Joshua Hubbard, Minute Books of Joshua Hubbard: an inventory

Joshua Hubbard was a wealthy landowner and member of a prominent family in the town of Kittery, in York County, located in what is now the state of Maine. During a busy and varied career that included being a lawyer, farmer and, seemingly, retailer of sundry goods, Hubbard served as Deputy Sheriff, Sheriff, Justice, and town selectman in Kittery, and was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for York County. He kept diligent records of his legal services, court decisions, and personal and business transactions in what we presume were a total of 46 numbered and dated minute books.

As Sheriff and Justice, Hubbard handled a wide variety of local legal issues and traveled to the courts at Berwick, Salem, and Boston on a regular basis. He records serving countless writs, making arrests, and the amount of damages awarded in court cases over which he presided and whether payment was, in fact, made. He also surveyed many disputed property boundaries, executed estates, wrote out wills, was treasurer and apparent tax preparer for the town of Kittery, did property valuations for the young United States Government in 1798, and, as a landowner himself, sought to keep “trespassing” — i.e., illegal logging, a growing problem in timber-rich York County at the time, and a primary reason for the rapid increase in litigation in the area during the latter half of the 18th century — off his own property.

Although mostly terse and strictly businesslike in his entries, including legal matters that involve various members of his extended family, Hubbard occasionally lets his personal feelings get the better of him, particularly in the case of Daniel Chickering. Chickering married Hubbard’s daughter, Abigail (“Nabby”), and then abandoned her for a time, forcing her to return to her father’s house. Hubbard billed Chickering for everything he could think of, including “To taking your wife to Board and finding her one Room in my house your having absented your Self by night and left her destitute of all necessarys of life” (Feb 26, 1788) and “To keeping your everlasting Great Eating horse at hay for 5 weeks” (Dec. 20, 1787). A later incident, involving a run-in between Chickering and Hubbard on the road after church, is also recorded, perhaps as a legal precaution. On December 20th, 1805, Hubbard records payments to Mr. William Emery “By a Coffin for my Daughter” and Mr. Joseph Johnston, “By digging a Grave for my Daughter and tending the funeral &c on the 21st.”