Waldo Patent

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Waldo Patent, a letters patent also known as the Muscongus Patent or the Lincolnshire Patent, was an area of land 36 miles square in what is now the U.S. state of Maine.

In March, 1630, John Beauchamp of London, England, and Thomas Leverett of Boston, England, obtained a grant of land from a company acting under the authority of the government of England.

This grant was first known as the Muscongus Patent from the Muscongus River that formed a part of the western boundary. From the seacoast, it extended northerly between Penobscot Bay and Penobscot River on the east, and the Muscongus River on the west, to the line that constitutes the southern boundary of the towns Hampden, Newburgh and Dixmont.

This grant or patent conveyed nothing but the right of exclusive trade with the Native Americans—perhaps the Penobscot or Abenaki peoples—to promote which a trading house was built and supplied with such articles of exchange as were necessary to a successful traffic. This traffic was carried on without interruption to the mutual advantage of the European-American settlers and natives until the opening of the first Indian Wars in 1675, a period of 45 years.

About the year 1720 this patent passed into the hands of a wealthy family of Boston of the name of Waldo and from that time it was known as the Waldo Patent.

General Samuel Waldo was proprietor of the Waldo Patent. He is said to have gone to Europe to recruit German immigrants to come to his land in Maine and settle on his 576,000 acres (2,331 km²) of land, including parts of what are now Waldo, Penobscot and Lincoln counties and all of Knox County, Maine, along with the islands within three miles of its border.

In 1759, Waldo accompanied the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Thomas Pownall, and his 400 men to help establish this site. Waldo dropped dead while exploring the northern reaches of his property.