Thomas Westbrook

Colonel Thomas Westbrook (1675–1743/44) was a senior New England militia officer in Maine during Father Rale's War. In addition to this senior militia role he was a scout, a colonial councillor, an innkeeper, a mill owner, a land speculator and a King's Mast Agent. He is the namesake of Westbrook, Maine.

Early years

During Queen Anne's War, Westbrook became a ranger in a small company of four (1704).

In 1716 the General Assembly of the Province made a grant to Thomas Westbrook, to keep the only public house at the Plains, in consideration that he should lay out six acres of land for the accommodation of drawing up the militia of the town. From at least 1720 he was the owner and proprietor.

Father Rale's War

During the years 1721-3 Westbrook became a captain in the militia and, after the fall of Colonel Shadrack Walton from favour with Massachusett's acting Governor William Dummer, became the colonel in charge of the militia in the "East" (Maine)

A focus during the Father Rale's War was the New England effort to apprehend Father Sebastien Rale, a Jesuit priest and French national who resided with and, the New Englanders thought, guided the natives to raid and kill or abduct New England colonists. The General Court of Massachusetts in December 1721 directed the militia to apprehend Rale and bring him to Boston to answer these charges.

The Strong Box

In January 1722 Colonel Westbrook led a group of militia that, unable to find Rale, seized
strongbox
containing his correspondence with Marquis de Vaudreuil, the French Governor in Quebec, and a hand written dictionary of the native Abenaki language. In the minds of New Englanders of the day, the letters proved French complicity in urging Native American tribes to attack New England settlements, and they were conveyed to authorities in Boston.The dictionary is now in Harvard University's Houghton Library. Dan L. Thrapp (ed)., "Thomas Westbrook", In: ''Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography'', p.1536

He was present at the December 15, 1725 Falmouth peace treaty with the Indians, " Dummer's Treaty", which ended the hostilities, apparently his last act as a militia officer.

Falmouth, Maine

He moved to Falmouth (modern Portland, Maine) "as early as 1719" to enter the lucrative business of providing masts to the British navy as a private contractor. He was one of only a few European-descended residents there at that time.

He was appointed as King's Mast Agent in 1727 and moved the "King's mast business" from Portsmouth to Falmouth. The mast agent was charged by the Crown with marking, protecting and providing trees which were suitable for ship's masts in the Royal Navy.

Westbrook "became a citizen" of Falmouth in August 1727. He built his "splendid seat" of "Harrow House" with garrisons on the south side of Stroudwater River on a property. It was likely at this home that Westbrook entertained Governor Belcher and other guests.

He built two mills, a gristmill whose stones still survive as markers of other historical sites, and a papermill.William Goold, ''Portland in the past'' (1886), p.205 at: https://books.google.ca/books?id=4DfmZIJyM2UC&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=%22thomas+westbrook+waldron%22+elizabeth&source=bl&ots=uYYHIepkUM&sig=byt2IkOdr_BF-ZzVPpwOmQFLP1A&hl=en&ei=zXtwTPKaJIq2sAO6q_z6BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22thomas%20westbrook%20waldron%22%20elizabeth&f=false accessed August 21, 2010 Native chief Polin travelled to the governor to protest Col. Westbrook's failure to provide a way for spawning fish to get past his mill.

Councilor

As early as 1710 he was part of the King's Council appointed by the governor, and held his post (though often absent) until 1730 when he resigned voluntarily. In 1733 he was briefly in Boston as a representative to the council from Falmouth and courted by Governor Jonathan Belcher to be a supporter of the Massachusetts government. He showed little interest in these duties and was fined for being absent.

Business

With the young Brigadier General Samuel Waldo (pictured at right) he became a land speculator of as much as 15,000 acres in the Falmouth area (near present-day Portland, Maine). The two partners prospered until, for reasons that are not entirely clear, Waldo " ho hadled him into large land speculations ... then struck upon him in an unfortunate time." "Waldo by unscrupulous or ruthless means divested Westbrook of his lands and much of his wealth by 1743..."

"In 1743, Waldo recovered judgement against him for ten thousand five hundred pounds, which he levied upon his property, and swept it nearly all away."

A copy of one of his later letters, desperately seeking a loan, survived and was transcribed near the end of Trask's ''Letters of Colonel Thomas Westbrook''. Unlike most of his letters, this one was probably not dictated and captures Westbrook's choice of spelling as well as his desperation.

Death

He died heavily in debt on 11 February 1743/1744 "of a broken heart caused by Waldo's Acts". He expired in a smaller cottage adjacent to his beloved Harrow House, which had been lost to his creditors. Despite his bankruptcy his estate was valued at seven thousand, three hundred and two pounds. In contrast, his probate inventory totalled £1052/14/5 and included a house, a pew in Rev Smith's meetinghouse, and books. His Globe Tavern later appears among the property owned by his grandson Thomas Westbrook Waldron though the date of transfer of this property and of his son in law's house is unknown.

" s family was forced to spirit his body away in the middle of a nighttime snowstorm in order to prevent the Waldo family from claiming Westbrook's remains and holding them "hostage" until debts were paid". The burial location was unknown until the 1976 bicentennial celebrations except to descendants of his sister Mary (Westbrook) Knight. The gravesite, located at Smiling Hill Farm, has been marked by the ''Daughters of Colonial Wars in Maine'' and is pictured on the Knight family farm's website.

Family

]
Born in 1675, he was the son of John Westbrook and Martha Walford of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. His siblings included Mary who married Nathan Knight,Myrtle Kittridge Lovejoy, Earle G. Shettleworth, and William David Barry, ''This was Stroudwater: 1727-1860'', (1985) p.5 as cited by Craig Bryant at http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=peru1812&id=I31136 accessed August 23, 2010 and whose family continues to own and operate the "Smiling Hill" farm.

Thomas married Mary Sherburne, daughter of the mariner John Sherburne and his wife Mary Cowell. The restored Sherburne house