A THRILLING COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS DETAILING FRONTIER VIOLENCE IN LINCOLN COUNTY, MAINE. HIGHLIGHTED BY A LETTER SIGNED BY SAMUEL ADAMS AS GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS

...those who are deceived by the Machinations of wicked & artful men, shall be brought to consider the irretrievable ruin in which they will certainly by persisting in unjustifiable outrages involve themselves & their families I cannot but believe that they will return to a sense of their duty as good Citizens & exhibit marks of contrition for their Errors. 

A fascinating and important collection of three (3) period copies of legal documents recording the testimony of Surveyor Ephraim Ballard, who, along with his assistants, was viciously attacked when attempting a survey on behalf of the Plymouth Company, also known as the Kennebec Purchase Company (written here as the Plimouth Company) in Lincoln County, Maine. The documents also contain the testimonies of Lincoln County locals who came to the aid and rescue of Ballard. Highlighting the group is a forceful letter boldly signed by Founding Father Samuel Adams (1722-1803) as Massachusetts Governor to the Magistrates of Lincoln County, rebuking them for the ongoing violence in the county and their failure to prosecute the “wicked & artful men.” 

All three documents, each accomplished in a secretarial hand, are housed in a handsome modern one-half morocco clamshell case. Spine gilt stamped. Documents include:

1. Manuscript affidavit signed by Ephraim Ballard (Ephm Ballard) and Jonathan Jones (Jona Jones). [Boston], 20 November 1795. 3 pages, folio. Attested by Justice of the Peace Daniel Cony and attested as a “true copy” by Massachusetts Secretary of State, John Avery (1739-1806).

2. Manuscript affidavit signed by Jonathan Jones, Jr., John Jones, Paul Jones, and Thomas Groves (by mark). [Boston], 5 January 1796. 2pages, folio. Attested by Justice of the Peace Joseph North and attested as a “true copy” by Massachusetts Secretary of State, John Avery (1739-1806).

3. Manuscript letter signed by Samuel Adams, as Governor of Massachusetts. Boston, Massachusetts, 29 February 1796. 2 pages, folio. 

Provenance: RR Auction, Rare Manuscript, Document & Autograph, 10 September 2014, Lot 200. 

Maine was hotly contested throughout the colonial period, with English settlers conflicting regularly with the Native American inhabitants as well as the French colonists of Acadia, all with overlapping claims. At the close of the French and Indian Wars, the 1763 Treaty of Paris between Britain and France ceded Canada to the British and promoted settlement in Maine. At the 1783 Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolution, all land west of the St. Croix River was ceded to Massachusetts. 

In 1749, the Plymouth Company was organized and was one of several proprietor groups operating in Maine before and after the Revolutionary War. The documents here refer to the group as the “Plimouth Company,” and the organization was alternatively known by numerous variations of the Kennebec Proprietors or the Kennebec Purchase Company. The Company “revived interest in a on Pilgrim grant on the Kennebec River in Maine” (Kershaw, p. xiv-xv) and claimed roughly 1,500 square miles on both sides of the Kennebec River and encouraged settlement of the region with large population increases. Thanks to the ambiguity of the claim and the complex history of the region, however, much of the land that the Kennebec Proprietors claimed, surveyed, and sold was in fact already occupied. Some were simply opportunistic squatters who had not acquired their holdings through legally recognizable means. Others had purchased land directly from the Native Americans, a source of misunderstanding for decades and the subject of extensive legislation in the new American Republic. Often, Native leaders intended the land to be shared, and only for the lifetime of the buyer. While Europeans were under the impression that they had acquired exclusive rights to the land in perpetuity. It was from this quagmire of land claims that the conflict recorded in these documents arose. 

In 1795, Ephraim Ballard was working as a surveyor in Lincoln County, Maine, “employed by legal Authority to run the line between the State's land & the Plimouth claim & the Waldo Patents.” While performing his survey, however, he and his men were accosted in the middle of the night. He attests: “I was awaked by the firing of guns around my head & one gun presented to my breast four armed men coming on pressing towards me & my assistanta & uttering the most horrid oaths & demanding of me to ‘deliver up-  & to deliver up all God damn you- deliver the compass deliver up the papers- deliver up the Cannister- God damn you take nothing out, if you do you are a dead man.’ And after robbing me of my plan & papers & breaking my compass & uttering much profane & abusive language, they left me.” The land conflict is clearly at the center of the controversy, emphasized by their destruction of Ballard's compass and seizure of his papers and plans. 

Some time after they were originally attacked, Ballard was aided by Jonathan Jones, Jr. and others, who had been sent by his father, Jonathan Jones, Sr. The younger attests: "Jonathan Jones was very much afraid that he said Ballard & his men would be murdered from the threatenings of James Shepard jun, Joseph Bran & others…we came up to the place where said Ballard was encamped we heard a number of guns fired off we was then about one hundred & fifty poles from said Ballard’s camp we also heard a great noise made by a number of people cursing & swearing as part of us was afraid to proceed as those people had firearms …We saw fire arms in the hands of some of those men & some of them had their faces blacked & we was well convninced we knew some of those men but we are afraid to mention their names (as we are threatened that our life & our family’s with our houses shall be destroyed if we give any information against them) after those men had passed us we then returned & found said Ballard & his men. Said Ballard complained of great abuse & [showed] us his broken compass & then informed us that those men threatened to take his life & robbed him of a number of papers we conducted said Ballard & his men to one Mr. Ames’ house next morning.”

In his testimony, Jonathan Jones, Sr., recounts the harrowing tale and also reports on the retaliation he experienced three days later: “on the night of the 15th instant I had two large barns burnt with fire, about sixty tons of English hay consumed, some stock… & other valuable property destroyed that I have reason to believe that the barns were set on fire by persons residing int the vicinity, also that I have lately had my life threatened with the final destruction of all my property & for no other reason that I know of, than that because I have shown some civility to Mr. Ballard & that my Sons on or about the 12th instant, went out in the night with a view to prevent & rescue Mr. Ballard & his assistants from being murdered in the Woods.”

The matter was evidently brought before Samuel Adams, as Governor of Massachusetts, who took action by writing directly to the Magistrates of Lincoln County. In his colorful and strongly worded missive, he seeks to outline the rights of the State and land companies while also demanding a restoration of law and order in the territory. 

Adams's letter reads in full: 
“The Legislature of the Commonwealth being desirous to bring to an end, those litigations respecting Land titles in the County of Lincoln, which have for a long time embarrassed & retarded the settlement & cultivation of that part of the Commonwealth has taken measures to define & in the claims arising, either upon ancient Patents, or conveyances from the Natives. The Power of the Government in regard to the property of individuals is reasonably limited by our free & happy Constitution. By affidavits now before the Supreme Executive, copies of which are inclosed, it appears that certain persons within the said County where you are Magistrates have either from the want of proper information, or from the instigation of wicked & designing men, in an unwarrantable & violent manner, interrupted the progess of this business by assaulting the persons imployed by Government in running the lines between the land of this Commonwelath & divers Citizens thereof. The Government is moreover informed, that no legal proceedings have been instituted to bring those offenders to justice, & thereby to support the just & necessary authority established by the Laws.  The necessity of suppressing disorders in a free Government is very obvious because every opposition to the power of is if not immediately restrained furnishes an argument against the practicability of permanently establishing civil Governments under, directing them by the Authority of the People. Relying upon the Wisdom, prudence & grimness of the Justices of the Peace for said County to take such measures as shall effectually restore peace + good order in the County + prevent, or subvert all unlawful combinations against the authority of the Commonwealth. 

It is with the advice of the council, that I address you on this important subject. The Supreme Executive cannot admit the idea that the execution of the Laws has been for a moment restrained by fear; for should your candid & friendly explanations, & your firm determination to carry the Laws into execution with the other civil officers of the County prove insufficient to produce actual submission, such part of the force of the Commonwealth as shall be necessary must be exerted to supress every opposition to the Government. But when proper information is given & those who are deceived by the Machinations of wicked & artful men, shall be brought to consider the irretrievable ruin in which they will certainly by persisting in unjustifiable outrages involve themselves & their families I cannot but believe that they will return to a sense of their duty as good Citizens & exhibit marks of contrition for their Errors.”

An important collection of documents detailing the near murder of a surveyor and Samuel Adams’s direct intervention. A worthy addition to any advanced Americana collection. 

References: 
Moses Greenleaf. The Survey of Maine. Augusta, Maine: Maine State Museum, [1970]. 

Mary Grow. “Up and Down the Kennebec Valley: Kennebec Proprietors.” The Town Line. 1 July 2020. 

Gordon E. Kershaw. The Kennebeck Proprietors, 1749-1775. Somersworth, New Hampshire: New Hampshire Publishing Co., 1975. 

[American Revolutionary War, American Revolution, Founding Fathers, Declaration of Independence, Colonial America, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs] [Crime and Punishment]