Portland’s
1st European Resident
by Doris
Sherrow, July 1999
Portland
histories typically include little information about James Stanclift,
the first Englishman to settle in town. The reason becomes clear from
a remarkable 1995 genealogy by Sherry Smith Stancliff, The Descendants
of James Stanclift of Middletown, Connecticut and allied Families (James
preferred the latter spelling; more recent descendants use the "-cliff"
ending). Of his 73 years, Stanclift spent
the first four decades in England, the next decade in other parts of the
world, and did not come to Portland until he was 50. And then he came
as somewhat of an outsider, not making as large a mark as others in the
workings of church and government from which we generally draw our portraits
of historical figures. He was a simple stonecutter.
James Stanclift was born about 1639 in Halifax Parish, York, England.
As a younger son, under British law, he would not be able to inherit the
family estate, so he learn a trade to make a living: stone masonry. He
was a generation younger than the Puritans and Pilgrims who first settled
New England, but he and his family also encountered trouble with the Church
of England. So, on August 2, 1680, James put himself under indenture to
leave England and work four years in Nevis, in the Windward Isles.
In 1684, Stanclift turned up in Lyme, Connecticut,
in debt to three wealthy New Londoners who traded in the West Indies.
Perhaps they paid for his passage to New London, or bought out his indenture.
In Lyme, Stanclift met and married Mary (Tinker) Waller, a wealthy
widow, in 1685. For the next four years, he ran a farm on the northeast
shore of what we know as Rogers Lake. He also engaged in brick-making,
and carved gravestones for those who could afford them, often for relatives
who had died long before Stanclift entered the country. Lt. Reynold
Marvin’s stone, dated 1676, is such an example.
On February 24, 1687, James Stanclift and
the town of Middletown entered into an agreement whereby he would build
"chimneys, and other stonework" for Middletown and receive in
payment "a parcell of land upon the rocks." Offering land and
land division right to men with various necessary trades was a common
colonial practice, not unlike offering tax breaks to desirable businesses
today. "The rocks" referred to the outcropping of brownstone
on the east side of the Connecticut River in what would someday become
Portland.
Stanclift was listed as a resident of Lyme
on the August 1688 tax list; the births of his son William in September
1686, and his daughter Martha in December 1688 are recorded in
the style of the Lyme town clerk, but in October of 1689, he divested
himself off his property in Lyme. By May 5, 1690, the Middletown selectmen
deeded him "A parcell of Land on the East side the Great River near
his hous [sic]." Thus he had probably moved to East Middletown (Portland)
in the summer of 1689, to build his own house and construct the stonework
and chimneys for Middletown, as per his contract.
Stanclift’s willingness to live on the east side of the river is
not surprising, given that he was a newcomer to the area, drawn by economic
interests, rather than a member of the community which settled Middletown
in the 1650s. His wife, too, had no Middletown roots.
James and Mary had two more children, James
in 1692, and Sarah on 1695 (recorded in the style of the Middletown
town clerk). Mary also had three daughters from her marriage to the late
William Waller. The family probably lived in the vicinity of Commerce
Street. A painting by John Wells Stancliff (owned by the Portland
Historical Society) supposedly depicts the Stanclift house, showing a
small Cape Cod with a center door and windows on either side. However,
Stancliff’s rendition of the roof is problematic: it is very low-pitched.
A 1690s house would have had a very steep roof pitch, like the House of
the Seven Gables in Salem. Either Stancliff erred in painting the roof,
or it was remodeled in the century or more between him and his several-greats
grandfather.
The Stanclifts and the nearby Richard
Gill family seem to have been the only white residents in Portland
in the 1690s (although William Cornwall might have been north of
Wangunk meadows that early). Apparently Stanclift employed the "locals."
A 1702 diary entry from Stonington speaks of an Indian named "Sacient"
delivering head- and foot-stones for the grave of Rebecca Minor carved
by "Stancleef" – possibly the diarist’s rendering
of the Indian’s pronunciation of the name.
James Stanclift was middle-aged when he
left England. He was 46 when he married, and 56 when his last child was
born. He quarried more than twenty years in the rich brownstone of Portland,
and carved gravestones for families all over Connecticut and Massachusetts.
In 1712 there was a serious influenza in
Connecticut. James died in October, and Mary in December of that year,
possibly from that epidemic. James’ sons were left at ages 25 and
20, to carve the tombstones for their parents’ graves. There was
no graveyard in Portland until the following February, so James and Mary
Stanclift, the first family to settle in Portland, lie in the Riverside
Cemetery in Middletown.
Editor's Note -- For more information on James Stanclift, see: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~rstancliff/index.htm
