The Pownalborough Court House

Cumberland and Lincoln Counties celebrate their 250th anniversaries this month. Both were carved off from Maine's original county, York, on June 19, 1760. Cumberland lost land with the formation of Kennebec (1799), Oxford (1805) and Androscoggin (1854) Counties, but it was Lincoln that had most to lose. It originally embraced 60% of the land of Maine—from Casco Bay to that part of Nova Scotia now known as New Brunswick, and north to the limits of the province. Residents of all this area were obliged to take much of their county business to Pownalborough.

It was voted in 1761 to build a court house in Pownalborough, on the parade ground of Fort Shirley in that part of town now known as Dresden.

In 1765, a young attorney named John Adams made the trip from Boston to try a case in Pownalborough.

Perhaps a desire to see his classmates there, with two of whom, at least, he had corresponded since their college days, was an additional inducement for the journey. At that period intercourse was maintained almost wholly by boats, as no roads existed. It was not until the present century that rivers and other watercourses ceased to constitute the most feasible means of communication between Maine settlements. Mr. Adams, however, traveled on horseback, finding his way through the woods from Brunswick to Fort Richmond by the aid of blazed trees. His biographer relates that "Pownalborough was then at almost the remotest verge of civilization, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he was enabled to reach it." After encountering the obstructions of nearly impassable roads, through an inhospitable region, he succeeded in arriving at the place, and gained his case, which was of magnitude, much to the satisfaction of the client who employed him. The verdict promoted his interest and reputation. It induced the Plymouth company, Doctor Gardiner, and other land proprietors, to retain him in their actions, which were numerous, causing his annual attendance at the appellate court in Falmouth, during the next nine years. [Link]

The courts were moved to another part of town, now called Wiscasset, in 1794. A 1767 petition suggests one possible reason for the move:

The inhabitants of Muscongus and Medumcook Plantations, represent that the Courts are held in Frankfort [Dresden], now in the western part of the County, and that a great part of the people who attend there have to lodge on the floor, or in barns, or set up all night by the fire; and they ask that the Courts may be removed to near the centre of the County. [Link]

The courts moved, but Pownalborough Court House remained, and still stands on Route 128 in Dresden. A celebration of Lincoln County's anniversary will be held there on Saturday.

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Street Scene in Caribou, 1940

From the Library of Congress, a photograph taken by Jack Delano on a Caribou street in October 1940.

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Macon B. Allen, America's First Black Lawyer

Macon Bolling Allen of Portland was the first African American admitted to the bar in the United States. This item appeared in the Portland American of Sept. 4, 1844:

A Coloured Lawyer.—Macon B. Allen, of Portland, and formerly of Boston, Massachusetts, a coloured gentleman, whose application for admission to the bar in April last, under the new act, was, as we stated in our paper at the time, refused on the ground that the applicant was not a citizen of Maine, in the contemplation of said act, subsequently applied under the old law to be admitted by examination. He was thereupon called before the examiners, a committee of the Cumberland bar, and sustained a satisfactory examination—the committee recommending him to the Court as a fit candidate—and accordingly he was admitted in the District Court, to practice as an attorney and counsellor at law in the courts of this state.

Allen soon discovered, though, that "Maine was not a good place for a black man to practice law as an attorney," and removed to Boston, where he was admitted to the bar in May 1845. He died in Washington, D. C., Oct. 10, 1894, after fifty years of service as an attorney and judge.

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The Ancient Pavings of Pemaquid

In his 1899 book Ancient Pavings of Pemaquid, J. Henry Cartland described a stretch of cobblestone pavement discovered decades past in the town of Bristol. Cartland had excavated a portion of the site and gathered evidence from area residents, including Capt. Lorenzo D. McLain:

"When I was a small boy, about 1855 I think it was, I helped your uncle Jim plough this field. He had got a new No. 8 plough and was going to plough his land deeper than he had been doing. He had Capt. Alfred Bradley (still living) and Willard Jones with two yoke of oxen, and my job was to hold down the plough beam and keep it clear.

"Every time we came 'round on this side of the field the plough would come up some ways in spite of all we could do and it appeared to slide along on something like a ledge, but we could not think a ledge would be so even.

"At last he got out of patience and turning to me said 'Jemes rice,' that was his swear expression; 'boy, go up to the barn and get a hoe and the crowbar and we will see what there is here.' Then we found this paving and where we first cleared it off it seemed to be laid in cement and we had to dig a long time with the crowbar before we could get out the first stone."

This discovery gave rise to the claim that Pemaquid had the first paved roads in America. But W. Mead Stapler, in the Summer 1998 NEARA Journal, offered an alternative interpretation:

The village had about 30 houses, a tavern, blacksmith, customs house, as well as the fort and many outbuildings. There were also two impressive cobble stone streets which bisected the village. These labor-intensive constructions have been a puzzle to many historians but the answer is in the New York Colonial Archives. Gov. Andros decreed, "fish might be cured upon the islands but not upon the maine (land), except at Pemaquid, near the fort". Thus, as some suspected, the cobble stone streets were really drying beds for sun curing the salted fish.

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