A lot of hard work here by Tami Keen Colburn her brother Kenny and other family members. We intend to keep this a fluid post has progress goes on ! Thank You to All Who Care For These Lost Souls
James Grant Cemetery off Route 91
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The Outer Commons and the Alexander Thompson Homestead
Kevin Freeman and Ronald Nowell
Mount Agamenticus in York, Maine, is rich in history. Not only does it serve as a landmark for mariners past and present but it was once inhabited by York’s early residents. The forefathers of the Town decided to sell parcels of this area to York residents who were over twenty one years of age and willing to pay the cost of administration. The dividing and selling was documented in a book titled the Book of Proprietors that is currently kept at the York Town Hall.
Today, it is difficult to imagine the attraction for early settlers in this area and yet, without a doubt, owning a piece of the Outer Commons elevated a persons social status, among other things. We assume that a lot of these shares were bought and sold for profit. But many of these lots were inhabited by families whose names are significant in York History. Among the families in this area listed on the highway tax maps for 1831 are Ramsdell, Welch, Fitzgerald, Lewis, Thompson, Dixon, Jellison and others.
In the spring of 2022, with Ron serving as a guide, we began extensive hikes in the First (Mount Agamenticus), Second and Third Hill area. Ron’s knowledge of botany, landmarks, monuments and history around the mountain is exceptional. Ron noted numerous points of interest and we discovered some new ones. Eventually we both became guided by curiosity as one discovery led to another. From caves that we walked through, to spring holes, to old foundations, to a mammoth White Pine tree, to burial sites that could have easily been passed by – it all became a wonder and puzzle.
Our curiosity took us to land surveys and old deeds in a mission to find out more about those who lived there and why. Ron pointed out some unusually substantial stonewalls on the Northwest side of Second Hill. We instinctively began to follow them down hill. Ron had a survey plan titled, Plan of Lands of Alex.Thompson’s Lying on the North West Side of the Middle Agamenticus Hill Including Abram Thompson place and other Lands, 1874, in original possession of Carroll Trafton. Initially, regardless of orientation the plan made little sense. One feature on the plan compelled us both to discover more—an unusual shaped stonewall near an “old barn yard.”
In contrast to rough terrain found elsewhere on the mountain, the land was much more flat with a gentle slope. It was uncharacteristic of a first or second growth forest, rather it was smooth, perhaps made so by plowing. There are numerous piles of stones, varying from ten to fifteen feet in diameter and several feet high serving as collection sites when the fields were picked clean of rocks. Some of these piles are very close to the stonewalls. One wonders how it was decided for some of the rocks to have been turned into stonewalls rather than piles.
The area was too vast to be conclusive about how to find the exact location of the barn yard, though we tried during one afternoon of exhaustive hiking. A few days later Kevin hiked out to the area with a GPS trail mapping app on his phone and walked along the stonewalls creating a graphic route that was nearly identical to the stonewalls on the property plan. Ron was called and we met at the Cedar Trail head. After reaching our destination we also discovered a cellar hole for a home, At the deepest point the cellar hole was about 8 feet from top to bottom and made us more curious. Shortly thereafter, we pinpointed the location of a barn and an out building.
According to the survey plans we were at the Thompson homestead. Checking deeds at the York County Registry of Deeds further confirmed our assumption. Book 140, Page 221, dated September 21, 1831, describes brothers Abraham and Isaac Thompson dividing the property previously owned by their father, “Alexander Thompson late of York, deceased, the land lying a little bit to the North of Agamenticus.”
The deed describes marked trees, bearings and rods to secure boundaries. Most curiously the deed states, “said Abraham is to have the old barn and the south room in the house, or one half of the house and the said Isaac to have the new barn and the north part of the house as far as one room extends, and the said Abraham gives Isaac nine months from this date to occupy his part of the house, and take it off from his land; and both parties agree that there shall be a privilege for each party to pass and repass from their premises…”
We spent some time conversing about the significance of such an operation way out here in the woods. Though there were some neighbors on the mountain, unlike the community of York Village, the homes were spread far apart, evoking a feeling of isolation. The paths were steep and rough. Transportation would have been by foot or a springless horse or ox cart with steel rimmed wheels. Sheep farming became a craze with the introduction of Marino sheep in 1802 and at great cost to New England forests. The endless stonewalls that we see today were created to contain the lucrative commodity. We speculated that sheep farming would have provided enough income to support this homestead.
In many families the given names of members are repeated for many generations, Alexander Thompson is no exception. William Thompson was living in Kittery when he died at 43 years of age in 1676. George Ernst wrote that William’s younger children, one being Alexander (1671-1720), were left to the Selectmen of Kittery to provide for. Ernst speculates the children went to various families and their names may have became that of their foster parents, confusing a clear genealogy. None-the-less, we see that the above Alexander had two sons, referred to in the above noted deed as Isaac and Abraham.
We are unclear as to the progression of who owned exactly what but have begun to unravel a web of information that inspires us to look farther. Ron is quite sure there were Abrams as well as Abrahams in this area though a survey report done for Land For Maine’s Future by Titcomb Associates refers to Abraham as “aka Abram.”
We have found at least three recorded tracts of land owned by Thomson family members on the North side of Mount Agamenticus.
- York County Registry of Deeds, Book 43, Page 182, February 28, 1775
Joseph Linscot to Joseph and Curtis Thompson for about 55 acres, 13 acres and one
third of an acre.
2. York County Registry of Deeds, Book 42, Page 110, August 1, 1772
James Junkins to Alexander Thompson containing eight shares of lot one in the fourth
range.
3. York County Registry of Deeds, Book 58, Page 30A, November 29, 1781
James Junkins sells remaining shares of lot one in the fourth range to Alexander Thompson.
The plan of the Outer Commons copied by Angevine Gowen from Daniel Sewall, W. Junkins Survey Map of 1874 and a York Town Map are included as attachments to this document.
It may be of interest for the reader to notice the contrast of the rectilinear format of the division of the Outer Commons versus the wandering boundaries in the Junkins Survey.
A brief History of Marshall Store with Kate Marshall, a Very Insightful Piece
Interview with Katherine Marshall, Lewiston Sun Journal May 1940
Raymond “Jakey” Weare
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Kevin Freeman
Today I ventured to the home of “Jakey” Raymond Weare (1921-2016) and Iris Weare (1923-2015), husband and wife who live in Cape Neddick. I intended to ask Jakey if I could interview him for a book that I am helping to write on Cape Neddick. He agreed and I came away with the following.
Jakey’s family was one of the first to arrive in Cape Neddick. His first European ancestor to arrive in Cape Neddick did so via Massachusetts, New Hampshire and finally Georgiana. Peter Weare died in an Indian attack in the 1690’s. His homestead was located someplace on the north side of the Cape Neddick River, perhaps the home on Shore Road in which Jakey grew up.
I have known Jakey only slightly during my life. He hauled some boards out to my home in or around 1985. My driveway is almost a half mile long and at the time it was riveted with stumps. For some reason I was at odds with my father whose tractor I often borrowed and I asked Jakey to help me get them home. I intended to pay him but once he dumped the lumber from his 4×4 pickup he declined any payment.
He is very easy to talk to but doesn’t always speak clear. He didn’t mind me saying “what” until I understood what he was saying.
Jakey sat in a chair opposite his entry door right next to a large cookstove. To the right was a table and further was a counter and the kitchen. The wood stove was hot. He told me to pull up a chair. I was very unprepared to interview him and only intended to ask him if it would be possible, so I just started asking the basic questions.
He was born in 1921. His father was Raymond Weare. His father, Raymond owned the York Beach Fishmarket. He bought the fish market from (Otis) O.W. Avery. Jakey said O.W. could not read or right which helped facilitate his father’s purchasing of the business.
Jakey went to school at York Beach, where the the police station is now. It is the same school I went to for K, 3,4,5,6. Jakey’s classmates were Frank Hancock, Russel Philbrook, Herman Chase, John Garfield, Virginia Freeman and Gloria Eldredge. His teacher was his aunt, Mrs. Belmont. I have heard through other sources he was of particular interest to her when it came to discipline and likely had more than his share of the ruler.
When I asked what it was like growing up in Cape Neddick, if the economy was robust he said it was the way it was. They were busy all the time. I asked him if the Passaconaway Hotel was open when he was a kid. He said it was not in business but he and his friend Arthur Philbrick would go into the building and collect the urinal pots which were supplied to each room and cary them to the top of the elevator shaft and drop them all the way down. He took much delight in sharing this with me and mimicked the loud crashing the pots made on impact.
After Jakey graduated from York High School, in 1940, he moved to Dexter, Maine where he took a job in a machine shop. He worked on a milling machine. Jakey became very homesick and wanted to go home, which he did.
Once he got back to York he worked at Kidder Press and shared rides with his best friend Leonard Freeman, the son of Abbott Freeman. Leonard got placed on the night shift and did not like it. He intentionally took something which he had to purchase from the drug store that caused him to vomit. He did this enough times on the nightshift that his foreman allowed him to go back to working days. Leonard and Jakey resumed commuting together.
Iris Hilton moved to York in 1941 from Andover, Maine. Her father worked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Iris worked at Garfield’s in York Beach, next door to the fish market where Jakey worked for his father. Jakey joined the Navy in 1942. He studied at Wentworth Institute in Boston before being commissioned on an amphibious carrier. At Wentworth Institute he learned to work on steam engines. The boat he was commissioned to was USS Sumter APA-52. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Sumter_(APA-52)
While in the Navy Jakey and Iris married. Jakey didn’t see his first daughter Pam until she was 18 months old.
After leaving the Navy Iris and Jakey settled in a cottage near Shore Road. Iris said when the wind blew the linoleum on the floor would lift right up. She added, “We didn’t care, we were young.” Jakey had saved $2,000 while in the Navy and built the house on Old County Road where he lives today. The total cost was $8,000 which included furniture, in 1948.
As I was standing near the door and ready to leave Iris told me that she and Jakey already had their headstone. The graveyard in which the stone was waiting was across their lawn in a family plot which contained Jakey’s father and grandfather. As I looked out the window across the yard and toward the headstones there was an old stone out of place. It was on the outside of the plot leaning inward on an iron rail. I couldn’t imagine how it got there but quickly realized it was for Iris and Jakey. Iris said, “this way the kids don’t have to figure out what to do.”
Slave Property in Cape Neddick
Ron Nowell and I have been compiling a list of Slaves in York, Maine and one Slave, Caezar Talpey has caught our imagination. Caezar purchased land from Nathaniel Donnell in 1792, bounded by his owner, Richard Talpey, to the North. We can assume Caezar was freed when Slavery became illegal in Massachusetts in the 1780’s. From the deed (YCRD book 54 page 176) I have used the tools on the Town of York tax maps to draw the location of the property lines taken from the deed. The first drawing represents the measurements as accurately as possible from the deed reference. The second drawing shows 4 acres with a slight liberty to tweak the triangle into conforming. This effort is preliminary and not conclusive but it gives us a general idea of where a Slave owned property and lived in Cape Neddick in the later part of the 18th Century. Here is the description in the the deed… “These presents do give grant, bargain, Sell, alien release convey + confirm to him the said Caesar his heirs and assigns four Acres of Land lying in York, aforesaid bounded as follows beginning at a Stake and heap of Stones by the highway Leading from York to Wells + running North thirty five Degrees West forty one rods (676.5 feet) to Richard Talpey’s Land thence south Eighty two Degrees East by said Talpey Land till it come to the highway aforesaid thence Southwesterly by said highly to the first mentioned Bounds”
