James Stackpole

  Events

• Tradition says that James was taken prisoner on the coast of Ireland when a boy only 14 years old and brought to this country.  

Stealing young people, transporting them to America and selling them into servitude was common at the time. Many from Ireland and Scotland were forcibly taken from their beds at night by men dressed as English soldiers and compelled to go on board a vessel bound for America. The persons who practiced such a crime were called "Spirits". 

A royal order was passed against them in 1682. Gov. Simon Bradstreet conjectured in 1680 that there were then living 60 such Irish immigrants and 120 Scots who had been sold as "servants"

• In April 1680 he is first mentioned in the "Cochecho Province Rate" as taxed two shillings and one penny. In December of the same year he is incidentally mentioned as hauling boards from Thomas Holmes' mill at Salmon Falls to Cochecho Point. In 1681 he was taxed in Dover four shillings and one penny and the following year his tax was eight shillings and two pennies. It was in 1680 that he signed a petition with the inhabitants of Kittery to King Charles II asking for abatement of taxes thus indicating a previous residence in that town. 

• James died in 1736 as shown by the inventory of his estate made by Nathaniel Perkins and Thomas Wallingford 12 Aug. 1736. Administration was granted to his son John of Biddeford 14 July 1737

James married Margaret Warren, daughter of James Warren and Margaret, before 1680 in Kittery, York, Maine. (Margaret Warren was born in 1654-1655 in Kittery, York, Maine and died in 1748-1749 in Dover, Strafford, New Hampshire.)