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.