"What is the opportunity for diverting the current from Frederickton and Quebec to ports within this district? Mr. Greenleaf in a communication dated Williamsburg, December 29, 1813, answered these questions. He stated that the District of Maine then comprised about 34,680 square miles of which 16,175 square miles are already sold and located. There was then still in the possession of the Commonwealth 18,508 square miles, of 11,845,200 acres, out of which about 430,000 acres had been reserved for the Penobscot Indians, and probably about 45,000 acres were occupied by a number of French on the St. John which was then in the county of Hancock. Mr. Greenleaf gave it as his opinion that 11,000,000 constituted the disposable fund of the Commonwealth in eastern lands. He gave it as his opinion that the five nearest markets would probably attract to themselves the populations of sections containing very nearly the number of acres subjoined: Augusta on the Kennebec Bangor on the Penobscot Frederickton Quebec Total ... 619,000 acres 3,745,300 66 Mr Greenleaf urged that unless measures were taken to open in the best possible manner communication by land and water from Bangor and Augusta into the heart of the territory, the people would be obliged to depend upon foreign markets for their supplies, and that "this state, as well as the nation, will thus lose all the benefit resulting from the interchange of products between this part of its own commercial and agricultural population." Mr. Greenleaf said that the central part of this body of land due north of Bangor, distant about 100 miles in a straight line. The most central point of communication with much of the largest part of the interior is about ten degrees west from Bangor, and distant about 100 miles in a straight line. On account of the intervention of lakes and mountains the nearest practicable route to this point must pass between the Spencer mountains, north. Mr. Greenleaf continuing this report says: "From this point there are good water communications in different directions exceeding 290 miles, through the state lands alone, with only four portages, the longest of which does not exceed two miles. Considering the county in sections, referring to the quality of the good land and proportion, it appears that of the section immediately west of Moosehead lake containing about 276,000 acres, one-third is good land. The whole tract west of this, (about 849,000 acres, including that in the county of Oxford,) is mountainous, and about one-fourth good land. "Between Moosehead lake and the East Branch of Penobscot, including a tract north of this, about the heads of the Aroostook, about 1,160,000 acres, of which one-third may be considered good land; this tract is generally mountainous, and not so rugged as the tract last mentioned. "Between Penobscot, Schoodic and Mattawamkeag, generally level, say about 640,000 acres, one-half good land. "North of Mattawamkeag is a tract of low, swampy land, about 300,000 acres of which probably not more than one-fourth is good land, and about 1,400,000 acres of which one-half is good. "In the N. E. corner of the district is a mountainous tract probably 780,000 acres, quality unknown. "The remaining land, about 6,400,000 acres, on the waters of St. John and the northwestern branches of the Penobscot, is a continued body of good land, extending from the eastern to the northwestern frontier of which three-fourths is good land. The eastern part is generally level, the western rises in large swells, there are no mountains of consequence from the ten townships laid out on the Kennebec road until very near the northeastern extremity. The most central part of the good land in this tract is rather west of the meridian of Bangor. "The tract on the eastern frontier can be made most easily accessible to settlers, only from the St. John. The remainder may be easily made accessible both by land and water, from parts already settled within the district. "In estimating the different proportions of good land as above described, reference is had only to land of the first quality in the several sections, the proportions between third, fourth, and so on, have not been so much the objects of my research and there fore I can only conjecture them. They may perhaps be the best by comparison of the parts of the district already known. "From ten years of interested observation and the concurrent opinion of all with whom I have had opportunity to converse and on whose judgment I could rely, I am convinced that to fill the interior of the District rapidly with inhabitants, nothing is more necessary than good roads, and liberal terms of salethat on this subject parsimony is real waste, and an extensive, liberal and vigorous system of improvement the only true economy. GREENLEAF'S REPORT. Mr. Greenleaf was among those who were intensely and partisanly interested in the proposed separation of the District of Maine from Massachusetts, and, in 1816, when this matter was before the legislature, published his first book, one of the objects of which was to give the members of the General' Court information regarding the District. This report was recognized as containing extremely valuable and accurate statements concerning the District about which at that time comparatively very little was known by Massachusetts people. Even those who were the best informed thought of Maine, if they thought about it at all, as an unknown and almost useless annex of their Commonwealth. Mr. Greenleaf in this report among other things said: "More than three-fourths of the land in Maine is yet a wilderness, and is owned principally by the state of Massachusetts; the remainder by different individuals, who have purchased wholly with a view to profit by re-sales, and not for the purpose of cultivation. The rest may be considered generally as in the hands of the cultivators. It will be necessary to consider these two as separate classes; and it will be sufficiently exact for the present purpose if all the land in the incorporated towns and plantations is classed, as in the hands of the cultivators, and valued according to its estimated net income; and the remainder as belonging to the State, and to be valued only by the product of its future sales. The quantities belonging to each class are as follows: |