Beyond Borders - Mapping Maine and the Northeast Boundary

Nova Scotia was re-created as an independent British colony following the British “conquest” of Acadia in 1710 and removed from direct Massachusetts control. But the situation in the Sagadahock became increasingly unclear. In 1729, as part of a scheme to settle a number of Irish families near the Kennebec River, the British briefly flirted with the idea of transforming the Sagadahock into its own colony, Georgia, under the governorship of the Surveyor of the King’s Woods, David Dunbar. While the idea of a separate colony quickly lost favor and was rejected by March of 1730, the Privy Council determined that political control of the area was rightfully in the hands of the governor of Nova Scotia, not Massachusetts, and approved the scheme under these terms.

The Maine land companies which had been organized in the wake of the fall of Acadia—in particular the Pejepscot Proprietors—were immediately alarmed by what they correctly saw as a threat to their land claims. By absorbing everything east of the Kennebec into Nova Scotia, where land could be granted and organized by Royal decree, Dunbar’s settlement efforts threatened most of the land claimed by the new companies. This struggle over who had the right to develop the Eastward led to a formal petition in 1731 by Massachusetts to the King’s attorney and solicitor general in England, asking them to intervene.

The lawyers ultimately found in favor of the proprietors, effectively ending Dunbar’s career as a land agent. However, despite what the proprietors and some Massachusetts officials would claim later, the decision did not confirm Massachusetts’ rights to settle and govern the region. Instead, the lawyers emphasized the Royal confirmation provisio from the charter. The proprietary grants, they argued, stood only because they all claimed an origin predating the 1691 charter. In practice, the outcome was to silently annex the proprietary lands around the Kennebec to the Province of Maine and Massachusetts, while leaving the question of jurisdiction over the Sagadahock frustratingly open.