Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
When I saw you yesterday I found Mr. Pitts had spoken to you on the Kenebeck Company’s Affair.1 I introduced it to you, that we might have had some confabulation upon it: but your business not then permitting, it must be deferred to a time that will be agreable to you. Mr. Pitts was desired to let you know, that as the Kenebeck Company are sensible you are much pressed with public business, and that it is impossible for any Gentleman alike circumstanced, to give to their affair the attention which the nature of it requires, they have desired Mr. Lincoln to undertake the 153 management of it; and authorized him, if an assistant should be needful, to get Such an one as he thinks proper.
You will permit me to say, that I am very Sorry the Company cannot have the advantage of your abilities in the manner they could have wished: If you will please to favour Mr. Pitts the Company’s Treasurer, with your account, it will be paid in a Short time. In the name of the Kenebeck Committee, I am with much esteem
The proprietors neglected their property from the Revolution until 1796, during which time squatters had settled on the land. For details, see “A Brief Sketch of the Kennebec Claim” in J. W. Hanson, History of Gardiner, Pittston and West Gardiner, 1602–1852 (1853), 29–54; and Gordon E. Kershaw, Kennebeck Purchase (1971).
It is wished by Some Persons, that the Tories Estates in this County1 may be confiscated as Soon as possible—and as it is probable your Honour may not have had any Account of them—I beg leave to inform you that I lodged into the Secretaries Office, Sometime last Fall, Coll John Waites2 Return, which contains a particular description of them all.
Samuel Freeman (1743–1831), in 1775 while serving the Provincial Congress and acting as secretary to that body, was appointed register of probate and clerk of the county court for Cumberland County, “in both which courts his father was judge.” Freeman continued as register for thirty years, after which he became judge of probate until 1820. He continued as clerk of the county court for most of the same period (William Willis, A History of the Law, the Courts, and the Lawyers of Maine [Portland, Maine, 1863], 651–656).
Col. John Waite (1732–1820) of Falmouth (now Portland, Maine) was sheriff of Cumberland County from 1776 to 1809 (Willis, A History of the Law, the Courts, and the Lawyers of Maine, 678–685).