Lt Samuel Skillings Sr

• Death Notes
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• General Notes
  • "...lived in Kittery many years, but finally returned to Falmouth, occupied a farm at Long Creek, and died there...came into possession of the estate laft by his father..."
    
    Glenn B. Skillin provided the following in Thomas Henley's book: "He was granted 50 acres by the Kittery Proprietors in 1703, so we can presume he had served his apprenticeship to the shipwright's trade and amassed sufficient capital to become a freeholder. In 1704 he deposed before the York County Court concerning his neighbor's fences, later serving as juryman and grand juryman (1706-7 and 1717). He stood surety with Elihu Gunnison, Sr (his mother's 2nd husbad) for the bond of his stepbrother, Joseph Gunnison, during this period.
    
    From about 1709 through perhaps 1714, he pursued his shipbuilding trade at Quamscott (now Stratham), NH, from which place he and others petitioned for establishment of a separate parish and church. In 1710 he sold his house and land at Gunnison's Point, Kittery Foreside, to his brother, Josiah. The house had been drawn by Kittery's surveyor, William Godsoe, a story-and-a-half building with its chimney on one side end. Samuel and three others petitioned the town to change the route of the road to the fery to Kittery Point from upland to nearer the shore. His purchases and sales of upland and swamp on the easern side of Spruce Creek in Kittery between 1713 and 1729 indicate he was providing his shipyard with ready timber. He and Rhoda signed away her dower rights to her father's estate in 1724. Brief ownership of a tract at Bald Head in York (now Ogunquit) between 1726/7 and 1728 probably indicates yet another source for timber.
    
    By 1729 Samuel was looking ahead to a return to the Falmouth area when he purchased his sister's, Rebecca Frink, dower rights to their late father's land in Falmouth. Arriving back in the Falmouth area thereafter, he teamed up with Thomas Westbrook on several ventures centering on mill rights and privileges at the falls on Long Creek in 1732. The following year he bought rights of his late brother, Josiah's widow (Elizabeth) from her 2nd husband, Roger Deering of Scarborough and herself, and similarly from Danforth Phipps and Elizabeth Skillin, his wife. Samuel's Long Creek holdings were consolidated by a significant purchase from Thomas Westbrook in 1739.
    
    Samuel executed a series of deeds in 1742 to take effect after his "decease" for each of his surviving children, after reserving rights for his wife Rhoda. Secure in his land ventures, one speculates that he made these prior arrangements since he was painfully aware that his brother Josiah's estate had not been settled for more than 20 years after his death in 1719. In any case, Samuel left no will at his death.
    
    In 1743, Samuel's tax as a resident of Falmouth's Second Parish tells us that his wealth in the parish was second to none (real estate=L2, personal estate=L4, poll=12s, total=L6, 12s). Samuel owned at least one slave, Jewel by name, whose marriage to Phillus, slave of James Miller, on 28 Jul 1753 is recorded in an early, surviving Portland record book (NEHGS 17:33 "Records of Falmouth (now Portland), ME). Samuel's military rank of Lt came about as a result of his leadership of a militia company during one of the Indian Wars that had driven the family off the ancestral lands at Back Cove."
    
    Rhoda d betw 1730 and 1736; Samuel d 2 Jan 1757 (age 79y 5m 7d). He is bur (his stone is the earliest surviving dated Skillin gravestone) in the Long Creek cemetery - now vastly shrunken from the late 19th century description of about 100 graves, located behind the U.S. Air Force National Guard Armory on Western Avenue in Sourth Portland, ME. Many of Samuel's descendants are buried in this cemetery (see the gravestone listings in the appendix of Dorothy Skillings book).
    
    Wm Sargent says, "This Samuel was prominent in Indian affairs, and rendered especially good service towards Wells. He was called Captain, and besides his military rank, had attained prominence as selectman. [These statements sounds like he was talking about Samuel Jr] His portions were goodly, and by their influence he was quite the dominating member of the family during his lifetime. His sagacity and foresight in securing the mill privileges on Long Creek and the connecting fertile acres show him worthy to be called the second founder of the family; and his posterity to this day dwelling in ease upon land allotted them, have inherited traits of this worthy pioneer."