In volume VIII, page one hundred and seventy-four of the Collections of this Society, the following statements are made:

Saco Academy was incorporated February 16, 1811, and a half township granted in the charter, on condition that three thousand dollars was raised for its endowment within three years.

The building was erected and the school opened January 4, 1813, with forty-nine scholars, under the charge of Asa Lyman as preceptor. From 1815 to 1819, Ezra Haskell appears to have been preceptor, and in 1820 P. Pratt, with a salary of $700 a year. In 1822, T. G. Thornton gave the academy ten shares of the stock of the Saco Bank, and the name of the institution was changed to Thornton Academy. The school is no longer in operation, and its funds, amounting to some fifty thousand dollars, remain idle in the hands of the trustees, and which, it is said, by the will of Mr. Thornton, revert to his heirs if they give up their trust. If this be so, and they cannot profitably employ the funds there in promoting the education of youth, there ought to be an enabling act procured of the Legislature, by which they may be surrendered to some other institution, or institutions, which will so employ them.

There are a few errors in this account.

1st. The number of scholars is incorrect.

2d. Mr. Haskell did not teach so long as stated. 3d: Marshal Thornton did not make a will. 4th. The funds could not in any event revert to his heirs, as his gift was made and perfected nearly two years before he died.

5th. The fund did not amount to $50,000 at the time that paper was read. If it had, it would not have been sufficient to buy a suitable lot, erect a modern school building, furnish it and maintain a school of high rank for any great length of time, so the trustees acted wisely in increasing the fund.

In other respects the account seems to be correct and the criticism just.

Read before the Maine Historical Society, October 27, 1898.

1

THE expedition organized by the Americans in June, 1779, to dislodge the British who had occupied the point where is now the town of Castine, Maine, as a base of supplies and a naval station, has been known in history as the Bagaduce expedition, but at that time was called “The Expedition to the Penobscot." The arm of the sea now called Bagaduce River was in former times called Matchebiguatus, an Indian name meaning at a place where there is no safe harbor. At the time of the Revolution it was known as Maja-Bagaduce, which was contracted into Bagaduce and hence the name of the expedition.

The fact that the campaign was a disastrous failure has probably deterred historians from the preparation of a full history of the affair; but as it was one of the most prominent events in Maine's Revolutionary history, it seems proper that the service, with the company rolls of the men who composed the regiments, should be recorded. The men were in no wise responsible for the results, and no doubt acted as well as they could under the circumstances in which they found themselves placed.

It is not the intention to give a complete history of the expedition, but it will be necessary to give some facts to show the magnitude of the undertaking which the government of Massachusetts did not then realize.

June 24, 1779, Gen. Charles Cushing, of Pownalborough, sent a letter to the Massachusetts General Court advising an immediate expedition to dislodge the British before they had time to entrench themselves. They had already given consideration to the subject, and June 25 gave the Board of War directions to engage all state or national armed vessels that could be prepared to sail in six days. They were also directed to charter or impress all private armed vessels available, with a promise to the owners of a fair compensation for all losses and damages they might sustain, and the wages of the men were to be the same as paid in the Continental service. The Board was also to procure the necessary outfit and supplies, and the following were said to have been furnished: - Nine tons of flour and bread, ten tons of salt beef, ten tons of rice, six hundred gallons of rum, six hundred gallons of molasses, five hundred stands of arms, fifty thousand rounds of musket cartridges with balls, two eighteenpounders with two hundred rounds of ammunition, three nine-pounders with three hundred rounds of ammunition, four field-pieces, six barrels of gun powder, with a sufficient quantity of axes, spades, tents and utensils of all kinds.

The fleet when ready consisted of nineteen armed vessels and twenty-four transports, all carrying three