When was the northern boundary of maine settled

As the industry moved north of the Penobscot waters, it became a source of tension between Maine and its eastern neighbor, New Brunswick. In , negotiators ran a "monument line" due north from the St. Lawrence from those entering the Atlantic — the agreed-upon northern boundary. Maine insisted this height of land was north of the St. John, while New Brunswick saw the Penobscot watershed as the boundary.

Settlement in the s brought tensions, and these were exacerbated when lumber operators from Maine and New Brunswick converged on the timber adjacent to the Aroostook, Allagash, and St. John rivers. Maine declined to accept what was known as the King of the Netherlands' line — a settlement that would have given the U. John and St. One note on geography may be helpful: Connors mentions the town Estcourt in the story, which is the town in Quebec where the border takes the sharp southwestern turn.

Now, back in the day, they say, that the international engineers that ran the boundary came to St. Francis, and they went to Clara Hotel in St. Francis and they got slightly inebriated and they stayed there for two or three days because it was a stopping place.

And then with a goodly supply of alcoholic beverages, you know, back in those days, as they did today, as they do today rather, they drank it in the summer to keep cool and in the winter to keep warm. And it was a good fly [unclear] so they claimed.

In any event, they left after a few days in St. Canadian troops seized the Caroline in a New York port, killing one crewman in the process, and set the ship free to drift over Niagara Falls. Later, Alexander McLeod crossed into New York, bragging that he had participated in the seizure of the Caroline , and had killed the crewman.

McLeod was arrested. Great Britain maintained that McLeod had acted as a member the British forces and that it would take responsibility for his actions. Should he be executed, it would mean war. The U. Government agreed that McLeod could not be tried for actions committed under orders of the British Government, but it was legally incapable of compelling the State of New York to release him.

New York would not back down and tried McLeod. It is evident that the line from the St. Croix to the Canadian high land is intended to exclude all the waters running into the St. I also found another map in the Archives, on which the same boundary was traced in a dotted red line with a pen, apparently coloured from the other. Rives, added that Sparks' discovery was further corroborated "by proof from the archives of an American Statesman":.

Jefferson's collection, in the zeal of opposition without taking time to see what it was, to confront and invalidate the map found by Mr. Sparks in the Foreign Office at Paris; but the moment it was examined, it is found to contain, by the most precise and remarkable correspondence, in every feature, the map communicated by Mr. Click for the entire transcript of the Secret Session of the Senate discussions of the Treaty, August Lord Ashburton too saw the advantages in promoting the Sparks map.

He apparently arranged, with Webster, for Sparks to visit the governors of Maine and Massachusetts with the information about the map in the French archives.

What is usually not mentioned in accounts of the negotations is that Lord Ashburton, Alexander Baring, was the son of Sir Francis Baring, head of the banking house of that name. The Baring House had bailed out William Bingham, one of the biggest investors in Maine lumber lands; Bingham had purchased several million acres of land but was unable to meet his payments.

Unable to borrow from American banks, Bingham turned to Barings. Although none of this land was in the disputed territory, it demonstrates the ties Baring had with Maine timber interests. Alexander reported favorably to his father on the loan and on the Bingham daughter, Anne, as well. It was Alexander Baring, by then elevated to the peerage, who was sent to America as Lord Ashburton to attempt to settle the Northeast Boundary Dispute. Thus New Brunswick felt to some degree cheated by its own British representatives, given that they had appointed Ashburton in full knowledge of his conflict of interest.

On the other hand, London chose Ashburton specifically because of his good relationship with Webster, as well as his connections to Maine, hoping he would be able to reach a settlement acceptable to the Americans.

We must also remember that Ashburton was operating under instructions from London. These instructions "changed from time to time.

In March they shifted, taking into account military and strategic interests, and Ashburton. John River, and extending from the St. Francis southward to the source of the St. John,--a rectangle that under the Dutch award, would have gone to the United States. Ashburton vigorously protested this hardening of his instructions and a month later [Secretary for Foreign Affairs Lord] Aberdeen retreated, returning to the requirement of a line not less favorable to Great Britain than the Dutch award.

In the end, Britain conceded to the US in a number of areas of the border to the west of Maine, as well as the right to free navigation of the lower St. John River for delivery of timber and agricultural goods of Americans on the upper St. John and Aroostook, while the final border of western Maine was significantly to the east of the proposal.

The final line, in Maine as well as in the rest of the border, from New Hampshire to Minnesota, was very favorable to the United States. The land retained by Britain, on the other hand, proved to be of marginal economic value. For the British government, the main goal seems to have been to settle this issue as part of an overall attempt to improve relations with the United States.

The Treaty was nevertheless harshly critized in Britain, notably by Lord Palmerston, who denounced it as shameful, and as a capitulation to the US. Sir Robert Peel responded:. John through which the road to the city of Quebec ran. The treaty had closed a dispute dating back half a century that Palmerston had failed, during ten years in office, to resolve. Peel also defended the Treaty by referring to a series of maps from the time of the negotiations, including one entitled "A Map of the Boundary of the United States, as agreed to by the treaty of , by Mr.

Faden, Geographer to the King":. But there is still another map. Here--in this country. In the library of the late King, was deposited a map by Mitchell, of the date The map was in the possession of the late king It is marked by a broad red line, and on that line is written, 'Boundary as described by our negotiator, Mr.

Oswald'; and that line follows the claim of the United States. On that map, I repeat, is placed the boundary line--that claimed by the United States, and on four different places on that line, 'Boundary as described by Oswald'. Now I do not say that that was the boundary ultimately settled by the negotiators, but nothing can be more fallacious than founding a claim upon contemporary maps, unless you can also prove that they were adopted by the negotiators. Peel also discounted the authenticity of the Sparks map.

Apparently Peel and others in the British government had serious doubts about the British line, though they swore to the Americans that at the time of the negotiations over the treaty they had been unaware of the George III map or others which seemed to support the US claim.

In the end, the argument of maps is inconclusive; the Treaty did not include maps to indicate with certainty the intention of the negotiators, who relied only on the description. Both sides did, however, use the threat of unfavorable maps to convince doubters at home that the Treaty was indeed a good deal for them. Nevertheless, it seems hard to imagine that the British negotiators in intended to cede to the United States the entire valley of the upper St.

John, given its vital military significance; or to allow the border to be drawn within 15 miles of the St. Lawrence River, as the US claim to those highlands would indicate. In the end, it seems that the United States benefited from the lack of precision of the negotiators, and from the desire of London in to reach a settlement on good terms with the US. The only party that seems to be left out is the provincial government of New Brunswick.

Indeed, the debate in the British Parliament focused on what was good for Britain; unlike the State of Maine, which had much influence, both Constitutional and political, in Washington, New Brunswick did not possess the kind of clout that could swing London from what it saw as a decision of importance for the interest of the Empire as a whole.

The general sense was the award of the King of the Netherlands in was a just one and this new treaty gave more to New Brunswick than before. There was still hard feeling for some who were convinced on the correctness of the British point of view and one person declared that 'the appointment of Lord Ashburton had been the 'cruellest cut of all.

There has been an American interest, or an American feeling, or both, existing among the majority of persons employed on our side. But MacNutt also notes some of the advantages New Brunswick received from the final settlement:. For a long time it had been considered desirable to impose a tax on timber exported from the province, a cheap and efficient substitute for the stumpage duties collected from the Crown lands. The treaty allowed the Americans to employ the down-river facilities of the St.

John on the same terms as British subjects. A tax on timber exported by native merchants would fall equally on Americans who floated out logs from the formerly disputed territory. This finally went into effect in Thoroughly irritated, the American government protested; the British government subjected the question to anxious review, but the province was in a strong legal position and succeeded in imposing its policy.