FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 39 



the river, also produced disputes as to its eastern and western 

 limits ; and the conflicting claims to boundaries between this 

 and other grants, on almost every side of it, have been the fruit- 

 ful sources of law-suits, expense, and unhappiness, for more 

 than half a century. They have however been at length prin- 

 ci])ally determined, either by judicial decision or compromise; 

 and the rapidly increasing prosperity of the country since, 

 evinces the beneficial result. 



In the same year the Council also granted to Beauchamp and 

 Leverett, a tract of about 30 miles square, on the west side of 

 Penobscot bay and river, extending westward to Muscongus 

 river, and northward to a line which now constitutes the south- 

 ern limit of the towns of Hampden, Newburgh, Dixmont and 

 Troy. This tract came afterwards into possession of Brigadier 

 General Waldo, and from him descended to the family of the 

 late General Knox. The title under this grant has been held 

 good ; but the limits assigned to it having been found too small, 

 the deficiency was supplied by the legislature of Massachusetts, 

 since the revolution, by a grant of all the vacant lands, then 

 belonging to the Commonwealth, in the towns of Hampden, 

 Bangor, Xewburgh, and Hermon. 



Besides the foregoing, the Council of Plymouth made but 

 one other grant, under which any important claim has been set 

 up and sustained, to a title in the lands. This was in 1631, to 

 Robert Alsworth and Gyles Elbridge, of 12,000 acres at Pema- 

 cjuid, with an addition of 100 acres for each settler they should 

 procure. The title of Alsworth and Elbridge descended to 

 Shem Drowns and others, who, in 1741, made a survey of about 

 70 or 80.000 acres as within their patent, including the town of 

 Bristol, with part of the towns of New-Castle and Xoblc- 

 borough. Opposed to this were claims under grants made by 

 Colonel Dunbar, or Dungan, Governor of the colony of Pema- 

 quid, under the authority of the Duke of York ; also other 

 grants and deeds, from Indians to Walter Phillips and others, 

 subdivided and transmitted to dififerent claimants, known in late 

 days under the names severally of the Brown, Tappan, Vaughan 

 and Waldo claims. These different claims conflicted with each 

 other, as well as with others in their vicinity, and eventually 

 producerl much perplexity, expense, and distress, both to the 

 inhabitants and the claimants ; but at length were generally 



