William P Gilley (abt. 1750 - 1839)

Born about 1750 in British Isles

Descendants

Died 1839 at about age 89 in Mount Desert, Hancock, Maine

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Biography

William Gilley; b. circa 1746 at England/Ireland; m. Eunice Bunker, daughter of Captain John Bunker and Abigail Young, Jun 4, 1774; d. 1839 at Mount Desert, Hancock, Maine; he was buried at Southwest Harbor, Hancock, Maine.

        Among the first settlers at Mount Desert Island was William Gilley, the ancestor of the family in this region. According to tradition William was born in England, or Ulster County, Ireland. When a mere lad he ran away to sea, serving some time, so it is said, in the British Navy. That Gilley was at Cranberry Isles during the Revolution is shown by a "Declaration" that he made before Colonel John Allen, May 10, In April of that year, H. M. S. Scarborough, under the command of Captain Henry Mowat. anchored in the harbor of Cranberry Isles and Gilley went on board. He was informed that the Scarborough had come, "not to molest but to protect" the inhabitants, provided that they did not disturb Mowat"s boats as they procured food and water. "But if otherwise," threatened Mowat, "I am determined to level every house on the island."

        In this document Gilley is referred to as "of Cranberry Island, the Mass. State Fisherman." Since Mowat declared that he would destroy every house on the Island, should there exist the slightest provocation for so doing, the question at once arises, where were the dwellings that might have suffered the fate that this officer inflicted upon the town of Falmouth less than two years before?

        During the Revolutionary war, the British Admiralty published a beautiful set of charts of the Atlantic coast, twenty years or more having been consumed in their making. Attention was paid to most minute details, for not only were coast lines and harbors carefully drawn, but settlers" houses located as well. On the Mount Desert section of these charts four houses are shown on Little Cranberry Isle and one on Great Cranberry.

        As Benjamin Spurling is said to have been the first permanent settler on Great Cranberry Isle, occupying the point which still bears his name, as early as the year 1768, the house located on the old map at the northern end of the Island undoubtedly belonged to him.

        Of the four houses on Little Cranberry, one is shown on Maypole Point, the extreme southwestern end of the Island, one on Gilley Beach some distance to the eastward of the farm buildings built many years ago by the late Samuel Gilley, grandson of William, another on the Sand Beach, just north of the row of boat houses, and the fourth, in the hayfield near the town landing. Recent excavations on the sand beach and in the hayfield have revealed the remains of rough stone fireplaces, while on the site of the hayfield house broken crockery, fragments of rum bottles and blue china, hand wrought nails and battered relics of household paraphernalia turned by the spade, proved beyond a doubt that the place had been long occupied. No one living today has any recollection of having "heard tell" of any house on Gilley Beach before Samuel Gilley lived on his farm. Several men now dwelling on Little Cranberry have recalled that when they were small boys, they used to play in what probably was an old cellar on the "Maypole." Turning next to the records in the office of the Register of Deeds at Ellsworth, it is learned that in 1792 the whole western end of Little Cranberry, one hundred acres, was deeded by Madame deGregoire to Samuel Sewall, of Marblehead, administrator of the estate of John Stanley, deceased, consideration five Spanish milled dollars, which shows the deed (2:256) to have been a validation of a squatter’s claim. Since John Stanley, Jr., also received a squatter deed (1:455) for one hundred acres, next adjoining his father’s lot, he too, was an early settler; but no house is shown on his property on the old map. A third De Gregoire deed (2:517) which granted one hundred acres at the eastern end of the Island stands in the name of William Nickels. As the consideration in this case was also "Five Spanish Milled Dollars" Nickels must have been a squatter on Little Cranberry and as the map indicates a house on this land, it might have been he who built it. Hence, it would seem that William Gilley lived either on the Sand Beach or on the Maypole.

        How long Gilley lived at Cranberry Isle, before removing to Mount Desert, is impossible to determine. Published accounts place him at Norwood"s Cove before the year 1784, but there is documentary evidence to the effect that he was not living upon what was afterwards his property there until a later date. In the early days of Mount Desert, land titles were much confused. Some settles had been induced by Governor Francis Bernard to take up residence there, as early as 1762, the year in which Bernard received from the general court his grant of the entire Island for his "extraordinary services." but upon investigation, it appears the grant was made for political reasons. A clause in the charter of William and Mary made it obligatory to obtain the King"s sanction before any grant of land made 'by the Province of Massachusetts east of the Penobscot river, could become valid. Although Bernard"s petition to accept this grant was before the Lords of Trade in 1762, it passed back and forth between that body and the Privy Council for nine years before the King"s approbation was finally obtained. Meanwhile, squatters occupied land or cut the marsh hay, much to the annoyance of the Someses, Richardsons Gotts and Stanwoods, whose grievances were set forth in a petition to Bernard in 17688. Bernard"s lack of a clear title was a hardship both to him and to those whom he had induced to settle upon his grant. The confiscation of the Governor’s American estates during the Revolution, the restoration of one half the Island to his son, John, after the war, the validation of a portion of the old Cadillac grant of 1689, in favor of the granddaughter, Madame de Gregoire in 1787, two years after John Bernard"s grant, have accorded to Mount Desert Island, a land title history as complicated as it is interesting.

        It is not surprising therefore that as Mount Desert became more settled, disputes over land titles became more and more frequent. Finally, in 1808, a commission consisting of Charles Turner, Jr. Stephen Badlam and Salem Towne, Jr., was appointed to repair hither, hear disputes, take testimony, settle differences, grant those claims which seemed warranted and reject the others. This committee’s report filed in the Massachusetts archives, contains much important historical material. In it is an interesting reference to William Gilley and his Norwood Cove claim, to which, the committee gave him a clear title. "William Gilley.-Benjamin Bunker saith 27 years ago Josiah Paine was in possession of this lot. James Richardson saith Paine built a house on this lot in the summer of 1785 John Day lived on the lot afterwards and, it was said, Sold to William Gilley." This report also gives the information that the land at Norwood"s Cove claimed by William Gilley was on June 23, 1785 in the possession of Josiah Paine. Since the commissioners allowed the Claim of William Gilley in September, 1808, the transfers of the property from Paine to Day and from Day to Gilley were valid, Paine having title under John Bernard, and was free to dispose of his holdings as he saw fit. From the foregoing it is evident that Gilley could not have been in occupancy of the Norwood"s Cove property "by the year 1784." On the other hand, neither was he in possession of a homestead on Little Cranberry Isle as late as 1787, for he then would have been entitled to a squatter deed from Madam de Gregoire, and no such deed is on record.

        William Gilley married Eunice, daughter of John Bunker, who with his father, four brothers, Silas, Aaron, Isaac and Benjamin, with two other sisters, Mary and Hannah, were at Mount Desert before the Revolution. The mother of Eunice Bunker Gilley came from York, Maine, and her maiden name was Young. John Bunker was a descendant of John of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who was a son of James of Dover. This James Bunker had a grant of land in Dover, N. H. in 1652 upon which he settled, built a garrison there in 1675, which he, his son James and others in 1694, defended successfully against a terrific Indian attack. This James was probably an elder son of George Bunker who settled at Charlestown, Mass. in 1634, whose surname has been perpetuated in American history, because he chanced to own a hilly field upon which, nearly a century and a half later, the British and Colonial troops clashed in the Battle of Bunker Hill. John Bunker, the father of William Gilley"s wife, Eunice, This the "Cap"en Jack" who, when the people of Mount Desert were in dire straits because of lack of food at one time during the Revolution, paddled in a canoe from Somes" Sound to Wiscasset and there with one companion, "cut out" a British vessel loaded with provisions, which he successfully navigated to Southwest Harbor, where the much needed cargo was distributed. Before 1784 William Gilley had settled at Norwood's Cove on land that remained for many years the property of his descendants.

        William Gilley was the first permanent settler in Southwest Harbor and his first house was a log cabin near the shore. Later he built a house just north of the Gilley Burying Ground. Then John, William's grandson, the eldest son of Benjamin Gilley, built the house that is now the Country Club for his parents. He was under age and for his work on the house his father "gave him his time." The place passed from father to son in the Gilley family until Pedrick D. Gilley, fourth generation to own it, sold it to the present owners. The graves of the three generations preceding him are in the Gilley Burying Ground nearby.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Thornton, Nellie C. Traditions and Records of Southwest Harbor and Somesville, Mount Desert Island, Maine. Southwest Harbor, Me.: Southwest Harbor Public Library, 1988. Print.

• Sawtelle, William O. The Gilley Family of Mt. Desert. Bar Harbor, Me.: Bar Harbor Times, 1922. Print.
• Maine Families in 1790: Index to Heads of Families in Volumes 2 Farmington, Me.: Maine Genealogical Society, 2010. Print.