Introduction
Standing on the banks of the Kennebec River in Dresden, the Pownalborough Court House is a remarkable example of colonial New England architecture. A group of wealthy men who claimed ownership of much of Maine in the eighteenth century, the Kennebec Proprietors, authorized the construction of the Court House in the early 1760s. Boston Architect Gershom Flagg designed and oversaw the construction of the Court House, and he completed the project in 1761. The Court House hosted many notable figures such as second president John Adams, the Anglican minister Jacob Bailey, local midwife Martha Ballard, and Declaration of Independence signer Robert Treat Paine. Though the Court House has a vibrant legal history, the building also served as a tavern, a place for church services, a dancing school, a post office, and a family home.
The only pre-Revolutionary War court building in Maine, the Pownalborough Court House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Volunteer docents lead tours throughout the summer, offering guests the opportunity to learn about the rich history of the Court House and the surrounding area. In addition to touring the structure, guests can also enjoy the beautiful grounds and flower garden, visit the historic cemetery, walk along the Kennebec River, and hike the trail system in the forest across the road.The Court House also often hosts living history reenactors, providing guests an opportunity to dive deeper into the colonial period.
Early History
The Wabanaki nations have long called the Kennebec River Valley region home. In the early seventeenth century, the first white settlers visited the area. In 1626, Plymouth Colony Pilgrims sent a ship up the Kennebec to trade with the local indigenous population. They then urged the British Crown to grant them a patent to the land along the Kennebec River. They saw the river as an important trade route, and hoped to establish a trading post in the area. Though native peoples already lived in the area, the Pilgrims saw the land as theirs to claim ownership over. In 1629, the British Crown granted the requested patent to the Pilgrims, giving them the rights to a tract of land that encompassed fifteen miles on each side of the Kennebec River from present-day Norridgewock to Topsham. The Pilgrims then established a permanent trading post in Augusta.
The Pilgrims later sold this tract of land, known as the Kennebec Purchase, to four Boston merchants in 1661. White settlement in the area had slowed by this time, due to decreased trade and conflicts between colonists and the local indigenous population. Over time, the four shareholders sold many of their shares, dividing the purchase among a greater number of people. In the 1740s, the major shareholders began to organize and worked to encourage more people to move to the area. These shareholders, known as the Kennebec Proprietors, formed a corporation called the Plymouth Company in 1750 at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston (now the Exchange Building on State Street). They appointed Major Samuel Goodwin, a minor shareholder and Kennebec Proprietor, as their agent in charge of overseeing white settlement in the region.
Samuel Goodwin surveyed the land and worked to encourage settlers. In 1752, Goodwin oversaw the construction of a fort on the land now occupied by the Pownalborough Court House. The fort was named Fort Shirley in honor of the Massachusetts governor at the time, William Shirley. Fort Shirley soon became obsolete, however, when Forts Western and Halifax were built further up the Kennebec River in Augusta and Winslow. Additionally, after British forces captured Quebec during the French and Indian War, stopping attacks by the French and their native allies, the fort was no longer necessary. At the end of the conflict, the British cemented their control over Maine and much of North America. After this time, Massachusetts colonial officials divided the Province of Maine into two counties: Cumberland and Lincoln. They also incorporated a town at the site of Fort Shirley, Pownalborough. They established Pownalborough, named after the Massachusetts governor at the time, Thomas Pownall, as Lincoln County’s shiretown or county seat.
Establishing the Court House
In April 1761, the Kennebec Proprietors voted to build a three-story court house on the grounds of Fort Shirley. Fort Shirley had fallen into disrepair and was in the process of being dismantled. One of the block houses remained for use as a jail. The Proprietors hired architect Gershom Flagg to design the Court House, and soon after Flagg sent carpenters from Boston to begin construction. The carpenters erected the frame of the building in three days. The large three-story structure, forty-five feet in length, is supported by diagonal “dragon” beams. The courtroom, forty-five feet long and with huge windows, is still quite imposing. It is located on the second story, a common practice at a time when court sessions were often held in taverns, churches, or private homes.
Gershom Flagg
Gershom Flagg was a well-known architect in pre-Revolutionary Maine. Flagg was instrumental in the design and construction of not only the Pownalborough Court House, but also five forts in the area, and Kennebec Proprietor and local judge Jonathan Bowman’s 1762 home.
Born in Boston on April 20, 1705, Flagg was the fourth son of John and Abiah Kornic Flagg. His mother died in 1715, and two years later his father acquired a house on Hanover Street. Gershom and his family lived in this house until John died in 1732. After John’s death, Gershom purchased the Hanover Street property.
Flagg was twenty-seven years old when he bought his father’s home, indicating that he had already firmly established himself as a housewright and glazier. Two years before, he married Lydia Callender, the daughter of a Baptist minister. When she died without issue, he married Hannah Pitson in 1736. They had two children.
The Justice System
The Pownalborough Court House operated as a court house from the time it was built until the 1790s. During this period, two different types of courts convened in the Court House. The lowest court in the system, the Court of General Sessions, had administrative as well as judicial responsibilities. It laid out roads, licensed ferries and innholders, and arranged for care of the indigent. Its jurisdiction in legal matters covered thievery, assault and battery, petty debts, and other similar crimes. The judges came from the various communities within the county.
The next judicial level was the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, which had jurisdiction in such matters as land disputes, acts of violence, larger debts, and other similar crimes. It also disposed of cases appealed from the Court of General Sessions. Cases were tried before a jury, and professional lawyers from Massachusetts regularly attended the sessions of this court.
In the colonial period, judges and attorneys practiced within the legal system for the colony of Massachusetts. The only law book published was Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, a copy of which now sits on the judges’ bench in the courtroom. Volumes of case law did not exist until 1805. Blackstone’s Commentaries and a few other treatises circulated, but judges’ usually did not rely on legal books.
Judges
Usually prominent men in the community served as judges of both of these courts, and sometimes the same man served on both courts. Most of the men did not have formal legal training, but were chosen instead based on financial class and their standing in the community. Both judges and lawyers wore black robes and wigs during court sessions. Six to twelve judges were appointed annually, and a quorum of three was needed for a trial. One of the reasons at least three judges sat together was to help them better remember and apply precedent.
William Cushing, who later became Chief Justice of Massachusetts and then Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, served as one of the first justices at the Pownalborough Court House. Cushing later refused the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme Court, the only person in history to have done so. Other judges that served at Pownalborough included Robert Treat Paine (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence), James Sullivan, and Increase Sumner (both of whom became Governors of Massachusetts).
Traveling to the Court House
Many who traveled to the courthouse found it an arduous journey. For instance, in 1792, Judges Robert Treat Paine and Increase Sumner adjourned court in Portland on Saturday and were anxious to open court early on Tuesday in Pownalborough. They, accompanied by Attorney General James Sullivan and officers of the court, started on Sunday with their horses and carriages. They planned to journey to Bath and then proceed up the Kennebec River by boat on Monday. At Freeport, the local warden arrested them all for violating a statute which prohibited traveling on Sunday. They were so annoyed that they probably failed to appreciate that the statute had been enacted largely by Robert Treat Paine. The group ultimately escaped arrest because they had to open court on Tuesday.
Another famous visitor to the Court House, second president John Adams, also experienced hardship on his journey. Most visitors at that time opted to travel via the Kennebec River to reach the Court House, as the land route featured rough roads. Adams, however, decided to take the land route when he journeyed to Pownalborough. In his 1802 autobiography Adams described how:
“I was taken ill on the road and had a very unpleasant excursion. It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the fatigue and disgust of this journey. It was the only time in my life, when I really suffered for want of provisions. In general it was a wilderness encumbered with the greatest number of trees, of the largest size, the tallest height, I have ever seen. So great a weight of wood and timber has never fallen in my way. The roads where a wheel had never rolled from the creation, were miry and founderous, encumbered with long sloughs of water. The stumps of the trees which had been cut to make the road all remaining fresh, and the roots crossing the path some above ground and some beneath so that my horses feet would frequently get between the roots and he would flounce and blunder, in danger of breaking his own limbs as well as mine. I reached Pownalborough alive, gained my cause much to the satisfaction of my client and returned home.”
John Adams never again returned to Pownalborough.
Though his journey to Pownalborough was rough, John Adams experienced some legal success while there. He defended Major Arthur Noble (namesake of the town of Nobleboro) and his tenants in their case against the Kennebec Proprietors. The Proprietors believed that they had a legal claim to Noble’s land, but Adams successfully upheld Noble’s claims. Though Adams defeated the Kennebec Proprietors, they were so impressed by his abilities that they retained him as their attorney. He served as their attorney for the next ten years. Adams also played a role in Jonathan Bowman’s suit against Abiel Lovejoy while at Pownalborough. In this case, Bowman sought to collect 6 pounds 1 shilling 4 pence from Lovejoy for the preparation of twenty one legal actions. Lovejoy’s previous offer to settle for four pounds complicated the case. The court then referred the case to a panel of referees, which included John Adams. The referees’ report, written in Adams’s handwriting and signed by Major Samuel Goodwin, Arthur Noble, Jacob Chipman, and John Adams himself, ruled in favor of Bowman.
The Goodwin Family
The Court House served as a court building for only a brief period. After the courts moved to the new county seat of Wiscasset in the 1790s, the Court House became solely a family home. Major Samuel Goodwin and his family first occupied the Court House while it was still a court building. They lived in the house and also operated a tavern on the first floor for court guests and other travelers. The Goodwin family played an active role in town affairs, with various members serving as selectmen, town treasurers, postmasters, and school teachers. When one of Fort Shirley’s blockhouses near the Court House was adapted for use as a jail, Samuel Goodwin Jr,. at 21, served as its keeper as well as deputy sheriff. He also obtained a ferry license and permission to sell liquor.
After Major Samuel Goodwin’s death, his daughter Rebecca transformed the Court House into a homestead. Married to Captain John Johnson in 1777, Rebecca bore nine children, among them Rowland, who became a sea captain, and Thomas, a businessman, postmaster, and farmer. Together, Rowland and Thomas fought for title to the Court House and eventually the two brothers became joint owners. They divided the building between their families in a formal and amicable arrangement, with each family living on one side but sharing the central hall and stairway. Descendants of the Goodwin family continued to enjoy the Court House well into the twentieth century.
The Later Years
In 1954, Goodwin family descendents sold the Court House to the Lincoln County Historical Association. At that time, the building was in a state of considerable disrepair, and the association embarked upon a program to gradually restore it to its original state.
The Court House is now open to visitors throughout the summer months. Those that visit the Court House today experience not only the restored courtroom, but also tour all three stories of the house. Guests learn about the varied and remarkable history of the structure that has served as a beloved family home, a tavern, a post office, a dancing school, a church meeting place, and a colonial court.
