Let's write about little known racism history in Shapleigh Maine! Who knew?

Anybody reading this know where Shapleigh Maine is located? See Facebook link here. 

Shapleigh Maine Town Hall

If it were a Jeapardy question, no one would have a correct answer. Why should you know? And that is the point of this "Let's Write" blog. Who knew there was colonial racism in Shapleigh Maine?

This bridge connecting Orr's Island and Bailey's Island was built in 1928, and is known as the Cribstone Bridge. Due to the tidal action in the area known as Will's Gut, the bridge's foundation was made from granite slabs to withstand the waves and winds. The bridge was listed on the National Historic Registry of Places in 1975, and in 1983, listed as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

I just happened to know where Shapleigh is located because the town is located slightly northwest and adjacnt to Sanford Maine, where my husband was born and where my two sons graduated from high school. Otherwise, there is probably no reason to know about Shapleigh. 

As a nurse, I did a few visiting home health visits in the town where I cared for people who lived in small houses heated almost entirely with wood.

But then I found this article in The Bollard, a monthly published Maine newspaper. "You have got to be kidding❗" was my reaction. But, after my initial alarm, it finally hit me that there is nothing at all funny in this short racial history about Shapleigh, Maine. 

So, with due respect to the author Samuel James, and a credit to the September, 2204 "The Bollard".....here is the surprising report- but one caveat.....I have no information abut how to verify this story. 

Nevertheless, I can only tell the readers about my own experience in Shapleigh.... this town is almost like a rustic version of "Brigadoon".....a mysterious Maine village that appears for only one day every 100 years (or so...). In this case, the "appearance" occured in the year 1682*.

Maine's Mid Coast Baily Island is part of the town of Harpswell, and it's known for a lot of things. Carl Jung gave his first American lecture at the Baily Island Library Hall, in 1936. Bailey Island is also the home of the only cribstne bridge in the world, a cobwork design built in 1928, to withstand rough tides. The bridge connects Bailey Island to neighboring Orr's Island, over a body of water called Will's Gut. But, the most compelling story about Bailey Island strats about 80 miles away, in Shapleigh Maine.

Well, to be honest and in continuation of my comparisom with a Maine version of Brigadoon, the story really starts more than a century before the town's founding, with the death of the namesake, a man named Nicholas Shapleigh.

Born wealthy in England, Shapleigh arrived in the Province of Maine around 1644. He was so rich that the townof Kittery was named after his family's estate, Kittery Quay, in Kingsear, Devon.  Naturally, a few years after his arrival in Maine, he was appointed provincial treasurer and made a major in command of the Maine militia.  Shapleigh put his family money to use, building a gristmill, sawmill, increasing his family's already unseakable wealth.  Of course, much of the actual labor was don by the Black people Shapleigh had enslaved, at least one of whom was a child when Nicholas abducted him from Africa.

But, in April of 1682, while watching a boat launch, the vessel's mast broke off and knocked Nicholas on the head, killing him.  He' left his fortune- including the enslaved Africans- to his nehew, John Shapleigh.  One of these inherited enslaved people abducted by Nicholas as a child was Will.  The townsfold called him "Black Will" because, of course, they did and he caused a bit of trouble. Will had a child with Alice Hanscom, a white woman and because interacial marriages were illegal, their child, Will Jr. , became a ward of the town.  But, in the year 1700, after 18 yeas providing free labor for the Shapleights, Will was freed.  This probably had something to do with John not wanting to financially support Will Jr., who was not 10 years old.

In freedome, Will made big moves. He changed his name to Will Black.  He'd alreaey bought 100 acres in what is now Eliot, Maine, for 25 pounds he managed to save working jobs off the Shapleight plantation. Will established a farmstead. He struck a deal with a local enslaver, trading two of his acres for the freedom of his friend Tony, who soon changed his name to Anthony Freeman. Through act like this, Will turned his farmstead into Maine's first Black community.

Like his father, Will Jr. also made big moves.  He bought land in Berwick and in 1714, he fell in love.  her name was Elizabeth Turbet and she ws white.  Again, interracial marriages were illegal, so when word spread about their relationship, Will Jr. was jailed and the local judge blocked their marriage.  A few years later, when Elizabeth gave birth to Will Black III, the town again lost their shit.  There's no available record of Will Jrs.'s punishment, but Elizabeth received 20 lashes and Will probably got the same, at least. 

It wasnt' long after when Will Jr. took his family up the coast.  Unlike the white settlers, Will Jr. established a good relationship with local tribes and he and his family settled on the island Capenawagen. That island that soon came to be known as Will's Island and it was proably pretty nice to be away from the racist white power structures.  But colonizers are, well, colonizers, and Will Jr. wasn't aqquite done putting up with their bullshit. 

William Dudley was a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, the nepo baby son of a former governor and he wanted Will's Island real bad.  Dudley went to the Committee for Resettlement and literally asked to be given "the island upon which Black Will lives".  But, something went wrong somewhere along the transactions and Dudley ended up with Haskell Island instead.  Undeterred and greedy as ll Hell, Dudley then went back to the committee and asked in particualr for "the island whrein said Black Will doth reside, commonly called Sapernawagen".  Without any say from Will Jr., Dudley got a deed to the island, but he died before setting foot on what remained Will's Island.

Will Jr. died rich of old ate in 1762, and was buried alongside his wife on Will's Island.  At some point, the island came into the possession of Deacon Timothy Bailey, after whom it's currently named.  But under that singular cribstone bridge connecting Bailey and Orr's Island, lies a body of water, a strait called Will's Gut, anmed after the original son of Maine's first Black community.

* Coincidentally....1682 was the same year when the French explorer La Salle claimed the land at the mouth of the Mississippi River for France and named it "La Louisiane" in honor of King Louis XIV- just in cast you want to know.

Let's write about Republican Liz Cheney endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris

Thursday, September 05, 2024  Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney endorses Vice-President Kamala Harris in strategically important North Carolina

Former Wyoming Republica Congresswoman Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney, revealed that she will vote for Vice President Kamala Harris for president, during a Duke University event titled "Defending Democracy."

Echo report published in the Duke University Chronicle by By Michael Austin (managing editor) , Zoe Kolenovsky (news editor) and Ava Littman (associated news editor).

Peter Feaver, professor of political science and director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy, who moderated the event, asked Cheney if she wanted to “make news” by endorsing a presidential candidate❓

Cheney had previously not weighed in on which candidate she would be supporting in the 2024, presidential election.

“Because we are here in North Carolina, I think it is crucially important for people to recognize … that Trump poses something that should prevent people from voting for him, but I don’t believe we have the luxury of writing in candidates' names — particularly in swing states,” she said. “And as a conservative, and someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”

Her comments elicited a standing ovation from the audience.

Cheney spoke in Page Auditorium at a Sanford Distinguished Lecture, where she shared her experience as vice chairwoman of the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol and gave insights into election security in advance of this November.

Moments after expressing her support for Harris, Cheney said the U.S. has “an obligation to make sure that this election is not close” to show the world “who we are.”

Cheney spoke on the importance of voting for serious candidates and “[committing] ourselves, for the good of this country, to having substantive debates and discussions, not to demonizing political opponents.”

“We have to defeat election deniers … Here in North Carolina, that means defeating the Republican candidate for governor,” she said in reference to N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.

After the Jan 6. insurrection, Cheney became a staunch critic of Former guy Donald Trump. Unlike many of her fellow Republican politicians, she publicly and consistently denounced Trump’s actions.

Cheney explained that when Trump returned to the White House from speaking to the mob of his supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, he watched the violence unfold on his television. She said he refused to heed pleas from his staffers and family members to call off the violence, even ignoring a note informing him that a civilian had been shot amid the chaos.

Rather than take action, he tweeted about then-Vice President Mike Pence’s apparent lack of courage, which Cheney said effectively “poured gasoline on the fire of the attack.”

“That’s a man who can never again be entrusted with power,” she said.

Cheney claimed that many members of Congress told her they would have voted to impeach Trump if it was a “secret ballot.”

When asked by Feaver why so many Republicans went back on their private commitments to break with Trump, Cheney gave a one-word explanation: “cowardice.”

Cheney also recalled a conversation with then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy a few days after the election, where he shared that he had met with then-president Trump who “knew he lost.”

From her position on the select committee, Cheney witnessed the “breadth and the depth” of Trump’s plan to “overturn the election.” He went from pushing state legislatures to throw out their electoral votes for Biden to pressuring the vice president and Department of Justice, ultimately mobilizing a mob, she explained.

“Each time something was tried and failed … he would move on to the next piece of it,” she said.

Cheney also spoke of McCarthy’s visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after Jan. 6, which she characterized as “stunning.”

“After the violence, many of the largest corporations in the country announced they would not be donating to Republicans … So [McCarthy] needed money,💲💵 and he needed access to Donald Trump's donor lists,” Cheney explained.

As an influential figure in the party, Cheney saw McCarthy’s actions as enabling other Republicans “to bring [Trump] back into the fold in exchange for access to those lists.”

She recognized the “courage” of others who stood up to Trump, including Pence, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, former Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews and Russell Bowers, former speaker of the Arizona House.

“[If] Vice President Pence had not withstood the pressure from Donald Trump to act in a way that was illegal and unconstitutional, we would have been in a very much more serious constitutional crisis.”

Cheney pointed out that Trump’s current running mate, JD Vance, “has said specifically, repeatedly that he will not do what Mike Pence did, were he ever to face that situation.”

She believes that the Republican Party is no longer characterized by “substance” and “policy.”

“I don't know that the current Republican Party can be resuscitated,” Cheney said. “I think that there's going to have to be very, very significant work done.”

In concluding her address, Cheney called upon young people to “step up” and “get to the polls.”

“Much of the work that we're going to have to do sort of post this election cycle is getting back to a place where this country has two strong political parties that embrace the Constitution and where we can have substantive debates,” Cheney said.

Editor's note: This story was updated Wednesday night with the rest of Cheney's remarks

Labels: Ava Littman, defending democracy, Duke University, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Austin, zoe Kolenovsky