The Coolidge examiner., 1936-10-09


before its neighborS. The
Province of Maine" was
granted by the Council of New Eng
land to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and
Capt. John Mason in 1922, whereas
the date of the royal charter to the
Company of Massachusetts Bay was
March 4, 1929. So it happens that
Florida, Virginia, California, New
Mexico and Maine all antedate Mas
sachusetts as state names.
At first the Province of Maine ex-
tended from the Merrimac river to
the Sagadahoc, now the Kennebec,
but on November 7, 1929, by an
amicable division, Captain Mason
received the territory between the
Merrimac and the Piscataqua
rivers and with the consent of the
council gave to his portion the
name of New Hampshire.
1t was as the outpost of early
settlement that Maine offered a
refuge for those who sought more
religious freedom than could be
found in the Massachusetts Bay Col
ony.
The settlers in the 18th century
came largely from across the sea,
but the wave of emigration from
Massachusetts to the New Hamp-
shire and Maine frontier began even
before the movement into Rhode
Island and Connecticut and these
contributions, like those of the CEN
tury following, were of the adven-
turous and independent spirits.
Trained in the French and Indian
wars to defend the frontier, the men
of Maine were quick to support the
common cause of independence In
deed, month before the Declara-
tion of independence, the town of
York sent assurances to the General
Court of Massachusetts that if Con-
gresS should declare the colonies
independent the inhabitants of York
would engage with their Lives and
Fortunes to Support them in the
measure"
Almost a Boundary War
AS soon as independence from
England had been attained, the idea
naturally arose of regaining the an
cient privileges of the old province,
later the district, of Maine. Senti-
ment for the civic change was slow
of growth, but separation, finally
asked by decisive popular vote,
was granted by Congress in March,
1920.
U. S. Highway No. l, entering
Maine by the Interstate Memorial
bridge from Portsmouth. New
Hampshire, at Kittery Point passes
the site of Fort McClary, erected by
Massachusetts early in the 18th CEN
tury to enforce its rights to CONNER
cial use of the boundary river and to
protect its merchants from "un-
reasonable duties" eXacted by the
Government of New Hampshire. The
highway continues for 564 miles to
Fort Kent. near the northern tip of
Maine.
Fort Kent takes its name from a
two-story blockhouse, a reminder of
Names own private war scare of
1889, when the state called it's militia
to arms and congress authorized the
President to raise $4,000 troops for
the defense of the country's north
eastern boundary. Actual conflict
was avoided by Gen. Winfield Scott,
who came to Maine and established
headquarters in Augusta.
This boundary dispute had con-
tinued ever since the peace negotia-
tions following the Revolution. The
Treaty of 1888 adopted as the north
eastern boundary of the United
States the southern boundary of
Quebec and the western boundary of
Nova Scotia. AS agreed upon before
the war, these two colonial boundar-
les had been, respectively, the
High Lands which divide the Riv-
erS that empty themselves into the
said River st. Lawrence from those
which fall into the Sea" atlantic
Ocean,, and line following the St.
Croix from it's mouth to its source
and thence drawn due north to the
southern boundary of Quebec.
The preliminary negotiations had
been largely debate as to rivers.
The Americans had at first contend
ed for the st. John river in place
of the st. Croix, and with somewhat
similar spirit the British govern
ment had instructed its diplomatic
representatives to attempt to extend
Nova Scotia westward to the New
Hampshire line; if not, then to the
Kennebec, ''or at the very least to
include Penobscot.'
Settled by Compromise
But the identity of the st. Croix
river was settled in 1898 by the old
map and plan of Champlain, which
was used to discover the ruins of the
buildings Of the De Monts colony.
already covered by forest of near
1y two centuries growth-evidenc
so conclusive that the commission