Gov. Pownall's Certificate of Taking Possession of the Penobscot

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1859 Excerpt: ...by which the money thus raised was refunded to the parish where the tax justly belonged. The increase of the church is indicated by the amount of this taxation. In 1765 it was forty-three pounds seven shillings 1 There is a sad uproar about Wiswall, who has declared for the church. Smith's Journal, 200. 2 Greenleaf, 41. ten pence; in 1774 it was one hundred and nine pounds six shillings nine pence. The next year after the rector's return, he reported to the society in England, that his congregation had increased to seventy families, who constantly attended worship, with a considerable number of strangers and twenty-one communicants. It is not purposed to pursue the history of the mission in Portland any further. It would be interesting to describe its progress through its various fluctuations of prosperous and adverse changes, --the destruction of its church by the fire of the British war-ships, followed by the dispersion of the congregation, --its rebuilding twelve years afterwards, when only twenty persons subscribed for a weekly payment to support a clergyman, who was allowed to preach three Sundays in a year at Windham,1 where some of the members of the church resided;--its incorporation as a parish in 1791, --the exchange of this building for a new brick structure, (1802) and the later improvement and enlargement to accommodate its increasing congregation. Another church has sprung from it as an offshoot, in strong and efficient growth, with its impressive edifice of stone; while both parishes now have a condition of prosperity, in marvelous contrast with the hardships and trials endured by the friends of the church through the chief part of the previous two centuries. From the settlement on Casco Bay we now turn to the Kennebec. Efforts had b...