Major Thomas Clarke (1607-1683)

Major THOMAS CLARKE was a wealthy man who had suffered losses of his own along these coasts. He was well acquainted in commerce and warfare having been the senior partner with Captain Thomas Lake of a large trading post at Arrowsic (Georgetown), further eastward along the coast. For years their company had dealt peacefully with the natives.

Boston merchants Thomas Clarke and Thomas Lake established a post on Arrowsic Island near the mouth of the Kennebec River, and when rival posts eroded their profits, they began raising cattle and exporting livestock, meat, hides, and hay to , which was becoming an important economic center. Settlers cut timber, built a sawmill, grew crops for food and export, processed fish, and manufactured implements.

These strategies – diversification and agricultural self-sufficiency – encouraged others to clear farms and build gristmills, blacksmith and cooper shops, and boatyards, much of this activity financed by Clarke and Lake. The company also sold land along the river, often at a loss, on the principle that more settlers meant cheaper labor for their various enterprises and more customers for their merchandise.

By the 1650s, the small settler society between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec was beginning to develop a distinctive culture, more diverse, more secular, and more democratic than the Puritan Commonwealth

Although the outpost was well protected, less than a year before the Kennebec Indians forced their way in, taking the inhabitants unawares. Many were killed, including Lake, and the place was ransacked.

Clarke was old by this time, near his allotted three score and ten, when he arrived at Black Point. He had received a commission on the same day of Swett’s departure; his role was counselor to Swett and envoy from the government. Besides having men under his command, the government had given him authority to do as he saw fit. Circumstances would drive his actions

DAVIS, SILVANUS (Sylvanus), land-agent and speculator, coastal trader, militia captain, and commander of Fort Loyal at Falmouth (Portland, Me.); b. c. 1635; d. 19 April 1703 (o.s.) in Hull (Nantasket, Mass.).

Davis’ origins and early history are obscure. From 1659 on he acquired lands in Maine on the Damariscotta, the Kennebec and nearby rivers, and on Casco Bay; his trading activities with the Indians, the settlers, and also the French date from this period. In the early 1680s he moved from the Kennebec to Falmouth, where he was a leading landowner and businessman, operator of a sawmill, a grist-mill, and a store, while carrying on his coastal trade. In 1686 he was made a justice of the peace, and in 1691 he became one of the representatives of Maine in the Council. A militia captain in King Philip’s War, Davis continued his military activities after his move to Falmouth, commanding Fort Loyal, the principal English strong point on Casco Bay; he held this post in 1689 and again in May 1690, when the fort’s new commander withdrew to Boston for aid as a large force of French and Indians under the command of RENÉ ROBINAU de Portneuf and AUGUSTIN Le Gardeur de Courtemanche approached. The attack, one of Buade* de Frontenac’s planned strikes against the English colonies, began on 16 May (26 May, N.S.). On 20 May, after a siege of five days, Fort Loyal surrendered; Davis was one of the few to survive the massacre which followed.

He was fairly well treated on the long journey to the St Lawrence, and had considerable freedom during his four months in Quebec. He was there throughout the unsuccessful siege by the Philips* expedition, and was one of the prisoners exchanged for Phips’s French captives when the fleet withdrew in October 1690. On his return Captain Davis wrote an account of the fall of Fort Loyal, of his conversation with Frontenac, and of his experiences and impressions during the siege.

Later in the 1690s he moved to Massachusetts, retaining some of his interests in Maine, and settled finally in Hull, where he remained until his death in 1703. A man of energy and enterprise, ambitious, a shrewd businessman, Davis was also an experienced Indian fighter, a good disciplinarian, and a courageous commander.

Sylvanus Davis was at Arrowsic Island in 1676 as an agent for the Clark and Lake Company when after the attack that destroyed Woolwich on August 13th, the Indians attacked the Clark and Lake settlement and fort at the southeasterly point of the island. Williamson in the The History of the State of Maine notes what happened after the Indians were able to get past the sentinel on duty and gain entrance to the fort.

"Aroused from sleep, Capt. Lake, Davis, and others, soon finding resistance vain, fled through a back-door, and jumping into a canoe, strove to reach another Island. Overtaken, however, by their pursuers, just as they were stepping on shore, Lake was killed by a musket-shot, and Davis so wounded that he could neither fight nor flee. Able now only to creep, he hid himself in a cleft of the rocks; and the beams of the rising sun, in the eyes of the assailants, prevented a discovery. Nevertheless, two days elapsed before he could, even in a light canoe, paddle himself away to the shores of the main."

Davis recovered sufficiently from his wounds to return to Arrowsic Island in March 1677 to refortify the former settlement there with a garrison of 40 men. This garrison, which according to Williamson had not yet had time to bury the bodies of the victims from the attack in late August, 1676, was again attacked by Indians with the loss of nine lives.

Davis was one of the survivors who fled to the fort at Casco Bay; he eventually commanded the fort at Falmouth (Portland) under Bradstreet. Falmouth, along with all the other communities in Maine east of Wells were now abandoned except for garrisons of colonial soldiers. Ida Proper as well as contemporary writers note on and off activity at Monhegan Island and possibly other isolated locations on the Maine coast in the 1680s. The coastal activities of Davis as well as his gradual migration from central Maine to Portland and to Boston are representative of many a coastal trader. Davis removed to Boston where he became active in the government under Andros. Later on the fall of Fort Loyal Davis spent four months as a prisoner in Canada. Both Falmouth and Arrowsic remained uninhabited until 1714 and 1716 respectively.

Isaac Addington, Jr. married twice, first to Elizabeth Bowen (1646-1712) and second in 1713 to Elizabeth (Norton) Wainwright. He had one daughter by his first wife but she probably died young since she is not listed in his will. Isaac Addington Jr. was a prominent citizen and a member of the House of Representative and its Speaker in 1685.

Isaac Addington (January 22, 1644/5 - March 19, 1719) was a longtime functionary of various colonial governments of Massachusetts, including a brief period as the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, the highest court in the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

Addington was born in Boston, the capital of the , to Isaac Addington. He attended for two years (1658-59), but did not graduate. He was apparently trained further in medicine, for he styled himself for many years as a chirurgeon, even while occupying public offices. In 1672 he was given a temporary appointment as the Suffolk County register of deeds, which was made permanent the following year. He would fill this role until 1690, except during the period of the , 1686-1689. In 1685 he was elected to the colonial assembly, and the following year he was chosen to sit on the court of assistants (a body that served as the assembly's upper house and as the colonial high court).

Upon the arrival of Sir to head the Dominion of New England in December 1686, Addington was on a committee charged with managing the dominion records. The dominion was highly unpopular, and in 1689 Andros was arrested in a popular uprising. In its aftermath Addington was appointed secretary of the committee that provisionally governed the colony until 1692.

In May 1692 Sir arrived with the colonial charter for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which included the territory of the old Massachusetts colony and that of . Addington was appointed Secretary of the province by Phips, who had been appointed its first governor; Addington held this office until his death. He was also appointed the record keeper of a number of the province's courts, and also served for several years on the bench of the Suffolk County Court of Common Pleas. On June 30, 1702 Governor appointed him to be Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, the province's high court. He only held this office for a year, at which time he resigned, citing poor health and the workload of his other positions.

Addington died in Boston on March 19, 1714/5, and was buried in the tomb of Governor in Boston's King's Chapel Burying Ground. He was twice married; his only child apparently died young. He bequeathed his estate to nephew Addington Davenport, who later followed his uncle onto the superior court bench.