52 FOREST COMMISSIONERS REPORT. 



SALES AND SETTLEMENT. 



Attention of the people of Maine has frequently been called 

 to the so called wild lands of the State. It is a matter of great 

 importance and one upon which from time to time much has 

 been written. 



The history of these lands, their sales and their settlement, 

 is probably known comparatively to few people, although this 

 history is plainly and accurately recorded. But the complicated 

 and widely scattered records have made it a tedious study, and 

 hard to gather up, and the matter has been left to comparative 

 obscurity. On this account there has been more or less mis- 

 understanding of this subject which has led to erroneous state- 

 ments, and false conclusions. From the time Maine became 

 a state in 1820 to the present time the State has never parted 

 with a single acre of land, except upon legislative authority. 



When the District of Maine was a wilderness, and adjunct of 

 Massachusetts its wild lands, covered at that time with unbroken 

 forests, were recognized as a valuable resource which could be 

 turned to the benefit of the State. In that early time, grants 

 of lands varying in size and proximity to the settlements in 

 northern Massachusetts, were used, instead of cash payments, in 

 the settlement of debts incurred by the state. In fact the lack 

 of ready money often made it necessary for Massachusetts to 

 • ofifer grants of lands in the District of Maine for almost every 

 conceivable purpose of trade. 



Grants of lands were given the widows of soldiers in the wars 

 of the Revolution and 1812, in lifu of pensions. Schools and 

 academies were endowed with acres of forest lands, and, in 

 such cases whole townships were laid out in the unknown wilds 

 of Maine. State improvements like roads, the building of mills 

 and the promotion of other enterprises were often paid for by 

 the selling of lands in this region, and the custom became quite 

 prevalent of petitioning the legislature of Massachusetts for a 

 section of some township of the District of Alaine, in recogni- 

 tion of services rendered the state of Massachusetts by indi- 

 viduals, or by corporate bodies. Even payments for the preach- 

 ing and the spread of the Gospel was paid for with wild lands, 

 and the records contain resolves for the granting of these lands 

 for ministerial purposes. 



