The beginnings of colonial Maine, 1602-1658

Front matter

» V

•*

Jp

Contents

Chapter.

I. Early English Voyages to the American Coast

II. GOSNOLD AND PRING

Preface

In the following pages an attempt is made to record the prominent facts with reference to the beginnings of colonial Maine. To the earlier part of these beginnings, neither Sullivan in his History of the District of Maine (1795), nor Williamson in his History of the State of Maine (1832), devoted much space. When they wrote, the known and accessible sources of information concerning those earlier undertakings were exceedingly scanty. Careful research, however, especially in the last half century, has brought to light valuable original materials for the history of that earlier period, and the discovery of these materials has greatly enlarged our knowledge with reference both to facts and persons.

Among these new sources of information is a manuscript which was discovered in 1876 in the library of L,ambeth Palace, L,ondon, by the late Rev. Dr. B. F. De Costa of New York. 1 Its great value arises from the fact that it is the original record both of the voyage of the Popham colonists in making their way to our coast, and of the earlier undertakings connected with the planting of the colony at the mouth of the Kennebec. The manuscript is entitled, The Relation of a Voyage unto New England, Began from the Lizard, the first of June 1607 ', By Captain Popham in the ship the Gift, 2 and Captain Gilbert in the Mary and John: Written by

and found amongst the papers of the truly worshipful

Sr. Ferdinando Gorges, Knt, by me William Griffith.

But especially important, in this addition to the sources, was the discovery of the manuscript material now known as the Tre-

(}) For a more extended account see page 66.

( 2 ) In his Historie of Travaile into Virginia William Strachey gives the full name of the vessel, the Gift of God.

X PREFACE.

lawny Papers. These constitute a treasure-house of information with reference to business interests and other matters at Richmond's island and vicinity for quite a number of years beginning" with 1631. In the grant of land on Cape Elizabeth obtained in that year by Robert Trelawny and Moses Goodyear, merchants of Plymouth, England, Richmond's island was included ; and on it, not long after the grant was made, John Winter, as the agent of Trelawny and Goodyear, established a large fishing and trading station. Goodyear died March 26, 1637, and Robert Trelawny became the sole proprietor of the patent. Fortunately the correspondence between Winter and Trelawny was continued about ten years, and their letters, with other valuable papers, accounts, etc., connected with Robert Trelawny' s business affairs on this side of the sea were, until about the year 1872, carefully preserved at Ham, Robert Trelawny's residence in the vicinity of Plymouth. The discovery * of this manuscript material by the late John Wingate Thornton, Esq., of Boston, Mass., its presentation to the Maine Historical Society and its arrangement and publication by the Hon. James P. Baxter, of Portland, in a volume of more than five hundred pages with many valuable notes, supply us with much information not only concerning life and transactions at Richmond's island in that early period of our colonial history, but also with reference to other places and events upon the coast of Maine.

Mr. Baxter's own painstaking researches in England with reference to this same period, begun about the same time, were also richly rewarded. The results we have in three works of very great interest and value. The first of these is his George Cleeve of Casco Bay, 1630-1667, with Collateral Documents , a volume that gives us an admirable portraiture of the founder of Portland, based upon such manuscript materials and early records as Mr. Baxter was able to obtain at home and abroad. The volume was pub-

Q) An account of the discovery of these papers by Mr. Thornton, and of their subsequent history, will be found in a note on pages 211 and 212 of this volume.

PREFACE. XI

lished in 1885 by the Gorges Society, Portland, a first sheaf of Mr. Baxter's historical gleanings in widely scattered fields. It was followed by his Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine in three volumes, published in 1890 by the Prince Society, Boston. The first volume contains a valuable biography of Gorges, and is in fact the only extended biography of Sir Ferdinando that has as yet appeared, either in this country or in England. The second and third volumes contain Gorges' Brief Narration, his Brief Answer to Certain False, Slanderous and Idle Objections made against Sr. Ferd. Gorges, Knight, the charter of Gorges' Province of Maine, his letters, his will, also genealogical notes on the Gorges family, etc., the two volumes comprising many hitherto unpublished materials found in the Public Records Office, London, the library of the British Museum, various other public collections like the Bodleian Library, Oxford, also great private collections including that of Sir Robert Cecil, the chief secretary of Queen Elizabeth and James I. Still another work by Mr. Baxter relating to colonial beginnings in Maine, and one likewise prepared from original sources, is his Christopher Levett of York, the Pioneer of Casco Bay. In addition to the interesting biography of Levett, the volume contains Levett's own narrative of A Voyage into New England begun in 1623 and ended in 1624. This work was published by the Gorges Society, Portland, in 1893.

In his research work in England, Mr. Baxter discovered a manuscript volume of three hundred and twenty pages entitled The fewell of Artes . It is in the King's Library in London, and on examination was found to be the work of Captain George Waymouth, who commanded the Archangel in her now well-known voyage to the coast of Maine in 1605. Before Mr. Baxter's discovery of this manuscript, it was supposed that Captain Waymouth was a competent English shipmaster only. But the Jewell of Artes disclosed the fact that he was also an accomplished engineer and draughtsman, and proficient in the art of ship and fortification building. Very generously Mr. Baxter placed this manuscript in my hands for use in my preparation of Rosier' s Relation

XII PREFACE.

of Way-mouth? s Voyage to the Coast of Maine in 1605, published by the Gorges Society, Portland, in 1887. My estimate of Waymouth was enlarged by this manuscript at that time, and its influence I have felt in my references to him in the present volume.

In matters pertaining to the Popham colony, I have derived much assistance from the Rev. Henry O. Thayer's excellent work entitled The Sagadahoc Colony \ Comprisi?ig the Relation of a Voyage into New England {Lambeth Manuscript) , and published by the Gorges Society, Portland, 1892. Mr. Thayer's introduction and notes leave nothing to be desired, while in the appendix, covering one hundred pages, there is a full and satisfactory discussion of many points of interest with reference to the colony. Mr. Thayer's valuable contributions to the Collections of the Maine Historical Society with reference to the same period have also been found very helpful.

Dr. Charles E. Banks, who has made a special study of Edward Godfrey's life and services in connection with the development of colonization efforts, first at Piscataqua and afterward at Agamenticus (later Gorgeana and York), has a biographical sketch of Edward Godfrey in the Collections of the Maine Historical Society (First Series, IX, 297-384), to which is added an appendix containing letters and various papers by Godfrey, from which I have derived valuable aid ; also from his extended papers on Colonel Alexander Rigby in the second volume of the Maine Historical a?id Genealogical Recorder.

Much assistance also I have received from the Farnham Papers, a collection of documents pertaining to Maine history, compiled in two volumes by Miss Mary Frances Farnham, and published by the Maine Historical Society. To bring these many documents together in this way, making them easily accessible, was an achievement worthy of wide recognition and generous appreciation.

In connection with the preparation of Rosier 's Relation of Waymouth's Voyage my interest in the beginnings of colonial Maine was greatly quickened. Study of the original sources of informa-

PREFACE. XIII

tion concerning these beginnings not only revealed but emphasized the importance of a restatement of our earlier history in a connected narrative, based upon authoritative records and documents of various kinds critically used. In subsequent years, as opportunities for added research work opened from time to time, my interest was deepened, and especially in 1912, when I had the pleasure of visiting Bristol and Plymouth, England, places in which Gorges and Aldworth and Elbridge and Jennings and Trelawny were such prominent figures, and from which, because of these men, proceeded influences so closely connected with the beginnings of our colonial history.

In modern forms, throughout these pages, I have made much use of the words of the original writings on which the narrative is so largely made to rest. During the first half of the seventeenth century not only the great masters of the English language were at their best, but the people of the middle classes, including tradesmen and officials in the humbler places, exhibited a directness and vigor of expression of which we do well not to lose sight. Also in my work I have endeavored to keep in mind contemporaneous events in England during the period under review. Indeed, events then in progress on this side of the sea cannot be rightly understood unless one gives attention to movements in England at the same time, which had as their aim better social and political conditions than had obtained hitherto in the mother country.

In my visit to Bristol, England, the librarian of the Central Municipal Library opened to me freely the large and very valuable collection of books relating to the history and antiquities of the city. This collection, brought together in a most attractive room in Bristol's beautiful library building, is under the charge of Miss Ethel E. Sims, who not only gave to me intelligent assistance while I was in Bristol, but also after my departure continued her efforts in my behalf with such painstaking interest that at length she was able to furnish me with the proof that the Thomas Hanham who accompanied Pring to the coast of Maine in 1606 was not the Thomas Hanham who married Penelope, daughter of

XIV PREFACE .

Sir John Popham, as some have supposed, but his son Thomas Hanham, and therefore a grandson of Sir John. 1 Mr. John Tremayne Lane, treasurer of Bristol, placed in my hands the priceless early records of the city ; and I was greatly assisted in my examination of them by Dr. Edward G. Cuthbert Atchley. At Ashton Court, by the courtesy of Lady Smyth, Mr. Lewis Upton Way showed to me the Gorges papers still in the possession of the Smyth family, to which Sir Ferdinando was related by marriage. At Plymouth the public library is one of great excellence, and I found it helpful. The town clerk extended to me generous courtesies, and Mr. A. C. Simmonds, assistant conveyancing clerk in the town clerk's office, was of great help to me in my examination of the town records, especially with reference to Abraham Jennings, the first owner of Monhegan. In this connection, also, I desire to make mention of my indebtedness to the great library of the British Museum and to the collections of the Public Records Office, London, where my researches were continued and ended.

The writing of these pages was commenced at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in November, 1912. Until June, 1913, I was generously supplied with books by the Maine State Library at Augusta, and the library of the Maine Historical Society in Portland. At the same time, the libraries in Cambridge — that of Harvard University and the Cambridge Public Library — opened wide their doors to me, as also did the great libraries in Boston, namely, that of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Boston Athenaeum, the State Library, the library of the City of Boston and the library of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society. Valuable assistance also was received from the John Hay Library and the John Carter Brown Library of Brown University, Providence, R. I. In the summer of 1913, in Camden, Maine, where the work of writing was continued, and in the fall and winter of that year in Portland, Maine, where it was completed and the book printed, the Maine libraries already men-

1 See note on pages 58 and 59.

PREFACE. XV

tioned still rendered valuable assistance, as also did the Portland Public Library.

For that part of the Simancas map of 1610 which includes the coast line of what is now the State of Maine, I am indebted to the Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston, publishers of Alexander Brown's Genesis of the United States, in which the whole map is found. The John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, courteously responded to my request for a fac simile of the title-page of its valuable copy of Rosier 's True Relation of Way mouth's voyage to the coast of Maine in 1605. For the photograph of the Popham monument in the parish church, Wellington, Somerset, I am indebted to the Rev. W. W. Pulman, vicar of the parish. For illustrations connected with recent tercentenary celebrations, that in 1904 of the de Monts colony at St. Croix island, that in 1905 of Waymouth's discoveries on the Maine coast and that in 1907 of the landing of the Popham colonists at the mouth of the Kennebec, I am indebted to the Maine Historical Society ; also for the use of its copy of Johnston's map of the Pilgrim grant on the Kennebec in securing a photographic copy of the same ; and also for a like use of original letters and other writings from the Society's invaluable collection known as the Trelawny Papers. The other illustrations are from originals in the author's possession.

1>

^^AyyMg,^

A Part of thb New England Coa

See page!

/INE ON THE SlMANCAS MAP OF 1610.

and 47.

CHAPTER I. Early English Voyages to the American Coast

BETWEEN the close of the fifteenth century and the first part of the seventeenth, events are recorded that were more or less clearly connected with the beginnings of colonial Maine. The influences that were operative in these beginnings were largely of English origin. Primarily, the basis of England's claim to territory on the American coast is to be found in John Cabot's discovery of the North American continent in 1497. But other navigators and explorers, sailing from English ports, followed Cabot in the sixteenth century, and all are worthy of mention as aiding in opening the way to English colonization on the Atlantic coast of that continent.

The sources of information concerning Cabot's voyage are scanty. From these we learn that Cabot, a native of Genoa 1 but for some time a resident in Venice, made his home in Bristol, England, about the year 1490. Then, as now, Bristol was an important English seaport, and among its merchants and fishermen Cabot found eager listeners to his urgent pleas for English participation in further discoveries upon the American coast ; and because of these pleas, and those of other interested parties, Henry VII, March 5, 1496, granted letters patent to his "well-beloved John Cabot, citizen of Venice, and to Lewis, Sebastian and

Sanctus, sons of the said John upon their own proper

costs and charges, to seek out, discover and find whatsoever islands, countries, regions or provinces of the heathens or infidels, in whatever part of the world they be, which before this time have been unknown to all Christians". 2

1 The date of Cabot's birth cannot be placed later than 1451.

2 Although the sons of John Cabot are here mentioned, there is no evi-

Busy preparations for the expedition followed, and in May, 1497, probably early in the month, in a small vessel 1 with eighteen seamen, 2 Cabot sailed from Bristol animated with high hopes and undaunted courage. Skirting the southern coast of Ireland, he turned the prow of his little bark first northward, then westward ; and after sailing seven hundred leagues he reached the American coast. No words have come down to us, either from Cabot or any of the eighteen seamen, narrating the circumstances under which the voyagers approached the land. We have no mention of any thrilling spectacle as they landed and planted the royal standard on the North American continent in token of English possession. It is not likely that there was much delay upon the coast following the discovery. The purpose of the expedition had been accomplished, and Cabot naturally would desire to make the story of his achievement known in England at as early a date as was possible.

The first report we have with reference to Cabot's return is found in a letter from Lorenzo Pasqualigo to his brothers, Alvise

dence of any value that even one of them accompanied the first expedition. The career of Sebastian Cabot belongs to a later period. Harrisse says : "Cabot had a son named Sebastian, born in Venice, who lived in England not less than sixteen years, and then removed to Spain, where in 1518 Charles V appointed him Pilot-Major. This office he held for thirty years. In 1526, Sebastian was authorized to take command of a Spanish expedition intended for 'Tharsis and Ophir', but which instead went to L,a Plata and proved disastrous. After his return to Seville he was invited in 1547 by the counsellors of Edward VI to England, and again settled in that country. Seven years afterward he prepared the expedition of Willoughby and Chancelor and of Stephen Burroughs in search of a northeast passage to Cathay. He finally died in London (after 1557) at a very advanced age, in complete obscurity. ' ' John Cabot the Discoverer of North America and Sebastian his Son. A chapter of the Maritime History of England under the Tudor s, 1496-1557. By Henry Harrisse, 1896.

1 By writers not contemporaneous, the vessel is mentioned as the "Matthew".

2 "Nearly all Englishmen and belonging to Bristo." Despatch of Raimondo di Soncino, Dec. 18, 1497, to the Duke of Milan.

and Francesco, dated London, August 23, 1497. In it he says : "The Venetian, our countryman, who went with a ship from Bristol to search for new islands, is returned and says that seven hundred leagues from here he discovered main land {terra Jirmd) , the territory of the Grand Khan. He coasted for three hundred leagues and landed ; saw no human beings, but he has brought here to the King certain snares which had been set to catch game, and a needle for making nets ; he also found some felled trees, by which he judged there were inhabitants, and returned to his ship in alarm. He was three months on the voyage." 1 That Pasqualigo's information was early, the date of his letter shows ; and his narrative is confirmed as to its main : points by two despatches sent by the Milanese ambassador 2 in London to the Duke of Milan, one dated August 24, 1497, and the other December 18, 1497. 3

In one of these despatches— that of December 18th— mention is made of the newly discovered country and its products. "And they say that the land is fertile and [the climate] temperate, and think that the red wood (el brasilio) grows there and the silks." 4 Of course this is the language of glowing enthusiasm, abundant illustrations of which are to be found in the reports of other discoverers of that time. An allusion to the importance of the fisheries on the American coast in the same report, however, indicates slight emotional restraint. "They affirm that there the sea is full of fish that can be taken not only with nets, but with fishing baskets, a stone being placed in the basket to sink it in the water. ' ' They say ' 'that they can bring so many fish that this

1 Weare, Cabot's Discovery of North America, 139.

2 "There resided in London at that time a most intelligent Italian, Raimondo di Soncino, envoy of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, one of those despots of the Renaissance who almost atoned for their treachery and cruelty by their thirst for knowledge and love of arts. Him Soncino kept informed of all matters going on at London, and specially concerning matters of cosmography to which the Duke was much devoted." Dr. S. E. Dawson, The Discovery of America by John Cabot in 1497, 59, 60.

kingdom will have no more business with Islanda [Iceland] , and that from that country there will be a very great trade in the fish which they call stock-fish (stoch-fissi) ' ' , x the codfish of our language.

In these and other early reports concerning Cabot's voyage we have no positive information with reference to the landfall. It is, therefore, only a matter of conjecture. General agreement, accordingly, even on the part of those who have given to the problem the most careful attention, is not to be expected. A cautious statement is that of a recent writer, who affirms that it was "somewhere on the eastern seacoast of British North America between Halifax and Southern Labrador." 2 It should be said, however, that Harrisse, whose monumental work on John Cabot is the chief authority concerning the voyage of 1497, while admitting that in the absence of documentary evidence we must resort to presumption, finds himself warranted in saying that "with great probability" the landfall "was on some point of the northeast coast of Labrador". 8 From his discussion, however, it is evident that Harrisse was wholly unacquainted with the conditions that Cabot would have met on reaching the American coast at that point. On the approach of the four hundredth anniversary of Cabot's voyage the most careful attention was called to these conditions by a commission of the Royal Society of Canada ; 4 and at present, after all that has been said, the probabilities plainly

2 George Parker Winship, Cabot Bibliography with an Introductory Essay on the Career of the Cabots, 1900, v. XIII.

3 Harrisse, 69.

4 The Commission was appointed in 1895. Although the Commissioners in their report did not in any way commit the Royal Society of Canada, as a whole, to the definite acceptance of the conclusion reached, the members of the Commission were in agreement in holding that the preponderating weight of evidence was as mentioned above (Weare, 280-283). Dr. S. E. Dawson, a distinguished member of the Commission, in expressing his conclusions, wrote : "I have had all the advantages of Mr. Harrisse's learning and labor; but the adventitious circumstance of having been born among the localities under discussion, and therefore familiar with them from boyhood, lead to the conclusion that the landfall was at some part of the island of Cape Breton.

Cabot's discovery awakened very wide interest in England, especially, however, in Bristol, to which port the discoverer returned, and also in London, whither it is believed Cabot soon proceeded in order to make his report in person to the King. Forthwith, doubtless in various quarters, a second expedition was proposed. The King gave to the enterprise enthusiastic support. So, too, did the merchant adventurers of Bristol, Plymouth and other seaport towns. ^Information concerning its preparation and departure, 1 however, is scanty. The Spanish envoy in London, writing to his sovereign July 25, 1498, communicates what he had heard concerning the expedition. It consisted, he said, of five ships, "victualled for a year", but was expected to return in September. It left Bristol in the early Spring probably, and doubtless followed the same course across the Atlantic as that taken by Cabot in the preceding year. One of the vessels of the fleet, the envoy wrote, "has returned to Ireland in great distress, the ship being much damaged. The Genoese has continued his voyage". 2 Beyond this, we have no contemporaneous information concerning the second expedition. It is naturally conjectured, however, that on reaching the coast, Cabot extended his discoveries southward before returning to England. Indeed, basing his conclusion chiefly on the celebrated planisphere of Juan de la Cosa, 1500, Harrisse is of the opinion that Cabot, in this second voyage, sailed south of the Carolinas. If, from his first landfall, he made his way thus far down the coast, we may think of him as the earliest English voyager who sailed along the coast of Maine.

compels me to see that Mr. Harrisse's judgment upon his materials is misled by the absence of a personal knowledge of the north-east coast of America." Weare, 287.

1 It must have sailed after April 1, 1498, "as on that day Henry VII loaned ^"30 to Thomas Bradley and Launcelot Thirkill 'going to the New He' ". Harrisse, 133. Weare, 154.

3 By some early writers Cabot's second voyage is confounded with the

Cabot's discoveries upon his second voyage must have made a far deeper impression in England than was made by the reports that were scattered abroad upon the return of the first expedition. In proceeding down the American coast, the adventurers must have been attracted both by the climate and the more favorable appearance of the country as they advanced. They could not have failed to notice here and there commodious harbors, and wide rivers extending up into the main, awakening visions of a land of untold riches and plenty. These stories, extensively circulated in various ways, added to Cabot's fame, and his great services as a discoverer have found increasing recognition in the centuries that have followed. 1

first. The statement that the navigator died on this second voyage is without support. The date of his death is unknown, but it must have been at a later period.

1 A tower on Brandon Hill, Bristol, commemorates Cabot's discovery of North America. It is a square buttressed structure of the late Tudor Gothic style, 75 feet high to the upper balcony floor and 105 feet to the apex of the truncated spire, on which is placed a gilded figure representing commerce, mounted on a globe, symbol of the world. It is built of red sandstone, with dressings of Bath freestone, and cost ,£3,300. In panels on the four sides of the tower are carved the arms of Henry VII, Cabot, the City of Bristol and the Society of Merchant Venturers. Three bronze tablets contain the following inscriptions :

The foundation stone of this tower

was laid by

the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava

on the 24th June 1897

and the completed tower was opened

by the same nobleman

on the 6th September 1898.

This tablet is placed here by the Bristol Branch of the Peace Society in the earnest hope that peace and friendship may ever continue between the kindred peoples of this country and America.

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men." Iyuke 2. 14

This tower

was erected by public subscription in the 61st

year of the reign of Queen Victoria

R

The Cabot Tower, Bristol, England.

But if English fishermen and enterprising merchants were attracted to the American coast by Cabot's discoveries, as some it is said were, it was not for long, inasmuch as in a letter written by John Rut to Henry VIII, dated St. John's, Newfoundland, August 3, 1527, the writer says he found in that harbor "eleven sails of Normans and one Brittaine, and two Portugall barkes"; but he makes no mention of others, and declares his purpose to extend his voyage along the coast in the hope of meeting the only English vessel known by him to be in American waters. 1

In fact, kobert Hore's expedition of 1536 had no reference to fishing interests on the American coast, or even to colonization. Hore was a IyOndon merchant "given to the study of Cosmography", and his chief purpose in organizing his expedition, it would seem, was prompted solely by a desire to discover a northwest passage to the East Indies, and so to open a shorter route to those far-away regions than that by the Cape of Good Hope. With his two ships and a company of one hundred and twenty, Hore, in his voyage to the American coast, evidently followed Cabot's course. From the brief account of the expedition in Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, it is not possible to learn how far Hore proceeded in his search after reaching Cape Breton. We only know that the story is one of ill success throughout, and could have had only a depressing effect upon English enterprise with reference to new- world interests. 2

to commemorate the fourth centenary of •

the discovery of the continent of

North America

on the 24th of June 1497 by

John Cabot

who sailed from this port in the

Bristol ship "Matthew" with a Bristol crew

under letters patent granted by King Henry VII

to that navigator and his sons

Lewis, Sebastian and Sanctus.

1 Lorenzo Sabine, Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas, 1853, 36.

2 For an account of the voyage of Robert Hore see Early English and

France, however, for many years had sent fishing vessels to the banks of Newfoundland. Jaques Cartier, a native of St. Malo, the principal port of Brittany, had been not only active in these fishing enterprises on the American coast, but already had conducted thither two exploring expeditions. The hardy fishermen of Bristol and Plymouth could not have been unmindful of these evidences of French commercial alertness, and, as a result, an increasing number of English fishing vessels made their way to the Newfoundland banks. 1

It was not long, also, before in political circles in England there was a growing appreciation of the value of sea fisheries to the nation. In 1548, the English government took into consideration certain abuses reported from Newfoundland, for which charges were brought against certain admiralty officers ; and in remedying these abuses Parliament enacted its first legislation with reference to America, relieving the fishermen of the burdens wrongfully imposed upon them, and making fishing at Newfoundland entirely free to all English inhabitants. 2