Hancock County was organized in
1789, with Penobscot for its shire town. It then included
portions of Penobscot and Waldo counties, and extended northward
to the Canada line. In 1791 a portion was set off and annexed to
Lincoln County. In 1827, a portion was taken off for Waldo. In
1831, and again in 1844 a change was made in the partition line
between Hancock and Washington Counties. In 1858, Greenfleld was
set off and annexed to Penobscot.
The first European who made definite mention of the Penobscot
bay and river, which wash its western side, was Thevet, a French
explorer, in 1556. Martin Pring amid Captain Weymouth, the
English explorers, sailed along its shores in 1603 and 1605, and
DeMonts, the Frenchman, explored some portions of the coast in
1604 and 1605. There is a tradition that Rosier, the historian
of Weymouth's expedition, explored Deer Island thoroughfare,
making a halt at the bold promontory in Brooksville, known as
Cape Rosier. They found the county occupied by a tribe of
Indians, who with those on Passarnaquoddy waters, were noted for
their long journeys in canoes; whence the general name for these
Indians, Etechmins. DeMonts claimed the country in the name of
the King of France in the true catholic style, setting up a
cross and calling the country “Acadie.” By this name it
continued to be known until the capture of Quebec by general
‘Wolfe in 1759. When Weymouth came in 1605, he also claimed the
country in the name of his King, James I. of England. Thus the
two leading powers of Europe became adverse claimants of the
soil of Hancock County, and the wars these claims occasioned
kept the county an almost unbroken wilderness during the
provincial history of Maine. Indeed, it was not until after the
war of the Revolution that the French claim to the territory
between the Penobscot and St. Croix was relinquished. The patent
of Acadia granted to DeMonts in 1603 was surrendered two years
later to Madame de Guercheville; who, in 1613, sent over
Saussaye with 25 colonists. This lady was a zealous Catholic,
and wished to convert the Indians to that faith. Her colony
landed on Mount Desert on May 16, 1613, where they built a fort,
erected a cross, celebrated mass, and named the place “St.
Sauveur.” The exact locality is now supposed to be that now
known as Ship Harbor, in the town of Tremont. The “Pool” at
Somes Sound, is supposed to have been the place where the Jesuit
missionaries, Biard and Masse, located themselves in 1609. This
colony was attacked, captured, and removed from the island in
the same season by Captain Argall, of Virginia.
The first English possession was a trading post of the Pilgrims
at Pentagenet (Castine) in 1625—6. This, however, soon fell into
the hands of thr French, and the flag of France floated over it
during nearly the whole of the 17th century. The indications of
old French settlements have also been found at Castine, Newbury
Neck, Surry, Oak Point, Trenton, East Lemoine, Crabtree’s Neck,
Hancock, Butler Point, Franklin, Waukeag Neck and Sullivan. No
permanent English settlements were made until after the fall of
Quebec, in 1759.
The first grants of land in the county were six townships, each
six miles square, between the rivers Penobscot and union (then
known as the Donaqua), which were granted to David Marsh, et. als.,
by the General Court of Massachusetts, upon conditions, one of
which was that they should settle each township with 60
Protestant families within six years. These grants were No. 1,
Bucksport; 2, Orland; 3, Penobscot; 4, Sedgewick; 5, Bluehill;
and 6, Surry. Six other townships east of the Union River were
granted on the same terms; three of which are in this county,
viz.: No. 1, Trenton, granted to Eben Thorndike, et als; 2,
Sullivan, to David Bean, et als; and 3, Mount Desert (Island) to
Governor Bernard. The surveys were made by Samuel Livermore; and
as there were three of the townships on each side of the river,
it gave rise to the name which the stream now bears. The
grantees individually bound themselves in a penal bond of $50,
conditioned to lay out no one of the townships more than six
miles in extent on the banks of the Penobscot, or on the
sea-coast; to build sixty dwelling-houses, at least 18 feet
square; to fit for tillage 300 acres of land, erect a
meeting-house and settle a minister. There were reserved in each
township one lot for a parsonage, another for the first settled
minister, a third for Harvard College, and a fourth for the use
of Schools; making 1,200 acres in each township, reserved for
public uses.
The King of France, about the year 1688, gave to a French
gentlemen named Cadilliac a tract of land in Acadia embracing
the whole of Mount Desert Island, and a portion of the mainland.
This he held till 1713, styling himself “Lord of Donaqua and
Mount Desert.” After the war of the Revolution, one M. Gregoire
claimed the whole island in right of his wife, Maria T., a
grand-daughter of Cadilliac. Governor Bernard, to whom the
island had been granted lost his title by confiscation, but one
half of it had been restored to his son John. In consideration
of a request made by Lafayette in favor of the Gregoire’s claim,
Massachusetts recognized it as valid; and this is the only
French claim ever sustained to lands in Maine. The heir of
Cadilliac therefore received a quit-claim deed for 60,000 acres
on the mainland. This included the present towns of Trenton and
Lemoine, with a part of Sullivan, Ellsworth, Hancock, Eden and
Mount Desert, with the islands in front of the seaboard. A
survey of this grant was made by John Peters in 1789.
In 1786, Massachusetts attempted a lottery sale of fifty
townships of land between Penobscot and Passamaquoddy. These
were exempt from taxes for fifteen years. There were 2,720
tickets, and the price was $2 each. Every one was a prize
ticket; the smallest prize being a tract of land a half mile
square, and the largest six miles square. Leonard Jarvis of
Surry, was one of the five managers. On the drawing of the
lottery, only 437 were found to be sold and 165,280 acres drawn;
while 942,112 acres remained unsold. The average price realized
by the government for the lands drawn was about 52 cents per
acre. The lots not drawn, and also the greater part of the prize
lots were purchased by ‘William Bingham, of Philadelphia, a man
of great wealth. He died in England in 1803, leaving one son and
two daughters. One of the daughters married Alexander Baring, of
London, who subsequently became Lord Ashburton; and as
ambassador to the United States in 1842. framed with the
secretary of state, Daniel Webster, the treaty fixing the
eastern and western boundary of Maine, known as the "Webster-Ashburton
Treaty.” The lottery townships in Hancock County sold to Mr.
Bingham were Nos. 14, 15 and 16, (possibly, also, those "up
river” townships sold to him,) each containing 23,040 acres. The
conveyance of these three was made January 28, 1793, by Samuel
Phillips, Leonard Jarvis and John Reed, a committee appointed by
the General Court of Massachusetts. In 1792, Barthelemy de
Gregoire sold 23,121 acres of his grant to Henry Jackson, of
Boston; which in 1796, was purchased by Mr. Bingham, who about
the same time also purchased the residue of the Gregoire grant.
Col. John Black, an Englishman by birth, who resided at
Ellsworth for many years, was agent for the Bingham heirs.
Source: Varney, George J., Gazetteer of the
State of Maine. Boston: B. B. Russell, 1886. |
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