ABSTRACT
When New Englanders settled Liverpool and Machias, the two townships were unsurveyed tracts of land. Both townships would need to be surveyed and divided into lots before settlers could be confident about the locations and limits of their shares, a responsibility the grantees had to undertake. This chapter analyzes four aspects of land distribution and institutional structures: one, the standards and procedures for determining proprietary membership, and hence access to a portion of land; two, the procedures by which the proprietors distributed land among themselves; three, the ancillary township developments they supported; and four, the eventual disappearance of the institution of the proprietorship. The 1837 townshipwide meeting in Liverpool contrasts sharply with the 1834 meeting of the Machias proprietors when they decided to sell the remaining undivided township land and divide the proceeds among themselves. Although land proprietorships were local institutions, imperial, provincial, and then national forces effected their adaptations and eventual demise.
