As the growing village took shape, John senior had his tract surveyed by Benjamin R. Jones, resulting in Shackford’s Plan of lots. A copy of that would help make sense of the wheeling and dealing that followed. Many of the purchasers were by John’s own children, individually or in combinations of partnership often formalizing land they had already “improved” and buildings they had constructed or sites where they would. Others went to Eastport’s new merchants and tradesmen. In all, I find 73 transactions, most of them as a grantor, or seller, recorded at the Washington County courthouse in Machias. I’ve probably missed a few, so take that as a rough figure.
It wasn’t just housing lots, either. Captain John’s waterfront properties were valuable sites for wharves, docks, and storehouses. He was even selling sites between the high and low tide lines. I’ll spare you the tensions between low tide mark claims today.
The one transaction I haven’t been able to track down is his title to Shackford Head. Was it simply overlooked by the indexers?
A significant deal took place on April 14, 1826, when his surviving offspring, all in adulthood, paid him $3,000 for the land between High (also known as Back) Street and County Road. And here I thought he had given it to them. Where did I get that idea? That was a huge figure for the time, by the way.
Was he a Scrooge with his offspring? Or merely cunning?
He still had plenty of lots left to sell.
Esther died on June 21, 1830, age 76.
All of it, of course, has relevance on the house we bought.
Jnana's Red Barn 