38 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



in width. Under' this grant the lands in Biddeford are still 

 holden. They also granted a tract of similar extent, on the 

 east side of that river, to Thomas Lewis and Richard Benython, 

 which is the origin of the present titles in the town of Saco ; 

 and another to Thomas Comstock, or Cammock, of 5000 acres 

 at Black point, under which lands are now holden in the town 

 of Scarborough. 



The next year (1630) the Council made a grant to John Dy, 

 John Smith, and others, of all the lands from Cape Porpoise 40 

 miles east, and extending 40 miles into the country ; to which 

 was given the name of the Province of Lygonia. This grant 

 not only infringed the original patent to Gorges and Mason, 

 but included the whole of those above mentioned at Saco and 

 Scarborough. It was soon after transferred to Sir Alexander 

 Rigby, who sent over agents to settle and govern the country. 

 These agents made a number of grants to different persons, of 

 lands in what are now the towns of Falmouth, Portland, West- 

 brook, Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough, and Kennebunk port. 

 The title to the lands, under some of these grants, became 

 extinct by the neglect of the grantees, and the interference of 

 other claims ; but some were occupied, and the titles to the lands 

 conveyed under the most of them has descended to the inhab- 

 itants at the present day. 



In 1629 the Council made a grant to the Colony of Plymouth 

 of a tract on the Kennebeck, extending 15 miles from the river 

 on each side. This tract was transferred, in 1661, to Antipas 

 Boies, Edward Tyng, Thomas Brattle, and John Winslow. 

 Their descendants and assigns afterwards associated under the 

 name of the Kennebeck Company, and the lands are still holden 

 under that title. The ambiguities and obscurities as to limits, 

 usual in the grants of this council, produced long, expensive, 

 and severe contests between the claimants under this grant, 

 and those on its borders; the effects of which exist, in some 

 degree, to the present day. Its southern limits were finally 

 settled so as to leave the towns of Topsham and Woolwich, with 

 other towns below them, on the sea coast, to other claimants ; 

 and its northern were extended to what is now the south line 

 of Anson and ]\Iadison, and of other towns on the same parallel. 

 Different modes of determining the distance on each side of 



