Browsing: Diary of John Adams, Volume 1

A 19th-century engraving from William S. Bartlet’s Frontier Missionary: A Memoir of the Life of the Rev. Jacob Bailey…, Boston, 1853, p. 79. The three-story wooden courthouse was built in 1761, as the seat of government for Lincoln County. Gershom Flagg, a Boston housewright, was the builder. The courtroom was on the second floor; the lower floor was occupied as a dwelling by Major Samuel Goodwin. After 1794 the court functions were transferred to Wiscasset, but the old courthouse still stands. See the note on John Adams’ Accounts, 7–12 June 1765, at p. 259. For his description of a trip to Pownalborough in 1765, see his Autobiography, vol. 3:281–282.