Kennebec Proprietors

Hallowell, Maine is named for the wealthy shipbuilder Benjamin Hallowell (1699-1773) of the 17th century. He was heir to one of the original Kennebec Proprietors owning over 50,000 acres in Hallowell.

In 1629 King Charles I of England, assuming authority over the lands in America, granted title of land along both sides of the Kennebec river to the Plymouth Colony. Those lands were used for almost a hundred years as access to the Wôban-aki nation people in the fur trade.

In 1661 four very wealthy Massachusetts businessmen, known as the Kennebec Proprietors, bought land from this original grant from the Plymouth Colony for £400. Benjamin Hallowell was one of the descendant Kennebec Proprietors who controlled the land and began to sell off portions of land to settlers.

Wars between the Native Americans, French and English in the Maine frontier and along the Kennebec valley discouraged most settlement for close to a century. It wasn’t until the second half of the 18th century that much actual settlement began in the valley.

The Hallowell who gives the town its name is not to be confused with his son and namesake, Captain Benjamin Hallowell born in 1725, who became a staunch British Loyalist during the Revolutionary War. This second Benjamin Hallowell was the Commissioner of Customs during the fabled Boston Tea Party and became known as “the second most detested man in the Boston.”

For want of space in the mural I didn’t include Benjamin Hallowell in the mural. He is there in spirit.

artist, Chris Cart