TABLE OF CONTENTS. JULY, 1890. James Shepherd Pike, by Geo. F. Talbot,. PAGE 225 Problem of Hammond's Fort, by Rev. Henry O. Thayer, 261 Robert Hallowell Gardiner, by Rev. Asa Dalton, D.D, 295 301 Rev. Eugene Vetromile, by H. W. Bryant. 309 Leaves from Early History of Dresden, by Chas. E. Allen, 313 Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine, EDITORIAL ITEMS, . 334 335 Editing and Publishing Staff. GEO. F. TALBOT, EDITOR. Publishing Committee: WILLIAM B. LAPHAM, HENRY L. CHAPMAN, WILLIAM M. SARGENT, ASSISTANT EDITOR. Publishers: BROWN THURSTON COMPANY, PORTLAND, MAINE. JAMES SHEPHERD PIKE. 225 The Sucesy JAMES SHEPHERD PIKE. Read before the Maine Historical Society, December 22, 1885. BY GEORGE FOSTER TALBOT. IN exploring the ancient beginnings of the history of our state, we must not overlook the grand events, nearer our own times, that have already become historic. In these events-in the great political changes, which have renewed and confirmed the popular liberties, and given strength and stability to our republican constitution-James Shepherd Pike, a citizen of Maine, whose demise has lately happened, was a prominent actor. The tribute we pay his life of disinterested public service is all the more necessary and grateful, in that his public service was so inconspicuous. Applause follows loud and fast upon the footsteps of the military hero. The reputation that rewards brilliant oratory in the courts, or in the state or national legislature, and the distinction and emoluments that accompany the holding of high office, are promptly, spontaneously and universally accorded. But the private citizen, who becomes the advocate of the people, too disorganized to concert for the maintenance of their rights, too poor to compensate, sometimes too short-sighted to appreciate their voluntary defender, whose only incentive is zeal for a just cause, whose only reward is the approval of a good conscience, and who discusses public questions in leading journals, where his personality is merely shadowed in the initials of his name, or quite obscured in an association of unnamed editors, does not make a conspicuous exhibition of himself to the world. If the general public overlook such men, we must rescue them from their privacy and honor their achievements; for it is the historian's business to discover and proclaim the men who really guide the thought of their times, and who initiate the movements which in their issues overthrew or established social and political institutions. James Shepherd Pike was born in Calais, in the state of Maine, on the eighth of September, 1811. His father was William Pike, who was born in Portland, August 18, 1775, and his mother was Hannah Shepherd, born in Jefferson, Maine, in 1785. William Pike was twice married, and by his first marriage had a son, the late William Pike of Calais, and a daughter, who became the wife of Judge Anson G., son of General John Chandler, one of Maine's first senators in congress. James Shepherd was the eldest but one of the children of Hannah Shepherd, of whom Edgar, a brilliant scholar, graduate of Bowdoin College, died at the very opening of a promising career as a lawyer in the state of Louisiana, where he established himself immediately after leaving college; Charles E. became a lawyer, practicing successfully in Machias, Maine, in Boston, and in Wisconsin, where he now lives, and having been a member of the legislatures of both Maine and Massachusetts, and solicitor of the internal revenue bureau at Washington; and Frederic A., late of Calais, deceased, is well known in the political history of the country as an influential member of congress, during the important period of the civil war, as a leading lawyer and a sagacious, enterprising and successful business man. The Pikes are of the New England Puritan stock, the first immigrant and progenitor having been John Pike, born in Langford, England, who removed to America in 1635, bringing his son Robert, then nineteen years of age, and four other children. He seems to have been mentioned in some old record as "John Pike, laborer, from Langford," but it is explained in Mr. Savage's "Genealogical Register," that it was sometimes necessary for the more prominent and zealous dissenters to conceal their places of residence and real description of their persons, to avoid detention and arrest; and the fact that his young sons, John, jr., and Robert, were educated persons, accomplished in the arts of speaking and writing, indicates that their father must have been of an estate above the condition of most laborers at that time. The old records of the Essex county court show that John Pike, sr., appeared in the courts more than once as the attorney of persons who prosecuted suits and obtained judgments in civil causes; and his own will, evidently written by himself, probated at Hampton in 1654, shows by its phraseology, and by the amount and kinds of estate devised, of which an inventory is recorded, that the testator was prominent among an emigration made up, as no other |