Brunswick, 1738 plan of

Object/Artifact

-

Pejepscot History Center

Name/Title

Brunswick, 1738 plan of

Entry/Object ID

OH.188

Description

Pen and ink map on paper of Brunswick town plan. According to an attached label, it is a "Plan of Brunswick in 1738. Copied from the original in the possession of Maine Historical Society. Presented to the Pejepscot Historical Society by Henry W. Wheeler 1889." 61cm x 53cm. The drawing lays out boundaries of the town with coastline, Merrymeeting Bay, Topsham, and North Yarmouth lines. The northeastern border is indicated "four meters from the second falls." Fort George, the First Parish Church, and a number of other buildings are indicated. Henry W. Wheeler was one of the original founders of Pejepscot Historical Society and the author, with his brother, of "The History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine" (1878). Original dated 1738. This copy dated to 1889.

Exhibitions

Exhibition

Adaptation and Resistance: Indigenous History of the Pejepscot Region

Notes

Thomas Purchase (1577-1678) was the first white man to settle in the Pejepscot region. He in turn sold land to Richard Wharton, who then sold it to a group of eight white men from Boston who called themselves the Pejepscot Proprietors. These land parcels formed what are now Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell. The Proprietors commissioned this map to promote settlement in the area so they could sell the land to other Europeans for a profit. The Abenaki people of the area were not involved or consulted in any part of this process. According to English land records, a group of men hundreds of miles away owned the land, which was split into three towns. These boundaries did not exist before the Proprietors established them on paper. When this town plan was originally created in 1738, European settlement had already long denied the Abenaki rights to their own land. Pen and ink copy of a Brunswick town plan. A label identifies it as the “Plan of Brunswick in 1738. Copied from the original in the possession of Maine Historical Society. Presented to the Pejepscot Historical Society by Henry W. Wheeler 1889.”