PREFACE. This book contains copies of the wills filed in the Probate Court for Lincoln County from the year 1760 to the year 1800 and brief abstracts of the records of the proceedings of that court during the same period. Perhaps the earliest existing record of probate proceedings had in this section of Maine is that found in the record* made At a court held at Pemaquid 22 July 1674 by Major Tho: clarke Humphry Dauie: Richd Collicut, and Left Thomas Gardner according to commission and order of the Generall Courte of the Massatusetts collony, Dated in Boston in which record is in the following words: Administration to the estate of John Walter a fisherman somtymes Resident at Monheghen & sometymes at Damerells coue who dyed about four yeares since is granted to Geo: Burnett Resident at Monheghen who is to dispose of the same according to the cleerest testimony of, and to whome ye Estate doeth belong & to bring in an Inventory of the same to ye next comission Court, heere, & himselfe as principall & Richd Oliver as Suerty doe bind themselves in fifty pounds a peece that this Order shall bee attended & p'formed. In this instance the General Court appears to have delegated its functions as a court of probate, a custom that was subsequently adopted by the Governor and Council who under the Province charter of 1691 had power to "doe execute or performe all that is necessary for the Probate of Wills, Granting of Administracons for, touching or concerning any Interest or Estate which any person or persons shall *Printed entire in M. H. S. coll. "Baxter MSS.," pp. 343-348. NOTE. This was probably the only County Court established under the Massachusetts Colony charter within the territory subsequently known as Lincoln County. At that court the region between the Sagadahoc and Georges rivers seems to have been first called and known as the County of Devon. have within our said Province or Territory". Soon, however, after the charter become operative judges of probate were commissioned, inferior probate tribunals were established and suitable persons were designated as registers thereof in the several counties; and in probate matters the Governor and Council reserved to themselves and exercised only the powers of a Supreme Court of Probate to which appeals from the probate courts could be had. Finally, near the close of the administration of Governor Pownall, in 1760, they became duly organized as the Supreme Court of Probate for the province and adopted a seal therefor. The act of the General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay for erecting and establishing two new counties in the easterly part of the county of York provided that from and after the first of November, 1760, the most eastern county, bounded on the west by the county of Cumberland, on the east by the province of Nova Scotia, on the south and southeast by the sea or western ocean, and on the north by the utmost northern limits of the province, should be called and known as the County of Lincoln. This act established the town of Pownalborough, which then included the territory now embraced in the towns of Wiscasset, Dresden, Alna and Perkins, as the shire or county town. This town had been incorporated on the 13th of February, 1760, and named in honor of that able colonial statesman, Thomas Pownall, who was then governor of Massachusetts, and this town, the name of which was changed to Wiscasset in 1802, has ever since been the principal shire town of Lincoln County. The Lincoln Probate Court was constituted by the appointment of William Cushing as judge and Jonathan Bowman as register. The earliest act of the court as found in its records granted letters of administration upon the estate of Humphry Purrington, late of Georgetown, under date of the 14th of November, 1760. The record does not disclose whether the court upon that occasion was held at Georgetown or Pownalborough: the letters were dated at Georgetown; the warrant to appraisers at Pownalborough; both bear the same date. At that date and for several years afterwards there seems to have been no regularly established time and place for holding the court and it was probably held at either Pownalborough or Georgetown, as was most for the convenience of parties having business before it, and but little formality observed. The wills of Nathaniel Donnell and Patrick Drummond, two old time residents of Georgetown, were probated at that place. On two or three occasions the court appears to have sat at Richmond. William Cushing, the first judge of the court, was of a distinguished Massachusetts family residing at Scituate, where he was born on the first day of March, 1732, third son of the Hon. John Cushing. He graduated from Harvard College in 1751 and after studying for a time with Jeremy Gridley he established himself in the practice of the law. Upon receiving his appointment as judge of probate he removed to Pownalborough where, until the arrival of Timothy Langdon, in 1769, he was the only educated lawyer and as such he appeared as counsel in the most important cases brought before the common law courts of the county. If one can judge by documents drawn by him, now extant, it may safely be concluded that he was methodical in his affairs and careful in all his undertakings. In the work of transcribing these records it has been a pleasure to take in hand a will or other instrument in his beautiful handwriting and elegant arrangement of paragraphs. He filled the office of judge of this court until 1772 when he was appointed a justice of the Superior Court of Judicature. He then returned to Massachusetts where he ever after made his home. Judge Cushing continued as a justice of the Superior Court until several years after it came to be known as the Supreme Judicial Court, a title which it retains to this day. At Pownalborough, on the 11th of July, 1786, Cushing, then chief justice, opened the first term of the Supreme Judicial Court that was held in this county. Associate Justices Sargent, Sewall and Sumner presided with him at that term of court. Upon the establishment of the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1789, Judge Cushing was selected by Washington as chief justice. Cushing declined the honor, but accepted a seat as associate justice and continued to occupy the same until his death, 7 September, 1810, ended a long and honorable career. The name of Jonathan Bowman is found in the records of this court for a period of more than forty years: first as register and afterwards as judge. Born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, 8 December, 1735, he was graduated from Harvard College in 1755. When the first officers of this court were selected one William Bryant, whose appointment appears to have been desired by certain of the proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase, was a candidate for the office of register and it seems to have been understood by some of his friends that he would be appointed, but the influence in favor of Bowman carried the day. At Round way, me youngest broer of Jalge Casting and m win angst werentet, Yoman a register of probate. Round Cusb**** y sale, 15 Reorary, argo, and was elocated at 1768 and entered upon the study of an at Portalborough. He held the office of BÉM As down to theen gears. His death occured in 1788 at NKEDARNEN ware was then a restient. The personal recollecMARKĀ MARK why Kiew Fith have been preserved and show that encomedy for a grace, and manly form, possessing brilliant |