Gazetteer of the State of Maine With Numerous Illustrations, by Geo. J. Varney

BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY B. B. RUSSELL, 57 CORNHILL. 1882. Public domain image from

144    GAZETTEER    OF    MAINE.

The other is the Brunswick Herald, conducted by J. Dike, a recent gradu-
ate. The press of Joseph Griffin, so long associated with the college, has
more than a local reputation. Numerous journals and newspapers have
been at one time and another issued by him, and up to 1878, he had
published works of the different presidents of the college to the
number of seventy-eight. In addition to the noted men of Brunswick
already mentioned we must name Hon. Robert P. Dunlap, Joseph
McKeen, Esq., William S. Perry, and Professors Parker Cleaveland,
Thomas C. Upham and William Smyth.

Brunswick was first settled by Thomas Purchas some time previous
to 1628. His later dwelling appears to have been on Stevens’s or New
Meadow River, near the head of sloop navigation. He engaged exten-
sively in the salmon and sturgeon fishing on the Androscoggin River,
having a fish-house between the falls and “ The Landing ” at Bruns-
wick village, and another at Lisbon Falls. The one in Brunswick was
of stone. In this business he was associated with a London house.
He also engaged in trade with the Indians. Before the breaking out
of the first Indian war, in 1675, he had become a large producer of
corn ; and, after the flight of his family, the crews of a sloop and a
boat, which had come to his store-house on the shore of New Meadows
River to carry away the corn, were attacked by tbe Indians while
loading. In 1631 he married Mary Gove, said to be the cousin of Sir
Christopher Gardner, who was for some years in Massachusetts and
Maine as the agent of Gorges. Gardner was sent back to England
by the Massachusetts authorities in 1631 on charges which were not
sustained. Within two years he was again in New England, spending
a part of the time with Purchas, at Pejepscot. It appears that the
patent of land on the Androscoggin to Thomas Purchas and George
Way was issued during Gardner’s presence in England. This tract
was four miles square on the river Pejepscot toward the sea. In
1636-8 Purchas was one of the councillors in Gorges’ government of
Maine. In 1639, fearing the Indians, he placed himself under the pro-
tection of the Massachusetts Bay government. In 1654 he submitted
to the New Plymouth government on the Kennebec, and was one of
the two assistant councillors and justices under that government in that
part of Maine. In 1663-4 he was one of Archdale’s justices under
the King’s commissioners. At the date of his first marriage he was
about fifty years of age. His second wife was Elizabeth Williams, of
Essex County, Massachusetts. He died in Salem in 1676, aged 101
years, leaving four children. His heirs sold his share in the patent (ex-
cept a certain reserve near the present village of Brunswick) to Richard
Wharton, a merchant of Boston. Wharton also purchased Mericoneag
Peninsula (Harpswell) of the Indians. He soon after purchased of
Warumbee and other Androscoggin chieftains a quit claim of the terri-
tory four miles on each side of the river to the Twenty-Mile Falls,
now Lewiston Falls. From Wharton, the patent and the purchase from
the Indians passed into the hands of a number of gentlemen (mostly
residing in Boston) who associated themselves under the name of the
Pejepscot Proprietors; and from these and General Waldo, who had
purchased the reserve of the Purchas heirs, the present titles are de-
rived.

After the desolation of the first Indian war, the settlement was
revived; but it was again destroved in the spring of 1690. Tbe settle-