Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-05-31
Baker Island People Have
Benefit Of Decision
By Judge Hale, After SO Years
Or 50 Of Litigation.
Famous Case Over Hancock County
Island Earrings Involved.

In the Unlteu states CIRCUIT Couie ''e''
Just handed down a decision which
after over so years of controversy
puts an end to the effort on the part
of the United States lighthouse board
to GUST 10 families from Bakers is
land, in Hancock county which has
been their home during a life time and
had been the home of their ancestors
for hundred years. Incidental to
the settlement of this case side light
has been thrown upon some of the
operations of man named William
Bingham and the Barring Brothers,
founders of the famous London bank
| ing family and their attempts to Sc
| cure possession of this island with
other land in Maine. Mixed up in the
controversy to some extent has been
the name of Lord Cromer who recently
retired from Egypt where he was the
nominal ruler for British interests for
| many years and who, it has been re-
ported is among the claimants to GER
tain property on the Maine coast.
| But while study of this case re-
vealed the interest which Lord CrOm-
err and other descendants of the Bar
ing brothers have had in this Baker
island controversy their names do not
appear in the legal case which Judge
| Hale heard early in the month of May
| of this year nor did their claims enter
| into the matter as far as the cOntrO-
verSy at issue was concerned. After
| these many years of threats and legal
| Squabblings Judge Hale has for all
time settled the ownership of Baker g
island and put an end to any future
| litigation and to whatever aspirations
| Lord Cromer or others of the British
nobility may have had of obtaining
| title to other islands and lands in this
State which have long been occupied
by settlers and claimed by them or
their descendants as their property
| In the case Just settled BENJAMIN
Thompson of this city appeared for
| the interests Of the IS families on
Bakers island and for the town of
Cranberry island and Robert T.
Whitehouse, the United States district
attorney appeared for the government.
In the past such men as William Pitt
Fessenden, one of the greatest states
men Maine ever produced, his partner
De Blois and George F. Shepey after
wards judge of the United States dis
trict court have all had a hand in this
controversy 1t has been threshed out
| IN Washington and many of Names
senators and representatives to Con-
gress have been bothered with it.
Bakers Island is about 100 acres
in extent and lies off Mt. Desert ISL
and. 1t is within the town of Gran
berry Island and the country of Han
cock. Lying near Mt Desert it is
well known to the fashionable people
who spend their summers there al
though the doings of the society folk
at Bar Harbor have not bothered the
inhabitants of Bakers Island over
much and it cannot be claimed that
| they are exactly in the social swim.
| There are 10 families on this island
who exc out livelihood by fishing and
| taking summer boarders and they are
! nearly all related to one another and
| in some way descended from the orig
lnal settler on this island who was Jo-
seph Gillcy
1t is claimed that Joseph Gilley set
tied on this island in 1906, in fact Mr.
Thompson secured evidence to this
effect from affidavits which had been
filed long before in the United States
district court here. At that time
the island was covered with timber
and Gilley cleared a portion of the
land and built himself a house and
raised large family of children, some
OF whom also cleared land and built
houses for themselves upon this island
No one disputed their title to the land
which they had settled upon and for
years they believed that the property
was theirs by right of possession.
But in the, meantime. through a
chain of circumstances, rich and pow
erful men had become possessed OF
much land in Maine lying along the
coast and embracing not only Bakers
Island by the Island of Mt. Desert and
other islands lying off the coast. Will
liam Bingham, who was charged in
the Massachusetts Legislature in the
early part of the last century with
having practically stolen million
acres Of land in Maine, had, after a
fierce political squabble. in which the
Bowdoins and George Sullivan partici-
patcd. had the title to the property he
had acquired confirmed by the great
and general court of Massachusetts
|
the part of Bingham led to the over
throw Of the Federal party of Massa-
chusetts and the incoming of the Re-
publican Democratics. 1t was of Bling
ham that Talleyrand. the French
statesman, spoke when he was in exile
in the United States. He wrote that
in Macnias he had found a very servile
and wealth worshipping atmosphere
among the leading men in this part
of the country. He instanced that at
"a dinner party in Machias at which
he was a guest of honor he had said
to his neighbor at the table: Dur
ing my last week in Philadelphia
had the honor of conversinE with
President Washington" Il would not
care to see Washington. replied the
Machias man, but / would give a
good deal to see the rich Mr.. Bling
ham"
William Bingham was the richest
banker in the United States. His
daughter married Alexander Barring,
one of the firm of Barring Brothers the
great English bankers, and in that
uov parinU Rrofhacc baootna roccocQ.