132 FOREST COMMISSIONERS REPORT. 



when under her Commissioners and Agents for the sale of 

 eastern lands, she made full inquiry into the title of various 

 claimants to lands in Maine, with a view of determining her 

 own right and title; surveyed those lands, and opened them to 

 sale and settlement. I think we may fairly presume that from 

 Massachusetts known activity in the survey and sale of islands 

 that she would overlook no considerable number of them along 

 a wide extent of our coast, which in size compared favorably, 

 and in value must have exceeded those which were surveyed and 

 sold by her. Her Commissioners, keenly alive to her interests in 

 the public lands, were in a better position to know her title at 

 that time, than we are to determine it today. Whether she ever 

 had title, or had parted with it prior to this time, as may be the 

 case in some instances, is immaterial to our inquiry as to what 

 tiitle she had at the time of Separation. 



Yet it is a fact that many of our most valuable islands in this 

 section have never been granted by either Massachusetts or 

 Maine. 



Massachusetts Attitude During this Period. 



1. Surveys: An examination of the surveys made at this 

 time as shown by the plans left us and the reports of the sur- 

 veyors, shows us that island surveys were at first made only as 

 far west as a hne drawn from the west extreme of the Fox 

 Islands to the mouth of the Penobscot. Later under James 

 Malcolm the islands were surveyed lying outside the limits of 

 the Waldo Patent, such as Monhegan, Matinicus, and Allen and 

 Burnt off the mouth of the St. George River. She surveyed 

 nothing west of these. 



2. Sales: During this period an examination of the islands 

 conveyed will show that Massachusetts made no conveyance of 

 any islands west of the west line of the Waldo Patent, and none 

 west of the Penobscot, but such as lay without the limits of the 

 Waldo Patent. The farthest island west conveyed by her is 

 Monhegan. After the separation she joined Maine in the con- 

 veyance of one island within these limits, — little Mark Island 

 near Harpswell, in 1827 — but this was a quit-claim to the United 

 States for lighthouse purposes. 



3. Division of Islands: The division of the public lands 

 by Commissioners immediately after the Separation has been 



