Harpswell, and forty miles inland, and including
rights of soU and government.4 This enterprise was for
actual agricultural operations. The vessel which brought
the colonists was named ' ' The Plough." The attempt was
ridiculed by the short-sighted adventurers around them. In
fact, the colony was "laughed away," like "Spain's chivalry."
In 1643 this patent was transferred to Colonel Rigby, a rich
.'Folsom's Hist, of Saco and Biddeford.
2Belknap's N. Hampshire, I. p. 291.
3 Williamson, I. 260, says the north line settled upon is the south line of
Hampden, Newburg and Dixmont. See also Me. Hist. Coll. VI, art. 15.
4 Sullivan, Hist. 309, Land Titles 44. Williamson I. 238. Haven, Grants
of N. E. Council, 158, and especially Willis' History of Portland, and
Folsom's Hist, of Saco and Biddeford.

Centennial Address. 51
English lawyer and member of the long Parliament. The
contest for jurisdiction between his and Gorges' heirs lasted
forty years.
1631. Black Point patent — Scarborough — to Thomas Cam-
mock. Fifteen hundred acres on the sea coast, on the east
side of Black Point river. This is the basis of land titles in
Scarborough to this day.1
1631. Pejypscot patent, — "fifteen hundred acres on the
north side of the river, not formerly granted to any other."
This to Richard Bradshaw.8
1631. Agamenticus (York), — twelve thousand acres to
Edward Godfrey and others.3
1631. Richmond's Island, to Walter Bagnall, — the island
and fifteen hundred acres on the mainland at Spurwink.4
1631. Cape Porpoise, — two thousand acres on the south
side thereof to John Stratton.4
1632. Trelawney and Goodyear Patent, — the tract between
Cammock's patent (Scarboro') and the river and bay of Casco,
and. as far into the mainland as Cammock's limits extend. It
was claimed that this included part of Richmond's island,
Cape Elizabeth, the ancient town of Falmouth (Portland)
and a part of Gorham. There was a contest of boundaries
for many years.
1632. Pemaquid Patent. One hundred acres for every per
son brought in within seven years, and 12,000 acres along the
sea coast and up the river, and all the islands three leagues
into the ocean. Powers of government are also granted in
the patent. ' ' Pemaquid has been a subject of much contro
versy, and has experienced many vicissitudes."6
'Willis' Hist. Portland. Southgate's Hist. Scarboro'.
2 This and the former mentioned grants were in consideration that the
grantees had been living on the premises for some years. See Haven, 158.
3Sainsbury, Colonial Calendar. Willis' Hist. Portland.
4Sainsbury. Willis. Haven. Bourne ; History Kennebunk.
5Willis' Hist. Portland.
"Haven, 159. See Sewall's " Ancient Dominions ;" Thornton's Ancient
Pemaquid ; Dr. Hough's article, Me. Hist. Soc. Vol. VII ; Professor John
ston's History of Bristol ; also " Pemaquid Papers " relating to the Duke
of York's possession, Albany, 1856 ; and the Hist. Coll. Vol. V.

52 Maine : Her Place in History.
1632. Way and Purchas Patent, a tract on the river
" Bishoppscotte" (Pejepscot), the Androscoggin, and "all
that bounds and limits the mainland adjoining the river to
the extent of two miles," reaching, it is supposed, to Casco
Bay on the south. Purchas has been already referred to, as
the earliest settler in this region. This grant was the subject
of long and bitter controversy with the Pejepscot Proprietors,
not settled till 1814.1
The Great Council of New England having encountered ,
many vexations, agreed to surrender its charter2 in 1635 ; and
as if there were not already sufficient confusion of title, deter
mined to divide its territory into eight provinces, two of which
were within the present limits of Maine. The region between
the St. Croix and the Kennebec, — already claimed by the
French, — was to be given to Sir William Alexander, Earl of
Stirling, perhaps as some compensation for the loss of Nova
Scotia, ceded to the French, — and was to be called the county
of Canada. This extended to the St. Lawrence. The coast
from the Kennebec to the Piscataqua, including the north half
of the Isles of Shoals,3 and extending sixty miles into the main
land, was assigned to Gorges — the same previously granted
him by patent to Gorges and Mason — and by him now named
New Somersetshire, after the county in which his English
estates lay.
With his vigorous and law-loving mind he at once pro
ceeded to establish a government, under his nephew, William
Gorges, who" set up a court at Saco in 1636. This was the
first organized government within the limits of Maine. From
the number and the nature of the cases here tried, there is
every reason to believe that this administration of justice and
morality was much needed.4
'Willis' Hist. Portland. Me. Hist. Coll. Vol. Ill, Articles V and VI.
See for all the foregoing, Williamson ; and Haven's Lecture, Lowell Inst.,
before cited.
2 The Massachusetts charter was also to be annulled, and the whole
coast to the Hudson river divided among the proprietors named. See
Gorges' Brief Narration. Hubbard's Hist, of New England.
'The south half of the Isles of Shoals went to Capt. Mason.
4Records of York County, Me. Hist. Col. Vol. I.

Centennial Address. 53
Gorges had many things to look after both at home and
abroad. He had now been appointed governor-general of all
New England, as a part of the king's purpose to take away
the Massachusetts charter and to resume to himself the juris
diction within the entire New England limits. But Gorges
was too much of a general to fail to perceive that he could
not be governor. He well understood that it would not do to
take away the Massachusetts charter. Young as that colony
was, he plainly saw that their vigor and aggressiveness were
indispensable to a successful resistance to the encroachments
of the French. Whatever his private griefs, he was for Eng
lishmen as against Frenchmen, and -for Protestants against
Romanists. Political troubles in England more and more
pressed upon his attention, so that his affairs in America suf
fered neglect. Still, he offered generous inducements to draw
colonists hither. He encouraged gentlemen of rank and in
fluence to share his enterprise. Among his private grants
was one to Sir Richard Edgecombe, of 8,000 acres near the
lake of New Somerset (Merrymeeting Bay) , in the present
town of Bowdoinham.1 But he could not fail to see that some-
thing was_ lacking, and that the colonies to the west were more
prosperous than his own ; and reflecting upon the situation
and discovering some of the causes of it, he laments his own
errors and impolicy in manly words, which admirably ex
press a deep truth of economic science : "Trade, fishery and
lumber have been the phantoms of pursuit, while there has
been a criminal neglect of husbandry, the guide to good
habits, the true source of wealth, the almoner of human
life."2 But growing political jealousies unsettled everything in Old
England and New. Emigration was discouraged. Disorder
and lawlessness ran riot in the new plantations, where there
was no hand to keep them down. The administration of jus
tice was no easy task in the county of New Somersetshire.
Nor was there any general government. When we recollect

'Williamson I, 268. 2 Quoted from Williamson I, 260.

54 Maine : Her Place in History.
that not less than ten of the grants and patents before enumer
ated fell within the limits of this county, and that many of
them were in controversy with each other, and all naturally
indisposed to acknowledge Gorges' jurisdiction, we cannot be
surprised that this territory was anything but a harmonious
society, and that the government which represented his
authority was practically limited and local.
Amidst the distractions of the times, to assure himself of
his title between restless Frenchman and encroaching Puritan
— Gorges in 1639 succeeded in obtaining from King Charles I.
a new and notable charter, — the most extraordinary ever given
to a subject in modern times. It confirmed all the territory
within his old boundaries, the Piscataqua and Sagadahoc, ex
tending however 120 miles inland, and was now for the first
time, and by charter, named the Province of Maine1.
The political status of this Province was that of a Palati
nate, of which Gorges was Lord Palatine. This title origi
nated under the Merovingian Kings, and designated a high
judicial officer, resident in the palace, who had supreme
authority in all causes coming under the cognizance of the
Sovereign. After Charlemagne the title was applied to any'
powerful feudal lord to whom a frontier province was made
over with jura regalia, or royal judicial powers. These are
all recited at large in the curious charter of the Palatinate of
Maine.2 This is the only instance of a purely feudal possession on
this continent. There is nothing like it, except, in a remote
'All the old historians say that this was so named in honor of Henrietta
Maria, who had as dower the Province of Maine in France. Mr. Folsom
(Address at Brunswick in 1S32) was the first, I believe, to question this
statement, in which he is followed by Bryant in his new and thoroughly
reliable History of the United States, 1876. It appears that the Province
of Maine was not a possession of the French princess, but belonged to the
crown. (See also Agnes Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England.)
There is little doubt that the name arose in the natural distinction made
in common speech between the islands then so much frequented, and the
shoreland or the "main." The spelling furnishes no argument. The
adjective was often spelled "maine," and the proper noun "Main."
2 They may be found in the appendix to Sullivan's History of Maine.

Centennial Address. 55
degree Sir William Alexander's tenure of Nova Scotia, and
Lord Baltimore's of Maryland.1
The venerable knight proceeded to organize his jurisdiction
with an amplitude which now serves to excite the smiles of
democratic young America, or furnishes exclamation points
for dull chroniclers who know things only by their names.
But to those who know his large thoughts and orderly mind,
and recall his late confessions of the lack of a sound basis for
his colonial enterprises hitherto, his ordinances and commis
sions seem as admirable an organization as could be devised
under the feudal theory, and as well fitted for its purpose in
securing social and civil prosperity as were the constitutions
for which we praise Alfred and Charlemagne. He placed the
Government in the hands of a kinsman of his, and made every
effort to establish justice, to quiet disputes and to reconcile
the inhabitants throughout his perturbed province. He estab
lished a general court at Saco in 1640, and the next year
organized a capital at Agamenticus, now York, which he
named Georgiana, — the first chartered city in America known
to history. All the details proper and proportionate for such
a capital were specified with the carefulness of one who knows
his business and means it. Some affect to ridicule his pro
ceedings because his city had then but three hundred inhabi
tants. But three hundred men in orderly array have many a
time made better work in the world's history than as many
thousands could have done as mere mobs or masses.2 Sheer
numbers never make a city nor a nation. It is organization —
not of brute force and mere numerical units, but of broad
1 Sir William had the right of conferring titles of nobility. He even
added dignity to the Frenchman La Tour, — " Sir Claude de Estienne,
Knight, lord de la Tour et de la War, Baronet of New Scotland."
Lord Baltimore's administration is equally remarkable for its liberal
and liberty-loving spirit, and furnishes the first, and for sometime the
only declared instance of religious toleration in this country. It deserves
special mention, that the Roman Catholics should have set the Protestants
of America au example of christian equality and fellowship.
2Plymouth Colony had only two hundred and fifty people ten years
after its settlement.

56 Maine: Her Place in History.
ideas, and high purposes for great moral ends, which is the
soul of States, as of cities. Could Gorges have dwelt in
the midst of his plantations, in the "house and home" which
he thanked God he had there, his city doubtless would have
served its ends and justified his foresight, and his province
grown strong in the diversified industries and harmonious in
terests of its people. His followers had not entered into his
ideas, and missed his inspiring presence and guiding hand.
But Gorges was a royalist and a man loyal to his convic
tions, and the desperate state of political affairs at home with
drew his attention from his more private interests, however
broad and noble. Though now advanced in years, he buckled
on his sword in the king's cause, and his firm body and intense
spirit found congenial service in the cavalry of the dashing'
Rupert. But the troubles grew deeper and darker, and both
Gorges and his royal master went into the shadow and never
came out again.1
The power that could give unity and order to the province
passed away. Gorges' little empire fell apart in mimicry of
that of his great predecessor, Charlemagne. The natural re
sults of so many careless grants1 and overlapping claims burst
forth with vigorous demonstration. The maxim that two
bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time, was
proved equally true of jurisdictions. All authority was con
tested, and the spirits of anarchy and lawlessness held high
carnival. The only thing that began to assume definite shape-
was the rivalry between the Gorges and the Rigby interests,
which took on a religious and political character and had its
reasons in the great questions then agitating every English
mind. Massachusetts looked on with anxious and impatient
interest, but as yet she held aloof. She had even shut out
Maine from the New England Confederacy of 1643, because
as Winthrop says,2 "the people ran a different course from
us both in the ministry and civil administrations." All that
' Gorges died 1647. Charles was beheaded 1649.
2Winthrop's Journal, p. 275. Rhode Island and Providence plantations
were also for like reasons excluded. Bancroft, I. 342.

Centennial Address. 57
now called itself Maine was shrunk into the southwest corner
of the province, where the people entered into a voluntary
organization, not as an independent political society, but as
preservers of the peace in the name and sovereignty of Eng
land. Edmund Godfrey had thus been made governor in that
section, and had been recognized both at home and abroad as
entitled to at least "belligerent rights." Appeal was made to
England for a new grant of political powers, that this little
republican order of society might be legally established.1
Meantime, affairs in Lygonia were no better. A provincial
government had been set up, but there were too many inde
pendent grants within its territory to make a perfect picture
of domestic harmony. Now was the opportunity for Massa
chusetts — the moment for her to profit by a cool head and a
bold blow. Many individuals, from the Kennebec to the
Piscataqua, outwearied with the undecided strife, had already
accepted her "protection." Some of the chief disputants now
appealed to her as a powerful neighbor well managing her
own interests, to adjust their contested jurisdiction. She did
it, — much as the fable describes the sagacious monkey as set
tling the cheese question for the cats. The latter, at the end,
found themselves treated both alike — with strict impartiality,
but no cheese !
It cannot be pretended that the desire to see peace among
her neighbors was the great motive that prompted her action.
There were more natural, more urgent reasons. This vast
territory, the many and turbulent colonies — Episcopalian
whether royalist or republican — already giving token of their
.excessive freedom of conscience and lack of admiration for
eertain puritanical ideas, made a dangerous neighbor. The
French, too, were pressing their borders nearer and nearer.
Who could tell but these high church Englishmen might, as
was no uncommon thing in those days, prefer an alliance
'"It is our humble prayer," say the Provincial Court, in their petition
to the House of Commons, 1651, "that the privileges and immunities of
free born Englishmen may be granted and secured to ourselves and our
posterity." 8

58 Maine : Her Place in History.
with the French Catholics rather than with their Puritan
brother?1 It was necessary — that supreme appeal of patriot or tyrant
when a bold blow must be struck in self-defence — that reason,
the limit and moral of which it is so impossible to ascertain —
it was necessary that Massachusetts should control Maine.
She had the need, surely ; she had the power, also : and in
such tumultuous times, that easily makes right. Perhaps,
like some in this age as in every other, she refused to embar
rass herself by reflecting that those who have power are by so
much the more bound to do the right. At all events, she took
the step, and afterward deliberated on it. "Possession is
nine points of the law," and it is easy then to make out the
balance. The case wns a curious one, and worth recalling.
The terms of the Massachusetts charter (which Gorges had
first assisted them to procure) established their northern
boundary three miles north of the Merrimac and each and
every part of it, — which of course only meant three miles
beyond the river. To this line all had agreed. But when it
was found necessary to justify the seizure of Maine, the
Massachusetts men suddenly conceived a new interpretation.
The river, it was found, makes a right angle about thirty
miles from the sea, and from that point stretches to the north ;
so instead of a line three miles across the river at its mouth,
they took a point three miles north of its head waters and
from that run a line easterly to the sea ! This coup d' etat
gave them the whole of New Hampshire and nearly the whole
of Maine.2
The New Hampshire towns, settled now chiefly by Puritans
from Massachusetts, and naturally averse to the jurisdiction of
churchmen like Mason and Gorges, seem to have acquiesced.
Lygonia generally offered little resistance. Far otherwise
1 "The inhabitants of New Hampshire, Maine, and the Duke's Province,
were holding a friendly correspondence with their French neighbors, while
Massachusetts was entertaining a hatred towards them." Randolph's
Report, 1676.
2 This line struck the sea at Clapboard island in Casco Bay.

Centennial Address. 59
Maine. Godfrey of York refused to submit. He declared
the boundaries had been fixed more than twenty years before,
and a lawful jurisdiction ever since exercised, acknowledged
both by Massachusetts and the English Government. "We
will maintain our rights," says the Governor, " until it shall
please the Parliament, the Commonwealth of England other
wise to order, under whose power and protection we are." '
But all in vain. A majority was against him, and Godfrey
himself finally submitted with the rest. The name and char
ter of Georgiana were abandoned, to kill out every spark of
the Gorges spirit, and the town was named York. And so,
little by little, town by town, by small majorities, a general
submission was made, and for a few years there was "peace."2
Massachusetts was never mean. She was square and bold.
You could always see her coming, and tell what she was after.
But she was wise in her policy here. She never made church
membership a condition of the right of suffrage, as she did in
her own colony. She carried a court along with her to pre
serve the forms of justice, and that is a good deal. In 1652
she was at York and Saco. In 1656 she was at Falmouth.
The next year an action was brought against Thomas Purchas
of Pejepscot ; but he boldly pleading to the court's jurisdic
tion the jury returned a verdict in his favor, which was carried
by appeal to the General Court at Boston and sustained in the
decision that ' ' Pejepscot was not within the Massachusetts
jurisdiction ;" whereupon they not long after had a new line
run more suitable to the exigency, and carried it this time east
of the Sagadahoc — to White Head Island in Penobscot Bay.3
For this they had in their view good reason. There were
Englishmen at Pemaquid and in that neighborhood, who must
be controlled. The new boundary accordingly was made to
1 Sullivan, 322. See also in Williamson, Vol. I, 337, the' spirited corres
pondence of Godfrey and the Massachusetts government.
'Sullivan says, (p. 355) "The men who submitted were those who had
taken up land by possession" — that is to say, "squatters" — "and wished
an assurance from some power which would not expect a very valuable
consideration." 3 Williamson I. 442. Sullivan, 372.

60 Maine : Her Place in History.
include these settlements. Nor was the reason less but rather
more from the fact that this territory east of the Sagadahoc
belonged to the Duke of York. The Duke had purchased
from the Earl of Stirling in 1663 all his American posses
sions, and the next year received a Royal charter from his
brother, Charles II, of all the territory from New Scotland
westward to the Pemaquid and the Kennebec, and northward
to the St. Lawrence.1 He had, however, easily consented
that the French should have all his patent east of the Penob
scot, which was confirmed to them by the treaty of Breda.
He was not a man to be trusted as a neighbor, especially as a
frontier between Puritans and Frenchmen. So it was neces
sary to contest his possession, if not his title, by practical
occupation and civil jurisdiction.2 So Massachusetts set up a
court and organized a local government at Pemaquid in 1674,
naming the territory from Sagadahoc to Georges river, the
County of Devonshire. But the Duke's government at New
York in 1683, also erected "Pemy-Quid and all the Territo
ries in these parts with the Islands adjacent," into the County
of Cornwall,3 with the right to send one member to the Gen
eral Assembly at New York.4 This connection continued
until the succession of the Duke of York to the throne as
James II, when by a Royal order these territories were an
nexed to the New England government.6 It will not be
difficult to see that this taking possession of Sagadahoc out
side the Gorges and the Lygonia claim, and of Pemaquid
which was under the jurisdiction of the Duke of York, was
no act in the interests of domestic peace or common justice,6
but an act of "military necessity," with a look to remote
'See the charter, Albany " Pemaquid Papers," p. 5.
2A court had been set up in the name of the Duke, in 1665.
•'The Duke's agents also called it New Castle.
4 Gyles Goddard represented Cornwall County in the New York Assem
bly during one session.
5 In 1686. Dr. Hough's introduction, Pemaquid Papers, p. 4.
6 1 do not forget a petition of certain inhabitants of Pemaquid and
vicinity, in 1672, for the intervention of Massachusetts ; but her whole
motive and reason does not necessarily lie in that.

Centennial Address. 61
ends, an "offensive-defensive" to keep the great struggle
'away from her own border.1
It may well be believed that the state of things throughout
the whole territory was as unfavorable as possible to the pros
perity of its people. The permanent settlement of Maine,
socially and politically, was quite as long delayed as its ter
ritorial settlement had been before. The strangest thing was
that people everywhere were petitioning somebody else to
come and rule over them, — one evil result of so many care
less grants to parties naturally antagonistic. One petition
from seventy-one inhabitants of Maine and Lygonia was
addressed to Oliver Cromwell in 1656, praying that they
might be under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. Another,
some twenty years after, from one hundred and seventeen in
habitants of Maine to Charles II, protesting against the inva
sion of their rights and privileges by the "Bostoners," and
claiming his protection.2 In 1663 Massachusetts had sent a
mandatory address to the people of Maine requiring them to
give obedience to her laws;3 and in 1664 the king himself
had written them a letter declaring the illegality and injustice
of the Massachusetts acts, and peremtorily ordering all per
sons to restore to the representatives of Gorges the peaceable
possession of the Province, or otherwise without delay show
cause why they should not.4 They do not seem to have done
either. Accordingly commissioners were sent out by the
Crown to investigate the matter. They appointed prominent
citizens to act as magistrates until the king could decide the
question. But Massachusetts also entered with a military
force, where a court under this authority was in session at
York; and (says an eye-witness) "with a troop of horse and
foot turned the judge and his assistants off the bench, impris-
1 The Massachusetts view of the case finds a spirited advocate in Mr.
Thornton — "Ancient Pemaquid." The matter is treated in a more judicial
temper by Professor Johnston,— " History of Bristol," and Dr. Hough,—
"Pemaquid, and its Relations to our colonial History." Me. Hist. Coll.
Vol. VII.
2See the petitions, Me. Hist. Coll. Vol. I. pp. 392, 400.
'Williamson, I, 404. 4Williamson, I, 412, 413.

62 Maine : Her Place in History.
oned the commander of the local militia, and threatened the
judge and all who favored the Gorges interest."1
But the question being before the High Court of Chancery,
the King in Council in 1677, rendered the just and common
sense decision, that the north line of the Massachusetts Colony
was three miles from the north bank of the Merrimac at its
mouth, and that the Province of Maine, both as to soil and
government, was the rightful property of the Gorges' heirs.
Upon this decision, with what Judge Story calls "prudence
and sagacity," Massachusetts instructed- her agent to make
purchase of the title ; and the heir, for whatever reason, sold
his inheritance for £1250 — Province, Palatinate, Jura Regalia
and all, — and possession was duly proclaimed under this title,
and no word more of the three mile line north of the head
waters of the Merrimac.
Strange to say, the first thought seems to have been to sell
the province. It was evidently of far more value than the
price paid for it, and the year after the transfer the governor
and assistants were authorized to dispose of it.2 But distrust
of the purposes of the Royal cabinet and fear of the French
prevailed, and in 1679 the order was revoked. But the em
barrassments were not over. In resting her title on the
assignment of the Gorges' interest, Massachusetts was bound
by the charter stipulations and could not treat Maine as a con
stituent of her colony. The Puritan Province had in fact
become the feudal Lord Palatine of the Maine Province, and
was in duty bound to give it a separate organization. This
was done, and Thomas Danforth, a high-minded and accom
plished man, was appointed President of Maine.3 Still, there
was discontent. In many minds it remained a serious ques-
1 Josselyn's Two Voyages, p. 151. Williamson says he is biased, but an
eye witness is likely to be. See also Bancroft I, 44S.
2Hutchinson (Hist. p. 296) says "to reimburse the expense of defend
ing it," but this seems like the fallacy of the " circle." To a large num
ber of inhabitants this defense was offense. To make a country pay the
expense of subjugating it, is a measure of war, not of peace.
3 This was in 1680. From this time no more deputies from Maine were
sent to the General Court, as they had been since 1653.

Centennial Address. 63
tion whether political sovereignty was matter of purchase,
and could pass with the soil, — whether under this transaction
there were any other assignable rights than pecuniary.1 But
really there was not much now for any civil government to
do ; for the terrible wars had now begun, which, — French and
Indian, — lasted with a few lulls almost a century, and nearly
depopulated Maine.
I shall be obliged to correct the statement sometimes made,
that Massachusetts defended Maine without expense to this
province. It was indeed part of the terms on which eastern
provinces submitted to her jurisdiction that they should bear
no part of the public charges ; but as matter of fact, Maine fur
nished both men and money to the last degree of her ability.
We have official returns of the organized militia of ' ' York
shire" for 1675, which numbered in that year seven hundred
men ; while that of Devonshire and parts adjoining was esti
mated at three hundred, — making a thousand men at that
early period mustered for the public defence. We find, also,
a due proportion of the expenses of the war assessed on the
Province. Thus, for the year 1655 a list of taxes shows the
assessment of five towns from the Isle of Shoals to Cape
Porpoise, to be in the aggregate £91. 15s. The public taxes
of Falmouth for 1683 were £17. 17s. lOd. A more striking
evidence of the pecuniary part borne by Maine in the defence
appears in the remonstrance addressed to the king against the
encroachments of Massachusetts already referred to, which
complains of the grievous burden of three thousand pounds
laid upon the three towns of Kittery,- York and Wells.2
'This question enters into the depths of political law. The policy of
England to this day in forbidding aliens to hold real estate in fee, would
seem to imply an admission that ownership of soil carries political as well
as pecuniary rights.
2The petitioners declare that in the year 1668 the " Bostoners entered
the province, and with force of arms disturbed the inhabitants, then at a
Court holden for your Majesty at Yorke in your Majesties province of
Maine, commanding all proceedings for the future to be managed by
their own authority and laws. Since which time notwithstanding the
greate loss sustained by the late Indian war, we are still oppressed with
heavy rates and taxes, imposing the sum of three thousand pounds and
upward to be collected and paid by the inhabitants of three towns, (viz.)
York, Wells and Kittery."

64 Maine : Her Place in History.
There was no love between Charles II. and Massachusetts.
Nothing could be more opposite than the stern purpose of
that colony to achieve religious independence, and gather a
political power which would enable them to do so, and the
purposes, — if so strong a word can be applied, — of the disso
lute and enervate king. The restoration had brought with it
a flood of evils most odious to the Puritans, and in the natural
reaction their enemies found easy occasion to gratify their
hatred. But these persecutions had the effect of strengthen
ing Massachusetts as the champion of the cause of liberty.
Relying on the amplitude of her charter, and strong with the
prescience of a Divine vocation, she did not hesitate to make
many laws more consonant with her own ideas than with the
laws of England. Her charter indeed restrained her from
passing laws and ordinances repugnant to the laws and stat
utes of the realm of England, but she construed this in the
broadest sense as restraining her only from acts repugnant to
the spirit of English laws. Certainly she did violate much
of the letter of the common and statute law of England.
Whether she did therein violate her charter was a question
on which a serious issue could be taken. But it gave the
opportunity her enemies desired. She was threatened once
more with forfeiture of her charter,1 and active measures were
taken to carry this into effect. Alarmed at this, and hoping
that she might propitiate Charles, who earnestly desired to
confer this province upon his son, the Duke of Monmouth,
she instructed her agents to give up Maine if she could thereby
retain her charter. But all in vain : the case was foreclosed
against her. A writ of quo warranto' was brought before
1 A quo warranto writ had been brought in 1635, but with no practical
effect. 2 A writ by which the government summons a defendant to show by
what warrant he claims an office or franchise. The pleadings are peculiar,
— the burden of proof being not upon the plaintiff but upon the defendant.
The principle seems to be that the franchise is a trust, and the violation
of any of the terms of a charter works a forfeiture. (2d Kent Com. 298,
I. Sharswood's Blackstone, 4S5.)
Scire facias is also a mode of enforcing forfeiture when the defendants
have abused their charter powers. An explanation of this change of writ

Centennial Address. 65
the court of the king's bench (July, 1683), and this not
proving sufficient it was followed by a scire facias sued out
of chancery, (June, 1684.) Forfeiture was declared, judg
ment confirmed, and the Massachusetts charter fell ; — that
bulwark against Parliament and King — that pledge and pro
tection they had borne so anxiously to these shores, and
to which they looked to bear them triumphantly through all
trials — their hope and glory for the future.
A copy of this judgment was served in Boston in the fol
lowing July. But a decree of Providence suddenly changed
the entire face of affairs. Charles I. died ; James I. ascended
the throne, a man of very different mould, — and then were
renewed those commotions and oppressions which in this
country were connected with the name of Sir Edmund Andros
and the attempt to consolidate and virtually subjugate all the
northern colonies ; and which in England resulted in the rev
olution of 1688, the flight of James, and the accession of the'
House of Orange.
The Massachusetts charter was annulled ; and although the
commotions of the times stayed the full execution of the judg
ment of forfeiture, there is no doubt her authority was seri-
and also the change from the king's bench to chancery, would require
elaborate preparation ; but a brief reference may assist those who desire
to form a judgment in the matter, but have not materials at hand. Chief
Justice Parker in his very able defence of ."Charter and Religious Legis
lation of Massachusetts," says that "Chancery has no jurisdiction of
proceedings quo warranto, and relieves against, rather than enforces
forfeitures." The old writers, however, say that this writ, like all other
civil writs, originally issued out of Chancery. (See Coke 2d, Inst. 277,
283.) But it would seem that the quo warranto process did not run into
the colonies outside of England ; and that is the reason why the writ
of 1635 failed, no service of it being made within the colony. It appears
that chancery has a wider jurisdiction, and may annul a charter beyond
the limits of the realm. Moreover, if I understand the nature of scire
facias, it permits the Crown for cause of forfeiture, to repeal its own grant
by its own prerogative. (See. under the article, Bouviers' Law Diet.,
also Chief Justice Parker as above, and Palfrey's Hist. Vol. Ill, p. 391.
394). But at all events the change of writs shows that the enemies of
Massachusetts were bound to take away her charter, and that without
" the law's delay."

66 Maine : Her Place in History.
ously weakened. Her government of Maine had at the best
a very questionable title, and nothing but the judicious admin
istration of Danforth and the large recognition of local self-
government, prevented Maine from escaping from the hold of
Massachusetts. These were troubled times for all the colonies.
But at the accession of William and Mary all was joy in
Massachusetts. She resumed her ancient rights, and imme
diately pressed for a restoration of her old charter. But
there were many interests to be harmonized now : the sover
eigns, though sympathizing with the Puritans, were un
willing to restore so democratic a charter, and one moreover
which was so freely interpreted. There were strong shades of
difference in religious and political opinions among the colo
nists, but the late disturbances and common sufferings had
quickened the sentiment of a common cause and -the need of
unity. And so in 1691 these elements, harmonious or dis
cordant, were bound together by a Royal charter which con
solidated the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Maine,
Sagadahoc, and all Acadia, ' under one title, the Province of
Massachusetts Bay. Nearly, all this territory bordered on the
gulf of Maine ; but this name was not then known, and the
power and influence of the Massachusetts Colony received a
significant recognition in this appellation. Maine was now
at last part and parcel of Massachusetts ; but she had the sat
isfaction of seeing one of her own born sons, Sir William
Phipps, bearing the royal Commission as Governor.
The common saying, "Massachusetts the mother of Maine,"2
is one of those figures of speech which gain currency because
of the terseness of the phrase rather than from the closeness
of the analogy. Such figures arise on some slight resem
blance of relation, and then a train of natural associations
assumes all the rest, so that the conclusion is altogether wide
'Old Acadia, east of the St. Croix, was five years afterwards ceded back
to the Crown ; — Massachusetts having without that, all the frontier she
needed either to defend or be defended.
2 History might warrant us in saying in good earnest, Massachusetts is
the mother of Connecticut ; and also of Rhode Island, though the child
had rather a rough weaning.

Centennial Address. 67
of fact. There is no sense in which Massachusetts is the
mother of Maine. The metaphor would seem to imply either
that Maine was a colony proceeding forth from Massachu
setts, planted and established by her ; or at any rate, that she
nourished and supported the colony with that spirit of tender
ness and self-sacrifice which makes the name of mother ven
erated and dear.
, Neither of these functions seems to have been exercised.
Historically, it is not true that Maine was in any sense or
degree, in the early times at least, an offshoot, colony or
representative of Massachusetts.' The facts as we have seen
them are, that she first assumed — if I may not say usurped —
then purchased, then maintained by force of interest or arms,
the powers which even at the last were not granted to her
over Maine, but to her and Maine co-ordinately, or as merged
in one. Massachusetts was indeed the guardian of Maine so
far as this, that it became her duty, having assumed jurisdic
tion, to administer justice and defend from violence. Her
influence and aid were powerful in Maine's behalf as against
a common foe. But as between the two parties, her power
was that of a master and not a parent. As guardian of Maine
she strictly exercised her functions, and charged the expense
to the estate of the ward.1
As the owner of Maine, she was not a parent ; for the rights
of a parent look to the good of the child, and are limited by
that. She did not purchase Maine for the good of that ter
ritory, but for her own good ; and the rights she acquired
were not those of a parent, nor was the spirit of the relation
that. She took possession of Maine in self-defence, to ward
off her enemies, churchmen, Frenchmen, Indians ; and the
frontier suffered as much for her as she did for the frontier;
Enemies were thus brought upon Maine who might not other
wise have struck at her. As standing in some respects in
1 On the separation she kept half the . public lands in Maine — over
4,000,000 acres. It must not be forgotten, however, that in 1870 she gen
erously joined with Maine, releasing her proportion of the old joint war-
claim against the United States, in aid of the European and North
American Railway, as an enterprise of great public interest.

68 Maine : Her Place in History.
loco parentis, with rights acquired by transaction and not by
birth, it was only by a legal fiction that she was mother, — that
is, a mother-in-law, or step-mother. She had not even sen
iority ; and we cannot much wonder that the older daughter
of the family might be a little "unreconstructed" towards the
assumptions of the new comer, whom the law, and the law
alone, made mistress of the house and home.
I will briefly enumerate the main points made in support
of the proposition before us, — nameTy, that Maine is not the
daughter of Massachusetts, but had an independent origin
and her own proper place in early history.
1. Maine was peopled, if not settled, before Massachusetts.
2. Political jurisdictions were in force here, and acknowl
edged by England and by Massachusetts, long before the
latter entered into Maine.
3. The protectorate she exercised here was not mainly for
the sake of the protected, but for her own necessity.
4. This protectorate was a usurpation, — at best a de facto
government, — and did not confer or confirm to her political
sovereignty. 5. Her purchase of the Gorges title, if valid in all respects,
— that is, conveying sovereignty as well as soil, — at most only
covered the territory between the Piscataqua and the Saga
dahoc, and 120 miles back from the sea. Nor even within
this, did it extinguish the Lygonia patent, from Kennebunk to
Harp swell and 30 miles inland.
6. Her exercise of powers east of the Sagadahoc was with
out pretence of legal claim.
7. Her own charter was annulled by scire facias which
was of full legal effect although never practically enforced.
This at least extinguished her political rights in Maine.
8. The Charter of William and Mary did not restore for
mer rights and titles, and did not even confirm the equitable
claims of Massachusetts to Maine.
9. This charter did not put Maine under Massachusetts as
a province or dependency, but made it a constituent part of
the new Royal Province, which was not the old Massachusetts

Centennial Address. 69
Colony, but took its name because that was the strongest and
most active organization at that time.
It is an agreeable transition to pass to the third proposition,
— that New England, especially Massachusetts, preserved
Maine to the American Union. It is so easy to misunder
stand one's motives when we do not sympathize with his
conclusions, that I must beg to say that in the facts and rea
sonings which have been presented, I am conscious of feel
ings as far as possible from dislike or prejudice toward the
Massachusetts either of two hundred years ago or of to-day.
I have sought facts, and have been led by them to conclu
sions. The explanations offered have been drawn from the
laws of mind, the necessities of nature, and the analogies of
history. It were an unwise and ungracious act to reproach
Massachusetts even for its errors. My course has not been
an attack : it has been a defence, or rather a rescue. The his
tory of Maine had been obscured, disparaged, and even denied.
I have thought it befitting the occasion to do what I could to
redeem it from this oblivion, and restore it to its proper
place and part. But nought has been set down in malice.
The early acts of Massachusetts must not be judged by the
laws of peace or the tests of abstract morality. Her acts
were rather ordered according to the letter of positive law,
and the grand tactics which are fair in war. Fighting for
her life, and for the principles which made that life worth
living, she pushed to the extreme boundary of her rights,
and possibly also of her powers. Whether or not God par
dons to mankind the errors of human history, we may believe
He overrules evil for good, and makes even the wrath of man
to praise Him. The old Bay Colony had strong faults, but it
knew itself to be right at heart, and it builded even better
than it knew.
It were no shame to be the daughter of Massachusetts,
were such the fact. Those were men of deeds and daring
for the right because it was the right, as they saw it. Many
a royal lineage is less noble than that. Even to have been
part of, her is something to be proud of. And if our name

70 Maine : Her Place in History.
and worth were to be laid away among obscure foundation
stones, I know of no fabric more glorifying the sacrifice, nor
niore glorified by it.
We are able then to say, that the high-handed acts of
Massachusetts in Maine were indirectly and even directly
beneficial. At all events, they contributed largely to sepa
rate Maine from England. If that was well, then all is well.
Praise or blame whom we may, out of the conflict have come
what we deem the best things — liberty and country.
In the first place I mention several ways in which she aided
in preparing Maine to stand on the side of liberty in the
great struggle. She was not unkind in her treatment of
those who acknowledged subjection to her. She used Maine
in her service, but she also served Maine. She promoted the
establishment of great civil ideas,. — education, morality, nat
ural rights and social order ; life, liberty, property, and
equality before the law. She prepared the way especially
for the great political ideas, — freehold tenure of land, and
local self-government. I do not by any means say that Mas
sachusetts had a monopoly of these ideas, or that Maine was
merely missionary ground for her. The men who lived here
had English notions of liberty and law. The courts set up
under Gorges' authority strove to enforce moral and social
order. They corrected abuses with a strong hand. They
passed ordinances in the interest of education and religion,
and reached one point which even the Puritans had not at
tained, when they ordered that all the children between the
Piscataqua and Kennebec should be baptized.1
But many things had contributed to demoralize the inhabi
tants. One of the chief of these was the uncertainty and
irregularity of government. No jurisdiction could be exer
cised without being questioned and contested. Hence disre
gard for authority, for law, and for morality itself. Massa-
1 Massachusetts soon straightened this matter. She made it a punisha
ble offence to baptise any children but those of church members, in
Maine, although requiring it at home. Williamson I, 380. Willis' Port
land, 162.

Centennial Address. 71
chusetts brought at least clearness and steadiness into the
scene, and having that very essential attribute of a lawgiver
— the power to enforce his precepts — she compelled obedi
ence, and so compelled respect and secured peace. She began
wisely, as Gorges lamented he had not. Almost her first act
was to compel the towns all along the coast to make good,
passable roads for vehicles.1 In 1665 the local court under
her authority presented all the towns from the Isles of Shoals
to North Yarmouth, "for not attending the court's order for
making a pair of Stocks, Cage and Cucking-stool." 2 Next,
the court indicted the towns ' ' for. not taking care that their
children and youth be taught the catachism and education
according to law." 3 There was no lack of exercises for the
enforcement of private morality. The "Scarlet Letter"
figured freely here, and the records of court might furnish
the novelists of the eighteenth century with favorite charac
ters and situations, and enable even a Rabelais to enlarge his
vocabulary. About the last act of the old Maine Province,
before she lost her name and fame in Massachusetts Bay, was
the passage of a liquor law, in the following decided form :
' ' In the Court of Sessions of the Peace for the Province
of Mayne held at York July 15, 1690. Ordered, That from
henceforth there shall not be any Rum or other strong Liquor
or Flip sold unto any Inhabitant of the town by any Ordinary
keeper therein, directly or indirectly, except in case of great
necessity, as in case of sickness, &c." This was at a time
when there was no legal or authorized government in Maine j
nor even in Massachusetts ; but we may cheerfully concede,
that the influence of the latter would favor this measure.
This however is by no means the earliest instance of a liquor
law in Maine. That honor belongs to Pemaquid. At a Session
'Sullivan, 365. Willis' History of Portland, 165.
2 This was an implement for applying cold water to ladies as an anti
dote for the effect of warm tea talks, and for scolds and scandal-mongers
generally, — an instrument for which happily there now seems to be no
occasion. 'York County records for 1676.

72 Maine : Her Place in History.
of Council held under the authority of the Duke of York,
September 11, 1677, was passed the following order, — which
is in very plain Saxon, and besides the singular merit of sug
gesting a more radical principle for a temperance law than
even that of the present day, — namely, to quit drinking, —
carries a lesson of military as well as moral prudence ; —
"No Rum to be dranke on that side the ffort stands."1 A
noble watchword for the young soldier of society who stands
for its defence !
So we cannot allow Massachusetts the motherhood of the
Maine Liquor Law.
I spoke also of the political influence of Massachusetts.
She made her politics felt. Many of the crimes of which the
Court took cognizance were denunciations of the usurped
authority itself. Contempt of court and evil-speaking of
dignities were no light offences.2
The court at York (1665) finding that Jonathan Thing had
spqken " di scornfully of the Court," and had said he cared
not for the Governor, he was censured to have twenty lashes
on the bare back or redeem it with £12. Mr. Thomas Booth,
slandering the powers that be, saying that they were a "com
pany of Hypocritical Rogues, that feared neither God nor the
King," the remark seems to have run him in debt to an extent
which was cancelled by an entrance on the credit side of his
ledger of an item of £5. Mr. Thomas Taylor (1670) was
duly punished for abusing Capt. Raynes being in authority,
by "theeing and ih&aing of him." Mr. John Bonithon re-^
fusing to recognize the jurisdiction of the court, and intima
ting pretty plainly that it would not be a pleasant business to
try to arrest him, was declared a Rebel, and it was ordered
that if he could be taken he should be sent to Boston tp
answer for his conduct. This seems more like Star Chamber
jurisdiction than the recognition of local self-government ;
but this was a hundred and thirty years before Jefferson
'Pemaquid Papers, p. 19.
2 There is nothing peculiar in this. A government of force must make
its measures strong in proportion as its title is weak.

Centennial Address. 73
announced the somewhat ambiguous maxim, 'that governments
derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.'1
Mr. John Bonithon appears to have enjoyed a special revela
tion of this truth.
Contributions to Harvard were also a test of loyalty, as
William Wardell found, "who being demanded whether he
would give anything towards the College," answered that it
was no ordinance of God, and he was arraigned by the Court
therefor.2 Some of the judgments of the court, however, maintained
the purity of the ballot without particular reference to the
party exercising the government. Mr.' Thomas Withers was
convicted, 1691, of " Seruptitiously indeavoring to pervert
the providence of God and priviledges of others by putting
in several Votes for himself to be an officer at a Town meet
ing when he was intrusted by divers freemen to vote for
other men," for which crime he was fined, or pilloried, and
disfranchised. But there were greater matters, — political — in which the
influence of Massachusetts rendered important service to
Maine. One of these is the freehold tenure of land. No one
thing more disturbed and discouraged the settlers under the
early charters of this territory than the feudal tenures of the
soil — the old customs of lease-holds and quit-rents, which
made a man feel like a stranger and an alien on the land he
was working on. A man cannot be a man unless he has a
place upon the earth which is his own, where he can build
his home and his altar, — where he can stand and look up to
God, offering his work and his worship with his own hand,
and not through another's. Maine owes thanks to Massachu
setts that she helped to deliver her from this bondage to
'In truth this maxim is an inadequate statement of the philosophy of
government. That " consent " is the sober second thought — the deep,
deliberate will — of the people as an organic body, and is not true of the
constitutent elements as individuals.
2 York Records, 1654.
10

74 Maine : Her Place in History.
feudalism. I must say here, as before, that she was not the
first to introduce 'this idea, nor did she confer it as a completed
gift. She did but concur with an instinct already powerful
in the hearts of men. But her influence was great, and we
thank her that she wielded it on the right side. She con
tributed also to advance ideas of popular government. Man
hood suffrage, however, was not one of her peculiar ideas ;
nor in that exact phrase was it her idea at all. Her own rule
was, that none but church members should be admitted to the
electoral franchise. But the principle of local self-govern
ment was hers of all things in the world — hers of all people
in the world. The very life and aim of her colony was a
protest, to all the kingdoms of the earth, in behalf of that
great principle. At the same time nothing could be farther,
from her notions of freedom than the doctrine that the right
of suffrage is a natural right, — that is, a right in each man to
participate in the government of others associated with him
in the State. Her idea evidently was, that suffrage was not a
right, strictly, but a franchise — a privilege conferred by the
State, originating in the collective people and given or with
held at its mere will. But no matter for that ; the great needs
and instincts in the heart of man will determine facts, what
ever we may do with theories. Concede to enlightened men
local self-government, and they will work out rights and reg
ulate them. Massachusetts admitted none but church mem
bers to the freedom of the Commonwealth ; but the reason of
this rule was a reason why it should not be the rule in Maine ;
and she never made it so in the days of her power here. Her
reason for the law at home was, " To the end the body of the
freemen may be preserved of honest and good men." The
aim and end explains the restriction. In Maine the aim did
not demand the restriction, for the simple fact that the most
honest and best men were not exclusively church members.
Plymouth, a more democratic colony, had a restricted suf
frage, quite complicated in its regulations.1 And Charles n,
'Plymouth Col. Laws, p. 258.

Centennial Address. 75
when he undertook to resume the government of New Eng
land, in 1662, had "property" and "orthodoxy" among the
qualifications of voters, in what he thought to be the most
liberal of codes.1 So I insist that Massachusetts in pro
moting the principles of self-government, laid the foundation
for the equality of every man before the law, and of every
freeman before the ballot box.2
There is no doubt that one thing which attached Maine to
New England, and led her to cast her lot in with the fortunes
of free America, was the influence of a Congregational church
system. Whatever may be our church sympathies now, we
must admit that religious sympathies at that time were pow
erful bonds of union. And whatever may be our particular
creed, we must admit that even in this day of reactions and
Old-World immigration, the prevailing church system of New
England is Congregationalist. It may not be readily con
ceded that this is naturally more consonant with democratic
ideas of civil government than a high-church system is.3 But
at that time the lines of political and religious division being
so nearly coincident, historical facts permit me to accord to
'Hutchinson Coll. Papers, p. 379.
2 A correct understanding of the electoral privilege is of so much im
portance amidst the confused or erroneous notions which still find place,
— mistaking sovereignty of government for sovereignty of, the people —
that it may be worth while to state what seems- to be the teaching of the
Declaration of Rights in the Constitution of Maine, and the only sound
American doctrine, — namely, that the right to vote is not a franchise,—
a right conferred by the State, revocable at the will of the majority, or
voidable by breach of contract ; but a natural right of every free person
as a member of the State, not as an individual, and having its qualifica
tions only in those things which are necessary qualifications of such free
person, whether they be physical or pecuniary independence, intelligence
or anything else essential to constitute true personality. The State may
regulate the exercise of this.
3I say this remembering that many of the Swiss Cantons are Roman
Catholic, and that many of the great Enghsh patriots and defenders of
liberty were strict churchmen, and even that the Church itself was the
champion of freedom as against tyrants, royal or ecclesiastical, in mem
orable crises of history. I am not claiming that Congregationalism is the
mother of liberty, but that it is the brother of it.

76 Maine : Her Place in History.
the Puritan, and especially to the Pilgrim church, an honored
place in the march of political freedom. I say the Pilgrims ;
for it is well known that the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay
were not at first Separatists or Congregationalists. They
were Churchmen, who wished reform within the Church, as
were the great Puritan leaders in England, — Eliot, Hampden
and Pym. The remarkable fact is, that the Puritans of Mas
sachusetts who never yielded in anything else or to anybody
else, yielded their church system to that of Plymouth. It
was the Pilgrims, who reading the simple principles of chris
tian and social organization on the open page of the New
Testament, and holding fast to the plain formulas of that
liberty, prevailed over all New England, and drew under its
all-embracing fellowship many names and creeds. The grain
of mustard seed became a tree, shooting out great branches,
so that the birds of the air came and lodged under the shadow
of it. It reached even into Maine, and that communion knit the
hearts of the people together in one strong purpose, and bore
them together through the sufferings and glories of the strug
gle for the rights of man. We honor the church of England,
and are glad that she still has a peculiar reverence here on
these shores where she was the earliest planted, and where
she keeps the ancient light still burning, but we may well
doubt whether had she held undisputed sway, Maine would
not have stood fast by England unto this day.
Another way in which the intervention of Massachusetts
prepared Maine to espouse the cause of American liberty is
— paradoxical as it may seem — the liberty of conscience and
freedom of worship which followed her hand. This, it is true,
was as far as possible from her creed. But some whom she
banished for conscience sake came hither, and the spirit of
' free inquiry which she repelled reacted upon her, sq that in
spite of herself she soon began to be what she has now be
come, a preacher of that which at first she persecuted. The
patient and tolerant Pilgrim, the inly-lighted Quaker, the
calm, brave Roger Williams, were powers felt to the farthest
bound of Maine, as they were powers also in the shaping ol

Centennial Address. 77
New England character. Others are not to be forgotton, but
as the true founders of rehgious freedom we give the palm
to the Pilgrims — a prouder one than those so named of old
bore home from Holy land.
The Pilgrims and Puritans in America were slow to come
together. It is curious to note how near the Old Colony once
came to being annexed to New York. When so much of New
England was consolidated under the Province of Massachu
setts Bay, New Hampshire and Rhode Island had influence
enough to escape. It is not so well known that the Pilgrims
of Plymouth also resisted the annexation. They too did not
altogether relish the Massachusettss way of managing things.
They sent an agent to England to guard their interests — Rev.
Ichabod Wiswell, of Duxbury. Their aim, to be sure, was
not so much to resist Massachusetts, as to obtain for Plym
outh an independent charter. They so far succeeded, that
when the commission of the Governor of New York was
made out, Plymouth was actually included in his jurisdiction.
This was afterwards changed by the Massachusetts' influence
— especially that of Rev. Increase Mather, who claimed to be
acting in the interests of Plymouth. But how the friends of
the Colony deplored the result may be seen in Wiswell's
letter home :
"All the frame of heaven," says the Pilgrim, "moves on one
axis,1 and the whole of New England's interests seem designed
to be loaden on one bottom, and her particular motion to be
concentric to the Massachusetts tropic. You know who were
wont to trot after the Bay horse. I do believe that Plym
outh's silence, Hampshire's neglect, and the rashness and
influence of one who fled from New England in disguise by
night2 has not a little contributed to our disappointment."3
There was a wide difference between the Pilgrims and Puri-
'This may be the origin of the epithet, "The Hub."
2Rev. Increase Mather.
'See Folsom's note, Me. Hist. Coll. II., p. 42; and Brigham's "New
Plymouth and its Relations to Massachusetts." Lowell Inst. Lectures,
1869.

78 Maine : Her Place in History.
tans. The Plymouth people were Separatists as to Church
organization, but they were willing to live under the laws of
England. The Puritans wished reform within the Church,
but they were unwilling to live under the laws of England.
Thus the Pilgrims were at first disposed to keep separate
Church and State,1 while it was the cardinal point in the
Massachusetts Colony to unite Church and State.2 In fact,
precisely what they wished to do in this country, was to build
up the State on the Church. They sought to erect a Bible
Commonwealth, whose code would be drawn not from the
Common Law of England, but from the Law of God as re
vealed in the Old and New Testaments.
Governor Winthrop must have understood the theory of
the Colony. One emphatic sentence of his is to the purpose :
"Whereas, the way of God hath always been to gather his
churches out of the world ; now the world, — or civil state,
must be raised out of the churches." 3
Mr. John Cotton, the first minister of Boston, is surely a
competent authority to speak conclusively of their intention.
In a letter to Lord Say and Sele he says, "Democracy, I do
not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government
either for church or commonwealth. If the people be gov
ernors, who shall be governed? As for Monarchy and Aris
tocracy they are both of them clearly approved and directed
'It was precisely because they wished to separate Church from State,
that they became Separatists from the Church of England.
2 Davenport's Life of Cotton contains the following explicit statement:
" Considering that these Plantations had liberty to mould their civil order
into that form which they should find to be best for themselves, and that
here the churches and Commonwealth are complanted together hi holy
covenant and fellowship with God in Christ Jesus, Mr. Cotton did, at the
request of the General Court in the Bay, draw an abstract of the laws of
judgment delivered from God by Moses to the Commonwealth of Israel,
so far forth as they are of moral, that is, of perpetual and universal equity
among all nations ; especially such as these Plantations are ; wherein
he advised that Theocrasie, i. e. God's government, might be established
as the best form of government." Hutchinson's Coll. Papers, p. 161.
3 " Reply" to Vane, — a rejoinder to a criticism on an Order of Court in
1637, conferring extraordinary powers on magistrates. Hutchinson's
Collection, pp. 88, 89.

Centennial Address. 79
in Scripture, yet so as referreth the sovereignty to himself,
and setteth up Theocracy in both, as the best form of
Government in the Commonwealth, as well as in the
church." 1
Unjust blame and unjust praise have been lavished on the
Puritans. This is because they have been charged, or credited,
with purposes which they themselves never avowed. Friends
and foes, equally zealous, and therefore equally prone to neg
lect a calm investigation of facts, have aided each other in
misrepresenting the character and motives of those men. On
the one side bound by local pride and the honor of blood to
vindicate the fame of their fathers, and supported by the
breadth and tolerance of the present christian spirit of Mas-
chusetts, the defenders of the Puritans have held them up as
champions of liberty of conscience, and founders of American
- "freedom to worship God." On the other side, the assailants
directing attention to certain strong acts of religious persecu
tion on the part of the Puritans, have denounced them as not
only bigots, but hypocrites ; professing freedom and practic
ing tyranny. But as matter of fact, they were intolerant
without being inconsistent, — being indeed rigidly consistent
and straightforward. They never pretended to be champions
of liberty of conscience or religious freedom.
This matter has so much bearing on the main subject in
hand, and the opinion here maintained is likely to be so re
luctantly received, I must be permitted to set it forth some
what more fully. Dr. Palfrey, in his history, which is the
best defence of the early Massachusetts men, says it was their
design "that their Colony should be a refuge for civil and
religious freedom."3 This is a surprising statement, which
both makes history stultify itself, and presents the aim and
purpose of that colony in a manner very different from that
in which the leaders themselves put it. As to the acts of
intolerance and persecution, wherever their power reached,
1 Hutchinson, History Vol. I, apppendix. See also on the whole matter
the able lecture of Dr. George E. Ellis, "Aims and Purposes of the Foun
ders of the Massachusetts Colony." Lowell Institute Lectures, 1869.
'Hist. New Eng. Vol. I, 314.

80 Maine : Her Place in History.
there can be no occasion to recite their history.' But that
their professions corresponded with their practices, and that
they are thus vindicated from the charge of inconsistency, is
a fact which the candid student of history need not go far to
seek. The famous John Cotton, in reply to Roger Williams'
argument in favor of liberty of conscience, labors to prove
the lawfulness of using the civil sword to extirpate heretics,
from the command given to the Jews to put to death blasphe
mers and idolators. He says, "it is toleration which makes
the world anti-christian, and even hypocrites and tares are
better than briars and thorns;" and he advises to "destroy
the bodies of those wolves who seek to destroy the souls of
those for whom Christ died." Higginson, in his election ser
mon, 1663, speaks thus, "The gospel df Christ hath a right
paramount to all rights in the world. That which is contrary
to the Gospel hath no right, and therefore should have no
liberty." Here the minister and the magistrate appear to
wield the functions of judge and executioner. Shephard's
election sermon of 1672, skilfully makes a text of the cry of
the demoniac, "Let Us alone thou Jesus of Nazareth," which
he styles "Satan's plea for Toleration," and whereupon he
argues that toleration had its origin from the deviL The
learned President Oakes, on the same occasion the next year,
utters a similar sentiment : "The outcry of some is for liberty
of conscience. This is the great Diana of the libertines of this
1 There never were any persecutions for witchcraft east of the Piscata
qua. Massachusetts had one trophy, however, in the case of Rev. George
Burroughs, — a noted minister of Falmouth, who afterwards, at Salem,
having been found guilty of holding at arm's length a seven-foot gun
by his finger inserted in the muzzle, and likewise carrying about a barrel
of molasses by the bung-hole, and by similar feats of sorcery disturbing
the serenity of Mary Walcot, was judged unfit to live, and was executed
as a witch. The indictment is a curiosity. Williamson, H. 21, gives part
of it.
2The terrors in Which ministers in New England have been clothed, even
up to recent times, seem to have arisen from the civil powers they had in
the early society. The ministers did much more than "preach politics"
in those days. But a hundred years later the "Pulpit of the Revolution"
was a power in achieving political freedom.

Centennial Address. 81
age. But remember, that so long as you have liberty to walk
in the faith and order of the gospel, you have as much liberty
of conscience as Paul desired under any government." Still
the minister or magistrate is to be the judge. A free-spoken
man certainly was Rev. Nathanael Ward of Ipswich, who is
said to be chief author of the famous "Bodie of Liberties."1
In his quaint book, "The Simple Cobler of Agawam," written
in 1647, he says : "He that is willing to tolerate any unsound
opinion that his own may be tolerated, though never so sound,
will for a need, hang God's bible at the devil's girdle. It is
said that men ought to have liberty of conscience, and that it
is persecution to debar them of it. I can rather stand amazed
than reply to this ; it is an astonishment that the brains of
men should be parboiled in such impious ignorance." 2
These citations, which fairly represent the sentiments of
the leaders, are more than sufficient to show that the design
of that colony was not to afford a refuge for civil and rehgious
liberty, but to find a place where they might have liberty to
hold themselves and others in rigid subjection to a code
which they called christian, but which after all had a very
Mosaic mode of execution.
The Massachusetts Colony was peculiar in this. The others
were far more tolerant. Plymouth, formed in a different
school, was ready to proclaim freedom indeed. In 1645, a
majority of her house of delegates were in favor of an act to
' ' allow and maintain full and free toleration to all men who
would preserve the civil peace and submit unto government."3
The Old Colony also received Roger Williams when banished
by Massachusetts, until she compelled the Pilgrims to cast
him out. As for Rhode Island, it was looked on in those
' Bancroft says this will compare favorably with any bill of rights from
Magna Charta down.
2 Dr. Belknap cites many other evidences of this professed intolerance,
and discusses the subject with admirable judgment and temper in his
History of New Hampshire, Vol. I, chapter 3.
3 See Bancroft I, 252. 11

82 Maine : Her Place in History.
days as the " sink of New England." It was a saying of the
times, that if any, man has lost his religion he may find it
there among such a general muster of opinionists.1 Rhode
Island, however, has an honored birth and history. And
Plymouth has reason to be proud that her faith has conquered
the force of her conqueror.
As to their relations, the language of the farewell address
of the Massachusetts Colony would seem conclusive: "We
do not go to New England as separatists from the Church of
England ; though we cannot but separate from the corruptions
in it." 2 It is very apparent that the Massachusetts Company
at first repelled the Separatists, who found refuge with the
Pilgrims, — brothers as they were in faith and form. "We
give you this order," — says Craddock writing on behalf of
the company to Governor Endicott of Rev. Ralph Smith, a
Separatist who had taken passage for America, — " that unless
he will be conformable to our government you suffer him not
to remain within the limits of your grant." Bradford tells us
the rest.3 Smith fled to Plymouth where he was kindly
entreated, chosen to the ministry and honored in that office
many years. What happened to Roger Williams, sent away
not because he was a Baptist but because he was a Separatist
— a believer in freedom of worship — we well know.4 It was
equally apparent that Massachusetts did not exactly fellow
ship with Plymouth. Cotton Mather speaks his opinion
pretty boldly.6 "About the time of Governor Bradford's
death, religion itself had like to have died in that colony,
through a libertine and Brownistick spirit then prevailing
among the people, and a strange disposition to discountenance
1 Belknap's New Hampshire I, 89.
2 Mr. Higginson's pathetic and noble speech on board the ship leaving
England,. See Mather's Magnalia, Book III, Part II, Chap. 1.
3 "Plymouth Plantation," Mass. Hist. Coll., 4th series, vol. 3, p. 263.
4 The treatment of Robinson, Cudworth and Hatherly of Scituate, was
similar, but is not so widely known. See History of Scituate, p. 246.
"Magnalia, Book II, Chap. I, Life of Bradford.

Centennial Address. 83
the gospel-ministry,1 by setting up the "gifts of private
brethren " in opposition thereunto.2
The very different objects of these two colonies — the one
aiming at the upbuilding of a State, and the other at religious
freedom — tended to keep them apart. But the spirit of
Christianity on which both rested their respective systems
brought them together in one grand result ; the truth had
made them free, in thought and worship as well as in civil
and political institutions — the dominant ideas of New Eng
land to-day.3
But one thing more remains to be said for Massachusetts.
Whatever it be of christian charity, she had a perfect legal
right to be intolerant. She did not deny to others what she
claimed for herself. Her people sought the wilderness that
they might live according to their own ideas. It was no hard
ship to the rest of the world from which they had fled, to be
shut out. Their charter was so much prized because it gave
them a safeguard and immunity almost as absolute as that
wherewith the English law makes a man's house his castle.
The charter gave them full and absolute power to "correct,
punish, pardon and rule all who should come within their
1 The peril of the ministerial prerogative seemed to be the trouble here.
2 As these sheets are passing to the press, "The Pilgrim Memorial," is
placed in my hands, containing the elaborate lecture of Benjamin Scott,
F. R. A. S., Chamberlain of the city of London, entitled "The Pilgrim
Fathers neither Puritans nor Persecutors." in which the conclusions above
presented are strongly corroborated. The only points beyond those given
in the text which I need now refer to, are first, that the early Separatists
were not Puritans, and were persecuted solely for desiring to separate
Church from State and not for political treason ;— the early martyrs Cop
ping and Thacker in the reign of Elizabeth " died at Bury St. Edmunds,
acknowledging the civil supremacy of the Queen, but maintaining that in
spiritual matters they owed allegiance to another king, one Jesus ;" and
secondly, that the Puritans in England persecuted the Separatists, as is
shown in the petition to the Privy Council by Puritan Clergymen, in which
they say of the Brownists, "We abhor these, and we punish them,"
(pp. 22, 25.)
'New England owes what is best in its character and institutions to the
plain teachings of the Bible, and it would not hurt us to study it more.
The more we know of it, the more we know how to be free.

84 Maine : Her Place in History.
jurisdiction ; and for their defence and safety to encounter,
expulse, repel and resist by force of arms and by all fitting
ways and means all persons who should attempt their destruc
tion, invasion, detriment or annoyance." To be sure, they
were restrained from doing anything repugnant to the laws of
England. They gave their own interpretation to that, but
it was simple, straightforward and logical, according to the
reason and nature of the case. Liberty of conscience — free
dom of thought — was the very thing they hated, and from
which they had fled. To harbor these insidious foes, would be
stultification and suicide. Intolerance was her only defence.
You say this was bigoted and narrow ? That may be true ;
but so is loyalty in the midst of treason. Their charter
was obtained to secure them in the exercise of the religious
life they chose. To this end they had a perfect right to ex
clude, or cut off, all spiritual as well as corporeal enemies, —
Quakers, Baptists, Witches and Antinomians, as well as
Indians, Frenchmen, Royal Commissioners and Governors.
And it was in accordance with good tactics — legal as well as
military — in which those men were by no means unskilled,
not to wait until their foes were within their very doors, but
to reach out and keep them at arm's length, and" if need be to
clear the surrounding region of every thing that could shelter
an enemy's approach, or obstruct the range and effect of their
own fire.1 The Massachusetts of to-day is not responsible for
their errors ; but it has reason to be proud of their virtues.
Nor is it altogether clear that it might not be better for us if
some of that austere virtue would descend even upon this
generation. Massachusetts was intolerant ; but it was by such right at
least, as is the effect of law. And her intolerance was not
of an evil nature, and so was not long abiding. It bore in
'Massachusetts made her hand felt elsewhere than in Maine. She
undertook to exercise jurisdiction in Warwick, R. I., and even in New
York ; and in 1644 forbid the inhabitants of Exeter, N. H., from forming a
church until the court at Boston or at Ipswich should give allowance
therefor. Belknap I, 58.

Centennial Address. 85
itself the elements of its own correction. It was in the
name of that obedience which saints and sages alike agree
is "perfect freedom" — that obedience to the right which is
the law of liberty. She stood for the right as she saw it,
and even though in some things wrong, she cherished a truth
which in due time would make all men free who followed it.
Her watchword was not Liberty, but Loyalty; — and this,
being such as it was, led to true liberty. She kept her rigid
Law, but slumbering in its prophecy was that better Gospel
which came not to destroy but to fulfil.
There is no more mistaken notion than that the New Eng
land of to-day is the simple outgrowth of the Puritan ideas
and practices of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. It is, on
the contrary, the remarkable fact that the distinctive principle
of that colony is precisely what has been most changed.
The religious freedom of which we boast was the very thing
which the fathers of that colony denied. The New England
which has grown up is not that for which they suffered and
struggled, and which they hoped so earnestly to see. This
has grown up from the mingled elements of all the colonies,
based indeed upon the living truths of the Bible, but illumin
ated by the Sermon on the Mount, rather than by the light
nings of Sinai. It has grown out of the charities of one
fundamental faith, the sympathies of a common blood and the
conciliations of a common cause. New England has influ
enced Massachusetts as much as she has influenced it. The
Puritans were forced to see their failure going on in their
own consecrated colony, and under their very eyes ; and a
different spirit, — more broad, more liberal, more human, yet
as loyal to great principles, — gradually overruling their own ;
a spirit, a character, which not Massachusetts and New Eng
land alone, but the whole country, from the lakes to the gulf,
and from ocean to ocean, recognizes as mighty among the
powers that have made this nation what it is.1
'One-third the entire population of the United States in 1834 were
descendants of the Puritans and Pilgrims.

86 Maine : Her Place in History.
I have said so much of Massachusetts because Maine was
for forty years under her power, and for one hundred and
thirty years more a constitutent element of her estate and
name. Her encroachments upon Maine were unwarranted
by law, and high-handed in morality, and have only a military
justification. But the result was to give order where- there
had been confusion, law where there had been license, and
liberty where there had been formalism. In the later times
her people largely emigrated to this province — 'especially of
those more liberal in sentiment, more independent and enter
prising in spirit. And so the old Bay State is more a mother
to us in this circumstance than in any other, — that she con
tributed some of her own best and bravest sons and daughters
to make up the robust character of Maine. But it was Ply
mouth after all which was the true "refuge of civil and
religious freedom," and which by her influence cast abroad
the potent seeds that found in Maine a ready and genial soil.
The ancient kindness was richly returned when for the bread
once sent to the famishing Pilgrims, came back in due time
that spirit which is life's law and liberty.
I pass by many interesting episodes, — such as the struggle
of D'Aulney and La Tour to carry Acadia to the banks of the
Penobscot, and speculations upon the motives and results of
New England's driving away the Dutch who had gained a
footing there. I omit also to bring forward as they deserve
some matters of abiding history, — such as the settlement of
the Dutch and Germans between the Penobscot and Kennebec,
and of the Scotch and Irish and French even, who form no
unworthy tracery in the thoroughly English character of our
people. I am not giving a history of Maine, but only tracing
the action of those formative forces which cast the great lines
of our political history as they are.
1 It is no strange or meaningless concurrence of ideas that the beautiful
statue of Faith for Plymouth Hill — looking out seaward and pointing
heavenward — is now being wrought from the pure white granite of Maine,
and almost within the bounds of that early Pilgrim Grant on the Kenne
bec.

Centennial Address-. 87
The charter of William and Mary tended to bring the
colonies together, to modify extremes, to promote unity of
interest and aim in pe.ople who were already of one blood
and birthright. A common enemy and a common defence
strengthened this tendency. Almost a century of wars, borne
in suffering and in triumph together, knit hearts as one. The
brunt fell upon Maine, the vast frontier and flying-buttress of
New England, — her soil the battle ground and her sons the
vanguard. I have said before, that the fleet which took Port
Royal was manned chiefly here and commanded by her dis
tinguished son, Sir William Phipps. I have spoken of the
famous siege of Louisburg, where almost the whole English
armament were men of Maine, from the cabin and drummer
boy to the Chief Commander, Sir William Pepperell. On
land, also, Maine bore her part in every expedition, and
shared the crowning glory on the Heights of Abraham.
Such was the drain upon her in these French wars, that
there was not left at home one man to a family, and Massa
chusetts was forced to send at one time a hundred men to
garrison the little forts that protected the trembling homes.
But when the dearly defended liberties of the colonies were
threatened by the mother country herself, decimated Maine
was among the first to spring to the defence. "Our swords
have not grown rusty," said the town of Gorham : "We offer
our lives a sacrifice in the glorious cause of liberty," were
the ringing words of Kittery; — in 1773, two years before
Lexington and Concord. And on the muster rolls. of the
alarm men, called out by that momentous day, the names of
the men of Maine flash like electric sparks all the way from
Kittery to Mt. Desert. Soon after, the patriots of Machias
under the O'Briens, boldly attacked a king's ship, the Mar-
garetta, and after a sharp engagement " the British flag was
struck for the first time on the ocean to Americans."1
I cannot be expected here to sift the history of those
momentous years, and present to you the part which Maine

'Bancroft, Hist. U. S., centenary edition, Vol. IV, p. 456.

88 Maine : Her Place in History.
bore in the "times that tried men's souls." I wonder that
this history has not yet been written, and that our State has
not gathered from the Massachusetts rolls, at least the names
which even at this late day would shed*glory upon her own.
Let me simply say, that in that struggle, Maine, drained as
she had already been in the bloody French and Indian wars,
lost a thousand men. And when it was over, the burden of
the public debt that fell upon her was greater in proportion
to her wealth and population, than her share in the cost of
the War of the Rebellion. '
It was owing to causes that lay far deeper than the consoli
dating charter of Massachusetts Bay, that these colonies were
merged into one. Nor is it wholly true, as is so often said,
that it was the War of Independence which made them one.
It is equally true, at any rate, that their oneness made their
independence. Though existing under different and some
times adverse charters — though grouped around different
centres, with circumferences sometimes in collision, they were
steadily evolving that consciousness of identity which is the
soul of a nation. By all their sacrifices and toils and strug
gles, — by all their traditions, convictions and hopes, — by all
that history gives to character and character to history, they
were working out those ideals set forth in the Declaration,
the Constitution and the Union, and in which are centered
the glory of America and the hopes of humanity. And Maine
has had no inglorious share in this. Conservative though she
was from the beginning, she was never behind the foremost
when the rights of man were at stake, — whether they were to
be attested by patient continuance in well doing, or decided
by the costly arbitrament of arms.
There is no doubt that during all this revolutionary period
Massachusetts had treated Maine with kindness, and had con
ciliated many people who before had resisted her usurpation.
But there were many in this region whose sympathies still
lingered with the mother country, — who did not perceive that
the fight here was for Englishmen as well as for Americans,
' Varney's History of Maine.

Centennial Address. 89
and for man the world over. Had not Maine been incorpo
rated with the rest of New England by the charter of '91 —
had she been left impoverished and desolated as she was, to
defend herself in the struggle, there is no doubt that the
English perceiving the great strategic advantages of the
position, would have seized upon the territory, and over
awed the inhabitants, as she did in Nova Scotia ; and when
at last the lines were drawn, they would have included that
Dukedom of York once bounded by the Kennebec, or that
Palatinate of Gorges by the Piscataqua, which would have
made that river the eastern boundary of the United States.
As it was, I cannot but wonder that Great Britain did not
seize this ground, and entrench herself here, where she might
have held a flanking position of the whole American coast, —
where she could have rendezvoused her fleets and armies, and
made this storied shore the front of a new Empire. Had this
been done the Dominion of Canada to-day would have a different
fame and a different capital. It needs no diviner's eye to see
what use would then be made of the mighty waters of the
Penobscot and Kennebec, or such imperial naval stations as
Somes' and Hussey's sounds ; or what city would then arise,
not to be scorned when it claimed to be " the natural seaport
of the Canadas."
But it was otherwise. Hearts and fortunes have turned else
where and are bound to a different fate. The blood of Maine
runs in the veins, or has endeared the sod, of every State in the
Union : her star is not the least in the flag of the free, nor her
name the humblest of those that mark the homes of the
brave. And that she has a place in this proud greeting of the
Century of the Republic I doubt not she owes to the fact that
she was once part and parcel of the Province of Massachusetts
Bay. The remaining division of this discourse will regard Maine
as an independent State. She had not indeed been depen
dent. By the charter of William and Mary she was a constitu
ent part of Massachusetts, as much so as Plymouth or Boston
12

90 Maine : Her Place in History.
itself. And when independence of England was declared,
Massachusetts and Maine spoke as one. Only a small portion
of her territory had ever been a Province of Massachusetts —
the Gorges Palatinate — and that only for a short time.
District she was indeed, — not of Massachusetts, but of the
United States. For the better administration of maritime
affairs Congress in 1779 made Maine a separate District, with
a United States Court and officers as now. But the old
feeling of self-determination was still strong ; and with all the
kindliness, the feeling of the right of self-government was not
quenched. Territorially at least, the union was unnatural.
The War of the Revolution brought the need of a distinct
government to a sharp edge. So early as 1785 public meet
ings and Conventions were held to consider the expediency
of a separation. The growth of the State also increased the
demand. From a population of five thousand at the begin
ning of the century she had advanced to more than seventy-
five thousand at the time of the Revolution, and at the close
of the century her population exceeded a hundred and fifty
thousand. At this rate of increase the necessity for a sepa
ration was growing ever stronger. But the assertion of it
was not promoted by the same ratio : for much of this increase
had been by immigration from Massachusetts and the rest of
New England ; and many of those who had contended stoutly
for the rights and interests of Maine had removed beyond her
borders after Massachusetts took possession ; and especially
during and after the Revolution the Loyalists gradually
retired eastward, — first across the Penobscot, and then be
yond the St. Croix.1 So it happened that the parties on the
question of separation were for many years nearly balanced.
But the war of 1812 brought many changes. Maine con
tributed her part ; but of stirring events here there is not
much to tell. The English directed several of their attacks
upon this coast, which was poorly defended ; and it is fair to
'A very valuable Article, and one in which every candid mind can afford
to be interested, is the Historical Essay of Lorenzo Sabine in his "Loyal
ists of the American Revolution."

Centennial Address. 91
say that our military operations were not brilliant. The sea
fight off Seguin, however, was a bright spot upon the scene ;
and a gallant enterprise in capturing a British privateer off
Bristol, redounded to the credit of that neighborhood.
Maine was a commercial State. Her shipping amounted to
150,000 tons : her exports to almost a million dollars a year.
But many of her sons were sailors and liable to impressment
by British cruisers. The war and the embargo increased
party feeling, and strangely tasked it. The war-spirit and
the war-measures brought conflicting motives into the same
minds — self interest and patriotic pride. The latter prevailed.
The majority sustained the government. One good effect of
the war and its measures was to stimulate local industries.
The manufacture of woolen, cotton, glass and metal, started
up with vigor all over the State, and made a large demand
and quick market for farm products of every kind. But at
the close of the war the influx of foreign goods brought in a
competition which stopped the factories, and caused great
loss and discouragement. The inevitable result was a reduc
tion in the demand for agricultural products, and in the wages
of labor. Severe winters and late springs still more disheart
ened the farmers. These causes led to that notable rush to
the Westin 1815 and 1816, known as the " Ohio fever," by
which the State lost 15,000 of her most energetic people.
Meantime the question of separation had become a party
issue, — the Federalists adhering to Massachusetts, the Repub
licans contending for independence.1 In 1820 the point was
'These party names furnish a striking instance of misnomer; and what
is still more remarkable, one of these parties adopted 'the name of their
original opponents. It was in reality the Nationalists who came to be
called Federalists. They held to the unity of the nation as opposed to a
confederacy, and were led by Hamilton and Jay, who joined by Madison,
wrote the articles called "The Federalist," which supported the new
federal constitution. The old Federals, supporters of the ideas of the
Confederation, were afterwards, with Jefferson for leader, known as
Republicans, and then as Democrats. In addition to the familiar sources
of information on this subject, we have now the recent work of Von
Hoist, " Constitutional and Political, History of the U.S.," and Bateman's
" Political and Constitutional Law of the U. S."

92 Maine : Her Place in History.
carried ; and that connection which was begun in violence, but
had been continued for a hundred and thirty years in grow
ing good- will, was now ended without severing the warm ties
of blood — the unshed dearer for that which had been shed.
A majority had decided it, but from henceforth Maine was
one. By the mysterious laws of transmission, traces of this
same majority have characterized the public sentiment of
Maine in all great crises, if I might not even say they have
made her marked in character. Maine is conservative, self-
reliant, calm ; slow even, to wrath or novelty. She will lead
in a noble cause when convinced ; but she is not fanatical,
narrow nor self-seeking. She does by no means always fol
low Massachusetts — nor even New England. But it would
be a great mistake to suppose Maine is not warmly one with
New England in all great principles and interests. It would
be a mistake to suppose that Maine, advanced post and van-
guardsman as she is, on this cold northeast frontier, does
not keep in her soul the watchword of the Union, and feel
the heart-beat of the whole body of the nation.
It would seem that the portion of the State north of the
old Gorges' Palatinate, was never subject of grant to any
party, and if that is the case the title to that portion of the
territory was vested directly in the United States by the
treaty of 1783 with Great Britain, and was virtually trans
ferred to Maine on her admission to the Union. There was,
however, for many years a contest, sometimes sharp and
threatening, as to the Northern and North Eastern Boundary.
The result, although apparently unsatisfactory to England,
was felt by Maine people to be for the advantage of the
United States at the expense of Maine. At any rate, her
claim was not defended, and in lieu of the territory thus lost
the United States received a ' ' far more valuable tract " on
Lakes Champlain and Superior,1 and Maine a mere nominal
equivalent in money.2
1 1 acknowledge here the courtesy of the Historical Society in placing
in my hands the extremely valuable papers of the late Senator George
Evans, relating to this subject ; as also some able papers on the British side,
which lament the impolicy and weakness of England in not seizing the
whole of the State of Maine, or at least Acadia to the Kennebec. The
writer was an abler man than the British treaty-commissioner. 2 $150,000.

Centennial Address. 93
The population of the new State was nearly 300,000. The
leading industries were lumbering, agriculture and ship build
ing. While the natural resources were yet abundant, the
returns from these industries were large. Wealth and popu
lation rapidly increased. Up to the year 1850, each decade
showed an average gain of 80,000 inhabitants.1 From that
time a decided slackening begun. The census of 1860 showed
a decrease of the former rate of advance by one-half, and that
of 1870 no advance at all, but a loss in the aggregate popula
tion, of 1,364. New Hampshire is the only other State which
shows a falling off in the last decade. Her loss is remarkable,
being 7,872 upon a total of 326,000. This might look as if
this corner of the country were really too hard a place to live
in, and New England was literally to be left out in the cold.
But let us see. Statistical tables may be made to support
the most diverse conclusions. We may derive advantage,
however, from an examination of the census returns and the
reports of leading interests, and be able to make certain gen
eralizations showing at least our faults and their causes, and
which way our hopes lie.
The first fact which strikes us is, that while our general
falling off is 1,364, our polls — the number of men of voting
age — have increased in the last decade by the surprising
figure of 16,396. The second fact is, that the aggregate
wealth of the State has increased in that time $158,000,000.
So if we are losing numbers, we are gaining in mature men.
If there are fewer of us, we are learning to work better. In
fact not only the total product, but the portion retained as
the profits of business and wages of labor, — that is to say,
the ivealth of Maine has largely increased. In the last twenty
years her gain has been $225,000,000. Even now, when lum
ber and shipping have so declined, her wealth goes steadily on.
Now, we may have courage to search for the weak spots —
to find where the destroyer has been at work upon us. In
the first place, we find it is not women we have lost — or at
'Increase for the two decades, 1790-1S10, 55,000 each; to 1830, 75,000
each; to 1850, over 100,000 each.

94 Maine : Her Place in History.
any rate " females," for in this valuable product the tables
show a gain of 2,700 and more — 900 in excess of the male
population. But in 1860 the males were 6,000 more than
the females. So it would appear we have less males in 1870
than we should have by 8,700 at the least. But the tables
gave us a gain of polls of 16,396. This severe loss, then,
must be found in males under the age of 21 years. Reluctant
to accept the conclusion, we turn to the report of the School
Commissioner,1 and find that during the decade ending in
1870, the number of persons of school age in this State had
decreased by 15,753 ! He accounts for this, partly as an in
direct effect of the war which took away nearly half our male
population between 20 and 40 years of age ; and partly by
the diminution from physiological or moral causes, in the
birth rate of our native population. Moreover, the census
returns * from an entirely different source, confirm- this ac
count — showing from 1860 to 1870 a thousand a year less
if children born in Maine than for any year of the twenty pre
ceding. This truly is a conclusion and state of things which
demands the serious attention of our public teachers and
statesmen— guardians of the commonwealth and weal.
But we may see further into this matter and approach
nearer a solution of it by taldng another road. The statistics
of industry ought to bear upon this subject ; for while it is
labor that produces wealth, it is the land of labor and not the
amount of it which tells most effectually on human society.
In this view let us examine the present drift of a few
characteristic industries of Maine.
We find that the lumber business, which was once the
' great industry of Maine, has fallen off so that it is more than
equalled by the single and comparatively recent industry of
cotton manufacture, — the value of each product being about
$12,000,000. Turning to another great staple of Maine,
shipbuilding, we find the total annual product of the different
works concerned in this to be $2,238,000, already much
'Report, Com. of Education 1871, p. 202.
"Census of 1870, Vital Statistics.

Centennial Address. 95
surpassed by many industries hitherto not made of much
account ; — the single item of iron-worldng producing an
annual value of $3,597,714 : boot and shoe making, $3,750,-
000 : flouring mills, $4,415,000 : leather-making, almost
$5,000,000, and woolen factories $6,150,000. There are
more than one hundred and thirty other mechanical and
manufacturing industries with an annual product of more
than $34,000,000.
Now take the third and chief industry of Maine. We find
the total value of all farm products, — including stock, to be
$33,470,044, while the total value of manufactured pro
ducts, — I mean those which depend upon steam and water
power — is $79,497,521, or much more than double that of
agricultural products. The total number engaged in agri
culture is 82,011, of whom fifty-five are females. The total
engaged in the manufacturing industries are 62,077, of whom
12,742 are females. We will now compare the amount of
wages in these occupations respectively. In agriculture
$2,803,292 ; in manufactures $14,282,205. From these re
turns we are warranted in several inferences.
Industry is becoming more diversified. The powers of
nature are being substituted for human muscle. The produc
tiveness of labor is greatly enhanced. The returns of labor
are greater : wages are rising. Manufactures are giving re
munerative employment to a large number of women.
All this is well, and betokens advance of civilization. But
the balance ought not to be so against agriculture, and farm
wages ought not to be so low. In a healthy state of things,
diversity of occupations should stimulate the home market,
and advance the value of farm products and farms, and the
character of farming.
But it would seem from these tables that there is a prevail
ing notion that mind and skill can only be rewarded by trade
and manufactures ; and the local demands for skilled labor
being supplied, our youth have gone forth to other States
where capital invites hands guided by brains, and work and
wit give quicker returns.

96 Maine : Her Place in History.
Is this so? Let us see where they have gone. Evidently
not where they can find more work, but higher work. Some
to be sure, to the new lands of the West where nature is more
prodigal; 8,000 to Wisconsin, 7,000 to Illinois, 6,000 to
Minnesota, — but 43,000 to Massachusetts, 11,000 to New
Hampshire, 10,000 to California ; and so on, till we find more
than 116,000 Maine-born people residing elsewhere in 1870.
Something of this is due to a general westward push, which
seems to be an instinct of man ; and Maine being farthest east
of the States is most exposed to the attraction. Every thing
is west of her ; drawing like a magnet. But this does not
account for our case. The fact of the matter is, that in our
way of doing business Maine has become an old and exhausted
State, before her true wealth has begun to be developed.
We have been stripping off what was easiest to take, without
mercy and without forethought. We have been acting the
part of the barbarian and the savage whose highest reach of
industry and commerce is to send away the raw products of
Nature, as long as they hold out, and then hunt for new
hunting grounds. The nation that relies solely on the sale
of her raw products will find that when they are gone, she is
gone . Until quite recent times our views of industrial economy
have been perverse and ruinous, and this is one of them.
Nowhere in the world of life is robbery blessed. You may
indeed dig out the rock and the ore and give nothing back.
That will do while it lasts. But true production is reciprocity ;
interests balance and support each other. What you borrow
from life, you must repay. It is right no doubt to avail our
selves of the gratuities of nature. But you may be blind and
brutish .about it. Always you must consider the extent of
her stores and her powers of recuperation. Otherwise you
will sap her life, and leave her and yourself at the end
wretched companions in poverty. So Maine has been strip
ping her forests and murdering her land ; shipping away the
fertility of her soil, and the stuff which she should have made
materia] for her own ingenuity and skill ; snatching at the
near advantage, and heeding not what was to come.

Centennial Address. 97
In this way she was contributing to the superiority of others
over herself. While she was honestly holding on to the good
old, hard old ways, others had harnessed the forces of nature
to their team, and were driving on apace. Mind had seized
on forces as well as matter, and with these the cunning hand
could do the work of scores. While others were cutting their
way to wealth with the skilled knife and chisel and lathe, she
was content with the narrow axe and cross-cut saw. Steam
and iron ran away from the' spinning-wheel and loom ; and
the women of the household being unable to turn their in
dustry to good account, one hand of home labor was cut off.
No one could call our people lazy. They have been indus
trious ; nay, hard workers. But they have acted as if the
only law of labor was hard work. They have been slow to
see that true labor seeks not simply where it can find obstacles
to overcome, but how it can work most advantageously —
where mind can best win mastery over the utilities of nature.
Hard labor is a prison sentence ; skilled labor is the enfran
chisement of man. Hard labor keeps man in bondage to
nature ; skilled labor makes her his willing and strong ser
vant. Hard labor uses man as a brute only ; skilled labor
almost lifts brute force to human.
Maine has been slow to learn this lesson. To make matters
worse she for a long time cherished an insane prejudice
against " corporations," as if they were despots of society and
adversaries of souls. She did not see that this was to fight
against capital, the instrument that serves labor, — against
enterprise, the force that moves labor, — against mind, the
power that exalts it.
Now at last — late, but we hope not too late — we have
learned the lesson of true economy. We no longer oppose
capital. We invite skill. We understand that diversification
of industries, division of labor and the utilization of the forces
of nature as well as the materials, is the way to wealth and
the law of growth.
The great instrument of civilization is power, — mechanical
13

98 Maine : Her Place in History.
power — mastery given to human hands over material forces,
that human beings may be emancipated from drudgery and
sent up to ever higher planes of labor and life. That is in
the order of Providence the redemption from the curse, — the
deliverance of man from bondage. For this he is to subdue
the earth. Not that he shall ever be released from labor ;
for labor, — that is, the application of power, is life itself, but
that nature by his mind and skill shall become a perfect
instrument, with which he shall work out his truest ends, and
win the mastery which is unto noblest service. The blind
forces of nature thus have part in man's enfranchisement.
Now one great thing to say of Maine is, that she is full of
power. In literal truth she overflows with it. The water
power of Maine is mighty and exhaustless. More wonderful
and useful still, in that it is available, controllable, constant.
This land after many vicissitudes of elevation and subsidence
from the ocean level,1 now lifts to a mean elevation of 600
feet2 above it more than 1,600 lakes, covering more than
2,300 square miles of surface, — immense storage of power,
kept ever fresh by the mists from the mingling Gulf stream
and the Arctic currents, rolled back against the mountains
and shed down the slopes in ever renewing course. In
numerable streams and noble rivers, not cutting through soft
rock to level canon beds with lazy flow, but precipitated over
flinty faces that were hardened in the fires of centuries ago,
and will not yield their place for centuries to come, bear
these waters onward to where the ocean tides and storms
have worn deep harbors inward to the very foot of the falls.
How many of these powers there are cannot be estimated ;
but the great rivers in their descent to the sea yield a gross
1 The account of the last great uplifting given in Dana's Geology, p. 561,
Edition of 1875, has an interesting note on the Indian shell heaps, and the
Quahaug and Oyster of Maine. It is supposed that the Labrador current
was once turned aside by the closing of the Straits of Bellisle and a union
of Newfoundland with the continent.
2 This is the estimate of Walter Wells in his " Water Power of Maine,"
a work evincing an ability and genius deserving better notice. The first
part of this work ought to be republished as a text-book for our schools.

Centennial Address. 99
power equal to 6,600,000 horse. This power concentrated
and utilized as is done in our factories, would be equal to the
labor ten hours a day every working day in the year,- of more
than 80,000,000 men. This indicates in what direction our
industries are to extend, and is a prophecy of what Maine is
yet to be.
And she is favored in other respects for manufacturing.
The sea winds bring salubrious airs ; the drainage banishes
malarial taints, and even the cold is of good account. The
high heats of summer must always be a drawback to any
extensive scale of manufactures in the South. You can shut
out cold, but not so easily heat. It has been calculated that
the diminished productiveness of factory labor in the South
compared with that in the North, due to this cause, reaches
the remarkable figure of ten per cent.1 But our winters
bring even more direct profits. Maine not only quarries
stone, but ice. Here is a kind of export of raw material
which will not impoverish. If her rock and her cold can be
turned to wealth, she has an inexhaustible resource.2
Great manufacturing interests demand capital. We have
missed the golden opportunities when investments were
offered from abroad. Now manufactures have gained a better
footing elsewhere, and there is said to be already an over
production of the great staples. For this we must be
'Wells' Water Power of Maine.
2 The decided change of climate between the region north of Cape Cod
and that south of it, is often noticed. The cape in fact appears to be the
index .on the dividing line of two zones. The curious reasoning of Dr.
Holyoke (Transactions Am. Acad, of Arts and Sciences, Vol. II, Pt. I,)
that it is the great number of evergreens in our woods which causes our
cold,— a reasoning thought so satisfactory by Judge Sullivan, (History
of Maine, p. 8) cannot now be relied on to explain the decided and
inveterate habit of winter to have its own way with us. Dr. Kohl puts
the -case for Maine with judicial mildness: "The nature of its climate
inclines more to the countries north of it, than to the States south of Cape
Cod." The reason he gives (Discovery of the East Coast, p. 44) is that
the Arctic current branches off and circulates in the Gulf of Maine, while
the warm Gulf Stream tempers the airs of the more southerly New
England shores.

100 Maine : Her Place in History.
patient, — work our way and pay our way. But I am not so
much troubled for that. It does not appear to me that the
only manufactures we should long for are the great ones
which bring in crowds of foreign operatives who do not
understand our institutions, and who do not enter into our
social life and well-being. My hope for Maine lies largely in
those many minor industries already referred to, that are
pressing into service natural motors and native skill all over
the State. It is with these diversified industries, that the
true prosperity of our agriculture is vitally connected. An
agriculture which depends only on foreign export will not
reach the highest degree of profit and independence. Not to
insist upon that general law that money flows in the same
direction as raw materials, — that is, from the producing
countries towards the great industrial and business centres, —
I urge only the more obvious maxim, that diversified in
dustries, widely scattered in local centres, which create a
near and constant market, and secure within this domestic
circle all the advantages claimed for reciprocity and free
trade, afford the most favorable -conditions for a prosperous
agriculture. Thus the factory and the farm should balance.
All that which is product of the farm would be worked to its
highest form and use, and all that, brought from near or far,
which is waste and refuse to the factory, return health and
wealth to the soil. So every advantage not only of soil and
material resources, but also of native aptitude, tact and skill,
the division of labor, the association of capital and the rapid
circulation of wealth, would tend to the stability, the up
building, the broad culture and total well-being of the State.
But we have not mastered all the lesson yet. We shall not
have firm footing till we have learned to turn a real attention
to husbandry. Not without deep meaning was that old fable
of Antaeus, the giant wrestler who could bear every hurt and
come off victor in every struggle, because his strength was
renewed whenever he touched the mother earth ; and was
only overcome when Hercules lifted him and crushed him in
the air. So it is with man. And so with the State. It stands

Centennial Address. 101
on its land. If it slights or abuses that, its strength is gone.
Well might Disraeli ask, what has become of the yeomanry of
England, that made her ancient fame ? And well may we ask,
Why is it that she, the richest, is yet the poorest nation in
Christendom, and the distance between her classes is ever
widening?1 One answer will do for all. She has driven off
the small owners and free-holders from the soil and forced
them into the shops and factories, — competition keeping
wages down, and low wages crushing the last trace of God's
image out of humanity. The fields that once supported men
and women and children, sound in body and in soul, have
been turned into sheep-walks and deer-parks, and gathered
into the hands of a few, till seven hundred men own a quarter
of England, and there are only 200,000 persons who could
be called land-owners at all.2 Then the tax system of that
country makes this matter worse. The tax that ought to be
almost prohibitory on lands so held for human pride and
aggrandizement, is made merely nominal, and that on in
come but a trifle. The burden of the tax is laid on consump-
'This is no random rhetoric. Any one familiar with English social
science, — or even with modern English novelists, for that matter, — will
recognize the truth implied in my question. A note to prove this truth
would swell to the dimensions of a whole discourse. Essays on this topic
are numerous. I refer to one of much value and interest, not widely
known among us : " The Land Laws of England," by C.Wren Hoskyns,
Esq., published among the Essays of the Cobden Club, entitled "Systems
of Land Tenures in Various Countries," London, 1876.
2Mr. Mulford's statement in the "The Nation," p. 67, ' that one-half
England is owned by 150 proprietors and the whole number is reduced to
30,000 ' — a statement which has been long current — was based on reports
which have turned out to be unreliable. An analysis in the "London
Times," April 7, 1876, shows that 874 owners hold 9,367,133 acres ; 2,689
owners hold 14,896,324 acres; 10,207 owners hold 22,013,208 acres; 42,524
owners hold 28,840,550 acres.
Hon. George C. Brodrick in his essay on the "Law and Custom of
Primogeniture," (Cobden Club Essays, 1876,) canvasses the land statistics
of England for that year with much clearness and insight. He finds that
"nearly one-eighth of all the enclosed land in England and Wales is in
the hands of 100 owners ; that nearly one-sixth is in the hands of less than
280 owners ; and that above one-fourth is in the hands of 710 owners."

102 Maine : Her Place dv History.
tion — on the human body, instead of on profits and property.1
That answers the question. That is why England, though
Empress of India, and though her colonies and commerce
encircle the earth, is yet declining in civilization, — if we
mean by that the art and power to command the blessings of
nature. Tried by the maxim of her Bentham, — "The
greatest good of the greatest number," — her system has been
found wanting. Her wealth does not save her, though she
is the banker of the nations. Her manufactures do not save
her, though she is the workshop of the world. A fatal error
is at her heart, which makes even her Christianity ineffectual.
She has taken the standing-place out from under the feet of
her people, and her whole moral order is overturned.2
Thank Heaven, we have not come to that. Our people are
not wretchedly poor, but they are moving away. Our lands
are not usurped by a few. They are abandoned by the many.
But part of the result is the same. If we have not the misery,
we have the desolation. It is a great evil and a hurt to have
these farms stripped and forsaken, and these resources which
might by earnestness and skill be made to warm and brighten
many a home, left as they have been in the cold clutch of
nature. Consider for a moment certain great and beautiful economic
laws :
' Here is the estimate for 1876 : Land Tax, £2,000,000 ; Income, £3,900,-
000; Custom, Excise and Licences, (tax on consumption), £58,000,000.
" Statesman's Manual for 1876," p. 215.
Mr. Greg,— " Essays on Political and Social Science," Vol. I, p. 248,
Principles of Taxation, — argues that the poor in England do not pay their
fair proportion of taxes, because the rich consume more of the necessaries
of life than the poor.
2 1 have sought in vain for even an approximate estimate of the land
owners in the United States. But we may compare France with England.
According to M. de Lavergne, "Economie Rurale de la France," there
are 7i500,000 land proprietors in that country. Well may Mr. Cliffe
Leslie say, " The contrast between the land systems of France and Eng
land is the most extraordinary spectacle which European society offers
for study to political and social philosophy." (The Land System of
France, p. 288.)

Centennial Address. 103
1. As man advances, the prices of manufactured articles
go down, and those of agricultural products go up.
2. In a healthy state of things, all values whatever, —
necessities, luxuries, silver and gold even, interest and profits,
— tend to decline, except raw material and wages. Land and
labor — man and earth — therefore, stand together.
Where these results or tendencies do not appear, some
thing is wrong. If "goods" are high, and wages and farm
products low, there is an evil power at work. And the declin
ing value of our farms tells a sad, true story against us. It
is a thing we can see without census reports, that our youth
have had a tendency within the last ten years to fly from
labor to what they call business and trade, — being led to
think, perhaps, that Exchange is a higher sphere of effort
than Production.1
Unskilled farming, unpaid toil and heavy taxes, have added
an impulse to this attraction. We want manufactures. But
one interest must not oppress the other. Balance is the wis
dom of society. If to atone for past errors you attempt to
invite manufactures by exempting them from taxation, and
roll that burden upon the little farms, you drive off the sons
from the homesteads into the Babylon of the marts and cities.
We must call our youth home again. If .need be, exempt the
old farm from taxation, instead of the new factory. Do not
put a light tax on timber-lands and heavy one on homes.
' There are two kinds of trade, — one which adds to values, and so is
truly productive ; another which takes toll out of values, and is simply
destructive. The merchant who gathers various things from far places,
and stores and holds them subject to our demand, saves us the immense
expense of time and money in travelling, searching and transporting each
for himself; and this is the same in effect, it will be readily seen, as
adding directly to values. It is obvious that the number of such mer
chants has a natural limit in the amounts necessary for the needs of
customers. There is another kind of trader who does not add to values, —
who simply intercepts things as they pass from the producer to the con
sumer, and levies an Algerine tribute upon them. It is obvious that this
class is worse than useless. In disturbed "times such as we have had, this
class increases without law or limit, and seems to thrive at the expense of
'society.

104 Maine : Her Place in History.
Favor those who own to cultivate, rather than those who hold
for speculation. Encourage the men and women who own
their land to build up homes and rear up children, and draw
out a perpetual blessing from the soil and sky, and so make
earthly toil win heavenly harvests. That is what we must
come to. Home again! We shall not have "good times"
until speculation and trade give place to the creation of real
values — until the captive children return from Babylon and
build again the walls of Jerusalem. We must come back and
touch mother earth again and be strong.
Then too there are broad fields yet to be taken up ; for the
rich resources of Maine stretch as far inland as the whole
sweep of the shore. There are no fairer grain-fields in all
the Western prairies than on the Aroostook highlands. The
little band of Swedes we took pains to plant there return the
cost of the enterprise in the example they have set us. A
ship-load of such men and women is better than warehouses
full of foreign luxuries. Doubtless we shall hear more of
their virtues when they have votes to give. With sound
thoughts and purposes bearing upon opportunities like these,
we may be able to hold back at least some eddy in the west
ward sweeping tide of emigration. And if not, we may still
console ourselves with the thought that even though the
course of Empire tends westward, it is born of the East.
But mind — has not Maine been rich in that? Yes, to over
production. That is to say she has produced more mind than
she has had fit work for. Statesmanship was for a long time
almost the only sphere which allowed scope for ambitious
spirits, without banishing them from their homes. Others
following the great laws of mental economy sought fields
abroad. And was it not right and well that the best minds
should be called away ? The whole country claims them :
the world even, is not too wide for their fame.
Mind is above matter. Man above circumstance. Of such
I am proud to see is still the pre-eminence of Maine. In the
census charts which present the illiteracy of the States in
grades of shadow, she stands almost as white as snow — chief

Centennial Address. 105
I think in the whole sisterhood. I am aware that this does
not mean everything. It does not mean that the highest
pitch of education is here attained, but that education is
broadest spread. Happy has been for her the law that the
day of small things is not to be despised — that the little red
school-house may have its part too in the world's affairs, no
less than the luxuries of storied halls.
It is the way we use things that makes us. But the con
cession is not needed. Our higher institutions have done
good work. Surely without disparagement or partiality I
may ask what colleges in all the country can show a brighter
roll, relatively or absolutely, than the little college which
Maine received as a part of her constitution. How can I
select among the sons of Bowdoin — nearly every one also a
son of Maine — names that shall not leave too many peers un-
mentioned? Hear how they begin. The Abbots, the Aliens,
the Andersons, the Appletons, the Cheevers, the Goodwins,.
the Hales, the Hamlins ; — and to speak of groups by noble
types, there are Stowe and Smith among scholars, Evans and
Fessenden among statesmen, Sergeant Prentiss among orators,
Munson and Cilley among martyrs, Andrew among patriots,
Howard among heroes, Hawthorne among the masters of
human speech, Longfellow among the ministers of immortal

song !

I pass over the story of the war, — the noble devotion with
which the State, almost as one man, stood forth for the sacred;
name of country ; for that conservation of the Being of the
People which is Supreme Law, of which institutions are the
guaranty, and by which constitutions are to be interpreted ;.
— that oneness of great life and purpose, achieving what no
single members nor separate States could win, but can be
wrought only in the high calling of the Nation. I pass over
the names of those who, merging in that larger life all that
men are wont to make the end of living, and dedicating on
that high altar the costliest and dearest to each single soul,
received into their own bosoms the blows that were struck at
14

106 Maine : Her Place in History.
their country's. They are mustered on broader rolls, and
held in holier keeping. So far as figures can tell anything,
it is enough to say, that nearly 75,000 answered that high
summons on land and sea, and 25,000 of the flower of our
youth sleep — no, they shine, in their galaxy of graves, — from
the St. Croix to the Rio Grande !
And all this toil and service and sacrifice — shall it be lost?
Shall it not live, and live here, where it had its birth and
belonging — though its work and burial be elsewhere ? They
who fell at Marathon and Thermopylae fell for Greece for
ever, and for freedom wherever." So they, born here, who
have toiled and suffered and fallen, shall live in the life to be.
For even though, as I sometimes fear, another Centennial
shall not dawn upon the Republic, — if after all the toil and
tears the Constitution proves inadequate to its idea, and the
Union weighed down with opposing interests and disinte
grated by sectional hate, breaks asunder, — man will live —
freedom will dive, and live here. We indeed may not; nor
our sons. If we prove unworthy, into whose hands these
powers and materials are given as trusts— if failing in our
opportunity, and false to duty, the glory shall pass away
from us, — even then, what God has made and placed here will
abide ; and I know some master mind will then arise, who
seeing the great points of advantage and just bearing of
things, and entering into the creative thought of Him who
' ' hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds
of their habitation," will reconstruct these boundaries, and
rearrange these forces in more effective combinations, so that'
neither the nations that are the workers, nor the world that
is the working place, shall fail of their noble ends.
But brighter days are in store for Maine. We see even
now the refluent wave. Slowly, as ignorance is dispelled and
prejudice overcome, and interest appears, men are turning
towards Maine. Labor and capital and niind learn that they
can combine here with singular advantage. Nay, some of
the primeval glory yet remains. Undeveloped forces and
materials of good are still within easy reach. And old ones

Centennial Address. 107
that were abandoned, not because they were exhausted, but
because human patience and skill were wanting, will re
awaken, when the new life, and the new force, take hold
again on things !
The task is done. Or rather I have done. The thought I
saw before me — to set Maine in her true light — is but half
attained. Like all our human endeavor the end disappoints
the hope, — or rather the end is never reached. I have not
sought to write history. But the field is open, and as yet
almost unwrought. Much history is here which never has
been written. In no part of the country have different
nations so long and sternly contended for the ground. In
no part of the New World has early history been more tinged
with romance. Scores of places along this Gulf of Maine
have beheld scenes and events which the genius of a Scott
could rekindle to thrilling interest. And in the dim regions
that he beyond history, what legends and marvels float form
less in the outer mist ! Science may not care to inquire
what sounds and voices those were which rose amidst storm
and surge, as of fierce spirits battling in the upper air around
the "Isle of Demons" of which Thevet tells. But echoes of
sweet and sad and terrible things still haunt the lonely shore.1
And long ago the search was ended for Norumbega, the lost
city of the East; — whose silver pillars and golden domes many
an old traveller avers he had seen with mortal eyes, — but the
legend lingers of a knightly pilgrim, who faint and dizzy
with seeking, saw at last its domes and spires flashing in the
glory of the setting sun, till one sense quickening another, he
seems to catch the tone of chants and hymns and chapel bells,
and before his very touch the crystal gates swing open, as of
the heavenly Jerusalem descending from above, where death
leaves him and his true life begins.2
'Parkman (Pioneers of France, pp. 173, 203,) gives one of these wild
legends from Thevet.
"Hakluyt, III, pp. 129, 168. Kohl, Discovery East Coast. I owe to Rev.
B. F. De Costa the pleasure of reading his beautiful account of the little
poem "Norumbega" in his article "The Lost City of New England":
Magazine of American History, January, 1877.

108 Maine : Her Place in History.
But Maine has many things yet to take hold of human
interests, and to stir life and love. Her thousand lakes em
bosomed in deep forests, — her Mount Katahdn, sombre and
solitary, more wonderful in some ways even than the White
Hills, with its strange craters and battlemented peaks, its
wider vision of far-stretching woods in a net-work of count
less silver-threaded streams and blue waters, — and this great
and wide sea — this wonderful shore — these beaches and bays
and harbors, and bold headlands sun-steeped in loveliness or
storm-swept in grandeur ; — these things invite the brave, the
noble, the cultured ; — those who love nature's simplicity, and
are partakers of her sacraments. Thought comes here and
dwells. The wearied with work come here to worship.
Homes of wealth arise, and scorn not humbler ones, but give
a helping hand to honest and homely toil. This will knit
hearts together anew, and they will love the land, and the land
will give back strength. For Mountain and River and Sea
— emblems of freedom and power — are more than emblems.
They hold a people to their thought, and so make them strong.
And it would seem as if the day must come — for it is writ
ten in these imperishable prophecies — when in the revolutions
and evolutions of history the shores of this Gulf of Maine
will be the seat of industrial, social and political empire, even
beyond the early dreams ; for it will be an empire where no
despot either of politics or traffic, shall make merchandize of
souls, but where Man, in making himself master, makes all
men free I

REPORT OF CENTEMIAL COMMISSION.

To the Honorable Governor and Council
of the /State of Maine :
Having accomplished the work for which we were appointed,
we herewith present our report.
In March, 1871, Congress passed "An Act to' provide for
celebrating the One Hundredth Anniversary of American
Independence, by holding an International Exhibition of
Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine, in
the City of Philadelphia, and State of Pennsylvania, in the
year eighteen hundred and seventy-six."
It was specified in the act, that the same should be held
under the auspices of the Government of the United States,
and that a Commission, to consist of not more than two dele
gates from each State, and from each Territory of the United
States, whose functions shall continue till the close of the
Exhibition, shall be constituted, whose duty it shall be to
prepare and superintend the execution of a plan for holding
the Exhibition. It was provided that said Commissioners
should be appointed within one year, by the President of the
United States, on the nomination of the governors of the
States and Territories respectively. It was also specified
that no compensation for services should be paid to the Com
missioners or other officers provided by the act, from the
Treasury of the United States ; and that the United States
should not be liable for any expenses attending such exhibi
tion, or by reason of the same.
Joshua Nye of Augusta, and Charles P. Kimball of Port
land, were nominated by the Governor as Commissioners for

110 Centennial Commission.
Maine, and were appointed by the President of the United
States in 1871.
After serving for three years, Mr. Kimball resigned, and
moved to New York, and was soon after appointed one of the
Commissioners from that State.
Charles H. Haskell of Portland was appointed to fill the
vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Mr. Kimball.
In February, 1874, by a Resolve of the Legislature, the
Governor was authorized to appoint a Board of Directors
consisting of five members, who with the Commissioners
should constitute the State Board of Centennial Managers,
to see that the State is properly represented in the proposed
celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the indepen
dence of the United States. Said Commissioners to receive
no compensation for their personal services, except necessary
expenses. Under this resolve, the Governor appointed J. H. McMul-
len of Biddeford, Fred E. Shaw of Paris, Charles H. Roberts
of Bangor, W. H. Simpson of Belfast, and Edwin Sprague
of Rockland.
Enoch Knight of Portland was elected Secretary of the
Board. After a short service, Mr. McMullen resigned and
Fred N. Dow of Portland was appointed to fill the vacancy.
For want of funds, it was found difficult to obtain persons
to canvass the State in behalf of the exhibition ; and, per
haps, for want of information, the people appeared to mani
fest but little interest in what has now passed into history as
the grandest, and most successful exliibition the world has
ever seen.
Members of the Board visited various places in the State,
and did what they could to awaken an interest in the coming
exhibition, and induce the manufacturers, agriculturists, and
all other classes of producers, to unite together, and by
sending their products to Philadelphia, do honor to the State,
make a market for their merchandise, and contribute, on their
part, to make the exliibition a grand success. Mr. Kimball
prepared an address on the exhibition, and delivered the same

Centennial Commission. Ill
several times in the State, once before the members of the
Legislature, in the Hall of the House of Representatives.
The press of the State, as usual, were very kind and JLiberal,
advertising free of expense, and copying articles from other
papers, explaining the objects of the exhibition, and the
progress being made in all parts of the world in preparation
for the same. The ladies of Lewiston, Portland, Bangor,
Augusta, Belfast, Skowhegan, and other places, tried to
arouse an interest, and so raise funds, by holding Centennial
Levees and Tea Parties, to help defray the expenses of get
ting up and running the Exhibition. In this way they were
quite successful, and contributed a respectable amount, all of
which was highly appreciated.
And yet, it was hard work to create the interest demanded,
to make the people feel that it was to be their exhibition,
and that all they did for it would add to their own resources,
by advertising extensively the many industries of the whole
State. Many looked upon it as a local affair, or Fourth of July
Celebration, and the question has been asked frequently,
"Will it hold more than a day, or a week?" We mention
this, to give some little idea of the lack of interest and knowl
edge in regard to it. In fact, a journalist, one of the editors
of one of the principal papers in the State, in conversation
last February, asserted that it was his candid opinion that
not' five hundred persons would visit the Exhibition from
Maine. This same gentleman was one of the first to visit
the Exhibition, and was enthusiastic over its grandeur, and
expressed deep regret that he had possessed so little faith,
when more would have made the labors of those hard at work
in the preparation of the Exhibition, comparatively so much
easier. In February last, a Resolve was passed by the Legislature,
appropriating ten thousand dollars ' ' for the befitting exposi
tion of Maine's resources at the forthcoming International
Exhibition at Philadelphia, to be expended, or so much there
of as shall be necessary, under the care of the State Centen-

112 Centennial Commission.
nial Commission, subject to the approval of the Governor
and Council."
The following Order was passed by the Council, "That all
bills to be paid from the Appropriation for the Centennial
Exhibition, must be approved by the United States Centen
nial Commissioners from this State, before they are presented
to the Governor and Council for payment."
If the appropriation of ten thousand dollars had been made
one year earlier, the number of exhibits from Maine would
have been largely increased. Being made within three months
of the time appointed for the opening of the Exhibition, it
was too late to add much to what had already been promised.
The Commissioners did what they could, however, and sev
eral fine additions were made of machinery, textile fabrics,
and the State Exhibit of the Educational Department, pre
pared by Mr. Johnson, or under his superintendence.
Notwithstanding all the difficulties under which we have
labored, the State of Maine made a more than good contri
bution, and many of the exhibits were most excellent, and
commanded the admiration of the visitors in attendance.
Nearly one hundred entries were made, and in point of appli
cations for space, Maine stood eighth on the list of States.
Nearly fifty awards were made, and medals will be presented
to the exhibitors, as soon as they are prepared. Textile
fabrics in abundance were contributed from the mills in Saco,
Biddeford, Lisbon, Auburn, Lewiston, Camden, South Ber
wick, Sanford and Saccarappa, not surpassed by those from
any part of the world. The granite was unequalled by any
exhibited, especially the wrought granite presented by the
Bodwell Granite Company of Rockland, and the ornamental
display of granite from the Hallowell Granite Company of
Hallowell. Gen. Tillson of Rockland also exhibited a fine specimen of
wrought granite from his quarry. Specimens of the Red
Beach Granite Company of Calais were exhibited, fully equal
to the Scotch granite ; and it was at first hardly credited that
Maine could supply the whole country with this beautiful

Centennial Commission. 113
material for building, monumental and ornamental purposes.
This is absolutely true, as any one can readily ascertain by
examination. W. K. Chase of Bluehill, exhibited a fine granite pedestal,
and F. O. Martin of St. George, a beautiful granite block.
Specimens were also exhibited from nearly all the quarries in
the State, including Gouldsboro', Jonesport, Spruce Head,
Fox Island, &c.
The very best of slate was exhibited by the Maine Slate
Company of Skowhegan, A. H. Merrill of Bangor, and C. H.
Chandler of Brownville.
Specimens of iron ore and products from the Katahdin Iron
Works, were exhibited by O. W. Davis, Jr., lessee, of Ban
gor, the quality of which was pronounced by geologists to be
equal to any in the country.
The Hon. Enoch Knight, in his "New Story of the State
of Maine," says, in describing the importance of the Katahdin
Iron Works, "The deposits there are so very large, that
nobody has ever calculated the duration of supply. Indeed,
it is a constant as well as vast accumulation, and is so easy to
mine — being a surface deposit; — that it costs only one dollar
per ton to deliver it at the furnace. The charcoal to smelt it
costs about seven cent's a bushel, and it yields 60 per cent, of
pure iron. The great value of charcoal-iron, compared with
the anthracite productions of Pennsylvania, for instance, is
well understood, and hence the importance of this great re
source in the midst of an inexhaustible wood-supply. And to
eompare this enterprise with any other in this entire eastern
part of the country, is most gratifying. Thus in Connecticut,
where charcoal-iron is obtained, it costs not far from six dol
lars a ton to mine it. The charcoal to smelt it is near twenty
cents a bushel, while it yields only 40 per cent, pure iron.
And when the railway shall be extended from Milo to
Brownville, as is promised, this wonderful ore-bed will be
only twelve miles from a point of rail-shipment.
Now, while I am neither called upon nor authorized to give
15

114 Centennial Commission.
details of any of the great business I have been treating of,
I may justly, because truthfully say, that no concern in this
Country is making so fine quality of iron with so handsome
results. In all the known tests, it has been accorded the
highest commendation, from the car works of Portland to
the cutlery establishments of England ; and, considering this
already developed region in connection with the other equally
sure sources of production, there can be no doubt that our
State will one day become' as well known for her iron as she
has been for her lumber and her ships, even in the days when
we were accustomed to speak of these as her only claim to
commercial consequence."
Mr. F. H. Patten of Bath, exhibited specimens of feldspar
and quartz varieties. It is said the largest and finest deposit
of feldspar to be found on the continent, is located in the
county of Sagadahoc, in our own State.
In machinery several fine exhibits were contributed from
Maine, the most conspicuous and important being from the
Hardy Machine Company of Biddeford, card grinders, and
the Saco Water Power Company of the same city, of mill
machinery. The Lewiston Machine Company of Lewiston, made a fine
display of looms.
The Dunn Edge Tool Company of West Waterville, and
Hiram Holt & Co., of East Wilton, made a large display of
agricultural tools.
The Portland Packing Company, Bnrnham & Morrill, and
John Winslow Jones of Portland, made excellent exhibits of
hermetically sealed goods.
S. L. Goodale of Saco, made an exhibit of food extract,
from fish, an entirely new preparation, which promises to be
of great value.
C. B. Harrington of Bath, exhibited a finely constructed
miniature yacht, and J. H. Snow of Bucksport, and S. N.
McGilvery of Belfast, two beautiful models of ships.
J. W. Stockwell of Portland, made a large exhibit of
cement pipe and machinery.

Centennial Commission. 115
Among the numerous exhibits made were the following :
J. W. Munger, Portland, detergent.
A. C. Schlotterbeck, Portland, thermometers.
Knight & Whidden, Portland, calcined plaster.
L. F. Pingree, Portland, artificial limbs.
Androscoggin Pulp Company, Portland, wood pulp.
Joseph Wood, Wiscasset, bound newspapers.
Westbrook Manufacturing Company, Portland, cotton duck.s
Evans Rifle Company, Mechanic Falls, repeating rifles.
J. P. Bass, Bangor, photograph burnishers.
A. P. Morrison, Portland, plating solution.
Ara Cushman, Auburn, boots and shoes.
J. Whithead, South Paris, ranges.
William Flowers, Bangor, life boat.
J. S. Smith, Bangor, extension ladder and fire escape.
J. C. Getchell, Machias, gipsy capstan.
E. W. Barker, Portland, car coupler.
L. R. Palmer, Belfast, stave jointer.
Howard Manufacturing Co., Belfast, mitering machine.
Andrew Morse, Skowhegan, models.
Burgess Proof Press, Belfast, proof press.
F. Lyford, Augusta, clothes dryer.
W. Thompson, Gardiner, road scraper.
A. W. Decrow, Bangor, smoke conductor for cars.
George T. Follansbee, Lewiston, steam pumps.
Ansel Stevens, Gorham, mowing machine.
A. J. Mosher, Deering, bag holder.
Paris Hill Manufacturing Company, Paris, children's car
riages and sleds.
Joseph Russell, Portland, sleighs.
Hugh Smith, Gray, sleighs.
Louise Glover, Augusta, crochet work.
York Manufacturing Company, Biddeford, cottons.
Lewiston Mills, Lewiston, cotton fabrics.
Bates Mills, Lewiston, cotton and woolens.
Hill Manufacturing Company, Lewiston, cottons.
Androscoggin Mills, Lewiston, cottons.

116 Centennial Commission.
Continental Mills, Lewiston, cottons.
Barker Mills, Auburn, cottons.
Pepperell Mills, Biddeford, cottons.
Laconia Mills, Biddeford, cottons.
Farwell Mill, Lisbon, cottons.
Worumbo Mills, Lisbon, woolens.
Newichawanick Manufacturing Company, South Berwick,
woolens. Knox Woolen Company, Camden, feltings.
Sanford Mills, Sanford, carriage robes.
Cabot Manufacturing Company, Brunswick,, cottons.
Westbrook Manufacturing Company, Saccarappa, duck.
Harry Brown of Portland, exhibited a fine oil painting,
"The Giant's Causeway," and P. H. Holmes of Gardiner
exhibited an oil painting, "New England Autumn Scene."
Both were of decided merit, and were much admired by the
lovers of the beautiful.
A collective ' exhibit of orchard fruits by the Maine State
Pomological Society, 150 varieties, convinced the people that
as good a quality of apples can be grown in Maine as in any
part of the United States. This exhibit commanded the at
tention and admiration of the thousands of natives of Maine,
now residing in other States, who offered fabulous prices for
specimens to take home to show to their children, who never
having visited Maine, were slow to believe that fine apples
could grow on its soil.
Hall C. Burleigh of Fairfield, made an exhibit of his most
excellent herd of Hereford cattle, and as usual received sev
eral awards and medals. His herd was superior to any ex
hibited. Mr. Burleigh was at great expense, and won great
credit to himself, as well as to the State, by his superior
exhibit. The collective educational exhibit, by Warren Johnson,
State Superintendent, was a commendable one, and received
a medal, and also one each for the Board of Instruction of the
cities of Portland, Lewiston, and Augusta, for pupils' work.
Many of the exhibitors made large sales of their exhibits

Centennial Commission. 117
during the exhibition, and must be abundantly repaid for all
the expense and trouble incurred.
Many exhibits were made by Maine residents, and of Maine
products by agents in other States, that did not pass through
the local Board, increasing the number largely, but which
cannot be correctly given in this report ; nor is it yet possible
to give all the awards, which in point of numbers and char
acter are very flattering.
Among the awards given are the following :
Red Beach Granite Company, red granite.
Maine Slate Company, slate.
A. H. Merrill, slate. C. H. Chandler, slate.
J. W. Stockwell, cement pipe machinery.
A. B. Morrison, gold and silver solution.
Portland Packing Company, canned goods.
Burnham & Morrill, canned goods.
J. Winslow Jones, canned goods.
Westbrook Manufacturing Company, cotton duck.
Hill Manufacturing Company, cotton fabrics.
York Manufacturing Company, cotton fabrics.
Barker Mill, cotton fabrics.
Farwell Manufacturing Company, cotton fabrics.
Lewiston Mills, cotton fabrics.
Bates Manufacturing Company, cotton fabrics.
Androscoggin Mills, cotton fabrics.
Continental Mills, cotton fabrics.
Cabot Manufacturing Company, cotton fabrics.
Lewiston Manufacturing Company, looms, and warping
machines. Saco Water Power Machine Company, loom machinery.
Bates Woolen Mills, beavers and repellants.
Newichawanick Manufacturing Company, blankets.
Knox Woolen Mills, feltings.
S. L. Goodale, food extract.
Sanford Mills, carriage robes.
Paris Manufacturing Company, children's sleds and wagons.
George F. Follansbee, double propeller pumps.

118 Centennial Commission.
Joseph S. Smith, extension, ladder and fire escape.
Howard Manufacturing Company, mitering machine.
Hardy Machine Company, card grinders.
Dunn Edge Tool Company, scythes.
Hiram Holt, hay knives.
State Department of Public Instruction, collective exhibit.
Board of Education, Portland, pupils' work.
Board of Education, Lewiston, pupils' work.
Board of Education, Augusta, pupils' work.
Louise Glover, crochet work.
H. C. Burleigh, herd of Herefords, six awards.
Maine State Pomological Society, collective exhibit of
orchard fruits.
Evans Rifle Company, Mechanic Falls, rifles.
Joseph Russell, Portland, sleighs.
Machinery was sold to be taken to foreign countries, and a
trade has been opened that must yield a rich profit.
It is impossible to ascertain accurately the number of Maine
people who visited the Exhibition. Several thousand entered
their names in the Register at our Headquarters, in the east
end of the main building.
From the best information we can obtain, we are confident
that not less than 25,000 of the people of Maine visited the
Exhibition at some time during the season, and probably at a
cost of more than one million dollars.
Some of our people who visited Philadelphia, seemed dis
appointed in not finding a Maine house to be used for head
quarters by the visitors from this State. It would, perhaps,
have been a convenience, but the Commissioners could find
no authority in the act passed giving them power to appro
priate the money for any such purpose.
The appropriation of ten thousand dollars was obtained at
a very late day, only by the strenuous exertions of a few
enthusiasts, and only for a specific purpose. The Commis
sioners felt it to be their duty to expend the money as eco
nomically as if it had been their own ; and now, after the
experience and observation of the past season, we are confi-

Centennial Commission. 119
dent that several thousand dollars expended in the building
of a house, would have been a foolish expenditure of money.
We have the testimony of the Commissioners of several States,
who built houses, that our method was the wiser one, and
that it would have been more satisfactory to them had they
taken the same course.
The Commissioners endeavored to do their duty faithfully,
working for several months in caring for and fitting up what
was placed under their protection. Some of them had ex
pended much time, and to them a large sum of money, during
the four years of preparation for the exhibition, without cost
to the State ; and during the continuance of the exhibition
gave their labors freely, paying for having their own business
done at home, and taking from the appropriation made only
a sum sufficient to pay their bill of expenses while in attend
ance on the exhibition.
By using the money in a judicious manner, nearly one half
of the appropriation of the last Legislature remains in the
treasury, and of the $12,000 appropriated for our use during
the past three years, $5,448.11 remains unexpended.
An address on the History and Resources of Maine, was
delivered in the judges' hall, on the exhibition grounds, by
Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain, President of Bowdoin College,
on the fourth day of November. It was an exceedingly in
teresting and scholarly production, and was admired by all
who were so fortunate as to be present on the occasion. The
address should be printed for' general circulation. Many
applications have already been made to us for copies of the
same by persons who were present, not only from Maine, but
from several other States and territories. The whole tenor
of the address is well calculated to make our State better
known, and more appreciated by even our own people.
The Exhibition was honored by the presence of Governor
Selden Connor and his Staff at the opening ceremonies, on
the tenth day of May, and on the fourth day of July.
The members of the Executive Council, as well, as many

120 Centennial Commission.
members of the Senate and House of Representatives, visited
the Exhibition sometime during the season.
We take this occasion to express our thanks to the Gov
ernor and Council for their advice and assistance ; to the
women, of Maine for their efforts to raise money in behalf of
the exhibition ; to the State Board, and the Secretary of the
same, for their unceasing efforts to do honor to our State in
the exhibit of its products ; to the exhibitors for their readi
ness to contribute from all the industries of the State ; and
to the press, that has by its unceasing efforts, been the great
educator of the people, leading them to take a deep interest
in the exhibition, and making it, as it has proved, an honor
to our country, and a blessing to the world.
The Exhibition was opened on the 10th of March, the
President of the United States making the announcement in
the presence of over two hundred thousand people, including
representative officials of thirty-eight foreign nations, and of
thirty-seven commonwealths comprising the Union.
During the one hundred and fifty-eight days, Sundays ex
cluded, on which the Centennial Exhibition was open, from
May 10th to November 10th, the official returns show the
attendance of paying visitors to have been 8,004,274, from
whom was realized $3,813,720.50.
The London Exhibition of 1851, which was open 141 days,
had a total attendance of 6,039,195 ; that of Paris, in 1855,
open 200 days, 5,162,330; London, 1862, open 171 days,
6,211,103 ; Paris, 1867, open 217 days, 8,805,969 ; Vienna,
1874, open 186 days, 6,740,500, of whom 3,492,622 were
paying visitors, and 3,247,878 free.
The sums realized at London in 1851, and at Paris in 1867,
are, as shown in the statement given, far below the amount
taken at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which will live
in history as the glorious consummation of a century of re
publican liberty.
Says the Philadelphia Press, "One great result of the Cen
tennial Exhibition, is the increased interest manifested in all
American affairs by the press of Great Britain and the Con-

Centennial Commission. 121
tinent of Europe. The reports of the International judges',
the letters of newspaper correspondents, and the accounts
given by private individuals, of what they personally observed
in this country, have had the effect of kindling an interest in
matters pertaining thereto, hitherto unknown. The leading
London newspapers, the Times and Daily Telegraph, have
from three to four articles a week on America, and the tone
in which they discuss the political situation proves that public
opinion in England has greatly changed since the war.
Even the French press manifests considerable interest in
the contest taking place here, and scarcely a day passes with
out some allusions being made to it in the editorial columns.
of organs representing all shades of opinions."
The Commissioners and visitors from foreign countries were
surprised at the resources and extent of our country. The
International Exhibitions, previous to this, having been heldt
in Europe, made it impossible to make a large exhibit front
the United States on the account of the large expense attend
ing the same ; our Government being about the only one not
paying the bills of the exhibitors.
At Philadelphia, foreigners were brought in contact with.
our people at home, and being men of intelligence, improved
every moment in learning the manners of the American peo
ple, and seemed to express great interest in everything that
came under their observation. They visited our farms, our
mines, our manufactories and our workshops. They visited
our institutions of learning and our churches. They learned
that the people of this country are placed upon the same
equality, and by their intelligence and industry can make
their own future. They saw a nation but one hundred years
old, in all that makes a people truly great and good, far in
advance of others that had been in existence for many cen
turies, and the equal of any on earth.
They also learned that in many kinds of machinery we are
far ahead of any other nation, and consequently have not only
driven them from our own markets, but that we can compete
with them successfully in their own. Since their return to
16

122 Centennial Commission.
their homes, several gentlemen have delivered addresses in
regard to the progress made by the Americans in their supe
rior skill, and the danger on the account of this to their own
industries. We know by statistics that the balance of trade
is now largely in our favor, on the account of our increased
exportation of superior articles and merchandise now taking
the place of inferior in the different markets of the world.
It is said that ' ' the extraordinary decline in gold is due in no
small degree to the course of our foreign trade for the past
year. The full returns of merchandise and specie for 1876,
show an excess of exports over imports of about $170,000,000.
The imports in former years generally exceeded the exports
by from sixty to a hundred millions of dollars." Probably
our superior skill in manufactured goods, and the ready mar
ket in foreign lands we find for their sale, will soon settle the
time of the resumption of specie payments.
On the 14th of November, at his home, Hon. M. Edonard
Favre-Perret, member of the International Jury on watches,
of the Exhibition at Philadelphia, and one of the Swiss
Commissioners to the United States, delivered a lecture on
the situation of the industry of watch making in the United
States. He compares American watch making with that of
the Swiss. ^ We quote some of his language: "To-day we
must earnestly prepare to struggle with the Americans on the
fields where hitherto we have been the masters." He then
goes on to give the history of American watch making,
describing minutely the Waltham and Elgin companies. The
Waltham Company give employment to 900 workmen, and
make about 425 movements per day. The Elgin Company
make about 300 movements per day. In regard to the Wal
tham Company he says : "The capital amounts to $1,500,000,
besides $300,000 as a reserve fund. This watch factory is a
real power ; there is none like it in Europe. We have seen
it in all its details, and we have admired its splendid organ
ization. Their tools work so regularly that all parts of the
watch may be interchanged by a single order on a postal card,
without necessitating the forwarding of one adjoining piece.

Centennial Commission. 123
The question has often been asked, whether the Americans
can sufficiently supply the demands of their markets? Yes,
they can ; we are driven out of the American market !
The Americans have already commenced to send their man
ufactures to Europe. In England they sell from 20,000 to
30,000 watches. The American watch commences to drive
from the Enghsh market the Swiss and even the English
watch. The Americans commenced by creating a demand for
their goods in the Indies and in Australia ; and then — thanks
to some powerful exporting houses — they invaded England.
At Moscow and St. Petersburg they have already established
important branch offices. They do not keep it secret, but
loudly advertise it ; their aim is to drive them first out of
their own country, and then compete with us on our own
soil, if our sluggishness and our blind confidence leave the
field free to them. I sincerely confess, that I personally have
doubted that competition. But now I have seen — I have felt
it — and I am terrified by the danger to which our industry is
exposed. Besides, I am not the only one to think so ; the
Societe Internationale have sent a delegate to make inquiries,
and his report perfectly agrees with mine. Up to this very
day, we have believed America to be dependent upon Europe.
We have been mistaken. The Americans will send us their
products, since we cannot send them our own. Their impor
tation is not confined to watches alone.
Other European trades are threatened like ours. Already
America has commenced to send cotton goods to England,
which hitherto monopolized that article in all the markets
of the world. In 1840 the American government compiled
the statistics of the products of their manufactures. They
amounted to $198,000,000; in 1870 they amounted to
$4,200,000,000. Not all of these products are being sold in
the interior of the United States ; a good share of them are
exported. In America everything is made by machinery;
here we make everything by hand. We count in Switzerland
about 40,000 workmen, making on an average each, per
annum, forty watches. In the United States the average is

124 Centennial Commission.
150 watches. Therefore, the machine produces three and a
half to four times more than the workman.
It has been said, and it has been complacently repeated,
that the Americans do not make the entire watch, and that
they are dependent upon Switzerland for several parts of the
watch. This is a mistake. The Waltham Company make the
entire watch — from the first screw to the case and dial. It
would even be difficult for them to use our products, so great
is the regularity, so minute the precision with which their
machines work. They arrive at the regulation of the watch
—so to say — without having seen it. When the watch is
given to the adjuster, the foreman delivers to him the corres
ponding hairspring, and the watch is regulated.
Here is what I have seen, gentlemen ; I asked from the
director of the Waltham Company a watch of the fifth grade.
A large safe was opened before me : at random I took a watch
out of it, and fastened it to my chain. The director having
asked me to let him have the watch for two or three days, so
as to observe its motions, I answered, 'On the contrary, I
persist in wearing it just as it is, to obtain an exact idea of
your manufacture.' At Paris I set my watch by a regulator
on the Boulevard, and on the sixth day I observed that it had
varied 32 seconds. And this watch is of the fifth American
grade. At my arrival at Locle, I showed the watch to one of
our first adjusters, who asked permission to 'take it down' ;
in other words, to take it to pieces. I, however, wished first
to observe it ; and here is the result, which I noted : Hanging,
daily variations, 1| seconds ; variations in different positions,
from 4 to 8 seconds ; in the 'heated room' the variations were
but very slight. Having thus observed it, I handed the watch
to the adjuster, who ' took it down.' After the lapse of a few
days he came to me and said, word for word : ' I am com
pletely overwhelmed ; the result is incredible ; one would not
find one such watch among fifty thousand of our manufacture.'
This watch, gentlemen, I repeat to you, I took at hazard — .
out of a heap, as we say. You understand from this example,
that the American watch ,may be preferred to the Swiss. I

Centennial Commission. 125
have finished, gentlemen, and I have told you of things such
as I have seen them. It remains for us to profit from this
sad experience, and to improve our manufacture. Competent
men are not wanting among us ; they must go to work at
once." The speech of this eminent Commissioner has been referred
to at length, not as an isolated one, but as a fair illustration
of the position the Exhibition has given us abroad. It is
doubtless true, that the great nations of the world have
become better acquainted with us, and know more of our re
sources, skill and power, than they could have done in many
years by the course of trade. They have, during the exhibi
tion, met us face to face, and with their eyes seen what they
would not otherwise have believed.
Prof. Archer, one of the British Executive Commissioners
at Philadelphia, has been pleased to speak of the Exhibition,
since his return home, in the highest terms. Among other
complimentary remarks, he said in his report that "As a
general rule the American exhibits were of such excellent
quality and so carefully displayed, that the exhibitors were
evidently alive to the vast importance of the competition.
No one who had only seen their weak efforts in the European
exhibitions, could have expected such superior manufactures
in metal work, textiles, and especially in chemicals, which
were shown by them. As to the general success of the Exhi
bition, there could be no doubt. The attendance far sur
passed that of any previous exhibition, and the whole affair
had produced a wonderful effect in dispelling innumerable
errors, prejudices and false estimates."
Mr. G. A. Thrupp, an eminent coach builder of London,
England, has recently delivered before the Society of Arts in
that city, a series of five lectures on " Coach-making, Ancient
and Modern;" and these lectures indicate that a complete
history of this art from its inception would form a very fair
history of the development of civilization.
Up to the year 1865, the superiority of English and French
carriages was generally acknowledged, but since then the

126 Centennial Commission.
United States has taken a stride, and placed itself in the
foremost rank. The Americans have also developed many
new varieties of farm and freight wagons, strongly built, and
owing to the employment of machinery remarkably inexpen
sive. In sleigh-building the Americans are ahead, and their
sleighs are now unsurpassed for lightness and comfort. In
painting and varnishing our American builders are now with
out equal. Ten years ago, all our best vehicles were finished
with English varnish, but the Valentine varnish, of American
make, has now taken its place ; and the superiority of the
latter was plainly shown by the sleighs and the numerous
vehicles exhibited at the Exhibition.
The superiority of American built carriages consists mainly
in their fine finish, the substitution of steel for iron, giving
lightness with strength, and lastly in their well made hickory
wheels. Out of the great mass of evidence flowing in upon us daily,
from all parts of the world, showing our equality and superi
ority among the nations, we close by presenting the following
from the Philadelphia Press of December 2d :
"The following interesting observations of an intelligent
German gentleman, on his return from our Exhibition, have
just been published. We reproduce them not as representing
individual opinions, but because we have reason to believe
that they convey the views of the great bulk of this gentle
man's countrymen :
'The products of American industry, as here exhibited,
will undoubtedly be of considerable importance in regard to
the future position and development of German commercial
activity ; but of still greater influence will be the means, the
instruments, the machines with which American manufac
turers work, saving time and human labor, while at the same
time accomplishing great things. Europe is far behind
America in this respect.
' In Germany we have no idea of the perfection attained
here in various branches in the tools employed. From the
common axe used by the wood-cutter, to the steam engine

Centennial Commission. 127
developing gigantic power, you find everything more practi
cal, of better appearance, and more calculated to economize
force than in Germany. No matter how unimportant the in
strument, it is carefully prepared ; no matter how trifling the
work, there are machines facilitating and hastening its per
formance. Every tool has a form different to and excelling
that used in Germany. Truly wonderful is the progress made
in agricultural implements. Not alone in threshing and mow
ing machines, but also in ploughs, harrows, hoes, &c, has
America reached an astounding degree of perfection. Side
by side with an American plough, the like implement in use
in Germany seems a sort of antediluvian monster. Having
recognized the progress made by America, in all descriptions
of tools and agricultural implements, Germany has done well
to seek to derive the greatest benefit therefrom by sending
deputations of workingmen and manufacturers to see for
themselves the nature of American industry. Such men can
do more for Germany than the cleverest newspaper critics,
however admirably these may serve their country by exposing
the defects of the German system. The workingmen and
manufacturers will, however, have taken home with them
and inoculate into the Old World, some of the strength of
the young giant in the New, and America will thus pay back
to Europe the debt she owes for the constant flow of fresh
blood she annually receives.
'In the life of nations, as in that of individuals, it is the
renewal and the circulation of the vital fluid which rejuve
nates the old and gives fresh vigor, and America having
learned for a century from Europe, Europe now learns the
lesson taught her by American enterprise and industry.' "
Some of the good results of the Exhibition accruing to our
people, we give in the language of the Hon. John Welch,
President of the Board of Finance, at the closing exercises
of the exhibition, on November 10th :
"It has hallowed the Centennial year by an inspiration of
the past. The circumstances attendant on the nation's birth
have been recalled. The patriotic impulses of the people have

128 Centennial Commission.
been quickened. Their love for their country has been
strengthened. The Exhibition has concentrated here speci
mens of the varied products of the United States, and made
better known to us our vast resources. It has brought to us
the representatives of many nations — men skilled, accom
plished, and experienced — and they have brought with them
stores of treasures in all the forms given them by long prac
ticed industry and art. And others are here from new lands,
even younger than our own, giving full promise of a bright
and glorious future. It has placed side by side, for compari
son, the industries of the world. In viewing them, the utili
tarian revels in the realization that man is striving earnestly
to make all things contribute to his convenience and comfort ;
the philosopher stands in awe at their contemplation, as he
dwells upon the cherished thought of the possible unity of
nations ; and he who looks on the grandeur of the scene from
a spiritual standpoint, is filled with the hope that the day is
near, ' when the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as
the waters cover the sea.' It has taught us in what others
excel, and excited our ambition to strive to equal them.
It has taught others that our first century has not passed in
idleness, and that at least in a few things we are already in
the advance. It has proved to them and to us, that national
prejudices are as unprofitable as they are unreasonable ; that
they are hindrances to progress and to welfare, and that the
arts of peace are most favorable for advancing the condition,
the power, and the true greatness of a nation. It has been
the occasion of a delightful union among the representatives
of many nations, marked by an intelligent appreciation of
each other, rich in instruction and fruitful in friendships.
It has placed before our own people as a school for their
instruction, a display — vast and varied beyond precedent —
comprising the industries of the world, including almost
every product known to science and to art.
It has made the country and its institutions known to in
telligent representatives of all nations. They have had access
to* our homes, have become familiar with our habits, have

Centennial Commission. 129
studied our systems of education, observed the administra
tion of our laws, and will hereafter understand why the
United States of America exerts so large an influence on
other nations, and consequently the great truth that in pro
portion to the intelligence and freedom of a people is their
loyalty to their government.
It has concentrated on this spot, in the short term of six
months, 8,000,000 of visitors, who have enjoyed ail its rare
privileges without a disturbance or any personal hindrance
from violence or even rudeness. It has exhibited the Ameri
can people in their true character, respectful of each other's
rights, considerate of each other's convenience, and desirous
of allowing to others a full participation in their enjoyment.
It has afforded an opportunity to show that the administra
tion of an exhibition on a grand scale may be liberal in its
expenditures without useless extravagance ; that its laws may
be strictly enforced with impartiality, and without harshness ;
that its regulations may secure the efficiency of its depart
ments and uniformity in their actions ; that its whole course
has been free from financial embarrassment, or even a pay
ment deferred ; and that notwithstanding every part of its
machinery was in constant motion, no one of the immense
throng within the limits of the exhibition was sensible of its
restraints." In conclusion, may this nation in the century to come con
tinue to place their trust in the God of their fathers, even
more implicitly than during the oiie just closed. May the
people of this land set an example worthy of being followed
by all the nations of the earth. Maj^ the angel of peace ever
dwell in our midst ; and may we ever remember that God
has declared, "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a
reproach to any people."
JOSHUA NYE,
CHARLES H. HASKELL,
United States Centennial Commissioners for Maine.
17

STATE OF MAINE.

In Senate, February 7, 1877.
Ordered, That Hon. J. L. Chamberlain bo requested to furnish for publication a copy
of the Centennial Address delivered by him b.eforo a Joint Convention of tho Senate
and Houso of Representatives on tho evening of the Cth instant.
Read and passed. Sent down for concurrence. SAMUEL W. LANE, Secretary.
In House op Representatives, >
February 7, 1877. $
Read and passed in concurrence. ORAMANDAL SMITH, Clerk.

In Senate, February 7, 1877.
Ordered, That there be printed for the use of the Legislature two thousand copies of
tho communication of the Governor with tho report of the Centennial Commissioners
accompanying ; with two thousand copies of the Centennial Address of Hon. J. L.
Chamberlain, and that tho Secretary of the Senato and Clerk of tho Houso of Repre
sentatives be directed to make tho usual and proper distribution of the same.
Read and passed. Sent down for concurrence. In House of Representatives, >
February 7, 1877. $
Read and passed in concurrence. ORAMANDAL SMITH, Clerk.
True copies; Attest : SAMUEL W. LANE, Secretary.