Making it legal

Eastport’s growing community’s land claims needed to be clarified.

As Jonathan D. Weston notes in Kilby’s history, the Massachusetts legislature on June 17, 1791, authorized the survey of Moose Island, or Eastport, “the inhabitants prior to that time being simply ‘squatters,’ without titles to the land they occupied. The effects of this shiftless, temporary condition of affairs lingered for some time afterward.” Solomon Cushing then assigned lots to the occupants in 1791, according to Kilby. At the time, Eastport and Lubec, as Plantation 8 or Township 8, had a population of 244 people.

The deed John Shackford received from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts opens with the date June 18, 1791, and describes the committee appointed to “survey and lay out the [plan] of the settlers within said township one hundred acres of land to each settler to include his improvements,” as well as additional public lands to support a church and a school. Each settler who arrived before January 7, 1784, would pay the state five dollars for their property, while those who came later would be charged ten dollars. The purchasers would be exempt from any state taxes for five years.

Fitting “a plan of that part of said township called Moose Island with the several lots delineated thereon that Captain John Shackford a settler,” received lot No. 3, one hundred acres. The agreement was dated August 14, 1793, and recorded in Boston September 20.

His brother-in-law, Caleb Boynton senior, received lot No. 4, also one hundred acres. While his document was also dated June 18, 1791, it was not recorded until August 30, 1804.

Lot No. 17, 50 acres, went to Caleb Boynton junior in 1804.

The Shackford property would stretch along the waterfront from the middle of Shackford Cove to what would become Key Street and then back to County Road. Boynton’s stretched from Key Street to Washington Street. Together, their holdings would encompass about half of the business and residential lots of the eventual village.

The 1790 Census had a single Shackford household, John’s, with one free white male over 16, four under 16, and one free white female. This was recorded next to Caleb Boynton, with two white males over 16 and four females. Further down the list, Caleb junior had one white male over age 16, one under, and two females.

Curiously, in 1800, it was only one Boynton, Caleb senior.

You will find holes in the Census data.

Among non-family dwelling with Shackford around then was an unmarried Englishman, James Carter, in 1789. Quarters must have been tight.

With the deeds, the occupants became landowners rather than remaining squatters. Five dollars, do note, was a substantial amount at the time. Whether it was “reasonable” can be left to debate.

Thus, in 1793 Shackford gained clear ownership of one hundred acres at Shackford Cove, being lot No. 3 — and within that, the plot that includes our house. How much earlier he had built here becomes the question. By 1783, as his fee would indicate? Not all of this land went to farming, and he obviously augmented his holdings over time. If he was building ships, he definitely needed timber, which might explain the Shackford Head connection.

While I’ve been unable to find the deed of Shackford Head, it’s clear that Captain John acquired a hundred acres there, too. There are tales of the box of unsorted early documents at the courthouse.

The transactions I’ve found do undermine a story about a sheriff arriving from Massachusetts in 1797 with an armed party to seek payment for the lands. Remember, Maine was a district of Massachusetts until 1820. After being roughed up, and with what may have been a revised approach, the sheriff offered deeds from the state at a reasonable cost plus a five-year tax exemption.

Of Captain John and Esther’s children who survived to maturity, all four sons became ship captains, and two of their three daughters married likewise. Many of the grandsons continued that legacy.

Can you imagine the life in this house at the time?