District of Maine

This article is about the former territory of Massachusetts. For the District Court, see United States District Court for the District of Maine.

District of Maine
Part of Massachusetts
1778–1820
History
• Established	1778
• Missouri Compromise: Statehood	4 March 1820
Preceded by Succeeded by York County, Massachusetts Maine
Today part of	Maine

The District of Maine was the governmental designation for what is now the U.S. state of Maine from October 25, 1780 to March 15, 1820, when it was admitted to the Union as the 23rd state. The district was a part of the state of Massachusetts (which prior to the American Revolution was the British Province of Massachusetts Bay).

Colonial history

Originally settled in 1607 by the Plymouth Company, the coastal area between the Merrimack and Kennebec rivers, as well as an irregular parcel of land between the headwaters of the two rivers, became the Province of Maine in a 1622 land patent. In 1629, the patent was split, creating an area between the Piscataqua and Merrimack rivers which was named the Province of New Hampshire. By 1658, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had integrated the Province of Maine (formerly known as New Somersetshire) into its jurisdiction.

The northeastern portion of present-day Maine was first sparsely occupied by Maliseet Indians and French settlers from Acadia. The lands between the Kennebec and Saint Croix rivers were granted to the Duke of York in 1664, who had them administered as Cornwall County, part of his proprietary Province of New York. In 1688, these lands (along with the rest of New York) were subsumed into the Dominion of New England. English and French claims in western Maine would be contested, at times violently, until the British conquest of New France in the French and Indian War. With the creation of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1692, the entirety of what is now Maine became part of that province. The region was first administered as York County, which was subdivided by the creation in 1760 of Cumberland and Lincoln counties.

District history

When Massachusetts adopted its state constitution in 1780, it created the District of Maine to manage its northernmost counties, bounded on the west by the Piscataqua River and on the east by the Saint Croix River. By 1820, district had been further subdivided with the creation of Hancock, Kennebec, Oxford, Penobscot, Somerset, and Washington counties.

A movement for Maine statehood began as early as 1785, and in the following years several conventions were held to effect this. Starting in 1792 five popular votes were taken but all failed to reach the necessary majorities. During the War of 1812 the British Army occupied a large portion of Maine including everything from the Penobscot River east to the New Brunswick border. A weak response by Massachusetts to this occupation contributed to increased calls in the Maine district for statehood.

Statehood

The Massachusetts General Court passed enabling legislation on June 19, 1819 separating the District of Maine from the rest of the State. The following month, on July 19, voters in the district approved statehood by 17,091 to 7,132.

County	For statehood		For status quo
	Votes	PCT	Votes	PCT
Cumberland	3,315	70.4%	1,394	29.6%
Hancock	820	51.9%	761	48.1%
Kennebec	3,950	86.0%	641	14.0%
Lincoln	2,523	62.2%	1,534	37.8%
Oxford	1,893	77.5%	550	22.5%
Penobscot	584	71.7%	231	28.3%
Somerset	1,440	85.9%	237	14.1%
Washington	480	77.7%	138	22.3%
York	2,086	55.9%	1,646	44.2%
Total:	17,091	70.6%	7,132	29.4%

The results of the election were presented to the Massachusetts Governor's Council on August 24, 1819. The Maine Constitution was unanimously approved by the 210 delegates to the Maine Constitutional Convention in October 1819. On February 25, 1820, the General Court passed a follow-up measure officially accepting the fact of Maine's imminent statehood.

At the time of Maine’s request for statehood, there were an equal number of free and slave states. Pro-slavery members of the United States Congress saw the admission of another free state, Maine, as a threat to the balance between slave and free states. They would only support statehood for Maine if Missouri Territory, where slavery was legal, would be admitted to the Union as a slave state. Maine became the nation's 23rd state on March 15, 1820, following the Missouri Compromise, which allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave-holding state and Maine as a free state.

External links

• Willis, William, History of Portland, 1865. (Ch. 24: Separation of Maine from Massachusetts)